My run-in with the law

Zachary and I decided to go in search of flea and tick repellent, since I'm seeing mosquitos flying around.
We went to Sam's Club. No dice, although they have a canoe there I'm thinking of buying.
Then we went to Walmart. I found some cheapo stuff, but I figure it'll get him through until I get better stuff. I also bought a packet of sunflower seeds. Mrs Schwartz loves sunflowers, so I figure I'll plant some in the front yard and see if they can survive.
Walmart is across the street from the neighborhood park. Since they were 5 months old, I have been taking Zachary and Monty to this park because it has a huge trail around the perimeter. The best part is that the trail is unpaved, unlit, and poorly kept; perfect for dogs and crappy for joggers.
Now that Zachary has his bad leg, I drive up close to the trail entrance. We go about 100 yards into the woods; to the closest bench. I sat on the bench and Zachary got to sniff the wind coming off the lake and up the hill. It's dark, so nobody bothers us.
I made out a person walking toward us, out of the woods. Zachary noticed him too, so I told Zachary to "stay". I saw that the person has stopped, like they were afraid, so I called out, "He doesn't bite!"
The person resonded, "Is he on a leash?"
Exador: "He's too crippled to bother with a leash."
Person: "I don't recall seeing that exception in the County Leash Law."

Just then, I made out the sillouette of a gun on his hip. Great, a cop.
He approached and Zachary went over to say hi.

Exador: "I'm not disputing the law. It's just that he has a torn ligament in his leg. He can barely walk. We used to walk around this park. Now, I just park over there (I point) and let him walk over here and get the smells."

I mean, come on! Who could give me a ticket then, with goofy Zachary bugging the cop to get petted.

Cop: "Oh, your just a old lab" as he pets him.
Cop: "I had a lab. He died of cancer."
Exador: "His brother just died of cancer ten days ago."

Needless to say, I didn't get a ticket. We talked for a while. I kept wondering if I should tell him about the gun I had in the small of my back. I decided not to. It was very dark.

What's good for the goose...

We've all heard the semi-annual story of the housewife that goes on strike because she's Oh so underappreciated. Now there's a story out about a husband doing the same.
James Wilson says that his wife lets the kids sleep in their bedroom (creepy enough already) and that he gets no "alone time" with her, a.k.a. pussy, action, the humpdy dance.
He's climbed up on his roof with a sign, announcing how he's not getting any. He even started a webpage, Husband-on-Strike.com. Although, when I tried to access the website, nothing came up, except the generic "do you want to search these related topics?", one of which is wifeswapping, which this guy might want to think about.

Personally, I think if it were me, my breadwinning would start going into a seperate account and I'd start intoducing my wife to my new female "friends".

His wife's response to all this? “You know what? He’ll live,” she said.

Yeah, newly single.

Darwin Thwarted Once More!

There are now Extra Large Ambulances for those just a tad too huskie to fit in a regular ambulance.
This reminds of a story that was later confirmed by a hot nurse-type I met: Longer Hypodermic needles are now available, because the old ones just weren't long enough to make it through our fat American asses.

Do you remember that joke? I'll update it to make it time-y. A Katrina victim is sitting on his roof as the water covers his road. A truck comes by and the driver offers him a ride. "Nope. The Lord will take care of me." When the water reaches the second floor, a boat comes by. The guy refuses. "The Lord will take care of me." As the water covers the roof, a helicopter swoops down and drops a rope. The man refuses and drowns. As he enters heaven, he asks the Lord, "How could you have left me. I trusted you." The Lord says, "What more do you want? I sent a truck, a boat and a helicopter."

OK, maybe it's not that appropriate. Still a good joke.

Anyway. If you're at the point where they need a special ambulance to haul your ass away, maybe it was your time. For God's sake, people. Go for a walk once in a while!

I got your sodomy right here

Actress Sharon Stone is adamant teenagers should be prepared to engage in oral sex, (Hey, finally something Sharon and I agree on) if it saves them from the dangers of unprotected penetrative sex. The Basic Instinct star spends much of her time away from Hollywood working as an activist raising AIDS awareness, and she always carries condoms with her to hand out in a bid to increase safe sex levels. She explains, "I was in the store the other day and I watched a young girl trying on clothes, showing her abdomen. "Her mother was trying to talk to her about not being inappropriately luring. I said, 'Gee that would look much nicer with a camisole under.' "Her mother walked away, and I said to the girl, 'I'd like to give you a two-minute conversation about sex.' "Young people talk to me about what to do if they're being pressed for sex? I tell them oral sex is a hundred times safer than vaginal or anal sex. "If you're in a situation where you cannot get out of sex, offer a blow job. I'm not embarrassed to tell them."

