Since last we spoke.

--I made eggnog again. This time, I went with a recipe recommended by Zercool. It is buttery meringue fluff, with bourbon. Not bad.
--Donald Trump, the man whom I called "un-electable," has won the election for President. I don't care for him, but I hope that he is a successful President. Because how could I desire my President to fail? I cannot. I was wrong about his ability to get elected; let us hope that I'm wrong about his competency as POTUS.
--My dad and I went hunting with some friends, last month. My dad shot a nice buck (with his own handload, a 165g GameKing out of his .308 Savage Scout rifle), which has its antlers in a European mount on his living room wall. I'm pleased.
--I am walking some in the mornings, and am trying the gym again. --I'm training a guy at work. This kid is going to be a great cop. Hell, he already is. But don't tell him that; nothing good comes from a big head.
--The boss is leaving town for a week, and leaving me in charge of the shop, again. It's a small shop, but it's mine for the duration. I don't mind, on a temporary basis.
--My elder daughter is in her last week of her first semester at university. Her grades are good-- it looks like she may have a 4.0. There are, naturally, some minor stressors.
--My younger daughter is in her last week of her first semester at high school. Her grades have been good, but she has a couple of B's right now which I find unacceptable. I recall my elder daughter found freshman year to be very stressful, and sophomore year to be a breeze.
--I'm about to lay a new Invisible Fence around my dad's yard. Any advice? Seems like mostly I can just lay it in the furrow cut by me edger.
--I've got three Safariland holsters which I don't wear, because they are dropped too far, or the slot for the belt is the wrong size (too big, which is almost as useless as too small). Surely there are adapters to fix this. This is about $300 in leather/plastic.
-- My pickup is loaded right now with an estimated 1300 lbs (I'm guessing, but we'll find out) to take to the dump. Yesterday I took a trip which netted 560 lbs. Storage and back yard cleanout! As soon as I've drunk my coffee, I'm headed there.
--My results from my Wellness check came back, and my doc just wrote all over the 9 page report and sent it to me. That's seriously awesome, and I'm going to send him a thank you note for it.
Here I attach the highlights, for me to refer to in the future. It seems that my combined cholesterol is too high (HDL: 38 (needs to be above 40) LDL: 165 (needs to be below 100) Total: 225 (moderate risk)), and he included scripts for statins. Shame-- I like grapefruit. My triglycerides are down. My hemoglobin A1c is "great," which makes me happy, because adult-onset diabetes runs in my family. The kidneys, liver, thyroid, prostate-- all look good. Lipoprotein is low, which apparently means that my risk of heart attack is lowered. "LP PLA2 Activity" is elevated to "not good." There's a page on "Lipoprotein subfractions" which I don't pretend to understand, but apparently LDL Peak Size of 217.4 angstroms is a high risk category. I gather that the statin will address this.
Apparently I need to take supplementary Niacin, fish oil, and supplementary vitamin D3, along with my prescription statin (trying Lipitor). Fortunately, that whole plan is doable for about $10/month.
--According to Wikipedia, that supplemental D3 that I'm going to take is produced by the ultraviolet irradiation of 7-dehydrocholesterol extracted from lanolin found in sheep's wool. Interesting. I don't have an allergy to sheep's wool, but my wife does; I wonder if she would have a reaction to it, or if the 7-dehydrocholesterol is refined enough to where the allergens would not be present?
--I gave the Drug Talk to my elder daughter today: "You will be exposed to drugs. You will see them, and you will be surprised at who uses them. Those people are making a mistake. It is not immoral to take drugs; it is unethical to do so, because it is against the law, and because you will have to lie about it. It is desirable to be able to tell the honest truth, when asked if you have used drugs. It also exposes you to less risk. If you have experimented, don't do it again. If your friends have, hope that they don't again. A person is not ruined when they have tried drugs, but it makes their life a little harder. Don't make that error." She told me that she hasn't, and that her friends don't. I believe her (I hadn't asked.), but I told her that she'll eventually see it, and to be prepared. Many will say that this talk is too late. If it were the first time that we've discussed the issue, it would be. But this was more of a recap of what I've said all along.

Mornings with the girls

School has been bearing down on us. 

The night before last, my elder daughter returned home from band practice. Her band advanced to the Area Marching Contest last weekend (with a sweepstakes 1,1,1 from the judges, which I gather is A Good Thing), and this weekend will probably advance to State.   She got home after 8:00 pm, after going in early. My wife and I have been noticing that chores haven't been getting done enough around the house, and that her usually exemplary grades have been slipping. Well, she's taking dual-credit (college and A.P. high school) in two classes, and marching band, wind ensemble, choir, literary criticism, ready writing, and her other classes. Something's gotta give.

We, uh, may have gone off on her a bit hard. There were tears and teeth grinding. She got her chores done and then stayed up studying for a history exam.

The next morning, I made breakfast. (Bacon, eggs, toast, milk, coffee. You know-- breakfast.)  I fed her and sent her off to school with a sandwich. She gave blood just before lunch, and apparently the phlebotomists were shocked that she actually had consumed a real breakfast.  

She stayed late for concert instrument practice, then for Literary Criticism, and got home at about 6:30pm. 

This morning, I got her up at 5:40, with a full breakfast and packed another lunch (ham and cheese sandwich, dressed up with thin-sliced pickle and dijon, romaine, sharp cheddar, on multi-grain) and took her in. 

At 06:24, we drove into the high school parking lot. The lights were blazing on the stadium. The football team had been practicing on field for about an hour. My daughter said that she was "late." I said she was crazy-- she had until 6:30?!?  She pointed to the kids exiting the band hall with their instruments in a steady stream, and said, "The call time is 6:25!" (My phone still read 6:24AM.) She raced in. 

I'm amazed at how involved these girls are. 

I got home and woke my younger daughter. I gave her a full breakfast, and took her in for "Zero Period" for math tutoring at 07:30. At least she has her band practice for the week completed. 

I didn't spend as much time at school as this in high school and junior high. But my mama made me a fantastic* brown bag lunch every day to take with me. I appreciated it a little back then; now I am simply amazed. 

______________________
*Seriously: Big Orowheat pumpernickel slices around mayo, mustard, good lunch meat or left-over pot roast or meat loaf, lettuce, thick-sliced cheese, tomatoes, onions, sometimes some peppers. A baggie of chips. A piece of fruit. Maybe a cookie or two. Often a dill pickle. Dang, those were great lunches!  

New rule.

My wife is no longer to keep Kale Chips in the pantry. 

The pantry is where we keep food. 

I thought that there was food in there. 

I don't even know if food will eat kale, more less dehydrated kale chips. Can I get a ruling, Farm Family? 

Random thoughts in mid-December.

