You get what you pay for

I will readily admit to getting older. My once thick wavy hair is not what it used to be, the receding hairline and bald thin spot at the crown attest. I went for a haircut Saturday. I routinely go to the chain Great Clips and no matter which store I go to, they have instructions for my hair on the computer. It’s always the same: number four clippers on the side, finger length on the top. I’m usually out of there in 10-15 minutes. 

I don’t know if I scored a guy right out of barber school or what. He kept clipping and scissoring and when I was done I looked like I was sheared by a barber at basic training. My hair is maybe 3/16 of inch long all over. You can see my scalp. 

On the he bright side, I won’t need a hair cut until Memorial Day. 

Self reflection

 Blatantly stolen from Midwest Chick

Rain in the forecast

It is a dark and cloudy Saturday. I glance out my window and see my neighbors’ car is running in his driveway. “So what?” you say. It has probably been running several hours. He manages a bar/club of some sort. He comes home wasted and either forgets to turn off the car or passes out in the drivers seat. This used to happen about once a year. This is the third time this month. 

I hear you. 

No. Not my business. 

I took a couple of 8mm videotapes to get transposed to a DVD. They are from the early ‘90s — one from before my youngest was born and one right after. It should be a hoot to watch them. 

I have some old, and I mean old, 8mm film my mom and dad took when I was a kid (and before).  I may take one of the reels to get it done. I’m not sure if these film is even any good. Who knows? We are talking celluloid from the 1960s.

I think I’ll have it put on a thumb drive. Who knows, if I can figure out how, I might post video of me as a tyke. 

This blog has been boring for a long time. I can lower the bar further by showing home movies. There is nothing more boring than someone else’s home movies.

Friday Music

 Taking a break.  Work and life and a desire to finish the Great American Novel take precedence.

Besides I’m bored by the blog

I do appreciate all of your kind words.  I have the BEST readers.

Twenty

 Today marks twenty years I have been doing this stupid hobby. I thought I’d be at it a few months and be done. Instead I have formed many friends and had a lot of great conversations. Some of you have been here since almost the beginning: Jean, Freddie. Cappy, Ed, Fuzzy, Ralph, B. I’m sure I forgot many of you and I apologize. I bet there are even more that read and don’t comment. I read a lot of blogs who never know I lurk. Even those of you who might not agree with me brought me a great joy. I love a good argument. In recent years some of you have been great readers and friends too — Sluggy, Glasslass, MC, Linda -far too many to mention and I am very sorry. 

I have been here for 8,387 posts. More than 20,000 comments and over three million visitors. I remember when I had six hits in a day and three were me checking to see if anyone read my garbage. And yes, a lot of my commentary here has been garbage. Occasionally I have put up something worth reading — the herd of monkeys in a room of typewriters theory. 

    You see kids, a typewriter is this old mechanical device…

Twenty years is a long time.

Thank you all for great fun and great memories.

One

 It is yet another chilly Saturday here in Mudsock. We are off today to watch the grandgirls do their thing in a dance competition. After we are all going out to celebrate my XX birthday this past Thursday. 

Last evening the wife had some shopping to do so I wandered around the mall, earbuds in listening to music. Old in body, I was digging the tunes like I was still 25. After a bit I found some chairs and grooved to classic rock and watched the people go by. 

One of the songs that played was an old favorite of mine by the Doors:

2

 Friday at last. It will be chock full of…well “ fun” isn’t the right word to use here. The opposite of that is what I’m searching for. I have my monthly industrial sales meeting which will suck up 2-3 hours. Then another firm meeting this afternoon and another conference call squeezed in the schedule somewhere. 

On the bright side, a box of cigars showed up in the mail yesterday. They have already been safely stored in my humidor. Of course the shipment wasn’t random. No matter how awesome it would be, you don’t need to run out to the mailbox every day hoping against hope a box of La Auroras is going to be waiting for you. No I ordered them last week at the direction of my lovely wife in honor of my birthday. 

She hates cigars but knows I enjoy them, so she indulges me as long as I smoke them outside. Or, she secretly hopes they will kill me, ridding her of my general unpleasantness in her life. Either is probably true depending on my behavior on any given day. 

Because I can

 My favorite song, hands down.

