Ostrich Races Anyone? Or Maybe Camel Races?

I’m sitting out a “no internet” break because of the weather, so I thought I’d share a few more pictures from the visit to Southern California..  While we were down there, the Riverside County Fair and Indio Date Festival opened.  My Aunt, Uncle, a cousin and her husband, my Mom and I decided to go check it out.  The palm trees that you see behind the magic lamp are date palms and are all that's left of a huge grove of date palms that used to be there.  The groves of date palms are "moving" out of the town of Indio into the desert surrounding the city. 
 

Of course, while there we just had to watch the races.  It’s been a tradition at the Date Festival for many years to have the ostrich and camel races.  I can remember watching them as a kid when the family went to the fair and I can also remember how funny the guys looked mounted on those big birds..  Well, I have to tell you.  The guys still looked funny on those big birds.  As you can see from the picture to the left, the race guys have a nice little flock of birds.  They also had a few emus in a pen in the back, but I couldn’t get into a good position to get a good picture of them.

Here’s a view of the ostriches and their riders getting ready to race.  If you look close, you can see 2 of the riders getting mounted on their birds.  The 3 guys at the gates are actually trying to keep the gates closed as the birds were bumping hard against the enclosures.


 

 And... They're off!

About halfway around the track, the ostrich that was carrying the fellow in the white shirt decided it didn't want to run for the finish line.  It stopped dead, nearly throwing the rider off.  Then it started to spin and that did throw the rider off..

It took the rider and two other guys to get the ostrich back under control and headed towards the finish line and the pens.

The ostrich race was followed by a zebra race...

 Then we watched another ostrich race, only this time the birds were pulling chariots.  The fellow in red won the race followed by the one in white that you can see just exiting the starting gate.  The fellow in blue brought up the rear.

Then the race people brought 6 young boys down out of the stands.  Volunteers.  The older boys got to "race" the emus.  No riding, they just chased the birds towards the finish line.  All 3 boys were grinning from ear to ear at the end...  

The 3 littlest boys got to "race" chickens.  They had a much shorter distance to chase the chickens overall, but their race took the longest because the chickens ran every which way and most of the time, not towards the finish line.

The final race was the camel race.  As you can see from the picture, the fellow in yellow had a bit of trouble controlling which direction his camel ran.

 And at the halfway point, the fellow in red was in the  lead with the one in green following in second place.

 And the fellow in yellow brought up the rear. LOL! 









After the races were over, we wandered the fairgrounds viewing the arts and crafts that were entered in the competitions and of course, we had to have a "date shake".  We bought some fresh dates to bring home with us, as well.  We all had a great time at the fair and were ready for some serious sitting down when we left.

And, I see now that I have internet again... Hurray!  One disadvantage to living in a small town that isn't terribly close to a larger city is the fact that we are limited in our choices for "entertainment".  We have no option of cable TV, we are limited to satellites.  We don't have fiber optic cables for our telephones, so we are unable to get DSL for our internet.   The choices for internet are pretty limited.  Dial-up, satellite or wireless broadband.  I tried the satellite route and was very dissatisfied with the service.  It was barely better than dial-up which I wasn't going back to.  So, wireless broadband it is.  Until the weather knocks out the power to the town.  Oh well.  We got our power back yesterday midday and internet came back this morning.  Yay!  Enjoy the pictures!

Still on the Road… But WiFi Challenged..

2/14 ~ Happy Valentine’s day everyone! And yes, I know it’s going to be after the 14th when I finally get this published to the blog.  I know I promised I’d post pictures often, but I’ve been a little bit challenged by the “online” opportunities I’ve had since we left Morro Bay.  More on that story later.  I guess I’m going to need to invest in one of those gadgets that plug into the laptop so I can get online no matter where Mom and I travel.  Any recommendations? lol

