I Think

Monkeys are very convincing salesmen.

I am partial to chimps and gorillas.

In the days when making one's own cassette recordings was popular, I used to make long, meaningless tapes, with no attempts at interesting. Then I would play them for various people, to test how long they would politely listen. It surprised me when most would suffer the entire production before registering no comment and taking their leave. Heh heh.

There is one more squirrel hiding in my walls. I want to get it out before I replace the siding there.

I've noticed the blame-the-person-not-the-gun segment of the population growing more vocal as the shock from the last mass killings fades. As if one could be separated from the other (gun/person).

The problem with making such a cassette (used to record them, too), is that it required such a long time to incubate a reaction; however it was a good way to get guests-who-won't-go-home to leave...especially when you knew what their musical tastes/distastes were.



Somewhere, and hopefully in some short timeframe, I hope that this feverish debate will end with some sort of appropriate legislation against both rapid fire guns/ammo industry and the mental health profession and pharmaceutical industries. I'll leave that decision to wiser minds than mine. Sadly, I hold little hope that this will end the feverish debates over
the mass killings any time soon but I still feel something has to be done.

My cassette productions were me saying dumb things, random sounds, bits of music - any boring thing I could come up with. I also put many of my favorite records on cassette. They were better than 8 Tracks, but not great. Also, I knew a number of persons with reel to reels. One tape held hours of music, but finding what you want to hear right now had to have been out of the question.

Just imagine if Dick Cheney went hunting with an assault gun.

Rained all night and continues to pour. How 'm I gonna catch me some pesky squirrels if the weather don't cooperate. Standing at the kitchen window, I saw three cavorting. Yes, cavorting. And leaving my trap alone. The secret with cats, and, I guess with other animals, is to keep the trap set in the same location and stocked with savory foodstuffs, until it becomes a familiar part of the landscape. Then they forget the trap and notice only the bait. So it has been reckoned. So it shall be done.

I will be distracted by football games this weekend and Monday. But I watch from a distance much of the time, walking past the TV and catching up and doing other things. My personal wish is for Houston and Washington to prevail.

As a kid around the time of the late '50s, my older brother and my then-roomie (may he RIP) had a reel-to-reel tape recorder that he used to record the hits...the Top 40 ... songs on. Being the little mischievous sort ... unbeknownst to him..I used to dub-in my own voice singing along or doing little imitations and sounds ... sprinkled in liberally on the tracks. I'm lucky I ever made it out of childhood. However, I'd give my right arm for one of those tapes.

I've had tapes with personal meaning such as that. Lost them with time. The ones I miss the most I made with my children and a Christmas greeting from my mother.

That is the beauty of using the current-day technology...to record such meaningful events. I stuck with photography as my means to record such family and loving events. Now with digital tech, it makes it harder to lose a copy... as the archival process makes it 'almost' fool-proof - that is until a bigger and better fool comes along.

On a different topic, I'm pretty psyched about the current crop of NFL and college games coming up today through Monday night. Whew! some real drama happening. Fighting Irish and Crimson Tide? Pretty heady stuff.

Yeah. We have hundreds of photos. Thank goodness for that.

Something pretty special to be able to look back in time and trigger those images and feelings locked into our memories. I've been a family archivist as I've been assigned to remake a few of the images that my oldest sister (now 78) has and restore and distribute some to the other younger and older family members who do not have any of those images or memories. For me to be able to see my parents at age 45, when I was about aged 5, is a real trip!

Just found this on line (concerning squirrels):
Mix 4 Tbsp of hot sauce w/ 1qt. white vinegar and spray it around the edges of wherever you want them out of(in your case the porch).

Don't know why I care about the Fighting Irish. But I do. I guess it stems from childhood memories, of hype and films, as is the way I identify with the Yankees. There is really no other reason I can conjure to support them this strongly.

I managed to get enough sheathing to cover the rest of the back wall yesterday. Already have siding. I think I will spray the anti-squirrel concoction inside the wall and attic before closing it up.

People appear to consider it disastrous to Democrats, to consider running Biden in four years. Of potential candidates, I consider him as good as any other. Doubt that he could get elected, if Republicans manage to find a candidate. In fact, if Republicans get it together enough to field a candidate just marginally better than Romney, the pendulum could swing their way anyhow.

I have played Angry Birds Star Wars version this week. The games are sometimes too hard to master. I may sit out the tournaments they have on facebook, in future. Too time consuming.

The power of propaganda is immense, Ed. It takes a real thinker to escape it.

Caught the fourth and I hope final squirrel just now. Punky and I already dropped it at the park. Now if I see three or four of the buggers in my yard this time of year I will have to assume I didn't take them far enough, as I don't think they voluntarily seek new digs in the wintertime.

Flooding rains expected tomorrow and Wednesday. I better spend the afternoon getting ready.

We got one of the three bowl slow cookers for Christmas. I want to try it out today. Bought a beef pot roast, some ears of corn. Not sure what to do with the other pot if at all. I will think about it when I get home.

Torrential rains already. There's a lull, just enough time for me to run the garbage cans to the curb. The holidays kept us from having pick up for two weeks, because our neighborhood's day happens to fall on Tuesday. No concession was offered by the trash company, but they are expecting to get paid for those times missed. The ones who must truly suffer are the crews out in the weather today.

Texas elected even more teabaggers than before for state offices and US senate. No matter which era the nation as a whole lives in, we are stuck around 1928 or so.

Living with a woman who works day care is living with all the illnesses that visit young tykes intermingling in large numbers. Right now, mrs edgarblythe is recovering from bronchitis. Last night, before bedtime, I felt a bit of nasal infection started. I meant to put colloidal silver in there, but forgot. This morning there was quite a bit of swelling in there. Constant flushing with the silver water has brought the swelling down, but I still feel the infection. I am taking a bottle of silver to work, so that I can give my nose constant baths. By bedtime tonight I predict the infection will be gone.

More bad weather expected. I ain't skeered. Rain may be the reason no squirrels got in the cage yesterday. Then again, maybe that was the last of them. I noticed that, given the choice, they prefer pecans over walnuts. Punky the dog is a lab, pit mix. She is mostly sweet tempered. Monday, she refused to leave the truck after the last squirrel run. When I opened both doors, then attempted to push her out, she began snapping at my hands. First time she ever acted that way and she is around ten years old. I took a fat bamboo pole and (no I did not strike her) pushed her out. She immediately reverted to her sweet self. It goes to show, we do not always know our pets as well as we think we do.

Was she concerned about the bad weather? Or did she want to chase the squireel you so nicely caught for her?