I am a freakin' moron

We needed dog food. And a new keyboard (the Mister left the door open and flooded the winerack, floor and keyboard the other morning).

So off we went to PetSmart.

Because I am an idiot, we did not just buy dog food, we also bought dog toys. Because I am a massive, unprecedented idiot of epic proportions, we bought Cuz toys.



Two Cuz toys, to be precise, and one Kong ball because Casey is very into energetic chewing these days.

So it's a mighty squeaky house tonight. The Mister hooked up his new keyboard and, shouting to be heard over the hysterical and multipitched squeaking, hollered, "great idea, honey!"



Yeah, well, the real excitement will come later, when we do the pre-bed toy removal sweep of our room.

Casey is way into her Kong Ball, and has rolled it under the couch twice. She abandoned it briefly, however, to help the Mister finish off some extra strawberries.

Learning experiences

This is one cute puppy, is it not?



Look closer, though. This is also a cute puppy who recently had another important lesson. What did he learn?

He learned that it's never, ever a good idea to assume that just because you're the bigger dog, you're allowed to take Sparky's toys. Look closer.



I'd laugh at him more, but I once suffered a relatively grievous thumb wound trying to separate Sparky from his food dish. Small and cute? Yes. Mean as a snake when irked? Yes.

Not dead

here, just busy.

This was my first drill weekend, so I got to dig out boots and do that whole thing. Seems like a nice group of people, so that's a happy thing.

Of course, it took the DoD exactly 27 minutes to get back in the habit of screwing up my life, as I noted that next month's drill was out of town and would force to miss the Marine Corps Ball.

Normally, this isn't something I'd mind. I have been to my share of Marine Corps Balls. And probably your share, too. In my junior Marine days, taking pictures of each ball was something we did for the base paper, and it wasn't at all uncommon to hit four or six in the space of a week.

After I got out, it got worse, because:
A) the Mister almost always had some sort of coordinating role that meant I'd spend at least half the night sitting without him at our table trying to make conversation with strangers
B) it required formalwear.

I think we all know me well enought to recognize that "gowns" are not a clothing item with which I am normally enchanted. That was a real downer every year - go out and find some sort of long dress. Ick. And shoes to match. Double ick.

This spring, however, my fabulous friend MC got married and her only instruction to me (as a bridesmaid) was, "long, black and formal." I found a dress I adore (which, if I may say such a thing, makes me look damn good), and which I was looking forward to trotting out for this year's Ball.

Oh, well. It's black and timeless, so even if there are no formal occasions between now and then, it'll work for next year too.

War News

Mr. Abby's little brother is in Iraq with the California National Guard. He's on Camp Victory, and, last we heard is happy to be anywhere as long at it's not Camp Shelby, Mississippi. He emails regularly and we send pictures and the occasional object and don't think much more about it.

We heard from him within the last few hours, we know this wasn't him.

Meanwhile in Iraq on Thursday, two coalition soldiers were killed and 38 others were wounded in an attack on Camp Victory, a large U.S. military base near Baghdad International Airport, the U.S.-led coalition said.

[snip]

The military said the attack occurred by indirect fire, such as rocket or mortar. Such attacks on the base are not unusual, officials have said.

Even on the big, nice, base, Mr. Murphy is always somewhere in background, rolling his dice and chuckling.

Also, I note that someone in the Marine Corps planning structure seems to think that everything would be much simpler if the Marine Corps and Army juggled their forces a little, gave Iraq to the Army and made Afghanistan a Marine Corps show.

The suggestion was raised in a session last week convened by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and regional war-fighting commanders. While still under review, its supporters, including some in the Army, argue that a realignment could allow the Army and Marines each to operate more efficiently in sustaining troop levels for two wars that have put a strain on their forces.

There might be something to this - I'd think it would make planning easier. And Marines do "divide up" easily - the Corps has a (for lack of a better term) "modularity" in its organization that makes it much easier to mix and match units and pieces of units to achieve a desired balance of capabilities.

But, I gotta admit, that is not what I thought when I read the first couple of articles. I scrolled immediately to the bottom and started looking for something like this:

Naval officers also are quietly advocating for the Navy to be given primary responsibility for U.S anti-terrorism missions in seaport bars in both Italy and the Phillipines as part of a new "play-to-your-strength" deployment concept. The U.S. Air Force will be presenting a plan outlining the strategic advantages of pulling their personnel out of Iraq and redeploying them to several "very nice Mexican hotels" on the Gulf of Mexico. The Coast Guard is expected to develop plans to realign all its personnel to Key West.

I'm not sure if the plan (the real one, not my version) actually has legs, but it's an interesting concept. We shall wait and see.

“This is not about trading one ground war for another,” said one Pentagon official briefed on the Marine concept. “It is about the nature of the fight in Afghanistan, and figuring out whether the Afghan mission lends itself more readily to the integrated MAGTF deployment than even Iraq.”

Geekin'

C'mon, you gotta admit it. This looks like a good time, no matter who you are.



You also dig my high-speed, low-drag Firearms Tomfoolery Table, don't you? If you cruise the local Goodwill SuperStore enough, you too may score one just like it. Ugly as sin, heavy as the average donkey, and 15 bucks.

So I poked and I peered, looked at numbers and wiped a little cosmoline out of the trigger assembly. Then I realized there was something horribly awry with the rear sight tensioning, so I figured I'd just take the thing off and put it back on to ensure it was:
A) done right
B) screwed up by me, which is obviously better than screwed up by a stranger

I took the base off, and....hey! What's this?



Now, we can assume that stands for "Army," or maybe the rifle was once signed over to "Albania." It's possible it was once the T/O weapon of Pvt. "Anderson," or perhaps it was an organizational marking and this was an "Alpha Co.," rifle.

But, you know, I choose to believe that's an A as in Abby. T'was meant to be mine, I think.

Look what we have here!

The doorbell rang as I was getting dressed. It was my new best friend!



I don't know this guy's name, but I love him. Mr. Abby took the photo and I cropped myself out because, I realized, although I had put pants on, I had not buttoned or zipped them.

What do we have here? In this box-o-joy?



Why, it's a 5.9m Service Grade Garand, that's what it is! Alas, of course, I am a member of the working class, and so fondling time was limited.



I had only time to perform the well-known "stroking the buttstock and generally looking at things" routine. Now - it's back to the Salt Mine for me.

But I have a wonderful night of peering at parts and looking things up ahead of me. I cannot wait.

[shrieking like a schoolgirl]

I do it every day, four or five times (at least). Click over to the CMP website, log in, check to see the status of my Garand order.



It seems the little CMP elves were working late last night - I think I checked around 2030 or so and it was "open." No serial number yet, but that should be there soon...followed by "shipped," followed by the beautiful, beautiful tracking number.

The Devil

made me lazy there for a few days. Last post was #666, and I was tempted to sit out on the back porch and talk to my dogs and do absolutely nothing else.

We finished the Tiki bar project and, using beer, bribed some Marines to come help the Mister carry it out to the pool. The thatch for the roof arrives today, and that will be the end of that. I'm quite happy with it.

The Mister is showing serious social inclinations, which drives me a little nuts, but led to us Having Company Sunday evening. I'm a slob, and he's easily sucked into my slovenly habits, so there was a lot of cleaning involved.

