And what fun it was! Weather persons said it wasn’t going to rain (much) today, and the temperature was going to be fairly decent (Never thought I’d live someplace where 45 degrees and kinda sorta Misty would be considered OK) so I thought I’d better take the time to clean the woodstove. Not a job I enjoy but it has to be done.

So I let it cool down and took all the bricks out of it. Climbed up on the roof and ran the chimney brush up and down the chimney about 50 times. Chipped all the gunk off the rim of the chimney then put the chimney cover back on. Then the fun began! Scooped out all the gunk that fell into the stove, vacuumed it, put the bricks back in then wiped everything on the stove down. Only took a couple of hours. Restarted the fire as it was starting to get cool in the house. What a dirty job! Figured since I was doing all that I might as well take the fan I have behind the woodstove out and clean it good. That took another half hour! Still have to dust the rest of the living room but I think I’ll wait until tomorrow.

Finally started scanning the old cruise books from the Turner Joy that I borrowed from a guy (Butka) after the last TJ Reunion. Got the first (1965) of his done (one page at a time) and then mine (1984). Mine was easier cause I could cut all the pages out of the book and run them through as a batch. I like doing it that way much better. I am scanning it to get rid of the book taking up room on my shelves. I’d much rather have it in electronic (jpg) format. Way easier to store.

Power went out for an hour or so around noon. It wasn’t raining. There was no wind to speak of. No earthquake. Didn’t see any Alien ships landing and knocking over powerpoles. All I can figure is that some bird landed on a wire and farted and it was enough to knock the power out. Figures I’d live in the only place in Washington where the power goes out in fairly decent weather.

Been on a "Dogfights" marathon. Cool show!

Oh yeah; took Poop Dog to PETCO for his appointment. The girl behind the desk asked me what kind of grooming I wanted to give him. I told her "I’d say to shave his butt and teach him to walk backwards but the wife would kill me. Trim his face, shampoo & dry and trim his nails if you can." Can you believe it took them about 4 hours? It did. We would have done it ourselves but we have no way to dry him except for towels and that just doesn’t get him dry enough for this cool weather. And I don’t trim dog nails cause I’m afeared of cutting too much off and causing more problems.

Headline: Ticker: Gay priest gets big inauguration job. Is that what they’re calling it now? Fairly innocuous headline but it sure sounds dirty.

Headline: Finger length may predict financial success, researchers say. Remember; it’s not how big or long it is. Its how you use it.

Shaking my head headline: Ohio teen convicted of killing mom over video game . Alright folks. Time to ban all video games. If you peek at the photo of the kid talking to his lawyer you can see that he has no idea of reality.

2nd Shaking my head headline: Pair accused of assault over Wii Christmas gift. So this guy, instead of being happy that he got something other than a paternity suit from his girl complained about getting a Wii instead of a remote control plane. He grabbed her. She hit him (hopefully with the Wii). They both got arrested. Merry Christmas! Next year she should give him an STD…

Yo!

We certainly have had a time around here. Lots of snow, some melting and fears of flooding. Then the next week some Major Rains and really some Major Flooding around this area. Went to the property a few days ago to check things out (my drainage is working damn near perfectly) and the Tahuya River seemed to be at least twice as high as it usually is. Hope the folks in that development downriver came through it all okay.

Headline: SciTechBlog: Nipples in your Face(book)! I’m not sure what they’re talking about, yet, but it sure grabs your attention!

My Data drive crashed last Friday evening! Damn! Came up as a drive with 0 (zero) bytes used and 0 (zero) bytes available. Just the drive letter would list in Explorer. Damn! And I had just installed a program to do backups! Double Damn! Used the "Ultimate Boot Disc" to no avail. Booted the Hiren’s Boot Disc (which has many tools for just this kind of stuff) and it sort of worked. There was one program that could see the contents of the drive but crashed when I tried saving anything to another drive. Damn. Damn Damn. Went to Motherboard’s Etc in Gorst to get a SATA Data cable and mentioned what was happening to their tech and he said to use "GetDataBack" on the Hiren’s disc after booting into windows. Had to double click the .bat file but the program came right up, scanned the dead drive and I managed to get everything off the dead drive. DAMN! I’m impressed! And it took me only two days! Wow! (Actually, rescuing the data only took a couple of hours; trying everything else is what took so long.)

