Just JoeP

Kanye East

2012-02-02T16:23:00.000-07:00

This brought a grin to my stressful work day.

The fact that my desktop's monitor faces South (and I face north as I sit before it), made this even funnier.

Rest Room Book Rack, Stuckup!

2012-02-02T16:21:00.000-07:00

I so much want to get a copy of this, and leave it in the magazine rack in the hall bathroom for guests to see and browse while seated there.

Heritage of Southern Family Values

2012-02-02T16:18:00.001-07:00

I lived & worked in South Carolina for 16 years, after living in Indiana for 21 years and working there for another 4, so I am speaking from many years and 1000s of conversations and relationships worth of experience. I've seen both the modern, advanced, cosmopolitan aspects of both states & their inhabitants, and the red neck, racist, xenophobic, backwards aspects of both states. When I stumbled across this photo yesterday, I thought "oh, how wonderful! a whole family together on an outing!". "It's about heritage" my fellow South Carolina citizens used to say. Yep, a 'heritage of hatred'. You want to understand why so many Americans HATE President Obama SO MUCH, but they don't articulate a valid, factual reason why? See below. Amen, brother.

PS: it ain't Halloween.

Movie Quote Venn Diagram

2012-02-01T17:24:00.000-07:00

This Movie Quote Venn Diagram brought a smile to my face. "Finish this part for me" ... lol!

A Good Reason Not To Surf

2012-02-01T17:15:00.000-07:00

Growing up in the Midwest, I spent very little time by the ocean as a child. One vacation to Florida when I was in my tween years is all I can recall. Lake Michigan has no sharks. Yes, it has gar, pike, and other fresh-water barracuda-like varieties in very very limited quantities, but they leave humans alone.

Images of sharks, jelly fish, the deep-deep-ocean, giant squid, the Pacific gyre, barracuda & sea urchins (while snorkeling), violent storms and hurricanes give me pause... and make me think... "being on land is good".

Our son, who has spent nearly the last 20 years of his life in South Carolina, and nearly 1/2 of that in Charleston, has no such fear of the ocean, and in fact, is drawn to it, at home in it, one with it.

Robert Downey Kitten

2012-02-01T16:54:00.000-07:00

This made me chuckle (I hope the GIFs animate on your screen)

Safety Nets

2012-02-01T16:46:00.000-07:00

Mitt Romney today: "I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there."
Perhaps this is what he was thinking?

As the middle class continues to shrink - with hostile take overs, leveraged buy outs, and outsourcing of American jobs to developing nations to circumvent living wages, environmental regulations, and government over-sight, and the very poor continue to grow, swelling food bank ranks, unemployment insurance rolls, homeless shelters, and food stamp recipient lists, there's no shortage of "the very poor". Yet, as libertarian and right wing fundamentalist Republicans take over state legislatures, and tax bases shrink, the "very poor" have no social safety net. they do have churches.. if you want to drink and swallow that kool aid... and that's the whole "1000 points of light" Bush legacy malarkey, where churches were given government money to fund "social welfare programs" wherein they channeled the funds into anti-abortion protests, re-education of their children away from Science and fact towards myth and fiction.
Maybe he was thinking of this kind of net?

This is what the "safety net" looks like for most Americans who need it. Or.. perhaps this next image, is REALLY what Mitt was implying... with a slow death, where every drop of life is squeezed out of you by a Big Investor, who Owns & Built the net? Yeah, I think he said what he meant, and it is this last image he had in the back of his mind when his mouth and throat formed those words.

Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock

2012-01-31T16:48:00.000-07:00

Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock. Much more fun than just Rock Paper Scissors.

Paul Allen, VP

2012-01-31T16:44:00.000-07:00

"It even has a watermark."
Great movie. Too bad Patrick Bateman couldn't EXCLUSIVELY take out all the Paul Allens of the world, like Dexter justifiably takes out his own moral flotsam.

I have no patience or tolerance of such esoteric, ostentatious, vain, non-value-added, not capable of changing their own oil, mechanically disinclined, no-practical-skills, good-ole-boys-club, completely useless, alpha-male-wanna-bes. I would have liked American Psycho even more if Patrick Bateman would have had a more targeted hit list, focused on those with the most awesome business cards.

Polish Censorship Resistance

2012-01-31T16:34:00.000-07:00

This photo was taken January 26th in the Polish Parliament, when PMs opposed to ACTA donned Guy Fawkes masks in solidarity as they voted down internet censorship.

"The NET interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it" - John Gilmore.

The Poles are resisting having to make detours.

Disaster Planning

2012-01-31T16:27:00.000-07:00

Propane, Obey

2012-01-31T16:25:00.000-07:00

Obey Hank, not Andre.

Always Wear A Helmet

2012-01-31T10:49:00.002-07:00

...especially when trying to clear an area of leopards. Big cats like to go for their prey's eyes, throat, head and neck.

Words Of The Union

2012-01-31T06:43:00.001-07:00

Eat More Food!

2012-01-30T18:34:00.000-07:00

I made a fully organic stew last night that I will be enjoying this evening. All organic vegetables & fungi (onions, peppers, celery, carrots, portabellos. Yard harvested organic basil & rosemary. All grass fed, free range, organic animal ingredients (Trader Joe's Chicken broth, Double Check Ranch soup bones, Horizons butter). It's fragrance has been wafting through the house all day. MMMMM Time for dinner!

Frozen Stop Sign

2012-01-30T18:30:00.000-07:00

It's been in the mid 70s here all weekend and again today. Dr Desert Flower and I went to the Desert Botanical Garden on Saturday night, and drove around with Celeste's top down. So when I saw this image earlier today, I smiled broadly. We don't have frozen stop signs in Arizona. We've got hummingbirds, lavender, aloe, whip tail lizards, cacti, sage, palms, low humidity, desert, awesome sunsets, plentiful sunshine, cheap water, bobcats, javelina, road runners (saw one of those Sunday as well, in front of the neighbor's garage, and another one on Saturday near the 1010 while we were out on a walk), lots of guns, libertarians, cotton, cattle, copper, etc...

...but no frozen stop signs.

Sylvania Failure

2012-01-30T18:22:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, when the former state of my residence South Carolina began to push legislation to "fight Obama" and federal regulations that promoted compact fluorescent light bulb sales were in the news, I purchased a pack of CFLs at my local hardware store. I had several light bulbs failing around the Arizona home we'd recently moved into, and the CFLs were touted as being so awesome, I bought an 8 pack of them from my local hardware store, and went around installing them in the lights of ceiling fans, outdoors for the garage and entry way, and various lamps around the house as the incandescent bulbs burnt out.

Selling points like "Tremendous Energy Savings!" and "10X the life!" made paying the more expensive CFLs price less odious. Sadly, Sylvania chose to manufacture their 13W CFLs in China, probably to 'save manufacturing costs', but what they really did was aggravate this vocal consumer who has also been to China, has experience with getting Chinese mass manufacturing to produce repeatable, reliable, consistent quality, and who has a blog that gets 1000s of hits on selected topics. So what they might have saved in manufacturing costs, they've lost in reputation and in bad publicity in selling sub-standard products that have demonstrated poor quality by failing to perform to even significantly lowered expectations.

10X the life? No, the bed room ceiling fan's light runs less than 500 hours a year. The light above shows that the CFL burnt out. The 'sister' CFL lamp on the other side ceiling fan is still burning brightly, but it no longer shares the fixture with another Sylvania CFL. No, there's a 65W GE Soft White incandescent bulb lighting my bed room.

When you examine the failed bulb closely, you can see the darkened tube where it enters the base just above the word "caution" which indicates that the ballast failed, and produced a pulse of voltage that through the bulb that the cheaply assemble Chinese circuit could not handle. This arced, and failed - gratefully without leading to an electrical fire - at a -4 or -5 sigma below the predicted B1 life. Dissatisfied? No, I sort of expected it. I am disappointed though that the "promising technology" or CFLs have performed SO POORLY in my experiences. One of the bulbs I've installed outside has a pathetic pink glow as it struggles to put out less than a 1/10th the lumens it is supposed it - from the same "value pack". It should have been called "value less".

The Screaming of the Spinach

2012-01-29T15:29:00.000-07:00

Ever since my astute & helpful friend Ron clued me into the easy & delicious method of sauteing baby spinach leaves that had gone "soggy" instead of throwing them out, I've been adding large handfuls of micro-nutrient rich organic baby spinach to breakfast skillets, breakfast omelets, and all sorts of sauteed vegetables, wasting none of what we'd previously been throwing out. Much more than a 'tip of the hat' to Ron, a tip of the whole fridge to him!

Trader Joe's organic yellow onions, organic red peppers, Horizon organic butter, and Costco organic baby spinach. Yum!

One strange phenomenon that I've noticed in all of this sauteing... is the Screaming of the Spinach. I melt some organic butter, and get the pan nice and hot, and then add un-chopped baby spinach to the pan, and it literally SCREAMS. As the heat from the stove transmits through the pan & butter into the cell walls of the baby spinach, the proteins within the plant material rapidly denature & carbohydrates begin to break down into sugars and release gases, all of which start to build up substantial pressures within the quickly collapsing plant structure, and those escaping gases funneled through the un-chopped stems SCREAM in 2 to 4 second long "death throes". There's the sizzling of the hot liquefied butter, accompanied by very high pitched screams - similar to what you can hear at a camp fire when burning sap-rich pine, and the recently heated gases try to force their way through truncated xylem & phylum with increasing entropy (and exothermic energy and pressure and temperature all building as well).

I'd heard of people saying they could hear "lobsters scream", but it's really just the inner moisture of the lobster whistling & screaming out of small fissures in the exoskeleton. Similar concept here, except for the fact that the plant wall is breaking down faster than a hardened exoskeleton breaks down. Both lobsters and baby spinach are delicious after heating, but baby spinach is much cheaper, by a factor of about 500X. And being in the desert SW, getting local organic spinach is much easier and more practical than fishing for lobster.

Come over and visit some time, and I'll make you saute up some screaming baby spinach for you. We'll turn down the stereo that Dr Desert Flower often has cranked up so you can hear the spinach scream. =)

It Goes Both Ways

2012-01-28T14:02:00.000-07:00

I love the reciprocal logic used here. Sadly, most Americans never consider the 2nd half.

Homeland Security, Keeping Everyone Safe

2012-01-28T12:44:00.000-07:00

"in suspicion we trust"

What An Awesome Way To End A Hike

2012-01-27T15:09:00.000-07:00

My friend Jason had this link on his google talk status today: http://vimeo.com/35368665

I would love to end a long hike this way... but not having practiced human flight, I'd probably meet a tall pine tree at 100 mph in a horizontal vector.

Need4Speed: Insight from Phoenix Fly on Vimeo.

Finger Pointing Arizona Blonds

2012-01-26T08:27:00.001-07:00

I thought Jan Brewer, my esteemed governor was a Scottsdale Blond, but actually she lives in Deer Valley, a northern affluent suburb of Phoenix, after growing up an Army brat - whose father died of lung disease from inhaling toxic chemicals at the Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada (you'd think she'd have a better respect for the environment, and not want to rape & pillage Arizona's natural resources with expanded uranium mining near the Grand Canyon... but that would be 'thinking', and besides, uranium mining would only hurt very poor red people, not rich white people). I was going to title this posting "Finger Pointing Scottsdale Blonds Who Don't Respect Authority", and by "Authority" I mean "the Office of the President of the United States". But since she's not from Scottsdale, just well funded by rich contributors from Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Fountain Hills, and other mostly white, very wealthy suburbs of Phoenix, I just abbreviated the title to "Finger Pointing Arizona Blonds".

I am ashamed - not proud - that my governor doesn't show respect for the office of the President of the United States. I didn't like George W Bush, and I frequently referred to him as "W", but it wasn't until after he launched an unjustified war, demonstrated he did not have a grasp of the English language, embraced Carl Rove's despicable re-election tactics, and dismantled the CIA department that was hunting Bin Laden that I began to refer to him as Commander in Chimp. Barack Obama was not even President for 2 years when Brewer stomped into the Oval Office to 'demand to be heard', and then she tries to get in his face on the tarmac at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport, ranting at him and pointing a finger at him? So sad. The Obama administration's Homeland Security, TSA & ICE have deported more illegals and there's been fewer illegal border crossings than during the Bush administration, but Jan Brewer doesn't let facts get in her way.

At least she can't run for another term in 2014 when her current tenure expires. Whew! I'm sure the citizens of Arizona will find some other extremist to replace her in our very flawed primary process that rewards the most vocal, vociferous, base-rallying candidates (like Russel Peirce, Jeff Flake, Jon Kyle, etc, etc, etc!).

Pipelines Are Inherently Safe!

