THE EMPTY LAND

Aahh! I'm back in the high plains. Coming into Rick Husband Airport, at about 5,000 feet just after sunset, the emptiness of the plains glaringly announces itself. One sees the truly huge rectangles of cultivated land or the perfect giant circles of center pivot irrigated land marching in serried ranks to the horizon 90 miles away.

The local roads dividing the plots of land in all this vast panorama, are empty of traffic except for two cars in the far distance, who are driving towards me, their headlights illuminated. Along the roads, clusters of farm buildings and their attached farmhouses sparsely dot the landscape, little spots of habitation randomly scattered, miles from each other, on a checkerboard of browns and greens.

Viewed from 3000 feet up, the windmills, normally seen as giant towers of gleaming steel, look more like sticks of silver birch in a midwinter forest.

It is dark as we land and I can't see the cattle grazing in the fields or the lumbering diesels puffing streams of smoke as they haul their load of 150 or so containers on flatbeds across the treeless plains nor yet the oilfield jacks pumping their liquid gold from the depths of the earth.

That will have to wait until tomorrow.

Mayor Moron Update

Just to update you on the idiocy of New York's mayor.

First, he stops the donations of food to shelters because they don't meet the criteria of healthy food. FOR HOMELESS PEOPLE!!!!!

who have NOTHING to eat.

So, on principle, they have to starve instead of eating fatty and salty food, or they can get food that the city, which has no money, has to pay for.

Issue 2. They have no money because they spend, i think the number was 17 million on overtime for those crackpots living in the parks downtown. Instead of throwing them out after the first week, like he should have done.

So in order to get money, this cretin VETOES a bill that would have given a five minute grace period to drivers trying to put money on a muni meter, and ensure that a ticket for an upside down tag is dismissed if the appropriate time was paid for. His reasoning was as follows:

That a traffic enforcement cop would not give a ticket to someone who was at the meter trying to get it to work ( I have stood there for over 5 minutes trying to get my credit card to work sometimes). This presupposes that the traffic cops are not the laziest city employees on the planet, and cant be bothered to actually look, check to see if someone is attempting a transaction, and go over to them to ask which is their car. Trust me, its NEVER gonna happen.

Then they say they started writing the ticket, so the heck with you .

But his best logic? That people are going to pay for the meter AFTER they get the ticket, and avoid paying when they park, so the law is flawed.

This has got to be the STUPIDEST thing I have ever heard a government official claim, which is really saying something. Let's see, someone parks for an hour, and STANDS AROUND waiting for a traffic cop to write him a ticket, and THEN quickly, WITHIN 5 MINUTES goes and buys time. Does this make any sense??? The slim chance that someone will show up just when they are getting a ticket and game the system is the reason why the idiot vetoed the law.

Actually, it is just another way for him to tax the heck out of anyone in New York.

Until it is only him left. And a bicycle.

Yummy????

One of my sisters, known as GFM, who has been quoted quite often lately on these pages, has a rule about her car. No yogurt or herring may be eaten. I always wondered about this rule, until one of my kids started to eat a yogurt, and I almost passed out while driving from trying not to gag.

The herring rule makes more sense to me, although I was hoping never to have to actually put the rule to the test.

Well, I had the misfortune of being on the Monsey bus a while ago. I have seen all kinds of meals being eaten, but this morning was special. I generally put in earplugs when I take the bus so I am not disturbed by conversations or cell phones ringing when I try to sleep. I also cannot deal with the sounds of "shmecking". So i fortunately had in my earplugs when the gentleman next to me started rooting around in his bag,

First came out the orange, I can deal with that, so the delicious citrus aroma did not bother me a bit. After dispatching with that,however, he reached in to his bag and out came bowl with some semi liquid concoction that positively REEKED of fish. It appeared to become form of herring in a kind of sauce, which he attacked with much gusto.

I really wished for a pair of nose plugs at that point, thinking of GFM the entire time.

I'M BAAAACK

I FINALLY have blogger back where I can access it easily.

Therefore, my excuse for not writing is now gone.

I shall have to come up with another one, I guess.