Yeah, it's been a long time...

...but this is funny as hell...

A buddy of mine saw this picture on my desk, of my dog Seamus, at my dad's place up in the Poconos.


So, he got the idea that it would be funny to Photoshop him into the stockades, with a Pilgrim hat...this is the first PS of it.


Here he is in black and white...


And here he is in sepia...


God, I love this dog!

Canada

Yeah, I hate Canada. I've always hated the way the Canadians talk, the crappy weather, the bullshit politics, how they allow US military draftees asylum; also, because they're nothing more than America, Junior.

For months, people at work have known that I hate Canada, including 99% of things that COME from Canada. That list includes: Rush, Alanis Morrisette, Royal Mounted Police, French-speaking people, liberal pansies, so-called "Cheap Pharmaceuticals," socialized health-care. Did I mention French-speakers? Things I actually DO like about Canadia: Molson, bears, hockey, Keifer Sutherland.

Guess what...I'm probably going to Montreal. Yeah, Montreal, as in "Right in the fucking middle of Canada, full of fucking french-speaking Canadians, what with their flapping heads, eehhs, aboots, and liberalism."

My company is working on a new proposal up in Montreal, to build a big test environment, and I've pulled the lucky number to set up the machines down here, and probably accompany them up to Montreal and set them up. Then, since the proposal committee doesn't have the money right now to purchase new machines, the old ones are going to get tech refreshed in six months. So, I set up these new machines now, go to Canadia, then, in six months, go back up there, dispo these old machines, and build several new machines. Sounds like fun, right?

Hopefully I'll be up there for a few days, so Meg can go up with me, and we can get all shitty on Molson. Unfortunately, 10 hours in, she'd start missing the dog!

Anyway, it looks like Travis Gruber (Senior Airman Travis Gruber, that is) got screwed by that douche at the Contra Costa Times, but hopefully he'll get back what's his, namely, his job and his good name. That asshat Peele did a great 1-2 screwjob on Travis, and I could imagine that Travis would just take the easy way out and take down his site for good, but I'm glad to see that he's fighting back, and he's put his site www.howtokillpeople.com. I don't read Travis that much, but what happened to him was bullshit, and he deserves his anonymity, if he desires it. It was a complete infringement upon his right to privacy (I guess that applies when you're talking about abortion, but not when you're talking about a left-wing hack attacking a member of the military).

Two concerts this week.

Yeah, so Meg and I went to see Velvet Revolver and Alice in Chains on Monday night, at the Tweeter Center in Camden. The Tweeter Center is an outdoor venue, with a large covered seating area, as well as a large "grass" area. Because of a particularly rainy few days, coupled with several large concerts over the part week, the term grass was more adept at describing the stuff in people's pipes, rather than the stuff clinging to the bottom of people's shoes.

We arrived at the T-Center around 4:30 PM, in a driving rain, temperature around 65 degrees. I'd borrowed a 10'x10' tent from my father, so that we'd be at least somewhat dry whilst cooking and drinking. Between 7 of us, we went through 6 pounds of hamburger, a case and a half of beer, a big-ass bottle of Jagermeister, and two big bottles of Gin & Juice. Man, were we shitfaced. Plus, we had a few inside the concert. We had a crackhead try to sell us 'shrooms and hash, to which my buddy Joe replied, "No, I'm edge," while drinking a Killian's. Crackhead replies "Ah man, that's cool, too," in kind.

Alice in Chains rocked the fucking house. I mean, just tore that shit down. I was worried that they'd lose something in the translation, what with Layne Staley being dead and all. William DuVall, AIC's new lead singer, did an AWESOME job. He sounds exactly like Layne, and Jerry Cantrell is every bit the guitar player he was 10 years ago. They haven't lost a step at all, and I can't wait until their new album comes out.

