Product Endorsment For The Good Of All

I've been doin' this huntin/tree climbin thing for about 15 yrs, now.
From the beginning, I was cautioned by others to wear a safety strap, just in case I fell out of a tree.
It's a real threat.
No matter how careful you may think you are, 'shit happens', as the saying goes. Many a hunter, myself included, has experienced the quiet bliss of sitting motionless for hours, huddled up and shivering from the cold and wind, rifle cradled gently in his arms... and dozing off.
It happens.
(And it's the sign of good time. Don't question it.)

I'd always worn a simple strap buckled around my waist, attached to a short leader,and itself attached to another strap firmly fastened around the tree itself. It was simple, and most of the hunters I knew were using the same type of safety mechanism.

Last year, seeing the need for something a bit more substantial, I purchased a torso harness that was basically a tangle of nylon straps designed to wrap around the waist,shoulders, chest and hips, offering support at all points should I find myself up a tree without a platform.

It took several minutes, and a third or fourth hand, to put the damn thing on. That is, if you got it right the first time. Usually, you didn't. It was a tangled mess of a system.
I'm sure I can say that I wasn't the only hunter who only wore it once, before throwing that piece of shit against the wall in disgust and opting to do without.

This year, I discovered the aptly named Hunter Safety System. Check it out.

Worn like a vest, it's lightweight, and comfortable enough to wear all day. It takes about five seconds to put the thing on, even in the dark, and doesn't entangle the wearer in a tomb of nylon straps. It's fully adjustable,and super easy to use.
Truly state of the art, this will set the standard for the next 75yrs.





Huntin season is here, and I'm hoping many hunters who are online looking things up will search their way to this post.
This is important.

If you searched your way here, I'm talkin to you,Bubba.
So,listen up.
Even if you are still using the simple single waist-strap tackle, and are stupidly satisfied with it, you need to get your brain outta your ass.
This thing doesn't cost that much. About $75. You can order it online direct, or through ebay, Bass-Pro,Cabela's et al. I got mine at Wal*Mart. And I know you know about Wal*Mart.

I also know that you've known somebody, or of somebody, who got seriously fucked up, paralyzed, or dead falling out of a tree.

It can happen to you.
Hardware fails.
Tree Stands 'let go'.
Hunters over reach for the shot.
Or, you yourself, have dazed/dozed off.

Don't let your next trip to the woods be your last.
Get this system.
It's only $75. Small price to pay for what it can do for you.
I love it, and I can't recommend it highly enough.

All You People Are Fucking Nuts

I don't get all this violence going on regarding the election.
I'm reading about folks getting beat up for having the wrong bumper sticker, homes fired on for having a sign in front, all the hate from the comics and celebs, the hateful emails...

Folks need to just get a grip.
This election will not change the course of history.
The blue-collar dudes will still be blue-collar.
The wealthy will still be wealthy.
And the Wall Street cronies of both political parties will still be living lives very different from the rest of nation.
Too many are taking this way too personally.

Everybody, and that means you,too.Just relax.
See a movie.
Call your Mom.
Play with your kids.
Go fishing.
Make love to your wife.
A million other things could be done that are a lot more important to your life than joining one of the two sides who will be angry, and may be rioting, on November 5th.

On another note:
I just love the weather in Dixie this time of year. Right now, there ain't no place else I'd rather be.

It's All Over Now

Colin Powell has endorsed Obama.

On My Way

Gonna make this quick.
Had the final of my final pre-op visits today. Dr. SpecialistExtreme went over the nuts and bolts of the procedure in fairly good detail. It appears there isn't much in the way of access that won't leave a nice nifty, and long, scar.

("Grampa,where did you get that scar on your face?")

He said that basically he will have to open about a quarter of my face, slice through the jaw, lift up, blah,blah,blah.
The process is expected to take anywhere from 4-12 hours, depending on what they find when they get in there.
I'll be asleep,anyway.

There are risks. Most notably, blood clots that may form and lead to a stroke, or *worse*. I let you fill in that blank as I don't want to think about it. Can't afford to.
But he did say that it was imperative that I quite smoking NOW prior to surgery. Something about clogged lungs,etc... that would complicate surgery. No smokes for two weeks prior. Need time for the lungs to clear.
OK. So I'm about two days behind on that. But the last butt was snuffed an hour ago, and I have no more.
I was expecting the week long hospital stay to be the start of my cold turkey attempt. So much for that plan,huh?

