It's Time To For Me Start Documenting Things...

...because it is evident that some arsehat has been coming to my house and scratching and etching things into the face of the bricks. Years ago, just after we first moved in, we noticed several swastikas and initials BM etched into the bricks among other things. They slowly multiplied over time. I told a neighbor about it, back then, and he said the son of the former residents had those initials. He also told me that the guy was a certifiable kook. I sat out at night waiting to see if I'd catch him and, soon after I started watching, the incidents of new ones just stopped. Once or twice in the 20 plus years that we have lived here, I have wondered if something was a new defacement of our homes exterior walls but I always just figured it must have been an old mark that I had either missed or forgotten about. The stuff we saw today though is definitely new.

This afternoon, after a BBQ, my son pointed out not initials but a complete name etched or carved into a brick on the side of our garage. The initials of that name are the same initials that the guy used to etch into the bricks. It seems our once resident kook may be back. We looked at the front of the house and found numerous new markings there too. Those are not carved or etched into the bricks so much as lightly, very lightly scraped into whatever grime is covering the bricks. One of the marks is a pentagram; is that the Twilight Zone theme music I am hearing right now!

Come Monday, after I have given the walls of my house a decent inspection for more such damage, I am going to report this to the county police. I want to start documenting all of this and also want to find out if anyone who goes by the name carved into the one brick has a local police record. If we have a nut job visiting and defacing our property, I want to make sure that we get our tax payer's worth of police involvement as well as having documentation that this is happening should this nut decide to take it any further and possibly accost my family members. I am not going to the police with the expectation they will do much of anything but it would be nice if they are already aware of the guy doing likewise elsewhere and can lock him up after I give them more such info. I most certainly am going to file a report with  them to assure it is all documented so as to cover my arse in the event I am forced to legally defend my family from a wackadoo. I certainly hope it does not come to something like that but it is certainly an uncomfortable feeling knowing there is a nut job etching his name, pentagrams and other symbols into the bricks of my home with something hard enough and sharp enough to mar brick and thus that could quite possibly be used as a dangerous weapon. Who knows what someone like that might try to do to us should we inadvertently stumble across him while in the act. It is also unsettling that maybe the same person used to scratch swastikas into the bricks as well many years ago. 

Maybe I will get lucky and the guy doing it will have a massive coronary or get arrested and sent to jail or just suddenly become normal and will no longer be a problem. My luck though never seems quite that good. Seriously, someone who is unstable enough to do shit like that may need some serious mental treatment and I for one would like to help assure he gets it, so off to the police on Monday I will go. I may also have to pick up some legal cans of OC spray for my wife and mother-in-law.

All the best,
Glenn B

The Saturday Morning Sci-fi Ritual - What Happened To It?

Way back when I was a young kid, one of the great things about Friday nights and Saturday mornings (and sometimes afternoons) was that you could plop your butt in front of the tube and blast off to other worlds or fight alien creatures right here at home. Friday night and even more so Saturday mornings (for us little kids) were sci-fi time. I got to enjoy an awful lot of science fiction movies from the 50s and 60s on television (and a couple in the movie theater now and then) when I was young. It did not matter much that we only had a black and white TV for at least several years of my youth, a lot of the older movies were in B&W anyway and they were all great adventures regardless. When we got a color set, it just got better and the science fiction seemed all that more real to me.

After watching a couple or few cartoons - beginning with Colonel Bleep (the first cartoon to air each Saturday morning), it would be time to delve into aliens worlds, radiation poisoned America, the minds of madmen, forbidden jungles yet unexplored or anything more adult than a cartoon. Movies like The Creature From The Black Lagoon, The Day The Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Plant, The Invasion of The Body Snatchers, Them, or probably what is one of my all times favorites if not actually my favorite 1950s sci-fi movie - The Thing From Another Planet (aka: The Thing) were their for our viewing pleasure and to fire up our imaginations. Getting engrossed in those films and maybe even being scared to the point of just about peeing in your pants was a right of passage back then and it was a sort of a ritual.

