What’s in a word?
The word is DRAFT

and what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Something of the Military or getting one rear end shot off, or maybe a cool wind blowing up it? Draft is also some type of big old horse used to pull it’s weight in gold or kegs of beer… Beer? That’s another other use, draft beer.Some words have many meaning.

For older folks the word draft was something to avoid. It was illogical to get drafted into the army and become a casualty count. Way too many good people have been wasted in “logical” thing called police actions.

I also get lost in labels. i.e. African Americans, Native Americans, Latino Americans, or the Moral Majority. Let’s get things straight for once and quite having enforced suppression force down our throats.
If you are an African you are an African, If you are an American you are an American.

How can you be a Latino when the Latins were wiped out by the Romans who then browed their language and besides South Americans speak Spanish? Confusing? Yes! Native Americans? there aren’t any! No one lived here. They all came from Asia. And way the hell back we all came from Africa anyway. So, everyone’s Great, great grand somebody all were swing from the same family tree.

Lastly, is moral majority? Who has morals anyway, it should be immoral majority. Everyone I know is either on the take, on the lamb or running for dog catcher of Harshaw Wisconsin.

No, I am not a red neck… it’s sun burn.

What comes down must go up…
well, maybe. econ Lesson #3

We have this monster oak tree in our back yard.. God put it there on the third day of creation. The thing is older than time. As a kid 40 years ago a thought thing was ¾ dead and ready for our fireplace. Back then I thought my Dad was going to cut it down but no. He didn’t have the tools nor the ability to bring it down without nailing our cabin, his car or one of his fine sons.

I’ve thought about bring it down it myself but no for I too lack the brains to bring it down. So over the years it just sits there doing it’s thing… making a mess of leaves and acorns. Presntly the wood peckers are after it for the bugs. Every morning they can be heard grinding away inside it.

We had very high winds last night and I heard a loud crack than a loud thump. I thought for sure the thing had met it’s maker. But it was just a very large branch from the old oak. There it stood with one less branch. It got me to think about things that stand the test of time. Things that people in one form or another grind away at… our constitution, morals, human rights and A T&T. That’s right Ma Bell.
The company had many of it’s limbs cut off by Uncle Sam for people said, “Oh, it’s too Big.” Like our oak the company was under attack but it still stands up right today making a profit for it’s shareholders defing the boys on capital hill.

I guess like all things that survive, people, companies and countries, you have to bend a little in the wind.

A quick trip… econ Lesson #2
Hydro- logical’ly speaking, the heartland got nailed. Iowa has a ton of water in it. So, where there is a lot of it is, a lot less is elsewhere, namely Northern Wisconsin. The lake out front of us is now a pond working on a puddle. There are rocks and boulder where there should be four feet of water.

Iowa City and Cedar Rapids are up to their armpits or so said the national news. In the old days both towns would throw stones at Davenporters who lived on the bank of the Olde Miss and had annual spring floods, no big deal. Not anymore. I hopped in the car headed south for I had to take a look.

Yes, the towns are a mess and so are the many corn and beans fields. There will be a lot less crops coming in this fall meaning… less ethanol, less corn flakes, and less pork sausages which will make my heart doctor a lot more happy for his patients.(but less business for himself) tofu anyone? Then there are the folk on the Chicago Board of Trade - some with long faces other smiling depending on which side of the fence you are standing.

The farmers that gamble and replant have the addition cost for seed and fertilizer and still may not get a good crop by late late fall. So farming is a high odds crap shoot. Just like most things in life it’s a gamble getting out of bed in the morning. But if you don’t, who is going to let the dog out?

What goes up must come down…
econ Lesson one
Newton’s near miss. What works in physics really doesn’t apply in reality. If I were to drop a ten pound brick on the top of my foot no one would notice accept me. If that were a ten pound bag of gold it would hurt just the same except the jingle jangle of the coins would draw a lot of attention.

So the bag drops due to Mr. Newton’s gravity. It hits my foot and it hurts. What’s in the bag really matters for it’s our lesson for the day. If it were gold coins they could pay for the medical bills in having my broken foot X-rayed and placed in a cast. Or, the coins could pay the deductible on my health insurance or it’s premium.

However, if I took the gold and invested it in the gold options market, I could create my own “Hedge ‘ against personal injury playing for a projected up swing.

So you can either look up having a positive attitude and step in a man hole, or look down where you are walking and knock yourself silly on a low hanging branch. It’s the long and the short of it or so says this new book on investing.

