Well, damn ...

Was afraid I would oversleep so went to bed just after eight on Monday night. Woke up fine at four, dressed in my star-spangled blue polo shirt and comfortable sneakers and had time to stop at 7-11 for a 20 ounce coffee before arriving at the local high school promptly at five o'clock. AM.

Didn't have much for introductions all around but there were six women and one other man besides myself. Setting out of tables and taping up of posters and sticking signs in the lawn outside was most of the first 45 minutes. Set up three privacy tables which were kind of Samsonite suitcase things providing a flat smooth surface atop collapsable legs with screens on either side and a light above. Set the horrid Windoze laptop electronic voting machine on a low table for any potentially differently-abled voters who might need a magnified touch screen to vote (thank goodness no one asked for it.) We were having a bit of trouble getting the ballot box unlocked to verify there were no leftovers inside and mount the electronic visual scanner on it securely. With the clock ticking away seconds until the Polls official opening time of 0600 we finally had everything in place.

I had the pleasure of welcoming the very first voter in York County Precinct 102 right after opening, a young woman who expressed sincere satisfaction at finally being first in place after years of voting. I gave her the red-white-and-blue "I Voted" sticker and got a big smile in return.

It was steady all day with only about three occasions when there were no voters in the poll for a few minutes, and maybe as many as three times when voters were waiting for one of the three booths to open so they could mark their ballots. Every vote was taken on a paper ballot with the various candidates listed by office and a bubble by their name to fill in with a black marker, which was then fed into the scanner which tabulated the vote and dropped it into the lockbox. Pretty smart machine really in that if you blacked out too many candidates in one race it would refuse to accept and eject the paper back out the front with an error message in a little LED window. You then tell the voter their mistake, to black in all the candidate circles in order to "spoil" the ballot and give them another blank. I think we had maybe three "overvotes." We only had one voter whose credentials were questionable since she had recently moved, and had to wait on calls to the Registrar before allowing her to proceed. And there were two voters physically unable to enter the polls so in each instance two Election Officers walked outside with a special folder to bring back those ballots in secret and enter them into the box. Other than that, just ordinary citizens voting in an ordinary way.

This was my home district so I did not have to vote via absentee ballot ... when there was a lull in the action I cast my own vote. It was dismaying to see a handful of candidates out of a dozen or so local offices were running unopposed. State Senator. State Delegate. Sheriff. County Supervisor. Clerk of Court. School Board. Soil and Conservation Board.

What the hell kind of election is it when there is no choice?

Worse than that I suppose is the fact that we had a grand total of 452 votes out of 1485 registered voters. What, about thirty percent turnout. I have made public appearances a number of times where I spoke before crowds bigger than 500. If I could not make a lasting impression on more than 227 people then I got up late and left my notes at home. And had my fly open. And a buger snot hanging out my nose. I must check and see what some of these elected gigs pay. Oh, and probably have to decide where I stand on issues or some such rot.

Seriously, can it be this accessible to step up and push aside people who no longer serve the public interest? There must be something I am missing. All the bitching and snarling and gnashing of teeth and there are only 452 neighbors motivated to get up and out and do something to change things? It's FREE! What a waste of karma and psychic effort when a solution appears ready at hand.

Polls closed at seven o'clock sharp and there was no long line of people outside. We mash some buttons on the two machines which print out tape totals - nothing on the WinVote - breaking down the count and candidates by races. Two teams working independently fill out paper spreadsheets detailing the number of ballots issued, candidate totals, and write-in votes while the Captain of Election Officials calls in preliminary totals to the Board of Elections. I kept waiting for the balloons and confetti to fall from the ceiling but I think they must have overlooked it somehow. All there was was a bunch of volunteers getting $90 apiece for a sixteen hour day trying to get the tallies to add up and pack up the ballots and clear the poll.

It was my sincere pleasure to meet: Joan, Jack, Louise, Linda, Margaret, Elizabeth, and Majorie, who have been a team at the 102nd Precinct for many, many elections. Their dedication was impressively apparent and they didn't have to have the delightful humor which they did. I could easily understand if this felt too much like work to be happy, but you all were.

* * * * * * *

Well it appears that we did not do a perfect job this go 'round ... I got a call from the Poll Captain and our report-out of the write-in totals don't match the tapes. We all have to go down to the Registrar's tomorrow, pull the ballots out of the Courthouse, and do a manual recount of all the write-in votes. Thank God there are only 452 of them.

Oh ... and this ...

Always a big night for me

Thursday I get to take the garbage and recyclables out to the street for pickup. I had to leave my dear old house in the hands of strangers in 2000 for career advancement, driving patrol boats out of the ports of Tampa and Savannah, and eventually a Headquarters assignment. The house was unoccupied for the past year and a half while I drove back and forth 300 miles every week from Washington, always seeming to miss Trash Day. So, for more than seven years I lived with the feeling I could kill just to experience the serene, dull, blessed, repetitive routine of putting the cans out on the street. Simple things for simple folks.

-Phillip

Huh

I have never had a beard. Actually, I am not a real heavy-bearded kind of guy by nature nor do I have much chest hair or elsewhere ... I always wonder if there was a Native American (Cleveland Indian?) in my woodpile somewhere in the past ... and the military's rules about grooming are restrictive enough it was easiest to be completely clean-shaven. With retirement I decided just to put down the razor and walk away. All the advice I could Google said not to touch anything for at least a month to see where your natural look ends up; well, it has been six weeks. I am thinking now about the end of the year.

There have been times when the itch or tickle gets annoying but it's not too hard to find a distraction until that goes away. I have been making pitiful excuses out of habit for my ratty look, but a friend took a picture of me last week and I was startled when I saw it. Hey, that looks like a real moustache! And this is beginning to look like a real beard! I don't know why this came as a surprise. I turned 51 this month so why is this unexpected? Every day now I find when I don't say anything first nobody else says anything, either. I feel damn self-conscious like the beard is the first thing that walks into a room before I do, but people give really no reaction at all, and I stopped apologizing.
When growing your own you notice just how many other beards there are walking around, with an odd satisfaction when you find yourself thinking "that one looks like crap."

