Guard Dog

I have a theory about why the death penalty has such high public support here in the US. Our justice system is weak, lenient, and indulgent to convicted felons. The prisons are too cushy, sentences too short and parole is too easy. Once they are on parole, too little is done to keep track of them and if they violate they are often as not, not returned to prison. I truly believe we should eliminate parole for violent offenders (stats show that violent offenders have the highest recidivism) and adopt truth in sentencing laws. In other words if you draw a 25 year sentence you will do 25 years. If you draw a life sentence you will leave prison in a body bag. Do that and I think support for capital punishment will fade. Prison sentences as they are now are not really a deterrent. We need to make them one. Just my $.02.

It's 1:40 AM here. I just finished a project I've been working on here. It's a Miss Pac Man machine! Yes indeed an honest to god Miss Pac Man stand up arcade game, circa 1985. I bought it from a bankruptcy sale up in Covington for $150. It was a little beat up and had a bad power supply. I repaired the power supply (it had a bad transformer, and needed re wiring), replaced the CRT with one from another old machine I found. I sanded and repainted it and found a place online that sells the decals and put new Plexiglas on the control panel. It looks nearly brand new and I only have about $400 in it. It took a week but I must say I thoroughly enjoyed working on it. In the ingural game on the finished maching I score 26590 and got to the fifth maze. Woo Hoo.

Heh, I'd hang out with Shryke if I wanted to meet women. But not when I've already found one. That dude has the Kavorka! Kudos if you get that reference!

I met someone this week. Nice lady, 34 professional (sort of), divorced no kids. I'm taking her to dinner tomorrow night. Not expecting a Shryke night but you never know...

I know this is a little OT but I'm curious what everyone thinks. Is there a real difference between an accredited degree (a law degree for the sake of argument) from some small no name school like Austin Peay University and a big name like Rutgers for example? I'm exempting Ivy League for obvious reasons. I've found that at least as far as engineering degrees go unless it came from Cal Tech, MIT, or Georgia Tech a degree from one school is treated much the same as another.

Close! It's the Fallout 3 digital content like Broken Steel, The Pitt, and Operation Anchorage.

Last night I played fallout 3 for a while, then watched the Marlins-Rays game and drank beer while doing so. Then I played fallout 3 some more and drank even more beer. At some point I ran out of beer and hit the bourbon bottle. I woke up at 9 this morning still at my desk with empty beer cans, an empty Bourbon bottle and my Visa card littering the desk. Apparently I did a little shopping while under the influence. I checked my email and it seems I hit Amazon to the tune of $160 and hit Windows Live for all three FO DLCs. Not too bad I guess. I am definitely getting old. Ten years ago after a night I got that drunk I'd wake up next to an ugly woman, with a new tattoo and a helluva story I would not remember enough of to even tell. Now my big night is baseball, fallout 3, and beer. I need to go find a girlfriend. Even a temporary one. It's been a while!

I was no fan of GWB as you all know but I must give the man credit for one thing. Since leaving office he has returned to Texas, gotten on with his life, and had the dignity and class not to criticize or sling mud at political enemies including (especially) the current administration. I wish Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore and **** Cheney had exhibited as much grace as Bush has.

Under the circumstances I thought a life sentence would be a given. Heck IMHO life in prison is too good for beasts like this because prison is too humane and comfortable. I'd rather see them locked in a windowless, lightless cell with a slot in the door for food and a hole in the floor for a toilet. And if they are sentenced to life they will leave that room in a body bag and not before.

I started playing Fallout 3 for the first time on Saturday. I've barely slept or eaten or done much else since. Holy crap this is a great game!

Is this not the coolest picture? http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2431157.ece Great shot!

I'm driving up to Dyersburg tomorrow to get my new foster dog. I've blocked off a spare bed room for her until she is acclimated and we can work on socialization a little. I'm always a little on edge before getting a new one. You never know what baggage they are bringing with them or how your dogs will react.

interesting. my brother was in AIT in 1990, at camp pendleton. he went on to saudi arabia a few months later. deep... never mind. taks I was there on Mainside for school for a few months at the end of 1990. After that I went to Okinawa and from there to Desert Shield. If you brother was in AIT he would have been up in San Onofre. No doubt he's told you stories about Old Smokey, Mt. Motherf****r and jumping spiders. Most were probably true! Pendleton is huge. It's bigger than the state of Rhode Island. Someone once told me you could put all of Camp Lejune, Camp Geiger, and Cherry Point (the next three largest Marine bases) inside it.

