If Justin Beiber was in the back seat of my cab and he hit me in the back of the head I would stop the cab in the middle of the street and pull his young self out and stomp a mud hole in his ass then walk it dry. 

There is absolutely no reason the people of the USA should spend one dollar on the incarceration or prosecution of this young Canadian.  I know he was in Toronto during this most recent episode but we should just cancel his visa.  Prez Obama, could and should, just use some ot that executive order business he is so fond of to stop the import of any music put out by such a malcontent.

As you can tell, I am not a real fan of this young man.  I guess calling him a man is an insult to anyone that is a man.  He seems to be a person who will not ever grow up but will continue to be a thorn in someones side until someone takes him to task. 

Nuff said

Chuey

As stated,. I am sorry.  I just never did like the Beatles.  I didnt like their hair, I didnt like those little ole stovepipe pants they wore or much of anything else about them.  I know, they were idolized by millions but I just didnt get the feeling.  Their music was influenced by many of the pioneers in rock and roll and blues so you can hardly say that they created a new sound.  They made millions and millions and then went kookie.  They had it all and then split up and went their own ways.  Some went philosophical, some just went home to Scotland and the drummer just tried to keep on drumming.  Oh well.

I liked all of the hillbilly rockers.  Elvis, Jerry lee, Roy, Conway, etc.  They made music that I could get in to.  They made dance music.  They made hugging music and there were some who made kissing music.  I liked them all. 

I wont watch the music awards show tonight because the musicians who will appear anre totally out of my comfort zone.  Most have to be half naked to sing and the other half you wouldnt want to see naked even if they could sing.  It appears to me that if you want to be a star you must either have a posterior the size of Rhode Island, covered by a piece of cloth that wouldnt cover a picnic table or shave half your head and color the other half pink.  Can you imagine Roy ever doing that.  Yeah, Duck Tails were much cooler.

Chuy the musically challenged

Not much has been going on except for trips to the ranch.  We are still trying to get to the point where we can go out there and set on the porch in a rocking chair and not have a list of 300 things that need to be done now.  We have had the truck running, the tractor running and the big water well working but not all at the same time.  I believe sometime in the next week or two it will be all systems go.

We have a number of game cameras set up at strategic locations and all seem to have captured wandering wildlife.  We have seem literally thousands of doves and two have been killed.  Dove season is over Wednesday so not much left there.  You can buy boneless quail at the super market so will probably go that route. 

Neither of my favorites won yesterday in the playoffs so not all that excited about football this season.  I am not all that enthused about football players that tend to let their mouths overload their butts with pregame, post game bragging.  One really ought to keep their mouths shut on national TV when their command of the king’ english is worse than mine. Young men who went to college on a football scholarship and majored in phys-ed or psychology and then went pro after their freshman season really dont know enough about life or anything else to even warrant an interview on national TV.  Very few of them make it to retirement age and usually end up doing something less than they were given an opportunity to do.  As you might guess, I am not really impressed with the American Gladiator system of pro atheletes.  To some extent we are no better than the ancient romans who sat in the colesium and watched lions eat the glads or the christians.  We just have tailgate parties before the carnage.  LOL.

I hate getting old.

G Continue reading →

Who decided that the first week of the new year was the time to scare the hell out of folks.
All the headlines concern the things that are projected to happen this year that will have dire consequences.  Most of us havent even received our credit card bills from Christmas and we are already faced with a headline that predicts a worldwide shortage of the cocoa bean and therefore a worldwide shortage of chocolate.  Personally I could live with a little less chocolate but sometimes a box or a bar of the stuff is about the only thing that will pull your fat out of the fire.  Can you imagine going to a movie without a box of chocolate covered almonds.  What is valentines going to be like without those giant chocolate coated strawberries?  I shudder to think of the chaos.  However, after some thought on the subject, I have come up with an answer.  Today, and I mean no later than, go to you local supermarket and buy two packages of chocolate chips.  Get either milk chocolate or dark, according to your preference, and squirrel them away.  Deep in the freezer, behind your clothes in the closet.  Some place where they cant be found by the chocolate craving zombies who are sure to roam the land in the near future looking for hoards of the precious stuff.  Dole them out to yourself one chip at a  time until the shortage is corrected.  This could be a trick by the powers to be in the world of cocoa production as a means to raise prices but you never know.  There could also be a fungus amung us that kills cocoa trees.  Be safe and not sorry.