--It's finally bright and sunny today. The last of the ice has crept back into the darkest northern shadows, 10 days after our big ice storm. Someone brought up on the radio that this is the coldest stretch of weather for this past 20-something days for this area since 1899. Water still drips from the melting ice in the trough on my roof. I know you northern types giggle at my amazement, but I many times was not dressed inappropriately when I went out to play with my Christmas toys in a T shirt and jeans. Heavy ice lingering from early December is unusual for us in North Texas.

--Speaking of heavy ice, I have again been reminded that I was born and reared in the wrong period. I wish I had been born in, and had the means to take part in, the Heroic Age Of Antarctic Exploration. Just to think that such an era was named (and is Wikipedia official!) is something. Like the Golden Age Of Flight (Which apparently is NOT Wikipedia official.) (What are your favorite "Golden Age Of _____" eras?)

--I started thinking about the HAOAE when I came across these amazing color photos taken by Frank Hurley whilst aboard (and cast away from) the Endurance when it became icebound in on the Weddell Sea of the Antarctic coast in January of 1915. The ship wash crushed in October and sank the next month, and the crew weren't rescued until August, yet none of the party under the leadership of Sir Ernest Shackleford perished. I believe that I shall be purchasing the story right now. Why hasn't a movie been made of this?

--I spent 5 hours this morning early working on paperwork at the office, off-duty, trying to meet my goal of catching up completely by Christmas. 90 minutes of that was on the phone with Tech Support over a computer issue, finally deciding that I needed a new optical drive. When's the last time you had one of those crap out on you? Strange.

--I was just now trying to figure out why I felt tired and kind of sick. Then it hit me: Coffee. I hadn't had any all day. To the French press! I ground some Community Coffee beans (hey, when the sealed pack of whole bean is marked down for $1.99 a 12 oz pack, you'll buy five pounds, too.), and filled that chambourd right up. I'm feeling much better now.

--While getting my dopamine back in shape with caffeine, I thought of when I recently invited my dad to join me for a cuppa at a coffee shop run by a privately-run religious-based self-enrolled halfway house. The coffee there is excellent, and I shot this picture of my pot of French Press with my camera phone while I waited for Dad to join me. When he arrived, Dad took a puff of his vapor cigarette, and was told by one of the staff there that there were no drugs or addicting substance allowed. I had just ordered my second pot of French press for us to enjoy. They didn't seem to see the irony in this.

--I'm ordering on Amazon as fast as I can. I know that I've put stuff off a bit too long, now.

--Man, the caffeine is really kicking in. I'm typing faster than I was at the beginning of this post by a factor 1 : 1.5.

--Apparently, I'm going to take part in a CO chili cook-off next year. I seriously need to step up my game over what I brought this year. Sure, 25+ lbs (or was it 30lbs?) of chili all sold, but it wasn't the right texture, and frankly, it was a tad bland this year. I was experimenting with pork and a new kind of red chili paste (way better than powder, BTW). Foolish. Go with what you know. Dad contributed the pork for that, BTW, with that big sow he shot this April with his .45-70.

--Funny thing: when Dad and I were picking up some items at WalMart during our duck hunt this November, a lady saw Dad wearing that same British smock jacket, and asked about where she could get something like it for her husband, whom she was shopping for a gift for. We were in Weatherford, TX, which isn't too far out in the wilds or anything, but Dad and I laughed and responded that the only other one like that for 50 miles or more (most likely) was being worn by our friend Stephen, who had just flown it in with him from London for the purpose of hunting, and he wasn't selling it, as he needed it the next morning.  (You can also see Dad wearing it here, just before I sniped a passing Gadwall that was about to leave us for good after having passed by three times without landing, despite what a certain Ambulance Driver may say about premature shooting.:) )

--I give my friend A.D. a lot of hell, both here and to his face. But he's one of my dearest and trusted friends.

Late October weekend recap.

--Lou Reed died last night. Well, now it would be the night before last. I'm surprised at how many of my friends really liked him. I thought most people just know "Walk On The Wild Side". When I was a freshman, my roommate had a copy of Lou Reed's New York, which I played to death. It's excellent. The first song that came to mind after I got married was "Beginning Of A Great Adventure." (Not the best song on the album, though. The best is "The Dirty Boulevard." )

One of the most moving album reviews that I ever read was of Lou Reed's "Set The Twilight Reeling", in which the reviewer noted that the album was not so well-received because it displayed the softer side of Reed; he was in love in love with Laurie Anderson, and proclaimed it openly. To paraphrase the review, the writer said that we should all buy it and listen to it, because if two jaded New York social critics like these two could find love and lose themselves in it, then there is hope for all of us. And hope is worth a $12 risk on a CD.

--This weekend we traveled to Denton, and watched the Dia De Los Muertos Coffin Races down the hill on East Hickory, off the Courthouse Square. It was a lot of fun, and was more about style than speed:

 

--I worked a 24 hour shift this week this weekend at the fire department. I listened to a firefighter, whom I firmly believe would walk into a wall of flame to rescue a victim, express real terror at the thought of sleeping alone in the upstairs sleeping quarters. Because they're haunted. I did everything that I could not to roll my eyes, but I don't know how successful I was.

 

--We went to Six Flags Over Texas for "Fright Night" on Saturday night, and got season's passes. I dropped by the security office to sign in because of the metal detectors. When I got out my pistol to check the serial number, the security sergeant there, who has seen a lot of such procedures over his years there, expressed interest in my pistol, having never seen one like that before. It was just a S&W 637 with a bobbed hammer spur. Now I was confused. Since when has a Chief's Special been an unusual off-duty cop's gun?

 

--We rode on the "Superman Tower Of Power" ride (apparently Metropolis and Gotham are now considered to be two of the flags that Texas has had flown over it.).  A storm raged in the near distance as we shot 330 feet into the air. I pointed out at the apogee that we might die due to lightning. My elder daughter was not reassured by that. She thought it quite amusing how I whooped and hollered on that ride. Damned exhilarating being accelerated up at about 2 g's, and DOWN at well over the acceleration due to gravity. I've sky dived, and it was only a little cooler. Shortly after, they shut down the rides. I hustled the family out of the park, and we just beat the storm out.

 

--I went to visit some of the firefighters at a campout at a nearby lake. One of the guys there had made "chili." He was born in Ohio, and was raised by Yankees, so he has an excuse for what he served us. It was actually quite tasty, bless his heart. But it wasn't Texas red.

 

--At the FD, I watched the Dallas/Detroit football game. Both teams played very well, and the score was decided in the last minute. Exciting, right? No. The two other firefighters watching were disgusted with the Cowboys for blowing it. The Dallas Cowboys had "effed it up."  I don't root for a team, but I thought that it was a good contest, and was surprised that they were so upset. They don't appreciate a good game? It's only fun to watch when their team wins?  I submit that they weren't being football fans, so much as winning fans. Yawn. 