Velvet Revolver rocked, too. Not as much as AIC, but hell, they played "Interstate Love Song" and "Patience," as well as a few other GNR and STP hits, so I was happy. Of course, the performance of VR was underscored by the fact that my buddy Deepak, one of the crazy Indians, got even more shitfaced than the rest of us, decided he needed to go to the bathroom, and during the movement of him towards the bathroom (with my wife and I holding him up), he fell, and we all went sliding down the hill, in the mud. Fun. Secondly, my wife, of course, intoxicated as well, decided to climb over a railing, to try to sit in a covered seat. So once the "ticketing manager" saw this, even though VR was almost done playing, the place was DEFINITELY not packed, and CERTAINLY not sold out, gave her, and the rest of us shit. He actually told us that he wanted to see all of our tickets, you know, to ensure that we had legally entered the stadium for the concert. Now, this is in a stadium, designed to hold, maybe 10K people, and there were all of about 1,000 in attendance, because of the weather. I seriously thought Meg was going to slug him, then I thought I was, then I thought her father (yeah, her dad came with us....he's a damn cool guy) was going to slug him.

Anyway, after that, we all piled, drunk as skunks, into the Taurus, and drove back to the house. We missed the end of VR's set, but we were all about done with the cold and rain, and the ticket fiasco just about pushed us over the edge. Wifey was up, in the shower, and out to door to work by 8 AM, while I lay in bed all day, exhausted, and ridiculously hung over. Oh well, watched some NASCAR, played some guitar, and hung out with the pup.

Yesterday, I got a call from my sister, who said she had two extra tickets to the Collective Soul/Live/Counting Crows concert, up a the Lakewood Blueclaws stadium, about an hour from my house. Called the wifey, but she said that she was too tired from the other night, so I called around, and my buddy Rick went with us to the show. All my comments from the previous post about this tour apply to this concert. Stuck around long enough to hear Counting Crows play "Mr. Jones," then headed out to hit a bar.

We met up with my friend Joe, his brother Lou, and my buddy Ryan, at a bar called the Marina Grille, up in Brick, about 15 minutes from Lakewood. $1 Miller Lites...oh yeah. Unfortunately, we were over an hour from home, and I didn't feel much like getting in an accident or getting a DUI, so I had two beers, hung out for awhile, bopped around to the (halfway-decent) cover band, and chilled with my sister, her boyfriend, Rick, and the aforementioned friends. Good times...

Fred Thompson

I've officially come to a conclusion as to whom I will be supporting in the 2008 Presidential election. In 2000, I was too young, by only 2 months. I would have voted for George W. Bush, had I been old enough. In 2004, I actively campaigned and voted for George W. Bush again. Man...was that one a mistake? Instead of the badass we THOUGHT we were getting, we got a spineless jellyfish, who does nothing but kowtow to everyone, from Democrats to Republicans to Fidel-esque Chavez. So anyway, I'm rectifying that this time.

Fred Thompson. My candidate for 2008.

So, what do I like about him?

He's a guy with a very short political career in Washington, one of the number one things I was looking for. He was in the US Senate for only a few years, at which time, he gave up the job, simply because he couldn't stand the bullshit going on in Congress. Things happen too slowly, and the Senators and Representatives that he had to deal with on a daily basis were nothing more than panderers to whoever would contribute the most to them. They forgot about Federalism. They forgot about the Constitution. What's worse, is that they forgot about and blatantly ignored their constituents.

He's got good, conservative ideas about the most pressing problems facing us; illegal immigration, social-security, welfare, Federalism, the courts, terrorism, the war in Iraq. He's not a cut and run person, and he's not a pansy. He'll fight for what's right for the country, not for what's right for a politician. He's against gun-control, unless that means you use two hands. He's against gay marriage, but for gay people to have all the rights afforded to them by God, their maker. He's against abortion, but realizes that it is not in the federal mandate, the Constitution, therefore, he'd rather see the states determine whether or not they'll allow it. He feels the same way about gay marriage. Taxes? He's for lowering them. He understands that when you lower taxes, you also increase revenues, and allow people to spend money on what is important to them; their families.

So, to show my support for Mr. Thompson, I added a new page element to my sidebar, the "I'm With Fred" banner that you see. It's a link that will take you directly to Fred Thompson's donations page, and if you're feeling good, you can donate to Mr. Thompson's upcoming Presidential run. Otherwise, you can take a look at his site, determine if you like his ideas and politics, and become a little more educated on one of the most promising Presidential candidates since Ronald Reagan.

