Bad News From Terlingua

The community of Terlingua was rocked this morning by news of the death of La Kiva owner, Glenn Felts.  In less than 15 minutes there were more than 300 posts on Facebook between mutual friends — shock, devastation, disbelief. Felts operated the bar since 1990, when he assumed ownership following his uncle, Gil Felts, who built La Kiva in 1979.
The Sheriff’s Office is now investigating Glenn’s death as a homicide. The Brewster County Sheriff’s Office, Texas Rangers, and 84rd District Attorney’s office are all investigating.


Brewster County Sheriff’s Department confirms Tony Flint of Terlingua has been arrested in connection with the death of Glen Patrick Felts, owner of the La Kiva Bar.
More news here

Here is a link to La Kiva if you have never been there. It is a really neat place.

Pneumonia

Seems like every year starts out sucking and doesn't get much better lately. This year is no exception.
A couple of days before Christmas the other half started getting sick and by the day after Christmas she was sick. We head to the Doc and our doctor was out for Christmas so we get the pleasure of seeing a different Doctor that was a POS of a Doctor. He takes X-rays of the wife's chest and tells us that if it was anything serious that he would call in a couple of hours and if we didn't hear anything all was good just take the antibiotics. We didn't hear anything all day so we figured all was good and the antibiotics would take care of her problem. Friday she still was feeling real bad and needed to go back to the Doc and get some paper work so she didn't get fired from work. Monday we head off to the Doc again and see a different Doc and he says he wants a chest X-ray and we tell him the Doc before had taken one and would had called us if anything was wrong. This Doc goes and pulls up the X-ray and comes back and tells us to come look at it. We get to his computer and he tells the wife that she has pneumonia and the spot the pneumonia is in usually hides a tumor and to come back in a week for another x-ray and gives her some more antibiotics. We head out of there thinking that her smoking has caught up with her and she had lung cancer. I'm not feeling real well at this time but am more worried about her than myself and don't pay any attention to my sickness the rest of the week and when we finally get to see our Doctor the next week and he takes a look at me and tells me he needs to see me now and I tell him I couldn't get an appointment that day and he says I'll work you in while we get another x-ray of the wife's chest. While shes gone I find out that I have pneumonia and he puts me on antibiotics for a week. The wife comes back in and we have a look at her x-ray and there is nothing there its all gone. So it came down to worrying ourselves to death because of some asshole that likes to make a guess on something that he should had never told us about until the next X-ray was done and could confirm his thoughts, it changed our lives for a week in a way I don't ever want to go through again. We are both back to normal and over the pneumonia, I have never been that sick in my life.

 This week I felt like doing something so I broke out my tiller from hell to till up my garden for the coming spring. Did I ever tell you about the tiller from hell it will work you to death in no time. That damn tiller fits onto a weed eater shaft and will give you one hell of a workout beat the hell out of ya.

After a couple of days I only had about a 5x5 section tilled up and was thinking maybe I'll stick to hydroponics this year and forget the garden then a friend of mine shows up and says let me bring my tiller over and us it instead of that thing you have. He brings that tiller over and I'm thinking I'm driving a high dollar Cadillac and before I know it I have a big ass garden bigger than I've ever had

Hell I might have to open up a store up now to sell off everything I grow that sucker is 30x17 about 4 times bigger than what I had.

I have over 100 tomato seeds and some pepper seeds planted here in the house waiting for them to come up and hopefully be ready to plant when the last freeze hits. With A.D.D I do some things and after I've done them I think, you know Jim you should had thought that through a little more before you started that and I think this garden is one of those times. The wife just shakes her head at me and goes on about her business.


 Before Christmas I made some extra money cutting peoples names out of wood. I hadn't used the ole scroll saw in so long it felt good to get back cutting up some wood.

Spring Cleaning In Dec.

