It’s Saturday morning and I just read what I wrote for the opening to Saturday’s issue.  Boy, I was in a bad way.  That was terrible writing!  I wrote it towards the beginning of the week.

Oh, and it was withdrawal I was going through.  My doctor and I worked it out.  Many people don’t realize that you can have withdrawal effects from many different kinds of medication.  And I had been on this medication for many years and coming off of it and going on a different medication caused me some serious side effects.

Many years ago I was on a regimen of opioids and morphine pills for pain that was, shall we say, quite extensive.  Then the whole “opioid crisis” started up and I had to go to a “Pain Clinic” to see a special “Pain Doctor” and, well, long story short, they were so annoying, and so expensive at a time when I really couldn’t afford it.  Plus, I truly believe that someone in their lab knew I worked for the government and switched my urine with someone else’s urine (oh yeah, monthly urine tests like you were probationary criminals, just to get the medications you used to get at the pharmacy every month) because they knew that I couldn’t have anything in my urine because it would cost me my job.  I did say long story short, right?  I got tired of their nonsense, quit all the opioids and morphine and everything, cold turkey and had no withdrawal symptoms at all.  

I had pain.

Boy did I have pain.  But, it’s just pain.  I learned to deal with it.

The point of this story, that seems to have gotten off track, is that I was extraordinarily surprised that stopping this medication and going on another similar one really, REALLY knocked me around this week.  And that has NEVER happened to me before.  It was a new experience; and not a pleasant one.

The other thing that needs to be said, thanks to you guys for listening and …

LOL!  I’ve actually had that experience in Germany.  After that I never made it to the far left lane on the autobahn unless I was all alone on the road…which was a rare, RARE thing. 

So Friggin’ Pete writes to us and says:

For the life of me I can’t understand if you know me well enough to invite me to your Halloween party……why don’t you know me well enough to not ask me to bring cookies……

So, I was looking at something else and got drug down this rabbit-hole on my favorite weapons platform, the A-10 Thunderbolt II.  I looked at one, and then got sucked down into about an hour or more of A-10 stuff.  I loved loading that bombs on the bird…even though it gave me stitches in my head about 5 times.  That darn UHF antenna!!  Anyway, this is one of the better videos that I found and I hope you enjoy!

Oh, and don’t let the title fool you.  They don’t talk at all about any secret plans to send them to Ukraine, it is just mentioned as a good idea and the implied super upgrade, is just the the normal modification to the A-10C model.  But still a VERY COOL video.

That is so true.

I’m really going to have to try this.

And our good buddy and fellow camper Stephen B sends this…

So you got this one…

But did you know this one?

If Delaware wore her New Jersey, what would Ohio wear?

I dunno, but Alaska.

I didn’t know either one of them…but I do, now.  It’s getting a little wordy in here.

My own personal favorite is Wendy’s Baconator!

And Stephen B. also sent another interesting fact, based on another cartoon that was used…

Are you aware…

…that Timmy never fell in the well in the TV series? 

“Jon Provost, who played the role, titled his 2007 memoir Timmy’s in the Well—but in the book, he points out what might seem unbelievable to us now: Timmy never once, in the show’s 571 episodes, fell in a well!”

We had a nice little conversation back and forth by email and we also determined that, believe it or not, Sherlock Holmes never said, “Elementary, my dear Watson.”  Thanks Steven, you’re are a font of quite interesting information.

Some of the best times I’ve had are spent alone, in the sky, with my thoughts…

Yeah…try talking about the 70s

The businessman dragged himself home and barely made it to his chair before he dropped exhausted.

His sympathetic wife was right there with a tall cool drink and a comforting word. “My, you look tired,” she said. “You must have had a hard day today. What happened to make you so exhausted?”

“It was terrible,” her husband said. “The computer broke down and all of us had to do our own thinking.”

Yeah, heaven forbid.

A tight dress is like a barbed fence.

It protects the premises without restricting the view.

Two mothers were talking about their sons.

The first said, “My son is such a saint. He works hard, doesn’t smoke, and he hasn’t so much as looked at a woman in over two years.”

The other woman said, “Well, my son is a saint himself. Not only hasn’t he not looked at a woman in over three years, but he hasn’t touched a drop of liquor in all that time.”

