Gypsy Got It Right! And a great TV show.

Congratulations to Gypsy, she got the anagram correct. I couldn’t solve it, but then, I am not very good at word puzzles. I always liked math the best. I love Sudoku and work them all the time.



Now for the rest of you who may have attempted the anagram, here is the correct answer and if you check yesterday’s comments from Gypsy, you will see that she did get it right:

COUPLES FLIRTING


MUTTERING THROUGH MOUSTACHE

How many of you got the right answer?


I thought that we were going to get a lot of rain yesterday afternoon. Heard lots of thunder and saw lots of lightning. Checked the radar on line and saw two large storm masses moving toward the south. Only trouble, our location was right between the two big masses. Yes, it did rain, but not near what our neighbors on both sides got. But still, I am thankful for any amount that we get. Some rain is much better than no rain. I think maybe the weather pattern has changed for the better. Time will tell.


Do any of you watch the “Larry’s Country Diner” TV show? I always enjoy it for the music and the comedy. Last night Johnny Lee and the Oak Ridge Boys were the musical guests and I always get a big laugh out of Nadine. It is a great family show and very entertaining and they do not cut out the bloopers.  It is filmed "as is".  The “Sheriff” is one of the best guitar pickers in the business and his wife has a good singing voice. I highly recommend that show along with a lot of other great TV shows on RFDTV. If your cable or satellite company doesn’t offer it, call and complain. Here is a link to a sample of the show:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ISBsBZd330


You all have a great TGIF day, you hear?

Wondering why blogging is addictive.

I got a comment on yesterday’s blog from Hobo Joe and he said that he doubts whether he will ever get to 100 blogs. Well, I went and checked and he has published his 53rd blog and he will be to 100 before he knows it; he is over half way there already. Time flies by and so does blogs. I can’t believe that I am over 400 blogs already. It just seems like yesterday that I timidly attempted to write my first blog http://dizzydick.blogspot.com/2010/07/st-blog.html back on July 16, 2910. Dang, that has been only a year and two and a half months ago. It seems to me like I have been doing this for ever. I enjoy it and can’t wait to see what everyone else is up to. I don’t only read the blogs I “follow”, but a lot of other ones. Trouble is, it takes up way too much of my time.

Yesterday, Gypsy of the On The Road Again Blog commented that she was much better at word puzzles than she was with number puzzles. Just looking at that number of my blog, I could see the pattern, but with words I am not good at all. So, to get a word puzzle for Gypsy, I had to cheat and find one in book. Here Gypsy, this is an anagram for you:



Each word or phrase in quotation marks is an anagram of another word. The solution bears some relationship to the original.


(A) “UP CLOSE” “TRIFLING” (7/8)


Answer. “_______” “________”


(B) “EMIT GRUNT” through “MOUTH CASE” (9/9)


Answer “_________” “_________”






OK, Gypsy, get at it. I will give you the answer tomorrow or you can just put the answer in a comment. Good luck and have fun. Oh yeah, all you others can feel free to solve it, you can’t get out of it that easy. Just solve it and put the answer in the comments.

Wondering about yesterday’s blog number

I just noticed that yesterday I had published blog number 416. You probably say, “So what, a lot of people have done that”. I don’t mean to imply that it was a lot of blogs; I just mean that the number 416 is one of a unique few. There are only 18 such numbers in a little over 20,000. Now, can you tell me what is unique about this number?



Now is good time to change the subject while I try to decide if I should give you the answer today or wait until tomorrow? While I am trying to make up my mind, I will tell you that I heard some thunder a little after 19:00 last night. In fact, there must have been some heavy clouds to my south because my satellite went off a couple of times. That is one disadvantage of satellite, but it is better than cable if you are an RVer. The satellite can go with you but you would need a very huge reel of wire for the cable to follow along (grin).


Yes, it rained down south of me toward Houston. The weather man said that Houston got a small amount but west of Houston and Katy there was heavy rains. I saw on their map that some places got in excess of three inches. The rain goes north, south, east, and west of me. . . so when is it going to dump some here?!?!






Ok, I have decided to tell you what is unique about the number 416. Others like it are 11, 24, 39, . . . 17,289, 18,324 and 19,361; 18 of them under 20,000. The answer is that the last part of the number is the square of the first part. The number 4 squared is 16. Yeah, I know, this blog was real dumb. I will try harder in some future blog, maybe.


You all have a great day now, you hear?

Wondering about water.

We all know what water is, right? It is made up of two atoms of hydrogen combined with one atom of oxygen (H2O). This all sounds simple enough; water is made up of two of the most common gasses. And yes, water can be found almost everywhere in the universe. For a couple of examples, in its solid state (ice) it makes up the rings of Saturn, the bodies of comets, and moons. As a gas, steam which is invisible, it hovers like a cloak around every non-blue star. I believe it is the most common compound in the universe. Why shouldn’t it be, it is made up out of the most abundant element in the universe (hydrogen) and the third most abundant element (oxygen).



If you really think about water, it becomes a really strange compound. It doesn’t act like other compounds, especially when it comes to how and when it changes state. No, I don’t mean it moved from New Mexico to the “Show Me State” of Missouri, I mean its physical states of solid, liquid, and gas. Let me try to explain.


