Survive the end of the world.

Today, I am officially half way to what the average life-expectancy for me should be. Cheery, eh?

And apparently lots of other gun blogger sorts have birthdays in late October. Someone should do a study about that.

Or how to tell you’re about to get your ass kicked.

Watch this video from where Great Britain Used to Be. If you’re wailing and screaming and huffing and puffing while the object of your aggression stands there calmly and quietly with his hands casually folded in front of him then it is probably a good sign he hasn’t quite felt threatened by you yet.

Via David.

It’s not just for the end of the world. Tam and Les both mention loss of a job. Sure, it’s not as glamorous a survival situation as the zombiepocalypse but it’s worth considering and preparing for. Les has guidelines on it. A bit back, I was unemployed for six months. Well, we had planned for such a thing prior to by having a decent savings. We still fed the kids, paid the mortgage, paid the bills, and put money in savings. But we were living tight. Very tight. The only thing that suffered was I didn’t make six months worth of contributions to the old 401k and my wife’s birthday gift could have been better.

In Cali.once again in a place where most of the stuff in my checked bags is illegal. Heck, I’m practically illegal here.
Red eye home. Such fun. What to do for eight hours in an airport with no wifi?

I let my sister in law sample some dove I had prepared. This conversation takes place:

Her: It tastes kinda gamy.

Me: Well, it is game.

Collection of survival resources.

A fishhook in the earlobe really hurts. Moving stuff in the garage and a rod fell. Ouch.

what feeding a family for a week is like in different countries, visualized.

Update: Link fixed.

I type 79 words per minute. With 100% accuracy. Can’t figure out why I have so many typos on the blog though. How about you?

Damn fine idea: Take a Vet to Lunch

The Mrs. is not a fan of my language choices, a lot of times. But good news, dropping a few f-bombs is healthy:

Well, it turns out a potty mouth does more than earn your conversations an R rating: it actually relieves pain, according to a new study by Richard Stephens, John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston of Keele University in the UK. But that’s not all: you’d never know it from what your mom told you, but there are many positive, beneficial aspects of swearing, including harmless venting and social bonding (not to mention reams of adult comedy). Bad language does a lot of good.

Fuck yeah!

Phelps looks at wet-shaving with a detailed post on his set up. As for me, I don’t quite have the beard Phelps has. I shave in the shower with a waterproof mirror. I use a Gillette Fusion, Williams Mug Soap, and a loofah instead of a brush to work up the lather.

Later this month is my 20 year high school reunion. These are always fun and I have a blast. See some folks I haven’t seen in ages, catch up, swap numbers with people (knowing you’ll never call each other), and reminisce. I was talking about it with the Mrs. the other night and I said:

Ya know, I’m tempted to have my hair cut into a mullet, get some parachute pants, buy a pair of Vans, wear an AC lightning bolt DC T-shirt and load up my Mp3 player with some Bobby Brown, Paula Abdul, Milli Vanilli and Warrant.

She said if I did that, she wasn’t going. She’s no fun.

I will be spending part of mine at the walk-in clinic. You see, yesterday, I happened to be holding the kitty when the dog decided to introduce itself. Cat was not a fan. And, in its escape attempt, bit me. Wake up this morning and where I was bitten is swollen, red and ouchie. So, based on my Google fu, I think I have this.

Update: Yup, that’s what I got. Tetanus shot. Antibiotics and if no improvement by Monday, a potential hospital stay. Cat bites are apparently serious business.

A look at The Grab And Go Survival Pack.

Cool pictures of a volcano erupting taken from a space station.

Just the other day at lunch, I was mentioning how we hadn’t seen any coyotes since I capped the last one about two years ago. This morning, my wife said she saw another.

Cool pic of a tornado forming.

And if that’s not enough, here’s a video of one.

test results negative.

Today is a good day.

So, I look in the mirror and realize that I have longish hair, a beard, and I’m wearing plaid shorts. I think to myself Self, is it 1994 again? About that time, The Second bumps his head on the bar, starts crying, and I realized that it’s actually not 1994.

20 year high school reunion invitation just showed up in the mail.

