Buck115

Well, I certainly didn't ask for it, but I/we got it. So far we've received about 3 inches of snow here in our area of East Texas. It can stop any time now!!!! Here is a picture I took from our back porch, down towards our woods, about 30 minutes ago. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!

Out here in the country we have good neighbors and watch each others back. There are about 23 houses on our County road, some of us put up Christmas decorations, some don't, but we all enjoy seeing the lights. I've scaled way back from my pre-retirement days.

That has been my experience too, that is, until this young one!

I've decided that it was a Copper Headed Rattle Moccasin! 😂 When I posted the pictures on one of my gun forums, two members who are very knowledgeable corrected my Copperhead assumption and stated that it was a Cottonmouth. However, when the one member that is an expert on snakes and other reptiles chimed in and concurred that it was a Cottonmouth I figured it really was a Cottonmouth. When I looked at pictures of young Copperheads and Cottonmouths side by side, I was convinced.

Here is a different angle that shows the yellow tail. When I took these pictures my iPhone was very close to the snake, too close in reality. Even though a Copperhead is poisonous, its venom isn't that deadly unless you have underlying medical conditions. Had I realized it was a Cottonmouth, I would have taken the picture from about 6 feet back!!!!!! 😲 I'm darn lucky I didn't get nailed. Also, with Cottonmouths, I can usually smell them before I see them, but this little guy didn't have that musty smell.

About one inch of the tip of the tail is yellow and that seems to be common to young Cottonmouths and Copperheads. They use it to lure in prey aka snacks. Needless to say, I will pay much closer attention to snake details and will trust my instincts next time when something doesn’t seem right! I killed a baby Copperhead about 5 weeks ago; I saw it while mowing and got off my Lawn Tractor, found a good stick, and systematically removed its head. That was the first Copperhead we’ve seen on our side of the County Road since we retired and moved here in 2006. The Cottonmouth pictured above lost its head also, but I used a shovel on it.

Just an iPhone picture, but a couple of weeks ago I went out on the Tarmac (aka driveway) to assess how much pine straw, pine cones, sticks, and leaves I would need to deal with before I mowed. While I was standing at one spot near the edge of the driveway, assessing what I needed to do, I happened to look down and about two feet from my left foot was a tightly coiled young, what I thought was a Copperhead, on the driveway. When I was walking down the edge of the driveway, the snake just looked like a large, colorful, Sassafras leaf or wad of pine straw. I’m reminded of the old saying, “if it had been a snake, it would have bitten me”! I'm really surprised this one didn't try to nail my leg!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Even though I thought it was a young Copperhead because of the color; there was just something about the girth of the snake, the pattern, and the shape of the head that puzzled me, but I dismissed those thoughts and just figured it was a Copperhead. Turns out I was wrong, it was a young Cottonmouth and after researching them online I discovered that young Cottonmouths can indeed be easily confused for a Copperhead because of the color, but not all young Cottonmouths are the color of this one. In all my time hunting, fishing, and frog gigging; I’d never seen a Cottonmouth with that copper color.

My guess is Diarrhea of the fingers! 😈

@MicroMara Sorry to hear about your father as well as the medical condition you are facing! Prayers said for you and your family!

The album on the left, The Ventures, which was their second album and my favorite. I also bought their first album, "Walk, Don't Run", the same day and still have and play them. I bought them in 1963 while in college.

Yikes, that's some serious gravel!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😲 😂

Hmmm, possibly; "Get Over It" by the Eagles. 😂

Interestingly, I still have my old Audio-technica Quad cartridge. Actually, I never got rid of any of the cartridges that I replaced! 😳

If, at some point, you want to try a Quintet Red (Moving Coil), l still have the one I replaced with the Quintet Blue! In my opinion, the Quintet Red was a step above the Grado Reference Platinum 1 (Moving Iron) that it replaced!

Thanks!!!! The VPI "The Classic" turntable is probably my last turntable and I'm very happy with it! Since I'm from back in the stone age, I had a lot of Quad gear and I have to say, my Quad recordings from the Old Days sound incredible of my current 2-channel system; I was amazed!!!!! Yes, it is an Ortofon Quintet Blue and I really like it; I had a Quintet Red before the Blue! I still want to try an Ortofon Quintet Bronze or Black, but my wife gives me that "Don't you even think about it look" every time I mention it! 😂 I would like to try an Ortofon Cadenza (red, blue, bronze, or black), but between my old ears and the real threat of divorce after almost 44 years of marriage, I think I'll just stick with the Quintet Blue unless I can find a way to sneak in the Quintet Bronze! 😂

Yes, it is the updated version of the VPI Classic 1 with an updated model name as well; "The Classic". When I bought it I wanted an updated turntable, but the "Old Guy" in me still wanted the classic turntable appearance. Here is a different view.

