Saturday, June 30, 2012

First pic

Taken at the Daisy Museum in Rogers.  One has to wonder, with the way it's displayed, if someone might just knock it over. 

"What happened next was a source of controversy in our household for years to come." 


We're here! (In a new state)

Not a state of confusion.  Or anger.  That's good news.

However we are in Arkansas.  Rogers, to be exact.  Here for the Daisy BB Gun National Tournament.

But that doesn't start until Sunday evening.  In the meantime all of us are looking at doing some exploring here in The Natural State.  It's certainly nice and green in these parts, although like the rest of the country there's no escaping the horrid summer heat.  But no matter.  There's air conditioning, plenty of H2O, and swimming pool availability.

I promise some pictures over the next few days.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

The Days of June

This is one of those months where I just don't have much going on.  Therefore, no fodder for the blog.

Current events?  Fugeddaboutit.  I don't do that much here and besides the summer doldrums have hit everywhere.

Sports?  Not right now.  Much as I am interested in the college football playoff system I am actually more juiced by the prospect of seeing the SEC champ meet up with the Big 12 leader at the end of the season.  Too bad the Big 12 team will get its a__ kicked for the next many years to come.

Weather?  (Always everyone's favorite topic around here.)  In northwest Kansas it's Arizona hot right now, and will be for the next several (i.e. many) days.  Sure reminds me of the summers when I lived in Chandler, Casa Grande, Tucson, and, well you get the idea.

But in real news, Geogal shot her first skeet this past weekend.  We were helping with a trap shoot fundraiser and one of the gals there got Geogal to participate in one of the rounds, using a borrowed Beretta 20 gauge semi automatic.

She's hooked.  I foresee a July and August where we go as a family to the gun range.  Geoana's youth 20 gauge should be a better fit for my lovely wife, who right now is sporting a nice bruise courtesy of the Beretta's recoil.

The family that shoots together stays together.

Gadgets?  Nope.  I refuse to join the masses who are waxing huge expectation-predictions onto the Microsoft Surface.  I'd be willing to weigh in when we have an actual release date and prices to boot.  At this point it still just looks like a prototype.

Will I covet the new Macbook Pro with Retina display?  Possibly but my sights are actually set on one of the new Macbook Airs.  But rest assured my nearly six-year-old Macbook is still running quite well, thank you.

What's going on around the house?  Geogal and Geoana are watching our friend's kids this week (there's five of them).  Geogal cooked up some Hamburger Helper (provided by the family) for the little ones' lunch today and experienced some spillage.

Spillage that resulted in my task this early evening standing over our range with a razor blade and a full bottle of ceramic cooktop cleaner.  But the good news is that once I was done you would never have known just how cruddy everything looked at midday.

At least I have a short work week this week.  Looking forward to a little downtime and going to a place I have never been.

Friday, June 01, 2012

Now with the material

Wake up this morning, the first of June, and I see it's raining.  And cool.  I won't make a metaphor out of it but suffice to say I was jonesing for hot black coffee all morning.  And felt sleepy on top of it all. 

No matter, I'm sure within a couple of days it will be back to the hot dry wind and near-100-degree temps. 

Speaking of the hot dry wind there was plenty of it last Saturday.  Given most of the local farmers planted wheat it gave a real meaning to the verse "amber waves of grain." 

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Sold the pop-up camper a couple of weekends back.  Given we will not have a chance to camp this summer, nor the next (courtesy of Geogal's school commitment) our household decided to let it go and have someone else enjoy it.  Doesn't hurt to have some extra cash lying around, either. 

We certainly got plenty of fun out of it.  It was a great way to start learning the basics (and the culture) of the campground.  At first I started the self-pity exercise when I thought of everything I had spent in gear.  But wait. 

After procuring the thing in April of 2010, we bought a Coleman camp stove, two lanterns, wheel chocks, a dogbone adapter (allows you to plug the 30-amp connector into a household outlet), camp dishes, a wash basin, and numerous other doo-dads.  Then it dawned on me, all of these things can be used in our next rig. 

Ah, our next rig. 

It will be a travel trailer.  Preferably a bunkhouse model (useful if Geoana wants to bring a friend along).  Not too big, something that our Suburban can pull with little to no effort.  Climate control.  A bathroom.  A working kitchen (to allow means to cook if it's raining outdoors, which did happen our last night during last summer's trip). 

Yes, I've already got my eye out even though we won't be buying for at least two years.  Ebay and the local classifieds are great ways to lose myself in the pleasure of fantasy.  I can even imagine a return to trip to Yellowstone.  And Rocky Mountain National Park. 

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Finished reading LBJ: Architect of American Ambition.  I'm now enjoying some fiction.  First I breezed through my latest C. J. Box read, Nowhere To Run, and when returning that book to the library Geogal found a tome that might interest me.  The author is Nevada Barr (whom I had not heard of before a few days ago) and the book is Borderline.  Takes place in Big Bend National Park.  How could I not like this read?  I'll be sure to post my thoughts in an upcoming post. 

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Any other upcoming summer activities?  For me a fair amount of home improvement work.  I see a whole lotta painting to be done before summer turns into fall. 

The vegetable garden is much smaller this year.  Some tomatoes, crookneck squash, onions, and green chile.  Not the nicely hot Big Jim variety of peppers from last year's garden but a more mild yet flavorful variety developed by New Mexico State University (yeah!). 

That's all for now.  Welcome, June.