Thank You

                   First off this morning I would like to thank all of my readers!  The loyal, the ones lost in cyber space that just fell into my blogs, and decided to read them, and my mother- who seems to be my biggest fan.  Maybe even those of you that keep clicking on my page--or that share my pages and rambling with others.  Whatever the case just this blog page just hit 27,000 + views!!  So again   thank you!   Above I did say this morning, it is still earlish in the AM on a Sunday morning.  I can handle mornings, but I am definitely not a morning person.  I get my 2nd wind around 11 at night  and could easily be a great night owl.  If I could get any sleep during the day that is.   I would also like mornings MUCH more, if they started around noon!  

   This page has been around for years now--and I hope that it is a joy for many of the readers still.  Or at least makes them laugh just a little bit-often.  I am working on more pictures and such for many Exploring posts.  Tomorrow there is no school for Dead Presidents Day--so the boys and I are going to roam some were.   Hopefully we will have bought a new--to us--car very soon, and the adventures will start to be further from home.  I have a whole list of hikes and such I wish to check out, but our gas guzzling truck is not the best method to get to the trail heads.  At least it is not the most fuel efficient method by far.  Before I complain about car hunting---   here are some of my other pages and time fillers.   Please check them out---and share the links if you enjoy what you see!   As soon as I start working again--I am sure my posting will drop on all pages.   

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 My newest blog series is all about Exploring beautiful Arizona -full of pictures and Exploring.  It is a start up series, so really needs every ones support.  NEW post goes to this page tomorrow!!   Tell your friends.  

                             http://exarizonagobensonbobcats.blogspot.com/


           **My second blog series has some of my best personal pictures and lots of                     Exploring!**                                      Please take a look around. 

http://exploreb-ham.blogspot.com/


             **Tell me what  you really think about all of my thoughts!**
             This page gets updated first.      And is great for leaving comments.  Each comment from good to bad to ugly--helps me make my pages better.   Your complaints also make me laugh!   And laughter is a good thing.  
Exploring with Wyoming Jack/Bobble Head

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  **"Tucson, AZ area just beat record heat temperatures --holding on since 1957. Nearly 90 yesterday . It was so warm --I hung out in the freezer isle at Wally World for awhile--- really. While many of you shovel snow--we are going to BBQ some ribs this afternoon. Feel free to be annoyed........ NOW        As usual no real point to this--- Just sayin'     :)"**

   

Today it will again be in the 80's here. 

And as Arizona residents rejoice

We are searching for our fans in storage and noting that this is going to be a killer hot summer.

    The plants are all confused here and I think we will be seeing signs of spring all around.  

Rattle snakes are already being spotted all around the Tucson area.  Luckily I have not spotted one yet.  Partly because with all the sun shine and warmth---I put things off.  I have started jogging again---more on that soon--but not today.  I can say that I am super out of shape, and that the short first jog--left my legs much sorer the next day than they should have been.  On my trip very soon--I want to at least be able to keep up with my 50 year old buddy on a hike or two.  And I am back in the mode of wanting to do at least one 10 K run this spring.  Although that is not a huge run--I am no were close to being able to do this.   With the heat, I am also wondering about training and actually accomplishing one.  I do not do much well in the heat, including sitting on my as*.  

I believe I saw this announcement on TV the day after Valentines Day

We have been visited by local Mormons a lot in the last few months. 

So the above post is just for them!  

Sheep are safe!

I have not touched on this subject for awhile.

But have written about it a lot in the past.  

I even have a large collection of sheep toys.

If you are not from Wyoming--don't even try to understand.  

    And now I must vent about car shopping for a minute or three.  While in Washington state we had a nice little Buick that could legally seat six.  It was not the best car in the world but it kept going and it got great gas millage.  Because we had a travel trailer when we moved to Arizona, we purchased a redneck pickup.  And attempted to sell the car--also because we did not think the car would make it all that distance.  Our pickup had so many issues along the way, that it is almost a brand new truck.   The buyers decided to drive our car through a house one night--- I picture it very much like the above picture.  And forgot to tell us about the mishap.  Luckily we still had insurance on the car when the drive through attempt happened.  Needless to say, if we could find our old car---we do still have keys to it--it probably would look something like the car above.  Which seems to be what most of the cars in this area actually look like.   AND the owners still want $3000 for them.  Taking the hunk of metal to be recycled would not even get me half that amount.   Although having it squished into a metal cube--would make a great base for a new coffee table.  

    We do not expect a perfect car for the cash we have to put down at the moment, but holy cow--the things we have been looking at are beyond bad.  And we have the cash in hand.   Thanks to filling early on taxes.   We looked at a car the other day---pictures were all nice --clean looking--supposedly the car ran.   It was basically a big paper weight  that did not run.  The man was not even sure why it did not run anymore.  He had even hooked it up to machines for diagnostic checks, and did not know why it didn't run.   The outside of the car--was in very nice shape, probably because it had had not run in so long.  But the inside was gutted out and reminded me of a mulch pile in smell and look.  He still thought the vehicle that transformed into a paperweight was still worth a large amount of money.  I am sure it is to someone--just not to us.  I have turned many expensive items into paperweights, from misuse, but was not going to buy one.  

      A few daze back we were supposed to look at another great car.  But while I was attempting to get directions to view the car---the owner became very pushy.  Asking in the first several minutes of the phone call--if I had the cash for the car.  And so on.  And than telling me that the price was very firm, and she did not have time to haggle.  We sell things all of the time, and never ask someone right off, if they have the cash--before they get to our home, or when they get here.   Anyways we decided it best not to even look at the car.   One that may very well be another paperweight for us.  

