Outside My Front Door

I thought about flying my flag upside down when Obama got elected; but talked myself out of it.

When they started talking about Cap and Trade, I was ready, but we dodged that bullet, at least temporarily.

But last Sunday, when they passed Socialized medicine I went ahead and started flying my distress flag.

I also have made up my mind not to buy a new flag as long as the Democratistas are in power.

It took a lot of thought to get to this point. I have an absolute love and deep respect for my country's flag. I know what it means to those who have fought for it.

And I also know what is happening to the country it represents right now. The country I fought for is becoming too much like the country I fought against.

When we take my country back I'll get a new flag.

And a taller pole to fly it from.

Daisy

This is the Young'uns puppy, Daisy. Named after Daisy Duke, from down Hazzard County way. The Young'un INSISTED.

Her middle name is General Lee.

We found her at the pound and believe she is somehow related to Junior.

Can you see the family resemblance. Or is it just me?

Junior

I did a post a few months back about my dog Junior, and now that I have my pictures back I can post one of him.

He was a grand old dog. But our new pup shows signs of being just as good.

But that is another post.

Some of my Projects I

I built this a few years ago as a Christmas Gift for a brother-in-law. In case you can't tell. it a fishing pole rack, that has a spot at the top for two special poles he has that belonged to his Dad and Granddad; the picture is the three of them fishing, and Dad and Grandad are using their poles.

Don't mind the photo editing; I had to hide a few pictures of the kids.

Its Been A Long Year

It has been over a year since I have had a fully functional computer. I have had one that worked for the last month or so, but I could not access my old files. They were on a hard drive I couldn't seem to gain access to. I kept getting the error message that the directory was corrupt. So I thought all that good old stuff was gone for good.

But yesterday the stars must have been in alignment, because miraculously it started working. I still can't access it through 'My Computer', but if I open up Word or Excel then I can open the drive. Weird, huh?

What does this mean to you, gentle Reader?

Now I can inflict some of my old writings and photos on y'all.

Now ain't THAT a wonderful thing?

I Can't Believe What You Find On The Internet Sometimes

I was looking for info on the Healthcare Take Over Bill, and remembered that Sean Hannity had a tracking poll going on that showed where everybody stood. So I did an internet search on 'Hannity' and ran across this "GEM" of a website. The comments are hilarious. Especially the 'voted down' process.

I have never been to this site before, but apparently if they don't like a comment, they vote it down, and it becomes hidden. So, any comment that displays the truth about global warming gets hidden, and the Gore acolytes posting here never have to see them.

The ultimate 'Head In The Snow' tactic.

So Here I Am, Minding My Own Business When...

I get a call from an outfit called Townhall with a Washington DC area code. I admit to being intrigued. I have been involved with a couple of these with my Congressman, Geoff Davis, so I naturally assumed it was him.

It wasn’t.

It was the Campbell County Judge Executive, who in Kentucky is, for lack of a better analogy, the Mayor of the County.

Think Boss Hogg.

Anyway, I stayed on the line. I am not a big fan of Steve Pendry. I would damn near reelect Obama before I would vote for Pendry again. I said DAMN NEAR. I am torqued off at Pendry; I’m not an idiot.

Where was I? Oh yeah. So here we have a call from the DC area, with some dude with a fruity English accent (you know the one; all the vowels are sounded out; each consonant has the proper tone and depth. Sounds just like every politician you have ever heard speak from the House of Commons) and the first thing he does is ask Pendry about the job of Judge Executive. Pendry spouts some drivel for about 5 minutes and Fruity English Dude (hereinafter FED) pulls the full Obama; ‘Wow Steven I am impressed with your depth of Knowledge about the job of Judge Executive and your concern for my fellow citizens of Campbell County’.

Say What?!?!?

There is no way on God’s green Earth this fool lives in Campbell County. Hell, if he has ever been here it would surprise me. I’d lay money FED couldn’t find Kentucky on a map, much less Campbell County.

But to be fair, I don’t think Pendry has been south of Fort Thomas since the last election. Maybe that’s why he didn’t catch on that FED wasn’t a good idea for a moderator.

