It is!

 

Thoughts

I was about to embark on a long post regarding Mayor Way-over-his-head Pete and his idiotic comments about electric vehicles and gas prices.

Alas, the clock and a firm customer appointment will keep me from penning those thoughts. Let this serve as a reminder and placeholder for future commentary.

Opening question, what changed in the past year that changed the US from net exporter to an importer of oil?

Nobody Ever Loved Me Like She Does

I watched the three part Beatles documentary Get Back on HBO this weekend. It was most interesting.  Chronicling the final weeks of the band, we see the various personalities on display. 

Several things struck me. Even though I have read several biographies of the band and members, the video and audio recordings show a somewhat different interpretation. For instance, I always thought John was a pompous ass. In truth, Paul was far worse. McCartney tries to force everyone into his vision, other opinions be damned. 

John was actually pretty funny. I’d never guessed it was him on the guitar solo on Get Back.

It was interesting that bandmates often referred to Ringo as “Rich” or “Richie”. 

I was absolutely riveted by the songwriting process. I often talk with my son about this. Is it music or lyrics? Both he says. As a man without the creative gene, I love seeing how art comes to life. 

Common history has led us to believe they all hated Yoko. Instead she sits silently by John’s side most of the time. Yoko talks with Linda. Ringo shares his gum. There is no overt hostility at all. She certainly never interjects herself into any band business discussion. 

What we see are a group of unbelievably talented musicians who don’t like each other much anymore, until they get to the music. Then, you can see the joy and fun they had playing music. Together. 

One thing is for sure, few people in history have had to deal with the weight of fame endured by the Fab Four. It is a wonder any of them adjusted to life after The Beatles.

Meet me in St Louis

 

Happy Hanukkah

 

© Ursula Page/Shutterstock

Light up, everybody

Yesterday evening the daughter and her family swung by to pick us up to take us along for a drive-through Christmas light display. We stopped for some Shake Shack burgers on the way to eat in the car. The display wasn’t as good as the one we did last year at the State Fairgrounds, but we enjoyed it and the grandgirls had a ball. 

After we got home we got out the ornaments and decorated the tree. I must confess, hanging the ornaments is not one of my favorite tasks, but I do enjoy looking at them and the nostalgia they stir. Starting as far back as the earliest Christmases, we have bought each other ornaments. In the past few decades that has evolved to the wife buying a new one or two every year. At this point the tree is crowded with well more than a hundred ornaments of every variety. 

We still need to put the garland on the stairs and mantle. Then the wife will start placing her collections of snowmen and Santas, turning the house into a Christmas wonderland. 

Most of the shopping is done, so that will soon be out of the way. 

I’m sure I will get a few not-so-veiled hints that the leaves need raked again today. I will probably ignore the suggestion.  In the meantime, my coffee is getting cold. 

Have a great Sunday, meine freunde. 

Dino Doubletake

 

Dear Crest Toothpaste

The packaging engineer at P&G who designed the new snap closure on Crest needs to be flogged. It is impossible to close the tube without squeezing in the middle. Everyone knows squeezing the toothpaste in the middle is uncouth, evil, wrong, and a capital offense. There is no argument on this. Some of you heathens may roll your toilet paper from the back or might even eat ketchup on a hot dog. But squeezing the toothpaste anywhere but the bottom is unforgivable.

This new cap upsets me enough I might switch to another brand of toothpaste. I’ve used Crest for my entire life and P&G is about to destroy nearly sixty years of loyalty to save a fraction of a cent. 

How dare you make such an indecent packaging change. Five hundred lashes! And lay it on strong, corporal.

City Sidewalks

 

Recapping the Feast

Whew! What a great Thanksgiving. I cooked up a feast yesterday. Turkey, potatoes, noodles, rolls, green bean casserole, candied yams, deviled eggs, mac and cheese. My daughter contributed cornbread stuffing, cranberry sauce, and a pumpkin cheesecake. I also made up some pretzel dip and a cheese board to round out the carbapalooza. 

After dinner the granddaughters put on a show. Then they played while we watched some football. 

Then it was time to clean up the mess. That sucked, but it was worth it. It was after 11:00 PM when the youngest came by after work to grab some leftovers. He was worn out too. 

