Quote of the Day

Via Kim,

"Wise investors are putting their money in pitchforks, torches and rope these days."

Posted 9/30/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

That's why they call Republicans the "stupid party".

Good articles today.  First, from Karen Hall:  Those [Expletive Deleted] Republicans!

I've sat here for four days watching one smarmy Dem after another get up to the microphone and give endless diatribes on how the Evil Republicans caused this mess, and then pat themselves on the back for working tirelessly to fix it.

The occasional House Republican will step up and explain why the bailout is a bad idea, but how is it that NO ONE is explaining the Democrats' culpability in what happened? [More]

How stupid are you guys? No, don’t answer that question. We already know.

I mean, Jose, Maria, and Jumpin’ Jehosephat, it’s only been a few weeks since your convention caught those of us on the Bambi/Axelrod/Rezko/Daley/Ayers/Dohrn/Soros/Alinsky/Wright/Pfleger/Rahm Emanuel/Barney Frank/Pelosi/Reid/Marx/Lenin/Stalin/Hamas/Hezbollah/al-Qaeda patriotic side of the aisle with our pants down, and now you’ve gone and pretty much squandered everything. Nice work — with enemies like you, we don’t need friends! [More]

Posted 9/29/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

After the Honeymoon

Well, the sugar buzz is over.  My initial excitement over McCain's VP pick has given way to exasperation after watching the painful news interviews from CBS and ABC.  You can only attribute so much to mainstream media bias.  She has not done well.  I'll be interested to see how the VP debates go.  There's also the nagging belief that a conservative, supposedly religious wife and mother of young children should perhaps be more concerned with being a mom and raising her kids than being vice president.

At this point, though, I'm just weary of the whole thing.  As distasteful as McCain is, the alternative is unthinkable.  I fear that the stupid people that populate this country are going to elect the very embodiment of evil as president.  He's already started trampling first amendment rights.  Soon we'll have the most socialist, left wing supreme court in history.  Even peaceful protests in front of abortion mills will quickly become illegal.  Publicly speaking out against gay marriage or homosexuality in general will be considered "hate speech".  Just watch.  We'll start to look like Canada in a very short time.  The second amendment?  Forget it.

I'm usually not one to quote Mencken, but one phrase that has made the rounds resonates with me:  "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want... and deserve to get it good and hard." Actually, that "off-the-grid house is also going to have a giant fence around it, topped in razor-wire, with solar-powered spotlights for my .50 BMG sniper rifle" is starting to sound pretty good.  It's just that initial investment cost that kind of puts a damper on any of those fantasies.

Posted 9/29/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

Let it fall

With a hat tip to The Corner, I don't know how anyone can possibly read this and not conclude that everyone in Washington has lost their mind.

The population of the United States as of July, 2008 is 303,824,640.  Divide 700 x 10⁹ dollars into that and you get $2,303.96 per person.  That's insane.

Why the hell are the Republicans doing this?  Newt Gringrich wrote:

If this were a Democratic administration the Republicans in the House and Senate would be demanding answers and would be organizing for a “no” vote.

If a Democratic administration were proposing this plan, Republicans would realize that having Connecticut Democratic senator Chris Dodd (the largest recipient of political funds from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) as chairman of the Banking Committee guarantees that the Obama-Reid-Pelosi-Paulson plan that will emerge will be much worse as legislation than it started out as the Paulson proposal.

If this were a Democratic proposal, Republicans would remember that the Democrats wrote a grotesque housing bailout bill this summer that paid off their left-wing allies with taxpayer money, which despite its price tag of $300 billion has apparently failed as of last week, and could expect even more damage in this bill.

But because this gigantic power shift to Washington and this avalanche of taxpayer money is being proposed by a Republican administration, the normal conservative voices have been silent or confused.

It’s time to end the silence and clear up the confusion.

The Smallest Minority has posted a transcript from Mark Levin's radio show that is worth a read.  It's highly educational for someone (like me) needing to catch up on the history behind this little problem.

September 2008 will be remembered as the time when Socialism really, really took hold in this country.

Unfortunately these politicians are running for the hills because they do not want to take responsibility for what is going on, and I mean BIG TIME.

So I want to tell you a little story about your government; I want to tell you a little story about how it works and doesn't work. I want to tell you a little story about how things go on in the shadows in this country and the massive bureaucracies of this country that you don't know about, and yet they affect your lives every single day.

We have a massive Administrative State....and we have this massive bureaucracy, that's utterly unelected, and unaffected by what you want or what you believe. It's part of the Washington elite management system that controls so much of what goes on in this country.

...And I want to tell you a little bit about how the liberals in government whether they be elected or appointed, whether they be bureaucrats or politicians, how they work together and bring us to this point. And then tell YOU the problem is free markets, the problem is Capitalism, the problem is greed.

They lie.

Posted 9/22/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

Never a dull moment here at the House in the Woods ©.  Less than an hour after the power came back on Sunday night Alison went upstairs to soak in the tub.  When it was draining I heard an ominous bubbling sound coming from the downstairs commode.  Lots of air coming out of the bowl.  We could also hear the washing machine drain gurgling.

