Monthly Archives: July 2009

Time for Letting Go

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So, it’s come down to this – I have to let go of the Very Elderly Volvo, AKA “The Pumpkin” which I bought from another NCO at EBS-Hellenikon early in 1982. It is a 1975 242 Volvo two-door sedan, which I drove all over Greece and Spain, across Europe and up and down the IH-15 between Southern California and Utah too many times to count, to Albuquerque and back, and from San Diego to San Antonio when we first came to Texas. I’ve had it fixed in five European countries and four Western states, but it is now at the end of it’s reliable life. There are two many little things wrong with it now, things that make it harder to drive, things that I can’t afford to fix, and every essay out of the neighborhood with it was a nerve-wracking experience, both for me, and for Blondie waiting nervously at home. Eventually, and as my daughter repeated pointed out, the likelihood that the VEV would break down in a bad spot, resulting in a degree of personal danger to me had increased dramatically. People had always been kind and helpful, during these incidents, but I really couldn’t go on trusting in Providence and the kindness of strangers for much longer. This had the result of limiting driving the VEV to within city limits – no long road trips, and then to within the radius of a AAA tow to my favored garage. This orbit gradually narrowed – only to the Hellhole job and back, and then one night I had an awful time getting it started. I began borrowing Blondie’s Montero for trips to work, and finally just left the VEV in the driveway, not even risking driving it within the neighborhood. And that essentially negates the whole purpose of having a car, never daring to take it out of the driveway. I had hoped that by this time I might be able to afford to have it rehabbed and made mechanically reliable – and although sales of both Adelsverein and To Truckee’s Trail are gratifyingly steady, neither of them are nowhere near #1 on Amazon.com (More like #100,000, give or take a couple of thousand – nice, but nothing enabling me to quit one of the day jobs.)

So, we’re going to put it up for sale, with the trunkful of spare parts included, in hopes of attracting the interest of someone with a mad passion for re-habbing classic Volvo sedans. I know they are out there, and it may take a bit, with the combined mighty second-hand sales organs of E-Bay and Craigslist. Knowing that Blondie and I were essentially sharing one car, and that our schedules would be completely incompatible, once she goes back to school this fall, Dad offered to straight-up buy me a car last weekend. He specified a budget that he was OK with, and suggested a 90’s Honda Accord with about 150,000 miles on it, as being tops for ease of maintenance and reliability, and old enough to be affordable. So, over the last two days, I ran a fine-toothed comb over all the Craigslist ads in San Antonio offering Honda Accords, and made the discouraging discovery that Dad’s target sales price of $2,000 pretty much limited to me to something not much more reliable than the VEV, and anything less than that was truly a beater. $5,000 seemed to be the going rate for what I really needed, and one dealer advised us that if I located any Accords on the market in decent condition and in good repair for less than that, to jump on it at once. We had actually found one – owned by an elderly lady who’s son was selling it, as she was unable to drive any more. It had high mileage, and needed a new compressor, but was in excellent condition otherwise, and had only the one owner – but as the car dealer had warned, that sold twenty minutes before we were to take a look at it.
Dad and I have settled on a low-mileage 91’ Acura sedan, at a price of a little less than $3,000, through the good offices of a dealer on O’Connor Road. Why we had to drive all over town, before finding the perfect car a mere hop-skip-and-jump from the house is just another one of the ironies. It’s sort of a pale gold color, was high-end with all the bells and whistles when new, the interior features buff-colored leather upholstery (somewhat worn, admittedly) and the exterior is pristine – no dings, dents or scratches. It seems to have had only one owner, who took excellent care of it. I test-drove it yesterday – it has a very smooth ride, turns on a dime, feels much more solid, and the AC works, too.

So, I shall have it by the end of the week, most likely – and perhaps I will feel better about emptying out all the stuff on the VEV – the maps in the glove-box, the odd things in the trunk, washing off the dust and the bird-crap, and taking some pictures of it to appeal to the auto-restorer who will – with luck, decide that he or she wants it for their next project.

Time for letting go. Of everything about the VEV, but the Greek medallion of St. Christopher on the dashboard, which the Greek wife of the guy I bought it from all this time ago stuck there. That goes onto the Acura – it did a good job for thirty years, and should be good for thirty more.

