Be notified of page updates

it's private

powered by ChangeDetection

Raul fills in for Fidel, Hezbollah fills in for Saddam, and it's hotter than hell

Listening to:	15 Minutes o'fame
Reading:	blogs
Weather:	freakin hot, 75 already

Fidel Castro has at least temporarily handed power over to his brother Raul while Fidel recovers from intestinal surgery. This is the first time Fidel has not been the head of state in Cuba in my entire lifetime. 1959 that cat rose to power. I think my dad visited Cuba right toward the end of the Batista era, I should chat him up about that. Anyhoo, best wishes to Fidel for good health. And screw all you Cuban ex-pats in Miami who are celebrating his demise, you're a bunch of vultures.

Shit is hitting the fan as Hezbollah in Lebanon is attacking Israel, and the mighty Israeli war machine revs up to shut that shit down. I know next to nothing about Shii and Sunni and whatnot, but I know that Arabs hate Jews and vice versa, so this is no oil war that needs an exit strategy. This is a fight to the death for whose god is more kickass. And Iran is the mother of Hezbollah, so you can be sure the Shrub is licking his lips in anticipation of sending some American soldiers to get slaughtered along the way. And it appears that when Saddam was in control in Iraq the balance of power in the Islamic world of the middle east stayed tipped toward the Sunnis. Now that we removed him, the Shii see their opening, and this is them taking their best shot at the top. Way to go, Cowboy George, you freakin idiot.

This weather doth blow. Day after day, hot, sticky, hazy, oy. Sunday Liv and Brandin and I hit the swimming hole and it was fabulous. A bit cold at first, but you acclimate in just a few minutes and then it was luscious. And not too crowded, surprisingly. Mostly families, and no Lynryd Skynyrd or AC/DC. But still a few joints going around. I also hit that hole yesterday after work, and the water was actually warm, that never happens.

I needed to get a few things at the grocery store afterward, so I headed toward Grafton (the swimming hole is actually in Taylor County, I think, or right close to the border). But I decided to try road I've never driven. It goes in the general direction of Grafton, so I thought I'd take a chance. What a beautiful amazing drive. The pavement quickly became dirt road, but the grade was pretty good and relatively few potholes. It meanders along what I think is Three Forks Creek, which also has a parallel railroad track most of the way. There were families swimming all along the way, too. At one bend in the creek folks had built a little stacked rock wall to make the pool deeper. I kept expecting to hit 119, but eventually instead I came out on 15 at Thornton. Took a right, and in a mile or two I was at the Savalot at Blueville. Picked up celery and macaroni to make macaroni salad (WVU Parents Club potluck tonight in Kingwood), and headed back the way I came, even though I could have hopped onto 119 at that point. I set my trip meter and it was only 14 miles from grocery to my driveway, probably about what it would have been had I taken the road more travelled.

permalink posted by cat 8:22 AM

read 0 comments