Ever since I first arrived in Yorktown for training in 1987 I pictured Patrick Henry's stand in the House of Burgesses: "Give me Liberty, or Give me Death!" which I learned as a grade-school kid. I recall General George Washington kicked British butt on the fields behind my house - literally - with the help of the young and gallant Lafayette and the wily Count de Grasse during the American Revolution. When Cuyahoga County Ohio lost or did not count hundreds of votes in a past election I told my cousin she ought to sign up to be a poll worker. Last month she reminded me this is the time of year to apply if I wanted to do so myself. I dropped off some forms at the county offices and tonight we had training on how the poll workers function as a team to conduct and verify voting. There is more to it than you might think. Democracy is hard work.

I've been sworn in as an Officer of Election. About half the poll workers I have met are fairly elderly, and on top of that Virginia is experiencing an unusually compressed election schedule. There are a lot of state and local offices on the normal ballot for November, our Congressional Representative just died so there is a Special Election in December, and Virginia has moved their 2008 Presidential Primary up to February. During my conversations with the Registrar and Chairman of the York County Board of Elections a number of my patriotic impulses and urges burst out of me, weaving in and around stories about my career in the service. I guess something hit home ... tonight I was told I have been nominated to the Board of Elections.

Huh.

I am about sick

Sitting here alone after the first full month of retirement, I find myself surrounded everywhere I look with "shit I ought to do" and get terrible down on myself for doing so little. Just how long does the retirement excuse work anyway. For about a week I have had in the nagging back of my mind that I should load the truck with some brush and scrub for a trip to the recycling center run by York County. I have a deal with myself: I take one load to be shredded and I get to buy a pickup load of hardwood mulch for $10 to bring home and cut down on the amount of mowing I need to do. This is one hell of an operation, they can deliver your topsoil or mulch with a bulldozer if you happen to need that much, it's extremely beneficial to the community with the great amount of downed trees, et cetera that this part of Virginia generates, I get an unlimited amount of dump weight allowed as a resident, the cost is a real bargain, and it's only three miles from my house (all on back roads for which my aging F-150 is grateful.)

There is a very unsightly tangle of overgrowth at the corner of my lot where in years past I had cut scrub trees down to open the depths of woods in the view from the street. There is a kind of maniacal growing tree taken residence there - cut a good size tree down and ten suckers shoot out from the stump. I have in mind not only neighborly neatness but also to extend the cedar rail fence across the entire front of my lot and to plant a dwarf orchard behind it. Yesterday FedEx delivered a pawpaw from Stark Brothers, so today finally I back the truck up and grab my sharp implements of vegan destruction intent to wreak havoc on the "back nine."

It is ugly in a hacking through the Amazon kind of way. I take a compound lopper to work on all the waist high tree suckers fair enough, they cut easily and fall where they lay, but when I grab and pull there is some type of snarley creeping vine that has its' claws wrapped around everything. Nothing is immune: lop, lop, lop, lop, grab, pull, -snarltangle- go back, slice the parasitic vines all to hell, break it free and stack the whole pile up. This vine is extremely pervasive. It has climbed on anything upright in sight and makes the leap from brush to shrub to tree wherever they meet. This thing has at times four, five, six creepers wrapped around what I have brushed down, when I yank the snakes move around under the leaf litter and never originate where I suspect they are. I don't know what this is and every once in a while I remember Virginia has some very nasty things growing here which WILL break you out in bleeding sores. But it doesn't have leaves of three, in fact, it seems to have a sort of pleasant fragrance to it freshly cut, but man is it tenacious. I am in shorts of course, wearing white socks and my work boots, and these ... these ... "things" are brushing around my ankles and it is more than a bit creepy. Plus, here's a bonus: Everything takes twice as long.

But I persevere! I am Henry Morton Stanley in Zanzabar! I hack slash and am merciless - a real weed killer. I back up the truck and admire my work for a smokewhile then proceed to load up. Even then I have another fight on my hands because nothing on the ground moves without dragging along everything on the ground, and nothing fits into the truck neatly - I have to wrap and tangle things together to get them to fit. Finally it gets done.

And then ... oh, then ...

See what I did there?

... one little branch brushes my arm like one of Charlie Brown's Christmas tree pinecones. I look closer. A dim light of recognition comes to me. And I am almost physically sick.

How many years did that grape vine struggle against the forest goliaths to fight it's way up to the sunshine, asking only for a chance to turn the light into sugar? Was it ever a cultivar, or is it somehow wild and indigenous? It certainly was low lying with no care to stake it upright or craft an arbor from which to hang. It was definitely losing the battle, having to lie low and creep around and through and up its' stronger neighbors in order to survive at all. The thickest part of what I cut was no bigger than one of my fingers. What a gallant creeper, fighting against all hope for who knows how many years - and I come out and cut it to shit.

While lopping I eventually recognized the root stock point whence all the rest of the climber came with the thought of returning later to dig it out or poison it. For now I can take some small comfort from knowing grape stock really doesn't perish from a hack job, in fact it can be healthy. And maybe over the coming years Gilbert may come back and forgive me if I work at it.

There was only the one small berry. I would have eaten it to be sure. But this one had a worm.

-Phillip

If this doesn't work, it's a lawsuit

Old York Hampton Hwy

Yorktown, Virginia 23692
757-123-4567

14 September 2007

The Honorable James Webb, Senator of Virginia
The Honorable Dennis Kucinich, Representative of Ohio
Attorney General of the State of Ohio
Clerk of Court, Franklin County Ohio
Equifax
Experian
TransUnion
Navy Federal Credit Union Mortgage Loan Office

To Whom it May Concern:

I request the State of Ohio issue letters of retraction to major credit agencies on my account.

In 1992 I was ordered to duty in the Great Lakes Rescue Coordination Center at Cleveland, Ohio with the U. S. Coast Guard. Upon arrival I got married and bought a house in Bay Village. I filed a joint federal income tax return with my wife in order to itemize the mortgage benefits, while she had a part-time job and so filed Ohio resident income taxes, necessarily identifying me on her state return. In 1994 I divorced and quit-claim my real estate to her, and was transferred to new duties in Wilmington, North Carolina that August.

In 1997 the Ohio Attorney General filed an illegal judgement and lien against me in absentia for non-payment of Ohio income taxes. I have no other particulars about the judgement since the State of Ohio did not see fit to contact me regarding the matter; not then, not to this day. I discovered it only when I filed for a mortgage on my current Yorktown residence in 1997.

Soldiers & Sailors Civil Relief Act of 1940 (SSCRA) states:

“In any action or proceeding commenced in any court, if there shall be a default of any appearance by the defendant, the plaintiff, before judgment shall file in the court an affidavit setting forth facts showing that the defendant is not in military service.”

