Sorry for the absence, folks. I’ve been on somewhat of a sabbatical. Things here have been bizarre to say the least. I was working on my mobile ham radio antenna project and then other distractions followed suit. First and most importantly, the wife was in the hospital for a week, but she’s OK and recovering nicely. I promised her I would not divulge any more information on that, so just keep her in your prayers for her continued recovery. Secondly, before that little incident, she got me an early birthday present: an HTC Pure smart phone with a two year “unlimited” contract with AT&T. Believe it or not, that’s what we get the best reception on where we live. Anyway, this thing’s got Windows Mobile 6.5 on it and FWIW, I find it to be a remarkable piece of equipment. There have been many poor reviews on this phone, but since it’s a Windows OS, I’ve been hacking the crap out of it for the past two weeks. I’ve just about got it to where I want it, but it’s going to take me a few more days playing with it to get it there.

The user interface is driven by HTC’s Touch Flo 3D technology. To put it mildly, it sucks. So does all the bloatware that came with it. I ripped out that lame interface and installed SPB Mobile Shell 3.5. It’s an awesome user interface with a 3D carousel and other 3D features that make it much more versatile and enjoyable. Plus there’s lots of apps out there for download to play with, most notably, the GPS apps.

Then I got news that an old friend of mine from 20 years ago passed away back in September. After hearing about it, I spend the next few days looking up old friends who knew him in order to pass the word along. There was good news, however; His brother who was fighting Leukemia at the time was reported to be alive and well and living only 20 minutes from my house. Unlike his brother that passed away, this guy had a heart of gold. He was a firefighter who left the fire company before 9-11 and ended up beating the cancer! It’s been a trip down memory lane calling up and chatting with friends you used to hang with from 20 years ago, always wondering what ever happened to them. Kudos to Facebook for making these reunions possible. Turns out that after one of those recent conversations with one of my closest friends, I found out that he lives right up the hill from me not 3 minutes away! Damn, we had some great times together and I can’t wait to see him again someday soon.

As far as politics are concerned, I’ve already placed several calls to my US Representative’s office in DC and although I have little hope of him changing his vote on Obamacare, because he’s a hardcore Dem, at least I gave it my best shot. Weather it passes or not, I hope every last statist assclowns in Washington gets the boot in November. If this monstrosity of a health care overhaul does get passed, it will be tied up in courts for months to come and it will end up getting shoved down our throats one way or another. If it doesn’t pass, the leftists are going to shove it through in a piece-meal fashion, regardless. Either way, like I said back on November 5th, 2008, we’re screwed. Even if in the next two subsequent elections we get a government that holds strict adherence to our Constitution and even if every last commie in both elected and appointed office was hung by the neck until dead for their acts of treason (my little wet dream), it would still take more than 20 years to fix the damage done over the past two years by Obama, Bush and all the criminals in the US Congress.

Cup still half full??? Yep, despite the fact that somebody replaced my beer with turpentine.

Shame on me. I’ve been absent from posting the past few days. My excuse this time is that I’ve been working again on designing a “screwdriver antenna” for my Icom 706MKIIG mobile ham radio. I don’t feel like getting into the technical aspects of what a screwdriver antenna is, but I will say that I think it’s the most superior tunable antenna in existence. Anyway, I started designing it a year ago and after half a year, I finally completed an acceptable and detailed 2D layout in CAD. I also procured about 80% of all the materials needed to build the thing. After taking a 5 to 6 month sabbatical, I’ve decided to get back onto completing it, but this is easier said than done. I need to find a machine shop that will mill me a bunch of one-off parts at a reasonable price. Oh, and I still as-of-yet have to sit for my ham radio technician’s ticket (junior operator’s license). I’m all studied up for it, but I just haven’t gotten around to taking the damned test.

In addition to working on my SHTF-EOTW preparedness hobby, I’ve also been trying my hand at the newest versions of AutoCAD. I’ve been using that design platform for close to 20 years now and it is remarkable how far the technology has advanced. Most of the tools integrated into the newer versions today were the result of others like myself who had to write our own LISP and C++ programs years before to help get jobs done more efficiently. Today, it’s all about solid modeling, 3D design and presentation. I’ve been doing 3D work off and on over the past 15 years or so, but never have I been able to design in real time 3D until recently over the past 5 years. One of the major reasons for this is that it has taken so long for affordable hardware to finally catch up to the demands of the software requirements in order to efficiently perform such complex tasks. So now, I’m working on converting my design over to 3D and I am just having too much fun doing it. And for all you perverts out there who can’t get your minds out of the gutter, the image above is not that of a sex toy. It happens to be the gear-motor assembly which I have designed for my screwdriver antenna.

