Trump goes to Daytona for the NASCAR race

They are having a wonderful time. Nice low fly over in Air Force One.  President to take a lap in the presidential limo.  And say a few words to the Yuge crowd.  Stands look full.   Continuous  live TV coverage on Fox.  What's not to like?

Boeing is hurting

Boeing has not sold a single airliner this last month.  This week's Aviation Week had two pieces on Boeing's plight.  Boeing lost $600 million on 2019.  They wrote about the "New Midmarket Aircraft"  (NMA) development of which is sorta underway with a delivery target date of 2025.  At the rate things are going Boeing will be toast by 2025.  Nothing was said about getting the 737 MAX ungrounded.  Things got so bad that Boeing stopped production of the 737-MAX, they must be running out of places to put them all.  And shutting down production has hurt/panicked/destroyed all the vendors that made parts for the 737-MAXes.  Boeing was one of the few American companies that did much exporting, and the 737-MAX grounding has done bad things for the US trade deficit. 
   As far as ungrounding the 737-MAX, the problem is the FAA people are just snivel servants who know little about flying.  They do know that if they let the 737-MAX fly and there is another accident fingers will be pointed at them, and heads may roll.  So they are shuffling papers, milling around, and demanding more and more engineering data from Boeing.  Boeing knows that it cannot press the FAA for fear of getting them more bent out of shape and less likely to ever let the 737MAX fly.

NH Primary Results as of 11PM

With 75% of the vote in Donald Trump has 92,000 votes.  Bernie Sanders has 58,000.  Pet e Buttigieg is right behind Bernie with 52,000.  The rest of the Democrats are way down from the two front runners. 

Learning the Hard Stuff

To drink that is.  We are talking distilled liquors which are sold at 80 to 90 proof.  For those just getting into drinking hard stuff, a proof point is one half a percent of the alcohol content.  100 proof is 50-50 grain alcohol (ethanol) and water.  A jigger of the hard stuff has the kick of a 12 ounce can of beer or a small glass of wine. 
   Of the hard liquors my favorite is whiskey, which comes from four important places, Scotch from Scotland, Canadian from Canada, Bourbon from Bourbon county Kentucky, and Irish from Ireland.  They are all good.  When you first try them the fierce bite of the alcohol will numb your taste buds and you won't notice much difference between them.  With some experience you will find Scotch has a sharper tang to it, Bourbon is sweeter, Canadian is somewhere in between, and good Irish whiskey is just very very smooth. 
    I drink my whiskey with ice and club soda (Scotch and soda).  A jigger (or two if you are hard core), an 8 to 12 ounce glass filled with ice, and fill it up with club soda, and you have a very nice drink.  If you are hard core, you can drink your whiskey straight, just ice, no club soda.  If you are really hard core you can drink your whiskey neat, no ice. 
   You can buy quite decent whiskey for $15 a "half gallon" (actually 1.75 liters today). And you can pay a good deal more.  In the quite decent class is Old Crow bourbon, Canadian Club, and Clan McGregor Scotch.   A notch up is maybe Ballantine Scotch, Wild Turkey bourbon ,and Seagram's VO Canadian.  My sainted (and now deceased) mother drank little else  besides VO.  I can enjoy the pricier whiskeys but I don't normally spend the money to buy them.   

Cannon Mountain Ski Weather

We got 8 inches of fresh snow on Friday.  That will make all the trails super good.  I wanted to post this earlier on Friday but the cable went down, knocking out my broadband and my TV.  Cable just came back. 

Everyone should vote in the NH primary next Tuesday

The primary is this coming Tuesday. Everyone should go out and vote. New Hampshire has a lot of fun doing the First In The Nation (FITN) primary. We also get a lot of good publicity, we get increased clout down in Washington, and all those candidates and news people help keep New Hampshire green, they bring money. The way it is now, all presidential candidates have to pass muster with New Hampshire voters. This is a good thing. Let's keep it up. To do so we have to show a good turnout. We want to avoid a catastrophe like Iowa. I am sure that Secretary of State Bill Gardner and countless poll workers (unpaid volunteers mostly) will do their usual good job. As American citizens, our duty is to go to the polls and vote.

Iowa still cannot count. and it hurts

At this point they are all claiming victory.  They all put a good deal of time and money into the Iowa caucus and what did they get? Diddly Squat.  Wanna bet nobody does much campaigning (and spending) in Iowa in 2024?  And apparently this is all the fault of the Democratic party, both national and Iowa.  Takes a lot of workers to mess things up so badly.