Wednesday, the 29th day of February, 2012

Spent this past week-end in Atlanta… Jan went to the Southeast Regional gathering of AKY, a business fraternity of which Leah is a member, to assist Mike Kublin – her main business partner- on presentations he was giving to the gathering including the key note address. My role was to drive, guard and escort Jan and we stayed at the Atlanta Hilton on Courtland Street, two blocks East of Peachtree Street, and so did Leah who attended the gathering representing the University of Florida… I had planned to walk to Peachtree and 14^th Ave, the Colony Square, where I stayed the first time I came to the US, as a visitor and as an IBM trainee, in October 1976, almost 36 years ago… But the weather did not cooperate; it was too cold for shirt, and too warm for coat…

This past Friday, the 24^th, Alex – my third born – turned 22 years old… My, my, how time flies… It feels like only the other day she was a little itty bitty preemie baby and now she is a radiant, vibrant, full-of-life, smart and beautiful career-woman! Happy Birthday, my love… Very proud of you!

Somebody needs to thanks the crisis in Iran and Syria for driving the cost of oil up and up… Why, you may ask? Has he gone mad? Au contraire, mes amis… Do you realize that in the last debate not one of our Republican brothers brought up the economy or the jobless situation (like if everything was fine!); and that oil prices going up seems to be the last arrow left in the quiver to attach Obama with? At any rate, Mitt the Magnificent seems to be in a groove now, surviving the threat that Santorum posed in Michigan and Arizona… He beat Santorum fair and square and Santorum said “it is a two man race now”… Seriously? He beat you up like an old drum in the last several primaries/caucuses/straw polls and it is a two-man race? I don’t think so… As far as I am concerned, it is all but over; you can stick a fork to Rick, Newt and – my man- Ron Paul because they are done! Mitt’s the man!

Hawks Bluff wise, there is not too much going on in Phase I, that I know of… Spring seems to be here (it is 65 as I write this) and birdies are starting to appear… Hey, is anybody out there watching the “survivalist” programs on the Discovery Channel? Very interesting questions are being asked about what to do in, and how to prepare for, situations where there is no electricity, or no gasoline, or no sun-light for six months (volcano eruption)… Some of the folks appearing on the programs are plain-ole weirdoes (like Michigan-Militia guys, or anti-government/KKK types), but others seem to be main stream people trying to prepare for unforeseen situations… Makes you think… Hmmmm

Food for thought: “The game of Deception, making believe things are what they are not, may be useful (and profitable) in business, but harmful (and deadly) in personal relations”…

So, play carefully, my friends…

Thursday, the 23rd day of February, 2012

Very uneventful week… The weather continues to be erratic; it snowed for about three hours this past weekend, but it was so warm (in the high 30s) that it did not stick… As I write this, it is a balmy 62˚ Fahrenheit outside and sunny… I believe the plants are going to think Spring is here, start to sprout new buds and growth, and then old man Winter will come back with a vengeance and kill bunches of them as it happened in 2007 and 2010…

Got together with friends on Saturday night for a game night… It was great fun and it was tough… We played this game (don’t remember the name) where you draw cards from three different piles and it could be a trivia question, an activity (such as drawing figures on a paper for other folks to guess the name of a movie) or a third category (which I forgot already!) in which you have to either do sit-ups, push-ups, or act up TV shows… By the end of the night, and after only one game, some of us were spent!

OK, he lives… Robo-Mitt finally gave signs of life on the debate last night… He was witty, knowledgeable, had his facts straight, his timing was perfect; and all those elements combined to allow Mitt to dismantle (it was almost painful to watch) Rick Santorum… Santorum apologized several times for votes he had taken before… Mitt got the audience on his side from the beginning to the point that Santorum was booed several times… I see it happening (you read it here first!): Santorum, after rising to the top and challenging for the leadership of the field, crashes and burns (like Gingrich I, Bachman, Cain, Perry, Gingrich II); that leaves an opening for Newt, like the Phoenix, to rise from the ashes once again gathering under his wings all the ‘cheerful’ evangelicals and Tea Party folks!

Attended Leadership Van Buren Judicial day… Started out with a very informative meeting with Judge Leavenworth, presiding magistrate of our local General Court; he explained his jurisdiction, his case load, his limits, his frustrations, his successes. We sat in on some of his hearings; very interesting. We met with the THP assigned to the county/area, with the DA and visited the Van Buren and Bledsoe counties detention facilities (jails).

Waiting desperately for the base-ball season to start; I believe spring training is just around the corner (the FL and AZ folks will get an early gift!) and then the real action begins… Yeah!

Ben Lomand (the local provider of phone and Internet services) is now offering TV services… Some of our neighbors have already signed up with good cost-savings incentives… I will look into it this coming week and report next week…

Now, some food for thought:

"Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough

 to make them all yourself." 

