"If you saw a heat wave, would you wave back?" - Steven Wright

The bad news: it's 3:30 a.m. and I've been wide awake for almost two hours.
The good news: I've got two loads of laundry in process, the printing for Sunday done, and a couple of miscellaneous (and quiet) chores done.
One of those chores was cleaning up the coffee grounds that exploded onto the floor when I opened the new can. Oops.

Yesterday Pam and I went to the Arabian Horse Show in Scottsdale. For $7 each (it saves to be a senior) we spent about three hours looking at some beautiful horses doing very specific things in competition. I'd love to tell you more, but I don't know.

They need to make that event more user-friendly for the non-horsey person. We watched competitions between different classes, with riders in different get-ups, on different saddles doing different gaits, but beyond that I was mostly confused. Trot, lope, walk, canter, back up (that one I knew)... Why did a particular class do some and not the other? Yeah, I could look it all up online, but I'm not that motivated. So mostly we enjoyed looking at some beautiful animals and their riders.

The way the place is set up you can walk right up to them as they go from barns to show ring. Arabians aren't as big as some horses I've been around but I don't think I've seen any more beautiful.

In addition to the main indoor ring there are two or three smaller outdoor rings, one of which had a competition of yearlings. Energy! and, I'm guessing, a whole lot of $$$$ on the hoof.

We enjoyed it all.

And we'll go back to that same venue a week from now for the (free!) dog show that is advertised as the biggest in the southwest. It's a 5-day event but Pam's work schedule next week means we can only go Saturday when the crowds will be the biggest. That's OK. We enjoy dogs and they say this event is very user-friendly, with lots of opportunity to talk to the various breeders and have contact with the dogs.

My younger brother sent me this video. I like the song and later in her version she goes to town on that bass.
It's All About the Bass

I'm not at all happy with the way the truck's hood turned out. The cab was my first attempt at painting and it went much better. Then again, the hood is one large, mostly flat surface whereas the cab's shape is so complex that maybe it just doesn't show my total lack of skill as much. In my head I know I can't expect my first paint job to be professional quality, and that from 6' it's gonna look fine. But I'm still irritated and it doesn't boost my confidence for the front fenders or truck bed.

I'm a news junkie, so election season - even this early in the cycle - is like the playoffs for a sports fan. I continue to search for good, objective coverage online and continue to be disappointed. The major sites (CNN, USAToday, the network sites) are shallow and bland. The other option seems to be sites with a clear bias at one end of the spectrum or the other that obviously skews their coverage. But I may have found one that digs deeper than the standard fare and is more objective than Fox or The Beast. So far I'm enjoying what I read at Politico, and that I see them quoted elsewhere gives them some cred.

The dryer just buzzed so it's time to switch laundry around.
When Pam gets up in three hours she'll be so impressed with my productivity!
And I'll be ready for a nap.