Mid Summer in the Heartland

July 23, 2017

Heat, Rain, and Humidity, have been the calling cards for the Summer of 2017, at least so far...

Back from Brown County, Indiana, and a few days at the yearly Cabin Visit...

While my Back Yard Sunflowers are fewer in numbers than most years....and the colors less Diverse, I still have a few good ones...such as this from this morning:

Baseball is finished for the season, I finished last Monday working the State Championship game at Defiance between the home town team and defending champion Archbold...the Blue Streaks from Archbold defended the title 3-1 while preventing the host Bulldogs from capturing their 12th State Title in High School Summer ball...

Working the Semi Finals at Lima Shawnee on Sunday a massive rain storm arrived as we tried to finish up the second Semi...causing the final game to be moved to Defiance and it's turf field....I worked the 3rd base spot in the 3 man rotation....now a few weeks off before Football begins with my first Varsity Scrimmage slated for August 18th

back later>>>>

 

Just Postin'

Just to let anybody that stops by know....I'm still alive and kicking....baseball umpire work in full swing and not getting out enough on the Dual Sport...but I'm 68 and still alive, at least to this point:

Returned from Covered Bridge Ride in Southern Indiana  August 2016...

March...Out Like a "Lion"?

Actually the Temperatures are normal to a bit above for the past few days...however, the rains have been "way above" normal...and after getting games in to start the season, as well as a few scrimmages, things have gone south....rained out Tuesday, no game Wednesday, rained out last night...and today didn't look good, and Wapak did indeed cancel...however their opponent Fort Loramie{where wife taught for several years back in the late 90s and early 2000s before finishing up her full time career at St Henry} said it's field was ready to go, and despite some rain at this hour, they were planning on playing baseball....so, unless I hear otherwise, I be heading south about 25 miles in about an hour.

Cooler and dryer tomorrow, and it's anyone's guess if Wayne Trace gets their field dried off...I have my doubts...and next week, the rains are not going to abate, it appears....

So that's my Out Like a Lion story for this last day of March...Tomorrow "April Fools" Day....and look no farther than  CNN or MSNBC for all the fools you would ever want to see.

back later>>>>

Never Let a Little Rain

March 20, 2015...

Officially the first day of Spring...and despite the recent cold snap, today is pretty much your garden variety "Spring Day"....heavy rains from 4am till about 8:30 and it was mid 30s..but rain did not turn to Snow...then the sun came out about Noon, and now at 3pm more rain.

I am scheduled to umpire a Varsity Scrimmage at Delphos, some 30 miles north...and just got word that the game is still "on" unless it rains more...well, looking at the Radar...they are about to get "more" ...so will see if the Athletic Director gives me a call or e-mail saying 'Cancelled" ...

That has been my day, since I really have little interest in the NCAA Basketball doings, now that Duke is out and my brackets have been officially "toasted" ... I'll just wait for that call saying

"No Game Today" 

back later...

March Drags On!

After a much warmer than normal February, March has returned to the same old format, Man~Made 'Fake" Climate Change be Damn...March weather in Ohio sucks and Spring, these days, cannot be counted on until June....

So already 4 games{scrimmage cancelled} and more likely will get the same this upcoming week...meanwhile, while I don't like riding in temps under 70, the TW will likely set in the garage for the time being...


Old Ore Road, Big Bend NP, Texas March 2016.....

Turning 68...

Frankly I never thought much about getting this old...but by some Grace of God{not sure why he is keeping me around...punishment perhaps?} I have made it to 68...

Born in Van Wert, Ohio, in the evening of March 16. 1949, the 2nd of what would eventually be four Houseworth kids...the last of the boys and the only remaining son...brother Mike having passed at 69 last May {2016}....sisters Marty and Kelly are younger, Kelly much younger at 54...

We lived in dad's tiny hometown of Scott, Ohio, on the Van Wert-Paulding County Line until 1954 when we headed to Venice on the SW Gulf Coast of Florida for a decade before he decided to come back to Ohio  Why?  I don't know, mom {who turns 93 next month} says it was to be closer to his mom and family...as his luck would have it, my Grandmother Houseworth out lived dad by 2 1/2 years...he passed at 55 on Christmas Eve 1972, while Grandma made it to 91 and April 1975...

