I'm not even going to try

There just isn't much you can say about the tragic murders in Orlando of all those people.  When someone is that determined nothing much is going to help.  Cops can't be everywhere watching everyone.  Gun control isn't the answer; they'd just create a bomb.  Teaching love, understanding, even the freedom to be different doesn't seem to have much traction either.  The human mind can go such strange places. 

This post is just going to be a ramble.  Just a warning in case you want to bail now!

Out here in the Nevada desert we are enjoying a slight reprieve from the Excessive Heat Warnings.  It's just hot; not 'don't go out unless you must'.  We still have people doing foolish things.  A woman was cited the other day for leaving her young dog in the car.  She left a window open but it was still over 120F (49C) inside - as measured by the Animal Control officer.  So she is shoping at Goodwill when she gets the ticket; I'm thinking she isn't very well off.  And she gets a $650 ticket for abusing her animal.  How do you think that going to work out?  Animal Control is doing their job but $650?

There was a 'feel good' story on the news a month or so ago where this cop pulls a guy over then notices the guy's kid isn't in a child seat.  Why not?  The guy says he can barely buy food, doesn't have any money left over for a child seat.  The cop could have written him a ticket but instead takes him to Walmart and buys the kid a car seat.  Later he said he couldn't see writing a ticket the guy couldn't afford.  I guess there are people like that in the world as well.

Big plan for today is to take some food stuffs over to the VFW Food Bank.  We try to make it over there every month.  Last month's load was kind of light but we made up for it this time.  We find it difficult buying for a food bank.  Who knows what they need?  We ask but I suppose the needs change daily.  At any rate the answers we get from the folks running it do.  They support some people, both male and female, who are living alone out in the desert; they also support people who have families even extended families.  As a result some of the stuff we buy is single serving, eat from the can.  Some is family size requiring cooking.  What can you do?

Our local Primary Election is tomorrow so my wife and I will be voting.  It really is pretty sad though.  We are both independents, not associated with a political party.  All voters, including us, have two positions to vote for:  a member of the University Board of Regents and a member of the School District Board of Trustees.  Each position has only one person running so, they will both win.  It really motivates a person to go vote!

The Republicans and Democrats have to choose candidates for the Senate and the House of Representatives.  In addition, the Republicans have a race for a seat on the County Commission.  Thus, in the fall the ballot will have President, Senator and Representative.  That's it.  No state offices, no local offices at all.  What a farce.  Maybe we are getting the government we deserve. 

So that's all the news that's fit to print today.  Sorry about the random nature of it all.  Thanks for stopping by and have a good one!

Misc....

Well, they caught the Boston Marathon bomber kid.  I'm afraid he is sounding just like a normal passionate 19 year old who got hold of some nasty ideas.  Now to see what kind of 'justice' we will serve up.  Killing three and injuring so many more is going to make lots of people want the death penalty.  I’m kind of against that but throwing him in jail for the rest of his natural life doesn’t do much for me and turning him loose after three or four years isn’t where I’m at either.  Guess I’m glad I won’t be on the jury!

In other news, my favorite financial blogger, RandomRoger, has announced that he isn’t going to be blogging every day but only from time to time.  I can’t blame the poor guy, he’s been blogging almost daily for over eight years!  Still, I will miss him.  I’ve been reading him almost from the beginning and his ideas have influenced my investing style a  lot.  Fairwell, sir.

I have a list of ‘favorite’ blogs that I try to read regularly, I suppose most people interested in blogs have such a list.  I was looking at it this morning, surprised at the number that are no longer active.  Some have just disappeared.  It is an odd kind of feeling.  You read someone’s thoughts for a year or more then they disappear.  You can’t help wondering what happened.  An accident, jail, death, threw their computer through the window, moved to Argentina; like so many things in life we’ll never know. 

My wife and I have decided to visit Florida early this summer to celebrate a relative’s birthday.  This isn’t really news but it is kind of unusual for me; I haven’t been on a plane in over 10 years!  Since we lost our dog and the cat sleeps all day anyway, we have decided to rejoin the flyers of the world.  We’ll toss the cat in a kennel and fly away.  I’m reasonably certain it won’t be any more comfortable or healthier or even faster than it was 10 years ago but flying does mean I don’t have to hear whining about how long it takes to get across Texas.  We’ll see how it turns out.  Come to think of it, I haven’t stayed in a motel in at least 10 years.  Wow, a whole new world!

Today we are off to Vegas on a little shopping spree.  We (that would be my wife) need clothes for the trip to Florida.  I know it’s kind of early but there is this sale…..  Besides, we haven’t been in almost two weeks.  Can’t let the car forget the way, can we?  Have a good one!

What can one say?

