Pumpkin Portraits

We dragged the kids--or did they drag us?--out to the Flower Mound Pumpkin patch for the annual gather of the gourds. We got our pumpkins, all right, but the overcast skies and bright pumpkin props all around were too good to resist for a portrait session. So, here's a few views of our handsome dudes.






Euuu, I was gettin' kinda' woozy. . .

Stuart Little Must Die!

Cute in a sweater behind a car wheel, a pain in the ass shitting all over your kitchen counter. . .

We've got mice.

More than just a couple of them. It started a few weeks ago when an occasional glimpse was caught of a little shadowy object scurrying across the living room floor in the wee hours of the morning. Then it became more than just an occasional glimpse. Their little droppings were found on the floor in the pantry; in E.'s dresser drawer; and on the kitchen counter. They got into a box of E.'s school papers, chewing them up and forcing M. to throw them all out.

Why are we getting mice? I'd guess with the home construction a couple of doors down. Why are they getting inside? I'm guessing it's because of the hole I cut in an upstairs wall while expanding the model railroad. Sure enough, a close look along the stud walls inside the upstairs utility space I'd accessed was showing plenty of little mouse turds.

It's not that our place is dirty, mind you, and attracting the cute, cuddly little vermin. It's just that they've apparently found a convienent way into the house. I started our defense of the casa with a few glue-sheets, a flat plastic tray with sticky stuff on it that mice could walk onto but not leave. This produced quick results within a couple of days. We also tried a "mouse hotel," a plastic box with bait (peanut butter) that a mouse can walk into but not leave. While it caught a mouse pretty quickly, M. didn't like the idea that the mouse just waited out his captors inside the box, alive. M. has been busy sanitizing places the mice have been (amazing how much they crap and piss), and has organized the pantry with all foodstuffs in plastic containers.


M. hasn't yet climbed up on a chair, but she's getting close. . .

Over the past week, the number of mouse sightings has increased. There's a reason something is said to "breed like mice." I'm close to calling exterminators. I did contact Orkin; they want to sign me up, of course, for a full year of bug and rodent treatment, more I want to spend. I just want to kill the damned mice, I can do much of what Orkin wants to do, namely, place traps around the house. As far as the "entry points" to the house, Orkin will point them out to me, but it's up to me to plug em up.



These kick ass. Batting .750 in the first 12 hours after their placement. . .

So, we've stepped up the offensive. I filled a couple of visible gaps in the utility space with expanding foam (apparently these little suckers can squeeze through a 1/4" opening!). And we distributed more glue trays where mice have been active. Last night, we headed over to Home Depot to add to our arsenal. They sell a variety of poisons, of course, as well as deadly electronic mouse tasers, electronic noise-makers that are like listening to nonstop Slim Whitman-for-mice, and a number of "humane" mouse traps. The hell with humane. I want to kill.

We left with more glue trays, a pack of D-Con "No View No Touch" mouse traps, and some packets of poison. The trap promises that once caught, you won't have to look at the dead mouse (for a contrarian view, here's a blogger equating these sterile killing machines with the Holocaust). Sort of a Mouse Hotel with a deadly check in. You stick some bait inside, and "lock and load" the trap by turning the case til it locks into place, then place it and wait. The mouse walks in, touches the trigger, and the can of whoop ass smotes him dead. We placed a four-pack of them last night; by this afternoon, we'd dispensed with three mice. (I couldn't resist opening them up to see if the mice were really inside, and really dead. And they were). And moments after disposing of those, I. discovered another mouse had just wandered onto the glue tray in the pantry. That's been a highly-productive afternoon: four mice no longer in the residence.

The poison packets will be our tactical nuclear devices, our last stand of ridding the vermin ourselves before calling in outside troops. Apparently, mice chew into these poison packets, which makes them extremely thirsty, causing them to stroll out into the open looking for water and (here's the best part) die.


I. thinks these little mice are cute, even when writhing and squealing and unable to move on a glue tray. Next stop: trash bin.

I'm also headed back to Home Depot for more plywood to seal up the unused portion of the utility space, filling gaps around the pipes with more expanding foam. That, hopefully, should close off what I think is their entry point.


If that doesn't work, I'll take a clue from Dick Cheney and institute waterboarding.

Poor Stuart Little. He'd best not fuck with me any more.

End of Summer Catch-Up

The Dudes yuk it up at the Legends of the Game. . .

Jeez, looks like summer is done. . .and this blog has turned into Huffington Post! So, let's get back on track to what the family has been up to the last half of the summer. . .which is, mainly, not much.

