Back Again.

We are back from our weekend visit to the promise land. We had fun but the visit was too short. We finished up X-mas 2007 with my family and we ate way too much. We had a family get together and I got to see family I haven't seen in a while and also new family I have never seen. In fact there were 3 of them that I had never set eyes on until this weekend. We had a good visit and I hope to make it back down there soon.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Candle warning.

I went to visit a friend the other day and catch up on what has gone on in our lives since we hadn't seen each other in several months. He informed me that he had had a fire in the kitchen. When I asked what had happened he told me of the actions which caused this unusual outcome. My friend "D" has three cats in the house. One loves to sleep on the stove because of the warmth of the pilot lights. My friend placed a candle in the way to maybe detour the lounging feline. Apparently the lite candle was nudged on top of one of the pilots that was burning just under the surface of the stove by one of his furry housemates. The candle was burning but hadn't melted the top of the wax very much but the pilot light under the candle had melted the wax in the bottom of the jar. The pressure of the melted wax was growing and growing like a bomb without any ones awareness until a slight whistle was heard. My friend went to investigate the noise and was going to put out the candle when the thing blew up. The melted wax finally found a path though the not yet melted wax on top of it in the container. The pressure pushed the wax out of the container at such a force that it caused the wax to aerosol into small particles which in turn caught fire by the lite candle. The flaming candle wax exploded all over the ceiling and the kitchen cabinets. Luckily my friend was far enough away from it to not get any on him. With what looked like 1/4th of the kitchen on fire he decided to retreat and grabbed a kitty under each arm and headed for the door. One of the cats was by the door when he got there so he kicked it out the door as he tossed them outside to safety. When he ran back inside to see what he could do or maybe call the fire department and to his amazement the fire was out. The only sign of a fire was the blackened dust on the cabinets and ceiling. He was very lucky and it could have been a lot worse than how it turned out. Word to the wise, never burn a candle on the top of your stove.

A Picture Says A Thousand Words...

This is one of TIME Magazines top pictures of 2007. It it very powerful and touching. I think it sums up what a lot of families in this country is going through right now, for some it's the first holiday without a loved one. Grab your loved one, hold them tight and tell them you love them and Merry Christmas.

X-mas update...

All presents are wrapped! Hallelujah!

Finishing up for X-Mas.

Today Needles and Jenny from the Blog was nice enough to allow me to tag along for a day of last minute X-mas shopping. We headed out to the big city a little after 9 am this morning. We first went down town and walked up and down the street ducking into various shops that the gals wanted to look over. Jenny found a few gift items and then it was on to the more important matters in life. Where to eat? We spied and new Chinese restaurant while walking to the downtown area. This is the 3rd Chinese place that we know of and so we had to try it out. We filled out bellies and then we were off to find more bargains. We stopped at at a couple of stores before our stop at Star Bucks t get out fix. After getting high on caffeine we went to Kohl's to finish up a few last minute gifts. I also scored a pair of 70$ boots for 60% off. We returned home to relax and chat before Jenny had to leave. It was a fun trip and we are tired but we are also a little closer to being done with X-mas. Will it ever end?

Thanks USA Network.

I guess its better than a stick in the eye but I just found out that 4400 is cancelled. No final episode to find out what all this bat crap crazy stuff was leading up to. Whats next Battlestar? I hate when shows do this.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland.

This morning we awoke to 3 to 4 inches of snow covering everything.

Of course there was about a half inch of ice underneath it that made it a little slick.

I ventured out this morning to get a gallon of milk for breakfast. Later I went to Rudy and family to find them out enjoying the snow. We played in the white stuff for about 40 minutes and then we went inside for coffee and hot chocolate. A little Nester the long eared donk donk and back to the house I went to see what Needles was up to.

Here are a few pics that I took during my outing.

ME.

Winter Storm Part 1

Last night it started snowing during the night and by morning we had about an inch or so covering everything. Shortly after 9am we started getting the sleet and rain which has decreased the snow amount but as the temperature drops tonight I suspect it will get nice and slick out there. Needles and I are planning on staying indoors where it is nice and warm. I only ventured outside once today to get the mail and back inside I went. Today was predicted to be snow most of the day but it turned into mostly rain. Tonight we are supposed to get more snow but with the rain that we have already had I doubt we get very much. Maybe pictures tomorrow if we get ambitious enough to go outside.

White Weekend.

Well the weather outside is fine now but looks like it is going to go downhill over the next 12 to 24 hours. The local weather and weather channel is giving 1 to 6 inches of snow in our neck of the woods. I guess we will see what we get. Last weekend Ragged and Cynical visited and Cynical loves snow. Maybe another visit this weekend???? Probably not but you guys are welcome anytime. Needles and I have plans to go out to the Trace Inn with Rudy, Brando, Yin & Yuri tonight for ribs. Then we are going to watch the Bourne Supremacy at their house. Looks like its going to be a nice night before the snow storm.

Dirty Ditch Nanner!

