SOM - and - weather.

Pretty big Amtrak crash in NJ.  Did not break as it entered the station. LOTS injured.  Pretty horrific.

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Yea - I changed my Yahoo email password last night and this morning I have 30 emails that bounced . . .except I never sent any emails!

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It's been a busy week.  I know I know, NORMALLY my most exciting thing to do in a day is going to get the mail.  Every retired person knows this joy.  But really, define retirement.  Retirement is when your life gets busy it seems.  60 years of putting things off and all that.

I have to get DJ busy on typing more of moms writings.  We are maybe half(??) done with the normal writings but then we found a good number of journals.

Weather - THE WEATHER SUCKS AND WILL CONTINUE TO SUCK FOR A LONG TIME.

We have a cut off LOW that is stuck.  Most of this month Wisconsin was under a jet stream and every time a LOW pressure ventured from Canada it would hit the jet, create more rain and wash that rain over Wisconsin.  HOWEVER, a LOW pushed up from the south and the jet now has this big wave in it and the LOW just stopped.  Wobbling back and forth like a top, nothing to push it away in any direction. So there it sits for another 5 days at least.  Wobble west we get days like yesterday, wobble east and we get days like today.  High of 68 and 20mph winds.

This will be the best day in the next 5 days, enjoy it. And when you venture outside at noon, YUP, that is the good part.

I'll use the term I LOATH when I'm told this.

ENJOY!!!

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Fantastic news from the USS Indianapolis foundation.  The number of Survivors has actually increased by one up to 23 now.  YEA - a survivor has been found, A.C. (Tony) King who has not spoken of the ordeal and gave permission to announce to the world that he is a USS Indianapolis Survivor.  The only thing "we" know at the moment is that he has had an interesting life.

Shipmates are elated to find he is still with us.

That is him in the middle after the rescue.  There is not a lot we have been told about his ordeal but he was well liked.



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Bad news - expect gas prices to go up as OPEC has decided to finally ease production of oil. Should not be TOO bad since America is not as dependent on oil from other nations as it used to be.

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Don't expect any meaningful polls until at least tomorrow. Most polls use a 7 day average and while there have been two polls that have come out showing a Clinton jump it's just too early.  I thought it was freakishly entertaining and might watch the debate again.  Yes yes, Trump told 52 lies compared to 4 by Clinton . . .and people say they just can't trust Clinton ?????

ALTHOUGH Trump did tell FOX news yesterday morning that the CBS poll had him winning the debate . . .except CBS did not have a poll.    

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The next few days I'll be starting to fill up The Workshop on James Street with images.  For example

I'll have 8x12 matted prints and the long long wall and the back wall filled with different sizes of prints.

I'll have 16 to 20 more wall images . . I think.  Everything was socked away in the basement for the winter.  This will be like moving across the parking lot.

DJ and I once moved to a new apartment that was across a parking lot.  It SEEMES like a good thing but DON'T DO IT.  We had a month. It was too close to rent a truck so we lived in 2 apartments for a month slowly moving things by hand.

Well, I don't want to get the trailer out so I'll load of up old car 5 or 6 times   LOL

Speaking of moving my daughter-in-law is moving out of Columbus to Elba. We will have to make a road trip all the way to Elba for visits now. I think the average age of residents in Elba will drop significantly.  

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Pretty good article about Major League Baseballs Home Run surge.  The BIG HR hitters are hitting a few more but all other classes, the lower home run hitters are hitting a LOT more home runs. It's not the baseballs because then everybody would be hitting more.   But this year and the last half of last year the lessor home run hitters with less power are hitting a lot more.

One theory is a population change in MLB.  Just more young hitters.  We all know that baseball has had a HUGE increase of young and very very good talent.  There are going to be a lot of Hall of Fame players coming from this era of talent.

One study is former Brewer Jean Segura who became the 104th player this year to hit 20 HRs which breaks a MLB record. Last year he hit .336 and had a slugging of a poor poor .326.  And this year he hits 20 HRs and has a .496 slugging pct.  WTF!!

On a weird note I have my expansion draft Wednesday and the ball park I picked for my home park is Oakland a anti-HR Park. (many parks were already in use).          

The biggest theory is that players are just swinging for the fences more and it's working.  All I know is that when I picked Oakland (I can't change for 3 years) I figured since my pitching will suck I needed a park for my first 3 years that will keep scores down and give me a chance to win maybe 70 games.

Speaking of my new team.  This league makes it as close to possible to dealing with MLB financials. Restricted and unrestricted free agents, option years, Rule 5, minor leagues players yada yada. They did not miss anything when it comes to contracts, even insurance on players if you want to take it out.  
I had to do a crash course in MLB financials and finally understand "option years".  Not that I really cared before.  Here is a flow chart for salaries.

ANYWAY - no one cares about Strat-o-Matic baseball.  All I know is that before next spring I have 4 drafts of different kinds of players.  I picked Milwaukee as my farm system (they were available) which has one of the better farm systems in MLB at the moment.  I'm stuck with them . . FOREVER. so   GULP!!    HEY - what better system for an expansion team to have then a farm system for a MLB team rebuilding.

Doomsday Clock ticks down

To answer a question - I knew a few of the stories from my mom but not the details. I'm learning about these things along with you guys. There is a lot more my brother has told me about growing up that I did not know. Moving from house to house because we were so poor and sort of on the run and so forth.

I believe this is why I was so angry and people and their anti Hydro Street views.  Sandye and Aaron were good people. But very very poor.  They completely loved Columbus and tried to do good and raise a family here. People seemed to think they were here to scam Columbus when they were just trying to do good (although in an inept way), make a living to get out of poverty. They were horrible at running a brew pub but they did not stop trying.  They took a risk and lost, we all lost on that one but at least they tried.  That is more then most people do.

Perhaps that is my blind spot, poverty. I have empathy for the poor, hell, they even have a hard time voting now!  My buddy Elwood got a $15 raise in food stamps last month. That literally makes a difference for him. I spend twice that much golfing in league each week.

(where the heck did all THAT come from) 
 ++++++++++++++++

There was a VERY emotional baseball game last night that had the lead off batter for the Miami Marlins hit a home run and break down in tears rounding 2nd base.

There was a football game last night that I literally know nothing about the game except the Saints lost.

But there was also a debate. I'm not getting into the debate but here are my immediate thoughts.  

I'm a risk taker. I believe if you do not take calculated risks you do not grow. But I feel people need to weigh the possible upside of a Trump Presidency with the possible downside. I personally feel the downside risk is so much greater this time around. The doomsday clock (a real thing . . sort of) is at 2 minutes to midnight so the world is on the edge. In 2015 it ticked down 2 minutes**.  Do we really want to toss the dice HOPING Trump will make things better?  Is this the moment in American history to really gamble?

