Silent and lonely, cabin in the desert

Not a problem here in California.

Cesar Milan, the famous "dog whisperer," agrees to pay 400k to his ex wife to keep quiet about any personal details of their now defunct marriage. 

That's quite a chunk of change for silence.   Wonder what it is he is worried about?

Not only that, the article claims he is grossing 170k a month in his various businesses.  Not to bad for a poor boy from Old Mexico, eh?

America, land of opportunity.

Monday chuckle

Mondays, they're like that.

Mondays, they're like that too.

Police in England, alerted by a concerned busybody passing by, smashed the window of a parked Mercedes to save this toy stuffed dog.

Just maybe they need more real crime to deal with in that part of merry old England.

Efficient government service - on your side!!

Sunday open road post.  

Sigh....

Man, I've been feeling like this all weekend, but things are marginally better this evening.  I hope I'm up for work this week, cause I got no choice.

We might need some of this kind of self help if there is too much vote fraud next election.

Last Sunday's bright fireball meteor falling through skies over California and Nevada produced sonic booms over a broad area around 7:51 am. Estimates indicate the meteor was about the size of a minivan. Astronomer Peter Jenniskens subsequently recovered these fragments of a crushed 4 gram meteorite, the second find from this meteor fall, in the parking lot of the Henningsen-Lotus state park, not far from Sutter's Mill. This is now known as the Sutter's Mill Meteorite, the location famous for its association with the California Gold Rush. The meteorite may well be astronomer's gold too, thought to be a rare CM type carbonaceous chondrite, a type rich in organic compounds and similar to the Murchison Meteorite. To trace the meteor's orbit, details of its breakup, and aid in locating more fragements, scientists are also searching for video records. Security cameras across a wide area could have accidently captured the fireball event near 7:51 am PDT on April 22; e.g. California (SF Bay Area, Los Angeles, near Redding) and Nevada (Reno area, Tonopah), even in southern parts of Oregon and near Salt Lake City in Utah.

Looks like a piece of asphalt.

An oil exploration team deep in the Egyptian desert has stumbled upon the well preserved wreckage of a World War II RAF fighter plane, which seems to have crash landed.  The plane is a British Royal Air Force Curtiss P-40 Kittyhawk.

   Whether out of fuel, or damaged by ground fire, the pilot belly landed the plane, tearing off the wheels and prop, got out, closed the canopy behind him, and disappeared into the desert. 

So far, research has not revealed the fate of the pilot, but that is an incredibly desolate landscape. I can see dying of thirst easily there, and quickly.   It would no doubt be better to stay with the plane, unless you were sure of what direction you wanted to go, and how far you needed to go.

Another sign of the "success" of the administration's economic policies:

"In an historic shift, the tide of immigration from Mexico to the US has stalled. Villages that were empty of young men are now full. A report published by the Pew Hispanic Center this week confirmed what was already anecdotally clear: the largest wave of immigration in US history has stalled and is now close to slipping into reverse."

Maybe Americans will emigrate to the job paradise of Mexico, after falling off of their two years of unemployment benefits here at home.  Everybody already knows at least a bit of Spanish anyway, and the weather is probably nicer in Old Mexico as well.  Plus, you could get to wear a sombrero, the world's awesomest hat!

More seriously, if even Mexico offers people more economic opportunity than the U S of A, then we are well and truely blued, screwed and tattooed! As a final insult, notice that the link is to an English newspaper.  With the descent into rot of our own news media, I guess we will have to get our news from the UK, while we work for a living in Old Mexico!

As we finish our week of work, generating taxes for the government to spend on our behalf, it is sobering to keep in mind that just one of Michelle Obama's vacations, the Spanish fling with all her relatives and retainers, cost us nearly half a million dollars.

And still, after all that fun at our expense, she fantasizes about "walking out of the White House, and just keep on walking."  And thanks for all the fish, Michelle.

Glamourous parties, expensive vacations for free, private cooks at your beck and call, a media that does nothing but glorify you, the best security in the world, even for your daughter's spring break fling to Mexico, government jets to fly you wherever you want, and you aren't happy?

I'm starting to feel a bit sorry for Barack.

Ok, back to work. The government needs the money.

It's been a long week. I'm glad it's Friday.

