House votes and drunken old soldiers

I'm thinking about this House vote...

...House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said Thursday's mixed report on the progress of the war shows it's time for American troops to come home.

You know, I came up in the Marine Corps, which we all know has a slightly different outlook on excuses, quitting and mission accomplishment. But hey...

"President Bush continues to urge patience, but what is needed -- and what the American people are demanding -- is a new direction," she said.

And what we've all learned from the Democratic Congress is that any time we're not sure about a strategy and we think a "different direction" is in order, that direction should always be capitulation.

[sigh]

Two nights ago, one of my old Army buddies from Iraq was in town for business. He dropped by for some beer drinkin', steak eatin' and bullshittin'. It was a good time.

This guy's a thinker, a real smart guy. He ran our "projects" side in Iraq - the money, the contracts, the payouts, etc. A lot of vision, probably should have been an officer, you know the kind.

He and I were sitting outside enjoying about our 71st cold beer of the evening.

"What do you think," he said, "about..." and he let it trail off.

"Iraq? Shit, man...I dunno."

He nodded. "Me neither."

And folks, my old buddy and I are two people who always "know" (or at least "know" enough to ramble on at length, even if we're full of it). But, we agreed, the political shitstorm surrounding the entire Iraq situation is pretty much unprecedented. I still feel about the war, and I still think about the war. But I no longer have a fucking clue what is going on with the war.

I'm a Petraeus True Believer. If there's one swinging Richard in a uniform who can fix this, it's him.

He was approved, and he was sent. And he implemented a plan that finally kicked off at 100% strength last month. I was under the impression we were expecting a "benchmark" report in September. However, apparently halfway between full manning on the surge and the "benchmark report," we decided we were not sufficiently progressing toward the point where we wanted a progress report.

So, said House Democrats and assorted other fools, we must not wait. We should make plans with little regard for what may or may not be going on in Iraq.

But...I note...this pullout date is about seven months before the November '08 election. Coincidence? I think not.

Here's my prediction. The Senate passes something similar. The President vetoes. Neither chamber will be able to override. Of course they won't override - that's a phenomenally stupid thing to do.

But - throughout the entire election season, everyone who voted for the precipitous pullout will be able to say, "I tried to get them home. If I'd had my way, they'd be grilling in the back yard."

And, if everything is not sunshine and roses and Liberation-of-Paris-style success (and would the modern media even allow the Liberation of Paris to be a success today? Perhaps, but the pictures would be of US GIs pissing in alleys), those who opposed the "pullout" will be castigated. Every bomb, every fatality, every setback, every Reuters photo of a big-eyed grubby urchin, will be turned on those who chose "the harder right over the easier wrong" and voted to stay and try to finish what we started.

I would have more patience for the Loyal Opposition's yammering if they were really seeking a "better direction." There are a lot of strategies out there, and I'm always open to hearing smart people try to find better ways to do things.

But they're not seeking a "better direction." They're seeking a way to appease the shortsighted American public, to find a painless answer.

Sometimes, there are no painless answers. And the worst thing about this kind of debate is that there is no debate. There's no search for the best way to win, to accomplish our goals. There's an embattled President who couldn't articulate why one should look both ways before crossing the road, a VP with the charisma of Darth Vader, and a few gutsy legislators trying to hold the line. That and a few hundred thousand GIs and some real smart generals, none of whom play a tune half as appealing as that the surrender monkeys are cranking out on their newsprint organs.

Tell you what, it's enough to make a couple of old soldiers sitting outside drinking beer say, "ah...fukkit. I don't know anymore."

Settling in - the battle continues

If moving in is a campaign (martial type - not election), then we've had the invasion. We're beyond the beach and spread out around the countryside, we've beaten back all their organized formations, and we're doing the last bit of mopping up before we declare victory.

In more realistic terms, we received our second TMO shipment, so we have all our shit, and we're down to a couple of rooms and the garage that are still a wee bit out of control.

I have my books now, and they're in the bookshelf. Reject books have been banished to Goodwill. I am left with this:



They're all on the shelves, but I'm still trying to get them arranged. It's one of my favorite things to be obsessive about, but it takes some work. We start with military history and theory on the left, and it should gently segue through other history, bios, politics, conservation, bird, guides, travel, then fiction in roughly the same subject groups. We're not there yet, but it does give me something to do - walking over and shuffling books around.

On the other side of this room (the Study/Armory), we have this - My First Gunsafe.



We broke on of the handle "leaves" off moving it - but gotta love Sentry, because they're sending another one at no charge and it's pretty easy to just stick the new one in.

This will probably not be the last gunsafe, since I still have this lurking in a third corner of the same room:



But the first safe is a good start. If we stumble across another used one of the same size at a decent price, we might pick it up. The first one accomplished the primary goal, though, of holding everything we really don't want to have to replace and of ridding us of loose guns lying around in stacks and on coffee table.

And yes - we can get away with the antlers next to it at that height. Neither Mr. Abby nor I are tall enough to put an eye out. Kind of a bummer, hey?

Coolest. Object. Ever.

Mr. Abby doesn't have to check in for another week or so, so he's been running wild around the greater DFW area, buying shit and generally being out of control.

He apparently found the Used Classic Lighter Store, which masquerades as a gas station. While there, he picked this up for me.



What the Hell, you ask, is that? Ladies and gentlemen, that is a fishing lure lighter, butane type. It works fabulously. Here's an "open" picture.



How groovy is that? An envelope of Casey hair as a prize to whoever can identify the lure this lighter is based on. This is an easy one.

Giggling...

Y'all know I just love this kind of thing.

We've politicians, folks, who are Defenders of the American Family (voting NO on spending federal money on anti-teen-pregnancy education). They stand for all that is Right and Good For the Moral Fiber of America (YES on a consitutional amendment to prohibit "flag desecration.")

These are men who know about Family Values (NO for American women being allowed to pay for abortion services in overseas military hospitals).

I just love it when one of these guys gets busted with hookers.

"This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible," Vitter said in the statement. "Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling. Out of respect for my family, I will keep my discussion of the matter there -- with God and them..."

You know, I'm not 14. I didn't learn the term "hypocrite" three days ago, and a little bit of failing to live up to one's rhetoric doesn't shock and offend me.

But listen - there's a hierarchy of bad form here. Running around on your spouse is a Bad Thing. Running around on your spouse with your interns or subordinates is Slightly Worse. Running around with WHORES (that is, hookers, escorts, dancers, etc) is Worse Yet. From there it's a quick slide down to sexual assualt of juvenile kittens.

Hey - Sen. Vitter, I wasn't going to judge. But once you claw your desperate little way up on that pedestal and try to legislate your judgement onto my choices...well, you're fair game.

Loser. Your wife oughta leave you and take all your shit. Then you can try to get a real job to pay for the ass that apparently nobody is willing to give you (seriously - if you're a Senator and still have to pay for it, that says something about your skills).

Salesmanship

Mr. Abby sent this one along - apparently he was cruising the "bikes for sale" ads on MySpace...

serious inquiries only please--- i do not wanna haggle with you over price for 3 hours on something that obviously isn't new.. i love the bike/ride it every day to work, and could care less if i sell it so don't come to my house thinking you're gonna pitch me down. save that junk for the garage sale in your neighborhood.

Well, that's one approach to selling something, I suppose. Nonetheless, I am now curious. Just exactly what does this bike look like? What is it this man is selling, but does not particularly want to discuss?

Well, here it is.



Huh. Not exactly pretty and shiny. But maybe if I were a college kid or something, you know...low on cash...

*special note to college kids--i know it's the summer and you REALLY want a motorcycle to tool around town on and be cool and stuff but i don't give a rat's ass if you're poor, i do not do payment plans. i am not a dealer, i'm an individual dude tryin to make enough money to buy a bulletproof vest so i can run around at night pretending to be batman and not get my ass shot off in the process.
make sense? good. now come buy this bike.

Well, ok, then. Just in case any of y'all in the North Texas area are in the market for a bike exactly like this one.

The world's most expensive dog toy

That would be the swimming pool. I'm pretty much content to sit by it and drink, but the kids and the dog...



We had some folks over yesterday, and one of our guests was amazed. "I have never seen a dog that liked to swim that much," he said. "That one just swims and swims and swims."

Yes. Yes he does. But the upside of that it, once we let him back in the house, he sleeps and he sleeps and he sleeps.

The carbine issue

I keep pulling the carbine out and looking at it. I just do not care for that M2 stock. Yes, yes, it's cosmetic. But I'm a shallow woman.

Here's a better picture I just took in the driveway. If this entry ends suddenly, it means the neighbors got weirded out and called the popo. I'd be disappointed by that, seeing as this is Texas.



So. It's pretty, but I can't get over the unsexy stock. I need something like this one.



