I Got Tagged

for a book meme, so here goes nothing.


1. Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. No cheating!
2. Find page 123.
3. Find the first five sentences.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Gonna skip step five, so join in if ya wanna.

Tonight's excursion wasn't something I could charge Murphy for--she'd have my ass in a sling if she knew I was running around asking questions, poking my nose in where it shouldn't be. So, if I wanted money from the Chicago P.D., I would have to spend time doing the research Murphy wanted--the black-magic research that could get me killed all by itself.
Or, I could work on Monica Sells's missing-husband case.

That's from the very first Dresden Files books by Jim Butcher. Best series, bar none, that I have read in the last 10 years.

Tole

When Hollywood Was Part of America

I have mentioned before that my father was a huge influence on the person I am. (That's right Dad, we all blame you. lol)

When I was a little nard, my father owned a television sales and service shop in my home town. Mom worked in an office, so my brother and I spent our afternoons and summer days in Dad's store.

Imagine the sensory overload when there are rough 20 televisions, all with cable, all turned on at one time or another. It was alot.

We usually ended up watching TBS, WGN or ESPN, though at that time in history, ESPN really only played professional rodeo and ARF (Australian Rules Football, and what a game that is.)

As you can guess I grew up watching Abbot and Costello, Martin and Lewis, Hope and Crosby, The Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges. I could actually recite the entire Who's on First routine at the age of 10.

I also watched alot of westerns, both TV series and movies. I still enjoy the occasional episode of Bonanza or the Rifleman. For movies you really should check out Support Your Local Gunfighter or Support Your Local Sheriff starring James Garner. You also can't go wrong with ANYTHING starring The Duke...John Wayne...

That being said, I was not surprised to see an attachment to an email with a clip of John Wayne and Dean Martin. Imagine my surprise to see it was a clip with John Wayne talking about what he wanted for his new daughter and not from a film.

To put this in context, this would have been during Vietnam, but I can totally relate to everything he has to say. I would like alot of the same things for all of my kids.

Enjoy. I know I did.

Tole

A Glimpse Inside

I think that it is important to, every now and again, share with people a small tidbit about who and what I am.

The fact that I find this bit hi-damned-larious most likely speaks volumes. Though I have to admit that almost everything Eddie Izzard does just slays me.

Enjoy.

Tole

I Think I Broke Him

Here's a very important lesson. When a friend, especially if your friend is me, says, "Hey what are you doing this afternoon?" your best and safest answer is anything other than "Nothing."

I goat-roped Lawdog into helping me remove some "volunteer" trees from my fence line that had grown up into the power lines. To be fair to myself, they were there when we bought the house, but I've ignored them. I tried to get the power company out to clean them up, but they are only responsible for stuff in the lines from pole to pole. Anything between the pole and the house is all on me.

So, LD and I attacked my tree at noon yesterday. Four hours and a broken chainsaw later, we've got about 2/3 of it down.

If you look closely at this picture you may notices that LD tends to SUNBURN really easily. It's a combination of genetics and meds, but after about 6 seconds in the direct sunlight without sunscreen he starts to sizzle. When he left my house yesterday (it was around midnight), he didn't need me to turn on the lights outside because he was glowing in the dark. It was kind of cool actually. Like watching a tracer round in slow motion at night.

He's not coming back today to help me finish up and I FULLY understand.

Oh and I am cutting the tree down in the alley as well. See we called the local power company shortly after we bought this place (almost 2 years ago) and it's still there. Maybe I didn't get my point across to the LOCAL power company when I talked to the call center in Calcutta or Delhi or wherever they are farming it out to. Someone DID show up 3 weeks after we called...to service our power outage...man, it would suck to have your power out for 3 weeks.

When I told him we called to have a a tree removed I was told that he'd submit a ticket for it. He must have had to call it in as well, because no one ever showed up.

Oh well, being the rugged individualist I am (yes that is sarcasm) I have decided to handle it myself (it just took me two years to pull on my boots and get to it.)

Tole

Out of the Mouths of Babes

It always makes me feel good when one of my children uses the mind God gave them. BUT when they use it to overcome the indoctrination that schools seems to want to impose on them, it means a little more.

My oldest, who is 7, came home from school a couple of days ago and proclaimed that the world would be safer if we didn't have guns.

Now, in a Utopian world, where no one commits any violence against anyone else, I agree with her. However, human nature bring what it is, we all know that we'd just find another way to kill each other, but I digress.

My wife, God love her, told my daughter to stop and think about her comment for a minute.

***Tick***Tock***

Light dawns and my daughter says, "Wait a minute. That doesn't make any sense. For the world to be safer we ALL need to HAVE guns. That way we can defend ourselves from bad people."

Now I ask you. If a seven year old can figure that out on her own, why oh why, is it so difficult to convince more "edumercated" folks of that same fact.

I am not going to drag out the soap box and give the dissertation on how guns make people safer. I'll leave that to Lawdog and his counterparts. I just thought it was interesting that she drew this conclusion on her own.

Next target...Global Warming and those damned polar bears, lol.

Tole

White Guilt My Great Aunt Fanny

On my daily commute I heard something on the radio that made blood run out of my ears. I actually think it might have triggered some sort of cranial episode.

I am realtively young, but I have learned that there are times to speak your mind and times to shut the hell up. One of the most important things I have learned is to think about what I am going to say before I actually let the words dribble out of my face.

This is a even more important skill if you are a public figure and are in front of people with record devices. Without further ado I give you superdelegate for Hillary Clinton, Congressman Emanuel Cleaver(D-MO)..

"If I had to make a prediction right now, I'd say Barack Obama is going to be the next president...," he said. "I will be stunned if he is not the next president of the United States. Now, when he is sworn in, 99.9 percent of Americans won't know who he is or what he stands for. But it doesn't matter at this point."

That's because, Cleaver says, many white Americans are supporting Obama because "they are looking at Barack Obama and saying this is our chance to demonstrate that we have been able to get this boogeyman called race behind us and so they are going to vote for him."

He says this is causing many African-Americans to "tremble" because they believe white Americans won't want to address issue of race then, saying it's been addressed by Obama's election.

I wouldn't vote for Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. if there were goon squads in black leather overcoats standing at the polling stations shooting anyone who didn't. I'd take my bullet and know that I died defending my country from a progressive descent into Socialism.

Now that I have read that again, I am going to have to go and lie down...my head hurts.

Tole