Some Days It Doesn't Pay To Turn On The News

THE GOOD

THE BAD

THE RIDICULOUS

The Worst Inch of Snow!

This morning I saw some strange white stuff. After a moment I realized it was a dusting of snow on the cars and the lawns. It wasn't enough to stick to the road or count as a measurable snow fall, yet it did cause delays and cancellations around Asheville.

Courier & Ives Revisited

Carol and Bo reading National Review Online, on Carol's new mini lap top.

Southern Hospitality

Marianne is home for Christmas Break. Like a rock star her accommodations are always a challenge. During her last stay the trundle bed was set up for her in my office. My recliner is also in the same small room. I usually fall asleep in my recliner watching the History Channel and stumble off to bed around midnight when my prostate beckons. Due to complaints about toxic fumes in the small room I have relocated our special guest to the living room. Her new suite is light and airy . It also provides protection against the Bo wet nose wake up.

Sweet Home Alabama

You won't find this this special on the menu in New York!!!!!!!

No No Bad Dog

When Bo goes to the kennel we usually expect him to react to the different diet. He spent all of 32 hours at there this time. I picked him up about 4 pm and kept putting him out a lot . I was also waiting for the toxic gas cloud he emits after after sampling their "port de fare". I was a bit concerned when I didn't have the ocular proof of a return to normal G.I. flora. About 5 am I hear him scratching in his cage furiously . After a few seconds I realize he is trying to arrange his blanket and Birdie away from the oncoming discharge. I jump out of bed and grab him and his poop stained paws and carry him outside. Well it was bad. My plan is to pick up his blanket and carry it into the bathroom and dump the pooh into the toilet and wash his blanket. It didn't go as planned ! I don't want to go into the details , but let me say my action resulted in the removal of two bathroom cabinet doors, and the disposal of a bathroom rug. Being familiar with G.I. disasters I really couldn't get too mad at the little fella.

Today, though, I am mad at Bo. I left him alone for one minute and I find him with his nose in my coffee mug just sloshing down my second cup of coffee. He drank half the cup. That really made me mad. After a year and a half I still can't trust him!

Vegas Behaving Itself

Here I am on another forced vacation. It's use it before 2008 or lose it. We were contemplating a trip to to Dayton but then gas prices shot up to 2.99/gal. and you know CB. Besides there was a massive winter storm laying across the radar map. It's been almost hot here with afternoons in the high seventies. So we took the huge 110 mile trip to Pigeon Forge, home of Dollywood , outlet stores, tacky theatre and white trash behaving themselves.

Judging by the business there I'm thinking the economy must be in the tank. Half of the outlets were vacant and the half that were still open were having "Going Under" sales. Our room at the Holiday Inn Express was half the price of Savannah and that's with the Jacuzzi and belt buckle cleaner. Our room also had a panoramic view of the nearby cemetery. We even got to see the "Tomb of the Unknown Shopper". I have never seen so much absolute crap on sale. One store was as big as Sam's Club and it just sold potpourri . I thought I was going to have an asthma attack.

We did take a bus tour to see the lights and be told about the history of Pigeon Forge. It was fun although the Christmas lights were underwhelming. Our driver, Billy-Ray, was funny and he told some great yarns, He even led us in a round of 'The Twelve Days Of Christmas" as I sucked diesel fumes in the back of the bus.

We did luck out when it came to eating. The corn chowder at the Old Mill Restaurant was delicious. Later, at the Bullfish Grille I had the New Orleans shrimp and pasta that was out of this world. The only thing was I forgot to pack my shorts and it was eighty degrees in Pigeon Forge.

We were there in the summer about ten years ago and it was 98 degrees and bumper to bumper traffic. It was nice that it wasn't as crowded but being twelve days before Christmas the lack of commerce was alarming. Just in time for a Democrat president!

Christmas and Grits

Now I work with controlled substances every day, but there is no drug that could have prepared me for what I saw driving into work this week. There is some sort of tree decorating festival going on and as I turn down the road to work at 6 am I see this seven foot tree all lit up with a plastic head of Jesus on it. I think to myself "whoa I must have taken too much melatonin last night", or else I've stumbled into a Monty Python movie.

