Thursday This n That

 I forgot what day it is.

Tuesday, we voted in the municipal elections.  One measure on the ballot failed by one vote.  ONE vote.  Never let it be said that your vote doesn't matter.  It does.  If we hadn't voted, it would've changed the outcome.  (And we'd be paying more in property taxes this year, which we do not need.)

Why do people vote to raise their own property taxes???  I mean, yeah, I could see if it was something important, but this wasn't.  

Yesterday, there was a squirrel in the yard that was acting like it was having a stroke or something.  We didn't go anywhere near it, but we kept an eye on it from the window.  First, it was just laying there in the sun underneath the hickory tree.  The next time we looked it had moved into the shade.  The next time it was back in the sun.  Then Hubs saw it from his bathroom window and another squirrel had walked up on it and they were jumping around at each other, after which it went right back to laying under the tree.  A little while later, it was stumbling toward the water pans and got itself a drink.  Then it was right back under the tree - about a 15 foot distance - where it was digging with its front paw and then eating what looked like some kind of root.  After dinner, it had moved to the backyard and was again eating some kind of root.  By then, it was looking decidedly better.  I wonder if those roots have medicinal properties.  Anyway, the next time we looked, it was gone.  Either it got better and went away, or the fox got it during its dusk rounds through our yard.  Still, it was all very weird.  

What does one do for a messed-up squirrel?  I'd call a rehabber, if we had any anywhere near us.  The only good one I know of, though, is in OK and they can't take out of state animals.  Bummer.  I thought about going out there with a net and catching it, but then I'd be violating some wild animal ordinance or something.  Around here, the wildlife better get better on its own.  I just wish the critters would stop having medical dramas on my lawn.  If they're going to die, they need to do it in the woods and far enough away that I don't see it.

Okay, time for me to go take a walk... which is what I was getting ready to do when I realized I hadn't posted today.  Derp.  Have a great day, wherever you are.  Peace out.

Property Rights

The other day I saw a video clip someone posted on FB and it's kind of concerning.  It was of Harris talking to some of her cronies about how they could just take someone's patent.  And to her it seemed like something funny and fun to do.  Like it was nothing.

A patent is a property right.  You come up with an invention, you patent it so everyone knows it's YOURS.  This thing you created came out of your head and you made it real.  You should profit from it.  I'd say in perpetuity, but those things don't last forever.  Still, for as long as they last, they're yours.  

Kind of like copyrights.  

If someone in power is willing to steal a patent, it's not that big a step for them to just go ahead and steal your copyright, too.  Basically, if they want something, it's theirs to take.  Sort of like a whole section of our populous these days.  (If you haven't been paying attention, there have been hoards of people taking things that don't belong to them.  It'll get worse, trust me.  Sort of a 'if she's doing it, why can't I' mindset.)

Sure, they'll probably start with the conservatives and other people who aren't on their side, but before long, they'll come for the liberals, too.  Or, if a liberal's property is desirable to them, they'll skip the line and go straight for the throat no matter who is it.

Jus' sayin'.

I mean, I've even seen it here on my little plot of land.  Some people who occasionally come up from a rather large city south of here decided it would be okay to wander the woods... woods that do not belong to them... and one day they just popped out of the woods into my yard.  They were going on 'an adventure', they said.  They didn't even bother to ask if it was okay to trespass on my property.  I would've told them no, but still.  (And maybe that's why they didn't ask.)  We have our reasons, but we don't really need one to stand up and say 'this piece of property belongs to us - stay off'.  Hell, we don't even need to say it.  Property doesn't have to be posted No Trespassing for it to apply.  (It's easier to prosecute when there's a sign, but you don't need it.)  Those people don't see us walking on their land - and they have waterfront, so it would be awesome to just walk across their lawn and fish off their backyard.  We don't do that because those people have rights.  We respect that.  

Our books are our property, too.  We sometimes share our property for free.  Get the word out there, maybe pick up some residual sales.  Sharing it once for free doesn't mean it's always free, so you can take it and share it, too.  It means for this space of time, we would like for you to read it and appreciate it without having to pay for it.  Pass your love of the book along, not the book itself.

I find really quite concerning and more than a little depressing that the second in charge of our great nation has so little regard for property rights..  The only thing I can do is write posts like this and hope that come November enough people realize the truth and vote accordingly.

