Photo Index
is an easy to use, index web page listing links to hundreds of my original photos. Clicking the link
will send you to a page of photos decorated by unique captioning that has been capturing the attention
of the entire WWW .
My most popular pages are at:
Recent Buys and Bedstand Books of Mr.Wonderful where I list the most recent books I've bought, with their Barnes & Noble sales ranking, along with the publishers' comments.
The MW Review of Books is where I issue eloquent and frank book reviews the everyday reader can comprehend and use as a factor as to whether to purchase the book or not. Go figure, a book reviewer you can believe.
Heading south on the Squaw Peak Freeway SR51 one can see the winter smust (smog + dust)
already building up. The reason you don't notice it when you are swimming in it is because this
photo is 'looking' through about four miles of atmosphere where normally we just look through
a few hundred feet.
Here is a strange object seen in the desert near Scottsdale Road & Happy Valley. The night before
it was discovered bright lights and odd sounds, not unlike a Jewish wife having her once a lifetime orgasm, were reported.
When one listens to airplanes fly overhead for five years you can almost pick them
out by the sound of their engines. This one sounded very strange and stepping out
I snapped of photo of this unusual plane. This could be an Israeli manufactured
IAI Arava troop carrier, but I doubt it.
I discovered this ingenious money sucker
at an Arco gas station on 19th Avenue north of the 101 Freeway. As it had always advertised the same, I pulled in to fill-up because I assumed it would be the cheapest gasoline I'd find in north-north Phoenix. My fellow customers were all illegal aliens and what looked to be circus-freak-like-people, but I stuck to my plan. Apparently this device is for really old gasoline dispensers where the owner doesn't want to go to the expense of re-fitting all his machines to take cash/credit/debit cards or even paving his driveways, which in this case recalled some abandoned mining road I had seen in Mexico. Transactions are processed through this machine and all it needs is a swipe of your card or a gobble of your cash and the entry of the number of the dispenser you are at and you are ready to Rock 'n Roll. After clearly advising you to halt your purchase if you don't wish to pay 45 cents additional for the convenience of not having to walk thirty feet to the store to pay (and risk being shot
in an armed hold-up) it then tacks on the, the reasonable, almost half dollar fee. Which in my case increased my cost by 2.167 cents per gallon or to $2.161 per gallon for my 15.875 gallons of 'Unleaded 87'.
Here is a nice Christmas idea, a prepaid gasoline card for your destitute and spendthrift kids. This way you know they are spending your money in a frugal and logical manner, rather than picking up a six pack of Olde English 800 Malt Liquor at the within-walking-distance AM-PM store.
(I have no connection with Arco or the card. I don't even like Arco gas stations. Although, for a week in the late 1960s - during Atlantic Richfield's name change to Arco - I labored the swing-shift at the one on the southwest corner of 35th and Glendale Avenues. That was after I worked at the Gino's Pizza Parlor attempting to deliver product in naked white cardboard boxes before it attained room temperature, which I did after attending Cortez High School from 7AM to 3PM. Yes, it was a full day. As a matter of fact, my only other photo in the School Annual was of me, head down, asleep on my desk. Which is probably why I am at where I am now. World famous web page author and security officer.)
At the Macerich Scottsdale 101 Power Center we see oneupmanship in practice. For those in the know
the Sunflower Yellow Lamborghini Gallardo costs somewhere around $200,000. I remember years ago when I had my brand new Desert Beige 735i BMW, and to avoid any possible damage, parked it far from the front doors of the Smitty's store on Tatum and Shea Boulevard. I was so proud. When I came out, next to my pride, sat a parked (and I swear
sporting a huge grinning grill) red, with Alaskan White convertible topped Rolls Royce Cornich". The bastard.
While I was in the bushes at work, attempting to convince a long-eared and cute, cotton-tailed-bunny
into committing a few unnatural acts, I heard a loud screeching. Jerking up, I saw a truck trailing black
tire smoke from the rear wheels, and then heard a huge crashing sound. The bunny, spooked by the whipping out of
my . . . camera, hopped off and left me solo to photograph the scene.
While on patrol the previous evening, I heard a sonic boom, and looking up witnessed the trail of a shooting
star, i.e., a meteoroid being flung down to Earth. Today I discovered what I believe to be that same meteorite.
Using test chemicals and equipment that all security vehicles are nowadays outfitted with, I determined
the still glowing rock to be a piece of Superman's home planet Krypton. It was Kryptonite and is deadly
to our planet's super-hero who 'winters' in the Troon North area of Scottsdale. I immediately phoned the EPA and they cordoned off the area and warned Superman away.
Sunday morning, at 4AM, as I attempted to begin my thirty-seven mile trek to north-north Phoenix,
my way onto Shea Boulevard westbound at 68th Street was cordoned off by various
Scottsdale Police vehicles. It looked like a 'police situation' rather than a typical
car accident. The vertical yellow lights are strings of Christmas lights wrapped around
palm trees.
Down from $2.379 on November 13th of 2005, gasoline prices remain in a free-fall.
But smokers continue to be pummeled by the multiple taxes layered onto the cost of their sad addiction.
Even though these insane taxes cruelly fall disproportionately on the poor, the young and minorities ...
"La, la, la, la, la." NOT ONE LIBERAL DARE SAY HE CARES. The various branches of our government now gather in
more revenue from each cigarette sold than does the manufacturer of that cigarette. So who do
you imagine has an even bigger concern that 'Evil Big Tobacco' stay in business and continue
selling billions of cancer sticks than 'Evil Big Tobacco'?