“My word,” the first mother said. “You must be so proud.”

“I am,” the second mother replied. “And when he’s paroled next month, I’m going to throw him a big party.”

Okay, we all saw that coming.

Another one of our vacation homes.

These are taken from  resumes and cover letters and were apparently printed in Fortune Magazine:

1. I demand a salary commiserate with my extensive experience.

2. I have lurnt Word Perfect 6.0 computor and spreadsheet progroms.

3. Received a plague for Salesperson of the Year.

4. Reason for leaving last job: maturity leave.

5. Wholly responsible for two (2) failed financial institutions.

6. Its best for employers that I not work with people.

7. Lets meet, so you can ooh and aah over my experience.

8. You will want me to be Head Honcho in no time.

9. Am a perfectionist and rarely if if ever forget details.

10. I was working for my mom until she decided to move.

11. Failed bar exam with relatively high grades.

12. Marital status: single. Unmarried. Unengaged. Uninvolved. No Commitments.

13. I have an excellent track record, although I am not a horse.

RULES FOR DOGS 

VISITORS: 
Quickly determine which guest is afraid of dogs. Charge across the room, barking loudly and leap playfully on this person. If the human falls down on the floor and starts crying, lick its face and growl gently to show your concern. 

BARKING: 
Because you are a dog, you are expected to bark. So bark— a lot. Your owners will be very happy to hear you protecting their house. Especially late at night while they are sleeping safely in their beds. There is no more secure feeling for a human than to keep waking up in the middle of the night and hearing your protective bark, bark, bark… Yeah, this is the one that I like best.

LICKING: 
Always take a BIG drink from your water dish immediately before licking your human. Humans prefer clean tongues. Be ready to fetch your human a towel. 

HOLES: 
Rather than digging a BIG hole in the middle of the yard and upsetting your human, dig a lot of smaller holes all over the yard so they won’t notice. If you arrange a little pile of dirt on one side of each hole, maybe they’ll think it’s gophers. There are never enough holes in the ground. Strive daily to do your part to help correct this problem. 

DOORS: 
The area directly in front of a door is always reserved for the family dog to sleep. 

THE ART OF SNIFFING: 
Humans like to be sniffed. Everywhere. It is your duty, as the family dog, to accommodate them. 

DINING ETIQUETTE: 
Always sit under the table at dinner, especially when there are guests, so you can clean up any food that falls on the floor. It’s also a good time to practice your sniffing. 

HOUSEBREAKING: 
Housebreaking is very important to humans, so break as much of the house as possible. 

GOING FOR WALKS: 
Rules of the road: When out for a walk with your master or mistress, never go to the bathroom on your own lawn. 

COUCHES: 
It is perfectly permissible to lie on the new couch after all your humans have gone to bed. 

PLAYING: 
If you lose your footing while chasing a ball or stick, use the flower bed to absorb your fall so you don’t injure yourself. 

CHASING CATS: 
When chasing cats, make sure you never— quite—catch them. It spoils all the fun. 

CHEWING: 
Make a contribution to the fashion industry….Eat a shoe. 

A saleswoman is driving through an Indian reservation toward home when she sees an Indian woman thumbing for a ride on the side of the road.

As the trip had been long and quiet, she stops the car and the Indian woman gets in.

After a bit of small talk, the Indian woman notices a brown bag on the front seat.

“What’s in the bag?” asks the Indian woman.

“It’s a bottle of wine. I got it for my husband,” says the saleswoman.

The Indian lady is silent for a moment then says, “Good trade”.

I can verify the veracity of that statement…as, I’m sure, can many of you.

Joe and Dick went out drinking one night and didn’t get home till the wee hours.

They see each other the next day at work and Dick asks, “Did your wife have much to say when you got home last night?”

Joe replies, “No, but that didn’t keep her from talking for two hours.”

An eccentric philosophy professor gave a one question final exam after an entire semester dealing with a  broad array of topics.

The class was already seated and ready to go when the professor picked up his chair, plopped it on his desk and wrote on the board: “Using everything we have learned this semester, prove that this chair does not exist.”

Fingers flew, erasers erased, notebooks were filled in furious fashion. Some students wrote over 30 pages in one hour attempting to refute the existence of the chair.

