Good morning readers. Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.
If you’ll take a close look at that ladder I climbed a dozen times, or more, you’ll see a person might wish to study on the design a few moments before he puts his weight on it. Luckily, I’m the luckiest man in the world and even noticing what I’d done after the fact didn’t leave me with a broken ladder, broken head, worse for the wear in any way.
Seems to me I’ve observed at one time or another that plenty of ways of a man ruining his day present themselves on a job of this sort. And almost no ways exist to come out of it feeling a lot better than he did going in.
The tree trunk was exerting a lot of social pressure on everything trying to hold it up. At the base it was unstable, something awful. I had my heart set on it not coming down and crushing my rooster containment center if I could help it.
I tried to insure against the possibility by lifting the base of the trunk with a bar and slipping in a couple of chunks of historical tree.
But even with all my precautions the trunk dropped a few feet when I finally made the last cut breaking it free of the building.
Just an afterthought, readers, to fill the gaps between the spectator sports, the Men Who Want to be King, and my own head-spinning attempts to establish clearly what’s not happening when.
APRIL 1st ASTEROID FLYBY: Newly discovered near-Earth asteroid2012 EG5is flying past Earth today about halfway between Earth and the Moon. There’s no danger of a collision. At closest approach on April 1st, the Dreamliner-sized space rock will be about 230,000 km from Earth. This morning in Brisbane, Australia, amateur astronomer Dennis Simmons photographed the incoming asteroid.
The asteroid 2012 EG5 will pass close to Earth on Sunday morning at 5:32 a.m. EDT.
Asteroid 2012 EG5 is about 150 feet wide. While it will pass within 0.6 lunar distances (143,000 miles) of Earth, NASA reports that there is no danger of the asteroid striking the Earth.
Astronomers discovered the asteroid on March 13 while searching for large space rocks close to earth.
A second asteroid, 2012 FA57 was discovered by astronomers on March 28. Asteroid 2012 FA57 will pass by Earth on April 4. It will safely pass outside of the moons lunar distance.
The asteroid 2012 EG5 will be the third asteroid to pass close by Earth within a week.
Two smaller asteroids pass by Earth on Monday. The closest asteroid 2012 FS35 passed within 36,000 miles.
These [other two] space rocks were small enough that they would not survive a trip through Earth’s atmosphere.
If more people would watch TV election rhetoric or spend more time watching spectator sports this kind of thing wouldn’t happen. NASA and all those people looking at the sky are beginning to present a serious threat of creating something catastrophic happening.
A bunch of jockstraps chasing one another around a stadium are comparatively harmless compared to what these folks are doing. An asteroid the size of an airliner falling on, say, Washington, D.C., might injure innocent human beings who just happened to be passing through on their way somewhere else. Some degree of collateral damage seems inevitable, though maybe acceptable, overall.
In any case, that one passed a bit more than mid-way between the moon and earth. It only has to miss an inch higher than the highest obstruction to be completely harmless. Space is big and the odds are good any next ones will miss us at least an inch.
Good morning readers. Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.
Searching around in my mind as I drove to Kerrville yesterday I was trying to find something, almost anything, the word ‘we’ could be applied to that included all of humanity. Not an easy task, despite most of the lofty notions humans have about themselves.
Intelligence and thinking came to mind, but didn’t survive even long-range scrutiny. Whatever else we might be, human beings are only intelligent when compared to one another within a miniscule range of options. Probably the least intelligent human being able to function is somewhat smarter than the next-best up for consideration in the animal kingdom. And a few notches up on the yardstick, the smartest human being isn’t much more intelligent. But there’s enough difference top-to-bottom to demolish the word ‘we’ when it comes to defining anything all humans have in common.
As for thinking, there’s just not a hell of a lot of it going on. The overwhelming majority of humans are riding along on shock waves created by thinkings of an underwhelming few individuals. Of the several billion humans on this planet there’s not more than a shot-glass full who could figure out how to manufacture a lead pencil. Or, for that matter, a shot-glass. Or build a fire without materials provided by some autopilot composite of individuals not-thinking somewhere else.
Pride held up a lot better, but as I turned it over examining all the nuances I found it was handcuffed to something else. Commitment. This species couldn’t have survived this long without it any more than a tribe of beavers could survive without the non-thinking commitment to building community dams.
