I was at a garden center the other day looking for something else when I happened on a spray that promised to rid my garden of all sorts of unwanted 4-footed critters. Including my friend Rocky Raccoon.

I was getting a bit tired of chasing him out of the grapes every night with a broom, but I don’t like using poisons of any kind in my yard. For one thing, I don’t want to flush them into our sewers and thence to the streams and rivers. And I like all (most) of the wildlife in my yard. I’m visited by 4 or 5 different species of native bees — the bumble bees in my yard actually outnumber the interloper honey bees. I have mantids and lady bugs and other aphid-eaters; toads and frogs to eat the slugs; butterflies and hummingbirds to delight me. It’s a nice, albeit currently weedy little ecosystem. I would even welcome the coons if they didn’t eat the grapes. So, no pesticides or herbicides, thank you very much.

I looked at the label on this spray and the ingredients were capsaicin and water. Ah ha! I said to myself. I wonder how Rocky will like a snoot-full of habanero? Certainly unpleasant, but not necessarily deadly.

#1 Son wanted to do the actual spraying, so with mom directing, he sprayed the bases of the grape vines, the pergola supports, the branch of the silk tree that overhangs the pergola, the base of the silk tree, the top of the pergola on the silk-tree side, and the top of the fence.

That night I heard some rustling out vine-ward. But not for very long. In the week since, there have been no signs of nocturnal visitations.

Everything seems to be about 2 weeks early this year, which means we may have ripe grapes while we’re out of town. I’m going to spray again just before we go.

I still have my fingers crossed, but this year we may actually have enough grapes to can juice. If all goes as planned, we’re going to have way too many grapes. 😀

Came home last night to a voice message from my right-coast cousin, Marg. She and her son Jeff are out west on a visit. Yesterday she was visiting relatives up in Seattle, where they watched Boston cream the Mariners in front of a sell-out crowd. Today they and my cousins Jay and Marsha are driving down to Portland. They’ll be staying at Jack’s house, because he has room and I don’t. #1 Son and I are going over there for dinner tonight. I’m looking forward to seeing all of them. Thursday they leave for Boise, where there’s a family reunion on their father’s side of their family (i.e. not my relatives — their mother was my mother’s sister).

The weather, for once, is cooperating. It’s still too humid for my hair. But at least it’s down to the lower 80’s, cool at night, and a breeze. I have the house cooled down to about 74 now. I’m hoping to get it cooled off the rest of the way tonight, because tomorrow we head back to the 90’s for several days. Blech. But maybe the humidity will go down a bit and my hair will calm down.

Below are some pictures from the Guitar Center Battle of the Bands at Summerfest.

The bands who competed were Autistic Youth, representing Southridge; Not That Ugly, from Aloha; and Of God, from Westview.

The bands were judged on stuff like look, showmanship, passion and music, with each being worth a total of 15 points (5 points/judge). After all of the bands had played, the audience also voted for their favorite via loudest applause. This was also worth 15 points.

Alas, Autistic Youth came in third. I think they were hurt by the fact that the other two bands had larger followings present in the audience. Of God placed second only because they had the loudest cheering section — I think they brought their whole church along, but nobody else was too impressed. A lot of the general crowd actually left during Of God. Autistic Youth pulled them back in towards the end of their set, which meant Not That Ugly had a larger audience to cheer for them. If it hadn’t been for those two things, Autistic Youth would have placed second, and maybe first.

Mom’s reviews:

Summerfest in general:
Lots of good food — but expensive. Lots of stuff for kids to do — but expensive. More exhibitors than I remember in the past, and lots of freebies. Plenty of tables with chairs available for eating and listening to the music. I miss Nightglow, but the evening concert line-up was better. What with the weather semi-cooperating (muggy, but overcast and around 80 instead of 93), a fun time was had by all.

The Guitar Center Battle Of The Bands:
I give them one star for giving to the schools and lending the sound equipment and drum set. The sound guy, however, had no clue what he was doing. The sound board was at the back of the stage and he never put his headphones on, so he only heard the sound via the monitors. The sound from the speakers was horrible. Very heavy bass (I’m surprised I still have the fillings in my teeth and I was not that close), very light everything else. We couldn’t hear the vocals during Autistic Youth and Not That Ugly totally lost their lead guitar. Bad, bad, bad. And the announcer was pretty lame, too, although he did follow Autistic Youth’s direction to introduce them as “leaving shortly for their one-day tour of Newberg.”

Of God:
What can I say? Christian Rock is not my cup of tea. But, subject matter aside, all of their songs were really long and sounded the same. By the third song I was really bored and just wanted them to be done. I give them two stars, though, because the keyboardist really rocked. Pity we couldn’t hear him half the time. I give their “fan” contingent no stars, because they couldn’t be bothered to listen to the other two bands. They left after Of God played, and came back only to cheer. Boo to them.

Autistic Youth:
Yeah. So it’s my kid — who said I had to be objective? Some comments, though, in the interest of semi-fairness: There was some dead air between the songs while #1 Son talked to Seve and Alex. It made me think that they didn’t know the set list. #1 Son — awesome guitar as always, but talk to the audience, dude! Nick — bass was great but you do a good statue impression. Move around a little! Autistic Youth was by far the best musicians technically. Seve was the only drummer we could really hear. (It reminded me of the very early Bakwash days. #1 Son kept telling me over and over, “I need a louder amp. Seve drowns me out.”) I wish we could have heard the lyrics. I wish the sound had been better. Truth to tell, punk is not to everyone’s liking. But they didn’t really want to win, so meh. I thought they were awesome.

Not That Ugly:
The winners. I give them three stars because they did a decent job. Their music was more approachable than either of the other two bands, although it did all start to sound the same towards the end. But there wasn’t anything to really hate about it, either. It was a drag that I couldn’t hear the lead guitar at all because it looked like he was a decent player. Good sound might have earned them another star. I also have to give them their props for being the only band to thank the other two bands. That shows some class.

Above: Autistic Youth competes in the Guitar Center Battle Of The Bands at Summerfest.
“Enhancing our sense of community through the arts.” (oh yeah!)
L-R: Adam Becker, Seve Sheldon, Alex (Alert) Tryon, Nick (Mayhem) Powell

Right: Seve’s little brother Levi shows his support for the Lost Boys! Alex made the killer vest.

Below: The Autistic Youth fan club.

It’s hot and muggy. Well, it’s not that hot — in the upper 80’s — but the humidity makes it seem worse. And there’s no breeze at all. So my house is really hot and doesn’t cool down at night. The local weather guys and the government weather feeds both say that it’s going to cool down by the weekend. The Weather Channel says that it’s going to be hotter. The Weather Channel is usually right. This time I’m really hoping that they’re wrong. Sitting out in the sun in 90-degree-plus weather to watch #1 Son play in Summerfest doesn’t sound all that appealing. Listening to Autistic Youth is appealing, you understand! But I’m not supposed to sit out in the sun at all, so that will be very interesting. I’m hoping for a cool, overcast day!

My cold seems to be a bit better this morning. Hopefully it will be short-lived. How annoying to have a cold in the summer.

It’s hot in the house. #1 Son left his window open yesterday and let the heat in. There was no breeze last night at all, so even with the fans on the air just didn’t move. No thunderstorms last night, like we had on Monday night. It was so cool being woken up by thunder!

It’s been humid, too. I had my hair trimmed and touched-up on Monday, so now with the humidity it’s really, really big. #1 Son stopped by work yesterday and someone made a crack about him “having his mom’s hair.” Hmmmm… not quite the look that I was going for. Guess I’ll have to keep it knotted up until it calms down. It’s supposed to be cooler today, but the humidity is still 90%. If only my hair had the same amount of curliness all over, instead of doing corkscrews in some places and being almost straight in others. Blech. People with straight hair don’t know how good they have it.

I have a cold again. What is this shit? So does #1 Son. At least we’re sick at the same time, instead of passing it back and forth like we usually do.

In other news, “terrorist chatter” is once again on the rise, we’re told. al-Qaida wants to attack the US, we’re told. They want to disrupt our elections, we’re told. We’re told these “facts” by the same people who said that Sadam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction; the same people who said that we would have terrorist attacks at Christmas, the Super Bowl, etc..; the same people who have raised and lowered the HS advisory terrorist warning level like a yoyo. (See the side blog for what it is today.)

Now DeForest B. Soaries, chairman of the new U.S. Election Assistance Commission, created by the Help America Vote Act of 2002, writes in a letter to Democrat and Republican leaders in The House and Senate, “There does not appear to be a clear process in place to suspend or reschedule voting during an election if there is a major terrorist attack.” He wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge that no Federal agency has the statutory authority to cancel or reschedule elections, and maybe it should be Homeland Security.

Has it occurred to Mr. Soaries that there might be a reason for this?

And now our “friends” at Homeland Security have sent an inquiry to the Justice Department on the same topic.

Since it is not prohibited by The Constitution, the States retain the right to move a local election if necessary. And our Presidential election is local in the sense that we do not actually vote for the President, but for an elector to represent us. The Constitution gives Congress the right to decide when the Electors meet to cast their ballots. It can be any time, as long as it’s the same day in every state. So it seems to me that any kind of “disruption,” which is likely to be fairly localized, is already covered by our existing system. And this power is held by officials duly elected by the populace, so they are a just a bit more concerned with keeping their noses clean than appointed officials are.

Why would we ever want to invest in any appointed official the ability to postpone or reschedule Federal elections? That sounds more like the act of a banana republic dictator than of a US President.

Oh… yeah… I get confused sometimes, too.

Some in the Bush Administration complain that a terrorist attack in Spain disrupted their elections. But from what I saw, what happened was that subsequent to a terrorist attack the ruling party lost power. This may have been an unexpected outcome, but it was hardly a “disrupted” election.

The Help America Vote Act was enacted to provide funds to states to update outmoded voting machines and to provide for some minimum requirements that states must meet during Federal elections. I’m sure that the intent was to prevent another fiasco like Florida 2000. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission is supposed to receive reports from the states and dole out the funds. I think it’s a stretch to include suggesting potentially unconstitutional legislation under the Commission’s bailiwick.

I am reminded of two quotes from our Founding Fathers, the first from Benjamin Franklin:

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.

And the second from Thomas Jefferson:

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

Our election system may not be perfect, but for the most part it limps along fairly well. Let’s stop being scared and take back our country from the elected and appointed idiots that keep trying to take it away.