 -- Anonymous

So, keep learning, my friends…

Wednesday, the 15th Day of February, 2012

Football withdrawals are tough, and I don’t care what addicts to other ‘things’ may say about how tough they have it! I am not particularly attracted to basketball or hockey (except at playoff time and including the final 4) and those are the only sports broadcast on TV during this season... It’s been so rough that this past Sunday I found myself watching a PBA (bowling) event, a rugby match between Argentina and Kenya, and then the golf Pebble Beach Pro-Am tournament (Tiger and Romo sucked!)

The weather up here in the Plateau finally cooled off a bit… This past week-end it went into the teens with some snow on Saturday (about two inches) and Sunday morning being as low as 13˚ Fahrenheit… We went through about 1/5 of a rick of wood the whole weekend. It is back to the new normal, about 55, as I write this…

Alex & Leah came to visit this past week-end… I believe they had planned the trip last week to come to meet, and play with, Molly; and when we told them about Molly being gone they found it a little awkward to back out, so they ended up coming anyway! They arrived Friday night, about 7:30 and left on Sunday morning at about 9:15. We had a great do-nothing, lounge-around-the-fire, play-Mexican-Train-dominos, eat-some, nap-some type of week-end…

I’m going to have to depend to my buddy Tim Halleran down in Florida (one of the sharpest minds I know – Republican by choice and Floridian by the grace of God), to try and help me understand the situation with the Republican Primaries… Now Santorum (as in “contraceptives are a sin”, and “women are unfit for front-line combat”) is in a statistical dead heat with Mitt the Marvelous in Michigan (Mitt’s home state) and nationwide as well… And all this after robo-Mitt won in Maine (my man Ron Paul says his people could not vote because of the weather) and won the CPAC straw poll (which Santorum says he would have won had Mitt not ferried in, and bought tickets for, 300 supporters). Is this the way the Republican Party has to tell mighty-Mitt “we really like your being around, but only as decoration” and “you say your lines very well, but cannot fool anybody”? And then, what in the world is being “Severely Conservative”? Is it something like ‘severely traumatized’ or ‘severely burned’…? Even Rush Limbaugh said in his EIB show “What the hell is that?” One of Mitt’s aids was heard saying: the Governor went off message; we need to work on that… No shit! Moving on, has anybody heard from Newt lately? Is he still around? Well, how does President Santorum grab you? Can you work with that?

Yesterday we have a dog visiting our yard… It looked like a hunting dog (pointer?) with his reflective collar and tags… He seemed to be friendly since he did not shy away when I spoke to him from the balcony. On the other hand, when our dogs came out to the balcony and barked at him he stood still with no intention of running away; instead he had an attitude of “bring it”. He stayed around for about 15 minutes ‘marking’ the yard and then he left… Next time he comes, if he still has the challenging attitude I will have to intervene and scare him away… Staying with dogs, the Pekinese won the Westminster Dog show; I did not agree with that!

St. Valentine Day came and went without too much fanfare. Hank (Douglas), Danny (Authement) and I got together and cooked dinner for Terri, Donna and Jan - our respective brides; good food + good company = great time!

Last, but not least, here is food for thought… Albert Einstein once said: “Life is like riding a bike… If you want to maintain your balance you must keep moving…”

So, keep moving, my friends...

Friday, the 10th day of February, 2012

We did not plan it this way, but ended up giving Molly away… The optimal number of dogs we can have is two; we currently have three because out latest one, Bella, is totally maintenance-free; all she means to the 'operation' is an extra ration of dog food a day (and a little bit of 'sugar'). Molly, on the other hand, was a hand full, no pun intended. Being a puppy, she was an ever-ready bunny all the time; she was a cutie pie but it was too much for us to do her training and upbringing right. So, the Warren County Humane Society found a family who wanted her and who also committed to have her as an indoors dog (not chained to a tree outside, 365.25 days a year!). On Wednesday, we took her along with her two beds, her bowls, her outfit, her toys, her playpen and her leash to the HS guy. We also told him very clearly that, if that did not work out, we wanted her back and not given to just anybody…

… and how ‘bout little brother Eli, the Patriots Slayer? What a game! I never before saw a pro football game where the first play was a safety, let alone the Super Bowl! So, for the second time in five years, the NY Giants and the NE Patriots met in the Super Bowl and the Giants managed to come out on top, again! Eli was simply superb (where is Tikki Barber and all his garbage on these days?)… Now, to be fair, if Welker and Hernandez had not dropped those two ‘for-sure’ passes in the last NE drive (which they caught hundreds of time during the season and can do it in their sleep!), the story might have been different… The Patriots will be back in contention next year, for sure; the Giants will struggle again and Eli will have to prove himself all over – again – only to be back and win yet another Super Bowl!

