Trying to take care of my little piece of the planet
A month ago I discovered Sarah Palin and wrote a post that her selection would be trouble for the Democrats. Then a few days ago, I crawled out on a limb and wrote a comment on “My History Can Beat Up Your Politics” suggesting that the Republicans might just go there.
I hate it when I’m [...]
Posted on August 29th, 2008 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Rants and Musings | 4 Comments »
I will re-visit this post and elaborate after a night’s sleep. But without reservation, I state that I’ve just heard the best speech of my life, delivered by Barack Obama in accepting his party’s nomination for president.
Regardless of your party affiliation, as an American, you owe it to yourself and your country to watch this [...]
Posted on August 28th, 2008 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Rants and Musings | 2 Comments »
The last few days have allowed some reflection on my middle-aged life, filled with memories, special people and a reminder or two that life is flying by. Monday after work I drove a few miles to have coffee with Jane, a woman I’d never met, but whom I’d heard about years earlier from my mother. [...]
Posted on August 27th, 2008 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Family Life | 3 Comments »
A busy weekend, still catching up after being away the week before last. Yesterday was twelve hours of weeding, mowing and watering. And today included more watering, getting ready for some much needed rain (hopefully next week) and hauling a monster-sized truckload to the trash/recycling center. Part of my rush centered on the fact that [...]
Posted on August 24th, 2008 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Family Life, Nature Diary | 1 Comment »
Perhaps in many ways, and for many reasons. But in a number of ways the choice between Obama and McCain is startling clear. For example, here’s a comparison of how they would restructure the income tax system as analyzed by the Tax Policy Center (a joint project of the Urban League and the Brookings Institute [...]
Posted on August 22nd, 2008 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Rants and Musings | 3 Comments »
We’ve had less than a quarter of an inch of rain in the month of August, and the flowers are showing it. Fortunately, thanks to the cistern, we’ve been able to water the vegetable garden and have literally harvested bushels of heirloom tomatoes and peppers (among other things). However, we’re down to 2800 gallons out [...]
Posted on August 21st, 2008 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Rainwater Collection | 1 Comment »
I want to see more of this!
Perhaps even better than McCain not knowing how many houses he owns (at least seven) is the fact that according to his tax returns, he paid $275,000 last year for people to take care of them…..That’s a lot of meals cooked, beds made and lawns mowed.
I don’t think he’ll [...]
Posted on August 21st, 2008 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Books/Movies/Podcasts, etc., Rants and Musings | No Comments »
It’s supposedly the eleventh hour, and Obama will announce his choice of running mates soon, so I’ll take the opportunity to weigh in (just knowing that he reads this blog…). The considerations are many; McCain bats last and can trump the Democrats choice, by targeting region or gender or whatever. So, first let’s look at [...]
Posted on August 20th, 2008 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Rants and Musings | 3 Comments »
I’ve been reading and listening to some pretty sobering stuff this week, so before blogging about it I thought I’d soften the blow by recommending a delightfully funny twenty-five year-old book that I just discovered. I learned about Terry Pratchett from a comment on Alan’s site a few weeks back. “The Color of Magic” [...]
Posted on August 20th, 2008 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Books/Movies/Podcasts, etc. | 2 Comments »
This is a lame post, in the sense that I’m reporting about an event that’s now ended, instead of following it real time over the past couple of months as I would have liked to. The ‘event’ was a competition between three small groups of twenty-somethings, to travel by any means possible, from the far [...]
Posted on August 20th, 2008 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Rants and Musings | No Comments »