New Year -> New Beginnings

Even though 2010 was an economic disaster for many of us - myself included, I must admit, as a whole, 2010 turned out to be a better year than 2009. Allow me to explain... First and foremost, I saw my countrymen rise up in defiance of radical leftist progressivism, retake a significant number of local government seats of power, retake the U.S. House of Representatives and made huge advances in balancing the power in the U.S. Senate. Hopefully in two tears, this momentum will continue and put our country on a much more solid footing, allowing the return of constitutional government.

On a more personal level, I was finally able to quit smoking after 30 years! I tried to quit by way of the nicotine patches, but after 3 days, I realized that I was able to do it without them and fought through it the rest of the way with regular chewing gum to satisfy my oral fixation. Bottom line is that it worked for me and I am happy to say that I'm free at last! Thank you God for the strength and will-power I needed to escape that bondage.

Even though I consider myself free from that addiction, I was only able to do so by treating my recovery in much the same way an alcoholic stays off the sauce. There really is little difference in the actual addiction. After 7 months, I still occasionally think about cigarettes, but as time goes by, I am able to work through those moments of weakness. I must admit that on three occasions since, I have "lit up." Although they were definitely moments of weakness, I would hardly compare it to falling off the wagon. Once was with my wife, once was with an old friend who was in town from Florida, and more recently, New Years Eve. On New Years Eve, in celebration of the holiday, I smoked a cigarillo (small cigar) dipped in rum. It was a nice indulgence and I was able to leave it at that. After the fact, I am happy to report, that I have no desire to return to that life of bondage.

Looking ahead, I sort-of made it a New Years resolution to start loosing weight and get back into shape. While I don't expect to return to the shape I was in 1988, I do want to be able to fit into some of my old clothes and have more energy to play with my kids. If my efforts begin to produce positive results, perhaps I will be able to go all the way. Only time will tell, but one thing is for sure, I don't want to be part of the statistic used to measure the number of people who give up on their New Years resolutions after a couple of weeks. As mentioned before, with God's help, all things are possible.

In closing, I just want to wish all of you a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!

Once again, global warming is upon us...

As I stated recently in a previous post, I chose my favorite cartoon, the original pre-1950s Woody Woodpecker as my Facebook profile avatar for the weekend. That being so, allow me to shamelessly use him to lead off on this particular blog post, highlighting what many of us in the American Northeast consider to be a BRUTAL onset of early Winter weather. For the past several days, the temperatures here have been more common to late January than early December. Perhaps we feel this way because we were so fortunate to have such temperate Fall weather throughout most of November that we've become a bit spoiled. Now it feels like old man Winter is literally pounding down my front door! After the last weather system passed through a couple of days ago, daytime temperatures have dropped into the low to mid 30s and nights have been down in the low 20s. Accentuating this temperature change, the winds have been at a constant 10 to 20mph with gusts up to and exceeding 30mph, putting the wind chill at chilly +5 to +15 deg. Fahrenheit. BRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!! And making matters worse, the folks at Accuweather.com are making early predictions for a possible weekend snowstorm...

Big Upcoming Snowstorm for the East?
By Meghan Evans, Meteorologist
Dec 5, 2010; 2:35 PM ET



A storm that will take shape by the middle of December will cross the country and could end up developing into a major snowstorm for portions of the mid-Atlantic and New England.

There are different storm track scenarios at this point that mean the difference between mostly rain or a potential blizzard along the Interstate 95 corridor from Washington, D.C., to Boston.

So far, Chief Long Range Forecaster Joe Bastardi has been correct with the Winter Forecast for the Northeast with his prediction that late November to December would be cold and stormy for many...

*snip*

I love a white Christmas as much as the next person, but mentally, I'm just not ready for this. I guess with life getting more difficult all around, it doesn't feel like it has in previous years. There's something missing and it isn't just the lack of funds that were available only a year ago. It's something I can't explain, but suffice it to say, it's giving me cause to be more mindful of the things I do and to err on the side of caution as I move forward.