Can you guess what this is all about?  No?

Here's another clue.

Have mercy on me.  It's my first septic tank.

Initially I thought it was a clog.  I pulled the top off what I thought was the septic tank and, although the... umm... fluid level was up to what looked like an overflow pipe leading to a drain field, there was nothing coming out of the inlet and the sewer cleanout next to the house had lots of fluid in it.  My snake didn't seem to reach from the cleanout to the tank so it was time to call a pro.

Turned out what I thought was a septic tank was actually a distribution box.  The tank was... upstream from that and quite full.  Also had some roots from nearby pine trees crowding around the inlet baffle.  We cleared out the roots and put some extension thingies on the hatches so they'll be easier to find next time (ever seen the movie Holes?).

Man, that was nasty.  The job, that is.  Not the movie.

Update:  Did I say never a dull moment?  Right after uploading this blog entry several things happened simultaneously:  The power went off momentarily and I heard a loud pop along with a small flash of light outside the window coming from the electric transformer.  From where I was sitting by the window, I glanced out toward the transformer in time to see the slightly cooked body of a squirrel come falling out of the sky by the pole.  See?  Always something happening around here.

Posted 9/18/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

A Mighty Wind

On Sunday I woke up about 6:45am to rattling storm windows.  Janet was already outside watching the pine trees swaying from the front porch and listening to cracking trees in the woods.  The previous evening I had kind of gone around and secured everything I thought could possibly blow away as the prediction was 40-50mph gusts.  This was a solid wind and it was gusting well over that.  I have never seen wind like that in this area.  Although we couldn't do anything about the house, other than pray, we moved the vehicles out into the middle of our field to keep trees off of them.  Alison had great fun watching the chickens get blown around.

Some time during the morning the power started bumping off and on with the lights going dim for several seconds at a time.  Alison wanted to use the phone and since all our phones are cordless, with the power bumping I knew a call wouldn't last long so I went down to the basement to get a short cord to hook up our "backup"; an old corded phone.

That's when I saw the water.

Our well water is fairly acidic.  We noticed it the first summer living here when, in our pool, I couldn't keep chlorine levels up and the water slightly irritated our eyes after a couple weeks.  It holds approximately 6,500 gallons of water and it took almost two large containers of chemicals to get the ph and alkalinity up to normal.

Another side effect of acidic well water is it eats through copper pipes.  Our plumbing is almost all CPVC except for some small lengths of copper going in and out of one water heater and a short tube feeding our refrigerator.  I had repaired a leak on one pipe I guess about 6 months ago.  This morning a little pinhole was spraying a fine mist of water against the basement wall, soaking the side of a storage cabinet, and just about to spread all over the basement floor.

Fortunately our basement has a garage door that opens up on one side of the house.  While squeegying the water out the power went off and stayed off.  I had some PVC and copper pipe and I was able to sweat the fittings and the valve off the old pipe and clean them up so I didn't have to make a Sunday trip into town.  I got everything back together and the rest of the day was spent listening to the county emergency services and West KY Rural Electric repair crews on the scanner.

After the wind died down in the afternoon, we got out once and drove a short distance just to check the electric lines that feed everyone along our road and look at trees.  Listening to the local TV evening news on the radio we heard the ominous news that the electric company was predicting somewhere between 24-48 hours before power would be restored.  They also said that although Ike had been a tropical depression before coming through our area, it had actually strengthened when it hit a cold front to our west.  When it passed us it was tropical storm strength with some areas experiencing hurricane force winds.  Didn't rain a drop though.  Only in Western Kentucky could we have a hurricane come through and not get a drop of rain.  It's Al Gore's fault.

Now, I know that compared to what the coastal areas suffered this was nothing but, look y'all, we ain't used to these hurricanes coming through flyover country.  That was something else.

With all the electric repair crews I had been hearing on the scanner in neighboring counties and none apparently working anywhere close to us we grabbed a big cooler and drove to the closest convenience store and loaded up on ice to salvage the contents of our refrigerator.

About 7:30pm I was shocked to hear a crew on the scanner say they had power back on at a nearby resort just across the bay from us and were heading over to our area.  Hooray!  A few minutes later we saw the lights of the power company truck shining through the trees as they slowly went down our road checking the lines.  It was an eerie sight with all those lights.  Looked like something out of Close Encounters.  A little over an hour later the lights were on.  Our heroes.  I know those crews worked their butts off yesterday and they're still at it right now.

Posted 9/15/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

The one that got away

Last night I went to bed around 9:30.  Janet and Alison were watching TV and since I wasn't interested I figured I'd call it a night.  It was a cool evening and we had our windows open.  Makes for some good sleeping unless a whippoorwill decides to park itself outside and tune up...

...or somebody's wayward coon hound wanders up and starts baying.  And raccoon season is still more than a month away.

