Monday - December 31, 2012

best wishes for the coming year to a great bunch of people. my final post of this year. cheers all.

Another year about to end.  There were trials and tribulations during the year, personal ones, but as this year ends I truly believe I have been one hell of a lucky fellow.

Yes, I end the year with gripes about inconsiderate neighbors, political correctness, and deep frustration at the world I see now.  On the other hand, I consider myself luckier than I deserve to be, and I am very well lucky in the friends I still have. 

I’m very fortunate that I happened along at a time when Mr. Christian, as he was called, invited me to join BMEWS as a blogger.  Good grief. That was scary and I almost ran for the hills.  But he gave me confidence that I could, and because of that I have met, on line, all of you.  And I am very thankful for that.  Thankful too that I’m not a libtard cos if I were, jeesh. Not one of you would speak to me.  Well, not in kind terms anyway.  You regulars that I have come to know here are pretty special folk.  I enjoy your comments, and some are funny even when you’re angry. 

Many of you are pretty darn good wordsmiths.  I don’t have your ability to use words the way I’d like to, but many of you do.  I appreciate good writing, which I think stems a lot from my association with song writers in Nashville.  Or anywhere else for that matter.  I’ve never been able to work out how or where the words come from.  If I could, I’d be doing it.  So instead I simply jot down here what I’m thinking at any given moment.  Sometimes that ain’t too good cos what I’m think might be nothing more than mushy thinking and I have to go back and edit my thinking. 

Can’t end the year without saying thanks to Vilmar, and the sharing of those photographs.  He says he isn’t a professional and maybe he isn’t.  He just creates photos that darn well are professional. 

A special friendship that must have its own paragraph is the one I enjoy with Drew.
Letters and emails and questions answered, and I will tell you, favors done by someone I never met personally and who had trust in me, whoa.  That isn’t easily come by.  I am not going to get all gooey and stupid here. I hate that kind of thing. But I just want to acknowledge publicly that he is a friend, and I owe him a lot.
So thanks Drew for the past year and the one before and here’s cheers for the one coming. 

I wish I had saved many of the comments made by so many of you for a years end post.  But I didn’t, and there isn’t enough time right now to go into the archives and dig.  I guess I left it too late.  Might be a project for next year though, if I make it that far.  Hey, ya never know. 

I do have a few from more recent days.

Meanwhile BMEWS, I wish you a very Safe and a very Healthy New Year.
If you have those, Happy will follow.

Cheers for a great group of people.  ALL OF YOU.

I can not remember who or where I got this from.  So my apologies for not naming.

“Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional,
illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream
media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible
to pick up a piece of sh*t by the clean end. “

People who have never had their lives or their families lives or their neighbors lives threatened are not relevant to any discussion of firearms and should not intrude where reality based adults are having conversations.  So STFU because you are in no danger from Americans with guns.  Worry about muslims with guns now that they own your country.
grayjohn

The Law Abiding are the only people who need guns to fend off idiots like Union thugs, gangs, and moonbats in general.  If you don’t see any need for people to own guns, then you are part of the reason people need to own guns.  You are stupid and self centered and oblivious.  That makes you dangerous.

grayjohn

“The response time of the police is about 5 minutes.  The response time of a 45 ACP is 900 feet per second.” or"The police are minutes away when seconds count.”
Dr. Jeff

I did a long winded rant on the subject, and CM came back with better in fewer words. The issue was treason and the left, if memory serves.

“Where we have tried to keep ourselves above the sort of depravity/insanity the other side indulges in, they have been gnawing away at our ankles. And the most impressive statue depends on its ankles to support it. We try to show the light on the hill, they put on a blindfold. We’ve got to tear that blindfold off, even if it means going in to their sphere to get to it.”

http://cmblake6.wordpress.com

FIXING THE FIX
If they don’t fix it, they wont be able to:
Study why the fix caused problems
Hire more people to manage the fix
Hire people to fix the mistakes fixing the fix
Mount a study to plan for a better fix
Hire people to blame those who did the original fix
Train new people for the new tech that develops since then
Move everyone to a new project they can fix
...you know, like everything else they muck up....
Posted by TimO

Posted by peiper     on 12/31/2012 at 03:17 PM   
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just a thought or two as the year fades

Got to thinking about a few things …..

