Memorial Day

Hello:

You know this picture.

When my mother was alive, we used to go Union Hill cemetery to decorate the graves of her relatives. I learned on one of these visits that she had 9 siblings. I thought, up to that point, my mother had 8 brothers and sisters. But I saw a grave for a Bertha Branch, who died in 1919 from the flu pandemic, the flu that killed so many other Americans.

I had a good friend in high school who died in Vietnam. Dennis was one of my poker-playing friends in high school. It was his death that caused me to oppose the war from that point on.

My brother went to Vietnam. My father is a World War II veteran. Only about 10% of World War II veterans alive now.

Me, I get a high lottery number when the nation had a lottery to replace the draft. Those with low lottery numbers got drafted. Those of us with high lottery numbers did not get drafted. By time I was junior in college I ended my student deferment and went I-A. With such a high lottery number (329) I knew I was not going to drafted. As years went by the new lottery picks got chosen before me. So I was not any Armed Services.

I spent a few hours yesterday reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Starting with polio her cells, called HeLa, helped with many illnesses. These were cancer cells taken from her. I suspect I will learn later is this book that her cancel cells continual growth is because that is what cancer cells to: grow with no stopping mechanism. Our regular cells grow then stop; in other words, our human cells have on/off. Cancer occurs when the cell's stop mechanism fails to work. The cell keeps growing and growing. Cancer is not an invasive thing. It is your own cells causing it.

I am watching today, How It's Made, a show on the Science Channel. Earlier I watch For a Few Dollars More on TCM. I will start to read later.

Steven

Sunday morning

Good morning:

This picture is the alley behind our house and two other houses. The white door you see is the garage door to our house. In front of that is the parking place for cars for people who live here.

I planted an Early Girl tomato upside down. I used a milk jug. Early Girl is indeterminate, which means the tomatoes come on over time instead of all at once (the latter is determinate). So I have two tomatoes planted in the ground and one planted in the milk jug.

We shall see how this works. I read an article I copied to my Kindle of how to do this. I could have used a pail or big pop bottle. I still may try to do another one with a big pop bottle.

I will take a picture of once I get some tomatoes on it. Early Girl was the type I bought for many years. This was before the Oregon-named tomatoes came out. I almost bought an Oregon Spring tomato plant but it was too big to go through the hole of the milk jug.

The oil still gushes, more than 35 days since the leak started. Why did not BP have a contingency plan to cover a situation like this? Did they believe the blow out preventer would solve all problems? As a result of this, I will never go to a BP gas station again. That company deserves to be dissolved and all assets sold to cover this cleanup.

Should I read my book or start watching Lost or 24? That is the question facing me. We shall see how goes today. I am listening to Sunday Morning Edition on NPR as I write this. I don't listen on my radio. Instead I go to npr.org and pick the stories I want to hear. I don't listen to all of them if they don't interest me.

I may go to a few steaks to cook later today.

Have a good holiday weekend.

Steve

Yet another mistake...

Apparently I cannot add very well. With 1o books at the library, and I picked up four of them, now many does the library have for me? Not the 7 I said in my last post. It has obviously 6.

Steve

Another mistake in last post

Hi again:

The mistake in my last post was the name of the book I just finished. It is not The Killing Field but instead the The Killing Room. Like I said, it was not a very good book. Not a page-turner; only because it was set in Shanghai and I knew many of the places mentioned in the book.

Now I am reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I saw this author a few weeks ago on Book TV, C-Span2 on weekends. Henrietta died in 1951, but before she died the doctors took a some cells from her cancer. Back then any cells they took from people died within days. But hers remained alive and still live today. If measured by something we know, the number of cells created from her sample is 50 metric tons. The cells are called HeLa cells.

Almost every disease treatment involves HeLa cells.

Law & Order, in its last show of the series, involved a black guy who died around the same time. the DA gets the company to pay the family $10 million.

Nice day today, or no rain at least.

I picked up four of my ten books at the library. I had the library keep the other seven to pick up next week. This will give me enough time to read these books.

Steven

Bad start to weekend...

Good morning:

It is cold and it has rained out. It looks like rain too. Great start to this holiday weekend....

