Suthern Wimmen…

Those of you in the south will understand, and those of you who are not… too bad.
Southern women know their summer weather report: Humidity,Humidity,Humidity and HOT!
Southern women know their vacation spots: The beach, The rivuh, The crick
Southern women know everybody’s first name:Honey,D arlin,’Shugah

Southern women know the movies that speak to their hearts:Fried Green Tomatoes, Driving Miss Daisy, Steel Magnolias, Gone With The Wind
Southern women know their religions: Baptist, Methodist, Football
Southern women know their cities dripping with Southern charm:Chawl’stn, S’vanah, Foat Wuth, N’awlins, Addlanna
Southern women know their elegant gentlemen: Men in uniform, Men in tuxedos, Rhett Butler
Southern girls know their prime real estate:The Mall, The Spa, The Beauty Salon

Southern girls know the 3 deadly sins: Having bad hair and nails, Having bad manners, Cooking bad food

More Suthen-ism’s: Only a Southerner knows the difference between a hissie fit and a conniption fit, and that you don’t “HAVE” them, you “PITCH” them.
Only a Southerner knows how many fish, collard greens, turnip greens, peas, beans, etc., make up “a mess.”

Only a Southerner can show or point out to you the general direction of “yonder.”
Only a Southerner knows exactly how long “directly” is, as in:
“Going to town, be back drekly (directly).”

Even Southern babies know that “Gimme some sugar” is not a request for the white, granular, sweet substance that sits in a pretty little bowl in the middle of the table.
All Southerners know exactly when “by and by” is. They might not use the term, but they know the concept well.
Only a Southerner knows instinctively that the best gesture of solace for a neighbor who’s got trouble is a plate of hot fried chicken and a big bowl of cold potato salad.
If the neighbor’s trouble is a real crisis, they also know to add a large banana puddin’!

Only Southerners grow up knowing the difference between “right near” and
“a right far piece.” They also know that “just down the road” can be 1 mile or 20.

Only a Southerner both knows and understands the difference between a redneck, a good ol’ boy, and po’ white trash.
No true Southerner would ever assume that the car with the flashing turn signal is actually going to make a turn.
A Southerner knows that “fixin” can be used as a noun, a verb, or an adverb.
Only Southerners make friends while standing in lines… and when we’re “in line,”… we talk to everybody!
Put 100 Southerners in a room and half of them will discover they’re related, even if only by marriage.
In the South, y’all is singular, all y’all is plural.
Southerners know grits come from corn and how to eat them.
Every Southerner knows tomatoes with eggs, bacon, grits, and coffee are perfectly wonderful; that red eye gravy is also a breakfast food; and that fried green tomatoes are not a breakfast food.
When you hear someone say, “Well, I caught myself lookin’,” you know you are in the presence of a genuine Southerner!
Only true Southerners say “sweet tea” and “sweet milk.” Sweet tea indicates the need for sugar and lots of it — we do not like our tea unsweetened. “Sweet milk” means you don’t want buttermilk.
And a true Southerner knows you don’t scream obscenities at little old ladies who drive 30 MPH on the freeway. You just say,”Bless her heart”… and go your own way.
To those of you who are still a little embarrassed by your Southerness: Take two tent revivals and a dose of sausage gravy and call me in the morning. Bless your heart!

Now y’all have a good weekend, ya hear!!!

Two Things…

Go HERE to Peedee’s blog and follow the link for a petition to name a bridge after one of the fallen heroes from the first Gulf War, A-10 Pilot, Capt. Patrick Brian Olson who gave his life during Operation Desert Storm in Feb 1991.

The second is a post up at Lawdog’s blog HERE about some Gurkas doing ‘exactly’ what they were supposed to and getting a negative reaction from thier Brit bosses… Be advised, Lawdog is in FINE form on this one 🙂 And you will be as pissed as he is…

Nothing new on this end, still on ‘location’, still herding cats…
sigh…

Impressive…


Creeping closer inch by inch, 900 feet above the mighty Colorado River, the two sides of a $160 million bridge at the Hoover Dam slowly take shape. The bridge will carry a new

section of US Route 93 past the bottleneck of the old road which can be seen twisting and


winding around and across the dam itself.




When complete, it will provide a new link between the states of Nevada and Arizona


In an incredible feat of engineering, the road will be supported on the two massive

concrete arches which jut out of the rock face.


