Rantings Diversified

When he first walked across the parking lot towards the group outside smoking he was a bit pensive.  He was unsure if this was the right place to be.   Just out of the hospital he had decided that what people were telling him was correct.  He stopped at the small crowd and finished his cigarette alone then put it out and started down the steps and inside.

His first impression was that there were alot more people there than he expected.  Then he turned the corner and about dropped his jaw when he saw about five guys wearing colors!!  Bikers!?!  One percenters?  Oh, this is going to be interesting he thought to himself.  The room was set up with three rows of seats facing each other with a long table in the middle of the room.  He took his seat in a middle row and tried to be inconspicious.  More and more people filed in.  The room was starting to fill up.  About five minutes before the meeting started all the seat were taken and they were pulling folding chairs from a closet.   It had been a warm autumn but still the heat was on and it was already a little to warm in there.  Eight PM finally arrived and the meeting was started by the guy running the show.  People were still coming in.  The place was packed.

He was surprised to look around and see people of all stripes there.  The bikers mentioned before as well as more than expected young people.  Of course there were the expected 50-something guys and more women than he though would be there.  the mix of people really surprised him from bikers to men in suits and way young kids in their early 20’s.
They started the meeting by reviewing what the meeting is all about.  They have a set and standard way of doing this and they went through it with military precision.  There came a time when they asked if anyone was new to this meeting.  He quite nervously spoke up and was greeted with a warm welcome.  They gave him a round of applause.

The body of the meeting went both as he expected and not so too.  He found it very interesting listening to the speakers and trying to relate them to his own life.  As the meeting wrapped up as he thought it would he was very surprised at the number of people who came up to him to just just say hello and talk.  Even the bikers were nice and welcoming.  Even while standing outside having a smoke afterwards people came up to him and introduced themselves.

They all offered the same advice.
Keep coming back.

And my favorite…

A long long time ago in a land far far away there was a monster cat terrorizing the kind people of the village.  This monster cat would lure the kind folk into a false sense of security by acting all nice and kitty like.  What with all his purring and rubbing up against you.  He would playfully bat at cat toys and bring smiles to the faces of all who knew him.  But behind this cute facade was a feline terrorist, trained by The Real IRA, The Tamil Tigers, ETA and FARC.  The worst kind of cat.
It would usually start just around sunrise about a half hour before the kind people of the village would arise.  It starts with the monster cat running full speed ahead through the peoples houses.  From one end to another the monster cat would run.  This early morning preambulation at speed is followed by the knocking over of things.  When the moster cat rears it’s ugly head nothing is safe.  Pies left to cool overnight were found on the floor with monster cat sized bites taken out of them.  Knick knacks all over the village feared being knocked to grouind.  Drapes and blinds steeled themselves against the ensueing onslaught
The poor villagers were awakened by the din of the monster cat just before their alarm clocks sounded.  They laid in their beds rueing the minute they had to emerge and survey the damage.  Each morning they had to clean their houses and fix the damage caused by the monster cat.
The elders of the village would gather and try to figure out how to rid the village of the monster cat.  Many ideas were bantered about.  They tried many and varied ways to rid themselves of this curse.  They tried waggeling their fingers at the monster cat.  Nothing.  They tried yelling at it when it did bad things.  No good.  One of the more creative ideas was the water cannons set up all over the village.  This proved to be only a temporary solution.  Nothing worked.  None were successful.
So the villagers decided to just live with the monster cat.  As things would have it, monster cat turned out to be a really nice cat and everyone lived happily ever after