Water at room temperature is liquid whereas heavier gasses like carbon dioxide are gases. This should not be, but it is. Why? According to Bob Berman; “Water molecules form at an odd angle, giving each atom a slight electrical polarity that attracts it to its neighbors. This makes it act as if it were a much heavier molecule”. OK, but it is still very rare in its liquid state, because not only does it need to be in a very narrow temperature range but it has to also be under a certain amount of pressure, which our atmosphere provides.


Another strange thing is that water is densest near forty degrees Fahrenheit which means when the temperature drops to 32 degrees and it turns to ice, that ice is less dense than 40 degree water. How could that be, its solid state lighter than its liquid state? I am sure that there is some logical explanation but I am going to give God the credit for this. Without water doing all these strange things that seem to go against the wisdom of science, there would be no life as we know it on Earth. If ice were heavier than liquid water, it would sink or form at the bottom and that would kill the aquatic life instead of protecting it with shield of ice in cold weather. Have any of you got a better explanation?


You all have a good day now and have some ice cubes in a cool drink and watch them float, you hear?

Wondering if we should take a road trip.

I am getting that “hit the road” feeling again, but where should we go? There are so many places I would like to see that I have never seen and I am sure more than a few that I don’t know about yet. We were planning on maybe going to the state parks here in Texas, but this drought and fear of fire has kept us at home. The wild fires have damaged a lot of the parks. Also, if we were to go away, we would have to take all the important stuff with us in case a wild fire springs up near our home. Since we are nestled in the woods with trees right up next to the house, a wild fire here would surely take our home.



Of course when we do travel, we take all the most important things and papers with us anyway. Of course, I should not be even thinking of going anywhere when I have so much to do here. I have a lot of maintenance jobs that need done around here. Some I have forgotten about and others I have just put off. Dang, looks like I talked myself out of a road trip. That’s OK, would prefer to wait until it cools off some. You know it got to around 100 here yesterday and they are predicting the high 90’s for the rest of the week. Yeah, this isn’t a good time to take a trip, think I will just wait awhile.


Should I start on all the projects that need doing around here? Nah, maybe I should think about that for awhile. Don’t you think so? You all have a great day now, you hear?

Wondering why we are dry again.

Today we are under a fire weather alert. Yes, we did get a rain a week and a day (8 days) ago, but it was not all that much and it immediately turned back into dry weather conditions. Today is to be extremely windy with very low humidity and it is suppose to get back up around 100 degrees again. A drought that has lasted almost a year is hard to break. I just wonder how long it will be until we do get back to the semblance of normal. This drought and the fires it caused has been the death of so very much flora and fauna. The small amount of rain that we did have a week ago did not help the trees any. It just perked up the weeds and some of the grass.



Once this drought is broken, we will probably have flooding. It seems like one extreme usually turns into the opposite one. It reminds me of a pendulum. It swings almost as far one way as the other and it takes a long time for it to slow down.


Of course if it does rain soon, it will probably be a severe thunder and lightning storm and the lightning will probably set off some more fires. Guess I need to be careful for what I wish for. If it were not for everything dying, nice clear weather is rather nice. . .


You all have a great day now, you hear?

Wondering what makes you cry.

What makes a person cry? I am sure that it is quite different for each person. Some cry from pain, some cry from bad news, some cry from good news, some cry from a loss, some cry from a gain, some cry at the drop of a hat, and some never cry at all. We are all different and I believe we all change through the years. This is a deep subject and I don’t want to get into it over my head, so I will not try to give you all the reasons people cry.



It just dawned on me that I have more a tendency to tear up at sad movies, TV shows, etc. than I used to. I hardly ever cried when I was young boy, but the older I got the more I cried, like when a teenager and the ups and downs of a love life. Of course maybe that is because my memory is not as good as it should be. Or maybe it was that when a boy is young, he wants to show how grown up he is. Strange isn’t it, now I am an old man and I tear up more than I did when I was a boy; not from pain but from emotions I guess. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, I ain’t one to cry over spilt milk or such, and I don’t cry like a baby or anything, but my eyes do tear up at sad movies. It seems that sad fiction seems to affect me more than real life.


What, if anything, makes you cry?


OK, off to the flea market. It is a beautiful cool morning here for a change, but will warm up real fast. At least it will stay under 100 but will get to the mid 90’s. You all have great day now, you hear?

A Texas Tri-County Fire Story

I don’t usually do this, but I received an email with this story attached and I thought it should be shared. So I am copying and pasting it here on my blog:


This is what a couple of local women in our county did during the recent fire disaster to organize help for victims way before the bureaucrats of FEMA finally showed up to take charge of the situation. Sounds like the best thing for the wonderful FEMA bureaucrats could do is to stay in their beds and not stick their publicity seeking noses in emergency situations where they only deter progress!

Here are some stories about the Tricounty fire in Montgomery, Grimes, and Waller County, Memorial week, 2011.

My neighbor across the road has a sister named Kenna. Memorial Day, when she saw the huge column of smoke over our homes, she left a birthday party at my neighbor’s house to meet with her friend Tara at the Baseball complex in Magnolia. She called the owner of the complex and got permission to use the warehouse there as a staging area for donations for the fire fighting effort.

They put a notice out on facebook that they were going to be taking donations on their facebook pages. That night as they were setting up tables and organizing, News 2 Houston came by and saw the activity, investigated and left with the phone numbers and a list of suggested donations.

