A little "humor" for your Friday…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

This one came in over the transom from another ‘old fart’…

In the line at the store, the cashier told the older woman that plastic bags weren’t good for the environment. The woman apologized to her and explained, “We didn’t have the green thing back in my day.”
   
    That’s right, they didn’t have the green thing in her day. Back then, they returned their milk bottles, Coke bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, using the same bottles over and over. So they really were  recycled. 

(I can remember checking the ditches on the way to and from school , hoping to find a bottle or three; lots of times I found enough to get a coke for 6 cents out of the machine)
   
    But they didn’t have the green thing back her day.
   
    In her day, they walked up stairs, because they didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. They walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time they had to go two blocks.

(And we walked to school even as elementary students (2nd grade on), probably 3/4 of a mile each way. I knew kids that walked at least 2 miles each way, rain or shine)
   
    But she’s right. They didn’t have the green thing in her day. 
   
    Back then, they washed the baby’s diapers because they didn’t have the throw-away kind. They dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts – wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. 

(And the washing machine was one with a hang wringer on top, no spin cycle or anything else.)
   
    But that old lady is right, they didn’t have the green thing back in her day.
     
    Back then, they had one TV, or radio, in the house – not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a pizza dish, not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, they blended and stirred by hand because they didn’t have electric machines to do everything for you. When they packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, they used wadded up newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

(Our first TV was in 1957 or 8, black and white, and had a 12 inch screen; no toaster oven, no microwave, just a gas stove and oven. And none of the houses I lived in growing up had air conditioning either)
   
    Back then, they didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. They used a push mower that ran on human power. They exercised by working so they didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. 

(BTDT)
   
    But she’s right, they didn’t have the green thing back then.
   
    They drank from a fountain when they were thirsty, instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time they had a drink of water. They refilled pens with ink, instead of buying a new pen, and they replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.


(They were called ‘fountain pens’, because occasionally they would leak a ‘fountain’ of ink on your brand new shirt; which you STILL had to wear, even with the ink stain. And another reason for pocket protectors you see in all the old pictures.)
   
    But they didn’t have the green thing back then.   

    Back then, people took the streetcar and kids rode their bikes to school or rode the school bus, instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. They had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And they didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.


(Even up through junior high in the mid-60s I don’t remember seeing parents driving kids to school other than one boy that was in a wheelchair. And we could get unrestricted driver’s licenses at 15 back in those days…)
   
    But they didn’t have the green thing back then!


Life was not perfect by any means, but the kids didn’t sit glued to the TV/boombox/video games all day; we were outside, traipsing around the neighborhoods, out in the woods (with .22s), and generally out of the house all day until dark (and you learned how to interact with other people face to face, from your peers, to adults to the elderly).  And ANY parent that caught you screwing up was gonna beat your butt, then call your parents, which would get your butt beaten again…

And I never screamed child abuse, or threatened to call the cops on my parents (hell, the COPS would have joined in on the butt beating)… 

I’m glad I grew up then, rather than now. At least I know how to do things, I can interact with people, I know what work ethic is, and I know about winning and losing…

A couple of things…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
And Filthydelphia just gets better and better… Ackerman, the fired (and bought off for $900K) former Schools Chief is now filing for unemployment… Read it and weep HERE!  For my friends that live up there, all I can say is get out while you can…


And a bit of a different take. Pew Research Center Politics Test…

This is a terrific little test. And it shows results in a number of ways. It surely indicates that the majority of Americans don’t know what’s going  on. Interesting and simple test. It’s astonishing that so many people got less than half right. 

These results say that 80% of the (voting) public doesn’t have a clue – and that’s pretty scary.

There are no tricks here – just a simple test to see if you are current on your information.

This is quite good and  the results are shocking.

Test your knowledge with 13 questions, then be ready to shudder when you see how others did.

