12,5 miles, been a good 4-day weekend so far

12.5 miles is over 3 days so still not enough for endurance conditioning.  But I am having fun with Sadie.   Yesterday I had her step into the irrigation ditch and walk a bit in the few inches of water in the bottom.  I'm being pretty wimpy and only asking her to go down the one spot that is still quite easy for horse access after they came with an excavator and made it pretty vertical most of the spots where folks had been crossing.   I see tracks where other people are going across a couple of new  places since they filled in the easy spots  but the new spots are fairly steep and while the tracks prove horses can do it I'm trying to keep water stuff easy with Sadie to boost her confidence with it. 

I cooked a turkey and stuffing and mashed taters and roasted squash for T-day and had dad invite his friend Jim over since Jim is farm sitting for his boss and didn't travel to a family meal this year.   Yesterday I cut up the dark meat and cooked up some rice,  sauteed some celery and onion and made casserole with cream of mushroom soup and some canned beans and peas.   I should have left the peas out but it wasn't too bad.  Dad said it was pretty good and actually heated some of it for lunch; he doesn't reheat stuff that often, especially right away the next meal so I guess his taste buds are good with canned peas.    Tonight I'm going to fry up some deer steaks,  I've had turkey and sides leftovers the last two days for lunch and we don't have a whole lot of turkey left so I think we'll get it cleaned up.  

I'll probably just toss the carcass instead of making soup like mom used to do.   I'm trying to get/keep somewhat in practice for stretching a food budget but even with the "I'd rather spend money on other stuff"  I don't have to eek more food out of this turkey and I'd have to buy or have dad buy carrots and taters to put in the soup.  I can't imagine making turkey soup w/o carrots.  

Oh really

Well I guess I'm not a genius and the problem was fixed friday.  Yeah I give that about 5% probability of being true.    If it was just a coinky-dink that I fixed the reference orbits and self-described super genius fixed another problem his love of pedantry would have made him spell out his fix instead of just saying in the meeting today "oh I fixed it Friday"   Yeah sure you did.   For petes sake,  as my boss you could just take credit for directing me to fix it instead of pretending.  

Heh, I'm a genius

Sadly not, or I'd know how to persuade people to wake up and be sensible before the damm o-bots implode the country and cause hyper inflation or something like that with their stupid "help for the poor" (by which the top ones really mean help to keep the poor, poor so the Dems have more power) schemes or explode the world with WWIII by arming the craziest regimes in the ME with nuclear weapons. 

But my boss/supervisor whatever for a good part of my work that fancies himself a genius programmer was beating his head on a bit of code all last week and 1/2 the week before that and running debugger because part of the code was blowing up last week (but not in a broken software mode like a segfault,  just announcing it could not solve some matrix equations and was getting some singular values)  and he could not figure out why it was failing.  

 Being plenty vain I of course had to poke at it on Friday night after everyone had left to see if mr smug was missing something obvious.   And I spent half a workday staring at parameter declarations that turned out to be a red herring but I did also at least do the obvious thing and run the problem orbit day with the old version vs the new version of the big software package we are fitting into our packages for unique application and look closely at all the output files generated by the software package coming out of old version vs new version.

 Thus I did notice "oops the reference orbits with the new version have just one arc for the two day period and in the old version that works they are split into two arcs."  (I was responsible for getting the reference orbit part going two months ago and I had messed up and left a hard set value in a template file where I needed to edit the template to use a variable we would pass in)  --this was not biting us with the first set of stuff we were doing so it was not spotted and fixed by me right away.  

So I sent an email this morning that I'd fix the bug with the reference orbits today when I got in (I work 1-9 + making up lunch break) vs everyone else with 9-5 hours and I did so before our 1:30 quick meeting.   I did not see any 'oh good, that was it' emails by 5; but I ran the new program myself tonight and the not breaking the reference orbits into two arcs was the problem,  the program runs now,  input parameters may need to be tuned to give really good results but it runs.  

NOW the super genius boss can fix the software that he wrote and only he understands that translates some model data we use from one binary format into another format that our other code needs.   The model data changed a  few months ago and his translator code was generating files that looked OK in size and were readable --but actual values are not right now the research folks started really looking at some results.    

politcal/philosophical ramblings

The media in the 30s neglected to inform the public that FDR was mostly confined to a wheelchair because they thought the public might feel he wasn't strong enough for the office.  


 The media in the 60s neglected to inform the public that JFK had Addisons + a back injury from the war because they felt the public might not think a president who needed to juggle drugs to control his condition was the best choice to face off against the USSR.  