Something about signing that last consent form today made the whole thing really sink in psychologically. Before then, it was all just a swollen jaw (that I was only aware when I looked in the mirror), a series of pictures and scans, and some groovy fun time away from the mill drinking all the beer I wanted.

Now, it's real.

I've never had surgery before, and somehow I think this would be easier if I had a few training surgeries. You know, some easy every day stuff: tonsils, appendix, vasectomy, torn ligament, or something else less threatening.

Not this doozy type of thing that nobody has ever seen before in a place that they really would rather not go. (yeah, I finally got the truth. They've never seen this before. I'm gonna be a research/study case for future generations).
Hell, I'll volunteer for a castration if they will take it in trade.

Oh, well.
Life goes on.

Enough of that....

Catching a flight in a few hours to the great state of Georgia for some deer huntin and Dad time. He needs to see me, and I need to get away for a bit to forget about all of the above, and hopefully kill something big.

Don't mean to sound all Freddie Krugerish, but something about disemboweling a fresh carcass awakens the senses. I know I'm on top when somebody else's blood is on my hands.
I like the scent of fresh meat in my nostrils.
The understanding of where it came from, and realizing that it could be, and someday will be, me laying there,instead.
Someday it will be, because we all take our turn, in one way or the other, at the bottom of the food chain, where we no longer decide where or how we lay.

"From Ashes to ashes..." as they say, but some of us will provide a great pot roast, some burgers, steaks and sausages along the way.

Internet time will be sparse for the next week, but I'll be around sporadically.

Joe

He's the latest talk,now.

Some uppity commoner has the nerve to approach The Anointed One and question his policies.

Now, Joe the Plumber is being slimed: Did you know he's not licensed? Therefore, he's not really a plumber? And his name is really 'Sam'? He's a fake. A hypocrite. A moron. He's unsophisticated.
(And we'll soon know if he's ever had a DUI or bounced a check,as well)

How dare that blue-collar, unwashed piece of common American shit even deign to discuss policy matters with the The One. To dare approach Him. To even (gasp) look Him in the eye.

Doesn't he know The One is better than he? His role out there on that street among his fellow unwashed masses was to pay homage to The One. To beg salvation and deliverance from capitalistic greed. Beg for a handout. Kiss his ring.
Not challenge Him.

I call bullshit.

It's surreal and hypocritical, if you ask me, to talk about the common man, champion the blue collar dude, expect his vote, walk the streets among the public because it looks cool for the cameras...

And then, when one of them becomes inconvenient, write him off as a bozo, a redneck, a moron,etc.
And then send your monkeys out there to dig through his personal business to impugn his credibility, all because you opened yourself up to a challenge, and the blue collar dude made you look like the two-bit, socialistic, grievance monger you really are.
You argued with the 'retard', and the retard won.

From my chair, the sweaty guy in the t-shirt and jeans casts a bigger shadow than the coiffed asshole in the pressed shirt and tie.

We all don't really know that much about 'Joe'. And Joe admittedly doesn't know much more than claims. And he's stated he has no interest in political office. He just wants to be a plumber, to make a living, and achieve his slice of the pie the old fashioned way.

But I'm willing to bet he's never spent 20yrs worshipping before an angry vestment-clad nigger screaming 'God Damn America' while donating $20,000 to his 'Hate Whitey' ministry.

And he knows a shit clog when he sees it. Like when he confronted a self-righteous uppity piece of shit clogging the street in his neighborhood.

Joe is an American, with a whole lot more in common, socially/politically/culturally with any of you reading this than either of the two elitists kissing our collective ass, rolling up their sleeves and mispronouncing 'economy' to pass off as one of us.

And when the elites attack and slime Joe, they show their true disdain for the rest of us.

Joe may not be ready to run for the White House.
And he's probabbly too honest to take the job.
But I'm willing to bet he has a bit more real world common sense, and a whole lot more integrity, than the next person who lives there.


Update:
Now The One feels it personally necessary to dis plumbers in general

I sure hope he can't find one when one of his daughters flushes a tampon.

Another Dumb Idea

Registered sex offenders in Maryland will have to post this 'scarlet letter' on their home this Halloween.

It's all kinda stupid if you ask me.
Don't pictures of pumpkins and other types of Halloween bling serve as a natural attractant for kids?

