Here's to a better 2011

Merry Christmas!

If you believe, Merry christmas to you. If you don't, then have a happy holiday. And to everyone here's hoping for a better 2011.

Photos from Denver Botanical Gardens. To see the full collection visit Longs Peak Journal

Obama, the first stealth Black Republican President

This makes about as much sense as anything he's done lately.

Have you heard the old word ...

why not try the Necronomicon?



And you thought the the Mormons were hardcore.

Co-evolution

Dogs evolved to let us take care of them, and we evolved to want to take care of them. I just can't fully trust someone who doesn't like dogs. Its in our DNA.

Welcome to Sparky the wonder kitty

Dr. Zaius has him here.

TSA Fashion

Boxers or briefs, new underware blocks TSA scanners. The only question is will this just lead to more TSA fondeling. Only time will tell. More at Gizmodo.

The magnificence of dogs

Angel on Top

The little Black Dog gets spooked around Christmas and likes to hide under the tree. I'll notice it rocking back and forth and looking down find her wrapped around the base. Seems like a natural play spot for the cat.

Courtesy of Mock, Paper, Scissors.

Denver Botanical Gardens

The Denver Botanical Gardens is having a tour of light on their grounds. This was opening weekend, so it was a zoo! It was pretty cold too. The battery in my wife's camera kept dying. Despite this all, it was worth going.

Flightware

Better than wearing a kilt through a TSA check point. I'd love to have one of these next time I fly, but they're sold out - and I don't intend to fly anytime soon.

More info here.

That new doggie smell

Proof that Cats are up to no good!

Referenced from Mock, Paper, Scissors.

Biting the hand that feeds you

I want!

I'd love to have this, although I haven't a clue where I'd put it. And at $89K I couldn't even afford it. There's a shuttle version for a cool $2.2 million.

One bad ass cat

The Tea Party is almost right

Obama, America's second Muslim president. (Secret Muslim starts at 8:32).

helping "the Goldman Sachs"

US-Sino Currency Rap Battle

U.S.S. Enterprise: Haynes Manual

How cool is this! Available here.

Vacuum the Dog with Dyson's Groom tool

The Dyson people have another crazy vacuum - the pet vac. They say you can even use it on your cat - ya right. Are they going to pay for the hospital bills?

Spiders!

Over the weekend we seemed to have a slight spider infestation, but it seems to have cleared.

Q reads Poe's Raven

Something new at Sears for Halloween

Check out the Zombie side of Sears.

Happy Halloween

I got to see Vincent Price in mid 80's. I forget why he was touring, but greatly enjoyed his dramatic reading.

Treason

Stephen Broden, a Republican running for Congress in Texas’ 30th District, said he would not rule out a violent overthrow of the government if the midterm elections don’t cause a change in government, saying that “our nation was founded on violence” so “the option is on the table.”

Why is it when the Right promotes treason, its patriotic?

Fall in Colorado

This is from a tree near work. Took it earlier in the week. Here are a few others [1,2,3]. We're on the downward swing for color. Maybe another week or two at best, unless it snows as predicted next week.

What difference a year makes

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

The constitution doesn't mean what you think it means

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

The Tea Party Message

Remember that details are for elitists!

Damn kids get off of my lawn ...

Elderly Men Now Just Beating Each Other Up Over Political Yard Signs

Article at Huffington Post.

Autumn is here

Well there is no denying it any longer. We had our first significant frost last night. I wrapped the exposed pipes last night and brought in the house plants. And put away the shorts. Autumn is here!

Most of my life, I've lived in places where the transition between seasons was subtle and gradual. I'm used to Spring and Fall going on for a couple of months at least. In Colorado you're lucky if you get any transition at all. We had a pretty hot summer, so I was looking forward to some moderate weather. I got three weeks. The foot hills are already covered with snow. It shouldn't last, but the change is in full swing.