Please check it out, even if you're a liberal. You might learn a few things you didn't know.

Also, anyone who reads this, please head over to VA Joe's and vote for LL's charity, America's Wounded Heroes. They're in a competition right now to secure an award for funding, something they need to continue doing the great work they do.

Dude, I'm totally posting...

Yeah, so I'm sure no one actually stops by this blog anymore...well, maybe the Queen does, but that's just because her kids are passed out after drinking all the Robitussin...

So...what have I been up to lately?

Drinking limoncello and orangecello, both of which are almost done. I need to make another couple batches of that, asap.

Work has been crazy lately. I got a promotion two weeks ago, but I've been NUTS trying to get additional work done. I've now got three computer labs, with another one coming online, plus my regular work duties to take care of. Somehow I get everything done, but it's getting to the point now where I need to bring someone else into the fray. Thankfully, we got an additional member of our staff a few weeks ago, and he needs things to do!

On the home front, wifey had her birthday on Monday. I got her tickets to go see Collective Soul, Live, and the Counting Crows. Collective Soul kicked some major ass, though those guys are consummate rock stars, acting like assholes because they are playing with a time limit. Live. Wow. Amazing. I can't wait to see them again. They were seriously one of the best bands I've ever seen. As for the Counting Crows, we aren't huge fans, so we stuck around for five or six songs, at least until they played "Mr. Jones" then we bailed. They played very well, we're just not big fans.

Two weeks ago, my wife came home from work and found me covered in drywall, as I had ripped out a wall between our kitchen and our dining room.

The whole time I was doing it, Seamus kept looking at me, as if he were thinking "Dude (he calls me Dude, sometimes), when Mommy gets home, you're in SOOOO much trouble!!!" Fortunately for me, she loved it, and now I'm in the process of taping and applying the joint compound to the drywall.


Unfortunately, a few months ago, I was in our attic, rewiring everything, and ended up hurting my back and right hip, so I've been going back and forth with the doctors, x-rays, MRIs, etc. Last night, I was supposed to get my MRI. When I called to schedule it last week, they asked me a ton of questions...whether or not I had any prosthesis, whether or not I had a pacemaker, etc. What they neglected to ask me is whether I have worked with metal in the past, either grinding or welding. Why, you ask?

I arrive at the imaging place last night at 9:30 (yeah, I know, it's late), and they go through the motions, asking me all the questions again. The MRI tech asks me if I've ever used a grinder on metal, and if so, if I used eye protection. Of course, me, being a car who loves to work on cars, has used a grinder, and occasionally worn eye protection. They then tell me that I need to get x-rays of my eyes, to make sure that there are no metal fragments embedded in them, as the MRI (which is a huge magnet, hence the moniker "Magnetic Resonance Imaging") could pull them out of my eyes, thus, damaging them severely. **sigh**

So that means that I have to go next week, prolonging diagnosis of the problem further, so that I can get x-rays, then two MRIs, one of my lower back, and one of my right hip. I understand why, believe me. What's annoying is that they didn't ask me this while I was making the appointment, so I wasted a damn hour that I didn't need to.

Oh well, here's a picture of Meg and I at the concert on Sunday...

Limoncello. Again.

This stuff is just about the tastiest stuff I've ever had to drink. I freaking love it. I didn't even let it sit for the prescribed month, and I'm hooked. I've gone through almost the entire thing in less than a month, and I'm fixing to make more tonight, hopefully.

It looks like my Haloscan comments are "jacked" (in Bane-speak). Not sure what's up with all of those.

This week was a rough one. My wife never grew up with any grandparents. All of them had died before she was born, so she was more or less "adopted" by two different sets of neighbors. She was very close with all of them, and one of them died just the other night. He was an old Scottish immigrant, coming to the US sometime after WWII, if I recall correctly. He was just genuinely a nice guy, and although you couldn't understand him half the time, he was always there to video tape a young couple going to their prom, to defend the fort, or to help out when the basement flooded.

