Do Flat Fish really Flounder?

I suppose everybody has been wondering what in the hell happened to THE Michael......or rather, "what happened to WHO?" Either way, I have a good excuse. Notice I said excuse and not explanation. Back in my Navy days, every time I tried to supply an explanation for whatever it was I did or didn't do that wasn't up to standards, I was informed that no matter how valid my reasoning was, the proper definition of anything I could come up with was EXCUSE. Sigh.......eventually the consensus is arrived at that you had to have been smoking pot and screwing your own mother, instead of frantically trying to find an alternate flight back to base after yours had been cancelled, to no avail. Makes you WISH you'd done that instead.

Anyway, having digressed, I first got distracted by a little brush fire that erupted suddenly over at Freedom's Place. It was a test that we all aced admirably, or failed miserably, depending on your point of view, unless you are like me, who recognized it as a FUBAR just waiting to happen, yet would prove to be an illuminating experience for all of us who thought they knew exactly what freedom of speech was all about. I hope we learned something, I know I did. In the end we lost a very talented blogger, although I must admit that he was a reluctant participant from the very beginning, who will prosper regardless safe in the bosom of his own personal forum. I wish him the best.

Back here in Pendragon Hold, well, it's been weird. For once, our annual battle with the IRS finally came out in our favor, and we will be getting back at least enough to pay our property taxes and this new EXPLETIVE trash pickup fee we have been forced to pay despite overwhelming opposition to the plan by the citizens of this county. I can only hope we do to THOSE bastards what the American people did to the Republicans this time around.

Then, as though getting our clocks cleaned by multiple hurricanes a couple of years ago wasn't tragedy enough, a cute little storm snuck into central Florida and almost wiped quite a few communities off the face of the Earth. We've had our share of tornadoes before, but this time they had a field day with us. Please keep them in your prayers, it was really bad and their were alot of tragic deaths.





THE Wife's knee, the bad one, having last year received a series of injections of that stuff made of chicken feathers to keep it lubricated, started hurting again, so it was back to the orthopedic guy for another lube job. The first one was only promised to last perhaps six months, and it's been a year, so it was a pretty good temporary fix, but he ordered up an MRI to get a closer look, and the results weren't pretty. Her arthritis is pretty bad and he's going to have to go in and clean it out before trying the lube job again. My worst fear is that she's going to have to finally get that knee replacement that's been in the works for so long now. She damaged that knee when she was fairly young and it's rather amazing it's lasted this long.

I'm equally worried about my good friend and canine wonder Shiloh. His hip problem has really been bothering him to such a degree that he's nibbled the hair right off the spot right in front of his tail on his back. It sorta looks like a reverse mohawk. I treat him with liquid advil whenever he seems to be suffering the most, but there's not much else I can do. Sigh.

The winter that finally decided to show up here in America has been taking an occasional dip down into the South here and we have been having some faux cold days, even a couple of light freezes. The deep freeze that has the East in it's grips now will probably provide another excuse for the oil companies to jack up the price of gas again. This is against the obvious fact that this winter has so far been extremely mild and hasn't taxed the reserves at all. But then, since when has Exxon-Mobil needed any logical reason to suck even more mullah out of our pockets after posting the largest profits ever stolen from customers in history? Can we just go kill them all now? It would make us all feel SO much better.......

One of my coworkers has been taking a new quit-smoking medication and after three weeks seems to be doing pretty good. What's got ME excited though is that it seems that for some strange reason, our insurance actually covers this medication, so I'm going to be visiting the Doc to make sure I'm not likely to be allergic to THIS opportunity to finally free myself from the grips of this EXPLETIVE addiction. Wish me luck, OK?

If things would just slow down around here I'll try to get back to my normal posting pattern, and I really am trying to keep up with your blogs as well. As for Freedom's place, well, I am still trying to figure out if I created a monster that needs to be put out of it's misery or given another chance to live up to it's potential. It's sucks being being the administrator sometimes; you're damned if you do, damned if you don't, or the dam just breaks anyway and all you're left with is a bunch of pissed off beavers.

(THIS JUST IN: Seems our director of graffiti and cultural affairs has decided to leave our ranks as well, having decided we that we don't walk the walk as well as we talk the talk. She provides her reasoning, as did Tim, back at her own blog. I suggest you go visit, and give her outlook the airing it deserves.)