Since 2009, the retirement home of Shot On Site Photography... the source of the finest sighthound performance images in the world. As of August 1, 2022, the blog will become much more photo-centric. Not only will I post images from the homestead in the foothills of the Little Florida Mountains, and surrounding environs, but also tips about shooting, editing, archiving, software, hardware and more. The political rants will become few and far between (but not eliminated! It is 2022 after all!)
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Brother Patrick Explains it all for You!
Thanks to Pat Burns the Terrierman, I can point you to an explanation that will make it all clear... especially for our fellow dog friends. Prepare to be severely pissed.
But don't worry.. according the the alleged President this morning, wrongdoers are going to be "persecuted" . (That mean they'll have dollar signs burned on their lawns? Heckled at the workplace? Sugar in the gas tanks of their Escalades?)
RTWT.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Wet.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Moron Report.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
More McSame...
Wasn't this campaign going to be, uh, different? Tell 'em you're sick of it.
As the final frame says.. "Psst. Do Something."
Monday, September 08, 2008
The Real Original Mavericks.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Nobody Does it Like Jon...
There are straight, academic places online where you can get the straight scoop. The best of these is Annenberg's FactCheck.Org which analyzes political ads and campaign statements for accuracy and context, regardless of political party. I check it out every time I see an ad that raises my blood pressure.
But I enjoy laughter and humor with my political exposés, and for that, there's only one place to go, (and all the great HBO and Showtime programming aside, the real reason I want satellite TV in the Express), and that's The Daily Show:
This segment is being hailed, on FARK, as the best Daily Show segment... ever. Pushes all of my (political) buttons.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
Help Us Spike!
Besides.. we have bigger problems now than some old K&N filter with too much oil on it.
We travelled 235 miles today, to roughly 25 miles west of Needles, California. We were into our second climbing stage out of the Colorado River basin when there was a loud noise, and it only took a second to realize that while the engine was still running, we didn't have any power steering. Cataclysmic destruction of the serpentine belt.
So, here we're parked, behind the Colorado River Cheverolet Dealership in Needles, waiting for them to open in the morning, so we can get the damn belt replaced, and not miss more than two deerhound events.. (LGRA, ASFA Lure Coursing).
You know you've heard of Needles if you watch your local weathercasts: "And the hottest place in the nation again was Needles, CA at 107 degrees". Fortunately, we'll be gone before Wednesday, when it will get really hot.
Oh.. and gas here? $4.99/gal. Yeah.. we could live here. It's hot... but it's a dry heat.
*****
Talk about a vertical profile! That trip down Oak Creek Canyon was nothing. In 4 hours today, we went from around 7000', cool-ish temps, at Flagstaff, to the California border at the Colorado River: 326' and 102 degrees. A shock to the system.
*****
And who is this "Spike"? You know. Click on the title.
*****
Decent little Chinese place here.... right up on the corner. Dinner specials packaged like lunch specials, including rice, soup, and soft noodles. Hmmm, noodles in Needles.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Stuck in Flagstaff, Mile 1852.
We had to pull off on the shoulder, where it finally died. We waited a couple of minutes, and on the second attempt it started right up. It was flooding for some reason. Back on the highway, we made it another 10 miles before it did it again.
We called our road service and got the phone number for a service center in Flagstaff. We had two more "episodes" before we finally made it to the Flagstaff RV Service Center.
The problem: It was a Friday afternoon, they closed at 5:30, there were 3 rigs in front of us... and they're not open Saturday. About 5:30 they at least got in to check the fuel pressure- good. Problem is not yet another fuel pump. Filter was clear, no blockages. Code reader showed a couple of sensors having problems that could conceivably be sucking the power down. All that pollution equipment that wasn't in vehicles when I was a kid!
Time was up. We found "Black Bart's RV Park, Steakhouse, Music Hall with Singing Waiters". Holy Cow! We didn't eat there, as the menu was way overpriced, and the parking lot was packed to the rafters, so to speak. Instead, we found yet another great Mexican restaurant... Salsa Brava. It was a "pork night". I had the Adovada Combo, and Margaret had the Carnitas Combo. It was good, good, good! The pineapple-habanero salsa was delicious, but not nearly as hot as advertised. My only disappointment of the night.
