Just A Brief Note

     

Tucson Weather Today

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Wednesday night was filled with the wails and moans of winds from the East, and then that same wind most of the day on Thursday carried hordes of mini- leaves, twigs, and small seedlings onto the surface of the swimming pool where they congregated in slowly drifting groups around and around until I managed to skim them up and deposit them outside the fence. It seems that today that wind has become nothing more than an occasional wafting, mild breeze. And the temperature is forecast to be in the 70's for the rest of the week.

On the 15th (Thursday) I mixed Eva's monthly dose of worm medicine in with her breakfast and then watched her throughout the day. Aside from a seeming sluggishness in the morning I noticed no other harmful effects... no retching no yakking nor other signs of discomfort.

Eva's a good girl.

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This Is Who I Am

   

Today Is LAW DAY

    

 

 

Tucson Weather Today

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We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.
--Ronald Reagan

How many laws are there in the United States? Good question, and the best answer I have found is "It is not possible to answer that question since there are thousands of Federal laws, which are constantly being changed/added to, as well as state and community laws that each state and community makes."

So, the answer, it seems, is: NO ONE KNOWS THE EXACT NUMBER..

Not that it matters.

As every American knows, laws are made to be broken.

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The wind late yesterday was fierce. Standing out there by the pool and looking to the North one could barely see the Catalina Mountains because of all the flying dust. And the howling wind overnight woke me up several times, with the house creaking and the windows rattling, etc.

Below is what I saw when I went out at 5:30 this morning. (Click the pic for full size view)

 

Aftereffect Of The Wind Blowing

Foliage Onto The Pool's Surface

 

Tucson, AZ   May 1, 2014

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Yesterday I reported on the progress of a pair of woodpeckers in their intention to build a nest, over Eva's vociferous objections.

Note: The definition of vociferous is: vehement or clamorous.

I managed to snap a few shots of those admirable woodpeckers that are constructing a nest in a hole near the top of a saguaro cactus out in the back yard, a few feet west of the pool deck.

 

Male Woodpecker Giving Twig

Or Bit Of Fluff To The Female

 

Tucson, AZ   May 1, 2014

 

 

Result Of Eva Barking At The Base Of The Saguaro

 

Tucson, AZ   May 1, 2014

 

 

Off To Find More Building Material For The Nest

 

Tucson, AZ   May 1, 2014

By the way, these birds had a nest in the same spot last year. When we listened closely we could hear the cheeping of the youngsters in the nest inside the hole.

Eva, Responding To My Shout Of,
"EVA, Leave Those Birds Alone!"

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Did You Know . . .?

There are cults in the South Pacific that believe if they paint USA on their chest and make wooded guns, that God will rain cargo from the skies.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 1958, President Eisenhower proclaimed Law Day to honor the role of law in the creation of the United States of America. Three years later, Congress followed suit by passing a joint resolution establishing May 1 as Law Day. The American Bar Association defines Law Day as: "A national day set aside to celebrate the rule of law.

Law Day celebrates the legal construct for the determination of rights that the revolutionary leaders of the 1770s, hoping to prevent the sort of class warfare that went on to rack Europe from 1789 to 1917, were so eager to create.

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WORD FOR TODAY

jurisprudence
noun
1.  the science or philosophy of law
2.  a system or body of law
3.  a branch of law: medical jurisprudence

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

 

Ezekial Dann Florek
(born May 1, 1950)

Dann Florek is an American actor and director. He is best known for his role as Donald Cragen on NBC's Law & Order and its spinoff Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Julie M. Benz
(born May 1, 1972)

Julie Benz is an American actress, known for her roles as Darla on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel (1997–2004) and Rita Bennett on Dexter (2006–2010).

James "Jamie" Dornan
(born May 1, 1982)

Jamie Dornan is a Northern Irish actor, model and musician. He played Axel von Fersen in Sofia Coppola's film Marie Antoinette, Sheriff Graham Humbert in the ABC series Once Upon a Time and serial killer Paul Spector in the BBC Two crime drama series The Fall. He is set to portray the titular character of Christian Grey in the feature film adaptation of the best-selling novel Fifty Shades of Grey.

Joanna Lamond Lumley
(born 1 May 1946)

 Joanna Lumley is an English actress and author who starred in the British television series Absolutely Fabulous as well as in The New Avengers, Sapphire & Steel, Jam & Jerusalem and Sensitive Skin. In film she has appeared in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Trail of the Pink Panther (1982) and James and the Giant Peach (1996). She later appeared in Maybe Baby (2000), Ella Enchanted (2004) and Corpse Bride (2005). She appeared alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in the Martin Scorsese crime drama, The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).

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Where you find the laws most numerous, there you will find also the greatest injustice.
--Arcesilaus

NASA TV

This Is Who I Am

    

Out Here In The Desert

    



The above photo was taken from the pool deck in the early morning a few miles east of the Tucson City Limits at 6 A.M. Tucson Time, May 3, 2013.