2012-01-25T10:25:00.000-07:00

Pipelines are inherently safe! Just look at how well Enbridge has done in their short corporate history! What does Western Canada have to worry about, with such a stellar track record? A few 100 thousand gallons here and there... isn't that a small price to pay to be able to drive a Hummer, Suburban, or Excursion? Drill baby drill. Mine those tar sands. Pump that oil South and West!

Why I Despise Renting

2012-01-24T10:49:00.000-07:00

This sums up, very well, why I not only despise renting, but why I cannot happily live in high density housing, with neighbors packed in all around me, surrounded, pinned in, by others who do not share my affinity for peace & quiet, solitude, mutual respect, decorum, consideration, and the greater good of society. I need to live in a dwelling that does not share common walls with my neighbors (or laundry rooms, or garbage cans, or elevators, or ceilings or floors). I know many of my friends and followers love their densely packed city life styles, and they "deal with" or tolerate their neighbors... but I am not as tolerant.

http://maggieblueberry.tumblr.com/post/16229681350/woomack-need-to-print-off-the-first-one-for-my

Or, link here

It's not just the main largest image posted on the linked page, but also all the smaller posted images, just below it. I've had nearly all of these happen to me personally, and I enjoyed none of them. They're humorous when happening to someone else, and viewed from the third person, yes indeed. But maddening when you're the one being subjected to it.

Rejecting Constantinian Christianity

2012-01-23T17:02:00.000-07:00

Over the last Christmas & New Years break, I finished reading Dr. Cornel West's Democracy Matters, Winning The Fight Against Imperialism. I'd picked it up from Borders, before my local book store went bankrupt. At first, I was reluctant to dive into West's book. It was the 2nd in a series (preceded by Race Matters), and it had a whole chapter on 'engaging youth culture' and how much rap matters in the table of contents, but I know Dr West is a very intelligent man who speaks eloquently, and I've enjoyed hearing him on Real Time, Tavis Smiley, and when he refutes Bill O'falafel's rhetoric to his face with facts. So I plodded through the book, determined to keep an open mind.

I am very glad I did. In Democracy Matters, West explains how he taught at Harvard when one of chief the architects of 2008 housing melt down, Lawrence Summers, became the president of Harvard, and how Summers tried to run West out of Harvard on a rail. It helped to frame Obama's remarkably poor choice of Summers as White House financial adviser as particularly upside-down and insidious, as well as the wrongful arrest & "have a beer summit" with West's department head, Henry Louis Gates. I had not known those aspects, and I am grateful to West for elucidating them.

West speaks of American nihilism, socratic questioning, tragicomic hope, and prophetic witness, throughout the work, and explains the importance of each. As a principal engineer, I try to employ socratic questioning and encourage all of the young engineers I mentor to embrace it, so it was timely to read West proclaiming its importance. The blues, as well as ancient Greek comedies are excellent examples of tragicomic hope, which I can understand and appreciate quite well. Prophetic witness, West delved into deeply.

I knew that West was a Christian, but within the book, West describes the differential between the Constantinian Christian and the Prophetic Christian. I could try to distill it down, but West does an awesome job himself here, in this clip (link here in case the embedded 90 second video below doesn't work on your computer for you below).

As a disenchanted former Roman Catholic myself, I COMPLETELY got this, and understood it, related to it, and "the light bulb came on over my head". It's the Constantinian Christians I cannot stand., won't truck with, and spit out of my mouth, completely rejected (yeah, I had Catechism class for12 years, if you want to spar on Bible verses and Catholic Dogma). I mistakenly used to think it was the Prophetic Christians with whom I had massive problems, but I actually can relate to Prophetic Christians very well. They're the Jeffersonian "red letter" Christians. They Do Not advocate mixing and weaving religion with government. They're a dwindling, diminishing species in America, and around the world, while the nationalistic Constantinian Christians draw more and more blind sheep into their easily mis-lead flocks. It was the Roman government after all, who tortured and crucified Jesus of Nazareth. And when Roman emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, and then began to prosecute Jews and Muslims "in the name of The Cross", he began the long process of distorting, co-opting and mutating the teachings of Jesus to reinforce imperialism, oligarchy, inequality, inquisition, genocide, and cruelty in the name of The State.

I now understand Cornel West much better, and see his point of view with extreme clarity. I agree with much of what he says, but not 100% of it. His speaking/writing style is one where single sentences can often stretch into paragraphs richly seeded with vernacular and metaphor that requires a SAT verbal score greater than 700 to grasp and savour. People who label Dr West as a "rabid liberal" misunderstand & misinterpret him. West is liberal, much like Jesus was a liberal, looking out for the poorest, most oppressed, most persecuted in society. West shines a bright light upon the New Gilded Age oligarchs and their bought & sold politicians in the 21st century - and I hope he continues to do so, for many years to come.

On pages 150-151, in 3 paragraphs, West sums it up for fundamentalist Christians quite nicely:
"Ironically, Jesus's message of love and justice promoted a separation of his prophetic witness from Caesar's authority - 'render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.' Christ said. Yet the nihilistic imperialism of the Romans was so power-hungry that it couldn't tolerate the growing popularity of the Christian sects. When the growth of religion couldn't be stopped, the Roman empire co-opted it. With Constantine's conversion, a terrible co-joining of church and state was institutionalized from with the religion and many of its victims, especially Jews, have suffered ever since. Constantinian Christianity has always been at odds with the prophetic legacy of Jesus Christ. Constantine himself seems to have converted to Christianity partly out of political strategy and imperial exigency, and then proceeded to use the cloak of Christianity for his own purposes of maintaining power.

Most American Constantinian Christians are unaware of their imperialistic identity because they do not see the parallel between the Roman empire that put Jesus to death and the American empire that they celebrate. As long as they can worship freely and pursue the American dream, they see the American government as a force for good and American imperialism as a desirable force for spreading that good. They proudly profess their allegiance to the flag and the cross not realizing that just as the cross was a bloody indictment of the Roman empire, it is a powerful critique of the American empire, and they fail to acknowledge that the cozy relation between their Christian leaders and imperial American rulers may mirror the intimate ties between the religious leaders and imperial Roman rulers who crucified their Savior.

I have no doubt that most of these American Constantinian Christians are sincere in their faith and pious in their actions. But they are relatively ignorant of the crucial role they play in sponsoring American imperial ends. Their understanding of American history is thin and their grasp of Christian history is spotty, which leaves them vulnerable to manipulation by Christian leaders and misinformation by imperial rulers. The Constantinian Christian support of the pervasive disinvestment in urban centers and cutbacks in public education and health care, as well as their emphatic defense of the hard-line policies of the Israeli government, has much to do with the cozy alliance of Constantinian Christian leaders with the political elites beholden to corporate interest who provide shelter for cronyism. In short, they sell their precious souls for a mess of imperial pottage based on the false belief that they are simply being true to the flag and the cross. The very notion that the prophetic legacy of the grand victim of the Roman empire - Jesus Christ - requires critique of and resistance to American imperial power hardly occurs to them."

Other reviews you might find interesting are here, and here.

Birthday Buckeye Beauty

2012-01-22T19:13:00.000-07:00

Last week, I spent my birthday as I prefer to spend it, hiking. I've taken the day off work on my birthday for most of the last 2 dozen years, whenever travel and work-load have allowed it. This year I headed 25 miles to the south west of Phoenix, to Buckeye Hills Regional Park. Though the peaks are just under 1800 feet there, what drew me to Buckeye was the concept of "primitive conditions, no designated trails". I really am not one to travel the "beaten path" and enjoy it. There's little adventure, no creativity, and almost nothing to discover on a well worn foot path that hundreds or thousands of other people have also walked that same day, week, or month. The path less taken, is usually my preference. (links here and here)

I got a late start to the hike, puttering around on email and my playing scrabble online until almost noon. I then filled 3 nalgene bottles with water, grabbed a bag of salted almonds and my Kelty hiking shoulder pack, and headed down I-10. It was a beautiful day at 65 degrees, mostly clear skies, and the air pollution index lower than it'd been all year so far. I left a note for Dr Desert Flower so she'd know where to look for me if something unexpected happened.

Wash covered in animal tracks near the western edge of the park.

Buckeye Hills Regional Park is about 8 miles south of I-10 on AZ85. The last time DDF and I were on AZ85 was coming back from San Diego 3 years ago, when AZ85 was a one-lay-each-way highway. heavily traveled with truck traffic. This year, it's a inter-state like divided four lane highway, with just one stop light between I-10 and the park entrance. Buckeye Hills is also the home to the Buckeye Gun Club's shooting range and the Maricopa County Sheriff's shooting range, that use a 1800 foot mountain as a backdrop on the south end of the park. Since it was a Federal Holiday (MLK Day), I figured that the range would be closed - I figured correctly. My hike was not punctuated with the sound of intermittent gun fire - which was most reassuring.

From 1pm to 5pm I hiked about 6 miles horizontally, and climbed 3 1800 foot peaks. I did not see a single human being the entire hike, except for a wandering black SUV along one of the dirt roads leading to the edge of the park. I DID see and hear an impressive pair of red tailed hawks when I got to the summit of the first peak. A LOUD Colbert-Show-Opening-Like SCREECH was blasted at me from over-head. Shielding my eyes, I looked up to see 2 hawks flying to the south from about a 100 feet above me. It was a magnificent sight to witness these two beautiful raptors riding thermals, circling over the park, until they flew over the next range to the south and out of view. I was so awe-struck, I did not even attempt to get out my camera. Each of the summits' south faces were Very Wind Blown, so much so, that I nearly lost my hat several times. But the north faces were shaded and calm.

On the far West side of the park I walked along a wash creek bed that was full of animal tracks. Bobcat, coyote, desert hare, pack rat, javalina... I did not see any mountain lion tracks, but there were so many critter prints, it's possible that others could have occluded a big cat's prints.

At the top of the 3rd and most Southerly peak, I called my mother to thank her for having me - it's something I try to do every birthday to show my appreciation, and knowing that we're all mortal, she won't be around forever. After the call I began the northerly trek back to my car which was parked a few dozen yards away from a Breaking Bad mobile meth lab RV at the end of Robbins Road. When I began my descent, I mistakenly placed my foot and the majority of my weight on a torso sized rock near the summit. The rock was not solidly part of the mountain and I took a rather nasty fall down the slop for about 10 feet vertically and 5 or 6 feet horizontally. My lats. right forearm, and right hip took the brunt of the impact and slide. Very good I was hiking in jeans and not shorts. As I watch the Giants / 49ers game this evening, only my forearm is still green-and-black bruised. I'll know better next time, not to put any significant weight on a rock whose solid foundation is not verified.

I left no physical trace of my hike, other than the occasional foot print - though I did try to walk on rocks that were without lichens as much as possible - and the small land slide I caused accidentally. At each of the summits I did make a small stone pyramid using existing loose stones. At the beginning of the hike, I saw several randomly discarded plastic bottles, broken glass bottles, rusted metal cans, and shattered clay pigeons. But as I scaled the more difficult summits, no sign of a previous human presence was notable. No scratchings, no graffiti, no garbage, just piles and piles of bobcat droppings, bleaching in the sun, marking their territory.

Buckeye Hills park has gravel roads that are well graded and maintained. Their map shows rest rooms at the end of Robbins Road, but that is inaccurate. There ARE rest rooms at the "Country Club Circle" but they looked Very primitive and more than a little questionable, especially since I was completely alone. I didn't want to find a napping rattlesnake, or stumble into a "gimp trap" in the door-propped-open primitive rest room.

The next time I go back to Buckeye Hills, I will take a large trash bag with me to collect the careless discards of others, and help clean up the park.
As the sun began to set nearing 5pm, I took a picture of my shadow, that was nearly 75 feet tall. I was back home and showering before the sun fully set. Naproxin Sodium for the aches and pains, Red Bordeaux wine to help me forget that I'm in the 2nd half of my finite mortal life span, even by optimistic actuarial tables.

The only flowering cactus I saw all day

Paolo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, to the West of Buckeye Hills

Phoenix Symphony: Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition

2012-01-22T16:27:00.000-07:00

Last night, Dr Desert Flower and I went to the Phoenix Symphony to hear Mussorgsky's, Pictures at an Exhibition performed (link here). Over-all, it was a good performance. The Mussorgsky piece was played after 1/2 time, preceded by a discordant work by Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov called "Last Round" which was played in 3 movements. Why Christie picked this work to go along with Mussorgsky, I have no clue, but it was played by a standing violin & viola sections with randomly distributed cellos in the middle. Supposedly it was to evoke a Argentinian accordion (or 'bandoneon'), but it mixed the 1st chairs, 2nd chairs, violins and violas sharing stands haphazardly in a completely chaotic fashion, and the players stood VERY Stiffly, out of their element, trying to play the work. To me, it sounded likes several cats being strangled in the first movement, followed by a somewhat sad and somber second movement, and a disconnected 3rd movement. I was happy when it finally ended. In contrast, Dr Desert Flower liked it, and did not understand my distaste for having to endure it.