And, believe it or not, it went downhill from there. They took a few softball questions from the crowd, and Pendry responded with the usual political hackery non-response. There was one real question that I heard, from a farmer in the southern end of the county who was complaining that farmers had to buy an occupational license to farm 10 acres, even if it wasn’t a full time job, but how many people were sitting in their basements, working from home without one?

Well of course Pendry says that the home workers are required to have a license. And FED again gushes his admiration for Pendry’s depth of knowledge. The real issue? They’ll go after a farmer; his work is visible from the roadside, and he lives ‘down there’, where they don’t have sidewalks, and the home workers are all friends of Pendry.

I listened about an hour- while doing other things- and finally hung up when FED says ‘To get involved in the campaign to Re-elect Steven Pendry, push 7 now’.

So hear I think I am participating in a town hall with an elected county official, and instead I have been listening to an hour long re-election bit?

I guess Pendry must be getting desperate. He probably has seen a poll that shows Kevin Sell will whup his butt in the primary.

One thing I heard that really made me think Pendry is not in touch with his constituency: He bragged about twice in the last few months being Washington and the money he brought back to the county. Does he realize most of us want the graft in Washington to STOP? No matter who gets it.

WOW; March 13th

I can't believe I have haven't posted in over 2 weeks. I has been a very busy 2 weeks, most of it consumed by a very rewarding special project that I can't really talk about.

But I can say that it was a culmination of almost 5 years of work. And it involves one of my passions, local history.

One day I may be able to write something here, but details need to be released first other places, so stay tuned.

Kentucky Is On The Bottom of The Chart

I found this through InstaPundit, through this site, Whizbang.

I am proud to say Kentucky was amoung the states that scored a ZERO on the Brady Scale!

Well Done!

Another Missive From the Holler

Dear Cousin Red,

I’m guessin’ y’all heard the story ‘bout that women that got killed by her pet Killer Whale? Well, that news has reached us up here in the holler too, an’ ta me the whole dang thing just don’t make no sense no way.

First, I don’t know ‘bout y’all, but I sure as shootin’ ain’t gonna try an’ make a pet outta somethin’ that is named a KILLER. Hell, I ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I sure ain’t gonna make a pet outta a bear, and we don’t even call them KILLER bears.

Some folks is kinda funny, ain’t they? They think there all smart n’ such an’ can be in charge of every damn thing. They think they can take a killer whale an’ train him ta do parlor tricks. Then one day they find out the hard way that nature is in charge, an’ the ole whale has a ‘nuther notch on the wall of his tank.

Them same folks seem ta think they can control the weather too. All I gotta do is quit drivin’ my big Pick-up an’ start driven’ a Prius. I forget right now Cuz; is a Prius the one with bad gas pedal or the bad brake pedal? I guess it don’t really matter. Either way y’all is gonna need a big ole sumthin’ to stop your new toy.

Any how, they tell that the whole Earth is a gettin’ warmer. Tell me again, how much snow they got up east there in the last cupla days? Give it to me in feet Cuz; I don’t really like them numbers with 2 numbers in ‘em.

So they figur’ they can control killer animals, an’ they figur’ they can control the whole Earth gettin’ hotter or colder an’ they figur’ that they can control the baddest meanest beast on the face a’ the Earth: Gov’ment.

If’n the last 50 years ain’t proved nuthin’ else it’s proved that gov’ment is like kudzu. Sumthings respect the rule that if’n I leave y’all alone, y’all will leave me alone. Even snakes and skunks get that rule. When was the last time y’all had a skunk get in the house? They don’t do it. They know the rules.

Kudzu don’t care ‘bout the rule. If’n y’all leave kudzu alone it’ll take over every square inch a’ the place. leave one little leaf, an’ next spring the back 40 will be covered again.

Gov’ment is like that. They don’t respect the rule. We have kinda let ‘em alone up there in War’shington for a while, hopin’ they’ll do the same. It ain’t worked out. They not only took over the back 40, they’re workin’ up the back porch steps.

So it’s time ta get busy.

