Welcome To The Burrow

Welcome North!  Thanks for hitting that follow button sir!  I read you regularly.  Just mind the tail.  Sometimes I wash it and can't do a thing with it...

Now That's A Fire!

Sheesh, the male groundhog gets one little idea involving a cup of gasoline and the charcoal grill and all the women folk get all crazy and want to start dialing 911.  I already told you I have no hair left up there anyway!

Twisted Sister

My back said, "No, I ain't gonna take it!  I'm not gonna take it... aaannyyy mooooooorrrrrreeeee!"  So I took said angry back to the voodoo magician with the magic fingers.  Why I just didn't go sooner?  Dunno. Man Jerk issues probably.  Hoped it'd fix itself?  It only cost me $40, which admittedly can be an issue at times.  Now if the durn thing will just "take it" and not get all cattywhompus on me perhaps I can go back to serving my country tomorrow.  LOL, cattywhompus translates to computations in the spell checker...  'Scuse me while I go learning to walk upright again.

Furry With Envy

Hey, if I was green, I'd have been a frog OK?  Just a note on the progress Mrs. Groundhog has made thus far on her road to her first professional self defense training course.  As you might recall, she won a self defense course in a contest sponsored by A Girl and Her Gun a while back.  Since then it's been like Christmas around here.  We've gotten so many packages that I've lost count!  I'll eventually have a photo post to show you all the loot that gal won once everything arrives.  It's a bit like a shopping spree in the gun department of a Bass Pro Shop or something similar but all I get to do is push the cart for her!  Ah well, can't complain considering all the years she's cooked me dinner and put up with me.

We're still researching the various schools and trying to decide where the most bang for the buck will be, pun intended.  She's trying out some of her gear now and breaking it in.  I wager she'll use most of what you guys sent in the class(es).  More updates to come!

Outback?

Ooops, there goes that dyslexia again.  I meant my BACKS OUT!  Dad gummit.  Hasn't done this for months and whammo.  "When my body hits the flo, when my body hits the flo!"

Disregard the drugged up groundhog flailing around on the gorund.  Nuttin' to see here...

Portrait Of Valor

Watch this:

http://www.greatamericans.com/video/Portraits-of-Valor-Tibor-Rubin
 
Listen carefully to his last few sentences.

Think about how close we are to those words no longer being true.  Especially those of you in Homeland Security, The FBI, The DEA.  Unlike most of our "elected" officials, don't forget the oath you SWORE to protect and defend the Constitution of The UNITED STATES of AMERICA.  Yeah, it was written over 200 years ago by a bunch of people who were banking that the positive parts of human nature could overcome the bad parts.  We're pretty damned close to all that going south now.  Don't let it.  Just don't....

Going Under The Knife

These days it's more like getting probed by nice aliens.  They don't leave big scars and all that high tech equipment helps the alien er, surgeon do his work inside you.  I'm not the svelte furry little image my profile picture suggests.  I know you find that hard to believe on the internets!  It's OK, you'll get over it.  While I am quite furry, everywhere but on the very top (it migrated you see), I am anything but svelte.  After I got out of the service my desire to escape being told what to eat and how much to weight lead me on a very bad path for my health and weight.  After spending about 20 years deteriorating into an ever larger blob of fat with more and more associated medical problems rearing their ugly heads, I had a break through.  At the very beginning of 2007 I finally decided I was ready to start fixing this whole "fat" issue and embarked on a diet and exercise program.  I started at somewhere a bit north of 350 pounds.  Within a bit over a year I had made it down to 255 and looked and felt a whole lot better.  Then I got a new job.

About that time I also switched from a name brand medication to a generic.  It made me go absolutely bat sh!t bonkers.  The new job was horribly stressful and then, a company that had never had layoffs, announced, you guessed it, layoffs!  I was cut near the end of 3 rounds of them so I got to watch the whole thing unfold.  This also gave me time to look for something else so I was able to roll over into a new job.  Bullet dodged.  Not caring a whole heck of a lot about diet and exercise right about now.  Get into new job and switch the meds back.  OK, time to get back on track.  OUCH, it's much harder now for some reason.  Oh, The Atkins Diet only gives some people one golden chance?  I see.  Looks like I used mine.  Fine, we go harder.  What?  More layoffs you say?  Oh frickin' goodie.  Two jobs in a row and this time we get 4 months of unemployment out of it.  First time in my life without work.  Finally land new job as a civil servant.  Job security nirvana right?  Wrong!  Less than a year in they announce cuts.  So far it's all voluntary but this year we'll see the involuntary ones.