To sum it up: Baseball. That's been much of our family focus, recreationally. The kids have pretty much forgotten about rockets and NASA and NASCAR and are completely absorbed by what was once our national pasttime. M. and I are trying to look at the good side to all this: there are many facets to being a baseball fan, and while I. embraces mainly the aspect of enjoying baseball by playing it--spraying wiffleballs around the living room, sliding across the carpet, making high-pitched umpire calls of "out"--E. has taken a more holistic approach, appreciating the statistical side of the game (a good way to beef up his mathematics, we figure) as well as artistic (reading about baseball park design through the years) and historical (ditto books on baseball facts and trivia). We took the boys to a few more Rangers game (more losses than wins), toured the Legends of the Game Museum and toured the Ballpark in Arlington, and we're starting fall with both E. and I. signed up for fall little league--I. is in "blast ball," which is a sort of pre-K t-ball. . .and he lives for Friday night practices and Saturday morning games.


E. and I. are ready for fall ball. . .


I. delivers the cheese. . .

Not to say it has all been baseball--I had two weeks of vacation the end of September, and we didn't really go anywhere outside of the metroplex. We visited the boys' grandpa Lou, went bowling with a couple of their school friends, and went to the American Airlines museum in Arlington.

E. is back to school now, second grade, and he's been accepted in his school district's Gifted and Talented program. I. is staying at home this year (so far), foregoing pre-K enrichment til maybe later in the year. M. is working on Thursday's out of the house as well as keeping busy with her website and Mary Kay marketing assistance work (preparing newsletters and mail-outs for various sales directors). I'm still working my midnight shift dispatching job and selling old railroad slides on the side, trying to raise enough money to take a train-chasing trip to Australia next spring.


The boys and friends O. and J. get ready for some smack-talkin' bowling. . .


I. is the drama king when bowling. . .


Farewell, summer!

It's Over
This is really the best of times of the year, and the worst of times. Used to be, when I was a single and fancy-free young man, October meant vacation season, a time to hit the road for some camping and railroad photography in the west, stalking trains in the high deserts and passing the time between photographs with the Major League playoffs on the radio. It just wasn't fall without the voice of Jack Buck or Vin Scully broadcasting the playoffs. . .and after many years of not really following the game, it's been nice in 2007 to get back into baseball. We followed the Rangers pretty closely the last 2/3rds of the year, jumping on the bandwagon just about the time the team started their early summer climb out of sub-.500 ball, stayed with em through the all-star break and the Josh Hamilton home run derby, and didn't give up--though we were discouraged--when injuries and a faltering pitching staff dropped the Rangers back out of contention in the homestretch of August.

And now the regular season is gone, and we're rapidly chewing through the playoffs. These are the most beautiful days of the year, fall in Texas, but it comes with the bittersweet knowledge that pretty soon the Bermudagrass will finally give up for the year and the winds will push south from the frozen North. It'll seem like forever until springtime, until the grass again greens up, and until spring training.

Hope springs eternal. And we're already counting down the days.

See ya next year, Temple of Baseball. . .

I change my mind.

Last week, I basically called the Republican leadership "stupid" for choosing Sarah Palin to be John McCain's running mate.

I now retract that statement.

I now think they were brilliant.

They clearly have a bead on the American Public that the Obama campaign doesn't have. To go from seven points down in the polls before Palin's nomination to dead even now. . . .well, I guess those Republicans know what they're doing.

I guess it doesn't matter what the truth is.

I guess the facts regarding Palin's record as mayor or governor of Alaska don't really matter. If you deny them long enough, or stay on your talking points, or change the subject, the public will lose interest and believe what they want to believe.

They won't care that Palin did indeed approve of pork barrel earmarks for the "Bridge to Nowhere," despite her denial of it today.

They won't care that Palin tried to have a city librarian fired when she refused to ban books that the Mayor found distasteful. Or fired a long-time aide and state legislative assistant because he was having an affair. Nor that the jet plan supposedly sold on ebay wasn't sold on ebay afterall.

They won't care that the Palin administration found enough money--$1.3 million, supposedly--to begin building infrastructure and roads to a proposed Wasilla sports complex before the city even had title to the land, leading to years of legal litigation and a continued drain on the city budget years after Palin left office.

And they certainly won't care the Palin found money for a sports facility, but still charged rape victims in Wasilla between $300 and $1200 for forensics kits used to gather evidence against their accusers. Those hockey kids have to have a rink, ya know, and if those sluts got raped, it's their own damn fault.

I guess none of all this matters. As long as the GOP can paint her as a "Red-State Feminist," produce an amateurish video introducing her as "Mother. Moose Hunter. Maverick." for the convention, and send their attack dogs out, it really doesn't matter what the truth is.

