Please note all the angels on the fireplace mantel. My sweetie decorates for each season, this is Easter which stays up until its time for the Fourth of July celebration……Update…my bad…Sweetie told me the Angels Mantel is in between Easter and the 4th of July…I might try and picture the seasons changing as evidenced by our mantel in future postings. By the way, that is a working fireplace and has been painted white since we moved in many years ago. We have repainted it a time of two, then a couple of years ago we discontinued using it. Now, we keep something decorative in it all the time….

AARP Bulletin, May 2011, Vol 52 No. 4 Going Broke by Marsha Mercer..”Despite signs the economy is brightening, state governments face a fourth straight year of financial crisis. To balance their budgets over the past three years, officials have cut programs that help their most vulnerable residents, including older people and the disabled. They’ve hiked university tuition’s and sliced K-12 school spending. They’ve laid off hundreds of thousands of public employees and pared workers’ benefits and pensions……..Forty-four states and the District of Columbia are projecting $122 billion in budget shortfalls for fiscal 2012, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which reports that nearly every state plans to spend less in 2012 than in 2008, after inflation….Me talking now, I am jumping ahead in the article some as she states what is driving the shortfalls…..Medicaid accounted for 22 percent, public education 21 percent of all state spending. Next were higher education 10 percent, transportation 8 %, corrections 3% and public assistance 2 percent. States spent the remaining 34 % on everything else……Skipping further…..Despite the political unpopularity of such a move, more than 30 states have raised income, sales or business taxes since the recession started……Me talking again…Which one of us wants to be a bad guy and say no to amnesty? To say no to 11 million more people? To say no to their children who have been raised in America and some who even did not know Mom and Dad were in America illegally..None of us wants to be that bad guy…But who wants to say no  to our very own citizens, who have worked and paid for a secure America only to now be losing it. I am sorry my illegal Mexican friends, but we cannot do the amnesty bit and stay solvent….How much is the national debt of Mexico? Can they help us? Looks to me like they are gonna have to or someone is, but who is kidding whom….We have helped almost every nation in the world….I do not expect anyone of them will come forward when we go under…I am not sure that we can turn it around…Is it possible that America is not mentioned in the end times of the Bible because we are no longer a world power? Well, I don’t know, but you have to admit it does make one wonder…..Can eleven million more people really make a difference?…. Jeez, what’s a couple more trillion dollars?

Governor Martinez said she would veto certain stuff and some of the house and senate did not believe her, so she used her line item veto powers to strike through certain monies, etc, trying to be pushed through behind or in a certain bills….Nah, she ain’t gonna let you do that…She said you couldn’t and she ain’t gonna let you pull a fast one. So she will strike that out….Way to go Guv….Snow stuff…It snowed up in Iceland on May 1st. Those folks were upset about it snowing so late. I figured it snowed year round that far north…Guess not. Reckon some of them already had their tomatoes out…Thats bad….Radish stuff…My radishes are not doing well where my son and I put them out…I don’t know, bad soil, too little sun, to many honeysuckle roots…something happens…I planted some seed a week later in my garden space in the back yard and man, beautiful radishes..I put two of them in a salad yesterday. And I still have not seen any orka sticking up its head yet, so I don’t know about all my sons big footed spading, it may have been for naught…..Airport stuff…Don’t plan on landing at the airport near Claunch as I don’t think it is ready just yet. I called for the airport manager yesterday and he still has not returned my call, but I understand the wind sock is not out yet…Don’t try landing there as you really need the wind sock in my opinion. And the condition of the runway is in question at this time as well. I cannot comment further at this time on the airport stuff other than to say I don’t think rental cars are available now….Coal Fire, AL Baptist Church stuff. The 4given Quartet will be appearing there Sunday, June 26, 2011 at 1 PM for a concert. I hope you folks will attend their concert and give them a good Coal Fire welcome. I listened to a sample of their singing on their web site..They are good and I think you will enjoy your Sunday afternoon with them. They are from over ’round Northport…..Well, that’s about all the stuff I can think of right now…Pete   P.S.   Flooding stuff….I forgot, the excess water flowing down the Mississippi, flooding all the towns and fields…How I wish there were a lot of big pumps hooked to a pipe line sending water to Ute Lake, Elephant Butt, Santa Rosa Lake, Brantley Lake and all the other lakes in the area…..Water is a little like money, “some got plenty and others don’t have enough”, huh?…New Orleans looks like it could be in a world of hurt as the flood waters reach Baton Rouge and New Orleans…Let us wish them well and pray for them…..

