Yestiddy ("yestiddy?" Clearly I got Bill Mauldin on the brain) I had an interview with an Army man who commutes back and forth daily to Fort Riley to teach up-and-coming soldiers on their way to Iraq. He's got a bit to teach them; he's been there.

( This is his story. )

Thank a veteran today. Thank a veteran whenever you meet one, actually.

Odd how more people are excited about me having a Facebook page than are excited about me finding happiness. I think I'd trade the entire Internet just so I could be with Melissa right now. That's right, LJ included.

The Lost Crown is now in the hands of the local dentist. It's too bad that I have to wait until the first of December to get it back in my mouth. Something about it's going to take more than an hour to get a pin in my gums to keep it from rocking back out again.

Oh, well. At least there's someone who agrees with me that those who sign up for military service is as much a hero as someone who's out fighting a war. I interviewed an Army man today who was in the January 2008 bombings in Mosul, Iraq, and that's what he said to me at the end of things. This guy's a hero. He basically came within inches of a suicide bomber ending him... and he survived.

I didn't swallow it. It fell on the floor, underneat the window, camouflaged by the carpet.

I just saved $900! PARTY!!!1!!1!



Man, I feel stupid.

That crown popped off in the middle of the night again...

...and I think I swallowed it.

This is not good.

:(

Since I have yet to create an Achmed "SILENCE! I kill you" icon...

( Say hello to my little friend. )

Comparison with others is a mark of the fool.
-Robert Fripp

I need to remember this, whether the comparison involves myself or others.

As the Mael brothers would say, I got eaten by the Monster of Love again.

:D

Looks like PETA is at it again in my neck of the woods.

After reading the story, I can only ask: Is that even legal?

Advertising on the side of buses, trucks and trains, I can understand. But attempting to place advertising on the side of an AMBULANCE? Just to push your no-animals-for-anything-no-matter-how-beneficial agenda? Should your "animal rights" agenda take precedence over saving lives? What rights do animals even have, anyway?

You wouldn't let Al Qaeda advertise on your neighborhood's police cars, would you?

Because that's what PETA is: terrorists.

Well, unless you count that "other PETA" that I belong to. That's right. "People Eating Tasty Animals."

Yep.

Things are definitely looking up on the personal front.

That's all I'm gonna share for now. Don't want to throw a hex on anything.

(I need to change that icon...)

Funky but true.



(Hat tip: Malkin.)

Sorry 'bout the silence. Been busy.

Things might be looking up on the personal front.

I had some Drill Sergeant Hartman-type thoughts on a certain friend's recent entry, but I forgot them.

My memory sucks lately. 'S what happens when you start getting old.

...if I could get my hands on this costume.

Al Martino has died.

I grew up with a record or two of his around the house, and his was one of those voices I enjoyed hearing when the folks would pull out their copy of "Think I'll Go Somewhere and Cry Myself to Sleep" on the old console stereo.

But most people are going to remember him more in The Godfather (and in Part III) as Johnny Fontane, the Italian boy with the olive-oil voice who get slapped around by Marlon Brando for "crying" after not getting a role in a movie that was certain to make him a star (leading up to that infamous horse head scene)...

Rest in peace, Al.

Ladies and gentlemen, the warm-up act for Ezekiel 38 and 39.

Yeah, sure, Dubya, you could see his soul, mm-hmm, we believe you...

Cold cold cold has set in over the Great Midwest, and so begins another season of high gas bills - and frequent trips to the basement to give the furnace a good whack to offset those cold mornings.

I know, I should be used to those cold mornings. I grew up in a house that didn't have central heat and air. Just a single stove in the living room that didn't do a good job of heating the whole house because me and my hoser brother were constantly standing in front of the lone heat duct to try to get warm. But if I can have a suitably warm house at a reasonable price, I am going to have it.

Today, though, will be spent dealing with the other kind of gas. It's Chili Cook-Off time again today, and guess who's serving as one of the judges. ;)



I was gonna call someone for a vent last night but by the time I got home I was so brain-dead that all that would have come out was "Muf, bla, gewibben?"

Note to self: Don't try any more voice posts for a while.

