The Digression

The Digression Lives! Elsewhere!

2007-07-18T17:59:00.000-06:00

Here's some exciting news to all of my faithful readers! Both of them!

After a couple months off from Digression posts, and I am happy to announce that The Digression is back online! Wahoo!

Well, sort of.

Actually, the physical incarnation of this blog will officially end here, but the basic idea of this blog will live on at another site. Same idea but improved! A "The Digression 2.0", if you will.

For one thing, I'm able to use the name I actually wanted to use in the first place, but was already taken on Blogger. For another thing, I'm widening the scope of it just a tad which I'm hoping will keep my inspiration fresh.

All of my faithful readers (both of them) may see a few posts from this 1.0 blog showing up on the 2.0 from time to time. Don't worry, though. I'll try to keep it populated with mostly original ideas.

The new site, Scroggles, is the brainchild of my entrepreneurially (wow - my fingers need to rest a moment after that word) minded friend, whose blog can also now be found at this new paradise for bloggers. The site is in its infancy, but we're all hoping for some great things from a range of creative and dedicated authors - and, occasionally, from me, too. Who knows? Scroggles could be the next blogging powerhouse! And you can say you knew us all in the beginning.

And now, without further ado, here is the link to the resurrected blog:

Digressions and Other Inconsistencies

Thanks for reading! Now go read the new one!

The Dormant Blog

2007-05-18T14:21:00.000-06:00

The point of this blog was pretty narrow, and, as I previously posted, I don't really have the time or energy to keep this blog updated according to its purpose. So, this blog will probably go dormant for a good long time.

That being said, I do keep another "personal" blog that's a more traditional, "here's what I'm doing these days", "here's two quick lines on this random subject" kind of stuff. You may or may not be interested in that. But, at least you've been warned.

Catch my other blog here, at Redundant Paradox.

Cantankerous Teleporting Squirrels

2007-04-24T16:31:00.000-06:00

And now, for my most audacious post, yet. I will attempt to expound on the nature of furry beasts who magically disappear and reappear somewhere else at the same time, causing havoc and confusion wherever they have been sighted (or not sighted). Just ask Hank from a local hardware store, who was asked to describe what he thought when he didn't see a Cantankerous Teleporting Squirrel on the shelves with all the caulk.

"I was confused", Hank says.

There you have it! Havoc and confusion! You heard it you here first, folks!

Okay, I give. This post isn't really about nasty CTS's. It is, instead, about something else with the same acronym. Something that, if you had read it in the title, you may or may not have read the post. Since I'm a blogger who craves attention from as many readers as possible, I decided to lie to you to get you to read this. Then, after you were deeply concerned about supernatural rodents (and the havoc and confusion they cause), I would tell you the real subject of my post.

I am ashamed. Those readers who feel scammed have my permission to go elsewhere. Please see my links for interesting fellow blogs.

Still here? Brave souls.

The CTS I'm really going to talk about is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

What is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, you ask? It's a very unusual disease that plants an uncontrollable desire in the victim's mind to spend as much time as possible exploring caves in Russia's mountainous regions.

There I go lying again! Shameful!

Actually, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (which I will now revert to referring to as CTS - but remember: I'm not talking about squirrels!) is a very irritating condition that affects the forearms and fingers of the victim with tingling fingers, stiff forearms, and, if left untreated, can eventually result in nerve damage and reduced use of the fingers.

As a musician who has slaved for hours over music, and also as a programmer, who has slaved for hours over a computer keyboard, I have the dubious honor of dealing with CTS. Admittedly, CTS isn't like cancer, flesh eating bacteria, or getting stung 13,283 times by a raging horde of doped up tripping Africanized honey bees. In the face.

Nevertheless, CTS can be extremely irritating. Since I've been trying to get my bassoon playing back in shape lately, while continuing my full time duties as a programmer, I've really been feeling that special feeling lately that reminds me of wearing extremely constricting gloves with tiny little needles lining the insides. So, after programming all day, then spending a couple hours practicing the bassoon, I hope you can understand that, many evenings, the last thing on earth that I want to do is sit down at a computer keyboard - again - and try to be creative by posting something on this very blog.

There have been times in the past that I've neglected my blog, and have then come back with sincere sounding apologies and lame excuses, always with a promise never to do that again. This is different. This is a real excuse. This is both an explanation why I have once again been neglecting my blog, and a warning that, at least for the next few months, I probably will continue to post very little.

I hate having to admit that. I really enjoy the whole blogging concept, and I think it's extremely rewarding to sit down with the sole purpose to think up, and write something down that has the potential to be creative, and maybe a little funny. Sometimes, the thoughts for my posts come to me as I'm typing, and often take me in a completely different direction than where I originally intended to go with my thoughts. I think that's fascinating.

Nevertheless, I'm going to have to take it easy for a while. I'll keep posting the "fluff" stuff, like videos I come across, pictures I find on Flickr, and interesting blogs I discover. You're also welcome to check out my own budding photo albums on Google's Picasa Web Albums.

Yup, there's those gloves, again. What a weird feeling. To all my faithful readers (both of them), thanks for reading, and keep stopping by occasionally. You never know what you might find.

Just don't expect to find Celtic Tombs that Shout. You can refer to them as CTS's, as well.

Flick Fotos #2: Eve

2007-04-15T14:58:00.001-06:00

I stumbled on to these photos by a photographer in Iceland, whose work is absolutely fascinating, in an eerie surreal sort of way. I highly recommend that you check her photos when you get the chance! Start with her Portfolio set to get a look at her own favorites.

Painfully Funny: What We Call the News

2007-04-03T23:41:00.000-06:00

When you find a video that happens to be really funny, you consider yourself lucky. When you come across one that tells a compelling truth, you consider yourself uniquely lucky. When you come across a video that is both you have to pinch yourself to make sure you're not just dreaming that you're insanely lucky.

Here's a hilarious video that's so funny you won't even realize how painfully true it is until it's over.

What We Call the News | Send To Friends | Funny Animations at JibJab

March Madness Colorado Style

2007-04-02T16:21:00.000-06:00

In a very recent post, I related to you how winter's snowy grip had finally broken, and we were all liberated with the promise of balmy days, breezy afternoons in a hammock, and cool frothy drinks. With the writing of that post, I proved that, even after two years as a Colorado resident, I remain naive in its climate. In other words, it snowed again a few days ago. Welcome to March Madness, Colorado style. And no, I'm not referring to an NCAA tournament.

I forget that late March can bring some real doozies of winter storms - the last desperate gasps of a dying season - including inches of the now unwelcome frozen white stuff. Mind you, the early spring snow is wet, heavy, and usually melts off in a couple of days. However, the psychological effect on the residents watching the snow pile up again on their yards is intense. Even though, from a psychological standpoint, the explanation of the exact scientific effect on the thought patterns of the resident can be very complicated to describe to the average lay person, I will nevertheless attempt to do so now:

"Crap."

It is complex, I know. Hopefully, that explanation does justice to you. However, as it is now sunny, warm(er), and slowly getting green, I will now move on, and officially declare the iron grip of winter in my own mind to be severed. HA!

The one thing I do like about winter is the time I get to spend indoors discovering new friends on a daily basis. How is this possible, you ask? It's quite simple: A little technology known as "email". Did you know that I get, on average, over 100 new emails a day? Most of them are from new friends just waiting to get to know me! In addition to the joys of getting to know all these new people, they return the favor by offering me incredible deals on software, prescription drugs, stock tips, and even, on rare occasions, the chance to make millions of dollars, just for helping a financially oppressed foreigner retrieve money from his bank account! Is email great, or what?

Some of my new friends like to send me stories in addition to their amazing offers. I think their prose is nothing short of genius. Basically van Goghs of email. Here is one amazing example:

He fancied that, when he was gone, she showers, and the quantity of the rain which will fall, in the various resolved that, at all hazards, she should be destroyed. She accordingly Ptolemy, in fact, made it a special object of his policy to accomplish reproached Alexander in the bitterest terms for being of so debased and erected for its reception, that it might be safely preserved until the seclusion, and to open it in some measure to the intercourse, as well as throne.

I tell you, literature like that brings a tear to my eye. Such depth of emotion! Such symbolism! I've asked a couple of my new friends what meaning they had in mind when they penned their bastion of intellectual achievement. At times, due to my grammatical pet peeves, I've reminded them of some corrections they could make. The darn thing is, I've never received any response from them.

I'm beginning to think my new friends are kind of shallow. Oh well. I still hope that my new friend "Huttigttr enloe", or possibly "newJeep Hardtop" will one day write back.

Speaking of friends, some "friends" have been popping up lately that I could quite honestly do without. Please don't think me shallow. I think newJeep, Huttigttr and I will eventually get along fine. No, I'm talking friends with eight legs. The aliens on Earth. Spiders!

I've posted my low opinions of spiders before, concentrating on the mounting evidence that they are, in fact, extra terrestrials bent on the domination of Earth. The last few days have only contributed to this theory.

Consider the impressive acts of teleporting I've witnessed with them. A couple days ago, I was walking my dogs. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and the dogs and I were thoroughly enjoying the outdoors. I looked down at the handle to the extendable leash (you know what I mean - the devices that are a cross between an actual leash and a fishing rod reel, except that your catch is large and furry) I held, and found myself staring at a spider that had appeared - out of nowhere! - on the button to stop the leash from extending! I swear this alien wasn't there two seconds ago! And yet, there it was, this eight legged warrior, staring up at me with its two rows of eyes casting a look of disdain, its bulbous back-end pulsating (this is what spiders do to hurl insults at their enemies). It was obvious that he had waited for me to try and push the button, when he would have unleashed his venom into my thumb. Treachery! I shook the handle violently, knocking the spider off the leash, but not before a breeze appeared out of nowhere, and caught him and the web he extended, and spirited him into the atmosphere. Poof! Gone! Not only can they teleport, they can control the weather!

I think I'm going to start a separate blog really soon to document my theory that the world will soon be run by arachnids. I'll provide a link to all of my faithful readers (both of them) when it's up. I think I'll call it "Arachnid Conspiracy".

I've been searching the internet for efficient spider killing machine. I have yet to find one that, in addition to blotting out their evil lives, will also dispose of their bodies and clean the surface in an efficient way. However, I did discover the most inefficient orange juicer on the planet.

Since I'm all out of things to talk about, I'll leave you with the link to this model of inefficiency. Enjoy it. Meanwhile, I'll be out on my hammock, sipping a cool frothy drink.

I'll make sure the drink is purple.

Flickr Fotos #1: Street Bassoonist

2007-03-26T13:39:00.001-06:00

Bassoon
Originally uploaded by DCE.

I've recently started exploring the wonderful world of Flickr. The amount of scenic, crazy, weird, and just fascinating content in general on Flickr is amazing. To that end, I'll be posting some interesting finds from Flickr on this blog from time to time.

I came across this photo while browsing "bassoon" tagged photos. What can I say - I'm a little biased by my vocation.

When I saw this picture - of a street bassoonist, of all things, I couldn't resist blogging it. Bassoonists are a rather rare breed in general. A street bassoonist is amazingly rare!

Spring Has Sprung

2007-03-25T15:20:00.000-06:00

The picture to the left is my apartment complex near Boulder, Colorado, right after a blizzard finished dumping way too much of the cold white stuff on us, pretty much shutting down all of the cities along the front range of the Rockies in Colorado for a couple days.

At the time, my wife and I thought it was pretty neat. It was the first major snow we had gotten since moving down from the mountains in southwest Colorado. We were pretty excited to weather a storm in a place where there was state of the art technology such as paved roads, sidewalks, and hand rails. The whole thing was a novelty to us, really.

The problem was that, once this first storm was done, there was at least one more that moved in each week for the next couple months. One storm would disagree with the first storm's placement of drifts, and kindly help out by adding another few inches. The next storm would get really excited about the frosty white art that the first two storms had created, and enthusiastically contribute another few inches to the increasingly thick canvas. Then these storms sold tickets to view their finished art, and a parade of storms paid admission, all filing past the artwork the first storms had made, but they thoughtlessly left cold wet litter all over the masterpiece as they looked, finally obscuring any sign of the original subject the first few storms labored so hard on. The first storms were understandably upset.

In other words, it was a long cold snowy winter for a place where winters are usually somewhat mild. In a place where snow usually melts off in a few days, the snow never did completely melt for a couple of months. It was acutally a worse winter than the couple we spent in the mountains at 9000 feet!

Only in the past few weeks has the snow finally completely melted off. There was a hint of warmer weather in the air. You could feel the anticipation growing in just about everyone - the guy cutting in line at the store, the driver who backed in to the neighbor's garage with his truck, the neighbor who kicked a dent into the truck's fender in response, the cop who was called to the scene to break up the fight, and even the goose who was so distracted by the commotion below him that he forgot to watch where he was flying and slammed at full speed into the garage wall. Yes, when that stunned goose bounced with a thud off the pavement instead of poking a foul shaped hole through a layer of snow, everyone involved in the altercation stopped to consider briefly that warmer weather was definitely near.

Then those original clouds showed up again a couple days ago, and they were pissed at their artwork being defaced so cruelly. They gathered over us with vengeance on their minds, prepared to do their worst, and...

Rained. They just rained on us! Apparently, they figured a good long spitting on us is all that was necessary for justice. They also grumbled at us a little bit, with deep reverberating thunder. Then they moved on.

They thought they had proved a point. But what they really did was fill all of us with a profound sense of relief that spring was truly here. Those same storm clouds could have whited out the landscape just a few weeks ago. Now, all they could do was get us all wet.

Someone said that you can never fully appreciate the effects of Spring until you've gone through a truly cold and snowy winter. I can tell you that, without a doubt, they were absolutely right.

Welcome To My Blog. How Can I Help You?

2007-03-16T18:04:00.000-06:00

Here's a question: What does the movie "The Majestic" have to do with the title of this post?

Not much, actually. But, however tiny it may be, there is a very slight connection.

I like the movie "The Majestic". It's a feel-good movie that has you rooting for the main characters, and everything works out fine in the end. The fact that one man gets to tell off a panel of congressmen is an added bonus. It may not be the most believable plot on earth, and some people still have a hard time taking Jim Carrey seriously in a dramatic role, but, overall, I like it.

There's a scene in the movie where Pete, Carrey's character, walks up to a Telegram booth in a train station. The booth is plastered with telegram type paraphenelia, such as a sign that says "new low rates", a machine on the desk that's obviously used for telegrams, and then, in case you're completely blind, there's the sign on the back that says, "Telegrams". In other words, if you don't know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you're standing in front of a telegram booth, it's most likely because you've dropped your red-tipped cane. And yet, what's the first words out of the guy manning the booth when Pete steps up to the desk?

"How can I help you?"

How is Pete supposed to answer that? "Well, I don't know, sir. I've just stepped up to a booth designed to send high-speed communications (at least for the time) over a thin wire. Um. Let me think. Can you shine my shoes?"

Hey, man behind the booth. Here's a thought: How about sending a stinkin' telegram!

It just struck me the other day while laying on the couch, nursing a flu that wouldn't go away, and watching "The Majestic" how remarkably stupid that guy's question to Pete was. It was obviously a telegram booth. Pete was more than likely approaching the booth to send a telegram. And yet, the guy still believed he needed to ask.

I realized then how many of our everyday questions are completely meaningless, redundant, and downright stupid sometimes! Consider the following dramatic and poignant examples if you don't believe me.

I needed a haircut one afternoon, and found a local place. I stepped inside, where a lady stood at a counter in front of a board that listed prices for all of their haircuts. Behind her were eight chairs, about half of them occupied by people wearing those silly plastic backward capes, getting their hair cut by a stylist casually wielding a freakishly sharp pair of scissors. Bits of hair littered the floor. What do you think the lady asked me when I got to the counter?

"Hello! What can I do for you today?"

What did she expect me to say? "Yeah, I'm building an addition to my house, and I'm looking for a couple 2x4's. Do you guys sell lumber here?"

Or, how about later that evening, when the growling in my belly became too much for me. I picked up my phone, looked at a coupon for a pizza place for the number to call, and called.

"Big Pete's Pizza Delivery, home of the 16 inch family pizza, with two toppings absolutely free! How can I help you?"

It's almost too much effort for me to utter the phrase, "I'd like to order a pizza." Somehow, I get through it. I would have much rather said something mean, like, "I'd like to schedule an appointment to get my molars examined. I think I may have a cavity."

I don't know what to do about this. These questions are slowly sucking the life out of me. Isn't it obvious why I'm standing in a haircutting place? Doesn't the pizza guy have a pretty good idea why I'm calling? Why can't the haircut lady say, "How short would you like your hair?" Why can't the pizza guy just say, "What size pizza would you like? What toppings?" Is there some sort of bet going on with the workers? Are they trying to see which customer walks away first in a bewildered state of confusion?

I don't know of any solution, so I'll do the next best thing. I'm going to rent space at a mall, and put a big sign up front that says "Kent's Pizza Delivery, Haircutting, Fax Service, Overnight Aquarium Design and Chiropractic Services." I'll stand behind the counter with prices for food, haircuts, and faxes. When people come inside, I'll ask the infamous question with a huge friendly I-can't-wait-to-serve-you smile, "Hi, there! How can I help you?"

They may ask for a pizza. They might want a haircut. They may want to talk fish while having their spine adjusted. It won't matter. I'll crank out the same punchline to my joke each time. I'll frown, shake my head in disgust, and tell them sternly:

"I'm sorry, but we don't do that here."

Apology to My Faithful Readers (Both of Them)

2007-03-16T10:47:00.000-06:00

I had this idea that I was going to maintain this great blog where people could come read something silly, have a great day because of it, and tell their friends about it. Before much time had passed - two days, I suppose - I would have approximately 3,443,837 people reading my blog per day. Then I could become a millionaire by putting ads on my site for useful products like portable bidets, or something. Of course, this idea was just an idealized pipe dream that will probably never happen, for a lot of reasons, not the least being the fact that I'm just one blog out 348 billion gazillion blogs floating around the wires of the internet.

It especially won't happen if I don't update this thing every once in a while. The last real post I wrote was Rover is Dead (which I thought was funny, and still think you should read), which was followed by a couple blog recommendations, and then a post about the current war, which is so far from the content I try to publish on my blog, I'm still not sure why I posted it.