I remember growing up that if a house had no lights on, or pumpkins out, that meant 'No candy here. Go away!'

What are the odds that kids will see the pumpkin and approach the door?
Do kids even bother to read while in a candy induced state of mind?
What about the stupid Mexican kids who don't know English?

Story Here

In all reality, child molesters aren't likely to strike on Halloween, tricking one kid to 'come inside' while his/her Friends and parents wait on the stoop.

"Peace And Love..."

"...now go fuck off."

Tagged.

I cannot resist any request or demand Jade makes of me. She's just one of those friends you don't say "No" to. And "Maybe" invariably always means "Yes". It's just that way.
As it goes, Jade has tagged me with a "Seven Interesting Things About Me" meme.
Here they are:

1.I just recently learned how to use the 'paint' program. Noted those circles in my MRI pics? Yep! I did that. Seriously. I did. I really did. As recently as last week, I could not have made such a claim. Well, I guess I could have. No,I know I could have. I can claim anything I want. It just wouldn't have been true, is all.

2.I've bragged, for the past few years at least, that I was going to the last man standing. Absolutely, I was never,ever going to sink so low as to jump on the cell-phone-fetish bandwagon. I've gone 44 years without feeling the need to communicate everywhere I was, at all times of the day, no matter what else I was doing. The next 44 years were not going to be any different. Life, and technology, on my own terms,at my own pace meant bliss. ("where's Gino?" "Dunno,cant reach him." hehehe.)

Well, now I have a confession to make. When my sis died, my dad handed me her cell (on his family plan) so he can feel the comfort of hearing my voice any time he needed to. The past several months have been spent beating back Dad's attempt to more readily socialize me. I've hesitantly used the phone to call him, and for him to call me, and left it at that.
Two weeks ago I was playing around, and figured out how to send text and picture messages. It all started by me pixing evidence of my beer consumption to my buddy.(I'm off work on disability. He's jealous.) Buddy responded with a rude gesture, and we are now in a sophomoric competition to see who can top who in rudeness. This is getting crazily strange. I gotta walk the dog in a bit, and I'm bringing the phone with me.

I'm finding the cell phone can be kinda fun in a dark and twisted sort of way.

3. I still do will not have a tattoo.

4. Nor an ipod.

5. I haven't carried a wallet in 23 years. It's unlikely that I ever will, and I can't for the life of me understand why every other dude thinks he needs one. Am I the only one to discover that I.D., money card, and cash all fit nicely in the front pocket of my jeans without that bulge sticking out of my ass?

6. Just because I currently share my life with a dog, courtesy of The Blonde, doesn't mean I like it. I DO NOT LIKE DOGS. I don't want one in my house. And I can't wait for this one to die. Preferably soon.

7. I'm still having way too much fun with the cell phone camera. Somebody needs to stop me.

Big Ugly On The Horizon

One can learn a little bit about current events and politics while spending a Sunday watching football, even when you were hoping to escape it all for the day.
Case in point: the presidential election.
For the first time since I don't know how long, somebody else actually had more commercial face time than Peyton Manning.
This somebody was, surprisingly, Barack Obama.
Obama was every where.

Now, this may come as no surprise in an election year for you folks out there in battleground states. But this is California that I'm blogging from. This state has already been called for Obama, back in December it was. Yeah, December 2001.
I remember.

You see, we aren't used to presidential campaigns round these parts. Those things only happen in places that we only read about in monster buck magazines.

So, what's going on?
I Think I know.
Obama has no shortage of money to spend. He can afford to waste some where he doesn't need to win. California's electoral votes are already in his bag. Nothing will change that.
This may seem like a case of 'spending money because you can', but it seems like a smart tactic from this angle.
The last couple of elections were decided by a matter of one state, and very little popular vote difference. (Bush actually received fewer popular votes in 2000 than the (sore)loser Al Gore.)
Similarly, Clinton never did break the 50% threshold,either.
A matter of just a few percentage points in heavily populated California will add hundreds of thousands of votes to Obama's bottom line, and if he wins the election, he's gonna still need the extra cred a higher vote count will bring if he hopes to be accepted as the legitimate winner by a large portion of his detractor base.

