tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54748399735779676012024-03-18T23:58:45.910-05:00Paul In HoustonPaul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.comBlogger291125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-67946453393893139002020-01-03T18:19:00.000-06:002020-01-03T18:19:16.426-06:00SPAMBOT Barrier<span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b><i>I get LOTS of comments from SPAMBOTS; MOST of them for whatever post is at the TOP. So, THIS post is a barrier, set to allow NO Comments to it. Whenever I publish a NEW post, I edit the publication date and time of THIS one, to keep IT at the TOP. SO far, it has proven to be VERY EFFECTIVE. ;-)</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">-</span>Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-47167785754286548732020-01-03T18:04:00.000-06:002020-01-13T13:01:45.443-06:00Why SHOULD you?<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">... a LIKELY query to my requests for LARGE Donations to KEEP myself ALIVE </span><span style="font-size: large;">until the Houston Veteran's Hospital Social Workers can help me to find a more AFFORDABLE place for me to LIVE!!!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Problem is repeated requests for such help have resulted in NO ONE trying to reach me.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I fear they consider me literally DOOMED, and there is NOTHING they can do to SAVE me! :(</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U5d0CawcaUc/Xf4uIba01OI/AAAAAAAABuI/tIWGAPHvr0gDjOi3XQj0zw6xpu0fHDCJgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Donate-edit3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="640" height="292" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U5d0CawcaUc/Xf4uIba01OI/AAAAAAAABuI/tIWGAPHvr0gDjOi3XQj0zw6xpu0fHDCJgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Donate-edit3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">BUT, I really DON'T wanna DIE, and HOPE you will Donate anyway, whether you think I DESERVE it or not (knowing FULL WELL that SOME of you have gone WAY beyond the call of duty in THAT regard)!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">PLEASE!!!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-69124604431539919172019-12-21T08:58:00.000-06:002019-12-21T09:00:14.835-06:00Oh, GOD ... How EMBARRASSING! :(<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Emergency room trip! SOMETIMES, LIFE can SUCK!!!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">For several days over the weekend, my visits to the bathroom (for # 1) grew VERY frequent. Monday the 16th, the urination was burning and I felt weak and feverish, so I went. By SOME miracle, I made it there WITHOUT wetting myself. Tests disclosed a urinary tract infection, blood in the urine, and I was told that some antibiotics would be mailed to me, which I would take for ten to fifteen days, after which I'd need to return for more tests.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I phoned the VA Hospital the next morning, learned they HADN'T been mailed yet, and arranged for them to be held at the VA Pharmacy, where I would pick them up the next day, Wednesday the 18th (it can sometimes take a WEEK for the Mail to get them to me, and I wanted to start the antibiotics as soon as possible. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I DID, and am ON them now.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">To be able to MAKE that trip WITHOUT a minor catastrophe, I got a ride to Walgreens and spent a fair chunk of a donation on ... DIAPERS (Depend Fit-Flex)!!! AGGGGGHHH!!! I'm not READY for THIS!!! </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I could Really, REALLY USE another DONATION; it's liable to be a long and painful couple of weeks.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U5d0CawcaUc/Xf4uIba01OI/AAAAAAAABuI/tIWGAPHvr0gDjOi3XQj0zw6xpu0fHDCJgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Donate-edit3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="640" height="292" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U5d0CawcaUc/Xf4uIba01OI/AAAAAAAABuI/tIWGAPHvr0gDjOi3XQj0zw6xpu0fHDCJgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Donate-edit3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">GOD, how EMBARRASSING. Don't expect to see THIS on my blog! :(</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">THAT line above is how I ended the email I sent to friends. Obviously I am DESPERATE enough to have changed my mind.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I'll almost Certainly have emergency taxi trips and purchases to make, for which I have almost NO money. For God's sake, PLEASE!!!<br />-</span>Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-887606778824664502019-12-17T15:52:00.000-06:002019-12-17T18:39:07.873-06:00NEW variant of Nigerian email scam?<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Got THIS in an email of 16 DEC 2019 (sent to <i>'undisclosed-recipients'</i>) ...</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Hello how are you,I contacted you for the first time but did not receive
your response.I will appreciate you to contact me again hence I tell
you the content of my mail.Thanks J****.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Replied that day with ...</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>???</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">... and got back ...</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Hello Paul,<br /><br />I am looking for the possible beneficiary to the
deposited funds of my deceased client Mr A******** Gordon died with his
family; I decided to contact you hence I know that you bear the same
surname with him.<br /><br />I seek your consent and assistance in
repatriating money left behind by him before it gets confiscated or
declared serviceable by the Bank.The deposit is valued Four Million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars only and it is lodged with Bank.<br /><br />The
Bank has issued me an ultimatum to present the next-of-kin of the
deceased to claim the funds or have the account declared serviceable.<br /><br />I
hereby seek your consent to present you to the Bank as next-of-kin of
the deceased, so that the proceeds of this account valued of the said
fund can be transferred to you.I have necessary legal
information which in legal terms are supposed to be known by me and this
will I relate to you to support the claim from the Bank.<br /><br />All I
require is your honest co-operations to enable us see the transaction
through. I guarantee that the transaction will be executed under a
legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of
the law. I will appreciate you to contact me again for more detail and
to your better understanding to the claim process.<br /><br />Thanks, J**** M****. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">An attempt to reply to that last message, with the full content, got a <i>"Mail server error"</i> message from MY email server, which probably RECOGNIZED it for the Spam/Scam that it almost CERTAINLY had NUMEROUS reports on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">By DELETING that content, I was able to reply ...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><i>Sir:
<br />
<br />Gordon was my MIDDLE name, until I had it legally changed (a LONG time ago).
<br />
<br />I am TOTALLY CONFIDENT that I am NOT who you seek.
<br />
<br />Best of luck with your quest! :-)</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Any SNARKINESS you may have suspected is correct, but DAMN; how HANDY </span><span style="font-size: large;">Four Million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars could have been! </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">(<i>"What would you DO with a MILLION Dollars?" "Put it on my bills -- as far as it would go!"</i> ~Amos and Andy Radio Show)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Sigh ... :(</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">-</span></div>
Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-26230864756336403422019-12-06T20:17:00.000-06:002019-12-11T15:36:03.743-06:0047 years ago - Apollos 16 and 17 ...<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Originally written as TWO posts, in April 2010 - NOW combined into ONE!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">THAT'S how I posted this on 06 DEC 2019, and so noted in the emails announcing it ... the ENTIRE contents of BOTH posts, comments and all, making THIS post SUPER long.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">TODAY (Wednesday, 11 DEC 2019) I'm replacing that with the following LINKS to both of them, HOPING you have enough curiosity to give them a look. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<a href="https://paulinhouston.blogspot.com/2010/04/adventure-of-lifetime.html" target="_blank">Adventure of a Lifetime</a></h3>
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<a href="https://paulinhouston.blogspot.com/2010/04/adventure-continued.html" target="_blank">The Adventure - Continued</a></h3>
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<span style="font-size: large;">:-)</span><br />
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Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-4233222088970330582019-11-26T11:11:00.001-06:002019-11-26T12:41:57.600-06:00Options ...<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm gonna try sending a message to the VA Hospital to see if I can get an appointment with Social Workers there, to see if they can find SOMETHING that I am CAPABLE of doing to earn extra money to SURVIVE on. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I'd LOVE for them to check out this blog and see if it shows writing skills that would be EMPLOYABLE. Have I gone through it to weed out anything that might set off all sorts of alarms with them? Of COURSE I have; to claim otherwise would be an insult to their intelligence.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> THIS stuff ALWAYS takes TIME (which I'm rapidly running OUT of), ANY help you can provide (via the <i>PayPal</i> "Donate" button) ...</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jqmlwJ7_b0Y/XUsgkid8arI/AAAAAAAABkI/FeC6P-ywB9krqVsNdcJzIJkGGkU7577JwCLcBGAs/s1600/Donate-edit3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="640" height="291" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jqmlwJ7_b0Y/XUsgkid8arI/AAAAAAAABkI/FeC6P-ywB9krqVsNdcJzIJkGGkU7577JwCLcBGAs/s640/Donate-edit3.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">... will be APPRECIATED beyond words.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">THANK you; and BLESS you!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">-</span>Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-40124176278483727802019-11-20T13:46:00.000-06:002019-11-24T16:48:00.433-06:00An Open Letter to Creditors and Collectors ...<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I am 77, and my vision and physical condition make me damned near UNEMPLOYABLE. Other than a few donations from friends, who have literally KEPT ME ALIVE, my SOLE income is from Social Security. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">My assets amount to an apartment full of junk (SOME of which no longer even WORKS, but is difficult for me to take downstairs to the dumpster in my condition) that is WORTHLESS to anyone who would choose to SEIZE it ... and a 19 yr old used car that is UNDRIVEABLE and would take several thousand dollars to fix (I'd HOPED that the VA could fix my eyes well enough for me to be able to WORK again and start putting my LIFE back together; but THAT was NOT TO BE).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">If you choose to haul me into court, there is NOTHING in that process that will magically conjure up money THAT DOES NOT EXIST.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I am ALREADY being sued by ANOTHER collector, for a much smaller amount that is EQUALLY IMPOSSIBLE for me to pay. That process might well succeed in KILLING me via stroke or heart failure, but it won't PROFIT them in the least.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">When things started GOING TO HELL two years ago (eye problems I thought were cataracts (but included permanent optic nerve damage from glaucoma) costing me the part-time grocery cashier income supplementing my Social Security) I stopped using my credit cards, DESTROYED them, and STOPPED PAYING ON THEM (as I simply COULDN'T).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">For a LOOOONG time, I received emails and voicemails about this, from the creditors, and THEN from various collectors, but THAT was ALL.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I honestly DOUBTED they would REALLY do ANYTHING else; I may have LOTS of various opinions about creditors and collectors, but STUPID ain't one of them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">So, before hauling me into court, I hereby URGE you to INVESTIGATE the Hell out of me. If those investigators are worth even a fraction of what you'll pay them, they'll advise AGAINST pouring time and money into THAT rathole. I have absolutely NOTHING that is WORTH A DAMN to you; and THEY will CONFIRM that!!!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">FYI</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Paul Gordon</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">3433 West Dallas St, Apt 1102, Houston, Texas 77019</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">email: </span><a href="mailto:gordonp@airmail.net" style="color: #333333;"><i><b><u><span style="font-size: large;">gordonp@airmail.net</span></u></b></i></a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: white;">2307</span><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">-</span>Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-14548239091604645392019-11-12T12:56:00.002-06:002019-11-12T21:16:03.888-06:00"... or something. :-)"<span style="font-size: large;">- Memories of Michigan - Spring of '84.