The point is, that was all a month ago! This blog has just been sitting here collecting dust since then! One of the few folks who actually reads this stuff from time to time actually posted a comment asking if I was still around! What can I say?

"Oops."

I am still here. I meant to post. Honestly. I've been busy, though. I've been sick with the flu for the past couple weeks. I've auditioned for, and been accepted into, the graduate program at the University of Colorado's School of Music. I've been trying to work out the details of selling my house in the mountains of Ouray, Colorado, which is finally under contract after a stinking year on the market.

But, really, those are all just excuses. Maybe they're good ones, but they are just excuses. If I actually try to tell you I didn't have fifteen minutes every couple days to sit down and peck away at a post or two, you have my permission to begin shouting real estate laws in my face until I scream "mercy".

Stay tuned. I'll have a new post that will be so perfect, so amazing and so unbelievably hilarious, you will throw a disc and crack a rib from chuckling violently on the floor. And if I can't come up with something like that, I'll post what I usually end up posting, instead.

The Problem with a Catchy Phrase War

2007-02-13T15:33:00.000-07:00

In yet more widening of my blogging horizons, I'm going to talk about the current war. Well, not exactly me talk, but mainly provide you links to two outstanding articles about the war. I'm not going to come right out and say my opinion of whether it's good or bad, although that will probably become clear to you as you read the articles I have linked here.

The war in Iraq has been shamelessly reduced to catchy slogans and shortsighted propaganda. No matter what your opinion is of the war, you need to understand it is so much more complicated than "Bush lied, kids died!", or "America: The real terrorists", and it is not good debate to refute the government or the president's policy by making fun of the way he speaks. In short, the war shouldn't be boiled down to a few slick, catchy phrases. (That being said, Will Ferrell's impersonation of him is hilarious!)

Question: "Why do you think the war is not the right choice?"
Answer: "Because Bush can't say 'nuclear'! He says 'nu-cya-ler'! HA! What a moron!"

You need to make sure you know why you have the opinion you do, and it can't be because you saw a celebrity say something cynical about it. (Oh, well if the Dixie Chicks don't like the war, then it has to be bad!)

For thought, I give you two articles posted by Orson Scott Card. He is one of my absolute favorite fictional authors of all time. I was even more heartened to find that he has a keen understanding of politics (not a surprise since a lot of his books deal with political issues), and has a lot to say about the current war.

You may say to me, "Well, you're just substituting a rock star's opinion for an author's. A celebrity for a celebrity. That's the exact same thing!" You want to know my answer? Here you go: You won't find a rock star or a movie star with any more insight into the war than a couple of cheap slogans and an insulting song about the president.

Card, on the other hand, shows a deep understanding of the history of recent wars, and has vitally important insights about what's going on right now in the Middle East, and how the outcome can dramatically affect us all. He is doing something decidedly un-American by crafting a thought that is longer than two phrases, but I hope you will forgive him and stick it out through his articles, because the problems in this war deserve more than the two phrases we usually hear about it.

I invite you to read both articles now. Agree or disagree, this is good information to ponder, and stuff that you won't hear on a newscast, in the newspaper, or in a rock concert, and it's shameful that it's not more widely known, or even discussed.

"The Only Issue This Election Day" (from November 6, 2006 - excellent background on the war and the political climate in the Middle East)
"The Crisis of the Islamo-Fascist War" (from January 14, 2007 - asking the question "What do we do now?")

What do you think? I'd be interested in hearing from you - but it has to be within the context of these articles. If you want to talk about how the articles support or refute your opinion of the war - agree or disagree, fine. I don't, however, want to hear more regurgitated anti-war slogans. We've all heard them enough by now (I know I'm sick of them), and commenting with a slick two phrase slogan that ignores the majority of the issues is exactly the problem that I'm trying to point out!

I keep saying I'll get back to stupid anecdotes or silly fiction. I will try, I promise.

Interesting Blogs #2

2007-02-08T12:30:00.000-07:00

More than half a year ago, I actually mentioned some of the blogs I had discovered.

That's something I should be doing more often. And so, in continuing to diversify the content of this blog a little bit, I bring you a small tour of what I've been reading lately on this gigantic blogosphere:

Here's a post with some unintentionally funny headlines, over at the Daily Nooz.
The Death of Retail Price explains it all, including a very - um - unusual medical disorder, and what women really want, among other things.
I Am a Cheeseburger, the blog by the author of "Simon of Space", continues to bring you clever and funny fiction, including this latest serialized story, "Boldly Gone".
More fiction over at Landscape of Imagination, with the dark short, "A Crystal Clear Choice".
Art for Art's Sake not only knows what a bassoon is, but actually mentions a couple pieces for my favorite woodwind. Check it out here. (I made sure to get my two cents in on this post!)

I'll try to do this more often than every six or seven months. Enjoy!

Rover is Dead

2007-02-05T14:41:00.000-07:00

A very short story.

My first thought was that old Rover was napping, that afternoon I came in the front door to the sound of the rhythmic snapping in the living room. It took me a minute to realize that old dog wasn't breathing anymore. I peered over the still pile of fur. I reached down and pet the top of his head. Soft. Smooth. Cold.

Yup. Rover was dead.

I can't say that I felt a whole lot of grief. In fact, I had to chuckle when I saw the scene in front of me. Don't think I'm cold, or twisted. You'll understand when I explain the ironic poetry of the vignette laid out in my living room, all set to that rhythmic snapping.

They say that the dog is man's best friend. I say that's bullcrap. I never did like Rover. He was a tremendously stupid dog. That wasn't the worst part, though. He was a crotchety old fart, even when he was just a puppy. He had a chip on his shoulder from the moment he was separated from his litter, and the one thing that dim mind of his figured out was that it was my fault he left his mom and siblings that day. He spent the rest of his life getting back at me for that heinous deed.

The day I brought him home, he chewed up my table legs. That night, he left a grisly puppy pile of contempt on the carpet fresh from his bowels, and next to his brand new pillow - which he devoured and spread the puffy innards around the room. Over the next few weeks, he grew fast - in size, in stupidity, and his need for vengeance. He spent most of his time spreading the food I placed in his bowl around the kitchen, and then around the living room in giant mouthfuls of gooey dog slobbered piles. He never missed the chance to turn and face me when he did that, wag a devilishly happy tail at me, then walk off before I had a chance to yell at him.

It's fair to say that Rover didn't like me, either.

Even before he reached a year of age, his body already creaked and moaned like the body of a wizened old man. The only explanation I ever came up with was that he was already so full of doggy rage and frustration his body simply aged unnaturally fast.

The only thing that eventually got him house trained was when I finally spent over a hundred bucks on a dog door to the backyard. Before that, he gleefully left his marks of disdain anywhere in the house he felt like it. I tried everything to teach him to tell me when he needed to go. I caught him in the act at times, and shoved him out the door. I sprayed bitter smelling stuff where he went to discourage any future acts. I even rolled up a few newspapers to wack that proficient behind of his. It took me two months to realize that he knew darn well where he was supposed to go, and that was exactly why he did his business where he did. There was more business to it than a lightening of his load. There was anger in it, always directed at me. The dog door meant that Rover could escape my presence for as long as he wanted, which I still believe is the only reason he went through it. Once outside, he continued leaving his hate mail around the yard, apparently convinced that he was still pissing me off by doing so. I never let on that that's where I wanted him to do it. I even contributed to the charade from time to time by approaching one of his passionate and smelly works of art when I knew he was watching and cursing at him for doing it. He wagged his tail with satisfaction and ran off around the corner, away from my presence, satisfied his work was done.

It's fair to say that Rover hated my guts.

I tried peace offerings, from doggy treats to extra helpings of dinner. He would have none of my charity. I gave him a large bone once, which he carefully placed next to a pile of books, and proceeded to shred the books into little flakes of wet confetti. I swear he made a point of arranging the debris in a neat little circle around the bone, which was left completely untouched.

I really didn't like Rover all that much.

There was no magic bullet that fixed our relationship - this tenuous and dreary competition of man versus beast. There was, however, one object that forever altered it. One day, in a final attempt to get that stupid mutt to respect me, I gave him a rubber ball, thinking he would probably immediately pee on it, then go find some furniture to eat. His reaction, however, was completely unlike anything I had seen from him before.

He stopped in his tracks, and sniffed the ball with fascination. His eyes grew wide with anticipation. His tail began wagging - not from the evil satisfaction of angering me, but from genuine excitement. He really seemed to like this ball, but he had no idea what to do with it. Feeling that I may have actually gotten through this dog's thick skin, and touched the puppy within, I decided to reach down and toss it for him.

I was hopeful to think that Rover might actually like me, now.

I picked the ball up, and gave it a toss to the other side of the living room. His head followed the path of the ball, not comprehending what just happened. Then, in one of the few moments of mental acuity in his life (I can count them on one hand), he suddenly understood. His ears stood up tall, his tail stood straight out, his head sank low to the ground, and in a creaky flash, he ran to get the ball. In another flash, he was back in front of me, happily slobbering the ball between his teeth. He wagged his tail, then dropped it on the floor in front of me - as sure a command to me if there ever was such a thing. I obliged. We played ball for an hour, Rover getting happier each time I tossed it. Finally, I got tired and quit throwing it. He was obviously exhausted, too, but he was, even now, too stupid to realize it. I sat down on the couch, and turned the TV on. When Rover realized I wasn't playing anymore, his tail slowly sank, as his eyes narrowed, and he revealed his teeth to me in a sinister smile. His message wouldn't have been clearer if he would actually said, "I see how it's going to be. Now you shall see my full wrath!" He grabbed the ball, moseyed over to the dog door, and left a huge steaming letter of complaint to me right in front of it before stepping outside.

I guess it's fair to acknowledge that Rover still didn't like me, after all.

That's okay. I still didn't like him, either.

Over the years, the ball became a competition between us. Who could outlast the other? Who could prove himself the most manly? The hardiest of the ball playing warriors? We would do anything we could to try and be the last one to stop playing. It was a matter of pride. Sometimes, I just couldn't grab that ball again, with its slick coat of doggie slime, and I quit first. Those were the times when he strutted out to the yard without feeling the need to leave any other message for me. He had already said enough with his dominance at The Game of Ball. Other times, he would collapse in a panting frothy pile in front of me, his ancient sounding bones whining and creaking, the ball falling from his mouth. I would throw it one more time, just to make it official. His tired eyes would follow the ball, but the rest of his body would remain motionless, and he would grunt his concession. Those times I expected some sort of nasty retribution before the evening was finished. I was rarely disappointed. The only surprise was where his message of frustration would be found.

I suppose it's fair to say that we still didn't like each other. But we respected each other's skills at The Game of Ball.

Years later, when Rover really was getting old, and finally growing into his already creaky noisy old body, I started a job that required me to travel for a couple days at a time. I didn't worry too much what that would do to Rover. For one thing, none of the kennels or dog sitters would take him anymore. For another, he was probably thrilled at the thought of an extended break from the one person he loathed the most. So, I left him plenty of food, and went off to catch my flight.

I came back two days later to find that Rover had begun fancying himself a critic. In every room of the house, there were stinky drying piles of each one of his attempts at getting his review of my absence just right. Never satisfied with how one attempt came out, he tried again and again to nail his feelings on the matter. Stupid dog. Stupid, proficient dog. I had to find something to keep him happy while I was away.

At the pet store, I found a machine that automatically threw balls. All the dog had to do was deposit a ball in the bowl, and the machine would suck it into its plastic belly, and sling shot it across the room. The sling shot would continue snapping over and over again until ten minutes had passed, when it would automatically shut off. Even better, it would come back to life after half an hour the second it sensed a ball again. I was thrilled to discover this perfect machine, and paid the slightly indulgent price for it. This would keep Rover busy in my absence!

I turned the machine on, and put the ball into its bowl that fateful afternoon before I left for my latest business trip. It chucked the ball across the room, to the amazement of Rover, who grabbed the ball, and ran back to me. It took quite a few tries to make him realize all he had to do was drop the ball into the bowl, and it would throw it again without my help. Stupid dog. He eventually got it, though, and I left for my trip, not thinking for a second just how stupid my angry dog was.

I swear the only thing I thought was that Rover at least wouldn't be too angry with me.

So there I was, standing in the entrance to my house, just back from my business trip, looking over my dead dog Rover. There he lay, the ball inches from his teeth. The rhythmic snapping continued to tug at the edge of my consciousness, until finally it occurred to me that I was hearing that automatic ball tosser. I walked over to it, and found that, somehow, the ten minute timer had broken, meaning it hadn't shut off in quite some time.

I gasped as I connected the dots. My hand flew up to cover my gaping mouth. And then it happened. I started chuckling. Stupid dog. Oh, that stupid dog! Without that timer to shut itself off, the machine had kept throwing the ball, and my dog had literally played himself to death. I looked over at him. He was facing the machine even now, apparently on his way back for one more toss. I had to sit down as I thought about how many times that angry, idiotic dog had chased that ball before expiring in a heap in the living room. Thousands of times, probably. Ten thousand times? Quite possibly.

Years of fighting, irritating each other, and a tentative ball playing truce had come down to this. In one instant, Rover had permanently signed on to the Stupidest Canines on Earth Club. And yet, at the same time, he finally had his final revenge on me: He had won our little Game of Ball once and for all, and there was never going to be a rematch. I just sat and continued to laugh and giggle at the irony, as the machine kept snapping away.

Angry, evil dog. Stupid animal.

Smart pooch.

I guess it's fair to say I never liked Rover much. But, I'll miss having him around to not like.

Announcing the Fiction Bloggers Ring

2007-01-30T13:14:00.000-07:00

I have just added a new section to my blog roll: Access to the Fiction Bloggers Web Ring. I am just beginning to explore this, and am finding a lot of great writers out there.

I have also just added my site to this ring. Whether or not my faithful readers (both of them) agree that my fiction is any good or not, occasionally I do try my hand at it, and can't wait for the influx of new readers to start critiquing it!

Enjoy the ring, and, to those in the ring, be gentle!

Ski Gliding - Are You Kidding Me?

2007-01-29T11:30:00.000-07:00

I stumbled on to this video of ski gliding, and had to watch it. Holy geez! This is mind blowing! I had no idea this was possible! You have to take a look at this:

However (Rock is Great, Too)

2007-01-28T09:52:00.000-07:00

You know, I read my post yesterday, and, although I stand by my thoughts about classical music - my first love, and still my favorite style, I realize I came down kind of hard on the whole modern music scene. I didn't really mean to do that.

The truth is, there are a lot of acts out there these days that make me wince, which was the fuel for yesterday's post. However, there are also a number of extremely talented musicians who have spent years learning their craft within the modern music context. There are a few, I think, that especially stand out for the sheer depth, and variety in their sounds. Sting's work is extremely varied and musical. Dido has such a different sound with layer upon layer of ideas in her music. Switchfoot is, to a lesser extent, a group with a lot of variety in their sound. (They used to be more varied before they were signed with a big label.) Dave Matthews Band - especially some of their older work - is one of my favorite sounds with the sax and the violin player going at it. How about from way back in the seventies, with Emerson Lake and Palmer, with perhaps one of the greatest rock/jazz keyboardists ever.

(Ironically, a lot of these musicians were classically trained before crossing over, but that's for another post.)

What I didn't say at all yesterday, but should have, is that within any musical style, there are some amazingly talented groups out there. So, if I offended anybody yesterday, my apologies. I will always love classical music, and I think if more people gave it a chance, they would, too, but there is some simply awesome music out there to be heard by musicians of today.

One of the great things about living in Denver, CO, is that there is actually a pretty good scene for new music groups. We went and saw a concert last night by an up and coming group, that I highly recommend for their surreal sound, the deep lyrics, and the lead singer's unearthly dark and smooth voice.

The band's name is Tifah. Check them out here.

What are some of your favorite groups, these days? Let me know! Rock on!

Bassoon Hero

2007-01-27T11:26:00.001-07:00

UPDATE 12/18/2008: A friend of mine let me know that this blog post is, for now, the very first thing you see when you Google the term "bassoon hero". Interesting. Unfortunately, the link at the bottom of this post no longer works. I am happy to forward you to a more recent blog of mine, which has a working link to the sought after "Bassoon Hero 3" game. I advise you to head that way now, or hang out here, and continue reading what turned into a musical rant. Your choice...

If any of you have checked out my profile, you'll know that I am, in fact, a trained classical musician and, even stranger, I am a bassoonist. Those who have not checked my profile probably have no idea about that, since, to my shame, I have made absolutely no mention of that in any of my actual posts.

Up to now, my blog has been mostly (at least attempted) humorous stories about whatever I can think of. If my own personal life could be used as a jumping off point, that was fine, but that wasn't really the point.

But, today, kind readers, I am actually going to tell you some tidbit about myself in an actual blog post! Ready? Here goes:

I play the bassoon.

(No, no. I didn't already tell you that at the beginning of my post. I told you that my profile says that. I didn't actually say that I played it. Get the difference? Yes? No? Let's move on.)

Man, it feels to good to get that off my chest. I'll say it again: I play the bassoon! Ha! I enjoy playing the bassoon! I've spent countless hours and years practicing scales, learning solos, and making reeds in my endless quest to tame this beast of an instrument!

It's amazing how a writer of a blog can almost hear questions of their readers through time, space, and networking cable. To that end, I can hear a good deal of you asking yourselves: What does he play?

The funny thing is, most people have no idea what a bassoon is. I've always thought this odd, since there are bassoons in an orchestra right next to the clarinets, flutes, and oboes, which everybody does know. These days, though, a lot of people don't really know much about the orchestra itself. I actually find this kind of sad.

Orchestral music, for many reasons, is becoming a lost art - both to play and to listen. Massive, amazing, stirring works of music, played by musicians who have practiced their craft for years, led by a conductor whose sole purpose is to bring the group together into a team to share timeless ideas from a composer - long gone or still with us - this is all fading from our culture.

What's replacing it? Electronics! Amplifiers! Processors! Music that consists of maybe four separate chords repeated over and over! Musicians that think being able to play the F chord on their guitars is a pretty sweet thing. "Musicians" who can't really sing, don't play an instrument, and have their songs written for them, but damn they have a gorgeous body, and can shake that booty. Three minute songs that fit nicely into a playlist on a radio that must make room for commercials. Three minute songs because so many people these days can't pay attention for much longer, anyway.