It has been almost 10 years, but I still miss her…She was a good Mother and she worked hard to provide for me during my school years and I really never understood how little money we had as a family since she made sure I did not lack for anything. I feel sure she sometimes shorted herself in providing for her family…..Mothers all over the world do that and seldom do they ever receive any thanks for it….I loved my Mom so deeply, still do and miss her. Our reunion draws nearer with each passing year…To all of you that have your Mother still with you, shower her with love and hugs and kisses and be thankful she is still with you…..Mothers of the world, God Bless you and thank you for being there for those who call you MOM……Pete Hester

The Kirtland Base Commander got upset with one of the participants in the meeting yesterday when the person stated he felt someone at the base should have known about the fuel leak and indicated a possible cover-up. Mr. Base Commander came back at him rather sharply in his reply……But I say the man is correct in that someone knew about it…. I have spent a portion of my life keeping up with various plant inventories, manufacturing inventories and supply inventories. Simply put, your on hand product plus your incoming product minus your outgoing product equals your inventory on hand. It can be managed to the gnats butt, so to speak, or you can have an daily acceptable allowable plus or minus. Anyway, way before the missing inventory had become 8 million gallons, someone, somewhere on that  base should have known and have reported “we got a problem”. I am sorry Mr. Base Commander, but you owe that man an apology and you attack the mental capacity of all who attended your meeting, otherwise, you are saying ‘”we just did not keep proper records” or better stated, “we did not keep any records”. As I recall your annual usage was several million  gallons  and I don’t believe any federal agency would tolerate such lousy record keeping. Anyway, that’s just the way I see it….. The point really now is Sir, let us get busy cleaning up the mess before we are drinking pure jet fuel…..Please…..

I probably should not tell this story….its on me, Mom and Dad, my brother and sister have passed on, so I guess it will be ok….I was seven or eight years old, my brother was in the Navy serving in World War II. We lived out in the country and we had a post office in the local store in Coal Fire, AL. It was almost time for the mail man to come through and pick up any outgoing mail and Mom wanted me to take a letter to my brother to the store as she wanted it to go off that day. I did not want to. She insisted. I refused. She reached for the peach tree limb she kept in the corner of the kitchen, just for me, and when I saw her reach for it, I ran…I ran fast as I could but Momma was gaining on me….ok, to even things up I decided to climb a water oak tree and I knew that would defeat her…I proceeded to climb, climbing all the way to the top…Having reached the pinnacle  of my destination, I looked to see where my Momma was on the ground…She wasn’t on the ground. She and her peach tree limb were right behind me….There was no where else to go…And all that climbing had really made my Momma mad…..Well, I got one of the worst and hardest whipping a fellow could possibly get….I made all sorts of promises to her there in the top of that tree, including a promise to take the letter to the store and to always go in the future, that I would be a good boy forever and ever….well, you know the story….My Momma loved to tell the story and to tell about the look on my face when I looked down expecting her to be on the ground when she was a couple of limbs away….So, if any of you boys are reading this, don’t run from Momma, especially if she is active and agile….Some lessons are learned better than others and some are unforgetable….Believe me on that…..So, Mothers of the world, Happy Mother’s Day…….

In today’s Business Outlook, Albuquerque Journal, May 2, 2011 there is a nice article about Kirtland Air Force Base and it almost makes me forgive them for polluting our aquifer. Key word, almost, as I think they are dragging their  feet in rectifying the situation. Anyway, back to the nice article. The base employs 20,000 plus jobs in New Mexico and infused about 4 billion into the regional economy in 2010. Now that is a big impact. The article states that of the 21,500 jobs on the base, about half of them are employed by Sandia Labs. Total payroll is 2.2 billion. Wow, I have to invest in a better calculator or learn how to use the slide rule a commentor keeps talking about….(I just never thought I would be discussing billion and trillions and it may go a lot higher before it gets better)…Anyway, back to article…The total impact of Kirtland’s economic impact is about 7.8 billion which includes the counties within 50 mile radius of the base….There are 3389 active duty military personnel, 301 Exchange Service employees, 1131 National guard and reserve members, 3748 civil service employees, 2046 Defense Dept contract personnel and 10,633 national lab employees…Now that’s a bunch of folks…No wonder I had such a had time getting to work when I lived on the east side of town. The article states there are eight gates, but I think most of those folks use 2 or 3 on the north side of the base and mornings are busy, busy, busy over there…..(Retirement is nice……I wait until after nine to go anywhere unless some doctor wants to see me early, which is not often…When given a choice I always choose 10 am or later to stay out of the working folks way. They hate us old folks, driving slow, looking around for the right place to turn, taking 20 seconds to make a right hand turn and in general just being pokey….But they always wave at us with that one finger that is so popular…I think that means, “you are the one” or something like that)…..Ok, back to the article…..How many aircraft would you think that many employees support? It said 30, which to me doesn’t sound like very many compared to the number of people assigned there….I guess there is a bunch of other stuff going on over there, like drilling water wells looking for jet fuel…..I hope they find it soon and get the pumps started, don’t you?…..

