Paying thr Piper

Over the weekend, Mrs Schwartz made a huge ham roast. It had a huge hambone sticking throught he middle of it. It was about 6 inches long as as thick as your wrist.

Exador: I'm gonna give Zachary the hambone to chew on.
Mrs S: He'll get sick
Exador: It'll be worth it to him. He'll get a little squirty, but you're here all day, and you leave the back door open, so he can go out whenever he wants.
Mrs S: Fine

He was thrilled. He took it out in the yard, and we watched as he attacked it. Later on, Mrs Schwartz came up to me and said, "I found Zachary gnawing on a little piece of that bone."

Fast forward to 4:30 this morning. I am awakened by a sound.

NNNgha NNNgha NNNgha

It sounds like if you put a stethoscope to your throat and swallowed over and over. It's the sound of the dog getting ready to throw up.

I sprang from the bed, fully awake. Finding Zachary in the hallway, I quickly herded him downstairs and out the back the door. Phew! Crisis averted.

As I went upstairs, I turned on the hall light. There, in the corner, was a little pile of bone pieces, covered with yellow spittle. The big freak had actually crushed the hambone into little pieces and ate them.

When he came back to bed, he laid down across the middle of the bed, taking up the whole thing. I tried to move him, but when he feels bad, he plays possum. I finally just shoved my legs underneath him and fell back asleep.

Watch your ass, Bob Villa!

I have installed the hot water heater. I picked it up on Friday. I did the installation on Saturday. It actually went pretty smoothly; only requiring one extra trip to Home Depot.
It's been providing Chez Schwartz with scalding hot water for 24 hours now, with no sign of leaks.
Go Me!

New Dog Toys

Mrs Schwartz found a website that sells really cool dog toys. We bought three.

1. Bo Bo, like in the Petsmart commercials. Zachary loves him. He's been taking Bo Bo out into the yard with him and sleeping on him. I think reality may follow that commercial.
2. A Platypus. Very cool, but the best part? It comes with platypus eggs! The brown eggs fit in its belly. The idea is that your dog will have fun getting them out, but I don't see how the mother could survive the operation. It also came with two extra eggs.
3. Death. When you squeeze Death, the sound he makes is BUM ba bum BUM. BUM ba bum bum BUMMMMM.

Illegal Immigration Enforcement Joke

Atlanta's paper has a great story today, which illustrates why the feds suck:

Feds pass up tips on immigrant violators

Roswell Police Chief Edwin Williams insists that his jailers fax the names of inmates suspected of being in the country illegally to immigration agents in Atlanta. It's a practice Williams started a decade — and roughly 10,000 names — ago.

The city of 100,000 has faxed the names of 1,396 detainees to ICE in the past nine months alone, according to police department records. Immigration agents have picked up three of them, Williams said, or 1 out of every 465.

Once, an immigration official called to say the police department was wasting its time with the daily faxes, so the jailers quit. When the chief found out, he said 'You will continue. I don't care if they just throw it away, it's my fax paper.'

Immigration agents say they only have time to deport the worst of the worst; terrorists, murderers and violent gang members. "It's a simple question of priorities," said ICE's Smith. "If we're using resources to respond to somebody charged with a misdemeanor in Roswell, who are we missing?"

Mwah! That's good food!

If you find yourself in the Norcross area, you should check out Dominick's.
Being from New York, I grew up with an italian restaurant on every corner. They're few and far between in Georgia.
We've gone to Dominick's a few times. We should go more. Entree's are about $10 to $12, but the servings are big enough for two meals for me. That's about three meals for most people.
I can't overstate how good the food is. Get the house specials; they're that good.
We received an email recently, inviting us to an open night to celebrate their anniversary. We went tonight. They had a buffet line: Ceasar salad, garlic bread, pasta with the house marinara sauce, chicken in garlic sauce with spinach, beer or white or red wine.
All Free. For everybody.
Dominick's is owned by a guy named Mark DiAngelo. He was there with his two sons. Most of the people that came in, knew him by name. When he introduced himself to us, he said, "Please come see me next time you come in. I admit, I may not remember your name, but I will remember you." I believe him.
I can safely say that it's the best italian food in the metro Atlanta area.

An inferior culture in Atlanta

When your culture dictates holding down a 2-year old little girl and mutilating her genitals with scissors, it is an inferior culture, and should be eliminated.
That's what happened in an apartment in Duluth in 2001. Khalid Adem, an Ethiopian immigrant, did it to his daughter, while another man held her legs. Adem is charged with aggravated battery and cruelty to children. He could get 40 years. Hopefully, he will get his junk ripped off in prison with a rusty spoon.
The parents were going through a divorce, so the mother did not know about the attack until 2 years later.
It is unknown if the girl, now 7, will testify at the trial.

Come and knock on my door...

