"Nobody believes me when I talk about how self-absorbed I am" Steve H -- Hog On Ice

Pardon me while I reattach my ass from having ROTFLMAO.

Oh Steve, we believe you all right...

Caffeine, exercise can team up to prevent skin cancer

Yahoo, Mountain Dew! I sing praises to yooo!

I wish it would *NOT* rain down, at least not tonight and tomorrow, and at least not in Catalina.

And I wish testosterone-addled assholes in jacked up pickup trucks would race up and down Bowman Road enough to flatten out the humongous gullies that threaten to swallow any lesser vehicles. The road is not county-maintained and I barely got out of there this afternoon.

Daisycat and I sighted in our rifles at the range in anticipation of tomorrow's Three-Gun Match. And we got chased out by a nasty looking thunderstorm that loomed across the face of the mountain range, threatening to cut us off from civilization with a fresh wall of water running down the Canada Del Oro.

Tomorrow afternoon it can rain again, and I hope it does.

Update 7:45 PM: ARGH!! They cancelled it! Dadgummit! Since when should a little mud come between shooters and a good day shooting? Best I can tell it didn't even rain anymore there all afternoon. Pussies...

Update 2: Article here about Saturday's storms, including a slide-show in the sidebar showing more swift-water rescues and flooded cars.

Who would ever think that while living in a desert, an amphibious craft would become useful?

Here's a wild hypothesis I'm throwing out there: *If* global warming is fer real (whether anthropogenic or not is the big Q), I am guessing that it may result in possibly drier winters but more likely wetter summers for Tucson, because the summer rain is heat-driven. The heat creates a low-altitude low-pressure system that stretches from New Mexico into Nevada, and this low pressure system is what sucks up the moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and distributes it as rain across the desert. So more heat = lower pressure = more rain.

We had a very wet monsoon season last year, and this year is shaping up to be a good wet one as well. In between we've had dry winters and a drought that's going on twelve years now. But I won't make the mistake of the enviro-hysterics and assume a few data points make a trend.

Update 3: Not kidding folks. Rescues are good. But rescues mean you're ass is already in a sling and it needs extracting. Sometimes it doesn't work out so well: Motorist Dies In Wash

It was a very impressive storm that ripped through downtown and the south side yesterday afternoon. I was watching it both on radar as well as in person out the back door of the office. It didn't hit our location, but it was quite a show nonetheless.

Update 4: It occurs to me long after the fact that some people may have *no idea* what my Phil Collins reference is to. HERE

Here is the comic strip that Steve H was knocking a couple days ago: Achewood

He read ten strips and declared that it blows. I read several months worth of the early archives and discovered that it has a cumulative effect. Once you get to understand the characters and their peculiarities, the strip starts to gently knock on your funnybone--giving you that ticklish effect that finally triggers a kick.

The reason I'm even posting this is that I find the strip strangely compelling, and I was on my way back to search for it again (since I forgot to bookmark it).

Update: Actually I think it's genius. What Steve's problem is, is anyone's guess. Professional envy I suppose...

Update 2: Example

Labels: felicity and jocularity

Interesting panel discussion:

In The Know: Are Our Children Learning Enough About Whales?

(really, people. Don't breeze past this. It is worth seeing...)

Hang on to your shorts, and make sure your wig is firmly attached:
Part I
Part II
Part III

Do I believe this? I don't know. What I do believe is the Bible, and I am also pretty certain that the UFO phenomenon, to the degree that it is real, is demonic in it's origins. So could this be true? Yeah. Yeah, it could...

Not a comforting thought, no. But it would explain a lot, yes.

Labels: watching the skies

Now *this* is interesting. Whod'a thunk the Emperor's buck-naked ass would be revealed in a court of law?
WorldNetDaily: IRS loses challenge to prove tax liability

Labels: liberty, not-laws, statism

Three days and three years my junior.

Here is the card she got me for *my* b-day Saturday:

...everywhere
.

More flood pics here. (click the "slideshow" in the right sidebar at that page.)

We have a law in Arizona, aptly called the "Stupid Motorist Law" that requires motorists who require rescue from these situations to reimburse the full cost of their rescue.

Still. Every time, you get the same idiots driving their pea-brains through the washes.

Were the moon landings faked?

Decide for yourself. See this previously unreleased footage!

