This is outrageous

Stella Awards
It’s time again for the annual ‘Stella Awards’! For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued the McDonald’s in New Mexico where she purchased the coffee. You remember, she took the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was driving.

Here are the Stella’s for the past year:

7TH PLACE :
Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son.

6TH PLACE :
Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles, California won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbour ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn’t notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor’s hubcaps.

Go ahead, grab your head scratcher.

5TH PLACE :
Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, who was leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage door to open. Worse, he couldn’t re-enter the house because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut. Forced to sit for eight, count ‘em, EIGHT, days on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner’s insurance company claiming undue mental anguish. Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish. We should all have this kind of anguish.

Keep scratching. There are more…

4TH PLACE :
Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, Arkansas, garnered 4th Place in the Stella’s when he was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next door neighbour’s beagle - even though the beagle was on a chain in its owner’s fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun.

Grrrrr. Scratch, scratch.

3RD PLACE :
Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania because a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.

Whatever happened to people being responsible for their own actions?

Scratch, scratch, scratch. Hang in there; there are only two more Stella’s to go…

2ND PLACE :
Kara Walton, of Claymont, Delaware sued the owner of a night club in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000….oh, yeah, plus dental expenses. Go figure.

1ST PLACE : (May I have a fanfare played on 50 kazoos please!)
This year’s runaway First Place Stella Award winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski,of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, from an OU football game, having driven
on to the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver’s seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned.
Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner’s manual that she couldn’t actually leave the driver’s seat while the cruise control was set. The Oklahoma jury awarded her, are you sitting down, $1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.

Are we, as a society, getting more stupid…? Ya think??!!

Thanks Bob D

Thanks Bits and Pieces out of Saint Louie town

The Horse Show

My last post I was tired and didn't want to share the Horse Show with you because I knew that I would short change the blog on the show and not give the Little Princess full due.

So tonight is Wednesday, I have just spent the last 3 hours trying to get the lights hooked up on the stagecoach trailer to horse trailer connection. After countless pinched fingers, several words not repeatable here, we came to the conclusion that the reason the left stagecoach trailer light doesn't work is: the danged light is broke and needs replacing. That was enough to say I quit and come in and write about a horse show.

Last Saturday we spent roaming around St Louis, the Arch, Forest Park, The Hill, Our Lady of the Snows, and finally the arena where the show was being held.

We were accompanying some good friends of ours who also have kids, and the Little Princess was to show a couple of their horses. But I get ahead of myself.

One has a 4 year old girl, the other a teenager. Now the teenager has the distinction of being the 2009 American Miniature Horse Registry National Queen. Quite an honor considering how many teenagers are into showing minis.

So the show bill was something like this:
AMHR Youth Halter Gelding - 7 and under -over
AMHR Youth Halter Gelding - 8 to 12 - over
AMHR Youth Halter Gelding - 13 to 17 - over

Brit, the adorable 4 year old shows first, a blue and a red



JC shows immediately following, a red and yellow
better pic shows JC practicing



and coming out of the ring after judging was completed.




the Queen shows last. all blues forgot to get a picture of her,

Now Blue is 1st place, Red second, Yellow third.
Two judges were evaluating, so each gave a place, hence the two ribbons.
What amazes me is this is JC's first ever show.

So after lunch we got into the second round of classes, and this is the tough enough class - Showmanship

AMHR Youth Showmanship M/G - 7 and under
AMHR Youth Showmanship M/G - 8 to 12
AMHR Youth Showmanship M/G - 13 to 17

Now Showmanship is different than Halter in that the contestants must wear Hat and gloves, and instead of just walking in, trotting and setting their horse - they have to do lots more.
Walk in and position their horse. When called, walk halfway to Judges, stop, then turn your horse in a full circle, stop, then proceed to the Judge. Set your horse again, and the Judge walks around your horse. During this, you must ensure you don't block the Judges view of the horse and yet stay facing the Judge. When the judge is finished, you trot your horse to the starting point. Turn around in the opposite way you did at halfway point, and the position your horse.

Too much remembering for this old man. I'll just drive the team.

