Snakes Alive!

I went over to the Groom Cross the other afternoon and took a shortcut down this county road and (nearly) ran into this guy, a prairie rattler, about three foot long.

It wouldn't even move when I got out and threw some pebbles at it, didn't even rattle. For a minute, I thought it'd been run over and squished already because it looked so flat near its tail.

I had absolutely nothing longer than my arm on me except the tripod for my camera, and I really didn't want to wave it at the snake, esp. since I would soon be using it.

To be honest, I really didn't want to harm it. Now, if it was in my yard...

It moved a bit, so I figured it was only wanting to be left alone to soak up the setting sun's last warmth, some solar energy storage for a night's hunting. I really wanted it to make it coil up in strike position for a good shot, but didn't want to get close enough to make it assume that position.

I inched my truck up to it, the tire barely touching it and then I'd move the steering wheel, making the snake move but it didn't budge on its own, responding to this danger with nothing more than a lazy flick of its tail, not even a decent rattle!

I backed up, then drove right alongside it.

It finally started moving a little bit after I poured some water on it and I could finally hear an audible rattle, absolutely spine tingling. If you've ever been walking in tall grass and heard that sound, it will freeze you, root you to the spot!

There's something fishy about this cow...

Taken in the amphitheatre in Palo Duro Canyon last summer.

Why the Long Face?

Just outside my late parent's home.

It was a little bit anti-social, even with the offer of some stale celery from the bottom of mom's crisper.

It didn't BITE, though, like this one:

Crusty Demons

One of the coolest wallpaper places I've ever seen, based in the UK. Select the part of the body you wish to have the tattoo placed on, type in your name and create something unique for your Desktop.

At least it is for MY desktop.

I've never had a woman tattoo my name on her, anywhere. I'm not sure one has even aimlessly doodled my name in quite some time.

Come to think of it, I expect the last one to do that was most likely using a crayon. It was probably a stick figure drawing of me with horns on my head and dots all over my face, the grade-school equivalent of voodoo.

Here's another one I made with a different part of the lovely lady's body:



It's cool how the Brits spell "parlour" and some other words such as "favour", "flavour" and "endeavour". I shall endeavour to alter the flavour of my prose and favour the British spelling.

They talk cool too, at least the women do. I used to have the hots for Eliza Doolittle, Hayley Mills, too. Come to think of it, I could add Petulia Clark, Lulu and even Twiggy to that list, although I'd have wanted the last to eat a few more fish 'n chips.

I sure like Brit women but I like to think they really like Texas men.

Crying Woman II

Another view of the
Crying Woman of Jerusalem

Small Mercies

I am thankful for small mercies. I compared notes with one of my friends who expects everything of the universe, and is disappointed when anything is less than the best, and I found that I begin at the other extreme, expecting nothing, and am always full of thanks for moderate goods.- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I Gotta Have Hearts

I love to play Hearts. I've never played at any of the online games websites; I wouldn't want to play against "real" people, even if it WAS "only online".

I've had a few perfect games, but this was the very last game I played, not ten minutes ago. I especially love to make ALL of the other "players" break 100 and I did that with this game. It was worth a screenshot.

(I've an online friend who every now 'n then gets a screenshot of an exceptional game from me. She said her late father loved the game and was good at it; I never met the man, but I think of him sometimes when I start to play. Love ya Barb!)

I'm not a great player because I sometimes don't remember the cards that have been played, although I'm getting better. (short-term memory loss, hmmm.....) The game would probably be better if there was some way to view the number of tricks each "player" has. I could better prevent another "player" from catching all the tricks (and there's probably some term for that, but I don't know it; I've never played the game against human opponents)

I say "player" because I am playing against the computer, and I don't know how the game is programmed, but I feel as though it's 3 against 1 sometimes. On a previous computer, I had altered the registry as so when I used some hotkeys, it would reveal the other three's hands.

The names of my opponents aren't from the Disney ducks, but inspired by the 1972 movie Silent Running with Bruce Dern. Dern's character names his helper droids on the greenhouse space station after the Disney characters.

And that would be a rare instance of the use of a second-hand nickname.