Labels: felicity and jocularity

Daisycat accompanied me out to the farm this weekend--a rare thing, but it was my birthday. Thanks babe!

She worked on placing the bedding sand in the trenches around the utility lines while I finished the last two electric conduit installations. As is usual this time of year, we saw thunderstorms sail by us on all sides for most of the afternoon.


The thing is, these storms only affect a small area. A storm that dumps water over a mile-wide path is a good-sized one. So you get used to them sailing by and watering other parts of the desert. Well we eventually got in the path of a decent sized and slow moving storm cell. It rained hard, really hard for at least a full half-hour. Daisycat said it may never stop. (How'd we miss the signal to build an ark?) By the time it tapered off, about 3 inches had fallen and the washes were running full.

I had to go out in it and see what was what.

I could hear the freight train roar of a flash flood thundering out of the hills across the river to the east. Along the north property line and in the adjacent parcel there was an impressive sheet flow going--at least six inches deep in places--where water from the west foothills across the road made its way down to the river. I was envying all that water for my dryland farming experiments. The Tohono O'odham Indians traditionally captured and diverted just this kind of summertime water flow to irrigate their fields of Tepary beans. A little judicious trenching along the fence line would draw more of it over in my direction.

But on the bad-news side, my utility trenches became temporary washes as well. This hole is 36" deep, now full of muddy water.


Daisycat surveying the wreckage.


Bufo is in toad heaven though. I've chased him out of this trench twice now, and he keeps coming back in. He likes it. But I will have to dig him out before I finally backfill. Meanwhile he was hopping up and down the length of the trench slurping up bugs that were out flying around after the rain.


And as if to drive the point home that the rain would and did stop, and that we hadn't missed any signal to build an ark, we were treated to the sight of another double rainbow at sunset.


Yes yes, I know that to you folks who live in wetter parts, three inches is no biggie, whoopee ding dong day, right? But realize that three inches represents one fourth of the total *annual* rainfall for this area. Say you normally get forty inches a year. What would happen if ten inches of that forty inches fell all at once in the span of less than an hour? Mm hm. We call these storms "gully washers" and "frog stranglers" for good reason.

On the way back home Sunday afternoon there was one wash crossing that was still in really rough shape. Driving Daisycat's compact sedan I almost got stuck in the sand. This wash was one that almost certainly flash-flooded after the storm. There's a half dozen crossings like this in either direction between out there and civilization. If it weren't for the grader, the road would become impassable within a year, and within 3 to 5 years even four-wheelers would have trouble traversing it. A damn freeway would change all that, and that's not for the better.

Labels: San Pedro homestead

Judge dismisses Valerie Plame's suit

Heh.

Back when I was younger, I used to rant on the apparent idiocy, inefficiency and hilarity I used to witness at construction sites, where one may commonly see the sight of five or six people standing around staring down into a hole, while a lone sad-sack with a shovel labored away down inside.

One of the more humorous aspects of my job is to find myself in exactly that same scene on a semi-regular basis. It looks a little different now (but not by much). Here's what it actually is:

During utility construction it is frequently necessary to cross under/over/around other existing utilities. In order to do so without disrupting or destroying the existing utilities, it is only possible to excavate so close with construction equipment, and then you have to send someone down the hole with a shovel to go in search of the existing utility lines. This process is called "potholing", because it often involves excavating a big pothole to get down to the location of the utilities and see what is where. So besides the guy down in the hole, you have at the surface 1) his relief--they will switch places every five minutes or so, because digging a hole in the hot sun is brutal work. 2) and 3) other skilled laborers whose job it will be to continue their work on the new line once the existing utility is found 4) the contractor's site superintendent. 5) sometimes the contractor's project manager 6) the project inspector for the utility company whose new lines are being constructed 7) a field inspector for the utility whose existing lines are being excavated--especially you will see this guy if it is a high pressure steel gas line 8) sometimes the project manager for the utility company whose new lines are being constructed (me). Everyone has an intense interest in what is going down in the hole, and to someone who has no idea what is going on, the scene can look a bit ridiculous.

I've been in the midst of a project where existing lines at a certain location are not at all what we expected at the start of the project. Last week our contractor potholed for a couple of days and finally located what we were after--ten feet down (we expected to find it about 5 to 7 feet down). Monday night the existing water lines were scheduled to be shut down and a new water line connected. But things did not go as planned. For all the efforts of the Operations Division, the line could not be shut down. Furthermore, the construction crew had loosened the pipe plug that was to be removed for the new line. They were having a tremendous difficulty getting it back in place. Morning was rapidly approaching and the road *had* to be put back in service in time for the morning rush hour. They managed to squeeze the battered gasket back in place against a tremendous excess of pressure in the existing line.

