winter blahs.

I would say post Christmas but we didn't do anything for christmas and the gift exchange (except with bro in Calif) doesn't happen for a couple of weeks yet. But I've been lethargic physically and also just a big MEH wrt to the old horse board site, and also the conservative blog with wide open comments that I had mostly substituted; it was such a relief right after 2008 to find there were many people who had not drunk the kool-aid. But I don't know, maybe I just can't maintain that kind of interest in the messy area of politics, or I am just dismayed that Perry, the candidate I had the most hope for rolling back some of the crap Barry and the Dems foisted on the nation (and I didn't trust him completely) is faltering.

I just have a bad feeling that Romney won't shrink government, but will just count on economic growth coming form stopping the anti-busines talk and attitude to pay for the super size version of gub'mint the dem's have put into place. Plus the MarxSpewMedia might get Barry re-elected if they go full anti-mormon blitz. The media are almost giddy about Romney picking up a bit in polls in Iowa, not sure if its cuz they are comfortable that he won't upset their apple cart of socialism gains, or if they anticipate they can defeat him in the general.

Ugh, I am still depressed about the pervasiveness of socialist/marxist thought in the MSM and especially television. Can the population resist the constant drip drip drip they are getting, especially the ones who are not even aware that the media is peddling propaganda rather than reporting?

I should be happier about making real gains in the of tossing clutter that has been weighing me down on a personal level but perhaps I am getting to the burn-out stage. Still lots of clutter left and I am getting tired of sorting and deciding what to toss.

I got Sadie's back shoes pulled today. They came off pretty easily -- so I guess I have failed to rasp off enough of the clinches when I've pulled shoes before. My neck and arms were sore driving in, even though I did some of the rasping on tuesday and didn't wrestle with shoe pulling too long today, so I still want to keep my day job and pay someone else do to the hoof maintainence.

I have an office :)

I boxed up a bunch of old computer equipment. Since we were shuffled into a temporary office for 9 months and are moving back into remodeled space in June I can just dump all the keyboards, mice, speakers etc into the electronic stuff to recycle pile then. Bwaahaahaa, actually they love being green so much they'd probably at least unofficially be in favor of this. Still I won't take in the monitor or cpu tower which would normally have tags on them here and probably have to have a form filled out before they are destroyed. So I have to decide on just tossing those vs hassle of taking somewhere and probably being charged a disposal fee. Since they have so over-hyped AGW/CC etc I am inclined to just toss the stuff in the dumpster. I also threw away tons of old catalogs, bank statements from WF whom I dropped as a bank 3-4 years ago etc and put together some magazine holders and organized my old Endurance News that I am not ready to toss yet. (I'm still a pack rat at heart) Feels so good to have the surfaces clear and so on. I think I might try to get a love-seat for this room instead of searching for a specialty armless chair or trying to shoe-horn a love-seat into my bedroom. I like the idea of keeping the computer stuff out of my sleeping area if I can.

I have moved on to the project room and made a big dent there too. Tossing lots of things, still keeping some things I should no doubt toss, but have gotten most of my keep stuff organized into small boxes and put in my bedroom closets which had been cleared for putting in hardwood flooring and I had never sorted stuff out and moved it back. Still lots of de-cluttering left to do, but sticking to one room until it looks nice IS helping a lot with not burning out (this is std advise in how to organize and de-clutter columns but I've never been good at sticking to it in the past) Still need to move some of my stuff out of this room and get mom's stuff packed up and tidied away but the room is reappearing.

Some times its great to be wrong

After mom lightened the paint and it was not leaving white streaks between dark/bright blue it turned out pretty decent. I have not been so rude as to repeat the painting advise she gave me with my bedroom -after I had finished with the painting --about taking the wall color a tiny bit onto the ceiling rather than leaving any white edge at top. Textured ceiling makes it hard to get paint right up into the corner and neither of us is the type to take an artists brush and spend extra hours to get paint up in there.

I put up the tree last night and stuffed dads present in a gift bag this morning. --Funny, as a kid I loved the idea of wrapping presents. We had some play sessions where we played christmas by wrapping our toys with newspaper to 'give' to each other. Now I like to limit wrapping as much as possible. Not being good at getting a really tidy package and never having a clean work surface and having to contend with a soft bed or maybe carpet took the fun out of it after a few years. Anyhow mom made it easy by wanting cash for laser treatments for her jaw/face. Dad bought a big TV from the neighbors that they were no longer using so I don't have to decide on buying a TV for the house as a gift to myself. We probably won't unwrap anything until sis comes down mid Jan for stock show or possibly will do one gift each if one of the parents wants to unwrap something on Xmas day.

Sent my sister something called "hot jugz" which is a special heavy duty and neoprene covered version of a 2 gal. garden sprayer with a shower hose and head attached. She does a solar shower in the back of her trailer and I had wanted to get some kind of the portable propane heated hot showers but they all seem to require a flow of water to regulate temp and not get too hot and that wouldn't be so easy to set up when she just has the trailer corner tank and maybe a few 5 gal jugs of water usually. I've wrestled with tying up the solar shower bags a few times and I thought this portability might be nice, can either use water heated in a solar bag or heat a couple saucepans on the stove for a quick shower if it was too cold or cloudy for the solar shower. If she likes it I might get one just for hunting, normally I don't do freezing nights camping and I have hot water heater and shower in my trailer, just have to plan ahead enough to heat up the water (I don't like leaving that flame on when I'm gone riding so I don't) I got her SO the DVD of 'sons of anarchy' 3rd season and pre-ordered 4th season. Also gave my sis a new shut-off valve hose attachment and also another 10 ft hose JIC --hose was no more money than the attachment although I don't think she needs to replace her one.

Sent my bro and his family a check. Last year I actually sent them a list with some low cost options and bought some modest stuff from their list and sent to them after splitting the oil royalties and they sent me a lovely card. Well I had not done actual shopping for them the previous couple of years, but I figured with giving them a list they would get the hint that I was going to go to the extra trouble and was thinking it would be OK to swap actual items. Oh well, gave me a good reason to skip shopping stress for them this year (and even with Amazon it is some stress)

I want to get a good comfortable office chair in the office upstairs and a comfy very short loveseat or armless chair in my bedroom. This will probably be my present to myself although I might see if sis wants to hit thrift stores/low cost furniture stores with me if she didn't find stuff from my list when she comes down during the stock show. In the meantime I am pecking away to go through the assorted clutter, tossing the junk and organizing the stuff to keep into decent storage places to make some room for a couple new furniture items and just make the upstairs spaces more inviting in general.

pre-school blue for a living room?

Mom started her painting project and she is painting the living room a dark shade of royal blue AFAICT it is somewhat hard to tell how dark it will be because its so streaky at this point. It is not too bad in the morning light but last night when I got home and it was just interior lights YIKES. She better knock off any talk of selling and moving after choosing such weird paint colors.

But anything to push me out of the nest is probably good. She is doing a great job of negating all qualms I had about whether its fair to yank my rental income and horse care labor away from them in their senior years.

Oh, the paint color was called twilight blue. So there, it is not at all what a kid would pick to paint a bedroom but an honest grown up color. Well after choosing a pretty dark grey for my bedroom as a teen I tend to err on the side of choose light shades of neutral colors but I cannot get on board with 2 good sized walls that color. Today she is experimenting with lightening the blue. Which will keep the room from being overly dark I guess and would probably cover much easier but its still blue and I cannot get beyond "blue is ok for a small room like a bathroom or bedroom, but it aint right for a large area" but no matter, it is not my house and I do not have any moral, let alone legal obligation to keep renting space there.

December, the month to be stressed.

Mom always wants a list and I don't like to give too big of a one because she thinks she needs to fill it out. So I come up with winter fleece riding pants and various stuff this year and she goes and buys mw some weird riding pants that were like ski pants with a full seat leather sewn on for my birthday. Ugh I really dislike like riding pants that don't stretch, and they were too small. I'm going to have to do some formal dieting i guess. Sucks getting old and I really didn't enjoy the reminder that I've packed on weight the last couple of years.

Well at least she has gotten quite good at sending things back. I don't know why I am so overly irritated about it, its a tiny deal really, I am old enough I would just a soon forget I even had yet another birthday, and don't care if I get any presents, but I am just hyper annoyed that she asked for a list and then went and bought something different. She was trying to do a good thing but I cant help taking it as ---thought she knew better than me yet AGAIN. Then I feel badly about being so churlish over a gift, its just straws on the camel's back type stuff though.

And I got a letter from new neighbors in WY, they want to buy my property. I should be wildly overjoyed at the prospect of walking away from that lot that I can't even turn my trailer around in, but I am feeling all stressed, wondering how much of a haircut I should take if they won't come near what I paid for it and then what I should do with that cash if they are willing to pay enough to make me walk away from that albatross.

Sadie gets her wolf teeth out tomorrow ....

I have to remember to get out and feed early so she has a chance to eat. She has been being pretty good with the sidepull so I think the teeth were bugging her. Not perfect but pretty easy to correct when she gets a bit snotty. I think its possible she has a bit of an ulcer, she seems to almost need to snatch some grass to sooth herself. Well I'll see what transpires. If she has them she may be able to recover without medication.

todays oxymoron: Climate Change

Sticking Change after the word Climate to me implies that planet earth had a stable climate that is now changing. and in fact I'm pretty sure that is the desired response, they want people to go "OMG the climate is changing --Oh Noes, the government must do something about that", -- at least fund scientists to study it (we need to keep our jobs LOL)

But seriously it makes the climate/atmospheric scientists sound like they don't know that the earths climate has been in state of flux for the 4-5 billion years the planet has existed. These educated people that think themselves intelligent mock the creationist folks for thinking the earth was created in 6 days about 10K years ago while at the same time they manage to imply that earth's climate was quite stable around the values of the 1960-70's. HELLO --ever heard of the ice age? (which is just the most recent one) for that matter, are you completely ignorant of the Roman warm period, medieval warm period, Little Ice Age (which was no ice age but dumped enough ice on Greenland to force the Vikings to abandon their settlements.