:shrug:

Thursday This n That

Yeah, I realize this isn't Thursday.  Unfortunately, I didn't think yesterday was Thursday, so you're getting this today.  

Yesterday, I was listening to music on my lunch break and this one video started out with an attack ad against both the Republican and the Libertarian candidates for Senate.  Everything 'bad' they were saying about the R turned out to be lies.  Everything 'bad' they said about the L made me want to vote for him.  I wish I could find the ad and share it, but alas, I cannot.  I'm still voting for the R on Tuesday, though, because if the conservatives here split their votes between R & L, we'll get the damn D again.  Maybe that was the point of the commercial.  She knows she can't win if the conservative voters don't split their vote, so she's making the L look more attractive than the R.  

Sometimes it's hard to not talk about things going on at work.  

I've been screwing around taking these 'list challenge' things I see on FB.  One of them was 'so you think you're well read'.  It had like 1460 titles on it.  I've read like 175 or so and I shared it on FB.  Someone commented pointing to Sturgeon's Law on Wikipedia.  Back in the '50s, science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon postulated that 90% of everything is crap.  Yep, that seems about right.

Speaking of crap, I saw another challenge on there of 'woke' books.  It said something about the average # of those books that participants have read.  It was 3.  LOL

One thing I hate about book challenges on there is that they list a whole series of which I read only one or two, so I can't claim it.  Harshes my groove, man.

I've already bought a 2023 date book for work.  I haven't written in it yet, but I need to plan some stuff out for next year already, so I should probably get crackin' on that.  I am not one for planning that far ahead.

I think we're having leftovers for dinner tonight.  Or burgers.  We need to eat the leftovers, but I'll probably want a burger by the time I get home.  :wanders into the kitchen to take burger out to defrost:

Yesterday morning, I was on my way to work and not far from the house when a chipmunk darted across the road in front of me.  Lucky for Chester, I was paying attention and hit the brakes.  I would've had a sad if I'd squashed the little dude.  Probably not as sad as he would've been, though.

Okay, I've probably bored you enough for now.  Have a great day and an awesome weekend. :hugs:

Thursday This n That

Yesterday, I was getting ready to copy a snippet of SSS to share on someone's blog and noticed a typo.  It's okay.  I fixed it in all iterations of the book and uploaded them all.  But seriously.... After all the times I went through this manuscript... :pulls out Harakiri knife:  

Is it still called Harakiri or is it Seppuku now?  Asking for a friend.

We voted on Tuesday.  Two different 'raise your taxes to pay for things we don't need' issues.  We, of course, voted no.  And both of them, of course, passed.  One raised the sales tax.  The other raised the property tax.  yay.  With most everything outside our control getting more expensive, I can't fathom why people would actively vote for a increase in expenditures we can control.  Derp.  There was also a school board member thing.  We didn't vote for anyone because we didn't think any of them had a clue.  The incumbents lost, so that says something about people around here recognizing something is wrong, but from what we read about the two who got in, it'll be more of the same.  I hope I'm wrong.

A 93c head of lettuce is now $1.78.

In happier news, my peonies are coming up.  Unfortunately, they seem to be the only plants that survived being out of the ground for an extended period of time.  Mums... columbine... lariopes... all appear to be dead.  :shrug:

Wait, I was supposed to be doing 'happier news' there.  Umm...  Elmer the elm tree is starting to make branches, so he's not just a stick with leaves anymore.  And the baby cedars - Cecil and Cedric - are coming along nicely.  

The deer are starting to show their pregnancies.  Yay, fawns!  

I've been following a wildlife rescue in Oklahoma - Wild Heart Ranch.  (If you don't do FB, here's their website.)  They're pretty awesome.  And they're fighting the good fight.  Helping animals that can't help themselves - hurt animals, orphaned animals - and then releasing them back into the wild.  They got a baby beaver in the other day.  It's black.  =oO  Definitely not your normal beaver color.  And they have this crow they raised and then released who is amazing.  She's a free crow, but she doesn't want to leave, and she even helps out around the place.  (When she's not stealing things and leaving them on the roof. LOL)

I actually did some writing last night.  It pretty much sucks, but I have permission to do that.  It'll all work out in the end.

And before I start down the unhappier road again, I'll let you go.  What's on your this n that radar today?