The news is very sad coming out of Alabama and the other southern states hit by the tornadoes this week. 238 dead in Alabama the paper stated this morning with another 436 missing….. Unbelievable…..The pictures of destruction is massive….Our prayers are with all you folks trying to dig out from all the wreckage down there in Tuscaloosa…My home town of Reform was not spared either, but no injuries I hear. I  heard from a niece in Reform and she and her family are ok as is her property. Those storms always scared me. My Dad was afraid of storms and my Mom said “if the Lord wants me he will get me in a storm cellar” so she would never go to one. I was torn between Mom and Dad and sometimes would go with Dad, but more often I would stay with Mom. The only time I heard my Mom pray out loud was during a storm in the mid fifties, laying across the bed and the ceiling of the house was opening, dropping dust and dirt on us,  as the wind pulled and tugged on the house. Dairy cans from McShan, five miles away were seen flying through the air. Mom had me in her arms, laying on the bed, praying for our safety. It went over us, thanks be to Jesus, but it made a believer out of me….Believer in prayer, in the power of storms and the need to have some form of protection available. Years later, living in tornado alley in Decatur, Tx, if storms were in the area, I would pace the floor during the night looking in all directions for any signs of storms as sleep for me was impossible. Now, here in Albuquerque, we have a host of problems, but we have never had a tornado, to my knowledge….High winds, blowing dust, electrical storms, droughts, jet fuel in our drinking water, blizzards, atomic bomb blasts, UFO’s, a few ghosts here and there, but no tornadoes…To you folks in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and the other states involved, our prayers are with you…..

I just spoke with a friend in Madison, AL who is without power as are 700,000 plus other folks in northern Alabama he says. He had no property loss either but all of the state is suffering. He mentioned that he had some solar power lights like one puts around their driveway, etc, and is using them to give him some light in his home. He says you can’t use them to read, but at least you can see to get around. Pretty good thinking, huh? He mentioned that he has natural gas to cook and heat his water with, so that is a blessing. He also said folks were advertising for homes to take a shower in. That is so sad, huh? Hopefully, ya’ll will soon have the power restored. My brother used to work for Alabama Power Co and I know that they are hard at work to restore the power to you guys…God bless you.
Click here: http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2011/04/Tuscaloosa-Wide-after.jpg

Youtube.com C Span Rep Ted Poe on foreign aid…..check out this five minute speech..

Hey guys, you might want to read this one also….even if you live in Coal Fire, Alabama you will enjoy this issue. Front page, Surviving the Wild about elk calves in danger from the moment of birth, how its mom leaves it in tall grass for up to four hours with bears, coyotes and cougars looking for a meal all the while. Rangers try and track them down to put a transmitter on them. ….Desert bighorn arrive from Mexico to mix with our present herds as apparently we need new genes in the herd. These Mexican Bighorn are all bulls……Mr. Dennis Chavez had applied for a bighorn permit for the last 51 years and for 50 of those years he did not get his name drawn for the hunts. 51st time was charm and he got a ram that scored 174 on Boone and Crockett standards. Using a .270 Weatherby magnum he set his rangefinder on 339 yards and squeezed off a shot..He missed. The ram ran back up the hill, stopped and turned broadside to him. Big mistake…Mr. Chavez did not miss this time. But the big ram fell and began sliding down a shale slope that could have ended up down in a 500 – 600 foot canyon, but some brush and shrubs stopped it. Nice article and it has a picture of Mr. Chavez and the big old Bighorn shown…..Another article “Set your sights on Walleye Fishing” shows a picture of of Leah Pelletier with her 31 inch, 12 pound walleye she caught at Santa Rosa Lake while jigging at a depth of 50 feet.  Good article here also. Well, I could go on and on with the awesome articles in this issue but why don’t you go to www.wildlife.state.nm.us and read for yourself. Or better yet, load up your gear and camera and come on out to New Mexico. We have a little bit of everything for your hiking, hunting and fishing pleasure and miles and miles of space to do it in….Remember FIRE DANGERS ARE HIGH….CAREFUL WITH MATCHES AND FIRES….