A hodgepodge of stuff

The morning is gray and it’s dark till long after 7 AM. The sun is still an hour away when I walk out across the driveway and listen to the crunch of seeds from the maples under my feet. This year there looks to be a bumper crop of maple seeds and also of pines. The white pine in the back if filled with cones. I’ve noticed that jack pines are also heavy with cones and, when I was down south earlier this summer, the longleaf pines were filled with green cones. The old wives who spin tales warn of a bitter winter ahead and with our economic news I wonder if the abundant seeds may be a sign. Yet, biologists suggest that many trees have developed a pattern of producing large crops of seeds every half dozen or so years as a way for survival. If they produced the same number of seeds every year, the squirrel and bird populations would increase and they’d be no seeds for reproduction. By having an infrequent bounty, they insure that some seeds will survive and make it to the ground where it will have a chance of germinating. At least we’re not seeds, the odds are against them. I hope the biologists are right and the old wives are wrong, for we could do without any more hardship right now.

So far, our fall weather has been pleasant. We’ve only had two brisk mornings that have dipped into the upper 20s (-2 or 3 degrees for your Celsius folks). But that’s supposed to change this weekend and early next week as we get a foretaste of winter. It won't be long till it's time to star waxing skis.

Diane, in her blog, posted a link to a Ron Howard video yesterday. The former child star of Andy Griffith show and teenage star of Happy Days is now a middle-aged director who, like me, is most often seen with a hat. He spoke in favor of Obama. In the video, Howard went back to his character of Opie and talked to Andy, who told him why some people are afraid of change. Then he went and saw the Fonz, from Happy Days, who also spoke in favor of Obama and admitted (with Cunningham's help) that he had been wrong to want to give Bush a chance. The video gave me hope. I know Obama is talking about hope and change, but seeing this video, I have hope not just for change in the country, but change in my hairline. You see, Ron Howard and I share a similar head with very little hair on top. It was exciting to see Howard so easily transformed from a balding old guy to a teenager with a mop of red hair. This is the change I’ve been hoping for! Would it be a violation of election laws if I offered to vote for Obama in exchange for one of Howards toupees? (For information on Howard making this promo, click here.)

Finally, I was looking through my spam email box yesterday, seeing if any messages I wanted got lost there, when I came across the email I copied below (I took out the url). Folks, if you’re going to try to steal my identity and the 28 dollars and 53 cent I may have in a bank (which happens not to be Wachovia), at least get your details correct. Citigroup gave up on buying Wachovia several weeks ago and it’s been sold to Wells Fargo…

WACHOVIA CORPORATION NOTICE.

Citigroup announced a buyout of Wachovia brokered by the FDIC. All Wachovia bank locations will be in the Citigroup merger to prevent failure of Wachovia. The Citigroup/Wachovia would focus on upgrading banks' security certificates. All Wachovia customers must fill the forms and complete installation of new Citigroup Standard digital signatures during 48 hours. Please follow the installation steps below:

Read more>> (url removed)

Sincerely, Winifred Benton.
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