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.

Snyder Group to Continue Fight Over Santa Fe Depot

Snyder Group to Continue Fight Over Santa Fe Depot

A Country Christmas

The Tree

Who am I fooling? It's country everything out here! Where else would I have the opportunity to holler "There's a coyote in the lane!" with every expectation of someone in the house running out the door with a shot-gun? Honey, you don't get more country than that.

This year I feel I have a full hiatus from the holiday. I don't have grandchildren, yet, my kids are grown, and I only get presents for a few people, so I'm not cuckoo for Christmas. No, it's not a bah, humbug feeling, it's more like some sort of reality setting in. All the music, shows and icons of the season have been so over-played, so over-used, that experiencing any of those things is like having sand rubbed into a sunburn.

So, this year I shall take heart and enjoy my simple Christmas setting, because I have a sneaking suspicion that a baby will change my perception of the season in a drastic manner.

The Shystier, the Better

They Want To Help

The top shystery event that has happened to us lately is the resurgence of our Beall's account. Suddenly, out of the blue, we received a credit card from them. I asked the Mister to call them and see why they had sent it, since the account was paid off five years ago and we haven't had a card since.

Well, the boy on the phone said it was just an automatically issued replacement card and he showed our last payment as being in December of 2010. It was a bunch of bull and basically made me look like a liar, but I told Mister just to put it in his wallet and keep it away from me. It's something you would only want to use in a mighty hard pinch.

Then, about a week later, we get this letter from the company whose letterhead is featured above. They will be "protecting" us, without our asking, for a mere $1.99 per $100 of the card balance. Well, sure, at 26% interest on the card, why not just throw in another 2%? We are big spenders (card balance of 0). I think it all shows just how far credit card companies are willing to go to get your money. I like shopping at Beall's, but the thing with the card is pretty shady.

I think it's surprising that our very reputable bank is pushing hard for us to get a credit card. That's just a fool's adventure. Why would I pay a percentage more on bills and items when I can just pay them and be done, saving me loads of money? But my bank keeps sending all kinds of emails, wanting me to apply. It seems irresponsible in "this time of economic hardship", as the media puts it. Hey, things are going to hell in a hand-basket, so get yer credit card here! It's just senseless.*

Another rip-off we've encountered is on craigslist. Twice we've answered ads for vehicles, then we get an email explaining a complicated scenario about someone who's in the military and the vehicle is in Tucson or some such. It's very disappointing when you're looking for an affordable item and you have to deal with grifters.

The other day I kept getting a call that I thought was from a hotel I stayed in recently. I called them back and let them have it for how much I had to pay for their crappy hotel room and that I didn't owe them a red cent. The person I was talking to finally hung up when I used a word he didn't approve of. Then I Googled the number and found that the name of the agency is similar to the hotel, but was actually my student loan finance company. That one was on me, and I had a pretty good laugh about it.

* I don't really think things are going to Hades in a hand-basket, I'm just using status quo to make a point.

I Won't Feel Your Pain

Without Permission

The last book I gave my mother was The Help. She never got to read it.

Now, that's a pretty good line to start off an article with, isn't it? Perhaps you're wondering why my mother never got to read the book, and isn't that a very popular novel that was recently made into a movie? Now, if I said "My mother never got to read this book and you had BETTER be sad about it," you would probably be inclined to be just the opposite, maybe even dismissive. You've got to lead the reader into your story, not choke and beat them about the the neck and torso with it.


The last book I gave my mother was The Help by Kathryn Stockett, and she never got to read it because she died six weeks later. During the last of her life she was too weak to hold a book. Anyway, this is not about that. I'm actually trying to recommend three books to you: The Help, as aforementioned; Not Me by Michael Lavigne; and another book that I can't recall the title or author, but is about a woman who lives as a hermit in a house full German Jewish artifacts that her father dealt from a stolen cache. I've Googled and Googled, but I can't find it. Just try putting Jewish into any search engine and see if you're able to sort it out. I guess I should tap into my natural micro-managing talents and make a list of all the books I read for future reference. 


I normally don't like any literature dealing with civil rights or Jewish persecution because I've had it shoved down my throat my whole life, especially during my school years. My age group was taught to shoulder the guilt of eras that we couldn't comprehend. The tales were stereotypical, without detail, oversold and desensitizing.


With these books, it's as though the authors knew how to turn the crystal to show a different facet. In The Help I found characters who were very familiar to me, making me think "I know people exactly like that, mm-hmm." This story is about much more than civil rights. Just read it, I'm too full of explanation to explain it. I can't recommend the movie because I haven't seen it and probably won't see it. I'm purist about books that I like. I don't want any interference from outside sources into my own thoughts. I also think I wouldn't enjoy the movie because I would be saying "They didn't do it that way in the book" throughout the entire show.


Not Me was published in 2005, and is the only book about the Nazi occupation that has ever interested me. It was quite an eye-opener. The premise is gripping, but then the story speaks of historical data that I was unaware of, such as a civil war that was raging in Palestine and that people saved from concentration camps went on to fight in such. I may have the facts skewed, but it's a much different story from what I was taught, that victims were saved from camps and everything was hunky dory after that.


The third book, about an elderly woman who lives in a stately mansion filled with dinnerware and art stolen from Jewish families and bought by her long-dead art dealer father. Again, another perspective that I was unaware of, the scavenging of the holocaust victims homes, not always after their departure. I don't particularly like the ending, but that has something to do with my personal experience of the last actions in this book.


If you have been a jaded reader, these books will open an acceptable side-door for you to pass through. If you're not jaded, they're just plain good books.

Blind as a Chicken

The Rooster

This morning, early, around 5:30 a.m., I was standing on the porch and I noticed one of the roosters out in the yard under a tree. All I could see was his profile, a perfect cutout of his shape. I went out to see if he was alive or dead and realized that he couldn't see in the dark. I asked him what he was doing and he started clucking at me like one of the hens and acting helpless. I shooed him back to the shop so he wouldn't be out in the open. He seemed to be able to make out that he wasn't running into objects in the dim illumination of the security light, but once he got into the deep shadow behind the pick-up, he needed a cane. You're probably laughing at me because you already knew that chickens can't see at night, an explanation for roosting in trees and going to sleep at dusk, but I'm excited to know that I'm not too old to learn a simple lesson. Amazing!