Earlier This Afternoon

It began raining around 1600 hrs today...

...and it still hasn't stopped.  It hasn't been a steady rain, more of an off-and-on, stop-and-go sorta thang, but there has been a lot of it.  So much such so that the 17th Street Canal and Inter-City Waterway is beginning to reach navigable status.  Yays!

It's nice and warm outside and the rain is mostly in a vertical plane, which is to say the verandah is reasonably dry.  I do believe we'll tap that new bottle of JW Green I bought today, fire up a cigar, and go enjoy the show.

Is This ME... Or What?

Heh.  And this is SHE...

Blog-Bud Loosy-Anna Andy doesn't think this is one of her best.  But, Hell... Sunny on a bad day is better than most political pundits at their best.

Heh

There's this...

From the Usual Source of such things.  And then there's this...

From My Buddy Ed In Florida.

Tonight's After Dinner Whiskey Hour Soundtrack...

So... there we were, sitting out on the verandah, getting quietly and pleasantly in our cups, listening to Pandora's Matchbox 20 station.  And then this came on:

Tonight was the first time I'd ever heard this tune, but it ain't the first time I've ever heard this speech.  I heard it (again) just recently, as a s'matter of fact... like this:

She: I'm VERY liberal.
Me: I know.  What I don't understand is how a good conservative girl like you could go so wrong, so quickly.
She:  I used to follow directions well; I don't any longer.
Me:  What does that mean?
She: (Standing up abruptly... and departing, leaving me with my mouth hanging open)  I shared too much and I don't want or need YOU to tell ME about me. 

So we were thinkin'... did The Second Mrs. Pennington write this tune?  Is she getting royalties?  And why am **I** not getting a piece of the action?

Sigh.  I guess the theme is much more universal than I wanna believe it is.  But the song DID make me grin.  In an evil sorta way.

No Surprises Here

My results from the I Side With test:

Wait.  I agree with Obama 53% of the time?  WTF?  Where?  When?  How did THAT happen?

h/t:  Professor Althouse. 

I (Almost) Got Nuthin'

We had a bad night last evening, the upshot of which was we didn't get to sleep until after 0500 hrs.  We've only just now finished our first cup and had seriously considered blowing this whole blog thang right the hell off for the day.  But just then the Brown Truck O' Happiness pulled up outside and the friendly driver hands me this package from Cadillac.  "Hmmm," sez I, "I wonder what this could be?"

It's a box o' Firsts.  "Hunh?" sez you?  No, really.

Each little compartment is labeled "Open after..." or "Open before..."  Some of these events have already transpired, so the Caddy people are just a lil bit late.  If I led a normal life I'm quite sure ALL of these things would have happened already, coz The Tart has been with me for a lil over a month now.  Be that as it may, I chose to open the compartment labeled "Open after first road workout."

I should have known.  My "road workout" was on the super-slab, not in the twisty-turnies.  I HAVE taken The Tart into a few corners at speed and she reacts well... which is to say she holds a line well, gives good feedback from her steering (which is heavier than I like, but not bad), and minds her manners.  My only criticism: the StabiliTrak system comes on too early sometimes and cuts power just when you wanna hang the rear end out a lil bit.  But the good news is you can always switch the system off.  Oh.  What was in that compartment, you ask?  This.  Heh.

So.  My customer satisfaction index is pretty high right now, especially with all these nice lil surprises from Dee-troit I keep getting in the mail. 

Posted Without Comment

 

h/t to My Buddy Ed In Florida.

Nostalgia of a Different Sort

I went searching in my back pages a lil while ago looking for a specific item relating to my dental history and came upon this lil blurb and a couple o' pics:

Today's Pics, Self-Indulgent Division: Well, Hell… Virtually ALL my pics are self-indulgent in one form or another. But today I'm posting the full-sized, unedited version of the pic I use on both my Blogger and Twitter profiles, plus an outtake from the same session.

Both pics were taken at an RV park just outside Oklahoma City in the Spring of 2000 (in April, to be exact). Note the old technology… which is to say humongous… cell phone sitting on the picnic table. And speaking of old technology, both pics are first-generation digital pics... taken with my old one-megapixel Kodak point and shoot, with a quality commensurate with the age.

These pics were taken back in the day when the view from the verandah changed on a frequent basis… like every week or so… sometimes more, sometimes less. It all depended on how much fun I was having wherever I happened to be…

I remember taking those pics (since replaced on both referenced profiles) and I remember all TOO well that life on the road was one whole helluva lot o' fun, at the time.  But I'm thinkin' it would be much less fun these days.  I'll take... and love... today's fixed view from the verandah.  That said, I'm glad I had that year when I ran away from home.  It was good to get away.