--I watched this dash video of a street level supervisor responding to an officer-involved shooting in Warren, OH. I hope that the brass recognize what a superb supervisor that they've got in Sgt. Holmes (4690). He stays off the radio except when necessary while responding to the scene. He arrives, and takes control of the scene in a direct, but not panicked manner. He gives explicit instructions as to what he wants done, but doesn't hold forth. He took a tough situation, and did a good job. Warren P.D. comes out looking really good in this handling of what appears to be a good shoot.

---There is no report more boring to work than a fraud report. Period.

Busy month.

--The Sophomore In The House has to raise money for a band trip. I've bought cars on several occasions for less. This means raffles, and fund raisers and volunteering to work at the booster club food booths at football games, and frankly, I'm almost ready to just say "take the damn money."

--I've been going to court a lot, lately. It never fails: work days, and you go a year between trips to wood-paneled rooms presided over by attorneys wearing black gowns. Go to deep nights, and you're suddenly testifying more often the Paul Drake did.

--I did some fire training on Friday night. I started by doing the agility test for new firefighters, while in full bunker gear. I passed it, but damned if I didn't have a lot taken out of me. Then, for the past several days, I've been having a couple of vertebrae out of alignment, probably just from the unequal tightness that I put on my back. I think that I'm going to the chiropractor. That's a shame, too, because I've spent up my Flex Spend medical account with voluntary eye surgery, back in June.  But I can't do much good like this.

--A senior asked the Sophomore In The House out to a school dance, in a pretty cool fashion. My daughter had not planned to go to the dance, but could not turn down such a sweet invitation. Uh huh. Very nice. And that's all the effective persuading that you're going to be doing, sport.

--This weekend promises to be excellent. No clouds. No wind. High of 74. PERFECT. But I have to work it.

--A bunch of work that I've done at work has borne some fruit (that in no way benefitted me, of course).

--Being an effective cop is not without its repercussions.

--I start EMT classes this month.

--I'm rolling my eyes at the sides-taking on the issue of the current government shutdown. The Republicans are saying "We don't need Obamacare! It's still more government on top of the enormous amount of government that WE want!" The Democrats are saying "The obstructionist Republicans have stopped government!" But we Libertarians are saying, "Notice how, when the federal government shuts down, life doesn't end?  Anyone else want to try some more of not paying for what  we apparently can survive without?"

--I've said it before and I'll say it again: You want to stop the out-of-control spiraling cost of medical care? Mandate that all medical providers and insurance companies give a definitive price of what a procedure or treatment costs before it is done. No more "we'll just have to submit the claim, and find out what the insurance will pay." That's like taking a check in for $10,000 and asking "How much will this buy me?  When you do it that way, it won't buy much.  We have a flawed market that doesn't permit competitive shopping. The market has no incentive to fix itself, at the current rate.

--My friends are worked up about the play of the Texas Rangers Baseball Team and the Dallas Cowboys Football Team. They don't seem to care about the Dallas Stars Hockey Team or the Dallas Mavericks Basketball Team. Loyalty is a fickle thing, dependent upon winning. Each those players make more in a year than I have in the past 10 years of working. I just don't care.

--My wife made the finest gumbo that I've ever eaten, two nights ago. That's impressive, because I've eaten a lot of great gumbo in my life. I could point to the excellent Holmes Andouille sausage, or the chicken, or the homemade chicken stock, or the home-grown vegetables and herbs that went into it, but really, the greatness lay in the roux. My wife's grandmother grew up in New Iberia, LA, and she taught her the importance of a good home made roux to the texture and flavor of a good stew or gumbo.

--Speaking of cooking, I need to pick up a beef brisket next week. I've got to uphold the dignity of Texas barbecue in the presence of out-of-staters. I'd probably better plan on doing it twice. It's been a while.

--Note: The secret is not in the sauce*. It's in the rub, and the smoke and time that you put into it.

--I know that I said it before, but I've been watching a lot of old British Top Gear episodes, lately, and they're great. I have been watching the early episodes of the reboot from back in 2002, and it's fun seeing how the silly stuff evolved. I went to watch the American version of the show, and it really doesn't translate very well. AEPilot got me started on this show, mostly to see what they did a 1988 Toyota Hilux pickup that rests on a plinth in the Top Gear studio.

--I have zero explanation for a mild interest in owning a Ruger 77/357 rifle. I won't even try to justify it.
______
*I rarely ever use barbecue sauce of any kind.

Summer's end.

--Yesterday was August 31st. Today is Sunday, 1 September, 2013. Yes, the kids have been back in school for a week, but to me, summer goes June through August.

--I hope that you got in a good summer vacation, even if you had to resort to exceptional means, like Freddie Wong's vacation director did, here:

I can't help but notice at 4:56 how expensive Belizian pistol ammunition is. Ah, resort prices.

--Today is the first day of dove season in Texas. I haven't bought my hunting license. I should probably call some local ranchers about getting to hunt on their place after I've bought my license. The dove are thick this year. But it's 105.0 °F out there. I'm not really interested in getting out in the field today.

--My elder daughter turned 15 this weekend. I'm teaching parent-taught driver's education. My wife isn't so sure about this. For a $500 savings, I'm pretty sure.

--According to The Wall Street Journal, our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president is planning to fight with Congress over the right to bomb Syria. Look, I'm all for deploying the "Clearly Needs Killin'" Doctrine, but I'm also a fan of the "Let's Not Go Spending Money That We Don't Have To Piss Off Other Countries In Futile Plans" Doctrine. To quote Jim Wilson: "I'm having trouble following the logic: Syria attacked Syria, so we should attack Syria. Is that about right?"
In our War On Terrorism, don't we have a page on Not Creating New Motives For Future Terrorists?

--And now we've got a little sun shower. Brought the temp down to 100. The dove are flying everywhere. I moved the chickens and unloaded 600 lbs of bagged manure from the back of the Outback, and did some other yard work for a bit.

--My wife has talked for years about putting in an outdoor shower. I'm strongly considering making that my fall project, this year. The hardest part, frankly, will be putting up the screen.

--Great maps: These show the racial segregation in our cities.

--Useful site: Why am I just now learning of this site that crowd-sources the pronunciation of words? 

--The 1972 Blue Marble photo of our planet has been updated. Check out this amazing high resolution photograph featuring North America. Zoom in. It's great.

--The creator of Comic Sans font feels no remorse.

--Sign of the times: Fake NSA pickup lines on Twitter. This followed the LOVEINT story pretty quickly.