The facebook notice propagated faster than the fire. By dawn they had 20 volunteers, bins, forklifts, and donations were pouring in. I stopped by with my pitiful little bags of nasal wash and eye wash, and was amazed. There must have been 20 trucks in the lot, offloading cases of water, pallets of Gatorade , and people lined up out the door with sacks of beef jerky, baby wipes, underwear, socks, and you name it. School buses and trailers from many counties around were there offloading supplies, students forming living chains to pass stuff into the bins for transport to the command center and staging areas. If the firefighters had requested it, it was there. What do you give the guy out there fighting the fire that might engulf your home? Anything he or she wants. Including chewing tobacco and cigarettes.

Kenna moved on to the Unified Command Post at Magnolia West High school. She looked at what the fire fighters needed, and she made calls and set it up.

Mattress Mac donated 150 beds. Two class rooms turned into barracks kept quiet and dark for rest. The CEO of HEB donated 2 semi trailers full of supplies, and sent a mobile commercial kitchen at no charge to feed all the workers, but especially our firefighters, 3 hot meals a day. An impromptu commissary was set up, anything the firefighters had requested available at no charge.

As exhausted firefighters (most of them from local VFDs with no training or experience battling wildfires) and workers came into the school after long hours of hard labor, dehydrated, hungry, covered with soot and ash, they got what they needed. They were directed through the commissary, where they got soap, eye wash and nasal spray, candy, clean socks and underwear, and then were sent off to the school locker rooms for a shower. HEB then fed them a hot meal and they got 8 hours sleep in a barracks, then another hot meal, another pass through the commissary for supplies to carry with them out to lines, including gloves, safety glasses, dust masks and snacks, and back they went.

One of the imported crew from California came into Unified Command and asked where the FEMA Powerbars and water were. He was escorted to the commissary and started through the system. He was flabbergasted. He said FEMA never did it like this. Kenna replied, ”Well, this is the way we do it in Texas.”

Fire fighting equipment needed repair? The auto shop at the High School ran 24/7 with local mechanics volunteering, students, and the firefighters fixing the equipment.

Down one side of the school, the water tankers lined up at the fire hydrants and filled with water. Down the other side there was a steady parade of gasoline tankers filling trucks, dozers, tankers, cans, chain saws, and vehicles.

Mind you, all of this was set up by 2 Moms, Kenna and Tara, with a staff of 20 simple volunteers, most of them women who had sons, daughters, husbands, and friends on the fire lines. Someone always knew someone who could get what they needed- beds, mechanics, food, space. Local people using local connections to mobilize local resources made this happen. No government aid. No Trained Expert.

At one point the fire was less than a mile from the school, and everyone but hose volunteers were evacuated. The fire was turned.

The Red Cross came in, looked at what they were doing, and quietly went away to set up a fire victim relief center nearby. They said they couldn’t do it any better.

FEMA came in and told those volunteers and Kenna that they had to leave, FEMA was here now. Kenna told them she worked for the firefighters, not them. They were obnoxious, bossy, got in the way, and criticized everything. The volunteers refused to back down and kept doing their job, and doing it well. Next FEMA said the HEB supplies and kitchen had to go, that was blatant commercialism. Kenna said they stayed. They stayed. FEMA threw a wall eyed fit about chewing tobacco and cigarettes being available in the commissary area. Kenna told them the firefighters had requested it, and it was staying. It stayed. FEMA got very nasty and kept asking what organization these volunteers belonged to- and all the volunteers told them “Our community”. FEMA didn’t like that and demanded they make up a name for themselves. One mother remarked “They got me at my boiling point!” and suddenly the group was “212 Degrees”. FEMA’s contribution? They came in the next day with red shirts embroidered with “212 Degrees”, insisting the volunteers had to be identified, never realizing it was a slap in their face. Your tax dollars at work- labeling volunteers with useless shirts and getting in the way.

The upshot? A fire that the experts from California (for whom we are so grateful there are no words) said would take 2-3 weeks to get under control was 100% contained in 8 days. There was so much equipment and supplies donated, 3 container trucks are loaded with the excess to go and set up a similar relief center for the fire fighters in Bastrop. The local relief agencies have asked people to stop bringing in donations of clothing, food, household items, and pretty much everything else because they only have 60 displaced households to care for, and there is enough to supply hundreds. Again, excess is going to be shipped to Bastrop, where there are 1500 displaced households. Wish we could send Kenna, too, but she has to go back to her regular job.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I got this email from a local friend. I can not confirm or disprove it's authenticity although I did find it on the internet here:

http://www.dieseltruckresource.com/dev/showthread.php?t=295299

You all have a good day now, you hear?

Wondering about the Jeep Liberty

We took the RV out yesterday. First stop was to fill the gas tanks. I like to keep them filled in case we want to escape a fire or a hurricane or a . . . The second stop was to get the RV inspected. All went well, as expected. Then, since we had it out, we went to Wally-World and bought stuff. It makes it nice when you have a refrigerator and freezer to put the cold and frozen foods in to take home. That way there is no rush. After getting home, we took the Jeep and got it filled up and purchased lottery tickets. No, didn’t win anything.



