Saturday begins most like every other day but always ends up busier then most. Originally I thought this Saturday would be a day of fun and play. Ah well time to work things out is what I say. Need a new walkway built and laid out and dug and then put in. So I have to order  the pressure treated lumber and parts. Lucky me right, I figure a good couple hundred easy to do a walkway 20 foot long and 38 inches wide.

Then I have to vacuum nuts out from under a car hood!. Yes that’s right you heard me. Chipmunks decided it was a good place to store their nuts for winter and chewed through a wiring harness too costing over 500 bucks to replace. Animals are cute to see, but a pain in the a_ _ if you ask me.

Then of course  there is the  normal grocery shopping chores one must do to keep eating on a weekly basis.  Why can’t we all just say what we want and have it just appear! Ah well life goes on daily whether we move with it, against it, or not at  all! As my Step-father said before he died “ Son, when I am gone the minutes and hours and days shall keep moving along and soon they will grow to hours and days, then weeks and months and finally years, so live your life to the fullest, for sooner then you like, you won’t be here!

Friday begins early for me, up and at them at 5 am here. Drag the garbage cans down and recycling buckets and then stumble into kitchen for coffee. Ah life some say is simple and clean, but damn if the world is not so mean!

Each day goes by the economy seems not to get better. More people are hungry and homeless in the USA then at anytime in recent history. Sadly, no jobs seem to be popping up out there. How long can Americans keep up this way? We have to make a difference in the economy soon, or go back to the bread lines of the days of the Depression.

Americans are well known through out the world for helping others and that is a nice reputation for any country to have. On the other hand we are not known for taking assistance from anyone at all it seems. I have a different opinion of how to turn the economy around then most I suppose. I believe that the American People and it’s nation, need to start pulling back and stop helping the whole world and start helping themselves. We have our hands in too many pies so to say and we are breaking our own backs. First step stop helping all these others and revert those funds back into our economy.

Second step rebuild our manufacturing base. Find people who have new ideas, new inventions and products and mass produce them and sell them to the world. America was at it’s strongest during the days of the manufacturing boom. But all of the blue collar workers who manned those factories are now out of work and without hope. So we need to rebuild that area or if we are not going to rebuild that area, then retrain these people for other occupations and move to a total white collar world. To do so is not easy, when the blue collar population have their talents and skills and pride. It is impossible   to train blue collar personnel to do white collar work without educational access to the colleges they will need. So our colleges especially Community Colleges will have to take part in this retraining in a big way.

Thirdly, you can’t build a manufacturing base back up if you keep importing more then you are exporting around the world. Our imports far out weigh our exports. We need to scale back the imports and start building up the exports once more. To do this we must once again sell the American people on Be American Buy American by manufacturing products other countries need and can use and doing it in the best way possible.

Fourth expand the job market in the US by creating new green jobs and blue collar jobs and setting the high standards in each area. By doing this other countries will look at American products once more as products of distinction, and worth the value they will pay for them. We need to reinstall in the American people a base of pride, distinction, and motivate them to do better by setting examples with our politicians and leaders. What happened to the great leaders of America? We need new Roosevelt’s, new Eisenhower’s, new Nixon’s and Kennedys and new Kings.

Fifth and not least but most we need politicians in office who spend less, save more, and will save our Social Security, Medicare and Medicate  , and at the same time promote and fix the Health care system that Obama put in place not destroy it. No other President has been able to push Health Care Reform through Congress and sign it into law, Obama did. Give the man some credit folks, he is much more approved of and respected then his predecessor ever was in the world.

Sixth, when President William J. Clinton left office, the USA was in the black by billions. Now we are in the red by trillions, find the economic advisors Clinton had, rehire them to make the deep cuts necessary in the budget and stop spending more income then the revenue we take in as taxes. Lets also start collecting some of the damn debt’s other countries owe us. If Clinton found a way to get the American Government out of debt in his 8 years in office then, lets just ask him and the people he used to help us do it again!. The solutions are here if we as Americans use the resources and personnel we have on hand and work together to get it done.

Today is Veteran’s Day in The United States!.  When you see a Veteran Today smile and just say Thank You, Thank them for the years they served to protect and keep our country free. Thank Them for the sacrifices they made and the time they spent away from their loved ones. Thank the Disabled Veteran’s like me too, for we gave up our health and well being to protect the USA, it’s Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

Many forget, that a Vet, leaves behind their families and friends when they volunteer to serve. Try to remember to hire a Vet if you can, doesn’t matter if a woman or a man. Their dedication and skills keep our country free, believe it, because it is me.

