Unwelcome Visitor

One Forecaster's projected eye path - Image via AccuWeather.com.
We're inside the blue path projection :(

Overheard at the grocery store:

Woman 1: "Have you got clean panties on?"

Woman 2: "Of course."

Woman 1: "Good thing ... Earl's coming."

We've been hanging on every update to the track and intensity of Hurricane Earl over the past few days. As of this writing, looks like he'll miss us, except for anywheres from 2 to 6 inches of rain. Our fear, here amongst the swamp oaks. birches, alders, old pines and firs, is the potential for severe winds downing trees and tree limbs. Just another of the fears when living in an aluminum tube. So forecasts of heavy rains with relatively easy winds is a true pleasure, given the alternative. Still, vigilance will be maintained until Earl and Gaston have blown by.

Book of Odds - My Everyday Life: Wednesday - Letter From Afghanistan: Shaken to the Core

A young Vermont Lieutenant's exposition on a far-from-routine patrol in Afghanistan. Powerful writing. Gut-wrenching reading.

Book of Odds - My Everyday Life: Wednesday - Letter From Afghanistan: Shaken to the Core

Home a week now. Weather has been wonderful, for the most part. Daytime highs in the 70's or low 89's and nighttime low's in the 50's. It is scary, how nice it has been. Somehow, I suspect we will pay.

No luck finding any temp work, but haven't been looking as hard as I might.

The light pole in the camp dooryard has snapped off at its base from years of little buggies boring their little teeth off. This poses a problem as the transformer on the powerline is also off. Can't very well ask the faceless bureaicrats at Bangor Hydro-Electric Company to replace the busted transformer when it'll just short out again from the lines coming in contact with the trees the yard pole is leaning against. Need over a grand to replace the pole. THAT isn't going to happen any time soon. That's like a weeks wages around here, assuming one can find a job that pays anything close to $25 an hour. And So It Goes.

Juris Impudence

A long slog got us to The Uncle's in Maryland on Monday. Tuesday spent working on projects which had accumulated since November. Had a really nice crab feed on Tuesday night at Ford's Restaurant in Rock Hall. The service left a lot to be desired, but the food was tasty and the quantity was good. Four adults, no booze, two crab meals, one 3 pound lobster and a liver and onions plate came to a total of $80. Not bad, everything considered. Wednesday I collapsed - accumulated fatigue from the hard driving and anticipation of the final legs home. Thursday we awoke to a loud thunderclap about 5AM followed by a spectacular lightning storm. I rolled over and went back to sleep. Friday morning finished up the last of the projects and loaded up the truck and made ready for departure. Waited out the weekend get-away traffic and set out towards Maine at 2AM Saturday. Made good time, having taken my wife straight through the middle of New York City -- a first for her. Cross-Bronx Expressway hasn't improved one bit during my 25 year absence from the city. Skyline is so sad without the Twin Towers. Drove as far as Southern Connecticut on the old standby, I-95, by late morning.

We ate lunch and then napped for a couple of hours in the heat of the day as the Saturday beach traffic had been bugging me no end -- it was supposed to be easy driving on a Saturday, not bumper-to-bumper white knuckling nonsense. The nap delay did the trick. Easy sailing Northward. Had to detour on I-297 due to a bridge out in Pawtucket, RI so didn't have the fun of driving through Providence or Boston. We pulled into Bangor, Maine at dusk, about 8:00PM, making for a very LONG DAY. Parked in the dooryard at the house and went straight to bed after a meal of our favorite Chinese take-out. Sunday dawned clear and crisp at 67° at 8:00 AM, so we pulled out and headed straight to camp. Discovered some miscreants had broken in the front door during our sojourn in the Southland. Not a lot of things missing, but the place was pretty trashed. Bah Humbug. To add insult to injury, the power doesn't seem to be working, but I can't find my voltmeter to check the wires coming in to the camp to see if power is being delivered to the building. Note to self: Tomorrow - must find my meter.

Went through the 3 month accumulation of mail and discovered to my horror that I'd be summonsed to serve on the Traverse Jury for Superior Court. For August. Starting with a mandatory appearance on Monday, 2 August 2010. Tried calling first thing this morning, but all I got was voicemail. Went in this afternoon and ascertained that a bench warrant had NOT been issued for my failure to appear. However, they promptly signed me up for the October session, which begins in September and runs into November?

Phooey - I was hoping to make enough money to make it back down South for the winter. Hard to do when you have to be in court for 6 weeks...

And So It Goes.

Neuse To Me...

We're tucked in amongst the Loblolly Pines and Gum Trees of the Croatan National Forest campground at the Neuse Rive (AKA Flanners Beach). That's about 12 miles southeast of the town of New Bern, North Carolina. It has about 35 wooded RV sites with electricity (water available to carry and there is a sewage dump site). The bathroom is clean and the price is right - $17US. We arrived late this afternoon (early evening, really). So, I will try for a photo of the waterfront for you in the morning as it is too dark to be banging around an unlit riverbank (no moon at all). Met a fellow from New Hampshire who was admiring our whisper-quiet air conditioner. He's in a tent in this 95° heat. He and his wife are on the way to Charleston, S.C. They had the misfortune of having a sparkplug blow out of the engine Friday night in Virginia while waiting to cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge & Tunnel. About $500 and two days later, they are on the way again. He was sort of glad that they'd opted to only bring a tent for this quick trip to South Carolina. He figures the towing cost of both the truck and trailer, plus the repairs, would have left them stranded. Times are tough, folks. No doubt about it.