Driving further I came upon the NASCAR tree. All that it lacked was a life size statue of Dale Earnhardt with L.E.D. eyes. No wonder there was no room in town; that was the weekend of the " Bethlehem 500". The magi were really on their way to a tailgate party.

To top off the competition the "Gay and Lesbian Alliance" entered the upside down tree. I'm sure there is some deep meaning in this that alludes me.

This weekend instead of the star of Bethlehem shining down over Asheville it will be the Ron Paul blimp arriving from South Carolina. I think I'll just go to my room and turn the lights out till December twenty-sixth.

Christmas in The Smokies

What is wrong with this picture? Nothing. This a very white southern Christmas pageant. Where is Joseph's beard? How come Mary looks like she just came from a Mary Kay party? Why travel to the Holy Land with all those pesky terrorists when you can have a bleached blonde, whiter-than-white Christmas at Dollywood? Our Sunday School class is going up there for a Christmas trip. I think we are the only ones in the class without a season pass to Dollywood. It is the Southern Baptist version of Mecca. The faithful will have their spirits lifted by 8 hours of shopping and eating.

CP is busy at the Feed & Seed. They are building a float for the Fletcher Christmas parade. The theme of the float is the "Island of Misfit Toys". We will be handing out toys along the parade route since Feed & Seed is right there and we will be open and serving hot cocoa and cider to the folks. The weather channel is predicting a sunny 62'F that day, so we southerners will be chilled.

After seeing all the hoopla around town I don't feel bad about my plastic light-up penguin that sits in front of the house. I remember reading in the Septuagint gospel of Luke that a penguin was present in the ethanol plant where Christ was born.

To All My Loyal Fans

There have some trashy photos of me appearing on other blogs. These photos were taken by paparazzi and doctored to make me look like Britney Spears. I know my close friends and many admirers will not be fooled by trashy bloggers.
Best Wishes,
BO

I Heart Asheville

My Christmas season kicks off with Ed Gerhard's concert in Asheville. It's so neat to be able to see such great talent so close to home. We get to see a lot of talented gospel, country , and blue grass at the Feed and Seed , but Gerard's playing of the acoustic guitar is transcendent. After the concert it's off to the Tupelo Honey Cafe for some sweet potato pancakes which are uber-transcendent.

Because of the many requests.

I give up. Because of all the requests I have decided to post another picture of Bo. Look close and you can see Bo's evil-eye.

Babba's Rent a Car

You can rent this beautiful Subaru for one easy payment!

Offer includes: lifetime maintenance
free oil changes
int/ext detailing yearly (includes glitter
disposal)
lifetime replacement: Battery
Wipers
Tires (curbside tires
replaced yearly)

Just stop in at any of our convenient service centers located in :

Rochester, N.Y & Asheville, N.C.

Ask for Babba or Dick

SE HABLA ESPANOL

Cabin vs. Condo

Maybe it's the fall in real estate prices, or the looming collapse of the global economy, or the fact that the peso is worth more than the U.S. dollar but houses are looking affordable. I was looking at houses in Flat Rock, about 15 miles south. I'm conflicted about becoming a home owner again. I really am not a house worshiper. It would make sense to get a place and just kind of "let it go". But being a C.B. who grew up in his own private depression, I have trouble not maintaining things. Optimistically, I may be around another twenty years. By then if I haven't fallen off my perch I'll probably be in some assisted living facility being taken care of by some Jamaican nurse that CP will hate, but who I'll call Mama.

Flat Rock is a real popular hang out for rich seniors. It's the kind of place where you see a lot of Grandpa Bill cars. Lumbering Grand Marquis going 20 mph with their blinkers on. Late at night you can see shiny Crown Vic's slipping through the fog trolling for widows. After visiting MP I have become enamored by the "benign neglect " style of architecture. All the new homes I see are of the "modern vulgarian" style, or "fake-fancy" as CP refers to them. So I'm thinking maybe I should get a quaint older home and just let it rot out from under me.


Last night we had a little party with the neighbors. It was an eclectic bunch of Yankee transplants. This made me think that perhaps the isolation of the country is not that great. A lot of geezers have a tendency become isolated. I am such a people person, I may have to reconsider. Is it OK to take the lamp shade off my head now?