Until recently, the last time I played that Ten Years After Quad LP was on my last Quadraphonic setup (Marantz 4400 and Sansui speakers). When I played the Quad album on my current Stereo setup, I was startled when guitars and other instruments appeared immediately to my left and right, not just to the front and outside of the speakers; I started wondering if I’d gone back in time and had four speakers in the room!!!!!!! The stereo album is a nice recording with a great soundstage and depth, but not to the extent of the Quad album.

Yep, I enjoyed Sky King also. Interestingly, I have a little experience with bombing things by hand-dropping objects out of an airplane. I flew as part of the backend crew of the Navy’s E-2B Hawkeye, which was a carrier based AEW/Strike Control aircraft. Before our deployments aboard the USS Midway (CVA-41), our Airwing would go through workups at Fallon, NV and then to carrier quals and then deploy for our scheduled cruise. Fallon was where the F4’s, A6’s, and A7’s would practice bombing with us in the E-2B controlling their bombing runs. On the last day of workups, there would be a bombing contest and we, in the unarmed E-2B, would participate and were given practice bombs that could be held by hand. We would open the aft hatch, that was an escape hatch if you had to ditch the aircraft, and one brave soul would stand on the back radar operator’s seat and lean out the hatch with the bomb in hand while the other two backend crewmembers held on to his legs for dear life!!!!!! When the pilot and copilot thought that given our aircraft’s speed and altitude and position relative to the target, that we were in position to release the bomb, the pilot would announce “bombs away” over the aircraft’s intercom and the crewmember would toss the bomb away from the E-2 to make sure it didn’t come back and hit us. We weren’t as accurate as Penny, but believe it or not, we usually won the contest and kept the trophy (an inscribed practice bomb) in our Ready Room aboard the carrier during the cruise.

Yep, the storm track moved far enough East so we only got .11 inches of rain overnight here at our place in East Texas; no strong winds or gusts, and today is a bright sunshiny day. Even though today is my normal mowing day, I think I'll put off that chore until tomorrow. Sounds like the storm surge wasn't as bad as originally forecasted, but the winds have caused a lot of damage in the path of the storm. Also, it looks like Shreveport is currently experiencing high winds and heavy rain; amazing how much difference there is only 90 miles away!!!!!! Prayers continue for those affected by the storm and those still in its path!

Yep, looks like we will get some rain; just how much varies depending on the projected path. As long as the storm doesn't move farther West our biggest potential problems are high winds, power outages, and their duration.

All of you folks close to where it will be the strongest are in our prayers! However, if Laura gobbles up your extensive liquor supply I hope, in her drunkenness, she wobbles off towards Yuma, AZ and misses us up here in East Texas!!!!!! Looks like we are going to get some heavy rains and winds up here, but both will be greater over near the Texas/Louisiana Stateline. At the moment they are projecting that it could still be a Category 1 when it reaches Shreveport, LA; YIKES!!!!!! I went out today and got extra gas for our generator just in case we have any power losses in our area!

I agree, Starrider is a real hidden gem! I have the Blu-ray DVD of Foreigner performing Live on SoundStage and they perform Starrider; great version. When Mick Jones introduces the song he appears to admit he might have been seeing a few stars the night he wrote it! 😂

Yesterday we had our first 100 degree day of the year here in East Texas and of all days it was my mowing day; or as I refer to it, 6 hours of fun in the Hot Texas Sun! There's supposed to be a cold front coming through early Monday morning that will cool us down to high 80's/low 90's for a couple of weeks.

We were living in Lancaster when the Northridge quake hit. My office was in Moorpark and since I was always in my office before any of my organization arrived, my getup time was O-Dark-Thirty. I was sitting on the edge of the bed putting on my shoes when the quake hit (about 4:30am) and it rattled our house pretty good, but no damage, just scared the crap out of my wife and daughter. Three of us in the Palmdale/Lancaster area carpooled together and that was my week to drive. Since the quake had just occurred, we didn’t have much information, so we started the drive down Highway 14 towards our offices, which would have taken us down through the I-5/Hwy 14 and then I-5/I-405 Interchange on our way to take the Semi Valley freeway to Moorpark. We were listening to the news all the way down and when we got to Canyon Country there were fires everywhere from broken gas lines; it was still dark and looked like a war zone. That’s when we heard about the interchange collapsing and the death of the CHP Officer, so we turned around and headed back to the Antelope Valley. We had one heck of a commute until the interchange was rebuilt!!!!!!!

Thankfully, I've only had one encounter with a Bear in the wild and it was in Idaho during an Elk hunting trip. The Bear wasn't at all happy with the encounter, but it only huffed, puffed, and growled and then went away. I was glad I didn't have to test the Bear killing capability of my 30-06 Winchester Model 70 Featherweight!!!!!!! 😳