North Carolina's Gov. Perdue wants temporary 1 cent tax increase.


What, is this a joke? There is no such thing as a temporary tax increase. Once it's in there baby it's in there to stay. Just how many times do we have to be hit over the head with buzzard vomit before we move away?

We here in North Carolina are already still paying for a so called temporary tax hike from 2001 and unless I am mistaken, that previous increase has been extended. She also wants to punish single people who earn $500,000 or more a year by taxing them more. Married couples earning $ 1 million would be charged more as well. If you look at those numbers the married couple is actually being charged the same as a single person only it's lumped together. She wants to charge 50 cents more for a pack of smokes and 2% more on beer and alcohol respectively. This same temporary tax hike rhetoric was spewed to all the Georgia residents years and years ago, think that temp tax has ended yet? Nope.
Smokers are able to go to another state and purchase cigarettes cheaper. Bootleggers use to buy here and sell across state lines, guess it will be the other way around now. It also looks like our fair Governor will be doing her part to help start a resurgence in tobacco and alcohol bootleggers and ridge runners like the old days. Plus as we lose more companies and people their jobs, more homes get foreclosed and stand empty, more people get desperate and buy and sell drugs Perdue might like to look to California's possible situation of growing Marijuana to get her needed revenue after she squeezes all of us to leave.

You don't just keep pouring water into a bucket with holes in it and expect it to fill up and solve all your problems, you first need to patch the holes to fix the problem. Perdue seems to think throwing more money from citizens pockets who already pay some of the highest state tax's will fix everything. Hell, the Government thinks only the citizens should learn to live on a budget. Her motto should read; If you can't get blood from the turnips, you just aren't squeezing hard enough.

Job Near Burlington NC

Don't know if anyone would be interested in a Job near Burlington NC but a manager of "Quality Plus" asked me today if I knew off hand anyone interested in a job. Also known around here as "The Gas House" is a gas station & store that you live in and work out of. An apartment is attached so you live right there. No travel to or from work and other pluses. It seems like a good thing for a married couple, which is what they prefer, young or old. There are several around here and mostly the people working them seem pretty happy. I believe this job is for a brand new or nearly new unit in Graham North Carolina.
When I checked out the Quality Plus web site I found out some interesting information about the company. www.qualityplus.com has a restored 1930's shell gas station in Winston Salem I must go check out.

Saddlebags Part Three

Well looks like I might finally be very near the painting stage of the Saddlebag plug mold. This has been taking longer than expected but it goes that way trying to get it as close to perfect as possible. Tired of going over and over the surface again I resorted to some heavy primer which goes on much thicker then the regular primer I was using. This heavier primer surfacer fills in all the smaller pits and voids so there is less sanding and re-priming to fix these voids.
The paint should fill in many of the little surface imperfections, then sand with 400 and 600 grit paper then several coats of parting release wax should, mind you I say should, take care of any minute imperfections left.

I have re sanded the entire saddlebag and lid, shot on some more light primer to a couple of places I just wasn't happy with today. As I type theses parts are drying outside because I want the primer cured all the way through before my final sanding of the surface. If I can just force myself to quit looking so hard at these parts to move to painting.
The painter has asked what color I want them done in and I said it won't really matter because this is the plug for the mold. He says he has white, black, john Deere green, as well as yellow left over from other jobs so the paint won't cost anything. I would prefer the white but again said it won't matter. He said he has some hot pink too if it won't matter. Um mm, I gotta draw the line somewhere.

Operation Repo Television Show

I just have to laugh when I've watched this show. If you want to see some truly bad acting just watch it for a few belly laughs of your own. The network tries to bill it as an actual reality show but it is so badly done. All of these shows are scripted and planned out and you can just tell. For some good old comedy give it a look, otherwise don't waste your time.

Bodie Ca the Ghost Town

Just a short post about an historic preserved 1800's ghost town in California called Bodie. Being that I love old stuff this is a place that I would dearly love to visit sometime. This was once a booming huge mining town that after surviving two huge fires was abandoned with an astonishing 300 building still intact to this day. From what I have read and seen pictures of, a visit to this town is just like stepping way back in time. It is literally frozen in time. An actual time machine of real existing artifacts just yearning for my visit to explore the streets, history and life of days gone by. It would be just to cool if the Park service would at least restore one of the hotels for overnight stays. I may be mistaken but it seems like this town is a thirteen mile drive down a dirt road. The park service could have a parking area at the beginning of this road and have an old vintage bus take sight seeing overnight guest up to the motel. But I'm a dreamer like that.

Check it out for yourself and give me a comment.
http://www.bodie.com/

Eating Kudzu & Hosta Plants and Other Tid Bits
( I planted some bird seed and a bird came up, I have no idea what to feed it)


Today while outside I spied a couple of our local rabbits in the yard. Personally I still get a kick from watching the nature just like when I was a kid. Have you ever seen two slugs fighting to the death? I have. Seen ants fight to but most people have I guess.
But back to the rabbits; I watched them hop over to some Hosta plants and cut the stem with flowers down. Then the little furry hoppy thing began eating the whole cutting. I knew that slugs would eat up Hosta plants but Rabbits? So my mind went to hmm, are they edible for us humans as well. To my surprise I found out that they are edible. Japanese eat it all the time and kudzu also, but I knew about the kudzu already. Kudzu roots when dried and pulverized sell for $2 an ounce and the leaves are certainly edible. North Carolinian Juanitta Baldwin in her book "Kudzu Cuisine" has recipes for this free food. "Fry the leaves up like potato chips , there good." I read an 83 year old Henry Edwards said.
I tried some of the flowers of the Hosta and it wasn't bad at all. The leaves should be cooked like other greens so I'll have to try that. Lots of plants in our own yards are edible such as dandelions and all rose flowers. Most of us consider dandelions as weeds and battle to kill them every year. We ought to be cultivating them for salads and putting them to good use. What is a weed exactly? Actually a weed can be any plant growing where you don't want it to grow. A corn stalk in your flower bed is a weed because you don't want it there. Same goes for small tree seedlings like cedar or pine coming up through your azalea bushes. So a weed is any plant growing where you don't wish it to be.
Think about your next motorcycle or car trip and get a book on edible plants. You could eat well and almost free just by learning what is edible out there. You'd have plenty of use for kudzu growing all over the south and elsewhere and more than likely nobody will complain your taking some. Just don't any from right near the road or up close to railroad tracks cause it may have been sprayed like blackberry bushes right beside RR tracks. Hosta plants being edible to but be careful picking those at rest areas, the state might not like it. Pick then when nobody is there I guess. Eat free, don't starve and save money on the road.