Have an early appointment today to get the Jeep Liberty serviced and to repair a rear door window. Earlier in the year we had the right rear door window start to fall down into the door. I was told that was major problem with that vintage Liberty. Now, the left rear door window is doing the same thing. I don’t believe that I have ever put the back windows down, but the problem showed up anyway. Do any of you own a mid 2000 (ours is a 2004) Jeep Liberty and if so, have you had this problem. I have met a few people who have had the same problem.


Other than the window problem, since it doesn’t have 40,000 miles on it yet, it is like new and we have had no other problems with it. We used to have another vehicle to drive and “saved” the Jeep for pulling behind the motor-home. That was my plan, even before we had a motor-home. I knew some day I would trade my travel trailer in on a motor-home, so back in 2004 when we purchased a vehicle for a second car that my wife could drive when needed, the Jeep with 4-wheel drive was chosen. It is a good vehicle to be used as a “toad”.
Got to run, you all have a good day now, you hear?

Wondering about old fads.

I was just thinking about some of the fads that were going around when I was in school during the 50’s. I graduated high school in the spring of 1961. That, by the way, is one of the very few years that can be turned upside down and it will still read 1961. Don’t believe me, write it on a piece of paper and rotate the paper 180 degrees. The last time that could be done was 1691 and the next time will not be until 6119.



If you are as old as I am, I am sure you can remember the boys’ haircuts. The jocks had flat-tops and the cool cats had long greasy hair combed back into a DA. What about colors? Pink and black was where it was at, man. I even had a pair of black pants with inlaid pink stripes down the outside of each leg. No, I didn’t buy them; a neighbor gave them to me.


A little later Hush Puppies came along. They were a casual wear shoe line which is still in business today. I had a pair of slip-on loafers that were the brightest red you could imagine. No one had ever seen shoes that color and they became a trade mark of mine for a few years. I wonder if I still have them lying around some where. Heck, we never throw anything away (grin).


That is just a few of them. Which fads did you get caught up in when you were in school? Tell me about them. You all have a good day now, you hear?

Got work and it rained again.

I got an email just after I posted my blog yesterday from my client who was vacationing in Italy with his wife. Seems they got this big rush job at his plant in Houston that needs a lot of fabrication and assembly drawings. The problem is, their customer wants its PDQ. To make a long story short, I worked about 11 hours on it yesterday and will be working (at least 12 hours a day) on it for the next couple of days. Therefore, if I don’t post a blog, you know the reason.


We got a little bit more rain yesterday, but last night around 03:30 a thunder storm came through and it rained fairly hard for about a half hour. Now that is what I am talking about, a real East Texas thunderstorm. Don’t know how much we got, but I can assure you it was more rain than we have had for months and months and months. I guess Jill’s chanting yesterday did the trick. Yea, I know you are tired of hearing about the weather, but just had to let you know that it seems the hot, dry cycle is broken. The thought did go through my mind that the lightning may cause a fire. Even though it rained had, a lot of stuff is dead and will still burn.

Got to get to work. I like a little work, too bad most of what I get has to be “rush” jobs. You all have a good day now, you hear?

It Rained!!!

It rained, it rained, it rained. . . I like saying that. I haven’t had much of an opportunity to say it this year until yesterday. We didn’t get a lot; looks like about three eights of an inch. Adding up all the rain that we got this year, the total comes to just a little over an inch but I am sure that is going to change. Houston, which is closer to the gulf, only got eleven inches so far. That dang big dome of high pressure that sat over us has finally moved off to the west, allowing some rain to come in. Not only did we get rain yesterday, we have a forty percent chance for some more over the next couple of days. Now forty percent didn’t use to sound like a lot, but after all that zero percents, it seems like a lot.



This may help lower the risk of wild fires but it is a little late to save a lot of the flora and fauna. It will take years to recover from this extra long drought. That is, if it doesn’t return soon. That big dome of high pressure could just move back in here. Sure hope not. We all like nice weather, but we just had way too much of a nice thing. It is time for some more rain. No, I am not satisfied with the little bit we got yesterday. I WANT SOME MORE!!


Right now, the radar shows a lot of rain down near the coast. It seems to be moving to the north east. Maybe in a few hours it will work its way up through Houston and make it all the way to where I live. Sure hope so. It looks like we will have a good chance of getting a little more rain today. Hallelujah!!


You all have a great day now, you hear?

Wondering about accidental inventions.

A lot of the inventions that helped change our world came about by accident. I have heard of many and I am sure there are a lot more. Good and bad things have been discovered by accident; some bringing wealth and fame to the ones who discovered them and to some, the oppostite. I remember reading about the lady who discovered X-rays. She discovered that the experiments she was conducting had exposed photo plates in the next room. Her discovery ended up killing her.



I would believe that the accidental discoveries outrank the ones discovered on purpose, but then too, I have been know to be wrong once or twice in my lifetime (grin). This is one site that lists nine of them: 9 Things Invented or Discovered by Accident

I just read about another “accident” that produced a wonderful product that came in handy not too long ago. This is not the article, but this article tells what the blue goop or goo or what ever (DeconGel) is: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2011/05/27/officials-use-blue-peelable-goo-to-decontaminate-japan/

The people who discovered this product were working on something entirely different. They were researching corneal implants. A careless lab technician accidently dribbled an experimental compound they were working with on the floor. After it dried, they peeled it off and found that part of the floor cleaner than they had ever seen it before. Accidently discovering this compounds ability to clean, they were smart enough to study it further and develop it into a supper cleaner. It was used for cleaning up the radioactive stuff at the damaged Japanese nuclear reactor.