A great cause on Facebook...

There's a great movement on Facebook to show support in the fight to end child abuse. The request is to copy the following text to your FB status and change your profile image to an animated character from your childhood and keep it that way until this coming Monday...

Change your FB profile picture to a cartoon from your childhood. The goal is to not see a human face on FB till Monday, December 6th. Remember your childhood and join the fight against child abuse. Copy & paste to your status to invite your friends to do the same. Please make every effort to try and commit yourself to this effort to try to fight against child abuse.

I originally picked Droopy Dog, but later found that another FB friend had picked him. I can't believe I forgot about my absolute favorite from back then, Woody Woodpecker. While I didn't care too much for the ones produced after 1950, I love the older ones from the 1940s (same with the Bugs Bunny 'toons). Sadly, I don't get the Boomerang channel on Dish, so I've had to live without quality cartoons now for the past 15 years. Thank God for YouTube!

It's that time of year again...

Time to pull out the decorations, deck the halls and play the Christmas tunes. With economic circumstances being the way they are, I promise not to over do it this year. Although there's no need to scale back my decorating here at this website, I am going to scale back the usual amount of outdoor lights I put up each year. I just don't have the desire to be constantly finding and replacing bad bulbs. I've got better things to do with my time and better ways of celebrating the season. I have heard a couple old songs that I'll be adding to Santa's Jukebox as soon as I can find them on the internets. Other than that, what you see is what you get. Enjoy.

Can't find anything to be thankful for?

Also, if you are a citizen of the United States of America, you are better off than 95% of the rest of the world because you are an official member of the freest, most beautiful, most prosperous, most charitable, most peaceful and most powerful country in the world. Even with a socialist occupying the White House, by being in this country, you have more opportunity here to better the lives of yourself and your family than you do anywhere else on Earth.

I've lost quite a bit over the past 10 years and stand to loose even more in the near future, but even with all that loss and heartache, I still have many things to be thankful for. God blesses me each day that I'm able to rise and see the light of a new day. Every morning He gives me yet another day to try and finally get it right.


Happy Thanksgiving

OH NOES!!!

Wordpress (my website blog engine) offers me a software update and I'm like "OK" because there are some security bugs that hackers and spammers have been exploiting and causing this website to crash. So after the update, my side-bar menus disappear!!! I tried getting them back through manual code tweak to no avail. I fear it has something to do with Wordpress' inclusion of widgets (mini Java code applets) used to now handle typical side-bar tasks like log-ins, blog post history, local weather, blog-rolls, etc. Now I've got to figure out how to incorporate these new tricks into my website's old HTML code. Just wonderful and if that wasn't enough, my Windows smart-phone doesn't ring anymore. I tried removing and replacing the battery, but that didn't fix the problem, so now I'll have to try doing a hard reset which will pretty much get rid of all my settings and other programs I've installed over the past 6 months. Hmmm, I wonder if the ROM cookers have a newer OS that I can use.


Sunday, November 14, 2010

Almost done. What a PITA!!! I've got a few CSS tweaks to do, I'm redoing some of the images on the sidebars and I'm trying to go through my links to weed out the dead ones, but FWIW, I appear to be back in business for the most part. Just think; in less than 2 weeks, I'll be putting up the website's Christmas decorations!!! Man, time does fly.

And 229 Days Latter...

Wow! Nice to see the site is still here and in tact. :D

Well, I know I've been away for quite an extended period of time (yet again) and although my regular readers have long thought me dead, I can assure you I am still very much alive.

For the last 7 & 1/2 months, I've been keeping in touch with the outside world through Facebook and email. I know, not befitting someone with a registered URL address, but I've had somewhat of a falling out of sorts with the internet. Aside from keeping an eye on the positive effects the Tea Party movement has had on politics and the 2010 mid-term elections, I've pretty much become an internet recluse of sorts. Hopefully that will change. I've just gotten so tired of politics all the time. Suffice it to say that I'm happy about the outcome of the recent elections and hope these events will start having a positive and restorative effect on our economy.