One member of the class however, was up and finished in less than a minute.

Weeks later when the grades were posted, the rest of the group wondered how he could have gotten an A when he had barely written anything at all.

They found his answer consisted of two words: “What chair?”

Real Science Papers Written by Kids

One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to drag a horse 500 feet in one second.

You can listen to thunder after lightning and tell how close you came to getting hit.  If you don’t hear it, you got hit, so never mind.

When they broke open molecules, they found they were only stuffed with atoms.  But when they broke open atoms, they found them stuffed with explosions.

While the earth seems to be knowingly keeping its distance from the sun, it is really only centrificating.

Most books now say our sun is a star.  But it still knows how to change into a sun in the daytime.

A vibration is a motion that cannot make up its mind which way it wants to go.

Many dead animals of the past changed to fossils, others preferred to become oil.

Vacuums are nothings.  We only mention them to let them know we know they are there.

Some people can tell what time it is by looking at the sun.  But I have never been able to make out the numbers.

I am not sure how clouds get formed.  But the clouds know how to do it, and that is the important thing.

In making rain water, it takes everything from H to O.

Rain is saved up in cloud banks.

Cyanide is so poisonous that one drop of it on a dog’s tongue will kill the strongest man.

Thunder is a rich source of loudness.

Isotherms and isobars are even more important than their names sound.

It is so hot in some parts of the world that the people there have to live in other places.

Not sure if that one … and some of the upcoming ones … are really that “political” but since I’m running a bit low in my political category, we’ll take what we can get and laugh just the same.  Right?

LOL!  Okay, there is a bit of a difference here.  Nobody wants a drug addict with a gun.  Especially not the legitimate gun owners.

Well, writing this from the perspective of the day before any prospective shut down, I don’t believe enough of them are concerned about it.  And that’s the biggest problem that should be addressed.  If you and I waited until the last possible moment to address our own personal budgets or allowed our households to run at an enormous deficit, it would be wrong on so many different levels.  These men and women are NOT doing the jobs they were hired to do.  This is all part of their job description.  This should have been hammered out, worked out and completed PRIOR TO the end of the fiscal year.  But one party will ALWAYS play games with the other party and we do this stupid dance every single time.  We hired these folks to take care of this country.  AND THEY ARE NOT DOING IT.  There is an invasion going on at the southern border.  They want to sent another huge bunch of money to Ukraine when we have a $33 trillion deficit in our country.  It’s a wonderful thing to help out the needy.  A Godly Blessed thing.  But we have needy right here at home.  That’s all I’m saying.  They are not doing the job we hired them to do.  It’s time to fire the ones who aren’t doing the job and replace them with ones who are.  I know that sounds awfully simplistic and probably a bit naïve, but folks, it’s got to start somewhere.  

They didn’t even do that.  They said they’d use if for whatever they wanted to.  Then they said they’d use it for the people, because they realized that, in turn, would free up other money to use on their nuclear program.

ROFLMAO!  Yup, that’s the way it works.

RULES FOR DOGS WHO HAVE A HOUSE TO RUN

1. If you have to throw up, get into a chair quickly. If you can’t manage that in time, get to an oriental rug (or any good rug will do).
2. Always accompany guests to the bathroom. It is not necessary to do anything, just sit and stare.
   
   
3. Do not allow closed doors in any room. To get a door opened, stand on your hind legs, and hammer with your forepaws.
   
   
4. When supervising cooking, stand behind the left foot of the cook, where you will be stepped on, picked up, and consoled with food.
   
   
5. When a door is opened, use it. When you’ve ordered an outside door opened, it is important to stand halfway out and think about several things. It is especially important during cold weather, rain, snow, or the mosquito season.
   
   
6. Begin people training early. Humans need to know the basic rules. They can be taught if you start early and are consistent.

A salesman was trying to talk a farmer into buying a bicycle, but was meeting with considerable sales resistance.

“Shucks, I’d sooner spend my money on a cow,” said the farmer.

“Ah,” replied the salesman, “but think how silly you’d look riding around on a cow.”

“Humph!” retorted the farmer. “Not near as silly as I’d look trying to milk a bicycle!”

Grandpa was celebrating his 100th birthday and everybody complimented him on how athletic and well-preserved he appeared.