So last night I decided I needed to be on-site, in case an "executive decision" needed to be made (aka. become the scapegoat), and to watch the proceedings.

Nine PM, we're clear to start work. The evening peak water demand has passed, the reservoirs are mostly refilled, and the traffic on this major artery has abated enough to be able to set up the traffic control again. First order of business is to take off the steel plates that were set last night, and take a look at what may have transpired overnight.


More bilge pumps are set up and ready to go, to deal with whatever volume of water we need to get out of the hole.


There's the cap, hissing out a fine stream of water like a snake. But it held--didn't blow out since last night. The blue pipe is a valve stem riser, the red object is a valve, and below that is the tee with the leaky cap to the right.

another view of the cap--the black circle next to the red valve.


Now we waited, and waited, for the Operations people to get the system shut down, so we could remove the cap. There was a very significant concern that tonight would be a repeat of last night--that they would be unable to locate the valve or valves that were leaking and preventing this section of the system from being depressurized.

Finally we received word that they believed they had the system shut down enough to be able to remove the cap. Hoses were dropped into the trench from the pumps, and the bolts loosened. Unfortunately there was still pressure--a lot of pressure--behind the cap!


The water gushed out from around the loosened cap, and the pumps bailed. And we waited. Waited. While the Operations staff scrambled around trying one thing and then another to isolate the distribution system in this area. The hours ticked by.

We were out over the cliff like Wile E Coyote. We were either going to learn to fly, or fall to the cliff bottom like an anvil. And in this situation, this meant that the water was not going to stop until the reservoir--all 450,000 gallons--was drained and nearly a third of our customers were out of water. There was no way on God's Green Earth that we were ever going to get that cap back on again, not while there was pressure on the line, and knowing how badly the gasket was shredded from last night's efforts. And for all it appeared, taking the cap the rest of the way off could result in enough water flooding into the trench to overwhelm the pumps. Barring scuba gear, there would be no way to slip the new pipe and valve into the existing tee and get it bolted down.

I have never seen the Operations Manager look so saucer-eyed. He was literally gnarfing his fingernails whenever he looked in the trench. And the contractor was making all manner of ominous noises as he stared down at the dilemma. He wanted me to make the call as to whether to pull the cap or not.

Ok, now I was saucer-eyed. I couldn't do that. It was his crew at risk down there.

My inspector and one of the operations staff made a last ditch trip up to the reservoir to check one more set of valves. Meanwhile the contractor is staring down in the hole, shouting questions to his men. They tell him that, for all the frothing and churning, there didn't seem to be *that* much pressure on the cap after all.

Ooh. Moment of decision.

"Pull it off! Hail Mary, let's do it!"

Yesss!

I get on the horn and call my inspector, "Whatever you do, *DO NOT OPEN ANY VALVES*! They're going to go for it and we can't have the flow suddenly be increasing!" I get an encouraging piece of news at the same time. There was a valve hissing up at the reservoir. They'd put a digger bar across the handle and whaled hard on it to get it to stop. It didn't seem to make a visible difference down here, but it couldn't hurt. It is now 2:30 AM.

With the cap off, we finally see what is really happening. The valve on the tee was leaking. But the volume wasn't that great. It was spraying out from the bottom of the valve, hitting the tee, and frothing and churning right there at the cap. You can see in this photo how the water is spinning around after hitting the back of the tee and giving the impression of great pressure and flow. But with the cap gone, the illusion is removed, and the volume is just not there.


Get that fitting down in here!


Man-O-Man do these guys *shout* when they work!


Right about now, the water suddenly stopped flowing too. That last ditch effort up at the reservoir did the trick. All we were waiting for was the last of the water to drain out of the pipe from up there.


Deep breath anyone?


Once I saw they had the new valve successfully installed, I cut out for the night--3:30 AM.

Tonight I'm back out there to oversee another bit of critical work--cutting in a new cluster of valves way out in the middle of this major arterial road. Wish me luck!

...and Dennis The Peasant has been on quite the roll lately.

Update: He's gone and done it!