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In 1984, I left Houston to join an Air Force buddy, Claude W****, to manage the Data Processing unit of his Seismic Exploration Company in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I arrived on March 23rd (THREE days into Spring) ... STILL snow and ice all over the place. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A beautiful blonde Data Entry lady, Jane R**********, took one look at the Bomber Jacket I had for Winter wear ...</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jWPg_g429l8/Xcs6q2mDONI/AAAAAAAABsk/hgtNWufVfoYD9_PNXkUA8tQnaTjkotDlACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/61Rsp-EbO%252BL._UX679_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="679" data-original-width="679" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jWPg_g429l8/Xcs6q2mDONI/AAAAAAAABsk/hgtNWufVfoYD9_PNXkUA8tQnaTjkotDlACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/61Rsp-EbO%252BL._UX679_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">... and just laughed, <i>"PAUL!!! YOU'RE gonna DIE!!! :-)</i>". By the time Winter returned, I WAS much better prepared.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">When I arrived, the bookkeeper, Ceile S*******, introduced me, <i>"This is Paul Gordon - our new Data Processing Manager ... or something."</i> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">That was not a put down; it was just the way she talked. BUT, I've often regretted NOT having that <i>"or something"</i> on my business cards; it was such a PERFECT description of some of the positions I've held! :-)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">-</span>Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-51724109731818241672019-11-09T11:14:00.000-06:002020-01-11T16:16:49.233-06:00To ALL Veterans ... with LOVE ;-)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Found THIS on facebook some time ago. ...</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-T2-3KiGBYH8/XceHl_Q99AI/AAAAAAAABr0/pMlxXD2KPSoS3SzbdrWVXhkQurDlzMQ6QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/305058_403278233065475_1540905042_n-contrast.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-T2-3KiGBYH8/XceHl_Q99AI/AAAAAAAABr0/pMlxXD2KPSoS3SzbdrWVXhkQurDlzMQ6QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/305058_403278233065475_1540905042_n-contrast.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Paul Gordon - Ex United States </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">AIR FORCE</i><span style="font-size: large;">. ;-)</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>NOTE: </b>I<b> was </b>BORN Paul Gordon Binkley (Legally changing it to Paul Gordon on 26 OCT 1966) and THAT is how I was known to buddies in the USAF ...</span></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "trebuchet" , "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">(Originally posted late November 2018;</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "trebuchet" , "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> and reposted 2254 CDT 04 MAY 2019)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">-</span>Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-23563679551279884492019-08-06T14:22:00.000-05:002020-01-04T23:03:33.330-06:00.44 Special ...<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>06 AUG 2019 UPDATE</b> - After its seizure (noted in <a href="https://paulinhouston.blogspot.com/2019/07/im-sorry-were-closing-now.html" target="_blank"><i><span style="color: blue;">I'm sorry. We're closing now</span></i></a>) - <b>GOT it BACK!!!</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In October of 2000, fearing a possible Al Gore victory over George W. Bush (Gore being a gun-control fanatic), and preferring something without a paper trail associated with it, I acquired THIS ...</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uhoWnzh802k/XU7oIzKP79I/AAAAAAAABkg/VeE08zR0JZg-pPJ3ns1JxwCSyBM0AUjpQCLcBGAs/s1600/Charter%2BArms%2BBulldog%2B.44%2BSpecial%2B-%2B02-cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="923" height="506" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uhoWnzh802k/XU7oIzKP79I/AAAAAAAABkg/VeE08zR0JZg-pPJ3ns1JxwCSyBM0AUjpQCLcBGAs/s640/Charter%2BArms%2BBulldog%2B.44%2BSpecial%2B-%2B02-cropped.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">That is an old model Charter Arms Bulldog 5-shot revolver, with a 3" barrel, in .44 S&W Special caliber. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">That target shows the first five rounds I put through it, at ten yards, firing double-action (a misnomer actually, but it's commonly used to describe firing a revolver without cocking it first; just using a long pull of the trigger*).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">That <i>flyer</i> (the one furthest from the rest of the group) was the fifth one. With a .44 Special in such a light gun, the recoil is a very sharp <i>slap</i> that will sting the palm of your hand; <i>not</i> a fun gun to shoot. But it satisfied me that it should certainly get the job done.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">As for my ammunition of choice, I favor ...</span><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--DoyD49CYO8/T3c5tpeRN3I/AAAAAAAAAVU/kGq83mrfYFI/s1600/CCI+Blazer+.44+Special+200+Gr.+GDHP+-+from+smithwessonforum.com.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="350" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--DoyD49CYO8/T3c5tpeRN3I/AAAAAAAAAVU/kGq83mrfYFI/s640/CCI+Blazer+.44+Special+200+Gr.+GDHP+-+from+smithwessonforum.com.jpg" width="640" /></span></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">from smith-wessonforum.com</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">... because it's reliable, accurate, and falls into the <i>"will get the job done"</i> category. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And before anyone warns me that "lots of indoor ranges ban the use of Blazer ammunition as unsafe, blows up guns (often showing spectacular pictures of blown-up revolvers)", well know <i>this</i> ...</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">A lot of police departments throughout the country use this ammunition, for budgetary reasons. While the quality of their rangemasters may vary quite a bit, I suspect that most of those departments are <i>very</i> knowledgeable on lawsuits. That they keep using it is to me a pretty good sign.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">I think that what indoor shooting ranges <i>really</i> hate about Blazer is that they sweep up the fired cartridge cases and reload them. The Blazer rounds use aluminum cases, which don't re-size as well as the brass used by most other manufacturers. They also use <i>Berdan</i> primers (needing a special two-pronged decapping tool) instead of the more commonly used (over here) <i>Boxer</i> primer that can use a single pin though a center hole for removing the old primer.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">All that trouble probably keeps them from making a profit on reloading the Blazer cartridges.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">I've never encountered an <i>outdoor</i> shooting range that had any problem with shooters using the Blazer ammunition. They probably don't collect and reload the cases because it may be more trouble than it's worth to separate and clean them from the dirt, rocks and other debris on the ground there.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">(* - Ok, then. What does "double-action" <i>really</i> mean? It means there are <i>two</i> ways to fire the weapon.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">One: Cock the hammer first, allowing you to fire it with a light pull of the trigger, usually more accurate.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Two: Use a long (usually heavy and rough, although it varies greatly among different weapons) pull of the trigger, to raise the hammer and then release it in one motion. This is fastest, but not always very accurate. Mileage varies greatly among different weapons. Some Smith & Wesson models have very good and smooth trigger pulls when used this way, as does that Charter Arms Bulldog of mine.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">So, one of the greatest misnomers is a weapon described as DAO <i>(Double Action Only)</i> when it in fact has just a <i>single</i> mode of being fired: by pulling the trigger to cock and release the hammer.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Ain't semantics wonderful? :-)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">-</span>Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-31285106573441236042019-07-25T14:27:00.001-05:002019-07-27T13:04:42.428-05:00"... Time to die."<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">On January 23, 1944 in Breukelen, Utrecht, Netherlands, was born <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000442/" target="_blank"><i><b><span style="color: blue;">Rutger Hauer</span></b></i></a>: an amazing actor, once referred to as <i>"a Dutch Paul Newman"</i>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">His IMDb page (linked to his name above) shows 173 credits, but it was Paul Verhoeven's <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076734/" target="_blank"><i><b><span style="color: blue;">Soldier of Orange (1977)</span></b></i></a>, about the Dutch Resistance in WW2, that introduced him to me ... </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-enwwluLEmPs/XTolFbLvkuI/AAAAAAAABjk/wEfWhPslGocRdhigehqD_KFttRFYnEn6QCLcBGAs/s1600/soldier-of-orange-1600x900-cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="899" data-original-width="994" height="578" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-enwwluLEmPs/XTolFbLvkuI/AAAAAAAABjk/wEfWhPslGocRdhigehqD_KFttRFYnEn6QCLcBGAs/s640/soldier-of-orange-1600x900-cropped.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Cropped from image at </span><a href="https://www.filmlinc.org/films/soldier-of-orange/" target="_blank"><b><i>https://www.filmlinc.org/films/soldier-of-orange/</i></b></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091209/" target="_blank"><i><b><span style="color: blue;">The Hitcher (1986)</span></b></i></a> he was a chilling psychopath (more of an <i>elemental force</i> than a man), who seemed to have stepped right out of a Stephen King novel. HIGHLY Recommended ...</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H9arlzOcqZA/XTomjfYTDWI/AAAAAAAABjw/WqICahyykvcc49uROu3rC2Vcoz2-iTT8ACLcBGAs/s1600/unnamed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="900" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H9arlzOcqZA/XTomjfYTDWI/AAAAAAAABjw/WqICahyykvcc49uROu3rC2Vcoz2-iTT8ACLcBGAs/s640/unnamed.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;">From </span><a href="https://www.virtual-history.com/movie/film/8522/the-hitcher" target="_blank"><i><b><span style="color: blue;">https://www.virtual-history.com/movie/film/8522/the-hitcher</span></b></i></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But MY favorite of his many roles is the replicant Roy Batty, in Ridley Scott's <i><b><span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/" target="_blank">Blade Runner (1982)</a> ...</span></b></i></span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-afy2JNtKhSY/XTn_hzKuawI/AAAAAAAABjI/VyqvxedO9jUrsnoWyXSKKRmPNwnXgiUSACLcBGAs/s1600/137-cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1036" data-original-width="833" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-afy2JNtKhSY/XTn_hzKuawI/AAAAAAAABjI/VyqvxedO9jUrsnoWyXSKKRmPNwnXgiUSACLcBGAs/s640/137-cropped.jpg" width="514" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;">Cropped from </span><a href="http://www.teladoiofirenze.it/cinema-teatro/30-anni-di-blade-runner/attachment/blade-runner-rutger-hauer-as-roy-batty/" target="_blank"><i><b><span style="color: blue;">http://www.teladoiofirenze.it/cinema-teatro/30-anni-di-blade-runner/attachment/blade-runner-rutger-hauer-as-roy-batty/</span></b></i></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><b><span style="color: blue;"><br /></span></b></i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Although an adversary (NOT a villain), he is nothing less than the heart and soul of this movie about a soulless future; facing his (ENGINEERED) demise thusly ...</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mbW5uPJMkSA/XTn7XNVCQ7I/AAAAAAAABig/80ajS-2S6eUODIP7lUhSv7DhwJ5Xo5HSgCLcBGAs/s1600/ezgif-5-f096efa5a019.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="496" data-original-width="745" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mbW5uPJMkSA/XTn7XNVCQ7I/AAAAAAAABig/80ajS-2S6eUODIP7lUhSv7DhwJ5Xo5HSgCLcBGAs/s640/ezgif-5-f096efa5a019.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">From </span><i><b><span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://et.glbnews.com/07-2019/52780338982960/" target="_blank">https://et.glbnews.com/07-2019/52780338982960/</a></span></b></i></span></div>
