Gun Control

Since the shooting at Virgina Tech, gun control has been brought to the forefront of debate again. As always, the Gun Control Freaks are screaming that guns were the cause of this.

Hey Dumbasses: The guns didn't walk in the school by themselves and pull their own triggers killing those 32 people and one ass. The jerk-off behind the trigger did the killing.

I just got this in an email tonight and it's perfect timing:

"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not." - Thomas Jefferson

FIREARMS
1. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a victim.
2. A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.
3. Colt: The original point and click interface.
4. Gun control is not about guns; it's about control.
5. If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?
6. If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words.
7. "Free" men do not ask permission to bear arms.
8. If you don't know your rights you don't have any.
9. Those who trade liberty for security have neither.
10. The United States Constitution (c) 1791. All Rights Reserved.
11. What part of "shall not be infringed" do you not understand?
12. The Second Amendment is in place in case the politicians ignore the others.
13. 64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday.
14. Guns only have two enemies; rust and politicians.
15. Know guns, know peace, know safety. No guns, no peace, no safety.
16. You don't shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive.
17. 911 - government sponsored Dial-a-Prayer.
18. Assault is a behavior, not a device.
19. Criminals love gun control -- it makes their jobs safer.
20. If guns cause crime, then matches cause arson.
21. Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.
22. You only have the rights you are willing to fight for.
23. Enforce the "gun control laws" we ALREADY have, do not make more.
24. When you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create slaves.
25. The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control.
26. "A government of the people, by the people, for the people..."

'Nuff said...

It ain't like it used to be...

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because o f creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people." Theodore Roosevelt 1907

Whatever happened to these values??????

24 April 07

Those of you that know me, know about April 19th and what it means to me. For those that don't, April 19th is the day of the Oklahoma City Bombing back in 1995. I lost a very good friend that day, Cartney Koch McRaven. Her memory is as fresh to me today as it was 17 years ago and I wear a black KIA bracelet on my right wrist in remembrance of Cartney. Each year on April 19th, I get kind of reserved and quiet, which, again for those of you that know me, know that quiet and reserved is not me. I just keep to myself that day and around 10:00 EST, I go find myself a quiet place where I can't be disturbed and have my own few moments of silence in honor of Cartney and the other 167 souls lost that day. This year was no different. The biggest difference was I didn't really feel like writing about it until today. I did a write up about the day that Timothy McVeigh was executed and my feelings of that day. If you are interested, it's here.

12 years. Wow. It's really hard to believe it's been that long.

We still miss you, Cartney.

Comic Book Guy Update for 23 Apr 07

Ok.. Again, the guys had to go back to the comic book store. They keep telling they have a cute girl that works there. Uh, huh.. I'll believe that when I see it. So here we are again on Monday, 23 Apr going back to the comic book store looking for whatever they are looking for, again. We have to go there on our lunch break because the store doesn't open until 1200. It's 1:30 and we pull up. We walk to the door and see the sign: "Out To Lunch. Back at 2:00." WTF???? You open at 12:00 and then close at 1:00 to go to lunch? I want THAT job!!!!

Needless to say, we didn't honor Comic Book guy with our presence that day. I'm sure they'll go again when I'm with them and I'm sure I'll have something to write about when we leave.

Comic Book Guy Update for 20 Apr 07

As you know, 2 of the guys I work with are big World Of Warcraft (WOW) players. I mentioned the trips to the Comic Book store and the Majik store a few entries ago. Well, they are still trying to find those cards or whatever it is they are looking for, which means, repeated trips to the comic book store. There will be no repeated trips to the Majik store as the guy that worked there freaked them out just as much as he did me. So, they are just waiting for the Comic Book store to get the stuff in.

So, Friday, 20 Apr, we go to lunch and they stop by the Comic Book store. They ask me if I want to go in and I say, "No, but there may be some good write-up material I could miss if I stay in the truck, so I'll go in." I wasn't disappointed.

As the guys are looking around, the owner and his 5 year old son are standing up at the front of the store. A song comes on the radio that is very reminiscent of my childhood. It was the theme song they used in the Spider-Man cartoon back in the day. However, it was being played by "The Ramones," an American Band often regarded as the first "punk" band. The Comic Book guy jumped and said to his son, "Hey, it's the Ramon's." And then preceded to sing the Spider-Man theme along with the Ramones in a not-so-quiet voice. At that point, we all figured it was about time to go. See you next week, Freak.