When repairing something around the house, I wonder what the average number of trips the American male makes to the local big box home improvement store is? I’m guessing between 3 and 7. I’m up to four repairing a sink drain. And I’ll probably wind up calling a plumber. Feh.

Easy way to grow tomatoes.

On the blog here, I have a category called Notes to Self so that I can leave myself notes about things. That does no good when you forget. You see, I forgot how much it can suck to put on Chapstick that’s been sitting in your car in the hot sun all day.

I mentioned my garden a bit back. I planted some stuff last week. Notably, Swiss chard, romaine lettuce, cucumbers, variety of tomatoes, carrots, radishes and various peppers. The chard, peppers, and tomatoes came as plants and not seeds. In less than a week, the radishes, carrots and lettuce from seed have broken the soil.

If it goes well, I’ll build another raised garden next year.

I have them. The are obviously forming a nest in my attic. They’re coming in from the outside awning where they wriggle through the some of the space between it. Ordinarily, I’d just wait until dark, spray it and knock it down. But there is a particular level of difficulty here. See, the wasps are in the furthest corner of my attic from the entrance. So, if I went through the attic to spray them and pissed them all off, I’d be hard pressed to make it to the exit while navigating the support beams in the attic without getting stung all to hell. Now, you say, Just attack them from outside at the awning. Trouble with that is that this particular spot where they are is, at a guess, thirty feet off the ground. So, different problem but similar. Get up there, spray them, piss them off, then try to haul ass down the ladder without getting stung all to hell. And I can’t reach their nest from the outside.

Any ideas?

Cigar porn:

From Home Life

My dad decided, based on my post, that it was a good idea. He came by today and now we’re both sitting on the porch sipping some Evan Williams Single Barrel that he bought. And I have a Rocky Patel Vintage 99 and he has a Gurkha Legend.

It’s ten o’clock in the PM and I am sitting on the back porch sipping bourbon and enjoying a fine Rocky Patel Vintage 1990.

ETA: Speaking of, while I do my Spring cleaning, I like to again prime and season my humidor. Also a good time to replenish your stash. I don’t smoke cigars when it’s cold outside and didn’t notice my supply was light. A quick trip to ThompsonCigar.com remedied that.

Thanks to comments here, I’ve discovered that Ezra Brooks is also pretty damn good for the money.

I usually like the good (i.e., more spendy) stuff. But, note to self: for the money, Evan Williams is pretty damn good.

Last night, I get home and the house is a nice warm 78 degrees. Time to turn on the AC.

And, this week, I cracked the first beer. I don’t drink beer all winter long because they just don’t sound good. But when the weather is warm, beer is good.

Last night, I went to bed and it was about 60 degree outside. This morning, I wake up to see this:

From Home Life

Toolmonger:

Golden Nozzle car wash customer John A. O’Leary was riding through the car wash when he noticed something was terribly wrong. Yards away, fighting for her life inside the car wash was 19-year-old employee Stephanie Carpluk. The lone attendant had taken a short-cut through the car rails and her scarf had become ensnared in one of the wash’s rotating mechanical brushes. The machinery had pulled the scarf tightly around her neck and was quickly strangling her. Unable to free herself, Carpluk passed out. Within seconds, O’Leary sprung from his car and pulled out a pocket knife that he was carrying and cut her free.

CNBC is currently running a documentary entitled House of Cards on how we got into the economic mess we currently face. So far, it’s quite good. If you’ve missed it, it’s repeating at midnight Eastern time (11 PM Central). I’ve set the TiVo to catch the repeat.

UPDATE: Another review here.

A couple of weeks ago, I was on vacation in a downtown hotel. My room number? 1911.

I was eating in a restaurant at a shopping center in suburban Memphis when this happened. I didn’t hear or see any of it happen, but was around when the cops showed up. On the surface, it sounds ok: person A charges person B, person B warns person A that he has a gun, person A keeps coming, person B shoots person A dead. If that were all there was to it, I’d say it’s pretty cut and dry.