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<i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time ... like tears in rain ... Time to die."</b></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>27 JUL 2019</b> - Piece of trivia found on IMDb ...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Rutger Hauer<span style="background-color: #fcfae7; color: #333333;"> came up with many inventive ideas for his characterization, like the moment where he grabs and fondles a dove. He also improvised the now-iconic line "<i>All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain"</i>. He later chose <i>"All those moments"</i> as the title of his autobiography.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">He left us on July 19, 2019 (age 75) in Beetsterzwaag, Netherlands.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">RIP Sir; you WILL be missed! :(</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">-</span>Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-7950755534522007832019-07-14T16:59:00.000-05:002019-08-21T14:28:03.031-05:00I'm sorry. We're closing now.<span style="font-size: large;">Somehow, I had naively assumed that the HEADQUARTERS of the POLICE DEPARTMENT of the FOURTH LARGEST CITY IN THE UNITED STATES would be a 24/7 operation.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This earlier post (<i>I</i></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 20.592px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: -1px;">ncident # *******-19</span><span style="font-size: large;">) ...</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>========================================</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Houston Police Department - Central Station </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>61 Riesner, Houston, Texas 77002</i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Attn: Officer *. ********** - Re: Incident # *******-19</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Dear Sir:</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">On Wednesday, 19 JUN 2019, because of fear of what a pending lawsuit could do to me, I asked my Primary Care Physician at the Michael DeBakey Veterans Hospital if they would STILL provide funeral assistance to an Honorably Discharged Veteran IF circumstances (that lawsuit) forced him to take his own life.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">THIS resulted in his calling the Mental Health people, and YOU coming to my apartment to check on me and take me to the VA Emergency Room, where I spent the rest of the evening being physically checked, and then interviewed by a psychiatrist, until they were satisfied that I was NOT a danger to myself and RELEASED ME, with a two-week supply of prescription anti-depressants (Escitalopram Oxalate).</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">You seized my pistol, "for safekeeping", and left me a receipt.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">I would like to know how I go about retrieving it. I gather (from the receipt) that you would have to sign off on it. If you are worried about ME, let me present these arguments ...</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">1) Come October, I'll have possessed that weapon for 19 YEARS.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">2) It has ALWAYS been CLOSE and AT HAND.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">3) Even SO, HERE I AM.</span></i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>I have lived with weapons at hand (usually pistols; often more than one) for over half a century. The 19 years I mentioned above is just for THIS one. In all that time, I've had MANY ups and downs, emotionally; yet STILL I remain.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Don't forget; AFTER after the VA people CHECKED me and their psychiatrist INTERVIEWED me, I was RELEASED! If they thought I was a DANGER to myself, not only were they PERFECTLY CAPABLE of KEEPING me there overnight (or longer) for observation; they would have been LEGALLY OBLIGATED to DO so. That they DIDN'T suggests they considered me a bit "down" at the time, but NOT serious enough to be KEPT there.</i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">I Honest to God believe myself in GREATER DANGER from just WALKING (I've had SEVERAL falls; some resulting in broken bones, and ONCE almost being run over in traffic) than I've EVER been from that pistol.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Paul Gordon</span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>3433 West Dallas St, Apt 1102, Houston, Texas 77019</i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">email: gordonp@airmail.net phone: 713-***-****</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">-</span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>======================================== </b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">... is a longer, more explanatory version (emphasizing my RELEASE) of a letter that I conjured up for the Officer who TOOK my pistol, and was mailed to him (via USPS Certified Mail) on Friday, 21 JUN 2019.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It SHOULD have been delivered Monday, 24 JUN 2019.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">NEVER happened; an investigation by the USPS resulted in being told by them that it was irretrievably LOST.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I printed out another copy and took a taxi to the 1200 Travis Street Headquarters building (having been told that the 61 Riesner location has NOT been PUBLICLY accessible since Hurricane Harvey in 2017) on Saturday, 13 JUL 2019, only to discover it CLOSED. One lonely uniformed Officer (probably just there to WATCH the place) informed me, <i>"This is the WEEKEND; NOBODY'S here!"</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">He was kind enough to accept the letter, promising to get it to the Mail Department, who would see that the Officer the letter is meant for WOULD get it (probably sometime in the middle of the week.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">POLICE DEPARTMENT CLOSED?!!!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">NOT what I expected.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I couldn't help flashing back to Nicholas Meyer's WONDERFUL <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080025/" target="_blank"><i><b><span style="color: blue;">Time After Time (1979)</span></b></i></a> in which a young H. G. Wells (BRILLIANTLY played by Malcolm McDowell, in a role almost a polar opposite from the ultra violent Alex of "A Clockwork Orange") who has actually BUILT a time machine and shows it to guests, among whom is a doctor who turns out to be Jack the Ripper and uses the machine to escape to the future. When the machine automatically returns (as it was meant to do) Wells goes in pursuit, and the movie makes a few observations on MODERN life. including ...</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1WM09vKX4vk/XSukHMOFPUI/AAAAAAAABhU/LAxXm8dvlQUuXAF-hi7CeU1CnrEqGtgWwCLcBGAs/s1600/Time%2BAfter%2BTime%2B1b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="481" data-original-width="850" height="362" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1WM09vKX4vk/XSukHMOFPUI/AAAAAAAABhU/LAxXm8dvlQUuXAF-hi7CeU1CnrEqGtgWwCLcBGAs/s640/Time%2BAfter%2BTime%2B1b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7pjISTufRwM/XSukTNj9EmI/AAAAAAAABhY/U1sVLdomUBEv2XAc1FbfGkib3zLVv7rmACLcBGAs/s1600/Time%2BAfter%2BTime%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="852" height="360" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7pjISTufRwM/XSukTNj9EmI/AAAAAAAABhY/U1sVLdomUBEv2XAc1FbfGkib3zLVv7rmACLcBGAs/s640/Time%2BAfter%2BTime%2B2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">MY reaction to the Police Headquarters being CLOSED.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">:(</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">-</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-20302727701321128282019-05-05T17:03:00.000-05:002019-11-26T12:15:17.537-06:00Shaking our tree.<span style="font-size: large;">- 04 Oct 1957 - SPUTNIK!!!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>This</i> little dingbat scared the <i>Hell</i> out of many of us then ...</span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3Qq5g6JEjAE/UGxpqx9P7II/AAAAAAAAAnw/56mxMIobtA8/s1600/Sputnik+-+from+citizenship+typepad.com.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="321" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3Qq5g6JEjAE/UGxpqx9P7II/AAAAAAAAAnw/56mxMIobtA8/s400/Sputnik+-+from+citizenship+typepad.com.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">from citizenship typepad.com</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Nothing but a polished metal sphere of 585 mm (23 inches) diameter with a mass of 83.6 kilograms (184 lb) and carrying only a radio transmitter, it definitely got our attention.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>THEY</i> got there <i>FIRST!</i> <i><b>Oh, Man!!!</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">You see, those were the thrilling days of yesteryear when the Soviet Union was ruled by Nikita <b><i>"We will bury you"</i></b> Khrushchev who, just the year before, had sent columns of tanks into Hungary to crush a rebellion there (just his way of stating <i><b>"THAT is a NO-NO!"</b></i>).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The days of <i>"Duck and cover"</i> drills in public schools (<i>not at all</i> insane; if a nuke hit several miles away instead of on top of you, that could make the difference between <i>surviving</i> versus being <i>shredded</i> by glass blown in by the shock wave if all you did was just stand there and <i>gawk</i> at the explosion. Nukes are powerful, but not <i>infinitely</i> powerful. They <i>can</i> be survived, and <i>have</i> been. See reports of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for hard evidence. (Although, in an essay on civil defense, Robert A. Heinlein advocated <i>situational awareness</i> (paying attention to what's going on in the world) and summed up surviving the bomb in seven words: <b><i>"Don't BE there, when it goes off!"</i> </b>))</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">That innocent looking thing was placed into orbit by ...</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mqnsAel4Grc/UGxw5shGlgI/AAAAAAAAAoI/xz4KOy__3kk/s1600/Sputnik1LaunchNovosti+-+from+on6wj-sputnik.blogspot.com.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mqnsAel4Grc/UGxw5shGlgI/AAAAAAAAAoI/xz4KOy__3kk/s1600/Sputnik1LaunchNovosti+-+from+on6wj-sputnik.blogspot.com.gif" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">from on6wj-sputnik.blogspot.com</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">... the R-7 launcher (for a long time referred to as T-3), which evolved from an ICBM whose primary purpose was to transport a thermonuclear bomb from Point A (somewhere in the Soviet Union) to Point B (somewhere in the USA).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The local newspapers ...</span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L7nBnLZSlfc/UGxzFBkzHTI/AAAAAAAAAoQ/y-BET9bA7Rw/s1600/SALIGHT+-+05OCT1957.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L7nBnLZSlfc/UGxzFBkzHTI/AAAAAAAAAoQ/y-BET9bA7Rw/s640/SALIGHT+-+05OCT1957.jpg" width="458" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">San Antonio Light, 05 Oct 1957 - from newspaperarchive.com</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">... published times of when to see it in the morning or evening, when it would be brightly lit by the sun.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">To read or hear about the Soviets (listening to the radio when they were stomping on the rebellion in Hungary was heart-wrenching) while they were on the other side of the world was bad enough, but a bit abstract.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">To walk out into your back yard and actually <i>see</i> this bright little silver dot in the sky slowly moving overhead, and realizing <i>there they are</i>; well, that's a whole 'nother story.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">(Originally published 1239 CST, 03 OCT 2012)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">-</span>Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-74730343360297003372019-04-21T13:04:00.000-05:002019-12-08T09:48:11.660-06:00Serendipity<span style="font-size: large;">noun -<i> the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Through all my careers, I have become self-taught on slide-rule, logarithms, computers and programming.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I taught myself how to use the slide-rule while still in the USAF. It wasn't part of my training; someone had discarded one and I salvaged it, just becoming fascinated with what I could do with it.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Same with logarithms; after I became a civilian, with none of my Air Force skills all that useful, the unemployment agency sent me to a local junior college for a drafting course. A book we were given on mathematics for engineering had a chapter on logarithms at the back. Once again, it was NOT part of the curriculum, but I just thought it so cool to be able to perform fractional roots and powers with them.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The early part of my engineering career was in the slide-rule days. Give one of those to modern day engineers, and I'll bet you some would be trying to figure out, <i>"How do you turn it on?" </i>(<i>"With a really interesting problem."</i>, I would respond. :-)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">That particular career (before I moved into IT) was from 1964 to 1984, and during nearly half of it, the most modern tool we had was an electric adding machine. I truly kid you not; we had one engineer who used an <i>abacus</i> (and was damned good with it).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It was the late 1960's before someone tried to interest us in a four-function electronic calculator, about the size and shape of an IBM Selectric typewriter, using a bank of tubes showing 7-segment numbers for the display and costing about $600.00 (at a time when that was one third the price of a brand-new Volkswagen Beetle). We passed on the deal, at that time. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A couple of years later, I bought a Miida calculator (still only four-function) for about $170.00 from Sears, making me the first in the company to have one. It got popular very quickly. I even worked out a three-step method of averaging to get very precise square roots from it (we used those a lot in electrical calculations) and felt pretty damned good about that (although slide-rule accuracy was actually more than sufficient for our purposes -- it was an <i>ego</i> thing for me, I suppose).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Of course, another year or so, and the same amount of money bought an 80-function calculator. Since then, prices and sizes of those things have dropped so much that the only thing keeping them from becoming <i>Cracker Jack</i> prizes is fear of lawsuits if a kid swallows one.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Twice in 1972 and once in 1975 I had made trips to Titusville, Florida (12 miles due West of Cape Canaveral's launch pads on Merritt Island), to watch the launchings of Apollo 16, Apollo 17, and the Apollo-Soyuz missions. (Be patient; there IS a reason for THIS item in THIS post.)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I left the Air Force early, but honorably, and had no contact with any of my former buddies there until 1975 (I think) when, in a Sears department store here in Houston, a man stepping off the escalator behind me asked, <i>"Excuse me. Aren't you Paul Binkley?"</i>. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I was trying to remember if he was an architect client of ours when it hit me that he had addressed me by a last name I hadn't used in nine years (another story, probably never to be revealed). He was one of the bunch I had been with, and was now living just north of Houston and working as an exploration geophysicist for Shell Oil Company.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I got back together with him and his family. <i>That</i> was a bit of a miracle. Have you ever run into someone that you knew from long ago, only to find so much has changed that you no longer have <i>anything</i> in common anymore?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A couple of years later he and his family moved up to Mt. Pleasant, in central Michigan, where he joined a seismic exploration company there. Another couple of years and he's broken off from them and started his own company (also seismic exploration).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In the meantime, several things had been going on. I'd been an electrical draftsman, evolved into an electrical designer (almost an engineer, but sans license and seal; my work required <i>approval</i> from a Registered Engineer) and had been doing the same thing for almost two decades.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Into our engineering world arrived a micro-computer, in 1981, primarily for use by our secretary as a word-processor (A lot of her work was typing up engineering specifications, usually from existing boiler-plates; this made her job enormously easier.) and an HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) program in <i>Basic</i>, that never worked properly.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But, it had a professional grade level of <i>Basic</i> included, and I had found me a new toy. Soon I was teaching myself programming on it, and making programs to handle some of the calculations required in my work.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I had made several trips to Michigan, to visit my friend, and we had talked several times about the possibility of me moving up there to join him. After nearly 20 years of drawing circles and home runs, one gets ready for something new. (Any reader who has done electrical drafting, design and/or engineering knows what I'm speaking of. As for the rest: <i>Nyah, nan nan nan nyah!</i> :-)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In September of 1983, one of the Space Shuttles was scheduled to go up at night. I could afford it, had plenty of vacation time available, and decided, <i>"Let's do it!"</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This time, it didn't go so well. When it was time to get rolling, I was asked to not go; our sometimes crazy work schedules had piled up too much (and this wasn't the first time by a long shot. Their recurrences was one of the reasons I <i>had</i> so much vacation time built up; I'd had <i>several</i> vacations aborted this way). So, I didn't go.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Watching the lift-off, on TV at home instead of the Titusville beach, I'd HAD it! I was feeling <i>"G*D D*MM*T! I'm not the only one there!"</i>. After the lift-off, I made a long distance call to my friend in Michigan and told him that if he still thought I could do something up there, I was <i>definitely</i> interested.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">As I noted above, he had started his own company. He was farming out the data to a data-processing company, was <i>not</i> real impressed with the results, and decided to set up his own data-processing center.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In early 1984, he called back and asked me if I would come up and manage it for him.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And so, because of what amounts to a <i>hissy fit</i> over not being able to go to that night shuttle launch, I was soon on my way to Michigan, a new career, and a whole new future.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Damn <i>little</i> of my life has <i>ever</i> been carefully planned; most of the time I seem to drift up on whatever shoals the current takes me to and I go on from there. The career change noted above is the closest thing to careful planning, and it resulted from an impulse; the only planning involved was that, when I left the engineering company, at least I knew where I was going and what I would be trying to do. Most of my odyssey has been far more random and capricious. I'm seriously considering a post on the utterly random and unpredictable events that have led me to where I am today.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And HERE it IS! :-)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">-</span><br />
<br />Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-68779667764072170152019-04-08T22:49:00.000-05:002019-04-08T23:00:11.176-05:00The Ballad Of East And West<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="font-size: medium;">I LOVE Kipling's Poems and Prose - THIS one is my FAVORITE :-)</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>The Ballad Of East And West</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> Rudyard Kipling - 1889 - Public Domain</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b>But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,</b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: medium;"> When two strong men stand face to face, </span>tho' they come from the ends of the earth!</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;">Kamal is out with twenty men to raise the Border-side,</span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> And he has lifted the Colonel's mare that is the Colonel's pride:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b>He has lifted her out of the stable-door between the dawn and the day,</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> And turned the calkins upon her feet, and ridden her far away.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Then up and spoke the Colonel's son that led a troop of the Guides:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> <i>"Is there never a man of all my men can say where Kamal hides?"</i></b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: medium;">Then up and spoke Mahommed Khan, the son of the Ressaldar:</span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> <i>"If ye know the track of the morning-mist, ye know where his pickets are.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>"At dusk he harries the Abazai -- at dawn he is into Bonair,</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i> "But he must go by Fort Bukloh to his own place to fare,</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>"So if ye gallop to Fort Bukloh as fast as a bird can fly,</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i> "By the favour of God ye may cut him off ere he win to the Tongue of Jagai.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>"But if he be past the Tongue of Jagai, right swiftly turn ye then,</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i> "For the length and the breadth of that grisly plain is sown with Kamal's men.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>"There is rock to the left, and rock to the right, and low lean thorn between,</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i> "And ye may hear a breech-bolt snick where never a man is seen."</i></b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;">The Colonel's son has taken a horse, and a raw rough dun was he,</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: medium;"> With the mouth of a bell and the heart of Hell </span><span style="font-size: medium;">and the head of the gallows-tree.</span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The Colonel's son to the Fort has won, they bid him stay to eat --</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> Who rides at the tail of a Border thief, he sits not long at his meat.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b>He's up and away from Fort Bukloh as fast as he can fly,</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> Till he was aware of his father's mare in the gut of the Tongue of Jagai,</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Till he was aware of his father's mare with Kamal upon her back,</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> And when he could spy the white of her eye, he made the pistol crack.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b>He has fired once, he has fired twice, but the whistling ball went wide.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> <i>"Ye shoot like a soldier,"</i> Kamal said. <i>"Show now if ye can ride."</i></b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;">It's up and over the Tongue of Jagai, as blown dustdevils go,</span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> The dun he fled like a stag of ten, but the mare like a barren doe.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The dun he leaned against the bit and slugged his head above,</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> But the red mare played with the snaffle-bars, as a maiden plays with a glove.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b>There was rock to the left and rock to the right, and low lean thorn between,</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> And thrice he heard a breech-bolt snick tho' never a man was seen.</b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;">They have ridden the low moon out of the sky, their hoofs drum up the dawn,</span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> The dun he went like a wounded bull, but the mare like a new-roused fawn.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The dun he fell at a water-course -- in a woful heap fell he,</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> And Kamal has turned the red mare back, and pulled the rider free.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b>He has knocked the pistol out of his hand -- small room was there to strive,</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> <i>"'Twas only by favour of mine,"</i> quoth he, <i>"ye rode so long alive:</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>"There was not a rock for twenty mile, there was not a clump of tree,</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i> "But covered a man of my own men with his rifle cocked on his knee.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>"If I had raised my bridle-hand, as I have held it low,</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i> "The little jackals that flee so fast were feasting all in a row:</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>"If I had bowed my head on my breast, as I have held it high,</i></b></span><br />
<b><i><span style="font-size: medium;"> "</span><span style="font-size: medium;">The kite that whistles above us now were gorged till she could not fly."</span></i></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;">Lightly answered the Colonel's son: <i>"Do good to bird and beast,</i></span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i> "But count who come for the broken meats before thou makest a feast.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>"If there should follow a thousand swords to carry my bones away,</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i> "Belike the price of a jackal's meal were more than a thief could pay.</i></b></span><br />