I just saw a group of news clips about the celebs that were photoged on the ski slopes.  The people who choose the items to show us on such clips should be examined by professionals .  Who in the wide world of I dont give a damn cares about what Paris Hilton wears while sking.  The coldest month I ever spent in my life was 3 days in Vail Colorado in January.  Not only can you not breathe because of the altitude but you are afraid to inhale for fear that your lungs will freeze.  Any city that has gas heaters lining the sidewalks so that people can get from one ski shop to the next without dying of hyperthermia is a place I feel you ought to avoid.  And for those celebs that chose a warmer christmas season about the same applies.  Which of us cares what Gwen Stefani or Kim Kardashian looks like in a bikini?  Gwen is preggers and Kim probably is also if she went out for New Years.

On a positive note I just saw a Kitchen Daily news release that was entitled ” 6 Brunch Recipes Worth Waking Up For”.  It basically stated that you should avoid the hurried preparation of an early breakfast in favor of a more langourous ritual.  I am pretty sure Langourous means lazy.  It sounds like that is what it means.  I am going to use that word for a few days and see how it fits in.  The recipe for BAKED EGGS WITH ROSEMARY, GARLIC AND PARMESAN was pictured with someone dipping a piece of toast in an egg yolk.  I could eat that for breakfast and then have it again at a more langourous time like brunch.  How long do you have to wait after breakfast to have brunch?  If you have brunch do you then have to skip lunch?  I guess brunch people are the same folks that have tea time at four.  I am more the breakfast, brunch, lunch, tea time, dinner and late nite snack type of fellow.  And an occasional leftover meat loaf sandwich in the middle of the nite to tide you over until its time to eat breakfast again.

Chuy

New Years eve used to be a much more important holiday event than it is now.  We used to have grand parties planned and would meet with friends for a night of frivolity, drinking, eating and  all the other stuff that goes along with celebrating the passing of the old year into the new.  It has morphed into a much more sedate event in the last few years.  We normally go out to dinner, at a very early hour in order to avoid the crowds, and call it an evening at an equally early hour.  We are almost always in bed before the bewitching hour of midnight and take offense to be awaken by the neighbors who feel they must celebrate by having a fireworks display in the street in front of our house.  Although the city makes repeated announcement prior to the nite, that fireworks are against the law to have in your possession inside the city, well, it makes no difference.  I feel the only way to stop such lawlessness would be to shoot at them with my shotgun.  Dorothy frowns on that approach.  She claims that it is unneighborly.

I can remember a year when we went to a rock and roll review featuring some of the greats of that music genre.  Little Richard, Bo Diddly and the like.  We are more the Lawrence Welk type now.  Not that I dont enjoy music from the 50’s , its just that my body wont move to the beat of that music anymore.  I can really do the hesitation waltz, that being a dance where both dancers simply stand in one spot and sway back and forth.  It is stimulating and at the same time, not all that tiring, unless a hip goes out.  Being raised as Church of Christ, such a display would simply be a greased path to the gates of hell but I found out later in life that there were other actions that would get you there much quicker than dancing.  Really, the only licentious thought I ever had while dancing was whether I was gonna step on her foot before the song ended.  Oh, and besides that, most dance halls dont allow much licentiousness on the dance floor anyway. 

I saw a picture of cars at a drive in movie and the caption was ” Share if you remember what this is”.  I didnt share it but I remember what they were.  I think it is amazing that Pecos once had 3 drive ins at the same time.  The Texan, The Eagle and I think the Sun.  The one on the east side of town was the Sun, I think, but I could be wrong.  Spent a good deal of my formative years at the first two.  I can remember that some of you were there at the same time, watching the same movie, I think.  It didnt pay to do a lot of looking in other cars while you were out there.  I wish they would bring them back.  Wonder how much fun you could have by going to the drivein in a RV?  You could cook your own popcorn, would not have to get out and walk up to the snack bar to go pee, knowing that everyone knew where you were going or you could cook up a pot of chili and make your own hot dog.  Now that would be some fun. 

