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Monday, July 30, 2012

It's Monday...

Hope I didn't shock anyone there, but I didn't have a title idea.

Yesterday Scrappy had a "play date" of sorts with my friend's dog.  She's up from the Indy area looking after her (hopefully) temporarily indisposed papa and so her, Laurie, and I took her boy and our boy for a walk.  I did have the camera... I didn't take any pictures, we were too busy gabbing.  I took them through the woods and past the swamp, and we got a glimpse of Mama Deer and both fawns as the got the H outta Dodge to escape all our gabbing.

AWWWWWK! And now it's time for more Black Pine Pics!



I had a better shot seconds before, but ended up with the back of Laurie's head instead.


Coati trying to dig his way out.

Ol' boy on the left would walk up just so close and turn away.  We found out why moments later.  Trouble came up on his side of the fence and she B!tc# slapped him.

Damn cantankerous female!

Yeah, whatever.






Believe it or not, that still ain't all the pictures from that day.

This morning, though, was shorter and not all that much to look at.

Ground hog "gated community".  Must be living high on the ground-hog there.

Mr. Goldfinch

Mrs. Cardinal.  Hubby was in the bush, refusing to pose.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

NASCAR's big rules FAIL

I don't know why I'm up at 2:11 AM.  Maybe it was what I ate, or that Laurie's up at her friend's tonight.  Or I've got too much chocolate in me.  But I do know what's rolling through my mind preventing me from shutting off.

Nutshell synopsis:  The opening NASCAR Nationwide series race at Indy today, gifted by NASCAR to the double douche, Brad Keselowski.  Gifted, you say, not "won by"?  No my friends, if there was anything this race wasn't, that term would be "won".  Here's why.

About 20 laps to go, and a spinout had caused a caution and a restart.  Keselowski was first, with the inside track, Elliot Sadler on the outside.  I should mention here that NNS is like the NASCAR AAA league, but for reasons of advertising money they allow Sprint Cup ("big league") drivers like BK and the Busch brothers to run there too, they just don't get "points" towards the championship.  Behind BK is Sam "I'll get in the way of anyone " Hornish, Jr., and behind Elliot was fellow contender for the NNS championship Austin Dillon.   When the green flag flew on the restart, BK dogged it, leading Hornish to push him, setting his tires spinning.  Even NASCAR admitted this is an old trick of BK's to mess up the driver beside him.  NASCAR officially calls this "Sportsmanship."  Dillon immediately began pushing Elliot past BK, and I mean he was UNDER Sadler's back end.  So Sadler went on through, and suddenly NASCAR "black flagged" Elliot- which meant he was supposed to go to pit road for a pass through penalty, which would drop him hopelessly out of the race.

NASCAR's rules, according to Jeff Gluck of SBNation, says that it was Elliot's responsibility under "normal" circumstances to do whatever it took to allow BK to start first.  In the event of "abnormal" circumstances forcing him out first, Elliot was obliged to attempt to "give the position back".  NASCAR claims that even had they considered the fact that he was being pushed by the equally- douchelike Dillon, he did nothing to give the position back to BK.  Never mind he would have had to slowed down with Dillon up his back end, and probably had to cross in front of BK to reach the apron until the double douche was satisfied he'd fubared Elliot enough and finally started racing.  Never mind that this would have likely caused the accident that NASCAR claims they go "out of their way" to avoid.  To his credit, Sadler refused to take the black flag, and ran 8 laps in the lead while his crew chief tried to talk sense to NASCAR officials, but with 12 laps left, he was forced off the course, leaving the race to be "won" by Keselowski, in front of fans who NASCAR undoubtedly thinks would rather see the Sprint Cup car win a NNS event, a crowd that jammed Indianapolis Motor Speedway within a whopping 15% of its capacity.

What makes this "enforcement of the letter of the law" even more heinous was the incident at the very BEGINNING of the race.  Pole sitter Kasey Kahne was thrown off when the flagman signalled green early- early enough, to Kahne, that he was confused and Kyle Busch roared past him into the lead.  Very similar circumstances, and yet Busch neither got black flagged NOR had to give back the position.  And why would that be?

Because a START and a RESTART aren't the same thing in NASCAR's eyes.  WTF?

According to Gluck, a start is not led by the flagman, but by the pole sitter.  If he fails to take off, the next guy can.  So both incidents, according to the book, were judged correctly.  If BK had been the pole sitter and did what he did at the START of the race, Elliot would have been within the rules.  Any point thereafter, it's a no-no.  And it's this capricious changing of rules in midstream that cost Elliot 17 championship points and $100,000 in prize money.

Elliot tweeted after the race, "Just got home.. Still lost for words... Not everyday you have a chance to win the biggest race of season and have it taken away..........."  If you check NASCAR's Facebook site, 799 comments to date have been made on their after-race post, overwhelmingly negative.  The double douche's take?  "I see now why all these fans are upset over penalty, Espn group did not properly explain the situation. " .   Well sorry Brad, you'll have to excuse ESPN for not understanding such an inbred set of rules as governed this race.

So people who have a true sense of sportsmanship scratch their heads, saying, "Kahne had the pole and never led, Sadler had the lead but never led," while NASCAR shills go out and say things like, "If Sadler doesn't like it, well, it's not a Foundation For A Better life commercial" and NASCAR itself says nothing, serene in it's omnipitance. 

And, me? I'm no better than NASCAR.  I wrote them, asking for an explanation, and if they sent me one by Monday, I'd print it without further comment here.  But it's 3:00 AM now, and just like them I'm changing the rules in midstream and printing this anyway.  You see, they made no attempt to give me the position ahead of the deadline, so I'm Black-flagging them.  Oh, and advertisers?  If I wanted to watch a sport that takes inconsistant rules and just applies them arbitrarily, I'll stick with Friday Night Fights.  I won't be watching the Brickyard tomorrow.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Black Pine 2012

Today was our semi-annual trip to Black Pine Animal Park, a refuge for rescued exotic animals about 45 minutes from us.



I swear this bird called me a "retard".

You tell me who the "retard" is...

Laurie meets and greets another one...

Hi! Nice to meetcha!

Everybody in the reptile house was kinda zombie-like, except this boa who posed.

Black Panther.  She shares a cage with a regular leopard, but my picture didn't come out too good.

A white "red" fox.

Servals love to pose.


Nala the lioness

A lot of tigers, thus a lot of tiger pics.


I'll put up more of 'em later.

Lotsa bears, too.

My name is Trouble.





The sad thing we learned while visiting Trouble and his fellows was that several of them came here from a place we'd visited years ago.  While it didn't seem all that bad when we were there, it had degenerated to the point where either his animals were confiscated or he had to surrender them.  Trouble apparently was given no bedding in the winter, left to nest in his own crap.  "Oh, he'll probably die this winter," the owner apparently said.  "He'll be worth more dead than alive."


Trouble stands up for 1/2 a peanut.

The Grey...  The movie didn't get this part.


I love this capybara!  Here's the one second he wasn't hopping around...

The only Chimpanzee in the state, I am told.


Laurie makes a group of admirers.

Sweet little donkey...

And a mini-horse and a fallow deer.

Isn't he just adorable?

Mustafa the lion...

...flirts with the cougar across the street.


Then came a special treat- the twice-yearly tiger bubble bath!
Alright, where's that tasty little Mr. Bubble?

Today's money shot!


Closest I came to one of their play-fights.

Coati for "Buddy, can you spare a dime?"

"Sigh.  Oh well..."

Afterwards, I said, "you know, all those years working in Kendalville we never went to Bixler Lake."  So today we did.





I have more cool shots I'll share later.  Good night, y'all!