Conservation Land for Public use

A new Sierra Nevada Mountain parcel in California
www.sfgate.com photo

  This recent purchase kept this, or these, parcel(s) from commercial development.  Here in Maine there are many parcels that are purchased with public funds for the public good.  The population isn't getting any smaller; opportunities for making money appear; or, development can be halted by a purchase such as these.
 
  I can imagine that hotels would have been built, condos, cabins and similar uses would have taken place on this parcel.  Instead the public will have a place to hike, hunt, or camp in.  It's a win win situation for the public.

Webber Falls
www.sfgate.com Michael Macor photo

 

Lacey Meadows where the Lake meets land
www.sfgate.com Michael Macor photo

The Little Truckee River
www.sfgate.com Michael Macor photo

Good news and bad news

The hood ornament - click

   To say Michael Dingman is an automobile collector is an understatement.  The Ford Company Director has been collecting Fords and Ford neon signs for years and years.  Only cars with the old flathead V8 engines are in the "priceless collection".
  The oldest car in the collection is joining others in an auction, it's a blue 1934 Ford Deluxe Phaeton.
It has been used all these years at the family's vacation spot in the Bahamas.
  I bought a Megabucks ticket this week the $5,275,000.00 prize when you take the cash option (I'm old, remember?) leaves you with about $1,535,000.00 after the prize is cut in half and taxes are taken out.  I will not be able to afford to bid on this car even if I win.

Just look at the magnificent condition!

  And now, the bad news.  The bad news begins because I read the news online, I read several sites every day and a few newspaper sites too.  As a result learning this stuff, on occasion, really ticks me off.  REALLY!
  Yesterday I learned of the millions of dollars being spent to upgrade Gitmo.  Yes the very prison for foreign combatants, the one that want us dead.  Improvements are a top grade soccer field, fenced and guarded, cable TV with 21 channels and dining facilities.
  It now costs the taxpayers $800,000.00 (eight hundred thousand dollars) to house a resident of Gitmo for one year!  The State of Maine only spends $41,000 (Forty-one thousand dollars) a year.
  The thing that ticks me off now:  The Federal Government in its infinite wisdom has decided that a citizen must earn less than (are you ready?) $11,170.00 to be in poverty.  Eleven thousand One Hundred Seventy dollars!!).  So......to be considered in poverty you must earn about 71.6 times less than it takes to keep one Gitmo prisoner for a year!
  Now that's bad news!

An Osprey going fishing.

No news is....

...much ado about nothing.  I started to walk yesterday morning, after the rain stopped, and walked about two miles.  My legs were too tired to continue since I walked eight miles the day before.  I didn't walk in the parade, which was fine with Hollie because she got to do her stuff right off.
  We only went to one store and to Staples (the Holy Place) to do her "projects".
  At least she worked on hers, I, again, didn't do anything with the "project" I've been working on.  I will do some work on that painting today and you will have results to look at tomorrow.

A different kind of weather

  It's the end of November here in middle Maine, and yesterday it was 58 degrees!  It tied a record, I guess that's a good thing, but where's the winter.  I had to switch back to my lighter fleece yesterday; I walked early at 4:00AM about 3 miles with my "winter coat", and that was a "hot" mistake.

What winter used to look like

  It was so warm that what was left of the snowbanks was gone by four in the morning, and while I'll admit the walking was nice - it was unusual.
  Maine gets a winter like this, during a El Nino year I think; and I'm not too worried, we'll get winter at one time or another.

I don't miss this.

  I don't miss the difficult driving, which I really don't have to do, but it's warm; there should be baseball down in Florida by now!

Mr. Paplebon, shown here, will be in Philadelphia next season, good!

  New subject:  Today, November 29th, marks the date in 1890 when the very first Army-Navy game was played.  The game was played on the "Plains" at the U S Military Academy in West Point, NY.  The Navy won the game 24-0.  Three years later Midshipman Joseph Mason Reeves, who later became an Admiral wore the very first football helmet!  He was told by the doctor at Annapolis that if he got hit in the head - one more time - he would suffer "instant insanity" or even death.  He had an Annapolis shoemaker fashion a helmet of leather.

Army-Navy game in 1908, at Philadelphia