Wait?! What the Fuck?!!! How would you like to be this kid's mother? How would you like to discover that the QUEEN of Nutty Hollywood Whackjobs tricked you, in order to get some alone-time with your daughter to encourage her to suck more dick?

I'm no parent, but I'd be pissed as hell. If I had a daughter, I think my teaching would be more along the line of standard self defense accompanied with a healthy dose of "be your own person and don't let some pissant boy make you do something you don't want to do", as opposed to the "offer a blowjob before bending over for the forced anal" school of thought.

I guess I'm old fashioned.

Illegal Immigration Solution

With all the brouhaha over fighting illegal immigration, I came up with a solution. President Bush has proposed that we start a guest worker program. One of the biggest negatives about that is that it amounts to an amnesty for those already here. Even worse, we already tried the amnesty route, and it resulted in thousands more illegals running across the border to take advantage of it.
My solution is simple. We begin a guest worker program, but the only place to get certified for the program is either at the border, or at the US embassy in your home country.
Not only does this solution not encourage more border jumping, it forces those illegals that are already here to go back to the border, or to their home country. The reason it will force them, is that they will be forced to compete for work with laborers that have gone through the program.
It may create a new, lower rung in the black market work force. But again, the competition will force them to either take even lower pay, or get their butts to the border.

It's perfect! Well, almost.

Mad Dog Disease

If there is such a thing, Zachary has it. Mrs Schwartz is in Kansas City on business. I've been trying to finish the damn floor.

By the way, the floor is almoooosssst done. All that's left are the 4" along part of one wall, and the closet, and the part that's underneath this computer. Part of the problem is that it's done enough that you can walk pretty much anywhere. That's takes a lot of the urgency out of it.

So I'm trying to work on the floor and Zachary is bored. So he walks up to me while I'm lying on my stomach, trying to cut the bottom off the closet door frame's trim so the floor boards will slide under it.

Grrrrrrrrr

I look up at him and he starts jumping around.

What the hell do you want, ya fuzzy bastard?

He stops jumping and kind of purses his lips and sticks his head out like a chocolate horse. His eyes are locked on mine.

Grrrrrrrrrrr

So I sit up and reach out to pet him. He jumps away then starts hopping around just out of my reach. This is all with a bad leg, mind you.
So I decide (again) that working on the floor has given me a headache.

Mwowwwooooowowwwrrrrrrr

I'm playing with my goofy dog. The new floor adds a new dimension, because when he's lying on his back, I can shove him and he goes sliding, zoooooom, across the floor.

Louisiana Leeches

The headline reads: Houstonians evacuee-weary, poll says.
I guess Houstonians must all be racists!

Sorry, this story just cracked me up. Right on schedule, everybody is tired of supporting the deadbeats of New Orleans. It's been 7 MONTHS, for God's sake. Losers.

I love that the local congressman goes on record calling them 'deadbeats'.
He adds:
"If they can work, but won't work, ship 'em back," he said. "If they cause problems in the schools, if they commit crime, there ought to be a one-strike rule — ship 'em back."

Good luck with that. How do you "ship back" US citizens from one part of the country to another? This guy's a congressman? He doesn't have much of a grasp of our government.

Article IV, Section 2 of the Constitution:
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.

Three-quarters of residents surveyed say the influx of Katrina evacuees has put a "considerable strain" on the Houston community.

Two-thirds say evacuees bear responsibility for "a major increase in violent crime," and twice as many local residents believe Houston will be "worse off" rather than "better off" if most evacuees remain here permanently.

Houston Mayor Bill White acknowledged the increased strains on city services, notably crime and traffic management.

The best thing that could happen to Houston would be for a Category 5 hurricane to hit and drive the leeches away.

Ceeelcee has an interesting telling of the devestation that still covers the New Orleans area. My favorite line from it is this:

The difference between Biloxi/Gulport and New Orleans is that in Mississippi, the residents have cleaned up the debris and are actively working to rebuild. In New Orleans, everyone is still waiting around for someone to come help them like they have since the first night in the Superdome.

Montgomery

When we decided to get dogs, we had a couple of rules. I wanted two, so they could keep each other company. I wanted boys. Mrs Schwartz wanted chocolate labs. She wanted to give them "old southern gentlemen" names.
She found the breeder and set the whole thing up. We went down to see them. Their grandfather had won the Westminster Dog Show. There were two boys in the litter. We took them immediately.

Chocolate labs have green eyes when they're puppies. Two fat, chocolate fuzzballs with jade-green eyes.
I named Zachary, and Mrs Schwartz named Montgomery. From then on, Zachary was "my dog" and Montgomery was "her dog".
While Zachary has droopy hound dog features, Montgomery had these big doe eyes. Montgomery was the happy-go-luckie spaz, even when he grew to 110 lbs. When he got excited, he would jump straight up in the air.

He always wanted to meet everybody, both dogs and people. When we went to the dog park, he would stay by the entrance and greet all the new dogs coming in. I've never seen him get angry or aggressive with anyone. He would wrestle with his brother all the time, so he got pretty good at it. One day, at the park, a woman insisted on bringing her obviously aggressive dog over to say hi, even though it was growling at us. Before I could stop her, she brought it over to Montgomery. Her dog lunged at him. As its jaws snapped on empty air. Montgomery slipped to the side like a professional boxer, and clawed the side of the other dog's face once. The dog jumped away, confused, scared, and pissed off. Monty never lost his happy, goofy look; he never growled or got angry.

I had hoped he would last until the weekend. Mrs Schwartz called me at work this morning to tell me he had taken a turn for the worse. We brought him to the vet. He was happy. He loved going there. There were plenty of new dogs and smells. We both petted him as he died.

We took him home and let his brother see him. We debated this for quite a while. We decided it was better that his brother see that he is dead, than look for him and wonder where he is.
Zachary came over and sniffed him a few times, then walked away. We think he knew it was coming more than we did. He's handled it a lot better than we thought he would. He went out to the front yard, sat down, and barked for a while at nothing.

I buried him in the backyard. He was a good boy.

UPDATE:

Thanks, everybody, for your kind words.

The Penitent Man

I want to start this post by pointing out that Spring Purification has begun. I drank a couple of Sam Adams on the 4 hour drive from Nashville to Atlanta; that was the last of the booze. I take comfort in knowing that I'm just giving up booze. Sarcastro is giving up booze and tobacco. Pity him.

I would next like to apologize unreservedly to the multitude of people in the greater Nashville area that I offended this weekend.

Of course, at the top of the list is Sarcastro. I'm sorry I gave you a limp and split your ear, and threw up all over the side of your truck, while stuck in rush hour traffic. (Although you did bounce my head off your dash board, twice, so I think we're even)

I apologize to the people beeping their horns at me while I was throwing up on I-440, or where ever. Sorry you were forced to witness that.

I apologize to the entire client base of whatever bar we were at on friday, especially to the guy whose personal darts I so haphazardly flung, and to the Jim Beam girls who may not have appreciated my appreciation of their assets. Ladies, I was only trying to be complimentary.
Believe me, when Sarcastro takes you outside and says, "We need to leave here now", it's time to go.

I apologize to the nice people at the swanky restaurant for not having us thrown out, or arrested. There's a time and place for that level of humor and volume and certainly that place was not where I was.

I apologize to Sarcastro's Sugar Momma, who could not have been more cordial, or patient. You only have one chance to make a first impression, and I have nowhere to go but up.

I apologize to Aunt B for whatever I may have said during the phone call that Sarcastro says we had.

If I missed anybody, don't be offended. There are still a lot of blank spots from the weekend.

The Sentry Gun

These two geeks have built their prototypes for an automated sentry gun. Now, anybody who has watched Aeon Flux knows that this is a bad idea. Their version uses webcams for tracking, along with a bunch of robotic servos and software to recognize a person. .

Of course, the technology has been around for quite a while to build this, but I think most people have, wisely, shied away from it.

The other shoe drops

We took Montgomery back to the vet today. He has lost a lot of weight. The shape of his skull is showing through in an unfamiliar way.
The vet said he either has one of the worst bacterial/viral infections he's ever seen, or he has cancer of the lymph nodes.
We went through a bunch of different options. We settled on some prescriptions that would make him feel better; give him a better "quality of life".
We don't know how long he has. We're just going to spoil him as long as we can.

