You'd Have to see it to Believe it!

My wife and I were sitting in our rockers (yep we are old people already!) on our front porch this a.m. and our big fat black worthless cat saunters up. He needs at least a head scratch and to rub his head all over whatever part of your body you're willing to get black hair all over. Often he will climb up in a lap and start kneading with his front paws.

Today he sort of lay down on the concrete. Then I noticed a bird coming toward the porch quite rapidly. At first I thought it was heading for us, then it dipped and dove for the cat. Pretty strange until it happened again and again. For several minutes this bird - unsure what type - medium size with a sort of short forked tail - flew directly at our cat and my wife says the bird actually touched the cat at some point.

What did our big fat ... cat do? Nothing. Did not even bat a paw. He just lay there. I wish I'd had a small video camera to capture this. I've never seen a bird taunt a cat in that way before.

Twenty + something years ago we used to have some squirrels who would sit up in trees and sort of "bark" at our cats below but today is as close as I've ever seen to watching a bird tease its arch enemy.

Six Flags

#2 daughter has a blog she calls ventilation. Good for venting I guess. So here's my vent.

My two youngest (6 & 7) got free tickets to Six Flags for some sort of St. Judes thing related to math. So we decided to use them up. But I needed a ticket. So I went on -line where I was told you could print them and save $5. But when you actually go to the print page - there is a $3 printing charge. It's my printer and ink but they charge me $3 to print a ticket. So the $5 savings is really only $2 and at the checkout page you find you have to pay tax too so there goes the $5.

Arrive at the park after 3+ hours of driving with said youngsters. Pull around to parking area and find we have to pay $15 to park. I'm used to Silver Dollar City where parking is free and they shuttle you back and forth for free. No Six Flags shuttle - just a long hot walk across the parking lot.

Once inside we begin to scope things out and the kids have fun - mostly in the water area. So we rent a locker ($9 for a shoebox sized locker) to hold my wallet, watch, cell phone etc. that can't get wet. When I go to pay the $9 - I hand a young man a $10 bill and he says I'm sorry but I have to collect $14 - there is a $5 key deposit. So I pay. After our swim-venture in our street clothes (my perusal of their web site led me to believe that the water park was extra and we did not plan to go) we rode lots of ridey things to dry off. About 6:30 p.m. we head back to the water are a to find it closed. I head for another locker rental place with my key to get back my $5 so I could buy a bottle of water or something (more about food prices later). The locker rental lady sends me to guest relations. I'm told there that is was made perfectly clear to anyone renting a locker that the $5 was not really a deposit but more to offset the costs of having security take people back into the water area after is is closed - to retrieve their things. Fortunately we didn't leave anything in the locker. We planned on going back for more wetness but the kids got tired and decided not to. Bottom line - they would not give me back my $5. If that was all it had been, I'd have been peeved but no big deal. But by now I feel nickel-and-dimed to death. $3 to print, $15 to park and get this - 3 ice cream cones - guess? $16 and some change. We decided to eat at Micky D's outside the park and even though their prices are somewhat inflated, we ate much cheaper.

I've writtne twice to guest relations but so far all I have is an offer for 1/2 tickets for my party. What the heck are 1/2 tickets? A one day pass costs $44.95 or something close to that. So for my unhappiness - they'll invite me back at a 50% discount. No way unless they have a shuttle from Springfield. I told them I am never going back and will make sure all my friends know about this experience.

So what would you like to know about Six Flags?

Update on 536 days

Just last night heard that mayor Michael Bloomberg of NYC has defected to the independent party. Couple this with what I wrote yesterday (that I'd been writing for several days) and maybe both the Dems and the GOP are (or should be) getting nervous.

I'd have said that Hillary doesn't have anything to worry about until yesterday when I watched the video of her campaign song announcement. If that is the best she can do (or pay someone to do) then nobody has anything to worry about. I'm sure everybody is weighing in on this one today. I just find it funny that she picks a song by a Canadian that was originally part of a TV campaign for Air Canada. Isn't outsourcing more of a Republican thing?

535 days until ...

Actor Fred Thompson is still thinking about announcing that he is planning a run for President in 2008. Let me check my calendar. Let’s see – today is … June 19, 2007. The first primary or in this case a caucus is scheduled for January 14, 2008 in Iowa. The Democratic Convention will be held in late August of 2008 and the Republican convention will start on September 1, 2008. And we finally get to vote for President on November 4, 2008. If you need them all check this out (www.thegreenpapers.com/P08/events.phtml?s=c&f=m)

But it’s still 2007 for crying out loud!

Earlier this year there was much clamoring about and jockeying as various states enacted legislation to move their respective primaries as early in the year as possible. The simple explanation is they want their primary to count for something. Who wants to try to attract voters to the polls to pick their party’s candidate after they’ve already gotten the magic number of delegates required for the nod at their convention? Apparently nobody except Nebraska who will have the distinction of being the last primary in late June of 2008.