What’s going on with our Republican brethren and their inability to make up their minds? Last week Romney looked like the ‘chosen one' with solid, convincing wins in Florida and Nevada; the feeling of inevitability was everywhere and the folks at Fox News were salivating and already declaring Mitt as the redeemer… And then comes this week, when Mitt the Messiah got spanked in Minnesota and Missouri, and then trounced and embarrassed in Colorado, all at the hands of the same guy that have been, until now, considered only an annoyance, a by-line, a filler… I don’t understand… Is it going to be, at the end, my man Ron Paul who would take the fight up to Obama for all the marbles? Would love to see that…

Meanwhile, here in Hawks Bluff there have been – over the last few months - a series of failed water wells which may be alarming… Some, like mine and some other friends’ in Phase III, were allegedly hit by lighting and the pumps were ‘fried’; needed to be replaced and, depending on your deductible, the insurance helped or not (replacement cost of about $2k). Others, have literally gone dry and the wells have had to be either drilled deeper or elsewhere; yet others have collapsed, where the walls cave in destroying the hole and taking ‘hostage’ the pump; with this last one I learned that, when they drill the hole, only the first 20-25 feet from the surface down have a metal jacket, a pipe; after that, the hole is unprotected and is maintained open by the quality of the rock. If it is solid rock, you’re in good shape; if it is soft or otherwise sandy, any of the sonic booms we frequently get around here may be enough to send the walls of your well tumbling down… Lastly, it is rumored that the availability and volume of water is not as plenty as it was once portrayed (during the ‘sales cycle’); so, those of us who saw the slow down on building activities around here as a bad sign need to rethink the whole deal and consider it a blessing… The fewer there are of us around here, the better our odds for continuous water supply!

Now, some trivia for you: The term "the whole 9 yards" came from WWII fighter pilots in the South Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine guns ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet before being loaded into the fuselage. So, if the pilot fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards"!

Stay curious, my friends…

Wednesday, the 1st day of February, 2012 - "Molly"

About 1 PM this past Saturday, we let the dogs out and immediately heard a bunch of cries coming out from where the A/C units are on the side of the house… There, cornered by the dogs, was a little puppy; it was almost frozen, scrawny and very hungry. We took her in and fed her, warmed her up and made her comfortable. Pat Ross (the dog lady) came over to give her a once-over and thinks she is about 10-12 weeks old, and some sort of terrier mix; she has worms in her tummy and she also has ticks. We prepared a cage for her (old cage whose first occupant as a pup was Lola, who died at 14 two years ago!) and that night she whimpered a couple of times, but it was a very good night overall. The day after, Sunday, we let her mingle with the other dogs and it was a good experience; no snarls, squabbles or bites... She tried to approach Bella as a puppy approaches the mom, but Bella didn't seem to know how to react; Pancho tried to play but he was a little rough. Bo was the one who seemed not affected in the least by the puppy (Boey and I had a conversation about the puppy: the pup looks eerily like him; I think he had an escapade and the mom decided to bring the child to the dad; I told him to get ready for paternity tests and, eventually, child support!)... At any rate, our original thought was that, if nobody claimed her, we would keep her (could not throw her back to the bush – she would die of exposure within hours!) and take her to the vet for a 'baseline' check up; we named her Molly, and decided to trim her nails and pick away the ticks (six in total)... In the days that have followed, Jan and I have had second thoughts; the pup has gained confidence and it is very rambunctious (as little as she is she goes up and down those stairs like a little rocket!); she shows absolutely no respect or consideration for her 'elders', terrorizing Bella all the time and eliciting (justly deserved!) some 'disciplinary' measures from Pancho and Bo. She raises hell at night because she no longer likes the cage (sleep is sparse in this household); and she is not potty-trained, of course, so we are doing some serious cleaning 24x7 (tempers are getting thinner and thinner!) Jan contacted the Humane Society of Warren County and they said they could work with us to find her some permanent adoptive parents... If nobody wants her we would keep her but, boy, we are certainly in for more than we bargained for!

I got much better from my cold but the cough that lingered was a bear! I have no other symptoms (like congestion, or fevers, or difficulty breathing), and the cough has started to subside but, I tell you, it has been a bitch!

So Romney trounced the field in Florida (what a surprise!). He gave Newt a good spanking, that's for sure, but nobody is dropping out (Did you see Newt's speech last night, going after the 'Republican Establishment' and hinting of a fight against them? Interesting and amusing times are ahead)... Now did you see the performance of my man Ron Paul? Yes, he came in last with 7% of the vote but, among voters 25 and under, he came in first with over 45%... I think his message is very appealing to the young and the young-at-heart!

Otherwise, up here in the Plateau, and more specifically, out here on the Bluff, the weather continues to be unseasonably mild... As I write this it is 54˚ Fahrenheit outside and a just a little drizzly... Light sweaters are good enough. Folks still think we will get hit hard this month; I hope they're wrong since I don't want to lose power and deal with all its side effects... Let's see what happens...

That's all I have for now...

Will Rogers once said: "Go out on a limb... That's where the fruits are"

Stay daring, my friends...