The other part of the ritual surrounding those movies was that after watching a good sci-fi, it would be out onto the street to play with my friends and imagine we were one of the adventurous characters in the movie that at least some of us had mutually watched unknown to one another at the time we were watching. Those were the days when we spent time alone watching a movie much like a kid today with a video game but the big difference is that after the movies we got together, socialized and played those parts - many times for hours on end. Too bad kids today do not do likewise. They all seem more self centered and engrossed in their I-pads, smart phones, video games, I-pods and so on that they have forgotten how to have fun playing together (unless they play a video game against one another but I mean physical play not video bullshit).

For those of you that do remember those days, or in other words are at least half as old as Methuselah like me, here is a short video clip that lists the so called 20 best sci-fi films of the 1950s. I don't agree with all of the selections, I think some great ones were left off of the list and some others were placed out of order of how good they were but that is personal taste. Regardless of what I think about which were best, this video is sure to bring back some fond memories to many of you older folks around my age.



I was going to include a video of the top 10 sci-fi movies of the 1960s but the video gives honorable mention to Barbarella which starred that commie loving cunt Jane Fonda and which also gave the number one rating to one of the worst sci-fi movies ever, in my opinion, 2001 A Space Odyssey. So, I did not bother to repost it here. How 2001... got number one and Planet of The Apes was rated as number two in comparison is beyond me but I am guessing that is how leftists would see it. I say leftists because of the inclusion of Barbarella as an honorable mention. Oh well, there were some excellent sci-fi movies in the 60s and that holds true for every decade along the way to now.

Of course, the best sci-fi movie of them all was made long before I was born and was made when my mom (RIP) was only 8 years old. Although the special effects and film techniques for a movie that old have been far surpassed today, and a lot of the acting was pretty corny, I still get a thrill out of watching it now and again. Now that I think of it - I suppose this one is my all time favorite, I think it may even beat out The Thing From Another World (hard to say right now, I guess they are running in a dead heat). Yes, I am talking about the 1933 classic King Kong. It is a sci-fi adventure movie like no other and none is ever likely to match it except maybe The Thing or possibly The Fifth Element (one of my other all time favorites in the sci-fi genre). Watch the trailer for King Kong here, or you can rent the whole thing on YouTube, Amazon or Netflix:



King Kong - it was and remains one heck of an excellent sci-fi movie, maybe the best ever and will always be among the very best I have ever seen.

Seeing those trailers makes me wish I could wake up on any Saturday morning, turn on the tube watch an episode of Colonel Bleep and then a decent to excellent sci-fi film. Those days seem to be lost forever though with the crap on TV in the early AM on Saturdays nowadays. Makes me wonder what happened to all those old movies and what happened to the ritual of Saturday morning Sci-fi.

All the best,
Glenn B
 

Poor Pig Sizzles In The Sun...

 

...but then again lucky us! Yummy - bacon.

 

All the best,

GB



No More Borepatch

We have lost a good blogger. Borepatch has decided to pull the plug and leave the world of blogging behind. Hopefully he will find much enjoyment and satisfaction in however else he decides to spend his newly found free time now that he will have that which he had dedicated to blogging.

All the best,
Glenn B

The NAACP Reportedly Is Supporting A Woman Who Claimed To Be Black...

...but whom it reportedly has been alleged, by her claimed white biological parents, is actually white with no black ancestors. She is the leader of the local chapter of the NAACP in Spokane, WA (source).

While the NAACP brass may think it grand to support her by saying that race is not an issue in whom they hire and while they praise the wonderful work they claim she has done to support their cause and the cause of African Americans - they seem to be missing the big picture. The big picture is that she allegedly lied to get a job with the NAACP, then allegedly continued to live a lie as an imposter in order to maintain that job all the while she has held that position. Shouldn't those allegations be making the NAACP wonder what else she may have lied  or otherwise been dishonest about while doing her job in order to carry out the wonderful things they say she has accomplished. If she really lied about her race and perpetrated a ruse as an imposter - of what else was she capable to maintain her position with the NAACP?