I did get the lawn mowed yesterday. Then I did my laundry and put the wet clothes on the closhes line. But within an hour it started to rain and did not stop. So the clothes came inside the dryer. Once again, this rain...

The picture here is the Outer Banks off of North Carolina.

The Killing Field is not a page turner. Interesting only in the sense it takes place in Shanghai. I will finish it today sometime. It has taken me four days to read this book, way too long.

I do hope you are enjoying this great long weekend.

Steven

The weekend begins shortly

Good morning:

This picture looks like a nice one of the Oregon beach, but this from Hawaii. BING has list of the top ten beaches in the U.S. but none are from Oregon, which is good. Good in the sense no one knows about our mild weather and no humidity here.

It has not rained since yesterday, so later this morning I will mow the lawn. I will also dig the weeds from my garden areas.

I watched the last Flashforward this morning, having recorded it last night. So many questions at the end when another flash forward happened. I assume they finished this show before leaning it was cancelled.

When this show started last Fall, I found I could download the audio book of Flashforward. It was hard to listen to a book. It goes too slow. So I got it from the library and read it. It had a longer time between the two flash forwards where everyone faints for 82 seconds. In the book it was 20 years. In the TV show it was seven months. Flashforward was one of my favorite shows but now it has been cancelled.

Also the book is more science fiction than the TV show. I know that is hard to believe the book is more science fiction but trust me, it is.

What are your plans for the holiday weekend?

Steve

H today

Good morning:

This is a great cartoon.

When will this rain end? This has been, indeed, a strange month. So much rain.

Not much happening here. I sure hope it stops raining and we get some hot weather soon.

If it rains this weekend, then I will be watching Lost and 24.

I have 10 books waiting for me at our library. I will wait until Saturday to get them. I want to finish some books here before getting those 10 books.

Have a wonderful weekend coming.

Steve

Mid-week, or Hump Day, is here

Hi:

This picture is another from Iceland. Sort of reminds us Mt.St. Helen's.

It is raining again. I did luck out yesterday. Around 4:00 pm it rained so hard for so long I just left the clothes outside. By the time I got them they were wetter than when I took the clothes out of the washing machine.

I have not seen the forecast for the coming weekend. I sure hope it is nice. I need to mow the lawn here and I also need to weed the garden.

I am now reading a novel called The Killing Room, a book that takes place in Shanghai. I am reading only because it takes place in China.

I have 9 books waiting for me at the library. By the time I go there on Friday or Saturday there may be 11 of them.

I can read a 250 page book in two days. Even a 400 page book goes in two days. A 500+ book takes me three to four days.

Now that Lost and 24 have ended, I plan to watch the series. I did not watch any part of these shows during the year.

Are you going to see the new chick flick, Sex and the City 2? Not me. I have never watched any part of the TV show or any part of the first movie.

I mention this as there is a story on Morning Edition on NPR today on the private parties for the show's opening. Like I said....a chick flick.....

36 days since the oil started leaking out of the ocean floor. I firmly believe BP is responsible for this spill. They certainly were not prepared for the leak. I hope BP has to pay billions and billions of dollars to clean up the mess they caused. I hope BP does not survive this. They are an inconsiderate corporation.

Like The Onion opines this morning, BP should be using a million pounds of oatmeal to plug this leak.

Rain, STOP.

Steve

correcting a mistake

Hi:

I do believe I made a mistake in my last post.

Innocent is a sequel to Presumed Innocent. You do not get that impression the way I wrote it earlier today.

Steven

U today

Good morning:

This picture is the volcano in Iceland. Apparently an erupting volcano creates its own lightening.

It is getting nicer, sort of...

It certainly is warm out today, but it looks like it may rain but I hope it does not. I have my clothes hanging outside today.

I did finish No One Would Listen, a book on the Madoff scandal. It amazes me that the government bail outed out the banks and car companies but did nothing for the Madoff losers. But in one sense they got what they deserved. Many knew it may have been a scam but continued to invest with him because the returns he was reporting, a straight 45 degree angle up. He reported losing money in only seven months in the ten years he ran his scam. This was but one of the eight or so warning signs Madoff gave of his Ponzi scheme.

