Oh, about that drug war...


I know it looks like I've given up on drug policy reform, but really I've been blogging about it pretty strenuously. Just not here. I've taken the debate to wider Blogtopia in an effort to gain recruits among the non-consumers. I just discovered I can prove that I've haven't been completely idle.

I do a lot of posting at Newshoggers on drug policy but I never get around to posting the links here. However, I just discovered that I can link to the archived posts. There's 52 posts here and I've written most of them.

Only a technodope like me would take this long to figure that out, but I'm excited to discover it. I'm going to put the link on the sidebar so this can be a drug policy blog again.

Oh speaking of the drug war, barring a surprise win by Ron Paul, you can forget about electing a president who is going to show any common sense about cannabis. Obama has the best stance of the frontrunners and it's pretty dismal. He's sort of for decrim of marijuana, when he's not sort of against it. Which is light years better than everyone else, including Hillary. They're all solidly against any change in policy.

You got the cutest little baby face...


That's my friend Irma's grandchild in this photo. Last time I saw her she was just a tiny tot in a baby carriage. I'm told she's five now. They grow so fast.

Meanwhile, the site this photo comes from has lots of pix of my old hometown. They're not the most artistic shots I've ever seen but it's fun to see the old town is still standing. I spent almost 20 years walking these same streets.

I have to admit though, I find the typos completely irritating. How hard is it to get the name of Thorne's market right? She spells it wrong under a picture of the bloody awning. And it's Wiggins Tavern, not wiggens. Somehow I don't think that will inspire much confidence in the quality of her knitting.

Be careful what you wish for...

I'm remiss again on posting. We've got a major medical situation going on in the family and I've been a basket case. I'm so distracted I didn't post a thing anywhere yesterday. I'm not sleeping well. I'm having bad dreams. I can't get into the specifics, but send a thought for good outcomes if you would.

Meanwhile, I was saying the other day how when I was a teenager I wanted straight swingy hair. I was plagued for most of my life with a big thick curly mess. I could never go a day without washing it, just to be able to get a comb through it. No way you could brush that mop dry.

When they nuked my thyroid, I lost a lot of hair but it was still wavy, especially if I kept it shorter. But at some point in the last couple of years, it's gone completely straight. Just like I prayed for back in in 1965. In fact I was looking at my haircut the other day and realized two things. It's really short. I took at least inch too much off but this is the exact haircut I was wishing for back then. I think I was channeling Vidal Sassoon when I wielded the scissors.


I also discovered it's really hard to take a picture of yourself in the mirror without getting the camera in the shot.


I tried several times before I gave up. This is best of the lot to get a sense of what I did. I'm always amazed when the back comes out relatively straight since I hack that part off blind. Not my best effort but in a month it will grow out enough to look pretty good.

View from the deck


I love the view from my deck. This is what the sky looked like last night right before sunset. This morning there wasn't a cloud in sight. A hawk swooped into the McCompound while I out there checking the weather. For a moment, I thought he was going to fly right onto to the deck with me. He veered at the last second and it looked it may have landed on one down a couple of doors. Maybe he was hoping to catch their cat out there or maybe he just kept flying.

Friday afternoon, I was driving home from the big city on the back roads. I was behind a school bus when this huge bird came out of nowhere and swooped right in front of it. I thought for sure he was going to get nailed but he landed on a branch right by the side of the road. It was an eagle.

Two close encounters with birds of prey in three days. I figure it must be an omen. I wonder what it means.

Power bob

It's kind of funny. My hair used to be really long. The first time I cut it after 12 years, I cried. For an hour. It wasn't that short. Now when it gets half that long...




... I hack it off. With a pair of dull scissors from the dollar store. I probably took about a half an inch off more than I needed to but at least I won't have to do it again for a while. It's a little more nerve wracking now that it's gone straight. It used to be curly and much thicker when I first started cutting it myself. Funny thing about that is I realized tonight that I used to pray for hair just like this when I was a teenager. Now I want my big messy curls back.




On the bright side, the really big mirror helps. My hair looks a lot like the hula girl now.

Who knows where the time goes..

I'm having a wicked crazy week so if you need something to entertain you, go over and check out Alex Johnson's new blog, Fearless by Default. Some of you may know him as Freddy of The Drunk Stuntmen, and those who don't know him at all, can get the details at my Newshoggers post. The blog is still young and I'd advise you start at the first post and read through to get the full effect. I think you won't be sorry.

I may be a bit biased but I think it's the best new blog I've found in a very long time. Check it out.

Help a friend

Every 20 minutes a child is diagnosed with autism. When you think of the condition, we tend to think of it in terms of young children but these kids grow up and many will need lifelong care. My friend Maeve is in that place right now. Her gorgeous son is in this teen years and they struggle to improve his quality of life on a daily basis. She posts a link to this video that I would ask everyone reading this to click over and watch. The band that is singing the beautiful song that goes with this video will donate $0.49 to autism research every time the video is clicked on to play.

It's short and it will break your heart but please click in anyway. What easier way to help find a cure for a condition that could easily strike one of your loved ones when you least expect it.

Murder at the McCompound

The snowman is dead, a victim of apparent violence.

I went out yesterday for half an hour to run a couple of errands. When I left he was still standing, well leaning, but stable. When I got home, he was a just pile of broken snow. I would have chalked it up to gravity except for the boot prints. They were made by a large foot. Someone had clearly had kicked my man down. His brains were spewed onto the sidewalk and couldn't have flown that far naturally.

I think it was my new skeevy neighbor. The stuck up girl with the long hair seems to have a new boyfriend. He's not nice and treats her badly. I guess it's better that he kicked my snowguy to death inside of kicking her. Maybe it spared her from a little abuse for a moment.

A little white magic


I didn't think it was going to happen. It started eight hours later than they predicted but we really got snow here today. Funny, when I was saving the photos I saw that it was exactly a year ago yesterday that we had a snowstorm.


The obvious thing to do was to build a snowman. Friends will remember that I usually make some elaborate snow creature but the snow here barely holds together enough to make a guy like this and I admit didn't spend much time on him.


This is why. An half hour later he looked like this.


Two hours later, he's still standing but he's leaning hard. He's dropped another couple of inches since.

It's supposed to freeze tonight and stay really cold tomorrow. He could convceivably freeze in that position and last another day like that but I'm not pinning my hopes on it. I expect I'll be holding a snowman funeral in the morning, but it was fun to play in the snow. I have to admit I do miss it a little and besides, around here, you know it won't last long.

Update: He's still standing this morning. Well, I mean he's leaning even lower but his head hasn't fallen off and it's freezing out there today. If the wind doesn't blow him over, he's likely to live a little longer.

Faces I remember

I decided to check in on my musician friends tonight. Big changes going on. Angry Johnny and the Killbillies broke up and my friend Maddy got famous. Last I looked, she had gone underground, but now she has this fancy website that I got lost in for hours. She has a new album.



I can't get over how much she's grown, as a woman and a musician. She won an award from the BBC. As you can see, she deserved it. I always knew she would make it big from the first time I heard her sing in my kitchen.

Sweet surrender

Friends, family and long time readers know how much I love JRR Tolkien and his Lord of Rings series, so you can imagine my delight in seeing this confection which is ten times more impressive than the one they did last year.

[Via Avedon who always finds the best stuff. More cool links at the end of this post.] [graphic]

Girl talk

It appears I have tomorrow off and I had too much coffee today so I've been winding my way through the blogroll. I really need to do some work on this template. I realized that I have a lot of dead blogs on the sidebar and a lot of the living blogs are on life support. It seems I'm not the only one that's fallen down on posting.

I've been remiss in visiting, so it's slow going while I catch up on old posts. And my, there's all kind of changes going on. Rosie had to sell her goats and she's leaving the mountain for parts unknown. I'm finding it hard to imagine her anywhere else.

Meanwhile, Tits is having a terrible week. But you can do something to cheer here up and the Rumblers will especially like this task. Go here and vote for Dizzy Von Damn. You have to scroll through a lot of contestants to find her so don't get distracted and vote for someone else. We want to get Dizzy out of fourth place.

And as long as we're posting sizzling chicks tonight, here's Red Hot Riding Hood directed by my favorite toonmeister, Tex Avery.

They don't make them like this anymore.

Overheard from the deck

New young neighbor guy, carrying a really long stick from the woods into the building while talking on his cell phone.

"I don't know about insects." .... "Elephants are okay. They're not as bad."

Either I have very strange neighbors or I need a hearing aid.

They say it's my birthday

Funny, but I don't feel old enough to deserve a senior citizen discount, but they give me one anyway. I really am an old maid now but I guess the world needs those too.

Loose change

I see big changes in my future but I don't know where they're going to take me. It's a little unsettling. All I can do is trust the universe for the answers.

I saw a great blue heron, way up close when I went to look at the pond around the corner. I think maybe it's the same one I've been seeing since I got here. It's so big and so blue and such a magnificent flyer. It flew across the pond when I got there and then it circled really close when it flew away. It didn't go far.

I'm hoping it's a good omen.

Out of this world

Bob the master of the Vleeptron universe has finally learned how to make links after only three years or so. But then they're in a different time zone on Vleeptron. Check out his latest celestial thoughts and other weighty matters of the cosmos.

If you scroll down to the bottom you can find where he finally linked to me. I like the way he described me.

Rest in Peace Flash


I haven't seen her in three years but she's been on my mind for a month now. Somehow I knew she was going to die. How I loved and admired this woman. She was such a hot ticket. I spent many a long hour at City Cafe entertained by her wit and wisdom. She lived every moment fully, right until the end.

They didn't call her Flash for nothing. The world is darker place without her light in it.

Fast Food, Slow

I go to the local Wendys franchise two or three times a month when I'm too lazy to even nuke a frozen dinner. I've been doing it long enough that I've seen a turnover in staff, but they're consistent. The pace at the counter makes a mockery of the phrase fast food. Glaciers move faster. It's almost painful to watch as they stumble through one order at a time, scrutinizing the ticket closely between the coke and the frosty.

I put up with it though because the food is reliably edible and it's the closest thing to real entertainment in this little town.

Molly


A puppy so sweet she deserves to be posted twice. That stripe on her face is her silly streak.

I'm back to work and just put in 32 hours in three days. I'm tired. I'll be back.

Happy New Year

Hope you all had a great New Year's celebration and aren't suffering too much from the after effects. For myself, I'm getting old. I had some pizza and a couple of beers and fell asleep on the couch waiting for the ball to drop. I think this is the first time in my life I didn't make it to midnight. On the plus side, I'm starting the new year without a hangover and that's certainly a welcome change.

This blog has morphed over the years, especially over 07, from a crusade against the war on some drugs into a personal hideaway where you my dear friends and readers still thankfully come to visit. That's not to say, I've given up the fight, I just took it to a new battleground, into the world of poli-blogs. I think it was the right decision.

The drug war specialists, like Pete, Scott, Loretta, and thehim and of course the bigger orgs, like DRC, SSDP, LEAP, MAP, MPP and DPA are doing such a great job of focusing the talking points and collecting the news that I started feeling a little superfluous in the niche, so I made it my mission to bring the message to a wider audience that wasn't hearing it. Funny thing, along the way, I discovered that non-consumers aren't so hostile to our goals anymore. I'd like to think I had a little something to do with that, by choosing the path I did.

In any event, we still have a long way to go to convince the political elites to make common sense drug policy a reality and I'm still very much in this fight. Thanks to all the full time reformers for all you do to make my job easier on this side of the fence. With five blogs, I don't make it into your comment sections very often, actually not at all, but you're always on my mind and will forever have my gratitude.

For those of you who just come here more for the gossip about my life, I cherish you just as much for keeping me company in this sometimes lonely place. Thanks for the comfort and comments of support. There's no way I can fully express how much you all mean to me.

Wishing you all a very happy, peaceful and prosperous New Year.