The 2nd piece played was by a composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, the Concerto in D major for Violin & Orchestra, with guest violinist Chloe Hanslip. Korngold was a famous composer of Hollywood movie sound tracks back in the 30s and 40s, escaping the Third Reich prior to Nazi Germany's clamp down on artist emigration. Like John Williams today, Korngold wrote nice works for movies... but I don't go to the symphony to hear movie sound tracks played. That's just not my preference. Ms Hanslip played beautifully and passionately. Seated around her now (no longer stiffly standing from the Golijov work) about 80% of the Phoenix symphony gave it a good shot and stepped up their performance to match her masterful playing. It was an enjoyable piece, but I can't say it was truly memorable.

After intermission, the Modest Mossorgsky work, orchestrated by fellow Russian Gorchakov, began impressively. The brass section blasted the FFF sections beautifully. The woodwinds and percussion supported nicely, though the oboe at one point struggled in some of the rapid fire staccato sections in the middle. The cellos and violas sang wonderfully in support of the violin voices. Well played, and passionately delivered by about 95% of the players - there are still a few hold outs in the last chairs of the first and second violins who play as stiffly and meekly as corpses, displaying as much passion as a gathering of cloistered nuns for prayer. For the most part precisely executed (A- if report cards were being given out for precision, but A+ for over-all impression). A well deserved standing ovation was given.

It would be awesome if Christie could select enjoyable music for an entire concert instead of trying to inject his own personal preferences of miscellaneous & awkward tripe that I'd prefer not to pay for or waste ym time hearing, but the discordant Golijov work was a small price to pay for the beautiful Mossorgsky tour de force.

Guayaki Yerba Mate Trials

2012-01-22T15:58:00.000-07:00

Since I don't want to get 'stuck in a rut' with the exact same organic tea all the time, I try to keep my eyes open for other organic teas that might be appealing. At Trader Joe's they sell a guayaki yerba mate bag of tea for $5, so I picked up a package of it a few weeks ago and started drinking it last week during my work day. I had no prior knowledge of the guayaki yerba mate organic tea previously, and purchased it because 1) it was organic and 2) it had caffeine and (or at least did not say "caffeine free" on it) and 3) was only the 3rd organic caffeine containing tea that Trader Joe's sells - so I went into it completely blind.

First off, the taste of guayaki yerba mate is very.. um... earthy. to me, it has a strong "root like" flavor that at first I did not find so pleasant. I doubled the organic stevia I added to it, and it tasted much better. This morning, I had a spoon with some residual local organic honey on it that I dipped into the steamingly warm tea cup, and that made it delicious as well, but also added probably a 100 or more calories. The guayaki yerba mate package comes in a easy-to-reseal outer metallic-like pouch, with a zip-lock inner plastic pouch to conserve freshness - in most environments it's probably meant to keep moisture out and freshness in, but in Phoenix it is to keep the tea from drying out completely in the 6% relative humidity ambient air, so they get a "A" in functional packaging.

After the 3rd day, when I was trying to decide "should I throw this stuff out as a failed experiment because of it's less-than-pleasant taste?" or should I keep it? I started to read about guayaki yerba mate and all of it's theoretical health benefits (links here, here and here). I had no idea it is full of micronutrients:
• Vitamins: A, C, E, B1, B2, Niacin (B3), B5, B Complex
• Minerals: Calcium, Manganese, Iron, Selenium, Potassium, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Zinc
• Additional Compounds: Carotene, Fatty Acids, Chlorophyll, Flavonols, Polyphenols, Inositol, Trace Minerals, Antioxidants, Tannins, Pantothenic Acid and 15 Amino Acids.
• Theophylline, theobromine, and caffeine
It is supposed to

1. Give You Energy (theobromine, theophylline)
2. Enhance Digestive Function
3. Make You More Alert
4. Support Weight Loss (my making you feel more full)
5. Freshen Your Breath (I did not notice this)
6. Boost Your Immune System (il faut voir)
7. Prevent Heart Disease (supposedly inhibiting arteriosclerosis)
...so it sounds like the best thing since sliced bead, but I am still on the fence. I'll try to stomach another week of it and see how it goes.

Reservoir Curmudgeons

2012-01-22T14:58:00.001-07:00

This made me laugh the moment I saw it.

Better Know A Country - Suriname

2012-01-21T12:27:00.000-07:00

My 2nd installment in a "Better Know A Country" series, is the smallest sovereign nation in South America: Suriname. ˈsɜrɨnɑːm/ (Dutch: Suriname, Dutch pronunciation: [ˌsyriˈnaːmə]; Sarnami: शर्नम् Sarnam, Sranan Tongo: Sranangron or Sranankondre), officially the "Republic of Suriname". It's adjacent to French Guiana (where the Europeans launch their rockets into space), Guyana (famous for their mosquitoes, and for not yet visiting JustJoeP's blog), and Brazil (famous for nuts, rain forest destruction, sugar cane ethanol, and carnival). But what is Suriname, a tropical, equatorial, coastal country of less than 1/2 a million people famous for?

Well, it's official language is Dutch, since it used to be a Dutch colony, but there's a plethora of other regional languages spoken, including (and surprising to me) Hindi, Urdu, Tongo, Malay, Javanese, and Cariban. Dr Desert's Flower's previous boss's life partner was from Suriname, and we shared a drink with Carlos in Amsterdam last July as he was coincidentally staying in the same hotel as we were staying during a scientific conference on cancer. Carlos is a nice guy, and the only Surinamese person I've ever met. (sample size n=1).

While it was a Dutch colony, the Dutch loved the bauxite that Surinamese mines produced, and coveted the mineral even after independence. The slaves of Suriname were freed in 1863 (2 years after South Carolina seceded from the Union) but the Dutch imposed a 10 year transition period where slaves were paid to continue working on farms for minimal wages, so they were not fully freed until 1873. Prior to the Dutch, the French, Spanish, and English all had Suriname as a colony, but the treaty of Breda in 1667 ceded Suriname from the British to the Dutch. Plantation crops produced by slave labor in the colonial periods included coffee, cocoa, sugar cane and cotton. Today, Suriname mines gold, drills for oil, grows bananas & rice, and has some eco-tourism - but the gold & oil industries will eclipse that as they grow and consume the 80% of pristine rain forest that comprises the majority of Suriname's land mass.

Paramaribo is the capital city, and the only major airport internationally to which one can fly.

To "gingrich"

2012-01-21T09:26:00.000-07:00

Urban Dictionary already has 4 accurate definitions of "gingrich", but this week brings a 5th aspect into the public's view. The Daily Show clip below sums it up nicely:

"Every night he'd call me from his hotel room, and end the call with 'I love you' and Calista was there with him, hearing him say that to me."
It's sort of a fundamentalist Mormon 'family value' I guess, as well as in concordance with Old Testament Hebrew, Koranic Muslim, and feudal reign.
"But you want me all to yourself, and Calista doesn't care."

So I propose the following 5th & 6th definitions:
5) Gin-grich \'gin-(,)grich, -(,)rich\ verb, transitive
To try and persuade one's wife that the polygamous sexual exploits in which one is already deeply involved and practicing are justified and logical, based upon the hubris filled douche bag hypocrite's myopic view point of the universe, disregarding any previous marital infidelities, spousal chronic disease diagnosis, or Presidential Special Prosecutions on-going.

6) Gin-grich \'gin-(,)grich, -(,)rich\ verb, transitive
To cause one to vomit in one's own mouth

Carnival Hotdog

2012-01-21T08:58:00.001-07:00

It's a point of view

2012-01-19T18:16:00.000-07:00

It's all in one's perspective.

Hole In My Life - Police

2012-01-19T10:58:00.002-07:00

Hole In My Life, from the Police, been running through my head all morning.

How Awesome Science Is

2012-01-18T17:04:00.000-07:00

I am saddened somewhat with the ending of the Huntsman campaign, as a THINKING and INFORMED American, who understands scientific theory and how science is not to be "believed" it is to be "understood", since it is Peer Reviewed, and Verifiable. It is NOT a "belief system" or taken "on faith". Huntsman was the only Republican candidate who came on the side of trusting science. Gingrich used to be on the side of science, but as he's bent over backwards to lick the boots of the far far far right primary voters, he's dismissed climate science as inconclusive and not to be paid any attention to. And besides, Gingrich is like the spoiled milk in the fridge - he was thrown out of the House Speakership on ethics charges and forced to apologize. His Contract On America caused incalculable harm to the fabric of society and set the stage for Bush's squandering of the the treasury surplus that Clinton left behind. Why would the spoiled milk be any better, in November 2012?

And why should anyone who works in Science, or has a family member or friend works in Science, and who is capable of rational thought, support any of the fundamentalist Republican candidates? Or Ron Paul who would de-fund and dismantle the NIH, CDC, NOAA, NASA, EPA, and FDA, just to name a few? But sadly, most American citizens are so poorly educated in science that they have little to no understanding of it, and fear it. 46% of Americans think that the Earth is only 6000 years old (yet they still use microwave ovens, computers, ipods, fly on airlines, get x-rays or CAT or PET or MRI scans, and sometimes even wear sun screen - all of which are intrinsically tied to the speed of light and the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which quick creationists strongly contend).

So the last "hope" for a rational Republican candidate who respects and trusts Science is gone. I wish that guaranteed that Obama would win in November, but this is the same electorate who re-elected W. The same electorate who inordinately believes that Iraq was involved in 9-11. The same electorate who enjoys 98% of television programming that I cannot stomach... so my "hope reserves" are dwindling. I want to believe that it "will all be OK", but the feeling of dread continues to build. I think I'm going to have to take November 7th off, and spend time appreciating the Arizona wilderness with a long hike, or reading the Journals SCIENCE and NATURE (both of which we now receive in our home).

JustJoeP Tartan

2012-01-18T16:42:00.000-07:00

Since I am not Scottish, I do not have a family tartan. But if I were to create on, I think I would want it to look something like this:

I would not want it to Taste like bacon, since it would attract canines, scavengers, and very hungry humans... and wearing it while hiking in the wilderness would be very counter indicated.

Vaporized

2012-01-18T16:37:00.000-07:00

"People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: VAPORIZED was the usual word."
– George Orwell

Better Know A Country, Kyrgyzstan

2012-01-18T14:16:00.000-07:00

First in my series of "better know a..." is Kyrgyzstan. The tiny little country of Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia is just north of Afghanistan and wedged between China and the former Soviet Union countries of Kazakhstan [awesome potassium!], Uzbekistan & Tajikistan. It's capital is Bishkek, in the north central part of this country that is not even 700 miles long and 250 miles wide. At just under 200,000 square kilometers, it's 25% smaller than the UK (243K sqr km), or about 2% bugger than Syria (185K sqr km).

Kyrgyzstan has the world's largest natural-growth walnut forest - I did not know that! 94% of the country is 1,000 m above sea level with an average elevation of 2,750 m. Languages spoken there include Kyrgyz (official) 64.7%, Uzbek 13.6%, Russian (official) 12.5%, and about 9% of the population speak "other" languages.

Kyrgyzstan is a poor, mountainous country with a dominant agricultural sector. Cotton, tobacco, wool, and meat are the main agricultural products, although only tobacco and cotton are exported in any quantity. Industrial exports include gold, mercury, uranium (such clean minerals to mine!!!), natural gas, and electricity. The economy depends heavily on gold exports - mainly from output at the Kumtor gold mine. Following independence, Kyrgyzstan was progressive in carrying out market reforms, such as an improved regulatory system and land reform. Kyrgyzstan was the first Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) country to be accepted into the World Trade Organization.

The literacy rate in Kyrgyzstan is supposedly over 93%, but there's not a whole lot of internet connectivity, so I can understand how there's been no hits to JustJoeP from this tiny country of 5.5 million people.

For more info, you can read here, all about Kyrgyzstan (link here).

SOPA v Internet

2012-01-18T09:01:00.000-07:00

This about sums it up, accurately.

End Piracy Not Liberty

2012-01-18T07:31:00.000-07:00

Have you signed the online petition (link here)? Have you emailed and called your Congressman & Senators (link here)?

Do you really want your American or European internet access to be tracked, blocked, and regulated as if you live in China? ...with legislation driven by well funded, thoroughly lobbied, Republican & Democrat legislators who are more interested in their campaign coffers than they are your daily life or your unfettered access to information and the internet?