Does anyone recall the line in “Folsom Prison Blues” by Johnny Cash, where he sings, “I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die?” Remember the cheers from the inmates at the prison where that was recorded?  Those cheers of approval seem to be the mindset of more than one generation.  That is NOT a good thing.  The Manson family slaughtered not for profit.  They did it for fun. “Just to watch them die.” And Manson didn’t use guns.  He and his sick friends had no guns.  Sadly, none of his victims did either.
And that’s why people want guns for home defense, in spite of the folks who use home gun accidents as one of many argument against gun ownership. 

When I was growing up, there were gun stores doing business with signs in windows and some with a gun shaped sign hanging outside.  You could if you wanted to, buy a gun at almost any pawn shop. And back then there was hardly any profile check. I honestly do not recall a single report of any shootings and certainly not the sort we have today.  Celebrities were hardly ever targets of madmen. Popes could travel in open cars and so could presidents till Kennedy.
It is all very depressing really.

I just happen to think of this, although it’s nothing at all to do with guns. It’s knives. When I was growing up in a far different time, just to give you an idea, when radio was actually worth listening to, most young boys had a small pocket knife. At recess we could often be found playing games whose names I have long forgotten, where flipping the knife onto the ground to land in a specific place within a circle, was thought to be quite fun. There was no time whatever when any of us ever attacked another kid. Not once. No, we weren’t sweet little boy scouts but the culture of the day just did not have the kind of violence as entertainment we see now. I’m talkin’ even before TV folks. Ain’t that amazing? Ah well, that was Htfd, Ct. in the 1940s. Another world. A damn well safer one and with better radio too.

Keep your powder dry. 

Posted by peiper     on 12/31/2012 at 02:54 PM   
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   Saturday - December 29, 2012

a friend passes

Have been notified today of the passing of a very close and dear friend of many years.

A friend of the wife and I, the lady who passed away was a kind and gentle soul, someone who never found it in herself to say no to a friend.

She could at times be somewhat ditzy but that isn’t meant in a disrespectful way.  She was rather cute with it, kinda reminded me of Goldie Hawn as Private Benjamin. She was not an old woman, she was in her 60s. Didn’t look it.  Not young but gosh, I’m 75, so you see where I feel, we feel, pretty bad at her passing.

She had a type of lung cancer that occurs in, as her husband told us, “women of that age.”
She was never a smoker, and neither was her doctor husband.

When we saw her last year, she wasn’t looking well, and I recall my wife being concerned.  But Barb being who she was, never let on that she was dying even then.  She admitted to being somewhat ill and passed it off to us as something I can’t remember, and put her weight loss down to that. And she was naturally thin to begin with. But she was dying as we spoke, and dying while we had a wonderful lunch at Mario’s Italian, and that is all very hard to take in.

Over the last few months, we hadn’t heard anything which wasn’t too unusual as we didn’t write every day.  But notes between the wife and Barb via snail and email were pretty much on a regular basis.  We received no card from her this year, and that was very unusual indeed.

She was diagnosed in 2010, and so even in that year we hadn’t a clue and she said not a word.

Barbara was very religious, very conservative and a Tea party lady.  I’d be willing to bet that she never hurt a soul in her lifetime.  She just wasn’t like that.  And so you’ll forgive the thought I hope, when I express my questioning of whatever god it was she prayed to.  Cos she went far too early and in far too much pain and left behind a family who loved her.  And so did her friends who miss her already.

It’s going to be very hard going back home and knowing we’ll never see her again.  Her home was less than a mile down the road from us.  In fact, it was my wife and I who got them interested in the area near us.

Rest in Peace dear friend. 

Posted by peiper     on 12/29/2012 at 12:57 PM   
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   Friday - December 28, 2012

a quiet day at home

Back after two days, one of which (yesterday) was a nightmare.  Furniture moved across the room, puter unplugged for most of the day, and me with a groin pull that is ouch. Can feel it all the way to my back.  I’m ok sitting here, but moving a bit of a bother.  And all that moving and hassle all because of a how drapes and rods in the old days were hung. Still are far as I know.