I consider myself more than lucky, despite Vietnam, to much beer, and other things ingested during my 20s  and later...and as far as beer, I still enjoy craft beer of  good in Quality in good quanities...Lucky?  Why?  Because here I am, 68 years old at about 5' 10" close to 200 pounds, up a bit over the winter, and I still can get up and down the basketball courts and football fields, as well as umpire Varsity High School baseball at high levels{according to my peers and ratings anyway}...still work close to 200 sports events, still dual sport Motorcycle in the Mountains and Western Deserts...and still, despite some high blood pressure and Diabetes II{? so they say} along with a close call from a stroke on my 63rd birthday....I'm still as active as any 68 year old I know...so damn right I am Lucky!  Because it is nothing I did to maintain my good health, except to stay active and improve my diet, somewhat but not in total, and I still like my beers....along with an occasional hand rolled cigar in the warmer weather months.

I can, I guess, contribute my healthy longevity to never having a desire to smoke freaking Cigarettes ... Cigars?  Hell you don't inhale them, and 30 or 40 a year, when smoked outdoors have, it appears, not affected me one damn bit...If I die tomorrow or in 30 years, I will consider myself lucky...and if I can manage to die outside a Nursing Home, I will consider myself Damn Lucky!

March 16, 2017....

So here I am, 68 years old, all my required baseball and then some, meetings in and Baseball Season, at least my scrimmage season, was scheduled to start today...well with still frostbite temperatures and snow on the ground, ice coming tonight, all game have been cancelled, at least the ones I was slated to do, through the weekend...perhaps next week. will be better, but it's still March, so I'm not banking on it. 

I am more than ready to get out on the Diamond and more than that even,  to get into the garage and get the TW200, purchased 3 years ago this week, ready to roll on the back and dirt roads....I Hate Freaking Winter, and even more than that I Hate Spring, when it refuses to bloom...we had a warm February and you just knew we would pay, and pay we are....

But, like all years, it will come, and Al "No You Don't No Shit About Global Warming" Gore can kiss my ass...man has nothing to do with Climate Change.....and that idiot and the rest of the Climate Gerbils are lying through their collective teeth...Science My Aging Ass!

OK, that's my rant....for my Birthday..

back later>>>>

As You Can See....

I still have not really gotten off my ass and posted much on this soon to be 10 year old blog of late....this will only be the 3rd posting of 2017.

Lots of reasons....

{1} Blogging has taken a lot of hits lately and basically much of them has been replaced by social media commenting on Twitter and Facebook. I use both, especially Facebook,  where I have 300+ plus followers and well over 1000 "Friends"...I was near 2500 but scrubbed the site of those that I really didn't know or non family members who are hard core Liberals...who needs them?  If I wanted to listen to Left Wing BS, I'd tune into MSNBC or watch that faggot Steven Colbert with his massive audience of far left insomniacs, which likely reaches into the high hundreds of viewers....

{2}  I pretty much laid out my past life events, in and out of the Military/Vietnam,  in the 1500 posts I put out the first 6 or 7 years of this blog...you can always go back into my files and history of posts and read those.

{3} The reason I'm posting today?  Baseball umpiring season is set to begin Thursday with a High School Varsity game a few miles south of here....but with snow on the ground, and wind chills at single digits, those early scrimmage and games may be cancelled....it would not be the first time..

So, I am still trying to figure out what to do with this blog....Hell yes I will keep it, maybe someday the  grandsons will want a first hand idea of what Grand Pa did in his early life, I would certainly have liked to have a history of the Ancestors who died before I was old enough to know them, or before I was even born....my Genealogy Research is a excellent source, but hardly like knowing those folks first hand...

For now, I plan on making this like a daily diary from here on out....I did that on paper for about a dozen years beginning in 1991 until I retired at 53 years old in 2002, so perhaps I can pick that up again....so Here We Go!

Tuesday March 14, 2017

Here I am 2 days away from turning 68...frankly I figured out early that if I made it to the new century in 2000 and 50 years old at that point {turned 51 on 3/16/00} I would be a typical Houseworth...most of the Houseworth men don't make it out of their 50s or if they do, they have major health issues getting to that point.  Of the 4 Houseworth Male First Cousins, my brother Mike died last May at 69, 7 months before his 70th birthday, and cousin Gary, who was born a week after Mike, died just before his 62nd BD back in 2008 in our old hometown of Venice, Florida. The fourth, Forest Jr, is in his 50s but I don't have much information on him or his location.  So, turning 68 and being{I think} in excellent health for my age, I consider myself Lucky...and if I pass on anytime soon, I will consider it as, well, as being ahead of the Houseworth Curve.

Snow .... Not so much!

Despite the dire predictions, we here in West Central Ohio receive only about an inch of "White Death"....the cold and winds did come, but without much snow to blow around, I don't consider it much different than most Mid March years I have seen in this part of the world....and considering the warm last half of January and most of February that we had....PRH isn't complaining to much.