This weekend we had house guests. Our company arrived around 7 ish Friday night in the rain. After catching up with each other on whats going on in our hectic lives, and some kitty scritchin we enjoyed Needles vegetable soup and homemade bread for supper. We then felt like braving the cold nasty night and visit Rudy, Brando and the kids. After catching up, a couple of rounds of Guitar Hero and a few laughs we returned home for some late night chatting followed by a good nights sleep. Saturday morning we had beacon and eggs. Needles and Ragged decided to make a run to the local yarn shop so off to the big city we went for the ladies to get their yarn fix. Shortly after that we stopped by Garfield's for lunch that stuffed us to the point we were almost miserable. It was very good and we had lots of fun drawing on the tables with crayons. A quick stop by Starbuck's for a tasty hot beverage on a cold wet Saturday. When we arrived home and decided to watch a couple of movies and stayed up late into the night. Another good nights sleep and we were up again for cinnamon rolls for breakfast and nice lounging around the house before the unfortunate hour that our guest had to leave. It is a shame that when you get together with friends and family that you really enjoy the time races by so quick that a couple of days seems to flash by in an instant. It was a rainy weekend but with Ragged and Cynical here it made it a great weekend.

TIN MAN Dreams

I have been having nightmares of booby monkeys flying after me. Needles says they are not booby monkeys they are babboobs.

If you haven't been watching the mini series on Sci-Fi called Tin Man. The show stars the bad witch Azkadellia played by Kathleen Robertson. She has markings like tattoos across her chest that she can call on. The markings turn into flying monkeys and do her bidding. She frequently sets her monkeys free. She sets her monkeys free more than on Witches Gone Wild.

Pictures from the weekend hunt ( Not for the sqeamish )

A Four Deer Season

This is Needles Uncle "B's" deer he got Saturday 12-1-07. A nice 2 1/2 year old 9 point, it is the biggest deer he has ever harvested and he was very happy to get it. This fellow made a trip to the taxidermist and will be gracing his wall in several months as well as he should. I hope I get a chance at a nice one next year. I had my chance last year and wasn't able to get a good shot.


This is my doe from Friday evening. I was just about to think that my season would end with just one deer and then in a matter of seconds that all changed. This 1 1/2 year old doe and 2 others ran straight in on me. When I first saw them from about 300 yards away I didn't know what they were in the fading light but once I realized what they were and they were heading my way I stood up and my seat cushion fell out of the tree stand. I was afraid they might have seen it and would run another direction but I lucked out and was able to fill my tags.

This doe was harvested by Needles Uncle "K". She had been shot by hunters in the field next to us and "K" made the right decision to put her down.

All of these deer went to Needle's Mom "L's" freezer and will help out greatly on the grocery bills.

Here is the 6pt buck I got first season.

Xmas called on a count of rain.

The Xmas tree will be postponed due to rain. The tree and ornaments are in the garage. Thanks you for your patience.

A new member of the family.

Needles just finished configuring and ordering a brand new laptop. We have been looking for one for awhile as her lap top's A/C connection has been a problem for a month or so now and her laptop is over 4 years old and feels like your lugging around a cinder block. It also has been having some slow down issues that we can't seem to figure out. It is time to put the old Compaq Presario R3120US laptop down. It has been a good one but time to move on. Her new one will be much lighter with 120G hard drive, 2G RAM and 12 cell battery that equates to 4 to 5 hours battery life. I think it will serve her well and of course we are loyal to HP Compaq Presario laptops as this will be our 3rd one. The new one is a customized Compaq Presario V6500Z with all the bells and whistles. I am excited and with build time and delivery it should be here before Xmas. Needles justifies the purchase by saying she is keeping the economy going but her computer really did need a upgrade. My laptop has been rejuvenated with some added memory. It did have 512 MB but I recently upgraded it to 2G which seemed to speed everything up a lot. Even surfing the interwebs has been improved with quicker download and loading of pages. I was very impressed with how much it can speed up your computer and the memory was installed in just 5 minutes.

Deer Season Part 2

Overall the season was very successful. Needles Uncle K killed a young doe Friday morning and will be good for the table. Apparently she had be shot just before running by his stand but wasn't hit good enough for a quick kill and he thought he would go ahead and put her down as she wasn't going to survive anyway. Last night I was in my stand when 3 does got jumped up and ran straight for me. I was able to get one and that was the end to my deer hunting. After Needles and I had taken the deer to the meat processors we wondered about going on home or staying the night and going home this morning. I am glad we decided to go home today as Needles Uncle B killed and nice 9 point buck this morning and had to pull it out of a dry ditch about 5 foot deep. We got all sorts of pictures and I was very happy for him as this was the biggest deer he had ever killed and was going to get it mounted for the wall. This was the first year that all of us had killed a deer. Unfortunately Needles Uncle C didn't get to hunt. That is it for now. I need to get cleaned up and shave my 10 day old deer season beard off my scruffy face and maybe get a nap. I didn't sleep well last night.