Shit That Gets Thrown Out Without EVER Bein' Opened

There's a LOT of stuff that falls in that particular category... including about 20 square miles worth of pulp from various and sundry rain forests on the planet, consisting solely of solicitations to buy supplemental Medicare insurance...  but this leads the parade:

Fucking AARP... they just WON'T leave me alone!  I get at least one of these things a month and they've become Number One With a Bullet on the list of potential targets for my Midnite Firebombing career once I gear up for that lil endeavor.  Why?  Well, the never-ending mailings piss me off but it's mostly because of this:

Though legally non-partisan under IRS rules, AARP has a visible leftward tilt. In the 2008 and 2010 elections, campaign contributors who listed AARP as their employer gave 90 percent of their money to Democratic candidates, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Rand gave the maximum contribution to Obama. The company's top lobbyist, Nancy LeaMond, was a political appointee in the Clinton administration.

AARP is also allied with a staunch Democratic booster -- teachers unions. AARP began as the National Retired Teachers Association and has lobbied against school vouchers, which teachers unions strongly oppose.

These political leanings and AARP's lobbying record (including opposition to tax cuts) have spawned conservative rivals, such as 60 Plus and the American Seniors Association.

It's good to see alternative organizations to AARP emerge and I just might join one of 'em at some time in the future.  I'm in total denial of my advancing age at the moment and just can't see myself as a member of one of those organizations.  It's kinda-sorta a take-off on what Groucho said:  "I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members."  Yeah... what he said.

Full disclosure:  I joined AARP 16 years ago when I received the first of several hundred mailings that begin when you turn 50.  I let my membership lapse after the initial term, mostly at the urging of The Second Mrs. Pennington, who SERIOUSLY resented carrying that card at age 39 (spouses get a card, too).  I'd bet a significant amount o' money that she's a member today, though... her politics and those of the AARP fit hand in glove.  Yeah, that once and former Good Catholic Girl/staunch conservative turned into a moonbat once The Change hit, but let us not digress.

Same Ol', Same Ol'... Sorta

SN1 is in P-Ville for a three-day stay and he, Grandson Sean, and I spent the better part o' the morning tryin' to get up enough gumption to get started on a project I'd conned them into helping me with, specifically: puttin' the Móvil back into El Casa Móvil De Pennington, which has been in sumthin' like Hangar Queen status for about three years now.  Read that as: El Casa Móvil hasn't been started in three years time.  She should be known as "El 'Muerto en el Agua' Casa Móvil de Pennington," truth be told  (I changed 'Dead in the Water' to its Spanish equivalent, according to Google Translate).

Alas and alack.  Specifically alack of motivation (heh)... as said project has been placed on hold, yet again.  None of us was especially enthused about the labor required to Git Я Done... particularly given the roasty-toasty nature of our WX and the ever-present wind... so we shelved it.  No biggie.  I'm not goin' anywhere, anytime soon.  By design.

That said... SN1 brought up the subject of this year's Lompoc Flower Festival and the fact I was once married to a celebrity, or as near to a celebrity as I've gotten in my life.  I'm speaking of this:

From left, former Lompoc High School band members Mary Newcomb, Ramona Pennington, Glen Newcomb, Adeline Trujillo and Esther Childs hold a January 23, 1961 edition of the Lompoc Record heralding the band’s return from President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural parade in Washington, D.C. //Mark Brown/Staff 

Photo as captioned on the Lompoc Record web site... and that's The First Mrs. Pennington, second from left.  It seems like the the band alumni will have their very own float in this year's Flower Festival Parade.  Wow... Glory, eh?  Further...

On Jan. 20, 1961, 55 Lompoc students marched in President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural parade in Washington, D.C. This year they will mark the occasion with a reunion during the Flower Festival weekend in June.

“Bob Shaver called and asked, ‘Do you know what Jan. 20, is?’” said Glen Newcomb, who was the Lompoc High School drum major in 1961. “He said, ‘We ought to have a reunion. Make that happen, Glen.’”

So Newcomb and his wife Mary, who played the cymbals in the inaugural parade, are making that happen. They are finding as many of their band mates as they can. So far they have contacted 38.

TFMP tooted her clarinet in JFK's Inaugural parade and a Good Time was had by all, or so I've been told... lotsa times.  Now she gets to ride on her very own float in yet another parade... this time as an honoree, which is just pretty danged cool.