But there are a few things that give me pause. For starters, person B (the shooter) had been drinking in a bar before the incident. Compounding that, according to people on the scene (some of whom I know), person B was told that person A was “messing with his car” (I’m paraphrasing), and person B went out there specifically to confront person A. So while person A was indeed trying to fight person B, it’s unclear who started the fight, and it’s also unclear as to whether person B was justified in being afraid for his life. From what I’ve been able to piece together (admittedly from very limited information), without the shooter’s gun, the chances of anyone ending up dead or even seriously injured as a result of the altercation were pretty close to zero. And in any case, if I’m afraid for my life, I don’t go initiate a confrontation.

The crowd at the bar, many of whom know and like person B, seemed to have mixed opinions about whether or not the shooting was justified. The whole thing is a mess, and it makes me just sick. I’m glad I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve even considered pulling a weapon on someone, and I hope I never am.

UPDATE: There are a lot more details here, and they demonstrate the dangerous nature of rumor and innuendo in such matters. It apppears that my person A above was the one who had been drinking in the bar. And the details about someone charging someone else don’t get any mention. Second-degree murder charges have now been filed against the shooter (H/T: commenter chris).

So much for the Vice Fund being “recession-proof.” Oops!

Chris looks back at 1989, the year I graduated high school.

Learn the difference between “it’s” (it is) and “its” (possessive, belonging to it). (See penalties here and here, just within the last few days.)

That is all.

Seriously, thanks for letting me blog here from time to time, and I hope everyone here has a great new year!

One’s OK. The other not so much

If you want to annoy some folks, poke fun at a religious figure for what I thought was lavish excess.

And that’s not to disparage the good things the church does.

Update: Wolfwood says Know Your Allies. Ya know, I’m not all anti-religious or anything. And as I’ve said before, I got no issues with God thing. Just an note on my part, as a casual outside observer.

Just ask a simple question about why vegetarians are so widely ridiculed/marginalized. Holy cow. Four pages of comments, and growing!

Also, an unrelated bonus flame:

One larger point here is that, while “rising stars” like Sanford and Jindal may be individually compelling, they must operate within a Republican Party that has enthusiastically embraced ignorance on a whole host of subjects, economics included. The issue is whether they can escape these constraints.

I guess I shouldn’t mention yankees when discussing, err, yankees. Quite a bit of mail about how so and so is a yankee but so and so is not. And apparently there are various qualifiers that distinguish one particular yankee archetype from another.

So, I didn’t mean you, I meant the other guy.

Safely arrived. You can tell when you’ve hit yankee country. When the gas stations stop calling it “soda” or “soft drink” and start calling it “pop”.

Update: The offending state was West Virginia. PA is worse. And Pittsburgh drivers suck. That is all.

People say to me Hey, Uncle, how was your weekend?

And I say Mostly uneventful, except for that negligent discharge.

This weekend, I negligently discharged a firearm. Everyone is OK, so no worries. I followed the four rules of firearm safety so no one was hurt. But even following the rules, it can still happen.

A bit back, I wrote of my Walther P22 that I was not a fan of the magazine disconnect safety. I said:

Get rid of the magazine disconnect safety. I cannot decock the pistol without a magazine inserted into the magwell. Why is that considered safer?

Well, it’s not safer. And, no, I am not blaming my negligent discharge on the magazine disconnect safety, rather stating that the magazine disconnect safety led to my actions preceding the negligent discharge. For those not in the know, a magazine disconnect safety essentially renders the trigger non-functioning unless there is a magazine in the weapon. This also means in the case of the Walther P22 that you cannot decock the firearm unless a magazine is inserted into the magazine well. Here’s how it happened:

I get the Walther, and check to be sure that it is clear. It is. No magazine and no round in the chamber. I don’t like to keep the pistol cocked so I set out to decock it.

I insert the magazine and rack the slide. I know have a loaded and cocked weapon. To decock the weapon, I point it at the ground. And, as I’ve done thousands of times, I place my thumb on the hammer to hold it in place as I squeeze the trigger to release the hammer, which will then be eased down by my thumb. Unfortunately, my thumb did not have as sure a grip on the hammer as it should have and I neglected to engage the safety. And I fired the gun. There was a bit of silence and then I finally realized I should say something so I said loudly that everyone in here was OK.