Update to Weird Majik Guy

First off.. I'm not kidding you.. This is what he looked like!!!!! Sid found this today and I had to use it.. We also did some research on the guy and found his background:

A science fiction buff, Comic Book Guy has a bumper sticker that reads "My Other Car Is The Millennium Falcon," given to him by a Harrison Ford lookalike. The license plate on his AMC Gremlin is NCC-1701, the registry number of Star Trek's USS Enterprise. The contents of his display case include, among other oddities, a photo of Sean Connery signed by Roger Moore and a very rare Mary Worth in which she has advised a friend to commit suicide. He wears prescription pants, and in the 14th Halloween episode revealed he had a "Jabba the butt" tattoo in "the appropriate place". In the episode My Big Fat Geek Wedding you get a quick glimpse of a Superman logo tattoo on his butt but no evidence of the Jabba tattoo. He also owns a T-shirt that says "C:/DOS C:/DOS/RUN RUN/DOS/RUN." (Notice the incorrect usage of the forward slash. DOS directories are listed with a backslash.)
Comic Book Guy is a fan of the comic strip Hi and Lois. His store contains a section full of illegal videos (which include Mr. Rogers drunk, a top secret American nuclear war strategy session, a "good version" of The Godfather Part III, and Kent Brockman picking his nose). He once had to give up the Ultimate Belt (which he won as a door prize at a Star Trek Convention) because, as he pointed out, "the average Trekker has no use for a medium-sized belt." He was a virgin well into his forties when he became romantically involved with Principal Skinner's mother Agnes. (Chief Wiggum was notably repulsed when he and his officers stumbled upon the couple "in the act".) He later dated Edna Krabappel. His store is his sanctuary, where he holds some level of self-esteem, imperiously lording over pre-teen kids, like Bart Simpson and Milhouse Van Houten, using a heavily sarcastic tone. When he was the target of mockery while trying to return the Ultimate Belt, he famously sighed, "I must get back to my comic book store, where I dispense the insults rather than absorb them."
Comic Book Guy was once married—in an online role-playing game. He and his Internet wife contemplated having children, but that would have severely drained his power crystals. While part of an intellectual junta that briefly ran Springfield, he proposed plans to limit breeding to once every seven years (a reference to the Vulcan blood fever of mating, called Pon Farr), commenting that this would mean much less breeding for most, but "much much more" for him.

Info taken from Wikipedia... :)

Stupid people and WOW

Well, it’s another drill weekend and I’m sitting here at work. Actually, when I post this, I’m not sitting at work, but while I’m thinking and typing up the rough draft, I am. We have so many stupid people that have access to computers at work that the network folks have had to lock down all kinds of access to the outside world. You can’t blame them. Most people now-a-days can use a computer to send an email and look at the news, but that’s about it when it comes to “expertise.” Most just aren’t smart enough to grasp the concept that you don’t click on EVERY link that’s sent to you, that they didn’t really win a lottery in England (although they have NEVER been to England) that there really isn’t some dude in Africa that needs your help to transfer 10 million dollars to the US, and so on and so on. So, since these people are too naive, stupid, trusting or whatever you want to call it, our access to the outside world from work is severely limited. Some of the sites we can’t get to are site like Blogger (where my blog is located), MySpace, YouTube, of course, porn sites and they’ve even forbidden access to eBay. Every one of those sites could eat up an entire day’s productivity if people around here could get to them. The funniest part about that? When they forbade eBay, our Helpdesk actually had calls from idiots complaining that they couldn’t get to their eBay accounts. Now, you already know you aren’t supposed to be hitting those sites while you’re at work and now you’re going to be stupid enough to call the Helpdesk and complain about it? Yeah, now you can see why they had to install Nazi Server 6.0 on our Internet access.
Being here this weekend is good and bad. It’s an off weekend so no one else is here but about 3 of us. Our regularly scheduled UTA weekend was back on 31 March-1 April. I had my Rescue Class that weekend, so I rescheduled to this weekend. As far I as knew there was nothing going on so this would be a good weekend to make it up. WRONG!!! Dive Buddy Dee and some folks decided to go diving in the FL springs this weekend. They went down on Thursday, went diving on Friday, stayed the night are diving again today. They may even stay the night again and dive some more tomorrow. So, I’m missing out on that. Then, I get a call from Scuba Steve last night. He was put on a check dive trip at the last minute and had to go to Florida with some students this weekend. He called me last night to see if I could go and give him a hand with the students. Dang. The one weekend I pick to make up a weekend because there is nothing going on and I miss two dive trips. What are the odds? Oh well, there will be plenty of time to dive on other weekends. Still sucks though.
There really isn’t a lot going on this week. I still haven’t sold my truck yet. It’s in the Credit Union Bulletin and I have flyers around Base. I’ll probably put it on the Lemon Lot next week and see how that goes.
Tiny Baby and #1 Mom are doing very good. I just loaded up a few new pictures and a video of her on my MySpace page. (Link to the right of this column) So, if you get a chance, go check out that vid. It’s pretty funny.