Bottom line here is that once again I am forced to ask for your patience while I labor toward the completion of this unfinished project. As it starts coming together, I will post more about my progress. Other postings may be light around here for a while, but as usual, if there is some issue that demands my ranting, you can bet that I’ll be right here to express it.

TNX,
The Management

And the asshat beaurocrats in Washington are still in denial…

We’ve only got about 6 inches here in the Mid-Hudson region, but Rodger (The Real King of France) over at Curmudgeonly & Skeptical is living in the bullseye of the blizzard in Maryland. All tolled, he’s probably up to about 4 feet of snow or more from the past 2 storms.

In other news, I’ve been spending the past 2 days trying to figure out why my ‘puter has been crapping out on me. No viruses, but I think it’s a hardware problem. I thought it was the hard drive, but the motherboard may be the culprit. The damned thing just freezes for no good reason and after rebooting, it sometimes doesn’t see the HD. I’ve got a back up box that I’m using to get this out there, but I hope I can get the other one working so I don’t have to sacrifice what little cash I have in order to buy a new MB. Oh well, that’s the story of my life, now isn’t it?

A couple of days ago, I come up with an idea for a Photoshop pic. It’s a new twist on an existing meme concept. I expect it will probably take another couple of days or more to complete, so if you don’t hear from me until then, ‘least you’ll know I haven’t died or anything – not than many of you would give a shit if that happened either. But for those of you who would give a shit, just know that I am working hard on something special… AND NO, IT’S GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS!!!

*wouldn’t that be a relief*

Thank you for your patience.
- The Management

Well folks, a funny thing happened on my way to Photoshop land. MY GAWDAMNED INTERNET ACCESS BLEW A GASKET!!! I’m actually surprised that I am able to get this update posted. The data streaming through the lines works well for a couple of seconds then dies. I have to keep clicking links over and over again and occasionally I get lucky enough for a full page to load only to go through the process again to click through to the next page. I think it’s a hardware problem since my ISP has already verified that my service is operational. Since I own my own router, I’m responsible for replacing it and I just don’t have the funds at the moment. The other thing that sucks is that I am trying to do something with PS that I’ve never done before and I cannot find a tutorial on how to accomplish what I want to do. My frustration level is beyond maxed out and at times I just feel like giving up.

PHUCK THIS STUPID SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I CAN’T HELP WONDERING WHY IT IS THAT I WASTE MY TIME DOING THIS PHUCKING CRAP IN THE FIRST PLACE! NOBODY READS THIS PHUCKING BLOG ANYWAY! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!
*bangs head on keyboard in an aggravated repetitive fashion* …ouch, that hurt!

Today is Sunday, December 20, 2009. There are only 4 days left to prepare for Christmas and I have soooooooo much to do in soooooooo little time. Therefor, in the name of mental and physical self preservation, I have to make a concerted effort to lay off the posting here and get busy preparing for Christmas. If by chance I do happen to slip one or two posts in between now and December 25, it will likely be brief and/or rather important. You can check in on me from time to time, but expect the posting here to be VERY light until after Christmas. My message to all of you at this time is to be safe, get off the gawdamned computer and go spend this precious time with your loved ones during this special time of year.

TNX,
The Management

Were back in action folks! I’ve upgraded the site to Wordpress 2.8.5 and although it was a major pain in the ass – due to many of my existing Java scripts conflicting with the new platform – everything appears to be working much better than before. Most of the benefit from this upgrade is mine alone as I can now swiftly kick the spammer’s asses with new tools at my disposal. Folks can once again register to join the website and commenting timeouts will be a little longer than before. The website management tools this thing has are sweet!

Also fixed are the annoying problems I was having with my MuZiX Jukebox. Now, If you click on the Jukebox located in the upper left column, the link will open up another tab with the Java script app for playing music. At this point I only have some choice selections from my current listening repertoire, but as I get it more together over here, I’ll be sporting other genres for your listening pleasure. I’ve even tested my Christmas tunes page with the slide show from 2 years ago and even that thing’s good to go for the day after Thanksgiving when I put up the holiday decorations.

