Our President: Capitan Obvious

This just in from the Master of the Obvious Department: President Obama says that the economy is not growing fast enough. Well, duh! I guess with unemployment close to 10% for as long as it has been, he might have grasped this concept a bit earlier, but with all the Obamacare legislation and bowing to foreign kings, I guess he overlooked that fact.

In addition, he says that there is no "magic bullet" to fix the problems. Um, I thought that the 780 billion stimulus/pork spending bill was supposed to be the "magic bullet", or at least, that's what we were told when he signed it into law. Ergo, all that money was essentially pissed away for some nice signs telling us that the gub-mint was spending our money.

Every day that goes by, it become more and more clearer the mistake that the idiots who voted for this dork-head foisted on the rest of us. Jan 20th, 2013 cannot get here fast enough.

Do As I Say Not As I Do

From the "Do As I Say, Not As I Do" Department. The First Lady, Michelle "Now I'm Proud of the US" Obama and one of her daughters will be spending their vacation in Marbella, Spain. As I recall, wasn't she and her incompetent husband urging Americans to still spend their vacation dollars on the Gulf Coast to help the local economy which has been destroyed due to her husband's ineptitude? If it was so important that Americans put aside their fears about the oil slick and continue to spend their vacations on the Gulf Coast, don't you think that the President and the First Lady should set the example and do the same? Oops! My bad! I forgot. These are liberals and liberals are big on the "do as I say, not as I do" vibe.

Many Americans might be jealous of the First Lady for going to Spain on vacation, but having been there, she's wasting her time. For any of the readers of the Warren (are there any?), I have actually been to Marbella in Spain and spent two weeks there on vacation back in 2005. My wife wanted to go to Spain on vacation that year, so that's where we went. We were greatly underwhelmed. I don't remember much about the vacation other than the beaches around our hotel sucked but we also went to Gibraltar and Tangiers, which was more interesting than Spain. We probably should have gone to Mallorca or stayed in Italy.

The Curse of Liberal Stupidty

A Clinton-appointee judge today blocked parts of the Arizona illegal immigration law from taking afect tomorrow. Unfortunately, it was to be expected. Although some said that the judge wanted to be through and adequately research the law, after all, she was a Clinton-appointee and as such, a liberal. Ergo, liberals have no idea what "equal protection under the law means" and therefore, she rolled over and did the Obama adminstration bidding. The 2012 elections cannot come fast enough for the United States sake.

Cause and Effect: Immigration

Here is a good example of cause and effect involving immigation. Arizona's tough, new law against illegal immigration will shortly take effect and miracle of miracle, illegal immigrants are leaving the state of Arizona on their own. If every state in the union had laws like this, I don't think we would have as many problems with illegal immigration. But, as the article points out, the illegals leaving are the "day laborers, landscapers, house cleaners, chambermaids", etc., that we take for granted. Oh well, at least there will be jobs for teenagers now.

Italy and the US

At one time in my life, I lived in Italy. Now, in Italy, there is no such thing as writing out a check to pay for your phone bill or electric bill. You would receive the bill in the mail and then have to go to the bank or the post office to pay the bill in cash or with a debit card. You may wonder why someone would be paying bills at the post office and it's because the post office in Italy, like other European countries, serves for more than just mailing letters. Post offices also perform the basic functions of a bank. I often thought of those functions as equivalent to a basic passbook savings account at a bank. So, for this reason, you would have to go to the post office and pay your electric bill and telephone bill there. The post office also was where the senior citizens went every month to get their pensions from the gub-mint. As a result of all these other things going on at the post office, mailing letters wasn't the main reason that the majority of the people happened to be at the post office.

So, as you can imagine, the post office was a very popular and busy place. On days when I planned on paying my electric or telephone bill (water was paid at a different bank), I would make sure that I arrived at the post office about 30 minutes before opening time so I could get in line. Usually, when the post office opened, there were already 10 to 15 people waiting to do business. If I didn't get there early, I could wait for an hour very easily just to complete a 2-minute transaction (In Italy, paying bills was quick and easy. Waiting was the hard part).

Why am I telling this story? Because it seems that for all it's problems, the local Italian post office where I used to pay bills is looking more efficient today than my local US post office. I have gone into my local post office and seen twenty people or more standing in line and there would be one postal employee behind the counter "slowly" helping these people. You would think that the post office would have more postal employees behind the counter at the busiest times (they do, they just aren't there to help you), but since it's a quasi-gub-mint agency, efficiency is not a word in their vocabulary. Although both the US and Italian post offices have long lines, at least the Italian post office has a reason since the Italian post office does so much more. Oh, the joys of public employee unions. I can hardly wait for healthcare to kick in.

Is this a sign of the apocalypse?

