Get ready for 2009 folks.

You know, I am almost tempted to stay home and let the country go blue this November without a fight. Almost.

As much as I disagree with John McCain on a whole host of issues, the idea of casting a vote for, or giving money to Barack Obama is unthinkable to me. I understand that most Americans, including a lot of the people I know think President Bush suffers from some mild form of mental retardation or he is just a simpleton who somehow became President by mistake. These are also the same folks who get their news from The Daily Show and the Colbert Report. They will be voting this fall.

Watching the crowd at the Obama rally in Oregon over the weekend, I looked out at the face of new American voter. Oh, and don't they love it when Senator Obama starts telling them the real problem with the world is the United States of America.

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama said.

"That's not leadership. That's not going to happen," he added.

The crowd erupts with enthusiasm. Great.

If you want just a small glimpse of the wonderland that awaits the nation if Senator Obama is elected, together with a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, take a look at the rules concerning the food they will serve at the Democratic convention in Denver;

Fried foods are forbidden at the committee's 22 or so events, as is liquid served in individual plastic containers. Plates must be reusable, like china, recyclable or compostable. The food should be local, organic or both.

And caterers must provide foods in "at least three of the following five colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white," garnishes not included, according to a Request for Proposals, or RFP, distributed last week.

The shrimp-and-mango ensemble? All it's got is white, brown and orange, so it may not have the nutritional balance that generally comes from a multihued menu.

"Blue could be a challenge," joked Ed Janos, owner of Cook's Fresh Market in Denver. "All I can think of are blueberries."

Just think, the people in charge of making the rules for the convention menu will be appointed to head various departments in the government come January of next year. Somehow the idea these people will make my life simpler and bring forth economic growth in an era of a global economy is hard for me to grasp.

Maybe I'm just not bright enough to understand how more regulation, more government, five colored food groups and more taxes coming out of my pocket will lead to economic growth and individual freedom. But what do I know, I'm just a guy from Esparto.

The Stupidity Bubble

We have heard much in the past few months about the 'housing bubble'. The prices for homes here in California kept growing and growing, until finally the market collapsed under its own weight. Many people were hit hard when the housing bubble burst and more than a few lost their homes. I feel for those people, I do, but you cannot use your home as an ATM forever, planning on it's value to increase each year. Eventually, the economic cycle will catch up with you, that is why is it called a cycle.

We are heading towards the end of another bubble, one that will effect every Californian, and every American. I am calling it, The Stupidity Bubble. Let me explain.

In the past decade it seems the only thing that has grown as rapidly as our home values is the unquenchable desire to spend more of our tax dollars. Now before you write letters telling me the reason we are in a budget mess in Sacramento is the fact that our economy is in terrible shape, let me say this. Horse manure.

The reason we are in a budget mess is the democratically controlled state legislature and our 'moderate' republican Governor don't seem to have the courage to tell us that the party is over and someone has to pay the bill. We were asked years ago by the Governor to borrow billions of dollars to get out of this 'one time' financial crisis and from that time forward, he would hold down spending. He hasn't. Sure, you can point to a few battles where he and minority party stuck together and won a few concessions from Democrats, but in the past few years the Governor has spent money like a drunken Seaman on his first shore leave.

Let's take a look at how much money we spend as a State.

For the budget year 2004-2005, Governor Schwarzenegger's first full year in office, the State of California spent in its general fund 79,804,000,000 dollars, think about that, that is Seventy Nine Billion, Eight Hundred and four Million dollars and change.

For the current year, the Governor's budget for the general fund is 103, 000,000,000.
To make this easy to get your mind around, the legislature and the Governor have increased spending to the tune of 24,000,000,000. Twenty four Billion dollars in four years. What did we spend all this new money on? Everything under the sun, office buildings, new computers, more government employees, more of everything. Why? Because you said it was ok.

Yes, you. You sent this same pack of thieves back to Sacramento because you didn't pay attention, and because you believed them when they said the teachers need more money for classroom supplies and prison guards needed better retirement benefits and we need to do something about this program or that type of financial aid. To be honest folks, you believed the politicians when they said they would make things better through more and bigger government.
If we have learned anything, and it pains me to say we have not, an ever expanding government becomes less and less efficient, and less and less accountable to those who pay for it.

Now it looks like the Governor wants to kick this can down the road one last time. If he can convince you to borrow against future State lottery revenues, another 'one time' fix, the State can make a few narrow cuts and the politicians will spend next year praying the housing market comes back strong and more tax revenue will flow in. If that doesn't happen, we will be in worse shape next year, with no more 'one time' fixes left on the shelf. It is just plain stupidity.

When you are going broke, getting another credit card is not the answer. After you sit down at the kitchen table with your spouse, you can crunch numbers all you want, but at the end of the day you are spending more than you are earning.

