Cowboy’s on his way home, and the last stop turned out to be the one that did it. He’s dragging home a five-year old red roan gelding. Somehow, I knew he was going to bring a roan home, and before he left, I teased him about it. Sure enough, he says this one’s a ringer for Jack. But the only name that comes off the registered name is Frosty, and I don’t like that without even seeing the horse. Sounds too much like a kid’s pony with that name. We’ll have to see if that sticks. We may end up with a “Roany” after all, although that’s like naming Palomino horses “Yellow”: boring.

He should be somewhere in Arizona or Nevada about now, but he’s not in cellular coverage, so I really don’t know. I expect him back late tonight.

•••••

So, we were minding our own businesses in chat last night, and some asshole comes in and completely shut us down. Strange and stupid MIDI music came out of my speakers, and when I exited the room to come back in, I was banned. What the hell? I shut down the computer and tried to restart it, but it took a couple of tries. I was afraid that somehow this dickless wonder managed to hack into my computer and mess with stuff, but I ran a scan and everything seems to be normal.

I didn’t know this could be done, but what’s more baffling is why? It’s about on the same level as telling people who can or cannot get married, or what they can do in the privacy of their own homes, as far as I’m concerned. I guess some people are just stupid that way.

•••••

Still no truck either. I got a sad phone call from the service guy—I guess the mechanic had locked the invoice in his toolbox and left for a training class on the day they had promised me it would be done. That service guy seems really nice, but that might just be the contrast to the mechanic. I should get it today at least. I’m so looking forward to paying that bill.

•••••

When my Mom had the boys for their annual spoiling, she bought them some sugar cereal for breakfast. Fine with me; it was their vacation, after all. But she sent the box back down with them because she doesn’t eat it and it would just go stale.

Now, I don’t usually buy them sugar cereal, but part of the reason is because I eat it if it’s in the house. So guess what I had for breakfast? You got it. And now I’m on a sugar buzz so bad that I can’t stop my hands from shaking like a crack addict, and I feel a little queasy. Of course, that could also be the antifreeze I spilled on my hands this morning topping off the green truck. That stuff absorbs through skin, doesn’t it?

(Crap, I just looked up ethylene glycol in my book—yes, shaking and probably this morning’s asthma attack could be due to that. Duh! But I feel better now; it was only a little bit anyway.)

•••••

OK, enough disjointed ramblings for now. I get lazy on Fridays.

•••••

OK, Nance, a bio page, just for you. Smartass!

My name is Jules, but you can probably figure out what that derives from, and which I usually go by anyway. I’m 35 at the moment, divorced, with two kids, and options on two grown kids.

John: he’s ten, kind of a skinny squirt, and smarter than he really needs to be.

Seamus: he’s six, and my Irish throw back kid.

I have them every other week. On the opposite weeks, Cowboy (my wonderful boyfriend) has custody of me. I say I live in two places because for all practical purposes, I do. I get mail at both houses anyway. I just don’t like the idea of moving the kids in with a boyfriend, and besides, then their commute gets doubled. We’re happy with our arrangement.

Cowboy’s got two boys too: Chris, who’s 20 and lives with us, and Chad, who’s 21 and doesn’t. They may not be mine, technically, but they’re family anyway. Well, at least the one is; I don’t know Chad all that well since he never comes around and is always fighting with Cowboy.

We do a lot of horse stuff as a family, although my kids aren’t really into it. Chris and Cowboy are both roping on the State rodeo circuit, and do a lot of jackpot team roping the rest of the time. I don’t rope yet, although I’m starting to get the bug. I do a lot of support; rodeo-mom type stuff. Yeah, it’s like a soccer mom, except there are cattle to feed and horses to warm up and cool down. They don’t really need me to do it, but it keeps me entertained and moves things along faster with more hands.

Besides the horses (of which there are many, but not always the same ones every day), we’ve got three dogs; Bailey, the red heeler that belongs to Chris, and my two border collies, Angus (at the top of the page) and Jessie. Jessie’s pretty useless, but the other two are good dogs. Oh, and the goat, Elvis. He’s slightly less useless than Jessie, because at least he keeps the grass down in the backyard. And the shrubs.

I’ve got a full time job doing a sort of constructiony-environmentally inspectory type thing. Also, I have a teeny, tiny small business of my very own doing sundry water related things. No, I’m not a plumber. I don’t have the ass for it!

There! You happy?

Oh, how cool is this?

This site has USGS aerial photos and maps for much of the country, and it’s searchable.

Here’s Cowboy’s house.

It’s the funny foot-shaped plot in the middle. Straight north of where the buildings are shown will be the little pasture, and that’s where my garden is now. The bare area in the photo is already equipment yard. The dark spots are the eucalyptus trees. South of the buildings is where the arena and horse barn are going. The west side of the plot is in cotton now, for the last year, and will be fenced pasture next year.

Here’s my house, although it’s marked wrong. I’m the next one to the east. Yes, it’s a little town, but I’d rather live in this one.

This is where I grew up. None of those roads on the far west side of the photo were there when we were kids. That park was just barely a park, and west of it was a giant abandoned vineyard that we used to play in.

And here’s work.

OK, here’s the thing. I’ve been reading online diaries, blogs, journals, and whatnot for a couple of years, and for the last year or so, a thought has been tickling the back of my head. Why can’t I do this? I’m competent at the writing, I think. At least, I can write comprehensible technical documents, and I even make the effort to keep those from drying up and blowing away. So I’m going to lay out some of my concerns and doubts right off the bat, and hope that every once in a while I can remember to come back to the first page and refresh my memory.

What do I want to do with it?

- Well, for one, I guess I’d like to use this thing as a creative outlet. I’m sure my friends don’t always want to hear me dumping on them about the same old things, and for now this can be my outlet for that.- I’d like to keep it clean and coherent enough to use it to keep in touch with my moving-to-Colorado sister. Not so clean that I want Mom or Dad to stumble across it though. That would border on the boring. My life’s not all that exciting that it can hold up to that kind of censorship and still be readable.  

- I’d like to document this road I’m traveling down with the Cowboy. We do some really interesting things, things that I always wanted to do. Now that I finally am, I’d like to be able to remember how I felt about them. This is going to involve a lot of names and places that I may or may not change.

What do I want to stay away from?

- I’d like to not be totally boring. This is my life, after all, and I don’t think it’s boring. If it comes across as that then I may have to take a cold hard look at my writing style.- I’m torn about the pseudonyms and anonymity. I think I’d like my sister and my best friend to be able to look at this site, but I’m not sure. I can’t remember the last time I even thought badly about either of them, but what if something’s misinterpreted? Do I want to risk that unpleasantness?  

- I have no doubt that a lot of my opinions, politics, and hobbies are not going to jive with a lot of people. There just aren’t a whole lot of rednecks on the internet, and I know damn well that I’m going to be in the minority here. I’d like to not let that bother me. It doesn’t bother me in real life; I just go on living my life, so I’m not exactly sure why it would here.

- And lastly, I’m completely new to this HTML junk. I’d like to not fuck it up too badly. I’m not crossing my fingers on that one.

And with that, here goes. Maybe it will be interesting. Maybe not. I’ll figure that out as I go along.