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November 04 Election Day-Finally finally the madness has come down to the final push. yesterday on CNN they were talking about the cost , between McCain and Obama they have spent almost 1 billion dollars on this election. how very sad, IMO, think of how many books or food or shoes or a warm coat for those in need this could have provided. i wonder, does it really matter who is the president? a untrained monkey could do a better job than George W. has done. so i will be dragging myself out to cast my ballot, at lest the weather is nicer than recent election years.
I of course will be voting for my favorite, as a write in, Bozo T. Clown for president once again. my feelings are simple, we've have clowns in office for decades, why not vote for the real deal. he is a professional clown and not like these wanna be clowns that we have been electing for decades. as a vice presidental choice i like Side Show Bob, because after all we need someone who will pull the tigger or sink the blade in to the hilt if need be and really, could either of these clowns do a worse job then the monkeys in office now at running this country in to the ground?
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I imagine the media circus will be incredible today with all the new techno toys that have been put into play this election season, my personal favorite is the 20 talking heads on a screen at once. the talking heads should no doubt have a field day today posturing and predicting the out come and it will start with one precent of the vote counted, grin, i always love that. more money spent for no reason except to glorify and validate their self worth in this final climatic media orgasm that has been building for the last 2 years. the talking heads will final get to blow their loads on every tv screen in the nation. lucky us! not!
i wish they would create a game or software that would allow us to at lest have a little fun with this silliness, perhaps something like the old "duck hunter" video game or a old penny arcade shooting game that would allow us to shoot at our tv screen with a elctronic shotgun and snuff a offending talking head, that would at lest make things a bit more enjoyable.
September 19 Hurricane Gustav and his brother Ikewho would have thought that in the last 2 weeks we here in illinois would have been hit with not 1, but 2 rain events cause by the recent hurricanes in the gulf. we had early last week the 5-6 inches of rain from the storm that was Gustav which was a pain in the ass but nothing compared to last weekend's tropical storm IKe. in a word WOW!
while the weather services all claim that we had 7-8 inches of rain, i beg to differ. they claim we had more rain in a single day since they have been keeping records in the mid-1800's, i believe them. i had empty 35 gallon garbage cans that were filled nearly to overflow. i have a neighbor who claims to have dumped his 6" rain gauge 4 times. i had a lake in my side yard that was 18" deep, i had 2 1/2' of water in my basement which is about gone now and now have about 3 inches of mud/slop left to deal with but i got the hot water heater running last night, my furance may not be as lucky. at one point saturday afternoon it was raining so hard and at such a angle that it was "raining" thur walls and windows, something i have never seen before.
i think the only one's that really enjoyed the rain were my dogs, who have been renamed this week to "mudhole" and "swamp rat", they both think the flooded side yard is a gift from heaven and that they should go out and jump and run and splash and roll a round in the mud. quite the show to be sure. every morning when i let them out for their first outing of the day, they go berserk, fricking mad, when they see the lake, they look at me as to say , "really, for us?" and go crazy i guess to them i am the best dog dad in the world and this "gift" is pure pig joy. at lest it tires them out very quickly, about 30 minute instead of the normal 2 hours with the ball on dry land or until my arm gives out. yesterday when our little lake finally drained they seems sort of sad, grin..
i guess i should be happy that we didn't loose electricity durning this recent event and i am guessing the only reason we didn't was because all the trees had been knocked down in the storm 5 weeks back and what wasn't knocked down, was cut back from all the work that is going into rebuild our town. i think what i find most amasing was the time frame. in a matter of hours we were flooded and it continued to rain for days. thank god it wasn't snow i guess. i'm thankful that we have a golf course 2 blocks away that acts like a huge flood plain when it rains this hard and then a huge actual flood imediately to the south of the golf course. we have a small river, a creek really, that runs next to the golf course called the little vermillion river that normally flows under a bridge at the end of my street. there is normally about a 20+ drop to the water that by sunday the river was flowing over the top of the bridge.
once again we survived.
September 09 A Long Monthwhat a whack-o month its been since the storm. every thing is back to normal, if that is ever the case in my world.. grin but the computers are all fixed and i was able to build myself a really sweet new monster to game on although i am amased at what a piece of crap "vista" is and finally bail out after 32 attempted clean installs, went back to XP pro which installed in one try.. new computer is great, Asus MB with a 3.2G AMD+2 dual core 6400 processor and a HIS radeon HD 3870 video card but the best is a 28" monitor as another gift from my lovely wife. she surprized me real good with that. she went to fry's and tigerdirect on her own, incredible, as they are her most hated stores on the planet, nerd stores she calls them, thanks sweetie!
the town is back to normal more or less from the storm. i have started the dental surgery that i have been putting off, why do we all hate the dentist- cause it costs tooooo much!!! i am about half way with the planing and scraping, one more sitting and then a root canal/crown and a few fillings repaired. guess i did more damage than i thought from the fall in december that knocked out a molar. oh well.
