Hey all, I know that it's been a long time since I have rapped at ya, but I've been busier than a one-armed pimp in a bitch-slapping contest. For one thing, I'm having a hard time listening to all the whiners who have lost their jobs, homes, families, livlihoods, etc.

Get over it, will you? The Empire is finally collapsing--it's time to party like it's 1999! Fuck Obama and his limp-wristed stimulating hand-job, The Titanic is sinking and I'm on deck in my tux, brandy snifter in hand angrily inquiring why the band has stopped playing. I intend to ride this baby right down to the last beat, damnit!

In case you haven't been following the latest headlines, yours truly has reached the dreaded age of 35. Jeebs, I didn't think that I would make it to 33 so every year after that is just an after-glo. This has been the best year yet, though thanks to the best friends that a guy could hope for.

Friday night I came home to a surprise--a clean apartment, thanks to sweetie-pie's tireless work that day, mopping, sweeping and scouring up months worth of filth, neglect and abuse. My fag-hag has a heart of gold and suffered countless indignation and sickness to help me bring my life back around and make a new start. To top it off, Billy paid my past-due cable/internet bill and restored service, plus bought Rock Band for my PS2 for us all to enjoy. I am blessed to have profound friendships with these generous and loving people. They inspire and teach me on a daily basis and I am proud to be counted as a best friend in this circle.

In other news, I am the proud steward of three adorable kittens, birthed by Sandy and sired by Sammy. The father unfortunately exhibited aggressive moves towards the newborns and had to be hauled off to protective custody. Sandy is now a single mom, barely scraping by on what charity I give her and the bastard kittens. I am constantly amused by them stumbling about the apartment, wandering to and fro before mom gets nervous and drags them back under the bed for their nursing and cleaning.

Lastly, I am romantically available again as the last brief relationship that I was in sort of parted ways. No hard feelings, we just kind of diverged but we had some great times and I'm thankful for the experiences. I'm not in a rush to get in to another relationship, but won't dismiss the idea, either.

Big weekend planned, starting Friday night and lasting through Monday, which I have off from work. Stay tuned, more news at 11

Hey, guys, I know that it's been a long time since I rapped at ya, but I've been busier than a one-armed pimp in a bitch-slapping contest!

Biggest news is that I am making another scheduled appearance in Minnesota this week. For one, my family is celebrating Jesus' birthday, plus my sister is getting married on the 27th, so my presence has been strongly requested for the aforementioned events.

Other news, as an update to the last entry is that my best friend Billy has found gainful employment, after only a week of being out of work-a remarkable feat. Everything happens for a reason, he says, and I agree. He is now working for one of my employer's competitors and his work is more focussed on repairs, which is his strength. He is being stretched and challenged in this job, which wasn't happening so much with his past position.

Other big news is that I am seeing someone romantically again. This cat hit me up on OkCupid.com which is an excellent and fun free online social networking/dating site. We've been talking for about two months, almost every day and have had a few real live dates in the interim, and things are looking very optimistic. He's 24, cute, intelligent, and funny as hell. He's big in to comics, games, toys, anime, etc which I find charming, despite not having a shared interest. Importantly, he IS in to metal, guns, off-the-wall humor, sophisticated films and isn't put off by my bizarre world-views.

In fact, he could be characterized as an anarchist because of his complete and total disregard for politicians and politics. On our first real date, he asked me to explain the difference between democrats, republicans and libertarians, because he had no clue. I kid you not, this guys just does not give a fuck about politicians.

On "election"day I texted him, wondering if he had done his part to continue the facade, and he wrote back "no I played video games, engaging in a realm where I have the hope of affecting real change" I think that I love him :)

We're taking it slow, though which is directly different to how I handled my last (and first) relationship. We are becoming friends first, and where that leads remains to be seen, but we're liking where it's going and are very fond of each other. When we're together around each other's friends we're quite animated and funny, but alone we're still shy and nervous around each other. In fact, he remarked tonight over dinner and drinks with a friend, that when he and I watched Dark Knight together, he was pretty sure that, while cuddling, I had died at some point because I didn't move for like ? hour. This caused us to burst out laughing at the restaurant--what a glowing review of a date, lol.

In other news, parts of New England have been hit by a particularly bad ice storm. It has knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people, and recovery has been slow. It has affected our business, too because many of our oxygen customers have been without power, making us scramble to accommodate their needs. Tonight we are expected to get 3-5 inches of the white stuff, too! Life in New Hampshire is, to say the least, interesting.

My best friend, Billy just got fired today. I won't get in to the personal details of why, but suffice it to say that he was the best tech we've ever had, and the boss had a very difficult time doing it. His hand was forced, unfortunately. In the last week I have lost both of my best friends; of course nothing has changed in our relationship and we will continue to be best friends, but it is very difficult to deal with the fact that I won't be working with them or seeing them as often. The way that the economy is also worries me, for their job-hunting.

Billy handled it like a man, though--he shook the bosses' hand, calmly walked out and said goodbye to everyone. I hugged him and almost cried, but he stopped me, saying "it's going to be ok". Of course we are still going to be best friends, but it devastates me personally to have to see him go through this. You will be missed, Billy.

Our store manager fired one of us Customer Service Reps last week, and an ad was posted in the daily paper on Friday to announce the position. We were unprepared; on Friday easily 50 people showed up, in addition to the number of people who simply emailed resumes in to the manager.

Monday was no exception, and the store was filled with applicants all day long. Some applicants were the typical disheveled wanderers-in but many were obviously over-qualified. The level of desperation expressed by the applicants was barely masked; "can I see a manager now?" "When can we expect to hear back?" At one point I remarked to one of my colleagues, "Jeez, you'd almost think that we're on the verge of collapse, or something, lol" to which he responded, "well, yeah!"

Sunday night, writing this after having just gotten back from a weekend in Maine. Jack and I left Friday night after work and took the scenic way up through small towns in New Hampshire and Maine before getting on I-95 north of Kennebunkport. I've been along the coast in Maine and have been to Keenebunkport before, so I have seen the affluent side of the State. Seeing how the rest live is sobering and saddening.

We stayed with his friend Art, who is the inventor of an electric car which is available for purchase. He has featured it at a number of shows and events, including PorcFest. The next day we headed in early (by my standards!) to the Common Ground Country Fair. I knew that there would be a turnout, but I was amazed by the size and scope of the Fair and at the throngs who turned out for it.

The weather was perfect, 66 and sunny. I milled around, touring the exhibits, political booths and vendors and also sat in a few workshops. One was on genetically-modified foods, another on heated-slab houses, another on commuting by bicycle, and one on the triple crisis of finite energy, population growth and eco-devastation.

All of the vendors featured hand-made crafts and wares, and all of the food served was locally grown organic vegetables, grains and meats from Maine. I sampled an excellent seven-vegetable and cheese wrap with a fresh lemonade sweetened with Maine honey.

Later that night we ate at a Mexican restaurant then saw “Burn After Reading”, the newest Coen brothers film. It's not going down in the annals with “Raising Arizona”, “Miller's Crossing” or “Fargo”, but it's well-worth seeing. Christ, what a cluster-fuck!

Today we slept in late, then had some excellent whole-grain pancakes with blueberries picked fresh from Art's property. Later I got a tour of his shop where he makes the electric car, along with farm implements which he sells through Johnny's.

It was a good weekend; I was glad to get a change of scenery and inspired to have a chance to rub shoulders with thousands of people who are trying to live in a more sustainable way.

This weekend I am off to Maine to hit up one of the biggest Fairs of its kind in the whole NorthEast, The Common Ground Country Fair which is put on by Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA)

I've never been before, but it's supposed to be quite the deal, with hands-on education and workshops taught by real-life experienced people in their respective fields. According to the description:

MOFGA celebrates its 32nd Common Ground Country Fair on September 19, 20 & 21, 2008, in Unity, Maine. The Fair allows fairgoers to make connections with a rapidly expanding base of organic farms in the state of Maine. Hundreds of vendors, exhibitors and demonstrators, more than 1,000 volunteers, and roughly 50,000 fairgoers will gather to: share knowledge about sustainable living; eat delicious, organic, Maine-grown food; buy and sell beautiful Maine crafts and useful agricultural products; compete in various activities; dance; sing and have a great time.