I want change also but the things that come out of Trumps mouth scare the hell out of me.

I believe the two party's are hearing what America is saying with its hatred towards both candidates and I further believe that after this election there will be a reboot in BOTH parties. The DNC has heard the Bernie people and the GOP is horrified at their candidate.

I don't want to risk America at this moment in time and I look forward to see who runs in 4 years when both party's reboot.

People seem to think that with Clinton nothing will change.  Might be true, might not, we do not know.  But the upside and the downside are a much MUCH narrower realm of possibility. With Trump there might be change and he might bring the people together, or he might not, we don't know but the upside is so much smaller then the tremendous downside.

I'm a gambler and this is not the time to gamble. If you want to gamble, wait for better odds.

**Concerns amid continued lack of global political action to address global climate change, the modernization of nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia, and the problem of nuclear waste.

A good friend of mine just came back from Prague and London and he had a wonderful post.

Out of curiosity about European's opinion of our presidential race, while on vacation in Prague and London from Sep 16 - 25, I talked to cab drivers, waiters, store clerks, ticket sellers, etc .. 

Normally Europeans don't follow American politics, but they are watching THIS race closely.

Hardly any mention was made of Hillary Clinton. ALL of the talk is about Donald Trump.

The reaction was universal; European's just do NOT understand how so many Americans can support such a HORRIBLE, HATE-FILLED person.

While in Prague I had the news on and the anchor said they were going to air a clip of a Trump press conference. It was Trump saying that President Obama WAS born in the US, and that it was CLINTON who had started the Birther Movement and HE was ending it! I'm sitting there thinking "WTF !". But then the clip ended and it was back to the anchor who said "The statement Trump just made about Clinton starting the Birther Movement is SIMPLY FALSE". Then they aired Trump saying that "since Clinton wanted to abolish the 2nd Amendment and take away people's guns, maybe all of her armed security guards should have their weapons taken away and we should see what happened to her". Immediately it went back to the anchor who said "the statement Trump just made about Hillary Clinton wanting to abolish the 2nd Amendment and take away people's right to own guns is JUST NOT CORRECT".

I LOVE European news. They take seriously that their mission is to bring people the news (truth, NOT lies and made up stories). They fact check and call bullshit.

Another segment came on shortly afterward where a journalist said that Trump had finally crossed a line. He has said things in the past with the sole purpose of putting the image in people's minds of violence being done to Clinton, but now it seemed like he was actually encouraging someone to "do something".

Europe has it right. This is one horrible, hate-filled person.

---Mark Mills

Entertainment - EV Melotte

I went over 750,000 page views recently - GOOD LORD PEOPLE are you really that bored?

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I wasn't going to blog today but with all the rain I thought I would give a recap of who got what.

That tall house is Jason's (Cardinal Comics) and it is still standing!   I took is yesterday about 1:00.  

First of all we have now reached our yearly total in rainfall.  If we do not get 1 more drop of rain for the rest of the year we will still be over our yearly average.

Columbus has been spared though.  Here are the days we received rain this month (always ending at 7:00AM)

9/07  2.98 inches
9/08  1.40
9/10  0.02
9/11  0.22
9/13  0.21
9/14  0.03
9/16  0.57
9/17  0.13
9/20  0.76
9/21  0.65
9/22  0.74

A CoCoRaHas reporter 5.7 miles WSW of Portage received 5.7 inches yesterday, Chippewa Falls 6.68 inches Eau Claire 4.90, Necedah 4.51, Viroqua 5.60.

And there is plenty more on the way.

On a different note - my lawn REALLY needs to be mowed, Maybe Saturday?  This year I seem to be mowing, with my lawn mower at the highest setting, every 5 days.  The next time we see sun should be Tuesday but that means a good chance of rain for only 5 more days (yes, Saturday has gone down hill a bit).

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I was accepted into the GABL.  A Strat-o-matic (SOM) league that has been around for a long LONG time.  I'm busy reading over the 42 page Constitution.  I think our city attorney would love this document.  LOL

I started playing Strat-o-matic in 1965 and was a manager in the DELCAL league for 15 years starting in the early 80s.  Then when the first baseball strike happened I drifted away and have had my application in to some of the major leagues for a few years.  I was awarded an expansion team last night!  Me and Bob Costas and Spike Lee have something in common  LOL  

My parents purchased an AR50, my first 4 function calculator because of SOM and I put away the slide ruler (which I still have).

Buzz Bissinger who wrote Friday Night Lights says SOM changed his life and I will guarantee it changed my life when I was growing up and my love for numbers developed.

That shot on the right is me playing SOM in 1969.

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It's brew day as I brew up my East Indian Porter III.  One of my favorite recipes.

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Sophie!

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Entertainment - EV Melotte

This assignment makes me feel as if I’d been tooling happily along on a little red tricycle and have run slam into a brick wall.

It wasn’t that Pa forbade entertainment—he just considered it frivolous, foolish and a waste of time.  My mother wasn’t in sufficient emotional health to consider it at all.

There was the radio.  Sometime, in the Goodrich years, Pa put a wind charger on the roof, connected it to the tired battery of the car we no longer had, and ran a secondhand radio off of it.  The radio was missing all its tuning knobs, but it only got one station anyway.  After supper we could hear a half hour of the news.  On Sunday nights we got a full hour of news on “The March of Time.”  If there was enough oomph left in the battery we’d leave it on for the Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy program.  On a windy night we might even get to hear the whole program before the battery went dead.

Probably my favorite radio experience of all time was one of the first newscasts I ever heard, when King Edward VIII made his abdication speech to “Marg the woman I love.”  I got all starry inside, and thought it was incredibly romantic.  Pa said the man was a damn fool.

When you’re living ten miles from town and don’t have the money for gas, or the money for tires, when you eventually don’t have a car at all, there is not much you can do for entertainment except walk to church, or visit neighbors or have family songfests or play games around the kitchen table.  We had no church, my parents were staunch atheists.  We didn’t visit.  As a matter of fact, no man, woman or child except family ever set foot in our house, and at least my parents and I never set foot in anyone else’s house, and we weren’t the kind of family that plays games together.

Saturday nights in town?  Up to the age of fourteen I had been within a town less than a dozen times.  At least eight of those times were trips to the dentist.  One was a spelling contest in which I got massive stage freight and failed miserably.  One was to the county courthouse for my 8th grade graduation.  None included entertainment.

When I arrived in Whitewater, supposedly ready to start high school, I had never been in a city store, had never walked down a sidewalk to look at store windows, had never seen a restaurant, had never tasted ice cream.  I’ve still never seen a circus.