For our part, a lot of us nerdy classical people have done all we can to make the music as intimidating and non-accessible as possible. You have to be cultured to really appreciate it, we say. You have to know five languages, sip wine, and own three formal outfits to really enjoy classical music.

Hogwash. You just need to know where to start.

What is classical music, really? It's musical ideas, just like the music of today. It's taking melodies, and working with them - reshaping them, molding them as the piece continues. It's adding harmonies at unexpected places. It's taking more ideas and interweaving them with existing harmonies and melodies into an exquisitely crafted mosaic of sounds. It can be as intense as a heavy metal band (no kidding - I'm serious), or as relaxing and quiet as a ballad by a single guitar player. It's a world of breathtaking variety of ideas and sounds that are yours for the listening.

Can you hear all of that in one listening? No. That's what makes it so amazing. Every time you listen to it, you hear another detail. You pick out another unexpected turn the composer plotted. You hear a different instrument playing the same melody as before, and are amazed at how different it now sounds.

Admittedly, none of the violin players start dancing erotically. At any point. Sorry, all.

To those who sneer at this, with no further interest, fine. That's okay. Not everyone will enjoy it. To those who say, "I like classical music. It's so relaxing. I have it on in the background a lot," I think that's great, but let me encourage you to look further into it, because it's so much more than that. To those who say, "I have no idea where to start in the classical style," well let me help you out a little bit. Here's a quick selection of pieces that are interesting, intense, and shows off the orchestra at its finest, and is a good way to get your feet wet. These are among my favorite pieces of all time. Don't let the names scare you off:

Symphonic Metamorphoses by Paul Hindemith. Played by the New York Philharmonic.

A loud, varied piece that is a lot fun to listen to, and features every section of the orchestra at times throughout the piece.
Symphonies 5 and 9 by Dmitri Shostakovich. (shaw-ste-KO-vich). Played by the London Philharmonic.

Shostakovich is one of my absolute favorite writers of classical music. In his music, you can hear a lot of inspiration for movie soundtracks of today. I hear a lot of Star Wars and action flicks in his music.
Piano Concertos 2 and 3 by Sergi Rachmaninoff. Played by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

To hear the piano played on an otherworldly, inhuman level, where you have to sit back and say, "How on earth is that possible?", look no further than this recording. The second concerto is great. The third is simply unbelievable.

(Links provided are to Amazon.com, and will open in a new window.)

Yes, these pieces are more than three minutes each. Yes, they will require more than one listening to really get to know them. Yes, it is absolutely worth it.

And now, do you want to know the whole reason I even posted on this subject today? I read a funny post that has to do with a video game for Play Station 2, called "Guitar Hero". This is a game where you spend hours and hours learning to play a fake guitar so you can play with a fake band on screen, and have throngs of drunk, dancing fake fans cheer for you. (Instead of spending hours and hours learning to play a real guitar so you can form a real band and play for throngs of real drunk fans. Whatever.)

Someone posted an article about the upcoming addition to this game franchise, titled "Bassoon Hero 3". I hope you enjoy it!

See? Us classical musicians have a sense of humor.

If you have some time, try listening to these pieces. Let me know what you think. I'll try to get back to silly posts next time, complete with punk cows, and black diamonds.

Now, pardon me. I'm going to go recline in the study with some brandy and discuss old literature.

In French.

Red Light Avenger

2007-01-18T18:06:00.000-07:00

Another traffic light turned red in front of me. This was the fourth light in less than a mile that I would now be forced to wait at, my foot unable to pump the gas pedal, my engine and I making the same grumbling noise as we both sat and fumed. I squashed my head tightly back into the headrest, and closed my eyes, attempting to squeeze my frustration out through my ears, where it would vaporize into the air, and streak harmlessly on the windows in the car.

I hate traffic lights because they all turn red when I approach them. Always. Every stinking time. Everyone laughs at me when I tell them that. I get all sorts of advice: Hit the gas quicker when you start. (Didn't work.) Go right at the speed limit, because the lights are all timed to stay green at the speed limit. (Bull crap.) Hit the gas slower when you start. (Strike three.) Then they all get in the car and drive with me, and they are simply shocked that I was actually telling the truth. "You're right," they would admit afterwards. "It's every light!" I usually smack the back of their heads at this point.

Today, though, I had crashed head on into my red light limit. I opened my eyes, and thought for all the world the red light was smirking at me. The sensor next to it looked too much like a middle finger, which it was waving too gleefully at me. At that moment, something in me snapped as violently as a thrown rod in an engine.

"SCREW YOU, TRAFFIC LIGHTS!" I yelled through gritted teeth, and without thinking any more about it, I hit the gas. The tires squealed with the sudden and awesome force of my car's monstrous 109 horses, and a split second later, I rocketed through the intersection, against the light.

The horns erupted around me instantly. Car to the left! Swerved just in time. Crap, now I was heading down the left on the wrong side. Slam the brakes on, bring her around to the right. Okay, now I was headed the right direction. Good thing the car coming on my right hit the brakes in time. The car behind him wasn't so lucky. The crunch of metal and plastic announced that. Floor it, and get out of here!

Just like that, I was through the intersection, leaving behind a smoking, littered scene of destruction. I felt a sudden surge of adrenalin. I grinned. Almost satisfaction. My foot sank lower on the gas pedal as my grin widened. The speedometer wandered to the right - 45, 50, 55. I rocketed past a "Speed Limit 35" sign just as I hit 60.

Another red light loomed ahead. Ha! My decision had already been made! The fact that there were already two rows of cars waiting in front of me meant nothing to me. With a flick of my wrist, I tweaked the wheel to the right, and with a violent bang as my right wheels hopped the curb, I sailed on to the sidewalk, and roared past the waiting cars, into the intersection. The horns began their desperate chorus again, but this time from further off. I snuck through a wide hole in traffic, and was on my way without swerving an inch.

Ha! Another red light put in its place!

Less than a second past the intersection, just as the horns were fading, I heard another sound: sirens. I checked my rear view mirror, and saw flashing lights on top of a black and white car that was closing the distance fast. Dang! He must have been approaching the intersection when I blew through it!

I thought about panicking, but quickly put it aside. I was, after all, a new hero. I was the Red Light Avenger. I was invincible. I would take this cop for a ride!

The turn-off came up fast on my right. I took it, squealing around the corner, my back-end fish tailing behind me as I shot into a parking lot. I checked my rearview mirror again. As the smoke from my rubber cleared, the cop car charged through it, and continued closer! I looked back in front of me.

Too late! Right in front of me loomed a coffee and pastry shop that I was going to crash through! I gripped the wheel, and braced myself. CRASH! The large windows shattered as I careened inside. People dove out of the way, coffee and muffins flying haphazardly through the air. I slammed on the brakes and threw the wheel left, aiming the car toward the closest wall, and quickest path back out on to the street. I nudged the wheel back and forth as I avoided tables, customers. SMACK! The right side of my car hit a display rack. A box full of fresh-baked donuts fell in through the open passenger window, and landed on the seat. BANG! I crashed through the wall, donuts, muffins and coffee cups collapsing through the hole I had just puched out, and was back out on the street, just like that.

With donuts.

I hit the gas again, as I saw to my left the cop car had avoided the coffee shop, and was already headed straight for me. No problem. I grabbed the box of donuts, and chucked them out the window. I looked in my mirror in time to see the cop car slamming on the brakes, narrowly missing the box, the trooper jumping out, kneeling to pick it up. He proceeded to open the box, sit down on his hood, and began eating the donut, as I hurried off.

All too easy.

Or, so I thought.

As soon as I got back on to the road, I got stuck behind a huge semi with a huge multi level car carrying trailer behind it. It was lumbering along at a searing 20 miles per hour. Dang! Dang! DANG! I tried to pull out to pass him, but there was a long line of cars coming at me in that lane. I swerved back over. I was starting to panic. The description of my car had to have been broadcast to every cop in the area. I needed to get going now, or they would catch up to me in no time!

As soon as I thought that, a chopper flew over me, and I heard a loud voice from above. "WE HAVE YOU SURROUNDED! PULL OVER IMMEDIATELY!" My head pulsed with the blood pumping quickly through my body. I tried to go around the truck again. No line of cars this time, but just up ahead, another intersection waited, with a red light of course.

The chopper flew on ahead of me, just as a police car pulled into the intersection and squealed to a halt, facing me. It was followed by another cop car from the other side of the intersection who just as deftly pulled off the same maneuver. I looked frantically around for an exit - any exit. Then, the worst happened. The chopper touched down in the intersection. All the troopers jumped out, their guns aimed right at me. I was trapped!

Just then, the large semi-truck in front of me slammed its brakes on. As I hurtled toward its empty car carrying trailer with its loading ramp at the bottom, I suddenly knew what to do! Instead of hitting the brakes, I floored the gas one more time, and charged up the loading ramp and onto the trailer, accelerating wildly, using this loading ramp like a motocross ramp, except with twice as many wheels and a low budget car. The truck stopped right in front of the intersection right as I careened to the front of the trailer, which perfectly launched me over the cab of the truck, and into the void.

Suddenly, I was in the air. Time slowed to a crawl. I looked down as I soared over the intersection. The cops swung their guns around and fired at me as I cleared the helicopter, its rotor still spinning under me. I heard bullets wizzing by me as the nose of my car started pointing down, and I began descending back toward the pavement. The bullets followed me as I got closer to the ground, but they never touched me or the car! Ha!

With a massive crunch, my front wheels struck the ground, and I was thrown forward against my seat belt. At that same instant, one stray bullet nicked the chopper's rotor, instantly causing the chopper to erupt into a massive fireball. That instantly spread to the cop cars, which also immediately burst into flames. Next, the truck with the empty trailer blew sky high. Before I knew it, the traffic lights erupted. Then, the power lines around the intersection lit up like sparklers on July Fourth. The shockwave of this mass of destruction slammed into the back of my car, keeping the back wheels in the air as it pushed me forward like a slingshot. The ground below me shook violently, and behind me, I saw the road itself collapse, with big slabs of asphalt disappearing into a gigantic hole, the hellish fireball disappearing into the abyss. The intersection was no more.

With another crunch, my back wheels finally hit thr ground, and time resumed its normal speed. I checked the speedometer: 98 miles an hour! I couldn't stifle a victorious "WHOOP!" as I sped away. The Red Light Avenger strikes again! I closed my eyes to relish the moment.

A loud wail of a horn interrupted my revelry from behind. I jerked my eyes open. The scene around me made my head spin for just a moment. I looked around, and realized I was back at the first intersection I had plowed through. No cop cars! No chopper! And the light in front of me was - green?

Another chorus of horns behind me. Oops. Not only was the light green, but I was now apparently holding up the traffic behind me. I waved my hand so they could see, and eased on through the intersection.

Wow, I thought, as I drove on down the road. I must have dreamt that whole thing up. The whole thing! No white-knuckle dance through an intersection. No drive-through pastry service. Wait - no death-defying leap to freedom over a cop chopper? CRAP! I didn't do any of it. I wasn't the Red Light Avenger, after all. Just another driver in a cheap econobox stuck at an endless line of red lights. Sure, I felt better knowing I wasn't a fugitive on the run, but somehow I didn't feel as tough. I wasn't James Bond, Ethan Hunt, or any of the folks driving their Minis in that "Italian Job" movie.

As I was still coming to grips with all of this, I almost didn't notice the fact that I drove right through an intersection with a green light. The thought hit me with more force than a box of donuts.

I didn't need to be the Red Light Avenger! Something better had happened. I made it through a green light! Wait until I tell everybody! The pattern was broken! I felt as high as the clouds. Songs of pure joy spilled out of me. I brushed a tear from my eye, as I drove off into an amazingly beautiful sunset.

Huh. The sun was right on the horizon. Wow. It was really bright. Really. I started to realize I couldn't see. I decided I better slow down before - CRASH!

Crap.

What a Racquet

2007-01-15T12:54:00.000-07:00

Most of you who have read this blog for any length of time know that, not so long ago, we were mountain dwellers, living away from the Big City, and enjoying the peace and quiet. I then devoted the next few posts to describing the process of moving from the mountains back into the Big City - from a house on an acre of land to a tiny apartment in a huge complex. From an entire county with 4000 people to a city with more than a million people. There have been a lot of changes since then; some good, some irritating.

One point we have found especially good has been the presence of racquetball courts in our apartment complex. I had played this game many years ago, and thought it would be fun to take this sport up again. Anybody not know what racquetball is? Well, let me fill you in!

The encyclopedia has this to say about racquetball:

Racquetball. An activity derived from ancient torture techniques where a ball is hurled through a large enclosed cage (or, "court") at high speeds (mach 1 - 2 in normal cases) in an attempt to strike an opponent on his/her body in a spot with the least amount of flesh in order to inflict the most pain, and the most colorful bruise. A racquet may also be used if the ball proves ineffective in striking the opponent. Scoring was later invented as a way to keep track of how many times each opponent had been struck by the ball or racquet.

While certain cultures have banned the game altogether for reasons of uncivilized brutality, others have added bonus scoring for the size and coloring of bruises inflicted on the opponent. (See related section "Historical East European Prisons").

Core equipment consists of the small rubber ball (a.k.a. "ammunition"), the racquet (a.k.a. "weapon"), and the safety-glasses (a.k.a. "well, at least my ocular bones won't be crushed"). Optional but recommended equipment includes a First-Aid Kit, crutches, neck brace, finger splints, and the number to the nearest emergency room.

The article continues, but I think you get the idea. This is the most accurate article about the sport that I've read. Anyway, I think that -

Huh? Which encyclopedia, you ask? What's the matter - you don't believe that's what it says? Okay, okay. Unfortunately, I forgot the name at the moment, but I promise I'll give you the reference as soon as I - um - come across it again.

Anyway, I think that racquetball has to be one of the most strangely satisfying sports around. I enjoy it, at least. What other game exists where you actually measure your success by the amount of ball shaped bruises you can show off on your back (or other less public areas), how swollen your knees are from your "heroic dives" onto the hardwood to return a ball, or how loud the echo sounded when your body bounced off the wall after following a ball in play? I really think that scoring is secondary in this game.

Racquetball Player #1: I beat you by 12 points! Boo-ya!
Racquetball Player #2: True, but I have 5 different bruises on my back, not to mention that my shoulder is dislocated.
Racquetball Player #1: You've got a point. I guess you win. Dang it!

There's a lot of unusual things I've observed about racquetball. For today, though, I'll go over some of the most unusual aspects of the game.

For one thing, racquetball is one of the few sports where it is actually possible for the ball in play to be in two places at once. I base this on watching my opponents serve the ball. I'll be at the back of the court, poised to return the ball, and my opponent will smack the ball as hard as he can. In that moment, accompanying the deafening crack of the serve, I have actually witnessed the ball leaving his racquet, and bounce off the back wall at the same time. When the person serving the ball can achieve this repeatedly, it is best to bring a magazine or a book to read because you won't actually be returning anything. Bringing something to read will keep you entertained while the ball continues to fly by out of reach. Once the game is over, you can also fling your book at your opponent, which I find is a great way to congratulate him on his fine play.

Another observed phenomenon is the "hidden racquet aperture", which describes the condition where the ball is coming right at your racquet, you have all the time in the world to aim, wind up, and smack the absolute living daylights out of it, and still somehow - inexplicably - you miss the ball! I have personally experienced this troubling condition on numerous occasions. The only way to explain this is that the racquet must have a large hole somewhere in it that only shows itself in what otherwise would have been a "sure thing". Sometimes I'm told that, when this happens, it's because I'm not watching the ball. Bull crap. The only logical explanation is obviously a massive, hidden hole in the middle of my racquet.

The final bizarre behavior I've observed is the "mysteriously dying ball". This can best be described as when a ball is rushing at you at speeds approaching the speed of sound, bounces off the wall, and mysteriously drops out of the air, landing in a quiet bounce just out of reach of your racquet. The only logical explanation for this is that the ball is somehow being remotely controlled by radio frequencies on the opponent's racquet. Mind you, I haven't proven that to be the reason, but I will one day, and will publish my findings on this very blog, along with the name of the encyclopedia I previously cited. Honest.

In the meantime, I leave you with this thought: If you can find a racquetball court near you, I encourage you to try it. It's great exercise, a chance to learn a new skill, and most importantly, is a great way to meet new friends while you're awaiting treatment for your injuries in the emergency room. Have fun!

(For more information on the rules of the game, please see the website "Crime and Punishment in Medieval Times". The address escapes me at the moment, but I'm sure if you Google it, you'll be able to find it.)

Pressing Issues

2007-01-06T10:22:00.000-07:00

Here's a short story of being at rock bottom, and experiencing true redemption.

I say to people that I'm a big fan of coffee. In the past, that was only true to a point. It was probably more accurate to tell people that, like billions of others on this gigantic orb, I'm completely addicted to it. Liking it was secondary in importance.

I have also fallen completely for the Starbucks culture. It's so easy to walk in, slap down four bucks, and come away with a steaming caramel macchiato. It's warm, rich, and sweet. Even better, on the days I order a venti sized drink ("Venti" is a chic way of saying: "There is so much caffeine in this gargantuan drink, that lab rats have died from doses this size - after they wore out 12 exercise wheels."), I can run home in five minutes, clean the entire apartment, and have a gourmet meal ready by the time my wife gets back, just before collapsing on the couch.

I was made to feel especially stupid for falling for Starbucks one morning when we were walking around the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, Colorado. We had just stepped into a coffee shop to warm up a bit. I stepped up to the counter to order.

"You know what you want?", the lady with the dreadlocks and the hemp necklace asked from behind the counter.
"Sure," I answered. "I'll have a grande caramel macchiato."
"I'm sorry, sir," she said with a smirk and just a hint of sarcasm. "It only comes in one size." I started to feel my cheeks get warm.
"Okay," I replied. "I'll have a caramel macchiato." I tried to sound confident.
"Are you sure you want that?" She asked me. "It's very different from the way Starbucks makes it." She said the S-word with such force and venom in her voice that I swear everyone in the place stopped drinking their extra bitter shots of true espresso to look up at the moron trying to order Americanized-corporate-chain-coffee, and roll their eyes in disgust. I felt my feet start to melt through the floor, searching for a small place to hide. I was definitely committed now - I better hurry up and get this over with.
"That will be fine," I tried to reassure the lady, who was obviously having fun with this. "I'll have a macchiato the way you make it here."

