"You walk around like you’re oh so debonair, you pull 'em down and there's really nothing there. I wish you would just be real with me"

I am generally pigeon holed as the one of the 5 Guys with the most clearly defined political allegiances due to my affiliation with the governing body of the local GOP. And while it is certainly true that I am more of a Packaderm than a Jackass, I have never worn political blinders. Dubya has proven himself to be living, (mouth) breathing buffoon and it is well established that Dick Cheney is an evil robot wired for mayhem. With that said, the three nights of the circus that has been the Democratic National Convention are about to get the proper lampooning that they deserve. I’ll give Michelle Obama her due for delivering a well prepared and heart felt speech on the first night, but it was tainted by the 197 shots of a smirking Joe Biden sitting in the balcony like he was King George. It really takes a lot of gravitas to be quite that smarmy when you haven’t had a genuine thought of your own in your entire career. Let’s keep in mind that this is the very same man who once had a Presidential campaign of his own derailed when he blatantly plagiarized a speech from British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock, right down to details of family history, that while true for Kinnock, were bald face lies when Biden attempted to apply them to his own clan. So you’ll have to forgive me if I’m not won over by shots of Biden’s 91 year old mama and his “folksy” stories about how she raised him because, let’s be real, they probably aren’t true anyway. This does not even take into account his claim last night that he is really, truly great friends with John McCain, just seconds before he went on to attack McCain on a personal level. The fact that if Obama got elected, some reprehensible racist hillbilly would probably try to kill him, making Biden the POTUS pretty much seals up my vote for McCain. None of this even takes into account the Clinton’s spotlight hoggery of the whole event. From Hillary’s “ringing” endorsement to Bill’s “Candidate X” analogy less than 24 hours before he “urged” the party to unite behind Obama, it all reeks of disingenuousness. The always self-serving Clintons are best served by Obama losing, allowing them to carry the “I told you so” torch for the next four years when Hills could look to unseat McCain as we enter Year 10 of toiling in Iraq.
Lest you think I am blasting only the Dems for a week display, I’ll be back next week to discuss all of the GOP’s shenanigans in Minneapolis.

"Squalls out on the gulf stream, Big storm comin' soon"

Please don’t misunderstand the intent of this post, I am by no means discounting the severity of hurricanes. We have all seen the destruction that storms like Katrina and Andrew can cause. With that said, there is not another natural disaster that comes with quite as effective of a built in escape clause. Tornados, Earthquakes, and the like give no warning, they are on you in a heartbeat. Hurricanes, on the other hand, give you at least a week to board up the windows, stock canned goods, go to the liquor store, work yourself into a false panic, hunker down, and generally be well prepared for the absolute worst. This is both a blessing and curse. Because of the damage wreaked by the afore mentioned storms, every time there is a “Tropical Event” in the Caribbean or the Gulf people around here start evacuating the trailer parks, closing the schools, and heading to Home Depot to stock up on a bunch of over priced merchandise they’ll never end up using. Case in point would be the Fair Lady Fay blowing through our fine state this morning. Schools in 7 surrounding counties are closed today for a storm that never even reached hurricane status and thus far has left the hardest hit areas with some palm fronds down in the streets and a few traffic lights out. By this afternoon, as the storm meanders its way northward, we will be experiencing some winds and rain with slightly more kick to them than what we get every other afternoon during the summer in this sub-tropical climate that we have chosen to live in. Like most native Floridians, my home is at all times stocked with the necessities for riding out this type of storm: A flashlight, a few cans of Spaghetti-O’s, and a bottle of liquor. I think we’ll all be just fine.

"There's a place in the dark where the animals go, you can take off your skin in the cannibal glow"

It has been an absolutely crazy couple of weeks. More plot twists than a mid-90’s season of Melrose Place. I’m not sure if I’m coming or going right now.
For the past 18 months or so Mrs. GF and I have been renting and living in a fairly non-descript, older house. Like all houses (especially older ones) it had its issues but for the most part was acceptable. Our story of woe began about two months ago when we started to notice sounds and certain “remnants” that would indicate that we had some sort of rodent visitors. We called our land lady, a sweet older woman who has always been very quick to help when things went wrong. She recommended a few things we could try ourselves to rid the house of these pests and said she would have someone come out. Days went by, no one came out, and the problem didn’t seem to get any worse…..until about two weeks ago when these little rodent buggers started having a house party every night in our attic, walls, and floors. The noise was such that Mrs. GF kept thinking that we had actual villains breaking into our house. In fact, two Sunday evenings ago as I waited at baggage claim in the Knoxville airport, I got a teary a call insisting that we had an intruder in the house. As if this was not bad enough, the next morning I got a text stating that a foul smell had begun to develop in the house. By the time I got home on Tuesday afternoon the house was totally unlivable. The smell of death was so overpowering that flies had begun to form around the windows and it took every bit of restraint to not gag when we entered the house. Mrs. GF and I packed up Dog and headed for the Lake House (my parent’s home 15 miles away). The next day our land lady had a very thorough and expensive exterminating crew over to the house. They sealed every possible entrance, placed traps, and (most importantly) removed a dead possum from the attic. Whew! Problem solved, right? Not so my friends. We returned to the house to find that while the smell was not quite as over powering, it still lingered in the house. Over the course of the next several days (all while staying at my parent’s) we would return to the house and attempt to air it out by opening all the windows and doors, using various odor absorbers, and cleaning as thoroughly as we knew how….yet the smell would not be conquered. On Saturday when we returned to the house (total days we had been displaced at this point: 5) we discovered that mold had formed along a wall that separated the kitchen from the bathroom. We had long suspected that there was a build up of water in this wall so while the mold was certainly appalling, it was not totally unsuspected. Well as Popeye himself would say “I’ve stands all I can stands and I can’t stands no more!” The mold was the final straw and after a very long conversation Mrs. GF and I decided it was time for a move.
This is just the beginning of the fun. This particular move could not come at a worse time, both financially and from a timing stand point. Due to schedules, etc… we had to find a place immediately. Fortunately, Mrs. GF is very good at internet research and we were able to find an acceptable place and execute a lease all on that very same Saturday. This left me feeling a little, how you say…over a barrel, since we still had an existing lease on the House of the Damned. The following day we had some negotiations with our land lady who suddenly went from sweet grandmotherly type to stone cold business woman who tried to bilk us out of thousands of dollars to break the lease, rats, mold, and stench be damned. We finally came to a compromise that I think satisfied neither us nor her, but would make the issue go away. We spent the rest of yesterday moving all of our furniture to the new place and thanks to the diligent help of my parents, were able to spend last night in the new place. The new residence is what is I would call a Luxury Apartment. Very different from any place I have ever lived and certainly from a house with a yard. Dog is still learning to walk on a leash. With that said it is just so new and clean and vermin free that we slept the sleep of angels in our own bed last night. Additionally, because it is gated, Mrs. GF feels very secure when I am out of town for work (as I am the rest of this week) and I can feel free to booze it up in various cities of the Southeast United States without worrying for her safety. There is a lot left to do in the next week or so to be completely out of the old house and rid ourselves of the whole smelly mess, but we’re moving in the right direction.