Ice Cream & Yogurt Follow Up

It’s amazing how the prospect of food can alter behavior and perception.

The raccoon scoots away when I open the door to put yogurt in the food bowl. Then she comes back and finishes eating. I’ve been waiting till she shows up to put out the yogurt. If I put it in earlier, it melts and gets runny.

I now realize that's been a tactical error.

Last night, instead of taking off briefly while I put the yogurt into the bowl, things went something like this:

Raccoon: “Oh, yummy yummy yogurt. Gimme, gimme, gimme.”

Me: “Back off so I can come outside.”

Raccoon: “I want to come in where the yummy yogurt is.”

Me: “NO. Stay outside.”

Raccoon: “I want in.”

Me: “What the hell? Quit trying to sneak in when I open the door. You’re supposed to be afraid of me.”

Raccoon: “I know who you are. I’m not afraid.”

Me: “OK – So you want to do this the hard way, huh?”

Raccoon: “What’s with the waving the fireplace poker at me?”

Me: “I’m trying to scare you a little so you’ll back off and let me come outside to the bowl.”

Raccoon: (laughing) “Yeah right tough guy. I know you aren’t going to do anything with that.”

(I finally get the yogurt in the bowl while shooing off the raccoon with my foot)

Raccoon: “Mmmmmmm, yummy yummy yogurt.”

(Later)

Raccoon: “Hey, I still want to come in and look around.”

Me: “Nope.”

Raccoon: “Ha! When you’re gone, I’m gonna chew a hole in the screen door and help myself.”

Me: “You better not.”

Raccoon: (laughing again) “Just wait and see.”

Me: “Dammit.”

Ice Cream & Yogurt

I really should have a photo to go along with this entry.

Still feeding the raccoons and one possum. Of the raccoons, one female has distinctive behavior that sets her apart from the other raccoons.

First, she always shows up during daylight hours around 6 PM. Second, if she’s there and another raccoon shows up, she is definitely the dominant raccoon. Third, she has become somewhat used to me and reacts warily to my presence but not outright fear.

For example, she’ll see me inside or at the door watching her. While she keeps an eye on me, she doesn’t run when I’m around. Also, she now comes to the screen door and peeks through to see what going on. Sometimes she does this to investigate sounds such as the TV or when I talk to her. Other wild animals will take off when they hear noises or see me moving around the house.

Last night while she was eating, I decided to give her a little treat since it’s been so hot – ice cream.

When I opened the screen door – she backed off – but didn’t run like I expected. Instead, she put about 5 feet or so distance between herself and me and watched while I put the ice cream in the bowl.

She clearly loved that stuff. Lapping the ice cream at first – she finally picked up the rest of it and put a big chunk in her mouth and swallowed it whole. She actually shuddered a little bit. I don’t know if from excitement or from an ice cream headache. LOL

I think I’ll start giving her a scoop of yogurt with the dog food. It’s probably better for her and still a treat.

Grand Canyon (Movie)

Grand Canyon was on one of the movie channels last night. I guess it’s been almost 10 years since I’ve last seen it. Definitely one of my top 10 movies. Great cast, great script, perfectly understated performances, awesome soundtrack. The right combination of drama and humor.

Didn’t get the attention of the public when it came out in 1991. It’s a movie that makes you think and reflect. I guess that’s why it didn’t make a big splash at the box office.

“This is difficult stuff. Making a left turn in L.A. is one of the harder things you'll learn in life.”

Superbird

Finished up my work at UNC Charlotte today.

Late in the week I noticed a couple of mint condition Dodge Daytonas and Plymouth Road Runner Superbirds on the street that my hotel was on.

Leaving my hotel parking lot and heading to the University this morning, I saw several of these cars in another hotel parking lot. Did a u-turn to come back and take a photo. Once I entered the other hotel parking lot – I realized there were dozens and dozens of these cars. Along with signs at the hotel about a MOPAR classic car meeting. Obviously, I took a few more pictures.

Growing up, Mom and Dad took me to races at Charlotte, Rockingham and Darlington. At Darlington, we always got seats in the Robert E. Lee Grandstand.

Saturday nights, I’d go to the local races at the track on Doc Bennett Road with Isaac Young who drove his gas station wrecker. We'd go into the infield and provided towing for cars that were damaged during the race. Pretty cool stuff for a 14 year old.

The glory days of NASCAR were from the mid-60s to the mid-70s. Factory sponsorship of teams abounded. Even now-defunct AMC was heavily involved.

Back then, the racing cars really were based on stock American cars. A certain number of vehicles had to be sold to the public to qualify as a manufactured stock vehicle to be eligible for NASCAR entry. The Ford Torino Talladega and Dodge Daytona were built specifically to be sold and qualify for NASCAR racing.

When I was a freshman at NC State, a sophmore who lived downstairs was the newphew of Ralph Moody. He was majoring in Mechnical Engineering. The car he drove was a Torino Taladega. But it looked different. Not different like the little 'tuner' cars today with all the junk bolted on - it looked like a regular Torino - just different. Turns out, it was one of the prototype Talladegas that was hand built in 1968 when the cars were being developed. His uncle let him have it so he'd have a car to drive at school. I remember it was serial number 003.

It was quite a neat collection of cars I got to see this morning. I wish I had more time to look at them but I had to get to work.

Alert the Media

My nephew has now posted his second blog entry for the month of June. (See link to the right.)