Tomorrow, if all goes well, we will head to Uncle's in Maryland. It is a solid 400 miles of secondary roads, more than I usually choose to drive in a day, but we'll give it the old college try.

Holed Up

We made it all the way to the Buck Horn Recreation Area in the Francis Marion National Forest at Mcclenndon, South Carolina. This 14 lot campground is basically a convenience for fishermen. Lots have electric (30&50 amp) and water. There is a bath house and sewer dump for self-contained units.

Did I mention it is right on the Inter-coastal Waterway, less than 30 miles north of Charleston, South Carolina? Yep. Every other facility near the water might be full, but this one has a few openings so long as it isn't the middle of shrimping or sea bass (striper) season...

So, we will stay here through the weekend to avoid the crowds.

Valdosta?

Yes, indeedy. Valdosta, Georgia is where we landed tonight, after a quiet day and a half at the Mystic Springs Cove, Inc., an Airstream Park about 25 miles north of Pensacola on the Escambia River and site of our close call last November when flood waters covered the road one early morning.

We got a middling late start after breakfast and then poked along on Interstate 10 for a bit before turning the nose of the Ford northward for Georgia. It will come as no surprise to anyone between Key West and Boston that it was a hot day, in the upper 90's for the most part, so there was no sense of urgency. Just walking from the truck to a rest room was enough to soak my clothing. Actually working in these temperatures and humidity levels can be excruciating. I was so heat sick on Monday before I quit that I contemplated hospitalization!

We did manage to score some fresh tomatoes, Vidalia onions, peaches and the best boiled peanuts I've ever had, hands down, from a little stand at the junction of a couple of secondary roads in Georgia. Drove through Havana, Florida, named after Havana, Cuba as the town took up cigar production for a thirty year period (1940's through the late 1960's). Also Cairo, Georgia, the birthplace of Jackie Robinson, and got to admire the range of architecture in that fair burg after a wrong turn (darn GPS) forced me to travel over several residential and downtown streets to get where I wanted to go. Almost had a cute blonde officer as an escort vehicle, but she circled the block and made sure we left town without causing too much mischief. Damn Yankees! Hrumph!

No pictures today - too busy driving, I guess.

Arrived in Valdosta just before sundown. I hate setting up in the dark as I always seem to injure or break something, so I was unwarrantedly PO'd when my dear wife's navigational skills had us retracing our path multiple times trying to locate the campground entrance. After doubling back yet another time we hit upon the magic combination of chicken bones and tea leaves and found the place, right where they said they'd be. Funny, that.

That's about all for tonight. No excitement. Cooked a mean mess of sauteed onions and Chicken-Spinach and roasted garlic sausages (the last of our stash of Sam's Club tube steaks) along with a [late of fresh tomato wedges and pickled beets for supper. Finished up with a still warm, juicy Georgia Peach. Yum!


Well, off to sleep. Who knows what tomorrow may bring?

We're Off

After a teary-eyed departure, we have hit the road. Here is a view of the Kiln, Mississippi picnic area. A "BAYFIELD BUNCH LUNCH" (PB&J) has just been consumed. Much pleasure derived by all. Ignatz has annointed all tree trunks and other vertical objects in sight so he's happy, too. Off to Pensacola...

WX Delay

The heat has defeated me. It is 95* in the shade. In the direct sun it is much worse. Typical Louisiana humidity, i.e. wringing wet. In fact, someone ran me through the wringer and left me for dead. No more truck loading until sun down. Sucks to get old. Maybe we'll leave in the morning.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless Phone

Finally!

Getting ready to pull out of Baton Rouge for Maine in the morning. First stop will be in the Pensacola, Florida area.

We expect to be turning North at Jacksonville. Then next stop somewhere around Charlotte, S.C.

More as we actually hit the road.



Update: Corrected a misspelling & deleted the gratuitous line about my cell phone service. It hit 103°F. this afternoon - not much packing done. Can't imagine why...

Not all spills get International responses...

I realize that the flood of news these days combined with the hectic pace we all seem to maintain is an easy excuse for overlooking serious events elsewhere. Like the woman who allegedly (admittedly) killed eight babies she has born since 1989 (Dunai - Nord, France). And so much punditry, hot air and national exhibitions of know-nothingness have been expended on the disastrous oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico that this little story on CNN may have escaped your attention:
Photo Credit: CNN

"(CNN) -- Rising waters from flooding in northeastern China hit a chemical plant and washed thousands of containers filled with explosive chemicals into a river, state media said Thursday."

Read the rest of the tale, here.

From the frying pan and into the fire...

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Why I Hate Doctors...

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Guess that means there's no shooting team, huh?

Do you remember when it wasn't a "sanitary landfill"? It was "the dump" and we used to go out when I was a teenager on a Saturday evening before it got dark enough to go to the drive-in and shoot rats at "the dump". There were thousands (so it seemed; more like hundreds, in actuality) and you could shoot a "brick" of .22LR ammo easily with just a bolt-action 22 rifle or six-shot pistol - no sense eating up more of your allowance on more expensive loads - leave that to the young bucks with paying jobs in construction or fishing or cutting timber. They could afford the .357 or .45 caliber loads -- too rich for my blood.

