Ron G.

I snuk a peek into the future, and here's the authentic, official Ron G. prediction for the next 10 years... 1. Ron G. will consume about 500 gallons of coffee. 2. The original Beatles will not make another recording together. 3. Ron G. will not return to TWI. 4. Raf will win a Pulitzer Prize for his work in hurricane cones. 5. One of my hens will FINALLY lay an egg (I'm thinking positive here) 6. Oenophile will dominate the Pinot Noir market and cause a worldwide shortage. 7. Barbara Bush won't have any more sons. 8. Pawtucketer will be investigated by the FBI for hosting Groucho and Satori's posts on his website. 9. Sudo will pull a minimum of 648 teeth. 10. LCM will acheive stardom as a Richard Simmons impersonator.

SONIC is a chain of drive ins complete with carhops. They have decent food and exceptional onion rings.

Who cares? The only "fast food" I ever indulge in is Popeye's fried chicken. I like Sonic, too, but the rest is crap.

WHATEVER happens. Satori, you cab rest assured it'll be Bush's fault. We're considering changing the name of our earthquake threat, the New Madrid Fault, to Bush's Fault, since it obviously is.

I posted a happy birthday wish to dmiller just now and noticed a birthday wish from Ted Ferrell and moony and my mind flashed on the great CDs I got from Ted. I got the thought that it would really be something if somehow all the ultra telented GSers like Ted could sometime get together and do some serious jammin'. Ted on guitar or keyboard...cowgirl on mandolin...dmiller on fiddle and whoever else on whatever else. I dunno...I just PROMISE I would NOT bring my tuba. I never heard some of these folks, but I know Ted made my heart and soul grin real big. All this talent without the constraints of Way productions....what a hoot. Just a thought.

Keep your bow resined! <IMG SRC="http://secontra.com/nacdsnews/March3.gif"> "We consider that any man who can fiddle all through one of those Virginia Reels without losing his grip, may be depended upon in any kind of musical emergency." -Mark Twain Happy Birthday!!

Belle...ya done good! I forget you live in Florida where there's essentially only one season. I lived there my WOW year and have been trying to forget it ever since. The best thing to ever come out of Florida is the "97th Regimental String Band". They come here and perform once or twice a year and Branson about the same. If you ever get a chance to see them, DO IT! Tell the bass player, Rick Moock,you have a message from Arkinsaw, then just thumb your nose. He'll understand and get a big laugh. notinkansasanymore... I didn't mention shooting because girls are generally better shots than boys and fact might turn into a derail. In my neighborhood, it's just as common to see women carrying rifles as it is for men during deer season and pistols in the summer for snakes. I forgot to mention tomatoes and trot lines although they're pretty much a given. I'm a David Allen Coe fan and have met him a few times, although I haven't seen him in over 15 years. He used to sing at rallys held by motorcycle clubs and other organizations. Have you ever heard any of his "private issue" stuff? There's a DAC store and museum in Branson. MO run by his daughter. likeaeagle... Bush hawg is a generic term, while "Brush Hog" is a brand name. It's a mowing deck that is pulled by a tractor, typically, with a category 1, three point hitch. The blades are operated by a shaft connected to the PTO. Mine is 5ft wide and, like 99% of them, is rust colored LOL. If you're familiar with all that terminology, you're a REAL woods dweller.

So tell me ladies... Do YOU wear a belt with your name on the back? Do YOU put peanuts in your bottle (or can) of Coke? Do you own a pair of overalls with the legs cut off for those really hot days? (NOTE: Buying them already cut off doesn't count.) Are you often seen in town wearing grey sweats and calf high rubber boots worn on the outside? (This is required for working with livestock and most gardening.) Is the most common label in your closet "Carhartt"? Do you occasionally or frequently operate a brush hog? Just some typical traits of a REAL "redneck" woman.

Locks only keep honest people out.

Krysilis ponders... Most likely, they'll still be choking their chickens. It's great for adolescent stress.

