Screws In My Coffee

This post is about using a lot of Google stuff.  There are a lot of folks that are calling applications like Picasa and Chrome Cloud applications.  I am using Chrome for the first time to write in my Blog.  I also used Picasa on my computer to organize my images and upload them to web albums.  I can embed Flash slide shows in my posts with out doing any programming.  Check out the images from my trip to the Cadillac Ranch. I am planning on upgrading my free Google storage account so that I can load all of my 21GB of images on Google servers.  Thsi will be a backup and a way to publish my images when I want to on my Blog or other web sites.

Well I went to another amazing ACL festival this weekend.

So 11-15 inches of rain has fallen in Marble Falls last night. For the past 10 days it has been raining in Central Texas. I could not shred the fields out at my ranch near Winchester Texas this weekend because the ground was soggy.

Zak flew into Houston airport on Saturday December 23, 2006. The first thing that we did on Sunday was to go to a Texan game. We saw the Texas beat the Colts for the first time in franchise history. This was the first time that Zak has attended an NFL game. It was the second time that I had attended a NFL game. I had attended a LA Rams game with my father years ago when I was about Zak's age now (12) The big Stargate Trailer was hold up at the Brazos Bend State Park. We stayed there for a few days and then went back to Austin. On Christmas day we went to Sylvia's son's house for a visit. Zak and I headed for the gulf coast. I wanted to show Zak the town of Corpus Christi. We drove to Goose Island State Park and parked the pig. We did a lot of fun activities like visit the Aquarium, the air crft carrier Lexington and Mustang Island. Houston was the next stop on Zak's whirl-wind tour. Zak wanted to visit a museum so we went to the Houston Museum of Natural Science . Ther...

It has been a good work envorinment for the past year her at HT. Things have changed a lot in the past few weeks with the departure of Bill, JT and now Virginia. I will always cherish the time that this team worked here at HT solving may problems and growing spiritually as a team.

Well this was a very special Thanksgiving for me. It was a time for being thankful for a lot of things. For me it was a time of a lot of first time experiences. For one thing it was the first time that my sister and her family, my mother and my children celebrated Thanksgiving togather. It was the first time that my sister's husband and children have been to the ranch. I have not cooked a meal for a family function in a few years so I was nervous. I fried a turkey and prepared barbeque ribs and brisket. I had never prepared these dishes, but I did it with the help of my daughter Kalia and son Zak. I can not wait to smoke some meat again. The group photo has fro left to right starting with the front row, Kalia Wormley, Becca Vietze. On the second row is Zak Wormley, La Verne Wormley and Josh Vietze. On the back row is Lonnie Wormley, Deborah Vietze-Wormley, Sylvia McCormick and Peter Vietze. Yeah it was a long weekend when I had a chance to start new memories and tradition...

I drove from Austin to Portland Oregon in my new truck and fifth wheel. I visited with my children and did some sight seeing with Sylvia, her brother John and his wife Phyllis. I went through Simi Valley on my way to Portland and visited my mother. My mom and her dog Gidgie are doing OK. We did not stay very long and headed up to Valencia, CA to sleep in a Wal-Mart parking lot. We stopped in a Wal-Mart parking lot twice on our return trip, in Sacremento, CA and just before Phoenix, AZ. Stopping for the night in a parking lot is not ideal but it is free and allows you to sleep and then get on the road the next day rested. The drive up I-5 was really nice and it gave Sylvia a chance to see the miles of beautiful orchards and farm land. When we got over the Siskiyous pass and into Oregon we were treated to a wonderful show of fall colors. There are a lot of maple trees is Oregon and they were in full show as we drove from Medford to Tualaltin where we stayed in an RV park. We did some si...

Rain Hebrew Rap - Matisyahu , Performance Art - Flaming Lips, Classic Rock - Tom Petty more rain and then more Tom Petty . What a day to end the festival. Here is my ACL Day 3 schedule. You can check out all of my cheesey camera phone photos at the Wormley Photo Archive. The Flaming Lips by far impressed me the most on Day three of ACL. The lead singer placed himself inside a giant plastic sphere, walked off the stage, and rolled across the standing fans hands for several minutes as the band played. There were about 40 dancers on stage; half were dressed as Santa Clause and the other half were dresses as green faced female aliens. The crowd knew all the lyrics to their songs as this was a local Austin band. K. T. Turnstall played an incredible set of music. She is a singer songwriter from Scotland that used loopback technology live on stage in a few of her songs. She played guitar and rocked the crowd with her ballads of love and protest. I did not hear the bands that I pla...

Here is my ACL Day 2 schedule. Well I finally saw one of my favorite bands, Los Lobos. I purchased their latest CD and got it autographed. I have a lot of Los Lobos music and I have been a fan since the early 1980's, but I have never heard the band play live. I also listened to a band called Murder By Death . This band played what I call teenage angst music. The electric cello player was a young girl with an intense playing style. Phoenix was another band that was nice to hear play. The band was from France but they sang in English. The music was high tech rock with a European flare.