Fact is, Obama may be leading in the polls, but he's having big trouble closing the deal, and has yet to poll above 50%. Whoever wins is gonna have a hard enough time gaining acceptance as it is.
You can square this acceptance issue with Obama's history of extremist voting patterns and unsavory alliances.
If you thought the last four elections produced ugly reactions, you ain't seen nothin like the next one.

The Home Stretch

Yesterday was my final follow up with one of three surgeons. A few questions, some explanations, and a consent form.
A decent fellow with an accent and a funny name, he does exude this strong air of confidence and professionalism. I feel that I'm in good hands with him, not that I have much choice in the matter unless I wanted to do the job myself.
And he only stands 'bout 5'2", but since I'll be laying down for the procedure I'm hoping that may not be an issue.
On the way out, I stopped by Imaging and requested a copy of my MRI images. Kinda cool to look at. I've been doing so for hours,already.

This morning I had to report for a swallow study. Basic procedure: shove a thin tube with a camera attached down my nostril and into my throat; force feed me; and then record the videos.
After a few spoons of applesauce,apple juice, diced peaches, and graham cracker, we were done. I did get to watch everything on the monitor. Ever actually seen yourself eat? Kind weird.
The purpose of all this was to establish a baseline for comparison's sake should I suffer nerve damage to my throat muscles during the procedure. One more thing to worry about that I flat out refuse to worry about.
I meet with the neurosurgeon Monday to go over this last, and finally final, diagnostic test.

Now for some show and tell:
This is an MRI view of the right side of my face.

The circled area should be, I think, the main body of the tumor.
(That is, if I know what I'm looking at.)

It's about the size and shape of an egg. Unfortunately, that's not the part that seems to be the concern.

The big deal is the less defined, irregularly shape region just to the north, at about 1-2 o'clock.

They still haven't managed to get a clear enough picture of just what is what in this region. It's also the most critical, what with the location of various nerves and what have you.

And they still are not sure just exactly how far up into the skull it goes. Sure, they got a general idea, but nothing precise. And they won't til they get there.
Or so I'm told.


To the right: an underside view, looking up past my chin into my skull right about even with the lower jaw line. Again, with the tumor circled.

Noticeable, in the outline contours of my face, is the swollen appearance that first got my attention. (It was smaller when I started this process.)

As the mass grows, it constricts other things in the region.

Not bothering me now, but if left unchecked it could cause loss of sensation, difficulty swallowing, tingles or numbness in my right extremities... and some other stuff. Already, there is a noticeable protrusion in my throat when I look into my mouth.











This is my brain on Happy Gas.
Nothing much is happening here.









O.K., show's over.

Two more follow-ups next week, then I'm off to deer season.
It was a bit of a finagle, but I was successful in postponing the endgame til October 30th.

National Hypocrisy

Link
Link
Link

It's been going on for a very long time. Most infamously was the not-so-secret voter fraud that delivered Illinois, and the Presidency, to John Kennedy in 1960.

Democracy depends on two things: the integrity of the vote, and the willingness of the populace to accept it's outcome. Without both, democracy is but a talking point for civics class.

It is up to the elected and appointed officials to guarantee and honest, integral vote. But most importantly, it is up to electorate to defend their own elections by holding officials accountable.
Al Gore almost got away with the stealing of Florida in 2000. In a surprising move to me, the Republican voting public rose up in anger, near riot in a few instances, over what was going on. As a result, Al Gore was foiled, but not until after a long court battle.

Republican voters, generally, tend to be naive 'play by the rules' people not as prone to such shenanigans, but I suspect the memory of 2000 is still strong.
Strong enough, maybe, that the current attempts of the Obama left to steal the vote in important swing states will not be met quietly on election day.

One can only hope.
But don't hope too much.
Republicans are notorious for selling out their voters in appeasement to some interest group on the left in the hope of luring a few of them their way next time.
And Republican leadership is notorious for letting elections be stolen.

But this year is different. The fraud is all out the open this year. It's not just the Chicago of lore. It's every where. And has been. But now is different because everybody knows it.

Whoever wins will still lose as these accusations become further documented.

Tell me again how we are supposed to bring democracy to the world when we can't even keep it for ourselves.

Tell me how President ObaMcain is going to lecture Syria, The Palestinians, Korea, or Russia about the legitimacy of free and fair elections.

Can we even call it democracy while keeping a straight face? Are we gonna keep fooling ourselves about it?

Fabulous!

Betcha they'll put on one hell of a spring musical.