01:30 – Finish working on Girlie Bear’s new netbook. 
01:45 – Order a new pistol from SOG. God Bless America!
05:45 – Get up to help get Girlie Bear, BooBoo, and Irish Woman out the door.
06:45 – After a leisurely breakfast, leave the house for work.
09:15 – Arrive at work.  Pass by 4 separate, unrelated accidents, 5 more that were related to those accidents, and was almost killed on at least two occasions by rubberneckers who slammed on the accelerator while looking at an accident, then slammed on the brake to miss the next one.  A 35 minute drive on interstates turns into 2+ hours on surface streets.  Thanks Kentucky Drivers!
11:45 – While eating re-heated chili for lunch, was accosted by a Database Administrator who wanted to know why he only got 16gb of SAN space allocated to his database when he requested 160.  After checking when I got back to my desk, I checked his email, and he requested 16.  Tell him, very politely, to go pound sand.
16:00 – Finish allocating almost 2 terabyte worth of disk space to 92 separate file systems, on 20 different servers, attached to four different SAN’s.
17:00 – Go to Girlie Bear’s school for teacher conference.  Alles in Ordnung
18:00 – Dinner.  Spaghetti.  No beer.  No ice cream for dessert.  Diets suck.
19:00 – Present new computer to Girlie Bear.  She does some homework on it and plays for a while before pronouncing that it is satisfactory.
20:00 – After a little TV, put BooBoo to bed.  He falls asleep in minutes!
20:15 – Do dishes and put away dinner
21:00 – Get on chat line with buddies
21:40 – Write on blog through haze of exhaustion.
21:45 – ZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Have you lost your bloody mind? Monday night football should not start at 9:15 at night. Some of us work for a living.

Put the game on tape delay for the west coast, don’t allow live reporting outside of the broadcast, and sell instant access at a premium on the west coast.

It doesn’t have to be this hard to watch MNF.

In the United States, today is Columbus Day.  When I was young, this was the day we celebrated the day that Christopher Columbus discovered America.

Except it was only the Caribbean islands.
And there were natives waiting for him on the beach.

Well, OK, maybe there had been people living here since the last Ice Age.  Christopher Columbus was the first European to visit the Americas.

Except for the Vikings
And possibly a drunken Irish Monk

OK, so he was an Italian expatriate who hired himself to the Spanish crown to find a way to the far east so the Spanish could beat out the Portuguese in bringing silk, spice, and gold to Europe from India and China.

Except he couldn’t calculate how far the East Indies are, so when he ran into land that was 1/4 of the circumference of the globe away from where he thought he ought to be, he faked it and declared victory.

OK, so he was a great leader…. Wait, what?  

Mutiny?  Skull duggery?  Slaves?  Diseases?

OK, today we celebrate an Italian mercenary who couldn’t read a map or the stars, and survived his little adventure as much by luck as by skill and effort.  He brought diseases to the Caribbean that helped to wipe out entire races, and probably introduced a few in Europe that ran wild for hundreds of years.

But hey, he was a heck of a guy!  Happy Columbus Day!

It’s morning in America.  We’ve all been on a bender for the past four years, and now it’s time to pick the next set of dudes to send on a beer run.

The children have been in charge of this country for too long.  For their entire life, they’ve gotten everything they wanted just by asking.  The most work they’ve had to do is throw a temper tantrum, accuse their denier of being mean, and then sulk until they get their way.  For the past four years, they have used these tactics to bankrupt us, deny that our country deserves to be defended, and denigrate their betters who forgo the pursuit of money and power to make the world a better place.

And what has this gotten us?

Our national debt, including deficits and unfunded obligations, is now measured in numbers that we used to use to make hyperbolic statements.  Our standing among our closest allies is somewhere between whale crap and the bottom of the sea.  Our enemies treat the threats and pronouncements of our ‘leadership’ the same way I treat the barking of a Pomeranian with irritable bowel syndrome.

Are you better off than you were four years ago?

The federal government isn’t supposed to actively sabotage the economy.  But for at least the past 18 years, the government has been actively undermining our countries ability to provide for itself.