This occurred in front of my gun safe, in my basement. The weapon was aimed at the hard concrete floor (i.e., a safe direction with a sure backstop, as should be the case when handling any weapon). No damage either, except to the padding that covers part of our basement floor. It had a small hole in it. The concrete was mostly unscathed. It looked as though it had been barely scratched. I’m guessing the bullet disintegrated as I could only find a few shavings and a shell casing.

So, even if you’re familiar with handling a gun and have performed a task thousands of times, it still happens. But if you are mindful of the four rules of firearms safety and it happens, nothing and no one will get damaged. Except your ego. That was an eye-opener for me. No longer batting 1,000 in gun safety. And the fact that I felt like a complete moron.

My wife is still pissed.

Be safe out there.

Quiet night at home with the family, with a few of my favorite things: sushi, bourbon, apple pie. I got some coffee mugs with the kids’ pics on them.

Also, I got a Leatherman Skeletool. I had an old Gerber Multi-Tool that a friend got me. I’ve had that thing for 18 years as of yesterday. I got to the beach and needed pliers only to discover that the Gerber tool would no longer open. Looks like a bolt/rivet in the pliers themselves came loose and, as such, the pliers won’t come out the top. That pretty much renders it useless. Still, it was a good tool and I recommend it.

But the Skeletool is a bit better, I think. First, it is much lighter due to all the holes drilled in it. Second, it’s smaller too. Due to that, I can carry it in my pocket, unlike the Gerber which I kept in my truck console. Also, the Skeletool’s knife blade can be opened with one hand, unlike the Gerber. And there are a variety of bits available for the Skeletool and they are easier to change than trying to change bits on a Gerber, which involves taking it apart.

A couple of cons on the Skeletool though: there is no serrated saw blade, like the Gerber had. There is also no file. I never used the latter but the former came in handy quite a bit.

I can tell you that for me, right now, politics ain’t it.

The Wonder Woman Costumes.

Self, If you ever decide to do something really stupid, make sure you think about appropriate attire first. And not something that screams Guilty!

I clear the ParaUSA gun blog 45 and hand it to The Mrs. And the following conversation takes place:

Me: Can you pull the trigger on this?

The Mrs: (points in safe direction and pulls trigger) Yes I can. Why?

Me: Just making sure. You couldn’t pull the trigger on my Sigs. That’s why I now have Glocks.

The Mrs: What?

Me: Well, we went to the range and you couldn’t pull the double action trigger on my Sigs so I sold them and replaced them with Glocks.

The Mrs: That’s so sweet.

It’s the little things.

Are these persimmons? I’m pretty sure they look like them and they look like the wiki entry pic.

From Home Life

Click to embiggen.

If so, what do you do with them?

On Tuesday, while driving through a part of Arkansas where the only radio choices are literally God and Country, I had a thought. I was commenting on how “new country” always tends to sound an awful lot like the pop/rock of two decades earlier, and how by that standard, we should start hearing “angst country” in a few years.

My wife, not known for zingers, said:

“If Obama wins, probably a lot sooner.”

Heh. That’s funny, I don’t care who you are.

Seen here

Sheep have only two speeds – graze and stampede.

Via reader John.

On the power of positive thinking:

Those who believe in and hope for success often find themselves getting their asses kicked by people that actually work hard.

Don Gwinn (paraphrased) at the ParaUSA event.

I hate it. Can’t stand it. Tastes awful. I do, however, average about one shot per year. And this post is about that shot.

I would say Tequila tastes like hagfish slime except that we now know that tastes like eggs.

What kills me, though, is that no matter how much I tell people that I absolutely hate tequila with the fiber of my being, they still tell me that I just haven’t had good tequila yet. Invariably, I have a conversation with someone that goes like this:

Them: Oh, you’ll like this tequila it’s so smooth (Ed Note: it is usually Patrón).

Me: No, I just don’t care for tequila.

Them: No, this stuff is like $200 per bottle (Ed note: that may be wrong but is from memory but it puts at about $3.38 per ounce). Really, it’s smooth. You’ll like it!

Me: No, I won’t. I promise. You can save your $3.38. Smooth crap is still crap, it just came from a blender.