I think I saw her shake her head just slightly, as she rang up the order. The message had been sent to me loud and clear: I was an outsider here who knew absolutely nothing about true coffee. Worse, I obviously made a habit of ordering from a large corporate chain who, of course, supported the evil things that large corporate chains usually support, like squashing out the happy local business owners, conducting nasty experiments on cute laborador puppies, and installing statues of their CEO and forcing us minions to bow down to him twice a day. She was willing to take my dirty money only because they needed the income, and she wanted to see my face distort when I tried their "real" espresso.

If there was any doubt that I had received her message, she drove her point home when she finally handed me the steaming cup of what was obviously supposed to be dark bitter sludge. On top of the foam, she had drawn a star with caramel syrup.

"I decided to make it easier on you by putting the caramel on top," she snorted happily as she handed me the mug. I felt like I was four years old. I was sure I heard a low chuckle from the other people in the shop. She gave me one last patronizing smile, and whipped around, her dreads noisily shuffling across her back, as she went to serve another customer.

She may just as well have said, "I think you're a fool who knows nothing about coffee except what a giant chain store has force fed you. If I had served you Kool-Aid, you probably wouldn't even know it. Enjoy, you sellout!"

I looked down at the star she had drawn. I wasn't sure, but it looked rather sinister to me - like a pentagram. I secretly hoped the syrup was actually caramel, and not some sort of poison they reserved just for people like me, so that my skin would start melting off the moment I took a sip, and everyone in the coffee shop could stand around and laugh at me as I disintegrated into a mist that smelled slightly of espresso.

Here's the real point of this story. You know what that "real" macchiato tasted like to me? Like every other cup of coffee I had drank before it. That was even more embarrassing. I wasn't just some coffee-stupid corporate sellout. I was simply coffee-stupid. I could have been drinking muddy water, and I probably wouldn't have been able to tell the difference. I hear people tell me about the best cup of coffee they've ever had at such and such a place. I read reviews on which espresso machines brew the boldest, thickest, creamiest espresso. I try all varieties of different coffee beans. It doesn't matter: It all tastes the same to me. Dark, slightly bitter, and hot.

That was rock bottom for me. What was I missing? What did everybody else on earth taste that I somehow missed?

That was until I got something called a French Press for Christmas from my wife. This is a very simple device that brews coffee differently than your average drip pot. You let the almost boiling water brew with the grinded beans for a few minutes, then use a plunger type device to push the grinds down to the bottom of the pot, leaving only the coffee at the top. Voila! Fresh brewed coffee!

My first taste of French pressed coffee was like a blind man's first sight. It was so thick! I could taste flavors! Wonderfully dark chocolatey tastes mixed in with dark earthy flavors that massaged my tastebuds and caused my tongue to swim happily. This is what coffee tastes like! I had finally discovered it! As I finished my first cup, I realized I finally found my coffee. I could now tell people my coffee testimony like everyone else, and actually believe what I was saying!

I don't need Starbucks anymore. (Wo. Wait a minute. Sorry, Starbucks. I was just kidding! Please don't make me bow down to that coffee bean statue, again! I'll always buy beans from you!) I don't need to waste time with "in the know" coffee brewers who waste no time in belittling the outsiders.

I can now say to people that I'm a big fan of coffee, and mean it. I'm a changed man. The sky is just a little bluer. The birds chirp just a little happier. For me, "redemption" is spelled "F-r-e-n-c-h p-r-e-s-s". With this truly amazing device, my life is now back on track, and I can now fully enjoy my addiction.

New Blogger, Old Posts

2007-01-03T15:14:00.000-07:00

All of my faithful readers (both of them) have probably already noticed that my blog suddenly looks very different. Do NOT be alarmed! Even though the colors and the layout are new, the content, the stinging wit, and the gritty observations you've come to expect are still the same. In other words: New look, same great product!

Blogger, the platform on which my humble blog is based, has recently undergone a nice update in functionality. This includes the ability to visually edit stuff that shows up on your blog, customizable looks for your blog, and - my favorite - the addition of labels for posts.

I had always thought that labels were something that was painfully missing from Blogger in the past. I'm very glad that this feature has finally been included. I have already taken advantage of this by going through my posts, and adding labels to them. You can now browse my literary gems by label, all of which are now listed to the right.

One label I would like to humbly suggest for your reading pleasure is the "historical" label. These are all posts that I had written using a previous blog, then imported them to Blogger once I started this current blog. (That's right - there was life online before Blogger.) The good news is that now all of my posts are on one blog. The bad news is all of the old posts haven't been "discovered" by my new Blogger audience. If you have a few minutes, check out the historical label, and let me know what you thought of my writing from the days of yore. (Read: veiled plea for comments)

Enjoy the new look, and the old posts. As always, thanks for stopping by.

Grammatical Rant: Plural's and Punctuation Mark's

2007-01-03T13:03:00.000-07:00

I know what you're thinking. It's been weeks since I posted anything on this now dusty and forgotten blog, and instead of talking about something interesting, I'm planning on giving a grammar lesson? Sorry to disappoint my faithful readers (both of them) like this.

This post is based on a pet peeve of mine, and seeing it repeatedly today just made me want to sit right down at my desk, and get this rant off my chest.

The fact is, I happen to think one of the most important skills someone can learn is to communicate effectively. This includes learning proper grammar. Having practiced this art for years, although I'm certainly not perfect (With a bloated, "anything goes" style language like English, is that really possible?), I am proud to say that I can get around basic principles of grammar.

One would think that anyone who made it through at least the first few years of school would also have some basic understanding of even the simplest grammatical rules. One would most certainly be wrong. There are so many examples to choose from! Here is my example for today.

Today's Grammatical Rant: Abuse of Apostrophes when Specifying Plurals.

Consider these blatant misuses:

Welcome to the Smith's! (Message on a doormat outside a house)
My friend's and I love to watch movie's! (Seen on a blog post)
Come to the Formal: A night of tux's and gown's. (Banner outside a banquet hall)
If you like media player's that work, consider buying this one. (Review of a digital media player)

Now, here's a question I'm almost afraid to ask: How many of you actually realized there were problems with those examples? Don't answer that.

Here's the problem: When are you supposed to use an apostrophe?

Here's the answer: When specifying possession, you use an apostrophe. (Contractions get an apostrophe, as well. Today, though, we'll just worry about possession.)

Example: We drove Fred's car to the store to buy World of Warcraft.

Notice the apostrophe in "Fred's", denoting that the car was his.

When specifying a plural, you don't freaking use an apostrophe!

Example: There was only one copy of World of Warcraft left, and two kids who were about to take it. I pinned the two kids to the floor while Fred grabbed the game.

Notice that "kids" - the plural of "kid" - has no apostrophe.

To really keep you on your toes, I now offer you an example with both conditions. Ready?

Example: When the store clerks chased us down, I told them it was Fred's idea to take the game from the kids.

Were you able to work through that grammatical minefield? Here's the key: "clerks" is plural - no apostrophe. "Fred's" has an apostrophe because the idea belonged to Fred. The apostrophe shows possession.

Yeah, yeah. I know. There are exceptions. This is English, after all. Take for example, the problem of making an abbreviation of a word a plural. How do you make that fit? You could just slap an "s" on the end of an abbreviation, but someone, somewhere, decided that this would be too confusing. (Good call, guys.) Here is yet another example:

Example: The store clerks asked Fred to explain himself. He said that the alien in the UFO's had told him to get the World of Warcraft game no matter what the cost. If he got it to him in the next hour, they would pay him an additional 15% commission.

Okay, the first thing to note here is that, when an alien flies all the way to earth looking for a video game, you don't just take 15% for a commission. Something intergalactic is obviously going on here. Demand at least 25%. The second thing to point out is the use of "UFO's". In this case, this is a valid use of an apostrophe to denote plural, because it is after an abbreviation - in this case, an acronym. If you had spelled the acronym out, an apostrophe would NOT have been used (unidentified flying objects). Honestly, I personally hate this exception. I just spell out "UFOs". I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. Call it my grammatical rebellion.

The problem, of course, is that people have gotten so confused at what is essentially an exception, that they have sunk into some sort of "apostrophe confusion", just throwing that poor tiny slash mark at the end of any word, hoping that, statistically, its use will be correct at least some of the time.

My advice to you is this: If you're that confused, don't worry about the exception. Remember the basic rule. Possession uses an apostrophe. Plural does not. Got that? To see many valuable examples of this rule, it helps to try putting down the game controller and reading books every now and then.

Well, that does it for my grammatical rant. Tune in soon for my exciting commentary on using exclamation points in the middle of a sentence (See! The bearded lady shave), or ending what is obviously a question with a period. (Will she shave her beard on Tuesday.)

Until then, remember: If alien's come to you and ask for multiple copy's of a video game, tell them to take their ship's to Freds house. He has plenty of extra box's.

Happy new year!

Music to Somebody Else's Ears

2006-11-21T21:55:00.000-07:00

One of the common traits shared by all cities is that they tend to be full of people. Did you know that? People are everywhere in cities. Milling along the sidewalks, milling through the malls, milling through the offices, milling past the people peeing on the office walls, and milling in and out of the grocery stores.

People do a lot of milling in cities.

Another common trait shared by many cities is the tendency to host way too much automobile traffic. There are a lot of cars in cities. Let me tell you, they don't do a lot of milling. They do more roaring, tailing, weaving, and speeding than milling. They also like to slam on the brakes to watch the people peeing on the office walls.

I lived in cities all of my life before my brief two year respite in the mountains, so I guess I didn't know any better, then. Since moving back to the city, however, I have become painfully aware of one fact: The thousands and thousands of cars in the cities are always in one gigantic hurry. I can only assume the drivers behind the wheels are in the same hurry as their automobiles.

You might say to yourself, of course they're in as much of a hurry as their automobiles! They're driving them! Has it really been just two years since you've been in a city?

I might then respond to you by asking: Are you sure? Have you seen the drivers? Okay, pop quiz time. They must be driving their cars because: they're arguing with their friend on their cellphone, changing CD's, changing tracks on their iPods, reaching down to the floor to find the tater-tot they just dropped, applying their makeup while looking into the visor's mirror, or making notes for their upcoming class paper that's due when they arrive? How about doing all of that at the same time?

The evidence at hand tends to point to the theory that nobody is driving these cars. They're just floating down the roads, experimenting with occupying different lanes, occupying two lanes at once, cutting between two or three lanes, not signaling at turns, and - my personal favorite - signaling halfway through a turn. What's that all about? Do they actually think they're helping anything? "Um, yeah. In case you can't see that my car is already changing directions, I'll help you out by turning on a small flashing light." The drivers behind him, who had previously been completely confused at what was going on, will be relieved to see that message.

The common trait here is that, no matter who is doing what behind the wheel of these cars, they're all doing it in a hurry. Where are they going at such a madcap pace?

My guess is that they're hurrying to watch the police arrest the guy peeing on the office (these folks are often referred to as "rubberneckers"), or getting the hell out of the nearest shopping mall which is already playing Christmas music (these folks are usually called "Scrooges").

I am, for better or worse, one such Scrooge. No throwing candy canes or gingerbread men at me, either!

It's not that I'm against Christmas. I'm against the forced commercialization of Christmas. I'm against all of the musicians who thought the world needed one more arrangement of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. (At last count, I believe there was the big band version, the pop version, the disco version, the rap version, and the Celtic fusion version with death metal punk influences.) I'm against the corporations who pay these musicians to write one more arrangement of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I'm against the malls who jack up the sound systems and start playing these goofy obnoxious arrangements three weeks before Thanksgiving, as if they're trying to remind us of the fact that it's that time of year again where we spend obscene amounts of money padding merchants' wallets buying trinkets for family and friends who may or may not get more use out of their brand new Travel Waffle Iron and Nose Hair Trimmer (as seen on TV!) than the gift they received last year. No, no - don't try and recall what you got them. It's better to let past mistakes lie.

With music blaring, we get seven full weeks of the reminder that this once sincere and relevant holiday has been hijacked by the capitalist system, forcing us into this oppressive custom of buying too much stuff. Do you realize people go into debt over this holiday? It's bad enough that our culture is now dictating that we do this every year, but it's gotten so out of control that people max out their credit cards trying to fulfill this artificial custom without even thinking about it. It's simply expected!

What happened to giving because you want to give? What happened to appreciating what you already have? What happened to celebrating family and friends? Most of all, what happened to celebrating the biggest gift of all that no one on Earth will ever be able to repay, and is really the reason this holiday exists at all?

Simple. It's all been buried by an artificial feel good wrapper of buying stuff because you have to. What a shame.

Wow. I'm afraid I strayed a little from the "pleasant humor" department. My apologies. I'll try to get back to stupid observations and snide comments next time.

In the meantime, I'm off to the mall. I heard some guy was peeing on one of the sound system speakers after hearing a grunge version of "I'll Be Home for Christmas with Piles of the Latest State of the Art Electronics and Toys". Apparently he had had enough, also. I need to go hurry over and shake his hand (but only after he washes it).

Strange Things Afoot

2006-11-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning, earlier than usual. It seemed brighter than it usually did when I awoke. The sunlight was seeping in through my closed eye lids. Realizing I wasn't going back to sleep, I opened my eyes.

Blue. That wasn't right. Things must be blurry still. Some goop in my eyes, or something. I reached up, and rubbed them. Then I opened them again.

Blue. Still.

My eyes were definetely focused, now, but there was still the issue of them seeing blue, when obviously they should be seeing the white of my ceiling. I sat up, and looked around a bit. Greens, browns. Gently sloping hill. Mountain peaks in the background. My neighbor's dog rooting around the driveway.

Okay, it made sense, now. I couldn't see my ceiling because I wasn't in the house. I seemed to be outside, laying here on the yard, looking up at the blue sky. I had no idea why I would have fallen asleep outside, instead of stumbling the few steps inside, and into my bedroom. I looked around a little more. Okay, sure. No house. That explains that.

I threw the covers back, got out of bed, and stepped into the grass. I was fully dressed for cold weather. Sweater and jeans. Thick coat. Snow boots. Gloves. I stood there, surveying the area, doing a slow spin. It all looked normal. The rolling grassy hills. The trees surrounding the grass in the distance. The neighbors out grazing next to the cows. Even the bed looked normal. Box spring, thick mattress and sheets, blanket and comforter. Purple comforter. I always liked purple. The bed was sitting on the grass. There was no house surrounding it.

Come to think of it, there was no sign the house had ever existed at all. No ruins, no foundations, no big hole. Nothing. All I saw was a gently sloping grassy hill. And a bed.

The wind kicked up, rippling the bed sheets, and sending the elves diving for cover in the trees. I heard them cackle from behind the trunks. I hated it when they cackled like that.

Staring at the trees, I remembered a question I had to ask someone. I decided I needed to find out the answer as soon as possible. I started out down the hill toward the cows, breaking into a jog.

I always thouht it was funny when you walk or run how things that are far away seem like they're not moving any closer, when you know they are. The problem this time was that things really weren't getting any closer. I jogged a little faster. Nothing. I started running, looking down at my boots as I ran. I saw the grass moving quickly under my feet. I was obviously making some serious headway. And yet, when I looked back up, I saw that I was no further from my bed than when I first started walking away.

I really do like purple comforters.

The harder I ran, the sweatier I got, and yet I still couldn't move. Frustrated, I stomped my feet in anger and yelled, squeezing my eyes shut, and throwing my head back.

"Wow," a deep resonating voice said in surprise. I opened my eyes, and saw that a tiny hummingbird had flown up to me, wearing a baseball cap. "You fly well for someone with teeth like yours." His voice boomed low in my ears like a subwoofer cranked as high as it could go.

"Flying?" I muttered, then looked down. My bed was at least 100 feet below me. Worse than that, a bear had climbed into bed, pulled the covers up, and began to read a John Grisham novel. Seconds later, the bed and the bear disintegrated into sawdust. The novel flopped to the ground, and was devoured by a swarm of large ants with chopsticks.

"I'm flying!" I gasped. "Now I'll get to the neighbor and ask the question!"
"What question is that?" The hummingbird asked. "Maybe I can - ARGH!" An arrow suddenly impaled the bird's little body, sending him spinning to the ground, hitting it with a large explosion that melted the rubber on the bottom of my boots. I looked toward the direction from where the arrow came, and saw a battleship floating on the trees.

On the deck of the ship, next to the large guns, and in front of the beef jerky stand, a monk in a brown robe and hood still held the bow from where he had just shot the arrow. "Ha!" I heard him yell. "The enemy is captured!"

"Wow," a deep resonating voice said in surprise. I looked back up, and saw that a tiny hummingbird had flown up to me, wearing a baseball cap. "You fly well for someone with teeth like yours." His voice boomed low in my ears like a subwoofer cranked as high as it could go.

Deja vu. I aimed toward the cows and the neighbor, intent on asking my question, and flew toward them in a hurry. Behind me, I heard "What question is that? Maybe I can - ARGH!"

I covered distance in a hurry, now, streaking through the sky. I flew over the mud pits where the scorpions ice skated to the tune of Elvis' "You Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog". I dodged out of the way of the commandos climbing out of a hatch in the sky, down a steel ladder, holding their guns in one hand, and yelling the screen play for "Cocoon" in unison, and descending into a hatch in the ground below. I finally arrived over the field where the neighbor and the cows were grazing, and attempted to land.

Of course, I couldn't. I stayed hovering in the air, which now had a pleasant scent of bacon grease and lavender. Momentarily distracted by hunger, and grief at losing my purple comforter, I tried as hard as I could to descend, spinning in the air, and grunting with effort of willing myself lower. No good.

"Hey," a cow yelled from below. "Catch this! It'll help you get down!" The cow had a length of rope that she threw expertly into the air, one of its ends stopping directly in front of me. Down below, the cow held firmly to the other end, holding it taught. I reached out, and gripped the rope hard.

"Auuughh!" The rope gasped. "You're strangling me!"

I sympathized with it, but I had to hold on, or else I was never getting down. The cow began to slowly reel me in, and I could see that I was finally descending. Lower. Lower.

