Das Update or Testicle Number Three.....

I have no idea which is more miraculous, my getting accepted into the Stem Cell Clinical Trial or the fact someone read my Blog!

And to top it all off they even asked for an update on my condition.

I am both flattered and touched, although a little confused!

I had the Stem cell injections into my left ventricle on Thursday June 27. I spent the night in the hospital on the Victoria's Secret Cardiac Care Unit and went home the next day. My Doctors and nurses were spectacular. I came home and slept for 12 hours, Both Wifey and I were exhausted.

I was tired and sore for a couple days. I had bruises in my nether region that looked like I had taken a low blow, or three, from Mike Tyson. I had a hematoma the size of a walnut in the front of my hip. it's right in the crease where your leg meets your pelvis. but I was home and feeling better.

A week later I had a follow up visit with my program coordinator. She asked me a bunch of questions and did a mini physical. I had my BP, EKG done and was pronounced fine. My cardiologist came in and felt me up. Checked my lungs and was very happy I was doing so well. I went home with another $25.00 gas card.

I have a couple hundred dollars worth of gas cards from Shell now. Since I'm not being paid for the study I get a gas card every time I go in for a check up or study related visit. Sure it sounds cheap, but you have to remember, I'm not paying for ANYTHING related to the study. So I get almost a million dollars of cutting edge (pun intended) cardiac procedures and care for free and a couple hundred dollars of diesel fuel out of it.

This Thursday will be three weeks since the procedure. I have another follow up at the four week mark which is next Thursday. I feel pretty good. The standing joke around my house regarding the hematoma is I have grown a third testicle!

Ladies and Gentlemen I give you "Testicle Number Three!" (Think of the tune "Mambo Number 5")

One , Two, Three, Hut Hut
Everybody in the room
look at Chuck's third nut!

It started one day in the old cath lab
getting stem cell treatment on a cold steel slab
A french catheter jammed  in my crotch
forget the damn dilauded just bring me some Scotch, so I
don't feel what they're doing down there
in my old nether region that's now void of hair. I had
3 doctors threading shit into my heart
I wonder what they'd say if I had to fart , cause that
air biscuit might just clear the room, leave me
freezing on that slab there to face my doom.

Too much testosterone in my bod
Goddamn diabetes has killed my rod
third testicle is growing down by my hip
When I'm Man scaping hope I don't slip!

I'm just hanging out here in my bed
wondering what they're gonna say when I'm dead
he was a man with an iron heart
who died in the cath lab from a nasty old  fart, and then
If I make it to the CCU I wonder what then I'm a gonna do
Hot nurses checking out my blow out patch
two inches from my nuts that they won't scratch. 
Laying in this bed like a virtual hostage
Me, my three nuts and a Vienna sausage!

Too much testosterone in my bod
Goddamn diabetes has killed my rod
Stem cells a growing me another mouse
A man with three nuts is loose in the house!

I still have no idea if I received the stem cells or a saline placebo. I guess I am feeling so well due partly to the fact that the stress and anticipation of the procedure is now behind me. I should start noticing a difference in a couple months. I take a treadmill and see if my stamina is increasing. I don't really believe in the "Placebo Effect" but in my position, beggars can't be choosers.

I will keep you posted and thanks for reading.....

Holes……..

Yessir, I am plumb shot through with holes.

This one here on me right arm just above me elbow is from multiple blood draws those buzzards at the lab needed for the last couple times I was in the hospital. Seems I has only got one place that they can stick me and get good clean blood from.

That one in me left arm, this sida me elbow,  is from where they stuck that darned IV thingy into my vein. A "Port" they calls it. Never did give me a lot of juice through it, but they was a plenty busy squirting stuff into it when I was in that there fancy X-Ray machine while they was a poking around inside my ticker.

This here hole in me neck, now that was a strange deal there let me tell you. They took me to that there Mayo Clinic place and strapped me down and shoved a tube into my neck vein. Then they hooked me up to some kind of machine that goes "Whir….Buzz…Clank", and then stops for a few seconds and then starts a going over again. It did that for pert near 4 hours on Tuesday. "Whir….Buzz…Clank"  I betcha I remember that noise forever. They took that pipe out and sent me home to relax.

Relax them fellers said:  like I was a gonna relax with what they had planned for me a day later.

What I have neglected to tell you is that they wanted me to relax knowing I was a goin to get this big ass tube shoved into a vein right next to me mr. happy on that next Thursday. They strapped me in and squirted some sort of tequila like stuff in the tube in me left arm that made me all silly and shit, Next they stuck that tube right in me crotch just about an inch from me meat and potatoes. Then they snaked some sorta wire up that there tube into my ticker and started doing all sorts of un mentionable things to me. Ever time I tried to get up they just squirted more of that shit into that tube and I went back to happyland for a tad bit longer.

Next thing I knows I was being wheeled to a fancy room where some good looking nurse type women were getting me dressed for bed. Now this was more like it!  (cept I still had that durned tube in me down by me mr. happy and the little woman was there as well) They hooked more wires and stuff to me and I don't know what all and gave me another tequila shot in my arm tube and I went to sleep. Somewhere in the night they gave me a pain pill of some kind. It was powerful effective at making me heave out all that nice mess of a hospital dinner I choked down at some point earlier. The next  nurse gal came in and squirted some more stuff in that handy little tube to make me stop barfing and some stuff to make me stop hurting. That worked like a charm and I was back snoring in no time.

The next mooring, and I mean about an hour later, another pretty nurse lady came in and took all sorts of blood and did electric tracings of my "Heart Rhythms" (whatever the hell that means) That nurse gal yanked out all the tubes, put bandaids all over them holes they had a made. She had me sign some papers and then they plum run me off.

Sorry for all  them technical terms I had to use there. They tells me this might make it so I don't kick the bucket quite so soon. I hope they are right.

My bucket has been kicked enough for a while Thank you.

Time Flies.........

You can't. They're to fast.

It seems like years ago I was laying in the CCU at Shands hospital and being told my only chance for survival was Experimental Cardiac Stem Cell therapy.  No more bypasses, no more stents, no way I was ever going to be on the transplant list. Pretty much Stem Cells or die.

Since then I have had a couple more stents and a few angioplasties, and the results are always the same. Stem Cells are the thing. One day as I was laying in the CCU daydreaming about my nurses there, a doctor walked by doing his rounds with his entourage of baby docs. They stopped briefly by my door and he said to them "That is Dr. A's pt. There is nothing we can do for him" and they walked on by. Kinda pissed me off.