The plastic hooks in the rod that attach to the plastic hooks in the curtains were breaking away. Been up for a donkey’s age, however long that is.

Since the tabs on the four center supports allow for the locks to be slotted in and then turned to fit tightly, then why not ditto for the end caps?
As the wife reminded me, as she does when I mutter about the stupidity of the way things have been designed here, Brits will ALWAYS choose the hard way above the easy and more logical.  Hooks in these old rods which I think are still made, require that you get behind the rod and unscrew the end cap that feeds the rod hooks. Which means you have to take the entire rod down to unscrew a small plastic end tab and let the hooks slide down a slot.  All of which made no sense whatever. 

Curtains been up there for a hundred years it seems. Never looked dirty but anyway, I thought what the hell, they could use a wash as long as they are down. I wish I had the presence of mind to take photos as Drew does, but at the start, I had no idea what I thought to be small project, would take all day.  Or a large part of it anyway.

So I tossed the drapes which are 100% heavy cotton, into the washer.  After more than an hour, and this was on the quick wash cycle, I put them into the dryer.  After some time, took them out and shook em as you might do with things that large, you know.  Shake out the odd wrinkle here and there.  Well.

One of the panels had shredded in a couple places.  Long vertical tears. But since they were still wet, and since our dryer hardly ever gets things dry the first time thru, I put them back in never thinking that there would be more damage done. Oh boy!

After running perhaps 10 more minutes I took them out, shake again, a little damp but okay to hang except; what were a couple of tears now were longer tears plus several smaller ones.  My guess is, and I’d say a good one, is that one panel has taken the full sun more than the other over much time.

I have to bragg some about my wife’s ability with needle and thread.  She is truly highly skilled.  I do not mean that as just the usual compliment a husband would by nature make about his wife.  Not at all.  She really is “highly skilled” and repaired the drapes, no sewing machine, all hand stitched and I defy anyone (Drew excepted) to see where the seams are. 

And so with aching bod, I am baaaaack.

Posted by peiper     on 12/28/2012 at 10:11 AM   
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   Monday - November 12, 2012

update welcome, victorville, california

My first on air job at KCIN in The Green Tree Inn. 

Cheers

Ah .... in the days when I had hair and pant size was in 30 range.
If I could, I’d work there again and this time do it for free.
It was a great place to be in those days so long ago.  Maybe 69 or early 70s.
Memories.

When I originally posted this a few days ago, I forgot all about an interesting side story I should have told. So I do so now. Late but better then never.

Sometime after this photo, don’t know how long, I was canned.

This being my first on air job and all, I was disappointed of course, but took it in stride.  I knew the risks of this business beforehand and happily accepted them.

Well, I lost this job because an out of work DJ passing through the area had the station tuned in and decided I was pretty bad and he could do better.

So he found the station and spoke to our program director/station manager, Ron Parker I believe, and told him that he had some years experience and could do better then me and do it for less.  Heck, I was already getting the least they could pay, being a daytime station and all. And there wasn’t that much to advertise out in the desert at that time.  So I was given two weeks pay which they didn’t have to do, and left with no ill will or hard feelings.

Six years later I won the DJ of The Year award for my market, as well as a gold album for my promotion and hounding of Ovation Records, to release a single off that album.  The song won Song of the year two yrs running, which was not usual for Country Music and put The Kendalls on the charts until the sad and untimely passing of a kind and good man, Royce Kendall. 

Posted by peiper     on 11/12/2012 at 02:40 AM   
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   Tuesday - October 30, 2012

back tomorrow

At 12:26pm today, I initiated what I thought would be a simple bank transfer for funds in the USA to our bank here in the UK.

It is now 5:50pm, and I have been on the phone since 12:30 back and forth between the UK and the USA.

My left ear burns and the right one doesn’t feel so cool either. Even with a good speaker phone here, I still needed the hand set because some of the VERY MANY folks I had to keep telling the same story to in the USA, use headsets with no volume I can hear well.

