oldhans117

The big bailout

2008-09-28T14:14:39Z

OK, now the taxpayers of American will be paying out $700 billion to bail out our so called great financial institutions. I wonder why these Harvard MBA's ran out of money, looks like this is the reason

"Last year Goldman paid its employees $20 billion, 44 percent of the firm's revenue. Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein took home $68.5 million, and many otherwise ordinary human beings took home $10 million or more."

From http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_lewis&sid=a6a6nqXGVdZY

Gee there seems to be plenty of money, it's just all been looted by the CEO's and there crony's.

Gah and everyone in congress is going to support this damn thing, makes me want to vomit.

oldhans117 @ 2008-06-16T16:04:00

2008-06-16T21:05:16Z

Well Dang it Stan Winston was died, he did a lot of great work.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25196077/

Ford has died.

2006-12-27T05:14:31Z

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10949314/

This is news, WWII vet and accidental president Ford has died.

Tim Hildebrandt has died

2006-06-12T21:54:16Z

http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=7540

This is sad.

I hit a horse tonight.

2006-04-25T03:12:43Z

Well driving home from a 13.5 hour shift at my job, I turned around a corner and standing there in the road was a horse. I slammed on my brakes and into it as well, it rolled onto my hood let out a LOUD whinny and trotted off. I sat there for a second and pulled into the nearest driveway. I got out as people were getting out of the house, I told them I had hit their horse, they said no I hit the neighbors horse (I drive by this house a lot and they do have horse's, there's were safe in the back). They called the police and since it was out of the city limits the state and county troops had to come down, they did the accident report, all the while the one I had hit was standing in the yard looking pitifully. It let out a another loud whinny and fell to the ground, but go up again. There was another horse and a donkey running around up and down the highway playing dodge the car for a bit. The troopers got them corralled up and said that people hit horses all the time, I've dodged a lot of deer and cows one time but 1,400 pound horses were new to me. I got the accident report, the people who owned the horses never showed up, might have been out of town, the guy is the tennis coach at the university I work at and the horse is a show-horse and worth big bucks. Sigh it was really pretty calm and I feel worse for hitting it then the damaged hood of my truck (only 20 payments left). Grump, this is how my life is going right now, really strange and now I'm off to bed.

I need a vaction from my Vacation

2005-07-23T15:33:41Z

Well it's been a very long two weeks.

It started out the day I left for North Carolina, my Mom tripped on a rock and hurt her leg, busted a vein as we later found out when we finally made her go to the doctor. I drove from Mississippi across Alabama through Tennessee cutting through Georgia and up the insanely steep and winding roads to my parent's summer home in Cashers, NC. It is a very nice place they have up there, lots of trees and a stream. It would have been nice to hike it a bit, but it never stopped raining, not one day.

Oh well my Mom was laid up with her banged up leg and I ended up doing most of the cooking (don't laugh I can cook Ok when I'm not feeling lazy). I fixed my dad's computer, helped cut a lot of brush (this is what my Mon was doing when she tripped) and generally tried to make myself useful. It was quite a bit of fun, I got to go to two really great Concerts featuring chamber music and ate out at some great restraints. Then came Sunday, my parents do the snowbird thing and live in Florida in my Grandfathers old house. That Sunday after checking the weather on the computer (no TV up there) good old Hurricane Dennis was landing 200 miles from our house down there. We went and ate brunch at a high class restaurant (I had Egg's Benedict over crab cakes, yummy). We went inside and there were three messages from the next door neighbor in Florida. A huge tilde surge had hit and there was a lot of damage. My dad called her up to find out how bad it really was, she keep saying out steps where in her yard (the step were new, my parents just sent off the $8,000 check for replacing them the week before) and that our dock was destroyed. I went on line and there was nothing about this, in fact all of the news reports said there was only minimal damage from Dennis and everything was OK. Blagh, the U.S. media really is useless.

