Sir Snark-A-Lot

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Just a word of advise from my short time in this planet... If you stumble across a tiny hole in-the-wall restaurant & bar with a sign out front reading, "Soup of the day: beer," go on inside...

...especially if there's a pelican on the roof.
 
Jerry D. said:
Just a word of advise from my short time in this planet... If you stumble across a tiny hole in-the-wall restaurant & bar with a sign out front reading, "Soup of the day: beer," go on inside...

...especially if there's a pelican on the roof.
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That is just awesome.

Unfortunately I live in a restaurant town (like, 60 of 'em in 3 square city blocks!) so there are NO hole-in-the-wall places.
 
granitestateofmind said:
That is just awesome.

Unfortunately I live in a restaurant town (like, 60 of 'em in 3 square city blocks!) so there are NO hole-in-the-wall places.
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Damn.... I love little spots like that. This place was in the middle of s fishing pier. I might have to sneak back out there this evening.
 
Chameleonbear said:
CRKT M16 <--- Knife you're looking for for your brother in law.
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Great minds do think alike :D I got him the one with the stainless handles, he loved it. Kept playing with it the rest of the night tonight after I gave it to him haha. It's his first flipper too.

It was between the M16 and Benchmade 275. I did not like how thick the 275 was in the hand or pocket. It felt like I had a CS Spartan in my pocket (with a less comfortable grip for me personally).

Being able to compare all the knives that were on my 'want' list made it a considerable amount shorter. I really liked the ZT 0566 and it looked in pictures that it would be alot smaller. I have less interest now in owning a 0560 because I didn't like how it felt in the hand, beautiful knife just don't feel its for me. It makes me want to see a 0562 in hand before buying one online. I also have the really hard choice as to which Becker would look great in my tool kit next. So many awesome choices, not enough money!
 
DunkEm said:
If it's not too personal, can you explain? I can't quite piece that together.

And if it is too personal just ignore this or shoot me a pm and I'll edit it out.
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I don't mind, but it's a weird tale that needs some background info to be put into perspective and shows how my entire career was and still is being hosed by paperwork. WARNING - Significant LEO participation. :D

Back in 1977 when I graduated from Texas A&M and was commissioned as an Ensign in the Navy, everyone who graduated in May had their orders by 01 May. I didn't graduate until 13 Aug as I had to take a couple of classes in the summer at A&M-Galveston due class schedule conflicts (Thank you NROTC for adding 2 additional classes as required for commissioning just prior to my senior year - they conflicted with 2 Major classes - I could either take them in Galveston over the summer and graduate 3 months "late" or 1 class each Fall/Spring and graduate a year "late".)

Well, summer graduation rolls around and the other 20 or so summer commissionees had their orders by 01 Aug. Not so for your's truly. No one could tell me why. No one could figure out what was going on. There were phone calls and messages being sen on nearly a daily basis. So on Saturday, 13 Aug, I was discharged as an E3 from the USNR-R and commissioned as an Ensign, USNR with no where to go.

I temporarily moved in w/ a class of 73 fellow Aggie bandsman who had gotten a job as a Bryan (TX) police officer. I went to the ROTC office on Monday/Tuesday and did nothing but take up space and waste air. The CO told me "We can't pay you without orders, so go home and we'll call when your orders come in."

So to home I went - 140 miles away.

Fearing the worst based on sea-stories of people being forgotten with instructions like that, I called in every day to "muster" and remind them I was alive and waiting. 2 weeks later on, 30 Aug while I was out and about, my mother received a call from the NROTC office who told them to have me call them ASAP. As this was WAY before cell phones (or even pagers), she called the Austin Police Department, explained what was going on and asked if they could "find him and tell him to call home."

As Austin wasn't that big back then (about 100K) and the police would do weird stuff like that, and as my mother knew my "general" plans for the day, it only took them about an hour to find the "Blue 1970 Ford Torino GT with Aggie Band stickers in the window". Scared the #### outta me when a cop pulled up behind me while I was sitting at a light and lit me up. Found a pay phone, called home, then got a ton of change to feed the phone for a "long distance call to College Station" ~ 80 cents, plus 25 cents every 2 minutes.

The duty officer on the other end said
"We have good news and bad news. The good news is your orders came in. The bad news is you need to be in San Diego by 1700 THURSDAY."

As this was barely 48 hours later, I told the duty officer I'd be there ASAP. He asked how long.

I said "About 2 hours."

"What?!!!!"

"Hey, sir, y'all told me to go home. I did. I'm west of Austin."

I called my mother and told her to "Wash my skivvies. I'm heading to San Diego."

So I drove (not at 55 mph) to College Station, got my orders about 1730, drove home (not at 55 mph again), stuffed the clean underwear/sock/Tshirts in the seabag, threw everything I had staged in the garage in the car. The next morning, I took off about 0630. I did not drive 55 mph to California. I arrived in SD around 1230 Thursday, got a motel room, took a shower, got all bright and spiffy in my Summer Whites, reported in around 1630. Barely made it. but looking good when I did.

All that to get to the answer of "How were you already dead?"

Well, it seems that someone F'd up in DC (Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!" and put my brand spanking new service record in the "Recently Deceased" pile. As this was during the magnetic tape and punch card era of computers, everything was still VERY manually paperwork oriented.

Took them 3 weeks to find me, raise me from the dead in the system, figure out where they had a hole to stick me and send the orders to College Station at barely the last minute for me to drive cross country at a very high rate of speed.