My domain name and my hosting package was due for renewal a few days ago and being a bit skint I decided to just let it die a dignified death.  I know I have not been very active in the posting deptartment but that has all changed now.
You see, I was in a bar in Mombassa the other day and who should stumble in but My Pal Ron.   It has been a few years since I saw him last.  Ron was one of the best.  Years of whiskey and being on the run clearly has taken it’s toll on him.  We spoke of old times and shared a bottle.  We joked about the running gun battles in Belfast and the riots we incited in Cyprus.  We laughed about all African nations we helped destablize.  Eventually our talk moved to the internet and I mentioned that I was letting my blog go because I couldn’t afford the domain and hosting costs.  It was at this point that the old RonI knew started to peek through.
He had an idea.
We left the bar and went to a small discreet internet cafe.  There he hacked logged into my hosting account and was able to back up all my files as well as doing a database dump.  Since my blog was hosted in Bulgaria Ron thought it best if it remained in Europeland.  Less oversight than some other places.  We considered putting it on some NATO servers in Germany and maybe a financial company in London but finally decided on a small server farm in Dublin.  In this way there is less of a chance of being found out.  We were able to rewrite the logs so as to cover our tracks.
Now came the hard part.  We had to figure out how to get my domain name away from the Bulgarians and register it under a false name in a quiet and out of the way place.  Ireland!  Nobody would ever think to look for me there.  After considering a small company in the Basque region of Spain we found the perfect patsy.  It is a small software development company co-owned by Sharon Ní Bheoláin and Willie O’Dea.  We paid for it with a credit card that Ron stole picked up from a Canadian couple he met in Oslo.
So Rantings Diversified shall continue into the future and I’ll pay more attention to posting.
You’ll see.

Yesterday evening was quite interesting around here as my new cat went behind the couch in my living room and proceded to give birth to a gaggle of kittens.  Maybe it’s a pride of kittens or a pack or a brake or a troop or a pod or a quiver.  Whatever they’re called there were five kittens this morning.
I guess I kinda’ knew it was coming when mom cat went and hid behind the couch yesterday late afternoon.  I think it was about 6pm when I first heard a little kitten cry.  I was watching the local news and thought it was on TV.  It was about 7pm when I moved the couch forward enough to see that there were two kittens along with mom cat.  Well I checked on them every 45 minutes to an hour and by the time I went to bed there were four of them suckling away on mom.
I awoke at 6am and went to check to see how everyone was doing and lo and behold there was another one.
The first three are orange and white.  The fourth one is tiger striped and number five is black with white feet and a white face.  Everybody wants the black one.
I emailed the above picture to a bunch of folks this morning and so far three of the kittens are spoken for and even if they are not adopted I can take them up to my cousins barn which is where mom cat came from.
So I have the next eight weeks to enjoy a house full of kittens.

Todays my birthday.
I took a long weekend from work, got a new tattoo and went to see a movie.  You know a movie in a movie theatre.  It was a big dark room with lots of seats and a big huge screen.  I haven’t been in a movie theatre in about 15 years.  A bunch of us whos birthdays are around this time all went to see District 9.  It was pretty cool.  Lots of blood and guts and shit blowing up, bad guys and good guys and more shit blowing up.  Good flick!
On Friday after I got my new tattoo I went down to the Middletown resovoir and did some fishing.  It was more like drowning some worms but it was a well needed respite.
Today I decided to be a lazy guy and lay around while watching the Phillies play the Mets.  The game ended with an unassited triple play!!!  It was bottom of the ninth and the Phils were up 9 to 7, runners at first and second.  Eric Bruntlett caught a liner easily, stepped on second to double up Luis Castillo and then turned and tagged Daniel Murphy for the third out.  This is only the fifteenth time in the entire history of baseball this play has ever happened.  It happened so fast that it took it a few seconds to sink in and I jumped up and yelled, ‘Holy shit an unassisted triple play!’
Tomorrow I’m gonna’ sleep late, run a few errands and generally not be at work.  That’s what I call a good long weekend.

I got a cat!  I haven’t had a cat-like pet sort of pet since Violin Strings, who was my last cat back in school.  Shite man, that was 1983!
So this cats name is Aung San Suu Kyi, or Suu Kyi for short.  Yes I named her after the Nobel Laureate from Rangoon.  My cats secondary name is Knucklehead or simply a bunch of swear words all strung together.
My version of Aung San Suu Kyi was a barn cat for her first year and came to me… in a motherly way.  Yes you read that right, she’s pregnant.  I guess that means I got cats rather than a cat.  When she pops and has her kittens I’ll hang on to them for eight weeks then I’ll give them back to the folks who gave me her.
Then I’ll get her fixed.  I’m not looking forward to a mess of kittens running around here and turning this place into a cat haven.
With all the impending cats around here I’m glad I got mama cat.
I like my new cat.  We’re getting along better and better every day.