I've come to the conclusion that I'm a hoarder. With the crappie weather lately we have not taken the balloon out so I thought I would clean up my garage. I have my wood working tools and my rock blasting stuff out there and I have the bad habit of doing one project and switching over to another project without cleaning up my mess from the first one until I'm tripping over all kinds of stuff out there and have no room left to do any thing else. I don't have any where to put what I have so I rearrange my stuff in a neat order until I use something which is usually in the back of everything else that I've stacked up so I have to unstack stuff which I leave laying about however I unstack it and have a mess again. It is a never ending cycle.
 I got the garage rearranged and stuff stacked real neat and was bored so I decided to tackle my closet. My closet isn't like a normal persons closet I have no clothes in there but I do have stuff in there. I use to have the bad habit of collecting stuff that was hot at the time and I was gonna get rich. About the time I bought it the price would fall out of the market and I was stuck with it so I just held onto to my collectible stuff until it is collectible again but the sad thing is they ain't collectible again. Like those damn TY Beanie Baby's I have a whole bunch of those things in that closet. When McDonald's came out with the little Beanie Baby's back in the 90's I ate I don't know how many damn burgers just so I could buy one of them little beanie babie's until I collected the whole dang set. That's probably why I'm having heart attacks now, anyway I have 3 whole sets of those little bastards by the time I collected the whole set of them they weren't worth anything. I have some bigger ones also same thing they ain't worth nothing so I just look at them and cuss.
 Remember when those damn Furby's first came out in 1998? I do because it was around Christmas time and they were selling for over $100.00 on EBay. Well I was going to get rich off those little bastards I searched and searched and found a place that would sell me all I wanted for $50.00 apiece so I bought 7 of them. When the dang little furry SOB'S came in the mail the company that made them release a whole dang shipment of them and flooded the market with them, the price at the store was $19.95 a piece for them so the bottom fell out on them for me also. I lost my ass on those too but I still have them in the closet.

I have a Phillips 66 Truck Bank in the box.

Remember the Budweiser Frog's I've got them to.

Let's not forget the M&M radio in the box. He wiggles and shakes when the radio is playing but it has never been used.

I have a ton of Joe Camel stuff also. I don't know how many Joe Camel Zippo's I have back there in my closet I just looked at them this time didn't count them. I've got a remote control R2D2 still in the box from the 90's in there I even found some 16 gauge shotgun shells back in there which they havn't made in a long time. I just rearranged everything so it looks neat until I get something out of there then it will be a mess again.
After I was through in my closet I tackled the spare bedroom with all my photography stuff. Did I tell you about my glass cutter for my picture frames I make. When I made my first frame I went to Lowe's and had them cut my glass for me and it dawned on me that this could run into some money having them cut glass for me.I fell in love with that great big ole hunk of metal glass cutting machine they had hanging in there. I buy me one of those little hand held glass cutters but I just couldn't get the hang of it so I got mad and bought me a glass cutter that takes up one whole wall of that bedroom. Damn that thing can sure cut glass. I rearrange stuff in there and it looks neat again until I need something from in there also. I made it into the computer room today and the closet in here is a trove of vintage Cd's from AOL from the 90's that for some reason I just kept never used them but I kept them. I have windows 95 install disks all the way up to Windows 7. Games I still have all the games that I had over the years and enough parts to build a computer all the way back to the old 486 probably. I even have a complete Compaq 66M computer from the early 90's with monitor and a complete Compaq 4/33I from April 30th 1993. The pricing for a 3/33i back in 1992.
A Deskpro 3/33i Model 120 (all of the above features plus a 33-megahertz i386DX chip and a 120-megabyte hard drive) will have a list price of $1,979, Compaq said. A Deskpro 4/33i Model 210 (i486DX-33 and a 210MB hard disk) will cost $2,549 a lot of money back then.
After looking in that closet and seeing some of whats in there I decided to wait awhile before I tackle that.
 It has came to the point that its time to get rid of stuff. I'm thinking about donating the Beanie Baby's and some other things to a hospital if they will take them, put other stuff on eBay and just get me some more room. My collecting days are over.
Think I'll go see what else needs rearranging.

Kattie

Kattie went to join her family in doggy heaven this morning.