But not that one, because that's the one that came with my Plainfield, which means it's not the original GI. And that, my friends, is part of the adventure. So. In between doing the things I should be doing with the new house, and pretending to be a decent stepmom and at least a mediocre wife, I am working on this:



That's an original GI stock (in a bag). It's sweating out the old cosmoline and other nastiness (hence the bag and the sun), but it shows signs of cleaning up nicely. I have a big ol' can of boiled linseed oil waiting in the garage. This stock has a nice Ordnance Corps acceptance stamp, and a couple of other nice markings that are becoming clear as I remove the ick.

I think, in the end, it will please me. Which is really all that matters, I think.

Nature is cruel

and often, critters with injuries, defects or deformities don't last too long in the wild.

That's how we know that this is one badass tiger.

The tiger was captured twice on camera -- once in March and again in May -- roaming the forests of the Tesso Nilo national park on Sumatra island with the lower half of his right front leg missing, said a WWF official, Sunarto.

The time span makes it seem as if said tiger is getting along just fine. "Yeah," he says. "I've got three legs, and I can still do all that tiger shit."

Color me impressed.

Warm fuzzy firearm goodness

I'm sure you don't want to hear me whine about the issues I've been having recently with the camera and my laptop. Suffice it to say I have to weasel my way onto the desktop to deal with images. It's a mystery.

[pauses to interact with pictures. sighs in frustration]

Then, of course, it turns out the pictures suck. Oh, well. I've been yammering about this M1 carbine for so long you're getting the only decent picture. They sent me an M2 stock, which is in great shape, but it's not the sexy, slim stock I so adore.



I have a standard M1 stock from the Planfield Frankengun, but I haven't even had an opportunity to take the carbine apart for its Big Cleaning yet, so that can wait. I'm sure if I poke around, I can find a GI M1 stock, too. Not a big deal. The metal is all good, and the cosmoline isn't that bad, other than around (and in) the rear sight.

Since I only have one workable carbine shot, I'll share something else. A while ago we talked about guns that are not suitable for attempting murder, because they're wimpy and you end up with rounds lodged between the skin and skull of your intended victim. Didn't know I have one of those useless guns, didja?



I picked up this .25 Galesi for next to nothing in one of those I-love-this-country parking lot transactions a couple months back. It actually hits where you point it (more or less) at the sort of ranges at which one might have to use it. I get failures to feed pretty often on the last round in the magazine, which could probably be fixed with a new magazine spring if I were so inclined.

I bought it more as a curio than anything else, and so I haven't done anything other than a little cursory cleaning. But it's cute. And shiny.

Stealing a meme

...from Rachel Lucas, because my Inspiration Meter is bottomed-out.

WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
WHAT INSULTING NICKNAMES WERE YOU CALLED IN CHILDHOOD? Dude...y'all know my name. Crabby Abby, Gabby Abby, Flabby Abby (although I was not a pudgy child)...alas, nobody ever called me "Stabby Abby," which would have been kinda cool.

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? WHEN YOU CRY, DO YOU LOOK UGLY, OR DOES IT GIVE YOU A BEAUTIFUL SAD GLOW? Ugly. There's no such thing as beautiful crying. That's why I try not to do it.

DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? ARE YOU FORGETTING HOW TO WRITE BECAUSE YOU SPEND SO MUCH TIME ON THE COMPUTER? That's not a problem for me - my handwriting has always sucked. I simply print now - my third grade teacher would be appalled at how much I do not use the cursive skills she so thoroughly beat into me.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? DO YOU THINK VEGETARIANS ARE INSANE? (BECAUSE THEY ARE.) No. Just misguided. But that's okay, because it means more meat for me.

DO YOU HAVE KIDS? DO YOU LIKE KIDS? IF SO, WHY? WHY, IN THE NAME OF GOD? We've been over this.

IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? IF YOU WERE A DOG, WOULD YOU LICK YOURSELF JUST BECAUSE YOU COULD? DON'T TRY TO DENY IT. Yes. Constantly. I'd be that dog that embarassed you and which you lock in the back room when there's company over.

DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT? ARE YOU AS FRIGHTENED OF CLOWNS AS YOU SHOULD BE IF YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU? Yes. I'm the fourth clown-hating female generation of my family. And we're all alive. And we all still hate clowns. Even my 104 year-old great grandmother.

DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? IF YOU COULD BE EITHER VERY BEAUTIFUL OR VERY SMART, WHICH WOULD YOU CHOOSE AND WHY? Very beautiful. I've been reasonably bright for a while now, and that hasn't done a whole lot for me. So I think it would be fun to be reasonably hot for a while.

WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? HOW MUCH MONEY WOULD YOU REQUIRE TO HAVE INTIMATE RELATIONS WITH MICHAEL MOORE OR ROSIE O'DONNELL (DEPENDING ON YOUR SEXUAL PREFERENCE BUT DOES THAT REALLY MATTER WITH THESE TWO)? Let's see...a night at a decent beachfront hotel in the Keys runs about $200. I can consume $200 in booze and chow in beachfront bars in 24 hours. Add in $100 a day for smokes and gas... We'll say $500 a day minimum to hide out in the islands, plus a little for fishing and boat rentals and such... 500 x 90 days is $45,000...plus say $10,000 for the incidentals...that's $55,000...plus another $50,000 to take care of my bills and responsibilities while I'm livin' the dream...that's a little more than $100,000....double that so I don't come off sounding TOO easy...add a little for the horror...call it a quarter million, and Michael has to bring the quart of whiskey.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CUSS WORD? I love them all. Every single goddam one of them.

DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?IF YOU'RE A MAN, HAVE YOU EVER CAUGHT YOUR JUNK IN YOUR ZIPPER? HOW BAD DID IT HURT? IF YOU'RE A WOMAN, HOW GLAD ARE YOU THAT YOU'RE NOT A MAN? I dunno. Pantyhose suck ass. Then again, we don't have to wear ties. Then again, they don't have to wear heels. It's a wash.

DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? DO YOU THINK YOU ARE GOING TO GROW OLD OR DIE TRAGICALLY YOUNG? I don't think about it a whole lot these days. However, I'm reasonably sure it won't be anywhere nearly as dramatic as we all like to think of our deaths as being. I'm thinking starving to death trapped beneath a bookcase I tip onto myself, then having my corpse devoured by stray dogs. Or something like that.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? DESCRIBE YOUR MOST RECENT NIGHTMARE. I don't have nightmares. I haven't had them in years. I occasionally dream about something unpleasant, but I don't wake up afraid. Sometimes sad, never afraid.

WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? DO YOU WISH THAT, INSTEAD OF PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION DEBATES, THEY INSTEAD HAD TO BOX EACH OTHER, BECAUSE THEN THERE'D NEVER EVER BE ANOTHER DEMOCRAT IN THE WHITE HOUSE? I wish the debates were moderated by some crotchety old lady who would simply slap a candidate each time he/she sidestepped a question or repeated a meaningless soundbite. Or...how about if all the candidates had to have four drinks right before walking onstage? THAT would be interesting.

RED OR PINK? ABBA: THE BLONDE OR THE BRUNETTE? Huh?

WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? WHAT DISEASE DO YOU MOST FEAR CONTRACTING? I dunno. But as a child I always wanted to contract malaria, because it seemed to be a disease only suffered by intrepid explorers of weird and wild places.

WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? WHO DO YOU MISS THE LEAST? The reason I don't keep a specific hate list on the blog is because once I start, I don't think I'll ever stop.

WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? ON A SCALE OF 1-10, HOW MUCH DO YOU HATE SHOPPING FOR NEW CLOTHES (10 BEING SO MUCH YOU'D RATHER CLEAN THE CAT BOX WITH YOUR BARE HANDS). Depends on the clothes. If we're talking about Columbia shirts and park ranger shorts, I enjoy it. If it's "grownup clothes," well, show me the catbox.

WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE BEFORE THE LAST TIME YOU THREW UP? I dunno, but I'd had a bottle of red Gatorade shortly. That I remember.

WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? NAME FIVE "CLASSIC" POPULAR SONGS YOU HOPE YOU NEVER HEAR AGAIN AS LONG AS YOU LIVE. Hotel California. Times five.

IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? IF YOU WERE A DOG, WHICH BREED WOULD YOU BE? Hmm...what's like a Rottweiler, but less effective? Some vicious terrier, I'm afraid.

FAVORITE SMELLS? FAVORITE BODILY FUNCTION? (COUGH, SNEEZE, BELCH, POOP, FART, YAWN, ETC) I love a good sneeze.

WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU HAD A HUGE FIGHT WITH, WHAT WAS THE FIGHT ABOUT, AND WHO WON? Duh. I'm married. Once you're married, it's just many variations on the same fight, and nobody ever wins.

FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? AS WE ALL KNOW, PRO FOOTBALL IS THE ONLY SPORT WORTH CARING ABOUT. IN LIGHT OF THAT FACT, WHO IS THE BEST NFL QUARTERBACK OF THE LAST 10 YEARS? BEST RUNNING BACK? BEST WIDE RECEIVER? BEST DEFENSIVE PLAYER? BIGGEST PRIMA DONNA? WHINIEST BITCH? I've moved too much in the last ten years to have kept up on football. I prefer baseball, anyway. Football is fine, but it just requires no real...discipline to be a fan.

HAIR COLOR?? BALD MEN ARE VERY SEXY. DISCUSS. It's hard to tell - lots of the bald guys I know probably aren't bald - they're just military guys who shave their heads. I think it runs about 50/50 sexy/goofy.

EYE COLOR? THE INVENTION OF THE PILL IS A GOOD ENOUGH REASON TO BELIEVE IN GOD. DISCUSS. Agreed. I'm not entirely sure I'm a big fan of all the hormone-based stuff, but the whole birth control concept is fabulous. Plus, there's a certain type of person that is driven to distraction by the idea of women having sex and enjoying it, and even more insane by the idea that these women are having this sex and NOT having babies. Driving that group of people nuts is also wonderful.

DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? DO YOU HAVE PERFECT VISION? IF SO, RACHEL LUCAS ENVIES YOU WITH THE FIRE OF A THOUSAND GALAXIES. Actually, yeah. I do. 20/20 at every test from childhood til now. But my time is running out. Mom and Dad both ended up with glasses around 40, and I'm pretty sure I'm on the same track.

FAVORITE FOOD? FOOD YOU FIND SO REPUGNANT THAT YOU SIMPLY CANNOT BELIEVE OTHER PEOPLE PUT IT IN THEIR MOUTHS? Those jelly beans that aren't fruit flavors, but spices. There aren't many foods I'll spit out - those I will. Clove-flavored jelly beans? Who the fuck thought that up?

SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? WHEN YOU GO TO THE MOVIES AND THE JERK BEHIND YOU KICKS YOUR SEAT CONSTANTLY, DO YOU IGNORE/MOVE OR DO YOU CHALLENGE THEM TO FISTICUFFS? I'm getting a little meaner as I get older. I turn around and scold these days. I jumped out of the truck and gave some young asshole a stern talking-to the other night after he threw a soda cup out the window. This will probably get me shot some day.

LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED THAT MADE YOU GET ON YOUR KNEES AFTERWARDS AND BEG GOD TO GIVE YOU THE LAST TWO HOURS OF YOUR LIFE BACK? I dunno. I don't watch a lot of movies, and the ones I do I watch mostly at home. If they suck, I read. I watched that new Pixar one with the rats the other night.

WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? DO YOU EVER PUT CLOTHES ON YOUR PETS? Yep. Just the rat dog. But he has a Hawaiian (sp?) shirt, a Bush/Cheney '04 shirt, and a Vikings jersey.

SUMMER OR WINTER? BEER, WINE, OR LIQUOR? D - all of the above. On the same night if I'm on a roll.

HUGS OR KISSES? FALL ASLEEP OR CUDDLE? Check to make sure the little dog at the foot of the bed didn't get hurt.

FAVORITE DESSERT? FAVORITE FOOD THAT YOU KNOW WILL KILL YOU EVENTUALLY BUT YOU DON'T CARE BECAUSE IT IS JUST SO FREAKING DELICIOUS? Bacon cheeseburgers. But a life without them is a life I don't want to live.

WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?HAVE YOU EVER BEEN SO DISGUSTED BY A BOOK'S ENDING THAT YOU VIOLENTLY DESTROYED THE BOOK? Yes, but you know what? I cannot for the life of me remember which book - just the rage.

WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? DO YOU HAVE P0RN ON YOUR COMPUTER? DON'T LIE. Okay. I won't.

WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON T.V. LAST NIGHT? TRUE OR FALSE: "REALITY" T.V. IS THE BEST REASON FOR THE REST OF THE WORLD TO HATE AMERICA. True.

FAVORITE SOUND? FAVORITE DRUNKEN SLATTERN: PARIS, LINDSEY, OR BRITNEY? I'm not sure if it's brunette solidarity or what, but I find Lindsey's bad behavior much less tiresome than the other two. They seem like career whores, Lindsey seems to be an ass just like any of us would have been at her age with that kind of money and fame.

ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? MOST DESERVING OF CHUCK-NORRIS-STYLE ROUNDHOUSE KICK TO THE THROAT: AL GORE OR JESSE JACKSON? You know, I kinda like Al Gore, to be honest. He's like that neighbor who goes on and on about the paperboy throwing his paper in the bushes. And Jesse Jackson? Well, he read Green Eggs and Ham once on Saturday Night Live, thus redeeming himself for all eternity. It was that good. I want to kick Wolf Blitzer in the teeth, though.

WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? WHAT HAPPENED THE FIRST TIME YOU GOT DRUNK? 'FESS UP. Absolutely nothing exciting. Seriously.

DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? IF YOU COULD HAVE MAD SKILLZ IN DANCING OR IN SINGING, WHICH WOULD YOU CHOOSE AND WOULD IT BE FOR YOUR OWN PERSONAL SATISFACTION OR TO IMPRESS OTHER PEOPLE AND POSSIBLY GET SOME ACTION? I think it would be a hoot to be able to dance well. I can't even dance badly, and really, it's not something that seems learnable. But I wish I could.

WHERE WERE YOU BORN?? IF YOU COULD HAVE ONE SUPERPOWER, WHICH WOULD YOU CHOOSE AND WOULD YOU USE IT FOR GOOD OR EVIL? I'm dull beyond belief. I just wanna be able to fly. I don't have much of a capacity for evil, but I'd probably use my power mostly to entertain myself.

WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK? IF YOU NEVER SEE ANOTHER Q&A MEME AGAIN, WILL IT BE TOO SOON? Yes, it will. But this gave me something to do this evening beyond just fondling my guns and smoking in the garage.

Wow - that was a couple hours of my life. I think this will be the last time I do that whole line-through-text thing. But if I'd had to dream up a topic on my own, I think it would have been hateful.

Cool!

We were sitting down with our grilled meat this evening when we heard fireworks. I glanced up and out the front door. Hey - they were right there!

So the Bad Dog Family took our plates out the front door, sat on the front lawn and enjoyed a fabulous view of the fireworks over Fort Worth. Can't beat a deal like that.

Perspective

We were having a Normal Rockwell interlude a little while ago. I was frosting a cake while my stepdaughter hovered. One of the boys was washing dishes and the other was on the couch with his portable video game thing.

Mr. Abby picked up the puppy's Tire Bite toy and a spirited game of "take the tire from the person" ensued. For two or three minutes, Mr. Abby and Jack alternately chased each other around the couch, laughing and barking.

I looked up and saw the son on the couch with the video game while his Dad played chase with the puppy in a circle around him. And I thought, C'mon boy - put down the game and play with your Dad and the puppy.

Of course, that's not how it works. Dad (or the puppy) wore out and moved on to more important things, and the game player never even looked up.

Car bombs in Britain

Although my TV has been almost entirely taken over by short people watching fucked-up Japanese cartoons, I am aware that savages have been trying their luck with car bombs in Great Britain. It appears that the madness has spread to Brisbane, where the Forces of Good just snatched up another plotting fucker.

The Official Bad Dog Position on car bombs is, not surprisingly, one of disapproval. But see, it's real strong disapproval.

I saw one of these once. About 20 yards to my immediate right. And although it winged a couple of my guys, it killed a fucking truckload of civilians.

Civilians are not targets. They are not targets. Not targets, not targets, not targets.

The days are long behind the Western Powers when we thought that killing the shit out of non-combatants was a good and honorable strategy. However, for our enemies, killing civilians is the cat's ass. It's the thing to do.

I always thought that was wrong. I always disapproved of the targeting of civilians in a detached, conceptual way. Ain't right, y'know?

But then I saw it, and now it turns my stomach. The fact of the thing is vile. But the implication are worse. Because that sort of violence does bad things to a society.

Parents don't drop kids off at the county fair with a $20 bills and a pick-up time in places where savages drive explosive-packed cars into crowds of children. And you don't have "sidewalk sales" in towns where the sidewalks are killing fields. You don't stand and chat with friends in front of the grocery store when doing so makes you a target. There are no high school football games, no teenagers clustered at the local Dairy Queen in that sort of society.

You live with fear in that kind of society, where that random death can intrude anywhere. Americans do not now live with a lot of fear - nothing like the fear that's out there when this sort of thing shows up.

