Peregrinating
2014

May

1 May
Antelope Valley RV Park
Delta, UT

Warmer this morning with a good chance that it will reach the forecast high in the 60s. Then into the lower 80s for the weekend. The 10 day forecast for my next camp does not show the forecast on my arrival date yet but I'm guessing that I'm going to be just a little early. It is still rather cool there.

Contacted a RV Park today to reserve a space in August. This is in the White Mountains of Arizona and the folks from Phoenix do try and get away from the Valley during August. I'll start contacting Parks for reservations in Sep - Nov before too long as well as contact a dentist for a cleaning during the first 10 days of December. From what I can see on the Verizon Data Coverage Map I may have some connection problems the next couple of months.

Yesterday afternoon was fairly nice but I didn't feel much like doing a long walk. Not to penalize Patches for my lazyness I took her to an alfalfa field south of the Park and turned her off leash to run some. That she did but did more sniffing around than running. She did get in one good long bird chase which made her very happy.

I wrote about the 0.1% growth in 1st Qtr GDP yesterday and how the Federal Reserve thinks the economy will expand at a moderate pace. The stock market took that News to be a buy signal and pushed the Dow stock index to a new all time record close. Who would have thought that a near recession level of GDP growth would drive the Dow to record heights. I am completely out of the loop with the New Economics.

2 May
Antelope Valley RV Park
Delta, UT

Yesterday was the first afternoon in about a week that the weather has been great and we were going past the City Library. Therefore, it was a very good time for a photo shoot with Mr.Samuel Langhorne Clemens. I looked at the book that he was reading but could not see a title on the cover but from what little I could read with a glance at the open pages I think it is his Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World .

Patches was not her usual excited self in meeting someone new but she was willing to sit by him for her picture. I then was able to stop an innocent passerby and had her take the group picture. Notice that there was a slight breeze that has the hair on my head and that of Mr. Clemens raised just a little.

Yes, it was 71° yesterday afternoon for a high and this morning the low was a pleasant 41°. The forecast is for near 80 today then in the low 80s thru Monday with some cooling into the 60s later in the week. All the low temperatures for the next 7 days to be in the 40s and 50s. Just it time before I leave with my next camp forecasting temperatures in a range about 10° lower.

WOW!! The Bureau of Labor released their non-farm job numbers for April today that showed an increase of 288,000 jobs. This is the first time in my short term memory that the increase has been more than what the 'experts' were expecting; it was unexpected as always. The employment report joins other upbeat data such as consumer spending and industrial production in suggesting the first quarter's 0.1 percent annual growth pace was an aberration and is not a reflection of the economy's otherwise sound fundamentals. Economists now expect second-quarter growth to top a 3 percent pace. It is time to sing "Happy Days Are Here Again"!

However it may be just a tad early to start the band playing. If you look at the Household Data for April the number of Employed decreased by 73,000 reversing the trend that had been in place since November. But, you say, there is the Good News of Unemployment dropping to 6.3% - the lowest in 5 1/2 years!

It is not until about the 6-7th paragraph of most News stories that all the rot is not off the vine quite yet. That huge drop in Unemployment was driven in part by the increase of 988,000 in the Not in the Labor Force. The number of Unemployed decreased significantly by 733,000 providing the other part of the Rate decrease.

This increase in the Not in the Labor Force was enough to move the Participation Rate down to 62.8% once again matching the low set back in October and December. In each of those months a new all time high was set for Not in the Labor Force and that happened again this month with the record now set at 92,018,000. Note: No major News source, that I could find, reported the new record; not Associated Press, Reuters, Bloomberg not The New York Times.

The average earnings gained one cent to $24.31 an hour, while the average workweek remained at 34.5 hours. These are not numbers that would bode greater Consumer Confidence nor for higher consumer spending, in my opinion, but those were both reported to be higher for this past month. As I said, I am totally out of the loop with this New Economics.

3 May
Antelope Valley RV Park
Delta, UT

I had a very busy (for me) day scheduled so we did only a short potty walk. I then drove across the street and used my Jubilee Market gas discount coupon to fill up. The sad thing is the gas cost me more after the discount than it would have if I had filled up the day I arrived in town; the price has gone up 15¢ since I have been here.

We then went to town where I had breakfast at El Jalisciense Taco once again. This time I had their Huevos a la Mexicana which came as a large serving with equal portions of rice and beans, a big flour tortilla and some coffee. I thought the chorizo that I had last week was over salty but found out this morning that it is not the ingredients but rather it is the cook. My meal this morning was also over salty. However, I NEVER add salt to anything so I am sensitive to salt, it may have been fine for everyone else.

The next stop was the laundromat which was clean, brightly lighted and had one other customer. The washer was a little expensive at $2.00 but the majority of the dryers were unreasonable at $2.50. I was lucky that the one other customer was a lady that took pity on an 'ol man and told me that for a small load the other dryer like the one she was using took 25¢ at a time for 5 minutes. I was able to get everything dry for $1.00!

Last stop in town was at Quality Market to gather the food for next week. The 'linner' main course this week will be Green Chicken & Beans. This was created as soon as we got home with diced and browned chicken breast, 40oz green salsa verde, 28oz white kidney beans, 8oz diced japeño, 8oz diced green chile and a couple dabs of powdered cayenne. All into the pot to boil for maybe 10 minutes and then into the Thermal Cooker for about 5 hours.

The salad this week is about the same except radish replaces turnip. The dessert will be Greek vanilla and honey yogurt with blueberries and walnuts or strawberries and pecans.

My home breakfasts have remained much the same scrambles that I have been making for a few weeks now. The biggest change has been that I finally used up all the Folgers Black Silk and have been drinking Arbuckle Ariosa for this past week. Very good stuff!

The neighbor that had been in the park model unit to the north of me left on the 1st. Since then I have had a small flock of 5th wheel trailers land in the southeastern corner of the Park.

The closest is in the space about two away from me catty-corner to the southwest. They have a pit bull mix that is marked much like Patches, with out the eye patch, but is probably 1 1/2 times as big as she is. They have a second dog, a 12 year old chocolate lab, that is a little bigger than the pit and is very mellow. Both of them have been well behaved with the pit wearing what looks like a shock collar. They each have their own Coolaroo Elevated Pet Bed with Knitted Fabric that both dogs tend to ignore preferring to lay on the cool grass. They do use the beds some of the time and it looks like a good idea for an all dirt and rock area.

Remember my posting of 29 April and what Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said "Let’s be outraged that whoever did the betraying will probably get a book deal, a sitcom, trade recipes with Hoda and Kathie Lee, and soon appear on Celebrity Apprentice and Dancing with the Stars."

It has begun. Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s confidante V. Stiviano told ABC’s Barbara Walters in an interview yesterday that she thinks the embattled NBA basketball owner should apologize for his racist remarks but "...through his actions he’s shown that he’s not a racist. He’s shown to be a very generous and kind man.” She also said that she had shared the taped conversation with friends and a friend leaked the audio. The friend will soon be on TV also, you can bet on it!

4 May
Antelope Valley RV Park
Delta, UT

It reached a high temperature of 84 yesterday but was very comfortable with a breeze. That breeze kept getting stronger as the day progressed until it died as the sun went down. The forecast is for that weather pattern to repeat today but the wind started earlier and skipped the breeze stage.

I got out in it before it became too strong to do the tank dumping chore. The gray water tank idiot light had not yet come on but I was down to 1/4 tank of fresh water so thought it time to get it done. Took on fresh water so I am now ready to get on the road. There is some housecleaning that I should do but that does not keep my from traveling.

I was very disappointed in how the Search Box that I added to my website home page was working and found what I thought was a better search method. I think that it is better - but still not good. It is all dependent on when Google sends their bot to my site and creates their updated Search Map. I can find something on 1 January 2014 but then can not find anything on 3 January 2014 or thereafter.

So when I went searching for the Larry Bond book that I had read before I could not find it using any of the search terms that I thought would bring it up. The reason for that was I wrote the review on 5 March 2014. I finished another of his today and will post a review within a couple of days.

Today I review my latest nonpareil concoction - Green Chicken & Beans. If you are looking to impress someone with 'food presentation' this dish, as I described how to make it, is probably not the one to select. I don't think there is anything that can be done to or with this concoction that is going to make it look presentable. I served it over some barley, the usual choice would be rice.

The good thing about it is how wonderful it tastes. I will caution those that do not have quite the tolerance for capsaicin (that is the hot in peppers) that I do that my dabs of powdered cayenne are most likely 'a bridge too far'. There may even be those that think the addition of the jalapeños is a bit much but the flavor is just so goooood.

Not intended for public release, The Wolfowitz Doctrine was leaked to the New York Times on March 7, 1992, and sparked a public controversy about U.S. foreign and defense policy. The document was widely criticized as imperialist as the document outlined a policy of unilateralism and pre-emptive military action to suppress potential threats from other nations and prevent any other nation from rising to superpower status. It was hastily re-written before being officially released on April 16, 1992 but the original tenets continue to drive foreign policy and the United States position in Ukraine against Russia.

The doctrine regards any power sufficiently strong to remain independent of the United State's influence to be “hostile.”

Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.

5 May
Antelope Valley RV Park
Delta, UT

The wind that picked up yesterday morning never completely died down. It became weaker early this morning but never quit and then came back strong again by 10:00. The forecast is for blowing dust this afternoon and tonight with a chance of rain tomorrow with that chance increasing to 70% by Wednesday. Some not so good weather for the next 2-3 days.

All of the 5th wheel flock that flew in last Friday were gone by mid-afternoon yesterday. They even took a travel trailer, that was north of the park model near me, with them. That has left me the sole resident in the 25 spaces at the east end of the Park. My closest neighbors are now 3-4 spaces away to the south and west.

I have been averaging around 3.5 miles per day for our two walks since being here. This week I'm cutting back some to give both Patches and myself a bit of a rest. She has been climbing the stairs a little slow these past few days and I feel like I'm dragging. The bad weather may make this a wise decision also, I am not much for walking in the rain.