2/11 ~ Ok, so when we left Morro Bay Friday morning, we went on south on Highway 101 and then stopped in Solvang for a little while so we could do a bit of window shopping and, of course, visit a bakery or two.  While we were there, a nice woman in the visitor’s center gave us a map of the valley and marked some points of interest on the map.  We chose to visit two of them.   A  miniature horse ranch and another ranch with miniature donkeys.  (Hmm.. Is it “donkeys” or  “donkies”? lol.. Spellcheck says that “donkeys” is the right one.)  Ok.. On we go.. The miniature horse ranch is called Quicksilver Ranch and they have dozens of beautiful little miniature horses.  We pulled into their visitor’s parking lot and spent a little bit of time wandering around and watching the little horses as they grazed and wandered around their fenced enclosures.  The ones in the picture to the left are pretty calm and quiet, but in other enclosures, the little horses were rolling around on the ground, chasing each other or just kicking up their heels for the heck of it.   It’s hard to get a size comparison until you see the horses next to someone..  This young lady was grooming one of her horses near the barn, so there was the perfect opportunity to show the size of the miniature horse.  She told us that 3 of the little horses were “hers” and that she was responsible for grooming and taking care of them.   Here’s the young lady with another of her little horses, and you can get an even better idea of the size of the little animals.  (By the way, the barn was completely empty of animals.  There wasn’t a single horse in any of the stalls.  I guess the weather was just too nice to keep them confined indoors.)  We watched a few of the mares that were in separate enclosures,  one was in heavy labor and another one wasn’t far behind, so soon they’ll have a bunch of foals bouncing around in those fields.  After we left Quicksilver Ranch,  we went on up the road through Ballard and drove along looking for the miniature donkeys.  The lady at the Solvang information center didn’t know the name of the ranch, but she said the donkeys were right there next to the road.  And they were!  There was also a nice “Visitors are Welcome” sign next to the driveway.   This picture doesn’t give you much of a size comparison to anything but the fence.  It was about shoulder high on me and I’m 5’8”, so that should give you an idea of how small the donkeys are.  None of the donkeys were very happy that day.  They had all just gotten their shots and gotten dewormed, so they were a bit disgruntled.  One of the full size donkeys was very unhappy with the humans on the ranch.  He still had a halter on him and the woman at the ranch couldn’t get anywhere near him to take it off..   She even went in the corral with the two larger donkeys and let one of them push her around a bit.  But, the striped leg guy just wouldn’t let her come anywhere near him.  He did not want another shot or to be dewormed again. The lady said that he would calm down in a hour or two and she’d be able to get the halter off him.  The donkeys weren’t the only critters on the ranch with the little donkeys.  They have a pair of turkeys as well.   The big fellow is named Tom and anytime anyone said “gobble” to him, he’d gobble right back at them.  One lady who was visiting at the same time we were there had a ball making the turkey gobble at her.  The hen just stood there watching the tom.  She never made a sound while we were there.

After leaving the donkey ranch, we traveled on down the coast to Simi Valley.  Mom wanted me to see the Ronald Reagan Library.  The main thing I wanted to see in there was Air Force One.  They have the plane on display in a specially built building with the wall in front of the nose of the plane being almost entirely made of glass.  The “tour” goes into the plane in the front, and you exit at the back.  We were surprised at how cramped for space it was in the plane.  The cockpit was also extremely cramped for space.  There were 5 seats crammed in there with hardly any space to even turn around.  Of course, that might be “normal” for the cockpit of a 707, I don’t know.  I’d never been able to look inside one before.  The next thing you go past is the “communication center”, which was a whole panel of radios and the like along one side of the plane with a small galley on the other side.  (If I remember right.) Both Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan had their own offices, each with a couch that folds down into a bed.  Of course, there was a huge jar of Jelly Belly candies on the president’s desk.  After you get past the two offices, you come into a compartment with a number of seats that would almost qualify as first class seats.  They were for the top advisors that flew with the Reagans.  The next compartment was set up for the lower echelon of people and the security guys.  The last compartment looked more like “coach” seating and that was for any members of the press who wanted to buy a ticket to fly with the President.  The Reagan Whitehouse charged the press corps the price of a regular airline ticket plus $1.  Of course, there was a smaller, busier galley back in the section for the press and then the restrooms were in the tail.  A big man would have been unable to walk normally down the “hall” through the plane.  Even I had to turn sort of sideways to get through.  It was definitely interesting to see the inside of that plane.  They had a few more vehicles there on display, a limo, a police car and motorcycle and Marine One, the helicopter that picked the President up from the Whitehouse to go wherever.   We saw a few more exhibits, including a scale model of the Whitehouse. 