For the Democrats all this might be a good thing so they can get it out of the way early, pick their candidates, let Hillary and Bill make their deal with Barack (OK that is just my thinking on how this will all play out – as early as possible Hillary makes a deal with Barack to be her Veep which almost guarantees him the Presidency in 2016 – if he can wait that long. But what he will be (or want to be) is the most powerful and active Veep in history.) But getting all the stuff out of the way means they can mend their fences, stop spending bazillions of dollars campaigning against each other and rest while the Republicans duke it out to see which two of them get to be the GOP ticket in the fall.

My focus right now is on the GOP side of things. Let’s look at what is going on and again what I think is likely to happen. All the major candidates are courting the evangelical vote and trying to convince everyone that they are indeed tried and true conservative Republicans even if they happen to hold antithetical (to the rank-and-file GOP) views on major deal-busters such as abortion, gay rights, immigration and perhaps gun control. I confess I honestly don’t know who will win this multi-horse race. I think the media would like for a good candidate they can have some fun with but who won’t really have a chance of beating Hillary in the fall. Not sure what the latest polling numbers say about the various match-ups. Doesn’t matter. Because Hillary is going to win and here is why.

The Republican may actually pick their ticket early too – although I think it will take longer than the Dems. But still by March – the race could be over. Or it could just be underway.

For the sake of my point, assume that either Giuliani, Romney or McCain gets the GOP nod – at least unofficially in March by racking up enough delegates. Where does that leave them? With almost 7 months to campaign.

But it also leaves the door open for a 3rd party run. How? You ask?

Seems like in the past 3rd party runs happen when people don’t get the official nod and go outside the mainstream to make their run. They usually end up as a footnote or in the case of Ross Perot a major factor if you agree that he may have cost Bush 41 the race against Clinton. Doubtful that anybody planning to vote for Clinton would have jumped ship to vote for the little guy with charts. In 2000 it could be argued that Ralph Nader cost Gore Florida in the national election and would have kept the Supremes out of the contest. Doubtful that anyone voting for Nader would have cast their vote for Dubya instead. Nader’s almost 3 million votes could have done more damage that anyone expected.

Back to my current point: Once Rudy/Mitt/John are running against Hillary/Barack, many evangelicals, Christians who consider themselves conservative on social issues, and many just plain-old conservatives regardless of their spiritual persuasion, may be fed up with the GOP and do one of two things: stay away from the process (many already feel mis-led, betrayed etc. by Bush 43 on matters like these) OR they will finally form a 3rd party attempt to end-run the anointed GOP ticket and go straight for the Christian, right, et al vote.

In either case they may have enough votes to tip the scales. Not win the election; yet.

The difference? Time. And perhaps money. With the decisions pretty much made by March, 7 months is a long time to raise money, get on enough State ballots, develop a platform – all that structural stuff that politics requires.

If Nader’s 3 million votes could tip things for Bush, imagine what a much larger (and I’ve been trying to find some good numbers but everyone on the internet seems to make all the comparisons in terms of percentages – not total numbers) group of people could do?

A few years ago, before blogging was mainstream, I wrote a little essay about needing a 3rd party.

I think in 2008 we’ll see the emergence of a 3rd party that won’t and can’t win the election but may end up placing a few people in elected offices (at the state levels and maybe even a congressman or two) but will garner enough attention to become a real force in 2012. By then they’ll get Federal funds and will have had several years of fighting liberal government by the Clinton White House and a Democratically controlled Congress. More people will give them serious consideration.

Long and complex and maybe dead wrong. But I think the GOP will regret pushing for so many early primaries. I don’t see how this can possibly benefit them in the final count. Time for the 3rd party to develop and build up some steam. Time for a candidate in a long campaign to self-destruct. Time for people to really see what each person thinks, believes, is made of.

So you only have 535 more days of having to listen to multiple candidate on both sides tell you why they are the best candidate for their party. I’m tired already.

Adventures

This is not going to be a music or concert review although it will figure heavily in the story.

For Mother's Day I bought my wife tickets to see Alan Jackson and Brooks and Dunn in Kansas City. The day arrives and with child-care covered we venture out. Now I know next to nothing about Kansas City on either side of the state-line. We get close to KC much quicker than I expected. But as we try to get even closer, it seems we aren't getting close at all. With the extra time dwindling, I began to worry we might not get there in time. So in very un-guy-like fashion we stop so I can ask someone at a convenience store for directions.

