TGIF - Week 2770

Photo Friday - Heat


Taken in the desert outside of Las Vegas. Hot it is.

Weather Report - Yesterday ended very clear and seasonably warm(?). The temperature ended up around 76 by the time I got home from work. Even as the sun set, water still stands from all the rain we had in the past 4 days. Last night when I went out to pickup the youngest from work it was threatening fog, which has been in the forecast for both yesterday and today. Looking out our kitchen window, I would say the fog was just a threat here anyway.

Checking the morning email forecast I see the rains we had for the first part of the week have made it to the Blue Ridge. And the storm Kate at Cider Press Hill has been talking about, well they are forecasting snow this morning on Long Island.

Old Houses - This old house we call home amazes me on occasion. It is probably the most solid house I have ever been in. All of the walls, the ceilings and the floors are constructed with real 2x4's and sheathed in 1" solid lumber before being clad in paneling on the interior and siding on the exterior. The only house I have ever seen that had more lumber in the walls is the Fulton Mansion we visited last fall. There they nails 2x6's horizontally on top of each other while offsetting each layer by 1 inch or so. This was then plastered over.

This old house didn't start out with electricity. Up in the attic you can still see some of the original electrical wires, uninsulated and wrapped around insulators just like the telephone poles running down the road. Amazing. The electrical system in this house has been added to many times over the years. There are three circuit boxes out at the service entrance, one of which feed the original breaker box here in the house. Just two circuits, and they still run most of the electronics we use on a daily basis. The original owners would be amazed at some of the electrical items we are running here. My youngest son just set up one of those electronic drum kits in his room. Every room except the master bedroom has a TV with a DVD player at least. Computers, we have three desktops and a laptop running these days.

You really have to wonder about the conveniences of modern life.

Morning Email Muses -

The Ladybug letter #312 arrived this morning. If you have a few minutes wander over and read the beginning of Andy's bio - "Kisses From A Rodeo Queen". If the opening paragraph doesn't grab your interest pass on by...

I was born at the tail end of the fifties, and if it’s true that we are what we eat, I didn’t stay pure for long. My parents were students, and we lived in an unremarkable apartment building in Berkeley. One night a neighbor hosted a cocktail party. The next morning my mother helped her friend clean up while I crawled around on the floor. When mom caught up with me I was eating cigarette butts and washing them back with the dregs of yesterday’s martinis. Quite by coincidence, we were visited that afternoon by a couple of dry old ladies from the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. They asked my mother to pledge that she would never her precious baby’s lips touch demon alcohol. Too late.

I stumbled onto Andy and Julia when I read one of Andy's essays after the Spinach ecoli misadventure and liked the way he writes. I also like the attitude he and Julia bring to their vegetable raising enterprise.

Source: Kisses From A Rodeo Queen—A Short Biography at The Ladybug Letter

A Quote for Today -

From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

Thursday Daybreak

Weather Report - In a word...Quite. I left work yesterday a bit early to make my way home between lines of heavy thunderstorms. I managed to get from one place to the other without getting wet going to and from the car. Had I been just minutes slower at either end of the journey it would have been a "hole nuther story". Today’s forecast is for partly sunny and 73. What a change a bit of sun will be after the past week.

It looks like the rain we've been having is beginning to make its way to the Blue Ridge today. I hope you all don't see the crazy downpours we have had.

Coffee Muses - Last night while the news was playing, both my wife and my mother-in-law commented on the AG controversy. They have only begun hearing about it as the story makes its way into the main stream media (MSM). Both were surprised though to hear that there was a political side to the story. I guess you have to give credit to the White House media operation for managing to spin the story their way in the MSM. While those of us who don't pay a lot of attention to the MSM have one understanding of the story, the majority of Americans only get their snippets of news spoon-fed to them by the talking heads that tend to all repeat the standard line. This is another story where the administration felt they could lie and get away with it...My, how times have changed.

The talking head the White House rolled out to rebut criticism last evening on The News Hour had better watch his talking points. He stated that the reason for the change in the way AG's were appointed was an effort to stop Judges from making political appointments. He said they were just trying to ensure the separation of powers as laid out in the constitution. His comment was along the lines that "we don't want the judicial branch appointing members of the executive branch". Would somebody kick this fool. Does he realize how stupid that sounds coming from the only executive branch appointed in it's entirety by the Supreme Court (which, in case he hasn't noticed, is THE Judicial Branch). Either this administration lacks a memory or they think the rest of us do...

I see George W made it back north of the border before the fence could be built...That would be about the only good I could see for this fence they want to build.

A Quote for Today -

How did it come to be that what we call the news is reported solely by journalists? There are so many other kinds of events besides the narrow band favored by that highly specialized brand of storytellers. Indeed, there are many phenomena that can literally not even be perceived by journalists. Their training, their temperament, and their ambitions make vast areas of human experience invisible to them.

"Ninety-six percent of the cosmos puzzles astronomers." I loved reading that headline on the CNN website. It showed that our culture's equivalents of high priests, the scientists, are humble enough to acknowledge that the universe is made mostly of stuff they can't even detect, let alone study.

If only the journalists were equally modest. Since they're not, we'll say it: The majority of everything that happens on this planet is invisible to them.

Source: "PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings" by Rob Brezsny