The reason I am thinking about all this stuff today is that I am scheduled for a pretty hairy heart cath/surgery next Thursday. Experimental, Clinical Trial Surgery. I have never been scheduled for one before.

Normally you would get the crushing chest pain out of the blue, fall down screaming and sweating profusely clutching your chest hoping someone was there to take you to the hospital or call 911. You lay in the bed in the Emergency Department, scared to death, in pain and having no idea what is coming next. You get hammered on the GOOD drugs so the world is spinning and you sign something. You could have joined the army as far as you knew, but the pain was lessened so you didn't give a shit.

Next thing you know you are being whisked to the cath lab and the procedure begins. It's over before you know it and you are back in you bed in CCU being restrained by the hot nurses who work there and make it all better.

The secret is that you had no warning, no choice in the matter and you were stoned out of your mind when it began. You had no time to digest what was going on, or being done to you. You were alive and happy so.

What they are doing to me is quite different. They will be injecting 10 spots inside my heart's left ventricle with either a saline placebo or CD34+ Stem Cells. I have known about it for 6 months, anticipated it for 6 months, sweated about it for 6 months, and now the time has come. If that wouldn't scare the shit out of you, I don't know what would.

And I get to think about it, I get to think about it a lot. Actually I get to hope I get the opportunity. Talk about a weird twist of events. I get to hope and pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster that I will get the chance to have this done to me. I have a 25% chance of not being picked for the program even after all the hoops I have jumped through for the last 6 months. Being in the control group is an early death sentence. The Stem Cell therapy prolongs my time on earth.

All the while trying to maintain my suave and debonair lovable self.

Of which I probably have failed miserably at!

If I have, sorry about that. I have never been through this before. In fact, since this is such an experimental, cutting edge procedure, no one really has. I will be the first person in the NE Florida area to be in this phase of the study if I am chosen tomorrow. There are probably more heart/lung transplant patients in this area than Cardiac Stem Cell recipients.

So now the waiting begins. I will let you know what happens once I get back from tomorrow's appointment at high noon. Cross your fingers for my Randomization.

And The Fun Begins…….

Did you ever have a pet Hamster or Guinea Pig?

You do now.

Yes constant readers, Chuckie is going to be your own personal pet Guinea Pig.

Monday, 17 June, I go in for a nuclear cardiac MRI study. They start an IV, inject me full of invisible man dye, run my ass on the treadmill and then stuff me in the MRI machine and take 3D pictures of my heart. On Friday I go in for a physical and "Randomization".  The "Randomization"  process decides what happens to the rest of my life. I will either be selected to be in the " USOC Control Group" or in the surgical candidate pool.

In the Control Group, I keep the same electronic diary, which I have been filling out daily for the last 6 months, for another 2 years. That's it. No testing, no procedures, just the Twinkee that sits there and does nothing as an object to compare the active research to.

If I get into the surgical pool, I will immediately have injections of a stem cell stimulating drug injected each day for a total of four (4) days. This wonderful drug is normally given to cancer patients. It stimulates the body to create more stem cells which will be harvested from me in a procedure called Apheresis. The side effects of this drug included nausea, vomiting, joint and muscle pain. On very rare occasions in can cause splenetic rupture resulting in death. So I will probably have flu like symptoms for a week.

On Day five (5) I go to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville and they insert a tube into my subclavian vein (under my my collar bone) risking a punctured lung and sure to produce a lot of pain. They will then start the machine and suck my blood out, filter out the platelets and stem cells and return the red blood cells and plasma to my blood stream. Once this is over it's given to a spy like fellow who jumps on a plane and hand carries it to Boston. At Harvard University they will spin it down in a fancy centrifuge that separates the Stem Cells from the other jetsam and the same guy flies it back to Jacksonville the next day.

A day later I check into the hospital research floor, get prepped and wheeled to the Cardiac Cath Suite. During the three hour procedure the surgeons, who I trust completely, will insert a catheter into the femoral artery in my crotch. They will snake it up into the left ventricle of my heart and begin to map the wall thickness of the heart muscle. Once they know the thickness on my heart wall they will insert another catheter and inject 10 locations with my own stem cells. The needle is 2mm long. The idea is to stimulate my heart into growing new arteries to carry blood to the heart muscle and potentially increase my stamina and life span.

When this is over, hopefully, I go back to my room and home in a day or so. They will monitor me for the next two years to see how well I responded to this ground breaking procedure.

Obviously there are a million things that can go wrong here. Some catastrophically.  I prefer not to dwell on them. Wifey and I are both aware of the risks and we have chosen to take them freely.

The downside is that this is a double blind clinical trial. Sure the million dollar procedure is all free, but, the surgical candidate pool is split between candidates who get the stem cells and those who get a placebo 2:1. Yup, you heard right. I could go through all this for a 66% chance of getting the life saving Stem Cells. that's a 33% chance of getting saline (salt water) injections. Stem Cells or Placebo injections, the risks remain the same. And the real pisser is, it's a double blind trial. Neither myself or my doctors will know which treatment I get.

Either way, it's going to be an interesting and frightening two weeks. Everyone by now knows of my religious beliefs. For those of you prone to praying I would appreciate it. For those of you who don't have religious tendencies, please remember me by eating copious amounts of Pasta on the Friday nights of 21 and 28 June. My Pastafarian soul thanks you.

I will try and keep this blog updated during the next two weeks. That will obviously depend on how I feel and what the outcomes are.

The Mis-Direction Chronicles.....

The word you are looking for is Serendipity. Easily defined as the ability to see the forest for the trees. The ability to see the obvious. It's amazing how few people have this ability these days.

The United States has been under constant and intense "Cyber Attack" from supposedly the Chinese military lately. Hundreds of America's largest corporations are being hacked as well. Our trustworthy government has told us that the Chinese are infiltrating all of our computer networks and that no one is safe.

Did you smell the sarcasm in that use of the word "Trustworthy"?

Follow me here, this might lose you or worse,  make complete sense and scare you silly.

The President  is meeting with the Chinese premier this week. Supposedly the topic of their infiltrating our businesses and government computers is going to be primary issue of discussion. If it's true these are serious and dangerous allegations that could effect the balance of power in the world today.

Funny how the Benghazi scandal, The Fast & Furious Fuck Up, The Eric Holder lying to Congress issue and the IRS targeting Obama's political enemies list, all seems to have disappeared. The same Justice Department who just went after a Fox News reporter for being a "co-conspirator" in a serious news leak scandal may be involved in it again. They certainly will be involved in the future cover up of this next one, and it's a doozy!

