Mothers and sons, and Spring busting out....

The Queen herself relaxing on her front porch on a delightful Mother's Day 2008.






Queen Felicia is our guest photograper for Mother's Day.
Her early present was a new CoolPix Nikon Digital camera.
Many of you were victimized by it during her recent trip to Ohio and Pennslyvania.

Bonnie, chilling on the porch.













This spring is certainly lush and green. No remnants of our severe drought remain.


































Ariel shares a yuck with Csonk the Wonder Dog.
A proud mother and her son at lunch on her M.V.M. (Most Valuable Mom) day out.

"The Secret Society of the Hot Flashers"

Recently, a new group of miscreants has appeared in our neighborhood.
They call themselves
"The Secret Society of the Hot Flashers."
Their membership consists of half crazed menopausal women.
Just think of the "Hell's Grannies" sketch from the old Monty Python's Flying Circus program, and you will get the picture.

The expressed purpose of their group (gang!) is to read uplifting books and comment on same.
Their actual agenda is far more sinister, however.
Copious amounts of wine, chocolate and talk coupled with the group didactic more often than not leads to a reversion to school girl summer camp hijinks.

No one will admit who starts the silliness, of course.
One is as guilty as the other in actuality.
They have a secret handshake, and code names for one another.
"Sister Mary Felicia" is but one example.
I have no idea as to her actual identity, but I suspect she is one of the instigators of mischief.
Other alias include "Sister Mary Jill", "Sister Mary Pamela", "Sister Mary Diana", "Sister Mary Arlena", and the ever mysterious and mynxlike above mentioned Sister Mary Felicia.

The combined great detective minds of we neighborhood men most likely could discover their true identities.
But, being that we are reasonably intelligent, we have decided that we reallly don't want to know.
What we don't know ain't going to hurt us.
We just try to stay out of their way for the most part.

Recent escapades included knocking down a huge political sign from our recent Gubernatiorial Primary race, and taking cheeky photos of one another.

"Well, everyone will just blame it on the neighborhood teenaged boys!" was heard from one of the suspects.

Teenaged boys act like, well teenaged boys.
Mature women, shed of the responsibilities of child rearing and struggling through the tough years of life also act like, well teenaged boys!

As I see it, they are less likely to drive us into further middle aged man madness when they have each other to cavort with.

Viva 'La Crazy, ladies!

Spring FTX

This past weekend, our student warrior and his battalion went back to good ol' Ft Jackson for Spring Field Training Exercises.

Friday night and early Saturday morning brought severe storm and tornado warnings to the SC/NC area.
This somewhat cramped their style, but they soldiered on.

He was acting platoon leader for Bravo Platoon, and as such had to brief his troops on the mission ops, and then implement them.
Their Cadre threw him a curve with a mid-course operational change.
They were to attack and capture a bunker.
"I didn't screw it up too bad Dad. Some of the other guys got yelled at by the Cadre. (their officers and NCO instructors)

The weather curtailed a lot of the planned activities.
The battalion was heartbroken to be moved indoors on Saturday night, instead of making camp and sleeping outside all night.

They were forced to eat pizza, and watch the Final Four semifinal games instead, inside a nice warm dry gym.
When the going gets tough......

Hard to believe he will only have two more FTX before graduation and commissioning next Spring.

As you can see, these young men have formed some lifelong friendships over the last three years.
They will all attend a month long evalution and training process along with all of the other rising Senior ROTC cadets in the U.S. this summer at Ft Lewis Washington.
Their performance, coupled with their G.P.A and PT fitness scores will determine whether they get the job they want when they enter the full time Army.

The Battalion at ASU is highly regarded within the ROTC program.
This is always apparent at FTX, where there are several other programs involved.
The Cadre always includes several Special Forces veterans, and service at App is regarded as a good slot to fulfill your training obligation.

Time is slipping by us, all too rapidly.

Much ado about nothing....

My apologies to the Bard.

It is not for us to question whether or not anything of consequence has happened of late!
Verily and forsooth, your scribe has just been busy earning his daily bread!
And alas, feeling somewhat old and tired.
Heavy sigh!

After having escaped (pronounce S-Cape-ED) any bad cold or Flu for these many years anon,
I seemed to have been smitten by one of the little blighters.

First our Man at Arms came home for the Easter Festival with it.
Then the Queen of the Manse, the Lovely Felicia appropriated it.
Now the part time King of the Castle has been moping about with it for some days now.

Tis a nasty Beastie, stealing away with your energy, and leaving you unfulfilled.
Somewhat akin to the Thane of Cawdor's late father's sprite.
"I ain't got no body!" can still be heard, in a lamentable minor key.

Time is passing us by as well, dear kinsmen.
It is now officially spring, and most of our fruite trees hath bloomed.
The weekly ritual of the mowing of the lawn hath started.
My first quarter of merchantile activities is past, and I am still gainfully employed.

Two young bairn are still waiting to arrive on the scene.
(Act III, scene one the next generation)

We eagerly await their coming!