I called up work the next day and requested an additional week off, we then packed up both of our vehicles, my Mom who's leg was swelling up and turning a nice purple/blue insisted on coming down with us. My dad called both of my brothers and Bobby my younger one took an unpaid week off to come down and help out. That was really nice of him, and he turned out to be super useful being an Air-condition repair Tech.

The trip down on Thursday was pretty smooth except for me getting lost a couple of times as usual, the yard of the house was pretty clean but Dad's workshop being on the ground level was a total disaster. We decided to work on cleaning up the next day, the AC was out in the house and my Dad had bought a couple of window AC units for my brother to install when he got there, it took him 14 hours to drive from Little Rock, he arrived around 10 O'clock, my parent were staying at the neighbors house (they are super nice people let me tell you) and he installed them in no time flat, I'm kind of use to sleeping in hot weather being a Desert Storm Vet, but the Ac was really nice once it kicked in.

I'll save the epic cleaning tale for later.

The bird on my front porch

2005-06-19T18:53:08Z

Well I live out in the back woods of Mississippi and as such encounter a lot of critters. One of them decided to move in on my front porch. I put out some grass-seed on the bare patches around an old Oak tree and went to get my water sprinkler. When I picked it up out of the 5 gallon bowl I keep my lawn tools in a burst of feathers flew out, going faster than anything I'v seem up close in my life. I look into the bucket and there is a nest in to. It appears a sparrow has moved in, so every time the water needs to be turned on as the handle is next to this bucket the little guy(or girl) takes off. I'v never really gotten a good look at it, when winter comes I'll clean out the bucket and replace it with a box for my tools. It must like all of the sunflower seeds that have been put out lately.

oldhans117 @ 2005-05-15T14:05:00

2005-05-15T19:06:37Z

Oh I have a Rose-breasted Grosbeak eating out of my bird-feeder as well.

The woodpecker does not play well with others, it likes all of the sunflower seeds to it's self.

oldhans117 @ 2005-05-15T12:39:00

2005-05-15T17:42:01Z

Well once again I valiantly stopped my truck and picked up a turtle and moved it to safety.

Yes my life is quite dull overall. I do have a redheaded woodpecker eating in my bird feeder now.

Tax fun and other stuff

2005-04-16T17:45:58Z

Well i had fun doing my taxes. When I first went to do them using Turbo Tax on-line via. the IRS's website the total refund was a whopping $88. Now last year I got back around $1,000 and I'v bought a house since then so my refund should be higher not lower. I went to review my tax form from last year and noticed I used H & R Blocks Tax Cut, I logged off of Turbo Tax and went to H&R's site. About 45 min. later I had a refund of about $1K. Sigh, apparently turbo tax just missed some of my deductions, well at least all of these stupid accounting classes paid off.

Gen Con

2005-02-25T18:20:18Z

Well I'v ordered my 4 day badge to Gen Con Indy and hopefully secured a room in a hotel 1.5 miles form the convention hall (Orbitz was half the price of any of the official hotels). Yeaa, Aug 18-21 is now officially set for me.

My slighty insane life

2005-02-05T21:09:00Z

Well on a bit of sad news a friend of a friend finally died of brain cancer. And since I was off of work it was really no problem to drive down to Hattiesbur it was only 300 miles.

So I went and picked up my buddy and he informed me we were going to meet up the the deceased sister and she would lead us down to the house, there was some problems with the owner of the house. Like throwing all of his stuff away. Hump, met up with her no problem, she had lived the past 25 years in California, problem, she drove 85 mph all the way down there, weaving in and out of traffic. If fact she pulled over one time and asked why I was flashing my lights at her, so I informed her that my friends hat was sliding all over my dashboard and keep covering up the light sensor and thus. After removing the hat we continued, you know a GMC Sonoma get really really bad gas millage at 85. Oh we no cops were sighted and in a bit we were there.