Puzzler

No, this is not the result of southern cooking. I found these little turd size dowels all over the lawn on one side of my house. They are so perfectly round and uniform I thought it might be alien spawn. Either that or a flock of Canadian Geese on Metamucil made a layover. I'm wondering if any of my subscribers can tell me what subterranean critter I can be expecting to encounter on some cool autumn stroll. Maybe this will be the year for cicadas.

After the shopping comes the food.

After the shopping in Savannah it was off to "Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House". This is the place listed in I,OOO PLACES TO SEE BEFORE YOU DIE. This is southern cooking at its finest. There are no reservations; you just line up outside. They seat you at a large table with 10 other people and you just start passing the dishes around. It's a regular southern style bacchanal . When you're done you carry your dishes to the kitchen. I preferred their fried chicken to Paula Deen's; it wasn't as greasy. Seated next to us was a flight attendant on a sixteen hour layover , she recommended our next stop; Hyman's Seafood Restaurant in Charleston S.C.

Christmas Shopping Southern Style

We arrived in Savannah 3 pm Monday, but CP was still able to get in a little shopping.

Prelude to Thanksgiving in Rochester

This is what happens when a Hyper-Calvinist meets a Rabid-Arminian. Warning, the results may not be pretty. My money is on the Kahunnah.

2008 Presidential Nominees

After reading the text below the above people just popped into my mind.

Creed
by Steve Turner

---

This is the creed I have written on behalf of all us.

We believe in Marx Freud and Darwin
We believe everything is OK
as long as you don't hurt anyone,
to the best of your definition of hurt,
and to the best of your knowledge.

We believe in sex before, during, and after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun.
We believe that sodomy is OK.
We believe that taboos are taboo.

We believe that everything is getting better
despite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated
And you can prove anything with evidence.

We believe there's something in
horoscopes, UFO's and bent spoons;
Jesus was a good man
just like Buddha, Mohamed, and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher
although we think His good morals were bad.

We believe that all religions are basically the same--
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of
creation, sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.

We believe that after death comes the Nothing
Because when you ask the dead what happens they say nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied,
then it's compulsory heaven for all
excepting perhaps Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Khan.

We believe in Masters and Johnson.
What's selected is average.
What's average is normal.
What's normal is good.

We believe in total disarmament.
We believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed.
Americans should beat their guns into tractors
and the Russians would be sure to follow.

We believe that man is essentially good.
It's only his behavior that lets him down.
This is the fault of society.
Society is the fault of conditions.
Conditions are the fault of society.

We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him.
Reality will adapt accordingly.
The universe will readjust.
History will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth
excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth.

We believe in the rejection of creeds,
and the flowering of individual thought.

"Chance" a post-script

If chance be the Father of all flesh,
disaster is his rainbow in the sky,
and when you hear

State of Emergency!
Sniper Kills Ten!
Troops on Rampage!
Whites go Looting!
Bomb Blasts School!

It is but the sound of man worshiping his maker.

Cinematically Challenged

I haven't been to a a regular movie theater since Easter. There has been a major quality film drought from Hollywood. I'll take a pass on the recent crop of anti-American flicks and the burp n' fart films that seem to be number one at the box office. I still go to the Fine Arts theater once in awhile to see an independent film. The last one I saw was "Death At A Funeral" and it was great. Laughed my head off.

Today CP wanted to go to a regular theater, so we went to see "The Brave One" with Jodie Foster. It's a remake of "Death Wish", the original vigilante movie starring Charles Bronson. We both check the time at the theater web site and drive to Hooterville to the new octoplex. We get there at 12:40 for the the 12:45 show and the parking lot is empty. I refused to believe the new theater went bankrupt, so CP got out to check the time and the movie really started at 1:45. We both looked at the correct time and then left an hour early. We couldn't blame BP because he just gets in the car and goes wherever, like a lemming.

After a trip to the library to waste an hour, we return to the cinema and get in line for tickets. I'm telling CP I bet there will be some senior citizen in front of us arguing for the senior discount during a matinée. We get to the window and neither of us can remember the title of the movie we came to see. We recalled it starred Jodie Foster, so the kid was able to look it up and tell us what we came to see. I go to get popcorn (the real reason I'm there) and realize it's a whole new crew of counter help. Different faces but the same vacuous expressions as the previous bunch I had last seen 5 months ago.