    Hello all! And welcome to 2013---I still can not believe it is another year, and am having trouble putting 13 on all of my checks. Luckily a 2 is very easily turned into an 3 for sure. I have been reading many of my past blog posts, and laughing a lot. My older posts were funnier, and I hope to return to that. This page has takin' a back seat to my newest blog series lately. All about exploring Bellingham Washington.  My best pictures and thoughts on the area, make the posts.  Please check it out   http://exploreb-ham.blogspot.com/

The pictures really are great.  

And I took them all. 

I am slowly working on a link to house all of my best exploring pictures. 

Yes please!

   It is a wonderful sight, but so is this one.  So I want to start posting again.  With my random rambling.  And coffee love for sure!   One of the features I really enjoy from this blog sight is the many "deep" quotes I add to the blogs.  So here are a few new ones ----

  **"I feel down the stairs yesterday with a guitar, and wrote a new song for "One Direction'!"**---If you do not know who this group is, consider yourself lucky!

               **"The key to eating healthy---avoid any food that has a TV commercial."**

  **"Our neighbor asked if she could borrow our vacuum cleaner---I said yes, if you don't take it out of our house!"**

                             **"MY life plans were so much more exciting when I was five!"**

                                          **"Help keep grandma off the street---support bingo!"**

                                            **"I'm not a witch, I'm your wife!!"**---The Princesses Bride----
 I love this movie!   And I got to watch my kids enjoy this movie the other day.  It was beyond awesome.  

                **"My best relationship advice... Make sure you are the crazy one."**------Check on accomplishing that.  At least most daze. 

  I have many ideas and concepts to bring back to this page.  And hope to gain new readers and that many of the old ones come back.  This sight has a ton of views since it's launch.  So thank you!!   In the near future this includes a whole post about gun control, one about us surviving 2012.  *Psssst, we were all supposed to die!*  I would have posted that blog much soonerer, but I was waiting to see if we were going to die, before wasting all of that time and energy ;)  My "mini rants" is going to come back each week.  Please check out some of the old ones, if you have not enjoyed them in the past.  And of course lots and lots of jokes and pictures I have borrowed off this new place called the Internet.  

   Today I start with a flash back to December & Christmas time.   We had an amazing Christmas. Santa scored extra big at our house, by bringing all of the kiddos hand held tablets.  And I have to say it was the quietest Christmas with three kids....  Ever!  We heard them roaming out to the living room around 3 AM.  They know they can only open what is in there stockings in the morning.  And than they started playing on the systems, and we heard nothing until we slowly roamed out of bed.   Slowly because my wife and I have a great tradition on Christmas Eve --that involves drinking a lot and trying to put the kids toys together. ;)  
     It was a great Christmas even with three Furby's in the house --talking to each other in English and non English.   Yes Furby's are back.   Wahoo!    The new ones are kind of kool.  And you can sync them with your I-Pod and feed them and such with the device.  
    Anyways, you are straying from the point of this story.   Stop thinkin' about booze or the above peepin' Santa and focus.  Just before the big day, two of our children got selected to attend "Shop with a cop."  They have never been picked before, so the state must have felt we were overly poor this year.   Basically each school can choose students they feel might not get the best Christmas, and they meet up at Wally World to shop with a cop.   Tons of cops and workers donate there time, and it really is a great thing.  Especially great, considering Wal Mart participates and does something good!  Way early in the morning, a Saturday morning at that, we all gathered at the retail giant to sign in.  Than everyone went outside to watch the police show up.  And what a show!  
    30-40 cop cars blow past the happy kids, lights going, sirens blaring.  Than the star of the parade shows up on top of a big fire truck.   "Santa!" Everyone cheers!   Than it is picture time with the huge group.    This was my time to exist, because our oldest son was not picked to do the shopping.   Him and I ventured clear across the street for some coffee, hot chocolate, and donuts.  The essentials for sure.  The coffee shop workers were all talking about the parade of police cars that just shot into the Wal Mart parking lot.   They did not know about the event, and were sure a hostage type event was going on at the store.  We smiled as we sipped our warm beverages, not pausing to explain what was really going on.
      We soon decided it was time to go back to Wally World.  With all those cops around, most of the shoppers should actually act normal-ish, right?   As I was getting out of the car, I decided to lock my keys inside the car.  I noticed as I was slamming the car door shut, but it was to late.  Even longer story short---shop with a cop day is the best day ever to lock ones keys in your car!   Because there are cops every were!  It was soon decided that since we have electric locks on our vehicle, trying to "jimmy" the door open would cause more damage than benefits.  Plus no law abiding citizen can actually get into a locked car.  Any con or ex con, now tow truck driver, can get into your car before you can say "Dam you Wally World store!"
      Here is the great part.  And I thank the local police department from the bottom of my heart.  No really!  Two of the officers drove me clear across town to our apartment, to get my wife's set of keys.  Again I thank these officers and the police department for such a great act and day.  This would have been about an two hour journey on the city bus.  Plus it was great fun to jump out of the   police vehicle with two officers in the front seat, when we pulled up into our apartment complex.  Every one here is overly nosy.  So now they still have something to talk about.  

   And now a couple of pictures & jokes to wake you up after the above long winded story!

I was not even aware Wally World sold midgets.

And wow are they cheap, must be a roll back!

Now that is taking full use of a to do calender.

I just have to ask if this is good PR or bad for the .com sight??