A mad world

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A MAD MAD MAD MAD world.

Recently, Hillary Clinton stated that–should Iran obtain nuclear weapons–we will protect countries in the region by including them under a “defense umbrella.” What does she mean by a defense umbrella?…given this administration’s hostility to antimissile technology, it should be pretty clear that she does not mean a comprehensive missile defense system. Rather, she means that the U.S. will retaliate against Iran with nuclear weapons should it launch a nuclear weapon at any of the protected countries. (During her Presidential campaign, Ms Clinton spoke of “massive retaliation” by the U.S. against Iran should that country attack Israel with nuclear weapons.)

The finest minds of our generation – to contain a second-rate [1] power – are unable to come up with a strategy other than “incinerate each other’s civilians“.

And to go on to beat this sucker into the ground – can anyone see the Current Occupant [2] trading Chicago for Az Zarqa?

Tip o’ the hat for the title.

[1] Second-rate in technical terms, not pejorative.
[2] Whoever it is.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

What Sgt. Mom Did on Her Summer Holiday

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I went on a road trip to Fredericksburg on Thursday afternoon. It’s about an hour and a bit, driving north on IH-10 as far as Comfort, and then another jaunt down a side road up and downhill to Fredericksburg. A lot of Main Street is pretty much tourist attraction – and local residents laughingly confess that they try and avoid Main Street on weekends – and in fact, all the shops that they personally shop at are anywhere else than Main Street, or at least, that stretch of it for about four blocks either side of the Marketplatz. I have noticed that the only mercantile establishment stocking items that ordinary, non-tourist shoppers might have a need for is the old 5 & 10. Which didn’t have AA batteries – but that’s a minor point. My daughter’s camera did have enough juice for Thursday afternoon and evening, when I had a signing at the Pioneer Museum. This would be the second event that Richard Bristol, the director, has set up for me – the first being in January, when I had just launched the Adelsverein Trilogy. Although two of his ancestors (one on the paternal, and another on the maternal side) are mentioned in the Trilogy – he still hasn’t had the time to read it. He is taking his own copies of the Trilogy on his vacation, a cruise to Alaska, and plans to read all three books then. When he has time. A museum director’s job is never done. Blondie tried to talk him into adopting Rossi, one of our resident rescued cats, who- from the way he makes nice to male visitors – was a man’s cat. No luck – but we’re kind of fond of Rossi, anyway.

The museum volunteers’ dinner was in the old Methodist Church parish hall: the Historical Society offices are in the facility – and the sanctuary is now available for weddings. Otherwise, it’s all part of the Pioneer Museum grounds. I’ve done a talk there before – and it’s a church parish hall, which is the sort of place which is comfortable and familiar to me. There were about fifty people there; much the largest crowd I’ve given a book talk to. Dinner was terrifically good – catered by a local small firm: Blondie wishes she had the chutney recipe for the grilled pork skewers. I asked one of the ladies to take me around and introduce me to everyone: one of the awkward things about this ‘guest author/stranger’ things is that people are hesitant to come up and talk to you: so best ask someone else to take you around and break the ice. It turns out that about half the people present had read the Trilogy – which was wonderful for me, since most of them liked it very much. Kenn Knopp, who is a local historian and member of the Historical Society – and had read the Trilogy in manuscript – did an introduction. I had been referred to him by David and Jenny at Berkman Books, yea these many months ago, as the local history expert. I was nervous about the Civil War portion of the Trilogy, and wanted to have someone who was pretty much immersed in local history, have a read-through. He confessed at first that he was pretty unenthused about the whole prospect of reading a MS by a relatively unknown author – and moreover, one that ran to about the same word-count as Lord of the Rings – but he was won over within a very short time. After my father, Kenn is about my biggest fan; he is sure that I was inspired and guided by something divine – I insist that if anything, I was guided by the San Antonio Public Library, which provided me on loan with about every book I needed for research purposes.

And we spent that night at a wonderful local bed and breakfast, thanks to the hospitality of the owners. It’s out in the country a little away from Fredericksburg – and that evening we looked out at a little scrub-wood covered valley while sitting on the porch, enjoying a tasty adult beverage. The B & B was actually a little self-contained cottage, with a bedroom, and well-stocked little kitchen and full bath.