I had a thought or two that I was going to share this morning but after the shooting in Connecticut, what else can I say but Oh My God, all those little children dead.  The photos of the parents who have found their children; the photos of the parents who have not; it is just heartbreaking.  The news that is coming out is so contradictory.  I suppose in a couple of weeks we will have a better idea of what happened and why.  Not that I expect it will help the parents of the children or the husbands and wives of the school workers.  Maybe it will help the survivors, a little.

Needless to say all the gun control people will be howling.  They seem to misunderstand that people who want to kill will manage it regardless of the laws.  Don't you have to be 21 to purchase a gun?  The kid identified as the shooter was only 20.  Laws don't protect people, they can only punish people who get caught.

I don't break speeding laws much but there are plenty who do.  Maybe we should build cars that know the speed limits and won't break them.  Surely the technology is there.  Our GPS knows the speed limits on most streets and highways; it would be trivial to tie the GPS into the car computer system and have it just say 'no' when you want to speed.  That and a car that won't start if the driver has been drinking would save thousands of lives.  Laws are only the answer if people obey them and some people just don't.

On a happier note, we got half an inch of rain (1.3 cm) yesterday and a bit more today.  For a place where four inches (10 cm) is the average, that's good news!  It means we have lots of clouds around the mountains as well.  Very pretty.  The ski resort over on the Las Vegas side of the mountain is pretty darned happy too.  Let me close with yet another photo of the mountains I look at as I sit here; this from yesterday afternoon.  Have a good one!

Strange World

The news continues to confound me.  For example, this woman who runs over her husband with a car because he didn't vote.  Imagine what she would have done had he voted for someone she didn't like! 

Then there is the very strange story of General Petraeus; everyone involved seems to be behaving strangely except maybe the General's wife.  She is just pissed off.  Wonder why.

There is a long article claiming that Mr. Romney lost the election because some software that was supposed to help the Republican's Get Out The Vote campaign didn't work.  Gee, is it possible that maybe Mr. Romney's and by extension some Republican ideas aren't acceptable for moderate American voters? 

Apparently there are at least twenty states where people have signed secession petitions including some where Mr. Obama won the popular vote.  I understand this is not unusual after a Presidential election but it sure is weird.  I wonder what these people think they are doing.  They voted, they lost:  how tough is that? 

Maybe it is just that we have so much more news available to us then in the past.  After all, newspapers have limited space, the internet seemingly doesn't. 

Have a good one.

Two posts in two days!

Just when I've been saying my life is pretty quiet, yesterday happened.  All in all, it was a long day!  It started with an appointment with my opthomologist in Las Vegas.  That was actually quiet; too quiet.  Got there about 12:30 and didn't get out until about 14:45.  Why it took so long is beyond me; but then again, doctors don't seem to care much about the patient's time do they?  The outcome was I'm good to go for another year at least.  So it is almost 16:00 by the time we make it back over the hump.

Our daughter missed my birthday and wanted to take us out to dinner to celebrate, at my age I don't know if you should celebrate another birthday or just another day above ground!  Anyway, she was only about 10 minutes behind our arrival.  We had a glass of wine and chatted then went to an early dinner at our local steak house.  The dinner was really quite good and we all enjoyed ourselves. 

On the way home we were perhaps a mile from the house when someone came right up behind us and started tail-gating us.  Hmmm.  My wife and I both encouraged our daughter to slow and let them past; amazingly she did so!  (Later she said that she only drives that carefully when her parents are along. LOL).  This little gray car zooms around us and tears off but within a couple hundred yards went off the road and slammed into a driveway culvert.  Smoke was issuing from the entire vehicle and some steam from the radiator.  It was quite a sight. 

Naturally we stopped and tried to see if the occupants were ok.  The car's airbag had deployed and the driver and only occupant, a woman, seemed unconscious.  The car was rapidly filling with smoke, the police later told us it was from the airbag.  Anyway we tried all the doors; only the right rear and the back hatch would open but it did clear the smoke out.  Meanwhile my wife was on the phone to the police & fire departments.  They had pretty good response time.  The deputy was there in four or five minutes I would guess.  He just checked that there was an accident and called for backup; we had two more police cars before the fire department showed up.  They couldn't get the door open to free the driver either so they got out the 'jaws of life' and cut the entire roof off the car!  It had rained today so the ditch was filled with water.  The poor guy cutting the top off got pretty wet!   (Photo, btw, is from our daughter's cell phone.)

The whole process was quite interesting but for us not so neat as we were left standing around in the cold for well over half an hour watching while we could have been nice and warm at home.  All the deputies did for most of that time was to watch the firemen at work.  They did look over what remained of the car after the driver was off to the hospital.   In the end one of the deputies gave us 1 page witness forms to fill out then we were told we could go.  They could have done that much earlier!  Anyway, it certainly gave us something new to talk about.

I haven't been able to see any report on the condition of the driver.  She was taken away moaning on a back-board and one of the deputies said her injuries were minor but I can't find conformation of that.  (We could hear her from 50 or 60 feet (20m) away.)

