I'm Beginning To Take This Personally

So... I mentioned in these pages that I'd never had one single trick or treater in the nearly nine years I spent in Beautiful La Hacienda Trailer Park and that I was expecting better this year.  Guess what?  Not one single trick or treater.  I now have about a six month supply of small Kit Kat bars on hand... but at least I was smart enough to buy candy that **I** like.  Do ya think it was all that "get off my lawn!" stuff I've posted?

―:☺:―

Last night wasn't a total loss; we did have a nice sunset:

Note that my new westerly view isn't as nice as it was in BLHTP.  But I have a classic view of the ENMU water tower.  It's lit up at night, too.

Update, 0940 hrs:  This is why I'm beginning to take it personally: The Things You Don’t Always See.

Tonight's ADWH Soundtrack

Moonrise over 17th Street

Bob Mould:

I took this song off a mix tape that I made long ago in the way-back.  The tune is by Bob Mould, who achieved minor fame as the guitarist in Hüsker Dü, a band I never really got in to.  But I did buy Mr. Mould's 1989 solo album, from which this tune is taken.  If he had done more songs like this I might have bought more of his stuff... this tune is sort of an anomaly, albeit a very good one.  It fit my mood this evening.

As for the pic... I was about a half-hour too late to get a gorgeous full moon on the rise but this is pretty good, if I do say so.  I really need a longer lens to capture things like this in all their glory, no?

The Rain and Cain Falls Mainly In Yer Brain

First, Michael Ramirez from the Usual Source:

I'm giving Herman Cain a closer look... me and thousands of other conservatives.  I see that Mr. Cain is tied for second place in the latest poll concerning the GOP nomination derby, behind front-runner Romney and tied with my guv'nor.  I was rather surprised when I read about that yesterday.  

All that said, Daniel Henninger has a good piece on Mr. Cain in the September 29th WSJ, which is still available to non-subscribers.  A couple o' excerpts:

Does a résumé like Herman Cain's add up to an American presidency? I used to think not. But after watching the American Idol system we've fallen into for discovering a president—with opinion polls, tongue slips and media caprice deciding front-runners and even presidents—I'm rewriting my presidential-selection software.

[...]

Put it this way: The GOP nominee is running against the incumbent president. Unlike the incumbent, Herman Cain has at least twice identified the causes of a large failing enterprise, designed goals, achieved them, and by all accounts inspired the people he was supposed to lead. Not least, Mr. Cain's life experience suggests that, unlike the incumbent, he will adjust his ideas to reality. 

Herman Cain is a credible candidate. Whether he deserves to be president is something voters will decide. But he deserves a serious look. 

Mr. Henninger recaps Mr. Cain's career in his piece; it's worth the read if you want to know more about Mr. Cain. 

For the record:  I'm still undecided.

―:☺:―

I awoke to the sound of thunder this morning and thought "Hey!  Mebbe there's rain with all this noise!"  And, lo!  I opened the blinds and gazed out on (a) gentle rain that had obviously been falling for quite some time and (b) Lake 17th Street.  I've mentioned before that P-Ville has piss-poor drainage like most towns in the American West and even provided cheesy video of our drainage "system," including the infamous (in local circles) 18th Street.  Well, 17th Street is apparently a major tributary to River 18... note:

I'm thinkin' there's at least two inches of running water right outside my door.  Who knew I was getting a lake-front rental?

Update, 1050 hrs:  Just to show ya how much water was flowing in the pic above, here we are a couple o' hours later:

Lake 17th Street, indeed.

Just a Few Pics

I promised a few pics of the premises after the carport assemblers and dirt-movers finished up outside of the Inmóvil Casa de Pennington... and here they are:

TGH reposing in the shade and goin' topless, free from fear o' birdshit

Some of the flora visible here; anyone know what those spiky thangs are?

I just noticed this today... there's a downside to living in the end unit.  Middle-unit tenants have twice the verandah space as I do, but I can live with that.  My porch seats four comfortably; I know this from experience.