“Gentlemen, I will tell you the secret of my success,” he cackled. “I have been in the open air day after day for some 75 years now.”

The celebrants were impressed and asked how he managed to keep up his rigorous fitness regime.

“Well, you see my wife and I were married 75 years ago. On our wedding night, we made a solemn pledge. Whenever we had a fight, the one who was proved wrong would go outside and take a walk.”

Real Signs and advertisements… 

Signs In a clothing store: “Wonderful bargains for men with 16  and 17 necks.” 

In the window of an Oregon general store: “Why go elsewhere to be cheated, when you can come here?” 

In a Pennsylvania cemetary: “Persons are prohibited from picking flowers from any but their own graves.” 

On a Tennessee highway: “Take notice: when this sign is under water, this road is impassable.” 

From the safety information card in America WestAirline seat pocket:”If you are sitting in an exit row and can not read this card, please tell a crew member.” 

On a Maine shop: “Our motto is to give our customers the lowest possible prices and workmanship.” 

On a delicatessen wall: “Our best is none too good.” 

RULES FOR THE BOSS (does this remind you of someone?)

1. Never give me work in the morning. Always wait until 4:45  and then bring it to me.  The challenge of a deadline is refreshing.
   
   
2. If it’s really a rush job, run in and interrupt me every 10 minutes to inquire how it’s going. That helps. Even better, hover behind me, and advise me at every keystroke.
   
   
3. Always leave without telling anyone where you’re going. It gives me a chance to be creative when someone asks where you are.
   
   
4. If my arms are full of papers, boxes, books, or supplies, don’t open the door for me.  I need to learn how to function as a paraplegic and opening doors with no arms is good training in case I should ever be injured and lose all use of my  limbs.
   
   
5. If you give me more than one job to do, don’t tell me which is priority. I am psychic.
   
   
6. Do your best to keep me late. I adore this office and really have nowhere to go or anything to do. I have no life beyond work.
   
   
7. If a job I do pleases you, keep it a secret. If that gets out, it could mean a promotion.
   
   
8. If you don’t like my work, tell everyone. I like my name to be popular in conversations. I was born to be whipped.
   
   
9. If you have special instructions for a job, don’t write them down. In fact, save them until the job is almost done.  No use confusing me with useful information.
   
   
10. Never introduce me to the people you’re with. I have no right to know anything. In the corporate food chain, I am plankton. When you refer to them later, my shrewd deductions will identify them.
    
    
11. Be nice to me only when the job I’m doing for you could really change your life and send you straight to manager’s hell.
    
    
12. Tell me all your little problems. No one else has any and it’s nice to know someone is less fortunate. I especially like the story about having to pay so many taxes on the bonus check you received for being such a good manager.
    
    
13. Wait until my yearly review and THEN tell me what my goals SHOULD have been. Give me a mediocre performance rating  with a cost of living increase. I’m not here for the money anyway!

A man came into a shop with a ‘Salesman Wanted’ sign in a window. He went up to the owner and said, “I-I-I w-w-waannn-t the j-joooob-b.” “I don’t know if this job would suit you because of your speaking impediment,” said the owner.

  “I h-h-havvve a w-wi-wiiiife and s-s-s-six k-kkkids, iiii-I re-really neeeed thi-thi-this j-j-job!” said the man.

  “O.K. Here are three Bibles. Go out and sell them.” Said the owner.

  So the man went out and came back an hour later. “H-here-sss your m-m-money.” said the man. The owner was impressed, so he gave the man a dozen more Bibles and sent him out. The man came back in two hours and said, “Her-ers y-yooour m-m-money.”

  The owner said, “This is fantastic. You sold more Bibles in three hours than anyone has sold in a week. Tell me, what do you say to the people when they come to the door?”

  “W-welllll,” said the man, “I r-r-ring the d-door bell, a-a-and s-s-say ‘H-Hel-Hello, M-m-maaaaddam, d-d-do you w-w-want t-t t-to buy thi-thi-this B-B-Bible, oooor d-d-do y-you w-w-want m’me t-toooo read it t-t-t-t-to you?”

Two very nervous men got to talking in the doctor’s waiting room.

