At my laptop

                         Are you ready for winter?      Its fall in Alabama. Temps are down into the muggy 90s. Summer is gone.  Yes, we have another couple of months before we PLAN to take a jacket when we go out, but summer is gone for 2019.         Trees are already losing the green from their leaves, spring chickens are beginning to lay eggs, dairy farms are selling bottle-baby calves and we have three hurricanes we are watching develop in the Gulf of Mexico. Don't forget your kids are back in school. (Its easier to program your kids about hating the USA if they only get a short break for summer.)        I, personally hate cold weather, but I have friends who have already shot their first deer since Bow Hunting Season officially opened in parts of the state. My neighbor is chompin...

Every year there are on average 17 deaths due to Hurricanes in the continental US.         Last year, 2017, Hurricane Harvey was blamed for 68  storm-related deaths and in 2013.  Hurricane Sandy, in 2012, killed 71 in the US out of the 147 deaths attributed to it.        This is serious, folks!     According to FEMA, (We're from the government and we're here to help.), YOU NEED 72-96 HOURS of food and water before you can count on them to show up!  We have that much warning before  one makes landfall. Its pretty easy to be prepared for it, but people won't do it. "I will be fine."  Yeah, those dead Fathers, Mothers, and children thought the same thing.  If you live on the coast and don't have a rubber maid Roughneck container in 18-35 gallon size, ($10.00 at Home Depot) with the basics, you suck as an adult/parent!!             Acc...

     I recently decided I wanted some chickens. Probably because I eat about 3-4 eggs a day as part of my KETO-ish diet and I know that "homegrown" eggs are better. (Ask any baker.)  I had chickens in the past, so I knew what I was getting into. I was debating wheather to refit the goat shed behind the barn, (Dad had it as a chicken pen, then a miniature horse pen, then I changed it to a goat pen..).       About that time, a like-minded friend posted on CrackBook that he was moving and if anybody wanted his chicken pen, they could come take it down. I JUMPED at that offer. I worked for about 2 hours and had it all in the back of my truck. (He also loaded me up with some cool stuff.)             So I got home and after a couple days, (Ok, a week..or so..or maybe two...), I started building the pen.. It was a lot harder to take down the stock panels than it was to put them up. I took do...

      WOW!!  What began as a social media re-post regarding the "Plus-sized model" on the cover of Cosmopolitan Magazine quickly deteriorated.  My point, and the point of the  original poster was that, yes, we have to understand that adults will rarely have the body they had at 18. Its kinda a given. But by the same token, being clinically obese is NOT a good thing and should NOT be praised.    The cover model is a "body positivity activist".  She is WAY PAST being a "big girl". She appears to be 350 lbs if she is an ounce. Her arms appear to be 12 inches wide.  Sorry, if you "accept" yourself that big, you are going to die young.                                            I'm still not sure how I became the bad guy...

       Disaster Preparedness. Part I.                                                                      Tropical storm Gordon claims its first fatality            Complacency is the killer This could have been prevented.        A TWO-YEAR-OLD child died when a tree fell on his home. While any child dying is a tragedy, this could have been prevented. Its not like everyone didn't know the storm was coming.  Its not like the tree was just planted there. Its not like  the parents didn't know a tree falling on an occupied mobile...

   I was recently reading an interview of a pediatrician  telling about a pre-pubescent boy  who approached his parents and told them he was "trans" and really wanted to be a girl..     His parents loved him dearly and took him to the Doctor and the doctor recommended a psychiatrist.  After a few months of counseling, the root cause came out..   "You love girls more than boys."   You see, in the year prior to his "coming out", he had a baby sister born who was special needs. Mommy and Daddy were focusing their attention on her, naturally, and he didn't understand that she NEEDED the extra attention. All he knew was that they "didn't love him as much" as they did her.      This boy wasn't trans. But if his parents had immediately bought dresses and dolls instead of  getting him the counseling he needed, his life would have been even more messed if he ever decided in high school that he was straight....