Buying a house is just ‘such’ fun…

Posted on by August 20, 2015

You spend a month looking at houses online, hundreds of them…

You narrow the number down to what you can really afford, and one or two that you want to see just for the hell of it…

Spend the money for a plane ticket, rent-a-wreck, take vacation and start looking…

Looked at probably 10 houses in the area. Since I’m going VA, some of those fell out due to obvious cracks/etc. that I know VA would not pass. Some fell out due to condition/location (e.g. across the street from a park). Made an offer on one, at the top end of what I wanted to spend.

Went back and finally got in the back yard, found some damage to a window, and some roof damage over the patio.  We put an addendum in that the seller would be responsible to fix, the seller came back and said they would only fix $350 worth of damage… That wouldn’t even fix the WINDOW!!!

Cancelled that offer, and back to square one. Running out of time…

Called on a For Sale By Owner house that we’d seen while we were running pillar to post looking at houses earlier… Put an offer on it, they accepted, and we’re going to close in early Oct.

new house

Bonus factor- It’s almost $50K cheaper, in MUCH better shape, and in a nicer area. Two block walk to a little lake, and a nice front porch…

Thanks to friends giving me all the info for all the ‘little’ things that go along with getting a new place. Phone, insurance, taxes, licenses, internet, etc.

With VA disability and homestead, my taxes will be around $1200 a year vice $5000 a year and insurance will be in the $400/yr range!!!

Am I gone yet???

TBT…

Posted on by August 18, 2015

For those old farts who did a west coast tour a question…

Do you remember Cal Worthington and his dog Spot?

If you do, you’ll laugh your ass off at this one…

Strong language, so cover the kids ears! 🙂

Link is HERE.

And one of Cal’s ‘calmer’ ads from 1979…

He used to sponsor the late night movies (B,C, D, and OMG bad movies)…

But at 0300 standing the duty, ANYTHING was better than nothing…

Posted in TBT

A little humor…

Posted on by August 18, 2015

This one came over the transom from the mil-email group…

COSTELLO: I want to talk about the unemployment rate in America.

ABBOTT: Good Subject. Terrible times. It’s 5.6%.

COSTELLO: That many people are out of work?

ABBOTT: No, that’s 23%.

COSTELLO: You just said 5.6%.

ABBOTT: 5.6% unemployed.

COSTELLO: Right, 5.6% out of work.

ABBOTT: No, that’s 23%.

COSTELLO: Okay, so it’s 23% unemployed.

ABBOTT: No, that’s 5.6%.

COSTELLO: Wait a minute! Is it 5.6% or 23%?

ABBOTT: 5.6% are unemployed. 23% are out of work.

COSTELLO: If you are out of work, you are unemployed.

ABBOTT: No, Congress said you can’t count the “out of work” as the unemployed. You have to look for work to be unemployed.

COSTELLO: But they are out of work!

ABBOTT: No, you miss his point.

COSTELLO: What point?

ABBOTT: Someone who doesn’t look for work can’t be counted with those who look for work. It wouldn’t be fair.

COSTELLO: To whom?

ABBOTT: The unemployed.

COSTELLO: But ALL of them are out of work.

ABBOTT: No, the unemployed are actively looking for work. Those who are out of work gave up looking; and if you give up, you are no longer in the ranks of the unemployed.

COSTELLO: So if you’re off the unemployment rolls, that would count as less unemployment?

ABBOTT: Unemployment would go down. Absolutely!

COSTELLO: The unemployment rate just goes down because you don’t look for work?

ABBOTT: Absolutely it goes down. That’s how it gets to 5.6%. Otherwise it would be 23%.

COSTELLO: Wait, I got a question for you. That means there are two ways to bring down the unemployment number?

ABBOTT: Two ways, that’s correct.

COSTELLO: Unemployment can go down if someone gets a job?

ABBOTT: Correct.

COSTELLO: And unemployment can also go down if you stop looking for a job?

ABBOTT: Bingo.

COSTELLO: So there are two ways to bring unemployment down, and the easier of the two is to have people stop looking for work.

ABBOTT: Now you’re thinking like an economist.

COSTELLO: I don’t even know what the hell I just said!

ABBOTT: Now you’re thinking like a politician.

It would be funny if it wasn’t so damn true…

Sigh…

YGTBSM!!!