Well I have to say it was another great day at a great festival. The grass was watered all year by the parks department so there was no dust during the first day. The music was great and I am having a hard time trying to pick who I liked best out of the bands that I heard today. I have posted all of my pictures that I took with my phone camera on the Wormley Photo web site. Here is my ACL Day 1 schedule. I'll start with the last act from Friday's show first as that is what is fresh on my mind. I have been listening to Van Morrison for most of my life ever since I was a teen ager back in the 1970's. Until today I have never seen what he looks like so hearing him perform live was a real treat. Van is a real pro when it comes to stagemanship and his band was really tight. A lot of the songs in his set, both new and old, were arranged with a Texas twang thay only Van Morrison could do with his material. He led the band through some new hits and old hits as they went ...

Well this will be my third trip to the Austin City Limits Music Festival and Sylvia's second trip. This is a great festival and a chance to see a lot of diverse live music and just enjoy being in Austin. If you ever come to Austin this is an event that you will enjoy. There is music representing the genres of gospel, jazz, country, rock, blues, world beat and electronic. There are name acts like Tom Petty and Van Morrison to Internet radio favorites like Thievery Corporation.

I got a disturbing phone call from my neighbor that owns the property behind the Lone Worm Ranch in Fayatte County. He told me that there was water running down Wormley Lane and it was reaching the Waxsman property to the south on the ranch. I told him to turn off the pump. So today Sylvia and I went out to the ranch to see what was up. What We found is that the pond was full. What we discovered is that there was a leak at the valve right next to the culvert that fills the pond. I dug up the area around the leak and found the place where the pipe was seperated. Once I had the valve expose I cleaned it and re-glued it. I tested the joint and then re-buried the valve. Once the leak was repaired the water that ran through the bubblers on each tree had more water pressure. There is new growth on the trees that happened after the fish emulsion and compost tea application. the trees are doing better. The August heat has parched the land here in central Texas. Today it was 105 degrees but th...

I went to Port Aransas this weekend and all I got was this dumb picture.

This is a Pecan tree in Bastrop This is my hand against the trunk These are pecans on the tree These are the group of trees that I want to select from.

Lonnie's first Huston-Tillotson pay check I have been without a regular paycheck for a little over two years. This is my first check right before I deposit it in the bank.

[caption id="attachment_439" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Lone Worm Ranch Garden Spiders"] [/caption] I am living in a bug farm out at the Lone Worm Ranch. There are grass ants, spiders, hoppers and wasps all over the place. My favorites are the spiders which technically are not bugs. The photo that I took is of a spider that made a web in front of my kitchen window. All the large garden spiders are females and they eat the grass hoppers that hop up the side of the house and get caught. This spider is about 3 or 4 inches in diameter.

Well as I was driving to work today I had a tearful moment. I usually like the meditative 47 mile drive from my ranch near Winchester, Texas to Austin, Texas. Today as I was listening to aBruce Hornsby sing Mandolin Rain I started to think about my dad and started to cry. I'm not sure why I was crying as I dove towards Austin. Was it the music or was it the fact that I was fulfilling my dad's wish to live in Texas on the ranch. For waht ever reason there were tears flowing down my face and a feeling of both joy and sadness in my heart at the same time. I knew that my das was happy for what I was doing and I was sad that I could only feel his spirit and not really talk to him about what I was doing.

I have a job in Austin and will start work tomorrow. It was my goal to find work here in Texas and live with my dad during his retirement. The fact that my dad passed away on April 1, 2004 made me more commited to relocating to central Texas to be near the ranch.

If you are mildly curious about the ranch in Texas then click on this link http://www.lonewormranch.com and view the updated web site. I have placed some photos and maps there for your reference. I have also placed new photos on the http://www.wormley.org website. The new photos are under the categories that start with 00. If you plan to visit let me know and I will tell you where you can find the key in the event that I am not there. The house has electricity, well water and heat. Currently there is not a lot of furniture so if you plan to stay overnight bring a sleeping bag. There is plenty of floor space as the house is 1600 square feet. Be prepared for lots of bugs if you visit in the summer months. If you plan on walking outside on the ranch long jeans and leather shoes are the best. The property has lots of thorns that get stuck in canvas shoes. Even hiking boots with rubber soles have a rough time. As you might guess the best shoe to wear is a cowboy boot with leather bo...

I arrived back in the Austin area on Father's Day last Sunday. When I left Portland the weather was just starting to get really nice. When I left Texas for Oregon in March the spring flowers were just starting to grow. Now it has rained 16 inches this month in central Texas and it feels like Oregon.