This is a solid choice. But if I'm going to watch all three back to back I'd like me memory of them wiped too so I'd be seeing them for the first time again.

When I was stationed at Camp Pendleton I used to hang out at a bar out in Vista called the Iron Pony. Anyway, I was dating a girl who played in a local band. A lot of local bands played there, but hers was the best. For my silver ticket I'd like to go to the Iron Pony on a Thursday night ($10 all the draft you want) in 1990 and hang out with old friends especially Cindy, and watch her band (The Little Red Vettes) play.

Maybe if you didn't threw that pencil at her, off course or not, she wouldn't have pushed that desk into you. People can have very bad days and the little things can set them off. No kidding there. My ex-wife and I have exchanged gunfire over less. OK, i am exaggerating, but not much.

I'm really having difficulty finding the coorelation between these two thoughts. It's bringing up lots of questions but I'll boil it down to one. Was she good looking?

A Senate term is six years. Once a case like this goes into the appellate court it will move pretty quickly. The hold up to date has been the recount. That has been completed. Now it's just wrangling over what votes actually "count". I must admit I have not really been following this one. Politics has become a very distasteful thing to me lately. But I do have one question. Al Franken? Al Fu****g Franken??? What the hell were you thinking Minnesota? He wasn't even a good writer, his SNL skits were terrible, he was a bitter and tragically un-funny radio host, and you make him your senator? This fool has failed at everything he has ever done. I'm no fan of Norm Coleman but for God's sake... Al Franken? But then this is the state that made Jesse Ventura Governor so...

I didn't hear about that! Who won? Do we get to kill them in game? Kidding of course. But C'mom wan't it just a little fun interacting with Gromnir in BG2 or Torias in SoU. Or others I could think of (like me in NWN )

That is a bummer. I know that has to be very hard for both of you. But you making sure she has the best quality of life possible, and sometimes that means making hard decisions like this one.

Yup, Gorgon is right. The first thing you do is make sure they are comfortable with you. The best way to accomplish that is by long leash walks and fun activities like playing ball, etc. Plus exercise goes a long way to lowering their anxiety level. Once they are ready you bring other dogs into the mix and let them play together in a "neutral" environment (in my case my front yard, my dogs don't have access to it). When they are comfortable playing with the others you just let them join the rest of your dogs full time. It usually takes a couple of days assuming the foster dog does not have aspirations of dominance. If they do then it takes longer and is a little more complicated, but not much. I've done it many times and it has never failed to work. Most of the dogs I have now were behavioral problems from the rescue I worked with back in Florida and just ended up keeping. In the end, the ones best qualified to help dogs are other dogs. No one can understand them better.

It is hard to give them up at first but the more you do it, the easier it gets. Especially when you see how happy they come to be in their new homes and how much happiness they bring their new families.

Since moving to Memphis I have become very interested in the American Civil War (sort of come with being in the "old south" and seeing a few old battlefields first hand). So keeping in that vein I picked up a great book called Three Years With Quantrill by John McCorkle. McCorkle was a soldier under Captain William Quantrill (one of the most maligned figures in American history) during the border skirmishes and fighting in Missouri including the Lawrence Massacre. I'm finding more and more that when I read history I much prefer the accounts of eye witnesses who are not writing a viewpoint seen through the prism of modern politics and prejudices. Great book, if you like American history, particularly Civil War history, check it out.

Hi all... long time no post. A lot has happened lately, too much to get into. But today I paid off all my medical bills, all my credit cards, and all of my outstanding debt. Except for my mortgage and regular monthly bills (electric, satellite, etc) I dont owe a penny to anyone. That is a GREAT feeling. I hooked up with another dog rescue group that is based in Millington. This weekend I'm getting my first foster dog since 2007. Supposedly this one (she is in animal control in Murfeesboro) has socialization issues. That is one problem I do know how to solve in dogs. I can't solve it in myself but I can fix it in dogs.

Thanks everyone. I really do appreciate the thought. I tend to get a little fatalistic when things are going badly. But tonight the Rays are beating the Red Sox, I just put a Snapper fillet on the grill and dogs are being good. Life is good.