Dogs

I don't know why I get so attached to animals I treat them like they are my own damn kids and love them as such. I hurt when they hurt and will stay up all night with them when they are sick. They give so much but ask for so little and are by your side no matter how much you chew their butts out for doing something destructive, they love you.
 Back in 1992 we got this dog for the daughter. The daughter was getting at the age where boys looked better than the dog so me and ole "Smoke" that's what we called him because his coat looked "smoky" me and ole smoke hung around together at night and became real close. He would set in my lap all night long and I got to love that ole dog, we where pards.
 Ole Smoke was getting a little age on him and was such a great dog we decided to find him a mate and find him a mate we did. I drove all the way to Dime Box,TX to get Kattie the love of his life. They hit it off real well and Kattie wasn't quite a year old when ole smoke nailed her and she was pregnant in a very short time, we thought that she was to young to have pups and really didn't think she could get pregnant but she did so in a little while we had pups out the ass around here chewing up brand new shoes, furniture and towels god I can't take all these damn dogs tearing the house all up. So we are gonna sell all but one of these pups and get back to a little normal.
 You have 9 pups and 2 people trying to pick just one cute puppy guess what it ain't gonna happen I wanted this black boy dog and she wanted this black female dog. Guess what, we kept both of them and so the journey of the 4 dog household began.
 Ole Smoke passed way at the age of 16 from a heart attack and it felt like part of me died with him. He was family and for the longest time when I walked into the house it felt so empty I loved that ole dog.
  We called the male pup Bear and the female Little Bit because she was the runt of the litter
Ole Bear dog was around 10 years old when he got cancer and had to be put down.That was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. We took him in because he looked constipated he wasn't in any pain he was running and having a good time that morning just being his old self. The news was that he was ate up with cancer and had this big knot blocking his intestines and he couldn't go to the bathroom anymore so it had to be done we had to put him down. We left the vet in a state of shock we just lost our ole Bear dog.  He was a great dog he loved everyone and at times he just needed to be assured he was loved and would climb up in your lap and take a nap with you. He was the guard dog of the back yard and look out squirrels he loved chasing them.
 Little Bit was the runt of the litter and turn out to be the love of my life, me and that dog went and did everything together. I didn't really have to teacher her anything it was like when she started to do something bad and I got on to her that was the end of that she wouldn't do again. I would go out in my wood shop and look over at the table I had setting outside and she would be on it guarding the place and god help anyone that came walking up. She would give them hell she never bit anyone but she would give them a good barking until I told her enough. She loved riding in the truck and just loved life in general.  She was her own little self. She didn't liked to be held or petted that much she just wanted to hang around you and listen to what you had to say and see what was going on. She wouldn't let anyone touch her but if we were setting outside she would lay between us and listen to what was going on she liked to be around people but not interact with them.The day after I came home from the hospital after having a heart attack she feel over with a heart attack  around the age of 11. My little girl died and went to doggy heaven.
Now we have Kattie, poor ole girl is 17 years old now and is going into congestive heart failure and will not be with us much longer. She has missed Smoke,Bear,and Lil Bit since they died as much as we have and her and I have a special bond now. I sat up with her last night till around 1:00 and the wife took over guard duty. I'm setting here with heavy heart knowing that in a very short time my family of dogs that have been in our lives for all these years will come to an end.This is the first time I have talked about these dogs since they have passed it just hurt to much to talk about them and it still does. 
Did I tell you I love my ole dogs and I will miss every one of them for a long time to come?

Lil Bit setting on her table

 Smoke at 15 years old

 Ole Bear

I have to find a picture of Kattie.

Hydroponics

I haven't quit on my hydroponic plants, in fact my pepper plant has more peppers on it than any pepper plant I've ever grown and another thing I've noticed is the peppers seem hotter grown by the hydroponic system than in the garden. This plant was grown from some seeds I had laying around so I just threw them in some dirt to see if they would germinate and grow. My best guess is they are Peter Peppers but something happened to the peter part of them, its like they havn't been circumcised yet. I put this plant in the hydroponic bucket in the middle of Sept.when it was about 10 inches tall and when it started getting as big as I wanted it in the hydroponic system I added blooming fertilizer to it to make it start blooming and it went crazy with blooms. 

                               This plant is loaded with peppers and still is getting blooms.

 

 

 This is my light setup I threw together. I've had these lights setting out in the garage for a few months thinking I would build a frame for the lights but hell no I waited till the night that its going to freeze to

throw something together to hook the lights up with. It ain't fancy but it will work until I can figure out where my plants will live for the winter and then make a plan on the light set up. I'll probably go with an 8 bulb T5 system instead of this setup.

