USS Cobia

Mary mentioned the U505 in the comments yesterday. That was the sub that had the Enigma codes for WWII. Actually the whole Enigma Code thing is interesting as we had cracked Enigma way back in the late 1930s. But the Germans kept changing the way they used the codes.It was an excellent machine used stupidly.

ANYWAY - the U505 was mentioned a lot in the book "Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II by Robert Kurson . . one of the longest titles I had ever seen. Excellent book (I skipped past the personal "how we got to this point" section).

ANYWAY,  the USS Cobia was pretty interesting but was NOT built in Wisconsin but is "like" the 28 subs which were built in Manitowoc during World War II

The USS Cobia was a Gato-class submarine which formed the core of the submarine service that was largely responsible for the destruction of the Japanese merchant marine and a large portion of the Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II.

USS Cobia 

Her first war patrol was bound for the Bonin Islands where she sank 3 ships one of them the Nisshu Maru, a troop transport carrying a Japanese tank regiment to Iwo Jima. Only two tank crewmen of the 26th Tank Regiment died but all of the regiment's 28 tanks went to the bottom of the sea.

Main gangway leading to the bow. Opening about 2x3 feet.

Second and third patrols were pretty non-eventful . .well OK I suppose it was pretty eventful for THEM at the time, attacked by Japanese aircraft and she rescued two Japanese sailors who had been adrift for 40 days.

 The Cobia carried 80 personal and patrols were normally about 2 months.  Of those 80 only 15 EVER got to go topside for fresh air - the other 65 never saw the outdoors for 2 months and stayed below in 80-90 degrees and 80-90 % humidity.  Showers were few and you COULD smoke on board!  Awesome!

Christmas Tree panel showing what hatches were open or closed

Her fourth patrol she sank two sea trucks. One of the targets resisted with machine gun fire which damaged Cobia's radar equipment and killed Ralph Clark Huston Jr., a 20 mm gun loader and the submarine's only casualty of the war.

The radar on the Cobia at the Museum is still operational and is the oldest working radar in the world. She also rescued seven surviving crewmembers of a downed Army bomber. One of the crewmembers, Jean Vandruff. You can read his account of the story here.  Here is a photo of him being rescued by the Cobia. 

After Engine Room (DJ in the middle).

Fifth and sixth patrols had some bad luck. She attacked a cargo ship, but was driven deep by depth charges hurled by minelayer Hatsutaka. I did not realize that depth charges were not meant not SINK a sub but to push it to the surface for capture. Sinking was just a plan "B". She could go to a depth of 300 feet.

Bow torpedo tubes

What got me about being inside was there was that like the above photo - not one part of the sub would have been nice to bounce off of in an attack.  STUFF everywhere and the above photo looks much more roomy then it really was.

There are parts of the ship I could not get into as they were too small for a tour.  The conning tower the actual engine room and many rooms were smaller then a bathroom stall.  The actual toilets, of which there were 5(?) had a process of 9 actions to flush.  Miss one of those things and the next guy got "freckled".    Showers were used to store food so no showers.

So that is my story - I'm hoping to get up close and personal at some point on the USS Cobia.

Have a great rest of the week, turning HOT and then turning COLD.  Your typical late summer heat up, violent weather, and then cool down. 

Thursday the Packers play, the Badgers play and the Brewers play, lets make it a trifecta!

Cheers!

Rod

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So So Close - uber long blog

Spent a couple days in Door County - sort of a business trip to get a few more photos for the Pumpkin Patch Festival in Egg Harbor. While my canopy is looking good for around the Madison area if you take out the big threee pieces of canvas that have the State Capitol I have some wall space to fill.

But first - I need to tell a story of Milo. As you all know Milo hates coffee, can not stand the smell and will go out of his way to rid the world of coffee.

Last Sunday I had made coffee and Milo was outside catching more mice (there is a shit load of mice it seems in the area as we get a present every morning.) With him being outside it was safe to have coffee so I set the cup on the little area above the couch so DJ could grab it.