So please, give the MoFiZiX MuZiX Jukebox a try and let me know what you think. Also please take a moment to register with the site so that at anytime in the future you can login and comment on my postings.

Sorry folks, I’m back at it again and have the need for more functionality here at the site. One of the main reasons for this upgrade is to take advantage of a better user registration and login app. Back several months ago – actually more like a year ago or better – I was getting swamped with comment spammer registrations with the appearance of them being legit registrants. The only way for peeps to register for commenting was for me to manually enter them into the SQL database. Needless to say, it was a royal PITA! Let’s hope this upgrade fixes all that.

So here it goes…
See you on the other side!

After joining up on Facebook and Myspace to connect with a couple of old friends and receiving some negative criticism over my choice of personal photo and the content of my blog, I feel the need sufficiently exists for me to describe myself more fully for those who do not know me or understand who it is that I am. Since childhood, I have been an avid supporter of our 2nd Amendment Constitutional rights. Today, our society has been devolved to the point where the mere mention of the word “gun” brings ridicule and scorn from those who think the only people allowed to possess firearms are either those in the military or the police. That naive assumption couldn’t be any further removed from reality.

Our founding fathers knew that an individual’s right to keep and bear arms was essential to the protection of personal freedom and remains one of the bedrock freedoms of our constitutional republic. I am proud to be an American and proud to stand up for and fight to protect our constitutional rights and freedoms. At present, I feel that our Constitution is under severe attack from the current federal administration and if their agenda continues in the path it has set before itself, we will no longer be a free nation, but a nation besieged by tyranny and hence the impetus behind the rantings on my website. It is my 1st line of defense against tyranny and it is secured under the 1st Amendment. God help us if they take away our 1st Amendment protections, because if that happens, our next line of defense will be for us to fall back upon the 2nd Amendment.

I am not an individual who spends his free time following the latest trends on television like American Idol. I am not an individual who spends his free time in idle chat on the instant messaging, cell phone texting, or social networking circuits. I have far more important things to do with what little time I have left in this world. I think what bothers me the most is that there are far too many people in this country who are willfully ignorant of basic civics and are too complacent in their debt ridden and vanity driven lives to give a shit about what’s happening to the underpinnings of the precious freedoms they so casually take for granted.

I am a faithful and loving husband, I am a proud and loving father, I am a Christian, I am a conservationist, I am a student of history, I am a warrior against the culture of death, I am an admirer of individual achievement, I am a defender of individual freedom, and I am proud to be a citizen of the greatest nation in the history of the world. I love life, I love family, I love good friends, I love the great outdoors, I love good books, I love good music, I love summer nights at the local drive-in movie theater, I love good BBQ and I love good beer.

I grew up in the Black Dirt farm region of Orange County NY, about an hour and a half NW of NYC in a little village called Florida. Florida NY is the place where William H. Seward was born. For those of you who don’t know, Seward was Secretary of State under President Lincoln, orchestrated the purchase of Alaska, and survived an attempt on his life the night Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Anyway, I married my better half back in ‘95, and fathered four magnificent children – 2 boys older and 2 girls younger. Today, I live in the Searsville area just outside of Montgomery, NY located in the beautiful Mid Hudson Valley region. Coincidently, Paul Tuttle Sr. of O.C.Choppers lives about a mile down the road from me. I’ve lived in Orange County, NY my whole life. It’s a shame that this state is going to hell in a hand basket both politically and economically. If it wasn’t for my family and my job, I’d be so outta here.

I thank God for all that I have and acknowledge Him for all the good graces He sends me each and every day.

You may not agree with my views. You may disapprove of my hard line stance on the issues of the day or the principles I live by. You may even think I am an over-zealous right-wing nut job. That’s fine by me. It took a lot of work to get to where I am today. I am a prime example that maturity in life is better late than never. I’ve made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot of hard lessons along the way and honestly, I wouldn’t want to go back and do any of it differently – well… maybe one or two things ;) So the next time you look at that picture of me standing there holding my 50 caliber black powder Hawkins mountain rifle with its full length replica civil war sniper scope, take the time to read my blog entries or check out my Photoshop talents, perhaps you’ll have a little more perspective and understanding of who it is that I am.

