Progress in Paradise...

Progress in Paradise...  Debbie is much more cheerful the past week or so, as she now is able to get about a bit on her walker.  She can also do some (relatively) easy physical therapy that's getting her range of motion back, and building her strength.  Several times now when we've had visitors, she's been up and out of the bedroom to see them.  She took a real shower, too, now that she can maneuver into it.  All good.  Progress!

My shoulders, they burn!  The physical therapy exercises they gave me are deceptively easy.  The first few repetitions seem like nothing at all.  But by the time I'm halfway through them, they're starting to squawk.  By the time I've finished the prescribed 20 repetitions, the burn has set in.  I suppose that's probably good for me, but it sure doesn't feel like it right now.

The past couple of days I've been working on a long-delayed project: building the bed for the ATV trailer chassis I bought. At right you see the bed in progress.  In the right-hand photo it's nearly done – I just need a few corner brackets on the “rim”, a bit of wood putty, and paint.  That rim will also get steel “pockets” to hold the stake sides.  The bed is 8' long by 3'10" wide; lots of room for a big load of brush or weeds.  The stake sides will be 30" high, so I'll be able to pile it pretty high!  Right now that bed weighs about 160 lbs, mainly because the lumber (2 x 8s and 2 x 6s) is still pretty wet.  It's amazingly hard to buy dry lumber any more.

This afternoon, Tyler from Golden Spike Electric came by to look at what it would take to put backup generators in for our house and the shed.  The house turns out to be a bit trickier than I would have thought, mainly because it's got a screwy service with two main breakers (one for 200 amps, the other for 100 amps).  I also got some wisdom from him about which models to go with, and on sizing.  Looks like we're going to go with a 45 kw unit for the house, and 22 kw for the shed.  That will let us run everything, no restrictions, during a power outage – and we won't have to have a split system on our breaker panels.  For things like this, simple, ample size, and straightforward are my preference.  I just want the backup to work, without any futzing about...

Why are there flags flying all over the place today?

Why are there flags flying all over the place today?  Because it's Pioneer Day, celebrated every July 24th in Utah.  That's the day in 1847 that Brigham Young and the original Mormon pioneers staggered into the Salt Lake valley to establish the first permanent settlements in what is today Utah. 

I didn't know this myself until just a few minutes ago :)  When we got back from our walk this morning, I noticed that the local Boy Scouts had planted a flag in front of our house.  This is a fund-raising activity they do – for $35 a year, they put up a 3' x 5' flag on a wooden pole, on 12 holidays a year.  Darned near everybody in town does this, so they're raising a few thousand dollars a year this way!  This morning, though, I had no idea why the flag was there.  One Google query and I had it...

Why we all hate Dolores Umbridge...

Why we all hate Dolores Umbridge...  Well, all of us who have read (or watched) the Harry Potter books.  It's certainly true for me: I would cheerfully throttle Dolores, and if there was a policeman watching, he'd probably help.  Why do we all hate her so?  Here's the explanation...

Morning in Paradise...

Morning in Paradise...  We (Miki, Race, and I) took our morning walk a little earlier than usual – so early that we actually got back before sunrise!  The time between about an hour before dawn and about an hour after dawn is full of changes, especially in which wildlife is out and about.  This morning we saw a deer about a quarter mile away, munching its way happily through the alfalfa.  We also saw a dozen or so quail, far more than we usually do.  About halfway through our walk (a half hour or so before dawn) we started seeing flycatchers and barn swallows, looking for the bug breakfast.  Early in the walk, a big fat vole came running down a rut in the road, straight toward Miki.  He completely lost his mind trying to get to it.  Race, two feet away, didn't see the vole and just stared at Miki, trying to figure out why Miki was going crazy.  Race never did see the vole :)

In the photo where the dogs are sitting on a bale of hay, that's the middle size of the three common sizes around here, and it's probably the most common size.  The dogs give you some idea of the scale, but keep in mind that the side visible in the photo is the small side – the long side is about twice that length.  The two of them easily jumped up to the top – they're good agility dogs.  When I posed them in front of the barley (second photo), they were both very puzzled about why we'd stop here, where there was nothing interesting to investigate.  Miki is looking towards the left because we had just flushed a pair of quail, maybe 10 feet away in that direction.  He badly wanted to go there!

Yesterday afternoon I went in for physical therapy on my shoulder.  Both the doctor and the therapist diagnosed my occasional right shoulder pain as caused by a weak supraspinatous muscle (who the hell comes up with these names, anyway?).  The therapist told me that this was very common with people who have spent years in a sedentary occupation and then become more active.  It only bothers me occasionally now, but they assure me it will get worse if I don't do anything about it.  The good news is that the treatment consists of the world's easiest set of exercises.  I've started them, and I'll be checking back in with them in a week. 