We did it, of course. We cleaned and rounded up meat for the grill, and I made a fruit salad. I bought two small watermelons and only used one - I thought the second would be nice to have later this week. So I put the fruit salad in the fridge, the extra on the back of the counter, and we went off on a last minute onion run.

And came home to this.



I don't call 'em the Bad Dogs for nothing, folks. That was the end of the road for the WalMart runner, and I pitched the watermelon over the fence, since no matter how much I adore Casey, we do not enjoy the fruits of evil activities.

Strange visions

from the strip mall down the road.



We'll file that under "things that make you say huh."

Flagrant Social Errors

You don't watch the news for a couple days, and suddenly, it's Flag Mania when you finally tune in.

We've got a guy out in Nevada, old Army man, who apparently finally got a serious case of the red-ass about a Mexican-run business that was in the habit of flying both the Mexican and American flags, but with the Mexican flag on top.

So he cut 'em down, took the American flag home with him and left the Mexican flag lying in the road.

"I was immediately infuriated and felt a duty to do something about it," Broussard said. "I feel there's a lot of this turning-our-heads-on-things in concern with the Hispanic community and the things they do. They seem impervious to our laws in a lot of situations."

We're going to just leave the whole immigration issue out of our discussion. Let's focus on the flag part.

We've got an ethnic business that chooses to fly the flags of both its country and the U.S. That's cool. If they'd chosen to fly only the Mexican flag, that would even be cool. I have no problem with Britsh pubs that fly only the Union Jack, either.

But...if your business is not an embassy, don't hang out in this country and fly our flag in the subordinate position. You're making a statement by doing that, and to a lot of us, it's a statement of fightin' words.

I am myself prone to the occasional action in anger, and have uttered some less-than-well-considered words. I like to think I'd have been a more or collected woman in that position, but...well, sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

Note to our foreign friends hanging out in the U.S. - quite a few of us who are otherwise happy to have you here will get quite cranky if you choose to take a metaphorical shit on our iconography. So don't do it.

Okay. Next flag-related issue. Obama Stops Wearing Flag Pin

Before we go any further, I must make a confession. I have an American flag pin, and I've worn it exactly twice in the past 18 months.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says he doesn't wear an American flag lapel pin because it has become a substitute for "true patriotism" since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

That's actually a pretty interesting idea. I don't know about the word "substitute," because I really haven't heard anyone say something like:
I was going to join the Marines as an 0311 but I decided it might just be simpler to wear this flag pin; or
I was going to run for office to try to make this country what I think it should be, but I decided I'd rather just keep working at the bank and wear this flag pin instead; or
I was going to volunteer at the VA one weekend a month but I decided I look better in this pin than in candystripes.

But the idea is interesting. Why is the flag pin de rigueur for every political man in a suit and political women in dark jackets? It's one of those things that everyone just did after 9/11 and now it's kinda awkward to stop.

There's no really socially acceptable way to say Yes, I love my country, but my granddaughter gave me the nicest pin for Father's Day, and I thought I'd really rather wear that once in a while.

So let's not wrap around the axle about this silly flag pin thing. Let's not allow that to stand in for really measuring a candidate, politician, or anyone else.

"I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest," [Obama] said in the interview. "Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testament to my patriotism."

Honestly, I can work with that.

On Thursday, his campaign issued a statement: "We all revere the flag, but Senator Obama believes that being a patriot is about more than a symbol. It's about fighting for our veterans when they get home and speaking honestly with the American people about this disastrous war."

We know more or less where the Senator stands. I don't agree with him about the War. But, the same part of me that looks at Mr. Broussard tearing down badly-flown flags in Nevada and says, "well, the man's gotta do what the man's gotta do," with a little bit of admiration looks at Senator Obama the same way. He's gotta do what he's gotta do, and we'll judge him by his actions, rather than his jewelry.

Bud's Gun Shop - Two Wagging Tails

I held off on this one, because a little problem cropped up and I wanted to see how it would work itself out.

We are, I assume, familiar with the saga of Dad and the Puma rifle.

So. The rifle got to Evil Hometown FFL yesterday (and they're maybe not so evil, although for some reason we always thought they were evil when I was growing up). I got home and had a message from them.

Called Michigan.

"Yeah...umm...Bud's sent that up to you, so we can only transfer it to you."

Dude, WTF? I'm in Texas, you can't transfer it to me.

"Yeah, but it's a federal law thing..."

[sigh] I'll call Bud's and we'll see what our options are.

So I called last night and spoke to a very nice woman (although I regret I do not remember her name), who recommended immediately that I call Brandon this morning, since he is the Fixer of Problems. So I did.

Hey, Brandon. This is Abby, and here's the issue...

"Hmm...well, we shipped to you because you bought it -"

Brandon, the delivery address throughout has been Dad in Michigan, and that's why he sent in a personal check to pay for it.

"He paid for it? With a personal check? Okay - then this shouldn't have happened. Let me check into this, and I'll email you back."

That was at 0812 (Texas Time).

At 0835...an email.

The comments for your order are

We have faxed a copy a new receipt to the dealer, they were going to call you, and make sure everything was okay. They said they would transfer the gun for you father.

That's what I'm talking about. This afternoon we'll know if Hometown Dealer (see, I have temporarily removed the "Evil" prefix) can functionally have someone fill out a 4473.

At least someone in the Bad Dog extended family gets a new gun. [wanders off to compulsively check the CMP E-store]

Clearing the air

Please excuse a public airing of information for some of those close to me I have not had an opportunity to communicate directly with.

Dear Don and Barb next door,

I am very sorry about last night. That barking that probably woke you up at 0440 was my dog, Jack. Fortunately, it only took until 0442 for me to realize that the barking was coming from my back yard, and that it meant I'd left the bedroom door open and the dogs were out.

If you slept through the barking, then the loud "get in the house this second or I swear I will shoot you in the head," was also me, and I was talking to the dog. Don't worry. I promise we'll not let him out to do that again.

Thanks for putting up with us,

Abby

Got another one.

Dear Mr. Abby,

The stuff you stepped in this morning on the way to the shower was shredded mozarella cheese. I'm sorry I didn't clean it up last night, but you were already asleep and I didn't want to run the vacuum.

That also explains why there was a package of shredded mozarella on top of your dresser. It was after midnight when I heard strange sounds and realized the dogs had stolen the cheese off the counter after supper and smuggled it into our room. Perhaps because I realized I'd be screaming in the yard at 0443, I really just wanted to sleep, so I took it away and put it on your dresser where they couldn't get it. I figured we probably weren't going to eat it anyway.

Thanks for putting up with us,

Abby

The paperchase

is a side of military life so godawful that lots of military folks don't even bother explaining it. You'll hear things like, "Then I spent six weeks at Fort Leonard Wood for no apparent reason. One of those paperwork things." It's one of those horrifying things you have to get used to even as you're initially recruited. Which is all part of why I laughed as I checked the Sitemeter. Today's hit:



Oh, son... The answer is - slightly less time than it takes to get orders off a Pacific island, but longer than it takes to get a tattoo waiver.

