Galen

I have seen such recently in the area that we are moving into (Bangor Maine). I just signed a lease for an apartment for my family to 'winter-over' in, while I am still building our new home. We hope be be moved into our new home next summer. While working on this property, sometimes over the past couple months, people will pull into my driveway to either look at what I am doing, or looking at various other properties in the area that are for sale. One couple that has came by numerous times, had been looking at a property about a mile down the road. Last week, they came by with more questions, as they had purchased that property. It was a smaller lot, I think 25 acres with a small 2 bedroom house; but they got it for $18k. the house has been derilect for a couple years, so it will need TLC. They will not be my exact nextdoor neighbors, but rather 2 properties down from mine (like I said about a mile).

I am glad that your Mom is okay. I find it interesting of recent how so many government offices want more and more forms of ID. In the process of a recent move, I needed a PO box. I have had PO boxes previously and it never took any more than filing out a form and handing them money. But this time, they wanted prove of residency. I had a land deed on me but that would not do. They asked for a recent utility bill, or local Driver's license. But both of those things first require a mailing address. Getting a Driver's license was easy (after I had the PO box), but then opening a local bank account, they wanted three forms of picture ID for both myself and my wife. Fortunately I carry my passport, Military ID, and licenses from California, Washington, Connecticut and now Maine; but my wife only had her military ID and one license. It took six weeks, going into the bank once a week trying to get it all straightened. They could not accept signature cards without them being notarized, but they had no notary. The cards were rejected when handed in seperately. We had to re-do them both, and hand them in together along with all needed forms of photo-IDs. By then the bank had such a 'hold' put on the account, that they did not know how to remove the 'hold' so we had to withdraw the money, after this bank had it for six weeks. All I wanted was to open a local checking account.

Oh come on now, I wash my hands. Every time I use the head.

We have a flock of wild turkeys down the road, they keep wandering out on the pavement when I drive by. Each few days I obvserve that they are slowly wandering in the direction of our new home. I hope that by November that they are about here. Must be 6 of them, and ugly whew.

I got the entire steel frame up. It is now covered with 'skin' which is 24 gauge sheet metal with a baked enamel finish, Fern Green. I got a set of double doors in place, and only have yet to hang two small pieces of wall directly over the doorway. Then the outer walls will be done. Then I have to leave shortly while moving my family up here. Though upon my return it should take perhaps a week to hang the roof. I already did all the rafters. I dragged around and lined-up the vertical columns into frames. Then a crane-operator came out one morning and he and I lifted each of four frames onto their piers on the foundation. It would have taken far longer had I not pre-bolted the heavy columns together into frames. That crane-guy got $90 an hour. Two of the frames were over a tonne, and two were a half tonne a piece. I then spent the following week hanging horizontal girters locking the frames together. and about as long lifting all the rafters into place and bolting them together. It took a while to get the vertical columns plumb and to square the frame-work. Lots of come-along work and I ripped out a few trees, cranking on the come-alongs too much. All this it took me, rather then pay a contractor $20,000 to erect the building with his crew. He thought it would take 5 men two weeks using a crane the entire time. Then to begin building the floor. Right now it has a four to five foot basement.

There are commonly other folks in my head. And I enter and use other folk's heads from time to time as well. I should imagine that were I to visit your home, I might well use your head too. If perchance you ever have occasion to visit my home, you are most certainly welcome to enter and to use my head. I commonly visit the local American Legion and when I do I usually end up entering and using their head. Their 'Men's Head that is. This summer I have been living in our motorhome (while building our new home) and the head in my Motorhome is currently not functioning correctly :-(

Mark: "2 years subject to recall?" "That was the standard. Still is, as you know." "They could in theory still recall me, but that would be a mistake (old, fat, and out of shape)" Hmm, When I completed 20+ and attended TAP class, it was explained that in the Navy after 20+ we 'transfer' to the 'Fleet Reserve'. While in 'Fleet Reserve' status we are subject to DOD recall, are required to maintain our sea-bag, etc. Only after completing a full 30years do we shift to full retiree status (in my case 20 years active plus 10 years in Fleet Reserve). After having completed 30 years then to recall us it takes an act of congress. Had we remained on active-duty for the full 30 years then and only then would we immediately go into the 'full-retiree' status. I am only an E-6 so in fact my High-year-tenure (HYT) is 20 years. Normally I would not have been able to re-enlist beyond the 20 year point. At my last command (Naples Italy), being within the Kosovo theater, they did have a waiver in hand, and the command did offer repeatedly that I could re-enlist and stay active beyond my normal HYT point, out to as far as four more years. Now I do get the Navy Retirees newsletter every few months, and it seems to go along with that theme. So I have not heard otherwise. Granted I would prefer it to be as difficult as possible for them to recall me. Trying to pass a PRT right now would be painful. One of the guys that I went through TAP with (a MA1) was recalled soon there after. We had both thought we were very lucky for having squeeked by the stop-loss which came into place soon after we had both gotten 'out' of active status, as we both had friends who were serving in the Kosovo theater who were nailed by the stop-loss. "But it was largely fun. I can truly say that I mostly had fun until Kosovo. ... After being involved with Kosovo, it wasn't fun anymore." Pardon the pruning, I agree entirely. My time on subs, we had the mission and could stay focused on that. My time in Law Enforcement, mostly was rewarding and easy to focus on. But then came a religous war ... "... And now have a great job and so on" I am happy for you. It is amazing at how much our nation's attitude has changed toward the military (during our careers). It truly surprized me at the open praise and support that we began seeing during Dessert Storm. When earlier in my career, I was once arrested and fined for being a sailor walking on a public beach stateside. :-)

