Ages Old Draft Clean Up Post

Grandfather and grandmother. Maybe the reason blues music is so ingrained in my soul- honestly. I mean really, if just looking at them doesn't just put a beat-down on you, I don't know what would. She looks like a harder, more beaten version of my mom and I would know those hands anywhere.

• Occasionally in my hospice nursing when I'm relieving another nurse she'll say something like, Oh, I've heard so much about you! and want to draw out report and visit and obviously try to figure out what makes me tick.
• I don't fall for it anymore- they are trying to steal my Mojo.
• Hospice nursing is the best nursing ever for the simple, relatively ego less exchange of teaching between nurses to improve patient care- hands down, no discussion. It's one aspect that would make it hard to leave if the time came.
• The adolescent deer is still living near the pond. If the water holds I will put a mineral block out to keep it going until the acorns and pecans make. There is a little browse and will be plenty if we get a little more rain which will come. Then we'll get sick of all the rain...
• It's the reddest white tail deer I've ever seen with an unbelievably long tail.
• My teenager bumped the thermostat down so low the other night Zac woke up crying and felt cold as a dead person. My back was aching and I had to get in the tub to get the knots out.
• I still love Pinky And The Brain and The Animaniacs.
• Remember Rudedog?
• The other day it crossed my mind and 15 minutes later on the way to town saw a pickup I'd never seen before with RUDEDOG in vinyl letters across the back window.
• In nursing homes they always have Bob Hope, Randolph Scott, Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello and John Wayne movies with titles like Road To Bali, Rio Bravo, Stagecoach, The Fighting Seabees and Africa Screams always among them. Twenty to Forty years from now it will be Pretty In Pink, Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Buellers Day Off, Red Dawn and Young Guns.
• Interesting to come back and see this one- I haven't done hospice in years. We'll see where we are at when it publishes.

Priceless Doesn't

even begin to touch the objects in this picture. The pop gun belonged to my childrens Pop- their great grandfather. He got it for his fifth birthday. It was in a window display at a downtown  Bridgeport TX hardware store for months while he coveted it and his sainted mother saved pennies and nickels to buy it. The antlers belonged to the last deer he killed about 5 years before his own death at the age of 83.

Some people were supposed to live forever weren't they? I miss him like few who others who have departed this mortal coil.

Monday's Missives

• If you wonder why Rush Limbaugh is such a big deal it would help to understand the context in which he got big in the first place. For 30-50 years broadcast news readers could and would say whatever they wanted to disparage a conservative and/or promote a more liberal agenda regardless of what they were discussing. We just didn't hear anything from a conservative standpoint without really digging and looking. President Reagan could be at a Girl Scouts meeting and say to the crowd, I am an animal lover who believes in  helping poor people but the best way to help is to have a good economy so those who want to work can do so as a rising tide raises all the ships.  I also believe in a strong military to protect us and our interests. Dan Rather or Peter Jennings would come out and say, President Reagan while raping a goat at a Ku Klux Klan gathering said if it was up to him any poor people who don't want to work would be forced into the ocean by the US Army. Honestly, you would not believe how bad it was if you didn't live then or dig for the truth a little yourself..
• The Marines have been ordered to change their cover (uniform hat) for the dress uniform. Some people have attempted to be pejorative and start a false argument over the proposed replacement by saying they look too, "girly". I don't know about that but they do look literally ridiculous.

• I may be be the only person in some of my patients lives who has ever asked them about their future and really encouraged them to attend college.
• For a while SYFY has been promising a lot of good, original CGI movies. There are a lot I suppose and they may be original and yes, they have CGI effects...

  

  FG: This was my granddads.
  Me: Cool.
  FG: I bet it was expensive.
  Me: Yeah, well its priceless to you. It reminds you of him and it was his- that is cool.
  FG: I bet it cost at least 500 bucks. I mean look at all its got going on- a compass, fishing gear and sharpening stone!.
  Me Yeah.
  FG: What do you mean- yeah? OK. But it was at least 100 bucks right?
  Me: No, probably about ten dollars.
  FG: You don't know anything.

