Try it!

Monday, August 29, 2016

I have some neighbors I never want to piss off

I know who they are, and I never want to make them angry, as they are vicious. We have a neighbor who is  really protective of his truck. I don't think I can stress this enough. Really protective. Not sure what he is expecting, but he puts a traffic cone out to warn people away from his truck.

I'll grant you, he takes great care of his truck, but I have some neighbors who think maybe he's going a little too far. So they do things like this:


Yes, that is Disney movie wrapping paper on the traffic cone. And it the picture were better, you would already know that those feet are bright pink. It was lovely.

More produce, less work

Really, most of what I do these days is water the beds. I planted some fall crops last week, but mostly I just water. And harvest:


Obviously, lots of tomatoes and beans. I mean, LOTS of tomatoes:


Peppers coming out of our ears, as well:


Did I mention tomatoes:


And beans?


Might look like this for a while. We have three bean crops working, and the tomatoes show no sign of slowing down. Guess we'll see what we see.


Harvest time accelerates

Last week, I went by The Farm and mostly just harvested. It was quite a haul, with peppers, carrots, tomatoes, onions and beans:


Of course, we still have crops on the vine, so to speak. Cucumbers still might produce:


Lots of maters:


We tilled a couple beds that are done, hoping to put in some fall crops:


I mean we tilled the shit out of some beds:


No, really:


Anyway, that was then. Went again on Saturday, so I should have that up soon. Up to our butts in produce.

Saturday, August 27, 2016

I totally want this Islamist sack of shit in the West Wing

The mainstream media is ignoring this story, as they have for more than a decade, because it just doesn't look good for Hillary!. The fact is, though, that her most trusted aide, Huma Abedin, really is a security problem:
Hillary Clinton’s top campaign aide, and the woman who might be the future White House chief of staff to the first female US president, for a decade edited a radical Muslim publication that opposed women’s rights and blamed the US for 9/11.
One of Clinton’s biggest accomplishments listed on her campaign website is her support for the UN women’s conference in Bejing in 1995, when she famously declared, “Women’s rights are human rights.” Her speech has emerged as a focal point of her campaign, featured prominently in last month’s Morgan Freeman-narrated convention video introducing her as the Democratic nominee.
Oh, by the way -- her mother still runs this jihadist rag, and Huma has no problem with it.

Look, I'm sure Hillary! is completely free of influence from this Islamist sack of shit. Or, maybe not.

The FBI might have given her a pass, but the Army hasn't

Oh, sure, it might not be the official view of the Army, but it matters. Apparently, some Army training materials included a picture of Hillary! as an example of people who can't be trusted with classified material. Duh:
An Army training presentation lists the woman who could be the next commander in chief as an insider threat, underneath the sailor who carried out the Navy Yard shooting.A photo posted to the U.S. Army W.T.F! Moments Facebook page on Sunday shows an unclassified Army training slide on insider threats and handling classified information. An Army spokesman has since confirmed that the image is authentic.
So here she is, in living color;



Right up there with Nidal Hassan and other great patriots. What could go wrong?

It's all been done before

My last band used to do what we called three-chord medley -- La Bamba, Twist and Shout, and Good Lovin' -- and it was a lot of fun. If you expand that to four chords, you might have encompassed pretty much every pop song ever. Like this:



Just fucking fabulous.

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Just can't understand how this could have happened

This is a couple weeks old, but it still strikes me as significant in a "why did they expect a different outcome" sort of way. They referring to the Social Justice Warriors who like to pretend, among other things, that there are no differences between the abilities of men and women. There are:
(CNN)The only female officer enrolled in the Marine Corps' Infantry Officer's Course has dropped out after failing to complete two conditioning hikes last month, according to the Marine Corps' Training and Education Command.
"At this time, there are no female officers enrolled or slated to attend (the Infantry Officer's Course)," Marine spokesman Capt. Joshua Pena told CNN.
He added that 33 additional officers have been dropped from the course out of a starting class comprising 97 officers. The course started on July 6 and is scheduled to finish on September 20.
Please note that the spokesman made it clear that 33 men have dropped from the course, as well. Combat infantry training is not for the faint of heart, particularly for officers, who must be able to perform all of the physical feats that their men do while also having the mental ability to lead their unit and keep their men alive and functioning properly as a unit. It is physically and mentally grueling, and not everyone is cut out for it. Physically, I doubt there are very many women who are suited, and it is not at all clear to me that any physically suited women are mentally suited or even interested in trying. Entering this field requires a certain combination of can and want-to. Most folks don't have both.

Why the Department of Defense is pushing this initiative defies logic. I know why they are doing it -- - Emperor Barry wants it, just as he wants to shove transgender bathrooms in public schools and federal offices down our throats, biology be damned. But that does not mean it makes any logical sense. The military is not society. Regardless of what you think society should embrace, the military has a purpose: to kill people and break things. The capability to kill people and break things is largely inconsistent with Social Justice Warrior goals for society. And yeah, Emperor Barry shares the SJW goals.