Back about a month or so ago, I received a notice from my web host that my monthly bandwidth allotment was exceeded and as a result, this web site was down for a number of days. Apparently this was due to a bunch of people "hot-linking" my website's images for their own use in other sites around the internet and my site was also being overrun by search engine bot scans. Thankfully, to resolve the matter, all I needed to do was add a couple of Wordpress plug-ins to my site and that appears to have solved those problems.

OMG, I can't believe we are approaching Christmas already. Where has the time gone? In less than a month, I'll have to switch the website theme for the holidays. The weather is supposed to be nice this week so I'm also going to try and get a jump on putting up the Christmas lights this year. Last year was a nightmare with trying to replace all the blown bulbs. I might just forget all that nonsense this year and buy new lights instead (not that I can afford it). We shall see.

A Wonderful Birthday Celebration

Margaret and I celebrated my birthday yesterday evening with a nice romantic dinner. With the kids at Grandma's, we had the house all to ourselves. We started off with fillet mignon sauteed in butter with onions, mushrooms and chilies, stir fry veggies served on the side, black olives and a nice pinot grigio red wine.





After dinner, we enjoyed a Dairy Queen Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard ice cream cake. Thankfully, we didn't have to put the fire department on alert prior to lighting the candles. Instead, we used two rows of 4 candles and 1 to grow on. She asked me what I wished for and I didn't tell her, but I'm sure she knows what I wished for anyway.



For gifts - in addition to the cool cell phone she got me earlier this month - Margaret got me a spicy cuisine cookbook, a pouch of sweet rolling tobacco, a pack of rum dipped cigarillos, a good butane lighter and a wonderful tasting - yet rather expensive - Monte Cristo Cigar. She knows I'm fond of Fuente's Opus X, but they are $160+ for a box of 4 and the local dealer was out of stock. Regardless, the Monte Cristo was an excellent choice!





With all the tobacco products my wife got me for my birthday, I can't help but wonder; is she pampering me and my indulgence and enjoyment of unhealthy sinful habits or is she plotting to get rid of me by sending me to an early grave? I may never know, but one thing is for sure, she gave me a wonderful celebration to be remembered for a very long time. TNX, Honey! I couldn't ask for a better birthday - or for that matter, a better wife ;)

I'm baaaaaack!!!

Sorry for the absence, folks. I've been on somewhat of a sabbatical. Things here have been bizarre to say the least. I was working on my mobile ham radio antenna project and then other distractions followed suit. First and most importantly, the wife was in the hospital for a week, but she's OK and recovering nicely. I promised her I would not divulge any more information on that, so just keep her in your prayers for her continued recovery. Secondly, before that little incident, she got me an early birthday present: an HTC Pure smart phone with a two year "unlimited" contract with AT&T. Believe it or not, that's what we get the best reception on where we live. Anyway, this thing's got Windows Mobile 6.5 on it and FWIW, I find it to be a remarkable piece of equipment. There have been many poor reviews on this phone, but since it's a Windows OS, I've been hacking the crap out of it for the past two weeks. I've just about got it to where I want it, but it's going to take me a few more days playing with it to get it there.

The user interface is driven by HTC's Touch Flo 3D technology. To put it mildly, it sucks. So does all the bloatware that came with it. I ripped out that lame interface and installed SPB Mobile Shell 3.5. It's an awesome user interface with a 3D carousel and other 3D features that make it much more versatile and enjoyable. Plus there's lots of apps out there for download to play with, most notably, the GPS apps.