And pride is the glue holding it together. A necessary virtue to keep things moving, even though the commitments most frequently to dogs that don’t hunt, haven’t hunted for centuries, but nobody’s devoted enough thought to the matter to notice.
When I was a kid the adults used to say if a snapping turtle ever got a bite on you it wouldn’t turn loose until it thundered. One of the places in this reality where the word ‘we’ can be applied to humanity is our commonality to that imaginary snapping turtle. Commitments come along, sometimes the result of someone thinking something, sometimes just out of the blue, and ‘we’ lock our pride into it and don’t turn loose until it thunders.
When I began this post I intended it to examine human commitments to failed ideals and myths. I planned to reflect on our often failing repeated attempts to commit ourselves to individuals, to political parties, to geographic boundaries.
But I’m going to have to save that for some future post.
I was watching bumper stickers as I drove along considering all this. Proud to be an American. Proud to be a Texan. Proud to be a Native Texan.
Presumably those declarations are a source of pride because of the effort and personal hardship involved in achieving them. If pride had anything to do with personal achievement. Or thinking.
Good morning readers. Thanks for you and me coming back for a read this morning. You, because you’re managing to stay alive in this hostile reality we’ve selected to submerge ourselves in, and me, because I managed to put the chickens up and let them out without getting struck by lightning. Which seemed a definite possibility while I did it.
I don’t mind getting struck by lightning so much, but it seems a bit of an anti-climax, everything else being equal. I don’t care for the notion of leaving a lot of loose ends lying around for someone else to have to deal with.
For instance, I’d hate to get fried by lightining without telling you about the taurine Jeanne sent me and I’ve been taking. My thought was that it might replace the blood-pressure meds I have to order from India. I’m not evangelical about it, and I’m not going to do a complete switch without watching it closely a while longer. But I’m cautiously optimistic.
Then there’s the Invader Cat. It vanished around here for a few days and I was cautiously optimistic I’d seen the last of it, but it’s back this morning. So I’m cautiously optimistic some other way about it, but not so much you’d notice.
The minor erosion mitigation measures I took recently performed well during this deluge and moved things forward a lot further and faster than I’d have dared cautiously optimistically predict. Just saying, for any of you considering such projects.
Finally, for those relatively few readers who check in here because we used to correspond about the non-randomness phenomenon. If you’ve got enough RAM on your computers, I’m cautiously optimistic you’ll find it was worth your while to track them every which way and compare the results with anything else you’ve ever tested. It doesn’t nail things down on all the corners, but it goes a longish way in the right direction.
As for everything else, I think there’s reason to abandon caution and just say to hell with it and be optimistic.
Good morning readers. Thanks for coming by for a read marijuana this morning.
In an effort to assist the efforts of blog writers to increase the traffic statistics for their blogs, the National Security Agency is developing a tool that should help. This is really good stuff:
‘Total Information Awareness’ surveillance program returns, bigger than ever
The proposal was to build computing systems that could suck up every electronic communication on the planet and filter them through a smart super-computer that would flag certain conversations, emails, transactions and other items of interest for further review. It was a program so monstrous in scope that after a brief legislative battle, [pot] Congress imposed strict regulations on the type of technology that could accomplish those ends, prohibiting it from ever being used against Americans. [uppers]
According to Bamford, the NSA’s new data center in Utah will be the most all-encompassing spy machine ever conceived, capable of breaking almost any encryption, reading any email and recording any phone call anywhere in the world, even if it’s not made over the Internet. A network of ultra-sensitive satellites enhance the center’s intelligence-finding capabilities with the unique ability to sniff electronic communications from a massive [downers] distance. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/03/16/total-information-awareness-surveillance-program-returns-bigger-than-ever/
They haven’t made it clear yet exactly which buzz-words will [I like Muslims] will bring the [Tea Party] most [Occupy] traffic, so it will probably require some experimentation to [union] find which [strike] works best. In fact, [demonstration] the whole effort might be time sensitive and fluid, requiring [guns] that a person keep track of current [organize] news events. Which strikes me as discriminatory.
In any case, whatever the weaknesses of the system, it’s good to see the government working in our best interests. No doubt after a bit of testing they’ll find ways to improve it and plug any holes allowing them to escape reading dangerous blogs.
