I Think

Sure. I get off at twelve and when I feel the need for it have lunch.

Back to the climbing and painting this week.

I was able to make good progress writing this weekend. I also printed all the pages, to ensure that any electric glitches cannot wipe it all away. I have some blank discs. This would be a good time to use one.

The political threads can be brutal. I try to not stay too heavily involved in them.

I expect to attend a meetup with CI, PDiddie and a few other a2k people, possibly on Dec 8. We have been discussing meeting for lunch in Houston. I have known most of these people for years and am looking forward to actually sharing the same physical space with them for a time. It was magical, meeting roger and diane and osso and dys, one year. I expect an equally memorable experience this time.

I have attended about a dozen a2k meets and all were memorable, enjoyable, experiences. I expect no different from the upcoming ones in Austin and Houston. I hope people that live in the neighborhood (or elsewhere) plan to join us. Will post dates and venues ASAP (when Perry gets back to me on Houston).

Just got a response from PD on Facebook that I rarely visit. It's December 8th for lunch. Hope all living in and around Houston come to meet and enjoy.

You guys get to meet Rick Perry. WOW, lucky you!

Rick Perry weighed in as opposing the move at secession now forwarded to the federal government. I did not follow up to get his reasoning. First sensible thing I know of he has done.

I am wondering if this is the final season of The Mentalist. There are parallel stories in every episode now, of Jane being more interested in following his own investigation and distancing himself from the cases at hand. That usually happens late in the season, but is already underway. Now we have a recurring story of a powerful man who is a murderer, and an official protecting him and who knows Jane very well, despite being a stranger to him. Don't know for sure if this will tie into the Red John theme or not.

It's around 40 degrees outside, this AM. A high of 65 forecast. I can live with it.

How many people waltz in the ocean of dreams?

Punky the dog has taken to barking more in her encroaching old age. Some people have told me she only barks when there is somebody home. It's about time she felt protective for us, instead wanting to be protected.

I have been dodging a skunk roadkill the last three or four trips between here and Tomball. So, mrs edgarblythe, coming home this afternoon, approached that same piece of road. About two dozen buzzards were there, refusing to move for the traffic. Cars from both directions stopped for a time. These birds must be pretty hungry to come in such numbers for that pathetic bit of skunk meat.

We are going through the debate whether to give drug tests to the unemployed and to welfare recipients, in Texas. I have always believed in letting honest people get on with their lives instead of bringing in a three ring circus for everything. I have been seriously unemployed and I have lived on welfare. Both situations are humiliating and desperate enough already. By eating up the time and potentially some resources, all that red tape is most likely to prolong the situation, besides costing tax payers even more money.

I have been seeing more stories as time goes by, of criminals beginning their assaults by pepper spraying unsuspecting victims first. Offsetting criminal advances in robbery is the use of cameras everywhere one goes. Win some, lose some.

2012 will soon be over. Then end of the world worrywarts will move on to the next doomsday scare. One day one of them may be right.

well, I suppose that you think we are going to dodge the Dec 21 "physical cliff"?

Think again .

The fiscal cliff is a big boondoggle, no matter which way they move. We are screwed if they do, effed if they don't.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it their job? A rhetorical question, I realize.

Yes, it's a hard job...and it'll make a lot of them unpopular (God forbid) and it might mean they'll have to work 'til the wee hours in the morning for awhile...but the bottom line is that it is their job.

A job they failed at before the election, and looks like after the election. What are the Vegas odds? The stock market thinks the fiscal cliff is a given.

Obama said before the election he will cut three dollars spending for every dollar raised by new taxes. That means bigger cuts in spending if the fiscal cliff is avoided. The military will be removed from the equation. To me that means Social Security and Medicare will bear the entire burden of spending cuts.

I try like hell to fight my cynicism about the effectiveness of our gov't 'cause sometimes celebration of the 'right thing happening' has to get tempered with what happens next with attempting to balance or reign in gov't spending.

At least the better man won....but is that enough?

We'll find out during the next four years. However, if the GOP fails to agree to what the Americans want, they may disappear as a major party in the US. I doubt very much that people will be voting them back into office if they are responsible for a fiscal cliff that will decimate the world economy.

I'm kinda hoping for that! Our country needs to get back to a government that knows how to compromise and negotiate.

The Republicans will not disappear. They will regroup and cast until they find a message that resonates. Sometimes all it takes is one charismatic candidate, after that. Then the Democrats will start questioning how things got turned around so quickly. The public loves to have a choice between Cheerios and Corn Flakes.

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are Republicans from a generation or two ago.

It is in the thirties this morning. I bet my moringa trees will go bald this week. # When I get home I usually find Punky the dog in a sunny spot near the fence. She likes to be warm, but refuses to be covered at night.

From that score, GW Bush spent more "than" Clinton and Obama combined!

After all, most of what Obama spent was to save our economy from the Great Recession; that cost is justified.

In Midland, TX, yesterday: Train crashes into parade float. They did not leave space between the floats, so there was no room to get off the tracks when the arms came down.

Thinking about beginning a thread about the impending Houston get together. What say you, Tak?

My painting project is slow, because there are so many small details that have to be addressed as I go. For instance, where the posts and soffits meet, there are gaps that allow red wasps to enter to build their nests. Sometimes caulk will do, but blocks of wood are needed in other instances. Apartment repair work does not proceed in the same orderly fashion as when a contractor does it. Any time you have to go for material or break for anything at all, it is necessary to take the tools to a safe place. Anything you need to work with you have to go scout it up. A simple enough job can morph into multiple stages. Contractors come in numbers and generally have what they need to complete it in a single operation.