I am worn out, all I’ve had all day (since breakfast) is a snack and so, no posts from me today.  Just can not sit here for another minute, catch ya tomorrow.

Oh btw …. I never did get the transfer made.

Apparently I need to be in the bank to make a wire transfer. By which I mean, me personally. I’d have to be present and accounted for in their sight.
Great security.

Right. I’ll book a flight home to the USA just so I can present myself to the bank and make a wire transfer.

And here I was under the impression that technology was going to make life easier.
It has in many ways. Just not in this case. Which is frustrating.

jdp … over and out

PS: Hello El Monte, Ca.  Bet its changed since my early days driving a taxi there 50 yrs ago

Posted by peiper     on 10/30/2012 at 01:04 PM   
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   Wednesday - October 10, 2012

suicide as a safety net

Had to come downstairs and boot to email request for meds.
Feeling better than I did yesterday but hory clap as Drew might say.  I read an email from him and realize he’s in worse shape then I am.
Although the eye candy he posted must have had a beneficial affect. Or is that supposed to be effect?  I’ve always had a problem with that.
So although I was certain yesterday I would not have the ability to sit at a puter for more then the time it takes to boot, here I am. Not for too long tho.

SUICIDE AS A SAFETY NET

I’ve been giving suicide a lot of serious thought over the last year. Maybe more. 
Not my own.  No plans to top myself just yet but at my age, one should not ignore the future as we did when younger.

What has brought this about over the last year or so, has been the reports of people who are doing just that. Topping themselves, and not all are old at all.

It’s a depressing subject but not one that can be easily avoided.  Not if you read the papers anyway. They are full of the subject.  For the record, I am in full favor of doctor assisted suicide, and very much resent the idea that it’s either murder, or “killing” as that word is used by opponents.  I also don’t like the idea of religious organizations of any stripe, sticking their moral nose into other people’s personal decisions as how their final exit is made.  If a church wants to speak to its own congregation, I haven’t any problem. But I want no church to lobby govt. as they do, on something so personal.  Even worse is an organization of busy body do gooders, who call themselves “Care Not Killing.” They use that last word in almost the same context as a contract killing by the Mafia.  They think loving care is a substitute for a painless death.  They don’t recognize the idea that sometimes, a life truly is not worth the effort it takes to continue breathing.

I think I need to clarify something here with regard to this subject. I am not talking about someone who isn’t happy with life cos they haven’t won the lottery and decide to end it.  I’m talking about seriously ill people with no real life. In fact, no life as we know it at all.

There have been recent cases of something called Locked In Syndrome.  I don’t know when that term came into use.  There is a medical term for those unfortunate people who’ve had accidents or strokes, and suddenly found themselves locked in a body they can not control. They can only move their eyes or blow into a straw of some kind that’s connected to a computer. But the brain is working and is aware of everything going on.  Everything they have absolutely no control over.  Every detail of their struggle has been explored and mined and explained to the public, and I can not think of anything worse.  And then too there are those in agony suffering a fatal illness who would like to end it peacefully at home among family, if they have any family.
But the moralistic laws decree that a merciful death assisted by someone else is somehow wrong, even when they have made their decision free of any outside influence.  But opponents argue that there wouldn’t be a way to know that for certain.
Even a document left behind could conceivably have been made under duress.  So it almost becomes a no win situation for someone desperately ill, who wants to end it while they are still able to make that decision.

Only a couple of months ago, a young man with his wife’s help, brought a court case requesting that his life end with a doctors assist.  They couldn’t go to Switzerland, to the Dignitas clinic.  Firstly, even if they had the money, he was totally paralysed and his wife could have faced prosecution for helping him.  He cried like a baby when the judge hearing the case refused.  He had no choice under existing laws to allow it.  So he was condemned to a living hell until fortunately, he suddenly died a short time later. 