Now we find out from a small newspaper in England that the National Security Agency has been gathering data from American telephone companies about the usage of smart phones. They call it MetaData. They are looking for patterns in calls to see if they can find any links to terrorists. They have also uncovered that some of the largest technology companies on earth, Microsoft, Apple,  and Google, etc. are involved as well and that they are cooperating willingly. All of these companies vehemently deny the allegations.

A tiny newspaper in London found that? A tiny newspaper in London found that out and then published the information the same week Obama is meeting with the Chinese about Cyber security?

All of the other issues and scandals which make the Watergate break in and subsequent cover up look like a little girl's tea party, have been forgotten. We had a President RESIGN THE OFFICE for far less than this.

The two scary parts of this are:

1. If the United States government is spying on and gathering information on it's own citizens covertly, OUR Constitution is being shredded from within and we have no chance to survive as a country or as free citizens.

2. If the information about the NSA looking at all that data from our cell phone companies and technology companies isn't true and was leaked to a tiny (57 employee) British newspaper just to spite the US news outlets and to distract the American public from the real scandals that are occurring is the case, we are screwed beyond  option #1. Kinda frightening huh?

I wonder how long this will be allowed to stay on-line seeing how the blogging site is owned by Google?

Remember where you heard this first in case they really do come and get me.

Frankenfoods............

Gotta Love the Internet………

This is aimed at no one person in particular. No one reads my blog anyway so it is a moot point.

Ten years ago Wifey and I were laying in bed listening to the shortwave radio. It was a broadcast from KOL The Voice of Israel. One of their top news stories was where a group of protesters was savagely beaten in the street for protesting the the planting of "Frankenfoods" on some of the Israeli farms inside the Gaza region.

"Frankenfood" is a made up scare word intended to frighten people away from genetically altered food sources. I guess the thought of a tomato in your BLT being modified so it resists fungal infection is a bad thing.

The people who beat them senseless, I think some were killed, were starving people who needed the increased food production to keep their families alive. Apparently the wheat and corn had been modified to grow in drier climates allowing higher crop yields per acre of cultivated produce.

Insecticides are going to kill everyone on the planet. We can't allow them to be used on our foods. Tell that to the hundreds of millions of people, human beings just like you and me, who have died from Malaria since DDT was banned. Just wait till Ebola mutates and is spread by mosquitoes. I'll bet you would love to have planes flying over your house with a few gallons of insecticide then.

Oil drilling and production in the Gulf of Mexico is dangerous and could potentially damage the environment. Yup. Too bad. All the tree hugging idiots who believe this need to wonder what would happen if BP said "Let's just not export any more oil to America. Let's not even produce any there either". Damn that would be funny. A calamity but funny no less.

The point being is that there is balance that needs to be struck between environmental concerns and societal needs. From food to oil, water to chemicals. There are no right answers. Just the most logical solutions. Becoming an extremest on anything should require you to do a little background work on both sides of the issue. The last thing you want to do is look like a fool when you go into battle for an ideal and not understand both sides.

Monsanto is a gigantic corporation who is deeply involved in producing genetically modified seeds for crop production. They also made Agent Orange during the Vietnam War and made the first plastic Coca-Cola bottle called the "Easy-Goer". The coke bottle plastic was later found to have a carcinogenic compound in it and was subsequently banned for human use. They didn't know it was bad when they produced it. Kind of like no one knew 75 years ago cigarettes were bad for you.

Yeah? So what. IBM, Smith Corona, Underwood Typewriters, International Postal Meter and General Motors made rifles that Americans killed people with in two world wars. Should you be persecuted because Mitsubishi made the Famous Japanese Zero fighter plane that killed thousands of American soldiers? The Same Mitsubishi piece of crap you drive to work everyday in.

People need to chill out and study the causes they want to get involved with before they launch into a dithyramb on the internet in front of potentially billions of people. Most of the time you will find that your opinion or cause is tainted by where you live and your current situation.

Sitting in your nice clothes, in your Freon cooled house, typing on your electric powered computer which is made mostly from petrochemical plastic, drinking a Coke out of a bottle delivered to the store by trucks that run on diesel fuel……. Have you got the point yet or do I need to type for another two hours about your hypocrisy?

Sorry about the rant. I think my blood sugar is low. I hope it's OK if I go take a sugar pill made from genetically modified corn sugar…………

A Not So Modest Proposal…….

A local news and drivel channel here in Jacksonville Fl did a story the other night about a new food stamp program….. For PETS! You heard me right, free food for pets of the underprivileged, sick lame and lazy.

They interviewed a young lady who makes right about $15,000 a year, has a couple of kids and has trouble making her rent payments. Apparently she is single as no mention of a husband or father was made. Not that that surprises me much.

She goes on saying how thankful she is to the "No More Homeless Pets" program in Jacksonville. To their credit, this is a private company that does this and relies on donations from the local populace to support them. We had a cat vaccinated there once and it was like $15.00 where our vet wanted $75.00 for the same shot. These folks do good work, although Wifey swears that's what caused our cat to die a few months later (he was 19 after all) The facility is a bit grubby as you can imagine dealing with indigent pet owners but all in all it was OK.

Back to the story.

This lady the TV station proudly interviewed had four, count em FOUR pitbulls penned up in her back yard. Two of them looked to be a couple years old, the other two were puppies. She gets enough dog food delivered, DELIVERED, free to her residence a month to feed all four of them. She was wearing what looked like to be brown scrubs or something so she probably is a medical assistant or a CNA somewhere part time and can barely make ends meet.

I would really be going apeshit over this if it were my tax dollars going to fund this nonsense, but since it's private donations I guess I will stay calm for now. That being said, if you follow the money it wouldn't surprise me if the city had their grimy fingers into this somewhere, somehow.

On Food Stamps, probably on Medicaid, no husband, a couple of kids and four pitbulls? Talk about a drain on society. I'll bet you her entire years salary that she has a voter registration card next to her $500.00 iPhone in her Gucci purse though. I wonder who she voted for for president or mayor of Jacksonville for that matter.

Pets are a privilege not a right. If you can afford them and have the time for them they can be loving and wonderful companions and additions to your family. If not, they become a disease carrying nightmare that eats, breeds and shits all over the place. Some can even become dangerous and a menace to society.

