Be Prepared

......................for new year posts, including rants, raves and recipes, opinions that may startle, shock or even awe......... Evidence of my right wing/left wing spinning teeter-totter leanings......... An amalgam of trivial information, a plethora of useless quipping and a boxcar load of random witticisms. Stay tuned as the new year, the new decade, AHA!, the new dawn comes. Ciao

Winter's Caustic Embrace, Business Morass

This January marks my 25th year in business, varied in capacity and definition, as a building contractor. I still wield a hammer, at almost 52, with more weight to sling around, I can yet climb a roof, flip a sheet, cut 100 rafters in a day, and make good time doing it all. I'm certainly better at physical execution than I am at business execution. How I got three kids through college is still a mystery to me. As much as I'd like to claim to be impervious to any economic downturn, it appears that I am not. This past year has proven that even good guys can go down. I feel somewhat punch drunk, but I have a good chin and will go the distance.
One thing has changed. I must accept the notion that Amy's yearly fall complaint " I hate the cold! Did I tell you? I hate the cold!" Now followed by "This year I'm notkidding- we're finding a way to spend winter in Dallas (or Hawaii)" has started to get to me. I am beginning to hate the cold. I, unlike most others I know- who have hated the cold they've had to endure travelling from their front door to their car from their car to their office,- have an outdoor work zone for some 8 hours a day. Those inside folks can cry a river on my shoulder- likely to freeze on my Carhartts. Maybe for me, a change will occur, but not this winter, not after this year. I'll have to see what comes of 2010. I'll have to try to punch back more. I'll probably need to alter my fight plan. I don't want to look back and think "I coulda been a contenda". Actually, I'd rather not look back at all. At least not to 2009. I'd rather look ahead. With a plan. Or a dream- hopefully not laid out in pipe. Merry Christmas, everybody.

Melting! It's All Melting!

Certain phenomena occur in nature. Simply study earth history. Most climactic changes appear to be cyclical, and they are. The ice caps are melting, and whether your particular scientist or your particular region recognizes a temperature rise has nothing to do with the facts. Whether we humans have contributed to this trend and how much is purely speculative. If we are, largely, the culprits, we cast a far darker shadow over the future of this planet than I thought. More likely, we contribute in a more minor role- one which we can reduce- than some think. Others believe, as I do, that the planet adjusts continually, regardless of our welfare, through natural progression. (sounds a lot like natural selection, and that would be on purpose). The earth has survived many a cataclysmic event, and I'm sure it can survive man.
So........... in our convoluted world we play politics with it all. Conservatives play it down and liberals play it up. Ultimately, we'll have little or no influence when nature plays it out.

Look For Me to Weigh In On This Global Warming Thing

I don't have time now to go into my take, but do consider this a post alert for a soon to be completed bleet on melting ice. FYI, it is what it is and I won't take s*** from anybody on this subject.

Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Try and gets some- banned for decades in the U.S. and most of Europe, Absinthe (Absynthe) tastes something like Jaegermeister on steroids (without the sugar), contains wormwood, (Google this stuff), the often maligned hallucinogenic (sure) agent (can you say, in the spirit of the season, Bah! Humbug!?) and is loaded with alcohol (as much as 74%, or 148 proof, oh yes). Absinthe is coming back, and why not? Wormwood is fascinating, Absinthe is a low fat product that contains therapeutic agents that may (or may not) remedy digestion issues and other maladies while offering a short quick road to intoxication without the horrors of a sugar influenced hangover.

Book Review: "The Road"

I just finished The Road by McCarthy, wanting to catch the book before the movie, and I must say that I scorched this scorched earth novel in 3 days. The writing is as scaled down as the characters, stripped to the minimal- survival writing- and I loved it. I wish I could prose up like McCarthy. No paragraphing, no apostrophes, no concern for proper sentence structure, no hyperbole, no explanation, no expansions on concepts, no bullshit. It amazes me how such bare bones writing can grab so hard. I felt the pain, anguish, doubt, fear............................. the love, concern, hope (minimal), joy (brief), the anger, all well placed and recognizable. Reading this book made me feel like reading this book. If you can understand that, you'll feel the way I did these last few days. If you don't, you won't. As simple as that. No way the movie keeps up.