Thanks for the Help!!!

Well it's the 17th of June and our President really kicked BP's ass the past couple of days. He made them pledge $20 billion on the cleanup effort of the Gulf . BP rolled over and agreed. The next day gasoline went up from $2.49 to $2.76. You could almost see the price signs change in front of your eyes. So BP makes gasoline go up over 25 cents a gallon, and probably makes the $20 billion up in the latter half of this week. Thanks Mr. President and BP . We all needed that. Speaking of meltdowns of the week, what is it with that crazy-assed old Helen Thomas?? She went from being the darling of the press corp to being the pariah. I think she must have had a Senior moment, but I think she's always been batty. Helen is of Lebanese descent and seems to dislike the Jewish people. She wants the Israelis to give up Palestine and go somewhere else. She appears to have some Germanic blood as well as Lebanese. One of the late night boys remarked that she must have been a good journalist as she certainly hadn't slept her way to the top. Helen has some Kentucky roots and was rumored to be coming back . Please don't.This past weekend was the annual Brass Band Festival in Danville and it seems to grow bigger every year. As always they have a hot air balloon race and they all took off on Sunday night, and most landed near US 150 between Stanford and Danville. I must say it was a refreshing sight to see the bright colors as they came down amid the rich green country side. What I did miss was the brass band music. It's just not my thing. I think Helen Thomas would have made a great Grand Marshall. The Eagles are coming to Louisville in October and Sandy Kay is ordering tickets torrow when they go on sale. They are the opening ceremony for the grand opening of U of L's new arena. Maybe Pitano will forego having sex after hours in restaurants and attend the show. You know, having a meal in any of Louisville's eating establishments just hasn't been the same. It's quite the classy couple who do the deed after hours in a booth. Talk about bus boy cleanups. Do you think they left a tip?? Go Cards!! I've been thinking about my 100 greatest rock and roll songs list, and I have to believe that AQUALUNG by Jethro Tull is one of the top albums, and that Locomotive Breath is the best song. That's just my opinion. Speaking of opinions, the Saga of Fort Logan has to be one of the brighter ideas to continue to unfold in Stanford. The committee to date has spent $104,000 to have a blockhouse and section of wall erected. The masterminds have run out of money,and say it will take nearly $1 million dollars to complete. It's like we don't have needs for that money elsewhere in the county.I know they always say it's grant money that someone else will get if we don't .I think it's a foolish pursuit that is wasting a lot of money . It does however keep a half dozen local zealots occupied in a pursuit away from normal society.Maybe they should utilize Helen Thomas in the Fort Reconstruction as she probably reported on the original construction of Fort Logan in 1775.We are still in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why? We can't blame George, Dick, and Donald anymore. Al Gore and Tipper are splitting after 40 years. Does anyone remember that open mouthed kiss at the Democratic nominating convention?? Wow Al's global warming is about over. Who do you reckon Al and Tipper will end up with?? Probably not Hillary or that trashy old Johnny Edwards. Edwards ended up with about as much class as a Saturday night whoremonger. Wasn't he a most trustworthy man? Cheating on a wife suffering with cancer, while wearing a $400 haircut. Trashy little Johnny Edwards.By now the idiot Governor of South Carolina is sinking into obscurity, and his Argentian hottie has dropped him. Another trashy man bites the dust.And what can we add about the past criminal governor of Illinois? Rod is heading for Reality TV, where he certainly has a future. I have to admit that I am missing the honesty and good old days of Bubba Clinton and his whores.These trailor trash politicians and their cheap, tawdry affairs just pale when compared to Bubba.I figure gas will be nearly $4 a gallon before BP cleans up the mess and pays its fines. Chastising BP is starting to look like throwing the rabbit in the briar patch for punishment.The Aruban Murderer has struck again and maybe tne Peruvians will lock him up.I think he is Satan on earth. Eastern Kentucky sales continue to grow and business is good . I just hope they get that damned fort done before the Shawnees realize Stanford is vulnerable. Love, peace, and rock and roll.

Just Checking In

Well here it is May 27 and it's almost halfway through good old 2010. By now the BP oil rupture has surpassed the Exxon Valdez and everyone is pointing fingers at each other.This country has become a nation of whiners and cry babies. We have a massive oil rupture nearly a mile below the surface of the Gulf Of Mexico and we can't seem to stop the flow, which will eventually besmear the white sands of the Gulf Coast of the US. Evidentally there are no contingency plans for such a catastrophe. Even the press is losing patience with Obama and his administration. Remember George Bush and FEMA?? Remember Katrina?? I'm glad I don't have to deal with something like this. The consequences of this may affect the environment for the lives of many generations. The stock markets continue to be volatile and fell over 700 points one day alone. They're still investigating what happened there. Something about a mistake with zeroes. Yeah right, zeroes my ass! The smart ass white boys on Wall Street are still playing games with all of our futures and retirements. I say the only thing you can trust is Rock and Roll and Nascar.We're still in Iraq and Afghanistan. Didn't we elect a man who was going to wind this fiasco down? Now we're sending more troops to Afghanistan.Maybe we should send those WAll Street criminals across the sea. Boy they'd suck the life out of those militant troublemakers. I also would suggest we send Jason Bourne over to help in our quest for world freedom. By this stage in my life I have tried to wean myself away from all current events and news. Europe is trying its best to drag the world into a major depression. Greece is going down the tubes and is taking the Euro down. Does anyone know what Greece has done in the last 2000 years? I don't . The last monumental Greek story involved the Spartans and the Athenians. Any country where the heroes wear short skirts and drag wooden horses around the Mediterranean isn't of much consequence. The country's legends have kept Brad Pitt busy for a few years , but the Greeks are probably more famous for olives and ouzo than their economic impact on the world.I would like to go to Santorini for a week or so. The blue of the sea and sky with the whitewashed houses are beautiful in pictures.Maybe if they go broke we can find some bargains. Our elections are over until November , and maybe we can catch our collective breaths for a while without some dumb-assed would be politico knocking on your door. The signs sprang up like some nasty , evil plant that grew to maturity. As usual I was cruising through Manchester and there was the usual colorful boys running for office. As the norm, everyone in Clay County seems to feel more comfortable with a nickname. "Tireman" was running for some office, and "Jam-up " was running for another. I wonder if Jam-up was running against "Jelly-tite". Or does Tireman moonlight in a pit crew? What I do know is that Crawdad lost his re-election bid. In our own county "Popcorn" won for constable.Buckwheat didn't run , and Jim-Bo will in all liklihood be our next judge. How can you not like a guy named Jim-Bo? Dave the Magistrate has won his Republican primary against a pretty weak candidate.Dave decided to commit his race on the air waves of FaceBook, and now has close to 2200 friends.I read in one of Sandy's womens' magazines that the average person can only deal with 150 friends, but Dave is the master with over 2000. At the moment our new company has more projects going than we ever thought possible, and the quality of the work is the best I've seen in years.I'm still in a funk over TV as I'm perplexed as to how I'm paying $90 a month to Dish Network and I have more shopping channels than anything. What is this SOBONGO bullshit?? And like do these intense guys have nothing better to do than try to sell you huge, gaudy watches in purple and orange??? And Esteban, how many frigging guitars can people buy as you strum with those long, nasty fingernails.And come on now is your name really Esteban?? I bet you have a name like Jim or Johnny. Could it be that when you're not hawking guitars on QVC that you are up in Clay County running for office as Jam-up?? This Kate woman really bothers me too. As I understand it she was married to some chubby oriental guy and somehow they have 8 kids. I don't know how they got the kids but they have been all over tv , and seemed to have split . I caught that she was on a dancing show but lost. Look lady, if you'd danced all along instead of doing the dirty maybe you wouldn't have had 8 kids. I know for a fact that I had an aunt Marcell that had 7 or 8 kids and thought nothing of it. In Stanford and Lincoln County we have tons of chubby boys and over-sexed girls living in trailors with lots of kids, and live normal lives. I rest my case. Since when has fertility become fashionable? I guess I've gotten too old and I don't understand this crap on TV anymore. I do like the occasional Monsterquest and The Newly Wed Game with that fat  Carnie Wilson.You might say I'm into the intellectual side of TV. I'm looking at a new I-Pod that can store 40,000 songs. Now they're talking. 40,000 songs will keep me busy for a while. I've been listening to "I Love Beach Music ", and it seems to make grass cutting go faster. I burned Slashes new one from a crazy chick acquaintance. She likes Ozzie and Metallica , but at least its not about 8 kids and Esteban. Tomorrow its Eastern Kentucky and maybe a little Slash. Have to watch those Troopers on the parkway though. They come out in warm weather.

