It's cleanup time again!

We've arrived at the weekend, so let's have a little lousy weather.  Isn't that the way it's been working?  We woke this Friday morning to some snow which had already turned to rain in our area.  Gator Wife left for work just a little earlier in case the roads were bad.  She has called and said she ran into no problems, except there was some slush.  But not too far inland could get rather messy.  It may also see some rain, but there's a good chance of icy conditions developing.  Up toward the mountains, it'll be mostly snow.

Once it all clears out, we'll be left with Saturday and Sunday to do some cleaning up.  Wonderful!  I might be in a little trouble cleaning our yard, although the rain has already washed away most of the snowfall.  There is black showing.  Unfortunately for me, it's very wet and my tractor/snow blower absolutely doesn't like wet snow or slush and my neighbor with his plow is away for the day.

Wow!  I sure did like Rick Santorum at Thursday night's Republican debate in Florida.  At least I liked one of his answers that echoed my pleas.  Santorum called on the candidates to focus, focus on the issues.  He said we all can acknowledge that Newt Gingrich as a former member of Congress can use his background and abilities to influence current members and that Mitt Romney is extremely rich and has worked and is working very hard to be a success in life.  But, Santorum said, we are searching for a nominee for President and asked why these debates can't focus on the issues.  Moderator Wolf Blitzer didn't want that though, and led the debators right back into personalities.

Apparently issues weren't part of CNN's agenda.

In fairness, though, the candidates did spend more time on issues after Santorum's minor rant.  I didn't watch the entire debate, but after the plea I think for the first time Romney came out the winner of that debate.

By the way, I like ESPN3.  I was able to watch the debate on TV and the Gators' basketball game on the computer. 

We didn't have the pleasure of having Gator Daughter and her dog over last weekend.  My wife and I look forward to their coming weekends because we enjoy her company.  The dog is also important because it gives our Gator Golden some socializing play.  She seems to look forward to the visits as you can bet starting about 11 AM Saturday and Sunday morning GG will be at the window looking for her sister to be heading up the driveway.

She's visibly disappointed when her sister can't come.  I have no clue how the dog knows it's a weekend, but she surely knows the days she has the best chance of a playmate.

If the weather turns colder and the yard turns to ice, we won't be getting any visitors.  That's a mutual decision to protect both animals but primarily GG.  You may remember she slid on some ice last winter and had to have reconstructive surgery on her knee.  We'll do all we can to protect her from a repeat.

Have you been using the new word in English?  I haven't, but I hear it quite frequently on local radio and television programs.  I'm not sure exactly what it means, but in context I think it used to be a prefix generally meaning "not."  It seems to have divorced itself from words to take on a life of its very own, however.  "Un" is the word.  You know, like un   believable.   Or un   important.  Although I've seen "til" many times, I've yet to hear un    til.  I guess in the scheme of things that's really not too big a deal, is it?

Here's another one.  If you've visited here more than once or twice, you know I'm partial towards the news department offerings of WCSH.  It's a loyalty thing.  I worked there for a number of years and left when I retired from all my jobs.  But I still watch the newscasts on that station even though I don't often agree with their politics.  I do think that lately they've tried to become more balanced.  My first boss there required that equal time to both sides of an issue always be included in a story.  That was in a day when we were taught balanced reporting in journalism school like the one I attended at UF.

Recently the departments seems to try to show us how modern it is.  It uses Skype.  Every time a story through Skype comes on, I want to change channels, but don't because I know it won't last long.  Thursday was a good example.  A reporter in Augusta was trying to deliver a story using Skype.  Thankfully, the anchor told us what the story was about because my ears found the story conditions so bad that I could not understand what was being said at all.  The reporter was one of the station's best and most balanced so I know he had both sides of the story.  I wish I could have heard it.  I haven't seen one story using Skype that was of even fair quality.  I probably haven't seen them all, but that's one technology I'd like them to lose.

I hope you don't have to work too hard to get your yard cleaned up this weekend and can have a really nice one.

Gator