At Holway, we had no radio or newspaper.  My entertainment was talking with my Amish friends to and from school and at noon recess.

In Iowa there was no time for entertainment.  In addition to all my usual chores I was given full responsibility for the housing, feeding, health, welfare and production of forty-something chickens, and of an immense vegetable garden.  My father plowed and harrowed it, my mother planted it, the rest of the year’s work was mine.  After my last brother left—all my brothers ran away from home at age fourteen—I became a general farmhand as well.

The most enjoyable activity I had in Iowa was to ride the little quarter-horse mare, bareback of course, down to the pasture to bring up the cows.  Technically that was work, rather dangerous work in fact.  That horse was a genius at ways to deviously unseat her rider, and then look surprised and innocent—even reproachful, before wandering off.  One of the cows was a mean one with sharp curved horns, and she would attack me if she could reach me while I was on the ground.  The cow belonged to the farm and the farm belonged to my grandmother, so we couldn’t sell her or otherwise dispose of her, much as I would have liked to.  Luckily there were a lot of trees here and there around the pasture, and I could move really fast then.

But I loved that horse, and loved riding her, and she deserves a chapter all to herself.

When I arrived in Whitewater, I felt really disoriented.  I knew how to work, but I’d never learned anything about how to play.  Luckily we lived only one block from the Public Library.

I don’t like writing about the next four years, after my father left us.  I don’t like even thinking about them.  They were pretty grisly for me.  Lack of money was only one of the problems and bad though it was, it wasn’t the worst.  Still, it had an effect on entertainment.

I didn’t have the money for the entertainment offered.  Sometimes an out-of-town boy would take me to a movie or a dance.  Sometimes my girlfriend and I would go for long, long walks in the country.

 Sometimes we’d walk to Fort Atkinson, and if either of us had a dime we’d treat ourselves to a coke at Herro’s Restaurant and then walk home.  Sometimes we didn’t have a dime,--she was almost as poor as I was—so we’d get a long drink at the corner water fountain, sit on the Methodist Church steps for a few minutes to rest, and then walk home.  Sometimes we’d stroll down to the Armory to watch the roller skating.  Sometimes we’d go to the bowling alley and watch the bowlers.  If my friend wasn’t available sometimes I’d sit under the bridge and watch the water go by.

Then I met Dev Melotte, and Dev was more entertainment, just sitting on our front steps, than I’d ever known in my life.  He was fun, he was funny, he was laughter, so I married him.

****************

The entire story about mom and dad is amazing.  I hope I can find some stories about that courtship. I believe my dad asked for my moms had after 12 hours or something but she said he had to wait at LEAST 24 hours.  He waited for 24 hours . . and then she said yes.

But they wanted to wait until he was out of the air force (he flew the same make of plane that rescued DJs dad) and mom was out of high school.

 DJ and I have this Lincoln/Kennedy thing going on.  I'm 7 years older then DJ, My dad was 7 years older then my mom, DJs dad is 7 years older then her mom.  My brother is 7 years older then I am, DJs brother is 7 years older.   DJ and both grew up next to slaughter houses, and it goes on an on.

Get your waders on.

As of 8:30 we had 0.65 inches of rain.  It should continue until . . . . .sometime Friday. Have Saturday off and start up again Sunday until sometime Tuesday.

I guess I won't mow the lawn today.

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I don't know WHAT the golf outing was Saturday at Kestrel Ridge but OMG.  While on my patio 3 houses were hit including one broken window and one child hit on the wrist next door.  Not once did anyone yell fore, just a lot of laughter and driving very fast past the houses.

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OK no presidential comments today, we shall see how things are next Tuesday - HOWEVER - what about the Senate.  Right now the Democrat's have a 53% chance to take control.  In Wisconsin Feingold has a 92.6% chance of beating Johnson.

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I got my blood work numbers.  It still flows.  My HDL is still low even after I dropped 12 pounds in the last 2 years and workout 3 times a week. Don't tell me this has something to do with eating better food.  sigh!

I will release my med records if asked!  I think people know more about me then they do Trump.

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Remember Jonbenet Ramsey?  That little issue has been solved finally. Fascinating 4 hours on TV.  The kid did it with the flashlight.  Seems it was not the first time he hit her.  The parents were protecting the only child they had left.  Seems Jonbenet stole some pineapple from his bowl and he went berserk and smashed her head (again) but this time not with his train tracks (the two marks that police said was a stun gun) but a large flashlight.

The police department REALLY messed everything up on their investigation and then covered up their mistakes. Explains why the neighborhood refused to talk to anybody (they knew). But back then the son was 6 and the law could not touch him. And they can't touch him now so no arrests.

HOWEVER - there are always some that will disbelieve.  I plead Occam's razor

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According to GoBankingRates - 29% of the people that make $150,000 a year have less then $1000 in savings.

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The Cincinnati Reds gave up their 242th homerun last night - the most ever for one team in the MLB.

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OK OK - Donald Trumps Charity, on 4 occasions used $250,000 to settle lawsuits for his business. Seems like a legit business move for people that believe he is an awesome businessman. Of course that is against the law but Donald makes his own laws.  CON MAN!!!

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Tonight Survivor premiers - a show I have applied for a few times.  After Survivor is the season finale' of Big Brother.

Each year after the 1st episode of Big Brother, Survivor and Amazing Race a few of us pick the top 8 finalists in order giving points to who ends up the closest.  All we have to go on is 1st impressions and their bio's.  This year I won the trifecta winning all three shows.  In fact in Big Brother I STILL have the top 2 of the 3 players left.  

That's it

Get your waders on.

A Horse Name Pepsi - EV Melotte

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Here is a weird fact.  3% of Americans own 133 million guns of the total 265 million guns out there.  That 3% averages 17 guns for each person.

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The average road in America is 28.5 years old.  Both parties (except in Wisconsin) have promised higher spending on infrastructure improvements. Wisconsin's budget is in such disarray that spending is being cut.

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Julia Louis-Dreyfus won her 5th Emmy and a few days earlier became one of the riches woman in the world when her father (Gérard Louis-Dreyfus) passed away. Gérard was worth $3.6 BILLION ten years ago.

Of course this hits me hard because my buddy who was our drummer in my high school rock band (Wonderhorse) and then went on to tour with Flock of Seagulls and now is in The Bad Think.  His wife Winnie is only worth $1.5 BILLION.   phhht  what can you do with $1.5B,

Mike in Wonderhorse

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A Horse Named Pepsi - EV Melotte

In 1940, the summer I was twelve, we moved onto one of my grandmother’s Iowa farms, as tenant farmers.

