Oh My God . . .

Oh, my God, will Bill Gremillion roll over in his grave? I wonder? His daughter, my beloved wife, just bought a John Deere lawn tractor. The old Yard Machine gave up the ghost, valve problems. So I gave it away to a buddy who has a good one for parts. His needed a steering arm and now he is in heaven. So we got rid of the old heap cheap. It lasted 7 years.

Of course, the new machine has a few more bells and whistles and cost less than the old Yard Machine did. Yard Machines are made by MTD. They make a whole range of machines, top of the line is Cub Cadet. Good machines and when we went to look at them they cost the same as the John Deere. It even had a better turn radius. But the wife wanted a mulching block or plug (not that Cub Cadet did not have one) and she liked the John Deere better.

So we have a John Deere. It is a LA105 model and has a constant gear transmission. That is you do not have to hold your foot down on a pedal all the time to get it to move. This has a combined brake clutch system. You press in to the brake and that also disengages the transmission. She has five speeds forward, one in reverse. And it has a back up button so that the engine will not kill when backing up. But you do not have to "ride the pedal" all the time. More comfortable.

I filled the fuel tank, installed the mulching plug and she went to cutting. All those leaves she wanted to mulch up had already blown away. So she attacked the winter/spring weeds/grasses with abandon. Did the job wonderfully.

But alas, she learned that she was not yet proficient in its operation. She ran into the brick mail box. Nice dent in her new lawn mower. Blamed it on me, of course. The dent is more of a wound of her soul rather than a severe problem with the lawn mower. A bit cosmetic, not a big deal, just hurt her pride.

Or was Bill getting even? Hummmm.

What A Disappointment . . .

This Obamacare is going to consume the Congress for years now. Back door deals, Louisiana Purchases, yada, yada, yada.

I wonder what my son Chris will do. He cannot afford health insurance and now must buy it. And the taxes that abound with the bill. Our children will suffer for generations until this mess is cleaned up. Remember the Volstead Act - prohibition spawned the Mafia, and put the country on a pace of illegality not seen before. Will we see the same? I can bet there will be much gnashing of the teeth. There will be unheard of cheating. This is surely the path of destruction for our great nation.

Perhaps the only thing that will probably come out of it all is the destruction of the Democratic party. The Liberals, the Progressives, are destroying their party. What a shame. As Abraham Lincoln said, "You can fool the people some of the time, all the people one time but not all the people all the time." And yes, Lincoln was a Republican!

Cap and Trade will be next, a giant tax, for what? Because Obama and his ilk do not like coal, an abundant US resource. I bet they will find something wrong with natural gas next.

Swap Meet . . .

The annual Weatherford AeroModelers Society (aka WAMS) is over. It is held at Shirley Hall Junior High school in Weatherford, the third week of March for one night and one day. We open the doors at 5 PM Friday and close at the end of the auction, about 5 PM Saturday. We have vendors for as far away as California and Minnesota, they travel from swap meet to swap meet, but only attend to the "big ones." And yes, we are now considered big time.

We do pull in folks from across Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. I even sat by a guy at the auction that was from central California. He had gone to the swap meet in Perry, GA, a very famous swap meet and did ours on his return. He said to me that Perry and Weatherford ranked up there with the best. He bought four brand new Magnum 52 four stroke engines for $320, cash, no tax one box to the another box. That's $80 apiece and they sell for about $115 each plus shipping and maybe tax too. He said he was buying the engines for his buddies back at home.

I watched as the old adage about one man's junk is another man's treasure was being conducted in a mad fashion. Cash was following. Things were changing hands. We only provided the location, reputation and good natured help. The food court sold our of food. All tables were rented and some were rented again the next day. The auction starts at noon Saturday and was finished at 4:30 PM. I would estimate about $15,000, in cash, had exchanged hand during that free-for-all.

We gave away a couple of transmitters, nice new Futaba FASST stuff - pricey stuff. That was raffled, some tickets were issued as part of the entrance fee and the rest sold on the floor. A couple of merchants, local hobby shops, gave prises too. They have always supported us. And I guess we are their best customers.

I did not run the food court this year, I did help setting up and sort acted as a floor marshall; we all did that. We wore club furnished bright orange tee shirts and black hats, so we could not be missed.

The weather was balmy spring weather and by midnight Friday, a blue norther blew in, it was brutal outside but toasty warm inside. That help sell everything we had at the food court. No one wanted to go out, even the smokers did not want to go outside. It went from 65 to 32 and snow!

So it is done for a year again. And oh yeah, I was able to get some stuff too. And I had some stuff acutioned off. Did I break even, no, but I did walk away with some green stuff in my back pocket. The auction was good to me!

Old Friend . . .

Made Internet contact with an old military friend today. His name is Stu McElwain. We were at England Air Force Base together - that would be back in 1964. Then later as we move en mass from England to Bien Hoa Air Base, RVN again. He, like me, was a maintenance officer. I was about year junior to him in those days.