IMO the creationists need to go 6 'days' for God, not 6 current earth days, and the tiny segment that tries to grasp at scientific straws that earth might be as young as 10K or whatever # they get from counting generations are hurting, not helping Christian belief but thats another rant.

Orwell was just 25 years off with 1984

Someday I should actually read it but I've heard about the newspeak idea. Well the free bus passes staff can have are not bus passes or RTD passes they are "ECO passes" and of course the smartest president ever is not dumb for saying he has visited most of the 57 states on the campaign trail but Perry is an idiot for saying 8 unelected justices and not recalling Sotamoyer off the cuff. And Barry is not dumb for saying he doesn't speak Austrian ...., its just normal jet lag when he writes the wrong year after he asked and was given the rest of the date and on an on. I am so tired of the MarxSpewMedia and their word tricks, non-coverage of Dem/socialist failures and crimes and so on. And the evening comedians are the worst. Sorry but "Clinton was a cool dude and hard to skewer" and "cant skewer Barry cuz of race" doesn't cut it. Gore was very un-cool, Biden has no race card and they are not skewered, it is deliberate propaganda and its probably more effective than the prime time news filtering, since comedy resonates more with people.

Time to buckle down

Seems like I've written that before but I really need to stick to it at work. I want out of there unless some big things change but I want them to miss me, not fire me. Sent myself a list last night. I should ride Sadie and see if she has gotten over being so cranky too. Then I should tackle some fencing. I really don't want to run a 3rd water heater but I need better fence to separate Lady from her buddy Sadie.

Ugh I hate the aftermath of dental work

Dental work itself is not bad, but I sure wish there was a way to reverse that facial numbness quickly. It drives me nuts, I sure hope I never get that virus that gives one temporary facial palsy especially with any effect on my lips or tongue. That would be some miserable weeks. I even last time I had a cavity put up with some discomfort rather than request more novacain or whatever they use these days. And this was a shallow cavity and should not have needed a huge amount of numbing but I think he gave me a monster dose. OK whine over, but sadly I have not much to say.

Ace has a story on Fast and Furious unraveling and that Barry let his true socialist side show today in KS which should be good news but I am not reassured at all. It will sadden but not shock me if he gets re-elected anyway. The GOP insiders seem determined to offer only the barest difference to the socialist dems, I was not paying attention but CBS had a story -I guess on Fast and Furious -but they did NOT make it all obvious that Barry's government with Dem majorities in both houses of congress helped guns get to Mexican cartels. They were interviewing some state dept guy who was arguing that this was a help to U.S. firearms dealers and CBS was not making it clear that Barry's government ended up putting guns into the hands of mexican drug cartels. Of all the big fat lies, but they get away with big fat lies pretty often.

And sadly I think a fair percent of the population is ready to vote for an open socialist, especially if the media paints whomever the GOP nominates as either "really the same but the socialism will be slanted towards business --which the public might buy, they don't know the Dems hand out corporate welfare to GE, as well as their pet green energy companies on a scale that would make any Republican blush (since the media would point out the cronyism with an R president" or if we somehow get a more conservative nominee the media will do their best to "palinize them" I know they tried similar stuff with Reagan but I don't recall just how far they went and I don't know if Reagan was just fantastic at communicating or if the country was just done listening to the chattering media heads after 4 years of Carter and if the population will listen to one of our current conservative crop who are not fantastic speakers (I am lumping Newt into "the media will paint him as just as socialist but with more of the goodies going to big business" ) category I guess Newt is a great speaker, personally have not listened to more than several minutes of the combined debates nor the sunday talk shows (I really hate those chattering heads for what they did to us, selling Barry to the naive masses)

institutional inertia or worse?

Gaah, I had not realized that the whole outfit had joined the climate scientist group in jumping on the C02 is doom bandwagon. I don't think I can stand to just keep my head down wrt to this and not challenge shit built on foundations like chopping off the last 60 years of tree ring data which did not match instrument temperature data to proclaim "the earth has never warmed like this before" --apparently tree rings and sediment layers are much more reliable than history written by those evil Romans and medieval european folks except when they contradict 20th-21st century thermometer data in which case we just pretend the tree data doesn't exist. I'd rather end up fired than pretend this bullshit is all 100% solid science. If its solid then why isn't the raw data openly available to skeptics who claim the methods were bad? If you don't trust the skeptic's methods open the raw data up anyway and trust that your peers will reproduce your results with independent methods.

Beginning to think they KNOW at least deep down that the science isn't very good but they are so enamored of growing government, perhaps an international government; to address the situation that they ignore their own doubts. The commies have not just succeeded in repressing stories about the abysmal failures where marxism has been tried, they also managed within the public schools to make history seem like just a boring exercise in memorizing meaningless dates, very smart way to discourage interest in history, thus letting them get away with a lot more lying. Cunning evil bastids they were. Now they have a bunch of supporters who don't even think of themselves as aligning with the communists.

come on coffee, do your thing

I didn't think I had gotten overly behind on sleep this weekend, but I guess the short night on friday is catching up now I'm stuck in a cozy office. Oh well I'll find a project I need to get done in a little bit.

Here's your sign

wattsupwiththat climategate emails

Its not the only sign god has given me either. I really have got to do some research and pick an alternative life path sooner rather than later.

On a happier note: I have been feeling a bit blue for purely selfish reasons and was praying to be given a better mindset. So last night and this morning I am packing up to drive to my friends wedding. It has been so long since I had any kind of dress up event to attend that I had to wash stuff that had gotten dusty hanging in the closet, I could not find my tiny set of jewelry, I didn't even thing about nail polish, or makeup beyond my basic foundation that I wear for combo sunscreen and covering up rosacea .......

I had been feeling like I'm going to be a 5th wheel and stuck at loose ends with being it being a distance friendship so I don't know the bride's local friends and the handful of folks I will know there are either involved in the wedding or will probably have to leave quicker afterwards while I had decided to wait and drive back on sunday morning.

NOW I am like, well I have two books I haven't even started yet so I can enjoy them if I have free time while everyone is busy or tomorrow evening and thank goodness I am so so far out of the central focus that no one will take any notice that I am not properly glammed up and they certainly wont care a whit if they do happen to notice. and I am SO happy for my friend's joy with getting married. One of the sweetest people that everyone would root for to find true love and happiness.

I'm going to have to shuffle horses again

I think since Lady has become such a fence crawler I'll just put her next to AJ by herself. Then Razz CJ and Sadie can have the bigger paddock and Shade and Grey can have the little one. I kind of hate to run an extra water tank heater but I need to separate Grey Moun from RazzMo so he can get enough calories with his slower eating but he frets too much by himself and won't put on weight. Shade doesn't seem to get too fat eating extra concentrates with him and I can increase her riding hours if she does. If Lady was not such a fence crawler I'd be tempted to put pushy Razz by himself instead but since Lady isn't staying where I put her she can be the one to go solo. I can put her in with Grey and Shade at some point if I decide being in a pen is not working for her but until she'll stay in the paddock I put her in she is the logical one to move. Sadie is easy keeper, fast eater enough to be in with the big stock horse geldings.

Today I rode RazzMo so Shade and Grey could eat their concentrate w/o interference. I used Sadie's new saddle on him. Seemed to fit fine, I am liking it and I'll try it on Shade when I get the smaller cinch. I don't think the saddle is bothering Sadie any but I have decided that I'll hold off on riding her until I have the horse chiro out to rule out problems. I WANT to use my new saddle to work through things if it is a training/ I'm going to see if being resistant will get me out of working situation because it feels so nice and secure, I don't like the OF because it raises the rider off the horses back quite a bit and while it is a deep seat, its still an english saddle.

Oh great -- AGW, new alias CC is still being embraced here

*seminar I could have attended yesterday*

Even as the science of climate change has grown stronger and more compelling, public
acceptance of the science has grown weaker and more partisan. This presentation will
discuss the range of causes for this dilemma. It will then focus on how we can improve
scientists' communication of climate change.
It will address both what we say and how we say it, dealing with framing, messaging,
psychological and cultural issues, the value of narrative, and questions involving
language. It will also include up-to-date information on what the American public thinks
about climate change and how that should be considered in scientists' communication
efforts.

Susan has worked for over 20 years to help communicate the science of climate
change to a wide variety of audiences. She has written and edited numerous high -level
reports, testified before Congress, written an HBO documentary, appeared on national
radio and television shows, and spoken widely to leaders in various fields about climate
change. She is currently focused on helping climate scientists improve their
communication and helping the media improve their coverage of climate change.

All staff are welcome to attend. This event is sponsored by [redacted]
************
No Susan the science has NOT become more compelling, it is unraveling. And while my blinders firmly on co-workers may be unaware the commie in chief is not much interested in funding science of any kind. If he wins he will pursue his global caliphate/commie utopia dreams by executive order and not be pushing any science funding to support it, he probably has an inkling that true science, not garbage focused on giving the result the funding agency expected would not back up the CO2 is evil meme.