Do you think they can make enough of this goo to clean up the whole world? Now, wouldn’t that be great!!


You all have a nice weekend, you hear?

Going to keep this short this morning. My wife and I both made appointments with our “Doctor of Optometry” this morning. It is just a routine visit to get checked out and to make sure that our eyes and glasses are OK.



I took a walk around the place yesterday. It is just so sad to see the dead and dying. The swamp is completely dry now, most of the vegetation and trees are dying and with no food or water, the wildlife is dead or dying. Some of the old Oak trees will be lost. If it ever rains here, maybe next spring some will come back, but I doubt that many will. Nature can really be cruel at times. Less than an inch of rain since last October is unheard of. Why the desert gets more rain than that! It is no wonder we have been plagued with wild fires.


Got to run, so you all have a good day now, you hear?

Wondering why I forget so many things.

I forget things, lots of things!!! Then I start wondering and worrying if I am getting senile or have the beginning touches of the dreaded Alzheimer’s disease. No, I do not believe in worrying about anything, so that part was short lived, but I still wonder. Everyone jokes about “old timer’s disease”, well I do see the humor in it but in another way it is not so funny. Sometimes I can remember things way back when I was a child better than where I just laid down my keys, or my glasses, or the TV remote, or.. or..or.. dang I forget.



What brought this on? Oh yea, I had a great idea for a blog yesterday afternoon. I must have done something stupid, cause all I can remember is the title I was going to use. That title for the blog was going to be “Wondering why I am so dumb”. Sort of fits, but this was definitely not the subject I had in mind, at least I don’t think so. I can’t remember. This happens a lot. I think of a good topic and then by the next morning when I start to write, poof, it is gone. Does this ever happen to you? Come on now, be honest.


Maybe I should get a notepad to carry in my pocket to write down things; that is if I remember to write things down and then remember where I put the notebook and remember to read what I put in it. No, I ain’t going to do that. I think my brain is like a hard drive. When it gets full you got to clean some stuff off it so you can put more on it and sometimes it needs defragged. I am sure that like a hard drive, our brains have a maximum capacity of the amount of memory it can hold. So, when you get old you have put a lot of stuff in memory and it is probably full up. Now, that makes sense to me. I would much better believe that than think that I had some kind of “old folk’s” disease.

You all have a great day now, you hear?

Wondering about my old guitar.

A few years ago, someone asked me the history of my guitar. I said I did not know, since I bought it for a hundred bucks off a friend of my son’s back over 20 years ago and it seemed well worn, no, I mean well played then. He got my interest up and at that time I did some research.



It is an Ovation, the model number is 1132-4 and the serial number is 064979. That is what I found on the guitar. So I will tell you what I found. First, I will list the numbers in the model number (1132-4) and tell you what each means:


1 - - The first digit is always a 1.


1 - - Acoustic Round Backs


3 - - Elite deep bowl


2 - - Deluxe Baladeer


4 - - Natural Color


The serial number (064979) places the manufacture date between Nov 1967 and July 1968.


Wow, it was made back just before Glen Campbell’s goodtime hour TV show where he made Ovation guitars famous. I enjoyed that show a lot. I wish my Ovation could talk and tell me who all owned it and who all played it and where all it has been. I guess I would just settle for it sounding good when I play it. Now that would be more a miracle than its talking!! I really like it and will never get rid of it. It holds a lot of memories, a lot of which are of my departed son.


You all have a good day now, you hear? I am hoping that today will be the last day over 100 for awhile. But who knows.

Wondering about “the father of bluegrass music”.

Today is a special day for those of us who love bluegrass music.  Back on September 13, 1911, on a farm near Rosine, Kentucky, Bill Monroe was born.  He would have been 100 today.  He had passed away back on September 9, 1996 but his music lives on.  He was known as the “father of bluegrass music”.  He was the one most responsible for bringing the music of the mountains out where everyone could enjoy it.  Of course he did refine some of it.

Did you know that Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatt played in Bill Monroe’s band from 1945 to 1948, which gave them a start in the music industry? Some of the other musicians that got their start in Bill Monroe’s band are Carter Stanley, Sonny Osbourne, Vassar Clements, and Ricky Skaggs. The farm where he was born is now the site of huge yearly bluegrass festival and also the site of “The Cumberland Highlanders” TV show that televises bluegrass music and the show I watch every Saturday night at 20:30 on RFDTV.

Here is link to one of my favorite songs that he did. He sings the first part slow then ups the tempo:
http://youtu.be/ffhqOy_A8KM
He has won so many awards and his music has influenced other types of music from county and western to rock. I have told you before, that my satellite radio is tuned permanently to the bluegrass station. I love bluegrass, but do enjoy other types of music, also.

You all have a good day today and listen to some bluegrass, and I am sure your foot will be tapping to the music..

Wondering about another ground turkey recall.

Dang, this is the second ground turkey recall from the same company within a month. Why can’t they get their act together? It seems like they will go broke this way. We buy a lot of ground turkey, since it is the base my wife uses when she prepares food for our dogs. Yes, she cooks for our dogs and it is so good that I try to get some of it, too. I guess the dogs are cuter than I am, because they always seem to win out.



