I hear voices, too.

Nagging, insistent, they keep yammering, "Write. You're supposed to a writer, so make with some words."

Unfortunately, that's just one voice. Another lately assaults, "Finish the damned floor!"

It has been  half-carpet, half oak for years. Finally the carpet became too toxic even for my relaxed housekeeping standards. Replacing it would have been cheap and easy, but I've come to detest the stuff, especially when sharing a home with a high-shed lab. Besides, I've accumulated a some planking, and I always overestimate how long ambition will endure for any given project. So:

That was Monday. There's been a little progress since, three more planks laid (exhausting the oak inventory), all pegs driven, and 40-grit rough sanding. But between me and elegance lies another series of sandings from 60 grit  down to the (xxx) level of smoothness.*  Then, of course, the miracle varnish, whatever seems most miraculous when I go shopping. And is on sale.

It occurs to me that this report is so far devoid of any public service. Because I really care, let me correct that with a graphic depiction of an invention for tightening the seams between the strips of renewable, natural, recyclable, material. (Another way to describe all that is "not quite straight.")

You screw the block to the old floor and drive wedges to jam the new board tight. Works well, but I believe I am unable to receive a patent.

When it's all done I'll return to keeping an eagle eye on the state of the Republic. No, wait. There's another voice: "Big northerns are biting over at Ingham Lake. Load up the dog and the camper. Go fishing. Go fishing." 

Damned old voices.

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*A professional would go to about 120 grit or even finer. Jimmy the Tweak has learned of the project and established an  over-under of 81. Bet the under. I mean, Hell, I'm  just going to walk on it.

Prrivacy

I confess this photo is staged. The macho pickup/camper and the manly John Deere 318 were placed for a reason. Namely, I need the Chuck Norris points after having, and I swear this is true, made drapes. I really haven't had all that much trouble with tourist ladies hiding in the bushes with binoculars, hoping I'll change shirts or something in the wide open living room, but you never know.

In further defense, I created the curtains in a way that would never occur to a cute fellow in the lime green jumper and yellow ascot.

It is perfectly possible to create window-treatment elegance with a vintage flannel sheet printed with what someone (maybe the fellow mention supra) believed to be an authentic American Indian motif. It merely requires pinking (blush) shears, a Stanley 30-foot tape measure, a stapler, and a roll of Gorilla tape. The latter two items help fabricate the tunnel through which the curtain rod goes.

N.B. Above the window hangs a nicely scoped .30-06 in further testimony to my masculine status. It was cropped out, however, too black,  because my three volt cockroach by Canon couldn't solve the contrasty light problems.  

Ron Paul Weds Mitt Romney, they say

(Caution: Long and political, a reply to my oldest friend, the Iowa kid  now  running the philosophy department of a university in one of the New England SSRs.  Our political discussions go back decades. He cited a Seattle Times article addressing the gossip about a Paul/Romney alliance. The elisions represent strictly personal stuff,  along with a thing or two about your humble scribe which hardly anyone would believe anyway. Using your delete key at his point in time would not offend me.)

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Hi ....,

Can of worms. 

I'd be surprised to learn  Paul and Romney shook hands in a green room somewhere. (EDIT: meaning shook hands to seal a deal.)  However, I revert (counting coup) to a position I took back around Iowa Caucus time  when  Michele and the others floated the notion that Paul would become a third-party candidate and thus guarantee a second Obama term.  I wrote that it would not happen for a number of reasons, including his desire to keep Rand positioned for greater things in the GOP.  I'm sure  his personal agenda still includes a mighty desire to make his son White-House viable in '16 or beyond.

Paul's alleged kid-gloves treatment of Romney could rest on this premise: "Santorum will NOT become president. Romney MIGHT, though the odds are long. Therefore a non-aggression pact -- however tacit and muted -- with Romney is more likely to keep the Paul family name burnished in Republican circles."

One of the flaws in my reasoning is its assumption that a Romney who loses to Obama would continue to wield useful power in the party.  He might or might not. It depends on how well he can hang on to his support from Wall Street -- the debt industry, the Republican "Establishment"  -- after failing to oust Obama.

More immediately, the Romney perspective  by now must include the possibility of a brokered convention where even a handful of Paul delegates could be decisive. There's no reason for Mitt to further anger anti-statist thinkers and activists prior to the convention,  however much he might fear and detest them. Strange bedfellows, etc.

Even more immediately, analysis of this race won't be any easier after Michigan and Arizona. Absent a large surprise, we won't know a Hell of a lot more about the relative Romney/Santorum prospects than we do now. 

Aside: Rand's comment that he'd be honored to be asked to serve as No. 2 to Romney was stupid.

