Here's a site you guys need to visit.

Can you imagine? I'd shit myself over and over. It'd take
weeks to clean the suit. Click on these to see high res.



If you dig this sort of thing, lots of high res pics from space
or animation. Lots of science related subjects, go to the Astronomy
Picture of the Day Archive. It's set up by NASA, and has all sorts
of cool images for you to surf through. Basically, just google
Astronomy Picture of the Day, and you should go right to it.



They have all sorts of stuff there to get you goin. You probably
need a high speed connection to get the pics. Otherwise you'll
be waiting forever for the downloads. Anyway, enjoy.

Some old time wisdom...

Q.) What's the difference between your paycheck and your dick?
A.) You don't have to beg your wife to blow your paycheck!

Q.) Three words to ruin a man's ego?
A.) "Is it in?"

Q.) How can you tell when an auto mechanic just had sex?
A.) One of his fingers is clean.

Q.) What do you do with 365 used rubbers?
A.) Melt them down make a tire, and call it a Goodyear.

Q.) What do bungee jumping and hookers have in common?
A.) They both cost a hundred bucks and if the rubber breaks, you're screwed.

An old canoeing buddy of mine sent this to me. Thought I'd share.

Last week, while traveling to Chicago on business, I noticed a Marine sergeant traveling with a folded flag, but did not put two and two together. After we boarded our flight, I turned to the sergeant, who'd been invited to sit in First Class (across from me), and inquired if he was heading home.

No, he responded.

Heading out I asked?

No. I'm escorting a soldier home.

Going to pick him up?

No. He is with me right now. He was killed in Iraq. I'm taking him home to his family.

The realization of what he had been asked to do hit me like a punch to the gut. It was an honor for him. He told me that, although he didn't know the soldier, he had delivered the news of his passing to the soldiers family and felt as if he knew them after many conversations in so few days. I turned back to him, extended my hand, and said, Thank you. Thank you for doing what you do so my family and I can do what we do.

Upon landing in Chicago the pilot stopped short of the gate and made the following announcement over the intercom.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to note that we have had the honor of having Sergeant Steeley of the United States Marine Corps join us on this flight. He is escorting a fallen comrade back home to his family. I ask that you please remain in your seats when we open the forward door to allow Sergeant Steeley to deplane and receive his fellow soldier. We will then turn off the seat belt sign."

Without a sound, all went as requested. I noticed the sergeant saluting the casket as it was brought off the plane, and his action made me realize that I am proud to be an American. So here's a public Thank You to our military Men and Women for what you do so we can live the way we do. Signed: Stuart Margel -- Washington, D.C.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also, here are two very touching photos honored at this years International Picture of the Year.

First Place, Todd Heisler The Rocky Mountain News.

When 2nd Lt. James Cathey's body arrived at the Reno Airport, Marines climbed into the cargo hold of the plane and draped the flag over his casket as passengers watched the family gather on the tarmac. During the arrival of another marines casket last year at Denver International Airport, Major Steve Beck described the scene as so powerful: "See the people in the windows? They sat right there in the plane, watching those Marines. You gotta wonder what's going through their minds, knowing that they're on the plane that brought him home," he said. "They will remember being on that plane for the rest of their lives. They're going to remember bringing that Marine home. And they should."



Second Place, Todd Heisler The Rocky Mountain News.

The night before the burial of her husband's body, Katherine Cathey refused to leave the casket, asking to sleep next to his body for the last time. The Marines made a bed for her, tucking in the sheets below the flag. Before she fell asleep, she opened her laptop computer and played songs that reminded her of 'Cat,' and one of the Marines asked if she wanted them to continue standing watch as she slept. "I think it would be kind of nice if you kept doing it," she said. "I think that' s what he would have wanted."




"No arsenal, no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women." -- Ronald Reagan

Did Phillip cut one? You tell me.

Ether he let one go or he's got one of those rubber ball, fart

noise producing things and made a little grandpa humor.

Humanizes them a bit, I think.

A FEW OBSERVATIONS.

If you think life has delt you a bad hand...



Or your jub is a dehumanizing bore...



or your sex life isn't working out the way you
want it to...



then the last thing you shoud probably do...



is go around judging other people. You may
find, when you get to know them a little better...



That you didnt really know that much about them at all.



So ends the lesson.

Ok, I wanna apologize ahead of time...

but some of these are hilarious. A buddy sent them. Enjoy.

