The Budget

The way I see it, government needs to cut funding to anything that isn't a mandated service. Go back to basics. Keep funding to police, fire, probation, jails, etc, and cut the funding to the services that aren't required for a community.
We've been living fat and happy for waaay too long.

Country Cookin

I have never tried one of the Barefoot Contessa's recipes. I've tevo'd her show, watched it over and over, but have never had the guts to try out one of her meals. Till yesterday, that is.
I made short ribs in a wine sauce, jalapeno cheese bread, and black eyed peas. The short ribs were her recipe, and it took over three hours to make them. The rest of the stuff I just made it up as I went. Well, I was excited about the short ribs seeing how they took so long and took so much effort.
One bite, and I was horrified. They were as tough as shoe leather. Maybe worse. I don't know what I did wrong--something in the sequence must've been left out, because it was the worst ribs I'd ever made. WORST!!!
But the bread and peas were awesome.

Intervention

Say you've got a bad habit. Nail biting, hair chewing, something like that.
Mine is tugging on my ear lobes. I've done it since I discovered I had them.
I hear people's remarks once in a while, "Leave your ears alone, blah blah blah blah." But if I'm not wearing earrings, I am tugging on my ear lobes. At the end of the day, my ears are sore and red. I suppose if I don't stop I'll be a 90 year old woman with ear lobes that reach my shoulders, or something like that.

I've gotten hooked on A & E's show, "Intervention." I tevo it and watch it with my son. He's a smart cookie, he knows the dangers of alcohol and drugs; but I still like to sit him down and reinforce what substance abuse can do to a perfectly good person.

Most of the time, the person who is the focus of the intervention knows they have a problem and they freely admit it. But once in a while a person will sit in a room full of his family and friends and flat out deny there's a problem. They will be drunk off their ass and barely able to sit up, all the while saying, "Hey, I only have like one or two drinks a day, I don't have a problem." They seriously have a look of confusion as their family members, one by one, cry and tell them how awful their substance abuse is.

I watched an episode recently of a man my age who opened and operated his own chain of tanning salons in Las Vegas. He ran the administrative part of the business out of his house, which enabled him to drink straight vodka all day. His employees brought him food and took care of all the things that he couldn't.
He had all the symptoms of liver failure. Bruising on his torso and of course he was a shaky mess. He'd managed to get this messed up in about an eight year time period.
The intervention finally took place, and this guy honestly looked as though his family was TOTALLY overreacting and his one or two drinks per day were definitely not a problem. The look on his face was, "Huh?"
All I could think of was my ear lobes. I'd probably have the same look on my face, should my family decide to sit me down and say that I needed help for my problem.

"Huh?"

"We think you have a problem and you need to get help."

"I don't have a problem. I only touch my earlobes when I don't have earrings in. You guys are overreacting."

I can understand this guy's love affair with vodka, though. Each holiday season we find ourselves out socializing a little more than usual, and the fancy martinis are everywhere. Each holiday season I have to make a conscious effort to STOP drinking the vodka.

Well, this guy wasn't so lucky. He refused to concentrate on his treatment and he relapsed shortly thereafter. He died in his home a couple of months later.

I am certain I am not going to die from ear lobe touching. If my family decides to confront me, they're looking for trouble.

Off Road Racing!

This weekend was the SCORE Off Road Race in Laughlin Nevada. Laughlin is a small casino community about an hour from here. My job started Friday, when the Trophy Trucks were doing their qualifying. We timed each truck as it did the 6 1/2 mile course. The trucks were competing for their starting order on Saturday's race.
Some of the Trophy Truck drivers are well known in the racing profession; Robby Gordon began in off road then branched out to Indy Car and then NASCAR. Oh, and he competes in the Paris-Dakkar rally every year. Then Brendan Gaughan races NASCAR. Jesse James, from Monster Garage races Trophy Truck as well.
My son gets autographs every time I work at one of these races, but I've never gotten him Robby Gordon's. Believe me, Shay complains about that! So on Friday I managed to corner Robby and get his autograph. The rest of the time I could concentrate on my job and get a few good photos.
Like this one. Robby had come into the motorhome where we do the scoring, asking about his time. He then touched my nuts. These nuts:


Here's Mike and I scoring. My posture is typical of what I keep all weekend, 14 hours per day. I've finally gotten smart and I take loads of ibuprofen and apply plenty of muscle rub:


Saturday morning we got our coffee at 5:30am and headed up the street to the dirt track. We were ready way in advance, because we had our paperwork in order and the race vehicles didn't leave the line until 7:00am.
The first racers were lined up at 6:30, and the fog was kind of neat looking:


Fans started packing into the grandstands, and the races went really quickly. Each different class had its own race, which was six laps. They usually took eight minutes to do a lap. We had to log each race vehicle's lap time, and that got dicey at times.
Lots of dirt flying, as a couple of trucks leave the start line:


I had great opportunities to get shots of the trucks as they jumped nearby:


This guy is a local who offers his services during the race, towing disabled race vehicles off the track:


This is Robby Gordon lining up for his race:


Sunday morning's races were round two for each of the classes. As the sun came up, I got this shot:


Jesse James broke his truck on Saturday, but had it repaired and ready to go on Sunday:


There was a little bit of visible evidence of his troubles from the day before:


At lunchtime, I was going to have the usual burger, but then my attention was drawn to a Greek food stand that had an ENORMOUS Greek salad on display out front:


Of course I had a Gyro, with beef and lamb:


I had the best seat in the house for race watching. The cars and trucks put on a great show, too!


I caught SCORE CEO Sal Fish in a somewhat introspective moment:

Or maybe he was looking at his new shoes.

Long hours, lots of numbers, and a little bit of stress; but I love working the races.