Boom and Burn in the Heartland

An industrial solvents plant on the north side of Des Moines blew up this afternoon. Everyone in the plant got out safely, but the plant burned all afternoon and is still burning at 10 p.m.. Burning barrels of solvent were shot into the air all afternoon 200 feet up, looking like scuds flying in the Gulf War. The scene will be a local legend for a long time. And this evening a guy who worked in the plant contends that 200 barrels of solvent were supposed to be stored in the plant--but at least a thousand were actually inside. So there will be regulatory issues as the whole story is uncovered. I missed all this this afternoon, because I came home from work this afternoon and went to bed and found out about all the excitement when I got up and turned on the local 6 p.m news.
That is the big event around here. Also, the Bears, and Nebraska got beat this weekend, and Kalamazoo College lost their Homecoming game last week to Wisconsin Lutheran, but the Maryville Spoofhounds and the Northwest Missouri State Bearcats won their games. The Red Sox won the World Series. And seven college kids were killed in a fire in a beach house they were sleeping in in South Carolina. And a guy was electrocuted Sunday night in Des Moines while trying to steal copper wire from a live power line.
This is going to be all for right now. My own life this weekend has had little drama in it--sleeping, going to the grocery store and the second hand store, and watching TV, and exploring the internet, and fighting the local traffic. Sometime I should compose a blog entry for posterity on interesting websites I have found. So, you all take care, and I will return with more stuff in the near future. Di di mau!

PreDawn Blog Attack

Ha ha--clever title for this entry. It came from my memory bank of memories of predawn mortar attacks in the Mekong delta way back when. Am up at 5 a.m. after a Friday night sleep session(no partying on Friday night) due to a bad sinus plugup I have had all week. Have spent much of this week with lowlevel flu or whatever it is, and the sky has been dark and gloomy every day, and real winter will arrive some time in the near future, and with all the goofy weather the US has been having we may get a long cold icy and snowy season. That Is Nature, but every fall I get more and more in favor of long warm summers. Wow, this is a cheerful entry. Where is the happiness? I guess I will have to find it or create it.
Have been looking at webnews about the San Diego fire storms of the past week, and found out that at least 270 acres of Ft. Pendleton burned. I was in the San Diego area for a visit in 1975, mostly going up and down the freeways, so what I saw of the area way back then was seen from inside a car, but what the people are going through in the region is much bigger than our disaster in the heartland--the '93 floods. Even if the people involved are very rich and their houses were very expensive, let us forgo any of that sanculotte gunk about how they deserve what they got. I've read a few comments in blog postings saying that--but idiots are a given in the world.
Also, I am spending way too much time in front of the screen, finding interesting websites of a serious information nature. Have been bookmarking local TV station sites, military sites, and US govt sites. I'm still a little rankled at a newspaper article I read relating that some college professors surveyed said that real intellectuals do not look at the internet because it is just a toy for the masses (singling out Republicans, Christians, and teenagers). I am more and more glad that I got far away from the college world decades ago.
After this griping and moaning I have been doing so far, I am going to close for right now. I need to wash my body for my Saturday morning search for something Happy out there in the world, and I will probably look for a few more websites. So, this will be It for now. Di di mau.

Blog in the Dark of an Autumn Night

Here we are at 1 a.m on an October Saturday morn after a long sleep on Friday night to try to get rid of a bout of flu or whatever I have had for several days. Sinus plugup, sore back and butt, and general weariness that has made me very sleepy. Yes, while others party on Friday night I have gotten into a habit of going to bed early and catching up on sleep after having to make my body clock adjust to getting up at 2 a.m all week. I suppose that at least 50 percent of Americans are up working at nighttime hours, so there should be no Poorme on my part, but I am beginning to appreciate the routine of sleeping at night as Nature intended. But then when I have time at night to sleep I spend too much time in front of the laptop, exploring websites.
It has been cold and cloudy and rainy in the heartland all week. I assume that winter and snow and sleet and ice will arrive in a few weeks. But the Groundhog will come out on Feb. 2 and then spring will be just around the corner.
I am beginning to get as overwhelmed by the number of websites online I want to explore as I get overwhelmed by the number of books available at the local bookstore that all probably have info I can use, but my budget keeps me from dropping 30+ bucks for a single book, so I guess my quest for knowledge will have to be centered on websites, which is acceptable, despite the hatred of the internet by intellectuals and college creatures.
Joey Bishop, Teresa Brewer, and Deborah Kerr have all died in the last couple of days. Kerr especially got lousy coverage on celeb TV. She was a great actress and beautiful, and her movie career was first class, but no one in the showbiz (Norville et al) TV world seemed to know much about her life and career. As usual Brit S. got all the news coverage, along with Degeneres and her dog troubles. RIP Deborah--we loved you.
There is an interesting story in the Drugereport via Breitbart that the Chinese are planning to send 14 men into space to the space station. There is a rule that any legal group in China has to include three Communists. And a Chinese official has a comment on what a spiritual mystic experience Chinese Communism is. It sounds like something said by Madame Mao. It would be an interesting topic for a polysci class to study; Communism as a spiritual experience.
I am going to close this blog for right now. The fingers are not working well, and I need to go back to bed, or get into some more news sites. Hopefully I will have something incredible to offer next time we meet. I hope I do not feel so sagbag and am healthy and chipper next time. Di di mau!