First there was NAFTA, or the Bush/Clinton Third World Jobs Program.  Ross Perot should be offered the role of Cassandra in the next Broadway ripoff of Agamemnon.  Manufacturing jobs have been moving south and east so fast I’m surprised there isn’t a backblast.  I’d love to continue to buy American, but all of the jobs that Sam Walton created by being proud to stock American made goods at Walmart have been exported to a slave labor camp somewhere in Inner Mongolia now that his children are in charge of the company.

Then we have the changes to the financial regulatory system, especially the part that watches the banks and mortgage industries, brought in during the Clinton administration.  While we were all worried about the president lying to a grand jury, (it’s called perjury, look it up.  It’s one of the few crimes actually mentioned in the Constitution) Clinton’s minions were pissing in the intake fans of the parts of the economy that create the friggin money!

Then we had Bush the Younger, also known as W.  Not only did he not reverse the damage his father and Bubba did to our economy, he borrowed money from BLOODY COMMUNISTS at a rate that at the time seemed astronomical. Is it just me, or is it not a bad idea to be going into debt with a country that less than a generation ago we were actively considering how to nuke back to the Stone Age.  A country that 30 years ago was killing its own people trying to figure out how to grow enough grain that parents wouldn’t have to draw lots to see which of their children ate that day?

And now we have Barack Obama, the first black Irish president.  I was appalled by W’s spending, but this guy makes W look like small potatoes.  It would take the rest of my life to count to the number this bluntskull spends before breakfast some days.  He has pissed in the face of the British, who by the way have been our friends since before his granddaddy thought grandma looked kinda sexy in her bathrobe.   He’s bowed to every two bit, uneducated, inbred, anencephalic son of a scruffy looking nurf herder that he’s met in the past two years. 

Don’t get me started about defense.  Our troops are flying aircraft that at best was designed and tested prior to the start of my college student’s life.  They’re using rifles that were designed in the ’50’s.  They’re driving trucks that are usually older than their drivers.  They’re driving tanks that are usually older than the staff weenies who tell the tankers what to shoot and then run over.  We haven’t had a coherent strategy since the fall of the Berlin Wall on how we’re going to protect the lives of American citizens and the American homeland.

And our rights as citizens?  Puhhlease.  We should re-bury John Adams and Thomas Jefferson after we wrap their horrified corpses in copper wire so we can at least recoup some green energy from their outrage.  Every time I turn around, the Department of Homeland Security is looking for a new way to search grandmothers in wheel chairs while actively resisting any methods that single out those who have a high statistical chance of being terrorists because that might hurt their feelings.

So with Election Day 2010 just around the corner, I am pleading with the voters of the United States to wake the hell up.  We should be mad as hell and we don’t have to take this anymore.

The incumbents are the problem.  We have created a political class in this country that believes that as long as it gives us bread and circuses we will continue to let them ride this country into the ground.  That’s right, we created them.  By allowing politicians and their staffs to set up permanent kleptocratic offices inside the Beltway, we’ve created a ruling class in our society that wasn’t designed to have one.

Next month, vote them out, vote them all out.  I will be voting against each and every incumbent that is on the ticket.  On the few races that are open this year, I am voting for the candidate that is honest enough to tell me that the government is broken and that the next few years are going to suck the Zub Kabir.

Here’s my advice for the upcoming elections.  Please take it into mind when you’re trying to figure out which of the usual gang of idiots you’re going to vote for:

• If someone is telling you that a bright new day is just around the corner, put your hand on your wallet and lock up your valuables and your women. 
• If someone is crowing about their accomplishments in the past few years as a politician, they are a deranged person, and need sedation and treatment away from society.
• If someone tells you that their opponent is a low down dirty lying snake in the grass, take it as a given that they’re projecting their own issues.

This message brought to you by the DaddyBear Committee to Bring Politicians to Heel.  Or at least neuter them so that the bloodlines clean themselves up over a few generations.

I’m DaddyBear, and I approve this message because I’m tired of being ‘led’ by the kids that didn’t get enough hugs in Mrs. Torkelson’s preschool.

I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date.  No time to say hello, good bye, I’m late.

