Inner Values

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I rather hope that the current political party, which uses a jackass as its symbol winds up in the dustbin of history. Unmourned, forgotten by most, and what little remains be seen as an abject lesson in human stupidity. (The other could shortly follow, the RINO bit anyway, and I'd shed no tear.)

I had another post all written and queued up for publication. Then I went to eat. When finished with my repast, it struck me that I didn't like that post. Not even a little.

So I deleted it, lock, stock, and barrel. No looking back. Two political rants in a row is way too many. I could barely stomach one. (FWIW, that's a first for me, never did that before.)

Anyhoo ...

Went looking for a graphic with a dustbin (trash can for the Yanks) and found the above. Loved the inscription on the can:

Für mich zählen nur innere Werte

Literally, "For me only inner values ​​count."

Wisdom on a trash can, who da thunk it?

But it's true, it's what's inside you that counts. What your heart says.

The D's have neither heart nor soul.

May they be discarded come November.

And thus endeth the lesson.

Drought, Politics, and What?

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As you might gather from the picture above, the creativity drought continues.

There is a 65% chance of creativity occurring as the weekend approaches. Satellite and radar both show a major creativity system moving into the area as early as Friday. This will coincide with the Sarge getting a full night's sleep. (Whatever that means at this point in time. I'm not used to being in my 70s just yet, I'm still a rookie old fart.)

So yeah, not feeling it, don't feel like creating any new fiction, though I am thinking of resurrecting some old fiction and extending it. We'll see how that goes.

Though I tend to refrain from commenting on politics ...

I'm going to comment on politics.

Who is running the show in DC? What in the wide world of sports is going on in our nation's capital?

So Sleepy Joe isn't going to run again, so the braying jackass (the spirit animal of that party) steps up. (Not going to name names here, can't abide any of 'em, even the Rethuglicans.)

The head of the Secret Service steps down. I did watch some of the beat down by Congress the other day, she answered questions just like every politician answers questions. With word salad and absolute drivel. Of course the Congresscritters saw right through that, after all, that's how they talk as well.

I suppose if I sat in front of Congress and had all of them telling me "You suck at your job," well then, I might step down too. Who needs that kind of aggravation anyway?

Surprise, surprise, she resigns the next day.

As to the other guys?

Seems we're back to the classic options of the American voter ...

In truth though, I think a return to the Orangeman is the only rational choice.

Though I am reminded of what they said about Mussolini ...

"At least he made the trains run on time."

As an historian I have to be wary of "the man on horseback."

YMMV

Editor's Note: Comment away, just remember Rule #1, BE NICE!

Thank you, All!

 Just thought you all should be the first to know.

Mrs J is out of surgery. Doctor said everything went very well. She’s in recovery now.  She’ll be in the hospital until Sunday.

Thank you all for the prayers and support. Obviously, they worked.

juvat

Brain Fried ... Must Sleep ...

Angriff der preussischen Infanterie, Hohenfriedeberg 4. Juni 1748
Carl Röchling
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I am at a loss for what to write about today. The weekend was long, a lot of fun, but also unbelievably tiring. Up at 0430 on Thursday to drive to Boston and back. Staying up too late most nights, then getting up at 0530 on Monday to see the kids off and then to drive back home again.

So my creative side, my Muse if you will, is off on a walkabout. Probably trying to "find" itself.

So today you get a cool painting of the Prussian guards advancing during the battle of Hohenfriedberg, which happened a long time ago, and not much else.

The comment spammers are coming in waves now. Some days I don't see them at all, other days I'll get twenty new comments urging me to chase some link where I can make 50 billion dollars a day bilking people on the Internet.

I suggested to Blogger (yes, I begged them to make it stop, they have that power ya know) to just mark any comment with a link in it as spam. I can always pull it out of the spam filter later. Pulling one or two innocent comments out of there is much easier than marking 20 comments as spam and then deleting them. One by one ...

Before Gargle changed their software to whatever it is now, comments marked as "spam" were immediately deleted from the live comments and placed in the "spam folder," where you could delete them en masse. Not the case anymore. I would complain about the deficiencies of software people at Gargle, but in reality they are the same everywhere. A lot of people get into this field without any talent, those who do have talent get browbeaten and rushed by idiot managers. ("Idiot manager," something of an oxymoron innit?) Then what do you get?

