Horny ?

Project 365

02/25/2010

Oh yea, I knew you would look at this one!  I headed for Nogales today for work and spotted the horns on this building from the intersate.  On the way back to the office, I pulled off at the Arivaipa exit to get a closer look.  I must have looked a little suspicious when I pulled over across the street and then backed up to get a clear view, because a border patrol agent pulled up right behind me.  I figured I could get my picture while he ran my plates so I continued what I was doing.  I think he saw the camera and figured I was harmless because he left without ever talking with me. 

Once I saw the front of the builing, I suddenly remembered being here before.  My brother and I had passed here on a little jeeping excursion we took back in the late 80's or early 90's.

Coronary Failure

Project 365

02/24/2010

I was just getting off work when the girls called to tell me I was on my own for supper.  I of course ran by Lukes for a quick heart attack in a plain brown bag.  Man, I sure do love an Italian Sausage with cheese and peppers "hot", and an order of rings.

Going Nowhere Fast

Project 365

02/23/2010

Do you ever feel like you're not getting anywhere in life?  I get a little depressed sometimes thinking about a job I don't like and wonder if I'm getting ahead or if I'm just stagnant.  Then I look at my daughter and the person she is growing up to be, and figure there is something to show for it after all.  I guess I'm not a half bad Dad.

Toasty

Project 365

02/22/2010

I'm thinkin' we need to hose out the toaster, but I'm told that might have other problems attached to it.  It sure needs something. 

Fallen Hero

Project 365

02/21/2010

This is one of the signs that the Pima County Sherrif's department has erected at the locations were officers have been killed in the line of duty.  I have several geocaches at locations like this one commemorating the sacrifice these officers have made.  This is a brand new sign since the one that used to be across the street had been run over.

Precipitation

Project 365

02/20/2010

Tucson is getting some more rain today.  We sure can use it.

Where do they find purple birds?

Project 365

02/19/2010

Collared Peccary

Project 365

02/18/2010

The story behind this skull falls right in with the Ruger Redhawk in the earlier post. This is one of those great shot stories I had mentioned.

A friend of mine and I went out to the Winchester Mountains to hunt javalina during the HAM hunt. They call it the HAM hunt, not because you are hunting javalina, but because the only weapons allowed are Hanguns, Archery & Muzzleloaders. Anyway, we had gotten camp set up mid morning and went out to hunt the rest of the day. After a few hours my buddy convinced me to go back to camp. After an early supper I was very restless. I wasn’t used to that kind of hunting. We are always out on the hunt well before sun up, possibly returning to camp for lunch, then heading back out to return to camp only after dark. Since the sun was still up after we ate, I couldn’t stand sitting around so I went for a hike up N-O canyon and some of the side ravines. About a mile away from camp I heard a couple of dirt bikes coming fast up the nearby road. They stopped adjacent to me and the two guys jumped of and hurried right past me up into a side ravine. The second guy slowed just long enough to say high and that they had seen a herd of javalina come into this side ravine from the other side of the ridge. I didn’t want to interfere with their hunt so I just stood at the mouth of the ravine to see what happened. They both climbed up the same side of the wash and stuck together. I thought this was a mistake on their part since if they had gone on opposite sides, they could have watched out in front of each other a greater distance. Well, after a few minutes they jumped the herd and took a shot which sent the whole bunch of them running down the wash right at ME. I pulled the Redhawk and watched as they kept coming. When they were about 30 yards away I cocked the hammer and they all came to a dead stop! They had actually heard that, at a dead run. I stood still, keeping aim at the leader since he was closest. I didn’t have the greatest shot since they were all facing me. For non hunters, it is best to have a broadside or quartering away shot since it is easier to hit the vital organs that way. Well, those half blind little guys never saw me as a threat and were more scared of what was behind them so they took off at a run again. They went down into the wash that separated us and I could see that they would come up my side about twenty feet away. As soon as the leader was broadside to me on my side of the wash, I took the shot. I swear that guy doubled his speed. Not believing I had missed such an easy shot, I was dazed for a second. I fired several more times as he ran past me and each time I couldn’t figure out how in the hell I was missing him. A second later and he was gone, out of sight, along with the rest of the herd. I only had to track them a few yards into the brush before finding him lying dead. Once I had a chance to check him out closer, I found five bullet holes in him all within about a six inch pattern. I opened the cylinder on the redhawk and there was one live shell left. I had hit the running javalina with every shot including the first one. Once again, instinct and practice paid off. All of them had been fatal shots but that javalina refused to go down. I cleaned him, then slung him over my shoulders and carried him back to camp. I still get a kick out of the look on my buddies face when I carried him in. Only then was he sorry that he hadn’t come along.

