The Time Sink

...and it's back to the grind after a well-used weekend! ...and it may be a bit of a hot one. Last week's 101 dropped to the mid eighties after Friday night's storm. ...but one source has us hitting 105 by later this week. That would be a bit much...

Then again, it is pool season. One of the reasons I managed to get so much done on Saturday was that I had the pool to dip into. Every time I got hot, I'd just jump in and drop my core temp by a few degrees <g>. That worked very well. ...and while the guys have been in for a few weeks, I haven't and I was surprised how cold it was. That first dip was quite a shock!

I finally took the time to look over the piles of stuff on my desk late Monday. ...and I came to the conclusion that I'm really only about one solid day away from catching up with it all. The sad thing thing was that after looking at my tasks in Outlook, that day appears to be some time in late fall!

Speaking of things that could take some time: Hey, Don Armstrong! Would you please follow-up on this one? I mean, I understand greenhouse gas emissions from livestock are important, but that headline did me in...

...and it's a DMV type of day in the neighborhood. Yepper, once more into the fray. Once more into the breech... Now wait. That last could be taken most incorrectly... I don't mean to say I'll be placed in the breech and fired off over the hills into the midst of the kangaroos! ...and I won't even go near 'breech birth'! ...and I do have pants on!

From: Don Armstrong
To: Dan Bowman
Phew!

Kangaroo is one of the leanest meats there is - and rabbit, and to an extent also venison. However, 'roo is about the best true red meat. Now, turns out they're all grass-fed (or at least herbage fed - I think there are a number of people in your neck of the woods who are about your age - or even as old as me - who are still largely grass-fed, no matter that the swinging sixties were over quite a while ago). I suspect some of them just haven't noticed yet.

Happens grass-fed beef is better for you than grain-fed feed-lot beef too. Lower in fat and cholesterol. Conversely, I'm sure you've noticed the effect of a nice greasy chile, beans and meat? Of course, the fact that Australia (and Argentina, I guess, but they've got hoof-and-mouth disease) is about the biggest source of commercial grass-fed meat, and my family plays their part in that, has nothing to do with my opinion.

Actually, I have to give due credit. I only spend about half my life with the Daynoters. The other half I spend on an "alternative lifestyle" group of forums which have just re-grouped as http://www.homesteadingtoday.com, and I had the value of grass-fed beef confirmed there.

However, when they speak in that article you referenced about a breakthough in methane generation by livestock, I do admit that I cringe fairly substantially. Heck, I've worked on commercial pig farms - I cringe VERY substantially. I'm REALLY not that enamoured of the thought of a methane breakthrough. Not that there's any problem with methane - it's just all those aldehydes and ketones and "aromatic hydrocarbons" and pyridines and purines that go along with it. But I'm also an ex-smoker: I can picture horrible things happening with livestock and a methane breakthrough.

Have a nice day now :-)
Don Armstrong

Thanks, Don!

The weather report, Central California version:

Afternoon temperatures bouncing around and finally over the century mark...

Ninety degrees at sundown...

Eighty degrees at midnight...

Seventy degrees at day break...

"At least it's a dry heat!" (local folk wisdom)

Friday... Yeah, you can read that with a <sigh>. ...a long drawn out one. Eight more hours (or less) in the corporate world and I can pack it in for the weekend. ...and in less time than that, the kids and Shelley will have packed in school for the year and be headed off to the first party of the summer. Whoohoo...

Janeen's been gone on vacation the last few days, so I guess I'd best get with some office cleaning. I wouldn't want her to come back to my tailings. I have a stack of DMV related stuff from the other day when the broker was here that needs to be tidied up. ...just in time for Tuesday's run!

...and the weather, which did hit 104 yesterday. is supposed to cool down into the nineties for the weekend. Hey, maybe I can actually get something else done outside since we don't have any school related activities or other things to attend. I could use a break. I promised a friend some pictures (actually two friends two different sets) and I'd like to try to get to them!

Oh, yeah... A post over here. Ummm... Let's see... School is out. It's been a lazy Saturday... Well, it had to be: we were awakened in the middle of the night by a kidlet with a splinter! Details here. Yeah, she's posting again! Whoohoo! Maybe more than once a week/month? Time will tell...

...and tired though I was, today's gone well. I managed to get the scanner working under Win2k (it had gotten lost in one of the rebuilds and never did work quite correctly. Today I reloaded things again; and when the OS couldn't find it, I pulled the scanner's power cord and cold started it. Yeah, I know, the instructions say to not do that, but this here's the land of coloring outside the lines. ...and it worked.

After I got back from blading, Brad and I spent an hour or two clearing out a dead tree/bush in the back. He got to use my Makita cordless reciprocating saw to cut the longer pieces down for the greenwaste container... That's one happy camper now...

...and the day is ending with the boys having a friend spend the night. Oh, joy. I tell you, summer is truly here.

Slowing down and gearing up... Slowing down from the fog of the last few months when planning anything seemed to be an uphill battle. Gearing up for the summer when some time off to do something different can actually be accomplished.

I quite deliberately haven't pushed this weekend, partly because we've had our sleep interrupted both nights and partly because I wanted to have a bit of a break between the two work weeks. ...and the weather has cooperated very nicely: the wind that came up Friday cooled the valley down both yesterday and today. I haven't even had to turn the air on today; I've just closed the house up during the peak heat and I'll open it again closer toward sundown...

...and how did the sleep over go? Well enough... I packed it in sometime after midnight; they'd been playing Nintendo and board games and had changed over to that series of Adam-12 tapes I made for Daniel a few years ago. I was betting they wouldn't make it past the first eight-hour tape. I was correct: when Shelley and I were awakened by the beeping of the lost cordless phone saying "feed me" at 0330, they were all out.