So why isn't the NAACP asking those tough questions and telling us that they are going to do a thorough investigation of everything on which she has worked while employed by them to determine if her accomplishments were all achieved by way of cheating, swindling or chicanery that she was able to pull of due to her alleged willingness to deceive. Her integrity would be shot and so too could be the integrity of anything she has done for the NAACP if such was the case and that possibility, I think, needs to be addressed with a complete and thorough investigation.

I wonder though, since I have not heard the NAACP talking along those lines, do they even care if she possibly lied, cheated, pretended with those whom she dealt during her duties for the NAACP? If not, that sure says something pitiful about the premiere organization in the USA that says it operates for the 'advancement of colored people'.

All the best,
Glenn B

Yet Another Woman With The Wrong Ammo

One should always be certain that the ammo you have on hand is the correct ammunition for the firearms you are loading and shooting. Take for instance the young lady in the photo below who has a nice gun and nice ammo and nice - oh never mind - but the ammo and gun do not mesh.

I posted this pic here, as usual for firearms safety education purposes and that alone; why else would I do so!

All the best,
Glenn B

New Firearms Safety Series - Use The Right Ammo

I figure I have just about pounded to death 'Yet Another Woman With Her Finger On The Trigger' firearms safety education series I was running with here. Thus I also figure that it is time for something a little bit different but still in line with firearms safety education so here comes what I'll call the "Use The Right Ammo" or something like that set of posts.

As can been seen in the accompanying photo, posted as usual solely for firearms safety education purposes (why else why I post a pic like that here), the woman in the photo has an unloaded revolver and the only ammo she has on hand is obviously the wrong ammo for it.



Always use the correct ammunition in any firearm you plan to load and or shoot. Using the wrong ammunition could have serious and dire consequences.

All the best,
Glenn B

So All Of A Sudden Chris Christie Is Very Pro 2nd Amendment...

...or so it seems he would like us to believe. I wonder who he's trying to kid. Oh right - that would be us - the Republican, conservative, libertarian and even right leaning Democrat rights and liberties loving voters.

I note though that one of the ways he would like to change gun laws in NJ is by becoming dictator of the Garden State. Thus his true colors evidently shine through, he apparently is about as far left as Obama on that subject. Even if he said that in jest, it shows his true colors, as far as I can see, because to me that would mean that to him the presidential campaign is little more than a joke - kind of like how a dictator would think - don't ya think!

More here.

All the best,
Glenn B

More Great News Regarding The Recent Government Employee Data Breach...

...was reported by FoxNews today. The data that was stolen when federal government computer systems were recently hacked is already being sold on the so called Darknet (the shadier criminal side of the Internet). More here.

Much of, if not most of, that data is the personal information of at least 4 million government employees. This looks as if it may become a major nightmare because the stolen data it includes information of the most personal identifying type that was acquired by the government during background investigations of federal employees. Such things would include: name (of employee), social security number of employee and some family members, place of birth, date of birth, current and former addresses, banking information, other financial information, medical information, current and former employment, names of schools attended, types degrees achieved, names of the employees relatives, dates and places of birth for some of the relatives (not necessarily limited to the immediate family), employment info for the relatives, and addresses of relatives among other things. In essence, anyone out there with bad intent could buy a federal government employee's personal identifying data and easily and completely steal his or her identity totally screwing up their lives.


One of the most screwed up things about all of this is the havoc this could generate within government operations. This truly has the potential to bring down, or at least temporarily muddle, the operational capabilities of government agencies whose day to day operations depend upon workers being trustworthy. This quote from Former Counterintelligence Officer John Schindler says it well:

"Perhaps the most damaging aspect of this is not merely that four million people are vulnerable to compromise, through no fault of their own, but that the other side now so dominates the information battlespace that it can halt actions against them,” Schindler said. “If they get word that a American counterintelligence officer, in some agency, is on the trail of one of their agents, they can pull out the stops and create mayhem for him or her: run up debts falsely - they have all the relevant data, perhaps plant dirty money in bank accounts -they have all the financials too, and thereby cause any curious officials to lose their security clearances. Since that is what would happen.”