Took it in to Willcox Meats the next day and they made some great chorizo out of him for me.

Almost Late

Project 365

02/17/2010

I almost didn't get a picture this day.  I had fallen asleep in my recliner and barely woke up before midnight.  On the way to bed, I remembered that I hadn't taken any pictures during the day.  This is all I could come up with.

Happy Anniversary

Project 365

02/16/2010

Today was our anniversary so we went out for sushi.  If you haven't tried it, the Sushi Garden on Alvernon North of Broadway is in my opinion the best place in town.  Here we have the calamri in the foreground, and the Banzai roll behind.  In the next picture there is squid on the left and octopus on the right.  This was just a part of our meal.  We normally get the all you can eat, and I certainly get my money's worth.  This was a few hours ago and I am still stuffed to the gills.

Missed Me!

Project 365

02/15/2010

This is the speed camera I go through twice a day, to and from work.  It works really well!!  for the 100 yards approaching it, and 10 yards beyond it, nobody speeds.  I think there is a cache around here somewhere too.  That 110 yard stretch of road is safe from the speed deamons.  Buah ha ha ha.....

Now get outa my way, I've got places to go. 

Maintenance Day

Project 365

02/14/2010

I got out of the house to do a little cache maintenance today.  I only got to three of the seven that need attention but I tried at least.  Still, I put over 45 miles on the car just doing these.  This one was reported missing and they felt I should check it out.  As I thought, it is right where it is supposed to be.  I'm sure I am guilty of the same thing.  I find so many caches on the ground, that sometimes I forget to look up.  It doesn't help that the coordinates are only 15ft from a guardrail and I think people give up after not finding there.

I had thought of extending the fallen heroes series of caches but I'm having trouble keeping up with the forty caches I already have.  I think I will wait

http://www.geocaching.com/

Fossil

Project 365

02/13/2010

I followed my girls around the gem show today.  I liked the fossils and minerals the best, where the girls were more interested in the gems and jewelery.  I guess that shouldn't be of any surprise. We ended up getting out of there pretty cheap.  It helped that every time I found something I wanted to buy, I asked myself what I was going to do with it once I got it home.  In every case I figured the object in question would end up just being a dust collector.  I'm not sure how the girls kept from buying to much stuff as it sure looked like they were interested in a bunch of it.

Pyrite Pyramids

Power Trip

Project 365

02/12/2010

On the way home I decided to get some pictures of the power plant.  I was a little irritated when I realized the sun would be behind the plant from where I wanted to shoot.  Then I decided to take the picture with the sun as a part of it.  I've never taken a picture directly into the sun with a digital camera so was curious to see the outcome.  Well, this is it.  And I kind of like the affect.  Kind of fitting too.  A shot with both man's power plant and God's power plant all in one.

Hanging Cups

Project 365

02/11/2010

B&W

Project 365

02/10/2010

Black and white was the only choice for this picture.  They had painted this car one of the ugliest colors I've seen in a long time. 

Faithful Friend

Project 365

02/09/2010

I now it might be a little odd to some of you who don't own guns, and possibly to some who do, but I do consider this gun to be an old friend.  I've had this one since the mid 80's and is the oldest gun I own.  There are other guns in the safe, but this is still my favorite.  It is a Ruger Redhawk in 44 Remington Magnum with seven and a half inch barrel.  The size of this thing actually makes it inconvenient to carry on a daily basis, so the Glock gets out of the house more.  Still, every time I handle the Ruger, good memories of camping and hunting trips come to visit.  Some of the best shots I've ever made have been with this gun.

One instance in particular happened while my brother and I were scouting for an upcoming Javelina hunt.  We had just left camp and were climbing the side of a hill with him in the lead.  Suddenly, he just started backing quickly back down.  I was right behind him so had to step to the side to keep from being knocked over.  As soon as he was beside me I could see there was a good sized rattler right in front of us.  With the steepness of the hill, he was at about eye level.  A second after I saw him, his head was missing and I realized I had my gun in my hand.  I probably could have never made that shot if I had tried to, but instinct took care of the hard work on that one.

We got lost later that night on the way back to camp, but that is another story.  Let's just say the stronger personality will win out every time.

Don't worry, using the screen on the camera I was able to get this shot without pointing the gun at myself. 

Words & Office Critters

Project 365

02/08/2010

One of our vendors came to visit us today and handed out these cute little office critters made out of sea shells.  This is the one I brought home for Krystal.

Project 365

02/07/2010

We had a pretty lazy day around the house on Sunday.  One of the evenings activities was playing "Words with Friends", which is essencially scrabble for the iPhone.  It can also be played on the iPod Touch which gives us the ability.  What is great, is that you can play against anyone with these devices around the country.

Home Sweet Home

02/06/2010

Krystal made it home safe and sound last night from her class trip.  As it turned out, they even got back into town about an hour early so we didn't have to wait until midnight to pick her up.  She had a great time from the sounds of it.  I almost didn't get a project 365 picture yesterday because I was waiting to get a shot of her return.  Then the camera batteries were dead when I tried to use it at the school.  I was able to get this picture with about 20 minutes to spare once we arrived home.

Spare Change

02/05/2010

Remember the days when we used to find canadian coins passed off in our change?  This neat coin was passed off as a quarter at work today.  It's pretty cool, from the United Arab Emirates.  We have no idea what the words say, but they are interesting.  The denomination is even a mystery.  Unfortunately, the guy who took it in also wanted to keep it so I wasn't able to add it to the collection.

Bare Naked

02/04/2010

I had to go up to Arizona City for training on the installation of an anti-terrorism valve in fire hydrants.  I got some pictures of that, but they were kind of boring and they would rather not have photos of it all over the net anyway.  Passing through Eloy on the way home, I saw that the orchards were bare and thought they might be an interesting subject for today's picture.  As you can tell, I've really started to like the sepia mode on the camera.  I took some in black and white and color also, but I really like the way this turned out.

Name Challenged

02/03/2010

Does anyone else have a problem putting names to faces?  It's pretty bad that whenever someone adds me as a friend on Facebook, that I have to go dig out a year book to see what they used to look like.  Then it's OOhhhh.  I know you!!  I know, I'm a bad person.  It doesn't help that I haven't seen anyone from either high school in twenty six years. 

Free Market Capitalist

I downloaded an application for my iPod called “Political GPS”. It asks a series of questions then plots you on a graph depending on your political leanings. That little green dot that is trying to break it’s way out of the right side of the graph is me. I can’t say that I can disagree with it either. It did say that I am more of a Libertarian than a Republican and described me as a free market capitalist. Okay, so I believe that it is the national government’s responsibility to protect us from foreign aggressors, and pretty much stay the hell out of our lives otherwise. America is one of the greatest countries ever to exist, and it wasn’t welfare and social equality programs that made it that way. It was individuals working hard to provide for their families and trying to always improve that made this country great. I’m sorry if there are deadbeats who don’t want to work but damn it, I’m working hard to support my family! I don’t need to pay extra taxes to support theirs because they think they should be equal to me. Guess what, that guy who is smarter than me, and works harder, should get paid more money than me. I don’t feel entitled to any of the cash in his wallet just because he drives a better car than me. If an executive is making over six figures a year, well he obviously did something to deserve it. He brings enough value to his company do demand that salary. If he didn’t, he would be replaced. I’m tired of people complaining because of companies making huge profits. We are all in this to make a profit. I go to work and perform a job. I get a paycheck for that. That paycheck, minus what my time is worth to me, and the cost of getting to work and back, is my profit. If companies are limited in their profits, then their quality and output will also be limited. And that will be the downfall of our economy. The one that always makes me laugh is when some politician gripes about the huge profits oil companies make on fuel. All the while, the government is taking a larger percentage of the cost of that gallon of gas in taxes than the oil company is taking in profit. And the government didn’t have to take any capitol risk in exploration, drilling or refining. They leave all the risk right on the shoulders of the oil companies and reap their rewards afterwards. We shouldn’t be throwing tea parties to show our displeasure, we should be throwing gasoline parties

Whoa, enough rambling.  I’ll jump right down from my soap box now...........................

End of an Era

02/02/2010

I was very disappointed when the DeAnza Drive In was closed down for good.  My family still enjoyed going on occasion.  As a matter of fact, up until they installed the fat man seats in the theaters, I was most comfortable at the drive in.  There is nothing quite like sitting comfortably in your vehicle while enjoying a movie with the family.  You also never had to worry about disturbing others with the of hand comment or two.  Whenever we would go, it would always bring back memories of childhood in Alamagordo, and preparing for the drive in.  Mom would pop popcorn, and then right before we left, we would go out in the front yard, cover our faces with our hands and get sprayed head to toe with Off repellant!  I always thought that stuff was going to kill me, not the mosquitoes it was supposed to.  If memory serves, we would always be dressed in our pajamas also, so Dad could carry us straight to bed when we got home.  We would of course fall asleep during the movie.  RIP DeAnza!

Gotcha

02/01/2010

This little guy was fast, but I caught him long enough for a picture.