The farm already had cows, pigs and chickens, but no horses.  There was an ancient and undependable Farmall tractor, and Pa already owned a small, dependable Allis-Chalmers tractor.  We had no real need of horses, and I’ve never known what urge caused Pa to buy two quarter horses.

He bought them from the owner of a riding academy near Iowa Falls.  They had been proven difficult and dangerous for riding purposes and he was glad to sell them for not much more than he would have gotten from the knackers.

Pa said they’d be useful for light work—but light work was easily handled by the Allis-Chalmers.  He said I could ride them to bring in the cows—but if they were too obstreperous to be ridden with saddles and supervision, how did he think I could handle them bareback, among ornery and bad-tempered cows?

Maybe he couldn’t resist a bargain.  Maybe he was missing having a pair of draft animals under his control.  Maybe he just didn’t want such pretty animals to be destroyed.  Pa always did like animals better than humans.

I named the bay horse Pepsi and the black one Coke.  Coke doesn’t come into my life story except as a horse I didn’t ride because she was determined not to be ridden.  I don’t care what anyone says, it takes an Indian or a six-foot-two hero of a Louis L’Amour western novel to mount a bareback horse who doesn’t want you up there.

Pepsi seemed perfectly willing to be ridden.  Her problem was a weakness in her left front leg that caused her to stumble often, throwing her rider over her head.  Pa said I had to be considerate of that weakness—I might just walk her, or allow a slow trot if the surface was smooth.  She would be less likely to stumble and I’d be less likely to be hurt.

What we both failed to realize, and Pa never did realize it, was that there was nothing wrong with her leg.  That supposed stumble was a deliberate dropping to her left knee to unseat her rider.
Not that she had any intrinsic objection to a rider, but a bored horse has to do something for a little fun._______

By the time I’d ridden after the cows for a few weeks, and taken a dozen or so spills, I found that if I stayed alert, gripped her sides “just-so” with my knees, and pulled her head up sharply in the first split-second she started dipping the knee, I could stay on and often avert the “stumble” entirely.

Then she took to walking under trees with low branches.  Her favorite tree for that game was the one in the pasture that we called a Redhaw.  The correct name was Cockspur Hawthorne.  The branches were high enough for a small horse to pass under, but too low for the horse’s rider.  She would head straight for that tree, and no amount of pulling on the reins, or yelling “Whoa!” or slapping at the side of her neck with the ends of the reins would turn her aside.  Her feet would make a bee-line for that tree even while her head was pulled around at right angles to her shoulders.

As an adult I came to realize that the thorns on that Cockspur Hawthorne couldn’t possibly have been as long and strong and deadly as I remember them, so I checked my book on Tree Identification.  The book says the thorns are three to four inches long, firmly attached, and capable of penetrating a pine board, so I remembered them rightly.

At the last moment I have to roll off her back, and pick myself up off the ground as she blithely walked under, rider-less and no doubt chuckling to herself, and then I’d catch her reins and mount up again.

Being an obedient daughter I normally held her to a walk or a slow trot, but I noticed she could move mighty fast when that one mean cow with the horns charged us, or when we had to chase across the pasture to bring that same cow back with the herd.

I’d had no personal experience with horses.  Pa said she was a quarter-horse and I don’t believe that meant anything to him except that she was small and therefore unsuited to heavy pulling.  Pa didn’t read Western novels.  I did.  I knew that quarter-horses were bred to work with cattle, to have the endurance to carry a rider all day and most of the night, and to be capable of short bursts of tremendous  speed up to a quarter of a mile.  I thought about that a lot when she acted irritated at being held in check—but I was an obedient daughter.

I never mentioned what I thought to Pa.  Pa was entirely a military man and ran his family as a military unit.  Privates don’t explain the situation to the General.

I don’t remember what errand I’d been on the first day I rode her down the wide shoulder of the highway.  I was on my way home from somewhere.  She was restless and tossing her head, mouthing at the bit, I was holding her to a walk.

There was no traffic in sight.  The shoulder as smooth packed dirt.  I was out of sight of our farm.

Impulse.  I let the reins go slack and said “O.K., girl. Let ‘er go.”  Her head came up, her ears stood straight up, her slow pace faltered.  I gave the reins a loose shake and her rump a gentle slap.  “Gee-up, old girl! Let ‘er rip!”

She took off like she had just realized she was in the Derby and only half a head behind the leader.  Like there was a posse, or a dozen Comanche on our tail.  She took off so sudden-and so fast- that she almost left me behind on the highway.

I clamped my legs as tight against her as I could and grabbed her mane to stay on until I’d pulled myself forward to where I was supposed to be on her back, and then I just leaned way forward and yelled “Yee-hah!”  Oh how that horse could run!

We rode for a little way, less than a quarter mile, and then I slowed her to a canter entered our side road at a sedate trot and walked her into our yard, and she pranced and danced and side-stepped and expressed her satisfaction every foot of the way.  If she’d been a dog, she’d have been licking my face.

I had her in her stall, rubbing her down when Pa came in and saw that she’d been sweating.  Pa had seldom bawled me out, -- I didn’t give him any reason to, but he did that day.

Privates don’t explain situations to Generals.  I said I was sorry.  I said I wouldn’t do it again.
But I did.  I did it again every time I was pretty sure I wouldn’t get caught.

Pepsi never stumbled again.  She still walked under the Redhaw tree, but by the time I left Iowa, in the summer of 1942, she was voluntarily stopping just short of it to allow me to dismount properly.

And I can’t prove a thing, but I always knew she was chuckling to herself as she came to me on the far side of the tree and waited for me to re-mount.

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A lot of unsettled weather coming the next 3 days.  We had 0.76 inches in the storms yesterday!

Rod

Monday morning Packer Depression

WELL - so far I have not heard any second guessing on McCarthy's 4th down "GO FOR IT" play which I thought was foolish!  It's something you can do when playing Madden 17 on the PS4 but not in real life.

I think what is making people forget are the other 59 minutes of the game.  The good news is I won in Daily Fantasy Football even with Stafford as my QB this week and a game to go.

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Sadly another USS Indianapolis Survivor passed away this past weekend.  Adelore "Pean" Palmiter. We're down to 22 survivors now!  :-(

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Here is a problem I did not know even existed.  I was delivering some images to Soular in Waterloo, home of GREAT pizza.  The problem is that waitstaff do not know how to read an analog clock.

Seriously.

The owner said that of all the problems he was anticipating being able to read an analog clock was not one of them. He said the people he hired had no clue.  He has even had to put it on his application blanks.  The last question is he points at the clock and ask's "in 20 minutes what time will it be"  9 times out of 10 they will fail.

