I'm at work and taking care of all kinds of problems due to the storms around here. I work at our local utility company at night in the computer room. You name it and it goes wrong when the wind blows, it snows, rains, fogs or someone sneezes on some fiber optics in another state. We blame a lot of our problems on chipmunks and the wires. Things happen around here that never get a definitive resolution. It's just the way it is with the computer world. I'm making phone calls and receiving phone calls and my co worker is muttering about "how do they know how many people died?" And then she proceeds to say something about a big flea market type sale that goes on there. I ask "where?" and she replies "Clarence Center". I continue fixing problems in Perry and Hornell and happen to glance up at my newscast that I usually keep up for the weather radar and see that a plane has crashed in Clarence Center and that 49 people have perished. On a good day, Clarence Center is probably a little over an hour away from here. I have to pass through there this weekend to go to Stagecoach West. It's probably the only real tack shop around here that sells everything for your horsie needs. Back to the plane, I hope and pray that there isn't anyone that I know on that plane. And I hope and pray that no one suffered on that plane or whomever was hurt on the ground. My prayers are with all the families/friends of the victims of this disaster.

I don't fly. I don't like it. I have done it a number of times and I have never had any good luck with it. My first flight was to New York City and the flight there was fine. On the way back, we hit turbulence that was so bad it actually bumped us out of our seats. I went to Texas and the flight there was uneventful. On the way back, we had turbulence but not as much as when I got to the airport to find that my fiance' didn't show up to get me. He couldn't because his new girlfriend wouldn't let him. Good riddance to bad rubbish. The very last time I flew was for work. I didn't have a very good feeling about this as the day I was flying we had 60 mile an hour winds and the wings on the airplane kept tipping as I was trying to board it. It was a little prop job and my seat was in the very back of the plane and it was in the middle of the aisle. The very last seat was a bench seat and I was stuck in the middle of it. The stewardess was serving drinks and we were in so much turbulence that she never got to serve the back half of the plane before the pilot made her belt herself in. We were going to Philadelphia and I was so violently ill by the time that we got there that I almost rented a car to get back home. The gentleman that I was traveling with to the site told me that he had never been on a worse flight. I told him of course, I was on that plane. Fortunately, the way home was uneventful. But I hate flying and I avoid it at all costs.

Now back to the stagecoach trip. I went 2 weeks ago to purchase a girth for a Wintec endurance saddle. It needs a western girth and my horse measured for a 35 inch girth. Of course, they sell them in even number increments so I hmmm'd and hawwed to figure if I should get a 34 or 36 to fit this ox. I asked the horsie people around me and they all said to go with the 34 inch. Guess what? My horse looks like a fat guy in a little coat. I have to go back for the 36 and wish they made them in 38's. I guess I didn't realize how big he is. He's not fat, he's solid. But seeing as I wasn't putting the horses out in the wind and rain today, I hung out with them in the barn this morning and they seemed to enjoy having me there. So I tried to de-mung some of them and I played around with some tack and just enjoyed the crunching and munching of my beloved animals enjoying their breakfast.

On another note, the bloke from horstralia posted on his blog today that a bunch of folks all set out with horse trailers to see if there were any horse survivors in Victoria and they walked into the burnt out brush and came back with about 15 horses!!! All alive and happy to be found!!! A little singed but nothing compared to what was around them. Have I mentioned that the horse is God's favorite animal? The horse is mentioned more times in the bible than any other animal. Have I mentioned that the word bible means "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth"?

Have I mentioned that I have to get back to work? Ciao