Although the smooth legato of a coon-dawg on a hot trail is somewhat easier to listen to than the autonomic nervous system penetrating yaps of your average nighttime canine annoyance, it can get pretty old pretty fast.  The sound faded off a little as he moved deeper into the woods but he still wasn't very far away and didn't appear to be heading any further.  Eventually I got up and went to one of the windows to try and get a bearing on which exact direction the sound was coming from.

What did I discover, to my surprise, but a flashlight shining around out in the woods behind the house.

Sigh.  Like I've said before, we can all avoid some potential serious unpleasantness by knocking first.

Attention hunting dog owners:  At 11:00 pm, wandering around in the woods on someone else's property close to their home is probably not a good idea, particularly when the homeowner, already jaded by previous experiences dealing with irresponsible dog owners and having a very low threshold when dealing with trespassers, is highly pissed at being awakened in the middle of the night by a howling dog (presumably yours), and armed.  Last night you were gone by the time I got out there.

This time.

Posted 9/10/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

Ingenious

A website, even.  When asked how many homes he had, Colonel Tigh said:

"I don’t have time for this! I’ll have someone on my frakking staff get back to you".

Posted 9/4/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

A Star is Born

A recent column by Peggy Noonan, discussing the apparent absence of humor, and the importance of it in a campaign had the line, "'A maid laughing is half taken,' said a randy old Elizabethan poet".  Last night the maid had me completely.

My goodness, Reagan lives.

Full text of the speech is here.  It's hard to pick my favorite line but I particularly liked this one:

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have actual responsibilities. I might add that in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening.

We tend to prefer candidates who don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.

But listening to (Obama) speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform - not even in the state senate.

This is a man who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the word "victory" except when he's talking about his own campaign. But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed ... when the roar of the crowd fades away ... when the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot - what exactly is our opponent's plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet? The answer is to make government bigger ... take more of your money ... give you more orders from Washington ... and to reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world. America needs more energy ... our opponent is against producing it.

Posted 9/4/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

And it's a line drive deep into right field!

Fox News is reporting that Republican Alaska governor Sarah Palin is to be McCain's running mate.  If true, then I think it's a positively brilliant move.  According to Fox, she's pro-life, pro-gun, and pro-family (with five kids).  Also, she's forty-four years old and was a runner-up in the Miss Alaska pageant.  This next two months is going to be very interesting.

Update:  It's official!  My favorite response so far:  "I am happier then a tornado in a trailer park right now."

Update II:  I'm almost giddy.  Talk about hope and change.  Hah!  I'm actually interested in this election again.  In fact, I might even be able to vote for McCain without getting drunk first.

Posted 8/29/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

A Riddle

Q:  What do Obama and Osama have in common?

A:  Both have friends who bombed the Pentagon.

Posted 8/28/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

Coupla Changes

You've probably noticed a slight difference in the way the blog looks.  I knew for a while that, unless I wanted to start deleting old archive pages, I was going to run out of room up top there for the archive menu.  I also wanted to kind of "pretty" up the page a little since it had been looking a little bleak for a while.

There are a few challenges to doing this coding in raw html rather than using Movable Type or whatever the cool bloggers use.  I don't want to have to go back and edit every single archive page whenever something on the menu changes so the archive menu itself has been done in javascript for several years.  The code on each page where the menu appears simply calls the javascript file that contains the html for the menu, slightly modified to the rules for scripting, and uses a simple "document.write(info)" function to display the menu.  That way I only have to change the one javascript file and it affects all the pages.  Since this site is located on my ISP's server and, as far as I know, they don't allow any fancy server-side stuff on their user homepages, this is about all I can do with it.  I tried to make a javascript file that would show a menu with links to other blogs but I couldn't get it to display the way I wanted so I gave up.  That's why there is simply a link entitled "Other Blogs".

It's been so long since I've done anything new I couldn't remember how to make maps for hyperlinking within an image file.  I finally found a tutorial in a graphics program that got me far enough to figure out the rest.  So, links to the home page and the main blog page are embedded in the header graphic at the top.

I'm also terrible at coming up with names for anything and the blog was no different.  I've always just called it Weblog or Online Journal but it seemed like it needed something else.  We're always going on about how where we live is a little paradise so that's where Postcards from Paradise comes from.  It may change if I come up with something better... I probably won't.

I've been going through the links page, too.  Trying to thin that fat thing down a little and get rid of eight year old links that don't go anywhere.  It's a mess.  Strangely similar to my IE Favorites.

Posted 8/28/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

Quote of the Day

Two, actually.  Both from Karen Hall.  The first:

We have no right to utter the words "God bless America" ever again if we elect this man for our leader.

The opening night of the Democratic Convention was a Parade of the Ardent Catholics.