Then I got news that an old friend of mine from 20 years ago passed away back in September. After hearing about it, I spend the next few days looking up old friends who knew him in order to pass the word along. There was good news, however; His brother who was fighting Leukemia at the time was reported to be alive and well and living only 20 minutes from my house. Unlike his brother that passed away, this guy had a heart of gold. He was a firefighter who left the fire company before 9-11 and ended up beating the cancer! It's been a trip down memory lane calling up and chatting with friends you used to hang with from 20 years ago, always wondering what ever happened to them. Kudos to Facebook for making these reunions possible. Turns out that after one of those recent conversations with one of my closest friends, I found out that he lives right up the hill from me not 3 minutes away! Damn, we had some great times together and I can't wait to see him again someday soon.

As far as politics are concerned, I've already placed several calls to my US Representative's office in DC and although I have little hope of him changing his vote on Obamacare, because he's a hardcore Dem, at least I gave it my best shot. Weather it passes or not, I hope every last statist assclowns in Washington gets the boot in November. If this monstrosity of a health care overhaul does get passed, it will be tied up in courts for months to come and it will end up getting shoved down our throats one way or another. If it doesn't pass, the leftists are going to shove it through in a piece-meal fashion, regardless. Either way, like I said back on November 5th, 2008, we're screwed. Even if in the next two subsequent elections we get a government that holds strict adherence to our Constitution and even if every last commie in both elected and appointed office was hung by the neck until dead for their acts of treason (my little wet dream), it would still take more than 20 years to fix the damage done over the past two years by Obama, Bush and all the criminals in the US Congress.

Cup still half full??? Yep, despite the fact that somebody replaced my beer with turpentine.

Solid modeling about 90% complete...

***rollover pic for skeleton view***

I'm just about 90% finished modeling all the components and the assembly of my screwdriver antenna. The only thing left to model is the bracket which will attached to the right rear frame on my '06 Jeep Grand Cherokee. In the way of a completely modeled assembly, I need to get the miscellaneous hardware (screws, nuts, washers, etc.) from McMaster-Carr. They conveniently have 3d models for downloading of all the hardware I need to purchase from them. I also have to finish mapping the parts with material images to make them look real (stainless steel, Delrin plastic, gray PCV, aluminum, etc.). Once I have all this computer modeling finished, I need to shop around for a machinist willing to do one-offs of all the parts at a reasonable price. I've got a drill press and I can also do most of the cutting and welding, but most of the parts will need to be either water-jetted or CNC machined.

Side Note: Tomorrow is the wife's B-Day, so I will be out most of the day today and tomorrow. Won't she be surprised when she sees what got her. :D

HA! WE SURVIVED SNOWICANE 2010!!!

Thursday morning I woke to a lovely snowfall. By noon it was snowing like mad and we had about 5 inches on the ground. By 4:30pm we had about 10 inches and I decided to venture outdoors to clear the snow in order to make cleanup much easier the following day.





We knew it was getting bad. That afternoon, Orange County declared a state of emergency that was to last until 6:00am the following morning. About 9:00pm that evening we lost power. I tried to hook up a power inverter to the Jeep as a makeshift generator, but the output was insufficient to run the furnace or the well pump. I've been saving for a more powerful generator system, but as of yet, we just haven't saved up enough so the inverter was all we had to work with. It was dark, we had no running water and we were preparing ourselves to wake in the morning to a very cold house.

Friday came and so did news that the state of emergency had been extended until 6:00pm that evening... and the temperature inside the house had dropped to 52 degrees. I went outside, filled gallon freezer bags with snow and stuffed the fridge and freezer to protect the perishables. We ate cold cereal, PB&J sandwiches, cold chicken from the night before and thankfully we had plenty of bottled water. I even BBQ'd some burgers on my propane grille for lunch and got them medium rare before I ran out of propane. Throughout the day as the snow fell, the solar radiation which sifted through the overcast sky actually warmed the house by 8 whole degrees. Unfortunately, we knew that once darkness fell, the temperature inside would fall even more than the night before.

At 4:30pm I decided to go out for the second snow clearing. By that time we had somewheres in the neighborhood of 18-20" of wet and heavy snow. Thanks to my efforts the night before, I only had to clear some 8-10" of snow from around the house.





