Morning wanderings

Wandered around before sunup with morning coffee enjoying the light coming up. Took pix of some of yesterday's work and pix of next areas to work on.

Doesn't look like much does it? /heh

Fair bit of cutting, nailing, backfilling involved in that bit of bottom fence wood and gravel


Got a drainage issue there to address. When the pool overfills it flows out through the pool cover box. I need to open the retaining wall up there and run a line out to control the runoff.


Next up is this area to pour and set posts for stairs from lower drive up to the pool.


Ready to get busy setting plants in beds around the pool. The east end next the neighbors fence is going to fun. Palms, split leaf philodendren and maybe an Australian fern tree or two!


This bank is the next "heavy lifting project. The tarps will come off shortly then get busy getting drainlines down from above and retaining wall and drainage set down below.

Came back in with mess of Romas.



Didn't realize these were going to be low bush plants. Expected taller plants I could train up the fence.
Need to figure a better way to get them up out of the dirt. Maybe I can just rig some straps off the fence to lift them a bit without damaging the vines.

Full but leaking

The pool that is. Full of kids right now and leaking through the spa light wiring.

An improvised ball game of some sort going on here at twilight. Looks like the girls have left it to the guys now. Surprised at how well it showed up on my phone's camera.

The new pool has been losing water at an alarming (and expensive) rate. After waiting almost 2 weeks for an appointment, the leak detection tech came out today and isolated the problem. Now, I have to get the report to the electrician who did the work and negotiate & coordinate the repair.

The Church High School group meets Thursdays. They moved it here this week. I'm hiding in the (momentarily quiet) house for a coupla moments. I did the honors at the grill and suitably charred enough tube steaks and hot Polish dogs to feed the lot of them. Just taking a couple minutes in the quiet house now while they're enjoying the pool. I need to recuperate from a heavy stretch in hot weather working get things situated for them. Got myself dehydrated pretty good in the sun this afternoon.

Had a good bit of "hurry up heavy lifting" to do today. Had to get some fencing modified, keystone block wall gravel finished and backfilled. Had to take a few hours off work to get ready for tomorrow and be here with the leak detection tech. I got some work done while he did his tests. Tomorrow the propane company is bringing the tank for the pool heater and the tank's pad needed finished.

Hauled and lifted a pile 90# sacks of concrete, some 60# blocks, a bunch of treated 2x6 and 2x4's. Then made a run with the trailer just before the yard closed to get a couple yards of mulch/manure mix.

That last load is sitting in the trailer just outside the open window I'm typing this near. Umm, umm good. Reminds me of when the wind was just right back home and we could smell Mahoney's dairy.

I haven't been to the range in a coon's age. Gotta do something 'bout that...

"In box" this morning

Subject: CBS News Reports on Obama Squashing Dissent

CBS News - hardly an outlet of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" - has the explosive allegations that the Obama administration directed aides to suppress information critical of the authenticity of global warming theories, just as the Obama Administration is trying to shove through a big-government, socialistic "Cap & Trade" legislation that would lead to massive government expansion and higher taxes:

excerpt:

Carlin has an undergraduate degree in physics from CalTech and a PhD in economics from MIT. His Web site lists papers about the environment and public policy dating back to 1964, spanning topics from pollution control to environmentally-responsible energy pricing.

After reviewing the scientific literature that the EPA is relying on, Carlin said, he concluded that it was at least three years out of date and did not reflect the latest research. "My personal view is that there is not currently any reason to regulate (carbon dioxide)," he said. "There may be in the future. But global temperatures are roughly where they were in the mid-20th century. They're not going up, and if anything they're going down."

Carlin's report listed a number of recent developments he said the EPA did not consider, including that global temperatures have declined for 11 years; that new research predicts Atlantic hurricanes will be unaffected; that there's "little evidence" that Greenland is shedding ice at expected levels; and that solar radiation has the largest single effect on the earth's temperature.

If there is a need for the government to lower planetary temperatures, Carlin believes, other mechanisms would be cheaper and more effective than regulation of carbon dioxide. One paper he wrote says managing sea level rise or reducing solar radiation reaching the earth would be more cost-effective alternatives.

LINK

Leaving the plantation?

Or at least sneaking off at night?



Colin Powell is cautiously breaking voicing some concerns with the man he voted for last fall.

Hey, it was an "historic" vote! How's that working out for you General?

To wit, this quote from this Washington Times article:

"I don't like slogans anymore like 'limited government.' That's not the right answer. The right answer is, give me a government that works," he said. "Keep it as small as possible. Keep the tax burden on the American people as small as possible, but at the same time, have government that is solving the problems of the people."

Even allowing for his criticism of the term "limited government." I was rolling with him right up to the last of the last part of the quote about "solving the problems of the people."

I don't know about you but I don't WANT government to solve my problems. What problems has .gov solved?

Make no mistake about it, 999 out of 1000 times, Government IS the problem.

I want a government that stays within it's constitutional bounds and leaves me free to pursue life, liberty and happiness.

Oh yeah, in case you missed it... That means I am MOST DEFINITELY for "limited government."

Me and the 10th Amendment? We're tight!

Date Night

Went out to see "The Fantasticks" at a local theater this evening.

All these years of theater and somehow I've managed to avoid seeing one of the most successful plays of our time.

Ok. Now I've seen it.

Yeah, I get it. I can see why it was such a success in 1960 and enjoyed a record setting run off Broadway.

