I can understand you concerns regarding the very nature of our service.

All of our clients are assured of complete and absolute privacy. Our repair fleet, affectionately refered to as "Plain Brown"...not to be associated with the other guys brown delivery vans, is in and out before you know it. Even if we are going in and out all day, the neighbors will never know how hard we're working to bring you relief. To give rest to your worries...I have included a recent photo of one of our state of the art, mobile repair vehicles. In it's plain brown wrapper, nobody will suspect the very delicate nature of it's presence in the neighborhood. Thank you for your inquiries and please, keep our number in hand whenever you have micromechanical failures...24/7


Thank you and it's been a pleasure servicing you....

I've been stressing over the upcoming evening of debauchery for days now....what to wear, what to wear. Suddenly it dawned on me...well, not suddenly, while reading a blog about an eggy's untimely but not unexpected death. Eureka, I mentally screamed....giving myself a terrible headache. The answer was before my eyes all along. So,

Introducing Doug's New NN Halloween Costume:


Hope you enjoy...call anytime!

Peace and Love and in my case...Sedatives..woohoo...i'm nuts!

I've come closer to the meaning of life, in the arms of family, than ever in my days on this earth. We find our children mighty responsibilities as they grow beyond our hopes and dreams. When they have come to the place we had stood and decided to have families and responsibilities themselves, they bring blessings into our lives. The cycle continues with births and deaths but always reflecting well back on the previous generations.

A simple act, well, simple for less virgoestic of us, as making broccoli soup. The act, in itself..nothing special. The need to nourish, to provide, certainly never a more basic idea. It takes young eyes to see the true magic that lives around us and colors our most menial tasks with discovery and wonder.

I simmered the florets, chopped onion and brocolli stems, cooking them till tender in chicken broth to be pureed for the heart of the soup. Spices and flourishing stirs, a few more ingredients and soon, a hot, flavorful pot of soup awaits the hungry. That is what I saw. How did I become so jaded as to miss the magic of the whole dance?

This is what my grand-daughter saw when she found that grand-pa had made soup:


Through her eyes....the rich dish was cooked in a soup mug the size never before seen, amazingly, warming itself on the dining room table!

Magic....pure, untainted magic brought forth by innocent eyes to bless us with it's satisfying broth. I think she made the better soup than grand-pa. Hers warmed me deeply and lingered long after the flavor was forgotten. It's texture and consistency, perfection. I am blessed by my children and my childrens children and perhaps by my childrens, childrens children before I leave this world to them.

I do not fear where the new generation will take this planet....as long as it remembers to use it's magic.

Peace and Love and a sprinkling of Magic in your lives...all.

No matter how hard you tear it apart...the slide is essentially a short trip from a height to the bottom.

Well, I've taken that slide back down to the bottom. So much on my mind and no solutions coming soon. Why does happiness have to be so difficult sometimes. You think you're there, take a step back and it's enveloped you in darkness again.

Perhaps it more so because I have people depending on my ability to adjust, to take care of them. If it was me, alone...a grey funk wouldn't be so terrible but it's not something i relish when looking them in the eyes. I want to have the answers. I want to be the hero, to save the day..sigh.
Why so hard..damn.

Well, hopefully the rest of you find Peace...I have the Love...

Enjoyed a nice sunday in the park, celebrating my grandson's 2nd birthday. It was a little chilly but the food and company were out of this world.

My two older children have blessed me with not one, not two but 8 grandchildren between them. Not bad for a guy a little over 45..lol. Explains the grey temples...sheesh.

Anyway, he had a great time opening gifts and playing with the balloons until he finally ran out of steam and crashed in the truck. Me..I did my best to make sure each and every dish was sampled. It's hard to go wrong with brats and burgers and I finished it off with a piece of Sponge Bob's foot and some rainbow sherbert. Made a royal pig of myself, I did. It's a wonder I still fit behind the steering wheel.

The funniest thing happened. My wife was standing next to a balloon when a bee stung it and pop it went. Poor bees...the flowers are mostly gone and they're desperate for anything that's even close to the color of a plant. That must have been one surprised bee judging by the look on my partners face..lmao. Guess he'll be a little more careful about big round yellow flowers the next time.

All I know is that I needed that to give me a better outlook. It's been a little grim lately and I just couldn't snap out of the funk that had settled on me. Now I can stop myself when I start feeling down and smile at my memories of a perfect, October afternoon....

Peace and Love....

