Cox and Forkum have another good cartoon. 

We got flooded again! This was the worst flood we've ever had. Despite sandbagging our guest house still got flooded, and my mother had water seeping into her yard through gopher holes! I don't know what more we could have done. We double sandbagged at her house yet it did no good at all. She had at least eight inches of water in the house. Everytime a firetruck went by, the waves went right over the top of the sandbags. My son parked his car inside her yard so it would hold the gate and sandbags against the force of the water, so his car got filled with water. It runs but he has no instruments, nor seat adjustment (which is electric).

The neighborhood and the LDS church came through again and within a few hours had everything out of her downstairs including the carpet. Below are a couple of pictures from my house and a couple of the cleanup at my mom's.

I'm planning on suing the county, again. They are responsible for flood control and it's been 24 years since the first flood. This is the fourth flood and the third caused by the refusal of the county to clean out the river channel! I guess the last time I sued I didn't get enough money out of them, since they did nothing to fix the problem. This time we go for more! Since they settled the last lawsuit, this one will be even easier.

Richard's main page

Mucking out my Mother's driveway 

My Mother's carpet. 

Looking South from our house 

Looking East from our house 

I've had my house full of kids and grandkids for the last week. It was a wonderful Christmas. My son William has returned from Argentina (with an accent) and it was nice to have him home for Christmas.

I've been trying to figure out a way to do this blog in Dreamweaver, but it's incredibly complicated. Other people I know manage to do it, but I think they do everything by hand, the hard way. I don't have time for that so I'll keep doing it on here.

I procrastinated signing up for my next class and now it's full. I had to pick another class. It doesn't really matter, I had to take it anyway. I'll take it next semester. Just one year away from the Master's degree. A whole year! I'm sick of school!

Richard's main page

We had a good time for Thanksgiving. I fried three turkeys. One we had on Thursday evening and the other two we had in Alamo while we helped Mike and Retta lay the block for the two rooms we're building over my in law's cellar.

I also got to try my new Mantis tiller. That thing works better than I expected. It only weighs 20 pounds but it does a better job than the old one we had that costs three times more.

I'm almost finished with my greenhouse. I was looking for a fan to blow air between the two sheets of plastic and I found the cheapest fans could be purchased by buying one of the blow-up Santas or snowmen that Ace had on sale for $20. I bought one of each. The Santa is set up in the yard; the snowman is taken apart so I can use the fan. I have to replace the plug because anything designed for Christmas use has a fuse built into the plug to protect the companies from lawsuits. The idea is that most people replace lights and such regularly, so when the fuses blow people just replace the lights and don't worry about it too much. For a blower I'll be using more often, I have to get rid of the fuse. It will be on a GFCI circuit anyway, an extra fuse is not necessary.

I discovered the magic of Zantac. I feel so much better now that I'm using that regularly. I had been using Nexium with no results. Now I take the Nexium in the morning and the Zantac at night. The pain is now bearable, and in fact most of the time, I don't notice it at all.

Richard's main page

We know that when President Bush was reelected Afghani's and Iraqi's celebrated. We know that in almost every other country they preferred John effing Kerry. Why? Do the liberal Bush haters ever ask why? Let's look at selfish reasons. The Iraqi's and Afghani's are better off with Bush, so they like him. They don't trust Kerry to continue the fight. They and other nations don't give a rat's behind about quality of life in America. They care about their own lives, thus the support for Bush in those two countries. Other countries have citizens and subjects that are jealous and envious of our prosperity and freedom, so they support leaders that are bad for us. They certainly don't have our best interests in their hearts. So only an idiot would care if they liked us or not. Idiots like those who supported the lying, flip-flopping, war hero (in Vietnam, not here) who committed treason after he returned from Vietnam and who did not receive an honorable discharge for his service until after Jimmy Carter pardoned him.

Interestingly enough, one other country celebrated the reelection of George Bush. The story, in NewsMax tells us of Iranians dancing in the streets with joy. Why? Because they hope they're the next country freed of tyranny by the blood of our soldiers. And our wonderful soldiers are glad to do it. This is the month of Thanksgiving. Be thankful for them, and our strong president. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran are!

Richard's main page

Again a good one from Cox and Forkum 

Latest from Cox and Forkum (coxandforkum.com) 

Robert and family came by this weekend. Robert bought a used shotgun; much like my single shot, but his sometimes doesn't fire. I think he's got a firing pin problem. He's not happy. Then Rick talked Jessie into firing Rob's Makarov. Somehow, when she pushed the safety up it went too far and the gun wouldn't work any more. Now he was really angry and he took it out on Jessie, too much. I managed to get the safety lever out and was able to take the gun apart. The safety popped right back in and the gun works fine. Later Rob was looking in my Guns magazine and found a Makarov article where it talks about the flimsy safety! What a coincidence!

