09:01 – Winston-Salem suffered no effects from Sandy other than cool temperatures, a stiff breeze, and a few drops of rain. Today we’re expected to get some rain and wind. For the next few days, our highs are supposed to be in the mid-50’s (~ 12C) and our lows a degree or two above freezing. It is difficult walking Colin on breezy days. Like all young Border Collies we’ve had, he wants to herd the blowing leaves. Having a 70+ pound dog on leash that can accelerate from 0 to 60 in about 2.3 steps is no joke.
When I talked to Barbara yesterday she said that unless something changes her dad is to be released from the hospital this morning and they’ll be coming home today. She said that one good thing about all this is that her dad has apparently finally realized that at age 90 he can no longer do things that he could do as a younger man. So perhaps in the future he’ll listen to what Barbara and her sister say. I’m hoping that will include him agreeing to give up driving. The simple truth is that any 90-year-old man, on his best day, is more impaired than a young man with two or three times the legal blood-alcohol limit. We all cringe every time we read one of those news stories about an elderly driver running into a fuel pump at a gas station or plowing into a crowd of people in a theater line or at a bus stop.
I’m feeling a lot more comfortable about our science kit inventory. Everything is still in stock, albeit some just barely, we have another batch of 30 biology kits near completion, and another batch of 30 chemistry kits in progress. Sales are slow this time of year. Some days, we ship two or three kits. Other days, we ship none or one. Overall, we’re probably averaging about 1.5 to 2 kits/day, so the current batches should last us into December. Of course, we’ll have new batches in progress before then.
15:25 – I just called Barbara to see if she’d left yet. They got on the road around 13:30 and are currently on the far side of Raleigh. She’s taking it slowly with frequent stops to make it as easy as possible on her parents. Depending on traffic, she said they’d probably get to her parents’ place around 17:30 or 18:00, so it may be 19:00 or later before she gets home.
I just have to share this:
http://www.castanet.net/news/BC/82356/Moose-attacks-Mountie-in-cruiser
This isn’t the first cervine attack on humans in BC in recent years, but it’s the first time they’ve taken on an armed man.
Geez, that must be pretty embarrassing for a Mountie to have to report that he’d been attacked by Bullwinkle. And lost.
Only kidding. I know that the only hazard moose generally present is as immovable objects in the roadway, but a bull-anything-with-hooves is not something I’d want to mess with.
No sign of Rocky, but we all know he’s the mastermind…
I’m surprised Bullwinkle would go after Dudley D0-Right. Perhaps they weren’t the happy co-workers we thought?
he’d been attacked by Bullwinkle
Are you sure it was not Mr. Moose from Captain Kangaroo and that Bunny Rabbit was not the ultimate mastermind?
One of my mom’s friends grew up in NYC a couple buildings away from Bob Crotchetyoldbastard, the guy who played Captain Kangaroo, and reportedly he hated kids. Make of it what you will.
Hi Bob, glad you all are getting rain. We have not gotten any significant rain down here in Sugar Land since June. My ponds are both down two feet and and fish are starting to complain. We have had awesome weather though for the last several days, 45 F in the mornings and 60 to 75 F in the afternoons. Very nice weather for here on the Gulf Coast in October. Usually we are still bouncing against 90 F.
We are talking with my FIL, who will be 80 next month, about stopping driving. He speeds everywhere and runs stop signs rampantly (10 mph rolls). We are 300 miles away from him though and cannot provide transportation.
Got a 90 year-old in the family who is still driving. Does okay, except at traffic lights. Thinks those are 2-way stop signs, and often looks both ways under a red light, then turns left, crossing the traffic that has the green. Does this regularly and repeatedly.
Has very little control over foot movements, and the car will jerk from a standing stop as the foot whomps on the accelerator. I can see how those accidents plowing into buildings, other cars, and people occur, because there is no such thing as a gentle start with such folks.