I sat down and was reading the paper and DJ was reading and we here MEOW!!   I go let Milo in and go back to the paper.  All of a sudden a Netflix envelope drops on my head and we look up and there is DJ's full cup of coffee, literally, wobbling on the edge of the ledge a few feet above our heads with Milo, I swear smiling over it like a cheshire cat.    MILO!!!!

Since I'm on a Milo thought wave.  We left Milo and Sierra along to protect the house and left a huge bowl of food and water for them to munch on.  We get home and open up the door and there is the garbage on the floor (oops), empty bowls and the entire canister of cat food, upside down on the floor. 

Not only does Milo know how to open the sliding doors to the house (unless we lock them) but he has also learned that knocking food in containers off the counters, SOMETIMES, opens them spilling the contents (like a dozen cupcakes) onto the floor for any animal to eat.  Blake did not feel good the night of the cupcakes!
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Door County was pretty nice except for the complete lack of cloud cover. Clear blue sky which I loath for photography.  But, I made do. One thing that was brought to my attention was that "Vince" might not be a big seller.  Seems over half of the cars up there were from Illinois.  I need to make it down to Chicago.

We were only up for one and a half days so basically we just drove around looking for targets of opportunity.  Had a vague plan but many times it's the surprise's that make the best shots.  We traveled up to Deaths Door where the ferry takes people to Washington Island and took some shots but not really anything to get excited about. However at Gills Rock I saw a scene flash by and DJ commented there might be a shot so we stopped and talked to some fishermen.

Here is the results.

Gills Rock

 This looks MUCH better large - I tried several things and everything just looked like a photograph that anybody could take.  So I tried it out a little with the same technique I used on the wooden boat panoramic.

After stopping there for a while we went to Peninsula State Park so Blake could walk his favorite trail - the Hemlock Trail.  He LOVES this little hike as it's soft on his feet and he is just in heaven.  We let him go and with a huge grin on his face he leads the way.  If you know Blake he is like walking a sack of potatoes but get him on this trail and just takes off wagging his tail.  Well, it's a long trail (for him) and is downhill the first half mile.  We started the 2nd half and found a bench and were "resting" as he was huffing and puffing and we had him sit for a few moments. 

He would have none of the sitting.  He looked at us with a huge grin and happy sparkling eyes and  BARK!!    WOW - he never barks.  He wanted to GO GO GO.  Remember, he's 14 years old and according to the UK Kennel Club the average life span for a Cardigan Welsh Corgi is 11.7 years.

Well - we started again and he was a little trooper huffing and puffing and we made it.

Have you ever seen what the Iron Men looks like the day after the race?  I've always wanted to push them over and run because I knew they could not catch me.  Blake was sore on all for legs.  He had problems getting out of his bed, the sides were too high!  He spent the next day in the car sleeping and as of Monday morning he is still very sore and can not move a lot - I think I'll have to call the vet for pain pills.

We went to Cave Point as I had an idea for a shot but once we got there - it was CRAZY busy. Two bus loads of Japanese (not that I have a problem with Japanese), a biker gang, a group of knuckleheads swimming, and 4 or 5 large families, yea, not a great time for a serine scenic photo.

However - as luck would have it - the very first thing I did was stop at the entrance and snap off some photos. It was nothing I had not seen before . . . but maybe I just did not SEE it before.  Maybe it was the lighting (we went from clear blue to total blah cloud cover in like 10 minutes).

I had walked through that opening every year for the last 40 years but on that particular day something drew me to the scene. 

Opening to Cave Point

 
And as I was taking that shot (actually I ran back to the car to get a remote sensor of the camera) the cycle gang roared in, the buses can in, the knuckled head were looking to a place to swim in Lake Michigan and so forth.

OH - I forgot - another shot from Gills Rock.

I'm still trying to figure out how to crop this. In a 12x36 pano?  I don't know - it's vexing me - maybe a perfect square?   Here is the pano.

