The Harpies of the shore

Want to silence the Eagle of the Sea to paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes.

These Baahstuhhnn Yankee Yuppies want the cannon salutes to the morning and evening colors stopped because it 'bothers' them.
That is a Naval tradition that goes back to before America was even a colony under Britain.



Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon’s roar; —
The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more.

Her deck, once red with heroes’ blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o’er the flood,
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor’s tread,
Or know the conquered knee; —
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!

Oh, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!



Oh, and they're complaining that it's also bothersome to hear the Star Spangled Banner daily....because it's 'too loud'.

I wonder how they feel about all that ghetto crap that drowns out all the noise that ship could possibly make on a continuing basis?
You know, that gawdawful thumping you can hear a mile away.

Don't you just hate it

When you're surfing along and all of a sudden you get this

SECURITY ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!
YOUR COMPUTER JUST GOT INFECTED BY A ZOMYGAWD HUGELY DANGEROUS INFECTION!!!!!!!!!!!

Then a box comes up from globalsecurityalert.inc.com that says
TO PROTECT YOUR COMPUTER CLICK YES!!!!!

No- you can't close out click YESSsss NOW!!!!!!!----or your computer will BLOW UP!!!!

Click YES or reboot your computer to get rid of me!


So now I've lost my train of thought and am running ClamWin to see if it finds anything else besides SuperGranny3 (trojan) in my drive D/:

The suicide roll

I let this flatbed onto the highway yesterday morning. (Yes, I'm not that big of an @sshole that I don't help drivers out)
I saw the only thing he had securing those rolls of steel wire was his 4" straps.
If everything goes well, that's probably enough.
I also noticed that he didn't have anything on his bed to stop them from rolling, to act as chocks.

The reason they call it a suicide roll is that in a collision, the momentum will roll those things right into the cab.
I'm a bit on the anal side of the safety question, so I would have had double chains on the front and back rolls plus my 4x4's chocking the front, back and middle rolls too.





Just a reminder to you all, look at the guy in front of you to see what might fall off and slow down or get in front if you don't like what you see.

6:50 AM

No matter what time I leave the house, it always seems that I get to the gate at work within a minute of 6:50.
I could leave at 5:30 and probably get stuck behind two turtles from Castroville to loop 410.
Then, of course I'd have some d*ckhead riding my bumper expecting me to push them out of my way for him to get through.
I can leave at 6 AM and traffic will be running fine and I hear Rush's morning update as I've just passes BAMC.

Remember remember the fifth of November

Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot...

Today is Guy Fawkes Day in England.
They used to celebrate his capture along with the 36 barrels of gunpowder he and his conspirators were going to use to blow up Parliament.

They still do, but they used to have great parties, kind of like our Independence Day.
They celebrated with fireworks and huge bonfires, also known as Bonfire night.

You notice I keep saying 'used to' because the nanny state has this year banned the celebratory fires because of 'safety concerns' BUT.... they suggest that a DVD movie o a bonfire shown on an outside wall would capture the wonderful feeling of solidarity, well being, warmth and noise.


England, it's painfull to watch your collapse into ....whatever you're turning into.

I didn't vote today

I got off early and headed straight to the polling place in Hondo.
When I got there, they asked for my DL since I left my voter card at home.
Then they couldn't find my name in the roster. WHAT?
They went to check their voter rolls and came back to tell me I lived in pct. 6 and had to go to Castroville because I lived at a point at the very end of it.

Dude, I'm NOT driving another 20 miles out of my way for a constitutional vote. Sorry.

And I stopped at Wally-world for some beer. I'm also NOT going to pay almost $5 for a six pack of Busch beer at Wal-mart. I'll buy the $10 box of wine, yep -it was a very good week.

Rule 4

Always know where your round will go if it doesn't hit your target.

It applies to pumpkin cannons, too.




You know,,,,being college engineering students- you'd think they'd have at least done some calculations on air pressure x air volume x the weight of their projectile to maybe get some general ballistic information. If not actually TRYING it first.

Just saying as a non-grad.

Hitting it big on E-bay

I was just surfing through E-bay, looking to see if there was anything selling that I was interested in making.

All these bidders with the handles like n**h, or j**w, and the ever inventive m**3 are jumping on a small group of sellers and ignoring the same products at a better price.

I've never had a legit bid from someone with a double astrisk in their name.
Most kind of reflect their interests...motrrhed, sunnylacer, gingersnap...

You don't think someone might be going against E-bay policy and bidding up their own auction, do you???

I've been an @sshole before and bid on stuff I wasn't interested in buying just to make Usuk and c'mstain pay more because I didn't like the handle.....

