s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

Hooning, as we may have noted in an earlier blog post, is a local slang term for “driving really recklessly fast”. “Pronking” is apparently the technical term for “poinging”, when alpacas (or, say, gazelles, or I guess goats or something) do it: leap about with all four feet leaving the ground at once.

Alpacas do both when you let them into a new paddock. It’s incredibly cute.

And, frankly, is yet another argument for choosing rotational grazing over set stocking.

Got a letter a few days ago from the fund that manages my IRA. They informed me that under article 326 of the USA Patriot Act people with an overseas address cannot make deposits into their own IRA accounts. Huh? I guess the Republicans figure that the anti-American Jihadist organizations are so successful due to the generous retirement programs! And article 326? Just how much stuff was crammed into that terrible law? And an even more vexing question, why does making it harder to save for retirement appear on the conservative wish-list? I could cynically suggest that they think the elderly might be needed as an extra cheap-working-poor labor force or something.

But to the credit of the IRA fund-manager, by reading between the lines you could see THEY thought this was a stupid law, and they provided many means for changing your address back to the USA.