That’s 2 whole posts and there’s still over a week left in the month!

Alert the Worldwide Media!

LOL

I’m teasing. He’s been traveling the past couple of years almost nonstop. And just recently he and the family moved back to Tokyo.

Life must be getting into a normal routine for them so that he now has time to post. I hope so. He’s a good blogger and I’ve missed his entries.

Hopefully he’ll be able to get back to regular posting like he used to do. It’ll be about the only way I can keep up to date on the goings on with him, MIH and EIH.

Matinee

Went to a locally written Opera Sunday afternoon.

www.longleafopera.org/

To be upfront – I’m not a big fan of Opera. That doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate good performances. I’ve been to enough to understand how it works and to appreciate it even if Opera isn’t necessarily my favorite art form.

First, the good stuff. The story was compelling (race relations in the South), costume and staging was excellent, choreography was just right, and the voices were strong.

They needed to be strong. Something needed to go well in order to overcome the locally written music and libretto.

The music was convoluted, piecemeal. It didn’t seem to have any real relationship with the story. It’s hard to sing the story when you have to rely on such a disjointed score. The performers did their best. Top this off with the orchestra frequently overpowering the singers – you just couldn’t follow what was going on – even in English.

Actually, even if the orchestra volume had been perfectly balanced with the performer's volume - it wouldn't have made any difference. Even perfect execution wouldn't have been able to overcome so poorly conceived music.

It’s good to see local companies stretch and try to create original works. You have to applaud the effort. Sometimes though, it just doesn’t work out. Unfortunately, this was one of the weakest (score and libretto) Operas I’ve ever attended.

One thing that always amazes me is the effort that goes into staging Opera. All these folks work really hard for a month or more to put on, in this case, 3 performances. That takes a lot of dedication and heart.

Saturday Show

Went to a free concert in Raleigh yesterday. This is the second year that that these series of shows have been put on. Usually 5 or 6 bands that play short sets. I surmise that it’s done partly by Deep South Entertainment to promote what they hope are up and coming bands along with some other better known artists. I really liked American Aquarium.

Got home late – around midnight. We went too early as well. Shows run from 2 PM till 10 PM and that’s a long time for an old geezer like me.

Stopped by Target on the way and picked up a couple of folding chairs. The kind that fold up into a carrying tube type bag. They were on the clearance aisle but weren’t tagged with the price. Talk about a surprise - $2.40 each. Unbelievable. I should have bought a bunch of them instead of just 2.

Nifong

Continuing my recent theme about lying, incompetent elected officials . . .

The State Bar hearing on Mike Nifong is being held 3 blocks from my office. News media and press parking are taking up this block on Fayetteville Street. The tents are where the various networks have their 'news desks' that you see on the broadcasts. CourtTV has the biggest set up at the far end of the block.

I was headed to the Credit Union to make a deposit and snapped this shot Friday morning.

Iraq

I took this photo last week while working at UNC Charlotte.

I’ve tried to keep up to date over the past few years about the Administration’s handling of Iraq in the aftermath of our invasion.

I avoid superficial instant pundit sources. I don’t need some fat ass drug addict radio talk show host nor some fat ass lying fakeumentary film maker to tell me what to think.

I try to find in-depth analytical articles and reports.

I’ve come to the realization that our, so called, leadership is incredibly inept.

In the very short time between running Saddam Hussein to ground and trying to set up a provisional government, the Administration and lackeys made a series of inane decisions that led to the dismal state that is Iraq today.

First and foremost, there was no plan for governing Iraq after the invasion. None. Zip. Nada.

Second, the Administration put imbeciles in important positions in the Iraqi provisional government. Not to mention the imbeciles put into place in our own government.

If you watch the link below – don’t miss the part about the young guy, fresh out of college, who felt the lack of his qualifications and his staff were offset by the fact they were ‘tight fraternity brothers in college’. If this stuff were made up as a novel or short story fiction, it would have been too incredibly stupid to be considered even light weight prose.

Finally, political maneuvering and infighting led to an Iraqi government by default that appears then and now, doomed to failure.

While the topic and history is complex and convoluted, PBS Frontline did a very good job of summing up our involvement in Iraq in that fateful first year. First aired last October, this Frontline report was repeated last night.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/yeariniraq/view/

The rebroadcast was to allow viewers, such as myself, to refresh our background knowledge of Iraq in preparation for next weeks’ Frontline broadcast: Endgame.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/endgame/

Kudos to Michael Kirk for undertaking his series of documentaries about our involvement in Iraq. One of the most important underpinnings of democracy is a free and vibrant press.

Machu Picchu

This link goes to a 1.5 gigapixil image of the Machu Picchu archaeological site.

Once you open the link - expand your window to full screen and click on the image or any of the zoom / pan controls at the bottom.

For a geek like me - this has a well above average wow factor.

Bonus Question - Where's Waldo's missing leg?

Also - check out Chicago and Sydney.

Quick Entry

Too tired to post a real update. This is just a quick entry to let everyone know I'm still blogging.

Just got home from UNC-Charlotte. This was the 2nd week we've been working there. I still need to go back and finish up. Possibly next week or the following week.

We hoped to get all our work done within 2 weeks. We've been busting our arses but it couldn't be done. In retrospect - I should have scheduled at least 3 full weeks.

I'm very tired.