JamesSlusher.com

What do you think of the background?

I just had a near death experience. But before I go into how, let me give you some of the events leading up to this.

A little over a month ago I cut some really tall bushes at the back of my house down. Well, part of the reason that I did it is that I suspected that pine bugs were using them as an access point to my roof and eventually into my house. If you don’t know what a pine bug is, they are big old cockroaches that invade Southern homes from the outside. They don’t take well to indoor living as they die fairly quickly (not like the German cockroaches that set up shop and live forever). They are, however, huge and nasty looking whilst alive and most people would prefer not to let them into the house to begin with, myself included. Anyway, after having cut down the bushes, the number of sightings have dropped to near zero.

The problem, however, lies in the fact that I have upset an ecosystem. There were obviously many large spiders that were feeding off these pine bugs and I have now cut off the source of their sustenance. Now they are coming out to play.

My near death experience was a result of opening up my front door and starting to walk outside and touching (only barely touching) an ENORMOUS spider web. I had just got to nose contact when I stopped moving. This web easily covered the top half of my front door opening. Sitting in the middle of this web, right at eye level, was an equally ENORMOUS spider. I was almost touching this monster. And he didn’t seem particularly upset over my proximity. He was big enough that had I wandered all the way into the web, he would have had himself a feast. From the tip of one leg to the farthest tip of opposing leg had to be in the four inch range.

I sprayed some Raid on homeboy and he writhed around in his web awhile before finally letting go and hitting my porch with a thud.

EEWWWWWWW, nasty.

Okay I’m down to about 207 now. That leaves me about 17 lbs to go. I think one of the problems I’m running into is that I am overdoing the insulin on my nightshifts. I end up with low readings almost every meal and then have to overeat to compensate for it. I am going to drop the basal rate for nightshifts and see if that doesn’t help some.

Last night the Braves got crushed by a one-man team named Barry Bonds. Though I hate to see the Braves ever lose a game, I really enjoy the fact that they pitch to Bonds. Joe Morgan was relating a conversation with Bobby Cox in which Joe asked why the Braves pitch to Bonds so much. Bobby replied that they were there to compete and if he beat them, he just beat them, but there was no reason to shy away from the challenge. I admire that very much. Bobby Cox is the man, and perhaps one of the greatest manager’s in baseball history.

And to all the multitudes of naysayers who are sure that every year is the last year the Braves will win their division, HA! We are going to do it again!

Good Lord, the baby is using the computer by herself now.

Marilyn called to check on Emily and the baby answered the phone with a cheery “Hi, Mommy!” just after announcing to the room “I got it”.

This is going too fast for me.

If the eyes are the windows into the soul, here is a peek into my soul.

Pretty gross, eh? I wonder what that says about my soul?

I went to Dr. Gary Crook who is a longtime family friend. If you happen to be in the Augusta area and need to get your eyes checked, stop by and see him. Tell him I sent you. Here is his card:

Whew.

My Father-in-law (Daddy), Robert Lee and I spent the day doing a 2 hour job to Daddy’s 1984 Bronco. All we wanted to do was change the water pump and thermostat. The water pump came off just fine, but one of the bolts that holds the thermostat to the intake manifold sheared off at the head. It left us with plenty of the shaft of the bolt to work with, but it was seized up in the threads. We eventually had to get a propane torch and heat up the surrounding metal while turning the broken bolt with a pair of Vise-grips. That added quite a bit of time to the process. Then we broke the aluminum thermostat housing. So that added a bit more time. All in all, we spent about 8 hours doing a job that should have been finished by noon.

Each one of these endeavors shows me more and more that I need a shop. The question is where and how much am I willing to put towards it. I would think that if I could get a 4 bay shop on an acre of land for under $25,000, it would be worth it to me. I would want it within a 10 to 15 minute drive of the house, preferably between me and the in-laws. Though they are only about 20 minutes away. There is some exceedingly high priced land directly between the two so it might take a bit of finagling. We shall see.

I have been told that since I am anti-Bush then I must be a big Kerry supporter. Yes and no. The no part is that I am not one hundred percent sold on all of his ideas, I think there needs to be some serious work done on some of his ideas about the military and intelligence and the ways in which we can protect ourselves. The yes part comes in because he can not possibly make all of the asinine mistakes that George Bush has. If you had a guy trying to screw things up he wouldn’t be as effective as Bush has been at screwing things up.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that my first paragraph belies some hesitancy towards Kerry’s ability to handle the BS on Terror. I think he will do just fine. I just think that the Conventional Wisdom in general is a bit off in how to handle things. If these politicians had a bit of sense they would appoint Bruce Schneier to Secretary of Homeland Security and that would be that. I believe he would do better than Tom Ridge ever could.

So am I a Kerry supporter because he is the absolute best man in America right now to be the president? No. Am I a Kerry supporter because he is intelligent enough to not make the same ridiculous miscalculations that the current one does time and time again? YES.

By the way, I disabled the google ads for the time being because they kept sending pro-Bush ads. I will not do anything to help that man. Ever. You can tell alot about a man by the friends he keeps. The people he relies on and surrounds himself with are the absolute worst bunch of hypocritical, lying, self-serving connivers that the bowels of the American privileged class can crap out.

I have always been a fan of Wall of Voodoo. It will always strike a chord with me. In my heart of hearts, I am a Thompson Twins loving, spandex wearing, Flashdance watching child of the Eighties.

That being said, I just listened to a version of Mexican Radio by Authority Zero. I must say, I liked it quite a bit.

If I could just get someone to remake Doctor, Doctor….

6 down and 1 to go. I’m so happy that it is almost over. I’m not really good at the night shift to begin with. 7 in a row is horrendous.

And, man, are my dogs barking!