After finally getting my trebuchet back I still hadn’t learned my lesson completely. I bought my own beer and soda intending to drink the soda, and launch the beer. I brought my supplies to the place where my trebuchet now permanently resides. I also brought along several friends to help me turn the trebuchet so it was instead pointed at a much larger, and unused, helicopter pad.

As my friends and I were loading up the twelve pack I had bought, someone pointed out that it was a waste of perfectly good beer.

After a quick discussion and an informal poll, the beer launch was vetoed. So we loaded the soda instead. All four 2 liter bottles. We didn’t bother with ties or anything because the sling would hold them together nicely until about half a second after release. We all popped a beer and toasted the trebuchet dubbing it “Soda-Slayer”.

And the I pulled the firing cord.

Did I mention the four plastic soda bottles? The two liter ones.

Well they make a sound similar to a twelve ounce can of beer slamming into the side of a building.

Especially when they slam into the side of the self-same building.

In all our re-aiming and adjustments, we forgot to readjust the launching platform. What resulted was something similar to a “hook” in golf. The bottles flew the correct direction for about one nanosecond then proceeded to veer off in a beautiful arc before slamming into the roof of the headquarters building and exploding. I was told it sounded something like a cannon going off on the roof. They shook the whole building. The only thing that saved us was when the base commander came storming over, we saluted, and handed him a beer with the promise to clean up the mess and re-roof the building.

After that day I was permanently banned from my trebuchet. It is still sitting there though. It is slightly rusted and the sling is rotted, but a little loving care and an new sling and it will be ready for more soda/beer slinging action.

What would you do if you found twelve pieces of twelve foot long steel I-Beam sitting next to a metal recycle bin? Me, I’m interested in the late feudal eras of Northern Europe so I did the only thing I could think of. I built a trebuchet.

For those of you who do not know what a trebuchet is, it is a fourteen foot tall counter-levered catapult capable if flinging large object tremendous distances with great accuracy.

In other words, it’s fun!

So there I was, I-Beams and a plan. But how to do this? Well our local vehicle maintenance shop just happens to have not only a welding machine, but an acetylene torch as well. It took me two weeks of leave and a lot of secrecy, but what I emerged with was a twelve foot tall 16,400 pound steel and lead contraption that I was proud of. I even attached a tow hitch and wheels to make it transportable.

My first day back to work I towed it along. During my lunch break I wanted to test fire it, but had no ammunition to fire. Again providence provided and I found a fridge full of nearly expired beer. So I grabbed a six pack, unhitched and set up the trebuchet and had it loaded and ready when one of my co-workers returned from lunch.

He saw me with a rope in hand, a full unbroken six pack upon the launch platform and a huge grin on my face. Unfortunately he was just a hair slow in telling me not to pull the rope.

WHAM!!!!

The six-pack launched about two-hundred feet into the air and sailed completely over the parade grounds I was aiming at. About mid-flight the plastic rings gave out and I suddenly had a cluster shot instead of a single projectile. As it flew I realized my mistake as the beer also flew over the parking lot on the far side of the parade ground and began to pelt the side of the base headquarters. If you’ve never seen an entire six-pack explode in rapid succession I’d recommend using this particular method.

Just don’t hit the side of the headquarters building.

Especially right out side of the base commander’s window.

And doubly especially with the base commander’s own beer.

After a brief hiatus we’ve got more military items again.

(Submitted by Andrew)

• I am not “God and King” over the base networks Electrocons and will not wage war on the Protocons
• The computers are not spying on the junior enlisted
• The computers are not spying on the senior enlisted
• The computers are not spying on the officers
• Computers of and in themselves are not capable of spying at all
• Will not use Photoshop to enlarge a SNCO’s head
• Will not email above picture to all lower enlisted on base with the subject “Real photo of <name omitted>’s Ego”
• Will not rename the SIPR as SIPpy so the officers will feel “More at home”
• Will not use official government computers, spare parts, tools and parking lots to build a battle robot
• *Will not use above battle robot to “enforce parking regulations” on other branches of the service
• *Will not attach a fully loaded M16A2 to above battle robot to “make it more imposing”
• Will not use forklifts to “re-park” unauthorized vehicles
• Will not use government assets to build a “beer trebuchet” even if it is really cool to fling a can of beer over 200 yards
• Will not feed the badgers left over meat from the barbeques
• Will not post fake warning signs on government devices
• Will not use above beer trebuchet to fling bottled sodas
• Will not play “CD Frisbee” between the 3rd floors of separate buildings
• Will not write my ex-wife’s name on weapons qualification targets
• Will not bring my own “M16A2″ for weapons qualification
• Will not use government assets to build a “fully functioning scale model of a WWI gatling gun”
• Will not test the “armor capabilities” of occupied vehicles with scale model WWI gatling gun.
• Will not test the “armor capabilities” of unoccupied vehicles with scale model WWI gatling gun.
• Will not use the Howitzer as a drum, ever if it has “great acoustics”
• Will always check direction of fire from T-Shirt cannon to ensure it does not fire a baseball through the Base CO’s closed window.
• Will not smile and shakes everyone’s hand thanking them profusely for demoting me a rank after scale model of WWI gatling gun incident
• Will not tell the psyc evaluator “I’m loony as Canadian money”
• Will not build my own bunker with flood sand bags and declare all land in it as ceded from the union and shall now be called Blargistan
• Will not use Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes as my name on official forms

