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February 27, 2006
Happy Birthday, Bix!
This may not be terribly exciting news outside of our Peaks Parkway headquarters, but today is Bix's 3rd birthday. Here's a shot of him getting ready to play a chorus of "Happy Birthday To Me!" at the Chickering.
We got Bix in May of 2003, when we were living on the other side of Highway 89 in a small stone house that was next to an open field -- and an open field meant field mice, as we found out. After Bix's arrival, no more mice were seen in the house -- he may or may not have had anything to do with their departure, but in any case, he certainly seemed inclined to take the credit.
That's what passes for news around here, these days. That is not an entirely bad thing, as I plod along toward (I hope) a successful conclusion to the semester, and Meg gets used to her new career in the legal profession. Onward and upward!
Posted by Urbie at 06:45 AM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2006
Land closures rankle recreation enthusiasts
I just received a letter, which I think was in response to my series of columns on land closures and environmental politics -- if you missed them, the first one is here.
Apparently, I'm not the only one annoyed by Federal agencies' idiotic land-closure policies. Here's the letter, in its entirety:
I live in Las Vegas; I have lived here almost my entire life. When we were growing up, we had giant, wide open spaces to ride [dirt bikes] wherever we felt like it, and there were no environment protection Nazis screaming at us to get off the land.
We were riding on BLM land about a year ago when we were told once again that we couldn't ride there anymore; that the BLM was protecting this particular land. They threatened to impound our bikes, even though there were no signs warning us away. They said that if they did in fact impound our bikes, they would hold them so long we might as well buy new ones, for the fines would be sky high. A month after we were thrown off that protected land, the BLM sold it and houses went up within a couple of weeks.
When I contacted our local BLM office, I spoke with a great guy, who I won't name, who was ready for retirement. He told me a few things I think people should know:
The BLM in Nevada doesn't actually consider dirt bikes and other off-road vehicles a serious threat to the environment. The Environmental Protection Agency ordered the BLM in Nevada to cut down on the amount of dust kicked up here in the Las Vegas Valley, or the EPA would come here and take over this issue. The BLM would lose federal funding if this occured. Since the number one offender were home builders, and with the giant housing boom here with the BLM being huge benefactors, they decided to seek a scapegoat, and unfortunately riders were the suckers.
And so the BLM banished us to a place called Apex, where thousands of riders go to ride each day, and kick up so much dirt in one spot that I can't imagine the environmentalists won't be trying to throw us out of there, too. They gave us a map, told us have fun, and just last weekend I was riding at Apex, and got thrown off that land, too. It seems the city has decided to use Apex to store their big equipment there. This sure isn't the Nevada I grew up in, or the United States, either.
I never would have guessed when I started riding that one day I would be considered a criminal if I went one inch too far out of an unmarked designated area. Our next door neighbor's 16 year old son was ticketed $175.00 for being out of bounds. Well how are we supposed to know we are out of this area? Are we supposed to carry a GPS with us? Oh, no, we are getting too close to the Riding Nazis! Turn back, turn back!! This place has turned into a joke.
I want the tree huggers to understand something...WE LIVE IN A FLIPPIN' DESERT!! THERE IS GOING TO BE DUST HERE. GET OVER IT. GO AFTER THE BIG DOGS, AND LEAVE US LITTLE ONES ALONE!
Sorry about the rant, but our rights are slowly being stripped away in this country, and no one wants to stand up and oppose these people. I could have sworn BLM land belonged to the people. Apparently not to people like us.
Kerrie Anne
Las Vegas, Nevada
Posted by Urbie at 01:30 PM | Comments (0)
February 16, 2006
Curling rocks!
I've been annoying Meg this week by tuning in to NBC's coverage of the Olympic curling matches first thing in the morning. I know what you're thinking: curling's a boring sport for couch potatoes, right? Well, no it ain't. With my experience in bowling and golf, I can see a lot that both of those sports have in common with curling: playing the angles, precision, patience, coordination, match play -- and the fact that you don't have to be 22 years old, in a perfect state of fitness (although most of the Olympic curlers look pretty fit), or be able to spin four times in the air or run 4.5 in the 40-yard dash.
My favorite part of curling is the match-play aspect -- it's like a golf match, in that each team's strategy is dictated by what the other team is doing. It's like golf, where if your opponent busts a tee shot down the middle, you're obligated to try to do the same, but if he hits it out of bounds, you're advised to pull a long iron out of the bag and make a conservative shot.
Another aspect of curling that appeals is that it is not a judged sport. Debates over biased judges and strange rules allowing do-overs are not an issue -- curling is all about putting rocks in the house; no judgment calls needed. I didn't see the figure skating pairs competition the other night, where one team took a bad spill, but under the rules, was allowed a mulligan and took full advantage, to the tune of a silver medal -- but there's none of that nonsense in curling; whoever's on the button at the end of each... well, each end, scores, and whoever isn't, ain't.
But who knew curling was such a cool sport, until the TV executives decided to start giving it big-time airplay four years ago? Myself, I'm regretting that despite there being a curling club in my home town of Wayland, MA, I never took advantage of the opportunity to get involved. When the happy day arrives that Kafalas.com relocates back east, there may be chances to remedy that oversight -- but in the meantime, I'll be glued to the set whenever the curlers take to the ice over the next week or so.
Posted by Urbie at 03:38 PM | Comments (0)
February 06, 2006
Cartoon protesters, get a grip!
Over the past few days, Islamic protesters, having a hissy fit over some caricatures published in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten and other publications, have done a good job of making caricatures of themselves in the process.
I realize it's considered blasphemous, in Islam, to draw the image of the prophet Muhammad. Punishable by death, in some jurisdictions. But what these people seem to have a hard time grasping is that someone outside your religion can't blaspheme one of your prophets -- the very idea is absurd.
And it's not as if Muslims themselves don't do the same thing all the time. Anyone who regularly reads the Middle East Media Research Institute's news releases, which translate the Arabic press into English, knows how frequently radical Islamic writers and clerics ridicule other religions (primarily Christianity and Judaism). But because we live in a civilized country with a free press, we shrug it off.
The other concept these protesters are unclear on, when they sack embassies and throw rocks at people, is that it's not France, Denmark, and Norway -- the countries -- that published the cartoons; it's the independent press inside those countries. And, while we're at it, Web sites like this one. (Just in case anyone is offended, I'm sorry -- but it's Wikipedia, it's world-wide, and you can't get rid of it.)
I guess the one bright spot here is that it's not primarily the United States they're bashing, for once -- France and Norway aren't exactly the most aggressive, intolerant, anti-Islamic countries out there. By having a fit over the cartoons, the protesters are not exactly helping the cause of Islam as a civilized religion.
Posted by Urbie at 11:51 AM | Comments (0)