While searching Al Gore's invention for information on The Chosen One's Nobel Booby Prize, I ran across an article from Time about who should be awarded the Nobel Booby Prize and it's not a carbon-based life form. And the winner is........wait for it.......Nuk-lur Weapons!

I am somewhat shocked as I thought that Time was one of those left-leaning members of the MSM who are all for nuk-lure disarmament, etc. Maybe the apocalypse is on it way.

Anyway, it's nice to read something that makes sense from Time. I wonder what they put in the bong that they normally smoke.

El-ahrairah for the Nobel Peace Prize!

Since the Chosen One has now become the Chosen One Nobel Laureate for doing absolutely nothing, The Great El-ahrairah will nominate himself for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. Having lowered he bar so low as to make actions meaningless, the Nobel Committee has made qualifying for the Peace Prize (hearby known as the Nobel Booby Prize) easy as converting oxygen into carbon dioxide. Come to think of it, everyone in the world is now eligible for the Booby Prize. See, Obama's Hope and Change (tm) in action.

From what I have read/heard, the deadline for submitting nominations for the Booby Prize is 1 February. That means that Booby Prize Obama was nominated a mere 10 days after taking office. Actually, it was probably some Obama suckup who nominated him, probably many months before the actual 1 February deadline. However, I would not be at all surprized if the Booby Prize committee decided to bend the rules and nominated him themselves much past the 1 February deadline since bending the rules to acomplish their objectives is something that you would expect from liberals.

Anyway, remember you heard it here first. El-ahrairah will win the Booby Prize in 2010!

Captain Holly's Hiking Blog: The End(?)

Back in early 2003, when I was an assistant Scoutmaster and had signed up to be Hiking merit badge counselor for our troop, I went out searching for a good sturdy pair of hiking boots to help me with my new calling. I went to Kirkham's in Salt Lake City and found this pair of Vasque boots on sale for something like $90.

They have turned out to be a bargain. Every hike in this blog has been completed with these boots, along with several others about which I haven't blogged. I would guess counting all my scouting expeditions, hunting, fishing and camping trips as well as hiking I have put about 400-500 miles on them. They are beginning to wear out but other than having to replace the laces they've never failed me.

It's only fitting then that I retire them at the same time I retire my hiking blog. No, I'm not going to give up hiking, but I am going to spend less time peakbagging and more time fishing and backpacking. When I was up in the Uintas earlier this summer I saw all sorts of wonderful opportunities to fish but was unable to do so because I had left my fishing gear behind in the interest of reducing weight.

While on that trip I decided that I had done most of the hikes I wanted to do when I got back into hiking a few years ago, and now it was time to do something else with my limited vacation time. That "something else" is more backpacking and fishing in the Uintas and less hiking just to climb a peak. As a result, if this blog does continue next year it will do so as "Captain Holly's Backpacking/Fishing Blog".

Just thought you'd like to know. Thanks for reading.

Hikeblogging: Wellsville Cone, Wellsville Mountains Wilderness Area, Wasatch-Cache NF

I did this hike on September 12, 2009.

Over the past four years I've planned on doing a late-season hike to the Wellsville Mountains but there always seemed to be something that would force me to cancel. This year I was determined to do it no matter what and I finally did.


The Wellsvilles are the steep mountain chain between Cache and Box Elder counties. Supposedly they are one of the steepest in the US, rising from valley floor to top and back in less than 6 miles. I can attest that they are indeed steep, having gotten several blisters from coming back down.

The overall distance from Coldwater Canyon/Maple Ridge trailhead east of Mendon to the summit is only about 3.5 miles, but I had to tack on an extra mile because the dirt road leading up the trailhead was so rough my car couldn't make it. A 4WD with high clearance is a necessity if you plan on going.


About a half mile in you come upon lovely Coldwater Lake, which in reality is a small pond about 75 feet long. But it is picturesque. From here the trail goes right up the mountainside and you gain about 2,000 feet in elevation over the next mile or so. Fortunately there are several switchbacks which makes it relatively easy. But because the trail isn't heavily used the brush has grown over the trail in a couple of different locations.



On top the views of both Cache Valley and Box Elder county are great. The trail then follows the ridge line south until reaching the top of Wellsville Cone which is 9,356 feet. The tallest peak in the chain is just a mile to the south and is about 20 feet higher.

On top there is a makeshift memorial to someone who died earlier this year, but it doesn't specify if he died up on top or on the trail, or if he just liked hiking to this mountain.

This picture of the road leading out from the trail head shows why this hike would be great for right about now. The lower elevations of the Wellsvilles are covered with groves of aspen and maple and are beautiful when the leaves turn. I probably should have waited a couple of weeks to hike it, but if I had failed to go when I had scheduled it I probably wouldn't have gone just as in previous years.