slinky

interesting? yes. fun to watch? certainly. worth $1 million? absolutely not.

what in the world is it that justifies that price tag? the engineering? the materials? the novelty? sheesh. get real.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2055238/Cheap-Halloween-costumes-Sorry-human-slinky-set-1m.html

patriarchs

disgusting. and yet ... not surprising.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2054420/Wife-sharing-brothers-haunts-Indian-villages-number-girls-decline.html

driving with a red line

i can't decide whether i think this is a good idea or not. is it helpful or just annoying? i think i wouldn't like it, at least not as it's presented.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2054620/Hi-tech-new-sat-nav-ditches-box-dash--projects-windscreen.html

oh, isn't this cute? punctuation marks -- some of which i know and several of which i do not.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/13-punctuation-marks-that-you-never-knew-existed

and once again the familiar litany -- stupidity. good grief facebook, get real. you are so fucked up.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2054737/Breast-cancer-survivors-outraged-photos-painted-breasts-called-pornography-Facebook-taken-down.html

just a couple more pix. moto man and his mother go riding.

moto man standing on a lookout with his sweetie and rio grande in background.

moto man standing on a lookout with his sweetie.

moto man and his 'rents at lookout.

moto man and his sweetie and mom.

i had a great two weeks off. except for the jerk who stole our credit card number and bought things with it. the flights to and from abq were uneventful, and flying first class is the only way to go.  we met the kids and ate, then whizzed up to sante fe and then beyond, to los alamos. l.a. is at about 7000 feet and is starkly lovely. i remember my dad talking about going to the boy scout ranch at piedmont nm. that's northeast of l.a. and i can see why he was so taken with the area.

l.a. itself is about 10,000-12,000 people and is incredibly vibrant. they have an excellent library, one grocery store (not counting the health food store on the edge of town), and a really big hospital. the humidity was about 12% and while my face loved it, my hands didn't.

we were going to see some cliff dwellings, but that didn't quite work out and there was too much else to do to wait around. we drove up to the caldera and i wanted to move in right away. not that there's anywhere to move -- it's a huge meadow resting just below mountain tops, but i would have been satisfied with kicking out the people at the visitor center, blocking off the roads, and having it all to myself.

just across from there, on the main road, sat two houses that survived this summer's fire. the trees behind their homes were burned less than 100 feet away. honestly, they just barely escaped the danger. (houses at bottom of tree-line)

so ... the trip was great. we checked on and identified the purchases which were made by the miscreant, and are now awaiting our replacement card. frankly, if the creep were caught and the sentencing were up to us, we would simply have him shot. we're sick of the bad guys going without justice. no patience at all anymore for the possibility of misunderstanding, bad childhood, etc. just shoot them all. but on a final note, here are a couple more pix of that lovely l.a. area.

business doesn't always tell the truth

i know that the kids don't like it if i wash something (clothes) in hot water but when i was growing up, hot water was the way to go.

i found this article the other day which makes the point --

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2050239/How-washing-machines-familys-health-risk-Low-temperatures-mixed-loads-spreading-dangerous-bugs.html

it's always reassuring to be validated.

get real

and then there's the mulims at seatac who thought they should get paid for taking time to pray. hertz asked them to clock out and back in if they needed to pray. they didn't. hertz fired them.

stupid fuckers. the muslims i mean. why on god's earth should they get paid to pray? i don't. come on special interest group, get with the program or go back east. we don't owe you anything.

the comments generally agree.  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2051914/Hertz-fires-26-Muslim-shuttle-drivers-refused-clock-prayer-breaks.html

oh, but i need to tell you about the food we had on our little cabin outing. we stopped in anacortes at this place called Adrift. it is a restaurant which buys locally and organic, and uses that stuff to produce excellent dishes!!  my favorite is the wee beet salad, which is so beyond yummy as to stun the imagination.

another place, in langley, is called the Prima Bistro and is, once again, excellent!! and our waiter was just so fun -- good-natured, affable, spoke french eloquently, and a sweetie.

we were both surprised by how much a few excellent meals had us filled up for, supposedly, days. is that typical of good food? fills you up for a long time? if so, i've been doing something wrong. not that i cook anymore, but i'm just saying ...

the girlfriend and i did have a good weekend. we drove up to white rock and stayed in a really nice hotel with a view of the water and wind surfers. we walked to all the shops and ate delicious food.

in particular i enjoyed a restaurant called the Deluxe. it was soooooo excellent. if you want to check it out, it might be good to get reservations. we got lucky (twice) since we didn't have them.

another excellent place was Le Vol Au Vent and yes, it was french. and excellent.

next door to the hotel was this little sandwich shop which made an excellent omelet for mary and an excellent sandwich for me. i think it was called Look's Watts Cooking, whatever that means.

we ate at Iguana's Beach Grill and Pearl Restaurant, but honestly i don't remember them, so i would not go back to them unless i couldn't get in to a number of other places. there was one place called a something-something snug and it was run by a scotsman i believe. if there had been more time, and more room in my tummy, i would have checked it out.

it was a fun time and thank goodness it's just across the border so i can avail myself of that good food whenever i take a notion! eight minues my friends, just eight minutes to a little bite of heaven!

the grandaughter had a birthday party last weekend. she's FOUR!!! kinda hard to realize. and she's just adorable and going to be a real knock-out when she's older. i mean she's beautiful now, and has lovely smiles and is a delight to be around. and she's smart, as in extremely. she will be a brilliant scientist or doctor or something if she just doesn't get way-laid by the ordinary. and wouldn't that be a shame.

little cabin

the husband and i just returned form a 2-night stay at a little cabin in the woods. it was (1) fun and (2) depressing. i mean, that's the way people used to HAVE to live. ackkwwk!!!

i mean, yes, there was an indoor bathroom and it had a kitchen with a stove, sink, frig, and microwave, and there was several beds upstairs and a fireplace downstairs and a tv with which to watch movies, but... it was waaaay too easy to see how it would have been 100 years ago. dust and cobwebs hanging from the support timbers, spiders and bugs inviting themselves in for a stay, using an outhouse, washing clothes someplace, and what if the unfriendlies come for a call?

honestly, how did humans survive??? it just had to be easier in the midwest than in the northwest.