A Sunday Adventure
Mood:  happy


It's been a great Sunday. In Kentucky we have a fantastic wilderness called the Red River Gorge. It has the largest concentration of natural arches in the eastern United States.
There is an outcropping called Ravens' Rock.

Someone tried to develop a lodge on top of Ravens'Rock back in the 30's. A sharp incline of an asphalt road rise up to the top. The rock is not officially in the adjoining Daniel Boone National Forest. No guides tell you how to get up to it. My brother and I relied on the internet for instructions.

We had problems at first. We went up several false trails then eventually cut through a field of weeds head high. We found the road and made our way up. We were very tired when we made it to the top. The view was fanstastic.

We started out at the bridge on the lower left in the picture above. Using a GPS receiver we saved our coordinates then looked for a natural arch called Ravens Windows but never found it.
We made our way down. We were worn out. We took a drive through the gorge but it was then late in the day. Go to....

www.kywilderness.com

and check out the Red River Gorge and it's trails. I've been going there for over 30 years and never fail to be amazed by new things. Here is a picture of haystack rock.

I'll be going back more this summer. I plan on taking more pics.

take care, TBB......

Run!, the doc is learning to drive.
Mood:  energetic
Oh no folks. Our social misfit character the doc, is learning to drive. He's only in is mid forties.
Below is his first vehicle of choice.

















It's my belief that Matty is getting tired of picking him up every night. Watch out everybody.


TBB...

Beautiful Girl
Mood:  happy

I had a great time tonight. I got to go see and hear my beautiful daughter sing tonight. She will go far. She has a great voice. What a treat.

The doc rode along with her and I to the presentation. He was tolerable, two faced as he is. We talked a some. While we were there he yawned quite a bit. He was in a hurry to get home.

Things have been good elsewise. I've been regularly busy at work. The Baronette is well and I love her very much. I'm looking forward to our joint family Washington DC vacation this summer.

That's it for now. I'll write again soon.

TBB

Catty and Matty






Hello Readers,

It's been a great weekend. All my daughters are back with me. My oldest did a makeup job on my youngest.

The Baronette (Jodi) came over. We've all had a real nice time. I live in Louisville Ky. The Ky Derby was yesterday. My oldest will be out picking up trash in the infield with her friend. It's a charity thing for her friend's softball team.

Now, the dark stuff. I've resolved to avoid talking to my ex and her boyfriend as much as I can. I've concluded both of them are nothing but third rate trouble. My ex has made my teenagers be anxious by giving them play by play reports of the disagreements we've had. Before we got divorced we went to classes on divorce and children. We were told not to involve our children in our problems. The ex says "it's ok, they're big enough to understand." I hear big stories from the ex about the kids anxieties but curiously these seem to lighten when the kids come over to my place.

Her boyfriend (the non famous doc) broke our gentleman's agreement not to say bad things about each other. He said some crass things on his blog. I'm pushing him back into the category of jerk. Having made this decision days ago has got me feeling better already.

As I write this, the Baronette and my youngest are here with me. The best of all things.

To all my readers, including the lurkers, take care,

TBB

Shame, shame,shame





Just a quickie post. I had another terse talk with my ex yesterday about the anxiety my 15 year old has. Matty will always find herself blameless. To herself she can do no wrong. Despite what we were told not to do, she involves both teenagers in all the discussions her and I share. This only makes the kids more anxious. She hurts the teenagers when she does this. When the kids are at my place they never seem anxious. The 15 year old doesn't pull her hair. The 16 year old gets upset but at other things. Being with their mom seems to cause problems. When I bring up to Matty that we ALL should see a counselor together to help work out how we can ALL get along, she recoils. I think she's scared she might lose her power position. Passive aggressive people are like that. She says I have to go to counseling 1st., alone. She is way out of touch. She's already spun her hate magic and limited custody to me. Custody won't change anymore from now on. I will make a court motion to get them every other xmas. I know in the long run the girls will look back and see how I wanted to be in their lives and appreciate that. The cloud of their mom won't linger over. Let's all hope Matty will wise up one day and seize some responsibility for herself.

Out at the Dam
Mood:  a-ok




Hello all,
I work for a private communications company. Some of our work is with the the Army Corps of Engineers. I did work in a control tower on a dam. Cut and paste the link below to See the Taylorsville dam.

http://www.lrl.usace.army.mil/tay/

I got to find out a lot on how some dams work.

A. In case the power goes out, a generator is used for backup.

B. Telemetry equipment is used to monitor such things as lake levels, gate levels, and water temperature.

C. The hydraulic pumps are used to open and close gates.

D. Large hydraulic pistons open and close the gates. The largest gates are at the bottom level. They are 6 feet by 15 feet big. The piston itself is 2 feet wide and 30 plus feet long.

E. The manifolds direct the hydraulic pressure where it needs to go. There are 15 gates at the dam.

F. During the winter, the water is cold top to bottom.. In the warm months the lake is warm on the top and cold on the bottom.