Labels: felicity and jocularity

He saysbat de end of audist ww3 willl start anm ny wi be destode an so woewll paris. He says The nrusuns and nthr persons will attact Itly frase and south geriny. He says trhat no one wll eswxap the war. He left. ibestr gotoo beds.
equus pallidus | Homepage | 07.16.07 - 12:49 am | #

Hrmph. Least he coulda done was paid more careful attention to the details.

Labels: felicity and jocularity

Here is an article about the high prevalence of Asperger's in Silicon Valley:
Wired 9.12: The Geek Syndrome

It's a familiar joke in the industry that many of the hardcore programmers in IT strongholds like Intel, Adobe, and Silicon Graphics - coming to work early, leaving late, sucking down Big Gulps in their cubicles while they code for hours - are residing somewhere in Asperger's domain. Kathryn Stewart, director of the Orion Academy, a high school for high-functioning kids in Moraga, California, calls Asperger's syndrome 'the engineers' disorder.' Bill Gates is regularly diagnosed in the press: His single-minded focus on technical minutiae, rocking motions, and flat tone of voice are all suggestive of an adult with some trace of the disorder. Dov's father told me that his friends in the Valley say many of their coworkers 'could be diagnosed with ODD - they're odd.' In Microserfs, novelist Douglas Coupland observes, 'I think all tech people are slightly autistic.'

...

Still an iconoclast, Siegel questions whether a "cure" for autism could ever be found. "The genetics of autism may turn out to be no simpler to unravel than the genetics of personality. I think what we'll end up with is something more like, 'Mrs. Smith, here are the results of your amnio. There's a 1 in 10 chance that you'll have an autistic child, or the next Bill Gates. Would you like to have an abortion?'"

For UCSF neurologist Kirk Wilhelmsen - who describes himself and his son as being "somewhere on that grand spectrum" - such statements cut to the heart of the most difficult issue that autism raises for society. It may be that autistic people are essentially different from "normal" people, he says, and that it is precisely those differences that make them invaluable to the ongoing evolution of the human race.

"If we could eliminate the genes for things like autism, I think it would be disastrous," says Wilhelmsen. "The healthiest state for a gene pool is maximum diversity of things that might be good."

One of the first people to intuit the significance of this was Asperger himself - weaving his continuum like a protective blanket over the young patients in his clinic as the Nazis shipped so-called mental defectives to the camps. "It seems that for success in science and art," he wrote, "a dash of autism is essential."

For all we know, the first tools on earth might have been developed by a loner sitting at the back of the cave, chipping at thousands of rocks to find the one that made the sharpest spear, while the neurotypicals chattered away in the firelight. Perhaps certain arcane systems of logic, mathematics, music, and stories - particularly remote and fantastic ones - have been passed down from phenotype to phenotype, in parallel with the DNA that helped shape minds which would know exactly what to do with these strange and elegant creations.

Asperger's is not a "disease", not a "syndrome", it is a gift, a precious gift of a different, often genius way of looking at the world. If anything, I am too neurotypical--I didn't have enough Asperger's to end up truly remarkable, and/or I was too successful in overcoming it in my early adult years. That and it was not recognized for what it is back then. With the right environment I might have more fully reached my potential.

Much more at the link: Wired 9.12

Labels: health and lifestyle

One of the building code requirements is for bedding sand in the water and electric line trenches. But being an hour and a half out of town, the delivery costs for bedding sand were going to be more than the cost of the sand itself. So I built a sieve to make my own.

Basically this is a box with a coarse window screen 1/8" hardware cloth bottom, just wide enough to fit the top of the cart. Shown here upside down to see the framing. The screenhardware cloth is just stapled to the wooden supports inside the bottom of the box.


The wheels rest on the top rails of the garden cart.


Now for source material, I chose this wash bank that is rich in sand and gravel. If the soil is too silty, or sticks together in chunks, it is not going to yield as much good sand.


Load it up:


Shake it down:


What's left on the screen is the gravel,


...which goes in a pile for concrete aggregate:


...and in the cart is nice smooth bedding sand,


...which goes in a separate pile, to be spread in the trenches.


Look up, a rainbow!


...with the Galiuro Mountains as an backdrop brightly illuminated...


...by the early evening sun.


Later...

Labels: San Pedro homestead

Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!