Posted 8/26/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

Faith of the Democrats

I read the news article Democrats open faith-filled convention with prayer with a few chuckles, mainly because just a few minutes earlier I had read a entry entitled God Talk on a blog I recently discovered.  It begins thus:

Democrats are so predictable. They spend most of their lives ignoring the Bible—you know, all those clear and consistent teachings on abortion, on sodomy, on instructing the young, on mendacity, on corruption, on adultery, on God and Caesar, on chastity. Then, in a mad whirligig of activity—always, always, at election time—they trot out dusty Bibles, self-proclaimed 'Christian' pastors, Gospel singers and chant a chorus of 'Hallelujah!' and 'Praise the Lord!'

Posted 8/25/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

Olive Branches

By request, and in the interest of ultimately helping to bring a Traditional Latin Mass to the western reaches of our... humble... diocese, I have removed a few older posts.  Any further comments by me on this matter would probably be unconstructive.

Posted 8/21/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

The intarwebs is a funny place

Yesterday I got to wondering what the plant was that I photographed back during one of our walks.  A few minutes online and I had the answer.

It's just become too easy in the last ten years or so.  Used to be, if you didn't have a big encyclopedia taking up a row of a bookcase then you had to make a trip to the library.  Recall when we had the big front porch snake scare?  A few minutes later we had the answer (too late for the snakes, however).  What to do with all these habaneros?  Chicken coop designs?  Scanner frequencies?  Battlestar Galactica episode guide?  Need a part for your Frigidaire?  Holster for that new gun?  It's all there.

Here are some interesting, informative, or just goofy sites I've either had in my bookmarks for years or seen recently (in no particular order):

The Wilhelm Scream
Cockeyed.com: Always bring your camera
Spatula City - Nothing says "I love you" like a virtual spatula.
Black People Love Us  - This is just weird.
Men Who Look Like Kenny Rogers
The ORIGINAL Illustrated Catalog Of ACME Products
Urinal.net
The Apostrophe Protection Society
The Brad Christensen Exhibit
Damn Interesting - Pretty damn interesting.
Dustbury.com

And finally, The End of the Internet

Posted 8/20/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

Randomizations

I've been meaning to scribble a few posts but Real Life ^TM has been taking just about all my spare time this last week.  I've been rebuilding (and relighting) two sets in the TV studio at work and it's been busy.  At home it's been garden work, moving sprinklers around to try and revive my dry grass that crunches when you step on it, chickens, and the like.  The upside is that with the exception of a patch of grass around the garden, I haven't had to mow in over a month.

Last Monday I made it to the Nashville airport to pick up the wife and kid.  I had about two hours to spare so I cozied up in a chair on the baggage claim level to read a book and people watch.  John Prine walked right by me.  More like hobbled.  I was struck at how old he looked.

The familias landed safely and we made it back to the House in the Woods ©.  Janet had 223 pictures on the digital camera.  She had stayed with some friends in Hockessin, Delaware while Alison spent the week at the Morningstar Girls' Camp in New Hampshire.  Janet had pics from several places they visited and a lot of the camp on the day they all drove up to pick them up.  They were glad to be home and I was happy to have everybody back.

Eggs are coming along nicely.  We're only getting one brown and one white one a day and they're still small "pullet eggs" so they haven't even really begun seriously laying yet.  The white eggs are coming from the two Brown Leghorns and the brown ones from everybody else.  I was looking forward to those blue-green eggs from Cleo but we know how that turned out.  The remaining eight are still kicking, though, and that's a pretty good size flock for our little homestead.  I figure by the end of the month we'll have more eggs than we know what to do with.

The garden is pretty spent.  Peppers are still going strong and the tomatoes are winding down.  We're still overrun with cucumbers and squash, and that's with only one squash plant and two cucumber plants.  Corn is done and gone.  So are the beans.  The sunflowers we planted are dry and leaning but we haven't removed them yet.  They're not going in the garden next year.  I've been letting a back section of the field grow up for wildlife and we're thinking we'll probably plant the sunflowers back there next year.  We've had small "suburban" gardens for years so as far as the big country gardens are concerned... we're kind of figuring this out as we go along.  We've canned this year for the first time so the keywords gardenwise for next year are "bigger" and "better".

Much more.  Lots of news but it takes too much time to find the links and comment on them.  Just remember:  If you're planning a school shooting, don't do it in Texas' Harrold school district.  I hear they shoot back.  God bless Texas.  Other than that... we're still pretty much doomed.  The eternal optimist, I am.

Posted 8/17/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

An egg, perchance to dream

I was cleaning out the coop yesterday, replacing the pine shavings with straw, and I discovered a cute little brown egg.  It couldn't have been more than a day or two old because I had been checking since we were due for some egg laying.

If the remaining eight chickens (seven hens) survive long enough...

Now, I know I saw a coyote on the morning of the attack but now I'm starting to think it was a coincidence.  It wasn't even paying any attention toward this end of the property until I shot at it (missed) and since I shot the raccoon there have been no attacks.  The chickens haven't acted strange since then and it's been very quiet so I'm suspecting a raccoon might be behind everything so far.  The raccoon, actually.

We'll see.  I know I'm still pretty much at a point where anything besides a deer or turkey moving on my property is going to be considered a target.  Thankfully, we don't have a big dog problem.  There are a few, however, that have been known to roam so... if they have guardian angels, they better be on duty.