I wrongly assumed that in order to be Attorney General of the State of Ohio one had to be a lawyer, or at the very least, familiar with the law. Even a cursory inquiry by that office would have disclosed the fact I was an Active Duty member of the military and not liable for state taxes. It was negligent not to do so, and I have been injured as a result of that negligence.

When I originally found out about this judgement in 1997, I wrote to every Congressman and Senator from my home state of Nevada, the state of Ohio, and the state of North Carolina where I was serving at the time. The only one to bother responding was the Office of Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio. It was one of his staff who contacted the Supreme Court of the State of Ohio about the matter and is responsible for cancellation of the judgement.

Of course I thought this would correct the record. In fact it has not. A mortgage application I filed one month ago in August 2007 disclosed this judgement is still on the books of all three credit bureaus. I have been materially and substantially harmed by the State of Ohio's illegal judgement against me. THIS HAS GONE ON FOR TEN YEARS. Interest rates on my credit cards, mortgages, auto and motorcycle loans have all been higher than my rightful credit record would merit. For example, my credit union, Navy Federal, offers Visa cards at 7.9% to members with clean credit; my current Visa account with them is charged at 11.9% interest. Likewise their Home Equity Line best rate is 5.75% while mine is at 8%. At just 1% penalty, my $250,000.00 average debt over the past ten years means your negligence has cost me, very conservatively, a minimum of of $25,000.00.

THE STIGMA OF HAVING A TAX LIEN FILED AGAINST ME IS TERRIBLY DAMAGING!

It is clear to me that rather than being expunged after the kind assistance of Rep. Kucinich and his staff in 1999, the State of Ohio merely registered a “Release and Satisfaction of Judgement” my copy of which is dated September 9^th 2007 Serial Number 00219942243576 Account Number 123-45-6789, Case 97JG-XXXX. “The above tax judgement having been settled, cancelled, and/or satisfied, the same is hereby discharged upon payment of the court costs by the defendant to the Clerk of Courts.“ This libels me by making it appear I somehow 'settled' or 'satisfied' or in some other manner paid what was an unlawful judgement for which I bear no blame and had no voice in.

I have paid every legitimate debt incurred since I was sixteen years old - today I am 50 and retired from the Coast Guard with an Honorable Discharge and a letter of appreciation for my military service from the President of the United States of America. It is outrageous that the State of Ohio accuse me of being a tax cheat and file a lien against me in absentia while I was in uniform serving honorably in the Armed Forces of the United States. And it is my definition of high cowardness for the State Attorney General to attack me without calling me to defend myself before the Court.

I await your corrections to clear my credit and my good name. I am not stupid enough to expect an apology. And, I will write off my ten years of stolen and lost income as tuition paid for trusting the government of the State of Ohio to behave in a responsible and legal manner towards citizens.

Very Sincerely,

Phillip C. Wolf
Master Chief Boatswain's Mate (Ret)
United States Coast Guard
Yorktown, Virginia
Birthplace of America and Freedom

This.

Olbermann to Bush: "Your hypocracy is so vast."
By Keith Olbermann

Because it's not right to reprint I replace the actual rant with a link.

What is most upsetting to me is that the smallness, pettiness, and Oedipal troubles this President suffers deeply were clearly visible and on display on the march to launch this lunatic war. Remember the thirty day Crawford, Texas August vacations with the puppet riding Reagan-like on the wild range, hacking brush? The State of the Union lie about Iraq buying yellowcake uranium from Africa even after the CIA agent's husband told them it was a lie? Sending the henchmen forth in a body to parrot-squawk that "hope the smoking gun doesn't turn into a mushroom cloud" party line on the Sunday News Shows? Cruising low on Air Force One to gawk like a monkey out the window at the sweltering humanity soaking in what used to be New Orleans?

The most Colin Powell, the only man with any integrity in the originial Administration, could muster was to quit four years before the rest of the rats decided to flee the Presidential shipwreck after throwing his lifelong reputation on the lying altar at the U.N.

None of the suddenly wise commentators gave peep one.

The Press is late to the party. They have some payback to make up. This is just the start.

-Phillip

Why I quit the military in disgust after 32 years ...

I became a member of MoveOn.org while William Jefferson Clinton was still 42nd President of the United States. While I did not vote for G. W. Bush, I was in uniform serving in the Nation's Capitol during his second Inauguration, and when the Coast Guard needed to draft a contingent to march in the Inaugural Parade I volunteered. The military is all about service to the country, not to any one man or woman.

It was the start of my disgust. All during the election campaign of 2004, my federal government computer system and email was filled with right-wing, illegal "funnies" and other crap attacking Democratic candidates, and most especially, Senator John Kerry. But when those shipmates so fond of making fun of Teresa Heinz Kerry's foreign accent and her millions, or calling all of us Democrats cowards while hiding comfortably behind their emails, faced the thought of suiting up and marching before Der Fuhrer in the wintry cold and wetness of a Washington January 20th ... well you should have heard their excuses for reasons not to participate. Much like a dog lapping back it's own vomit.

My disgust was even further incensed when, in what was the clearest national choice of Good vs. Evil in a Presidential Campaign (evar!) the Supreme Court of this land licked Mr. Bush's boots and threw out the Florida challenges. Never mind the outright fraud in Ohio, or the disenfranchised black and other color voters in the South. Senator Kerry served his country once again and dropped any further court challenges. The election was stolen.

John Kerry, a man of money, family connections, and priviledge, grabbed an M-16 rifle in the jungles of Vietnam when his country asked him to. Grabbed the rifle and chased the enemy into the brush and pulled the trigger. Again and again and again until the pieces of flesh flew.

Max Cleland left two legs and one arm in Vietnam. Then he came home, picked himself up with his remaining arm, and served the military veterans in this country with great distinction as the head of the Veteran's Administration, and later as Senator from the state of Georgia. And was beaten for re-election in 2000 by an opponent who got a deferment from the draft and dared to compare Senator Cleland to Osama bin Laden because Cleland did not follow orders like a Good German and vote for creation of the Department of Fatherland Security like he was told to.

Because Karl Rove, Rush "excuse me, I have a boil on my ass" Limbaugh, the President who only wore his National Guard uniform as a costume, and the rest of their ilk stopped at nothing to smear the integrity of opponents who actually served in the military in order to win elections.

You want to know why I quit the military in disgust? Paul Begalia in the Huffington Post

This.

