The Tucker Stories

In preparation for our triumphant return to the States (in 140 days!!), Kelly has started collecting the bits and bobs of European goodness to adorn our home.  This time, she’s found the chimney cap for the fireplace!!  True, we don’t have a fireplace, yet, nor do we have the flat screen TV that goes above the mantelpiece, either!  All in good time.

Kelly had seen this from the street several weeks ago and she wanted to know where the owners got the cap.  What she found is a cast iron hand covered in copper and holding an umbrella made completely of copper.  All of this goes above the chimney as a cap.  So Kelly took a co-worker, Marion, to the house after work yesterday, but there seemed to be no-one home.  Today, they went back and tried the door bell again.  This time, a man came to the door and just BLASTED them in Dutch.  Now, Kelly doesn’t speak it but Marion is Dutch and she got the what for!!  Seems this guy doesn’t appreciate the Jehovah’s Witnesses coming around and took Kelly and Marion for them!!  After a quick explanation that they weren’t Witnesses but were interested in his chimney cap, he explained that he made it and was very receptive to the Kelly’s idea to commission from him another umbrella chimney cap.  So she’s put down €100 of the €400 total and we can expect completion around 18 May.  The guy’s site is here in German with the translation here.  Really, this isn’t a bad bit of kit and I’m certain that there won’t be another like it in Hope Mills, let alone the state of North Carolina!!  Now, about getting that large screen TV…

Cheers!!

PS:  I really should’ve put more effort into the editing of this post rather than watching the new Ski-Cross Olympic event, which is just mayhem and chaos on snow!

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Let me start by saying that my life is not ANYWHERE as bad as this sorry lot, however, yesterday was truly a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.  Beware:  What follows is Computer Geek hell.  Don’t follow unless you understand the OSI model, have nothing better to do or need a nap!! Read the rest of this entry »

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Matthew has successfully passed his Eagle Board of Review and is just one step away from being an Eagle Scout!!  At the risk of hubris, my “work” as a father is validated with another confirmed Lutheran Eagle Scout son.  Now we have to wait about a month for Matt’s Eagle packet to get approved by the National Boy Scout Committee and then we’ll schedule his Eagle Court of Honor.

Cheers!!

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Last Friday, Kelly and I found an excellent antique warehouse over in Belgium that had a lot of really neat stuff.

Like this table.

And then I found this beautiful form of carriage clock.

As this clock has the three holes for the winding key, it’ll play the Westminster Chimes at the quarter, half, three-quarter and then the hour, which sounds sorta like this.  To help give an idea of it’s size, it is 12 inches tall, 9 inches wide and 7 inches deep.  In the interest of decency, the horology porn has been moved to the Gallery for the pervs like me who are interested.

Cheers!!

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It has been quite some time since my last post and there are a couple of significant events to share with the group.  One is that I’ve gotten my retirement orders and the other is that Matt got accepted to the University of Texas at Dallas!! Read the rest of this entry »

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My SIL wanted to know if the Christmas photos had been posted yet, so I slaved away over a smoking keyboard and lukewarm coca to get the rest of the ‘09 Snaps updated.  Along the way, I updated the ’10s as well.  Just a quick note that some are having problems with the Happy Snaps link above resulting in a 404 / Not Found error.  Please try using / bookmarking this URL instead www.nyssa-almighty.com/gallery until I can get the software sorted.

Cheers!!

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Just a quick note to let ya’ll know that Happy Snaps have been updated for 2010 and the 2009 snaps are now in chronological order.  BTW, the snaps require registering/logging in to see the goods.  Otherwise, those weirdo Intarwebz dudz would run amok.

Cheers!!

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No, I’m not talking about this hokey movie or this old classic.  Naw, I’m talking about the remaining 188 days until the Clan Tucker moves back to the United States of America, finally and permanently.  This afternoon, I picked up my Retirement Orders which officially puts me on the Retired List of the United States Army as of 1 November 2010 with 25 years, 2 months and 22 days of total Federal Service.  The next step is to get the Travel Orders which authorizes me to move my kit and kaboodle outta here!  Yes, Kelly is counting EACH and EVEY day as they creep on by.  BTW, there’s a countdown timer on the bottom right of the blarg for those who are tracking this, too.

Cheers!!

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About a month ago, I picked up Maggie, Too, my 2010 MINI Cooper S John Cooper Works and figured it was time to share my thoughts on this new, wee beastie.

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Stick me with a fork like a Turkey dinner at Christmas, I am done!  My request for Voluntary Retirement has been approved by the Department of the Army!!  As of right now, I am 204 days away from starting Terminal Leave and 318 days away from being on the Retired List, 1 November 2010.  Go me!!  Then I will finally regain my Constitutional Rights after 25 years, 2 months and 22 days of serving the dictatorship that guards the Republic.  Seems like I’ll then have to get a job that has quantifiable, measurable results on a daily basis!!  Of course, I want to know what hooks the Army will have on me after I separate as I’ll be drawing 60% retirement of base pay and then whatever disability I get from the VA.  And that’s another fight altogether.

Cheers!!

