First day off

This is the first day where I can sit around and slurp coffee this month.  Tomorrow will be my last.  I was supposed to go to an event  today, but I've sent the Ragin' Mrs, and instead I'm cleaning the house and trying not to feel guilty about enjoying my break.

This is my life right now.

Ragin' Dave's Quote of the Day

From Tam, the Mistress of Snark, in the comments over at Og's place.

“Passengers pay on average only 58 cents of every dollar it costs to operate a rail system. This is just operating costs. Every additional passenger is a net loss.”

How much is it worth to you to get a gullible cell-phone yammering hippie off the road twice a day? I got 42¢ right here.

I'll toss a fiver in there and get a bunch more off the road!

I was going to go running this morning

But I stepped outside to let the dog do his business, got hit by the cold temps plus a nice windchill, and thought to myself "You know, why don't we see what this afternoon looks like?" and then went back inside and made coffee.

Blah.  I'm ready for spring.

UPDATE:  Afternoon run was much better.  I never really like running in the afternoon, but if it's a choice between frostbite or an afternoon run, I'll run later.

On President Present and Libya

Well, Michelle Malkin and Drew M at AOSHQ pretty much sum it up.  Obama is pathetic, weak, gutless, spineless, nutless, feckless, cowardly, craven, mindless and idiotic.  Watching that worthless bag of crap soil the Oval Office day after day makes me want to vomit.  The damage that ignorant narcissistic moron is doing to this country cannot be repaired.

And I want every Obama voter who was screaming for Bush's impeachment to be out there doing the same damn thing to their Liberal Lord and Messiah now that he's gone to war against Libya.  What's that?  Oh, those lunatic liberal lickspittles were lying and using any excuse to attack a somewhat conservative president, and are nothing but a bunch of hypocritical pieces of trash?  Why yes, yes they are.  This here is my quote of the day:

And regarding rubes: yes, those on the right who supported Obama, and those on the far-left who believed in Obama’s campaign promises, were clearly rubes. But the rank and file Democrats who are now silent on Libya? I think it’s important we call them what they are: liars.

I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that many times over the last eight years, I would see the intensity of the moral outrage on the left over Iraq and say to myself, “Gee, these people sure do feel strongly about this. What if they’re right about it?” This caused me many times to reexamine my reasons for supporting the war, and my conscience. We now know, however, that it was all quite simply bullshit. Sound and fury, signifying nothing. I must admit, I’m feeling a bit like a rube myself.

Every howling moonbat who is now silent when their Marxist Messiah is doing it can go to hell.

Oh Yeah, THAT will work wonders!

Unions and commies, working together in Wisconsin!  Granted, at this point the two groups are only separated by a hair's worth of difference anyways....

More Democrat Shenanigans in Wisconsin

This time, proof that they're aiding and abetting the protesters.  I'd be willing to bet my paycheck that the reason the hippies have been able to take over and live in the Capital is because the Donks have been letting them inside when all other access is blocked.  Much like the window that was opened for them after the State Police had locked the rotunda down.

Democrats - is there any depth to which they won't sink in their greedy war for power?

Ladies and Gents

Buy ammo.

"If we continue down on the path on which the fiscal authorities put us, we will become insolvent, the question is when," Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher said in a question and answer session after delivering a speech at the University of Frankfurt.

"The short-term negotiations are very important, I look at this as a tipping point."

But 6 billion in cuts is draconian.  Right.

Yes, the public supports Gov. Walker

Of course, the public in Wisconsin doesn't have cushy, taxpayer-funded jobs that refuse to punish people for playing hooky, do they?  And while hoards of smelly hippies throwing screaming fits in Madison sells papers, the real story is that people in Wisconsin supported Gov. Walker in his attempt to balance the budget.

Choke on that, hippies.

My First Dog

That wasn't a family hound was a border collie mix named Blackie.  I was stationed at Ft. Riley at the time, and living off post in a delightful little burb called Grandview Prairie, which was in essence one large trailer park.  I walked into the post vet center, back into their adoption section, and this little, skinny black mutt was staring at me.  All the other dogs were going berserk, but this one dog just stood and stared.  I sat down in front of her cage, put my hand up to the wire, and she licked my hand.

I took her home the next day.

I didn't know it at the time, but she had been abused beyond all belief before she was picked up by the game warden and dropped off at the vet.  She was starved, had been beaten, neglected, and was a miserable little scrap of fur when I got her home and gave her a bath.  I was so used to the country dogs at home that I did what we used to do back there; just dump a day's worth of food in the bowl, and let the dog eat when it wants to eat.  Well, with Blackie, that meant eat it all right then, because she didn't think she was ever going to get any more.  So she would gorge, and then vomit all over the carpet.  Me being a stupid guy, it took me a little while to figure out exactly what was going on.  And then I started putting an eighth of a cup of food in her bowl, as quietly as possible.  She would see it, and scarf it down.  When I saw the bowl was empty, I would put another eighth of a cup of food in there, until she got used to the fact that every time she looked in her food bowl, there was food in it.  It took her about a month before she was no longer scarfing food at every opportunity.

She would also cringe at any loud human voice.  If I laughed, she would hide.  It took her a while longer until she wouldn't run away at the sound of a raised voice, but she eventually got to the point where even if I was full out laughing she would just wag her tail and sit down.  It took years before she started behaving like a normal dog, but she was a wonderful, intelligent, loving dog from the day I took her home.  She used to sleep on my bed, right next to me.  At one point, I had a delightful young lady who was um....  spending the night....  and after we had exercised ourselves into slumber, I woke up to the sound of *THUMP* "Ow!  Bloody hell!"

Blackie, finding her space occupied by this delightful young lady, had gotten into the middle of the bed, put all four feet against the lady's back, and pushed her out of her spot, right off the bed.  And then Blackie curled up in her rightful spot.

When I got out of the Army back in 2000, I made a stop at the Ragin' Parents place before I moved on to Seattle.  And while I was looking for an apartment or a house, my Mom told me that she would watch Blackie while I was out and about.  So about a week into my search for dog-friendly living quarters, I call Mom to update her, and she informs me that I'm not getting Blackie back.  I object, because this is MY DOG, but my mom is Mom, and the fact of the matter is that my parents acreage in the country is better for a border collie than a cramped apartment in downtown Seattle.  And Mom had lost our family dog a few years back, and you don't just need a dog in the country, you NEED a dog.  So, Blackie lived at my parent's house from that point on.  But every time I came home, she would jump in my lap, and lick my hand, and curl up on me any time I sat down.  She might have lived at my parent's house, but she was my dog.  My sweet, loving dog.

Mom called me tonight, and let me know that she had to put Blackie down.  She's buried on my parent's property up in Idaho.  She had been injured back in November, and just went downhill from there.

She was at least a couple years old when I got her back in 1998, so she lived to be 13 or 14 years old.  She had a great life out in the country, in a house full of wonderful people, and loved by a woman who just knew deep down in her bones how to treat animals right.  The Ragin' Mrs. likes to joke that my mom and I attract animals and kids to us like magnets.  If that's true, it's because my mom taught me how to treat them properly.  Blackie had a decade of happy, country living, which is more than most animals can dream of.

And it still hurts to lose her.  Let me quote Og here:  

As I have often said before, if I die and I don’t come to the afterlife being greeted by all the dogs i knew in life, the Creator and I will have some WORDS.

There's a Kipling poem at that link that I can't read right now.