It's Robert Van Winkles birthday!

Let's sing a tribute to him--mK?

Les Andrews, here's your 15 minutes of fame

I've gotta tell you that I think ol' Jason Smith showed a lot of restraint and he wouldn't have gotten near my house the way he was acting.

But after seeing how he acted after a well deserved ,,,ohhh yeah, spoilers...



Intimidation, assault- trespassing, yep that's a Texas home defence justifiable shooting.
But, then the humiliation of his actions pretty much show what a wanking poofter he is.

Tosser.

Adding to his 200,000 You-tube hits on his humiliation one hit at a time.
Via Jawa and ACoSHQ

Obama made a San Antonio stop today

Actually, I think it was supposed to maybe be a secret visit to Fiesta Texas' Halloween show.

See, I was working on the lights of a new high school just west of loop 1604, just kinda looking around:


Then I saw something unusual going northwards along 1604 and then veering east towards Fiesta Texas.

I had an idea something was up, with the way He likes to do the 'everyday Joe' thing, so I'd bet He took the family to a private Halloween show. I bet He loves dress-up and the suspension of disbelief, and all. I mean...He's even got his own Wookie.

...Anyway, Even though I didn't see it in person- here's an indirect cam phone picture of Himself alighting the presidential limo:


(CLICK IT! You know you want to.)
Yep, the clouds opened for a shaft of enlightenment from on high..............

Chicken

It's almost like meat!

Because I can

Shades of Jimi Hendrix



Welcome home Jerry!

The 25 year anniversary of Operation Urgent Fury

Gawd, I feel old. We were on deployment to Rota, Spain then. (Nice place- kinda like s.w.Texas) When we heard about it.

For those that weren't around then, It was the freeing of Granada from the communists who overthrew their own socialist government.

On March 13, 1979 while Gairy was out of the country, the NJM – led by Maurice Bishop – launched an armed revolution and overthrew Gairy's government, establishing the People's Revolutionary Government. Bishop then suspended the constitution and the New Jewel Movement ruled the country by decree, as Prime Minister of Grenada, until 1983. All other political parties were banned and no elections were to be held. Internationally, the government quickly aligned itself with Cuba and other communist governments.

On October 13, 1983, a party faction led by Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard seized power illegally. Bishop was placed under house arrest. Mass protests against the action led to Bishop escaping detention and reasserting his authority as the head of the government. Bishop was eventually captured and murdered along with several government officials loyal to him. The army under Hudson Austin then stepped in and formed a military council to rule the country. The Governor-General of Grenada, Paul Scoon, was placed under house arrest. The army announced a four-day total curfew where anyone seen on the streets would be subject to summary execution..


We were asked for help by the surrounding Caribbean countries and helped them free the island from Cuba and their allies- the USSR.


President 0bama, Madam Secretary of State Clinton- THAT is what an unconstitutional government takeover looks like. NOT the eviction of a leader who oversteps his authority by the entire Constitutionally authorized government of Honduras.



H/T to Cajun for reminding me.

Thoughts from the throne room

A while back there was a bit of a kerfluffel about how bad double ply TP is for the environment.
While I had some time, I noticed that Northern bathroom tissue was ahead of the curve in reducing their impact on the environment. I was looking at the roll and thought it looked,,,'different' somehow. I reached into the trash for a tube from the last batch and sure enough, the new roll was a good half inch shorter than the old one.
AND they raised the price for it, too. Better for the environment and less for more,,,the TP that represents the Urkles entire administration. After continued evaluations, it looks like Scott is going to be the default roll at Casa Trainwreck.


We are also subject to hearing the moans of money problems over at the dead tree propaganda camps, and how they're loosing readers.
I dropped Readers Digest almost ten years ago as they were sliding to the Left.
Does anyone know how the *other* magazines are doing?
We have a stack of 'Women's Day', 'Good Housekeeping' and some sewing things that we never hear about wanting a .gov bailout....wonder why?

Taking the opportunity

for a 'teachable moment' like our Narcissist in Charge is always using.




Ummmmm, since I like to kinda keep this like a PG-13 or so blog, the teachable pic is down a ways because of the language in the english lesson being discussed.




If you know what I mean, not that it isn't becoming an everyday word you hear on the street, and edgy music, niot to mention most non-Disney movies shown lately.







Does anyone recognize the usual place you'd see that type of wall?



And since it's a kind of contest- there should be a prize...


A revolver display case?

Oh, k'mon- we're talking about The Lightweight here.


THIS

is more like it:





A slightly used chip brush.

As long as I'm dumping pixels

I guess I'll throw these out, too.