Now If Romney gets in he would push for funding for "climate science" with a belief in it I guess --he is still defending mass-care. (not signing it as "well I tried my best to steer it to something that might be workable and even so it failed" but actually defending the failing system --so apparently he does not ever accept that he might have been wrong about something. Give me that *idiot, deer in the headlights* Rick Perry please. At least he will admit something was a mistake if reality slaps it down. Even Newt has backed off on some of his big statist crap and support of cap and tax. I don't trust the reptile but at least he would follow party opinion if the party demands repeal of the bill to completely ruin american health care and says no to a carbon scheme. But the commiecrat and probably 2 of the 3 most likely GOP nominees are going to be skeptical of so called science organization that *bitterly clings* to the disproven CO2/climate change scaremongering. I hope the top idiots here have big mortgages and will lose their houses if they keep this crap up. Like that saying "Stupid Should Hurt"

monday, cant trust that day

Song lyric thought again. Not such a bad day but wow is my mood dark and gloomy. Mainly saddle/young horse crud. Bad timing getting a new saddle at the same time the young horse decides to have a streak of resistant behavior. I suppose I should lay some groundwork with the saddle maker in case I have to have them change the fit. I think they do saddle fit analysis as well so I could have them check things out. What I get for posting this online, always someone who thinks that horses only ever have stubborn streaks when they have pain from saddle or possibly bridle. Of course if I were 100% confident that the horse was only being stubborn the comment would not bug me. I *think* she is just going through a phase of testing me, she sure moves nicely at times in the new saddle, but one always wonders since horses tend to be pretty cheerful workers most of the time.

Work is work. the MarxSpewMedia do not seem to be wavering much in their spewage of marxism, I think they may stay almost all in, being so close to destroying the biggest, richest republic in the world. Idiots seem to think that the country will be just as rich under a communist system, despite the evidence of history.

What with the European debt crisis, which I have not studied enough to know if it actually dwarves our own debt situation or their structure is just such that they can't ignore it as easily and then the commiecrats successful battles in their war on small(ish) businesses even if the stupid cap and tax was avoided I would not be surprised if there is a world-wide depression that will make the 1930's look tame in the nearish future. And I don't know if I just have too much negative information about all the GOP candidates or if the field really is so uninspiring but dang it just doesn't feel like we have a great candidate no matter who we nominate. I'm not sure where the Tea Party is, I should have gotten involved with them beyond getting on some email lists by making a few campaign contributions in 2010. What to do what to do.

waterPik annoyance

I have a waterPik at recommendation of dentist. Does seem to help if I start getting a loose gum pocket that collects food and then is irritated. Well I have knocked the waterpik off my countertop twice and that breaks the tips and it takes a needle nose pliers to get the end of the tip that is in the base removed but a stubborn redhead just finds the pliers.

Well the unit came with two tips so this time I had to get replacements, I didn't get it done before t-day; stopped at Walgreens and then Target today and neither one carries replacement tips. I'd blame the store but 0-2 seems like WaterPik discourages carrying them. Well I was not going to toss the whole thing in the garbage and just buy another waterPik. Even if the tips would cost almost as much as the whole unit I don't like to toss a functioning gadget in the trash, goes against my sensibilities.

I did find replacement tips online so I ordered 4 tips and some misc. stuff. Pbbbtttt on "small business saturday" I was not going to find what I wanted at a small business. I do the small business for car repairs and when I bought my p/u, don't need to forgo convenience today, besides doing things based on the internet meme of the week also goes against my sensibilities.

popcorn for t-day

Went for a little ride this afternoon too. It was good, Shade was less tense and spooky acting. I think I didn't notice it so much pre Sadie because I rode Shade fairly steadily once she was not what I considered a young greenie. Oh well, I can live with acting like there is a boogie man out there; as long as she doesn't ever get any bronco going after having time off.

I had waffles for breakfast. I am getting a good amount of use out of my $10 Target waffle iron. I'll mix a big batch of batter on a weekend so I just have to plug in the iron to heat up, pour out batter, and wait 6 minutes during the work week. I don't like crowds but am halfway toying with asking dad if he wants to go out for supper and then see if we can get a flat screen TV on *black friday* special. I had been thinking of buying a biggish LED or possibly going a bit cheaper with LCD TV for the living room and calling it anniversary gift for the parents but mom wants/ed to get a big TV for downstairs and just bring up that TV for the living room so I just gave them 150 for TV fund, of course she has been too sick now to actually go out and buy something.

I may spend some of the holiday fencing.

Grey Moun was not on board with my plan to have him clean up some hay AJ had left in his stall and eat soaked pellets w/o anyone to take some of his share. I think I may try to put Lady back in with him and Shade and Razz in with Sadie and CJ so chowhound Razz isn't eating part of the food that Grey should get. I think I also need to find an equine dentist to take a power tool and grind out where Grey has a gap that collects some food and slows him down. Dr Mike said that was an option, he has resisted getting power tools and just uses manual rasp tools to even up horses' teeth. In the short term I'll probably start pulling Grey out to do some extra eating when I ride or am just dinking around at home but just tie him next to the fence so he'll eat instead of worrying about being taken away from his buddy(s). Silly old boy.

Sadie was a bit pouty being ridden today, I kept wondering if the pad had picked up a sticker or if the saddle was pinching somewhere but I think its mostly just 4 year old testing of limits. I'll watch for pain and stuff but she'll have to live with going out for light work when I want to, not just when she is bored in the paddock. She would swing to acting happy and moving out really well so I don't think there was any saddle pinching. Possibly there was a sticker that she only felt when trotting, although I didn't find any when I got home and unsaddled.

I ordered some christmas photo cards, with the MaahDaahHey group pic from this summer. Now I really really better get in gear and send out cards and a holiday letter in early December instead of around valentines day like I did last year.

The saddle makes will cut down my fenders into a strap for no charge. Yay, if they were going to charge a huge amount I might have figured I should just buy some craft knives and do it myself, but the fenders have a bit of a curve so I couldn't just take a straight edge to mark where to cut. So happy they will do it, they at least have 100's of hours of practice cutting leather.

Grateful for - the saddle maker's above. My close mechanic says he can replace my transmission temperature sensor and can recommend some independent diesel mechanics if he thinks one of the cylinders isn't firing right or anything.

Ole was a good dog today. He especially adores going riding when L comes out to ride Lady. Today a neighborhood dog was hanging near the intersection so I had to convince Sadie that she could just wait around until Ole came past there. Ole did just stay on our road and keep on heading home and the other dog then had to go put his pee on the spot by that corner. I don't know if the dogs are all trying to claim that spot or if its just a doggy greeting thing.

Grateful that work is slow today and I'm able to just catch up on some data archiving that does not require intense thought

Grateful that the building is blissfully quiet today. When I was a student I could study in the food court area and just tune out all the talking, now it seems like I can't even deal with song lyrics sometimes. This was not an effect of aging I had expected.

tuesday grateful list

2 extra:

Grateful my visa/debit card was sitting on the coffee table. Wasn't in my wallet last night and I thought I had left it at work on friday after an internet payment. Was feeling a bit panicky when it was not on my desk.

Grateful that I have trained myself to drive my commute (esp home at night) like there is a cop watching me every yard and very grateful that the times tonight when my automatic p/u was cruising faster then I realized were a couple miles and a few corners before the cop car checking speeds.

I am grateful that I have a mechanic I trust just 3 miles from home and that my car is just in for routine oil change today

I am grateful that I realized before shipping that my first thought for my saddle fenders would not help things any. Duh, if I have them raise the fender on the leather piece with the holes I'll just have to lower the buckle to an even longer hole. I hope they will swap out the western style fender for just a strap without too much added expense.

I am grateful for digital cameras that allow one to use a picture to explain the problem via email

I am grateful I had many good years with Grey Moun (born 1988) at the same time that I am in mourning that he seems to be aging so very fast the last year or 2. Having owned a few 30 year horses before the one's I've had to say goodbye to in their 20's gave me a warped outlook; 5 or so years ago I thought that with modern worming, and vaccines that most horses that received good (not great/perfect but I think its been good) care would be able to make 30+ or at least very late 20s. Sadly that is not proving true, we just had some tough ND bred horses I guess.

I am grateful that I have been able to mount Sadie, she is still going "UnUh, no way" to standing in a low spot, but with the new saddle and not wearing pacs and heavy winter clothing complete with a bit snug jacket to get the blaze orange I don't need any boost to mount up and once she does a few circles she has been standing pretty decently. Hopefully with a couple no oopsie rides and then a couple days off she'll be mellow tomorrow riding with L.

1. I'm grateful for my cousins. All good people and willing to include the more redneck side of the family when we are around.

2. I'm grateful that my aunt held on to mineral shares and my oldest cousin J convinced her to sell them to us to pre-fund her funeral when she had cancer. I did not know at the time but aunt had wanted to leave her nieces and nephews the mineral shares but the state would have taken them because she'd been in assisted housing for x # of years. We effectively got an inheritance as the royalties have exceeded the fair market appraisal price that J got. The state is getting its 15% on the oil + a bit of state income tax so they aren't hurting any.

3. I am grateful I woke up to the media bias in 2008 and had the "OMG, what all history and political views have I held that have been based on lies and the MarxSpewMedia with-holding facts" slap of reality already. Although if folks have not woke up yet, perhaps they will go through life thinking there was a vast right wing conspiracy, rather than accepting the facts and that some of their views were formed based on deliberate mis-information.

4. I'm grateful that I found there are people out there who are putting facts on the web and showing some of the lies from our voluntary pravda media.

5. Grateful for my cat Boots. I selected him at the shelter and he is my ideal cat. He likes to sleep on my bed but not touching me and will ask for scritches for a few minutes and then call it good. Friendly without constantly pestering for affection.

another sleepy morning

I have to go take some pictures of my saddle to illustrate what I want the saddle maker to change, feed equines and get to work. I lost some sleep last night, waking up hot after 90 minutes and and tossing/turning and adjusting blankets before getting into a good deep sleep but not enough to make me so terribly tired. I'm just mentally lazy, I have to call and get some estimates on replacing my temperature sensor on the p/u and decide whether to use a dealer or if I think they are too spendy, as well as calling the saddle maker about my fenders, and a few other errands. I think I would love to have a personal secretary to deal with things if I won the lottery or something, although I am very resistant to yielding control in general, and I hardly ever buy lottery tickets even so I'll just have to muddle along.

Ugh, fell off Shade today.