The answer here is simple. Kill the dogs and feed them to the children. Half of the world's population would kill you and your entire family for a good 40 pounds of dog meat to feed their starving children. Either that or kill the kids and feed them to the dogs. In the long run, those worthless kids with no future would end up costing society even more eventually so it becomes a win win situation.

I would require automatic sterilization of the pets and owners as well.

But that's a different story…..

Farewell to Originality……..

Yes my friends, original thinking is a thing of the past. Why try and use a little imagination when it takes so few calories to plagiarize previous ideas and scripts. Worse yet, take a thriving series of movies and TV shows that have proven to make buckets of money and screw them up.

Of course I'm talking about Star Trek.

Don't get me wrong here, I am a fan, I liked Kirk as the captain,  So he killed his wife, big deal, Spock and Scotty were good, Sulu and Chekov with Bones, and Uhura was hot. Something about flying around space, shooting up the bad guys and screwing the hot women seemed so….Right. Some of the spin offs were OK. I started to lose interest when we stopped using phasers and started to try and reason with the enemy. I got turned off when they tried to teach us moral lessons instead off forgetting their space condoms when screwing Orion slave girls. I love that green skin. A shame Wifey won't do that for me.

Captain Janeway and an American Indian first officer? Give me a fucking break.

The new Star Trek movie series shows promise. The character development is spot on. The casting is the best I have ever seen. Pine and Quinto are actually perfect. The ship is modern and oh so cool. And the writers should have their balls cut off. REPEAT: THE WRITERS SHOULD HAVE THEIR BALLS CUT OFF.

Every time a Sic-Fi writer loses his ability either through age, drug use or just plain writers block, they fall back on "Time Travel" This allows them to use old ideas, sometimes footage, and cheat the public out of an original thought and eventual script.

After this Star Trek that Wifey and I watched last night ( the first of the latest series) Romulus has been blown up years before Star Trek TOS ( The Original Series) comes around. We now have no Romulans!  To make matters worse, these same asshole writers went back in time and imploded Vulcan! VULCAN FOR GOD'S SAKE! So the later series episode Amok Time where Spock gets horny and kills Kirk can't take place, The Romulans can't develop the cloaking device which the Klingons acquire later on. And Spock is banging Uhura which negates the first interracial kiss on television between William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols. The future is bleak for the entire franchises continuity, and us rabid fans who have shelled out the money to keep it all alive for so many years.

I didn't even like the time travel episodes in TOS like the Gary Seven episode which starred a young Terri Garr, (Yowsa!) or the Guardian of Forever episode with Edith Keeler trying to stop WWII played by Joan Collins (Double Yowsa!)

And it's not just Star Trek writers who have no originality anymore. Future movies in the works are another Godzilla, Dirty Dancing, Peabody and Sherman, Short Circuit, Popeye, Escape from New York, Carrie, The Birds, Top Gun, Exodus and another Dracula.

Yes we are going to see the New Star Trek movie tonight. It's going to cost us $17.50 each to see it in 3D. I hope it's worth it. I'll have my $450.00 Klingon Home World Leather Jacket with me to celebrate. How many fans do you know that have one of those? I'll review it here in the future.

Hollywood needs a big fat enema. Right after the one we administer to Washington DC.

Now THAT I would pay twenty bucks plus to see…….

Watching History Unfold……

Buried deep within all the news this week, there is one that you are missing.

Remember when Richard Nixon resigned the presidency of the United States due to being involved in the Watergate cover up. Not the original bugging of the Watergate hotel, but the cover up and lying to congress and the American people. Nixon did the honorable thing. He resigned the presidency  and let the country escape the political nightmare and start the long and painful healing process.

Don't remember it? Too old and can't remember? To old and to liberal and an ex-dope smoking hippie who jumped on the "Get the President" bandwagon? Too young and didn't know about it or just spent to much time in high school getting high?

Wake up America. The same thing is happening RIGHT NOW!

The Benghazi terror attack is worse than Watergate ever was. Four (4) Americans serving their country DIED there. That's DEAD, Forever, NEVER COMING BACK!

The President insisted this was a spontaneous demonstration by Islamic fanatics and that there was nothing we could do about it. He flew to Las Vegas the next day for a campaign appearance.  Later he flew to where the bodies were returned to our country to mourn their deaths and to grieve with the victim's families. The administration and the State Department went ahead and made appearances on television insisting they had no idea of the severity of the attack and that it was a spontaneous demonstration of local citizens.

The guy who made the video is STILL IN JAIL, BEING HELD WITHOUT BEING CHARGED! Does that sound like the America YOU grew up with and in? How much power do these people have?

It's now coming out that they changed the story they released. They were informed the compound was being attacked. They knew that mortars were being used in the attack. The people at the embassy pleaded with their superiors for help. The State Department told them help wasn't an option. The State Department told them that help wouldn't get there in time. American fighter jets were three hours away. Paratroopers were five hours away.

So the question becomes, Did the State Department , the Defense Department, or even the White House know how long this "Spontaneous Demonstration" was scheduled to last? And who gave the order to NOT RESPOND to their pleas for help? Demonstrations in Egypt the same weekend went on for weeks. So who knew this was going to be over before we could respond?

And why did the US Ambassador to the United Nations go on 5 television networks and insist we knew nothing of an organized attack and insisted it was a reaction to an anti-Islam video posted on the internet? The President himself went on television, during a re-election campaign, and said it wasn't an organized attack and didn't even use the words terrorist attack.

It was, and still is, a good old fashioned political cover up. It's exploding right in front of your eyes. Look at it and try to remember it. Chances are something news cycle wise will develop or be created to throw up a smoke screen and divert your attention away. Remember President Clinton  bombing Albania to distract us from his sexual misconduct? Stains on Monica's dress for Gods sake!

President Obama should come clean with the American people about what happened in Benghazi. He should do the honorable thing and resign the presidency immediately. This isn't a "race motivated" or even a partisan politics issue. FOUR HONORABLE AMERICANS WERE BRUTALLY KILLED HERE. This is a case of an American president deliberately, and with considerable forethought, Lying to the American Public during his re-election campaign.

I would rather have that drooling simpleton vice-president Joe Biden running the country than a bold faced liar with the blood of four brave Americans on his hands.

Including Women and Children………

Israel today launched another airstrike into the Gaza Strip. The attack is retaliation for the terrorist group Hamas firing rockets into Israel.

Good for them.

Hamas has been a deadly, inhuman group of terrorists since they were formed. Remember that they over threw the legitimate government of the Gaza strip much like the Taliban did in Afghanistan. This time they want unlimited border access to Egypt. Instead of trying to negotiate with their neighbors they chose to fire rockets with explosive warheads into Israel.

My take on this?

Israel should bulldoze Gaza into the sea. Period.

I don’t care if they kill women and children, goats and microbes doing it.

How can those in the Muslim world justify Hamas firing cheap, unguided rockets willy nilly into Israel and then complain when Israel retaliates? We are talking thousands of rockets here. Israel doesn’t even respond in kind. They send in the jets to perform precision surgical strikes against the rocket launchers and the Hamas leaders themselves.

The cowardly Muslim extremists have started placing these rocket launchers in schools and mosques knowing Israel won’t target them where civilian casualties would be created. They have no concern for their own children or places of worship.

The answer is simple.

ISRAEL NEEDS TO TAKE THE GLOVES OFF AND START TARGETING CIVILLIAN POPULATION CENTERS IN GAZA.

And the God Damn news media needs to pull their heads outta their asses and tell the story of what is really going on there. Sure a blanket wearing towel head carrying a killed child in the street makes for good TV, but, they did it to themselves.  The American news media needs to show BOTH sides caring for their dead and wounded and ask the question, “Who started this mess?”

If Hamas can attack civilian centers with random, unguided missile attacks then Israel should have no problems targeting population centers in Gaza.

These so called “religious extremists” in Gaza have no regard for human life. It doesn’t matter to them whose. It’s time for Israel to play hardball. Target schools, hospitals, mosques, shopping malls, anywhere there is a population that can be killed. Let the terrorists experience the side of terrorism that they themselves practice. The entire population of Gaza supports the actions of Hamas anyway.

What does the world have to lose by systematically exterminating them?

This would be a great place to use an enhanced radiation thermonuclear weapon. No messy fallout downwind, towards Israel, to worry about. Just clean, efficient gamma ray energy killing every living thing in a 10 mile radius. Israel has them, they should use them.

Don’t get me wrong here, I am not a fan of Israel, nor do I feel they have a divine right to steal land that was owned and lived on for thousands of years by another people.

But when Hamas starts firing unguided missiles into population centers without concern for who or what they destroy it’s time to unleash the hounds.

I hope Israel exterminates every single one of those bastards. The world would be better for it, and the news could get back to what’s important.

Like the Twinkies shortage……..

The Twinkie Manifesto.........

“Uncle Chuckie, Tell us again about the Twinkies, please?”

Well Children, it all started a long time ago, So long ago no one really remembers when or how. Twinkies were just always there. We all envied the kids who had those little cream filled golden cakes in their lunch boxes. They were the ones with the cool parents.

People Loved their Twinkies. They were individually wrapped in plastic and they were stuck to a little piece of wax coated cardboard so they wouldn’t get smooshed on the shelf.  When you opened the packaged and pried the cake off of the  cardboard, you would get to lick the sticky cake off the cardboard. That was the best part!

People used to do all kinds of things with Twinkies. They would bake with them, freeze them for future use, dip them in chocolate, some people even performed horrible experiments on them. http://www.twinkiesproject.com/

The best thing anyone ever came up with was the FRIED TWINKIE.

The sweet and sticky crème filled cake was dipped in a bland batter, not unlike onion ring batter, and deep fried in 350° oil for a couple minutes. What this did was form a hard shell around the cake and caramelized the sugar in the cake and filling. It was a gooey delicious mess that left you craving a half gallon of cold milk and, you guessed it, another fried Twinkie.

Truly this was America at it’s greatest.

But trouble was looming for the Hostess company who made the Twinkie. The evil, money grubbing unions moved in and started demanding higher wages and ridiculous pension demands on the company. Other companies were making snack cakes and gaining market share. Hostess was forced to declare bankruptcy to protect themselves from their creditors while they desperately tried to reorganize their business to survive.

At this point, the fools in the baker's union decided to strike. Yes children, you heard me right, the fools that run the baker's union decided to stop working and picket the company who was in bankruptcy and trying to keep their jobs safe. Hostess told the union that if the strike kept going they would have to close  the factories and fire everyone in the company.

And that’s what they did.  Eighteen thousand (18,000) lost their jobs a week before thanksgiving. The union people not only lost their good jobs, they filed for unemployment and medicaide so they became a burden on the whole country’s economy.

“How could someone be so damn stupid Uncle Chuckie?”

Well kids, I honestly don’t know. Some people are just to stupid to be alive, but as long as the government keeps these voters alive we will be saddled with a lot more stupid shit like this.

Would you like to try one? I went and bought a hundred boxes and hid them before the government stepped in and made it a crime to hoard and collect Twinkies.

What a damn shame……

Why? I hear you ask......

“Why is this happening to us” Kate cried. “I dunno” responded Vick at the Miami International Airport. They had been in line for 3 hours now and were surely going to miss their connecting flight home to St. Louis.

“They sure are taking away a lot of people for questioning” Vick said out loud and then immediately regretted speaking .

“Welcome home to The United States. Do you have anything to declare?” the  young well armed border guard said.

“Not a thing”, Vick said. “Why is this line so long today?”

“It’s that new list that came out this week. The one with all the names of the people who wanted to secede from the union.”  Said the young muscular border guard while cradling his H&K MP5 sub machine gun in his lap.

Vick swallowed hard. A sweat started to break on his brow. He had signed the same petition on-line. Could the federal government really be rounding up US Citizens who were impulsive enough to sign their names to that petition?  Were American Citizens really being taken to federal re-education facilities to be trained to follow their government’s orders?  He had heard the rumors but never gave them a second thought.

The last words Vick heard were “Sir, We have a problem”…..

Ladies and Gentlemen:

The founding fathers were simple but extremely intelligent men. They knew that some day our government would grow so big, so impersonal and out of control that ordinary citizens might be forced to once again take up arms to regain or defend their liberty. That is why the second amendment to our great constitution was implemented.

I hope it never has to come to this, but if it does, I sure hope your name isn’t on any Homeland Security Watch list, or other government list of malcontents or patriots. Who do you think will get the first late night knocks on the door and be whisked away in the middle of the night in black government Suburbans, never to be heard from again?

Don’t sign that petition. Don’t do anything that would cause you to be a suspect. You never know who is watching.

Say’s I who is stupid enough to post this on the internet…….

Hep Me, Hep Me……

I saw the headlines today. 300 people lined up to protest a New York’s utility companies response to “Superstorm Sandy”

Hey New York. Tough Shit.