The author has nothing to good to say about the SEC. After Madoff was arrested the author appeared before Congress and told the committee the SEC was in the pocket of the banks and big companies, not helping investors as called for by the SEC charter. All but one SEC commissioners resigned as well as others who had information about Madoff but did nothing with it. The author had been sending materials to the SEC for nine years. Had the SEC taken action nine years ago, this would have saved investors $55 billion, the amount Madoff raised during those nine years. His final losses were $65 billion.

My next book may be Scott Turow's Innocent. I will skim Presumed Innocent before doing that, as the latter is a sequel of the former.

There was a report on Morning Edition this morning on stupidest commentator on radio, Rush has a new book out on his version of conservatism. I did not listen to it as I hate this guy.

What are your plans for Memorial Day weekend coming up?

Steven

Start of a new week

Hi again:

This picture is the last one of Katrina. This one is the tidal surge from the hurricane.

Today I heard some stupid R's complain of lack of government help for the oil spill. This is not a natural disaster, this was caused by a totally unprepared BP, the stupidest company in the world now. These dumb R's blame everything on our President. Who will they run against him in 3 years? I hope it is the dumbest of them all, your Sarah.

I am half way through No One Would Listen. I really like this book as the author is a "quant" a math person who loves numbers. He just did not believe Madoff numbers. Like I told you, nine times he presented facts to the SEC.

I have not chosen my next book. I may try to read articles on my Kindle for a week to par down the number of pages on it, which are now up to 80 pages. With 12 titles per page, I have a lot of reading ahead of me.

Have a good week and better holiday next weekend.

Steven

Raining only part of the day

Hello:

This picture is a small part of Katrina coming ashore.

It was spitting rain all day today, with showers in between. I was able to get to Safeway but it was light rain during that trip. So I made it only to Safeway today, not anywhere else.

I finished Hellhound on His Trail. This book recounts the assassination of Martin Luther King by James Earl Ray. But throughout 3/4 of this book we knew him only as Eric Galt. The author tracks him before the killing and the two months after the killing he traveled in the U.S., then to Europe. He was captured in England as he tried to get on a plane to Belgium.

Then, in 1977 he escaped again from prison, a maximum security prison. He was gone for only two and one half days, captured this time by two hound dogs tracking his scent.

This book reads like a novel but it is all true. Another book I recommend to you.

I am now reading No One Would Listen, a book about the Madoff scandal. The author of this book saw the fraud as soon as he saw a report sent to one of the investors and also reading Madoff prospectus. This was nine years ago and $55 billion ago (the money other investors put in during those nine years.

He blames the SEC as he went there nine times to show this investment is a Ponzi scheme.

In the end Madoff confessed to his two adult children. Then those two children reported him the FBI. So the nine trips the author made to the SEC were all ignored. He has nothing to good to say about the SEC. This, too, is a great book.

I have four other books here from the library I have not taken out of the big bag I take the library.

I am getting through these books fast though.

Winston's War I finished in four days.

Orange is the New Black I finished in two days.

Hellbound on His Trail took me three days.

No One Would Listen will take me two days to read it.

I am not watching much TV these days. Tonight I am recording the finale of LOST. While in China I had to wait until the ssason was finished to buy the DVDs of that season. I got the fifth and sixth season with a week of the season ending in each of those years.

This year I recorded each episode without watching any yet. So I am taping the finale tonight. I did record the LOST episode from last night and watched it today. This was the two hour pilot. ABC had a running commentary in writing to tell us what happened based on this first episode.

I did the same thing with 24, recording each one but not watching any of them yet.

So next weekend, the Memorial Day weekend, I plan to catch up on these two series. If it rains, I will be watchging hours upon hours. If the weekend is nice, then my watching will be early morning and in the evening.

BookTV next weekend will last 3 and 1/2 days. I will check out the books on the site.

Steven

Still raining here...

Hi again:

This picture is yet another one of Katrina as it approaches the Gulf coast.

I had to listen to All Things Considered as well as Morning Edition Saturday in row this morning. I turned off my older computer last night in order to read my book. I am 100 pages into Hellbound on His Trail, the hunt for the killer of Martin Luther King, Jr. I did not realize he was not captured right away. Like the killer of Lincoln, this guy was on the lose for over a month.

Lost is ending, 24 is ending. Cancelled are my favorite programs: Cold Case, Fastforward, and Numbers. My DVR will not be as busy next TV season as it was these past few seasons.

