Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category

08/27/2024 “BUMPER STICKERS”   Leave a comment

I went out early this morning to do a little food shopping and I noticed something that’s been bugging me for a while now. It seems to me that people these days are just criminally boring. One of the few pleasures that I’ve had over the years has been locating and reading funny bumper stickers. Those types of bumper stickers are damn hard to find anymore and I’m not sure why. I guess we can thank the WOKE generation for all of those good influences (that was sarcasm). The only thing you see these days are decals on their rear windows telling the entire world how many kids they have, what pets they have, what sports they like, and what schools they attend. It’s like a shopping list for perverts and pedophiles.

One of my favorite things when I purchased a new car was to always find just the right bumper sticker. Many years ago, I purchased a cute little orange Gremlin. It was a cool little car, and I immediately chose an appropriate bumper sticker that said, “Honk If Your Horny.” I received lots of comments from a variety of people and it was always good for a chuckle or two. I once loaned that car to my sixty-five-year-old very Catholic mother for her weekend shopping trip to Pittsburgh. When she got home, she couldn’t wait to tell me how friendly the people in Pittsburgh were because they were honking and waving to her wherever she went. I didn’t have the heart to tell her about the bumper sticker, but she eventually found out. Funny, she never asked to borrow that car again.

I just never see those interesting kind of bumper stickers anymore. Here are a few samples of bumper stickers that are still out there but they’re few and far between. Most drivers these days are deathly afraid of offending someone. So, with that being said, here are a few you might enjoy but be careful about who you show them to, they might get offended.

I’m looking for true love, but I’ll settle for cheap sex.

Ask me if I care.

Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go everywhere.

Love is a four-letter word.

If your phone doesn’t ring, it’s me.

See Dick drink. See Dick drive. See Dick die. Don’t be a dead Dick.

Nobody’s ugly after 2 A.M.

Fight Crime. Shoot Back.

Ask me. I might.

It is as bad as you think, and yes, they are out to get you.

HAPPY MOTORING

04/06/2024 “SPRING ICE STORMS”   Leave a comment

I think today I’ll keep this post rather short. I’m actually celebrating the fact that after two and half days of having no electric, no Internet, no phone service, and just generally cold and crappy weather, the storm has ended, and things are beginning to normalize. This ice storm destroyed most of southern Maine by damaging trees, adjacent homes, and dangerous conditions for any traveling. We have trees down everywhere and there’s still a few hundred thousand people in Maine with no power. I guess I got lucky that my street was repaired only after we sat in the dark and cold for two days. This is the second such storm in as many months totaling eight solid days of no utilities Internet, power, etc. etc. etc. It just brings home the fact that we rely on technology for damn near everything. Unfortunately, it’s also the first thing to fail.

I’ll probably be spending a great deal of time in the next few days trying to clean up the property because in my backyard alone I have three trees down and they have to be removed. I know that sounds bad but compared to most of the neighbors in this area I got off with minor damage. I thought I had all of the contingencies covered with storm preparation by installing a generator to carry the load when the electric goes out. Unfortunately, when the generator was supposed to kick in and turn on the electric it failed to work. Trying to find service people during a storm crisis is ridiculously difficult but I did get lucky. I made one call requiring that I travel 2 miles from my house, stand on my car roof and wave my hands in the air to get a signal in the midst of all this chaos. I guess I have to believe in miracles because within a half an hour of making that call, I returned home to find the electrician, his son, and a truck load of parts in my driveway. They dismantled my generator and immediately corrected the problem. As I write this, I’m still amazed. Things like that almost never happen but I’m certainly glad they did.

After all of that aggravation the power was fully restored this morning and now the cleanup begins. I hope and pray there are no more surprise spring storms showing up. Nothing good comes of these storms except if you own a Home Depot or Lowe’s, then you’re making a damn fortune. More to come in the next day or so and hopefully I can get this blog back to normal by then. Meanwhile . . . .

STAY WARM AND DRY AND PRAY FOR SPRING TO ARRIVE

02/08/2024 Obscure U.S. History   1 comment

As all of you should be aware, I am a lover of history. Not just that run-of-the-mill American history that everybody knows about and has read about in textbooks. I like quirky, odd, and obscure stories of American history. Here are a few samples of some historical notes about the United States that the majority of you never heard of.