But here are my week 5 picks:

Jacksonville and Buffalo – Jacksonville
Denver and Baltimore – Baltimore
KC and Indy – KC
Green Bay and Washington – Washington
Saint Louis and Detroit – Saint Louis
Chicago and Carolina – Chicago
Tampa Bay and Cinci – Cinci
Atlanta and Cleveland – Atlanta
New York Giants and Houston – Houston
New Orleans and Arizona – New Orleans
Tennessee and Dallas – Tennessee
San Diego and Oakland – Oakland
Philadelphia and San Fransisco – San Fransisco, as much as it hurts my heart to say it.  I’m not voting for Michael Vick.
Minnesota and New York Jets – Minnesota, even if they did pick up a waste of protoplasm who happens to have the ability to catch a ball this week.

Irish Woman – Some species eat their young
DaddyBear – Some species eat their mates.  You know.  “Well, the kids weaned, time to start basting you.”
Irish Woman – Are you saying you’d make pulled pork out of me?
DaddyBear – No dear, of course not.  You’re more of a ….
Irish Woman – Choose your words very carefully.
Girlie Bear – You’re more of a very lean pulled chicken
Irish Woman – See, your daughter is smarter than you are.

 Caveat – I read Non-Sequitur every day, and have for over a decade.  

I don’t think Wiley Miller, the artist who does the wonderful Non-Sequitur cartoon, understands what he’s criticizing here.

He seems to be suggesting that there’s a disconnect between wanting good government and not liking government very much.  He also doesn’t seem to understand the concept that someone can be a good statesman without wanting to make politics a career.

“That government is best which governs least” – Thoreau

What the TEA Party, which I believe is who he is attempting to lampoon here, is looking for is simply this:  The government should fulfill those roles that are enumerated for it in the Constitution of the United States, and nothing more. Cutting the direct role of the government will make it more efficient and allow us to either pay down our insanely humongous public debt or cut taxes on our citizenry, which will spur growth more than 20 million union shovel leaners ever could.

I have an in-borne distrust of authority, due at least in part to watching the growth of the Federal Government and its reach into all aspects of our lives during my lifetime.  And it goes back further.  The Roosevelts, Teddy and Franklin,  Woodrow Wilson, and Lyndon Johnson pushed the envelope violently during the 20th century to expand the powers of the government into areas that the founding fathers didn’t see fit to put in the Constitution.  Clinton, Bush II, and now Obama seem to have been spending a lot of their energies in expanding even further during the 21st. 

I am a member of the Republican party, but I consider myself an independent.  I will vote for a Democrat if he or she makes sense and promises to govern in a way that I approve of.  Yes, I have my own sacred cows  (defense) that I have to make a conscious effort not to knee-jerk approve of any expenditure, but overall, I think the government could do its job better and more efficiently if it concentrated on those areas that are actually its job.  These include security of the United States, which is different from Homeland Security, regulating trade between the states and with foreign countries, and collecting the minimal taxes that it needs to operate.  I believe that a lot of the things that our government does need to either be terminated or be spun off to the private sector.  I plan on doing a series of posts detailing this sometime in the future.

As for those in government not wanting to do it, I support candidates who promise to serve for only one or two terms.  It is my opinion that enforceable term limits would require an amendment to at least the federal Constitution, and possibly the constitutions of the various states.  But if a good candidate tells me that she will serve for at most two terms, then that’s a plus for them.  But Cthulhu help her if she runs for a third term.

Government service should be an honor, served well and in a limited time span.  If you have been in the Congress or an executive branch position for longer than I’ve been allowed to drive, you really need to go do something more useful for the country.

Those of us who hold these beliefs are ridiculed as being naive, but I’d rather be idealistic and effective than cynical and stagnant.

Imagine you’re a 30 something highly trained professional.  Throughout your military career, you’ve worked hard to be the best you can be at everything you do.  You’ve been through all of the Army’s toughest training, and have ascended to the pinnacle of the Special Operations Forces pyramid with an assignment to be a sniper in Delta Force.

You’ve deployed all over the world for both training and combat, and you’re tasked with providing sniper support to a routine snatch and grab operation in some third world shithole.  Absolutely routine, same op as you’ve done a number of times in the past few months.

Then the world falls in.

First, one American helicopter is shot down, and then another falls from the sky.  A search and rescue team is able to make it to the first helicopter, but the crew of the second crashed bird is alone and thousands of pissed off natives are converging on it.