There were many times when my wife or her sister would forget their keys, and would be trying to wriggle through a basement window, when they'd suddenly hear "Who goes there?" and would turn around to find a double-barreled shotgun leveled squarely at them. That was the way he was. He had cancer for two years or more, and finally went. I hope it was peacefully.

We attended his wake last evening. It was very sad, though I got to catch up with someone I was friends with all through elementary school.

Anyway, besides that, this week was DSS inspection. DSS stands for "Defense Security Service." It's basically just a week where we get poked and prodded (not physically, of course) to make sure that our security procedures are up to snuff. This whole week (and the weeks leading up to this week) have been extremely high stress for everyone here. We're all counting down the hours until it's done. Only another 9 hours until they're out of here.

Limoncello

Over the past few weeks, I've become particularly fond of Limoncello, very much departing from my typical alcoholic fare of vodka, scotch, or beer.

For anyone who has never had the pleasure of sipping a nice glass of Limoncello, it is a sweet, lemon flavored Italian liqour. Seriously, guys, this stuff is awesome. My wife and I were at Buca Di Beppo (and awesome italian chain restaurant) a few months ago, and I ordered the Limoncello, while she ordered an "Italian" Mohito. Turns out she liked the Limoncello more than the Mohito, so she stole it from me.

A couple days later, I went out and grabbed a bottle of Limoncello from the liquor store, as wifey seemed fond of it. I now know that Limoncello is ridiculously tasty, and is a perfect treat after a long evening of electrical wiring. There are three sacred things to me in this world; watching baseball, drinking good scotch, and watching 24. Now, watching 24 with a glass of Limoncello is even BETTER!

So, what did I decide to do, to, you know, help out this newfound addiction to Limoncello? I decided to MAKE it.

I found some recipes on the internet, and it seems to be very easy to make. Essentially, you're infusing 1.5L of Everclear (grain alcohol; 190 proof) with the lemon flavor, using the rind of 15 lemons, and letting that steep for two weeks. After that, you make a simple syrup of 6 cups of sugar and 1.5L of water. Let that cool, strain the Everclear of the rind, and combine the two. Let that sit for about 40 days, and there you have it...LIMONCELLO!

I've got it figured out that once the water is mixed in, the alcohol content will go down to about 95 proof, which is still firewater. Some recipes call for the use of 100 proof vodka, but there is too strong a taste with vodka. Everclear tastes like...nothing, really.

The smell of the lemon/Everclear concoction right now reminds me of a cleaning product. I mean, lemony fresh cleaning products are essentially just alcohols and lemon scent, so besides drinking this, I could degrease the engine of my car!

I'll let you know in a month or so how it came out.

Yeah, I know, I know...

For all of the two people that regularly (or irregularly) read the incoherent ramblings I post here, these last few weeks must have been hard, huh? No posts from me...I mean, it's just as bad as that time that teh interweb went down in college, and all the tech nerds couldn't download their "research material" and other such things.

But anyway, here I am. So, what's been going on with me? Where to start...

Today is Seamus' birthday, and apparently, either today, or tomorrow is Wendy's birthday. So, happy birthday to them. Seamus is my dog, by the way, and he's one year old. I think he'll get something special in his dinner tonight!

Speaking of Seamus, we found out that he is considered to be a "Dudley" Yellow Lab, which is essentially an albino. His nose, lips, and the skin around his eyes are all pink, rather than black or brown, which is the breed standard. I saw the Dudley classification on Wikipedia, and my wife did some searching, reinforcing our conclusion. Seamus is now the Wikipedia standard for Dudley labs, and you can check out the article here. Seamus is halfway down the page, on the left side, near the "Dudley" section. My wife and I have taken to calling him "Dudley Mooright" as one of his many nicknames is "Seamoo," shortened to "Moo." Yeah, we love our dog. Probably too much so.

Let's see...what else...

