UPDATE: Sunny CA

I've been having a fabulous time out here. I've only been here a few days & look what the city did:

Nice, eh?

I also did some cool recreating while visiting Seal Beach. Here I am just entering the surf.

BIKINIS!!! - You'll notice the two bikini-clad young lovelies in the background observing my kite boarding.

Here I am just zipping along.



More zipping.



Actual oranges on a real tree.

More oranges, real oranges on real trees. &, these trees are found in people's yards, not an orchard.

& roses are blooming in sunny CA, along with other flowers. Damn.

& for those of you who have given up all hope, here is what green grass looks like.

I'm a bit concerned, however, that the good time may be coming to an end. I fear they may have located me.

Interesting Piece

Indeed, I think that facing up to the suffering that is a part of nature itself may be easier for an atheist because we do not have to reconcile the inconsistency between the evil before our eyes and faith in a loving god. A few years ago, I had dinner with a woman who had just attended a lecture of mine in Cambridge, Massachusetts. When her 12-year-old son died of leukemia, she joined a support group for parents who had lost their children to disease or violence, but she soon left because she was an atheist and so many of the other participants kept saying, "God must have a reason." Of course he must. Otherwise, why had their children died of cancer or been mowed down by a drunk driver? "For me," this grieving mother said, "the task was to reconcile myself to something for which there was no reason other than cells gone wild. I don't know how I could bear it if I thought that my son's death was part of a plan, because I would have to hate any god with such a 'plan'--and if I were consumed by hate, then I would know despair."

From today's Washington Post. I couldn't agree more, including the last section about the sometimes (mostly) awful NBC coverage of the Winter Games. My emphases.

BIKINIS!!

There is a certain newly retired person who shall remain nameless who keeps insisting that I sidetrack my time in sunny CA to photograph someone in a bikini. Well,

Shutterwi, take your pick.

First choice, sans head:


Second choice, sans life, among other things:

Report From Sunny CA

Commercial Real Estate Ready To Fill The Back Pages Of Local Newspapers

What is this - the second or third or tenth wave in how we are averting a second Great Depression?

Unlike the largest banks, such as Citigroup and Wachovia, that got into so much trouble early on, the community banks in general fared better in the residential mortgage crisis. But their turn is coming: Not only did community banks issue a higher proportion of commercial loans, but they also have held on to them rather than sell them to other investors.

Oh-oh.

Four Less Dams

A very good beginning. Now, let's all get serious about the sun, the earth, the wind & give all anadromous fish a hell of an earth day.

Fat Tuesday, Y'all, Where y'at?

Well, That Worked Out Rather Well

31-17. I tried to link to the Times-Picayune in New Orleans, but they were apparently out celebrating already. I must take full credit for this win. With the score 17-16 in favor of the Colts, I purposely went to the basement to work on a burl. When I came back up, it was 31-17 in favor of the Saints. See, if I wouldn't have gone downstairs, the Saints would probably have lost. Where y'at?

13-10

Geaux Saints!

55 Million Condoms?

Well...OK.

Still Here

Clearly, there has been a lengthy lapse in posting. I am sorry. I have had a terrible week. I have been boycotting ice fishing for several years, boycotting until Mrs. coldH20wi breaks down & buys the family, OK, me, a snowmobile or 4 wheeler with which to haul my assorted equipment - sonar fish locater, internal combustion ice auger, underwater camera, etc. - out onto the ice. I have had to capitulate, utterly, completely, capitulate to said Mrs. coldH2Owi. So far, the failure of my boycott has yielded very little in the fish poundage. I'll provide pictorial evidence of my humiliation later in the week. My only consolation is that I'm able to drive the old pickup out onto the ice of Chequamegon Bay without a problem. The ice on Lake Superior is a couple of feet thick, so it's safe as hell. My problem in failing to convince L&T wife of my dire need for a conveyance for ice fishing is, of course, inland lakes. Lakes that don't have easy, safe access to the ice. But just you wait to see the size of the yellow perch & rainbow smelt I landed today, just wait & be amazed. In fact, they may be my ticket to said conveyances, maybe. Later, y'all & thanks for your patience.

Amur Tiger Time

Five cute cubs. I wonder which ones are the boys & which are the girls?

& The Dirty Parts Are On Page....

JD Salinger is dead.

Catcher In The Rye, ah, youth, it's so alienating. You can buy the book here. In fact, you can buy all of Salinger's books there. Quotes from the book:

What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by. I mean I've left schools and places I didn't even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don't care if it's a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it. If you don't, you feel even worse. ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 1

All morons hate it when you call them a moron. ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 6

Sex is something I really don't understand too hot. You never know where the hell you are. I keep making up these sex rules for myself, and then I break them right away. Last year I made a rule that I was going to quit horsing around with girls that, deep down, gave me a pain in the ass. I broke it, though, the same week I made it - the same night, as a matter of fact. ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 9

Howard Zinn, R.I.P.

Too bad, this was one historian who actually made contributions to the people, contributions that could be put to concrete, constructive action.

Elizabeth NiNovella has more.

“I think some progressives have forgotten the history of the Democratic Party, to which people have turned again and again in desperate search for saviors, later to be disappointed. Our political history shows us that only great popular movements, carrying out bold actions that awakened the nation and threatened the Establishment, as in the Thirties and the Sixties, have been able to shake that pyramid of corporate and military power and at least temporarily changed course.”

Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive, wrote a Thank You, to Howard Zinn.

Thank you, Howard Zinn, for this amazing, inspiring paragraph, which I’ve had on my wall for years now:

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

He will be missed.

Pernell Roberts, R.I.P.

Frankly, I never much cared for Adam. Too much book learnin' on his part, I suppose.