Little Joey The Human Pin Cushion.

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Let’s get started with a quiz! For the big prize, tell me the difference between the two items presented below:

pincushionbackpincushionagain

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Very good, class. Yes, that’s me on the left. A human pin cushion. The tell-tale is the grid pattern on my back. That indicates that I served as a playground for an allergist who was trying to determine what caused me to try dying in my front yard last year.

That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but not much. The fact is, had I not wasted a huge amount of time studying first aid in another lifetime, I would have gone into anaphylactic shock and been in real trouble. As it was, I knew there was a risk that I was allergic to the “bee sting” I got and looked for trouble. First sign of breathing issues and we were off to the urgent care. A lovely shot of epinephrine (EpiPens save lives) and a fist full of Benadryl put me right as rain.

Now, the sting didn’t just cause some breathing issues. My leg swelled up, my belly got hard (heck of a way to get a six-pack) and I couldn’t wear a boot for months. Yup, swelling stuck around for a long time. This was my clue that trouble was afoot. Consequently I carried the injector with me all the time for the next year. Except on days when it snows. Which in Minnesota means I left it at home for half that year.

A friend told me that he had the same issue, but he’d been desensitized to the venom. I dawdled through the summer and finally went to the allergist on the first anniversary of almost croaking due to a bug.

Thus the back. They start out by drawing a very nice grid and marking the blocks to see where the results are strongest. I was injected with bee, hornet, wasp, white face, and yellow jacket venom. They start with small doses and get larger. I am allergic to yellow jackets. Joy.

So, for the next 5 years I will be getting shots. It starts out as a weekly dose for about 6 months (all figures are wild guesses) and then every month or so for a while. Eventually it trails off to every eight weeks. Oh, and I can have a reaction every single time! (But that risk is minimal, don’t worry Mom.)

The end result is that I will have the same risk of a reaction as the average person. Right now I run a better than 60% risk of a severe reaction when I get stung. I’m not good with that risk since I travel to places where the hospitals are not all that magnificent.

Am I looking forward to the shots? Yes. It means I don’t pitch over when a bug gets angry. But every week? Um… yes. I’m just thankful that modern medicine can do this for me.

In the meantime, I have a couple of cans of 21 foot death for any of those killers who next in my yard. No chances being taken until I have a leg up on this deal.

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I have a favor to ask of my readers: would you kindly share this blog with your friends, family, and colleagues? We hit a million views in 2014, and while the readership continues a nice growth trend, it could be a lot better. Just hit the Facebook like button, share it on your timeline, tweet the blog with a link, and tell that person at the next desk that there’s this lunatic who writes about all sorts of stuff that they might like.

I appreciate your help. When we hit 2,000,000 readers I will give away something cool to a drawing from the subscribers (that’s the box on the right toward the top) who have helped promote this mess. No used sheets, probably not honey, more likely gift cards. Be a part of it. I’ll update from time to time where we’re at in the count. Thanks.

Oh. You Were Expecting Content?

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Sorry about that, Chief.

I promise to do better this coming week. Fact is, I’ve been sick. For the last month. Not just the sniffles, but the kind of sick that required general anesthetic, surgery, and more oxycodone that I care to admit.

That last part is what makes it a long time with minimal content. I did write some posts. Oh, boy, did I write posts. But when it’s fueled by drugs it’s not just incoherent to the reader, but the author as well upon review. I may publish one of them just so you can laugh. But not now.

I’m much better. I’m almost clear headed. That may be an erroneous opinion due to my inflated ego, but at least most of the drugs are out of my system.

I plan on posting either Friday or Monday.

But I did want to thank you all for dropping by to see what I’ve scribbled. I have been remiss in my job as host, and I know it. So perhaps we will serve up some flash fiction based on the doctor’s appointment scheduled for Thursday. Hopefully that one is pain-killer free. I’m not betting on it at this point.

Be blessed. And come back in the weeks to come for some exciting book news. Yeah, it’s almost that time.