1. What do you call a cupboard full of lesbians?
A licker cabinet.

2. What do you call an Eskimo lesbian?
A Klondyke.

3. What do you call 100 lesbians with guns?
Militia Etheridge.

4. Why can't lesbians diet and wear make-up at the same time?
Because they can't eat Jenny Craig with Mary Kay on their face.

5. What do you call two lesbians in a canoe?
Fur Traders.

6. What is a lesbian dinosaur called?
A Lickalotapuss.

7. What do you call a lesbian with long fingers?
Well Hung.

8. Did you hear that Ellen DeGeneres drowned?
She was found face down in Ricki Lake.

9. How can you tell a tough lesbian bar?
Even the pool table doesn't have balls.

10. What do you call lesbian twins?
Lick-a-likes.

11. What's the definition of confusion?
Twenty blind lesbians in a fish market.

12. What's the difference between a Ritz cracker and a lesbian?
One's a snack cracker, the other's a crack snacker.

Keith, you cheating mother fucker!

Remind me, which one was Keith? The gay one? Yer not helping. God, I love that fuckin show. Thing is, he was a real shit, but his stuff was awesome to behold. Guess it helped to have the cliffs notes under his test.

More pics from the canyon?

This formation stood out, as it were,
and particularly impressed many of the ladies
on the trip. We guys didn't see anything
too impressive in it. Nothing we don't see
all the time anyway.



We were particularly impressed with some of
the flora in the canyon.



Anybody knowing what sort of tree this is, please tell me.
I want to put one in my front yard.

Just took delivery of a new toy in the making.

About 4 months ago I ordered a parts set from a co. In Florida. Took them forever to send it to me. When they did, the FedEx guy and I failed to get together and I had to spend a month on the web trying to get them to send it again. Well, today it arrived. I was at school, so my little old neighbor lady signed for it and gave it to me when I got home. Bless her. It's a Bulgarian AK-74 with a side folding stock.

First, a parts set is a military rifle that has been sawed in half so that it can be legally imported and sold without the need for any special paperwork. Basically a bag of metal and plastic parts that used to be a gun, and a few parts that have never been assembled before. You've got to be into these kind of guns to get this, but take my word, this thing is cherry.

Now, in order to turn it into the gun that I want, I have modify a few things myself and then buy a receiver for it (to replace the part that was sawn in half). I will have to fill out paperwork on it as if I were buying a gun (easy), and then when I have all the parts and pieces gathered together, I'll hand it over to my gunsmith in Mansfield. He's a great guy. Nicest guy you'll ever meet. Does amazing things with metal. Has two other sets of mine in line as we speak (yep, I'm a nut). Months later (he's always busy) I'll take delivery of a cool new toy, and yet another reason for a lot of people to look at me like I'm some sort of weirdo. Part of the fun of having it I guess.

Pisses off some of my friends who think there's no good reason to own such a thing. A few, like my boss, are gun snobs. They can't figure out why anyone would want one of these stamped out, mass produced "Black Rifles". They have some other type of gun that turns them on, which they claim is superior, technologically or aesthetically. Others can't see why anyone would want to own a gun at all, or as many as I own anyway. They equate it with wanting to kill or do harm, or think it does harm to the society somehow to have these things in circulation. To me it's all about "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness". This is one of the many ways I chose to do that; collecting implements of exquisite violence and pissing off liberals generally. It's legal, so there you go.

It might end up looking something like this, which is a rifle based on the guns that Soviet airborne troops used in their war in Afghanistan.



I'm thinking though that I'm gonna change out the gas block and sling loop and put plum colored grips on the front of it and maybe a laminated wood pistol grip. That's the image I have in my head at the moment. I've got parts to put together any one of a number of rifles with different furniture (grips and handles). Thing is, I can change out the furniture real easy once it's finished. It's one of the things that makes these guns fun to own. I can change things out to make it look like a Russian , Bulgarian, East German, Chinese or Hungarian rifle. Or I can mix and match to make up my own version. I can even install all sorts of new after-market parts to make it look like the guns our guys use in Iraq. Toys are toys, after all.

WOMAN DIES DURING BASEMENT LIPOSUCTION...

Jesus! Are you fuckin kidding me (check Drudge)? Yet again I am stunned by the abject stupidity of my fellow man, woman, whatever. We are just awash in an unusual herd of knuckle draggers these days. Or are we now living in such a media saturated world that every time some dolt scratches his/her butt or picks his/her nose and eats it we get to know all about it? You tell me. I'm speechless. I mean, when Paco said that he knew somebody who could do major surgery on the down low for food stamps and lottery tickets, why didn't a lightbulb go off? Evolution again?