Maybe a vertical pano - I don't know.  I swear I took more shots but seems I didn't - the round bobber things are the stars!

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Seagulls - wanted to get a seagull perched on something - never happened!

So I took some shots of seagulls in flight - they looked like snapshots of seagulls in flight that anybody could take (like me).   Hey - I'm tossing things out there to hear any comments (good comments) - sometimes I stumble on something (Rainy Day in Madison was one of those).

 

Jonathon

 On the way back to Columbus we stopped in Algoma for a lighthouse shot - BTW - the temperature in Algoma Friday at 2:30 was 68 degrees!!

Also on the way down from Door we stopped at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum to tour the USS Cobia.  I have a bunch of shots on the website of the inside and will be making some posters but here is one of the outside of the ship.

I'll have more tomorrow - this is getting rather long!

Warm end of the week coming up!

Have a good one.
Rod

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doughnut shake down

The biggest news I can think of is that finally, FINALLY police have cracked the doughnut shake down that was happening in Greece. Seems two Bulgarian men and a Greek wrestling champion were using violence to bully their way into the doughnut bigness. Police had to pose as undercover doughnut vendors - WHEW!!!
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Anybody see the celebrations in Libya? Why can't we in America go nuts and shoot guns in the air with wild excitement - that would ROCK!!! Think about how a Green Bay Packer game would be so much more fun if after a touchdown we were allowed to fire indiscriminately into the air.

There was one scene in Libya last night where a group, looking a lot like Mad Max characters, were kneeling for a camera cheering and a group was standing behind them. All of a sudden the kneeling group started hooping and screaming and shooting their guns, INCHES from the heads of the guys standing in the back (who looked VERY surprised).

Celebrations are so fun!
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Game of Thrones - AWESOME book!   Seriously!!!
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Brewers are on the cover of Sports Illustrated and I have now heard a few national sports people at ESPN wondering if the Phillies are actually the favorites anymore. You know this little winning streak is looking less and less like a streak but more like . . normal. The second half plus a few extra has the Brewers 33-11. NOT too shabby. Can you call 44 games an anomaly? I've been putting money on the Brewers every game - not even carrying who is pitching. Just plunk it down like a monkey! Doing fairly well :-)

*******
Packers are 9 point favs over Indianapolis Friday night.
Packers are even money to win more then 11.5 games, the only other team to have an over/under of 11.5 is New England.

Green Bay is 2nd in winning the Super Bowl behind the Patriots. +650 (bet 100 win $650)

Wisconsin is -180 to win MORE then 9 games this season (meaning bet $180 to WIN $100, plus your $180 back).
The Badgers have a 25 to 1 chance of winning the BCS Championship.
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I just saw they opened a new Zip Line in the Catskills - it's 4.6 miles long and 600 feet above the ground at some points. THAT WOULD BE AWESOME. DJ and I almost went on a zip line in Squaw Valley - we were pumped but . . . . Closed on Mondays!! RATS!!!

Columbus should have a zip line - maybe from the water tower to . .UDEY Damn!!! 
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Walker Walker Walker - not a great week for the Cheesehead Pharaoh. First . . did you hear his announcement about how many jobs he created last month? hmmmmm I didn't either. Two moths ago he had a big presser and was touting 9,000 new jobs. This month all was quite. Move on.

OH - Wisconsin LOST 12,500 jobs! (damn liberal Democrat's are to blame).

Then with the recalls going badly for him (they went very badly, not catastrophic but very very bad) he is feeling some pressure. So he decided that it's time to talk to his socialist friends "and mend fences, let's all work together".

Well, his little butt buddy Fitz had to vacuum his dog and could not make it to the big meetings. In fact all of the Gov's buddy's had some other very important things to do . . . . geez, it was almost like they were distancing themselves from him.

I'm sure State employees will get a HUGE jolt today or tomorrow when they see the paychecks - NOT AS ADVERTISED!!! A TON comes out this check. Hundreds of dollars extra. Instead of $80 for Health insurance, $250!! SWEET, that will make people happy.