  • The United States has profited greatly twice at the hands of a nation that viewed Great Britain as their enemy. In 1803, France, aware it could not hang on to the vast Louisiana Territory, sold it to the United States for 2 1/2 cents per acre rather than have it fall into Great Britain’s hands. In 1867, Russia sold the 586,400 square miles of Alaska to the United States for less than two cents an acre. The logical purchaser would have been Great Britain, whose minions in Canada bordered the land on the East, but Russia considered Great Britain to be an enemy (Britain had won the Crimean War against the Russians and sided with the Confederacy in the United States Civil War).
  • The Pony Express, which has lived in legend for more than a century, lived in fact for less than two years. Indian raids curtailed service on the 1966-mile route between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California. The transcontinental telegraph finally replaced it in late 1861.
  • In 1813, Major George Armistead, command of Fort McHenry, placed an order for a flag “so large that the British would have no difficulty in seeing it from a distance.” In fulfilling the commission for that flag, subsequently celebrated as “Old Glory” and “The Star-spangled Banner,” Mary Pickersgill and members of her family sewed over 400 yards of bunting into a banner 30′ x 42′, costing $405.90. This was the flag that Francis Scott Key saw that “was still there.” It hangs today in the Smithsonian Institution.
  • The American Colonization Society was formed, in 1816, by the Rev. Robert Finley of New Jersey, for the purpose of establishing an Africa colony to which the 200,000 U.S. blacks freed by slaveholders or born to free parents could be sent. Prominent slaveholders like Calhoun, Clay, Randolph, and Jackson supported the Society because they feared the threat to slavery posed by free blacks. Congress was persuaded to lend aid for land purchases. In all, about 15,000 blacks left America for the colony, which came to be called Liberia. The capital is named Monrovia, for President James Monroe.
  • The first nation to receive foreign aid from the United States was Venezuela. In 1812, Venezuela, fighting for its independence from Spain, suffered a severe and damaging earthquake. Congress appropriated $50,000 to help the victims.
  • Eskimos use refrigerators to keep food from freezing.

I wish I could live seventy-five more years and then be able to read a blog similar to this explaining to the citizens of that time how weird, stupid and crazy we were. It would probably be worth a million laughs to those future citizens. The Clinton years alone could supply enough weirdness laughter and gagging for many blog postings.

HOW’S THAT FOR LAW AND ORDER?

01/15/2024 Love Letter from a Steeler Fan   2 comments

Who doesn’t love Buffalo?

🌨️🌨️🌨️

Well, it’s Sunday and the Steeler game has been canceled until Monday due to weather concerns. It’s a little annoying but not all that surprising for anyone who’s ever been in Buffalo during the winter. In my previous life as a regional manager for a national chain I was assigned stores in Buffalo and Niagara Falls. I swear to God that every time I made a trip there during the winter, I ended up getting snowed in and spending an extra day or two in order to give the citizens time to clean up the snow, open the roads, and allow me to fly the hell out of there. Buffalo is a nice town (sarcasm) but not a place I’d like to spend any extra time in. I’ve been to Niagara Falls and unfortunately if you’ve seen one waterfall you’ve seen them all. With that being said and since my day has been interrupted, I thought I’d get a little silly. Everyone seems to love the limericks I post so I offer you a few odd ball limericks today. These are tongue twister limericks written by a gentleman named Lou Brooks in 2009 in a book of the same name. Enjoy . . .

❄️❄️❄️

Nosy Rose got closed in a closet of clothes,

The clothes closet closed on Rose’s red rosy nose,

She tweaked on her beak,

For over a week,

Rose’s nosy red nose now hangs close to her toes.

🌨️🌨️🌨️

Walt walked and talked on his wife’s walkie-talkie,

Walt’s wife’s walkie-talkie made Walt’s talky-talk squawky.

Wide awake while Walt walked,

Was what Walt was while he talked,

While Walt’s wife walked her way to Milwaukee.

Two of these should be sufficient. Trying to get a computer program to type these as I speak is ridiculous. Here’s a description of my day in a nutshell.

☃️💗☃️

MY DAY (so far)

cat in my lap

rain on my brain

binging on weirdness

tales of the grimm

⛷️⛷️⛷️

GO STEELERS

07/29/2023 “Lest We Forget”   Leave a comment

I’m feeling a bit feisty today, so I’ll post this rather lengthy rant. I also understand that asking many of our so-called concerned citizens to read something longer than two paragraphs is asking a lot. There are somethings I can choose to forget but not forgive. There are other things that I will never forget or forgive. Unfortunately, the attention span of a great many Americans is quite short except when they’re inconvenienced by a TSA screening. The following test will remind our brilliant lawmakers and most casual citizens that there are things that should never be forgotten. Unfortunately, many casual citizens and politicians who see a wrong perpetrated against this country just shrug their shoulders, make a lame speech, wipe a tear from their eye, and then immediately return to the business of politics and feathering their own nest. Let’s have a quick memory test to determine who is actually paying attention these days.