It wasn't something frowned upon by the elders, either. The town fathers considered it a service, particularly as the dump attendant was a heavy drinker and likely in town, tying one on, if you know what I mean. The local police didn't even bother to respond to reports of gunfire at the dump -- they just figured we were out shooting rats.

Somehow, in the intervening years between sneaking into drive-ins in the trunk of a car and getting busy in the backseat with Cindy-Lou or Bettyjo, they changed the rules. Now, the mere possession of a rifle in your trunk is enough to send the police off the deep end. Any attempt at shooting vermin at the "Sanitary Landfill" would likely get me, at minimum, a night in jail and a court summons for trespassing on municipal property.

I was reminded of all of this because I saw (sorry, no phone or camera with me to take a picture) that they'd repainted the sign at the local high school in anticipation of a new school year. What sign, you ask? The one that warns it is a felony to bring a weapon onto school property by anyone, other than an on-duty police officer, responding to a disturbance at the school. Heck, when I was a kid, the rule was you could bring your hunting rifle in your truck to school provided it remained locked in your truck. If you were riding the bus and going hunting after school, you were allowed to bring your rifle or shotgun direct to the office and leave it in the principal's office until closing bell. Now, you'd go to prison if you tried that.

The times, they have changed. And not for the better...

What the ...?

Still cooking over a fire of toasted crawfish in Louisiana, again ungainfully unemployed. Hoping to leave for Maine soon as we straighten out some bureaucratic snafus here in the Sportsman's Oil Mecca of the USA. Night breezes often are redolent with wafted Mexican Crude.

Found this Fionavar Tapestry Character Test over on Paul's blog, Aurora Walking Vacation. So, what the heck, I took the "personality test" and this is what appeared. Me, stubborn? Do pigs fly on Sundays?



I'm Aileron!
Take The Fionavar Tapestry Character Test today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Personality Test Generator.

You are Aileron, High King of Brennin. Taciturn and stubborn, you are skilled in many areas and find yourself taking a leadership role. You are a hard worker and hold fast to your beliefs, only rarely allowing your humour and feelings to show forth.

BP's "Wide, Wide, River"

With no apologies for the use of The Fugs' song "Wide, Wide, River" comes this visual critique of the mess the BP busted oil well has made of the Gulf of Mexico:



Here's the original:

Ramses The Second Is Dead, My Love...

And so, too, is one of the most formative influences of my twisted psyche, from the Beats of my Generation -- Tuli Kupferberg. Read his New York Times obituary here. Yes, Tuli, I, too, 'like boobs alot.' May your heaven be full of them...


The Fugs -- "Boobs A Lot" from the First Album* - 1965

Appropriately titled, “The Village Fugs Sing Ballads of Contemporary Protest, Points of View and General Dissatisfaction.”

"Always A Rebel" - Vinnie Morris (YouTube)

A talented singer-songwriter applies his talents to immortalizing the crab fishing industry on the Bering Sea off Alaska.

Rain, rain, go away...

Had a good, uneventful run to Fort Worth on Sunday night - Monday morning. A thousand miles in 18 hours, with a lunch stop and three fuelings. No photos to share as when I wasn't driving, I was sleeping. Here, today, we got rained out with over an inch this morning and many more to follow. The PTB's at the FEMA yard are saying it will likely be next week before anymore trailers can come out -- they've shut the yard down for the week due to the flooding. That pretty much means the end of it for us -- time to head North. Just in time for that heat wave y'all are having. It only managed to get to 81° here while up home it got to 90°! Something is wrong with that...

Leaving out for our last trip to Texas (there aren't any more trailers ready to go) in a few hours, then we'll see.

Stay cool and hydrated, my friends. This (heat wave) shall pass.

Early in the Morning (Buddy Holly Cover)

Now here's a young woman with a wicked load of raw talent, Samatha Smith. Her rendition of "Early In The Morning," a cover of the Buddy Holly tune, has a haunting quality to the vocalization, despite the limitations of the venue's acoustics. Below that is the eerily beautiful rendition of her own song, "Ventriloquism."





If Samantha ever gets a record contract, look out world ... this chick is going places.

Seven Years Old

Happy Birthday, dear Daily Snooze, happy birthday 2U.

This is the third incarnation of this blog -- the second on Blogger. It started back in April, 2003, but that version was mostly unread and certainly unremarked upon. I don't even recall getting anything but spam comments! I erased that one after discovering that AOL was starting a blog service with no archive. What did I know about posterity?

I alpha- and then beta-tested the AOL Journals product from July 1 through the 27th of July when it was declared "ready for prime time" or some such. Lost the first few entries when the entire AOL Journals edifice collapsed after 2 days. But, you will find everything in the archives from July 30th, 2003 onward in the archives, if you care to look.

"Daily" is a misnomer, I know now. Hell, I'm lucky to produce an entry once a week, most of the time. No real excuse -- I'm just not as chatty. Some flack for posts over the years resulted in a severe curtailment of anything pertaining to family members and I have never spoken about business colleagues or acquaintances on the "Snooze." Thus, sources for material have died up almost as fast as my libido. I mean, just how much interest is there in the quality of my bowel movements, anyhow?