So annoyed at myself. All she did was spook a bit. I should have been able to ride right through it if I was centered and its not like she lured me to sleep. So frustrating when I ride like crap.


Well 5 good things. Shade felt strong and was not terribly goofy ayrab for the lack of riding.

2. Boy do I appreciate Sadie and her calmer demeanor.

3. My late night redneck fence fix last night seems to have sealed the hole Lady was crawling out of. I went out to feed somewhat late and she was standing eating on the bale I was going to feed already. Looked at me like "what? It was my supper time" I decided I don't want to worry about her getting in the feed room if I forget to shut the door etc so I pulled the gate that dad bought but will probably not install until we do all the fence repairs over and tied it to the spot where I think Lady crawled through. It would not take much to fix that little section properly but I'd like to just get the new fenceline put up than put more than a few minutes into patching the existing mess.

4. I feel like I'm getting back into a groove for horse feeding and stuff after the trip.

5. I get along with my sibs and they are solid citizens.

I'm grateful today that I have less attachment to an old BB. Someone was posting about how she is temporarily working for a church and getting so many people in risk of losing homes etc and the county and state agencies don't/cant help until people are homeless drug addicts etc. and its so sad. I don't need to bother burning bridges by posting there; but they are reaping what they sowed by voting in marxists, first with a HOR D majority that would make Pelosi a speaker and then electing Barry himself to POTUS. I sure aint giving anymore to United Way, Inner City Health or other charities that I feel like worked to encourage election of Barry. My donations are limited to charities that help soldiers and veterans and just a bit to Salvation Army and LWR. Any liberal cheerleader charities that worked for Barry and Obamacare? They can scrape by on donations from the stingy leftists or go under.

My new saddle does seem to fit Sadie pretty well and I don't think it was slipping forward today. I think I will send the fenders back and ask them to adjust the fenders. I have to take some pics and make sure I describe what I what done properly, first I have to decide just what I want done, but I think I can have the fenders sewn in a different spot and probably also cut down a bit.

My pickup needs a new alternator but it did hang in and get me down I-70 before failing harder and we live next door to a good diesel mechanic who is very honest and wont hardly charge enough for his labor. Now I know that if my batteries get drained I need to charge them up before starting and running the pickup. Neighbor mechanic wants to see if the transmission temp sensor is just getting confused by bad voltage, says if the transmission runs hot the smell is unmistakable.

I remembered to call and make hotel reservations for my friends wedding the weekend after thanksgiving. I am grateful that she uses FB, posts some on BBs etc so I should be able to keep in touch with her via internet. She has (had now) been a driver that worked from 6pm to 3am-ish; it was convenient for calling her once a week or so on my way home from work when I wanted to talk instead of listening to radio. After work is about the only time I think about calling someone, and her time-zone is an hour ahead so I don't foresee having phone conversations now. I am happy for her, she is the sweetest person and seems to have found a real soul-mate in her fiance.

Lady crawled through the pasture fence today when I pulled Sadie out to ride with a different saddle but I am grateful she figures she can stay in otherwise and she ties well so I was able to just take my ride. Plus dad has been meaning to redo the fence and we just never got to it yet, I don't think it will freeze hard here, not enough to be a problem for the tractor post hole attachment anyway so I guess we will install some new fence some weekend before the new year and run another strand or 2 of wire on the dividing fence where my electric rope is all loose. I think we'll do this rather than get electric working to make the fence hot.

Nov 18, grateful for nice riding weather this am

I was almost too warm in a windbreaker over a LS tee, but had a nice ride with L on Lady and me on Sadie.

The company sent me an english girth but I got special 2-point western rigging on the saddle, we did have an old string cinch short enough to work so I'm grateful for having old tack around.

Sadie stood fairly still for me to mount and I didn't need to be uphill from her so I think the mounting bugaboo that started in Meeker will soon be a thing of the past.

I am grateful that L is interested in riding Lady almost year round. She wants to maybe do some odd jobs (mentioned trailer or pickup cleanup ) as she feels a bit cash poor. That could work for me if I give it some thought.

I'm grateful for my job. Sometimes it is a groaner being surrounded by liberals but most of my co-workers are good people, just misguided about how social/political incentives will affect behavior and the fact that there is not a pool of rich people who just aren't paying enough towards government. And I do love the flexible hours and good amount of PTO.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Now for the not all rose colored glasses part.

I have to decide what to do for a cinch for my new saddle. I may keep the english girth they sent if it fits on Shade's saddle, but I will need to get a short western cinch for Sadie. I might go for a neoprene one for winter, not sure. Have to *decide* now and I am feeling mentally tired and don't want to make any extra decisions.

I cannot use my supracor pad with this new saddle. Or I guess I can't use it on Sadie, she doesn't have a huge amount of withers. I'll find out soon if just using a wool fleece pad will work or if I'll need a crupper, well if I need a crupper than I could use the supracor pad. More decision, but I need to play with pads and decide if I need the crupper and if I need one, I'll have to decide what kind to get, it might be best to just use a crupper with this saddle and Sadie's conformation, but the trainer's saddles that I tried before ordering mine didn't seem to go too far forward so maybe I won't have to mess with it.

I think I'll have to cut down my new stirrup fenders if I don't just swap out for english leathers; I am quite bummed about where the blevins buckle hits with the stirrups lengthened to where I want them and it totally turns my stirrups 90 degrees from where I want them, I think turning the stirrups by soaking and broom handle treatment will only do so much if I leave the fenders as they are. Sigh, crystal ball failure again, I should have just ordered 2 inch leathers with no extra fender width or something but I can fix it, I'll just have to cowboy up and take a blade to the nice leather fenders or pay someone to cut them down for me.

Nov 17, 5 things list

I'm grateful my new saddle arrived and it seems to fit ms Sadie.

I'm grateful that owie on my foot from stepping on a Russian Olive branch does not look infected at all, if anything I may have a splinter that I'll need to have dug out at some point.

I'm grateful for the existence of microwave ovens. Saves so much time and money.

I'm grateful for coffee and also for chocolate. Thats two so I'm done with the gratitude list for today.

***********
Rush had a bit on today about some NYT article lamenting that young adults/college grads are not starting their own households and thus they are deepening the recession. The article sounded like mostly BS but it got me to musing. I think it used to be that only "the landed gentry" types had such large houses that adult offspring basically had apartments within and would tend to stay at home until the daughters were married or the sons had gotten rich themselves or whatever. Well, it got fairly common to have huge houses so is it much of a surprise that ie a teacher making 45K would feel like its better to live at home and save up for a big down payment on his own house later rather than moving into his own apartment? If parents are not inclined to shove their kids out of the nest are the super sized homes going to encourage kids to keep living at home when a former generation would move out into a small apartment because a modest house did not allow enough privacy for living with the parents to feel at all comfortable?

grateful for 5 things every day?

Not sure I can come up with 5 things every day, I've been feeling rather squeezed lately, but it is a cool theme for november.

ok, I'm grateful my pickup made it home, even if the batteries are still weak and dad only announced it to me tonight rather than putting a slow charger on one or the other of them after borrowing the p/u to go fetch their new mini.

I'm grateful dad shot a doe and we will have some tasty meat.

I'm grateful that V and L had an extra pair of binoculars and are more than happy with the price I offered them for purchase.

I'm grateful all 3 horses made it home safe and sound from the trip.

I'm grateful that Shade and Grey Moun are looking well fed.


Well I guess I'll save more for tomorrow. Past time to head for bed right now.

Finally home from the hunting trip ---darned Ford

We hung out on sunday and just did as much pre-packing as possible because it was snowing and we didn't want to fight bad roads + ski traffic on the way home. We would have been home quite early but my back passenger door got left ajar and drained my battery(s). And the darned FORD pickup wouldn't just keep running after we jumped it because it has some kind of safety to protect the alternator if a battery is bad or something. Plus my transmission temperature sensor got blown sometime during all the fun. Spent over 2 hours and 147 dollars at an auto place just to find out that the battery that we suspected was bad was OK once they charged it up and it was just the temperature sensor for the transmission that was bad --which I suspected but wanted to confirm before going on all the steep downhills on I-70 to get to Denver.

WooHoo the tax raise amendment failed

BWAAHAAHAAA, I guess I was not the only one completely underwhelmed by ominous "some kids even have to PAY to ride the school bus" and all the other bs in the vote yes on 103 ad. Now if we could get a right to work amendment on the 2012 ballot and "no automatic deductions for union dues" and this would be a biggie, something like the WI law that limits public sector union power, maybe the state could be set on a better path. Well we made some progress in 2010, its just that our state GOP leadership got snookered in a couple of cases that affected the governors race very strongly and the establishment GOP senate candidate fought dirty in the primary and handed extra ammo to the dems to use in the general. It makes me so furious when conservatives are constantly told they have to vote for RINOs or suffer the democrat and then the RINOs decide they would rather have a dem than a conservative.

amazon fail

I am so annoyed right now that it is a good thing for them that I have had several good buying experiences from them in the past. I was using their registry feature, selected some items, check this is a gift on each one, get almost to final checkout step and ONLY then do they announce they cannot ship one item to the address. Then I can't find any button to go back to shopping so I could pick a replacement item from the list. ARGHHHHHH I am back to "I'm just going to give cold hard cash and I don't care how gauche anyone thinks it is"

politics/philosophy

Read a very well written blog post today by guardwife about needing for there to be a reason life was turned upside down. Made me think of my own trite feeling that dear God, let the country electing Barry have been the life lesson we needed to shake us awake before it was too late. I do not know how I will cope if after *I* finally woke up to the MarxSpewMedia et al it turns out the country overall refuses to see reality and chooses to continue to spiral towards the drain instead of trying to return to a country built on principles of rule of law, protection of property for all and freedom for all with the consequence of possible failure for some. As an engineer I want to try to fix things, keep plugging away at something. Atlas Shrugged reference: I will by my nature want to be a teeny, very much less effective Hank Reardon type, continuing to try to make my little corner of the world work --BUT I will also now believe that the John Galt character is correct and that I should withdraw whatever help I am giving to a broken society because if we have the inevitable hard crash faster it will improve the odds of having enough people who remember freedom who can rebuild a good society versus ending up under an islamic theocracy that demands everyone submit or having long term anarchy or a brutal dictator who comes to power just by being the most ruthless and or cunning among a group of competing tribal factions.