Atlanta's OJ

The trial of disgraced Ex-mayor, Bill Campbell, has ended. Despite a mountain of evidence, he was only convicted of tax evasion.
He was acquitted on four corruption charges, including bribery and racketeering.
The government's case was largely circumstantial, but it produced 1,200 exhibits and more than 72 witnesses. The defense called 17 witnesses.

Cash withdrawals from his personal bank accounts shrank each year to just $69 for all of 1999. During that time, he was taking frequent trips around the world, living a lavish lifestyle, well above and beyond his mayoral salary. He spent $12,000, in cash, on a single trip to Paris with his mistress. You do the math.

Knowing Atlanta, Campbell threw down the race card in his opening hand. He had the help of former Atlanta mayor, Andrew Young, who claimed, "For one, I think the whole RICO statute has been misused, especially against politicians, especially black politicians. Every black mayor in America has been tormented by it in one way or another."
Young said Campbell had to overcome strong biases. "Most people think politicians are corrupt and that black people are dishonest."
The defense retold the story of Campbell's "harsh experiences" as the first little black child to integrate the Raleigh school system, in both their opening and closing arguements. (in case the jury forgot)

Those of us who lived in Atlanta remember the embarassment that was his time in office. As the prosecution contended, he ran Atlanta as his personal piggy bank. The olympics were run like a third world market, since the street vendors slipped money his way (allegedly). The airport dirt deal was even worse.
The low point, at least for me, was when his personal security detail of Atlanta police officers, ran the license plate of a car entering the mayor's estate and found that the car came back stolen. They stopped the car, after it had dropped off the mayor's son, and arrested the driver. Campbell explained that the whole thing was a big misunderstanding, then sent a letter to the police department, ordering them that they were not to check on any of the license plates of cars going into his driveway.

At least this criminal should be doing some jail time, even if it's not nearly as much as he deserves.

RollerDerby Weekend

This Sunday is the opening bout of the Atlanta Rollergirls season. I'm going, even if no one goes with me.

Between that, and a huge gun show tomorrow, I should have a pretty full weekend of family-friendly activities.

I've got to look into getting a Thompson for plimco.

The 7th Sign Tumbler Clicks into Place

ROADTRIP!

My work has been stressing me out lately. Considering the screwjob I received on my vacation days last year, I've decided to start taking them now. I have received clearance from my boss for the day off, and clearance from Mrs S, that she'll watch Zachary.

I'm off for Nashville in one week, for St Pats!

For Aunt B

Monday Morning Coming Down

I've been trying to curtail my carousing. You know, limit my weekend drunken stupidity. Unfortunately, the weather is getting too nice. I was really good on Friday and Saturday. Mrs Schwartz came over. We stayed home friday. We went into Atlanta on Saturday and had a blast. Saturday night, all the Bass drafts caught up to us and we lied down on the couch for a minute, and woke up four hours later.
That was all still good. I woke up Sunday morning, feeling downright spry. Mrs Schwartz left to do work at her apartment and get all the cleaning, shopping, etc, that one has to do to prepare for the week.
When she left, I went to work in the yard, since it was too nice to finish the floor. Shortly after noon, two of my idiot friends stopped by. I suspect they were scouting for beer, since you can't buy any on Sunday in Georgia. (Except in a bar. Makes sense, don't it?)
The three of us sat on my deck, drinking and talking until the beer was gone.

Let's go to a bar! What harm could it do? It's only two in the afternoon. Plenty of time to have a beer or two.

For some history: these guys are notorious for stopping by to say hi, and suddenly it's three days later.

Time travel forward to 11:30 last night. We are now in Mike's exgirlfriend's house. I tell him, I have to go home right now!
By the time we drop off Johnny, then me, I get home about 12:30.

I feel like hell this morning. I would announce the start of the Spring Purification, but St Patrick's Day is on a Friday this year, so I will have to wait until after that.

Update: 10:20 PM

I've discovered that when I abuse myself to the extent that I did last night, that it's often followed by an illness of some kind. My resistance gets knocked down. I get a cold that lasts for a few days, then my WLSP fixes me.

In order to head this off (with age comes wisdom) I came home from work, fed Zachary, then went to sleep on the couch for two hours, before regular sleep. I also took a bunch of vitamins, just in case.

