Thursday Solstice

Winter begins at 5:22pm local time.

Along with the fact that it's the coldest morning sofar (13.1°F!!!!), here is the beautiful Solstice sunrise:

I've been reading about the "Community Plan" that was created for this area back in 1999. Just to flex their muscles, they organized a protest against a bunch of monks who wanted to build a church up on top of a hill. Now I agree that the monks don't necessarily need to build a church in beautiful place like what they were planning, but it bothers me to know that these so-called planners were able to effect the outcome in such a big way.

This is the part that bothered me the most:

"We owe it to the community of Sunsites to take into consideration the plan they worked on," said Dan Coxworth, a Cochise County planner.

You've got to be kidding, Mr. Coxworth. How does the Stronghold fall into the jurisdiction of "the plan"?

Wednesday Snow

It snowed last night:




This is just about as much as I want as I walk out my front door. I also want it gone by noon, which it was.

...

The county that I'm in is, at the moment, pretty rural. There are five "major" cities -- the largest having a 2000 population of 37,775. In total, the 2000 population of the county was 117,775. The population not counting our five "major" cities was 51,134. This last number yields a persons-per-square-mile value of 8.298, or 77.212 acres for every person.

I can stop along Hwy 191 while "walking" my dog (me on bike) and wait several minutes before I see a car, truck, or 18-wheeler whizz by at 65 mph. Some people wave and sometimes I wave back if I realize it in the fraction of a second I have to see them. The dog likes to watch the cars whizz by.

My point is that it's pretty quiet out here where I am. It's also fairly unpopulated. There's a housing development (if you want to call it that) about a mile from my place. There's also a couple of towns about 5 miles away. But these are unseed and unheard from my vantage point.

What should I do to ensure that it stays this way?

Sunday thru Tuesday List

Vesta Tiga Erebus Lucy Gizmo Gypsie Sheila

Sparky Magic Neurotica Lackie

Apollo Nimeau Hecate Kronos Salem McCavity Muad'Dieb Tyche Penny Core Tabatha Tiger Tater Pricilla Agamemnon Puffy Phobos Deimos Hermes Spike Zenith Sagitta HeyJoe Phoebe OM Sillikat Isis Wayfy Artemus Anubus Jabba -- I probably missed a few.