"Good Afternoon, Morning Dove"

I saw this morning dove today just sitting there at the top of my outdoor deck railing. I was surprised at how close I could get to this bird as some birds are kind of skittish when you get too close to them and they fly away. This bird just sat there so I exchanged pleasantries and talked a little bit about the nice weather we were having today. The dove didn't reply to anything I said but did seem to nod its head in agreement to my comments.

Some people have guard dogs so maybe in my case I have a guard bird or possibly a "yard bird".
I do notice each year that I have a morning dove or two that sit on the telephone wires in front of my house. I always wonder if it is the same bird that comes back each year. Perhaps that is why this bird isn't afraid of me.

"Horseboy"

Google Streetview 'horseboy' photo on Scottish road becomes latest mystery Mail Online For some reason I find this article to be laugh out loud (LOL) funny. I know you shouldn't make fun of someone who has a "horse head" but I'm not sure if that horse head is real so I think maybe this "horse head" guy was trying to be funny. I guess you never know what you will see when you are a "Google Streetview" photographer. I wonder if this "horseboy" is named "Mr. Ed"?

"Big Lummox"

I heard today that the woman masseuse who claimed that ex Vice President Al Gore made "unwanted sexual contact" toward her while he was staying at a hotel in Portland, Oregon in October, 2006 when he allegedly registered at the Hotel Lucia as "Mr. Stone", called Albert (You can call me Al) Gore a "big lummox" and a "sex poodle". I don't know, is sticking your tongue down some one's throat after eating chocolate and drinking Gran Marnier as the "God of Global Warming" is alleged to have done; is that inappropriate behavior with someone you don't really know without asking permission? What do you think?

You don't hear the word "lummox" much these days; at least I don't. I decided to investigate the definition of the word "lummox" and found that "lummox" is defined as a "clumsy or stupid person". Other "lummox" terms include "gawk, goon, lout,lubber, oaf,stumble bum,clod, and lump." Do these terms seem appropriate to describe the "founder of the Internet"? I've noticed that I've never heard the term "little lummox" or "medium sized lummox"; just "big lummox".

Time will tell the fate of "Mr. Stone" (aka Al Gore) and it is not my place to pass judgement on his alleged behavior and it is uncertain as to whether charges will result from this alleged incident. In America everyone is presumed innocent and I for one don't know all the facts.It would be somewhat ironic perhaps though if Al Gore is charged and convicted of sexual assault and has to face jail time before his impeached buddy President Bill (Slick Willie) Clinton.

Corn

There is an old saying that "Man can't live on bread alone". I believe this is true as it would be boring to eat just bread all the time and you probably wouldn't get all the required vitamins and nutrients by eating just bread. Plus, it is probably a good idea to drink at least some water if not some other liquid beverages if you decided to eat nothing but bread. Maybe you would end up looking like the "Pillsbury Dough Boy" if you just eat bread because "you are what you eat".

Today I decided to have a "corn" themed dinner. I started with making popcorn with some of my home made sea salt. Then I cooked a couple ears of corn on the cob along with shot of whiskey (also known as corn squeezin'). I then heated up some corn bread to go with a bowl of corn chowder. While eating my dinner I listened to some music by the band "Korn".

After dinner I sat on my deck and smoked my corn cob pipe while watching the sun set over the pond. I had my fill of corn today but I think "Man can't live on corn alone" so I'll eat something different tomorrow.

"Playin' with His Putter"

It is refreshing to see that President Barak Obama had a chance to play golf again this Saturday with Vice President "Average Joe" Biden. I guess the little problem of a tiny drop or two (or a few trillion drops) of oil decimating the Gulf Coast wildlife and the jobs of fishing and tourism dependent people shouldn't get in the way of hitting "the links". After all, how are you going to improve your golf game Mr. President if you don't practice? And, what's the use of being president if you can't get on the old golf course any time you feel like it? I'm not sure how you can be working on fixing the oil spill damage "24/7" unless you are using one of those "bluetooth" phone devices while you are driving away off the golf tees and "playin' with his putter" up on the greens. I'm glad we have such a carefree president like President Obama; this way he will be alert and focused if he ever perceives a crisis needing his attention. Maybe, President Obama was a big fan of "Mad" magazine when he was a youngster because he sure displays the attitude of that gap toothed kid, "Alfred E. Newman" the "What me worry?" star. Maybe there will be a lot of "Mad" voters this November and again in 2012.

"Bustin' My Britches"

I was inspecting a house in Brewster, Mass a couple of days ago and all of a sudden I hear a tiny "ping, ping" noise as something fell on to the floor. I owner said,"I think you dropped this" and handed me this small partial piece of a zipper. I thought "Hmm, I wonder what that is from?" and put this zipper piece in my pocket and continued with the inspection.

Later, after I returned home I noticed that my pants fly was completely undone but my pants were still on me due to the button and belt. So, that's where that noise came from. I didn't get much use from this pair of pants as I only purchased them a week or two ago before "bustin' my britches".

I guess I was lucky that I had buttoned the top button of the pants and was wearing a belt other wise I'd be a true example of that song, "Pants on the Ground, Pants on the Ground".

"Clueless or Ideologically Shrewd?"

The recent and ongoing disaster that this the BP oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico makes me wonder about President Obama. Is he "clueless" on how to react or is he deliberate in his slow inaction to this crisis as part of an ideological strategy as a shrewd way to obtain his ultimate goals? I can't claim to know the answer but it does make me wonder.

For example, why the lack of presidential leadership in reacting to this oil spill? Why did President Obama wait over 50 days before even reaching out to talk with the BP leaders? The Dutch offered assistance in helping clean up this spill and their offer wasn't accepted. Why weren't other oil companies contacted to see if they had oil skimmers, booms, and the expertise and manpower to help contain this oil spill? Why wasn't the US military and National guard units more involved in the cleanup efforts? Why did the US Coast Guard stop the efforts of Louisianna Governor Bobby Jindal to have skimmers and boats help in the cleanup because they had to check to see if these boats had the proper life jackets on board the ships? Meanwhile the oil keeps flowing and flowing.

Now, although I don't agree with the presidential handling, mishandling, inept and untimely response to this oil crisis; the question once again is, "Is the president clueless or ideologically shrewd?" What could be the president's agenda if in fact he knows what he is doing during this situation? Well, if the grand scheme or goal of this president is to institute a carbon tax on all fossil fuels to move America away from an oil and coal based energy economy toward a clean energy program of solar and wind power then maybe he is willing to sacrifice the Gulf region of this country. Maybe this president is so beholden to his union based political support that he doesn't want this oil mess to be cleaned up by anyone other than union workers. Maybe he needs a new nemesis to replace George W. Bush as the scapegoat for all his failings and maybe "Big Oil" will be the new scape goat.

What do you think? Is this president clueless due to his inexperience or is he trying to use this oil spill crisis as part of a greater overall strategy of trying to expand the role of government in the economy? Is the president doing a good job in your opinion? Is this president the change you thought you were going to get when he was elected? Does this president deserve a second term?
Time will tell as this oil leak keeps going and going and going and going......... .

"I Made A Difference"

Each of us only has a limited time each lifetime here on Earth. How long a time? God knows. It varies from person to person based on heredity, lifestyle, eating, drinking and smoking habits, along with random chance as accidents do happen and sometimes people are just at the wrong place at the right time. In every life I'm sure that most of us want to feel that in some way our life "made a difference"; hopefully in a positive way that affected the life of someone else.

