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.