The next bit of bad news is the Governor proposes a 1% sales tax increase if the voters don't go for the Lottery deal. That is stupidity at its finest, if we can't borrow more money, we will raise your taxes.

If we just went back to spending rates we had two years ago, that would almost eliminate the budget deficit for next year. Why won't anyone cut spending? No one want to go up against the public labor unions, no one. If you dare to take away anything you promised them when the state was flush with cash, you will hear a hue and cry from Alturas to San Diego. The amount of money the unions would spend against any politician from either party who would dare roll back spending for their members would be incredible. The television screens would be filled with menacing music and pictures of falling down, overcrowded classrooms and fire fighters explaining how your home will surely burn to ground with you in it if you don't vote for their candidate. And you know what, you would probably believe them again.

Eventually, as the City of Vallejo is finding out, stupidity combined arrogance will only last so long. The bill has to be paid someday, that someday is coming, and its coming soon.

Do you just hear a popping noise?

Fast Mean Cows and Slow Mean Cows.

Those are the two types of cattle in the world according to Patrick F McManus, 'Fast Mean Cows' and 'Slow Mean Cows'. My wife is in full agreement with that conclusion. We raise 'city cows'. What, you may ask is a city cow? These are cattle that have been raised near the public and have seen most everything. Lowriders with bass speakers thumping a tune so loud it might curdle their milk if they were in close proximity too long, F-15 Eagles hitting their afterburners overhead, and every kind of dog, cat, chicken and remote control plane has chased them. In life experience, they would be the equivalent of the Las Vegas police department. Been there, done that.

Our city cows also have names, although not as many as we used to. There are four or five who still come up to the truck to eat out of your hand, one of those is Emmett. He is the bull and he is as sweet a bovine as you can find, but scary as the dickens to those who don't know him. He weighs about 1,800 pounds and stands even with your chin, if your tall. While he is docile and friendly, he is also very large and when he wants to eat, you better feed him. He is what my wife would consider a 'slow mean cow', or bull in his case. Most of our cattle fall into that category, except when they have calves. When they drop that calf on the ground, they become 'fast mean cows'.

Which takes us to this afternoon. One of our cows had a new calf Sunday and it had a hard time nursing its mother. My wife took the pair up to the barn to help the calf get on his feet. A good plan, until the cow and calf escaped today. Running down the road they encountered my wife and her friend on the golf cart. The cow looked at my wife and gave a snort. My wife got out of cart and tried to open a gate to get the offending cow off the road. As my wife approached, the cow lowered her head. "She bluffing" my wife said to her friend. The cow was not. As she chased my wife back into the golf cart, sending her out the other side, my wife decided correctly that the cow was now in full-on "fast mean cow' mode. The calf however thought my wife was pretty cool and since she had bottle-fed the calf once, the calf thought he might find a little snack in my wife's lap. The cow did not see the humor in this, she started to smack the golf cart with her head and bellow like mean cows do.

Thirty exhilarating, or terrifying seconds later, depending on whether you are telling the story or you are the subject of the story, the cow and calf are herded into the pen and the episode comes to an end. I can attest that there is no better feeling that putting a closed gate between you and a fast mean cow.

Don't you just love cattle? I do.
My wife? Not so much right now.

(republished from 06)

Hippies. Free love, but that's about it.

My impressions from the Whole Earth Festival in Davis.

A new Tie-dyed, peace symbol t-shirt;

Twenty three dollars.

A groovy set of hand made thong-less sandals;

One Hundred and nine dollars.




A stylin' new pair of plum corduroy pants;

One hundred and ten dollars.





Spending $242 of your parent's money to look they did back in 1971 for $8;

Priceless.

Paintball is evil.

Well, not exactly evil, but it sure hurts!

I have been resisting my son's invitations to go paintballing with him for a few years now. I told him I played paintball once, before they had restrictions on the speed of the balls and all the fancy guns shooting 20 balls per second. When I played they used pump action guns and the guys who played all the time would freeze their paintballs so they wouldn't jam in their guns. Let me tell you, a frozen paintball hitting you at 400 feet per second hurts like, well, it just hurts.

When I came back from that paintball experience, 18 years ago, I looked like I had been beaten by a gang of crack addicts armed will ball peen hammers. Big purple bruises and red welts, that soon turned into bruises. Thank you very much, but I have experienced all the paintball I ever wanted in one day.

OK, so I'm not very bright and went again last night.

It was fun. I am still nursing the bad knee from my Quad incident, so I am not very mobile. Being mobile seems to be a big advantage in paintball, being fast and young doesn't hurt either. No one would mistake me for fast or young, so basically I am a giant, slow moving, target.