I think some very sad examples also involve the suicide of the very young for the most incomprehensible reasons.  Young girls for example as young as 14, topping themselves because they were bullied on Facebook or told they were fat. Now that is damn tragic.  Every time I see something like that I wonder why on earth couldn’t they talk to their parents.  Especially their mom. Why? How could bright young kids who are NOT into the drug or gang culture and seemingly doing well at school with their grades, decide at 14 or 15 that they’ve had enough of life?  Why would they listen to some bullying twit at school who insulted them, and then go off and top themselves.  And btw …. some very young males have done the same although it seems to be more numerous among young girls.  And, mostly white in both genders.
We don’t read of many Chinese or Korean kids doing this sort of thing. Or Indian.
Mostly, it’s white kids.  Every time I read about them, I wish there had been some sort of help for them before they went that far.  But they weren’t of a mind to speak to anyone, and that’s a damn shame. 

There are unfortunate people so hopelessly ill, in pain but nothing immediately terminal, people whose existence is so intolerable they want to die.  And they want help to do so before they become too ill to do it themselves. Or be able to articulate that desire.  There is always worry about a botched suicide, which makes doctor assisted death more desirable.

There are a few it has been reported on, who are in a state where they are suffering, there may be years left but who are not willing to wait around loaded up on drugs that often have unwanted side effects while scientists hunt for a cure.  It’s a personal decision they have every right to.  But the law seems more worried about the possibility that sick people will be either forced or influenced by greedy relations, to end their lives.  Thing is, those kind of people will do that anyway, regardless of what laws are in place.  Sometimes life really is unbearable, and who would know better then the unfortunate in that position?  Especially those who are not able to do the deed themselves and need help to end it. Even if the illness is not terminal, it may be enough for a person to want out before it gets any worse.

It’s our body, our life, our right to choose.
Why shouldn’t it be done cleanly and without worry about involving a family member or surviving a botched attempt that could leave one worse off?  And why should total strangers who could not possibly know what another is going through, be in a position to gainsay that request? 

Posted by peiper     on 10/10/2012 at 04:52 PM   
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   Sunday - September 23, 2012

smoking and tumors and long needles

Well as long as Drew has brought up a health issue in a post ....

I received an interesting email from Drew tonight and part of it got me remembering the past.  Happy to say Drew is doing well with his campaign to end the habit of the deadly weed.  Campaign is a good word as for me it denotes war and quitting smoking is a war.  Of sorts.  Now then, this isn’t a rant against tobacco and as an ex smoker myself I do not agree with the health Nazis who try and make smokers criminals.  Or at least act as if they were criminals.  Good grief.  Smokers are banned from buildings the high taxes they pay, help to pay for the buildings they are banned from smoking in.  Well this post isn’t about that anyway.
It’s more to do with dying, having foreign objects shoved into very private parts
and a caution that bad things can happen to anyone.

I lost people very close to me who were smokers and one who was a chain smoker and drank way, way too much. He was a Nashville songwriter/publisher and all around great guy, gone at 55.  My brother, lung cancer and dead at 46. Six years younger then me.  I recall one very dear friend who was you might say, a smoking buddy.  I say that because in the early years we used to joke about it while we puffed our lives away.  Now he was some years older then myself so when he went (Emphysema) I kind of figured well he was older and so I still had some years ahead and anyway.  I was doing fine.  I remember calling his wife, this was before his death but while he was in the hospital, and called to see if she needed anything the wife and I could get or do for her.  You feel so helpless. Well she told me to call him at the hospital, there was a phone in his room and she gave me the number. She said he’d love to hear from me and it was a matter now of weeks.  So I did, and wish I had not.  There wasn’t much of a conversation to be had and he really didn’t want to hear from anyone. He didn’t say that but you could tell.  And that last call has remained with me all these years later.  And these are only a few examples of people I knew personally. There were others a well. 

Which brings me to the public service part of my …. is this a lecture?  It isn’t a rant.
Lets call it a cautionary tale and a true one based on personal and very unpleasant experience.