And then we were off for a full day of sightseeing. We checked out a parish rummage sale, where my daughter rejoiced that she was finally able to afford to buy antiques in Fredericksburg. (She spent a whole $2.00 at the rummage sale in the parish hall of St. Mary’s Catholic Church) and I regretted that I couldn’t afford to go much higher than $30 on a silent auction for an antique low-post bed. But we did talk up it’s many fine details to another woman – hand-made, the footboard and headboard were elaborately curved and out of a single wide plank, and it really wouldn’t cost all that much for slats to rest a mattress on, and to have a futon-mattress made in 3/4 size. I think we talked her into it, for it was a very nice bed, and she would give it a good home.

Then we went off for a tour of a local cemetery, and the old and new St. Mary’s church buildings. The old St. Mary’s was finished during the Civil War – a sort of agreeable, unadorned neo-Gothic building. No one can put a name to the architect, or even if there was one. Apparently, the parishioners just picked up their tools and built it. The new St.Mary’s is right next door. The newer building is still 100 years old, and beautifully painted – IIRC the inscription over center arch, with Christ enthroned, means “I am the bread of life”. The windows are all stained glass, and very ornate. Strictly speaking, the windows are not really stained glass, with every separate color cut out of a pice of colored glass and pieced together with lead canes – this is glass which is painted in small panels and then assembled together. My mother informs me that this is nearly as difficult as true stained glass. This is the kind of church glass that I knew from growing up. Very nice to look at, during very long and dull sermons.

We were treated to lunch at the Peach Tree… and by late afternoon, the dreaded author’s table for the book event at Berkman Books was calling. But the signing worked out very well, for there were other authors there to talk to, and a constant stream of shoppers in and out of Berkman Books. (They’re having a sale, BTW.) One of my nicest conversations was with a nice gentleman who read the Trilogy on loan from the Harper Library, on the recommendation of the librarian – and he liked it so much, he wanted his own copies. Yes!

And, as expected, my daughter made friends with Emily the Berkman Books cat… all in all, a nice experience. About the only thing they didn’t do for me was a key to the city!

Road Trip!

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Off to Fredericksburg, in another two hours, as soon as I finish packing, water the plants, put out food for the dogs, put out food for the cats, post one last book review, make the bed, clean up the cat-puke, draft a Tea Party mass-email and print up some more marketing material for the Adelsverein Trilogy…

Event at the Pioneer Museum this afternoon – book signing. Tonight, speaking at the Museum Volunteer’s dinner. Tomorrow, a joint IAG author event at Berkman Books, all the way down at the other end of Main.

(Must remember camera….)

Those cards at Vanity Fair are so, so, witty

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Oh well played, Vanity Fair: a man’s job.

If you watched Sarah Palin’s resignation speech, you know one thing: her high-priced speechwriters moved back to the Beltway long ago. Just how poorly constructed was the governor’s holiday-weekend address? We asked V.F.’s red-pencil-wielding executive literary editor, Wayne Lawson, together with representatives from the research and copy departments, to whip it into publishable shape.

VF got their mitts on a speech designed to be listened to, edited that sucker to be read.  Had the girls from research green-ink a few phrases.  Copy-edited a transcript written by a third party.

You sure showed them who is the ignorant yahoo.

By ‘them’ I mean the suckers who subscribe to Vanity Fair and by ‘yahoo’ I mean the editor who green-lighted that feature. 

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

All the News

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… that’s fit to ignore in the desperate hope that it will go away. So here there was a big Tea Party push on yesterday, to have moderate numbers of Tea Party protesters show up in the street at the local offices of every elected federal official in the land at around midday. Not an inconsiderable effort, considering that it was nationwide, in the middle of a working day, and that most of the people making that effort – at least those of us in San Antonio – have day jobs. Perhaps the hours are flexible, or maybe not – but we all have day jobs. And there were no less than five offices in Greater San Antonio to cover, but we had enough people to send to every one, no need to make a progressive protest from one to one to another. Me, I went to Charlie Gonzalez’ office, in the Federal Building on Durango; it’s my second protest there. At this rate, the policemen routinely on duty there are getting to be old pals with the Tea Partiers. I met about thirty other people there, nice assortment of ages, good mixture of Anglo and Hispanic, including one lady who came with her sister, visiting from out of town who wanted to get in on the Party, and her school-aged daughter. She abominates Charlie Gonzalez, by the way – she has communicated quite often with his office, and received nothing for her pains but mealy-mouthed evasion in print.

