Last week when I was over at my Mom and Dad’s place, I spotted this little hummingbird gathering nectar from Mom’s miniature orchids. He was seemingly unafraid of me when I grabbed the camera and took several shots of him, this one being the best of the lot. Sorry, no larger image since I had to crop this close-up at the original pixel density.

I bought some ranunculus bulbs a couple of months ago and planted them in the patio. Just this week, they have started producing these bright yellow flowers. There were several bulbs in the package of multiple color flowers. So far, only the yellow ones are out. I’m hoping for some of the other colors to come out soon. I took this photo in the patio this morning.

Click on image to enlarge.

Update: We got Feedback from Theresa:

Love the flower pixs. Thank you so very much. They make me feel so good.

It’s my pleasure, Theresa, especially when I know someone out there loves these as much as I do. Isn’t spring the best?

Taken from Charles Krauthammer’s comments on Fox News yesterday about Obama’s California Townhall meeting:

Well, Obama’s modus operandi is when the going gets tough, he gets going. He gets out of town. The best thing he does is campaign, so that’s what he wants to do. He’s not apparently that good at governing. He is not a lot of experience. He never ran a candy store in the past and he’s having a little stumbling trouble these days running his government. But, you know, presidents who are good speakers have charisma and popular support, like Reagan, will go over the heads of Congress directly to the people when they are in trouble and need help.

Gospel according to Ronald Reagan:

I started making some of the plans for our trip to the NRA Convention and the Second Amendment Blog Bash. Just the act of doing so induced a wave of nostalgic wanderlust. I dug out this picture that Damsel took along I-10 in December while we were on our winter cruise.

I still have to figure out where the dog will stay while we’re at the festivities. I’m looking into which kennels are in the area. We also still need to make the RV Park arrangements and finalize the RV rental.

We’re looking forward to it . . .

She arrived today! Woo Hoo!

A few weeks ago, we decided to get this little notebook computer for me so whether we’re in the back yard swing or on the road, I’ll have my own little blogging machine.

While we enjoyed our winter cruise, we had a bottleneck of sorts with computer access. At home, we’re used to each having a computer connected to our local network with internet access. On the road, we had to share our one laptop. Neither of us had enough time to do our usual ‘thing’ - blogging and reading the other blogs.

It’s so cute! We got all set up today and now I’m off and running with the new toy.

Click the image to the right to enlarge . . .

Sunday’s trip to the range went well for the most part. We had a couple of misfeeds with Damsel’s Warthog, but both happened when we used the ‘funky’ magazine - the one with the ‘pinkie extension.’ It’s not a stock Para magazine and the plastic cap on the bottom of the magazine does not fit very well. I think it’s time to get a stock Para Cap and re-spring that magazine. Damsel also was a bit critical of her grip when it had the stovepipe seen here. The other 98 rounds went through the Warthog without incident.

We also took my Glocks, the G26 9mm and the G30 .45 - 100 rounds went through each of those as well. I used the first silhouette target I put up at seven yards to do some “Mozambique” practice with the Glock 30 - two to the chest, one to the head, with the 10th round back to the chest. I did OK with that - the holes in the target are discernible in the accompanying image, but less than optimum - next time I will bring a sheet of yellow or green paper to put behind the target to improve visibility of the holes.

We also brought a couple of S&W guns with us - my 686 .357 revolver and my 908 9mm semi-automatic. We shot a little more than 50 rounds of .38 special through the revolver - since it’s a 7-round capacity cylinder, there is always a left-over round out of a box of 50 rounds.

The little ‘workhorse’ - the 908 9mm, saw about 50 rounds of ammo as well. The 908s are great little guns - they never complain as long as you replace the spring guide and recoil spring once in a while.

Finally, we took out the 12 and 20 gauge Remington 870s and shot up a couple more silhouette targets with 25 rounds of each gauge. I took some videos of Damsel shooting her 20 gauge and our 12 gauge, but I inadvertently had the little Canon A710 on a ‘color swap’ setting and the videos didn’t turn out well so they weren’t suitable to post.

The ammo report: last week I was unable to buy .45 reloads - this week they had them but no 9mm reloads. Fortunately, we had some on hand that we bought at a local sports emporium.

One thing that can be said about this session: Damn, it was a good time, satisfying and a lot of fun.

The statistics counter on the Never Forget Tribute should roll past 50,000,000 later this evening. Each time the graphic is served up on web pages that embed the tribute, the hit counter advances by one. Damsel and I thank those of you who have taken the time to embed the tribute on your websites. It’s people like you who know that America, and the World, can Never Forget. We are grateful that so many of you care.

The animation was originally inspired by an anonymously-produced PowerPoint slideshow making the rounds on the Internet and via emails after 9/11. I gathered some of the graphics and produced the prototype of the graphic to display on my personal website. After refinements and improvements suggested by Damsel and others, it appears as it does today. This is the graphic seen in the right sidebar depicting the attacks on America by terrorists. Recently, I added the U.S.S. Cole attacks in tribute to the 17 Sailors murdered by terrorists.

In August of 2005, I made the animation available to anyone. The offer was only taken by a few sites at first, but since then, many more have begun displaying the animation. As of December 2005, there were over 200 sites linking to it, and that number has been growing since. Sites in the US, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Norway, the UK, Italy and several other countries, display the tribute on their pages.

This pretty little orchid variety is called “Wildcourt.” The flowers are less than two inches wide and have the nicest pattern of colors. This sort of jumped into the cart at the garden shop today.

Click for the large image.

I stopped into a sandwich shop yesterday to get a ‘care package’ on the way to my Mom and Dad’s place. When I stepped outside, this was parked right there - right in your face. Bob thinks it’s a Ford ‘Hi Boy’ chassis, uhh, slightly modified. It looks like a lot of love and effort went into this interesting hot-rod.

Click to enlarge image.

I have been visiting a lot lately at my Mom and Dad’s place to help out with Dad, who is convalescing from his illness. Mom can use the help. While I’m there, I take my camera into her garden and get some images of her beautiful flowers and cactii. This morning glory is one of the many colors in her garden.

Click image to enlarge.