OH - interesting graph of the GOP hopefulls.

Lastly - you have all heard that Obama's approval ratings are declining.  No worries - they are well within the norms of a President.  The thing that is out of normal is that his likeability ratings are still very strong.

Have a great couple days!

Rod

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Agora Report

The gardens lately have been covered with some sort of butterfly/moth and I'm having a tough time figuring out what it is. Anybody have a clue? Also - WOW, everything is covered with Solder Beetles which is a good thing as they eat bad things in the garden.

 
Also yesterday took a photo of Blake when he was wondering around the yard.

 

14 years old and still acts like a puppy (pees on the carpeting)  but I suppose when I get up there in that age I'll be peeing on the carpeting also so . . . . actually the new algorithm makes Blake 69 years old unless you put in the average weight which makes him 75.

Then I caught this little guy at our feeder - we have about four that drop by. It's a family as we see male, female and two young ones. 

Anyway I had the 3rd annual Agora Art Fair Saturday and I was "in-tune" with the weather.  I looked at the radar and there were scattered showers on the Mississippi River.  So we get in the car and are bouncing down HWY 151 which if you are pulling a trailer REALLY SUCKS!   It's construction is poured slabs and every slab seems to be rounded.  You don't feel it in a car but with a trailer it's hell.

So we're bouncing down 151 and  BOLT!!     Wow - a streak of lightning - THAT's not a good thing to see when driving to an art fair.  BOLT  BOLT!!     hmmmmm  OK so DJ looks at the radar on the iPhone and there is now a big multi colored blob heading towards Fitchburg.   The timing looks really poor.  

It gets darker and darker and drops of rain start hitting on windshield.  By the time we pull into the area where I'm suppose to put up the canopy we are in the middle of a torrential rain storm.  People are hiding inside their canopy's and others (like us) are just sitting in their cars.  

We look at the radar again and there will be a break for about 15 minutes. I tell DJ that the plan is to get the top of the canopy up before the next storm.  The rain turns to a sprinkle and we bolt (just like lightning) and feverishly put the top of the canopy together.  We're in a hurry because it takes two hours to set up and be ready to sell so every minute counts. 

We get the top together and the next rain comes!  Back in the car!!

Finally the storm ends, blue sky comes out and we're able to set up.  We were about 15 minutes late but all went well.  It was the best fair yet for me. 

Interesting was that within the 1st hour I had sold the below 12x36 canvas image.  Then the woman who purchased it said "can you hold it for me" and 20 minutes later another person wanted to purchase it and a few others were really looking at it.   As DJ said - this looks MUCH better BIG on canvas then on a computer. 

Another thing was that one image that no one looked at last year has all of a sudden sold three fairs in a row.

I only had one comment (that I heard) sort of insulting a shot of Miller Park.  She said it just looks CHEAP!!  Otherwise all the other comments were just making my head big!  

Vince was a big seller - who could have predicted THAT one LOL. In fact I ran out of them.

Coming in 2nd was Fall in Madison.

For State people I saw Joe Koberstein and Judy Page.  Judy says Hi to everybody at 1 W Wilson.  Joe says you guys can all go jump in a lake you losers!  Well, he might have said something like that.   

On to Sun Prairie September 10th.    Going to Door Country Wednesday.

Have a great Monday - storms tomorrow!

BTW - Ben “Coach” Wade and Oscar “Ozzy” Lusth will be in the next SURVIVOR - SOUTH PACIFIC 

Rod 

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A good Day a Bad Game all "Lumped" in one

Like to thank all for the emails and so forth for that last post! I try not to say to many controversial things but . . . . .  I spend 30+ years in Madison surrounded by all sorts of people.  I have walked in some on the darkest south side neighborhoods and have felt no fear (perhaps that was foolish).  I've hitchhiked through the south side of St. Louis at dusk and had no problems.  I've been robbed at gun point by blacks and beat up by whites, I'm an equal opportunity victim.  But HEY - shit happens and everything is all individual.   The troubles at State Fair Park this year where families were getting robbed and beat up by gangs of teenage girls does not put me on guard worrying whenever I see a teenage girl.