Our oldest dog has colitis, and is very sensitive to diet. We were thinking that we were taking extra special care of our dogs by knowing what we were feeding them, preparing it ourselves, and adding all the ingredients to keep them healthy. The meat is always cooked, so it should be OK.


Now, I have been asked why we chose poultry as the meat base and not red meat. Well, one of the reasons was what I learned from an animal handler. I was watching hem throw chicken to all his big cats. I ask him why he was giving them chicken instead of a side of beef. He told me that animals in captivity do not get the activity needed to digest red meat very well. Also, in the wild, the big cats eat their preys’ stomach contents, etc. and get a variety with their meat. I figured if it were good enough for a professional it was good enough for me.


Red meat, now and then, is a treat and does not hurt anything. I eat very little red meat. I don’t get much exercise, either. (grin) OK, I had a good supper last night. I ate a package of Louisiana Cajun Boudin sausage. Wow, I like that stuff. Every time I do that, I tell myself that next time I will make two meal out of it like I should have done. But, every time I just eat the whole package. It is just sooooo goooood.

Sixbears had a question about Boudin and I found a picture on the internet that is exactly what I ate, except I ate two of them:

You all have a good week now, you hear?

Wondering about the 9-11’s aftermath.

First of all, you need to read Hermit Jim’s blog and HoboJoe’s blog this morning.  They say it better than I can, and HoboJoe has some figures that I had not thought about before.  They show just how many more have died or been injured in the fight against the terrorists since Sept. 11, 2001.

The American people gave up a lot of their rights and freedom that day just to feel a little bit safer. That means the terrorists won!!  Let us take back the freedoms that we gave away; if not for us, for all the people who have died fighting for our freedom since the revolutionary war.

Wondering about Mycotoxins and why I can’t spell it.

The part of my brain that is used for spelling is missing. Yep, it is gone, I don’t know when it left and I don’t know if I ever had it. All I know is that I can not spell. In a comment on another blog I mentioned mycotoxin but made a typo and spelled it mocotoxin. I went back and corrected it to micotoxin, which was still not right. Sorry for the confusion, so I will try to set it straight today and tell you more about it. I touched on the subject a couple of times before. Here is a link to the latest one: http://dizzydick.blogspot.com/2010/09/fungi.html



The definition of mycotoxin right out of my big dictionary is “a toxin produced by a fungus”. One of the worst or maybe THE worst one is Aflatoxins. According to Wikipedia, “aflatoxins are toxic and among the most carcinogenic substances known”. From all my studies on the subject, I would rank corn as the most contaminated and then peanuts. Other grains can be contaminated, especially the ones stored in silos or grain elevators. Corn comes highly contaminated straight out of the field and only gets worse when stored.


Therefore, corn and peanuts being the top two worst contaminated foods, those are the ones that I avoid. That is no easy task, since almost everything has corn or corn byproducts like corn oil or corn syrup in them. Read the labels if you don’t believe me.


Did you notice in the quote above out of Wikepedia, it said aflatoxins are carcinogenic? I believe that all mycotoxins are carcinogenic and that they cause 99 percent of all other health problems, too. Some doctors believe that cancer is nothing more than a fungus that can live inside us. Antibiotics are a mycotoxin, that is why they can kill bacteria so well. Too much antibiotics can do the same to us. Antibiotics are used to fatten up livestock. So mycotoxins can do that to us, also. Have you ever noticed that people who have toe-nail fungus usually have other health or weight issues? Of course there are exceptions to every rule.


If you want more information on this subject, you can watch the TV show “Know the Cause”, or got to Doug Kaufmann’s website at http://www.knowthecause.com/Home.aspx


I am sure that I didn’t give you all the information you need, but I hope I whet your apatite to learn more. Remember that medical doctors are trained by huge drug companies and in my opinion, most (not all) are nothing but pill pushers. No matter what you go in for, they seem to want to write you a prescription. How many of them give you other options.


It is your health and your body, take charge of it. Study all the aspects and make up your own minds. Have a good weekend and we are off to the flea market again.

Wondering why some people glow

Just sitting here this morning, thinking about all the dang problems I got to solve today. Knowing I am running out of time, cause I slept in until 07:00 this morning. Need to run to the hardware store to get a piece to repair something that I must have done wrong. Yea, I do make a mistake now and then. I think I remember making one like way back in . . . .


Did you ever hear someone say that a certain person just seemed to glow? I always used that term to describe a vibrant, fun loving optimist. But low and behold, do you know that some people actually glow? No, I don’t mean from radiation. I know that some days I sure don’t glow!!

Humans, like all other living things, are bioluminescent. Yes, we glow. Humans are the brightest during the afternoon, around our lips and cheeks. Well, that leaves me out. I am definitely not bright in the afternoon, at least not before my nap (grin). The cause of the glow may be chemical reactions involving molecular fragments known as free radicals. I like free stuff, don’t you? Not sure if I like radicals, unless they believe in my radical ideas.

You all go off and glow now, you hear?

Yesterday’s Pole and wondering about a klutzy day.

First, let me give you the results of yesterday’s pole. I received 7 comments and 5 of them were a definite YES. The other two did not say, although one was negative about NASA, so I will take that as a NO. So the count stands at:



5 yes
1 negative
1 undecided?
If you add my vote, it will be 6 yeses.

