If it’s a warm weekend day, I indulge our dog with a frozen puppy treat. Yesterday when I opened this Frosty Paws, I saw a happy face smiling back at me. It made me laugh out loud, so I had to get a picture of it before giving it to Bear.

Our usual thing to do on Sundays is to go to the local shooting range for a little target practice. Today, we took a Smith & Wesson 908 9mm pistol, a S&W .357 magnum revolver and our Remington 12 and 20 gauge shotguns. We enjoy the target practice, but we also enjoy sitting on our backyard swing cleaning the guns afterward. This shot is of the guns laid out on our table as we prepare for cleanup and light oiling.

Update (Cap’n Bob): Check out the video of Damsel’s day at the range.

Continue reading » Spending Sunday Afternoon with the Guns

My bearded iris got it’s first flower this week. Several more flowers will be coming out in a few days. These delicate looking flowers only last a couple of days, but they are spectacular to see while they’re blooming.

Won’t these two ever stop playing politics with the security of our country?

Excerpt from Fox News:

Democrats need to make a decision to fund the troops or continue to play politics, said Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.

“I think what they’re going to have to do is make a decision. Look, are we going to continue down the road playing politics or do we really care about those men and women in uniform? And if they do, then they’ll come back and we’ll send the president a clean supplemental,” Chambliss told FOX News.

Chambliss called Reid’s “war is lost” comments from last week “almost un-American.”

“I think it’s almost un-American to come out and tell the enemy that they’ve won and we’ve lost. It’s pure politics and I hope the American people really let the Democrats know that it’s the people fighting this war that really do deserve our support,” Chambliss said.

The New York Times reported that some Democrats want to send Bush a bill that he will sign, without the timetables for withdrawal but others push for standing firm behind the antiwar message from Congress.

What do you mean “almost,” Saxby? They’re full-on un-American on this one.

More apologies to Grant Wood.

I get a few questions about the pictures I take and what I use to take them. Obviously, I didn’t use my Canon EOS Digital Rebel to take this shot, but this is the camera I use for most of the photos you see on this blog. Besides what you see in this picture, I also have a zoom lens and a wide-angle lens at my disposal.

Well it’s not actually a hearse — I was just kidding about that to make the headline sound like Salman Rushdie’s famous fatwa-worthy manuscript.

This ghastly paint job is actually on a black pickup truck seen in Trump’s parking lot last weekend. I can’t really make out if that is a shrunken head hanging from the real-view mirror or not. We didn’t wait around to see if the driver had “half of the tackle box pierced into his face” (to quote Dennis Miller), but it wouldn’t have surprised me. The whole burning-in-hell effect sorta creeps me out.

This week, I would like to nominate Incoherent Ramblings as our Weblog Of the Week (WOW). We enjoy Snog Dot’s humorous articles and anecdotes about the life of a single father raising a couple of lively boys. Our insight tells us that he is a hard-working and caring parent with the right attitude. So, this week we’re happy to choose Incoherent Ramblings for the WOW. We will place a link to Snog Dot’s website under the “Never Forget” banner for the week.

About Snog Dot:

I’m an Air National Guardsman. Have been since 1984. I’ve been in an Air Force uniform off and on since *gasp* 1969. I’ve spent time all over S.E. Asia, S.W. Asia, Central America and Korea. Someday I’d love to see if Europe actually exists.

The STEREO spacecraft has furnished its first 3D images. The images are taken from STEREO’s X-ray cameras; one taken from the “Ahead” spacecraft and one taken from the “Behind” spacecraft and then combined to produce the 3D effect.

To view these anaglyphic images in 3D you will need red-blue glasses, which you can get free from Rainbow Symphony.

I also repackaged a lower-bandwidth video of the rotation of the solar disk leading up to the view of the Sun seen above. I even put some music to it to add some cinematic pizazz. Eat your heart out, Al Gore:

Continue reading » First STEREO Images

I took this shot last Saturday from the Point Vicente Interpretive Center. As we stood there on the cliffs watching the waves, this handsome pelican soared just overhead, as it rode the updrafts above the cliffs.

The Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis californicus) is the smallest of the eight species of pelican, although it is a large bird in nearly every other regard. It is 42-54 in (106-137 cm) in length, weighs from 6-12 lbs (2.75 to 5.5 kg) and has a wingspan from 6 to 8.2 ft. (1.83 to 2.5 m).

Damsel and I are deeply saddened by the death of Lt. Cdr. Kevin Davis in the crash of Blue Angels F/A-18 Aircraft Six. We extend our thoughts and prayers for this amazing pilot and to his family and friends. We also stand with the Blue Angels Squadron in solidarity for the healing to come.

Damsel captured this photo of Angel Number Six at the 2006 MCAS Miramar Air Show.

Here is a short article about Lt Cdr. Davis:

Continue reading » A Fallen Angel

. . . and see if they’re missing a fountain!

I took this photo of the elaborate fountain in front of the clubhouse at Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. The sheer gaudiness made me think of the line from a movie where one of the principal characters made the remarks about the Vatican missing a fountain. Can you remember which movie?

It’s springtime and the garden is sprouting - but there are those who would help themselves to our veggies-to-be. The answer to controlling pilferage isn’t always pesticides - especially when it comes to controlling cute little fuzzy squirrels. Our preferred method in this case is to catch and repatriate. A nearby park will provide shelter and a place for this particular squirrel to forage.

In the picture above - squirrel’s eye view of a Havahart trap - later at the park, the release and scamper up a convenient pine tree.