Situational Unawareness

With all the stupidity in the world, it takes serious effort to be moron of the month. With over a week to go, here are August’s top contenders.

Liz Cheney’s congressional reelection campaign was doomed for a variety of reasons. Daddy did a campaign commercial saying Donald Trump was the biggest threat to democracy. This might have been a good point to make had it not been made by the guy who started two wars and shot a guy in the face. (H/T to Babylon Bee).

Alec Baldwin, an honor graduate of the William Shatner School of Overacting, claimed his fatal shooting of Halyna Hutchins took years off his life. It was not a misstatement. No smart-alec, you took years off HER life. He also claimed the gun fired itself, which was disproven by the FBI.

With ten days to go, the most likely chicken dinner winner is that quack Dr. Oz. I will have to spend most of that time compiling his lack of clue.

Water shortage?!? update

With the entire county in severe drought status according to droughtmonitor.unl.edu, it was surprising that no water conservation measures were taken by any of our towns. This week Caney is asking residents to use less water until we get some serious rain.

Caney’s water supply is the least stable in the county so I am surprised they took so long. On the other hand they haven’t had a town manager or town clerk for the last several weeks, so leadership is lacking.

Four-letter, four-legged locusts…

AKA deer left enough of my okra so I can finally pick some this weekend. As I have posted earlier, they turn their noses up at everything else in the garden to attack the okra. With some heat tolerant spinach and grape tomatoes, I have the beginning of a decent salad.

With the recent cooling trend, my water use has dropped by almost half in spite of the recent planting of beans. Tuesday’s tenth of an inch of rain also helped.

Cool breezes

I did some long overdue yard work today. The weather was better than it has been the last three months, with the high only reaching 80 degrees with a slight refreshing breeze. Tomorrow will be warmer, but the days off 100 degree temperatures are over.

It is too warm to plant the winter garden, but I might get some peas and beans planted in time to get a harvest before the first frost of the fall.

Dodging jury duty

I went to work last night and forgot I had jury duty today. If I had remembered, I could have called the jury hotline to find out if I had to appear. I had just enough time to get off work, go home, find my summons, and look online to see if I had to report. Fortunately I didn’t, because I would have had just enough time to get to the courthouse.

In Phoenix, you have to report regardless. You stay until all the juries are formed, then go home. I never got picked for a jury and usually got home well before rush hour. One time, I had to drive 40 miles to Mesa, didn’t even get to the jury assembly room before being told to go home. In rural Kansas, the case, singular, is settled before the trial. It is nice to know the night before you don’t have to report. I’ll have to remember that next time.

AFL down to last round

With one week to go, the finalists are all but decided, but the seedings are not.  Geelong is the number one seed and will get a double chance with both games at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The Cats will need that second chance because of the week off before the finals and their legendary inability to win after a week off.

Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Collingwood, and Fremantle are fighting for three double chance berths with the best of these getting the number two seed and both games at home. The third and fourth place teams will get a double chance with the second game at home, and the last two getting only their first final at home. Since Melbourne and Brisbane play each other, everyone except Fremantle gets a double chance if they win. Freo needs a win and either Sydney or Collingwood to lose and the Brisbane-Melbourne game to not be a draw. The Dockers can also get a double chance with a win if Sydney and Collingwood both lose.

Richmond will be the in the finals, but cannot play a home game. If they end up playing Melbourne or Collingwood they will only have to travel to the visitors locker room at the MCG since all three clubs share the same stadium. If the Tigers advance far enough to play Geelong that game will also be at the MCG because the Geelong’s stadium is too small to host finals matches.

The last finals berth is up for grabs, with a slumping Carlton side holding onto eighth place on the ladder. The Blues must get at least a draw against archrival Collingwood to clinch a finals berth. They can still get in with a loss if the Western Bulldogs lose and St. Kilda doesn’t get a huge win over Sydney. Since Carlton-Collingwood and St. Kilda-Sydney are the last games of the weekend, there will be a lot of scoreboard watching by most of the league.

Back to School

Some area schools started this week, the rest start Monday. Gatorade and juice sales are down this week at Wally World and it is not because the temperature has finally below 100 degrees either.

I am ordering a quarter beef in November, so I bought a 7 cubic foot freezer to go along with the one I bought last year. There was a five month lead time when I ordered and now you can forget about getting meat before spring 2023. I am going to stock up on clothes while prices are reasonable.