Anyway, all three classes, and with same people, but a different horse.

Brit came away with I don't remember:



JC came away with two reds - and her first time in Showmanship pretty danged good.
Here she is entering the show ring.



And the Queen took all blues.




Later, the girls did their thing in driving classes, but alas we wanted to check out a camper over in High Ridge MO, so we departed early.

Anyway, the Little Princess (aka JC, My Noble Assistant) did a superb job in her first show.

Now on to Luck J Arena, Carthage MO for a show the weekend of June 13-14

JC will be showing her horse (Fabio) and I will be driving the team in costume.

But more on that later.

I asked JC on the way home how she felt when showing - scared, happy, and nervous all rolled into one.

Anyway, she has her first show under her belt, and it is time to move onward showing her horse.

Now her mom has also expressed a desire to return to the show ring. Maybe I'll just sit on the sidelines and watch all the women perform? Nah. I love to drive the four up and can't wait till 5/23 when we put our hitch in the Greenfield MO annual parade.

Greenfield is north of Mt Vernon MO about 20 miles, parade line up is 1030 am, so I imagine parade will begin around 11 am. Come and watch, look us up and say howdy.

Again, congrats to the Little Princess for her wonderfull 1st ever miniature horse show. and guys, better watch out, this old grandpa is........ awh sucks, never mind.



hope you enjoy the time you spend with your grand children as much as I enjoy the time I spend with mine. Shawn and Travis had better watch out, the old man may appear at any time, at any swim meet.


And in doing all this, we

Celebrate Life to the fullest

Where are they???

Isn't it peaceful living in the country? No wild screaming radios, no blarring TVs, just the dogs barking at the cats, cows brawling for more feed, horses nickering at each other, coyotes howling, and the occasional train in the distance.

Yes it is great living in the country.

So what do we do for recreation? We head this way and that. And this past weekend was just one of those weekends that we headed that way.
Now the Bus was at the lake, the Jeep and Long Roof at the Taj Mahal, who knows where BBB was (poolside we imagine). So the Barngoddess and I, along with the Little Princess headed out to enjoy a weekend away from all that noise that farm life creates.
The Barngoddess had the truck packed ready to go, waiting for me to arrive home, so we could pedal to the metal and head out.
Alas a phone call came and went something like this:
Horsefarmer (HF): Hey honey, can you grab a couple wrenches and head up just past Honey Creek on K Hwy.
Barngoddess (BG): Why
HF: My little bronc threw a u-joint and drive shaft is hanging down.
BG: Do you want the trailer?
HF: Nope.
So the barngoddess arrives and I take the rear driveshaft off, Sorry no pictures.. and put the Bronc in 4 wheel drive (really 2 wheel front drive) and drive it home.
Needless to say while waiting for the Barngoddess to arrive, I got the Jeep on the phone and chewed him out for not being anywhere nearby so he could help me.
Anyway instead of heading out at 4:30 pm. we finally got away around 6 pm.
First stop was 110 milemarker of I44 where we found this:


There is a rest area that the State redid and used the Rte 66 theme. All the cabannas were themed after some building on the Mother Road. Really did a great job and as usual forgot the camera until we were heading back onto the highway when we got this shot.
So we continued on and spent the night in a good ole Catholic Hotel. We stayed at the "Our Lady of the Snows" just southeast of St Louis.
Saturday morning was here too soon and we found ourselves heading downtown.
Good photo here



and here



Inside was just as much fun as we traveled to the top, some 630 feet off the ground.



After the trip to the top we went thru the Museum, but that will be another blog.

We traveled over to a place I know rather well.... if you go to STL, you had better go here to eat.

Ever played Bocce? Pronounced Bow-che.
The Hill is the place to eat. Located southwest side of I44 and Kingshighway, it has some of the best places to eat and drink. Our favorite is Milo's.

A couple more shots of the trip include a place familiar to our family was youngsters. I talked to the Bus about it, and he said he probably couldn't find it. Well, we found it, only to dicover a problem. Take a look and decide if you can readily figure out what the problem might be.



Can't really tell, how about this one to help your decision making ability



That is the Big River way above flood stage. In fact the water was at the fence behind this cabin... the Original BEE's Nest.