You ask permission to leave the relative safety of your helicopter to assist the downed crew several times, and eventually convince command to let you go.  You and your buddy grab what weapons and ammo you have and make for the crash site.  You evac the crew from the helicopter and defend them from the barbarian horde that is breathing down your neck.  Between you and your partner, you kill 24 of the enemy and wound a great number more.  Then your partner gets hit and goes down.  You grab his weapon and give it to the survivor of the crash to defend himself with, and return to the fight.  Eventually you’re hit too, and your bodies are dragged through the streets for all the world to see on CNN.

17 years ago tomorrow the Battle of Mogadishu started.  By the time it was over, 19 Americans were dead and 83 were wounded, including SFC Randall Shughart and MSG Gary Gordon.  These two Delta Force snipers threw themselves into the teeth of a Somali mob to protect men they probably never met.  In doing so, they probably saved the life of the one survivor of the crash, Chief Warrant Officer Michael Durant, but gave their own lives in the effort.

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.  John 15:13

Just in the nick of time.

Last week, I batted .500, correctly guessing 8 of the 16 games.  For the season I’m 15 and 16.

Here are my picks for this week:

New York Jets and Buffalo –  Jets
Cinci and Cleveland – Cinci
Baltimore and Pittsburg – Baltimore
Denver and Tennessee – Tennessee
Detroit and Green Bay – Green Bay
San Fransisco and Atlanta – Much as it pains me to say it, San Fransisco
Carolina and New Orleans – New Orleans
Seattle and Saint Louis – Saint Louis
Indianapolis and Jacksonville – Indy
Houston and Oakland – Raiders! 
Washington and Philadelphia – Washington, but this one is gonna leave a mark
Arizona and San Diego – Arizona
Chicago and New York Giants – Da Bears!
New England and Miami – Miami.

Maybe I can break .500 this week!

Danger – Basic Training Story Dead Ahead!

So no kidding, there I was……

In Army Basic Training, one of the last GI Joe things we did was the grenade range.  We spent the morning learning the parts of a fragmentation grenade, the proper sequence for arming and throwing the grenade, and practicing our throws.  

Interesting fact:  American hand grenades are shaped like baseballs so that they will feel like a familiar object to American teenagers.

The way our grenades worked was that first you removed a safety clip from the outside of the grenade that kept the pin from coming out accidentally.  You then grip the grenade  firmly, evenly, and constantly so the spring loaded “spoon” stays up against the body of the grenade.  After you pull the pin, the spring that holds the spoon is released, and as soon as you let go of the grenade by throwing or dropping it, or stop holding the grenade tightly enough, the spoon will move enough for a striker to start the 5 second fuse in the grenade.  Normally, the spoon will fly off when you intentionally throw the grenade, but the spoon only has to move a fraction of an inch to release the spring and set off the fuse.  When the fuse finishes burning, it sets off the explosive in the grenade and kaboom. 

Since the fuse can start burning without you letting go of the grenade if you don’t hold it VERY firmly, or milk it by gripping firmly then easing off then gripping firmly, a lot of emphasis is put on holding the grenade as tightly as you can and still maintain control of it.  Before even giving us practice grenades, we were drilled and then tested individually on properly taking out a grenade, preparing to throw it, gripping it, and throwing it.

After the mid-day meal, we were put through a qualification course with practice grenades.  A qualification grenade is a solid steel sphere with two holes about 1 inch across drilled across from one another.  In one hole, the head of a grenade is screwed in. There is no explosive beyond the totally legit fuse and blasting cap in the grenade head, which would explode with a loud pop so we could know how long the fuse in a grenade burns when we used them.  We practiced preparing grenades for use and throwing them at targets such as machine gun nests, concentrations of pop-up targets, and vehicles.  Eventually, we were tested on our ability to accurately drop, toss, and roll grenades into these targets.  Those who could do at least a minimum number of these targets correctly went on to the next stage, live grenades.

As we lined up to march to the live grenade range, I watched our drill sergeants take turns calling home to speak to their wives on the range phone.  I watched men who had routinely handed live ammunition to armed men who hated their guts without batting an eye call home to say goodbye.  They were all worried that our class, mainly made up of truck drivers and MI weenies, would manage to kill or injure at least one of them when handed a live hand grenade.