  
  
  
  

  

  Blackcomb Mongoose. Bombproof (but heavy) frame and excellent components. They didn't catch on with serious mountain bikers so you can find them like new on CL often for about 150 bucks.
  
  
  

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Just A Tuesday

If you don't believe in Bigfoot after seeing this, then you're blind and have definitely drunk too much of The Man's Kool Aid.

The chaparral or roadrunner is one of my favorite birds. A member of the cuckoo family they are predators that kill mice, snakes and lizards and then present them to their girlfriends to show how manly they are.

Zac and a princess play in the mud at Scarborough Faire.

• Medal Of Honor Cat
• Recently I read an article about guys who have lied about military service. They sometimes do this to defraud the government for benefits and sometimes to troll for babes and of course, sometimes it is for both reasons. One guy had a particularly good looking, well adorned uniform on and wasn't out of shape and did not have a goatee etc. He looked at ease in that uniform. I thought, Huh, no wonder he pulled that off for as long as he did. Until  I scrolled down and saw him in a park type setting wearing a boonie hat with the chin strap on! It is weird the things we take note of I suppose but man, there is no way a real vet would have done that- literally Not. In. A. Million. Years.
• There was a story title on a web site I glanced at earlier for an article about a movie star (I think she is anyway) undergoing a root canal. Oh the humanity! Good grief.
• I'm drinking a mix of cranberry and pomegranate juice- with another juice from concentrate. That is what the label says. It is probably just liquidy dregs left over from whatever fruit products they intended to make their real money on by dejuicing.
• I have no idea who Jody Arias is or what she is accused of doing but you cannot turn on any true crime show that they're not talking about her and there is a new headline on every news browser I use every day about her.
• It is hard these days to find any kind of caliber of rounds even nominally associated with a tactical type rifle or pistol.
• I very often misspell these as theses.
• When you hear of a murder-suicide tragedy involving 3 members of the military you can pretty well bet 1 will be female and 2 male. 

Sharkarosa After Action Report

• It was OK- not great as I assumed it would be. Alright- it was very OK. The kids loved it and it didn't break the bank so I'm not going to complain.
• Noticed a lot of people with children whom it appeared obvious were foster children. There were multiple families and none of them seemed to interact, so I don't think it was a group thing.
  
  
  

  

  Zac gets high fived by a Joey.

  
  

  

  This guy got smashed in the face by a car when he was a baby. Sheesh, I thought I had it hard.

  
  

  

  Mom was not impressed with this red tailed boa's antics but she seemed like a good sport overall about it.

  
  
  
  
  

  

  I asked the kid where this type of snake was from. From Peruvian was his reply.

  
  

  

  Two cel phone just laying around- not in their natural habitat.  I'm sure a kid ditched them out of a stroller.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  I hear people talking about camel toes all the time. I don't get it- but here is some if that is your thing.

  
  

  

  Smooch!

  
  
  
• African crested porcupines are one of my favorite animals. They get eaten by humans in their native land.
• They have an albino spectacled cobra. The handler said it had been defanged.
• There are probably 10-12 camels there. All are dromedary and all but 1 female. 
• There were only a couple of birds on display and no reptiles.
• One of those teacup pigs got aggravated at me and snapped at me in the petting zoo- right after I commented on him looking delicious and saying something about bacon.. Everybody laughed at me.
• The driver of the safari tram was named TJ.
• I noted very few wild birds flying around. It would have been a logical assumption I thought that they would be everywhere snagging the dropped feed.
• Mike Rowe did an episode of Dirty Jobs there. He fed baby kangaroos and stimulated them to poop with a wet wipe into his hand.
• Every animal there appeared to be healthy and happy.
• The snack stand was pretty good, especially their hot dogs and the lady running it was a sweety. She and her husband were working it together. They have been married for 25 years.
• I was surprised there wasn't a sign prominently placed telling the story of how they arrived at the name Sharkarosa.
• The US flag was displayed incorrectly. It was to the right of the state flag as you enter the grounds.
• They have 2 Pere Davids deer there- a male and a female. Sadly there are none left wild in their native China. The species is sometimes nicknamed sibuxiang (Chinese: 四不像, pinyin: sì bú xiàng), literally meaning "four not alike", which could mean "the four unlikes" or "like none of the four"; it is variously said that the four are cow, deer, donkey, horse (or) camel, and that the expression means in detail:
  • "the hooves of a cow but not a cow, the neck of a camel but not a camel, antlers of a deer but not a deer, the tail of a donkey but not a donkey."
  • "the nose of a cow but not a cow, the antlers of a deer but not a deer, the body of a donkey but not a donkey, tail of a horse but not a horse"
  • "the tail of a donkey, the head of a horse, the hoofs of a cow, the antlers of a deer"
  • "the neck of a camel, the hoofs of a cow, the tail of a donkey, the antlers of a deer"
  • "the antlers of a deer, the head of a horse and the body of a cow"^[4]

