Something I Like

Without Permission - but I'm plugging the product

I found a techno-gadget today that I like and I've gotta have. It is the Roku Streaming Player.

I was looking for a way to make it so my dad could watch Netflix on his television, and, since he is not a gamer, I thought that buying an internet capable blu ray dvd player would be the best device for him.

I got the dvd player, which was specially enhanced with an app for Netflix, only to find it wasn't compatible with his later model tv. I took the player back to the store and milled around for 45 minutes, racking my brain as to how I could make this work. I knew Dad would be mighty disappointed if I couldn't figure it out.

So, I pulled out the big guns and called one of my kids, the smarty-pants of the family, for advice.  He said there was a piece of equipment I could buy that was specifically for streaming movies to the tv. I Googled on my phone and came up with Roku, Googled again and came up with a local store (Radio Shack) where it could be purchased. I bought it (with Dad's credit card), took it to his house, plugged it in, made an on-line account and we were in business. When I left, Dad was watching True Grit with closed caption, just the way he likes it.

The model we bought was the Roku 2 XD. Easy, easy, easy to hook up, with very satisfying results. I think you see now why I want one, and you may also want one, too.

Big Dirt Sun

Sandy Shining

If you are visiting West Texas today, you will get to experience one of the strong flavors of this locale, a good ol' epic dust storm. I keep pinching my nostrils to keep the dirt out, but this greatly impedes breathing. There's nothing to do but wait it out as the wind whistles through every crack and pinhole in the house. Thankfully, we will feel a great sense of release when it all settles, kind of like the relief a person would feel when they quit banging their head against a wall.

I'm Finally in Style

I mentioned this last September: Formation northwest of Abilene draws attention of oil exploration companies (ARN).

The Beauty of It

Like country kids have to find their own entertainment out here in West Texas, locals have to find their own beauty in what some might consider a desolate land.

This seems easy to me on most days, except when the dust inundates the air, making everything a dull brown.

The other day we were cutting wood and I came across some gnarled mesquite pieces that looked like someone's crazy nightmare, like chunks of wooden brains. The longer I looked at them, the more images I could see. The photo looks like a face at this certain angle, but if turned looks like another creature.

A friend of mine goes out on her four-wheeler and finds old stumps, sand-blasts them, lacquers them, then makes them into candle-holders. I have one and a different figure emerges every new position I place it.

A new, well-made fence can also be a thing of beauty and there are plenty of those around right now. I saw Mike Porter (Sr.) using a chain-saw to top off a post on the new fence at Grady Cemetery. There is also a new fence around the old Templeton place here at Hobbs. Watching the fencer at work was like watching someone create art. A nicely dressed man, he didn't look left or right, just kept to his business, all day long.

I've probably mentioned this before, but my friend, the late George Maule, told me that February was the best month for cutting fence posts from mesquite, getting to it before the sap rises. In fact I'm quite certain I've said it before, but maybe I'll say it every year, just to keep George in our memories.

Now to find the beauty in paying bills and running errands. Nobody promised me a rose garden.

Blowing Smoke

I have never been a proponent of the wind turbines, and, in fact, I used to scrape out my soap box in front of anyone who would listen to my thoughts on such. Then I came to see it as just another government program that would probably come to pass, and cooled my jets on the subject. Also, I have worked for some people who owned a few and I am a fairly firm believer that thou should not bite the hand that feeds thee.

In 2002, when the wind thing was just getting started, I started working for a local paper. I shadowed another reporter to an interview with the administrators of a new wind project in Fluvanna, and the company men were friendly and open.

Later in the year, we asked for another interview and we were turned down. So, I snuck in on a tour with the county commissioners, on the premise that I would prevent them from forming a quorum. I got busted taking photos, and after being asked to desist, promptly took more, some with the commissioners themselves standing inside the large turbine supports. It was quite a coup, although none of the photos were published, after the wind farm PR agent claimed that company patenting secrets would be divulged by printing the pictures publicly.

I guess there is no point to that anecdote. It was just a lot of fun riding around with the naughty commissioners.

Years after working for the newspaper, I worked a short stint for that same wind farm company and I remember seeing an instructional packet on how to pitch windmill sales. Directions for taking publicity photos were to use a backdrop of green grass with a blue sky or lovely sunset. Not the mish-mash of thousands of unattractive and every-which-a-way blades that look like they've been thrown down in a game of pick-up-sticks. Drive down SH 153 near Nolan and you'll see what I mean.

Every new field constructed claims high output of megawatts, able to provide energy to several thousand or a million homes. You have to wonder where the electricity has been going, since transmission lines are just now being erected, cluttering the countryside even more.

The night horizon has been unappealingly altered. No more is the mysterious Texas range. It is now a sea of red blinking lights, urbanized and tainted.

I look forward to the day when the wind farm tax break program runs the course. Windmills have a place in our energy program, but as a true energy source, not as a government program. Transforming the bulky turbines, diminishing the structures to smaller, more efficient models would be a relief to the panorama.

I already know that I am out of style on this subject. While I see this as the ruination of the aesthetic West Texas prairie, it won't be an important topic until someone much more savvier and influential than I am takes notice. Plus, millions and billions of dollars are being made from the projects, while I am providing no financial incentives at all.

By the way, if you think I'm a goody-two shoes, granola-crunching tree-hugger (I'm crazy with the hyphens today!), we had an "Oil Field Trash and Damn Proud of It" bumper sticker on our car when I was growing up, and I will stick to those guns.

As usual, I am sure my opinion is just a matter of perspective. Perhaps I would be lighting sparklers and blowing a horn if I had a few windmills myself.