some people are too blind to be president.

Ok, I'd like to tell you about my week as it pertains to doctors and my health care. First a little background about my health insurance. I have a policy that cost's me $212. a month. With a $3000.00 yearly deductable. But I have zero emergency room cost up to $2500.00 a day. I can go every day if I want. I judged a horse show last weekend and was out in the sun for two days. I have had this thing on the side of my nose for the last several years that looks somewhat like a pimple and it bleeds now and then. A few years ago when I noticed it it only bled during the summer if I was out in the sun for several consecutive days. Recently is has gotten considerably worse and this last weekend it started bleeding in the shower when I washed my face. So now I'm concerned. Any way. I give lessons to a lady who has had some dermatology work done lately and I talked to her and we called her Dr. I figured since I had such I high deductable I would just start with the Dermatologist. Well guess what I'm wrong. I call her doctor who wont see me without a referral. So I call my health insurance co and try and find a Dr. in my area. When I call him, he says yes he can see me but he is really busy and make an appointment for next month. Now I didnt actually get to talk to a Dr. Just the bitch who answers the phone. She talked to me like I was the stupidist person on earth. So I would have to pay the Dr. for the referral if I went to him, and then pay the dermotologist, until I got up to $3000.00. I have a new plan. The neighbor lady is going to cut my nose with a straight razor, then I'm going to go to the emergency room, because that wont cost me anything, and then I'm going to get a referral to a Dermotologist, or just have them remove the thing on my nose while I'm in there, because I'm sure its bad enough now it wont stop bleeding for a long time. My whole point to this stupid rant is not my nose, but just how screwed up our health care system is, and that is because of the insurance companies and the Dr.'s and the Gov't.

we are doing something wrong.

This last weekend I was in Desert Hot Springs judging a show. I've done this same show for ten years now. I always have the best time when I am there. And so do the exibitors. Some of them I have actually watched grow up. Somewhat. Anyway, this weekend the weather was anything but pleasant. It was over cast and the wind was blowing at least a gale. That didnt seem to deter the exhibitors at all. We had Paints, Appy's.Quarter Horses. etc. And the Halter classes which have been non existant at the quarter horse shows were full of horses. I cant remember when I have seen quarter horse exhibitors out there with theirhts tied down on their heads and shivering in the cold showing and having a good time. Even Judy managed to keep fairly quiet and down to a dull screech. This particular show is put on by a private family. The kids worked the lunch stand and ran errands, the husband handles the mechaical duties and announces, and the wife is the show manager and grounds crew and handles all matters of disputes and schooling of some of the local students. It is part of a 6 show saddle series, and prizes are given out for the placings in each class, for the high point for the show, and saddles for the year end awards. Some years have more entries than others, the youngest age group and the walk trot entries seem to hold from year to year, and the amature entries stay steady also. Some of them I only see at this show and look forward to judging their progress, or lack of, from year to year. I like this show so much that I even miss the Daytona 500 to go and judge it. I guess maybe it reminds me how much fun I had showing when I was a kid.
The other thing that I did this weekend that was fantastic. I Had dinner at the Kaiser Grill in downtown palm springs. When you get my age food can be better than sex. This was one such occasion. I started with spinach and artichoke dip, fantastic, then ceasar salad, with actual anchovies in the dressing. Prime rib, garlic mashed potatoes, green beans, finished off with raspberry, cocoanut, and tangerine sorbet with toasted cocoanut on top. If you ever get to palm springs, Be sure and Give the Kaiser Grill a try.

tigers woody,

Ok here goes, who gives a shit about about Tiger Woods and how many women he put the wood too. As far as I'm concerned he is just like so many of the other pro athletes out there. They make too much money, dont perform unless they have too, and live above the normal realm of society and the law. If you or I had fled our home in the middle of the night because our other half was beating us with a golf club, mowed down a tree and had the police called on us. I'm sorry. Who the hell gets to hide in his house, behind the private gates of the community that he lives in and not report to the police at least for an interview. Excuse me. The police would have hauled any non celebrity in to jail and written them as many tickets as they could come up with. I personally dont care that he has apologized, I think his wife is just plain stupid for staying with him. And come on how flippin pure of heart is she if she does. Looks to me like she is just in it for the money. I am tired of seeing his filandering ass in the news. For god sakes, the olympics are going on. The economy is in the shitter. There are some many other worthwile things to report on its just inexcusable. Today one of the local news channels started with the Tiger Woods press conference, not the lost 4 year old girl. not the results of the olympics, or any other local news that might be important. I personally hope that he gets some kind of sexually transmitted disease that causes him to grow some kind of disfiguring appendage on his face right between his eyes and he never get to play golf again.
Oh and by the way. I love to play golf. I suck at it. But I love to play, and Tiger Woods has no bearing on that at all.

who's to blame.

I recieved a call yesterday from an ex customer of mine. She was complaining about the "bad" wrap that the trainer/exhibitor was recieving after the recent driving wreck in Scottsdale. She was saying it wasnt his fault and people were talking bad about it etc. Ok lets look at this for a minute, Sure the judge should have been smart enough not to back the horses on the rail. But thats what she called for. Second who backed the horse into the fence in the first place. That wasnt the judge. Third. why the hell when the wreck happend didnt the rest of the exhibitors drive their horses out of the arena.
Not too many years ago while I was hooking a horse up at watsonville. One that had driven many times before, he spooked. He spooked when a well known halter trainer ponied their horse next to mine and it jumped in the air, snorted and kicked out. Should mine have bolted, probably not, but he did. I didnt track the halter trainer down and call her every name in the book. I took my lumps from everybody on the show grounds. Ironically the "only" person actually affected by my horse spooking was in the middle of showing her horse in the trail. She was extremely gracious. One non exhibitor who owns a tack store, was the worst bitcher about it. It was all my fault and I was dangerous. Ironically a few years later she could manage to park her tack trailer at Santa Barbara one fall and actually asked me to help her with it. Which I did. I guess she didnt remember what a bitch she had been to me before. Funny how thing turn out. Anyway. A few years ago the owner of the horse that wrecked in Scottsdale asked me to drive one for her. Supposedly one that had driven before. The silly bastard tried to kick my head off before I could even get the croupler on it. Needles to say I didnt get that one driven, and have avoided driving any for her since. Obviously a smart move on my part. The blame resides with the person driving the horse. Dont back into the wall. Know the animal well enough to not have a wreck, and have the good sense not to drive the nutcases anyway.
Now all this will probably get me in trouble, but who gives a shit anyway. I've never been politically correct to be very poplular with most of you knit wits anyway. Have a nice day.

too fun for words

I have been sitting here trying to find a way to sufficiently express just how much fun that I have racing my car. I dont know how. For some reason it seems like the most natural thing on earth for me. Like I have been doing it all my life, and no, its not anything like driving on the highway only faster. I had a very successful weekend, my lap times were good for my group, and I manages to be reasonably consistent throughout the weekend. For some reason consistency seems really importatnt to me. Probably because its so hard to be consistent when trying to get a good performance out of a horse. I find car racing fascinating, it is truly amazing how much information that you can get from the it while your driving around the track. The imperfections of the track, elevation, smooth or rough surfaces, balance between front and rear as you brake hard going in to a turn, etc. Its just amazing. There is nothing like feeling the pull from the engine when you accelerate out of a corner. The tires struggeling for traction as you push them to their adhesive limits. It's just amazing. I have a racing seat and 5 point harness that straps me into the seat really snug. I move very little when the car is moving about. After the first few laps its actually somewhat relaxing to know that all I have to worry about is driving the car. One of the best things about car racing. The bottom line is who ever is the fastest wins, its not about what horse your riding, or who the judge is, or how much you paid for it. I have a resonably inexpensive car, and have done only modest modifications up to this point, trust me I will do more as I can afford it. And I have the most fun that I can imagine, being out on the track with bmw's and porche's, other vettes, and audi's, mustang's, honda's, nissan's and others. And actually getting to outrun some of them.
I have wanted to race cars my entire life. I can remember playing on the floor with matchbox cars when I was a kid, having electric race cars, and go carts. I never imagined that I'd get to do this as a hobby. The first time on the track with my instructor, I can say that I was actually ready to throw up with anxiety, worried about not being any good. Now that I have done it for a while I can say that it is exacty everything I always thought it would be. I challenge everyone that has a childhood dream to go for it, find a way to give that dream a try. Get out there and live a little. It just might turn out to be worth every breath you take.

an unknown entity.