So I've been tryin' to remember MY claim to fame all danged morning, without results.  I'll have to get back to ya on that, Gentle Reader, just as soon as I dig sumthin' up.  Sumthin' PG-rated, of course, this bein' a family-friendly blog.  Sorta.

Another Rerun

I have to be over in The Big(ger) City™ for an eye-followup in a few and I did that thing I always do, of late: slept too well and too long.  So... there's no time right this moment to make the rounds and dream up some sorta drivel to check the blogging box.

Bob Reese, in comments to yesterday's post about my impending separation from the lovely Miss Zukiko, took issue with my statement that Miss Z and I hadn't really done any traveling together... sayin' "what about that US 550 trip?"  Well, that was on Miss Z's great aunt... the late and not-so-lamented 'Zuki.  The 'Zuki was a much better bike on the open road than Miss Z but she had this unfortunate tendency to fall right over at the most inopportune times... like when people were looking.  But we digress.

Here's what we wrote on the conclusion of that road trip Bob was on about:

Be It Ever So Humble...

…there’s no place like home. I’m there, and it’s an understatement to say I’m pleased. My own bed. My own PC. My own stuff. Getting away is nice, visiting with friends and family is nicer still, but getting back home? Priceless.

I ended as I began, which is to say I covered a whole lotta ground in one sitting. The first day of the trip saw me riding 577.6 miles in 11 hours flat; yesterday I did 591 miles in ten hours and 21 minutes. The difference? Better weather…much better weather. I dodged a bullet, though…a half hour after I got home the frickin’ bottom dropped out and we were inundated with rain. I held my breath, figuratively speaking, for the last 100 miles of the ride. There were HUGE thunderstorms to the east and the south of me as I closed in on P-Town, and it looked like I was gonna be in for it. The gods smiled on me, though, and although I got a smattering or two of rain, it was nothing serious. Fortune, for once, was on MY side.

Oh. Total mileage for the trip: 2267.7 miles. And not even one close call. That last statement just may be the most amazing thing of all.

I only did three things last evening after I got home: returned SN2’s phone call (he rang while I was on the road), took a long hot shower, and fell into bed. And I slept the sleep of the truly exhausted. This morning I feel fine, well-rested, and refreshed. Now I have to get on with life…unpack, pay the bills, and do other assorted things that have gone undone for the past 17 days. Normal blogging, such as it is, will resume tomorrow. In the meantime…

Today’s Pic: The first of perhaps six or eight pics from Arches National Park. I like this particular photo because it shows the scale of the monoliths, which are absolutely HUGE. Note the road winding into the distance and the small dots that are the cars on said road. Riding among, through and between these formations is an awe-inspiring experience.

Saturday, June 2, 2007.

And here's a couple o' shots of my partners in crime... of the flesh and blood and steel varieties:

The first pic is SN1 and SN3, the second pic is YrHmblScrb and SN3.  Both pics were taken in Fort Collins, CO... just prior to our departure for a jaunt out into the Colorado countryside.  That trip wasn't all fun and games, though.  Part of it was Pure Hell (on wheels).

A Modern Day Record

I awoke at precisely 1314 hrs today and that's sumthin' of a personal record for sleepin' in, otherwise known as sloth and indolence.  The only excuse I have for this behavior is the UCR one: I went to bed around 0630 hrs this morning.  I'm beginning to worry about my sleeping habits (ed: beginning?  You've been bitching about this for five years.), which have been gettin' progressively weirder and weirder over the last year or so, with the overriding thought bein' "this ain't normal."

I suppose I shouldn't let this bother me.  This isn't insomnia or anything like that because I sleep very well and in an uninterrupted manner once I actually go to sleep.  My main issue is bein' out of synch with the rest of the world, which is kinda-sorta bothersome.  I can get over that.

The coffee sure is good this morning!

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

Time for some ol' standards and a trip down Memory Lane...

The inimitable Julie London, with the definitive version of this ol' chestnut.  I was surprised to see how many "new" artists have covered this tune when I googled it, including one Justin Beeble (or sumthin' like that).  Did I go there?  Not only no, but HELL NO.  I don't wanna hear my favorite tunes ruined by prepubescent heart-throbs, thankyaverymuch.