Guy who owned the house was a bit grumpy but not super bad, I thing he was up set at the death. Turns out the friend's friend was a Napoleonic collector, I loaded 22 boxes of books just about Napoleon and his time, in fact there was not much room for anything else. Yikes, neat stuff the house guy was annoyed said the books were suppose to go to the local university, we said yes but first they must be inventoried and some of the stuff was promised to other people. Then the sister got the keys to the deceased S10 pickup and drove off in it(with a flat tire). House owner got upset, we decided to be diplomacy and just get all the stuff and leave. The expended cab on my truck was so full of boxed of russian army miniatures (outfitted for winter, with sleds and mittens) I could not really see out the back, in fact my buddy had to sit with a box on his lap, and we stuff behind to pick up later.

We were staying overnight with some friends of my friend, really nice people, they sell war gaming miniatures and of course I bought some( a unit of British Colonial troops and some bit for terrain). Had a lot of great discussion of U.S. foreign policy as the husband was an immigrant. Lot's of stories about Iraq that never makes it into the American press.

Went back to the house the next day and dropped the sister off, she would repair the S10 or get a ride from other friends back to Memphis, and we would take her car which was also filled with junk. We ate lunch and then drove back to Oxford with a few stops along the way, one was the largest Wal-Mart on earth, I swear I'v been in aircraft hanger much smaller than that place, I did resist the urge to buy crap, the drive back was much slower and saner.

No really exciting news but it was one hell of a trip, and it did make everyone feel better one it was all said and done. Even the guy how owned the house was in a good mood by the time all was said and done.

Fun and stitches

2004-10-30T22:28:42Z

Well I volunteered to help a friend of mine pack up his store, he had sold out and is getting into teaching. No big deal I worked retail for 5 years and know how to inventory and pack up merchandise. It went well for 4 hours until I tried moving a mirror, which decided to shatter when the frame it was in fell apart. At first it seemed to be just a mess and then one of the other guys Andy noticed I was bleeding, quite a bit on the front of my ankle. One quick trip to the local emergency room, where the nurse handed me a clip board like I'm suppose to fill out paper work while bleeding all over the place. I asked to see someone right away and do the paperwork later please. I hobbled to a back room and was looked at, the doctor who patched me up was pretty nice and two student nurses got to watch him work. It turned out to be no big deal, just three stitches, the bill was no fun $2,500 before my insurance, i only had to pay $204. I mean rally three lousy stitches and they charged my insurance two and a half grands? Oh well I did not work any more that day and just drove home. Ah my Friend Mike who I was helping even payed for the co-payment, a real nice gesture.
The worst part is I can not take showers until the stitches are out on Thursday, danger of infection.

Going insane in Tupelo

2004-10-16T18:31:04Z

The Hobby Town store in Tupelo is going out of business, It's a shame but it's also a 50% off sale. I got a Space Marine Battleforce for $50, a Chaos Land Raider for $22.50, a Chaos Predator for $17, two boxes for space wolfs for $15 each, a Priest on Cycle for $7.50 and some more odds and ends. The total was just over $200 all on the old abused credit card, blahg I really need some self control but the bargains were too good to pass up, and the bits I don't need will go up on ebay.

Also I'm rally having fun dodging the deer on the high way right now, must be migration time or something. Two really beautiful does ran out in from of my truck yesterday, nothing would keep them from crossing that road wish I had my camera.

Just got an email from NewType

2004-10-02T19:51:45Z

"You have won the Princess Ai Vol. 1 Graphic Novel in the August 2004 edition of Newtype USA's Gotta Get It Giveaways contest."

Well this is nice news for once.

Sad news

2004-09-17T20:03:34Z

Well I just found out that one of the original D&D artist David C. Sutherland III is terminally ill and selling off all of his 30 year collection of items from TSR to pay for some of his medical bills.

http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=stormber&sort=3&page=1&rows=50&since=-1&showpics=1&stab=0 is the link, it's quite sad really.

Bad suff here at school

2004-08-27T20:30:54Z

Well I was going to post an update on my boring Gen Con trip, but there was a major fire here at olemiss and I keep having to get the web server rebooted (the traffic keeps crashing it). Three people at least dead and the frat house was still on fire 6 hours later, not a fun day here.