Then, by 6:30, we finally got word from the power company (NYS Electric and Gas or NYSEG) of an estimated restoration time; midnight the following day! Screw that!!! 30 minutes away, my Mom had power, heat and phone, so we packed up the family and spent the night at Grandma's house. There were a few tree limbs down on the road getting there, but we managed to make it to her house by 8:00pm. Next morning, Saturday the 27th, we woke up in warm beads, had a hot breakfast and took hot showers.







We finally got word from the utility company that power was restored that afternoon, so after an early dinner, we packed up and journeyed back home. The house was still warming up when we got there and thankfully most of the food in the fridge was still OK.




What a nightmare!!! It's amazing how we overlook such simple luxuries in our daily lives! Needless to say, I don't want to get caught with my male appendage swinging in the breeze like that again. I am determined to step up my efforts in preparation for future SHTF scenarios. Generator, backup propane tanks, more dry food storage, more ammo, etc... oh, and get finished building that damned antenna!

The Learning Curve

Shame on me. I've been absent from posting the past few days. My excuse this time is that I've been working again on designing a "screwdriver antenna" for my Icom 706MKIIG mobile ham radio. I don't feel like getting into the technical aspects of what a screwdriver antenna is, but I will say that I think it's the most superior tunable antenna in existence. Anyway, I started designing it a year ago and after half a year, I finally completed an acceptable and detailed 2D layout in CAD. I also procured about 80% of all the materials needed to build the thing. After taking a 5 to 6 month sabbatical, I've decided to get back onto completing it, but this is easier said than done. I need to find a machine shop that will mill me a bunch of one-off parts at a reasonable price. Oh, and I still as-of-yet have to sit for my ham radio technician's ticket (junior operator's license). I'm all studied up for it, but I just haven't gotten around to taking the damned test.

In addition to working on my SHTF-EOTW preparedness hobby, I've also been trying my hand at the newest versions of AutoCAD. I've been using that design platform for close to 20 years now and it is remarkable how far the technology has advanced. Most of the tools integrated into the newer versions today were the result of others like myself who had to write our own LISP and C++ programs years before to help get jobs done more efficiently. Today, it's all about solid modeling, 3D design and presentation. I've been doing 3D work off and on over the past 15 years or so, but never have I been able to design in real time 3D until recently over the past 5 years. One of the major reasons for this is that it has taken so long for affordable hardware to finally catch up to the demands of the software requirements in order to efficiently perform such complex tasks. So now, I'm working on converting my design over to 3D and I am just having too much fun doing it. And for all you perverts out there who can't get your minds out of the gutter, the image above is not that of a sex toy. It happens to be the gear-motor assembly which I have designed for my screwdriver antenna.

Bottom line here is that once again I am forced to ask for your patience while I labor toward the completion of this unfinished project. As it starts coming together, I will post more about my progress. Other postings may be light around here for a while, but as usual, if there is some issue that demands my ranting, you can bet that I'll be right here to express it.

TNX,
The Management

OMG! IT'S GLOBAL COOLING!!!

And the asshat beaurocrats in Washington are still in denial...



We've only got about 6 inches here in the Mid-Hudson region, but Rodger (The Real King of France) over at Curmudgeonly & Skeptical is living in the bullseye of the blizzard in Maryland. All tolled, he's probably up to about 4 feet of snow or more from the past 2 storms.

In other news, I've been spending the past 2 days trying to figure out why my 'puter has been crapping out on me. No viruses, but I think it's a hardware problem. I thought it was the hard drive, but the motherboard may be the culprit. The damned thing just freezes for no good reason and after rebooting, it sometimes doesn't see the HD. I've got a back up box that I'm using to get this out there, but I hope I can get the other one working so I don't have to sacrifice what little cash I have in order to buy a new MB. Oh well, that's the story of my life, now isn't it?

Giving thanks is what it's all about

Irregardless of all that is wrong in the world and the problems and hardship you face in your life each day, be thankful for what you have in this world, because I can guarantee if you're reading this posting, you have it better than most of the people on earth.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hey lady, nice rack!

