Winter has come to visit

Not real crazy about the white stuff falling from the sky. This is what it looked like this morning. One problem is that our leaves haven't fallen yet, and the snow is weighing down the branches badly in some of the trees.


A view from my front sidewalk.



No birds in there...



The vegetable garden is pretty well closed for the year; there are some herbs and greens that I can harvest during the winter, but most everything else is gone, as you can see by the zucchini, tomatoes, and tomatillos.

To everything there is a season...



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A man who hid in a closet talking to emergency dispatchers while his house was being burglarized helped police catch the intruder.

Personally, I can't imagine hiding in a closet while someone robs your home. What if the burglar checks out the closet where you're hiding? I don't like the idea of having to fight my way out of a closet against someone younger than me. If someone tried that to me, and I'm unarmed, I'd rather wait somewhere with a blunt object where I have room to move, and ambush the SOB.
Just my opinion.

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For those who think that there is a communication problem between environmentalists, politicians, scientists, and all the bullshit they seem to come up with, check out Labrat's post; it is one of her best, and she writes a lot of good ones. If you aren't reading Atomic Nerds, you should be.

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The weather and lack of sleep seems to have put me in a bit of a dark mood; some of the tunes seem to reflect that. What do you think?

"Tales of Brave Ulysses" by Cream
"Lili Marlene" by Dave Brubeck
"Dust in the Wind" by Kansas
"I Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink" by Merle Haggard
"As Time Goes By" by Terrence Farrell
"Melancholy Man" by The Moody Blues
"Time of the Season" by The Zombies
"Stardust" by Artie Shaw
"House of the Rising Sun" by The Animals
"I Am a Rock" by Simon & Garfunkel

The last two are a couple of my favorite oldies; give them a listen.

Good day for some ranting and raving

By now I imagine everyone has heard of the flight that overshot its destination. The pilots claim they were in a "heated discussion" and lost track of things.













I find that hard to believe. I'm more likely to believe they dozed off. Nobody argues and ignores messages from the ground for over an hour. I'll be curious to see what investigators find out.

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It's looking more likely that the idiots in the Senate and Congress are going to pass the so-called health reform.
Personally, I don't see anything good coming out of what they've done. They have a 1500+ page document that hasn't been scrutinized closely by anyone in the government, and are pushing for everyone to ignore what it says and just sign it. Anyone who thinks that is proper procedure has never bought a used car from an "ethically-challenged" car salesman. I think the major results will be more federal meddling in people's lives, higher taxes, and a lot of problems that will only get worse as they try to patch things later. And since it won't automatically solve all the problems, it opens the way to more governmental control and interference in our lives. Instead of trying to overhaul everything, how about finding a few main points, and then tackle them one by one? You'd think we could elect people in who were something other than crooks and dumbasses.

"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress."
-Mark Twain

"When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'"
- Theodore Roosevelt

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Looks like even the other media networks are getting embarrassed by the White House trying to own the news media. This administration is acting like a bunch of bitchy pre-adolescent schoolgirls, who are pissed off because they can't get their way all the time. They have several networks who are going out of their way to pucker up to them, but that isn't good enough; everyone is expected to kiss their asses, and only print what The One approves.
Get real, people. All news outlets are biased, to a certain degree, towards one side or the other. The idea of a completely objective media is right up there with Santa Claus, unicorns, and the Easter Bunny. My personal preference is to look over several sources, then form my own opinions. The idea that the White House wants to push out any news network because they aren't sucking up is abhorrent to me, especially as the latest crop of crooks politicians bragged so much about how they were going to have transparency in government, get rid of corruption, and bring sides together rather than being divisive.

What is next, the Ministry of Truth?

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More ancient music, and a couple of videos, of the last two. I think these are older than some of my readers. Anyone remember all of these?


"Mama Told Me (Not to Come)" by Three Dog Night
"Jessie's Girl" by Rick Springfield
"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot
"Georgia on My Mind" by Ray Charles
"Rebel Yell" by Billy Idol
"The Poor Side of Town" by Johnny Rivers
"La Bamba" by Trini Lopez
"Two out of Three Ain't Bad" by Meat Loaf
"Rebel Rouser" by Duane Eddy
"Reasons for Waiting" by Jethro Tull

Does that include the tip?

A Democratic fund raiser in San Francisco that cost $30,400 per person, and you get to have your picture taken with the POTUS. That's lot of coin, whether the president is democrat, republican, or any other crooked political party.
Reading the transcript is interesting; evidently we have "billions of people who don’t have coverage" (his words, not mine); I guess we better get that new census done quick, our population seems to have skyrocketed.
And he said this sort of thing with a straight face:

Somebody in an introduction was saying everybody has a kind word to say about Nancy Pelosi, her generosity, her intelligence.

