Mid August and How I Count My Richs and Get Stimulated...

I broke into my Savings..... thought I would go out and buy one a dem HD LCD PCP LSD HIFI STP 40050 inch flat screen TV thingees... do my part to try to stimulate the economy of Japan....

...... maybe put it over by the fireplace......
but when all the counting was done... I only had enough to stimulate a bit of the local economy...

This little piggie.....

SPAM is the undisputed king of mystery meat. Made of pig parts and secret spices, cooked in its own cans right on the assembly line

 ...hmmmmmm....lemmmee see, lotza Pork in Iowa..... hmmmmm.... The Spam museum is in Minnesota..... hmmmm are there dots to connect...

a shared room is forever

Uncle John on his porch

I call my younger brother John most Sunday mornings.  I need to wait until almost 10:30 CDT because he lives just a few miles south of British Columbia and a scant few just east of Puget Sound. He rises early enough, but prefers to talk after he has had time to fully wake up.

He is just two and a half years behind me in age but, at 6'8", a full eight inches taller. His voice has the tone of a bear in springtime asking for a fresh cup of coffee. When he was in HS we called him Lurch. He had that kind of presence. Generally, he is a kind soul, but when angry he is like a bear in springtime without a cup of coffee.

As kid's we shared a bedroom.  He would steal my comics. Sometimes I would get them back. Other time's he would hide them in the attic and disavow any knowledge of how the got there... except we  all knew he was the only one who went into the attic.  It was his cave when we were kids.

Now he lives on six or so acres in northern Washington.  His wife is a Canadian.  They have apples and pears and cherries and kiwi that they grow and press into juice or make jams and jellies, depending on how plentiful the harvest was; when it is a good harvest he mails me a box of jam at Christmas. His wife cans salmon and halibut and fixes the plumbing.  He tends to the chickens and geese, which they give names to, but subsequently eat. He once told of having to buy a slingshot to shoot at the eagles that would perch in an old dead tree on the property and prey on his chickens.  Finally he just cut down the tree. His chickens are truly free range and he rounds them up at night.  I think he buys them comic books, too, just so he can steal them.

I remember driving with him from Wisconsin to Idaho back in '77 when he first moved west, but before he moved to Washington. His old Pinto station wagon would not make it up a mountain in Montana, four-cylinder cars need more air than mountains will give, and I had to push it up the last few feet.  Then he scared the shit out of me driving down.  He likes mountains. I visited once and we went camping in the Olympic mountains.  His idea of camping is just a sleeping bag, some granola bars... and a pint of whiskey. Maybe a flashlight.  I think I preferred sharing a bedroom with him rather than a mountain, but he taught me then that reading stars can be more entertaining that comic books.

They are having a party next week, always the last week in August, when their Canadian friends come down from Vancouver and they harvest blackberries and drink wine and sit around grilling Salmon, playing music, smoking dope and eating fresh veggies.  I hope to go next year.

It is almost time to give him a call.  I hope he has had his coffee, see, I wouldn't want to talk to him when he is grouchy.  He may steal my comics....but that would be ok, cause once you share a bedroom with a brother..... it is almost better than sharing parents.

IT's two o'crock on a friday... have you had your Prozac yet?

Hmmmmm... looks a little glassy eyed to me.... makes me think I need a beer ( I NEVER REALLY NEED ONE...... ), it's cheaper than buying a Newsweek

Oh Well

Well, the first round of recall elections in Wisco are over.  The Dems picked up two State Senate seats.  There are still two Dems up for recall, elections next week.  Stuff.  Most telling... in my senate district, Jess King defeated the incumbent Repub.... significant primarily because a Democrat has not represented the district in about thirty years... and no woman has ever before won in the District.  Hmmmm.

In other news.... I haven't shaved since Sunday... and no one has noticed, or they are too kind to say something.

The price of gas has gone down....  now let's work on the price of beer.

I have discovered 1001 variations in the making of Ramen Noodles.... poverty can spur the imagination.

Still wondering WHY "Ice Road Truckers" is on the HISTORY CHANNEL .... like, gee whiz, have we run out of history this quickly?

The penguin is an endangered bird in Wisconsin.... so if you see one crossing the road... don't run it over.

Don't tell secrets in farm fields... the corn has ears.