Just sayin.  I was not really THAT worried but it's good to have a heightened awareness at times. 
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Then - in an exciting bit of  news - The BP gas station in Columbus has some of the highest rated lump charcoal you can find.  In fact the reviewers were all excited thinking this is Maple Leaf Lump repackaged as Grove Lump Charcoal.


" burntime, this charcoal set a new Whiz world record, burning longer than any charcoal we have ever tested. Longer than Brassiero, longer than Kamado extruded coconut. " 


" The smoke is exceptionally mild and very pleasant. There is no harshness or strong woodsy aroma in the smoke at all. Frankly, this is one of the best-smelling charcoals we have ever experienced. When starting the fire in a cooker the fire spreads fairly quickly, with no sparking or popping while burning. Also, when started with a MAPP torch, there was very little sparking and popping. There was the occasional mild pop, but nothing like we are accustomed to. The charcoal burned at a maximum temperature of 690 degrees, not rip-roaring, but plenty hot for most grilling uses."


" this charcoal is relatively inexpensive, easy to light, smells fantastic and burns FOREVER. We give it our Recommended rating. "  
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Yesterday was the big golf outing/Brewer game and a fun day was had by all (until Adubya, on the phone said "B*tch what the F*ck you want" to his girl friend and she hung up on him but I'm sure the texting that went back and forth afterword before adubya fell asleep smoothed things over. . . . . I guess you had to be there).

Golf was pretty good but adubya had his worst round of the year which was still 5 better then my score.  But the real story happened BEFORE we even got our clubs out of the truck.

You see, GETTING the clubs out of the truck was proving to be a very large problem.  It was a tight fit, 4 bags of clubs and 4 carts with a topper thingy on top to keep everything in.  We got to the parking area, and lifted up the handle of the tail gate and the handle breaks.  

hmmmm - we can not open the tail gate and the topper thing is connected to the tailgate - FIRMLY!

There was pulling, pushing, tugging, keys being shoved in random openings, strangers being asked to screw drivers.  Network (who is in charge of test patterns on a major network) is reaching inside pulling on random pieces of metal and nothing was happening. Balderdash had gone to get a knife and I believed we were all about to die so I put down the camera, stuck my hand in the corner, pushed a little knob and what was took three young males 10 minutes took The Elder about 4 seconds. 

After that debacle we golfed with adubya teeing off from the tips  (like 3000 yards longer then the rest of the foursome).  

If you recall the blog last year called "Going Commando at Miller Park"  when the temps were just silly, this year the weather was perfect and there was no commando. (BTW - we believe last year that adubya was forced to sell his car after having our sweat soaked clothes baked for 3 hours in his black car in the Miller parking lot). 

So we get to the parking lot and balderdash shows us the secret way into Miller park which saved us 15 minutes at least. Once parked we knew we would not lose the truck because we were behind a car with SV TH LRD on their plates which we THINK was Save the Lard but that makes absolutely no sense since you don't save lard.  Moron cooks.  

I did not take my camera into the park, been there, done that and it was much more relaxing.  The game was for the most part boring but we had a great time.  The guy in the seat ahead of me was more concerned with the stock market and I tell ya - I LOVE the Club section and next time I'm going to by one of the cupcakes on the carts - they look so good.     

Not much news happened and on the way home. We stopped in Pewaukee at a dive bar on the lake and had an Octoberfest and adubya insulted his girlfriend and we cheered as two guys that looked fresh out of Deliverance caught fish from a boat. 

We left and about a mile away I realized I had left my phone on the picnic table and we drove back and I hopped out of the truck and it seemed I was just sitting on it.  OOPs - my bad. 

balderdahses highlight of the day was when we were packing up and he had my camera and spotted a hot chick and took some photos of her. 

AWESOME - I think this will be next years Sports Illustrated Cover. 

OH - adubya took a photo of us with our rally caps on in the ninth and posted it on facebook. I don't know if EVERYONE can see this.   That is aduba in the lower left corner looking like Sluggo.  Then me and Network (the one guy that SHOULD wear a cap and balderdash . . . . . I just don't know what to say about HIS cap.)

Rally Caps 

That's the story - have a great weekend.

Rod

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High Anxiety

I was looking at the garden yesterday after mowing the lawn and and was amazed at the variety of bugs.  It was like the Mall of America for bugs.  Truly - I was considering getting a chair and sitting in the middle and taking photos (I still might).  So many flying bugs I had never seen before including the little humming bird moth I shot last year.  But then as I was among them I JUMP back when I saw this one.

HOLY CRAP he was HUGE!!   AND SCARY.  I find out SHE is a Black and Yellow Argiope.  They do not eat humans but bad bugs in the garden. (also called a corn spider or a writing spider). An interesting thing is that there web is almost invisible yet she makes herself very visible to keep large animals from blundering into it.

But this was no the only reason for High Anxiety.  This came from work last night.
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As you know I work at Cannery Wine and Spirits in Sun Prairie once a week, more as a hobby actually - it's an awesome place. 

Anyway it has a certain kind clientele for the most part as we have expensive beer, good wine, home brew equipment, cheese and steaks high end liqueur and just lots of good good stuff.  If you are looking for Bud, Miller, Coors you only go there because it's handy, certainly not the cheapest. You get my point?

So the night starts off with a young guy looking around the store talking about the prices of the tiny airline size $1.49 bottles of vodka or UV or Rum.  After 15 minutes of mindless banter he says good-bye and Pat (one of the owners) and I agree that that guy would need to be carded since "His girlfriend outside was REALLY not of age for drinking".

As the night goes on I start getting more and more . . . . worker type people buying cases of Bud, Miller, cigarettes, 3 older guys come in and buy a case of WARM Spotted Cow.  Not the normal people I'm used to seeing.  In fact I sold more Bud in one night then I have sold in like forever (we don't sell a lot of Bud). And there are a lot of other people looking at the store like it's the first time they have ever been in.  I tell one woman that I will be giving a tour in 15 minutes if she would like to sign-up as there was still a spot open. (she declined ).
  
Then the young dude comes in AGAIN and buys a little bottle of Vodka - I card him and yup, he's 22.  OK, then more Bud walks out the door.   I talk to a woman who is buying Marlburo's and somehow we get on the topic of closing times and she says in FLA stores close at 12:00.  I find out she is with the Carnival - AHH HAAA!!!  The carnies are in town.  Not Mr. Eds Magical Midway who are mostly younger but these guys seem more older.

ANYWAY - It was about 15 minutes to closing and I had a known customer looking at wine when two . . . . . how should I say this . . . . individuals of color (black dudes) come to the door.  One stands just outside the door while the other comes in dressed in a dirty big tee-shirt, pants down around his knees, one eye pointing the wrong way, right hand grabbing his crotch (maybe it's that "size" thing) looking around at the high end stuff.   hmmmmmm.

Well - this is not ordinary and I'm not appreciating the one guy hanging outside the door one bit.

After 5 minutes the other guy comes in and they are speaking Ebonics I think but I can not actually understand anything.  The tall dudes phone rings and he answers "Bitch, what da fuck you want".

OK then, I know that is how I answer the phone when DJ calls but I don't sound so angry. After an unintelligible conversation they continue looking at stuff and short dude comes up and says "Where you Kanye be" 

What? my what?  "Kanye"

ummmmmm and I start walking towards the liqueur praying something comes to me.  Let me remind you that I have had a gun pointed at me in a liqueur store so it's not like I'm all innocent or nothing, I've been had once, I'm no virgin to the whole gun to the head thing .  When a drunk guy came in a few months ago and slammed his hand on the counter and said "GIVE ME ALL YOUR MONEY" and pointed his finger at me.  . . . . I did not find it as funny as he did.

