Freedom Fries!

If you haven’t seen this hour-long documentary and if you are an American or anyone interested in the craziness of its modern citizens, this is a must show to see. Freedom Fries: And Other Stupidity We’ll Have to Explain to Our Grandchildren is also on Netflix and Hulu.

Getting ready for a visit to the doc. Hope to get Sammy for a while tomorrow. Sunday ‘is get out of this damned house for awhile’ day.

Have a good weekend!

Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil. ~Jerry Garcia

Chris is at home. She had a heart stress test yesterday morning which showed abnormal. She then had x-rays yesterday afternoon which showed nothing wrong so the doctor released her from hospital last evening. She does have high cholesterol but they are blaming the heart attack on stress. Thank you good folks for your cares and prayers.

Thunderstorms this morning. Tomorrow and Saturday should be decent but with more storms mixed with sunshine.

My R.A. doc checkup is tomorrow afternoon.

Why do states and municipalities seem to be hung up on naming public buildings, roads, bridges, etc. after politicians? Seems like electing and enriching the crooked sons-of-bitches to begin with would be tribute enough. If they want to draw tourists and their money, name the sites after people and other places of historical importance.

On this day in 1986, the world’s worst nuclear accident to date occurs at the Chernobyl nuclear plant near Kiev in Ukraine. Source: history.com.

Have a good last Thursday of April.

Chris

Chris, our daughter, is ill and in hospital. She is undergoing tests this morning. Carolyn is with her. As I learn more, I will post it on this blog.

The National Rifle Association is pushing the Republican dominated Tennessee Legislature to pass a law which allows employees to carry concealed and loaded weapons in their cars while at work on private company property. Is that crazy or what? Every day will be a Gunfight At The OK Corral when workers get pissed at each other or their supervisors. Actually, it is typical of the bought and paid-for General Assembly of this state. Employers for the most part are against the bill and it probably will not be passed during this election year. However, if and when the nut-cases are reelected, I’m sure the N.R.A. will have its way. The N.R.A. is not interested in protection of the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution except where it applies to firearms manufacturers being able to sell more handguns to the public and make higher profits.

Have a Happy Wednesday!

Tuesday ... all day long

Not much going on today; Sammy is sicker than he was so it may be awhile before we get him out and about. Ashley is doctoring him and I hope we can get to keep him before the weekend comes.

Carolyn is off to hairdresser and I am playing a game on the PC; one of the old Atari “Breakout” clones. Don’t tell me I’ve nothing to do.

Have a Tuesday!

Hacking is like walking a dinosaur

Sunday, Facebook was again hacked; this time megashot.net’s Macro page was taken over by someone else. The page belongs to Cyrus Khamak and he had himself and I as administrators. When he found out he could not access the admin. tools, he asked me to help him but I then found out that I was also removed as admin. As I understand the situation, after some sleuthing Cyrus found who the thief was and cajoled them into giving his his site back.

The Megashot pages–there are several covering different genres–are very popular with Facebook members and anytime something on the net becomes popular, green jealously pops up and begins trying to find ways to make other people’s lives as miserable as theirs. Mostly, Cyrus has done all the hard work to make Megashot possible along with the Facebook pages which allow more people to have their artwork and photographs seen by more people. However, there have been several more of us helping out in our limited ways trying to make the best photo site on the net even better.  Some of us were there testing features as they were coded and placed into the main body to make sure they worked like they were supposed to and that they got along with the other features; many times they didn’t and had to be debugged more than once. Finally, after two years of building and testing, Cyrus presented the site to the public in a “Beta” form, meaning we were still testing and things might not all work and and there could be outages. Now, as Cyrus works to bring version two of megashot.net into reality, photographers and artists should support his efforts by sending him a kind word of appreciation; after all, not one member has been asked to pay any money to use and enjoy the site.

All any of us ask is respect for the huge site and the ongoing effort that went into making Megashot and its satellite Facebook pages a reality and successful. Hacking isn’t nice.

Thank you.

Happy Birthday, Chrissy!

Sammy was here yesterday; he was sick with a cold and sore gums.  Hope he is feeling better today.

Supposed to be fairly nice day here then turn colder with possible snow showers on Sunday night.

