This Wednesday funny is brought to you by my cousin, J, who got it from his brother, T, who is an active-duty LT in the Navy. T, thank you for your service and your sense of humor.

Gotta love Texans…
So this Department of Water Resources representative stops at a Texas ranch and talks with an old rancher. He tells the rancher, “I need to inspect your ranch for your water allocation.”

The old rancher says, “Okay, but don’t go in that field over there.”

The Water representative says, “Mister, I have the authority of the Federal Government with me. See this card? This card means I am allowed to go WHEREVER I WISH on any agricultural land. No questions asked or answered. Have I made myself clear? Do you understand?”

The old rancher nods politely and goes about his chores.

Later, the old rancher hears loud screams and spies the Water Rep running for his life and close behind is the rancher’s bull. The bull is gaining with every step.

The Rep is clearly terrified, so the old rancher immediately throws down his tools, runs to the fence and yells at the top of his lungs…..

“Your card! Show him your card!”

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Found this at The Anti-Contrarian after being pointed there by GuyK.

No, it couldn’t possibly be A NATURALLY OCCURRING WEATHER CYCLE – it must be GLOBAL WARMING!!!!

“According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January “was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average.

China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.

In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950. (i love that part about ‘pre-suv, pre-kyoto, pre-carbon footprint’. heh heh heh)

And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its “lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts … the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year.

I agree, one cold winter does not mean we are headed into an ice age. But several warmer-than-normal summers does not mean we are having an affect on the global climate, either. I remember winters so cold it would hurt to breathe, and winters so mild you could play outside in shirtsleeves. I also remember summers that the snow wouldn’t melt on the high peaks until June, and snow would reappear in September; other summers where the snow wouldn’t appear at all for an entire CYCLE.

Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as “a drop in the bucket.” Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to “stock up on fur coats.”

I’ve still got my parka. People here in Phoenix laugh when they see it hanging in my front hall closet. I just smile, and repeat the Boy Scout motto to them.

Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

I ran into this over at GuyK‘s place. I couldn’t resist.

Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

The daughters of our good friend came over today – (note to self: don’t let the guy who can’t keep track of days write entries) – I meant, yesterday, to watch MEG so I could take some concentrated time to assemble this latest project. Trying to start a business out of your home can be frustrating at times, if you don’t have the time to actually DO anything, so this was a blessing.

I mentioned over here about chopping the heck out of a bunch of birch – this is the end result:

I had already put the loose base together. It’s the ladder-looking thingy in the middle of the floor. (Sorry if the technical language gets in the way.)

Let’s start from the bottom – here’s the bottom piece, propped and ready to receive the dividers:

The center dividers in place:

…and the ends installed:

Technical note: I use staples and glue when going through ply into ply, and nails (headless brads, really) when attaching hardwood.

I would be remiss if I did not show you the second most important tool that I use: The first most important, of course, is the stuff that keeps my ears from sticking together.

Top rail in place, with glue and brads, and the fixed shelf (for the television) ready to be installed:

Now it’s starting to look like something:Wait, something is missing.With a back on the box, it becomes very stable – amazing what a sheet of 1/8″ ply can do.

Here’s a front view with the box sitting on the loose base:I used a loose base because the overall hight is 53 inches, and it would have needed twice the plywood to cut the ends and dividers in one piece with an integral base. This way, I can install the loose base and level it so that when the main box is installed I don’t have to try to wrestle it around – that sucker weighs in at about 150, without the adjustable shelves.

The front will be trimmed out with rosettes and ribbed moulding. I will be using the mouldings to actually scribe the unit into the niche. There is a wood top planned to finish this off.

Funny side story: I went to Lowe’s last night to pick up a few last-minute items. Since I had gotten there about ten minutes before closing, I had to hurry. So, I made a beeline to the moulding section, culled out the best piece to be the nosing for the woodtop, went straight to the paint department and picked up a quart of stain for the project, stopped off at the brushes to select a new one, and then grabbed a nailset off the shelf as I rushed to the checkout counter. When I got there, the cashier rang up my three purchases, and it was just short of the $25.00 needed to use a $10.00 off coupon. When I got home, I figured out why: I had set the stain down while selecting a brush, and failed to pick it back up before moving on. D’oh!

Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

UPDATE: To any member of the Lubbock Marine Parents – the requirements to get me to take a side trip to visit with ya’ll are hereby waived. I am more than willing to take the side trip needed to meet with you and shake hands, hug necks, and hold each of you and your offspring in prayer. That would be on Friday, January 18. Please let me know if any of you are willing to meet with a road weary old Marine…

Travel: I leave the fair environs of my humble abode on January 14th, 2008 (gotten used to writing that yet? me either – it took me three tries…) at about 0700 MST for a short flight to Denver International, where I have a four hour layover. Cheap tickets are one thing, only one flight that will get me to a connecting flight four hours later is something else. Luckily, I have cousins in the area, and they plan on visiting with me while I am there. If you are in the Denver area on January 14th, 2008 (two tries!), between the hours of 0843 and 1240 MST, drop me a line and I will forward contact information.

Once I leave Denver it is but a short hop to Tampa International, arriving at 1800 EST. Once I get my rental car, I’m off to my Uncle’s house, where I will visit and gather my Grandfather’s genealogy files for my other blog. I will be in the Tampa/Clearwater area until the morning of January 16th, 2008 (first time!), when I depart on my road trip home. Yes, I am driving home with the files, because they are original documents, including letters from ancestors, and there is no way I am allowing Brown, or White, or Yellow, or any of those guys the chance to misplace one or two of the boxes. While I don’t have a lot of stops planned, I will be traveling north on I-75 to I-10, then west to Lafayette, LA (bypassing NOLA, unless someone has come to their senses and decided to rebuild it where it won’t flood the next time the tide comes in a little higher than normal) where I will be jogging north on I-49 and picking up I-20 in Shreveport. Continuing west, I plan on spending the afternoon/overnight on Thursday, January 17th, 2008, in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area (TMBWitW’s adopted mama’s mother lives there, and GG is really taken with MEG. I will be delivering Christmas and Birthday photos). The morning of the 18th, I continue my travels and spend the next three and a half days crossing the expanses of Texas – OK, not really. I pick back up on the I-10 and carry on into Arizona and home. Maybe Friday night, maybe Saturday morning. Depends on how hard I push it.

I tell you all that to say this – if you would like to be a part of my “People and Places” entry/entries, with photos (if you are camera shy or blog anonymously, you will be photographed from the back), please drop me a line. I would like to meet any and/or all of you along my travel path, even if it is only for a minute or two to get the photographic proof of my being there. If you are not on the direct path, I may be persuaded to deviate slightly if there are home made baked goods involved, or a genealogical link.

Work: I spent all day yesterday surgically cutting several sheets of 3/4″ cabinet grade birch ply into parts for an entertainment center for my latest client. After only three trips to Lowes for this and that (I’ve got to start making a list!) I finally got to the point where it was too dark to make any more cuts, and I only needed one more trip to Lowes. Of course, they were closed by that time, being New Year’s Day and all. As soon as MEG wakes up and has some breakfast this morning, guess where we’re going?

Homelife: TMBWitW is up to her pretty nose in month end/quarter end/year end at her place of employment. She is also about three classes away from her Bachelor’s in Accounting. Yay! She will be finished in April, and walk in May. Talk about a party – she will finally be finished with all the crazy schedule stuff. By that time, also, the plan is for me to be working enough to support us so she can back off and maybe do CPA stuff from home while she spends much, much more time with MEG. That will be a good thing.

Gotta go – someone is waking up.

Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!