Headline: RIAA axes file-sharing lawsuits It’s about time the RIAA Nazis got their shit together. Now if we could convince the music industry that there are better ways to sell their over-priced music. I don’t think anyone will ever completely stop ’pirating’, but, they could start by not charging so much. Just my opinion. I’m still anti-RIAA.

Headline: Biden: US will help fight terror in Afghanistan . And we’ve been doing what over there for the past 5 years?

I know I haven’t been posting much; been busy. I did get out to the property and most of the snow was melted. Spent an hour or so running the digger up and down the road fixing minor area where water was getting through. Cold and wet out there but was kind of fun. I miss getting out to the property as much as I do during the summer.

Headline: Senate boosts wilderness protection across US. Which is cool, except, the ’trickle-down’ will make it much harder for anyone to build a new house on undeveloped land. Already the rules and regs for building a new house are almost prohibitive. I know…

Been keeping an eye on the Gaza thing. All the protests against Israel just crack me up. I sincerely do not remember anyone protesting the actions of the Hamas nor do I remember anyone demanding that the Hamas stop lobbing mortars into Israel. Isn’t what’s good for one country good for all?

Headline: Speedy trial issue lands before US Supreme Court . They’ll get around to it next year or so.

Headline: Many states’ lottery sales are rising in recession . They’re getting more from me more often. When the mega-lotto gets over $100 Million I spend a buck. It would take winning that much to make what was left over after taxes worth it.

Last Headline: Mosquitoes match wing beats before mating . And I’d be willing we (taxpayers) paid these folks a LOT of money to study this. Why we don’t spend all this money on something important; like, say, Why Are Ex-Wives The Way They Are, is beyond me.

I’m outta here!

Started snowing about 1500. It’s now 1830 and we have a good 2 inches accumulated out there. At least, I think it’s good. Better than rain if you ask me. (Note: Another hour and we’ve had another inch or so out there. Cool!)

Pretty normal first Sunday of the month for me. Spent the day at home getting stuff done that I haven’t done that needed to be done cause I haven’t done it. Okay, I’m done…

Israel is kicking Butt! Good! Watching the news this morning I was amazed by the number of folks gathering to protest Israel’s bombing of Palestine & the Hamas "forces". What I don’t remember was anyone gathering to protest the Hamas shooting missiles into Israel and killing whoever was where the missiles hit. I don’t remember anyone paying any attention when Israel filed official complaints with the United Nations (and I think the World Court) but when the downtrodden Terrorists Hamas complain it’s "We’ll get right on it." Talk about two faced! And isn’t it funny that the Palestinians allow the Hamas to do that, but still expect to be able to cross the border to the jobs they have in Israel? The soul purpose of the Hamas is the destruction of Israel. Probably backed by most of the other Muslim country’s in that area. And we’re supposed to feel sympathy for them? I say: Bomb The Hell Out Of Them, Israel! Kick their asses until they know without a doubt that they can’t safely fire more missiles into your country.

Just noticed that the U.N. issued a "strong rebuke" about the fighting in Gaza. I wonder if they ever issued a "strong rebuke" to the Hamas for lobbing missiles into Israel and killing civilians? The United Nations is a joke left over from the Cold War and they reiterate that every time they open their mouths. Can anyone cite anything the U.N. has done in the past 40 years that has turned out well? Anyone? Anything?

On a lighter note (I Hope. Kinda Sorta): How about that guy in Connecticut that bought a winning lotto ticket then died of a heart attack? Damn! I’ll bet his wife thinks "That was awful considerate of him."

Headline: Travolta, Preston heartbroken over son’s death: My response: No Shit.

Headline: Australians angry over bid to ban topless sunbathing. I’m fairly pissed about that myself!

I’m outta here!