I STILL don't understand the ballots this year

It is a mail in ballot. Oct 25 was the last day to request a mail in ballot (only as replacement for lost ?? or for anyone???) But one can CALL to get a replacement ballot, even on election day? WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot? Sounds like I should have a ballot at home since I am a permanently registered voter. I should be able to drop that off in the building that houses the car registrations office, and if I can't find this ballot that should have been mailed to me? perhaps I can get a replacement ballot. That better be the case because I am going to be PISSED if the damn commiecrats sneak through crap because I was not expecting things to be run differently than usual and didn't realize I had to request to have a ballot mailed to me by no later than this PAST tuesday to participate.

Okaay, Sadie has shoes, my car has an emissions cert....

I mailed in my car and p/u registrations at the same time -- I really really scrutinized the fine print on the back of the cards in case I needed to send a copy of the insurance paperwork because I thought I remembered they wanted it now. However I did NOT scrutinize the front of the cards. They wanted emissions on my car and proof of insurance for the p/u and I totally missed those bits. I had already chronically forgotten to send it in for the car and my 1 month grace period is up on monday.

So after calling the farrier and establishing "we thought you were coming today --pushing back 1 day from the snowstorm not 1 week" he came out about 11 am. Sadie was quite good for the first 3 shoes getting nailed on and then she decided she was done and was just bratty trying to take her last foot away before he was done, but he got that last shoe nailed on. Lady got her feet trimmed and was pretty good, a nice change from how she has ususally been for hoof trimming. Very late start getting headed to work but I got to thinking I should test my car today because if I waited until friday and it failed I'd have almost no time to get repairs done and get retested. Thankfully it passed, even the gas cap test (I thought that might fail because my check engine light is always on and the gaskets around the cap look slightly cracked.) So now I can swing by tomorrow after my chiro appt and get my new tags.

Now I have to do some web research and find out if the election is just a mail in ballot and I have missed seeing mine or what. I dang well intend to vote NO (they wont have a HELL NO option) on the tax increase to fund schools. They are not making the case very well when they announce in the ominous voice "some students even have to PAY to ride the school bus" oh cry me a river, I had free bus service about 1/2 the time I was in school, parents had to get us there when we were a country school, we had to walk when we lived in town a couple years.... oh and Colorado happens to fund "higher education" very poorly -2nd worst in the country or something so sinister voice tries to imply that this means primary education is also under funded.

Colorado universities manage to get by with low state funding because they draw in lots of out of staters to the engineering and business colleges at CU and the veterinary and perhaps other colleges at CSU; plus CU is drawing in "liberal arts students" that want to go to a party school, perhaps within driving distance for skiing and the parents apparently are willing to pay or have their kids take on mongo loans to do so just to get them out of the household for a few years and get a college degree even though its got to be considered fairly worthless on the spectrum of college degrees. And then they have research professors that enjoy living in scenic foothills so they can offer somewhat cheaper salaries and attract researchers that bring in grant money from the various federal agencies (NASA, Dept of Def. NSF etc etc) that makes up for a fair bit of lack of state funding.

Man from Snowy River it was NOT ... but

I love my BayRab, she has the bestest mind. I've been taking her across the irrigation ditch now thats its dry, mainly as a confidence booster for her. Today I asked her to go down at the spot where its about a 8 feet fairly steep slope instead of going along to the ATV crossing that is much more shallow. So she is hesitating and taking itty bitty steps down and suddenly I realize the saddle has slid onto her neck Such a good girl, stood still while I dismounted from that awkward position, noticing the saddle pad was very nearly worked out behind the saddle. Led her across and fixed the pad and finished our ride. Today I pulled her out just to trim her bridle path and get some pictures. I hadn't gotten any decent ones of her in ages it seems.

WOohoo

I put in a hack fix to a computer program at work to force it to consider some data of a new type it had been ignoring and it improved my test case hour I was playing with. I wanted to announce it in person to my supervisor but he's at the U this afternoon and everyone else in the group that would know that we are even processing this data had left early or was working off site as well.

I have been riding a bit again. I am so blessed to have that outlet to keep me sane. I've been taking Sadie out and have had her cross the now dry irrigation ditch where it has gradual banks and the ATVer's have made good paths to improve her confidence. The first time I led her across then mounted rode a bit and she was ready to cross back to the home side with just a little urging. Yesterday I asked her to cross without dismounting and it took just a little patient urging to get her started. I have not told dad yet that CJ will probably have to tote whatever rifle I'll use in its hard-sided ATV case while we ride out and RazzMo may have to lead quite a bit since I'll be on a greenie instead of taking Grey Moun. Razz prefers to let another horse be in front, he doesn't seem to feel much need to stay alert for stuff from behind so he mentally relaxes when he is not leading.

Shade is back to being in pretty good weight and I'm starting to ride her again too. She was so tense on sunday because we could hear someone plinking in the general direction I wanted to go. I was like "no wonder I think Sadie is such an easy greenie horse, my old solid horse always keeps me in practice for that kind of thing." Better today although Shade was all intent on an ATV that looked to be running a dog inside one of the pasture sections that backs to the dirt road I was riding on for a while and I changed up the route rather than go right by that pasture. A fun ride but dumb dog Ole lost track of me and I had to send dad out to fetch him because I was going to be late to work and we have a theoretically regular thursday meeting --of course they skipped it today -- seems like that happens almost every time I push something aside to make it on time when I'm having a very late start to my workday.

I'm probably going to get into some more reading for fun this winter. I had stopped reading books this summer to do more riding and stuff --so much easier to walk away from a blog than a really good book; but I brought up the kindle app on my laptop this weekend and started a sci-fi ebook I had downloaded this spring when it was offered as a freebie to introduce the new author. Finished the story this morning and I did enjoy it enough that I'll probably buy one or two of his books now; although I am not sure that I'll like the whole series. It was pretty good other than corporations as the villains -- *I* just can't see it being all that profitable for a company to fund their own military and take over worlds from other 'colonists' have slaves etc. But the good guys were modeled after a republic, with anyone free to develop and have an independent business and laws that protected everyones property rights, an elected parliament that controlled the military etc. so I set aside my "but it takes a stronger motive than profit to drive actual wars for territory etc" and enjoyed the story. Shoot, now I'll have to edit this post when I'm home and put in the author name and book title.

Book was "Origins (Spinward Fringe series) by Randolph Lalonde.

Slideshow I made for the retreat

Who knew? Setting sideshows to music is very easy on the mac. Getting it to sound good when exported in any way, not easy. Playing with it.

Sheesh, even putting in one of the youtube audio substitutions has gaps in the sound. I guess the apple movie formats are different and the sound is just not integrated nicely when exported somewhere.

good retreat overall.

I'm actually feeling more enthused about the work than I have been in ages. My slideshow was disappointing to me. The sound system distorted the music I had added to it. But I got a lot of good comments. There were about 5 other non music bits. Our program director did a demonstration on tai chi marshall arts, the new software guy demo'd the traditional taiwanese costume his wife sewed last halloween, our administrator showed slides of the landscaping (plantings) that she did on her house, and a few slides of some drawings done by one of my direct bosses, and one of the PHD students did a jump roping demo --the rope was too limp or long or something and kept tangling but you could tell she really knew some fancy steps. It was really fun having different stuff rather than just music and with a lot more volunteers the music part was shortened. Heh, sounds like I'm a music hater. I like music, but I don't have a great ear and can't appreciate technical stuff that is not easy listening, and I do get my fill fairly quickly even of well done easy listening stuff.

The working stuff was pretty good too. I am enthused to pursue some things myself. Our program is trying to hire a new chief scientist (offer has been made but he needs some outside pieces to fall in place before he will accept) He was at the retreat and I really hope he accepts, he is very energetic as well as very skilled in the field. I think he will add positive energy to the whole group.

AND one sour note: --on the good side the NOAA program guy admitted that *THIS* administration put in 9 appointees to NOAA vs the std 3 and is "determined to show he can cut spending just as much as other admins" (rolling eyes here, given the huge spending increases under Barry's watch, Barry just doesn't want to risk objective science interfering with his agenda IMO) but its progress over this guys thinking last year. But at lunch today I heard our administrator spouting off on things --making excuses for him and blaming the new tea party congressfolks for "not understanding how things work" OH PLEASE, the demotards passed one pork filled budget after they rolled in in Nov 2008 and now they keep doing Continuing Resolutions thinking they won't have to own the waste if its not a new budget.

All I could think was "USEFUL IDIOT" This gal has totally bought into AGW as well. THe thing is she, and the other folks spouting off at that table think they are intelligent and sophisticated, they totally don't understand that they are just being used to repeat propaganda to advance the personal fortunes of Al Gore, and whatever G Soros' agenda is .

GAAH its after midnight

and I cant launch processing because I need the data genius/perl guru to build one more grib to netcdf converter than he bothered to do while he was at it. Oh well the work won't run away before monday. Possibly I can write the converter using one of the other data types as a template? Too tired and way TOO late to deal with it now. I have to be in Estes Park by 9am tomorrow. Ugh, finding my way there on a short night sleep will suck.