Sound harsh, heartless and uncaring? Maybe we should look at a few facts here and then decided if these folks have a case to bitch or not.

First, remember that New York City is on an island. The highest point is only a couple feet above sea level, same for most of Long Island and all of the NYC boroughs. Being a hugely, over populated and over priced area to live, humans became modern day cliff dwellers living in increasingly taller apartment buildings. With all the huge buildings around, the infrastructure ie: gas lines, electric conduits and steam pipes, telephone and cable had to be located underground.

What happens to areas that are below sea level when a tropical system comes in and there is a storm surge? That’s right, they flood, stranding the cliff dwellers without electricity or any other utilities. Tough shit. You did it to your selves. How do you like that $20,000 a month view of the city now? The news has been reporting that some of those apartment/condos go for up wards of one hundred million dollars! With most of the news organizations based in New York, that's all they have to report about. It's becoming more tedious than the election. The world is losing interest.

To the folks in the outskirts of town, out in the beaches area of New Jersey: sorry, that your homes were taken away by the sea. Did you think they would last forever? You live within a mile of the ocean at sea level and a hurricane takes away everything you own, and then you bitch that no one is coming to your rescue? Are you insane? Hurricanes have been destroying coastal land areas since before the dinosaurs roamed the earth. Just because it hasn’t happened lately doesn’t mean it won’t ever happen again. Do you think your arrogant New Jersey ass was now immune from this all of a sudden?

Those of you who were ordered to evacuate and didn’t and then expected to be rescued don’t realize that you are nothing more than a drain on vital resources and should have been left to die in the storm.  When the beaches in Jacksonville Florida were expected to be hit by Hurricane Floyd, the mayor came on TV and advised everyone who defied the evacuation order to write their name and SS# on their arms in indelible ink so that their bodies could be identified afterwards.  The people here were smart enough to get the message.

You people don’t realize that YOU DID THIS TO YOURSELVES! YOU CHOSE TO LIVE THERE! The silly part is you are expecting, no wrong word, you are DEMANDING that the rest of the country pay the bill for you to clean up and move back to the same areas that were just destroyed.

What really pisses me off are the people on TV bemoaning the fact that no one is there to help them. Bullshit. Thousands of power crews are in your pathetic area from all over the country. The news the other night showed the US Air Force airlifting electrical repair trucks and crews in from as far away as California. These crews are working 18 hour days and most are sleeping in their trucks at night and eating cold cheeseburgers from the Red Cross. Sure you lost the pictures of your Italian grandmothers wedding. But remember, YOU CHOSE TO LIVE THERE. It’s your own damn fault.

Every time the American Red Cross spends a dime to help you it is a “Gift from the American People” Just who do you think you are to say that no one is helping or that the help isn’t enough or timely enough? Just how important do you think you really are?

Yes the storm was a disaster, yes you are suffering, we get it. We are trying to help. How dare you complain that the charity we are supplying isn’t enough or not arriving fast enough to keep you comfortable.

Maybe you should quit acting like the world famous, foul mouthed, selfish asshole New Yorkers you have always been and be a little bit grateful. No one owes you a thing. You were unprepared and ignorant to what was going to happen even though you had a week or more of warning.

And now you are paying the price for it......

Blame it on The Polls….

You folks from Warsaw and Gdansk can relax. I am talking about the political opinion  polls, not you Pollocks in or from Eastern Europe.

Has it ever occurred to ANYONE, besides me, how every time there is an election all the polls seem to “tighten up” as election day draws closer?

A few months out, one candidate is always crushing the life out of his opponent and then there is a gaff or a scandal (or Joe Biden sticking his foot in his mouth) or something else in the news that causes the race to tighten up. Now the race is neck and neck with both candidates having the exact same polling numbers as reported by the news. A "Virtual Dead Heat" is a favorite phrase the talking heads on the news like to say over and over again.

Coincidence? I don’t think so.

It’s all driven by those bastards in the news media.

The television stations and networks make money by selling advertising space to the political parties and candidates. Did I say money? I meant big obscene amounts of money. The closer the race, the more desperate each candidate becomes. We have all heard about certain states that will go to one candidate regardless of what is said or spent. Some of the players concede these states to their opponent and concentrate their cash in key, or “Battleground” states.

Unfortunately, I live in one of those states.

So let’s see here. If a closer race equals more advertising, and you get to control what is broadcast on your news program every night, and you are the one who sets the advertising rates that the candidates are forced to pay to show their assholish commercials on your airwaves, doesn’t it make obvious sense that all you have to do is manipulate the polling data to artificially tighten the race to make more obscene profits from greedy asshole politicians? The closer the race, the more money is spent on advertising. It’s easy to disguise this fraudulent scheme. Just word your polling questions slightly different for each demographic you are polling. You are reporting accurately on the data you obtained, so therefore you can’t get caught or accused of any wrongdoing. You and your TV station win and the viewing public and electorate as a whole eventually lose.

So you see, It isn’t so much the power hungry politicians who are to blame for the septic onslaught that dribbles out of your TV every single commercial break. It’s those money grubbing slime buckets at the TV stations and networks who feed you the steady diet of artificial bullshit to help further line their pockets with cash from the parasitic politicians.

And I haven’t even started on those of you clueless, and lazy folks who have partaken in “Early Voting”. I will address those moron's soon I promise.

Better open a window next time you turn on your TV.

The smell is only going to get worse…….

Where did you hear it first?

 

The 2012 presidential election farce is coming to a close. It’s the incumbent President Barrack Obama vs. Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts. The campaign trail has been long and noisy, and thanks to the Supreme Court's "SuperPAC" ruling, overwhelming in dirty and negative political advertisements.

I live in a “Battleground State” Florida has had over 188 million dollars of TV advertisements bought for this election and we still have two weeks to go!

I was looking at some of my previous posts in this blog and came across  the June 4^th 2009 posting.

http://travelswithchuckie.blogspot.com/2009/06/honeymoon-is-almost-over.html

It’s God Damn scary to look at those numbers and to realize a couple things.

1)   The country is going to Hell

      2)   And even scarier, Chuckie was RIGHT!

“How so?” I hear you cry. Well just look at that previous post and then look at today’s numbers.

October 23 2013

Gold is at    $1,709.00 per ounce

Silver is at    $31.85  per ounce

Platinum is at   $1,573.00 per ounce

Crude Oil is at    $86.00   per barrel

The National Debt figure for November 3 2008 was 10.56 TRILLION Dollars

Today’s (10/23/12) National Debt figure is 16.199 TRILLION Dollars

If THAT doesn’t scare you , you are to fucking stupid to be alive.