Barbie Takes A Swim

Like everything else in life, all good things must come to an end, and our little visit to paradise was over all too quickly. One lasting memory of this last month was the constant traffic of boat traffic on the canal behind our house. The commercial pontoons carrying manatee swimmers would be bumper to bumper starting before 8 o'clock in the morning, and would end up at about five o'clock. Our canal was only a hundred yards from The Three Sisters Springs where the manatees live during the winter , and tourists paid $35-40 a trip to don wet suits and masks to snorkel with these creatures. Sometimes there would be 5 to 6 boatloads of tourists at a time, with maybe a total of 75-100 snorkelers in the water. Talk about chaos! Along with the boats would be wall to wall kayakers as they came down to view all the sights. These kayaks were of all colors and sizes but were mainly of the single person size. Many had dogs riding on the fronts with their masters. We always got a chuckle out of this petite middle-aged blonde who had a hot pink kayak , and often wore a matching pink wetsuit. We started calling her Barbie because she was Barbie grown to middle age. She was always cheerful and spoke to us as she glided by on her way to see the manatees, blond hair generally in a pony tail. I just knew that somewheres parked down the canal she had a pink Corvette just like in the old Mattel ads of thirty years ago. As luck would have it we had rented a pontoon to go diving out in Kings Spring ,and Barbie was cruising by on her morning tour and dumped herself in the water in the canal behind our house. Sandy loaned her a towel and she went on her way. I don't think her current mate is Ken because he's an old guy like me and looks straight. We were in the murky depths of Kings Spring when all the excitement happened. Kings Spring is about 50 feet deep and water rushes out at millions of gallons a day to enter eventually into the Gulf Of Mexico . We anchored the pontoon in 12 feet of water and I dove down to make sure it set in the muddy bottom as there was a large boat load of wetskin clad tourists 20 feet from us. The boat rental people call it a cattle boat as there were about 25-30 swimmers aboard. The first thing I noticed as I descended down the anchor line was I nearly collided with a half grown manatee as he was cruising along. He came up to me and let me rub his blubbery belly and went on about his business. I joined Tim and we descended to the murky depths of the Spring . I have been in it at times when it was crystal clear, but not today. There was about five feet of visibility and I could barely see Tim's light. There are always schools of saltwater fish in the springs as they come up the channel to the 70 degree water.The schools of silvery mullet caught what rays of light came through the murk, and almost looked electrified. There were several large black and white striped fish feeding on the bottom, and we nearly ran headfirst into a 12 foot manatee that probably weighed about 2500 pounds. He was in no hurry and swam with his belly up to the sun . I may be his size not far in the future.We loaded up and cruised down the canal to the Three Sisters Springs where we did some snorkling with the hordes of sightseers. Later on we borrowed Kayaks from our next door neighbor, and she asked if we had used kayaks before , and we said no. She laughed and said, "Get ready to get wet." Like Barbie, my ass was under water in one minute after I got on. I lost my glasses, but after all , I am a diver, and I found them in the mud. So no harm done. Tim and Eddie didn't fall off. Maybe I was the only one cursed, but then it's not every day one has the opportunity to swim with the real Barbie. Betsy, the patient girl that cuts my hair every three or four months collects Barbie Dolls, and I guess she has done this since her childhood. When I found this out about 10 years ago from a casual conversation, I had to add to her collection, and I went to the flea market and found these two old, naked Barbies with matted hair and ground-in dirty skin. Betsy had earlier gotten a tattoo above her buttocks, so I took an ink pen and made a similar tattoo on the trashy Barbies' asses. They were exquisite and Betsy was totally speechless.I'm still confused as to how I knew about her tattoo. I feel privileged to have seen middle-aged Barbie and her pink kayak.Barbie's last name is Roberts. That is a true fact . Look it up, and I wish I didn't know that.I've been listening to the Spinner's Greatest Hits, and Rubberband Man seems appropriate to diving in murky waters. I bet Barbie sneaks and listens to Amy Winehouse when old Ken isn't around. It's back to the Mountains of Eastern Kentucky tomorrow, and Noran Jone's new disc , thanks to Timmy.

Florida

Well here we are in sunny Florida in Crystal River watching the big schools of manatees as they cruise up and down the canal behind our rental house. These brutes weigh up to 900 to one thousand pounds and live on vegetation. Supposedly they are kin to elephants and spend their entire lives in and under water. They are mammals that have been nearly killed to extinction, mainly by spinning propellers on boats. They come up for air every five minutes or so, but can stay under for up to 20 minutes at a time if freightened. The newborn weigh about 75 pounds and nurse milk from their mothers. Supposedly there are about 40 manatees that winter over here in Crystal River because the springs pump out a huge flow of 70 degree water. The Fish And Game Department keeps track of the manatees by the monsterous scars on their backs.Crystal River, like New Port Richey, is blessed with a large population of really elderly people. I don't mean just old, but really, really, really old. It's like The Northern US flushed and the ancients flowed to Florida. They are not only old, but they are all from New England and talk like the Kennedys.Last week it was chilly and rainy, but this week promises to be sunny and warmer, like Florida is supposed to be. I've been working on jobs via e-mail and cell phone and I really dread going home to a backlog of work, but that's part of life. We went down to the waterfront in Tampa on Saturday and it was beautiful as always. There was a huge cruise ship in port, discharging hordes of guess what?? More ancients , just what Florida needs.Timmy is coming down and we're going diving and attempt to find mermaids again. We can't do worse that last year. I certainly didn't bring last years wet suit back . That ordeal was humiliating and dangerous to bystanders. This year it's polartec or no dives.I saw on weather.com that we are having snow and cold back home, and I'm thankful to be here. This morning it was 70 degrees and sunny. My little buddy Corrine seems on edge over global warming, and my advice is more Southern Comfort. Well it's time to take a walk and check out the oldsters, maybe a few mermaids will pop up in the canal.I'm going to play them a little bit of "Latin Girls" by the Black Eyed Peas. I hope the Mermaids look like Fergie.

Cornering The Market On Ignorance

I looked at the exterior thermometer and it was 17 degrees with a promise from Bill Meck on Channel 18 that we would finally be above freezing tomorrow for the first time in a long time. I guess I'm dwelling on this weather thing because I, likeone else has had enough of this crap!!It was freezing in MIami this past weekend , and I bet the Cubans were trying to float back to Havana and Fidel. It was over a hundred years ago since Miami was this cold. Even Key West was 44 degrees!There,s something wrong when New York and Boston are as warm as South Florida in January. Maybe Al Gore should go down on South Beach and figure this Global Warming situation out. Scientists said that the Ice in Antartica is breaking up , but the water is below freezing, and they don't know why. They can only scratch their heads. I don't exactly know what a scientist is anyway. Just who exactly designates a man or woman as a "Scientist"?Most scientists appoint themselves , and the thing most have in common is that they must literally publish articles in their fields in obscure trade journals on a frequent basis. Most scientists cannot actually converse with someone out of their field. I guarantee the average scientist would screw up an order at a convenient food mart for strawberry icecream. At the best the stuff would be melting out on the floor while they absorbed the labels on everything in the freezer section.It's almost like the weather guys and girls on TV. I don't want entertainment for weather , or long explanations. I don't need to know about verge or wind chill. And please quit this business of a short weather teaser and then a promise of what else is coming later. And what's with all Lexington Stations having such a wide difference in forecasts? One prognosticator even has a 3 degree guarantee. I have not heard what happens if he misses his guarantee. If so do we get rewards, or better yet does some UK football player get to whip his ass? I think not , but then maybe I should have threatened him with a Clemson Player. I honestly think the pale TV weather boys could keep up with the cats on the football field. Speaking of The Cats, is there something out of adjustment on my flat screen?? Mrs. Dario Francetti looked like she had put on a few since the last time. But who am I to criticize, she's still pretty. The only word of caution-Wynona.This cold weather has caused me to do some erratic things, and out of curiosity I picked up Amy Whitehouse's "Back To Black". When she won the awards the last year or so I was unfamiliar with her other than she was a skinny , skanky looking Englishwoman who had bad tastes in men, drug habits , and a propensity to brawl in public. I thought there must be some talent to this chick, and guess what?? I got hooked after the second sound track.This skanky girl can sing!! Her music reminds me of the girl singers of the 60's and 70's, as well as her back up music. I'm hooked on her like Fergie.I also picked up a 2 volume set of Marvin Gaye, and took a trip back through time to Water Street in Richmond , Ky, circa 1968. Then Exile was The Exiles, and country wasn't their genre. It was wall to wall with girls under black lights and flashing strobes with too much makeup, and a tendency to wear lots of hairspray. We didn't have I Phones or computers, and wouldn't for 30 years or so. I don't think I missed them. The girls were always prettier under the strobes, and generally changed looks once outside. I did too though, so we were all even. Sometimes there were positive connections, and sometimes we would trade connections in the course of a trip down at Specks. We didn't hold it against each other most of the time. One of my favorite of all girls I found in the Spring of 1968 in the middle of a ferocious snowball fight between the Combs Class Room Building and the University Building. My best buddy had already given up and headed on his eventual way to Saigon and a warmer climate.I missed him and his free spirited ways , but I was a Freshman and she was a Senior. I eventually went on to another senior,but met my buddy two years later as one of his pall bearers. Life was a temporary bitch, but youth forgets. My last homecoming football game at Hanger Field found my friend's date sitting next to me munching on her yellow football mum corsage. In her defense she left the stem and ribbon, and seemed none the worse for wear.This all comes back to the fact that it was probably even colder, and I never even thought about the weather and never bitched. It actually made the girls get closer for warmth. The difference today, 40 years later? I'm having to help pay for heat bills, and the girls just put on another sweater or blanket. There's no more snowball fights, strobe lights, or drunken girls in my life. I don't think I miss that, but thanks skanky Amy for triggering some warm memories, as well as Marvin for making those girls go ballestic on "Long Distant Lover".Tomorrow is up to mid 30's. Life is good.