More

Labels: spiritual

I received an e-mail from k last night. If you've been following the adventures of these two, you may be distressed to learn that Livey's ancient computer appears to have had a terminal failure last night. Up and kicked the bucket for good, apparently.

I did a little searching and learned that basic, functional computers are going for a song these days. Since her monitor is still okay, all she needs is a new box. However you probably know that Livey gets by on a shoestring, and a computer is just not in the budget if she has to come up with it all at once. That's the reason she's gotten by as long as she has with the old clunker.

I asked k to look into whether there is a Best Buy nearby Livey's neck of the woods, as having some tech support is a good thing for the non-geek computer user. Their computers cost a bit more than the ganga deals at Tiger Direct, but the difference is likely to be worth it.

Anyway, if you would like to help her out, please go to her site and hit that "make a donation" button at the top. She is computerless, but she can still access the internet through k's laptop computer while she is there.

"While she is there" is the key. I don't know how long k planned to stay, but if we're to get Livey up and running again, it would need to be soon while k can help out. Please, if you're a reader of Northwoods Woman, would you consider dropping her a twenty spot? Fifteen readers at twenty bucks each would get her into a new basic computer. Twenty bucks is probably less than you spend on a lot of less than essential things in a month, right? Maybe thirty or fifty if you can manage it?

Go. Do.

UPDATE:
K has details here of the computer she and Walter helped Livey shop for.

But WAIT! Hold on a second before you click over there.

As most of you know, k also lives on a shoestring. In order to get this done while she was still up there visiting Livey, she horked up a huge chunk of the cost of this new computer herself. IF you were planning on helping out and you hadn't been able to (waiting for payday, etc.) please, would you do this? Go to k's site and hit her "make a donation" button (left sidebar below the "about me" section)? She cleaned out an account she was saving to pay off one of her own obligations to make this happen, so this would definitely still be toward Livey's computer.

Thanks much to all of you who pitched in whatever you could!

Labels: blogospheric navel-gazing

Create your own here: Simpsons Movie

Labels: felicity and jocularity

Just a closer walk...

Labels: spiritual

"O-oh no! Don't do dat!"
Ever wonder what was the reason for this cat's deeply felt opinions? Find out at the end of the video.


Update: Someone has posted a translation here.

Update 2: Mo bettah! Oh Don Piano REMIX

Labels: felicity and jocularity

A possible cure for crainio-rectal inversion. Read and be enlightened.

Labels: watching the skies

I promise, if I had an internet connection down on the farm, my posts would be rather different. I had a head full of stuff this weekend, but it is mostly gone now, driven out by the city. Certain of my muses refuse to accompany me back here.

It was a hot and sticky weekend. Saturday was full of uneasy murmurings from the hills--voices of giants and thudding footsteps echoing amidst the cacophony of a thousand cicadas shrieking in the bean trees.

With sighs and moans and loud shouts and much cracking of furniture, the sky finally let forth its wetness in a drenching burst late afternoon. The first large drops kicked up dust as they hit the earth--gasping, arching up at the suddenness after months of barren dry heat, then relaxing, whispering as the patter became a shower upon the mounds and hills and mountains--the moistness trickling down the rills and gullies as the streams anticipated running heavy with the flow.

All too soon it lifted--a mere caress, a tease. A promise of more to come...later.

The sweet fragrance of desert-after-rain hung in the air 'til dusk--greasewood and marigold and a thousand scents more in the languid air.

Morning dawned heavy and cloying, but a new wind from the northwest cleared the moisture away, and by mid-afternoon it was mild and dry--at 101 degrees it was positively balmy in contrast to the previous two weeks.

I was busy getting the booster pump hooked up and running, and fixing the leaks in the pipeline. I never get as much done as I think I ought. But maybe part of what I ought is to defuse, de-stress, and stabilize. And that I did, too.

"Monsieur, may we prepare your breakfast? We have Fretted Concern Cakes with a side of Constipated Niggardliness, or perhaps Monsieur would prefer a pair of Eggs Over Uneasy, a couple slices of Testiness and a glass of Ornery Juice?

"No, I think I'd rather have a big bowl of Avarice and a nice side of Veniality."

"Monsieur, your diet?!"

The sky is a little more clear out there.

A new denizen of the wildlife pond perhaps? At least a refugee from the neighbor's meager marshland. This little guy appears to be your basic leopard frog.