Baseball?

Well we will see if I kick the season off Thursday {Scrimmage at St Henry} or not....high predicted in the lower 40s, and worse for the schedule Friday and Saturday...we are usually lucky to get a game or two in before the regular season starts....then you are happy to get 60% or so in before Tournaments begin around May 10th....so Spring gives you sunshine and some warm weather, but most are cold, windy, and with plenty of rain and a snow day or two....that is Ohio, and no Bullshit Man Made Global Warming predictions have ever changed that fact.

So, here we go....we will see what shakes out with the Blogs New Direction.

Back Later>>>>


Photos-PRH in 1977 2014, and Last Spring Baseball Season 2016

2017 The Best Laid Plans

I had planned on working on this blog more in 2017...things in the Blog World have slowed since I began this one back in 2007... and many of the folks I started with have either passed...Sarge Charlie, Buck Pennington, and others, or simply quit or slowed down to a crawl...that is just the way it is, social media has changed and Twitter and Facebook are now King, and have been for the better part of the past decade.

But I will keep this alive, if for no other reason, when I pass on, the words and photos of PRH will still be floating around in Cyber~Space...and the Grandsons and their offspring, if any, might be able to see what a reactionary ass, Grandpa was.

The Changing of the Guard...

First Off...Thank God Obama, his "Wookie" and Company are out of our White House...a long miserable Anti American 8 years is behind us...Trump?  I'm not sure what he will do to improve things...but hopefully he can slow the destruction of the US Republic that the Kenyan has been pushing with the help of the Marxist Media.  I'm not a Trump "True Believer" but I like the way he bashes the Media and Establishment at every turn...hopefully he won't change...the screams of agony from the left is always a joy to hear.

Crazy Weather....

On average, in this part of the world, January 21st is the coldest day of the year....the peak, things, once again on average, get a bit warmer each day between now and July 21st....that average took a beating this past weekend.

Saturday the 21st we saw a High of 63 and yesterday it was up to 64 and neither day saw any rain and various amounts of Sun...today, it's colder and back to wet ... although 45, the predicted high, is still a dozen degrees warmer than average.  "Man~Made Global Warming"?  Sorry Al Gore Fans...that was and still is...Total Bullshit...the earth and climate do change, but "Man" has not a Gawd Damn thing to do with it....it was happening long before we stepped foot on Planet Earth, thanks to God. 

And don't bother arguing with me....because I know more than 99% of you about it...that comes from education and having a brain that I use....without the help of a bias media, and the Fake Science Hucksters that push the BS for money, power, and control, over the rest of us.

Big Bend 2017...

I did get the TW200 Dual Sport out for a quick ride on Saturday and a 15 mile "Shake Down" ride yesterday...the Yamaha is running great and hopefully will be good to go come February 27th when I head for Southwest Texas along the Rio Grande...that is still in the plans, but turning 68 in less than 2 months, who really knows  what kind of plans are going to be fulfilled...I'm just thankful that I have had the last 2 years of riding around the country, from Moab, Big Bend, the Upper Great Lakes, West Virginia, and Southern Indiana, as well as locally, on numerous Dual Sport Rides, without incident...it's been fun getting back in the saddle.

2016....?

Yea, I know, I've still got a couple of looks back at last year....and I will get to them eventually, God and Time Willing!

Back Later>>>

Welcome to 2017 with the Fox on Ice

Been tough getting off the snide and finishing up my look back at 2016....a couple more segments to go, but I will get it done...Just not today!

Before we received a late December/New Year Warm~Up  {which is now gone and replaced with lite snow and wind chills in the Zero Range} ...I did get out to Grand Lake to take my Garden Variety Sunrise/Sunset shots over the lake, at various locations...

On December 28th I was walking out along the Windy Point Jetty, waiting for the first specks of Sun to rise above the eastern lake, when I saw a shadow run out on the frozen lake about 100 or more yards off shore....as I readied the Sony, without a proper lens for wildlife,{after all I was taking sunrise photos}...I pushed the internal zoom to it's max and snapped a few shots of the visitor, a wily Red Fox, who had joined me to watch nature's awaking....