Alright, I know. TMI. But that's just the thing -- I find I must walk a fine line between telling too much, thus adversely affecting my chances for some super job I want in future, and saying so little that you stop visiting to read what I have to share.

Oh well, fuck it. I have been sweating in the 95° heat with humidity to match, driving ugly FEMA trailers (not safe for habitation) from one lot to another. Made some pocket change, a few enemies and sunburned my nose and ears. Managed to avoid the wasp bites that others haven't (a good thing, given the anaphylactic shock I am likely to enter if they do get me) but not the spiders -- I have had two bites, one on each hand. I'm so tired by the time I get back I can barely breathe. Sleep -- that's what I want these days. Blogging doesn't even appear on the radar.

I'm getting older, too, and it sucks. But you don't care. Time is taking its toll upon you just as fast as me. You have your own problems, I'm sure. So, you take care of you and I will try to do the same. Catch you again, real soon now.

Cutest Photo? Zombie Toddler Eats Kitten!

"After you've finished sucking out the brain, start on the eyes, dear."

photo credit: Huffington Post

For The Fathers

Happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there. My own father and I had a tempestuous relationship. My stepson, Matt, and I repeated the same sort of cycle. All too cliched for words.

But someone did capture those cliches and put them to good use. Harry Chapin was one of my favorite balladeers, may he rest in peace. He wrote this song for his son Josh. It sums up the lives and feelings of millions of us.

Cats Cradle

Damned Fool Yankee

As I type this it's momentarily cloudy and the inside temp. has just dropped 2°F. in 10 minutes to 73°. The roof-top air conditioner has run steadily for three weeks now. Outside it's currently 95° and 53% humidity. Temperatures have only dropped below 75° once for any length of time in the past 10 days or so. It may be Spring on the calendar for another few days, but it has been in full summer mode in Baton Rouge since before Memorial Day.

What in heck am I doing here when it's a cool, wet, rainy 58 - 68° in Maine? About to go to work hauling FEMA trailers to Dallas. Texas. Where it will be even hotter next week. And for the foreseeable future.

Damned fool Yankee!


Look out, Steph -- here we come.

Maine - where Men are men and the sheep are afraid ...

Very afraid.


I came across the above on one of the RVing forums I read regularly. You know me -- perverted. And I just had to share...

BBC - The Big Read

After reading the comments posted on the entry below, I got curious. What IS the story with the BBC in relation to the list. After a quick Google search on 'BBC reading book list' I hit paydirt. Lo and behold, it is a very different list of reads than the 'BBC Reading List Meme' portrayed. Gone is the ultra-heavy reliance on British Classics. Many modern authors and many more genre are represented.

"In April 2003 the BBC's Big Read began the search for the nation's best-loved novel, and we asked you to nominate your favourite books.

Below and on the next page are all the results from number 1 to 100 in numerical order!"

That is a very different kettle of (silver)fish, I think you will agree. And yes, Nellie, it's still a mess of typing, for sure. So feast your eyes on the "original" list that started the meme and then look again at the metamorphosis it has undergone. Sure be some hate for modern novels out there somewhere...

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce (not that I understood it, mind you. It helped that I was drinking heavily back then)
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

Those on the original list which I've read are, appropriately, in red. So, from the original list, I've read 64 (I think, if I counted correctly). Still a lot of reading in this day and age, yet there are obviously some I ought to get on to and there's plenty I've read that would never appear on such an august list. What about you? Did you do more of less than in the entry 67 ways to waste your time and counting?

Fun Map

(image credit: Keith Thompson)

Found at Dark Roasted Blend in my web wanderings this evening as I listened to my LAST.FM station, Pearls Before Swine (probably my most favorite psychedelic band of the 60's). Click the image to enbiggen it. Better yet, learn the history of the image by reading the entry about the map at DRB's
Unusual and Marvelous Maps, Part 2

67 ways to waste your time and counting

The BBC apparently says most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How many have YOU read?

Instructions: [Copy and paste]

1) Look at the list and put an 'x' before those you have read.
2) Tally your total.
3) Post a note with with your total in the subject line


1 (X) Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 (x ) The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 (x ) Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 (x) Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 (X) To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 (X ) The Bible
7 (x) Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 (X) Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 ( ) His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 (x ) Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 (X ) Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 (x) Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 ( X) Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 (/) Complete Works of Shakespeare (A lot of his more well known plays and sonnets, but not the C.W.S.)
15 ( ) Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 (x) The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 ( ) Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 (X) Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 (x ) The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 ( ) Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 (X) Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 (X) The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 (x) Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 (X) War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 (x) The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 (x) Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 (x) Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 (X) Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 (X) Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 (x) The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 (x ) Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 (x) David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 (x) Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 (x) Emma - Jane Austen
35 (x) Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 (x) The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 ( ) The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 ( ) Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 ( ) Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 (X) Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 (X) Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 () The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 ( ) One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 (x ) A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 ( ) The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 (x) Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 (x ) Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 (/) The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood (I tried, really, I tried. Gave it 100 pages and then said, nope, not for me)
49 (x) Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 (X) Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 (x) Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 (x) Dune - Frank Herbert
53 (x) Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 (X) Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 () A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 ( ) The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 (X) A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 (x) Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 ( ) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 ( ) Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 (X) Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 (X) Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 ( ) The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 ( ) The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 (X) Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 x) On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 (x) Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 ( ) Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 ( ) Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie70
(X) Moby Dick - Herman Melville71
(X) Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 (X) Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 (X) The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 ( ) Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 (X) Ulysses - James Joyce
76 ( ) The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 () Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 ( ) Germinal - Emile Zola
79 (x) Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 ( ) Possession - AS Byatt
81 (X) A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 ( ) Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 ( ) The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 () The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 (x) Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 () A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 (x) Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 ( ) The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 (x) Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 ( ) The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 (x) Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 ( ) The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint Exupery
93 ( ) The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 (x) Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 ( ) A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 ( ) A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 (X) The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 (X) Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 (x) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 (X) Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

