My wheels.

I recently put a few new stickers on my bumper. Took a shot while I was parked at the library in Florence. That's where I do a lot of computer stuff during the week, killin' time between classes on Mondays and Wednesdays.



My old jeep used to be plastered with bumper stickers. Folks always knew it was me goin' by. Once I traded it in for this little silver bullet, well, I guess I wanted to keep it lookin' classy. But slowly, sure enough, the stickers have just materialized.



First one was the Billy Bob's sticker. Covered a ding in the bumper that was there when I got it. The Smoky Mountains thing was purchased on our last road trip to Tennessee. The ACL sticker was given to me by a friend who lives in Austin. Thay'd also gone to the festival and had a few of these stickers layin' around.



This one was purchased at a gun show in Dallas. Same folks who sold me the "Thin the herd" t-shirt. Loved it, so I had to go there.



Now, this is totally off subject, but check out this cool ride. Spotted it outside the pool hall we played at last week. I think it's the one I'll get some day. Love the paint job/decals. NICE!

A night off, and a sleep in, kinda.

The weather stepped in last night and gave me the evening off. Got the word as my San Saba classes were ending. The classes on the base were being canceled due to the threat of ice on the roads.



We had about three days in the 80s last week, but then the norther blew in, and with it some slight precipitation. So by Tuesday night it was droppin' down into the 20s and I was building a nice blaze in the fire place.

That gave Denise and I the chance to enjoy a real night at home together during the week, which is usually a treat of the weekend. I got home first, a few hours before she did, so I got the fire goin' and started dinner.



She picked up some pork chops the other night, but we weren't expecting to be able to cook them for a few more days. I busted out the skillet, tossed in some butter, pepper, and some sweet white whine, covered it and set the burner on medium.

We also did some green beans for her. OK, I had some too.



Turned out really good. I thought maybe I'd cooked them a little long, but Denise said they were delish. Who can argue?



Denise also whipped up some good, buttery cheese sauce and I boiled some Rotini noodles to throw into it.



Mmmmm, good. Toss on some fresh pepper and it was good to go. Have some in the fridge for left-overs too. I doubt it survives the night.



Good lookin' eh? You should have tasted it. That's some left-over Chinese stir fry there, heated up in it's sauce and poured over the finished chops. I know, I shouldn't post this stuff. It's just wrong.



That wasn't the half of it though. Denise introduced me to something called a Kahlua and Cream the other day. Last night was my first attempt to make them. You see the ingredients here.



And this is the end result. Tastes like a ice cream float, but with a kick. Wonderful. And yep, somehow in all this orgy of gastronomic goodness, I lost my shirt. You know, that'll happen.

It turned out the ice was mostly west of here, so the morning classes today were only delayed. I had to go down to Florence for about 40 minutes, and then did my drive to Saba. The sun is out, and everything here is back to normal.

Hope the weather is treatin' you nice. Cheers!

Monday stuff, and a new twist.

First off, I want to explain why I haven't been around here as much in the last few weeks... hell, the last month. Well, I've been workin' on somethin'. Started it back in early December, right after comin' home from that Gun Show in Nashville.

The mind started to wander off as I was drivin' back down I-40 towards Texas. Next thing I knew the normal ravings of my imagination had taken a seemingly more solid form. A story started to come together in my head, and when I got home I started to write it down.

I tell you what, tryin' to write this stuff down has finally given me an appreciation for all the stuff I didn't study in grade school, like spelling and punctuation. Hell, anyone who's read enough of my stuff over the years probably doesn't need to be told what a dolt I am. Thank God for spell check, is all I'm sayin'.

Anyway, I've policed up the stuff I've written so far, revised and fleshed it out just about the way I want it, and set it up in a new blog. It's an ongoing story, only maybe a third finished. Having played with it enough for now, wanting to get going with the rest of the story, I've decided to let more of you in on it before I move forward. So, click over there and see what you think.

I had an epiphany this morning, driving out here to San Saba, and I think I know how the rest of the story is gonna go. It's gonna be juicy stuff. Lots of blood and guts. Should be fun to write, and I hope, fun to read.

If you know enough about me, and about some of the people in my life, then you'll probably come to recognize some of the characters in the story. let's just say, I've stolen liberally from life and art, and changed the facts around to make them work, and to make everything more fun. I tell ya, it's been a huge blast, putting all this stuff together. It continues to be. Hopefully, you'll like it too.

So, go check it out. Leave comments if you want, or you can email me. Go ahead and tell me how stupid you think it is, and how basic my command of the English language is. And if anything fails to ring true to you, go ahead and say so. Any help you can give towards realism will be deeply appreciated. Having said all that, this baby is mine, and I'm the only one who really needs to like it. So there... But I hope you do like it.

Now, on another front, I made my last payment on my land today. 17 acres, south of Killeen on HWY 195. Paid off a 15 year note in 6! Very happy at that. Now, if I can only sell it, I'd make enough in profit to pay off about 90% of my other bills. Torn though. Part of me wants to keep it and wait for the price per acre to go up even more. We'll see.