Go HERE for the test, and remember, look at the demographics after you finish…

It’s 13 easy questions, or at least I though so…

A New Norm, and NOT a good one…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
This will be the lead article in the Navy Times for 5 Dec, and the  KEY takeaway is this is BEFORE the additional $600B in cuts hit the military…


Cuts in the numbers of ships, airplanes, submarines, personnel, etc. with more to come, but NO reduction in the required ‘presence’ the Navy has to maintain world-wide…


For years the Navy has attempted to maintain OPTEMPO/PERSTEMPO roughly in a 50/50 balance that gives folks time off and time to perform maintenance on the equipment during at home cycles, but that will go out the window as you will read below.  Mr. McMichael has done an outstanding job with this article.

The New Norm: Longer Tours

With fewer ships, high demand, 6-month deployments are history

By William H. McMichael

You could practically set a clock by it. Navy and Marine Corps overseas deployments lasted six months.

But 9/11 changed all that — as did the greater flexibility called for in the 2003 Fleet Response Plan and a 2007 policy change that set the maximum deployment length at seven months for units with a single deployment within an FRP cycle.

A total of 10 carrier strike groups or amphibious ready groups have exceeded seven months over the past five years. The latest is the amphibious assault ship Bataan, the amphibious transport dock ship Mesa Verde and the dock landing ship Whidbey Island, which will have been gone 10½ months when their ARG returns to Norfolk in February, officials have confirmed.

That goes for the embarked 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, as well. “They’re on for the whole time,” confirmed Capt. Greg Wolf, a Marine spokesman.

Officials say it’s an anomaly, noting that Bataan deployed three months early to provide relief to the Kearsarge, which was launching airstrikes over Libya.

Long cruises, however, seem to be becoming a habit. The destroyer Roosevelt, an independent deployer to the 5th and 6th Fleet areas of operations, returned Nov. 6 to Mayport, Fla. It spent 200 of its 213 days underway and at one point pulled 113 straight days at sea. The ship did make three port visits, the Navy said.

Meanwhile, say goodbye to the carrier Carl Vinson, Carrier Air Wing 17 and the cruiser Bunker Hill, all setting sail Nov. 30, a mere 5½ months after returning to Naval Station North Island, Calif., from a 6½-month deployment that included supporting the takedown and at-sea burial of Osama bin Laden. Vinson will violate the Navy’s goal of spending at least as much time at home as spent at sea during the previous deployment.

The pressure is clearly on.

The busy pace — atop the Navy’s mounting budget pressures and a maintenance backlog — raises the question: Are longer deployments and short turnarounds the new norm?

“No,” Navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. John Fage said. “Here’s the analogy. You go into your 9-to-5 job. At 4:30, the boss comes along and says, hey, I know it’s 4:30 and I hate to ask, but we’re really busy today; I need you to stay a couple hours late. It’s the same thing. Our sailors are going to go out there, and they’re going to get the job done.

“We flex to meet emergent requirements,” he said.

A Marine Corps spokesman didn’t deny that longer cruises are in the cards, but said it’s too early to make such a pronouncement.

“Given their capability and flexibility, it’s no wonder that the demand signal for ARG-MEUs is strong,” said Marine Corps media officer Capt. Greg Wolf. “But to say that longer floats are the ‘new norm’ would be speculation at this point.” Behind the brave faces, however, the Navy, at least, is deeply concerned.

The Navy is “desperately trying to come up with some kind of rationale that will explain … why we’re going to be riding them hard and putting them away wet,” said a Washington-based senior naval analyst familiar with fleet planning who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“I’ve heard concern about material readiness,” the analyst said. “Availabilities will be missed, simply because they’ve got to turn ships around. Crews are going to be turned around. There are already some situations of cross-decking of people from one ship to another — when they come back from deployment, turning around and going back out within a relatively short period of time. They just don’t have the skilled and trained people in the fleet to be able to man the ships. There are some real concerns.”

It’s why the Navy has announced plans to forward-deploy four destroyers to Rota, Spain, is negotiating sending littoral combat ships to Singapore and is discussing the basing of additional attack submarines in Guam, the analyst said.

“It’s the Navy realizing that the demand signal is still very strong, and they just don’t have the resources to do it,” he said.

No one in uniform is admitting that yet. The chief of naval operations, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, told Navy Times that the demand for naval forces is “unlikely” to go away. Greenert gave no indication that he’s pushing back against some of those demands but said if it gets to the point where the Navy finds itself in a “continuing surge” environment, “We’ll wear out the ships and people.”

