It Can't Be Said Better - XIII

"I decline utterly to be impartial as between the fire brigade and the fire".

Winston Churchill

Why Edwards? Because compromising to change hasn't worked.

Good Deed

So I did my good deed for today. Jeannie, my sister-in-law called this morning because she found soot tracks in her house this morning and the damper was open. She had commented at Christmas that she was getting a little water in through the chimney. So after she got home from church I took a ladder over and climbed up to inspect the chimney. I found that there was no weather shield on top and someone had used duct tape and a plastic bag to close off the chimney. The duct tape had disintegrated and the bag had fallen down the flue, explaining the plastic hanging out of it. So I used some much heavier plastic and a whole lot of duct tape to rebuild the seal for her. It should last.

Then we went through the house until I found the cat that had fallen through the flue under the guest bed..... I was expecting a feral cat, but this was a rather sweet but terrified (and fat) pet. He/She/It didn't want to come out from under the bed, but never struggled, whined, clawed or bit when I dragged it out. I managed to hold it and comfort it for a bit, but when it got over being stark terrified, I let it go rather than get clawed and out the door it went like a rocket. Headed for home at light speed I should think.... ;o) How a cat that big got through the flue I'll never know.

A Muse Ing

Hmmm. I wonder what's on page 47.

Pwning Rome: Total War - Again

It took about a month real time, but I have conquered all before me, this time with the weakest of the Roman Factions, the Scipii. And there's a hundred years of game time left....

It can't be said better -- XII

Ted Kennedy during the FISA debate today -

"The President has said that American lives will be sacrificed if Congress does not change FISA. But he has also said that he will veto any FISA bill that does not grant retro-active immunity. No immunity, no FISA bill. So if we take the President at his word, he's willing to let Americans die to protect the phone companies."

Ongoing

I finished up another brigade and mounted it as well as a finishing a bunch more rocks and a random 25mm figure that caught my eye out of a box o' lead, but all I accomplished today was prep work for the next two brigades. I have a brigade pack of Union troops in hats that I broke open. The figures appear a bit taller and slender than the figures with kepi's with blanket wraps I've been painting. Also, you have to glue on the backpacks.... So I spent the Seahawk game removing flashing, filing the fill mark off the bases and gluing on backpacks. The regimental package has enough figures for two brigades, and 3 sprues of 9 backpacks each. Since four of the figures are standard bearers, a drummer and an officer, that leaves 7 spare backpacks. So I cut some 1/2 inch square bases and made a couple of piles of backpacks to mark stationary units. There will be more spare backpacks....

I spent the Indianapolis game ransacking the house for the package of labels I had put somewhere for safekeeping so I could relabel all the manila folders in my filing system in the new filing cabinet I bought six months ago to hold my bill files which have been in a heap since we moved into this house. I finally found them and filed the heap.

By then the glue holding the first brigade, the personality figures and the mounted officer to their paint sticks had set. So I primered them and they are ready to paint, but that's as far as I got, 'cause I fired up my Linux laptop to write this post while I watched Sunday Night Football (Eli != Peyton) and couldn't get it to talk to the network, wired or wireless it wouldn't pull an IP address from the DHCP server. Fiddled with it the entire game, then gave up and went back to my main box (which uses my HDTV for a monitor) after the game which also didn't want to connect to my wireless network until I rebooted the router. I'm thinkin' I may have to break down and secure my router, which is lazy man configured.

I've accumulated quite a number of nice rockpiles and some hasty fortifications. I got some stuff to repair my tree collection which has lost a lot of foliage, too. I think I'll dig the camera out soon and put out a terrain display, I like my rocks....

The whole family has been passing a cold around, it seems to have hit Jen the hardest, Kimberlyn bounced back fastest and I can't seem to shake the low grade problem I have....
Guess I'll just have to work in misery 'til it goes away.

It Can't be Said Better - XI

At Firedoglake, discussing the Republican problem in 2006, the train wreck that has been 2007 and what looks to be an even bigger mess in 2008:

"Boehner has undertaken a study, consulting corporate image experts, to “re-brand” the party. But so far, no big ideas have emerged.

Sorry, John. The Great Leader has already re-branded the party 'The Party That Loses Wars and Pretty Much F...messes Everything Up' and it's going to take a generation to undo the damage."

Weekend

I've been pretty remiss about posting of late, but I'll try and get a post up at least once a week....

I completed painting another brigade of infantry (still have to mount it) while watching the football games on Sunday, always fun to watch the Raiders lose, Seahawks won a yawner so I checked in on the Patriots-Steelers game which the Patriots won in a yawner, and Sunday Night Football's Indy-Panthers game was a yawner win for Indy....so painting.

I also finished reading Harry Turtledove's Guns of the South so I am ready to start planning for the Guns of the South scenario for RadCon. Turtledove is next year's Writer Guest of Honor. This begs the question "How do you represent a brigade of ACW infantry toting AK-47's in Hordes of the Things?" I think I will pose the question on the HOTT list. That batch of creative thinkers will surely have 42 answers.....

Kim

Seahawks

The ESPN commentators picked Philadelphia to beat Seattle unanimously this morning. Seahawks special teams allowed a 60 yard runback with 30 seconds left and only a 4 point lead. Bad special teams. Give almost any NFL offense, much less a potent one like the Eagles 30 seconds in the red zone and mostly they will score. But, defense wins championships. Did ESPN forget there is a defense? Seattle 28, Philadelphia 24.

Weather

Winter in the Tri-Cities usually starts after Thanksgiving, and it was in the mid-30's all last week, day or night.... Cloud cover all week with only occasional views of the sun, but I'm waiting for the inversion to break and then it will get cold. ;o)

It's a wetter year, we have had snow three times this week. It snowed a bit the first time last Sunday night and I woke up to this:



It did that again on Thursday, but Saturday we had real snow:



So Jennifer didn't want to drive to Richland for a GWP Christmas Caroling so I agreed to drive her and Kimber over there. Of course, when it was actually time to drive an hour and a half later, it looked like this:

Tough driving.... ;o) It wasn't an accident that all the Indian tribes wintered around here.

Kim