The Wandering Minstrel

The Better Half and I were enjoying an afternoon on the patio swing watching the birds at the feeders and whatever else we fancy. At one point, a bug (yellow jacket, I think) lighted on the swing canopy (left). Of course the bug isn’t in the picture because I grabbed our air soft pistol (right) and sent it to bug-Valhalla with a single shot. I usually use the air pistol to run off a couple of pigeons or a squirrel or two that come around from time to time. This was the first use against an insect. We both laughed at the sight of the bug getting hit square in the thorax.

Image background - Grand Canyon Yavapai Point View - Clickable image.

When I get up in the morning, I consult my list of RSS feeds to see the latest posts. I got to DrJim’s Every Blade of Grass blog and saw that he would be setting up for the annual ham radio Field Day contest sponsored by the American Radio Relay League. I asked The Better Half if she would like to take a drive down to their setup site at historic Fort MacArthur “Topside” in San Pedro and meet up with DrJim - something we have been meaning to do since we found out we’re practically neighbors. So, we drove the short trip down there and finally got to meet up.

In the clickable image above, DrJim and I are chatting about the amateur radio satellite communications setup he was setting up for the contest. When DrJim finishes the setup, he will have a couple of uplink/downlink antennas mounted on the stub tower with full azimuth and elevation control. The satellite communications will allow the United Radio Amateur Club to claim the bonus points for including his operation in the list of stations.

Ace posted about the shifting population to and from Harris County (Houston) TX. In the post an article on the AEI blog about California and Texas population migration trends. The AEI post referred to an interactive feature on Forbes, “Where Americans are Moving.” Having an interest in Maricopa County Arizona, I went to the Forbes site to see the moving trends for the Arizona county where Phoenix is located. Our new place will be located in northwestern Mariposa County.

The data used for this map is from 2008 IRS records, so it’s not exactly up-to-date. The black radials show influx to Maricopa County from various counties around the country. Red radials show influx from Maricopa to other counties around the country. I was surprised to see such a large volume of moves away from the county. It would be interesting to see the demographics of the arrivals versus the departures. Clickable image.

Of course, the chart doesn’t show the huge ingress from south of the international border. If the chart were to show that movement, there would be a fat black line connecting Mexico with Maricopa County.

The Better Half took this photo in May while we were in Kingman, Arizona. The old part of town along Route 66 is lined with old-style motels, diners like Mr. D’s and the inevitable gift and souvenir shops.

I really liked Mr. D’s old Chevy pickup parked by the diner, It was one of many 40’s and 50’s classics we saw while we were in town. Clickable image.

Across the street from the diner is the Kingman Powerhouse which houses model trains, information counter and gift shops. I bought an aloha shirt with illustrations of Arizona-specific Route 66 landmarks and autos.

Old Glory waves in the foreground as the Blue Angels fly overhead. Clickable image.

This is the inspiration for the flaming skull at the top of the page. After watching an action movie, I was inspired to create a flaming skull logo for this website. In the movie the main character plants explosives around the parking lot where his enemies have parked. Upon detonation, the flaming skull appeared.

I wanted to have that effect embedded into our logo, so I used a Flash™ animation editor to employ the original logo as a mask to allow the flame effect to be seen in the shape of the logo. The clickable image is from an image the Better Half made when I stopped the movie on the flaming skull scene.

Today, I grilled up a pork tenderloin for today’s entreé along with some chicken breasts to be used later in the week for Caesar salads. The better half grilled up another chicken breast marinated southwestern style for tomorrow’s main meal, soft chicken tacos. After we finished grilling, I sliced the tenderloin up and the Better Half served it with cinnamon glazed carrots, homemade apple compoté and steamed broccoli. A nice heart-healthy low-sodium afternoon feast. Clickable image - warning - drool alert!

The airshow part of this story is a fallout from a P-51 Mustang and P-40 Warhawk flyover made at the unveiling of the long-lost Swamp Ghost, a WW2 B-17 that was recently salvaged from a New Guinea swamp where it crash landed during the big war. Evidently, the original two aircraft scheduled for the overflight were joined by some other war-bird enthusiasts and made several passes over our area - we’re about a mile and a half from the Torrance airport where several war-birds are headquartered. The thumbnail image shows four of the eight aircraft that overflew our house today. Clickable image to see all eight.