Them: Try it.

Me: No thanks. Really. You chase it with a lime for a reason, ya know. To get the taste of ass out of your mouth.

Them: Haha. No, you’ll like this. Try it. (repeat this about five times before I finally cave)

Me: Ok, but I won’t like it. (I usually cave realizing that, though it’s going to suck ass, this conversation will continue for the next two hours if I do not do a shot). And don’t act hurt when I tell you that I don’t like it.

Here’s where I take a shot, eat a lime real fast, and make the face of a man who just ate turds.

Them: You like it?

Me: No. I told you I wouldn’t. It tastes like tequila, which happens to taste like shit.

Them: You just don’t know good tequila.

Me: Oh, I know it. That was it. And it still tastes like moldy balls.

Them: You’re just uncooth.

Me: No, I just don’t like tequila. I tried to tell so you could save your $3.38.

I tried lying once stating that I did like it. But that was no good because they wanted me to do another shot. Ick.

So, World, please stop asking me to try your tequila.

And we know how I feel about the dentist.

Conversation with hygienist in regard to the voice recognition gizmo that records numbers that somehow correlate to gum health.

Hygienist: I became a hygienist because I can’t count.

Me: I became an accountant because I can’t count. Or do math.

Hygienist: You’re an accountant? You don’t act like an accountant.

Me: I don’t feel like an accountant.

I blame the gas.

My wife also decided to call during the cleaning. I answered AAWWWAAWWW (hello). She said Oh, you’re at the dentist. At first I thought you were being kidnapped.

Than some Tennessee whisky* on the back porch with a nice Gurkha Master Blender accompanied by the sounds of nature.

* Jack Daniels is for posers.

First habanero of the year. I diced this one up and put it in the wife’s white chicken chili:

Mmmmm.

Made from paper.

via guav.

Heard in the office:

He ain’t big as a fart.

Never heard that before. Ok, then.

Had some pipes burst last night. A few things:

When you turn off the water from the water heater, turn on the sink so it drains. This will save you some cussing at the water heater for not working right. The cussing doesn’t convince the water heater to do anything, btw.

Cold showers suck.

If you don’t shave, everyone at the office notices.

Cold showers really suck.

And to save your self some time and aggravation in the future, do not allow your wife to store a treadmill, two heavy boxes of paperwork, an old trash can full of unused sporting equipment, a steam cleaner, a vacuum, and boxes of old children’s clothes in front of the water heater. You may need to get to it quickly one day.

I’m serious, cold showers suck.

Update: Cause of leak, sheet rock screw pierced a pipe.

So, Greg tells you how he makes a martini. LawDog does the same.

Robb offers his $0.02. Heh.

To say I like my martinis dry is an understatement. My recipe is simple. And my friends will attest that this is the recipe I follow:

Put three olives (good ones, not cheap ones – all preference really) on a toothpick. Stick said toothpick into a cocktail glass.

In a cocktail mixer, add ice and vodka of choice (I go with Grey Goose). I use vodka because gin tastes like ass err Pine-Sol. Look at mixer and say the word vermouth. Shake. Pour into glass over olives.

There you go.

Apparently, there’s an effort to make men feminine. Now, I’m not all scared of gay cooties and I don’t fear metrosexuals. Hell, I’ve been known to have a pedicure and manicure myself (my dad will be along in a minute to make fun of that too). So, I got some girling it up street cred.

But this fashion trend of putting men in skinny clothes and having them apply lipstick is too much. Who seriously thought this would be fashionable? Or even remotely popular?

BTW, Breda’s title: I would not hit that. That had me laughing. And it had me thinking about a post here from a bit back:

Ah, euphemisms for doin’ it. And, ladies, if you wonder what men are doing when they’re quiet on the couch and appear to be in deep thought, it’s thinking of those.

Then we listed some, like:

But, you know, what would you come up with for not hitting it?

Not hitting it jokes are definitely harder, once you get past sports analogies.

One of my female readers (yes, I have a couple), emailed me regarding the post in which I complained about my wife’s purse:

It is MY EXPERIENCE that even while you men complain about the size of our purses, we are often asked to HOLD your things because we have room for them!

