"Letters to Miss Emily..."

[backhoe]

Here's the back of that house- zoom in and notice a few things...



The green mass in the right foreground is a garage... there are trees growing at the juncture of the Mansard roof and the back tin roof. The rear part of the house there is undoubtedly the kitchen and utility area.

Notice the differing angles of the roof over that gabled back door- there was originally a narrow porch there leading to the front of the house- then they extended it out to the left.

A curious feature more hinted at that visible in the picture of the front? On the far left is a deep porch communicating with the back of the house. Up the main front stairs are two entrances- one to the original structure under the Mansard roof and another to the added-on enclosed porch area.

If it weren't dead dark downstairs and probably dangerous it would be fascinating to investigate. Besides "growing like Topsy" many of the older houses here were divided into apartments at some time, particularly when WWII swelled the populace from 25,000 to over 80,000.

[backhoe]

In the "just what I need, another online account to Shepard," I'm mulling starting a twitter account- it seems to be the bane of the Left so far.

twitter markets tweetdeck which allows managing tweets & facebook accounts as well, but it has a competitor that looks much simpler:

https://seesmic.com/

I could quit using a browser tab to keep an eye on my facebook wall like I do now. Then, there is Emily's ghostly page...

Questions, questions? Create a backhoe account or use my proper name? Kind of wish I had from the beginning since I have a small following on the web

I will ponder it a bit...

[backhoe]

In the "posted, just because I can" dept?



That's Brenda's Dryer,

"Welcome to Brenda's Dryer. The home of all manner of manners!" http://brendasdryer.blogspot.com/

It's where that one odd sock ends up. And your manners. And all those odd things you once had but can no longer find.

It's part of Teh Squeaky Wheel http://tehsqueakywheel.com/blog/ that my Dead Miss Emily loved s much.

TSW was an offshoot of Don't Hire Deb! http://donthiredeb.blogspot.com/ which I belonged to.

While we were discussing Teh Crazy- "Doctor" Deb, who besides working for Homeland "Security" was batsh*t crazy and a probable child molester- we decided we liked each other enough to devote a separate blog to it, and mostly leave Teh Crazy out of it... so Teh Squeaky Wheel came to be.

We mostly talked about minor & personal things dear to us- family & friends, animals & children, things we did each day. I thought Emily would like it so I got her to join ( “I wanna be a Gerbil!” The details are buried in this post if you care to go back and find them... ) and so she did.

That was around 2006. Then she had the poor grace to die on me...

There was a “Heap O' Living” piled into that period between her joining TSW and that pitiless night when The Arrestor Cable of Death snagged her and brought her life up short.

You married folks all know the drill-- the laughing laughter and the hateful hates-- the moments when you went from “talking about dinner” to “hey, if my heart stops I want you to revive me...”...

Yeah, we did all of that.

And Time, flowing like a river, to the Sea- washed my baby and rarely lover but always my best friend-- away from me to the who knows where?

Emmy, wherever you fetched up? I hope you are OK. I did the best I could- but somehow that wasn't quite good enough to save your life and keep you living.

I think about you every day. The terrible black cloud that lifted off my every moment has been gone a year... but the sadness still remains. I reckon it will stay with me until the day I die or my mind slip slides away or I grow too old to dream.

I loved you very much. I'll “See ya around, Kiddo...”

-30-

[backhoe]

Lost & Found

...And Time, flowing like a river, to the Sea- washed my baby and rarely lover but always my best friend-- away from me to the who knows where

The late Cordwainer Smith had some nice turns of phrase, from girly-girls to Go!-Captains to “the Up and Out” to describe jumping past lightspeed....

And sometimes that's what I think befell me- stepping on a wormhole that transported me into a strange new dimension that seems so much like the world I knew... it's just so subtlety different...

When I finally got around to emptying Emily's nightstand back in the fall of 2010 I took her stuff out of it and arraigned it for my needs- one of the boxes in the drawers has a sewing kit, and in that are/were several magnifiers for us old folks who don't see well. I had a couple of jeweler's loupes- one that snapped on a band over one eye, the other a 10X color-corrected loupe for examining diamonds.

A while back I noticed they were missing so last night I made a search- damnifI could find them anywhere. As a stopgap I got a 15X magnifier from my machine shop supplies, but I resumed the search this morning.

The one place I hadn't looked was the Chinese chest by the bed- the way it's angled you have to move the nightstand to open its drawers, so it was unlikely that I'd placed them there- but still I took a look...

My old schultzhund manual... some notes from me and from Emmy that mean nothing now, a matchbox from some restaurant in Texas Em had been to sans me years ago.

A couple of handheld games- “wildfire” was one of them, pinball another. A stun gun.

