The Hobbit Hole III - Journey to the Cross-roads!

[HairOfTheDog]

Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!

Journey to the Cross-roads
The Two Towers Edition

Come on! Come in! -if you would like to have some seedcakes and a pint and relax a while. (If it is a special occasion, we still have a few bottles of the old wineyards left!)

Our first thread ( New Zealander builds Hobbit hole ) reached 4,100 posts, and we thought that was big. Our second thread (The New Hobbit Hole ) held us for over 48,000 posts, and we loved it dearly. We talked about moving to a new thread for the last 38,000 posts, but we are really slow to muster! Finally, the time has come. Tomorrow (at 12:01 am, to be precise!) The Two Towers comes out, and we start a new chapter.

[Overtaxed]

Yes...but we didn't test livestock for pesticide residues. :)

[Wneighbor]

I have no class.

*chuckling* My boss is always coming by saying, "Do you have class tonight?" I always respond with "I have class 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It may not be the kind of class my mama wants me to have but I have it." Most days he simply doesn't get it. Some days he says, "You know that's not what I mean!" Weird thing is.... he never remembers from one week to the next not to ask me that.

[Wneighbor]

Yes...but we didn't test livestock for pesticide residues. :)

although, i suspect some of them needed to be tested.

[Wneighbor]

i'm off to grab a convenience store samwich or something. got a mind-numbing meeting starting at 1... i have just enough time to get yuk-food and get back for the thing.

[Overtaxed]

Hehehe....would you buy needing hogs that are the size of cows?

[300winmag]

Ha - The F-16 in the back of the crowd is a nice touch.

That airplane is the sexiest plane ever made.

It's a very slick aircraft. The local ANG base can fly them around inside the boundaries of the little base, they're that agile. Prior to that, the F4 Dinosaur flew there.

But my vote for all-time most beautiful aircraft is the somewhat-maligned B1-B. It's image is a mixture of pure sex and pure evil.

One of the happiest days of my life was at an air show, where a B1-B did a low-level flyby down the runway with wings extended. Then it lit the afterburners and swung the wings back, and climbed like a F-16. All the while, this huge rumble and roar was pounding my body, and I was jumping around and laughing like a fool. Definitely the sound of freedom!.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

It's been mentioned in some of the news threads, as well as on TV, that one thing the troops really like getting is phone cards that they can use to call home.

Does anyone know of a good source for phone cards with cheap international rates?

[HairOfTheDog]

hmmmmm.... Those are flawless lines... the B1-B is a cool plane, but purdy?.... hmmmm....

[2Jedismom]

Everyone recommends the Sam's AT and T cards...

I still haven't heard from that guy at Amazon...

[ksen]

I need help finding something. I remember seeing or hearing the various stages a society goes through as it heads for dictatorship.

Does anyone know where I can find that?

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

I still haven't heard from that guy at Amazon

Uh oh, I just went back to that Amazon link and the books aren't there any more. Could be that he's already sold them. :(

[2Jedismom]

I'm thinking of going with the overstock.com one...

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

That may be best!

[Overtaxed]

Does anyone know of a good source for phone cards with cheap international rates?

Last week I was looking at the AT&T cards at Walmart and Sam's club. The domestic rates came out to be around 17 cents/minute with the Walmart ones and 4 cents/minute for the ones bought at Sams. I was reading on one of the threads that 1 minute to Kuwait is approximately the same cost as 10 minutes domestic. Don't know what it is for Afghanistan.

I'm planning on buying some cards online and having them shipped to 2J.

[Lil'freeper]

I've been reading threads saying that care packages are no longer allowed due to security, that we have to go thru the red cross and so on. How does that affect this effort?

[2Jedismom]

I just did it. Ordered 4 sets of the books.

[2Jedismom]

They don't want people sending stuff to complete strangers. I met this guy through an aquaintence of mine...he was the youth minister at her church.

The DoD is trying to stop webpages from posting the addresses of the troops and giving them to virtual strangers. I've been in contact with this chaplain, and his wife, so it's not the same thing.

It's why I don't pass his email around though. It's why everything is going through me.

[Sam Cree]

I only have a vague memory of that ksen, do you suppose one of the stages could have an application here in America? But I'd like to see it if you find it.

Meanwhile, "The Road to Serfdom," by Nobel Prize winner F.A. Hayek, goes into that subject in elegant detail. It ought to be required reading at every college in the country, but isn't.

[Lil'freeper]

Ok, that's good to know. The USO only wants money and the red cross is a corrupt outfit. Thanks for organizing it all.

[2Jedismom]

You're welcome! Everyone just wants to do something and I'm thrilled to be a conduit. I try to be as open as I possibly can, to include everyone as much as I can.

But I can see it getting really out of hand, if this gets out of The Hole, so to speak! LOL