Today I will put up the big tree in the living room. The holiday fun has kicked off in a grand fashion. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving too.

‘Tis officially the season!

 

Happy Thanksgiving

 

I do have plenty to be thankful for. 

Thank you all for reading my drivel.

Now I have dinner to cook. 

Get of the internet and watch a parade or something.

When we gather

Thanksgiving will be at my house this year, the first time in several years. It will be a good get together, but a hard day nonetheless. Tomorrow would have been my grandson’s fourth birthday. It will be my first thanksgiving without my dad. My oldest son is in Colorado. The youngest has to work. 

Aside, I know it is convenient, but could you keep in mind the chefs, cooks, servers, busboys, dishwashers, and hosts all have to miss out on their family gatherings so you don’t have to cook or clean up the mess?

So the feast will be my just daughter and her family, my wife and me. It will be nice, but the shadow of loved ones not present will subtly linger over the turkey.

Wherein I complain (a new phenomenon around here)

I ain’t happy about it. It cannot be helped. Here I am up at way too early. I have already done a couple hours of honest work. Quotes sent, orders entered. Now I turn my attention to the old blogeroo. 

I still have to make a feeble attempt to entertain you, take a shower, and hit the road to Louisville for a couple of meetings this morning. The challenge will be staying awake on the drive home. If you see me weaving across lanes on I-65 northbound this afternoon give me a wide berth and cut me some slack. 

The boss and I made a fruitful visit to the greater boot toe region of Hoosierdom yesterday. A new equipment order came out of it. More expensive capital equipment orders are likely to follow. That is a good thing when you are grubbing for commissions (spit). I hate working for a commission. I never understood why companies think a salesperson won’t work hard unless you pay him extra? We don’t put engineers, accountants, or HR people on commission do we? No, we expect them to do their dang job. 

Sure, I probably missed out on some giant payouts when I worked most of my career as a salaried salesman*, but I like the regular paychecks. 

Lest you think I complain too much (I do), I am more than grateful for my current job, low base pay plus commission. It is far, far better than the big box home improvement store or the short-lived lizard insurance gigs I toiled at for the past couple of years. 

I’m off to get ready for my road warrior act. Have a great day.

*What is 1 or 2 percent of a $35 million dollar territory anyway? Yeah, now you know why I was on straight salary.

Pondering (apologies to Jean…)

Just think, George Jetson is probably alive. 

Flying cars and Rosie haven’t been invented yet.

I can’t wait to get back to work and rest up

I’m up early after staying up late. The wife’s CPap sounds like a jet engine this morning. Coupled with some indigestion, I find myself up and typing away. Light rain is tapping on the window.

I raked up the leaves from the front yard yesterday. Then I cleaned the leaves from the gutters. For fun I dragged the outside decorations from the attic. I got the wreaths hung on the windows, including the second story. I got the big wreath hung above the garage. Lights were hung along the roof line and on the bushes and shrubs. I still have to put the lighted garland around the front door and on the porch railing. I was tired by supper time.

I plugged the outside Christmas lights into a smart plug. Since my spy devices report on me to the Amazon overlord anyway, they might as well know when I turn my decorations on and off. In past years a simple “turn on the Christmas lights” flipped the plug. Now they should come on automatically when it gets dusk. They all turn off with a simple “goodnight”. No more going outside to unplug the whole shebang like the old days. Technology really does make our lives simpler. 

There was one bit of excitement. As I climbed into the attic I managed to scrape the top of my skull on a nail. It hurt. When I reached up to feel the ouchy, my hand came away bloody. As I climbed down the ladder I could feel blood running down my head onto my neck and forehead. I grabbed a clean towel we use for washing the car and applied pressure, sure I was going to need stitches. There were drops of blood on the garage floor and on my sweatshirt. After a few minutes the bleeding stopped. No ER visit was required. It did take two washes of my hair to get it clean when I showered later.

It can all be summed up with the word “Saturday”. A little sweat, a little blood, a little holiday joy. 

Spare me the Strike

Here we are on a chilly Saturday morning.  I am coming to you live from the desktop in the old blog room. I will confess there is Christmas music playing softly in the background. 

