Folks,

I don't know if you had the same experience as I did yesterday? My official HWH ATV kept running into a road block every time I tried to get in here. Whatever the problem was it was apparently so dastardly and heinous that only the admin. were deemed strong enough to view it, or so said a statement that kept popping up on my screen.

All is well today, the bright sparks who lurk behind our screens have saved the day once more and I thank them for their effort. A day without my HWH fix can be painful and longer terms unendurable.

Today is the big day. The annual after Christmas bargain sale down at the Lizard Lick refuse dump is already well under way. This is the one day in each year that the highly trained and over-worked Sanitation Engineering and recycled materials sorting staff sell off all the artificial Christmas trees they have picked up on their rounds. You can find some real bargains. Traditions die hard around here and some folks continue to throw out their Christmas trees after the holidays are over even though this is unnecessary because they are of the artificial variety. The trees, not the people are artificial, that is.

I'd be down there fighting the crowds right now however the weather is threatening and I already have a stack of trees for my own use.

Only about 20 shopping days left until Groundhog Day here in the US. That is the singular day in the year that we pay any attention whatsoever to rodents who claim to predict the weather. I am unaware if there are any statistics posted anywhere regarding the reliability of these forecasts. These fuzzy critter prognostications generally take the form of six more weeks of good or bad weather.

Which one of the two possible predictions seems to be dependent upon whether the animal in question can see his or her shadow when arising from a toasty burrow on February 2nd. If I can find those statistics, and if they should prove to be favorable to the rodents, I'll whisk off an e-mail to the local weatherman suggesting that he might improve his own dismal record by trying the same technique. All of the Oija board crowd missed the forecast for today which indicated gale-force winds and a deluge of Biblical proportions. Mercifully, though I donned my wet suit, frog fins, and swim mask, and anchored my ass to a stout tree in anticipation of a wind driven flood, none of that has so far materialized. We received only .7" of rain with a good breeze. Sorry chaps, close only counts for much in a game of horse shoes.

I wonder what or whom Dux is up to?