All of these thoughts are about things past.  That is what New Years eve is about i guess.  The past giving way to the new.  What new things are in store for us is unknown.  I hope we all are blessed with good health.  I hope each of us see fit to attend our next meeting of the class of 1961.  I hope we are prosperous.  I hope we dont start seeing more obits of people we knew and know.  I am doing a lot of hoping but I guess that is what keeps some of us going.  Hope springs eternal.

G 

We are at the tail end of what I consider to be a pretty good year.  I know, we all probably lost a few folks that we didn’t want to go, we have had some friends that were sick but I still think we did all right.  We will probably even survive Obama care and whatever else he manages to throw in the fan before he gets through.

I hope each of us remember how blessed we are in what we now have and what we will surely gain in the future.  I hope each of us remembers how many friends we have and how precious they are to us.  Most of all I hope each of us remembers old friends.  Our forever friends are those folks that never leave our hearts and minds.  Those are the friends who know things about us and are kind enough not to tell stories on us.  Mostly because they know that we know the same type things on them.  It is not necessary to see those forever friends on a daily basis but maybe we think about them frequently.  oh, hell, you know what I mean.

My New Year resolution is going to be to try to stay in touch with more folks from the past.  I know that many of you read my ramblings here but I am gonna try to give more of you a call.  I do like the sound of your voices.  Just to touch base and to see how you are doing.  I will try not  to call you at dinner time but don’t be surprised if you get a call from me some evening.  Not a long chatty call but just a brief “howdy do”.  More to let you know that I am thinking of you.  Some of you might try doing the same thing.  We could start a whole new trend in communications.

I wish all of you a Happy New Year and hopefully many more.

Gary

This has been and looks to continue to be a very blessed week for the Cowan family. Yesterday, our youngest daughter (resides and is from Germany) received her PHD.  We now have to call her Doktor Nadja and we are pleased as punch to do just that.  A number of years ago, Dorothy and I , through the urging of our daughter got involved in the exchange student program.  Our first student was with us for only a short period of time but it was instant love between all parties.  What a treasure she was, and is.  When it came time for her little sister to come as an exchange student, well we were the logical choice.  We fell in love with her also.  They are two very different young ladies but have all the characteristics that anyone would want in another human being.  After we visited with them and their family in Germany we gained a complete family of new friends and that friendship has only grown over the years.  The girls visit us on a regular basis.  Anna, the olderst is a news producer for German television.  Nadja, the doc, is employed for a worldwide consulting firm.  To say they are successful would be an understatement.  They fit well with our bio children.  We are proud of all of them.

Today at 1:30 pm I become a rancher.  Yep, it will be signed, paid for and keys in my pocket.  Tomorrow will be the first day of a new approach to filling my spare time.  My son, Kyle and I will spend tomorrow getting oriented while doing some mowing, cleaning of the outhouse and ridding the deer blinds of wasps.  We will work on the tractor, make sure the generator and water well work and its off and running.  I ordered a chicken calendar, a calendar featuring the world’s most exotic chickens, and it arrived last nite during dinner.  When I opened the box, Dorothy looked at me as if I had lost my mind.  She didnt know that at one time in my life I raised chickens in my backyard there on Eddy street.  We got a few eggs from time to time.  I dont plan on raising chickens on the place now but a calendar of chickens from around the world is going to be a nice thing to reflect on while I am sitting on my porch drinking coffee made in a percolator, heated on a butane stove, and sipped from a chipped cup.  There will be no sticking one’s pinkie finger out while drinking coffee at the “DIAMOND 5 C RANCH”.  I have a John Wayne cup that is going to get some usage.  I am stocking the pantry with vienna sausage, sardines, crackers, hot sauce, coffee and tea.  If company comes by, well I may have some bologna set aside for special occasions, LOL.

