Happy Valentine's Day

Paintings by Ron Mueller

I saw this painting the other day and I have to say it took me by surprise. It was painted by the father of a friend of mine.

I guess at first I thought it was just a simple study of flowers in acrylic paint, but it was more complex than that.

Those are some crazy petals !!

I wonder if Ron is just using the flowers to illustrate people. Showing us that despite differences between us, it's still possible to grow and even flourish together.

I don't know...I guess I'll have to ask him.

Here's another painting, a water color that he did shortly after the 9/11 disaster in NY..

I am afraid my camera does not do Ron's art much justice, this picture is actually quite large and I couldn't get the entire picture into one frame.

A closer look at the "Angels helping each other" in the picture

I really could not come up with a post today, but Ron's pictures are worth, at least, a thousand words.

The Perfect Girl

An Irish Joke

Subject: Irish Robbery

An armed hooded robber bursts into the Bank of Ireland and forces the tellers to load a sack full of cash. On his way out the door with the loot one brave Irish customer grabs the hood and pulls it off, revealing the robber's face.

The robber shoots the guy without hesitation!

He then looks around the bank to see if anyone else has seen him. One of the tellers is looking straight at him and the robber shoots him also.

Everyone by now is very scared and looking down at the floor. " Did anyone else see my face?" calls the robber.

There are a few moments of silence, then one elderly Irish gent, looking down, tentatively raises his hand and says:

"I think me wife may have caught a glimpse...."

Boston Via Cambridge

Driving a little out of the way, I headed into Boston today with my nephew and his friend "Chester" who we dropped off at his Frat house on the banks of the Charles River in Cambridge, MA

I managed to bypass the $3.50 toll and see a few things we don't always see just speeding down the highway. And I am pretty sure it did not cost us $3.50 in gas to take the long way.

I snapped these pics when we dropped "Chester" off,

______________________________

We stopped at Brookline Smokehouse and ate dinner. I had a rack of BBQ Ribs, corn bread and potato salad with a order of their Homemade Jalapeno Poppers...AWESOME BABY !!

Then we headed to the South End to check on a property we have been trying to De-Ice, a friend of mine owns the house but he's in Florida now, poor thing, I think it was like 80 degrees there today.

Later I took another pic on West Concord Street in the South End...

and yes it's from atop the "Red Rocket" and as dirty as the car was, we still were able to get a "Red Rocket Reflection" picture...if you don't know what that is go back and read about the other Reflections in the series.....

Commonwealth Road

AND

Red Rocket Reflections

So this is MY Bailout!!

$819 BILLION !!!

$42 Billion for Highways and Mass Transit - NICE I think they are going to buy me a car or a Bus pass

$72 Billion for Health care, Education AND the Environment....Awesome !! Finally those nice politicians are going to use my Tax dollars to pay for National Health Insurance

$102 Billion for Unemployment and Food Stamps...this must be for someone else because I don't use food stamps and the last time I collected unemployment was in 1980 and I couldn't wait to get out of that line !! Maybe they should just throw this at National Health care

$110 Billion for Business Tax Benefits.... this will be used for Corporate CEO's and there severance packages

$211 Billion for State Aid ...Any of this money that gets earmarked for Massachusetts will just be sucked up into a vortex and never be seen again...might as well throw it at National Health care

and MY Favorite....

$110 Billion for "Other Expenses"...Politicians love that phrase "Other Expenses"

I can hear it now, John Kerry, Senator from MA, calls Ted Kennedy, the other Senator from MA.

"OKAY, Teddy, we got that, "money" we should arrange a meeting in Fiji or for the Foreign relations committee, I'll have my Secretary's Secretary call one of her assistants to make the arrangements"

"Are you even on that Committee John??

"Hey I don't know but it's frigging cold here Ted and I don't see any reason why we shouldn't show an interest in the Economic development between Fiji and the US, besides last time I went to Fiji it rained all day."

"Oh, You didn't pay for the trip did you John???"

"Hell NO! Teddy!! It was a little junket sponsored by the lobbyist who have given me the most campaign funds over the years."


All this bailout money, the Car Industry, The Financial Institutions and now., er uh...US, well it's all got to get paid for by your Tax Dollars!!

I think it would be in the best interest of us Citizens, that if we are going to lay out all this spending that it would be better to have National Healthcare for all...

I mean think how many people who pay HUNDREDS of dollars a week for health insurance could take that money and spend it at the MAll or the Car dealer, maybe buy a house.

Now THAT would stimulate an Economy

But no, we will hand our money to the politicians...We might as well go to Vegas and lay it all down on the roulette table, I'd bet on Black...It's been luckly this year !!

When I started Toms' Hideaway, I new nothing about blogging. The closest I got to digital photography was having my film developed and getting a CD Copy of them.

Now I have my own digital camera, over 370 Blog posts on Toms' Hideaway and hundreds more on my other blogs.

I was just looking over some stats for my blog over the past year and I think it's kinda cool that Toms' Hideaway has become somewhat of an International Traveler visiting 71 different countries or regions in the past year....

C

Here's the List

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Bahrain, Belgium, Bermuda, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Haiti, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Republic Of , Kuwait. Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand ,Nigeria, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, The Russian Federation,
Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain,Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey,Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela,Vietnam, Yugoslavia

That's 71 !!

Commonwealth Road

A new picture for the Red Rocket Reflections, those pictures taken from atop the Infamous Red Rocket, a car with a seriously good turning radius....It can bang a U turn just about anywhere. Well , anywhere it's legal.

This picture was taken the other night outside of a Team Hideaway Photo Journalist's home...She brought back some great pictures of the Boston Celtics earlier this year...