December 2011
Debt Legacy
Guess who is going to pay for all the new debt? Ramirez hints at just who is going into debt . . .
The Obama administration will formally ask Congress later this week to raise the nation’s debt ceiling by $1.2 trillion, according to Treasury Department officials.
The latest request is the third of three requests authorized by the contentious debt ceiling agreement reached last August and is expected to come on December 30 – the day the debt is projected to fall within $100 billion of the current $15.194 trillion ceiling. The new request asks the ceiling be raised to $16.39 trillion.
Christmas and Birthday Gifts
I hope everyone had a good Christmas. We had a very nice Christmas at home; we enjoyed preparing and eating our Christmas dinner and a pretty good NFL football game in the evening.
Image – gifts – click to enlarge
One of my (Christmas Eve) birthday presents is pictured in the left half of the image; it’s a nautilus necklace and earring set made from southwestern fossil materials, a little corral and Globe (Arizona) turquoise. I also received some colorful “candy” bracelets made up of Blue Turquoise, Mojave Green Turquoise, Purple Turquoise, Apple Coral and Spiny Oyster with Sterling Silver fittings, handcrafted by southwestern Native Americans.
For Christmas I got an Arizona Cardinals hooded fleece (image right) with the Cardinal emblem on the back and on the left breast. I also got a new cookbook, “Cook Like a Rock Star” by Anne Burrell of Food Channel fame. It has over a hundred fancy recipes that I’m anxious to try.
Merry Christmas
May you all have a joyous Christmas and a very Happy New Year.
This animated Christmas card is based on a famous painting “The Virgin with Angels” by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, oil on canvas, completed around 1900. The original painting is in a museum in Paris, France. The complete image can be seen here.
I can’t take credit for the animation since this appeared as an example of animating methods in a tutorial on the SWiSH website. SWiSH is the program I use for some of the flash seen on our websites. I modified the script in the scrolling text for our custom Christmas greeting.
Welcome Sign Restored
This is the newly-erected replacement for the “Welcome to Historic Wickenburg” sign at the west end of the south traffic circle just before entering the old historic section of town. It was knocked down several months ago by a dump truck with faulty hydraulics. The dump bed deployed suddenly just before the truck went under the sign. Nobody was hurt but it messed up traffic on US 93 and US 60 until crews cleaned up the mess.
We found out after the fact that the same dump truck that delivered the rocks for our landscape project was the one involved in the sign mishap. The contractor described to us how the driver was unaware of the problem until the sign came crashing down after a great thud.
Damsel took this photo as we exited the traffic circle after our trip to the range today. Click on the image to enlarge.
Rat Poison Follow-Up
You may recall that our two Min-Pins got into some rat poison on November 16th during our visit to the California House. We immediately took them to the California vet for treatment. The vet gave us a regimen to follow and sent treatment history and recommendations for our Arizona vet. Since then, we have been following the dosage of vitamin K-1 until last week when the medication stopped.
Today, we took them to the Arizona vet for their last visit and blood tests (we hope). After the exams, the vet told us that everything looked good and she would call us with the results from this last coagulation test. I’m sure that the little dogs will be much happier with fewer visits to the vet.
Christmas Flowers
We’re still decorating for Christmas. Here is a close-up of a Christmas Bouquet currently showing in our office on my desk. We have our desks, computers, a little fridge, and a small entertainment center (radio, DVD player, small TV). We spend a lot of time in our office. Click on the image to enlarge.