Rantings Diversified

Have yous’ guys’ heard this?

I have to ask all of yous’ guys’ to please stand by.  There is a new post forthcoming.  I am squeezing it out as we speak.  So, please stand by.  Just in case you are asked to stand by I’ll know you are on stand by and standing by in case of a stand by.
Right, as you were.  Please feel free to speak among yourselves.

It all started when I got off work on Friday. I use to drive a nice big suv that I could carry a bunch of people or stuff in but it only got 25 MPG at best. It got an average of about 20MPG. So off I went to the local Honda dealer, where I bought the suv to see if they would be interested in trading it for a car that gets better gas mileage. I knew what my suv was worth, having researched it for the past few days. Well we found a car, a Honda Civic. they wanted to sell me the Civic for the price of gold and they wanted to steal my suv. I didn’t let them. I knew my suv was worth a lot more than the Civic. I did some simple math in my head (no one was harmed during the process) and came up with a number that I wanted. It took awhile but they finally gave in and we struck a deal. I gave them my suv and they gave me my Civic and a big fat check.
Friday night I was bad and ordered a large Stromboli from Marinos out at the end of Derry street. Yum!!
I awake at 0630 on Saturday and go out side to start in on spreading the topsoil that was dumped in my front yard. My neighbor Jody (the coolest neighbor anyone could have) was having his morning coffee and saw me out there and went and got a spade and came over to help me. Talk about short work, we had the pile spread in about an hour and a half. Later in the day he came over and spread weed killer all over my lawn to kill the violets that are trying to take over my yard. I have been watering the lawn ever since so as to get the weed killer down into the soil. I had a mess of errands to run on Saturday afternoon and I got them done. Late Saturday afternoon I get home and Jody comes over again and saks if I want to go down the Legion and have a drink. I haven’t done this in awhile. So I said, WTF, I’ll have one or two! I did. It was fun. When I got home I got the coals fired up and grilled up some dead pig muscle with Tony Chachere’s Creole seasoning and Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce. Oh, man do I have that recipe down. Yum!!
Today I slept in and just kinda’ putzed around the house. Dishes, laundry, vacuuming, watching the Indy cars crash into each other all afternoon, napping….you know the important stuff.
Next weekend I’ll spread the grass seed and straw and start watering the lawn twice a day for the next couple of weeks. so hopefully next year I’ll have a flat, regular, normal looking front yard.

So, that was my weekend. How was yours? What did you do?

Well I picked a fine time to quit taking heroin.  What with all the stress I’m under right now I should just go back to huffing paint.  Krylon silver was always my favorite.  It’s just that with the way things are right now I should never have stopped dropping LSD.  I personally think that the events of the world would look better through a purple haze.  Of course I had to give up my old peyote habit too.  The food of the gods with Vegemite and butter, I think, would make things just a little too weird.  That and then I could hang out with Dennis Hopper.  He would probably make more sense then.   Now as typical for me I also picked this time to stop living on seconal and speed.  Ah, those were the days.
All ya’ needed to do was to pop a few black beauties in the morning and couple of reds at night.  Who needs food…..or the ability to think straight!  What really gets me right now is the fact I also chose this time to stop taking ecstasy every day.  Though I think the decision to stop shooting the Speedball combo of cocaine and heroin directly into my veins may have been a bit premature.  Speaking of cocaine, I also stopped snorting $1000 a day.  Those Columbians I met awhile ago sure didn’t like my decision.  Boy, I just picked a fine time to quit didn’t I?  The PLCB is a bit pissed at me too since I stopped buying 3 bottles of Bourbon a day.  See, they’re all mad at me.  I just picked a fine time to quit.
Little kids have the right idea.  They just spin around really, really fast and then they fall down laughing.
Look at all the stuff we have come up with just to attempt to regain that feeling.

A few times in the past I have written posts about some web journals (not-a-blog kinda’ blogs) that I found and want all of you to know about, all 4 of ya’. Well this time I want to remind you of four sites in particular that on a regular basis amaze me and blow me away and are generally some of the best writings and some of the bestest attitudes you’ll find on these here interwebicals.
In no particular order they are:

Scribbles by Hanulf This site is quickly becoming one of my favorite reads. This girls got in depth talent.

K8 the Gr8 She is witty and funny and down right intellegent beyond her young years.