I’m constantly being asked by my boyfriend to put his camera, keys or something or other in my purse, because he doesn’t have room in his pockets!

I respond with:

I don’t complain about the size just the fact that she carries too much crap and can’t find any of the crap she carries. If I needed insulin, I would under no circumstance keep it in my wife’s purse.

I’m with Phelps, women just carry too much shit. Not counting clothing, on my person as we speak are the following:

Wallet
Keys
Watch
Wedding Band
Kel-Tec in holster
Extra mag for Kel-Tec
Phone (which has mp3 player, camera, GPS, and games!)
Knife

That’s it. You can drop me off almost anywhere in the country with those items and I’ll likely be fine. With the contents of my truck, it goes from almost anywhere to seriously anywhere.

What else do I need?

The Mrs. carries a monstrous purse. And she can never find her phone.

The Uncle household contains 14 trash cans.

I don’t know why but last night I decided to count them.

Update: I mentioned it to the wife. I was wrong. We have 16.

Update: Up to 17 now if you count the one under the shredder.

So, last weekend me, Junior and her cousin attended Michael’s daughter’s birthday party. Les Jones was there too. It was at Sprout Studio. It’s a neat place for small kids with lots of activities. Now, I’m not sure who came up with it first but Michael and I thought the place needed beer. And hot wings would be good too.

I called the wife yesterday and tell her that we left the front door open all night. I happened to walk by and saw it was unlocked. She asks when we would have opened it last night. And I said I thought her and Junior came in that way yesterday. They had not. We figure it had been open since Tuesday morning when the Mrs. talked to our lawn maintenance guys.

But remember, I’m paranoid.

Combat mindset is one way to put it. I’ve always liked the Boy Scout version (be prepared) better. It doesn’t scare the feminized majority.

I did not see the eclipse. It was cloudy.

Montana has a history of telling the feds to bugger off. Their legislature condemned the Patriot Act; they asked politicos for federal office why they think they’re exempt from campaign finance laws; and introduced a bill a while back telling the feds to get out of their gun permit and drivers’ license process. And they kicked around a law that said firearms made in Montana weren’t subject to federal law.

Well, now they’ve gone and impressed me again with their Heller brief:

A collective rights decision by the court would violate the contract by which Montana entered into statehood, called the Compact With the United States and archived at Article I of the Montana Constitution. When Montana and the United States entered into this bilateral contract in 1889, the U.S. approved the right to bear arms in the Montana Constitution, guaranteeing the right of “any person” to bear arms, clearly an individual right.

There was no assertion in 1889 that the Second Amendment was susceptible to a collective rights interpretation, and the parties to the contract understood the Second Amendment to be consistent with the declared Montana constitutional right of “any person” to bear arms.

As a bedrock principle of law, a contract must be honored so as to give effect to the intent of the contracting parties. A collective rights decision by the court in Heller would invoke an era of unilaterally revisable contracts by violating the statehood contract between the United States and Montana, and many other states.

I’m with Robb with two Bs, I need to find work there.

Self,

With all this talk about how it’s difficult to tell toy guns from real ones, if you see a gun-shaped object then it is in your best interest to assume it is a gun and act accordingly.

Sincerely,

Self

Update: Confederate Yankee has more.

The other day, I was listening to the old MP3 player. I noticed that a few songs sounded, well, different. Not a lot, just a bit. It was pretty neat. Then, I realized I had put the left headphone in the right ear and the right headphone in the left ear. So, when I wanted a bit of something different, I did that. Then the RIAA called me to tell me that I wasn’t enjoying their product in a manner their lawyers approved of and that I need to knock that off or they’ll sue me.

Or, you know, to proofread.

Just now, I was going back reading some posts. I found I quite often just forget to type words or type them too many times.

Dr. Helen notes why women like diamonds:

A good way to screen for men who are both willing and able to invest is to demand an expensive gift–known as a courtship gift or nuptial gift in evolutionary biology. Not just any expensive gift will do. A Mercedes or house does not usually fill the bill–for these might have intrinsic value to the man if he likes European cars or is interested in real estate. A courtship gift, according to the book, must be costly and lack intrinsic value and be useless.