Speakin' of Memory Lane... did all y'all know there's a famous motel thereabouts?

You're just a memory of a love
That used to be
You're just a memory of a love
That used to mean so much to me

It's on the ocean, I guess you know it well...

―:☺:― 

We're just in from running our errands, which included a one-hundred-plus-Yankee Dollar commissary run.  I didn't go overboard or anything, it was just the usual stuff.  Can you really tell me we're NOT laboring under inflation?  I checked my Quicken entries after logging today's transactions and my previous high expenditure for groceries was just over $90.00, and that was a MAJOR food run.  I know coz I'm kinda anal-obsessive about logging my transactions.

Dang.

Beer and cigars?  Or food?  I need to burn more incense on the altar and pray to The Deities At Hand that I don't have to make that decision... anytime soon, anyhoo.

Beer me!

Further...

... to my recent post about Representative Paul Ryan:

Yup!  Great minds and all that.

―:☺:―

Yet another reason to hate on grandstanding politicians: Fox News canceled Red Eye last night in order to re-run their "live" coverage of the budget "crisis," said coverage being at least two hours old.  At 0300 hrs (ET)!  Which begs the question: who the fuck CARES about old news, especially compared to Red Eye, especially at 0300 hrs?  If you're some sort of serious policy wonk or political junkie you already knew what went down two or three hours previous and if you're a run o' the mill pot head you don't give a big rat's ass (full disclosure:  I lean more to the pot head side of that continuum).  In either case you're certainly pissed that Red Eye wasn't on...

And don't get me started on the statements issued by ALL concerned once they reached agreement on yet another continuing resolution in order to discuss DRAFT reductions on a budget that should have been enacted no later than LAST SEPTEMBER.  "Historic," my ass.  Obama really has a low opinion of America if he expects us to believe that shit... or any of his shit, when ya get right down to it.

―:☺:―

Now that we're in the proper mood... there's this:

Temperature: 80 °F
Wind Speed / Dir: 24 mph from SW
Wind Gust: 33 mph

This is something like our fourth or fifth consecutive day of (relatively) high winds... high enough that I can neither put my awning down nor sit outside comfortably during the day's MOST important hour.  It's gonna stay like this all weekend, too,  From the NWS in ABQ:

.. High wind watch remains in effect from 9 PM MDT this evening through Sunday afternoon...

A High Wind Warning remains in effect until 9 PM MDT this evening. A high wind watch remains in effect from 9 PM MDT this evening through Sunday afternoon.

* Location... along and east of the Central Mountain chain.

* Winds... southwest 35 to 45 mph with gusts up to 60 or 65 mph.  Direction will shift to a westerly component between midnight and 9 am MDT on Sunday.

* Timing... winds will continue strong across the region... with the strongest gusts late this afternoon. Winds may diminish at times tonight... but will redevelop during the daytime hours on Sunday.

Oh, well.  It's Spring... what the Hell was I expecting?

Well, I'm Glad THAT'S Over and Done

Note that I'm gettin' a small refund this year... which is just about enough to keep me in cigars for a month.  I think the refund happened coz I can claim the "over 65" exemption now, which might be one of the few bennies of gettin' old.  Well that and bein' able to play the "get off my lawn!" card with a straight face.  And all the young girls callin' ya "sir."  Wait.  That's not as much a bennie as it is code for "not in YOUR lifetime, however short that might be."  (sigh)

Heh and Feelin' the Love

The usual source has all sorts o' toons about The One and his new-found bellicosity, mostly centered around his latest Obamateurism: "kinetic military action."  But this is the toon that caught my eye and made me grin:

Heh.  I really like Mr. Kelley.

―:☺:―

Lest you go off thinkin' all is lost with our younger generation, let me share this cool lil note I received from Grandson Sean this morning:

I read your post about Alligator Records and immediately went to Grooveshark and found an album similar. It isn't the 40th anniversary but it's the 30th so it's close enough. I think it's great so far. I haven't listened to the whole set yet but I think I'll like it.

See?  All is NOT lost!

―:☺:―

Amazon loves me, too.  I wish they didn't love me as quite as much as they do, tho, coz this crap could get expensive after a while: 

I'm thinkin' the Big Head Todd album looks pretty good...  God help me.