My employer held the annual holiday party last night. We went Duck Pin Bowling. We had a ball. I sucked at it. The wife tied for first place in the wife's group, but lost out in a one ball roll-off. I was kept from last place only by a late-comer who wasn't able to bowl the full ten frames.  I only just barely beat him anyway!. How bad was I? lets just say the wife doubled up my score. Yes, that pathetic. I will take guesses in the comments for how low my score was for the full ten frames. There just might be a prize for the winner. Keep in mind you get three rolls per frame in duck pin bowling. 

I am shocked and amazed at the sheer volume of inaccurate, misleading, and outright lies in the coverage of the Rittenhouse trial. Is there no shame? Cannot anyone at CNNMSNBCNBC keep their political bias out of a report? This is exactly why I keep my news consumption to a minimum these days. Further, I am so disgusted by the liberal bias that I rarely post political stuff anymore. Maybe that is good. Maybe not.  It isn't good for comment volume nor for post views. That I know.  It is good for my blood pressure. 

On to the reason you are reading here today. The naked pictures!

NO?

How about a little Saturday music? Since we will go full-bore Christmas music starting next weekend, this could be one of the last posts highlighting the music of 1971, arguably one of the best years in Rock and Roll. 

Aside: You see, AnyMouse, after the end of December, we will be into 2022 and the music of 50 years ago will be 1972, also a good year for music. I know you are slow, so I want to 'splain it to you. 

It is no secret that my favorite band is Yes. Sure, the progressive kings are not everyone's cup of tea, but the complexity and powerful bass make them unique musically. Three of my favorite songs from the band come from The Yes Album released in February 1971. This is the first album to feature Steve Howe and his guitar pyrotechnics completely changed the sound of the band. This is also the first Yes album to lack covers of other artists.  

I am tempted to put up videos of all three of my favorites: Starship Trooper, Yours is No Disgrace, Perpetual Change. Instead I will let you listen to one of the more commercial songs from the album:

Have a great Saturday.

OK, I lied. here is Yes in their 1971 glory playing Yours is No Disgrace:

Crocodile Tears

 Two Crocodiles were sitting at the side of the River. After a few hours just lying about, the smaller one turned to the bigger one and said, ‘I can’t understand how you can be so much bigger than me. We’re the same age, we were the same size as kids – I just don’t get it.’

‘Well,’ said the big Croc, ‘What have you been eating?’ ‘Well, mostly politicians that come here with their mistresses, same as you!’ replied the small Croc. ‘Hmm. Well, where do you catch them?’ ‘On the other side of the river near the car park.’

‘Same here. Hmm… Tell me your method. How do you catch them?’ asked the big Croc. ‘Well, I crawl up under one of their big Lexus, BMW or Mercedes cars and wait for one to unlock the car door. Then I jump out, grab them by the leg, shake the c*ap out of them and eat ’em!’

‘Ah!’ says the big Crocodile, ‘I think I see your problem. You’re not getting any real nourishment. See, by the time you finish shaking the c*ap out of a Politician, there’s nothing much left but an a**hole with a briefcase.’

Fly the friendly skies

A man and a woman were sitting beside each other in the first class section of an airplane. The woman sneezed, took out a tissue, wiped her nose, then visibly shuddered for ten to fifteen seconds.

The man went back to his reading. A few minutes later, the woman sneezed again, took a tissue, wiped her nose, and then shuddered violently once more.

Assuming that the woman might have a cold, the man was still curious about the shuddering. A few more minutes passed when the woman sneezed yet again.

As before she took a tissue, wiped her nose, her body shaking even more than before.

Unable to restrain his curiosity, the man turned to the woman and said, ‘I couldn’t help but notice that you’ve sneezed three times, wiped your nose and then shuddered violently. Are you OK?’

‘I am sorry if I disturbed you, I have a very rare medical condition; whenever I sneeze I have an orgasm. ‘

The man, more than a bit embarrassed, was still curious. ‘I have never heard of that condition before’ he said. ‘Are you taking anything for it?’

The woman nodded. ‘Pepper.’

Wrecked

 I rear-ended a car this morning.

So, there we were alongside the road and slowly the other driver got out of his car.