Boy, this talk of evolutionary biology is sexy, no?

The Mrs. is more practical than that. For Valentines Day this year, she wanted shelving. SayUncle is opposed to buying diamonds for political reasons (diamond mining is deplorable; it funds violence in Africa; and diamonds fund terror groups). But I’ve been known to buy other baubles and such. I suppose this also explains why flowers are a good gift too. After all, they are useless and just sit in the house and die. But The Mrs. likes those, though being the practical sort, she forbids me from buying them anywhere near Valentine’s Day because the prices are ridiculous. Oh, and did I mention she’s frugal?

Men, however, like toys which may or may not be useless. Things that light up, go boom, etc.

Always … no … Never let your wife know that you know how to hang shelving. At least this batch is in the office closet so I can type this up quick.

I’ve been taking my hat off to lots of people today. A Florida student newspaper; Tennessee’s Attorney General; Al Gore and his internets; a Blount County Commissioner; the US Senate; even Bob Corker.

Seems like today is going well. This much good stuff can’t happen at once. I suddenly find myself preparing to be disappointed by something big.

Today, for the first time since I can remember, there is absolutely nothing in the Outlook inbox. That’s a good thing.

Via everyone, comes this. SayUncle is the same age as Kid Rock, Denise Richards, Sean Astin, Winona Ryder, Ricky Martin, Nasdaq, Disney World, and the Libertarian party.

And like that, he was gone. One of my poker buddies dead at age 25. Played Tuesday. Dead Wednesday. Tragic. Just a kid. Makes you think, though.

Chris mourns the loss of darkness. In these parts, I have plenty. I recall moving from Knoxville to The City (my The City – which is not really so much a city) and thinking about how nice it was to see the stars.

Boy, you confuse cholesterol with carbohydrates once when you’re 19 and it haunts you forever.

Blank-firing adapter successfully installed. All went well. I got a shot of happy stuff, which the doc said was like six beers in 30 seconds. Clearly, he’s never seen me drink and another half dose would have been nice.

Interesting note is that your vasa deferentia are white. Yeah, I watched. Even more bizarre, so did the Mrs.

Be in bed most of tomorrow. Maybe blog, may not.

An haiku in memoriam of my vasa deferentia:

You will be severed
Thanks for carrying my genes
Now, to shave my dudes

In case you couldn’t tell, it’s vasectomy day! We’ve decided we’re done having children.

By the way, all the literature my doc gave me on the procedure has images. In all those images, the jimmy in question is standing at attention. I don’t think that during such a procedure, that would be the case. But we can’t show flaccid ones lest we shatter our male egos. I blame the patriarchy.

The Uncle Clan survived. Things should get back to normal later today or tomorrow.

Via the doc, comes this quiz:
Read the rest of this entry »

How redneck am I?

Well, dinner just consisted of collard greens with chicken and dumplings.

And go Vols! Never thought I’d see 4^th and 36!

Update: Despite my encouragement, the Vols did not go. And, at Kohl’s today, UT clothing was 50% off. Ouch.

1 – Today, I listened to my first podcast. It was Glenn and Helen’s chat with Bob Levy on the DC gun case.

2 – I went to the bus station. Seems you need to be careful at any place you order stuff online that offers free shipping. They used Greyhound Express and I had to go pick up the items. That’s a pretty shady part of town.

So, the other night at a little bit after dark (say a bit past 8:00), The Second was in his bed sawing toothpicks, the Mrs. was at the gym, and me and Junior were downstairs watching Little Bear for 1,483rd time that day when Politically Incorrect Dog starts raising utter Hell. Now Politically Incorrect Dog makes very distinct sounds. He has a low groan which translates as I want that thing. Please give it to me. He has a high pitched groan which translates as I’m serious, I want that thing. Why haven’t you given it to me yet and it follows the aforementioned groan. He has a mid-ranged woof that indicates hey, there’s someone here who I happen to like. He has a half-hearted bark which translates as Someone’s at the door. You may want to check it out but otherwise I’m mostly unconcerned. And he has his OMG. Do something now or I’m gonna kill it bark. That bark, I’d only heard once before and I heard it again the other night.

