High desert hot air...

Yeah... all you global warming weenies are wishing like hell your alarmist rantings were true right now too. Instead you're freezing your butts off with the rest of us. Careful!! All that shivering and knee knocking increases your body temperature and that could lead to even more global warming. Better you just strive for room temperature and stay there... okay?

Mom and I are still doing okay overall. As 2009 rolled in it occurred to me that I was scheduled to hit 60 this year. [Oh, bother!] I decided that what I'd like most for my 60th birthday would be to have the body I did when I was 20. Fortunately I have a photo of me back then so it's easy to see what I have to shoot for. UNfortunately... I have a photo of me back then... so I can also see I have a hell of a long way to go to get back there too. Biggest problem? I was roughly 40 to 45 pounds lighter then than I am now. Loosing that much weight is going to be difficult. So far I'm down about 10 pounds and already at my first plateau. Been at this same weight for almost a week now. Just varying a few tenths of a pound day to day. So time to shift to an even lower calorie intake and up the exercise level a bit to see if I can't break through.

Still job hunting too. Once again there is an unfortunate aspect to that. My darn back is still giving me fits. Constant pain in my hip... front and back... and down the front of my thigh to my knee. Sometimes when rolling over in bed it will feel like I've just been hit in the lower back with a club. Just incredible pain. Before any interview I have to remember to take pain pills to keep things in check. At least the VA has finally set an appointment for me at the back and spinal cord clinic. It's not until February 4th... but at least someone is finally going to take a look. I'm not sure what can be done but the way things are now darn sure isn't cutting it. At least techniques have changed so if they have to operate that can be done through a small hole now rather than opening things up for inches. Just have to wait and see what they have to say. Since I'm going to have to work until I drop dead I need my back fully functional.

In the luck department things went well for my truck this month. The "check engine" light has been on for months and months. Last time I had it checked they said it was the EGR valve. So I ordered a replacement and fixed that. No difference. Still had the darn light. In what was just an off chance happening one day, when I was filling the tank, I jumped up one grade because the price was low enough. The next day... no check engine light! I surmised that the lower grade fuel might have been causing the knock sensor to kick in and the engine management computer didn't like that. At any rate while the light was out we had the inspection done. At least I don't have to worry about that for another year.

Mom's car had a problem last month too. I was taking it down to the local Exxon station for a fill up when it started running rough and the power fell off. At first I thought it was running out of fuel but the gauge said otherwise. I filled it up and limped back to the house. I decided some work was required and ordered new plugs, plug wires, distributor cap and rotor... and a new fuel filter for good measure. The following afternoon we began the change out. The only minor snag I hit was that I had to pull the distributor out of the block to change the rotor. Seems they thought it was necessary to secure it with a set screw. [shrug] After I had it out it dawned on my that I forgot to mark it so I'd get it back in exactly as it had come out. Oh well. Fortunately I had taken a good look at things as I was removing the mounting bolt so I had a good mental picture. The first couple of times it slipped back in it just didn't look quite right. Third time matched what I remembered so I locked it down. Last thing was to change the fuel filter. That went fine. Now... time to turn the key and see what happens. Turned over twice and fired right off. Idled smoothly and is running just fine. One of these days I'll have someone check it with a timing light and see how close I got by eyeball. I'm willing to bet I'm within 3 degrees.

Politically.... not thrilled with the current situation at all. Biggest problem? No... not the liberals. It's the media. The only private sector enterprise that has a constitutional mandate to serve the people and constitutional protection in doing so. The problem comes from the fact that the constitutional mandate failed to establish guidelines. Thus the media is free to do anything they want no matter how bias that might be.

Rather than giving the people the basic "who, what, when, where, why and how" that journalism used to preach... we get an editorial opinion thinly veiled as "news" and told they are neutral. Unfortunately being neutral depends upon whom you ask. If you are surrounded by others like you... your opinion is compatible with theirs so you are "neutral" as far as they are concerned. It's the old question... "Does a fish know it's wet?"

When someone grows up liberal and only hangs around with other liberals then they honestly feel what they write is fair and neutral. Take someone from Washington DC or New York and plop them down in the middle of the country and they are shocked at just how "out of touch" we all are. No. We're normal.... you're the one standing to the left of Stalin and thinking that is the "normal" way we all should think. These are the people who don't like history because it makes them look bad... so they slowly re-write all the books. Revisionist History.

Government interference in the free market has damn near caused a total collapse.... yet they blame capitalism... not the government that caused the problem. The next few years are going to be really interesting. I just hope there is still something left that looks like America when the left is done with their orgy of power.