So, gather with the flags and signs, stay on the sidewalk and in the shade as much as possible, the guy who organized it had thought to bring a cooler with ice and individual water bottles, and five of us went in to present our petition and a list of questions to the staff in his office. The good Congress-critter was not there, of course. I have to say that although his staff really couldn’t answer any of the questions – the office-manager elected to deal with us had that barely-veiled panicky expression of someone without any real authority or guidance shoved out in front to deal with an unexpected development, and kept referring us to his Washington staff for answers. They were at least courteous and polite. We were not received as the Tea Partiers in St. Louis, where Senator Claire McCaskill’s office staff rolled down the blinds, locked the doors and called the cops — way to treat constituents, people.

(I guaran-damn-tee that every one of those people, their family members, friends and neighbors will remember how they were treated, when election time rolls around, Senator. Word to the wise, and better have a nice sit-down come-to-Jesus talk with your office staff, too)

We fielded about the same numbers to the other federally elected official’s offices in San Antonio– that of John Cornyn, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Ciro Rogriguez and Henry Cuellar. From a quick scan of reports and updates on Da Blogfaddah, that looks about par, for protests all across the countryside; mainstream big media news is absent – bizarrely so, considering the cumulative numbers of people, and the numbers of events. Last night, elements of the SA Tea Party was burning up the e-mail, trying to figure out why there was no coverage; not at any one of our events. Nada, zip, zilch, although I had sent out three different releases over the three days before the protest: I know that they were received, and I know that we have gotten coverage before; I had a call from the Spanish-language channel, Univision almost immediately, and someone from KENS 5 called on Thursday morning, who didn’t leave a message and never called back. Perhaps this reporter – about the only newspaper reporter I could find through the miracle of google might have the right explanation of this curious turn of events.

Or, on the other hand, it could be one of those untouchable things like the l’affaire Swiftboat, of the 2004 Presidential campaign, when John Kerry’s wartime Navy comrades all emerged, almost to a man portraying him as the Frank Burns/Eddie Haskell of the Vietnam era Navy Swiftboat service. That was all over the internet, all over the milblogs, and a matter of most lively discussion, barely a word of which emerged into the mainstream print and broadcast media for months.

Still – exasperating to contemplate: simultaneous grass-roots rallies of ordinary and normally non-activist citizens, all across the country – and nary a word in the traditional media. But let ACORN or Moveon.org belch heavily … and like a cheap plaid suit, the camera crews are all over them instanter.

Thursday Random Assortment

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(Insert ritual apology for apparent disinterest in providing rich bloggy ice-creamy goodness in the way of posts in the last week. Sorry, blog-fans, beat to a crisp, and not for lack of material. Just … well, beat to a crisp and the necessity of earning a living, mixed in with a greater-than-expected number of duties post 4th of July Tea Party…)

Well, I deduce that the income stream for the Southern Poverty Law Center must be drying up, so a new money well must be drilled, somewhere. Dammit, folks, there must be a rich vein of rampaging white bigots somewhere that we can raise a fresh alarm about! Don’t you people realize, we have offices to support, and salaries to be paid! So after much ado, they find no less than forty saddoes on a white-power website who claim to be members of the US military … well, leaving aside the fact that people on the internet can claim any damned thing they like, forty out of what… something like two million active duty and reservists, doesn’t seem like a threat worthy of a whole new massive fund-drive. Now, if Mr. Dees would like to drill farther down, in his mad search for racial extremists who just happen to be members of the military, and consider members of – oh, I don’t know, La Raza and the Black Muslims spring to mind; he might then find numbers worthy of a full-court-press as far as fund-raising goes. Or maybe not – the military has a way of kicking a lot of racist attitudes out of individuals, a peculiar capability of which Mr. Dees seems to be fairly ignorant.