Joe

The Sapphires: A Movie Review.

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One Saturday afternoon, with little to do of note in the wake of a migraine that should have killed a mule or something, I found a gem on Netflix.

No pun intended. But it’s a good one, now that I read it.

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The Sapphires is an absolute delight of a movie. Set in the late 1960s, it tells the tale of a group of Aboriginal girls who sign on for a tour as entertainers in Vietnam. Here’s the trailer for the movie:

Yawn, right? WRONG. Let’s get all the negative stuff done right away: the authenticity of some of the Vietnam era weapons/people/uniforms are a bit off. So for you fanatics, just get over it and enjoy the story. There is also the tedious love interest where a single soldier … well, I’d be giving the story away.

If you’re looking for family friendly, it’s about 3 out of 5 stars. There’s some drinking, swearing, and mild sexual content. Nothing you can’t handle with the big-boy/girl panties firmly in place. Not for young children. The war scenes could frighten some of them. Then again, my favorite movie when I was 9 was The Green Berets. So, I guess it all depends on your child. If they wear an anti-bullying t-shirt once a month, probably not for them. If they’ve stood up to a bully bigger than they are and duked it out, they’d probably love the story.

The singing is great. The photography is good. The story is entertaining.

Yeah, sometimes you just need 103 minutes of entertainment. Let’s be honest: they can’t all be Citizen Kane.

Once again I have presented a really crappy movie review for you. But you should watch this one and have some fun. If you don’t get a little choked up at the end, you need to talk to somebody about your malfunction. Or not. Hey, it’s just a movie.

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I have a favor to ask of my readers: would you kindly share this blog with your friends, family, and colleagues? We hit a million views in 2014, and while the readership continues a nice growth trend, it could be a lot better. Just hit the Facebook like button, share it on your timeline, tweet the blog with a link, and tell that person at the next desk that there’s this lunatic who writes about all sorts of stuff that they might like.

I appreciate your help. When we hit 2,000,000 readers I will give away something cool to a drawing from the subscribers (that’s the box on the right toward the top) who have helped promote this mess. No used sheets, probably not honey, more likely gift cards. Be a part of it. I’ll update from time to time where we’re at in the count. Thanks.

They Are Aware. (#Flashfiction)

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My decade old smoke detector burned out on the 29th of last month. Little did I suspect that the replacements were more than networked.

Enemy

Enemy

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It’s an old house, three floors living space, lots of rooms. It takes a lot of smoke detectors to get it up to code. After years of trying to remember which room took what battery I threw in the towel and filled the cart with the latest and greatest. Carbon Monoxide and smoke detectors combined, all of them networked to let me know everywhere when one anywhere went off.

Sharpie in hand, I put the location on each and programmed them. Satisfied that my work was solid, I grabbed the cordless drill and ladder and mounted them. Once they were in place I set the basement unit off. Running up the stairs I could hear all of them warning of fire in the basement. Cool.

Two weeks went by before the suspicions formed. I was leaving the living room when I noticed the detector flash rapidly. Crap, bad unit? It stopped in a minute and when I hit the test button all was well. That evening I saw the one in the upstairs hall do the same thing. Same basic pattern. Not quite the same, but similar. As an old cryptologist I see patterns. Sometimes where they don’t exist.

In bed that night I was having a hard time falling asleep. Lying on my side, I watched the unit in my bedroom flashing like the hallway unit had earlier in the day. In the darkened house, I noticed that once the bedroom unit quit flashing the hall unit flashed four times and then stopped. For the next two hours it went on: the networked units were tracking me.

I didn’t dare use the computer downstairs to research this, so I went to the public library the following morning to research the issue. Others had suspected the same thing, but the company denied any motion sensing in the detectors. Fine. Coincidence or not, it was strange. I’d been working too much and not sleeping well for weeks. Just needed to clear my head.