If’n nuthin else we gotta remind folks that you can’t really control a wild beast, the weather or the gov’ment. That’s why we keep goldfish, not killer whales, build a house ta stay warm an’ dry in, an’ keep gov’ment as small as we can.

Best wishes from all of us in the Holler,

Throckmorton Q. Sheisseschnitter

Cars I Have Been Loosely Acquainted With II

After the experience with the Pierce Arrow Dad and I kept looking through the Trading Post. One Saturday we saw a 1949 Packard Series 22 Limousine. The price? ‘First $100 takes it’.

We drove out to Amelia to a small garage and a fenced lot out back. The Packard had been stored in the lot about 3 years previously by a ‘former’ friend of the garage owner and he wanted it gone. This picture looks pretty close to the way we saw it, but it doesn’t give you the size of this thing. Add about 2 feet to a Chevy Suburban and that is close.

The car itself was a good buy for $100. The bottom half of the engine was in the trunk and the driver’s side floor was gone from the center of the car to the door.

But the seats- including the two fold down jump seats- were perfect. All of the glass was there and rolled up and down as smooth as silk, including the window that divided the back seat from the front. The body wasn’t beat real bad, considering it was in a small yard and surrounded by other cars.

That was the problem. The guy who owned the lot didn’t own the car. A buddy had asked to part it there for a ‘week or two’ 3 years earlier and he hadn’t heard from the guy in almost 2 years. It was being sold without a title which added another level of problems putting it back on the road.

Dad and I talked it over for a few minutes and let the guy know we would call him later that afternoon. On the 45 minute ride home we listed the good points and the bad points on the beast. One topic that came up was how many of them were there?

This is pre-(common)internet. Luckily I had purchased a book that listed the production figures on most US cars from about 1900 to about 1975. As soon as I got home I looked it up.

In 1949 Packard made 7 of these limousines.

We called the guy about an hour after we had left his shop.

He had already sold the Packard.

We had come that close to owning one of only 7. And here are pictures of two of them.

Cars I Have Been Loosely Aquainted With

I ran across this at Jay Leno's Garage today, and it got me thinking about a couple of collector cars that might just have slipped through my fingers.

One summer my Dad decided he wanted to restore a car, so he and I started looking through the Trading Post (an old paper that advertised all sorts of things) for something interesting.

One we ran into was a 1933 Pierce Arrow sedan for $1000. This was back in probably 1990 or so, and fully restored this car was worth around $50,000. We called the owner and the story got even better. Her father-in-law had bought the car new and drove it from Chicago to Cincinnati in 1963 when he came to live with her and her husband. He parked the car in their driveway (in a rather upscale part of town) and never touched it again. Father-in-law died in 1970 and the car was still right where he left it. Her husband had recently taken ill, and she was basically selling off all his stuff.

Pierce Arrow was a well known car 70 years ago, and I think their last year of production was 1935 or so. They were a luxury car- you could buy maybe 10 Model-A Fords for the cost of one Pierce Arrow- and owning one in ’33 would be akin to having a top of the line Mercedes today.

We took a chance and went to see it. The car was complete down to the wing nut on the air cleaner. The tires even still had air in them. The roof was made of leather, over top of wooden bows, even though the sides were metal. Car manufacturers hadn’t yet figured out how to make a solid metal roof that didn’t ‘drum’, or flex, as the car ran down the road. And this is where the trouble started.

Cars of this vintage were almost a wood body wrapped in steel. Sometime in the 30 years between when the car was parked and when we went to look at it the roof had started to leak. And thirty years of water had ruined all of the wood. The wood that framed the roof, doors, body, floor and seats was gone. The paint was faded on most of the car to a mottled blue, and the chrome was dull and pitted.

One bright spot was the front end. A bush had grown up over the grill, headlights and fenders. These parts looked like brand new. If they had thrown a tarp over this thing in 1963 it would have been a $20,000 car.

As it was, it wasn’t worth the $1000 she was asking.

We thanked her for her time and kept looking.

And kept regretting our decision. That car would have been an immense amount of work, but would probably been worth it.