"Care for some butter?" The old woman next to me asked, holding a large square of it in her hands. I ignored her. I never talk to strangers while flying.

Lower. Lower.

The cow waited for the freight train to pass, then started reeling again. Lower. Lower.

"Wow! You fly well for someone with teeth like yours! ARGH!"

Finally, my feet touched the ground. The cow took the end of the rope from me, examining the end of it. She then looked deep into my eyes, and said with grief, "It's dead. You strangled it." Without another word, she turned her back on me, and began rolling sideways off down the hill.

I looked to my left, and there, still grazing on the grass, was my neighbor.

"Hey!" I said. "What's going on, here?"

The neighbor stopped grazing, and looked up at me. He stared at me for a long time, his gaze piercing, his three eyes unblinking. Finally, he spoke, and I knew I would have my answer.

"I'm having breakfast," he announced matter of factly, and went back to the grass, slurping and smacking his lips as he ate.

"Oh," I said, somewhat deflated, munching on a glove. That didn't seem to be the answer I was looking for. "Excuse me, sir," I said. "Is there anything else going on?"

"You fly well for someone with teeth like yours," the neighbor said. "Has anybody told you that?" He had to talk loudly, as the giant salt and pepper shakers walked by, arguing loudly about their finances.

"Please, sir!" I yelled. "I must know what happened!"

The neighbor sat down cross legged, and began.

"You and your wife play card games, yes?" He asked.
"Uh, yes, but what does that have to do with - "
"How often does she win?" The neighbor pressed. A wave of anger built up inside of me.
"Always!" I exclaimed. "Every single time! I can't compete with her! It's like she magically has the exact card she needs whenever she needs it! It's not even a contest when we play!"
"Except for..." he prodded. My mind flashed back to last night, playing one of the endless losing card games with my wife. My breath caught in my throat. I looked straight at him, as I announced what I remembered, still shocked.

"I won."

The roar was deafening. Every tree, every cow, every elf, every wingnut, all the purple comforters, even the neighbor in front of me screamed a terrible bone shaking scream.

"I shouldn't have won, right?" I yelled, hoping for more answers. "That was unnatural, wasn't it?"

In the midst of the screaming, I could sense everything nodding to me in agreement. The neighbor stopped long enough to say, "Your winning was so unexpected, so unusual, it actually caused the fabric of the space time continuum to rupture. Now, because of your selfish act, there is no more sense to anything anywhere!"

A cow stopped screaming long enough to add, "And yellow plaid comforters are better anyway!"

I knew right then the gravity of my situation. I had committed a grevious sin. I had caused utter chaos. I should have never never won that card game! I sank to my knees in desperation.

"Please!" I yelled to the neighbor who was picking his teeth with a blow torch. "Please let me go back! Let me set things right!" I shut my eyes in agony, and covered my ears to stop the terrifying sounds.

Silence. Warmth.

"Hubbs!" I heard a female voice. I opened my eyes. My wife sat across from me in the dining room, holding a hand of cards. I cautiously looked around. We were in the house. Nothing out of the ordinary appeared to be happening.

"Hubbs! Are you going to play?" My wife asked me. I looked down, and realized I was holding cards in my hand. We were playing a card game! I saw immediately I had a choice - draw another card for a chance to win now, or discard and wait for my next turn. I didn't know which choice to make. For some reason, this choice seemed to be seriously, gravely important.

I decided to reach for another card. As I did so, I happened to glance up, and saw a hummingbird bounce off the dining room window, yelling "ARGH!" as he did so. He had a baseball cap on. I don't know why, but the sight stirred a faint memory within me. I decided to discard, instead.

Immediately, my wife threw her winning hand down on the table, and exclaimed, "I win!" I saw the grin spread on her face at the same time I felt the small rumble shake the ground. It wasn't strong, and it only lasted a second. I wasn't worried about it, though. Somehow, I knew things were right once again.

She won again. She always won. I told her so, joking with her that, "If I were to win just once, the fabric of the space time continuum would come undone! There would be total chaos!" She giggled.

Somehow, that joke didn't seem as funny to me as it used to.

Really Bad Writer's Block

2006-10-27T17:28:00.000-06:00

I can't think of anything to write. Seriously. I am stuck in the middle of the worst case of Writer's Block I have ever had the misfortune of facing. At no point in time has the blank screen intimidated me more than it is right now. My fingers are trembling just typing this.

I'm stuck. I don't want to just write crap, but I also don't want to leave this blog just hanging out there. If I go too long without a post, all of my faithful readers (both of them) will soon forget this exists.

So, since I can't get inspired right now, here are a couple of quick videos that will hopefully inspire you. The first video I thought was a mixture of being clever, funny, and pathetic (as in - they're spending all night to work on this?). The second video is a not so subtle reminder of the power of nature.

Enjoy.

The second one can't be embedded, but here's the link. Watch it! It's really amazing.

Abby Says: Moving was Worse than Having Fleas

2006-10-13T14:53:00.000-06:00

Hi. I'm not Kent. I'm his dog, Abby, and if you throw me a ball, I will almost always catch it.

Kent hasn't blogged for a while. I don't know why. Maybe moving to a "city" is keeping him too busy.

You may not believe that Kent's dog could be writing this, but I manage to hide my true talents from my human masters quite well. They think my best skill is catching a ball. I agree that's a very good skill, but it's not my best one. I can also open the refrigerator and grab a bottle of pop. (One of these days, I will figure out how to open it.) I can translate episodes of Lassie from the native Collie language to Beagle, Rat Terrier and Siamese Cat (I believe you should always know your enemy). I have more recently taught myself to type.

Many humans laugh at the thought that I could teach myself to type, and ask how that is possible. It's simple. Just type with the tip of your claw. The paw is just too big, so always use the claw.

Anyway, I saw Kent sit at the computer for a long time today without typing anything. He just sat and stared at the empty white space on the screen. Finally, he cursed, then he got up from the computer and left the empty space on the screen with lots of room to write. So, I checked to make sure he wasn't coming back. I slunk around the corner, and saw he had shut the door to the bathroom. Then I heard the sound of him opening the novel he's been reading lately. I knew right away he would be a while.

I turned to go back to the computer, but my tail bumped me in the nose. Stupid tail! It does this lots! I got mad and chased it a few times. It always manages to stay just out of my grip. Stupid tail! One of these days, I'll grab it and teach it a lesson.

It took me a minute to catch my breath, but I ran back to the computer, and jumped on to the chair. I saw the screen, and knew that I would finally have a chance to speak! I just had to keep my drool off of the keyboard so Kent wouldn't suspect anything.

We just moved from way up in the tall mountains down to what they are calling a "city". Up in the mountains, we had a lot of space where we probably could have run to our heart's content. Kent and Mindy (my other master) wouldn't allow it, though. They mostly kept us inside unless they were with us. They kept talking about things like "bears" and "mountain lions". I never found out what these were, but I'll bet they were probably big mean dogs that lived in mountains. I'm sure I could have fought them off easy.

We moved to a place that seems to have lots of huge houses in big clumps, where lots of people live at the same time. At first, I didn't understand why so many people kept walking around and making noises on our walls. It freaked me out, and I barked a lot at them. As far as I was concerned, they were here to kill us all and take our new house. Maybe the bears and mountain lions I heard about weren't dogs after all, but people that followed us from the mountains. Kent and Mindy always yelled at me when I alerted them to all the people. Even now, I don't understand why. I have always alerted them only for their own good. I've at least learned to live with the fact that lots of people are around here, though. I don't alert everybody too much anymore, but I'm still keeping an eye out in case one of them turns out to be a bear.

(Wo. Pardon me. I got an itch I gotta scratch on my...Well, just a second.)

The worst thing about this new place is that we have to actually pee and poop while leashed, and in full view of our masters! I tell you, this is worse than being infested with fleas! Humans don't seem to understand how important it is for us to be able to do our duty in private. First of all, it's embarrasing! Even worse, we're sending a message to other dogs when we do this. We're claiming our right to exist here! It's our right! The only way this can be properly done is in private. Still, I'm adjusting. I occasionally see other dogs being forced to do this in sight of their masters. Maybe it's just part of living in the "city".

Uh oh. I just heard the flush in the bathroom. It sounds like Kent might be done soon. I better finish quickly.

The good thing about living here is that our masters take us for walks a lot more. Especially when they take us next to the "lake". I'm not completely sure what that's supposed to be, but it looks like a giant water dish with birds in it. Walking here is especially pleasant because of all of the grass. Besides being soft, it has tons of messages left in it by other dogs who live here. It's so entertaining to check these out as we walk. Sometimes, I just can't resist leaving my own message. Kent never seems to like that. He thinks he's the only one with anything interesting to say.

The door to the bathroom just opened! I gotta go! I'll go grab my ball and see if Kent will toss it for me.

Maybe I can sneak on to this blog again sometime soon! Maybe Kent will start blogging here again, one of these days. (I just hope he quits using the phrase "I digress" all the time. He probably thinks it's funny to use that all the time, but I think it's just a bad excuse to start wandering off of the subject. Honestly, I think it's worse than vomiting a bug I just ate.)

In the meantime, remember to let your dogs have an occasional roll in the grass, and a good back scratch.

Yours Truly,
Abby (NOT Kent)

Spiders Will Take Over the World (And Other Thoughts About Moving)

2006-09-21T11:00:00.000-06:00

We're moving.

That right there should be enough to make any red blooded inhabitant of this vast earth shake their heads, shudder, and quietly curse under their breath in shared pain. Really, those two words should be enough to convey as much meaning and depth of suffering as any number of cleverly worded paragraphs I could ever come up with in a blog. I should be avant garde and make my entire post those two words. Simple. Effective.

"We're moving."

(cough)

All of my faithful readers (both of them) already knew that however I rationalized my thoughts, I was obviously going to go for as many wordy paragraphs as I could dream up. To those new readers who have perhaps stumbled on to this post, and were expecting something cleverly avant garde, I apologize. You'll get none of that here.

There are many things that make this move hard. Things like the fact that we're leaving a nice comfortable house on an acre of land next to one of the most spectacular mountain ranges on earth to move into the city in a small apartment in one of the largest complexes on earth. Or the fact that we'll be leaving family and friends. Selling most of our furniture is also a pain, as is packing the stuff we have left.

All of that adds up to being a tremendous pain. Of all of that, though, do you want to know the thing I hate most about moving? It's those damn boxes.

I hate dealing with boxes. I hate storing them in the garage until they're needed, where they get dusty and dirty - allergies waiting to happen once they're brought in, when you must unfold them and try to reshape them like an actual 3D box, making sure the flaps and edges are aligned just so. Then, you have to handle that nasty packing tape dispenser in a brave and dangerous attempt to tape the box into the shape you just tried so hard to put it in.

Those packing tape dispensers really are scary. The tape is attached to this flimsy plastic handle, which will implode if you push too hard. The tape is then dragged through a clever little notch which is designed to make sure the tape doesn't fall off and get stuck to itself, which presents an engineering challenge to get back off along the lines of building the Panama Canal. Those notches are all designed differently, but they share one thing in common: They provide as much of a chance of the tape not getting stuck as any driver from New Mexico remembering to use their turn signal.

(Just kidding, New Mexicans! I love your caves!)

Then there's those sharp teeth at the end of the dispenser, which is a feat of engineering in and of itself. If you pull packing tape against it as hard as you can, these teeth might be able to make stretch marks on the packing tape. Cutting the tape is obviously out of the question. It will, however, immediately slice anything else you touch against it, such as a finger, which could be severed in one quick motion.

I can hear all of you right now explaining it to the monitor screen as if I could hear you: "You have to pull the dispenser at just the right angle against the teeth. Then, it will work every time." You're all either wrong, or own lots of stock in packing tape dispenser companies. I've tried a dozen different angles. What do I always get? Stretch marks on the tape. And one nasty slice on my finger.

Seriously, though. I think the only thing these dispensers are really good for is a handy weapon when holding up a convenience store.

Crook: Give me all the money in the cash drawer, or else!
Clerk: Or else what, tough guy? You'll pull a gun on me? I've trained in personal defense! Give it your best shot!
Crook: No, you idiot! I'll sever your finger with a packing tape dispenser!
Clerk: (Opening the cash drawer and flinging cash at the crook) Here! Take it all! Just don't point that dispenser at me!

(Note: The author of this blog does not condone or support holding up a convenience store. He also does not condone the buying or eating of those frozen hamburgers from said convenience store.)

I digress.

I need to get back to why I hate boxes so much. Besides folding them, taping them, and staining them with blood from the tape dispenser, there's the greatest evil of all lurking among those piles of cardboard: Spiders.

Before I can fully explain my dislike of spiders, you have to understand one simple truth about them: Spiders are aliens. Aliens! How else do you explain rows of beady eyes, eight legs, the ability to squirt thread out of their butts, and that creepy unearthly walk that they perform on their eight spindly legs? Plus, what's with their favorite game of showing up out of nowhere in mid air inches from your face? Or worse, on your body?

(Pardon me. I need to shiver uncontrollably for a second.)

They're aliens. They're evil. They were dropped off here by their mother ship, and they're all lurking in every corner of the world until they get a signal, whereupon they will immediately launch their takeover operation of the world. I actually overheard the codename for what they're planning: "Operation Bite, Wrap, and Suck". It doesn't sound pleasant.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I hate spiders.

Spiders love boxes. To their rows of eyes, the pile of boxes in the garage must look like ready made spider apartment buildings, shopping malls, and movie theaters (where they watch their favorite comedy movie "Arachnaphobia"). Therefore, to them, I look like the great monster from above trying to destroy their metropolis.

My wife laughs at me when she sees me gingerly picking up a corner of a flattened box, and carefully examine it for any signs of arachnid infestation. That's okay. She doesn't know the truth, yet. She'll find out. We all will.

My final complaint about boxes is the heavy lifting of the now 3D, loaded and taped boxes. The weight of these boxes usually compares to anything from a refrigerator to a small passenger bus. Who gets to lift these boxes, and load them in the truck?

Honestly, I'd explain it to you, but I need to go ice my back. I threw it out yesterday loading boxes.

Before I go, let's go over what we learned today:

The author of this blog apparently doesn't like New Mexican drivers and makes jokes about convenience store holdups. Reader discretion is advised.
Spiders like to watch movies while they wait to take over the world.
The CIA is in negotiations with a large packing tape dispenser corporation to discuss creating a line of self defense dispensers for their spies in the field. They will, of course, be black.
Bulleted lists are fun.

Gnirps

2006-09-16T19:25:00.000-06:00

Autumn is definetely starting to show itself again. The aspens are just beginning to turn their amazing colors. It's always fun to watch how the colors in the aspens spread - the way just a few trees turn at first, then the cluster around them turns, it spreads quite a bit more over the next few days, then one morning, you look out, and all the trees are completely bare, and a two foot pile of leaves is lying on the ground.

The first snow of the season is now blanketing our resident mountain range, which is always another interesting thing to watch around here. You can always tell how serious winter is getting about moving in by watching how low the snow line drops on the mountains. At first, the snow starts way up in the peaks around 13,000 feet and higher. Over the next few weeks, you can see snow getting lower and lower on the range until you start thinking to yourself, "That's not too much higher than where we live." The next morning, of course, you'll wake up to two feet of snow where all those dead leaves once were.

And how about that wind? Every year, the same thing happens, like some gigantic thermostat turning on the fan, cleaning out the summer air, and blowing in the cold air in a series of sunny, blustery, and increasingly chilly days. Today was like that, blowing and just as sunny as could be, but only managing 52 degrees (F) this afternoon. As I write this in the early evening, it's 41. Brr!

(I think I saw the control for that thermostat one day. It looked pretty normal, except when the guy at the controls saw me, he jumped behind a set of curtains. The next thing I heard was a low voice that boomed, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" I left pretty quick.)

This brings to my very small point. Has anyone ever noticed that, with the exception of the leaves everywhere, autumn is pretty much just spring in reverse? Think about it. Winter's got everything in its icy grip, then, before you know it, that wind starts to blow in, thawing and melting the snow until everything just looks dead and bare. Soon, the air gets warm, the trees get leaves, and before you know it - BAM! - you're out mowing lawns!

That's spring right? Now, play that backwards, and - voila! - you have autumn! It's as simple as that. It's for this reason, that I'm going to start a campaign to have autumn officially renamed. I hope that, seeing the logic, you will join me in what is sure to be a whirlwind of press conferences, petitions and votes.

What is autumn's new name, you ask? Haven't you figured it out?

Gnirps.

Get it? If autumn is basically spring in reverse, then its name should really be...

Sorry, all. That's the best thing I could come up with today.

(In case you're wondering, I took the first pictures a few evenings ago from my back door. I took the rest this afternoon while out walking in my neighborhood. You can click on them for a larger version.)

Virtual Dinner

2006-09-13T17:38:00.000-06:00

Jack and Deb hurried about the kitchen, putting the final touches on their dinner. The lasagna that had just come out of the oven still steamed invitingly, spreading its delectable scent around the room. Jack's mouth began watering as he poured the wine into small crystal flutes, and inhaled the aromas wafting around the room. Deb finished the salad she was preparing, and picked up the large wooden salad bowl the vegetables were in, and headed out to the dining room.

"I'm so excited to finally be having dinner with Susan and Rick!" she called back as she placed the bowl carefully down on their dining room table.
"Me, too," Jack said, picking up the hot pan of lasagna with oven mitts, and proceeding into the dining room. Deb was setting places at the table when he arrived. "They've been almost impossible to catch up with, these days."
"No kidding," Deb agreed, placing two plates next to each other on one side of the table. "We've emailed them. We text messaged them. We left voice mail for them on their cells." Forks and knives went down next to each plate.
"Don't forget trying to schedule a dinner date on their web calendar." Jack reminded her as he strode back in to the kitchen and retrieved the wine glasses. "How many times did they change.." His voice faded as the kitchen door closed behind him.
"What did you say?" Deb asked. Seconds later, the door popped open again and Jack entered the dining room holding the wine.
"Well," Jack asked. "How many times?"
"How many times what?"
"Did they change the date and time of this dinner?" Jack's voice sounded a little flustered.
"You don't have to snap at me, Jack," Deb responded. "I couldn't hear you in the kitchen."
"Well, I sure thought I was talking loud enough to..." Just then, a loud samba style song interrupted them, grooving and singing from a tiny speaker somewhere close by.
"Phone's ringing," Deb declared.
"Heard that, did you?" Jack teased as he fished his cell phone out of his pocket, momentarily filling the room with artifical samba music, and answered it as he walked into the living room.