We started rewiring the house. The new 200 amp panel was installed two weekends ago, while Meghan was down in North Carolina visiting her mother, and I'm hoping to have the inspector out this Friday to give us the all-clear, so to speak. He's already been out once, to examine the service entrance and the water ground, now he just needs to come to make sure that all our circuits are labeled correctly. In this old house, the wires were cloth covered Romex wires, and they all need to be replaced. The wiring runs from one room to the next, with little to no rhyme or reason, so after he tells us we're golden, I can begin the process of putting all new receptacles, wires, switches, and boxes in. Of course, this means that I have to cut a SHITLOAD of holes in the walls, so after I finish the electrical, I can start the drywall, and then the wife can finally start painting!

I don't remember if I've spoken of this before, but I've become complete addicted to 24. Jack Bauer is my hero. We started a few months ago with Season 1, and since then, we've finished about a season every three weeks. We're currently about 5 hours into Season 4. I'm very surprised that after this long, Kiefer Sutherland has been able to keep the show fresh and interesting. Exciting is a bad word for the show. Keeps you on the edge of your motherfucking seat for all 40 minutes of each episode and your heart keeps skipping beats while it's on its way to a 200 BPM average wow this was a long and rambling run-on sentence, is more fucking like it. I don't know what I'm going to do when we're finally all caught up with Season 6. I mean, I'm going to wait until Season 6 comes out on DVD, but when Season 7 starts, will I watch it each week, or will I just DVR it and watch it all when I want to, like I did with the first 6 seasons?

Speaking of Kiefer, I wonder what his politics are...I know that Donald Sutherland is a wacko leftist, but what of Kiefer? Wikipedia doesn't list anything about his politics there. I can't imagine he'd be a bunnyhugger, though. I mean, when you write and produce a show, don't your own beliefs and feelings start to enter into the show? If he was a leftist, wouldn't his character be more of the "Al Gore" or "Al Franken" type, preferring to bore the terrorists to death with diatribes about global warming and why the flat tax would discriminate against the hard working common man, instead of taking a sniper rifle and blowing a hole in the back of some Muslim's head? I don't know, though...

I have been meaning to get a gun. Owning a home with a particularly beautiful wife in it makes me somewhat nervous from time to time. Not that we live in a bad area, or anything. I think that Cherry Hill, NJ was listed as like the 7th safest place in the US to live. Besides, most of our neighbors are dead (cemetery, and all). But, there comes a time in a man's life where he might need a handgun. I don't know the first thing about guns, other than that I've shot them throughout my life, and very much enjoy shooting. I'm not particularly good at it, I just like shooting at pieces of paper. I do, however, anticipate that at some point in my life, I will need to use the gun, whether it be from a home intruder, or from the coming revolution in this country. Yes, I believe this country is heading for a revolution. No, I don't believe the commies will win. (They're afraid of guns, and all)

Unfortunately, the gun laws in NJ are ridiculously strict. Once you apply for the permit, there are all kinds of background checks and such, as well as waiting periods before you can actually buy something. Now I hear that John Corzine, the asshole that the people of this asshole state elected to lead them (I voted for the other guy), is wanting to pass a law that would ban most gun sales in NJ.

Great, so now the only people with guns will be the criminals. Oi-VEY!

I know, rambling post. I'm all over the place here, but my head has been chock full of nougaty goodness.

I hope everyone had a good Easter, and again, happy birthday to Wendy, and to my little boy, Seamus.

Steph, I posted, OK! I'm going back to my wire cutters and lineman's pliers now...

My new blog.

Ok Steph, I'm NOT moving! Thanks for the concern, though.

I set up a new blog today, Dr. Pepper and the Screaming Chicken, as a new technical blog. See, I've got all this stuff written down in notebooks, and in .txt files, and much of it is helpful information that IT people can use. So much information is scattered around the web, hither and tither, and it's tough to find a lot of useful information.

So, my purpose here is two-fold. One, I want to help other poor, hapless bastards like myself, that can't seem to figure out how to boot into single user mode on that new Red Hat server they just built. Two, I want to have access to all this information myself, so that what' in my notebook isn't stuck at my desk, where it's useless, as I'm in other buildings far too much now.

I'll start posting there as soon as I find some good stuff to get up there, and I'll still post here; surely much more here than there.