We enter the auditorium and there is one person there. In a millisecond I can tell she is a nut job. I'm waving BP further up the stairs to try to put at least 6 rows between us. The coming attractions haven't even started and she is talking to herself and has all her stuff spread out like she's at a picnic. Of course, she starts to talk to us even though we are 20 feet away. There are four people in the whole theater: three of us and the loonie. In comes a couple in their seventies, and what do they do? They sit right next to us. In Hooterville, even the simplest things like going to the movies is a barrel of laughs. That's why I'm holding off on the home theater. That, and also because I'm a CB.

The movie wasn't bad, three stars. I have to go to Blockbuster and get the original for CP. Next to going to the movies, seeing every version of the same movie is our favorite pastime.

Viva Las Vegas Part Deux

Another whirlwind trip to Nye County. We flew out on Weds. and we are back home in NC for dinner Sat. We drove out to Charlotte for a direct flight. The last couple of times we flew out of Asheville there was trouble with the puddle-jumper and we almost missed our connections, It was something about the battery one time and the rubber band the second time. It's only three and a half fun filled starving hours in the air to get there. CP's new attempt at Babba management is to put me in the middle seat and herself on the aisle. This worked out fine for her but I was forced to talk to the window seat guy both trips.

The first window seat guy was a retired iron worker from Henderson, NV, who restores old Ford pick up trucks. I was lucky because he slept at least two hours with a blanket over his head. We parted with me promising to go to the car show that weekend and see his El-Camino. On the return trip while CP watched the movie, I had to talk to Manuel for three hours. We talked about everything: home repair, our children, Las Vegas, real estate, the weather. Now this flight alone used up about 6 months of my available conversation. I didn't even notice the plane had landed in Charlotte. It wasn't easy for me to talk that long about such a myriad of subjects without one ethnic remark.

We land and go to get our rental car and it has to be the same Chevy Impala we get every time. Now, they moved the rental center to about 3 miles from the airport in its own terminal that is bigger than the Charlotte airport. I couldn't get the A/C to work so we got a Ford 500 instead; which was a nicer car. We pull out of the rental terminal and at the first stop light there is a shoot out going on with some guys and about six Metro Cops. Carol says "Look! Why are these guys all lying on the ground and why to all these policemen standing behind their cars with shot guns?" Welcome to Las Vegas. I thought all the Metro Cops were at the airport, because O.J. just flew out twenty minutes before we arrived. I wonder if he likes the window seat?

Just 70 miles down the road, we are at my sister's hacienda in Pahrump, Nevada. Don't spell check it, it's Pahrump. We check in, and then it's off to see my Mom in the nursing home. Mom is doing great now that they got her meds right. She still has a few left over dreams that she thinks are real, but otherwise, she's pretty sharp. She does still feel that all the staff and residents are conspiring to steal her money, cookies, and clothes. We took Mom out to the Nugget for her favorite meal: steak and eggs and a side of bacon. She ate the whole meal up. Then it was back to the home. She is really doing great, a lot more alert and although she can't walk she seemed to stand better and do the little Georgia Two Step and pivot into the car. My one niece has a new job at the nuclear test site. That's located just 40 miles from Pahrump across Area-51. If she told me what her job is she would have to kill me. She is very excited about it and I think it has to do with keeping us safe from Al-Qaeda and the Democrats.

We had a brief few hours of sunshine and drove to Red Rock Canyon to the Red Rock Casino for lunch with another niece. Another one of my nieces has a boyfriend who is a chef there. So far this boyfriend has gotten through two auditions and is on his way to being a contestant on Hell's Kitchen. We saw a little oasis called Blue Diamond, a village of about 80 homes. It looked like a little artist colony. It had a little school, town hall, library and post office, general store etc. It was so nice and green and everywhere there were wild burrows grazing. They were on the soccer field and at the pool, just milling around. It was refreshing to see a desert community that wasn't full of garbage like Parhump and Hawthorne. We saw one house for sale. It was a small slightly run down adobe type house. The for sale sign was spray painted, on a weathered piece of plywood, it read: "FOR SALE $975,000 FIRM". I don't think the bottom has fallen out of the housing market in Blue Diamond, Nevada.

