Blog de Dave

...I've just been busy. Lots o' stuff happened since I last posted.

Well, no, not really. I've just been sluffing it off. Met a nurse a while back, and have been helping her get furniture and stuff for her new house (what a deal she got on that). Boy, what a chore that is, too...helping a woman pick out furniture. Wrong color. Wrong fabric. Too poofy. Not the right style. Doesn't do this or that. Took two weeks just to find a sofa...and she's got an entire house to furnish.

Me, otoh, it doesn't take me long to decide on something. Which is why I got this the same day I went shopping...

It's been ten years since my last bike. Ten years too long. It's been longer than that since my last really good ride...which is why I'm off to Sedona come November. It's only 1120+ miles one way. I've done twice that before, but was a helluva lot younger. Rode down to see my grandsons last Sunday, 260 miles round trip, and realized (in 102 degree heat) that those ten years made a lot of difference. Well...I'm old. I'll be dead soon (or the world will end, one). This may be my last ride. Gotta make it count.

...and the ordeal I had with the postal service? I'd shipped my studio lighting to California (2-3 day Priority Mail), and I went round and round with "Customer Support" for a week, and come to find out it had gone to the post office in the guy's town, and stayed there for two weeks, and they never even sent a notice to the guy, and they didn't find it until I filed an insurance claim? Well, guess what?

I hope the USPS really does go broke and they all fucking starve in the streets like rats.

I found an 18-70mm 3.5-4.5G lens on Ebay last week. Picked it up for a good price. Priority Mail. Should have gotten it Wednesday. Come to find out, it went back to the post office in the sender's town. And they can't find it. Imbeciles. Idiots. Morons. I mean, how hard is it to give someone a box, and tell them to take it to someone else? 2-3 day delivery. Paid 11 bucks for that. It left Euless, went to Ft Worth, then back to Euless. What...the...fuck? I called Euless this morning (after playing email tag with "Customer Support) for three days), hung around the house most of the day, and the second I leave to go pick up some printer cartridges, they call back. Leaving a garbled message that God couldn't understand. Evidently, they...can't...find it. Asshats. It must take a certain level of dumbassity to wotk at the post office. "Here's my box, dude...and here's $11 to lose it." THAT, they can do.

I'm glad I pay my bills online. 'cuz I will never, ever use the postal service for anything ever again.

...I have to post this using Firefox, 'cuz Opera wouldn't open. Funny hmmm, not funny ha ha.

Spring Break and SXSW, both on one weekend. I'd thought about doing the Million Musicians March at the Capitol again this year, until I remembered the thousands of tourists that were in town for SXSW. I didn't relish the thought of being in the midst of all those people, so I went to McKinney Falls instead...only to find the park full of tourists in town for Spring Break. Lucky for me, though, I got there about ten minutes before the park opened (at 8am), and was able to get some shooting in before any of my shots got photobombed too badly. I'd heard one fella holler at his kids, "Stay off the rocks!" I was like, "Dude...this is the Hill Country. There's rocks everywhere."

Oh, well...I got a few decent shots. A couple of more pics are posted in my Photo section. Speaking of which...for those of you who've commented, thanks. I don't check this thing as often as I should, but I do appreciate the kind words.

...finally...for the past three days it's been raining, off & on. And 40 degrees. What the hell happened to spring? Cold and wet make my joints ache...

Speaking of spring...I started spring cleaning last week. Sold my D1x with the 28-70 lens, the 18-135 that came with my D80, and an ATG gun with a box full of tape. Haven't yet decided if I'm gonna sell my D40 or not. I did finally get a D200, cheap. A fella on craigslist kept posting one for sell at $720, new in the box. Cheapest I'd found yet. I came close to getting it until some other fella posted about him being overpriced, that Best Buy had 'em online for $599.99. It cost me $11 to get it the next day. Now, if the weather will clear up long enough for me to get down to the creek...

...to see how dry things were.

It's dry.

Stagner's Lake, just south of Smithville. I noticed it last weekend when I went south. What used to be Stagner's lake, anyway. It's Stanger's Dried-up Pit now. Left there, stopped in Bastrop for breakfast, and checked out the river. Not too bad, but it doesn't look like the boat ramp will be much use. Not near as bad as the one at Cypress Creek Park, off Lake Travis, though...

I rekon it's safe to assume no one will be swimming within 50 feet of the boat ramp there. On the way to the park, I stopped at a construction site of what's supposed to be a lake house...

...and figured if the level drops much more...

...there's not gonna be much of a lake left.

Of course, things haven't changed much on the Pedernales...

If you Google Map (or Earth) Johnson City, go north on 281 a bit, you'll see why it's dry on this end of the river.

I reckon what set me off on this was reading a letter to the editor in the Austin Chronicle the other day. Some poor little lake-wife was whining about not being able to go out on the lake to play in their boat. Now, I've nothing against boat rides. Been on plenty of 'em myself. But water isn't a plaything. When it's dry, plants die. You know, plants. Like corn, cotton, rice, soybeans, stuff like what you buy out of a grocery store to feed yourselves. When it's dry, critters die. You know, like cows. Cows that become steak. Or cows that make the milk that's in the collers at HEB's. When it's dry, too dry...people...die. I can count the times it's rained in the past 18 months on one hand. And have change left over. Barton Creek has pretty much been dry since September '07. And there's no rain in the forecast (not that it'd matter if there was...lyin' buncha asshats). The only critters I've seen at work is the big ol' fat coon that gets into the trash. No deer. No ringtails. No foxes. Haven't even heard the coyotes singing. They've taken off to find water. Find it, or die looking.

It's bad. And it's gonna get worse.