But with style and grace, but most importantly, with steely determination, she does not back down, she is there doing battle each and every day on behalf of not only her constituency here in California, but people all across America who are looking for a fair shake, who are looking for a decent job, who are looking for quality health care, who want a good education for their kids, who want a planet that they can pass on to their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren. That's what Nancy Pelosi is all about. We could not have done any of the stuff that we’ve done this year without one of the best Speakers imaginable.

I may puke.

What we seem to have is a lot of people who paid a lot of money to kiss the president's ass. That's fine if you can afford it, I guess, but most people don't really have that kind of money.
It must really suck to be rich, I guess.

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Looks like the Washington sniper claims that he deserves mercy; I find it amazing that this POS thinks he deserves clemency. Interesting how these types turn into cowards when it comes their time to pay the piper.

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Garth Brooks is coming out of retirement; I guess somebody out there might care, but I'm not sure who...

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Some old songs, some even older.

"American Pie" by Don McLean
"Sentimental Journey" by Les Brown
"Hungry Like the Wolf" by Duran Duran
"I Won't Back Down" by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
"Both Sides Now" by Judy Collins
"It Was a Very Good Year" by Frank Sinatra
"Understand Your Man" by Johnny Cash
"Heart of the Night" by Spyro Gyra
"99 Luftballons" by Nena
"Keep on Truckin'" by Hot Tuna

LOL!

Check out the golf carts. There are three pages of them.

I'm back again already

It would appear we are going to ease into cold weather this year; usually summer to winter is like flicking a light switch around here. A lot of parts of the valley have had freezes, but I'm still picking tomatoes, tomatillos, chard, and zucchini. There has been some snow, but mainly in the mountains.

Wasatch Mountains on the east side of Salt Lake Valley



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Sunday we took a trip up into American Fork Canyon; it was a bit cool, but a picnic was enjoyable anyway.
There has been quite a bit of snow up there (we were only at a little over 8000ft elevation), but most has melted until you get up onto the mountainsides. Didn't see much in the way of wildlife, but we did get a few pictures at both American Fork and Sundance.

Tibble Reservoir


Tree growing out of a rock


Thistle heads (these were over 7 feet tall)


Sundance


Mountains above Sundance


Closeup of mountains just west of Sundance


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Got a pretty good laugh at the news this morning.

Obama aide accuses Fox of operating as GOP arm

I don't see what all the excitement is about; ABC, MSNBC, and others have been sucking up to the Whitehouse for months now; seems sort of silly to get pissed just because one small part of the media doesn't seem to be in their pocket. Of course, if it were up to them I guess anything that isn't praising The One would be ruled as hate speech, and illegal. I'm no fan of the Republican party, but lately the Democrats are really getting on my nerves. They seem to act like they are better than anyone else, but I don't see where they are any better than the assholes in the GOP. They're certainly no smarter, and they are just as corrupt and hypocritical.
Just my opinion.

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"Naked Eyes" by Tim Weisberg
"Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" by The Beatles
"El Nicoya" by Santana
"Bridge over Troubled Water" by Simon & Garfunkel
"Born to Fly" by Sara Evans
"Downtown" by Petula Clark
"Reasons for Waiting" by Jethro Tull
"Hellraiser" by Lita Ford
"Tales of Brave Ulysses" by Cream
"Whispering Pines" by Johnny Horton


A lot of people don't remember Johnny Horton. This one from the playlist was one of his best, in my opinion.

I'm in a bad mood, and it shows

Still trying to get my head around the idea of Obama receiving a Nobel Peace Prize; from what I can glean from his supporters (who all seem to be reeling in a group orgasm right now), is that he did not get it for his accomplishments, but for the great job he did talking about what he was going to do. Remember that the nomination had to have been sent within a few days of his coronation inauguration, while he was still spending most of his time patting himself on the back and getting his ass gang-kissed by the media . If talking a good game is all it takes, then he should be sharing the prize with his teleprompter.

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Does anyone really give a rat's ass about Letterman's flings? I'm getting tired of seeing his name any time I look at the news. Almost as tired as seeing Jon and Kate, whoever the hell they are. If I want to see stuff like that, I'll start watching soap operas.

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Two years and nine months ago we got tired of the way the Republicans were running Congress, and gave a bunch of them the boot, replacing them with Democrats. Looking at things now, I can't see where there is any difference between that bunch of crooks, and the bunch now. Anyone see any improvements? We still have politicians being bought and sold, still lying to us, still wasting time on bullshit while real problems go unresolved. Anyone else starting to feel that tar and feathers might be a good investment?

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Any favorites in this bunch?

"We Don't Need Another Hero" by Tina Turner
"Sloop John B" by The Beach Boys
"Tuxedo Junction" by Glenn Miller
"Dengue Woman Blues" by Jimmie Vaughan
"I Only Want to Be With You" by Dusty Springfield
"Diddy Wah Diddy" by Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band
"The Lonely Bull" by Herb Alpert
"A Hard Road" by John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers
"Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down" by Johnny Cash
"These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" by Nancy Sinatra

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