We were marched to the range, and we filed into a bunker at the rear of firing (throwing?) line.  On the side of the bunker that faced the fighting positions we would be throwing grenades from was a thick plexiglass wall that allowed us to observe other soldiers throwing their grenades.  I was far enough back that I was able to watch several groups of soldiers cycle through the range before it was my turn.

As we got ourselves situated in the bunker, we saw our drill sergeants go out to the fighting positions.  For once, their beloved brown drill sergeant hats were not in evidence.  They were all wearing kevlar flak vests and kevlar helmets.

Each trainee was suited up in a kevlar vest, and issued two live hand grenades, which he placed in the grenade straps of his ammunition pouches.  He was then marched individually out to a fighting position, where a drill sergeant paid personal attention to where the trainee’s hands were in relation to the grenades.

What was supposed to happen was this: On command from the range tower, the drill sergeants and trainees would enter their fighting positions.  After getting clearance from the tower to proceed, the drill sergeant would tell the trainee to take a grenade out of his ammo pouch and remove the safety clip.  After that, the drill sergeant would instruct the trainee to “prepare to throw”.  The trainee would grip the grenade firmly, put his finger through the ring on the pin, and bring both hands together up to his chest.  On command to throw, the trainee would pull the hand with the grenade in it to the back, push the hand holding the pin in it forward, pulling the pin with it, and then loft the grenade down range.  The trainee and drill sergeant would then duck down inside the fighting position until the grenade goes off.  The procedure would be repeated for the second grenade, and then the trainee would return to the bunker and another private would be suited up and sent out.

Didn’t always happen that way, even when everyone was trying to do their part.  Evidence of this was the the holes blasted in some of the fighting positions by badly thrown grenades.

As I watched the first cycle go through, their first grenade went well.  No problems.  On the second grenade, instead of heaving the grenade for all he was worth, one of the privates rolled it off of his fingers like Magic Johnson trying to do a lay-up.  The grenade went almost straight up, bounced off the edge of the foxhole, and rolled about five feet forward before exploding.  The drill sergeant in that hole saw what was happening, grabbed the private, threw him on the floor of the fighting position, and threw himself on top of him.  It was supposed to be to block harm from the private, but it looked more like an Andre the Giant power slam.  After the tower cleared the range, that particular private pretty much lived in hell for the next few hours as that drill sergeant followed him around and did everything he could to make the young man contemplate his own death.

The second cycle went through pretty much according to the book.  We were all fervently reminded to “throw the !#$!!#$! thing like we !@#$!@#$ meant it”.

Then it was my my turn.  I suited up in a flak vest, stowed my grenades, and trundled out to position number 3, the position where Private Slipinschitz had finger rolled a grenade earlier.  The company senior drill sergeant had taken over that position after the drill sergeant who had had a grenade almost land on him was sent back with the offending private.

We went through the procedure by the book for the first grenade.  Acquire the grenade, prepare to throw, throw, duck. 

While waiting for the tower to clear us to throw the second grenade, I thought about the man in front of me. The senior drill sergeant had taken a bit of a disliking to me when I had hurt my ankle and had to be driven by the company driver to and from ranges and classes for a few days. This man had ridden my butt for the past 7 weeks.

I didn’t want to hurt him.  Even as immature as I was, I knew that he was really only doing his job.  But the temptation to mess with the man who had made it his job to make me miserable was too much.

The senior drill instructor looked me in the eye and barked “Acquire the grenade!”  I pulled out my second grenade and removed the safety clip.

“Prepare to throw!”  I placed my thumb through the ring on the pin, and gripped the grenade firmly in my right hand, bringing both hands up to the center of my chest.

“Throw!!!”  I threw my left hand forward and my right back.  Half a second prior to throwing the grenade, I looked the senior drill instructor in the eye and shouted “So Sergeant, where you from?”

I then heaved that grenade just as hard as I could and threw myself on the floor of the fighting position.  Before I heard the explosions of our group’s grenades, I was landed upon by a very angry senior drill instructor.

We were the last group, and we marched back to where our gear was stacked to be searched for grenades or grenade pieces (no souvenir grenade pins) and then marched back to our bivouac site. At least, the rest of the company marched.  I on the other hand did the half mile in a series of 3 to 5 second rushes with several yards of low crawl through the grass and gravel in between.  By the time I caught up with the rest of the company, I was filthy and bleeding, and my uniform was torn in several places.

But I never stopped smiling.