Dear Fans, Friends, Fiends, Foes and Family,

We live in a town with five military installations; four Air Force and one Army, and we get to see many feats of flying skill quite often, especially when the Air Force Academy is playing a home game in football.  The Fabulous Thunderbirds are here for every graduation as well.  I have seen a lot of different types of things that fly in the air, but when I see what I saw I saw earlier today, it always takes my breath away.  This was the real thing, baby, uh-huh!  Aerial combat at it’s finest and right in the skies over our fair city.  A large enemy had tried to attack one of the smaller, hidden, out-of-the-way spots to attempt to do who-knows-what sort of damage to it when suddenly, as if out of nowhere came a pair of fierce, screaming fighters.

Dear Fans, Friends, Fiends, Foes and Family,

Thanks for dropping in and visiting, even when I haven’t written anything.  I have been working and keeping busy that way, of course, and most of the time recalling why I like working in a retail environment, although I have met a few who are good candidates for the Not Always Right website.

But really, there has been something other than my normal procrastinationary habits that has been on my mind.  A thing that has needed to be written but is hard, almost impossible.  Yet I can’t never write again so I have to try to frame my grief in words that make sense, if not to you, gentle reader, then at least to me.

I have been posting the repeats under their original dates for the most part, but I remembered having fun with this entry and then I got an e-mail from Larry that included a bit about the word “up” that I wanted to add.  So, except for this first part (I have no way to credit it properly since it came from an e-mail and was hard to look up), this entry is exactly as it was written on 10/15/2004.

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What’s up with this, anyway?

Dear Fans, Friends, Fiends and Foes,

I want to thank all of you who have expressed an interest in me getting this site back up and running again.  I am often amazed at the number of people who still want to read my writing and think it’s good enough to stop for.  It’s an awesome feeling to have fans and I really appreciate it.

I am always thinking of things to write about, especially when I am screaming at the radio news, but when I sit down to write about something, I forget what I wanted to say.  I do have some personal news, though.  I have found a part-time job.  This guy has just, within a couple of weeks ago, started a new coffee shop called

Dear Fans, Friends, Fiends, Foes and Family,

Nothing political today, but rather some pics and video clips taken of nine mule deer that were in our backyard.  I have installed the "Plogger" software for the photo album, but will likely scrap it for something with more features and more power, like Gallery or Coppermine (If you have any experience with any of these or a better choice for free, I would like to know).

Anyway, I thought you guys would like to see these so click here or the "pics gallery" link on the side.  Tabitha took them and the running commentary in the Youtube clips is me and my wife with an occasional comment from Grandma Pike, like her joking around, "We're sorry we missed church, pastor, but we got busy watching the deer."

We call the little guy Spike, the tagged one is Ol' Number 72, the five-pointer (ten-pointer in Wisconsin) is Big Daddy.  One more that did not make an appearance that's even bigger is the one we call Old Buck or Monster or whatever comes to mind.  You'll see a picture of him when we get one, but he is not usually a party animal.

It seemed to take forever to upload these to Youtube but hopefully it will be worth it.  Oh, plus I included one with three of the four cats playing with Savannah's "Zhu-Zhu Pet" hamster.

Deer Playing in Yard 01

Deer Playing in Yard 02

Deer Playing in Yard 03

Deer Playing in Yard 04

Cats Caught Zhu-zhu

Enjoy,
Herb "Mister Nature" Thiel

Dear Fans, Friends, Fiends, Foes and assorted Fruitcakes (AKA Spammers),

Today I will begin reposting older stuff as I find it in the archives.  I will be posting it to its original date, so the Archives will go back to October 4^th, 2004 when I first started blogging on BlogDrive.  I am, for now, using only the Word files I find but will like go back through on BD and make sure I don’t miss too much that’s important.  As I hit on ones that I really think were good or important, as I said the other day, I will repost them to the current date.

As you know, I really welcome comments from real people.  If you are a spammer and want me to release your comment as though it were real then please take the time to at least read the post and make your comment sort of match.  It is satisfying, though, to delete you.

Herb “The Old Blogger” Thiel