Crap, ya get crap.

But enough whinging.

How about the political scene, isn't that farking exciting? Every day a new twist from the stealth administration and their puppet masters. But enough of that as well. (Don't take this as carte blanche to go nuts in the comments with a political rant. You want to rant about politics, start your own blog, I'll show you how.)

Blargh ...

I always tell myself that I'll go to bed earlier, but I never do ...

"Omigod! Is it really 22:30!"

"Why yes, yes it is."

Think I'll go to bed now ...

Fighting Foos ...

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So LUSH and her progeny came east for one main reason, to attend a Foo Fighters concert avec moi. I mean it's only fair, she bought the tickets for me as a Christmas present, we had been to see the Foo exactly six years prior (21 July 2018), she thought a repeat visit would be nice.

It was.

Last time, we drove up to Boston, visited my kid brother, then went to the concert and drove back to Little Rhody all in one day. This time we did it a bit differently.

As LUSH had commitments out west for which she had to get back there the day after the concert, we booked a hotel at Logan Airport. Pricy but worth it. No get up in the middle of the night and drive to Logan, nope. It was get up early and catch the shuttle to the terminal.

It is a fairly easy walk, but not with two kids in tow (one a teenager) and luggage to boot. So shuttle it was.

LUSH and Your Humble Scribe in place and ready to rock. We had seats down on the field which were okay. It was hard to get photos of the band because, as you might imagine, so was everyone else. You'd zoom in, the picture would come into focus then WHAMMO, some guy's hand or camera intrudes and the focus is lost. Sigh ...

Hey look Denise, I'm smiling!
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I seem to remember the band being a tad mellower the last time I saw them. This time it was pounding rock through most of the night. Last time I felt my chest thumping like that was at a Waterloo reenactment when the cannons were pounding. This time it was all bass and drums, thumping, pounding, you could really feel it.

I might be getting too old for that. Well that and standing for three straight hours. (I mean seriously, who sits down at a rock concert. Not this geezer.)

A bunch of photos from the concert, kind of in order, does that really matter?

Weather was hot but dry, the music was raw and powerful. Place was sold out, the crowd was awesome, Foo fans usually are.

Yeah, we had a good time.

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Yup, Rami Jaffe (the Foo's keyboardist) broke out the accordion for one number (Skin and Bones).
It was a hoot!
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We look happy, don't we?
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This was the view from our hotel room around midnight.
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This was the view from our hotel room around 0530.
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We had arranged parking near Fenway, maybe a two minute walk. So we drove up to the hotel in the afternoon, checked in, got The Missus Herself and the granddaughters settled in with their iPads, snacks, and each other's company, then LUSH and I headed to Fenway.

Lots of traffic, took nearly an hour to travel eight miles. The return trip wasn't nearly as bad, though we missed a turn, circled from the airport back to downtown and had to do it all over again. A fifteen minute trip from Fenway to Logan turned into thirty minutes due to that (at one point we were within a hundred yards of the hotel but had already gone down the wrong road). But traffic, surprisingly, was nearly non-existent. Most of the folks from the concert were headed west, darned few were going east like us.

We were all up by 0530 on Monday, LUSH and the kids were ready to go, they caught the shuttle to their terminal while The Missus Herself and Your Humble Scribe packed up, got dressed and headed back to Little Rhody.

'Twas a long day, but a fun day nevertheless. Bottom line though, I still hate Boston traffic.

I always swear I won't do it again but then I do.

We shall see.

Rock on.

Big Week *

 Well...Still lots of balls in the air, although the Fridge Calendar isn't nearly as full of inked-in events as has been the case of late.

Top of the agenda (of course) is Mrs J's surgery on Wednesday. For the folks with a Fighter Pilot IQ (AKA Low) like mine,  that means that because of the location of the surgery, her diet is low fiber today, liquid only starting tomorrow whilst taking pills that will assist in the downloading of any former food debris in the surgical area.

Definitely in the "No Fun" list of human events.

Also this week, we had another health related incident in the family.  As a matter of safety and getting enough sleep, we have divided up the sleeping locations for our furry family members.  The two Felines are relegated to our bedroom with the door closed at all times.  The Great Pyrenees (AKA GPs) seem to not be fond of them.  The Felines have gotten used to having their own living space and don't seem to have a problem with it.  Our two Black Dogs sleep in our bedroom at night and have access to the rest of the house during the day.  The two GP's are relegated to outside at night because of barking and while I can still hear them doing so, it's muffled enough that it can be tolerated.  The Golden Retriever sleeps just outside our bedroom door, so no "Bad Guys" can get to us.  