USA History Exam

(For the chronically uninformed)

1. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by:
a. Olga Korbitt
b. Sitting Bull
c. Arnold Schwartzeneger
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

2. In 1979, the U.S. embassy in Iran was taken over by:
a. Lost Norwegians
b. Elvis
c. A tour bus full of 80-year-old women
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40.

3. During the 1980’s a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by:
a. John Dillinger
b. The King of Sweden
c. The Boy Scouts
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

4. In 1983, the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:
a. A pizza delivery boy
b. Pee Wee Herman
c. Geraldo Rivera
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

5. In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked, and a 70-year-old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in his wheelchair by:
a. The Smurfs
b. Davy Jones
c. The Little Mermaid
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

6. In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a U.S. Navy diver trying to rescue passengers was murdered by:
a. Captain Kid
b. Charles Lindberg
c. Mother Teresa
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

7. In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by:
a. Scooby Doo
b. The Tooth Fairy
c. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

8. In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by! :
a. Richard Simmons
b. Grandma Moses
c. Michael Jordan
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40


9. In 1998, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by:
a. Mr. Rogers
b. Hillary, to distract attention from Wild Bill’s women problems.
c. The World Wrestling Federation
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

10. On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked; two were used as missiles to take out the World Trade Centers and of the remaining two, one crashed into the US Pentagon and the other was diverted to a crash by the passengers. Thousands of people were killed by:
a. Bugs Bunny, Wiley E. Coyote, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd
b. The Supreme Court of Florida
c. Mr. Bean
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

11. In 2002 the United States fought a war in Afghanistan against:
a. Enron
b. The Lutheran Church
c. The NFL
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

12. In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by:
a. Bonny and Clyde
b. Captain Kangaroo
c. Billy Graham
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

As the writer of the award-winning story Forrest Gump so aptly put it, “Stupid is as stupid does! But an even better quote comes from comedian Ron White:

YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID



07/25/2023 “NATIONAL PARKS”   Leave a comment

It seems that the great majority of people in this country love to visit our national parks. I’ve never been one to spend much time in them, but I do understand the interest. As I did my research, I stumbled upon some other interesting facts not so much about the parks but about the interesting people who visit them. We humans are an interesting lot but at times just totally and completely stupid. That statement is due primarily to the following list. It is actual questions asked of Rangers and Visitors Bureau employees who work in the parks. The questions are so silly and humorous there’s no need to post the answers. Read them and have a laugh or two.

Can you show me where the yeti lives?

How much does Mount McKinley weigh?

Did people build this, or did Indians?

Why did they build the ruins so close to the road?

How much of the cave is underground?

How do you turn Old Faithful on?

We had no trouble finding the park entrances, but where are the exits?

What is the best time of year to watch deer turn into elk?

Where can we find Amish hookers? We want to buy a quilt.

What is the official language of Alaska?

HAPPY VACATIONING

11/16/2022 “Things You Want to Know”   Leave a comment

THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW YOU WANTED TO KNOW

SEX

  • It is illegal In Arizona for a secretary to be alone with his or her boss.
  • In Oklahoma you must be married in order to have sex legally.
  • It is illegal to kiss for more than 5 minutes In Iowa.
  • In Indiana it is illegal to be in a state of sexual arousal in public.
  • Talking dirty during sex is illegal in Oregon.
  • In Arizona it is illegal to have more than two dildos in a household.

TRANSPORTATION

  • The Lincoln Highway from New York to California was the first coast-to-coast highway in the United States. It opened for travel in 1913.
  • The last model T Ford was produced on May 26, 1927.
  • The first electric traffic light was installed in Cleveland Ohio in 1914.
  • The first parking meter in the United States was installed in 1935.
  • The first speed limit law in the United States was established in Connecticut in 1901. The limit for cars in cities was 10 miles per hour.
  • The first mountain bikes were made in the United States in 1979 by Charles Kelly and Gary Fisher.

FOOD & DRINK

  • Starbucks Coffee Company was named after Starbuck, a character in Moby Dick.
  • The hot dog was invented by Charles Feltman in 1874.
  • Hershey’s Kisses got their name because the machine that makes them looks like it’s kissing the conveyor belt.
  • There are over 5900 Dairy Queens throughout the world.
  • There are over 3000 varieties of tea.
  • Cotton Candy made its debut in 1904 at the World’s Fair in St. Louis.