heh heh heh I am now so far out in the boondocks, my dial-up is so slow. I can not imagine what a chatroom would be like. hit respond, wait while the pop-up window loads, wait, go to the bathroom, check to see if it has loaded yet, wait, wipe down the table, straight the living room, Ohh it loaded, type a sentence, wait for it to be up-loaded, wait, make a pot of coffee, gee the screen shows a totally different conversation going on, cool. hit respond, wait, the pop-up window is loading ... heh heh heh

Causing 'bad' weather? First off good / bad things, is in issue of mine. Things are things. Things are not good, nor can they be bad, they are things. A hammer is a hammer, it is not 'good' nor is it 'bad', it is a hammer. If a hammer is used to cave-in someone's skull, is that hammer now a 'bad' hammer? No. Secondly weather is caused by the earth spinning, the earth also woobles and tilts (which tends to slosh things about a bit), and the sun sends a huge amount of heat and energy into the atmosphere which loads a lot of that same atmosphere with a lot of energy (which then needs to be spent), and lets not forget that way way way out there are these huge bodys of magnetic and gravitational pull and they swing around through space pulling on us. (some bodies may spin evenly around us, while other bodies swing around other bodies, so some of those pulls are easily predicted while others of those pulls are more difficult to predict). Does the devil 'cause' weather? No. All these dozens of things cause weather. I do beleive however that there do exist spiritual beings which can at times direct the flow of weather or at times shield an area from weather.

I tried the chatroom a couple years ago. I think that I tried it nightly for a week or so, then I stopped. It was okay, I guess. But slow.

I dont see how recruiting for new members for your Twig, could possibly be done here on Greasespot Cafe. While I am not currently coordinating a Twig, we did lead a fellowship in our home up to about a year ago. If folks are going to come to home home once or twice a week, I my humble opinion, they need to live locally to me. Trolling via the WWW to find folks who can come back for fellowship, is a little 'out there', in my thinking. We are not doing a Twig right now as I am spending the summer on our new land and building a new home for my family. Nor am I interested in bringing folks into my motorhome for Bible-study, as it would be difficult to fit very many. :-)

LOL

Last year, I was rather amazed at so many beards that were much longer than mine. Being down to only my nipple-region it was one of the shorter beards that I saw. It is one of the things that I really like about Maine. Down in Connecticut, my beard is un-usual. In Ct, People come up to me to ask if I am Amish or Mennonite (the idiots everyone should already know that Amish and Mennonites dont allow mustaches, they are thought to be too military). In Maine, I think that I fit-in a little better.

I plan to be there. Dont know which day though. Bonnie has to drive up for it, so I will likely just go on whichever day she gets here. I have been working on building our new home this summer. Lifting steel rafters up onto the roof, is a lot of work. I have to pony-tail my beard, to keep it out from underneath the steel I-beams. They are heavy and each time I set them down, they commonly 'catch' my beard. I do hope to Ya'all at the fair.

http://www.mofga.org/fb01.html 'Thee fair'