The commander of Fleet Forces Command agreed, but with stronger language. “We need to take care of our ships and sailors and Marines and make sure that in the future we have the force we need,” Adm. John Harvey told attendees at a joint war-fighting conference earlier this year. “Perhaps that means saying no to things today so we have the wherewithal to have the forces we need tomorrow.”

Fage, however, said that the Navy is “going to continue meeting current demands while still planning and posturing for whatever may happen in the future in those emergent requirements.”

How the Navy will respond to those requirements, he said, “is going to be dependent on a lot of different factors, including available platforms and capabilities.”

Navy ships and squadrons took on a far more nimble readiness posture with adoption of the Fleet Response Plan, which called for the ability to “surge” three carriers atop three already deployed — along with the ships in their strike groups — within 30 days and another within 90 days.

The Navy hasn’t pulled off a full-scale surge as envisioned by FRP since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But carrier strike groups are in heavy demand. And they’re spending a lot of time at sea.

The Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group was deployed 223 days in 2008 and 2009. The Nimitz group clocked 239 days in 2009 and 2010. The Harry S. Truman group was gone 214 days in 2010. If Vinson spends only 6½ months at sea this time out, it will have been on deployment 13 out of the previous 18½ months.

Nimitz and Truman were extended because of a delay in completing repairs to the carrier Enterprise, celebrating its 50th birthday and making its final cruise in 2012. Its retirement will leave the Navy with 10 operational carriers until the Gerald R. Ford comes on line — a 33-month gap. And if budget pressures drive the Navy to reduce that 11-carrier fleet to 10 — high-level sources tell Navy Times the Navy might opt not to refuel the Japan-based carrier George Washington in 2016 and remove it from the fleet — and no adjustment is made in carrier presence requirements, longer deployments will continue.

The Navy currently meets Central Command’s requirement that two carrier groups be on station in the region 70 percent of the time. This “ensures the U.S. military has additional naval and air capabilities to support operational requirements, while adequately meeting other security commitments in the region,” according to 5th Fleet.

Citing operational security, no one’s saying whether that could change. CENTCOM is “continuously looking at requirements in the area of responsibility and analyzing the forces required to fill those needs,” 5th Fleet said.

What’s driving that demand is anyone’s guess. Naval analyst Norman Polmar thinks it could be a signal to a potential adversary.

“Right now, there’s concern for a number of areas in the world, and it’s increasing — especially in sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East, of course,” Polmar said. “But is this somehow a signal to Iran that, hey, we may be pulling out of Afghanistan … but man, the U.S. military is still there and ready to beat your ass any day of the week?”

Or, Polmar said, combatant commanders could be driving the Navy so the Navy can make the case, in the wake of two ground-centric wars and strong sentiment to cut military spending, that it remains a vital national asset that needs proper funding.

Whatever the reason, demand remains high in the amphibious fleet as well. The numbers tell the story.

Bataan’s 2009 cruise lasted 210 days — just shy of seven months. The pace didn’t let up. Thirty-four days later, Bataan and the 22nd MEU got underway to provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief support to earthquake-stricken Haiti.

That deployment lasted 10 weeks. Four months of ship maintenance began in August 2010, followed by at-sea training — and the current deployment, which started months ahead of schedule. While it is unclear when crew members and their families learned how long the Bataan ARG would be away, the Facebook page of the lead ship offers hints.

A June 9 post offered short-sleeve T-shirts commemorating the ship’s 2011 deployment as a fundraiser for the family readiness group. On Nov. 8, a new shirt was offered for sale. It was long-sleeved, acknowledging the approach of cold weather. And the words on the front had morphed into “Deployment 2011/2012.”

Kearsarge and the 26th MEU, which left a month early to provide humanitarian relief to a rain-flooded Pakistan, were gone 260 days — the Navy’s fourth-highest total since 9/11. That was a day less than Boxer logged from Sept. 13, 2006, to May 31, 2007. Two other ARGs also pulled lengthy deployments in recent years: Iwo Jima, with 214 days in 2008 and 2009, and Bonhomme Richard for 224 days in 2007.