It’s a matter of free choice and how wide the manhole is . Ain’t life grand?

40 days and knights.
Who is in charge up there? Can’t we get this weather thing straightened out? There are three things we a funky civilization need to get figured out.
First ---- is time in a bottle. How come went things are really bad time drags and when you are having the time of your life, time speeds up… this was mentioned in a prior blog posting about one Ralph Einstein.
Let’s get a handle on this and maybe the trains will run on time, but who cares?

Second ---- is weather. Since the drawn of time it’s been a pain. Crops have failed, people have gone without not to mention floods, hurricanes and tornadoes. Millions are spent by the National Weather Service and all they tell us is that our house was blown away yesterday. Come on now. I could do a better job at half the price by sticking head out the window.

Third … is our energy problem. There are two types. First is atomic which give me a glow in the dark head ache. Second is personal. It's the get up off your dead ass energy. I hate to bring it up but…it seems that I have less of it each day. Here’s my theory. Someone is messing with our corn flakes! Food is energy.

It used to be I’d go bananas over a bowl of Frosted Flakes. Now a days what's in Tony the Tiger’s box is blan. Who changed of the formula? what's the deal?

To sum up my dear mother's cooking...
If that doesn’t give you gas pains maybe it wasn’t worth the price list listed on the menu… that’s the subject of the next blog,(Gas), stay tuned.

Weather patterns…
I hear it’s really raining just south of here. Just 200 miles south they are getting the @##$%&*+@ kicked out of themselves. The only people making any thing out of this at the moment are the people that sell small boats, life jackets and flood insurance, scheming capitalist.

It’s time to start building your Ark if you live anywhere in the central Midwest. Those of us further north missed most of it… and our lakes still could use a foot of two of H2O. Sometimes things don’t add up. Hurricanes, tornadoes, wind sheer, it sure doesn’t take much to set man back on his ass. Throw in some earthquakes and tidal waves and mix it all up and poof! I think you can see where I am headed… It’s called short term memory or the lack of understanding past events and the luck of the draw… then throw in a pinch of stupidity. - i.e. like building your new home on a fault line or a flood plane.

You could purchase a beautiful townhouse with a view of the Mediterranean (right under Mt. Etna) and boom every 500 years. It’s on the 499th year. Or try a beach side condo in sunny Gulf Shore…the town is the bull’s eye of hurricane alley. How about a California ranch home in the Sierra foothills for a get away from everything except it gets burned down every third year? Then there’s your little cabin located on the peaceful Wisconsin River that just went 20’ over it’s bank and took out you laundry that was hanging out to dry. It also took out every thing else along with your BMW which they will find in St. Louis next week. You could hide under a rock but They will find you.

See where this is going? There are a heck of a lot more of us living today in spots the you'd like to send crazy cousin Louis. Some rads would point out that man is effecting weather patterns. It could be to some degree. However, 10,000 years ago there was a 2 mile thick ice sheet over most of North America… I ask who put it there and damn it was cold back then. It was the same guy who's in charge of today’s weather!

Either or… 6/13

It’s tuff choice. You are in the store… in the chocolate section. There is a ten pound bag of M&Ms on special… also at the end of the isle is a display of Fannie Farmer boxed chocolate. What to do? what to do?

The one can take care of your habit for about a week the other maybe a day of two. When it comes to the magical food around our house it’s we must to have a year's supply stuffed into every thinkable place. She's got it stuffed even under the dog's bed. This extreme over stock is to save the ourselves and our chipmunks in case we go to war with Ireland. It could happen if they held back their whiskey.
So the question is... big bag or small box?

You are standing in the isle holding up traffic and the sales clerks are beginning to wonder about the customer with a blank look on their face. What to do what to do??

It’s easy…. You purchase both just in case the Canadians hedge the chololate market this could happen as well. There is nothing better than a stash of choloate on a cold winter eve, or so I am told.

Big Brown…
They are off and running… it could be the first triple crown winner in thirty years… into the first curve Big Brown thunders in third place just bidding his time. He’s up the back stretch running at his own pace ready to eat them alive. He is a jet on afterburner that can run at mach 2. In horse lingo he’s a beast blowing everything off the track. These guys are no dummies, the owners . They sold parts of this four legged wonder to every Tom, Dick and Howard for billions.
Can you imagine the stud fee?