Since we're stuck here for the weekend, and going to miss the small Scottish Deerhound LGRA (8 entries) on Monday morning, we decided to "make lemonade". Today we're going to Sedona... gonna get our auras and chi adjusted to some new age brain-mush music or something. Or maybe we'll just go see the Red Rocks. Stand by.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Land of Enchantment.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Walkin' the Dog.
Who is That Guy?
...supposedly this is John McCain. Does he look like this guy?
Now that looks like McCain.. (doing his best Pete Coors- well known right wing Nazi- impersonation; love the way the pocket flaps wave in the breeze!). Could it be that the first image has been manipulated to make him appear more... oh, I don't know... younger? Presidential? ...instead of like the old guy in your neighborhood who stands in the yard in his bathrobe, shaking his fist at all the cars, and yelling at them to "slow down!.. whippersnappers!" Hey, it works for all the fashion magazines.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
I Did It.... Again!
Today's missed opportunity: Baby turkeys.
Reconsidered taking the camera when I walked Sandia, and I was still close enough to go back for it, but decided, "nah.. won't see anything today". I had even taken a few steps back toward the Express. Sigh.
Out of the brush and onto the trail they came... singly, and occasionally in pairs. About 5 inches tall. Not sure how old that would make them, but they could fly! Once they realized there was a large human- with a dog- not 15 feet away, they took to the trees. They fly better than adults, who wandered slowly off in the opposite direction. I think we were meant to follow.
What next? Waiting for our first Bobcat!
Oh yeah... I did pick up at least one tick. Penance.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Not So Cold.
Monday, June 09, 2008
Home Again, Jiggety-Jog...
Prompting our stop was I-68 itself. Mountains. If this trip taught us anything, it's that the Express needs a new radiator. We boiled the coolant once between Wheeling and the campground (which was just past Cumberland). We figured to let it rest overnight for the remaining climbs before the descent into Virginia.
We were only about 125 miles from the site of the ASFA II now, and we got an early start to take advantage of the cool morning. We were halfway up our second climb of the morning, the transmission had dropped to 2nd, and our speed to 30mph when there was a loud "BANG!!", followed by a rhythmic "bang-bang-bang-bang...." etc. Margaret, believing I am all-knowing said "What was that?". Proving I knew a little something, I replied, "Uh, nothing good". We kept climbing, the temp didn't rise, and other than the noise we kept rolling until we could get to an exit.
Being prescient, we had decided to finally renew our RV road service plan about 5 days earlier, (it had expired last November). Fortunately, there was cellular service at this particular remote exit, so I called them up and told them what had transpired: After getting out I went around to the driver's side where the noise was the loudest, got down, and was hit square in the face with pulsing hot air mixed with oil. It was coming from the back cylinder, where the spark plug used to reside. Half of it was hanging uselessly from the wire, while the rest was still in the cylinder head. It just decided to blow up. Inspecting the remaining pieces, it appeared it had worked itself loose over the months since we'd had the plugs replaced last August.
Had we been in a normal part of the country, where roads are flat, we could have driven it, but the road service determined this..
...was the wisest option. We'll try to post some video in the future to show why I couldn't disagree. And they were paying anyway.
But the fun was only beginning! The tow truck company was located up in Pennsylvania, about 45 miles away. The road service folks, in their infinite wisdom, tucked away from the realities of the world somewhere out in Phoenix,
decided "Bill's Auto & Truck" in Hedgesville, West Virginia was the place to go. "They're only 17 miles from where you are now", the road service tech told me. Not even as the crow flies was it that close! 60-some miles later, we were parked on a rural two-lane, at the foot of the steepest driveway I've ever seen. It was 20 degrees if it was 1. I drove the car up to the garage, where a hand-written sign on the window proclaimed, "Closed today for doctor visit. Sorry for the inconvenience".
This was more than a little confusing, as the road service people had talked to "Bill", and so had I. He was expecting us. I wanted to call him and find out WTF? what was going on. But there was no cell service. Big surprise.. look up Hedgesville, WV on a map sometime... the garage is up in the hills, 5 miles west of the town. I returned to the wrecker driver who stated the obvious: he couldn't pull the RV up that driveway.. and he couldn't turn around with the Express attached.
