Friday, July 27, 2012

My Dream Scooter

Mrs. AOW had a lot of buddies on the web. I'm so glad that she took up blogging seven years ago although I bitched at the time.

Her buddy Stogie created this dream scooter for me:


Thanks, Stogie!

I don't smoke cigars, so I'll save them for you!

If you're ever in the D.C. area, pay me a visit.

I really do need that horn. The one that came with my scooter is pitiful.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

A Few Facts about the Right

See THIS over at the blog Geeeeez!

Yes, the Left is a murderous bunch.

And this is one nasty campaign season.

I'm so sick of all those political ads on TV. And televisions are everywhere now - even at Burger King!

No wonder my parents used to call the TV set "the one-eyed monster"!

Here at home, I'm going to watch channels without political commercials as much as possible - just to avoid those damn political ads.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

All Aboard for New Zealand!

Guys all aboard, that is:

Traffic signs in New Zealand destroyed by prostitutes performing stunts

Dozens of traffic signs have been destroyed by prostitutes performing pole-dances in the street to attract clients, officials in New Zealand's biggest city have revealed.

Monday, July 23, 2012

Get Obama Out!

Anybody But Obama in 2012!



I have no respect for anyone who supports Obama.

And that includes some people that used to be my best friends!

Jon Berg left this for me on an earlier post (Thanks, Jon!):
Q. Why did Obama step on the cockroach?

A. He hates competition.
Yep. Obama is a cockroach. So are those who support him!

Another one from Jon:
Q. What will Obama do if Romney challenges him to a debate?

A. Claim Executive Privilege.



Friday, July 20, 2012

Worth Thinking About

Found this at FreeThinke's blog.

First item, and all the rest are just as good:
You Could Have Heard a Pin Drop

At a time when our confidence in the political process seems to be at a low ebb –– a time when our president and other politicians, apparently, feel they should apologize to the world for our country's past deeds, and abase themselves by literally bowing to foreign leaders, here's a short refresher course on how a few of our patriots handled negative criticism and insults to our country in former years.

JFK'S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 1960's when France’s President General Charles de Gaulle decided to pull out of NATO. De Gaulle said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible.

Rusk quietly asked him, "Does that include those who are buried here?"

De Gaulle did not respond.

You Could Have Heard a Pin Drop
Read the whole thing here.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Another Day Out (with update)

Mrs. AOW is running me ragged. She says that she's trying to get me to build up enough endurance for a two-day trip to the West Virginia casinos. Yeehaw!

Today, we are going to two places on the National Mall. Mrs. AOW is crazy about museums!

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Gardens:



The National Air and Space Museum:



On Friday, my friend Steve is taking me to the local VFW again. He does this once a month for the pool tournament. I can't play pool now, of course, but I get to be with the guys in the bar. Good times!

UPDATE FROM AOW (MR. AOW IS EXHAUSTED!):

Friday, July 13, 2012

A Day Out

This weekend, Mrs. AOW and I are going to the National Museum of Health and Medicine: information about the museum, which has a new location as of May.

Mrs. AOW has always liked gruesome stuff.

I'm not sure why.

She should have been an undertaker or coroner, I guess.

For as long as I can remember, she has been talking about "the babies in jars."  She saw that exhibit years ago on a high school field trip. Video of "the babies in jars."

I am interested in seeing the museum's displays about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Mrs. AOW will be looking for those "babies in jars" and other gruesome specimens.

The new building looks like this and is completely wheelchair accessible:

Friday, July 6, 2012

My recent purchases

I bought these commemorative dollars (2007 and 2010) at the coin show I went to a few months ago (click to enlarge):



My neighbor took the photos. He didn't get the color quite right because of the plastic shields. Also, he is mainly a landscapes photographer.

The first one is uncirculated. The second one is a proof and VERY silver, with good frost and cameo effect.



Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Happy 4th of July!

I really came to love our National Anthem when I began serving in the Army. I prefer our National Anthem performed straight, with no jazzing up:


Mrs. AOW loves choral music, so here is her favorite version:


All the verses of "The Star Spangled Banner":
Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

The Powerless Power Crowd

This liberal columnist in the Washington Post finally wrote something worth reading. The topic is the recent "el derecho" storm that brought the D.C. area to its knees. Many folks are still without power. What's funny is that many of the elite ruling class are sweating it out. From the article:
Suddenly, the nation’s legislators, regulators, litigators and officiators are left helpless, sweating in their underpants, surrounded by their rotting food and blank-screened BlackBerrys.

“Someone must be held accountable for this!” they say.

But how can you drag a historic thunderstorm before a congressional subcommittee? Would it be possible to handcuff 70 mph winds? Indict a jet stream hovering above a hot air mass?

There is no Washington-style redress for the rare and devastating thunderstorm that whomped the region Friday night and has left a good chunk of its ruling class without electricity.

[...]

Meanwhile, the sweaty multitudes couldn’t even tweet their misery. Their iPads and iPhones were dead.


Although plenty of ordinary people were affected by the power outages, the damage was most apparent when I drove through the toniest parts of Northwest Washington late Sunday, past darkened baroque-style embassies, seven-bedroom colonials and humongous Cape Cods with matching air-conditioned dog houses.

Just before midnight, I saw packs of grown-ups — not teens — hanging out at a Connecticut Avenue 7-Eleven. Men in the kind of clothes they’d usually save for St. Barth’s — linen shorts, Tommy Bahama shirts — were taking way too long to select Slurpee flavors, every cell of their pale, sweaty, hot skin sucking off that cold AC as long as possible.

[...]

In fact, it’s almost as though there was some underclass justice being played out when you saw the way power outages and home prices were strangely intertwined. The mighty trees that shade those beautiful homes so well were devastating in the storms. While the chain-link-and-asphalt territory of the poor was less affected.

“We don’t lose power in da hood,” one of my friends in a less wealthy neighborhood bragged online.

And sure enough, our Capitol Hill rowhouse — not the “hood,” but definitely not the place of circular driveways and rolling lawns — didn’t lose power.
The same is true in many parts of the D.C. suburbs too. We got power back, and Mclean, home of the wealthiest in Northern Virginia, was dark and without a single grocery store open.