A Balmy Evening In Stanford

Today is January 5, 2005, and the temperature rose to 24 degrees, up from 12 degrees during the night. The only thing worse would be -36 degrees in International Falls or nearly freezing in Miami. Nostradamos predicted 2012 as the end of the world, maybe it really is 2010. Freezing in Miami would cause Brittany and Paris to wear drawers when cavorting down on South Beach. Maybe even some long johns. And just who or what is this Lady GaGa?? I read that Rosie O'Donnell and her woman had split, and like who cares?? No one cares when fat, ugly, and obnoxious people encounter bumps in the road of life.I've gotten old and do not comprehend as readily as I used to. Here in the nation of Big Blue and UK we beat the little adulterer Pitino and life is good. We traded our old model Italien for a new and improved one. Poor little Billie G. passed GO and collected his $3 million dollars and promptly checked himself into rehab. Where Tiger ends up is anyone's guess. Estimates say he was making up to $300 million in endorsements, but was paying up to $14,000 a night for the favors of women. I hope Sandy does not use that for her pay scale. It pretty well does away with hopes for minimum wage rates in the future. Now Tiger's sponsors are dropping like flies. Maybe Nike could put its trademark swoosh on the asses of Tigers hookers. Maybe he can do for prostitution what he did for golf.It amazes me as to how prominent , wealthy people are so willing to self destruct.I think when these celebrities do such trashy, low down stunts that they should all have to live together in a worn out mobile home park. I also think some people are destined from birth to become trashy, regardless of circumstances. You can take a fat, ugly, hog into the house and wash the mud off, powder it up with a satin bow and where does it race to?The nearest mud hole. Another terrorist has reminded us of the fragile nature of our safety , and burned off his gonads coming into Detroit.Maybe if all the terror acts were so ill conceived ,that would thin out the ranks of our sworn enemies. We can't profile because this would be politically incorrect. The Israelis have profiled for years and don't have airline problems like we do. The head of Israeli Security said not all Muslims are airline terrorists, but that all airline terrorists are Muslim. What are we missing as a thinking nation? I've got several jobs in Eastern Kentucky, and I really have to make some order out of chaos if I'm going to leave for Florida for the month of February. This year we're going to Crystal River and cavort with the manatees. I'm making a firm committment to the mermaid cause one more time.I surely hope the cold weather is over when we go down because nothing is worse than cold weather in Paradise when you're paying by the day.I was in London today on a jobsite where the main blessing was that the slimy, red mud was frozen. The last visit on site took me a week to get rid of the mud. I've got another job in the mountains that doesn't work well in ice and snow. Even four wheel drive can be an adventure here on this site.Sandy ran me out of my old design center , and now I am paying rent. I've got the company up and running in 10 months, and I have had remarkable results for the efforts.I'm still trying to determine whether I'll get a H1N1 shot, now that they are available. Tim the Divorced Pharmacist encourages everyone to do so. He thinks the second round could mutate and be pretty bad.I heard today that H1N1 has killed 11,000 people already in the US. The flu after WW1 killed nearly one half million world wide!I had the dreaded blood work in December and sat in a waiting room with these two dorks who were wearing the surgical masks. Damn, they looked stupid. Never figured out if they were protecting us from them, or them from us. Must have worked as I didn't get it.I took Sandy to see Sherlock Holmes at the theater in Danville. It was so-so but that Rachel McAdams was screaming hot.She can come to Stanford and not wear underwear any time she pleases. I also watched the new Star Trek on Dvd, and it was my favorite of all. I have to admit to being a Trekkie from the start when William Shatner played a youthful Kirk.The writers from the new Star Trek got it right. I give it an A. Sherlock I give a C+. I like to never have found that damned + sign. Speaking of cell phone technology, my niece got a new I phone and it does about everything. You can let it listen to seconds of a song and it will tell you the singer, the song title, and even show you the album cover. Now that all makes sense.I downloaded Rod Stewarts"Soul Book" from I tunes and I give it a B overall. The track," Rainy Night In Georgia" I give an A.I took the nieces and nephews to Rupp and saw the Tran Siberian Orchestra . Best laser and light show and cavorting go go dancers. Beats the hell out of The Radio City Christmas show. Rockettes are ok,but....The Black Eye Peas are coming to Rupp but we'll be in Crystal River. Sorry Fergie, I'll miss you too.Dave the magistrate is gearing up for another run this year. His strategy is to use Face Book and get his message out to the peeps. So far he has over 800 friends ,and is giving out morsels of magisterial wisdom.I still don't understand FaceBook . I don't have but one or two friends--thats total.I got a new Garmin GPS and it works great. Timmy got tired of the old one in San Francisco , and sprang for the new model . We'll need it in April to get us to Talledega,speaking of trailer park people.I'm preparing my state of my union address for next time. Keep warm, and you girls keep the drawers up until spring.Really, who is this Lady GaGa thing???

Almost Thanksgiving

Well here it is , the week before Thanksgiving, 2009. This year has rapidly come and gone and a lot has happened.Only this morning I was thinking of how time is speeding by, and I nearly ran over one of our 2 official street persons as I was pulling in for gas at the BP station in downtown Stanford, Kentucky. He is small in stature and wears this full beard that makes him look akin to an unknown ape species. He is larger than a chimp but much smaller than a gorilla. I think his intellect is somewhere between a grey squirrel and an opossum , but maybe I'm giving him too much credit. He looked up as I slid into the gas pump area, and jumped, spilling his panhandled coffee all down the front of his unwashed coveralls.I was thinking one day that I should get a welding shop to make me a large version of a raccoon trap and bait it with cigarettes and coffee, and I could guarantee catching this varmit the first night. It would be similar to how the apes captured Charlton Heston in the first Planet Of The Apes.We could then take him maybe to Key West and drop him off. As many as there are in Florida one more would not be noticed. We were in SanFrancisco a couple of weeks ago, and there were certainly no scarcity of street people out there.Early mornings would find the park grounds covered in cardboard mounds that had human occupants underneath, much like land based hermit crabs. These street people are very aggressive and ask for anything. One beggar was stationed along the main sidewalk on Pier 39, and was lying with his dirty face sticking out of a sleeping bag asking for handouts. I heard him tell the couple behind us that he was A Vietnam veteran and needed help. The guy he addressed said," I was in Vietnam too Buddy,But I work for a Living." It's amazing that the great leader Nancy Pelosi is from this area. If she and Obama have their wishes the whole country is going to live in sleeping bags.Speaking of current news, H1N1 is not being talked about this week. Is it , or is it not? They want us to wash our hands 24/7 and cover our coughs. 10.4 % are unemployed and we owe China $800 Billion dollars. Obama is apologizing to the world for America, and bowing to the Japanese Emperor. I don't know what the Governor of South Carolina is doing , but I think he has lost his Argentinian mistress, and David Letterman turned out to be the most hypocritical of all philanderers. I think they finally buried Michael Jackson, but I'm still not sure of that.I'm having a hard time staying interested in Leno's new show, as it somehow has become bland and boring, with repetition and dull guests. I don't think he'll make it long unless they get better writers and stunts.Dave brought me all the episodes on DVD of Deadwood , and that certainly is a trip.The cast and stories are brutal and has probably the worst cursing ever spoken outside of a Rap Concert.Deadwood is so engrossing because it reminds me of our own state and county governments and leaders. Al Swearingen would be right at home in the Lincoln County Courthouse, but maybe he's not there anymore. The other night somebody shot Wild Bill Hickock in the back of the head during a poker game, an historically accurate fact, I might add. Every new episode of Deadwood I see a new local character in the cast.The movie should have been shot in Stanford using local people portraying themselves, and it would have been very similar to the screenplay . Truly, fact is often stranger than fiction. By now The Kentucky League of Cities, The Kentucky Association of Counties, The Lexington Airport, And the Lexington Public Library ,have all new leadership and bylaws due to the rape and pillaging of taxpayers money by dedicated officers. Millions were spent on escort services, BMW Suvs, lavish parties, and gifts. There seems to be no limit to the corruption that people entrusted with our money will sink. The worst part is that the boards are still paying some of these criminals for a certain amount of time, and that only the Airport boys will be charged with a crime.What is it that causes people entrusted with our money to become so corrupt? Do we all have this tendency to betray those who trust in us? Sometimes we all need to stop what we are doing, and have a soul searching. I started a new company and I have been in business for nine months, and somewhere along the way I started having fun again.I think sometimes it is good for people to change outlooks on life, especially as we grow older. I lost my brother and life will never be the same again, but the world continues. I was coming back today from a couple of jobs in the mountains ,and I realized how Eastern Kentucky has become such a part of my life the last 30 some years. I actually spend more time east of Richmond than I do in Deadwood(Stanford). Christmas will soon be upon us and then comes the long spell of winter.The trees are nearly bare in Eastern Kentucky, and the deer carcasses are already piling up on the sides of the Hal Rogers Parkway , a sure sign of approaching cold weather. I was listening to Gene Pitney's greatest hits on the way back today, and somehow THe Man Who Shot Liberty Valance seemed appropriate as I eased through Clay County. As I neared Laurel county I thought"What the Hell", and threw in Led Zeppelin 4 and let Robert and Jimmy hitchhike along to Lincoln County. After Gene Pitney it was like sweet and sour pork. Turkey and dressing on the FRiday night after Thanksgiving . Everybody will be there,but I hope Al Swearengen and Calamity Jane stay home. That drunken Kayne West will not be there, that I promise.Brittany and Paris haven't responded yet.If It Keeps On Raining The Levees Going To Break. Happy Thanksgiving 2009.