And he obviously hates the military. Or maybe he just hates its purpose -- the aforementioned killing people and breaking things. Because his administration has done its level best to undermine those functions, both by cutting funding and by attempting to force the military into embracing "societal goals" -- or at least those societal goals that matter to Emperor Barry. Thus, he has driven the effort to force the military to accept gays in all roles (actually not a problem, from all accounts), to not only allow transgender service members but to force the military to fund any operations, etc. that might be required for those people to complete their transition, and to allow women in every possible combat role, regardless of how physically unsuited they might be.

The Marines have stood alone in attempting to oppose this effort, at least as far as allowing unsuited individuals into combat roles. The Marines have declined to lower the physical standards they require of anyone seeking a combat role. They have conducted live-exercise studies and found that co-ed units don't perform as well as all-male units. They are trying very hard to be what they always have been -- the branch of the military that, when the nation needs someone to kill people and break things tomorrow, is ready to do so. Despite the administration's best efforts, the Marines seem to be standing by the ethos reflected in one of my favorite bumper stickers:
The U.S. Marines: When it absolutely, positively has be be destroyed overnight.
I'm sorry the woman officer flunked out of the infantry' officer's course. I'm not sorry the Marines let her.

Woodsmoke in August?

As I was walking with Jeb the Wonder Dog tonight, I noticed a smell much more closely associated with January or February than with August: wood smoke. The temperature the last few nights has dipped into the 60s. Apparently, this is low enough to prompt at least some people -- I would say more than one, based on the pervasiveness of the smell -- to fire up the fireplace. To each his own, I say, but I doubt the Chez Wolves firepit will be in business anytime soon. Unless I need an excuse to drink beer, which seems an unlikely scenario, given that football season is almost upon us. But you never know.

I don't know why she thinks this is comfortable

But apparently she does. Mischief has taken to sleeping on computer keyboards. No, I don't get it, either:


But there you have it. Desk top units, laptops, doesn't seem to matter. She prefers laptops, however, as pictured here. Go figure.

Monday, August 22, 2016

Amazing how well that worked. For now, anyway.

So, the first work day after this email from the agency, the main violators of the dress code showed up in long pants and shirts with collars. Many of them still looked like they slept in those close and could blend seamlessly with the homeless population of Washington, but they were making an effort. I put the over-under on when they quit making the effort and go back to gym shorts and such at two weeks.

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Apparently, it is difficult to replace perfection

For reasons known only to God and the Army, the Army apparently is attempting to replace the M2 .50 caliber machine gun, affectionately known as the Ma Deuce. The M2 has been in the US military's inventory since 1918, designed by legendary gun designer John Browning. It has been used in every role imaginable, on armored vehicles and tanks, on a tripod as an infantry weapon, in aircraft and pretty much any other role you can think of for a machine gun.

It has done so extremely reliably, as well. The Army recently discovered an M2 that had been in service for 90 years without need of repair.  Hell of a weapon, there. Naturally, the Army wants to replace it:
The US Army has begun a program to create a lightweight .50 caliber machine gun to replace the venerable M2 Browning. The program will, like the M240L machine gun, use titanium to reduce weight by 20-30 percent. Scout.com and NationalInterest.org both have stories on the subject. The following is from Scout.com:
The Army is creating a new, lightweight version of its iconic .50-cal machine gun designed to better enable Soldiers to destroy enemies, protect convoys, mount weapons on vehicles, attack targets on the move and transport between missions.
The new weapon, engineered to be 20-to-30 percent lighter than the existing M2, will be made of durable, but lighter weight titanium, Army officials said.
The emerging lightweight .50-cal, described as still in its infancy stage, still needs to be built, riveted and tested.
As the Firearm blog notes, this is not the first time the Army has tried to replace the M2 with a lighter weapon. The blog also notes that trying to create a lighter .50 caliber machine gun tends to ignore physics, as the weapon has to be a heavy, rugged piece simply to adequately perform its role. Earlier attempts ended in failure:
The two latest attempts to replace the M2 were the XM312, a lightweight, long-recoiling .50 BMG machine gun derived from the 25mm XM307 ACSW (and which was originally intended just as a test bed for that larger-caliber weapon), and the XM806 LW50MG. Both of these were cancelled, despite each being half the weight of the M2.
What both the XM312 and XM806 programs found is that there is a serious contradiction in having a lightweight .50 caliber machine gun, especially one that compromises the performance of the weapon in some way. Automatic weapons in this caliber, due to their massively heavy ammunition, virtually cannot be used as dismounted weapons, and must be used mounted to either a vehicle, aircraft, or tripod. As a result, the benefits of lightening the weapons even substantially does not create a major improvement in usability for the weapons,
We'll see what happens. My money is on the M2.