MEPS paperwork normally takes slightly longer than is required for a military task force to get an official "release from theater" letter so they can be deactivated (two weeks of sitting at a demob station), but less time than it takes to get awarded an Army MOS after completing the qualification course (2.5 years).

MEPS paperwork takes less time than is required to replace TO&E weapons lost in a fire in a war zone (5 weeks), but more time than is required to get on a Marine Corps flight manifest from Thailand to Kadena Air Base (four days).

MEPS paperwork takes long than a Fort Bragg urine-based pregnancy test (3 hours) and less time than waiting to begin training for MOS school (four weeks or more).

Short answer, my visitor-who-didn't-stay-long, is that MEPS paperwork takes probably 2.5-3 weeks, sometimes less, and often more.

More thorough answer...make copies, and get used to the paperwork always being jacked up. You'll get used to it, and you'll learn to work with it. But for the love of God, son, remember to make copies.

What has a gal gotta do

to get some guns around here???

I just got off the phone with Bud's Gun Shop in Kentucky about Dad's .45 LC. Although it had gone to "shipped" over the weekend, I still didn't have a tracking number. So I called, and, "yeah, our tracking numbers are down, it left Saturday."

Yikes! Had to make a call Evil Hometown FFL to give them a heads-up (and Dad's number, 'cause I think he forgot to include it).

Meanwhile, in guns that are actually destined for my grubby little hands...the CMP had a certain number of Garands inspected and ready to go. They were shipping them out just days after receiving the orders.

So I sent mine in, and, apparently, right before they got to filling mine, they ran out of the inspected rifles. So, it seems, I'm waiting on them to open crates and inspect more.

Which is cool. It's not like I'm without a rifle until it arrives. But still....

Tales from the Customer Service desk - Lucy Laceration

Once upon a time there was a woman. The woman, one day, said to herself, What I need are some knives. Very cheap knives.

Fortunately, there was a company out there that could without any difficulty ship her as many cheap folding knives as she required. She found that company and ordered 20 or so slightly varying cheap folding knives, which were then shipped to her house.

The woman, we'll call her Lucy, opened the box and reached in to remove the packing paper on the top of the box.

Ouch! She exclaimed. One of the knives had magically opened, rotated itself into an upright position, and attacked her as she removed the packing paper. Lucy was bleeding, but that didn't stop her from digging further into the box.

Ouch! she exclaimed again. Much to her surprise, it seemed all of the cheap knives had escaped their boxes, locked into the open position, and had been waiting to strike. She had suffered yet another cut. Not easily deterred, Lucy made a third attempt to remove the knives from the box, which resulted in yet a third laceration.

This isn't very much fun at all, thought Lucy. Perhaps I should have my husband help me with this.

Lucy called her beloved to her side. Honey, she said, all these knives seem to be open and to have ill intent. I keep reaching into the box, and they keep cutting me. Can you help me?

Lucy's husband was like every other husband on earth - he looooooved to feel useful. Best of all was when he could feel useful by doing something for his wife that she couldn't do herself. His chest swelled and his armpits grew more rank as the testosterone surged.

Sure, little lady! He plunged his hand into the Box-O-Sharpness, then shrieked like a little girl. He, too, had been viciously lacerated!

Lucy and her husband stood back and looked at the Box-O-Sharpness. This crate of cheap knives was obviously out to get them. It had been packed by people with evil intent. Perhaps it had been waylaid enroute to their home, and all the knives opened and poised to cause maximum damage. Whatever the story, the situation was obviously Not Right.

So! They called the company from which Lucy had ordered the knives. They talked to a Very Nice Man who answered the phone and who obviously felt their pain. He assured them they'd be contacted by someone very soon, someone who would help them sort through all the pain and suffering they'd experienced. Perhaps, Lucy thought as she hung up the phone, the person who called them would offer freebies! Or some other sort of compensation. Because, really, when you're attacked by a giant box of $3 knives, you deserve nothing so much as compensation. This is America!

Lucy waited by the phone for an hour, then it rang. The voice at the other end identified itself as Abby, from the Fixin' Problems department at Box-O-Knives, Inc.

Lucy told her sad story. She recounted the way the first knife had been lurking, as if part of an intricately designed booby trap, right under the box lid. She recounted the way the other knives had also attacked her. And finally she recounted the way her husband had also been the victim of these vicious knives.

She concluded her story, certain that Box-O-Knives, Inc was trembling already, visualizing a lawsuit that would decimate the company. She waited for the verdict, wondering what the freebie would be. A referral to the Legal Dept to talk about a cash settlement? 500 free cheap-ass knives? The anticipation was overwhelming.

"Y'all cut yourself multiple times reaching into a cardboard box?" said Abby. She didn't sound impressed, but maybe that was simply the cold horror of a potential civil suit dawning on her.

Yes, yes, Lucy assured her. Several times. Reaching into the same box. Every time we reached into the box, we were cut!

"You can return them if you want, but since they are obviously sharp, I don't know that we'll find them defective." Lucy could have sworn Abby stopped for a drink of something. "Either way, you're going to need to box them up and send them back here so we can look at them."

But we cut ourselves! Lucy pointed out. Repeatedly!

"I have to assume," said Abby. "given the fact that none of these are auto-opening knives, that's what we'd refer to as operator error."

Are you saying it's our fault we cut ourselves? Lucy shrieked.

"That's certainly what I'd be inclined to think," Abby responded. "Are we clear on the return procedure?"

Lucy hung up and cried. Abby hung up, giggled, and went out for a cigarette.

I am a domestic goddess

but nobody's here to witness my miracles.

Mr. Abby took off on a Home Depot run almost an hour ago. There's a Home Depot very near us, so I sent him off with the promise, "I'll have dinner ready when you get back."

Of course, our Home Depot is out of what he needed (or didn't have quite enough, or something). So he's at the Wichita Falls Home Depot or some such place, I have chicken rapidly making the transition to jerky in the oven, and I'm not certain what's going on with the flavored rice but it can't be good.

However, other than getting a little mushy, I don't think that the steamed frozen veggies can go too far stray.

Famous last words, there.

Tiki Bar Weekend

We thought about devoting our weekend to volunteering for some "cause," whereby we could contribute to making the world a better place.

In the end, we decided to continue working on Project Drinkin' Spot - that is, the tiki bar.

If you recall, when we last visited the subject, we had a structure, but nothing more.

This weekend, we wrestled the beast out of the garage and stained it.



Okay. The stain was a little dark, when I first took it in, but I had to keep remembering that:
A) there's varnish to come
B) and bamboo

So we turned our attention to the uprights. We'd been thinking of using beer bottle labels and lacquering them on, but that just wasn't doing it, vision-wise, so we went another direction.



Can't beat rope (note to self - requires roughly 40 feet of 3/4 inch manila rope to tightly wind 2.5 feet of 4x4). Once that was done, we lined the bartop itself with a 3/8 inch manila rope, then added "pieces of flair," and began the epoxy party.



This epoxy stuff (comes in a box, two bottles that need to be combined, costs an arm and a leg) is great. Totally transparent, I've got four boxes on, and can read through it. Good stuff. You have to be aware of dust (and avoid it for about three hours), and you have to watch out for bugs. And, as you can see above, you can apply a little heat to remove any bubbles.