I do not watch any of the reality programs, such as Dancing with Stars, American Idol and The Biggest Loser.

I have a long list of things to do today, but with the constant rain I cannot get outside on my bike.

Steve

Friday and still raining

Hi again:

This picture is what it looked like on the Gulf coast just before Katrina hit there. I have a series of pictures that will appear in later posts showing these haunting pictures.

I did finish Orange is the New Black last night. I find myself giving up TV now that reruns have started. I recommended this book yesterday and I want to recommend it again. It is such a good book and tells you a lot something we don't know and is so interesting once you get into the book.

I found out two of my favorite TV shows have been cancelled. Numb3rs and Fastforward have both been cancelled. Plus Lost is ending, two years ahead of the schedule. I have been recording all of Lost shows and will watch it all once the show ends later this month.

I have my next two books ready to read now. Hellbound on His Trail and then No One Would Listen, a true financial story. I figured out a book between 250 pages and 400 pages I can read in two days. Over 500 pages it takes me four to five days. But this means no TV watching on most nights.

I finished my big typing project this morning. Took me five days to type up 44 pages of one single epic poem.

Steven

H eve now

This picture the volcano in Iceland that gives Europe so much trouble with its flights.

I am almost finished with Creation, the first epic poem of the late Raymond Geraths. Tomorrow morning I will have the complete first draft done.

I am reading now Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Woman's Prison by Piper Kerman. I saw her interviewed on BookTV a couple of weekends ago. This book is about her stay for year in the federal prison in Danbury Connecticut. Five years after she ended her drug life, as a money courier for a big drug boss, she was arrested in New York. Then another six years went by after her guilty plea before she was sentenced to jail. The long gap was because the U.S. was trying to extradite the big drug boss from Britain. When that did not happen she was sentenced to 15 months in jail. The author is most educated one there, with one of the shortest sentences too. She explains life in prison is so restricted, a definite loss of freedom.

This is an excellent book and I recommend it highly.

My next book is Hellhound on His Trail, how the government finally found James Earl Ray after he shot Martin Luther King, Jr. I read the other two books by this author, Hampton Sides, Ghost Soldiers as well as Blood and Thunder. He is one of my favorite authors to read now.

I have the new Scott Turow novel here, Innocent, a sequel to Presumed Innocent. I just cannot believe I got Innocent so fast. It has been the number 1 best seller for the past two weeks. I had it on order at the library for only about 3 days when I found it in already. I have both books here from the library so I will read the older book first before reading his new book.

All of these new books from the library has put a temporary halt to my reading The Big Short on my Kindle.

If this rain continues then I will spend this weekend and the following holiday weekend reading the many books I have here from the Stayton library.

Steve

Raining again

Hi again:

These pictures are of a bridge. Pretty nice looking bridge.

It is raining out now. Darn it. I was doing my washing and I wanted to put my clothes outside. Instead to the dryer they go.

I have been typing up Creation, Ray Geraths first epic poem. It is 54 pages and I am at page 35 now. I have been doing about 10 pages a day, taking me almost four hours each day. We are already working on Redemption, his second epic poem. His third one is Sanctification, a monster of a poem, 92 pages long. I will not type that one up.

I am in charge of making dinner here tonight. I am making sauerkraut and sausage. I hate sauerkraut, so I will keep two sausages from the mixture to have as my dinner. I will use 2 quarts of my sauerkraut which leaves me with 3 left. I don't know how to do this, so I will check the Internet to see how to prepare this meal.

On my second load of laundry. I hope we get nice weather sometime soon.

Steven

U today

Hi:

This cartoon tells a lot of what is happening in the Gulf. It seems BP does not know what to do to with the oil coming out of the pipe one mile under the water. If you saw 60 Minutes on Sunday you saw a survivor of the crew on that platform. He was sitting next to the BP representative in a meeting when the BP guy said he did not agree with the closing of the well. He instead wanted it them to take the "mud" out to seal it, allowing the gas to come up and ignite on the platform in a big explosion. Certainly BP is responsible for ALL COSTS for cleaning up this spill.

Like I said earlier I think BP should be taken over by the government to sell its assets to pay the costs of cleanup.