These suicide bomb attacks - they're like mini 9/11s. The same things are horrifying - why those victims? Why this morning? Why that building? And after a while, it ceases to shock, and it's just another horrifying part of life.

But I tell you what, the idea of that mindset coming here is hard to stomach. Which kid do you send to the grocery store? The post office? Is an earache worth going to the hospital?

I don't want it here. I don't want that thought process in my wonderful country. But it's close. Britain is close. Australia is close.

It's a war, folks. Said it before, and I'm saying it again. We take it to them to keep them from bringing it to us.

And I'd do anything to keep that from coming here.

Tales from the office

I work at a company that sells things. The kinds of things I like. Mostly, I spend my day fixing the royally fucked-up situations that crop up in every sort of sales. However, the last hour or so of the day I occasionally hop on the phone and take inbound calls (we don't make outbound sales calls).

I took one this evening.

"ACME distributing, this is Abby. How can I help you tonight?"

After a little discussion, we established that Mr. Guy was a return customer, and wanted to place an order. As I waited for the Evil DOS-based sales system to pull up the "new order" screen, I made a little small talk, since Mr. Guy seemed friendly.

"How's the world treating you tonight?"

"Oh, it's alright, considering I have a daughter I don't ever see," he sighed.

"Oh. Gracious. That's too bad, sir." You know, the idea behind small talk is that it's not supposed to be anything soul-baring.

"Yeah. I've never seen her. She lives in Texas."

"Oh, my. Can I get your first item number?"

"Yeah, I'll take #123XYZ. You know the singer Jewel?"

"Ummm..yes, sir. One of those #123XYZ's?"

"Yeah. One each. And two ABC789's. I'm Jewel's biological father. I tried to go see her once when she was a baby, and I ended up in a straitjacket. That was the year I dropped out of high school."

I'm not sure how I managed to finish that one, but I did. 'Cause even crazy people deserve to order our shit, I guess.

Oh, yes. This job is so on borrowed time.

Finally! A use for children!

If I haven't at any point spelled it out, y'all have probably figured that I'm not the world's biggest fan of kids. I didn't even like being a kid, fer goddsake. My stepchildren are good kids, but they're still kids, and it confuses me.

I do believe in making children do things, and making them do them right. This is, of course, annoying, because it is the natural inclination of children to do shockingly substandard work in order to more quickly get back to the important things in life - namely, drinking all the soda in the house and staring at cartoons on my TV.

So the best way to employ children is in what I think of as "Yoda tasks." You know (and I parahrase) - "do or do not. There is no try."

Found one the other night. Came into house with box, grabbed Precise Boy.

"Hey, kid. Wanna make five bucks?"

"Yes!"

"Okay. Pay attention, because I'm only demonstrating once. This is what we call a stripper clip....the ones with green tips go in this box, the other ones go in this box. Got it?"

250 or 300 rounds later, I think he has it down. Good. I need to rebuild my stockpile.

The funny part, of course, was when he knew he had a job opportunity on his hands, and I took him into the Armory.

"You want me to clean your guns?"

"I don't think so, child."

Just a thought

If you're the Department of Motor Vehicle, and you open at 0730, and you normally have a big old line of people out front when you open the door, it might not be bad idea if your employees start work at 0730. Or even 0800. Having two people on duty unti 0830...well, it just doesn't make much sense.

Anyway...ID was duly presented, paperwork was filled out. Unlike Florida, you cannot leave the DMV here with a license. I left with a piece of paper and a promise of a license in the mail. Rumor has it they're pretty quick about that, which would be nice.

Then, once I have the license in my sweaty little paws, all the good prices I've been seeing on used firearms are fair game.

Mwaaah haaa haaa!!

Because there isn't enough rage

I'm off to the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles to get me a driver's license. I have several pieces of paperwork to prove I'm not an illegal Mexican, and if I'm lucky, I'll have a small piece of yellow paper (or something similar) in an hour or so.

Wish me luck!

Grownup Places

I was hanging out at Rachel Lucas' place earlier, and she had a blog rating widget posted.

Oooh! I said. I wonder what Bad Dogs is rated!

Well, duh.

Mingle² - Online Dating

Yes, we do use some adult language around here. But you what? I think that's a feature, not a bug.

There aren't a lot of advantages to being a grownup, but using salty language, drinking beer and playing with guns are a few real pluses. I think we should take a moment every so often and revel in the fact that although we have to pay taxes and buy car insurance, the trade is the ability to drink gin at noon while organzing our pistol ammo. Butt nekkid, if we so desire.

BUT...speaking of things which blow about being a grownup, I need to brush my teeth and drag myself off to the Most Mindnumbing Job On Earth.

News Flash

I'd stop with the news from Florida, but it's just too damn fabulous. Today we have...Man With Headache Finds Bullet in His Head.

Michael Eugene Moylan, 45, awoke around 4:30 a.m. Tuesday in his home with an extremely painful headache, St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken Mascara said. Moylan told police the affliction was so painful, he thought that his wife had either elbowed him in the head or he was having an aneurism.

Apparently Mrs. Moylan throws a mean elbow. But, of course, that's not the end of the story.

...April Moylan eventually told investigators that she had accidently shot her husband. She was arrested Tuesday afternoon on charges of possessing a firearm by a convicted felon and could face attempted murder charges...

Attempted murder?

Nah - attempted murder would have required the use of a serious round. If it can lodge behind one's ear, it is not, I think, attempted murder.

Quick shot

Well, we're back. I'm at the kitchen counter, on a barstool. The desktop computer is occupied by some child, and this is the only other chair in the house.

[sigh]

Anyway, I've been sending house pics to relatives all evenings, so you guys are (yet again) getting the short end of the stick. I have but one for y'all.



That's the dog beating the kids in a race down the pool. And he keeps swimming and swimming...

happy happy joy!

Mr. Abby has, with his own two little hands, built us an INTERNET!

Stand by, folks, ‘cause it’s nothing but dog pictures and full front M1 carbine shots tonight!

garage battles

(In case you haven’t figured it out, there’s still no internet at the new Bad Dog Central. But I can do this cut-and-paste in about 25 seconds)

Today’s question is: How much crap can you fit in the average two-car garage? Mr. Abby, in his infinite fear of incurring the Wrath of Abby, wasn’t entirely clear that he was expected to send the old couch, love seat and chair to live with Jesus. So he brought them along. They are in the garage. Along with:
a motorcycle,
a dining room table and three chairs for it,
two lawnmowers (yet again, he brought the old, dead one),
a weedwhacker,
fifteen or so packing cartons,
five toolboxes,
two Stanley job boxes AND
a couple of 30-gallon trash cans.
Oh yes – and a chest freezer.

Did you notice I didn’t say anything about two vehicles? His truck is in front of the garage and I don’t anticipate getting the Jeep in there this evening.

We’re easing toward being “settled in,” but getting this garage issue under control is going to be a major sticking point. Fortunately, the municipality collects trash twice a week, so we can offload another stack of collapsed boxes tomorrow.

I’m still holding out for the possibility that the Internet Fairy will swing by the house this afternoon. Several of my neighbors have wireless, but they’re all smart enough to have secured their networks. Bastards.

I'm not dead

Advance apologies for any weird formatting we have going on here. We’re still without internet at the new hacienda so I’m going to cut and paste from Word while at work.

I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, but things were a little crazy and there hasn’t been time for me to go driving around to steal me some wireless.

The pack arrived without incident. Well, actually, after several incidents. But they’re here so it’s all a wash. Entities which have been added to the Beat With Stick list include the title company, Sears (bringing you Appliance Delivery Fiascos since 1920…), AT&T and possibly the gas company.

I have learned that if one has a pool and a lab puppy, the lab puppy will be in the pool. On one hand, this wears him out – he hasn’t eaten any household objects since arriving. In bad news, I have a wet puppy who needs to be hosed down about twice a day (I want to rinse the chlorine off).

Things that rock – having my own washer and dryer again. It was downright anti-feminist, the joy I took in washing clothes yesterday. “Look, honey! I’m putting things in the dryer without inserting quarters!”

Also rocking is my M1 carbine, which is in very nice shape. The stock isn’t original, and due to the internet drought, I haven’t been able to look anything up. Which chaps my ass, but I’m trying not to hate.

OK. I’ll try for some pictures later, but I had to hang this out so y’all didn’t think I’d become one of those bloggers who found better things to do. I don’t have THAT MUCH of a life.

Staying calm

I have two major appliances being delivered sometime between 1030 and 1230 (should be three, but the dryer had an unfortunate incident and will arrive Monday).

Of course, the Title Twit of earlier fame is not yet in the office, and the lenders are hiding from my calls. I assume that's because, since the Title Woman works banker's hours, she has not yet sent them whatever they require.