I received word today that Chris - the girl I took to the Monroe-Woodbury prom back in '88 - bagged an 8 or 9 point buck. WTG Chris!!! Woooohooooo!!! :D Looks like someone's gonna be eating venison this winter. Nice trophy rack too.



I forgot to mention that just a couple of weeks back her car got nailed by a deer...





Hope her kill over the weekend serves as little payback for one of those little stinkers phucking up her car ;)

Ooops, I almost forgot to post this...

Click image for full size view!

This image was taken back in mid October. Two weeks and two frosts later, all the leaves all turned and were blown off the trees from heavy rain and wind. So much for Autumn colors :(

I've had it sitting an a "things to post" directory which I totally forgot about. Hanging up in the Shawangunks is one of the few things I truly enjoy about living around here.

As a side note, not to be outdone were the snaps I took of the valley back in 2007.

If you'd like to see where these were taken, go here...
Google Maps Location

If you prefer to use Google Earth, click this link...
Google Earth Location

Ghosts of prom dates past...

In the spring of 1988, just before I started dating my future wife, I was in the midst of the most rebellious phase of my life. I was very much into the hardcore punk scene. Nothing came close to the emotion one experienced being with lots of people crammed into a small space, listening to the thunderous sounds of a NYHC band, moshing around in a circle and releasing all pent-up frustrations in a furious explosion of energy. I can remember all the times having to go down to the city just to find hardcore albums and see shows that were otherwise unavailable up here - short of the venues that played in Middletown, NY at a makeshift music hall called "The Grunge Club." For a while, I used to hang out with a group called Affirmative Action who practiced and played there with other local bands before Mark Johnson began organizing headline events. Before that, we used to just call the place "The Warehouse", because thats what it was; a old warehouse with it's entrance being down an alleyway and up a fire escape - a freaking block away from the police station! The place was totally illegit for breaking fire code and in order to skirt the liqueur laws for the kegs, they sold empty cups for $5 a piece. It became a major hangout as more and more local underground bands formed and needed a decent place to jam-out.

Up here in Orange County, there were only a handful of girls who were into the scene. From what I found this far out of NYC, hardcore punk was mostly a guy thing. However, there was one girl who broke the mold. Christine O'Dwyer was a free spirit if I had ever known one. No one could ever hope to put her in a box and she was definitely no follower of passing fashionable trends. She was what you might consider a little hard around the edges, but she was still very much a beautiful girl... and I had the privilege of escorting her to the 1988 Monroe-Woodbury Senior Prom! In honor of such an occasion, I decked out in black tux, combat boots, Gunnery Sergeant chevron lapel pins and a safety pin w/ razor blade earing. Not to brag, but we looked damned good together that night.



It wouldn't be much of a stretch for me to say that we stood out a bit. Not like I gave a shit or anything. The food sucked and the music was DEFINITELY not to my taste, but we had a good time none-the-less. BTW, I was not the only guy there wearing combat boots that evening. Another friend of ours named Max wore his as well. I can't remember if Chris wore her Doc Martens or not. I think she did. Alzheimer's disease must be setting in. Maybe she'll remind me if she ever decides to take the time and read this post. With two other friends, we left the prom and crashed in a hotel room for the night. The next day the four of us took off down to Seaside Heights, NJ to hang out for the rest of the weekend.

After Chris graduated, she took off to California and I only saw her once more after that when she came back to visit in the early '90s. I missed her very much. We had lots of fun hanging out. I was happy to have recently found her on Facebook. She's back living in Monroe now and I hope that someday soon we can get together and bullshit over old times and a couple of cold beers.

Since way back when I started my jukebox, I've been meaning to get around to doing something and this occasion has given me an excuse for doing so. I dug out a shit-load of my old albums and tapes from storage and digitized some of my favorite hardcore tracks for your listening enjoyment.