Never heard of a right wing nut converting to be a liberal? I can give you two examples.

One is me. I was a right wing nut in high school and the start of college. But college at the U of O taught me how wrong the right wing is.

Another example shows up in The Big Short, Michael Lewis book on the people who went short on (that is, bet against) the sub-prime devices. One of these guys is Steven Eisman, a man who voted for Reagan twice and like Robert Bork, but now is as strong a liberal as I am.

Nolan tells me I will change my stripes once I start earning so much money I have to pay more taxes. Not me; taxes will not change me. I am liberal now and a liberal forever.

I picked up 8 more books today at the library. I need to stop ordering so many books and start making a list on my computer of books I want to read in the future. Now, I maintain a list but only for those books that do not show up in my library yet. That list is two pages already but some have come off as I found them in a library search.

I have a sinus headache this afternoon so I will not read much until it goes away. I took 3 Advil already but it still hurts above my eyes.

Steve

Start of a new week...

Hello:

What part of this calculator would you eat first? Me, I would break it up and eat pieces of it.

My brother sent me an email on how to determine your chocolate age. This calculator was one of the pictures in that email.

I am finished with Winston's War. This book sure lowered my opinion of Churchill as a result of this book. Not only did he try to operate the war field but he wanted the Allies to help him recover the English empire. Luckily they both agreed not to help him as this was the end of the English empire.

My next book is The Big Short. After that it will be No One Would Listen, a book about the Madeoff scandal.

Scott Turow wrote a new novel called Innocent, a sequel to Presumed Innocent. I read this latter book years ago, but now I will re-read it as I want to read his new novel. Usually I don't like to read his books as they are way too predictable. I read just a few more of his books after Presumed Innocent as I did not like them.

Have a good week.

Steve

So sorry...

Hi again:

When scrolling down I noticed I posted that same cartoon a few days ago.

So this picture is a mural, including the statute and the girl at the table. I don't know who paints these but he or she sure is good.

Back to my reading.

Steven

Nice day for a Sunday

Hello on a very good day again:

I am almost finished with Winston's War. I am surprised how much he thought up and lead the battles of the British troops. I just cannot imagine Roosevelt doing this. Almost every battle Churchill thought up and forced upon his troops failed. He wanted an attack through Italy instead of Overlord, the D-Day attack across the Channel. He opposed it, even though the U.S. wanted it and Russia wanted it. Russia wanted the Second Front since Hitler attacked Russia.

Except for some success in North Africa, all of the British battles ended in a defeat for them. All can go back to Prime Minister as he thought up the site for each battle and forced his troops into it.

The cartoon picture is how I feel about the financial industry.

I did find The Big Short on the Kindle page yesterday at $9.99. So I bought it last night. I started it last night with about 100 pages to go in Winston's War. I will finish this book later this afternoon then on to The Big Short by Michael Lewis.

A few days ago I bought The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The podcast of the Kindle Women will discussing this book on their podcast today. I downloaded the podcast already. so I may listen to it before reading the book. I am sure there are spoiler alerts in the podcast.

This book on the Kindle page was only $5.70. The second book in this series is a little more but third book, just out this month, is $9.99.

How is your weekend going?

Steve

Why wait?????

Here are the other two pictures of the bald eagle rescued by a fisherman. The top picture shows him netting the bird, and the bottom picture shows the eagle taking off the next morning, presumably back to the nest.

To read the story go to http://www.oregonlive.com/ and click on the headline of fisherman rescues bald eagle.

Steven

Weekend is here....

Good morning:

This picture shows up on oregonlive.com, The Oregonian website. This bald eagle is struggling in the water. A fisherman in boat saved it and the third picture is the eagle taking off after being warmed up. The article said this male bald eagle was sitting a nest because of the special feathers they saw on it.

In tomorrow's post I will show you the other pictures from this series.

I spent this morning listening to podcasts. I listened to the Kindle Chronicles and now I am listening to Only a Game.

I am more than half way through Winston's War. Pearl Harbour just happened so England is happy the U.S. in the war. The Lend-Lease program of the U.S. for England was a cash and carry program that almost bankrupted England. The weapons sold under this program were old and out-of-date and of not much use to England.

