Weird Food and Miscellaneous Stuff

Have you ever walked through a grocery store and seen something so weird and strange looking that you just had to buy one, because WTH?  We saw this at Safeway last week.  It was in with the Bob Evans pre-packaged sodium fests.  The numbers don't look too bad, but for 320 calories, $7 seems a bit much.  It was on sale, so it's ok.

Check out the packaging.  It's vacuum sealed. The plastic is tight up against the food.  It has really long shelf life if refrigerated.

As seen from the top.

It microwaves in 1.5 minutes.  While it's cooking the plastic cover sort of bubbles off.   When it's done it's like a tent over the tray.  It was predictably awful.  See, I show you these things so you don't have to buy them yourselves.

This was taken in Christopher Columbus park.  Notice the water bird on the right.  The guy in the float tube caught a trout which he was reeling in.  We've seen that bird on multiple occasions, watching the fisher people.  They walk by him and he doesn't budge.

Here is a random shot of one of the prettiest churches in Tucson.

The hummingbird, as seen from inside the RV.  The tint on the windows makes it difficult to get a good shot.

Yesterday we did a short ride before the winds came up, knowing that today would suck, which it did.  On the way back the front started moving in.  There were some fairly impressive lenticulars.  We were lucky, as soon as we made it through the back gate, the wind was up.

We went out to lunch today, and saw this young coyote sleeping in the sun.  He didn't look so good.  As we approached him, he got up and walked behind the bush.  When we got in the truck, he came back out and returned to his nap.  

Did you seen this on Facebook?  I screen scraped it from there, it's not clear who did the graphic.  I thought it was a nice job of showing where various publications fall on the bias scale.

Have you read the Vanity Fair review of Trump Grille?  It's hysterical.  Trump's tweeting about it has driven their new subscription numbers through the roof.  On Facebook, VF is on sale for $5 a year for print and digital.   I think the New York Times is also on sale.
Other than this paltry mashup of food and wild life, I have zippity doo dah all to report.

News of the Administration and Hummingbirds

An excellent article from the New Yorker was referenced in Steve Reed's blog this morning, and I thank him for bringing it to our attention. The article addresses the impact of Trump's victory on Mr. Obama's legacy.  It's extremely well written.  Below is a small excerpt.

Still, his triumph, or the idea of it, was not beyond prediction. The fissures and frustrations in the American electorate were nothing new, and some commentators were notably alert to them. Before and after the election, a passage from Richard Rorty’s 1998 book, “Achieving Our Country,” circulated on social media. Rorty, a left-leaning philosopher, who died in 2007, predicted that the neglected working class would not tolerate its marginalization for long.

“Something will crack,” he wrote:  The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for—someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots. . . . One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past forty years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion. . . . All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet.

So, I get why Trump carried non-college educated white males, but I still am at a loss as to why so many women voted for him.

In other news of the administration, Rick Perry (former Texas governor and Dancing With the Stars contestant)  has been named director of the Department of Energy.  As you no doubt recall, the DOE was one of the three departments Perry promised to get rid of if elected.  It was also the department whose name he could not remember during the debates.  The two directors of the DOE under Mr. Obama were both physicists.  One has a Nobel prize, and the other taught at MIT.  Perry has a bachelor's in animal science.  DOE is responsible for many very technical and complicated things, not the least of which is the maintenance of the nuclear arsenal.  They also develop technologies to detect and deter nuclear testing and smuggling, and to support international nonproliferation treaties.  One wonders how on earth the people reporting to Perry will be able to communicate with him.  He doesn't have the vocabulary or the knowledge to follow the technical details.  This appointment is just astonishing to me.

In weather news, tomorrow is the last good climate day for awhile in Tucson.  Tomorrow will bring record breaking warm temperatures, followed by rain on Friday and then highs in the 60s.   Pity us as we suffer through the colder temperatures.  Kidding, just kidding.  I am so happy not to be in the northern tier states right now!

We'll end with hummingbirds because they still make me happy.

More Biking and Tattooing

Greetings Earthlings.  Long time, no real posting. Lately I've had to resort to reading things like "the best 50 tweets from women in 2016" to keep my equanimity.  That was the source of the previous post.  Anyway, there has been much riding.

Monday we rode south to the Julian Wash Greenway to see if a) the route through South Tucson improved and b) if it would be something to add to the roster of rides we do.  The answers would be no and no.  In South Tucson the trail is a sidewalk that the city painted a stripe on.  It crosses the access points to several large retail parking lots.  Drivers are not expecting to see bikes there and pull out into the lane to exit.  It made us feel like prey items.  Doesn't "Julian Wash" and "Greenway" sound pleasant?  The wash is actually an enormous concrete water control system.  One rides on a shelf on the side of the concrete ditch, or sometimes in the bottom of it.  This is important to know in case it has been raining.  Water and debris are not your friend.  Greenway actually refers to painted sections of road that indicate an on street bike lane.  Until you reach the Lazy Days KOA sign, the trail is not terribly pleasant.  Even then, there is much of this.

Wednesday we rode north on the trail, over to the Rillito trail and then back through the University.  It was very pleasant.  This is a train going over the trail.  There are signs telling you to stop for the trains because large chunks of ballast can be dislodged and fall on one's head.  We stopped.

There was the obligatory stop at Starbuck's for coffee and a scone.  It's 32 miles, which was good for us.

Yesterday we again rode north on the trail, but for fewer miles. 
Last night Jim's laptop was invaded by a virus.  It took control of the cursor and started opening things.  This morning the laptop had to be taken to the far east side of Tucson to have the virus removed.  I hate the people who do stuff like this.
On the way home we decided to divert to the 4th Avenue Street Fair.  We haven't been for a couple of years.  It hasn't changed much.
There is art.