Booted Heel Repair

2012-01-17T15:16:00.000-07:00

Dr Desert Flower lost the tip off the heel of one of her boots. One large Irwin clamp, one spring clamp, an old cocktail shaker, some gorilla glue, and 24 hours later, the tip is back on, firmly. The rubberized tip did shift about 1/8th of an inch (approx 3mm) towards the boot's toe, but it is still firmly bonded to the heel. I trimmed off the bubbled over gorilla glue with a box cutter and added some black shoe polish to turn the beige glue line to black. It should last a long time, or at least a few dozen wearings.

Why do I still have an old cocktail shaker in my garage? (it leaked, and had a terrible seal, so it was not in the kitchen). Never know when you might need something sturdy, that can handle compression that is about the size of a human heel and ankle!

Long In The Claw

2012-01-17T15:06:00.000-07:00

Dr Desert Flower and I found out this last weekend, that elderly US house cats (over 15 years old or so) are prone to being "Long in the Claw" in that they stop taking much interest in sharpening their claws, and like all carotene mammalian nails, the claws continue to grow. Think of not cutting your human nails for more than a year or so, and how long they'd get. Well, eventually, if you're a human who does anything with your hands, and didn't sit around with "dragon lady" nails your whole day, not even able to wipe your own bottom, your nails would break off.

A feline's claws have evolved to be more robust. Capturing and holding prey, the ability to climb and escape danger as well as hunt, and defend ones self are required if the cat is going to live to maturity. So feline nails grow & retract in a curved manner, that allows them to have the nail "out" when it is needed, and "withdrawn" when it is not needed. Our older cat learned many years ago to not walk on bare human thighs when they are sitting on the couch, as her claws would dig into bare skin if you're wearing shorts. She only walks on laps and DEMANDS to be petted when one is wearing pants, jeans, sweats, etc. Jeans are her favorite, as she can get a sturdy grip on a human's thighs in denim without stabbing or raking their skin.

Far worse than what we encountered.

So last Thursday night, I was wearing jeans, for the first time in many months (typically in shorts, every day here in Arizona), and the older cat decided "time for you to pet me" when I sat on the couch to watch Big Bang Theory. She hopped up on my lap, and wobbled a little bit. Some of her claws dug in more than others, and she exhibited relatively little grace or stability compared to what she'd always been capable of balancing previously. Dr Desert Flower and I investigated her paws. To our surprise, 2 claws on each foot were CIRCULAR! They were no long "claw shaped" and instead, were completely rounded and had begun to dig into her foot's "pad". where she normally walks. We were surprised, shocked, and somewhat horrified that we'd neglected our pet for so long, since it was last November near Thanksgiving that we had last trimmed her claws. Since that time, she'd pretty much lost all interest in scratching posts, and had neglected her nails.

Our feline nail trimmer was the "guillotine" type, were you put the sharp hook inside and the trimmer CHOPS it off in a guillotine like manner. This was completely useless for the circular nails, since they were growing INTO the pad and there was no "hook" to grasp or insert into the guillotine. We considered using human nial clippers, but by this time, the cat's tolerance of having her paws examined by humans was up and she was getting feisty and bitey. I called the vet and made an appointment for her on Monday (they were booked for Friday & Saturday), and fretted about these ingrown nails the rest of the day. On Saturday, Dr Desert Flower dosed out pet with some kitty valium, and an hour later the cat lost all feline resistance, even the ability to hold her head up straight... and we began the process of trying to extract and trim her nails the best that two non-trained vets could - though an experienced engineer and a DR of biology, we could have been much worse off.

I wore gauntlet gloves that have been designated as "Dad's cat gloves" for the last 15 years or so, both to limit the allergen exposure, and the bite possibilities. The cat put up very little resistance. Using human open ended nail clippers, DDF was able to shear off the nails safely, and not injure the the cat's pad or the living growth area of the "meat" or the cat's claw. The fourth extracted nail can be seen on my leg in the above photo.

3 of the 4 extracted claws that had over-grown and were starting to stick into her foot pad.

A very small amount of blood from just one of the 4 ingrown claws came out of the pad. We considered trying to disinfect it (with alcohol or antibiotic cream) but knowing how painful putting alcohol on an open wound is for humans, and how much it would have smelled to a cat, and how often a cat licks its paws and claws normally, we decided against putting any kind of sterilization or antibiotic creams on the paw. DDF checked it several times throughout the day and the rest of the weekend, and it stopped bleeding in less than an hour, and has returned to "normal" by Monday. Keep in mind also, that house cats have enzymes in their saliva that act like antibiotics, killing bacteria. Our son, in 3rd grade, did an awesome science experiment that showed the agar plates swabbed in the cat's mouth were 100X cleaner than the human's or a dog's mouth - but he lost to a stupid volcano project, probably because his project was So Awesome, it was above the comprehension of the inadequate Indiana primary school judges and they figured DDF perhaps did it all for him (which she didn't!).

I've since marked my Outlook calendar to remind me to trim the cat's claws each week, and I spent an hour grooming the cat and generating a box of hair on Sunday afternoon before settling down to watch an awesome football game on DVR. On Monday morning, I called and canceled the vet appointment, since DDF and I were able to carefully re-mediate the issue, and saved a $100 (or more) vet bill.

An Open Internet? Not For Long.

2012-01-17T11:58:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, when Wikipedia goes dark, and thousands of non-US based websites will begin to be tracked by your internet service provider (ISP) because they don't want to be held 'liable' or 'aiding & abetting' in the newest attempt by Hollywood and well connected US political elites who are Extremely well funded by the US Chamber of Commerce, large movie studios, and other so called "content providers" who want to isolate the US as some imaginary bastion of "non piracy", don't hesitate to call your congressman and senators to express your disdain about how congress (and the EU) want to limit internet access, and eventually, block your tweets, block blog postings, and "clamp down" on any internet access with which "content providers" do not agree.

Harry Reid said that the Senate will vote on this the 2nd day they are back in session, January 24th. Great. Watch the beholden-to-special-interests vote for it without hesitation.

Minus 17 At Lambeau Field!

2012-01-15T18:12:00.000-07:00

The Giants proved today, that Aaron Rodgers & the Greenbay Packers are not Unbeatable. 37-20! What a nice birthday present! Very unexpected!

Perhaps it will be a Harbaugh vs Harbaugh superbowl?

Not a Canadian, But...

2012-01-14T17:17:00.000-07:00

I'm not Canadian, but I know lots of very nice Canadians, and relatively few Canadian assholes. I'm sure Canada has its fair share, but in the US they're easier to spot, and they're very vocal. So when I saw this apology about Harper, it made me feel good that not only my country elected a moron in W, twice, in the last 12 years, but Canada has elected their own train wreck as well. Hopefully they can pull their nose up out of the dive they're taking, or at least level off if they can't get back to the same nice cruising altitude they used to fly.

Red October Over Christmas

2012-01-13T14:38:00.000-07:00

While our son was visiting at Christmas, he stated he'd never seen The Hunt For Red October, which I'd been quoting to him most of his life. So Dr Desert Flower downloaded it for $5 from Amazon, and we watched this classic together one night. It's one of my favorite movies of all time, well written, well acted, with a plot that makes you think and keeps you guessing. Connery as a Russian Submarine Captain (with a Scottish Accent) was initially hard to believe, but as my friend Knucklesplitter is found of saying, in a perfect Connery accent: "how many dragons do you know?"

Some of the choice HFRO quotes are below:

Jack Ryan: I can never sleep on a plane. Turbulence.
Flight Attendant: Pardon?
Jack Ryan: Turbulence. Solar radiation heats the Earth's crust, warm air rises, cold air descends - turbulence. I, I don't like that.

Capt. Vasili Borodin: I will live in Montana. And I will marry a round American woman and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pickup truck... maybe even a "recreational vehicle." And drive from state to state. Do they let you do that?
Captain Ramius: I suppose.
Capt. Vasili Borodin: No papers?
Captain Ramius: No papers, state to state.
Capt. Vasili Borodin: Well then, in winter I will live in... Arizona. Actually, I think I will need two wives.

Adm. Painter: What's his plan?
Jack Ryan: His plan?
Adm. Painter: Russians don't take a dump, son, without a plan.

Capt. Bart Mancuso: That's all right, Mr Ryan. My Morse is so rusty, I could be sending him dimensions on Playmate of the Month.

Captain Ramius: What books did you write?
Jack Ryan: I wrote a biography of, of Admiral Halsey, called "The Fighting Sailor", about, uh, naval combat tactics...
Captain Ramius: I know this book!
Capt. Vasili Borodin: Torpedo impact...
Captain Ramius: Your conclusions were all wrong, Ryan...
Capt. Vasili Borodin: ...10 seconds.
Captain Ramius: ...Halsey acted stupidly.

Captain Ramius: When he reached the New World, Cortez burned his ships. As a result his men were well motivated.

Captain Ramius: Re-verify our range to target... one ping only.
Capt. Vasili Borodin: Captain, I - I - I just...
Captain Ramius: Give me a ping, Vasili. One ping only, please.
Capt. Vasili Borodin: Aye, Captain.

Captain Ramius: We must give this American a wide berth.

Capt. Vasili Borodin: I would like to have seen Montana.

Captain Ramius: Right now, Captain Tupolev is removing the safety features on all his weapons. He won't make the same mistake twice.

Capt. Bart Mancuso: Combat tactics, Mr. Ryan. By turning into the torpedo, the captain closed the distance before it could arm itself.

Andrei Bonovia: You arrogant ass. You've killed *us*!

Superhero Math

2012-01-13T14:21:00.002-07:00

Rapists & Murderers Love Their Barbour

2012-01-13T13:02:00.002-07:00

Barbour Approximation

Convicted Rapists and Murderers in Mississippi really love their Barbour. Haley Barbour, former Mississippi Governor and RNC Chairman pardoned an unprecedented 193 convicted criminals this week on his last day in office. (link here). These aren't "suspected" criminals, these are "convicted" criminals... of course... they were convicted in Mississippi by Mississippian peers, so it's really none of my business. I am just glad I don't live there.

Well I say, I say, I must say, that's enough to give someone the vapors! Oh Brother, where art thou? Fully pardoned now, thank you guvna!

And what is it about RNC chairmen? Foghorn Barbour. Closeted crossroads Mehlman. Mr."Fat Blue" Johnson muppet Steele. They sure pick some real characters.

Colbert Super PAC Transferred To Jon Stewart

2012-01-13T10:53:00.000-07:00

Last night, Colbert's show (link here) VERY SIMPLY explained how evil, ludicrous, despicable, wealth-concentrating, and wrong the Citizen's United SCOTUS decision was that opened the flood gates of the richest 0.1% of the richest 1% of Americans funding political campaigns, and how those completely non-transparent Super PACs can be run by ex-staffers, business partners, or relatives of candidates, as long as they don't "coordinate". Ridiculous!

Colbert's lampooning of the entire Super PAC process has been spot-on, precise, poignant in peeling back the onion and explaining it, so that "even a 5th grader could understand."

I alternated between laughing hysterically, being disgusted by how simple the transfer of unlimited wealth was with a wink-wink, and back again to uproarious laughter (it's good we don't rent, so I didn't scare the neighbors).

Somewhat of a Collector - 62K

2012-01-12T16:24:00.000-07:00

Since it's birth in 2008, JustJoeP has drawn 62 thousand visitors (around 120 a day now) from nearly every country on the globe. I'm not going to get North Korea, but there's 2 South American, 4 Central Asian, 21 African, one Northern European Island archipelago and Greenland that have not visited yet. I'm going to see if I can "plant the seeds" of interest to these non-visitors by doing a Colbert-esque "Better know a ____" Country focus on Guyana, Suriname, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Greenland, Svalbard (Spitsbergen & Nordaustlandet) and the 20 African nations, here and there in 2012 before reaching JustJoeP's 4th anniversary in June.

HOPE You Don't Get Indefinitely Detained

2012-01-12T16:04:00.000-07:00

So the Obama Administration won't enforce it. Ok... you can bet your life (and your liberty and any pursuit of happiness) that a Republican Administration certainly will enforce the newest Defense Re-authorization law that walks all over the constitution, with glee.

Ritchie, Downey & Law Do Not Disappoint Again

2012-01-12T15:58:00.001-07:00

Two years ago, Guy Ritichie brought movie goers his first Sherlock Holmes movie. (link here) Dr Desert Flower and I watched it on Netflix about 6 months after it came out in the theaters, and enjoyed it a great deal. Having it on DVD made it easy to "go back" and "rewind" in the rapid dialogue, complex & richly detailed scenes, and "absorb" the various aspects that Holmes (played wonderfully by Robert Downey Jr) observed in the most nonchalant manner, as easily and simply as breathing or walking. It was a fast paced, turbulent rush of a film, and it made the movie-goer THINK. We enjoyed it.