Next week after we open more presents than we should be allowed to have presented to us we will sit down to a fine meal, prepared by a professional chef, and dine with friends and family.  We will thank the good Lord for our blessings and all that we have received.  If it was to cover all that we have been blessed with the prayer will be a long one.  We will mention the high points and hope he understands.  Even the good Lord wouldnt want to let the gravy get cold.

I hope each of you have a wonderful holiday season.  I hope you realize your blessings as I  do and thank the man upstairs for them.  We wish you each a healthy new year and hope to see all of you at some time in the near future.

Gary

I am part way to becoming a South Texas rancher.  That is a person owning 20 or more acres of scrub brush in the brush country of South Texas.  These ranchers normally go out to their land holdings on Saturday or Sunday, build a nice charcoal fire and butcher a goat.  A day of drinking beer, eating tortillas and carne guisada and then they forget about the goat and it ends up burnt.  If the beer is cold enough they don’t really care about the goat.

My wife came from a ranching family and had little desire to even go to the ranch.  She has consented to me buying one of my own.  Now how do you explain that?  Must be love.  Makes no matter the reason cause boys I am happier than a pig in “you know what”.  I have been traveling to Sanderson Texas for the last 15 years to go “hang out with the boys”, doing a bit of cooking, a bit of drinking and generally having fun.  It was a brutal 8+ hour drive and we finally had to give the place up because of the distance.  We will now have a place 1 1/2 hr from the house, with cell phone coverage and a real house to sleep in.  One temporary inconvenience, no bath room.  No shower.  There is one of those little houses with the moon in the door and it even has a real commode seat instead of just a hole in the wood.  Guess what the first addition to the house will be.  A real bathroom.  One can only be so primal before good sense takes over.  I have always had a deep-seated fear that my wallet would fall thru the hole in an outhouse.  Do you think a psychiatrist would think something about that fear? 

It will take a couple of weeks before closing on the place but that gives me plenty of time to make detailed plans of what chore to tackle first.  However, I think cleaning the outhouse will be real high on the list.  Mowing the cockleburrs down will be right behind it.  Then its time to fire up the pit and kill a wild hog and sit by the fire and eat pulled pork and drink ice tea.  Retirement cant get much better than that.

I have two types of western hat.  I have a straw that looks like one that LBJ would wear and I have a panama.  I havent decided which look I am going to adopt.  The blue bibbed overalls farmer Brown look has been somewhat vetoed by a higher authority.  The higher authority just doesnt seem to understand just how much room is in the seat of those overalls. 

Chuy the goatherder

I am all for excesses if you are not involved in them to the excess. LOL. We are a generation of excess.  We are a society of excess.  We love living, even those of our society who publicly claim not to live in an excessive manner.  And it is my contention that there is nothing wrong with that.  It has led to inventions that were only cartoon ideas a few years ago.  The wrist watch telephone for instance.  We can all think of items that fit the bill.  Today our newspaper advertised itself as the years biggest issue and it was heavy.  I almost had to buy a wheeled cart from the Big Lots ad to get the damned thing in the house.  It had numererous ads for 96″ tv’s for prices that would astound you.  A 6′ prelit christmas tree for the low price of $ 18.00.  Who could ever buy another live tree with prices like that. 

There was a picture in the local section showing a man who had been camped in a tent, in front of the local BEST Buy since Tuesday waiting for it to open at midnight today.  Folks, I love a lot of people and adore many others but I can tell you with a great deal of certainty that there are very few high enough on the list to have me camping out to buy them a present.  How much could this person be planning on saving?  The DA took off work, probably giving up vacation time, which could have been spent with his family, or even possibly without pay, to save $ 29.00 on the purchase price of an electronic device that will be obsolete before the first pack of batteries goes dead.  And people wonder why the USA has lost the respect of the world as to our being a superpower.  Could the leader of the free world have evolved into a society of people so consumed with greed that they would lower themselves to “life under the bridge” actions to save money on an item they probably cant use to begin with.  Apparently so.

