Demos

We are doing a demonstration this weekend at a shindig called Japanfest. It's a "celebration of Japanese culture". The aikido school is doing a demonstration. We did one yesterday and we are doing one later today.
I hate demos. I've done dozens of them, back in my karate days. I don't "do" martial arts to do demos. I guess they're a necessary evil.
I seem to be taking the roll of "the big monkey that gets beaten up". I am consistently picked to be the guy that has the girl throw him across the stage to demonstrate that aikido does not require size and strength.
Yesterday's demo was at 11AM. Today's is at 2:00. Either way, between the demo itself and the peer-pressured booth hosting time, it pretty much blows the whole day.

Fences? We don't need no stinking fences.

According to USA Today, illegal immigrants living in states and cities that have adopted strict immigration policies are packing up and moving back to their home countries or to neighboring states.
This flies in the face of the liberal bedwetters, who claim that "We can't deport all of them".
We don't have to. If we enact laws making it impossible to work, rent, or own in this country, they will deport themselves.
There are many stories in the news to support this article, including one from Atlanta.

Another Ken Burns Home Run

Having seen Ken Burns' Civil War documentary, I was looking forward to the one he just did on WW2. We've been watching it since Sunday night, and it has been excellent. Poor Mrs Schwartz is about ready to kill me if I but it on again. The emotion is a bit too much for her.
I'm going to miss tonight's episode, but I hope to catch it later.

No One Parties Like Hugo

So now Kevin Spacey has gone down to Venezuela to "meet with" commie dictator Hugo Chavez. Am I missing something? Ok, I get that you're an America-hating hollywood liberal; still, what's the attraction to going halfway around the world to meet with Chavez. What's he offering? Since commies are typically as capitalist as anybody when it comes to making them money, maybe it's that mention of a studio company. Maybe they are all trying to get in on the ground floor of, what they see as, the next Sundance, but better, because it's even more independant of Hollywood, and even more communist than Robert Redford, at least a little.

Latest piece of shit to set a dog on fire

This piece of shit is named Juan Daniels. When Mommy and Daddy wouldn't let this dumbass drive their car, he responded by beating the family dog with a shovel, then dousing it with lighter fluid and setting it on fire. There's a picture of the poor creature here. It's pretty bad. There's also a video of it here.

If you see this scumbag, call the cops. Or if you happen to see him in the Atlanta area, call me.

Asshole lived in Montgomery, Al, but he took off, and the cops have a warrant out for him. They'll find him soon enough. Hopefully, he'll get the ten years he deserves.

Irish Yoga

Michael J Totten's ME Journal

I've been occasionally reading this guy's journal from Iraq for a while. I highly recomend it.

http://www.michaeltotten.com/

Gentrification

Atlanta has had a gentrification problem for the past few years. The problem part of it is what cracks me up. Let's say someone moved into your neighborhood and fixed up what used to be a crack house, into a nice home. Let's also add that your new neighbor has a job, and doesn't shoot guns at 3AM Tuesday morning. You'd think that was a good thing, wouldn't you?
Not necessarily.
Once again, we have to whine about the poor, poor pitiful poor. After the neighborhood becomes a decent place to live, the city raises property taxes. This is really where the injustice lies, since the folks that gentrified the neighborhood typically require less government services than the previous residents. Less police, less welfare. Especially in Atlanta, the gentrifiers are often gay, so there's pretty much no children. But, the new residents have more money and governments will always try to suck as much money as they can.
The latest renovation is one that's been talked about for a number of years; Atlanta's Beltway Project. It seems like a pretty good idea. Certainly, Atlanta could stand to plan a more livable city.
If it wasn't for the ridiculous corruption, high taxes and poor infrastructure that plagues the city of Atlanta , I would consider moving to the beltline.

Bats don't have back problems

After the second slipped disk, I thought to myself that it made sense to stretch out my spine, in the hopes that my disk would snap back in if I gave it more room. I set up my step ladder in my garage, and hung from it, while twisting back and forth.

It worked pretty well. Relief was immediate, but more importantly, my disk went back in within about a week.

It gave me the idea that I should get one of those inversion tables, where you hang upside down. After shopping around, I got a nice one at Sam's Club.