Deb continued setting the table, placing a salt shaker next to the pepper, and some oil and vinegar next to the salad bowl. She then looked at the setting, and started making small adjustments to it. Straighten the place mats, reorder the silverware, and for goodness sake, move the vinegar bottle out of the way of the webcam.

"Well, that was Rick," Jack said irritably coming back into the living room as he shoved his phone into his pocket. "They're going to be a little late. He had to jump on a phone conference with people from his office."
"That's too bad," Deb said. "Even tonight, they're changing the schedule on us!"
"He said to go ahead and turn everything on, though, and they'll be on when he's done."

Jack stooped and looked at the table. It was all in order. At one end sat the lasagna and salad guarded by the two wine bottles that sat behind them. Two place settings were on the left side of the table, precisely organized as Deb always insisted. On the end opposite the food sat the salt and pepper shakers and the oil and vinegar bottles. On the right side of the table, facing the two place settings, a large widescreen flat panel TV monitor sat silently, with a webcam fixed to one side, and another small device that looked like a small speaker fixed on the other side.

"The table looks great, honey," Jack said. "Looks ready for a very nice dinner."
"Thanks, Jack," Deb said. "Are you sure that new scent device is working okay? I want them to be able to smell my lasagna as if they were actually sitting here!"
"Well, I think so." Jack said, as he walked over to the side of the TV where the speaker looking device was attached. On the side of it were the words "ScentSer 2000". He checked the wires running between the device and the TV. Satisfied, he stood up, and declared, "Everything is hooked up. Their mouths should water as much as mine did when they smell your dinner!"

Jack stepped behind a chair and pulled it out, motioning for Deb to sit down. When she sat, he helped her scoot the chair up. He then sat down next to her.

"Let's see if they're there, yet." Jack said. He looked at the TV and said, "System command: Connect to Rick and Susan's!"

The TV flashed on, and the words "Connecting - Please Wait..." slowly scrolled across the screen accompanied by a low female voice that said the same thing. The message reached the edge of the screen, and, with a small bouncing ball sound, began scrolling the other direction across the screen. Suddenly the screen lit up with a picture of a man with thinning blond hair and a woman with shoulder length black hair and small wire rimmed glasses. They were both smiling wide and waving at the camera. At the same time that the picture appeared, a man's voice spoke in a friendly but hurried gravel. "You've reached Rick and Susan. We can't answer your call right now, so please leave either a voice or video message. Thanks!"

"Not there," Deb muttered in disappointment. "They better answer soon. Our lasagna's starting to get cool."

The picture on the TV faded, and words popped up in front, saying, "While you're waiting, check out these special offers from Goggle, your free online service provider!" The screen changed again, this time showing a frustrated woman on the phone. As she hung up, she looked up as if looking right at Jack and Deb, and proclaimed, "I just can't seem to find time to get together with my friends these days!" The image froze as the words "Now you don't have to!" flashed on to the screen.

"Jack, look," Deb pointed to the screen. "I think this is what we bought!"
"Yeah, you're right," He agreed. "Stupid commercial. Hope the product is better."

"Don't worry about meeting your friends! VIRTUALLY meet your friends! Have a conversation! Watch a movie together! Now, with the new ScentSer 2000, even have dinner together!" The commercial continued. The image changed to a video of that same woman, now wearing an attractive and short dress, sitting in front of a TV eating dinner, and talking enthusiastically with an immaculately dressed man on her TV. "The new ScentSer 2000 allows you to actually smell what the other person is smelling! Now, enjoy the delectable scent of dinner, or the enjoyable scent of your date's perfume - over the internet!" The woman in the commercial held up her steak to the ScentSer 2000, while the man in the TV inhaled, obviously enjoying the smell. The image disappeared, and was replaced with the phrase: "ScentSer 2000: It Just Makes Scents!" Under that, another phrase slowly scrolled by: "By VirtuaScents - We make getting together virtually doable!" With a small "ding", a brightly lit button appeared at the bottom of the screen: "Order Now!"

Once finished, the picture of Rick and Susan returned.

"You think we'll ever get a chance to use the ScentSer?" Jack asked, reaching over, and grabbing a wine bottle.
"We better, as expensive as it was," Deb held up her wine glass as Jack poured the red liquid into it, then poured some into his own. "How much longer can Rick's call last?" She mischeviously held the wine glass in front of the ScentSer. "Do you think Rick and Susan will smell this? Maybe it'll get them to actually answer the call."

While Deb talked, the picture of Rick and Susan disappeared and was immediately replaced by the real Rick and Susan sitting behind their own dining room table. Their camera was focused so closely on their face, and they moved so little, that neither Deb nor Jack noticed, until Susan spoke.

"We got on as fast as we could, Deb!"

Susan's sudden scolding so surprised Deb that, besides sucking in a very high pitched gasp, she jumped about a half foot into the air, and the arm holding the wine glass under the ScentSer twitched so much that she spilled the contents all over the ScentSer, causing it to spark and fizzle. Realizing what she did, she covered her mouth with her other hand, and squeaked a quiet, "Oh no."

"Oh, great!" Jack said, standing up from his chair and leaning over to examine the ScentSer.

The effect was immediately noticed by Rick and Susan, who began smelling a rancid smell of burnt plastic.

"What is that smell?" Rick moaned, pinching his nose shut with one hand and waving the air frantically with his other hand. Susan just sat there making pained gurgling noises.

"Sorry, you guys!" Jack muttered, as he flipped the ScentSer off. "Deb spilled wine on our new ScentSer!" As he said this, he looked over accusingly at her. She covered her face with her hands, and in the most embarrased and humble voice she could muster, whispered, "I'm so sorry. Is it going to be okay?"

"The burnt smell is gone." Susan breathed with relief. "I don't think any scent is coming out of it all anymore." Her image briefly disappeared from Jack and Deb's TV as she leaned over to take a good close whif of the device. Her image returned as she confirmed, "No. Nothing."

Jack was quickly wiping the ScentSer down with his napkin. "Deb," he said. "Is the lasagna still warm?" Deb, still feeling embaressed, touched the lasagna with her finger.

"No," she said. "It's cold."
"Take it in and warm it up in the microwave," Jack instructed. "I want to try the ScentSer again with the lasagna."
"Okay," Deb agreed, anxious to have a duty with which to redeem herself. She grabbed the lasagna, and hurried off into the kitchen.

Jack sat back down, and looked into the TV, where Rick and Susan were still sitting, looking back at him. They sat there in awkward silence. Susan picked up a fork, and started weaving it between her fingers. Jack clicked his finger against the wine glass.

"So," Jack finally said. "Good call with your work?"
"Yeah, sure," Rick answered sounding miffed. "Sorry it cut in to our dinner. Deb sounded upset when we called in just now."
"I think she was just kidding, Rick," Jack tried to console.
"Well, it was still rude," Susan scolded again. "Rick's so busy these days. Working day and night. Hardly enough time to see each other, much less have dinner with friends." She made sure the sarcastic emphasis on "friends" was seen and heard through the TV.
"Don't you accuse me of being rude!" Deb countered suddenly, who had entered the room with the lasagna steaming, without being noticed. "We've only been trying to get together you guys forever, it seems. Every time we schedule something with you, you change it!"
"Well, we're busy!" Susan declared again, her voice rising. "Rick has to work long hours to pay the rent here! It's not cheap, you know! Plus, we have the new car to worry about, paying for the new TV we bought - which I might add, we're using to get together with you right now!"
"Ladies, ladies!" Rick cut in. "I'm sure Deb was just being funny when she made the joke about the wine. Let's try to calm down and have some dinner, okay?" You could see his worried expression like he was in the apartment with Jack and Deb.

Deb and Susan glared at each other through their cameras. Finally, Deb sat down next to Jack and handed him the lasagna. "Here," she said shortly. "Try the lasagna." Susan folded her arms, and sat back in her chair, her face pouting and her eyes down toward the table.

Jack sighed at the turn of events. He placed the lasagna in front of the now dry and sticky ScentSer, and, breathing the warning, "Here goes," flipped it back on. The effect on Rick and Susan was just as immediate as the spilled wine, but this time the effect was completely the opposite.

"Wow," Rick said as he slowly inhaled the scent of lasagna. He closed his eyes as his lips parted in a delirious smile. "Wow! That smells great!"
"This thing actually works!" Susan added, again disappearing from the screen as she leaned closer to their ScentSer. Jack and Deb gave each other approving glances as they listened to Susan inhale and sniff, and exclaim, "Deb, your lasagna smells delicious!"

The two couples could feel the mood lighten as if a cloud that had settled so thickly on them was quickly evaporating. Susan reappeared on the screen, holding up a plate of roast beef. Its dark, meaty scent wafted out of Jack and Deb's ScentSer.

"That smells delicious, Susan," Deb said, thoroughly enjoying the smells.
"This calls for a toast!" Rick said happily, picking up a wine bottle.
"Good idea!" Jack answered just as chipper, picking up his wine glass, and holding it up to the camera, as Rick poured wine for Susan and himself.
"Jack," Deb whined quietly next to him.
"Yes, my dear?" He said, slightly exasperated, as he turned to face her. She was holding her now empty glass at him, the wide eyed look on her face reminding him of her accident as clearly as if she had told him. "Oh, yes," he remembered, chuckling a bit. "Here you are!"

He poured her another glass. Then, all four of them raised their glasses to the cameras, the scent of the wine wafting through both rooms. They all wore large friendly smiles as Rick said, "To friendship!"

Jack meant to answer, and got as far as "To - " before everything went dark. In an instant, Rick and Susan disappeared from the TV screen, the scent of their wine disappeared, and the lights all blinked off, leaving them in a completely dark and silent room.

"That wasn't my fault," Deb quipped.
"Power outage?" Jack asked.
"Apparently, my dear." Deb fecetiously ansewered with the same pet name Jack had just used.
"Well, how do you like that?" Jack said, standing up, and stumbling to a window.
"What do you see?" Deb asked, with just a hint of concern in her voice. It was, after all, a little frightening to be suddenly plunged into darkness.

Jack scanned the window, barely able to make out a darkened horizon where there usually existed millions of city lights. "Nothing," he finally called back. "Looks like the whole city is out."

"Oh, great," Deb complained. "Of all the times for this to happen!" She heard Jack fumbling around in a drawer somewhere.
"Murphy's Law," he replied, as he found what he was looking for. With the sound of a "snick", he lit a match, and applied it to the wick of a candle he had just found. The room was soon swimming in the soft, flickering light.

"Well, I tell you what," Jack said. "If the whole city's out, Rick and Susan won't be doing anything right now, will they?"
"No," Deb said, brightening as the idea took shape in her mind. "You want to go visit them in person?"
"Why not?" Jack said, as he shrugged his shoulders. "It may be a little silly after all the trouble we went to, but..."
"Well, who cares?" Deb said with sudden chipper in her voice.

She stood up, and moved cautiously toward Jack, who was already carrying the candle to the front door of their dimly lit apartment. They both moved in slow motion through the surreal light. When they got to the door, Deb reached for her jacket.

"What are you doing?" Jack asked, trying his best to look Deb in the eye. "They're just down two flights of stairs!"

Embarrased again, Deb pulled her arm back from where her jacket hung. "Sorry. Force of habit."

Jack opened the door, and held it open.

"After you, " he said.

Buy My House! Please!

2006-09-05T23:33:00.000-06:00

My wife and I decided that living amongst 13,000 and 14,000 foot peaks and furry woodland creatures wasn't good enough for us, so we are packing up and moving to Boulder, Colorado. The problem is, we can't sell our house in Ouray County! Curse the luck!

Therefore, in a fit of raging and shameful advertising, I am placing this link to a website offering my house for sale: House on Forest Hill.

I figure, on a blogosphere of millions of bloggers, why not try my chances posting a teensy little ad here? (Following is a thinly veiled stream of words that people might search for, and therefore find our house for sale.) After all, Ouray County Colorado is a nice place to live, and there is plenty of real estate for sale, including single family homes. Our neighborhood is close to Ridgway, Ouray and Telluride!

To my faithful readers who had to sit through that wanton capitalism run amock (both of them), my sincerest apologies. I feel dirty. I'll try get back to my normal pointless rants, which I'm sure you all look forward to. In the meantime, remember this helpful phrase:

"Every man has his price." (And so does every house.)

The Pluto Effect

2006-09-01T12:00:00.000-06:00

Wouldn't it have been a thrill to be around back in the era when all of the planets were being discovered? To peer through telescopes, pore over notes, and declare the discovery of yet another? To see evidence right before your eyes that forced you to rethink the universe around you?

Or, for that matter, to dodge catholic church leaders who were trying to label you a heretic for daring to suggest the Earth wasn't in the center of the universe?

Astronomer: We have five planets in our solar system, not four, as previously thought.
Bishop: What? How dare you challenge our importance in the
universe? That's heresy! Next you'll be telling me we're not in the
center of the universe!
Astronomer: Funny you should mention that.
Bishop: Burn him!!

Wouldn't that have been exciting? Kind of like living an action packed Hollywood flick! You know, with all of the retreads Hollywood is putting out these days, they could use a fresh idea. How about "Galileo and the Bishops of Doom"? Yeah, I know. It does bear a passing resemblance to another movie that may already have been made. I'll have my copyright lawyers look into it.

Anyway, amidst the amazing progress astronomy is making today - peering to the edge of the known universe, finding evidence for the Big Bang, grappling with the issue of dark matter - there's also one recent event that one would never expect.

Astronomer: We have only eight planets in our solar system, instead of nine as previously thought.
Layman: What? How dare you challenge the importance of our ninth planet! Next you'll be telling me there was never any evidence of life on Mars, after all!
Astronomer: Funny you should mention that.

That's right! It seems that Pluto isn't a planet after all! Under new guidelines decided by the International Astronomical Union, Pluto no longer qualifies as a major planet in the solar system, one big reason being that its unusually eliptical orbit actually brings it inside the orbit of Uranus at times.

Planetary Referee: Penalty! Encroachment! Pluto stepped inside the orbit of Uranus!
Pluto: Are you kidding me? Come on! That was just a momentary thing! It was Charon's fault! She influenced me!
Planetary Referee: All right! That's it! You're outta here!
Uranus: Loser.
Pluto: Dweeb.
Uranus: Asteroid.
Pluto: Gas bag.

Why is Pluto now consigned to wander the edge of the solar system (most of the time) as a mere "minor planet"? Cataclysmic seismic disasters at its core caused a massive to chunk to fall off? It broke its orbit from the sun because it was too far away? No. Nothing happened to it. It's the same rock it was when it was discovered in 1930. It was simply reclassified with new rules.

That's a good thing, right? We're constantly discovering new things, revisiting old theories, and reclassifying our vast catalog of knowledge! That's science! That's progress! But, in the wake of Pluto's fate at the hands of progress, I urge you to think about what precedent this might set for anything else you think you might know. The demotion of a planet is just the beginning! Observe a few examples of what I will officially name "The Pluto Effect".

You think your compact car is in fact a car? WRONG! It doesn't meet the new minimum horsepower requirements. It is now just a "minor automobile".

That laptop you're typing on right now? SORRY! Battery life isn't long enough! Call it what it really is - a "mobile calculatory device".

That swanky upscale restaurant you frequent downtown? NOT SO FAST! The wine cellar doesn't have anything before 1993! New classification: "overpriced eating establishment".

You like your oak tree in the front yard? YOU GUESSED IT! It doesn't meet the minimum 50 foot height! You actually just have a "hard stemmed leafy plant" in your yard.

That little toy rat terrier dog you named Schnookums? NOT A DOG! New rules state it must be bigger than a sewer rat. Little schnookie is just a "dwarf quadriped with canine tendencies".

That new rock song that has everyone singing? COME ON! It must have at least four seperate chords! You're therefore only listening to a "organized set of repetetive tones". (Actually, this reclassification would probably affect at least 73% of today's music, but that's another subject for another post.)

Your mouse with only two buttons? "Forerunning pointing device".

Reality TV? "Stupid".

Mountains under 10,000 feet? "Relative pointy tectonic rocks".

Highways with less than six lanes? "Clogged urban transport trails." (This applies also to highways with less than 12 lanes.)

Smog generated by less than 2,000 cars? "Minor respiratory irritant."

Do you get the idea? Demoting Pluto was a watershed moment in our organized, perpetually reclassifying society! As you go through the motions of your day today, look around you, and realize what you're seeing today may not be what you see tomorrow.

Now that my "short online publication" is done, I'm going to go hop in my "minor automobile", drive down from my "isolated single-family dwelling" on the side of a "relative rocky tectonic rock", and have a quick "midday meat and vegetable comestible".

Camp Inversion

2006-08-21T12:30:00.000-06:00

My wife and I went camping over the weekend.

Normally, when we go camping, we really get away to the wilderness, hike a mountain, backpack, eat freeze-dried spaghetti, and get our only pair of hiking boots completely soaked, thus ensuring an authentic "wilderness experience" for the rest of the trip.

(Although I really didn't set out to make this blog a photo album, I receive good comments about pictures I post of the area, so, I will continue to post some from time to time - now, for instance.)

Here are pictures from a backpacking trip we did, around the Mt. Sneffels Wilderness Area. The pictures are from the peak of Mt. Sneffels itself, at an altitude of 14,150 feet.

This is standing on the peak, looking down at the valley below, which sits around 7,000 feet. In other words, I'm taking this picture from more than a mile above the surrounding area. Pretty high, eh?

This is looking over the other side of the peak, toward Yankee Boy Basin. Telluride is just a few miles from here, as seen in this picture:

Notice the ski runs you can see from here. I've skied them all, and can highly recommend Telluride in the winter for all the ski bums who are reading this! (Anyone?) One of these days, I'll post some ski pics from its slopes.

Anyway, for a change of pace, this weekend, we went camping at a hosted, organized, paved campground. The place, in case you ever happen to be in the area is the Amphitheater Campground just outside of Ouray, Colorado. Actually, "outside" is not a complete descriptor of the location. "Above", or "overlooking" is more accurate, which you'll soon see.