Deconstructing an Internet Meme

10:10 Project

What made anyone think this was a good idea is beyond me. It not even funny. This one at least is pretty humorous. The 10:10 project was indended to draw attention to October 10th being a day dedicated to climate change. Sony pulled their sponsorship when they saw the ad. Due to the reaction the video has been taken down from 10:10's website.

How Christine O'Donnell sees the MSM

The Orange Man cometh

John Boehner is such a class act.

Tea Party Wet Dream

Note this ad was brought to you by the Republican National Committee and 70% of the Democratic National Committee.

These are the people who live around us

A man who was shot after firing four shots at a Longmont police officer now claims that he “thought he was being pursued by a zombie.” More here

THE WALKING DEAD "Opening Titles" from Daniel Kanemoto on Vimeo.

Dabbler

Update:

Blue Gals take on the meatball incident.

The positive side to Fall gardening

Maroon Bells

More photos here.

Aspen's changing color near Aspen

There is a place near Aspen Colorado called Maroon Lake. The mountain peaks surrounding this insignificant lake are called the Maroon Bells. The Maroon Bells are one of the most over photographed places in Colorado. I'll post a photo or two of them later in the week. I caught this scene of Aspen's changing color along the road to the Maroon Bells about a week and a half ago. It was our first time there. We plan to go back.

Awesome!

Night of the Living Trekkies: Book Trailer

A Strange Practical Joke

I awoke a little over a week ago to find a crude flyer attached to my garage door. It had the words Big Brother is Watching You, along with the INGSOC logo. I immediately recognized it from the novel 1984 but didn't understand what it was doing there. Looking around at my neighbors homes, I saw a handful of them sporting the same flyer. Asking around I discovered that the flyers had been posted on many of the surrounding streets.

I still don't know why someone went to so much effort to send such an obscure message. Many of my neighbor's had never heard of the novel and had no idea what it referenced, they were just angry someone had violated their personal space. As far as I could tell, it wasn't some sort of anniversary of the novel.

Good news?

We're no longer number one! Although not by much.

What was old is new again

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Postcards From the Pledge
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Dog's Priorities

Fall in the Colorado High Country

This is one of the Maroon Bells located just outside of Aspen Colorado. Fall has hit the high country of Colorado. The Peak should hit over the next two weekends.

Having technical difficulties

I've been having a few technical difficulties as of late. I'm on my fourth Quest DSL modum. Each replacement seems to be worse, and I recently lost my old beater Mac that I used for blogging. Since I of course would never blog on company time, that has made it very hard to do many posting. Things should pick up in the next week.

Glen Beck Racist? You decide.

guilt by association

Remember the days when Republicans used to protect constitutional freedoms.

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Extremist Makeover - Homeland Edition
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Michael Bloomberg
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FOX news, Evil or Stupid, you decide

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PhD

Some people think that PhD just means that you are finely done. What it actually means to get a doctorate is explained in pictures.

Routine

In a dog's world change is bad! Sort of indicates how good their life is.

In a dog's world

Proving an affirmative

The Carebear and company seem to be very annoyed that no one is giving them credit for their accomplishments. Unfortunately for them its pretty much impossible to prove that you avoided what didn't happen.

All to do about nothing

During my life time the biggest cause of Federal deficits has been tax cuts. It started with Reagan, and continues to this day. Is it any surprise that Clinton both raised taxes and reduced the deficit. Yet the Right has the delusion that tax breaks are somehow separate from the deficit. Its magic money that is automatically offset by an improved economy. And failing to extend the cuts, which even the Bush administration thought was unnecessary, will cause economic collapse. Unfortunately reality has never worked this way, not that the facts ever get in the way of a good sound bite.

The Washington Post points out that letting the Bush tax cuts lapse will not cause the economy to collapse, but rather will impact a very small amount of the population.

(Image from the Washington Post)

Paranoia

What is reality when paranoid delusions become the norm.

It's good to be king

Its good to be King, if just for awhile
To be there in velvet, yeah, to give 'em a smile
...