I'll be staying with a friend of a friend not far from the Fairgrounds, and am looking forward to seeing some change of scenery and networking with some like-minded folks.

As I announced in my latest post, Arc and I are parting ways, and I announced it in what I thought was a fairly objective non-libelous manner. When I discovered that he had in turn written the following about our shared experience, I had to take action to tell the real truth. (spelling, editing and contextual errors are left untouched)

============================================================
http://www.okcupid.com/profile/SteamPunker/journal/

"Not that the status of "single" means anything, given that I'm religiously polyamourous..

It's been over a year since I met this guy. Free Stater Thanksgiving dinner. Actually not as many of the nutters in that group showed up as you'd expect...

He's very cute, shy, and told me he's gay. He hired me for a computer job. We spent Yule together, drinking all night waiting for the "new born sun" to rise.

When my roommate went psycho, I moved in with him, and it was ok for awhile. We talked a lot, I was surprised at how little he drank given my earlier impression of him being an alchoholic (couldn't drive due to DWI, spent over $80 plus tip one night at a bar, etc)

Things have gone downhill since, his coworkers started coming around more often and I was having it out with one of them about dealing him drugs and encouraging his drinking.

Then a few weeks ago such a confrontation turned violent, and I learned that he really doesn't have my back. He told those people where I was later that afternoon, a second confrontation that resulted in the police being called, and then continued to let them into the apartment. It seemed like he wanted to keep escalating the situation.

Let's put this in context - to my knowledge all of these people have served jail time. When the police showed up, they knew exactly who the woman was and her history with domestic violence. Her brother, who she brought along, got out of jail the day before. The guy who gave me a concussion beats his sons when they cry, says the Bible is the only book he's ever read (or is worth reading), has tatoos on his body he says are secret messages from God, claims to see/hear spirits that tell him who's good and evil, and doesn't believe he can die because he hasn't fufilled his mission yet.

For my own safety I started moving out a few weeks ago and gave my ex the offer to move into the new apt with me, rent free, under the condition those people are not allowed in the apt. He said no, and there we have it.

I'm worried for him, and love him, but there isn't much more I can do. He's made his choice, and it's time for me to move on. I leave him in his chair, with his bottle of whiskey, to slowly pickle himself into oblivion."
===========================================================

Naturally, when I read that I became rather perturbed, for the account described above hardly accounts for the actual account of history.

Later, I wrote:

"They say that truth is stranger than fiction but in this case I think that fiction wins out. Christ, as you saw from my blog entry , I was completely willing to chalk this miserable complete waste of 9 months up to naivety and innocence on my part, but after reading this tripe I feel the need to correct obvious historical revisionism.

I will dismantle this diatribe; correct it line-by-line and give our readers the real story.

For starters, it is well known that I am a drunk, and I have never tried to disguise this fact. To try and defame my character with these humiliating claims are baseless.

Secondly, you didn't move in with me--I invited you to move in with me because I felt sympathy for your situation which; whether it be true or not remains to be seen, considering the lies you have told me.

Things went downhill because I was getting warnings from every person speaking in to my life, and while I didn't trust you completely, I chose to disregard these warnings because you had managed to take advantage of my trusting and giving nature by manipulating my emotions to the point of confusion.

The confrontation that happened in my apartment was largely instigated by you, in reaction to your obvious jealousy. Your intention was to create division between myself and my best friends. Your plan plainly backfired. When you punch a girl in the face in front of her friend, of course her friend is going to react by beating you; the fact that he stopped immediately was for respect for me when I asked him to stop. To keep you from going to the hospital.