Speakin' o' the middle unit... I met my next door neighbor earlier today.  Her name is Franka and she's an Italian divorcee from Venice.  We exchanged brief life stories in the space of about 15 minutes and hers is pretty sad, without goin' into any detail.  Suffice it to say she's stranded in the USA as a result of her divorce and a child custody ruling that won't let her go back home with her daughter.  Too sad.  She seems like a very nice lady and she has one of those KILLER accents that tend to make men swoon, present company included.

I told SN1 I'd post updated pictures of the interior, featuring the new additions to the furnishings.  So...

The new bar stools at the kitchen counter, which does double-duty as my makeshift office

This pic mainly serves to illustrate the new rug... and my cleaned-up-just-for-this-photo coffee table

Life is pretty damned good at the moment.  One interesting fall-out from this new life... although it may or may NOT be related... is I've been on a more-or-less normal sleeping schedule of late.  Granddaughters Felicity, Monique, Lis' main squeeze Diego and I went over to The Big(ger) City™ last evening for dinner.  We had a few drinks in the Inmóvil Casa after dinner (Diego and I managing to destroy a third of a bottle o' single malt in the process) and I went to bed shortly after they left at 2230 hrs, well-fed and well-oiled.  I woke up at 0630 this morning, paid the bills, ran over to Clovis and out to the base, and was home with all errands completed before noon.  Imagine that.

More Thievery Just Stuff (edited)

There used to be an animated gif here but I took it down...mainly coz it didn't work and apparently was hosing the blog's response.  My apologies.

In other news... Yucca Telecom showed up right on time this morning and installed their premise equipment in the apartment.  Now I have to wait for the outside plant guys to tunnel-bore a tube from my place to the fiber backbone, about a half-block away.  It's pretty cool the way technology changes things... back in my day the outside plant guys would have used a trencher to dig a ditch for the conduit, pull the fiber, and then back-fill the whole mess.  These days?  Ya just use a small tunnel boring machine.

Well, check my last.  I just wandered down to the end o' the block to get a picture of that cool boring machine at work and saw this:

It turns out there are way too many buried utility runs in poorly marked places to use the boring machine.  So Yucca is gonna do it the old-fashioned way... by digging, trenching, and a LOT of hand-work.  I may not have my fiber connection by the end of today, after all.  So like this Ol' Boy I know sez... "It's always sumthin'!"

Update, Part II:  So... our fiber connection went live at 1600 hrs.  Those Yucca guys are good!

Back To Our Roots

I considered an alternate title for this post, i.e., "Wherein Our Shirt Matches Our Beer."  Because...

That would be a New Belgium 1554, both on my shirt and in the glass.  Who said men aren't fashion-coordinated?

―:☺:―

In other news... we stopped by the future Casa de Pennington while we were out and about today and had a brief conversation with one of the guys working on my unit, which went sumthin' like this...

Me:  "Ya think you'll be done by Thursday?  Coz I'm told I can pick up my keys on Friday."

Workin' Guy: (Looks at me incredulously, laughs)  "Hell, they're not layin' the carpet until Thursday!" 

That was just the first exchange in what turned out to be a lengthy conversation, the upshot of which is my unit will NOT be completed by Friday.  So... the first order o' bid'niz when I got home was to ring up the furniture company and have my delivery rescheduled for Wednesday.  I have my fingers crossed that everything will be kosher by then; I'm in a whole lotta trouble if it ain't.  Well, it won't be the end o' the world... it'll just be a major pain in the nether regions.

Apropos o' Not Much

Doesn't that look delicious?  I might just be the best beer-pourer in these United States... always a perfect head with nary a drop spilled or otherwise wasted.

Success

We put a deposit down on an apartment this afternoon... a place with two bedrooms (one of which will be my office), two baths, living room, kitchen, and service area... with stove, fridge, microwave, and washer/dryer furnished.  One of the better things about this apartment is it's new construction -- I'll be the first tenant, and how cool is that? 

Here are a few nasty phone pics:

 The kitchen, the sink goes in between the dark cabinets

 Two units of four apartments apiece.

 I'll be in the end unit on the left.