The media now neglects to inform the public that BHO is an (ex?) pothead and cocaine user as well as being a communist radical with strong sympathies for Islam.  

I don't know why modern voters do not understand that when the media covers for the party in power instead of being antagonistic it leads to corruption.   Power corrupts and power, unchecked by the glare of media attention corrupts faster and more completely.

 The media itself is corrupted, as well as encouraging political corruption by covering rather than shining the spotlight on Democrat's malfeasance.   The public must find a way to reduce the media's power to reduce their corruption.  If only I knew how to make this happen.  

Glad I took that short ride this morning before work - and, happy dance, I got Sadie to step into the irrigation ditch with a bit of water in the bottom with me mounted.

 We are getting a taste of winter overnight and tomorrow if the forecast is not way off.  I hope we get a good fly kill off and thank goodness we are too dry to get November tornadoes.   wattsupwithtthat had a post showing a secondary peak of activity in the fall so I guess its not so terribly strange that they struck in November as it seemed to me when I heard about all that destruction.  

 Still very tragic and I tend to want to ignore the tragedy just because it also feeds the stupid AGW crowd --right when they are desperate for any distraction from the disaster of Obamacare  --which its going to be racist to call it that now, since the website part is such an utter debacle and  I heard it is/was mandatory to go through the website first and give OFA all kinds of personal information to get a subsidy if you would qualify for one.    Lord knows how many people have been set up for identity theft even though only 27K or so made it through to the point of 'putting a plan in their carts. 

4.7 slow miles today

L was out and we went a bit farther.   She's finally learning to wear enough clothes.  Well,  it remains to be seen if she can figure out to wear long johns or something when it gets really cold but at least she is wearing jackets and putting something on her head and not complaining that its cold when its only a little bit chilly.  

My feeling that the world will go into a great depression soon is ramping back up.   The last one launched the government sugar daddy era but I think this one will find governments with bare treasuries and unable to maintain the illusion with debt and it will get very ugly indeed,  especially if we still have our divider in chief in power.     May the commies get the worst  of it,  they've engineered things with taking over the media and feeding people the lie that 'those rich people owe you.'      Rich is always people who have more than you of course so scads of white liberals think the really rich people should pay more to make life easier for the poor folks but they never think they are rich enough they should be paying for this fairness.  

9.3 miles on Sadie

Not a bad ride even for fairly flat at home.    As a total for 3 rides its pretty piddly but at least I got some vitamin H and am keeping Sadie broke.   Today I had to get my feet wet to convince her she could step down into the irrigation ditch with a few inches of water in the bottom.   That was not bad but then when I led her out and mounted up she still wouldn't go in so I had to get off again,  I got in in the ditch and asked her to take a few steps in the water before going out and called it  good.   I'll probably have to lead her in again next time. 

 Oh well, at least she will lead for me in these situations but I have got to be smarter,  I let her refuse to cross or step into water a couple times and set her up to be all stubborn and I know better than to do that, especially with a smart/smart ass bayrab. 

Curmudgeon lately, maybe I NEED to bump up my riding miles

On one of my horse boards the moderators DH has/had cancer in his esophagus.    I guess chemo for that is always rough and he was not exempted.   They just got PET results + blood work showing cancer free but the oncologist recommended finishing the chemo so the poor guy is not done with that torture until February.  

Of course the wife is ecstatic about the no cancer results and the rest of the board is cheering with her.  Only I put in something about 'prayers for DH as he endures the rest of the chemo.'   I am extrapolating from the glimpses board posts show of a situation; but she clings on to pets and horses that are enduring nasty medical conditions until a vet or friend twists her arm that its time to let go and euthanize. 

But I should not judge with her DH, I've never met him, even in cyberspace.  He may be thanking god daily that she pushed him through when he might have just said 'bag this, I just want palliative care.'   He may share her "don't let go of life, any life, until letting go is absolutely the only option left" and would have chosen the chemo torture regardless, but really appreciates having a spouse that is also of that mindset pulling and pushing him through it. 

And the cold front is not here yet this morning so I should probably get in at least another short ride in case the weekend that was supposed to be sunny and fairly warm for Nov. after two days of cold with light snow showers today and friday ends up getting hit with winter weather.   

Rode Sadie today and yesterday

And Sunday with Lynn.    I've been going slow this week so only 3.5, 3 and 3 miles each ride.  Good thing I don't mind saddling up for a short ride or I'd go crazy from lack of vitamin H.   I do hope I get back into a groove of riding enough to be able to finish some endurance rides next year.  I like that I can still enjoy my horse even when I'm only dinking around with my mental health rides but I do miss that feeling of accomplishment from finishing an endurance or even LD ride. 

trying to follow folk wisdom.