No, I didn't tell the secondary search party where you had taken off to later—in fact I specifically warned you via test-message that they were looking for you and to hide. The reason why I came along with them, after pleading for them to not search for you, was to keep your ass from getting beat. The fact that you were not arrested and charges pressed against you was because of my begging my friend, the female victim; otherwise your ass would be sitting in jail. She did it for me.

I did not later escalate the situation, in fact I tried to avert anything by being considerate to the fact that you are a shut-in and didn't have any place to go. I tried to put my social life on hold, to the point of pissing off my friends, and tried to keep them from coming over to my apartment because of the fact that you said you were afraid of them.

This wasn't always effective and eventually they spoke some truth in to my life; the scales fell from my eyes and I finally realized that in fact it was you who was creating all the drama and stress in my life.

And the lies go on and on. Only Billy has been in jail, and that for inadvertently selling weed to an undercover cop as a kid, for whom he thought he was doing a favor for a relative. He has never laid a hand on his kids or claimed anything spiritual about his tattoos. Christ, where do you get this material? It's priceless.

Just to clarify, I told you to get out of my apartment that night—you didn't decide to move out for your own safety. Since I am a decent, caring guy I decided to give you a month to get out, which in hindsight I shouldn't have done because you are not my responsibility. The fact that you showed your true colors should have been enough to make me kick you to the curb that night, but I had a heart.

And then it gets even funnier with the offer to move in to your new apartment under your conditions, lol wtf? How would you propose to pay for this with no regular job? You never contributed a dime or worked a day for the nine months that you lived here and I don't think that you have any concept of what it costs to live in the real world--or how you would support me, never mind yourself. I work very hard, long hours to put a roof over my head and to feed myself, my pets and those who I choose to take in.

During these nine months you ate me out of house and home, didn't lift a finger to keep the place clean despite being home 24/7 and even expected me to pay for your online server storage. I don't think so! Good luck being on your own—your free ride is over!

After reading this baseless claptrap, I discussed suing you for libel, but all my friends laughed and said—what are we going to do; sue him for a couple of kilts? LOL

Good riddance, lying, manipulative, con-artist prick—You've caused me nine months of misery and have completely drained me financially and trashed my apartment. I won't miss you, but thanks to you I have learned some hard lessons which have helped me to become a stronger person and to help fulfill my destiny. This was a necessary lesson for me, so for that I thank you-- despite the absolute agony that I had to endure to learn it.

I feel badly for the next person who you will move on to manipulate, and will do my best to warn the whole world about you. Buh-bye!"
===================================================

Now I have my place back to myself and am embarking on the mission to clear the confusion that is my my mind and to rebuild the wreckage that is my life and home.
Already my coworkers have noticed that I am far more pleasant and relaxed at work, and this month I got the best review that I have ever gotten; the boss also told me that I am doing a good job. MY friends have also noticed that I am back to my normal calm, relaxed self, and that I have seemed to have learned some hard lessons from the experience. Here's looking forward to the future!

Hey, I know that it's been a long time since I've rapped at ya'll, but lately I've been busier than a one-armed pimp in a bitch-slapping contest! Actually, biggest news is that Arc and I are parting ways. I won't get in to all the details of the drama that has been taking place over the last month, other than to mention that my two best friends, became completely at odds against him, and vice-versa, to the point of a physical confrontation. The situation, which had been brewing over time, erupted one night and more or less put me in a position of being forced to choose between friends. After long and careful deliberation, I'm choosing my friends and my sanity have asked him to move out in order to keep some peace, following the advice that basically every single person in my life has spoken in to my life. I'm kind of a slow learner, sometimes.

I've been kind of a wreck over the last few weeks because of the stress, but on the plus side my best friend Billy has really stepped up to the plate to help to calm me down. I've also serendipitously met a new friend recently who is like a kindred spirit, and we've been bouncing ideas off each other and connecting on a deep level. Now I feel like a weight is off my chest since Arc and I are parting ways and I've made my decision. He's still not completely moved out, but is staying with friends and is working on getting his own place; it's all falling together as destiny works.