Lots of fun stuff.....

Thursday I took the F-250 over to the Ford dealer in Las Vegas for a service.  This is a 30K mile service so they do extra stuff - sale price is $500+.  This would be a reason not to buy a diesel!  However, pulling those mountains out here in the West is a reason TO buy one.  Decisions, decisions; well, the truck needed the service.  Took it in and was told that they couldn't really give me an estimate of when it would be done!  WTF?  Well, but it would be today.  Then the guy offered me a 'loaner'; a rental car from an Enterprise agency that was right on the property.  They would pay the fee and all I would have to pay would be the gas used and the taxes.  Weird but I jumped on it.  It meant I got to have lunch, check out some of Las Vegas and not be bored silly sitting in the showroom.  It was a great deal all around!  I arrived around 10:00 and decided to return to the dealership about 15:30 - the truck was done and it was pretty painless.  It cost me an extra $10 for the car but that was a heck of a deal! 

There was a very interesting (to me) article on Yahoo talking about the fact that Ford has decided to stop building the Econoline van series - the E-150, E250 & E-350's are gonners.  They are going to be bringing over vehicles that have been built in Europe (and perhaps other places) for at least 15 years.  The new vans will be taller, thinner and powered by more efficient engines both gas and diesel.  Van people know that an E-250 will be lucky to get 15 mpg; a Sprinter (by Mercedes) will do 22 mpg.  In Europe Ford has vans like the Sprinter but they haven't bothered to bring them/build them here.  The article suggested there might be some level of collusion to keep the status-quo but it's unlikely anyone will ever prove anything.  Still, better vans are something we need in this country.


We did make yet ANOTHER trip to Vegas on Friday.   My mom was the last of nine kids so I have a few cousins on her side.  There is a family get together back in Missouri that we are going to miss this year but one of the cousins was coming out here visiting friends so we had to get together.  We met at a Red Lobster restaurant; had a meal and a nice talk.  I met this guy maybe once or twice when I was a kid then didn't see him until I was over 60.  Not a close relationship (!) but I don't seem to have much trouble re-connecting with my cousins.  It was a nice visit but short.  (As an aside, I haven't been in a Red Lobster for probably 25 years.  They have changed and have food that is much healthier than way back then.  I'd definitely go back.)


So now we've had a couple quiet days.  Hanging around Pahrump isn't too exciting at the best of times.  We went out to breakfast yesterday; went out to lunch today.  We manage our usual couple of mile walk most days.  It's definitely low key stuff.  I've got to admit that we are planning yet another visit to Vegas.  We are cheese addicts and the local stores just don't have the stuff we crave.  I don't blame them; they probably wouldn't sell five pounds (10kg) of gouda a month not to mention some of the more common French and German cheeses.

My wife got the itch to clean our bookshelves; now there is a nasty job!  I'm guessing we have in excess of 300 linear feet of books (100 m); taking the book down, dusting it, dusting the shelf and putting it back is a giant pain in the whateverfloatsyourboat.  But trust me, it isn't fun.  It does need doing from time to time though so I'm slaving away beside her.  If there was ever a reason to have electronic copies of books, this is it!  My problem is that I'm a mystery fan.  Not just any mysteries, most of the books I have are copyrighted before 1960.  There aren't electronic versions; not to mention who would buy the electronic version if it were available.  I'll buy some new electronic books and read them on my pc but they will be few and far between.  I don't really care much for modern writers so I'll continue to haunt the used book stores.  Hope to see you there.

Working ....

Who me?  Work?  Well, kinda.  We have high hopes of doing some traveling this summer so it is time to get the rig looking like someone cares.  Washing, waxing, doing some minor modifications; it sure FEELS like work.  The only thing I really dislike is trying to clean the silicone caulk that rv manufacturers put on the outside where trim pieces join.  That crap gets black then it's almost impossible to clean.  I've been looking for ideas on cleaning it but so far it seems like the only fix is to remove it and replace it.  Not the answer I was hoping to find!  Oh well, if that's all I've got to complain about.....

After working on the rig for a few days I thought my back would like a little time on the inversion table.  Well, I was wrong.  For the past three days I've been barely about to creep about and spending any time on the computer was out of the question.  I'm getting better though, sitting is easier.  Hopefully I can get on with things tomorrow but coughing is still extremely painful. 

Did you hear about the possible security breach at LinkedIn.com?   Some time ago I started using a separate password for every site that I visit.  It's a giant pain in the ass but better than having to worry about 'cross contamination'.  (Of course, Google has it's own ideas so blogger, Google and all it's affiliates are tied together which I do not like!)  I've loaded all these passwords on a thumb drive and keep that with my car keys.  It's one of the Sandisk ones that has it's own security system.  Hopefully if I'm ever stupid enough to lose the thing it will at least give me time to change major passwords. 

