Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Hopefully DADT Is Now History

I got out of the military over 20yrs before Don't Ask Don't Tell was enacted so have no experience with it personally.  I've worked with ex-military that served during DADT and judging by the homophobia displayed by some, it must have been hell to be gay in the military.  Seemed like the more religious, the more homophobic.  One theme that kept coming up was their not wanting to have to shower with gays(a secret fantasy maybe??)

Anywho, like I said, I wasn't in during DADT.  When I was in being gay was a way to get out of the military and during 'Nam that was something to be desired.  Of course, proving one was gay was not easy, one almost had to get down on his knees and blow someone.  There were enough guys trying to get out that it was hard for anyone to get discharged before their hitch was up.  It was easier to get discharged because of a mental problem.  One guy I knew went to the doctor and complained about not being able to sleep and got sleeping pills.  They caused him to oversleep and be a couple hours late to work.  After several months of him being late a number of times and even being reassigned to a job with a later start time, he was finally discharged.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

If I Knew You Were Coming, I'd Have Baked a Cake

But nobody came so I baked a pie.
Homemade Apple Pie
It was a dreary day with rain off and on and there were several trees loaded with apples.

Memory Lapse or Willful Ignorance??

For several months now I've heard various people on TV saying Obama has been in office for 3yrs.  Makes me wish I could reach into the TV and dope-slap them upside the head and say, "Look FUCKWAD, he wasn't even fucking elected 3yrs ago!!"  I can almost understand the Reich-WingNut apologists saying that because it probably seems even longer for them, but I've heard some so-called "journalists" say the same thing.  Maybe it's because they heard it somewhere, OH, that's right, the propagandists for the Reich-Wing have been saying that since last spring.

Whoever wrote "lamestream media" on Palin's hand with crayon got it right even if it was unintentional.  It was meant to be more 'librul' media bashing and I'm sure there are those that take it as such.  I however think the media no longer does journalism, they just puke back what they've been fed, which IMHO makes them pretty fucking lame!!

Friday, September 16, 2011

Time to Take Down the Feeder

Looked out this morning and saw there was ice in the hummingbird feeder.  Guess it's time to take it down and put it away until next year.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Work and Taxes

Recently saw a comment on facebook that was a snide remark about how Obama was going to tax the rich and give it all to the workers.  It was obvious the guy had bought into the Reich-WingNut bullshit about how it doesn't do any good to tax the rich.  The irony is that if they don't get more money from those that can afford to pay taxes, he is in a group that is the easiest in the country to get more taxes from.  He works for a company at an hourly wage, and if the government decides to raise his taxes, the employer will automatically suck it out of his paycheck and there's nothing he can do about it.

I left a snide remark about how I was glad he enjoyed paying a higher percentage of his income in taxes than the super rich.  Also gave an example of how once back in the late 90s the Senator of the state I was working in at the time released his tax return.  He made over 10 times what The Old Lady and I did the previous year and paid less than half of what we did.  This was not percentages but actual FUCKING  DOLLARS!!

As sometimes happens, this kept popping up in my mind most of the day.  When I figured out the percentages, I got pissed.  We paid 10% of our income(which shows how fucking little we made) in federal tax, the Senator paid less than half a percent!!!  Based on percentages, we paid over 20 times as much of our income than the Senator!!!

Looking back(hindsight being 20-20 and all), that was what probably caused me to lose any and all enthusiasm for working.  I'd never had much enthusiasm for working, usually worked when I had to to survive, but after that I had more "quality time" in my work history.  I guess in the back of my mind(??) I was thinking, why bother busting my ass to make more money when all it would mean is paying more taxes to subsidize the rich bastards who paid little or no taxes.  I would never get to the point where I could reduce my tax burden like the Senator did.  We have never been able to reduce our taxes with deductions, the standard deduction was always greater than our itemized deductions even though we have had mortgages and paid hefty interest on them.

This is all water under the bridge so to speak, shoulda, coulda, woulda!!  I'm retired now, but if I had worked more, I'd get a few more dollars each month in Social Security.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Friday, September 9, 2011

They're Growing Billboards


H/T to Skippy for the link.

Test Driving the New Woodstove

Got the new woodstove Wednesday.  Reading the owners manual, I discovered it needs to be broken in.  This is the first time I've seen anything about having to break in a stove.  Had to buy a thermometer so could do the break in properly.  Wasn't really cool this morning(70 degrees in the house), but thought I'd start the break in process now so can use it when the weather gets cold enough to use the stove.
On the first firing, you only bring the temperature of the stove up to 200 degrees F.  Hold it for an hour and let it cool to room temp.  Second firing, bring it up to 300F, hold for an hour and cool.  Third firing, bring it up to 400F for an hour and cool.  Then it should be broken in and can be used as needed.
Having a learning curve on firing this stove.  It is so air-tight that it took me 3 tries to get a fire going.  Finally figured out I had to leave the door open a little for it to get enough air to start burning good.  The little air vent in the door doesn't provide enough air when starting a fire.
Cast into the front of the stove is a Norwegian saying, "I built me a flame late one night.  When day is done, God will my flame never die."  Question is which God, Thor or Odin??

Happy Camper

Last night I was able to watch the Packer game online.  It was livestreamed on nbc.com and because I have my TV hooked up to the confuser, I was able to watch the game comfortably from my recliner.  Have to see if that will work for other games on Fox or CBS.

It kept saying it was Sunday Night Football or SNF, but wasn't last night Thursday????

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Life UP on the Tundra

CALUMET - A beaver cut through a fiber optic cable 2 miles south of Calumet, causing 911 service outage today in northern Houghton County and all of Keweenaw County, along with additional problems for AT&T landline customers in the 337 and 289 prefix telephone exchanges.


Article in The Daily Mining Gazette.


Same thing happened a couple of years ago.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Car Ads

Noticed a couple of things while watching ads on TV lately.  It is not just the FuckingRepublican politicians that think geezers have money, that's why they want to make cuts to their Social Security and Medicare.





The other thing I noticed in these ads is how fucking lame their kids are!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chainsaws

A few days ago I was going to cut up some trees I had cut down.  On the first cut my saw started making a weird noise.  I bought the saw 14yrs ago and can't figure out why it would give me trouble now after all those years of good service??

Husqvarna 51
Wanted to get the wood cut, so went to my back-up saw, a Stihl 015.  That little saw cut a lot of firewood when I first bought it.  It was my only saw for several years before I bought a larger saw, a Stihl 029.  Then 14yrs ago I bought the Husky 51 because The Kid wouldn't use either of  my saws because they didn't have chain brakes.

Stihl 015
Realized again how much more work it was to cut with the smaller saw.  Once when I was cutting with the 029, the muffler came loose.  Decided to finish cutting firewood with the 015 until I had a load.  After several cuts in some large wood, I packed it in and went home to fix the 029 as cutting with the 015 was much more work.  The 015 is good for trimming and cutting small brush, but is a lot of work when it comes to cutting large wood.
The cause of the weird noise, broken clutch spring.
When I took the side cover off, I found the cause of the noise.  The clutch spring had broken.
New spring installed.
The next day I when to town and bought a new spring for the clutch.  Cost all of $2.99.  Took a number of attempts to get the ends of the spring hooked together.

Thursday, September 1, 2011