Ten Minutes

I pick up nine Head Start kids daily and provide door-to-door service from the facility to their front door. The HS lady brings them to my bus in single file like a gaggle of little geese and makes sure they’re strapped in while I sign the clipboard for each one.

Today I decided to turn my smartphone’s sound recorder on as I pulled away from Head Start. Normally I say goodby to the kids but I just remained silent with the radios off. The recording was actually 30 minutes but I stopped it at 10. As each kid gets dropped off the chatter diminishes until finally it’s just Hector, and my mind can rest…

Click the button below to listen to the trip. Granted, I know you have a life so just listen to as much as you can handle…

Published
Categorized as The Bus

Betty

Betty is my most prolific commenter and she is also Steph’s mom. In honor of all the great comments she’s left here I’ve created a painting based on a photo taken last year while she was working on a puzzle during her recovery from a fall.

Propane

Propane is the preferred fuel here in the Rockies and as such there are four propane companies based here in Teton Valley. The best one is Suburban Propane, a nationwide company with great service and the best prices by far.

The competitors are Holiday, Fall River, and V-1. If you own your own tank (as we do) you can negotiate the best price among the four. If your tank is provided to you by one of these companies, well, you buy from them at whatever price they choose to charge you.

I spotted another player in town today. This propane truck with the Four Paws logo really stood out and I wondered why it was here. The answer is, this is a really competitive business and if you need to venture out of your area to fill a tank, you will.

This is actually an Alpine Propane rig out of Rexburg, supporting the Four Paws pet adoption program. That’s cool, more power to them. Just don’t come here too often…

Full disclosure regarding Suburban Propane, Steph is their local Office Manager :-)

Published
Categorized as The Valley

Flickr Mobile

Here’s my new Flickr mobile app. It’s made to run on your Smartphone and grabs the six most current photos posted to Flickr within the last few seconds. You can access six more by clicking Next or moving back through previous sets by clicking Back.

I’ve implemented some cool swiping code into the app that allows you to navigate by swiping left and right. You can try it here with your mouse by positioning over the window, pressing down your left button and swiping to the left, which will load the next set. Swipe in the opposite direction to go back.

Click on any thumbnail to load up the twenty most recent photos for that user and click More, or swipe right, for the next twenty. You can click on any photo to view it in the window and click again to load the original Flickr photo…

I’ve done a few Flickr apps but this is the first one aimed at the mobile platform. You can run the app here!

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Categorized as Site Stuff

Around The Corner

Everyone around here is saying Spring is just around the corner! Unfortunately, I’ve lived here long enough to know that it’s an awfully big, wide corner :-)

I made Steph go out and work on our driveway today. I told her she wasn’t going to get any of those slow-cooked ribs I’m fixing up if she didn’t. She shovels, I cook!

Here she is giving the snow the finger…

Here she is posing…

I emptied out two water supply containers into the snow, for a refill…

…and our grass is under there somewhere.

SlideShow (Around The Corner)

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Categorized as House

Grandkids

I have a lot of grandkids, scattered all over the country. One of my older grand-daughters, Shelby, likes to keep in contact with as many as she can and here she is with four of them. I appreciate her passion for staying in touch with her siblings.

Too bad grandpa doesn’t do the same…

SlideShow (Grandkids)

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Categorized as Family

Armory Containers

There are three mysterious containers sitting in the back lot of our National Guard Armory and rumors are circulating like crazy as to their contents.

The most common theory is weapons, from handguns to rocket launchers, but no one knows if they’re here to protect us, or to attack us. The Armory needs to come clean!

Published
Categorized as The Valley

Cows

These poor cows reside next to a run down Mexican trailer park west of Victor. Most of the time I see them sitting on top of a big pile of hay which means they normally eat sleep and shit in the same spot.

It’s nice to see them eating from somewhere other than their bed and toilet.

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Categorized as The Valley

Prowling

Piper finally ventured out onto the deck today. She’s been on a massive sleepathon lately, from the purring I got while rubbing her butt in bed last night ;-) to the hunkering down on her blanket in my office for most of today.