I read 2-3 analysis of President Obama's latest Correspondents' Association dinner performance and they all said much the same thing. Rip Curl said it best in his article Obama Skips Self-Deprecation, Lashes Out at Republicans in Vicious WHCA Dinner Monologue. This is only a portion of what he had to say.

Once a year, at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, the president drops in to deliver a short comedy bit heavy on self deprecation. President Reagan was a master, goofing on himself as a slow-witted Hollywood rube; George H.W. Bush stepped out of his stiff patrician bearing to hit himself with a few zingers; Bill Clinton singed himself badly after his affair with a White House intern ("How was your week?"). And George W. Bush was, frankly, a master.
But President Obama each year proves he just isn't man enough to point his super-intellectual humor at himself. Sure, he almost always delivers a burn or two at himself, but he always goes on a scorched-earth campaign after that, viciously ripping any and all critics who have taken him on. "It is great to be back. What a year, huh? I usually start these dinners with a few self-deprecating jokes. After my stellar 2013, what can I possibly talk about?"
...in his very first joke, he did so not by targeting himself, but by going after 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. "At one point, things got so bad, the 47 percent called Mitt Romney to apologize," he said to applause and laughter from the heavily liberal crowd. He made two other jokes, both weak, about the rollout, and - done. "Rather than dwell on the past, I would like to pivot to this dinner," he said. End of self deprecation... A man who can't laugh at himself is a man devoid of humor, and nearly always, bitter and petty.

6 May
Antelope Valley RV Park
Delta, UT

The wind finally quite sometime during the night but not before blowing a travel trailer into 'my' end of the Park. I think they were intent getting back to the land of fruits and nuts (California) but the wind was beating them up. They were gone before 6:00am this morning while it was very calm.

There is still a lot of dust in the air but very few clouds. The weather guessers continue to forecast a 40% chance of rain which does not look like it will happen. But, they are also predicting that the winds will come back, maybe even stronger, and they usually get that right.

I did very little once again today. The most useful thing that I did was to vacuum up some of the hair that Patches seems to shed by the hand full. She still has her winter coat but is trying to get rid of it day by day. Did some reading while on the couch with her and did some Monthly blog reading while in my chair without her.

The Publishers Weekly review says that this is Bond's first--and impressive--independent contribution to the technothriller. This is not quite correct. On the Author's Note page he admits that this book was a collaboration with Patrick Larkin and says 'It is his book as much as mine, and he deserves at least as much credit'. Why his name is not included as a joint author is between Larry Bond and himself but I wonder who is responsible for the 'sure grip on weaponry and military methods'. It is that part of the book that I enjoyed the most. Publishers does not say anything about the political sub-story that is going on in the United States, North Korea, Russia and China which is an important part of the total novel. Recommended - and it was as good this second time that I read it as I could remember it being the first time.

Bond, Tom Clancy's collaborator on Red Storm Rising , here makes his first--and impressive--independent contribution to the technothriller. "Red Phoenix" is the code name for the novel's catalyst: a North Korean invasion of the south. Bond establishes a credible scenario of megalomanic North Korean leadership taking advantage of disruptions caused by ill-advised U.S. economic sanctions against the Seoul government. He then proceeds to "refight" the first weeks of the Korean War, this time with things done right, resulting in a kind of conflict for which U.S. forces are ideally suited: a mid-intensity conventional war for limited objectives. South Korea's government and armed forces prove resolute and efficient. The U.S. President declares a national emergency. The implied contrasts to Vietnam hardly seem accidental. But the nature of the response to the attack combines with the exponential discrepancy between the combatants' military strengths to make the novel's individual episodes more suspenseful than the course of the war as a whole. Bond's writing is strongest at the tactical and operational level. Whether describing infantry combat, air-to-ground attacks or anti-submarine operations, he demonstrates a sure grip on weaponry and military methods. His principal characters--the U.S. commanding general in Korea, an infantry lieutenant and his South Korean counterpart, an F-16 pilot--carry their parts of the story effectively, not least because Bond concentrates on what they do rather than on who they are. - Publishers Weekly

7 May
Antelope Valley RV Park
Delta, UT

We got a trace of rain yesterday afternoon. I had a few drops on my glasses while we were doing our afternoon walk and briefly thought I might get wet. I then heard it raining sometime during the night when I woke up and found the streets to be wet this morning. The Community Environmental Monitoring Program (CEMP) monitoring station here in Delta measured an official 0.01" which I think may be a bit short considering how wet the streets were.

The mountains to the east had lost their snow covering as I had predicted but during a break in the clouds this morning I could see that they had acquired a white shawl on their shoulders once more. There may be more added today with a 80% chance of more rain in the forecast.

I did a little more housework today, cleaned the toilet and bathroom sink. Of all the housework that I am forced to do that is the chore which I tend to avoid as much as possible. If I were to do it 'regularly' it would not be much of a chore but I keep putting it off. I must say the new porcelain toilet is so much easier to clean than the old plastic one that I might quit complaining - on second thought, probably not.

Became current again with my Monthly blogs. When I say that I know that I am now about two weeks behind on the first one on my list but that is the way it is. I also became current on another blog that I was catching up from its beginning and have added it to my Monthly list. Right now I have no others that I am reading from the beginning which is unusual. Maybe get caught up on some of the online books that I have downloaded and put in a pending file.

Kirsten A. Powers is an American political pundit and columnist for USA Today. She began her career as a Democratic Party operative with the Clinton-Gore presidential transition team in 1992 followed by an appointment as Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Public Affairs in the Clinton administration from 1993-1998. She subsequently worked in various roles including press secretary, communications consultant, and Democratic Party consultant. You might say that she does NOT fit the right-wing Tea Party stereotype.

She did write an Opinion Diverting Benghazi probe for USA Today yesterday that if it had been written by a conservative would have been refuted by Senator Harry Reid on the Senate floor (he may do that yet). I recommend the article which she closes by saying “White House officials brought this House investigation on themselves. They could have avoided it by simply telling the truth. Unfortunately, that was too much to ask".

8 May
Antelope Valley RV Park
Delta, UT

We had the Wave heater going again for part of the morning yesterday. The high temperature for the day (52°) was in the afternoon when we did our walk and it was sprinkling. Not a very good day. This morning was much better with the low not much below what it was at noon yesterday. I didn't wear my gloves, which was a mistake, but it was clear and we are getting a lot of sun that has not been in evidence for the past couple of days.

Did another household chore. This was cleaning the cab dash and washing the inside of the windshield. I noticed that I could not get the windshield clean when washing the outside and found that my problem was on the inside. I don't know that I have ever washed the inside so that should not have surprised me. After doing it today I know why I have not done it in the past - it is a pain in the ass.

Do you remember the Sequester of March 1, 2013 and how it was going to destroy our country? Remember President Obama, in a speech at the White House that February, saying "These cuts are not smart, they are not fair, they will hurt our economy, they will add hundreds of thousands of Americans to the unemployment rolls. This is not an abstraction. People will lose their jobs."?

Or perhaps you remember that in July Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, on the Senate floor (his preferred speech dais) said “We have learned that the sequestration already has cut 1.6 million jobs. So we need job creation. We need to help the middle class by creating jobs.”?

The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) released their report 2013 Sequestration (GAO-14-244) dated March 2014 that is a stark contrast from those dire predictions from the President and the Majority Leader.

The March report by the Government Accountability Office describes how 23 agencies and departments -- which appear to span most of the federal government -- complied with the cuts. Only one, the Department of Justice, decided to lay off a single employee in fiscal year 2013.
A spokeswoman for the GAO told FoxNews.com the DOJ reported that the laid-off worker was from the the U.S. Parole Commission, but they had no other information about the employee. Virtually every other arm of the government turned to tactics like cutting overtime, reducing employee travel and putting workers on furlough to avoid actual firings.

9 May
Antelope Valley RV Park
Delta, UT

I had some California Clingers move in late yesterday afternoon. When they pulled in they backed into a space across the street and 3 spaces to the south, close but not all that bad. They found that space not to their liking and moved to the space directly across the street from me. Do you remember me telling you that there were 25 spaces on this east end of the Park to choose from? They are directly across the street from me.

We did our usual morning walk today and then went to town. My first stop was at a Wells Fargo ATM to get some cash. I pay for almost everything with my Credit Card but need some cash from time to time and was almost out and had no idea about ATMs at my next camp.

Then went to the Rancher Café for breakfast. My first choice was a mushroom omelet but they had no mushrooms so I got a Denver without mushrooms but a few extra of the other vegetables. Not great but better than the first breakfast that I had there and they open early which is a big plus on my scale when it comes to a place for breakfast.

I was going to have breakfast at Zapata's Mexican Restaurant but got there at 7:00am thinking that was when they opened. I waited and at about 7:20 the owner(?) opened the door and went inside. I went over and tried the other door a minute later and it was locked but the owner came out and said that they opened at 7:30. He had a customer standing at his door and did not invite him in - I went to the Rancher.

Final stop was at Quality market where I picked up groceries for the week. Going to make a few changes in the menu for the 'liner' main course and breakfast. The salad will remain unchanged. I'll tell about it tomorrow when I whip up the first 'linner' after arriving at my new camp.

I called and made a reservation for September. Usually I would be sending an email to get this done and would be doing it in June but the RV Park had no email address listed on their webpage. I would have still waited until June to call but I have some doubts that I'll be able to get a TracFone signal at my next two camps. So, I did it early.

I made up a 3x5 route card for the drive tomorrow. Located what I think will be my breakfast stop and made a note on the card. I also checked what the gas station possibilities where and found that what ever I do I'll be paying a high price for gas. I'll wipe down the stove top and kitchen counters just before going to bed and then tomorrow morning I'm on the road again.

The table shown below uses data that was compiled by the Sacramento Bee and presented as an image in Monty Pelerin's World. It was part of his blog posting Death Rattle of a Country on 7 May 2014 that he used to visually depict the economic 'stage' of our country.

In America, except for relatively short periods the expectation of a better life than your parents was considered almost a birthright. Sadly, that is no longer the case. Subsequent generations are likely to be poorer than their parents. They will not do as well. That is what a stage three, stagnant, dying economy means. - Monty Pelerin's World

Adult millenials in the Sacramento region - those between 18 and 31 in 2012 - are generally worse off financially than their parents and grandparents at the same age. How the generations compare locally when they were between the ages of 18 and 31.