4

 Let’s see, you would think that after…2025 minus…mumble mumble…carry the one….all of these years I would be ready for spring — the weather changes, the emerging plants, the damn headaches. Spring remains my least favorite of all the seasons because it brings on the allergy migraines. They used to be far worse: keep me in the dark I think I’m gonna puke severe. Now they are a mere pounding in my skull. I want to sleep in the day and can’t sleep at night headaches. 

So it goes, there are a lot of really sick people out there and I ain’t one of them. My ailments are small and simply one thing more for me to complain about. 

5

Not taken this morning 

No time for blogging. It’s opening day for the Cubs and they are on early this morning since they are playing in Tokyo. I can “talk” to you or listen to baseball before work. 

You lose, or win, depending on your particular point of view.

6

It was spitting snow as I unloaded groceries yesterday afternoon. I glanced over and noticed the daffodils along the side of my neighbor’s house were up and a hint of yellow was peeping through the buds. I looked over and saw the tulips at the base of the maple in my front yard had poked up green shoots over the weekend. Despite the crummy weather, spring is upon us both via the calendar and nature. 

Like every human living outside of the equatorial zone for generations dating back to the last ice age, spring brings a sense of hope, of renewal. 

Oh, and it is that silly pseudo holiday. No, I won’t wear green. And by the way, St. Patrick was British and he didn’t chase away the snakes from Ireland- there never were any.

You didn’t think I was going to be upbeat and positive for an entire post did you? Is it your first time visiting?

7

 

One of the most beautiful love songs ever written

8

So far no twister has roared through the neighborhood to scoop up the house and hurl me into a world of color and little people. We have watches and warnings and thunder rumbles, lightning flashes, and the wind howls. Rain patters on my office window as I hunt and peck on the keyboard. I suspect if you live east of the Mississippi you can offer a similar tale - already over night or later today. 

Spring has arrived. 

On a completely unrelated note, skip over to Pondering and wish Jean a belated birthday. I never ask anything of you, and this is a simple request. Besides, you should read her blog anyway.

9

It was my intention to get up and watch the blood moon eclipse last night. Given my sleeping issues of late I decided it wasn’t worth it. I asked the wife, who stays up late, to take a photo if she could remember. I’ve seen dozens of lunar eclipses.

In any case the bright full moon is shining right out my office window,  I can imagine it is red and all is good. 

10

 It is supposed to be a great spring day in Mudsock today. Looking out my office window I see the maple in the front yard is starting to break out in leaves. I ran the car through the car wash yesterday. Inside it is clean and still smells new. I think it was the first time I drove it in more than a week. We’ve been using the wife’s car. 

I hope I can stave off crises this afternoon and sneak out to the patio for a quick cigar in the springtime sun. 

In the meantime listen to this:

Yet another rant on tariffs

Can someone, anyone, explain to the president that tariffs are paid by the IMPORTER. China does not pay the tax nor does any other nation.

So if, as the president claims, America will get rich on tariffs, then the Federal Government will get wealthy off the backs of you and I because that increased cost will be passed right to the end consumer.

And let me add something we all know, the cost of everything will skyrocket if it is manufactured in the US. Do you think Americans will produce wiring harness or a plastic toy for $30 a day? 

Yeah, me neither. 

Edit: this on, off, on again tariff whiplash is a drain on the economy. I get this is real estate-type negotiations, but it makes it impossible to plan and run a business. 

As fake as a pair vs of 48DDD boobs

Periodically the stat counter on the old blog spins like a flywheel and my daily visits skyrocket. I get the same handful of readers on a given post, but the daily visits are in the thousands. If I dive into the stats, the vast hordes do not land on any specific post and usually come from Asia. I suppose my blog is really a secret entryway into the dark web or something. Frankly it is beyond my understanding of how all things internet work, and I am not curious enough to research the phenomenon beyond this quick mention in passing. 

If you have a solution to this mystery I would be pleased for a quick answer. Otherwise, my ego appreciates the boost in readers, even if it is fake. 

Rambling Wreck

Monday. Blech. And I woke up way early. Not that I ever care what my neighbors think, but they must wonder when they see my office lights on at four aye em. “Does that old man ever sleep?” “Is he in the dog house again?” “I bet old Joe forgot to shut off the light.” More likely they don’t notice and don’t care. I sure don’t know nor care what they are about. 

The wife and I passed in the hall, she was going to bed as I headed to the kitchen to make coffee. I suppose we are not-at-all strangers passing in the night. 

