Guard Dog

Ultra sexy = unattainable. See? Still bad!

I am mourning the loss of a dear friend who passed away much too young. No, not the dog, thank God. He's fine. It's that brand new laptop I just bought. After just 10 short months of being dragged around the country, designing and building public Wi-Fi access points in the smallest and dumpiest malls and schools in the mid-south, countless hours campaigning in Skyrim and across the war torn battlefields of 1700s Europe (ETW for those who don't get the reference), and watching every Tampa Bay Rays game that came on while I was on the road this year, she refused to boot up Monday morning. What a bummer! Fortunately thanks to the folks at Dell who honored their warrantee and SkyDrive & MacAfee online back up services I'm back in business!

If you guys ever get a chance please read the book "Playing the Enemy" by John Carlin. It is based around the 1995 Rugby World Cup but it is really a book about Mandela and how he found sports to be a way to build bridges between two different societies. The movie Invictus touched on it a little bit but the book is much better and goes into much greater detail. I know many books have been written about him but I found that one to be the best for the folks with a casual interest in him and the end of apartheid.

LOL! so am I now that Shrike has retired!

Just finished Cornwell's Sharpe's Eagle, it was my favorite of the series so far. I'm about half way through Wilderness by Lance Weller. This one got a lot of great reviews but I'm having a hard time getting into it.

LOL please tell me you were wearing a white robe with the hood while you did that! Oh, wait.. on second thought that might not be a good look. People unfamiliar with the game might get the wrong idea... if you know what I mean!

Lady GD had to work the previous night so I cooked. I cooked a turkey breast in the smoker for 5 hours and we had an intimate candlelight dinner on the porch (weather has been nice) of turkey, steamed mixed veggies (all fresh from the garden) and whipped sweet potato casserole & home made bread and a nice slightly sweet Riesling white wine. It was definitely one of the best T-giving dinners I've ever had and that is owed more to the company than the cooking! And my dog made out ok too, I cut chunks of turkey breast into his dinner!

OOORAH!

I'm cooking Hot Corn Chowder in the crock pot. It's like regular corn chowder but with fresh jalapenos chopped up in it. It's been cooking for 4 hours now and it smells soooo good.

We (fiancée & I) started talking wedding plans for real. I was trying to make the case to elope to Vegas. The fish aren't biting on that lure, more is the pity. She asked who I'd invite. My only one would be my brother who most likely would/could not come. Heck it only makes sense to me to do something unconventional. This is the second time are around for both of us. Our parents have all passed on. Neither of us is close with extended family. But she is more religious than I am so she really wants it to be in church. I was hoping for the Stratosphere or Treasure Island in Vegas. Maybe we could compromise. Does anyone know of any catholic churches that have black jack tables and an open bar?

You have to admit that would have been a much more impressive accomplishment.

OK, let me clarify, I love that German restaurant on Poplar & Michigan St. in Memphis.

I love German food with some authentic beer!

My brothers wife did our genealogy a few years back. For her side of the family she was able to go a long way back all the way to colonial Boston. My brother and I have family in Ireland apparently where my mothers people came from and James Longstreet of US civil war fame is in our family tree through his daughter on my fathers side. It took her years to work it all out like Indria did

If I was 15 years younger... and in Austria... and you brought beer, I'd totally be there with you!

The Bucs just lost Mike James for the season. We've lost both of our RBs now. Bummer. I guess that is what will keep them out of the playoffs right? Oh... wait

Sorry to disappoint Bruce but that creek is small enough I can jump across it in most places. And most of my days are far from romantic. They are usually spent sweating over a CAD program, or an RF design app called the Beast, or any one of a hundred vendor web sites trying to buy top quality routers, DAS receivers, & 900 nm fiber optic cable for the lowest prices! Not really romantic but I appreciate the thought!

Despite all the work I had to do, I just could not let a day like this go by. So I walked down to the creek, sat at the base of a huge sweet gum tree and read a book. Almost all day. It was a pretty good day.

I still hold to Thomas Paine's maxim that government, even at it's best, is a necessary evil. At it's worst an intolerable one. Although it is evil, it is also necessary. You have never once heard (or read) me say that the complete absence of government is a good thing. Case in point would be the the PI. I was there as part of the clean up effort after Pinatubo erupted. It was handled with reasonable efficiency by the government, with a LOT of help from outside. If it had happened down the chain, like the Typhoon did, it would have been a bigger mess. Luzon & Mindanao are in pretty good shape comparatively speaking.

It's about Buc'n time!

I just hope no one I know was affected. I spent a few months there in 1991. Enoch is right about the lay of the land there. The national government does not exist on many of the islands. But when you have a monster the size of that storm preparation really is moot.

Ok, the dev team needs to hurry up an finish Project Eternity. I spent an hour on steam and could not find a single thing that appeals to me. I ordered HoMM I-V on amazon this morning. I'm going to re-live the 1990s & early 2000's if I can get them to run on Windows 8.

Too bad. Ros and his multi-make out night would have had nothing on that!

I am stealing this line!

8 count body builders. Tell me that was not the ultimate PT workout. And of course they would always do it at the end when you're a little wiped from all the others!