G. Gates are built at different levels.The reason for this is that fish need oxygen and correct river temperature at the tail water. Oxygen is always at the top. In the winter, upper level gates are open. When it warms up, various gates are open to get the right temperature.


____________________________________________________

I got to see my daughters twice on Saturday and that made me happy. My oldest went with me, the Baronette, and her daughter, to see the Baronette's son in CATS the musical. We had a good time. I'll try to put up Cats pictures on my next post.

Until then
TBB

The Ways of a Controlling Person
Mood:  happy
Hi Readers,






I had to show you something. Just when I thought my ex couldn't find a stronger way to assert her ersatz control, she does. Though my daughters are with their mom right now, I'm picking up my oldest girl Saturday to go see a high school musical with me. The musical starts at 8:00. My ex has planned a dinner which ends right at the latest time (7:15), I could pick up my daughter and get us to the musical on time. I complained that 7:15 is hardly enough time to get to the musical on time. She says it is.

To justify her point she sent me this email...

____________________________________________________

Blue, ( not real name )

Though I haven't been to Providence High School, I did, since you said 45 minutes would not be enough time to drive from here to there, check yahoo maps and according to them, it should take you 14 minutes to get from my house to Providence High School. Which more closely jives with my recollection of how long it takes to get from here to Clarksville.

I'm not sure what route you were considering, but here's the page to give you a better route. As such 7:15 should be fine. That gives you 30 EXTRA minutes to get there in case of traffic or time to park, etc.



Matty (not real name)

____________________________________________________

What takes it over the edge is she went to yahoo maps and researched the route and time it would to get to our destination. She linked the route to me. I can't show the link because it starts at her house and who knows, one of my friendly readers may be tempted to write her a not nice letter.

Talk about controlling

She must have spent a few good minutes typing the email to me and looking up the yahoo map route. Darn it Matty, I could have used those few extra minutes to get us to the musical on time

Everything else is good. The Baronette is well. I've been doing some side computer work. A little extra money helps.

That's it for now. Take care,
TBB

Wider than Ever
Mood:  not sure
Hello Readers,

Today is an ex rant. I have time on my hands so I decided to sit down and type.

I was feeling good and decided I would make an attempt to be on mutual nice terms with my ex. I sent an email to her with good intentions. In her special way, she fired back with verbage countering my request. We shot several emails back and forth. Soon I didn't want to be friendly at all. My ex thinks she can argue her way because she's good at it. This is wasted on me, I know her too well. Now we're still at square 0. Lesson learned, let her alone. She wants me to still be contrite it seems but I can't respectfully look her in the eye with the way she is.

She right now selfishly has the kids each Christmas. She threatened a long ugly court battle if I didn't concede to this at divorce time. Now I'm trying to undo this so I can have the kids every other xmas. She cries "you promised". My ass, I never made a promise. Remember how mean you were dear? What she reaps she should sow.

Even the doc is a little upset. Still he is just a social misfit who sits in theshadows and lobs blog notes. He's a non sequitor and always will be. I don't even feel like lampooning him in a cartoon anymore he's so lame.

Hey thanks for letting me vent.

The Baronette (Jodi) is great as ever. A joy to be with. She works on her Benrik blog occasionally but I have slacked off on mine.

That's it for now. Take care,
TBB

Moods for the Day
Mood:  mischievious
Hello Friends,



This will be a generally light hearted blog, but 1st. a response to a recent t-shirt post on the ex's blog.

























I had a very nice weekend with the girls. I bought Amy, my 6 year old, her 1st. real bike. She was happy. She practiced riding it. The helmet shadows make her look like a superhero.

We all went to Thunder over Louisville. It's a big fireworks show leading into Ky.Derby time. We had a fantastic view in the back yard of the Baronette's parents house. I tried to spend quality time with all the daughters. I took the 2 big girls on long motorcycle rides Saturday.

At a thrift store I found a worn f hole acoustic guitar. I built a pickguard and touched up the paint. I had to secure the neck and glue it.

I got a new set of strings. It plays ok. It's not really a quality.


The Baronette (Jodi) is fine. She's a great lady. It's fun to be with her.

That's it for now. Take care.
TBB

Ex Rantings
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Dirty Work
Hi Folks, sorry I haven't written lately. I've been hanging with the Baronette. My Benrik blog has had some of my attention as well. That's where I do most of my light hearted stuff.

The ex has posted a long validation, freudian rant on her blog about me, her, and the divorce. It's understandable that someone so recently divorced will reach out to justify what she started. Rest assured it doesn't bother me. In time she will lighten up. I think she's trying to see if I do read her blog. Yes dear, I do read your blog.

We both use stat counters so to some degree we track who reads our stuff.

That's it for now. I've got to get to work. Take care and I'll write soon.

The Blue Baron