Oh yeah, and Steph, I just converted my comments over there to Haloscan, so your comment is lost FOR-EVVVVERRRRRR.

Bum beatings

I've been a busy blogger today...

Someone on my car club forum posted a link to the story about people beating up bums for fun...check it out...

So, of course, people had to chime in with their opinions on this. Most find it reprehensible and feel that the teens should be punished for their actions. Some felt that the 15 year sentence imposed on the kids was not enough, and that they should have received life or the death penalty. I fall into this camp. As I've said here, on at least two or three other occasions, if you kill someone (self defense aside) you should be killed. If you rape or molest a child, or anyone, for that matter, you should also be killed. Sure, I sound harsh, but hey, there would be a lot fewer murders per year, right?

So a few people have actually taken to stating that not only should the teens be punished for 15 years or longer, but so should their parents. Yeah, that's right, their parents. People that didn't kill anyone, and for all we know, were sitting at home watching 24 when their kids were out beating up homeless people. Their argument is that the parents should have raised their children better, and that the parents are directly responsible for the deaths of the bums. They're stating that not only should the parents go to jail, but they should have their homes confiscated, and auctioned to pay medical expenses and damages to the victim's families. Again...after having nothing to do with the action, the parents are to blame.

Yeah, this sounds wacko as hell, right? I mean, it's not as though the parents were sitting there, egging their kids on. Can you imagine it?

"Go on Timmy, kick that alky's ass! You want to be a man, well this is how to become one!"

If that were the case, then sure, the parents would be guilty of either inciting violence, murder (2, I think), and/or being an accessory to murder. However, that isn't the case, and yet these people truly believe that the parents should go to jail. That's like saying that because a 30 year old, married man, beats his wife, his parents should be charged with domestic violence, simply because they never taught their kid not to beat his wife. Really.

Anyway...what do you think? Should a 15 year old who killed someone or participated in the beating of a bum be punished to the fullest extent of the law? Should he or she be tried as an adult? Should they get life, death, 15 years? What? How about the parents?

By the way, the guy that posted the original story, and incited the parent blaming was the same guy who bashed me for posting about my dog's balls a couple weeks ago. He's a real winner, huh?

Fired for checking out adult sites at work?

Sue your employer!

That's right, folks. If you think you have an addiction to online girlie sites, and you get fired for accessing them during work, just sue. Of course, you're covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act...

Seriously, why is this even getting a court date? I mean, when you start working for a company, you're bound by their rules. If you want to do something, you need to first, make sure its not illegal, and second, make sure it doesn't violate a workplace rule. I can't sexually harass anyone, and you can't look at nudie sites while you're at work. It's the rule at every large corporation in the US, and probably the world. Why?

Well, as much as I'd hate to admit it, it's offensive to some people. I don't think that you should have to censor what you say, simply because you're in public, but this is a little different. Sex is a private thing. If letting other people watch you gets your jollies off, fine, but don't do it at work.

When I was in my last job, I used to work out after I was done with my day. Since it was a Navy facility, we had a locker room and a small gym with a treadmill and a few other machines. Invariably, after I was done working out, there would be a guy in the shower. He'd shower for well over an hour, then spend another hour "primping" himself, naked, in the locker room. He'd talk to guys in there, naked, of course, stand at the urinal, in full view when the door was opened, comb his hair, etc, and this happened at least three days a week. Complaints to management went nowhere, and eventually, he was actually moved to the building. That's right, he didn't even have a right to be there, and wasn't an employee in that work space. He just came by three nights a week to shower and display himself for all to see. Why? I don't know...I guess he was just into having guys see him naked. For awhile, his locker was right next to mine. It usually wasn't too big of a problem, that is, until the day he had one leg up on a bench, and his head down, checking out his balls, then started talking to me about the weather. That afternoon, I ran up to the administrator, told her what happened, and told her that if no one was going to do anything about this guy, I wanted my locker moved.

In the end, they moved me, but they did nothing about the guy in the shower. I guess maybe you really can get away with stuff like that at work.

But, when you get fired for it, don't come bitching, filing lawsuits about being discriminated against. Deal with it.