The view from the front yard... a big-ass empty lot which prolly won't be empty long.

There will be a carport in front of each unit, which explains the units' significant set-back from the street.  There's also a covered porch that runs along the length of the front of the buildings, with each unit's porch separated by a privacy wall.  That might be the location where Happy Hour takes place, but there's a downside to that.  I'll be right IN town once I move in here, so those brilliant night skies I experience in Darkness On The Edge o' Town (aka Beautiful La Hacienda Trailer Park) won't exist any longer.  Sigh... it's always sumthin', innit?

Oh... one more thing.  My move-in date is sometime around the middle of next month and no one is subsidizing my rent except me.  That's a good thing.

Another One of Those Time-Lapse Thingies

This time it's in Crater Lake National Park...

Crater Lake Under the Star -Reprocessed from Ben Canales on Vimeo.

Via NatGeo's newsletter, which sez this about 2011's winning Traveler photograph (available at the link), taken at the same time the above time-lapse vid was shot:

Yesterday we announced the winners of the 2011 Traveler Photo Contest. The contest generated nearly 13,000 entries from around the world covering travel portraits, outdoor scenes, sense of place and spontaneous moments. Ben Canales dazzled the judges of this year’s contest with his first place image of a starry sky over Crater Lake National Park in Oregon.

I'm not the only one taken in by the stars lately.  I need to get off my lazy ass, break out the tripod, and take some time-lapse pics of my own.  This sorta thang ain't rocket surgery.

Tonight's ADWH Soundtrack

So... there I was... deep in the '80s and '90s... staring up at the sky and wonderin' which song to choose to illustrate tonight's After Dinner Whiskey Hour Soundtrack.  There was much goodness to choose from... Collective Soul, Wallflowers, Matchbox Twenty, Bowie, Soul Asylum, The Cure, 3 Doors Down, Nirvana, Lifehouse, Cranberries... the list goes on and on.  The thing I like most about Pandora (I was listening to the Collective Soul station) is it's very much like one of your best friends perusing your music collection and selecting a bunch of tunes he or she'd like to hear... kinda like this:

That would be my buddy John, doin' just that, at my New Year's Eve party in Ra-cha-cha, 1999.  But we digress.  Here's what we chose from tonight's soundtrack, for starters:

Now I tell you openly
You have my heart so don’t hurt me
For what I couldn’t find

Talk to me amazing mind
So understanding and so kind
You’re everything to me

Oh my life is changing everyday
Every possible way
Though my dreams, it’s never quite as it seems
’cause you’re a dream to me
Dream to me

The Cranberries, circa 1994, or deep in Former Happy Days.  "Dreams" is the winner of tonight's ADWH sweepstakes but it was a near run thang with this, from Soul Asylum:

Can you help me remember how to smile
Make it somehow all seem worthwhile
How on earth did I get so jaded
Life's mystery seems so faded

...

Everything is cut and dry
Day and night, earth and sky
Somehow I just don't believe it

It's been years since I've heard this particular tune, even though I own the album.  The song... and the entire album, actually... is one of those things that tend to make me... ummm... misty, recalling as it does a particularly painful period of time.  But time heals most wounds and it was good to hear this tonight.  Or as good as it gets, I suppose.

And then there's this:

Kinda sorta like last night's sunset, but not nearly as good.  There wasn't nearly as much pink...as in Jesusphine's swaddling clothes... and much more gold.  But it'll do, eh?

An Unusual Occurrence

Rain!  And rain that fell straight down... vertically, rather than at our normal wind-driven, slashing 45 to 60 degree angle... which allowed me to sit outside under the awning and enjoy it.  Like this:

Oh My! but we did enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells of this rain... for as long as it lasted, anyhoo, which was only about a half hour to 45 minutes.  Still, SOME rain is better than NO rain.  And don't I have pretty feet?  (for a guy... let's not get all hairdresser/interior decorator-like, not that there's anything wrong with that)

Take THAT, L-Andy.