Ritchie's second rendition, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, was not a disappointment. Over the Christmas holiday while our son was here, we went as a family to a matinee and found the theater to be 80% full. While the slow motion scenes (as show above) were somewhat superfluous - special effects for special effects sake - Ritchie kept the same pace, intensity, and detail as he had in Game of Shadows. It made me wish I had it on DVR or DVD so I could go back and "rewind" it again.

I'd read that originally they wanted to cast Jude Law as Holmes and not Watson. Very glad that they didn't make that mistake. Downey is ideal for the part, and for the majority of the film is "playing himself" which always lends to believability.

WX Imports NOT Grey Goose Makes Kirkland Vodka

2012-01-12T15:44:00.000-07:00

The interwebs are a great thing. Many people think Grey Goose makes Kirkland Vodka, because the size of the bottle is similar, Costco displays them next to each other, they are both made in Cognac France, and they are both delicious, high quality vodkas. But the Grey Goose liaison is a common misconception. WX Imports (link here) manufactures vodka for Costco under the Kirkland brand name. Now, is it possible that WX Imports buys some vodka from Grey Goose and rebrands / rebottles it as Kirkland? That's possible. Grey Goose might not want to "taint" its reputation with making a discount branded vodka, but to my palate, my cranium, and my liver, it doesn't matter. Costco vodka has never given me a hangover. It's quality stuff.

A Black McRussian

2012-01-12T15:27:00.000-07:00

I invented a new drink to have as a nice-time "sure to put you asleep" cocktail this week (while watching The Daily Show and Colbert Report on DVR, home alone, of course).

1 Large 12 ounce glass
6 ounces of large ice cubes
Costco Vodka (made by Grey Goose, I think)
Kahlua
Baileys
1 spoon or butter knife

Fill the large glass 1/2 to 2/3rds full of ice.
Cover the ice with ample amounts of Vodka, until they are submerged.
Put one or two shots of Kahlua, to taste
Splash 1 ounce or less, of Baileys on top (you could use Milk, but I had Baileys available in the fridge)
Stir vigorously with teaspoon or butter knife, until the ice cubes are melted to approximately 1/2 their original size, and floating freely in the dark tan mixture.

Take an hour to sip it - using a straw is not recommended, unless it is a very small diameter straw - and fall asleep thereafter. Do not drive or operate heavy machinery after you've begun sipping this delicious concoction.

Colbert Report Gold, Jan 9th

2012-01-12T15:08:00.000-07:00

Following TDS's awesome January 9th show, the Colbert Report writers did a superb job in their own right (link here). Below, are some of the choice quotes that stuck out in my mind:

Axe Body Spray has a product for women. I am guessing it is mace"

"Star Freckled" .. which changed the next day to "Uptrodden"

Dixville Notch

Fiddler's Cyst

Tinkler's Sack

"More wasted than a donation to the Huntsman campaign"

"Hair of the elephant, who bit 'cha"

"The speed of light. Not figuratively, Literally" R.Perry

"Iran has developed the warp drive!"

"Mormons are milk fed"

"New Hampshire has been sixty-nining Vermont!"

"The charisma of igneous rock"

"Be gone! ye devil's scrotum!"

"A Rod Choketh"

"Slave tail"

Magna Carta Quote: " If a man dies owing money to the Jews his wife may have her dower and pay nothing towards the debt from it" - won't go over well in Florida.

"Let our long bowmen go!"

"Keep the Parthinians from acquiring pachyderm technology."

"carathard de lendi est!"

Hammurabi: Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Both vision and dental.

Hot & Heavy & strictly missionary.

Blagovich people.

Bladder infection people. Cranberry juice teat.

Blackula people.

It can be tough and a little nauseating.

I did not stay up for the guest, as it was past my "wake up at 5am bed time" and Dr Desert Flower was still working in the lab past 10:30pm, so I crashed.

Daily Show's Gems This Week, Jan 9th

2012-01-12T12:38:00.000-07:00

The Daily Show has been ON FIRE this week, with one amazing show after another, but Monday's, Jan 9th, was particularly poignant and hilarious. (link here) Choice / memorable quotes are below.

Pious Bologna

Two Debates, One GOP

Watching Real Housewives...

Scarlet Johansen, why so grainy?

As my father told me: "Only run for office if you are rich"

"Assets not exceeding liabilities by a ratio of 30:1, not including foreign indemnities, oh dad!"

"I was happy that he had to take out a mortgage on his house to ultimately defeat me"
- "What a weird rich guy thing to brag about"

"Did I tell you about the time at auction, that I bested Richard Branson, bidding on a gold plated Dirigible, that I did not even want???"

Republicans Unite People!

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Wealthy

"No place for the politics of resentment"

"If Gov Romney would like to give back all of the money he's made from laying off employees & bankrupting companies at Bain Capital" - N.Gingrich

"Welcome Comrades"

"Oh, it's not fair! He's using unlimited money to buy influence. Interesting...."

"Oh right, it's your platform!"

"Corporations are people my friend"

"It's like Mitt Romney answered the Republican eHarmony ad and now you're saying it is unfair, it's not what you meant. Mitt Romney is the pure distillation of Republican Policies"

Release the Kraken!

"It's a very scary Kraken... don't you have like a mini-Kraken?"

Guest was George Lucas who was on to promote Red Tails, which he said took him 23 years to get made, and no movie production company or distributor was interested in it, so he did it himself. When he started, he was working with 40 Tuskegee Airmen, and now, there's only 7 remaining alive. "It's as close as you'll ever get to Episode 7". Dr Desert Flower and I will probably go see it, to support George Lucas' effort - if it has a good opening weekend (January 20th) then he said there's a pre-quel and a sequel in the works.

Mind Your Doggy Please

2012-01-12T07:57:00.000-07:00

Not that sacrificing to Satan, Jupiter, Zeus, Kali, the God of Abraham (Yahweh, or No Way?), or any other believed deity would have a substantial impact, it's the paradigm that amuses me here.

Good Luck Jonathan With Your New Nigerian Civil War

2012-01-11T14:44:00.000-07:00

Nigeria, where it's estimated that there's as much oil under the ground as Iraq or Iran have, is quickly spiraling into a Muslim-Christian civil war. 1000s of people are fleeing their homes to escape the religiously motivated genocidal killings. Muslims insurgents are claiming that Christian insurgents killed and then ate (as in cannibals, link here) the Muslim corpses. Goodluck Jonathan, the "popularly elected" president (but a well connected crony in his own right), cut off government fuel subsidy payments last week to the country's rich plutocrat run gasoline companies who have gone on to pass massive price hikes onto consumers or shut down their gas stations altogether, bringing the economy to a halt, costing 2 Billion dollars in just the last week.(link here)

It will be interesting to see how the White House and State Department handles this, since a HUGE amount of Nigerian oil and natural gas flows to the Oil addicted USA. If we had President McCain or President Palin in office, I would NOT be surprised to see US air strikes against the "Muslim rebels" or US Special Forces getting engaged on the ground as manipulated tools of the Goodluck Jonathan central government.

We shall see.

Expect to pay more for your chocolate too. Nigeria produces 1/4 of the world's cacao.

Mass Transfer

2012-01-11T08:57:00.000-07:00

In just 21 years...

Que Eres Un Perdedor

2012-01-11T08:43:00.000-07:00

So "reasonable" Republican voters in "Live Free or Die" New Hampshire, who are characteristically NOT fundamentalists, picked a corporate raider & liberal ex-governor as their first choice, a libertarian purist as their second choice, and a Billionaire's son who was also a conservative state's governor & former ambassador to our Chinese bankers. I am on the record that Huntsman is the only Republican candidate who has a significant chance of independent voters picking over Obama... but hardcore Republican New Hampshire voters don't think so.

"I’m a driver, I’m a winner; things are gonna change I can feel it". Beck keeps running through my head this morning.

NH? Not really, Nah.

2012-01-10T18:54:00.000-07:00

The Microcosm known as New Hampshire is voting in a Republican primary today. It doesn't really matter in the big picture, because the sparely populated and nearly homogeneously white New Hampshire is not representative of the rest of the US.

White people need to understand that their racial majority in the US is shrinking and get over it, learn a foreign language (Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, or French are recommended, to speak with the USA's neighbor's and land lords / owners), and treat others as they wish to be treated. Maybe in 2 or 3 generations, the discrimination and abuses of the past will have a lesser impact when the Hispanic population begins to dominate the geo-politics and power shift in the US.

I'm Not Joe Paz on Twitter

2012-01-09T19:50:00.000-07:00

I googled JustJoeP last weekend, and I found there's a guy named "Joe Paz" who is on the twitter. While Joe Paz does look a great deal like my little brother with a much darker tan (similar smile and facial hair), he is not related at all to me, JustJoeP. So if you've subscribed to a twitter feed " @JustJoeP " who's byline is "I'm just me no more no less and I make no excuses." ... it is not me, Just JoeP. Different guy all together. Just as the musician in Austin (just joe p) is not a relation either, nor are the thousands (or millions?) of Danes, Dutch, and Norsemen named "Joep".

Outrageous!

2012-01-09T16:11:00.000-07:00

And dontcha know that the military creates jobs!?!?!?!?!!? (Yes, just ask Egypt!)

Republican Primaries Summary

2012-01-09T07:20:00.000-07:00

It's not just the 2012 election cycle. It's pretty universal, across cultures and centuries.

On Bootstraps

2012-01-09T07:16:00.000-07:00

“It’s alright to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.
(On January 11, 1968 Dr Martin Luther King, Jr spoke at Ohio Northern University)

Eh, Cowgirls Steakhouse

2012-01-07T09:46:00.000-07:00

Back in the Spring of 2010 I lamented about how lack-luster Tagliani's Avondale restaurant was, when I ordered "meatballs" and got one golf ball sized "meatball" on a plate of pasta. About 2 months later, Tagliani's closed their poorly performing Avondale location, and it remained vacant for over a year. A new establishment took up roots there a few months ago Cowgirls Steakhouse and Saloon. I drove past it before Christmas, and made a mental note "we should try that place sometime."

So last night, when Dr Desert Flower got home at nearly 8pm, and we were both hungry, I recommended not going to down town Phoenix as this is "First Friday" and the Gayborhood in Central Phoenix where we would normally enjoy eating would be jam packed with hour+ wait times and throngs of artsy people. I recalled Cowgirls and we headed West to Dysart Road in Avondale. When we arrived, the parking lot was PACKED, and the bar and restaurant were full or customers, but there was no wait. The friendly hostess asked us if a "booth is ok?" (DDF always prefers a booth anyways, as most wives do) and seated us with the proviso of "we're out of silverware right now, but I'll bring you some in a minute, we've really been slammed with the dinner rush. George will be your server". We perused our menus, and listened to the cover band duo singing ZZ Top. 5 minutes later, George arrived to take our drink orders. The "Uno" Argentinian Malbec for me, and a Absolute Mandarin Orange Vodka & Soda for the good Doctor. 5 minutes later, George returns to tell us the bar only has "3 Olives" and not Absolute. DDF acquiesces and another 5 minutes pass as we hungrily waited for drinks to arrive, and heard both kinds of music, Country AND Western.

From the oxidized harshness on the palate, I'd say the "Uno" was probably opened sometime in late 2011, but it was a Saloon, so I should have expected that. I just didn't want a beer & the associated carbs. DDF ordered the signature house entree mushroom chicken (menu here) and I got a 12 ounce (not the bigger 16 oz) Prime Rib, medium rare, a bowl of special house chili and "flat iron grilled vegetables" as sides. Expectations were set low, with the slight chance of being delighted and surprised, despite the rocky start so far.

The chili arrived in a small coffee cup, with a dirty spoon. Since our booth was adjacent to the restrooms and the server's station, it was easy to flag down a passing waitress who brought a clean (or at least it appeared cleaner) spoon. Chili was nothing to rave about. No kick to it whatsoever, which was surprising for a "Saloon". It was not bad, but DDF and DDF's mother make a MUCH better ones. As I finished the chili, the main courses arrived - but of course, we still have no silverware, so we get to watch them cool before our eyes. The prime rib was cooked rare, not medium rare, which is fine if I was cooking it myself and it was a double check ranch grass fed steak... but I wanted it cooked more thoroughly since I did not know from which industrial meat factory the beef had been sourced. As I used to work in food service in High School and College, I am familiar with how well the kitchen often takes return orders, and the things they do to the food that's been sent back, so I decided against sending the under cooked steak back and risking food poisoning instead.