I ventured to the nearby UPS Store and found myself at the end of a que of people longer than Bill Clinton's ex-lovers waiting in line for an STD check. So I grabbed the necessary shipping forms and left for home to fill them out. Then, after gingerly ingesting two (dos) shots of carefully measured-out tequilas in the privacy of my apartment (since no one in their right mind will go drinking with me) decided it was time to return to 'Brown' to ship my out-of-state Christmas presents. I found all but one customer gone, who was asking, "Why are you so busy here?" After she left, one of the clerks
said that they were so busy only because, "Stupid customers like you keep asking why we are so busy."
Unbeknownst to anyone, I took this 'flashless' photo of a few of the stacks and stacks of Christmas
gifts headed to the North Pole for Santa's sleigh. How does he do it?
Westbound at the intersection of Scottsdale Road and Shea Boulevard we see two motorcyclists. The one most likely to crash is, of course, not wearing a helmet. The one riding the true motorcycle, i.e., one that can out accelerate anything but a
Ford GT and be flicked around corners at speeds over 30 MPH, has donned appropriate protective gear. Why are Harley POS's so loud? Well, don't you know the HD Rider's motto? "Loud pipes save lives." To which, after racing and riding motorcycles for two decades, hence having more experience than any twenty dozen Harley rider's, I reply: "Loud pipes save lives of those who shouldn't ride." If you cannot dodge a twelve foot long, two-ton vehicle or anticipate its moves, you should not be on a loud ass, 1,800 pound motorcycle. You should be in a nice quiet golf cart.
Since Lex Luther has moved into my community and subsequently was elected as president of the H.O.A. he instructed, that at great expense, liquefied Kryptonite G be sprayed on all entrances to the community. While this is actually meant to deter surreptitious entry by Superman in his secret persona (former Phoenix Mayor Skip Rimsza) it was sold to the board members as preventative weed control.
Seen from Troon Mountain, it is difficult to convey the huge amount of Mississippi-River-water-brown smog that pools in the atmospheric valleys of north Scottsdale, Arizona. Our emission program works to bring down pollution, the problem is the fifty to one hundred thousand unregistered and un-emission-tested vehicles driven by our permanent Illegal Alien population. Walls around our southern border will do nothing to improve this situation.
Not any larger than a wasp stung swollen golf cart, here is the Smart Car that DaimlerChrysler has been selling in Europe for the past five years. The web site states a price of £6,810, which in U.S. Dollars, would be $11,802 for the 60 mpg two-seater. Here in The Colonies, this is about what you could purchase a well-cared for two to three year old used vehicle that would seat four and survive a collision with a cotton-tailed bunny rabbit. Why are our oh so pale European cousins attracted to these coffin-sized vehicles? One reason is that a major source of tax revenue for many EU countries is through a several dollar tax added to each gallon of gasoline purchased, making it incredibly expensive to fuel your vehicle, which also makes a 60 miles-per-gallon car quite attractive. (Think of the incredibly high Arizona car registration fees. Imagine paying them every time you fill up.) Another reason is, our poorest U.S. citizens, on welfare, enjoy as great as income as most 'middle-class' Europeans, making a £6,810 transport somewhat affordable. The third reason is that back on the continent, they have simply run out of space and a shopping-car-sized vehicle, such as the Smart Car, is just the ticket to pilot down four hundred year old streets as narrow as Arizona's cotton field irrigation ditches originally dug by the Hohokam Indians over a millennia ago.
Ever wonder how emergency vehicles get into gated communities that are too cheap to hire a Certified Protection Officer (such as your Mr.Wonderful) ? The fire engine, ambulance or police cars have a special strobe that signals an optical receiver such as this one to open the gates.
Here is a quite rare (and purposely blurred) photo of your Mr.Wonderful, out and about after at
$50.50 shopping spree at a Scottsdale Walgreen's. Being it has been a good Christmas at the gate house,
most of my purchase consisted of 'Thank You' cards. Remembering it is after 10:00 PM on December 26th, and examining
my humble visage, garbed only in tee shirt and thin cotton work-out pants, you can understand
why we have so very many winter visitors.
Here a bulldozer clearly ignores a red light traffic signal. But who's going to stop him?
A policeman in an M1A1 Abrams tank? Here is
what happens when your Mr.Wonderful exceeds the
posted speed limit by two and one-half miles per hour, on a legal holiday, at 3:30 AM in the morning on a virtually
abandoned stretch of eight lane highway.
How you know Christmas is over. Of course, the abbreviated Mr.Wonderful family uses an
artificial tree year after year lessening the load on our fragile ecosystem. Right.
Scottsdale Road heading south, just north of the 101 Highway. While not in gridlock
yet, for this Native Arizonan, the traffic is just getting incredible. Especially when
you consider that when I was a teenager this part of Scottsdale Road (and any part above
Bell Road) was two lanes and dirt.
At the Superpumper gasoline station (recently bought out by Shell) we see the final year 2005
fill-up cost for your Mr.Wonderful. Shell usually has the higher gas price in town, but, I'm simply paying
about 12¢ a gallon more for the convenience of being able to sleep another fifteen minutes before I'm off to work again.
This station is on Shea Boulevard just east of the Garcia's Restaurant that has been reduced to
rubble (as it should have been years ago) and the Albertson's Grocery store soon to be abandoned like the copper mines of Globe, Arizona were in the early 1900s.
While driving home Saturday afternoon from beautiful Anthem Country Club <grin> after an eight hour shift,
(for a quick nap before I put in another 10pm to 6am shift) I noticed traffic slowing, whipped out my camera and snagged these photos of the results of an accident. How sad that, from appearances, someone will be staring at
the New Year from the stainless-steel-railed perimeter of a hospital bed. Or not. I think it is quite interesting that
the most popular hospital bed is manufactured by a best selling
coffin manufacturer. You'd think they'd find a way, Transformer toy-like, to morph the bed directly into a coffin.
