Happy day!

Alight, so here is my jew(ish) leaning rule about Christmas. I only buy present for the kids.

Long ago I realized that people are spending themselves daffy during this season. They blow all their money, spend all their credit, invest an entire month of mall fights and parking lot drag racing...all for what? So you can show your love for your family? The same family you probably haven't seen since last Christmas? Lets call a spade a spade here folks!

Anywho, my rule is just for the kids. The adults can cook a good meal for each other and sit back with some wine and enjoy the pandemonium that is occurring in the living room whilst the little folk whip themselves into a frenzy.

Now the caveat to this rule is that I do buy gifts for my nuclear family, aka everyone that lives in my house. My mother, Wife, and the kids.....and myself but don' tell my wife that. This rule is also reciprocated with the other grownup folk. What I am leading up to and really need an excuse to get to the damn point is about what I got for the pagan winter solstice celebration!

The wife got me a nice bottle of Bushmills single malt Irish Whiskey aged 10 years!

And the fun is not over yet.

My uncle, breaking the rule (bless him), got me a bottle of 12 year old MacCallan "Highland" Single Malt Scotch, aka Scotchish Whiskey

Happy day indeed!

Merry Christmas

Outside the grass is covered in its icy dew
as the mountain lion watches what I do

I lift the kids from their car seats to
warm blankets and bed time sheets

The Rastafarians next door are snuggled warming together
in their hookah room jamming to a Bob Marley CD

The Pagan tree in the living room is colored smartly with anti-semitic glee
and the presents in daddy's closet are wondering "Where will he put me?"

"How will Santa get in" my son soon asks,
"Carefully and quietly" I respond with Smith and Wesson in hand

"Good night son, I love you" I say when I walk across the floor
"Please don't kill Santa" I hear as I close the door.

Out come the gold and silver wrapped presents, the red and green colored bags, on come the stripped and circle wrapping paper all in the Christmas tree presence

Its then I see the note to Santa pleading that my son is not a meany
And proof is this gift of a Christmas Martini (With cheese and crackers)

Up comes the guitar and microphone made for a youngster
put there by Mr. and Mrs. Claus. straight from the wal-Mart trash dumpster

So begins the improvised Karaoke
and stifled giggles as Mr. Claus tried to rhyme a word like artichokie

Merry Christmas and to all a good night

Interesting discussion

Had a bit of an interesting back and forth with the wife. It started as such:

HCB: I think I am going to have a bit of Tanqueray. Been a while since I've had some and I want to get a taste.

Wife: Its not even noon

HCB: k?

Wife: Starting Martini hour a little early these days

HCB: What are you talking about...on average this is late for me

Wife: ......

HCB: .......

Wife: ......

HCB: ..... shit

New work bench

So you may have heard somewhere that I got a new miter saw. A 12" Compound miter saw from Sears but who's cutting hairs (I can if you want!). This thing is a beast of a machine and looks gorgeous. I am totally in love with it but one thing about it is that it is to big for my work bench.

When we first moved to the house I bought a 10" circular saw (for the dryer project) and got the bright idea to make a work bench in my tool shed. Besides the misaligned sideboards and off level legs, thanks to not having my cuts straight, it was a pretty nice looking work bench. But now I have a big arse'ed miter saw that is to big for the work bench. Indeed....I feel the need to start my man mode to "fix it".

The solution? By a bunch of wood and make another work bench! Yee-haw!

I'll let the men out there take a second of silence for your moment of man zen

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I headed off to Lowes to get about (14) 2x4 and one big arse sheet of cross section ply wood. I forgots me dimension for it but it was about the size of your typical wall sheath. I looked like a total goof ass hauling it in my truck and one of these days I am going to get a flat bed trailer. But bugger that! We are manning up for this work bench project!

I did it the Norm (New Yankee Workshop) way. I made a complete dimensional drawing, or Draw-wing for you Yanks. Marked my cuts and miter cuts, measured my top panel, shelves, teh whole nine years. I will admit thought that I forgot to measure my shop floor.

A quick note about my shed, aka the shop, aka the meth lab, aka my man hut, is built on a pillar foundation. It was never meant to be a shop. And I'll note that I did not build it. If I did, and one day I will, it would have been a perfectly floated and zero angle concrete shop floor. And my point is.....ok yes! My point is that the floor is uneven which caused some spacing issues with my table level. A few shims made from the bones of a hundred Chinese children and we are go to go.....Wa-What! I got them at Wal-Mart! Get off my ass about it.

