Howdy folks... not working the rest of this week, as I have a whole list of things that need done, nobody else to do them, and no time to do them other than now. Of course, the fact that the weather my be turning nasty on me today doesn't help, but there we are. It looks like the disturbance caused by Hurricane Gustav will be lighting in to us soon... then there's the other two storms that should be moving into the coast over the next week.

Right now, I'm not even at my own computer. A friend of the family went to the hospital over the holiday weekend for an emergency appendectomy, so I came out last night to visit and ended up spending the night on the couch... will be heading out in a few minutes.

They live out in the country a little... so I spent the morning coffee sitting on the front porch watching the hummingbirds come in for their morning breakfast, then the turkey vultures do a patrol around the area... watching them glide around is really quite fascinating. It's really amazing that such an unattractive bird is capable of such graceful and effortless flight. I understand that a few people down the road were trying to chase them off their property, but the vultures provide a necessary, albeit unattractive, function in the ecosystem. They're really better off left alone.

Will try to check in later...