Goddamn right I am mad and this time this shit will not play.

My $100 contribution to MoveOn went in tonight.

-Phillip

Autumnal equinox

Just two days before Fall. Days are cooler, highs in the upper 70s and lows reaching the 50s. I know I have to wear a shirt now mornings on the screen porch while I read the paper and drink my coffee.

The result of three hours with a shovel this afternoon. Digging new garden beds for vegetables. Each is 7x20 for approximately 150 square foot apiece. Funny how as time went on they got a little narrower; only meant to dig one but still an hour and half until "All Things Considered" so I kept going. Felt it in my back the last half hour.

At Lowe's earlier searching for fertilizer and bullshit I found aisle after aisle of Winter Feed and Turf Builder and Cool Weather Fescue ... damn there are a heckova lot of bags o' crap for growing lawns. Is that what people want? A big part of my reason for doing this is so I won't have so damn much grass to mow! Plus, I know I will be hungry in the Spring.

From left to right, front to back: pecan tree, sour cherry, grape arbor, smoke tree, compost heap (with pitchfork), the popcornball hydrangea, and the peach tree new this year. Plenty of room for six or even eight beds if my back holds out.

I saw a firefly still hanging around today, and a huge tiger swallowtail yesterday. Plenty of bugs and grubs and worms in the soil, too. The garden should do well.

-Phillip

First Day in Retirement

My final paycheck did not auto-deposit yesterday. Welcome to retirement© I run out of money by the end of next week. SNAFU FUBAR

Feh.

Thirty years of indoctrination for excitement over having a three day holiday weekend, and it was immediate that I began to think nothing of Monday being Labor Day. There are gray curling whiskers scumming my chin and neck following the contours, my cheeks - not so much. I am mowing the lawn every day while commuters rush past my street and the neighborhood is empty. Nearly every square foot of the house is loaded with boxes moved in haste from D.C. and I am also curiously unconcerned yet. I will take a box at a time and gradually fill the back of the pickup with the detrious of a lifetime spent in random accumulation and when it is full go dump it. Then start again. Such is life I think. Or perhaps it is how life should be I think. Chop wood, carry water. Do it again.

About mowing ... my gas Toro was turning snickery on me so I gave it away on Freecycle along with the moss-covered red plastic gas cans which sat in my yard for the past few years. I want to keep gasoline and this old, sappy, roughcut lumber all wood farmhouse as far apart as I can make it. So I bought a rechargeable Black and Decker electric mower thinking it would also be as carbon-footprintless as Dominion Power can devise. At least over pouring two gallons a week into the atmosphere after passing through a combustion engine. It has the added advantage of also running out of charge after 5,000 square feet of turf so while I manage a very good sweat and heavy breathing it shuts me down just when I should take a break.

I already have my flagpole and stars and bars flying twenty-four hours a day so think there is not much else to do for this most blue-collar of USA holidays. Other than work up a sweat myself. Or post my Obama-Richardson campaign sign out front once all this political posturing silliness subsides. Is it just me or is it terribly, terribly sweet irony that the parade of departing despots from this corrupt illegal administration from Rumsfield to Rove to Gonzales to Snow has now been extended to Closet Cocksucker Craig? (Not that there is anything wrong with that. Just don't lie about it.)

Then, to top things off, Senator John Warner of my beloved adopted state of Virginia calls it quits. On the steps of the University which Thomas Jefferson founded. “There is a fullness of time when men should go and not occupy too long the ground to which others have the right to advance,” Warner said, quoting Thomas Jefferson. What a goddamned Class Act. The Royal Opposition. A Worthy Opponent. A man who wore the uniform and went off to fight for this country. A guy with thirty years of Senatorial moderation is not soon replaced, but this does present us a rare opportunity to try and do so.

I am more than extremely proud that last November, Virginia, birthplace of the American Spirit and the world's greatest democracy, elected Senator James Webb who had less than zero chance of defeating the incumbent good ol' boy redneck closet racist Governor George Allen until Mr. Allen called an American born brown man a monkey. Jesus, these powerNazis just assplode! What the hell took America so long to catch on to them is all I want to know.

James Webb, a Marine, a man who fought for this country and left some his flesh in Vietnam. Whose flesh is still at risk as his son serves in Iraq. Read his books if you wish to know what a hero is.

The very first weekend liberty I had when I first arrived here in Virginia twenty years ago, I drove to the replica House of Burgesses in Williamsburg so I could stand in the virtual spot where Patrick Henry, speaking to pursuade the reluctant to stand up for their human rights and challenge British rule, stated: "Give me Liberty, or give me death!" I kept a Kerry-Edwards sign on my lawn long after the election of 2004 until some asshat removed it, and if I had it today I would still be displaying it, only with neon lighting. Last year on Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday I stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in D.C. looking out over the Mall while I listened to "I Have a Dream" on an ipod.

My only contribution to Wikipedia was to give a citation last year for James Webb telling President Bush to shut the fuck up since only people with skin in the game get to speak about the honorable men and women who pour their blood out for the freedoms of this country. The man who did more to butcher the Constitution and Bill of Rights than anyone in history needs quite severely to recognize the quiet rightgeous anger of true patriots.

"I asked you: 'How is your son doing?'" Mr. Bush, with a snippy attitude.
"That is between me and my son," Webb said "Mr. President."

How these arrogant pricks seized control of this country and ruined the goodwill American people earned around the planet is going to be the historical debate of the entire century.

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/winston.asp



























One last thing - I have a fourpound pork roast rubbed up waiting in the reefer for the coals tomorrow along with a double buttload of summer squash, zuchini, poblano and bell peppers, red potatoes, Vidalia onions, salt butter, and sweet corn waiting for the foil.

Is this a great country, or what?

Car wreck

Well, I wasn't hurt and things have worked out.

I have been driving back and forth between Yorktown and Washington at least once a week for the past year. I guess the law of averages finally caught up with me.

The first week of August I was coming over the bridge three miles from home at 1:30am when fatigue, anticipation, no cruise control combined to have me stopped and ticketed for 63mph in a 45 zone. (Last and only ticket I ever had was in 1991 back in Maine.) So, now I am hypersensitive to my speed, and driving home last Wednesday at 5:30pm when the light turned yellow while still short of the solid painted lane line I clamped on my brakes. I am just NOT in the mood to run any lights while waiting for court.