The King Of Pop

Today is July 8, 2009, forever to be known as the day after Michael Jackson was buried.I am too old to understand this whole Jackson deal. What I do understand is as follows:Michael Jackson was immensely talented, among the best ever born, Michael Jackson was an accused pedophile, Michael Jackson disowned the United States after his trial and went to Dubai, MJ probably paid off millions of dollars to parents of children he molested, MJ owed millions of dollars which his estate is bringing back into the coffers after increased sales upon his demise, and MJ brought plastic surgery to a new low. I feel MJ became physically the creature he morphed into on the Thriller Video, which is kind of ironic. The brilliant people interviewed for tv had great sound bites. One was quoted as saying MJ was more popular than Jesus.What does this say about our country? The jackson family is truly the American Dream achieved and gone absolutely haywire. Farrah Fawcett died, as well as ED McMahon, and both were forgotten in the rush to usher Michael into sainthood. And Lisa Marie Presley, remember she married him earlier. You know the real King is still doing corkscrews in his grave in Memphis over that fiasco.This whole Jackson show brings to mind that these cultist idiots are predicting the end of the world in 2012, so much so that cable tv is airing specials about the end of civilization. I have become convinced after the past year's events that the world and civilization really ended on 9-11-2001, and nobody has informed us about it.THe midget clown in North Korea had his own Scud fireworks on the 4th of July and the world whined. The Iraneans had an election stolen and the world whined again.GM has gone bankrupt with the federal goverment becoming owner of 65% of its assets. The government can't even run the post office . How can it run GM? Bernie Madoff got 150 years in Federal Prison. So sorry Bernie, it's better than you deserved.Unemployment is knocking on the door of 10%, and Biden told the press he and Obama just didn't realize the severity of the economic crisis. That's nice, just ask any average American about the severity of the economy. But Biden also said he wouldn't ride a plane while the Swine flu was kicking around. Speaking of which, the Swine Flu , is it or isn't it?Rosie O'Donnell is coming back, I can't wait. Only in America.I'm wondering if Bubbles the Chimp is still alive, and if so who is the guardian? Maybe Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. I think Liz Taylor has gotten too old to take care of a chimp.I'm thinking they finally buried Anna Nicole, but I'm not certain. RIP Farrah . You were everyone's girlfriend and I know a whole generation of men that are going to miss you. Letterman has lost what little mind he had left, and is wallowing in his own misery. Leave Sarah Palin alone. It's not her fault NBC chose Jay and Canan over you,Dave.Yep I think you doomsday day idiots are pretty optimistic over the world lasting until 2012.But that's just one mans opinion.

Is It Spring Or What?

Well today is June 1st, and what a beautiful morning! I'm here in Stanford, Kentucky , at least 500 miles from the nearest salt water,and not a mermaid in sight! I have tried repeatedly without success to have a mermaid get in touch with me and I'm about to give up. I don't know if they could survive in Lake Cumberland or Herrington, and I don't know much about their social mores. Can they only survive in salt water , or could they live in a swimming pool? What would a mermaid eat? Do you think maybe she would have an appetite for Uncle Bob's pizza ? Or maybe I could take her to Harry's Bar in Lexington, where she could have sushi, or would that be cannibalism? Either way my patience is headed south with this mermaid fixation. I knew we were in the throes of spring yesterday when I was sitting on my little porch watching the traffic on Hustonville Road flash by, and I noticed a large number of motorcycles going by. There were all forms and varieties gliding by with all types of riders. I could tell the Harleys by their distinctive growls , and the Japanese models by their smooth whineing. Like the bikes, the riders were just as distinctive. There were older men with grey pony tails flying in the wind ,and there were yuppies with polo shirts and turned up collars. Most weren't wearing helmets or protective leather. Sliding down the road on one's ass at 50 mph can make a believer out of the most die hard cycle rider. The Ky General Assembly no longer requires riders to wear head gear if they show proof of insurance, just another reminder of the idiots we send to Frankfort. Spring also is the wonderful time of the year when we have weekly body counts of killed ATV riders and accidental falling deaths from campers in Red River Gourge. I honestly think we have more people killed on ATVs than in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you are a parent, by all means show your love to your children and turn them loose on a four wheeler. I feel it's no more dangerous letting them play with loaded guns. But what would I know? I still believe in mermaids. Back to the motorcycle riders, nearly everyone had a female companion riding on back , and most were chubby to fat. There's no other way to say it. What is it with large women and motorcycles?? I just don't see many young , good looking chicks on cycles around here. Look at pictures from Sturgis , or even Little Sturgis here in Kentucky. All men have a deep urge to buy a Harley and hit the freedom of the open road. I think they have listened to Bob Seeger too often, and by the time they have saved enough money to buy the HD their wives have gotten old and out of shape. I can't explain the nasty grey pony tail thing. These guys also have a propensity to wear their caps backwards , like Dale Junior. If you're over 35 don't do the backwards cap thing guys. Trust me , it looks stupid to everyone else. I have aso noticed that these guys stop at red lights, smoke cigarettes ,and talk on cell phones. The Gold Wing couples are wired with intercoms and radios that link them to each other and the world. What can you say about Gold Wing people?? Well they all have cute stuffed animals bungee corded to the back of their bikes. I also don't understand that. It must be like Harley's adage, "If you have to ask ,then you wouldn't understand the answer."So cigarettes in Kentucky are selling for nearly $5 a pack down town at BP. That's for Marlboro. I guess the General Assembly's new 70 cent tax is going to help clean up sinful living and make us healthy. OK I'm going to see if I can find a mermaid via Craig's List. This my last effort on that pilgrimage. You chubby girls on back of the cycles also need to wear more clothing. I'm not at all against revealing female bodies, it's just when they are past their prime that I cringe. Happy Birthday Kentucky!! June 1, 1792.

No Mans Land

I was having a business lunch with a colleague in Lexington yesterday , and for convenience we had chosen to meet at McDonalds in Palomar off Harrodsburg Road. He and I both are always on the road and eating out of drive thrus, so even the dining room of Big Macs was a step-up for us. Now normally I just use the restroom, refill on cokes, and go on to my destination. An earlier stop at the Golden Arches in Tates Creek Center reminded me of my inadequacy in bi-lingualism, as every one of the 15 or so employees were Mexican and speaking rapidly to each other in Spanish. How do you say "Large Coke" in Spanish? Gracias I know. Back to Palomar we found a table in this little alcove area, sharing space with two other tables. The two other tables were occupied by single , older gentlemen , busy reading morning papers. Now I've seen this in every type of fast food dives across this country. Older , retired men getting up early to find something to occupy their time. What I don't know is the ettiquette and proper behavior associated with sitting in this area. My friend and I were talking about business and plotting strategy for the coming weeks , and I casually asked him about his current main squeeze during a break in the business conversation. He said she was driving him crazy and had called him five times the previous evening. I asked him why she called so many times and he said ,"She's just insecure and needs to talk to someone." He said it gets on his nerves , and I told him she was probably just lonesome and needed someone to talk to.He agreed but still reiterated that she got on his nerves, at which I observed that he needed to try to understand women more. At this point the gentlemen on my left looked up from his Lexington Herald and dryly observed," If you'd tell me how to understand women I'd appreciate it." Not to be outdone , the man at the table on our right said,"I was about to say the same thing!" My buddy and I just looked at each other and laughed, but I'm still perplexed. Were we in something like a Free Conversation Zone where everyone is allowed to participate in conversations to complete strangers as they feel a need ? It was not a rude comment and was done in a very friendly manner, and my buddy and I were not offended ,but the whole episode was like being in situation comedy on tv. As I went home I realized that these guys were in their element and that was not an abnormal situation to them. Maybe we had some other regulars' seats and we were just initiated into the club.Either way I think we were in A No Mans Land where we didn't know the rules. Speaking of rules, there seem to be no rules on how to handle the mess our economy and the business world has gotten in. What I think is that the people of the United States have become so polarized on issues like liberal and conservative that we have been taken to the cleaners by the greediest group of people ever born on this earth. This group of people I am speaking of is "Smart Assed White Boys", who have quietly looted and pillaged all the banks and financial world while the country was fighting over Iraq, Afghanistan, and social issues.Then when we are at the brink of financial collapse, the panicked Federal Government starts throwing billions of dollars at the problem . AIG executives are given millions in bonuses for looting the company.Madoff and his Ponzi scheme bankrupted hundreds of thousands . He goes to jail without a get-out free card. This whole country has become a gigantic Monopoly Board. Game pieces are Porsches and Mega yachts. There aren't any railroads left, but the utility spots are hot.Huge houses lie empty, and I think they're going to be empty for the near future. THank you Smart Assed White boys for the mess we're in. We've been worried about Mexicans coming across the border while you guys have been at the Pebble Beaches and spas plotting and stealing our investments. I guess you can only buy so many McMansions and Range Rovers without having to seek more funds.I bet these Smart Assed White Boys have never known the pleasure of checking out movies at the Red Box or of listening to Kid Rock cruising up Highway 58.I will also bet they don't understand women or how to discuss them in the No Mans Land.

