Sam I Am

Prescott Valley's newest big box store opened last Thursday and judging by the crowds of people flocking to the store it's going to be a huge success.

Welcome Sam's Club, the warehouse outlet associated with the Wal-Mart empire and worthy competitor to the Costco store located just a few miles up the road toward Prescott. As I see it, the biggest disadvantage to the store right now are the lines and lengthy time it is taking to buy a membership. I had done a tour of the store last week and liked what I saw (plus it's closer than Costco to where I live) so today I grabbed a spot in line and waited. It took awhile but finally I had my membership card in hand and went to find SWMBO, who had been touring the store.

Sam's and Costco are very much alike in store layout, merchandise and price but I find the new Sam's Club to be much brighter due at least in part to a great number of skylights throughout the store. I had originally thought it was just more white paint and perhaps brighter lights but another shopper had noticed the skylights and called them to my attention. You can see a number of them in the following photos.

SWMBO also noticed that through the center part of the store the shelves are lower than at Costco, giving good line-of-sight and perhaps contributing to the brightness.

At any rate, it is a fine addition to the town and again judging by the crowds the economic downturn doesn't seem to be having a large effect in Prescott Valley.

Best of all . . . it's pretty much "one stop shopping."

T. Bone . . er, T. Boone

T. Boone Pickens is a man who has made many fortunes in the oil business.

He is now 80 years old and has changed his tune.

Now, he says oil isn't the answer.

Something he is famous for is the answer: wind power.

The rich windbag says we have to build many huge windmills across our country and link them to multi-million dollars worth of transmission lines to take our dependence away from . . . you guessed it, OIL!

Funny. This happened about the time the stock market crashed, reducing Pickens' hedge fund value by half.

While I favor solar power, wind power and other green sources of energy, I must say: Don't buy this charlatan's message. He is in it for his own pocketbook. Purely.

(This is the man who personally funded the lying, slime-covered Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry four years ago. He says he would do it again. He is an evil man. Reject him.)

I'm Worried

There are only 10 days to go to Election Day 2008 and the 3rd game of the World Series is in a rain delay. Is it a sign? Damn, I'll be glad when this is over.

(Not the World Series)
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A friend sent me this . . . maybe to cheer me up.

One day God was looking down at Earth and saw all of the rascally behavior that was going on. So he called one of His angels and sent the angel to Earth for a time. When he returned, he told God, 'Yes, it is bad on Earth; 95% are misbehaving and only 5% are not. God thought for a moment and said, 'Maybe I had better send down a second angel to get another opinion.'

So God called another angel and sent him to Earth for a time. When the angel returned he went to God and said, 'Yes, it's true.The Earth is in decline; 95% are misbehaving, but 5% are being good.'

God was not pleased. So He decided to e-mail the 5% that were good, because he wanted to encourage them, and give them a little something to help them keep going.

Do you know what the e-mail said?

Okay, I was just wondering, because I didn't get one either.

A Painted Fence

Tom Sawyer (SWMBO) has been busy in our back yard.

She decided the new fence was too stark with just the simple, unpainted wood. So she got some stain and some pigment, created her own colors and painted away.

She said tie-dye was her inspiration. I think those French impressionists may also have had an influence on her.

With that patio umbrella, it is a colorful back patio.

A Book Lover's Library

A friend sent me an e-mail with photos of strange buildings from around the world. Included was one that claimed to be a public library in Kansas City, Missouri. Here's the photo. It is truly an amazing bit of ingenuity . . . if it's real. Anyone actually seen it who can verify its accuracy?

Update: I went to the web and researched this. It's real! The books are actually on the face of the parking garage for the library. You can see many more pictures of this amazing library . . both inside and out . . by running the slide show here.

Going up!

Prescott Valley's new town library is steeling itself for the town's readers.

Funny. You'd think a building that used to house prim little ladies whispering "shhhhh" to noisy patrons wouldn't be made out of steel.

Anyway, here's a look at the project, which will also house some classrooms for the P.V. campus of Yavapai College.

Signs of Autumn

Ah, the days and nights are cooler, with crisp breezes blowing.

And the leaves are changing color . . from green to golden . . .

. . and red . . .

Some trees, like this big Globe Willow, are still in transition.

And there are other signs of autumn as well.

Note the young man who constructed this Halloween scene even dug a couple of graves with tombstones in his front yard. Ingenious!

But there are other less pleasing signs of the season.

They seem to appear nearly every year nowadays.

Call it "Campaign Clutter."


One candidate for state office used his garage door as his sign-posting space.

As always, clicking on the individual photos will render them larger!