--The Onion steps away from satire, and tells some very sobering truth about modern "news" distribution.

--Per Ambulance Driver's suggestion, I wrapped boudin in bacon, and put it on the grill. It is with the same tone of solemnity that I admonish people not to do crack or meth that I tell you: don't do this. Not even once. I myself an ruined. Please remember me as a peacemaker. And while Holmes is best in most ring sausage, we preferred the Zummo's boudin, for its coarser texture in the rice.

--MORE Great maps. (40 of them!)

--

Dallas for the day.

Things are going missing around the G household.
Probably I'm just disorganized, but for the past month I can't find my most favorite Kindle, which I bought from Marko Kloos, and my most favorite flashlight, the PolyStinger D.S.

So it was time to get new.

I found on Craig's List that a lady had a NIB Kindle Paperwhite Touch for $40. I negotiated the sale, and went to the area of Cedar Springs and Oak Lawn to pick it up from her husband, a recent graduate of business school who explained that she had gotten the device as a work gift, and already had an iPad.

We shook hands, and, being in the area, I went to EatZi's for lunch. I hit the bakery, and was saddened that they no longer bake the prosciutto and black pepper loaf. But they still make the Kalamata Olive Loaf, and I got one, along with a 4 Cheese And Chili Boule, and had them run them through the slicer. Then I gawked at the cakes and stuff:

For scale, that's about a 10" wide cake under that buttercreme.
 

I've eaten their stuff. Given the quality, these prices are actually downright reasonable.

I had the deli man slice me some very thin Molinari Finocchiona Picolocini, which has fennel in it. Paper thin slices made you think that you had taken a mouthful. Economy of flavor, even at $13/lb. I also got a quarter pound of Citterio Spresata Salami, and a quarter pound of Molinari Capacolla Hot (Only $15/lb). I had them ring me up for these, along with the salad that I had them make to my specs, with lots of rare roast beef and stuff.  Then I sat at a broken tile mosaic wall-side bar on a stool, and drank good coffee with my salad as I listened to some Italian tenor. Not a bad lunch.

I then went by GT Police Supply, and bought me a Stinger DS LED HL. This thing puts out 640 lumens, in the same size as my old 360 lumen Stinger. I can't convey here how much light this little rechargeable flashlight puts out. It's enough to note on the sidewalk at midday in Texas summer.  Sadly, I grabbed a box with a metal, rather than poly, stinger. I'll be getting a new plastic one, soon. I need another flashlight, anyway.

I then fought traffic on the way back home. What should have been about an hour and a quarter was extended significantly, because two cars had a fender bender and waited in the left lane for the police to arrive, blocking one of the three lanes, and causing an unforeseen bottleneck which caused merging that did not, as one would expect, slow the traffic by 1/3, but actually slowed the drive-time traffic to less than 1/3 of its normal slow pace. As I passed the two vehicles, I noticed that both drivers were sitting in their cars with the windows up, so that they could enjoy their air conditioning on this 94 degree day. The BMW and the Land Rover neither had incapacitating damage. I'm afraid that I (in my un-air-conditioned old beater car) may have hollered at them to move their car, as they were in violation of Texas Transportation Code section 550.022(b), which states:

 If an accident occurs on a main lane, ramp, shoulder, median, or adjacent area of a freeway in a metropolitan area and each vehicle involved can be normally and safely driven, each operator shall move the operator's vehicle as soon as possible to a designated accident investigation site, if available, a location on the frontage road, the nearest suitable cross street, or other suitable location to complete the requirements of Section 550.023 and minimize interference with freeway traffic.

...which they were violating.

I'd've written 'em each a citation for it, were I the Dallas County Traffic Enforcement deputy.
The whole business of "I can't move my car, because the officer needs to see the crash scene as it occurred" is only applicable to crashes involving injury or fatality.

Last night, I fed the family with open-faced sammiches made from the high-end bread lightly-toasted with butter on cookie sheets, then broiled with paper-thin slices of the meats and some white cheddar and smoked gouda, with thin slices of onion atop them. The kids picked off the onion, and ate heartily. The wife added spiced mustard, and ate heartily. I just ate it as it was, and was happy to find two left this morning when I got up late (I work evenings today.). You could claim that your breakfast was better than mine, reheated with a cup of black coffee, but I would not believe your claim.

And we're back. Monday.

--My home machine caught a little virus. I fought it, thought that I won, and finally went Slash And Burn, and used the recovery discs to reset my hard drive to factory settings. Man, I wish I'd created the recovery disk when I bought it. For $30, I was able to get the discs sent pretty quickly to me from Acer. Apparently, that's cheap, these days.

--Today is the birthday Leonhard Euler, who among other things came up with the most simple equation to utilize the mathematical constants e, i, pi, 1, and zero. A trig professor I had once offered a free A for the semester to anyone who could write a proof for that identity. I checked out 3 books on the subject, and went to work. A week later, I got tired-head, and quit. I got a C in that class.
--As our greatest generation fades away, I cannot stress enough how important it is that we view such pieces as this amazing video, and realize that Granddad and Great Granddad were young, once.
Also, to help us remember what it was like to see an end to a war.

--A company called Myriad is arguing that a patent should be issued for its isolation of the BRCA1 gene. I'm a fan of patents for medical discovery and processes, because that creates the profit motive which stimulates new R&D. But you can't patent nature. Myriad did not create this gene-- they simply discovered its bounds. This is akin to patenting a star which one found in a telescope. Name it, sure. But it ain't yours to charge usage fees for me looking at it, after you point it out.

--High of 87 degrees here today. Humid.

--I heard a "Welfare Concern" call go out over the radio, of a topless woman walking down the highway before dawn. I'll bet that got some response from the cops in her area. But  what were they going to do? It's not illegal to be topless in public in Texas. Maybe they were going to call her a traffic hazard. Or use the tired threat of Disorderly Conduct. (Behavior others might find to be offensive.)

--The Eleven Year-Old In The House had a birthday sleepover this weekend, and invited 5 other 11 year-olds to the house. As a buffer, The Fourteen Year-Old In The House invited her best friend over for a sleepover, as well. We had 5 pizzas, lots of soda, a birthday pie, some spooky kid movies, and Just Dance 4. There may or may not be an MP4 extant which documents my own entry into the dance-off that occurred in my living room. The Nentendo Wii declared me to be the loser of that event. There was also a stationary bicycle sprint race, which I won (I had to redeem myself somehow.).  The girls then held (I'm not kidding, here) a spelling bee and a geo trivia quiz tournament. Then they played "Slender Man." I didn't know what this was, and one of the girls whipped out an iPad to show me the creepy first-person game derived from the apparently ancient (by Internet standards) meme. How did I miss this? The girls played a version that involved notes left around the house, as they played hide and seek.