All of these steps, of course, work best when performed with beer.



Remaining steps include another couple packages of epoxy, installing the bamboo (it's cut to size already), lacquering the bits that still need it, and then - the thatch. That one is going to be an adventure.

Scenes from a morning

Once in a while Casey choose to reassert her Alpha Dog status. It normally takes the form of toy comandeering.

I don't really like toys, she says, but I think I shall take yours. Because I can.



Sorry for the poor quality - you know how she is about the camera.

Jack eventually gave up hope that she'd let him have Good Cuz, and wandered off with Sparky to look for birds that needed barking at.



Sparky does not walk in grass anymore - he uses the blocks around the pool as his Yorkie Highway. Wouldn't want his little feet to get wet, I suppose.

See the broken blocks under Jack? If I can get Mr. Abby usefully doing something major and vertical and manly and power-tool intensive this weekend, I have plan for fixing the blocks. We shall see.

warding off total household destruction

Jack will, we've found, destory the entire house if he gets bored and has energy to spare.

Since I'm the one who has the leisurely mornings around here, I try to find ways to prevent that. Best solution - take him on a morning run. I go 2.5-3.5, which seems to wear him out pretty well.

The only problems with that are:
A) I don't run every day.
B) He sucks as a running partner.

My idea of a quality morning run does not involve taking off, sprinting like a bat out of Hell for three quarters of a mile, dashing off the path to bark at other dogs in their backyards, then walking slowly home. So running with Jack is...a lot of work.

This morning was a no-run day (lazy and creaky - a wonderful combo). So it was a pool-retrieves and football-chase morning.

After several throws it finally dawned on me - I really wish I could throw a football. I'm fully capable with baseballs and softballs and all that, but there was never any reason for me to learn to throw a football. So I can't. And I look stupid trying.

More about these foul canines

In the comments below (for the "I hate my dogs" post), Angus Lincoln brought up that beautiful music that is middle-of-the-night-I'm-feelin'-sick sounds.

Yeah - that's a fun one. And he's further right when he points out they can never vomit on anything but carpet.

We bought this house because it has exactly zero square feet of carpet. Nada. None. Zilch. Tile throughout, and hardwood laminate in the entry. But you can't exist totally without carpet; if nothing else, you've got to have entry rugs.

And where do the Bad Dogs puke?

Oh yes, on the freakin' doorway mats. Let me tell you, nothing says "welcome!" like putting your bare foot in yakked-up grass and bile as you wander out of the bedroom in the morning. And that stuff does not wash out of carpet easily.

But cleaning up dog puke isn't always a big deal. Particularly when it's yakked-up dog food.

You hard-core dog people know where I'm going with this, right?

I was hanging out at the Florida house last summer with Girl Child. Casey started making that fabulous sound in the kitchen (over the tile, having somehow missed the rug). She proceeded to launch most of her Dog Supper, which she'd just consumed in about 35 seconds.

Girl child looked at me, horrified. We'd just finished cleaning the floors. I looked back at her.

"Let's go out the front door and I'll have a smoke," I said.

She looked at me - weren't we going to clean up that big, nasty pile of dog yak?

We walked outside, I smoked. About five minutes later, when we went back in, Casey was wandering out of the kitchen licking her chops. As for the puke - a quick spritz of the licked-clean tile with some bleach-based cleaner and a quick swipe of a paper towel rendered it sterile.

Alas, only Casey helps out in this department. The other two just puke and stand there staring at me until I clean it up. That, I tell them, is the real reason I love her best.

Some folks

have all the luck. You read about them once in a while - bought a house, found some cool antique firearm in the attic. Bought property, there was some cherry old muscle car in the barn. Bought a car, found a couple kilos of really good cocaine in the trunk...okay, maybe not that last one so much.

I never find anything. And I always thought that was a bummer.

Until I had cause to remember that not all surprises are happy ones. Today we have: Man Discovers Severed Leg in Smoker Bought at North Carolina Auction

[mother of the leg's original owner] Peg Steele, explained her son had his leg amputated after a plane crash and kept the leg following the surgery "for religious reasons" she doesn't know much about.

I'm really not aware of the set of religious beliefs that require keeping severed limbs and storing them in slightly-useful cooking appliances. Then again, there are a lot of thing I don't know.

"The rest of the family was very much against it," Steele said.

The rest of the family knew? What did they do, sit around at Thanksgiving and, as this mother griped about the fact that her daughter was a few pounds overweight and didn't dress in a manner that would lend itself to landing her a doctor husband, dread the segue to Aunt Peg's Lecture On Why Keeping Your Severed Limbs Is Tacky?

Big weird world out there, folks.

Killin' time

here tonight by dying my hair red(dish). Oddly, we seem to currently be without a hair dryer, so there's no clue yet exactly what this is going to look like.

The Mister currently walks by and peers at my head.

"Still to wet to tell," I say.

"Huh," says he. "Wonder if it'll be bright red or what."

"I have no idea."

Oh, the excitement. There are just only so many times you can clean your guns before you have to do something else.

I hate my dogs

Around 0415, something didn't sound right, and my eyes opened. I listened - Jack was up to something, pawing around under the bed.

The pawing stopped, and the ripping began. Yes - ripping. I lay there, semi-asleep, listening and trying to figure out what exactly was going on.

Aha, I realized. He was shredding a book - probably P.J. O' Rourke's All the Trouble in the World, which I'd left on the window ledge.

This book eating has become a bit of a hobby for him lately. There are a lot of books around here, and I can't put them all out of reach. So it's now classified as a smackin' offense.

I lay still, and thought. Riiiiiip....riiiiip....riiiiiiiip....

A smackin' only works if one catches the culprit in the act, so I coiled (as much as one can when in bed and sleepy). I gathered myself, and launched over the edge of the bed, with a loud "no! bad!" and a wild right hook, flailing to make contact.

Did I point out that Mr. Abby's side of the bed is between my side and Jack's bed?

In my glee at finally catching Jack in the book-eating act, I'd forgotten there was someone sleeping in my planned assault route.

Poor man woke up to me landing on him, shouting, "No! Bad!," and punching wildly over the side of the bed. He seemed just a wee bit startled.

"What are you doing?" he groaned.

"Jack was eating a book."

He sighed. Reached over the side of the bed and grabbed the book, whomped Jack on the head with it. Jack, of course, being mostly Lab, doesn't seem to mind be being whomped in the middle of the night, and mostly thought we were all going to be awake and play.

At the bottom of the bed, Sparky was awake enough to want to move, and I heard Casey get up from her bed (on my side), and wander into the bathroom for some toilet water.

"Please," the Mister begged. "Would you all just be quiet and go back to sleep?"

So we did, until 0510, when they realized we hadn't latched the bedroom door, and began racing in and out through the dog door to enjoy the early morning sprinkler cycle in the back yard.

If you have to let an SOB in your house...

you may as well call him what he is.

Point to Columbia University president Lee Bollinger, who did a very respectable job of calling an evil bastard an evil bastard when, for some reason, said evil bastard was speaking at Bollinger's university.

"I am only a professor who is also a university president, and today I feel the weight of all the civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for," Bollinger told Ahmadinejad. "I only wish I could do better."

The video is pretty good. I did especially like the CNN intro, where they soundbited (soundbit?)one of anti-Ahmadinejad protestors who pointed out, in true protestor fashion, that Ahmadinejad's positions constituted "hate speech."

Well, there you go. We can put up with an awful lot, Mr. Evil Iranian President, but hate speech is simply not tolerated at Columbia.

Reason #396...

we should terminate the lease on the U.N. building and offer them equivalent square footage on Johnston Atoll or something: Ahmadinejad eager to teach Americans about world

Apparently, since the U.N is in New York, we have to allow this jackal into our country. Instead of shooting him at the border, which strikes me as a much better idea, and possibly an approach that would save both Iranian and American lives in the long run.

His request to lay a wreath at ground zero, site of the World Trade Center 2001 terror attacks, was denied by city officials and condemned by politicians.

Ya think? Good lord.

But, lest we think that our country can cling to enough of shreds of sanity to deny this...wannabe architect of death and destruction...a publicity opportunity...

It's not Ground Zero, but it seems that Columbia University, doubtlessly striving for the Gold Medal For Openmindedness (or Emptyheadedness), will offer Ahmadinejad a platform.

He is also set to speak at a Columbia University question-and-answer forum Monday in New York.

Sometimes you can look at a situation, and tell that it will not look good in hindsight. I have afeeling that five or ten years from now, we will not be able to believe we let this creature set foot on our shore.

Hope I'm wrong.

Best and bravest

Being 17 or 18 isn't, as I recall, all it's cracked up to be. Things move pretty fast, and you're not equipped with enough of a bank of experience to feel comfortable about a lot of the decisions you're expected to make.

I spent the day at the local MEPS. Those of my readers who've been through the MEPS process at some point just cringed - it's pretty irritating - anonymous and brusque.

The vast majority of the folks going through that process are pretty much kids. No more than a year or two out of high school, and somehow they've come to the decision that the Army, Navy Air Force, Marine Corps or Coast Guard is where they need to be.

It's a rough decision to make - I remember it - and as you start the process, alone with a folder in your hands and under the indifferent control of people who don't know your name or care to learn it, it's a scary place to be.

Two primary groups show up at MEPS - "applicants" and "shippers." The applicants are there for a physical, to see if they're physically qualified for service and, if they are, to make committments about contract length, job opportunities, etc. The physical is impersonal, not mean, but they don't know that yet. Their eyes are wide and they clutch their folders and wonder why nobody is speaking gently to them before drawing blood, before telling them to strip.

Shippers show up with one small bag and a slightly overwhelmed look. For these folks, it's all over but the shouting. The shouting, they know, is just about to begin. They go to the front of lines in order to make their flight times. It seems more confusing to them than it should be - my recruiter said I was going to Basic, why am I standing in this line? All of these other people are going other places, how will I get to my place? Nobody thinks of these transitory details when they steel themselves for what comes next - you think of how to say goodbye to your family, and you try to prepare yourselves for the Drill Instructors, but what happens in between is confusing and frustrating.

They are proud, though. They have service pride already. The Marines, of course, but the others, too. "Yeah, the Marines might be tough, but they wouldn't get anywhere to fight without the Navy!" and "Don't hate the Air Force, it's not our fault you weren't smart enough to join!" and "Airborne all the way!"

They don't have a clue, but God love 'em, every last one of them has balls of solid brass for volunteering to take their places in the long lines that stretch out into history.

The shippers go, walk off early in the day into their futures. The applicants "process." They have physicals, and interviews. They pick jobs. Some are disappointed, some are thrilled, some are delayed, some sent home.

The whole party starts arounf 0500 (which means everyone's been up since 0330), so by early afternoon, the kids who were confused and keyed up in the morning are hollow-eyed and worn.

And the ceremonies start. Every hour or so, the group of eight to 12 who are finished go down a hall to a small room with carpet and some service flags. They're walked through one more piece of paperwork, then get a two-minute class on the position of attention. For the first time ever, they're called to attention and an officer walks in.

"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

They'll come back, as shippers, in a week or a month or eight months, but they made the committment today. On that carpet, in that room, not knowing where the words will take them, they made the ultimate gesture of devotion. Although I do not know what it may require, they said to their countrymen, I will defend you.

The moment of truth may come thousands of miles away, but what has been called "the offering" was made today for those young people.

It's an eight-year committment, you know. It's called a Mandatory Service Obligation, and when you enlist, you incur it. Only once (some of us are past those days), but there's no way around that number - you're on the hook, one way or another, for eight years.

I watched a full MEPS today. Overheard the staff talking about the high number of shippers, about how long it took when there were so many applicants "on the floor."

We've been in Iraq for four and a half years, and Afghanistan almost six. We've got folks acting a fool in front of Congress and trying to recreate the 1968 they read about once. We've got marches and dire news and a full-blown fistfight in our country about fight 'til we winvs. cut our losses.

And yet our military takes only volunteers, and still the processing station was packed. And you don't know the number of times I heard a young man say, "guaranteed infantry - damn straight!"

When we're proud of the wardogs downrange, we shouldn't forget to be proud of the puppies. They just keep coming, walking as straight and brave as they know how into a tremendous unknown.

That takes a lot of things, but mostly it takes guts. I'm proud of them, and you should be, too. It's a leap of faith, and it's a big one.

Doesn't take near that kind of guts for a MEPS frequent-flyer like me to walk in and get poked and prodded so I can run around with a Reserve unit again. Which I did. I do so love wearing boots.

Yarrr!

We do note that it is International Talk Like A Pirate Day.

We also note it is Mom's birthday.

Coincidence? We think not.

No over-the-hill jokes, folks, or it's the plank for you!

Deliveries

So we all know I sent the Garand order off to the CMP several weeks back, right? And I've been waiting and waiting and waiting and...what did the Big White Truck Of Happiness bring today?



Not that I won't use it, but still...

I did find the whole "spam can" setup pretty neat. Also like the warning to not use the can as a food container. Good to know.

Reason 4,921

to be glad we made it out of Florida alive: Deadly amoeba lurks in Florida lakes

At first people exposed to the amoeba, naegleria fowleri, suffer from flu-like symptoms. Very quickly, in from one to 14 days, the symptoms worsen, Sherin said. "There's a downhill course. Folks lapse into a coma; there are abnormal movements of the eyes and a terrible cascade of events leading to the actual death of parts of the brain."

Lovely. If the sharks and stingrays in the water, coupled with criminals and maniacs on the shore, keep you off the saltwater beaches... And if you aren't eaten by an alligator or bitten by a snake... Florida is still out to kill you.

But one bit in particular caught my eye. Just in case there weren't enough people hanging out in the Emergency Rooms of the Sunshine State, the Folks Who Work Somewhere Else have helpful advice.

[A Health Department official] said anyone who exhibits flu-like symptoms who has been in a lake recently should see a doctor immediately.

"I was recently in a lake and now I believe my brain is rotting," I'd guess, is not going to move you to the front of the line.

Paperwork

makes me vicious. I've been doing battle with a paper dragon of epic proportions recently, but I think I have him on the ropes, which should make me a bit more cheerful and less distracted. I hope to be able to share soon.

No - I am not adopting a Romanian baby.