Have a good day, y’all.

Friday!

Respect

Have a good Friday and a splendiferous weekend!

‘I never could get the hang of Thursdays’ ~Douglas Adams

Punk' N Center

So much for the “new” Blogger. The first couple of day’s spams were more numerous than ever but now they are back to the normal flow of a few each day. WordPress is molasses-slow and difficult to work with, but it is so much safer than Blogger; I will stick with it as my main host.

The mountains are socked-in and rain threatens. The frost last week heavily damaged the mountain apple crops by killing blossoms. Many tender leaves on the trees at my house have turned brown and we noticed a lot of damage in the area while we were out Sunday.

Let’s see today’s headlines: BP oil spill fish are sick; U.S. Secret Service agents get some Colombian nooky; TV legend Dick Clark dead; India tests new nuclear-delivery capable missile; Pat Summit quits as Tennessee Lady Vol head coach. One of these events bothers me much more than do the rest of them; can you guess which one? Nope, not Pat’s retirement; it’s the BP sick fish.

I had to buy a new hard drive yesterday because I know all these photos I’ve made over the years will be worth billions of dollars some day and I need a backup. I ordered from Amazon yesterday afternoon; it shipped from Nashville last evening; it is now on the UPS truck headed to my house. I’ve never had anything but no-hassle excellent service from amazon.com.

Hope we can keep Sammy tomorrow.

Have a Thursday to fondly remember!

A Frog Prince and Daffoidil Ladies

Thanks to Tammy for the photos; she should consider having these matted, framed, and placed on a wall where her family and friends can see them. They speak Spring. I did very little editing to these shots, but I suggest that with the crop I did to the daffodils, the photo be flipped horizontally; in this case and for me, it enhances the compositional flow: left-to-right and top-to-bottom. We should read photos like we read the page of a book. Actually it is a matter of subjective taste.

Maggie is home from her three-week tour of China; Welcome back, my friend.

A sleeping pill and nearly 12 hours sleep, along with a drearily-overcast sky and half-closed window shades has me seeing good enough to write this; the past two days were hell without the heat. I’m so grouchy when my eyes are misbehavin’ so that I cannot stand to be around myself; Carolyn has almost learned to stay as far away as she can. My Jekyll and Hyde alter consciences struggle at the edge of a dark abyss; so far, Jekyll has won out but I know Hyde becomes stronger because the struggles last longer and at times Jekyll wants to step into the bottomless darkness as he flips a bird at Hyde. Yep, I’m a certified, 24-karat, card carrying nut case.

I need a Sammy fix.

While rowing my boat through Alice Springs
From a far shore I heard reindeer sing
A sound so melancholy I covered my ears
My heart wasn’t ready for Christmas jeers

Have a cheery Wednesday!

Muddlin' through

Barn Art--Telford, Tenn

Taxes are all done and sent off … I am bored …

Mostly cloudy and milder weather today in East Tennessee; we need a break from the heat and some rain would be nice also. Off and on cloudy skies are giving my eyes a bit of relief; even inside the house sunlight through windows bothers them when I have allergies. I figured allergies would become worse as I grew older but they seem to be about the same severity or even less than when I was 25 years younger. Nohow, I won’t be on the net much today as I try to subdue my brain from needing my eyes so much.

Italian Cheeses
Is riding a cheese wheel across old Rome
more sacred than riding a cheese wheel at home

Have a Tuesday!

Decent weekend

Fancy!

Sammy was with us for a few hours Saturday and his dad came home yesterday; he will be doing some of the Sammy-sitting now and we won’t see my Buddy as much. He is usually with us on Mondays but maybe we can get him later in the week. I saw the antique tricycle sitting on a crate in front of a candy store in Jonesborough. Now, I must somehow coerce the owners into selling it to me for Sammy to use. I’ve never before seen a tricycle as fancy as this one, nor a great-grandson as fancy as Sammy.

We got out into the countryside again yesterday; a satisfying jaunt but not many photos of note. We parked along Main Street in Jonesborough for our last stop; the little tourist-trap town has many good photo ops for a walking person. Some of the shops have closed down; three of them are adjacent and it is possible the landlord may have raised the rent to where carrying on equitable trade wasn’t possible.

