These are a few of…

My Favorite Things.

Janet was spending saturday at one of her friends down in Pittsburgh having some vodka tonics and watching the Pens game – so what was I to do? As any methodical person I listed some of my favorite things so that I could incorporate them into my prospective days activities.

1 – Baxter and Bart

2 – fish/fishing

3 – cigars

4 – beer

5 – single malt scotch

6 – seafood

7 – sailing

I could go on and on but that was all I needed to list. My first choice for my days activities was to blast out onto Firth in the Piscarious with Baxter and Bart a few cold 50′s on ice to stalk the 22″ small mouth bass with some french hardware and my new graphite flyrod. But alas the lake is frozen and the Piscarious is not an ice breaker/snow machine. Got to next plan.

This was to be known as the Other Plan – Baxter and Bart and I would jump into my VW panzer head to Pittsburgh with first stop at The Smoker Friendly shop in Cranberry. They have been saving the loose tobacco that many cigar makers pack their cigars in for me. They didn’t have any saved this time but I bought a couple nice cigars from their well stocked humidor. Moving right along to Pittsburgh – next stop Penn Brewery. The boys got out for a little walk then onto the bier-hall – and a nice big draft of the vunderbar, Kaiser Pils! MMMMMMM good! Truly the breakfast of champions! Then across the Allegheny river to the strip district. I parked and walked to Wholeys fish market. Step one get 6 lightly breaded fried fresh oysters. Next step walk around and look over all the fish whilst eating said oysters.. Every type of whole fish for sale and many types swimming in tanks! Bluegills, largemouth bass, tilapia, brown trout, brook trout, rainbow trout, carp … really cool stuff. I got some Amish block butter and American cheese, on the cheap, after I had downed my oysters. Next stop Sam Bok market – where I purchased a gallon of god awful good Kim Chi! Then off to the Macaroni company for sharp ass good provolone cheese – 1 pound 7$ and several tastes of other cheeses before I got what I went there for. He He! The Stilton was great and the sharp Asiago tempted me – well maybe next run. It was beginning to spit snow but I was still on my fun mission. Back to the car and the boys sleeping – we next crossed the Monongahela to the south side and Bloom cigars on 12th street off of Carson, near Jacks Bars no less. I picked up a couple cigars (excellent price for hand rolled natural wrapper 50 ring gauge!!! Best stocked humidor in Pa and truly nice people) and nice fat bag of loose tobacco for 6$!!!!! With my looted booty in hand I jumped back into the Panzer and assessed the sit. The snow was coming down like crazy! And the boys were oh so lazy. My next stop was to be the Hofbrau Haus in south side – but after assessing the weather/time/ etc I opted for the skip and headed for my final stop – Elmer’s Aquarium in Monroeville. So off we went snow or no snow – damn the torpedos full speed ahead. We got to Elmer’s in fine fettle in no time. I spent about a half hour looking over the vast array of tropical exotic fish there and as ever was impressed. But I was also impressed with the prices – you pay for the great multiplicity of fish species here – fish that were available in small shops and say Petsmart for 3$ were running at 6 to 8$ here!!!!! But as I said there were uncountable numbers of fish that were not to be had anywhere else nearby. Discretion being the better part of valor – I opted for no purchases. I stole away before I made any rash decisions and started home in the heavy snow. On passing a Petsmart I was sucked into the parking lot! I purchased a couple of great little iridescent shark (catfish) and then proceeded for home. What a great day! Driving home in the blowing snow with Bart sleeping warmly on my lap and Baxter riding shotgun. Life is sweet!

It is an interesting dichotomy!

We pummel the hell out of our elected representatives for flip flopping and or changing their position to match that of the prevailing opinion but we want them to be responsive to our political thoughts! What is this shit?????

A few years back, my good friend Jim Palmer (pragmatic fiscal conservative – social liberal) and I were talking politics over a couple bottles of wine – beer or whatever and he was telling me that his dad had a very good theory as to how to run for congress. The candidate should put forth directly that his core beliefs will be put on hold completely and that he would be a “vessel of public opinion”. That is to say that if elected he would assiduously track public opinion on every side of every vote that he would be called on to make and then vote in alignment with the majority of his constituents. He would be released from constantly making boring speeches to change public opinion and raising money from special interests and could devote all of his political time to helping his individual constituents and tracking the opinions of his constituents. Any speech that he made could be started with the words, “I am “so and so” and my thoughts and opinions are meaningless – I am here to represent the opinions and agenda of the majority of my constituents. So I will now sit back and listen to the people. I am your representative.”

