Just before the storm....

This thunderhead rolling in brought lightning to our neighbor's back yard. The clap rattled the windows.

Chasing the Sun

Zeus loves to lie in the Sun, even if it's just a little patch of it in the corner he can only get his head into.

Summer is for flip-flops

On January 14, 2007, El Presidentѐ wannabe said, "We cannot impose a military solution on what has effectively become a civil war. And until we acknowledge that reality, uh, we can send 15,000 more troops; 20,000 more troops; 30,000 more troops. Uh, I don't know any, uh, expert on the region or any military officer that I've spoken to, uh, privately that believes that that is gonna make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground."

Fast forward to two days ago during a visit to those 15, 20 or 30 thousand troops who wouldn't be able to make any "substantial difference...on the ground." The junior senator from Illinois had this to say, "What I said was even at the time of the debate of the surge, was if you put 30,000 troops in, of course it’s going to have an impact. There’s no doubt about that."

Suck up all you want Mr. Obama, you're not getting the military's vote.

El Presidente

“Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English—they’ll learn English—you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish.” —el presidential candidito Barack Obama.

Say what? This is the yahoo the democrats want to put in the White House? Is he already conceding defeat to our southern neighbors, ready to give to them our unique American heritage?

Last Saturday, some ditz made a left-hand turn in front of me and I hit them, wrecking a good portion of the front of my Jeep. Not one word of English was available from any of the three occupants of the car I hit. We had to wait for a second police officer who spoke Spanish before anything productive could be accomplished.

They'll learn English only when politicians quit pandering for votes and start doing their jobs - solving the country's problems. One of the biggest problems we as Americans face is the refusal on the part of immigrants to assimilate and truely become Americans.

Press '1' for what?

Last night I made a bunch of phone calls to credit card companies to cancel cards I haven't used in years. Each call was initally answered by a woman who sounds like she lives in a soup can. Invariably, her instructions started off with some form of the message, "Thank you for calling [insert bank name here.] For English, press one, para Espanol..." I hate that.

What the message should say is, "If you are calling from the United States, press one, si llama de otro país...." Then you press one and you get to speak to someone in English.

God's painting

If there was ever a good reason to get up early on a Saturday moning, this was it. I snapped this and several others like it at about 0700 on December 3, 2005. That was back when we lived on the beach. A good year.

Photoshop in Iran? Who knew?

Seem the Iranians aren't spending all their time trying to make nuclear weapons, or whatever it is they do in those nuclear weapon making facilities over there. At least some time was spent recently testing a few missles that may eventually carry nuclear weapons, or not. Here's the photo from Sepah News (the media arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards):

This photo was picked up and reprinted by just about every major news outlet yesterday and today. By the time someboday paid attention and figured out that one of the missles (#3 from the left) was a fake, the Sepah Website had replaced it with this one:

I did some more digging around to see if I could find just what it was theose wacky Iranians were trying to do with their digital trickery. Did they not want us to see that one of their missles needed a shot of Cialis? Or did they think the sight of four missles soaring skyward would be more imposing than three? Here's what i found:

The sharpest gift

My wife often berates herself for not being a good gift-giver when it comes to me. I'm appearantley not very vocal about what it is I'd like, making shopping for me even more difficult. This year for our annaversary (#2!) though, she did good, and without any help from me!

You can't beat a good set of knives for the kitchen!