Bad Cows

I have to rant for a minute. I read online that a super crazy environmental group is blaming cows for global warming and deforestation. They are urging us to stop drinking milk and eating meat. So if we all do what VIVA (the crazy group, not the milk producer) suggests aren’t we going to have a whole lot of cows with no purpose? So as a simple engineer here is an idea of what to do with all of our excess cows.


Let’s harness all those bad greenhouse gases that the cows are producing. We could refine it and market is as ‘bovine-diesel’. We could have the largest fuel producing region in the world, just imagine the entire Midwest in gas production. Or better yet we could go all back to the future and install a cow on every car, totally better than the Mr. Fusion. The folks in Texas would love the idea, instead of mounting a big longhorn rack on the front of their Cadillac they can install the whole bull.

I’m starting to make the “Moo-ve Over, Bovine on Board” bumper stickers right now, so place your orders early.

Seriously people, I’m as much of an environmentalist tree hugger as the next guy, but blaming cows for the problems of the world, is just crazy.

Playing with Scissors

For those of you who don’t know me really well, I am fidgety, can’t sit still for more than 2 seconds. If there is a small object near me I will pick it up and play with it. This can get me into trouble, as it did the other night.

I was working on the laptop at our dining room table. Scattered on the table were various crafting items that Ashley had been using for a Young Women’s project. Among the various objects was a pair of scissors. Absently I picked them up and began to open and shut them not really paying much attention to what I was doing. Then something felt different, it wasn’t just air that I was cutting but something a little more solid. It was one of those moments when you really don’t want to look down and see what happened.


Of course it wasn’t one of the old tablecloths, it was Ashley favorite red tablecloth. So please keep all sharp objects away from me, especially when I’m distracted.

Thoughts of Dad

Today is my dad’s birthday. There are things that I learned from dad that I never appreciated until recently.

Most of my memories of dad are of work related things. Whether it was making a trip to the mountains to cut firewood, or laying sod, or planting trees. There was always some home project that needed to be accomplished. Very rarely were the correct parts available to finish a job, but there was always an abundance of parts that would ‘work’. I don’t know and probably will never know if piecing things together as only dad could do really saved time and effort. It never made much sense to me but he always knew that the convoluted path to get there would work out. Dad never really needed a set of sawhorses; he had kids for that duty. There were many times that I heard “come hold the end of this board while I cut it”.



I’m appreciative of these things now that I have projects of my own and have the skills to be able to build and fix things. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time working on our basement and while I work my thoughts invariably turn to my dad. It’s during those moments that I feel his loss most. My dad was good at just about everything he did and while I do pretty good work, it just doesn’t seem to be as good.

My dad had a funny way of showing us that he loved us. Very rarely did he ever just come out and say it, but we knew anyway. We often heard things like “come look at my dumb kid” and “are you ever going to amount to anything”. I knew that this was dad’s way of showing affection. Because of my dad I’m trying to amount to something.