We didn't see much sun. It was cloudy when we arrived and the last two days it rained hard. I think Pahrump got about 4 inches in 24 hours. Since the valley is really some prehistoric lake bed let's just say the bowl was starting to fill up.

We arrived at Charlotte about 3 pm and had to take the shuttle bus to extended parking lot #2. Parking lot one had a great big bus, but lot two's was a liitle hotel type shuttle bus. We kept picking up people and luggage till we looked like something from a South American movie. The driver was a combination Southern Bell and Nazi. When we came to a stop with a young girl who had been waiting 30 minutes she told this young guy to squeeze out and tell her there wasn't any room for her. The guy fights his way over the luggage and yells out "the mean driver says there's no room for you". Upon hearing this the whole bus reaaranged itself to get this girl on board. It's good to be back in the south. Well we are home. Bo gained about a pound and I am suffering from the gas he has from the cheap kennel dog food.

The Girl in the Hood

We went up to South Bend to pick up BP and deliver a rug. South Bend looked a little nicer to me. Maybe it was the time of year. This is the first time I've seen MP's new crib. The area is really nice. It's kind of older and historic. The houses are 100 year old wood frame houses with large front porches. Most have been converted to two or three apartments. The houses aren't historical restorations but a mixture of benign neglect and modern renovation. MP's apt. is very cute. It has those 10 foot ceilings and plaster walls with cracks that run the length of the room. The kitchen has the old wooden cabinets with about 40 layers of paint on them; all lead of course. The windows remind me of our first house in Ogden where the curtains would blow with the windows closed. At least the house is sheltered by other houses and lots of trees. From an energy efficiency standpoint it's a sieve. It does have character. The kind of feeling you can't get out of sheet-rock, plastic crown molding , Formica. or a drop ceiling. Since MP's apt, is on the first floor, the original kitchen, dining room and parlor, it has those barn-like sliding doors that disappear into the walls. The owner is a musician and I could see that his talent didn't translate into home repair. Nothing, however, could prepare me for the bathroom. It was originally a mud room. The original window was filled with a 50's era chrome vanity with mirror sliding doors, and a four light fixture on top with a cool plastic cover that looked like a spoiler. I remember this fixture from cheap motels. Now it did fit perfectly in the window box so with the limited choices in this small room, it may have seemed providential to put it in the window and then put the wash basin under it. The problem I saw was that it was about 2 inches away from the shower. When I saw how it was wired I knew I had to fix it. So I re-wired it and covered the side near the shower with duct-tape (Kentucky Chrome) and grounded the cabinet. I also instructed MP not to reach into it from the shower. The pipes had a bad case of arteriosclerosis so the shower was a trickle and the cold water faucet ran like a babbling brook when it was turned off . There was no exhaust fan so the plaster ceiling showed the effect of a million soakings. I think a couple of thousand dollars could turn the bathroom around and add to the appeal of the whole apt. The bathroom was so bad I heard T.D. preferred to use the backyard when he visited. How Bohemian.

I only had one day so I hung a few lamps and put long-life bulbs in them because of the cathedral ceilings. I put up a second smoke alarm and a carbon monoxide alarm ( I didn't want to see the furnace), put a chain on the door and fixed the dead-bolt lock and sprayed the windows and sliding doors with silicone so MP could move them.

The apartment is very nice when you get past all the code violations. I was amazed just how homey it was. You see, when I was in school I owned one pot, one fork, one knife, a spoon and two plastic glasses. MP's place looks like a real home.

There was a disappointing part of the visit. I discovered MP's Subie was violated. I noticed the weather stripping hanging down from the passenger door. Upon closer observation I noticed the interior panel was pulled away and there a a dent in the heavy steel door frame. Our first response was to blame BP, but I couldn't think of how this could happen (the mechanism of injury that could caused this). Then I realized someone tried to pry the door open. MP told me that a week ago when she tried to disarm the security system it beeped four times and went into default mode which means that incomplete breach of the passenger compartment. I reset the security system and had to use more Kentucky Chrome to get the weatherstripping back in place because those little plastic fasteners never hold once they are popped out.

