Wha's da haps in the world of YD?

I'm going to spray to all fields tonight, so strap it down and hold on!

Some things major and minor happening around here:

-After America is in the house! I've been plowing through it. I'll give my thoughts on it when I finish it up. I recognize some old familiar names from 'round the Burgersphere in it, and no doubt will come across a few more before I've finished. Rather dismayed there's not a dashing Navy F-18 pilot in the book flying a Hornet with the callsign 'Yankeedog' that has a picture of Snoopy on his flying doghouse painted on his bird featured in the plot. Probably Birmo's saving him for the climactic swordfight in Castle Blackstone at the end of the third book. Actually, I enjoy seeing the cameos from all of you 'Burgers. And my contribution was in the AoT series-where J. Lonesome Jones was found to be a Cub fan. That was his only crime. It's also his punishment.

-We recently found that one of the basement walls at The Better Half's mom's house is starting to bow in a little bit. The house was built in 1948, and the foundation is concrete block. There are some good-sized cracks in the walls, but (and this may make life slightly easier) the cracks are along the mortar joints and it doesn't appear that the blocks themselves are fracturing. Hmm-most likely they'll have to dig along the outside of the wall, jack the house up, and reinforce that block wall, then put in a vapor barrier. The Midwest climate can be hard on buildings, what with the freezing and thawing and occasional heavy rains and snows.

TBH's mom, bless her, is 91 and still independent. But she's stuck in 1938 as far as the costs of projects like this. She said "I hope it doesn't cost a lot more than about $500 to fix this." Yeah. Wish for the starship Enterprise to land on the parade ground at the Arsenal while you're at it. She has resources enough to have this taken care of, though, so no worries there. We, however, have to clean the basement out some before they start working on it. Started that tonight, and got some small way along. Another project to work on!

-Also, some of you may remember last year, and the church children's carnival that ended up with one of the leaders of the project getting big and bad on TBH. We appear to have gotten stuck with this again this year. I'm looking forward to this like I'd look forward to a meal of sweat sock and parsnip casserole. The good part is that Amy the Wretch has left our church, so there'll be no dealing with her. I did something I almost never do-and put my foot down. No more carnivals-at least not chairing them. We both have enough other stuff to for the next year or so to keep us amply occupied-things that NEED to be done.

I don't often 'issue orders' to a woman, because it doesn't do much good. Usually I say my piece, and the woman has historically said "I'm sorry, did you say something?" No sense in wasting my breath. But this is a drain for both of us, especially when we have full-time jobs and elderly relatives. There's precious little 'time reserve' should an emergency crop up.

-We were talking at work about the importance of a degree in a given profession versus actual experience. Deere and Caterpillar are two good examples. In their factories, they hire engineers with 4-year degrees to run their lines and stations. A 2-year degree and 15 years of experience around machinery doesn't cut it, in those companies' eyes. I don't buy that approach, necessarily. Most of the engineers those companies hire are fresh out of college, and know bugger all other than what's on the computer. Big Green has been known to put an electrical engineer in charge of an assembly line rather than utilizing someone with practical knowledge of the company's equipment, procedures, and manufacturing capabilities. That's just flat out stupid-and a poor use of company resources. I guess, using that logic, you could put a colonel from, say, the Medical Corps, in charge of an infantry brigade. But he'll probably lead it into a disaster.

I'd rather have the best qualified people in charge of getting equipment built. If they have a master's in Mech Engineering, great! If they worked their way through the ranks, also great! Some areas of design and production do require the ability to do some heavy-duty number crunching. I can't see that piece of sheepskin being that important in every phase of the process, though.

-I've been sort of following the PM election in Australia. As of press time, it looks like both sides are scrambling for a coalition to support them, and the vote is too close to call. Having sat through Bush/Gore in 2000, I do know that there's a lot of high drama in these affairs. Countries that use the English style of picking a leader often see their candidates and parties doing some fancy dancing to get a ruling coalition formed. Here both sides mobilize several battalions of lawyers to do the dirty work.

Now I don't know much about Ms. Gillard, seeing as how she's been on the big platypus-hide throne for only a couple of months. Mr. Abbott (hereafter referred to as 'Heyyyyaaabbbboootttt!'), from what I've seen, doesn't seem to have a whole lot of charisma or personality or any great ideas for running the place. Well, good luck to you all! I do know that if Heyyyyaaabbbboootttt! gets in, he has to find a spot for that Costello guy in his cabinet. That would be awesome!



While we're all dealing with our particular ponderings, jobs, chores, and crises major and minor, maybe a bit of classic 'frat rock' will make the day go by a little better. It's old, but still a fun listen. There's nothing like a Hammond or Korg organ to provide that distinctive happy sound:



Sing along! You know the words:

Woke up this morning, my head felt so bad
The worst hangover that I ever had
What happened to me last night
That girl of mine, she loved me so right (yeah!) (oh, oh)
She loved me so long and she loved me so hard
I finally passed out in her front yard (whoo!)
It wasn't wine that I had too much of
It was a double shot of my baby's love


Double shot of my baby's love, yeah yeah, yeah
Double shot of my baby's love, yeah yeah, yeah
A potion that I had too much of
It was a double shot of my baby's love


It was such a thrill it was hurtin' me (ooh!)
I was sufferin' in ecstasy
She had me turnin' flips and-a shoutin' out loud (yah-hah!)
A sip of her love and I was walkin' on a cloud
One night a week is-a plenty enough
It's a good thing for me they don't bottle that stuff [pop!]
Well, my heart begins to fly like a dove
When I take a double shot of my baby's love


Double shot of my baby's love, yeah yeah, yeah
Double shot of my baby's love, yeah yeah, yeah
A potion that I had too much of
It was a double shot of my baby's love


Double shot of my baby's love, yeah yeah, yeah
[repeat to fade]

yankeedog out.