I will return, sooner rather than later, for pats 3 and 4 looking back at 2016

2016....looking back Part #2...Terlingua and Big Bend Texas

As the winter dragged on from 2015 into 2016 one thing was quite evident...this winter was much warmer and less snow filled that the previous bitter and snow filled 14/15 season.  Still it dragged on and I looked forward to getting the TW down south to warmer weather and some good riding in.   March 2015 it was Moab, Utah, with a gang of 3 dozen...this year it would be just five of us.  Nick and I would haul our TW 200s to Big Bend National Park in south Texas...we would  be joined by our Dual Sport Adventure partner out of rural Auburn, Indiana, "Borneo" soon to become "Judge Borneo"...having retired his law practice and at the time running for a local Judgeship{which he would win and takes office January 1st}...Ebbanflood Jim from the outer banks of New York, who was with us in Moab as well, and a new guy to our group, but certainly not to motorcycles...Fort Wayne Gary, the owner of the local Harley dealership in that Indiana City....those 3 would be coming separate and riding larger bikes....

So the first Saturday in March, Nick and I loaded up his Ford 4 x 4 pick up and headed south....no stops overnight, just gas and pee breaks, we would arrive in the infamous Chili Town of Terlingua, Texas, on the north side of Big Bend.

After 30 hours or so of almost non stop driving, we decided a motel and a few beers and a nice long hand rolled cigar smoke would be good before heading into the Park the next day....so Sunday night we crashed at the Chisos Mining Motel in 'Downtown" Terlingua...

We drank a few, smoked a good cigar or two, and finally got a decent nights sleep, before heading into Big Bend the next morning, where we would camp and ride for the next week....except for one night with the other 3 at the Chisos Mountain Lodge{You can see the view, called "The Window"...one of the shots I took from the Restaurant walk way at the top of this post}.

All in all the 8 or 9 days went well...no accidents, plenty of riding, and frankly a few rides I didn't complete, which is why I will return this February and March, well at least that this the current plan.

More photos of the week at Big Bend Below.....

We would return the following week to Ohio, where flooding rains had caused a mess at my place and others....but knowing there was nothing that could be done if I had been home, I was glad to be gone for those 10 days or so....

Back to reality and part #3 coming up next.....

2016 in Review....Part #1

This will be my 11th and likely last series of 2016 postings{this is likely to go 3 or maybe 4 entries}...since I started this blog back in July of 2007 I have posted as many as 264 times {2008}per year and that dropped to 53 last year, and frankly blogs had started to die off....I have fought to keep this one, but even my interests had changed to social media outlets like Facebook....despite the fact I despise some of the stuff there and especially despise the owner, Mark Suckenberg...a left wing turd to the Nth degree...I hate the fact that I may be contributing to his massive and not earned wealth...but WTF?  Until somebody on the Right Side comes up with a equal or better outlet...Facebook will remain my main place to get political and other items off my chest....I will however keep plugging away on this Blog, however un~frequent it may be.

Looking Back at 2016...

As 2015 turned to January of the New Year...I spent my usual Bowl Bash at my best friend Rick Pearson's place in NE Indiana....beer{too much} food {way too much} and TV football{yeah, too much of that as well}...the Winter of 2015-16 proved to be one of the more mild and snowless seasons in many years...I only got the Snow Machine out twice...and even then not for more than 3 inches of the white stuff...I, frankly, just wanted to make sure the machine was working in fine fashion.

Nick and I did get the Dual Sport Yamahas' out on one too cold to ride day in January...maybe 30-33 degrees as we rode the back roads to Sidney, Ohio...froze our asses off...real stupid for two old farts:

February was mostly officiating Basketball, much like January and December....I figured out long ago that Basketball was my least favorite sport to officiate...a distant 3rd behind Baseball{by far my fav} and Football...probably comes from the fact that although I was a damn good baseball player, could play football{not that well} but I really sucked at roundball....

Anyway as we froze, we started making plans for another TW Dual Sport Adventure Ride....2016 would not be as intense as 2015 when we hit Moab, Utah{March}, the Great Lakes{July/Aught} and West Virginia and Southeast Ohio{early November}...This March we wanted to stay warm...or at least I wanted to ride in warmer weather...we had lucked out the year before...I wanted to "Luck Out" again in 2016.

March 2016...Big Bend National Park, and Terlingua, Texas....

Plans came together to ride Big Bend along the Southern Texas/Mexican Border...we would meet up with Kurt the Judge, Fort Wayne Harley Guy Gary, and Jim from the New York Outer Banks of the Atlantic....they would either ride or in Jim's case ship their larger rides to Austin and then ride and hook up with Nick and me at Big Bend/Rio Grande Village Campsite.  Nick and I would load the TWs into the back of his Pick~Up and haul them the 1600 miles out of Celina.

Like the old fools we are, we drove straight through to Terlingua where we grabbed a motel and smoke cigars and downed beers before we got on the road south into the National Park the next morning...

Big Bend would be the first of only 2 "Major Rides" of 2016.....and photos from the Texas ride will be forthcoming in Part #2

Back Later>>>>