Although Central Kentucky's recent bout of winter weather was somewhat puny compared to the DC area's recent Snowmageddon, it was not completely uneventful. And since I've had another extended spell of blogger's block, I might as well break the silence with an account of some of the minor adventures created by the snowfall.

Today I said Goodbye to Shadowfax after a 22-year relationship full of amusement and frustration. I often said that he didn't cost me an arm and leg, just a knee. He was an interesting horse, who probably had the potential to achieve much more than he did if he had better human handling. He was smart (sometimes too smart), athletic, and unlike many thoroughbreds, he had tough feet and was an easy keeper (unfortunately too easy, which contributed to his demise).

"Can you hear King now?". Almost four years ago, I wrote about a local Martin Luther King celebration in which the audience was asked that question repeatedly. The speaker, a pastor from Chicago named Jeremiah Wright, quoted extensively from King's 1967 Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence speech to support his suggestion that King would be as strongly opposed to the Iraq war as he was to the Vietnam war. "After 2,200 American boys and girls are dead in a war they do not understand," Wright said, "can you hear King now? I hope to God you can hear him so we can begin to live together as brothers and sisters before we all die together as fanatical fools." Since that speech, there have been some ironic twists in history.

Once again, a combination of stories in the local newspaper helps reinforce some of the worst stereotypes of the citizens of our beautiful Bluegrass state. To be fair, some of the idiocy is nationwide. But one story adds a unique Kentucky flavor to the mix.

Once again, I begin by apologetically mentioning the long hiatus between posts here. I suppose it's only fitting that I break the silence by musing about whether the silence has really been broken. If a blogger blogs on a deserted blog and nobody reads it, has he made a virtual sound? This musing about the impact of random ranting has been triggered by a couple of recent incidents, one widely publicized and one more obscure.

I've been neglecting this blog for a few months, for several reasons. I've been busy. I haven't had anything interesting to write. So I guess that means I've been busy with boring stuff. I've also been lured into Facebook as an alternative for online babbling. More on that later. I'll try to summarize events of the last few months that might be interesting.

A fun 6-day weekend is just about over. I assume anybody reading this realizes that this was Rolex weekend (the Rolex Kentucky 3-Day Event, if you're a stranger to this site). Since I have some vacation that has to be used or lost, I decided to take a couple of days on each side of the weekend to properly prepare and detox, and have some fun with my own horse.

Or should I call them Palm Sunday eggs, because that's when I found them? I wasn't intending to participate in an early Easter Egg hunt. It was an accidental discovery, and one that presents somewhat of a dilemma.

According to the popular saying, March comes in like a lion, and goes out like a lamb. This year, it only got it half right. It roared in like a lion, but at month end, I was wondering what the hell happened to the lamb. Maybe the lion ate it.

Followers of the national news probably expect this to be a rant about the government bailout of failed financial institutions, and the huge bonuses paid to those responsible for the problems. Those in tune with recent events in Kentucky are more likely to guess the actual topic. Although the total overall dollar figures are less, ($6 million instead of $170 million), when it's all going to one loser instead of divided among many, it seems far more outrageous.