How do you think that would fly? I realize that a president is expected to be a leader but I honestly think this would be a good approach for congress.

On a similar note of reflecting the mood and attitude of your constituents my good friend Joe Conrad ran successfully for two years as the dorm president at Penn State on the “Do Nothing” platform. “I pledge to – do nothing – I will not hold office hours, I will not participate, condone or endorse activities or charitable events. I pledge to do nothing.” He would win in a near landslide because his message resonated with the constituency! But the established student government rules did eventually force him to have office hours. In that case he would generally sit in the office and chat up cute girls or take care of school work. He is now a math professor at a school out in California – but I think he missed his calling. Hmmm Senator Joe Conrad.

A Brilliant Plan…

To fix the government for everyone.

I was thinking the other day (don’t laugh it happens occasionally) about one of my favorite posts from a few years back. The Post was about Disconnection and it was on December 9th 2002 if anyone wishes to revisit it. Its still true today. But it occurred to me that the reason that congress has abysmal confidence levels from the electorate, that voting numbers are dwindling, that the tea baggers have been necromanced by fox network and the occupy movements have developed  is due to the fantastic inequity and the ability of the government to totally disregard the will of the people. I see this as a completely politically neutral thing – neither right nor left. Everyone is completely pissed off that congress or the government is doing nothing and that we have no control of our government or political system.

The policies and obfuscation on the issues are being used by special interest groups to polarize the electorate and keep them focused on their issues of passion. The special interest groups and government don’t want these issues to go away or be solved. They never want the electorate to focus on the real issue  – THE GOVERNMENT IS NO LONG UNDER OUR CONTROL. We live in a representative democracy! A government of the people, by the people, for the people promoting life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Wrong again yak breath!

Ok then what should be done?

- Only people are people. Corporations, foreign governments, organizations, unions, vegetables and minerals are not people – only people are people. Only people may donate to any politcal party.

- Stop the bribery and latent bribery in congress via lobbists and lobbying organizations. No member of congress or anyone in their employ may ever, repeat EVER, be employed by any organization seeking to promote any policy in congress. No congressman can accept anything (anything) from anyone – except through regular political donations from private citizens. Transgressions should be handled by the criminal justice system not congressional censure. There should be jail time and complete access to civil suits. These are recommendations from perhaps the most notorious lobbyist of all time Jack Abroamoff!

- Make all laws that apply to insider trading etc. applicable to anyone in the government. Make it manditory that government officials investments be handled by transparent blind trusts.

- No closed door sessions! Ok defense and national security issues may be closed but it must be justified.

- De-monopolize the media. No one person or corporate entity may own more than one media outlet in any market area. No more media propaganda moguls!

- Stop voter disenfranchisement. make elections on saturday. Everyone should have the time and ability to go to the polls.

- Eliminate all impediments to the construction of additional politcal parties.

- Congressional numbers should be increased so that all congressional representatives are closer to the constituency.

- Term limits. We shouldn’t have career politicians in congress.

- Campaign costs should be capped and campaigns should be handled in the public forum via publicly sponsored debates and a publicly sponsored website that allows all the candidates to express their view daily and a matrix of issue related questions applied to all the candidates. No shady funded political action committees.

- It should be much easier to recall any political figure – forcing a new election. They must be made to bend to the will of the governed. If the governed are piss off they should be able to act.

- I would also like to see the libel laws put back onto political campaigns.

That’s about all I’ve come up with to make government do our bidding. Once the people are in control of government I don’t see the need for big protests – we’ll get what we want collectively and we can’t complain, what ever the government ends up being its ours and we can change it next election.

If anyone has any other ideas about getting the government back into our hands lets hear it.

The Holidays…

Are over so now its trying to snow. Christmas was fun at my sisters as always. We had a zany go round of the auction gift thing and had lots of wine, beer, ham, potato salad, and oyster stew! Its was a great evening. We left the boys with Joan for the night to play with cousin Riley and journeyed to Pickering Ontario EH for Art Walker’s infamous Boxing Day Party. Well let me tell you…. it has reason to be infamous! The 50 and caesars and shots of liquor were there in abundance (a fantastic spread of food too) as well as some of the worst music I have ever heard! The only problem it was me behind the mike when that occurred. That is not to say that there weren’t numerous other attempts to see how badly a song could be butchered. Unfortunately due to time constraints we had to party and run. We would have loved to spent more time with our most gracious hosts Art and Jan Walker! But we had ~ 5 hours to drive and Bart was beginning to whine at my sisters door missing his daddy.