Cooking Fun

2004-08-02T17:17:35Z

Why I'm scared to eat my own cooking sometimes.

Well I was cooking up some chicken spaghetti. When I went to pick up the can of tomato sauce off of the shelf there was a black ring around the base of it. Examined closer a stream of tomato sauce started shooting out of it, 3-4 feet in fact making a funky design on the wall. I put the can in the sink until it had depressurized and tossed it into the garbage. There was a black patch around several other cans on the shelf but none of them appear damaged. Much cleaning then happened.

And in other news I have put up 122 Conan comic books on ebay to help fun my Gen-Con trip.

Aircraft on highway

2004-06-21T18:01:45Z

Well I was driving home from Memphis Sat. and on highway 7 and on the other lane a piper cub was parked. Traffic was of course backed up behind it, really a bit surreal. Other than that I had the worst Chinese food and bought two whole magazines. Not much of a day off. Oh I had carried one more tuttle off of the highway early in the week, a fair sized box who refused to get out of his shell. I wounder how many cars had driven over the poor fella to get him to button up like that.

More Turtles

2004-05-29T16:08:53Z

Well the great turtle migrations seems to be calming down here. I did stop and move three more of the little guys.

Two here with one stop, I pulled over to move a box turtle and saw a rather big one just a little ahead of me. I picked that one up and he really did not like it. Keep trying to claw me, no shyly going into his shell, looked like a snapping turtle. When I set him down he took off and went crashing into the woods. The little box turtle just pulled into his shell when I picked him up.

The other one was on a normally busy highway south of Oxford, when I picked him up he pissed at me, mostly missed me but still annoying. Gotta love anti-predator reflexes.

I also saw a really majestic deer here on campus while driving up to work. She was walking around and eating flowers, just like she owned the place.

More turtles

2004-05-19T14:54:36Z

Well I'v moved two more turtles off the road in the last 2 days, must be migration season or something. Of course I live in wild critter country.

In unrelated news I finally saw Van Helsing and it was mind less eye candy but I have a couple of plot points I am pondering.

Cut to not spoil the movie.

I really expected the requisite Lara Croft/Red Sonia babe to be brought back to lift via the Frankenstein machine. And also if Van Helsing was catholic was not cremation still forbidden under cannon law? This was one of the things changed in vatican 2 I though.

Oh well guess I'll watch the golden finches battle each other at the bird feeder now.

Good deed

2004-05-13T02:42:38Z

When driving up to Memphis this morning I saw a turtle trying to crawl across the road. I stopped my truck got out, picked the not so little guy up (he had neat orange highlights) and put him on an embankment facing the woods. Hopefully he will go in that direction and not become a road waffle. Then I went on and wasted some money.

Hurry Hurry Hurry

2004-05-01T13:58:28Z

Sigh, I have a gig of Ram (2 X 512 MB sims) sitting in the Memphis Fed Ex warehouse.

Come on hurry up and get here

Weird Al

2004-04-24T15:58:31Z

Well I'm going off in a bit to see Weird Al Yankovic play Tunica, I'v been wanting to see him live for years. And considering the last live concert I went to was the Pointer Sisters around 1985 it looks like I'm overdue for one.

Suicide Opossums

2004-03-21T18:51:20Z

Well had fun driving home last night

Going home in my Sonoma, the road is quite winding and well wooded. Out of the corner of my eye I see a flash of grey. I hit the breaks and try to pull over to the edge of the road, theres no shoulder and thus no maneuverability room.

A opossum is dashing across the road, I missed him with my front wheel. I really though that 1000 pounds of steel cutting in front of his nose would have made him pause at least if not run the other way.

Crunch my back wheel goes up in the air, and one more opossum is in critter heaven.

I don't know why this upsets me. Tried to avoid it, of course its the first mammal I'v ran over (there was a bird back in 88 who tried to duck through my windshield).

Of course this morning when driving to work there was 3 dead opossums in that section of road. Oh well at least its not a deer they could be expensive.