That night I was reading a book on my tablet when it happened. It was unsettling, but I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t my imagination. The tablet scrolled “living room” across the spot where my email messages and instant messaging notified me of changes. I checked all the applications and could find no new messages. I’d never enabled gps on the device so it seemed very unlikely that was the issue. At that moment the camera clicked itself on for a moment and I saw the smoke detector rapidly blink until the camera shut off.

Powering down the tablet, I reached for my phone and did the same. The television was following me now, the picture on the screen was coming from my laptop in the other room. I dashed over and slammed the lid. This was off the rails. Returning to the living room the smart-tv was now running a line of script along the bottom with my location, thoughts, and body temperature.

It was targeting data. Drone? Sniper? I couldn’t take the risk. I reached into the pile of blankets next to the couch and brought out my 9 mm. One shot for every enabled device in the house. I ran from room to room, full tactical. The poor dog was in agony from the noise and I barely heard the cops bust in the front door, moments after I’d taken out that demon in the spare bedroom.

They were pretty good. Tased me from behind and cuffed me up before I could turn on them.

It’s quiet here. The nurses are pleasant enough and the food is actually good. No steak or chops, that would mean knives. But lots of pasta.

I just wish that soda machine outside my door wasn’t watching me all the time.

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I have a favor to ask of my readers: would you kindly share this blog with your friends, family, and colleagues? We hit a million views in 2014, and while the readership continues a nice growth trend, it could be a lot better. Just hit the Facebook like button, share it on your timeline, tweet the blog with a link, and tell that person at the next desk that there’s this lunatic who writes about all sorts of stuff that they might like.

I appreciate your help. When we hit 2,000,000 readers I will give away something cool to a drawing from the subscribers (that’s the box on the right toward the top) who have helped promote this mess. No used sheets, probably not honey, more likely gift cards. Be a part of it. I’ll update from time to time where we’re at in the count. Thanks.

Just to see if anyone reads this far, I’m having an operation today. Your prayers are appreciated. I’ll be back later this week.

Hillary Clinton Needs To Be Imprisoned For Breaking National Security Laws.

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Here’s a news flash: It’s a gold-plated bitch to improperly classify material unless you originate it yourself. It is impossible to strip out the classification codes without a lot of work. It has to be done on purpose.

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Furthermore, “The smartest woman in the world” is full-on lying about this, parsing her phrases just like her slimy husband. Having handled classified materials for 4 years, I am very familiar with how it reads. It ain’t the Minneapolis Pogo-Herald. It smacks of stuff that you can’t miss. It is clearly classified. It sets off alarm bells.

I can state, without any doubt, that Hillary Clinton, or her minions upon her direction, set up a system to remove all the codewards and classification information so that she could put it on her personal system. The one that couldn’t be subpoena bait. The one she could slick at will. The one she could deny. The one she set up in a conspiratorial effort to evade records requirements.

If, as a member of the Navy, I’d done this, I’m sure that all of my personal communications would be confiscated, all my computers, books, note pads, and my memory. That they’d lock in a jail cell and never let it out. The memory in my head, that is.

This isn’t a few memos. This is a massive disaster that allows dozens of nations to know exactly what our intelligence community can do. And who’s doing what to help us. And how they can avoid it.

She will cost us more lives with this than in Benghazi.

She is evil. She lies. She should be arrested this instant.Trust me: if I did it I wouldn’t even get a single phone call. That’s how deep the hole needs to be.

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I have a favor to ask of my readers: would you kindly share this blog with your friends, family, and colleagues? We hit a million views in 2014, and while the readership continues a nice growth trend, it could be a lot better. Just hit the Facebook like button, share it on your timeline, tweet the blog with a link, and tell that person at the next desk that there’s this lunatic who writes about all sorts of stuff that they might like.

I appreciate your help. When we hit 2,000,000 readers I will give away something cool to a drawing from the subscribers (that’s the box on the right toward the top) who have helped promote this mess. No used sheets, probably not honey, more likely gift cards. Be a part of it. I’ll update from time to time where we’re at in the count. Thanks.