An oak bedside table made of the finest recycled wood available at various construction sites in San Antonio, TX.



The drawer front waiting for the glue to set before finding it's new home...

Remember that pile of wood?

The one I'd been working to make a Craftsman style bookcase?



Sorry about it being so dark, I don't know what it is about that corner that the phone doesn't have enough light...evar...to take a good pic.










'Someone' is supposed to find me a design for the punched tin panels to fill in the bottom doors.

Oh....!

I got up this morning and let the dogs out around six,
As it was on the chilly side, I slid the thermostat to heat turned on the coffee and went back to bed until someone wanted back in.

Several cups of coffee later it's still chilly and the blower is only pushing lukewarm air around. So I go back and flip breakers to be sure they're on and still nothing.

Maybe it's a fuse in the heater box that tripped when a rodent tried gnawing through it? So I put my shoes on and grab my meter and tool belt from the truck- it's 46 degrees just east of Hondo BTW.

After opening the access panel and checking for voltage on both sides of the breakers (240VAC) and the relays (120 baybee) but no power to the heater coils.
Crap, now it's going to cost money that we can't afford since Karen got laid off.

I went to turn off the breakers and thermostat and found I'd turned off the A/C and put the fan on automatic. When I made that last click to the left I was rewarded with the aroma of singed dust...Kewll we have heat-----without extra money!!!


And the Guy That Signs our Checks is on a no overtime kick from the bath he took on the mismanaged sports stadium fiasco. . . So I'm home on comp time.

Sounds like the Onion got over again

You know, with all those layers and layers of oversight and fact checking and spellcheckers editors in the mainstream media.

You know the presidential knob polishers...
BUT....

Somehow this got out that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce did a 180 on cap and tax, and are now for it.

I heard a bit different take this morning than this vid shows...basically some pressman demanding ID from the legit C.o.C. because "we've got a deadline to meet".



I mean, don't these people have some kind of B.S. detector that's not on the default Rethugometer?

That maybe, someone on their own side might want to ....LIE?




AND- that female reporter who covers the U.S. C.o.C. didn't recognize him, but interviewed him anyway,,,,
Was she going to just sent it through the layers and layers of fact checking and editors before she bothered to ash the *real* CoC if it was an actual policy turnaround?

OR were they hoping they didn't have to hide a retraction back on the classifieds?

'And you shall know them by their ...programming'

Karen turned the TeeWee over to the LMC a while ago.
I don't even need to look because I'm hearing the overly dramatic plotline, soaring dramatic music and 'authoritative' figures yelling into radio microphones.

It's something to do with a farm and a will and sisters forced to return to their roots by a callous father....or something.


UPDATE!!!!!!
Muy importante!!!!!!!oncA!!!!

Citygurrl just almost killed countrygirllz horse by feeding it wormy corn instead of good oats,,,,,because country said *GRAIN*----"Isn't corn a grain?"

Getting your priorities straight

I'm starting to hear grumblings about the fact that our Enlightened One won't be commemorating the fall of the Berlin wall next month.

Is anyone surprised at that?
It would be like celebrating the Superbowl when your team blew the point spread away by losing so badly the cheerleaders left at halftime.

Keep printing money Barry

The price of gas has come up to half of what you want in the last few days.

Our national debt is four times as much as we've ever seen (and growing).

The dollar is loosing value to even the Mexican Peso, AND the two biggest Communist nations are lecturing us about capitalism.


Ohhh, BTW,,,what are you going to do when China calls in it's loans because they're tired of investing in toilet paper?

So I'm mowing the weeds today

I'm wearing shorts and sneakers and walking on decomposing leaves in a part of the paddock where I'd aleady killed a rattlesnake.
When I started thinking...umm...we have ranches around here with stock tanks, and with all the rain we've had,,, maybe I'd better be not stepping where I can't see if there are any suprises hiding in the dried leaves. OH CHIT!! What's that long skinny thing moving away from the mower?
Oh...it's a stick.

Then about half an hour later, I hit a rock that I hope only bent the blade when it killed the mower.

How's your day going?

A late shoutout to CharleParker

The lead guy at 1200AM WOAI radio this morning who made the trip to work worthwhile.

Son-in-law is going through 'The crucible' this week in San Diego USMC boot camp, and Charley came out with a clip from an Air Force spokesman was telling how the USAF booters had the hardest course of all services.

Yeah, I spewed coffee on my dashboard when I started laughing too.

About 25 years ago- when I was shopping services (a 90% of the Bees, but lets see...) all I remember about the AF recruiter spiel was that their booters lived in two man rooms while all the other services had open bay barracks. Every time I asked about construction careers (Red Horse and Prime Beef) he's steer me back to the boot camp goodies.