As per request, Grand Canyon pics from 03 and 05.

This is one of the most famous photo spots in the canyon,
about, mid way into the '03 trip. We hiked up a trail to see
Anasazi ruins, turned around and this was what we saw.
Note the perspective by comparing the size of the boats
down at the shore. Teenie weenie. It is a "grand" canyon after all.

Here's the typical scene. We're all luggage, unless you
chose to row. Note, geezers can make it just as well as
younger folks. Two of the folks in on the '05 trip were
geologists from Yale, in their 70s. The guy sitting on the
very back of this boat was a retired park ranger, also in his
70s, who had had a hip replaced a while earlier. He beat
me down the trail, bastard. Hell of a guy. Fun times. Note
the rocks. The further down river you go the more ancient
the rocks get. These are Lava I think, not far from the
biggest rapid we ran on the trip.

Here's a typical view, about 3 days into the '03
trip. That trip took us from Lee's Ferry to
Phantom Ranch, about 7 days worth of floating,
after which we hiked up to the South rim of the
canyon from the floor. Took me about 8 hours to hike
it. Some times if sucks to be a fat hairy bastard.

The Mitt has hit the fan, I think.

D'you hear about Mitt Romney coming up with the term "Tar Baby" in the midst of a talk on the Big Dig fiasco (check Drudge)? The usual suspects are furious, trying to "tar" him as a racist, demanding apologies. Is it 08 yet?

Now lets see if I can make some money with this byotch...

And finally...

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Ok, now I realize that I should have done these postings backwards, cause that's how they're gonna look to you. Remember, bare with.

Anyway, here's a picture of what looks like the same system (see earlier posting), only this one's being used to pound the shit out of people in Chechnya back in the 1990s. I think its a BM-21, 122mm system. These are the rockets that the PLO used in Lebanon back in the 1980s, which led to Israel's invasion to try to push them back beyond rocket range, and they are the very same rockets used by Hezbollah today. Lets not shit ourselves, this is gonna go on for a good while. Those things are almost impossible to hit until they fire them and expose the launch site, and they can be fired simply by leaning them up against a tree and setting them off with a battery. The VC used to do that sort of shit in Viet Nam. If I was Israeli I might be thinkin of movin to Florida. They can fight the Cubans over whose gonna get the beach front property, until the next hurricane.

Indulging my voluminous knowledge of things trivial...

First of all, I'm still trying to figure this friggin system out, so bare with. Trying to post more than one picture in this thing but it keeps going tits up on me, so it'll be a two or three parter. Here goes.

If anyone is curious about the rockets that Hezbollah are firing at Israel every day, called "Katyushas" in the press, here's yer lesson. No charge. Started in the 1930s when the Soviets deployed a 132mm rocket artillery system in deep secrecy. Nobody knew they had them till they started pounding the shit out of the Germans with them in 1941. They were supposedly initially manned by special NKVD (secret police) troops till the mid part of the war. They mounted them on American Lend-Lease Studebakers, which we gave them by the tens of thousands (about 180,000 by 1943). They liked to fire them off in groups of four trucks at a time, something to do with long standing soviet practice with artillery, as well as the fact that these things are notoriously inaccurate. Sort of like a fancy bottle rocket. You can imagine the effect on a widely spread out target, like a concentration of German troops or armor. The folks in Northern Israel can tell you a little bit about that today.

Everybody ended up producing their own version of this thing during the war, even the Germans, and they still find their way onto the battlefields today. We have a very fancy, high tech, very effective version in use today called an MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System). You DON'T want to be on the receiving end, believe me. Believe it or not, the name comes from a popular Russian folk song of the time made famous by a lady named Lidiya Ruslanova. The Germans called them "Stalin's Organs". Ever since this current unpleasantness began in Lebanon I've had that fuckin song runnin through my head every time I tune in the news. In Russian. First verse only. It's about the only Russian I remember from college. Anyway...

Well, Mel Gibson is apparently NOT a happy drunk. Check the Drudge Report. Amazing.

Slowly getting the hang of this shit, as if I needed another way to avoid work and piss huge wodges of time away. That's it, I'm turning the computer off.

This is a cool shot.

Some soviet officer in Afghanistan on a mountain top fire base back in the 80s (now probably occupied by our guys) with his pet vulture/eagle, you tell me. Cool image though. Is that a huge fuckin bird or a seriously height- challenged Russian? I'm thinkin lolly-pop guild.

Found a picture for the profile that says a lot about me without revealing anything. Hence, anonymous.