I expect I will manage.  I'm pretty good at "if you can't say something nice don't say anything"  but soo tempted to snark on the FB post about the daughters white mice having babies that look like wild mice something about "so what does one do with mice babies to ensure you don't have a population explosion, feed them to your snakes?"   

I'm a stick in the mud about pets anyway,  I don't really understand wanting to have anything other than a dog or cat as a pet.   Birds -- maybe chickens that live in their own hen house for eggs as a cross between pet/livestock but I do not 'get' having a pet bird, I just think they are messy.  Or if you live in an apartment so you do fish instead of a pet, or you get the kids gerbils or hamsters instead of a cat or dog, either because family too busy for a more social pet or as a first pet.   But I don't get adults having fish and regular pets or especially having a pet rodent + a 'real' pet.  

Or if you are a bird person &/or a rodent person how can you be a snake person too?  Doesn't it feel strange having pets that would eat your other pets?  Its not like dogs and cats where the dog learns that you consider the cat part of your household so they have to be nice,  the snakes WILL eat the birds or rodents if they come in contact with each other and you have to feed them rodents or chickens, maybe you can cheat and get supermarket chicken and just heat it to body temp but still it seems like that would feel odd to me.  

I like to visit zoos and I enjoy my pets but I have ZERO desire to ever have a small zoo at home.   Oh well,  I should just count my blessings with that.   Life is complicated enough with having horses, dogs and a cat.  I bet arranging pet sitting when you have birds, reptiles and rodents really requires being an extrovert personality with a huge pool of friends to either have another zoo keeper friend or have to get different ones to check on one or the other species that *I* think many folks  be like myself;  *shudder* quickly feed and check water and move on.  

Yes it was time to swap out the tires

That chore is done for several months.  And since I absolutely need to at replace at least the two very bald tires if not all 4 this spring when I take the snow tires off, the next swap out will be done by the tire store.   Since dad has collected so many cool tools -- I just love the hydraulic floor jack and air wrench and I have an extra set of rims so its only like doing a tire rotation so its not too bad to swap them out myself.   Well almost by myself,  I went out to the garage and could not find the air wrench nor the floor jack so I had to drag dad away from his football watching/napping to find the wrench and ask him where the jack was.   (it was in the back of his p/u so I never would have found it myself)  

Reminding myself how hard it is to write politcal essays.

But I would like to flesh this one out a bit and maybe see if I can get it into the universe by having a good writer redo it.

Thanks to the media circle around Democrats and their war on conservatives talking about candidates with a liberal is like listening to jokes from an 8 year old or younger.

ie. Palin,  she explains that due to Geography the AK governor has had some experience dealing with international issues and then Tina Fey impersonating her "I can see Russia from my house"   Coupled with interviews where they edited to make her seem naive and the liberal army soon starts repeating this and its like an adult trying to get through a kids joke telling session trying to make the point "it was Tina Fey the actress who said that"

Romney or his wife tries to humanize himself with the family vacation dog dire rear story.   The media puts out "he put his dog on the car roof" rather than relating the story in full with the "hey we aren't just Richie Rich folks, we did family car trip vacations and stuff and when minor disaster struck dad kept his cool, hosed off the car and the dog and we went on and had a fun family vacation."   or even more blatant and I could not believe this one was the "binders full of woman"  when Romney points out that he voluntarily took real actions to get more women into his Massachusetts administration.  That was just stupid, and I just could not relate to the twisted up 8 year old humor level, but the liberal that rides Lady was thinking of dressing up as a binder for Halloween in 2012!  

I think we conservatives have amplified that problem because we don't immediately go "That is stupid not funny," as if these O-bots are 8 year olds and we can't hurt their feelings;  and then most of our few  (supposed) allies in the media don't call them out the "that is stupid not funny" because they don't want all the cool 8 year olds in the rest of the media laughing at them for not getting the 'joke' or calling them racist for pointing out blatant stupidity.  

  Well going along with this crap and expecting voters to be smart enough to see through the shams  isn't working out so well and we need to stop letting this 8 year old level shlock generate steam and become  people's rationale for not voting for their interests because they want to vote for the cool dude not the naive governor with the nordic accent or the stodgy, 'maybe even scroogish' business executive and so on.   