This was not one of our normal camping trips. It was, as I'd like to call it, a "camp inversion". What is a camp inversion, you ask? Here's my definition:

Camp Inversion: Camping at a place that is considered to be more settled or busier than the place you actually live.

In other words, we left the peace and quiet of our home to go bask in the noise of lots of other folks crammed tightly together right next to a bustling town that happened to be next to a large mountain range. We did, however, stay in a tent. That plants our weekend firmly in the "camping" - uh - camp.

It wasn't what I would have called "getting back to nature". Nevertheless, it was a nice experience. Different, but nice. We got to relax a lot. We read. We retreated into our tent while it rained in the afternoons. We went to the overlook, and peered down at the town of Ouray from time to time. We paused our conversations while a myriad of trailer pulling diesel trucks drove by. We untangled our two dogs from the knots they had made from their tie-outs exactly 34 times. We walked up and down the paved road between campsites, enjoying the scenery. At night, we bought our bundles of precollected firewood, and lit a fire in a metal cylinder. We then slept on our air mattress in our tent - again, to preserve the idea that we were actually camping. Not exactly roughing it, but camping.

After we were done, we left the crowd of campers, kids, dogs, out houses, trucks and cars on a nicely paved road, drove past Ouray and Ridgway, and drove more than six miles up a dirt road back to our house, without seeing another truck, car, or human once we left town. We did see a couple deer on the way. We walked in the door, opened the windows, and remarked to each other how nice it was to get back to the peace and quiet of our own home, instead of the noise of camping.

Camp inversion, indeed.

Here's my opinion on "hosted campgrounds". If you're traveling a lot, and want to sort of taste a little bit of nature (not too much, though!), but are more worried about a place to just kick back as opposed to a place to hike and explore, you might really enjoy them. If you have a tent and want to save a bundle on motel costs, and don't mind that the walls of your "hotel room" are actually made of paper thin nylon (like some actual hotel rooms I've stayed in), you might really enjoy them. If you walked into a bookstore, and picked up "Introduction to Nature and Camping" instead of "The Backpacker's Guide to Mountain Climbing", well, you might actually enjoy them.

One such campground I can recommend is the Amphitheater Campground just out of Ouray.

Stick It to the Man: Install Your Own Storm Door

2006-08-15T12:33:00.000-06:00

Are you tired of corporate bullying? Do you routinely feel pushed around by big corporate chain stores who advertise decent prices then stack on fees later? Then, here is a story for you of victory against the big guy! Triumph over the tyranny of fees! Or, just a story about one more bitter consumer. Your choice.

My wife and I went shopping for a storm door to add to the door in our dining room out to our patio. We found the door we wanted, saw the "$99 Install" sign, figured that was worth it to have the door installed right, and got on the list to have it installed.

I won't tell you where we shopped, but its initials are "Home" and "Depot". That right there should tell you something. In my opinion, this place is staffed mostly with a bunch of out of work contractors who are pissed about having to take a job there, and whose sole joy in life is making you feel as absolutely stupid as humanly possible.

My favorite "bitter employee" story is the time I asked a guy where paint thinner was at. He had his back to me because he was doing important work, which to me looked like rearranging all of the silver wingnuts by color. Without pausing, or turning to face me, he muttered "two aisles over in the middle," and then he took off, apparently satisfied the the silver wingnuts were properly color coordinated. The problem with his advice was that I was in the middle of the store. "Two aisles over" could have meant left or right. I chased him down the aisle, and asked "Which direction?" He turned to face me, actually grunted in frustration, then commanded me to "follow him". He turned away from me, and quickly turned to the left at the end of the aisle, and walked past the first aisle, calling back to me in his most patronizing dripping-with-sarcasm voice - "One!". At the second aisle, he called back - "Two!" He then spun around to face me and repeated to me, apparently thinking I was deaf, "Two aisles over IN THE MIDDLE!" With that, he walked past me, and strode away, apparently to find some saws to organize according to which ones had teeth. As I watched him hurry off, I experienced a quick vision of some unorthodox uses for a large rubber mallet that I happened to be standing by, but I quickly pushed that thought from my mind.

I digress.

A couple days after I got on the "Storm Door Install List", I got a call from a guy saying they needed to schedule a measuring appointment, and by the way, this would cost me $30. I thought that was dumb. I had already measured for the door, following the instructions in the brochure I had picked up while we were at the store. Further, we live almost 40 miles from the closest Home Depot, and I told him I thought it was ridiculous to have to pay some guy money to drive a long ways to do something I already took care of! He said "it was company policy".

Translation: "We wouldn't trust you sniveling snot nosed idiots to organize our silver wingnuts by color. What makes you think we'd trust you to measure something?"

He tried to reassure me by saying the $30 charge would be deducted from the install cost. Reluctantly, I agreed to schedule the measurement. And so we started down the slippery slope of corporate bullying.

The next evening, a guy in a pickup truck showed up at our dining room door, spent approximately 43 seconds taking down the exact same measurements I had just performed two days ago, and sped off. My thought as I watched him go: "I paid thirty bucks for that?"

I didn't get a call from them again until after the weekend. By now, we had waited almost a week, and had nothing to show for it except the honor of being on the store's "Not Smart Enough To Use a Tape Measure" list.

"We're ready to install the door for you," he said. "The total install charge is $229. When can we schedule the installation?"

I actually thought he was kidding. "Did you say $229? There must be a mistake."

"Let's see, " he said. "That's the $99 install fee, $30 to measure, $50 for delivery of the door, and $50 for excessive mileage."

If you hear the sound of shoes stumbling against ground that is crumbling away, well, that was me continuing to slide further down that slippery slope. I had to actually remind him that the $30 was part of the install fee before he agreed to take that off! When I asked him about the $50 excessive mileage fee, he said that was what their contractor charged. He didn't, however, charge that fee to go to Ridgway - just to go to what was apparently a foreign country to him all the way up to our neighborhood - about six miles up the road. What a gyp. I told the guy that. He said he'd talk to the contractor and call me back.

And that, faithful readers, is when my feet slid to the bottom of that slippery slope. There, my stumbling feet hit firm ground, the clouds receeded, and a ray of sunlight shone upon my scratched and muddy face. I even think I heard the sound of a chorus singing an enchanting melody. Either that, or that noisy deisel truck in our nieghborhood drove by again. I couldn't tell.

At that moment, I decided to do something really crazy: Install the door myself! At that same moment, I had broken the system of that store. You see, from the moment you step in to that store and have to ask an arrogant worker for help, and are practically spit at when you do, to when you are surrounded by items that are hard to find, are stored in complicated displays, and have signs everywhere that read, "Get it installed!", you can only deduce that this whole retail system is designed to tell you one thing:

"You are too stupid to do any of this yourself. Talk to one of our bitter employees, who will confirm this, and gladly take your money for the ease and convenience of paying hidden fees."

On top of that, everybody there wears orange aprons! Come on! Like we need one more visual cue that you're the capable ones and we're not! After all, your workers wear aprons! I decided right then this whole thing was a bunch of crap (that's "a load of badly warped lumber" to you employees).

We went and picked up the door ourself, using my in-laws' Suburban. Cha-ching! There's $50 back in our pockets. Much to the surprise of the employee manning the Windows and Doors department, my measurements actually matched the $30 measurements for which I had to pay extra. (I got an offer right there to manage their Silver Wingnut Department.)

When I got it home, I tore open the box, and after looking at the instructions, decided I would actually install this myself. Cha-ching! $99 back in our pockets!

Honestly, being a layman (or, as the store would put it, "snot-nosed mindless consumer"), it was pretty slow going. By the time I had it completely done, I had spent most of the day installing it. I'm sure Mr. Excessive Mileage Contractor could have had it done in 23 minutes flat (whereupon I probably would have been charged the Speedy Install Fee of $76), but I had done this myself. You know what the bonus was? It actually worked! It swung, closed, locked, and sealed correctly!

The store called when I was halfway through installing it. "Sorry, sir," the guy said, "but the contractor said the $50 excessive mileage fee is standard."

I almost laughed that deep-throated evil-genius-with-a-foolproof-plan-to-take-over-the-world laugh, but I restrained myself as I said with glee, "I'm installing it myself," and hung up. Cha-ching! $50 more back in my pocket!

I had done it. Stuck it to the man. Did it myself. Did what they said couldn't be done. Experienced the pride of a job well done. Padded my wallet in the process.

You want to know the truth? Don't tell Home Depot I told you this, but here's their secret: If you can use a tape measure, a hammer, and aren't afraid to drill, you can probably install most of the stuff in that store that the employees would do anything to convince you that it's of such sophisticated complexity, only a fool would try it themselves. Honest.

If you need to talk to me about any of this, I'll be in the Silver Wingnut department, working my new job. Just kidding! I would never work there! I could never wear those ugly orange aprons!

Good Pass Times

2006-08-11T12:31:00.000-06:00

There have been dozens of times lately that I've kicked myself for not having a camera with me at all times while I am out of the house. (Well, I didn't actually kick myself. I find that practice to be not only extremely difficult to accomplish, but also rather painful.) Mountains and wildlife are everywhere one looks around here, and it seems that every time I'm in the car or out getting the mail or taking the trash down to the dump, I always see at least one scene that I wish I could snap onto my camera for posterity. (That's right - we handle our own trash around here. The term "rural", in case you weren't aware, is an old Greek term for "handle your own trash".)

One perfect example of this is just around my neighborhood. There are routinely deer and elk running around, which I hardly ever capture on film. The sunsets around here are heartstoppingly amazing (more so than overdosing on caffeine). One afternoon, I saw Bigfoot playing Poker with a bear, but, of course, I didn't have my camera, so I can never prove that to any of you.

The few times I actually do remember to grab my camera, I manage to come up with award winning shots such as this:

In case you didn't catch this, this is a deer with most of his head obscured, another with his butt in prominent view, and finally the last one cleaning himself. Great shot, man! Another example of this is when we go off-roading in the mountains around here. The place where I live - Ouray County, Colorado - is unique in that it is not only extremely alpine ("alpine" is another Greek word that is translated as "shovels lots of snow in the winter"), but it is where miners spent years digging for silver in the mountains around here in the early twentieth century. To transport materials in, and silver out, they built an incredible network of roads that wind up and around the mountains. Even though most of the mines around here are now derelict and ruined, the roads remain, giving us current residents (and the millions of tourists who spend time here in the summer) an unbelievable choice of scenic drives.

I took my father-in-law off-roading over some of these roads last weekend. This included three high mountain passes that, at one point, reached an altitude of 12,900 feet. It was raining that day, and at that altitude, the clouds aren't above you - they're rolling over mountain ridges right in front of you. The weather had the effect of making the whole scene seem otherworldly, especially since we were above timberline most of the time, giving us an incredible 360 degree panaroma of peaks. It was simply breathtaking.

Did I bring my camera? Do I have any pictures from that amazing event? No! While we were up driving on narrow dirt shelf roads amongst the clouds, my camera was sitting safely at home charging its batteries, and serving no useful purpose whatsoever. If I had come home to discover it watching reruns of "Welcome Back Kotter", I wouldn't have been more upset. I was stupid! ("stupid" is a Greek word which, roughly translated, means "stupid")

For anyone who is interested in seeing what some of these passes look like, all I can offer you are pictures of an all day trip my wife and I took last fall, the week before it snowed.

This is right next to the very top of Engineer Pass, which tops out at 12,800 feet. As you can tell by the dead brown looking vegetation, winter wasn't that far off. I think I could send this picture to Jeep, and see if they would pay me for it for a "real use" example.

This is me actually at the top of the pass. I'm actually leaning backward here because the wind was blowing so hard behind me it was supporting my weight! If you look carefully to the left, you can see an alien and Bigfoot arguing over whether or not the alien could park his spacechip on the grass.

This picture shows why autumn is a good time to go off-roading around here. This is the other side of Engineer Pass.

I saw Bigfoot here attempting to sell bottles of medicine that he described as "a miracle cure for Athlete's Foot." I guess he ought to know. When he saw my camera, of course, he ran. Pretty camera shy.

("Bigfoot", by the way is what as known as a "false cognate", meaning it sounds like a corresponding word in another language, but actually means something different. "Bigfoot" in Greek actually means "afraid of the camera". Apparently, Greeks of the time knew an image capturing device would one day be invented, and decided to invent a word for it then. Forward thinking folk, those ancient Greeks.)

The moral of the story today is, always always always take a camera with you. You'll be glad you thought of it when that odd and photogenic moment presents itself! And if you ever happen to meet Bigfoot, tell him his miracle cure is a sham.

Blue Skies and Iced Coffee

2006-07-23T09:45:00.000-06:00

Another clear sunny morning in the mountains, another morning coffee.

I drink a lot of coffee. I know I drink too much, but I can't seem to shake this habit. Three cups in the morning gets me revving to go. An occasional evening cup - or two - is not completely unheard of, either. I love coffee. I love its dark earthy taste. I love the way steam rises off the surface, and curls seductively toward me, as if it's inviting me to sample the dark forbidden liquid from where it sprung.

The need to drink it is one of the first thoughts I have when I wake up in the morning. That, and the constant relief that the car I was driving crashing through a guard rail and plunging thousands of feet off a steep mountain road was just a terrifying dream. Spectacular, yes, but terrifying. I mean, I can hear the sound of metal crunching through metal, and I can look out the window, and see debris tumbling down with me as I fall. I have this dream a lot, living in the mountains like I do, where steep winding roads are a fact of life. Truthfully, though, this dream of crashing through guardrails and plunging to my death could never actually happen. There are no guardrails on most of the roads where I live.

(To anyone who questions the truthfulness of this statement, I have three words for you: Red Mountain Pass.)

I digress.

I believe I was talking about coffee being the first thought in my head when I wake up in the mornings. Lately, I've also been waking up amazed at how stopped up my nose is. It seems that allergy season is in full swing up here. I think even the bugs up here are stopped up. Instead of flying by with their usual spirited "BUZZ!", lately it's been closer to a "bwudz...". Not that I care if a bug is feeling lousy. In fact, I'm actually secretly satisfied at the thought of those little buggers flying around with miniature insect sinus headaches, not being able to get rid of it, no matter what they do.

It certainly doesn't matter what I do to try and stay allergy free. I can shower at night to wash the pollen off. I can change the sheets on my bed twice a week. I can perform what is medically known as a "nasal irrigation" on myself. Now this is something you just have to try. Have you ever been swimming, and accidentally got water up your nose? It stung big time for a few minutes, but then you found your nose to be unusually clear a while later, didn't you? We're talking about the same basic concept, here, except you do this on purpose. Nasal irrigation involves mixing a warm solution of water, salt and baking soda, in an attempt to mimic your body's own fluid content. You must then stick your nose into this solution, and suck. That's right! You must forget every natural tendency you've learned about breathing - specifically to avoid inhaling liquid whatever you do, and suck the water through your nose. Don't inhale it, though! Just spit it out when it comes down your throat. The result is that you have, for all intents and purposes, hosed down the inside of your sinuses, washing them free of dust, pollen, and any other allergy causing particle. The possible side effect (and there are always side effects) is that you may also have a hoarse throat from accidentally inhaling some of the solution too far, causing you to violently hack and heave. Fun stuff.

Anyway, it can work quite well for the rest of the afternoon, but I will still wake up in the morning with a completely clogged schnauz!

I hate allergies, and I hate allergy season. I hear rumor there are people on this earth that do not suffer from allergies. I hate them, too.

My apologies, but I seem to have lost my train of thought again. Stuffy noses was not my intended subject when I sat down to write this.

COFFEE! I was talking about how I think of coffee first thing in the morning! Hmm. Now that I've come back to that again, it doesn't really seem that interesting.

I was out walking down main street in Ridgway, this morning. Summer mornings in Ridgway are pretty entertaining, because there is a constant flow of recreational traffic oozing up and down the road. I'm not just trying to be gross when I use that word, either. (I already tried being gross with that whole allergy thing.) Traffic oozes in the morning. RV's lumbering up the road pulling Jeeps, boats, trailers. Groups of motorcyclists swarming impatiently around the RV's in a cacophony of cannon-like engines and black leather. Cars pulling off the street and into the town park. Cars pulling onto the street from the local market. Trucks pulling trailers filled with ATV's, kayaks, rubber rafts. Older folks in land yachts not pulling anything, yet still in no hurry. You can't be in a hurry in Ridgway in the summers because it's just not possible. You have to go with the flow of people scrambling for their mountain adventures. You have to ooze.

On Sunday mornings, I usually stop by a local bookstore and coffee house to grab a coffee. This bookstore is a small but fun little place with maybe a couple hundred books to look at, really great coffee, and an absolute haven for all the liberal thinkers in Ridgway to get together, sip expensive espresso, and take turns talking about - in passionate liberal phrases - how everybody else who isn't an educated liberal thinker like them are absolute idiots, and are complete morons for not thinking that you can think whatever the hell you want to think - as long as it's exactly what these liberal coffee drinkers are thinking.

Nevertheless, I usually go inside, anyway, because of the steaming hot cup of Mexican Mocha that has been on my mind since I got close enough to the store to see the "Bush Sucks" bumper stickers on the Volkswagens parked outside. These Mexican Mochas are wonderful caffeinated concoctions - along the lines of a Starbucks mocha, but much much better.

Today was already getting hot, and I couldn't bear the thought of sipping steaming hot coffee on a bright sunny morning like this one. So, I tried something new: an iced version of the drink. Normally, the thought of iced coffee reminds me of that fateful morning when I left a mug of hot coffee I was drinking on the counter and forgot about it for a couple hours, then came back to it, and - for some unknown reason - actually tried a sip of it, which had long ago gotten terribly lukewarm. The second the first cold coffee molecule touched my tongue, my teeth were immediately turned to stone, my tongue quivered in pain, and my throat snapped shut tighter than a vault. It was not a happy moment.

But this was different. This wasn't just cold stale coffee. This was iced coffee. The iced Mexican Mocha I now sucked through a straw as I sloshed the ice cubes around hit the spot as I ambled away from the bookstore, waking me up while keeping me cool.