My mom had a bout with CHF last week, resulting in a hospital stay. She ignored her body for a week or so until it led to an ER visit and admission. A couple doses of IV Lasix fixed her up for now. She’s constantly walking a fine line between keeping the CHF under control and having her blood pressure collapse, and has been since her heart attack and quad-CABG in 2006. Fortunately, she has a good cardiologist. Unfortunately, her internist is a moron, and she has finally decided to go to a new one.
“Winston-Salem suffered no effects from Sandy other than cool temperatures, a stiff breeze, and a few drops of rain. Today we’re expected to get some rain and wind. For the next few days, our highs are supposed to be in the mid-50′s (~ 12C) and our lows a degree or two above freezing.”
Ditto here in northern Vermont, at the northern end of the Lake. And most leaves down now, due to previous wind and rain. We’ve actually had much bigger wind gusts in the last few weeks than we got yesterday.
“…the guy who played Captain Kangaroo, and reportedly he hated kids.”
First I’ve ever heard of this; Bob Keeshan played Captain K., and lived the last few years of life up here in Vermont. You may be thinking of another childrens’ TV host from that era or somewhat before it, who was reputed to have said nasty stuff while still miked up at the end of a show.
Boy, some of the people at Jerry’s site are real morons. Perhaps because they’re 99% liberal Democrats. I’m ambivalent about the abortion issue but I’m starting to think that it should be compulsory if the fetus is carrying the ‘liberal Democrat’ gene.
“Boy, some of the people at Jerry’s site are real morons. Perhaps because they’re 99% liberal Democrats. I’m ambivalent about the abortion issue but I’m starting to think that it should be compulsory if the fetus is carrying the ‘liberal Democrat’ gene.”
If so, I would support either conventional abortion or retroactive birth control.
This country is pretty nearly split evenly between the people who believe as librul Dems and the other half who believe as Faux Nooz Repubs; one is outraged at the beliefs of the other, and the other is outraged at their outrage. Sooner or later this will be sorted out. In general, the latter have the superior advantage in firepower, by fah. Just sayin…and I am mos def NOT one of the latter. And probably won’t be around to help sort the survivors of the sorting.
This country is pretty nearly split evenly between the people who believe as librul Dems and the other half who believe as Faux Nooz Repubs…
You left out the third group, the ones sick to death with both of those sides. I think there are plenty who find both sides repelling.
The people are revolting!
Yah, Roy; I’m sort of in that third group. A small subset of it.
I don’t divide the people into the “left wing liberals” and the “right wing conservatives” or anything similar. I divide them into “those who want to rule others” and “those who want to be left the hell alone”. I’m firmly in the latter camp and lump virtually everyone involved in politics, government, and lobbying in the former camp. No, I don’t see much difference between Democrats and Republicans, no matter how many times a partisan tells me the other side is pure evil.
To be left the hell alone for me also means not accepting or being dependent on the largess of Leviathan, and that further reduces the size of that particular group in this country. Depending on how one defines “largess.” Defenders of Leviathan point to the huge infrastructure of roads, bridges, dams, etc., and providing for the common defense, among other things, the latter now way beyond any such pretense.
Those who want to rule others tend to do whatever is necessary to grasp the levers of power and this is a never-ending war.
The wife dragged me to a Tea Party meeting about two years ago. There were about 2,000 to 3,000 people there with a full loudspeaker system. I was amazed at the variety of people. Basically, the speakers were saying, “Leave me the heck alone”.
Only half of the US electorate understands that the USA is broke. Unfortunately, half of that half is getting benefits from the US government. I do not know how to fix this without great pain. If we wait the pain will be greater.
Exactly; the longer we wait and the longer our beloved dear leaders kick the can down the road, the more painful it will be for most of us. We can watch how this works with the Greeks very soon now and then with the rest of the southern Med tier of countries.