Well I always say, it would be good to go away
But if things don't work out like we think
And there's nothing there to ease this ache
But if there's nothing there to make things change
If it's the same for you, I'll just hang 

Yup, we did hang... on the road.

Former Happy (Mo'sickle) Days

I got a note from SN2 last evening, thusly:

Dad,

I'm looking forward to meeting your friend tomorrow.  I was surfing the web, researching some parts for the RD and came accross these two pics... I was moved.  I thought you might want to enjoy them as well.

ILY,

S

These are the attached pics:

I replied:

The cafe racer is cool, but that RED bike hit me where I used to live.   Yours could look just like that with a lil work.
Ily,
d 

And he came back with...

Yes... it will look like that.

ILY,

S

It's just a matter of time and priorities.  Long-time Gentle Readers know I gave my RD to Sam after the maid quit and when I was in the process of downsizing life as we knew it.  He's had the bike since about 1999 or so and managed to get it running but not fully restored.  That bike has been in the family since 1979 and has a long and storied history of back-road Hell-raising.  Some history:

YrHmblScrb and the RD, c. 1979

The Complete RD as We Knew Her

I spent the winter of 1978 in my garage working on that bike.  Most of the mods were bolt-ons, which is to say after-market shocks, new handle bars, rear-set foot pegs, a brake/shifter kit, electronic ignition, and better tires.  The cognoscenti will note the expansion chambers on the bike and those were part of the minor engine mods I did.  I didn't want to build a hand-grenade motor so I just added expansion chambers, larger carbs, and K&N air filters to improve the bike's breathing.  I also polished all the cylinder ports to improve air flow.  And that was it... but the finished product really wailed.  I should also mention coastal Oregon was a danged fine place to own a back road burner like the RD, too.

The top pic is YrHmblScrb and the stock bike, the bottom pic is as described above.  That's the state the bike is in today, except for the general decay brought on by being in storage and rarely ridden since about 1985.

I do believe she'll wail again someday.  And I'm gonna ride her, too.

Seen This?

View from the ISS at Night from Knate Myers on Vimeo.

How VERY cool.  The nighttime and northern lights bits are especially spectacular.  From the Vimeo site:

Every frame in this video is a photograph taken from the International Space Station. All credit goes to the crews on board the ISS.

I removed noise and edited some shots in photoshop. Compiled and arranged in Sony Vegas.

Isn't it GREAT to be alive in this day and age?

Seen In the Finest Establishments, Everywhere

That's apropos of the following exchange in comments to the post immediately below:

VX:  (Hey Buck--remember when the old USAF GEEIA Squadrons meant --according to one GEEIA tech guy who jokingly told me--"Get Every Electronic Idiot Available?" Were YOU a GEEIA guy? lol)

No, I wasn't a GEEIA guy. But I WAS an AFCC E&I team chief, and I was also in possession of about a dozen sheets of those old "Installed BY GEEIA" stickers. I'm CERTAIN you saw those things everywhere in Nam, every little bar and whorehouse in all of SEA had at least ONE of those stickers, somewhere. Usually in the latrine, on the toilet or on the mirror. Or on the mirror behind the bar, if the establishment was up-market enough to HAVE a mirror.

We were issued "Installed by AFCC" stickers, but NO ONE used the things. We were still too close to the GEEIA days, and most of the Old Heads were GEEIA types.

Paul Harvey Voice

And now ya know the REST of the story.  For the uninformed, GEEIA actually stood for Ground Electronics Engineering and Installation Agency.  (The exchange above was edited slightly for clarity.)

/Paul Harvey Voice.

Saturday Redux

This was yesterday's runner-up in the Viral Vid sweepstakes.

"You shouldn't have done that.  I can hear yourself freaking out."  Heh.

Rain and Linkage to More Rain

I just stepped outside for about four minutes to witness the briefest of cloudbursts, which is about all the rain we seem to be getting, of late.  This is what I saw...

Note the sidewalk in front of The Green Hornet is barely wet yet the car park area is sufficiently damp, as is the road.  Or, just enough moisture to dampen down the ever-present dust and raise the humidity level, which will make our Happy Hour something of a sweaty affair later on today.  I think it rained for all of four minutes, if that, but it WAS enough to scent the air with the sweet, sweet smell of damp earth.  I'm thankful for that.

What we REALLY need here on The High Plains o' New Mexico is rain that looks like this:

The rain is heavy this morning, and big. The drops looking like a badminton birdie when they hit the street. I like it like this, and it’s full of memories. 

That's what we call a teaser, Gentle Reader, wherein we hope to entice you into reading Andy's musings on rain.  And other, not so pleasant things.  So go for the rain and stay for the other bits which are equally good, if not as uplifting.