Posted on by August 16, 2015

Our new surgeon general is at it already…

Vivek Murthy is continuing to push his anti-gun agenda, after barely squeaking through confirmation.  This is one of the few losses the NRA has had recently…

The doctor said he still believes gun violence is a preventable health problem, comparing it to seatbelts and swimming pool safety.

Really??? I just cannot see how any rational human being can spout crap like this, much less have a so called ‘educated’ person do it…

Read the whole article and see the short video HERE.

Gah… It’s still Monday isn’t it?

“Fun” is over…

Posted on by August 16, 2015

Now it’s back to reality and getting ready for the next set of road trips…

Offer was accepted on the house, now comes the inspections, more paperwork, etc. etc…

Maybe a closing sometime next month, hopefully…

Thanks for all the good thoughts, and again sorry for the lack of posting/commenting. Not a lot of connectivity out in the sticks… LOL

Busy, busy…

Posted on by August 15, 2015

Sorry for the lack of posting and commenting. I’m house hunting this weekend so please go read the folks on the sidebar they are much better than I am!

I’ll try to post either later in the weekend or early next week.

Edit- Sorry for the bad spelling and lack of punctuation… Typing a post on a smartphone SUCKS!!!

Sigh…

Cleaning…

Posted on by August 12, 2015

Such fun… Not!

Put a hundred rounds through the Mustang last weekend, and these are the results… Not up to Tam’s usual standards, but it’s my daily carry…

Not the dirtiest shooter, but not the cleanest either. You can see the buildup on the rails just forward of the slide lock.

100 rounds frame

The slide doesn’t look real bad, but you can see the burned powder/grit on the barrel. Little bit of scrubbing required, but nothing I haven’t done before. In the last 200 rounds, only one FTE, that was with Keads down in NC. That was a jammed case that had expanded and had to be tapped out with a dowel.100 rounds slide barrelClean and shiny and back in service! 🙂

100 rounds clean

I likes my little Pony! 🙂

One note- Colt has come out with a polymer framed version, which Keads discusses HERE. I fondled one the other day, and I don’t care for it due to the ambidextrous safety. I have a high grip, and every time I swept the safety off, it pinched the index finger. Guess I’ll just stick with this one.

Anybody else notice that issue? Or is it just me???

On a brighter note  (literally)- Crimson Trace is offering a drawing for a free course at Gunsite! You can go HERE and register for it. If you sign up through the link, I get a chance too!

TBT…

Posted on by August 12, 2015

Way back this time…

1976, and a winter deployment to Northern Japan…

I think I’d made E-6 a couple of months earlier. And was still trying to figure out the airplane, as I’d gone from a P-3B squadron to a P-3C squadron without benefit of going back through the RAG… Fun times…

Crewcap 1

Back in the day, you put pins on your hat for every country visited on a deployment.crewcap 2The wings on the back were traded with a Taiwanese radar operator during a stopover down that way…

Hard to believe that was 37 years ago… I ran into one of my old pilots up here earlier this year, and we remembered each other! 🙂

Three memories that stick out from that deployment are the amount of snow, Belenko’s desertion with his Mig-25 and the day we had to do TWO medivacs down to Yokota in a blinding snowstorm. That was a LONG day…

Posted in TBT

Pavlov’s “Dogs”…

Posted on by August 10, 2015

Birds in this case though…

I have a four block walk between offices that I do at least a couple of times a day, and it’s interesting to see the differences between morning/evening walks and the lunchtime walks.

Yesterday one of ‘those’ people was out haranguing the people sitting out on the benches enjoying their lunches. You see, it’s like this…

The birds, mainly finches and sparrows, and an couple of what look like mockingbirds show up around 1100 in the morning, and stick around until about 1300. They are obnoxious panhandlers for food, and the mockingbirds have been known to grab a half a sandwich if they get the chance…

So I’m heading back to my office and I hear this high pitched voice, and it’s an old hippie woman, probably 60ish, grey hair frizzed out, wearing a tie dyed t-shirt and ratty shorts, and those funky sandals they wore back in the 60s. She’s ‘lecturing’ a couple of 20somethings about feeding the birds, and how they shouldn’t do that, but now they need to come every day and feed the birds, cause if they don’t the birds will die, because they won’t be able to forage for themselves, and this winter they’ll all fall out of the trees dead…

I noticed an older gent sitting on the next bench just shaking his head and we made eye contact; he smiled and shrugged, and she turned on him. He told her to shut her pie hole and go away, which prompted another tirade, allowing the 20somethings to escape. I hauled ass too!

But it does remind me of a story from out of the past…

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