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Tucson Weather Today

 

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The wind has been blowing hard for two days now, with gusts as high as 40 mph according to the TV weather forecasters. The surface of the pool at times is nearly covered by the blown leaves from nearby trees. Even though I have been skimming the pool it seems hopeless. More leaves just blow back in.

The mountain top pictured above was nearly invisible for a while when the blowing dust was at its strongest. The TV crews were saying that most of the dust in the air had blown in from New Mexico.

How about that?

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FRIVOLOUS FACTOID

On this day, May 3 in 1961, President John F. Kennedy received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from George Washington University, the same institution from which his wife, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, graduated in 1951 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. (Prior to attending George Washington, Jackie studied at Vassar College and, thorough a Smith College exchange program, at the Sorbonne.) In his acceptance speech he quipped, "my wife beat me to this honor by about 8 or 9 years. It took her 2 years to get this degree and it took me 2 minutes." Kennedy received his undergraduate degree from Harvard in 1940.

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WORD FOR TODAY

animosity
noun
-  Bitter hostility or open enmity; active hatred.
-  A hostile feeling or act.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

 

 

James Joseph Brown
(May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006)

 

James Brown was an American recording artist and musician. One of the founding fathers of funk music and a major figure of 20th century popular music and dance, he is often referred to as "The Godfather of Soul". In a career that spanned six decades, Brown profoundly influenced the development of many different musical genres.

Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby
(May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977)

 

 Bing Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation.

With 1,077,900,000 movie tickets sold, Crosby is by that measure the third most popular actor of all time, behind Clark Gable and John Wayne.

Crosby starred with Bob Hope in seven Road to musical comedies between 1940 and 1962, cementing the two entertainers as an on-and-off duo. The series consists of Road to Singapore (1940), Road to Zanzibar (1941), Road to Morocco (1942), Road to Utopia (1946), Road to Rio (1947), Road to Bali (1952).

Karim Dulé Hill
(born May 3, 1975)

 

Dulé Hill is an American actor and tap dancer. He is known for his roles as personal presidential aide (body man) Charlie Young on the NBC drama television series The West Wing, and as pharmaceutical salesman-private detective Burton "Gus" Guster on the USA Network television comedy-drama Psych. He has also had minor roles in the movies Holes and She's All That.

Sugar Ray Robinson
(May 3, 1921 – April 12, 1989)

 

Sugar Ray Robinson (born Walker Smith Jr.) was an American professional boxer. Frequently cited as the greatest boxer of all time, Robinson's performances in the welterweight and middleweight divisions prompted sportswriters to create "pound for pound" rankings, where they compared fighters regardless of weight. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990.

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Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.
Mark Twain
    

A Windy Day In Tucson

Tucson Weather Today

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It's early in the morning here in Tucson but the wind is blowing fiercely already, not a steady blow but in fits and bursts. According to the TV weather report the wind is to grow stronger as the day progresses, and a warning of dust storms crossing I-10 is posted. A danger of the spread of existing and newly created wild fires is a distinct possibility.

This seems to be one of those rare days when excusing myself from my daily walk is a definite maybe.

Oh well . . . there are plenty of other things for me to do instead, some computer related chores for the most part.

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As part of my ongoing project to construct a Family History of sorts, I have been collecting together a number of old photographs from albums packed away in the closet and then scanning them into a folder (titled Memories) on my computer. These pictures bring back recollections of my younger days, some of them nostalgic and others perhaps better left unrecalled.

The snapshot just below was taken in 1983 when I was living alone in Chicago, a few months before Donna and I were married.

Charles Gene Chambers

Age 44 (1983)

Below is another picture that was taken a bit earlier in that same year, dressed in my work clothes. I was employed by Teletype Corporation in Skokie, Illinois as a senior technician in the Research & Development Proving Laboratories

Charles Gene Chambers

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I found a word I was unsure of
its meaning -- so I looked it up.

endemic (en-DEM-ic)
adj.
1.
Prevalent in or peculiar to a particular locality, region, or people: diseases endemic to the tropics.
2.
Native to or confined to a certain region.

The Free Dictionary explains it in more depth.

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BORN ON THIS DAY

Yuri Gagarin

First Man In Space

born March 9, 1934

died March 27, 1968

Also born on this day . . .

Mickey Spillane

(Creator of Mike Hammer)

March 9, 1918 - July 17, 2006

More than 225 million copies of his books have sold internationally. I remember well the days in Junior High School when we (the guys in our class) gathered in the Boys Rest Room and passed around a battered copy of I, The Jury with, of course, the appropriate pages dog-eared and certain passages underlined in ink.



This was not a book of poetry.


Or was it?

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"Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo."
--Don Marquis