Less than five years ago, the Navy had 12 amphibious assault ships. But it has since decommissioned three of them: Saipan, Tarawa and Nassau. With Wasp dedicated to supporting tests of the Marine Corps’ joint strike fighter variant, that leaves eight to choose from.

Also, Peleliu is scheduled to go away in three years.

Meanwhile, the newest amphibious assault ship, America, won’t be delivered until fiscal 2014, and won’t be ready to deploy for perhaps another two years. The Corps wants the Navy to delay Peleliu’s demise until America is ready.

The Navy has a goal of 33 amphibious ships but falls short through 2016, according to a 2011 Congressional Budget Office study; it currently has 28. The goal also falls well short of the Marine Corps’ goal of 38 — what the Marines and Navy say would be required to pull off a wartime amphibious assault with two Marine expeditionary brigades, according to CBO.

CBO says the Navy will have enough amphibs to meet peacetime goals for overseas presence for the next 30 years similar to the presence it provided in 2007. More important to the defense of the nation, CBO projects that the Navy’s 2012 plan does not provide enough amphibs for the Corps to prepare and train for all the missions it might be called upon to perform over the next three decades.

About 30 percent of the force is deployed overseas at any given time, according to CBO. In 2007, combatant commanders requested nine amphibs, a request that could be met without strain.

By 2010, COCOMs, asked how many they would require in an unconstrained financial environment, said they’d need 18 amphibs. Meeting this request, CBO said, “would substantially increase deployment time and reduce time in ships’ home ports.”

For a given ship, over the typical 27-month operating cycle, deployment time would more than double — from 26 to 62 weeks. Time in home port would fall from 57 percent to 36 percent, “well short of the Navy’s goal of 50 percent,” CBO said.

The Navy already comes up short in terms of meeting the Corps’ shipboard training needs. According to CBO, Navy amphibs were able to meet only 57 percent of such needs in 2010. In January and February, the Navy and the Corps will conduct Bold Alligator off the Atlantic coast. It will be the first large-scale amphibious training the Corps has been able to conduct in more than 10 years, according to CBO. The goal, according to Fleet Forces Command, is to “revitalize Navy/Marine Corps amphibious expeditionary tactics, techniques and procedures” and to reinvigorate their joint training culture.

The Navy’s 28 amphibs include nine amphibious assault ships, seven amphibious transport docks and 12 dock landing ships. An ARG typically includes one of each.

The demand for ARGs raises the question of whether other ships or at least fewer ships could perform the missions set by combatant commanders. That would require detailed knowledge of Bataan’s activities; 5th Fleet officials said only that the group, which arrived in its area of operations Aug. 13, has been conducting the standard ARG missions: maritime security operations, theater security cooperation engagements, and standing by as U.S. Central Command’s theater reserve force.

Elsewhere in the fleet, potential deployment pressure comes as the Navy ramps up the ballistic missile defense mission and boosts the number of BMD-capable AEGIS ships from 23 to 41 by end of fiscal 2016. It’s not yet known whether those ships will be dedicated solely to the BMD mission or will answer other requirements as well.

In addition, the attack submarine force is slowly shrinking. But officials say sub deployments won’t increase in length save for rare occasions.

The Navy’s top submarine operator, Vice Adm. John Richardson, told Navy Times that submarines “very, very seldom” deploy beyond the norm. For attack submarines, that remains six months, while ballistic missile subs are on patrol for an average of 77 days, according to spokeswoman Cmdr. Monica Rousselow. About 10 percent are “sometimes extended” due to operations or maintenance requirements elsewhere, she said.

The Navy’s stated goal is to maintain a fleet of 48 attack subs and should be able to do so through 2024 under its fiscal 2011 procurement plan, according to Ron O’Rourke of the Congressional Research Service.

The overall Navy fleet could easily shrink further. “It’s going to get even worse,” said the Washington-based senior naval analyst. “I’ve seen internal documents that say, OK, what can we do with a 280-ship Navy, what can we do with a 240-ship Navy? And one even said, what if we get down to 180? What’s going to be left and what can we do? And the answer is, not a whole lot.”