After leaving there, we went in search of a motel and ended up clear down in Torrance since it was near a cousin’s home.  And here’s a bad review of a motel for you.  If you end up in Torrance do not stay at the Super 8 motel if you want any kind of connection to the internet.  They advertised that they had WiFi, but once we got settled in the room and I unpacked the laptop we discovered that the WiFi was only connected to the internet for 1 minute out of 5.     And sometimes I didn’t even have a full 1 minute to get a web page loaded.  The network connection was more “local only” than it was “local and internet”.  The beds in the room were ok, the room was clean and so on.  But the WiFi was darn near impossible to use.  More about that later.. lol.. I’m going to end this post and will publish it to the blog the first chance I get… On to the next blog entry!

2/15 ~ We’re sitting in Palm Springs tonight and I’ve got a WiFi connection of sorts.. Uploading this blog entry and will finish typing the next one and getting it uploaded soon.

Penguin vs. Orcas.... Smart Bird!!

The penguin is being pursued by several Orcas, who are circling him for the kill. People on a small boat are filming all the action of the chase. Wait til you see what the penguin does to fix his problem! Thanks to a eBay and Facebook friend, Oda, for showing this video off... I love it!!



Yes, I know the music is annoying to some, but it kind of fits the action! lol...

Tiger Meets Toddler?

I was using the "StumbleUpon" tool bar a bit this afternoon and stumbled upon these images. They are in yesterday's images of the day from The Telegraph UK website. Needless to say, the images stopped me in mid click from going on to the next site...

These breathtaking pictures appear to show a little girl seconds away from becoming a hungry tiger's lunch. Little Avery Thompson seems oblivious to the 370lb Royal White Bengal Tiger as he stretches out a massive paw in an attempt to touch her...

...But, despite appearances, the toddler is perfectly safe - she and Almos the tiger are separated by a thick pane of glass. Keen amateur wildlife photographer Dyrk Daniels photographed the encounter at Cougar Mountain Zoo, in Washington
Picture: DYRK DANIELS / SOLENT NEWS

I'd say that photographer was in the right place at just the right moment to catch an unforgettable moment!

Dumb Robber?

I was surfing around the web this afternoon looking for items of interest that I could post on the California Fire News blog when I came across this article:

SoCal Robbery Suspect Caught Trying to Become Policeman

KTLA News

February 28, 2009

CHULA VISTA -- A robbery suspect was arrested when he showed up to take an test to become a police officer.

Police say 40-year-old Romeo Montillano was arrested and booked into San Diego County jail. Montillano was being sought by police in connection with a December robbery at a Chula Vista Kmart where a man took a TV and other items, then beat up store employees who confronted him.

A short time later, investigators learned Montillano had signed up to take the February police officer's examination.

Police contacted Montillano, and the suspect promised to show up to take the test.

When the suspect showed up on test day, he was arrested for investigation of robbery and other crimes.

Police say that as Montillano was being arrested, he asked whether he could still take the police exam or reapply at some later date. They told him no.

Ok, I'm laughing. This guy wanted to be a cop, but he's on the run for stealing a bunch of stuff and beating up people in the store he was stealing from.... Uhm... DUMB! I guess this is one of those times when you ask "What was he thinking?" and then you answer your self by saying "He wasn't thinking!!!". Too stupid!! The guy deserves to go to jail just for being dumb! LOL

So, since the news in this post gave me a giggle, I will add a picture that might give you folks a giggle... (Gotta love the LOLcats!)