To see what a trillion dollars is, reference my earlier post:

http://travelswithchuckie.blogspot.com/2009/11/inflation-without-viagra.html

To view the growing National Debt figures, look at:

http://usdebtclock.org/

The frightening and somewhat upsetting point here is that I have friends who will look at these numbers and either don’t understand their meaning or just bury their heads in the sand and make the minimum payments on their credit cards and continue on as if nothing is happening

And yes, I am getting older and crotchety and don’t have a problem saying,

SEE DUMBASS, I TOLD YOU SO……..

Creatures from The Black Lagoon…..

Fifty thousand years ago Florida was an uninhabited, mosquito-ridden swamp. It was filled with wild animals, snakes and possibly a few graduates from the University of Georgia .  (This period of time was far to advanced for Texas A&M students)

The weather was terrible by our standards. Hot in the summer, cold and clammy in the winter. Tropical weather systems pounded the area drenching, and in some cases, submerging the land with many feet of unrelenting floods. Most of the semi intelligent creatures ran for their lives when the rains came. The less evolved (read as stupid) animals or beings, returned to set up their homes again in the very areas that were devastated by the horrendous weather.

The floods would again come, a few more local species would die off and the circle of life would continue. A cruel and gruesome series of events to be sure, but that didn’t stop the animators at Disney from making a fortune off of it.

Thousands of years passed, the rains still came, numerous species went extinct, and dumb assess are STILL building their homes on Black Creek in Middleburg, Fl.

This year has been a doozie for rain in coastal northeast Florida. To hear the amateur meteorologists’ from Action News Jacksonville talk about it, you would think we all would need to grow fins and gills. The rainfall totals for the year are, I hope you are sitting down for this, within an inch of normal. That’s right, an average amount of rain has hit the ground this year. So what if we got most of it in a three week period. This was and still is a primordial swamp remember?

But not for those folks out in the Black Creek area. No sir. You know the type. The ones with the enlarged foreheads and deep seated eyes. Think of Australopithecus here. You know the type, the same ones who used to smile and giggle when they soiled themselves in the back of the short bus on the way to class in Athens Georgia.

These fools have the nerve to keep breeding, and to make matters worse, they keep relocating to their same fluid plots of cesspool smelling muck where they build houses out of pig shit and sticks.

And that’s OK with me. The world will be a better place upon their extinction.

But wait a minute here. FEMA and the federal government have arrived. The feds are promising a house by house survey of the area, checkbook in hand, to help these idiots rebuild their homesteads on top of the very muck that swallowed their previous ancestors and their dwellings. The only problem here is, the government is carrying YOUR checkbook. Every payday and April 15^th you deposit your hard earned wages into that checking account so some asshole politician can give it to the mindless masses at election time to buy their votes.

Circle of life my ass. Let those fools who build their houses in the swamp ooze into the muck and disappear forever. The are just sucking down vital oxygen that the rest of us could be breathing and keeping the matriculation rates at UGA artificially high.

It’s not like any of them could have read a topographic map before they built their homes there in the first place.  “Oh look here Honey, I found a lovely place in the swamp to build our dream house! It’s surrounded by water! It even smells bad and comes with free snakes and mosquitoes!"

Forget the Zombie Apocalypse. We need to worry about the Dumb Asshole Apocalypse.

It seems to be here already……..

Olympic Herpes……

It’s that time again. You can’t avoid it. It will consume you and ruin your life. It will spread from your television to your internet to your smart phone like an STD. Soon cereal boxes will have the faces of dimwit jocks you have never heard of before, from unknown sports, staring at you in the isles of the food depot.

Of course I am talking about the Olympics. That over blown nonsense that goes on for two weeks every four years. I have blogged about it before (Feb 18 2010) and I still feel the same way.

It started last night when NBC news (Guess which network shelled out two billion dollars (($2,000,000,000.00)) for the rights to bore and infuriate me) aired their closing “Feel Good” story about a chick who is trying to qualify for the 100 meter high hurdles.

All I care about is if she is the fastest at her sport without doping up. That’s it. I don’t care if her mom died when she was a child, I don’t care if she slept in a basement eating used cat food out of a dumpster. All that human interest crap dilutes what the athletes are doing and trying to achieve. Make all the athletes compete naked and don’t disclose their names and nationalities until the race is over. This way the true talent rises to the top and NBC has to show you coverage where the US just might not pull off the miracle win every time.

The United States has the most extensive athletics organization in the world. High school, college and eventually professional levels are all fun to watch, but they should never be mixed together. Letting our NBA stars who make millions a year to act like assholes first and playing basketball second, should not be allowed to play against amateur teams from places like Cameroon or Haiti or Norway. That is the stupidest shit I have ever seen. But you can bet your sweet ass that NBC will show you the preliminary game of basketball between the US and the Dutchy of Grand Fenwick during prime time.

And I sure as hell hope they don’t tap that smug asshole Bob Costas to be their Olympic anchorman again. He makes me want to barf every time I see him. The only sports personality worse than him is Holly Rowe from ESPN. I would rather treat an acute case of hemorrhoids with Tabasco sauce then hear these two losers belch on and on about sports they know nothing about.

I guess I just won’t pay my cable bill during the month of August. College football will not have started yet and watching baseball is about as exciting as watching snails fuck. There is nothing on TV worth a shit until October when the Walking Dead comes back on.

Except for Dallas of course.

Come to think of it, J.R. Ewing does kinda resemble some of the extras on TWD…........

You Want WHAT?

The whole purpose of giving someone a gift is to show them you were thinking of them and wanted to do something nice for them. Unless of course it's your neighbors who allow their dogs to leave their deposits in your yard. Then the gift is to put on gloves and smear the offending matter all over their windshields and front door.

Wifey has learned to never ask me for something at Christmas as she knows that the item will go on my do not consider list. I want her to know I put a lot of thought and care into the present that I give her. She will tell you she has never been disappointed. I bought my brother a can of octopus meat one year for Christmas along with some other cool stuff like a vertical chicken roaster and a pickle picker for getting gherkins out of a jar.

See what I mean? I am Mr. Thoughtful when it comes to buying people gifts. Who else would go to a multi thousand dollar wedding where the gift table was covered with many many thousands of dollars of crystal and silver..........and give the bride and groom as case of motor oil. Synthetic no less. I'm not a cheap skate.