On the bad news front, our dog's chest wound from her cancer operation has started weeping fluid again.  She doesn't seem to be in pain or anything but we are taking her in to the vet again in the morning for a check.  We bandaged her up with neosporin, padding and a tee-shirt but she really ought to be over the healing period by now.  We are hoping that she simply injured the wound somehow, maybe lying on some rough rocks, but it's not looking good.

Well, that's most of the news that's fit to print.  Have a good one.

Have you heard of this?

Found a link to this story in my internet wanderings.  It's from something called the 'Canada Free Press".  It is about a planned test of the U.S. government's Emergency Alert System (EAS) on November 9 at 14:00 EST.  The test will be nation-wide including radio, television and satellite radio.  The writer tries her hardest to make this sound like some sort of plot.  Come on folks, get a fu*king life!  Testing this system has been going on forever but, as the writer points out, it's never been done on a nation-wide scale.  Well, my question isn't 'gee is this a plot of some kind' rather it's why the hell haven't they tested this damn thing before?

One of the things she points out is that millions of drivers will be going along and their radio's will go silent.  She's worried that everyone will get all worried and lose control of their cars because the radio went off.  Of course in the next paragraph she writes about how everyone is familiar with the beep-beep-beep that precedes the test.  Grrr!  Dumber and dumber by the minute! 

This idiot actually points out that the date of the test is 9/11/11 if you reverse the day and month as is done in Europe and by the U.S. military.  Like that's supposed to mean something.  Jeez, I thought that shit went out of style with playing the Beatle's records backwards!  AND she adds this special note "As commenters to various news sites point out, Nov. 9, 1938 is also the anniversary of Hitler’s Kristallnacht and Nov. 9, 1923 the date of Hitler’s failed Munich coup." 

Well, at least I can hope that this idiot is from Canada; that would be proof that all the fools aren't 'born in the U.S.A."!  Have a good one.

Ok, I admit it... I watched them

Thanks to the miracle of the DVR, my wife and I watched the Royal Wedding.  Skipped large parts, of course, but had to check it out.  All the ladies hats were a hoot; some were so outlandish as to make one wonder if they were glued on.  There were lots of military officers in the crowd of course but you hardly saw the same uniform twice.  Having different uniforms for different regiments at least makes for a colorful spectacle.  I'm thinking they needed about a month's output of Jaguars to get everyone to the church.  The commentators talked a lot about these kids being the new face of the monarchy; isn't that true of every generation?  At any rate, I wish them the best.  Being Royal can't be easy.

We are beset by the wind today; it's too windy to do much of anything outside.  The bird feeder emptied itself onto the ground without help from the birds.  It's so windy I can see the electric poles across the street moving in the wind.  Then tomorrow is forecast to be downright chilly.  April came in like a lion and it's going out the same way.  It's a good excuse for one more round of chili before summer comes. 

My chili has morphed into something that uses self-ground ancho and chili de arbol peppers; chipotle, maybe some beer or even tequila.  I bought the chuck roast today.  I dice it small and brown in small batches prior to adding tomato, peppers and liquids. And, yes, I add beans eventually; sometimes red beans, sometimes black, sometimes both.  If you think that removes it from being called chili, sorry, it's just the way I do it.  I like the texture and the taste that the beans bring to the dish. 

Gotta go.  Have a good one!

Tragedy in Pahrump

We had a true tragedy in our little town Wednesday morning, a young woman and three children (all under 6) perished in a fire.  The story is here.  Somehow the mother escaped the fire; the young woman was on the phone with the 911 operator when she died.  There are so many questions but I guess what I'm really left with is just how terrible it is that these young people lost their lives. 

In happier news, we had a bank robbery!  Want to see the suspect?  Here.  Will wonders never cease!  And, no, I was nowhere near that bank today.  LOL

Over in Vegas they had a bit of a scare when an aircraft leaving Nellis AFB had an engine problem and had to drop it's two 500lb bombs rather closer to the city than usual.  I'm glad they have a place designated to drop them and that the pilot was able to get there!  They have something else to celebrate:  no one has been killed in 20 days!  Darn, we might lose that 'sin city' tag. 

Gotta go.  Stay out of trouble!

OMG

This morning on Yahoo there is a story about Gov. Ed Rendel of Pennsylvania being embarrassed by some homeland security memos suggesting that there might be violence at all kinds of ordinary protest meetings.  I was so happy to hear an official saying this:

"I am deeply embarrassed and I apologize to any of the groups who had this information disseminated on their right to peacefully protest," Rendell said at an evening Capitol news conference.

Rendell called the practice "ludicrous" and said the fact that the state was paying for such rudimentary information was "stunning."

All too often our officials think they can run roughshod over basic human rights in the name of 'security'.  Thank goodness that there is at least one person in authority who remembers the constitution.