Here, There, and Everywhere

Well, we got off the dime today and ran those deferred errands from yesterday.  So the prescriptions for pre- and post-op meds have been handed over to a very nice LtCol at the Cannon Airplane Patch pharmacy (who addressed ME as "Sir."  I let that slide.), the larder is racked and stacked, the freezer is jammed with nukable food, and we have more beer in the fridge than I can shake a stick at.  See?

I just lurve the way that looks...

A couple o' random notes... I don't get out a whole helluva lot during winter so I don't take The Green Hornet by the gas station all that much; once a month is the usual, and that might be pressing things where the gawdshonest truth is concerned.  That said... I was shocked to find gas is up to $3.55/gallon for mid-range (remember: it was mebbe mid-February the last time I bought gas).  I don't pay a lot of attention to gas prices as a rule... you can't bargain over the price and you can't go without... so I just fill 'er up and the devil take the hindmost.  I'm grateful for two things (a) TGH is a thrifty girl, averaging just under 30 mpg and (b) I don't have to do a lot o' drivin'.  Times are hard for those folks with big-ass SUVs and long commutes.

I want to express my appreciation to all you taxpayers once more, this time for the fact all the drugs I need (heh) are pretty much paid for by My Favorite Uncle and there are NO co-pays.  My eye surgeon warned me the drugs she prescribed were expensive and "insurance may or may not cover them, depending on the plan."  Not to worry, Ma'am, My Favorite Uncle... and you taxpayers... always comes through.  We are blessed and I thank you.

―:☺:―

Today's Happy Hour soundtrack... more Stones:

It's the graveyard watch,
Running right on the rocks,
I've taken all of the knocks.
You ain't giving me no quarter.
I'd rather drink sea water,
I wish I'd never had brought you,
It's gonna be the death of me.

There's some wicked piano playin' on this track and Jagger's vocals are just too damned cool fer school.  This is yet another track from Exile on Main Street (Number Seven on Rolling Stone's Top 500 albums of all time and should be Numero Uno as far as I'm concerned), which is STILL in TGH.  Full disclosure: I own TWO copies of the CD, one for TGH and one for the house.  That's how good the album is.

Beer me! 

Want

There was a time when my greatest want, Firepower Division, was an M1911.  But all that's gone by the boards... what I REALLY want is this:

There are just SO many practical uses for an M-32 that I can't begin to describe them.  But use your imagination, Gentle Reader, and begin, say, on the freeway or mebbe any given Wal-Mart parking lot.  Or think as I do: an M-32 would be VERY useful in my prospective post-retirement career as a midnite fire-bomber, once I get around to pulling the trigger.  Heh.

Alas... I'm afraid the M-32 is only available to uniformed members of the armed services... and I don't think I qualify, even though I DO own a nearly new and barely-worn Class A uniform adorned with all the bells and whistles accorded to me by the United States Air Force during my semi-illustrious career.  I don't want to dabble in the black market due to the unsavory nature of vendors in that space (there are hardly ever any warranties and service after the sale? Fuhgeddaboudit!), not to mention the fact prices in said market are beyond the wherewithal of a humble retiree (like me!)... even a retiree with aspirations of a potentially lucrative midnite firebombing career.  The 1911, OTOH, is widely available.  And my birthday is coming up...

It Happens EVERY Year

The time change is kicking my ass in a minor sorta way, in that I'm out of sorts and will remain this way for the better part of a week.  Example:  there are still two cups o' morning coffee to finish.  That said, a week's worth o' body clock adjustment will leave me pleased with the "extra" Happy Hour time.  

OTOH... I'm oh-so-glad I don't have to drag my old ass out o' bed and be somewhere tomorrow morning.  The Spring-forward bullshit REALLY kicked my ass during my working years, mainly because I was always an early-guy, always in at 0600 or so.  I saved the above photo as documentary proof, even though it's 13 years old.  (Rochester, NY... c. 1998)

―:☺:―

As a public service... here's Buck's Brief Treatise On Writing:  Not every freakin' noun needs multiple and increasingly obscure adjectives.  The same relationship exists between verbs and adverbs.

"It wasn't by accident that the Gettysburg address was so short. The laws of prose writing are as immutable as those of flight, of mathematics, of physics."
Ernest Hemingway

That is all.

Apropos o' Not Much...