Seems they teach analog clock reading in 1st through 3rd grade but students never use in in real live. DJ came across this when she ordered a pizza and they told her the time when it would be ready.  She looked at the clock  10 minutes????

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I'm filling up The Workshop with images in October with a meet and greet (LOL) October 8th.

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THIS is just disconcerting and dare I say - what nightmares are made off

https://youtu.be/AGF5ROpjRAU

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I literally can not believe Americans are SO gullible to even consider a con-man with dangerous, bigoted, narcissistic megalomaniac with fascist tendencies as President of the free world.  People get all upset because Clinton did not reveal when she was sick but Trump hiding his taxes so people can't find out how AMAZINGLY corrupt he is . . is OK?

It is no exaggeration to say the fate of the nation and the world are at stake.  Is America REALLY a bunch of lemmings?

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Getting Sick - EV Melotte

Now that school is back in session, the entire world is sick with a cold  . . except me so far.

A few days ago I had my almost yearly bloodwork to see if it is still flowing. I was looking last night at MyChart which is a UW Hospital thing that has all of your test results from the past . . well from  2003 at least.  I did see I'm in my 25th year cancer free and it did have my multiple knee operations from baseball in the 1980 (Home Talent League).

SO - What did I do?  HA!  Created a spreadsheet so I could track all my blood numbers. What happened in 2013???  - I think I must have had a Snickers bar two hours before they took my blood as I should not be alive. The number I'm waiting for is my HDL (good cholesterol).  My LDL and other numbers were great but I never had enough GOOD cholesterol. I had a small tick UP in 2013 for the first time but now with 2 years of working out 3-4 times a week I want to see that number much higher.  I'm so excited for blood work results . . . . .yea - that and the mail everyday.  THAT is what you have to look forward to when you retire.

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Illness and Treatments  Part 1 - EV Melotte

Ours must have been an exceptionally healthy family.  I don’t remember anyone other than myself, who was ever sick enough to stay in bed.  Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention.  I certainly knew the rules for when I was sick enough to stay in bed.  The shades would be pulled down, I would be provided with a cold, wet washcloth for my forehead if I had a fever, a glass of water if my stomach was in condition to handle it, a bucket beside the bed if it wasn’t, and a covered commode under the bed.  The door was left open one inch so if I’d be heard if I called, but it was understood that I would call only in an emergency.  Mother would come in several times a day with sips of sweet, weak tea and slivers of buttered toast, but nobody came to read me stories or keep me company, or brought me coloring books to pass the time.  I was to sleep and rest, rest and sleep, for twenty-four hours a day until I was well enough to go back to my usual business again.

I think it could be described as “benign neglect,” and I believe it was exactly the right thing to do in my case.  Through ignorance or wisdom, or possibly just because it was the easiest thing, my parents had hit on the most basic of all nature’s restorations.  Any sick or injured wild animal will go off alone to a dark secluded place and sleep until it either heals or dies.  If it’s a youngish animal it almost always heals.  I always did.

Illness and Treatments  Part 2 - EV Melotte

In Holway, a week before our planned move to Iowa, on the last day of school which was also the last time I would ever see the first friends I’d ever had, I came down with the measles.

Wayne’s spots had only just faded.  He’d had a very mild case; nobody knew he had measles until he came to breakfast covered with tiny red pinpricks.  He insisted there was nothing wrong with him and he most certainly was going to meet the school bus, until he was made to look into a mirror.  He stayed home but he was never sick—just spotty.

I stumbled to the breakfast table with an obvious fever.  Mother said “you’re coming down with the measles.  You’re not going to school.”  As I remember it, I threw a downright hysterical tantrum.  I must have been half out of my head already or I wouldn’t have dared.  I was sent back to bed, where I cried and pounded my pillow and wailed that it wasn’t fair and cried some more.  At some point, I fell asleep.

When I woke up my eyes hurt dreadfully and I could only open them up a tiny ways, and I hurt all over and itched and it was very dim in there.  There were blankets hung over the shades on the windows.  My mouth felt like sore, dry tissue paper and I wanted to rub my itchy eyes, but my hands were loosely tied to the bed frame.  It scared me.  I called out, and suddenly everybody was there exclaiming because I’d finally started to break out and the fever was going down, after my being out of my head with it for five days.

They were also rejoicing, because I obviously wasn’t blind and apparently wasn’t brain damaged, but I didn’t realize for years that they had been worried about that.

My hands had been tied down so that I couldn’t scratch at my eyelids, which were swelling my eyes almost shut with eyelid-sized welts, or at my eyes, which were blood red.

I went on breaking out in big swollen welts for a week, and they bulged out and spread together until I was one big bumpy welt—I itched too much to leave them alone and hurt too much to rub.
So there I stayed, in my dark secluded hole, itching and hurting and trying to sleep and rest, rest and sleep while the welts swelled an my hair fell out and the welts subsided and faded an my outer layer of skin started peeling off in long strips, leaving a shiny new layer which soon dried (swelled????) and peeled off in long strips also, and the move to Iowa was postponed for a couple of months until I was well enough to travel.

Three years later, in Whitewater, I had much the same experience again, except that it started with a persistent sore throat that kept getting worse.  Pa was gone by then, and Mother must have thought I was old enough and smart enough to go to bed on my own if I was all that sick.  I wasn’t smart of course.  Fifteen-year olds think they know everything, and are therefore dumber than they’ve ever been before or ever will be again.  Finally she sent me to a doctor-my first ever meeting with a doctor—who said I had tonsillitis and over the next few weeks he gave me pills and syrups and shot and I kept on getting worse.  In desperation, Dr. Zahl removed my tonsils in his office when I had a 102 degree temperature, and sent me home in a taxi.  Then I went to bed, developed a temperature of 104 degrees, broke out all over in swollen welts, lost my hair, the whole measles bit except that I had a murderously raw throat as well.

Dr. Zahl made several house calls, I didn’t get any better.  My mother finally pulled my shades down, provided me with a cool, wet washcloth, a glass of water, a bowl commode under the bed, and a warning that if I scratched at my face I’d have scars for life, and she went back to work.  I was left alone in my dark, secluded place to sleep and rest, rest and sleep, whereupon the fever started coming down, the welts started subsiding, and my throat started healing, and eventually my outer skin peeled off in long strips and I got well, although I never again was quite as well as I’d been before.

Forty-five years later, after forty-five years of varying types and severities of aches, pains and problems, the rheumatologists at UW Clinic confirmed that I had systemic lupus erythematosus, had had it at least since the tonsils episode, almost certainly since the measles episode, and very likely all of my life.