Anyway, we were shooting clay pigeons mostly. Shannon, Jessie, Rick, Rob, Charlie, and I were sharing three guns, Rob's and my 20 gauges and my 12. All of us hit enough targets that we're all happy. Jessie sure grinned when she hit her first pigeon. I was using the 12 gauge to hit the pigeon just before it hit the ground, after the others fired. That was kind of cool. I was hitting a bunch of them.

I started using a new browser yesterday. My professor in my Web page design class has been using Firefox and really recommends it. I found that it is at least as good as IE! I'd tried Opera before and didn't like it. Then I tried Thunderbird to replace Outlook Express. It took me hours to get it working. It turns out that, though Outlook allows me to list my user name as "richard," Thunderbird insists on "richard"at"richardbush.net." Apparently, it actually sees it as, "richard"at"richardbush.net"at"mvdsl.com." I think there is a bug in the way MVDSL handles private domain email addresses. I know with Outlook, when I respond to your emails, it shows my son's address as "william"at"richardbush.net"at"mvdsl.com" and I have to change it before it will send. Thunderbird shows his address correctly. So Outlook fixes one thing and breaks another. Thunderbird breaks one thing and fixes the other.

Richard's main page

I don't have a lot to say this week. Just the normal stuff. I did have a problem with a brother of one of my students. Former students. I'm happy to say the brat has been pulled out of school.

I went to the office and the younger brother saw me and called the older brother who started screaming at me. They literally dragged him away from me. You see his brat of a little sister kept getting into trouble in class and getting kicked out of school. The last time was when she heard some boys next to her talking about their math in Spanish and one of them said "Punto." She, being a paranoid witch with a b, thought they'd called her a b word and she started shrieking at them. Of course her brother was convinced she was correct, but since they're gone now, who cares what they think? The people in the office say they've had unpleasant experiences with the family before, so they're glad they're gone too.

Richard's main page

Cox and Forkum have done another great cartoon! 

Well my class sizes are finally down. I have less than 200 students now, finally. Our new teacher is a yeller. I feel sorry for all the students they took from me to give to her. I think she's a bit nuts. But she's what we could find, at least until she has a nervous breakdown or something.

My latest college class is actually fun. The problem with that is I spend a lot more time on the assignments than I should.

Jane and some of her brothers and sisters are getting together to build their parents a house. We figure we can do it for about $17,000. Of course some of us will be forced to contribute more than others because some will just decline to participate. We'll see.

We're making plans for William's arrival. Things like where the heck will we put him! People always expand into all available space—which we did. So I've come up with a perfect solution. He can carve out your space when he gets home! Actually it's not a big thing; we just have to move a few things so he'll have a room. We need to do the same thing for Charlie. He's in a room full of stuff that's not his. He never complains, though.

Richard's main page

A great cartoon from coxandforkum.com 

I start my new class tomorrow. It might actually be fun since it's a web page design class. All the other classes so far have had useful things but haven't been fun--at all. So my two weeks of free time are gone. Of course one of the first things I'm supposed to do is read some instructions and reply with the subject, "I have read." I replied, "I have not read," because it's a PowerPoint document and I don't have it. If we are required to have that program they should have put it in the list of things we need

I was printing out the newsletter, finally and the printer ran out of toner. When I put the new toner cartridge in it got lighter and lighter until it wouldn't print at all. I put the old one back in and it actually printed better. "What in the world is going on?" I thought. Then I noticed I'd failed to remove the tape covering the opening in the cartridge. Of course this was after I'd printed about 70 crummy pages and I had to do them all again.

I wrote this as a letter to the editor of my newspaper. It's way too long, but I'll send it in anyway.

Democrats lie. They lie a lot. They lie for money, they lie for power. And when they are caught in a lie, they wiggle and squirm then use the excuse used by children through the entire world and for all time: "But the Republicans do it too!" This also is a lie. Republicans, with a few exceptions, do not lie to get elected. Those exceptions are telling. When a Republican lies his or her lies are not only advertised by triumphant Democrats, but the Republican Party itself turns on that person. And the media, which is, for the most part, another branch of the Democrat party, announces that person's shame with extreme smugness.