Happy Birthday whiner

Ok, he isn't actually whining but he seems to be silently pouting that no one is remembering its his b-day.    Stupid absent-minded me.   I had given him the last of the Hank the Cowdog books I had bought in a big batch this summer because he was talking about buying them on Kindle.   I've given him so many that I ought to try to fill in the series in real books, that would make a more valuable lot on ebay if we decide to clear out the old books some time in the future.  

I am pouting because I overslept and would have had to push to get a ride in,  but I looked at the ground elk that I took out to thaw too late to cook Saturday sitting in the fridge and decided I really needed to cook it up in some form so I made spaghetti sauce this morning instead of doing something fun.  Sunday I cooked up deer steaks that I had also taken out to thaw and I by choice am at work until 9 pm and not around to be doing any home cooking.  I need to either find myself an SO or find him one because I am really starting to resent current living arrangements and I need to make myself happier before I fly off the handle at him.  He's been this way for 74 years,  I don't seem him suddenly becoming super empathetic and realizing how annoying some of his habits are. 

   Just because lots of men take up cooking as a way to fill their time when they retire I should not be so annoyed that he works so hard to remain at the level of heating soup instead of reading a damn cookbook or watching the food channel and cooking so I could have some good leftovers at work instead of frozen tv dinners made edible by shaking on some spices;  instead of acting like 'poor me,  only get a good home cooked meal once or twice a week'  when he has all the free time from being retired.   Since he is dragging with a cold, geez he seems to stay sick forever with every little virus in his old age I don't really want him doing much cooking of anything I'll eat right now anyway. 

Happy to have been wrong

Not about VA but the income tax measure in CO failed resoundingly.   As well it should have but I was worried when I read my ballot because that did not spell out the tax rate hikes.   Thank goodness for the blue books I guess.   I didn't read mine but dad read his and I guess plenty of savvy citizens did as well.  

 Lots of pundits addressing why the VA race went so badly for Cuccinelli,  and I wont depress myself reading them but I think he made the same mistake as Ken Buck did here in 2010.  He supported personhood, life begins at conception.   The Dems use that as a bludgeon "this would mean no fertility treatments, no birth control pills, forget morning after pills ........."    Pro-life candidates need to say "on a personal level I believe life begins at conception" but I only want enough law to prevent horrors like Kermit Gosnell because I don't believe in using state coercion to push moral issues -- or something like that.   There is also the fact that lots and lots of DC government drones live in VA and they believe that Dems can 'keep the spice flowing' 

Why does my gut hurt today?

It's not like in 2012 when I was holding onto hope that the Dem pollsters were oversampling and maybe they wouldn't be able to cheat up to their polling #s.   I guess I was sucked in by the 404care fallout stories, that maybe people would wake up based on this.    I KNOW better than to let myself get my hopes falsely raised and still I thought maybe VA would be sensible.

 I haven't seen any polling #'s yet but I expect that the amendment 66 (stealth income tax hike, sold as 'for the schools, and only $133 for average family') will pass in this running to blue stupid state.     Its going to be  well over $200 for me and I wouldn't mind that hit if it was only that increase in my bill but they put in a progressive hike for the first time.   Income over 75K will be hit with 5.9% vs the rise from 4.6 to 5.0% for everybody.    That is going to hurt the small business owners.   I almost think I should do some real prepping pretty soon.

People can ignore math, but it will not ignore them indefinitely.   Really I knew the country was doomed when they rejected "binders full of women" Romney and Ryan who would have juggled the books, delayed the O-care and EPA crap etc but still have kept trying to be compassionate with the treasury and would not have done any hard core reforms.   But hey, I'm in mid-life and no kids so putting off the crisis for a few decades and hoping for people to smarten up would have been  personally good for me.   Now I just don't know whether the decline will be somewhat slow, or if the country/globe will unravel within the decade. 

Having fun riding my Bayrab

She was grumpy Thursday for the farrier and Friday starting out with L and Lady but she can just learn to soldier through.   Today she didn't seem so grumpy.   I was planning on trying to get a longer ride in but Ole blew that plan.   It was fairly warm and I figured he'd probably not go much farther after we got to the irrigation ditch.  But he must have picked up a sticker or the toenail claw that got torn out on the hunting trip was sore because he was limping and not keeping up at all so I just used the area where they scraped all the sagebrush off and made a nice smooth spot and did arena type work both directions from the corner.   It was still fun and was good for Sadie but I'm going to have to figure out how to get more miles on and not be hobbled by the dog if I want to do endurance rides next year on the little bayrab.