Another very screwed up thing is that this could wind up resulting in things much worse than identity theft or the disruption of government operations. Federal employees and retirees, and their families, could now become easy targets of anyone others who would harm them. This harm could come in the form of physical violence, harassment, blackmail (BGI files contain some very personal information about those who were investigated and can include failures to pay debts, unusual sexual habits, former drug use, former undesirable contacts, and so on). In my case, I am a bit concerned about physical harm as one or three folks that I arrested and or from whom I seized narcotics or sizeable amounts of illicit funds over the years were of the vindictive type who would readily seek violent revenge if presented with the opportunity. Then there are the terrorists for whom it would be a major achievement could they start to target and execute government employees or retirees in their homes. It is a scary thing.

I think the most screwed up thing though, related to all this, is that just this week the identities of another 9,500 government employees (local, state and federal,) were stolen. So, the breaches are ongoing and the government, inept as it is, is apparently helpless to prevent them. You can bet the government will also be totally inept when it comes to preventing all that stolen data from being utilized by criminal elements for whatever foul purposes they have in store for us.

Of course, the government has offered an identity protection type program to those who may have been effected by the breach. I received a letter from my former federal employer yesterday telling me I automatically will be covered for 18 months because my records are among those that were stolen. There was a blurb in the letter about additional protection being offered and while it did not specifically say so, I get the impression that the employee would have to pay for that extra protection out of pocket. That is of little solace to me as I can barely makes ends meet right now but I may decide to take them up on that offer and pay whatever I must pay because I sure could not afford to wind up broke if someone was to steal and use my identity to enrich themselves at my family's expense.

To date though, the government has not offered any type of protection from the potential for physical violence that may result from the breach and it is sure they will not offer it unless someone is specifically targeted and even then - who knows what they will or will not do. I think it will be pretty much up to each person whose personal identifying data was breached, to protect themselves and their families.

So far, my personnel data has been comprised at Target, Home Depot, Blue Cross and now this (and there may be one or two other incidents that do not come to mind right now). This one is the worst as those businesses mentioned did not have even half of the info that the government had relative to me and my family. I don't know what actions concerning protection of my assets to take except to accept the governments offer for the identity protection service. I am thinking about changing bank accounts and possibly taking my funds out of the government's Thrift Savings Plan (and then getting screwed under the Obama tax rates) but that is about all of which I can think right now. I am also going to go over precautionary methods, with my family, relative to protecting us and I will put some sort of plan in place for our defense in the event, no matter how unlikely, something like that may result due to our information being available to any undesirable who can afford to buy it.

Oh what a world...

All the best,
Glenn B

The Irony Is Two Fold, Double Edged and Double Barelled

A NJ woman was stabbed to death, outside of her home, by her ex-boyfriend last week. Yet, she had papers filed with the courts to prevent that and a restraining order had been issued by the courts to keep him away from her. Not that those pieces of paper really ever prevent anything but there is another fold to the paperwork. The victim had filed all appropriate paperwork in application for a pistol permit. Reportedly, the police chief involved, in essence, sat on the paperwork and did not approve the permit application within the 30 days as required by law - she reportedly applied back on April 21st (source). 

Had that piece of paper been approved instead of a useless restraining order that may have been issued promptly but for naught, she would have been able to legally arm herself with a handgun (but there is a twist on this - more later) and may have turned the tables on her attacker, who killed her with a knife by stabbing her to death, and shot him down before he could have done so. The police only then acted swiftly but again not fast enough when they commenced a manhunt for the suspect. They reportedly found him dead of a self inflicted gunshot wound. 