Tom Petty

Not my generation's Pink Floyd

Hey Ayatollah, Leave Those Kids Alone! -- performed by Blurred Vision

Petris

Cats

Only reason Cats keep us around

Fetch

Everything is just a few hundred clicks away

Refudiate

Middle age memory hole

Dogs against the internet

(Rhymes with Orange from July 18, 2010)

Cat Toy

Taken from Mock, Papers, Scissors.

Baby Andy

I was cleaning out some old email and found this photo sent to us by the Humane Society. They wanted to know how Andy the Pocket Shepherd was doing. I'm not certain, but I'm guessing he's somewhere between 6 and 8 weeks here.

Running of the Poly-Sci Majors

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Cat Lassie

From Mock, Paper, Scissors.

The little black dog is gray

Here is a more recent photo of the site's namesake Kelly. The little black dog is nine this year and has become quite a gray old lady.

The little black dog is perturbed with me today. I stained the deck in the back yard and had to fence it off from canine curiosity until it finishes drying. This is clearly an imposition. In the canine world change is bad.

What Obama should have said!

Fake President Obama, Rachel Maddow, gives her take on what the Carebear should have said last night, instead of his message of Wing it and pray.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Carebear is seduced by the dark side

President Carebear has been seduced by the dark side. What's that saying about power and corruption ...

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Oil Spill

Ironically, a Lovecraftian creature is less deadly than BP.

Never give a terminator a handout

Here's another student project. Clearly Cyberdyne doesn't like Steve Jobs!

Better than Cloverfield

Amock: the movie from Amock on Vimeo.

It always amazes me what a small team of students can put together. Here's what four French Art students were able to do. IO9 says it out Cloverfield's Cloverfield. It definitely worth a few moments of your time.

How BP deals with a spill

Longs Peak at Sunset

Ops. A little typo. Its actually Longs Peak.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Game

For your ipad. What more can I say! A video of the game play is here.

The first Decoration Day

David W. Blight has a fantastic article about the The first Decoration Day.

Thousands of black Charlestonians, most former slaves, remained in the city and conducted a series of commemorations to declare their sense of the meaning of the war. The largest of these events, and unknown until some extraordinary luck in my recent research, took place on May 1, 1865. During the final year of the war, the Confederates had converted the planters' horse track, the Washington Race Course and Jockey Club, into an outdoor prison. Union soldiers were kept in horrible conditions in the interior of the track; at least 257 died of exposure and disease and were hastily buried in a mass grave behind the grandstand. Some twenty-eight black workmen went to the site, re-buried the Union dead properly, and built a high fence around the cemetery. They whitewashed the fence and built an archway over an entrance on which they inscribed the words, "Martyrs of the Race Course."

Then, black Charlestonians in cooperation with white missionaries and teachers, staged an unforgettable parade of 10,000 people on the slaveholders' race course.

Decoration Day

With over a thousand soldiers dead, in the longest American conflict to date, we have something very important to remember this Memorial day.



Abe Lincoln over at Pick a Pick of Pixelshas a great post about his memories as a child of the precursor to Memorial Day called Decoration Day.

First trip to Mt. Evans of the year

Mt Evans is one of the handful of 14 thousand foot peaks here in the front range of Colorado. Typically he road is only open from Memorial day to Labor day. Less, if we have late spring or early winter snows. The road opened yesterday for this summer season, so we took a drive to the summit this afternoon.



Mt. Evans is unique in that it has a paved road that stops only a couple hundred feet from the summit. There used to be an inn at the summit. It burned down in the 1970's. A typical end for many mountain dwellings. The ruins are still in good shape.



The road was completely clear, but the lakes were frozen and there were large drifts along the road.



This last shot is looking from the summit back down toward the old inn and the end of the road. The trail was drifted and icy, but not technical.

Cats are just cats

... no matter how big they are. A few more photos from the Colorado Wild Animal Sanctuary.