Summer In The City

Wait! Isn't that a guy in a dress?

It's ninety degrees today, but that can't keep us from going to the Bele-Chere Festival in Asheville. We saw our favorite band Sirius-B as well as the usual freakazoids. No festival would be complete without street acrobats.
Sirius-B
CP and I can't wait to try this at home
CP wants this wall hanging for our living room.

Every fifty yards were street preachers with bull horns adding to the ambiance.

It was so hot that the butterflies were out.

Leggo My Pleco

My pleco's are not affected by the heat wave or the federal deficit.

Hypostomus plecostomus (known colloquially as a sucker fish) is the scientific name for a type of freshwater tropical Central and South American fish belonging to the family Loricariidae. They are large algae eaters, and to differentiate them from small algae eaters, they are often referred to as plecostomus, often abbreviated as plecos or plecs. They are extremely popular in aquaria for their ability to clean tanks by eating algae growth and dead fish. In Malaysia, these fish are called 'ikan bandaraya' or 'municipal fish' in English because of their ability to clean fish tanks. These friendly-natured fish can typically be purchased when about 8 cm (3 inches) and may grow up to 60 cm (2 ft) if there is adequate room, making them mostly impractical for any but the largest aquariums.

One Easy Payment

We went to see our financial planner again. Two weeks ago we were 10% away from retirement, now we are 20% away from our goal. We also looked into Long Term Care Insurance. CP and I can get a good policy that covers everything til we're 91. All this for one easy payment of $119,000. The day that I write a $119,000 check for an insurance premium is the day I have a stroke and end up in a nursing home.


Speaking of long term care. This heat is getting to Bo. He spends hours paw-up under the ceiling fan. I bet he's not thinking of Long Term Care Insurance and protecting his assets, especially since his assets right under the fan.

Carol Have You Seen The Brush For The Grill?

Time To Look Over The Portfolio

Every few years i have to go in for a checkup. I'm not talking about a routine physical which is a waste of time and money, but a meeting with our Financial Planner. We sat down and looked at all our spread sheets and graphs and came to the conclusion that we are only 10% short of our goal of retirement.

Now I'm not talking about buying a vineyard in Napa Valley, but just being comfortable in a shack in the desert. I sure don't want to retire like my neighbors and spent my life clipping coupons and eating mac-n-cheese.

My adviser reminds me that this assessment is only valid for July 7th, 2011 at 4 pm EST. Of course, four more years of Obama may reduce my investments to petty cash. There is one glaring deficiency: a lack of Long Term Care Insurance. I really don't need the life insurance and disability insurance as much as I need to protect my assets in case I spend the last twenty years in a nursing home drooling and trying to eat my own face. It's just one of those things that sneaks up on you.

Hopefully, I have a few years before I fall off my perch or join the fog-walkers (a group of seniors from an assisted living center that walk around the hospital grounds holding walking sticks and wrapped in reflective tape).

Hopefully, the government won't seize my 401K, 403B or SEP accounts in their quest for shared responsibility (shared irresponsibility seems more accurate). If the government decides to steal my retirement I'll just have to repatriate to Italy; maybe then I'll buy a vineyard. Sitting in my vineyard in Atri, under the Abruzzo sun sounds much better than sitting in the day-room watching the QVC channel.

Red White and Brevard

We went to the July 4th Festival in Brevard.

This sign was over the urinals in the American Legion. To thine own septic system remain true.














I wanted to buy CP this Ford Pinto. It even came with Firestone 500 Fiberglass Belted Radial Tires.












This 57 Chevy Bel-Air had a radio designed after it; the Element was designed after a Toaster.










This would be a good replacement for the old Cutlass.











Of course we couldn't miss the Community Theater's production of "RED, WHITE and Blaine."

Finally; Something To Read

After waiting four months, my book request finally came available. "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" by Amy Chua. I read an article about her in the WSJ in March and was convinced that she had something to say judging by the uproar on the left and the right. So far, after sixty pages I'm really enjoying it. It's a must read for future parents. Along with Cesar Millan's book "Cesar's Way" it's all a young couple needs to raise outstanding children. You can take Dr. Spock and all that schlock in the Christian Book Stores and hit the kid over the head with it.

American Sepsis

We are in "deep doo-doo." I think of all things in terms living organisms, thus this great republic has moved from localized infection to sepsis. We have an abscess; it's called the Federal Debt. For twenty years this localized pocket of pus has simmered where we didn't have to notice it. Whenever it would flare we would just add some homeopathic goo to it to make us feel like we were doing something. This boil on the nation's butt is getting so big we can't as a nation collectively sit on our ass anymore. Then along comes our Socialist President whose prescription is to bleed the patient.

The conservatives want to bring out the "big guns." They want to use antibiotics. They want to get serious about this: they're even talking about cutting Planned Parenthood and NPR. They're talking PIC Lines and Vancomycin. However, that boil is walled off and all that medicine is going to do is piss it off. There is only one cure for the peri-rectal abscess we're sitting on; it has to be drained. The alternative is a septic nation.The toxins have already damaged our defenses, broken down our cell wall integrity and caused a general malaise. Until someone comes along with the courage to lance that boil and let the pus flow this patient is going to limp along on life support until each organ system shuts down.

The nation is like a child who refuses to have his tonsils out, or the sexually promiscuous teenager who is doubled over with the pain of pelvic inflammatory disease (aka pus-in-dare) who is afraid of the knife. Sooner or later that pus is going to come out, whether by war or revolution. The pus always wins, especially when the patient is too stupid to go under the knife.