Rather Random

We might hit a milestone late today… EIP’s 100,000^th visitor. We’re at 99,941 as of 1038 hrs. Which, of course is significant only to YrHmblScrb. The Big Dogs get that much traffic every day; it’s taken us over three and half years to get this far. Still and even, I remain amazed we have any traffic at all… especially lately.

Thank you, Gentle Readers.

―:☺:―

So… I drug out the soapbox a couple of days ago and whined about folks who use Word Verification in their comments. True to form, karma rose up and bit me in the ass last night in the form of a spammer who dropped unintelligible character-based sex-site spam… “SEX” being the only readable word… in 44 separate posts. It took me about a half-hour to kill them all. By hand. Swearing all the while. But I won’t enable Word Verification unless the asshat revisits me.

You’re welcome.

―:☺:―

Oh-so-briefly: Here’s the requisite “something happened” mention… 31 years ago today. And I long for the day when this date becomes just another day in the life. Something tells me if it ain’t happened yet… it ain’t gonna happen. And they say most men don’t remember dates. (sigh)

―:☺:―

Today’s Pic: In keeping with the above, a random shot of The Second Mrs. Pennington and SN3 taken in Perinton, NY... July, 1998.

Unaccustomed As I Am...

... to holding VERY young children... I did. Proof:

That would be YrHmblScrb and great-granddaughter Mya, taken yesterday afternoon.

Here are the members of the SN1 family, less SN1 hisownself (who remained in South Carolina due to a previous committment with the Inspector General, in the form of an Operational Readiness Inspection [ORI]):

Left to right: grandaughters Natasha and Felicity (holding Mya), daughter-in-law Erma, and grandson Sean.

Erma and Co. are in P-Ville visiting Erma's Mom. They stopped by yesterday afternoon for a visit and a couple of beers. Well, Erma and I drank the beer; the others didn't. A good time was had by all none the less... Erma and I getting the best of the deal.

This Just In

“This” meaning me and “just in” meaning I’ve retreated into the air conditioned splendor of El Casa Móvil De Pennington after burning a cigar and partaking of two of New Belgium’s finest… a Mothership Wit and a 1554. We called Happy Hour early today in anticipation of record heat in these parts… which was billed by The Weather Channel as approaching 100 degrees. We’re not there yet… as of this writing... but we’re close enough for Gub’mint Work, to my way of thinking. To wit:
Or… Baby, it’s freaking HOT outside. While we didn’t break a sweat sitting out under the awning with our beer, we felt much like we were sitting inside a giant convection oven… awash as we were in HOT breezes. At any rate, I feel a nap coming on. Life is just SO danged hard, of late. Make of that what you will… I’m gonna sleep on it.

Kandahar In the Fall

If you perused EIP’s comments yesterday you may have seen this:

Got word last night it's official: Afghanistan in September. Secret's out BTW, so it's fair conversation when Erm comes 'round.

That would be SN1 speaking. Here’s a short lil vid of his new home come September:

The video is way old, having been shot in 2002… but this is Afghanistan, a place not known for rapid change, to put it mildly. Things are different on the base, of course:

Looks like Big Fun, don’t it?

―:☺:―

So… while doing the research for the lil blurb above, I came across this:

Note the ad on the right. Maybe I can get Buck to do some “on the ground” interviews and put in a good word for me. She's a cutie... but they always are, in the ads.

Clouds

The title kinda makes one think of a Joni Mitchell song, but that's not what we're on about, Gentle Reader. Nope... we're just in from Happy Hour and we had ourselves a grand ol' time watching our favorite brand o' cloud scud across the bright New Mexico sky whilst enjoying a couple of New Belgium's finest. To wit:

Yup. Big Ol' puffy cumulus clouds, viewed from the same angle as this morning's sunrise pics in the post just below. And these same clouds make intriguing images when viewed in reflection of the Green Hornet's still (sorta) immaculate paint. Again, the images:

The first pic is just to give you some perspective, the other two are rather interesting abstract sort of images. Which just goes to prove that I'm easily amused, if nothing else.

Now that we've done that... we should probably end where we began... with Joni.


I LOVE this woman.

A Few Minutes Ago...

... as opposed to "right now." In sequential order, top to bottom...

This is the first time in a long time I've caught the sunrise... but there's a method to my madness. We have to run over to The Big(ger) City^TM for to do some errands, and we wanna do it early. Why? Coz of this:

And it ain't even summer yet. It's gonna be humid, too... we had more t-storms roll through the area early this morning and it's wet outside. But it sure does SMELL great!

Coffee's ready... want a cup?

Right Now

Well, sorta... the pics were taken about 45 minutes ago. Above is the little ranchito that sits just behind Beautiful La Hacienda Trailer Park. I don't think there's a pot o' gold in there, but I know there are four or five peafowl on the premises... and I also know they are noisy suckers. But we digress, as is our habit.

We had a pretty good thunderstorm roll through P-Ville this afternoon and I took a walk outside after it passed. A walk immediately following the rain is a Good Thing anywhere and everywhere, but it's particularly pleasing here on The High Plains of New Mexico given the hot, arid nature of our climate (read as: desert, kinda-sorta). The air is just so clean and sweet-smelling it's incredible, which is a "you hadda be there" kinda thing... most literally. I also played around with the camera a little bit, and here's one such snap:

The foliage on the ornamental cherry tree that stands just outside my door. It ain't only the blossoms that makes this tree distinctive... its foliage is quite interesting, as well.

As always, click for larger. And you just might be viewing tomorrow's post, today. I've been pretty lazy lately.