But I'm calm. I have no choice - at 1015 I have to leave here, go over to the house, and let the appliance people in. Whether or not anything has been "funded." I shall, it appears, become a squatter. In a house I have shelled out a significant amount of money for.

How's that work, anyway?

Note to self: People involved in the home/property buying process are not actual professionals. They seem to be people who completed some correspondence courses or a long weekend seminar at the Sheraton out by the airport. Thus, one should not expect a level of ability equal to that expected of medical personnel, accountants, or union carpenters.

In happy news, there will be electricity at the house, because I most definitely got that locked on. And phone service tomorrow. No phones until the Pack shows up, but phone service.

Freakin' Outstanding

I'm giggling down deep inside.

Y'all need to head over to Chris' place, and see the results of his family's what-do-guns-do-to-a-refrigerator experiment.

There's a video. Watch it.

I felt as though I'd gotten vengeance, if only vicariously, for every wrong done to me by a shitful refrigerator in the past three years.

That's good shit. Wonder if it's too late to have Mr. Abby bring the fridge from Florida?

Did you know

that if you're closing on a house, and using a power of attorney, on the space provided for your spouse (or whoever) you write "[Mr. Abby] by Abigail B. [Last name]," and the title agent will say that's what you're supposed to do.

Then you'll leave, assuming you'll get the call saing the closing has been "funded" in two or three hours.

Instead, however, you will get a call at 1647 during which you will be told that every time you signed for your husband, the words "attorney in fact" should have followed. That, it will be explained, is very important.

It is, in fact, so important, that the lenders will not "fund" the closing until those words have been appended to every single page.

Thus motivated, you drive around Fort Worth like a bat out of hell (after more or less just jumping up and leaving your desk at work) to get to the title place by 1713.

"We close at 5!," they had chirped.

Only if you want me to burn your fucking business down, kill your pets and slash your tires, you explain. So they stay open for you.

You write "attorney in fact" 7,492 times. Then, as you leave the title place, you call your lender and explain about the place of business, the pets and the tires. It would be best, you explain, if "funding" this transaction is the first thing that happens in the morning.

Then you drive back up to North Fort Worth and check in to yet another motel. Where you sit, and you smoke, and you hate.

It's here!

Or, rather, it's THERE!

Phone calls we love involve Mr. Abby opening a box-o-carbine for us. Of course, it arrived as the movers are at the Crackhouse collecting our stuff, so they must have thought that was odd.

(Then again, the movers already think we're nuts. They called me this morning, trying to get ahold of the Mister. When the phone rang, I assumed it was Mr. Abby, and answered, "hey, baby!" The moving guy, it seems, does not normally get addressed that way. "Uhhh..." he responded.)

For all his expertise, my husband is not very helpful with this. I asked him to open it and ensure the wood was intact, since apparently there's an occasional cracked stock. So he did.

[sounds of box opening, etc]

"Hey, it looks great," he said.

"Great?"

"Well, about like your other one."

[sigh]

So apparently it's intact, and the stock isn't an utter dog. But the movers have taken his computer, and so it will remain a mystery until they show up out here.

Question for my relationship experts - how bad is it, when your family and pets roll up to your new house, to simply nod and say, "hey" to them, then shove past and burrow through the truck to find and fondle your new gun?

What? You want MORE HORROR?

I got your horror RIGHT HERE, folks. The kitchen wallpaper is bad, but I don't know if it can hold a candle to the Death of A Zillion Red Flowers.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you...the guest bathroom.



These two locations are the only offensive wallpaper areas in the house. We have paper in the Grownup Bathroom, but it's normal.

Worst about the wallpaper situation is this - it's very well done. See, I know about these things.

My mother is a Wallpaper Woman. And she's always had a pack of Wallpaper Friends. Whenever there was a redecoration or a new house, I was dragged to Kid Hell. Kid Hell is any store that sells nothing but wallpaper. And they exist. Anyway, I'd get dragged to Kid Hell, often several times, while she plotted the exact paper and border the situation required.

Then the Wallpaper Ladies would descend with their dipping trays, and there would much swearing and use of razor blades.

And when all was said and done? What did you have?

Fucking wallpaper. That's what I thought even as a kid. All that effort and you end up with wallpaper. Bummer deal.

But I did learn enough to know that whoever put this crap up did a good job. Images meet neatly enough at the seams that they're hard to see. Even the switchplates are sharply done. Too bad it sucks.

I just don't get it. But one of the great things about being a grownup is...I don't have to. That wallpaper is on borrowed time.

Through the storm

we occasionally catch a little ray of sunshine.

I was slogging through another day in the Salt Mine of Stupid, field phone calls as surreptitiously as possible and darting into the bathroom to get updates and give feedback.

(We'll keep it short tonight - thank God they accepted the power of attorney because they did NOT get their shit together in a timely manner. Bastards)

Then I sat through a meeting.

Then I real quick and sneaky pulled up the CMP E-store.

SHIPPED! Hitting Tampa tomorrow! Little ol' 5,107,518, made in '44.

It actually got me through the rest of the workday, past the part where I had to find a place to stay near the closing place, and past the part where the underwriters suddenly decided they needed more documentation of what was apparently a questionably large deposit (which was, actually, a CD that matured). This required me to bring the printer in from El Jeepo (which I really did not want to do), hook it up, print pages of bank records, scan them, and send them off.

Of course, would any of that have been remotely possible ten years ago?

But, more importantly, who gives a shit if it may have been possible? My M1 carbine shipped!

Now excuse me, I must go do the Happy Gun Dance.

By the way...

0801 CST - I receive a cc of an email from Mr. Abby with scans of the power of attorney sent by the lender, and of your standard gov'mint "special" power of attorney for redundency.

Then I got a phone call as he was on his way to the FedEx drop box with the originals.

The potential rage level is high today. It's probably a good thing I tend to let any calls that come in on my cell at work roll over to voicemail, or you guys might catch me on the evening news.

Packin'

and no - not the kind that involves any sweet shootin' irons.

The kind that involved schlepping all my shit back out to the Jeep. Mostly done in the wee hours of the morning, my shit has migrated out of Ye Olde Cheape Motel. I'm outta here. Since they only charge a weekly rate here, the next night (or, god forbid, two), will be spent in an equally cheap normal motel.

I did not get enough sleep last night - might have had something to do with the pot of coffee and bottomless pit of boiling rage about this whole closing thing.

Am I going to be a treat at work today or what?

Off to load the last of the Great Pile of Crap.

Huh?

So my new job...well, it is involving the serving of the customers. You buy things from my company, we screw up, and I fix it.

It's dull as hell, but provides the occasional moment of levity. I am, however, not comfortable enough there yet to start sharing stories. Perhaps when we have a minimal acceptable amount of furniture and getting fired would anything but financial suicide...

But we do have a company inbox. And since it's a public address, just hangin' out there on the web, we get spam.

Today I got one titled lumberjack untangle. Although I was a little concerned it would contain naked picture of my Dad playing Twister (pardon me a second while I go boil my eyes), I opened it.

I'm married to your cousin, so . I'd be delighted to attack it all from a different direction...

Huh? Well, I guess being married to any of my cousins would be enough to make anyone think about a different direction. I skimmed on.

What are the physicians doing or saying that you are thinking of as resistance? There are a few reasons that could be argued against as being a bit disingenuous, but for the most part, the reasons seems believable, even if some would be relatively short term problems.

Okay. Sorry. You lost me again. Let's try one more paragraph.

As a result of the simulation, participants learn to apply the principles of visibility, feedback, communication, and collaboration to increase their rate of delivery. A flexible reporting tool has been implemented to provide the information needed by decision makers and with unprecedented levels of grannularity.

Now I can't tell if we're dealing with some sort of hippie shit or something involving spreadsheets. And WTF is "granularity," if we're not talking about making Jell-o?

I totally fail to get it. But it did provide me with about 20 minutes of entertainment in my otherwise boring-as-shit day.

And I promise I'll never subject y'all to my spam again.

It's been a long time

since I've said, on the phone, "that is fucking unacceptable."

And to a civilian, no less.

Even I am aware that one of the things you need to close on a house is a survey. A current survey, really, since I don't know anyone who's ever gotten a house without getting a new one.

It seemed, however, to come as a surprise to our title agency (that would be Land America Title Co., for all my Google monkeys). Which is how I found out today that our closing was in trouble because the survey - which the title people had ordered Thursday - was "not in."

Ordered Thursday? Like four days ago? When we set this closing date like two weeks ago?

It was not a happy discussion that I had with ol' Title Lady when I got out of work today and headed to the walkthrough.

"We can push it back a day," she sniveled.

"No. That's not an option. We are going to close Wednesday, and I don't give a shit what you have to do to make that happen."