It took two days to put it together, but I finished it last night and tried it out. It works well. This morning, I got back on it before work. It's a great way to get going in the morning. I did some more research and found out there are more benefits than I imagined:

Inverted, your body weight applies mild traction to your spine (which elongates), increasing the space between the vertebrae and reducing the pressure on the discs.

Every nerve in the body leaves the spine through spaces between the vertebrae. Increasing the space reduces the pressure on the nerve roots and discs.

By oscillating up and down on the inversion table you can create a pumping action for fluids around the spinal discs (which do not have their own blood supply); forcing wastes out and drawing fluids around the discs.

Inversion can speed up recovery time after exercise by increasing the flow of lymphatic fluid, which helps clear lactic acid out of the muscles.

Not only does inversion help to relieve back pain and make the spine more flexible, it also increases oxygen flow to the brain.

Some people claim that increasing the circulation of blood to the head through inversion may also improve the color and tone of your skin, stimulate mental alertness, and improve hearing and vision. In addition, you may have healthier hair because the scalp is well supplied with blood.

We'll see.

38

My birthday was on Sunday. Mrs Schwartz offered to take me away from it all, as a present. It's kind of like getting your wife a miter saw for her birthday, as the Missus has been nagging me to take her camping for years. I was in The Boy Scouts, so I've done all the camping I ever need to do. Now I will only entertain, what I call, "Gentleman's Camping". I'll still go in the woods and all, but I insist on having some sort of non-cloth building to sleep in.
We rented a cabin about 14 miles outside of Helen, GA. The property had two cabins on 76 acres, but the other cabin was not occupied. PERFECT!
We had a deck that overlooked the Chattahoochee river. There was a kitchen, bathroom, AC, livingroom, bedroom. Basically a little house in the woods.
I took friday off work and we went up first thing. We stayed until Sunday afternoon, making two trips into Helen for shopping and whatnot (remember the miter saw?)
The owner had an automated deer feeder hanging about 25 yards from the cabin. At about 7AM every day, the deer came to eat.

It was great.

The Hits just keep a'comin'

This morning's AJC has a story on a raid on a dogfighting house in Snellville.

It's got all the usual gore: pitbull-bodies buried in the yard. Rape-racks, blood all over the place. Ten pitbulls were seized, along with 14 chickens.

Those arrested are:

Lui Reyes Esquival, 30

Jose Natividad Hernandez-Chable, 37

Efren Reyes, 33

Mauricio Montoya, 27

All four are being held by Agents of US Immigration, who suspect they are all illegal aliens.

Our Government is Truly Useless

The illegal alien with TB, who was jailed for refusing treatment, will be RELEASED by the end of this week. But don't worry. The criminal signed a legally binding consent order {oooooo....scaaary} saying that he will comply with nine months of treatment and not leave the area. He still has TB!

Well, I know I feel better.

Federal Officials will also hand him a notice to appear in court for deportation, which I'm sure he will promptly wipe his ass with and throw away.

He's being released to his mother, who is also an illegal alien. Four members of his family also tested positive for TB and are receiving treatment.

Gwinnett health officials say they have stressed to Santos and his mother that leaving the area and neglecting his treatment could injure him, his family and the public. {Like he gives a fuck about the public} He would become a fugitive {And you know what happens to fugitives? oh yeah. Nothing} and he could become contagious again. {Thanks, Government!}

"They've given every indication that they understand ... and they've given no clues that they intend to do anything but accept the treatment and we hope and pray that's what they adhere to," said county health spokesman Vernon Goins. {You fucking hope and pray!? Can I do my job that way? Gosh, I hope and pray this gets done}

It could take up to two years for him to be deported.

I really have nothing else to add to this. I'm speechless.

Camelot in the Parking Lot

Mrs Schwartz told me that she went to the store today. When she returned to the Jeep, she saw that a "huge, scary spider" was perched on the driver's side mirror.
Knowing that "huge scary spiders" have a tendancy to attack and eat women 50,000 times their size, she knew better than to approach the vehicle.
She also knew that, were she to enter the Jeep from the passenger's side, the "huge, scary spider" would then know where she lived, and then we'd never be rid of him.
There was only one thing to do; secure the services of a champion. Patiently searching the parking lot, she found her Lancelot in the form of "an old man, late seventies, with a speech impediment".
Lancelot shuffled over to his old Chevy pickup truck, rolled a magazine into his Excaliber, and promptly slew the spider.

Chivalry is not dead, at least not for a few more weeks.