Author Archives: Robert

…especially with broccoli stalks.  Add tomatoes, carrots, red cabbage, green pepper, parsley, avocado, green onion, a bit of feta cheese and a light dressing and viola!  You’ve got a great meal.  A meal for someone like me with a huge appetite. 

Let’s face it.  I like to clean my plate.  I have an insatiable appetite for everything especially food, sex, laughter and sleep.  The latter being something I don’t get enough of. 

If you’re going to overdo it and eat a lot of something, it may as well be veggies.  They’re good for you–as long as you don’t coat them with a thick layer of ranch dressing. 

I remember having a heated discussion with someone about the benefits of a diet that includes raw veggies and them telling me “That’s what food eats.”  Of course the person saying this was practically on the brink of morbid obesity and a perfect candidate for type 2 diabetes.  But hey, who am I to judge?  Chicks dig balding opinionated guys with beer bellies.

OK, on a totally unrelated note (It’s non sequitur day!):

Why why why is Brintey Spears famous?  Who gives a crap about this stoopid beyotch?  There is a world of things going on out there and every day we get bombarded by several updates on her erratic behavior.

This just in: Britney had a boil lanced–film at 11.

Who cares!?!?  Let’s start a “Just Say No” campaign for Ms. Spears.  The woman does not deserve the attention of the general public.  She was never a really good singer in the first place!  She soulds like she has two teeny tiny little vocal chords in her nostrils.  There are so many other singers out there who can actually carry a tune (calling Pink and Christina Aguilera!)  I am, for the most part, a down-to-earth-give-peace-a-chance kind of guy but this chick makes me rethink genocide.

Last night a sudden wicked thunderstorm hit Stolen Horseshoe.  Most of the time during our monsoon storms there is a flash which is subsequently followed by a boom.  That’s pretty much the pattern.  However, every once in a while there’s the storm that seems to posture itself directly on top of our house.  They produce fla-booms. 

The fla-boom is when the lightning hits the ground so treacherously close to where you’re standing that the flash doesn’t even have time to finish doing its thing before the boom rips through the air.  Fla-boom!

And here I am standing outside with electronic gear on a metal tripod trying to photograph it.

The storm was pretty spectacular.  My coworker who lives just down the road told me that her power went out at around ten o’ clock and was out for two hours.  I guess we got lucky. 

Yesterday morning, Ray and I went for a jog.  I was pushing myself to go at least a mile and a half without walking.  Halfway through our run, Ray asked “Don’t you have that meeting with the Chamber of Commerce this morning?”  Since Monday was a vacation day, I did not have the opportunity to see it on my calendar at work.  It startled me that I had forgotten.  I made a bee-line to the house and jumped in the shower.  While getting dressed, sweat was still oozing from my pores.  Here I was trying to look professional in my nice big-boy clothes and I could not stop schvitzing.

I raced out the door, drove to work, and made a quick appearance in the office.  Got back in the car,  drove to Old Bisbee and ran into the hotel where the meeting was being held.

It was the wrong day.

Today is my meeting.  There I was in the hotel lobby drenched in sweat feeling like a big sweatbomb.  Taking Monday off had me all turned around.  Today feels like it should be Thursday but alas, it’s only Wednesday.  I decided not to jog this morning.  At least I’ll be at my meeting on time and I’ll be dry.

This little guy is called a Mexican General.  In a very short period of time, these things will be everywhere and they’ll be big.  They’re quite striking in color–especially when they mature but I loathe them nonetheless because they eat at my cactus garden. 

Summer is starting to wind down.  It’s depressing.  The whole idea behind moving to Arizona was the sun and the heat.  I like heat.  I love heat.  There is nothing more appealing than long blazing days lounging by the pool.  Since this monsoon season has brought us some cool cloudy weather, I feel that I’m entitled to a few more weeks of 90 degree weather.

Our home is in the high desert plains.  When winter comes, it gets fairly cold.  It can even snow at times.  I’m so not ready for cold short days.  This is the time of year where I feel like a kid at Disneyland right after the Main Street Electrical Parade.  You know the day is going to come to an end soon and you’re scrambling to get on the Matterhorn Bobsleds one…more…time…

Oh well.  Life can’t always be Disneyland. 

Ray decided to go into work today. (We both had the day off.)  His aunt in Chicago is having health problems and he may have to go out there this weekend so he went in to work in case he needs Friday off.  Carl and I are going to go out for breakfast and then we’re going to kick around all day.  I’m kind of tired because I stayed up most of the night watching the meteor shower.  (No, I did not get any photos and I’m pissed about it.)  I think I see a nap in my future.

The Perseid meteor shower is going on right now and it peaks tonight.  I am determined to get a photo of it.

There are two digital cameras in this house.  One is a trusty Canon PowerShot SD400 and the other is an Olympus Camedia E-20n.  The Olympus is an SLR and can be set to automatically shoot one photo per minute.  With the aperture wide open and a series of 45 to 60 second exposures, there should be some recording of celestial activity especially given the fact that it’s a new moon, I’m in the middle of nowhere with incredible visibility and this is a big shower.

Carl and I sat out for a while last night and saw some activity.  I had the camera set up all night shooting photos but alas, there were just a few hundred shots of the starry night sky.  I think I need to set the exposure for a longer duration.

Yesterday Carl and I splashed around in the pool all day.  It was perfectly hot and sunny.  Today we’re going to hang out in Old Bisbee while Ray does some work on Montefalco.  (I’m looking forward to going out there so I can get some shots of the house for my site.) 

When Carl first arrived on Friday, we went out to dinner at a Lebanese place with Homer in Tucson.  I ordered a shish-ka-bob sampler plate which was a mistake because it was huge and comprised mostly of meat.  I hardly ever eat meat–especially steak.  It felt like I ate a bowling ball!

Age, the final frontier.  Life has been good to me and my bio-vehicle.  Things seem to be holding up well.  That wont last though.  In time the flab factor will become more than my vanity can handle.  It seems that jogging is the thing to take on in the fight against Mr. Belly Pooch. 

I hate jogging.

I hate looking disproportionate even more so jogging seems to win as the lesser of the two evils.  There is one great inspirational factor in all this and that’s Ray.  He’s looking better than ever because he’s been making the effort to exercise.  It’s much easier when someone is there to encourage you.  I’m hoping that this time, because there have been many times, there are going to be some visible results that will encourage a certain level of stick-to-it-ivness. 

I have just been informed that “it is time”.  A slug of coffee, a pair of running shoes and I’m off…