Go to the politics forum. You'll dicover there are more than two sides to everything and your side can affect the side effects of all the effective affectations. Hopefully, this will help effectively affect the resulting effects.

I haven't lived in Texas for a long time, but I have an idea that Bob Wills is still the king. Is "Asleep at The Wheel" still around?

TS Tammy? I remember "Tammy and the Batchelor" starring Debbie Reynolds and Leslie Nielson. There was another "Tammy" movie starring Sandra Dee. When do we get TS Gidget?

It's alien versus predator in Glades creature clash A giant exotic snake's fatal mistake of trying to swallow an alligator has provided scientists with strange new evidence that pythons are continuing to spread in the Everglades. BY CURTIS MORGAN cmorgan@herald.com A meeting between two of the largest and fiercest predators in the Everglades -- a Burmese python and an American alligator -- ended in a scene as rare as it was bizarre. The 13-foot-snake and six-foot gator both wound up dead, locked so gruesomely it is hard to make heads, tails or any other body part of either creature. When the carcasses were found last week in an isolated marsh in Everglades National Park, the gator's tail and hind legs protruded from the ruptured gut of a python -- which had swallowed it whole. As an added touch of the macabre, the snake's head was missing. For scientists, exactly how the clash occurred is a compelling curiosity. More importantly, the latest and most extraordinary encounter provides disturbing evidence that giant exotic snakes, which can top 20 feet in length and kill by squeezing the life out of prey, have not only invaded the Everglades but could challenge the native gator for a perch atop the food chain. ''It's just off-the-charts absurd to think that this kind of animal, a significant top-of-the-pyramid kind of predator in its native land, is trying to make a living in South Florida,'' said park biologist Skip Snow, who has been tracking the spread of the snakes. Pythons, likely abandoned by pet owners, have been seen in the Everglades since the 1980s. But in the past two years alone, Snow has documented 156 python captures, a surge that has convinced biologists the snakes are multiplying in the wild. The growing population of big, scary predators also raises questions about threats to native species and whether anything indigenous -- gators, for starters -- might be capable of consuming and potentially controlling one of the world's largest snake species. The latest find was spotted floating in a spike rush marsh in the Shark River Slough on Sept. 26 by Michael Barron, a helicopter pilot flying park researchers to tree islands. It was examined the next day by Snow. The discovery was important for a number of reasons. LIVING ANYWHERE For one, it showed the snakes are capable of living anywhere in the Everglades, Snow said. Most earlier finds have been on park fringes, roads or parking lots. ''This is the first we have documented Burmese pythons really in the heart of the slough,'' Snow said. It also confirmed that snakes and gators, while typically consuming less troublesome mammals, turtles and birds, have an appetite for each other -- at least when the opportunity presents itself. The first observed encounter in the park occurred three years ago when awestruck onlookers at the popular Anhinga Trail boardwalk witnessed a tussle between a 10- to 15-foot snake and six- to nine-foot gator. That fight, which lasted an estimated 24 hours, ended in an apparent draw, with both swimming off and vanishing. Earlier this year, Snow documented a gator killing and consuming a python. The latest encounter showed that a hungry adult snake can eat a sizable gator. Such clashes, though spawned by damaging incursion by an exotic species, can't help but fascinate both the public and scientists, said Frank Mazzotti, a University of Florida wildlife professor and expert on crocodiles and gators in the Glades. ''We've got not only two big things, but two charismatic mega-fauna -- the Burmese python, invader of the Everglades, and the American alligator, monarch of the Everglades,'' he said. Mazzotti said size would probably dictate which species would win most encounters, and scientists could only speculate why this one ended in double deaths. Snow's detailed field notes provide some evidence the snake was the attacker -- there were wounds on the gator's head and ''large wads of alligator skin'' in what remained of the snake's digestive tract. ASKING THE EXPERTS He was so intrigued that he e-mailed photos and notes to other experts around the country. So far, several theories abound, none of them pretty and all speculative because once on the scene, Snow quickly abandoned plans to load the bloated, badly decomposed carcasses on the chopper. ''We decided there was no way we were going to do that,'' he said. ``Something was going to go wrong and it was going to be nasty.'' Instead, he performed a ''floating'' necropsy in the water. While unusual, it's not unheard of for a snake to consume prey that proves too hard or large to digest. Things like claws, hooves or bones can damage the snake's internal organs. The bulk of a victim can put pressure on the snake's lungs, essentially suffocating it from within. Slowed by the extra weight, the snake might have been attacked by another gator, which could explain a missing python head. Joe Wasilewski, a South Miami-Dade biologist and expert gator and crocodile tracker, examined the photos and surmised the gator wasn't quite dead when the snake swallowed it snout-first. That's not uncommon, he said. ''That [gator] could have been kicking its hind legs and ruptured the snake's stomach wall,'' Wasilewski said. DEAD MOVES Mazzotti said a similar scenario could have happened even if the gator were dead because of a quirk of its nervous system. Until a gator's spinal cord is severed and literally stirred into jelly with a special tool, he said, ``a dead alligator gives a remarkably good imitation of being alive. One of the things they do is they move their legs like they're walking. Those claws are pretty sharp. It could tear through the [snake's] skin.'' Mazzotti said it's also plausible the snake scavenged a dead gator. Then time, decay and heat could explain what happened next: a nasty blowout of the snake body. ''You've got a deteriorating carcass, you've got a buildup of gases, you've got sharp claw points . . . ,'' he said. Snow said a few wags even suggested the deaths were weird enough to fit into the plot of the new TV series Invasion, which involves aliens descending into the Everglades from strange lights during a hurricane. The carcasses were found a week after the show debuted, he said. ``I've heard some jokes that maybe it was the lights.'

