Thursday's Thoughts

...on a dreary day in north Texas:

•  I had the SOTU on the other night, but watched very little of it.  Much ado about nothing.  I am, of course, no fan of the current POTUS, but I saved myself considerable angst by not getting too invested in what he was saying, since really none of it matters.  
• One of the news sites said it marked the first SOTU to mention 'transgendered' persons.  
• Speaking of which - while waiting to fill a prescription the other evening, I perused the People mag or somesuch (they didn't have G&A on the waiting area coffee table), which says former decathlete Bruce Jenner is almost ready for his/her reveal, replete with several pictures.  Very odd, but hey, whatever.  If people want to change their personal plumbing, fine - as long as they're not asking for society to foot the bill, as some states' correctional systems are attempting to do.
• The resilience of the stock market amazes me.  I would not have believed that fundamentals would have supported Dow 18,000 (actually I still don't - seems more like technicals to me).  Nonetheless, despite a couple of recent pullbacks, we haven't seen massive, long-term slides, and the recoveries have been reasonably prompt, and vigorous.  The revaluation of the Swiss franc seems to have been taken in stride.
• Is a beaver doctor a regular veterinarian?  A super-sized beaver was recently treated and released in Arizona.
• Over the weekend, I read that there is a new state park straddling Palo Pinto and Stephens counties, W/SW of Strawn, and NE of Ranger Hill.  It would be cool if that brought a resurgence of business to Thurber, which had a WWI population nearing 10,000.  I'm wondering if any of the former coal mines are within the park boundaries.
• Middle son decorated oldest son's truck recently:

• Here is an awesome addition to your canvas-walled glamping tent, although I suspect you could find something nearly as cool for less money at Tuesday Morning.  It would probably be out of place in a Camping Doughnut, though.
• One of the talk radio hosts, broadcasting from the Stock Show, was talking about women wearing yoga pants in public. His point was that women should exercise some discretion.  Now there's a lost cause - expecting anyone in modern society to use discretion?
• I can understand testing the limits of 4wd vehicles on harsh terrain.  Not so sure about the wisdom of leaving the glass in the vehicle.
• Radio yakker Mark Levin seriously gets on my nerves.  He's about as effective winning converts to conservatism as that guy from Open Carry Tarrant County is at promoting the 2nd Amendment.
• The Red Tail Squadron's P-51C, s/n 42-103645, born in Dallas, is in need of maintenance funding.

• Umm, the second paragraph of this webpage didn't translate well from the British.  If I had a spare £349.00 sitting around, I would buy a pair of these, though:

• Of course, then I'd have to get some pants like this: