19. December 2007 by admin.

I have no use for political correctness in any form.

Let’s see if I can define it for you: The modern art of not saying something that is basically true.

Or how ’bout this: The modern art of not telling the truth.

Please don’t misunderstand me… (Ya’ll know I’m frequently hating of the being of the misunderstooding, right?) There are times when we should not say a thing or three, but that should result in silence, not avoidance, at least in my not-so humble-opinion.

Cheryl and I discussed it very early on, during our first phone call as I, uh, recall:

“I pretty much say whatever comes to mind at the time”

“I agree, but sometimes it’s better not to say a thing.”

She’s right, as usual. And I’m occasionally capable of that…sometimes, some of the time, every now and then, not very often at all.

And not so much these days.

I’ve been hearing a lot of “Happy Holidays” as I traverse the malls and stalls and stores of chores getting my shopping wrapped up, and I’m not a big fan of this PC salutation at all.

In fact, I may be offended by it. Let me think about for a second…Yep,  it offends me.

A holiday is when you’re given the day off by the government, or when the government shuts it down in remembrance of one of its own…pretty self-serving if you ask me.

(What, you didn’t ask me? Oh no…let me see if that changes my opinion. Hang on a sec…nope.)

This one coming up is the big one, the Father of all Holidays, I guess. It’s special and different, but not for the reason you might be thinking that I’m thinking.

It’s a day to give and receive.

To wake up happy and go to bed gloriously worn out.

It’s a day to spend with loved ones, travelling like idiots to get where we’re going, just to hang out and be together a bit.

It’s for the kids. To give them something wonderful and pure to believe in, on whatever level they place their wishes and hopes.

Some see a tree, some see a cross. Both of those include a guy with a beard…and a reason to be better than we are inclined to be.

I’m not sure what I see, it changes all the time…but I’ll tell you this:

It’s not “Happy Holidays.” We’re not wishing someone a pleasurable labor day for Christ’s sake. (That’s not the taking of the name in the vain, Mom. I capitalized it for both of you!)

We’re not telling them that we hope they smile a lot on the 4th of July, are we?

Nope.

And last night, as I watched Santa ride by on a Harley while I bought printer cartridges at Office Max, I told the cashier what I thought about it all, even though she didn’t ask… 

It’s called Christmas.

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19. December 2007 by admin.

Shooter Grrl here (webmistress extraordinaire) I was able to retrieve some of the past blogs from google’s cache - they’ve been .pdf’ed, uploaded, organized and stored as andersonshooting.com/blog/archive

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18. December 2007 by admin.

I’m becoming at peace with it.

Maybe it’s my new perspective, my new Holy-crap-life is-good-these-days-itude, but I’m gonna be OK if all the brainpower sublet to India cannot “be bringing of the contents of the old doodle of to the new server.”

After all, I did “changing of the package.”

Damn right I did.

I changed up the whole shebang.

Whiz-bang-golly-jeez Wally, I made some changes.

I let go of the past, the pain, the doubt, the fear and the worry. Stepped right on in to a world of newnessosity, didn’t I?

And what do I need the pictures for? I know where I was and what I did…now I remember only those events of my choosing, just like always.

I have discovered that the almight Google keeps a cache of just about everything on the web, even those naked pictures of your sister! (My goodness that girl is flexible!)

 So, I have the ability to go in and grab the good ones that way if/when I choose, if the dumb and dumber team of 1 and 1 internet hosting cannot be helping of the situation.

That’s what really steams my beans ya’ll, the blase’ (hope I got that apostrophe right, otherwise that’d be a catastro-postrophe, yikes!) attitude of the tech weenies and weenettes reading from their cue cards while I poured on the emotion about the loss of the pouring out of my emotion. The morons kept saying the same thing over and over while I incredulously did the same. It was a fun little circle game that ended, as pointless circle games should, in eventual acceptance.

When we accept what we cannot change, we are free to start anew.

This whole thing happened on the internet, right? Did my counselor sense that those words were no longer needed? That maybe those who needed to read them had gotten their fix even as I got fixed?

And am I ever fixed…I’m fixed up real nice. Ya’ll wouldn’t believe me if I told you.

I’ll tell you what you need to know, the PG-13 bits and pieces anyway, over time I guess.

It’s just so amazing what you find when you stop looking so hard. The shooters among us know (or will one day learn) the folly of trying to do anything. All you can really do is be.

Be the shooter you wish to be. Be a better man for all the right reasons.

Be content. Be at peace. Be yourself. Let it be.

I guess I’m beginning to really be-lieve in all my own bullshit, huh?

So yeah, I’ll call 1 and 1 at 877-435-7281 and reference case number 87588967 and tell them to restore the old blog…feel free to do the same if you’re moved to do so. I know it can be done, and this may be one scrapbook that needs to hang around.

I can’t hang around too much here today…I’m off to ruin Christmas for a bad manager and his fiancee. (Does that word get an apostrophe? I may need to know for sure, soon enough) I hate that they make me do it. I get no joy from Grinching their goodness, but they do it to themselves…all I do is sign, seal and deliver the news. Chances upon chances upon good graces and hopes. Enough is enough. All ya had to go was go to work and mind my business, buddy…you’ll come out of it stronger if it doesn’t kill you.

And I’m pretty sure you can survive the pain.

I might even tell you how I know this is true.

Someday. Again.

So have a great day friends and neighbors…and wherever you are, be.

Be all there.

I wouldn’t want you to miss the best days of your life worrying about something you cannot change.

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17. December 2007 by admin.

This may be left to fate.

I guess that’s appropriate in a way, although, like most matters of fate and faith, I don’t like it one bit.

It seems that in the process of trying to get the main site to accept credit cards instead of the infernal paypal, the previous contents of the daily doodle have been sent to cyberspace forever.

Never mind the fact that I was told by everyone involved that the content would be saved…I was assured of that during every switch by everyone involved. Numerous times…ad nauseum infinitum. (That’s Steve-latin for a shitload of times)

I asked, “Are you sure?”

“Yep, No problem.”

Uh-huh.

Yeah, right.

And not 3 minutes ago, by two different english-challenged technical advisors, I was informed that, “When you are switching of the packages you are switching of the platforms and you are deleting of the connection to the server.”

So now I have a real nice case number, and not a lot of hope.

What about the FBI going into the landfill and getting Ken Lay’s email? Maybe this isn’t that important, but it is to me.

So, if any of ya’ll kept any of that juicy goodness in a cache or a backup or whatever, lemme know. I’d sure love to see some of that stuff again…

Steve

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