Posted 8/9/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

Update to "Predator Week..." below (read it first)

I got up, poured an cup of coffee, sat down at the computer, and heard an awful commotion out front.  Grabbed the boomstick and looked out the front door to see three chickens all huddled in a branch on a small sapling... swaying wildly back and forth... and fussing like crazy.  I guess something chased them out of the woods this morning.  A fourth one flew down out of a higher tree after the first three jumped down when I got out there.  Those leghorns can really get airborne.

I went out and opened the coop hoping they'd join up with the four that spent the night locked up.

Noooooo.

The four that spent the night locked up couldn't wait to run back into the woods.

I'm beginning to hate chickens.

Posted 8/5/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

Predator week at The House in the Woods ©

Yes it's Predator Week.  Featured predators this week are coyotes and raccoons.  The main course is, of course, chicken.

But first, last Thursday I took Janet and Alison to the airport to catch a plane to Philadelphia.  Alison is staying at a Catholic girls' camp in New Hampshire this week and Janet is spending the week at a friend's house in Delaware until camp is over.  They'll both come back after next weekend.  So, I'm bach'ing it this week.  No shortage of excitement, however.

After getting off the phone with Janet early Sunday morning about 6:45 am, I noticed the chickens giving a strange squawking sound.  One around the corner of the house out of sight would squawk real loud and Beck, the rooster, would answer.  They had never done that before and I wasn't quite sure if it meant anything so I went back to what I was doing.  I found out a few minutes later that it does indeed mean something.  I looked out the window to see a very large coyote leisurely trotting across the field about 75 yards away.  I hadn't seen a coyote around here in nearly a year and a half and I've only heard them very far off so I was kind of shocked.  Hell, at first glance I thought it was a small deer.

I started to run upstairs for a rifle but remembered I had a pistol with me and I knew I had no time so I ran outside, still in my pajamas, and opened fire from the porch.  An impossible shot with a 3" barrelled 9mm semi but I figured I might get lucky.  I didn't and he trotted back off the way he came.

The chickens were nowhere to be found.  I ran back inside, got dressed, thought about a rifle but changed my mind and loaded some buckshot into the 12ga and went looking for chickens.  I found four of them hiding up in trees, one hiding underneath an upturned bucket that was leaning on a brick behind the house, and three others wandered up out of the woods after I started throwing corn to coax them out of hiding.  They were very spooked and very skittish.  Three were still missing, the Ameraucana named Cleo, a Wyandotte, and the smaller, very docile rooster we named Wilhelm (after the movie scream).  The big brute formerly known as Dot had met the hatchet about a week ago and was in the freezer.  Later I found a bunch of feathers on the gravel driveway about halfway to the road right next to the woods.  They looked like Cleo feathers.  I'm pretty sure it was a coyote.  Likely the one I saw.  I'm just guessing but at this time of year I would bet he or she was feeding some young, had already killed three chickens, and was on her way back for more when I happened to look out the window.

I spent most of the day Sunday toting around the shotgun and patrolling the woodlines for coyotes.  Come evening I closed up the coop, did a head count, and the same three were still missing.

This morning I waited until I had showered and dressed before opening the coop and kind of loitered around behind a tree with the shotgun waiting to see if anything came around for the morning buffet.  All quiet so I went to work.

Uneventful until this evening when I was talking to Janet on the phone.  It was getting dark and the chickens were milling around the coop as they do every evening about that time before going in for the night.  I looked out the window at them and noticed an odd, unchicken-like silhouette under the coop (remember, it's elevated) just a few feet away from the rest of the chickens.  DAMN!  JANET IT'S A RACCOON...HOLD ON A MINUTE!

Shotgun by the door made quick work of this huge female before she could grab a poultry dinner.  The buckshot was quite effective but the chickens would appear to be a little... um... gun shy.  I got off the phone and watched the chickens disappear around the side of the house.  It was getting very dark and they should've been in the coop by now so I had a feeling this was going to be interesting.  After not seeing them for a while I went to the front door to find them all crowded around by the storm door like they wanted to be let in.  That's a first as they've never even been on the porch before now.  Shooed them off.  A few minutes later they're on the front porch again... then again... one of them throwing herself against the glass door.  Sheesh.  One of Alison's cats was on the inside of the door watching through the glass with much fascination.  I shooed them off and closed the wooden door and they all ran to the edge of the woods and GOT IN THE DAMN JOHN BOAT.  So, I thought okay, I'll let them settle there for a minute and when it's good and black dark outside and they're in their night comatose state I'll pick them up one by one and take them to the coop.

Oh, noooo.  Each one screamed and squawked like I was killing it as I grabbed it and headed for the coop.  Probably attracted every coyote in the county with all the fussing.  There were only four in the boat.  The rest were in the woods.  I searched with a flashlight until I was covered in spider webs, probably several species of poison somethings, and sweating like a pregnant Ursuline.