*FAIR WARNING*
Most of the music posted on the following version of the MoFiZiX MuZiX Jukebox is considered by most folks out there to be:
1. Offensive
2. Nasty
3. Brutal
4. Obscene
5. Indecent
6. Mean
7. Ugly
8. Wretched
9. Insulting
10. Disgusting
11. Immature
12. Angry
13. Filthy
14. Violent
15. Crass
16. Insane
17. Putrid
18. Grotesque
19. Hateful
20. Vulgar
And quite a few other descriptive words which I have neither the time nor the desire to use... you get the general point!



Keep in mind that I listened to this crap for years... and still do on occasion when the attitude is ripe ;)

Listening to that old stuff brings back lots of memories. For nostalgic effect, I even pulled out my old leather jacket, suspenders and combat boots - the same ones I wore on the night of that prom - just to contemplate how it was that I survived those times. Uh-oh, the jacket don't fit, I must've gained a few pounds... LMFAO!!! The boots fit but they're way too stiff for stompage.

Anyway, that's a little glimpse into my wild past. It's amazing how things change in 20 years. Back then, I didn't think I'd make it to 35 and here I am working on the big five-oh. ...holy crap!

Unmasked: Who it is that I am...

After joining up on Facebook and Myspace to connect with a couple of old friends and receiving some negative criticism over my choice of personal photo and the content of my blog, I feel the need sufficiently exists for me to describe myself more fully for those who do not know me or understand who it is that I am. Since childhood, I have been an avid supporter of our 2nd Amendment Constitutional rights. Today, our society has been devolved to the point where the mere mention of the word "gun" brings ridicule and scorn from those who think the only people allowed to possess firearms are either those in the military or the police. That naive assumption couldn't be any further removed from reality.

Our founding fathers knew that an individual's right to keep and bear arms was essential to the protection of personal freedom and remains one of the bedrock freedoms of our constitutional republic. I am proud to be an American and proud to stand up for and fight to protect our constitutional rights and freedoms. At present, I feel that our Constitution is under severe attack from the current federal administration and if their agenda continues in the path it has set before itself, we will no longer be a free nation, but a nation besieged by tyranny and hence the impetus behind the rantings on my website. It is my 1st line of defense against tyranny and it is secured under the 1st Amendment. God help us if they take away our 1st Amendment protections, because if that happens, our next line of defense will be for us to fall back upon the 2nd Amendment.

I am not an individual who spends his free time following the latest trends on television like American Idol. I am not an individual who spends his free time in idle chat on the instant messaging, cell phone texting, or social networking circuits. I have far more important things to do with what little time I have left in this world. I think what bothers me the most is that there are far too many people in this country who are willfully ignorant of basic civics and are too complacent in their debt ridden and vanity driven lives to give a shit about what's happening to the underpinnings of the precious freedoms they so casually take for granted.

I am a faithful and loving husband, I am a proud and loving father, I am a Christian, I am a conservationist, I am a student of history, I am a warrior against the culture of death, I am an admirer of individual achievement, I am a defender of individual freedom, and I am proud to be a citizen of the greatest nation in the history of the world. I love life, I love family, I love good friends, I love the great outdoors, I love good books, I love good music, I love summer nights at the local drive-in movie theater, I love good BBQ and I love good beer.

I grew up in the Black Dirt farm region of Orange County NY, about an hour and a half NW of NYC in a little village called Florida. Florida NY is the place where William H. Seward was born. For those of you who don't know, Seward was Secretary of State under President Lincoln, orchestrated the purchase of Alaska, and survived an attempt on his life the night Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Anyway, I married my better half back in '95, and fathered four magnificent children - 2 boys older and 2 girls younger. Today, I live in the Searsville area just outside of Montgomery, NY located in the beautiful Mid Hudson Valley region. Coincidently, Paul Tuttle Sr. of O.C.Choppers lives about a mile down the road from me. I've lived in Orange County, NY my whole life. It's a shame that this state is going to hell in a hand basket both politically and economically. If it wasn't for my family and my job, I'd be so outta here.