The weather is beautiful again here in the Valley of the Sun, as it should be. It has been a really good week here. Lots of lessons, the race car is ready to run, as am I, and the roan horse has been sound all week. That is a good thing, especially since he is tired as hell of staying in his stall or walking to the round pen. I came to the realization that he was sound again when he bit me over the round pen fence on Tuesday when I went out to bring him back to the barn. In a fit of anger I worked his rather blubber enhanced ass off. Has been sound all week since and I worked him again. So its back to work for him, slowly and if he stays sound he'll get to go to the world show one last time his last junior year. My 3 yr old filly is now so tall that her withers are at the top of my head. After last years cluster sending one out to be trained I fear that I'll be showing this one in Hunter Under Saddle myself. For those of you who havent seen me show hunt seat. Just imagine a 250# linebacker dressed up in tights and a suitcoat looking as out of place in a hunter undersaddle class as a semi on a road course. Speaking of semi's if you dont have your class A license and your pulling a goose neck horse trailer. You better get one, they are really cracking down around the southwest. The east coast is supposed to get a blizzard. I cant think of a better place for a deep freeze than Washington D.C.
Being a fan of american automobiles, specifically General Motors cars, and Ford trucks, I am infinitely happy about all the recall's that seem to be plagueing Toyota at the moment. Frankly the day that G.M. had to file bankruptcy was a sad day for me. I grew up on G.M. cars. Specifically G.M. muscle cars, GTO's Firebird's Camaro's and Corvettes. We never owned a 4 door anything while I was growing up. We always had to cram in the back seat of some kind of G.M. coup. Even though american car makes flouder badly in the 80's, with a few exceptions, the 90's started a quality and styling revolution, not including the Pontiac Aztek. Having driven a fair amount of cars over the past years, foreign and american, german and Japanese. I dont think the gaps in quality are that great. The new Cadillac's, Corvettes, Fusions and Taurus' are fine automobiles and the automotive press needs to get with the program. Well enough of my latest soapbox rant. You all have a great weekend, and if something spectacular happens this weekend at the raceway I'm sure I'll tell you Monday.

Law Enforcement cutbacks

Recently the state of Arizona, and some of the cities in the valley of the sun have announced that with the current state of the economy and the impending budget cuts, they are contemplating cutting 1000's of police, highway patrol, and firemen jobs. Now I dont understand the logic behind these particular cuts. With having a shooting, stabbing, or drunk driving fatality almost every day here in phx. It really doesnt make sense to be eliminating the jobs that can help keep those things under control. God knows I dont particularily like to get stopped, but I do want someone to put the fire out when I am screwing around play weekend mechanic and I set the place on fire, or I build too bid a fire in the wood stove in the shop and the flue pipe gets so hot it comes apart and the building starts to implode. I propose that we stop paying food stamp programs, and shift the money in the free health care for the unfortunates programs, to the budgets for the fire, and police departments. Here is another idea, how about everybody that is getting some kind of government aid, has to do 20 hours of public service a week. Park maintenence, trash pick up, they could start in their own neighborhood and clean that shit up. No more free abortions to drug addicts, and when they deliver chain those kids to their mothers so they have to take care of them. If they have enough maybe they will stop making them in the first place. That same idea could be applied to the Haitins that keep propogating like mice, They drop the oldest one off at the orphanage and then have one to replace it. I may seem like an insensitive ass, but I'm sure some of you have had the same thoughts.
One more thought pertaining to the judge that asked the driving horses in the pleasure driving class at the Sun Circuit this week to back on the rail after the class. And why does that person hold a judges card. Even a blind monkey should have the good sense to know thats dangerous. Just exactly what kind of droolers are we giving judges card to these days.