Leaderboard

Always interesting to see how Faraday of puns will go.

Obviously un BEET able!

I don't wave that things I can't see.

And counted different license plates!

Aren't most things on the Left bad?

Some years back when I was thinking about (randomly) dating again, I found Tinder. The idea is you swipe left or right depending on if the person is interesting. Did not use the app, and still can not remember which direction was good or bad. Partly want to look it up just to know, but also do not ever intend to use the app. So why do I still want to know useless information? I know I have already spent more time wondering about it than it would take to just look it up. And I can do calculus, so there's that.

I do have it in my mind to find out the laws here at some point. Not really an official blind but it might be worth patching a bullet hole in the porch screen.

Are we there yet?

Can anyone say PING?

I CAST A SHADOW This is about where he stood that morning. It was chilly enough my Carhartt felt good, and Apple-horse blew steam as he stopped, head-bobbing, impatient. We drew up on the skyline with morning sun behind me and our shadow screaming out across the valley and I grinned like a boy at the thought that I'd just cast my shadow over more than a mile. Try that back in the flat country. I slouched comfortably in the saddle, looking around, as usual my mind was running in two or three different directions at the same time -- sizing up what I saw, what I heard, thinking back on what I'd read, remembering that long empty shaft shaped like a man on a horse punched through the sunlit half-mist on below me. I rode on toward a house I knew of, and the man that lived there. Grief is a funny thing and I pack way too much of it my own self. I've lost family and I've lost friends and maybe that's how I don't come across as clumsy as some I've seen when somebody else loses someone. Hell, I dunno, I thought viciously. I'm not God's gift to the bereaved. Apple-horse picked his way down-trail and I frowned a little, my eyes were still busy but part of my mind was chewin' on that train of thought. Bein' a lawman, I run across people at their very worst, whether it's their fault or not. That sticks with a man even when he don't want it to. Doesn't, I silently corrected myself. Marnie wouldn't let that stand and she's right, people judge me by how I speak. I looked on ahead, looked around: all was quiet, the air was a little damp, easy breathin' ... I'd grown up here in the high country and I've been told my blood is thicker than a Lowlander's, and there my mind chased down another rabbit trail. Highlander, lowlander. You're part Scots so I reckon you can use the term. I grinned at that stray rumination, picturing myself in a greatkilt and woad, screaming into battle with a Cleagh Mohr, ready to cut the legs out from under the hated British, then I dismissed the notion as a distraction. I couldn't afford distractions. Not even here, amongst my beloved hills, with morning's sun warming my back and nothing a-threatenin' me anywhere near. I'd learned early in life, and the hard way, that evil strikes anytime, anywhere, and without warning, so even here I practiced the steady vigilance that kept me alive in times past and likely would again. It took me and Apple-horse a little while to get to the old man's house and by the time we got there, he was awake -- like the legendary Silas P. McGutrumble, the old man had creaked his way out of bed, heartily profaning the day and all it contained -- and I grinned at that stray thought. Silas McGutrumble was invented by my best friend, rest his soul, for a high school essay, and he knew he'd get a good grade when the teacher read it, when the teacher started to turn red and snicker, when the teacher tried to hide his expression behind a cupped hand over his mouth, when he gave up and laughed openly and told Bob he should become a writer. Bob died of overwork and diabetes before he could publish and I long thought that a damned shame, for he was like me -- a commodion -- he was so full of it he needed flushed, and I miss the man. That was a stray thought too and I swatted it aside. Wasn't far to the house now. "I was up," came the growl from behind the opening door, "ain't got much," and I handed him a wrapped bundle. "Now what the hell is all this?" he demanded sourly. I stuck out my hand. "Jist thinkin' about 'cha," I said ... the same words, same cadencing, same inflection I always used. He gripped my hand, nodded. "Well, hell, I got coffee anyhow." I hung my Stetson beside the door, looked back out at Apple-horse, standing hipshot and head down, looking like he was going to collapse just any moment. He did that because he'd learned women-folks and girls would feel sorry for him and they'd come an fuss over him and feed him treats if they had any, the bum. "You know how many folks has in-quaaar'd about m' health an' welfare?" I shook my head. "You're it. You're th' only one. Ain't no one else cared 'nuff since she died." I nodded slowly. He leaned an elbow on the table, shook an unused spoon at me. "That's th' trouble with this world t'day," he declared, then lowered his hand and tapped the handle of the spoon against the tablecloth for emphasis: "ain't no one concerns themself with no one else! Nossir! Why, in my day was there --" He stopped, looked up, frowned. I'd heard it, too, the sound of a car pulling up: doors slammed, there was the rapid scamper of youthful feet, the front door exploded inward with a burst of sunlight and a happy "Grampa!" The old man turned his chair away from the table and opened his arms and two happy, noisy grandchildren ran into him and hugged him, their parents coming in at a much lower velocity, closing the door behind them. I rose, nodded to the wife, shook hands with the husband, drew him a little to the side. "I brought him a few groceries," I said quietly, "you can likely make a meal out of it and he'll have some left over for later." I turned and plucked my Stetson from its peg, slipped quietly out the door, strode quickly for Apple-horse. It had been a year to the day since the old man's wife died, and damned if I was going to let him be forgot. Apple-horse and I headed back up the trail. This is about where Old Pale Eyes stopped and looked at his own shadow. He'd come to sit with an old man who'd lost his wife. I stopped at the summit and looked back and my shadow was considerably shorter, and I couldn't help but grin, rememberin' how happy that irascible old fellow was to have someone share his table, someone who listened while he cheerfully give the world billy Hell, and how I'd guaranteed he'd have provisions enough to feed him and his family both. Was I a prideful man I would consider that long morning shadow I'd cast, and I might've puffed up with pride and allowed as yes, I cast a long shadow in this county, but was I to do that I would surely come to grief. I learned -- long ago, and the hard way -- that it's when I take myself too serious, I end up lookin' like the north end of a south bound horse. "Yup, Apple," I said quietly, and Apple-horse stepped out and pointed his nose toward home.

I can drive a stick shift and aim a pistol with open sights.

Sounds a lot like the Amarillo Steak Challenge! The link below provides the description of the meal and the rules of the contest. Over two kg. of just the steak!! https://www.bigtexan.com/72-oz-steak/

This is my favorite BS&T number. One of many fabulous songs they performed! I have many in my library!!

My second look at this picture has me seeing the horizontal kangaroo kicking the vertical kangaroo with both hind feet. "Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting Those kicks were fast as lightning" But when I first looked at it, it appeared that the vertical kangaroo had hold of the horizontal kangaroo's back legs and was spinning around in a circle, preparing to release the horizontal kangaroo and fling him out into the water. I thought it was photoshopped.

Is that photo from your blind?

Just a plug for the trade.

Watt next, could at least amp it up unless there is still some resistance!

Top picture is almost identical to my neighbor across the street, and my neighbor behind me on the other side of the creek. This is in my yard:

....... I'd like to know how he does that .........