I TOLD YOU, YOU’D WANT TO KNOW

06/23/2022 🤖The Final Frontier🤖   Leave a comment

HOME SWEET HOME

With space travel once again becoming fashionable, we can thank the SpaceX corporation. Not only have they been innovative, but they’ve also become a thorn in the side for NASA. It’s good for the country to finally have a competitor for NASA that is quite simply “kicking their butt” and giving the big finger to the Russians as well. I foresee China as eventually becoming the leader in all things space-related unless some catastrophe slows them down a little. Unfortunately, I don’t see them reacting to disasters as we do. They would likely close ranks and keep right on going until their goals are met. Elon Musk will become their only real competitor for a time. With all of that in mind let’s check out a little “Out of This World” trivia.

  • A 150-pound earthling weighs in at 4200 pounds on the sun’s surface.
  • A lightning bolt on earth is hotter than the surface of the sun.
  • On Venus, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
  • Also, on Venus their day is longer than their year. It takes longer for Venus to rotate on its own axis than it does to complete one orbit around the sun.
  • NASA uses the same rocket technology used by TIE fighters in the Star Wars saga. TIE stands for “Twin Ion Engine” which propelled a deep space probe launched by NASA in 1999.
THE SUN
  • More than 1000 earths would fit inside Jupiter.
  • All the other planets in the solar system would also fit inside Jupiter twice.
  • Gravity is caused by a warping of space and time.
  • Time has not always existed. According to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, before the Big Bang, everything, including time, was packed together into an extremely tiny dot.
  • “Ten elite brains” is an anagram of Albert Einstein.
VENUS

BANG, ZOOM, TO THE MOON ALICE

06/10/2022 “Sci-Fi”   Leave a comment

I am a huge fan of science fiction. I’ve spent most of my life reading everything I could concerning science fiction and the space program. I thought I’d post a few tidbits of information about our solar system and space program that you may not be aware of.

  • Miss Baker was the name of a 1-pound squirrel monkey sent into space aboard a United States missile in 1959. She traveled more than 10,000 mph to an altitude of 300 miles and had little trouble with liftoff, reentry, or weightlessness, which were extremely important test results for the upcoming manned missions. Apparently being the first monkey in space made her a little feisty. Upon recovery, she bit the person who removed her from the capsule.
  • Here’s how to figure out how much you weigh on another planet. Multiply your weight by the “gravitational pull” factors. If you weigh 97 pounds on earth and want to compare that to your weight on Mars, multiply 97 x .38. You would weigh about 37 pounds on Mars.
  • Our sun is considered a yellow dwarf star and it’s estimated to have a lifespan of at least 5 billion more years. At the end of its life, our sun will turn into what’s called a white dwarf star and will collapse under its own weight. Be glad you won’t be around for that.
  • We all know there are eight (formerly nine) planets revolving around our sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune (Bye, Bye Pluto). There is a memory trick used by most space lovers to help remember the planets. Use this sentence: My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas. I wish I would’ve known that sentence when I was in school, it would’ve made things a little easier.

HOORAY FOR SPACEX AND NASA

06/03/2022 Raunchy Riddles   Leave a comment

A few days ago, I was digging around in the garage and going through some old boxes of what I thought were useless items. I came upon a book that was printed in 1985 which contained a host of one-liner raunchy jokes along with a few truly stupid riddles. Since a few of my family members continue to mumble and grumble about some of the so-called tasteless limericks I post, let’s see what they think about a few of these “oldies but goodies”.

  • What happens if a guaranteed condom breaks? The guarantee runs out!
  • How do dogs make love? Everybody nose!
  • Why did they name the new feminine hygiene spray ” S.S.Y.”? Because it takes the “PU” out of pussy!
  • Why did Donald Duck divorce Daisy? Her quack was too big!
  • What’s better than watching a girl wrestle? Seeing her box!
  • What’s a French chastity belt? A catcher’s mask!
  • Who’s the world’s greatest athlete? A guy who finishes first and third in a masturbation contest!
  • What’s the definition of a lady? Someone who doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink, and only curses when it slips out!
  • Why did the Greek take his wife on his business trip? Because he couldn’t leave her behind alone!
  • What’s the difference between a counterfeit dollar bill and a skinny girl? A counterfeit dollar bill is a phony buck!

Well, there you have ten of some of the worst jokes I’ve ever heard. Everybody’s always saying how much they loved the “good old days”, but not me. I think it’s time to take this book and put it back in the box in the garage and hopefully in ten more years maybe it will be funny, but I doubt it.

1981 Bumper Sticker

DID JOHN SMITH POCAHONTAS?