<b><i><span style="font-size: medium;">"They will feed their horse on the standing crop,</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> their men on the garnered grain,</span></i></b><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i> "The thatch of the byres will serve their fires when all the cattle are slain.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>"But if thou thinkest the price be fair, -- thy brethren wait to sup,</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i> "The hound is kin to the jackal-spawn, -- howl, dog, and call them up!</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>"And if thou thinkest the price be high, in steer and gear and stack,</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i> "Give me my father's mare again, and I'll fight my own way back!"</i></b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;">Kamal has gripped him by the hand and set him upon his feet.</span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> <i>"No talk shall be of dogs,"</i> said he, <i>"when wolf and gray wolf meet.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>"May I eat dirt if thou hast hurt of me in deed or breath;</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i> "What dam of lances brought thee forth to jest at the dawn with Death?"</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Lightly answered the Colonel's son: <i>"I hold by the blood of my clan:</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i> "Take up the mare for my father's gift -- by God, she has carried a man!"</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The red mare ran to the Colonel's son, and nuzzled against his breast;</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> <i>"We be two strong men," </i>said Kamal then, <i>"but she loveth the younger best.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>"So she shall go with a lifter's dower, my turquoise-studded rein,</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i> "My broidered saddle and saddle-cloth, and silver stirrups twain."</i></b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;">The Colonel's son a pistol drew and held it muzzle-end,</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: medium;"> <i>"Ye have taken the one from a foe,"</i> said he; </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>"will ye take the mate from a friend?"</i></span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>"A gift for a gift,"</i> said Kamal straight; <i>"a limb for the risk of a limb.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i> "Thy father has sent his son to me, I'll send my son to him!"</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b>With that he whistled his only son, that dropped from a mountain-crest --</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> He trod the ling like a buck in spring, and he looked like a lance in rest.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>"Now here is thy master," </i>Kamal said, <i>"who leads a troop of the Guides,</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i> "And thou must ride at his left side as shield on shoulder rides.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>"Till Death or I cut loose the tie, at camp and board and bed,</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i> "Thy life is his -- thy fate it is to guard him with thy head.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>"So, thou must eat the White Queen's meat, and all her foes are thine,</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i> "And thou must harry thy father's hold for the peace of the Border-line,</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>"And thou must make a trooper tough and hack thy way to power --</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i> "Belike they will raise thee to Ressaldar when I am hanged in Peshawur."</i></b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;">They have looked each other between the eyes, and there they found no fault,</span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on leavened bread and salt:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b>They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on fire and fresh-cut sod,</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> On the hilt and the haft of the Khyber knife, and the Wondrous Names of God.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The Colonel's son he rides the mare and Kamal's boy the dun,</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> And two have come back to Fort Bukloh where there went forth but one.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b>And when they drew to the Quarter-Guard, full twenty swords flew clear --</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> There was not a man but carried his feud with the blood of the mountaineer.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>"Ha' done! ha' done!"</i> said the Colonel's son.</b></span><b> <i>"Put up the steel at your sides!</i></b><br />
<i><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Last night ye had struck at a Border thief --</b></span><b> to-night 'tis a man of the Guides!"</b></i><br />
<b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;">Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,</span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b>But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,</b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: medium;"> When two strong men stand face to face, </span>tho' they come from the ends of the earth!</b><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">-</span>Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-5146406604996055852019-04-01T14:31:00.000-05:002019-12-08T09:22:48.423-06:00MORE from O. Henry ...<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I've printed some things written by Kipling and O. Henry, because I LIKE them, and because they're old enough to be Public Domain. A copyright used to be good for 28 years, and could be renewed ONCE for another 28. Changes in copyright law, in 1976, 1998, and later, have extended coverage to almost <i>in perpetuity!</i> Just about ANYTHING up to 1923 is Public Domain now. AFTERWARDS, it gets VERY sticky! :(</span><br />
<b style="font-size: xx-large;"><br /></b>
<b style="font-size: xx-large;">A Double-Dyed Deceiver</b><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> by O. Henry (William Sydney Porter)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> (1905 - Now Public Domain)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The trouble began in Laredo. It was the Llano Kid's* fault, for he should have confined his habit of manslaughter to Mexicans. But the Kid was past twenty; and to have only Mexicans to one's credit at twenty is to blush unseen on the Rio Grande border.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It happened in old Justo Valdos's gambling house. There was a poker game at which sat players who were not all friends, as happens often where men ride in from afar to shoot Folly as she gallops. There was a row over so small a matter as a pair of queens; and when the smoke had cleared away it was found that the Kid had committed an indiscretion, and his adversary had been guilty of a blunder. For, the unfortunate combatant, instead of being a Greaser, was a high-blooded youth from the cow ranches, of about the Kid's own age and possessed of friends and champions. His blunder in missing the Kid's right ear only a sixteenth of an inch when he pulled his gun did not lessen the indiscretion of the better marksman.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The Kid, not being equipped with a retinue, nor bountifully supplied with personal admirers and supporters--on account of a rather umbrageous reputation, even for the border--considered it not incompatible with his indispensable gameness to perform that judicious tractional act known as <i>"pulling his freight."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Quickly the avengers gathered and sought him. Three of them overtook him within a rod of the station. The Kid turned and showed his teeth in that brilliant but mirthless smile that usually preceded his deeds of insolence and violence, and his pursuers fell back without making it necessary for him even to reach for his weapon.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But in this affair the Kid had not felt the grim thirst for encounter that usually urged him on to battle. It had been a purely chance row, born of the cards and certain epithets impossible for a gentleman to brook that had passed between the two. The Kid had rather liked the slim, haughty, brown-faced young chap whom his bullet had cut off in the first pride of manhood. And now he wanted no more blood. He wanted to get away and have a good long sleep somewhere in the sun on the mesquite grass with his handkerchief over his face. Even a Mexican might have crossed his path in safety while he was in this mood.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The Kid openly boarded the north-bound passenger train that departed five minutes later. But at Webb, a few miles out, where it was flagged to take on a traveller, he abandoned that manner of escape. There were telegraph stations ahead; and the Kid looked askance at electricity and steam. Saddle and spur were his rocks of safety.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The man whom he had shot was a stranger to him. But the Kid knew that he was of the Coralitos outfit from Hidalgo; and that the punchers from that ranch were more relentless and vengeful than Kentucky feudists when wrong or harm was done to one of them. So, with the wisdom that has characterized many great farmers, the Kid decided to pile up as many leagues as possible of chaparral and pear between himself and the retaliation of the Coralitos bunch.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Near the station was a store; and near the store, scattered among the mesquites and elms, stood the saddled horses of the customers. Most of them waited, half asleep, with sagging limbs and drooping heads. But one, a long-legged roan with a curved neck, snorted and pawed the turf. Him the Kid mounted, gripped with his knees, and slapped gently with the owner's own quirt.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">If the slaying of the temerarious card-player had cast a cloud over the Kid's standing as a good and true citizen, this last act of his veiled his figure in the darkest shadows of disrepute. On the Rio Grande border if you take a man's life you sometimes take trash; but if you take his horse, you take a thing the loss of which renders him poor, indeed, and which enriches you not--if you are caught. For the Kid there was no turning back now.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">With the springing roan under him he felt little care or uneasiness. After a five-mile gallop he drew it in to the plainsman's jogging trot, and rode northeastward toward the Nueces River bottoms. He knew the country well--its most tortuous and obscure trails through the great wilderness of brush and pear, and its camps and lonesome ranches where one might find safe entertainment. Always he bore to the east; for the Kid had never seen the ocean, and he had a fancy to lay his hand upon the mane of the great Gulf, the gamesome colt of the greater waters.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So after three days he stood on the shore at Corpus Christi, and looked out across the gentle ripples of a quiet sea.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Captain Boone, of the schooner <i>Flyaway</i>, stood near his skiff, which one of his crew was guarding in the surf. When ready to sail he had discovered that one of the necessaries of life, in the parallelogrammatic shape of plug tobacco, had been forgotten. A sailor had been dispatched for the missing cargo. Meanwhile the captain paced the sands, chewing profanely at his pocket store.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A slim, wiry youth in high-heeled boots came down to the water's edge. His face was boyish, but with a premature severity that hinted at a man's experience. His complexion was naturally dark; and the sun and wind of an outdoor life had burned it to a coffee brown. His hair was as black and straight as an Indian's; his face had not yet upturned to the humiliation of a razor; his eyes were a cold and steady blue. He carried his left arm somewhat away from his body, for pearl-handled .45s are frowned upon by town marshals, and are a little bulky when placed in the left armhole of one's vest. He looked beyond Captain Boone at the gulf with the impersonal and expressionless dignity of a Chinese emperor.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Thinkin' of buyin' that'ar gulf, buddy?</i>" asked the captain, made sarcastic by his narrow escape from a tobaccoless voyage.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>"Why, no,"</i> said the Kid gently, </span><i>"I reckon not. I never saw it before. I was just looking at it. Not thinking of selling it, are you?"</i></span><br />
<div>