There is bad food.

There is the King of BBQ.  That is one good looking suit.

Turkey legs being smoked.

There is political commentary.

We found ourselves in a tattoo parlor, of all places.  Jim's tattoo has been looking scabrous for some time now, so we inquired as to whether or not they could make it look better.  Why of course they could.  Jim is suffering here.  The black outlining hurts the most.

This is John at Sacred Art Tattoo.  He really enjoys his work.  He's a very pleasant man and a pleasure to talk to.

The tattoo looks much better than it did.  After the inflammation and oozing goes down I will post a picture of it.
Other than this, there is not much on offer.  Although we find ourselves somewhat bored with Tucson, we also see what the weather is doing elsewhere and then we tell ourselves to quit whining!

Today's Thought From the Internet

Today's thought from the internet.  I personally find this amusing.

Pima Air Museum Revisit

It's cold!  Yesterday was overcast, so it felt really cold.  We wimped out on riding or hiking.  Jim still has the virus which will not leave him, so we decided to take a day off.  We went to the Pima Air Museum.  We were last there in March of 2015 at which time we were very surprised at how much new stuff they had.  This year they had a new hanger, but not so many new planes.  

This is a P-51.  It was the most successful fighter in WWII. It was built by North American Aviation in response to British requests for prototypes within a 120 day window.  The original version was under powered, but with the addition of the Rolls Royce Merlin engine it became an excellent plane.

We walked through the hangars and then outside.  This is a B52A.  He was used at Edwards AFB in some of the test programs.  This is the oldest B52 in existence. 

This is the second 787 Boeing produced.  It never went in to commercial service, and was only used for flight test.

It is just a lovely airplane.  I love the curve of the wings.

Note the size of the engines. 

The development of the 787 was a radical departure for the Boeing Company.  Prior to the Dreamliner, all design was kept in house.  In order to get the board of directors to approve the new plane, about 60% was outsourced to risk sharing partners.  Here is one article on the subject.

So the Dreamliner’s advocates came up with a development strategy that was supposed to be cheaper and quicker than the traditional approach: outsourcing. And Boeing didn’t outsource just the manufacturing of parts; it turned over the design, the engineering, and the manufacture of entire sections of the plane to some fifty “strategic partners.” Boeing itself ended up building less than forty per cent of the plane.

It did not go well.  The collaborative design software chosen for use by all of the partners was not a total success.  The parts of the airplane from other vendors were supposed to arrive "stuffed" with all of their wiring and tubes and etc. and line up perfectly in final assembly and snap together in three days.  Boeing ended up buying several vendors so they could enforce standards and hope to have a shot of making it work.  Eventually it did work and it's in service.  You can read more here.

Here we have a Convair B36.  Look at the engines.  There are six giant piston driven engines on it.  It was in service 1947 to 1959 as a long range strategic bomber in Strategic Air Command.  Given the number of moving parts in the engines, it's a miracle it ever flew.

This is a Fairey Gannet, a British airborne early warning radar airplane for fleet defense.  It looks like a hedge hog with all of those propellers.

This is such a cool looking little plane.  It's a McDonnell Banshee photo reconnaissance airplane.

If you have any interest at all in planes, go to this museum.  Get the two day pass so you can read all the exhibits and look at all of the planes without having your head explode.

Biking, Birds, Drug Prices

On Tuesday it was, once again, very windy.  We thought about riding, but since Jim was still suffering from the virus that will not leave his body, we decided we'd hike.  We drove up to Pima Canyon, which is a hike I reviewed in 2013.  It's a really pretty hike, but I would not call it fun.  It's arduous.

This is a bouldery section of the trail.  None of it is flat, and none of it is without rocks of some size or shape.  On the way back, you'll be walking down the sides of giant rocks.  None of it is not doable, but it's arduous.

A view of one canyon wall.

An attractive dead tree.

There are a lot of chollas with much fruit attached to them.

Wednesday dawned with calm winds and cold temperatures. One key learning for the day was to believe the temperature provided by the phone, and not to believe what our outdoor air temperature probe was telling us.  It gets heat from the sun and the bus and was too enthusiastic about the climate.  Here is Jim at the ball fields wearing arm and knee warmers and a vest.  I had glove liners, as well.

The other key learning is to be cautious around the park just north of Speedway.  Some idiot came zooming on to the bike trail on a motorized bicycle towing a bugger.  Instead of slowing and looking in both directions before entering the trail, he came out very fast and dove between Jim and me.  I was able to move left in a hurry and not be hit.  If he had hit me, it would have been bad given his speed and the weight of the bike and trailer.  I am still pissed about the level of stupidity involved with that move.  This is the second time we've been menaced there by someone with bad trail manners.

This morning was again calm, and cold.  We sat outside for a bit waiting for it to warm up  before riding, and so that I would quit reading Huffington Post.  Jim has entered a news blackout and I am trying not to tell him about the most recent affronts to the nation.  We were visited by hummingbirds.  Who's tired of hummingbirds?  I do want you all to know that I ruthlessly pared down the number of pictures.

This is the male, gleaming in the morning sun.

I believe both of these are females.  The one on the feeder is a girl for sure.

The second hummer came up and had a seat, and they eyed each other for a bit.

There was detente and a spirit of cooperation.

Then the newcomer menaced the girl.

The girl stood her ground.

And that was the end of peace at the feeder.

Have you found yourself wondering as to why prescription drugs cost so much?  This is an interesting article about who is driving up drug prices.  Honestly, I do not know why this is legal.  It is just infuriating.