You know how sometimes you just get so stressed that little things seem funny?

Yeah, well I couldn’t believe it – he was a dwarf!

He stormed over to my car, looked up at me, and shouted, ‘I AM NOT HAPPY!!!’

So, I looked down at him and said, ‘Well, then which one are you?’

I ain’t gonna make it

 I mentioned the other day my lowly blog output. We might as well collectively brace ourselves for a record low number of posts this year. You will be OK.

Taking off much of January and February contributed mightily. In review, I probably should have just retired my electronic pen. It is clear I am like that aging ball player that has tried to stick around long past his prime. Acknowledging in my case that my prime was in lowA ball or the Independent Leagues. Perhaps semi-pro even. Anyway, you get the point.

The “good” news for you is I do not have to hit the road until a little later this morning, so I have time to pen this nonsense. 

Can anyone explain how Kyle Rittenhouse is a white supremecist  racist when he shot white people? 

Wasn’t Biden going to bring civility back to the White House? Why in the world is he attacking Sarah Palin, who hasn’t mattered in politics for a decade? Plus, he screwed up the joke. 

Did you miss me? I just stepped away to plop some Doughboy cinnamon rolls in the oven.

Time to shower. Then eat a tasty hot roll from a tube.

 Boy, this was worth reading. Eh wot?

What it looked like yesterday morning

 

Snow. 

LA Woman Sunday Afternoon

There is a thin dusting of snow across the patio furniture, like a bit of powdered sugar sifted on a scone. The ground and sidewalks are just wet. It’s cold. I can feel the cold air seeping in through the windows as I sit here on the wife’s end of the couch. New windows at sorely needed but not in the cards any time in the near future. But the coffee is hot and the conversation satisfactory. I like the answers I get when I talk to myself. 

I’m not sure what is on tap today. Ok, that is not true. I am going to watch some football. Before and after? Perhaps I will help do a little cleaning. The place could always use a little Lemon Pledge and a thorough vacuuming. I am more than capable of slinging a dust rag and wrangling a sweeper. 

LA Woman was the last album released by The Doors collectively. Singer Jim Morrison died just after its release in April of 1971. Contrary to the Oliver Stone movie, bandmates and engineers on the album say Morrison was mostly sober and hard working on this, the band’s sixth studio album. Along with Love Her Madly, Riders on the Storm hit chart success. Based on the old country hit Ghost Riders in the Sky, the tune evokes disturbing imagery  of a mass-murdering hitchhiker.

While I have always dug that tune, I think it is the title track and longest song on the album that deserves more attention. A love song to Los Angeles, the song has a solid blues beat and according to guitarist Robby Kreiger, is the quintessential Doors song. Have a listen:

The Doors are one of those bands people either love or hate. My wife cannot stand their music. Me, I really enjoy it. I don’t know where you stand. 

Have a great Sunday.

It is coming

I had a customer visit yesterday afternoon. I know, a Friday afternoon. I got home late, traffic was awful. The wife had something to return to the mall. An hour later we sat down to a quick burger. 

After we came home, I finally plopped on the couch. I flipped through the channels and found a movie. I’d seen it before, but so what? I dozed off with ten minutes to go. The wife woke me and I ambled out to the kitchen to swallow a handful of prescribed meds. 

As I paused to look outside at the foot of the stairs I noticed it was snowing. Hard. I knew it wouldn’t stick, but it brought joy to my face. Somehow the first snow always evokes memories of my youth. 

More importantly, that snow pushed me into the Christmas spirit. I will likely drag out the decorations next weekend. Lights on the house, trees in the corners, snowmen throughout the home, and the place will be festive and bright. I won’t turn the lights on until Thanksgiving. I have standards. 

That also means I’m going to start dropping Christmas music. I just know you cannot wait. 

Have a great Saturday, blogging buddies.

Slacker

I just realized what a lazy blogger I’ve become. Unless I get busy, I won’t even crack 300 posts this year. My lowest output ever was 302  back in’19. I’m a long way off from the 450-500 posts in the early days. I still have 17 readers, despite my output, be it high or low. 

Thanks for that! In most cases it is the same 17 readers from the early days that read out of habit rather than interest. 