Thanks for listening,
Mo

“Make yourselves sheep, and the wolves will eat you.” – Benjamin Franklin

Last night I emailed a nice little story to Rodger (the REAL King of France) over at Curmudgeonly & Skeptical about something I had the privilege of experiencing first hand – quite literally. I didn’t expect him to post it on his site. I wasn’t exactly looking for the publicity and the only reason I sent it to him was because he had posted about his experiences with “Hummers” in the past. I was surprised to hear my wife LOL while she was browsing the net this morning and she told me that Rodge had my “Hummer” experience posted on his site. After checking it out myself and embellishing on the details of the story, I decided to tell the rest of it here in this post.

I know I have not been posting here in a while and truthfully, I have not had the time nor the desire to rant about the F***ed up state of our country. We have fallen under siege to an out-of-control government that is lead by an illegal alien and radical communist who is backed by an equally leftist congress that rubber stamps his agenda without conscience. Be it far from my desire to once again become the target of leftist thuggery from radical feminists and others of their ilk, but seeing the tide turning by the sentiment of a growing number of Americans has given me some much needed hope for the future of our dying nation …more on that subject at another time.

This past Thursday night I was in my garage cleaning caked up grass from under my mower when I heard the fluttering of what I thought was an oversized horse fly. Looking up toward my ceiling, I saw whatever it was land on the top shelf above my workbench. I had no idea what it was but it had to be something unusual, so I got my camera, climbed up a ladder, and realized it was a HUMMINGBIRD!!!

As I got close to her, snapping flash pictures, she laboredly flew over to my garage door frame where she rested, apparently too tired to continue. I moved the ladder, climbed up again and noticed that she was covered in spider and cob webs.

After taking a couple more pictures, I reached up, gently took hold of her and got down off the ladder. She sat remarkably still while I cleaned all the webs off of her wings, her beak, and her claws.

When I finished, she just sat there in my open hand and let me carry her around.

I wasn’t sure if she was just too tired or feeling safe and comforted or maybe a little of both.

She even sat perched on my finger for a while with absolutely no desire to take off!!!

I took her over to some flowers that momma had growing under the kitchen window and set her down.

Then, after about 10 minutes of rest, she sat up, looked at me blinking a couple of times and took off just as fast as could be.

That’s only the second time I saw a hummingbird this season, and an experience I will never forget.

But now …the rest of the story!

Earlier that evening, before dinner, I was outside walking my black lab so she could do her business when I saw what appeared to be a very large bumble bee. This thing was huge and what struck me as being highly unusual was that it had a pair of long antennae, a fuzzy tail, and a long curled up nose!!! The first thing I thought was WTF IS THIS THING?!?! Well, you know me …Johnny on the spot with the freakin’ camera. So I got my Olympus and started taking pictures of it, hoping to identify it later on the internet.

It just so happens that it was a Snowberry Clearwing (Hemaris diffinis) HUMMINGBIRD sphinx moth!

I flat out refuse to get into the details on this thing, so for all those curious, here’s a link that strange flying bug posing as a bumble bee.

That make two HUMMERS in one day for me!!!

Wow, I must be blessed or something :)

With the decorations finally down, my Christmas season is officially over and with all the chaos here affecting my new year, I managed to get everything down and put away, but I am still awaiting my new power supply for my computer. Additionally, I’ve spent about $300.00 more on parts I need to put together another box using an Intel motherboard, a 1.6G P4 processor, and 512MB of RAM I’ve had laying around for the past 2 years. It’ll be nice to have a backup in the event this nightmare happens again in the future. The only thing I haven’t spent money on is a new monitor. Until tax returns come back, I will just have to deal with an old 15″ SVGA. With all the un-anticipated expenses that have recently popped up, it’s the best I can do. Hopefully, once I get that new power supply and I can also get regular access to the internet, I can return to posting more regularly. I’ve also got a new collection of tunes to put into the MoFiZiX MuZiX Jukebox as well. Worry not folks, everything should be back to normal here soon.