So it was a nice Saturday evening.  I had ordered a pizza and was enjoying a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.  I was also chatting with a friend of mine in Ireland.  Life was basically good.  Now earlier in the day I had stopped at my local American Legion for lunch and a beer.  I gave up $5 to play a few ‘fishbowl’ tickets and I won $100.  So you see by the time I ordered my pizza life WAS good.
You don’t think it lasted do you?
Of course it didn’t.  While typing back and forth with my friend my laptop coughed a little cough.  You know the kind of cough rude folk use when you light a smoke up beside them.  They think they’re being polite but they don’t realize how rude it is.  Anyways my laptop did that and I asked it what the problem was.  It didn’t answer me so I continued on with my typed conversation.  Well apparently my laptop didn’t like that.  It turned itself off.  It turned itself off with no warning.  The little fucker did this to me in the middle of typing a sentence.  I didn’t like this turn of events.  As a matter of fact I think I expressed my concern using some colorful language.  Most of it was directed at my laptop.
I turn it back on but as expected it tries and tries to load windows but never really gets around to it.  By this time I was practising my swearing and letting Microsoft and Dell know exactly what I thought of both of them.  It wasn’t pretty.  Then my pizza showed up.  Suddenly I no longer cared about the laptop.
After munching away happily and having another beer I decided to tackle the laptop and make it turn on again.  There was no troubleshooting or logical progression to determine what the problem is.  Oh no, I went straight for the, “Ultimate Boot CD”.  I booted to it and started in on it’s many system tools.  I wrenched and ratcheted and I guess something worked because when I finally restarted my laptop it started up and ran happily along like nothing was wrong.
Now I’m not 100% sure but I’m leaning towards all the swearing and threatening is what fixed it but it might have been rebuilding the registry.  I just can’t be sure which one.
So now it’s Sunday morning and I’m typing away on my laptop and eating cold pizza for breakfast and once again life is good despite all the rain.

Well I went and did it.  I done got me a new tattoo.  For my long time readers, both of you, you’ll remember the last time I got one it was on my left arm.  Well this one is on my right arm so I’m now balanced.  Actually I’m not and I have papers from a shrink to prove it. 
I went to a new (for me) tattoo artist.  His name is Jeff Zalesak and he works at Machine Heads in Lemoyne, PA.  I am blown away at how good his work is.  He really did it up.  The detail and visual impact of this new tattoo isn’t really shown in the photo.  I’m so impressed with Jeff that I’m going back to him for my next one.
Oh yea, you can click on the pic to embiggiealize it.

There is a State Representative guy who represents a district just east of here.  His name is Sam Rohrer.  I have been signed up to his email list for about a year now.  He is quickly becoming my hero!  His bi-monthly newletters are very well written and they speak the truth of what the average person from Pennsylvania thinks and feels.  I can only wish I could put things as he does.  He needs to run for President.  To put this letter into perspective please watch this video first.
So without further ado I present to you Pennsylvania State Representative Sam Rohrer’s letter to our President for the 4th of July, 2009.

Dear Mr. President,

I write to you as one elected official to another on behalf of average American citizens. We listen to your words and measure them carefully. With hope, we watch your actions. We then look to history and compare the events of our day with the events of yesterday. We look to our Founders and read carefully their intellectual discourses and their moral debate. They ultimately concluded that the actions of the king were best described as tyranny, because they could not be honestly described any other way. Having come to such a serious and reasoned conclusion, their path was charted—unknown as to its outcome—but certain as to its demand upon them. Mr. President, we are doing what Americans have done before.

Many of your words, at face value, inspire and offer some level of hope. This is why many Americans cast their vote for you. Yet, now that you are in office, your actions are inspiring fear and distrust. At nearly every level, Americans, regardless of political party, are being forced to walk down the same road our Founders were forced to walk – questioning, analyzing, and looking deep within their souls. The similarities between the past and the present are amazing. If you desire to test the American people’s resolve and challenge their patience, you are accomplishing your goal. You know what is happening within the hearts and minds of the average American. That is why state legislatures are offering and passing resolutions, re-affirming the 10th Amendment and state sovereignty issue. That is why the Tea Party movement is growing by the day and is attended by rich and poor alike. That is why you and Congress are hearing from the American public in record numbers on an increasing range of major issues including the bail-out, the stimulus plan, “cap and tax”, and government intrusion into health care.