My wife asked me the other day if I had ever had a klutzy day. It seems as though she was dropping everything, knocking over stuff, tripping over things, bumping into stuff, and just having a hard time getting through the day. She figured the only thing she could do was to go to bed and stay there until tomorrow and hope it would be a better day. Of course I lied and told her that things like that never happen to me. So in all her infinite wisdom, she said “Why don’t you ask the bloggers if they have ever had a klutzy day?”


So, have any of you had a klutzy day?

I sure do hope that they get a handle on all the fires here in East Texas. So many people were forced to leave their homes and many will not have any to return to. So far, I heard of four deaths caused by the fires. Still no rain, none in sight, and the air is hot and DRY. We can’t even seem to get a tropical storm to come our way. Guess that only happens when we don’t need it.


Hope you all have a good day and are not near any of the fires or fires to be. It seems like they are popping up all over the place.

Wondering what you think about the space shuttles

First, let me say that I have reached the last page in the Dizzypedia and it is blank. HoboJoe came up with that name and I got a good chuckle out of it. Thanks Hobo and you all check out his blog site at: http://hoboroad.blogspot.com/



I would like to ask your opinion on the placements of the retired space shuttles. The question for today is: Do you think Houston should have gotten one of the shuttles and do you think the decisions on where they went were purely political? I personally believe Houston was slighted and should have had one on display at NASA or the Space Center.


Let me hear from you and have a good day.

Wondering about Ant Lions.

Here is a picture I took yesterday beside the steps to my deck:

No this picture is not the surface of the moon. These craters are made by the larva of an insect. The larvae are known as Ant Lions and they dig funnel shaped holes to trap ants. The ants can’t get out of the hole and just slide back in when they try. The Ant Lion buries itself in the bottom of the hole with its large jaws just beneath or outside the bottom of the hole to grab on to any hapless ant that ventures into the trap. Sounds like a science fiction movie and would be if they were a lot bigger and we were the hapless victims.

Here is an areal view of the same area:

I walked over to where the motor-home was parked and found some more in different colored sand:

That one had a dead piece of grass hanging down in it. The grass would give the ant an escape route. I bet that ant lion has no idea why he isn’t getting any ants. But the more I look at it, there seems to me, that this ant lion has extended the bottom of the cone into a basement where it would have the chance to clamp on to an ant.



This last picture is another trap next to the one above. This is the first place I lived where there were ant lions. In fact, at first I didn’t know what made the cone shaped holes, but the real estate lady who sold us the property explained what they were. Anything that feeds on ants is OK in my book.

If you want some information on these critters, you can go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antlion



Also, for a lot of pictures of ant lions and their traps, take a look HERE.


You all have a good day now and hope you enjoyed the holiday.

Wondering why the mind doesn’t know as much as the brain.

Was that title too long? I better be careful or I will write my whole blog in the title. If you thought the title was long, just wait until you start reading my blog (grin). Anyway, I don’t know why it is, but the brain knows much more than the conscience mind. It is a good thing it does, especially in my case.


Anyway, did you ever realize that you could do things or know things that you didn’t think you could do or how you do it? For example, you are driving down the road and someone calls you on your cell phone and wants some information. You have to look through a bunch of notes that you have in your pocket, figure out which note is the one, and then read it to the guy on phone. You hang up and to your surprise you have made all the correct turns and are now turning into your own driveway and you don’t remember the last six miles and the many turns, intersections, etc. on the route home. Your conscience mind was not driving, your brain was.

Try this little test. Put your hands up in front of you and pretend that you are holding the steering wheel of your car or truck. See yourself driving down the left hand lane. No steer into the right hand lane. Do this before you read any further.

OK, I read in “Discover” magazine that almost everyone did it completely wrong. It said: “The motion of turning the wheel rightward for a bit, then straightening it out again would steer you off the road: you just piloted a course from the left lane onto the sidewalk. The correct motion for changing lanes is banking the wheel to the right, then back through the center, and continuing to turn the wheel just as far to the left side, and only then straightening out. Don’t believe it? Verify it for yourself when you’re next in the car. It’s such a simple motor task that you have no problem accomplishing it in your daily driving. But when forced to access it consciously, you’re flummoxed.”

It went on with other examples, like WWII plane spotters and Japanese chicken sexers. Both carried out their assignments with extremely high accuracy but neither could explain how they knew so quickly. It has been proven that the human nervous system is not adequate to spot an over 100 mph fast ball, judge its location, decide what to do, and then tell which muscles to use to hit it, but a lot of those fast balls are hit. So, if you can’t consciously make yourself hit a fast ball, then I guess skipping the conscious part allows the brain to take over and do the job.

Maybe that is why I make so many typos, my brain wants to say one thing and my conscious mind wants to say another. Isn’t a spell checker wonderful? It doesn’t have a mind of its own.

You all have a great Labor Day and don’t let your brain get carried away with your mind. . . or what ever.

Wondering (and dismayed) about the weather.

I was really hoping that the tropical storm that came ashore just to the east of us in Louisiana would give us some much needed rain. Well, it almost did. Yes, it did rain. No, we didn’t get very much, just about a tenth of an inch. I should have known it wouldn’t be much since we were on the “clean” side of the storm. Just before the sun set last night, we spotted a rainbow of to the East. That gave me hope, knowing that rain was that close.



