California's liquid sunshine

The first of a series of rain and snow storms has blown into Arizona from California this morning. If you watched the telecast of the Golden Globes awards last night you know what we can expect. Rain all week for our elevation. A few thousand feet higher around Flagstaff there's a prediction of 3 to 8 feet of snow this week. I'll take the rain.

I talked to the BRD this morning. She lives half a dozen miles to the west and a couple of hundred feet higher than we do. She said she was having "snain" - a little snow, a little rain.

Kickin' the ball around

Oh, all right. Steve has been goading me into this posting so here goes.

The New Orleans Saints were better than the Arizona Cardinals yesterday. Quite a bit better. The Cards lost a couple of key players in the first quarter and, frankly, I think their defense was still tired from that great game last weekend with the Packers. So, the Cardinals are done for the season. Kurt Warner took a vicious (though clean) hit and suffered a chest injury although he did come back in the second half. And he did pass for over 200 yards though only two touchdowns. Whether he will announce his retirement soon is still a question in Arizona.

I was a bit more pleased today to see Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings manhandle the Dallas Cowboys. And the Indianapolis Colts did secure a victory over the Baltimore Ravens.

So, Steve, there you go. I think that's all I've got to say. (sniff, sniff)

Back, back, back . . .

I thought I'd take a trip way back into the past today. These photos were taken somewhere in the middle 1960's when I was a news director at a television station in Bismarck, North Dakota. The event was a small going-away party for an employee, John Warren, who was leaving to become my competitor at another t.v. station in town. I'm the guy on the right, by the way.


One more photo which shows your scribe at the left.

There are several things to note in these photos.

#1 - I was about a hundred pounds lighter than I am today and v-e-r-y slender (to put it nicely) or skinny (to put a more accurate note on it.)

#2 - I was wearing a necktie, something I haven't done for close to 35 years.

#3 - My pants were too short. We used to call them high-water pants.

#4 - In neither photo am I without a cigarette, something that has been absent from my persona now for more than 18 years. (I feel better though I never had any health problems from the butts that I knew of.)

#5 - And I just thought of another one: I am beardless, which has not been the case except for a few very brief lapses of sanity for nearly 40 years!

How the years do change us!

And how they affect our memory. Steve pointed out (see comments below) that those pictures looked familiar and he thought I had posted them before. He is correct! I looked back in the archives and found a similar post with the same photos only last November. Ye-Gods! Please forgive the repetition.

Fire and Ice

It seems strange, with snow showing in the Bradshaws, to also see smoke rising. But there it is.

It seems the Forest Service is burning off some wood piles in the forest.

The photos were taken from the north Lynx Lake campground parking lot.

It's all image

This is the official photograph of Arizona Governor Jan Brewer which is posted on the official governor's office web page. Not bad, huh?

But wait!

Here is a news photograph taken of the governor as she delivered her State of the State address to the legislature yesterday. That's more than a rough weekend!

Lucky Number 13!

What is being called one of the greatest football games in the history of the National Football League saw the Arizona Cardinals move up in the playoffs by defeating the Green Bay Packers 51 to 45 yesterday.

The Cardinals quarterback, 38 year old Kurt Warner, put on an amazing display as did his counterpart, the Packers' Aaron Rodgers. But it was the veteran who came out on top after Rodgers was sacked on the first series of plays in the overtime session and Karlos Dansby recovered the fumble and ran it 17 yards into the end zone for the winning touchdown.

There was talk yesterday about Warner retiring after this season but he told everyone to relax after the game and said that decision would wait until the team has finished this year. Warner has another year left on a contract extension he signed last year but a concussion he suffered this year has put the retirement question up for discussion.

So the Cardinals move on to New Orleans Saturday to take on the Saints. Who have lost their last three games.

Cold!

It's actually not bad here in Arizona. Right now (at 11:30 a.m.) the temperature is 43 degrees and the forecast high today is 56. But most of the rest of the country is abnormally cold. For example, take a look at Charleston, South Carolina, where my pal Joan has had her camera out this morning.

Reminds me of that old pirate line: shiver my timbers!

Back where I grew up, in North Dakota, the wind chill this week was 50 degrees below zero! Now I can remember going out to ice skate when the real temperature was 20 below but that was 60 years ago and now I'm feeling cold at 43 degrees. I just have to try to remember last summer when the temperature was in the 90's and I was wishing for the cooler weather to arrive.