Communications

Lately I have become interested in how we have evolved into a society of networking , communicating people. Now everyone but two people I know have cellphones, and as we all know there are varying degrees of cell phonedom . Everyone in the mainstream of communication can't just have a normal picture taking cell phone. No . Now you have to have I-phones or the such to do everything from sending and reading E-mail to watching your favorite tv programs. I watch people use their cell phones as GPS devices or to make reservations for dinner and then follow the directions on how to get there. It will tell you weather reports or let you watch Jim Cantore wrestle sandbags live in Fargo as the Red River runs rampage.Every little whining kid text messages, and they have invented a totally new language and spelling for their communications. You cannot talk to an elementary student nowadays for them sending and receiving messages on their little old telephones, their thumbs flying across the tiny keyboards. I heard on the news that schools are having problems with young girls and teenage girls senging nude and suggestive pictures across the airwaves to male friends , and guess what? Boys will be boys and everyone enjoys looking at the young ladies. What are the idiots doing that are the parents of these fledgling nincompoops?? Well I can tell you . The parents are busy broadcasting the boring details of their lives across the Ethernet via Facebook and Myspace. Have you ever looked at the way this system works?You enroll and set up your account and then add friends . My god ,it looks like chaos to me. Some of these people have over 1000 friends. I'd have trouble finding 2 people to add as friends. Do you really want to add the class loser to your account when he or she e-mails you across the world 40 years later, and asks to reenter your life? You didn't like these losers in school a lifetime ago, so what has changed today? Most people don't have the courage to deny friendship and you end up with a lot of baggage. I read that one writer said that Facebook is the biggest time suck that will ever enter your life ,and I can see how this can happen. It's interesting to view Facebook sites and look at their friends. There are some of the weirdest friendships that you know aren't possible. I see friends on each others sites that don't even speak in public. What is going on? It appears to be like a contest to see who can collect the most friends on your site. Most post what they presume to be their most flattering or adventuresome pictures. Most pictures are carefully taken in exotic places , with palm trees and the such forming the background. The real affectionados change their pictures regularly. Some sites feature their childrens' photos, and others have their pets. I would bet that Billy Gillespie does not have Mitch Barnhart or Doctor Lee Todd and wife Patsy's photos on his site.Can anyone believe that these idiots are supposedly offering John Calipari up to $40 million dollars for an 8 year contract?? That's $5 million a year, or nearly $100,000 a week!!That is all the talking heads are talking about in Kentucky. That is nearly $15000 a day year round.Can you imagine what the offer would have been if we hadn't been in this serious recession/depression?? The UK people fired Billy G and gave him and his staff 3 hours to clean out their offices, a total class act for Todd and Barnhart. Kentucky however has a remarkable football team that has gone to three Bowls in a row. Nevermind that this season was 6 -6.I guess it's still an improvement.I wonder what will be the next way invented to get into each others lives. Have you ever stopped at a redlight in a busy intersection and watched the traffic go by? Nearly all of the drivers are on cellphones ,talking to someone. Or go to the mall. People will walk into you talking on the phone as they go to the stores, or as they shop.Go to Food Lion. People can't shop for talking on the phone . Have we evolved into a society that must have a voice in our ears to stimulate any activity? A last peeve. Please get those stupid, idiotic, cutesy songs off your stupid little machines. Nothing looks more childish and stupid to be in an adult meeting and have an idiotic song blare out of your pocket. If you must have such idiocy at least try to hide it in adult company with vibrator mode so that the rest of the people in the meeting do not have confirmation of your immaturity. There is nothing wrong with adults having a normal ring tone on their cell phones. Trust me. You'll still know when the thing is summoning you.They just said John Calipari is coming to Kentucky. Interrupted programming to tell everyone that. I bet Calipari has Barnhart and Lee And Patsy as friends on Facebook. Can you believe Channel 18 interrupted NBC nightly news to tell about the hiring??And Alan Cutler?? What can Lexington say? We've got to be proud of our sportscasters.

Is This Hockey Or What?

On Thursday Sandy and I went down to Tampa for a night out on the town , or as much of a night as the two of us are capable of doing at our age. The first stop was going to the Hard Rock Seminole Casino. Not for gambling, but for buying souvenir t-shirts for our niece. Man that place is way out of Tampa near the Junction of I 4 and 275. We were so lucky as to be looking for it at rush hour and evening traffic. Now I've been in a lot of Hard Rocks across this country, from San Francisco to NYC to Key West, but this place is bizarre. It rises up out of former scrub brush and swampland and is gleaming white and maybe 4 or 5 stories high. We parked in a gravel parking lot, and had a quick wander through the lobby to the giftshop, bypassing the gambling casino. The place was filled with Yankee Lincolns and Cadillacs of the Behemoth style,i.e. monsterous chrome bedecked house- sized sedans with an acre of ugly vinyl for roofs. They all had northern license plates and sheriff stickers on the rear. I'm mystified at the typical Florida car that is always around me in traffic. Why do these people all have stuffed animals in the rear windows?? They have dogs , cats, monkeys , and things I can't identify. Another thing they do is blow their horn at me as I make unknown transgressions. Every time I look up to see who is impatiently beeping at me the culprit is usually an 80 plus year old man or woman, that I can only guess where they are in such a hurry to go.I guess it is because they are Northerners with stuffed animals in their windows. After the Hardrock Experience we went downtown Tampa to the waterfront to a first for us- a hockey game. Tampa has a professional hockey team, the Tampa Lightenings, which won the Stanley Cup last year, something I was told which is akin to winning the Super Bowl or The World Series. The concierge at Hard Rock told me they weren't very good this year, and they lived up to her prophecy by losing 3-2 to the New Jersey Devils in OT. It was most interesting, as we only knew the very basics of the game. It was very,very loud and chilly inside, as it should be. The sport is comprised of young athletes flying across ice doing everything possible to maime and disfigure each other. Two robust lads spent time in the glassed-in penalty boxes for fighting. Now I know what time out in elementary school was invented for-- it was to prepare future hockey players. The team booklet shows that the oldest player is in his mid twenties , and only three were from the United States. One star was from Finland.THe amazing show was the audience who screamed at the refs and players.They screamed at things that I didn't even know were screamable offenses. Maybe it was like Nascar in that these Thursday night fans were filling their fuel tanks with $6 beer and $8 sandwiches. I bought a Pepsi for $4 and it seemed to be the same recipe that I had paid $1 for previously in my Kentucky life. There were brief moments of cavorting ice cheerleaders, but it only lasted about a minute. In retrospect I guess that's about as long as scantily clad women can dance on ice. The arena ,as I said is about 10 or 12 years old and is beautifully situated on the river and bay of the waterfront. You can look out 70,000 sq ft of glass and see the beautiful skyline of Tampa's tall buildings and highrise condos along the river. The news says that real estate in Hillsborough County(Tampa) and Pasco County(New Port Richey) is down 40 percent. I couldn't swear to this by the Corvettes and Porsches zooming through the rush hour traffic. A very lasting impression of the hockey game is the sheer energy and volume of the music and crowd. It seems Nascar and Hockey share the same hard driving rock music, as is probably appropriate as both sports is full of violence and speed. After a Lightening score the stadium would erupt with a humongous ship's horn as loud as Dale Junior's race car.Then loud rock music as in Welcome to the Jungle. Overall I liked the scene a lot more than the old ones out at Hard Rock.I've got a week left in Paradise and it's been a lot of fun , but these old farts need to lay off blowing their big old chrome horns at me. I'm a stranger in a strange land and try to be a good visitor. But that only can go so far. I may buy me some stuffed animals and put them in the front window of Sandy's car. It can't hurt anything . If there are any mermaids on the net , I've stolen all of Sandy's hand lotion and can meet out back at the dock any time. This has to happen before next Saturday. Welcome to the jungle.

I Could Get Used To This

well, We're in our 3rd week in Paradise and I've found that being in Florida on the water for a month is not nearly as difficult as I thought it was going to be. First of all I'm not missing work like I used to do because I'm not working anymore, sort of like George Bush. Secondly when Kentucky's weather is so horrible, blue skies and 70 degree temps look pretty good. We went to Daytona on Sunday and watched a good race until the end when Matt Kenseth lucked into a victory. There were nearly 160,000 people watching the race and drinking huge quantities of $4 beer, although everyone was well behaved. Young Satan Kyle Busch got taken out on the straight stretch with about 9 others and the excitement faded away. Its amazing how quickly things go downhill at nearly 200 MPH! The pace car , a new model Camaro was driven around the track by Mr. Cole Trickle himself, Tom Cruise. You'd have to have seen Days Of Thunder to understand. Keith Urban performed and the rest is history.I personally liked Tom better in Top Gun. I liked when the Carrier chief called up "Call the Ball, Maverick", and Maverick would say," Mavericks got the ball". I sometimes call the ball when I'm pulling into our garage , and I've even tried a few illegal fly-bys , but generally can't pull it off with the aplomb of Maverick and Goose.We did rent a pontoon and went out in the Gulf and out to the famous sandbar. We saw lots of birds ,a dolphin, and had to stay between the red and green channel markers to keep from running aground in the shallow water. It was amazingly beautiful with the blue skies and white sails all against the horizon. No mermaids, but we had seen several at the Weeki Wachie Springs up the coast from us. This is a corny story but they have nubile young maidens with mermaid outfits on and they cavort under water attached to breathing hoses in the clear natural spring water. The audience sits in a theatre with glass windows to view the show.There was one mermaid that made me wish I was 40 years younger, but I guess I have to stay old and go back north to Kentucky.Timmy and I had driven up north to Williston where The Blue Grotto spring is located. We unloaded our diving gear and had a great dive . We hadn't been down for a while so we cruised around at 55 feet for 34 minutes with no apparent ill effects. How can I be so precise in my numbers? Because my Prodigy Dive computer told me this ,and showed that I was in no danger of getting "bent",or acquiring decompression sickness. The only disappointment was trying to get in my 2 mm wet suit. Man that thing had really shrunk. I think I'm going to get a vet back home to zip the thing on a large hog for a week and maybe stretch the belly to where I can get in it. I did get it on but potentially I could have injured bystanders if the zipper had popped.It will take at least a 300 pound hog to achieve my goal. We have been to Tarpon Springs just down from us and eaten Greek food and desserts. All the sponge divers were Greeks and the little town is very picturesque with neat shops and great old boats in the harbor. Did I mention  there were tons of old,old people sightseeing there? There can't be any elderly people up north because they're all down here. I haven't watched tv or listened to news for three weeks and haven't missed either. I guess that I have to re-enter adulthood sooner or later, but I'm holding off as long as possible. Peter Pan and Neverland make more sense everyday. If I enter and find that creepy assed Michael Jackson ther then I'll just go back to Weeki Wachie and the Mermaids.