So that's about all that I have to report. It just took me a while because it was my first real relationship, and I had no other experience to judge it by. Over the last week, though all of my coworkers have noticed how much more cheerful and pleasant I have become as a result; I do feel a lot better and am glad that it shows to others--this confirms and validates my decision. Now it's time to really clean house and move on with my life, and hopefully I'll be updating this stupid blog more often!

Hey, I know that it's been a long time since I have rapped at ya, but I've been busier than a one-armed pimp in a bitch slapping contest. Today marks the one year anniversary since I have updated this blog, and much has transpired since then! My silence online has not been a result of a lack of events to report on, but simply a protracted case of writer's block. How to sum up a year's worth of activity? I'm going to keep this brief because such a task is impossible...

On Cinco de Mayo 2007, I was stopped, arrested and subsequently charged with disobeying a police officer, dui and carrying a pistol without a permit. The latter baseless charge was subsequently dropped, the dui stuck and the former is riding a two year continuance with six months of jail hanging over my head.

I basically haven't had permission from the government to drive since then and won't be eligible again for a couple months. Not driving really changes a person! Since then my friend Jack has been driving the ANTIGOV truck, just to keep her on the road. I now ride the shame-train in to work and usually get a ride home with a colleague.

On Thanksgiving day last year I attended a misfit/orphan freestater gathering to celebrate the holiday with thirty-some other odd individuals, and ended up meeting someone who would subsequently alter my life significantly.

http://www.myspace.com/arcriley Since then we have gotten to know each other better, discovered that we are on the same page and have been living together for the last few months.

In the mean-time, the world is crashing down, as I have been predicting and writing about for the last couple years. I hate to say "I told you so" but...

Some family news includes an announcement from my brother that he is going to be married in the last weekend of June, and I am to be in the wedding ceremony. I am looking forward to making my way back to Minnesota for the occasion and to meet up with old friends.

I other news Sandy is thriving and well; she is a constant source of amusement, comfort and joy. For a brief two-week period she shared the apartment wth another adorable cat, Shilo whose owner, my colleague, couldn't afford afford to feed during that time. He has subsequently gone back to live with her, and the separation has proven to be heart-wrenching for both cats. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the impending collapse will bring him back again for good.

Hey, I know it's been a long time since I've rapped at ya, but I've been busier than a one-armed-pimp in a bitch-slapping contest.

Work has been busy as hell and I've been working on promoting the film showing, which finally happened in Concord last night. I'd gotten a chance to meet Michael Berger once before our showing, when Jack and I ventured over into neighbouring Vermont to catch a showing of "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" That's a stunning film in and unto itself. For those who don't know, the US and CIA were largely responsible for forcible ousting Hugo Chavez from office via military coup back in 2002. That lasted for two days before a massive groundswell of support brought him back. If only the poor in the US also had nothing to lose...

The film tour of "Improbable Collpase" seems to be going well. The Keene crowd pulled in about 100 folks at their theatre venue. Other groups have been smaller, and I booked a room that would hold 30; we filled it. I only wish that there were some way to get the word out about how monumental it is to see this film and hear his presentation afterwards.

For over an hour, with no notes, he went in to great detail about deep politics, profiting on record put options before 9/11, the fall of the three buildings, Peak Oil, CIA and drug money, the impossible cell phone calls on 9/11, who stood to gain from the events and who is likely behind it. He had the audience on the edge of our seats, and not a single person even disagreed with him, despite the audience representing a good spectrum of humanity.

For some background, Michael was a successful business man who had no suspicions about what happened on 9/11 until a couple years ago, when he learned about the massive insider trading that occured prior to the events. Since then he has become almost obsessed with learning the truth, and cashed in his savings to make and produce this film. As Media Director for 911truth.org he has considerable exposure to the media, as well.

The film is excellent by the way, and I push it with no qualms. The arguments are airtight and it doesn't get in to any of that weird moonbat conspiracy stuff (Alex Jones, Loose Change). It focuses on specifically civil engineering and physics studies of how the buildings came down, and without pointing finger, pulls in to question the official story.