The arches are made up of 53 individual sections each 24 feet long which have been cast on-site and are being lifted into place using an improvised high-wire crane strungbetween temporary steel pylons.



The arches will eventually measure more than 1,000 feet across. At the moment, the structure looks like a traditional suspension bridge.But once the arches are complete, the suspending cables on each side will be removed. Extra vertical columns will then be installed on the arches to carry the road.


The bridge has become known as the Hoover Dam bypass, although it is officially called the Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, after a former governor of Nevadaand an American Football player from Arizona who joined the US Army and was killedïin Afghanistan.


Work on the bridge started in 2005 and should finish next year.An estimated 17,000 cars and trucks will cross it every day. The dam was started in 1931 and used enough concrete to build a road from New York to San Francisco. The stretch of water it created, Lake Mead is 110 miles long and took six years to fill.The original road was opened at the same time as the famous dam in 1936.



An extra note:

The top of the white band of rock in Lake Mead is the old waterline prior to the drought and development in the Las Vegas area and is over 100 feet above the current water level.

Impressive… to put it mildly…

Oldies but goodies…

I know most people won’t remember these, but I do…

These used to be on the rural highways throughout America, I remember seeing them when I was growing up in the South. There would be five signs, each with one line on it, the last was always the Burma Shave logo and name.

Old ‘Burma Shave’ Roadway Signs!

DON’T STICK YOUR ELBOW
OUT SO FAR
IT MAY GO HOME
IN ANOTHER CAR.
Burma Shave

TRAINS DON’T WANDER
ALL OVER THE MAP
‘CAUSE NOBODY SITS
IN THE ENGINEER’S LAP
Burma Shave

SHE KISSED THE HAIRBRUSH
BY MISTAKE
SHE THOUGHT IT WAS
HER HUSBAND JAKE
Burma Shave

DON’T LOSE YOUR HEAD
TO GAIN A MINUTE
YOU NEED YOUR HEAD
YOUR BRAINS ARE IN IT
Burma Shave

DROVE TOO LONG
DRIVER SNOOZING
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
IS NOT AMUSING
Burma Shave

BROTHER SPEEDER
LET’S REHEARSE
ALL TOGETHER
GOOD MORNING, NURSE
Burma Shave

CAUTIOUS RIDER
TO HER RECKLESS DEAR
LET’S HAVE LESS BULL
AND A LITTLE MORE STEER
Burma Shave

SPEED WAS HIGH
WEATHER WAS NOT
TIRES WERE THIN
X MARKS THE SPOT
Burma Shave

THE MIDNIGHT RIDE
OF PAUL FOR BEER
LED TO A WARMER
HEMISPHERE
Burma Shave

AROUND THE CURVE
LICKETY-SPLIT
BEAUTIFUL CAR
WASN’T IT?
Burma Shave

NO MATTER THE PRICE
NO MATTER HOW NEW
THE BEST SAFETY DEVICE
IN THE CAR IS YOU
Burma Shave

A GUY WHO DRIVES
A CAR WIDE OPEN
IS NOT THINKIN’
HE’S JUST HOPIN’
Burma Shave

AT INTERSECTIONS
LOOK EACH WAY
A HARP SOUNDS NICE
BUT IT’S HARD TO PLAY
Burma Shave

BOTH HANDS ON THE WHEEL
EYES ON THE ROAD
THAT’S THE SKILLFUL
DRIVER’S CODE
Burma Shave

THE ONE WHO DRIVES
WHEN HE’S BEEN DRINKING
DEPENDS ON YOU
TO DO HIS THINKING
Burma Shave

CAR IN DITCH
DRIVER IN TREE
THE MOON WAS FULL
AND SO WAS HE.
Burma Shave

PASSING SCHOOL ZONE
TAKE IT SLOW
LET OUR LITTLE
SHAVERS GROW
Burma Shave

Gah,,,

It’s officially HOT!!!
Went down to Acitrezza to check on a boat, it was a ‘balmy’ 99 down on the coast with a light cooling breeze, so it only felt like 103…

Back up to where we are staying, the temps were a ‘warm’ 102 with a heat index of 110, and 20 kt breeze… I now know what a convection oven feels like… sigh…

Went back to get in the car and run to lunch, the interior temp was 53C, which equated to 127F! And it’s not even ‘really’ hot yet!!!

