ATV fatality - correction

It's what I get for publishing half-cocked.

Through a better source - a friend of Nick's - I learned that the injured passenger was not his daughter.

Any further corrections will be placed as updates in this post.

Great book by a real journalist:

Someday we'll live at the beach...

...when the land south of us slides into the Gulf of Mexico:

A new report by scientists studying Louisiana's sinking coast says the land here is not just sinking, it's sliding ever so slowly into the Gulf of Mexico.

Will the last people to leave south of Lake Pontchartrain please turn out the lights?

Uh, wait. If anybody's still alive:

About the best that could be said of New Orleans' murder rate in 2006 is that it has held relatively steady over the past six months.

The worst is that, if it continues steady for six months more, the city would have a 12-month murder rate about eight to 12 times the national average for cities its size, rather than this year's multiple of seven to 10.

Ripping off the gov't.

I dunno about you, but I call this fraud:

He added another "big problem" is the number of vacant trailer parks that continue to get tax-supported FEMA dollars. According to Burgess, park owners set up empty trailer parks knowing in advance they will receive money from FEMA despite the lack of demand for residents.

"That's so irritating to me," he said.

Irritating, he says. That's an understatement, sez I.

Are there no honest people left in the world?

Another whoops?

Taking a look at today's online Daily News, I clicked on the obit for Carole Ann Rundell Myers and got this page:


















Mrs. Myers?

Worth browsing

I can't call this a product endorsement, exactly. I'm not an R. H. Shumway's seed customer yet.

But their catalog is gorgeous. Full of old-fashioned illustrations - like this one for bush beans.

Their website is also attractive. Order a catalog here.

PS - Before I buy online or mailorder, I check out the company at the BBB and the Rip-Off Report.

Yes, an ATV fatality

Young man in his 20s, Nick Johnson, was killed in an ATV accident.

I was told that his young daughter was riding with him and was seriously injured. She and the rest of the family will be in our thoughts.

Kebbie Loves Ken, redux

Back in Sept '06, I posted about a shop in Skaneateles, New York opened by a Bogalusa native and her husband - Kebbie and Ken Rosenberg.

An anonymous commenter warned that all is not what it seemed:

This store has a history of ripping off the artists whose products populate the shelves. Refusing to pay for merchandise sold & refusing to return products to the artisan, they should not be done business with.

Okay.

I finally looked up their BBB record:

Based on BBB files, this company has an unsatisfactory record with the Bureau due to unanswered complaint(s).

Thanks for that tip, Anonymous!

Fatality?

Over on the Hard Copy board, Ms. Sasha says there was an ATV accident with fatality [redacted screen shot]:

I don't know how old the alleged victim was; don't know him personally. Yeah, "alleged" because I hope it isn't true.

We see them screaming up & down our street, too - in excess of the speed limit. Why do people let their kids play in traffic like that?

Here's the ATV Safety Institute. They've got a library of printable info. Literature could show up in the parents' mailbox anonymously, heh. It takes a village sometimes.

If you see repeat violators and calling 911 doesn't help, you can email the police. I can't locate a similar online form for WPSO; emailing your councilman is another idea.

Changes

Google convinced me to enroll in the new blogger.

So I did. Hope it isn't too hard to read.

There'll be fine-tuning in future with the sidebar.

Need tractor advice

Some good friends are going to be shopping for a tractor or the like in a couple months. They've got about 3 acres to cut and also plant a kitchen garden and patches for wildflowers. They'd like to be able to mow down light brush, too. They have a push mower for the lawn around the house.

I agreed to lend an ear to this enterprise, but it's the blind leading the blind, heh. Plus they're "income-challenged" so they're thinking used equipment.

Here are the possibilities they've been bouncing off me, as if I know anything. Except I've been trying to think of all the pros and cons of each. The links show examples, but not necessarily the make/model. They'll decide that when they look at what's available around the end of February.

Garden tractor
Compact tractor
BCS equipment (two-wheel tractor)

Or use animals:

Fence
Pig - the "tiller"
Goats - a/k/a bush hogs
Geese - grass trimmers

I'm not certain if they'd rather maintain an engine or care for critters, and it sounds like they're waffling with that, too.

Anyhoooooo - I'm actively soliciting advice on their behalf from folks who've got to be more equipment-savvy than I am. In other words, everybody. Brands to avoid, livestock versus machines, reliability, cost of upkeep... Whatever. Opinions are like you-know-what's, everybody's got one. Post yours in the comments and I'll pass 'em on :-).