Why the Cowboys suck {the Biblical view}:

In 1989 the forces of evil led by the profligate Jerry Jones obtained God's Team, the Cowboys, and with no shame or remorse, fired the team's righteous leader, Saint Tom of Landry thus disgracing him. Yea verily, God work's in his own way and time, so that the Sinner Jones was allowed early successes.

This was God's test, He, wishing to learn if the Evil Jones had learned piety and respect. Lo, he had not and built unto himself a $1 billion pagan altar which he named the Temple of Jones. This pissed God off, royally! So now, slowly God will visit the Seven Plagues of the House of Lombardi upon the Pagan Jones and cast his money changers out of the temple which shall be restored to God and his people.

From the Book of Staubach, CH1, vers. 5-8

Asleep at the Wheel....

As my photography "career" has progressed I've been blessed by good fortune and friends in being able to do "concert" photos for people ranging from Willie Nelson, Gary P. Nunn and Stoney Larue [twice].

Last Saturday, at the Celebration of the Arts, I had the opportunity to be onstage with one of my long favorite groups.....Asleep at the Wheel. And through a mutual friend to be able to spend an hour or so with their founder and 9 time Grammy Award winner, Ray Benson. I like interesting people, and Ray is certainly one of those. But the real thrill is being onstage with such talented people with mega woofers woofing while standing next to the drummer while he's drumming out some of my favorite Asleep at the Wheel tunes. It doesn't get much better...

Neither rain, nor hail, nor tornados, nor floods....

The US Postal Service gets maligned too much. Sure they've had their problems, but they have a huge job....and they are a government agency so, all in all, I think they do pretty well. In my experience, they've done just as well with fragile or sensitive parcels as has UPS or especially Fed-Ex.

Yesterday in Midland was one of those days I would have expected the Postal Service to suspend their sacred oath for just one afternoon. With floods, a tornado sighted, and skull denting hail about, it was pretty dangerous outside. In fact one woman was killed when swept away in her car. But.....at almost the usual time, there was Art the Postman delivering the mail with a smile. Art has been the postman in our neighborhood for decades and provides exemplary and personal service. In fact, he was the postman at my other residence, knows I moved and where, and brings my mail to me while the "offical" mail transfer is in progress.

Hail to you Art!

Change is Good..

Not only has this blog moved to a new location, thanks to Blogger no longer hosting ftp accounts through my own server, but other big changes have occured recently also.

I have a new home, a new dog and a new 30 year old Swedish girl friend. Well, actually I only have a new home and a new dog; the Swedish girl is wishful thinking.

Since my Mother moved to a retirement community, our old family home has been vacant. I had been planning on moving back into the house that I grew up in but dreading the work involved to do so. A timely and economically advantageous offer to buy my home on Bedford suddenly appeared and so the choice was made, and I'm glad it was. Moving is my definition of "hell" and it was an ordeal, but it's mostly done now, except for some unpacking and it was a good decision.

I had been intending to get another "rescue" dog after I moved in, so the present dog and a new one could meet on the neutral turf of a new house. But, sometimes our plans are intercepted by reality. During the initial stages of the move, I encountered a dog in need at a Midland High baseball game and so I acquired "Daisy". Another great thing for she now has a good home, and the senior dog "Daphne" has a pal. Amazing, in that Daphne has never cared much for other dogs, but took to Daisy like she was her own puppy. All is well now in the new home!

The new home....

The new dog.....Daisy

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Trust Me...

I see this actual ad on several large well known websites as I surf around...including The Weather Channel's, Weather.Com. Every time I encounter the ad I have to wonder what kind of creative process went into it.

Did a focus group of Madison Avenue Ad guru's sit around musing what graphic they could use to go with a mortgage ad. "Let's see now, in these tough times, what visually depicts safety and security in a home loan? I've got it....how about a picture of someone who looks likes Charles Manson. Great idea, who doesn't love and trust Charlie Manson".

Was that it...or are they just dopes? I think the later. I know I personally never do business with a company using Charles Manson as their logo.

Up and Coming..

Darby Ledbetter is an up and coming new talent in Nashville, he's also a Warrant Officer in the Tennessee National Guard. These two occupations have converged for Darby and he's now the singing spokesman for the Guard nationally. Oh yeah, and he's from Midland. We're planning on a visit from him when he returns from Iraq this fall.

Dog Gone It....that's interesting

As I was processing 100's of basketball photos Wed. night, I caught most of an interesting science program, The Human Spark, on Basin PBS. The show explored the evolutionary similarities and differences between human reasoning abilities and those of the great apes [gorillas, chimps and orangutans]. The show focused on decades of intense research, mainly at the Max Plank Institute. Amazingly the concrete reasoning abilities of the apes was at least as good as young human children and sometimes better. But the apes fell far short in connecting abstract relationships.

An example of abstract thinking pointed out by one scientist was the simple act of a human pointing at something. Even very young children made the connection that pointing at something meant to look in the direction for something of significance or meaning. But after 10 years of experiments, the apes just don't get it. And with intensive training....they could not be taught to do so. A pointing human finger may as well be a banana.

But, the scientist pointed out, there is one, and only one, animal species that gets the message of pointing. And that is.....the modern dog. Alan Alda, the host, seemed amazed and asked why this is. The scientist pointed out that other wild canines such as wolves and coyotes in captivity don't exhibit this trait and can't be taught, so it must be that modern dogs, having lived and working with humans for at least 10,000 years have had this genetically imprinted on them as a useful tool. She pointed out that some dogs naturally do this, but almost all the dogs they worked with could be taught fairly quickly to look where a human is pointing.

A special bond indeed.

Catastrophe: Al Gore comments..

Smithville, Tenn [AP]:

Former Vice President and Leading World's Expert Al Gore has issued the following statement. "Friends, supporters and neighbors in our global village, after evaluating recent weather trends, considering "cooked" climate data and noting that my 100 ft. houseboat, CO II is frozen to the pier, I want to emphasize that I stand by my recent predictions for a global climate catastrophe; with one exception. I believe that my comments have been misinterpreted. What I have meant to say is that we are all about to freeze to death unless something is done now!

Recent studies have shown that Polar Bears are now on the outskirts of Montreal, eating small Canadian children and the elderly. Glacial activity and blizzards nearly caused me, Al Gore, to perish while at the Environmental Conference in Copenhagen Denmark. I'm Al Gore I would not decieve you!! With the future of our planet, and my houseboat, at stake I urge you to drive around aimlessly. With your help we can produce a carbon dioxide shield that will once again warm our planet

Dear Al......

Dear Al Gore, where can I get me some of that Global Warming? I'm freezin' to death out here. And don't worry about the glaciers melting a little. A new one is forming on my roof.