It's a very British-centric list, isn't it? And yet, there are many English classics which are not represented which carry far more weight than “Emma” or “Dracula”. An odd selection, to say the least. I surprised myself by having read 67 of them. I expected fewer. But, if nothing else, my life has been a life of reading. This year, though, I have only managed to complete a handful of new titles. So far...

via Christina Kay Brown

All tied up...

I came across this moments ago and it tickled my funnybone so fiercely I just had to share. Everyone who has ever kept farm animals has run into dead mice, voles and moles while feeding out hay. It's so commonplace, no one thinks to remark upon it.

Have you ever baled a badger?




Check out the rest of the hilarity at TonyRogers.com

Here's a new one on me...

It's raining hard here today. Between an inch and 2 inches per hour. So hard, in fact, that somehow it has managed to overtop the holding tank vents and fill both the gray and black water tanks. Full.

So now I have to go out in the pouring rain and hook-up a pump system to drain the tanks into the sanitary sewer line for the house.

Did I mention it is pouring buckets out there? I'd be dryer on the deck of one of those crabbers on The Deadliest Catch.

UPDATE: Tanks were not full, thanks be to Cthulhu. Instead, it appears something has blown on the monitor circuit board as EVERYTHING reads full, including the fresh water tank which I know to be empty as the drain valve is open. All of which wasn't discovered until AFTER I stood in the downpour running the pump.

Never rains but what it pours...

Memorial Day Weekend Finds Me Where???

So, where do we find ourselves this Memorial Day Weekend? Still in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, watching the weather radar as afternoon severe (but spotty) thunderstorms take aim on my aluminum tube home.

As some of you know, my wife recently had a cardiac scare which, after an overnight hospitalization, proved to be viral in origin. Whew! It had us worried for a bit, for sure. Anyway, what with that and our compounded (confounded, too) predilection for procrastination and crowd avoidance, we are sticking close to the Old Louisiana Home™. No sense battling for a space in a crowded campground or driving amongst the holiday throngs. Things will be much more inviting come Tuesday or Wednesday of next week as most of the holiday revelers have returned to home, school and work.

I hope you have a fun, safe and enjoyable MDW, regardless of where or what you choose to do. Don't lose sight of the reason for the holiday -- far too many men and women have given their lives so we may enjoy ours in Freedom. Let us now not abandon them in the headlong rush by "NIMBY-istic nabobs of negativity" (to mangle former Vice President Spiro Agnew's phrase) to secure the barn door after the race horse got out.

Make no mistake. All of the breast beating and saber rattling these vacuous "patriots" and Tea Party sheep will make over this weekend in endless speeches and broadcasts are all about the last gasp of white supremacy and racial separatism in their very small minds. Latching on to such very real issues of the threat of global terrorism and Islamic extremists hell-bent to convert all the teeming masses of the world to their closed-minded, limited world view masquerading as religion, is just their way of "putting all the others in their place." Talk about your narrow world view...

So remember the fallen and the maimed and injured who sacrificed for you and yours. But don't fall for their racist, misogynistic rhetoric. It is beneath you and very dangerous to your responsibilities as citizens of the United States of America and the world.

Things that go bump in the night

As many (most?) of you know, I've been residing in an Airstream trailer since late 2008. Here for your edification is one of the things that keep me awake at night. Ouch!

O Death (Traditional)

Found this over at the J-Walk Blog this AM and it struck a chord (pun intended). She's a clever young musician with her own playing style -- a significant accomplishment for one her age. Pay attention, oh ye soaking wet producers of Nashville -- this one's a keeper who'll be making you pots of gold if you just give a listen. Not all our talent has to be blue-eyed blondes, dammit.

No Fracking Way!

The Onion, that scurrilous humor site on the Internet, has done it again with this "not safe for work" and, frankly, vulgar bit entitled:

Supreme Court Upholds Freedom Of Speech In Obscenity-Filled Ruling

Enjoy!

Spring Has Sprung ...

Topless march draws crowd in college town

Andrea Simoneau, 22, of Brooks, looks out over a crowd of people at Abbott Park in Farmington on Friday, April 30, 2010, while Elaine Graham of Farmington attempts to conceal her bare breasts with a blanket. Simoneau is the organizer of what she calls the Farmington First Topless March for Gender Equity. About a dozen men and women joined her, topless for the half-mile walk along Main Street.


Photo credit: BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY KEVIN BENNETT

Click the link above for more photos, the entire article AND, B'gosh, a video!

On Hold ... Forever!