I was out in the farmland long enough to have a dandy case of eye allergies this morning. Moisture drops, allergy drops, and Claritin are allowing these words to be written.

Beautiful, very warm weather once more in East Tennessee; pop-up thunderstorms are expected this afternoon.

Have a good Worshday!

Happy Birthday, Jola

A Friend’s Birthday on Friday the 13th should be an extra fun celebration!

Google’s Blogger is changing their interface once more. I am trying it out on the three blogs I have hosted there, including the clone of this one. I sure hope it gets rid of the comment garbage; every day I get at least one spam comment wanting to sell me Viagra which I don’t yet need, or a penis enlarger which all men claim they don’t need but secretly most wish they owned one.

A British author has come out with a new book about the history masturbation; many men will want to get their hands around one. Probably some stiff reading, though.

I can think of a bunch of quips for this hard fact.

On my desk I have a brochure from some company selling penis pumps–EREC-TECH– which “will produce an instant erection sufficient for sexual intercourse for any man (it doesn’t mention if it is sufficient for a woman’s pleasure).” The best part is that Medicare Insurance pays for it. They sure get to the meat of the matter when it comes to handling flaccid phalluses and wayward weenies. I wonder if the device comes complete with a porn film for men whose wives still won’t put out?

Have a great weekend, my handy friends.

Fragile ...

Frosty this morning; 27°F (-2.7°C) at 4:00am. ‘I pity da fools’ who planted garden early.

Didn’t sleep well; woke up at 2:00am and never went back to sleep. Read some more of Bouton’s book and did a bunch of thinking. Don’t remember what I thought about but I’m sure it was deep and would have made the world a better place for all people. Now I am sleepy.

When Sammy was here Tuesday, he and I agreed; women are fickle. Well, at least he didn’t disagree. I look forward to a lot of long and meaningful talks with my Buddy.

One of my photos I like a lot (you probably will not like it) made Megashot’s Explore ‘Image of the Day’ yesterday in Architecture category. I have been fortunate to have garnered more than my share of photo awards on the site. On Flickr, I went more than three years without having a photo appear in their Explore feature.

Microsoft Windows XP did an update yesterday and it must have been a doozy. The harddrive with all my photos for the past 10 years was inoperable when I booted the PC this morning. The discs had a lot of other files and important stuff on them, too. Fortunately, most was backed-up to another drive and I lost only what I had done in the past two weeks. I think all of Sammy’s photos are safe but I must get another HD and transfer to it from the backups.

Have a pleasant Thursday!

Softly

Another day of ‘up before the sun’. Another day of eye allergies, too. Cold last night; 31°F (.5°C) and supposed to be about the same tonight and tomorrow night. Chilly today but should be warm for the weekend. O’ Spring … how I miss ye!

I also miss Sammy on the days he isn’t here and there will probably be a lot more days without him from now on. We played with him extra hard yesterday because his dad is coming home and we will not see my Little Buddy as much. Carolyn’s eyes were damp after she came back from taking him home yesterday and our house was so was quiet; Sammy’s toys were still strewn about the floor and signs of his presence were everywhere. The sudden loneliness grabbed me a bit, too. Maybe we can keep him at least one day each week.

Have a great Wednesday!

Baseball was made for kids, and grown-ups only screw it up. ~Bob Lemon

Jonesborough, Tennessee

Damn, I hate to get up before the sun; it is blasphemy.

I will miss Mike Wallace, but I suppose there are many people whom he interviewed who will not.

I am finally reading Jim Bouton’s baseball chronicle, Ball Four. I put off reading it for nearly 40 years, but Amazon had a Facebook special of the day and I got it for $.99. The reason I had never read it was some of the reviews from the early nineteen-seventies had me thinking it was a tattle-tale story from a player in his last years as a professional. I was already becoming disillusioned with the big league game and I figured by reading the book it would belittle what few dreams I had left of the old days and heroes like Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford, and Yogi Berra. All these guys were teammates with Bouton for the New York Yankee organization in the late fifties and early sixties. It has turned out to be a very good book, written with humor by a man who knows the insides of baseball and uses his knowledge to tell an entertaining story which is not a tell-all about the game or its players.