Low and Slow

Ah, the weekend.  I HATE weekends.  The stores are crowded, teevee goes all to Hell, and people do stuff like mow their lawns at an ungodly hour of the morning and wake me up before I want to get up.  And to think I used to live for the weekend.  No more.  We shall be glad when Monday comes.

So... that said... we're low and slow.  We had one of those miracles of the inner-nets happen to us today, whereby an old, old friend from 45 years ago found us... or rather found SN1 and then found us, there bein' a natural linkage there... and we shall get caught up later on today.  I gave her a ring but the timing wasn't right when I called and she'll ring me back.  One wonders where to begin in these sorta circumstances... a LOT of water has flowed under the bridge since 1966... like three continents, several countries, eight states (at least), two careers, two marriages, three children, seven grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren's worth of water under that bridge.

―:☺:―

We were beginning to think about furnishing an apartment this morning, once the time comes to move.  And there's news on that front, said news bein' I received a form letter from Golden Acres sayin' I'd been put on their waiting list.  I also got a tour of one of the apartments yesterday, courtesy of DIL Erma's Mom (I did mention the lady lives there, right?).  I was impressed with both the layout and the available room, which seems palatial compared to El Casa Móvil de Pennington.  We're beginning to look forward to this move.

Back to furnishings.  I wasted about an hour lookin' at stuff on Ikea's web site this morning... and I say "wasted" because there ain't an Ikea within reasonable distance of me and more's the pity.  I like the look of their stuff and I really like their prices.  But I have some idea of what's out there now but it remains to be seen if it's "out there" in P-ville or The Big(ger) City™.  I'm thinkin' Swedish Modern ain't exactly BIG around here.  I know taste is all in our mouths but that Southwestern School... which predominates in these parts (I wonder why?)... doesn't do much for me, what with its emphasis on large dead animals and old dead cultures.  I don't like the colors, either.  Just sayin'.

Simple, spare, and angular... that's me.  In more ways than one.

So what do I like?  Well, I KNOW you're dyin' to know... so here are a couple o' few pics from apartments-past.

My living room in the San Ramon, CA apartment c. June 2002.

The same stuff sitting in Berkeley, c. September 2000.  I was still moving in.

Two views of the living room in my apartment in Webster, NY, c. 1999.  The furniture is left over from Former Happy Days; I had a different interior decorator then.

C'Mon Rain... You Can Do It!

It's no mystery that we're in the midst of a world-class drought here on The High Plains o' New Mexico and throughout the entire southwest, actually.  We got a lil bit o' rain in P-Ville last night but it was typical of our rain storms in that it only lasted for about four or five minutes, or just long enough to wash the dust off of the cars.

This evening ol' Ma Nature is teasing us yet again.  Note the radar picture:

There are storms all around us but not ON us and one can feel the moisture in the air if one steps outside, however briefly.  We have the promise of rain, yet there's precious little hope of delivery on that promise.

Here's what our skies look like...

Looking NNW... and...

Looking SSW.  

I'm hopin' against hope that After Dinner Whiskey Hour gets rained out tonight.  IF that happens you won't hear me complainin'.  Nope, not at all... as a matter of fact I might just go outside and stomp in a few puddles if we get what we need.

My Part o' the Country

TimeScapes: Rapture from Tom Lowe @ Timescapes on Vimeo.


h/t: SN1 on G+.

Update, 1030 hrs:  OK... just one more and then we'll go.  This time it's the best use of Pink Floyd in a video I've ever seen:

Timescapes Timelapse: Learning to Fly from Tom Lowe @ Timescapes on Vimeo.

"Learning to Fly" just might be my favorite Floyd tune and these images are just perfect.  Watch in full-screen if ya can.

Miss Zukiko Update

I got a nice note from My Buddy Lee last week...

Comparing Miss Z to the Duck is high praise, indeed.  I only wish I had had the opportunity to exercise her in the manner she deserves and is currently getting.  Lee also enclosed Miss Z's license plate, which was placed upon the altar, like so:

Cue up Barbra...