Regardless, it is an "L" shaped bench which houses my miter saw on one side and my work area (to the right) on the other. I also built a handy shelf above for some extra storage. I can tell things are really coming along with this workshop of mine. Maybe one day I'll have that dream shop I have been always wanting

Miter saw

I got a miter saw!

Yup....all those weeks of waiting! Wifey and I finally saved up enough cash to get one and I wub it sooooo much!

It is a Sears brand 12" Compund miter saw (sorry, no slide).

It was a nice deal because the Saw is $300 but Sears was having an on-line sale that knocked off $80. Plus I live pretty close to the local Sears store so it got it within an hour of paying for it.

I have already mass produced new window screens, you have to cut the metal frame to exact measurements.

And I built a new work bench (another post coming soon) which you see in the picture. Wifey has plans for a house and a new deck on the property and I am sure this little puppy is going to be doing the lions share of the work. :)

I hug it every day

On vacation

So I accidently woke up this morning......

nnuuuuggh.....So I am on vacation until next year! Yup! you heard me right. I spent all year working my tail off so I am taking the 14th till the1st of next year OFF!

Farking cool!

TOKYO - A new battery that can be recharged to 90 percent capacity in under five
minutes and lasts 10 years will start shipping in March, Toshiba Corp. announced
this week, hailing it as "a new energy solution" for cleaner transportation.

I really like the idea of free market innovation! Something like battery or hydrogen powered cars really get my mind business movin'. I would jump at the chance to buy a $500 battery that powers my truck for 10 years. Think about it, I pay $50 every six days on gas.

365 / 6 = 61 (rounding up) of $50 payments = $3,050 x 10 years = $30,500. YUP! Totally worth it if it is totally driven on battery.

I still need torque and I still need acceleration. Two things that the first line of Hybrids did not have and I have yet to see (I admit I have not looked) at the numbers for alternate fueled cars.

So to all the automobile researchers, I will buy your hippie car if you:

1. Keep the hauling power at or close to what my truck has now
2. Keep the acceleration at or close to what my truck has now
3. Keep the car/truck in the $15k/$19k average mark (respectively)
4. Keep the battery under what I would pay for gas during the life of the battery. And the cheaper you make the battery the better!

That'll be all, you're dismissed

Happy Repeal Day

Remember, Remember the Fifth of December!

Three scores and fourteen years ago our fathers brought forth on these States United a renewed light, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the position that all men are carry rights not given to them but born from.

Engaged of thirteen years prior, in activities cast with a bastards tone, these States United conceived atrocities against free men in a freed nation in favor of morals not uncommon to the tyrant. Evoking plighted righteousness and distain for enlightenment, men that called themselves great and pious stood before the great halls across this nation and proclaimed their morals the virtuous standard.

Engaged in a great war, not of nations, but of ideas, spread to test this great nation. Not only our nation but every nation for all time. Setting the place in history where tyrants mandate their morals and not the rights of mankind. That all men should follow blindly the precept that governments are moral. And that free choice comes only second to those edicts stamp forth from the great halls of this nation.

Of this land, Man and woman, child and elder stood against this evil for reasons of profit, of ideas, of freedom, or to be opposite of the law. The reasons stand for themselves of judgment for proper and fitness. These men, these woman, these children and elders alike stood fast and hard against the faceless tyrants. They stood against the good men tricked into service with corrupt propaganda, stood against wicked men with respected authority, and stood against hallowed buildings holding men of abandoned faith. These patriots stood tall and found others with them and in greater number then thought. All of these patriots stood forth to protect this nation from its own elected plight....they forth stood and won!

Mark this day, the Day of December Fifth, as a fight unfinished but perpetually continued. All mankind will carry freedom through the cold annuals of history. Forgotten faces in time but struggles long remembered and lived with every breath of life. Remember this day for the life of the Republic, may it be long lived and forever loved.

Happy Repeal Day

Christian Lights

I did it! I decorated my first house with Christian lights! I normally don't get into the Winter Equinox but I figure why be a scrooge and its not like I am doing anything pagan by hanging up lights! Its not like they put candles around their hut roof! So I figure that this is pretty Kosher.

Still not doing a Christmas tree but the wife and grandma are handling that so *I* am not doing it. I made my opinions known about it and they are opting to follow their own faith.

Anywho, I put up the lights! Yay me!

