I'm thinking that as the baby boomers age and retire, and as their retirements shrink smaller and smaller, there will be more demand for smaller, more affordable homes that still retain high quality.

Something like this home.   Nearly a micro home, this would be perfect for a retired couple that wanted to live in style but without a lot of cost.  Maybe sell the mega mansion, and put this deal together and bank the remainder of the money from the mega house sale.  Grandkids would love this as well.

                               It's Tuesday!  Get your motor running!  Let's hit the road!

Looks like I should fill up all the cars with gas this morning.

Chevron Richmond refinery hydrocracker explosion causes warning for all residents to stay indoors.

California has their own special rules for gas, meaning that refineries have a unique recipe that they have to follow to make fuel that can only be used in this state. A shutdown of a refinery this size can only mean higher gas prices, perhaps much higher.  It will be an education to see just how much effect this has at the pump.

At the risk of becoming a bit like National Enquirer, I learned today that iconic girl next door nice kid Taylor Swift is dating Kennedy family spawn Conor Kennedy.

I think that Bob Belvedere says it best:

Miss Swift: I am not a fan of your music, but what few songs I have heard seem rather entertaining. You’re a young woman with a great future ahead of you because you obviously have talent, good looks, and, by all accounts, a crackerjack personality. There’s so much you can accomplish creatively and, one hopes, spiritually. So please give a listen to an aging man who has lived in New England all his life where he has been surrounded by Kennedys since, literally, he was born in 1961:

Gather all of your things and RUN AWAY — get the Hell out of the Kennedy’s reach. Do it before they embrace you and subject you to the soul-crushing experience dozens of women before you have endured.

This is a family that commands not only absolute loyalty, but, like a cult, demands that you give up your individuality and become like them — think and act like they do. And, if you dare rebel against their wishes, like the mobsters they are, they will do everything to crush you, financially, psychologically — in every way possible. Just remember the recent case of Robert Kennedy Jr’s estranged wife Mary who they hounded and hounded until she took her own life and then in death continued to slander and libel.

Run away, now, before their work their bastardized Irish charm on you.

The Kennedys bring nothing but misery to every human being they embrace — most especially the women.

Even mega jerk Kanye knows better.

I saw this over at the Feral Irishman, and it was just too good not to re post over here.  This is a letter received by a Texas newspaper back in 2010, and it sums up pretty well the reason our country is is such poor shape right now.  If only we were in chanrge. 

Waco Tribune-Herald, Nov. 18, 2010  

Put me in charge

Put me in charge of food stamps. I’d get rid of Lone Star cards; no cash for Ding Dongs or Ho Ho’s, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want steak and frozen pizza, then get a job.
Put me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing I’d do is to get women Norplant birth control implants or tubal ligations. Then, we’ll test recipients for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine and document all tattoos and piercings. If you want to reproduce or use drugs, alcohol, smoke or get tats and piercings, then get a job.
Put me in charge of government housing. Ever live in a military barracks? You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair. Your “home” will be subject to inspections anytime and possessions will be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360, then get a job and your own place.
In addition, you will either present a check stub from a job each week or you will report to a “government” job. It may be cleaning the roadways of trash, painting and repairing public housing, whatever we find for you. We will sell your 22 inch rims and low profile tires and your blasting stereo and speakers and put that money toward the “common good.”
Before you write that I’ve violated someone’s rights, realize that all of the above is voluntary. If you want our money, accept our rules.. Before you say that this would be “demeaning” and ruin their “self esteem,” consider that it wasn’t that long ago that taking someone else’s money for doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered self esteem.
If we are expected to pay for other people’s mistakes we should at least attempt to make them learn from their bad choices. The current system rewards them for continuing to make bad choices.
AND while you are on Gov’t subsistence, you no longer can VOTE! Yes that is correct. For you to vote would be a conflict of interest. You will voluntarily remove yourself from voting while you are receiving a Gov’t welfare check. If you want to vote, then get a job.
Alfred W. Evans

There is more good sense in this letter right here than in a thousand Democrats.

Incredible!  Here is a leaked photo of Curiosity descending to the Martian surface by parachute, taken by the Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter satellite. 

Soon after this was taken, the chute was jettisoned and the rover made the final descent by rocket and then "sky crane." 

I'm still amazed that this all worked so well. Congratulations for sure to the scientists and engineers who made this ridiculously complicated landing look easy.

And don't get cocky.

People, people.  Great skill to make low humor.

Mondays, they're like that.

The first photo from the Curiosity Rover on Mars, that came in to mission control almost immediately on landing.  That is the rover's wheel in the bottom right corner.

Curiosity has successfully landed on Mars after those seven minutes of terror!  A well earned gold medal for the team that did this complex landing successfully!!

The other day I was going through some old stuff from my parents, and re discovered this old wood stove, which a bit of internet research defined more properly as a parlor stove.


We put it outside and burned a little bit of kindling, and it worked perfectly.  Then, the 16 year old and I decided to use it to make a "man cave in one corner of the barn, with part of the goal to be to do it as cheaply as possible and with recycled stuff where we could.  I have no idea how old the parlor stove is, but I can guarantee you it has been recycled multiple times.

Several years ago a friend gave us some walnut that had been harvested out of an old orchard that was being torn out.  This round has been sitting in the barn "curing" since, and the boy and I decided to sand it flat and use it as a table in our man cave.

We began the process today and got some of the rough work done. Not shown is an old hand plane that we drafted to knock down the high spots a bit faster.  Another old tool that we won't let lie idle on the shelf, and with a little adjustment, it worked pretty well, causing the two of us to break a real sweat as well.

I'll post periodically on the man cave progress.

                                                              Freckles, they are good

                                                                  Sunday open road.

                                                                      Rainbow horse

Early this morning, NASA scientists will try one of the most complicated landings on Mars ever in an effort to place the new rover Curiosity on the surface.

Even odds the thing crashes, but I am quite tempted to stay up into the wee hours and track this.  If the scientists get this one on the planet and operational, my hat will be off to them.

Follow the controlled (hopefully) insanity here.