Our niece, Chelsie, won first place at the Roosevelt County Fair, Portales, NM with her watercolor painting just recently. We are very proud of her and I asked if she would let me show all your folks her works. She agreed so here it is. Chelsie is a sophomore down in Portales, NM. It is a very nice painting…. Good job, Chelsie…..

For the most part this year, the winners are still winning and the losers are still losing…Bama won…Boise State won….Nebraska won…LSU won….Arkansas won…..West Virginia won…Wisconsin won….Auburn won, barely…..New Mexico lost…..New Mexico St lost…..Oregon lost????,  Notre Dame lost????   TCU lost???? UCLA lost?????Georgia lost?????Well, a few things are different, huh? Next week the losers will probably still be the losers and the winners win again….Except BYU…BYU beat Ole Miss late in the game and I don’t think they can beat Texas…..and Auburn might lose to Miss St, probably will lose to Miss St…..UCLA should beat San Jose St, jeez, I wish New Mexico was playing San Jose St….But no, we take on Arkansas and they looked good against Missouri St…Man, I hope we can keep them under 40 points and I hope we can score 20 – 25 points…..New Mexico  St at Minnesota…Minnesota is pissed after their loss last week..Coach Walker, that’s not good….Unveil your secret offense, ok? I hope you can keep them under fifty points, under forty is almost like a win… I don’t mean to be mean to our New Mexico based guys, but it don’t look good at the present. Both of you NM teams win and I will spend the season singing your praises…I promise…

Folks do not call me, Pete Hester Anglo, and my friend, Ruben Rodriguez, Hispanic….we are both New Mexicans and Americans of course…I choose Ruben because he and I have discussed this before. If you are an American, you are an American, end of story. If you are a German, then you are a German, English, then you are a Englishman, Mexican, then you are a Mexican. Why then do some of our citizens want to cloud the issues with all the terminology about us Americans, Hispanic, Latino’s, Blacks, Native Americans….Hell, it about time we  became Americans, New Mexicans or Texans and on and on……If you are in America and you are not a citizen of this great nation, then you are what you are, a citizen  of your country or an illegal alien…end of story….Now folks of the media, do you want to talk about immigration reform or amnesty for the illegals in this country. Whatever, just please state your case and tell it like it is…call a spade a spade please….yeah, I know it is kinda ranting but somebody needs to…don’t you think?

Did you read where the U. S. Postal Service is seeking to cut 120,000 jobs. They are trying to get permission from Congress to circumvent labor contracts. The union’s chief of staff  said that idle time was inevitable giving that it is a network industry and trucks get stuck in traffic and workers wait for deliveries. The same article said that through the first six months of this year the postal service had paid out 4.3 million in standby time to employees who have nothing to do, ie, equipment broke, lack of work, etc. Seems to me the labor union officials would figure that it would be much better to send those idle employees home without pay and catch up the next day, saving 8.6 million in idle time  on the year. That might not keep 120,000 on the payroll but it would dang sure help a lot and would also let the big bosses know the employees are trying to help the cause. The USPS is expected to announce a 7 billion dollar loss next month. You can’t operate long with that type loss, ….well ok, unless you are the federal government….Then you can go a whole lot higher than that….. Reckon Fedex and UPS would sub out some work to the Postal Service? Well, it was just a thought….

Thanks folks, one more day to go in August and there have already been over 5000 visits to the site. That breaks a record for the site.  Thanks to all of you for coming by for a visit and we promise to keep trying to think of things, er, make that stuff, to write about. I have been falling down on the stuff genre lately….I will try and pick it up some..Good stuff, wild stuff, crazy stuff, new stuff, old stuff, funny stuff and general stuff…I promise it will be on this site…After next weekend, lots of football stuff…A whole bunch of us live for football stuff….keep the chips and salsa coming girls……dang, don’t throw it honey…..I’m kidding, really I’m kidding….Gosh, some women just don’t have a sense of humor, huh?