 8 bulb T5 system

One thing I like about this 5 gallon bucket set up is the ease of taking indoors in the really cold weather unhook two hoses and take the bucket in and then bring the pump in and hook the two hoses up plug it in and your good to go.

 See that pitiful looking plant in the black bucket That is a tomato plant that has been through hell and back a couple of times. I had 2 big tomato plants in my 18 gallon totes and this limb broke off when I was messing with the damn plant showing it to someone so I stick it in this five gallon hydroponic bucket. This tomato plant started growing and looking great. Then we had some high winds come through blowing like hell, I looked out side and this dang plant was laying out in the yard naked as a jay bird and I think to myself that ain't right so I go put and have a look at it and its broke smooth off at the base. I go and get the roots and stub of this plant out of the 5 gallon bucket it was in and replant it. When you replant these plants they look like hell for about a week until their root system starts kicking in and then they start growing and looking great again,that is what happened to this one, it started looking good again and our first really cold front came through and the weather guys tell me its not going to freeze that night so I just let stay outside. We had a flight to do the next morning so I'm out the door at around 5:30 that morning and what the hell is that on my wind shield, I believe that's a real nice thick coat of ice, them lying bastards I get home and the tips of that poor ole tomato plant are brown, they got frost bitten and looks pretty bad. Just for the heck of it I'm leaving it the bucket and see what happens.

I'm still kicking

I came back from Terlingua earlier than I wanted to I came down with something and didn't do hardly anything out there but feel bad. I didn't even see the Shelby Mustangs. I worked around the place some and felt so bad I just came home and stayed sick most of Oct. The Doc thanks its allergy's cause I get it every year around this time
 I did kill me a Rattler in my drive out there scared the hell out of me. I know some of you folks likes snakes but I can't stand Rattle snakes they scare the hell out of me I almost picked one up when I was little and have hated them ever since. I was pulling into the drive and he was just laying there looking at me. I back up and and went around to the other drive and go up to the place I get my gun and head back down the road and dang it he wasn't there I thought I had lost him and started looking off to the side of the road and there he was about 10 feet off the road just stretched out there. I take one step off the road and he jerked around coiled up and ready to strike in a blink of an eye I take aim and blow his dang head right off damn that gave me the hebbie jebbies. If you ever killed one of these you know they wiggle around for a long time even without a head. I just leave him there and was gonna come back in a little while when he quit moving and cut the rattles off. I go off and do some work and come back in about an hour and the damn thing was gone. Something wanted him more than I did.

I can always count on my ole friend porky coming bye. I can be doing something around the place and look up and ole porky is giving me the old I'm hungry look. I don't know why he is so friendly but we have hung around together for a few years now and I feel sorry for him, he is getting old and the others won't let him eat when they are around. I can tell him apart from the others because he is lighter than they are. I guess he is getting gray hair.

So I put some corn out around the feeder and set back and wait for all his kinfolk to stop bye for some supper.

Everything was green and grown up. It looked like I haven't been out there in years. I had to break out the weed eater and cut weeds for 2 days. That might be where my allergy's got stirred up. This is looking out my front door before I cut it I don't know why I didn't take an after pic of it. I like it cut real close to the ground around the house so I don't step on a dang snake.

I get home and really don't feel like doing much so I kick back for a few days and start to feel better.  I figure I would down load the pictures I took out there and about half way through down loading them this damn little window pops up and tells me I'm out of disk space, I said dad gum it and said to heck with it. I sure didn't feel like installing another hard drive at the time so I just let it set for awhile. 

  We had a lot of balloon rides for the month of Oct. and had one wedding in the basket which led me in another direction I had no idea I would head.The minister that was going to marry the couple couldn't make it and they asked me if I could marry them I have never been asked that question before so it kind of set a light bulb off in this ole fried brain of mine, maybe I can do this. I tell them let me see what I can do and I would get back with them. I get on line and look around for awhile and all of a sudden by God I'm an Ordained Minister and I can marry you right now. 

 Well hell they found someone before I could get back to them with the news that I can marry them so I'm setting here waiting to do my first marriage. 

If you see some guy walking around with a lighting rod don't worry its just me I don't need no dang lighting bolt coming out of the sky and striking me until I get the hang of this Ordained Minister title.

We took the Scott Felder balloon out to the F1 races Sunday and did some advertising while the cars buzzed around the track

and that just about catches me up. 