He kills her with a knife while she is awaiting a gun permit, the application paperwork for which is delayed by the police chief, while she was supposedly protected by a promptly issued paper tiger restraining order, and the suspect then commits suicide with what I am guessing was an illegally owned gun that no police chief made him wait to obtain and for which he maybe was not required to file any paperwork, and then the armed police acted swiftly, although sadly too late, on the woman's behalf but yet not swiftly enough to capture her assailant who they should have restrained in the first place. If that is not irony two fold, double edged and double barreled - nothing is. And to add insult to injury and just a twist more of the ironic, get a load of this:

"...even if Bowne had obtained her permit and used a gun to protect herself, she could theoretically be facing charges today because she would not have been allowed to legally carry the gun outside with her. "

The guns laws in this country are fucked up and those in places like NY State, NYC, NJ, MA, Chicago and CA are fucked up beyond belief!

All the best,
Glenn B
 

Yet Another Woman With Her Finger On The Trigger (Nope, Not This Time)

I've posted quite a few photos of women with their fingers inappropriately on the triggers of firearms, all in the name of firearm's safety, here on my blog. So, if you aren't supposed to place your trigger finger on the trigger until ready to shoot, what are you supposed to do with your booger picker in the meantime?

Without further ado, here is a photo of a woman doing just what she should be doing regarding trigger finger placement when holding guns that one is not about to shoot.

Clikety bigety. Photo source.

As usual, this photo has been posted here for firearms safety education purposes - why else would I put a pic like this here for any other reason!

All the best,
Glenn B

One Pussy's Perspective Of Another

Photo source.

All the best,
GB

I Wouldn't Piss-Off This Kid...

Photo source.

 

 

...she just looks to mean to me to take the chance.

 

All the best,

GB

DHS Has Not Been Giving Sufficient Info To TSA...

...one of its own agencies, to be able to properly vet airport employees to determine if they are linked to terrorism. Thus TSA was unable to identify 73 people who are suspected of or actually have links to terrorism (more here) who work at U.S. airports.

DHS is truly one of the most useless federal departments to have ever been created. It is no wonder that its some of its employees suffer from the worst morale in government service (more on that here) and no wonder that agencies under it such as TSA and ICE seemingly do little more than flounder about in their daily business.

All the best,
Glenn B
 

I Remember When This Was Completely True...

Photo source.

...but the part about cheap ammo ain't true anymore!

All the best,
Glenn B

So I've Been Watching The News About The NY Prison Break...

...Fox News (on Verizon FIOS) in particular and Greta Van Susteren was stressing that NY officials have been questioning a woman who worked in the tailor shop at the Clinton Correctional Facility. Apparently, that woman is a so called person of interest (or in other words, in my mind, a suspect) in the prison break by the two convicted murderers who escaped a prison from which no one had escaped since it was built in the late 1800s.

These guys got out, allegedly, by using power tools to saw through a steel wall and metal pipes, in the middle of the night, and were supposedly unheard during the long hours it must have taken them to do so. In other words none of the prison guards heard nuthin! Yet, all we hear about on the news is that state troopers are hot on the trail of the escaped cons and that NY law enforcement has been questioning the tailor lady! Granted, maybe she had something to do with it - for all I, or we, know she is guilty as hell as a conspirator or even the mastermind of the prison break. The thing is though, that these convicted murdering felons had to have worked on the actual physical aspects of the escape for hours. I mean sawing through steel walls in a prison is not like cutting butter with a hot knife, sawing through a steel wall with power tools must have taken hours, if not days, then through pipes in addition to the wall but the correctional officers evidently are saying they heard nothing - and we hear nothing - ABSOLUTELY NOTHING - about the interrogations that authorities are conducting on any of them!

So why is it that we hear about authorities questioning the tailor woman, why are we told that LE officials are not arresting her because they do not want her to lawyer up (this was specifically noted by Greta) and yet these dim witted reporters have not even thought to question and raise the point, in their news casts, that the correctional officers, who were all seemingly deaf, are not being interrogated likewise. Oh please tell me that investigative reporters today are not that dumb - better yet, tell me that LE conducting this investigation is not that incompetent.

