Hits and misses

In no particular order, just as you'd expect:

• Middle son got his College Station acceptance letter over the weekend.  His dad is proud.
• Great weather the past two nights - slept on the deck watching the clouds roll overhead.
• Super Bowl this weekend.  Meh.
• Romney wins Florida, then places foot in mouth.  I thought he was more disciplined than that.
• If a woman offered to meet me at a bar (as if!), I would politely say 'no thanks'.  Not. Into. Bars.
• Another oddball profile on "Lots-o-Tramps"  -  woman advises prospective suitors that it woudn't be an exclusive arrangement, which is fine I suppose, as well as that she is not particular regarding gender, either.
• I'll die single.
• Watched Murphy's Romance, from 1984 or 1985, starring James Garner and Sally Field, with daughter a few weekends ago.  In one scene, Garner's character asks divorceé Field about her love life - she mentions, twice, in her response, that she lives like a nun.  1985 audiences would've understood, but I doubt that today's would.
• The way Hollyweird recycles movie concepts, am surprised they haven't remade/updated that movie, though today it would probably be Murphy's Bromance, combining the original with Brokeback Mountain.
• A couple of weekends ago, we rented The Last Brickmaker in America, a  [Hallmark?] made-for-TV movie starring Sidney Poitier and Piper Laurie. 
• This may have been the next-to-last brickmaker in America:

• I'd like to check out the museum there sometime. At its peak, the town was the biggest, or one of the biggest, coal operations in the state.  Now home to 25 souls.
• Would also like to see what this is, across the Interstate.  I think it's either a hunting lodge or a B&B (or Medieval Times - Thurber?):

• Consumer Dining Tip: Mushroom & Swiss 1/2 Pound burger at the Shell station at I-20 and 281.  You could put it up against any of the trendy DFW burger joints.  Only $4.59, including chips.
• You're welcome.
• BTW, not opposed to alcohol (regarding the bars) - just bought a bottle of Jim Beam, and some vodka last week.  They'll probably last through next year, or at least this one.
• 60 Minutes ran a segment last week about pending [Federal] legislation that would limit or eliminate exotic game ranch operations in the U.S., showing some exotic ranches near Johnson City that have, almost singlehandedly, restored the Senegalese Scimitar Oryx from the brink of extinction.  PETA-types don't like it that the animals are hunted, for tens of thousand of dollars, in Texas, and would prefer they go extinct than to let hunting revenues and incentives provide for their restoration.
• Twits.
• While I prefer the fair-chase mode of hunting, I have no condemnation for the hunters or the operators of the high fence ranches - they are preserving and increasing numbers of species that, as the Oryx, are threatened elsewhere in the world. 
• And if the feeble-minded want to discuss the issue of fairness - I believe an Oryx, Kudo, Ibex, Aoudad, Sika, or Fallow Deer (there's one on my den wall) has a better quality of life on a 50,000 acre hunting ranch, living as a sovereign by its wits, than a beef steer that's penned, inoculated, fattened, and, ultimately, sent to the abattoir.
• Not that I oppose that - see Consumer Dining Tip, above.  Just that I think the exotic game animal has the higher quality of life.  At least until he meets Mr. Nosler 140 grain boattail ballistic tip.

The one on the left and those in front of and behind the cedar, have horns.

• The above are from a game ranch near Gordon.
• Don't have any desire to hunt lions, tigers, giraffes, zebras or elephant, but I have always been intrigued by mbogo, the Cape Buffalo.  Jumping off a mountain with a flying squirrel suit doesn't rev my engine, but I think that hunting mbogo, with a muzzle-loader, a Farquharson (Ruger #1), or a double rifle, could be a cool adrenaline fix.
• A nice bespoke .375 Holland & Holland would work well, too, no?
• Bwana Donald - The modern Frederick Courteney Selous!
• OK, not quite.
• Also on a recent 60 Minutes show: Qatar.
• A mere generation ago, that country's people lived in tents and traveled by camel.  With unbridled oil wealth, they now live in mansions and travel in jet airplanes - all menial labor is hired out to foreigners.
• They're doomed.
• Civilizations that hollow themselves out by losing touch with reality, including ours, put themselves at risk, and at the mercy of those that remain grounded.
• An object lesson for our culture.