Gobble, Gobble

 I went to the grocers this morning to pick up some stuff for Thanksgiving.  Like q turkey and a ham, and some other stuff that Belle thinks we need.  One of the things on her list was a spiral cut ham. I didn't get the most expensive ham in the cooler, but there were none there that we could consider a bargain. A roughly nine-pound ham cost a smidgen over $40.00.  The turkey was no screaming deal either.  When the butcher starts the conversation by apologizing, you know his heart is in the right place.

I had a buddy, now departed, who would wait till after the holidays and buy a bunch pf hams after the season.  He'd cut them, slice them, and freeze them for use year around.  I recall deer camp breakfast would be ham and eggs.  Not a bad way to start the day.

Oh, I'm frying the turkey this year.  I know what I'm doing and won't burn the place down.  Regular old store-brand vegetable oil was $10.00 a gallon.  That price-gouge hurt more than the price of that ham.

I don't know what the new administration can do about food prices, but Bidenomics is killing us.

Education

 President Trump is making his picks, and it seems that he picked Linda McMahon for Education secretary. Trump is not a big fan of the department (neither am I), and it seems he wants to give Education back to the states.

That is a screen from Fox this morning.  Evidently, McMahon has been tapped to reduce the scope and size of the department.  Hopefully, she can reduce it to zero.

Defrosting

 We have this freezer in the garage, a stand-up freezer that I haven't opened in six months.  THis morning I opened it, to take stock, and found some deer meat in there from last year, which is okay.  And some stuff from several years ago that isn't okay..  Freezer burned, it's time to go away, so I moved the deer meat to another freezer and bagged up the discards for the garbage dumpster.

There is a huge layer of frost over the main cooling coils, and even though the freezer was billed as frost-free, every five years or so, it's a good idea to unplug it and let everything come to room temperature. That is the plan for today, which doesn't require much effort at this point.

I'll be prepping for Thanksgiving later this week and with Christmas just over the horizon, freezer space may be at a premium. So, it's time to get the freezer cleaned out.

Don't Touch The Boat

 Did you hear about this?  It seems that a Norwegian fishing vessel accidentally fouled the screws of a US Submarine.  Yeah, really.

Harald Engen was delivering halibut to a village on Norway’s west coast when he got a message that a U.S. submarine had gotten entangled in his 32-foot boat’s trawl nets while sailing near the surface and were dragging them out to sea, broadcaster NRK News reported.

Dude!

 The 377-foot, 7,800-ton, nuclear-powered USS Virginia was headed to port with a Norwegian Coast Guard vessel escorting. The Coast Guard crew needed to cut the submarine free.

Yeah, I don't know what to do with that information. 

Leaving X

 I see where Don Lemon, Stephen King and several other butt-hurt liberals are leaving the social media platform X.  Cool, they have caught up with me.  I've never had an X account that I am aware of.

Stephen King is a renowned author.  Great horror books, and I think that Shawshank was a magnificent work, but I don't care about his politics.  I simply do not care.

Don Lemon, the CNN host, has had his disagreements with Elon Musk.  One of those is a smart Arican American who moves America forward.  The other is Don Lemon. No one gives a shit where Don goes, as long as it is away.

The Young

 I see an article where it seems that colleges are increasing counseling services because the students are threatening suicide due to the reelection of Donald Trump.  What?

I was in college when the Watergate scandal embroiled the US.  Did I care one white?  No.  I was focused on three things.  1) Girls, 2) Grades, and 3) My part-time job, which allowed me to chase girls.  I married in early 1974 which changed my focus a bit, but the grades and partying on the weekend were just about all I had time to worry about.

But then, when I was in college, we were supposedly adults.  We could enter into contracts, get drafted, be went to Vietnam and die early.  We could also consume alcohol.  Life was different then, and no one treated us like children.  We were not children, that ended at high school.