It’s a good thing that it wasn’t diagnosed back then.  The medical texts of that time described systemic lupus as “a rare, incurable untreatable disease of young women, invariably fatal within a year of diagnosis.”  If I’d known that, it might have acted as a voodoo curse and killed me by suggestion.

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Oddly one of the things that happened when my mom had multiple strokes was she forgot that she smoked 2 packs of cigarettes a day.  She never smoked again and never really missed it . . . until we moved her to Springfield ILL with my brother.

Another odd thing was she never had any bouts of lupus again.

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BTW - I'm just going to say this in passing - I am very ANTI-Circus and their cruelty to elephants! Elephants are as social as humans. They have families, they grieve, they miss where they were taken from.  Elephants like to paint and I saw one who painted a landscape from memory of mountains from where he or she was taken from.

Yet - circus's have no problem chaining them and using them as slaves. Many circus's have done away with using elephants. Many traveling ones have not as they still enslave them and chain their legs saying . . "it's only to keep them safe, they don't mind"  That is fucking BULL SHIT.

  

Who is me anyway

Everybody is wondering how I did in Fanduel Daily Fantasy Sports.  Well . . . I lost my 0.7.  I had 122.7 and to beat the other 50 I needed 123.4.  Dez Bryant had one catch for 13 yards.  Give me 7 more yards and I win.  SIGH!!

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I had blood work today and they took 4 vile's of blood out of me.  I know their scheme. First they take small amounts of skin off me every year and now blood. They have been creating a clone of me secretly for the last 60 years.  Am I the original me??  I know longer know. Are there two of me?  That is why you guys get so confused at times. 

In a related story - - -

If you ever have a chance to see MOON, a low budget movie that is very very good do so.


Yea - that will make you think!!   WHO AM ME!!!

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According to recent polls on what Trump supporters believe . . . . . . 50% really ARE deplorable, but some are nice.

The majority believe Blacks are less intelligent then whites, they believe blacks are less motivated then whites, 45% say they could not vote for a Muslim President which makes them Islamophobic.

Sorry sorry - I actually had my first bad dream last night on Trump. Seriously, a con-man who is ONLY running to make millions and does not even WANT to win.  He is doing this only for the money and fame and is even working on a book.  A bonifide con-man who has conned America to giving him millions of dollars to use as he pleases.  He raises the price of his hotel rooms 400% when he has meetings for his campaign.

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The US Census Bureau says America had it's largest jump in take home pay EVER since they started keeping track in 1968.

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Michigan abolished the law making motorcyclist wear helmets a few years ago.  Since that time motorcycle deaths have risen 23%.  Monday the GOP sponsor of the bill was killed in a motorcycle accident . . .he was wearing a helmet.

Yea - surprise ending on that one  :-)

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Colorado brought in about $22 million in taxes from cannabis in July.  Think how some of that could fix the HORRIBLE 151to Madison.

Speaking of the 151 "fix".  I wonder if people with epilepsy will have issues driving south on The 151.  I would be VERY worried of seizures.  And what about winter when those 200 squares are being scraped of snow.  Think their will be a problem?  It actually seems rougher then what it WAS!

We should have a small tax raise on gas to help pay for roads. Make the people who use roads pay for them.  BUT NO!  The GOP wants even poor people to pay for roads, even if they don't have a car.  Let's BORROW money and let the next poor slob worry about it.  Kick that can down the road.

OH  - I put an additive in my gas tank called Fuel Juels and I cannot find one thing that says this is a scam.  It is time release over 6 months - very sciencey. 

 

I'll let you know in a few thousand miles. I normally believe most of these things are fake but so far I have found nothing.  7% increase in MPG over 6 months ain't too bad and that is only one of the benefits!

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Do you wear reading glasses?  Toss them out.  There is a brand new procedure that will do away with reading glasses and it takes 5 minutes (but costs $3000).  Within 15 minutes of the proc you will no longer need reading glasses.  Pretty simple procedure

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Lot's of leaked documents from Walkers John Dow thingy are turning up.  WOW - a LOT of outside money (millions) on his re-election campaign came from Trump and Las Vegas.  BUT - never convicted!  I'm sure we will hear more in the coming days!

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Post weekend update. GO CARDS!!

For all those people literally around the world who read this blog for Columbus news I'll catch you up on the Columbus football season that seems to have started 3 weeks before school started (which is a crime) .

Game #1 "we" beat Ripon 44-7 so "we" are off to a good start.  Then a road trip to Platteville gave us a 44-6 victory.   Game #3 was a tougher on the road win 56-18  and last week we were at home against Wautoma and pulled out a squeaker 64-16.

SO - that is a combined 208 to 47 in the 4 games.  Next up the Poynette (3-1) Puma's.  At least they are not ALSO called the Cardinals which it seems 50% of the high schools in Wisconsin are called.

The Columbus Cardinals are ranked 1,636 in the Nation in Football according to MAXPreps (America's Source for High School Sports).

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I had my final league golf outing at The Farm Sunday and after a rough start had a three hole streak of birdie, par, par . . . . and then an 8.  A good round overall, no complaints.

If anyone is looking for a relaxed, fun golf league where on Wednesday nights you golf with whomever you want and scores are tabulated later . . . we have openings for next year for ALL golfers as it's a handicap league. Wednesday nights starting 5:00 at Door Creek.  Golfers that have never been in a league do real well as they get better playing as the year progresses.

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Our two HUGE Blue Fortune Hummingbird Mint'd continue to attract pollinators and butterflies and hummingbirds.  This is TWO plants, 3 years old and it's is CRAZY with pollinators and butterflies and hummingbirds and smells like those green spearmint's you pop into your mouth.  It got a little beaten down from last weeks rain.

I don't THINK these are the same species. Maybe one is just very old and has seen a lot of battles??

This is just a Viceroy (you can tell by the black band in the bottom wings, Monarchs do not have it).  Viceroys do not fly south at all.  They stay here in the winter by rolling themselves up inside a leaf.

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Wells Fargo. Seriously?  The person in charge gets to keep 124 million because she is retiring.  Even after HER division and with 5000+ of HER employees created 20 MILLION fake bank accounts.

Well Fargo is paying back their customers with $184 million coming from the share holders of the back.   WHY would anybody keep their money in that bank.

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Clinton is slowly pulling away from The Donald. Her lead has stayed pretty consistent.  it's a 4% lead which does not sound like much but it's been rock solid.

Meanwhile - Obama's approval rating is now at it's highest since 2009.

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For my IT friends.

The ING Bank in Bucharest has afire suppression system which does not use water as water would be very bad for servers.  They have a system that pumps inert gas to snuff out flames.  WELL, seems the gas fires out so fast it creates a little noise to the tune of 130+ decibels . . .which . . .it seems, vibrated and shattered a whole bunch of hard drives.    WHO KNEW!!!