Yesterday, my company gave 15 supplimental workers their walking papers. Today, it was another 10. 25 people that had hoped to become full time after working almost 2 years in the plant. They were told that they might have a chance being rehired at a later day at a cut in pay and less benefits...how magnanimous, right?

The word after Enron and the others was "corporate accountability". Unfortunately, what they referred to was the bottom line, the cash and accounting part of the corporate entity. Isn't it wrong that "accountability" ends their.

How can you consider yourself accountable if you take peoples lives and turn it upside down in order to pad the pockets of investors. Obviously, 3 Billion dollars of profit last year wasn't enough to satisfy my companies needs..sheesh. I have no clue what 3 Billion dollars looks like but it seems like it would be enough for anyone to consider themselves very successful.

Oh yeah, this is a rant, if you haven't guessed yet!

If I were to define "corporate accountability", it would include sound business practices, responsible accounting, charity, nurturing a strong and content workforce and so many other things that don't come to mind right now. Do you know how much it grits against me to have to work next to someone earning half of what I'm making and we're both doing the same job and amount of work. I worry that they aren't considering the company as the cause of this injustice, but me. What a terrible situation to put a group of people in.

If I were a cynic...I would think that the company did this on purpose. Not only to swell their bottom line with disposable workers but to cause tension in the union itself, eventually leading to it's death or worse because the newer workers feel cheated by older workers with full benefits and retirement.

I guess what it does for me the most is make me futilely angry that we're not all the same and sickened by the tyrannical powere weilded by American corporations under this administration. Please, don't get me wrong...I don't term myself a democrat, because, I feel they have lost track of what America needs and I'm not a republican because their agenda weakens all who are not sitting on a board of directors somewhere or thumping bibles. That makes me a true moderate....not the right leaning moderates the republicans bolster their numbers with but a middle of the road kind of guy, willing to look to both sides for a solution.

Damn..still ranting, aren't I..lmao

I just think that a person should be able to work and gain what is needed without corporations and government making it more and more difficult to not back-slide. Any of us old enough to have lived through a few different administrations know this hasn't been the case in a very long time. We need to get back to government being of the people, employers treating employees like part of a large family and neighbors, towns, counties, states and regions willing to band together to right that which has been wrong for so long.

So, now..I'll stop and wish you all Love, Peace and Fairness...

Almost signed out without blogging a single word. Guess I'm just a little tired this morning. No harm, no foul...so here goes a short one.

Mother Nature is off the hook. She gave me apple cider and cool weather overnight. When I walked into the plant last night..it was still in the seventies...this morning..50 degrees...woohoo.

I was admiring the pattern of the morning sun on the tree tops. You know how the sun sets their upper branches and leaves on fire with golden majesty early in the morning....then I realized...the sun's not out..it's cloudy! Then it hit me...the front that had moved through this morning dropped cool air across the tops of the trees before it was borne away by the steady breeze, causing the tops to begin their color changes. How cool is that. 3/4 of the tree was still green and a diagonal stripe of gold was brushed across their tops. Ok...so when she does it...she goes all out and yes, she's back on the christmas list.

Well...have a couple more things to do before it's nappy time so I had better cut this short. I promise..next time will be a proper blog.

Peace and Love to yuz all....

It always amazes me that management makes such efforts to streamline production that ends up resulting in more complications and less work getting done..lmao. My theory that the higher you move up the corporate ladder, the less grey matter needed once again proves itself correct!

Anyways....Since I sometimes have more time on my hands due to this inept management concept, I am "xxxxxx" to find busy work for my idle hands. This is the part where you roll your eyes and start feeling sympathy for my workplace admirals...lol.

So, a new twist to "Industrial Arts". I pull out my markers, paint pens, air gun..whatever misc. items that might be put to good use and I look for a likely victim. Machinist part carts where high on the list for the longest time. I've painted whole christmas scenes, autumn leaves, colored lights, body parts, tomato's(don't ask), you name it onto the sides of these grey plactic carts. Why...well, I was bored..and feeling creative. The byproduct of this mania......unmistakable carts that can be spotted a mile away. Cart theives were foiled....no hiding airbrushed flames under white glaring lights.

Now, I've been using gauging to match parts within microns of each other before being assembled in it's final form. No, not what you're thinking..no diesel engines with designer fuel injectors inside them..for shame, people.... Alternatively, the black, plastic flats that trays of parts are stacked onto are fair game. Out come the art supplies and 8 hours later....another Industrial Arts Masterpiece...well...at least something kinda cool. Today...a biker sitting on a country road next to a sign that shows S curves, next 50 miles. The title, "Sometimes dreams do come true". I wish I could show you some of these things but cameras are strictly verbotten in our plant.