Photo credit: Dark Roasted Blend

A Sign Of The Times...

This from the BBC via J-Walk Blog:

Californian man sends obituary to press before suicide

Rajesh Mirchandani BBC News, Los Angeles

A Californian man delivered his own obituary to a local newspaper before killing himself.

The body of 64-year old Allan Leo Peters II was found hanging from a bridge the following day.

The envelope also contained a suicide note, photo and a $90 (£60) payment for the obituary.

A whisper in the wind

Michael Yon is a journalist. A photo journalist. Moreover, he is that special sort of journalist I grew up admiring. Michael Yon is a War Correspondent. See here why I read his dispatches from Afghanistan.

Authoritarianism is a disease of the mind.

Remember the 70's Counter-culture's rallying cry "Question Authority"? Best not try try it while having your car searched at a U.S. Border Crossing.

Do you know what "scat porn" is?

Neither did I. But then, I stumbled upon the term on ErosBlog: The Sex Blog and got more, and less, than I bargained for...

They're At It Again, Ladies...

Bangor Daily News, April 16, 2010: "Andrea Simoneau, 22, of Brooks, a University of Maine at Farmington student, walks topless on the street in Farmington on Wednesday. Bob Bartone, far right, said he wasn't expecting to see a topless woman on the street, "but it doesn't surprise me in a college town." Simoneau was promoting her Female Bodies Topless March to be held at 1 p.m. on April 30.
Topless march set in Maine college town" (photo credit Bangor Daily News)


So the march in Maine's largest city wasn't enough, I guess. Now they are taking it to the sleepy little town of Farmington -- the gateway to the Great North Woods. Better hope there aren't any black fly hatches that day.

Topless march set in Maine college town

London Calling: Your Flight Is Cancelled Until Further Notice

See all 17 images at The Big Picture -- they're breathtaking, heh, heh (said the asthmatic with one lung)


Have you heard about the bloomin' volcano, mate? Seems there's a hill in Iceland what opened and vented a bit. Ash is so abrasive it'll foul a jet engine in under 30 seconds. So, sorry to be the bearer and all, but best stay home. No flights in or out of Ireland, Great Britain, the Nederlands and all of Scandinavia, to mention a few. Yes, yes, yes ... the Chunnel is still open. Train reservations are overwhelmed. Perhaps you can find someone to drive you to Madrid...

The Big Picture: Iceland's Disruptive Volcano

Allergies, Books and Enui

SWMBO is off gallivanting the countryside with her son. Son-in-Law is mowing the lawn. Iggy is wrestling with the big dogs. And I am cooped up in the trailer with the AC running to avoid all the allergens being whipped into the air by the power mower. On board are two Claritin, a Benedryl and a nasal shot of Nasonex. The eyes still itch.

I could be reading an honest-to-gawd book with pages and ink and everything as I have several in the works (Kim Harrison's White Witch, Black Curse, Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, Michael Zadorian's the Leisure Seeker) but that wolud require wearing reading glasses and they give me a headache. (I know; bitch, bitch, bitch).

SWMBO has the truck, so am stuck until her return. Then again, gas is almost at $3 a gallon, so not much driving just to take a ride at 7MPG going on in this gimp's life. Guess I'll go back to reading blogs.

CYA in the funny papers...




*SWMBO= She Who Must be Obeyed; ie. my wife and life-mate.

Bunny Thoughts on Easter Morn

Source: A Day In The Life of an Ambulance Driver

Spring Fever Files: Easter Parade?

Bangor Daily News, Saturday. April 3. 2010
Topless march draws onlookers in Portland on Saturday

PORTLAND, Maine — About two dozen women drew a crowd of onlookers when they took off their tops and marched down a downtown street in Portland to promote what they call equal-opportunity public toplessness.

MORE

What Did You Do This Weekend, Old Dog?

Well, this weekend has been devoted to grandkids and their pre-season T-ball & “Coaches Pitch” season warm-up tournaments. Lots of sun, fun, tears and trophies. Congratulations to the “Rangers” and grandmonster Caleb for their 2^nd place in the tournament championship. “Good-for-yous” go out to the “Pretty Princesses” and grandmonsteresses Abby, Emily & Gabby upon their first win ever with “Special Recognition” for the divine Miss Em's first run scored. May you all have many more as the season progresses. Also, the grandmonster Braydon looked mighty spiffy in his new cleats and batting gloves.

Got some sun on Sunday and also took in the 3D version of “How To Train Your Dragon”. I thoroughly enjoyed the show and the 3D animations were great. And one point I was snatching puffballs in the sky in front of me. Shades of '68, I kid you not!

Time to be moving on. Want to see the desert in bloom this year but don't want to burn to a crisp, so time to go is now. Preparations in Very Serious Mode are on the agenda Monday, weather permitting. The better half has decreed that Iggy the itchy dog is overdue for a flea bath, so I suspect that will also occur – he sleeps with me, so enlightened self-interest dictates a prompt follow through on that suggestion.

Spring has sprung, my nose is still running and the moon is almost full. Be careful when you go out in the woods and fields ... hibernating snakes are emerging now and the newborns should also be appearing before long.

Happy Spring Cleaning, y'all.