Well I thought that sending everyone to some guys blog to leave comments would be funny. But he evidently shut comments off.

So that was just a waste of time. Sorry about that.

Next time I’ll check to see if the comments are turned on before I send everyone running amok into someone else’s site.

It’s been a while since I last posted anything. I’d like to give you all a good reason, but I just don’t have one. Football season is starting, and keeping up with the NFL and Fantasy Football has kept me busy.

I have various little witty sayings that I have picked up over the years, such as when someone drops something I’ll say, “Just throw that anywhere.” Or when I have a situation handled and someone mentions to me to be prepared to handle said situation I’ll say: “I’m on it, like flies to the things flies fly to.”

One of my sayings when leaving to go somewhere is “Let’s head out like a fetus.”

My 9 year old son came up with one the other day that had me in stitches (on the inside)

We were going into my brother’s house and my son, the great mimic that he is, said “let’s head out like a fetus”, I explained to him that we were heading in, so that saying wasn’t accurate, so without missing a beat he says, “we’ll then, let’s head in like a gay man.”

Here’s a few new one’s that I’ve added to my stand-up routine,

1. I can’t do the two guy one girl three-way. I’m always afraid of crossing swords, and that’s just a little too gay for me. So, much to my chagrin, I’ve realized that means no more Letter “H-ing” midgets, the dicks still touch somewhere in the middle.

2. Did you know that every year there are over a million battered women in the United States? And to think, I’ve been eating mine plain all this time.

3. I have this cousin who is always in trouble with the law. He had to get a waiver to even enlist in the military, then was thrown out in AIT for pissing hot. I see him every Christmas and at family reunions (when he’s not incarcerated or I’m not deployed). Every time I see him he has a new scheme or less than savory money-making endeavor that he is trying out. This last family reunion he shows up with a bunch of new tattoos, and tells me that he’s tattooing for a living now, and working part time for a loan shark. As he’s leaving the reunion I say, “bye, and stay out of trouble, and if you can’t stay out of trouble I have a great idea for your next tattoo: “HIV Positive” right above your asshole, might help you out next time you’re in the joint”.

So I spotted this quote from a site that is linked to here.

Let’s see. I’ve been online now for well over a year, and received a whopping 1 comment for any of my articles.

So what I want everyone to do is to go to his site and leave a comment.

Here are several things, that may be of interest, since I have not posted much lately, and am so tired, that I have no clue if any of it is interesting or entertaining, so I am loading up the blog shotgun and hopefully I’ll hit something.

We’ll start with where I have been.

Some of you may be wondering where the hell I have been. I’ll keep the answer/excuse short.

For the last couple months I have been working as a security guard for a local outdoor mall, in Austin, Texas, in the summer, during a drought and record heat, on various schedules that change from day to day. It is draining to say the least. It’s an easy job, but draining.

I also just started a new job doing phone support, and have been talking to local haunted houses, trying to decide which one I will work at.

The woman and I have also been looking for a place to move to, so that has eaten most of the spare time. We have to get out of this apartment. We have had a toilet that will randomly overflow for a couple of years now, in spite of numerous attempts by the landlord to get it fixed. But worst of all, are the upstairs neighbors.

The Upstairs Neighbors

They are a family of four; Dad, extremely large mom, extremely large teen aged daughter, and a three or four year old daughter. They are the noisiest people I have ever lived under. I am not sure they ever sleep, and if they do it is for about thirty minutes at an hour or so after dawn.