Headrambles A cranky old guy who is one of the nicest and most intelligent people I’ve ever read.

Problem-Child-Bride My favorite interwebical writer, period!

WORDNERD Talk about a truly nice and funny and talented writer, well then you’d be talking about Wordnerd.

Yea, I know that’s more than four blogs but I was never good with that whole New Math thing.
So, go visit all these fine, funny folks and give them some LOVE and leave a comment or two….tell them Brianf sent you.

This post comes in response to some of my International readers who have mentioned to me that they are amazed that I can write about the US flag code from memory. Ninety percent of the last post I wrote was from memory.
I had to look up a few things. I didn’t know that PA was the only state to celebrate Flag Day and what I wrote is not the entire Flag Code, just some highlights.
What amazes me and has prompted this post is that a few of them have told me they don’t know the words to their National Anthem. Wow! That boggled my mind, for a minute, and then I thought about the state of our public school system. I would bet dollars to navy beans that there are an awful lot of kids out there today who also don’t know the words to The Star Spangled Banner.
I guess I grew up in a different time zone or maybe the twilight zone because as a kid we were taught to respect the flag as a symbol of our country. My parents both served in the military in World War 2. I did not grow up in a household where my parents were militant flag wavers but they did instill in me a respect for it. School started every morning with a prayer and the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. In the Boy Scouts we were taught to respect the flag. In Civics class we were taught the history of the flag, the flag code as well as a respect for it. Do schools even offer Civics class anymore? Probably not.
The U.S. flag was the first secular flag of a nation, ever. It does not represent a monarchy or a religion. It was the first flag of the people. Our National anthem is a song about our flag. It was first designed and put into use at a time when national flags were the ultimate sign of national pride. So, all these years later we still hold to this.
The blue canton was originally meant to be a representation of the National Motto, E Pluribus Unum. Out of the many, one. The arraignment of the stars was meant to represent, “A New Constellation”. For many years our flag was referred to as, “The Grand Luminary”. This worked well until we reached 38 states then it became unworkable so we have the stars aligned on the blue field now. There have been many changes to the canton through the past 231 years as well as lots of derivations used during the Civil War. Our flag has, since its inception, been a symbol of our freedom from tyranny as well as a source of national pride. A few people have said to me that they don’t feel the need to fly their flag because their pride is inside them and quite strong also. To me that’s great to hear because I rarely here people from other countries speak about their national pride.
I fly my flag on the front of my house 24/7 as an outward sign of my pride. I hold it in my heart as everyone else does but I also like seeing it flying on my house. Maybe, just maybe someone else will see it and it’ll motivate them to do the same.
UPDATE:
In August 1999 I was squadded with two guys from the Austrailian National Rifle Team during the National Rifle Championships. One morning we were in the pits for, “Colors”, and as the National anthem started I turned to John H. and asked him, “Would you do me a favor and remove your hat?”. He did so happily. It was no biggie, for him and I appreaciated him doing so. I did not expect him to turn to the flag or hold his hand over his heart or even do much of anything. I really liked the fact he gladly took off his hat as a sign of respect. Anyways we talked a bit about our countries flags and their symbolisms. He told me he thought the Americans attitude towards their flag was great and also said that in the Aussies outback you could find the same attitude. He is a large scale commercial farmer from NSW and told me flys his flag on his farm 24/7.

Fourteen June 1777 the second Continental Congress adopted the flag we know today as, “Old Glory”. In 1916 President Wilson made a proclamation declaring 14 June as National Flag Day. In 1937 the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania became the one and only state to celebrate Flag Day as a state holiday.

The U.S. flag code states the following;
Raise the flag briskly. Lower it ceremoniously.
Never allow the flag to touch the ground or floor.
Do not fly the flag in bad weather, unless it is an all-weather flag.
The flag can only be flown at night if properly illuminated. Otherwise, it should only be flown from sunrise to sunset.
The flag should always be allowed to fall free.
The flag should never be used to carry, store, or deliver anything.
Never fly the flag upside down except to signal an emergency. When hung over a sidewalk on a rope extending from a building, the stars are always away from the building.
When the flag is hung over a street running east to west, the stars are always toward the north.
When the flag is hung over a street running north to south, the stars are always toward the east.
When a group of flags is being displayed, the U.S. flag should be at the center and at the highest point. The only exception is when the flag of another nation is being flown all national flags should be of the same size and fly at the same height.
The flag can be displayed on all days, but in particular it should be flown on:
New Year’s Day, Inauguration Day, Lincoln’s Birthday, Washington’s Birthday, Easter Sunday, Mother’s Day, Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Constitution Day, Columbus Day, Navy Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

I swear to God that the Briggs and Stratton motor on my FREE lawn mower was designed by the same engineers that designed Jaguars in the 60’s. “Beautiful engineering, so why doesn’t it run” is one of my favorite lines from the movie Gumball Rally.