After Viet Nam, I went to Germany and lost track of all those guys. Another fellows name was Voss - I think he got out of the Air Force. Ran across Stu's name when I went to Korea. I was a couple of years behind him. He unfortunately ran afoul of the Wing Commmander at Kunan Air Base and was moved up to Osan Air Base to finish his tour of duty. That was the kiss of death, he never got promoted after that and was later caught up in a Reduction in Force (known as a RIF). He finished his USAF career as an enlisted man but retired in his highest grade, Major. My friend Pete Hammerton ran into the same Wing Commander and his Air Force career was foreshortened too.

Stu, like me, came out of Viet Nam with some stringers - I have Diabetes Mellitus, Type II as a result of Agent Orange; he has cancer - it is in remission presently. But he is rated at 100% disabled - that helps his bottom line from the Veterans Affairs.

The ophthalmologist that looked at my eyes the other day for the VA said that there were going to be a lot of us because of Agent Orange. It is getting worse, more and more veterans showing up with effects due to Agent Orange. As it is considered a Combat Related Disability and in Stu's case, means he collects all of his disability now. Unlike me, I have to go through concurrent receipt, meaning that I had to pay a lot of my own disability; he did not have to do that.

The VA compensation was deducted from my retirement and paid to me by the VA. So in effect, that money came out of my retire check to be give back to me by the VA. The only boon was all VA monies are absolutely tax free. But starting in the Bush administration, the government started winnowing down the deduction from my retirement at 10% per year. As of this year, it is down to about $75 a month. By next year it ought to be zero and I will stop having to pay my own disability. That means Concurrent Receipt will go away for me.

But because of Concurrent Receipt I did get a pay raise when others did not. Since Concurrent Receipt is an accounting subterfuge, it is not a cost of living thing. So while the rank and file did not get a Cost of Living increase, I did get a small Concurrent Receipt increase of about a $100 per month. Such things make my bride happy.

Stu has to fight Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, he says he has a great VA doctor that keeps it in remission. I hope it stays that way.

Oh oh . . .

Some of the things you don't want to be remind of - age comes to mind first. But then that's life. Here is a before and after, well later not after shot. The after is posted in the side bar of the Blog, here is the before.

Sometimes you just don't want to find that old stuff.

Oh, well . . .

Bridge Towers . . .

While at New Roads last weekend I noted while driving into to town from the camp one could easily see the three smoke stacks at Big Cajun #2 power plant and one could also see the four bridge towers/piers sticking up in sky line. Four big structures poking up into the sky. They are huge. It must be four or five miles to the bridge from Bergeron's Pecan Shelling plant, that is a good view point.

That means the towers which top out a 520 feet will mean the bridge can be easily seen from False River Drive. It means parts of Pointe Coupee will have a skyline like Manhattan or Chicago, or even Baton Rouge for that matter. It will be a sight to be seen! Who would ever thought it would occur?

520 feet is like a forty story office building. They are adding the first cross structure on the New Roads side, which seems to be a little advanced over the St Francisville side. They are behind on the approaches on the St Francisville side, more elevated construction there. And if they don't get a move on, they will be even further behind schedule. High water is coming and there is sure to be lots of it this year with all the snow/rain fail for El Nino. The high water has already slowed down things on the St Francisville side but the little river crest is nothing compared to the April and June rises which will be flood levels. I would expect the bases of the bridge piers to be underwater and that will stop delivery of concrete, reduce access and put all services underwater.

That will be quite a picture, water ripping around the base of those piers.

The Big Seven Oh . . .

Today is my birthday. I am 70 years old. Getting up there.

Had a nice trip to New Roads, family farm meeting went well, no controversy at all. All of Ann Gonzales family came, very nice. We miss Al and Camille - I guess no more travelling for them.

Good trip, fast, rain on the way back starting at Shreveport and on into Dallas/Fort Worth. As we got to Weatherford it tappered off. Got quite a bit of rain, the country side is soaked.

Off to New Roads . . .

We are off to New Roads for the annual Morrison Farm, Inc business meeting, a family affair. Morrison Farm, Inc is Angeles Plantation with roots back to 1856. Old Jacob Haight goes back even farther to the early 1820's in New Orleans.

Today it is rental business, we rent the farm and maintain the old family home. And we collect a few dollars too. But most importantly, we enjoy a family gathering and a great meal by the host. Never can tell what it is going to be but it is always outstanding. Often cooked by Jeannie and Walter Morrison, sometimes by Chris Morrison and sometimes by an outsider who semi-caters the meal. No matter it is always good.

Some times there is hogs head cheese, others with cracklings to munch on. The business meeting is not long, always a pleasure.

It is good to see the family again. We never know who will show up, cousins from South America, or wherever. All are welcome.