So life has been less than cooperative in giving me a calm, steady environment to work on proper diet and exercise.  In fact, I shot back up to 363 pounds.  I am NOT happy with myself at all.  So, in the spirit of all or nothing, going for the gusto, and taking a leap of blind faith, I've decided to have my guts chopped up and worked over.  Or in less descriptive terms, I'm going to have Bariatric surgery.  One should not be able to sit down at the all you can eat Chinese buffet and comfortably put away 4 to 5 plates of food.  I can, without blinking.  Unlike that skinny Asian dude who wins eating contests by consuming insane amounts of food, I get fat when I do that.

Of the 3 types of surgeries, I'm trying to decide between 2.  The full gastric bypass or the gastric sleeve operation.  I can't get it until June at the earliest due to my insurance so there's time to quake in fear mull over my options.  The full bypass gives you the best results with some unpleasant side effects.  The sleeve gives 15% less weight loss on average and virtually no side effects.  Both of them work much better when you combine them with a good diet and exercise.  Both of them can leave you still a blob if you do nothing to supplement the help they give you.  I believe it will work for me but I'm going to have to put more into it than just the surgery.  I'm willing to do that.  I don't have anything to lose by going this route and I'll die young if I don't.  I'll share this story as it unfolds, along with Mrs. G's gun training adventures.  Wow, throw a prayer in there and you got God, Guns and Guts!  Ha, somebody already took that blog...

Valentines Day Shenanigans

 Alright, Starbucks silliness aside, lets get down to what this day was really all about.

Points.

That's right, Groundhog er Husband Points.  Today was like triple coupon Wednesday for these points and if you didn't pick any up you are either celibate or a dolt.  Few other days compare to hubby point generation than Valentines day does.  Around the burrow we have what we call "hell season".  Every birthday, gift giving holiday, and aniverery falls within a very short window in December and January.  By the time this day gets here we are completely out of money, sentiment, and energy.  That's why the savvy Groundhog takes this day to spring into action for one last huzzah before the doldrums of the rest of the year settle in.

So today, I spent lunch braving the savages at the flower department and fought my way to these:

Yeah, that's me on the right.  Once you chew off the roots these things really make the lady Groundhogs swoon.  Oh, and poetry.  Doesn't matter how bad.  You wrote her a poem?  SWOOONEYNESS!  Yeah, after 21 years of this I'm learning.  The guy ahead of me in line at the store where I got the flowers had a card and a box of tissues.  I asked him, "So, you expecting a real tear jerker?"  We all yuked it up but he had 42 yeas in the institution so he had some deep knowledge I have yet to learn.  Tissues, tissues, I'll work on that one over the next 21 years.  Hope he didn't just have allergies...

That Starbucks Thing

I went, I explained, I tipped, I said thanks.  If Starbucks upper management is doing anything other than hoping all this blows over quietly and goes away I'd be very surprised.  I hope though, that they at least see that the side with the bigger numbers, more dollars, and ridiculously motivated people is currently happy with them for bowing out of the fight and it would be a very good thing indeed to keep us that way.

Today was really more about showing the anti's how bad they are losing and to a slightly lesser degree, reminding everyone else we are winning.

Welcome To The Burrow

A big "hidy ho neigbor" to Keads over at Another Day.....Another.....  Thanks for stopping by and hitting the follow button!  Based on the pix of your most recent several posts, I like ya already.  Garand, want, .45, want, etc...

Starbucks Appreciation Day

Don't forget to buy a cup 'o joe today at Starbucks.  They have not bowed to pressure from the anti-gun rights extremists who want them to ban legalized carry in their stores.  Essentially, they have decided to stay out of the fight and just sell coffee.  So, about 185 nutbags anti-gun rights extremists are planning to boycott Starbucks tomorrow to "send them a message!  Raaawwwrrrr!".  Roughly 180000 people who support the Constitution of the United States are going to... no, not counter protest, just buy something there and say "Thanks Starbucks!"  I know I'm going too.