Also water striders have been around for a while. I saw a small green dragonfly, but I think I need to dig a bigger pond before I will see larger numbers of the big beautiful ones.

I've been meaning to buy a pair of bib overalls to try them out for comfort and utility. I finally picked up this pair at Home Depot (of all places) this week.

What do you think? Do I need a banjo to properly accessorize this outfit? Oh, and the hat--needs to be straw, not canvas. Then the sandals would have to go. Barefoot only with that outfit.

These *are* quite comfortable. And they are most comfortable when they are the *only* thing I am wearing--lets that Flo-Thru cooling effect work to best advantage, if'n you know what I mean? But unfortunately that doesn't protect my shoulders and upper torso from the sun, so I added a t-shirt. Which has the other benefit of protecting my nipples from being pinched by the clips. *ahem*

I'll be getting more of these.

Update: I'm "funny-looking". Yeah, that's why I come back to town...to hear that.

Labels: San Pedro homestead, stream of consciousness

Sheah...right.

Whatever you want to believe, baby.

Labels: stream of consciousness

This one is not spread like a bad cold, but more like a social disease. That is to say, you have to volunteer to subject yourself to it. I like her version better than the original.

Here it goes: (It's ten miles long, so click "read the rest" below...)


Now, no one gets tagged. But if you do answer these, won't you sling a link back?

Update: Hey, if I tagged you with the other one and you really can't stand the thought of coming up with eight "random facts" on your own, this one'll give us more than eight. Have at it!

Labels: blogospheric navel-gazing

The steam is rolling in, in thick hazy waves.

Thunderstorms are predicted for the weekend.

I know you Texans have rain to spare, so keep it funneling this way.

Labels: nature

"Political Correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority, and rapidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."

viaBrain Farts

Labels: politics

...by both Granny J and Pretty Lady with the same meme. I suppose that means there'll be no wiggling out of this one. This must be some form of punishment. Pretty Lady chose not to tag any of her 'favorite people', but instead added me to her tagee list. Hmph.

1. All right, here are the rules.

2. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.

3. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

4. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight
things and post these rules.

5. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged
and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re
tagged, and to read your blog.

The problem with these things is I get a tremendous case of writers block when I attempt to address them. Random facts or habits could be just about anything, you know. Like my habit of clipping my toenails in bed (boy does Daisycat love that one!) The idea is to be creative and witty, and make yourself look good though. But that's what this entire blog is about pretty much, isn't it? "Look at moi--Mister Wonderful!"

But since I am basically a very modest individual, I have trouble deciding which of my very fine traits to highlight. So I did what every married person ought to do, and turned over the selection of the eight fine traits/random facts/annoying habits to mi esposa Daisycat. (I should add that great bravery needs to be added to the list as one of my finer traits...)

However, despite knowing me for over twenty years, she could only come up with six random facts/annoying traits that pertain to me. Two extra days the list sat on her desk, but no dice. Perhaps boredom set in. Here is her list:

1) He wears socks with his sandals.
2) He is a great charcoal artist.
3) He is a Mountain Dew addict.
4) He is a great navigator and finder of hidden trail heads.
5) He is difficult to travel with because of high anxiety.
6) He doesn't like to be talked to while driving.

Well.
It appears recent memory is the source of most of these.

1) Is this some fashion faux-pas of which I am unaware? Dark brown or black socks with my dark brown sandals and long pants. It looks classy and casual. I sure as heck couldn't get away with flopping about the office sockless in my sandals with my ugly feet exposed. Gah! I'd gross myself out.

2) I'm not sure "artist" would apply. Pretty Lady is an artist. I dabble. And sadly it is less often than a blue moon that I do. When I do, sometimes I surprise myself. But that's a hidden talent that will probably lie unused until somewhere in my retirement when the world is no longer pressing so hard upon me.

3) I drink Mountain Dew. Someone else drinks Coke, another drinks coffee. Still another has tea. I don't think anyone has checked into the Betty Ford Clinic for caffeine addiction yet.

4) I like maps. They speaka my language. I make it look genius, but that's all it is.

5) Yes, I suppose to someone who'd rather lollydaggle-slowpokio I might seem a little edgy during travel. But who fell asleep on the plane, and who stayed awake all night?