Directions in hand, we set off and pretty quickly find the concert and realize we weren't going anywhere near it before. We also see tons of traffic waiting to get into the parking area. We talk about going someplace to eat but decide we'll simply get in line and wait. So I pull up and stop. Quickly a police officer yells at me to move on. So I move into another line. Ditto. Can't stay there either. So I move out and ask an officer what's up. He says we can't block traffic and gives me some directions I can not understand. So we move on with no idea where we are going except NOT into the parking area. We drive around and end up in a line of waiting cars again. My wife gets out to talk to the people in the car in front of us to see where we are headed and what is going on. They tell her where they are going and we end up following them.

We drive to Legends shopping mall where a KC radio station is throwing a pre-concert party and providing a free shuttle back to Verizon Amphitheater. So we hang out a little, take care of the usual business and end up boarding a school bus for the concert.

With a friendly school bus driver moonlighting as a shuttle driver, we get there with plenty of time to spare. Grab a burger and fries and find our seats.

Once seated we realize that our view is obstructed by a young lady with a cowboy hat AND by some scaffolding near the tower that holds spotlights. We can see most of the stage though and simply accept our lot. But then after a few minutes a Staff person stops to talk to the cowboy hat couple. They get up with him and move. My wife suggests I go find out what's up. So I chase him down and ask if they were moving because of the scaffolding. He says yes and when I ask about us, he agrees to move us too. Within a minute or two we are in new seats, better view, closer to the stage and ironically enough, seated next to the cowboy hat girl.

We enjoy the concert - some Australian girl who had trouble staying on pitch, Jake Owen (not too bad) then Brooks and Dunn (great lively show) and Alan Jackson (good show too but his style is not exactly what I would follow B&D with - if it were me, I'd have AJ open, then close with B&D). During the set change after B&D, it started sprinkling. But fortunately after a few minutes of this, it stops and the skies clear.

We had a great evening and the bus comes into play once more. Never doubt the ability of a school bus driver. He got us out of the parking area ahead of many cars and we probably made it to our car much much quicker that if we had been parked on-site.

Moral of this story - go with the flow. Usually I'd stress big-time about things not going according to plan. But for some reason, I didn't stress, my wife did fine (except for that she hates big city traffic!) and the evening was lots of fun.

God must laugh at us sometimes.

Late in writing this but need to share a small but none-the-less important thing that happened to us. As my profile states, my wife and I raise sheep on our 40 acre farm. As such, feed for animals is important. Last year as anyone who grows anything will attest, was a dry hot year. we got one cutting of hay off our land and the result was 29 small round bales of reasonable hay. Not great but enough to get us through the year and we were even able to give some away.

So this year we bit the bullet and paid to have some fertilizer put down. Along with more rain than last year, this resulted in a pretty decent growth of hay. OK actually grass that then becomes hay when you cut and bale it.

I walk our fields as often as I can and usually take our two border collies with me. I use this time to pray. Of course as I walk on the grass that will eventually become hay for our sheep, I prayed we'd get a good yield. Since last year we got 29 bales total, I prayed this year we'd get 60. The reason for 60 is that instead of buying our hay, I wanted to do it on shares - the people who bale, take hay as payment instead of money. They turn around and sell their share - usually 50%. So 60 bales would be 30 for each of us. In this way we get a little more than last year and we don't have to lay out any more money except what we already spent on fertilizer.

I mentioned we've had more rain this year. The rain has made it hard for the cutters and balers to keep up. Grass is growing fast but it needs to be dry to cut and then bale. We had arranged for a local Mennonite farmer to handle ours.

I've been watching our grass grow all spring. Far from being a grass/hay expert I was worried that it was growing too tall before they could cut it. Then I heard about Army Worms. Seems these little crawly critters can move into a hay field and destroy it in hours. So I called our farmer who was going to cut our hay and told him that I was worried about Army worms. He agreed to stop by one night and look at our grass to assess any damage.

Whew! He looked it over and saw no sign of worms. In our discussion I asked about when he'd be around to cut and bale. Fast forward only a couple of days and farmer K. and his brother show up, cut it and bale it - all before the next rain.

My wife went out to count some of the bales and I went to a different pasture to count. Between the two of us we came up with 57 or 58 bales. Now this year farmer K. decided (since he was going to take half of it) to bale big round bales - 6 ft or so in diameter. We took small bales last year since we bought all of it and we needed something small to move without equipment.

I was disappointed in the 57 or 58 number. I knew in terms of volume that this was way more hay than we got last year but was surprised at the number. Seems we just barely missed my goal.

A week or so later the farmers K. came back to pick up their share. We talked and for a very small charge, they agreed to move our bales out of the field and line them up near our barn. Of course in moving, they needed to count. Guess what? We had 61 bales after all! I had already thanked God for the 57 or 58 but really got a chuckle out of the final count. In a very generous mood, we gave the odd bale to the Mennonite brothers.

So we got more hay than last year, got it moved cheaply and hopefully are ready for what the winter may bring. And I'm already praying for whatever we get on a second cutting.