Stupid, stupid, stupid ass chickens.  I was ready to shoot them myself by the time I went in.  So, four are in the coop and four are still in the woods.  I guess I'll see if we're down to four chickens in the morning when I get up.

Posted 8/4/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

Sitemeter is apparently trying to shut down the entire internet...

First I noticed that none of my site stats would load.  Then I noticed that none of the pages on this blog or anywhere else in the Inman Family Pages would load.  The page would begin to load then a message would pop up saying Internet Explorer was unable to open the page and it would abort bringing up a DNS error page.  I tried to load the Sitemeter blog to see if anything was posted about this and AVG informed me that the page tried to load a damn virus.  Then I noticed that just about nobody else's blog or website that used sitemeter would load, either.

Then I found this.  And this.  And this.

So until Sitemeter solves their problem, I've temporarily removed the script.  This is your big chance to explore all over the site without me knowing about it!

Posted 8/1/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

Update August 2, 2008:  Back up.  That was fun.

We're Doomed

Via Kim comes a chilling article about who will in all likelihood become the next president.  The article is part of a larger series called The Audacity of Socialism.

Yet a recent AP poll found that only 6% of Americans would describe Obama as "liberal," let alone socialist.

Public opinion polls usually reflect media opinion, and the media by and large have portrayed Obama as a moderate "outsider" (the No. 1 term survey respondents associate him with) who will bring a "breath of fresh air" to Washington.

Posted 7/30/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

Chasing deadbeats

We have had occasions to fondly remember the people who lived here before.  Their most enduring legacy, of course, is how nasty they left this place when we bought it.  Then came the ominous postcard from the Mt. Vernon TX Justice of the Peace.  That's not counting the numerous pieces of mail we still (after three years) occasionally get because someone didn't bother with the helpful USPS Moving Guide.

Now come the phone calls.  They started several months ago and are the most puzzling.  The Caller-ID always says "Toll Free Number" and it's usually someone... um... a little hard to understand.  The real puzzler is they're calling our phone number looking for someone who lived here before but never had our number.  They don't call often but about every three weeks or so the "Toll Free Number" will show up on the Caller-ID.  They're persistent, if anything, because if we're not home or don't answer, they'll call back.  At first I thought it was a telemarketer and since we're supposed to be on a no-call list I let them know without any doubt that I'm not buying what they're selling and they were not to ever call me again.  I never quite got why they were asking for the people who lived here before... the ones who never had the phone number we have now but were being called at our number by someone.  Then one time, rather than crawl through the phone line and choking who was on the other end, I decided to ask a few questions.

It's a collection agency.  Heh.  Big surprise.  One that apparently outsources their collection agents to India or something.  I guess some clever person Googled around, found an address match with the one given by the Previous Resident, and eventually found our phone number thinking it belonged to their target.  I've tried to politely inform them that the person they're seeking doesn't live here, I don't know her (yes, her), and this is not her phone number... and it works for a while.  For about three weeks.

Maybe if they're nice I'll eventually give them a hint as to where to find their delinquent payer.

Posted 7/24/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

It only takes one irresponsible foo' to ruin it for the rest of us

Even stupid people own guns.  Most of the time that's not a problem.  If you are a teacher and have a gun in your car that is parked in a school parking lot, here in Kentucky that's not a problem either.  The problem is when you're irresponsible and don't secure your vehicle, allowing a state penitentiary inmate on a work release to hop in and steal your car... and your gun, thus causing an anti-gun mom to get some gratuitous face time on the local news wetting her pull-ups over the fact that one of those eeeeevil guns could have gotten loose and gone on a shooting rampage.

The story I saw on the news last night (this one) was apparently a hit piece on gun ownership.  The reporter says that there "are a lot of angry parents wondering why a teacher would have a gun on school property and why it is perfectly legal".  The package went on to show one woman... one woman who was upset.  The reporter didn't say or even give a clue as to how many make up this "lot of angry parents".  I would say probably not many.  According to the report, if it were up to this parent, "only police officers could have guns near schools."

A show of hands, please.  How many remember the shool shooting here at Heath High School?  Pearl, Mississippi?  Columbine?

At Columbine, the police were pretty damn useless: 

The images of April 20 are still fresh: Scores of police officers milling around outside the school building, even as an ominous sign hangs in an upstairs window: "1 bleeding to death." Students pressing their shirts against a teacher's wounds for hours, showing him photos from his wallet to keep him alive.

Another show of hands.  How many know how the shooter at Pearl was stopped?  Was it police?  No.  It was Joel Myrick.

Let's look at some of the most deadly school shootings in the United States to date; Northern Illinois University, Virginia Tech, University of Texas, Columbine, Red Lake High School, and California State at Fullerton.  In only two of those cases was the shooter stopped by police.  Those are not good odds.

Let's look at a few more.  Who stopped the shooter at the Appalachian School of Law in Virginia on January 16, 2002?  Armed students (after having to go to their vehicles for their firearms).

Who stopped the shooter at Parker Middle School in Edinboro, PA, on April 24, 1998?  Civilian with a gun.