The Sunday Re-Run

Which was originally published on a Sunday four years ago.  An Occasional Correspondent and I were having a discussion about beer and brew pubs this morning... is what triggered this.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

A Photo Essay

1. Peruse
2. Sample
3. Select
4. Order (two pints of beer [each] AND excellent food)
5. Enjoy

Result: Two Happy Campers.

Rooster's. Layton, Utah
Sunday, 5-27-2007 

There's a lot to be said for civilization; even Mormons can order beer with their meals on Sunday.  (Yeah, I know: Mormons don't drink.  But sometimes people cheat, yanno?)

Willin'

Which was the soundtrack for tonight's After Dinner Whiskey Hour (in part).  Linda's version of this song ain't the one we were listenin' to but it's my favorite... so...

The version we heard tonight was the original... by Little Feat... about which purists will bitch, piss, and moan if we don't include it here, so we will do so:

That's the version from Waiting for Columbus and there are many, many more.  I kinda like this one the best, though, and it goes without sayin' that your mileage may vary.  Especially if you happen to be a Little Feat or a Lowell George fan.

All that aside, we were watching a C-130 of the Compass Call variety (or something very much like it) make lazy orbits over P-Ville as ol' Lowell was croonin' on about how he'd be willin' if someone showed him a sign.  And we took pictures, too (click to embiggen, as always).

The first shot is a 30 percent re-sized pic of that C-130; the second is a full-size crop of that same shot.  I was hopin' the guys would hang around until the sunset got dramatic, which is to say like this:

Alas... they made about a dozen orbits over me and then moved off into the sunset to leave me alone with my thoughts... thoughts that tended toward how I'd be willin' to be up there with 'em.  I wouldn't even need any weed or whites (besides the fact this ain't even Your Father's Air Force) but I'd definitely want some wine.  Or beer or single malt, such as the case might be.  It kinda smarts a bit to be an old warhorse that's been put out to pasture, but it is what it is.

Quick Hit

Which is actually a bleg aimed at Canon dSLR users.  I found out last night that my new toy thinks it's smarter than me and it may well be coz I've never been known to be the sharpest knife in the drawer.  But a machine that thinks it's smarter than me risks bein' smashed to pieces in moments of frustration; all that's stopping me is the realization that smashing the thing would be stupider than I REALLY am, not to mention expensive.  But I am oh-so-tempted. 

Let's get specific: there are times when using manual mode that the focus square turns red (it's normally green or yellow) and the camera just will NOT shoot, period.  I'm pretty sure the camera thinks the settings are underexposed and is protecting me from myself.  Well, thanks, but no thanks... a "normally" exposed shot of a sunset would result in a washed-out photograph and that's NOT what I want or need.  What I DO want is complete creative control and I'm not gettin' it.  My XTi never did this sorta thang and the fact the T3i does is not an improvement.

Anyone have any ideers?  And yeah, I applied the ol' USAF maintenance man's maxim: "When all else fails, read the manual."  Nada.  Zip.  Zero.

Stalking Kittehs At Sunset Après le Déluge

After Dinner Whiskey Hour was most pleasant this evening.  Ya know how the air is so very crisp and clean after a rain?  It's the same here on the High Plains o' New Mexico, yet different.  The rain brings out scents... amplifies them... when you're in the city.  The diesel smells from the buses and trucks recede and the odors from that bakery down the street or the coffee aroma from Starbucks next door suddenly overwhelm you, or it might be the perfume from that sweet young thang that just walked by, or it's simply the absence of nasty city smells that affects your olfactory nerves.  On the other hand, if you're in the woods the smell of leaves and/or pine needles overpower you.  If you're in farm country the fields overwhelm the senses with fresh aromas... sometimes its damp breathing earth, other times it's a young cornfield exhaling promise.  You know what I'm on about if you've been there.

It's different here.  There's not a lot of pollution, so you don't sense its absence.  There aren't many trees, so the smells of freshly watered pine, oak, or aspen don't come into play.  But water... standing water, water that's accumulated in every low spot after a hard rain... is a rarity in this part of the world, and it has its own distinctive aroma.  I can't quite put my finger on what it is, but what it is is wonderful.  So... that's why we threw our windows and door open, turned up the stereo, and sat out on the verandah this evening... just to take in the wonderfulness of the sunset after a long-awaited rain in this parched, dry land.  It was a multimedia show of the senses of magnificent proportions, Gentle Reader.  My windows are still wide open and I'm reveling in the coolness.