My neighbor Tim D. called me this morning, asking for some help.  His field was baled yesterday, with those medium-sized, 1,000 pound bales.  They're going to be sitting there drying for a few days, and he wants to start irrigating the east side of his field.  So he asked me to pick up some of the bales on the east side of his field, and drop them on the west side.  That will give him a bale-free area to start irrigating.  This is the same fellow who helped me, without my ever asking, about 1,500 times in the past year – so to have a chance to help him out pleases me greatly.  I'll be out there as soon as I finish my physical therapy...

I've posted this before, I know...

I've posted this before, I know ... but I just love it!  I noticed something this time when I watched it: the paper doesn't advance as it should.  It should roll up one line each time he throws the return, but instead it just sits in one place.  That wouldn't work very well in real life!

News from Turkey...

News from Turkey...  It sounds great that Turkey is going to allow the U.S. to use two air bases for attacks against ISIS, as well as join the effort itself.  But Claire Berlinski – who lived in Istanbul, Turkey for years – urges great caution on interpreting these news reports...

Legalize prostitution?

Legalize prostitution?  I think there are many parallels between the case for legalizing drugs, and for legalizing prostitution.  I support both.  This video presents the libertarian case...

Strange times we live in...

Strange times we live in...

Kate is not happy...

Kate is not happy ... with the Alberta Human Rights Commission.  Kate is the proprietress of the awesome blog Small Dead Animals.  How do I know she's unhappy with them?  I read her letter:

Dear Alberta Human Rights Commission,

I'm informed that your Commission (via your proxy) considers the word "crazy" an insult.

I though of sending a simple "fuck you", but I've had second thoughts. I take it back: unfuck you.

You swine. You vulgar little maggot. You worthless bag of filth. As they say in Texas, you couldn't pour water out of a boot with instructions printed on the heel. You are a canker, an open wound. I would rather kiss the Law Society of Alberta than be seen with you.

You're a putrescent mass, a walking vomit. You are a spineless little worm deserving nothing but the profoundest contempt. You are a jerk, a cad, and a weasel. You are a stench, a revulsion, a big suck on a sour lemon.

God created houseflies, cockroaches, maggots, mosquitos, fleas, ticks, slugs, leeches, and intestinal parasites, then he lowered his standards and made you. I take it back; God didn't make you. You are Satan's spawn. You are Evil beyond comprehension, half-living in the slough of despair. You are the entropy which will claim us all. You are a green-nostriled, crossed eyed, hairy-livered, goisher kopf, inbred trout-defiler. You make Ebola look good.

It is hard to believe how incredibly stupid you are. Stupid as a stone that the other stones make fun of. So stupid that you have traveled far beyond stupid as we know it and into a new dimension of stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid cubed. Trans-stupid stupid. Stupid collapsed to a singularity where even the stupons have collapsed into stuponium. Stupid so dense that no intelligence can escape. Singularity stupid. Blazing hot midday sun on Mercury stupid. You emit more stupid in one minute than our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid. It cannot be possible that anything in our universe can really be this stupid. This is a primordial fragment from the original big bang of stupid. A pure extract of stupid with absolute stupid purity. Stupid beyond the laws of nature.

I began this note with the intent of writing something original, but I changed my mind. Originality should not be sacrificed to such a worthless cause. You're unworthy of the effort to string words together in a novel arrangement. In fact, I'm not convinced you're worthy of this obvious plagiarism. Plagiarism is too good for you, certainly plagiarism of material of this quality is too good for you, so I've butchered it badly. Writing this in steaming cat piss on a hot summer sidewalk would be too good for you. Writing this in the writhing bodies of one million wingless flies glued to a barn door with cow shit is too good for you. (OK, that part was original. I'm not without generosity.)

In closing, I hope this finds you unwell.

Note to self: do your best not to piss off Kate!

Do you believe immigrants (legal or illegal) are more likely to be criminals than American citizens?

Do you believe immigrants (legal or illegal) are more likely to be criminals than American citizens?  My own experience, and every credible study I've ever read on the subject, points to the opposite being true.  Want a taste what I'm talking about?  Read this, and especially read the paper it links to.  The politically-incorrect truth is that black American citizens are the overwhelmingly predominant group perpetrating crimes – and the vast majority of the crimes they commit are against other black citizens...