Somehow, reason and logic escapes people like the "angry parent" around whom WPSD television chose to build an entire news package.  What they should have done, and I would have had no problem with that at all, is do a story about an idiot teacher who kept his firearm in an unlocked vehicle.

Posted 7/22/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

So, what am I missing?

I've been on a self-imposed blog fast since last Wednesday.  Not fasting from posting, just from reading any other blogs until the spectacle known as World Youth Day is over.  It's been harder than I thought it would be.

Speaking of WYD, I just turned the TV in the shop at work over to EWTN and I'm watching the "welcoming ceremony".  In the past thirty minutes I've had about six "what the hell?" moments.  Depressing.  This is not my Catholic Faith... what little I've managed to salvage in the past several years.

Posted 7/17/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

Busy Weekend

Friday I left work a little early.  Loaded the truck, topped off the feeder and waterer and locked the chickens in the henhouse, put the dog in the basement, the cats in the laundry room, packed up the wife and kid and we headed to Memphis.  Southaven, actually, since Janet's mom lives just across the line in Mississippi and that was our base of operations for the weekend.

Friday night we visited some friends and a few old picking buddies that we haven't seen in a while.  I've probably played guitar twice in the last two years so, besides being woefully out of practice, my fingertips were in no condition to jam.  The folks didn't accept that as an excuse though so I found myself playing a Martin D28 and wincing in pain for a few hours.  Three days later my fingertips are still raw.  Saturday morning we hit the monthly first Saturday thrift sale at the Mother Cabrini house at Janet's mom's parish in Memphis, then had lunch at Leonard's Barbecue in Southaven.  Their sauce is unbelievable.  Bought two bottles to take home.

Saturday night was the reason we made the trip.  It was Janet's thirty year class reunion.  I knew some of her former classmates from when we lived in Memphis and it was great fun seeing them again and meeting the rest.  You know, they don't look anything like those yearbook pictures...

Sunday... made Mass at St. Cecilia's (I've been to the diocesan indult before... no thanks), packed up, departed Southaven, and stopped at Janet's sister's house to pick up a boat.

Yes.  Pick up a boat.  It's a john boat that belonged to Janet's late father.  For the last six years it has sat in the back yard at her sister's house.  It once had an engine but no one is sure where it is.  We had to run to a Bass Pro Shop and pick up two tire/wheels for the trailer since the ones on it were flat and rotted.  Also had to pick up a 1-7/8" hitch ball.  Who the heck uses those anymore?!  Couldn't get my 2" ball off the tongue so my brother in law loaned me a spare tongue to use with the smaller ball.  Trailer lights dead as a doornail.  We crossed our fingers and made it home with it.  So, anyway, we have a boat now... for what it's worth.  It's perfect.

We got home Sunday and I let the chickens out to discover their waterer bone dry.  I was certain they wouldn't be able to empty that thing in 48+ hours but they sure did.  They dashed out, ran to a puddle of water, and drank for probably twenty minutes.  I felt terrible.  They all survived, though.  Closing them up later when it got dark I noticed one of the Buff Orpington hens has a dried bloody patch on the side of her head.  We were lucky.  No more extended trips for us for a while, I guess.

Sunday before and after Mass as I observed the SSPX priest in his cassock, I thought about the priest at the reunion Saturday night.  One of Janet's classmates went on to be a priest for the Diocese of Memphis.  You wouldn't have known it by looking at him, though, as he was wearing a striped polo shirt and dress pants.  I didn't know he was a priest until he gave the benediction and blessing before we ate.  This tendency for modern priests to discard their clerical garb for "civilian" clothing out on the street seems pretty common and I'm sure it has something to do with the obsession the modernists have with blurring the line between the ordained priesthood and the laity.  That's sad because what a statement that would have made for him to have had on a nice cassock, or at least a collar.  After all, it was a Catholic high school of which these people were graduates.  The statement he made by wearing street clothes instead was loud and clear, though.

Posted 7/14/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

The ACLU:  Defending only those amendments its donors approve of

The ACLU is getting a good old fashion arse whipping in its own blog about the Heller decision.  Somehow, they can claim that the Second Amendment was intended as a "collective" right versus an individual right and the Supreme Court has "reinterpreted" it.  It seems like someone in the ACLU could take the trouble to make even a cursory reading of what this country's founders, and the authors of the Constitution, had to say about the matter.

Regardless, the ACLU blog post is here.  Spend a few minutes reading the comments that follow... and renew your faith in your fellow citizens.

Posted 7/9/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

Dang, it's hot

Friday evening we hopped aboard a friend's pontoon boat and headed over to Kenlake to watch the fireworks from the water (the only place to watch from).  I mentioned to Janet that this was the first time we had been aboard a boat since we sold our Marinette about eight years ago.  Sometime Saturday as we were swimming in the bay we realized that, living within spitting distance of Kentucky Lake and having a boat ramp right at the bottom of the hill, maybe we ought to consider getting a small boat.

So, I guess that tractor will have to wait.