So when you walk through your Mall, or down your street, or anywhere at all,  you can see a Veteran in many places doing their own things. So all I say is when you do, give a salute, and wave and say Thanks for us Veteran’s don’t serve because we had to, we serve to protect what is here and free, take it from this Veteran yes me!

 

Next subject- Please America, Please Congress, step back and find a way, for families to live, and find a way to create jobs. Food prices rise daily, rents increase, basics of food and clothing get higher and of course the oil for heating soars. America needs to find a way to be inventive and innovative again. We need  to invent new things we can make better then anyone else in the world and use the resources we have to do it. Everyday I awake to find more Foreclosure signs, more people on the streets begging for food, and more homeless individuals.  It is sad to see such things happening in America the land of the free.  Stop please and think what can we do to improve America and create jobs. years ago in the early 2000s here a Congressman came to my door running for office and introduced himself and talked to my wife and I. As we chatted I told him then and still believe now, for our area in Connecticut which is New Haven County, Connecticut, we need to retrain and reeducate our people. The whole are was  based on manufacturing and blue collar workers, I know I was one in the 1970s here. Blue Collar workers are the backbone of the American economy really. But there are no more blue collar jobs here, the Factories are gone, no more Anaconda Brass, Chase Brass and Copper, Uniroyal or other big manufacturing plants they sit quit and changed into Medical Buildings. You can’t take a Blue Collar worker and pop them into a White Collar Job without proper training and education. Lets fix it folks, America is slowly being bought out period.

 

Thank a Veteran for their Service!

Hire a Veteran!

 

Lets Create and be Inventive and Innovative !

I always wondered for years and years, why they called Wednesday Hump Day, but now know it’s because it is the middle of the work week. I use to hope for some humping lol.

Anyway, Connecticut has it’s new Governor in Malloy and who knows what may happen in the near future.

I find some mornings my mind races when I wake up and other mornings it wants to stay shut down, why is that? AH life can be rough or it can be kind, it is all about how you see it in your own mind. But what ever you do, as long as you wake up, be happy your alive.

Now do I give the world a Happy, Good Morning and let it carry on or become a part of it as it does me? Here I shall offer my lil rant about unanswered questions for all:

 

Unanswered Questions?

By: W.M. McCurrach

Can mankind ever truthfully fathom from whence it came? Can mankind solve the mysteries of space, time and love? These are questions mankind has searched for answers to since we could think on our own, I believe. But, if mankind could answer one vital question that seems to have an answer that stays just out of our reach, like what makes mankind tick? What is this ability to live, think and walk as well as talk? And why do we really exist?

What can we do to answer these questions, well, mankind observes itself and tries harder than any other species on this planet to learn from its own mistakes, but seems to end up repeating them, through history if we look back. Why? Is mankind tied to some fate, some destiny? Or is it just certain things that cannot be changed or rearranged that controls the world and us and the societies we live in?

Circumstances of time and cycles control mankind, at least this is what I can see and feel. I think the greatest example of what I am talking about came from a dying man’s mouth one day, as he spoke to his child who cried as he was dying. Son, do not cry for me, for I shall be gone shortly, I will feel no pain, no hurt or shame and for what I have done as a man, there will be no one to blame, I leave this world the same way I came, suddenly. But once I am gone, the seconds and minutes, and hours will pass, as shall the days and years you see, and in the end no one will remember me. So live each moment, day and year, like you have less time to be here! Do today what you love most and love those important to you, for someday my son, you want them to remember you. So life still has its mysteries, and it shall still have them after me, as it did before, I came to be.

So as we hope, live and ponder and thru this planet and life we wander, remember, the planet was here far before mankind, and so was Mother Nature and father time. We try to think of what came first the chicken or the egg, or is there a creator called god, or was it all from the big bang? Mankind shall never truly know, for if we did, we would all refuse to go, and try to control things of which we have nothing, we know. We even try and map our own minds, this has been happening for ever since man has come along, in time. It escapes us as to what powers our minds, what section do what and it will for all time. The electrical impulses that flitter through cause me to be me and you to be you. So, my friends and fellow mankind remember that some questions are really meant to escape us for all time. For we may never solve the riddle of the human mind, or life for us in our existence’s time, and under anyone’s thoughts it is not a crime. For if we were to know how the human brain works with all of it’s processes and all of it quirks, we would probably destroy ourselves and not even know why, on the day that mankind, did choose to die.

