Update

Work is slowly getting underway on the Highway 89A overpass over Viewpoint Road.  Slowly because as it was about to start a snowstorm blew in and it took awhile for everything to melt away.

I'll try to remember to keep you posted.

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There's a function around here called the "Tuxedos and Tool Belts Ball."  Having neither a tuxedo or a tool belt, I've never been to it but here's what I'd like to hear to get those outfits dancing.

1-11-11

Today is January 11th, 2011.  In abbreviated form, that makes it 1-11-11, as I realized when I read my friend Judy's blog this morning. 

Those numbers kept rolling around in my head all day.

At first (there's another 1) I put meaning to it when I heard SWMBO stir and I went to the kitchen to make her a cup of tea.  Normally I get her teabag and grab a packet of sweetener at the same time to put in my second cup of coffee.  But today those numbers had me thinking about something I'd read recently about multi-tasking.  We seem to have become accustomed to multi-tasking, doing two and more things at once.  For example, surfing the Internet while also checking our e-mail and half-listening to the news coming from the nearby radio or television set.  Add to that thinking about tasks coming up ahead in our day, wondering if we have some English muffins in the kitchen, re-living last night's exciting football game, considering whether that was what kept me from getting to sleep until nearly 3 a.m., and a plethora of other things.  It's enough to make anyone more than a little addled as the brain struggles to keep up.  The article I read said that multi-taskers generally don't do any one of the tasks well.  We have become adept at keeping many balls in the air but we're finding less and less applause for our act.  It's the old thing of heading into another room to do something but forgetting what it was you were going to do.  That's usually blamed on getting older.  But I think it's more and more because we're all trying to do too many things at the same time.  At least, thinking about doing them.

So, I resolved to try to change that and do just one thing at a time and to try to concentrate on that one thing.  But it's not easy.  For example, just now I was thinking ahead about where I want this little essay to go in the next paragraph while I was typing this one.  That may take multi-tasking to a ridiculous extreme but I think you can get the idea.

O.K.  It's another paragraph and this is the second thought I had.  It came from the television newscast where a scientist of some type or another was saying that Jarred Lee Loughner, the man who murdered a handful of people in Tucson Saturday morning, was almost certainly schizophrenic.  He claimed this was 99 percent certain because of things we have learned about him since his heinous act.  And various pundits are now saying words to the effect of "he may not have been influenced by right wing talk radio or Sarah Palin and her map because, while he seemed to be a fan of Ayn Rand and the gold standard he also seemed to favor the Communist manifesto and books like 'To Kill a Mockingbird'."  Maybe his brain couldn't handle all that multi-tasking and just . . broke.

So where do I go from here?  I don't believe I have any good solutions to anything right now, except to go to sleep tonight and be thankful that tomorrow will be merely 1-12-11.

Assassination: A Way of Life

We were stunned today to hear of the shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson.  As it stands now, she is out of surgery and expected to survive, even though she was shot in the head at a political event outside a grocery store in Tucson.  Also as it stands now, 17 other people were shot and at least five of them were killed, including a 9 year old girl and a federal judge.  The perpetrator of all this violence was said to be a young man, 21 or 22 years of age, armed with some type of automatic weapon.  Amazingly in this day and age, he was taken into custody before he could do damage to himself.

This sad news brings me to think of other such tragedies.  Too close together were the murders of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Senator Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King and the wounding of Governor George Wallace.  There also was the murder some years later of John Lennon.  When all of those horrible acts took place, I was working as a newsman in radio and television.  While I was thrown into the frantic scuffle of trying to report on those incidents it was also a sad and horrifying event for me as well as the great majority of my fellow Americans.

Will this madness never end? 

When will we ever learn?

A fantasy day

So I was out today admiring the show being put on by the clouds in a beautiful blue sky.

When something came into view!  I snapped a quick picture, almost out of frame of this . . . could it be?  An honest to gosh flying saucer?

Then something else appeared.  A helicopter!  Apparently in pursuit of this unearthly object.

Maybe I wasn't crazy after all.  Obviously the helicopter pilot had seen what I had seen.

But then the helicopter came lower and lower and eventually landed at a nearby hospital.  It wasn't chasing the flying saucer after all.

So - - - -

Oh, all right.  The mystery is over.  I actually inverted the photo.  Here's one taken from a little further away, not inverted.

My flying saucer was actually the top of a street light, with a little trickery by me in the photo editing stage.  There are many of these modernistic light poles in our town.

So back to the clouds, where apparently my head has been today.  This time I included a bit of the mountains in the lower right corner for perspective.



You're probably thinking "it's about time you got some perspective, Catalyst!"

Big Bucks!

I noted the other night that one of the two winners of a 380 million dollar jackpot in the lottery game Mega Millions bought his/her ticket in Post Falls, Idaho.  I happen to know someone from that town, up there between Washington and Montana.  I just sent the person an e-mail saying I hoped it was theirs.

Tonight on television the other winner, a man from Washington state not far from Post Falls, was shown after he came in with his wife to claim his 190 million dollar prize.  He told how he had come in to the bedroom, wakened his wife and showed her the winning numbers and his winning ticket.  He said it would last for generations because "we're not going to blow this!"

I have dreamed for years about "winning the big one".  Quite a while back, we won around $1,200 in a lottery game right before Christmas.  I don't remember what we did with the money but it certainly made that year's Christmas bills go away.  Incidentally, we've probably spent that 12 c-notes on more lottery tickets with never a big winner.  $3, $4, $7 . . that's about our take and lots and lots of losing tickets. 

SWMBO and I have seriously thought for a long time how we would handle a super big money win in one of those games.  Of course, our heirs would be well-fixed, probably even the ones that rarely speak to us.  You just know the phone would start to ring more regularly.  We used to travel quite a bit and, hopefully, we would do much more of that.  But, we're pretty well fixed with "things".  So, other than a new car, a new place to live and . . and . . and . .    Well?  What would we do with all that money?

But as the commercials say - "You can't win if you don't play."

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update: My acquaintance in Idaho has just e-mailed back to say he didn't win.  He said when he went in to the office to claim his share of the big prize he was told he had to buy a ticket to win.  As he put it: "Details, details."

Cold Lake Watson

 Brrrrr!

No kayaks on the lake today.

But if you click on these photos to magnify them, you will see quite a few ducks enjoying nice cool swimming weather.

The Maverick changes

I was driving past a gas station/convenience store today and noticed the sign: Maverik.

I guess I'm like most everybody else.  Whenever I hear that word, no matter how it's spelled, I think of one thing: John McCain.

There was a time, in 2000 and again in 2008, when McCain claimed that title.  I think the news media first branded him with it but McCain took it on proudly.  Now . . . he says he never was a maverick.  Huh?

Of course, McCain spent part of his early adulthood bombing the Vietnamese.  Then, after being shot down, he spent quite a few years being mistreated as a prisoner of war.  Now?  Hugs.

Speaking of which, McCain has become quite a hugger.  Here he is with Rudy Giuliani.

And George W. Bush.

And his Independent but mostly Democrat pal Joe Lieberman.

And, of course, his running mate in 2008, loony Sarah Palin.

Even the guy who trounced him in the 2008 election, President Barack Obama.

So, what became of John McCain?  The Maverick?  The lovable hugger?  Well it's a mystery to most everyone but he still seems bitter about losing the presidency.  Twice, if you count Bush knocking him out in the primaries in 2000.  He seems to do nearly nothing except oppose everything Obama proposes.  Many people have said he just seems like a bitter old man.  In short, he has become this: