Changing Tides

Here is an example of the photography that I aspire to achieve.

Changing Tides, originally uploaded by thepres6.

The greatest wealth consisteth in being charitable, and
the greatest happiness in having tranquility of mind. Experience is the most
beautiful adornment; and the best comrade is one that hath no desire.-
Tibetan Doctrine

Does it make your mouth water too?

Just look at some more of thepres6's photos.

Oofda!

Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop. I know it's overused, trite, whatever...

"I'm in Charge Here" says the 21,500 troops are a done deal. And before I could say, "What now, Afghanistan?", it too looks like a "done surge" as well. How many shoes will there be?


P.S.
Noticed this blog by Jessica while trying to decide if "drop" or "fall" was the original term.
Then there is this column in eWeek by Deborah Gage.
And finally, one of my all time favorite political cartoonists has a book by that name . Did I mention Overused?

I hate it when this happens....but then it is historic

I hate it when this happens....but then it's the president's State of the Onion speech. You try to follow a link an then the next thing you find you have to register to read the friggin thing!
Now I can see the reason that the New York Times has the entire speech on their website. But lets get real here. Someone must have a lot of Time on their hands (Pun intended) to create a program that counts every word supposedly uttered in all seven of his historic spiels. For example he mentioned Iraq/Iraqi(s) 34 times in the 2007 speech but only twice in 2002. And Social Security fell from 18 times in 2005 to only twice last night. Would you believe that the phrase "homleand security" wasn't mentioned at all last night.
So if you already have a New York Times username/password or if you just have to see all the word stats...proceed at your own risk!
The Words That Were Used - The 2007 State of the Union Address

Only a Few More Days of Hunting Left This Year...

That's right. If you were hoping to win "a two night luxury break at the Gleneagles Hotel including breakfast and use of the sumptuous leisure facilities at The Club." you had better get "bloody cracking", "havering" or whatever they say in Scottland. 'Cause the season on Marag fabulosus is about to end.

The prey:





The History:

According to Ossian’s Encyclopaedia Eccentrica, the first historical document to mention the haggis is an account of the Roman invasion of Scotland written by Iocus. The noted scholar relates that as the Roman and Caledonian forces faced each other before the battle of Mons Graupius in 83AD a wandering Pictish holy man called Goileam saw a “small round creature revered by the tribes” dart from
the heather and run toward the invaders. Goileam turned to the Scottish army and, baring his breast, promised that this was an omen of victory and led a headlong charge against the forces of Agricola. Within an hour, Iocus tells us, more than 10,000 Caledonians lay dead, their army defeated, their land conquered. The Picts blamed the appearance of the small brown omen for the terrible defeat and sought to exact retribution on the creature that had so betrayed them. The haggis hunts began out of a desire for vengeance. It was then that the unfortunate creatures got their name – “haggii” comes from the Latin for “harried ones”. Before that fateful day, the haggii had been plentiful in Scotland. Like the Dodo, they did not fear man, while man basically left the odd looking animals alone. When the Picts unleashed their vengeful feud on the haggii, the small creatures were all but wiped out. But there was more to the events of that year than the persecution of an unfortunate beast by warriors feeling the pain of defeat. It was a time which saw one of the greatest culinary discoveries since fishermen first noticed that oyster shells could be opened.
The Scottish harvest of 83AD was particularly poor and the people were forced to find food anywhere they could. As they were hunting haggii anyway, the Picts started to eat them. To their great surprise, they discovered that haggises were delicious and named the animals’ main breeding area naidheachd bhreugach (place of plenty). Thus it was that the haggis became the staple food of Scotland. But so hunted were the haggii that it was nearly 100 years before they were seen in any great numbers again.

Try your luck!

P.S. ...One of these days, during the hunt, I'm going to stand in front of Haggis cam #10 in Times Square and flash the Haggis T-shirt that I won a few years ago.

I think Stephan Pastis has been in our kitchen!

Pearls Before Swine, one of my favorite daily cartoon strips, sometimes gets close to home. I think our kitchen refrigerator must have been the inspiration for the January 8th strip.

Da Woid 'O De Dey

The "woid" today on dictionary.com just cried out for a post.

Uxorious: adjective; Excessively fond of or submissive to a wife! (exclamation point - mine!)

Excessive: adjective; going beyond the usual, necessary, or proper limit or degree; characterized by excess

Who has a the yardstick to measure excessiveness? That's what I want to know.

And if it's a man does he dare to come home at night? Is he even married? I don't trust him - he carries too much baggage.

Well maybe a woman has defined the point where the slippery slope starts. I don't trust her either. Right? What's her agenda?

Now that I've dug myself a deep hole...what do I do next?

A Valentine to My Wife

Accept, dear girl, this little token,

And if between the lines you seek,

You'll find the love I've often spoken—

The love my dying lips shall speak.

Our little ones are making merry

O'er am'rous ditties rhymed in jest,

But in these words (though awkward—very)

The genuine article's expressed.

You are as fair and sweet and tender,

Dear brown-eyed little sweetheart mine,

As when, a callow youth and slender,

I asked to be your Valentine.

What though these years of ours be fleeting?

What though the years of youth be flown?

I'll mock old Tempus with repeating,

"I love my love and her alone!"

And when I fall before his reaping,

And when my stuttering speech is dumb,

Think not my love is dead or sleeping,

But that it waits for you to come.

So take, dear love, this little token,

And if there speaks in any line

The sentiment I'd fain have spoken,

Say, will you kiss your Valentine?

Well at least it's not T. S. Eliot's Proofrock!

Sunrise pictures this morning

Well Comet McNaught was nowhere to be seen. But these sights are probably better anyway.

The Boardwalk at Avon, New Jersey in pre-dawn light

Dawn comes to the Shark River Inlet in Avon. Good luck to everyone fishing: from the Boat, from the Jetty, or from the Wing.

The New Hiree

A Great Blue Heron came by our backyard fish pond several weeks ago and hung around for a few days. I first saw it one morning when I was getting ready for work and Best Wife saw it again two days later.



I'm sure the heron was intrigued by the twenty-odd fish on the menu. We have goldfish: Fan-tails and Comets in abundance though interspersed are a few Oranda genes. The O-gene is evidenced in a massive body size that eventually turns all white. The sources of the Oranda genes have passed on to that Great Carp Pond in the sky. The Orandas were a colossal mistake or rather a series of mistakes. First the two were sold to us as Ryukins. Ryukins might have been a good choice because they are hardy. Orandas on the other hand don't like cold water. Anything less than 60 degrees is out of the question. Our pond is at 40 degrees now as the weather in New Jersey has been mild this winter and has often been around 34 degrees and had 10 inches of ice a few years ago. Another reason the Orandas are a poor choice - in my humble opinion of course - is that many of them don't know how to swim. Sometimes called Flip-over condition, the poor fish becomes unable to maintain proper fishy position, i.e. anal fin lower than dorsal. The third mistake was allowing them to breed. But I digress.



The heron mentioned above was thwarted by the unlucky (or in our case, lucky) coincidence of arriving at the time of year when the pond is completely covered by netting to catch autumn leaves. Well the netting has to come off before winter or at least before the pond freezes over. So when a thin sheet of ice formed just before Thanksgiving, the netting reluctantly had to be put away.



What to do? What to do! When the raccoon began visiting the pond last summer to dig for earthworms in the bog around the pond, it was relatively easy to relocate the thief to a local park. But how to heron-proof the area was a real riddle. And, Best Wife said she would never forgive me, or the heron for that matter, if little Red-Cap ended up as heron sushi.



Enter the New Hiree. He has agreed to guard duty at the pond. Not just guard duty but Guard Duty! A relentless, unceasing, unrelenting, unyielding, and unstoppable sentinel.



Drum Roll!

And Now, Introducing...

Sméagol!

New Years Resolutions

Resolution #1 - I will post more than once in three moths.
Fine Print: Unless catastrophic events lead me astray. Catastrophic events are defined here (but not limited to) as - War; Terrorist Attacks; Pestilence; Procrastination; Mondays; Work; Best Wife's Honey Do List; etc.

Resolution #2 - A work in progress...