                                                                                                                                Disappearing Hams?

                                                                                                                                                                           By: William M. McCurrach

 

Take a U.S. Naval Ship filled with 390 men and get it ready for deployment and you run into many things to do. Such was the case in the summer of 1982 for the U.S.S. Dahlgren DDG-43. I was a young sailor on that ship at the time and part of the process on a ship leaving for deployment is ordering and loading of new supplies for the missions, which can last six to nine months a year.

I remember one morning at Quarters, the Chief Petty Officer standing in front of us Boiler Technicians and telling us we were due to get underway in a day and we would be loading supplies. Chief Darcey, was a young man for his position, and a decent Chief, but he also knew, because he had come up through the ranks, Boiler Techs as they called us or BTs, were some of the craziest sea dogs on a ship in the Navy; so were the MMs (MachinistMates). On the Dahlgren, we were called the boys in the pits; without us BTs and MMs, the Navy can stayed tied to the pier and never go!

Of course, we had our duties to fire up the engineering plant, but we could also fabricate almost anything out of nothing. We would do things no other division onboard would do, especially for ourselves. We had imagination, guts and crazy characters among us.

Some of the funnier ones, who joked and pushed one another, became great buddies and many ended up on the same watch teams in the Hole. The Hole is the Boiler room at sea and on the Dahlgren it included two fire rooms, one forward and one aft. To enter a Boiler room, unless you were an officer, could be dangerous, especially since we were noted for being pranksters. We would catch someone down in the pit, and do all kinds of crazy tricks to them; even initiations of greasings were not out of bounds. As to what greasings were, well, I will not expound on that one, except to say it wasn’t an expected thing, for the person receiving it

Fire rooms consisted of two levels of machinery and pipes. Always under fluorescent lights and fans blowing when the plant was not steaming, you could hear the air compressors chugging away. When the Boilers were lit you could hear the feed pumps, fuel pumps, forced draft blowers going loudly and feel the heat rise. The temperatures down in the pits could reach well over one hundred degrees at sea

A mistake many Supply Officers made, happened aboard the Dahlgren that year, and to this day, I still laugh about it and so do my fellow engineers I am sure. The thing is, many times, Officers don’t think about how they do things; they only think of what to do and getting it stored away.

When a Supply Officer calls for a team to load supplies he contacts all divisions aboard ship and asks that all personnel man the line to load the supplies. And we did, but all of us BTs and other engineers did so in places in the line the Supply Officer, wishes we didn’t. They let us line up going right by the engineering spaces, which included the two fire rooms and engine rooms. As we lined up to load the supplies, I remember one big guy, Ennis I will call him, he looked at us and grinned with his big funny face, he said “shopping time”. We all knew what that meant. And we all looked at the newbie BTs and MMs and had two of each stand inside the doors to each space and wait.

It was like a shopping spree for us engineers and no one knew until later.

The Supplies start from the pier as they load them aboard passing everything hand to hand up the ladders, down the ship and through the inner corridors to the supply storage rooms and freezers. As we passed the supplies along each of us in the engineering department would read the boxes and labels to each other and as the supplies went by, some disappeared. Ennis would go “here’s the juice” at one end of the line and by the time it got to the doors to the pits, we knew what kind of juice we wanted and it disappeared too. The spaces got juice, pies and hams and cheese. A little bit of anything we liked ended up in the engineering spaces before each cruise, I know it sounds crazy, but, hey, we were engineers, we deserved to eat!

All was quiet that night, all the loading of the supplies completed. But of course the supply officer, didn’t inventory his supplies, until, we were underway the next day. Count when you receive, not afterwards, big mistake. Afterwards, Mr. Supply Officer, you get the blame for what is missing, not anyone else!

The fun began the next morning after we had lit off the boilers, brought them up to speed and pressure and got underway in the Norfolk, Virginia bay. As we steamed out there was the normal rushing around by each watch team in each engineering space, checking readings and pressures and more. It is all part of a watch team’s job of course to be sure all equipment runs correctly. Each watch team in each engineering space was set up basically the same .Starting at the lowest rank and position the teams consisted of a messenger, who took hourly readings on all equipment and oil samples once a day, a burner man to man the burner front and watch the flames and light and extinguish burners as needed, a lower level man who ran the booster pumps, fuel service pumps, fresh water pumps and bilge pumps, a upper level man who ran the DFT, forced draft blowers, feed pumps, and watched the water level and the air compressors too, which fed the BT of The Watch’s console board, air powered controls for the boilers. The BT of the Watch ran the watch team, and supervised it all. Similar duties were taking place in the engine room.