Ye Olde Ancestral Home...

Haunted, even!  This by way of Occasional Correspondent Lin who never ceases to amaze me with her finds.  We had a brief conversation after I viewed the above video, pieces o' which included...

Me:  re: the vid.   How interesting!  Ye Olde Ancestral Home makes the big-time!  I'm 99.94% sure there's no relation here but it was cool to watch...

She:  Au contraire, cher, the chances of you not being related to every other Pennington or de Pennington are slim to none.  Manorial names were not commonly adopted outside the manor-holding families.  Chances of being genetically related to another Smith, Turner or Chandler are slim, given the number of unrelated trades people who assumed trade names after the Norman invasion. 

Heh.  All y'all will have to keep an eye on me as I might start putting on airs and stuff.  "To the manor born" and all that.

Nostalgic. Again.

Bein' of a certain age (are ya tired o' that line yet, Gentle Reader?)... I made sure to catch "Troubadours" on PBS' American Masters last week.  About which: a damned good show, mebbe even a great show.  Here's a blurb from the PBS web site:

The narrative begins in the ’60s, when Carole King and Gerry Goffin were writing their now-iconic songs at Manhattan’s 1650 Broadway hit factory, and James Taylor was emerging as a folksinger/songwriter. The location then shifts westward to L.A.’s Laurel Canyon, the breeding ground for the burgeoning singer-songwriter community, and to Doug Weston’s Troubadour, where the King/Taylor partnership begins to blossom and a close-knit crew of future legends — including Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell, Eagles, and Elton John—performs on the small stage and holds court in the bar, the epicenter of the action.

The story is told through archival footage, much of it never before seen, which is intercut with the vivid recollections and incisive reflections of a wide cast of characters. Along with King and Taylor, contributors include David Crosby, Roger McGuinn, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Chris Darrow, Kris Kristofferson, J.D. Souther, and Elton John; Taylor’s former manager and producer, music impresario Peter Asher; the one-time head of Ode Records and producer of King’s Tapestry, Lou Adler; musicians Russ Kunkel, Leland Sklar, Craig Doerge and Danny “Kootch” Kortchmar (Taylor’s childhood friend and King’s bandmate in The City); songwriters Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil and (King collaborator) Toni Stern; rock critics Robert Hilburn (who covered the scene as Los Angeles Times’ pop music critic); Barney Hoskyns (author of the So Cal music histories Waiting for the Sun and Hotel California) and Robert Christgau; Troubadour denizens Cheech & Chong and Steve Martin; photographer/musician Henry Diltz; and King’s daughter Sherry Goffin Kondor.

All of the above listed artists contributed to my life's soundtrack during my salad days, otherwise known as the best bits.  Let's be a little more precise:  I'm talking about a roughly ten year time frame, between 1966 and 1976... or when I was 21 to 31.  There are a multitude of reasons why that era was arguably best... both SN1 and SN2 were born in that time, I went through my second childhood (a premature mid-life crisis, to use another hackneyed phrase), met The Second Mrs. Pennington and fell in love, ran around the Pacific Rim for an extended period of time, and enjoyed all the things a married young man who metastasized into a footloose nutcase could possibly enjoy, including quite a few things I shouldn't have enjoyed if I'd been in my right mind.  But it sure as hell was the best of times... not just for me, but for pretty much an entire generation of Americans.

Speaking of the "best of times," there was one short anecdote... mebbe a minute total, prolly less... where David Crosby was describing life in the Laurel Canyon set.  He said something to the effect of...

"And the sex.  There was a LOT of that.  There was also this small window of time (he holds his hands about a foot apart to illustrate) between The Pill and AIDS when it was all fun and games, and it was good.  (He pauses for about three beats here and looks directly into the camera)  I need to emphasize that.  It was GOOD."

You had to be there when that window was open, Gentle Reader, to appreciate exactly what Crosby is on about.  And I thank my lucky stars I was.  There.  But that was only part of it, of course, even though it was a very LARGE part.  See: footloose nutcase, above.  And here, too.

The show runs again tomorrow night on my PBS station (and prolly yours, too) and I plan to watch it again.  You can also watch it in its entirety on-line, if'n you have a mind to do that.  The music and the story are both excellent, especially if you happened to be there at the time.  Recommended.