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Anyone have a kitty THIS hungry? lol

I found this video on the LOLCats website this morning and it's a great one for a laugh... Couldn't resist posting it here... lol


I've had cats off and on for most of my adult life and I have never had one that fought me like this for their food! LOL! Too funny...

The Defense Prepares?

Yes, I am still banned from the InSessions board, but I'm there reading/lurking without logging in. Someone in the Caylee Anthony forums linked this cartoon into the threads this morning and it so fits so many cases I've watched over the years that I had to put it here on my blog.

Source: Non Sequitur by Wiley

As we all watch the news from Orlando, I am sure I'm not the only one wondering what kind of defense Jose Baez is going to present. The news is saying that the investigators (according to "sources inside the investigation") have overwhelming evidence that Casey Anthony intentionally murdered her almost 3 year old daughter, Caylee. They are also saying that according to reports returned by forensic botanists and entomologists brought in to anaylyze the terrain and insect growth where Caylee's remains were found, they can place the time of the death sometime in June. The sources say that plants were growing through the skeleton and bug evidence was also recovered, both of which helped scientists reach their conclusion. So those experts (If the "sources" are right.) have pretty much canceled out the rumors that keep floating around that the child's body was moved there after Casey was jailed.

So how is Jose Baez going to explain away Casey's involvement in her daughter's death? He can't stand there and spout off the stories about the child being alive and out there somewhere with the kidnappers now that the remains have been found. Is he going to go with the "nanny-kidnapper" story? If so, which one? The story about Casey dropping Caylee off in an apartment at the Sawgrass Apartments? Or the story about dropping her off on the stairs in front of the apartment? Or maybe the one about the "nanny" and her sister knocking Casey to the ground and taking off with Caylee? In the brief that was sent to the prosecutors earlier on trying to get the death penalty taken off the table, it was theorized that Caylee died due to an accidental overdose. Is that the one Mr. Baez is going to run with? It's hard to tell what the guy is aiming for as we watch him in action in the courtroom dealing with all the motions he's filed.

Speaking of all those motions being filed. The court appearance of Casey on Thursday was a surprise to a lot of people. Casey had refused to come to court initially when the jailers went to fetch her, but the judge insisted that since she didn't sign a waiver, she had to appear. It seems Mr. Baez forgot to have her sign the waiver and was just going on her verbal decision not to attend. So, Casey was brought to court. Her demeanor was amazing, in my opinion. The lawyers and the judge were discussing her own daughter's remains (Her bones!) and Casey sat there for the most part expressionless. No emotion, no connection to what was being said about her daughters bones. It seemed a couple of times she had to suppress a smirk or smile about something that was said, but overall, she looked like a cold fish, totally bored with what was being discussed. I don't think I could have been so cold if someone were discussing my child's remains like that!

Anyway, the photos of poor little Caylee's bones are supposed to end up on a "secure" server in Jose Baez's office that the defense experts will access to form their opinions of what happened to the child. I have a problem with that "secure server" in the Baez office though. How the heck is he going to set up something like that when his own law firm's website is as screwed up as it is? There hasn't been a working link on that website since Casey was spending her days in his office! Was she playing at being Jose's webmaster during all those days kicking back in his office? lol.. That "secure server" is a lot more complicated to set up than a simple website with working links!

Anyway, back to the defense........ Whatever it might be. It will be an interesting trial to watch just to see what the evidence is and to see what the defense has to say that is going to make us say "Now I understand!" I'd like to give Jose Baez a "clue". We understand that your client, Casey Anthony, murdered her daughter, packed her body in trash bags and dumped it in the woods less than a quarter mile from her parent's home.