I read over 150 pages last night, going beyond my goal of at least 100 pages a day. I plan on finishing this large book by tomorrow.

I am waiting to get The Big Short, the Michael Lewis book on the financial meltdown. I have it on my reserve list at the library. I have also been waiting for it to show up on the Kindle page. It was not there for some months after the book came out. I see now the book will come out on the Kindle page later this month, but at the same price as the hardcover book from Amazon. I am one of the people who will not pay more than $9.99 for any book on the Kindle page.

Hope you are enjoying this fine Saturday.

Steve

It is Friday now...

Hello:

This picture I took about a month ago on a bike ride around Stayton. These flowers are now gone with others taking the place of daffodils.

I am slowly reading Winston's War. I am trying to read 100 pages a day. At that rate I can get it done Sunday or Monday. It is 486 pages long. A little like watching sausage being made with great details of every day (almost) of Winston Churchill's as Prime Minister.

My next book may be Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? But since I believe William did write all of the plays and sonnets so I may not to read about the pretenders to his throne.

If not that book, then it will be The War Lovers or Cowboys Full. I also have Hellhound on His Trail, the search for the killer of Martin Luther King.

I was on my bike this morning. I found a rummage sale at St. Mary's School, near here. I bought a lavender plant. How big does lavender get? I am planing it in a hanging basket near the back door. According to novels I read about China, lavender is a popular plant there and a fragrant one too. We shall see if this is the case.

Tomorrow morning I plan on squeezing some oranges for fresh OJ for my breakfast.

Steve

H now...

Hi again:

No, this is not a boat in a small garage; it is a garage door, painted on top of the door.

I am now reading Winston's War: Churchill 1940-1945. I like reading about World War II as I like reading about China. I read two of William Manchester's biographies of Winston Churchill but he got sick before he could finish the last volume. The second volume of Manchester's book ends as World War II is getting ready to start. In the first chapter of this book I am reading tells about the failure of British troops to win even one battle in the early war. Dunkirk happens very early in war, as German troops over-run the Brits, French and other Allied troops.

I finished Pearl of China early this morning. The last few chapters of this novel brought tears to my eyes. I had to wait to finish the last chapter of this book to this morning as it was getting to me too much last night.

I had a bifurcated night again. I got up at 4:00 this morning. By 6:30 I was back in bed for two more hours. It was because of this book. I wanted to finish it so I got up early to do that.

What are your plans for the weekend?

Steve

See the oil coming out of ocean floor

Hi again:

Go to this site to watch a 30 second video of oil gushing out of the ocean floor.

www.nytimes.com

This picture is another mural on a wall. What a good artist.

Steven

Mid-week...

Hi again:

This cartoon is how I feel. I read two books so far on the crisis. I recently read Too Big to Fail. That book is a good indictment of these banks. With the recent profits of these banks I believe they are doing the same thing that caused the crisis.

I have eight books here to read in the next three weeks. I am currently reading Pearl of China.

Sitting here with me are these books:

The Seven-Percent Solution

Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?

The War Lovers

Winston's War: Churchill 1940-1945

Cowboys Full

Crosssers

Cleopatra: A Biography

Hellhound on His Trail

Two are novels, the remaining history.

The trouble this library is that is part of a regional library that gets books to me so very fast. While living in Eugene that library was a single library that took so long to get books. Now I have three more waiting for me at the library. I will not pick those up for a about a week.

24 will be over in two or three weeks, as will Lost. Once that happens I have some weekends coming up doing nothing but watching these series in full.

How is your week going?

Steve

Good morning

Good morning:

In this mural, everything you see is in the mural. The cow and the guy on scaffold included as well as the bird and the posts.

I hope today is nice. I just washed my sheets and I want to hang them outside.

It is nearly 7:00 am as I write this. I got up around 5:30 this morning, wide awake.

My jury duty is over for two years. I hope it is much longer. They get the list from DMV records and voting records. Double your chances that way...

I am reading Pearl of China, a novel that has the Chinese character befriending another little girl named Pearl as in Pearl Buck. From the flap the author had to denounce Pearl Buck during the Cultural Revolution. I assume Willow will have to denounce her in this novel.

Steve

Jury duty,,,,but not even chosen

What you see here is a mural, a drawing completely, including the broken wall. Quite pretty. I have other murals I will post here later.