There are a couple more showings left through this weekend which I plan to hit; I want to absorb as much info as I can from this learned man. I'm very encouraged that his breadth and depth covers as much as it does; many researchers in to 9/11 truth shy away from covert CIA ops, Peak Oil, Wall Street and CIA connections, illegal drug money laundering, etc but he tackles it all. That is important because they are all intertwined.

On a humorous note, some of the members of Student Scholars for 9/11 Truth have been hitting some of the showings, including a fellow who does an uncanny Alex Jones impersonation. I'm not joking--if he were behind a curtain, you'd never know it weren't that cracker from Austin, TX shouting "...Bilderbergers, New World Order, I'm not going to accept this tyranny and NEITHER SHOULD YOU! What more do you need, ladies and gentlemen? Go to PrisonPlanet.com right now and subscribe for $.15 a day. I'm losing money on this, by the way!" This impersonator is hilarious!

As fast as a week goes, here it is again. Remember how I extolled the lovely virtues of a New Hampshire Spring? Fuck that, we just got six inches of snow. Everyone had removed their snow tires (except for yours truly) drained gas from the snow blowers hung up the skis and retired the snow mobiles, and now this shit! WTF! Oh, well--not like it really affects me!

Since I lost my beloved Fuso last week I've been stuck with a foul and miserable replacement; a discarded truck from years past; cast aside because of her looks and age. I anxiously await reuniting with my beloved! It would be pointless to go in to details about how poor of a replacement this truck is, not only to my readers but to my bosses as well.

Get this--top speed of 60mph, compared to my baby who will hit 85+; no turbo, and no automatic. I am a huge fan of standard transmissions but not on this truck. It's a real POS!

To make a long story longer, I suffer through a long route today with this miserable POS and make people happy, which is what I do best. As I am on my way to another customer's home heading up I93 I pass a State Pooper sitting in the median; no big deal say I since I can't event hit 65.

A few miles later none other than officer Dan in NH DMV SUV puts his lights on and interrupts me from my work. I was pissed! The goon in black walks up on the driver side and I recognize him from the last time I got stopped working for the company; in a shitty rental truck. Even mentioned it to him, but he didn't seem to remember me.

He asked for my papers, the shipping papers, registration, physical card, commercial drivers license. Then he asked me where I came from and where I was headed. Hands trembling, looking at that gun, I answered honestly.

He asked me if I had any questions. I looked at him and said, "Yes--do you target bad looking trucks? Because to be honest this truck looks terrible."

He responded that "the New Hampshire DMV looks for box trucks leased and rental vehicles without company names "because you never know who or what may be in them.'"

Buzz off, Officer whateveryournameis because you are going on a fishing-trip!! As long as my name isn't Mohammed and I don't drive explosives in a Ryder truck I'm going to go free.

Luckily, for me, I was allowed to pass on and do my damn job about ten minutes later. I told the customer about what happened and they had a good laugh, after a nervous giggle regarding what I told them about police. Their parting words, "Don't get picked up!" I'm not joking.

Spring is finally here, so it seems. All the snow is melted, kids are riding around on their bikes, and Sandy wishes she could be outside. I'm afraid that if I open the door to our 2nd story balcony that she will run out and plunge off the edge. For now she hunkers down at the screen door and peers out, anxiously watching all the activity.

There's a new film about to be released that I'm excited to finally see, "What a Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire" It looks scary, but as Mike Ruppert has aptly pointed out, referring to his stunning book "Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil" "There is more reason to be afraid of not facing the evidence in this book than of facing what is in it." I'm sure the same is true of the film.

It's becoming more and more apparent that the way we live is the reason behind many of the problems we are facing: Peak Oil; widespread extinction; up and coming extinction not only of animals, but ourselves; water shortages; climate change (while the jury is still out on whether humans are to blame, the fact that it IS happening is undeniable). It's easy to shift blame, particularly if all we pay attention to is Bill O'Reilly or any other talking heads, but it doesn't change the fact that the way we live is completely insane and unsustainable.