Denise and I had a great time this last weekend. Very relaxed and fun. But the next one will probably prove to be hell on wheels. My sister is finally moving most of her crap into storage and moving herself into the upstairs room in my Mothers house! This is NOT something I'd like to see happen. But she's been totally unable to find a job of any kind that would allow her to pay her own rent, and mom just isn't willing to pay the grand a month it takes to keep little sis in the comfort that she has become accustomed to.

If you've read any of my past rants about my sister, then you know that the chances are pretty good that this is NOT gonna end well. But, I realized a long time ago that there's NOTHING I can do about any of it. So, I'll just stand by, ready to haul boxes and fix things. I tell ya, it's times like these that make me glad my job keeps me so friggin' busy.

Anyway, I'm off. Gonna go back to the other blog and write some more crap down. I tell ya, it's just flowin' out of me these days. Take care. Cheers!

Shootin' at Daves, and other stuff.

Went up to Gatesville, or really up west of Gatesville last Sunday and blasted away for a few hours with a few friends. Let's say we were celebrating our constitutional right to piss off a hell of a lot of scared liberals. You might say we were celebrating a last hurrah.



Looks like a mug shot, don't it? Maybe the James Gang, in better times.

God knows how long folks like us will continue to enjoy the right to get together in a field, as generations of our forefathers have done, and practice with our guns. We might soon be beaten down and "civilized", like our British cousins.

I was there a while back, about 2003. I stepped into a gun store in Sheffield, just to see what they had. It was sad. Nothing there but BB Guns, non firing replicas and toys! Sad, to see what these formerly free people have been reduced to. Sad, to think that this new government of ours, which publicly celebrates individual liberty and the individual "right to choose", doesn't trust it's own citizens enough to allow them unfettered access to the very power that average citizens once used to assert American Independence and sovereignty.

I'd bet good money that the leaders of the modern left, if transported back to 1775, would be riding out into the back country of Massachusetts to beg the colonists to pay their taxes, telling them it was their patriotic duty to submit to government authority, and help the Redcoats confiscate the arms of the patriot resistance. And now these nutless wonders run our country? Sad indeed!

But, it's not like the Right hasn't handed them all the ammunition they need to take over. It couldn't have happened without the corruption, mismanagement, and ineptitude of the Republicans in Congress, and the mismanagement of the Bush administration... amplified out of proportion, of course, but the regular rants of the media. They sowed the seeds of their own destruction. And we all were complicit, failing to stand up and shout "NO" when the Republicans outspent the Democrats and failed to live up to their own stated principals.

So, with nothing else left to do, resigned to the "change" that's rolling our way, my buddies and I went out Sunday to keep the faith with our forefathers. We filled the air with lead, and let a few war whoops fly. Maybe a few Rebel Yells too. And when the gun grabbers come, we won't give up these rights as easily, as sheepishly and our British brothers did, or the Canadians, or the Aussies. This is Texas, mother fucker! We don't play that shit here!

Having said all that, I've got to say that I'm proud as hell to see my country, 40 years after Martin Luther King's assassination, electing our first Biracial President. It does make me feel good. It makes me feel good about my own people, like we've moved on from a horrific and repressive past. So God bless this country, and it's resilience, and our new Executive. And please God, grant him the wisdom to know, as so few in our government on ether side of the aisle seem to know... that there is a HUGE difference between what you CAN do, and what you SHOULD do!

God bless this system of ours, with all of it's flaws. It's still better than most others I can think of. Still... but the time is coming I fear when I may not be able to say that any more.

Anyway, rant over. Here's some shots of the fellas and I out blastin' away.



This is Dave, our host, taking a turn with one of the pistols that materialized when we all got there and unloaded our toys. I think it was a .357 Magnum. Kicked like a mule.

This is Dally, loading his Civil War musket with a mini ball. He's the guy that makes all the Civil War loads for these shoots. Works on them at home. All perfect replicas of English Enfield rounds.



Eventually, Belknap (that's the other little fellow there behind me) and I took out our Tokarev SVT-40s and started blasting away. His son (the kid with the western holsters below) set up a good sized rock next to the paper targets and we proceeded to blast it into pebbles.

Then his son took a turn with my rifle. Love that rifle. Fun to shoot.

Well, that was our fun. Lets hope we can continue to do this sort of thing in the future. Cheers!

OK, the shots from Christmas.

OK, you remember, maybe, Denise and I went to Kentucky for Christmas. It was another road trip, not too long after the last one. But we love doin' that drive, so it was easy and fun.

We started out at my Mom's place on Christmas eve. That's the picture you see above there. I put together a box for dad's flag and medals, and mom loved it. We opened presents there and had lunch. Mom cooked fried chicken, some of which we took with us on the drive. We left there at about 2PM and drive on to Memphis.

After getting a good nights sleep in Memphis at a La Quinta, woke up Christmas Day, took advantage of the complementary breakfast and drove on to Denise's kids place in Bowling Green.