So the real reason we were in STL area was a miniature horse show over on the Illinois side just around the corner from Our Lady of Snows Shrine.

I'll post more on it later, about ready to fall asleep here and want to finish the raod trip.

On the way home, we stopped here



I'll post more later on two of the adventures of this trip:

The interactive museum under the Arch; and

The Miniature Horse Show that the Little Princess performed in.

so anticipate more later.

a tired Horsefarmer.

ps: 610 miles
1 trooper (flashed his lights at me, then waved)
0 wrecks
too much fuel
12 pack Coors Light (had to hide cause we were in Bud country)
tons of fun..

Who Will Be Bidding on These?

Watch out for the US Government Representatives when the bidding starts on this:

NEW YORK – For sale soon: a variety of torture devices from the 16th century, including shame masks to enforce silence, a 14-foot table-like rack to stretch the victim's body, and a tongue tearer to punish blasphemers and heretics. Even an executioner's sword.

New York's Guernsey's auction house plans to auction the privately owned collection, with proceeds to go to Amnesty International and other organizations committed to preventing torture in today's world, said Guernsey's president, Arlan Ettinger. "That is clearly the seller's intent," he said.

Ettinger described the items Wednesday as possibly the world's most extensive collection of historical torture devices — some 252 items — plus rare books, documents and other related

And you thought waterboarding was bad, wait till our government gets ahold of these.

So when was it taken

If you drift over to my brothers blog, you notice a recent post wherein he describes the photos taken at our Great Grandpa's grave site over in Kentucky in a State Park.


.The blog site is here:

http://oleragtop.blogspot.com/2009/05/jd-lee-woodsman-of-world.html

sorry, you'll have to copy and paste to view it.

Anyway that picture of the Horsefarmer, the OleLongRooffan and the Jeepjunkie, had the date of July 1969 on the back of it.

Now I know that I have been getting older and older, and sometimes it seems that I might surpass the Bus on who is getting the oldest and wornoutmostest, but I think this photo has the wrong date on the back.

I joined the Navy on 3 March 1969 in St Louis and immediately took the train to Bootcamp at Recruit Training Command, Great Lakes, ILL.
I transferred from RTC to Naval School of Health Sciences, Naval Hospital San Diego, CA sometime in May 1969. I was at San Diego until the end of September 1969, when I had the pleasure of spending 4 weeks at the Marine Corps Base, Camp Pendleton, CA learning how to be a combat medic for the Marine Corps. I left CamPen and headed to Millington TN at the end of October 1969.

So no way could this photo have been taken in July 1969.

I am under the impression it would have been taken while I was a student at St. Vincent's College (the Vincentian high school seminary in Cape Girardeau, Missouri), sometime between 1964 and 1966. The Gentleman Farmer, Editor of The Mirror, would travel to Cape and visit his son. I would venture that younger OleLongRoofFan and the even younger Jeepjunkie traveled with the Gentleman Farmer to visit this poor soul.

A quick day trip from the Cape (the seminary was situated on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River at the junction of the now old highway bridge) down the ILL side and bingo we were there.

Looking at the length of my pants (true highwater affairs) and the stance of the Jeep, makes this in 1965 plausable. Also I would be a new Navy recruit, and in those days it was shaved head in bootcamp and Hospital Corps School, and Marine Corps haircut at CamPen; and in this pic I have hair (actually more than I have now)

I just wonder, as the Bus suggested, if we could recover that stone and take it to the homestead of the Ole Long Roof Fan in the birthplace of speed for him to take care of? After he is the namesake of our Great Grand Father. The Long Roof could store it in his ole long roof wagon when it wasn't on display in his front yard next to the hurrican tie down tree.

Sitting here I can't help but ponder

SO WHEN WAS IT TAKEN and in doing so

CELEBRATE LIFE

No big deal

Daughter is working on her college class project, ergo the previous blog entry.
No big deal.
Will do more later.

Haven Lee Farm Main Page

 

Haven Lee Farm Main Page

There are only 6 days until Horse Show in Belleville, Illinois.