We are now into the teeth of winter. I went into the cellar and kicked on the vaunted antisnow generator and was immediately admonished by HAL for not waking him sooner so he could make wagers on the contest of the century – “A Test Of Titans” as he put it…. the republican primary. I told HAL that the reason that the republicans aren’t really fielding a candidate or looking for a competent one is that no one replaces a car that is paid off and running well. The Antisnow generator is in excellent condition but I will have to replace a gasket in the compressor. Its an integral part of the device actuating HAL’s eyebrows. He won’t video chat online until I get it fixed. He complains it makes him seem like Al Gore!

But the Gales of November…

 

 

Came Early!

I was downloading some pictures of a recent Halloween party from the camera and I found three shots of Firth Lake whipped up by a “blue norther”. These were the last pictures of the season. I was taken by the desolate beauty of the shot below. The other two pictures showed how big the waves were breaking on the beach next to Janet’s boat. Nice pictures but not as evocative as the one below. The waves at the beach were a good clean foot to foot and a half tall from trough to crest!

Its seems odd but even this cold and desolate picture makes me home sick.

We went to Brian (recently named) the sausage king aka pussy boy’s for his Halloween party this year. It was a great shindig with plenty of excellent food and libation. And as always much hijinks. Janet and I are pictured below.

Yes dear reader that is Mimi and Jeffrey T. (stands for Edgar) Spaulding. There was a lot of – “I shot a bear in my swivel chair… How he got in my swivel chair I’ll never know!” And “shut up PIG!” Mimi and the Captain won several beer pong games but as with all drinking games (and “Boolya Box” of course)  there are no winners only losers.

Another happy note I was tickled absolutely pink to see my Rivulus tenuis eggs hatching last night! Right in line with my estimates. It’s very cool to see the tiny little devils swimming about taking newly hatched brine shrimp. Why is it always about fish??? My sister Joan says that we don’t have a single family photograph that DOESN’T have at least one fish in it!

What The Fux News – “We distort, you abide.”

Goodevening Chet, we’re back here at the Occupy Firth Lake movement head quarters on the beach at Sportsmen’s Camp, with a follow-up interview with the movement’s organizers.

Geraldo:  What’s going on with this burgeoning worldwide protest of Lazy Human Debris on this 5^th week of illegal socialist anarchy?

Lazy Human Debris (LHD): It’s not going well. Fish populations are being eradicated all over North America. The Commercial Fishermen have driven thousands of small local fishermen out of business by their bombing lakes practice. This is also starving thousands of subsistence fishermen who feed their families fish over the winter months. The commercial fisherman have now incorporated so that they don’t have to fish anymore. They just hire the ruined small time fishermen at a pittance to bomb the lakes for them.

Geraldo:  But the commercial fishermen are only hardworking entrepreneurs! They are creating vast wealth and creating hundreds of jobs for the community. They are the saviors of the fishing industry! Why are you trying to ruin these fantastic engines of economic wealth and job creation.

LHD:       Yes Geraldo, the jobs are there. The ruined small time fishermen used to work hard, 80 hours a week on their own boat, near home, to make a meager living – they were tired but happy. Now they make half of what they made before, working 12 hours a day seven days a week, bombing lakes in remote locations away from their families. But they have no choice, they must provide for their family. Where there once were thousands of people working in the fishing industry there are now only hundreds and, there is now no job security. When all the lakes are bombed out in North America the workers will be discarded like so much human debris.

Geraldo:  How can you spout such absolute nonsense? The commercial fishermen bombing the lakes are creating wealth and jobs. Anyone willing to work hard will advance in the organization. Its EFFETE LAZY LIBERAL MALINGERERS such as yourself that are RUINING THE ECONOMY. You’re just mad that the EFFICIENCY OF UNBRIDLED FREE MARKET CAPITALISM has found a new more effective way to fish and has reduced wasteful labor costs by reducing the number of workers necessary to catch vast quantities of fish! Its people like you that are ruining America for hard working people! If it weren’t for these valiant commercial fishermen the price of fish would rise in the winter again, starving poor families across the globe!

LHD:       Yes Geraldo the short term supply of fish has been increased over the winter months keeping the prices down below past winters, but the poor families of the small time fishermen that are out of work have to purchase the cheaper fish with our tax dollars in the form of subsistence assistance from the government. It’s just another way for the commercial fishermen to steal our tax dollars. It also benefits them by creating a nearly unlimited pool of dirt poor labor that they can exploit in their fish processing plants.