You gotta understand, people, I'm not a rude person. I've worked with and for folks with a lot of different styles and, Parris Island aside, confrontational, browbeating interactions really have a limited role in getting things done.

However...Mr. Abby is a very nice man. Cheerful, happy and always looking for ways that he can help you help him. Heck, hint that you can't do your job and he'll probably find a way to do it for you.

Occasionally, I am therefore required to be the member of our household you don't want to talk to. Perhaps after a couple of conversations with Abby the Raging Bitch, you'll be a little more amenable to dealing with Mr. Abby the Very Reasonable.

It's worked before.

But now, since our immediate situation is being theatened by blinding incompetance, we've had to be proactive.

The big problem here is there's FedExing involved. Let's reverse-plan. In order for the documents to be here for a 1030 closing on Wednesday, Mr. Abby needs to send them out of Tampa by around 1800 Tuesday night. Which means he should probably get them by 1400 on Tuesday. Which means they need to be sent...well, see? That already doesn't work.

I didn't get a warm fuzzy from Title Twit about the whole 21st century thing either.

"But emailing is harder," she whined. "He might not sign in all the right spots..."

I was not entirely polite when I pointed out that my husband is phenomenally more competant than the title people, and thus I trusted him to do his part if they could do theirs.

So there I stood, in the driveway of Target House, with the realtor. We'd concluded the walkthrough, during which I had been required to low-crawl through insulation in the attic.

We traded remarks about the level of distrust we had in the Title Agency of Satan. Then a light came on...

"Hey," said I. "Just curious, but can Texas people deal with a power of attorney?"

Her face lit up, and she got on the phone with the lender (who, because it's a good, professional company, was still at her desk not making excuses, but trying to find a solution). Conversation ensued.

Long story slightly less long - yes. It appears they can. Which simplifies things greatly. I immediately received a PDF of the appropriate document, forwarded it to Mr. Abby, and followed it with a phone call. Seeing as he is a pretty bright guy (entirely capable, I remain convinced, of signing in the right places on emailed documents), it will be no problem for him to sign it, get it notarized and return it via FedEx in time for the scheduled closing.

I feel much better when the slippery bits are in the hands of those I know won't fumble.

Fucking idiots.

Anyway. I felt y'all deserved a picture of what was distracting me from the normal posting. And, just because I think it's funny, I have a picture for you.

You know how no matter how much you like a house, there's always something that makes you wonder what the hell was up with the previous owner. Well, in this one, it's the kitchen wallpaper.

Ladies and Gentlemen, you'll laugh, you'll cry. May I present...the Most Hideous Wallpaper in Texas!

Blah.

Sorry for the weekend silence - I had a bit of the melancholy, so I just picked up a stack of paperbacks and read.

I think it's all related to the fact that I did not receive a tracking number from CMP on Friday. [sigh]

But! Onward and upward - there are many things to do this week and many moving parts. The potenital for hilarity and/or disaster is high.

Open letter

Dear Civilian Marksmanship Program,

Today is my birthday. I'm not going to be doing much to celebrate, but that's okay, because I'm kind of over the birthday thing, and next week I'm getting a new house. However, your organization is in the unique position of being able to give me something really cool.

All I want for my birthday, CMP, is a tracking number. I've been "processing" now for a day or so, so it should be just about my turn. Y'all don't have to wrap the box or put a bow on it or anything, just scan the barcode and put it in the truck.

Thanks,

Abby

This could have been me

providing I was a Lebanese news anchor, that is.

The NBN anchor, who has not been identified, did not realize her microphone was on.

"So, why did it take them so long to kill him?" the anchor asked a colleague on live television Wednesday, the same day as Eido's death. She begins laughing, and the colleague joins in.

We make fun of our media for being one-sided (and, oddly, there are people who think the MSM is entirely owned and a pawn of the far right - go figure), but ours at least pretend to be impartial. Most of the time.

Thunderfoot...

I haven't seen whoever lives in the room directly above me in Ye Olde Cheape Motel, but that individual...walks more loudly than anyone I've ever run across.

It sounds like a pissed-off teenager stomping across a basketball court in cowboy boots. And it seems he/she does a fair amount of lurching - this is not a person walking normally around a motel room. It also sounds like a large person person...

I just thought I'd share. It's the last thing I hear at night and the first thing I hear in the morning. Sometimes I like to give y'all a little sense of ambience...

Tappin' my foot

...waiting on this house thing to go down. All day long, from Mr. Abby and a variety of real estate people, I receive documents. Big old honkin' documents. About 98% of them are "FYI," but there are always a couple that I need to initial and send back to someone.

How annoying. I don't remember doing this the last time we bought a house - I think there were just two, maybe three, big festivals of signing and initialing.

It doesn't help that every state is different. I received some 15-page monster when I got home tonight with the exceptionally useless message, "See attached your commitment for title insurance."

Huh. Well, sure. I see it.

Looks about seven times longer than the last set of title insurance documentation I remember, but whatever. I had to email it back to the sender with the message, "I don't know what, if anything, you need me to do with this. Please explain."

Good lord willing and the creek don't rise, I'll do the final walkthrough Monday and we'll close on Wednesday. That is, if the week in between doesn't drive me nuts first.

Happy Dance1

I'm getting my carbine! My order is processing! The wait is ending!

[sorry - if you think this is annoying, you should have been sitting next to me when I checked E-store around lunch]

My glee is almost overpowering.

The 51% minority

I grabbed a hard copy of the Fort Worth Star Telegram today to take to dinner. On the front page, a story about women in this next election. Women running for things, women voting, etc.

Hmmm, thought Abby. That might be an interesting read.

Interesting, yes. Interesting in an intelligent, thought-provoking sort of way? No. Seriously - somebody better tell me this newspaper hires "journalists" through some sort of help-the-special-kids program, otherwise there's no excuse for this shit.

Read the story in its entirety here. I, of course, shall selectively excerpt and rant.

Real quick, though, we're going to visit the U.S. Census Bureau for some 2005 numbers. At that point, we had 295,734,000 people in the U.S. 150,425,000 were female, and 145,309,000 were male. That's 50.86% of our population that's female. [please see note at end of post]

They are mothers, daughters, sisters and wives.

We can tell from the lead that this is going to be precious, can't we? They are also grandmothers, aunts, nieces, waitresses, actresses, people who are referred to "she," "her," and a variety of other feminine pronouns... Wading on through the curdling bits of triteness...

...candidates are already creating campaigns to woo the female vote and strategists are tailoring campaign issues to focus on women's concerns, including health care and education. [just for fun, I'm going to ask you to imagine some sort of dramatic flare of brass orchestral sound every time you see the word "women" in bold type - like Storm Trooper music]

Yeah! Nevermind security and immigration and government spending and the environment and civil rights and all that. Women don't care about any of that.

They will do whatever is needed to gain support with the one demographic large enough to swing the election, political observers say.

This is the part that makes me insane. Women are not "one demographic." Well, not anymore than...hell, tall people. We are slightly more than half the country, and there is some slight variety of opinion amongst us. Among the issues "we" care about, that is. You know, health care and education.

Further, the above is an entirely inaccurate statement. The margin of victory in the 2004 Presidential election was...3,012,497. But that's nationwide, and it's generally accepted (I think), that since Ohio was the last state to come in, Ohio was the deciding factor. Bush took Ohio by 118,599 votes.

So, looking at some Ohio demographics (from 2000), we can see that yes, seeing as women consitute 51.4% of the population, they could indeed "swing the election." However, since we assume monolithic demographic voting habits when we write for the Fort Worth paper, so could:
A) black people (1,301,307 of them)
B) asian people (but they'd all have to show up - there are only 132,633)
C) hispanics (easily - 217,123 of them)
D) the always-wild-and-crazy 85+ age group (176,796)
E) the "institutionalized population" (172,368), although I suspect that group is largely made up of those who may have lost their voting rights.

Yes - women can swing an election. But these days, so can pretty much any group. You get the over-90 crowd and the Pacific Islanders, and you're probably in.

Back to the World's Most Atrocious News Story.

"Women will have a critical role in the upcoming election," said Michael Dimock, associate director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. "They are a huge segment of the public."

Please tell me that this doubtlessly bright man didn't say anything this inane. Yep. Hugest segment of the public, really. Moving right along...

Although some may be influenced by their sex and thus likely to vote for a woman on the ballot, others are just as likely to vote for a man, observers say.

I can't really figure out the meaning of this sentence, which is never a good thing in a "news" story, but no matter how I look at it, I want to pound my head on the table. Notice there's no mention of anything other than gender that might influence the voting choices of women.

