These roses are now in the vase as our weekend centerpiece. This bi-color variety, according to the wrapper, are medium sized with medium petal count and medium green foliage. There’s nothing mediocre about this beautiful color, though. Click on the image to enlarge.
I grabbed this frame from a video I made of Damsel firing her 20 gauge shotgun last weekend. I was looking for the perfect muzzle flash when I noticed that two, and possibly three of her ejected shells were in mid-air at the same time. Look closely at the two yellow blurs – one coming out of the port and one just falling past the table. Extrapolating the position of the third shell would seem to indicate it, too, still has not hit the floor.
You can watch Damsel’s rapid-action shooting here.
A while back in a post about bad mayors (think Ray Nagin) we called out Antonio Villaraigosa for what he is – a failure.
So much promise, so much disappointment:
In preparing for this month’s cover story, an open letter to Antonio Villaraigosa, writer-at-large Ed Leibowitz spoke to a range of civic figures to plumb their views. Whether from critics or supporters, the opinions were near unanimous: The mayor, who started his first term with such promise, has been a terrible disappointment. With a couple of exceptions, all the conversations were off the record—Ed was free to quote the person but not identify them. Which is to say, these civic figures were willing to say things about the mayor in private that they wouldn’t say in public. One can easily imagine some of their reasons. They didn’t want to alienate a powerful elected official whose help for a project or a campaign they might need in the future. This isn’t unusual.
It would be impossible, for example, to report on Washington, D.C., and Hollywood—two cultures where everyone is worried about offending the person they just knifed in the back—without having off-the-record conversations.
Speaking of Ray Nagin, read this.
Every once in a while, when I’m at my desk working, I get a twinge of wanderlust. When the great outdoors calls me, I go to the National Park Service Web Cameras page. From there, I can navigate to some of our favorite places in near real time.
I made this mosaic from several of the images I looked at during my lunch break.
Available webcams on the NPS Page:
Even though the mission of the webpage is to raise awareness of air quality, I like the instant gratification of seeing what the conditions are like in several different parks across the country.
Disclaimer: Some sites are in maintenance mode and the Hawaiian volcano site does not have a camera. Bookmark the site and when you get wanderlust, you can get a peek into the great outdoors.
From the page:
The National Park Service operates digital cameras at many parks to help educate the public on air quality issues. These cameras often show the effects of air pollution such as visibility impairment. Because these cameras are typically located near air quality monitoring sites, the camera web pages display other information along with the photo such as current levels of ozone, particulate matter, or sulfur dioxide air pollutants, visual range, and weather conditions.
I take a lot of pictures of the scenery when we travel. I consider only a few of my pictures to have that special quality that I want to share with others. Because I take so many when we’re out and about, there are some photos that I want to share that I can’t in real time. So that’s why this December photo is finally getting published in June. I think it’s a pretty view of Grand Canyon in it’s winter coating. Click on the image to enlarge.
Long guns
We headed to the indoor range today for our regular target practice. Upon arrival, we found the parking lot full and we had to park on the street across from the range. The crowded lot and street was due to a group using the training room at the range. We got our gear ready, went into the range and found an open lane right away. In fact it didn’t get crowded until halfway through our session.
Today we brought the 9mm handguns (Glock 26 and S&W 908s) and Damsel’s S&W 686 .357 magnum revolver. Since we scored some 9mm and .357 ammo a couple weeks ago, we decided to bring both calibers today. We also brought the shotguns, a Remington 880 20 gauge and the Remington 12 gauge security gun.
Shooting was fun today. We dispensed about 150 rounds total of 9mm ammo through the Glock and S&W. Both guns performed flawlessly, which is more than I can say about the shooter (speaking for myself). We weren’t all that bad today, but since this is the first time in weeks we shot the revolver and the 9mm pistols, our rustiness was showing.
As for the shotguns, we had fun sending 25 rounds each, of 12 and 20 gauge, into the silhouette targets. We went through all three targets we took into the range, shooting 2 of them down completely and perforating the last one pretty good.
Availability of ammo seemed to be improving at the range. As far as the local sporting goods outlets, not so much. One thing is for sure, the prices are up considerably for both factory new and reloads at the range. I managed to get a rain check on some 9mm ammo at the bargain price from the sporting goods shop – if it ever gets delivered to them, I’ll be able to get a couple hundred rounds at a good price.
Damsel and I generally prepare a dinner meal both on Saturday and on Sunday. Today, the entree consisted of grilled pork tenderloin with Jack Daniels sauce, braised Brussels sprouts with bacon bits, acorn squash and candy apple baby carrots.
We start with the squash cut in half and seeded with butter and pepper wrapped in foil. I preheated the grill with the cover closed to 400°F. The squash goes on the shelf in the grill for 45 minutes.
We coat the pork tenderloin with gourmet mustard and coarse black pepper. Then it gets wrapped in foil and joins the squash on the shelf for 30 minutes. After the squash have heated for 45 minutes with the tenderloin for the last 30 minutes, remove the squash and set aside leaving them in the foil. Turn the grill on high, unwrap the tenderloin and grill it for an additional five minutes per side.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Damsel prepares a sauce consisting half and half bourbon and maple syrup. The sauce gets reduced over low heat while the grill is going. She also rendered the bacon bits until brown, adding minced garlic and onion until translucent. Then she adds the sprouts (quartered) for another ten minutes or so. On the other burner she cooked some baby carrots in apple juice.
The tenderloin gets cut into medallions a quarter inch thick and the squash get scooped out of the skins. Serve up the carrots, sprouts, squash and pork topped with the Jack sauce. This meal is really great. Everything compliments everything else. MMMM good.
Tomorrow – beef Stroganoff over noodles.