10 May
Sand Creek RV Park
Torrey, UT

The Clinger Mentality is a phenomenon that need to be studied. I wonder if I could get a Federal Grant? I had two travel trailers arrive at about 7:30pm last night. The first one took the closest space that they could to me on the south side and the other one then pulled in on my north side in the space between me and the park model. There were about 22-23 spaces in this east end of the Park to chose from and now there are 4 of us parked within spitting distance of each other. If I had not been leaving this morning I would have moved last night.

We did a short walk this morning. Not our usual morning walk which has been about a 3x potty walk but more of a 2x potty walk. Then pulled out around 6:40am and left the Clingers to enjoy their weekend.

Stopped in Nephi, UT for breakfast at Lisa's Country Kitchen which was more of a high-end place than I expected. That meant that the Skillet that I had was more expensive than my normal kind of place. They probably get traffic from Interstate 15 that want something more upscale than what the fast food chain places at the Exit offer.

The route that I chose followed the Seiver River for the early part of the day. Then from Salina to Torrey I was on Utah Scenic Byway 24 and the Fremont River. Great scenic drive and it is here that I pick up my 1991 bicycle tour route and going east from here I'll drive what was the toughest day of our tour. I won't do that until next month however.

The route was 173 miles which had me arriving around 11:00am just ahead of a storm that was blowing in behind me. The route: US50/US6, US6, UT132, UT28, US89, US50 & UT24.

There were two summits on UT that I had not researched which surprised me; the first one at about 7,300' and the second at 8,200'. I did not develop a headache this time as I did the morning I drove into Ely, NV. I had just started the new blood pressure dosage and I think I was not quite accustom to it at that time; much better today.

The Verizon connection here is VERY slow. I have a good WIFI signal so far and that is what I will rely on but if it drops me I can suffer using Verizon. Will not be able to do much Searching with Verizon but I can at least get my email and read some blogs and News.

Stayed up a little past my bed time last night to finish reading the book that I have been reading for about a week. I'll get a review posted in an few days. That is assuming I don't have a problem with pictures when using WIFI, I doubt that the Verizon connection will update my website with or without pictures.

WOW! The economy is really booming. The DOW industrial average set another record close yesterday. I don't understand how this can be from the way I read the economic News tea leaves but their are 'greater fools' out there that appear to believe it can only go UP.

11 May
Sand Creek RV Park
Torrey, UT

I took Patches for a walk to the market here in Torrey yesterday afternoon hoping that it was as good as what I had found in Jackpot, NV and Challis, ID (also very small towns). It was not to be. They have a good Deli and lots of bakery items but not much produce or meats. Lots of canned item and boxes of prepared food items and your usual tourist snack stuff. I'll be driving to Loa and give the market there my business - that is my only other choice, everything else is too far away.

Parked next to the market was another of those huge EarthRoamer type RV that come from Europe. This one had France decals on it but I am guessing it was built in Germany. I saw a name that was probably the builder but forgot it by the time I got home.

The storm that was chasing me yesterday caught us just before we were going to walk in the afternoon. Some small hail and enough rain to dampen the ground. I would call it a trace, I doubt that it was measurable.

The forecast for this morning was a low of 26°, a high today of 32° with a 90% chance of 1-3" of snow. How can the weather guessers get the rain forecast so wrong and then predict snow and it happens? When we went out for our walk this morning it was snowing lightly and had a 1-1.5" accumulation. The low temperature this morning was slightly higher than forecast at 32 and it exceeded the forecast high by 9:00am but not by much.

The good weather news is that the snow should stop by this afternoon. Then the bad news will rear its ugly head with a forecast low tomorrow morning of 19 and Tuesday morning only slightly better at 22. Tomorrow the high may be 42 then Tuesday at 45 but into the lower 60s after that and maybe 70 on Saturday. With any luck at all this is the end of Winter.

I didn't know this weather was coming when I went shopping last Friday. That was when I decided that I would have soup and salad for my 'linners' this week. Started with a can of Campbell Condensed Cream of Mushroom, a can of chicken broth plus a package of frozen broccoli; served over pre-cooked barley. That will last me for three days. I will follow with a can of Campbell Condensed Cream of Potato, a can of chicken broth and a package of frozen peas. Cold weather food!

I think Spenglers closing paragraph in his blog Putin Isn’t a Genius — We Are Complete Idiots on 17 April 2014 describes the most likely outcome of the Ukraine 'crisis'. He dismisses the idea that Putin is a genius but make a good argument that the United States is an idiot. The entire article is well worth a read. The eastern Ukraine referendum today may be some of the festering of which Spengler speaks.

The threat, as the great chess theorist Aron Nimzowitsch wrote, is mightier than the execution. Putin will let the West take ownership of the Ukrainian disaster until it festers, and then he will pick and choose what he wants. We will huff and puff and bloviate about Putin, the new Hitler, while Ukraine’s economy disintegrates. Bismarck’s aphorism applies: die ganze Ukraine ist nicht die gesunden knochen eines pommerschen Grenadiers wert.

12 May
Sand Creek RV Park
Torrey, UT

It quit snowing yesterday afternoon right when the weather gurus said it would. But they did say there would be some snow showers and we walked in a couple of those but they were very light and quickly over. During one of them I was being snowed on and could look at the sun shining on the mountains to the north.

Patches got her under carriage all muddy and was a very happy dog. She avoids water puddles but has no problem with walking through snow and mud. A tired and/or a dirty dog is a happy dog.

I have moved north every summer that I have been fulltiming to try to stay cool. This has been a successful strategy since I can not remember experiencing any 100° days. This past February I was considering where my route might be for this summer and decided that I would try to replace moving north with moving up in elevation.

That is what has brought me to Torrey, UT. On my way here on the 10th I reached my northern limit at Nephi, Ut (39°42'33" N). I knew that it was still going to be a little cool here in the mornings in early May but certainly did not expect snow. Last year I was in Angel Fire, NM during June and had near freezing mornings because of the elevation but I didn't get any snow. The rest of my summer will now be at elevation!

I changed my breakfast a little this morning. For the past few weeks it has been a scramble of onion, tomato, kale, crumbled tofu and pre-cook barley. I boiled up a couple of potatoes yesterday and then mashed them up with about an equal amount of tofu. This went into the scramble as a replacement for the tofu and barley. I'm not sure if it is a keeper or not. The taste was good but I was not impressed with the texture; maybe a couple more trial days are needed.

I could not find any reviews of this book other than by other readers like myself. None of them said anything close to what I was thinking about the book so I'll have my say. I think it is her publisher that has classified this as a novel of Romantic Suspense. That may be but I found it long on Romance and short on Suspense. I believe the target market for the novel was female readers which I think will enjoy it more than male readers. When the suspense was finally broken it happened in a rush to finish the book and left me disbelieving. I probably will not pick up another of Jackson's books but women may find them great.

As white-hot flames sear the dark night, a killer waits in the trees, watching the mill burn, listening for the screams - the only proof that justice has finally begun for the sins of long-ago. For journalist Cassidy Buchanan, this inferno is a living nightmare - a reminder of the horrible, mysterious fire that destroyed her wealthy family seventeen years ago - and of Brig McKenzie, the handsome hell raiser accused of setting the blaze. That tragic crime has never been solved, and already the whispers have begun in Prosperity, Oregon - another fire, more deaths, and one common denominator - Cassidy herself. Cassidy came home to Prosperity to put the past behind her, but it seems the past isn't finished with Cassidy. Someone doesn't want her to uncover the chilling truth...someone who has killed before and will kill again...a cold-blooded psychopath who is only waiting to hear her... Book Cover Promotion

13 May
Sand Creek RV Park
Torrey, UT

Yesterday started out like it was going to be a great day. Then as the day progressed it became stormy once again and the 20% chance of snow became 100%. It was only brief snow showers with no accumulation until last night when it left a dusting.

It has started out the same way this morning. Cold, 25°, but clear and no wind when we went out for our walk. Then the wind picked up and it felt colder at 9:00am than it did earlier. I have been turning on my water every time I get up during the night for the past two nights to keep the pipes from freezing. If I can believe the forecast I'll only need to do that once tomorrow morning and then the 10 day forecast is predicting it will stay above freezing.

The past two days we have stopped at Robbers Roost Bookstore in the afternoon while on our walk and I had a latte. Yesterday I was the only customer and the barista said that Patches could come inside. She was a happy dog once again; she got to smell a lot of new smells and got some attention from someone new which is always better than from me. I lucked out while there because I think that was when the hardest snow shower of the afternoon passed through.

The picture on the left was taken about an hour after it quit snowing on Sunday. The one on the right was taken just after sun rise on Monday. Both of them are looking north from my space in the RV Park and is at the western end of Capital Reef although not part of the National Park. The dirt road in the foreground of the picture on the right is the Torrey trail head to the Great Western Trail. This is a unique corridor of braided and paralleling trails for both motorized and non-motorized users that traverses 4,455 miles through Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana.

Obama shrinks away in the face of evil by Michael Goodwin for the New York Post is another one of his 'right on' articles. This quote is only a portion of the article, which is well worth reading, but goes to the heart of what he is writing about.

“I have this remarkable title right now — president of the United States — and yet every day when I wake up, and I think about young girls in Nigeria or children caught up in the conflict in Syria — when there are times in which I want to reach out and save those kids — and having to think through what levers, what power do we have at any given moment, I think, ‘drop by drop by drop,’ that we can erode and wear down these forces that are so destructive, that we can tell a different story,” Obama said.
If there was a course of action buried in that litany of woe, it escapes me. The sequence amounts to a counsel of defeat.
Earlier, he had talked about rising anti-Semitism and the spread of sectarian and tribal conflicts.
“We cannot eliminate evil from every heart, or hatred from every mind,” he said. “But what we can do, and what we must do, is make sure our children and their children learn their history so that they might not repeat it. We can teach our children the hazards of tribalism. We can teach our children to speak out against the casual slur. We can teach them there is no 'them,' there’s only 'us'.
There you have it. We can teach our children warm and fuzzy things — assuming they and we are not killed by madmen first. In which case, there’s nothing we can do.