A while back, when still living at the Deerfield compound, Morey made an interesting observation. I had made a comment about all the organic and humanely treated animal products he buys, which sometimes cost so much more. Yet he shops at Wal-Mart! He observed that I am so principled on so many issues, yet buy the animal products from the producers who make animals live miserable lives. I didn't have an argument for him, because he's right. I buy whatever is cheapest and choose to dismiss the horrific conditions that animals are forced to live in.

We can't always change overnight, though. I've started buying more organic products and products from animals who have been treated humanely; ie cage-free eggs and organic milk. I'm looking in to local meat producers and small local farms. I'm even considering going vegetarian, although that may take some time to commit to. For the time being I can make small ethical changes.

On other news, I have finally registered my own domain name, although there is nothing on it yet. Some days I wish that I were more of a geek so that I would know how to do anything with it! This all started because I purchased the domain for the Merrimack Valley 9/11 Questions Meetup Group, which will probably just point to the Meetup page which I also just formed.

We've finally secured a venue to show the film "Improbable Collapse: The Demolition of Our Republic" and that's all going to be linked from the Meetup page as the first event. Also made it an event on MySpace and have invited all 1231 of my friends to it. We've also been plugging it on different message boards and will probably send out press releases. It should be a great event, and I look forward to meeting and speaking with the maker of the film.

Other forward-looking news includes the opening of an insurgent-owned pub in Manchester, Murphy's Taproom. The owner is hoping to staff it all with enemy combatants and dissidents. It will likely be the default meeting place for many of our terrorist cell group meetings, too and informally a place to stop in and find other radicals to hang out with.

It is still under renovation and is expected to open at the end of this month. Chopsy has been working there on weekends, which he would likely have mentioned if he would ever update his damn blog!

Work has been going pretty well; while we are busier now with a man down, the mood has actually been better. Apparently everyone hated the guy who got fired, and I wasn't made aware of the misery he had been creating. Last week I killed my beloved Fuso; she overheated in a customer's driveway and then was blowing white smoke as I drove her away. I ended up being stranded up in Laconia for 3 hours before a tow-truck finally got to me. All the neighbours came out to watch the spectacle of our truck being hauled off by a massive wrecker. I got to ride in it and almost came in my pants; what a kick-ass truck!

It turns out that the tow truck driver is an insurgent, as well. As we drove past the National Guard facility, I pointed out that it's where the rescue helicopters are based, and is also where the Apache helicopters reside. I said that I didn't know why they had those, and he replied "You probably don't want to know!" A flag was raised and I saluted; we swapped government horror stories for a bit. He's aware of the Free State Project and was excited to hear that I had moved all the way to New Hampshire to fight tyranny.

Now none of the other drivers will let me drive their vans, because they're worried that I'm going to send theirs to the shop, too. The leasing company sent us a miserable replacement that I'm stuck with until they fix my baby.

Ed and Elaine Brown are scheduled to be sentenced on April 24th, for refusal to pay their fair share; he has vowed to not be taken alive. I think we all know how that is going to go down; the nation is watching, though. Will it happen on April 19th?

This Saturday marked Sandy's big trip to the vet. She is about eight months old but has never gotten a physical or vaccinations since her previous owner was too poor to pay for any of that. She also hasn't had her naughty bits removed, that operation alone will cost me $200. I may just put up with her horny howling.

We decided on Banfield, the clinic located inside PetSmart. Normally I don't like supporting big-box stores, but I didn't know of any other reputable vets. Banfield also has a wellness plan which is a highly discounted package of services.

She hasn't really been out of the apartment since I got her, and she complained the whole way over in the truck. Once we got in to the noisy, echoing store she complained even more. I can see why an animal would be so frightened to go in there.

She was pretty much doing ok in the exam room, exploring everything, until the tech came in and tried to stick a thermometer up her butt. She would have nothing of it. They had to bring in additional help, wearing "animal handling gloves" for the procedure. Eventually they took her in to the back room so that I wouldn't witness the torture.

Her screams were so loud and intense that they could be heard all over the store. Customers stopped in their tracks and wondered what they were doing to her; visions of Jack Bauer holding a knife to her eye and yelling "tell me where the detonator is and I'll let you live!" undoubtedly ran through their mind's eye.