Farming, Part II

Having gone to The Farm last Saturday and mostly weeded, I went again last Sunday and mostly harvested. Since I went again yesterday and might again today, I figured I better get the second post from last weekend up before the next visit happens. Could get confusing otherwise.

With the hot, dry weather, the peppers have been busting:


The cucumbers are enjoying the heat considerably less:


The onions are ready to come out. Farmer Tom started on that:


The potatoes look good, but except where they have come out of the ground during weeding, we aren't harvesting yet:


And they do need weeding:


No really:


Farmer Tom did some weeding in one potato bed, which is why you see some potatoes in this bin, which is mostly full of our very good onion crop:


Harvested a bunch of peppers, too:


Tomatoes look great, as you will see in posts from this weekend, as do the carrots. Lots happening on The Farm, Time to put in fall crops.

Maybe somebody finally noticed that people aren't paying much attention to the dress code

As I have mentioned before, folks on this project have been a little lax about the dress code. Based on an email we got Friday, it would appear the agency has finally noticed that a fair number of people have been showing up for work in whatever they slept in:
I would also like to remind everyone that our space is both a review facility and a business office. You were all told that acceptable office attire is business casual. On Fridays you may dress down to jeans but on no weekdays are you to wear shorts, crop tops or other clothing that would be outside the business casual range.
We'll see if this makes any difference.

Friday, August 19, 2016

I'm not sure this is satire

Surely you've seen Bad Lip Reading? Yeah, well, now you have:






Thanks to Hot Air. Makes as much sense as what they actually said.

If we had a president who cared about our allies . . .

. . . he would try to exert a little influence here. Alas, we don't, so our very good friends the Australians get kicked in the nuts by a pissant former enemy of ours without a peep from Emperor Barry I:
Australia was making top-level appeals to Vietnam on Wednesday to lift a sudden ban on veterans commemorating the 50th anniversary of Australia's most costly battle of the Vietnam War.
More than 1,000 Australian veterans and their families have traveled to Vietnam to observe the anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan on Thursday at a cross marking the site where 18 Australian soldiers and hundreds of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops died in a rubber plantation on Aug. 18, 1966.
But after 18 months of negotiations between Vietnamese and Australian officials over the commemoration, which has drawn some Australian veterans back to the Communist country for the first time since the war, Vietnam told Australia late Tuesday the event was canceled, Veterans' Affairs Minister Dan Tehan said Wednesday.
Alas, nobody here cares, least of all Emperor Barry. The Vietnamese are being peckerheads because the Aussies kicked their asses in that battle 50 years ago. The Aussies have been visiting the site on the anniversary for years with no problems. This time, I guess, the Vietnamese government decided that this was just embarrassing. And maybe they should:
The Long Tan anniversary is Australia's official Vietnam Veterans Day and has been commemorated by Australians at the battle scene since 1989.
In the fighting, a company of 105 Australian soldiers plus three New Zealanders supported by artillery survived a rain-drenched, three-hour battle by driving off wave after wave of attacks by more than 2,000 enemy troops.
This is on the scale of Rorke's Drift during the Boer War; these guys were badasses.  I can see why the Vietnamese wouldn't want to commemorate that. So why should Barry care? One country -- one -- has fought at our side in every war in which the U.S. has been involved since World War I. What country might that be? Australia. Exerting a little diplomatic pressure to make Vietnam allow a commemoration that only the Australians really care about wouldn't be out of line.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/article96108677.html#storylink=cpy



Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/article96108677.html#storylink=cpy

No medal, but very popular now back in Japan

A Japanese pole vaulter in the Olympics in Rio failed to move on to the finals because of something that has held a lot of men back, but not in exactly this fashion: his dick got in the way. Lots of guys let the wrong head to their thinking and experience various kinds of failure as a result, but this athlete's problems with his dick are a little different:
Japanese pole vaulter Hiroki Ogita will be ruing the size of his phallus after it caused him to foul during the qualifying rounds at the Rio Olympics.
Ogita was attempting to clear a height of 5.3 meters (17.3 feet) in group A of the first round of the pole vault, when his leg came in contact with the bar. As he began to drop back down toward the ground, his shin grazed the bar, causing it to wobble dangerously.
But it was his penis that delivered the final blow. Already unsteady, the bar was dislodged from its holdings when Ogita’s old fellow decided to make an appearance and slap the metal. The vaulter’s arm then collected the bar as it began to fall.
No, really, it was his dick. Check it out:


I guess if you have to miss out on a chance at an Olympic medal, telling the folks back home "my dick was too big" is better than most excuses.