Maybe the cool thing about my art is thinking someone might get a smile out of it. Seeing something in the middle of industrial overkill that doesn't seem to belong there. Eventually, it's worn away, faded and forgotten...but for just a moment....it's like a lone pole light in the middle of the country evening. Your eyes are drawn to it, relieved to have the darkness broken up by something that sends comforting waves of illumination.

Am I vain about my talents...oh, hell no. I enjoy what I do, have angst over my failures and sit back and exhale in triumph when the last paint is dry and pens are put away for another day. I had a supervisor, at one time, that forbid me from ordering any more paint pens from the supply crib. I found a way around this by uncovering a employee black market in pens and gleefully restocked my supply much to his horror. Even he, in the end, acknowledged his futility in stopping me and gave into the Industrial Arts Movement...lmao.

Well...don't know why I told you all that but...there it is.

Peace and Love with as many colors as you can find....

Oh, she thinks i'm not watching, but she's wrong. The temperature has risen 1 degree every 5 minutes for the last hour..teetering on 80 at 10:30am. That's outright abuse of power, lmao.

Bucking the obvious, decided today was the day for a big pot of venison chili. The only good thing about a dial-up server is the download times for blogs gives me plenty of time to prep and start cooking. Yesterday's experimental pizza casserole was a mild success...damned junior women's club cookbook! Obviously some of them aren't much in the kitchen.

I know there's things to do outside before winter rattles the windows but right now, they're going to have to wait till my toe heals a little more. I finally made it to the point where crazed thoughts of inhaling magic marker fumes to cloud the pain has passed away and the throb is managable. Pain, regular pain, is no stranger and I rarely give it notice anymore. I've been called a glutton for punishment for walking around with a toothache for a month before making it in to have the work done. Actually, that just makes me a moron, snickering at myself!!!

Responding to Pauline's admonishment to be careful about pissing off Mother Nature: Snow is no stranger here and on the flat plains of Illinois, it's the drifts that make life hazardous. The theory around here is that no drift is too big to drive through until you halfway through...then it's ok to rethink it because there's no turning back now. Besides, if you don't like the snow, give it a day or two and it'll be in the next county...no trees here to keep it around. Didn't even know snow and rain was supposed to fall downward until I saw it in a movie..lmao.

Well, lookie there....i just created a rambler... My dad would be proud. I learned from the best, a man who could talk for two hours without having a point to his words. I miss him but he's given me some of himself that I will cherish forever...my ability to bullshit with the best of them.

Peace and Love, Y'all

I'm officially starting a grass roots movement to change the title of Illinois from the "Land of Lincoln" to "The SeeSaw State". The Governer will be hearing from me shortly..sheesh.

Just when I was grinning like an empty-headed fool at the thought of cooler weather and a jarring symphony of autumnal color...it gets warm again. Not a little warm...but close to the nineties! That fickle Mother Nature is not ready to give up her luxurious green blanket for her patchwork red yellow and orange comforter. With all due respect, Mom.....this sucks.

Ok...Biology 101...why do leaves turn color? Well, children...trees and consiquently, their leaves contain sugar.. A minute amount, but it's there!(Explains Maple Syrup, huh). In order for the leaf to change from it's emerald green summer coat to the earthy reds and yellows of autumn...you have to have two things. Heat and Cold...in the same day. Warm days followed by cool nights transmute the leaves and makes them feel all pretty and giggly...uh, the giggly part, i'm guessing at. There's the problem....89degrees during the day and 70degrees at night just doesn't cut the mustard. The best case scenario...70s during the day and upper 40s or lower 50s during the evening. That would be "nipplie" to you pervs, wink.

Alright...I feel better. Gave Momma Nature a piece of my mind and if I'm lucky, she won't hurl a thunderbolt my way while I'm bent over in the yard....lmao.

Oh yeah...almost forgot. Why the "SeeSaw State"? Because the weather here goes up and down so quickly and often that you end up with confused Canadian Geese..flying North and South in the same day... Leaves that turn brown overnight and fall to the ground in 5' piles and me....pissed of for missing my favorite season again! Keep you fingers crossed for me because if this year turns out to be a letdown...Mother Nature isn't going to get anymore Christmas Cards from yours truly and she better hope I don't get a wild hair and teepee the hell out of her trees.

Peace, Love and The cold, steely stare of a serious Autumn Lover!