I thought someone was in my house. I told Junior to stay put. Retrieved El Nino* from the safe (whole process took about five seconds). And went upstairs. Politically Incorrect Dog continued his hell-raising, ear-splitting barking. He was staring at the door. I set El Nino down by the banister and looked out the door. Two Jehovah’s Witnesses. At night. Repeatedly knocking and ringing the doorbell where there is a sleeping child. While an obviously angry dog kept barking at them. I guess they’re persistent. I looked at them through the door, shook my head, and walked away. You might get more converts if you weren’t such pricks.

The Second, thankfully, is a sound sleeper and slept through it. Of course, he slept through the alarm one night when I accidentally set it off.

To add to the story, the Mrs. was pulling into the subdivision and noticed the Jehovah’s Witnesses at our door. She did another lap to avoid them. She had the same reaction as I did. Seriously, it was night time you twits.

* Why El Nino? Because at close range, I can put 10 in an eyeball.

Seems there are two places where individual IQs drop by at least 50% and the collective IQ drops by much more: Parking lots and grocery stores. Yes, I went Krogering.

I have a terrible sense of direction. I couldn’t find my own ass with two hands and an ass map. But LawDog comes to the rescue telling me how figure out where to go without the use of a compass. And a way to do so at night.

Insty links to 25 things a man should know how to do. Phelps is a man. And he also offers his far more, err, useful list:

Stop arterial bleeding

[...]

Read a children’s book aloud with funny voices

Useful skills to have. I think I’d add:

Clean a carcass

Purify water

Tie a knot (including one for a fishhook)

Know the lyrics to at least ten kids’ songs

Break up a dog fight

• Great show, not-so-great venue. Standing room only, which wouldn’t have been so bad except it was packed, and you had a lot of pushy people who were constantly going back-and-forth.
• When you’ve been taking muscle relaxers, Maker’s Mark is not your friend. Even if you stop taking them fully six hours before you start the Maker’s Mark.
• Maker’s Mark + residual muscle relaxers = portions of night blacked out.
• Deciding to do an impromptu photo shoot with random hot chicks whom you found in the hotel lobby will not go over well with your wife, particularly not when she’s standing right there. Even if you remember absolutely none of it. Especially when she can pull out the camera and show you the pictures to prove it. (Odds are, she will then make you delete the photos.)
• You know you’re drunk when: you can barely even hold yourself up over the bathtub to get sick. (Somebody kept moving the damn thing!)
• Creative use of iPod #37: Blocking out the sound of your husband getting violently ill in the bathroom of your hotel room.
• Girsch’s Law of Hungover Travel: If you’re hung over on a day when you have to fly, you will get a turbulent flight
• An airplane lavatory is not a pleasant place to get ill. Rumor has it.
• It’s good to be back home, and no longer hung over!

Congrats.

For when you’re lost in the woods.

The family is here and having a good time. I’d post pics but the camera is in the bedroom where the second is napping.

Junior loved the beach. The Second took some time to warm up to it. And he’s got the trots diarrhea*. And diaper rash.

But other than that, we’re having a good time.

* The Mrs. says trots sounds trashy.

1 – Note to self: Self, when your car has been in the 102º degree heat for about six hours, the ChapStick in your console will become roughly the same temperature as napalm. Fortunately, ChapStick can be kinda soothing on the burn it just gave you.

2 – Blogging from me will be light. Gotta do all that crap that’s gotta be done prior to vacation. So, guest bloggers can run amok.

3 – Will the asshole that runs this site please stop pinging my site. And something goofy is going on. I keep telling wordpress and SK2 to ban the URL and it still gets through. Feh.

The other day, I went outside to fix Junior’s seat on the bike. As I was tightening a bolt, I looked at my leg and there were five mosquitoes bellied up to the buffet. Ugh. I looked at Junior and she had some on her too. Took her inside, I hit myself with some Off and continued working. Anyway, via MCB, we learn that some plants repel the little buggers. Good to know. We have a Rosemary bush (for eating) on the side yard. Now, I’m gonna put a couple by the front and back porches.

The field behind my house has some. They now have one less.