As a result, he said, “I think the new normal is a much higher personnel tempo that we’ve seen since the Vietnam War. … These are tough times for the Navy.”


Welcome to a hollow military… and prepare for it to get worse… dammit…

Professional Athletes…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

In light of the latest set of scandals and the fact that once again it was admitted that college athletes are treated “differently” than the rest of us, a few quotes from those who were college athletes and went on to ‘bigger and better things’…


1. Chicago Cubs outfielder Andre Dawson on being a role model:
“I wan’ all dem kids to do what I do, to look up to me. I wan’ all the kids to copulate me.”

2. New Orleans Saint RB George Rogers when asked about the upcoming season:

“I want to rush for 1,000 or 1,500 yards, whichever comes first…”

3. And, upon hearing Joe Jacobi of the ‘Skin’s say:
“I’d run over my own mother to win the Super Bowl,”
Matt Millen of the Raiders said: “To win, I’d run over Joe’s Mom, too.”

4. Torrin Polk, University of Houston receiver, on his coach, John Jenkins:

“He treat us like mens. He let us wear earrings..”

5. Football commentator and former player Joe Theismann:
“Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.”

6. Senior basketball player at the University of Pittsburgh:
“I’m going to graduate on time, no matter how long it takes…”
(Now that is beautiful)

7. Bill Peterson, a Florida State football coach:
“You guys line up alphabetically by height…”
And, “You guys pair up in groups of three, and then line up in a circle.”

8. Boxing promoter Dan Duva on Mike Tyson going to prison:
“Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter?

He went to prison for three years, not Princeton  …”

9. Stu Grimson, Chicago Blackhawks left wing, explaining why he keeps a color photo of himself above his locker:
“That’s so when I forget how to spell my name, I can still find my clothes.”

10. Lou Duva, veteran boxing trainer, on the Spartan training regimen of heavyweight Andrew Golota: “He’s a guy who gets up at six o’clock in the morning, regardless of what time it is.”

11. Chuck Nevitt, North Carolina State basketball player, explaining to Coach Jim Valvano why he appeared nervous at practice:
“My sister’s expecting a baby, and I don’t know if I’m going to be an uncle or an aunt.”

(I wonder if his IQ ever hit room temperature in January)

12. Frank Layden, Utah Jazz president, on a former player:
“I asked him, ‘Son, what is it with you? Is it ignorance or apathy?’
He said, ‘Coach, I don’t know and I don’t care.'”

13. Shelby Metcalf, basketball coach at Texas A&M, recounting what he told a player who received four F’s and one D:
“Son, looks to me like you’re spending too much time on one subject.”

14. In the words of NC State great Charles Shackelford:
“I can go to my left or right, I am amphibious.”

15. Former Houston Oilers coach Bum Phillips when asked by Bob Costas why he takes his wife on all the road trips.

Phillips responded: “Because she’s too ugly to kiss good-bye.”



And one wonders why most of them don’t succeed after they finish playing their ‘sport’ of choice???

Back to the Salt Mine…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Fun times are over, so back to the salt mines tomorrow…


And back on the diet (I swear they were trying to fatten me up for the slaughter), and I must have put on five pounds!


BUT…


It was a good four days, other than a few minor excursions…

Well, yesterday morning, I waded along the edge of a lake, escaped from wild dogs in the heavy brush, marched up and down several rocky hills, tood in a patch of poison ivy, crawled out of quicksand, and jumped away from an aggressive rattlesnake.
I’m just a LOUSY golfer…

It truly helps if you play twice a week or more vs. once in three months… sigh

And I was stupid enough to do that TWICE!!!

Got to see a good football game last night, Carolina vs. Clemson, and the officiating is REALLY bad in both the SEC and ACC this year (between the uncalled face masks, offensive ‘holding’ (holding hell, it was out and out tackles), and ‘missed’ interference calls) I was wondering if the refs had bets on the game; real problem was we didn’t get back to the house until almost 0100! LEO friends were saying they’d be out all night corralling the drunks and idjits…

And I finally wangled the recipe for an outstanding Sweet Potato Casserole (hey, it IS the South, okay?)