Looking through the classifieds, we didn't see anything that really caught our eyes.  We did find a good deal on a used pedalboat for Alison and her friends to wander around the bay on.  Alison and I got it out and pedaled around on it after getting it home.  Even with the canopy, it was blistering hot.  We finally made it over to the swimming area and jumped in the water and cooled off.  I definitely can't jump off the boat and swim in deep water without some type of boarding ladder.  I might have been able to make it back onto the pedalboat but it would've looked like a giant sea lion trying to wallow back up there.  A giant and very white sea lion with a farmer's tan.

We seriously considered buying a sailboat, mainly because of fuel prices and the memory of how loud the Marinette was, but decided against it, mainly due to the trouble involved with getting one from the house to the water and underway.  Monday, just down the road from our house, we saw a boat for sale sitting in a front yard.  A 1977 model Mark Twain 180T.  The owner even brought it down to our boat dock and gave us a little test ride.  The price was right, and it was in excellent condition, and we came awfully close to pulling the trigger but decided at the last minute that it was a little more boat than we're looking for.  It also had a big V-8 Mercruiser engine which I didn't want to have to feed.  So, I think we're wanting a little john boat with a small outboard engine... just something to tool around the local bays on.  Maybe fish a little.  Something that I won't mind not storing in a garage.

Posted 7/8/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

The asterisk in modern apologetics

This morning I dropped by a blog I hadn't visited in a long time.  I saw it nestled deep in my favorites and couldn't remember anything about it or even bookmarking the site so I figured I'd click on it.  I saw a post that was strangely appropro in describing a dilemma I frequently encounter.

Such an issue inevitably brings up a hundred other things, and I'm often caught trying to distinguish between what Protestants think Catholics teach, what your average Catholic believes, what the bishops and priests are likely to say, and what the Catholic church really teaches - whatever the heck that means.  And, reflecting on that last point, I'm feeling myself falling into my old habit of not giving a rip what the bishops or the pope says.

Not really, of course, but as a practical matter it hardly matters.  When they do say something, it's usually something stupid.  Just a couple days ago I read how the U.S. bishops want to press their opposition to the death penalty.  You know, I simply don't care what they have to say on that subject.  They're so woefully out of touch with Scripture and tradition that I don't see why I should pay any attention.

The same seems to apply to most other matters, actually. Unless and until they start showing some sense, I don't think it's worth while to pay any attention to them.

Posted 7/3/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |

This Day

Our emancipation draweth nigh.  Taking a little road trip this morning.  Details later.

Later...

The other night, Janet, Alison, and I were talking and we all agreed that the last thirteen months has been the worst year of our collective lives.

What could you possibly mean, you say?

Today, the long dark night came to an end.  What follows may sound heartless but it's not meant to be and before you judge it so, you need to have walked in our shoes for the last year.

It started in May, 2007 as I sat in a Draffenville, KY, Dairy Queen attempting to make conversation with a seven-year-old girl who, I was just discovering, was obviously quite retarded.  I'm not going to go into a lot of detail but we accepted an assignment of guardianship of this girl at the desperate request of her aunt and uncle, former neighbors of ours when we lived in Paducah, who were about to see her go into foster care because no one in her family was able/willing to care for her.  They knew we had gone through the state foster care classes and approached us privately about their niece in an attempt to keep her "out of the system".  She had previously lived with her grandmother who we later discovered was just about as crazy as a loon, an apparent pathological liar, and had subjected the poor child to a lifetime of (benign) neglect.

This arrangement was originally meant to be temporary while the grandmother was in the hospital but when we uncovered the history of neglect, we decided that she couldn't go back to her grandmother.  However, we never intended to adopt another child.

The family never told us about the neglect which they were aware of.  They also never told us that she was mentally retarded with serious emotional, mental, and communicative developmental delays.  It would seem that the whole family was in denial about this one.  She was also still wearing diapers.  We found out about this when they brought her to us and said, "Oh, here are her diapers."

They later admitted that they had intentionally deceived us about her condition and history of neglect out of a fear that we would refuse to take her.  They were correct.  We would have.  Someone told us recently that when there is an alcoholic in the family, they tend to suck all the energy from the rest of the family and become the center of everything.  In our case, the same thing was true with a special needs child, especially one with a history of neglect.  This was a seven-year-old child who had, until coming to us, been basically raised by wolves.  To say "developmentally delayed" is putting it mildly when you have to pretty much start out with potty training and how to talk.

I do believe it may have been God's will that we keep her for the time we did.  She made a lot of progress while she was with us, mainly due to the heroic efforts by Janet.  She lost the diapers within the first month of coming to us, is now reading on at least a first grade level, can do basic addition and subtraction, and can at least talk intelligibly most of the time.  She has been taught about God and has an innate love for beauty.  For the survival of our own family, though, it's time she went back to hers.  It's time they stepped up to the plate and did what's right.  That's why, today, she returned to them.  We have our lives back.

Posted 7/1/2008 by Michael Inman | Link |