--I fell off the wagon with regard to my little diet, this weekend. Before that, I was losing about a pound a day. I'm back, though.

--Tax day. We had some complications, but filed about a month ago. We got $1000 back, which went directly into debt abatement. My wife is irritated that the refund isn't bigger. I'm irritated that we made a no-interest loan to the federal government for so long.

--That $150 riding mower that I bought a couple of months ago is working like a house afire. The guy that I bought it from said that he felt that it cut too rough. He must be picky; it is made of win, from what I can see.

--Due to work conflicts, I may have to miss the NRA convention this year, and it's in Houston. I has a sad. I mostly want to see my friends.

--Flirting with the statewide Child Protective Services intake lady over the phone is just another little service that I perform for people with soul-crushing-yet necessary jobs. I'm afraid that I do discriminate based on gender, though. Sorry.

--I talked to a CPS investigator today who said that her job was way better than teaching, for her. I told her about my friend who told me that he found combat in Afghanistan to be less stressful than teaching urban high school kids. But then I've got friends who should always be teachers. It takes all kinds.

--I've been watching my carbs. I can't express how much I want a PBJ and a bag of Cheetos, right now.





 

Frickin' ramfrazzin

--Blue Screen Of Death started to appear on the home computer yesterday. I've been doing battle with a trojan virus since.

--G****** ph***ing piece of s*** adopted ******g ****pipe of a furball regurgitator alleycat brought another wounded choad-pecking juvenile grackle into the house, which then spent five minutes caroming off of s*** in my house before I could finally connect with an umbrella handle, to send it flying into my desk, and then leak ichorous ******g black blood all over my tile that I had just mopped, up under the edge of the desk.

--A local church lady and I talked about how to help a sad sack in the neighborhood, recently. Between us, we figured out that we'd both been lied to. Those church ladies make your neighborhood run, even if you're not of their faith, or of any faith at all.

--Our weather continues to be spectacular. My elder daughter and I are about to go shooting, now that we've got some .22 WMRF. My wife didn't understand why I was saving a couple of 1 gallon cans. She keeps throwing them in the trash, and I keep fishing 'em out. Great reactive offhand 100 yard targets.

--Night before last, I just pulled out one of these from the deep-freeze, and popped that 5 lbs of homemade goodness into a 400 degree oven for about 75 minutes.  Considering that we'd made those when we had purchased a bulk tub of high end (very fine-grained) ricotta and better-than-average mozerella, along with very good quality pasta on which we had poured some homemade sauce, my excellence-to-effort ratio was very much in the black. Blew a Stouffer's all to hell, and I actually like Stouffer's frozen lasagna.

--I got a Sunday Smith that I need to put up. Maybe on Sunday.

--My 14 year old has been playing music for her band's upcoming concert, in which her section has a soli involving the main melody. So it is that I've been hearing the sweet recognizable strains of Phantom Of The Opera throughout the house. Honestly? It's pretty damned good. She's a first chair freshman, which means that my kid apparently can play.

--I need to write another grant tonight, for work.

--We're going back to the Northwest, this summer, but we're taking the girls with us, this time. I want to show the girls the Olympic National Park, with its 200 foot trees and Roosevelt elk and the Hoh Glacier. I want to show the kids the 720 degrees of green in the valley below Mount Hood, and the sight of our American Fuji, which is Mt. Ranier. I want them to pull tasty-yet-aggressive red crab out of pots off the piers in Port Angelas and Sequim. I have gotten to see this stuff, and want them to, as well. It's not my region, but it's one that I know something of, and want to show them. Heck, my kids don't remember ever flying.

--We just got a $430 AT&T bill. That needs looking into.

--I finally convinced my wife to try my Lazy Man laundry concept, which involves 4 laundry bins of exact same size in the bedroom. Now, as we shed clothes, we are sorting the load. When the bin gets enough for a load, we run it. So far, my little plan works great, with laundry getting done more often and less chance of finding evidence of someone having dug through the dirty laundry to put a load together. The downside, of course, is the extra footprint in the bedroom. I took the hit, and put them in front of my dresser. I'm that committed to this operation.

--My younger daughter tried to make chai tea this morning by pouring milk into the kettle, and heating it that way. We had a talk about that this afternoon, when I discovered the evidence.

--A 4 ounce whiskey glass ended up in the garbage disposal today. It was too wide to make it back up through the flanged rubber gussett thingy in the disposal mouth. It must have compressed the rubber ring to get down there. After over 20 minutes of trying, I finally gave up and busted the glass with a crowbar, and used the 5 HP shop vac to suck out the pieces. Basically a Dispose-All D.&E.

--Disposals aren't as scary to put your hand down, once you know how they work.

--The wide part of my hand won't fit into a disposal, but my fingers are long enough to reach the bottom.

--Santa gave my daughters each a box of .22 shorts in their stockings. Both boxes broke. I find .22 short ammo in the strangest places, in this house.

--My brother's car had a sensor and a vacuum leak in his 15 year old car, which kept it from passing inspection (yes, Texas has a state-mandated vehicle inspection law). I hooked him up with a local mechanic, and loaned him my car to drive while it got worked on. My brother hadn't driven a manual transmission in over 5 years. Think I wasn't worried about the health of my clutch plate? He brought the car back two days later, and a day after that sent me a picture of his new inspection sticker. That made me glad.

--I need to get my younger kid some glasses.

Monday. First Day of Spring Break.

--I wrote this yesterday, and then got up to have dinner with the family before watching movies. I apparently never hit Publish. So consider yourself on Monday, 3/11/2013, when reading what follows:

--I slept in this morning. It was glorious. I was awaken late in the morning in that bestest of ways: my co-worker called me to tell me that he had some money for me from an off-duty gig that we had worked together recently. (Yeah, the definition of "best way to be awaken" seems to change, with age.)

--The sun is brilliant, and the wind has died down. A long-sleeved shirt or a sweat shirt still feels good. This is the best part of the spring.

--It's really green, out:

 

--The cattle and the verdant field make me think about this amazing talk given by an ecologist, about how to stop desertification, using more cattle.

--My elder daughter has been trying her hand at composing music for the French horn, this week. More impressively, she's writing duets. For a couple of days, I'd find pieces of paper like this lying around:

But she since has downloaded a composition program called MuseScore, which allows her to put it up much faster and neater, including multiple instruments. I haven't complimented the results, yet, because I've not heard anything that I much care for, yet. But I am impressed that she tries this stuff, and she's not even a week into it. I'm looking forward to hearing a piece that I'll love for its own merits.