Then come many, many paragraphs of "you go, girl!" type stuff. Suffice it to say that while I'm sort of neutrally pleased to see women in government in increasing numbers, it's the same sort of pleased I am to see someone from Michigan become a stunning success. Yeah, it's the home team, but...there are other, stronger allegiances. At least there should be. One would hope. [shudders]

I'm almost too irritated to continue with this, but there is one really choice quote from Sen. Obama's wife.

"My husband is a man who understands the struggles of women and families," Michelle Obama has said. "This campaign believes in the women of this country and envisions a government that doesn't just encourage women to dream big, but to know they have the support and the resources to pursue those dreams.

"I want that for my daughters. I want that for your daughters. And I want that for this country."

You know what I want for all our daughters? I want them to have opportunities. And I want them to have encouragement. I want them to have options. I do not want them to have the sort of "support" and "resources" we saddle every "disadvantaged" group in this country with, the sort dooms them to generations of suspicion about whether they attained their positions through talent or through unearned handouts.

I'm all about women. I is one, you know. I like us (in theory. In practice, I find many of us catty). However, I resent any attempt, at any level, to treat us as one giant single-minded Borg. I also resent any attempts to put half the damn country in the "oppressed minority" bin.

And this sort of drivel in a major metropolitan newspaper...as well as making it seem as though they're letting high school sophomores write A-section stories...it's just idiotic.

Phaaa...[spit]. I'm done.

** NOTE: Incidentally, this appears to be a fairly natural distribution, and hold true in much of the developed world. It seems, however, that China's "one child" policy has skewed this distribution slightly in recent decades. Interesting, but not germane to today's discussion. **

Post 9/11 annoyance

We've all noticed the big changes afterward. The airport security idiocy. The requirements to present 47 pieces of ID to open a bank account. Etc.

But...until today, I didn't notice one of the other, insidious anti-terror measures that seems to have been implemented just to annoy the shit out of me.

They took the mailboxes away. It's damn near impossible to find a regular, blue, freestanding mailbox these days. And that, when you have paychecks but your direct deposit hasn't yet kicked in, is annoying.

I know it's evil to take other people's mail from their mailboxes, but do you also go to Hell if you add your mail in with theirs? We may find out...

Promising Week

Some weeks loom ahead with little or nothing to offer, just five days of stupid followed by two of naps.

Not this one, though. This week shows potential for being chock full of meaty goodness. Or something.

1) We're getting close on the M1 carbine. The CMP is processing orders from May 2, so I'm hoping they'll hit mine in the next day or two.

2) We've got the house appraisal on Wednesday. It's not very exciting, but it's one step closer.

3) Mr. Abby is lobbying hard back in Florida to get his household goods pickup date moved up - he's got nothing to do, the house is too small, and I'm bored out here. So we're trying to see if we can get him and the Pack here sooner.

So by the end of the week I could have assurance that closing will go off, a new rifle (or at least a FEDEX tracking number), and the promise of my Spider Killer In Shining Armor showing up in short order.

Or I could have all of those things go badly, but I think I'm going to err on the side of optimism just this once.

So there I was...

...having a nice, scorching hot shower this morning.

There's a little sign on the wall here at Ye Olde Cheape Dive, and it says, "When taking a shower please turn on your bathroom fan to avoid setting off your smoke alarm from steam."

So. I was taking a scorching hot shower. I had the fan on, but because I am an idiot, I also had the bathroom door open.

I was fully soapy when the alarm started shrieking. I launched myself out of the shower and dragged a chair under the alarm so I could fan it with a folder. I was busily doing that when it occurred to me that the alarm might bring some sort of hotel maintenance people. I realized that I didn't want to be naked on a chair should a band of heroic Mexican housekeepers come through the door.

Then I realized that there was a .45 sitting on the little table by the laptop (gotta be a close at hand if the goblins come). Which I figured might be awkward if the purely-theoretical-hotel-rescue-squard showed up. So I picked it up, and looked for a spot to stash it and for a towel to wrap around myself.

I ditched the gun in my sock drawer and found a towel, then managed to shut the alarm up. No Mexicans showed up to see if there was indeed a fire, and I finished my shower with the door firmly closed.

But for just a second, I was wet, soapy and buck naked, with a pistol and a postage-stamp hotel towel. I'm not sure how I would have explained that to anyone who showed up to check on the alarm.

"I don't know what this looks like, but whatever it looks like, that's not what it is." Only in Spanish.

Things I've learned

Venturing into a nice, cool, dark bar in the early afternoon for a couple of beers has a way of turning into a monster hangover.

Why is it that a "couple of beers" tends to turn into "many, many beers" whenever loud country music is present?

Ugh. I'll be back later after some more coffee.

Cars and happiness

Alright, gang. Everybody needs to head over to Jim's place and give him props for buying a Jeep. Or, if you're like me and afraid of MySpace, leave him a comment here and give him props.

Jeeps rock. Jim notices that men compliment the platform and women compliment the color, but...Jim, everybody is complimenting something.

The vehicles we drive seem to say something about us. Before the Jeep, I drove a '97 S10. Which was fabulous and practical and served me very well. But...every time I saddle up El Jeepo, I smile. I can't help it. I love my Jeep.

I picked it up before I actually got demobilized. I drove it up to Fort Bragg and my fellow soldiers said, "[Abby], that's the perfect ride for you."

Driving a Jeep says, "I don't care that I get shitty mileage. I don't care that this thing rides like a '74 Dodge pickup. I don't care that I can't hear anything when I'm on the freeway."

They're just fun.

Also, other people dig 'em. I've told Mr. Abby this, so I'll share it with y'all. I occasionally will fall into a converation with a guy. Usually, they're pretty average guys. I'm a pretty average woman, that's how it works. But...the Jeep...

I was in the Keys, and had just put real clothes on over a bathing suit. I took the picture I posted a while back of El Jeepo serving as a towel rack. I was suddenly approached by a guy who was probably a couple years younger than I am. He was a little hottie. And with him, he had a no-shit beer-commercial smokin'-hot girlfriend.

"Hey," he said. "That's a nice Jeep."

"Thanks. I like it."

"I've been thinking about getting one..."

I smiled and nodded and finished the conversation, all the while thinking, dude - stop talking to me. Your chick is getting pissed. I'm an old married lady, and she's going home with you. Focus!

But such is the power of the Wrangler. I don't know if Jim's a single man or not, but he's in for a good time either way.

Back home

Mr. Abby successfully retrieved the Bad Dogs from Uncle Buddy's. Apparently, Jack was so overjoyed to see him that he pissed on Mr. Abby's foot. That's love. Or something.

Then the kids arrived, so there's a tiny and very full house in Tampa.

This is the part where I should go on about how much I miss my Pack and wish I was there, but honestly - five people and three dogs in a house the size of your average garage? Umm...really, I'm entirely cool with being the one-woman Advance Party.

I do look forward to their arrival once we've got the house thing under control - the move-in should qualify as an Adventure, and in the end there's room enough for everyone to escape each other when it's required. Which it occasionally is.

I feel for the kids. We bought a nice house in Minnesota on a dead-end road with a platoon of neighbor kids in their age group. Being a good area, all the neighborhood adults were entirely OK with all the children running wild together all summer, as long as someone over five feet tall saw them every few hours. Which is as it should be. They got one summer there.

Then we moved to Tampa, and the Crackhouse, and in addition to the dramatic reduction in space, there were also no apparent children (that is, who weren't dealing crack) and the area was just creepy enough that more than 30 minutes without laying eyes on them was cause for concern.

I think we've improved on that this time. It's still not acreage with a barn and pond, but it'll do, I think.

Fabulous political ad

No shit. I'm not kidding.

Of course, it's an issue ad - no candidates for anything involved.

I just caught this on the Glenn Beck show. An organization called Grassfire.org is running a spot called "Where's the fence?" that features old ladies and illegal immigrants. And it's funny.



Obviously a ripoff from the old "Where's the beef?" ads, but hey - I don't care. I'm all about the humor. Beats the Hell out of that awful scary music they always lay over the my-opponent-is-Satan-incarnate candidate ads.

Bitching...

I sat down last night at the rickety table in Ye Olde Cheap-Ass Lodge to wander the internet before hitting the rack. Brought the laptop to life...fired up the internet...wtf???

Friendly cheap-ass hotel log-in page, it announced. Please log in.

Crumbs of profanity flaking from my lips, I gave up the info.

Not recongnized, it sighed. No internet for you.

Of course, one of the things that enables this place to be cheap-as-hell is the staffing. There's someone at the front desk roughly from 1400 until 1830. Maybe. I hurried back today and confronted the little dude behind the desk.

"Yeah. I'm in room 527. And I have no internet."

"Yes, the internet it is only being for a week." He blinked rapidly and smiled.

"OK. Didn't you just automatically renew me for another week?"