Thursday, August 18, 2016

I did pretty well on this quiz

I scored 26 out of 30 on this firearms quiz, and I chose two answers against my better judgment. Try it out. I'll give free Eff You merch to anybody who beats me. You'll have to post the result to Facebook and send me a link so I can verify it. Taking the quiz multiple times is cheating, but I don't suppose I have anyway to police that. But do you really want to piss off anybody who does this well on a firearms quiz after you're given that person your mailing information? Just sayin'.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Temps who wonder why firms and agencies don't trust us need to just stop. Now.

The project I am on is OK. Not great, just OK. We should start getting overtime soon, but until then, just OK. We started a week ago Monday, and another group started Thursday. We are allowed to get 40 hours in 4 days while we have no overtime, which is what makes this project OK. That is not the point of this post.

The majority of the male contract attorneys are living proof of why temps are not regarded as professionals, or even particularly trustworthy. Practically everyone who started Thursday, and a significant number of people who started at the beginning of the project, dress like they are headed to or from the beach or the gym. Many of the rest look like they are homeless. This is on a project where the dress code is ostensibly "business casual." That dress code supposedly doesn't even allow nice jeans. Forget that shit.

The women seem to be dressing professionally. The men? Not even close. Gym shorts, tee shirts, torn-up jeans, whatever. They look like the guy on the corner this morning who shouted at me, "Hey, Jack Nicholson? Got any spare change?" For the record, I don't look even a little like Jack Nicholson, young or old. I was wearing sunglasses. I guess that is enough of a resemblance for your average homeless guy. Many of who appear to be on my current project.

So, my message to temps in this town is, stop wondering why you get no respect. Too many of your fellow temps prove you don't deserve it.

I have suggested before that it is stupid to make temps wear suits on the first day of a project. It is. It is not, however, stupid to expect temps to dress like professionals. More importantly, if the dress code states that the requirement is business casual, then you should dress that way. The fact that the agency isn't enforcing it reflects poorly on the agency. No need to make things reflect poorly on you, and temps in general. I am, apparently, the Lone Ranger on this issue.

Sunday, August 14, 2016

I went to The Farm yesterday and damn near died

It was somewhere in the mid to upper 90s, and the heat index was 119, which I assume is really bad, because I fucking near fell out. It was hot, people.

Naturally, peppers love the heat. I don't even know what kind these are, but they are tiny and they are very hot. I assume that when then turn red, they'll be even hotter:


These guys are hot, too, and many are ready to harvest:


Still turning red with these bad boys, who are a little sweeter:


Third-generation beans are doing well:


The old peas bed needs to be weeded and hoed:


The carrots are cranking along:


Garlic bed No. 2 is doing OK:


This bed needs to be weeded an hoed:


So does this one:


This is garlic bed No. 2, which looks like shit and is hiding a secret:


The first crop of brussels sprouts is not looking good:


The first generation of beans is pretty much done. Time to pull, weed and hoe:


The second generation beans are doing fine, as are the green onions:


So, after weeding and hoeing some of the beds, looking better:


Like I said:


Harvested some beans, habaneros, garlic and -- the big surprise from Garlic Bed No. 1 -- some onions. Home Depot sold me some garlic seeds that were onions. Fuckers:


Also brought in some tomatoes:


And squash and zucchini:


The squash and zucchini bed is looking burned out, though, so this might be the last of the harvest from there:


I did a lot of weeding yesterday. It was hotter than the hinges. Mrs. Wolves came along, but she spent her time in the neighbor's pool. Not exactly a team-building exercise. More to come from my visit today.


I can't keep up with The Farm produce

Mrs. Wolves spent the last week over at The Farm, dog-sitting. She harvested stuff. Like this:


And this:


Got more Farm stuff coming, believe me.

Saturday, August 13, 2016

We got kitty in a bag here

Kitty in a bag is a fairly common occurrence in the Wolves household. Apparently, all three kitties -- Murder, Mayhem and Mischief -- enjoy crawling into bags of all kinds. Plastic shopping bags, paper bags, cloth tote bags -- you name it, leave a bag lying around an a kitty will crawl into it. Usually, cuteness ensues. Here, we have Mischief occupying a bag that appears to be a doubled-up paper bag:


She seems comfy:


No, really:


I guess she came out eventually. They always do.

One bridge opens, another goes away

I've written about the bridge project on Ijamsville Road here and here. The county recently reached another milestone, completing the intersection after the bridge:


Still a lot of work to be done -- Ijamsville Road still is not fully open -- but I was more interested in the work that remains to be undone. Specifically, what is the status of the old bridge? The road leading to the old bridge still exists, sort of:


You can't drive on it, of course, but I walked down in the other day to see what is what. Near Bush Creek, which the old and new bridges span, was this chunk of pre-fab bridge:


Obviously, not all of the old bridge. A little more walking revealed the other half of the old bridge, still spanning Bush Creek:


A closer view of the half of the bridge still over the creek:


And another view:


I guess even this piece will soon be removed. We'll see, I suppose.