She got through it ok eventually, and is now "flagged" in their computer system as a problem patient, sort of like how I am probably flagged in other computer systems.

Later that night I attended a party at Kevin's house. His parties are always good, but this one was pretty lame. It was held for George Phillies to announce his candidacy for President; he's seeking the Libertarian Party nomination. Most libertarians are getting behind Dr. Paul's campaign, so it's a mystery to me why the LP would even run a candidate. Actually, it's a mystery why they ever run any candidates. Sorry, Lee!

In other financial news, my beloved Ranger is falling apart. I have been noticing that she moans and chatters while going around corners, and George the trusted mechanic confirmed my darkest fears; the differential internals need to be replaced. To the tune of $500. Where is Rex when I need him?

We're still working on getting a venue to hold the film showing for "Improbable Collapse" but will likely have finalized plans in the next day or two. I'm excited for the New England tour that this is a part of; many people will be exposed to scientific proof of the nature of the collapse of the three buildings on 9/11. What they do with that knowledge is the key, though. As I've said once I've said a hundred times--we can't understand 9/11 without understanding Peak Oil, and we can't understand Peak Oil without understanding 9/11. The two are inseparable.

On Friday, the General Manager from our corporate headquarters showed up at our office. Brad and I were working in back cleaning equipment when he came in. He greeted us and made some small talk. He's a good enough guy. Then he went in to the Mark, the manager's office and closed the door. Brad and I looked at each other quizically and I asked him if the heads were about to roll.

A while later, Mark manager came out and told us that he had just asked Brian, one of the CSR's to leave and that he would tell us more about it on Monday. Brad and I looked shocked, then he went back in to his office. A little while later we got a call that Brian had just gotten in to a car accident.

I feel bad for the guy; he's pretty nice most of the time but apparently gets on people's nerves. He also tries to cover up his mistakes, which is I think why they fired him. He's almost 60 and has no money saved up; I don't know what he's going to do. It will be stressful for us, too being such a small crew. Now we're down to eight people, but I assume that we'll replace him.

We got a foot of snow from Friday to Saturday; last week it got to almost 70 degrees, and now this shit. It's fun driving around on my Nokians, though. This weekend I've just been sitting around; I haven't felt like doing anything. All the events that I was going to attend were canceled because of the weather, so I've just stayed in, aside from a brief venture to the grocery store.

I've been reading my Jim's Journal book and have been noticing how I'm writing like that more and more. My literary voice used to be Nathaniel Hawthorne but seems to have been replaced by Scott Dikkers.

Some of us are working on getting the New England tour of filmmaker Mike Berger and "Improbable Collapse" in order. I'm supposed to be finding a location to have it at in Concord, but places are only open to talk to during business hours. The company works me like a rented mule, and I never have time to make any phone calls during the day. Many days I wish that I had my old job back so that I could have more time for activism and research!

As it turns out, I've been writing on Blogger for two years, this month. Keeping a journal is an excellent way to mark the passage of time and review ones accomplishments. I have kept paper journals at various time throughout my life but never for this long.

Today marked the monthly congregation of Concord Porcupines, and I marked the occasion by rising before Noon on a Saturday and heading down. Arriving 5 minutes late, I found Ron in the entryway to the restaurant looking confused--no one else was there yet. By the highlight of the event about a dozen people had shown up and good conversation was had all around. The food is greasy and of questionable quality, but there's lots of it at the buffet!

After spending three hours there I made my way to the store and finally broke down and bought a vacuum cleaner. One I got home I realized it wasn't the same one as that I had decided on in the store, but I think it will be ok. It seems to work pretty well, even on the bare linoleum. Sandy hates it, though. She went and hid in the other room while I used it.

Jack and I are working with a couple other people to plan and promote film showings for "Improbable Collapse" next month. It's a pretty decent film, coming from a strictly scientific approach. I'm also going to be helping out with the AltExpo going on at PorcFest Make plans to be there!