These prisoners probably could not have escaped without  correctional officers hearing them going through the walls unless maybe someone had drugged the COs or otherwise kept them so occupied that they heard nothing (which seems very unlikely because no unusual activity has been reported that would have distracted them). So how is it that we are not hearing these officers are being grilled as if they were suspects (or at least so called persons of interest). Go figure.

Something is rotten in the Clinton Correctional Facility or so my nose tells me.

All the best,
GB

Why Carry A Pocket Knife?

I can think of plenty of reasons to carry a pocket knife but I could never say it or show it better than they do at The Art Of Manliness in their video Why Every man Should Carry A Pocket Knife.



I can think of several more reasons, than they showed in the video, to carry one but I think they covered the reasons well enough to convince any man that he should carry a pocket knife. I must say though, I prefer one with a locking blade but carry both ones with a lock and without.

All the best,
Glenn B

 

I Have Always Wanted A Nice Sound Suppressor (Silencer)...

...and I must say that these are two nice cans.



Photo source.

All the best,
Glenn B

The Gall of President Obama To Challenge The Supreme Court...

...over whether or not it should have taken up a case involving Obamacare (The Affordable Care Act) is nothing less than utter contempt for the Checks & Balances provided for under the Constitution of The United States of America and only again supports the claims of many that he imagines himself as being our king. Those checks & balances are part of the bedrock of our system of government that prevent any one branch of our government from becoming too powerful. President Obama's almost total disregard for constitutional law and his contempt for checks & balances are unprecedented as is his apparent penchant to attempt to create an image of himself as the King of America. See:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/06/08/obama-says-supreme-court-should-never-have-taken-up-health-law-case-in-blunt/

All the best,
Glenn B

I Cannot Imagine Ever Seeing This...

...in any real life tactical type situation; however, I do appreciate both the photographer's and model's imaginations.

Photo source.

All the best,
Glenn B

I Believe A Revolution Will Commence...

...if the planned regulation banning free speech about firearms technical data on the Internet is put into effect by the Obama Administration; that is if it goes into effect and if anyone is arrested and prosecuted under it. Not only would that be an unprecedented attack on people who exercise their rights and liberties under the 2nd Amendment but it would be the most blatant attack on the right to Freedom Of Speech to have taken place in my lifetime. The Obama Administration, specifically the Department of State is "...demanding that anyone who puts technical details about arms and ammo on the web first get the OK from the federal government — or face a fine of up to $1 million and 20 years in jail" (source). There really is little doubt in my mind that if such a ban is placed into effect, the revolution will have begun shortly after the first arrest, that is if it takes that long.

Can you imagine the gall of the petty bureaucrats in the Department of State to demand anything of U.S. Citizens and legal resident aliens as to there rights under the Constitution of the United States of America. I have news for those tyrannical paper pushers - free speech is ours as is the right to keep and bear arms! Molon labe.

All the best,
Glenn B

No One Has Ever Escaped...

...from the Clinton Correctional Facility near the Canadian border in upstate NY since it first opened in 1865 (or from the maximum security portion of that prison depending on which video you watch). That is, no one has ever escaped until now!

Two convicted murderers allegedly used power tools to cut through a steel wall of their cell to make their getaway. Somehow, none of the guards heard the noise of them doing so. Now get a load of this, the steel wall was reported as being 2 feet thick but nobody heard nuthin - yeah right! All prison tools have been accounted for and it is now suspected that one of several contractors working in the prison grounds may have left the tools unsecured and the two inmates somehow obtained them. For some reason it seems no state official has yet brought up the possibility that a prison guard smuggled the tools to the two convicts and then turned a deaf ear but that could never happen - could it!

A huge manhunt is now underway and you can bet it will be a lasting one because one of the escapees was doing life for murdering a cop (and lately cops count more than the rest of us, after all the other guy reportedly was only doing 25 to life for kidnapping, murdering and dismembering his former boss but he just murdered a civilian). More here and here.