cindy and i are almost finished with this years/summer remodeling/ refreshing, i hope. i am about sick of it but everything looks nice with a fresh coat of paint, carpets clean and the like. i finished last week a new floor on the front porch which turned out great i just wish we had done it right the first time, live and learn i guess. i will be able to finish the ceiling this or next week in the baths and laundry room and then all thats left for this summer is the kitchen floor which we are going to buy wednesday. new stove arrived last friday and of course it didn't fit in the old space, i had to remove the counter top and slice off 1/8 of a inch to make it work. still haven't got to poly the new wood work in the stairwell and landing but i think it can wait until the spring, the new wood looks great so we ain't too worried about. i stilll have to add a new electrical panel and a few outlets in the living room and have bought all the material, just have to install it but really the end is in sight. i assemblied 5 or 6 pieces of furniture, does any thing come assembied anymore? what a pain in the ass. is anything made here any more or is everything made in china?
the studio is finally completely finish, no more dinking around, things have been slow and we were closed since the storm so i was able to finally finish all the little things i hadn't gtten to. i have to say its been sort of nice not tattooing for a while and being able to turn away some of the truly stupid crap that some people want. the words already out thro that i am back open, i had my first dumbass call for work on sunday, a nazi ss symbol on a 58 year man, what is wrong with people, and my did he get pissed when i refused to do it for him. believe what you want but not everything that runs thru a person's head should be tattooed on their hide. i am already booked solid for the weekend and sort of looking forward to getting back into it. it been awhile.. added a new artist drawing table that kicks and a great new book rack and i am ready to go. got tried of the old computer which served me well for 7 years and swapped it out with my black and blue old gaming computer so i shouldn't have any more computer issues in the studio, yeah right but one can hope, hahaha...
i see the orthopaedic surgeon wednesday as my foot is still a major problem and will no doubt get a few injections in my ankel, oh the joy. i have sort of given up hope that it will ever be right again but am thankful that they decided not to amputate last summer, i like having a pair of feet. no matter how bad it gets i still like having 2 feet. i have given up on using all the braces and stuff as they just don't work and are too much work really, i can live with the cane instead of the braces, they cause more problems than do any good and i just hate wearing them.
they final got my insulin dosages corrected , what a experience being allergic to a brand of insulin, freaked the bride out besides myself real good, haha.. but my a1c number should be coming down this testing from the absolute crazy increase to 9.3 last time. damn did that freak my doctor out...but my daily wake up blood glucose numbers have dropped from often 500-600 to a much better 115 or so. almost normal for a change, knock on wood. the new insulin works very well and i am glad to be done with byetta which is made from gila monster spit, seemed cool in theory but sucked after a while in practice although i was able to lose 50 pounds in the 6 months i used it...
all this recent work took a toll on my old back and i was down for a few days over the weekend, it was easier to stay in bed as i couldn't stand up straight as i was bent over at the waist in screaming agony if i attempted to stand upright or walk, cindy thought is was sort of funny and was telling me that i was her new coffee/end table, always the smartass, haha. i again question the concept of the "golden" years and to what this term applies to except perhaps pissing oneself at some point in time. and both dogs were sick all weekend as well, i think they might have gotten a rabbit or something but what ever was the problem they are better now. while i wish that they weren't sick it was nice having my puppies hanging around with me while we all were under the weather.
all in all things are good, which is all that one can hope for i suppose... August 06 August 4 storm monday night we have one of the most intesnse storms i can remember in some time. while it lasted a short 30 minutes, the destruction it left behind was incredible. 80 mile in hour winds and as much as 4-5 inches of rain in the few minutes this storm roared thru. the wind blew so hard it pushed the drywall from the walls on the storm side inside of my house
for most of the day yesterday, it was impossible to move thru town from the sheer volume of trees and telephone/electric poles that had been knocked down and the live wires laying about everywhere leaving most streets unpassable. all electric was down for the day and is still out in many areas and the only sounds to be heard was the sound of chainsaws and generators when people tried to save whatever needed to be saved.
i have lived thru 2 hurricanes and a number of close calls from tornados but this was quite a ride. while we substained very little damage ourselves, those around us where not so lucky. everywhere i look, in any direction, there is mass destuction, many areas will not be useable no doubt for weeks or monthes. the amount of downed trees is still hard to comperhend. good day, week, month for tree services. the humidity and tempatures were very high and i am still amased at the speed in which the local electric company as well as all the other utilities providers were able to retore sevice as quickly as they did considering that the trees that had been felled had to be remove first. every person i encounted was dripping with sweat, it was a "wake and bake" sort of day and not in a good way.
considering that the town i live in is very small, in the middle of nowhere and every town and village for miles around were in equally bad shape it was a sight to behold. it is totally refreshing seeing what people as a group can achive when working together with focused thought and a plan. neighbors helping neighbors offering a helping hand to people just wandering around in shock, happy to be alive. our happy little 'burb will recover, but it wil take awhile.
incredibly UPS was able to deliver to me a order, totally amazing. it is almost dawn and i am sure any moment the chainsaws will be starting again. thankfully we have power so we can fire up the AC if needed and the phones are back on. i have posted a few picture in a album but honestly they just don't do this storm or the destuction left behind justice. incredibly no one was killed and only few were hurt, which is amazing, the cleanup continues
March 07 and so it goes.. a friend has a quote on her page that says, "stupidity should be painful" and i must agree, as the endless amount of just plain stupid seems to grow by the hour.
here is a wonderful example, illegal driver's license with his girl friend in the picture. while i find this little bit of stupid entertaining, the depth of the stupid is sort of sad as well. this little nugget is beyond any other words i could post! enjoy! |
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