We’re lucky to live in a country where the military, the cops, the security mercenary forces, and the intelligence community can be trusted to only use the scientific community to protect us from people who disagree with what we think.
Good morning readers. I’m obliged you made a swing by here. I’m going to do my best to give you something to have read by the time you leave if the Coincidence Coordinators and the commie phone line will sit still for it.
I’ve about decided I’m going to have peace and harmony around here, and I don’t care who I have to kill to do it. The roosters are driving me nuts with their sneaky non-harmonizing ways.
The Great Speckled Bird surprised me by surviving the winter, feeling better most ways than he has in a longish time. But more crippled up than ever. Not much use of the one leg anymore, one wing weak or useless. So when he falls, the usual ritual is to lie on his back waving his legs around. Struggling for a shift in reality to get into a position where the one foot can get a hold on something.
But even so, he’s out there ranging with the hens, doing what roosters are supposed to do as often as he can see his way clear to do it and he can find a willing hen.
But meanwhile I keep my bachelor roosters penned most of the day. Mainly because they’re of a mind that if I’m not looking it’s okay to open up a can of whoopass on TGSB. They can knock him down and peck the bejesus out of him in less time than it takes to tell it.
But I’ve digressed. I was going to tell you about dancing with roosters, which is the only way a person can establish harmonious society with them. A rooster isn’t long on understanding the ways of a human being, but he does understand who’s the cock of the walk. And if he doesn’t understand, or he forgets, he’s forever trying to reassure himself about whether he’s boss, or someone else is.
A rooster has two main dances. One he does for the hens, which I’ll describe some other time, though it’s important to know how to do it so’s to keep him and the hens on their toes. But the one used to communicate “I’m a contender,” and “You want some of this? Come get it!” is an absolute necessity.
The last couple of days when the bachelor roosters and TGSB were out concurrently I’ve had to do a lot of dancing around stiff-legged, acting like I was pecking the ground watching them out of the corner of my eye and flapping my arms threateningly. Reminding them if they want to mess with TGSB they’ve got to go through the bull-goose-looney to get there.
I think where I slipped up was when the warm weather started I quit wearing my red stocking cap they considered a comb, and forgot I’m a rooster too. Got thinking they could each be a contender.
Good morning readers. Thanks for coming by for a read this morning. I’d thought that moth might survive a while because the cats were intimidated by it, but I was wrong. Tabby made a meal of it before sunset.
The phone line’s being a communist this morning, so I don’t know whether I’ll be able to finish a post and get it up. If I save frequently enough I can progress two steps forward and one back, losing the connection but only losing the unsaved part of the immortal prose.
The fire ants came out of hiding yesterday, so I’m back in business food-sanitation-wise. It will be a considerable relief getting their help on the dishwashing around here. Fire Ants, Dishwashing and Drought
Good news from Kay on the phone yesterday about the Invader Cat. Seems it’s doing the Texas Two-Step. A neighbor a couple of miles the other side of them asked recently if they ‘had’ a black cat, or had seen one. Turns out the Invader Cat migrates over there a couple of days at a time, also, and has done for a considerable while.
That puts to rest any concerns I had about it joining the household.
I had a considerable bit of immortal prose I was going to do this morning, but the distraction of this dial-up is killing my muse. I think I’m going to have to save it for sometime else.
Old Jules
Today on Ask Old Jules: Old Jules, I love one girl very much, but she is not responding, what should I do?
While you earthlings are fretting over whether your next king is going to be friendly to your preferred nuances of greed, waste, envy, scorn and target identification, you might want to squeeze in a few minutes to find those moth balls. The days for protecting your brass monkeys might not be completely over for the year, but keeping the emphasis on the right syllable is as important now as it ever was.
Even though those Pendleton blankets might seem anachronistic today, and knowing there are plenty of sheep still out there grazing, there’s going to be another October and November eventually. Betting on the come, figuring you can just toss the holey blankets and buy something Chinese to replace them might problematic by then.
There’s a rumor going around the Chinese plan to devote the entire planetary wool production to their world-wide-near-monopoly on steel. Chinese statisticians and accountants have discovered crescent wrenches and pliers made of wool will do the job as well as the ones made of steel they’re selling now. And they’ll be worth as much as the dollars US consumers use to pay for them.
Save some of those moth balls for your toolbox. Next year that might be where you’ll find your Pendleton blankets.