14 May
Sand Creek RV Park
Torrey, UT

The low temperature at 29° was a little above the forecast and I probably did not need to run water two times in the early morning. If pipes froze because of windchill then it would have been necessary. We were on our walk during the time of the low temperature as well as a gentle breeze that made it feel like it was 23°. Walked south on River Dr this morning to the Fremont River and a one car wooden bridge where it was heavily signed as being Private Property, No Trespassers and last but not least Posted.

I have been debating, with myself, about changing the name of my location or leave it as I had shown it for the past three days. I decided to change it from Sandcreek RV Park (this is the way it is shown on the Park's website and on Google Maps) to Sand Creek RV Park. The reasons for doing so were a)Sandcreek just seemed wrong to me b)The RV Park is bordered by Sand Creek Rd c)There is a sign pointing to the Great Western Trail Head that proclaims Sand Creek.

Didn't do much today other than our walks. I started to prepare the Will Rogers weekly article links for July and got as far as copying the text to my website. It will take me some time to format the text but this is a start.

Whose Client State? by James Howard Kunstler on 12 May 2014 is a great article on Ukraine in which he expresses many of the same thoughts as Spengler. These are his two opening paragraphs, I recommend the entire article.

My country can cry all it likes about yesterday’s referendum vote in eastern Ukraine, but we set the process in motion by sponsoring the overthrow of an elected Kiev government that was tilting toward Russia and away from NATO overtures. The president elected in 2010, Viktor Yanukovych, might have been a grifter and a scoundrel, but so was his opponent, the billionaire gas oligarch Yulia Tymoshenko. The main lesson that US authorities have consistently failed to learn in more than a decade of central Asian misadventures: when you set events in motion in distant lands, events, not policy planners at the State Department, end up in the driver’s seat.
And so now they’ve had the referendum vote and the result is about 87 percent of the voters in eastern Ukraine would prefer to align politically with Russia rather than the failing Ukraine state governed out of Kiev. It’s easy to understand why. First, there’s the ethnic divide at the Dnieper River: majority Russian-speakers to the east. Second, the Kiev government, as per above, shows all the signs of a failing state — that is, a state that can’t manage any basic responsibilities starting with covering the costs of maintaining infrastructure and institutions. The Kiev government is broke.

15 May
Sand Creek RV Park
Torrey, UT

Much better weather. It didn't freeze last night and we walked in 40° temperatures. A little brisk because of the windchill but much better. The high today is expected to be near 70 with Fri - Sun in the mid 70s with the lows near the mid-40s.

These are a couple more pictures of the Great Western Trail leading up Sand Creek into the Fish Lake National Forest. The picture on the left shows the panorama of the canyon. The one on the right is a zoom on the rock formation that dominates the center of that panorama.

President Obama has declared a 'Sanctions War' against Russia and President Putin is firing back.

May 15 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has informed multiple European states that Moscow will not supply gas to Europe through Ukraine as of June 1 if Kiev does not pay its bills.
Putin also urged European leaders to do more to help Ukraine through its economic crisis and to resolve the standoff over gas, repeating a threat to cut exports if Kiev fails to pay in advance for June deliveries.

May 13 (Reuters) - Russia cast doubt on the long-term future of the International Space Station,...Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Moscow would reject a U.S. request to prolong the orbiting station's use beyond 2020. It will also bar Washington from using Russian-made rocket engines to launch military satellites.
Moscow took the action, which also included suspending operation of GPS satellite navigation system sites on its territory from June, in response to U.S. plans to deny export licences for high-technology items that could help the Russian military.

May 13 (Voice of Russia) - According to the Prime news agency, on April 24th the government organized a special meeting dedicated to finding a solution for getting rid of the US dollar in Russian export operations. Top level experts from the energy sector, banks and governmental agencies were summoned and a number of measures were proposed as a response for American sanctions against Russia.
The"de-dollarization meeting” was chaired by First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Igor Shuvalov, proving that Moscow is very serious in its intention to stop using the dollar. A subsequent meeting was chaired by Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseev who later told the Rossia 24 channel that "the amount of ruble-denominated contracts will be increased”, adding that none of the polled experts and bank representatives found any problems with the government's plan to increase the share of ruble payments.

16 May
Sand Creek RV Park
Torrey, UT

I was bragging about the weather yesterday and should have been quiet. It was not cold, 43°, this morning but the windchill brought it down to 36. We were not out in it for long however since we did a short potty walk and then headed for town.

Town in this case was Loa, UT some 16 miles west from where I am camped. My first stop was at the Country Café where I had their Yahoo Omelet (Jalapeño and Ham) with a big serving of not so good hash browns and some so-so coffee. I'll probably go back because it is the only place in Loa that is open at 7:00am.

Then went to Royal's Food Town to get groceries. It is a fairly decent store considering the size of Loa (564) or even the entire county (2,778). They carry Western Family canned and packaged items, have a deli, not much of a meat selection but not too bad a selection of produce. They get their shipment of produce in on Tuesday and Friday so my choice of produce should improve from what I had today which was not bad.

Made it back to my space in the Park before 9:00 and started to make a pot of Frey's Special Chili. That will go with the same salad, dessert and breakfast that I had last week. The only other thing I have changed is I picked up some La Brea whole grain bread to accompany my 'linners'; will stick with corn tortillas at breakfast.

Another agency of the Federal Government is 'Arming Up'. Who does the Department of Agriculture anticipate they will be confronting that they will need this class of automatic weapons and ballist vest? It is also very interesting that the Department Office of Inspector General is the one looking for a weapon in .40 Cal. S&W. This is not now a very common caliber since most automatic weapons need to be NATO compliant. I get the feeling that there is one supplier that the Federal government is trying to feed some business; but why the Department of Agriculture?

Solicitation Number: USDAOIGWEA-5-7-14
Notice Type: Sources Sought
Synopsis: Added: May 07, 2014 2:03 pm
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General, located in Washington, DC, pursuant to the authority of FAR Part 13, has a requirement for the commerical acquisition of submachine guns, .40 Cal. S&W, ambidextrous safety, semi-automatic or 2 shot burts trigger group, Tritium night sights for front and rear, rails for attachment of flashlight (front under fore grip) and scope (top rear), stock-collapsilbe or folding, magazine - 30 rd. capacity, sling, light weight, and oversized trigger guard for gloved operation.
Solicitation Number: USDAOIGVEST-5-7-14
Notice Type: Sources Sought
Synopsis: Added: May 07, 2014 2:24 pm
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General, located in Washington, DC and Regional Offices, pursuant to the authority of FAR Part 13, has a requirement for the commerical acquisition of ballist vests, compliant with NIJ 0101.06 for Level IIIA Ballistic Resistance of body armor.  Body armor is gender specific, lightweight, trauma plate/pad (hard or soft), concealable carrier, tactical vest, undergarment (white), identification patches, accessories (6 pouches), body armor carry bag, and professional measurements

17 May
Sand Creek RV Park
Torrey, UT

I have had a lot of very slow Verizon and WIFI since I have been here this past week. I have also had very satisfactory speeds, I would not call them fast, from both providers. Then there have been times when neither connection gives me a speed that is capable of uploading my blog posts or downloading pictures. I have received much better WIFI twice after I complained and the RV Park server was re-booted.

I am almost certain that my problems in the late afternoon and evening are bandwidth issues so I do not complain. The other times during the day that I have problems I think have something to do with the wind. There are a lot of articles on the Internet that say wind does not affect WIFI or Internet signals but they also concede that tower movement can cause problems. That is what I think I am experiencing because the wind has been blowing since I arrived; it does not seem to ever stop it is only a matter of how strong it might be at any given time.

Perhaps the funniest News of the past few days has been the Main Stream Media's reaction to Rush Limbaugh being named ‘Author of the Year’ by the Children’s Book Council. What makes this so funny, I dare not call it hypocrisy, is the position that the Reverend Sharpton has taken on voter ID laws. He has written, and spoke, many times that the government, by requiring IDs, is acting against the rights of its citizens by infringing on the rights of its worst-off citizens to vote. By requiring IDs, states are repeating the racism and oppression of the past and are de-legitimizing the will of entire segments of the population.

The Reverend then devoted a segment of his relatively obscure show, at MSNBC a relatively obscure network, to mock Limbaugh's win. He also suggested a recount and that the voting children being made to produce a photo ID to make sure there was no voter fraud. If challenged about the photo ID I'm sure he would claim - just kidding, just kidding - and would get a pass whereas a conservative host would be fired.

Obama tries to blow off his newest scandal: the VA outrage by John Hayward for Human Events who is not an Obama supporter and he is writing for a conservative on-line News outlet. That does not make what he says in this article any less of an outrage at the President's apparent indifference to his latest scandal at the Veterans Administration.

It has been reported that President Obama has asked Shinseki to review “practices to ensure better access to care”, the same language he uses when talking about ObamaCare. Soon everyone, under ObamaCare, will get the level of service that the VA provides at a much higher cost. These are the opening paragraphs of the article.

It’s shocking to learn that the President who booted World War II vets out of their own memorial during Shutdown Theater would have a blase attitude about the outrage at VA clinics. Confronted with reports of veterans left to languish on secret lists until they died, Barack Obama yawned and assigned a White House aide to look into it. The obviously overwhelmed Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Eric Shinseki, staggered in front of a Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee to read some talking points and claim he was “mad as hell,” while cries for his resignation fell upon the President’s numb ears. That’s not how it works in ObamaLand, my friends. Nobody gets fired. Ever. (As is typical of Obama scandals, a few faceless bureaucrats have been placed on temporary “administrative leave” by Shinseki.)
Obama’s not even putting much effort into looking “outraged” by the story, the way he pretended to be outraged for a couple of days when the IRS scandal exploded. He seems, if anything, mildly annoyed by yet another unpleasant story to be papered over. The President, who found time to personally weigh in on L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s wiretapped phone conversations, dispatched his flack Jay Carney to inform the media he currently “concerned and angry about the allegations,” and if the secret waiting list story proves true, Obama’s emotional state might deteriorate to outrage. (Newsflash: there’s not much doubt that the secret waiting list stuff is true.)