This production was staged and acted well. Though, the singing was just passable. Yeah, I'm a critic. /heh

I might have even enjoyed the show if the theater seats weren't scaled for people from 1860. As much as I have enjoyed our season subscription to this theater for many years now, it's gotten to be more of an endurance event than an entertainment event -- except on the rare occasion they pander to the "Penney Pit" and put on some cheesy musical comedy standard that appeals to we trailer park folks puerile tastes.

As my back has aged it's gotten to where I fairly dread the thought of going to sit in seat that's at least 4" lower than appropriate for my tall average height. Starting to reevaluate the cost/benefit ratio of this season ticket/date night tradition.

Let's see... A season subscription costs what? How much should I be willing to pay to sit in a 5 gallon bucket for 2+ hours five times a season?

The Hunting Trip

some fellas might oughta be reminded what it means to "cherish and nourish" their wives. /heh


Dave was attending his hunting club's monthly meeting and had just
told them he couldn't make the hunting trip scheduled for the next
day because his wife wouldn't let him go.


After listening to the jeers and other derisive remarks from his
fellow biker buddies Dave left to go back home to his wife.


When Dave's friends started arriving to set up camp the next day, who
should be there but Dave sitting in front of his tent beer in hand,
camp oven roast stewing away in a hot bed of coals.


"How did ya talk your wife into letting you go Dave?"


"I didn't have to" was Dave's reply.


"When I left the meeting I went home and slumped down in my chair
with a beer to drown my sorrows. Then my wife snuck up behind me and
covered my eyes and said, 'Surprise'!"


When I peeled her hands back she was standing there in a beautiful
see-through negligee and she said, "Carry me into the bedroom, tie me
to the bed and you can do whatever you want."


So here I am!

I wonder if he married her for her Jeep?

Colonel Ed has died...

If you've paid attention to the news lately you probably know where this story is headed. However, just in case it got lost in all the news of Michael, Farrah and the OXY-CLEAN shouter...



He wanted to be a Marine fighter pilot. The US was building up their military force, but they were not at war yet and the Navy required all its potential Navy and Marine pilots to have two years of college. So Ed started classes at Boston College. When Pearl Harbor was attacked the Army and the Navy both dropped the college requirement and Ed applied to the Marines. His primary flight training was in Dallas and then he went to Pensacola, Florida. He was carrier qualified, which means he knew how to perform a controlled crash of his single engine fighter, onto the rolling deck of a Navy floating runway. It took Ed almost two years to get through all the Navy flight training. His problem was he was a very good pilot and the Marines needed flight instructors. He had a great command presence and public speaking ability, which landed him in the classroom, training new baby Marine pilots. His orders to the Pacific fleet and the chance to fly combat missions off a carrier came in the spring of 1945, on the same day the Atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Of course his orders where changed. He never went to sea and he was out of the Marines in 1946. Ed stayed in the USMC as a reserve officer. He became a successful personality in the new TV medium, after the war. His Marine command presence helped. He was recalled to active duty during the Korean War. He never got to fly his fighter aircraft, but he saw his share of raw combat. He flew the Cessna O-1E Bird Dog, which is a single engine slow-moving unarmed plane. He functioned as an artillery spotter for the Marine batteries on the ground and as a forward controller for the Navy & Marine fighter / bombers who flew in on fast moving jet engines, bombed the area and were gone in seconds. Captain Ed was still circling the enemy looking for more targets, all the time taking North Korean and Chinese ground fire. He stayed with the Marines as a reserve officer and retired in 1966 as a Colonel. The world knows Ed as Ed McMahon of the Johnny Carson, Tonight Show. One night I was watching the show when the subject of Colonel McMahon earning a number of Navy Air Medals came up. Carson, a former Navy officer, understood the significance of these medals, but McMahon shrugged it off, saying that if you flew enough combat missions they just sort of gave them to you. McMahon flew 85 combat missions over North Korea; he earned every one of those Air Medals. The casualty rate, for flying forward air controllers in Korea sometimes exceeded 50% of a squadron?s manpower. McMahon was lucky to have gotten home from that war. Once a Marine, always a Marine. When the public was spitting (taking their personal safety into their own hands) at Marines on the streets of Southern California during Vietnam, Colonel McMahon was taking Marines off the streets and into his poshBeverley Hills home. I spoke to a retired Marine aircrew member the day Colonel McMahon died and he personally remembered seeing McMahon at numerous Marine Air Bases in California in the 1960s. He was known for going to the Navy hospitals and visiting the wounded Marines and Sailors from this country?s conflicts, even in the last years of his life. Colonel McMahon presented awards and decorations to fellow Marines and attended many a Marine ceremony and the annual Marine Corps Birthday Ball. He stayed true to his Corps as a board member of the Marine Corps Scholarship Fund and as the honorary chairman of the National Marine Corps Aviation Museum. After retiring from the Marine Reserve, one night on the Johnny Carson show, members of the California Air National Guard came on stage. Colonel McMahon was commissioned a Brigadier General in the Air Guard in front of millions of Americans who watched it happen live. You will not see anything like that on TV anymore. The three core values of a United States Marine are; honor, courage and commitment. This is what a Marine is taught from the first day of training and this is what that Marine believes. That was Colonel Edward P. McMahon Jr. USMCR Retired. Before he was a national figure he was a true combat hero and a patriot the nation needed then and this country needs now. Your war is over. Thank you Colonel McMahon. Semper Fi sir.

23 June 2009

Major Van Harl USAF Ret.
vanharl@aol.co


The scale of this pic sort of puts in perspective, no?