If you are having a baby shower for a baby boy, expect something like a chain saw. If it's a girl, expect a pink chainsaw.

So imagine my horror when my closest friend sent me a wedding invitation and included was a pretty little insert informing us that they were participating in a very nice store's "Bridal Registry".

I'm not stupid, I get it. You register so that everyone knows what you need when you start out your new lives together. You also register so you make sure you don't get thirty seven "George Foreman Lean Mean Fat Reducing Machine" burger cookers on your special day.

There are a few problems with this program. The first is that all the spontaneity and loving thoughtfulness is stripped away from the giving process. The second is that the list is always made out by the bride to be and is ALWAYS, repeat for effect, ALWAYS stuff the groom could care less about. Towels, bed linens, cooking weapons and other emasculating gifts are all "Chick Stuff." The third issue is, and this one really bothers me, is that the happy couple can log onto the website and see what has been fulfilled on their wish list. "Look honey we are getting an electric juice extractor from someone who really loves us."

I promise you this much. They will never see my gift coming. No I'm not going to bring them a herd of goats or an automatic weapon of some kind. I would never do anything to embarrass them in public. If it was him alone, I would without hesitation. Multiple times, and I would get it on tape! But I wouldn't do that to the lovely lady that has decided to pledge her life and love to him in front of God in a four hundred year old Catholic mission.

The fact that I know his parents and I am afraid they would kill me has nothing to do with it!

Well.......Maybe a little.............

Ognuno Soffre…….

It’s funny how you look at things when you get older.  Childhood allows, hell demands, you to think silly thoughts and they are somehow fine.

When I was a kid growing up In Avon, Ct. almost every kid on the block had his tonsils out the same summer. Stories of huge piles of ice cream and missing school for a week filled my dreams. Then appendicitis was the new scar to have. EVERY kid had that scar except me and my brother. I remember not being picked to be on a basketball team because I didn’t have an appendectomy scar. I could handle not being picked because I sucked at the sport, but to be left out because I was healthy?

Bastards.

As I got older I started to realize how lucky I was as a kid. Parent’s loved each other till the day Mom died. No real accidents to speak of, and no life threatening illnesses. I suppose most of the crap my family had to go through was my fault. For that I am sorry.

I started to take notice of how people acted and responded when they got sick. I mean really sick.. The really life threatening stuff like cancer and heart attacks and strokes. Mom always tried to beat into my head that I was to be the tough one when everyone was hurting and to be there for them. Suffer later, but be a rock for those who needed you to be strong because they couldn’t. I would like to think that I have made her proud.

I have watched a lot of people die during my tenure as a person, both personally and professionally in my medical career. Some were rocks, other’s were little balls of mushy crap that drips between your fingers when you pick it up.  Some people were inspirational in how they handled their personal tragedies, others were pathetic spiteful and hateful.

Regardless of my goofy religious beliefs, I think it’s everyone’s responsibility to make those around you as comfortable and happy while you are dying as you can.  It is going to happen to everyone at one point or another, so we might as well make it as easy as possible.

If I seem indifferent or cold about it when you ask me, it’s not you I promise. I have been living with this knowledge for the last ten years. I am acutely aware of what is happening. I don’t understand the why’s but I do know the how’s and trust me, I’m not OK with it. I am just stuck with it. I am doing everything I can to face this shit with courage and as much style as I can muster. Yes there are bad days where I am more pissed than normal, That’s to be expected.

Let’s all just have fun and dance in the sand before the music gets turned off or the lights go out and our parents make us come in out of the rain.

Here In My Car………

I feel safest of all, I can lock all my doors, It’s the only way to live….

I know I know. I don’t normally go around quoting Gary Numan disco songs from the 1980s, but it’s true.

Cars I have owned in my 52 years:

1.              1964 Ford Fairlane Sports Coup

2.              1981 Subaru Wagon 4WD (Cyclops)

3.              1982 Subaru Turbo Coupe 4WD

4.              1974 Ford LTD (Dorf)

5.              1977 MGB

6.              1983 Ford Bronco SLT (Big Black Bastard)

7.              1982 Mazda RX-7 GSL-SE (Rice Rocket)

8.              1982 Audi Coupe of some unknown kind

9.              1981 Pontiac Grand Prix

10.          1985 Chevy Diesel Conversion Van (Otamot)

11.          1986 Subaru Hatchback 4WD

12.          1980 Datsun Pick Up

13.          1986 Jeep Wrangler Sahara Edition

14.          1980 Ford Ranger Pick Up

15.          1981 Ford F-150 Pickup Lease then Purchased (MCF)

16.          1989 Ford  F-250 Pickup Truck Super Duty Super Crew 4WD (Behemoth)

17.          2002 Volkswagen Diesel New Beetle (Presently Owned) (Der Stuka)

18.          1999 Dodge Ram Conversion Van (Presently Owned) (Green Turd)

Best Mileage:   Diesel New Beetle      44-46 mpg Hwy

Worst Mileage:   1989 Ford F-250 Pickup 4WD     12-15 Hwy.

Fastest:   1982 Mazda RX-7 Rotary 13B engine    135 MPH (RADAR Clocked 4th gear)

Cheapest:   1964 Ford Fairlane Sports Coupe. Mimi sold it to me for $1.00

Most Expensive:   1989 Ford F-250   $25,000

Most Hated:     1981 Pontiac Grand Prix

Most Loved and Pampered:   2002 Diesel New Beetle

I’m not a “Car Guy” I never really gave a crap about my cars until I had the Mazda sports car. Then I fell in love with that rush of speed that flying  4 inches off the ground at a hundred miles an hour can give you. It didn’t handle that well though which always scared me, and 9,000 rpm in first gear was a little crazy.

My favorite car, and I have no idea why, is the 2002 VW Diesel New Beetle that I drive now. Being a diesel it hits maximum torque (power) at 1700 RPMs. A Porsche needs to get to 4,000 RPM to get the same power. It’s quick, turns on a dime, Handles like a formula 1 race car and gets 44-46 MPG on the highway.

We just took Der Stuka (his name) through one of the most thrilling and treacherous roads in the world. US Highway 129 in North Carolina and Tennessee. It’s referred to as the Tail of The Dragon. 318 curves in 11 miles. My beetle with it’s low end torque was running away from most of the motorcycles and sports cars we came across. On a road where the maximum speed limit is 30 mph we had 270° turns we took at 50.

And remember. I’m not a “Car Guy”!