State Champ 6 Year old BMX

My niece, Rylie Elkin, is the 6 year old state champion of Girls BMX in Texas!
She is the tall one in the picture.

Our bananas

About every two years, we have a bunch or two of bananas on our banana trees. They don't get very big, and aren't very sweet.

Pics taken at flea market

Today, the wife and I went to a local flea market. Just wandering around I took a few nice shots.

Random photos from this summer

New Ebay link

If you are interested in my Ebay sales items, I have added the new Ebay widget at the bottom of the page. There you can see what I have up for auction. I sell old tools mainly, but anything I find that might be sellable is game. Scroll down through everything else to find it.

Another spider

I don't know what kind of spider this one is, but I was captivated watching it build a web. As usual, click on the pic for a larger view.
I took a few more shots of stuff around my sister's house this morning, also.












A few days later , I shot another banana spider.

Santa Fe Depot, Alvin, Texas

September 1, I was dressed up as a railroad engineer participating in my home town's celebration of the 100 year anniversary of our Santa Fe depot.

I displayed some of my railroad wrenches and other railroad antiques. I had fun showing the tools and playing engineer! They wouldn't let me drive the little kiddie train, though!

My wife had just bought me a switchman's lantern three days before and I displayed it proudly.

Banana Spider

These guys make huge webs to catch bugs for lunch. Many people have hurt themselves getting away from or untangled from webs. They don't hurt anyone. (Click picture for larger view)
Golden Silk Spider

Photos from Moody Gardens

My wife and I went to Moody Gardens in Galveston, Texas this past Sunday.
Visit the website here
They offer several attractions, including an aquarium, a rainforest pyramid, a discovery pyramid, an Imax theatre, a beach, and a paddlewheel boat trip.
I took a lot of pictures, so I will post some of them here.

Photos of fungi

I have been helping a friend relearn photography. We got him a Canon A-1 camera off Ebay and he has taken a few shots, but tells me there is nothing to shoot around his house! I have told him he can get top quality shots of anything, even junk!
My wife pointed out some really nasty looking fungi on some old logs in our back yard, so I went out and grabbed some pics. What do you think?
Double click on the image and you can see a much larger view, but be careful, the images are quite large!

I am adding some pics I took a few weeks ago at and near his house.

My son Patrick's wedding to Jess Hood

 

These photos were taken by me, my grandson Sabastion , and my friend Neal Moorehead. Enjoy!

My son Patrick's wedding

Saturday was the big day for my son Patrick and his wife Jess! They got married!
I will produce a Photoshow of the wedding as soon as I can sort through the hundreds of shots taken by me, my grandson Sabastion, and my buddy Neal Moorehead.

Wedding rehearsal

My son Patrick is getting married June 2nd, to Jess Hood at Oakwinds Bed and Breakfast in Alvin, Texas. Here is a photoshow of the rehearsal.

 

A couple more for now

Chair pattern
Still life
Rose in glass

Pics with new camera June 1, 2007

Oak tree
Fern
Still Life

Papawswrench calendar

I recently stumbled on Lulu.com a self-publishing service and my first item to publish is a 2008 calendar with photos of some of my wrenches in my collection. I think you can preview it by clicking the link on the right sidebar.
I won't make much money with these efforts, it is really just "vanity" publishing. I hope to make more calendars and possibly some photo books in the future, as my photo skills revive themselves from years of neglect.

Alvin, Texas Historical Museum

Our museum opened yesterday, May 20, 2007, after many years of work by many volunteers. It has been a long process, but worth all the effort.

“You don’t want to miss the dramatic life-size birch wood carving of Alvin Morgan, his dog and his goose. They went everywhere together,” Brothers said. Alvin is named for the colorful and much-loved Morgan.

as reported in the Brazosport Facts newspaper.

The ribbon Cutting was performed by Gary Appelt, Mayor of Alvin, Miss Cleo Congady, President of the Museum Society, and Tommy Peebles, head of Accessions for the museum.

The Museum is in the old Post Office building in Alvin, Texas.
Here is a photoshow of the opening-

View full size

Changes to Randomview

I am tired of playing around with politics. I am going to start posting some of my photography here, now that I have a new camera and will be taking more pictures.
First is an old stump in my back yard.
Next is Gracie, a grand niece.
Next is my 12 year old Dalmation, Freckles.

More good news from Iraq

Our media does not want to tell us about the good things happening in Iraq. In January this year, Condi Rice made a statement , explaining the need to build up Iraq and provide its people with independence. If this was reported , I missed it somehow .

For some provinces of the country, that independence has been achieved. Setting a milestone on July 13, 2006, Muthanna became the first province to transition its security to Provincial Iraqi Control (PIC). The second province to transfer authority was Dhi Qar on September 21 and An Najaf on December 20. Most recently, Maysan transferred authority on April 18.



But the government in these areas is still in its fledgling stages. Having spent so much time under the Saddam-controlled central government, many officials in provinces such as Dhi Qar and Muthanna are learning how to manage and provide essential services for the people in their areas.



That’s where the Provincial Reconstruction Teams come in. The PRTs exist as a civil-military effort, which in many places become the number one interface between U.S. and Coalition allies and Iraqi provincial governments.

These provincial reconstruction teams are rebuilding Iraq daily, but all we hear is about suicide bombers and soldiers being tried for doing their jobs. Our soldiers are much better than the Left would want us to believe and they deserve our support.

Richard Riley, the deputy team leader of the Italian-led Dhi Qar PRT, said there were four areas in particular from the President's New Way Forward plan the PRTs were focusing on to build capacity within the Iraqis themselves.

"[We need to] bolster the moderates in government of the provinces where we work," he said. "Another is foster reconciliation across the political lines around the province. Develop the economy to the degree that we can by advising the government in economic development. The fourth is to develop the capacity of the government in the province to perform its functions as a government.”

Readers should go to cent.com and read the article.


Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Iraq

Our Peace-keeping Mission

On The Elitist Pig , Dave Nalle hits the nail on the head about our involvement in Iraq. The actual war ended 4 years ago, and we have been conducting a peace-keeping mission since then all by ourselves practically.

Contrary to the popular spin, the war in Iraq ended just about 4 years ago this month. We went in, fought Saddam's army, defeated them, killed his raping maniac sons, captured the Beast of Baghdad himself and neutralized Iraq's potential to make trouble in the region and around the world.

I have to agree with Dave on this.

All this time various groups have found it politically advantageous or convenient to keep calling what's going on in Iraq a war, and there's certainly plenty of fighting going on to make it look like one. But what's absolutely not going on there is a war between the United States and Iraq. Putting aside our conflict with al Qaeda, our main role in Iraq for the last four years has basically been babysitting - we've been keeping the peace. We've been doing the job the UN was made for, without their support and without the support of most of the nations which ought to be in there risking their soldiers to try to sort out the chaos so that Iraq can survive long enough to stand on its own.

I have had these same thought, but have not been able to express them as well.

Someone is going to have to have a hell of a lot of troops in Iraq for years to come. If we continue to allow the situation there to be presented as a war, it's likely to be us going it alone for much longer than we'd like. No one wants to join in and help out with an unpopular war. Only by affirming and publicly acknowledging the transition from war to peace mission which really took place almost 4 years ago are we going to be able to move forward and do what needs to be done there and do it with the support of the American people and the international community who should have been there with us from the start.