<i style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></i></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Not this trip,</i>" said the captain. <i>"I'll send it to you C.O.D. when I get back to Buenas Tierras. Here comes that capstanfooted lubber with the chewin'. I ought to've weighed anchor an hour ago."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Is that your ship out there?"</i> asked the Kid.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Why, yes,"</i> answered the captain, <i>"if you want to call a schooner a ship, and I don't mind lyin'. But you better say Miller and Gonzales, owners, and ordinary plain, Billy-be-damned old Samuel K. Boone, skipper."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Where are you going to?"</i> asked the refugee.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Buenas Tierras, coast of South America--I forgot what they called the country the last time I was there. Cargo--lumber, corrugated iron, and machetes."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"What kind of a country is it?"</i> asked the Kid--<i>"hot or cold?"</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Warmish, buddy,"</i> said the captain. <i>"But a regular Paradise Lost for elegance of scenery and be-yooty of geography. Ye're wakened every morning by the sweet singin' of red birds with seven purple tails, and the sighin' of breezes in the posies and roses. And the inhabitants never work, for they can reach out and pick steamer baskets of the choicest hothouse fruit without gettin' out of bed. And there's no Sunday and no ice and no rent and no troubles and no use and no nothin'. It's a great country for a man to go to sleep with, and wait for somethin' to turn up. The bananys and oranges and hurricanes and pineapples that ye eat comes from there."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"That sounds to me!"</i> said the Kid, at last betraying interest. <i>"What'll the expressage be to take me out there with you?"</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>"Twenty-four dollars,"</i> said Captain Boone; </span><i>"grub and transportation. Second cabin. I haven't got a first cabin."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"You've got my company," </i>said the Kid, pulling out a buckskin bag.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">With three hundred dollars he had gone to Laredo for his regular "blowout." The duel in Valdos's had cut short his season of hilarity, but it had left him with nearly $200 for aid in the flight that it had made necessary.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"All right, buddy,"</i> said the captain. <i>"I hope your ma won't blame me for this little childish escapade of yours."</i> He beckoned to one of the boat's crew. <i>"Let Sanchez lift you out to the skiff so you won't get your feet wet."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">* * * * *</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Thacker, the United States consul at Buenas Tierras, was not yet drunk. It was only eleven o'clock; and he never arrived at his desired state of beatitude--a state wherein he sang ancient maudlin vaudeville songs and pelted his screaming parrot with banana peels--until the middle of the afternoon. So, when he looked up from his hammock at the sound of a slight cough, and saw the Kid standing in the door of the consulate, he was still in a condition to extend the hospitality and courtesy due from the representative of a great nation. <i>"Don't disturb yourself,"</i> said the Kid, easily. <i>"I just dropped in. They told me it was customary to light at your camp before starting in to round up the town. I just came in on a ship from Texas."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Glad to see you, Mr.--"</i> said the consul.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The Kid laughed.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Sprague Dalton," </i>he said. <i>"It sounds funny to me to hear it. I'm called the Llano Kid in the Rio Grande country."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"I'm Thacker,"</i> said the consul. <i>"Take that cane-bottom chair. Now if you've come to invest, you want somebody to advise you. These dingies will cheat you out of the gold in your teeth if you don't understand their ways. Try a cigar?"</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Much obliged,"</i> said the Kid, <i>"but if it wasn't for my corn shucks and the little bag in my back pocket I couldn't live a minute."</i> He took out his "makings," and rolled a cigarette.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"They speak Spanish here,"</i> said the consul. <i>"You'll need an interpreter. If there's anything I can do, why, I'd be delighted. If you're buying fruit lands or looking for a concession of any sort, you'll want somebody who knows the ropes to look out for you."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>"I speak Spanish,"</i> said the Kid, </span><i>"about nine times better than I do English. Everybody speaks it on the range where I come from. And I'm not in the market for anything."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"You speak Spanish?"</i> said Thacker thoughtfully. He regarded the kid absorbedly.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"You look like a Spaniard, too,"</i> he continued. <i>"And you're from Texas. And you can't be more than twenty or twenty-one. I wonder if you've got any nerve."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"You got a deal of some kind to put through?"</i> asked the Texan, with unexpected shrewdness.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Are you open to a proposition?"</i> said Thacker.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"What's the use to deny it?"</i> said the Kid. <i>"I got into a little gun frolic down in Laredo and plugged a white man. There wasn't any Mexican handy. And I come down to your parrot-and-monkey range just for to smell the morning-glories and marigolds. Now, do you sabe?"</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Thacker got up and closed the door.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Let me see your hand,"</i> he said.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">He took the Kid's left hand, and examined the back of it closely.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"I can do it,"</i> he said excitedly. <i>"Your flesh is as hard as wood and as healthy as a baby's. It will heal in a week."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"If it's a fist fight you want to back me for,"</i> said the Kid, <i>"don't put your money up yet. Make it gun work, and I'll keep you company. But no barehanded scrapping, like ladies at a tea-party, for me."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"It's easier than that,"</i> said Thacker. <i>"Just step here, will you?"</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Through the window he pointed to a two-story white-stuccoed house with wide galleries rising amid the deep-green tropical foliage on a wooded hill that sloped gently from the sea.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"In that house,"</i> said Thacker, <i>"a fine old Castilian gentleman and his wife are yearning to gather you into their arms and fill your pockets with money. Old Santos Urique lives there. He owns half the gold-mines in the country."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"You haven't been eating loco weed, have you?"</i> asked the Kid.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Sit down again,"</i> said Thacker, <i>"and I'll tell you. Twelve years ago they lost a kid. No, he didn't die--although most of 'em here do from drinking the surface water. He was a wild little devil, even if he wasn't but eight years old. Everybody knows about it. Some Americans who were through here prospecting for gold had letters to Senor Urique, and the boy was a favorite with them. They filled his head with big stories about the States; and about a month after they left, the kid disappeared, too. He was supposed to have stowed himself away among the banana bunches on a fruit steamer, and gone to New Orleans. He was seen once afterward in Texas, it was thought, but they never heard anything more of him. Old Urique has spent thousands of dollars having him looked for. The madam was broken up worst of all. The kid was her life. She wears mourning yet. But they say she believes he'll come back to her some day, and never gives up hope. On the back of the boy's left hand was tattooed a flying eagle carrying a spear in his claws. That's old Urique's coat of arms or something that he inherited in Spain."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The Kid raised his left hand slowly and gazed at it curiously.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"That's it,"</i> said Thacker, reaching behind the official desk for his bottle of smuggled brandy. <i>"You're not so slow. I can do it. What was I consul at Sandakan for? I never knew till now. In a week I'll have the eagle bird with the frog-sticker blended in so you'd think you were born with it. I brought a set of the needles and ink just because I was sure you'd drop in some day, Mr. Dalton."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Oh, hell,"</i> said the Kid. <i>"I thought I told you my name!"</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"All right, 'Kid,' then. It won't be that long. How does Senorito Urique sound, for a change?"</i></span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"I never played son any that I remember of,"</i> said the Kid. <i>"If I had any parents to mention they went over the divide about the time I gave my first bleat. What is the plan of your round-up?"</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Thacker leaned back against the wall and held his glass up to the light.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"We've come now,"</i> said he, <i>"to the question of how far you're willing to go in a little matter of the sort."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"I told you why I came down here,"</i> said the Kid simply.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"A good answer,"</i> said the consul. <i>"But you won't have to go that far. Here's the scheme. After I get the trademark tattooed on your hand I'll notify old Urique. In the meantime I'll furnish you with all of the family history I can find out, so you can be studying up points to talk about. You've got the looks, you speak the Spanish, you know the facts, you can tell about Texas, you've got the tattoo mark. When I notify them that the rightful heir has returned and is waiting to know whether he will be received and pardoned, what will happen? They'll simply rush down here and fall on your neck, and the curtain goes down for refreshments and a stroll in the lobby."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"I'm waiting,"</i> said the Kid. <i>"I haven't had my saddle off in your camp long, pardner, and I never met you before; but if you intend to let it go at a parental blessing, why, I'm mistaken in my man, that's all."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Thanks,"</i> said the consul. <i>"I haven't met anybody in a long time that keeps up with an argument as well as you do. The rest of it is simple. If they take you in only for a while it's long enough. Don't give 'em time to hunt up the strawberry mark on your left shoulder. Old Urique keeps anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 in his house all the time in a little safe that you could open with a shoe buttoner. Get it. My skill as a tattooer is worth half the boddle. We go halves and catch a tramp steamer for Rio Janeiro. Let the United States go to pieces if it can't get along without my services. Que dice, senor?"</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"It sounds to me!"</i> said the Kid, nodding his head. <i>"I'm out for the dust."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"All right, then,"</i> said Thacker. <i>"You'll have to keep close until we get the bird on you. You can live in the back room here. I do my own cooking, and I'll make you as comfortable as a parsimonious Government will allow me."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Thacker had set the time at a week, but it was two weeks before the design that he patiently tattooed upon the Kid's hand was to his notion. And then Thacker called a <i>muchacho</i>, and dispatched this note to the intended victim:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">El Senor Don Santos Urique, La Casa Blanca,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">My Dear Sir:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I beg permission to inform you that there is in my house as a temporary guest a young man who arrived in Buenas Tierras from the United States some days ago. Without wishing to excite any hopes that may not be realized, I think there is a possibility of his being your long-absent son. It might be well for you to call and see him. If he is, it is my opinion that his intention was to return to his home, but upon arriving here, his courage failed him from doubts as to how he would be received. Your true servant,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Thompson Thacker.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Half an hour afterward--quick time for Buenas Tierras--Senor Urique's ancient landau drove to the consul's door, with the barefooted coachman beating and shouting at the team of fat, awkward horses.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A tall man with a white moustache alighted, and assisted to the ground a lady who was dressed and veiled in unrelieved black.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The two hastened inside, and were met by Thacker with his best diplomatic bow. By his desk stood a slender young man with clear-cut, sun-browned features and smoothly brushed black hair.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Senora Urique threw back her black veil with a quick gesture. She was past middle age, and her hair was beginning to silver, but her full, proud figure and clear olive skin retained traces of the beauty peculiar to the Basque province. But, once you had seen her eyes, and comprehended the great sadness that was revealed in their deep shadows and hopeless expression, you saw that the woman lived only in some memory.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">She bent upon the young man a long look of the most agonized questioning. Then her great black eyes turned, and her gaze rested upon his left hand. And then with a sob, not loud, but seeming to shake the room, she cried <i>"Hijo mio!"</i> and caught the Llano Kid to her heart.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A month afterward the Kid came to the consulate in response to a message sent by Thacker.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">He looked the young Spanish <i>caballero</i>. His clothes were imported, and the wiles of the jewellers had not been spent upon him in vain. A more than respectable diamond shone on his finger as he rolled a shuck cigarette.