I musta been feeling ill or why else visit a doctor? I can no longer remember who I saw or why, but I do recall having an x-ray as part of a check up.  I believe I had an MRI.  A couple of weeks later the doctor’s office called to say there wasn’t anything wrong with heart or lungs (in fact I had and still do, the beginnings of Emphysema but that wasn’t found till later).  But they did see something that called for further examination, and wanted me to see a specialist.  They saw what looked like a shadow on the bladder.  I was referred to a urologist.  I think that’s what he was.
He was also humourless and unsmiling and altogether quite cold but quite competent.

He told me there was this shadow on the x-ray taken, but until he went into the bladder itself, there was no way of knowing what it was.  He also said it could be and most probably was, a tumor.  But unless he went in there, he would not be able to tell if it was malignant or not.  So a date was set for an exam a week away, and I went home happily smoking my non filter Lucky Strikes. 

Hey guys, ever had a needle stuck into your more sensitive part?  OUCH does NOT cover it.  And the FEAR makes it even worse.  I had no idea what I let myself in for.
You’re on this table with your legs open and up in stirrups, there’s lots of cloth of some kind with an opening for your limp and angry friend to peek through. You never imagined it could get that small.  Of course, it had never been that frightened before either, so it was a new experience for both of us. 
Trust me guys, you do NOT want this. But wait, there’s more.

They tell you they are going to numb the passage with painkiller so you won’t feel the examination probe.  Probe?  Hey wait.  Too late. 
Someone has this needle, a real one, not a movie prop, and they gonna put that looooong thing, maybe about three feet long, into your frightened lifelong partner who is now demanding a divorce.  They say you will experience a slight sting which will be the numbing agent.  Wait a minute.  You’re gonna hurt me to make it all better so I won’t feel the next step? It’s maybe no longer then a half inch to an inch but from where you’re viewing it, it’s a yard long needle.  Where’s the damn exit?  But it’s too late and Doctor Frankenstein’s assistant is there with the instrument of torture, and you’re on this damn table trying to back away with no place to go and in goes that thing and you will scream cause it not only stings but feels like the inside of your ex-friend is being torn. 

So now you have to wait about 20 minutes for the numbing stuff to work. And by now your back hurts too.  In comes Dr. Death or at least looking like it to you, and he starts to insert that awful probe.  But guess what?

THE NUMBING AGENT ISN’T WORKING !!!

Now your very limp and ex very angry friend is threatening a law suit at the least or maybe a firing squad. You are hurting and so …..  another jab in the sore part and another wait for that to work.

Result …. doc says it’s a girl.  Haha.  Actually, my doctor would never have thought to say that. I did cos it’s sounds funny.

What he actually said was, it’s a tumor, it’s malignant. It’s large.  It has to be removed and soon.  Wanna guess what part of you is used for the tumor’s exit?  He said these tumors are not painful until just at the end, and I had a month to go.

Ain’t it odd.  I wasn’t having any bladder problems. No blockage, no pain in the bathroom, no bleeding.  Nothing to suggest what was growing there.  But I was assured I’d have been dead in a short time.

After the surgery, and I don’t suppose you folks wanna hear about my hospital stay.
Or the catheter shoved inside me minus any pain killer of any kind.

Well after the surgery as I was saying when I interrupted myself, I was told I had to have an exam in six months time, to see if the tumor had returned. If all clear, another exam in another six months. After that, I was to have an exam every two or three years. I had the first two exams, the pain wasn’t any less let me tell you.  I decided the pain of the exam was not worth the life that might be saved and stopped having them. 

The Emphysema is stable and not expected to get any worse unless I start smoking again.  Fat chance of that.
And please make no mistake.  My experience was directly related to smoking.  I guess it just hits different ppl in different ways.  And NO. I did not sue American Tobacco. Or anyone else.

I have NOT had any further exams even though warned of what the consequences could be.  Well no thanks.  I do not ever want to revisit that experience. 
My ex-friend isn’t on speaking terms with me, and as I told the doctor who gave me the warning re future exams; What? Me Worry?

After death, there is no pain, and no taxes.

Posted by peiper     on 09/23/2012 at 02:12 PM   
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   Wednesday - August 15, 2012

a question of computers

As long as I’m asking questions for which I have no immediate answers, I may as well embarrass myself by admitting I don’t know.