―:☺:―

In news of the trivial and mundane... we reduced the size of our Amazon wish list by a lil bit this morning by ordering a Ray LaMontagne CD ("Till the Sun Turns Black"), a Johnny Winter CD ("Progressive Blues Experiment"), and that Gregg Allman album we've talked about recently ("Low Country Blues").  I also ordered a spiffy lil tool for my key ring so I'll never ever, ever again get caught away from home without a beer bottle opener.  That happened to me during our recent cold weather exile to the Holiday Inn Express, and even though the front desk had an opener I could borrow they might not o' had.  Just a lil sumthin' I'll never worry about again.

Hey!  I told ya it was trivial and mundane, dint I?

Just One More and Then We'll Go...

... which every band has said at one point or another.  But we're on about quotes from Life here, not music.  Here's Tom Waits, speaking about Keef:

I think that nowadays there seems to be a deficit of wonder. And Keith seems to still wonder about this stuff. He will stop and hold his guitar up and just stare at it for a while. Just be rather mystified by it. Like all the great things in the world, women and religion and the sky… you wonder about it, and you don’t stop wondering about it.

Well, that bit stopped me dead in my tracks as I was reading earlier this afternoon.  The sheer profundity of Waits' observation struck me as too, too true.  Yet it's not.  I can only speak for myself... but there isn't one single day that goes by when I'm not struck by a sense of wonder.  It could be a sunset, it could be remarkable photography (shots from the Hubble or that "small world" stuff I linked a while back, or myriad other things in that realm), and MOST especially music.  I often marvel at how a vocal, a guitar lick, or the great execution of horn charts can touch me in ways that are always new and always spot-on.  How can you NOT wonder about things like that?

And that's not even considering the things Waits brought up... like women and religion... either one of which countless tomes have been written.  There's no deficit of wonder in MY world, but then again I could be an anomaly.  Ample evidence to the contrary exists on my teevee screen and in the thoughtless screeds I read every damned day in the political blogs.

Still and even: worth thinking about.

―:☺:―

So.  I've been taken with Keith Richards' work with the X-Pensive Winos over the past coupla few and I defined a couple o' new Pandora stations to that effect.  I listened to the X-Pensive Winos station for a full day before I abandoned it in favor of the Keith Richards station, on account o' because there was just too much extraneous bullshit on the XPW station.  I'm sorry, Pandora, but Def Leppard or Journey ain't Keith OR  the X-Pensive Winos.  Journey?  JOURNEY?  Oh, for fuck's sake... spare me.  Please.

I'm pleased to report the Keith Richards station is MUCH better.  And here's a lil sumthin' I heard earlier this afternoon as a sample:



You're beyond hope if that doesn't get ya where ya live.  Keef and Norah... what's NOT to like, unlikely as it may seem?  And the playin' is simply GREAT, as is the song.  Brilliant.

―:☺:―

Apropos of exactly nuthin'... last night we ordered that rockin' chair Bec turned me on to (click for larger, of course) and a couple of Keith Richards albums to add to the collection.  The last coupla days have been absolutely fantastic, in most every sense of the word.  And things should only get better when the new purchases arrive.  Let's just hope the WX remains cooperative and I get the chance to really rock out on the verandah.  

Heh.

MLK Day

I almost put this chestnut up again... for what would be the third time.  I thought better of it, though, mainly because of this:

But this year is different, innit? Tomorrow the first African-American man in our history will be sworn into the highest office in the land. We should ALL be proud of that fact, regardless of our political views or loyalties. While Dr. King's dream hasn't been fully realized by any means, tomorrow's inauguration of Barack Obama at the West Front of the U.S. Capitol marks the biggest symbolic step in that direction I've seen in MY lifetime. It makes me proud to be an American... so VERY proud.

Last year I said "I stand by those words" and the sentiment is still sorta true.  I say "sorta" because I'm getting tired of hearing about how far we've come.  I don't need reminding, thank you.  I was there.  I saw it, "it" being Obama's election and inauguration.  I was there for Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" speech, too... even though I was about to board an airplane and head off to basic training at the exact moment he delivered it.  I witnessed segregation's ugly face as a child and as a young man, so I understand... as much as any white man can... what this day is all about.  We have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go.

That said... I don't like or want to hear any more self-congratulatory BS, thank you.  The moment has passed.  We should honor the memory of Martin Luther King, Junior on this day.  And that's IT.