Speaking of the military, now there’s a push on to ban smoking entirely? Hey, good luck with that. Note – I do not smoke, never did smoke, was never event empted to smoke and the smell of it drives me mad, but seriously, are these nanny-state types picking on G.I. Joe and G.I. Jane just because they can? Ohhh, here’s a captive element we can screw around with for their own good, and because it makes us feel well in control of lesser mortals.

Sarah Palin, resigning from the governorship of Alaska … I dunno, but I don’t think she should be written off as a dead duck, just yet. She drives the elite political/media establishment seriously nucking futz, which is good for the rest of us, pointing and laughing at their spasms of incoherent temper. Leading the Tea Party insurgency? Eh – I don’t think it’s a good idea to pin our homes on one person, one shining leader on a white horse out in front. Seriously, they’re too good a target. I like better the idea of a thousand anonymous leaders, all moving in more or less the same direction. Relentless, swift-moving and unstoppable, too many for the usual media attack machine to concentrate fire upon: We are all Spartacus. No one holds a leash on us, we are beholden to no political combine, the usual political observers have never heard of us in a meaningful way until now. Spartacus – that’s the way to go.

Oh, and if anyone has read the Adelsverein Trilogy, and loved it, can you post a review on Amazon.com? Pretty please? Reviews – even just short ones – generate interest, which generates sales, which move me closer the day that I can quit the hell-hole. (And spend more time working on the next book!) Thanks!

Life is Good….

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It’s 3pm on a weekday afternoon, a balmy 85-ish Farenheit here in the Hotlanta area, and as I sit here attending a webinar on my computer, I’m watching the birds exploring my back yard, and the dogs sleeping beside my chair.

I love being able to work from home, for the most part, and even though it’s a little muggy out here on the back porch, it’s not often I can indulge myself this way. It just happens that I’m attending today, instead of facilitating, so I don’t have to worry about extraneous noise going out over the audio channel.

Yeah, I have to listen to the sound of a neighbor’s lawn mower or weed-eater, but that *just* kicked in – for the most part, it’s been very quiet out here this afternoon.

Every now and again, a juvenile ruby-throat hummingbird will visit my feeder – it brightens my heart every time he shows up. In my 8 years in Georgia, this is the first time a hummer has deigned to accept my sugar-water. Unfortunately, the pictures I’ve taken are poor-quality – I’m taking them from the back porch, through the screen.

hummer

Earlier this summer, I got to watch the young bluebirds leave their house for the first time – the other day, I got to watch a couple young bluebirds thoroughly enjoying my home-made birdbath. I stacked several terra-cotta flowerpots upside down on each other, and glued a saucer to the top of it. The bluebirds were DELIGHTED. Again, that’s not something it’s been my pleasure to see before.

birdbath

Not a day goes by that I don’t think of the previous owners of my house, and silently thank them for the screened-in back porch (complete with ceiling fan). I spend a couple hours out here each morning, with my coffee and either a book or a notepad. Friends who are accustomed to only receiving emails from me have been astounded to find hand-written letters in their snail-mailboxes.

Most of the letters have been long and involved, detailed descriptions of the changes I’ve made to my yard since buying this house in February. I’ve been living here for almost 2 years now, on a lease-purchase agreement, so I’ve had plenty of time to plan yard changes.

Since late March, I’ve planted 10 trees (8 are still doing very well), probably two dozen shrubs of various types, and uncounted seeds. My little Mantis Tiller and I have created a “wildlife garden” that is around 1000 sq ft in size. I’m trying to plant things there that will appeal to our native birds, hummingbirds, butterflies, and other critters. The butterflies haven’t shown much interest yet, but the birds seem to be loving it.

I had a Bradford Pear next to the house when I moved in – it was near the end of its lifespan in fall 2007, and gave up the ghost about 3 weeks ago. So for now, I’ve scattered sunflower seeds where it used to stand, and I’ll give myself until fall to decide on a replacement for it.

My focus is on native, non-invasive plants, that will look nice for the neighbors, and provide homes/food/shelter for the local critters. I have red-bellied woodpeckers living in the sweetgum tree in my backyard, cooper and red-shoulder hawks in the vicinity, and last spring I saw a pileated woodpecker in the trees behind my back fence.