But if there are any Romanians out there who want a black Lab-and-something puppy, just shoot me an email. I had to go out in the backyard to find socks to wear to work today.

5.11 stock plummets

As Blackwater is tossed out of Iraq.

Iraq's Interior Ministry has revoked the license of Blackwater Security Consulting, an American firm whose contractors are blamed for a Sunday gunbattle in Baghdad that left eight civilians dead.

The firefight took place near Nisoor Square about noon, an Interior Ministry official said Sunday. In addition to the fatalities, 14 people were wounded, most of them civilians, the official said.

Details were sketchy, but the official said witnesses reported that one side of the gunbattle involved Westerners driving sport utility vehicles, which security contractors often use. The state television network al-Iraqiya reported that a Western security company was involved in the shootout, but it did not identify the firm.

Black GMC sport utility vehicles? With a spare tire strapped on top of each one? Full of guys with absurd beards? (Hint - running convoy security in Iraq does not require you to blend in with the locals. This is even more absurd if you're cultivating a look that would blend you in with Afghan locals. Wrong country, nimrod.)

An official with the U.S. Embassy told The Associated Press that a State Department motorcade came under small-arms fire near Nisoor Square, and one of the vehicles was disabled.

My very limited experience with these guys leads me to not be surprised by this. They seemed to be the sort who came under small arms fire all the time. Then again, it's Iraq, and if you're in the habit of considering yourself "under fire" every time you hear a shot somewhere in the middle distance, that happens.

"We have revoked Blackwater's license to operate in Iraq. As of now they are not allowed to operate anywhere in the Republic of Iraq," Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf said Monday. "The investigation is ongoing, and all those responsible for Sunday's killing will be referred to Iraqi justice."

It's questionable what, exactly, the Iraqi government can really do about this, but it's pleasing to see them take a stand on something useful.

Listen, I'm sure there are some very sharp guys running around with Blackwater. And I have already issued the disclaimer that my experience with them is limited - they ran security for State and other such things at the second place we worked in Iraq.

However, it doesn't take a whole lot of yahoos to cause serious trouble in a country we're trying to get up and on its feet. The U.S. military operates under monster, ponderous ROE for just that reason. And they do quite well in that difficult situation.

The contractors we employ need to do the same. The job is drive State Department people around, guys. Not live out Soldier of Fortune fantasies.

If you can't tell the difference, get your ass back to the States, or go guard a gate somewhere in Qatar, and leave those shoot-don't-shoot decisions to the kids making $22,597 a year (corporal over 3). They seem to do a better job.

We're not dead...

We're simply involved in home improvement.

I took a good look at the news the past few days, and decided I'd rather blog about the ongoing tiki bar project. Keeps my head from going Pow!.

So. We know there are fully assembled tiki bars available.


Nice, eh? And really, if I had a spare $1,899... But I don't. Between guns, motorcycles, dog toys, and these pesky "mortgage" and "utilities," the Bad Dog Household has more time than money.

Fortunately, one of the gentlemen with whom the Mister works has some training in architecture, and so we got plans. From the plans came the material list, and the cutting began.



Lots of cutting. Then there was assembling. And now we have - basic structure.



Credit where it's due - other than occasional "holding," this was the work of the Mister and his coworker. Now, however, comes the labor of love, which will be my baliwick.

It starts with this:



Then comes "weathering," staining, finishing the bar top and, finally, accessorizing.

In a stroke of good timing, the Mister will shortly be out of town (not in the military sense, but in the Big Motorcycle Road Trip sense), leaving me plenty of time to putz around with all of this.

I think it will require the drinking of much beer in the garage.

Hey!

Getting dressed for work, I put on my favorite black shirt and found five bucks in the front pocket.

That bodes well for the rest of the day, I think. We shall see.

Not to be mean or anything

But...c'mon, people...

Texan: Humberto 'snuck up on us'

"The intensity surprised everybody, especially the amount of rain and wind," [Galveston Deputy] Cavness said.

"It snuck up on us, to be honest with you. It wasn't something we were expecting."

Little note to my new state - if you're dumber than Florida residents, it doesn't say good things about you.

Snuck up on you? For the love of God, people, its' not a volcano, it's a freakin' hurricane. You might not have expected landfall at a particular point, you might not have expected a particular amount of rain, but a miles-wide tropical weather system that's been on the news for days should not come as a surprise to anyone who lives on the Gulf Coast.



That's not exactly something that one can fail to notice if one watches the weather. And I'm not telling anybody what to do, but perhaps, if it's September and you live on the Gulf, watching the weather might not be a bad idea.

Yahoos. Anyway...here's the link to the "current systems" page at the National Hurricane Center. We ridicule, but we educate.

[sigh]

The CMP E-store is down, which means I can't log in and stare longingly at my "pending orders."

That's really too bad, because I am singularly uninspired this evening.

Sorry about that, folks. I will endeavor to strive to do better.

Stealing time from work

My Garand order is processing! I just shrieked like a schoolgirl!

Once upon a time...

I was reading Murphy again, and he spoke, among other things, about a particularly foul cup of coffee in Iraq.

Long ago and far away, I was a young Marine public affairs type stationed on Okinawa. As military "journalists," we drank copious amounts of coffee from sunup until the bars opened.

We had a particularly irritating "shop duty" which required one of us junior pukes to trudge up to our basement Public Affairs Office in the wee dark hours and get things set for the day. We copied and distributed the Early Bird (which came in by fax), turned on lights, did some other random crap, and made the coffee.

Since we were stationed on Okinawa, periodically one of our Marines would get to travel to Iwo Jima. Veteran's groups, VIPs, and the occasionally over-motivated wing unit would go to the island for various reasons, and they all wanted official photos taken.

Now, we are all aware that in the all the grand mythology of the Marine Corps, there is no more hallowed battle than the one for Iwo Jima. Blood and death and sacrifice and valor and victory and the ghosts of long-gone heroes...it was a religous pilgrammage to make, and any small souvenier was treated like a sliver of the One True Cross.

One dark morning, a young corporal had Office Duty. He trudged up the hill, copied the Early Bird, and took a copy to each appointed desk. He turned on lights and then went to the main office to start the coffee. The big can, he noted, was empty.

So the corporal went to the supply closet, where there was a big red Folgers can, partially full. He set the coffee, then went out for a morning smoke and prepared to start his duty day.

The rest of the office rolled in. As was normal, the old gruff master sergeant was the first at the coffee pot. He stopped, peered at it, and hollered for the corporal.

"Yes, Top," the young man joined the master sergeant.

"Why is the coffee clear? Or cloudy? But not black?" The Top was perplexed, as was the corporal. The young man immediately opened the top of the coffeemaker to ensure he'd put the grounds in. Yep - wet and black. He looked at the Top, and the Top looked at him.

"What 'coffee' did you use?"

"We were out, so I used the half-can in the supply closet."

A sigh. A long, drawn-out, master sergeant sigh.

"Son, you made coffee with the sands of Iwo Jima."



Anybody could have made the mistake, I suppose.


Note - picture above swiped from a gentleman named, I believe, Joe Richard, who has a very nice page dedicated to those who served with such courage at the gates of Hell. Their valor allowed us to monkey around on a Japanese island 53 years later.