It all started earlier today when my wife asked me what advantage there was to having a desktop computer as opposed to a laptop.

Well, I thought about it for a second and told her that a desktop could more easily be upgraded.

But when she asked me, “what else?”

I was stumped.  Ah, ah, well for one thing .... ah. 

Desktop faster?  Ah ....

Bottom line is, I really don’t know.  I never thought a lot about it.  The only thing connected to our pc is a printer/scanner.  Desktop puter is cheaper by a lot I believe. Depending how much ‘stuff’ you’ve had added to it at purchase.
OK so cost is another advantage although there are some cheaper laptops.  But cheap does not have a nice ring to it.

So, I’d really appreciate a few items based on your knowledge and experience cos I just do not have a very good answer for her.

And again, Thanks in advance.

Cheers and good evening.

Peiper Out. 

Posted by peiper     on 08/15/2012 at 12:46 PM   
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   Monday - August 13, 2012

a possible voice in the wilderness

My posting has been a bit spotty of late. 

Well, I may not have been up with the birdies like Drew, I guess 7:30am isn’t exactly the crack of dawn. Is it?

Have been taking care of wife a lot who is on the mend but still not well enough in many respects to look after herself. She’s on mega doses totaling I think 7 pills. A day.  Plus the liquid pain med. which is Morphine.  Which after awhile makes her, not spacey, not high, nothin’ like that. But it does something and makes a change I don’t have the vocabulary to describe.  Nothing urgent, but somehow different for several hours.

And then there’s our back yard, or as it would be referred to here, our back garden.
It’s been sadly neglected for too long.  Partly due to very bad weather, lots of rain, which even so me and the birds have been out in working anyway.
Took advantage of a few very good days and really went to work weeding stinging nettles taller then me. I’m 5-10 and some of those darn things really tower over me.  Cutting and trimming bushes and cutting away dead branches from trees, cutting away the ivy that’s been winding its way around everything.  Hired a guy with a pick up to haul away all the stuff and now have more. Lots more.  But after yesterday I just had to take today off.  Muscles ache from lack of exercise, and a bum left knee and arthritic feet not too happy with me. But it’s funny how much better I feel once the days work is done.  I actually look forward to the next days work.

So that’s some of what I’ve been up to.

Reading papers about the Olympics, not a lot cos I don’t care that much.  But what I have seen in the reports, is everyone crying. It’s so nice to see the guys find their feminine side and break out in tears. Innit it?  Jeesh.  There’s a brief line about two skull rowers, the poor, poor guys (two of them) were in tears because they won silver instead of the gold they missed by fractions of a second. Is that something for anyone to cry over publicly?
And everyone’s doing it.

Those of you who know some of my habits will also know I relate so many things to music. Not the closing ceremonies which I caught a fraction of here at the computer.  I don’t understand the people who actually believe what they were listening to was really music.  I can think of so many other words to describe the crap being amplified and the silly looking dancers and stupid looking costumes, etc.,etc.

Okay so then back to what I wanted to say before I sidetracked myself.

I relate things to music and think that the theme for the closing ceremonies should have been:

CRY ME A RIVER

Posted by peiper     on 08/13/2012 at 12:12 PM   
Filed Under: • Personal • Sports •  
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   Thursday - August 09, 2012

I think I’m being set up…

Sorry I haven’t been posting, but job search, Church, BSA, and VA treatments have really eaten into my time.

Here’s the lastest on the Boy Scouts:

The Good News: My BSA applications were all approved. (Troop Committee, three Merit Badges.)
The Bad News: My BSA applications were all approved. (Troop Committe, three Merit Badges.)

I still have this funny feeling that I’m being set-up. I’m the only current adult in the Troop leadership that was actually a Cub Scout, Webelo, Boy Scout, Explorer. That includes the current Scoutmaster, who’s only doing this as part of his two-year-mission. He’s got a year and some months left.

I may have posted this before, but now it’s official!

Posted under ‘Personal’ unless someon wants to creat a BSA tag.