I had my eye on her rear tire for awhile suspecting a leak so I brought my gauge and compressor up with me. The right rear tire was about 5 lbs down but I noticed the right front was almost flat. I found a gash in the sidewall big enough for me to fit my pinky in. I think she cut it on the sharp cobblestone curbs they have in her neighborhood. We went to Wal-Mart and because her favorite Uncle Dick got her the road hazard protection, she got two new tires for $11. Both right side tires had sidewalls that looked like someone took a router to them. Now she is parking a little further from the curb.

So I had a whirlwind 36 hour visit. I should have brought my canoe since there is a river across the street from her house. If it just wasn't 620 miles away.

Good Book

"I'm starting on a book, and when I'm finished I may read another one". I just finished Kite Runner which DS recommended. It's the first book I've been able to finish in 6 months. I was about two thirds through the book when it dawned on me that this is a novel. That is good, since I find most novels so unbelievable and dishonest that I toss them after 50 pages. The last 50 pages of Kite Runner had enough coincidences to make me realize it was fiction. I found it was written well and moved along at a good pace. Any novel that can keep my adult A.D.D. brain focused has to get four stars.

CP's new Secret Weapon

This innocent looking device is CP's latest weapon in her arsenal to stave off arguments. It's is a hand held , voice actuated digital recorder. Now when I say something to myself CP will have the digital proof that I really didn't tell her anything. Everything I now say or don't say to Mrs. TIVO will be available for play back. When Mrs. TIVO wants to repeat something mentioned in confidence she can repeat verbatim what you confided in her to that person. Now MP, BP and I have have all been TIVO'd by CP so we are really frightened by this new technology. Like other forms of surveillance there is a flip side. I may be able to vindicate myself . Like when Carol and I are lost driving and I ask her "do I turn right or left" and she responds "yes" I'll have the digital proof that she is trying to drive me nuts. I wish I had this device the time we got lost in Asheville and got off the wrong exit four times. CP said she got it to record sermons , bible studies and the lines in her play. I might be paranoid; but I think I see a mini-cam in the smoke alarm.

She Can Do It!

Happy Birthday, Marianne

FROM Dr.'s:

Adams
Costas
Neimkin

and Mom, Dad, Ben & Bo

Facing The Giants

Ranked as one of the top ten upsets in collegian football history, Appalachian State College in Boone N.C. defeated Michigan. Although the game was played in Michigan the loyal ASU fans tore down their own goal posts and carried it through the streets of Boone in a sign reminiscent of a South American coup. The Alumni Association has already scheduled a Krispy-Kreme bake sale to repair the field. As its punishment Michigan should have to play next year's game in Boone N.C. Now Boone probably has a total of 120 motel rooms, so this will tax the sleepy little town more than the Moonshine Festival, the Tractor Pull and D.N.A. Day. As in the movie "Facing The Giants" App State was looked upon by Michigan as "little dogs". Someone enlightened me to the reason for App State's remarkable showing. It seem that most of their star players have been on the team for five plus years, and some stay on for seven. This gives the team time to develop cohesiveness. The team is not being constantly diluted by a stream of new recruits. The school spirit is so great that many of the best players don't mind waiting to join the NFL. Besides a few last minute wind shifts I think Appalachian State was spurred on to victory by the school spirit demonstrated in the this recruitment video.

On a sadder note Notre Dame was annihilated by Georgia Tech . They should take a lesson from App State's play book. Notre Dame has to stop graduating their star players so fast.

Babba finds the Mother Ship

After a show at the Fine Arts Theater, Babba and Mrs. Gi went out for a great vegetarian dinner at the Tupelo Honey Cafe. I had my favorite "sweet potato pancake". On a balmy August night we stopped at the drum circle. It was a beautiful time of music and dancing that helped to put our busy lives into perspective. The best part is that all this is just twenty minutes from our home in sleepy Fletcher. Too bad Bo wasn't with us to be part of the vibe. This is the kind of socialization he needs. We may make the Friday night drum circle a tradition to shake off cares of the week. Well I'm off to E-bay to bid on a Celtic drum called a Bodhran, so Bo and I can take up our position in the drum line.


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