On the moose; I dunno if I reported this here already, being well on the road to terminal dementia, but on the way to work a couple of weeks ago on a very busy and well-traveled road with lotsa stores and restaurants and cah dealers, a full-grown bull moose came galloping out of the brush to my right and crossed through the traffic and then off into some more woods down a side street. Absolutely the last place I would have expected to see one, after fifteen years up here without seeing one, and many, many hiking and canoeing trips through moose country. If he had collided with a vehicle out there, it would have been pretty bad.
The only other large mammal up here that I have not yet seen would be a bear, and reports coming outta upstate NY are that they are much bigger lately, weighing closer to 500 pounds than the usual 250, and for some reason they’re traveling in pairs now. SteveF down around Albany; you hearing any of this?
Heard nothing lately. Many of my kin are up along the bottom edge of the Adirondack State Park and no one’s mentioned anything in my hearing.
I suppose it’s too much to hope that the bears are plump because they’ve been eating those dumbass downstaters who come up here to hunt?
Well, I don’t think any moose have been spotted around here in living memory, but we sometimes have black bear sightings even inside the city limits.
As to pairs, are you seeing mother bears with yearling cubs? I can’t imagine two adult males or females keeping company, nor a male and female other than during mating.
The reports from upstate Vampire State have been of male bears in pairs, each close to 500 pounds. Maybe they ARE gobbling up dumbass downstaters, or as we call them here, flatlanders. I haven’t seen a bear yet in all my hiking and canoeing and x-c skiing in forty years between MA and VT. A mother and cubs were reported in a neighborhood in one nearby VT town a couple of years ago, with cubs in a tree; imbeciles parked close by and stood there taking pictures.
Not likely to see a bear around here but possibly another moose; but our main lookout is for Champ, the lake monster.
Ah, that explains it. Gay bears.
People who are stupid enough to approach bear cubs deserve whatever happens to them.
I’ve had bear in my back yard, though I’ve only seen the prints. I echo Bob’s thought about deserving what you get when you approach any bear, but especially cubs. Momma ain’t gonna be happy, when she see you anywhere near her cubs.
Sibling bears have been know to partner up for a couple of years when their mother is killed prematurely, which is a more rational answer than gay bears. Not that there would be anything wrong with that!
Some of my best friends are gay bears.
Saw meese in Maine when we lived in Boston, along with a few elk (wonder if those car deer horns work on meese and elk?). Jeri saw bears when she lived in California—in the city. I, myself, saw bear tracks on walks with FIL in the hills near San Bernardino.
Saw meese in Maine when we lived in Boston, along with a few elk (wonder if those car deer horns work on meese and elk?).
Elk are raised in Maine, and even hunted, but they are not wild.
Does anyone here actually eat elk? A virology lecturer at uni once said he loved to eat BBQed elk when visiting the US, until it was discovered that they were/might be carriers of a variation of mad cow disease transmissible to humans.
Hmm. Better tell our Maine friends who smashed into an elk, killing it and totaling their van about elk not being wild. It was definitely elk. Either it was wild or got loose. I know there are people who claim elk are not wild in Maine, but they are definitely on the loose around the area between Bridgton and Lewiston, as I have seen them with my own two eyes—and they were not fenced in.
Yeah, people definitely eat elk. I never have though. Quite tasty, I am told. Mad cow came around seriously after I left New England, so I do not know about today’s danger. But the domesticated herds are tested for various diseases, just like cows, chickens, and pigs.
Mad Cow seems to have slipped off the radar. Don’t know if because suspect animals and herds have been killed and incinerated, or whether it was a beat-up.
Oh, there was a big outbreak recently in California (I believe California). Much consternation, because everyone had thought it had been effectively dealt with.
Tylenol has been pulled again. Not much publicity on this; Tylenol is owned by Johnson & Johnson. I only know about it because a friend who works at the local major drug chain was explaining to someone at lunch why nobody had Tylenol in any store. She did not know why it was pulled, but recommended the store brand as a substitute.