I just remembered about a couple of stops we had to make yesterday and I must pass that story on to you. I work with a couple of guys that play “World of Warcraft.” They are playing a few nights a week and quite a bit on the weekends. They talk about all this stuff and I have no idea what they’re talking about. I know what the game is, but that’s as far as my knowledge goes. Well something having to do with the game was being released this past Friday, so they had to go find it downtown. Some kind of cards or something. So, our first stop was in a Comic Book store. After we left, I congratulated them on taking me to the very first store in my 42 years of life that I had no desire to look at even one thing in that entire place. I walked in, saw some tables in the middle and plopped down into one while they did their shopping. It was Geek Central. But, that wasn’t the highlight of the day, I’m afraid. The UPS guy hadn’t run yet, so they didn’t have the stuff they were looking for, so we headed over to the local Majik shop in town. Yeah, it’s a place that sells all kinds of Wiccan stuff. Books of witchcraft, herbs for potions, spell books, you name it. I was going to ask if Piper, Phoebe or Paige were there and if I could see the “Book of Shadows.” But, I decided to keep my mouth shut. Then as we walked around the back, there were bongs of all types all over the place. But, you weren’t allowed to call them bongs. They were “water pipes” or “tobacco pipes.” If you called them a bong, they would kick you out of the store. And you had to promise you were only going to use them with legal smoking stuff. Ok, so they were only for use with legal smoking material, yet there were little gram scales for sale in the same area. I guess when you want to scale out your dime bag of good ‘ol homegrown North Carolina Menthol, you could do it precisely.. But you can’t use it with marijuana.. We won’t even go into the massive amount of pipes and all the other things you could smoke your legal tobacco in. Seems to me, it would be a whole lot cheaper to just buy some Marlboro’s than to spend that kind of money on a big multi-person “water pipe.” Umm, yeah.. When was the last time you’ve seen six people take a hit off the same cigarette??

On top of all this drug stuff, the store clerk was a massive World of Warcraft geek…errr, player. To hear him talk about the people that come over to the shop on Friday and Saturday nights to play just gave me the willies. As much as I have tried to put this experience into words, for the first time, I didn’t quite capture the moment. I guess you just had to be there. But, honestly, be glad you weren’t.

Unexpected Phrase

I said something the other day I never thought I'd say.

The background: Tiny Baby was having a rough day and nothing I did would calm her down. She was tired and cranky, but, like most babies, was fighting going to sleep. So, she did nothing but sit there and cry. No amount of playing, bottles, food offerings, toys or even Daddy being an idiot in front of her was going to settle her down. #1 Mom had been recording some kid's shows on the DVR for when there was none being broadcast. As I looked through them, I saw a Barney show she had recorded. I started it up, he started singing and lo and behold, she quieted down and watched the entire show. After that, she was settled down enough to drink a bottle and go to sleep.

Then, out came the words never foreseen to be spoken by these lips: "Thank God for Barney."

Sister and Qualified Phone Guy Update

I was reminded that I hadn't updated you folks on my sister lately, and I deeply apologize for that. I get asked at work so much, that I forget there are still people out there that don't know the latest.

As of today, 07 April 2007, Leslie has finished her chemo treatments (about 4-5 weeks ago) and has had her hysterectomy. I forget the actual figures, but after you have breast cancer once, your chance of getting it a second time is pretty high. Then, if you do get it again, which she did, there is like a 60-80% chance of getting ovarian cancer after that. Leslie decided not to chance it and go ahead and get it all taken out. So, she's three weeks past her hysterectomy and is healing up nicely. She has been given clearance to drive and pick up Tiny Baby, so she's happy now. After she heals completely from this last surgery, she will go on her Church's Youth Choir Tour. After she returns from the tour, then she will schedule her reconstruction surgery. After that, she will back full strength. It's really been amazing this time around. She barely slowed down during this round of treatments. It was awesome to see how she blazed through this considering how this whole regime started with such a bleak outlook. The entire family really appreciates every one's thoughts, prayers and well wishes for her. They have definitely come in handy.