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Trumps charitable Foundation which takes money (not his) that is donated and then gives that money to other charitable foundations payed itself $20,000 for a 6 foot tall painting of himself.  Seems lie charity to me!!

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If you have DIRECT TV  - AND - ATT service for your cell phone you get an entire free year of DIRECT TV Football MAX.  Worth $360.  EVERY game plus Redzone and 16 other channels all year.  SWEET!!!!

OH - my Fanduel.  Hanging on.  Two games tonight left. Doing . . "OK".

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Low 70s for the next 10 days.  Rain Friday and a chance tomorrow

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I hate road construction season in Columbus.  Nothing but constant dirt, explosions and dump trucks from The Pit.  Our house (and most on Vista Circle) is constantly dirty from the crap they throw in the air and I swear we have cracks in our foundation from the explosions.  THANK YOU NEW ROADS!!   LOL  

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Shoes - EV Melotte / Daily Fantasy Football /Golfing with brother

4.65 inches of rain in Columbus on that storm.

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At least the media thinks Clinton's emails are more important then actual world problems such as, oh, how about China's moves in the South China Sea or maybe the chemical warfare that the Russians are helping Syria with.

WAIT - Trump is saying something outlandish, let's cover him for a few more hours a day, give him more free air time. 

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Yesterday was spent in Kewaunee golfing with my brother.  We had never golf together before, EVER.   He's not really a sports guy and gets out once a year.  He's more of a worker person that is finally transitioning into a non-workaholic.   When the idea was broached about coming up to golf I was surprised he even had golf clubs.  Once I got there I saw they were like 1950's clubs my dad had.

WELL - We golfed at the Alaskan Golf course which was a wide open 9 hole course and I vowed NOT to not be a person that gives lessons over and over.  People ned to figure out things on their own so I just let them "play".  I didn't want to put pressure on anybody.  NEXT time, if they want it I will give some hints (from a 23 handicap golfer). What I DID find was newer technology DOES help.  

After 3 or 4 holes I said, why don't you try my driver.   NIGHT AND DAY!!!   Seriously. My 7 wood was bigger then his driver  LOL    There is hope.  Ralls hit the ball straight and maybe 170 yards the 2nd time he tried my PING.   

I tell ya - if you would have said a year ago that I would be playing golf with my brother in Kewaunee I would have bet a million bucks you were having a stroke.

OH - want to see what $95K will buy you in Kewaunee?  What you don't see is the HUGE workshop. A 3 car garage with an additional 3 car garage size workshop. 100% all new wiring in the house and 2 blocks from Lake Michigan.

BUT - some things the old owners sort of messed up on when they re-did the insides.  Like how about doing some planning before you decide on a height of your wainscoting.  LOL

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Check out this chair we purchased.  We needed one more chair for the living room for Packer games. We were always one short.  Looks like it is a fusion of 1950s and The Jetsons.

I know what you are saying - what about that pillow. 

here is the story. 

I tossed that pillow, which was bugging me, from across the room and that is exactly where it landed.  Untouched.  And that is why DJ took the photo.  

We went to 3 stores testing chairs and measuring so we would not make the same mistake twice. 

We purchased a chair about 10 years ago that looked great . . . .until we got it home and IT'S HUGE!!!!   So we needed one that was "normal" size.  

Now we are football ready.

OH - I love my wife.  

last night we were watching the football game (GREAT game) and DJ says. "God I love football". 

and I say "God I love my wife". 

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Shoes - EV Melotte

Walking wore out shoe leather and shoes were expensive, so worn out or not, they were passed down through all four children.  When they needed new soles or heels, Pa patched them at home.

You could buy soles and heels in kits then, but if Pa didn’t have any of those on hand he used whatever was available.  Pieces of old tires worked well.  We rubbed oil or grease, whatever kind was available, into the uppers to keep them flexible.  I remember wearing at least two pair of hand-me-down shows that had cracks in the sides patched with roofing tar.

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Daily Fantasy Football - Fanduel

Since it's legal in Wisconsin I started looking into Daily Fantasy Sports, the new "online poker".

I have now played 100 matches in baseball and ended up losing $4.  However - I did a lot of experimenting to see how things worked and perhaps next year will take it more seriously.

For all who have no idea what Daily Fantasy Sports is. You are given a list of the players and their "salaries".  For instance Aaron Rodgers is $9000.  You have $35,000 in play money to spend on 9 players. Each player, as he plays a real game accrues points for yards and TDs and so forth and your mission is to get many points with the players you have picked.  

I experimented by playing different levels, playing the the same line-up in different "same price" tournaments to see if different tournaments had the same talent (they seem too) and so forth.  Just gaining knowledge, not really out to make a million bucks $1 at a time.  

You can play in $1 tournaments up to $5000 tournaments (first place $50,000). 

SO - this week will be my first foray into the NFL. I have no clue what to expect as far as what I need to win points-wise.  I should probably have an entire blog on my findings in Daily Fantasy Sports. 

Why I'm voting for Clinton

OH - it's raining.

Yesterday on Facebook I said 2-5 inches coming.  Perhaps I was a little conservative.  Columbus received 2.98 last night and should expect at least that much if not more all day today and tonight.

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Many people post anti Trump propaganda on the internet trying to show Trump supporters the folly of their ways.  Then they go after Trump supporters when the Trump-etts post anti Clinton propaganda saying, “if you are so pro-Trump, why not boast about all his wonderfulness instead of anti-Clinton propaganda".  Yet, all they do is fling shit at Trump supporters

So – since I am one of those people that literally cannot fathom why anyone thinks this lying snake oil salesmen should be President, let me explain why I believe Clinton is the most qualified candidate in US history.

A few things that I believe

1.- America is the leader of the FREE world. Not England, not Spain, not Brazil.  America.  America is what brings stabilization to this world.

2. I believe that the Secretary of State is, in reality, the 2nd most powerful person in government. The Secretary of State is the true negotiator for everything in world politics.

While some may disagree on some things that Clinton has negotiated as the Secretary of State, remember that she is following instructions and is not in a position to disagree with POTUS.  His or her job is to do what POTUS commands and do it very very well and most of the time behind the scenes whether she agrees or not.  Trump is a rookie in negotiation with his tiny buildings and golf courses screwing people for profit while Clinton has been dealing with entire countries and literally millions of people’s lives.

Yes, there is weirdness to Clinton’s past, or at least that is what we are constantly being told by the conspiracy theory machine factory section of the GOP but are they connected to negotiating with world peace and geopolitics?