The only new car I have ever owned was hit from behind as I stopped at an intersection five miles from home after driving a load of my household goods for three and a half hours 158 miles back from D.C. The guy who hit me was driving a black 2007 Chevy four-door flat-bed wrecker with a load on back. With temporary Tennessee tags! I could see nothing but his grill in my rearview suddenly veer left out of sight, where I guess he pinged off a teenage girl driving a Hyundai before deciding to come back into my lane instead. Tore off my left rear corner then skipped around to the front and tore off that corner, the headlight and bumper. Still enough force to drive me across the intersection with my foot on the brake.

Goddammit, I just filled the gas tank ten minutes before. Estimator at the collision shop pointed out six inches to the right and I would still be in the hospital. Or still on fire.

As it is, some lessons perhaps ...

GEICO is my insurer and when I called in the claim they said I could either ask them to pursue the claim, or I could ask the other insurer (State Farm) to handle it. If I ask GEICO to do it, I write a check for my $1000 deductible while they make repairs then go after State Farm for reimbursement. And have a claim against my coverage on my record.

When I called State Farm they immediately accepted responsibility. They authorized a rental car over the phone for the duration of "reasonable repairs." They told me I could use any auto body shop I wanted to. When I told them where the Troopers had it towed (convenient) the claims guy said he could not get an adjuster out there until next week. And I could not take anything out of the car until then. BUT ... if I went to a collision shop on State Farm's list, I could take everything out as soon as they got it because there was no need to send a separate adjuster.

I asked for their list and picked one. Get this: State Farm paid for a wrecker to go get my car and paid off the original wrecker that towed me from the scene of the accident. So I went and emptied it yesterday, getting all my things out of the trunk and interior back to Wolf Creek. Not only that, but after only having my car overnight One Stop Collision Shop on Geo. Washington Hwy US 17 in Grafton, Virginia already had a five page detailed estimate of repairs ready.

$6700.00 Plus or minus. About.

Now, if this was a 2004 Pontiac it would have been totalled, but a Honda Civic retains a lot more value. Damages would have had to come out to more than the KBB value of $11,200.00 to write it off.

In addition, Mike at One Stop showed me in person every single item on the estimate, pointing out what would be replaced, and what would need to be checked for replacement. Including such details as "Window might break in removal" while at the same time explaining that if it did then State Farm would also pay to replace the broken one. Bad news: because my ruined tires weren't new I have to pay $25 allowance for the wear on the ones they replace. (*JOKE*)

You better bet when I picked up the rental car I made sure to pay the $14.95 per day for the optional total loss collision damage insurance - I still have a few more round-trips to D.C. to make - and, I'll be damned, when State Farm called me this morning to check on how things were going and discuss the detailed estimate with me, I mentioned that to the woman and she said, "Oh, we'll take care of that too. I will call them right now and take that off."

Jeebus! Now I know why insurance is so expensive.

I just mowed the lawn, the sun is setting, and there are two bunnies hopping around my front yard in the cooling evening air. I guess things will be alright.

The only Saint I have ever known

Gram at 94. God bless her.

Dog Days

August, and waiting the past two weeks for some kind of rain. The hottest days of the year, where the air is thick enough to swim in and you sweat just sitting still outdoors. Seasons are my calendar. This hot slow season is one favorite of mine. Virginia is such a wonder ... the variety of flowering plants, trees, and shrubs is a never-ending delight, marking the weeks' passage like so many pages of a botanist's calendar.

Where else on earth do trees bloom in color to take our mind off the heat?










Purple Myrtle: This is an old tree and could use some judicious pruning. Someday.









White Myrtle: I planted this one myself a few years ago. It was three feet high at the time.










Smoke Tree: Took some to track this down. Wiki says it's native to one small Tennessee county. No idea how it got here but I am so glad it did. Blooms purple, turns to smoke by late Summer.











Hydrangea: What I'm told anyway. I call it "butterfly" or "popcorn ball" bush. Brilliant white buttery balls are actually painful to look at from the second story bedroom in early morning sun.

Next up: Sugar Magnolia (oh heavenly scent) ...

My Final Public Address

Remarks delivered to the graduating class of basic petty officer training, Yorktown Virginia 3 August 2007

Thank you. I am Master Chief Phillip Wolf and it has been my distinct honor and privilege to serve these past three years as the Rating Force Master Chief representing the Boatswain's Mate rating at Coast Guard Headquarters. I would like to express my appreciation to Captain Ewalt and Senior Chief Stein for this opportunity to address the graduates and guests of BM "A" School Class 15-07.

I don't know whether you knew this when you received orders to this school, but by now you must all realize just what you have gotten into. Besides delivering every Coast Guard mission by operating boats and cutters, Boatswain's Mates are also universally recognized by their strong leadership. This leadership is developed quite naturally by being placed in charge of people. Starting with your very first coxswain letter, or first bridge watch, you are going to be in charge of directing others to accomplish your mission.

I am retiring at the end of August 32 years after I joined the Coast Guard. In this, my last opportunity to take literally the Center Stage, I am going to claim my right as an old salt to take extra time to mention some people I have found to be important in my own career. I hope you will enjoy some of these stories as I introduce you ....

* * * * *

When I graduated boot camp and reported to BOUTWELL I hoisted my seabag over one shoulder and walked the length of Pier 36 in Seattle looking up at the superstructure thinking "What kind of Gods they must be who can drive such a massive ship" I soon found out. Captain J. C. Guthrie was a slim, grey, man with wrinkled crows feet around his eyes from gazing into a thousand sunsets at sea. He was ancient, about as old as I am now, and we were all pretty sure what the J. C. stood for.

I don't mind telling you that I quaked in my boondockers every time I had to enter the Cabin and approach the Old Man: "Captain, the hour of noon approaches. The officer of the deck sends his regards. Ship's chronometers are wound and compared. Request permission to strike eight bells and sound the ship's alarms and whistle."

If he ever said anything more than "Very well. Make it so" to Seaman Apprentice Wolf, I would have jumped out of my skin.

Underway he could be seen late on an evening watch standing over at the weather rail, fists plunged deeply into his great black bridge coat. I swear I saw the OOD one time bring him a position report at twenty hundred. Captain Guthrie looked at the slip of paper, up at the stars in the sky, back at the slip of paper, and finally at the Ensign: "That's about right."