Sure, the house is a mess; there's dirty laundry everywhere; the hedge clippings are still all over the front porch, I have nothing to wear to work.

but I'll be better tomorrow.

This is one of those times when it's really convenient to not have kids. If I want to do nothing for a night, I can.

Now, off to bed.

My Famous Black-Eyed Pea Story

I'm going to ruin things for my future get togethers, as this is my best amusing anecdote; however, it seems a shame to not use the power of the web to spread joy and understanding.

Shortly after moving to Atlanta, the Grateful Dead were coming to town. We couldn't get tickets, so Mrs Schwartz and I drove our Ford Festiva to Sherwood's Bar (Where the SouthSide Rocks!) for their Grateful Dead party, where they were holding a raffle for tickets.

After a few hours of drinking, they held the raffle. The place was PACKED! I mean, you could barely MOVE in the crowd. Wouldn't you know it, but we actually WON the tickets. Talk about a miracle. This just put us in more of a mood to celebrate (drink) . We got pretty loaded, and seperated. I tracked down Mrs Schwartz and she was at the bar, talking to a woman who could not be any more country. She had thin, blond hair, all one length, parted down the center. We had secured our spot at the bar and we weren't moving. We talked to her for quite a while. She kept referring to her husband. He's so nice. He's at our table. He's over across the bar. We finally convinced her to let us join them at their table. As we got up to go over, she stopped us, leaned in, hand cupped around her mouth, and said in a relative whisper,

I've got to warn you before you see him. He's black.

We assured her that wouldn't be a problem. We spent a good hour at the table talking to them both. They were a very nice couple. Eventually, the conversation got around to southern cooking vs northern cooking. (We had just arrived from Binghamton, NY) We decided that we were going to get together the following weekend for a BBQ, where we would bring northern food and they would cook southern food.

The bar was VERY loud. Often things are mis-heard. I'll tell it as we heard it.

Mrs Schwartz was asking about different southern food that she had never tried. Suddenly, she turned to the woman and loudly asked,

Does Black Guy's Pee taste different than regular pee?

All three of us froze, jaws hanging open for a good ten seconds, as she desperately scanned from one person to the next.

Finally, the woman sternly said, WHAT?!

Do Black Eyed Peas taste different than regular peas?

The three of us released a communal exhaustive sigh, followed by OHHHHHHH.

It wasn't until we were driving home that night, that I asked her, Do you know what we all thought you asked her?

She had no idea. She couldn't figure out why we all froze. She thought she had violated some obscure rule of the confederacy "Don't EVA ask a lady about peas!"

They never did call us about the BBQ.

Looking for feedback

OK, I'm looking for some feedback here.

Mrs Schwartz came over to see the dogs (and me, presumably).
Montgomery poured it on. He acted more lively than I've seen him in weeks. Either he's playing it up for her, or conning me. I haven't decided.

Anyway. Montgomery looked a little better. Given Mrs S's rose colored glasses, she figures he looks spry.

We were planning on going out to dinner. After a few glasses of wine , she said she wanted to stay home for dinner.
About 9:00, she said she had to go home. I invited her to stay the night and wake up early tomorrow. She agreed.

About 30 minutes after that, she starts getting Zachary excited; talking that talk that one does to get your dog hyper.

Zachary proceeds to knock over her glass of wine, shattering it on the new floor, which is not quite completed.

She gets up to get a towel and starts walking on the broken glass. I warn her about the glass and she points out that she has slippers on, so the glass won't cut her.

As she walks away, I see that she has gouged the glass shards into the laminate flooring.

I start making "pissed off" noises as I sweep the floor, which she notices, and asks me what I'm mad about.

I respond with:
"I'd just like to get the whole floor in before we fuck it up. I'd just like to have one day when we can say the fucking floor is installed before we start fucking it up!"
(Hey, I could've sugar coated things. That's what I said.)

OK, maybe, I'm a little on edge about the floor, but c'mon, I've been busting my ass for weeks, and it's almost done. I admit it. I snapped at her. It's been a shitty day at work, and maybe my fuse was a little short.

She starts packing her shit up.

I ask her what she's doing. I apologize for snapping at her and explain how tense things have been at work.

She responds: "I'm only going to piss you off by being here. Why don't you just get a good night's sleep and we'll go out tomorrow night."

I don't argue. She leaves, with the dogs.

She called a while later to tell me that she got the dogs into her apartment. All is well.