Once out to sea in the Atlantic Ocean and steaming in the proper direction, it started. As we all stood our morning watch which ran from eight to twelve, we had visitors down in the engineering spaces. The Chief Engineer, LCDR Walden came down and in tow he brought a team of Master at Arms and the Supply Officer all starched and clean and BTC Darcey. When asked what they were doing in our engineering spaces, the Chief Engineer said “The Supply Officer here is missing hams that were loaded yesterday; he believes they are here in the engineering spaces and the Captain said we have to check.” We looked at Chief Darcey and he shook his shoulders and smiled.

We just looked at all of these people crowding our space and shook our heads. We knew if they searched they would never find one ham. One thing an engineer can do is hide stuff in an engineering plant. And we were good at it, so the search began; they looked high and low for the missing hams that day, the search took eight hours, but they never found one ham in any of the engineering spaces. All we kept hearing was how the hams had disappeared from the supply line and where were they? But we knew where all of those hams were of course. But no way we were telling anything, it was an enlisted versus officers. Plus no engineer was going to snitch, we knew that.

That search was funny as hell to watch really we did things to officer’s hats we shouldn’t have. Engineers use bluing which is a paste you spread over a metal surface to check for, nicks, chips or damages. One of the men blued the inner rim of both officers’ hats, and put them back in place. When the officers, soaking wet with sweat, left that day with their hats on, we all stifled smiles and laughs and waved then goodbye as they went up the ladders. They looked funny for a while, with blue stripes on their foreheads.

That cruise we ate all that food; it was stored up under the foundations of each pump and piece of machinery that was running that day. On the late watches and early morning watches, we engineers ate like kings. We cooked things on the main steam stops; the MMs did theirs on the main steam stops to the main engines.

Navy days and times; what more can a sailor want?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     The End

Today is Monday November 8th, the wind is gusting and blowing hard here in Connecticut and snow has hit! Amazingly, Connecticut is getting it’s first snow on November 8th early in the morning. The winds are blowing it around against the window panes of our home. Normal Weather patterns for Connecticut say we don’t get snow till the third week. Well again, like I always say, no one messes with Mother Nature except Father Time and I guess it is now time.

Monday is of course the beginning of a new work week for all who work. traffic will now be all messed up and slowed down due to the inclement weather. People won’t remember to leave earlier and drive slower and accidents will abound I am sure.

Well a closing for now is simple, a little fun goes a long way no matter whom you are. Microsoft invented the KInnect a hands free, body motion video system sensor. If you get one you can have a ball standing with in 6 to 8 feet of your television and moving about to play game and exercise.  It becomes a sensor that can produce a lot of fun and even help one lose weight if need be.

Finally, I am awaiting the last edited Assignment 8 from my Writing Course I took through Long Ridge Writers Group.  The interesting thing about the Course for me is not that you can do it, but that everyone you hand a story or poem or article to, has a different opinion on how it is to be written. Not everyone talks the same, so point blank not everyone can write the same. The biggest part of writing is not finding a story to tell its actually rewriting and revising it to sell. Edit out the bull you don’t use, find a dictionary and spell correctly and in the end make sure your punctuation and grammar are checked. Last but not least if you are writing to sell, hit the subject on the head for who ever you are going to market it to.

Happy Sunday to all!. The weekend has produced as of late Friday evening our new Governor in  Connecticut, Dan Malloy.  Not that it is settled by an good counting of the votes, a investigation should take place as to what really happened in the city of Bridgeport. The fact that a city with 69,000 registered voters only had 21,000 ballots printed leads one to think of some illegal activity having happened. I hope not, but time shall tell, for no one makes this kind of mistake to save money, so what was the real reason?

Next Sunday in many homes across the USA is for church goers and NFL fans. I grew up a fan of the NFL and I would guess I will die one too. Something about watching football on Sundays, is in my soul me thinks. I enjoy a good football game that is close and a competition. Something to drink, some munchies, and two football teams killing each other to win on my big screen TV make sit all seem fun and worth while.