The Army was only interested in telling me about the cash I could make by going into Combat Arms.

I knew even back then that I was too lazy for the Marines.

The Navy recruiter, when I asked about becoming a BU (builder) like my grandfather, was told that they're full and have a six month waiting list...but we havs some openings for a CE Construction Electrician) ..."here watch this video, and take this pre test to see if you're eligible." "Ok, I think you'll pass- we can get you to Chicago (the main processing center) next week and do the whole thing. Oh yeah,,,,, it's a five year commitment."

....After I'd gone through Great Mistakes Naval Training and was going rto basic electronics in Orlando- I was called in to the detailers office and told that there may be some changes made in my promised rate (CE) after looking at my combined ASVAP score-and that they wanted to talk to me about going nuke, AND getting an automatic Crow (E-4) after graduating school.
I told them thankyouverymuch, BUT I'd rather spend my time on land building things than being stuck 30 feet below waterline never seeing the sky except on liberty; and as I was an E-3 already, the extra $20 wouldn't be worth it to me.



Edit to ad:

Lets jump in here with both feet

I keep hearing about this Eagle Scout and the super that decided to suspend him for 20 days.
The thing is that the super won't tell why, and none of the newsies seem to understand why for so long.

After reading this article about it, I know why.
It's because the super has over a 98% chance of being an uberLib. He's an educator in one of the bluest states in the union; AND he lies like he was born in the Obama administration.

As an added reason for the long suspension, the young man wants to go to a MILITARY academy, and needs a spotless record to get into West Point.

OK, where are the facts that I got from my reading assignment wrong?

One of the residents of Hoo-ville spotted our new pole

And it looked so Hoo-ish that he went to tell his fellow Hoo-vians.


But amidst their Hoo-vish hoorays about their special Seusian power supply, we were working Grinchlike to un-Hooviar that special pole when we ran the next 1/0 triplex to the other building...

It's 40' of 3" IMC (medium wall) conduit. With two sets of guys on the ...vulnerable side.

Also, and a very late posting,.,,, due to our internet problems (and dividing up between me being lazy and working on the new bedside table).

We got done with all our pulls at that weekend job we pulled.



But it started raining...




...And I'm 'really' getting tired of going home with wet boots.

Don't ask, don't tell?

Ok, so the Obaminator is going to do away with it.

What is he going to replace it with? The Gay corps? Because *NO* 18 year old is going to knowingly do the three S's in the morning while the pink posse is sitting in the viewing section of the showers....without some kind of retribution.
Then they'll get into trouble for being 'anti-gay' and 'hate'assulting their fellow company troops.

Before Commander Clinton got his *koff* commission and bowed to the pink pressure, the MSm was full of stories about 'WITCH HUNTS' in all branches of the military.
I was in the Navy SeaBees for nine years in the 80's(my last as an MAA in Newport,RI escorting miscreants to ...administrative justice) and never once heard of anyone being drummed out for homosexuality who:
1- Weren't flaming f@ggots who went off the deep end

-OR-
2- Wanted out anyway they could get out.

Yeah, I know that the dems have been using the military for social experimentation since the 60's, but they really need to look at the ramifications of what they think they want to do to the military we rely on to be ready for anything our new 'friends' of Obama want to try.

I also know that in ancient history, homosexuality was accepted in service: BUT their entire society was 270 degrees away from ours so that they also had no problems with mutilating their slaves for momentary distraction.

So...what is our Unicorn Rider going to do about a guaranteed clash of cultures (riots) when he forces armed 20 year old heterosexual guys to live with groping and open sex in the showers?


Do you think anyone in the White House thought even this far ahead?

Neither do I.

In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue

And after several false land sightings landed on one of these islands...

Actually, 517 years ago he landed on the island of Bermuda, and the western hemisphere has been regressing ever since.
Gone are the days of making fire with two sticks and dying of malaria before you can even read- if you ever could. Not to mention the wonderful gaia friendly way of fertilizing the canefields by clear cut burning, and cutting the beating heart out of your slaves to placate your Gods.

It(freedom) also gave us this NSFW version of Kokomo...

Overtime

We got rained out Friday, so I was looking at about six hours short for the week. Then I got a call to haul a trailer full of wire out to one of our N.E.I.S.D. expansion projects for today. I was told to work as long as they needed you.

Cool, I can get my time in and maybe a little more.

I worked from 6:30AM to 8:30PM for five hours OT and am going in tomorrow to help them finish the pulls. I'll let them do the many hours of terminations so they can get power back on for back to school Tuesday.