--My 10-year-old daughter decided to bake blackberry muffins, this morning. I've had worse mornings than drinking coffee, listening to one daughter arrange a duet for herself and her friend, while my younger daughter pulls muffins out of the oven and serves them with hot butter, as the sun streams in the open doorway.

--We cleaned the house. When I pulled the rug out of the sun room to sweep and mop under it, I expressed with dismay that "we could just about grow tomatoes in here", while looking at the dirt on the tile where the run had been (for just a few weeks. Yeah. Should be pulled weekly. It's a big heavy rug, and a chore.). My younger daughter looked at me oddly, and pointed out that we are growing tomatoes in the sun room. We've got a flat of tomato puppies by the window.

--I have a big industrial strainer mop bucket. It's oddly comforting for me to use it and clean the tile throughout the house. When I used to work at an eatery 20 years ago, mopping was of course one of the many jobs around the place, and no one much cared for it. I never minded it. It was a necessary task, with immediate results. No one bothered you when you mopped. Now, on my big ceramic floors, I just try not to fall on my butt.

--Today's cleaning agent: Fabuloso Citrus Fruit. Now, with baking soda!

--My younger daughter employed a school project, this afternoon. She had made a solar oven out of a pizza box, some foil, and some black construction paper and plastic wrap. She put some wienies in it to heat up. Unfortunately, the Family Cat (Oliver, the fat one) was impressed at the hot meal of meat just laid out for him. He came in with his nice hot hot dog. My daughter went to spank him, but I stopped her. How could he be expected to do otherwise?

--A neighborhood border collie has been worrying my daughter's show rabbit in the hutch. It was bad enough when she was pacing back and forth in front of the hutch; now she has taken to chewing on the frame of hutch:

My younger daughter decided to deal with the matter by painting the lower frame member with a paste made with cayenne pepper. The bratty neighbor kid whose family owns the border collie protested that this would hurt her dog. When my younger daughter told me about this, I rolled my eyes, wondering what she would think of the fact that the last time I saw the dog doing her thing, I borrowed my kid's Red Ryder BB gun, and bounced a BB off the dog's butt. (Sadly, this bit of operant conditioning alone wasn't enough to convey to the dog what I'd hoped to convey.) But we don't mention that to the neighbors, because people aren't always rational about their pets. Put a cigarette out on their kids' faces, and it's no problem, but kick their biting dog away from you, and they lose their minds.

--Fresh Brussels sprouts with roast chicken and baked potatoes tonight. I used to only be able to get down Brussels sprouts by imagining them to be cabbages, and myself a giant. But now, I guess they're okay, with butter.

--Root beer floats for desert, which is funny, because I just wrote that I almost never buy sugar soft drinks, and then later today I bought a two litre bottle of root beer.
    

"Arbitrary and Capricious."

I don't drink sugar soft drinks*. Oh, I love them, but I came to grips a long time ago with the fact that I have to watch my calorie intake, and that I'm a slob. That slob part references the fact that sugar drinks make everthing sticky, once they spill. I spill. I know this about myself, and I've taken the measure of avoiding sugary drinks. Also, there is the fact that two of my immediate family have adult-onset diabetes. While my sugar levels are good, I don't care to tempt fate. So, in addition to unsweetened coffee and tea, I will often enjoy a cold diet soda.

It has likely been 20 years or more since I had a Big Gulp full of sugary soft drink.

I tell you this to explain that it is not any kind of personal addiction to high-fructose corn syrup-laden beverages that makes me so very pleased with the ruling of Justice Milton A. Tingling Jr. of New York's State Supreme Court in Manhatten, when he recently struck down our largest city's ban on large sugared soft drinks.

In his ruling, Justice Tingling made clear that the ordinance was not only questionable in its justification, but in its jurisdiction, as well. The city of New York's Board Of Health was interpretting its own jurisdiction to be whatever it said it was. 

That interpretation, the judge wrote, “would leave its authority to define, create, mandate and enforce limited only by its own imagination,” and “create an administrative Leviathan.”

The schadenfreude. It tastes sweet.

Are you listening, Feds?

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*As a general rule, this is the case. About twice a year, I will indulge in a nice cold Coca-Cola, especially when in the company of friends, and when a dram or two of rum and perhaps a lime might be involved.

Random pictures from my phone.

Periodically, I remember that I have a Bluetooth interface on my desktop, and I download a bunch of pictures. Then I look at them on screen larger than an Airmail postage stamp (I've got the single cheapest phone that AT&T offers with a QWERTY keyboard), and wonder what in the world the context was. Sometimes it comes to me. Sometimes, I just have to let the mystery be.

These are easy. Yesterday, I helped a family member put up some gutters on his house. Given that we had no training, no instructions (None. Seriously-- the packaging came with not a whit of instructions on it.), and no experience between us, I think that we did pretty well. This will keep the rain off when walking out the back porch, anyway. I'm going to do this for my back porch, now.

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This one's easy, too. For our anniversary, my wife and I went into Dallas, and dined at Mi Piaci, (where we toured the wine cellar. I had no idea that they had a wine cellar. If you've been there before, please know that the service has gotten a LOT less snooty, yet is still superb.) and stayed at a nice hotel, before wondering around Dallas the next day (Friday, 1 Mar 2013). We played at the bizarre Klyde Warren Park (which is situated over 9 lanes of Woodall Rogers Freeway), and walked into the Dallas Museum Of Art.

I saw the sheet metal fixture shown above (Sorry for the blurry picture. Low light, and crappy camera phone.) on the wall, which is clearly made up of air ducting. I went past, then stopped, and asked one of the dozens (scores?) of museum personnel in a blue blazer if that was a piece, or simply infrastructure. He assured me that it was a piece. I almost laughed, but stopped down for a second. In a moment of meta-artistic consideration, I thought about the few times that I have tried to cut and form sheet metal, and then get it to connect its seams tightly. It's actually more difficult than you might think. Yet it's true that every week, thousands and thousands of tradesmen (and women) do such work, leaving custom ducts and plenums (plena?) in attics and utility closets to perform their functions in the dark, gathering dust often without the appraisal of even the person who paid for them. I submit that such everyday achievements of craftsmanship might well attain the status of art, if we took time to appreciate what it took to achieve them. I took a closer look at the piece. The joints were handcut with snips, and screwed together with sheetmetal screws. I thought about that a day later, when I was customizing sheetmetal gutters with tinsnips and self-tapping sheetmetal screws.