No riding this week

I rode Grey Moun on sunday. Weather was threatening to get windy and it was cool and I was too lazy to ride greenie Sadie or sometimes complete goofball Shade. It actually got more sunny and was nice but I enjoyed riding my old guy. He rounds better in Shades Little S hackamore bit than he ever did in the sidepull. I had always thought any curb chain action would make work against a horse rounding; I only switched him to the hack after I took him on a fun ride one ride weekend in 2009 where I was riding a 50 on Shade the first day to make sure he was sound before going hunting with him and he pulled like a freight train almost the whole way he was in such a hurry to get back to her. I've had so many misconceptions with various horse mechanical things, if I had them all written up it would be a good book "WHAT NOT TO DO to improve your riding" Oh well.

My work is having a retreat thursday and friday. I hope I am not going "AAGH! stupid liberal thinking" like I was last year. I have some revenge though. They always have group entertainment which is mainly the folks that play a musical instrument and/or sing performing. There are some very talented folks in the group that also get that its supposed to be entertaining "the masses" NOT impressing an insider by almost mastering some technical piece that is melancholy or otherwise not fun to listen to even if done absolutely perfectly, but always one or two bits that are not nice to inflict on an almost captive audience. This year they pushed for new participants, can be comedy or "anything" So I put together a slideshow of pics from various riding trips. I set it to Ramblin Man, by the Allman brothers (sp?) so at least there is semi-decent music while they are subjected to my *vacation slides* but its still basically *vacation slides* MWAHAHA.

The new Mac laptop I got for work has share buttons that suggest it may even be possible to put it in a format that will show up on you-tube or FB so I may put it out with a link for friends and family, but they can just hit pause if they find it boring. I was annoyed with the limitations of the macs again though. Some of the pics were getting chopped in the slides and there was no easy way to just resize them in iphoto . Overall the MACs are great for me as I am a very bad and lazy sys admin for the home cpu's but I can understand why folks who like to do more custom stuff prefer to get a PC.

I think I'll take Sadie on the hunting trip

That way I can focus on getting some good exposure for the youngster. Otherwise I will tend to fret about the fact that there is not much hunting going on and consider it just a time sink. I'm such a four eyes, just horrid at spotting wildlife just for fun while riding and I am really bad with binoculars so its doubtful I'll even have to worry about my low marksmanship --I'd want a pretty close shot. I wish I actually enjoyed shooting, I feel like I should develop the skill a bit but there is very little fun factor in it for me. But with taking Sadie she can get some miles and lots of practice just standing tied and waiting around, it should really benefit her training and that should allow me to relax and just let dad do his thing. However I am thinking of asking brother if he might want to go with dad next year. I'll buy a plane ticket from Calif if he is willing. Ed actually has good eyes and natural hand/eye coordination and could probably be ready to take a medium or even longish range shot with just a little practice getting the feel of the gun again.

Heh, I am psychic

I didn't think Palin was going to run. Its too funny, except when its crosses the line, all the comments on Ace about this. She had only raised like 1 million dollars in her PAC and I'll go out on a bit of a limb and guess a good bit of that was people chipping in for her to fund tea party outsiders like she did in 2010. I can't say I followed her very closely but her statement on the PAC and everything I ever read from her only ever said the PAC was to promote conservatives, not one word saying she would run for the GOP nomination. Now the movie and the bus tour might have been probes to see if she had likely support if she ran, or she could have just been making some dough and having some fun with the MarxSpewMedia.

I do understand the "oh crud all of the folks in the GOP field disappoint in one way or the other" blues but OTOH any one of the top 3 would be a fine president, as opposed to the SCOMF we have now, who is driving the country into a pit. We are not going to get someone who is conservative realization of all that the Media painted Barry to be, but come on we are supposed to be about reality.
Barry is not actually a good speaker -- face it only the media or a bunch of bigots cooing over the fact that a black man could accurately pronounce all those big words on the teleprompters could have ever said that he was a great orator with a straight face.
Barry was not actually a clean politician out of Chicago --boy that one was a massive whopper.
Barry was not actually any kind of uniter. etc etc.

Perhaps sudafed shortage is a college town thing?

I used to buy my generic sudafed at Target and pick up a few groceries for office lunches at the same time. Well starting this summer they are always out of both their store brand and the brand name sudafed. At first I thought this was a systemic shortage but the local town Walgreens has had it in stock the two times I've dropped in there. I'm going to have to give up on Target and get myself in the habit of swinging by that Walgreens 2-3 times a month instead or maybe also --the Walgreens has a teeny grocery selection with high prices. Target has decent prices on the heat and eat stuff I bought there, but not sure its worth it to me to go in just for that, especially with the restricted fridge space in the new office I may need to just get in the habit of taking a few things from home once or twice a week and then I could just really stock up once a month at Walmart or something. Blech, I hate having to change a routine that had been working well for me. Oh well, unlike the AGW folks I do understand that change happens continuously and we cannot stop it.

But it does have me curious, is popping sudafed(tm) the latest kick for aimless young punks? Or maybe Target has decided not to carry it anymore for some corporate reason. There is no Target in my local town, and its not very handy to stop at other places in the PRofB so I couldn't say if its a store thing or town thing. Perhaps I'll ask online if anyone has noticed a similar deal, I am not curious enough to spend a lot of time finding different Target stores in other towns or running around the smug yuppie college town that delights in restricting access to and egress from most shopping parking lots.

Ah thank goodness for white noise on the internet

And offices that are decent for sound although not perfect. Some people need a volume meter that will flash at them or something when they are on the phone. Or just an automatic door shutting dealio in today's case, but I was surprised that just shutting my door did not take care of things, it usually has made a huge difference and I have not needed anything more. This building is BAD for transmitting sound down the hallways but at least the office walls are decent for sound blocking.

I need to focus better. I'll finish reading the paper I agreed to review this weekend and write up that review. It is SO nice to have a paper that is easy to read for a change. I need to study the equations, I'm weak on equations and whether they are actually correct when I review papers. But anyway I need to wrap that up and start october with some good focus and making progress on something beyond just routine data processing. I've been coasting way too much and need to actually do some thought intensive work.

WooHoo, even better, the bits of high pitched phone conversation in German or something which was driving me batty has ended. I'm going to have to find a white noise source that has waterfall, gurgling stream in it, this one was too much like a machine fan and it was a relief to turn it off.

I am looking forward to the weekend, just want to disk up some goats heads, and do a bit of riding. Maybe I'll see if dad can set me up to practice with a rifle so if I do buy a bull elk tag it won't be out of the question that I could take a shot if I see one up close. Big problem is I am so bad at spotting game it wouldn't pay for me to start early by myself and dad is so bad at getting up and out there early in the day when the elk are more likely to be seen. Oh well, I need to frame it as just vacation. I managed to have fun on the trail riding trip because I went in with realistic expectations, need to do the same with this instead of being frustrated that dad does not care if he fills his tag. I would really LIKE to have some yummy game to eat in exchange for "burning" the vacation time, fuel etc as for me hunting is not fun in the way that actively riding all day, especially in an endurance event with other folks and trotting and cantering the easy spots is.

I put down a deposit for a saddle today

Doing my part to stimulate the economy. No, its more like "buy something that will last before we get Zimbabwe style inflation" I am no economist, I actually expected inflation would have hit a year earlier and be bigger than what we've gotten so far. Lucky for me as I just have not gotten my act together to do anything with my land in WY. I get dismayed that I was so naive and bought a lot that didn't have a decent building and driveway, vehicle parking and turn around or loop around spot.

Mom is out of the hospital. Still coughing some but it doesn't sound nearly as nasty as it did last week so they made some progress. I just hope she can recover all the way. I'm not particularly hopeful of that actually, but hopefully she at least gets back to her normal for the last few years.

I think the saddle will be a good investment. I am impressed with the level of detail they want for both rider measurements and I had to make a cast of Sadie's back. I'll have to check in with them and see if they want to send the cast back and have me redo it since we didn't take pictures of the cast on the horse's back. I have decided not to get my trainers special model she developed. She came up with a cavalry/endurance saddle hybrid with split seat in front and then a 1/2 seat that is the more typical padded saddle seat. I maybe just needed a bigger size but my butt was hitting the edges of the seat, she had an older model endurance saddle that I also tried and it was pretty comfortable me with perhaps a bit too narrow (or high) of a twist that I got used to pretty quickly and didn't notice after riding in it for 10 minutes. I found out from the saddle maker that they can put the 3 point rigging on the older saddle model. As long as one of the trees they typically build that saddle on fits Sadie's back I think its a safer option to make sure I love the saddle as well. When I was in my 20's I might have figured I would adjust to or live with a saddle that felt uncomfortable to me if the horse liked it. Now I figure it should be possible for us both to be pretty happy.

mom is in hospital with pneumonia

She had dad take her to the ER at Presbyterian in Denver yesterday afternoon after a bit of theatrics. I don't know why she felt the need to demonstrate for us that she was really sick. That was counter-productive since she moans and groans almost all the time and we tend to think she's just aiming for sympathy if she amps it up. OTOH when she announced she needed to go in to an ER in a rational manner (I assume it was rational, I was outside at the time) dad drove her in. X-ray showed pneumonia in one lung and her blood O2 was low and then one Doc told dad she was also anemic. They admitted her and are most likely doing the IV antibiotics and all. I am waiting to see if she announces to Ed and Margret or any visitors that we almost killed her off with the trail riding trip. If she does I think I will try to put on my best sardonic tone and go "yeah we were hoping to get some inheritance but you're too too tough of an old bird and will live till you've spent every last cent and then some from uncle Sam and probably from me too" lolz, its not terribly funny but if I take it too serious it just depresses me. Seeing mom parallel gram's whiny, bitch and moan behavior makes me worry that I'm prone to become the same way when I get old. Except since I'm an old maid there will be no one to whine to and if I need assistance I'll have to try to be the kind of person people enjoy helping. (polite, appreciative, keeps a sense of humor and joy of life ) I hate when I can't do something but I have learned that it is ok to ask for help and let someone be the chivalrous knight once in a while. That does also work within the family rather than just relying on blood obligations but I'm too cowardly to try to tell mom that.