When Democrats lie, they always excuse it. The end justifies the means they imply, if not say openly. The party comes to the defense of the liar. The media makes excuses or they even refuse to report the offending Democrat's lie all together.

Here are a few examples. Witness the fall of Richard Nixon. His own party turned on him and asked him to resign. He did. Bill Clinton was a very proficient liar. When he did everything President Nixon was accused of and more, the Democrat Party did not ask him to resign and he had to be impeached. He did not have the honor even of President Nixon. President Clinton did not resign, and he continued to lie.

John Kerry is not as good a liar as Bill Clinton. He still tries. When he brought up his military service, repeatedly, most of those that served with him pointed out his lies. The response of the Democrats was to attack President Bush's military record. Since they could find nothing real, they made it up. Forged documents showed up, a serious crime by the way, and when they were found out, the Democrats and the media made excuses. They refuse to point out the truth, that President Bush not only served and did more than was required of him, but also volunteered for a unit likely to be called up for Vietnam service.

Kerry lies about his record for the last 20 years in the Senate. Time after time he has voted against our military and against our intelligence services. Now he lies that he is the one that can best protect us from enemies. He lies about Bush's record and accuses him of lying to the American people. However nearly everything he accuses Bush of lying about, he said at one time himself!Most importantly Kerry and the Democrats lie to scare people into voting for them. They claim they are the party of the working man. They are not. They are the party of the rich elite like Ted Kennedy and John Kerry. And the non-working poor who are dependent on government handouts and always vote Democrat to keep those handouts coming. The Republican Party is the real party of the working man.

Richard's main page

My website has brought me an old friend. He came across my website and emailed me to find out if I was the same friend he knew in 5th grade. I remember him as a very good friend, but they didn't live there that long, unfortunately. It's been a lot of fun catching up and learning about what the other has been doing. It's also fun to find out that we have many of the same or similar interests.

We took the old Taurus up to St. George to donate it to Deseret Industries. We drove the whole way, more than 80 miles, and were just coming into St. George when the transmission went out. I found that if I turned the car off and let it sit for a few seconds I could start it up and drive for a few seconds before it kicked out of gear. So I did manage to get off the freeway off ramp. My mom was with us so she called Triple A and we got it towed to DI for free. They still wanted it so we are now less one car. We still have four others, not counting the old Mitz and Charlie's old 280ZX.

They announced at school that they're adding 11 more sessions of math. Four of those are Algebra 1 so I hope to get relief soon from the large class sizes.

I just got a call from our Branch President. He needs to give some emergency aide to someone so, since I'm the financial clerk, I have to go down and write the check. Since I want to post this before I go I guess I'll make it short.

Richard's main page

Is this nut case for real? This guy is so far out on the left it is unbelievable! He calls bloggers and talk radio partisan news sources, yet praises Dan Rather for being a "real newsman!"
New York Daily News - Ideas & Opinions - Richard Cohen: Blind lust for a scoop, nothing more

And then there's this. Could life extention be just around the corner?
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/10/scanlon1004.asp?trk=nl

Here are the links to the DVD'sFarenhype 9-11 and Sean Hannity's Hannitization of America Tour. They're both about $15. Farenhype has stunned me. I had no idea how many attacks against the United States have been thwarted by Bush's security teams.

Richard's main page

The missionaries asked us if we could let them give the discussions to Maria, our tenant at our house since the house they had been using was "noisy." We of course told them no way... Yeah right! We agreed, of course. Apparently her husband doesn't really want her to have the discussions. I wonder if he doesn't want to give up his Corona.

My wife had a crock pot with Sunday dinner in it and when I opened the drawer in the fridge it fell out, smashing the up crock pot and making a huge mess all over the floor. I took the meat and put it back in the pot and put it back, then spent a considerable amount of time cleaning up. When I was finally finished, I again tried to get into the drawer and of course knocked the pot out again making yet another mess! I guess I'd better go buy another crock pot this week.

My first period class is now at 52. Two other classes are at 45, one at 33 and another at only 29. This is insane to have to go through this every year because the stupid counselors just pick the first name on the alphabet and stick the kid in there.

I just looked at a map showing the Bush and Kerry states. It's a sea of red or pink (the Bush states) with a few states like California, Hawaii, and Massachusetts blue and a few more light blue like New York and Florida. There are a handful of states that are a tossup.

Yesterday we had Jay Whipple's funeral. He was my boss for more than ten years. I got to hear a couple of stories I hadn't heard before. Van and I were the only people from the Water District that even showed up.

Richard's main page