Daylight Savings has hit folks as of Sunday Morning so if you have not turned the clocks back you are off an hour, If you  have congrats, you will be right with the rest of the world.

Closing Comment for a Sunday Morning- Politics has ruled the last couple of months due to Mid Term Elections. Now that they are over and it will begin to calm down I hope, the decisions of the Voters of America will go into effect in January. The sad part is not that the elections were held and decided, but, that the American people think by splitting Congress as they did, it will improve what gets done and how fast.  Sadly that is not going to be the effect folks, mark my words, all we shall get is a gridlocked congress and nothing will get done. Sometimes I wonder if Americans, at least the one born ealy enough to be in their 40s and 50’s heard train when the lord was handing out brains and they took one instead. But that is a problem, when you raise your children by using Television as a baby sitter. These days the Video gamming system or Personal Computer is now the babysitter. I still think parenting needs to go back to the 1960s, where a good cuff upside the head got kids going the right way.

November 5th has arrived for 2010, three days after the Election and Connecticut will finally have it’s Governor if all stands up to Certification by the State. Bridgeport, Connecticut, messed up in the first place by not having enough ballots for it’s 69,000 registered voters. Why a city so big would have only 21,000 ballots for 69,000 registered voters is beyond me. In the end the Democrat Daniel Malloy of Stamford now seems to be the winner. I am sure further investigation  into what happened in Bridgeport, Connecticut, someone messed up severely  for sure and will have to be the fall guy for this. So watch the news I am sure some tome official in the Office of Voter Registration will fall.

Next up, is the end of my Writers Course through a Certified school here in Connecticut. I took the short course and completed the 8 Assignments in a short time. Now the course says it will help you to get at least two items into print and published, but makes no guarantees. Well I wrote and wrote and revised and did as told and got rejected anyway .  It really doesn’t matter who is teaching you, it’s up to the editors period folks. They either like you work or they don’t and it all comes down to space in their publications and if you match what they are using in their magazines or papers.

Now that November is under way and the mid term elections are over, we can all look forward to Turkey Day. A day to celebrate all we have and share it with family and friends. As Thanksgiving approaches, everyone should sit down and pray they live in the United States, because even with all the faults and problems we have it is still the best country on the planet. God Bless America

In Connecticut two men one Governor position and both claim they won, one by 2,000 votes the other by 11,000 votes. The fact of the matter will only be served when the votes are certified by the State itself. Sadly mistakes like lack of ballots by a city the size of Bridgeport, Connecticut should also be investigated. Why would a city so big only print so little ballots? Good question is you ask me! But my final answer to this whole Governor fight/ debate or discussion, or decision is simple, both of these candidates should disappear. Two men who attacked one another viciously in ads, then denied any of what was slung against them. So who is the better man then, well in my opinion neither of the above would have been right. But since we have to have a person in office in January of 2011, I suspect that the State will certify one by Friday.

The next hangover from this election is in Washington. Our country decided to split the government between the two parties by giving the House to the Republicans and the Senate to the Democrats. What many forget and do not understand is by splitting it this way you give Congress a perfect stance and position to gridlock the country. Gridlock will indeed hit Washington in January of 2011, and when it does the economy will stall in it’s recovery and job creation will also.  Many Americans are out of work our unemployment numbers range from nine percent up to close to 12 percent in certain areas. Sadly no manufacturing has been created, and the blue collar workers in this country are floundering without work.

In closing if America continues to ship jobs overseas, fails to complete with other countries on the world market and can’t find it’s own manufacturing base, well, we shall quickly fall and end up not much better off then many so called third world countries.  Wake up America! The world spins daily, people move ahead, countries are not only catching up but surpassing us, Find a way and do it quickly or face the possibility that we may dig ourselves a hole by being too slow and never be able to climb back out again.

The American People voted on November 2nd, 2010. They decided the Republicans can control the house and gave them gains even in the Senate. By doing so The American people choose what will happen next. Do they also understand the the economy will not recover now for at least two more years and the job market will continue to suck!. I hope so, because what the American people will face now if GRIDLOCK!. The Republicans will block anything the democrats try to get thru and the vice versa also. Sadly, America is in a shape if disrepair and damaged as we go forward. Can America overcome what it has done? Time shall tell  that’s for sure!

Gridlock will hit Washington and the Congress for sure in January 2011 and the American people shot themselves in their own foot!