I am such a good shopper

So Dad needed a gun. For primarily decorative purposes. Please don't ask - he's getting stranger as he ages.

This could not, of course, be a simple gun. Oh no - it had to be a cowboy gun. It also had to be something in a slightly uncommon caliber, with which he can (in theory) hunt deer in Michigan brush, and for which he can eventually buy an equally cowboy-looking companion revolver in the same caliber.

Got that? And nothing too expensive.

Did I mention that Dad stopped interacting with technology in 1969? The last mouse he dealt with was scurrying around his woodpile. He stomped on it, and that was the end of that.

So during his recent visit I sat him down and we took a brief spin across the gun-nut section of this magnificent internet. We looked at guns by Marlin (just not cowboy enough), Henry (ahhh...a little expensive and really shiny and not quite right), and Cimarron (holy MSRP, Batman!). To say nothing of Uberti, Navy Arms, and all the rest.

Then we stumbled across the Puma. It's an Italian Brazilian (thanks, Drew! I knew that!) gun, made by Rossi, and imported. They make a lever rifle in .45 Long Colt with a 20-inch barrel and case-hardened color on the receiver.



Kinda pretty, if you're into that sort of thing. And affordable.

So Dad went home with an item number written down, and the gun dealer he prefers to use (just down the road from the hollow stump in the northern forest where I grew up) said, "Sorry, can't find one."

I searched the 'net. Gunbroker.com, which is becoming more and more simply a place where retailers list things at mediocre prices, was coming in just under MSRP. With shipping and transfer fees (which were abnormally high at Tree Stump Guns, by the way - I called), we were not looking at a good deal.

I found that Gander Mountain is a vendor for the Puma importer, so I called the one up North. They could get one, the man said, for $60 over MSRP.

That, I figured, was a load of Puma poo. Just after I resigned myself to lurking on Gunbroker and getting Dad on the hook to pay retail (ick!), I thought to myself, "self, you haven't looked to see if Bud's has one in stock."

Why, yes. Yes, they did. At about $130 under MSRP, and with free shipping to boot.

I've heard mixed reviews about Bud's, but it seems a reasonably functional group of people. I'll be interested to see how long it takes, as Dad will be mailing his payment to them. I shall keep y'all posted.

I'm so proud of myself. Saving that much money makes me want to go out and blow the "savings" on ammo and toys. But, alas, if it's not my money I saved, I don't think I get to do that.

The Report

It's raining here, which means my satellite TV is being less than useful. So I have CSpan.com up - is this technology stuff great or what?

I'm not going to do anything so ambitious as try to "liveblog" the Petraeus testimony, but until I get fed up, I'll watch and maybe comment.

The CSpan guys are chattering now, and I picked up one bit of info. They expect the general to testify from roughly 1230 Eastern until 1830. With two breaks. In front of a joint committee.

Does that sound worse than having bamboo jammed under your fingernails or what? I can imagine a lot of unhappy things, but six hours of nonstop grilling by a politicians primarily interested in posturing...that's torture, dammit. Amnesty Internation ought to come to the rescue of Gen. Petaeus around 1600, if the world were fair.

OK. I"m going to have a smoke and wait for this testimony to begin. We'll do further commentary below.

Intros and Opening Statements

Alright. CSpan.org suddenly became less-than-reliable, but the rain let up enough that I think I’ve got MSNBC coming in Lima Charlie.

We shall see.

This whole thing is starting out with…a heckler? There’s a voice hollering and…Ike Skelton (D-Mo) bounces ‘em. “Out they go!” Long pause…. “are they gone?”

Breaks at 1425 and 1625? For five minutes?

“What may be the most important hearing of the year.” Well, Ike’s got the picture.

Insert here long, drawn-out rambling by Ike Skelton. As soon as he referenced the 1921 testimony of Gen. Leonard Wood regarding the Spanish American War, I decided it was a good time to cook lunch.

Ike says, and I paraphrase, that Petraeus is the right man, but two years and 250,000 troops too late. I don't quite understand that statement. Time is an artificial constraint in this situation, and numbers of troops...well, that's a variable entirely within the control of gentlemen like Skelton.

Note - Petraeus has odd hair. As does Ambassador Crocker. Can't someone help these gentlemen out?

Rep. Tom Lantos is a very scary man. The accent does not help (accent explained here). "Every single one of us wants you to succeed in your efforts to the greatest possible extent." Forgive me my doubts, but I wonder about that.

Huh? Lantos says, "our witnesses have been sent here this morning to restore credibility to a discredited policy." I thought they were there by Congressional order to deliver a mandated progress report.

Now Duncan Hunter is talking. When the TV guys introduced this, I thought there'd be a little chatter before the witnesses spoke. Apparently, I was wrong. We all love Duncan Hunter, but there's nothing particularly surprising to be found here.

I'm going to go cook my pasta, as I think the water is boiling. I shall return.

Is anyone going to let the General speak?

No - apparently not.

Hey - here's a powerful member of the ruling elite whose son and daughter-in-law are both Marine captains. They've both done time in Iraq, and the daughter-in-law is apparently currently in Afghanistan.

That would be Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL).

I like this woman. She's called out Moveon.org and Neville Chamberlain, as well as Congressional surrender weasels. All within a couple of minutes. More posturing, of course, but she's doing it well. Heck - she just quoted the most recent NIE on Iraq.

Holy crap! They're letting Petraeus talk! Or trying to - the microphone appears to have been installed by three hungover specialists....

(banter during the technical difficulty tells us the Rep. Lantos, who we talked about earlier, is the only Holocaust survivor serving in Congress. Huh - don't I feel like a jerk for making fun of his accent.)

Ike is throwing out more shouting people. And another of the committee members is blustering about how much more effectively he could throw hecklers out of the room.

Duncan Hunter, it appears, is suggesting he be allowed to punch hecklers.

I'm going to go have another cigarette.

Now I'm back and apparently, this audio problem is not resolving itself. Chris Matthews is talking, which is always a downer.

Oooh! We've got audio.

Quick political test - do you think the audio issue was a secret Bush plot to keep the people from hearing the truth, do you think it was sabotage by pinko-lefties designed to silence pro-Bush military leadership, or do you think it was a SNAFU?

"I believe that we will be able to reduce our forces to the pre-surge level of brigade combat teams by next summer" without giving up the progress made thus far, says the general. Throws a bone to that certain crowd that cares about being done more than about victory or defeat.

He's doing a splendid job of pointing out that his plan, what we call the surge, has only really been in motion since mid-June.

These charts are...charts. They follow a big old disseration on the validity of the numbers coming out of MNFI, and the solid methodlogy by which those numbers are produced.

Ruh-roh...here we are saying the quiet part loud, as Petraeus starts drawing the clear lines linking Iranian Revolutionary Forces and Hezbollah and the EFP attacks and assasinations across Iraq....

Whew...fortunately, some brave Voices of Dissent from one of the anti-war groups were there to stand up and begin shouting down the Man. Ike calls a halt and has the bums tossed out. Go, Ike!

Time for another smoke, and I need to rotate laundry. I may return if anything exciting happens.

Leavin'...on a jet plane...

