Finally, a country-western place to dance.

My wife and I used to go dancing every Saturday night. It was one of the few social engagements we shared. (For all of you who've actually met my beautiful wife, you're lucky. She does not come out to political mixers often. And some of you have even jokingly accused me of inventing her)

We were in a mood to go to Nick's all the way out in Alexandria (one of our previous haunts) when we searched the internet to see where our favorite Band was playing these days. The Handy Brothers actually played our Wedding Reception, so they're a longtime favorite. Ms. Bulletproof and I often just "missed" each other for years.... She went to all the places I did back then. GW's in Old Towne, The Zed- just outside of Old Towne, Spurs in Waldorf, and even Bronco Billy's in Washington...like a hundred years ago.

When perusing Southern Wind's site, I found a new Country-western effort in "the Corral", and they're featuring Southern Winds every Thursday as a house band. The Club is on the bottom floor of Fast Eddie's at the corner of Rt.28 and Rt. 29 in Centerville, Va. The food was great, and the crowd was cordial (even if we didn't see the "ol' gang" there.)

The club has Billiards and dancing. I like both, so I'll be sliding down and gettin' out of the house with more frequency, and I'll be sportin' the "suddenly social" Ms.Bulletproof on those days.

Site additions and traffic

Many avid readers will have noticed the addition of my Stat Counter under my profile, and the redesign of the blog.
I added the counter back in 2008, a couple of months after the creation of the site.
Then on February the 23rd, exactly one month ago, the site achieved a statistical high point. I logged 500 visitors in 22 days...a little under a month.
Two notable occasions have been observed since that month. On March 17th, I can only assume that people were feeling the Irish spirit, because I logged 56 unique visitors that day. I've come close to that number a couple of days before that, and have received visitor numbers in the low fifties a couple of times since.

I've been challenged on other sites as to the validity of my claims on visitors.
So, a couple of days ago, I reset the counter and decided to make the numbers public.
Visitors can see the number of page calls, but won't be able to see the IP addresses, or the number of returning visits, but will see the actual number of "hits" the site receives.

Keep in mind that when the actual "page calls" hits 500, I usually copy the log for posterity and reset the counter.
UPDATE:
The site appears to have logged 202 unique hits in a wee bit over a week. I stretched the graph out to encompass March 21st traffic on one end to traffic up till 13:49 HRS on March 29th...
And I had 68 returning visits over those 8 days. At this rate, and provided I do indeed update the material on the front page, I could beat my 500 visit mark inside of 30 days. We'll see.

And in the "just for fun" venue...

Or, maybe the WTF? column...
Most of you are familiar with the big beast I drive. I ventured far and wide, and could never find a vehicle that carried all I needed to carry, sipped fuel instead of gulped it, and went where I needed to go without hesitation. So I had to build it.

Now, I've recieved plenty of ribbing from those who are unfamiliar with the very nature of the beast. But once they've seen it perform, and become aware that this thing still gets 20 mpg on the highway... they usually cease laughing.



This has been a 3 year build, starting with the custom 4x4 suspension under it. I designed the suspension and drew it out on an AutoCad program, and then a local welder and I executed the installation to the truck's frame. The rear is a 1999 E-350 Superduty Sterling. (That's one and a 1/4 ton duty ...for those unfamiliar with the hardware) I have a matching one ton axle for the front. I'm still drawing up that suspension, with improvements to the current setup.

I have an 8000 lb. winch up front, and a 9500 lb. winch ready to install as a backup unit. There is a plethora of snatch blocks, tree straps and other pulling gear in the truck, as well.

The picture provided here is a mockup of the truck's upcoming surgery in the spring. It still is more van than truck right now, but with the surgery in the spring, it'll become more truck.

UPdate: Evidently, LeeJ -of Oppressive Word fame - thinks that I drive this truck for my ego.
What he overlooks, or is flatout too stupid to compute is... I'm a contractor. I have a number of crews that build stuff. And I need a truck (the bigger the better) to pull 1200 to 4000 lbs. loads on a frequent occasion.
Lee's a builder, too. Which makes me wonder how he carries his materials.....One can wonder.