Here’s a rather unflattering webcam pic of me enjoying my potato soup lunch on the screened back porch on this first day or spring.
I’m doing laundry and some last-minute cleanup stuff in anticipation of Maria’s brother Raph and his two boys arriving in a few hours.
Pete, of course, is my constant companion in this, dividing his time between dozing at my feet and prancing around the back yard and barking at the sky. It’s a long story.
It's a concert recording made at Purdue University's Elliott Hall of Music in West Lafayette, Ind., when I was a high school freshman about 20 miles east of there in Delphi.
From the liner notes: "On the night of Saturday, October 10, 1959, more than 12,000 people braved a pouring rainstorm in (West) Lafayette, Indiana, to hear memorable performances by Stan Kenton's Orchestra, June Christy, and the Four Freshmen. Filling the more than 6,000 seats (it was two back-to-back shows) of the vast Music Hall, the audiences were treated to an evening of the finest modern music available anywhere."
Dick Laughlin, my high school band director, introduced me to jazz and to this recording, which was initially released by Capitol as a double album on vinyl. Dick had an impressive - for its time - Fisher stereo sound system and this album was a revelation to me.
I bought my own vinyl copy some years later and picked up the CD version shortly after its released in June, 1991.
I sent it to Judy Thomas in Mount Pleasant, Mich. this week after she bought it for $63.50 at my Amazon.com store.
I'm listening to it on my iPod as I write this and I'm confident Judy will enjoy it as much as I have over the years,
Lucky for him that I looked.
And yes, the Subaru is back.
BMW friend Charlie gave me a lift to the Subaru dealership in Memphis this morning. The Forester seems very happy with the new head gasket and the air conditioning is working great now.
Charlie mentioned that Sportsman's Warehouse is going out of business, so we went to see if there were any bargains. There weren't.
The place is festooned with signs saying that all merchandise is reduced "up to 30%" but mostly stuff is just marked down 10% which is hardly a deal. Also, guns and ammo are not on sale. Of course they aren't, considering the run on guns and ammo since election day.
We adjourned to Bosco's for lunch and then headed home.
Vernal Equinox Mar 20 2009 7:44 AM EDT
Sumer Solstice Jun 21 2009 1:45 AM EDT
Autumnal Equinox Sep 22 2009 5:18 PM EDT
Winter Solstice Dec 21 2009 12:47 PM EST
There are only eight houses in our little wooded subdivision and it appears one of them is in foreclosure.
The family in the house down the hill from us has moved out and the neighborhood watchdog reports a utilities truck was there yesterday, presumably to shut off electricity or water.
We weren’t particularly close to them, but the guy did yeoman work clearing trees from the road during the ice storm and they were always pleasant.
I’m just guessing, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn they were the victims of an adjustable rate mortgage. Bad juju.
The current debate in Washington over President Obama’s budget has made one thing clear — ensuring our long-term prosperity won’t come without a fight.
Partisan voices and special interests are showing real resistance to President Obama’s call for making the necessary reforms and investments in energy, health care, and education. That’s why we need to bring the conversation back into homes and communities across America.
Last week, thousands of you pledged your support for the President’s economic plan and encouraged your friends and family to join you in a national display of support. Now I need you to take the next step.
This weekend, supporters like you are organizing Pledge Project Canvasses to talk to people in their communities about this plan and mobilize support in neighborhoods across the country.
Host or attend a Pledge Project Canvass in your neighborhood this weekend.
It’s absolutely crucial that Americans hear from you about this plan — we can’t leave this important debate up to a Washington establishment that doesn’t welcome change.
It’s up to you to show Washington that Americans are demanding this new direction and won’t stand on the sidelines while our country’s future is at stake.
On these canvasses, you’ll join fellow supporters in your community to:
Host or attend a canvass this weekend:
http://my.barackobama.com/pledgecanvass
Nothing is more powerful than having people hear from ordinary Americans about the vision President Obama has laid out for our country. Join us this weekend.
Thanks,
Mitch
Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Checking their web site, I see that the only such event within 45 miles of my home is a gathering of “Progressive Democrats in Action” at a ratty little coffeehouse/cafe near the ASU campus.
The smallish building should be more than large enough to accommodate all of them, since Obama supporters are kinda scarce around here, even though Arkansas is a Democrat-controlled state. But that means something different here. They’re mostly Democrats in the old Dixiecrat unreconstructed Confederate sense and they have little use for the empty suit in the White House.
That’s why guns and ammo, and especially assault rifles, started getting scarce in Arkansas the day after the election.
I’m celebrating my favorite German beer today.
This blog entry finds me at Barnes & Noble, sipping a fancy coffee and keeping an eye on my bike in the parking lot.
It’s a sunny 72 degrees and I’m putting off going home after lunch with Maria to vacuum the carpet and scrub the tile floors in anticipation of company tomorrow.
Maria’s brother Raph and his two sons are coming tomorrow for a four-day visit. Sometime between now and 6 p.m. Friday, I need to have someone drive me to Memphis to pick up the Subaru, now that I have word that the work is completed.
In the wake of the storm, we were told to drag all of our tree trash to the roadside in front of our property. The initial reason was so FEMA could survey the magnitude of the storm damage. The secondary reason was the assurance by Craighead County officials that county road crews would come around and collect the debris for disposal.
We learned today that there will be no county pickup on our road because the roads in our little subdivision have not been formally accepted into the county road network. Never mind that we pay the same taxes as people whose brush is being picked up.
Several other neighbors have similar piles of brush. A tree service hired by the folks across the street generated the monster pile of mulch seen to the left of our brush pile. It's sitting in front of the only undeveloped lot in our subdivision. Although I haven't spoken with the neighbors, it's my guess that they intend for it to be a community mulch pile.
At least we don't have to worry about the county picking it up.
I hate it when people try to push their religion on me.
A couple of Jehovah's Witnesses rang my doorbell a few months ago and stuck a copy of the Watchtower magazine in my hand before I tersely explained I wasn't interested in their religion.
I am quite content to be a Catholic and what they consider evangelism, I consider intrusive.
In my somewhat limited experience, it appears that most folks of that ilk aren't terribly alert to the frame of mind of the people they're trying to reach.
I was reminded of that the other day by a story in the paper about a barber who packs a 9mm pistol after being shot in both legs in a holdup at his shop.
When the young assailant shot him in the right shin with a .25 caliber pistol, he told the kid, "Jesus loves you."
The kid apparently was in no mood for a theological discussion and angrily put another bullet into his left knee.
Maybe he was trying to reach the kid or maybe he was just turning the other cheek in a situation that might end up with him at the Pearly Gates.
Either way, he's ready to let his Ruger do the evangelizing next time.
By RICK CALLAHAN
Associated Press Writer
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A Midwest fault zone that unleashed a series of violent earthquakes in the early 19th century shows no signs of building up the stresses needed for the quakes many seismologists expect to someday rock the region again, two scientists say.
The researchers said that may mean the little-understood New Madrid Seismic Zone is shutting down or that seismic activity is shifting to adjacent faults in the nation’s midsection.
Other scientists called those conclusions premature, in part because the study was based on a relatively narrow time period from the area that remains seismically active.
For their study, researchers from Purdue and Northwestern universities analyzed global positioning measurements of shifts in the Earth’s surface taken from 10 sites within the New Madrid zone over eight years. That region in the central Mississippi Valley produced a series of earthquakes in 1811 and 1812 of an estimated magnitude 7.0 or greater.
Researchers expected to find surface features moving at least one to 2 millimeters each year. Such shifts would reflect growing subterranean stresses like the slow stretching of a rubber band that seismologists expect to someday spark more big New Madrid quakes.
Instead, they found annual shifts of 0.2 millimeter or less each year — an amount so tiny it essentially represents no growing stresses in the seismic zone, said Eric Calais, a Purdue professor of earth and atmospheric sciences who led the study.
“If the area is not moving today, if the rubber band is not being put under tension, that could mean that the fault zone is shutting down. It may be that it’s produced several earthquakes in the past but now it’s turning off,” he said.
Calais said the findings could also mean seismic activity is shifting away from the New Madrid zone and into other nearby seismic areas. He said those could include a fault zone in southern Illinois that produced a 5.2 magnitude temblor last April, or similar seismic regions in Arkansas, Oklahoma or elsewhere in the region.
The paper, which appears in the current issue of the journal Science, was co-authored by Seth Stein, a professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Northwestern University.
Other scientists called the study compelling and said it could lead to a better understanding of so-called continental fault zones, but one cautioned that the eight years’ worth of data is “just a blink of the eye” compared with the past 2,400 years.
That period has seen four or five episodes of multiple large earthquakes rock the area, said Chuck Langston, director of the Center for Earthquake Research and Information at the University of Memphis.
“We have just one little glimpse, one instant in time,” he said. “And we’re still having earthquakes in this area that look like they’re lining up on faults, so there’s no doubt that there are big fault structures there that remain active.”
Langston also said that unlike California’s San Andreas Fault and others that occur along the boundaries of moving tectonic plates on the Earth’s surface, the New Madrid zone is a continental fault that’s found within one of those plates.
Little is known about what forces trigger earthquakes within continental faults, so it’s possible that interior stresses can accumulate over a short period of time instead of continuously over longer periods, he said.
Bob Smalley Jr., a research professor with the University of Memphis earthquake center, said the study points to new ideas geologists should explore. But he said the conclusions would be more persuasive if the data covered 20 to 30 years.
“We should consider all of the things they’re saying in their hypothesis, but they haven’t reached the final answer yet,” he said.
I live just north of Jonesboro, Ark. and get the Weather Channel via IndCo Cable Co. in Batesville, Ark.
The regional observations list in my Local on the 8s includes Blytheville and Eaker AFB. Eaker AFB ceased to be a U.S. Air Force installation in December, 1992. It's now a civilian airport. Most of the time, it's listed as having "no report." It's also at Blytheville, which makes its data mostly irrelevant.
Could it be time to replace it in the list with another regional location?
The editor of a small Arkansas newspaper recently published the names of the Arkansas permit holders in his paper.
Those of us who have an interest in the Second Amendment and the individual's right to privacy took offense. Publishing the names of permit-holders strikes us as an act of public intimidation by those who seem to think that responsible, legal gun owners are a threat to their safety.
Any reality-based survey of the issue of gun violence will conclude it's the unlicensed gun-carrying criminals who are the problem, not citizens who follow the law and obtain a permit.
The Arkansas Legislature has before it four significant pieces of gun legislation, one of which declares gun permit records along with medical and adoption records, grand jury minutes and other such sensitive information to be outside the realm of public access.
As a journalist, I've always been concerned about any law that restricts the free flow of government-held information, but in this case I think permit-holders' privacy trumps any presumed public right to know.
Also before the Legislature is an open carry law that makes it legal for anyone who can lawfully possess a handgun to carry it openly. You'll still need a concealed carry permit if you want to carry it in a purse or under a jacket, but not so if it's in plain view. A holster in plain view also qualifies.
And there is legislation pending called the "Castle" law that essentially affirms that a man's home is his castle and he is justified in using deadly force against anyone who forces their way into the home for the presumed purpose of committing a felony. You don't have to fear for your life, just believe that the perp wants to commit a felony.
And lastly, there is a bill that guarantees that your gun(s) won't be confiscated by civil authorities in the event of a disaster, as was the case by many people who sought to defend themselves in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana.
All of this, as you might suppose, makes me a little happier to live in Arkansas.
I supposed I was still covered when I rode to Daytona Beach Bike Week a couple of weeks ago. Turns out I wasn't. It also turns out I didn't need it because BMW motorcycles don't fail much.
The only time I've ever used the roadside assistance program was last July when I had a flat tire about 100 miles east of Colorado Springs, Colo., near the tiny community of Kit Carson.
My $35 annual membership came in very handy that day, covering the entire $404 cost of a tow truck ride back to Colorado Springs and the BMW dealership there. I suspect I could have added the $84 motel bill to the claim, but I didn't want to press my luck.
So I'm good to go for another year. With any luck, they can use my $35 membership fee to rescue somebody else.
The service manager at the Memphis Subaru dealership called a few minutes ago with the estimate on our repair and - wonder of wonders - it came in about $500 less than I expected.
The work is expected to be done Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning, Now all I have to do is find someone to give me a lift to Memphis to retrieve it.
In the meantime, Maria is driving the del Sol to work and grumbling about how much she dislikes my little 2-seater which, by the way, almost killed me Saturday morning.
We were taking the back way down to U.S. 63 rather than go through town. About a mile this side of U.S. 63, there is a right-left S-curve on Nestle Road. The weather was misting intermittently and the pavement was a bit on the slimy side.
I went into it a little faster than usual and suddenly found myself in a slide with the back end coming around to the left. As I fought to recover and keep it from turning into a 180-degree spin, I glanced up and noticed a pickup truck approaching on the other side of the S-curves.
With deep ditches and utility poles on either side, the option of running off the road was pretty unattractive. But it looked for a moment like this might be the end of my '94 del Sol.
I overcorrected, and the back end swung around to the right, then back left, right, left in a series of oscillations of decreasing amplitude until the car steadied out just in time for the curve to the left. By this point, I had scrubbed off enough speed that the car tracked around the left turn without incident.
So I escaped with nothing worse than an adrenalin rush. Maria was following in the Subaru and seemed impressed with my ability to recover from the slide.
They say that you don't rise to the challenge in a crisis - rather, you default to your level of training. In my case, that would be the experience of driving in 46 snowy, icy Indiana winters. When I was a kid, we used to do all kinds of crazy shit on snow-covered streets and parking lots and got pretty good at initiating and recovering from slides.
Our house had no towel racks or toilet paper holders when we bought it 
The previous owners, who lived in it about two years, apparently didn't feel a need for such amenities.
We've procrastinated all of these months because we were loathe to poke holes in the walls and because we kept finding other things to spend money on.
We went to the Home Depot this morning, hell bent on finishing out our bathrooms before Maria's brother comes next week and my son and granddaughter visit in April.
We managed to find a line of bathroom hardware that matches our brushed nickel Delta faucets at what turned out to be a fairly reasonable price.
We've mounted a hand towel ring and toilet paper holder in the hall half-bath and a towel rack in the master bath, but with much 
And, of course, if you stare at anything long enough, it starts to look crooked.
We're taking the Subaru Forester in for service today, which will be kind of a major undertaking since it's a head gasket replacement and the dealer is more than 90 miles away in Memphis.
We got the leaking head gasket diagnosis in the summer of 2007, just before our lives got turned upside down with a move to Arkansas.
What with double house payments and other pressures on our time and resources, the head gasket never got fixed. As a consequence, the car has been burning oil and coolant, sometimes smelling like it's going to burst into flames, but still it soldiers on like a good little Subaru.
The dealer is scheduled to start the work on Monday morning and it's expected to take 2-3 days, so we're dropping it off today and plan to retrieve it sometime next week.
Maria will drive the Forester and I'll drive the del Sol on this trip which - as long as we're close - will also involved a visit to the best quilt shop in the area.
The photo above was shot in 2005. Maria was up on the back bumper trying to get a better look at some moose at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.
Two political science educators have published "Freedom in the 50 States: An Index of Personal and Economic Freedom" and they rank 
The authors are William P. Ruger and Jason Sorens.
Ruger is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Texas State University. He is on military leave, serving in the U.S. Navy in Afghanistan. Ruger earned his PhD in politics from Brandeis University and an AB from the College of William and Mary.
Sorens is an assistant professor of Political Science at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. He received his doctorate in political science in 2003 from Yale University, and his research focuses on secessionism, ethnic politics, and comparative federalism. His work has also appeared in
Regional and Federal Studies, Comparative Political Studies, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, and State Politics and Policy Quarterly.Here are some of their conclusions:
We find that the freest states in the country are New Hampshire, Colorado, and South Dakota, which together achieve a virtual tie for first place. All three states feature low taxes and government spending and middling levels of regulation and paternalism.
New York is the least free by a considerable margin, followed by New Jersey, Rhode Island, California, and Maryland. On personal freedom alone, Alaska is the clear winner, while Maryland brings up the rear. As for freedom in the different regions of the country, the Mountain and West North Central regions are the freest overall while the Middle Atlantic lags far behind on both economic and personal freedom.
Regression analysis demonstrates that states enjoying more economic and personal freedom tend to attract substantially higher rates of internal net migration.
Arkansas is #29 in our index, doing much better on personal (4th among the 50 states) than economic freedom (39th). Arkansas does surprisingly well on fiscal policy (33rd) for a poor, smallish state, once one adjusts for federal grants.
However, the state could stand to do much better on fiscal decentralization and local government budget constraints for a state with strong counties.
Local governments should be allowed more revenue sources and state grants to local governments should be reduced. Arkansas scores high on motorist freedoms, with only secondary seat-belt enforcement, no helmet laws for adults, no open-container law, and no personal injury insurance requirement. Arkansas has virtually no regulation of private schools, and the homeschooling laws are better than average, although parental notification requirements can be onerous (annual, extensive materials). Arkansas has jumped onto the smoking ban bandwagon. The state could significantly improve its regulatory environment (44th) by repealing its health insurance mandates, which add an estimated 53 percent to the cost of premiums.40 The state licenses 30 of the occupations we track, tied for first (worst) with Maine. As of the end of 2006, the state had made no eminent domain reforms of note. On the other hand, state-level land use planning is virtually nonexistent.
Here is the complete list:
| 1 | New Hampshire |
| 2 | Colorado |
| 3 | South Dakota |
| 4 | Idaho |
| 5 | Texas |
| 6 | Missouri |
| 7 | Tennessee |
| 8 | Arizona |
| 9 | Virginia |
| 10 | North Dakota |
| 11 | Utah |
| 12 | Kansas |
| 13 | Indiana |
| 14 | Michigan |
| 15 | Wyoming |
| 16 | Iowa |
| 17 | Georgia |
| 18 | Oklahoma |
| 19 | Montana |
| 20 | Pennsylvania |
| 21 | Alabama |
| 22 | Florida |
| 23 | North Carolina |
| 24 | Nevada |
| 25 | Mississippi |
| 26 | Delaware |
| 27 | Oregon |
| 28 | Nebraska |
| 29 | Arkansas |
| 30 | South Carolina |
| 31 | Alaska |
| 32 | Kentucky |
| 33 | West Virginia |
| 34 | Louisiana |
| 35 | Minnesota |
| 36 | New Mexico |
| 37 | Wisconsin |
| 38 | Ohio |
| 39 | Maine |
| 40 | Vermont |
| 41 | Connecticut |
| 42 | Illinois |
| 43 | Massachusetts |
| 44 | Washington |
| 45 | Hawaii |
| 46 | Maryland |
| 47 | California |
| 48 | Rhode Island |
| 49 | New Jersey |
| 50 | New York |
You can read the whole thing here.
I reset my home desktop screen resolution to 800x600 before I left and when I connected to it from here with Dell Remote Access, it was much easier to use. It also occurred to me after I went to the low-res screen setting, that I could probably make those changes remotely, since I can access Control Panel as well as all of the other programs and files.
Did I mention how much I like this Dell Inspiron Mini 9?
I didn’t think so.
Stepdaughter Morgan and her boyfriend are on a spring break road trip to Savannah, Ga. and she's uploading the trip pictures to her Flickr account as they travel.
The embedded EXIF data indicates this was taken at with the boyfriend's SONY DSC-W55 camera 2:46 p.m. yesterday when they were in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Exposure was 1/125 at f/2.8 at ISO 100, in case you're curious.
Another reason why I’m glad I quit/retired in October’ 2000. This announcement went out to employees at The Indianapolis Star yesterday:
The Indianapolis News Guild is sad to inform you that Gannett is now
seeking to cut the pay of newsroom and building services employees by 15 percent. The lawyer for the company provided us with a one-page 'supplemental' proposal this afternoon that he said would implement this uniform salary reduction either 1) at the time we reach a new contract with the company, or 2) at the time both sides reach an impasse and cease talks.
I spent a few minutes this afternoon installing and testing Dell 
It’s kinda like gotomypc.com, which lets you link up with your home computer from anywhere in the world and instantly see your home desktop, with the ability to run programs and perform actions just as if you were at the keyboard at home.
Gotomypc .com costs about $20 a month, while the Dell product (which doesn’t run on Macs) costs $9.95 a month and comes with a 10-day free trial, of which today is the first day.
I discovered immediately that when you take the text and images that are scaled for a 24” monitor and shrink everything down to fit on an 8.9” mini laptop screen, it gets very hard to read and work with. I may have to reset my monitor resolution to something like 800x600 whenever I leave home with the expectation of remotely accessing the computer with my mini.
But it does eliminate the need to install a bunch of memory hog software on the mini.
The good news is that, like most Arkansas snows, this little dusting of less than a half-inch, will be gone tomorrow.
Spring is less than two weeks away!
Cartoonist Walt Kelly had a running gag in his daily comic strip “Pogo” about Friday the 13th being unlucky. In fact, he referenced the 13th even when it didn’t fall on a Friday, having one of his characters say something like, “Friday the 13th is on Wednesday this month.”
Well, it’s on the 13th this month and it’s also someone’s birthday.
Happy birthday a day early, Someone.
WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY NOW IN EFFECT FROM 4 AM TO 10 PM CDT THURSDAY...
THE WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IS NOW IN EFFECT FROM 4 AM TO 10 PM CDT THURSDAY.
A MIXTURE OF RAIN AND SLEET MAY BEGIN TO AFFECT NORTHEAST ARKANSAS AND THE MISSOURI BOOTHEEL AFTER MIDNIGHT. BY SUNRISE...THIS MIXTURE WILL CHANGE TO SLEET AND EVENTUALLY TO SNOW. SNOW WILL CONTINUE DURING THE REST OF THE DAY ON THURSDAY. SNOW AND SLEET ACCUMULATIONS OF UP TO TWO INCHES CAN BE EXPECTED.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY MEANS THAT PERIODS OF SNOW...SLEET...OR FREEZING RAIN WILL CAUSE TRAVEL DIFFICULTIES. BE PREPARED FOR SLIPPERY ROADS AND LIMITED VISIBILITIES...AND USE CAUTION WHILE DRIVING.
If you believe, as I do, that this question needs to be resolved, go here and sign the petition online.
It is in everyone's best interest that this question be laid to rest. If Obama is proven eligible, we can all move on and forget about this issue. If he is determined to be ineligible, the Constitution must be upheld and all of his actions since Inauguration Day must be nullified.
Whether you think this is a burning Constitutional issue or a silly distraction, it's time to resolve the matter.
And today’s shirt is from Nepenthe, the fabulous restaurant along California Hwy. 1 in Big Sur. It’s one of my alltime favorite destinations. The food is great and you just can’t beat the ambiance.
Read all about it on their web site here.
I sure do like Daylight Saving Time.
We’re sitting on our screened back porch – Maria with a book and me with the mini laptop – enjoying the post-dinner dusk.
There’s still enough light for the webcam to shoot a fuzzy portrait of the author.
But I couldn't get a Hastings Wifi signal. I found weak signals from two other businesses in the area, but nothing from Hastings, which should have boomed in with five bars.
Finally, I asked an employee if the Wifi was down.
"Yeah, it's down for awhile. They have to get a new part," she said.
Part? Like it's something mechanical instead of electronic?
Whatever. At least I got a cup of coffee.
The smaller keyboard takes a little getting used to. The apostrophe is in a strange place and the right shift key is tiny. Other than that, it’s pretty damned cool.
I have it networked with our other computers and our main printer.
I don’t especially care for touchpads, so I bought a Logitech NX80 wireless notebook laser mouse that seems to work fine. I also bought a case for it so as to protect the gorgeous red finish.
It has an SD card reader, so I can shoot photos with my cameraphone, pop the card into the mini and import the photo. That’s what I did with the photo above.
Oh, and it has a built-in webcam.
Not a bad deal for $250.
Of that time, 6 hours and 23 minutes were spent in motion as I hauled ass northwest toward home.
I have to credit the Garmin GPS with finding a short route that I probably would not have worked out if I’d been left to my own devices with a road atlas.
I saw parts of the South I would never have seen if I’d kept to the Interstate highway network. And I probably wouldn’t have experienced the acrophobic terror of that ridiculously high three- or four-level interchange in downtown Birmingham.
U.S 78 is a delight through northwest Alabama and northern Mississippi. It’s built to Interstate specs and is designated as the future I-22 corridor. Memphis was, well, Memphis, complete with a miles-long construction zone crawl along I-55 northbound.
I started my day with the free Comfort Inn breakfast bar, choosing strawberry yogurt, a bowl of oatmeal and coffee.
I had a very pleasant conversation with a retired ATF agent who used to ride a Kawasaki Concours. He tells me there’s as much backwoods moonshine making these days as there ever was. He also said he’d never touch the stuff after finding a dead squirrel in the mash at one still he raided.
I had another pleasant encounter at the Shell station at Winfield, Ala. when a BMW GS rider from Little Rock struck up a conversation. He said he’ll probably see me at the BMW MOA national rally this summer in Johnson City, Tenn.
The only really dicey part of today’s ride was the last leg from I-55 up U.S. 63 to Jonesboro. There was a very strong wind from the south, which I didn’t notice until the first time the road angled due west. I’ve ridden in much worse crosswinds, but I was glad then the Nestle Road exit showed up.
I’m writing this to kill time while Maria writes a column at the office and then we’re off to a movie.
I found this over at the Arkansas Journal:
John Kennedy once said to a assembled group of scholars in the White House, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House -with the possible exception of 
The quotes below could prove his point.
"When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe."
...Thomas Jefferson
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."
...Thomas Jefferson
"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.."
...Thomas Jefferson
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
...Thomas Jefferson
"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."
...Thomas Jefferson
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
...Thomas Jefferson
"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. "
...Thomas Jefferson
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
...Thomas Jefferson
This is how our house looked this morning after a late winter storm dumped about 3 inches of windblown snow on the Mid-South.
It's clear here, but it's snowing hard from Birmingham, Ala. to Macon, Ga. and the forecast is for chilly weather in Florida for the next couple of days.
Leaving for Daytona today would be flat-out stupid and Monday isn't looking all that great either. Tuesday morning is the most likely launch time. The roads should be clear by Tuesday morning, even though the temperature is forecast to be just above freezing.
Indianapolis BMW Club friends Wayne and Peggy are holed up at Wayne's son's home in Alabama and probably won't beat me to Daytona by much.
Maybe a Monday departure isn't out of the question...
But that was back when I felt driven to demonstrate my ability to ride in all but the most extreme weather. After all, my heated jacket liner, gloves, seat and handgrips are more than a match for 30-degree weather. The pavement is warm enough that the swirling snow isn't sticking. And it's a cloudy 59 degrees down at Hammond, La., where I would exit I-55 for I-10 east.
I rode from from Nashville, Tenn., to Indianapolis in weather like this, coming home from Bike Week in 1993. And I rode from Baton Rouge to Indy without electrics against plummeting temperatures and snow the last 100 miles in 1986.
In my 300,000+ BMW motorcycle miles, I've courted hypothermia dozens of times and ridden in crazy deluges more times than I can remember. What I do remember is that however proud I was of having finished those rides, I was freaking miserable when I was doing it.
So that's why I'm sitting comfortably at my upstairs office desk, glancing out the window at the snow occasionally, and sipping more of that 5 liter box of cheap Burgundy wine. I'm warm. I'm relaxed. And I know I'll sleep in a comfortable and free bed tonight.
That's the beauty of being old enough that you don't have to prove stuff to yourself. Maria would call it being old enough to "have the stupid knocked out of you."
Bike Week is, after all, a whole week long, which is several days longer than I care to experience anyway. So I'll keep an eye on the Weather Channel and when the forecast for my route to Daytona suits me, I'll load the bike and hit the road.
In the meantime, it's time to refill my wine glass.
One of the best things about membership in the BMW Motorcycle Owners of America is the Anonymous Book.
It's a state-by-state, city-by-city listing of phone numbers of BMW MOA members who stand ready to greet/rescue/help/advise/shelter you as you travel. It also has some foreign listings, as well as contact information for all of the BMW motorcycle dealers and MOA-chartered clubs. In short, it's a safety net for the touring BMW rider.
I never leave home without the most recent Anonymous Book in my tank bag.
And it always has an interesting BMW motorcycle-related photo on the cover.
Until this year.
My 2009 Anonymous Book showed up in our mailbox this morning and I almost threw it away, mistaking if for unsolicited junk mail.
The choice of cover art is, well, perplexing.
As you can see, it's a murky nighttime shot of a guy with a helmet reaching for a cup of something being offered by a woman standing in her front door. She has a banister sticking out of her head like an Indian feather - something that should have been Photoshopped away. The only BMW motorcycle-specific thing in the picture is a copy of the BMW MOA Owners News in the mailbox.
It's supposed to convey the idea that MOA members are hospitable to each other, but at first glance it looks like a Halloween trick-or-treat scene. It is, as we photographers say, hard to read. You have to study it for a moment to get the idea the photographer wanted to communicate.
That said, the Anonymous Book is an essential part of my touring kit and no matter how goofy the cover, I'll carry it on my rides for the next year.
But I'm looking forward to a cover next year that instantly says "BMW motorcycle" to me.
Even though the sun is shining and the temperature here is in the upper 40s, I'm putting off my departure for Daytona Beach Bike Week.
The reason?
I'd almost certainly catch up with the rain that swept through here last night and travel east with it for hundreds of miserable miles.
And a Saturday departure is out because the temperature is going to drop like a rock and there is snow in the forecast for northeast Arkansas.
Sunday will be dry, but cold. Riding out in the morning will put me in sub-freezing temperatures. With heated jacket liner, gloves and seat, it's do-able. We shall see.
All of these ‘movements’ (except for Hawaii) are explicit restatements of what has always been in place, but not necessarily enforced, as detailed by the 10th Amendment. Hawaii is actually aiming for total sovereignty as it is claimed that Hawaii was never really a state of the U.S.A..
However, it is believed the intent of these bills is to let the federal government know that the states’ sovereignty will not be overwritten… say in case certain gun ban laws get passed, FOCA-type laws, or other “War Time / Martial Law” type plans come into play. Check them out:
States That Already Are Sovereign / Passed 10th Amendement Restatement Legislature:
- Arizona (AZ): [CLICK HERE (it is a Memorial)]
- California (CA): [CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO and HERE]
- Colorado (CO): [CLICK HERE for bill text - HERE for the scan] *NEW*
- Hawaii (HI): [General info: HERE or HERE -- SCOTUS Case: HERE for docket & HERE or HERE for summary]
- Louisiana (LA): [CLICK HERE - §26] *NEW*
- Massachusetts (MA): [CLICK HERE - Article IV] *NEW*
- Oklahoma (OK): [CLICK HERE and HERE - 99% done... stay tuned! (I'll count it as passed for now 
- Texas (TX): [THIS WEBSITE has good Republic of Texas info & bill text HERE]
- Utah (UT): [CLICK HERE and search for HJR003 or HERE for a pdf] *NEW*
States Claiming Sovereignty:
- Arkansas (AR): [CLICK HERE]
- Georgia (GA): [CLICK HERE]
- Kansas (KS): [CLICK HERE for bill text - hearing date set for approx. 03/04!] *NEW*
- Kentucky (KY): [CLICK HERE and HERE] *NEW*
- Indiana (IN): [CLICK HERE]
- Iowa (IA): [CLICK HERE and more info HERE]
- Michigan (MI): [CLICK HERE (HCR No. 4)]
- Minnesota (MN): [CLICK HERE - more info HERE and HERE]
- Missouri (MO): [CLICK HERE -- CLICK HERE for even more info (but currently broken)]
- Montana (MT): [CLICK HERE]
- New Hampshire (NH): [CLICK HERE]
- South Carolina (SC): [CLICK HERE]
- Tennessee (TN): [CLICK HERE or HERE]
- Washington (WA): [CLICK HERE]
States Planning / Motioning Toward Claiming Sovereignty:
- Alabama (AL): (Sources below*)
- Alaska (AK): (Sources below*)
- Idaho (ID): (Sources below*)
- Maine (ME): (Sources below*)
- Nevada (NV): (Sources below*)
- Ohio (OH): (CLICK HERE, HERE, and HERE) *NEW*
- Pennsylvania (PA): (CLICK HERE for page and HERE for text & Sources below*)
- West Virginia (WV): (CLICK HERE — Bill text HERE)
[Source # 1] & [Source # 2] for the “pending / planning” states.
States on the ‘Watch List’ (these are not counted in the total & not on the map):
- Florida (FL): [CLICK HERE for a petition]
