The Summer View of Our Back Yard

Now you can compare the two views, this summer to the winter, and see how much the leaves change the picture. We will be going to the ice cream social this afternoon and mingle with the kids. SO will go to the "chick flick" this morning and see "Sex in the city" at the local theater.

We had a casualty in our apartment this morning. I had been smelling burning electrical wiring for a couple of days and this morning I found the source. Our toaster was just a smoking. Out goes the old and later in with the new.

No other news to report this early. Gas is generally $3.87 around town. SO fills her Chevy once a month and I fill my Vue about every two weeks. She drives 1.4 miles round trip to work and I drive round trip to golf and all our other driving that we do. We got the Chevy state inspection and it passed again with flying colors. Not bad for !65,000 miles. Its just getting older and some day it will get to expensive to fix. The last repair was for the drivers window which stopped working. It was a $1.35 part and the bill came to something over $150.00. The car is worth about $200 now so maybe it will last another year. Each month she drives it is worth a car payment of $250.00 or more. The next will be a Cobalt.

Its Wednesday

This was taken last November when all the leaves were gone and you could see the best view to the north. This was just after Shirley had moved in. Now that its late May the following year, the leaves are back and the view is quite different.

A view from the inspection station on the near west side looking back to the east at the downtown area. As you may surmise the grade rises from the left to the right.


And here is th e RV on the lot of Motorhome Specialists in Alvarado, TX. We put it up for sale at $50,000 and after 3 months and no inquiries, we cut the price to $46,500.


Our's is listed in the used section under Class A which is after all the new and used diesel pushers.


Lets all hope it sells soon.



We have an elementary school by our place and the dog lovers go there after school and on the weekends to exercise their dogs. Its all fenced with only one access to the yard so the dogs are safe from other animals. A good time can and has been had by all.

The most popular game is for the dog to go after a ball. A few of the owners do bring a frisbee but not many. They are fun to watch.





There is lots and I mean lots of construction in the downtown and nearby west side. This is a tower crane to our northeast. There is a new condo going up and it is priced abit above the general range of the area. These will be starting in the $700,000 range. Yes thats Seven Hundred Thousand Dollars. The view is to the west and for now the north. The east view is not the best as of now.

I'll get more pics of the construction as time goes by.

We did go out for dinner tonight to Dos Gringos in the Cultural District. A place I've never been to and we had Tex-Mex enchilada's with the refried beans and rice with a coke and water. Not bad and it came to $20 plus tip. I will post the places we have eaten in downtown and give my review.

Good Morning on Memorial Day

I got a very interesting email from my roomy at the VAMC in Dallas last December, 05. I'm going to reprint it here with reference to Jim Pocsik-

When in England at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of empire building by George Bush.

He answered by saying, 'Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.

You could have heard a pin drop.

Then there was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break one of the French engineers came back into the room saying 'Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intended to do, bomb them?' A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: 'Our carriers have three hospitals onboard that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck.. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have? '

You could have heard a pin drop.

A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S. , English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies. At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of Officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that, 'whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English.' He then asked, 'Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?' Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied 'Maybe it's because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German.'

You could have heard a pin drop.

Being a Viet Nam veteran of a combat arm, I remember those that I went to college with that gave their lives for the freedom that I do value and enjoy. I am so glad to have been a member of that group of persons, male and female, that provide to the rest of our nation the rights and freedom's of our Constitution and Bill of Rights which no other country in the world has or enjoys.

So "Thank You" guys for your sacrifice for me and all of our nations people.

I am proud to be an American.