At my last duty station (I was 39 through 42), I was in control of 40 MPs who were mostly (over-whelmingly) teenagers (We had very few adults stationed there). Doing our PTs (work-outs) three times each week, I kept up with them, though I was able to see that my recovery time took longer, as I was in my fortys. I think that if you stay in 'shape', and get plenty of rest every few nights, you'll be fine. Most of my 'adulthood' has been 'going to sea' I have usually had to change day-night cycles every few months. Spending a couple months at a 24 hour day-cycle, and then working 100 days at a 18 hour day-cycle. Working as an MP, we worked one month 'days'. Getting up at 0400 and working until 1900 (7pm), trying to get home by 10pm. Then the following month working 'nights', getting up at 1600 (4pm) and working until 0700. We did make an effort to avoid working more than three days in a row without any time off for sleep, but it does not always work-out that way. MPs just alternate one month of 'days' and a month of 'nights', etc for three years. I think that a part of folks feeling 'old' is that they have been locked into a day-night cycle for too long. Each time you change your cycle, I think it does keep you 'up' with the teenagers. As far as getting hang-overs, I dont. Now as a retiree, I try to drink wine at every dinner, one or three rum-cokes each evening, sometimes I get a little depressed (mostly just regret over men's lifes I have ruined and whose deaths I have been responsible for) during those times I drink a little more. But I rarely drink more than a fifth of rum per night, and I have almost entirely given up scotch whiskey. Overall I normally go through two 750ml bottles each fortnight (one bottle of rum, one bottle of everclear). I get a physical every year (including endo-scopy), and a liver-function-panel every six months. I am on meds for a bleeding duodenal-ulcer and for cholesterol. So far the docs have always told me that so long as my drinking does not increase to excessive levels I am well within the norms for my group. It is my understanding that hang-overs are far more dependant on 'what' you drink, not how much you drink. Red-wines are far worse, as are distilled liquers with more distillates still in them. You can Google it and certainly learn a lot about what kinds fo things can be safely drank without hang-over. Good luck

'OBSOLETE'? Well, maybe if your area has DSL. Where I am, we dont have but slow dial-up.

I last time that I was "on the side of the road", about as year ago. The snow-plows had cleared off the roads, but left a lot of sand and slush on the sides. I was teaching one of our renters to drive. I had her pulling over to perform a U-turn, when she went onto some gravel and she locked-up the brakes. we slid right off and into the ditch, the rear-end of my station-wagon was up in the air. But the next three cars that drove by, ALL stopped and offered assistance. Within 2 or 3 minutes, one guy had a tow-strap and another guy had yanked my car out of the ditch. And we were back on our way again. In Ct, they seem to be fairly helpfull.

Being the majority of our population, I would think that females have always been the true rulers.

LOL LOL

I just got my foundation done, and basement dug-out. I hope to have the frame up within the next two weeks, should have it skinned within a couple weeks after that. We ran the plumbing from the well into the foundation this morning. I had to drive back down to Ct today as I have a medical appointment Friday, but I should be back in Maine by Monday and making head-way. It is possible that we may be wintering-over before you. Good luck.

Outin- It is great to her that you have been able to close. How many bedrooms? etc? That is fairly close to me, we are in Argyle. My road goes North to Howland and South to Old Town. I do hope that you can get over to the Unity Fair, it is called "MOGFA" (Maine Organic Growers and Farmers Assoc), and is lots of fun.

When Bonnie was in the cardiac ward this past November, I bought her a necklace to carry her nitro- pills in. Since then she has found that numerous others that she works with have also had heart attacks, however few few of them carry their pills with them. At first when I got her the necklace she did not wear it either, but two weeks later she had her second attack and was not able to reach her pills. Now she has not taken it off since. We both find it interesting: 1)- that so few post-HA survivors carry their pills, 2)- that just about every fireman and peramedic that sees her will all remark about how smart she is for carrying her pills in a necklace (they generally all imediately recognize what it is, from a distance). Here is a question for you. Have any of your friends ever had a heart attack? Do they carry their pills? Could you find their pills for them, if they were having problems? Or like Bonnie's boss, are their pills locked up in the truck out in the parking lot?

I got fresh water coming from my well. Cool and sweet. Electricity and a phone line (within a few hours of pluggin in the phone, I got my first call it was a telemarketer). So far I have not even used the phone, but at least I have one. We dug out a trench to put the foundation this last weekend and today finished pouring the foundation. I hope to back-fill around the foundation next week and grade it all around nice and pretty. then stand up our building the following week. To spend the next month after that hanging the 'skin' of the building and roof. Bonnie applied for a lateral transfer into a position with the federal government here in Bangor. That position's opening has been closed and nwo we are waiting to hear if she got it. It would be a small pay raise, and more importantly it would be local to our new home. So she and I could visit more frequently. The foundation of our new home sits above a large marsh that so far has had daily moose wandering through. So the panaramic view will be of lots of wild-life. (one beaver lodge, a series of damns, etc). this morning the work crew stopped to watch a hawk fly over head, and a couple days ago I saw an eagle. See ya

I have never 'iced' a cellphone. Two years ago I did lose one overboard while sailing. I still had to pay for the remaining months on the contract, even though the phone was on the bottom of long island sound. Right now I have a voice message that explains that I am not usually without Verizon-wireless coverage, and to please leave a message so the next time that I travel into the city and get into coverage, the messages will be delivered to me at that time. I found that lately I dont like wearing a watch anymore (too many bug bites and it gets caught up while walking through the under-brush) So I carry my cellphone more as a time-piece. Sometimes it will alarm when the 'system' has recieved a new voice message for me. So then I know that I really should drive into town some day soon to receive that voice message. : )