It's Cold

Here it is the 4th of February and we are in New Port Richey for the whole month, and tonight might be a record cold. The weather forecasters are predicting temps in the teens. Nevermind that the sky was beautiful blue and the temps were in the 50's today. It was snowing in Kentucky and the temperature tonight is supposed to be zero!We're waiting until this weekend when it's supposed to be normal Florida weather, the mid 70's. Our rental house is on a canal with a boatdock and water that flows into the deep blue of the Gulf of Mexico. Yesterday we cruised down the coast in the Yukon across the Skyline Bridge to Sanibel and Captiva.Captiva is as nice as I remembered but Sanibel is infested with old farts riding bicycles.I think the median age on Sanibel is 89 years old, but they're all mobile and running from the grim reaper. It seems that every corner has a Publix grocery and we've certainly done our share of support in the few days we've been here.Florida residents are certainly a diverse bunch of people, mainly sharing old age and strange dress. The Publix store looks like they dumped a rest home upside down and all the residents escaped and fell into the grocery. The old ladies wear too much rouge on their emaciated cheeks while their husbands wear garb reminiscent of cowboys.Maybe Roy and Dale are alive and well in Tampa!!I chose this week to resign from a job of 30 years.Nothing in sight for the future but there was nothing in sight working. Maybe I'll just get a job in Publix and push in the stray grocery carts lurking in the parking lot. I'll have to learn to talk like a yankee as it seems all the elderly workers are Northerners. A week from Sunday and we're going over to Daytona to watch the boys in the big dance, and that will certainly liven things up. I have to talk to the new neighbors about whether its okay to fish in the canal, as I believe I can become another Papa Hemingway. I'll have to buy equipment and a license before I can acquire the new skills. They say I need to rent a pontoon and go out to the sandbar in the Gulf because there is supposed to be a lot of aquatic things happening out there. I guess I'll wait until Timmy gets down and we'll go out and fight the rays and sharks. Maybe we'll get lucky and find us a couple of mermaids. I don't know why but I always think of Mermaids as young beautiful women. I bet they have rough, dry skin from all that time in the salt water. Pictures always portray them as beautiful girls basking on the rocks, combing their hair and trying to lure sailors to them. That's as far as the story always goes, and I wonder if any of the participants ever get lucky. Or even if you can get lucky with a mermaid. I don't know much about mermaid anatomy. I wonder if the mermaids would need lotion like Sandy uses on their dry skins?Maybe I'll stop at Publix and get some beauty stuff to trade out at the sandbar. A little wine might help. The truth of the matter is that any mermaid I would meet would probably look like some of those chubby, welfare spending ,lottery buying wenches from the Trading Post back home. Of course I'm not so great myself and I don't even have a vocation.Maybe those chubby mermaids aren't so bad after all. I hope they survive the next couple of cold nights, but they're probably down around South Beach tonight basking offshore dodging Cigarette boats and the Art Deco neon.If there are any mermaids out there with a laptop and wifi I'll be around for the rest of this month.See you at the sandbar. If I'm not there you can find me at the Publix on Highway 19 North,just beyond Flora Mer ,looking at painted old ladies.

Those Friendly Golden Arches

It seems that my entire life is involved in some manner with McDonalds, as my whole social world and interaction centers under the golden Arches. Yesterday for instance I was watching the 6 o'clock news on a Lexington TV station and the opening teaser was about violence and gunshots being fired at a central Kentucky McDonalds. Guess where it happened?? Right. Here at the only McDonalds in Stanford. Right where I drive through every morning for my large coke. $1.58 if you please. Every morning my friendly face at the window takes my $1.58 and calls me "baby".I ask her if she has found a man and she always says"I've got me a man."Then I move on with a clear mind and a destination down the road, usually to Virginia or maybe Eastern Kentucky. Well yesterday these three teenage hellions were trying to check out or checkin a Red Box movie and were blocking the drive up lane, a definite faux pas. The older guy behind them evidentally voiced his displeasure and testosterone induced words followed. The punks moved on , seemingly to leave the premises. As the older guy was paying for his food , said punks came back for chapter 2 of the Red Box confrontation. Punk leader got out with a metal bar and hit the older guy in the leg with the tool. Older guy pulls out a pistol and fires three quick rounds into the rear tire of the punk mobile . Police came and took all to jail , but they all posted bond and were released, to meet another day in court , if not sooner. Man, talk about crazy ways to die!! What if one of those shots had glanced off the blacktop or automobile into a waiting car??Our county has way too many incidents of trashy people meeting under volatile circumstances. Usually there will be young families at the Red Box looking for movies. Who would have thought the trashy gang wannabees would incite a gun battle over a $1 movie? Is this what we have to look for in the future? Now I can't truly fault the older guy, because he had already been hit with a steel bar on the leg, with the possibility of a serious beating from three punks. I actually think he showed some restraint by shooting their tires. I guess I'll just start packing heat when I go for my coke in the mornings. I was thinking of all this as I cruised through at about 7:45 this morning, listening to Kid Rock . What kind of movie do you think the three idiots were returning? There is no way of knowing ,but I'm betting it wasn't a Disney classic. After I left I was listening to the radio talking heads and some of the men were talking about Michelle Obama's Inauguration dress and her Inaugural ball dress. Come on guys!! Men don't talk about what the new first lady was wearing. That is supposed to be for the gay guys on ET. Is this banter about womens'dresses a smoke screen and denial about the more important issues at hand; i.e. a major recession, unemployment, and people losing jobs and homes? For the last couple of months I have been reading the local Topix on the internet and yesterday I finally realized that enough is enough. Holy Hell!! Is there nothing that trashy people won't say about themselves and each other!! They have invented some type of written language that even apes would find ignorant. It seems every grade school dropout has gotten a computer and is weighing in on the local hotties and who has what disease. Then the elementary children are writing in"Who is the hottest 6th grader at the middle school?". Hottest 6th grader?? These are kids ! Where are the parents that are letting these kids write this trash? When I was in the 6th grade I was a kid with normal kid issues.Maybe the 6th grade would-be hottie's parents are out gunfighting at McDonalds. That makes more sense.I think listening to Kid Rock could seriously cause middle aged men to brawl at local fast food restaurants, or maybe it is an overload of two all beef patties, special sauce,etc.The other morning, Tuesday I think, I pulled into work and the temperature reading on my mirror read -1 degree. Somebody forgot to tell Mother Nature that this is Central Kentucky, the Upper South.It was actually warmer that day in Fairbanks , Alaska than here in Stanford. Where is Al Gore and his Global Warming when we need him?? The positive thing is that we are going to Florida for the month of February and hopefully a little warmer climate. I don't think Sandy trusts me with all that time on my hands. I told her that I was going to get a day job at Wal Mart as a Greeter and she just laughed and said I was not intellectually or personality gifted enough to be a greeter.Say what?? She said I was too ill natured and grumpy to be a greeter.Talk about body slamming my self esteem!!So we've got tickets to Daytona and then we're going up to the Panhandle to do some Scuba Diving. I can't wait to get to The Blue Grotto and drop down to about 115 feet of the clearest water in the United States. I have a few concerns about my polartec dive skin . Maybe Sandy can put some stretch panels in the belly area where three hour trips to job sites have added a few pounds. One great thing is that every state to Florida has reciprocal concealed carry laws that lets me legally have the Sig P29 in my possession. That at least makes some things more even. I have to quit this Kid Rock thing.Also on a positive note I have gotten a Florida bound haircut, one of the two yearly that I partake of.Good luck to our new President , and may he help our country do well again, and God Bless Sonny's Barbecue because I'll be seeing a lot of those in the next month.If its not smokin its not Sonnys.I hope my dive computer doesn't realize that I've gotten fatter and penalizes me on bottom time.Maybe I'll just leave the thing at home.Maybe I should start listening to Michael Buble and quit packing heat. Probably the reason I'm going to fail as a greeter. I think the eyebrows are throwing Sandy off. The hirsute curmudgeon syndrone.