Petraeus now talking about the point at which he feels we can start to draw down, saying it would be premature to make predictions about the pace of drawdowns past next summer. And token reductions this winter - the MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit) that's there will leave soon, he says.

Well, yes. MEUs take six-month cruises. He also refers to a BCT (brigade combat team) departing around the new year without replacement. Beyond that, he's not committing to anything, which is without a doubt a good idea.

He just handled the whole "change the mission strictly to training" issue - that is, if we made our mission one strictly of training Iraqi Security Forces, rather than one of providing security and killin' terrorists, we'd lose fewer people and could reduce our forces.

Petraeus pointed out handily that we've seen before what happens when we hand off tasks to the Iraqi Security Forces before they're ready - really bad stuff.

We seem to be closing out the general's portion of all this madness. He concludes and there's....more heckling!!! By women in pink outfits, weating foam rubber tiaras and buttons with slogans on them?!?!

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Loyal Opposition. [spit]

About that "Loyal Opposition"

Do they even call themselves that anymore?

I've been trying to find a pic of the yahoos that Ike "The Doorman" Skelton threw out of the hearing earlier, with no luck.

But a little sleuthing around revealed that these were probably members of Code Pink. I'm taking that primarily from the fact that they were wearing pink outfits. So I could be totally wrong, and it could just be one of those awkward coincidences of fashion.

But I did manage to find a pic of a fellow protestor on the front steps of the Capitol earlier today.



Well, that just screams credibility, doesn't it? When I sitting in the dirt outside of Baghdad, this is the sort of person I wanted influencing those who owned my ass. The same and other angles are available here.

[spit]

I'm getting the urge to start drinking, which tells me maybe I need to turn off the TV and clean up the kitchen.

Gettin' whatcha pay for

I have said before, and I will maintain, that if you are buying common handgun practice ammo, WalMart cannot be beat. I restocked the .45 the other day with 50-round boxes of Blazer Brass at $9.97.

A household shortage of cottage cheese and limeade required another Wally World run yesterday, so I figured I'd rememdy a little 9mm shortage I'd noticed while pawing around the Bad Dog ASP.

The Sporting Goods dude double bagged my Winchester White Box, and I didn't think another thing of it. Until, as I was crossing the parking lot, I heard an odd "tink." Followed, a second later, by another "tink."

When I'm in the WalMart parking lot, I'm normally not watching my groceries. Making it across that parking lot is like crossing between trenches in WWI, and requires all my attention. But I finally looked down.

I was drizzling cartridges.

Note to self: WWB 9mm is packed loose in 100-round boxes. When sloppily bagged, these boxes can turn over. This can lead to me walking back across the scorching Parking Lot O' Death, plucking shiny rounds off the asphalt.

I will admit, I was a little surprised nobody was out there snatching them up. I followed the trail back to its beginning, picking up 15-20 rounds. Fortunately, I'd made it well out of the store before the leakage began.

Cheap ammo, but also, cheap packaging.



Additional note to self: My husband is not stupid, and does not believe me when I tell him WalMart was offering three free Value Packs of Winchester 9mm with the purchase of Borden's cottage cheese.

About the kitchen...

Apparently I'm not the only one out there who thinks these colors can look a little different from the sample once they're on the wall.



That's quite orange. Note the accessory in this next shot. Not a whole lot of difference, is there?



Jack says, "I'm colorblind, but man, that's orange!"

Mr. Abby said, "My kitchen looks like a Mexican restuarant." Oddly, he seemed bummed about that.

I'm going to finish it, do the touchups, and then we'll see if it grows on us.

Huh.

I think I just painted my kitchen orange.

I don't mean kinda-orange. I mean orange.

Not sure what I think about that. My high school colors were black and orange (go Trojans!), and after four years of perpetual Halloween, I've been fairly burned out on the color ever since.

This kitchen is going to take some thinking about. Either it's going to grow on me, or it's going to be gone.

Catching up

Just a short collection of snaps from the past few days, for those who might be interested. Wild and crazy night of priming the kitchen. Fortunately, the primer looks like ass, so we'll probably move on to actual paint at a slightly less glacial pace than the one we've taken so far on this project.

First off, a picture of my grandmother, with her favorite Bad Dog.



She took Sparky in when I was downrange and Mr. Abby was out of pocket for a few months. I seriously wondered if we'd get him back. He was in her lap her entire visit. We've lost his airplane carrier, which is probably good, since I think she may have made off with him if it were around.

The downside of Sparky, of course, is his stench. It's a Yorkie thing, I think. So sometimes, he requires bathing. I know we've mentioned this before, but I think this time I got a shot that truly captures how he feels about the bath process.



Isn't that pathetic? You'd think we beat him, and not that moments later, after a brisk towel treatment, he was curled up under the blanket on the bed. In my spot, of course.

And finally, a Bad Dog Product Test that didn't ever really come to fruition.



I've been using MagPul PMags lately - and they are a great piece of gear. I just ordered some more, and was feeling a little envious of all the gun people who were running over them with pickups, dropping them from skyscrapers, etc. So I thought I'd stage a little test of my own called Can A PMag Survive Being a Chew Toy?

Well, to know that, I'd have had to let the dog keep it more than 30 minutes. But the sound of a magazine being dropped on a tile floor roughly every 15 seconds cut that experiment off at the knees.

More tomorrow, perhaps even with some discussion of Osama Bin Laden's entry into the Commemorative Video bidness.

Words of wisdom

We've got CNN on this morning, and as they talked about the latest Mattel toy lead paint fiasco, my grandmother came up with an idea we should probably all consider.

"I think, if I had a child that age around," she said, "I'd say, just play with the dog - at least we know where he came from."

She might be onto something with that.

Oh, Larry...

We're not going to dwell on Senator Larry Craig and his...issue. We here at BDC support everyone's right to be just as gay as they might want to be. It's a big lonely world and if you find something to get you through it...who are we to judge?

But if you're one of those "traditional values" Republicans and you get busted looking for love in a public men's room....

Well, then we feel okay about making fun of you.

But Senator Craig announced that he would resign, which is really the only thing to do under the circumstances. Heterosexual rent-a-friends (ala Sen. Vitter)can be overcome. The gay kind on the other hand...not so easy to move past for a Republican politician.

Then he hired Michael Vick's lawyer, which, if you asked us, is...a move that certainly indicates something, even if we're not sure what that something is. We'd tend to consider it the move of a shifty weasel, not an utterly innocent man.

Then again, I wouldn't think an utterly innocent professional lawmaker would think that pleading guilty to this particular charge would not "suppress a story."

So now the good Senator is apparently hedging? Perhaps, his people say, he may not resign after all.

Please, Larry. A bit of advice - go away. There is a time when the best thing to do is exit stage left. This, Senator, is one of those times. Take what little dignity you have left and hit the road.

These weekends...

have been mildly busy. My grandmother is here - which is groovy. I have one of the world's coolest grandmothers - if it weren't for her I'd have never seen Madagascar, or the Galapagos, or wandered around northern England one Sping Break. That's just the direct stuff - her influence is probably responsible for a significant amount of my wanderlust.

So, she's here and hanging out with her is A Good Thing. I'll get some pictures up, and will get back to y'all in a couple of days.