Blog on a Dark October Saturday Night

A gloomy wet night in the season before winter gets here. Exciting Nascar race tonight. The news can be found in Drudge and numerous other news websites. Jane Wyman and Alice Ghostly both passed away in the last month. There is an interesting article in MSN about how babyboomer-aged people do not read the internet (the article centered on a bunch of college-types at the U of Iowa). Well, I peruse the internet with great devotion.
A friend died the other day and I went to his funeral this afternoon. He planned his funeral which was a rocknroll-Packers-Masonic ceremony. As seems to happen in life we had drifted away from one another for several years, and had not gotten together for a long time. Now he is gone and I wish we could have gotten together before he died of cancer, and all I have now are the memories of good times we had when we were buddies. Chuck, I will miss you and we had some good wild times.
There is some stuff online about a bio due out soon about Charles Schultz, detailing what a miserable human being he really was. And I am part way through a big bio by Hamby relating what a lier and incompetent Harry Truman was. And I found a new book at Borders' contending that no one who has ever written Anything about World War 2 knew what they were talking about. So much for the fun of reading.
But I did find out that the crumbling old hotel in my hometown was once a hideout for Jesse James and there was a secret passage behind the wall in the room he always stayed in that he could use to get out of the hotel. Ma said that Grandpa had heard the stories about the room and the passage, but I had never heard of it. Now I know some town lore.
The Nascar drivers have been wrecking all night at Lowes'.
This has not been a Fun week, so I this is not a happy blogging tonight. So, you take care, and I will try to have some more stuff the next time I hit the keys. Di di mau!

Blogging during Prison Break

Great October night--not too hot and not too cool, after record-setting hot temperatures all over the country yesterday, and high humidity for the last several days. Last Monday there were a couple of nasty tornadoes that tore up a couple of farm towns east of Des Moines, and in DM that afternoon there was a really strange catagory 1 minitornado that smashed up some cars in the local airport parking ramp. One guy died in the heat in Chicago running the Chi Marathon and about 400 runners passed out. Saturday night a 20 year old town cop killed 6 teenagers in a house in north Wisconsin, and then he killed himself or was shot in a shootout. The news is still developing on this tragedy. TV Guide had a little obituary of Flower, the head Mama Meerkat, who was bitten by a snake. Denver Broncos got pounded awful yesterday by San Diego, and The BEARS pulled off a 27-20 win over the packers. Ha ha. There was a riot in Denver at a Columbus Day parade between a bunch of NatAms and ItalianAms. I found a Samoan news website which mentioned that at least 6 Samoan soldiers have been killed in Iraq this year (nothing in the MSM about things like this). Looking up UK news online I found that Mr. Speaker Weatherill of the House of Commons had died in the spring at age 86. He was the first Speaker we got to see on CSpan, wearing his wig. A couple of obits of his detailed how much trouble he had with PM Thatcher. A guy in Des Moines grew a 1600 lb squash-a world record. Much more world news and more prominent people have passed on recently, but I need to do more perusing of newssites to collect more news. And Pavarotti passed away in July, and left 3 different wills, which is giving Italian lawyers headaches. I am going to avoid trying to rehash the Spears and Lohan doings of the last month or so. I had a discussion with an amigo about whether celeb antics should get so much news coverage. Moi contends that this kind of stuff is the stuff of human behavior and can be studied to learn the ways of human beings. Oh, one more thing; the Weekly World News went out of business last month. Now we will have no more news about Bat Boy, and the world's fattest cat, and the 300 lb Japanese baby, and the space alien who has been hanging around DC for years. On the Young and the Restless Victor and Nikki are getting divorced again, and on General Hospital Lulu has moved in with Jason and Spinelli. Luke will probably hit the fan when he finds out. So far on Prison Break this p.m one guy has gotten his throat cut and one guy has been shot in the head.
This is going to be all for right now. I have to get ready for the dirty Charlie show on CBS. I am trying to get my living organized to get more blogging done more often, but in about an hour I have to get housework done and then go to bed. So, you all take care. Di di mau!