Your speech sounds sensitive to the economic and emotional needs so heavy on our people. Yet, your continued references to being guided by the “Rule of Law” (our Founders knew this meant God’s Higher Law and the Highest Law of the Land – the Constitution) are hollow and disingenuous.  Your recent speech in front of the original Constitution of the United States of America in the National Archives makes it all so clear that your words mean nothing.  Your agenda and you yourself appear to be that “rule of law” – effectively setting aside all Constitutional constraints.  It’s unfortunate that I must be so direct, but you are leaving the American people with very few options.

Mr. President, it is clear by your speech and actions that your oath to the Constitution is not binding to you and, therefore, is a broken oath.  On many fronts, so much of significance has happened in such a short time.  You (and the Congress) are overriding state sovereignty and encouraging the states into unsustainable programs through Stimulus Funds: this will force them to beg you and the elite in Washington for help when the funding runs out.  Your policies are destroying the wealth of hard-working Americans by plunging this nation into inescapable debt to our enemies and by justifying the disastrous printing of trillions in fiat money.  What you and the Federal Reserve do not destroy immediately by exploding our debt, will be completely devoured by the ensuing hyper-inflation.  What an insidious way for you and Congress to spend what you do not have by robbing it from every hard-working American who has responsibly worked and saved!

You have violated historic contract law by choosing who wins and who loses, while Chrysler and General Motors is eviscerated and turned into ‘Government Motors’.  You have thumbed your nose at the ‘Balance of Power’, so carefully conceived and implemented by our Founders, by appointing unaccountable “Czars” to function as your direct emissaries over fundamental areas of public policy, thereby blatantly by-passing the checks and balances of Congressional oversight.  You pursue special interest agendas motivated by the faddish science of “Global Warming” or “Climate Change”, or whatever it will be called next.  In the ‘cap and tax’ plan, you justify the biggest tax assault on the American people ever conceived.  Yet, you boldly assure the American people that it will cost them nothing, since only the “polluters” will pay.  But, in the process you will destroy thousands o f truly sustainable jobs (in exchange for temporary “green” jobs – like insulating buildings and re-caulking windows).  Bringing America to its knees in financial dependence, in energy dependence, and a gutted manufacturing sector is sadly what’s happening. It appears that in reality, the “Change” you promised is just your personal change—clearly not what the American people so desperately hoped for.

So Mr. President, these things that I and the American people have come to observe and conclude are bringing this nation to a point closer each day that resembles the circumstances that forced the hearts, the minds and then the hands of our Founders.  As we quickly approach the remembering of Independence Day – July 4, 2009, please remember that as you make your choices, so must we.  May you and all the American people reread the Declaration of Independence – very carefully.  Identify the principles they clearly stated and then apply them to today.  Feel the intensity of the letter sent to the King.  Understand the careful steps they undertook to make the moral case for freedom and independence in the context of the history of mankind.  Note in particular the foundational precepts woven into paragraph two, written as much for the benefit of Americans yet unknown and unborn as it was a message to King George.  As the President who holds the highest elected position in both honor and responsibility in this Republic, place yourself in the position of the King, look in the mirror, and then look across this great land at the faces of our great people and listen to their pleas.  The King didn’t know for sure all that Declaration Letter would mean for him, but I am certain that he knew he had ignited the will and passion of a freedom-loving people for which only time would prove the outcome.

So it is today.  Now, we have the Constitution against which to compare the words and actions of those in public office. The people, Mr. President, are awaking.  They are realigning their priorities, purifying their motivations, and galvanizing their wills.  Their freedom and their families are what they love and, thankfully, what they will defend.  As to what comes next, I cannot say.  I do know that another Declaration Letter is not necessary since this country already belongs to us.  Our freedom and this republic are already ours.  It is the return of freedom they demand. It is nothing less than the adherence to the Constitution and to the oath we have both taken that they demand.  We, continuing to carefully note and compare as our Founders did, are also coming to serious and reasoned conclusions. Our path is charted – unknown perhaps as to its ultimate outcome – but certain as to its demand upon us.
From all those who love their Freedom,

State Representative Sam Rohrer
District 128 – Berks County