Thursday This n That

The election is over for this time and it didn't turn out as bad as I'd feared.  Not as good as I'd hoped either, but apparently mid-term elections are like that.  We got our resident wicked witch out of congress.  I wish Michigan could've ousted theirs, too, but between Flint and Detroit, it wasn't likely.  I think Josh will do a good job for Missouri and for the U.S.

Oh, and they defeated the gas tax prop, so MO remains one of the lowest gas tax states.  Yay.  My main gas station was at $2.42 on Tuesday.  Every penny I don't have to shell out is good.

On Tuesday, Hubs and I went to town.  He needed to hit the barber and I needed to get out of the house.  I dropped him off and then went to a thrift store I hadn't visited before.  Oh, I knew it was there, but it's name implied that it was all clothing.  Except someone told me they had books in there somewhere, too.  Lo and behold, they did.  Not a huge area, but the books were stacked double deep.  I went through them all and picked out what I really wanted, then went through again to round out my purchase.  Lucky me, they were having a sale - 6 paperbacks for $1 and 3 hardcovers for $1.  Yes, I only got 9 books.  Most of their offerings were romances, stuff I'd read, or stuff I wasn't interested in.  Still, I got an old Alastair MacLean I didn't already have.  And an old Agatha Christie I didn't already have.  Plus, my favorite Phyllis Whitney in first edition hardcover.  And various others.  $2 out the door.  Cha ching.  Wrapped it up and got back to the barber right after Hubs haircut was finished, so it was all good.  (Not that it matters much.  He enjoys chatting with the barber.  The guy's a hoot.)

The autumn colors are past their peak now, but it's still pretty spectacular out there.

I really need to remember to buy stamps.  I have a note on my desk, but I've been to the post office twice since I wrote the note and still no stamps. 

Speaking of stamps, I got my postcards.

Speaking of postcards, Blink of an I is on sale right now.  (It's on the postcard, doncha know.)

I think I've learned my lesson not to do three sales within a month's time.  By the third sale, I'm burned out on marketing.  I was kinda burned out at the second sale.  I really need to get the word out there on FB and junk.

Speaking of FB, they changed stuff again.  I used to go through my newsfeed and then go over to my Pages feed to see what FB hadn't bothered to put in my newsfeed.  This morning, I clicked on Pages and it took me to a page that showed me my own pages.  And gave me a place where I could manage all the pages I like.  But no feed to see what those pages were showing.  Good thing I have all those pages bookmarked, but what a pain in the ass.  Thanks, FB.

Someone really needs to design an awesome competitor for Facebook. One people will happily join and migrate over to.  There are others, but they're all pale comparisons because people won't leave the great FB.  Myself included.  Why leave a party where all your friends are to go to a party where no one is and the chips are stale?  Even when the first party is run by dorks and is populated by like 90% dorks.  If the awesome 10% aren't at the other party, bringing with them awesome appetizers and snacks, there's no point.  :shrug:

Okay, that's more than enough out of me this morning.  What's up with you?

This n That Thursday

I thought I couldn't vote in the primaries because I'm registered as an independent, but I discovered this morning that Missouri let's you vote even if you aren't a card carryin' whatever.  So, off to the polls I go next Tuesday. 

I have a Justin Beaver song stuck in my head and I can't get it out.  I've tried several other songs - '65 Love Affair usually does the trick - but nothing seems to kick it out.  That dork is evil. 

A friend of mine sent me a link to 100 pictures of owls.  It was awesome.  I love owls. 

So, the squirrels have pretty much given up on getting into the house, but now they're re-doubling their efforts to raid my feeders and dig up all my bulbs.  Little bastards.  If I keep them off the feeders, they go after the bulbs more strenuously.  One of them figured out how to get the door open on my new feeder.  I found him sitting inside the feeder gorging himself.  Ugh.

The turkeys are in the middle of the season of lurve.  The toms are dancing and strutting.  The girls are clustered in brood flocks.  Last year's chicks are wandering around with a sort of 'what the heck?' demeanor.

I've been washing windows lately.  A few at a time because doing the whole house at once would be insanity.  And interior only because it's still not the right time to get a ladder out and go after the outsides.  Soon.  On the upside, it counts toward my 'do something active every day'.  Man, washing windows really gives my arms a workout. 

Any this n that in your world today?