Swamp ash

I had to go full-on contortionist to seek them out.

Sheesh, if one is going to open carry, the holster ought to match the boots. Style is half the battle. Just last weekend, I saw someone "toting" a pistol in a nylon holster that was dangling on a nylon belt cinched over his his long, untucked t-shirt. It looked like he was wearing a tunic and made both my wife and I laugh.

Yeah, these were the sub-millimeter sized "seed ticks". Apparently they needed to become engorged to be more visible I can usually find the normal-sized ones quickly, but these are wicked.

This needs no further description.

What does she want? That may be your best guide for the moment.

Sounds like they could have made the best of it and changed from a music festival to mud-wrestling and tractor-pulls. It's all entertainment.

Well, the wedding thread made me start up this one:

There are many choices - it's a blend between French and Indochinese and can be quite varied. It , of course has similarities to Thai, Chinese, but is it's own thing, too. Seafood and beef are usually two big features as well as pork. Ban Xeo is really good. Sometimes called a Vietnamese pancake, it's actually a crispy rice-flour crepe with with Nuoc Mam (fish sauce). Nuoc mam is one of the distinctive attributes of Vietnamese food. It's pretty tasty stuff, by itself and even though it starts with fermented fish juice There are a whole bunch of Pho dishes which is beef with noodle. Some Vietnamese restaurants have a lot of charcoal-grilled meats and seafood serve over rice vermicelli with Nuoc mam. I eat it with fish. And yes, they do great fish at some places - whole steamed fish (or fried) with Nuoc mam is wonderful. They also have both Spring rolls (fried) and Summer rolls which are uncooked and often filled with basil and dipped in peanut sauce (and of course nuoc mam). And if you like your caffeine like me, go for the Vietnamese coffee. It's espresso ground strong spiced coffee with sweetened condensed milk. I forgot to add, there are often some wonderful huge bowls of soups, too. I'm glad you are open-minded because it's best to step away from the comfort-zone and discover new things, especially with food!

Vietnamese food, by 5 clicks!

I shop at the Sunrise - it's pretty darn good, (except it's hard to read the packaging, sometimes - lol). The Asia Kitchen next door really rocks.

I really agree with most of your post, but one thing. Government is quite purposeful and useful. It's just that government, at many scales, is led by elected politicians who are controlled by either of two private political parties that answer to a select few.

Skunks are quite harmless and let you know when they are around. The only thing to fear is if your dog gets sprayed. Otherwise, I am very happy with them because they will seek out and destroy yellow jacket nests amongst other positive things. Le Pew

Here's a pretty good hero from the TN flooding: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/sky-chopper-pilot-fiancee-saved-17-flood-79673384?cid=clicksource_4380645_3_heads_hero_live_headlines_hed

Some would suggest a certain amount of aging is necessary...

So, how do y'all feel about fresh road kill - lol?

The big question is whether Josh Heupel will last the season before Volunteer fans call for him to be fired.

That's a damn shame but what a heck of road he travelled.

This was truly a horrific occurrence! I believe this set a state record for the amount of rainfall to occur in Tennessee in a 24 hour period. Increases in extreme weather events have long been predicted to accompany climate change, simply because warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor and has more energy. If these predictions are accurate, then folks and communities along floodplains may need to re-evaluate their risks and emergency plans.

In general, people suck. And what is a real travesty is seeing fellow Americans de-humanize one another over silly ideology (politics) that is designed to divide and allow others to control them.

Further, just because something is "best" (of other competing systems) does not mean that it can't be better, either.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/sacklers-received-12-billion-to-13-billion-in-profits-from-oxycontin-maker-purdue-pharma-11570221797 Great example of maximizing profit over public health. Carry on.

No, it took much longer for microbes to alter atmospheric chemistry, but then again, they're tiny and sessile. We have huge energy demands being large, extremely mobile and requiring vast resources to maintain society. Our exponentially-expanding population ought to produce exponential graphs! Likewise the rapid increase in global living standards and thus, the increase in per capita resource demand.

Great question but there is a vast difference between being compensated versus maximizing health care profit. I

Thanks for the well-considered post However, please think about this: Earth's initial atmosphere was CO-rich (temp and sea level was higher - we know this from geological evidence) However, the evolution of photosynthetic marine algae proliferated across the planet and we had an oxygenation event (we know this again from geological evidence; chemistry changes with sediments; fossils; etc). The fact is, myriads of colonial-living single-celled organisms (stromatolites) permanently changed the climate. Subsequently, profound changes in biology are met with physical changes (i.e. the advent of the coal forests again released much oxygen). If these lower forms of biology have had such a major effect to the earth system, then consider what our activities contribute (as an aside: humans in fact move more sediment, each year, than all the rivers in the world combined) We are releasing fossil carbon that has indeed been sequestered (biologically, mind you), for millions to billions of years (via hydrocarbons, coal and carbonate rocks used for cement). This rapid re-introduction of carbon does indeed have an effect . We are also altering natural sequestration and even changing the solar balance by reducing albedo (planetary reflectance) meaning we absorb even more solar energy. All this is consistent with the realization that climate is the product of solar, planetary and biological factors.

I'm sorry about your distraction, but please understand you can drown with too much water, too. PS, water vapor is actually a huge player in this mess, BUT, perturbing parts of the system (i.e carbon) changes other parts of the system, because according to thermodynamics, there is no physical or chemical action without a requisite reaction.