Our drought is in actuality over, even though our scurrilous and self serving Lord's and Ladies
of the Fiefdom are telling us we cannot wash our cars or dogs, water our yards, and the like.
Fie on them!
All of the local lakes and stock ponds are at normal levels, and rain is forecast for the rest of the week.

As a latter day poet might put it "We don't need you to tell us which way the wind blows!"

Just don't let them tax the wind. I would not put it past them.

Husbands, wives and shopping.

I was privileged to spend the afternoon with my Queen Felicia today.
We had a nice lunch at a Bistro in town, and then went to her favorite Mall.
Coffee and some bargain priced books at B&N, where I found the latest Mc Murtry for five bucks.
"Telegraph Days", is set in the latter part of the Wild West shoot-out era through the early silent Western flicks era in Hollywood.
I also found a nice novel set in Nueva York during the Great Depression for the Queen.
It centers on a few neighborhood families, and should prove to be a nice read.

Then came the shopping, which is the third Ordinance right after Baptism and Communion for her.
We have found that if you look carefully at the mark down racks in Macy's, you occasionally find a real quality garment for low cost.
After trying on several nice spring dresses, she found one that we both like a lot.
I won't wear it, I mean I like the way it looks on her, of course.

By the time we were done with that, and a trip through a collectable and knick-knack store, Vickis's Secret and her favorite kitchen gadget place, this old horse was about shopped out.
"Rode hard and put away wet" just about described my condition.

I remembered I had no Easter Candy for her, so we stopped in at Rocky Mountain Chocolates.
I asked the manager if he had any dark chocolate baskets or collections, and we both attempted to find a mixture that she liked. "No, I don't like fruit creams, nope, that one isn't my favorite, etc etc"
He noticed the glazed look that all husbands occasionally get and offered "I have a really nice box right there behind you that is all dark chocolates"
SOLD, and Bless you my brother!
She was happy, and I told her I would catch up with her.
"You must be married!" I asked him.
"Oh, yes, and my wife drives me crazy with her shopping! I work here in the Mall all day, and she can't understand why I am not excited about shopping with her after 10 hours here."
After commiserating about womens religious fervor for shoes "I can't find a pair of shoes! Honey, there are 40 stores here in the Mall that sell shoes! But not the ones I want!"
We parted company, new found brothers in shopaholic mysery.

This is a cross cultural phenomena, this fellow is from India originally.
Motherly concern for their children, love for their husbands and families, and shopping are all in the DNA helix for our gals, I think.

Have a Blessed Easter weekend, remember it's true meaning, but do not under any circumstance forget to buy the women in your lives chocolate!
That is also a helix hidden in their inner soul.

"Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening...

...with guns, protecting a convoy.

Our soldier spent Saturday evening in the SW Virginia Mountains near his reserve unit.

He was 'observing' the other soldiers training for convoy protection.

Serving as Platoon Leader since he is a Cadet 2LT, he has already realized that officers watch and lead, and the enlisted men do the grunt work.

A wise man uses his intellect!

The temperature was in the teens, and the snow was blowing.
He likened it to "Band of Brothers" in France and Belgium, circa December 1944.
These pictures were shot with his camera phone, amazing quality for that device.

We'll keep you posted on his progress during his last 12 months as a student and ROTC cadet.

By next summer, he will be a commissioned 2LT and will be undergoing his first advanced training as an active duty officer in the 'real Army'.

Global Warming Update

Sydney, Australia is reporting their coolest Summer in 50 years.
This is their summertime, f0lks, south of the equator and all.
As a result, their tourism industry is suffering mightily.

Here in the states, many of you that live North of the Mason-Dixon line can attest to the coldest and snowiest winter in many years.

My brother-in-laws Ken and Raymond are 'enjoying' the armpit deep snow in the Boston area.

And in Texas, where we lived for fourteen years they are experiencing heavy snow and severe Winter weather as I write this missive.
We never had any ice storms after Valentines Day during our entire soujourn there.

The average worldwide temperature rise during the recent warming trend was .6 degree, according to experts. That's not 6 degrees, but six/tenths of one degree.

And now Sun Spot activity seems to be returning to normal, and many weather experts are admitting that we are entering another cooling trend.

No need to be alarmed, this is all perfectly normal cyclical temperature and weather patterns.

I remember a cover story in a major news magazine in 1975 warning of a coming ice age.
"Skating on the Hudson river, blizzards in Miami and Buenos Aires, blah blah blah!"

One thing that Uncle Dinosaur has learned in his 50 some odd years of life is to ignore the Prophets of Doom. Life has enough to provoke legitimate concern to waste time worrying about something that we cannot change, ie' the weather.

I learned this week that the founder and President of the Weather Channel is suing a former Senator and V.P. who has made a second career (and a heap of money in the process) in spreading the Global Warming gospel.
The gospel that is increasingly being 'weighed in the balance and found wanting'

Of course, said ex-politico turned weather expert needs to fly all over the world in his private fuel sucking jet to do so, when not living in various Mc Mansions and driving his fleet of SUV's.
But he has initiated a series of carbon footprint offsets, so everything is Hunky-Dory.
Word is he planted a tree.