5 minutes later, George did arrive with silverware, so we could begin to eat our now room temperature meal. The prime rib (served only on Friday, Saturday & Sunday, ohhhhh!) on my plate was about 20 pure fat. This was not marbled in fat, this was in 2 large peripheral chunks of fat, now cold, at the ends of the steak. It was tender & juicy, sure, but it was not an AWESOME steak, sorry. The vegetables, if they were "flat iron grilled", must have been the wettest flat iron in the universe, because the baby carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower were dripping wet from the pot in which they were boiled together before being plunked down next to my steak. Perhaps the kitchen placed the vegetable boiling pot ON a flat iron grill to heat it? I don't know. DDF could not (or did not want to) finish her second chicken breast, so I had a taste. It was flat, bland, and covered in a tan substance that was reminiscent of Sysco Systems Cafeteria Grade industrial canned brown sauce. Oh well. She said her baked potato was edible, and we had no shortage of sour cream at the table.

George brought us our bill and offered to us to fill out a comment card that would be worth a "free appetizer" on our next visit. DDF said "I don't want to give out my email address again" ... and since we won't be going back, we'll forgo the free appetizer. Just before we got up to leave, the hostess came by to offer us silverware... um.. ok, but no thanks, we've finished eating. As we exited the establishment, we noticed the Saloon was still very full, but the restaurant area was 1/3 full at most, the dinner crowd having dispersed. From a quantity stand point, Cowgirls did MUCH better than Tagliani's had, but from a quality stand point (both on food and on customer service) we were more than a little disappointed.

Raise The Steaks

2012-01-07T08:58:00.000-07:00

While our son was visiting last month, he mentioned a hilarious King of the Hill episode he saw called Raise The Steaks, in which Hank Hill can no longer get delicious steaks from Mega-Lo Mart because they outsourced their butcher and everything comes pre-packaged, tough, and tasteless. A hippie from the local Co-op tells Hank he can score him some grass fed, free range, humanely raised meat & organic vegetables, and thus the plot begins. Our resourceful son found Raise The Steaks, season 12, episode 6, on Netflix and we watched it one afternoon after a hike with roaring laughter. Links here, here, and full episode here.

Some of the choicest quotes from the episode:
[at Mega-Lo Mart meat counter]
Hank Hill: "I bought some steaks here last week that were terrible"
Mega-Lo Mart Teenage Clerk: "Maybe you cooked them wrong"
Hank Hill: "You don't know me, so I will pretend I did not hear that"

[at the Hill's dinner table]
Bobby Hill: "These tomatoes are delicious!"
Hank Hill: "Bobby, you know tomatoes don't have any flavor" (then Hank takes a bite...)
Peggy Hill: "Hank, if this is what real food tastes like, what have we been eating all these years?!?"

[at the Co-Op]
Co-Op Member: "Does anyone here know how to run a hydraulic power loader? The delivery truck is here!"
Hank Hill: "You're kidding, right?"

It's an excellent, tightly packaged synopsis & summary of corporate greed, hippie inefficiency and frivolity, neighbor annoyance, and how broken the American food supply chain really is when a citizen is looking for delicious, nutritious, healthy & sustainable food to serve their friends and family.

Inexpensive Organic Spinach Drives Salad Making

2012-01-06T19:34:00.000-07:00

Costco sells huge tubs of organic baby spinach for just $4. Sometimes we eat the whole container before it goes bad. Sometimes about 1/2 of it becomes dark and soggy by the time we get towards the bottom of the tub.. and if we're in the mood for a quiche or some kind of cooked baby spinach, that's all well and good, but otherwise we just toss it out, and at $4 a giant tub, I don't feel bad about it. It's healthy, low calorie, and tastes good too.

So this week, for several lunches and dinners, I've been voraciously consuming organic baby spinach, with a dash of organic vinaigrette from Organicville, sprinkling of organic portabello mushrooms, delicious Gruyere Swiss from Trader Joe's, and the ubiquitous Kirkland bacon bits. Tasty, satisfying, and healthy. It's a good habit to have.

If you like baby spinach, you should try the massive tubs from Costo.

USS Stennis Fighting Pirates For Iran

2012-01-06T14:17:00.000-07:00

This news story is too funny, and writes itself. The US Navy reported that they rescued and freed 13 Iranian fishermen who were being held hostage by pirates in the Arabian Sea yesterday. The USS Stennis carrier group that rescued the Iranians is the SAME carrier group that big bad Ataollah Salehi, the Iranian Army Chief, warned “We recommend and emphasize to the American carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf.” (link here).

Maybe it was not so much a threat by Iran, as it was a veiled plea for help in fighting piracy in the Arabian Sea? LOL! Since the Iranian sailors were being held for just 40 or so days before the US Navy (not the Iranian Navy) found and rescued them.

Did the US Navy throw the Iranians in prison, or demand "payment" for them from the Iranian government? No, they fed them, and gave them medical attention after rescuing them. How terrible!!!

Dodge Caravan Illegal Clown Car Stopped Today

2012-01-06T12:51:00.000-07:00

A DPS (State Trooper, for those of you outside of Arizona) office was driving along I-10 south of Phoenix this morning around 6am when he noticed a Dodge Caravan missing a bumper. He ran the plate, and found that the mini van was stolen. As he began to pull over the mini van, another car cut him off, and bumped his police cruiser. The professional officer followed the mini van off the freeway into Chandler AZ and called for backup.

He stopped the mini van, and other DPS officers stopped the car that cut off the first officer. What did they find? According to links here, here, here, and here, the stolen Dodge Caravan was driven by a woman who is a legal US resident who lives near Phoenix. In her mini van were stuffed 23 people, all of whom are suspected of being illegal immigrants. Seriously, 23 people? I've stuffed 14 Spaniards (from Madrid) into a Ford Excursion, and it was a tight fit, but we only had a 3 hour drive to Atlanta. An Excursion is MUCH bigger than a Caravan. They must have been stacked like cord wood in that mini van. The driver of the car that bumped the first officer, was the son of the mini van driver, according to DPS. They had the same address on their drivers licenses.

First of all senor, you're not in Mexico, where bumping a police officer might work sometimes. You bump a police officer in Arizona, and you're going to jail for assault on a law enforcement officer, or attempted murder charges... depending on how badly you bump them. Second of all senora & senor, if you're going to try to smuggle human beings, do it in a vehicle that is not stolen, and don't be so greedy! 23 people? Really? Are you really THAT stupid? If you'd have used a legal vehicle that was not stolen, and not over-loaded, and was not missing a bumper, you would have already reached the end point of your human cargo's predetermined (and pre-paid) smuggling voyage.

And no, Sheriff Joe's boys didn't make this stop. This was DPS that initiated the contact with the suspects. It was dark at 6am. It was not racial profiling. It was stupidity profiling.

Thinking Is So Hard

2012-01-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

Silly Brandeis

2012-01-04T20:38:00.001-07:00

The very Conservative, Partisan Roberts court ruled in "Citizens United" that you are very very wrong. We have a nominal democracy in which the voters are herded, driven, flooded with ads paid for by the richest 0.01% of the 1%.

Price of Apathy

2012-01-04T14:38:00.000-07:00

I work with a guy who proudly says "I've never voted, it doesn't matter. They're all just a bunch of extreme politicians who will say anything to get elected." It is hard to disagree with this mindset, given the state of local, national, and international politics today... but I really do not want the prices fixed for me and my family & friends entirely by evil men.

Hilariously Lost

2012-01-04T14:29:00.000-07:00

I want to post one of these on a public pole so badly... but there's very few wooden utility poles in my part of Phoenix. (everything's underground, or metallic).

Unappreciated Spiders 9

2012-01-04T14:27:00.000-07:00

This is the last one, for now...

30mm Chain Gun With A Trigger Happy Gunner

2012-01-03T21:08:00.001-07:00

Ever wonder why the Iraqi's couldn't get out out of their country faster, and wanted no pomp or ceremony with our flag lowering and departure? The video below is but one instance of 100s, or thousands of similar incidents, that occurred during the wasted, horrific, unjustified years American soldiers spent in Iraq. French and Arabic Journalists are killed and quoted in this video, children are severely wounded, bystanders gunned down by enthusiastically blood thirsty Apache pilots. It is not fit to show small children, but if you have kids nearing draft age, and they like video games, it might have a sobering effect.

12 million hits on youtube.

About 15 years ago, when I was on I-65 crossing from Indiana into Kentucky, I got stuck in a traffic jam on Labor Day weekend. A Air National Guard Apache helicopter squadron was doing an airshow on the Louisville water front, and three of the helicopters hovered near the bridge. As I inched forward in traffic, I looked out my westward facing passenger window to see the gun turret that is suspended under the nose of the helicopter swiveling towards the bridge, and my Honda Civic - tied electronically to the gunner's helmet & eye piece. Where the gunner looks, the 30 mm cannon points... it put a deep knot in my throat. I kept saying to myself "we're not at war, their guns aren't loaded". Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen and driver Saeed Chmagh were not as lucky as I was.

Impressive Aegis Antimicrobial Shield

2012-01-03T19:10:00.000-07:00

I've recently seen (and smelled) the impressive Aegis Antimicrobial Shield that is being widely applied to socks and shoes. The Merrell Moabs that Nathan Jr and I got before the Grand Canyon has Aegis applied, as do the hiking socks we bought at the outdoors & sporting goods store. By itself, Aegis has no smell, and is odorless. The literature says it is "permanent" and works "indefinitely" to kill bacteria that comes in contact with it. As a practical engineer, I am often skeptical of product marketing statements that say "always", "never", "permanent" and "indefinitely", but Nathan Jr enthusiastically attests that his formerly rank smelling feet and shoes were "deodorized" by repeatedly wearing socks that had Aegis Antimicrobial Shield applied to them that he got last Christmas from us. Having previously been repulsed by the stench of my son's Charlestonian (wet, humid, often beach flavored) footwear and feet when he lived with us in High School and would come to visit during college, I was justifiable impressed. I bought some socks with it applied as well today, and hope to abolish foot odor in my home in 2012.

Looking at the Aegis website, it explains some basic chemistry to claim how benign Aegis is to the wearer, in contrast to how effectively deadly it is to the bacteria who cannot tolerate it. Covalent bonds, positively charged nitrogen, and long "spiked" molecular chains are what do the trick (link here). We'll see how many washings it really does last. 3-trimethoxy silyl propyl dimethyl octadecyl ammonium chloride ... hmmmm. We'll see.

1st Five Guys

2012-01-03T18:50:00.000-07:00

After our Vulture Peak Hike last Thursday, Nathan Jr and I stopped in Surprise AZ at the new Five Guys hamburger restaurant that opened up there several months ago. We'd heard rave reviews, and while my son had tried Five Guys at the Washington Airport on a layover a few years ago, I'd not sampled this famous food that I'd previously heard so much about.

We arrived at Late Late lunch, nearly 3pm, usually a lull point in most hamburger joints. There were only 2 people in line ahead of us. Copious peanut containers were available, if we wanted to deshell our own peanuts, but we chose not to. We'd heard the "fries are amazing!" but they're also coated in peanut oil and laden with superfluous carbs. Since a "single serving" is about 1 gallon of fries, we opted to just get bacon double cheeseburgers, and drink our left-over hiking water out on the veranda. Total wallet damage was $15.23 (or $6.89/burger + draconian & regressive AZ sales tax). The cook your burger and make it to order as you wait, to your specifications, so there's no burgers "under heat lamps". I had them put lettuce, pickles, and mushrooms on my burger. Nathan Jr had lettuce, tomato, mushrooms, jalapenos and green peppers. They'll put however number of toppings you want on your burger, no questions or arguments. If you want 4 slices of cheese, they'll slab on 4 slices of yellow "American Cheese". You want triple jalapenos? triple jalapenos it shall be.

While this is an interesting and alluring aspect that "goes beyond" the "special orders don't upset us" motto of Burger King, most Americans apparently have no editing mechanism, and go "hog wild" on multiple extra toppings at Five Guys. While eating adjacent to the parking lot, we were witness to a 1/2 dozen SUVs ooze out their baleen-like (baleen is French for "whale") denizens. Normal sized teenage girls, with middle aged +180 lbs mom, and +200 lbs grandma with a knee brace, massively bulging cankles, four pointed cane, and severe physical exertion to struggle the 30 feet from SUV parking space to Five Guys door, which she barely fit through. Young teenagers... your genetic future awaits you, predictably. My son and I were - by visual evidence - the lowest body fat percentage humans in the whole place, which probably had about 80 people in it by the time we left.

I enjoyed my burger, but there was no forks or knives available with which to eat the cheesy, bacon-y, mushroom-y contents and discard the buns, so I ate about 1/2 the top and bottom buns, and all the juicy goodness in-between. I watched customer after customer get massive bags of fries refilled (free refills, I've been told), and most large customers gorged on peanuts while they waited the 5 to 8 minutes it took the 4 cooks to rapidly grill and make their made-to-order burgers. Nathan Jr enjoyed his as well, and agreed that it 'hit the spot' after a long hike and climb, as a late lunch. If I go back to Five Guys, I'll take my own knife & fork, and try not to focus on the morbidly obese fellow customers shuffling, zombie like, all around me.