The Doldrums

Here we are heading towards the middle of January and another Alberta Clipper. The TV weather guys seem to be in ectasy over the approaching sub-zero temperatures. I certainly wish I could be as excited as they are . Obviously their houses must be warmer than ours, or else someone is paying their heating bills.I had the joy of crawling under the little slum house the last couple of days and placing pink, scratchy insulation under the floors of the last two rooms remaining to be insulated. The technique involves crawling on aging bellies over a century of mud , spiders, and nasty debris to the appointed areas , then turning over on your back and pushing scratchy,itchy fiberglass up into nasty spaces between joists, all the while lying with your head in mud and who knows what else. You only have a few inches between your nose and the bottom of the insulation, all the while breathing in big lung-fulls of really bad things floating in the air.The only lining at the end of the clouds is that maybe the house will be a little warmer and cheaper to heat. Rich people don't seem to have these worries. I guess the closest thing to remind me of the tight , uncomfortable quarters under the house is to descend down 30 feet or so under Lake Cumberland, looking for something someone has dropped in the water. Even on a hot sunny day in July , the water starts changing from green to brown to pitch black at only thirty feet. The only sense you have in those conditions are of blackness and cold. You settle on the bottom and feel your wetsuit sink into cold, slimy mud. The first thing you notice is that the only sound is of your breathing and the bubbles as they come out of your regulator. You start reaching out with your hands across the slimy, cold mud to try and feel for the objects you are seaching for. That's when the real fun starts. There's all manner of junk scattered on the bottom of Lake Cumberland. Sometimes you can tell right away if its a can or bottle. Sometimes you grab a handful of slimy , sticky tree branches, as they seem to reach out and catch your sleeves. The real terror of divers in darkness is becoming entangled in nylon fishing line with rusty, sharp fish hooks waiting to entangle you, which is why smart divers carry blunt tipped medical scissors to cut themselves free. Occasionally you reach out and feel something alive and wondering just who the hell you are, fumbling down there in its muddy home. Most of the creatures in Cumberland get out of your way. Once in a while you're lucky and find what you're looking for, but most of the time you don't. As you start ascending toward the top the water first starts getting lighter and then warmer. Soon you're popping your head out of the water in warm, 85 degree temperatures, your ears hissing off pressure as they acclimate themselves from being down an atmosphere. My ears sound like a tire leaking air. Nobody cares as they just want to know what I found. They always ask,"Did you see any big catfish down there?" They wouldn't understand the slimy blackness. What I'm having difficulty is finding something to watch on TV. How much HGTV can American females watch?? I am so tired of how this makes the room "POP". THe only thing that is popping is my brain. Dancing shows, singing contests, or talking heads. Do you realize they're still talking about the election?Let's move on. They had some award show on on Sunday night and the next day the web sites were full of pretty women in hideous dresses. Do they not have any tastes?? Who watches this crap??Barack had better get his little game plan going because the honeymoon will soon be over.This recession looks worse every day, and everyone on TV wants to weigh in on the problem. Look us poor boys know of what the problem is, what we want to know is what are you talking heads going to do to solve the problem. The radio said that Mr. Tim Couch himself was thinking about running for the Senate of Kentucky.Why would he even think about that?I guess he's still young but too old for football.He came out of Cleveland with several million dollars and a Playboy Bunny, so life isn't all bad.I don't know that Hyden and Leslie County will ever hold any glamor for him again. I'm having somewhat of a hard time with this Ann Coulter woman.Now supposedly she is a conservative (like me) , but she is almost scary. I keep seeing her opening those big jaws like a snake and consuming little Wolf Blitzer or maybe Katie Couric. I wonder how Katie is faring these days?I never watch her. She's got nice legs but a wild look in her eyes. When I was younger I learned that a woman with eyes like Katie's was to be avoided . We would all have run from Ann Coulter because there are just some things that men instinctively avoid. On the other hand Bald Headed Brittany would have been fun . I guarantee there are at least 2 Brittanys in every trailor park in Stanford, and I have personally had numerous painful experiences with the Gretchen Wilsons of my younger days.As I was coming down Hwy 25 this afternoon I passed the little country road where I once let an enraged racoon out that I had trapped in my backyard. THe demon was eating my little goldfish out of this nasty little pool I had constructed.I hauled his enraged little gray ass almost all the way to Livingston and turned his mean, snarling , vicious little carcass out.Turning once and hissing at he , he bounded into the woods. I noticed they had a new green sign on that dusty little road. The sign proudly proclaimed"Racoon Road". Damn . Talk about making a difference . That little mean coon sure has made an impression on Rockcastle County. Sometimes we contribute to history in spontaneous ways. I bet that mean-assed little coon really made things "POP" in Rockcastle.Take that HGTV!

Drunken Santas

A couple of weekends back we flew up to NYC to get in the Christmas spirit, as we try to do most years. It just seems that the BIg Apple really knows how to celebrate, and this year was no exception, as we readily found out. We were staying at the Grand Hyatt, which is physically adjoined to Grand Central Station. The Hyatt lives up to its Grand prefix as it has over 1300 rooms and the whole nine yards, including a marble pool in the upper lobby that cascades down to the 1st floor street entry. Room service offered bottles of Makers Mark delivered to your room for $150(tip not included). I also noticed that two eggs of any style could be yours for $22. Those must have been special eggs.We didn't avail ourselves of room service. Upon checking in we went over to Grand Central Station to buy Metro Passes and were immediately assailed by hordes of young men and women in their early to mid twenties dressed like Santa Claus. The main common denominator was that they generally were all drunk and celebrating Christmas by screaming, yelling, and singing Christmas songs. Some of the girls appeared to be Santa's helpers, were equally drunk, and dressed provacatively in short, short skirts and candy cane striped stockings. I have found that this tradition started in 1998 and is called"Santa Con" for Santa Convention, or Drunken Santas, which is probably more appropriate. A lot of the participants are young professionals just taking the holiday as a license for having a good time. They were all over the city in their dirty red Claus costumes drunkenly hugging the women and shouting Merry Christmas. The NYC police were out in record numbers because of some vague threat to the subways , and generally tried to ignore the antics.We went to see Spamalot and Gay Clay really did a good job in his role as Sir Robin, and not as Lancelot as I previously thought. I paid $10 for a bagel at a nice restaurant across from our hotel, and was more than compensated by the long legs of our hostess as she seated the party. Never mind the fact that she was at least 38-40 years younger than me.Where has the time gone?Sandy and I celebrated our 35th anniversary and ate at the New York Luncheonette on East 50th Street which we have done for years. We went down to SoHo and looked around awhile at the Iron faced buildings and then went to Macy's . There was no Miracle on 34th street this year and I guess the Santas were sleeping off their drunken excessive behavior of the day before.Dave had an inebriated street person vomit a couple of times on his shoes while riding the crowded subway, and that seemed to deter him from any more trips on the subway. I think he rode in cabs the rest of the weekend. Better on Dave than me.The following week after NYC I was coming home from Virginia and stopped at where else to get a coke in Barbourville, and was waited upon by this discheveled waitress wearing this green Christmas shirt that proclaimed"If you're naughty I won't tell Santa".As she handed me my change I pointed to her shirt and said ,"I'm your man". She looked over my shoulder and said"Next." So much for charisma.Later on I was going through Corbin and there was a Santa waving from in front of a fast food chicken joint , his red suit only out done by gleaming new bluish, purple Nikes.Later on I saw another Santa in Danville sneaking a smoke standing in some brown weeds by the side of some ragged looking business.The final chapter came when I was bored and reading the local paper's annual edition that prints"Letters To Santa" in a little magazine. Every child wanted Iphones, Idogs(what ever that is), some kind of Wiis, and hand games. Nobody seems to have informed the youth of our country that there is a recession steaming full speed ahead to a depression. Santa is going to have to stop in China to get all the kids their electronic junk. One little girl in about the third grade also wanted a pet snake. A pet snake?? What an oxymoron!Can you imagine that snake getting loose in Santa's sleigh somewhere over the North Atlantic?? Maybe that is why we have drunken Santas. I must admit that one of my favorite moments of the weekend was when that dumbass Iraqi reporter threw his shoes at George W. during the press conference.That look on Bush's face cracked me up . What kind of man throws shoes at another man?? I really think George W. thought it was funny. Bush ducked those shoes pretty handily. That's probably out of practice from going hunting with Dick Chaney. You're still the man George. You're going home to Texas. Where is Saddam and his two thug sons? Chemical Ali?? Terac Azziz? Mission Accomplished.I'm having trouble spelling those Iraqi names as somehow the concept eludes me.Saddam ended up in a Spider Hole with only a couple pairs of white BVDs in his possession.After NYC I don't think I have BVDs. Milk and cookies to all. Merry Christmas to all and God Bless the USA !!

And The Award Goes To..........