But... earlier.  Here's another sunset shot:

And yet another, this time looking towards town:

And then there were the kittehs.  I did mention we were stalking kittehs, right?  They've adopted that feral cat wariness, which is to say they really scatter, and quickly, whenever I appear.  But we did get a couple o' few shots...

They're cute lil buggers.

Rain and Stuff

Why is this pic significant?

Coz it illustrates the fact we FINALLY got some rain... and I mean real rain, not some fleeting, it's-over-in-three-minutes, make-my-car-ugly, hint of moisture that evaporates as soon as it hits the ground.  The downside is our rain arrived via a serious thunder-boomer that began just after midnight and lasted a couple o' hours.  It's hard to sleep in a thunderstorm... what with all the lightning and such but it's doubly hard to do so in an RV, where the sound of rain on the roof ain't nearly as romantic as John Sebastian thinks it is.  We're talking world-class racket, Gentle Reader.  

But Hey!  We can deal, and we finally got to sleep sometime after 0200 hrs.  Yep, the rain lasted THAT long... and it didn't make The Green Hornet look ugly, either:

Ya, any excuse to post pics o' my baby.

―:☺:―

Why, yes... yes those pics were taken with the new toy.  My initial impressions are favorable... thank The Deity At Hand!  How bad would it be if I said "I HATE this fucking thing!"? There's a lot to like, first and foremost bein' the largish, articulated viewing screen with "live view" that makes composing and shooting a lot easier than using the viewfinder.  The camera seems to fit my hands a lil bit better than the old XTi and also seems lighter, strangely enough.  

There are a couple o' downsides, too.  First... my image management software doesn't recognize this version of Canon RAW files, which seems odd.  The RAW file name extension is still .CR2 (just as it was with the XTi) but ACDSee doesn't recognize the file format.  Second... the file sizes are gigantic; we're talking around 25MB for each RAW file, eight to ten MBs for jpegs.  It's a good thing I bought a 16GB SD card.  Third... it's a good thing I bought an SD card at ALL.  Canon stopped providing memory cards with its cameras, period.  The product description at Amazon doesn't tell ya this, either... and I looked all over for this information.

I don't have a lot of time with the T3i yet, so stay tuned.

―:☺:― 

Capt. Paul Sula, along with the others from the 16th Special Operations Squadron, honor outgoing commander of Cannon Air Force Base Col. Stephen Clark with a final salute Friday during a change of command ceremony.  Photo credit: Freedom New Mexico, Liliana Castillo

And then there's this:   "Cannon command changes in emotional ceremony."  That's the headline from the Portales News-Tribune and I get where they're coming from, which is to say all change o' command ceremonies are emotional events, especially for the outgoing commander.  But I find the word "emotional" when applied (in print) to a military ceremony rather jarring.  Does the good captain pictured above look emotional?  I think not.  And there ya have your GOML moment for the day.

From the PNT:

Col. Stephen Clark paused during his outgoing speech to quell a rush of emotion Friday as he bid farewell to the airmen of Cannon Air Force Base during a change of command ceremony.

Clark turned command of the base over to incoming commander Col. Albert Elton II, ending his two years in charge of Cannon’s 27th Special Operations Wing.

[...]

During Clark’s two years at the helm, the wing has doubled the number of personnel to 5,000, added 50 aircraft and seven squadrons and executed millions of dollars in military construction as part of the base’s change in mission from a fighter wing in 2007.

I'd really like to know where they're hiding those 50 aircraft.  I see no more than six or seven C-130s, an Osprey or two, and the odd C-27 sitting on the ramp whenever I go out to the base.  Mebbe they're counting the Reapers and Predators that are bedded down elsewhere?  Yeah, that's gotta be it.

One more thang... two years?  AFSOC's been at Cannon for two years now?  Time really DOES fly.