Papers & a cassette tape from Mom's memorial service- the one where I mistook my old business partner & lover for one of Mom's crone-ish neighbors... my, how time flies... and I swear I didn't have that much fun while it flew by. Damn it all.

The bottom drawer had a couple of terra-cotta Christmas candles- and a little triangular candle holder full of little Christmas candles- Emily had been going to sell this stuff on ebay right when she died.

I knew it was there- I'd just forgotten about it. I took them out and placed them in the hall with her stuffed animals that she had gotten from her Mom's house. Also right before she died.

It wasn't so bad... just kind of sad. There really is a part of me that wishes I could grab The Kid, my netbook and data, and turn my back and walk away from all this, never to return.

Can't do it, practically. But times I wish I could...

-30-

[backhoe]

I see Donna Summer has died- same age I am. I remember bopping back from the stores, late at night, over the causeways here, her disco numbers keeping me going until I got back to Miss Helen in Beverly Shores and then Riverside.

Clear skies and following seas, Donna. I'll see you around, too...

[backhoe]

...and that was downright spooky. When I saw the headline about Donna dying? What popped into my head,

"Wait 'till I tell Helen! She'll be shocked..."

[backhoe]

"Shelley"

http://www.freedominion.com.pa/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1529339#p1529339

[backhoe]

"Ahm fixin' ta go shoppin'" as we say down here. The $5 wonder ( The 2 button wireless doorbell ) came, and "we'll see."

The "instructions" were a couple of paragraphs apparently translated from Mandarin Chinese and the thing worked on the porch. The buttons are definitely not weatherproof so I may need to build better "doghouses" for them. My 1 X 4" shelters are probably too shallow for a driving rain.

I stuck the bell in the hall- and couldn't hear it ring-- so I moved it to the mirror in our quarters. While not ideal for hearing in kitchen or laundry that location has one less massive plastered wall for the signal to penetrate.

They claim an 80 meter ( To my heathenish American guesstimate about 250 feet ) range and I'd say the front button is about 60 feet distant in a straight line, and the rear buttonl maybe 70 or 80 with 2 walls between.

Ordinarily I would have Emily listen while I hit the buttons... but given events, "we'll see how it works."

[backhoe]

The big news of the day is, of course that “the precedent” is a Kenyan, not an American

Here are some links:

viewtopic.php?p=1711031#p1711031

http://minx.cc/?post=329361

Oh, Dear: 1991 Promotional Material Circulated By Obama's Literary Agency States, In His Bio, That Obama Was "born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii"

Breitbart's series, "The Vetting," continues.

Well, well, well- so those Crazy Birfers were right all along, eh? Pity we don't have any real reporters anymore, isn't it? Can you say “Constitutional Crisis,” kids?

I knew you could...

And the fraudulent little boy is about to start another war in the Middle East- how many are we fighting in, now? And he still ate a dog. Jesus, America, you sure got duped.

In other news the Kid & I goofed around the yard & house in our “thrill a minute” bachelor lifestyle, thunderstorms moved in, so we'll see how the new doorbell buttons do- the “instructions” charmingly stated it was “OK to use a hair dryer to dry them out...”

I'm going to make bigger roofs of plywood for their mounts.

-30-

[backhoe]

In the "just because I can" dept?

I'm throwing this in to the mix because it has Mitt, duh!1, pickup artists, men, wymmin, and God knows what else in it-

http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2012/05/17/the-man-with-the-plastic-lunchbox/#comment-205130

A comment that will do for a summary?

15. monkeyfan

FWIW, the Pick Up Artist (PUA) community was recently added to the Southern Poverty [perverty] Law Center’s (SPLC) “hate groups” watch list…No joke.

Apparently the PUA community is just as dangerous as those diabolical TEA Party groups, Sovereign Citizens movement, Survivalists, Preppers, Constitutional Militias, Millennialists, Fundamentalist Christians, Neo-Nazis, and Ku Kluxers…You know…The Republicans.

Those PUAers who are working behind the scenes to seize mainstream acceptance -so they can have their ways with and smash womynkind- are not fluffy-bunny nice like ‘Love Groups’ such as the CPUSA, Muslim Brotherhood, Occupy whateverers, New Black Panthers, La Raza, Black Bloc, Earth Liberation Front (ELF), and Animal Liberation Front (ALF)…Or the alphabet soup of tax-payer-funded Communitarian organizations that are tirelessly laboring to implement UN Agenda 21 for Global Sustainable Development.

Nope. Those PUAers are a real menace to society. You listening Mr. Holder?
May 17, 2012 - 4:33 pm

My thoughts?
The SPLC exists mostly to scare rich old Jews with The NAZI Menace and put money in Morris Dee's pockets. They are clowns.