Meanwhile, George and Cindy Anthony are supposedly "actively" planning the memorial services for their granddaughter. Finally. "She's finally been able to start working on some plans in regards to the public service,” Conway, the Anthony's attorney said. “Music, flowers, possible venues for it.” He also stated that not all are "welcome" to attend the services. He (and I'm guessing Cindy) says that Leonard Padilla, the California bounty hunter that bailed Casey out of jail the first time, will not be invited or let in to the services. Sheesh. I wonder who else Cindy has on her list of "uninvited" guests to her granddaughter's memorial. Perhaps the two private investigators who supposedly have a video of the area where the remains were found? How about Tim Miller from Texas Equusearch, the man who headed up all those searches for a "not alive" child? What about the Anthony's first attorney, Mark Nejames? Personally, if I were planning a memorial service for a loved one, the last thing I would think about would be who can't attend. And the circus keeps on going, doesn't it?

Bah... Enough about the Anthony circus for now. I'm going to close with a cat picture that I fell in love with when I saw it on the LOLCat website yesterday;


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Coffee??

I just couldn't resist posting this one from the LOL Cats website.. lol..


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Be back later with more of a post... Maybe... lol

Happy Holidays!

I am wishing a very Happy Holiday to everyone! I hope everyone's holidays are filled with love and great times with family and friends.

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I Had a Visitor!

I walked over to the post office to pick up my mail a few minutes ago. When I came back home, I heard a commotion in the cherry tree that overhangs my back fence. Check out my noisy "visitor"!My cats were about to have fits because this little guy was hopping around in that tree, chirping and making scratching noises on the branches. He sat there for a bit while I tried to get a better view of him through the leaves, but when I got really close, he chirped loudly and then took off from tree to tree across my back fence and then into a tree that is closer to the house behind me. lol.. One of my cats is still sitting out there just below one of the trees. I guess she's waiting for the visitor to come back.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that we have squirrels in the neighborhood. I mean why not? We've got possums and everything else here!

Tuesday Thoughts...

That kitty looks very satisfied with life. It reminds me of my daughter's cat, Snuggles. Now Snuggles is an old cat, kind of scrawny and a little battered looking. My daughter lives across the street from me, but Snuggles has decided that he likes my yard. Almost every time I go outside, to water the lawn, to pull weeds or do anything, Snuggles is lounging about in the shade under the trees or bushes. He'll greet me with a "meow", then just ignore me unless I'm setting the sprinkler too close to his spot. Then he'll go and find another shady spot to lounge in. Thank goodness my two cats, Runt and Squeak don't seem to mind him being here.


This is my Runt. He's about 12 years old or so. He's been with me since he was about 3 weeks old. Some good friends of mine had a "mama" cat that had just had a litter of kittens and they couldn't keep her or the babies. They asked if I'd take them until the kittens were old enough to be weaned and adopted out. I did and thoroughly enjoyed having a room full of kittens running around. We eventually found homes for all the kitties, including the Mom. Runt stayed with me. He was the runt of the litter but grew up to be the biggest one. He's my "buddy". He follows me around the house and yard and talks to me.. He loves hanging about just being "company".

This is Squeak... She's my "auction cat". Back when I lived and worked in Sacramento, I used to go to estate auctions with my Mom and Stepdad. One of the auctions I went to had a lovely print of a kitten up for bid and I went after it, and got it. Then the auctioneer, Gene Paine, decided that since there were cat people in the building that day, he'd "auction" off a cat that had been dumped at the home of one of the workers at the auction. They were kind enough to loan me a carrier, give me a bag of food and some medicine that Squeak needed for her ears. She earned her name because she squeaks instead of meows. She's my "guard cat". If anything threatens me, whether it be a bird, another cat or animal, she's right there hissing and scratching to send them packing.

One of these days I need to take some new pictures of them...

Jets Spook Goat Into Giving Birth

SACRAMENTO COUNTY, Calif. -- Blue Angels jets practicing for this weekend's California Capital Airshow are credited with spooking a goat into giving birth this week, the animal's owner said Friday.

The newly arrived kids, dubbed Blue Angel 1 and Blue Angel 2, frolicked in James Sands' pasture just south of Jackson Highway on Friday afternoon.

read more | digg story

Just click on "read more" for the rest of the story.. Never knew that goats were such "nervous" moms... lol