3 cups mashed fresh cooked sweet potatoes
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1/3 stick butter (melted) 
1/2 cup real milk
1 tsp vanilla

Mix well, pour into greased baking dish

Topping

1 cup brown sugar
1 cup chopped fresh pecan halves
1/3 cup plain flour
1/3 stick butter (melted)  
Stir together, sprinkle on top of sweet potatoes

Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes

Get out the riot gun to control the mob…

This was the ONLY dish that was doubled up, and it was the first dish that was gone…

A Little Humor…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
An attractive blonde from Cork, Ireland, arrived at the casino. She seemed a little intoxicated and bet twenty thousand dollars in a single roll of the dice.
 
She said, “I hope you don’t mind, but I feel much luckier when I’m completely nude.” with that, she stripped from the neck down, rolled the dice and with an Irish brogue yelled, “Come on, baby, Mama needs new clothes!”
  
As the dice came to a stop, she jumped up and down and squealed… “Yes! Yes! I won, I won!” 

She hugged each of the dealers, picked up her winnings and her clothes and quickly parted.


The dealers stared at each other dumbfounded. Finally, one of them asked, “What did she roll?” The other answered, “I don’t know – I thought you were watching.”


MORAL OF THE STORY

Not all Irish are drunks, not all blonds are dumb, ….. but all men… are men!
 
Global Facts About – Sex    At any given moment:

FACT: 79,000,000 people are having sex – right now.
FACT: 58,000,000 are kissing.
FACT: 37,000,000 are relaxing after having sex.
FACT: 1 old person is reading emails.
 
You hang in there, sunshine! 

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Posted on by March 6, 2013

As the holiday season kicks off tomorrow, take a moment and step back from the sales, hoopla, family dinners/arguments/loony Uncles etc. and think about how lucky we are to live where we do…


And have the freedoms that we have, both due to our country and our ability to EARN a good enough living to be able to feed the crowd, travel to family, and the other things that we take for granted…


Having spent a number of Thanksgivings and Christmases out of the country over the years, I truly count myself lucky to be able to enjoy these holidays with family and friends.  I know many scoff at the food in the military, but I will tell you that Thanksgiving and Christmas the mess halls/chow halls, the field kitchens, the mess decks on the ships and subs ALL go out of their way to fix a traditional meal, literally soup to nuts (and everything in between) for those servicemen and women (and on shore bases the families) of our military.  


This is from the 646th ADC in New Jersey (in 1956).





This is from the 71st Transportation Battalion in Vietnam in 1967



A bit of history…  From Plimoth Plantation living history museum

What Was on the First Thanksgiving Menu?
Little is known about the first Thanksgiving dinner in the Plimoth Colony in October 1621, attended by some 50 English colonists and about 90 Wampanoag American Indian men in what is now Massachusetts.
We do know that the Wampanoag killed five deer for the feast, and that the colonists shot wild fowl—which may have been geese, ducks, or turkey. Some form, or forms, of Indian corn were also served.
But Jennifer Monac, spokesperson for the living-history museum Plimoth Plantation, said the feasters likely supplemented their venison and birds with fish, lobster, clams, nuts, and wheat flour, as well as vegetables such as pumpkin, squash, carrots, and peas.
“They ate seasonally,” Monac said in 2009, “and this was the time of the year when they were really feasting. There were lots of vegetables around, because the harvest had been brought in.”
Much of what we consider traditional Thanksgiving fare was unknown at the first Thanksgiving. Potatoes and sweet potatoes hadn’t yet become staples of the English diet, for example. And cranberry sauce requires sugar—an expensive delicacy in the 1600s. Likewise, pumpkin pie went missing due to a lack of crust ingredients.
And the whole food coma thing?  Well, that’s yet another myth…
It’s not the tryptophan in the turkey, it’s the booze, the amount of food (those second and third helpings of Granny’s sweet potato casserole and the pumpkin pie), and the sheer relaxation (other than the family fights/looney Uncle) and not having to work the next day…

And please, when you do sit down for your Thanksgiving, say a prayer for all our men and women serving in the military wherever they may be, and remember too our LEOs, Fire and EMS folks that are on the front lines here at home every day.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours…