Somehow along the way, we lost the idea that there is a bright line that a child steps across and becomes an adult. A time when the entire focus changes.  We had college counselors, but there was very little sympathy in those rooms.  The message was simple.  Grow up, get a life, or go home and tell your momma how bad it is in the real world.  I remember one bit of advise I got, that sympathy fell in the dictionary between shit and syphilis. No one cared how I felt.

Let's Talk About PT Tests

 In 1973 I took my fist PT Test at Fort Knox, KY.  A trainee in E-13-4, I lost 40 pounds in basic training.

In 1998, I took my final PT test for the Army.  I passed it, just barely, but I knew that it was time to retire.

The Army PT Test is weighted for age.  Old farts like me don't have to run the two miles as fast as the kiddos in the ranks.  My last PT Test I had to run 2 miles in 19:36.  I made it in 19:30.  And damn near puked at the finish line. I knew it was time to retire. I was 45 years old.  I think that at that time an 18-year-old had to run the test in 16-something to pass, with the max score in the 12 minute mark. Or something like that.

The point is, the Army PT Test is weighted for age.  No one expects a 40-year-old to make the same times or scores as an 18-year-old.  Bust, there are standards for the old farts, and they need to meet them.

As a trainee at Knox, I was surprised one morning to a General Officer doing PT with us. Then, he got in line for breakfast. At our company mess hall we had a horizontal ladder we had to traverse before we could enter the mess hall.  The General went through the ladder with the rest of us.  That is leadership.

When I was training with the 5th Division at Fort Polk, it was not uncommon to see the commanding General huffing and puffing his tired ass around the water towers.  From tower-to-tower was a 3-mile run and the General was out there with us.  That is leadership.

If a General Officer in the Pentagon cannot pass the standard APFT, he has no business being on active duty.  It's simple, it is a bsic standard,

The Appointments

 He's naming them quicker than I can keep track, but just about the time I heard the SecDef pick, I found this  comment.

Thomas says:

Pete Hegseth as SecDef! Exactly the kind of fire-breathing shot in the arm that's needed to clean house and start rebuilding it the way it needs to be.

I concur.  Were it me, the first meeting I'd have would require every flag officer in the Pentagon to meet me at a PT Field in gym uniform.  Those officers would take the PT test that they require basic trainees to pass.  Any that failed the test would be handed retirement papers and told to report to whichever office conducts out-processing.  That would send a message that basic standards must be enforced and that leadership is top-down.

House Control

 According to 270 to win, Republicans control 219 seats, Dems control 210, and 6 are undecided.  That gives the Republicans a slim majority to keep the house.

Trump has appointed Elis Stefanik as his ambassador to the United Nations,  Stefanik is from New York and I'm not sure how that state fills House seats between elections.

Until the House is decided, Trump needs to keep a close eye on appointing Congress-critters to his administration.  We don't want to give the Dems a foot in the door. We have to keep the House, and the Senate, if we want to get the agenda fulfilled, and this is certainly something that should be considered.

If Trump is looking for a Secretary of the Army,  PawPaw is available and won't wreck the House majority.

Jus' Wonderin'

 I heard something today and went to the Google to see if it was true.

Joe Biden got just over 81 million votes in 2020.  Trump got a little over 74 million.

Kamala got 71 million votes last week, and Trump got a but more than the 74 million he got in 2020.

So, I'm wondering what happened to those 10 million Biden votes?  Did they just stay home, or did they ever exist in the first place?  Did Biden get 10 million bogus votes in 2020?

Veterans Day

 The eleventh day of the eleventh month, and we recall the Armistice that ended the Great War to end all wars. Today is Veterans Day.  You are welcome.

I see that President Trump has appointed Tom Homan to be the new Border Czar.  That's a good pick, Tom knows what he is doing and what needs to be done.

I also see that some of Harris' acolytes are asking Biden to step down and make Kamala the president for the lame duck session.  Harris has that in her power via the 25th Amendment, but of course they are calling for a man to do something for her that she is eminently able to do for herself.

I have some stuff to do today, so I'd best get after it.