Ok, the carburetor has a small opening that allows the gasoline to flow into it. Well this small hole is covered by the intake manifold gasket so when it’s not running the gasoline stays in the tank and not all over the mower deck. You pump the primer button to create a small bit of vacuum that then allows the gas to enter the carburetor. This vacuum is sustained by the running of the motor. The intake mainfold gasket then recovers the gas input hole when the vacuum goes away.
Ok, so the problem is that when I put the intake manifold on to the carburetor the focking thing won’t start. It won’t start because it’s not getting the gas into the carb.
Hmmmmmmm?
This stupid shit single cylinder engine is starting to get the best of me.

Ok, we are going to call this post, Stream of Consciousness. Why you ask? Because I have about ten different ideas for posts and I’m not going to write ten different 5 line posts. You see I’m just like that, so deal with it, will ya’?
I love where I live. I live in an old neighborhood populated with the sons and daughters of the original owners as well as the newbies like me. My next door neighbors are; A 70-something couple that are the original owners and a divorced, single father kinda’ guy my age who works for the state. Across the street are Jody and Donna. They are really good people who work WAY too much in their yard but that is probably why my yard pales in comparison to theirs. Then there is Frank the business owner who is too D4 (90210) to bother talking to us boggers (rednecks). Beside him is Bill who probably could buy and sell Frank before lunch. He’s a really nice guy who stops by and has a drink and a chat when I’m out working in the yard. He’s a good guy. He’s a former Marine. Then beside him are the Petersons! Most of us in the neighborhood call them that because no one knows their name.
Oh, come on!! Everyone has one of these unfriendly, uncommunicative, asshole, dickhead types in their neighborhoods. I have gone out of my way, when I first moved in, to wave and say hello only to be met with them turning 180 degrees or acting like they didn’t see me despite the fact they were looking right at me. We call them, “The Petersons”, because he looks like Scott Peterson.
The old folks beside me are the type, who, when you arise at 0630, has half their yard work done. WTF is with that? They are really nice people and I hope they don’t stop giving me their home made bread.
This whole Paris Hilton thing has me REALLY pissed off.
Why are we sending people to jail for focking TRAFFIC VIOLATIONS!!!!
This dumb-shit-know-nothing-too-skinny-bleached-blonde-someone-I- wouldn’t-get-along-with-outside-of-sex was busted for reckless driving. Her license was taken away. Then as typical for most everyone she continued to drive. She got caught twice driving with a suspended license. Big Focking Deal!! She got sent to jail for this! WTF!
My child support is terminated as of June 7, 2007. This is a good thing. No longer do I have to deal with the county assholes. I don’t want to get into it. I may well do much more on it at a later date.
Today we celebrate the 193rd Special Operations Wing Support Group of the PA National Air Guard.
I have worn the tri-color of the U.S. Army Support For Army Families on my shooting hat for over ten years.
That’s enough. I’m out.
My neighbor Jody is the single most coolest person I’ve ever met. Tonight we went down to my garage to try and make the FREE lawn mower he found for me work. His email address is jdlinz(at)verizon(dot)net. Please send him an email and tell him how much he is appreciated. He is a Technopeasant and doesn’t browse the blog world.
Now, a bit of background on this. We looked at the mower last weekend and figured out what the problem was and I went and got the offending gasket. Tonight he spent about an hour and a half rebuilding the offending carburetor. It did not need a rebuild kit, it needed some TLC. He delivered it in spades.
I don’t know how to thank him more.
The coolest TV show on TV today is a show called, “So You Think You Are Smarter Than A 5th Grader?”. It is hosted by Jeff Foxworthy and I like it.
So there you go.
Feel free to leave comments and there were no sheep harmed in the making of this post, Sam!