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 I.... I have no idea. I don't remember where I was exactly when I took this. I do recall that I thought that it wasn't really what you would expect a such a location.
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At a local tire shop. Service (and education) are dead.
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It's sad how much I enjoy the cheapest foods. Basmati, red beans, and some Thai chili paste. Mmmm-mmm!
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 This is years' worth of bottle caps, saved for some unknown reason at first. Now my sculpture wife has an idea to put them onto a wooden fish, as scales. Might be kinda fun, in a kitsch sort of way.
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 Another piece from Asian collection at the DMA.
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 From a party for a good friend who joined the Texas DPS state troopers. His father in-law put up a trap and skeet shoot, in which we shot a game called "Wolf Pack." It was $5 a gun to shoot each round, with the winner getting half the pot, and the other half going to a charity. We raised over $200 for the charity, and had a lot of fun doing it.
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 ALWAYS turn the light before using the restroom at night, in the volunteer fire department dormitory.
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Panic-buying at Cabella's, January, 2013. Those are mostly some esoteric rounds left on the ammo shelf. No .38. No 9mm. No .45acp. No .22 LR.
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New Year. 2013

--You get that we can't do this better than they can, right? First we'd have to build a half-mile-tall building....

--I was driving an ambulance when the new year rolled in.

--My 10-year-old was at her best friend's house as the new year turned over. She said that they were dancing non-stop, mostly to Madonna. My wife was certainly glad that they went over to her best friend's house for that.

--We had our annual black eyed peas for New Years Day, in the form of  "Skippin' Jenny."  I've eaten this for years and never called it "Hoppin' John" nor "Skippin' Jenny." We also had cabbage. We didn't do that as a kid.

--I'm not in the least superstitious. But I like black eyed peas stewed with meaty pork bone, served over rice with greens. And I enjoy the tradition. So what harm?

--I ran a lot of calls, and overslept at the fire station.

--I did a lot of laundry, both at the fire house and at home, on New Year's Day.

--While I was on duty at the fire house, my daughter took down the tree and decorations. I had only to put them up into the attic when I got home. It feels very liberating.

--My younger daughter got an art set, which markers smell (respectively) like: honeysuckle, green apple, pine trees, marshmallows, "sea breeze", vanilla, cherry, berry, orange, spices, and lemons. Do we really want to be encouraging kids to be sniffing markers?

--I'm having more trouble than I thought, securing the right tree to put into my father's yard. Apparently 2012 was a bad year for pecans, and everyone bought up the good stock.

--It's been a bumper crop for the pecan nuts, though. Last night my daughters and wife and I shelled enough pecans to fill two and a half gallon bags with pure nut meat. That's about 9 pounds of meat, which we got out of our yard (from our neihbors' trees), all in one night, while watching a movie.

--I was surprised at how into the movie Taken my wife and kids were. Huh. A shoot-em-up, beat-'em-up thriller, with Liam Neeson (a personal favorite of my wife's) in it. There was even a moral in it for my daughters: Do what your Daddy says. Don't lie to your father. We all gave it thumbs up.

--Even with the chartered jet and knowledge of Paris, Liam Neeson's character seems to get a lot done in 96 hours. Apparently, he does so without sleep.  Then, after killing all the Albanians and all the Middle Easterners  in Paris, and after shooting the wife of one of the major deputy chiefs of the French spy syndicate, he takes his daughter and gets onto a flight to come back home. (Charter, again, I suppose.)

--I had half a fruit tart (a spoonfull is in the picture at upper left of the link) at La Madeleine French Bakery and Cafe yesterday. I also had half of blackberry and cream cheese croissant fresh out of the oven. This stuff is bring you to your knees good. Cheap, too, considering that I ate it while getting refills of coffee and complimentary fresh bread and butter. Those guys have a hell of a business model.

--I'm retiring cases from 2012. I had a lot of criminal cases to work on, and did very little traffic last month.

--I'm a complete sucker for those year-in-retrospective shows that come on about this time every year. I may write one for Better And Better.

Random thoughts: For my entertainment.

-- We got a SodaStream for Christmas. As a guy who loves soda water, this thing is awesome, so far. But I've not yet gone though the canister swap, which is reported to be just like swapping your propane canister for your gas grill. It takes about 10 seconds to turn a litre of fresh water into soda. The flavorings are actually really good (The sugar-free grapefruit is fantastic.). I've enjoyed having very carbonated soda water for rickeys and my now-world-famous holiday bourbon sour.

--We've been watching Sherlock on NetFlicks. I have to say: It doesn't suck. Give it a shot.

--Two nights ago, we saw the first (of THREE!) installment of The Hobbit. We liked it, even though we thought that two would have been enough for the book. The battle scenes were over-wrought (there's one scene where the dwarves are "suddenly" captured by goblins, which takes longer than it would take to load and fire and reload a muzzleloader cannon. In the dark. In the rain. "Suddenly", my hind foot.).  We liked it. But then, my wife is big on Tolkien, I like it, and my kids like the movies a LOT (elder daughter's ready to plunge headlong into the books.).

--We noticed, about halfway through, that Martin Freeman, the actor who plays Bilbo, is also the actor who plays Dr. John Watson on Sherlock. That guy's a good actor.

--My wife seems to have a bit of a crush on the little guy. I'm okay with that.

--My wife needs to remember my easygoing reception to such things, the next time I'm paying rapt attention to Christina Hendricks, or Kate Winslet.

--My step-mother put on a hell of a feed on our (observed) Christmas. I couldn't name all the items presented, but my favorites were roasted sweet pecans and roasted salty pecans (separate dishes), ham rolls, deviled eggs, queso dip with chips, Scottish shortbread biscuits, really good eggnog, and shrimp. Seriously, I'm not referencing half of it. Good company.

--I had planned to plant a good-sized hardwood at their place on the southwest side of the house to provide attractive shade. The snow on the ground made this unfeasible. Next week.

--We had a white Christmas for only the fourth time in my life. 4" of good snow, and a hard freeze to make it stick. Pretty to look at, but I had to work in it, and that gale blowing it in was a bit bracing.

--I find that I load myself a little heavier when going to a movie, nowdays. Not a lot, but instead of just a reload, I've got a BUG and a reload. I don't over-react, but then again, I didn't whine when my kids picked seats in the upper corner behind the wall overlooking the exit ramp, either. (Kids pick seats while Daddy buys popcorn, now.)

--How long until we have a BlueTooth or WiFi-enabled set of movie glasses with HUD with closed captioning for the hearing impaired? We have the technology. I'm ready for it. I couldn't understand half the dialogue the other night. We always have CC on at the house. It's a lot better than it used to be.

--I realize that, with my talk of food and drink, I sound like Joe the Fat Boy from Dickens' Pickwick Papers. Though I don't (yet) suffer from Pickwickian syndrome, I do work nights, and I did drift off several times during the opening of the presents on Christmas day.

Cold December Morn.

--The temperature is in the mid 20s, this morning. We had a wet front come over at about about 5:00 this morning, and we found this when the kids left for school:

Y'all up north may not believe this, but this , but my daughters literally were excited about this as our first snow of the season.