OH Good Grief.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/20/pielke-sr-on-that-hide-and-seek-ocean-heat/#more-47793

I suppose I should be happy that mother nature is revealing that the AGW scare was based on a few scientists having over confidence in their MODELS and being concerned about genuinely devastating consequences that the models predicted COULD happen and then the nature of government science funding and hucksters migrating to money led to the whole situation.

But since I got sucked into worrying about politics and from there into the deep *liberal* bias in most of the media I have a hard time getting energized by the destruction of AGW theory which is not happening nearly fast enough. I'm more like "who cares about AGW even it were true?" the commies have instilled Barry in the whitehouse * and while this may (please god) backfire on them because it woke up a whole lot of formerly politically and to a large extent culturally apathetic folks like myself*, there has been enormous damage done to the country and it is not at all clear that we will undo Obamacare and the various other hobbles Barry and the marxist congress have put on America and fully recover.

Plus radical islamic cultists seem to be very close to acquiring nuclear weapons. That definitely scares me. Perhaps it will take them getting and using a few WMDs to wake the world up to what a destructive cult Islam is, right on a par with marxism; I suppose I should say socialism/communism since the concept of greedy lazy bastards wanting the state to seize wealth from those who produced, found or inherited it to "distribute it fairly" predates mr. Marx by many centuries.

I should force myself to study Islam sometime. I think that old devil socialism is a huge part of Islamic beliefs, plus their general fear of technological progress and some really odd views about "morality" What *I think* I know in that respect is that Islam is shame based, rather than guilt based. Thus its not that breaking of a taboo, law or religious rule will bring guilt so they strive to live better to feel better like the judeo-christian model, its that getting CAUGHT breaking a taboo/rule will bring shame --so anyone who feels they have power to avoid being detected or outed is free to break any rule they don't like. They hang homosexuals, but pedophilia on boys at least among the 'power set' is pretty common.

LOL, from AGW to communists to islamists in just a few, no doubt quite disjointed, paragraphs. Probably have vented my philosophizing side for at least a few weeks anyway.

Wormed horses Sep 17, 2011

Since I don't keep proper health records for them I'll at least note it here I did not worm the mini's I think they are fine until a hard frost, THEY are keeping weight perfectly fine, as were most of the big horses but shared paddocks means they all get wormed if I think one might need it.

Also had Shade's teeth floated today. Hopefully now she will bounce back to plenty of weight fairly quickly. I know overweight is not good for horses, butI I don't think I've ever had ours obese; not at this place anyway. They don't have any lush pastures to get fat on and I don't feed a whole lot of grain or lots of rich alfalfa.

I do not like seeing ribs on my horse unless she is bending so Shade was too skinny for my tastes. She usually has kept her weight pretty good so I hope the sharp edges on her teeth were the main cause, I'll be bumming if she doesn't bounce back with just light work now and giving her a little extra food. Dr Mike didn't think the teeth were real bad, but he doesn't have power dentistry tools so he doesn't float any more than necessary as it is hard on his body. No one else got floated today, just rabies jabs and RazzMo got his left hind leg checked out. He may have some tearing fairly high, right below the hock. That was the concern area for Dr Mike but hopefully Razz will heal up fine JIC mom actually gets back to riding regularly. I honestly don't think she would get into any serious riding anyway though. She prefers watching football and now I think basketball as well to riding even without any physical issues or at least any beyond what she has had for years. With luck I'll never find out what my discomfort threshold is where I'd rather do something else for more than a few weeks before I get the itch to be back in the saddle.


Hopefully we'll be lucky and not have any sore necked horses. 2% get sore from the shot in Dr Mikes experience, 9 horses done. I don't recall any soreness last time I did rabies 2 or 3 years ago so hopefully it will be ok.

Being In Total Control Herself

Last week I mentioned at the team meeting that the raid on the research CPU was full and I wouldn't be able to keep putting data there for researchers unless it was expanded or some subset of data was removed or something. I hear -- crickets

Monday I sent an email with disk usage counts and "what should I remove" as subject heading. Still only hear crickets.

So today I sent an email to some researchers and our operations group stating that data type BlaBlah is going to be nuked on monday at 5pm except for several days that I know are special research periods and any other data periods I am requested to preserve, plus that last ~ 18 months of data. As time goes on I'll have to reduce the # of months for keeping this data type sunless a bigger disk RAID is set up but whatever.

I didn't really feel like it was my place to say "this goes" but since the supposed manager/supervisors did not say "lets get a bigger raid so we can preserve everything"; nor let me know that the HUGE, intermediate step data type was the thing to remove I had to make the call myself. Its OK, I can be a b!tch as needed; but weak-assed leadership annoys me. It would have been nice to at least be told "well you'll have to find a solution yourself."

Apparently I had some delayed DIMR yesterday

I got home from work to see 3 horses munching down on the alfalfa hay outside of AJ's pen. Oops, didn't latch the gate to the little pasture Sadie, Lady and CJ were in when I brought hay in yesterday. I think they had been out long enough to be getting thirsty. They came right in when I opened their gate and went in with some hay.

Then this morning when I turned on the sprinkler in mom's garden here comes Mia. She had went into the houseyard last night ot investigate something and then I closed the garage doors and she was stuck all night. No wonder I didn't see her when I put her food and thyroid pill outside the front door.

DIMR is Distance Induced Mental Retardataion. I usually get it worse from driving long distances than riding and its only 2 hours from Turkey Creek to home and I had didn't ride any on sunday so there is really no excuse for me to have been so out of things yesterday. Before I found all those glitches I was feeling so on top of things for finally writing thank-yous to all the Ride Managers and the one private land owners for the rides I attended this summer.

FUN FUN ride saturday at Turkey Creek

I took Shade to Turkey Creek and rode a 50 on saturday. What a BLAST. She motored through it like she was just tickled to be able to power trot and canter after having to walk 90some miles through the ND badlands with lame Razz and the parents that cant handle bouncing anyway. We were done before 2pm with a 7am ride start. WooHoo. Only 1 hold of an hour which helped. Part of the course was winding along a brushy fenceline, periodically having to detour a bit away from the fence around patches of scrub oak, boulders, little gullys etc; some of this through gopher dug ground that had to be walked or just slow trotted through so that was a nice break from the two track and gravel roads that just invited a fast pace.

The only stress was riding with just one shoe left from my 6.5 weeks shoeing job. I was too lazy to pull the good shoe after removing the twisted back shoe before the ride and had thought perhaps there would be a farrier riding there and I could pay them to spend 3 minutes doing what takes me 20+ minutes. Well I ended up just using a hoof boot over that shoe for the first 25 mile. 1 mile before the end of that loop one of the riight front hoof boot came off and I just picked it up and carried it the rest of the loop. Well I didn't pay any attention when I put it back on to go back out and repeat the 25 mile course and it popped off after just about .5 mile --the gaiter was ripped. I tried putting it on again and it made it only a hundred yards.

So my laziness sort of saved the day -- I took the hoof boot that was over the one hind shoe off and put it on that right front foot and rode the 24 miles that way. Jim caught up with me while I did that. He had some trouble following the trail the first loop. We rode about 18 miles together and then Shade was wanting to munch a bit and walk when he took off from a water stop and I decided the pace had been pretty fast for her and I should ride the last alone so she wouldn't push herself too hard. I think that was the best thing to do. She walked a lot and acted a bit like she had hit a wall, then grabbed some grass as we walked through a meadow portion and after that she was ready to do a medium trot most of the way to the finish line.

So that was a really nice riding feel, like I had enjoyed at Shamrock where I was able to finish with time left and not feel exhausted. The Sturgis, and Laramie rides had drained me with ending up being all day affairs in warmer temps. *I* could have ridden another ride like this one, but I felt like Shade had done plenty after just 3 days rest between getting home from the trail riding trip and going to this ride. Besides I didn't want to push my luck with the hoof boots.

I dragged Grey along just to keep the chores a bit closer to what they had been during the trail riding trip. He was gang-pressed into giving L's cute little daughters pony(lead-line) rides sunday morning. He didn't seem to think that was too bad. Bugger didn't want to let me catch him on friday; Sadie was all eager and almost went with me but she wouldn't load (I have not ever loaded her into my gooseneck, only into the stock horse BP) so after a few times of Sadie of stepping in with her front feet and backing out I got her to take an extra step with the fronts but still not lifting the hinds in and *I* asked her to back out and called it "a good trailer loading practice session" and went back and took the 10 minutes to catch Grey. I think he was worried he was going to have to do a hunting trip excursion so it was probably good for him to just go and hang out and eat and do no more than give pony rides for a couple laps around the arena.

Sis and I brought em back alive --MaahDaahHey ride

Got dad through 4/5s of the MaahDaah Hey trail. We skipped one leg because the old ford where one could drive a vehicle across was washed out in their early summer flooding so it would have been major effort to shuffle a vehicle around the long way to have waiting after riding that leg and we also heard the horses could make it but the water was stirrup high (with not knowing what the banks were like and 2 short horses that seemed a bit iffy)

Mom rode one leg of the trail. Lady stepped in a soft spot crossing a creek and mom fell off when Lady was surging out of it I guess. She got checked out by a chiro tuesday and did have 2 dislocated ribs.

Lady thought she was a goner, later that same day with mom riding her. (mom expected the horse to watch out for the sink hole -- well DUH horses --especially ones that haven't ridden in that kind of country -- don't think about the fact that there could just be a thin crust on the edge of a hole.) Lady just stepped across one and it gave way under her hind legs. Mom got off and we got the saddle off but Lady had tried to get up and couldn't and she was just lying there, I was worried she had seriously injured a leg at that point, she seemed to have a hopeless look in her eye.