"Yes, but the internet is being only one week at a time."

"OK." I took a deep breath. "Write this down. No, really. Go ahead. Every time you renew this room, until I check out, you will renew the internet. With the same password. Got it?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am!"

Why, why, why must it always be difficult? Can't the UN make itself useful for once and launch some satellites to provide the entire goddam planet with wireless internet access? They don't seem to be able to do anything else, but that would make everyone happy and provide plenty of opportunities for nepotism and graft, which I think would put it very nicely within their capabilities.

What I've been reading

I've been toting around Gen. Rupert Smith's The Utility of Force the past week or so, and I'm getting pretty close to finishing it.

It's been a wonderful read, and I recommend it to any military policy geeks I've got out there.

Writing a book in 2005 dealing with "non-conventional" warfare and future conflict does enable an author to seem especially prescient - let's understand that. But Smith frames the current situations in Iraq and Afghanistan interestingly.

Sometimes a change of terminology can cause you to look at things differently. In considering recent non-industrial warfare, he refers to "confrontation" and "conflict" as two different beasts which may actually occur at different levels.

Viewing our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan (and, in fact, Iraq in 1991 and bombing Libya and showing a presence in Beiruit) as tactical or theater-level conflicts within a larger confrontation is interesting. It leads me to think of goals - what are the goals of these conflicts, and how do they support the desired outcome of the larger confrontation? How does failure to meet a goal (that is, failure to achieve success in a conflict) impact the liklihood of meeting our larger goal?

And, by the way, what is our larger goal? Even if we take the fifty-years-from-today long view, what does "victory" in the War on Terror (or the conflict with militant Islam, if you prefer) look like? A middle-east populated made up soley of respresentative governments? A middle-east with no Muslims and lots of recent converts to Lutheranism? A middle-east full of angry despots who are content to leave us the Hell alone?

I dunno. Interesting to think about. Hard to achieve goals that haven't been defined, and even harder to applaud them when they support an overall mission that's never been clearly articulated.

Anyway, I'm disgressing too far from the book report. I'm rapidly closing in on the part where General (Sir) R. Smith (Ret) will pose his solutions to our modern confusion about the wars we fight. That may be interesting, but the framing has been fantastic, and I recommend the book. I've been turning down clever pages as I've gone along, so perhaps I'll share some tidbits later to further tease you into laying out some cash for it.

Ahhh...geeez...

A big thank-you to the Squeaky Wheel (Seeking Grease) for calling me a "Thinking Blogger." I stuck that little picture over on the sidebar, 'cause I think it's cool. No shit - thanks.

I shall endeavor to strive to think pass that along.

I appreciate y'all bearing with me during this cross-country stagger that I refer to as "The Move." I keep promising a return to "regular" blogging, but I don't know that there's ever been much "regular" here. I'll keep working to get back on track and at least diversify beyond the day-to-day. Then again, half the fun of reading blogs is giggling at other people stumbling through things you have also lived through, so I don't think there's an absolute zero value here these days.

Tuesday morning

I dropped Mr. Abby at the airport so he could catch his 0700 flight back to Tampa, then returned to Ye Olde Weekly Motel and ran a couple of miles. I'm working 1000-1830 today, since I'm orienting in the warehouse these couple of days. Another two hours of coffee drinkin' for Abby!

I assume I'll be back at 0900-1730 tomorrow and thereafter.

And I have nothing to do but kill time and try not to spend too much money between now and the beginning of July. Oh, there'll be a couple of calls to the Realtor, and I have to keep yelling at the appliance people, since every irate phone call somehow makes it possible to deliver said appliances one day earlier.

There are a couple of beers in the freezer and if I hurry home this evening I should catch most of the Republicans screeching at each other in New Hampshire.

Let the good times roll, hey?

"You hired an idiot."

That's what I felt like saying to the New Employer today. See, Monday is the day when we review our time sheets. See, this is one of those jobs where you "clock" in and out. And in and out for lunch. And in twice for breaks. Or something.

Which I totally goatfucked. Fortunately, there seems to be some slight sense of humor, and mostly I was roundly laughed at as I pointed at the sheet and tried to make sense of it.

"See, that's where I wasn't sure if I clocked in right or not, so I did it eight times."

The last time there was a time clock in my life, it was one that actually "thumped" the card, and it was in a barn.

However, I am trainable, and the lady who was fixing my sheet looked like she wanted to give me a lollipop when I pointed at Friday and said, "but see - by the end of the week I figured it out!"

AARP and its vile new ads

I'm going to walk out on a limb here. Y'all seen these new AARP commercials?



The theme, apparently, is "I'm too young to vote..." but, we're told, if these children could toddle down to the ballot box, they'd support fabulous health care for older folks, not altering the Social Security system, and offering free liquor and nude dancers to people over 55.

"I'd vote for the candidate who'd support Social Security!"

That seems...sneaky. I think most of us know how this is really taking shape, right? The biggest voting bloc in the nation is beginning to retire now, and there aren't enough of us "younger workers" to support these "Boomers" through their golden years in the style to which they've come to expect.

I sympathize. They paid into Social Security for years to support the Greatest Generation and those who preceded it. And they supported Medicare for years when people didn't live anywhere nearly as long, and before every single American over 60 took $47,000 worth of prescription drugs every month.

But those in my age bracket - we'll call it 20-40 - well, some of us have done the math. If we can somehow manage to sustain the Social Security system for the Baby Boomers, there won't be pocket lint left when we get to 65, or 70, or 75, or whatever age they've raised the bar to by the time we retire (and trust me, "supporting Social Security" as it stand is going to be a lot lower priority once the members of this giant voting bloc all feel they can safely be grandfathered).

I've resigned myself to planning for my own retirement. I'm trying to do the right things, although I'm sure I'm not doing them at the right level. I keep an eye on the "pension issue" as I wander along my weird little career progression path.

These ads just chap my ass because they're so simpering and dishonest. C'mon, AARP, if the 9-15 age group actually knew what was going on, they'd probably say, "hey! Grandpa! Can't you keep your greedy, golfing, sailing, nicely tanned hands off the Social Security cookie jar for a few more years?"

Some age group is going to take it up the ass with the pending Social Security meltdown. We can probably guess where that's gonna fall, and sometimes things just work out badly. But these ads - they're just wrong.

Thoughts provoked

I'm watching the Democratic candidates debating. There was significant discussion of whether or not Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were wrong in waiting until the last minute to vote AGAINST the recent re-vamped military spending bill.

Then I watched Bill Richardson do the world's most awkward tapdance around a question likening the Darfur genocide to what we could see in Iraq if we pulled out precipitously.

And now I'm watching the candidates talk about Iran and how they'd handle a nuclear weapon there.

It got me thinking about seriousness.

I tend to think most of these candidates are, in reality, serious people. The problem is, a significant portion of the Democratic "base," to which they must appeal in order to win their party's nomination, are not serious people.

I don't really think any of these candidates would yank us out of Iraq if elected (and let me point out that when I say "candidates," I'm not talking about the nutjobs. I'm talking about the real possibilities). They might run things differently, they might distribute forces differently, but I don't think they'd pull us out and let everything go to Hell.

But - and this is the awkward part - they have to pretend they will. I think that's a lot of what we saw with that war funding bill. It was always going to pass. It was always going to pass without timelines.

A couple of total whackjobs aside, most of our national leadership realizes we are in a situation we can't run away from in Iraq. However - since there really are powerful forces in the Democratic base that believe we can bring all our folks back from Iraq and that country will immediately have a collective Coke-and-a-smile, Democratic politicians have to make meaningless gestures - voting against a funding bill after they've run the numbers and know it's a lost cause.

"See! I voted against the bill (even though I knew it was going to pass but I figure it'll fool you idiots with your paper mache puppets)!"

Would a Democratic presidency mean a foreign policy based on capitualation and feel-good dreams, or does the Oval Office force a certain gravity on the decisions an individual makes?

I tend to think it's the later. But maybe I'm just being hopeful.

Bill Richardson might actually try to hand Iraq over to the UN. Bad idea. John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden would keep working the issue, I think. I can't quite get a read on Barack Obama, but we're not going to elect him, so it doesn't matter.

I wish the primary process worked differently, so we could hear more discussion of how these candidates would actually handle problems, rather than simply wasting months listening to them pander to the ANSWER crowd.

I love the internet

Because on the internet, you can find whatever you want.

You can buy a complete tiki bar.



Or instructions on how to build one.

Or just extra tiki bar materials.

And that's just one website. How did we ever survive without all this information?

I don't think we're going to be buying the complete assembled $8,000 tiki bar and paying to have it shipped in from Pennsylvania, but I think it's going to be entirely possible to put one together.

What fun. I probably should be worrying about a dining room table, but what fun would that be?