Football Season Is Over For Me

2012-01-03T15:07:00.000-07:00

Da Chicago Bears had a lack-luster 2011 season, rife with injuries, where they struggled against mediocre teams, and were obliterated by highly skilled teams. For me, the NFL football season is done. I hear that there's still some play-off games coming, and some kind of media extravaganza in early February in Frozen Indianapolis.... but I don't have details.

I will be halfheartedly cheering - in futility, most likely - for the underdogs: Cincinnati, Detroit, and Atlanta. If / when that proves futile, later in January I'll be rooting for San Francisco, New York, and Baltimore... but it will probably be the Packers (of Fudge) against New England, with Aaron Rodgers showing that he leads an unbeatable juggernaut, again. Oh well. At least Da Bears might get a good draft pick?

Unappreciated Spiders 8

2012-01-03T14:59:00.000-07:00

Vulture Peak Hike & Climb

2012-01-02T11:16:00.001-07:00

Vulture Peak as viewed from the parking lot.


The 940 foot ascent to the saddle gets steeper.

So last Thursday, we planned to drive 43 miles outside of Phoenix to Wickenberg to the Vulture Peak Trail. Vulture Peak is actually 7 miles South of Wickenberg, wonderfully remote. We never would have known about it if not for Mahtab's "60 hikes within 60 miles of Phoenix" book. Nathan Jr and I were to meet Mahtab at 10am at the tail head's gravel parking lot. There were 4 other cars, and we saw 9 other people the whole hike, over the next 4 hours.

Vulture Peak starts off deceivingly slow and gradual, as the trail meanders through washes and very gradual inclines with no shortage of weaponized "teddy bear" cholla fields.. After a mile and a 1/2, the trail reaches the foot hills and climbs steeply to the saddle crest between the peaks. Upon reaching the saddle, the "maintained trail" ends, and you get to blaze your own path up narrow crevices and sheer rock faces to reach the summit.

Chartreuse lichens thrived at the summit

Nathan Jr scampered up to the summit well ahead of Mahtab & I. We consumed the apricots, almonds, and more than 1/2 our water. The trekking poles were a serious encumbrance when scrambling over massive rocks. Nathan Jr secured my old walking staff "Donatello Style" into the back of his camelback.

At the peak there were USGS markers, and an old ammo box with pens and notebooks. We each wrote our names and dates in the books and put them back in the ammo container.

Nathan Jr said "this is what I wanted to do the whole trip!". Mahtab said it was the most fun hike & climb she'd ever been on. I thought it was great. Highly recommended for anyone looking for a challenging trail that is sparsely populated, and that provides beautiful 360 degree views at the summit.

At the summit, looking NE (the White Tank Mountains are out of frame to the right).

Nathan Jr scrambled up the the secondary peak, and snapped this photo of me, 240 feet below. The primary peak, that we had just climbed, is behind me.

Crowded Pinnacle Peak

2012-01-02T10:48:00.000-07:00

Last week while Nathan Jr was still here, we went on 2 hikes as a follow up to the pre-Christmas Grand Canyon and South Mountain hikes. Dr Desert Flower had to work last Monday, so we planned a Tuesday hike to Pinnacle Peak in Scottsdale. It was a 3 mile round trip hike with just a few hundred feet elevation change in a very affluent Scottsdale neighborhood. The trail is incredibly "well groomed" with flora labeled, hand railings, well maintained steps, and "trail rangers" hiking along the small mountain. Our friend Mahtab who made the incredible de-boned turkey on Christmas Eve went hiking with us. We met her at 9am along with 2000 other valley residents. We were way over-prepared with water, almonds, dried apricots, camelbacks, and nalgene bottles. We had to shuffle past hundreds of other hikers and trail "runners". After 90 minutes we consumed about 20% of our water and none of the food, finished the hike and called it a day. Perhaps Pinnacle Peak is a much nicer hike on a week day that is not on a holiday week... but I don't think I'll be trying it any time soon. Seeing 2 or 3 hikers the whole day is a good day - like South Mountain. Crossing paths of 2 or 3 groups of hikers every minute, heading in each direction, is less than enjoyable. And the opulent displays of Dolce & Gabbanna eye wear, North Face active wear, and various perfumey scents wafting from passing hikers took all the "rustic" and "ruggedness" out of the hiking experience.

The kid in the hoodie was sporting a mullet, 70s style. Nathan Jr said we should send in the pic to "mullet sighting dot com" ( http://www.mulletsighting.com/ ) but I was not fast enough on the photo to capture the pure mulletude clearly.

Google Earth Captured Yoga

2012-01-01T13:37:00.001-07:00

As mentioned in the previous post, the Winters here in Phoenix are very pleasant indeed. On the Job's Device, Dr Desert Flower showed me last week how Google Earth shows our home - and the image currently on Google Earth is from January or February of 2011 (lack of leaves on westerly the neighbor's deciduous trees, progression of landscaping improvement in our southerly neighbor's backyard). For those followers who got a Christmas Card, you can look it up too. For those who didn't (you can email me your address if you want one next Christmas - international may take some time), the snapshot / screen capture is below:

The narrow dark rectangle next to the pool is my yoga mat. It's not wide enough to be a pool deck chair, and the 2 deck chairs and umbrella are visible in the image, adjacent to the mat. From the shadow positions, this image was taken around 1 or 2pm on a cloudless Winter day (about 330 cloudless days a year in Phoenix). It appears that I'm doing some kind of standing pose (Warrior [AKA "Land Ho!"] or Sirasana [AKA "The Reason..."] maybe? I don't know). I don't think I've ever been "captured" on Google Earth before, but there's a first time for everything.

Come And Visit

2011-12-31T09:05:00.000-07:00

It's weeks like this, that help to remind me why we moved to the desert 4 years ago.

And for skeptics and critics, yes, the air quality in the Phoenix valley is sub-optimal right now, with millions of inhabitants feeling entitled to burn "holiday fires" our drive home on Christmas Eve resembled air quality similar to February 1945 Dresden. We could not see the bases of the Estrella mountains and only the peaks this week, but more on that later...

If you are tired of your cold weather in the rest of the US, come & visit us in Arizona.

Unappreciated Spiders 7

2011-12-30T21:24:00.000-07:00

Job's Device

2011-12-30T21:14:00.001-07:00

I refuse to call the $800 superfluous iPad thing that Dr Desert Flower bought for "Christmas" an "ipad". It's a "Job's Device". It's not MY Christmas present, as I hate the damn thing. It won't let me log into my Gmail without wanting to LEAVE ME LOGGED IN on the "cloud" eternally, which confuses Gmail when I try to log in on the desktop. It wont let me type, since I do not have the pre-requisite feminine touch required to type on a touch touch screen. It will not let me search without auto-completing my entries, leading to wrong, sometimes hilarious, usually annoying mis-directions.

OK, the "voice recognition" works adequately for SIMPLE searches, that do not involve polysyllabic words. But anything colloquial, or polysyllabic or technical and it freaks out. I THOUGHT Steve Jobs (peace be upon him, ie Allah) was supposed to create "experiences" that "enhanced" the user's interface, and "differentiated" his products from the rest of the pack. The 64gig Job's Device needs to ADAPT to my masculine heavy handed touch, my voice patterns, and my vocabulary. Otherwise, it was a colossal waste of $800 at the "I store".

Unappreciated Spiders 6

2011-12-26T22:48:00.002-07:00

Poorly Executed Blog Spam

2011-12-26T12:26:00.000-07:00

The interwebs are prone to spamming, and push-marketing that tries to get eyeballs onto web pages to generate advertising revenue or "buzz" or exposure. I understand that. It's a necessary "evil". Sometimes the adverts are actually interesting, legitimate, well placed, and useful... but the majority of the time, they're out in left field, irrelevant, barely germane in the more remotely tangential sense.

It appears that JustJoeP's web traffic visitor stream (up to about 150 hits a day now) has somehow gotten the attention of many inept spammers, who make a weak attempt at posting veiled comments that embed their advertising links. I discard most of them, but here's a few (unedited) so you can see what I mean:

"jasmin" on the "Delicious Bird Awaits"
"I'm not going to profess to being that good with grammar. I don't know the ins and outs of it and go mainly by experience. Wine Gift "
where "Wine Gift" linked to a 'wine of the month' annoying membership. "

No thanks "jasmin", I don't want someone else deciding randomly for me, based upon whatever mass inventory they've gotten that month, to send some wine I don't like when I can go to the store and buy it MUCH LESS expensively myself. perhaps you are not so good at "grammar" because English is not your first language? The posting had nothing to do with "grammar". It was about an upcoming delicious feast. You've failed "jasmin".

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"plusclothingexpert" on the sarcastic & violent "Job Interview Coaching"
"That's funny. Well, you can get help for Interview Coaching Calgary and get the job that you desire. "

"P.C.Expert", the posting had nothing to do with what to wear or not wear or how to write a resume, it focused on a fictitious scenario wherein an interviewer asks a dumb question and the interviewee responds with an overt threat of massive physical violence. It's not really about "coaching" per se. So no, sorry, I will not embed your Canadian link.
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"BOSS" has left a new comment on your post "How To Clean Your Own Hayward Pump Cartridge Filte...":
"thanks for provided a nice information
We Manufacturers and Suppliers of Single Spring Mechanical Seal, Dry Mechanical Seals, Reactor Mechanical Seal ,Cartridge Mechanical Seals, Mechanical Shafts Seal Manufacturers."

Now "Boss" is apparently affiliated with "Ashish Industries" which makes automotive seals. So you see, "BOSS", a Hayward Cartridge Filter for a backyard pool has NOTHING to do with automotive seals, so you fail on context. You've incorrectly conjugated the irregular verb "to be" by leaving out it entirely and then using the plural of "Manufacturer" and "Supplier" when you really MEANT (I think) to say "We are Manufacturers and Suppliers of..." or perhaps "We Manufacture and Supply...". I cannot give you any credit or leniency for having English as a second language, because the British installed English & Hindi as the uniting language of India more than a century ago, and all of my Indian colleagues (and I have spoken to 100s of them) have repeatedly told me that BOTH English and Hindi are their country's national languages and everyone must speak one. If you are not proficient in writing in English "BOSS", you need to find a new vocation, or use better grammar and spell checking software.
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Much earlier in December,
nr has left a new comment on your post "The Beauty of Prandtl-Glauert Singularities":
"Thank you for sharing this information.
It will really helpful to solve my confusion
Process $ Chemical Engineering "

Where the P&C Eng was an embedded link to a push marketed engineering website, that had nothing to do with Prandtl-Glauert Singularities. You've failed, "nr".
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Back in November
seo help online has left a new comment on your post "Re-Using Delicious Marinade":
"You have nice blog.
Aluminium Foil Pouch,Zipper Pouch,Aluminium Foil Zipper Pouch, Jumbo Bags, Gusseted Pouches."

"You have a nice blog" ... really, that's the best you can do? And you did not put a single space after a comma, instead running your words together and misspelling "Aluminum"? Is this really your company's best foot forward? No, total failure.
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And whoever this "SEO" company is, they really do a consistently poor job
seoshivakumar has left a new comment on your post "Mountains of Salt Beneath Us":
"Thanks for sharing with us
V.S. Forgings: Salt Tablets Manufacturers, SOFT Salt Tablets, Water softening salt, Industrial salt, Raw salt."

An Indian company pushing salt products. Why would I want to import salt from India to the US? Why would anyone, when nearly every country in the world can cheaply make their own? And salt is water soluble, so transporting it over vast oceans, where it COULD get wet, is not the brightest of ideas. Sorry seoshivakumar, you fail.
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Back in September, I previously pointed out "Asian Bridal's" freakishly funny ineptitude:
asian bridal has left a new comment on your post "Toms Toms & Furs":
"Asian wife dines into a seventh whistle. Our analyst soils the interview on top of a spotted buss. The brown freak disputes the lady. The amateur mates the utility variance. The turning basis clears Asian wife. Beside Asian wife recovers the fun fraud.

asian bridal "
...shows it is not just India who doesn't understand push marketing. The Chinese are hilariously poor at trying to execute it as well.
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Now, "Geopeach" gets it right. So Geopeach's comment, was pushlished.