I've Been Liebsterschnockered!

Not once but TWICE!  I give a great big Groundhog bow as I receive the prestigious...



Award!

I shall endeavor to live up to the high standards this blogger award confers upon me.  Fidelity, Honor, Integrity, Faithfulness... Er... Oh wait, all I gotta do is nominate 5 other blogger peeps with less than 200 followers?  Shoot, I can do that with half my whiskers tied behind my back...

But first!  A big thank you to the two folks who nominated me.  In no particular order that would be:

That Texas Lady

and

In Jennifer's Head

I appreciate the thought and the readership ladies!

So, hmmm, (chews on some roots deep in thought), I gots to pass on this here prestigious award thingummy to 5 deserving peeps.  Lemme see here...  How about:

1.  Rev. Paul over at Way Up North (yeah, he got it already but so what?  His posts don't usually make my head hurt and Alaska is beautiful.)
2.  Old NFO over at Nobody Asked Me (just a constantly good read)
3.  Patrice Lewis over at Rural Revolution (I find anything outside the city very comforting and she posts lots of pictures!)
4.  Enola Gay at Paratus Familia Blog (rural life, fascinating, pictures, what more do you need?)
5.  And last but not least, Matthew Keller who writes Blue Ice Aviation (flying, Alaska, Pictures and a job I think I'd love to do)

And, in the desire to follow the spirit of the law more than the letter of the law, I give you:

6.  Bob S. at 3 Boxes of BS (Second Amendment defender, gunnie, and all around good guy)

I follow 275 RSS feeds.  It's really far to many but I'm never at a loss for reading material.  Most of the gun, preparedness, and political blogs I follow have tons of followers or have had the award given them so I'm trying to spread the wealth a little with my winners.  I don't think you'd be disappointed with any of their blogs unless the quit blogging!

Welcome To The Burrow

-- UPDATED --

Gosh durn I'm getting a crazy following all the sudden.  I'm up to SIX SEVEN followers now!  Oh the pressure...

I want to say "Hi" to...

Rob, over at Rob In His Bunker

and

JB over at Boats And Bullets

and

Rev. Paul who hangs out Way Up North in a place I want to go to someday.

Thanks for checking out my ramblings!

Gun People Are Awesome

A ton of stuff could be written with a title like that but this is short.  Loot from the contest has already started to arrive.  So have training suggestions.  We're looking at each one and evaluating it.  Personal recommendations are important to me and not taken lightly.  This is one of the coolest things to happen to the Groundhog clan in quite some time. Everyone will get a personal thanks here for contributing prizes once I get a list of contributors (unless confidence is requested, in which case, thank you anyway!).

At the end of the day we will "pay it forward" in some way.  There were so many deserving entries into agirlandhergun's contest that we simply can't stop this at just one!  Lots more news to follow...

Gathering Intel

As you might have noticed a post or two back, the lovely Mrs. Groundhog won a blow out contest sponsored by agrilandhergun for a starter self defense/handgun course.  The first of the "loot" has arrived.  Ah, I love the smell of fresh ammo in the morning!  But I digress.  If anyone has any good intel about THE class to take in the San Antonio, Texas area, do feel free to let us know.  Short of some knowledgeable word of mouth, all we're going on is local advertizing and opinions of those who might bother to post them.  Thanks for any help you can provide!

Welcome Abbe!

Thanks for peeking in the burrow!

Contest Winner!

I won a fruit cake once when I was stationed on Guam.  That tends to be about the level of my "lucky" fortunes.  My wife on the other hand just won the the gun class contest that A Girl And Her Gun sponsored a while back!  WOOOOOOOT!  I shall live vicariously through her and blog the process!  This is awesomely cool as I have attempted to teach her some basics of shooting and have not done near as well as a professional course could do.  This is gonna be fun!

Congratulations Mrs. Groundhog!!!

For The Record...

I did not see my shadow when trundling out of the burrow yesterday.  It was just so durn busy I forgot to tell ya'll!

Birthday

Hence the alias.

I are 47.


Whisker twitch...