Sorry, guys.

Today I had 127 spambot posts that I had to delete. Strangely, 67 of them focused on a haiku post #7 that I had made. I just now took that post down, but still, there's 60 other spambot posts that I didn't want to wade through in my email. That's a step up fromt he thousand or so that I've gotten since taking down the "I am not a spambot" word verification test.

This feels too much like work. I'm putting the Turing test / Captcha back up. Sorry.

Monday Morning Coming Down.

--I got home last night to find that my younger daughter had picked enough pecans off the trampoline (fallen from the neighbor's pecan tree) to shell over a cup and a half of pure pecan halves for me. Then she toasted them for me and had them waiting in a bag. That girl. She will go FAR.

--My Public Administration class is not going well. It's like they expect you to do all the readings, or something.

--I'm waiting to see the enhanced footage of Felix Baumgartner going supersonic. I'm still skeptical. There should be something interesting to see/hear, there. Consider this footage of aircraft going supersonic (the Atlas rocket launch at the end is the most impressive.).

--We got a couple of big tubs of mascarpone cheese from the grocery salvage store a month ago, and made some stuff with it. This stuff is incredible. I'll never use ricotta for lasagna again, if I can get this stuff. Spreads like soft cream cheese, but has more texture. Very rich flavored. It goes great with fruit, too. The reason I feel like I'm being held out on is because you people are holding out on me.

--I am rocking the copstache in ways I never have before. I grew it out somewhat at Blogorado, and just never really shaved my upper lip. I've trimmed it twice already. I'm strongly considering shaving my head, too. Just because. My wife isn't really happy about this, but she doesn't permit me to give any input on her hair styles. And this isn't permanent. I don't think that the moustache will cause me to go insane. This will, though.

--My daughter wants to get into skeet. I can train her on safe shotgun loading and use, but I'm a terrible wingshot, so I'm going to pay professional trainers to teach her, with a family 20 gauge Remington 1100.

--Given that I've yet to hear any justification for the DPS helicopter shooting of two unarmed Guatemalan aliens in the bed of a fleeing pickup down on the border, it doesn't look real good for the shooter. While I'm proud of our Texas Rangers as an investigative unit, I don't actually think that it's entirely appropriate for them to investigate this one. Time to invite some outside help, guys. If the shoot was good (which would involve new evidence that I've not yet heard, but is certainly possible), then you want it untainted by suspicion. If the shoot was bad, then it doesn't matter; just take out the problem and deal with it accordingly.

--I don't know what your weather looks like, but I doubt it's as good as mine:

-- Heard from prisoner whom I had just arrested, talking on the cell phone to his girlfriend: "Yeah, be sure and get my truck and trailer out from impound right away, or the wrecker company will charge extra days. And hon? Put on some makeup and dress real pretty, and try to get 'em to drop the price some on getting our stuff out. Have mom drive you there, and tell her to put her leg on."

--The lemons on my Meyers lemon tree are finally ripening:

--It's getting hard lately to find the great Buffalo Bore Heavy .38 loads. Anyone got a line on them? Especially non-+P?

Space. I can't help that I love it.

Today I listened to a broadcast of RadioLab, in which they did several quick audio essays about space.

Look, I know that it's pushing it a bit to say that the Constitution authorizes our government to spend my money on space exploration. But I love that we're doing some of it. The very last story in the one-hour show is about trying to get private companies to explore space.

The first one was about the meaning that, Ann Druyan, widow of Carl Sagan, puts into the golden record that she directed the production of, just before it was launched with Voyager. I have to admit, her story got to me.

It's a quick hour, divided up into short essays, if you'll give it a listen.

Place your bets, now.

When I saw on the Yahoo news page that an unemployed west Dallas man had won McDonald's $1 Million Monopoly game, I grinned when I saw the following:

The old saw is that, if all the money in the country were distributed evenly among all the people here, within 5 years it would basically have been re-distributed to the same people who have it now. Call me a pessimist, but I actually suspect (without any real (non-anecdotal) evidence) that this is true.


But I chastised myself for having smirked, and thought, "maybe this guy has some good plans for the ~$600k+ that he'll get out of the giant cheque, after taxes." I mean, we all could fall on hard times. We all could find ourselves living with our folks for a few months after a lay-off. We all could end up extending that stay for years. And years. Could happen to any of us.

Now let's see-- he plans to repay his folks. He plans to take his nephew to Yellowstone Park. He plans to... um... get a tattoo of a McRib sammich.


He thinks that properly-utilizing this money, he could be set for life.


Bless his pea-pickin' little heart.

On bended knee.

I've been having trouble tuning in to read Crystal's great blog, lately.

Normally a hilariously profane blog about the reality of mothering, Crystal has for the past 6 months been posting a series called "The Crazy Chronicles." In it, she details the life journey that took her from a Mediterranean island to Texas, to Mississippi, to a mental hospital.

Reading the "Crazy Chronicles" has been like watching a wayward child grow into a girl, into a woman, all at fast-forward, with the mistakes and miscarriages of justice all highlighted. No, that's not fair-- she also points out bright moments of kindness, too. But they're too few, too unpredictable. And all this occurred to Crystal, a lady we know and like.

For a guy like me, who for better or worse is a "fixer," this has been almost unbearable to read. But I had to. So every couple of weeks, I would steel myself, and go back to read what I had missed.

Yesterday, it came to fruition. Even if you don't know Crystal, and you don't ever read her blog and have never read "The Crazy Chronicles," you owe it to yourself to read the very brief installment that is Chapter 31. Read it, and have hope.*


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* F.Y.I.-- While that post doesn't get very explicit, it does acknowledge that dating people have premarital sex. You've been warned.