I was stopped by the DPS near Ft Stockton in far west TX. When I explained the situation, he let me go with a warning. He did warn me to slow down through El Paso, though. :D

Got stopped again near Gallup NM. Showed hin my TX warning. Same thing. Just a warning.

Got stopped in AZ about 100 miles from the California border. The trooper there was a VN vet Marine who had shipped overseas on the ship I was being stationed to (USS Denver, LPD-9, an Amphibious Transport Dock, essentially a big Marine taxi with boats and helos). Now that was 1 nice cop. He gave me police escort all the way to the AZ/CA border. There, he handed me off to a CHP, who also happened to be a Marine vet, who gave me an escort all the way to Escondido (just east of SD).

I'm not sure I would have been able to report on time in a spiffy, clean uniform without them.

So that's how I started my military career - Deceased before I was ever commissioned. :D
 
Minimum wage in PA is 7.25 last i heard. Times that by the hour and a half it took me to read that and it equals around 10 bucks. Ill PM you my address for payment ZZ :D

Funny story though !!
 
One of my buddies from back home sent me a text, he's at the Pendleton Roundup. It's a week-long rodeo-even-excuse to get drunk in Pendleton, Oregon. It's a fairly big deal but most of the spectators only wear cowboy hats and boots for that one week.

I told him to tell chicks it was my birthday and see if they'd let him text me pics of their bewbies. So far no such luck.
 
TMHunt said:
Where's the middle finger emoticon? :mad:
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There ya go Todd....

Doc
 
Thanks buddy! :D thats for you bighoss! and you spelled bewbies wrong. ......its B.O.O.B.I.E.S. maybe if you ever saw one that wasn't in a magazine you'd know that.
 
zzyzzogeton said:
I don't mind, but it's a weird tale that needs some background info to be put into perspective and shows how my entire career was and still is being hosed by paperwork. WARNING - Significant LEO participation. :D

snip...
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That reminds me of a story.... of course I'm at the age where pretty much everything reminds me of a story.

Back in 1988, my now ex-wife (we had gotten married in 1987) were stationed in Germany and both of us were 1st Lieutenants. The funniest part of this story is that she was the Battalion S1/Adjutant (in charge of all the personnel and finance actions in the unit).

Suddenly, one month she didn't get an LES (leave and earning statement) or any pay deposited in the bank. She contacted the Finance office in Frankfurt, they poked around in the ancient mainframe computer used back then, and replied "You are no longer on active duty." She explained that she was, in fact, still on active duty and would like to get her Finance record straight. To which they replied "We boxed up your file and sent it to CONUS for storage." Surprise! Seems when she was six months out from reaching the end of her service obligation, she had filled out the paperwork to continue on active duty, but it had been lost by someone in Finance before it got entered into the magical computer. So the clerks at Finance did what good clerks do, and stopped her pay. None of the personnel actions were done (orders back home, DD214, etc), but that didn't keep them from doing their part.

While they were working to get her back in the system, they paid her full pay and allowances in cash at the Finance window each month ("casual pay"). It wound up taking 3 months for them to get her back in the system and return things to normal. However, when they restored her to active duty, the computer apparently figured she needed pay and allowances for those three months as well...so her pay that first month was 4 times what it should have been. Like a dutiful soldier she headed up to the Finance office and wrote the Army a check for the extra 3 months pay so they were even.

Come the following February...surprise, surprise! Her W-2 shows up and it reflected 12 full months of pay plus 3 months of casual pay. Seeing as how she didn't get to keep that extra 3 months of pay, we certainly weren't going to pay income taxes on it. We filed and paid the taxes that we calculated based on actual income. I think it took over a year to get an amended W-2 from the Army so that we could prove to the IRS that we weren't trying to rip off poor Uncle Sam. It was actually amazing how understanding the IRS actually was in letting us file an estimated return and waiting over a year for the final.

Like zz, I'm pretty sure most of the folks who have served have their own story of paperwork (for themselves or someone they knew) gone haywire. The only difference now is that faster computers enable the clerks to screw it up even faster...
 
Looks like your tent is out for delivery today Todd. :thumbup:
 
Awesome man. Ive been telling the wife all about it. Last night she says. "Well, I know where this is going. If you get it in the mail tomorrow, it will be set up in the yard all weekend" and she is right. Cant wait to check it out.:thumbup: the tent I take kayaking and have taken to Ethans all the times ive be there was a perfect sized tent but the cheap poles finally crapped out. I wanted one similar but higher quality. Instead of buying a $90. One every three years I just kinda wanted a better one I wouldnt have to do that with. Thought that would be easy to find but havnt been able to find exactly what I want for about a year now. Your looks perfect.
 
TMHunt said:
Awesome man. Ive been telling the wife all about it. Last night she says. "Well, I know where this is going. If you get it in the mail tomorrow, it will be set up in the yard all weekend" and she is right. Cant wait to check it out.:thumbup: the tent I take kayaking and have taken to Ethans all the times ive be there was a perfect sized tent but the cheap poles finally crapped out. I wanted one similar but higher quality. Instead of buying a $90. One every three years I just kinda wanted a better one I wouldnt have to do that with. Thought that would be easy to find but havnt been able to find exactly what I want for about a year now. Your looks perfect.
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It is a cool tent. We were gonna set it up in the yard, but never did. Like I said, never been out of the bag. Soon after I got it, is when we both lost our jobs. I hope everything is in the bag, it's never been checked, haha. :D No reason it shouldn't be, of course. :thumbup:
 
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