She is married to a man who was President of the United States for 8 years and knows the issues and what it takes to make tough decisions. She was Secretary of State for 5 years and knows, as much as any living human, the players and the personalities of all foreign leaders and sub leaders and wanna be leaders, what they are up to, what they are thinking and why they are thinking it.

When it comes to American problems, that is normally up to Congress and the House, not POTUS who’s job is to show a general direction and give a final stamp of approval to what Congress has submitted.  POTUS is not just leading America, POTUS is the leader of the free world. The House and Congress run the Country.

Who would you rather have in charge at the top.  Someone who has spent a lifetime understanding the world and it’s politics?  Or someone who has built golf courses with his daddy’s money.  

All the things that Americans complain about are NOT anything POTUS can change without the House and Congress presenting change first.  If you want America to change you do that by electing Senators and Representatives who can then submit those changes to POTUS.

If you are angry at conditions in America, be angry at the GOP controlled House and Senate for the last 8 years. Be angry at the people making these decisions.  

But I digress.

Clinton has the most experience and is the most qualified person to handle world affairs in American history and has proven to actually BE an expert negotiator and will work with the other side of the aisle if they are open to it.

That is why I’m voting for Clinton.  

Hobbies - EV Melotte

Well - the double trip to the DR is over,

DJ has a stress fracture and I had more skin ripped from my body as my Dr attempts to slowly replicate me in his secret room under his office, one millimeter at a time over the last 25 years.

I found out it's been 25 years since my malignant melanoma and he is always finding little carcinoma's he feels he needs to cut out.   Research has found and backed up by the National Cancer Institute that cannabis actually cures many kinds of skin cancer.  But, then how would big pharmaceuticals make their money.  Instead of  big pharm reaping profits all that money would go to schools and police departments and infrastructure.  Can't have that!

In 2015 Colorado gave 35 million to schools from taxing cannabis up from 13 million in 2014.  Another 23 million has gone to support youth programs.  All drug related crime is down 23%.

But I digress.

 . . . .

So DJ needs to wear a storm troopers boot for a while and seems to be in terrible pain.

And I'm walking around a little lighter having two tiny holes in my skin.

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As we were sitting around yesterday nursing our wounds (with coconut rum) we saw a couple monarch butterfly's.   I looked over the edge of the deck and on our Hummingbird Mint there were five monarchs.

I took some photos that look like every other monarch photo in the world.

A few nights ago there was a fantastic sunset

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I think some of this story you have heard before.  We are coming upon parts of stories and complete stories.  We believe the "parts" were assignments that became stories.

this is called

Hobbies - EV Melotte

I never, as a child or adolescent, belonged to any church, club, or organization.  I was never part of any clique or group, nor did I ever have a “circle” of friends.

Webster defines “hobby” as “a pursuit outside ones regular occupation, engaged in for relaxation.”  Now that I can get my teeth into.

I read.

There were a few other things that I did for fun or relaxation. In Goodrich I used to search through one particular field every spring, looking for railroad spikes left from a logging railroad that had once passed through there. By the time we left I had thirty-six of them.  There is no accounting for the tastes of collectors.

I designed clothes for my paper doll.  There were no crude colored-paper cutouts. I drew them carefully, including every pleat and gather and dart, and colored in the prints and stripes and plaids the way they would really hang. As a teenager I designed clothes for myself. I didn’t usually have the fabric to make them, but anyway the fun was in the designing. The ones I did make up turned out well, but sewing has always been stressful to me and I’ve never liked it.

I wrote poetry.  When I entered my teens, I switched to essays.  I wrote a one-page essay every single school day, during my first study hall, all through high school.

I walked in the pine woods and talked to the trees, especially to one huge and massive old pine tree that I privately called the Grandfather Pine, and always addressed as “Grandfather.”

  I first made its acquaintance sometime before I started school.  Whenever I approached it I would stop just outside its circumference and ask, “Grandfather, may I come in?”, and wait for its pine-murmur to give me permission.  Then I’d go forward, to sit leaning against its trunk, and talk to it, and listen to it, and spend an hour or an afternoon just pondering on all the things I didn’t understand.

As an adolescent in Whitewater, I couldn’t find a pine woods so I walked on county roads and talked to the cows.  If you lean on a fencepost and talk to a herd of cows, they’ll come over to the fence and listen to you.  I like cows, especially Brown Swiss cows.  I wouldn’t make any claims for their intelligence but they’re good listeners and very polite.

But mostly, I read.  I read anything, and everything I could get my hands on.

My father and both of my oldest brothers, who were old enough to remember, all agree that I was three and a half years old when they discovered I could read.  That has always been a mystery to us because no one in the family taught me, and at that age I’d never had contact with anyone outside the family.  However, it was, by the time I started school I’d read every children’s book and every “young people’s” book in the house.  I remember being annoyed at The Swiss Family Robinson because every time that stranded, shipwrecked family needed something, Mother Robinson reached into her bag of odds and ends she had grabbed from the ship just before it went down, and pulled out exactly what was needed.  I figured it had to be a mighty big bag, and if they’d ever need a horse she’d have found one in there somewhere.

By the time I’d turned eleven and left Goodrich, I’d read all my parents books expect the last two-thirds of Don Quixote.  I never could manage to get all the way through that.  I don’t know whether I was intimidated by the extraordinarily thin, crackly pages or if the story itself bogged my down in depression.  It was so obvious that he was going to keep falling on his face.

I read all the books in the bookcases at school except “Les Miserables” which I wouldn’t even touch because the name turned me off.  I read all my school books all the way through as soon as I got them, even the arithmetic ones.  I read as many library books as we could afford to ship back and forth to the Medford Library.

I read for relaxation and amusement and escapism and adventure and from a hunger and thirst to find out.

I still do. 

just a quick update.

No time for an actual blog as DJ and I both have DR appointments today.  DJ with a stress fracture in her ankle which started with her broken ankle from a few years ago on the vacation from hell and I have my yearly dermatology thing from cancer 30 years ago.

BUT - I wanted to make sure that when I was talking about blight and disrepair of houses in Columbus and how to fix this and how much we wanted to spend . . . it was not on new employees but on possible lawyer charges.  I was just thinking out loud.

Then the bricks.  Lots of photos on Pinterest and we know where they are made.  I have not looked at a few emails yet - really busy of late it seems.

I won't mention Trumps doom and gloom speech last night that was meant for his base and full of lies.  It's unbelievable how anybody can take this guy seriously.  The total fabrications that came out of his moth is amazing.  I don't mind people having different views but total out and out lie's and false "facts" get to me.

And he has an audience with the President of Mexico and says they did not talk about The Wall??  Even when the Mexican President said he brought it up to Trump refused to talk about it    WHAT???


So until Friday

have a great day