GONE TO TERLINGUA

I'm heading out in the morning to Terlingua and some much needed Terlingua time see y'all when I get back. Maybe I'll have something to post for a change when I get back or while I'm out there.










 

I GIVE UP

This heart shit is getting old. I've just about come to the point of saying to hell with the frigging doctors and just let what happens happen I'm tired of all of it.
 I go to the hospital thinking I'm gonna get another stint and all will be well again, HELL NO I don't get another stint, my system is different than most peoples, my body has to do weird shit to get everybody excited but me. I'm laying on the operating table with my heart Doc showing me my artery's and where the last 2 stints were put in last year and how nice they were doing,he says to me ,"see how nice the blood is flowing through here" and I say why yes that sure is nice. He then points out this other artery and tells me this is the one I told you was 40% clogged but as you can see its flowing real good through that blockage and I say why yes it is, so he says while I'm in here I'm going to run a wire up into that artery and see what the blood pressure is on each side of that blockage and we will know for sure that is not your problem He says he needs to put my heart under some stress and I my feel a little discomfort. We get started and sombitch my chest is burning like hell and I'm curling into a fetal position and can't breath for crap, I'm having a damn heart attack and the doc says to his sidekick did you see that all excited and then looks at me and wants to know if I'm OK which I tell him hell no I'm not OK I'm having a damn heart attack, they give me some nitro and put me under some more stress and bam I'm having another heart attack and the doc is all excited asking his side kick if he saw that again and gives me some more nitro. The last place you would think your doctor would be like a kid in a candy store is when he is all up in your heart, he says to me look at this all excited, they recorded all of this so I get to see a replay of what got him and his side kick all excited, he says look at this artery below that 40% blocked one and I study it and it looks like a nice healthy artery just pumping away and then all of sudden it just looks like its empty for a few seconds and then fills up and is pumping again. He says that I'm having a spasm that shuts the artery down for a few seconds and then opens back up causing a heart attack. I'm thinking now if this ain't the shits, I just developed this problem here on the table because I damn sure wasn't having that kind of chest pains when I complained about not being able to breath the past few months but he says that just might be the problem and I say I wasn't having heart attacks when I came in and he says it was the stress he put my heart under that gave me the heart attacks now I'm thinking this guy is full of shit and he goes ahead telling me we can control the spasms with pills, more damn pills to take. They get out of my heart and are cleaning up when his side kick tells me that he had only seen in books and on video what my heart was doing on that table. I ask how long has he been doing this heart stuff and he tells me thirty years.Thirty friggin years and this is the first time he has ever seen this happen in real time that's just great they ought to pay me.
 I get my pills the next day and the wife starts reading all the side effects of this drug off to me, headaches,dizziness, your man parts will fall off and start growing out your forehead and a ton more side affects if you know what I mean. Then she starts reading what will happen if I quit taking them ,I tell her I ain't taking it that I would rather die. Later that day she convinces me to take it. Holy crap right off the bat I get a headache and then the next morning I wake up like I have the flu, all my joints and muscles hurt and I still have a head ache and can't breath very good. I sleep most all day not knowing if I have the flu or if its those damn pills so I take another that night and wake up the next day feeling like hell and sleeping most of the day in my chair with the TV on thinking I'm sick I take another that night and tossed and turned all night with my muscles aching the next morning still with the headache and muscles hurting like heck I'm starting to think its those damn pills knocking me on my butt instead of being sick so I tell the wife last night I ain't taking no more of those damn pills that they are killing me and that if I'm gonna die by not taking them at least I'll feel good when I die and not be sick as hell when I do so I quit taking them last night and slept like a baby and feel a hell of a lot better. Those are some brutal pills.
The pills did nothing for my breathing which is what I went in for so I'm right back where I started.

Another Stint

I have not felt like doing much for the past couple of months and then my breathing started going away and now I can't even tie my shoes without gasping for air so I go back into the hospital tomorrow for I hope another stint so I can get back to normal. This crap is getting old this is the 3rd stint in a year. The doc is getting rich off of me an I'm getting to feel good a couple of months before he gets another 100,000 for a stint. This ain't fun and I'm getting tired of it.

 I hope when I get out of the hospital I'll feel a lot better and get back to my blog.