As most of you know, I am "The Phone Guy" where I work. I install and troubleshoot phones, program the phone switch, run, install and wire out LAN and phone jacks all over the place. Sid and I even do it as a part time business away from our normal jobs. So, we're pretty knowledgeable when it comes to these things. Well, we had a cordless phone in the house that just refused to hold a charge. So, Heather went out and bought a new set of cordless phones that we could use downstairs. After I got those plugged in, programmed and working, I decided to take the base unit of the cordless that we replaced and use it upstairs in the computer room, since it was a corded/speaker phone. I brought it up here, plugged in the power, plugged the line into the wall and set all the features again in the phone. I just plugged it all up and left it be. When the phone rang later that night, I didn't ring in here and I wondered why. So, I looked in the programming and the ringer volume was set at MED and turned on. I picked up the handset and there was no dial tone. Great. So I checked all the programming and checked the jack in the wall and made sure the line was plugged in. I knew the power was in because I could program it. Still no dial tone. I worked with it for a bit and then gave up. The next day I came in and started working on it again. After double checking all my wall connections again and they were correct, I was starting to think the phone died. Then, as I looked around the speaker the phone was sitting on, I found my problem. The phone line from the wall was laying on the floor. I never plugged the line into the phone itself. You need me to do any phone work at your house????

Drama and the Masters

My brother-in-law, Dale, and I went to Augusta, GA on Tuesday to watch a practice round of the Masters. My father-in-law was in the lottery to win tickets and for the last two years in a row, he’s gotten them. So, for the second year in a row, Dale and I have traveled to GA Golf’s Hallowed Grounds to spend the day watching the pros do it. It is awesome walking around that joint. The first thing you notice is the grass. The grass they have out for the masses to walk on and trample down is better than what I have in my front yard!! Not a weed in site and I don’t think they allow bugs in there either. I think bugs and women are held in the same regard when it comes to Augusta National; neither is allowed to join there. LOL.. Of course, the Azaleas were almost in full bloom and the weather was fantastic. We saw Phil, Tom Watson, Jim Furyk, Ian Woosnam, a bunch of guys I didn’t know, some guys I can’t remember and Vijay. I can’t stand Vijay, so I never care to see him, but we did see him at one point. We didn’t get to see Tiger this year. One of the cooler points of the day were standing behind the green on 9. The players’ second shot is from down hill to the elevated green. The shots were right at us. Very cool watching the balls come our way from almost 200 yards out and hit the green only feet away from the pin. We also stood around 16 and watched the players skip the balls off the water up to the green. That’s always a highlight. We also stood at the tee of 6 when Tom Watson came up by himself. He spent a bit of time talking to the folks in the gallery and took three shots to the green hitting various places on it. It was very cool to see people with that kind of accuracy playing and to see them take the time to talk to folks as they played. It was a great day out.. I will have pics on my website as soon as I get them from Dale. The picture above was from the 2006 trip we took. It's Dale in front of the Leaderboard.