She got one leg out with us tugging on her tail but the other one was in all the way up to her stifle. Lucky she is a small horse and my dad is fairly big and stout. I got a lead rope around her leg, she did not even twitch the leg she had out of the hole while I did it, I couldn't have done it with a horse that was putting my head in danger by not holding still. With dad on the rope and sis and I pulling on the tail we got her lifted a bit and then sis manuevered Ladys leg out of the hole; we pulled Lady backwards so her hind feet would not be right at the hole if she scrambled to her feet and Lady managed to get herself upright and walk forward to a better spot on the trail.

Lady was then standing there looking like OMG I almost died! What have you gotten me into with these BADlands?! My relief humor was to give her a pat and say "sorry kiddo but hey still better than if you had ended up on a slaughter truck" We just led Lady the rest of that day. Mom was going to ride sis' horse Ramsey but the stirrups wouldn't go short enough so Shade ended up carrying her. I rode Doc, sis's spare horse, with stirrups that I could just reach on one side if I went tippy toe. I felt like a total dude, just having to use the saddle horn and let him pick his way in the fading light.

Much more adventerous riding than I remembered from six years ago, mostly due to damage from flooding and little mudslides but we got through it and I got the 3 colo. horses home on tuesday.

Mom was harping and harping that we should have listened to the camp host that the leg from CCC to Bennett was rough. Well it was; but the first half of the Bennett to Magpie leg was pretty rough too and we were riding the last bit in in the dark again. If we'd had mom slowing us down on that one we might have ended up waiting out for daylight there, might have made it to Bennett w/o mom. Who knows.

I do know it was easier riding without her along. I cannot stand riding with people who spew negative statements; either mom or endurance riders who whine that trail is boring, or its hard to follow the way it was markedk or they chose too many rocky technical sections and made the day take too long. If you don't like the ride don't do it again but whining on the trail doesn't help anything dammit. I never ever want to take mom on a trail again, she needs to stick to flat roads and arena work.

Thank god I don't have to shoe horses for a living

I'd be hard pressed to feed myself and certainly couldn't support 4 horses and do fun stuff. I removed Shades RF shoe this morning. Rasped and rasped and rasped before I had the clinches off to where I thought the shoe should pull w/o too much difficulty. Then it still took me multiple goes with the pullers. I think part of the problem is I'm not supporting Shades hoof/leg very good. I didn't even try to use my legs to hold it while I rasped.

I was drenched with sweat and had taken at least half an hour by the time the shoe was off but at least I did get it off cleanly with no nails left in the hoof and didn't seem to break out the holes any extra. Gave a few quick passes with the rasp to smooth off the edges of both front feet --the one where she had lost the shoe at HJ was pretty nice to start with. Hopefully the easyboot epics will work pretty well. There are some big name AERC riders who put thousands of miles on their horses using boots instead of shoes. Hopefully I can manage a hundred, maybe 120 miles of trail riding and then 1 50 mile competition ride with boots on the front feet, but I am also hoping I find another good farrier next year and can do things the easy (for me) way.

Green horse ride today

Sadie was a greenie today. Got to one spot and did not want to go forward. Sticky feet, a bit of trying to turn around but mostly sticky feet. But we got past the sticky ground spot w/o me losing my temper and she was back to being a fun ride.

WHEE

Sadie did a 180 spook or rider testing move today when I was riding her, I took her on around in a 360 and thought "I'll just have her do some extra so she doesn't think this is such a good idea" LOL, she was getting wound up and spinning faster and I lost a stirrup and we stopped. Maybe she'd like to try a little reining when she has mastered elementary school.

The good thing is Sadie is more likely to just go sideways when she is moving faster than a walk. I had to get a saddle with some swells for riding Shade because she does a bouncy stop that pitches me forward, especially if I was leaning a bit to start and then she does a 180 and I go right over the disappearing shoulder. The swells help with catching me before I'm pitched so far forward

Back from Happy Jack Ride

I had to scan in this ride pic from Karl creations. Shade loffs the wide open spaces with endurance riding but she still enjoys showing off for the camera.

Well next year I should have a good excuse for not riding two 50's on 2 day rides -- I'll hopefully be doing LD's on Sadie. She will be eligible for 50's (over 60 months) but if she doesn't get racy early I'll probably not do any 50's until the year she turns 6. Then if Shade is still able to go 50 miles I'll have to do more personal conditioning and be more mentally tough. I do find that if I'm thinking I definitely want to ride a 2nd day or all 3 days going in I am more mentally tough. This is the 2nd ride this year where I went in thinking "I'll ride again on sunday if saturday goes well" saturday turns out to be a long day of riding and I go "meh, I'm done".

On the pollyanna side Shade lost a shoe on saturday, that is a bad thing; but I didn't have to weigh "should I ride her a full 50 miles with one shoe and one hoofboot and hope that works out fine" since I was tired and didn't really want to ride again on sunday and then try to cram in getting ready for the trail riding trip along with working a full week.

Happy Jack Ride

Exit 323 off I-80. (I tend to want to think its different)

Vedauwoo campground/recreation area whatever. Follow the signs for Vedauwoo and should be OK.

LOL, the old FB directions were wrong. Its Blair Willis, but I followed the Happy Jack ride signs and found it easily. I turned the "wrong" way on Happy Jack rode coming home on sunday and didn't even realize for 10 miles or so. So I took it all the way to Cheyenne and it is A) closer which I kind of thought but B) also less curvy and hilly when I had figured the directions were specific from I-80 because it was an easier way with a trailer. Nope, just that the RM lives in Laramie, guess he figured folks could look at a map if they figured it might be shorter to come a different way.

Geez, good thing I was hoarding

Well I consider it stockpiling. But anyway usually only need the 12 hr original sudafed overnight (and generic works for me) and then I maybe take 1 of the unrestricted sudafed pe 4-6 hr tabs during the day, but I usually try to buy the maximum allowed 3 boxes of the 12 hour every month so that if I get hammered by allergies or a sinus infection like I had at the start of the year I wont run out if I can only get to a drugstore 2x in a month.

Well 4 or 5 times in the last 2 or 3 months Target has not had any when I've swung by their pharmacy counter. Getting sudafed at a great price with just short wait for pharmacy staff has been a big reason why I buy my groceries there although the tv dinner food I buy to heat and eat at work is usually pretty decent priced.

Now we are in a temporary office building for 8 months and I don't have the fridge space I had before so I can't buy a 1.5 weeks supply of frozen dinners and just put in the work fridge, and they rarely have 12 sudafed (brand name or store brand) available so I guess I'll start swinging by Walgreens instead. They did have their 12 hr sudafed store brand the one time I stopped last month. I guess I'll find out if that was a lucky day to stop or if they are managing to keep it in stock.

I looked on the net for sudafed shortage and Johnson and Johnson (I think) was shut down from making sudafed for a while because some inspection showed improper cleaning of some machine. Plus they had to recall a bunch for being mis-labeled. I would sort of think with the tightened availability so the meth heads can't steal it the generic outfits would have been able to fill in just fine but its been a rough summer for allergies locally and apparently in a fairly broad regional area --still I wonder if this is part of early Obamacare or the Obaconomy. Dang if they can't keep it in stock they could raise the price and make more, but with the amount of red tape to even hire new staff, let alone expand a plant I guess no producer figured it was worth it. SIGH, I hate government red tape.

grumpy today

ON the Pollyanna side I used to have this kind of mood monthly until I had the hysterectomy and now its maybe 2 or 3 times in a year and now usually (today no exception) I can see stresses that helped trigger the mood . My theory is the fibroids disrupted the hormones. Since they didn't take the ovaries that makes more sense then out of whack hormones caused the fibroids.

The new offices: The movers had everything placed as D had diagrammed with me. She is so incredibly organized and such a sweet person. I wish I had never learned that she worked for Soros (well for one of his foundations) for all I know it was one that he funded just for image improvement and not one of the groups dedicated to dragging the country to marxism (WTH does Soros gain by that happening anyway?) Perhaps he feels the U.S. should have entered WWII stopped the NAZIs earlier. Who knows but he sure works to push marxism on us and one would think someone who was able to make that kind of money would understand how marxism destroys most wealth in a nation. Maybe he wants to ensure he is in a tiny group of super rich. Would be sweet schadenfreude if the Jihadis got him since the commies think they'll win by enabling Jihadis in hopes of weakening the west (capitalist, democratic republics) LOL what a tangent.

I don't make NYs resolutions but I really should resolve to attack the goatsheads before they are full of burrs next year if I keep renting from the folks. The pickup and tractor tires were full of burrs so lots of new seeds were planted in the yard in spite of my good efforts at letting very few of the ones that sprouted in the yard live long enough to set burrs and I got almost all of those bagged up before the burrs were ripe enough to fall off. I have to live with churning up a bit of extra sand and disk the young goatsheads that I will not have time to hand pull next year on a regular schedule.

OHTO instead of thinking of what I should do land management wise on the parents property I really should look into changing my living arrangements. Its been so easy to just coast along but mom is driving me nuts and I should use that as good thing -- one that frees me from feeling obligated to live with them. If I analyzed things very carefully its probably not all that much yearly $$ that they net after the extra hay for my horses and extra tank heaters running in the winter etc. well not sure, cuz I try not to run the heaters all the time or otherwise waste energy and if it was just mom and dad they would probably just plug in heaters for however many stock tanks they were using and leave it to the heater thermostats to turn them off when they have the water however warm. But still mom probably doesn't think she is getting that great of a deal although she'd never get someone else in as a renter. I sure wouldn't pay to put up with the various crap if I didn't think I'm helping the family finances doing it.

Plus why should I fund mom's hypochondria anyway. I could make an argument that I'm just being an enabler. I need to decide whether to pursue a rental room/share that allows commuting to my job or trying to find a spouse and being willing to quit the job and just do whatever I can find where they live. Or do A with no long term lease and pursue B as well. AACK I'm skeering myself just typing about it. LOL