Posted by Christopher     on 08/09/2012 at 01:16 AM   
Filed Under: • Personal •  
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   Saturday - July 28, 2012

a quiet day in an english garden?  not this time.

Just came in from hard (very) number of hours cutting and still pulling stinging nettles. Weather gave us a break for a change with a cool breeze today so able to work a bit longer. Amazing how the old body wears out over the years.

In my yoot I’d have finished the entire thing in two or three days.  I’ve now been at this almost a week. And nettles aren’t all that need cutting and trimming. Good exercise though. They have the damndest schedule for trash and garden waste pick up.  First of all, we used to be able to use those larger wheelie bins. Truck came along once a week, guy puts bin where those hydraulic arms then pick it up. Easy, right?  Ah but this is England. The brains here decided about 5 years ago, to drop the wheelie bin so old farts like me could experience the joy of small garden waste bags made of some sort of heavy material, which of course then has to be lifted by us. And if over two weeks time between pick ups the stuff inside gets wet, it’s a lot heavier. And no, we don’t have anyplace really handy to store them that’s dry. Well maybe the kitchen. Anyway, one of those bags isn’t usually enough, especially since at the same time they dropped the weekly bin collection and pik-ups are every two weeks as mentioned above. One week is for garden waste bags and for recycle stuff which is in bins, the next week for kitchen stuff.

So they gave us a bag but we then had to pay for any extra ones.  Like, £25 a pop.  ($39.00) We got our one bag and took another from the empty house next door before it was sold. We’d put that bag filled with garden stuff at the end of the driveway of the house next door. But when that lovely old home was assonated by the tasteless new owners, we then had to pay for the Number two.

And now we have three bags.  They’re made out of some kind of nylon mesh I think.  It of course means that the young guys who used to just wheel the bin to the truck arms and then wheel back to our drive, now have to lift the garden bags manually and empty them in the back of the waste disposal truck.  But, they often simply drag the bag to the point where they then have to lift it and dump it. And dragging over rough ground and onto the roadway where the truck sits, wears down the bag a bit.

Hmmmm. Maybe the brains behind the change knew what they were doing.
And someone had to make something on the bags that the city council then sold to us.

Ya think?

Posted by peiper     on 07/28/2012 at 09:52 AM   
Filed Under: • Personal •  
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   Saturday - July 07, 2012

This one’s for wardmama

A simple question wardmama. Are we communicating on a Facebook page? If so, don’t answer here, let me know on the Facebook page in question.

Posted by Christopher     on 07/07/2012 at 10:26 PM   
Filed Under: • Personal •  
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   Saturday - June 30, 2012

health care and ins.  questions, questions

I didn’t intend to go into the health care ruling as Drew has already covered that subject better then I would have. In fact, I couldn’t due to huge gaps in my knowledge and understanding of the subject. And what a subject it is.

I know it will appear small minded of me.  I should be for or against things on merit.  But I can’t help human nature and the feeling that if someone, in this case Obama and Democrats are for something, then I have to be against it even if I don’t understand what it is exactly I am for or against. I am reminded of an old Groucho Marx routine on that score. 

So, I’m using this front page instead of comments because I have questions on the subject and am interested to learn the thoughts of those who may have gone into this subject in more detail. 

I’ll be honest. Living here as I do, while I was aware of the subject, I just didn’t read a lot on it. There is so damn much going on, some of it personal, that between things happening in our personal lives and the work needed on the property and then the time it takes to do blog stuff, some reading just gets ignored. And there is so much happening on our doorstep, it just consumes time. 

I am still not clear even after reading what I did, which obviously was far less then Drew and some of you, I don’t understand how those with very small incomes or none at all, will fair.  How about small businesses.  Most small business does not provide employee health care. Will they now be forced by this new scheme to do so?  If the answer is yes, I would assume correctly I’d wager, that fewer ppl would be hired do to simple economics.  What happens to those who quite honestly can’t afford the high prices of health ins. due to their circumstances?  Wow. What a can of worms this is.

And thanks for your patience.

Posted by peiper     on 06/30/2012 at 05:29 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Economics • Personal • USA •  
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