Once we got there, we waited for her other daughter and Denise's grandsons to show up, and then we enjoyed another Christmas with lots of cool presents and fun.



On day while we were there we all drove back down to Nashville and checked out the ICE show at the Opryland Mills Mall. I'd gone to Kentucky hoping for cold weather, but it turned out to unseasonably warm. So, going into this ice show, where it was 9 degrees, was a fun time for me.



Mostly, my time was spent supporting Denise, doin' whatever the others wanted to do. I love to see her having a good time with her kids. And I also love to play with her grandson Collin. He loves it when I pick him up by his feet and toss him around. I'm like an amusement park ride for little kids. I love it too.



On the drive home we stopped in Memphis again. This time we walked up Beale Street and ate some great BBQ at BB Kings place. Blind Mississippi Morris, "The Real Deal from Beale" was playin there that night. It was a great time.



During his break, Morris was led over to the bar near us and he enjoyed a complementary adult beverage.

We made it home in time to have a drink and celebrate the new years here at home. It was a great trip, and it's been made even better now with the news that Denise's younger daughter Lynn is pregnant. She came home in tears Friday afternoon and told me. Lynn had called her to tell her while she was at work. It's wonderful news!

Anyway, if you want to see more of the holiday shots, go here for the Christmas shots, here for the ICE show, and here for the pictures from BB Kings place.

Enjoy the pictures. I had a lot of fun taken' 'em. Cheers!

Busy, busy, busy...

But I figure I need to post somethin' so the few people who still click over here now and then won't think I'm dead, piled up in a smoky heap on 183 or somethin'.

I think I told you last week that I'd started working again, teaching in Florence and San Saba. Well, that's all goin' down smooth. No problems. Well, none worth talkin' about anyway.

This week I'll start two more classes on Ft. Hood. That'll be eight classes in all. Naaa, it's not that much. I'm used to it.

I started playin' pool again last Thursday night. This time it's a Nine Ball league. Different rules, but mostly still the same fun folks. I lost, of course. They put me up against some little spindly dude that no one had ever seen before, who turned out to be REALLY good.

In a situation like that I don't feel bad about loosing. It's all in fun anyway. I mean, I did have a good time. Lots of good friends, two good cigars and three Coronas, not that I'm counting. I will meet that mother fucker again' though, and we WILL play another round. Did I say I didn't mind loosing? Sheeeeiiiitttt!

In my spare time, Denise and I have been busy cleanin' the house. It's too easy, as much as we both work, to let things go and end up livin' in a pig sty. So I've spent the last week or so goin' through lots of old boxes and piles, shredding old exams and papers and throwin' stuff away.

I took a bunch of old school stuff out to the base... old test banks and support materials for text books... so the folks out there could shred and incinerate them, and I brought a box of books to the library here in Saba today to get rid of them.

The house is lookin' a bit tidier now, and my main desk is no longer under such a huge pile of crap. of course, it's my nature to "collect" things, so I'm sure the pile will reappear in time. They always do.

Anyway, I do have the pictures from Christmas to show you, but I haven't posted them to FlickR yet. I can't do that here from the library computer, so maybe I'll be able to get it done tonight, or later this week. One way or the other, it'll get it done this week.

In the meantime, an old friend emailed me this video. If you're a gear head and love these old planes (and I know you do), maybe you'll love this as much as I did. Enjoy.

Back to the old grind.

I started back to work in Florence and San Saba today. It sure was nice to be able to sit around and be lazy for a while, but all good things must come to an end, or so they say.

I'm still workin' on the holiday shots, so be patient with me. Maybe Wednesday. Probably Wednesday.

Got on a clean up kick over the weekend, tryin' to get some stuff done around the house. Went through the shelves and sound lots of stuff to shred or throw away. Hooked up my new printer/scanner, and it's workin' fine.

Got my car tuned up Friday. They changed out the plugs and cleaned it up. replaced the battery cables and they told me my battery was iffy. I decided to wait and see. well, Sunday night at about 10PM I was goin' to Wally World to get a new one.

I cracked open my PC and vacuumed all the dust out of it. It's still a piece of crap, but at least the sound issue has gone away. I can listen to music again, and I can hear all the moaning and groaning in the videos. Porn just ain't the same without all the moanin' and groaning, you know?



As far as the world scene is concerned, I say turn it to glass. There'll never be a day when the Arab leaders and the Israeli leaders can really be brought to a place where they'd rather have peace than risk loosing. So, turn it to glass. keep it from draggin' us down too.

Anyway, I'm off. Gotta go listen to more "music". Cheers!

I'm kinda late, but Happy New Year everyone!

We got home late last night, in time to enjoy the new year here in the comfort of our own home. And as much as we enjoyed the trip, it is nice to be home.

Slept in today and spent most of the day watchin' bowl games and tryin' to get a jump on cleanin' up last years crap. I got most of the culling done on my pictures and started the photoshop process. I think there'll be a few nice shots to show ya.

Now we're lookin' at goin' out to eat and to a movie. See ya later. Cheers!