I know this because I have not written anything interesting for a long time. My writer’s block is a six ton slab of granite. 

But look! A post: make it 72 posts to go by year end.

Remember

 

At eleven minutes after the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, 1918, the horrors of The Great War came to an end. 

Spend a moment thinking of those who fought for your freedoms. 

I’m a traveler of both time and space

 

The moon was hiding behind the branches as I stepped out to the patio to grill up a couple of ribeyes. The day’s warmth was just lingering as I lit the burners. 

We zipped down to the boy’s new house yesterday to help move a few last items too big for him to carry by himself. The house is small, but renovated in the past several years. His roommate seems nice. She has the place fixed up neatly. 

The place is in the general Fountain Square area, and the neighborhood is poor, but the houses are taken care of; no junk cars in front yards, or boarded up windows. 

We picked up a couple of things for the Granddaughters’ Christmas, came home and I fried up some breaded tenderloins. I made a pan of homemade mac and cheese and sliced up a few of the last tomatoes I picked from the garden before last week’s frost. A right feast by anyone’s standards. That is if you like comfort food. 

I’m in the office the first half of the week. Day trips at the end. 

There. You are caught up on the minutiae of my life. Riveting stuff, I wager. 

221 days until real baseball starts.

Sunday Sundae

I’m not going to launch into my semi-annual diatribe on the idiocy of changing the clocks. I know not a single person who likes the ritual, yet we let our overlords insist on Daylight Savings time or not without reason. 

I got the yard mowed yesterday, likely for the last time this year. A bunch of leaves got chopped with the grass. That is a few hundred thousand I won’t have to rake over the next few weeks. I still need to clean out and store my fountain. That means hooking the hose back up. I also need to store away the cushions from the patio chairs. Winter is coming, my friends. The weather person hinted at some snow flurries by week’s end. 

Guess what? Joe Brandon has backtracked and now allows we ARE going to pass out cash to illegals. Break the law, get some bucks. What a country we live in. And just where will Joe get that money? Straight from your paycheck. And since we already spend more than we take n, that means printing IOUs. More inflation! Wee, I loves me some leftist economics. I would like to operate like the government. Too bad the mortgage company and grocery store won’t play along. To paraphrase, “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger steak today” . My bank won’t let me print money. They seem to think I should actually have some deposited before I spend it. Strange, that.

Now I’ve painted myself into a blogging corner. That’s the problem when you compose posts like I do  — without forethought or plan. I just sit down a write. I don’t want to end on a message of political disgust, a low note.  I prefer to leave you with something positive on this fine fall morning. 

My granddaughter told me a good joke last evening. Where do surfers get educated? At boarding school! 

Have a great Sunday.

I myself have seen my wilder days

 I’m glad it is Saturday. It has been a long week. It looks like we will finally have a dry weekend and I can get some fall chores done. I need to mow and pull up frost-dead flowers and plants. Patio furniture needs to be stored for the winter. Most of that will have to wait until tomorrow. We have a wedding to attend up north in the early evening. 

I have a Boston Butt in the freezer. I may try to smoke a little pork one last time Sunday while I’m working outside. Maybe. The boss will let me know. That’s how things work around here. 

I know I won’t get everything done I want. I just remembered I promised the boy I would help him move the last of his furniture into his new house tomorrow. Yes, I forgot to mention he moved out last weekend. It was nice having him and his little dog around, but I am glad to get my office back. 

I can’t believe we are but a couple of weeks from Thanksgiving. 

Have a good weekend. I hope it is less busy than mine.

What say we end on some music. It’s not from ‘71, but it has been stuck in my head for some reason:

Man, I played the heck out of that Greatest Hits album back in the day. It was the soundtrack for Friday night parties when just-married us lived in an apartment across the hall from our best friends. Both our wives worked late on Friday evenings and my buddy and I would sit on the balcony, drinking beer, smoking cigars, and listening to Hank while waiting on the girls to get off work.

Funny, he is still my main drinking and smoking buddy to this day. We just do it a little more laid-back these days. Kind of like the song says, if I think on it. 

We are all Jefferson Davis now

 It seems the Democrat response to losing the governor’s election in Virginia is to blame it on racism. Of course that is their response. Everything is racist. Except the last governor wearing blackface. Not that. 