Ya know how there are times when you spot a couple, and the first thing you think of is, "oh yeah, HE'S a coke dealer."
That happened to us tonight. We were at the liquor store.
In walks a couple:
The guy looked every minute of 58 years old. He was wearing a white, seersucker suit with blue pinstripes and Converse sneakers. He sported a Gilligan-style sailor hat and a long ponytail.
The girl with him was a reasonably pretty blond. She was about 30, but trying to look 16. She had big hoop earings, and red, late 1970's jogging shorts, and tube socks pulled up to her knees.
In reference to her earings, it was killing me not to say to her, "Mind you don't get your stilletos caught in those."
Bless their hearts.

Will my house explode?

I'm looking into getting a new hot water heater. "They" tell me that I need to install an expansion tank ($85 extra). I looked into it (thank you, internet).
Some beaurocrat decided that we all need something called a backflow preventer. What this does, is prevent water from flowing back from your house, to the city water supply, in order to protect the city supply from contamination. Never mind that the water is under pressure to flow from the city to your faucet.
A side effect of this gadget is that, when your hot water heater heats up water, the water expands, but has no where to go, so your house explodes,

unless,

you have installed an expansion tank.
"They" tell me that code dictates I have one, but I have checked my pipes from the water heater to the foundation, and there is no backflow preventer!
I'm thinking that my house was built before this stupid law was put into place.
My quandry is that, if I have someone install the water heater, they are probably obligated by law to install the expansion tank (which is unnecessary), or to at least turn me in. If I install it and I'm wrong, my warranty is voided and my stuff explodes.
I don't want to install it, but I don't want to pay an extra $85.

It's a Miracle!

I lit the water heater last night. Fwoosh! It went for a while. Later on, I thought I'd re-light it and maybe I'd have a warm shower in the morning. It's gotten so bad, I couldn't even keep the pilot light on. After lots of attempts, I got a tiiiinnnny blue speck of a flame.
I thought, "Well that's going to blow out any second. It's finally died."
I got out of bed this morning, repeating to myself, "Ohh, this is going to suck." I was mentally preparing myself for the freezing cold shower I would have to endure.
Imagine my delight when piping hot water came out.

Thank You, FSM

RawHide!

Mrs Schwartz worked in a stable when she was a kid. She's had a thing for horses her whole life. Before we were married, she claims that I promised we'd have horses one day. That day hasn't arrived yet.
She's been nagging me for years to take her horseback riding. She's a good egg, and the weather is perfect, so I set it up for today.
We drove to the north Georgia mountains. The cool thing about Sunny Farms, is that you don't have an employee go with you for the ride. You just take the horse. They're trail horses, so they pretty much just stay on the trail, and follow each other.
My equestrian experience consists of one ride when I was about ten, so I got Red. He was a nice horse, although apparently malnourished, since he insisted on stopping to eat grass every chance he got.
Mrs Schwartz got Max, who was much more "spirited". She wrestled with him the whole time, which is exactly what she wanted. He even jumped, bucked, and kicked. Good fun.
We had a great time, and I'm a hero, which is pretty cool.

Taxes

I resent our current tax system. It's not that I disagree with the idea of taxes; I don't. Taxes are required to pay for the costs of government.
That's why I hate OUR tax system. Our system has been perverted into social engineering and control.
The biggest offender is the federal system itself. The system is set up so that we are forced to send more and more money to Washington, then if we're good boys and girls, they will deign to send some back. A perfect example is the DUI limits. After getting our money, the feds withheld millions in highway money, contingent on the states dropping the DUI limit to .08.

Some other examples:

• "Sin taxes"; extra taxes on items that the moral majority disagrees with: alcohol, tobacco, etc.

• The "earned income tax credit", i.e., being paid to breed.

• The marriage tax credit.

• Environmental tax incentives: Tax breaks for electric cars, higher taxes on fossil fuels.

• The Death Tax: Taxing wealth that has already been taxed, for the simple reason that government feels they "have too much".
  

• The "Progressive" tax system, i.e. socialist wealth redistribution. From each according to his ability. To each according to his need.

• Pushing Retirement Savings: Currently, the most common way to avoid outrageous taxation is to put much of ones' wealth into IRAs and 401Ks. This is easily the best way to prevent the federal government from taking much more money.

• President Bush just passed a bill that improved port security. Hidden in that bill was also a ban on internet gambling.

• Tax deductions for charitable giving. You either give to charity, or you give to the government.

• Tax deduction for mortgage interest: While encouraging home ownership, this encourages people to get more into debt, by encouraging them to buy bigger, more expensive homes, with longer mortgages.

• Employer-financed health insurance. A business can deduct the cost of the health insurance of it's employees, but a private citizen can not deduct the cost if they choose to provide their own health insurance. An added consequence to this is that companies are free to purchase overly generous insurance policies. Anti-discrimination laws prevent catering the coverage to the covered; therefore, gays are forced to get coverage for birth control. If this alone was changed, people would not have to get health insurance from an employer. Millions of uninsured people could afford coverage. The competition of the market would lower healthcare costs for all, without passing more power to the federal government. (Which socialized medicine would do)

Unfortunately, the system got screwed up a little at a time, so nobody really noticed.