Athlon says Alabama 13 – 0….Ok, I’ll buy that….Georgia 10 – 3, they did not say so but one of the losses may be to New Mexico St, reckon? But he does have New Mexico St at 1 – 11, so maybe he is thinking they beat Georgia…. Nah, probably not,…Ok , a solid no that ain’t gonna happen then, alright? Wisconsin at 11 – 2, losses to Nebraska and Ohio St maybe…You remember my comments on the scheduler for Florida Atlantic, being, er, uh, female maybe, to schedule Florida, Michigan ST, and Auburn for the first three games. Well, they list them as being 1 – 11 on the year…..I’ll bet you they will be more like 4 – 7 on the year and they might even be bowl eligible…How is that for a prediction? Mark it down…..He has New Mexico Lobos at 1 – 11 again this year…We are gonna surprise you, 4 – 8, maybe 5 – 7, but I don’t think we make a bowl game this year, but we may be looking for a new coach…Has anyone seen Coach Leach? You think he might, er, consider,er, well it would be a real challenge…..We like passing….I like Oklahoma(predicted 12 – 0) and Alabama in the National Championship game (so does Athlon). And I have followed Landry Jones from his Artesia High School days and I will pull for him all year…but Landry, if you are playing Alabama in the big’un, I gotta root for Bama…Sorry…Note to Texas A & M….What are you doing??? You do not belong in the SEC….Stay out here somewhere in the west….TCU does not belong in the Big East either, but at least they can win up there….I’ll tell you what, let BYU, TCU, Baylor, SMU and Notre Dame form a conference making the Mormons, Christians, Baptist, Methodists and Catholics along with Texas A&M, Army, and Navy to battle them…That would be a good conference….Well, I thought it would anyway…*******This guy up in Wisconsin is saying the Badgers are going undefeated this year and he is projecting they will meet Alabama for the National Championship game…I mean this guy figured out the Badger’s entire season….good reading.  http://host.madison.com/sports/college/football/article_872d2d62-d36a-11e0-9a2b-001cc4c002e0.html

Our cousin Doug is married to Kitty van der Linde…Did you know Kitty established the Garden City Ballet Company, Missoula, MT in 1984? And did you know that in her production of The Nutcracker that the dancers wore wooden shoes, real wooden shoes, I think she had sixty pairs of the darn things clodding around. Can you imagine? Bet that was noisy…. You can goggle Kitty van der Linde and read the whole write up on the lady…It’s kinda neat. And Kitty still looks like she could take to the stage and do some of those dad-gum what-cha-call-it moves, well, you know, tippy toes and such….well, I don’t know the names of those A la Second and a-da-go and arabb-es-que and pier-etts or all those things…But anyway, I’ll bet she could still do them, huh, Kitty?…. I’m proud of her being in the mist of us cousins of Coal Fire, Alabama…..

Hey guys, you can now own one of my books at $9.95 plus shipping…Go to publishamerica.com and in the search put in the title of my books, either,

The Saga of Zachary Williams or Apaches, Buffalo Soldiers, That Female Reporter, And Me and they will ship you out a book post haste…I appreciate it…

One of my late cousin Willard’s favorite saying was, “as the old saying goes”. I wonder where that came from? How old would be the “old saying” you reckon?.  Makes me wonder about some other sayings like, “who cut the cheese?”. It certainly is not a favorible saying for cheese…..Or “where in the Sam Hill?”, I can imagine that Sam was always late for meetings or always doing something and then did not show up for a while. Don’t know!!!…Or, “who fired that shot?”….”X marks the spot”….”Couldn’t cut the mustard.”…..”you ain’t whistling Dixie.”…..”carry a tune in a barrel” I can kind of figure that one out as I got a couple of grand daughters who kind of fit the bill on that one..Hey, grand daughters, I just, “calling um as I sees um”…..And some of you are going, “Frankly, Scarlet, I don’t give a damn.”. Ok, ok, I know. Did I miss some good ones? Let me know…..