Geraldo:  I have never heard such nonsense! The commercial fishing industry has just posted RECORD PROFITS and are EMPLOYING MORE PEOPLE than ever before. It is one of the only businesses contributing tax dollars, employing people and PROVIDING GROWTH to our economy! What do want? Do you want these captains of industry to be strung up? Do you want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg?

LHD:       No Geraldo, nothing can be done to prosecute these criminals – they have incorporated and thus have made it legally impossible to call them to account and they give millions of dollars to our duly bribed “representatives” to make sure they are free to do as they wish. We are only here to level the playing field and to demand that this rapacious cycle of greed be broken!

Geraldo:  Well there you have it Chet. THEY CALL FREE MARKET CAPITALISM A CRIME! I thought the cold war was over and that UNGODLY COMMUNISM was on its knees! But here it is on our doorstep or should I say beach! While here I have also heard that they were providing free health care to the protesters! Do you know what this means Chet???? They must surely be ABORTING UNBORN CHRISTIAN BABIES here on the beach!!!!! THROWING DISMEMBERED FETUSES INTO THE PRISTINE WAVES!!! I have also PERSONALLY WITNESSED them lighting their hobo fires to stay warm and heat pan-handled food with cardboard from American manufactured goods (a scarce commodity indeed) which is tantamount to BURNING THE AMERICAN FLAG!!!! They also have signs posted around the protest area urging each other to “remain nonviolent” – that is to say they have TAKEN EVERYONE’S GUNS AWAY!!!! THEY HAVE SUSPENDED OUR SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS! Before you know it they will be PERFORMING LEGAL GAY MARRIAGE!!! I have even heard people talking about SOCIALIZED HEALTHCARE for everyone, EVEN THE LAZY POOR HUMAN DEBRIS!!!! What do they think this is, some IDEALISTIC COMMUNIST UTOPIAN HEAVEN????

LHD:       No Geraldo, its not heaven it’s Canada. A civilized nation.

It was the Party of…

The better part of a century!  After all it was Jim Hogfish Baxter’s 60th birthday.

Everything was fantastic! The food was amazing (Lucia, it was almost Glee-like!). We had savoy cabbage rolls (aka bundles in hogfishese), Sharon’s delicious hunky cabbage rolls, rough cut coleslaw, redpotato salad, smoked chicken, smoked ribs, pulled pork, baked beans, special birthday cake from a paleolithic diet recipe, carrot cake and on and on. There was any liquor you cared to drink and only about a dozen micro-brewed beers-lagers-ales-alembics-barley wines-etc and a 50 liter keg of Spaten Premiuuuuuummmmmmmm! (Please note pint glass in my hand in the picture) That is to say there was a barely adequate amount of food and drink for the swarms of dignitaries from all over the world. I didn’t get to talk with Gore Vidal, Al Gore or the Dali Lama (but I’ll get an audience at Hogfish’s 70th). Even the ever elusive Tom Masoian was there to name drop but a few – several of the guests were incognito and I am duty bound not to report their attendance. (Mark Rhinehart)

I stated in the previous blog that I would take my camera and post pictures but alas my camera was smashed by Cher’s body guards!!! I will have to resort to posting one of Val’s pictures of the crew tasked with draining the remains of the Spaten after the bulk of the guests had departed.

It was a perfect day – we got to fell and cut a dead tree for the fire at the party, burn cabinetry, eat above average fare and drink excellent beer all whilst Hogfish regaled us with stories. I even heard two new ones! Who woulda thunk that all these years the bastard was holding any in reserve!! An absolutely delightful day – thanks for making it to your 60th Jim so we could have such a great celebration!

So we journeyed back to Pennsylvania from the festering Ohesian bastion  republicanism. The only thing bad about the party was that Baxter and Bart were unable to attend. They had a play weekend scheduled at their god parents Pat and Carol and had to beg off. So Janet and I drove to Pat and Carol’s to retrieve the boys. After an excellent Elk dinner we headed back home. On the way home we were treated to a massive flare of aurora borealis! It appeared as though a section of the northern horizon was afire! There was a huge column of blood red color and various spikes of greens and blues. It was only the second time in my short yet eventful life that I have seen such colors. So it was twice in a lifetime experience! The display lasted for only about a half hour after we detected it. Janet texted several people to check it out, so if you missed it – we weren’t shitting you.

A great and noteworthy weekend. Sorry for so few pictures – you may direct your angry comments to Cher.