I hope they stay far from me and mine (and anyone else) and went to Canada or Mexico but who knows. Hopefully they will be recaptured without further incident and without further injury to anyone.

All the best,
Glenn B

A Rather Different Use Of An Ammo Belt...

...but rather tasteful and artistic at that.



Photo source.

All the best,
GB

Remembering the 4,414 - June 6, 1944

I wrote this yesterday but was signed onto my other blog. Saved it and meant to put it here, then got distracted and forgot to post it on this blog. Anyway, because I wanted to honor the 4,414, here it is a albeit day late:

*****

...of this day, June 6th, in 1944 should be something that we all take at least a few moments to do today. Today is the 71st anniversary of D-Day, the day the allied forces in WWII launched the largest seaborne invasion ever to take place. It resulted in the eventual defeat of Germany and the liberation of Europe from the Nazi and other Axis forces. There were ten thousand total allied casualties, including 4,414 confirmed allied dead on that day. In contrast, the Germans lost only 1,000 men on D-Day and you would think that the allies losing more than four times as many men would have meant certain defeat for the allied forces but nothing was further from the truth. Due in great part to the courage, determination and sacrifices of the troops who lost their lives that day - the German advance on the rest of the world was halted and Germany was soundly defeated less than a year after the invasion.
 

*****

All the best,
GB

Truckin' Turtle

Was feeding the turtles when I noticed one was missing from the tank. Damn thing climbed out off of its basking station that was close enough to the tank top for it to climb out. Had a screen over it but last night the Friday night drunks (my son and his pals) were at it in my backyard and my guess is one of them moved the screen a bit to see them on the basking platform. Well, somebody moved it and it sure wasn't the turtle.

I looked for it in all the places I could see without moving things. The first place I looked was on the adjoining counter top and on work bench atop each of which I have tanks, including the turtle tank. I looked at least three times and probably more like five times because it is kind of a bitch trying to see behind the tanks. Anyway, it just wasn't there so I started looking on the floor and under things and here and there where I did not have to move anything. Still not found so I started to moved things on the floor on the shelving unit shelves below the countertop level, under the dryer after yanking it away from the wall, under the furnace, under the water heater, under the table holding detergent and stuff for the wash, then moved that all and puled the table and everything on the floor under it so I could get the washer out of the corner where it sits - and still - turtle not found.

Then I searched the other room of the basement and did likewise out there. I was literally going bonkers moving shit. I just could not find the darned thing. After looking for over a couple of hours, I cleaned the dust devils up before moving stuff back, like the washer, and even threw some cat liter on the floor and cleaned up a mess under the table where we keep all the detergent - a bottle of it leaked awhile back and I just soaked up most of it and left the rest. Today, I washed the area, threw the cat liter on it, let it sit about a half hour and then swept it up with the concrete floor actually looking dry in that spot. I also rearranged the stuff on some of the shelves, threw out a bunch of junk, and got a compliment from my son on how good a job I did in the back half of the basement. He's been at me to unclutter the cellar for a long time now.

As  was putting the finishing touches on getting stuff back on the shelves where it belonged, I noticed that I must have knocked over some jars of turtle food and other whatnot in the corner next to one of the tanks closest to the shelves. I reached back there and picked up one of the things and there was the friggin turtle right where I had looked at least those three and maybe as many as five times earlier. The only thing I can figure is that it had been under a small pile of twisted and bunched up wiring from the heaters, filters, lights and air pump and that gave it enough camo to hide it from view when I had looked earlier. So, I had ripped up the whole basement for naught; although, I did accomplish cleaning it up so I guess it wasn't really for nothing. Well, I cleaned half of it anyway, I am still taking my time getting around to straightening up and vacuuming the other room down here but I will get it done sometime tonight.

In the meantime, I am getting things ready for the Long Island Herpetological Society's annual auction tomorrow (actually taking a break right now and enjoying some moonshine). A preview of some of the items being offered at the LIHS auction can be found here. If you are on Long Island why not stop by the auction tomorrow.

All the best,
Glenn B