It's a time thing. I try to keep both my work and home life as unstructured as I can. I hate the pressure of schedules and deadlines. They do stress me out. But when traveling, there is no choice. You have to get to the airport at X time, two hours ahead of your flight, go through the rigamarole and hope you get to your gate in time. And they're merciless when the gate closes. Once I'm at my gate I can relax. But even then my dear esposa wouldn't seem to mind being the last one on the plane, despite the fact that the lollydagglers have to make do with whatever overhead compartment storage is left over, plus waiting in the aisle while a family of six tries to work out who sits where and whose bag is put where..."no wait, bring Johnny's bag down again, it has his ninetendo in it..." Not to mention needing to crawl over whoever got the aisle seat once you get to your row. No, I'd rather be first in line for my seating group, thank you.

6) Not in heavy traffic, nope. I'm firmly opposed to driving while talking on the cellphone for that matter, me or anyone else. Hang up and freakin' drive.

Ok, that leaves us two random facts short for this meme. I will fill these with two random facts about Daisycat:
1) She is the best Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant (COTA) in the City of Tucson. Miracles performed daily, glory to God.
2) She xxxx xxx xxxxxxx. (No lie.) < -- WooHoo is the steam a-hissin'! Someone doesn't 'get' the lighthearted frivolity of this...

Tagees: Remember that if you refuse to play, God kills a puppy. I'm going to double tag a couple of people who have yet to write their reply to someone else's tag, and I'm tagging Cythen so she can ignore my tag, since I never got around to her meme. Daisycat gets tagged since she never posts and this will give her something to write about. As for the rest of you, I must want to annoy you or something:
k
Heidi
Cythen
Daisycat
Jean
Cowboy Blob
Little Miss Atilla
Bane

Tag, you're it!

Labels: blogospheric navel-gazing

1 Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. 2 Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.
3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. 4 His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born. 5 She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne. 6 Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days. Revelation 12:1-6

Do these people even know what they're doing when they name their initiatives, when they number their resolutions, etc? Do they choose them in mockery? Or are they driven along by the tide of the times to do and say that which has been determined from the start?

EU pours 3.8bn into 'brainwashing campaign'

'Operation Red Dragon' is that part of the campaign aimed at children...

More here.

Labels: watching the skies

First summer is well underway. Second summer is about to arrive.

First summer is the dry heat season here in the desert. I actually don't mind this weather too much, once I'm acclimated to it. Or maybe it is that I look back fondly upon it every summer after the second summer hits.

Second summer is the monsoon season, where heat combines with humidity to make the desert a reasonable facsimile of hell for about two and a half months.

Yesterday was 108 degrees down on the farm. Tomorrow through Thurdsay is forecast to exceed the 110 mark. 112 is Wednesday's forecast. These approach, but would not break the previous records. Wednesday's record is 114, set in 1989.

But I will take a dry 114 any day over 105 degrees with a 65 degree dewpoint. The simple reason is that sweat works as designed when it's dry. Alternatively, dipping one's shirt in water and wringing it out makes it downright comfortable for about a half hour.

Momcat sewed me a prototype "sunshirt" for use in this kind of weather. It is basically a white hooded t-shirt, 100% cotton, with oversized sleeves and an oversized hood to allow air circulation. It works fabulously in this weather, especially when I dip it in water. If we could find a heavier 100% cotton t-shirt material (for durability) and figure out how to market it effectively, there are thousands of construction workers around the state who would be clamoring for one. It keeps the sun off my head and off my neck. It keeps biting flies out of my ears. And it helps keeps me cool.

Now if I could figure out how to keep my eyeballs from feeling like they're baking in their sockets...

This weekend was the big wire pull. Daisycat and Momcat fed the wire at the main service entrance,


...and I heaved mightily at the other end.

Electricians may know what I was up against: three 1/0 copper conductors plus one #6 ground inside 210 feet of 1-1/2" PVC conduit...it took every ounce of my strength to budge that load. (I estimate about 250 lbs of force to get it moving with each pull.)

At first I was pulling the fishtape out across my shoulder until I realized that I was developing some serious welts on my arm. Then I came up with this novel use for a ladder and a garden cart:




Rather than pulling *up* with every ounce of strength I had, I could pull down, using my weight to advantage.

In other news, a 5000 BTU air conditioner is no match for the heat build-up inside a 20 foot camper in this weather. Disappointing. I spent most of Sunday installing it and it did almost nothing.

Labels: San Pedro homestead

I got this link in an e-mail from the author: The Survival Strategies Blog