As for my drama; it was at 0230 this morning. Tiny Baby woke up coughing around 0220, so I went up to make sure she was OK and rocked her back to sleep. After I put her back to bed, around 0230 and went back downstairs. Of course, Ripley was following my every footstep, so I let him outside to go do his business. There was a cat on the porch, so he tore off after it barking his head off. I knew, as soon as the cat was over the fence, he would quiet down, so I didn’t bother chasing him. As soon as he quieted, the cast iron fire poker next to the fireplace located about 8 feet from me, and right next to Kyko’s (my African Grey Parrot) cage, decided to jump off its holder and go crashing to the hardwood floor. It made one helluva racket when it hit the floor. Of course, when it hit, it scared the bird, he jumped off his cage and went crashing to the floor himself and fluttered all the way across the kitchen floor to the far side of the kitchen. I keep Kyko’s wings clipped, so he can’t fly, but that doesn’t keep him from trying. After he was across the floor, Heather comes busting out of the bedroom asking what’s wrong. I explain what’s going on and where everyone is and she goes back in. I look down and there are 5 red tail feathers all over the floor. Kyko hit so hard, he knocked out every tail feather but two and left a trail of them across the kitchen floor. As soon as I noticed this, Ripley comes busting back in the door and runs into the kitchen. He gets over the bird and wants to play. A 28 pound dog and a 10 ounce bird do not make great play buddies, so I had to keep Ripley at bay while Picked up Kyko to get him back to his cage. As I picked him, the dog jumped, scared the bird again, he jumped, fluttered off my arm, crashed the floor again and ran around the corner of the bar. As I got around there to push the dig back, I noticed blood drops on the floor. Kyko had broken off the tip of his beak on that last jump and was bleeding. This isn’t the first time he has done this, so I knew what to do. I got him on the bar and got some baking powder. You can put baking powder on the break and it will clot quicker. As I stated, it was only the tip, so it’s not a life threatening injury, but it’s still not good. I got the baking powder on his beak and the bleeding stopped almost immediately. Of course, all this time, the dog is jumping up to see what’s going on and whining like I locked him out of the house. After I knew Kyko was ok, I got him back on my arm to get him to his cage, the dog jumped again, and Kyko, in turn, jumped again and fluttered to the living room. I had had it “up to here” at this time and popped the dog on his butt and told him to get on the couch. He jumped up on the couch and stayed there the rest of the time. I finally got Kyko back on his cage. Besides only having 2 tail feathers left, a wing feather that was sticking out sideways and a white power all over his nose that made him look like an extra from the movie, “Blow,” he was no worse for wear. Of course, the dog was pouting because I popped him, so I had to go love on him for a few minutes and let him know I didn’t hate him. I finally got back to bed around 0300 and didn’t get back to sleep until close to 0400. Oh the joys of owning animals. But, I wouldn’t trade either of them for anything.

I Am Rescue, Hear Me Roar

OK, well not exactly roar, but hear me announce proudly that I am now a fully certified PADI Rescue Diver. We actually, finally, had my Rescue class this past weekend. After two cancellations by my local Dive Store due to no one signing up, I was able, along with 4 others, to take the class. The full write up is on my website, but I will hit the highlights here.

The class was two days. Saturday, the first half of the day in the classroom watching the video, going over knowledge reviews and taking our test. I missed one question and got a 98 on my test. 2 of the guys aced it, one got a 96 and I'm not sure what the other got, but it, also, was in the 90's. The next half day was in the pool practicing some new skills such as calming a panicked diver, getting a hold of a panicked diver without them drowning either of you, swimming with a non-responsive diver while giving rescue breaths. Note: That last one sucks!!!!

The second day was at a local open water site going over underwater search techniques and then running 4 scenarios. That was very cool, because it was play acting for all of us. We would be given a situation, how it started and when, the rest was up to us. Who would do what, how to deal with the person calling EMT/DAN etc, along with Basic Life Support and/or First Aid of the person. Luckily, we got to work as a team and not as individuals. Everyone stepped up to the plate and did their job and we passed the 4 scenarios with only minor hiccups. Not anything that would kill anyone, but minor things we could do better in a real-world situation. As they showed us in the class, there is no real right and wrong answer. They give you the knowledge to make decisions and some ideas on how to act upon those decisions, but how you get it done is up to you and what you are comfortable doing. Just for an example, we had to get an unresponsive diver off the bottom and to the surface safely. Some guys would lay down next to their victim and bring them up with them. I couldn't get my victim up while laying down and had a really hard time with it. I asked to do it again and this time, I stood up, pulled them to me and got them up much easier to the surface. See? No right or wrong way, just what is better for you.

All in all, it was an outstanding course. I was sore Sunday morning after the Saturday pool session. I was OK on Monday because the scenarios didn't tax us as much as the pool portion did. Plus, we were able to take breaks because there was an Open Water class there getting checked out in between our sessions. I learned a lot and it was, by far, the most taxing and rewarding course I've ever taken. I enjoyed every minute of it.

Of course, I have to thank Scuba Steve for yet another great display of instructing. He took the time to make sure we did it right and did safely. If we had questions, he answered each of them and never thought any of them were dumb questions. And, I want to thank Dive Buddy Dee for being our designated "Victim" for the day. Her story is on the website with the details. Next stop: Divemaster.

As I stated earlier, the full write is on the website.

Headed tomorrow to the Masters in Augusta, GA. I'll tell Tiger you said Hello.