I become a gun-slinging felon under Illinois law at midnight.

My Illinois FOID expires 6/1/2012.  I sent in my renewal well ahead of the deadline.  In the weeks since then, nothing has come in the mail. I tried to comply with the letter and intent of this silly law but the Illinois State Police dragging their feet on FOID renewals are making felons out of all Illinois gun owners.

YES, it is a FACT,  “If your FOID card has expired, no matter how recently, you can still be charged with felony possession of a weapon.”

Am I worried about a SWAT team kicking in my door and shooting my three cats and me while we sleep?  Nah, I am flying the white flag of surrender over my front door and I have my big-dollar pro-gun-attorney, Molon Labe and Associates, on autopilot.  Besides, the Illinois State Police are so inept that they would probably get the address wrong and raid one of the neighboring homes. 

The cure for cancer is a failure of the future

Each waking day is a fresh moment in the future.  No matter what age you are, you can reflect on the optimism you had in the-days-gone-by and measure it against the innovations of each new day.  Fifty years ago I was the same age as my Granddaughter is now so you might say that I have time traveled fifty years into the future from my tenth birthday.  Nothing much that I see today surprises the ten-year-old child that still resides in my soul.  Back in those days our teachers asked us to predict the marvels of the twenty-first century and we all came up with visions of personal computers, along with phones that went with us everywhere.  Honestly, I cannot think of one thing we have today that one of my classmates did not dream up fifty years ago.  However, many of the visions we had back then did fall flat.  Our cars do not fly, guns still shoot bullets, and cancer is still a scourge.

Over two hundred types of cancer can affect humans.  My friend Art has one type and he has a tough road ahead; give a click HERE to read his story.   Art and I are the same age; from childhood on, each year he probably heard the same predictions and promises that I did; a cure for cancer is only ten-years away.

I predict that someday in the future there will be “silver bullet” cures for most cancers and that the history books will look back on the “cures” we practice today as downright barbaric.  Which year in the future I do not know, but I believe it will happen.  I just hope that the ten-year-old kids of today will not be waiting for it fifty-years from now.

Back from Florida

We left last Saturday (the 5th) and returned early this morning.  On the way back, we got caught up in the traffic jam resulting from this horrible accident on I-65 north of Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Lake County, Illinois is taxing people out of their homes.

I’m hiring a legal firm this year to challenge my assessment.  I appealed my fair market value assessment in 1999 and won a small reduction.  Since then I suffered in silence.  The real estate boom years resulted in huge property tax increases.   Most of the folks I know in my neighborhood ask me the same question every year; “Are they going to lower our real estate taxes due to the radical drop in our property values?”  Many of these people are hanging on to their homes by only a wish and a prayer; a significant cut in their property taxes would be a blessing.

Well, the taxes on my three-bedroom house have dropped a bit but my wallet will still be $8,452.26 lighter after I pay my latest bill.  The assessor says the fair market value of my home is $264,120, even though no house in our subdivision, many of them bigger and nicer than mine, has sold anywhere near that amount.  The house next door (east side) sold for $124,000 last October.  It is time to put up a fight.

The misadventures of SOCCER GRANDPA

Anthropogenic Global Warming has yet to waste any of its blessed radiance on a single day of my Granddaughter’s soccer matches.  If her soccer season were in July, I swear it would snow.  This morning, as usual, the weather was cold, wet, and breezy.   Forever a slave to the etiquette of proper parental soccer attire, I outfitted my three-score-year-old carcass for the occasion in my very finest faded blue denim jacket and jeans, olive drab poncho, and highlighted the ensemble with a kicky pink bumbershoot.

Grandpa has style and that is for certain!

Partially paralyzed jewelry shop owner shoots armed robber

The punk even stole a necklace from the shop owner’s 4-year old granddaughter.  Click HERE for details VIA the Chicago Tribune. 

The 19-year-old robber will live, but likely will walk with a limp for a while.

DaddyBear has a new den

Climb over the mountain then hike through the woods.  He's in the big cave far north of the old blogging road.  Click HERE to get there quicker than liquor.

A Happy Birthday

to Mulligan, blogging to us from over at Do Over!