When they first moved in, they moved in after midnight as the dad had a night job and it was the only time they could do it. Sure it was annoying, but I understand. You got to move when you can move. But it seemed to take them a long time to move in. Somehow they were always banging things, dropping things, sliding things, and generally stomping around, and it has gone on for about two years.

I like to compare them to klutzes that enjoy rearranging their extensive bowling ball collection.

And you can hear every step they take. I am convinced they are part sasquatch, and I have almost injured myself several times when speaking to them in person, by trying to keep from saying, “gooney goo goo” to them. (Sorry for those of you that don’t get the reference, just watch this clip from “Raw” by Eddie Murphy and you will understand).

Fortunately, they are gone now, as the apartment management made them move to another apartment after years of complaints from us. We did not want to make them move, we just wanted them to settle down enough so we would not have to worry about our ceiling caving in. They even told us that the apartment management had informed them that if there was one more complaint they would make them move. So they came to talk to us.

We discussed the noise, how much of it, and how often. I even told them it sounded like they never stopped moving in, and even dropped the bowling ball collection analogy too. They tried to say that it was the little girl. Which I might buy, but the noise is all day, first thing in the morning and late into the evening, often til two or three AM that all this noise happened. So, I doubt it was all the toddler.

As they were leaving, my girlfriend overheard the mother tell the three or four year old that this was all her fault.

But they said they would stop, and they did. For one day.

We put up with the noise, not wanting to get them kicked out. So we resorted to the classic, banging on the walls and pounding the ceiling with a stick. All this did was irritate them and they would pound back.

Even so, we were not going to say anything, until they did something so profoundly stupid, we had to say something.

One day they were on a real tear, upstairs, and I banged on the ceiling, matching them, thump for thump. Then I get a knock on my door. It wasn’t the neighbors, but the Sheriff. He said that they had complained about the banging on the ceiling. I told him, that I was trying to get them to shut up, and invited him in for a listen, since they did not have the sense to settle down after calling the cops for my noise. He agreed with me and went and spoke to them about it, but that was the last straw, I wrote the apartment management and told them they needed to go.

Anyways they are gone, and I am working at another job, back on the phones doing support, and working security on the weekends. But at least I am getting a tad more sleep.

All this is why I have not written in a while as I am exhausted.

Oh well, on with the post I wanted to write.

They’ll Let Anyone Drive a School Bus.

While at work, I was talking to my best friend from childhood on the phone and we discussed an event that we still have a hard time believing actually happened.

When we were in middle school, the bus driver seemed to not like me much. I do not remember what asshatery I had done to deserve it, but at one point, he decided that I would have to sit in the front seat of the bus for the rest of the school year.

His name was Mr. Johns. Mr. Johns was a large man who should have his picture in the dictionary next to the word, “sweaty.” Sitting that close to him was not exactly pleasant on the olfactory senses, if you catch my drift. If not, I am sure there is still some of that odor drifting around somewhere, and eventually you may encounter it.

One day, my best friend, Ray, is sitting up front with me, as the bus traveled down the road towards school. At one point, Mr. Johns, turns to me, and says, “Mike, I want to show you something, so pay attention.”

“See that? That’s the emergency break. Let me show you how it works.”

He then pulled the brake and the bus came to an almost immediate stop from the thirty or forty miles an hour we had been doing. There were books everywhere, and I think everyone on the bus ended up flipping over their seats and landing in the seat in front of them.

It seemed weird, maybe even a bit crazy.

Then Mr. Johns continued, “That’s what I want you to do if something ever happens to me while driving this bus, like if I get shot or something. You stop the bus and let everyone out.”

He then removed the brake and took us to school.

For the last twenty five or so years since, Ray and I have yet to figure out what the hell that was all about. The next school year, we had a different bus driver. We have no clue what happened to Mr. Johns, but we assumed he got shot, or maybe had a heart attack from all the weight and the sweating he did. More than likely, he just got a job somewhere else, but we prefer to think he got shot.

We have no idea why someone would shoot him, but at least knowing that someone was really after him, makes the story make a bit more sense. Although, we still can’t figure out what he did, and who he pissed off so much that he didn’t even feel safe while driving a bus load of children around.

Another thing that has come up at work, is my new favorite song, that I have turned my coworkers on to.

My New Favorite Song

The video is ok, but it is the song I love, it is just catchy and wrong in all the right ways.

“Lotion” by the Greens Keepers

And finally, one other piece of awesomeness that I just could not leave out.

Click Here For Awesomeness

Awesomeness