Golden

Fixer Upper

Here's a link from a 200K brevet bike ride in Homer two weeks ago, enjoy...

Shadows & Light

3/15/2014.  I took this Saturday morning after we received around 18 inches of snow the previous night.

"More than three-quarters of Americans say the five-year bull market in U.S. stocks has had little or no effect on their financial well-being."
 

London Calling...

Arguably the westernmost phone booths in North America.  Taken at Dutch Harbor.

Owning A Home

= Never Ending Chores

A photo from a past project.  Presently, I've just finished remodeling our daughter's bedroom. Between work and work related travel.  On the plus side, it's off to Dutch Harbor today. I tried to get out last month but the weather wasn't cooperating. We should have better luck today. Though I'll be very busy, with luck, I can maybe get some good photos to post.

What Difference Does It Make?

Please take a moment to see what difference it does make....

Also from The Other McCain

The Chicago Way

Posted on | January 31, 2013 | 8 Comments and 10 Reactions

Her name was Hadiya Pendleton and she was only 15 years old:

The city’s 42nd slaying is part of Chicago’s bloodiest January in more than a decade, following on the heels of 2012, which ended with more than 500 homicides for the first time since 2008. . . .
About three blocks from Hadiya’s school, she and a group of 10-12 young people, including members of her volleyball team, had taken refuge under a canopy at a park to avoid the rain Tuesday afternoon. A man climbed a fence behind the park, ran at the group and started shooting, and then jumped back over the fence and into a white Nissan. The group scattered, but Hadiya was shot once in the back and a teenage boy was shot in the leg.
Police said Hadiya had no arrest record and there was no indication she was a member of a gang or was the gunman’s target. In fact, McCarthy said there are no indications that anyone in the group was gang-affiliated. He said the police suspect that the gunman may be a member of a gang that considers the park its turf and that he mistook somebody in the group as someone from an encroaching rival gang.

Chicago has very stringent gun laws. What Chicago doesn’t have is economic opportunity, honest government or enough law-abiding citizens to keep the peace, so that neighborhoods are effectively ruled by gangs like the Satan’s Disciples and the Latin Kings, who terrorize and intimidate residents. Witnesses will not testify against the gangsters, and the police — to the extent that Chicago police are not entirely corrupt — are unable to apprehend or effectively prosecute these criminals.
Hadiya Pendleton was murdered about a mile from the $1.6 million-dollar home that Obama purchased in a corrupt deal with Tony Rezko.
This is the future of corruption and criminality — “The Chicago Way” — that Obama is bringing to America as a matter of policy.

Finally, please check out this link of a 'legal' alien who became a naturalized citizen and his views on gun violence. 

Photo Friday Challenge

Constructed

Taken in Ohio during a recent trip back there.
I have no idea what these buildings were for.
Nor was I able to get inside as they were locked up tight.

Hope & Change

Hands!

It's that time of year again. This is West High's JV girls flag football team against Chugiak. The West girls lost this game 13-0. I apologize for the somewhat blurry photo, but I had the aperture set too small and consequently slowed the image capture down. Even at 1000 ISO. But I liked this photo, so here it is.

Breezy

Caption Contest!

Add your caption, win no prizes, get a good laugh!

2012 U19 Girls Rec. Champions

I did not take this photo.

I'm posting it on my blog though because I didn't have my camera when the girls won the Cook Inlet Soccer Club's 2012 U19 girls Rec. division championship.
They beat a team that had beaten them on three separate occasions during the season and was a heavy favorite to take their 3rd straight title.

The game ended in a 1-1 tie. A 10 minute extra period also ended tied. A five shot per team shoot off ended tied and we finally prevailed during a sudden death shoot out. I'm really proud of these girls for showing character and coming from behind to win.  Especially against a team that was actually more of a comp. team playing beneath their collective talents.

Great job ladies!

World Wide Webs

This is a rework of an unposted oldie, using Photomatix 4.
Taken wih my old point & shoot.

"The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings."
-Eric Hoffer

Light At The End Of The Tunnel (Revisited)

These days we not only have the 'light at the end of the tunnel,' but thanks to the wonders of modern technology, also light inside of the tunnel.

Further information regarding the "Fast and Furious" debacle, courtesy Jeff G. at  Protein Wisdom

Shit’s getting real.

In re: executive privilege, below is the full letter sent by Rep Issa to the President.  My favorite part:

During the June 19th meeting, the Attorney General stated he wanted to “buy peace.” He indicated a willingness to produce the “fair compilation” of post-February 4th documents. He told me that he would provide the “fair compilation” of documents on three conditions: (1) that I permanently cancel the contempt vote; (2) that I agree the Department was in full compliance with the Committee’s subpoenas, and; (3) that I accept the “fair compilation,” sight unseen.

As Chairman of the primary investigative Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, I considered the Attorney General’s conditions unacceptable, as would have my predecessors from both sides of the aisle. I simply requested that the Department produce the“fair compilation” in advance of the contempt vote, with the understanding that I would postpone the vote to allow the Committee to review the documents.

The short meeting in the Capitol lasted about twenty minutes. The Attorney General left the meeting and, shortly thereafter, sent an eight-page letter containing more than forty citations requesting that you assert executive privilege. The following morning, the Deputy Attorney General informed me that you had taken the extraordinary step of asserting the privilege that is designed to protect presidential decision making.

In his letter, the Attorney General stated that releasing the documents covered by the subpoena, some of which he offered to the Committee hours earlier, would have “significant, damaging consequences.”  It remains unclear how — in a matter of hours — the Attorney General moved from offering those documents in exchange for canceling the contempt vote and ending the congressional investigation to claiming that they are covered by executive privilege and that releasing them — which the Attorney General was prepared to do hours earlier — would now result in “significant, damaging consequences.”