The Birth of Commercial Spaceflight: The Early Years

Boing-Boing: Virgin flight of Virgin Galactic's VSS Enterprise: Photo Gallery

Happy Spring musings

I got a little bit of a sunburn today while watching some of my grandkids practice T-ball. Seems it didn't occur to this old duffer to apply sun screen until after the damage was done. And they say you can't teach old dogs new tricks...

Bangor, Maine was (considerably) warmer on Sunday (68°) than it was here in Baton Rouge (44°).

There was freezing rain in Shrevesport, LA on Sunday morning. Darn funny weather we'all've been having lately.

Leaving in a week for the desert. Next Sunday forecast for here is 89° ... imagine how hot it'll be in Death Valley!

'Tis the season

for my nares to run like water spigots, my eyes to glow red and itch like fire and the sneezes are like the hits on the oldies station - "they just keep on coming." In a word - ALLERGIES. The layer of pollen visible on the hood of the truck is indicative of the arrival of Spring in the southland. But I already knew it was imminent ... I doubled my dose of Claritin® and added 25mg of diphenhydramine (Benedryl®) every 6 - 8 hours for the nasal drips a week ago. Still, over-the-counter drugs can only do so much. Just one more cross to bear.

Happy Spring, y'all.

Life List Addition: Golden Eagle

Photo credit: Zoologická zahrada Ostrava from Wikipedia

A week ago on Thursday, February 25, while driving on Hooper Road in Greenwell Springs, Louisiana, I spied a flash of gold above me and then he opened his wings to the sun. Absolutely stunning. I slowed as much as practical, but the lack of shoulders and heavy traffic precluded stopping for a better look and he was soon gone from view, dammit. It was a mature male Golden Eagle of the North American sub-genus. I suspect he was just on a "flyabout" as this is outside the eastern limits of the species usual range. Then again, he may have a Cox Cable feed of CNN and fell for Al Gore's nonsense. Or perhaps he was just trying to escape the snows in Houston...

I may have seen some Golden Eagles in California 42 years ago, but my recollection of that period is, shall we say, a mite shaky.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does...

Photo Credit: Bits And Pieces -- A .45″ caliber round makes a pretty big hole

More photos and information can be found at Bits And Pieces

Shaggy Dog Story

Photo credit: Scottish Mountain Photo Gallery

Two thoroughly chilled paddlers in a kayak lit a fire in the craft. It sank--proving that you can't have your kayak and heat it, too.

See also: Killer Whale Crushes Kayaker at http://broadbandsports.com/node/607


Shamelessly stolen from Patrick Phillip's Twitter postings and modified to suit my needs.

Advertising in an Internet Age

Here's a spectacular advertisement for Pedigree dog food which I just came across on Boing-Boing. While some of the commentors find it derivative or outright imitative of other videos, I find it to be a strangely fascinating view of dogs in motion. Technical details are available in the discussion at Dogster, along with an explanation of the original "charge" from the advertising firm. But for me, it is all about the dogs...

To everything there is a season

Severe thunderstorm last night brought beaucoup lightning, crashing thunder, downpours and hail. All but the last, I enjoy, so long as I'm not standing outside -- I attract lightning. But hail? Oh my. When you live inside the 25' equivalent of a Bud Light can, hail is like having a paper shredder headed for your latest novel -- the one you wrote in longhand on yellow legal pads and haven't a copy of, yet.

Earlier on in the evening, the weather forecasters let loose with the prognostication that "baseball-sized" hail might accompany the storms. Then, as it got closer, they ratcheted things up with the "T-Word" . Right, tornado. To make matters worse, the discussion of hail became reports of actual "basketball-sized" ice chunks falling over farmland to our southwest. Hmm, I doubted that one -- turns out the forecaster had mistyped and meant to use the well -worn cliche of "baseball-sized" ice chunks. Still, considering that hail falls at near terminal velocity I wouldn't want my aluminum-skinned home coming in contact with it, don'tcha know?

Any way, I got unassed from the lounger, brought the dogs inside and went out and woke my wife, SWMBO. Suffice it to say she was MOST UNHAPPY having her slumber disturbed. Still, damned if you do, damned if you don't -- I err on the side of caution. She'd rip me a new one if she woke up inside the trailer during a major hail event.

The severe weather arrived with, thankfully, just a leading edge of sub-penny sized hail. That onslaught lasted less than 20 seconds and "we escaped unscathed", as they say. Meaning, it might have put some minor dings in the roof but you can't see them. Farther north and east of here, they had some significant damage with trees and wires down and flash floods. We just got a bodacious light show with a subsonic (and sonic) shakeup.

That's the payment extracted for the warm, humid 70° F. day we'd had on Sunday.

Before you get too excited, snowlanders, consider this, headed my way tomorrow night and Wednesday morning ...

Snow returns to Texas & South

Kevin Roth, Lead Meteorologist, The Weather Channel

Feb. 22, 2010 12:30 pm ET

A storm system moves out of the southern Rocky Mountains tonight and passes through southern Texas Tuesday.

Fire Truck Wheelie

If I ever caught one of my firefighters doing this...

Just SO Wrong...

My wife, aka SWMBO, out flashing her boobies for beads at the Spanish Town XXXPress Yourself Parade yesterday. Got a sunburn. Serves her right...