I was born on November 2nd, which in Mexico is known as "El dia de Los Muertos". The Day of the dead. Some people say that life is like a classroom and that when we die we are evaluated in a "life review". Your life is analyzed and reviewed with the emphasis not so much on what type of job you performed while alive but on how your living actions affected other people in either a positive or negative fashion. You then experience from that other person's point of view how your actions were perceived by the people who you came in contact with while you were alive. Some say that everything in this world "vibrates" at a certain frequency as we learn from physics and quantum mechanics that the world is composed of atoms which are in turn made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons with these subatomic particles in turn made up of even smaller forms of matter. Perhaps one of the goals of life is to increase your "vibration rate" through positive thoughts and actions with the ultimate goal of existence being to eventually obtain a high enough vibration rate to get closer and closer to God.

So, How did I " make a difference" this week? Well, I was inspecting a house in Harwich, Mass for my insurance job and noticed that the owner of this house is a beekeeper as he had three hives in his back yard. I mentioned to this person that I make my own sea salt. This person was very intrigued and said to me, "Rick. As soon as your inspection is over I'm going to go on the Internet and research making sea salt. I'm definitely going to start making sea salt as well." I said, "Well, that's good. I can honestly say that I made a difference in someone's life."

It's a wonderful life when you feel that your actions helped out somebody else and if you hadn't been there then they wouldn't have been influenced by your presence. Will this action help me with my life review? God knows. Only time will tell.

"Second By Second"

Here is a picture of the new camera I recently bought, it is a Canon EOS Rebel XS model. I'm just starting to learn the capabilities of this camera but let me tell you why or one of the main reasons that I decided to purchase a new camera.

My primary job these days is working for a company that performs insurance inspections for various residential property homeowners insurance companies primarily in the Cape Cod region. With each inspection the clients request photographs of any hazard or potential liability issues in addition to photos of the kitchen, bathrooms, garage, outbuildings, basement, main water supply line, water heater, electric circuit panel, wet bars, and a few other photographs of unique features of the property such as docks, and waterfront location shots. Needless to say this amount of photographs adds up over time.

Prior to purchasing this Canon camera; I used a small Kodak digital hand held camera that worked quite well for quite a while. However, everything in life ages second by second and over time this poor Kodak camera started to show its age particularly because I probably helped age this camera through dropping it a few times. One time I was getting out of my car to start a home inspection on a cold February morning and the camera flew out of my hands by mistake and landed on the highway with the camera batteries flying out from the camera, After this fall, the small door to the battery to the battery compartment was slightly bent and wouldn't close tightly enough to get the batteries to work the camera. I thought to myself "This is great! What am I going to do? Here I am up in Orleans about to start an inspection and my camera isn't working." I had to get creative and think like that guy on the old television show "McGuyver" that could make an atom bomb out of chewing gum and string or something like that. I looked around my car and found a rubber band or two and wound the rubber bands around the camera to hold the battery door in place so that the camera would work again.

The problem though with the rubber band solution is that sometimes the rubber band would cause the camera to take two or three shots in a row and I would end up sometimes shooting pictures of my shoes or my face as the camera would just start flashing like crazy. Other times the rubber band would loosen or fly off the camera and then I would have to re-attach the rubber band to the camera and reset the date and time. All these actions waste precious seconds. Everyone in life only has so many seconds to live and I grew tired after a while of having to keep dealing with these camera issues although the first ten or twenty times I did find the camera problems to be somewhat amusing.

Another issue with my old Kodak camera was the amount of time it took for the camera batteries to recharge after the flash went off. It seemed like it took approximately 30 seconds for each interior picture for the camera to be ready for the next picture. The average "regular" insurance inspection requires about 15 pictures and the average "high value" inspection for upscale properties is 33 pictures.

The new Canon camera has a recovery time of 3 seconds between interior flash pictures and somehow this camera knows how to sense the proper amount of light for the strobe flash to emit to get a clear well lit picture even when I'm down in some dark and dank basement. I estimate that this new camera will save me and the homeowners each about 66 hours a year based on the quicker response time of the Canon camera between pictures and that is not counting to time and energy saving of not having to recharge the batteries in the Canon versus Kodak camera. I will also save many seconds by not having to "lighten" photographs in the computer insurance reports with the New Canon camera.