This first week of December 2008 has been very cold ,and I'm already tired of winter. And winter does not even start until December 22. I don't think I used to mind the cold, but as I've aged I seem to long more and more for palm trees and blue waters. It doesn't hurt if the sands are covered with scantily clad women smelling of coco butter and baby powder, yet I digress from my subject. Everyone needs a change of scenery periodically, and the warmer the better for me. I would like to be eating dinner right now at an outdoor terraced restaurant in the Cayman Islands where we spent a too short-lived vacation. Someone would show movies on the side of a large building sized tank when the sun went down . It doesn't matter that there was no sound . The next morning we would be squeezed amongst a covey of tourists on a rocking dive boat headed to crystal clear wall dives . Everyone would gear up and take a giant stride off the rear platform and hit the blue water, regulators clinched in our mouths, the only thing between drowning in the clearest water on earth and our fragile lives. You can always taste the salt from the ocean as you are cruising around under the surface,only occasionally seeing a toothy barracuda or an elusive shark or two to remind me that this isn't Danville Avenue. We went to Stingray City and had our bodies encased with monsterous stingrays trying to steal slimy squid from our clinched fists. They are nature's vacuum cleaners as they suck prey from under the sand for lunch. Sunburned , overweight divers are no contest to these undersea raptors.They take our squid and tire of the game . No squid, no play, and they flap off into the distant shimmering vastness of the ocean. At 50 feet below Timmy and I only have 35-40 minutes of bottom time before we suck the air out of our aluminum 80s and head back up the dive line to the welcome boat above, occasionally getting nipped by nasty yellow finned snappers.Back on board the sun is beaming down and we're reminded that at home people are wearing coats and cursing the cold like I'm doing now.Some place right now there are young inebriated babes smelling like cocoa butter and alcohol, an irresistible combination for me. Last week was my final council meeting and my fellow councilors, sensitive souls that they are, presented me with a going away trophy of "Smart Ass of The Year" tastefully engraved with a brass horse's ass above. It is nice to have such sensitive and caring colleagues. I was a winner that night and they were all better gentlemen for my departure. I've been listening to Sean Kingston on the MP3 player and it has some reggae roots that almost takes me back to Cafe Johnny Canoes in Nassau. The steel drum bands transport you to a warmer and kinder place, almost like Eden, but I'm always reminded that, like Adam And Eve we always have to climb on board the blue and silver plane and head back North to cold, cold, and more cold. It has been too long since I've had some 3rd world dignitary stamp my passport and welcome me to their country in a bored, tired voice. Maybe living in Paradise isn't all its put on to be.Next weekend we drop into Manhatten, hopefully better luck than last time. I can't wait to hit the subway with its resident rank,locker room smell with the Tower of Babylon teeming masses.We're going to see Spamalot , and I think Mr. Excitement Clay Aiken plays the part of Sir Lancelot. I guess I'm just not a Claymate. I may see if Delta has benefits for people who have been decreed "Smart Ass of the Year". Maybe an upgrade to First Class.I just can't wait to harrass our cab driver from LaGuardia to the hotel.Maybe he'll even speak enough English to get us to our destination.

Is This A State Of My Union?

Well,it has come around once again or is nearly the time for my state of union address.What can I say about the economy?? I don't even watch the news anymore because who wants a steady diet of depressing news? I quit long before the election because all of the politicians wore me out. I fail to see the humor of a national election where Obama and McCain were the best to chose from. At this point,"Who Cares?" I voted for McCain only because I had to vote for someone. The good news is Obama isn't much more depressing as was McCain. I honestly think Charley Sheene would have been as desirable as either. I grew tired of celebrities spouting off their choices as to who would lead this country. You jerks need to remember the end of The Dixie Chicks,who had less talent than they thought. Ashley Judd weighed in for Obama, probably a good choice since UK hasn't done real well in football or basketball. VMI beat the basketball team like a drum. Phil Fulmer was given $6 million and asked to leave UT. Damn that had to really hurt!All the brokers and bankers were bailed out after millions of dollars in bonuses, and then went to spas in California.Jimmy Buffet and the Boss committed to Barack and I committed to quit buying their cds. That's not a big sacrifice since both are stale and living in the past.The big three auto makers want to be bailed out like the airlines.Why not? The Democrats want to pay off all the irresponsible credit card accounts. Again, why not?Our 401 Ks are losing every day and I quit opening the monthly tallies. Looking at a retirement account is like looking at the monthly heating gas bill.The good news is that we sold the big house in the middle of all this depressing news .Now we own a little slum house and two worn out cars. Gasoline is down to $1.76 in Liberty, and that is wonderful when it was$4.oo a gallon just over a month ago.Talk about lifestyle changes-moving from one house after 34 years, not running for city council , and anticipating other major changes, has made this a year of radicalism for our household.We as a country are on the threshold of sweeping changes for everyone. Citibank announced today it was laying off 51 thousand of its work force of 350 thousand. Other accounts tell that American auto workers are enjoying over $81 per hour including current benefits. I really feel sorry for those guys and girls. Maybe you and your Unions have caused the Big Three to be on the brink of bankruptcy. I've lost enough the last couple of months to buy a new ,loaded Suburban. Maybe it's time you guys feel a little pinch.The airlines are looking for a bail out as well, and are going to charge for luggage. Great.I guess the airlines are even taking away the soft drink and pretzels.Now that will really hurt.I hope Obama gets us out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Afghanistan has always been a bitterly fought over land , to be so poor and inhospitable. The British had their asses kicked over there in the latter 1800's , as Dr. Watson of Sherlock Holmes fame will testify. Watson was wounded in Afghanistan fighting insurgents. Some things never change. We enter the new year with some good news,however. First, we have no elections. Thank you heaven! Next we stand a good chance of not seeing so many irritating commercials since no one will have money to pay for them. Next ,just maybe some of these talking heads on tv will be released or retire. Man I am so tired of O'Reilly, Hannity(and Combs), Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter, and that's just the conservatives. OJ is facing long prison sentencing(that's great), and we in Kentucky don't have to listen to all the vitriolic dialogue between McConnell and Lunsford. I wish both of those idiots could have lost. Maybe Ben Chandler can go on another cruise to the Galapagos Islands to study pollution. Go for it Ben . Our own Judge Buckwheat went to Alaska on a 6 day cruise compliments of Bluegrass Add. None of this good stuff runs down hill on us tax payers. We all know what DOES run down hill on us. Don't we? My only suggestion is to grab anything solid and hold on tight to see how this all works out.Changes in Attitude, changes in latitude. Forget that . It came out of Margaritaville. I'm still trying to finish"A Salty Piece Of Land". Maybe I won't. Eagles are in Cincinnati tomorrow night. I'll see you there!

The Eagles Have Landed

I used to be pretty savvy with new innovative gadgets, but as I grow older I have come to realize that either my brain is a little slower or things have gotten harder and a lot more complicated. Take text messaging for instance. I got it with a package on my last phone and it completely eluded me. I watch as these little kids use their thumbs to fly across the tiny phone keyboard.I used the service for a month and tried to converse with my niece who would send a message and it would take me ten minutes to compose and then type a response. She would then answer in a microsecond and I had to reply. Hell I can't even type on this keyboard without a lot of problems. I'm struggling here with my right index finger pecking out letters that often are inappropriate because I can't find what I need. It may partly be because I'm trying to eat raspberry icecream with my left as I compose. Sandy keeps wondering why the keys are sticking.The other day I was driving down the street and this chubby little urchin was peddling down the sidewalk on a funny looking bike with one hand up to his ear talking on his cell phone. Now who was this little devil talking to riding on his bike?I always have to hunt for question marks, and I'm trying to invent some way to blog without any punctuation. I think I'm doing pretty good because the indentions for paragraphing have so far eluded me(obviously). The crises-du-jour electronically has been the acquisition of a new mp3 from my mother-in-law because I cut her grass. I figured out how to put some of my favorite cds on the thing from the computer and thought that I would save space and erase them from the computer hard drive in preparation of loadind more cds onto the mp3. Well I ripped more music on the computer and then hooked up the old usb to the mp3. Guess what? the computer took my first downloaded songs off like I had taken off the harddrive. Seems like the computer got pissed that I got too cute . I won't do that again. The GPS that my mother-in-law got me has also found disfavor in my heart. I have grown tired of that smart assed little woman's voice telling me every time I take a turn she doesn't want me too. Hell, I've had Sandy telling me about wrong turns for 35 years, for free no less. I just quit using the GPS because there is a duet of feminine voices telling me where to turn, which brings up the purpose of this blog. I think it was in early SEptember that Sandy got us tickets to see the Eagles in concert.Now we've been watching the Melborne concert on DVD all winter and we had made the pact that if they ever came anywhere near we would go see them . Well we went to St. Louis and watched the Eagles at the Scott Trade Center where some hockey team normally plays, and it was wonderful. The Eagles came out and performed for three hours. There was some new material out of their last album , but mostly their classics spanning 40 years. The crowd loves it all, but when Joe Walsh starts playing Walk Away the concert really starts. Everything is great ,but Joe is my favorite. Sandy likes him the least. She favors Don Henley when he closes out the show with Desperado.We liked the concert so well that we have tickets in November to the same show in Cincinnati.These guys only get better as they age, not to mention wealthier.I wonder if Joe Walsh has as much trouble with technology as I do? I wonder if he text messages people? He certainly is one of the top five rock guitar players in the industry.I've often said that I would trade one and one half masters degrees for the ability to play guitar like JOe or Eric Clapton.I would bet Joe has as difficult a time text messaging as I do, at least I hope he does. We were just over in Charleston, South Carolina the past few days, and I did pretty good driving Sandy's Yukon around except for when I nearly ran over this young yuppie couple trying to cross Vendue Street off of East Bay. The guy was okay, but his young mate was shooting daggers at me with her eyes. Look Babe, I could have run over you!As it was I didn't even touch them, mainly because they were young and fast-quite fast, if I remember.I was reading Nelson DeMille's new book The Gatehouse, and I was interested when JOhn Sutter orders a pink squirrel at a bar. Turns out a pink squirrel is four fingers of scotch on the rocks.That Babe I almost bluecrossed probably needed a double pink squirrel. One of my most vivid memories of the Isle of Palms was of Dave the Magistrate sitting in this bar called Coconut Joes overlooking a magnificent beach while watching Kentucky figure out how to lose to Georgia in the last 28 seconds. Dave was drinking a pina colota with whipped cream and shaved chocolate on top. I tried to tell him that he couldn't look very manly and indignant over Kentucky's loss with such a sissy-assed drink in his hand ,and he calously brought up that I had nearly run over a young couple on Vendue Street. He was right.The only thing that would have been more perfect that afternoon would have been Joe walking in and doing Rocky Mountain Way.Here's to a pretty young brunette with rage in her eyes.