Now for a Tid Bit or two of wisdom

Be nice to people on your way up because you might meet 'em on your way down. -- Jimmy Durante

Beware the fury of a patient man. -- John Dryden

The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything. -- Edward John Phelps

Just an Old Utility Trailer
By Wooleybugger

I Am just your old utility trailer that is left to the side , feeling all alone until duty calls yet again. Then you will pull me from the forgotten place where you leave me in the shadows. Never do you pay me any attention unless there is money to be made or a work related task to be performed.
I have carried lots of things for you , and yes , I have even carried you.
Oh once I was brand new to you and you even boasted at what a find I was. Anywhere that you wanted me to go , I was eager to tag along.

Many was the time that you offered and lent me out to family and friends at a moments notice. When the work was completed after long hard hours , I was returned to my home. Sometimes these people would ask that I be available for an entire weekend or full week. It was you however that was lavished with praise. It was you that received the thanks and the adoration for my labor , not I.

This old utility trailer has done what it was asked. Did not matter if I wanted to or not as I was pimped out time and again. Sent out in the snow , ice and rain , or the heat and even in approaching tornados and hurricanes. When it was over , some of the same people that I had just served laughed behind my taillights and snickered at how I looked. All the while I felt good about the deed I had just help complete not knowing that I was being put down for my looks as that was the hot topic when I was gone out of sight. Not how they were thankful or appreciative for my time and effort appeasing their wants and needs.

Carried some awful heavy loads without the assistance from anyone even when it was their desire it be done. The times that I was overloaded no one cared but instead added some more on.
One time when my tires were worn and tired I gave it all I had , being forced to the brink. I was so heavily overloaded that one of my tires burst forth a blast of hot stale air. Didn't count , all the things that I had done for everyone. I was cursed and put down , called lazy and even told I'd let them down. Said I don't follow through and can't fulfill a task.

I may have rumbled and squeaked a little from time to time but , I pushed on and did my job always there for you.
All the while you never seemed to notice that my tires were wearing thin and paid no mind that my air was leaking out. My floor was about to wear out and all my wiring was starting to frazzle from lack of regular maintenance. Have you not noticed that my paint is fading and peeling from lack of much undivided needed attention from you. This old utility trailer needs some tender loving care to continue on.
No ! For when I am no longer needed just push me over there with the expectation I'll be there when the moment strikes you. I am passed by day after day ignored in the corner of the yard , with you knowing surely what I am in need of but don't really care.

Why it wasn't even noticed that my tag was missing for two weeks last year. Luckily it was found and put back where it belonged. One time it was even removed on purpose just to see if you would notice. It was not!
I long for the times that we did some things for fun. Creeping slowly through town in the local Christmas parade with a load of cub scouts safely nestled and riding on my floor. Lets not forget the times I hauled everything for the camping trips and, the to few loaded trips to the beach and even more stuff back.
When the short trips were over, again I was put to the side.... forgotten until the distant next time.

Ah , I am sad to say that this old utility trailer has grown tired of being a mule, always ignored and left out in the cold. It is caring and attention I need as my paint is fading away. Yes ! The time it is running out as my tags expiration date is looming ever closer each day.
My wiring craves tending and my tires need some air to keep moving along. Don't forget that the paint could use a little rub now and again.

Lots of people laugh and scoff at me forgetting what I've done. They treat me just as bad by pretending I'm not there.
Some of these impressionable people take their Que from you.

Officer Decoy of the Highway

Some areas are worse than others but these days you need to be aware of Officer Decoy. What's that you say? Who, what!!

Officer decoy is an on duty traffic dummy. However, not all of these cars sitting at intersections and at the side of stretches of asphalt are manikins. There are also the ones who are on the road in plain clothes in some regular type of vehicle. They don't actually pull you over and give a traffic situation, nope, what their job is to do is after seeing you speeding or driving recklessly is radio one of the officers who is waiting up on an on ramp out of view. Officer decoy looks just like any body else who's just driving along minding their own. Or he may be pacing you until a unit can catch up to nab your butt. Then as the unit comes up officer decoy just slides out of the way and goes on his merry way. All while you and others have no suspicion at all.

Sneaky huh.

Not to Wonder Why

I like to watch the stars at night
Way up in the sky
Listen to the crickets, listen as they sing
Lightingbugs they dart, dancing all about

And then I try not to wonder ...
Try not to wonder why

It's hard for me to say goodbye
When there's oh so much left to do
But paths sometimes though they've crossed
They go and seperate to

And then I try not to wonder ...
Try not to wonder why

The smell of spring is in the air
Flowers bloom and rabbits scare
Full of life that once was bare
Soon turns back into fall

And then I try not to wonder ...
Try not to wonder why

People we know they come and go
Sometimes like the falling snow
For a time it brings such beauty and joy
Then it leaves us all to soon

And then I try not to wonder...
Try not to wonder at all