ANYWAY - I'm walking walking with Kanye Kanye Kanye in my head  - WAIT  COGNAC!!  OK - whew - I point out the cognac and he says "Dat all ye got?"   I say were not big cognac drinkers up here (I don't even really know what it is, I think it's like Brandy).

They seem disappointed which actually relieves  me a little.  They seem to know different cognac.  So they are looking around sort of splitting up and talking gibberish to me and are looking at the top shelf vodka.  Tall dude says something on the order of "You could make a million with dis hear store down south" and I give a nervous laugh and he says "YOU LAUGH shi" and the short dude turns and says "you laugh" and I stop laughing.

They pick up a beautiful bottle of vodka ($35 range) and put it on the counter and starting talking about the Black and White cigars behind me but I'm not sure if that want some or are just talking.

MEANWHILE the known customer is taking a very very long time looking at wine but has one in hand and is now looking at the secondary beer cooler . . . . just hanging out . . .thank you.

Well, it's not 5 minutes to 9 and I must tell my new "friends"  "5 minutes to closing . . just sayin"   "Shi man? where we from stores open 24/7 shi"   "YOU got REMY"?

remy remy remy - I have heard of Remy . . .Remy Martin, a brandy I think.  Nope - no Remy.  "You got no Remy? Shi."

So they come up with cash and are paying for the vodka talking about the lack of Remy.  "Mah, you gotta get remy, remy and cranberry , you get remy and cranberry and you fuck yo bitch all night long".

I was confused, should "I"  drink the remy to fuck my bitch all night long or should I administer the remy and cranberry to my bitch so I could fuck her all night long but I felt I should ask this question at another time. Perhaps Pat will know or I'll ask Kathy.  Being the owners of the store they should know.    
I did not want to sound too white after all.

They left about 9:02 laughing about something the bitch said and I walked to the front of the store and locked the doors!

In retrospect I should have started talking deadwood-speak to them, they would have appreciated it.


Have a great day!
Rod

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Busy Tuesday

It's been a busy week. It's Art Fair week which means I run around getting everything in order. I don't think people realize how many little things need to be prepared for an art fair. It's like setting up a small store from scratch every few weeks.  From matting prints, framing, cleaning glass, figuring out exactly what will go on walls, figuring out the set-up as every location is different, ordering prints putting hardware on canvas packing, book work and so forth.

The Agora Art Fair in Fitchburg is a big deal with newspaper articles, TV ad's and what not.  THEN! THEN!  I had to write a resume and cover letter for my old job with the State as they want me to come back and work one day a week, plus I still have images of the images of Classic boats I'm going through and a Car Show I have not looked at yet AND Lake Mills images AND Fox Lake which I have not had time to get to yet. 

AND AND  I have to mow the lawn today and get ready for 3 days in Door County to make sure the gallery up there is stocked AND make sure teh gallery in Lake Mills is good to go.  SHEESH - so much for taking it easy!

Of course what do I do?  I get a huge book to read in my "spare" time.  George R.R. Martins "A Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book One"; On amazon 80% of the 2,043 reviews give it 4 and 5 stars.  A couple in the Home Brew club LOVE the series on HBO and I looked up the book and wow - everybody says it's a classic.

One review said this - You will LOVE this book if:

YOU ARE TIRED OF FORMULAIC FANTASY
YOU ARE TIRED OF ALL THE HEROES STAYING ALIVE EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE UNDER CONSTANT DANGER
YOU ARE A MEDIEVAL HISTORY BUFF
YOU LOVE SERIOUS INTRIGUE WITHOUT STUPID OPPONENTS
YOU ARE INTERESTED IN BIASED OPINIONS AND DIFFERENT TRUTHS
LEGENDS
WORDPLAY
LOTS OF CONFLICT
MULTILAYERED PLOTTING; SUB PLOTS GALORE
SUPERLATIVE VARIED CHARACTERS
REALISTIC MEDIEVAL DIALOGUE: not to the point that we can't understand it but well done.
HEAPS OF SYMOBLISM AND PROPHECY
EXCELLENT MYSTERIES
RICHLY TEXTURED FEMALE CHARACTERS
LOW MAGIC WORLD
SWEARING, SEX

That last one were the kicker for me!!