Sammy is coming; have a Tuesday.

'Monday is the root of all evil'

Watauga River

Didn’t do much this weekend other than edit a few old photos. Saturday and Sunday were both pretty days, especially yesterday.

I’ve started adding a few b/w photos to Facebook’s Black and White group via Megashot; some good work there.

Hope everyone had a meaningful Easter weekend. I celebrate spring each day of the year so Easter does not have a lot of significance for me.

Sammy is here and still feeling poorly.

Have a good Worshday!

Spring

Dogwood

‘Jazz washes away the dust of every day life’ ~ Art Blakely

I’ve been watching Ken Burns’ very good ten-part made for Public Television documentary about Jazz. I watched episode nine last evening and it leads into the modern era of musicians. Jazz is complicated, and my opinion is that to be good at playing it, a person must be somewhat of an intellectual, if not genius as many of the greats were and are. With a few arguable exceptions, Jazz is the music of the black man, I believe. It is a celebration of freedom of spirit and of being black in largely racist white America; born in New Orleans early last century, brought into screaming adolescence by Louis Armstrong, nurtured in Chicago, and still maturing in New York City. Unlike most genres of music and ages of old men, Jazz will never be set in its ways. Even at ten episodes of one and one-half to two-hours per program, Burns is able only to scratch the surface of what Jazz really is; actually, I don’t know if anyone has a clue as to what it means, even to themselves, be he lyricist, composer, performer, or listener. Critics damn sure don’t know and all but the self-righteous of them will admit they are in the dark as to its meaning. I am not a great Jazz fan, but I do like much of it, particularly the free jamming variety where the artists just let it all hang out at the same time, and I respect the effort it takes creators of all styles of music to strive to become the best they can be.
“Anyone can learn what Louis Armstrong knows about music in a few weeks. Nobody could learn to play like him in a thousand years.”
~ Benny Green

Thursday is Maunday this week; have a good one.

‘A man growing old becomes a child again’ ~Sophocles

Sammy didn’t get shots yesterday. Twenty-two pounds and 30 inches long.

Courtney—Jeremy’s fiance—has a very good personal blog on WordPress. She expresses well and in detail her harrowing experience with cancer. Our family is very proud of her and Jeremy and wish them the best on their forthcoming California quest.

The U.S. National Archives now has images of the 1940 census online. I found it a bit difficult to use at first, but when I got to where I wanted, I found several dates on family members which didn’t jive with what I already have in my genealogy program. If you have need of a good and free ancestry program for your PC (English), look at Gramps. It is designed for Linux systems but independent developers have created Windows and Mac versions. I have tried the the Windows version on my PC and it works well and I use the Linux version on on my Linux H.D. Long before I discovered Gramps, I bought a commercial program—Family Tree Maker—for Windows and still use it.

Have a pleasantly wreakless Wednesday!

“Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here”

Podlasie, Poland

Sammy is nine months old today and has a checkup appointment with the doc; I hope he doesn’t have to get shots. He will be over here later today.

Nudism should be on the rise since the U.S. Supreme Court decided that anyone can be strip-searched after any offense, even for a minor traffic infraction. If it is that easy to force us to take our clothes off, why not get naked before leaving home thus freeing the coppers time for making love to donuts?

Looks like I was a bit premature in judging the Occupy movement as not having much life left. I don’t know that there will be as many huge encampments as there were last autumn but protests are beginning to increase around the country as is head-cracking by our protector’s bludgeons. When citizens are peacefully protesting, they have a lawful right and moral responsibility to protect themselves and each other from unwarranted attack, including abuses by law enforcement personnel and paraphernalia.

Thanks to Jola for the spring landscape photo made in the beautiful Podlasie region of north-eastern Poland; hope she doesn’t mind my bit of editing/cropping.

Title quote by John Swigert, Jr, Apollo 13 Astronaut.

Have a Tuesday!

Happy Birthday, Mark!

Happiness is Peeps and a new mouse

Ninety-eight percent finished with federal income tax forms … I hope.

Sammy isn’t with us today; Ashley is off work.

Whoops! Guess who just came in?

This past weekend was as flat as they come; I didn’t even go out of the house.

Have a good Worshday!