This poor kitty just can’t wait for the white stuff to melt, she hates it. She will venture out occasionally to mark her scent, and then mosey towards the garage where she knows an entrance back into the house awaits.



Hang on girl, Spring is just around the corner…

SlideShow (Prowling)

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Categorized as Piper

SkyFall

Tonight was movie night. I was determined to watch the latest James Bond movie on my new flat-screen, with some good audio, so I did. It required a trip to Walmart for an inexpensive 5-1 home-theater setup, with a little tweaking to my off the grid TV setup, and everything worked perfectly!

I rented SkyFall in streaming HD from Amazon tonight for $5.99, played it through my Roku, and the experience was terrific. So what’s this photo have to do with anything? Nothing, just some evening IceFall from our roof onto the deck…

Published
Categorized as House

Piper At Door

Piper appeared at our door June 17, 2011. She has since integrated into our family of three, which was once two. If you look deep into her eyes you see a sense of knowing that she chose her new family well. Her presence here is magical…

Moral Decline

I had the day off today. Did the shopping, ran some errands and added a couple of functions to my Congress app. Just out of curiosity I checked the TV guide to see what I’ve been missing by being a working stiff…

There were the usual soap operas, cooking, and advice shows but I was struck by the number of shows that illustrate the general ignorance and moral decline of our country.

I’ve compiled a list of today’s morning crap content, which doesn’t even include NBC:

  • Maury – I’m 26, I’ll Prove This 74-Year-Old Is My Baby’s Dad!
    • A woman is accused of using an older man by claiming he’s her child’s father
    • A man signed a child’s birth certificate, but the mom declares he was never in a relationship with her
    • A man’s aunt believes his wife is sleeping around
  • Jerry Springer – Threesome with Two Sisters
    • A man wants to admit to his girlfriend, the mother of his kids, that he had a drunken threesome with two sisters
    • A man wants to propose to a woman that cheats and uses him for his money
    • A woman wants her husband to come back to her
  • Trisha Goddard – The DNA Test Will Prove My Brother is Not Your Baby’s Dad
    • A man’s sister convinced him that he wasn’t the father to his girlfriend’s baby and now he wants answers
    • An ex-husband and his mother believe that he may not be the father to his supposed 3-year-old daughter, DNA results shared
  • Jerry Springer – Baby Mama Beat Down
    • A boyfriend cheats with his girlfriend’s sister
    • A woman tells another woman to leave her boyfriend alone
    • A woman who fights with her boyfriend
  • Steve Wilkos – Are You Having an Affair?
    • A woman who has always suspected her boyfriend of cheating wants him to prove he has been faithful
    • After accusations of marital infidelity led to a divorce, cheating allegations once again threaten to end a couple’s mended relationship
  • Bill Cunningham – Fierce Fighting Women
    • Men who have had enough of their women’s violent behavior come to Bill before things get worse
  • Maury – Did My Fiance Cheat and Have A Baby with My Best Friend?
    • Dorella’s best friend Amanda admitted to sleeping with her fiance, and now Amanda is claiming that he may be the father of her son

I’m officially embarrassed to live here. Thank god Obama’s going to fix everything!

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Categorized as Various

Valentines Traditions

Steph and I have been together for a while now and have actually developed a few traditions over the years. Our Valentines Day celebration has two traditions.

Normally we go to whatever store is selling Valentines cards, pick out a nice one for each other, exchange them and then put them back on the shelf. This year we’re both working and don’t connect at the store too often so we (gasp!) actually bought cards!

The other tradition is lobster tails at home for dinner. This evenings lobster was accompanied by roasted salt ‘n’ vinegar baby potatoes with rosemary and thyme.


We finished it off with some fresh raspberry cheesecake…

SlideShow (Valentines Traditions)

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Categorized as House

Valentines Bouquet

I had the Broulim’s florist put together a bouquet for Steph today and I dropped it by her office a day early. Here it is textured and painted…

Published
Categorized as House, Paintings

Shhh

Don’t tell them I know where it is…

Hint: It’s a Google Map, zoom out, click [-] a few times, sheeeshhh Steph :-)

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Categorized as Various