* * * * *

Later, when I was in Alaska, I had a shipmate who would go snowshoeing with me up Douglas Mountain outside Juneau. We were up there one bright sunny winter day, taking frequent stops to enjoy the scenery as we climbed higher. About the third rest we could make out a single figure way down at the bottom of the trail starting his way up. On the next break he was closer, and we could see it was a tall, strong man making the motions of a cross-country skier. My friend turned to me and said, "Wouldn't it be a gas if that was the District Commander? I know he likes skiing."

Sure enough on the following stop, Admiral J. B. Hayes caught up with us. "Hello, Boys!" He boomed. "Say, did one of you happen to drop one of your gloves? I found this on the trail." "Why, yes, Admiral ... that is mine!"

So I like to tell the story of how the Commandant of the Coast Guard skied up a hill to give me back my mitten.

* * * * *

Senior Chief Boatswain's Mate Rick Hooper on PLANETREE up in Juneau didn't know my 22 year old face from Adam. But when I blew the engine on my Land Cruiser one frigid January day, this crusty Deck Chief towed it himself and let me use his garage and wood burning stove while I honed the cylinders and replaced the heads. Took me two weeks. Then, when I was getting out of the service in 1980, he strapped it up and boomed it over onto the buoydeck to take it to Seattle, saving me the drive down from Alaska. Senior is now the President of the Las Vegas Chapter of the Chief Petty Officer Association. God bless you Rick.

* * * * *

I went to college on the G.I. Bill and was out for seven years. When I returned in 1987 I was a thirty-one year old seaman on board another buoytender, BLACKHAW, out of San Francisco Bay. This was back in the day when you hauled chain across the deck with long steel hooks, swung a sledgehammer to beat steel shackles closed, and manhandled five foot cubed blocks of concrete sinkers by getting a gang together and putting your shoulder into 'em. I worked for a BM1 known as Doc Holliday. Now, Doc and formal education had never got along real well and he kinda resented a smart guy like me out there. I had to work twice as hard as the rest of the kids on Deck Force to even get a grunt of appreciation out of him.

I'll never forget Doc used to hold court on the Messdeck, with all his seamen and strikers gathered around soaking up his words of wisdom. One such day, the Captain himself walked on the messdeck and right up to Doc, wanting to discuss upcoming buoy ops. Trouble was, some one had seen fit to staple up the sleeves of his foul weather jacket. When the Skipper wanted to walk out forward and discuss arranging the deck, there was Doc trying to get his arms through the jacket without taking his eyes off the Old Man. He looked like he was wrasslin' himself. And losing.

But I will tell you this: Doc was a sheer wizard at arranging a bouydeck. We would load up in homeport and pack that thing tighter than a drum. Then Doc would look at me and say "Wolf, go get another shot and a half of that 3/4" chain. And another 12,000 pound rock."

I'd look at him: "Doc, ain't no way it's ever gonna fit."

"Jes do what I tell you and go git it."

And sure enough, it would.

Over a year out there on a dangerous buoy deck doing extremely hard physical labor, and not once did anyone ever get injured or hurt. Not even a scratch. Doc wouldn't let you out on his deck 'til he was good and sure you could handle it.

* * * * *

Skip ahead a few years. Now I'm on CHEROKEE, an old World War II Navy tug converted to a Coast Guard Medium Endurance Cutter. I'm a Second Class again, and one day I'm working up charts for a January fisheries patrol coming up out in the North Atlantic. I look up and Captain Tom Bernard is on the Bridge. "Afternoon, Cap'n" and I salute him.

"Wheels" he says, "I'm wondering if you could work up the mileage for me from the middle of George's Bank to Bermuda. I'll be in the Cabin."

"Sure thing, Cap'n" I says, dreaming of pink sand beaches and tropical drinks.

Six months later, we're back in homeport, D1 Patrol come and gone, back on the bridge doing charts for yet one more patrol. Captain Bernard again appears on the bridge.

"QM2, I been wanting to thank you for not telling anyone what I asked you about."

"I don't understand, Captain."

"About the mileage to Bermuda, remember? I asked LANT Area for a port break in Bermuda as a treat for the crew but they wouldn't approve it. And if you had told anyone what I was thinking, it would have spread throughout the whole crew. All it would have done is make people angry over something that just wasn't gonna happen. I have always appreciated that."

* * * * *

Oh, just a couple more. Let an old guy talk, will ya?

Master Chief Boatswain's Mate Diane Busey and Master Chief Lorie Pruitt, who sat on the Officer in Charge Review Board that certified me for Command. Master Chief Busey by all right should have been the first woman named Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard, and without Master Chief Pruitt's counsel, guidance, and advice I would have never made it.

* * * * *

Lastly, Master Chief Garry Moores.

A Son of Lubec, just like Hopley Yeaton, he was a legend along the Downeast Coast of Maine by the time I arrived aboard POINT HANNON as a Second Class, having spent three tours there already and now back for a second time as Officer in Charge. Master Chief Moores forgot more about shiphandling than I will ever know.

I was so proud when I learned I was the dock jumper. That's the crewmember who has to get to the fishing pier, or the blocks of granite at the quarry, or the seawall, or whatever, and handle the mooring lines when no one else is around. Then I found out it was also the crewmember you can most afford to lose in the drink because they're not much good at anything else.

Anyway, I would stand outside the lifelines on the bow, and if I so much as hopped Master Chief would let me have it. "Phil, if I can't get close enough for you to step across, just hang on and I will back up and make another approach."

I learned by watching the Master Chief that so long as you keep your screws in good water and know at any given moment just where your bow is and where it is moving, you can make a patrol boat do anything. When we would go anchor in Rogue Island Master Chief would take the back entrance. The coxswains back at Station Jonesport were afraid to take the 44 footer through there. I'd stand on the bow and point out the granite rocks just below the surface but I could have saved my effort really. Master Chief had grown up lobstering all along that coast and could probably draw you an accurate chart of every track strictly from memory.

Also, when we would bring a fishing trawler in for a catch seizure, and Master Chief Moores figured there would be press and tv cameras waiting, he maybe used way too much throttle pulling in to the Portland Fish Pier. But you also knew that at the very last moment he would kick the rudders, split the throttles, then jam them to All Stop in time to float, bobbing, right up to kiss the pier.

Driving home from Portland, if the weather was bad, we would take the inland route. There was only one bad stretch where if the bar was breaking on Petit Manan you had to go outside to get around. Sure enough one day I'm driving back and it is blowing fresh from the Sou'east and on the long Northerly stretch to Moosabec Reach we are taking swells on the starboard quarter. This results in steep rolls where the port rail is dragging through green water, and I am scared whether she is ever going to come back up.