My lot is just under an acre, mostly lawn, but there’s a bit at the back behind the fence that is still the original woodlands. I have 2 neighbors who share that wooded section, and we all do our best to just leave it alone, and let it be the critter-haven that it needs to be. Critters have a hard time in today’s urban environment — I’m delighted to share my little bit of Georgia with them.

I’m watching it rain, now – the hard, fast thunderstorms of a humid summer afternoon. And as I sit here looking for a gracefull summation of this stream of consciousness post, a way to tie the thoughts together in a coherent ending, all that comes to mind is a Louie Armstrong song:

“And I think to myself… .what a wonderful world.”

Indeed it is, Satchmo, indeed it is.

Things that Make me Giggle (090707)

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The reaction to the death of Michael Jackson.  Seriously?  With everything going on in the world, THIS is where our attention is focused?  I know, I know, circus provides distraction when times are tough, but can we find something less creepy?  Also, the hypocrisy of some networks (COUGH–Fox News–COUGH).  They basically crucified the man during the child molestation trial and now “Shep” is all broken up and O’Reilly is concerned about the manner of his death?  And the guy from NBC who said with great gravitas, “Michael Jackson will never die again.”  Wow…that was so…wow.

The sign on the fence of a propane gas business near our house:  “Tank heaven for little grills.”  It cracks me up every time.

The new SyFy show, Warehouse 13.  Decent writing, but come on, how about an effects budget?  Video feedback?  Really?

And while we’re at it.  What’s with the “SyFy” thing?  This is an improvement…how?

When I read about what’s going on in Afghanistan.  Okay, maybe not giggle, chuckle cynically maybe.  Does anyone else remember what happened to the Soviets when they tried to go heavy back in the 80s?   What.  The.  HELL?

“Humanizing” Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  Look, either leave the gays and the lesbians the hell alone, or ban them from serving.  Quit pretending that it’s anything more than a majority of Christians in the military who simply think, “It’s gotta be wrong, it’s in the Bible.”  You know it.  I know it.  Stop pretending.  Stop it.  It’s over.  No one buys the “Good order and discipline.” thing anymore.  We’ve all served with gay and lesbian people.  No one lost their minds over it.  No one started over-decorating the barracks and the girls didn’t all flock to the softball team or start starring in “Girls gone wild.”

Top 40 radio.  There’s just nothing with any substance there.  I’ll give you Black Eyed Peas, but when Michael Jackson is back on the charts with songs from the 80s and 90s, the industry has GOT to be wondering where the new music is.

Al Franken is a U.S. Senator.  Deeply funny, deeply deeply disturbing.

Sarah Palin resigning.  Not funny, kind of sad really.  The poor lady honestly believed that she could make a difference while bucking both the entrenched liberals and Republicans.  I didn’t agree with her on everything, but I really liked her.  She was about the only interesting person in the last election and they destroyed her for it.  I was surprised she didn’t fold up her tent and head home after the Presidential race.  After the beating she and her family took, I’m laughing at the shocked politicos who are wondering, “Why?”

Extreme Times Call For Extreme Measures

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From The Huffington Post: Is Sarah Palin the First Post-Modern Politician?

It was very postmodern of Palin to characterize her resignation – an outrageous act by any reasonable standard – as a principled refusal to “go with the flow.” Her vision of politics is so profoundly radical that even performing the duties of office becomes unimportant. The job you sought is no longer the point. It’s all about the performance. It’s politics as Conceptual Art.

Well, maybe.  It sure is unusual.  Perhaps extreme times call for extreme measures?

The comments there and elsewhere grabbed my attention.  The loathing and the mockery is .. a little off-putting.  Like this one.

Terrye — I agree (and disagree as I close this note) it’s been a nightmare for her — but it’s not her fault it’s the people that put faith in her and give her a false confidence. Her ilk is not fit to govern — stew potatos and pluck chickens ya, have a position of governance in the USA na.

‘Her ilk is not fit to govern’.  That just sums up the whole enchilada right there. 

You, woman, you went to the wrong school: shut up.  You, boy, you eschewed college for a few years in the Marines and live in a drive-past town: let your betters do the Big Thinking.  You .. poor person on the wrong side of the tracks: here are some zesty government handouts.  Just .. stay on your side of town, hmn?

Imagine what people like ‘nyomythus’ think about guys like me?  Or you?

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.