I kept trying my phone, and finally found that if I stood up on a stone block next to the driveway, and held my head perfectly still, facing in a northwesterly direction, I could manage 2 bars! First I called the road service folks and told them, as civilly as I could manage, that this was bullshit. If the truck had towed us up to PA to his garage, we'd be back on the road already. Next I actually got hold of "Bill", who told us about an alternative driveway, (not unlike an alternate universe) right next to the steep one. It's actually a "road" which showed up on my map program. We explored it, and I wasn't crazy about its possibilities either.
At this point, the tow driver said he had to go. So there the Express was left, on the side of the road, in the hopes that Mr. Bill would arrive soon.
Margaret drove off towards Hedgesville to do business at the post office, get gas in the car, which was nearly empty, and to try and get a better signal with which to speak to Bill, the mystery mechanic.
About a half hour after the tow truck left, Bill arrived in his vintage Ford Escort.. (popular item.. his neighbor was driving one as well!). Here is where things speed up; finally! Bill decided he could do the work right on the roadside as long as I turned the rig around so his legs wouldn't hang out on the road. He didn't have the right plug, or wire, and couldn't find one locally, but he had acceptable substitutes, which he magically modified. We fired that sucker up, as Charlie Daniels would say, and I swear it sounded better than it did before the explosion. The bill was $40. The tow was covered. We were on the road by 3:30, and got to Morven Park in Leesburg, VA way before dark!
It's now more than ten days later, we're back at the Holiday RV Park in Michigan, with the II and the Saluki National Specialty under our belts, and nowhere to go for over three weeks, and frankly, we can use the rest.
We'll post some pictures from the II and such in subsequent posts.. Meanwhile, I'll be searching the internet for a suitable radiator... it's got to be installed before we make the brutal drive to Lompoc, CA in July!
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Desperate Times.
Looks like our votes won't end the primaries with a (technically) clear winner, but, hopefully the nonsense will end and the senator from New York does the right thing.. what she should have done the minute she realized she couldn't catch Obama.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
The Problem With Google Ads.
The downside is that I have no control... zero... zilch... over the ads that show up. So what's up there now? Some total right wing bilge about a certain presidential candidate (a word these dipshits can't even spell) I wrote about the other day. They rotate regularly, so it may not be there every time you look, and eventually it will disappear as I write on other interesting subjects. Anyway, it's pretty despicable crap, so I might as well get some money out of them! Click away... make 'em pay.
Thanks.
Global What?
Only the most rigid, and inflexible are in denial over the concept. I spoke with one at the trial last weekend.. an old friend, and way too set in his ways. When the first drowned polar bear washes up on his Indiana lawn, he may begin to see things differently.
Normal people on all sides of the political spectrum now agree that the climate is changing; the argument is over whether we, as a species, are the cause.
We've already had more tornados this year than we normally have in a full season.. including big ones in the middle of winter. Alaska has had it's first deaths- ever- from yellowjacket wasp stings. I've seen dead armadillos as far north as central Missouri, on I44.
So with all this evidence of so-called "Global Warming"...
...Why the hell does it feel like early April in Michigan... at the end of freakin' May? (Don't answer that, it was a rhetorical question). It was 39 degrees when I got up yesterday, and the wind blew strong out of the northwest. I had to wear my coat all day. This morning was no better.. 41 when I took the dogs out.
The weekend promises to actually be like late Spring, rather than late Winter. We're going to bail on the trial we had scheduled, to move out a bunch of the things we have in storage. Then maybe we'll have a picnic... if picnic weather happens.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
And She Does Even Better With White Men Who Married Their Sisters.
Exit polls in Kentucky today, and in West Virginia last week show Barack Obama has problems getting support from white, redneck Jethros. This is news?
Lessee... dirt farmers below the Mason-Dixon line can't bring themselves to vote for a"Exit polls showed Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, again had
difficulty with white working-class voters in Kentucky. Clinton won more than 70
percent of white voters, and three-quarters of those who did not finish
college.
About 20 percent said race played a factor in their vote -- similar
to the percentage last week in West Virginia, where Clinton trounced Obama."
I'm glad Senator Clinton is proud to claim the same supporters as Lester Maddox, George Wallace, and David Duke. She's changing her name to Hillary June.
Ah.. the beauty of blogging; you can write whatever you want.... with impunity!
Returning now to normal programming.....