18 May
Sand Creek RV Park
Torrey, UT

Yesterday I was complaining about the WIFI here at the Park. Then yesterday afternoon when we finished our walk I connected to the WIFI expecting the same very poor speeds that I have had every afternoon and was pleasantly surprised with a good, fast connection.

The Park usually fills up by the end of each day with 'overnighters'. This weekend it was more than full. There have been two RVs that parked as boondockers where they had no services but found a spot that was big enough for them to park in and not block the roads in and out of the Park. There have also been tents pitched in spaces that offered room for a tent but certainly were not prepared tent sites. I am guessing that this will continue for the next 3 weeks that I am here - the summer tourists are crossing items off their 'Bucket List'.

The picture of the plaque on the wall of the building in the picture on the left provides a good history of the building (Open image in a new tab for an easier read). To the right of this log building is the new LSD church which seems oversize for a town with a population of 180. Behind the log building is another school building that was built in 1917, this one was of cut sandstone and served a town population that was probably around 200.

It was the Torrey Canal, begun in the 1890s, that finally reached Torrey in 1910, that gave rise to its growth in the early 1900s. The Canal began its exit out of the Fremont River nearly 11 miles west of Torrey and continues to bring water through the Main Street of town and to the farms and ranches to the east.

The town reached its highest population of 274 in the 1930 census then declined to 84 in 1970. The paving of UT24 during the 1960s brought visitors to what was then Capital Reef National Monument and Torrey began to come back to life after it became a National Park in 1971. There continues to be some agriculture, mostly hay, but the town now depends on tourist and retirees to maintain its population of about 180 since 2000.

The Fed Is The Great Deceiver by Paul Craig Roberts and Dave Kranzler at paulcraigroberts.org is a very good article about the 'tapering' that the Federal Reserve is not doing. I have copied only the beginning paragraphs of the article; they go on at some length to explain why the Fed is deceiving the 'public'. A very good article!

Is the Fed “tapering”? Did the Fed really cut its bond purchases during the three month period November 2013 through January 2014? Apparently not if foreign holders of Treasuries are unloading them.
From November 2013 through January 2014 Belgium with a GDP of $480 billion purchased $141.2 billion of US Treasury bonds. Somehow Belgium came up with enough money to allocate during a 3-month period 29 percent of its annual GDP to the purchase of US Treasury bonds.
Certainly Belgium did not have a budget surplus of $141.2 billion. Was Belgium running a trade surplus during a 3-month period equal to 29 percent of Belgium GDP? No, Belgium’s trade and current accounts are in deficit. So where did the $141.2 billion come from?
There is only one source. The money came from the US Federal Reserve, and the purchase was laundered through Belgium in order to hide the fact that actual Federal Reserve bond purchases during November 2013 through January 2014 were $112 billion per month.

19 May
Sand Creek RV Park
Torrey, UT

I think I have said before that the wind never completly stops blowing here. A good example of same is what we had yesterday and it continued through the night and at noon today was still blowing. I am able to see the Weather Underground data that is reported every 5 minute and during the 24 hours yesterday there were two reports of Calm (NO wind). The Wind Speed Maximum was 23mph, Average 12.4mph with 34mph Gusts. So far today there has been no Calm reported.

When we went for our morning walk it was not too bad, 10mph, and the temperature was 55-56°. I had breakfast and read my Daily blogs and then there was no putting it off any longer - I had to dump holding tanks. The wind had picked up some more but I was able to get the chore done plus filled the fresh water tank. I will probably have to do this two more times before I leave only because I don't like to travel with near full holding tanks.

A staying inside kind of day for sure. Finished one book and have started another. I have also done a little work on the Will Rogers weekly articles and started reading Monthly blogs.

Stopped at the Robbers Roust on Saturday to see what they had in the way of a Farmers Market. It is rather small pickings but there was a table with some baked bread loaves that I am going back for next week. I also stopped there yesterday afternoon and had another latte and some conversation with the barista and another customer. I'll probably make that a weekly coffee treat.

Even though Robert Ludlum's appears in VERY bold font at the top of this book it has almost nothing to do with him. The Bourne Dominion is the ninth novel in the Bourne series and the sixth written by Eric Van Lustbader with the Bourne character used under franchise with Ludlum's estate. The first book of Ludlum's that I read, The Tristan Betrayal, I reviewed on 13 March 2014 was written from notes by a ghost writer. I was not impressed.

I may pickup another Robert Ludlum novel but I will be very careful in the future; no ghostwriters and no Ludlum franchises. I did not like this book. I had the impression that Van Lustbader got the story line from a comic book and added written descriptions to make up for the lack of pictures. I think I would have enjoyed the comic book more! Perhaps I should have known what I was getting into when the 'hero', Bourne, kills four attackers in the Prologue. I did not find a 'professional review' of this book but the Customer Review that I have copied just adds to my opinion.

I don't object to the Ludlum estate putting out novels in his name, but I do object to them selling trash. The publisher should be ashamed for cheating readers who loved Ludlum only to discover the latest sequels are abominably written. "...his mouth gaped open like an empty bank vault..." GIMME A BREAK! If the publisher can't hire an editor and deliver a well-written suspense novel Ludlum fans should regard this author as dead again and look for writers who have some talent. - A Customer Review at Amazon

20 May
Sand Creek RV Park
Torrey, UT

The wind finally subsided after midnight last night. It has been almost calm this morning with the average wind speed at less than 3mph, that is just enough to wiggle a tree leaf. Clear, sunny day that the weather guessers think will reach a high of 71° then 5 days of mid to upper 60s. Pretty nice but I do expect the wind to return.

I recently finished reading The Law by Frédéric Bastiat which was published as a pamphlet in June 1850 warning the citizens of France that the 'law' was creating socialism. His warning was ignored then as are the warnings of Tea Party supporters ignored now.

I have selected only bits and pieces of what he had to say over 150 years ago which I believe you will recognize as describing what exists today in the United States. You can download the entire book/pamphlet from http://www.gutenberg.org in many different formats, all of them FREE, including Kindle. These are just a few selected bits, I'll have a few more excerpts over the next couple of days.

Now, legal plunder* can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole — with their common aim of legal plunder — constitute socialism.
*I think that I should explain exactly what I mean by the word plunder. When a portion of wealth is transferred from the person who owns it — without his consent and without compensation, and whether by force or by fraud — to anyone who does not own it, then I say that property is violated; that an act of plunder is committed.

... the most popular fallacy of our times. It is not considered sufficient that the law should be just; it must be philanthropic. Nor is it sufficient that the law should guarantee to every citizen the free and inoffensive use of his faculties for physical, intellectual, and moral self-improvement. Instead, it is demanded that the law should directly extend welfare, education, and morality throughout the nation. This is the seductive lure of socialism.

When a politician views society from the seclusion of his office, he is struck by the spectacle of the inequality that he sees. He deplores the deprivations which are the lot of so many of our brothers, deprivations which appear to be even sadder when contrasted with luxury and wealth...Perhaps he should consider this proposition: Since all persons seek well-being and perfection, would not a condition of justice be sufficient to cause the greatest efforts toward progress, and the greatest possible equality that is compatible with individual responsibility?...But the politician never gives this a thought. His mind turns to organizations, combinations, and arrangements — legal or apparently legal. He attempts to remedy the evil by increasing and perpetuating the very thing that caused the evil in the first place: legal plunder.

You say: "There are persons who have no money," and you turn to the law... Nothing can enter the public treasury for the benefit of one citizen or one class unless other citizens and other classes have been forced to send it in... The law can be an instrument of equalization only as it takes from some persons and gives to other persons. When the law does this, it is an instrument of plunder. With this in mind, examine the protective tariffs, subsidies, guaranteed profits, guaranteed jobs, relief and welfare schemes, public education, progressive taxation, free credit, and public works. You will find that they are always based on legal plunder, organized injustice.

This has to be a Classic. I found it in the Comments to a story, Obama needs to ‘step up to the plate’ in VA scandal, on FoxNews.com. Then a follow up Comment said "Carney is probably copying and pasting this now".

Universal POTUS text for emerging scandals:
“I just learned from reading the newspapers about the terrible allegations about criminal misconduct by [fill in the name of the agency], which, if they are true, began in the Bush Administration. This situation is totally unacceptable, and it makes me even angrier than its victims. Make no mistake; I will make sure that all available government resources will be mobilized to investigate, to identify those responsible, to hold them accountable, and to make sure that there are consequences. To protect the victims, the investigation will be done by the accused agency itself, will be classified, and will last until after the election. We will not rest until we can pin the blame on a low level bureaucrat who is near retirement anyway. To preserve the effectiveness of the agency, no cabinet member or department head will be fired. Because of my passionate personal involvement, executive privilege will shelter the entire investigation from the partisan interference of Congress.”

President Obama is said to be “madder than hell” about the scandal at VA hospitals. Eric Shinseki, the secretary of Veterans Affairs, says he’s “mad as hell.”
But with the administration going all Howard Beale on us, let’s not forget the other part of the immortal rant by the crazed anchor in “Network”: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Whatever the anger index, the administration hasn’t done much to fix the problems ...
The presidential temper was described by White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough in an appearance Sunday on “Face the Nation.” Wouldn’t it be better if President Obama himself had expressed outrage at the way vets have been mistreated?
Shinseki’s comment came in testimony on the Hill, and I’ve never seen anyone more passive and unemotional say that he is mad as hell. He certainly didn’t look mad. He looked like a bureaucrat reading a script.

21 May
Sand Creek RV Park
Torrey, UT

Patches and I have cut back on our daily walk distance the past couple of days. This will probably continue for a few more days and I will see how we are both responding. It is not exactly resting but a reduction of 40% or so does feel somewhat like a rest.

I'm not doing much with the time that we are not walking. I have done some more preparation for the Will Rogers weekly article links. Have read a few more Monthly blogs, started to read a couple of other blogs from their beginning and started another online book by Frédéric Bastiat.

My Internet connection has deteriorated again. Both the WIFI and Verizon have been very slow since yesterday afternoon. I have switched back and forth a few times hoping that one or the other will be better but both of them are bad. The trials of living in a very small community!

Here are a few more selected bits from The Law. Remember, you can download the entire book/pamphlet from http://www.gutenberg.org in many different formats, all of them FREE, including Kindle.

Rousseau invests the creators, organizers, directors, legislators, and controllers of society with a terrible responsibility. "He who would dare to undertake the political creation of a people ought to believe that he can, in a manner of speaking, transform human nature; transform each individual — who, by himself, is a solitary and perfect whole — into a mere part of a greater whole from which the individual will henceforth receive his life and being. Thus the person who would undertake the political creation of a people should believe in his ability to alter man's constitution; to strengthen it; to substitute for the physical and independent existence received from nature, an existence which is partial and moral. In short, the would-be creator of political man must remove man's own forces and endow him with others that are naturally alien to him."

The strange phenomenon of our times — one which will probably astound our descendants — is the doctrine based on this triple hypothesis: the total inertness of mankind, the omnipotence of the law, and the infallibility of the legislator. These three ideas form the sacred symbol of those who proclaim themselves totally democratic.

The advocates of this doctrine also profess to be social. So far as they are democratic, they place unlimited faith in mankind. But so far as they are social, they regard mankind as little better than mud. Let us examine this contrast in greater detail.

What is the attitude of the democrat when political rights are under discussion? How does he regard the people when a legislator is to be chosen? Ah, then it is claimed that the people have an instinctive wisdom; they are gifted with the finest perception; their will is always right; the general will cannot err; voting cannot be too universal.

When it is time to vote, apparently the voter is not to be asked for any guarantee of his wisdom. His will and capacity to choose wisely are taken for granted. Can the people be mistaken? Are we not living in an age of enlightenment? What! are the people always to be kept on leashes? Have they not won their rights by great effort and sacrifice? Have they not given ample proof of their intelligence and wisdom? Are they not adults? Are they not capable of judging for themselves? Do they not know what is best for themselves? Is there a class or a man who would be so bold as to set himself above the people, and judge and act for them? No, no, the people are and should be free. They desire to manage their own affairs, and they shall do so.

But when the legislator is finally elected — ah! then indeed does the tone of his speech undergo a radical change. The people are returned to passiveness, inertness, and unconsciousness; the legislator enters into omnipotence. Now it is for him to initiate, to direct, to propel, and to organize. Mankind has only to submit; the hour of despotism has struck. We now observe this fatal idea: The people who, during the election, were so wise, so moral, and so perfect, now have no tendencies whatever; or if they have any, they are tendencies that lead downward into degradation.

This story by RIA Novosti, one of the largest news agencies in Russia, is important because it will impact the US Dollar, its status as a world reserve currency and prices in the United States. Not tomorrow, but the Russia-China move is one more in that direction. The lack of Lame Stream Media coverage of this News could be attributed to ignorance or bias or simply a desire to not stir up the sheeple.

SHANGHAI, May 20 (RIA Novosti) – Russia and China are planning to increase the volume of direct payments in mutual trade in their national currencies, according to a joint statement on a new stage of comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation signed during high-level talks in Shanghai on Tuesday.
“The sides intend to take new steps to increase the level and expansion of spheres of Russian-Chinese practical cooperation, in particular to establish close cooperation in the financial sphere, including an increase in direct payments in the Russian and Chinese national currencies in trade, investments and loan services,” the statement said.

22 May
Sand Creek RV Park
Torrey, UT

We did only a short potty walk this morning and that was a good thing because it was a cold 38° with the wind blowing. Went to town and along the way there were a lot of sprinklers watering the alfalfa fields. When they were close to the fence line there were sheets of icicles hanging from the barbed wire. All of the fields were covered with ice where the water was being applied. Still there as we drove back home around 8:45. Loa, Ut is higher than Torrey and their low temperature was 29 and still only 31 when I headed back home.

I had a Denver Omelet at the Country Café that was decent, the hash browns were better than last week but the coffee had a lot to be desired. I may delay my trip into town next week so I can give a restaurant here in Torrey, that opens at 7:00, at try. It will upset my 'schedule' somewhat but maybe I can get a good cup of coffee.

The grocery shopping at Royal's went well. I still did more laps around the store than was necessary finding what I wanted but it gets easier every week. By the time I leave here I'll be able to find everything on my fist pass through the store. The produce was not a lot better than last week but it was acceptable. I wasn't sure that I would find any skinless, boneless chicken thighs but got a big package that will give me Chicken Pozole this week and some other one pot concoction next week.

I received a Secure Message from my VA provider late yesterday afternoon that said my blood pressure was still too low and for me to reduce the dosage again to 5mg. I started that this morning and will send in reading again next week for him to evaluate. I have been feeling good and the readings while on the 10mg were up only slightly from my previous 20mg dosage. Will see what happens with this additional 50% reduction.

Here are the last selected bits from The Law. Last reminder, you can download the entire book/pamphlet from http://www.gutenberg.org in many different formats, all of them FREE, including Kindle.

If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind? The organizers maintain that society, when left undirected, rushes headlong to its inevitable destruction because the instincts of the people are so perverse. The legislators claim to stop this suicidal course and to give it a saner direction. ..They would be the shepherds over us, their sheep. Certainly such an arrangement presupposes that they are naturally superior to the rest of us.

But if the government undertakes to control and to raise wages, and cannot do it; if the government undertakes to care for all who may be in want, and cannot do it; if the government undertakes to support all unemployed workers, and cannot do it; if the government undertakes to lend interest-free money to all borrowers, and cannot do it; if,...the state considers that its purpose is to enlighten, to develop, to enlarge, to strengthen, to spiritualize, and to sanctify the soul of the people — and if the government cannot do all of these things, what then? Is it not certain that after every government failure — which, alas! is more than probable — there will be an equally inevitable revolution?

Law is justice. In this proposition a simple and enduring government can be conceived. And I defy anyone to say how even the thought of revolution, of insurrection, of the slightest uprising could arise against a government whose organized force was confined only to suppressing injustice...But make the laws upon the principle of fraternity — proclaim that all good, and all bad, stem from the law; that the law is responsible for all individual misfortunes and all social inequalities — then the door is open to an endless succession of complaints, irritations, troubles, and revolutions.

There has been another move to shore up the ObamaCare mess long enough to get through the 2014 mid-term elections. The program is going to implode but President Obama is trying his best to have it happen on someone else's watch. If possible, after a Republican moves into the White house after the 2016 election and then the Democrats can blame the Republicans for the failure.

The Obama administration has quietly adjusted key provisions of its signature healthcare law to potentially make billions of additional taxpayer dollars available to the insurance industry if companies providing coverage through the Affordable Care Act lose money.
The move was buried in hundreds of pages of new regulations issued late last week. It comes as part of an intensive administration effort to hold down premium increases for next year, a top priority for the White House as the rates will be announced ahead of this fall's congressional elections.
Administration officials for months have denied charges by opponents that they plan a "bailout" for insurance companies providing coverage under the healthcare law.
They continue to argue that most insurers shouldn't need to substantially increase premiums because safeguards in the healthcare law will protect them over the next several years.
But the change in regulations essentially provides insurers with another backup: If they keep rate increases modest over the next couple of years but lose money, the administration will tap federal funds as needed to cover shortfalls.

23 May
Sand Creek RV Park
Torrey, UT

It was warmer this morning, 48°, with the wind Calm or 2-3mph. A storm started blowing in soon after we finished our walk and there were threatening clouds overhead by 10:00. The weather guessers think there is a 30% chance of rain today (we got 0.01" around 1:00) and a 50% chance on Sunday; cooler high temperatures forecast to be near 65° thru Sunday then maybe up to 82 on Wednesday.

I had no WIFI for most of yesterday and Verizon was very slow as usual or no connection either. I talked to the Park owner when Patches and I went for our afternoon walk and she told me that a cable had been cut. The WIFI came back around 7:00 last night and was good this morning until 10:00 then became as slow as Verizon which did not give me a connection until about that same time. Internet not very reliable the past couple of days.

I finished preparing the Will Rogers weekly article links for July today. Read a few Monthly blogs, did a little more catching up on the two blogs I'm reading from their beginning and spent time with Patches on the couch (she sleeping and me reading). An eventful day for the two of us.

President Obama is angry, really furious, he will not stand for it, will not tolerate it. I have some quotes that were pulled from President Obama's statements to the press after he became aware that something had gone wrong within his Administration. Usually he found out when it appeared in the News; it seems that no one in his Cabinet ever tells him anything^*. I found it telling that the Benghazi Scandal did not make him angry. He did promise to find out what happened, find out who was responsible and bring them to justice but it did not make him angry.

1. March 18, 2009: I think people are right to be angry. I'm angry. - Bonuses at AIG and other Wall Street banks
2. June 3, 2010: I am furious at this entire situation. I would love to just spend a lot of my time venting and yellin' at people. - BP Gulf Oil Spill
3. October 18, 2011: It's very upsetting to me that somebody showed such bad judgment, that they would allow something like that to happen. - Fast and Furious Scandal
4. April 15, 2012: If it turns out some of the allegations that have been made in the press are confirmed, then of course I'll be angry. - Secret Service Scandal (Columbia)
5. May 13, 2013: I've got no patience with it, I will not tolerate it, and we'll make sure that, uh, we find out exactly what happened. - IRS Scandal
6. May 15, 2013: It's inexcusable, and Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it. We're going to hold the responsible parties accountable. - IRS Scandal
7. May 16, 2013: The minute I found out about it, then my main focus is making sure that we get the thing fixed. - IRS Scandal (Note February 2, 2014: Not even a smidgeon of corruption.)
8. October 21, 2013: Nobody's madder than me about the fact that the website isn't working'. - ObamaCare Rollout
9. May 21, 2014: I will not stand for it, not as commander-in-chief ... None of us should. [I]t's dishonorable, it is disgraceful, and I will not tolerate it. Period. - VA Health Care Scandal

24 May
Sand Creek RV Park
Torrey, UT

It felt colder yesterday afternoon when we went for our walk than it did in the morning. The temperature was the same at 48° but there was a 10mph wind blowing in the afternoon and the cold cut right through me. Turned the Wave heater on for about an hour at 6:00 so I could sit and be comfortable, Patches was right there in front of it being the heater hog that she is.

I got an email from my new UPS Store in Sierra Vista yesterday that said I had a package. I was not expecting anything so I wrote back asking them who had sent it to me because the tracking number provided no clue. They wrote back and said that they could not legally tell me that but when they shook the package it sounded like a bottle of pills.

It then dawned on me that VA had changed my prescription so they had also mailed me a bottle of the 5mg pills. I had been told to cut my 10mg in half which works fine, as does cutting 20mg into 1/4s, but I remembered they always send the new pills. We will see how the new UPS Store forwarding works out with this package. I forgot to tell them to send any mail also but I doubt that I would have any.

When I was in Delta, UT the only tofu that I could find was Soft. I used it for my breakfast scramble but did not like it as well as Firm. Before I left Delta, not knowing if I would find any tofu at all here, I bought 3 cartons of the Soft. Finally used them up and have been able to buy Firm at Royal's in Loa so in that respect Royal's is a better market than the two in Delta.

You know the mark of a really good story? It’s the same mark as a really bad story. You do the same thing. You keep checking to see how many pages are left. - The Wallah of Whimsy

That has been the case with the last two book that I have read. The Ludlum book that was 'not' being the bad story and then the book that I finished yesterday being the good one. I'll have a review of it tomorrow if I can get/keep an Internet connection that is fast enough for me to load some web pages.

I plan on going to the Farmer Market at Robbers Roost Books this afternoon when Patches and I walk. With any luck I can pick up a couple loaves of homemade bread. With some more luck I can get what I have written today to upload to my website and then again tomorrow when I'll tell you if I got the bread or not. Bad, bad WIFI but Verizon is worse with no connection at all.

25 May
Sand Creek RV Park
Torrey, UT

Well it is the middle of Memorial Day Weekend and the Park has been overflow full. All of the RV spaces have been full since Friday night with a few other RVs boondocking in places with no services. All the tent spaces have also been full with other tents pitched in places where they could find some room to do so. All the cabins have been full. A lot of ATV traffic on the road to the Great Western Trail trail head but it is far enough from me that I can hear them but not be disturbed.

Weather Underground reports that there was no rain in Torrey yesterday but I got some hail and then a pretty hard rain for a few minutes. This happened early in the afternoon and Patches and I were able to go to Robbers Roost and pick up two loaves of homemade wheat bread. I have only eaten the heel of one loaf, just to sample it, and found it to be very good. This is no doughy, squishy bread - this is the real thing with some texture and heft to it. Rather expensive for a small loaf but really good bread. I have frozen one loaf and if it is as good when I thaw it out I will leave here with 2 or 3 or 4 loaves.

The weather guessers were overly optimistic with their high temperature predictions for the past two days but it looks like they will finally get a mid 60s high today. They then think it will be in the 70s and maybe break into low 80s but then cooler next Friday with a 60 % chance of rain. A lot of clouds today but only a 10% chance of rain in the forecast - much better day than the past two although I got about a 10% rain shower at noon.

I thought I had read more than one of Deaver's books before this one but can only find that I have written about Garden of Beasts which I reviewed on 19 March 2014. I enjoyed this one even more and will be looking to trade for more of his. Publishers Weekly did a good review but with all my talk in the past about a 'closing' for books I would have been just as happy if the multiple-whammy twists that ended this one had not been there. I thought the weakest part of the story was the ending but still liked it a lot.

In rural Kansas, an act of kindness launches a nightmare when Mrs. Harstrawn, along with hearing-impaired apprentice teacher Melanie Charrol, stops her busload of deaf schoolgirls at a car wreck, only to be taken hostage by Lou Handy and two other stone-cold killers who've just escaped from prison. Pursued by a state trooper, the captors race with their prey to an abandoned slaughterhouse. There, Arthur Potter, the FBI's foremost hostage negotiator, sets up a command post; but the nightmare intensifies when Handy releases one girl, then shoots her in the back just as she reaches the agent. After further brutalities, Melanie decides to rescue her students herself, tricking the killers with sign language games to convey her plan to her charges. Meanwhile, pressure mounts on Potter as the media get pushy, the local FBI stonewalls, Kansas State hostage rescue units try an end run to grab the glory and an assistant attorney general butts in. Deaver (Praying for Sleep) brilliantly conveys the tensions and deceit of hostage negotiations; he also proves a champion of the deaf, offering poetic insight into their world. Throughout, heartbreakingly real characters keep the wildly swerving plot from going off-track, even during the multiple-whammy twists that bring the novel, Deaver's best to date, to its spectacular finish. - Publishers Weekly

26 May
Sand Creek RV Park
Torrey, UT

WIFI was very poor yesterday afternoon and this morning. Verizon has been worthless for 3 days or more, cannot get a connection or if I do I can not load a web page before getting a Time Out. Maybe one or the other will improve later today as people go home and give me back some bandwidth.

The Park had mostly cleared out by noon. The best thing about the weekenders being gone is the improvement in Internet connection. WIFI is much better and Verizon has once again opened a web page for me but very slow and still not really usable. The weekenders were a well behaved bunch and the only thing that bothered Patches was the greater number of dogs walking past her house - she does not like that.

Once again Weather Underground is reporting that there was no rain in Torrey yesterday. Patches and I claim that there was and we had some of it fall on us when we were walking yesterday afternoon. It was not much, more of a heavy mist, the harder rain could be seen to the north of us. The forecast remains at 74° as a high for today then 2 days of low 80s and cooling with a chance of rain on Fri-Sat.

Not much that I can claim to have done today. I'm about half way through my Monthly blog list. Have made some progress on the two blogs that I'm reading from the beginning but only one of them may be included in the Monthly. Maybe neither of them but I might even give up on the one before getting current.

This quote has been pulled from Why War Is Inevitable by Paul Craig Roberts at his blog on 25 May 2014. I too have asked the rhetorical questions presented in his last paragraph and my comments providing answers have been rebuffed my those that continue to believe in our government. President Obama has succeeded beyond his wildest hope to Transform this country; perhaps in the years to come it will be transformed once again.

...The West has overthrown itself. In the US the Constitution has been murdered by the Bush and Obama regimes. Nothing remains. As the US is the Constitution, what was once the United States no longer exists. A different entity has taken its place.
Europe died with the European Union, which requires the termination of sovereignty of all member countries. A few unaccountable bureaucrats in Brussels have become superior to the wills of the French, German, British, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Greek, and Portuguese peoples.
Western civilization is a skeleton. It still stands, barely, but there is no life in it. The blood of liberty has departed. Western peoples look at their governments and see nothing but enemies. Why else has Washington militarized local police forces, equipping them as if they were occupying armies? Why else has Homeland Security, the Department of Agriculture, and even the Postal Service and Social Security Administration ordered billions of rounds of ammunition and even submachine guns? What is this taxpayer-paid-for arsenal for if not to suppress US citizens?

27 May
Sand Creek RV Park
Torrey, UT

The only thing that I can claim to have accomplished today has been done over the past few days. I contacted a Canidae retailer in the town where I'll next camp a couple of months ago about ordering Pure Elements for Patches. Having not heard from them I emailed and asked if they had ordered and told them that I would be in town on 11 June and would need it. Received confirmation this morning that it would be available for pick up on the 14th.

The promise of high temperatures in the 80s was fulfilled by noon today. My A/C came on and it was 82° with the wind gusting a reported 18mph but seeming stronger than that where I am at. Scattered cotton ball clouds with the flat bottoms that decorate all great Western sky photographs. The chance of rain has been reduced to only 10% in the forecast for the next couple of days with the 10 day guessing that we will have highs in the 70s. No forecast of winds but I would bet that they will be with us.

This is second book by Michael Connelly that I have read. The first was Angels Flight that I reviewed on 22 March 2014. Both of them have Bosch as the main character and I like him - a lot. Booklist does a good review and I hope to find some more Connelly when I get a chance to trade.

At his core, Harry Bosch is a cop with a mission—to tip the scales of justice toward the side of murder victims and their survivors. The scales can never be righted, of course, even by solving the cases Bosch is assigned in the Open Unsolved Unit of the LAPD. That is especially true in the 20-year-old murder of Danish journalist Anneke Jesperson, who was killed during the L.A. riots of 1992. What was Jesperson, a white woman, doing in South Central L.A. in the aftermath of the riots? As usual, Bosch faces not only the seeming impossibility of reconstructing a crime that has been cold for two decades but also the roadblocks imposed by the bureaucrats at the top of the LAPD. But Bosch has never met a roadblock he wasn’t compelled to either barge through or cannily avoid. Harry is such a compelling character largely due to his fundamentally antiestablishment personality, which leads to chaos as often as to triumph, but also because his unswerving work ethic reflects not simply duty but also respect for the task before him. Harry does it right, even—or especially—when his bosses want something else entirely. That’s the case this time—How would it look if a white cop made headlines by solving the riot-related murder of a white woman? Better to let it slide. In real life, we all let things slide, but in life according to Bosch, nothing slides. We like Harry, as we like many other fictional crime solvers, because he never stops, but we love him because he has the scars to prove that never sliding is no easy thing. - Booklist

Barack Obama is a king, not a president by F.H. Buckley at FoxNews.com is a 'teaser' for his book The Once and Future King: The Rise of Crown Government in America. Although I say that, it is still a good article and worth the time to read it.

Today President Obama is a controversial figure, but let me offer my prediction about the judgment of history. I think he’ll be remembered as the most consequential American president since George Washington.
Washington was the “indispensable man” because he returned to civilian life when he might have crowned himself king. For his part, Obama will be remembered as the person who assumed king-like powers as president.
George Mason foresaw this in the 1787 Convention that gave us our Constitution. The American president would be an “elective monarch,” he said, and added that that would be worse than the real thing.
The long arc of American constitutional government has bent from the monarchical principle of the colonial period to the separation of powers, and now back again to crown government and rule by a single person. While this didn’t start with Obama, he’s taken it to an entirely new level.
He makes and unmakes laws without the consent of Congress; he spends trillions of government dollars; and the greatest of decisions, whether to commit his country to war or lay down our arms, is made by him alone. His ability to reward friends and punish enemies exceeds anything seen in the past. He is rex quondam, rex futurus – the once and future king.

28 May
Sand Creek RV Park
Torrey, UT

We were up and out for our usual morning walk which is unusual on shopping day. Went to Capital Reef Inn & Café here in Torrey for breakfast this morning and they do not open until 7:00. I had to wait for about 15 minutes for that to happen and was alone for most of the time I was there.

I had their Veggie Omelet with their idea of home fries, these are small potatoes that have been sliced in rounds and deep fried. A few of those and the small omelet come nicely presented on the plate but no sourdough to go with them, I settled on whole wheat which was very good. The coffee was good, they use real cloth napkins and softly play some nice instrumental elevator music. They cater to the tourist and it is probably a rare day that a local, other than the staff, ever sets foot in the place. Prices not too bad considering. I probably will not go back simply because it is not my kind of place, the servings sizes and the prices.

We then went to Loa and to Royal's for groceries. Got back home just before 9:00 and I had my pot of 'linners' coming to a boil by 9:30. The idea for this pot started with Easy Chicken Santa Fe a crock pot recipe which I modified and have named Southwest Tofu Thighs.

I changed the process for cooking the chicken thighs to fit my Thermal Cooker way, used two small cans of red beans rather than one of black, a bag of frozen cut corn, a small jar of Pace Chunky Salsa, a couple dabs of powdered cayenne and 'creamed tofu' versus creamed cheese. The tofu was creamed to look about like cooked grits by putting 14oz in my stone age blender with a couple tablespoons of olive oil. This was added to the pot after it had boiled for a few minutes which cooled it down. I let the pot come back to a boil and then into the Thermal Cooker for 4-5 hours. I'll serve this over some pre-cooked barley.

I had neighbors behind me yesterday afternoon and this morning that were the first irritating ones that I have had in a long time. They were not doing anything bad, just sitting or walking around their site and TALKING. The two that were doing most of said TALKING were doing so in a loud enough voice that I am sure the entire Park could hear them. These two were bicycling tourist that pitched tents on the same space with a Class C that I'm not sure was traveling with them. The two bicyclist left this morning around 10:00am with full touring loads and I was happy to see them go. The Class C then left a little before noon.

NO SALUTE: Top graduates saluted Obama as they received their diplomas, but the president offered handshakes in return.

President Obama delivered a foreign policy speech during the graduation ceremony at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point today. The central theme of his foreign policy-heavy address was that American 'strength' would continue to come by working through international coalitions. This is the same position that he has taken since his first term and will do very little to make our allies, what few we have left, feel warm and fuzzy about our support.

He also was responsible for handing out diplomas to the West Point graduates. The President as Commander-in-Chief is not required, by protocol, to render a return salute if he is in civilian dress. However, considering the circumstances it would seem that he would do so out of respect for the top graduates. The offer of a handshake rather than a return salute strikes me as disrespectful. No return salute and just hand him his diploma would have been more respectful in my opinion.

29 May
Sand Creek RV Park
Torrey, UT

The only constructive thing that I did today was decide where I am going to get breakfast and gas on my way to my next camp. Gas was the more important of the two. I needed to decide if I would fill up in Loa before leaving or could I get cheaper gas along the way and found that the answer to than was - NO, fill up here.

The remainder of the day was devoted to my usual routine. Some couch time with Patches and my latest book, reading some more Monthly blogs, a little more of the blogs from their beginning and reading News. The cooling that was forecast seems to be on its way and it has been overcast most of the day. A fine day for doing nothing.

The Obama economy offers bad news for millennials an Opinion article by George Will for The Washington Post closes with the quote shown below. I posted this same finding, about the Sacrament, CA area millennials, by the Sacramento Bee on 9 May 2014 but now the Pew Research Center is reporting on a national survey. The millennials must be so happy that they have received the Hope & Change and Transforming of America that their President promised.

The Pew Research Center reports that Americans age 25 to 32 — “millennials” — constitute the first age cohort since World War II with higher unemployment or a greater portion living in poverty than their parents at this age. But today’s millennials have the consolation of having the president they wanted.

Barack Obama's race and age, his capacity to mobilize history and voters behind his candidacy and the resonance of his message -- he was "change" incarnate -- won the day. The first time I voted, I broke history wide open and helped elect the first black president of the U.S. What's next?
Idealism and a desire for change on the cheap are both markers of youth. Millennials in particular were weaned on technologies providing instant gratification. It seems only natural that using an election as a hinge of history would appeal to us. We like minimal efforts yielding quick results -- swipe right to find the love of your life; pull this lever in November to end centuries of inequality.

30 May
Sand Creek RV Park
Torrey, UT

Some more scattered clouds this morning but perfect temperature, 53°, for our walk and calm wind. Those scattered clouds coalesced into one very big black one that come right over the top of Desperado and dumped some of the 10% chance of rain on it around 11:00.

We did a little longer walk this morning with the intent of doing shorter walks in the afternoon when it is hotter. Patches does not do very well when it over 80 but she loves the cold. Last week we were doing 2.2 mile/day walks and I want to increase that a little this week.

I have not noticed any difference in how I feel since starting the 5mg dosage of blood pressure medication, down from the 20mg that I was on at the beginning of April. I do notice that my diastolic, the lower number, readings have moved up when I'm at rest (ie in bed before getting up) from below 60 to above 60 which I hope is what my VA provider is trying for.

He thought my readings were to low and it is the diastolic that I think he was talking about. There usually is not any concern about low readings for the systolic, the upper number, until it drops below 90. I had a few of those when on the 20mg but have been seeing over 100 since cutting down to 10mg when at rest.

A little bit of domestic work this morning after I had breakfast. I did my laundry! The Park has two washers and two dryers that are not coin operated; you pay the office a rather high price to use them. I think there may be some washers and dryers at the Torrey General Store but I'm not sure if they are available to the public. There may be a laundromat in Loa but then maybe not, not a lot of choices in the area.

President Obama announced the resignation of Veterans Administration Secretary Shinseki today by speaking to the press at the White House. He praised him for all that he has done and regretfully accepted the resignation. Then he accepted questions. In his answer he used the expression 'work on our behalf'; I don't think the President would have had to accept his resignation if he had 'worked on the behalf of Veterans health'. I think that is the problem throughout the Administration, it is working on behalf of the President and the Democrat Party rather than the people of this country. I believe that everything that the government is responsible for and is broken would be fixed quicker IF President Obama were the one to resign - but that is just me and I know it is not going to happen.

Let me take a couple questions. Leo Shane from Military Times.
Q: Mr. President, what changed in your opinion of Secretary Shinseki in the last few days? You had said you had confidence in him, even him coming in today and saying it was, you know, time for him to resign -- what made the difference in your -- in your mind?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Ric’s judgment, I think his belief that he would be a distraction from the task at hand, which is to make sure that what’s broken gets fixed so that his fellow veterans are getting the services that they need.
I want to reiterate, he is a very good man. I don’t just mean he’s an accomplished man. I don’t just mean that he’s been an outstanding soldier. He’s a good person who’s done exemplary work on our behalf.

31 May
Sand Creek RV Park
Torrey, UT

Starting around 1:00pm yesterday all of my Internet connections went to hell. I was completely disconnected from WIFI and when I complained to the Park office I was told that the big Class A that parked to the south of me was blocking the signal. However, around 7:30pm I got a WIFI connection that was not great but was what I consider 'normal' for here.

This morning the same thing happened. I had a 'normal' connection for about an hour and then became completely disconnected from WIFI. The big Class A has not moved during this time so I am convinced that it is not the cause of no WIFI however the people streaming movies very well could be. This morning after I saw that the big Class A's 'toad' was gone I tried WIFI again and got a 'normal' connection. It is the peoples usage not the rig that is killing my WIFI connection!

Verizon has been extremely slow or no connection at all during this same time. I wanted to send an email to my UPS store in Pahrump yesterday to give them the address where to forward my last mail from them. It took repeated tries but I did get it sent using Verizon. It was good that I managed to get it out yesterday, I could not get Yahoo! Mail to open this morning before it Times Out.

The official measurement for rain yesterday was 0.04" but I had that much fall within minutes or so it seemed. Had a good old fashioned thunderstorm dump buckets of water on me a couple of time during the afternoon. Patches and I got out for our walk between downpours and then this morning we picked a route that kept us out of the mud. Patches does not like water puddles but mud is a fine thing to walk in or so she thinks - silly dog.

I have copied the closing two paragraphs from Shinseki, Carney resign by John Hayward at Human Events.com. The President went on and on for 22 minutes trying to pass the VA mess off as an unfortunate natural catastrophe, not deliberate malfeasance and shocking incompetence. He even used the tried and true dodge that he just learned what problems the VA has. A typical President Obama performance.

The idea that taking responsibility merely requires mouthing the words “I take responsibility” is long past its sell-by date. So is this President’s perpetual effort to paint himself as a newcomer who just rolled into the Oval Office last week, and can’t believe the mess he found. That excuse was obviously going to grow more stale as the endless years of the Obama presidency ground on, even to the undiscriminating palates of Obama cultists in the media. They’ll make another effort to protect Obama by attempting to quietly forget 80 percent of what he said in his press conference today, but they probably won’t have much appetite for defending it.
The disconnect between politics and reality was on dramatic display in Obama’s press conference today, presented by a man who is evidently incapable of distinguishing between the two. At a moment when he might have been able to contain some of the damage by accepting Secretary Shinseki’s resignation with a short and contrite statement, he followed his worst instincts. When he made all those campaign promises of reform, Senator Obama warned us about the dangers of putting someone like President Obama in charge of the VA.