Good morning readers. I’m obliged you came by for a read.
I got an email yesterday from an old acquaintance who’s carrying a serious chip on his shoulder about somebody calling the Social Security pension he lives on an ‘entitlement’. He raged on about how he paid into it fifty years, and his employers matched everything he paid. So, he says, it’s not an entitlement.
Sheeze. I wonder what else a person would call it. He’s entitled to it. What the hell is it but an entitlement?
But I think he’s concerned that because ‘entitlement’ has become a buzzword for something else he doesn’t like. Namely a whole range of government payouts to bank owners, automobile companies, multi-national corporations, all manner of people bleeding the US budget dry with bailouts and payoffs. I think he figures they might quit paying him his pension because they called it an entitlement. Putting him down with scum bankers and CEOs and Chairmans of Boards and politicians.
Seems to me he’s just not thinking right. He’s gotten old up there in Al Capone country and no longer seeing the opportunity it would represent if they took away his retirement check he needs to live.
Truth is, we lived fairly tame lives, we retirees. Generally we did what was needed and more-or-less stayed within the boundaries of the laws and ethics while we did it.
In a lot of ways we screwed ourselves out of the adventure we were entitled to. The adventure of sticking up banks and shooting it out with the cops and whatnot.
Those bankers and CEOs and politicans got to have all the fun, though they didn’t do it in a way that would take them out in a blaze of gunfire. But we spent our lives in an environment with them in their houses on the hill, and down on the street corners and alleyways people were shooting it out with one another and the cops.
We just plodded along working our asses off not getting to drive limosines nor scoot around in the shadows mugging anyone. But now maybe they’re finally going to give us our shot at having some fun finally.
Good morning readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.
Those of us stuck with the responsibility for bringing Old Sol up mornings and helping him down evenings try to stay tuned to his moods and political opinions. Especially the DST time changes, of which he just about has a bellyfull.
Here’s what he had to say about this one. You’ll have to listen closely because he recorded it 78 rpm and there’s a lot of static. If you have trouble picking the message out of the background noise, the general summary of his thoughts is that he’s damned sick of it.
WEEKEND SOLAR FLARE: Sunspot AR1429 is still erupting this weekend. On Saturday, March 10th, it produced a powerful M8-class flare that almost crossed the threshold into X-territory. During the flare, New Mexico amateur astronomer Thomas Ashcraft recorded a series of radio bursts at 21 and 28 MHz:
The roaring sounds you just heard are caused by shock waves plowing through the sun’s atmosphere in the aftermath of the explosion. “There is incredible complexity in the waveforms,” notes Ashcraft. “This is a recording of one of the most turbulent events in all of Nature!”
In addition, the explosion propelled yet another CME toward Earth. According to a forecast track prepared by analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, the cloud will hit our planet’s magnetosphere on March 12th at 1803 UT (+/- 7 hr), possibly sparking a new round of geomagnetic storms.
After passing Earth, the CME will also hit the Mars Science Lab (MSL) spacecraft on March 13th followed by Mars itself on March 14th. Mars rover Curiosity onboard MSL might get some interesting readings as the cloud passes by.
Meanwhile, those of you who prefer the emotional side of things have probably been looking forward to the disgusting kissee-kissee going on between Jupiter and Venus.
All I can tell you is it’s an illusion. Jupiter and Venus don’t have enough in common to allow a lasting, meaningful relationship. This is just cheap, physical attraction causing this. Cheerleader Venus shamelessly wrapping herself around the arm of grotesque jockstrap Jupiter for the duration of a shared climax.
No candlelight dinners and moonlight walks for Jupiter and Venus. They’ll each drift their own ways and be off flirting with someone else in just about the amount of time it takes to calculate it.
74 years old, a resident of Leavenworth, KS, in an apartment located on the VA campus. Partnered with a black shorthaired cat named Mister Midnight. (1943-2020)
Since April, 2020, this blog is maintained by Jeanne Kasten (See "About" page for further information).
https://sofarfromheaven.com/2020/04/21/au-revoir-old-jules-jack-purcell/
I’m sharing it with you because there’s almost no likelihood you’ll believe it. This lunatic asylum I call my life has so many unexpected twists and turns I won’t even try to guess where it’s going. I’d suggest you try to find some laughs here. You won’t find wisdom. Good luck.
So Far From Heaven 