Just for S&Gs ran a density altitude profile for the location at 284ft above sea level, turns out the DA is over 3500 feet!

Sorry for the lack of posting and commenting, connectivity is lousy even when it’s up; which is about half the time. I’m doing this on my lunchbreak, since there is actually an open terminal.

Back to the oriface… y’all have a good weekend!

Crab Cakes Anyone???


Need crabs for crab cakes? How about a bushel of crabs to eat?


Don’t these look good???

Surprise…

These photos were taken at a wedding in North Carolina ..
Get ready for this: It’s a wedding cake!
The crabs, corn, and even the container of Old Bay Seasoning are made of white chocolate.
The sand is crushed graham crackers and vanilla wafers.
The mallets are fondant, a confection used for decorating.
The entire $700 cake is edible!

Crab Cake is not always what you think!


All I can say is WOW… Somebody put a LOT of time and effort into that, and it would have been a real shame (for about 10 seconds) to eat it. 🙂

Judicial Activism at It’s Finest…

Truly a YGTBSM moment…


Got this from a friend in MD this morning via email…

A Maryland judge issued an $85 fine to the owner of a Pontiac G8 GT for illegal tail lights, despite being factory-installed and approved by the US Department of Transportation.

She’s promised to keep fining him. Judicial activism, FTL!

A forum member on G8.com was ticketed by a Maryland officer who claimed he was sporting illegal tail lights. After amassing a healthy amount of evidence proving he hadn’t modified his car and it was approved for sale by the Department of Transportation, he went to court confident the ticket would be dismissed, only to find the contrary. We’ll let him tell you how it all went down:

Went to court for my clear tail lights on my car and was found guilty!

The judge actualy told me she didn’t care what the manufacturer said, what the federal govt said, what the DOT # stamped onto my taillights said if the officer says my lights aren’t legal then they’re not legal. I took the G8 sales brochure in along with pics of my car and other G8 GT’s and the VIN trace by 3 different dealers saying my lights were factory none of it mattered she found me guilty of failing to display or reflect red light on the rear of the car. Didn’t matter the reflecters were in the bumper, didn’t matter where the light is has that little red circle, the whole lens isn’t red so they’re not legal. Also where the back-up and turn signals are should be the reflectors according to the cop so the V6 cars lights aren’t legal either.

Judge stupid went on to tell me that maybe I should consider trading in or selling the car since its not legal in MD and that I’m going to continue to get the $60 tickets till I get rid of the car.

So I contacted Pontiac’s 1-800 # and I have an apt next friday to have my car looked at by them and see if they can help or at least repay me the $85.50 fine and court costs.

I honestly don’t know what else I can do. The cop was ALL smiles afterwards and winked at me! WTF! Now I’m screwed! How do I go to work now? I drive right thru where he works!! So this ass nuget can make up **** randomly for any car he gets a hard on for and nothing can be done to fight it!

This is BS.

The problem centers around the clear lens tail lights and bumper-mounted reflectors of the Pontiac G8 GT model. Because the red area in the lenses is reduced in the G8 GT, there are reflectors mounted in the bumper to reflect additional light and bring the reflective requirements into spec. Th officer and by extension the judge considered them illegal.

Now, we can understand Mr. Xxxxx’x momentary lack of respect for the legal system above — this is B.S., but he’s got legitimate cause to be pissed. He bought a car he assumed to fall within the operations laws of all states and which was in reality approved for nationwide sale by the government. According to the Judge, the opinion of an Officer of the Law supersedes what the Federal government approved for sale and the design somehow doesn’t jive with what the State of Maryland considers legal.

One of the other forum members has offered up legal service to fight the fine, but it makes us wonder if all the G8 GT drivers in Maryland now have something to worry about. Should motorists who’ve bought a car approved by the Federal government be worried about being arbitrarily fined by a Judge who seems to side with the opinion of an officer over the law.

And something tells me we are going to see more and more of this under this administration and the “new” judicial mentality… sigh…

I’m outta here for about three weeks of fun and games , so blogging and commenting will be light.

Y’all have fun, and I’ll try to get the occasional post up.