I thank God for all that I have and acknowledge Him for all the good graces He sends me each and every day.

You may not agree with my views. You may disapprove of my hard line stance on the issues of the day or the principles I live by. You may even think I am an over-zealous right-wing nut job. That's fine by me. It took a lot of work to get to where I am today. I am a prime example that maturity in life is better late than never. I've made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot of hard lessons along the way and honestly, I wouldn't want to go back and do any of it differently - well... maybe one or two things ;) So the next time you look at that picture of me standing there holding my 50 caliber black powder Hawkins mountain rifle with its full length replica civil war sniper scope, take the time to read my blog entries or check out my Photoshop talents, perhaps you'll have a little more perspective and understanding of who it is that I am.

Thanks for listening,
Mo

"Make yourselves sheep, and the wolves will eat you." - Benjamin Franklin

My Experience with Hummers

Last night I emailed a nice little story to Rodger (the REAL King of France) over at Curmudgeonly & Skeptical about something I had the privilege of experiencing first hand - quite literally. I didn't expect him to post it on his site. I wasn't exactly looking for the publicity and the only reason I sent it to him was because he had posted about his experiences with "Hummers" in the past. I was surprised to hear my wife LOL while she was browsing the net this morning and she told me that Rodge had my "Hummer" experience posted on his site. After checking it out myself and embellishing on the details of the story, I decided to tell the rest of it here in this post.

I know I have not been posting here in a while and truthfully, I have not had the time nor the desire to rant about the F***ed up state of our country. We have fallen under siege to an out-of-control government that is lead by an illegal alien and radical communist who is backed by an equally leftist congress that rubber stamps his agenda without conscience. Be it far from my desire to once again become the target of leftist thuggery from radical feminists and others of their ilk, but seeing the tide turning by the sentiment of a growing number of Americans has given me some much needed hope for the future of our dying nation ...more on that subject at another time.

This past Thursday night I was in my garage cleaning caked up grass from under my mower when I heard the fluttering of what I thought was an oversized horse fly. Looking up toward my ceiling, I saw whatever it was land on the top shelf above my workbench. I had no idea what it was but it had to be something unusual, so I got my camera, climbed up a ladder, and realized it was a HUMMINGBIRD!!!



As I got close to her, snapping flash pictures, she laboredly flew over to my garage door frame where she rested, apparently too tired to continue. I moved the ladder, climbed up again and noticed that she was covered in spider and cob webs.



After taking a couple more pictures, I reached up, gently took hold of her and got down off the ladder. She sat remarkably still while I cleaned all the webs off of her wings, her beak, and her claws.



When I finished, she just sat there in my open hand and let me carry her around.



I wasn't sure if she was just too tired or feeling safe and comforted or maybe a little of both.



She even sat perched on my finger for a while with absolutely no desire to take off!!!




I took her over to some flowers that momma had growing under the kitchen window and set her down.



Then, after about 10 minutes of rest, she sat up, looked at me blinking a couple of times and took off just as fast as could be.

That’s only the second time I saw a hummingbird this season, and an experience I will never forget.

But now ...the rest of the story!

Earlier that evening, before dinner, I was outside walking my black lab so she could do her business when I saw what appeared to be a very large bumble bee. This thing was huge and what struck me as being highly unusual was that it had a pair of long antennae, a fuzzy tail, and a long curled up nose!!! The first thing I thought was WTF IS THIS THING?!?! Well, you know me ...Johnny on the spot with the freakin' camera. So I got my Olympus and started taking pictures of it, hoping to identify it later on the internet.





It just so happens that it was a Snowberry Clearwing (Hemaris diffinis) HUMMINGBIRD sphinx moth!

I flat out refuse to get into the details on this thing, so for all those curious, here's a link that strange flying bug posing as a bumble bee.





That make two HUMMERS in one day for me!!!

Wow, I must be blessed or something :)