It is supposed to get into the sixties this week. I should go out after work and rake the leaves in the backyard. The row of Bradford pears never drop their leaves until December and the yard is a mess of decaying soggy leaves. Or I could ignore them, mow them up in a few weeks and instead sit on the patio and have a cigar. Most likely I’ll take a Power Nap before dinner. 

We shall see what the workday brings. Last week sucked and Friday was especially busy, so who knows? I suspect Monday will be likewise hectic. I do know I will have to spend a couple of hours creating a ridiculous spreadsheet for one of my customers because the have no idea how to use their SAP system. I haven’t had to manually create a MRP report since about 1990 when I was a master scheduler. 

Yes, I know most of you have no idea what any of that means. MRP (material requirements planning) is how you manage your raw material and components to make something in a factory. Calculating how everything purchased and manufactured comes together in a timely basis to build the final product. 

Boy these weeds are deep. Let’s get out of them and just call it a post at this point. Happy Monday. 

I’ll Tell My Man to Clean Your Kit

 The Defence of Rorke’s Drift

We went to dinner with my daughter and her family Friday night. I made a passing comment about the Zulu Wars and my SIL said he had never heard of such an event. 

I constrained myself and gave a twenty second summation and told him he could borrow my DVD copies of Zulu Dawn and Zulu. And while each takes liberties with the historical events of the battles at Isandhlwana and Rorke’ Drift, both are great movies and give a flavor for the history. I have no hope he will take me up on my offer. History is not his thing and that’s okay. He’s a great guy.

Discussing the Zulu Wars briefly revived my interest and I realized I hadn’t watched either movie in years. Guess how I spent my Saturday?

I think I still have my copy of The Washing of the Spears around here somewhere. It might be time to drag it out too. I know it’s been twenty years since I lasted waded through all 600+ pages of South African history. 

Edit. No, I was not in Washington DC yesterday 

Buds are emerging on the maple tree in the front yard

 It is another Saturday and I sit in the office staring at the angry mocking cursor and the empty white space where blog words are supposed to magically appear straight from my brain to fingertips. Yet once again each letter, word, and sentence is painfully typed for your reading pleasure experience. 

Hey, it is not you, it is me. My second crappy novel has stalled at 45,000 words for months. I know the rest of the story, it is the effort of crafting the narrative that bogs me down. 

On the be bright side, merely complaining has generated a post — two if we count yesterday’s lackluster effort.

We're drinkin', my friend, to the end of a brief episode

It’s been a couple of days. Did you miss me? 

I missed you, but not blogging. It’s not really a hobby when it becomes a burden. I get this burned out feeling from time to time. My creativity (as little as it might be), my joie de vive, my sense of humor, often plummet in the depths of winter. And winter seems to linger this year. I could go for some of that global warming I keep hearing about. 

Enough crying. Here is some Friday music.

A rerun of one of my all time favorites. 

Okay, made me laugh

 

Stacy is Right

@PoliticalStacy

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Democrats have their paddles out like they’re buying slaves again.

9:31 PM · Mar 4, 2025

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Do you wanna be a star

 

Cant sleep. This was roiling in my head when I got up. There are way worse tunes to haunt your dreams, that’s for sure.

Let me add a non-related thought. If that is a double stuf Oreo, the original Oreo must have no cream filling at all. WTH?

The way March started

 

February ended with temps above 60. March hit us with sub-freezing and windchills in the teens. What the heck Mother Nature?

I am a rock, I am an island

I find it utterly amazing that Europe is outraged that we refuse to continue to spend hard-earned American tax money on them. 

Let’s be completely clear, NATO needs the US, not the opposite. 

Is there any doubt, should the evil Chicoms ever decide to go all Pearl Harbor on us, that our European “allies” would vote to just sit it out? 

Straddling the fence

The spate of spring-like weather is blown away on the high winds of Friday. Temps in the twenties and thirties and wind chills in the teens will dominate the weekend weather. I wasn’t likely I was going to hang around outside anyway. 

It appears there was quite the scene in the White House yesterday. It wasn’t the normal international diplomatic doublespeak we see most times these days for sure. Based on biographies I have read, the blowup was reminiscent of how plain-speaking Teddy Roosevelt ran things. 

Don’t confuse observation with approbation. I’m not sure where I stand on the matter. 

Edit: I know where I stand. Why are we giving money and arms to Ukraine anyway?   And after reading /watching more I think the President and Veep were right. 

Ungrateful jerk.