My jury duty was a big waste of time. I did read my Kindle, reading more than 10 articles, getting from 76 pages, to 74 pages. I was not chosen among the first group that went out at 9:00 am. At 10:00 the jury coordinator announced the next 12 would be excused. I was among that group. The remaining jurors went with her to the courthouse. So between 8:00 am and 10:30 am I earned $16.40. That is $10.00 for the day and $6.40 for mileage.

I did not sleep well last night, so at noon today I took an hour nap. That nap helped me greatly.

I finished Shell Games a shocking book on poaching in the Pacific Northwest.

My next book is Pearl of China by the author who wrote Red Azaleas. I read this latter novel last month. It was about China during the Cultural Revolution.

I planted two Willamette tomato plants over the weekend. I think these plants are determinant, not indeterminate. If the former, then the tomatoes come on all at once. If indeterminate, the tomatoes come out over a period of time. I do plan on getting more plants as I want to can the excess tomatoes.

I believe oil companies should be prevented from drilling in deep water until they have ways to immediately control a blowout. This tragedy is very bad. I think BP should be closed down, sold and the money used to pay for cleanup over the next 10 to 20 years. What do you right-wingers think about this idea?

Steve

What a nice day..

Hi:

Guess what these pictures represent? I never knew until the sender told me. These are pictures on garage doors. Whomever is the artist sure knows how to paint showing three dimensions.

I will go outside shortly to plant my two tomato plants. I strip off the lower leaves and plant is laying down. This gives it more roots so support the plant.

I am nearly finished with Shell Games, the book on poachers in the northwest. It sure is a good book.

I recorded four hours of BookTV last night, one hour for a book I already have on order and three more hours on books that sound interesting.

Have you voted already. I voted last week but my ballot is still here. I need to take it the library on Tuesday.

I have jury duty tomorrow. I called to find out that Marion County wants jurors numbers 1 to 309. My number is 55 so I am going there. I rather doubt I will be chosen. I know most judges here and many of the attorneys who appear in court there.

I am taking my Kindle with me tomorrow when I go the courthouse.

Happy Mother's Day to every mother who reads this.

Steve

Tis Saturday morning...

Hi:

I don't know if this picture is about age or about what happens in a divorce.

I bought two tomato plants yesterday. Willamette variety as any with Oregon names are designed for Oregon.

I am spending this morning watching what I recorded the past week. The only funny news show I watch (recorded) is Bill Maher. A good liberal and atheist, just like me.

I have jury duty on Monday. I suspect I will have to report this time. My number is 55; last time my number was 167. When I called last time, they wanted people with numbers between 1 and 62. I will call later today, as my jury duty is on Monday.

After mowing the lawn yesterday, today I will spray the lawn with Weed-B-Gon. I have a weed wacher here to cut long the fence and house.

Among the eight books here only two are are novels. One I read in law school, The Seven Percent Solution. A Sherlock tale...

The other novel is Pearl by the author who wrote Red Azaleas. As you know I like to read books on China and this novel, like her earlier one.

A good weekend is here; I hope you are enjoying it.

Steve

Mistake in sentence...

In my last post, I said:

I could see the mirror without my glasses.


I should have said:

I need my glasses to see myself in the mirror.

Steven

The weekend approaches...

Yet another cartoon on aging. I could see the mirror without my glasses, however.

I mowed the lawn here today. I am heading to Wilco soon to get some fertilizer for my plants here.

I have seven books here from my library. It will tough to figure which to read and which to return. I am still working on Shell Games, the book on poachers in the Pacific Northwest.

I added a few more podcasts to my list today. Most are on technology and the Kindle.

Later today I plan on making rhubarb ice cream. I got some heavy cream at Safeway today so I wonder how it will taste.

This posting is short as I have some errands to run now.

Steve

Nice days ahead...

Hi:

It sure makes my angry about this oil spill in the Gulf area. Why not bring in the big tankers to suck up the oil and water. The Exxon tanker that went ashore in Alaska dumped 13 million gallons of oil. Two or three of these tankers could have sucked it up so fast. But now we are going to see seafood prices go up because most of our seafood comes from the Gulf area. Like I said, it makes me so angry to see this oil spill spread like it is doing.

I am getting to Shell Games, how poachers are taking so many geoduck clams from the Washington area that it will wipe them out in Puget Sound. This, too, makes me angry to see this resources decimated like this.

We have finished the first editing of Redemption, the long epic poem written by the late Raymond Geraths. We will edit a few more times before putting it on the Kindle page. Right now it is 44 pages all typed out. It will come a few pages less than that once I take away the paragraph numbers off of each stanza.

His three epic poems are handwritten, in a style that is hard to read at times. I typed it up at the rate of five pages a day, taking me about 13 days to finish it.

He has two other epic poems, Creation and Sanctification. The latter poem is 92 pages long. I will not type that one out. Creation is about the same size as Redemption.

The coming weekend will be so nice. the nicest so far this spring.

Steven

Mid-week now...

Good morning:

This hole is for the older people reading this blog, like this writer. I am now 60 years old, but I feel no older than 40. A few years ago my cousin told me, as she was then 60, that 60 is the new 40.

I am now reading a book called Shell Games: Rogues, Smugglers, and the Hunt for Nature's Bounty. It is about people who steal fish, clams and other stuff from nature to sell on the black market and to Asia. This book came from the Silver Falls library, part of the regional library we have here. My other two books here from the library also came from Silver Falls library.

This book is about Puget Sound but does have traffic coming to Oregon to sell their illegal catches.

There is a new book out now that I got on my Kindle. Phillip Pullman, the author of the Dark Materials trilogy, now has written a book called The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. I heard about it on NPR yesterday morning. Pullman is an atheist and got the idea for the book from the Archbishop of Canterbury.

This novel has two characters: Jesus and his twin Christ. Jesus is the carpenter turned preacher and Christ is in the background who writes about his brother, making up miracles and telling other lies about his brother. This is my kind of truth, even though this is a novel. I treat the bible as a novel too, nothing even close to the truth. Nice stories in the new testament, but none are true.

It is will be nice for the rest of this week. and it is about time we get some good days in a row.

Steve

A new week starts...

Hello:

Yet another surprise picture from Bill's collection.

Close to being finished with Too Big to Fail. It is 526 pages long, a bigger book than I usually read, but it is such a good book.

My next book is China's First Emperor and His Terra Cotta Warriors. Like I told you before , I enjoy reading about China and its history, both old history and new history. The terra cotta warriors are near Xi'an. I visited them and took many pictures with my new camera then. But unfortunately I did not know how to transfer pictures to my computer so I deleted them from the disk once I thought I transferred them to the computer, but then found out they did not transfer correctly.

Once I go back to China I do plan on visiting the Xi'an to see the warriors again.

Steven

Sunday now...

Hi again:

This is another surprise picture; I wonder what happened to these people 3 seconds later.

I am listening to a new podcast I found, Kindle-women. Two ladies, one in Italy and other somewhere here, talk about the Kindle and every other podcast review a book. The next book is The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo. I checked the library but too many reservations for the book, but I found it on the Kindle site for $5.50. It is now on my Kindle.

I want to finish Too Big to Fail. Four hundred pages into it, Lehman Brothers has filed bankruptcy and AIG gets a huge goverment bailout. At least the government kicked out the management of AIG, the ones who created such a problem in that company. AIG, unlike Lehman Brothers, was deemed too big to fail in that it would impact all of the banks and securities dealers in New York. But I believe it should have failed like others. There should have been no bailouts at all, from Wall Street to the car companies.

What all of this shows is that government wants to save corporations and not people. No One Would Listen is another book on my list that talks about the losers of the Madeoff scandal. Again, those people got no relief but all of these corporations get relief, as they are too big to fail.

Just think what would happen if every person in the United States got $75,000 to $100,000 each. What that would do to spur the economy. Instead these corporations get the money and we did not.

End of this rant.

How is your weekend going?

Steve

Weekend is here...

Hello again:

This is another surprise picture. Indeed a surprise....

It is not raining yet, so I will be heading out soon on my bike.

I spent last night reading Too Big to Fail. It is such a good book, a detailed look at Lehman Brothers, AIG, and all of the other bailout recipients.

I am at the place in the book where Lehman Brothers must file bankruptcy and then disappear.

Have some fun this weekend.

Steven