Soft

So we're in from our errands, which we deferred from yesterday mainly on account o' because Wally-World is a veritable ZOO on the weekends and we avoid going there on those days whenever possible.  It was a toss-up, actually: fight the crowds yesterday or deal with the kinda-sorta unpleasantness that is our weather today.  Obviously "dealing with the WX" won out, but now that I'm in from the cold I'm not sure that was such a wise choice.

I'm getting soft in my dotage.  It's 28 degrees outside, with a wind chill of 23... which is chilly, to be sure... but it's nothing like working on the antenna deck at Fortuna AFS, NoDak in wind chills of minus-50F or slogging through waist high snow drifts to go do preventive maintenance in the equipment shelters at Wakkanai Air Station (where the annual snowfall was purported to be 220+ inches -- no shit, really.).  Driving to Wally-World on dry streets in a minor chill ain't got nuthin' on venturing out to the store in either Ra-cha-cha or Dee-troit in the dead o' winter, either.  Both of which we did quite regularly and with little or no complaint.  Well, I might be pushin' the envelope where "no complaints" is concerned.  If only jes a little bit.

Dang.  I'm thinkin' I really need a rocking chair for the verandah.  And I just might buy one this Spring, if only because it fits the soft ol' geezer I've become.

Image by Dennis Cox at wackystock.com.

Passages

Another icon from my (relative) youth enters the clearing at the end of the path:  Gerry Rafferty, dead yesterday at age 63.  Obit here.

Rafferty released "Baker Street" as a single in 1978; I probably bought "City to City" (the album from which "Baker Street" comes) late that year or very early in 1979.  The Second Mrs. Pennington and I were living in Oregon at the time but we found ourselves winding our way down Baker Street from time to time about a year later.  It was a rare thing for us to be in that part of London without Mr. Rafferty accompanying us.

RIP, Gerry.  Thanks for the soundtrack.

Photograph: Rex Features, via The Guardian.

It's Always Sumthin

I'm accessing the innertubes from my laptop this morning because my desktop apparently couldn't stand (at least) three consecutive ungraceful shut-downs.  I didn't mention this but the ENTIRE town of Portales was without power for most of yesterday morning.  I know this because we had three... count 'em, THREE... short-duration power outages around 0600 yesterday, during which I dutifully reset what needed resetting and returned to my warm and cozy bed, arising for good around 1030 hrs.

At which time I booted up the peesee and discovered I had no internet.  A quick call to Yucca Telecom confirmed that yes, the entire town has no internet, as the entire town has been without power all morning.  Well, OK then.

Things got back to normal about a half hour later and I didn't give this much thought afterward, coz Stuff Happens.

Fast forward to this morning... approximately 0600 hrs.  The power goes off again.  And again.  And AGAIN...three more outages that last about a minute each, in quick succession.  After the third bump my peesee refused to boot, even in safe mode -- all I get is the dreaded Blue Screen o' Death.

So we pulled out the laptop, fired it up, downloaded 46 Very Important Windows Updates (150 Mb worth), installed same; and 60.78 Mb of Norton updates and installed same.  All while metaphorically holding our breath as the Windows update installation proceeded, due to the friendly "Installing updates -- Do NOT Turn Off Your Computer!" messages.  All this shit took at LEAST two hours.

So we have the day's activities mapped out for us, which will include trying to breathe life back into our desktop.  Thank The Deity At Hand that I run full back-ups three times a week, the most recent of which was Sunday night.  We won't lose much if it comes down to re-installing Windows.

Update, 1050 hrs:  The desktop is back up and it's the strangest thing.  The box wouldn't boot in "repair" mode (I got an immediate BSoD) but booted up fine in "normal" mode.  Who knows what evil lurks in the heart o' Redmond?  Not me... but I AM grateful to be back up and running.

We Didn't Realize the Depth of Our Influence

Ahem.  That's right, Boehner.  Get WITH it.  Don't make me write yet another "Not Your Father's Air Force," mmm-kay?  K.

This Guy Needs a Life

In addition to a life the dude obviously needs better beer.  (sigh)  There's just NO accounting for taste or the lack o' same.  OTOH, there are much better (and cuter) beer delivery systems out there.  Just sayin'.