They discovered they had similar symptoms: one had a red ring around the base of his penis and the other one had a green ring.

The fellow with the red ring was examined first.

In a few minutes he came out, all smiles, and said, “Don’t worry, man, it’s nothing.

Vastly relived, the second man went into the examining room, only to be told a few minutes later by the doctor, “I’m sorry, but you have an advanced case of VD. I’m afraid you’ll have to be castrated.”

Turning white, the young man gasped, “But the first guy… He said it was no big deal!”

“Well, you know,” said the doctor, “there’s a big difference between gangrene and lipstick.”

Interesting facts about Leonardo da Vinci

Born out of wedlock to a notary from Vinci, Leonardo’s origin was swiftly quieted by his grandfather as his father sired him with a peasant woman named Caterina.
His deep attachment to his mother, whose absence he keenly felt, found expression in his artistic creations. His encounter with her is rumored to have occurred solely at her deathbed.
In spite of Leonardo’s exceptional talent and the tutelage of Verrocchio, he was unlettered in Greek and Latin – a consequence of his illegitimate status barring him from a traditional humanist education. He candidly referred to himself as ‘omo senza lettera’, or a man without letters.
His stay in Florence was marred by an accusation of sodomy, a disgrace he barely escaped by avoiding the gallows, but could never entirely distance himself from.
Leonardo’s lack of formal education didn’t endear him to Lorenzo the Magnificent in the sophisticated Medici circles, leading him to venture elsewhere for fortune.
Endowed with a range of skills, Leonardo was not just a painter, but also a scientist, architect, engineer, and even a musician. He found himself orchestrating shows and banquets at the ducal court. However, in spite of his numerous roles for the Duke, his financial condition was often strained, and he was frequently left pleading for alms from the Moor, likely Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan.
A relentless perfectionist, he was known to juggle myriad tasks concurrently, often frustrating his patrons with his constant procrastination.
Leonardo’s thirst for knowledge was insatiable. A self-taught observer, he would spend his mornings studying the countenances of passersby, recording them in his notebook, later employing them as models for the apostles in The Last Supper.
His observations were not limited to humans; they extended to the careful study of animal and plant species. His renowned painting, the Virgin of the Rocks, is said to depict hundreds of different plants from his studies. His writings, completed in distinctive ‘mirror writing’, from right to left, could only be deciphered with a mirror.
His demanding nature and complex character led to the majority of his disciples abandoning him, with some tragically resorting to suicide.
As legend has it, he frequented graveyards at night to dissect bodies for studying human anatomy, an act that led to accusations of witchcraft.
Leonardo’s lifelong dream, bordering on obsession, was to enable human flight. His radical ideas were dismissed as madness, leaving his ambitions unrealized. He was a visionary ahead of his time, a misunderstood genius.
In his final days, he was in foreign lands, in a state resembling exile, accompanied by a few loyal followers, but largely forgotten. While Raphael’s fame soared in Rome, Leonardo’s memory faded.
Today, he is a subject of fascination, his life and works extensively speculated upon by authors like Dan Brown in the popular novel, The Da Vinci Code, exploring a purported hidden truth about the Holy Grail and Leonardo’s The Last Supper.

A nurse was showing some student nurses through the hospital.

“This will be the most hazardous section in the hospital for you.

The men on this floor are almost well.”

We spend so much effort sometimes, going over the things that are bad and disturbing in life, even most of my asides in Dragon Laffs lately have been more rants than praises lately.  It’s been so hard to find good news to talk about.  Well, our brother and fellow camper, Sasquatch sent an email called Positive Pictures of Humanity and although I know I’ve run it before and although I know it’s not the most recent of things, it’s still a wonderful thing to review and to exhort.  So, please enjoy these with me…                                                                   

March 2019

July 2014

February 2017

August 2016

1969

April 2016, September 2019, July 2022, and too many others to list

September 2017

November 2021

May 2000

November 2018

June 2015

And I went on line and tracked each one of these down and put the dates in and read some of the articles that go along with the pictures.  I was disappointed to find out that one of them that was sent to me was faked.  This one…. 

The picture was photoshopped as an April Fools joke and the someone else took it and added the words to it later.  It just goes to show you.  Well my friends, that’s it for now.  May God Bless you and keep you until next time.