I like this holiday.  I like turkey.  I like dressing that goes with turkey.  I like giblet gravy, green bean casserole, and I like pumpkin pie.  I want to thank the Pilgrims and there friends the Indians for coming together and cooking up all those items.  The Indian that brought the little crispy onion bits that goes on the casserole is my choice for “Native Amercan Hall of Fame”. 

I am thankful for so many things that I could hardly mention them.  I am thankful for friends past,. present and future.  I am thankful for the people that I dont like as they make me like the ones I do much more.  I am thankful for family.  I can not imagine life without family.  I am also thankful for a devine being that made the natural world in the manner that allows me enjoy such things as forests, mountains, the Grand Canyon, etc.  Those are cathedrals of beauty that puts things in perspective for me. 

I wish each of you a happy holiday season.  Thanks to many of you for our shared memories.

GAry

I am not sure why our daughter chose such a place for her 50th birthday celebration but we went.  We try to grant as many of our children’s wishes as possible, within reason.  Since my wife likes the slots, Vegas is considered reasonable.

Vegas is a city of many faces but the underlying theme of the place is that of excess.  It thrives on the concept of “over the top”.  People flock there to be encased in the excesses of food, entertainment and sometimes debauchery.  How they approach this concept of living is the thing I like to watch while I am there.

Somewhere in Vegas there is a “little black” dress rental store, much like a tuxedo rental store.  There has to be.  I have never seen so many young ladies wearing the little black dress in my life.  I looked up once and saw 8 young ladies, approximately early 20’s walking along in a parade line, like ducklings behind a mother duck, and all of them were wearing a small black dress, mostly strapless, black hooker heels and carrying what I am told is a clutch purse.  The dresses were so short that any attempt at raising one’s arms higher than waist level would have exposed areas of their nubile bodies that mothers are supposed to warn their daughters to keep covered.  I am talking short and tight.  Any exposure to a winter gust of wind would and could cause some severe problems.  I was just dumbfounded that so many had on the exact same thing.  I can remember when 2 women wearing the same outfit at the same party was a social felony.  I have seen instances where such a thing caused tears to be shed.

High heel shoes are a thing of mystery to me and to most men.  Why and by whom were they invented?  Were they invented to tone a woman’s legs?  Were they invented to make a lady’s bottom bounce, which is actually what they do, or for some other unknown reason.  Why do the heels seem to be getting higher?  Our little gaggle of folks walked across the casino behind a young lady who was a newbie in high heels.  Although she was in her 30’s it appeared as if that night was the first time she had worn such shoes.  She wobbled like a Juarez string puppet and I had to hold back a couple of times to keep from grabbing her, thinking she was about to fall.  You could tell that her entire backside was clinched in her attempt to keep from falling so that  when she got to where she was going that she loosened everything and puddled like a melting popsicle.  All in the name of fashion.  She could have worn some comfortable SAS shoes and been much more comfortable and I for one would not have cared a wit.

As anyone knows who has been to Vegas, all things are for sale there.  Paid companionship seems to be a hot commodity.  Casinos take a great deal of care to monitor who goes up to the floors of the hotel where the guests sleep, so they have a hall monitor.  He checks room keys.  This is where the paid escorts gather to wait for their clients to come down and usher them up.  At times it appears to be a hooker supermarket.  I, for one, would be too embarrassed to come down to pick up the package for fear of someone seeing me going to the store.  You almost always run into someone you know in Vegas.  And that business about what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas is a total myth.  In the age of YouTube, action in sin city can be world-wide in less than 10 minutes.

I feel as if this was my last trip to the city in the desert.  I don’t like to gamble, the buffets are marginal as far as food quality is concerned and there are no places to sit while watching people, except in front of a slot machine.  People are the greatest things to watch in the world, other than maybe a good 3 ring circus.  If they would only figure out that they could build an area in each casino, set up with comfortable chairs, a good view of the areas used by people, charge a fee for the time spent sitting and they could make more money than they do at the slots.  A comely cocktail waitress coming by periodically with a drink, a decent menu of finger sandwiches and a day of people watching would match the super  bowl as entertainment.

Chuy the entertained