I swear, right in the middle of one of these death rolls I hear a "thump. thump-thump!" The trap door in the deck from below flies open and Master Chief hops through up on the ledge, with a cup of coffee in his hand. A full cup of coffee!

"Master Chief, have they ever lost an 82?"

"Rolling over? Nah, she'll always come back up. The HANNON can take more than the crew can."

Of course, he had come up just to see what the heck I was doing to his ship. But I have never felt more reassured than seeing him with that cool, no-big-deal attitude. And the cup of joe.

Leaving Cape Cod Canal on a Sunday, having been relieved of SAR Standby in Woods Hole early, we are standing out to sea through Massachusetts Bay. There is this huge, gentle, groundswell, about three feet high and maybe fifteen, twenty seconds apart, coming right out of the Northeast. What that means, I know now, is that there is one big blow far far out to sea, and it is coming to get you.

This was the Great Halloween Storm of 1991. The book and movie called it The Perfect Storm. And we are just trying to get home.

Twelve hours later I am still on watch. The swells are now twenty feet high and six or eight seconds apart. I know they were an easy twenty feet because I had been logging them as fourteen and Master Chief chewed me out. We are abeam of Isles of Shoals off the coast of New Hampshire and Master Chief asked me if we should turn and try to make it in. "Master Chief, big as these seas are we don't dare turn sideways to 'em. I don't see any choice but to keep taking them right on the head."

When BM1 Westcott called me on the bridge to say he was too seasick to take the watch, I told him: "that's alright, Bud ... I want to see the wave that's gonna kill me."

All day and into the night, I am driving the cutter like a surf boat: powering up the face of the advancing wave, then chopping the throttles at the top to shimmy down the back. Somehow, somewhere in the middle of that long night, we finally spot the three colored sector beam on Portland Head Light and reach a lee.

Master Chief Moores: I apologize. I will never be blind-sided by the weather ever again.

* * * * *

There are a hundred others I don't have time to mention. Right, now back to YOU

What I am trying to say is, you are going to have a blast. This is a great job, but it is the people you will meet who make it worth doing. And you can't be a great leader until you first learn to be a follower of great leaders. When you get to your new billet, don't be in a hurry to hook up with people. Take some time to look around. The real characters, the real leaders, will be very easy to pick out. Trust me, they will.

And when you make coxswain, or leading petty officer, or Chief Boatswain's Mate, or ... the ultimate ... Officer in Charge ... don't be quick to judge someone. Hold your water and consider if you will that someone maybe sees something you don't, or sees the same things you do in a different way. Listen to what they are saying and try to figure out what it means to you.

And that fine day when you reach the top, and it all comes down to you, you will have a huge storehouse full of tools you can use to create your own way of leading people.

It's not hard for me to imagine that there are more than a few Warrant Bosuns, or Chiefs, and a whole string of XPOs telling some kind of Master Chief Wolf story right now. “Remember that time Master Chief got that look in his eyes and said, 'Watch this here'?”

Go home. Have fun on leave. Come back and take good care of my Coast Guard.

Thank you.

Crying time

This morning I drove to a pet shelter and surrendered two kittens. A cat who was obviously someone's pet adopted me this year and gave me three kits in a litter. I have raised them in my kitchen for the past two months. They already had personalities and would look for me hearing my voice when I entered the kitchen. I was already in tears by time I got to the shelter. I just cannot give them all the attention and care they deserve. It is so hard to say goodbye to someone I love.

Just over a year ago I lost a new pet to a car, after an agonizing, painful day and night at emergency. On March 15 I held my dear sweet Natasha in my arms while the vet administered the euthenasia drugs after seventeen years together. Her brother Boris is showing signs of his own age. I thought we were all going to make it into retirement.

I am keeping mama and Curious George, but even as I assume responsibility I know I think love will last ... but I am wrong.

I can't take such heartache.

Everything takes longer than you think

Cut the power, pulled the medicine cabinet, opened the wall. That's all.

When you hit drywall with an ordinary carpenter hammer you can usually turn it sideways to maximize the damage, you get a nice satisfying "Smock!" - and the whole head goes clean through. Usually. Not here. I hit this wall with the business face at half-speed and nothing happened. Took three tries with increasing moderate force and all I got out of that was a half inch hole. Knocking out a small rectangle took twenty minutes. Very ugly. Just what the hell kind of drywall IS this?

Well, got my keyhole saw out thinking that I would have to saw the wall away then noticed that it is a full one inch thick. What? ... ah, I see what you did there ... THIS stuff is regular wallboard and a double layer of plaster over it. Always wondered why the walls in the rest of the house were crappy ragged peeling away and the bathroom the only square, smooth room in the joint. So I grab my trusty jigsaw and start to trim it out with power, arrgh! and of course this fills the air in (both bathroom and sunroom) with choking fine white powdery dust. Just freaking lovely, and you can trace my track by the footprints all over the house, of which there are many because, you see, whenever you are working on two sides of the same wall from two different rooms there will be many, many occasions you need exactly the sidecutters and gaze longingly at them sitting peacefully on the table out of reach in the other room through the hole you just opened.

Note to self: Google "plaster dust hazards"

And now a note on the beautiful subtleties of home improvement. Today was a day I once again fully understood the admonitions in my favorite renovation books that taking on an old home destroys family and domestic bliss. I spent all day and this is all I have to show for it. But I take my time because that is my basic currency these days; I can trade my own labors for speed. Here is the backside, the sunroom ... a number of things to take note of here, some of which really piss me off:

• "T" framing in opening to be removed for glass block, no big deal, but notice the angle cut below it. That is where the original stud was cut out when the add-on kitchen was built. Trouble is, this is a load bearing wall and there was NO provision for taking the strain. I will have to construct a doubler above to bridge the opening and place a cripple stud above it to lay the strain off against the two studs they did not cut on either side.
• Whole lot of bastard framing goin' on.
• This is LUMBER here, folks. An honest 2" by 4". Rough cut. None of this dimensional, nominal stuff you buy at Lowe's. Probably milled on site back in the 19teens. Compare the darker studs with the amber one at right used to frame in the bathroom closet I removed. I can smell the pungent pine sap every time I saw or drill.
• The white and yellow wires lower left are new, installed by me. The outlet box lower right (seen from behind) was original to the house, the wires I cut are visible above it. I got to it just in time.
• DAMNIT. Look at this. The top neutral wire isn't covered by the outlet screw, in fact I do not know what was holding it at all. When I put a screwdriver to the screw there wasn't any torque to it. It was twinned with another to jump the power off this outlet to an overhead light, which isn't in itself wrong, but myself I would run one pigtail under the screw and splice the second circuit into it somewhere back inside the box. Not try to get two #12s under a screw post meant for one.
• Second side, the hot, are covered ... BUT ... the "buttonhooks" faced two directions! DAMNIT. The bottom one, the wrong-way one, will always be squished out from flush contact with the screw terminal when you torque the screw. How much time does it take to get the righty-tighty?
• I am so anal retentive over such stuff that I will often take a half hour just to install one outlet when I rewire. Take care not to nick the conductor when I strip the insulation off . Twist the buttonhook with my needle nose "just so" that I get a 3/4 turn and you can't see copper protruding from the screw when I'm done. Torque it down to specs, always. Wrap a turn of electrician's tape around the outlet terminals before I stuff everything in the box. Use #12 gauge when the code says I can use #14 gauge, #10 when it says #12. Loose connections cause sparks, sparks cause fires.
  
• Note no fire blocks anywhere between studs. And, this place was balloon framed, which means the studs run from the foundation footer all the way to the roof joists. One spark and everything goes. Bring hotdogs.
  
• Two wire, no ground. Rubber insulation crumbling from age. Jesus

Also today: Pickup would not start, dead battery. Lawnmower quit on me halfway through. Finally had to stop to think about dinner and I just could not stand myself. I stunk. So I rigged a shower using a sprinkler head and a wire deck chair. Can't say I recommend it but at least it has been in the 90s every day for a week and if you stink bad enough you don't think about the 60 degree water. Much. Interesting getting to all of the bitty parts, though ... let's just say I know something about how a bidet must feel.

End of the trail

long day's journey into night

Been off work a solid week for the first time in perhaps ten years. Not sure I know how to do this. Unless I serve something I wake up restless and unfocused. I am going to have to learn how to serve myself.

Work on the house is rewarding enough but at the end of the day it is still just me, an old old country place, and a passel of fleabag cats. Boris is of an age he looks now only for a warm place in the sun to sleep, and the small can of premium wet catfood at precisely 5:30pm. I stategically placed cardboard boxes near ledges and the bed he likes so he can get up without having to try to leap. Please don't tell him I told you that. I watch him stagger and stumble and stutter enough now to feel how it is for him. Seventeen is an awfully advanced age for a cat.

Here is the backside of the bathroom wall, where it faces the breakfast nook. (Bonus: zombie red-eyed kitten supervisors.) I plan to cut the power circuits tomorrow and rip out the medicine cabinet to open the wall between the studs. Enough to rough-in a four high by three long 8x8 glass block opening for light. The bathroom is such a hole. Then I will have to offset the waste line and hot/cold supply valves since I never liked the fact you could rest your chin on the bathroom sink while sitting on the can.

Funny how things have changed the last hundred years. No ... not broadband internet, cellphones replacing Western Electric, flat screen HDTV, Department of Homeland Security changes ... the fact stair bannisters in this place are a full six inches lower than you expect from a modern townhouse, and this bathroom is smaller than closets you find in homes built today. At least I can move the sink away from the pot. Humans a hundred years ago were different than you and I. They predominantly spent their days outdoors. And they were shorter.

I haven't shaved this whole time - Hell, I haven't bathed. I drove to 7/11 this morning to crap. I have to use a bucket from the kitchen to fill the tank to use the crapper at home. While there washing my hands I observed in the restroom mirror silver whiskers are hanging from wattles I never used to have. It occurred to me when I got home my selfwinding Rolexstopped right where I left it when it got too hot and sweaty to bother with anymore. A few days ago, don't ask me which. Then I remembered how pleased I was my old schoolhouse clock is re-energized and penduluming nicely again with just one swing after a few years' rest. The cretins I let use my house in my absence even broke the glass out of the dial face. How on earth does that happen? Obviously they had no need for such a quaint antique. No doubt they wore digital Casio LCDs.

I considered briefly being perturbed over the noise the clock makes, a background, gutteral "tock-TOCK!-tock" marking constant time here. You can hear it from anywhere in the house. I really don't like external drumbeats driving my internal clock anymore. Not at all. Not after living my whole adult working life with the precise moment I eat, sleep, shower, work, shit, quit, move, relax, talk, walk, wake, make, breathe, leave, love, live dictated by the military. They assign people twenty-four by seven by three sixty five to enforce such rules. I used to be one of them. And, I was very good at it.

Nope. By nature, I like getting up near sunrise every morning to spend two hours doing no thing. Nothing but listening to NPR Morning Edition sitting on the porch glider drinking my coffee. Doing the Sudoku and the crossword next in fresh gel inkpen only after I ensure the hanging birdfeeder in the purple crepe myrtle tree out front is freshly charged with safflower seed. The cardinals and goldfinches count on me.

Then I realized if not for the daily newspaper I wouldn't know what day it is.

Gotta serve something.

Wolf Creek

Bought this old place in 1997 when I was transferred to Virginia. Lived in it three years before I got called away someplace else. I had a string of oafs live in it over the past seven years, just trying not to let it burn to the ground. I'm 50 now, and told I have to retire from the Coast Guard so I am trying to adjust to being home fulltime. Got a lot of work to do and so let me get started ...

My ugly pink bathroom.

My water was rusty colored and there were some soggy spots in the yard, then one month my water bill shot up over $100. The place was plumbed in the 1950's when the old black family who owned this place embraced indoor plumbing and abandoned their outhouse. I know this because I found newspapers stuffed into the joists over the bath when I was tearing into some wiring. Daily Press, 1955 The expected lifespan of galvanized pipes is about fifty years.

So, I tried to get someone to give me estimates on the job. Peculiar thing around Tidewater is that the custom McMansions make so much more money than the miscellaneous $2,000 small job that it is near impossible to get a tradesman to stop by. So when Phil Moore of Moore's Plumbing said he would replace my water main with 3/4" copper and terminate it to a manifold under my kitchen sink like I wanted, and he could start Thursday, I just said "go ahead." I was afraid I wouldn't get another offer.

Now it's the hottest part of the Summer and I don't have a shower. I got the kitchen back in service but there is a little work between now and then. I'll keep you posted.

gotta start somewhere

Just a beginning. We'll see how this goes