Most guys don't care or pay any attention...unless, of course, we're writing our names in the snow...THEN we watch.

Shocked by the widespread suffering of those displaced from their homes by the flooding in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) offered to plug one of the holes in the Lake Pontchartrain levee with his own ample body. "The Bush Administration has failed to stem the tide of this cataclysm," said Kennedy. "I have had some experience with aquatic mishaps. This experience will bolster me in this hour of desperation as I plug one of the leaks myself." Kennedy has arranged to have the Air Force transport him by helicopter and lower him into the easternmost breach in the levee. The hope is that the senator's doughy frame will be pliable enough to conform to the hole's dimensions and halt or, at least slow, the flow of water from the lake into the city. President Bush praised Senator Kennedy's decision. "I think it's mighty big of him to offer so much for the good of the country," said Bush. "There aren't many who could fill such a large role in this disaster."

Mo... You sure have a negative view of LCM. I gotta say, tho...I agree with you.

Congratulations!!! A great thing for a great couple!!!

Actual picture

Krysilis wonders... "How do men who do it wear ties all day?" Many men who do it don't wear ties and many men who don't do it wear ties, although a lot of men who don't do it have special neckwear such as Catholic priests. I, personally, have never worn a tie while doing it. As for baseball players, they wear plastic cups over the parts and that helps them to do it when they aren't playing baseball. These cups need to be adjusted frequently. They can't do it while wearing the cup and this might explain why they don't wear ties while playing baseball. Ties need to be adjusted frequently, also.

College Station is all set! HOOK 'EM HORNS!

From the beautiful hills of the Ozarks to the neighboring pits of Memphis barbecue, we'un wish you'uns a happy birthday. Maybe one of these days you can come this way and raid my freezer of venison and maybe....just MAYBE....help me "harvest" some delicious and nutritious venison here at the denizen of venison. Happy Birthday!!!!!

Thanks, Krysilis!!!

Some of us older folks, unlike them young whippersnappers like Garth and Belle, need a bigger font. Other than that, it looks great.

Adams, not Adama In 1941, he dropped out of school to join the Marines, lying about his age. In Guadalcanal he survived the deadly blackwater fever and was returned to the States to become a drill instructor, acquiring the clipped delivery that served him well as a comedian.