WOW! For me, this year is getting off to a rough start here folks. I know I’ve been slacking with my attention to this website, but every time I think I’ve got life under control, the good Lord’s got different plans of His own. This past weekend, my sister’s puter shit the bed from all the spyware she had on it, so I spent all day Saturday putting that thing back in shape. Then, on the way home that evening I had a run in with one of the locals. The road was slick to begin with and thankfully I wasn’t going over 40mph. That stinker darted out across the road and slammed into the front driver side of my car taking out the fender, hood, and headlight (not to mention the fiberglass header panel behind the headlight assembly). All tolled, the damages in parts alone was about $500.00. I still have access to the spray booth at my old body shop, but paint materials are probably going to run me another $150.00. It’s the best I can do since I don’t have collision on my insurance policy.

If that wasn’t enough to ruin the beginning of the new year, on Sunday, the power supply on my computer crapped out… well not entirely. Something is screwy with the connectors. When I wiggle the terminals and switch around the peripheral connectors, it works albeit temporarily. Since I have no spare power supply, I had to order a new one and expect it here before the end of the week. As a backup measure, I decided to spend another $250.00 for parts needed to build another box making use of a P4 motherboard I’ve had laying around for the past year. Once I get that up and running I will have the security of being able to manage my finances and my website without this kind of interruption in the future and since the kids need a new box anyway, I thought this would be a good way to kill two birds with 250 stones. At least it should be less painful than killing one stupid deer with 10 year old car. Let’s just hope the year doesn’t get any worse.

Oh yeah, I forgot, it’s a presidential election year.

…and I still haven’t gotten the chance to take down the freakin’ Christmas decorations. SHEESH!

another year down the drain.

For the most part, this year for me was a time of rebirth. Even though many unfortunate circumstances fell in my path, there were also many things to be thankful for and for that, I cannot say that this year was a complete disappointment. Among the worst was my bouncing in between jobs, being laid up in the hospital back in June without health insurance, having my family attacked by a bunch of blood sucking leeches, and putting on a few too many pounds. On the upside, I settled back into a good job, the hospital and emergency services only cost me about three grand, my family is on a good road to recovery and I am pretty determined to shed this excess belly baggage come this new year. My physical and financial health are both getting better and I haven’t yet given up on my mental health… I think. To be rather cliche…

I’m hanging in there, baby!

As for the rest of the world… we might as well be going to hen in a hell basket. Seriously, folks; it seems like every year that passes by, more and more people get suckered into believing the lies of the left. The global warming virus has created an epidemic of enviro-mental-illness rivaled in history only by the Black Plague in pre-Renaissance Europe. Even though Islamo-fascist terrorists are getting their clocks cleaned in Iraq and Afghanistan, the rest of the region still hasn’t figured out how to deal with the threat using non-violent means. China’s wallet has gotten fatter than ever because nobody as of yet seems to give a shit about paying homage to the red dragon for supplying us with cheap crap made by slave and child labor. Our government is being run into the ground by a bunch of of assclown Democrats and spineless Republicans. Our GOP presidential candidates are all a bunch of losers (except Thompson, who’s getting next to no media coverage). Worst of all, this time next year, we might just be living under the leadership of a lying, shiftless, power hungry, communist, carpet bagging witch from Arkansas.

Regardless, I do pray for a better year ahead!

To all of you, I wish a very happy and healthy New Year!

Christmas music isn’t what it used to be. Most of the crap out there today just doesn’t have the same feel as it used to. Everybody is trying to put a progressive spin on traditional Christmas tunes that have warmed our hearts for decades and as a result, it makes a great holiday feel miserable. Nothing beats the oldies when it comes to Christmas music. So this year, since I incorporated the MoFiZiX MuZiX Jukebox, I felt the need to bring back some of that old time happiness by showcasing a collection of Christmas songs dear to everyone’s heart. It features the masters of holiday spirit and good cheer like Sinatra, Crosby, Doris Day, Cole, and others. I also threw in a few of the more recent artists whom I felt made positive contributions to the Christmas music genre. I also put the music to a slideshow collection of Christmas and winter artwork for visual effect. I do hope you all enjoy the show. It’s still a work in progress as I am hoping to add more before Christmas day. It also took forever to coordinate and took hours away from helping Mamma around the house (sure hope I don’t get coal in my stocking because of it). Just click on the trumpet playing Santa to get started.

…and thanks for hanging in there folks. I hope it was worth the wait.

I’ve been busy helping Momma these past couple of days and I want to get busy working on turning the jukebox into a Christmas music page. I’ve got a couple of ideas and in the next day or so I hope to have one up and working so bear with me here folks. You know when I set my mind to doin’ somthin’, I won’t quit until I get it just right.