How is it that any of us who happen to disagree with leftist policy are painted as racist hooded-up KKKers straight out of the 1920’s? You would think it was the Republicans who starred in Birth of a Nation and fought against every single Civil Rights Act from the end of the Civil War into the 1960’s. That is what happens when you quit teaching history as history but instead as social studies. 

BTW it was the Democrat party who founded and made up the KKK and fought against Civil Rights. It was a Republican President and administration that freed the slaves. It was a Republican President who sent in troops to force integration in the Little Rock schools. Bull Connor and George Wallace were Democrats. 

Anyway racists whiteys and a whole bunch of people of color voted for Republicans. And if in this Alice in the Looking Glass world the far left lives in means not wanting your kids to be taught they are inferior or evil or guilty by association of crimes against humanity based on their skin color is wrong, then I guess we all know who really is racist.

I guess that whole judging people based on the content of their character is out of style now days. 

Edit. I just realized four of my last eight posts have titles that start with the letter “W”. Is that an unrealized subconscious white supremacy symbol? 

Yes, that is how idiotic things have become.

Loving me, loving you, aha

Jumping time zones is always interesting. I’ve done it in work travels for thirty years, so I know how it works. Even if you stay up in the local time zone to watch something like the World Series, you still wake up at the normal time. Thus, here I am showered, breakfasted, caught up on the news of the day. And it is 7:30 local. It will be at least a hour before I can hit the road. It’s ok. I naive work to do. I’m just avoiding it by blogging away. You might wish I had worked on that quotation I have to do once you wasted your time on this drivel. 

I never promised anyone quality posts. 

Since we are speaking of quality, I must complain that this Hampton Inn breakfast is pretty mediocre even on the Hampton Inn breakfast scale.  I mean come on, you aren’t cleaning rooms every day, take some of that savings and spruce up the breakfast. The juice machine is off. There is but a few muffins of indeterminate age. A few dried up eggs and no oatmeal, yogurt, or waffles. I settled for a box of Raisin Bran.

In other news the Dems lost big in Blue Virginia. Maybe, as I said all along, the last election wasn’t a repudiation of Trump policy, but rather the man himself. 

Sorry. I keep getting interrupted by work emails. They don’t care that it is not yet eight here in the Crescent City. I suppose I better focus my attention on the efforts that actually sorta pays the bills.

Have a great hump day.

I got a haircut after I hit town

 Here I am live from the boot toe of Indiana, about as far south as you can get without actually entering Kentucky. I may or may not do that tomorrow. We shall see if the day is as unfruitful as today was. At least it was sunny for my drive through the hinterlands of Hoosierdom. 

I’m glad to see our betters climb into their private jets and limos so they could meet to lecture the rest of us on how we are poor stewards of the environment. You know what? Let me know when the Third World and places like China  India cut their emissions 50%, then I’ll be glad to vote to destroy my standard of living, my way of life, and our economy in the name of the Green Religion. Until then I wish Biden and his ilk would just go away. And I especially mean that for the petulant teenager from Scandinavia. Your 15 is up Greta, you may exit stage left. Watch a movie. Read a book. Drink a beer. Just lighten up. No one likes you.  No one wants to be scolded and lectured 24-7. I bet Greta couldn’t even phone a friend should she find herself on a game show. 

Greta has become so overbearing, so tediously single-minded that even her family are starting to roll their eyes when she starts in. Thornburg, hah: more like thorn in the world’s butt. A real pain in the ass, if you know what I mean. 

I think I will take a nap before I make the day’s big decision - where to eat dinner.

What the blooming heck?

 It is November first. I still have day lilies blooming in my backyard. How strange is that?

I had four plants leftover last year when we redid the front flower bed. They sat in their plastic store pots for weeks. Almost dead, I finally stuck them in the ground next to the patio out back. I watered them when I remembered. I was frankly shocked when they popped up this spring. Those hardy little guys have been pumping out a bloom or two per plant since early June. 

Sub-freezing temperatures are forecast for later this week. Mother Nature will win over the flower’s best efforts, I’m afraid.

Those four little yellow day lilies are now my favorites.