You may indeed be able to con women into bedding you by being ugly to them- I've never tried that. Maybe I should have but that's just not me. All the thrashing & cussing & rolling around in bed are good but I kind of like the idea of when you wake up, you like the gal lying beside you.

The one thing I've learned from wading through the various comments at the PUA blogs & forums is that some of their techniques might help you understand women better- that much I can go along with. Us men & you wymmin see things differently. That's part of the friction and part of the attraction between us.

Our differences compliment each other. That's how it should be.

"Focus people, Focus. It is the economy and we are not stupid."

[backhoe]

http://www.grouchyconservativepundits.org/index.php?topic=45468.msg352317#msg352317

The late, great Miss Emily always referred to seven of nine or whatever that gal's Trek name was as

"She of the cast iron nipples..."

I sure miss you, girl. For all your brilliance & learning you sure were down to earth.

[backhoe]

"Go, and do..."

http://www.freedominion.com.pa/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=155025&p=1711172#p1711172

[backhoe]

Maybe I should watch sarcastic wisecracks like “our thrill a minute bachelor lifestyle...”

While we were goofing around the LazyR this morning Robert called me- seems a huge pecan tree had fallen at Haase Farm Service during the storm. While he said he didn't need my help I went out there anyway and it's sure a big tree & sure a mess. It fell on the fence whose gates I “liberated” for MaryAnn.

We talked of many things including dead wives & sisters. He still “needs to get a check to me...” I asked him about that Tattoo Parlor on Norwich and said he had heard but not confirmed that they have a cocaine problem...

He had, however, heard of a new place on Perry Lane Road and he'd heard enough good things that he was considering taking his new wife there for some work.

I needed some paintbrushes from Wal-Mart and since it was on the way I stopped at City Music to “let them know I was still interested in the proceeds from selling all of Emily's studio stuff.” They said they'd get on it...

I thought about buzzing this new Tattoo Joint- it's in the area- but decided it would make more sense to go home, take medicine & eat lunch, and maybe go back later with my flash drive with the graphic clips, a hard copy sample- and maybe take Cole-boy with me. On the theory that maybe his better senses might pick up bad vibes I'd miss, and if they screech about my dog there's something wrong anyway. Then again I do worry about him getting loose...

So we'll see about that, too... a little later.

-30-

[backhoe]

In the Eternal Grrr! Dept?

I had planned going out to that new tattoo shop and even gathered my printout & flash drive with the scalable graphics- but first I thought I'd start the kitchen PC- the $89 wonder I got from Amazon December of 2010.

Booted it up and “Microsoft Activation Required!” Naturally the code on the tag was wrong- it was “refurbished” and they probably did a mass install of XP from one disc like Barry the wizard does at his store.

Naturally there are registry hacks, so I booted in safe mode and my registry editor locked up...

I did a system restore from drive E: which backset dates to February, and was able to get the system up normally, edit the register, and download cd-reader to get the damn product key.

I would really consider switching to Linux. I was reluctant to do this in 2003 when my system got 256 nasty bugs from NBC's website. Back then you had to search all over for drivers & apps, and learn more geek-speak. It was very off-putting.

I was also not sure I could do the same fast & dirty HTML coding with it like I used Outlook Express for.

I don't do that anymore, and from what I've heard the newer Linux flavors pretty much configure & install themselves.

Something else to ponder- it's raining & cool and too late for the Tattoo Parlor- and I never did get around to creating a twitter account...

-30-

[backhoe]

For my broader readership. I belong to the "husbandry & conservation" school from long ago. "Use it up, wear it out- learn to do or do without." Both my parents were sportsmen & outdoorsmen. I like clean air & water and sure don't believe in trashing things, being wasteful, etc. But the modern "ecology" movement is in the hands of fanatics and loons.

Via:http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/

THE FACE OF GENOCIDAL ECO-FASCISM: “I am not exaggerating. This is Finnish writer Pentti Linkola — a man who demands that the human population reduce its size to around 500 million and abandon modern technology and the pursuit of economic growth — in his own words.”http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-face-genocidal-eco-fascism

As Bob Zubrin has pointed out, such sentiments, if usually a bit less bluntly stated, are driving environmental policy nowadays. It’s Himmler in a green shirt. These are not nice people who want good things for everyone. These are evil people who hanker after mass death.http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1594034761/pajamasmedia-20

Still, it’s educational to hear things like this: “The United States symbolises the worst ideologies in the world: growth and freedom.”

If you like growth and freedom, these people are your enemies. Remember that and treat them accordingly.

Posted at 6:44 pm by Glenn Reynolds