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"What's doing?"</i> asked Thacker.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Nothing much,"</i> said the Kid calmly. <i>"I eat my first iguana steak to-day. They're them big lizards, you sabe? I reckon, though, that frijoles and side bacon would do me about as well. Do you care for iguanas, Thacker?"</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"No, nor for some other kinds of reptiles,"</i> said Thacker.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It was three in the afternoon, and in another hour he would be in his state of beatitude.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"It's time you were making good, sonny,"</i> he went on, with an ugly look on his reddened face. <i>"You're not playing up to me square. You've been the prodigal son for four weeks now, and you could have had veal for every meal on a gold dish if you'd wanted it. Now, Mr. Kid, do you think it's right to leave me out so long on a husk diet? What's the trouble? Don't you get your filial eyes on anything that looks like cash in the Casa Blanca? Don't tell me you don't. Everybody knows where old Urique keeps his stuff. It's U.S. currency, too; he don't accept anything else. What's doing? Don't say 'nothing' this time."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Why, sure,"</i> said the Kid, admiring his diamond, <i>"there's plenty of money up there. I'm no judge of collateral in bunches, but I will undertake for to say that I've seen the rise of $50,000 at a time in that tin grub box that my adopted father calls his safe. And he lets me carry the key sometimes just to show me that he knows I'm the real Francisco that strayed from the herd a long time ago.</i>"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Well, what are you waiting for?"</i> asked Thacker, angrily. <i>"Don't you forget that I can upset your apple-cart any day I want to. If old Urique knew you were an imposter, what sort of things would happen to you? Oh, you don't know this country, Mr. Texas Kid. The laws here have got mustard spread between 'em. These people here'd stretch you out like a frog that had been stepped on, and give you about fifty sticks at every corner of the plaza. And they'd wear every stick out, too. What was left of you they'd feed to alligators."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"I might just as well tell you now, pardner,"</i> said the Kid, sliding down low on his steamer chair, <i>"that things are going to stay just as they are. They're about right now."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"What do you mean?"</i> asked Thacker, rattling the bottom of his glass on his desk.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"The scheme's off,"</i> said the Kid. <i>"And whenever you have the pleasure of speaking to me address me as Don Francisco Urique. I'll guarantee I'll answer to it. We'll let Colonel Urique keep his money. His little tin safe is as good as the time-locker in the First National Bank of Laredo as far as you and me are concerned."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"You're going to throw me down, then, are you?"</i> said the consul.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Sure," </i>said the Kid cheerfully. <i>"Throw you down. That's it. And now I'll tell you why. The first night I was up at the colonel's house they introduced me to a bedroom. No blankets on the floor--a real room, with a bed and things in it. And before I was asleep, in comes this artificial mother and tucks in the covers. 'Panchito,' she says, 'my little lost one, God has brought you back to me. I bless His name forever.' It was that, or some truck like that, she said. And down comes a drop or two of rain and hits me on the nose. And all that stuck by me, Mr. Thacker. And it's been that way ever since. And it's got to stay that way. Don't you think that it's for what's in it for me, either, that I say so. If you have any such ideas, keep 'em to yourself. I haven't had much truck with women in my life, and no mothers to speak of, but here's a lady that we've got to keep fooled. Once she stood it; twice she won't. I'm a low-down wolf, and the devil may have sent me on this trail instead of God, but I'll travel it to the end. And now, don't forget that I'm Don Francisco Urique whenever you happen to mention my name."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"I'll expose you to-day, you--you double-dyed traitor,"</i> stammered Thacker.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The Kid arose and, without violence, took Thacker by the throat with a hand of steel, and shoved him slowly into a corner. Then he drew from under his left arm his pearl-handled .45 and poked the cold muzzle of it against the consul's mouth.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"I told you why I come here,"</i> he said, with his old freezing smile. <i>"If I leave here, you'll be the reason. Never forget it, pardner. Now, what is my name?"</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Er--Don Francisco Urique,"</i> gasped Thacker.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">From outside came a sound of wheels, and the shouting of some one, and the sharp thwacks of a wooden whipstock upon the backs of fat horses.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The Kid put up his gun, and walked toward the door. But he turned again and came back to the trembling Thacker, and held up his left hand with its back toward the consul.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"There's one more reason,"</i> he said slowly, <i>"why things have got to stand as they are. The fellow I killed in Laredo had one of them same pictures on his left hand."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Outside, the ancient landau of Don Santos Urique rattled to the door. The coachman ceased his bellowing. Senora Urique, in a voluminous gay gown of white lace and flying ribbons, leaned forward with a happy look in her great soft eyes.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Are you within, dear son?"</i> she called, in the rippling Castilian.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Madre mia, yo vengo [mother, I come]," </i>answered the young Don Francisco Urique.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">==============================================</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">* = Llano (Spanish for "plain"): a small town in Texas, a bit over 100 miles north of San Antonio. The "Sundance Kid" got <i>his</i> nickname from being involved in some incident in Sundance, Wyoming. Our protagonist likely made an impression in Llano.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">(Normally that word would be</span><span style="font-size: large;"> pronounced "Ya-no" ... and IS most of the time, as in Llano Estacado ["staked plains"]; but the <i>town's</i> name is pronounced "Lah-no".)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Trivia</b>: William Sydney Porter had some <i>personal</i> experience in Central America. In 1891, he was a teller in the First National Bank in Austin, Texas, and was accused (<i>wrongfully</i>) of embezzling a couple of hundred dollars. To avoid imprisonment, he fled to Honduras. Shortly afterwards he learned that his wife (still in the U.S.) had been diagnosed with a terminal illness. He returned, surrendered, </span><span style="font-size: large;">and spent three years in prison, beginning his writing career <i>there</i> to provide support for his young daughter.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Hv4TT07FG4c/XbGbCGwpJbI/AAAAAAAABnM/_u-CtJbnV48l_0_jqdIF-tU0hU2hRETVgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/5c178789ae2d299ccc17c0b6ab30522e.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="527" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Hv4TT07FG4c/XbGbCGwpJbI/AAAAAAAABnM/_u-CtJbnV48l_0_jqdIF-tU0hU2hRETVgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/5c178789ae2d299ccc17c0b6ab30522e.jpg" width="420" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">THIS pic of Lou Diamond Phillips, in the poster for "Young Guns" (1988), PERFECTLY captures MY vision for The Llano Kid! :-)</span><br />
<span style="color: white; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: start;">10/23/19,</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">-</span>Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-14341808834791754572019-03-23T12:44:00.000-05:002019-03-23T12:44:38.533-05:00Financial Perspective ...<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">When I was a kid in the 1950s, BEFORE drug lords, middle-eastern dictators, and Russian oligarchs, one of the richest men on earth was Dallas oilman J. Paul Getty. Supposedly, some newsman asked him if he was REALLY worth a BILLION dollars; to which he supposedly replied, <i>"That's probably true. BUT, you have to keep in mind that a billion doesn't go as far as it USED to. </i></span><i><span class="_47e3 _5mfr" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 0; margin: 0px 1px; vertical-align: middle;" title="frown emoticon"><span aria-hidden="true" class="_7oe" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit; width: 0px;">:(</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">"</span></i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">-</span></span>Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-80210336777187057722019-03-22T13:24:00.000-05:002019-11-28T20:59:27.160-06:00A Matter of Scale - UK vs Texas ...<span style="font-size: large;">I LOVE this pic I found online, EXCEPT for the Irish rotation (which I NOTED on the pic) ...</span><br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kCP3j4uMNtg/XJUlXLYq5oI/AAAAAAAABfM/7KBIHO6JDKA83T_59wnv5mTMzNFHMBi-QCLcBGAs/s1600/d3egqj5-7169f939-5b98-44c2-bc93-0c3ceb1e35ed-edit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1321" data-original-width="1374" height="614" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kCP3j4uMNtg/XJUlXLYq5oI/AAAAAAAABfM/7KBIHO6JDKA83T_59wnv5mTMzNFHMBi-QCLcBGAs/s640/d3egqj5-7169f939-5b98-44c2-bc93-0c3ceb1e35ed-edit.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Of course, it all depends on PERSPECTIVE.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Scotland looks so small HERE (and on most maps), BUT. seen up close, or as shown in the James Bond film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1074638/" target="_blank"><i><b><span style="color: blue;">Skyfall (2012)</span></b></i></a>, it just seems to go on FOREVER.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">All a matter of perspective. ;-)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">-</span>Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-15252346639565365432019-03-15T22:32:00.000-05:002019-03-15T22:39:28.215-05:00RIP Gaius Julius Caesar <div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">RIP Gaius Julius Caesar </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Born July 100BC </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Died March 15th, 44 BC</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Roman General, Statesman, pizza franchise founder, and inventor of the Caesar Salad.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">He will be missed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helveticaneue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">(From </span><span style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helveticaneue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://peashooter85.tumblr.com/post/183485259877/peashooter85-rip-gaius-julius-caesar-born-july"><i><b>http://peashooter85.tumblr.com/post/183485259877/peashooter85-rip-gaius-julius-caesar-born-july</b></i></a></span></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helveticaneue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://peashooter85.tumblr.com/post/183485259877/peashooter85-rip-gaius-julius-caesar-born-july" target="_blank"><i><b><span style="color: blue;"> </span></b></i></a> ;-)</span></div>
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Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-40946929484220236702019-03-13T09:37:00.000-05:002019-08-01T15:48:05.071-05:00Don't Panic ...<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">...a phrase on the cover of <i>The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Last night (Tuesday, 12 MAR 2019) I discovered that a LOT of photos were missing from posts on my blog (at <a href="https://paulinhouston.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><i><b><span style="color: blue;">https://paulinhouston.blogspot.com/</span></b></i></a>). "blogspot" means Blogger.com; which is part of the Google Empire.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">A check of THIS site (<a href="https://downdetector.com/" target="_blank"><i><b><span style="color: blue;">https://downdetector.com/</span></b></i></a>) showed ...</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Google is having issues since 10:32 PM EDT.</i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Are you also affected? Leave a message in the comments.</i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">So, I figured they were having issues with the server that photos were stored on, and (since Google is a multi-BILLION dollar concern, instead of an outfit operating out of a garage), they were ALREADY on it, would soon have that server FIXED or REPLACED, BACKUPS loaded and checked, and would soon be back to normal.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">And SO it WAS!!!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Crisis OVER. ;-)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">-</span></div>
Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-29000285557257684292019-03-11T22:47:00.000-05:002019-03-12T07:31:10.357-05:00Charlemagne<span style="font-size: large;">From The Story of Mankind - Hendrik van Loon - 1921 (Public Domain now)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Charlemagne</span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">HOW CHARLEMAGNE, THE KING OF THE FRANKS, CAME TO BEAR THE TITLE OF EMPEROR AND TRIED TO REVIVE THE OLD IDEAL OF WORLD-EMPIRE</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">THE battle of Poitiers had saved Europe from the Mohammedans. But the enemy within–the hopeless disorder which had followed the disappearance of the Roman police officer–that enemy remained. It is true that the new converts of the Christian faith in Northern Europe felt a deep respect for the mighty Bishop of Rome. But that poor bishop did not feel any too safe when he looked toward the distant mountains. Heaven knew what fresh hordes of barbarians were ready to cross the Alps and begin a new attack on Rome. It was necessary–very necessary–for the spiritual head of the world to find an ally with a strong sword and a powerful fist who was willing to defend His Holiness in case of danger.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And so the Popes, who were not only very holy but also very practical, cast about for a friend, and presently they made overtures to the most promising of the Germanic tribes who had occupied north-western Europe after the fall of Rome. They were called the Franks. One of their earliest kings, called Merovech, had helped the Romans in the battle of the Catalaunian fields in the year 451 when they defeated the Huns. His descendants, the Merovingians, had continued to take little bits of imperial territory until the year 486 when king Clovis (the old French word for “Louis”) felt himself strong enough to beat the Romans in the open. But his descendants were weak men who left the affairs of state to their Prime minister, the “Major Domus” or Master of the Palace.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Pepin the Short, the son of the famous Charles Martel, who succeeded his father as Master of the Palace, hardly knew how to handle the situation. His royal master was a devout theologian, without any interest in politics. Pepin asked the Pope for advice. The Pope who was a practical person answered that the “power in the state belonged to him who was actually possessed of it.” Pepin took the hint. He persuaded Childeric, the last of the Merovingians to become a monk and then made himself king with the approval of the other Germanic chieftains. But this did not satisfy the shrewd Pepin. He wanted to be something more than a barbarian chieftain. He staged an elaborate ceremony at which Boniface, the great missionary of the European northwest, anointed him and made him a “King by the grace of God.” It was easy to slip those words, “Dei gratia,” into the coronation service. It took almost fifteen<span style="color: red;">*</span> hundred years to get them out again. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red; font-size: medium;"><b><i>(* = error by van Loon; TWELVE hundred would be more accurate. He MAY have been thinking about the "year 451" in the second paragraph; referring to an event several hundred years prior.)</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Pepin was sincerely grateful for this kindness on the part of the church. He made two expeditions to Italy to defend the Pope against his enemies. He took Ravenna and several other cities away from the Longobards and presented them to His Holiness, who incorporated these new domains into the so-called Papal State, which remained an independent country until half a century ago.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">After Pepin’s death, the relations between Rome and Aix- la-Chapelle or Nymwegen or Ingelheim, (the Frankish Kings did not have one official residence, but travelled from place to place with all their ministers and court officers,) became more and more cordial. Finally the Pope and the King took a step which was to influence the history of Europe in a most profound way.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Charles, commonly known as Carolus Magnus or Char- lemagne, succeeded Pepin in the year 768. He had conquered the land of the Saxons in eastern Germany and had built towns and monasteries all over the greater part of northern Europe. At the request of certain enemies of Abd-ar- Rahman, he had invaded Spain to fight the Moors. But in the Pyrenees he had been attacked by the wild Basques and had been forced to retire. It was upon this occasion that Roland, the great Margrave of Breton, showed what a Frankish chieftain of those early days meant when he promised to be faithful to his King, and gave his life and that of his trusted followers to safeguard the retreat of the royal army.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">During the last ten years of the eighth century, however, Charles was obliged to devote himself exclusively to affairs of the South. The Pope, Leo III, had been attacked by a band of Roman rowdies and had been left for dead in the street. Some kind people had bandaged his wounds and had helped him to escape to the camp of Charles, where he asked for help. An army of Franks soon restored quiet and carried Leo back to the Lateran Palace which ever since the days of Constantine, had been the home of the Pope. That was in December of the year 799. On Christmas day of the next year, Charlemagne, who was staying in Rome, attended the service in the ancient church of St. Peter. When he arose from prayer, the Pope placed a crown upon his head, called him Emperor of the Romans and hailed him once more with the title of “Augustus" which had not been heard for hundreds of years.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Once more Northern Europe was part of a Roman Empire, but the dignity was held by a German chieftain who could read just a little and never learned to write. But he could fight and for a short while there was order and even the rival emperor in Constantinople sent a letter of approval to his “dear Brother.”</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Unfortunately this splendid old man died in the year 814. His sons and his grandsons at once began to fight for the largest share of the imperial inheritance. Twice the Carolingian lands were divided, by the treaties of Verdun in the year 843 and by the treaty of Mersen-on-the-Meuse in the year 870. The latter treaty divided the entire Frankish Kingdom into two parts. Charles the Bold received the western half. It contained the old Roman province called Gaul where the language of the people had become thoroughly romanized. The Franks soon learned to speak this language and this accounts for the strange fact that a purely Germanic land like France should speak a Latin tongue.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The other grandson got the eastern part, the land which the Romans had called Germania. Those inhospitable regions had never been part of the old Empire. Augustus had tried to conquer this “far east,” but his legions had been annihilated in the Teutoburg Wood in the year 9 and the people had never been influenced by the higher Roman civilisation. They spoke the popular Germanic tongue. The Teuton word for “people” was “thiot.” The Christian missionaries therefore called the German language the “lingua theotisca” or the “lingua teutisca,” the “popular dialect” and this word “teutisca” was changed into “Deutsch” which accounts for the name “Deutschland.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">As for the famous Imperial Crown, it very soon slipped off the heads of the Carolingian successors and rolled back onto the Italian plain, where it became a sort of plaything of a number of little potentates who stole the crown from each other amidst much bloodshed and wore it (with or without the permission of the Pope) until it was the turn of some more ambitious neighbour. The Pope, once more sorely beset by his enemies, sent north for help. He did not appeal to the ruler of the west-Frankish kingdom, this time. His messengers crossed the Alps and addressed themselves to Otto, a Saxon Prince who was recognised as the greatest chieftain of the different Germanic tribes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Otto, who shared his people’s affection for the blue skies and the gay and beautiful people of the Italian peninsula, hastened to the rescue. In return for his services, the Pope, Leo VIII, made Otto “Emperor,” and the eastern half of Charles’ old kingdom was henceforth known as the “Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.”</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This strange political creation managed to live to the ripe old age of eight hundred and thirty-nine years. In the year 1801, (during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson,) it was most unceremoniously relegated to the historical scrapheap. The brutal fellow who destroyed the old Germanic Empire was the son of a Corsican notary-public who had made a brilliant career in the service of the French Republic. He was ruler of Europe by the grace of his famous Guard Regiments, but he desired to be something more. He sent to Rome for the Pope and the Pope came and stood by while General Napoleon placed the imperial crown upon his own head and proclaimed himself heir to the tradition of Charlemagne. For history is like life. The more things change, the more they remain the same.</span><br />
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<br />Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-66283388851677008762019-03-10T09:05:00.001-05:002019-08-01T15:46:48.302-05:00Sunday, 10 MAR 2019 ...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-51251600079326122722019-02-17T12:54:00.001-06:002019-02-17T12:54:54.173-06:00Can ANY of you SUGGEST ...<span style="font-size: large;">... LEGAL alternatives to my irritating ...</span><br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gPj5c5aG1KQ/XGmrjVKloTI/AAAAAAAABcE/Xg8_hY8xqHsT1mNDfxaoEvK8XPAARyxxQCLcBGAs/s1600/Donate-edit3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="640" height="292" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gPj5c5aG1KQ/XGmrjVKloTI/AAAAAAAABcE/Xg8_hY8xqHsT1mNDfxaoEvK8XPAARyxxQCLcBGAs/s640/Donate-edit3.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">... PLEAS for DONATIONS via PayPal, as a way to get money by using my computer? </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">(In my CURRENT circumstances, I am NOT all THAT resistant to ILLEGAL; I just lack CONFIDENCE about BEING ANY GOOD AT IT.)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">If you know something that is NOT a scam, and actually WORKS; I'm LISTENING!!!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">-</span>Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-29087888237618145252019-02-17T11:56:00.000-06:002019-08-01T15:45:26.913-05:00PHISHING:<div>
<i><span style="font-size: large;">noun</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">the fraudulent practice of sending emails purporting to be from reputable companies in order to induce individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers. </span></i><i><span style="font-size: large;">"an email that is likely a phishing scam"</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">You probably get some (maybe a LOT) of THESE in your email ...</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">NOT many WORDS this time; what's ABOVE is probably OBVIOUS to MOST of you.</span></i><br />
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Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5474839973577967601.post-33687562889561054232019-02-11T10:56:00.000-06:002019-08-04T22:15:14.355-05:00Is long life hereditary?<span style="font-size: large;">As of TODAY (11 FEB 2019) I am 76. May 25 of this year will make it 77.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">My dad went at 70, but THAT was from complications after surgery. HIS dad made it to 76.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Mom went at 88. So, it would appear that the Binkley (Dad) and Williams (Mom) families have a fair amount of "long life" genes among them.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">At THIS point, you may be wondering, <i>"WHERE the HELL does "Gordon" come into the picture?"</i> Well, Gordon used to be my <i>middle</i> name (chosen by Dad in honor of a friend), until I went to court and had the family name lopped off. I DID re-unite with the family later, but STAYED with the changed name. (<i>"What family <b>doesn't</b> have its ups and downs?" </i> ~Katherine Hepburn as <i>Eleanor of Aquitaine</i> in <i>"The Lion in Winter"</i>)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Obviously, mortality has been on my mind lately. I could GO before I finish this, OR, I may have another DECADE left. Equally obvious: improvements in medicine and medical care have to be factored in.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>MOST likely CAUSE of demise ...</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">1) Accident. I am weak and fragile, and have difficulty with even walking. In my current condition, a FALL could be LETHAL, depending on HOW and ON WHAT I land.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">2) Heart failure or stroke. I have a blood pressure problem; had it off and on for AGES. Being treated for it, but the financial pressures I'm under sure don't HELP any.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Mostly just rambling (and sharing) here. If there's a POINT to this; it eludes me. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">-</span>Paul Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530815397182777195noreply@blogger.com0