--I have my final for Public Administration tonight.

--The morning news talk guys are talking about how the Dallas Cowboys had another player get arrested after he rolled his Benz and killed his teammate. I'm curious about the decision to charge him with Involuntary Manslaughter, rather than Intoxication Manslaughter. EDIT: They reported it wrong. It's Intoxication Manslaughter.

--The football player's defendant's attorney is claiming that the bond of $500,000 was 17 times too high for the charge, and that this was more appropriate for a capital murder charge. Bond is set to secure attendance at trial, and not as punishment. When you have a person likely to abscond, the bond is set higher. When someone has a great deal of money, the bond is often set a good deal higher, because the intent is to make it significant. The judge may well have been aware of the minimum salary paid professional football players.

--I shaved my moustache off last night. My wife cheered. I kept going and buzzed my head again. My wife booed.

--Careful observation will find the Anti-Feline-Disruption Device which we have installed on our Christmas Tree:

We lost a pretty good number of glass ornaments last year.

--The good weather has had a lot of people putting up Christmas decorations. It's cheery. But I'm not a fan of the inflatable lighted yard decorations. A popular one this year is a helicopter that has spinning blades and Santa, and is emblazoned "Holly-Copter." I've seen it on the ground, on a black wire stand to make it appear to be hovering over the lawn, and perched on the roof near the chimney of houses in my town.
--One of our officers at qualifications this week feels that .45s just shoot better. His proof? He turned in a better group with his Glock 21 than with his issue G31, and I turned in a better group with my Kimber 1911 than with my issue gun. Hey, I'm all for people getting their confidence from whatever magic feather they've got to hold onto, but the opposite of data is anecdote.

--My wife bought a 100 count case of Tillamook individually-wrapped 3/4 oz Sharp Cheddar, and another of Colby-Jack. She was embarrassed, but pointed out that they were only $10 a case. I had her get another case, of Pepper Jack. Our refrigerator crispers are packed with over 14 lbs of handy slices of quality cheese. We thought they'd go for lunches, but it's amazing how handy those are for quickly slapping together a Quesadilla without dirtying a knife. At some time we may have to admit that we have a problem.

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First Day Of December.

--My wife just purchased my younger daughter her first pair of brand-new cowboy boots for Christmas. (She'd had others, but not brand-new to her).  After tax, they went $192. They're turquoise and brown. When my wife told me this over the phone, I said, "Good Gawd! Jeez!"

She responded, "Oh, they're not that garish. There were lots of men's boots that were more wild-looking."

"It's not the color! It's the price!! $192 for a 10-year-old's boots?!? What do we do when she grows out of them?" I exclaimed.

"Oh, I'll inherit them," she said. "I wear her size."

"Good Gawd! Jeez!" I said again, for a different reason.

--Very humid. Cloudy. High in the high 70's today. Wind is fresh, out of the southeast.

--I've been working a lot of off-duty, on top of my fire shifts and my work and grad school. I'm tired.

--The main cafe in town has a Mexican cook and some decent Mexican food, but no breakfast burrito on the menu. I've been ordering a breakfast burrito made special for about a year, there. Now I find that our new rookie with the PD thinks that he started the trend there. He's a good guy, but he clearly needs his comeuppance. I've been this week campaigning to get them to name it the "Matt G Burrito." It's just a bit of schtick, but it would be funny if they did make it. (I have them make it with grilled jalapenos, cheddar cheese, onions, sausage, and chorizo. )

--I didn't make my Christmas tamales for Thanksgiving this year like I meant to. I still plan to make them. I typically just debone a rotisserie chicken and spice it in a hot pan for filling. I've got some pork, too. I've also got some beef. And a little venison. And some mushrooms, for veggie tamales....

--My moustache has grown to previously-unseen proportions. It's getting unruly.

--The 'stache may be gone in a bit, too. I'm considering hacking it off. It sure 'nuff hacks off my wife.Which is funny, because the beard that she wants me to wear again sure wasn't worn Amish-style.

--Our arraigning magistrate told me that, after figuring in his regular work and his salary for coming in every day for setting bonds, he only makes about $9/hr on his salary on months when they have No Refusal Blood Draw Weekends.

--They're doing those more and more, including Thanksgiving weekend, now. I'm okay with them-- the officer gets a warrant, under probable cause, to take the defendant's blood. Anymore, it's getting rare to take a breath sample for DWI's.

--I went to a trial the other day in which the defense attorney went after the character of the arresting officer, in a case where his client had clearly committed the action. The officer's character was not the issue. While I appreciate that the attorney had a tough case to defend and and was charged with putting up a spirited defense, I think that it's reprehensible to make a personal attack on the character of the officer and his reputation, especially when the officer was actually trying to help his client when the defendant attacked the officer. It's been a long time since I had a defense attorney do that to me, but it makes me seethe. It's not actually that common of a practice, when an attorney wants to continue to practice in the same county. Believe it or not, I actually have quite a bit of respect for most attorneys that I know. Not this one.

--There are black spidery things that appear on the Martian dunes every summer, and go away every winter. We don't know for sure what they are. That's awesome.  A known unknown.

--I've never understood why people have made fun of Rumsfeld for his Unknown Unknown statement. In addition to being a succinct statement of logic, it was a lovely answer to a question that he didn't want to (or could not) answer.

--I made one of my famous bourbon sours the other day using the juice from a Meyers lemon that I had picked one minute before from the potted tree in my sun room. Oh, crap. It really does make a difference. I was afraid of that. I've only got two more lemons left on that little tree.

--Do Meyers lemon trees self-pollinate? It had small fruit on it when we bought it.

--The more and more that I run across dogs in our town, the more convinced that I am that at least 1/3 of all dog owners should NOT own dogs. Maybe half, even. If your only interaction with that pack animal is to feed and water it for a couple of minutes a day and your dog spends the rest of the day entirely alone, I'm talking to you.

--Although both my parents have dogs that are sometimes a beating for me to be around, I in no way  could include my folks in that exclusionary group. Their dogs are living the high life.

--If reincarnation were for real, a person could do worse than to come back as a retiree's dog.

--People are shocked to learn that Rosa Parks wasn't a passive, hapless victim.What does it matter? She was being wronged. Her intentional act of passive resistance was a singular act that motivated a change.

--I don't understand motorcycle rides in which a dozen or more riders all cruise a single itinerary together on weekends. Some do this every temperate weekend. I thought that the draw to motorcycling was freedom? Having caravan'd a few times with friends, I have found that while they can be fun when you have time to stop at other people's whim (It's like being on a train with one of those emergency brake cables accessible to every kid who wants to stop to look at a woodchuck.), but they do restrict your freedom.