Geopeach has left a new comment on your post "Gluten Free Beer - Redbridge":

"Hey Just Joep,
If you are looking for another substitute to Redbridge, check out Daura, by Estrella Damm. You'll be happy to know it doesn't come from a large US corporation, but is imported from Barcelona, Spain. I work for the importer here in the US, so just let me know if you have any questions. It will have a different taste than Redbridge because Daura is made with barley malt instead of sorghum.

-Georgia (ghomsany@usbev.net)
http://www.estrelladamm.com/en/daura_gluten_free_beer/ "

There's a host of others who have tried, the above examples are just a small sample. The volume is increasing, noticeably in the last month. So I will be leaving the comment moderation on, going forward. And as a word of warning to the inept, the stupid, the "in a hurry", and the misguided, when your comment is dumb enough, irrelevant enough, or just plain silly enough, I will post it here to mock you and point out your failure. Maybe your manager, or the company that hired your firm will see the posting, and you can find a vocation that better fits your skills - perhaps one that doesn't require you to push market ads in English?

Montaudon Brut Champagne

2011-12-26T11:34:00.001-07:00

For our family Christmas meal Dr Desert Flower baked a ham and sweet potatoes and a corn pudding where she used ground flax instead of wheat flour, ad well as organic spinach salads and organic dressings. We'll be feasting on the leftovers for the rest of the week. But paired along with the food, I broke out a real bottle of Champagne - not a California knock-off that claims to be Champagne (and is priced like it too) but is just sparkling wine. We'd picked up the bottle of Montaudon Brut Champagne Reserve Premiere (www.champagmonaudon.com) (bar code 6 575582 00001 2) at Trader Joe's some time ago for less than $20, and it's been chilling in the fridge all weekend. Our family meal and long discussion lasted from 1/2 an hour before dusk until just before the Packers began to mop up Lambeau with what's left of the Bears this season (21 to 35, bleh. Go Lions, Saints, and 49ers!). The champagne was gone before night had fully fallen.

If you're looking for a delicious, inexpensive bottle of Champagne for New Years, it is hard to beat Montaudon. Dr Desert Flower's and my palates are not "refined" enough to differentiate in a blind taste test between a $20 and a $80 or $180 bottle of Champagne, so the Montaudon fits the bill quite nicely. Highly recommended. Not too fruity. Not so dry it knocks you over. Excellent in the nose & on the palate. It did not disappoint.

10,000 CFS at 4 mph

2011-12-24T12:38:00.000-07:00

If you've ever wanted to see what 10,000 cubic feet per second of water looks like, moving at 4 mph, about 20 feet below you on a 4 foot wide steel rope suspension bridge, the video above gives you a good idea. Sure, many people have all seen video on the news of destructive floods taking out houses, or tsunamis, or other water borne destruction... but to see a river like the Colorado, just going about its normal business, up-close, moving recent snow melt & rain water fluidly along just a few meters below you, is a powerful experience that leaves a big impression. On a tiny screen, with limited audio, the effect is greatly reduced, but walking over the bridge with a steel grate bottom, is an altogether moving experience.

During Spring Floods, the Colorado River can reach 100,000 CFS (links here and here). It's amazing that ALL of that water is diverted to NV, AZ, and Southern California before it reaches the Sea of Cortez in Mexico, in a teeny tiny little tickle.

Organic Saladini Pilastri Rosso Piceno, 2009

2011-12-24T12:16:00.000-07:00

We had a meat & pasta dish last week where I wanted to pair it with a nice Italian red. This organic selection from Saladini Pilastri, which we picked up at Total Wine for less than $10 a bottle, complimented the spicy sauce quite nicely. The Piceno region is on the "calve" of the Italian boot peninsula, as you can see from the map in the lower right. this wine did not disappoint.

Organic wines often have a negative reputation that precedes them with many wine snobs. To me, when I am looking for a tasty, inexpensive, healthy wine to compliment the food served in my home, I am not dissuaded or put-off by an organic label, and instead, will always give it a try. Saladini Pilastri did not disappoint. This will not be our last bottle.

Recoleta Malbec Rosé

2011-12-24T12:05:00.000-07:00

Fresh & Easy sells a variety of Recoleta wines from Argentina. $4 or $5 a bottle, they are delicious, light, wonderful table wines. Last week's South Mountain hike was capped off by a bottle of Recoleta Rosé (pairing link here). I did not realize it was a Malbec until after Nathan Jr read the back of the label to me - I did not have my reading glasses, and with the sun setting, the dim light makes it much harder to read. Thank goodness iPhones come with a BRIGHT reading light ap... I use it each time we go to a dimly lit restaurant to be able to read the menu.

I picked up this Recoleta Rosé at the local Fresh & Easy the week before. While in much of the US it is too cool to drink a chilled Rosé, here in Phoenix, it is still appropriate with a warm sunset or a sunny afternoon on the patio.

Delicious Bird Awaits

2011-12-24T11:34:00.000-07:00

We've been invited by our friend Mahtab to partake in a holiday dinner in north Phoenix. I'm salivating at the description of the turkey that Mahtab said in email: "The bird is stuffed with raisins in white wine, mango, almond, sour dough bread, onion and saffron and the sauce is with white wine, saffron and curry."

Major Yum! We've had Mahtab's cooking before, and it's always been a delicious, exotic blend of German, Persian, and other European and middle eastern influences. I'm bringing the wine. There will be white wine pairings - Bordeaux Entre deux Mers - as well as a Loire Valley Chinon. And while reds don't typically go with poultry, the Loire Chinon and, Saumur as well as the white Sancerre compliment poultry very well.

Both Chinon and Saumur are very mild, non-aggressive wines that I like to use to "introduce" to people who do not typically like red wine. I've never had anyone outright reject a Chinon or Saumur - maybe they were just being nice, and didn't want to disappoint me.

The Domaine De La Semellerie Chinon, 2006, is an Alfio Moriconi Total Wine selection. Moriconi has good taste in wine, and he's Total Wine's European wine buyer. I've not had a bad bottle yet (and that's many dozens of bottles, from a wide variety of regions) that has borne his label. We enjoyed this bottle (pictured above) last weekend with a meal of crab stuffed chicken breast that Dr Desert Flower felt compelled to prepare for our son's visit. It paired nicely, and didn't last through the desert =) I picked up another one of these yesterday at Total Wine yesterday, and it will be enjoyed tonight, along with the savory bird.

Caleo Primitivo & Salice Salentino

2011-12-24T11:10:00.000-07:00

One nice aspect of having our son visit, is that he likes a good glass of red wine almost as much as his father does. So with each dinner, we've been polishing off a bottle between the three of us. As I blogged much earlier this year (link here), Caleo makes good quality wines at reasonable prices. Along with the Salice Salentino, they make a wonderful Primitivo that has paired deliciously with meat & cheese heavy salads, pork tender loins, steaks, and other family meals. Bright on the pallet without being over-whelming. Currant and cherry notes without being too fruity. Good quality table wine for less than $8 a bottle (from Total Wine, who've opened a new store in Goodyear, 1/2 the distance from the Arrowhead Store we used to go to).

Southern Italy wine makers are producing some excellent, under-appreciated wines, in and around Puglia. I think that Puglia wines are some of the "best kept secrets" of Italian wine making. When I was approached by a Total Wine salesman in Goodyear, and told him I was looking for more of Puglia selections he responded "The Beaujolais are over here...". I cut him off: "I am not interested in an adolescent fruity Beaujolais from central France. I have enough of that at home. I said 'Puglia', as in Italian for 'heel', the South East end of the boot. Arrowhead has a larger selection than the Goodyear store." The salesman retorted that "we have the same selection, unless they carry discontinued lines" - hmmm, so I better buy up everything at Arrowhead the next time I am up there, before the last of their stock is depleted.

Tonopah Rob's Delicious Eggs

2011-12-24T10:52:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday, Nathan Jr and I went and got hair cuts together up at our hair stylist, Natasha Bush on Northern near the 101 in Parkwest. Little did I know, that there's a local Farmer's Market that is there the 3rd Saturday of each month, from September to April. Lucky us, it Was the third Saturday.

While Nathan Jr was getting his hair cut first, I walked around the market and was delighted to find BOTH Crooked Sky Farms and Tonopah Rob's having well stocked, well staffed booths there! Crooked Sky also goes to the downtown Phoenix market each week, but they've been out of duck eggs this Winter and said they'd resume in March after more ducklings hatch.

Tonopah Rob's booth had several adults and industrious young teenagers working there, selling fresh local produce and eggs. Before buying 2 dozen truly free range eggs I asked them "how many hens do you have?". The oldest adult in the large booth said "about 300". FAR LESS than the 30,000+ that Hickman's industrial factory "farm" has, and FAR MORE Healthy. When I mentioned "Hickman's" to the Tonopah Rob's booth, the adults visibly cringed in revulsion. Yep, my reaction too. It's impossible to get as many micronutrients in a mass produced, high density caged, hormone & antibiotic fed, anti-organic, industrially gathered chicken egg compared to a truly free range, naturally fed, hormone free, hand gathered, locally sourced chicken egg. We've been scrambling (for Nathan Jr & I), hard boiling, and "over easy" (for DDF) all week, deliciously. And the Parkwest location is 1/2 the distance from my home compared to the downtown market, so now I can have a smaller carbon footprint while sourcing my local eggs and vegetables, at least 8 months out of the year.

Nathan Jr also has picked up a penchant for hot sauces, living in Charleston SC as he does. There were several hot sauce vendors at the market as well, and we are now fully stocked with a variety of hot sauces chez nous.

One note about the Parkwest Farmer's Market, it seemed heavily "Christian Influenced" with multiple church booths proselytizing and preaching their beliefs & selling religious paraphernalia, in between the food and craft vendors. They were not overly aggressive, and I don't present a "friendly & approachable target" for preachers, especially when I am in a hurry, so they left me alone as I quickly perused the Market landscape. But I could imagine in a slower, more relaxed stroll through the market, may present multiple chances for me to counter any fundamentalist arguments presented with fact and Biblical references that I picked up during 7 years in parochial school, where I actually paid attention enough to be able to question the dogma that was being taught. It could make for an interesting (and probably lopsided) Saturday morning religious debate this Spring =)

Unappreciated Spiders 5

2011-12-24T10:24:00.000-07:00

A Honey Badger Christmas Miracle

2011-12-24T10:18:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my friend Joe M for this most excellent Christmas gift. He got it from Damn Good Doormats in San Francisco, and it arrived UPS last Monday. Owner Spoon Popkin has a FB page as well, if you want to "like" it. Honey Badger will now be greeting Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Evangelical Christian Preachers (who often drag their kids around on school holidays to proselytize - how fun for the kids!), carpet cleaning salesmen (we have all tile, no carpets), and huckster scam-artists who are looking to find a new rube to involve in their schemes. [Seriously, about once a week, someone comes knocking on my door, trying to sell something, ignoring the neighborhood covenants that prohibit door to door sales]. Now I have a new way to respond to them, with a big smile.

Post Grand Canyon Hiking Poolside Yoga

2011-12-24T10:09:00.000-07:00

It was 62F here yesterday, sunny, with almost no breeze. Warm enough to do post-GC-hike yoga poolside, next to the lavender. The honey bee girls were voraciously gathering lavender pollen, and not paying attention to me on the yoga mat a meter away, except for one stray who landed on my arm, which I accidentally swatted into the pool. She proved a strong swimmer, and made it to the edge in a few seconds, dried off in the sunshine, and returned to her benevolent pollen gathering.

After the hike on Wednesday night, and again on Thursday, we did some stretching, but immediate soreness was overwhelming. By Friday, being fully ambulatory, I found the weather and solar warmth an irresistible combination. The stretching was especially helpful for the quads, calves, triceps and shoulders (trekking poles took a toll).

The Aloe is putting up a fight, but the hybrid lavender's progress is inexorable.

While the Spanish lavender has not yet come into bloom, the hybrid lavender laughed at the recent frosts, and is winning a pitched battle with the neighboring aloe competition and the creeping progress towards reaching to pool itself. Hard to believe the lavender "hedges" we have now poolside were just 4 small 1/2 gallon containers less than 2 years ago. Thank you Elgin Nursery for your excellent plant stock! About once a month, I have to take hedge shears to the lavender to arrest it's pool-ward progress. Attempts at preserving / displaying in a vase / admiring cut lavender have proven futile, as the bloom stems are much too fragile and wilting sets in within an hour after cutting, shedding purple blossom petals all around the vase.

My girlfriend Anna (or one of her daughters perhaps?) has returned to hang out in the safety of our ocotillo this Winter. She tolerated my photographing her quite well. letting me get to within a meter from her before she got too nervous. The spiky ocotillo makes a very safe avian refuge, as you can see below.

See Something, Say Something, Unless...

2011-12-23T23:05:00.000-07:00

You Are Getting Sleepy...

2011-12-23T23:03:00.000-07:00