The Usual Saturday Post, With Cookies (And Stuff)

The Guardian is back with their picks o' the week and here are the two I liked best:

Yeah, a cat.  AND a big-ass Doberman that is oh-so-gentle.  Amazing, eh?

And now for dessert:

I still haven't heard "Call Me Maybe," and I'm prolly one of only eight people who HAVEN'T.  I'm not losing sleep over this, however.

Tonight's ADWH Soundtrack...

The Duo-Tones with a remake of a 60's classic:

There's some nice surf footage in the video and that brings back memories of Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach, c. 1962 and 1963, when YrHmblScrb was in his surfer-boy phase.  But, we'll not go there... let's focus on the music, instead.  It turns out that "Apache" was originally written and recorded by a British band around 1960 or so, but their version of the tune is virtually unknown in the US.  Here's the version I remember, made popular by the Ventures in 1962:

You don't need to remind me that the time period we're talking about was 50 years ago.  50!  That got me to thinkin'... my 50th high school reunion would be next year.  Aiiieee!  Not only do I not wanna know... I don't wanna GO, either.

Olympics and Shirts

Why, I believe we were talking about nekkid Olympians just yesterday... over here.

And yeah, Susie... where IS yer shirt made?  My 501s are made somewhere near Cairo, an offshoring decision I'm thinkin' the Levi Strauss guys MIGHT be regretting about now.  And no, I'm not taking 'em off, or otherwise givin' 'em up.

Tonight's ADWH Soundtrack...

... Bela Fleck playin' some fine, fine Bluegrass guitar banjo:

I dearly love the album cover illustration... almost as much as I like the music.  

Ain't that just COOL?  We're such suckers for nostalgia, we are.

Oh, Noes!

We had a lot o' fun with that Facebook IPO back in May, as did the political cartoonists who provided EIP with a LOT o' blog-fodder during that time.  Most of our fun centered around the immediate loss in value of FB shares, which left a lot of investors holding the proverbial bag and it's getting worse.  From Reuters:

(Reuters) - Shares of Facebook Inc (FB.O) fell about 1 percent on Tuesday, extending the previous day's losses after an investment analyst reported a decline in U.S. users for the No. 1 social network.

Capstone analyst Rory Maher said he used proprietary software to track user numbers by country over the past six months across more than 200 countries and worked out that the social network had shed users in both the United States and Europe. U.S. users declined by 1.1 percent, he said in a research note.

RTWT, as we citizen-journalists say.  What?  People are leaving FB?  Color me surprised.  Heh.

I should've posted this yesterday but didn't.  My Bad.

Vets...

... there are a lot of us.  About 21.8 million of us, according to the Census Bureau.  From the Usual USAF Source:

A Snapshot of the Nation's Veterans: There are 21.8 million veterans in the United States, 20.2 million of which are males, according to the US Census Bureau's veterans' snapshot, issued on July 17. Some 1.3 million veterans have served in more than one war, including more than 100,000 who have been in three wars, according to the data. California leads the nation with two million vets, followed by Florida and Texas with some 1.6 million vets each, states the snapshot. Killeen, Tex., is the city with the highest percentage of veterans in its population: 28.9 percent. Veterans have a median income of $35,367, nearly $10,000 higher than that of the average American, according to the Census Bureau. They own 9 percent of all US businesses, states the snapshot.

I find that median income statement suspect, as far as the "average American" is concerned.  This table from USA Today sez the US per person average income was $40,584 in 2010 (Aside: I found it interesting NM ranks 43rd in average income.  We be PO'.).  But there may be a plausible explanation, aside from the statistical difference between "median" and "average:"

Median income refers to those who are 18 years and over with income in the past 12 months. Income includes not only wages and self-employment, but also Social Security, retirement pensions, VA payments, and other forms of income.

That's from the Census Bureau's snapshot graphic.  Still and even, that's a lot of vets, eh?  OTOH, that's only 7.3% of the population, assuming we've got 300 million people in the US.  And yeah, we could split hairs on this subject (demographics) from now until the cows come home.  But we won't.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

New-to-me artist Alejandro Escovedo, with a Rolling Stones cover...

Hey, hey, hey now
One day I woke up to find
Right in the bed next to mine
Someone that broke me up with a corner of her smile, yeah

Its just that demon life has got me in it's sway
Its just that demon life has got me in it's sway

I heard this tune on my way back from Cannon Airplane Patch earlier this afternoon and I'm SUCH a sucker for Rolling Stones tunes, even covers, of which this is one of the best I've heard... mebbe even eclipsing the original.  So let's compare...

It MIGHT be heresy, but I think I like Alejandro's version better.  Check him out on the Tube o' You.