I also discovered that I have an even better view of the Hill Country than I first thought. When I was up on the roof I got a breath stealing view of the beautiful glory of god's land, Texas. I am even more motivated now to get the house built (going to be a separate post).

And...I only electrocuted myself only once! Thank you very much!

Tin Man

I spent the last few days trying to write up my opinions on current events that I thought had some moral taint to them. Every time I sat down at the keyboard I would engage in a flurry of typing and deep thought. About seven seconds into each post I would stop.....and load up my demo of Call Of Duty 4 and waste some boogie men. So who is actually winning now? Sitting here blowing them away in a video game or the fact that I actually think about them and know more about them then I did before 9/11? Boogie men don't win by might but on ideas, ask any Tyrant.

So back to the point of this post, Tin Man. For those of you that have cable or dish TV you would find it on the SciFi channel. It is basically a contemporary version of the Wizard of Oz.

It starts with a premise that there are two main dimensions, The other side (our side) and the Outer zone. The Outer Zone, or O.Z. (See how they did that.....brilliant I tell you!), is where all the gum drop kids and fairies lived before they got voted to congress.

The protagonist is D.G. ......yeah...come on. Which stands for ______? Come on you should be able to guess this! Go google the first Oz movie if you can't figure it out.

The antagonist is an evil witch, WOW plot buster there! And Oz is in peril of this wicked witch.

D.G. Has to ..... follow the old road to go see the Wizard for answers. She is joined by Glitch ( a dude with half a brain), RAW ( a Half man-lion), and Cain, aka Tin Man, that has a bitter heart after his lost his family to the wicked witches Hench men.

This is totally new material right here! To hell with those writers on strike! There is new talent that is waiting to be discovered! Why just take a stroll down to the mail room and I bet you'll find a budding writer. Go get'em kid!

Well you can figure out the movie plays out mostly. But all sarcasm aside I did enjoy the movie a lot. They did do a good job with the content of the show and only a few bits of references did get cheesy but on the whole it was fun.

And being a guy, my favorite part was the wicked witch. Cause she is all evil and all its hard to like her but holy flipping Keebler elves is she hot.

In the show she has this ability to release her flying monkeys from tattoos on her chest. Which happens frequently!

The gratuities shots of her chest make up for all the cheesy crap in the movie. ALL OF THE CHEESY CRAP.... yeah I am a sucker for the ladies. Its my curse.....DAMN THE FLYING MONKEYS! DAMN THEM TO HELL!

It is a three part series on the aforementioned SciFi channel. Check your local listings and keep an eye out for those flying monkeys.

The poop tank

The septic fella showed up early one day (last month) to pump my poop tank. I was a little concerned about my septic tank since I had not had it pumped since I bought the house. Problems can start if you get solid waste sucked into your drainage lines. It can damage your leech field (the area of soil where the effluent, aka poop water, drains through the dirt) which can cause backups and overflow your toilet.

When you buy a house and have a septic you just can't know what you have in your tank. You can't check it like you do with your engine oil. Well, I mean you can if you hate yourself and absolutely don't want anyone to approach you for several days. If you're like me you have some poor soul that enjoys the finer things in poop to come out and pump your septic tank.

I guess the reason why I am blogging about this is that I found the major source of mosquitoes! My pooper man lifted the well caps to my septic system (its partially above ground) and, I joke not here, a thick cloud of mosquitoes "smoked columned" out of the septic system.

Now that last statement can give you an idea about the problem I have been having with the skeeters. If that didn't then let me give you and idea. One day I was cleaning the truck out. I happened to look down at my arm and, no joke, I had at least six skeeters on my arm and another nine or ten on my legs. To tell you that I had a skeeter problem is to devalue the magnitude of the problem. I can't tell you how many days during the summer I have spent spraying skeeter repellent and spreading cedarcide (organic mosquito repellent) only to have a few hours of not getting bitten.

So now that I know the source of my problem I can attack! I took some screen material (for screen windows) and covered my septic wells. I then wrapped bungee cords around the base of the well so that it holds the screen in place and tight against the brick (Yes, I have brick wells). For a final line of defense I took strip insulation and put it on the under side of my concrete well caps. I did this so it makes a seal around the well to hold the screen down flush with the brick caps.

To give you a sense of how well this worked, my son and I spent and hour squishing skeeters that got trapped in the screen. Well over a thousand blood suckers died......Skeeters, not the IRS. Its now a month or two later and I have seen TWO mosquitoes during that time. In fact the other night I was changing my truck tire. It took about three hours (another story for a later post) and not a single bite!