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Thanks to my buddy Art, I found this clip of Mike Rowe (details here and here) to be rather intriguing.  I’ve got to say that I really can appreciate what he’s saying about work.  As I’m wrapping up a 23+ year career of serving the dictatorship, the US Army, that guards the Republic and looking at what I’m gonna do afterwards, I’m thinking that I want to do something with my hands.  The last 10 years I’ve spent working IT, which has limited physical effort, and I want to do something that, at the end of the day, I can see the fruits of my labors.  And I like how Mike Rowe just puts it out there.  This is what he has to say, like it or not, but not in a confrontational, “in your face” manner.  Just like in this letter he was asked to write to an aspiring Eagle Scout.  “But I can tell you for certain, that NOT getting your Eagle, will be one of the easiest things you’ve ever done.”  There ya go.  And his website, MikeRoweWorks.com, is pretty clever, too.  Nothing wrong or dishonorable with honest, manual labor.  Just not cool or glamorous in today’s techno age.  Sorta sounds like a Star Trek or Twilight Zone episode, huh?

Cheers!!

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This is a snap of Maggie’s readout before her first fill-up.  The last few miles, the fuel level countdown was fluctuating between one and zero and I wasn’t quite sure that I’d make it to the pumps.  But Maggie pulled through and this was a snap a friend took for me of the display.  Note that there should be some value before the MPG.  As the computer figured there were less than zero miles left, it shows the dashed lines instead!  Yeah, 14.13 gallons of fuel later, Maggie was full up.  As of this afternoon, Maggie has 825 of the 1200 miles needed for the manufacturer’s recommended break-in mileage.  I am actually really looking forward to being able to unleash Maggie to her full potential blasting along der Autobahn to the ‘Ring, which happens to be open this weekend!!  Whatdayathink, Art?  You down for this?

Cheers!!

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As there is very limited parking on the street around here, I figured out that Kelly’s Triumph would fit nicely into the garage with Maggie.  Of course, I had to move everything else out of the garage first but it worked.  Now the Triumph is stored until Spring’s grand arrival.

Cheers!!

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My wife was reading the book The Political Mind and came across an interesting tidbit.  Seems that Bush II had been adding signing statements to bills that he’s signed into Federal Law.  In my wanderings of the Intarwebz, I’d read about this before on one of the news sites and when I was telling Kelly about it, I couldn’t find the story again.  It was just gone.  When she came across this tidbit in the book, she remembered my telling her about it and got us to thinking:  WTF, eh?!?  Why isn’t the Congress, ACLU, ABA, et al, up in arms about this practice?  Or are we the only ones who thinks that this is as wrong as the summer day is long?

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One hundred and seventy-five days ago, some {disfavorable term} person(s) stole Maggie, my cherished 2006 MINI Coopers S, right out of our garage.  Now, those days of gloom are gone.  Let me introduce you to my 2010 MINI Cooper S John Cooper Works and her name is Maggie, Too.

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When I was growing up, the scary movies of the day were The Omen, Amityville Horror, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, just to name a few.  Back then, scary movies required the audience to think, to perceive the danger, to anticipate the terror.  As the years went by, these thriller-type movies devolved into the gash and gore, slasher movies and I just stopped watching them.

Until now.

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A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from my site provider about having a “large amount of backup content”.  The message goes on to say that I need to look at a suspect directory on the server for “personal and non-web-related” backup data.  So, being a nice IT dude, I do all of this and see that there’s really only 14 megabyte of data in that directory that could be suspect (Kelly’s old Masters site).  I figure after that, all’s well.

Not so fast…

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…gifts like this and this would help me share with ya’ll stuff like this!!

Cheers!!

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The nine scariest word in the English language.

Unless you’re rich, work on Wall Street or own a bank.  Or all of the above.  I’ve just finished reading And Then The Roof Caved In and I’m not a happy camper.  This book, in a clear, concise and non-technical manner, explains just how the economic meltdown happened.  I’ve tried to share my understanding of the magnitude of the crisis in pictures and video, however, reading this book has really cleared up most of the mystery of this egregious debacle.  (Apparently, Greenspan likes this word.)

Here’s what I’m still trying to figure out, though.  Where was the Federal Government in all of this?  The book does cover a bit of it, however, I’m naive enough to think that it is the duty of the Federal Government to protect the People of these United States.  And I’m talking about the bailout plan.  Why is it, for example, that the CEO of Washington Mutual, who ran the company for only 17 days until it failed, was given $20.1 million dollars in compensation?!?  That’s almost 5600 people who would not have to pay their $3600 “share” of the bailout plan!!! We have federal laws prohibiting smoking in federal buildings.  We have federal laws regulating the sale and possession of firearms.  Yet, there is no federal law prohibiting screwing over the American People who have nothing to do with this situation.  And the Federal Government is doing nothing to recoup it’s money from these guys but is more than willing to pass that loss to me.  So, I can’t help but wonder am I the only one who thinks this way?  Being overseas isolates me from the grass root sense of being and further antagonizes my belief there is little truth in reporting by our major media outlets.

And I’m trying to get back there to retire?!?

Cheers…

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One of the “joys” of MINI ownership is the thrill of anticipation as one waits, ever so patiently, for the arrival of their custom configured work of art.

What crap.

It has been 58 days since I ordered another MINI to replace Maggie and it has been complete misery.  I have driven Kelly’s 2001 Dodge Grand Caravan more since That Day that I had in the previous eight years we’ve owned it!!  Definitely a contrast.  However, things are looking up because this afternoon I paid the dealership the balance for my new car and I now have a VIN for it!  Things are still on schedule, so I’m looking at a late November delivery date.  And that is only 23 days away!!!

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