Wednesday's Digressions

This track from the wily and elusive whitetail deer is from a deer that  I promise is not as big as his track might fool you into thinking- it was distorted by the mud.

Somebody is getting miffed at my photographical antics.

Need more lens! A majestic prairie dog stands guard.

A neat self contained set up. The tank being set in the ground allows the bison to drink more naturally .

Left to see dirty rodents and acorns

You could plainly see where the deer who slipped and slid up this small incline changed direction on the run and wheeled  left into the brush. The tracks were only hours old. Hikers out earlier than us probably spooked and barely missed seeing him.

Erosion is a big problem on the Fort Worth Nature Center trails

• Kate Bush Army Dreamers
• If your shopping and the person with you or the voice in your head says, Sure, we have plenty! to the question of, do we have toilet paper, paper towels or trash bags (choose one or all 3) don't take their word for it and buy 1 of each. They never go bad and you'll always need them.
• When I see a theoretical physicist in an interview style interaction on a documentary talking about the Big Bang I feel like I'm talking to a member of a religion other than my own that I suspect is actually a cult- however benign and whatever good points they may have in some ways.
• An odd flashback from day before yesterday I'm still trying to sort out: Years ago (probably dangerously close to 20) my buddy and I were out in West Texas shooting our guns. I set a grapefruit sized rock on top of another and using his .223 shot it from about 40-50 feet. It exploded with a loud bang and pieces of it whizzed and cracked by heads sounding for all the world like close calls from rifle fire being directed at us. I have no answer for what caused it but it was attention getting enough he still occasionally randomly says, Do you remember that time you shot that rock...? I had shot a gazillion rocks before that day. Normally, they just disintegrate and fall around where the rock started and some sometimes pieces might spray out in a fan downrange but that thing literally exploded.
• The ENO hammock shelter came in day before yesterday. It looks good and seems lighter than the reported weight. We may or may not go out tonight and use it. We also received the compasses I ordered. My Silva Trekker looks and feel really good. With a brief search I couldn't find orienteering maps for the places we frequent but they're bound to be out there. I am no doubt rusty but being able to navigate cross country with a map and compass is a very satisfying feeling. I started Zac with just looking for North with his compass. He kept it around his neck and periodically stopped and check it. He would then confidently point a direct out and say, That way is North.
• We saw two black headed vultures eating a whitetail buck. It was a cool sight but man I wish I would have had more lens.
• That country music singer lady Mindy McCready apparently killed herself. I hope no one is surprised. Besides the fact she was being investigated for killing a boyfriend she always looked incredibly sad and troubled- like she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders.

Cavalcade Of Creatures

um, you might want to not click on image to enlarge.
If you've been following this little blob for the past few decades you'll know I'm an animal lover- specifically wildlife and have spent a good deal of of my time in my young life endeavoring to learn more about our friends of the woodland realm. I've brought you pics of snakes, toads and terrapins saved from the ravages of the lawnmower and baby chicks dealt a harsh blow by gravity. Sadly, all did not end well for Bambi as he negotiated the highways and byways of our fruited plain. Although I must say I don't know who was the goofiest: the guy who cut the head off a 40 lb. deer or the sobbing homeless man who said,"Can you please call animal control or the police or somebody? A black pickup hit her and a Red Tuareg stopped and cut her head off. It just happened about 30 minutes ago."