So John McCain "approved" an attack television ad suggesting that Barack Obama supported "comprehensive sex education for kindergartners" and who is going to care that this is a damned lie? (Actually, he supported a bill that would educate children against pedophiles by teaching them what was inappropriate touching. I guess that's sex education to the GOP. ) The ad actually cites a Washington Post editorial that called Obama "elusive" on school accountability. . . ignoring the mention of McCain in the same editorial as "not been forthcoming with any detailed plan" on education himself.

Pick and choose. Duck and cover. Shuck and jive. Repeat the lies long enough, and the electorate will lose interest.

How could I have doubted that the Palin pick wouldn't be popular? Americans, by and large, are stupid. They lack any sort of world view. They are interested only in what will directly effect them NOW, not down the road. They have the attention span of squirrels, and they are easily led to believe that a boogeyman lurks behind each tree. This is a nation of Dancing With the Stars and American Idol. What else should you expect? Guns (Ms. Palin likes to shoot moose with one)? God (Ms. Palin attends a church that is everybit as radical as the one Mr. Obama was forced to distance himself with? Gays (the Republicans again are trotting out the old Gay Marriage issue)? That's all that matters.

And if that's the case, if the stupidity wing of the American people are voting in any sort of numbers, there's nothing the Democrats can do to win this election.

Palin's hate-filled speech last night?

Did ya see it?

I could comment, but this says it far better than I ever could. That's the Republican Party in a nutshell.

Oh, and did you catch a glimpse of Cowboy Troy on stage after the speech? I was a bit aghast to see a black man up there entertaining for the white folk. . but he had a cowboy hat on, which must've eased their fears.

McCain/Palin: far more right-wing than even Bush/Cheney.

A Hail Mary from the Republicans. . .

The future president?

Or, should we just say "Hail Sarah"?

John McCain just chose the former mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, population 9,000, Sarah Palin, as his running mate. Palin has been governor of Alaska for a couple of years.

Before that. . .well, she held a couple of state offices in Alaska. She is pro-life, pro-death penalty, pro-drilling, and likes hockey. She's an NRA member. She's good looking, too (some have referred to her as a VPILF), and has five kids and a husband who likes to race snow mobiles.

In other words, she's a perfect Vice Presidential choice to go toe-to-toe with Joe Biden in the fall campaign.

Way to go, McCain. I'm sure he's winning over huge blocks of undecided voters with this choice. Probably secured a lock on Alaska's electoral college votes. Probably cemented the NRA vote with this. Likely won over the pro-lifers.

Hmmm. I'd guess most of these people were already figuring on voting for McCain.

I guess the McCain camp gives women so little credit that they'd think the disgruntled PUMA Clinton supporters will flock over to the Republican side just because the veep candidate is a woman. Which is really insulting to women, if you think about it.

By choosing Palin, I'd guess that any talk by the McCain campaign about Obama's inexperience can go by the wayside. Brilliant strategy: take away one of your best arguments against the Democrat.


Palin's experiential predecessor. . .


Some folks are comparing Palin's choice to Bush I choosing Dan Quayle, or Mondale choosing Geraldine Ferraro--a desperate hail-mary choice.

I think of it as more like Ross Perot's choice of James Stockdale, he of the "who am I? what am I doing here?"

This should be interesting. To pull a small-town mayor and short-time governor of one of our most rural, isolated, and least-populated states and offer he as being a heartbeat away from the presidency of what we consider the greatest country on earth either shows incredible naivete, an amazing amount of faith that God won't let McCain die in the next four years, or stupidity.

But, since it's the Republicans making this call, we know which of the three options is in play here.

-----------------------

Late Night update, No. 1: Did ya catch the clip of that boob Doocy on Fox News saying that Palin has foreign policy experience with Russia because they're next door neighbor? Best blogger responses: "Does that mean if she stand's next to McCain eventually she'll get POW experience as well?" and "So, I live next to Cape Canaveral--does that make me a rocket scientist?"

Late Night update, No. 2: Anchorage readers responding on line to the news via the Anchorage Daily News website are all atwitter at an upcoming photograph of the McCain and Palin families together for People magazine. . . showing an apparently quite-pregnant 16-year-old daugher, Bristol. God, it's sounding like a reality television show together: The Veep. A governor and mother of five deals with her husband's adjustment to big-city life in Washington D.C., raising an infant son with Down's syndrome and a newborn grandaugher, and an ethics investigation back home, while juggling a crash-course in foreign policy and the rough-and-tumble world of national presidential campaigns.