As the Canon camera is still new to me I do find that I do waste a few seconds of time talking with the homeowners about how the new camera is a time saver versus the Kodak; but I'm sure that pretty soon I won't bother to tell these homeowners about my new camera so I can capture back some future seconds.

Now, I'll just have to see what I will do with that extra 66 hours or so of time savings. The "Doobie Brothers" have a song called "Minute By Minute". In this fast paced world we live in I'm focusing on "Second By Second" on trying to life my life more efficiently and this new camera should help me along the way.

Bobby Jindal

I don't know about you but I want to state for the record that I am impressed with Louisianna Governor Bobby Jindal from what I have seen on television and the Internet. It appears to me that Bobby Jindal is articulate, and has a command of his state with the recent adversities of a current nature such as a recent hurricane and the the massive oil spill. I think Bobby Jindal is a "rising star" in the Republican party and the type of leader that America should consider when this country decides to replace our current disaster of a president in 2012. Contrary to our current president who has time for golf and basketball interviews with Marv Albert; but no time to help coordinate a solution to the worst environmental disaster in United States history. No, our current president would rather host Hollywood and music industry stars such as the aging Beatle Paul McCartney singing "Michelle" than give more than empty platitudes of how concerned he is about the oil spill. Where was the presidential leadership as apparently the government agencies wasted over a month deciding how to react to this situation?

I can't really blame President Obama for his ineptitude that much for although he is a charismatic teleprompter reader he has had no real management experience in the private sector at all so he was and is ill prepared to deal with the job and responsibilities required to be an effective president. Being a community organizer, running a political campaign, and heading the Harvard Law Review to me is not enough or the right kind of experience needed to to be president. The two recent White House music parties remind me somewhat of the time in ancient Rome when Emperor Nero "fiddled while Rome was burning", during the decline of the Roman empire which crumbled from within from excess hedonism and corruption.

What do you think? Do you like the current policies of "hope and change"? Me, I "hope there is a change" from this "Obamanation" and I think Bobby Jindal would be the type of person to consider as our next president; he appears to be smart, articulate, and also an experienced leader.

"I blame Bush"

I just heard on the news on the TV that the cause of the Al Gore- Tipper Gore marital separation was George W. Bush. Yes, George W. Bush, defeating Al Gore and his attempt to steal the election in the year 2000 by trying to get a selective recount in Florida and not being able to win his home state of Tennessee; was today announced the cause of the Gore separation. Apparently George W. Bush is the cause and the excuse to use for anything bad that happens today if you are a liberal, democrat, or communist, assuming that there is any difference in these political perspectives.

I stubbed my toe today as I was walking up my front steps after feeding the birds at my bird feeder and getting the mail. Was this my fault this I hurt my toe? NO!!, To me George W. Bush was at fault, "I blame Bush!!" If Al Gore had won the election back in the year 2000 I sincerely doubt that I would have stubbed my toe ten years after that event. Last night I spilled some spagetti sauce on a nice white shirt and I'm sure that George W. Bush had something to do with my clumsiness. Yes, George W. Bush is the cause of any accident, tragic event, and even an extra long wait at a traffic light not only over the last ten years but also into the infinite future.

No one in America, particularly democrat politicians, is responsible for anything because there was a time when George W. Bush was our President.

"Wow, That's A BIG Hole!"

Sinkhole in Guatemala: Giant Could Get Even Bigger Did you hear about or see pictures of this giant sinkhole in Guatemala that occurred last Sunday? This sinkhole is about sixty feet wide and about 30 stories deep! It swallowed a three story building. Imagine being in that building sitting back and having a cervesa or a shot of tequila along with your dinner burrito and then have this sink hole suddenly appear and find yourself plunging thirty stories towards the center of the earth. That would be a change of pace and something different to experience for sure.

I imagine that it will take quite a bit of rocks and dirt to fill that hole. Definitely bigger than some of the pot holes we encounter after the Winter in New England. I'm not sure I would try to cross this sink hole with my car (unless I had a jet engine strapped to my car and a ramp so I could try to jump across).