Raptor Devours Cheerleader

Just that title caught my attention ... the video simply cracks me up. I saw it at Boing Boing. Where or how they saw it?

Snowmageddon? No, Sneaux Day!

Baton Rouge, LA:

Y'all heard the one about the Louisianian quitting and moving to Hawaii? He'd only read the opening line of this news story.

I come here to the Sportsman's Paradise State every winter not for the fishing, but for the lack of shoveling. The absence of icy driving conditions and power outages due to ice and snow are the cherry on top.

Not so, yesterday. A heavy, wet, icy blanket covered the outlying parishes and the roads were sloppy as hell as I made my way to the clinic so my SIL could have a steroid injection in his back to relieve the pain of severely strained muscles caused by a woman deciding to make a left turn in front of his ambulance while he was responding Code 3 to an emergency.

Admittedly, it was all over by the time we exited the clinic. Roads were clear and temperatures were edging towards the forties. Still, it was a very unpleasant reminder of why I no longer choose to make my home in Maine during the winter.

For those of you digging out of the monstrous snows across the middle of the country recently, you have my sincere sympathy. Do try to squeeze out an alligator tear for my predicament. There isn't enough snow left to cool my ice tea...


Sneaux Day: The Baton Rouge Advocate's slideshow of scenes around the area yesterday is here.

The Oatmeal Is At IT Again

The same folks who gave the Internet such classics as "How To Keep Mosquitoes Away From Your Buttcrack" and "The 5 Phases of Caffeine Intake" now bring you this:

Not Yet...

Nothing funny about the shape the country's economy is in nor about the evisceration of human rights under the present administration. Nothing funny at all.


Via the J-Walk Blog via Minnesota Public Radio.

How Bizarre, How Bizarre ...

was that half-time show by The Who? Sad to see old rockers who should have retired from active performances years ago. When will my now-geriatric generation ever learn? Gee, Beyonce wasn't available?


This sums it up:

From David Bellavia: Hipster Douchebag: The CSI Super Bowl Halftime Show

But it’s been nearly 50 years. Kieth and John and gone, and Pete and Roger struggle on, more a cabaret act than a band. This doesn’t mean they don’t rock — they both own a stage better than any number of bands a third their age. But, for the last 20 years, they’ve been more about giving the people what they want than hoping they die before they get old.

It was sad. So very sad to see these two hopping about the stage on their arthritic knees and stainless steel hip replacements...

MIAMI GARDENS, FL - FEBRUARY 07: Musicians Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend of The Who perform during the Super Bowl XLIV Halftime Show at the Sun Life Stadium on February 7, 2010 in Miami Gardens, Florida. (Photo by Tony Barton/PictureGroup) via AP IMAGES

The Living Will

Last night, my kids and I were sitting in the living room and I said to them, 'I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens, just pull the plug.'

They got up, unplugged the Computer, and threw out my beer.

They are such a**holes...



stolen from a post by HowieE on the Airstream Forums

Too True

Armchair Quarterback Trophy = Precious

In the run-up to Super Bowl XX-whatever (an event one is unable to ignore, even though I AM living in the tincan equivalent of 'under a rock' in the backyard of the New Orleans Saints' "Who Dat Nation"), this trophy is a very funny, very appropriate and wickedly satiric icon of the foolishness that passes for "fandom" in this country. I even agree with Dinosaurs & Robots guest blogger Greg Allen regarding starting to do some sit-ups ...

I Don't See A Problem

The image above is someone's copyright image, no doubt. Whose, I do not know. It is presented here for the amusement of the handful of folks who check to see if I'm still alive. I lay no claim to either owning the rights nor do I have any intention of making one red, white and blue cent from the public display thereof. If you own the rights to this image have your legal beagles contact the law firm of Dewey, Cheatum & Howe, LLC and I shall cheerfully push the destruct button on this entry.

How low the Washington Post will sink to on a slow news day...

Hypothesis: We're going to Hell in a hand basket.

Proof: The Washington Post:

Sticky, smelly Bag Balm: Problem-salving for all

What's For Dinner?

Hazmat Crash - Film @ 11

Buses and firefighters and sluts, Oh my!


VH1 Reality Show Bus Crashes In California Causing Major Slut Spill

The 5 Phases of Caffeine Intake

Too funny.

Present and accounted for

Well, we made it to Baton Rouge in mid-December. Thanks to the comment by Lois in the last entry, I felt sufficiently guilt-tripped to post his update (grin). The weather has been a delightful mix of sun and rain, until a stray snowflake tickled my nose yesterday afternoon. Looks like my friends in Canada are being overly generous again, shipping their "Alberta Clippers" south to Cajun Country. Tonight they are forecasting a low of 25�° F. By Friday they're predicting a frigid 17° F. Global warming – my left foot. Seems more like the onset of a new ice age to me.

The holidays were pleasant, New Year's Eve was a repeat of the suburban war zone I described two years ago and now the the new year let-down begins. Looking for work sucks in this economy – unless you are physically able to work “offshore”. There seems to be quite a few opportunities for oil & gas platform and related industrial jobs. Not so much for old duffers who can't stand longer than 15 minutes at a time...

I hope you all have a healthy and prosperous new year. Really, who can afford to get sick these days, even if you are so fortunate as to have health insurance coverage?