A little after dark, it started to drizzle. Just a very light rain, but it WAS rain. At that time the temperature dropped down to 72. That was coolest I have seen, day or night, for a long, long time. Yesterday stayed well below the 100 degree mark, so I guess we will not make a million days in a row over 100 as I was starting to expect!!! When I got up this morning, the temperature was still low at 76 degrees. Guess I got to dig out my Long Johns if this cold wave continues. . . .


I don’t think that we will get any more rain, and the small amount that we got will not help the trees any, but maybe the weeds will get greener. You know, the stuff that is left after all the grass dies. Do you think that I should sell my lawn mower or just save it as relic of the past and what used to be? Of course hope springs eternal, or at least some poet thought that was the case. I am at the point where I will believe it if I actually see a soaking rain. I am starting to think that a big rain will not happen again in my life time. As a last resort, I may consider washing my car.


You all have a great day now, you hear?

Wondering about fire.

I hear a lot about fire on the news lately. It seems like half of Texas is on fire or was and also there seems to be a lot of home and apartment fires around this area, too. That got me wondering about fire. First, what is it?



A simple explanation is the combination of a fuel and oxygen that produces heat and flame. Like one article I read stated, “Fire is an event, not a thing.” Most all of the fuels we use got their energy from the sun. You know, like wood, coal, gas, oil, etc. All these fuels were produced by photosynthesis, which is nothing more than taking sunlight and heat to make chemical energy in the form of fossil fuel, wood, etc. Fire uses chemical energy to make light and heat. So a campfire is a tree running in reverse.


There have been a lot of wild fires here in Texas that has burned over a million acres and caused the loss of homes, property, and the lives of some firefighters. But, do you know what the biggest wild fire in recorded history was and where it was? In 1987 a wildfire burned 20 million acres across China and the Soviet Union.


Sometimes some good can come out of something bad. Like back in 1666, eighty percent of London was destroyed by fire, but it also ended an outbreak of bubonic plague that had killed more than 65,000 people over the previous year.


Do you know what America’s deadliest was? I bet you guessed the Great Chicago Fire, didn’t you? Yea, I would have, too. Just for your information, the second deadliest fire broke out the same day as the Great Chicago Fire but with 1200 casualties, the Peshtigo Fire in Wisconsin was the second deadliest. The most deadly fire was on a boat in the Mississippi River where 1547 passengers were killed. It was the steam ship Sultana. Google “SS Sultana” to read more about it.


I could go on and on and on, but I have to go light a fire so I can get a cup of my good strong coffee. You all have a great holiday weekend and be safe out there.

Wondering how much the Earth spins.

I am going to ask you a question. How much does the Earth spin in one day? Now that sounds like a simple question, doesn’t it? My quick answer would be that it spins around 360 degrees (one full turn) each 24 hours. So, do you agree with my quick answer?


OK, I know that I said I was going to ask you “a” question and it turned into three questions, but you know, sometimes I get carried away. So, now let us think about this a little more. The Earth also rotates around the Sun once a year. I think we all accept that fact instead of what they used to think, that the Sun rotated around the Earth. Well, everyone was wrong; everything rotates around me, right? Just kidding.

To make my computations simple, I am going to round off some numbers. For instance, lets just say that there are 360 days in a year instead of 365; this will let things come out in whole numbers that are very close to the actual ones. Now, if the Earth rotates 360 degrees around its axis each day and also revolves around the Sun in about 360 days, that would mean that when the Earth got half way around the Sun that the Sun would be as high in the sky at midnight as it was going to get and it would be pitch black dark at noon. So something in our assumptions must be wrong.

The error is in thinking that the Earth rotates on its axis 360 degrees each day, when in fact, it rotates 361 degrees each day. That keeps the night dark and the day bright, unless it is cloudy. That roughly means that at the same time each day we are orientate to the sun the same way. Since the Earth tilts on its axis in relation to its orbit, the length of the days change and the location of the sun at noon in the sky moves north and south depending on the seasons, but it is always at its highest point at noon and at that time your shadow points north (if you live north of the equator).

Now that I am thoroughly confused, I will just say that I hope your day is sunny, unless you need rain like we do.

Wondering about fruit flies

Don’t you just love those pesky little fruit flies? You know, the ones that show up within a few seconds from the time you take your first bite of fruit. They seem to swarm around all types of fruit. I guess that is how they got their name, DAH.



Hey, they live a fast paced life. They go from eggs to adult flies in just 8 or 10 days and only live a couple of weeks or less. In that time they manage to mate and lay up to 500 eggs. I bet you already guessed, they lay their eggs in extra ripe or rotten fruit. I wonder if they even have a chance to eat anything in that short and hurried life? Oh, maybe they eat fruit???


I started to believe that fruit flies are magical. Why I have been 20 miles off the shore of North Carolina fishing and decided to get a bite to eat. I opened the cooler and got a banana out and didn’t have two bites out of it when the fruit flies arrived. Now tell me where the heck did they come from? Couldn’t have flown the whole way from shore and for the first four hours on the boat I didn’t see any. The boat was an open Maco and there was no hold for them to have flown out of and running fast on the way out would have blown out any that were hiding on the boat. See, I told you they are magical. I bet when the Apollo astronauts first landed on the moon that when they opened their lunch the fruit flies found them. Of course that was never reported, and is probably why they were kept sealed in that Airstream trailer when they got back. What do you think?


Have a good day now, you hear?