I'm not even going to try to explain what is going on here.

Ace posted up a link to the story here. 

Cabin porn

In Långserud, Sweden.

Nothing like grass growing on the roof.

Man food.   Did they remember anchovies?

                                                                   Thursday freckles.

Although there is no word yet when the Tioga Pass road will be opened, Caltrans crews have reached Olmstead Point, and have found 3 to 4 feet of snow, depending on where you measure.  That is probably just a bit over 50%  of a normal snow pack for this part of the Sierra.

There was likely a bit more added overnight, as a late spring storm came through, and is clearing right now.

Sponge Bob cannot be contained....

All aboard the happy train!!

Some crazy auto stuff

Especially the steering wheel on the car below.

Last week Mercury wandered far to the west of the Sun. As the solar system's innermost planet neared its greatest elongation or greatest angle from the Sun (for this apparition about 27 degrees) it was joined by an old crescent Moon. The conjunction was an engaging sight for early morning risers in the southern hemisphere. There the pair rose together in predawn skies, climbing high above the horizon along a steeply inclined ecliptic plane. This well composed sequence captures the rising Moon and Mercury above the city lights of Brisbane in Queensland, Australia. A stack of digital images, it consists of an exposure made every 3 minutes beginning at 4:15 am local time on April 19. Mercury's track is at the far right, separated from the Moon's path by about 8 degrees.

Remember, no matter what happens, try to stay above it all.

I didn't start this post with this in mind, but I am dedicating this to Billy Bob, who unexpectedly announced this morning that he was suspending his blog so that he could better manage some of his other life priorities. 

Good luck with that, Billy, and know that everyone hopes that after the hard work is done you can get back to blogging.  All our best wishes are with you.

Godspeed, brother.

Cabin porn

Out in San Francisco, Earth Day revelers have hypocritically left an enormous mess in the Marina.

Was it Earth Day, or Litter Day?

I guess it's ok to love Mother Earth, but not to pick up after yourself.   Hippies, they are stupid.

On a remote Alaskan beach, a man found a soccer ball washed up, with what appeared to be Japanese writing on it.

After a lot of sleuthing, the ball was returned to it's owner, Misake Murakami, a 16 year old boy, who had been given the ball in third grade by friends as a good luck gift.

This ball must indeed have good luck, since it has now made it's way back to him after being washed away by the massive tsunami, along with his house, and then traveling over 3100 miles across the Pacific to Alaska, and being found by a man whose wife was Japanese and could read the letters.

This fellow here is a famous person whose name you would instantly recognize, but who changed his image dramatically after this picture was taken in 1965.

                                                Who is this guy?   Anybody have an idea?

Hint: he is a singer.

Another hint: He has had gigantic problems over the years with the IRS.

Yet another hint: He's been married four times and has seven children.

One more hint: He appeared in the 1971 film, The Electric Horseman.

Give up?

Go here for the answer! 

                                               Hey, hey, hey, it's an Obama world!

           This, or totalitarianism, which would suit our current political and media class just fine.

                                                                      Tuesday freckles

                                                              Hey Joe, we ordered pizza!

That big boom that was heard over Northern California and Nevada the other day turns out to be caused by an asteroid the size of a minivan that blew up deep in the atmoshpere at the point marked in yellow above.

The location of the pop was done by triangulating the sound from several locations.

No one identified this rock coming in, so it was a complete surprise to everyone.  That thing exploded not so far from my house.  Lucky for me that it wasn't another Tunguska sized rock, or there might not have been a happy ending.

Here's an interesting piece of information, an old Forest Service instruction manual on how to properly build your own log cabin.

I would wager that it is the fantasy of nearly every red blooded American male to go out one day and do exactly this, and then live off the land for a while.  However, unless you have the fortitude of a guy like Dick Proenneke, we will all dream the dream but never do the deed.  Too bad, that. 

Even so, there is a lot of good info here, and I for one have printed this off and will study it carefully.  You never really know when that cabin in the woods ,might become necessary!

Billy Bob over at Hell on Earth posted these pictures of some extremely well restored Studebaker trucks.

Wow, what awesome machines.  American classics for sure.  Thanks for fishing these off the internet, Billy Bob, seeing them made my day.