Or so he thinks.

But, now that you know the layout, you can understand what's about to occur.  Because the Black Dogs are enclosed in our room, when they need to "You know what", they've been encouraged to do so on Pee Pads liberally spread out in various locations in the master bedroom.  Early this week, I hear our Dachshund/Chihuahua mix (AKA Annie) get up and walk over to my side of the bed.  I hear liquid running, quite a bit actually.  Shortly thereafter, I am wide awake because, well frankly, it stinks.  I turn on the light and let out a verbal comment that shall not be stated here.  

However, it woke up Mrs J.  The Pee Pad is covered in blood.  No Pee, No Poop, just blood.  Not knowing what to do, we check out our Vet's website and find out that they have a partnership with an emergency Pet  Vet a couple of towns over.  We give them a call.  "Bring her down".  So we do, at 0345.  Surprisingly there are very few vehicles on the interstate.  We arrive, they take Annie into the back and we find a place to rest.  Shortly thereafter, they come back and declare it "Hemorrhagic Dysentery Diarrhea" (Oops). Completely treatable, but will take a couple of hours before she's transportable to our local vet.

I have a picture we took of the blood to show to the vet I had planned to show in this spot.  Mrs. J deemed it not suitable for a family blog.  I said "Yes, Dear!"

Long(ish) story short, Annie spent a couple of days at the vet, but made it home for the weekend and is doing fine.  Mrs J and I, have spent a bit more time trying to catch up on sleep than is usual, so be it.

Oh, and by the way, an emergency vet visit is expensive! VERY expensive! But...Dogs are family also.

One more Vet related vignette.  While waiting around the vet's office, we got into a chat with the front office staff and found out one of the ladies also groomed Dogs.  Given that our GP's are not currently in the Pyrenees  and therefore don't require thick coats in July in Texas we invited her to stop by.

Grindill is in the background to give a size reference to the pile of fur from a single dog!

 

Suffice it to say, the elder GP is definitely "cooler".

Atticus has always been a "cool" dog.  Now, he's cooler!

 

On the good news family front, Little J and clan are safely ensconced in Jolly Old England.  They are in temporary quarters until permanent housing opens up at which time they will retrieve their household goods and get on with living.

Looks like the last scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark.  Who knew that's where their HHG's are stored

Apparently, Miss B has a bit of Fighter Pilot blood in her as she did quite well in her first airplane rides.  She even made friends with the Captain. 

 Course, it's not for lack of family members making an effort to bring her up "properly".

Her second birthday was Saturday and she'd been hospitalized for 6 months before she and her mom both came to live on our property because there was no medical facility that could take care of her in Hong Kong.  We came to enjoy their company over that 18 months quite a bit.  While we're very glad they are reunited as a family, we definitely miss them.  Guess we'll have to start planning a trip to "Jolly Old".

As soon as Mrs J recuperation is complete of course.

Peace out, y'all.

* No, Sarge, not THAT Big Week! Just a big one for us!

On the Water ...

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Saturday around lunch time, I was informed that we would be going down to Fort Adams, in Newport. I cautioned the clan that one doesn't just "go to Newport" in the summer. There are always lots of things going on down there. Festivals, exhibits, touristy things galore.

Alas, I was outvoted. When we arrived at Fort Adams, we discovered that unguided tours were right out, there's a festival going on, dontcha know?

So hey, let's spring for the guided tour for 50 simoleons for the family. I pointed out that it was 1530, the place closed at 1600. So really, even if they would do it, do ya really want to pay fifty bucks for a 30 minute tour? (I doubted that they started that late, though not huge, Fort Adams is big enough to need at least an hour.)

So blah, we didn't go in the fort. But right next to the fort is where Rhode Island's own SSV Oliver Hazard Perry is tied up. Let's go peek at that. So we did, couldn't go onboard but it was enough to take in the sights and enjoy the sea breeze.

So we did.

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A racing crew preparing to go out.
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We ended the day chilling in the back yard. A lovely, stress-free, relaxing sort of day.

My favorite kind.