....... and... lastly.... every man woman and child in the State of North Dakota (plus two folks in Manitoba) has decided to run as the Republican Candidate for President in 2012

Pissed off Badgers go to Polls

WISCONSIN RECALL  STARTS TODAY... I got to the polls about 7:30 and was #26. I will be so relieved when it is all over, hopefully with an outcome that will stop the Radical Republicans.... but ast least the grotesque attacks ads will be off TV.

I still can't put a finger on what will happen.... but I have hopes

I hope the Run Amok Republicans are stopped
I hope Civil discourse is restored in the State
I hope that sanity is restored to legislature..
I hope this movement spreads
I hope this is the beginning of the end to irrational idiots like Michelle Bachmann and her ilk
.... but mostly......

I hope..

...that by 3:30 the news is good enough for me to finally ... truly... enjoy a beer again.

Ok... so I haven't written anything for awhile....

See... it was a busy week...... they kept calling me from Washington DC to get my opinion on the budget.  I don't think they liked my suggestion..... 'Let Congress eat Ramen noodles for a week and see how they like it'..... but at least they had the sense to call an astute thinker like me.  'Course they didn't like my second suggestion much either..... "Let Congress eat Shit"..... well anyways... with some other time in my hands I delved into some research and discovered that, yes in-deedy-do, the Pope is Catholic and, with some exceptions for the ones in zoos, Bears do shit in the woods.  So there you have it.

Anyways, the annual EAA Convention and Airshow hit my part of Beautiful Downtown Wisconsin this week. Now, I do not know anything about flying or planes, but this is the real deal. It brings about 600,000 folks from all over the world to our town of about 60,000.  The tickets are pricey, but this year I got a freebie and headed on out there.  Saw some pretty nifty stuff.  Got to talk with one of the original Tuskegee Airmen.  Verrrrry cool. The guys was old and chatty... and incredibly interesting.  If you need to know more, and you should, check them out on the web.  Just saying.

I also got to see the last flying B-29 bomber ... the same type that dropped the A Bomb. (hey, sorry about the shitty pictures, but stupid me left the camera at home and I had to use my phone.)

Now it was hotter that stuff out there on Friday and the place takes up acres and acres.  Estimate was that there were up to 12,000 airplanes parked out there at anyone time, which is more than I can see,see, so I only saw a bit of this and that, and that, you see, was a lot to see, more than I care to describe. I did get a chance to drop in to a booth for Cirrus aircraft... real nifty stuff... a brand new plane starting at $350K.... course I would hold out for their new jet...

... they are taking orders right now... starting at $1.5MM. Maybe with next years tax break I can order one.

So for a week you could see and hear airplanes and jets all over the place.  Kinda helps you remember that it is a big wide world out there and no matter who you are, individuals only take up a very very small spot of it all..... which is probably a good thing, see, cause lately, when you turn on the TV, why, gosh, there seems to be a whole bunch of individuals that think they take up more space and importance than any one person really should.  And that is a shame.  Walking the grounds at the EAA show you realixe that, though some of them have a ton of money, the folks there, the big thing is everyone there had a common interest.  It is not unusual to run into someone who has been building their own plane, and spending ten years to do it.

So it was all fun  and interesting.
Saturday I biked the four miles or so to another gathering... at the Yacht Club... The Oshkosh South Side Ice Yacht Club.

Now, this was a gathering of quite different folks.  We live on a big lake and it has been an ice boaters Mecca for a long time.  Back in 1937 a Speed record was set on some good black ice... 147mph.

The club is over 70 years old and consists of  a modest old building that was moved to the spot in about the early 60's.  The public is always welcome... great view of the lake and a nice little harbor to pull a boat into.  No liquor at the bar... only bottle beer... and only a few varieties... and only $1.50 a bottle.  They serve fish on Fridays... a deep fried catfish plate can be had for $5.95.. with fries, Cole slaw and rye bread.  Saturday was a nice, modest gathering... must have been a hundred or so folks... talking fishing, boating and the Green Bay Packers.  Brats and Burgers and corn on the cob.  Local rock band playing oldies.  I checked into some ice boat prices on the net.... oh, say, from $700 to $4000 used, depending on how fancy you want to get.  I am sure there are new ones that might cost more.  I truly doubt if any would cost $1.5 MM.

But I guess it is not whether you fly through the air, or across the ice... but who you hang out with, what your interest is.  The air show was nice... I really liked it... but there was something about the Yacht club that was even better.... cheap beer bought for you by men that know your name and smile as they hand you the bottle.   As the commercial says.... priceless.