Brown’s stud fee is going to make history. Just think of the world filled with little Browns running around. Wait a minute… it all ready is. So the triple crown is going to go to Big Brown and you can bet on it, millions of buck have.
It’s show time into the last corner at Belmont …. It’s go time.

The rest of the field will be scheduled to go to the Kennel-ration plant and Big Brown will be having a field day at the stud farm.. This is where the phase “Oh, so runs.” came into being – someone or something blowing away the competition. And the winner is Rosebud by a nose. Rosebud?

Wait a minute where’s Big Brown? Dead last!
Now I Am not talking fix, but??? 38 to 1. Sounds like the NBA.

Broken toe tire kicking… 6-9

It’s so easy for you but not for us, shopping that is.. for many shopping is a big deal. But here in the quite side of the northwoods, shopping is a very big chore. Sure we have a clothing stores and a market or two. But that’s it.
“ Our special today is ice berg lettus.” It was the same last week and the week before. There must be an over supply of Brazilian lettus. Not so with the real things that people need. Like a 45 mile per gallon car.

Shopping for a new hat…no problem. But for new wheels we have a huge problem. Now that mileage is a big thing all our car dealers have are monster giantic gas hogs. So we are looking to replace Rosebuds’ 32 mpg Mazda and it’s tire kicking time. Her car has been around the world twice, it needs to enjoy retirement.

So in we go to smiling Dave’s, our friendly Ford dealer, trying to buy locally. I tell the guy what we are looking for. “ Something in a light green with reasonable milage, please.”
'Here let’s let you test drive this black one.' was the saleman’s come back.

The sticker showed the right kind of milage but you’d need a shoe horn getting in and out of their small black mini car. There are some things not worth 42 mpg, I just haven’t found one. Sure the Mazada's loud muffler makes us sound like the Fonzs are right out of the 1959. Yes, we need new wheels. No Rosebud doesn’t like black and our locals guys didn’t have a clue after we told them what we were looking for… so we are shopping else where, down the road.


We are doing some serious tire kicking. The question is which country do you want our new car made in, Japan or Nippon? I know there are car plants on Mexico, South Carolina and even in little Maryvill, Ohio. BUT they all carry the same name plate “over priced”? The friendly folks that brought you World War Two own the car market and there is nothing you can do about it. The question is where do you want your new Japanese made? Detriot?

Einstein …had it right

The man had gotten it pretty close. His formula almost made sense E=mc2. I tried putting it in our blender but poof. Nothing turns out as one expects. A pinch of electrons add a neutron or two and what do you know, you are in business. The man and his thinking are all over the universe. If you look carefully there are his signs that led the way. You just have to pay attention and make the right turn.

Every morning it’s such a joy to come face to dace with his equations while trying to shave in the mirror for we are all apart of the hole. His equations are the best especially the one in which you slice the whole in half place it in the toaster and then spread cream cheese on top of his blueberry bagel. Add a cup of hazelnut coffee in you are business for the whole day, thank you Ralph Einstein.

Color blind.…
There is banging and hammering above me… no it’s not a thunder storm, we are having the roof reshingled. First there was trying to have Rosebud finally say YES to the cost as the buckets under the leaks were starting to fill with rain water.

Then it was a simple matter of picking out the “right” color shingles. Something in an off white? No, no then how about setting the neighborhood on its’ ear with a bright purple roof? No, No… she wanted black? No, no I cried so in the end the new shingled color is a the same as before…a tired tan mix.

All this took three weeks… Just think how long it’s going to take to pick out a new car for my lady!

Great deals…

I spend one day a week sometimes more helping out volunteering (that word again) at our church’s Thrift Shop. It’s a resale shop wherein donations are sorted out, bad stuff from good priced, stocked and then sold to some unsuspecting buyer. At first all of us thought it would be a small service to the community.

This was many a year ago. Now it’s gotten out of hand. People bring in their stuff by the truck loads. It’s a job and a half separating the good stuff from the bad. What’s amazing is the stuff people donate. I mean there is some really fine stuff, soft good and hard goods. Camcorders, small appliances we even had a household of “NEW” furniture donated.

What’s more amazing is the customer base that weekly shops in the store. Two years ago we had to move into a larger building which we out grew in the first 6 months. And what do we do with the cash income? (No, we don’t try and double it at the local casino…) we give it right back to worthy causes in the entire community. So how do you spend your spare time? I spend mine sorting through used underwear… and very little on blog content. Oh,the joy of retirement.
One liner...
"Just remember where you go in life depends where you are standing... let's hope it's not on quicksand."