I ‘did’ have another post in mind, but drjim beat me to it 🙂

DC Area Blog Shoot…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Murphy over at Lagniappe’s Lair has found us a range that will host a shoot on 3 Dec, it’s over in WV, but still within driving distance for most of us…


 I’ve been working on the idea for a local blog shoot for some time with a few other gun blogger stalwarts–Old NFO, Keadsand Proud Hillbilly to name three–and I just cinched exclusive use of a pretty decent new range in, of all places, Berkley County, WV on Saturday, Dec. 3rd. So if you’re a local gunny or even one who lives a ways a way and feels like a road trip, here’s your chance to come join with some other great gun folks and get some shooting in, hopefully followed by some decent eating, drinking and socializing.

Exact times are still being worked out, but the range will be open for use by all with handguns, rifles and shotguns, to include some five-stand shotgun shooting for those interested. Right now, I’m putting together a rough count of those expected to attend, so if you’re interested, please shoot Murphy and me an e-mail at [email protected]. I can’t promise that Murphy’ll be there, but I will be, and so far, the above-mentioned celebrity bloggers are expected as well.

Let me know how many you’ll be bringing and what type of firearms that you’re planning to shoot. Anything but full-auto is ok. (Drat! No M60!) When I get your e-mail, I’ll send you all of the info about the shoot, including directions, as they become finalized. Some ammo will be available for purchase at the range but your own is also welcome. And yes, WV is concealed-carry friendly but check to ensure that your own state has reciprocity before coming down.

If you’re a reader of this blog or those above and a shooter, you’re definitely welcome to come.

Donations will be accepted to cover the range fees, and anything collected in excess will be donated to Wounded Warriors.


Let’s get together and have some fun!!!

AAR- Hog hunt 2011

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Alternate title- Skunked…


Third title- That’s why it’s called HUNTING, not KILLING…


AD was kind enough to invite me to participate in the 2011 Hog Hunt down in Texas, which I truly appreciated. In attendance were Ambulance Driver, TOTW, JB and the Limey (not a blogger). Having not met JB nor the Limey, I wasn’t sure how that was going to work out, but they are both outstanding folks 🙂


Anyhoo…  Murph posted a comment on the previous post that kinda says it all…


Karmadillo…


It jumped up and bit us… Turns out that was the ONLY damn thing shot the entire weekend (other than paper while sighting in)…


The weather was a prime factor, going from ‘chilly’ and windy, to HOT (81 deg) and windy (and gusty).  What this meant was unless we wanted to hunt between oh, about 0200 and 0400 when the wind laid down for a bit, it was fat chance in hell of getting a hog (I slept in till 0430).  


I worked primarily from two locations, and everybody else basically did the same thing…  


Location 1



Down on the creek…



Pretty well camouflaged 


Location 2



94 yards, big feeder, and nada… fresh corn on the ground, not a hog to be seen or heard (of course they showed up between the time I left Friday night, and the owner’s wife got out there Saturday morning…


We even tried a second flush yesterday afternoon, based on where the owner had seen hogs earlier. AD was the designated shooter, and I was his BUG, further down the creek. After we’d figured out our safe shooting angles, we set up on the edge of the creek and proceeded to wait for the ‘beaters’ to flush the hogs.


EXCEPT, the ONLY thing that flushed was a @#^& skunk!


It was a ‘big’ one, and it came across the creek just below AD (ignoring him of course), and I see movement out of the corner of my eye; about the time the skunk sees me at about 10 yards, it throws its tail straight up and flares it (NOT a good sign).  I’m crouched down, gun is NOT up, and I’m trying to back up the creek bank without looking, and trying to figure out which way the wind is blowing… Thankfully, it decided to swim across the creek and go it’s own way.


Last night, nothing (other than a good steak on the grill, thanks JB)…


This morning, nothing, other than a skunk that looked at me though the crack in the blind (and thankfully decided to go his own way).


Some of the others had close encounters with deer, and other assorted things, but I’ll let them post on that 🙂



So effectively, these were the only things killed in any numbers this weekend 🙂


Fun times, good friends, meeting new folks, and a recharge on the personal battery.  Well worth it as far as I’m concerned!


And yes, the steer with the butt ugly toupee is STILL there…