I was shot. Many, many times.
Most of the shots were from far away, 30 or 40 yards, so they did not hurt at all. Just a slap and a little sting. The shot I took from fifteen yards away, that one hurt.

I have a quarter sized red mark on my chest that will soon turn into a half dollar sized bruise. You know what I always say, no pain, no gain.

I am just trying to figure out what the gain is. I guess spending time with my son doing something he loves is the gain. I just wish he would love something a little less painful.

Prius owners are killing the planet!

That is what my bumper sticker will say when I get one of these....



What is it? Its the Volkswagen 1L concept car. It should be out in 2010, hey that's less than two years away. This car gets, are you ready for this, 200 miles per gallon.

I can see it now, all the used Prius' sitting next to the Suburbans and the Hummers in the 'gas guzzler' portion of the car lot.

Wait a minute, if we all drove these cars, we would reduce our oil use, and if we reduce our oil use, the supply of oil will last longer, if the supply lasts longer that will not drive the market to find alternative sources of fuel. We will still be burning fossil fuels! The horror, the horror.

Oh my, I'll bet the environmentalist are in a quandary, it would be better for them if we just ran out of oil. I remember hearing about how we would run out of oil by the year 2000, then it was 2010, and now its 2050 or something like that. So what if every car on the planet delivered 200 miles a gallon, would the greens be happy then? No, because we would still be burning oil and oil is evil don't you know.

Maybe they should change tactics. Maybe they should promote driving old muscle cars, if we all had to drive a 1971 Chevy Chevelle with an LS6 big block with 456 gears in the rear end, we would be getting about 4-7 miles per gallon. Say goodbye to all the light sweet crude.


We would use up the oil much faster, and we would get to where we are going much quicker. I know its silly, but dang, it would be cool. I would opt for a Hemi Cuda if I had my choice.

I may buy a 1L VW when they come out, not because I want to act superior and feel like I'm doing something to save the world, its because I'm cheap.

Hillary; dead as disco?

Morning Kathy, I see your girl barely beat Obama in Indiana, and Barack beat her like a rented mule in North Carolina.

Yea, yea, well Obama doesn't have enough delegates to clinch the nomination Mark.

C'mon Kathy, give it up, she's toast. The super delegates aren't going to save her. Her time is past, Barack is the future of the democratic party.

I don't care what you say Mark, we are fighting it all the way to Denver.

Look Kathy, even Tim Russert said that Barack is going to be the nominee, why doesn't she drop out and go back to New York, or Arkansas or where ever she came from.

Who made Tim Russert the King maker? Just cause he says its so doesn't make it a fact Mark.

Look Kathy, Hillary is an old battle axe from the past, the clock has struck twelve and she has the smell of ripe pumpkin all around her. Let the dream go, your not going to have woman President this year.

Pumpkin or not, I will be at Denver screaming out her name when she accepts the nomination after the Super delegates find out a little more about your big eared, America hating, smooth talking, closet Muslim.

Closet Muslim, Kathy, what are you talking about? You know Barack better than that. He's no Muslim.

I know, I'm sorry, I just want Hillary to win so much.

C'mon Kathy, I'll buy you a double, non-fat, soy latte.

Thanks Mark. Sorry about the big eared thing.

Don't worry about it, it will all be over soon.

I know, and I just bought another dozen Hooray for Hillary t-shirts to give out as mother's day gifts. They were on closeout.

I'll bet they were.

I need more weekends.

I'll bet Senator Obama has a plan for that, he is going to solve all our other problems, more weekends should be child's play for him.

I know it seems like every weekend there is always something going on, an event, a birthday party, a fence building party, a family picnic, but May is booked solid and June isn't shaping up much better.

This Saturday, the 10th is the Yolo County Cattlemen and Wool Growers spring picnic. I know our secretary may kill me, but if you want to join in on the fun, drop me an email asap (yolo_cowboy[at]yahoo.com). RVSPs were supposed to be in last week, but I should be able to get you in. I will be cooking the tri-tip over almond wood and we always have a good time.

The following weekend is the Civil War Reenactment at Gibson Ranch in Elverta. Our family will be there and the weather should be great.

The weekend of the 24th and 25th is Memorial Day weekend, I'm still not sure what we are doing, but it will be a busy time for us. Our daughter's birthday is close to that weekend, so I am sure our house will be invaded by screaming 8 year old girls. (do they make any other kind?)

June? I don't even want to talk about June. The end of June will be our 20th wedding anniversary. My wife doesn't like to travel all that much, but I am sure we will do something.

Somewhere in all those weekends I still need to finish my fences, get my Jeep running, work my cows and about eight hundred other things. I need more weekends in my months.

If you have seen a plan by Senator Obama that will address this, let me know. He can do anything, just ask his supporters.