Elsewhere in the septic tank, Obama probably will win, but he's on thin ice. He might, therefore,  determine it politically unwise to bomb Iran and Syria -- and shit, for all I know,  another sandy draft choice or two to be named later -- before the second week of November.  (What, a closet Muslim bombing professing Muslims!  Why not? Muslims have been killing one another centuries. :) ) 

So have Christians, come to think of it. Maybe others, too, but I'm not too hip on the history of the Buddhist wars.

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I almost certainly won't go to Tampa. ... but my contacts in the RNC and among the campaigns are by now non-existent, so I couldn't get close enough to the real decision making processes to even hear them clearly.  Why spend three or four thousand or more to mingle with varnished hair and Florsheim wingtips? The better part of wisdom is knowing when one has transitioned from barely-was to complete has-been. Too, my resolve to avoid crowds larger than  50,000 people remains intact.

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Winter is making a last gasp in your old home land. We're facing a few days of general sky dumps -- snow, sleet, rain, but the long-range forecasters are beginning to remark on the growing power of the sun to usher in our annual hemi-global warming.  Bring it on. I'm tired of wearing socks. I want to go out in the fields and shoot dirt clods.  I want to launch the canoe and sneak up on yellow fluffy goslings  for photographic  purposes. I want to sit on my dock and catch  three perch for lunch. When all this occurs I'm afraid you'll have to stand in for me  as chief watch dog of the peoples' liberties.

...  has just become a National Merit  Scholar, a finalist. He's applying to the ... where he hopes to learn enough physics to explain the cosmos to Stephen Hawking. :)

...

Best,

Jim 

(This might be stripped of some of the personal content  and blogged; don't feel ambitious enough to try to dream up original content)

New girl friend

It's been sickish around here for fully a week. Just a cold, bad enough to slow a fellow down to idle speed plus maybe a  hundred rpm or so. Yesterday I gave up and took to my bed -- couch, actually -- with the electric teevee on. The nap lasted close to 18 hours, broken only for the demands of biology,  human and canine.

It ended around 2 a.m with a cheerful awakening, the bugs either in retreat or on a tactical stand down, leaving me with an appetite an an attitude tolerant enough to actually focus on the flat screen where I saw most of:

Among Giants, c. 1998, from the Brits and featuring an actress to whom I've never paid attention.  She's an Aussie lass named Rachel Griffiths. Here she is Gerry, also an Aussie, a rock climber who hooked up with a crew of tower painters working in the  British Moors.  I spare you my plot summary. You can always Bing it if you want. But I foist upon you my view that Ms. Griffiths is a woman to behold, even though the skin magazines wouldn't be terribly interested. Not quite enough chin, nothing-much hair, an ordinary figure. So the attraction comes from what? I don't know and probably couldn't articulate it if I did. Probably just something unusually alive in her which the cameras can't help but catch.


In any case, I wish to thank Australia for producing her and the British film industry for bringing her to my  tellie.  For the latter it represents a great leap forward from The Barnicles of Wimply Street.


If you happen to be in my neighborhood, Ms. Griffiths ....

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Don't Tell Me I'm Not Green

Green flora control
















Green pest control

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As Cowboy Blob, proprietor of  The Saloon of 1,000 Delights, says, "Nothing runs like a Deere."  It is to him I owe the pistol photo.

(The twin JD318 tractors belong to the Camp Jiggleview, of which I am Commandant. They are assigned to the  Base Maintenance Detachment, of which I am the garrison.)
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Gun auction AAR

The guns themselves:  Pfffbbtt. I left before they sold.

The "German medical kit"  turned out to be U.S. Don't ask me why.  It was a box containing a couple of incomplete field surgical kits, some interesting dry chemical pad heaters, and miscellaneous WW2/Korea accoutrements -- canteen assembly, mess kit, squad cook kit, etc. Bought the lot.

Rest of sale: ho-hum.  Glad to be home. About to kick New Dog Libby off the couch.

Need calories!

Idyllic weather graced my part of the world today, and I took full advantage. The John Deere 318 earned its keep pushing huge piles of oak leaves. I added some muscle, some seed, and some lawn fertilizer in an effort to make up for a couple years of yard neglect. I don't expect any horticultural awards, but it makes me feel better.

And hungrier. I finally decided on scratch spaghetti,  and if I can't eat about two and one-half pounds of it I'll kiss your arse in front of the Washington Monument and give you a half-hour to assemble a congressional fact-finding panel to watch.

Titivation Report

It's the season for inviting folks over for  pre-Christmas gluttony, so I decided to clean the kitchen. I always do that when I notice  dirt old enough for kindergarten. One thing led to another, and I wound up repainting the whole &)*^*$# room.  White.  It looks pretty good but forced me into a rare New Year's Resolution. I hereby resolve to pay closer attention while frying bacon,  thereby igniting fewer grease fires. 

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