I've read the 1st chapter AND the Prologue which I never read first.  I always save the prologue for when I need a break in the plot.   I tell ya - I'm hooked already.   The one thing I was worried about was the dialogue - I picked up a sailing book with pirates and so forth and even though I knew all the words . . . I could not really understand what they were saying.  I thought maybe I was having stroke or something.  Or like when I tried to watch "A Midsummers Night Dream"  the movie with Kevin Kline and Michelle Pfeiffer.  After 15 minutes I had not actually understood one thing.  The words were there but I did not understand . . . I mean  "Since lion vile hath here deflowered my dear."  WHAT? WHAT?

ANYWAY - the dialogue is perfect.  Just enough medievalness.

One thing I read though is that the Kindle version  - 100% SUCKS!!!  No one likes the editing for Kindle - I thought Kindle was verbatim????   Why would they have to edit for Kindle?
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Before I forget - Public Enemies Celebration will happen the August 27th in Columbus.  You know, I think Michelle and I have benefited the most out of this whole movie thing.  I know I have and Michelle got a big boost in her photography business. 

Make sure you check out my news website  RodMelotte.com
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WOW - how about those Brewers - last night had to be the best defensive game I have EVER seen one team accomplish!  A triple play, four double plays and an out at home!!

In the last 20 games:

Fielder is hitting .403 with a .683 SLG (he will be a Brewer next year - don't worry)
Braun .364
Betencorp (who ALWAYS is a 2md half hitter) .338
Hart .329
Kotsey .318
Lucroy .305
McGehee .297
As a team they are hitting .293 with a .444 slugging

BUT WAIT  Pitchers in the last 20 games have a 2.23 ERA - the bullpen in their last 47.3 innings have a 0.60 ERA.  WOW!!!

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Thursday I do the whole play 18 holes of golf at 7:30 in the morning and then Brewer game in the afternoon with Adubua, Balderdash, and Network so that will be a uber fun day.  I hope I golf better then last year when I totally sucked.  I'll walk the course this year. When I cart-it I always do worse as I don't have a chance to dwell on my last bad shot and make corrections.

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Michele Bachmann - is it just me or does she look like some crazed person about to kill a puppy or something.  Of all the photos Newsweek picked that one? 

Elwood has two sisters, one very liberal and one very very VERY conservative Tea Partyish.  The conservative one said that FOX is way to liberal for her tastes.  Elwood said WHAT?? FOX is to far leaning LEFT? Yes she said.  So he says, if FOX is leaning LEFT who has the right side of the media. She say that is the problem with America,  ALL of the news organizations are slanted left, the REAL Americans, who are actually in the majority, have no news on their side.  Every news organization lies to keep the majority of Americans clueless.

Ok . . . . .  I will admit that MSNBC and NPR are slanted left but I listen to the big 3 networks and they all seem fine.     
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The Department of Homeland Security has recently announced the creation of a program called “If You See Something, Say Something.”  Posters, billboards and advertisements will be placed in airports, bus stations, movie theaters, and gas stations around the country, in addition to the videos that will soon begin playing non-stop inside 600 Walmart stores. This propaganda campaign will be promoting one consistent, repetitive message – the people around you cannot be trusted, watch them carefully at all times!

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Finally - I have not had a chance to check up on Columbus's newest cool thing - the Brew Pub.  When I get any info I'll pass it on.    OH - I did get an email from Karen saying "We are looking for managers in Columbus"  Gain access to positions working from your residence with companies like Apple, Coleman, Adidas, Compaq and much more...

If you are serious about a career change, we want to hear from you.  $256.95 PER DAY!!!!

WOW sweet - I have to click on a link and apply to some place in Isla-Colon Bocas-del Toro,
Republic of -Panama.

What could possibly go wrong!

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