I tried to make one and deleted it... and deleted it... and deleted it and deleted it and deleted it.

AND THE STUPID THING WON'T GO AWAY...

Yeah, I know it's a gag, but still...

Good for a chuckle.

See, there was this picture that teh_bug posted, and one thing led to another, and...

Wish you were my only hope.

Even better than that thing they did with The Wizard of Oz.

A photo from this weekend's events.

( Raise the flag... )

That crown I was talking about last night? The one that has been recemented several times but still falls off perhaps every two or three years? It gets worse...

Root canals work this way: The damaged tooth is drilled down to nearly nothing so that the root can be numbed and disinfected. What's left of the tooth is ground down to a "post" which the crown can be placed on, and hopefully that't the end of that.

Unfortunately, it's not the cement that's worn off, but the strength of the post. It broke off inside the crown and now I'm looking at another expense I don't need.

I am looking at getting dentures even more seriously than before.



Oh, by the way, I'm safe at home now. WM in less than an hour. And I'm needing the money. :(

Hotels that offer business centers but charge you for Internet access... SUCK.

Also, Troublesome Crown has popped off again. Second time this year.

Other than that, though, Honor Flight #2 has been good. Will update later. Internet charge time is running out.

Moo!

Honor Flight number two and trip to Washington D.C. number three this year in the morning. I can't believe that earlier this week I was so "meh" about it.

Still thinking about how to jam everything into one bag so I don't have to worry about carrying one on and sending another one with clothes etc. to Buffalo. I've got a small overnighter that's considerably smaller than most carry-ons but would appear to be rather big for someone who just wants to pull a camera from it every now and then to take pictures. And I've got a bigger-than-most-camera-bags camera bag which would be rather bulgy for me to jam camera and clothes into it.

Decisions, decisions.

Decisions I should have made hours ago. I should be asleep.

Today I interviewed one of the 29 World War II veterans going with us on Saturday's Honor Flight. He was one of those guys who got into the military a little too late to see any major action (he made the Navy in '45), well, at least directly, anyway.

In fact, for a while, I was beginning to wonder if I picked the wrong guy to interview (I didn't know this until the interview began). I went into it thinking this guy may have seen a little action, maybe even seeing some battle from a distance. Not this one.

But now, I'm seeing it differently. Nobody knew in '45 that the war was about to end, that Hitler was about to off himself in that bunker, that Little Boy and Fat Man were going to pay a Japanese visit, any of that. He certainly didn't. And yet he signed up anyway, just in case it might have gone on to '48 or something further.

It's my opinion now that "war heroes" should include those with enough wherewithal to sign up to fight for freedom, even if all they do is wait in the wings. Maybe they didn't take a bullet or fire a successful round at the enemy, but they were ready to go. So must we all be in any situation, rather than hoping (often against hope) that someone else will do it for us.

And with that, I'm looking forward to Saturday again.

One week from tonight I'll be bedding down in Washington, D.C. for the third time this year, and for some reason, I'm not as psyched about this trip as much as I was the last two. I couldn't tell you why.

And now I think I'm coming down with something. I can only hope it's not the R2D2 flu (it just rolls off the tongue easier than "H1N1" and saying "swine flu" is supposedly unfair to those pig farmers, so we have to say something, right?) or even anything lesser. I would prefer not to spend the better part of a month hack-hock-cough-spitting again like I did earlier this year.

It could be that hypertoxic smell of lacquer or whatever it is that was used to apply the new paint job to the front and driver's side of the Cavalier DS. Wouldn't that be nice.

(That's not to mentiont that the crown next to my front teeth has come loose AGAIN. And I had the stinking thing recemented only about six or seven months ago. Denture plans, here I come.)

Either way, I'd prefer to spend next Saturday night in D.C. - 'scuse me, Baltimore; the hotel's within spitting distance of BWI - all happy and healthy. And by this time of night out cold.



Today at WM we are reminded that the old saw on how you can't teach an old dog new tricks is still true, but even more true is the not-quite-as-old saw that the best thing to do with an old dog who refuses outright to have anything to do with new tricks is put it to sleep.