Life of a HomeOwner

The hot water heater is on the fritz. It was made in 1987, so it has a pilot light, which won't stay lit. Since we have gotten back from SF, I have gone out to the garage, lit the pilot, and turned it on. Fwoosh! It lights up, heats the 40 gallons of water in the tank, then goes out. When we take showers in the morning, it's still plenty hot enough.
I tried to get a new heating sensor for it a few years ago, but couldn't find one. It's so old and crappy, and it would cost about $100 to have it repaired, I figure I'll just buy a new one.

In other news,
I went back to the gym yesterday for the first time since I hurt my back. As expected, I've lost all my strength and every muscle in my body hurts.

At work, we have invested thousands of dollars in one of my designs and it's not working. The good news is that we have determined that the failure is not from my design; it's not my fault. Phew!

My mother's friend is buying a villa in Turkey. She has invited my mother to stay there for a month this summer. I told her not to smuggle any drugs into the country.

I am not conservative

I generally listen to Neal Boortz when I go out at lunch, but these past few days, I've listened to Rush Limbaugh. Rush, you're really dropping the ball.

1.) Last week, he was talking about the Foley sex scandal. He was telling a listener, "You want to lose the Supreme court? You want to lose control of congress? etc". What this translates to is "The ends justify the means." If a few kids get molested, hey it's ok. We're keeping a majority. With that statement, he threw out any moral high ground he may have had.

2.) Today, in response to North Korea's nuke test, he was saying that what we SHOULD do is take out North Korea's nuclear sites. Actually, he said that "in the old America, we would have finished Korea, and Iran." Where to begin. I don't know what "old America" he was referring to. You mean the 1950's? Didn't we have a dustup with North Korea then? First of all, North Korea has enough of an infrastructure that taking out their sites would do practically nothing in reducing their nuclear capability. Second, where do you propose that we get the military to support a war with Korea right now?

Idiot

Bad Parenting

Let me preface this with the required disclaimer: I'm not a parent.
But like art, I know what I like, and dislike.

We went to Jillians last evening for a bit of Zombie-killing. We've come to realize that killing zombies is a healthy vent for Mrs Schwartz' aggression. She's had a hard week at work (so did I, but that's another post) and we thought it would be good for her.

We get there and the place is mobbed, mostly with families. The age range for the kids goes from babies, on up. When we first entered, we saw two boys that were about 5, playing a first-person shooter game where the player does a commando-type raid on terrorists. This game is one of MY favorites. You hold a gun that's basically shaped like an assault rifle. The kids were so small, they held it with the stock resting over their shoulders. It's very realistic when you shoot people; there's blood, they fall like a real person. The parents were no where to be seen.

From there, we saw a guy sitting in a go-cart, trying to drive it, as the baby on his shoulder was screaming and trying to get away from him. Mrs S was bitching to me about it as we stood behind him. I don't know if the guy heard her or not, but he finally turned to me and said, "Take over, he's crying.", and I jumped in to finish his game.

Now, the pictures

This is the first chance I've had to sit down and blog, since returning from San Francisco. At work, everything was a disaster. It's not that they'd fall apart without me or anything. It's just that all the crap piles up and is waiting for you. So I've been putting in pretty long days.
At home, Mrs Schwartz is as hammered with work as I am. Between us, nothing has been done around the house. We still have a piles of clothes lying everywhere, the bathroom is still destroyed, the lawn, cleaning, ugh.
So today is chores day.

But I do have pictures from SF.
On the hill with Coit tower, there was a flock of wild parrots. They're green with a touch of red, and they nest on a tree/bush that's green with red flowers. They blended in so well, it was spooky.

Mrs Schwartz hamming it up on the Fisherman's Wharf.

The curviest street.

On the Wharf, there is a penny arcade (everything is a quarter, now) that has all these old, mechanical games from a hundred years ago.

There were plenty of life-lessons played out for your quarter.
There were several executions. You put a quarter in, and it plays out an execution. This one was a French beheading. There was also a hanging.
Another lesson for 1900's children was the dangers of drugs. A dragon came out after the drug addled chinese addicts.
Before feminism ruined everything, the children were taught that men did not take care of babies; that was womens' work. Your quarter caused the miserable guy to rock back and forth as the baby screamed.
There are other pics, but that's all the time we have.

Back Across State Lines

Ha HA!, California, I have escaped you. I KNOW bounty hunters don't bother with misdemeaners, and no state will extradite you for them.

Suffice to say that, while SF has a lot of nice things about it, I wouldn't want to live there. For one, it's outrageously expensive. Two, the beggers put a blot an that city that's inescapeable.
Mayor Newsom, you need to stop kissing gay ass and get to work on that. Your touchy feely approach will not work.

For one thing, figure out why there isn't ONE begger in China Town. We pondered this for a while and the only conclusion we found is that the Triads run them out.