Lenscrafters are a bunch of sleazebags…

Don’t EVER waste your money at Lenscrafters, especially at Pentagon City in Virginia…

They can’t seem to get glasses measured properly, I’m firmly convinced they overcharge you out the ass for glasses and lenses.

I had a new prescription done in late May, wanted lenses for the glasses I currently had, but no they “recommended” new glasses that ‘fit’ better. Okay, fine…

The woman ‘measured’ my old glasses, wrote a bunch of numbers on an order blank, and then started adding options; by the time she was done, the total was over $400. I didn’t like it, but needed them and was getting ready for a trip, so…

I fork over the money, only to find it would be 5-7 business days… (Now if I had a brain, I would have gotten a refund and immediately went elsewhere, but nooooo!)

So I finally get the glasses, have fit problems, they “bother” me with the ways I have to cock my head to see stuff, I go back and they ‘adjust’ them… Doesn’t get any better.

I go back to the Optometrist, and just for S&G, get her to check the prescription. She looks at it, says it’s “close”, and puts the glasses on me and has me do the eye chart. She then started measuring, they were too high on the progression, not centered correctly for my pupils and something else.

So I trot my unhappy ass back to Lenscrafters , with old glasses in hand, and the store manager says, “oh we can do a quick set of lenses (for your OLD glasses) and we’ll work out a credit for your new glasses. “

(Screwup #2, I didn’t get the credit up front)

$241 later and one hour later, I’m back. These are actually pretty good and I can sit and look normally and see…

Sooooo… I ask about getting some credit back for the ‘new’ glasses I now no longer need since I’m within the 90 days of the warranty.

Only to be told, “Oh I can’t give you any credit, the only thing I ‘could’ have done was lenses for THOSE glasses; but you can donate them!” And she said that with a SMILE!!!

I just got up and walked out before I said something I “REALLY” shouldn’t have…

So, for what it’s worth, DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME WITH LENSCRAFTERS!!! They will screw you and smile at you as they do it!!!

A Safety Warning- Globe CFL bulbs…

Got this via email, backs up some discussions we’ve been having…
A Safety Warning

Below is a picture of a CFL light bulb from my bathroom. I turned it on the other day and then smelled smoke after a few minutes. Four inch flames were spewing out of the side of the ballast like a blow torch! I immediately turned off the lights. But I’m sure it would have caused a fire if I was not right there. Imagine if the kids had left the lights on as usual when they were not in the room.


I took the bulb to the Fire Department today to report the incident. The Fireman wasn’t at all surprised and said that it was not an uncommon occurrence. Apparently, sometimes when the bulb burns out there is a chance that the ballast can start a fire. He told me that the Fire Marshall had issued reports about the dangers of these bulbs.

Upon doing some Internet research, it seems that bulbs made by “Globe” in China seem to have the lion’s share of problems. Lots of fires have been blamed on misuse of CFL bulbs, like using them in recessed lighting, pot lights, dimmers or in track lighting. Mine was not in any of those. It was a normal light socket.

I bought these at Wal-Mart. I will be removing all the Globe bulbs from my house. I have not decided yet if we are going back to incandescent bulbs at this point.

Ironically, Project Porchlight is giving away Globe bulbs, that THEY claim are safe… Read HERE

Having said that, HERE, HERE, and HERE are some counter points to that… I did find they don’t last as long as they are supposed to…

I’m gonna go buy a case if incandescents and hope I die before I run out of lightbulbs…

Can you believe THIS???

From the WAPO yesterday…


The Swiss rejection of the U.S. request, which cannot be appealed, was a surprise. The government grants the vast majority of extradition petitions, and even Mr. Polanski’s lawyer said the decision was “not expected.” Switzerland Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf blamed U.S. authorities for failing to provide confidential testimony about sentencing procedures used at the time of the case. This technicality essentially proved a convenient excuse for a Swiss government caught up in a wave of protest from European intellectual and political figures sympathetic to Mr. Polanski.

French Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterand said that Mr. Polanski was being “thrown to the lions for an old story that doesn’t really make any sense.” He’s made terrific movies, in other words; he’s one of us; why can’t the Americans get past this obsession with holding child rapists accountable?

You have GOT to be s**ting me… What ‘little’ respect I had for the French just went out the window…

This turd is obviously just like Polanski, and based on what Wiki has on line HERE, he’s probably guilty himself… Either that, or he wants a part in the next Polanski movie…