Blue skies and iced coffee. Blue skies, mountains in the distance, and iced coffee. Blue skies, mountains, oozing traffic and iced coffee. Blue skies, mountains, traffic, trees swaying in the breeze, trash talking liberals, people in the park, green grass getting watered, stopped up insects staggering through the air.

And iced coffee.

It was going to be a good morning.

Emulating Old Times

2006-07-17T08:43:00.000-06:00

Israel and Hezbollah's conflict is escalating fast. A tsunami in Indonesia follows an earthquake in Java, with deaths on the rise. Space shuttle Discovery returns from its successful mission. A heatwave covers most of the U.S.

There are so many important events occuring around the world these days. What can I possibly talk about in the midst of such serious news?

How about video game console emulators? Sure, there's death and destruction, but that doesn't mean we can't have a little PC based emulator fun, right?

For those people who used to read my first blog (both of them), and a few who might have even read some posts I imported to this one, you may remember my post about an Atari Flashback Console I purchased last November. In this post, I described feelings of elation at the thought of being able to play all the video games from my youth. Sure, the graphics were low end (very low end), and the game play simplistic, but it was so much fun to once again get in touch with times past, and to be, if just for a while, a kid again.

You may also remember my post five days later, where I opined about how quickly the novelty wore off, how amazingly antiquated the games looked in today's technologicaly geeked out world, and how the Atari Flashback Console ended up back on the shelf at the store from where I bought it.

This brings me to my latest discovery: Console emulators. These are not actual devices at all, but software that you install on your PC to make it behave like another device. You can find an emulator for just about any console you can think of, from the ubiquitous Atari 2600 on up to a Nintendo 64, and even an XBox. I downloaded two.

One emulates Nintendo's original 8-bit "Nintendo Entertainment System", or NES for short. Or, really, as it quickly evolved into, simply "The Nintendo". If I recall, this system was so revolutionary at the time, it deserved to be the one that made the company name a household word. If we played Atari for hours, we played the NES for hours upon hours more.

"Hey, what are you kids going to go do now?"
"We're going to go play Nintendo!"
"Okay, but remember to take turns!"

NES wasn't just the difference between night and day compared to the Atari. It was the difference between staring straight at the sun on a clear day and crawling into the corner of a sleeping bag in the middle of a moonless night. That was the difference. Atari had multi-colored blocks. NES had actual pictures. Atari had beeps and growls for music. NES had actual soundtracks. Atari had simplistic objectives that repeated in endless loops. NES had characters and plots that you could follow, and, for the first time, actually win. Perhaps most importantly, while Atari had games that nowdays are hopelessly obsolete and pointless, NES had games that, even today, still hold your interest.

Well, okay, they still hold my interest. Your mileage may vary. It is true that they still look kind of silly and simple compared to the XBox 360's of today. The games themselves are still playable, though. Who can forget getting to the end of Metroid for the first time? Conquering the last boss in Mega Man? Castlevania? Legend of Zelda? Punch Out?

I've spent the last couple of weeks playing through two of my favorite games from the NES: Punch Out, and Castlevania. I still can't defeat Mike Tyson at the end of Punch Out, but I'm working on it. And Castlevania, even with its 8-bit side scrolling graphics, and 4-note soundtrack, is still a blast to play, continuing to induce expletives when getting nailed by a Medusa head. Games like this have aged well. They aren't obsolete. They're classic. They're the digital version of a 1960's Corvette. They're still just so darn cool.

Long live the NES!

The other emulator I downloaded was the follow-up console to the NES, the Super Nintendo, also called the SNES, which was a 16-bit wonder, including what was at the time a confusing gamepad, with four buttons on top, and if that didn't blow your mind, there were two more buttons on the side, to be controlled by your index fingers! That was six buttons! Ironically, if only we had known at the time where things were going, we would have realized how simple that controller really was.

After the NES, there wasn't as much revolutionary about the Super Nintendo. There was, however, vast improvements in the graphics, and the music. There was also, for the first time, at least the illusion of 3D in the side scrolling games, where the background layers would scroll at different speeds to make it look like there was depth. Yeah, it was fake, but I remember being impressed with it for quite a long time!

There were so many games for the SNES, from more installments of Zelda, and Metroid to new games created during the SNES heyday. Remember learning the keypad combinations for Street Fighter II moves? Or staying up through the entire night playing Final Fantasy?

My personal favorites were Castlevania IV, Prince of Persia, and the space shooter Star Fox. Luckily, I was able to find all three games to download. All three games are just as fun, just as neat to look at, and just as $#@$@@!& frustrating as they were years ago. Even more noteworthy, I'm left humming the soundtracks to them days later. Castlevania IV has simply one of the best soundtracks ever. For any system.

If you're wondering where I got the software, there's a few sites that seem to be the "emulator central" sites. Let me just offer this disclaimer first: Even though these consoles and games are old and not sold in stores anymore, the legality of this is still kind of hazy. If you want to be absolutely sure this is legal, only download this stuff if you actually owned the consoles and the specific games. Also, some of these websites seem kind of shady, so if you go looking for this stuff, make sure your antivirus and spyware programs are up to date, as some of these sites are pretty blatant in their attempts to install unwanted spyware on your machine. If you feel like something's screwy on any of these sites, stop browsing the site! Also, don't blame me if you blow your computer up trying this.

Ah. I'm glad I got that off my chest.

The site that seems to offer, at the same time, the most complete collection of games, while being the safest site to browse, is ROMNation.net.

For those who are willing to try a little digital adventure, it's definetely worth it. Stepping back in time to the NES and SNES days is a lot of fun, and, unlike the Atari, just doesn't get old.

Things To Do With a Stale Bagel

2006-07-09T14:08:00.000-06:00

So, your favorite breakfast treat has sat on the shelf too long, and now it's stale, eh? I bet you wish you hadn't bought so many packages at once, now, don't you? Actually, I understand. There are few things to eat that I like better than a freshly toasted, crunchy yet chewy, cream cheese smeared bagel. My mouth is watering just thinking about it!

What's with the duality of crunchy and chewy, anyway? Think about all of the foods we seek out that are actually prized for that. Cookies. Toast, I guess. Kung-pao chicken at Pei-Wei. And bagels. Definetely bagels. Few things make my mouth water faster at the thought than a freshly toasted warm bagel with piles of cream cheese on top.

Pardon me. I need a towel.

Then there's macaroni and cheese. Remember, as a kid or a starving college student, when macaroni was the gourmet item of the day? The week? You're absolutely starving after a long day of classes, or working, and all you want is something to eat. The macaroni box ripped open, the noodles ready to be boiled, you were ready now. The problem, of course, is that you still need to cook the macaroni. You wait the endless minutes for the water to start boiling, then dump the noodles in, but if you were like me, that's the end of your patience. The noodles came out in a matter of minutes, ready or not - most of the time not - so the macaroni was crunchy and chewy at the same time. And you know what? I enjoyed it! Add macaroni and cheese to the chewy and crunchy list!

But back to bagels. Despite scarfing at least one or two down on a daily basis, one (or more) of those morning rings of delight is now too old, and has finally gone stale. What do you do with it? If you answered "toss it in the trash", you're missing out on a host of interesting possibilities. Here are just a few:

Try playing frisbee with one half. For extra fun, try tossing both halves at the same time. (Warning: If you live in bear country, do NOT try this in the early evening.)
String a wire in between the two halves to fashion very warm ear muffs that still allow you to hear. Voila!
Hook it on the end of a fishing line and use it to catch a very large fish. Spreading cream cheese on it will attract the particularly fat ones.
Dip the flat end in paint, and use it to create interesting textures on the walls of your home.
Cut them up into pieces and use it to sponge the blood from the cuts in your ears after the birds attacked you while you were wearing them as ear muffs.
Soak them in water until they're unbelievably moldy and green, and keep them on the counter, explaining to people that you're trying to recreate the whole evolution thing from scratch. Mention your hope for producing a dog with wings.
Dice them up and throw them at the bride and groom instead of rice at the end of a wedding. If you don't like the bride or groom, you don't have to dice the bagels up before throwing.
Force them through the office fax machine and call the recipient to see if they still look crunchy and chewy on the print out.
Throw them at your computer monitor when you get tired of this list.

Hmm. This subject seemed like such a good idea at the time. I'm sure there are other things to add to the list, though. Leave a comment if you can think of one.

One Scene, One Thousand Views

2006-07-05T23:30:00.000-06:00

I created this blog to try and come up with odd but entertaining observations about anything that happened to come to mind. I've usually been able to come up with at least something, every week or so, but lately, nothing is coming to mind.

To fill the gap caused by the marbles that have apparently quit rolling around in my own personal attic, I thought I would show you all pictures of my back yard.

My back yard, you see, is different from a lot of yards. It has no fence, is not surrounded by other houses, and is not particularly landscaped. I live on the side of a hill at an altitude of 9000 feet, on the edge of the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado. From my back yard, I have a great view of the Cimarron Mountain range to the northeast.

The amazing thing about this scene is just how often I can look out my back door, and see that, even though I'm looking out at the same scene, the view has completely changed. The colors, the nuance, the mood - different every time. I feel extremely fortunate to live on this hill, and I hope you enjoy these pictures.

I'll try to have something interesting to say really soon.

The Last Post Was a Joke

2006-06-21T10:09:00.000-06:00

For anyone who saw the title of my last post, and immediately thought it was for real, that I was actually trying to write an actual legal agreement, and fled my blog in search of another, less strict text, I have one thing to say:

Sorry, but that last post was a joke! It was satire! It wasn't real!

Knowing that, I invite you to read it, and apologize for any confusion!

End User Blog Use Agreement (EUBUA)

2006-06-20T12:33:00.000-06:00

WARNING: Before reading this blog, all users must agree to the following End User Blog Use Agreement (EUBUA). Please read it carefully.

1. Use of Bold Type Font
In order to emphasize sections, points, and in general just to make this text look as intimidating as possible, bold type font is used throughout this EUBUA.

2. Constant Use of Abbreviations (CUA)
This text implements CUA. Nobody is sure why this is necessary, except that it possibly makes the EUBUA harder to read (HR), harder to undesrtand (HAU), and presents a better possibility that the user did not, in fact, actually read this EUBUA (UDNIFARTE). Another reason is that sometimes the abbreviations contain other unexpected words in them that are sometimes referred to as "funny" or "weird" (SRFW). For instance, please note the word "fart" in UDNIFARTE (PNWFU).

3. Definition of Terms (DOT)
This EUBUA uses certain terms that are therefore defined here. Please make sure you understand all terms before continuing. These terms are as follows:

The author of this blog: AUTHOR
The reader of this blog: YOU
The spider I just squashed on the carpet: SPIDER
What I do in my spare time: VEG
Today's temperature: 82 DEGREES
Someone who actually thinks this EUBUA is serious: DORK
What I'd like to sell the DORK: SWAMP LAND IN FLORIDA

3. What Constitutes Agreement of This EUBUA
Certain actions constitute agreement of this EUBUA, and have certain legal ramifications (CLR). These actions are as follows:

Reading the EUBUA to this point.
Sending me a check for $10,000 with a note that says "I accept the terms of the EUBUA".
Before or after reading this EUBUA, purchasing the following products: Windows or Mac computer (WMC), any food or grocery item (FGI), the entire first season of Survivor (you know who you are [YKWYA]).
Inhaling at any time while reading this EUBUA (IATRTE).
Thinking to yourself that the previous abbreviation kind of looked like (I Am a Tart). (TTYTPAKLL)

4. Who Can Use This Blog (WCUTB)
Anyone can use this blog, except those who have ordered more than three work-out machines from an infomercial, and then never used them. (URADORK)

5. Acceptable Use of This Blog (AUTB)
Acceptable use includes reading, commenting, and linking posts from this blog to others, providing you do not violate the terms of Item 4. (DNVT4) You may also deduce, if you wish, that the abbreviation for this item kind of resembles "Australian Beer".

6. Unacceptable Use of This Blog (UUTB)
You may not, under any circumstances, print out the contents of this blog, and use it to line the cage of your pet canary. (BIRDCRAP) Such misuse is punishable by the harshest reprimand possible by the AUTHOR. (IWILLPOUNDMYKEYBOARDANDYELL)

7. Terms May Change Without Notice (TMCWN)
This item has always pissed off the AUTHOR when reading other agreements. It's as if people are saying that this whole agreement is one sided. They can come after you with their high-priced Porsche driving lawyers (HPPDL) if you fudge ONE ITEM in their agreement, but then they can change anything they want on their agreement WITHOUT NOTIFYING YOU. I think that sucks! (ITTS) Nevertheless, this is of course an OFFICIAL EUBUA (OFFICIAL EUBUA), so the AUTHOR is specifying that he has the right to change the wording of this EUBUA without notifying you, although it will probably be merely to modify the temperature stated in Item 2 (TSI2).

Thank you for carefully reading this official EUBUA.

Interesting Blogs

2006-06-15T10:59:00.000-06:00

One of the first things I did as a wide eyed new-to-the-blogger-fold writer was browse around some other blogs, by way of comparing my profile to others with the same interests, following links from two commenters to my own blog, hitting the "Next Blog" button repeatedly, and checking a couple "Blogs of Note" on the Blogger Home Page.

Unfortunately, the "Next Blog" method gave the least interesting results, displaying blog after blog along the lines of "here's what I did today and it was fun". Don't get me wrong. I'm sure those blogs are fine for their intended purpose and audience - one blog even mentioned his family and friends for whom the blog was obviously intended. They're just not blogs I as a blog browsing stranger would be interested in. I'll keep hitting the "Next Blog" from time to time, though. Sooner or later I'll probably hit something.

Comparing profiles has yet to pan out, either, but, to be fair I didn't spend a whole lot of time doing that. I am, after all, still a wide eyed new-to-the-blogger-fold writer.

Here are posts from three blogs I found from my first hunt that are interesting to me, and hopefully you will find some interest in, although I don't guarantee anything! If you like the post, I'll leave it to you to root around further in the blog itself. For your convenience, the links open in new windows.

Various Lies - This is a pretty funny blog I found from a comment left on my own blog. It is exactly what its title says - various lies. It's as if its author logs on and posts a short thought whenever it comes to him. Very creative use of a blog. The link I provided is to a lie I found particularly funny.

Stuff to Think About - This was on of the home page "Blogs of Note". Leaning toward computer and web technology, my initial experiences with this blog's posts have been good. My day job happens to be in technology, so your own mileage may vary. The link I provided has some interesting thoughts on the computer's own OS becoming less and less relevant.

Paul on Tour - All right. I admit it. I already knew about this blog before I browsed, mainly because of its author. This is an example of "Blog as travel journal", chronicling a musician's tour with the Cirque de Soleil. He hasn't posted in it recently, but he sets it up well enough.

Whether you find these blogs interesting or not, I've at least done my part to help spread the word.

Thanks to the commenters who left feedback on some of my first posts within ten minutes of publishing them. Cool!

When Appliances Lie

2006-06-14T16:03:00.000-06:00

I'm not sure quite how to go about revealing this important fact of life, but it needs to be said, so I will try to be gentle.

Appliances lie.

I suppose this basic truth was there, rattling around in my noggin, for quite some time, but it took one final incident today to truly open my eyes to the ugly truth.

Here is the story of this revelation:

I was thirsty. Parched. I knew I needed hydration, and fast. I staggered to my refrigerator, held out a glass, expecting to fill it with cool refreshing water from its dispenser. I then decided that, in addition to life giving hydration, I really needed ice. Cold, crackly ice. Little pods of frozen refreshment floating happily in the glass. American luxury, indeed! I wanted ice! I pushed the button on the refrigerator labeled "Cubed", and hit the dispenser lever with my glass, and out came cubes of ice, chinging melodiously at the bottom of my glass.

Wait just a second.

"Hey," I said out loud, in sudden shock, to no one in particular. "These ice cubes aren't cubed at all! They're more like lumps, or half ovals, or something!"

That one brief discovery erupted in my mind like an explosion, burning and tearing through years of innocent assumptions and trust I had so idealistically held, leaving behind mere ashes of bewildered regret. The utter shock of the discovery drowned out my dehydration, as I sank to my knees on the kitchen floor, my hand with the glass dropping next to me, spilling the ice, which spun away from me on the linoleum like tiny half hockey pucks.

My question came out between sobs. "Why does the fridge say 'cubed' when the ice that comes out isn't cubes? Why? Why?"

Needless to say, it was a frightening moment of epiphony. I've done my best to recover. However, certain assumptions I have always belived have now been put under my own microscope of appliance skepticism.

All right, don't believe everything you read on these blogs. I'll admit it. The event described above may be dramatized a bit. I didn't really think the ice spun away like hockey pucks. It just sounded like a really descriptive comment.

The point is, refigerator ice dispensers everywhere bear this false promise of "cubed" ice, when in reality, they look nothing at all like cubes. Doesn't that bother anyone else? I think we should start a campaign with appliance manufacturers to get them to label dispensers truthfully, based on the shape of the ice chunks. I've come up with a few possibilities:

Lumped Ice
Domed Ice
Been-Sitting-Too-Long-In-Hot-Sun-So-It-Deformed-Cubed Ice
Safety Ice (As in, no corners.)
Whatever-The-Hell-Shape-It-Is-It's-Still-Freezing Ice

Okay, I'm out of ideas. My personal favorite is the last one, although I'm a little concerned about that fitting on a small selection button. Maybe they could use an acronym, and print "WTHSIIISF Ice". They could teach people to pronounce it as "wa-thi-SI-sif" ice, and people would just start assuming it was an exotic foreign name for the way people on a far off desert isle name their ice. They could even start advertising like that. Just picture a well dressed couple going for some mineral water late one evening. Suddenly, the lady looks toward her husband, and says, "Darling, don't forget the wathisisif ice!" The husband looks back, and with his knowing, $19,348 manufactured smile, says with a wink, "It's like you read my mind." Then they would both collapse in the phoney laughter that you find only on stupid appliance commercials.

I'll let you know if I discover any other suspect appliances. Right now, I've got my eye on the darkness adjuster on my toaster. I know I've tilted that thing, but all I seem to get from it are hard black carbon blocks that look like they once resembled bread.

This could be big. I'll get back to you on that.

(Sigh. I know what you're thinking. "This guy gets his own blog, and he devotes an entire post to the shape of ICE?" My deepest apologies. I'll try to come up with something better next time. Maybe it'll be my theory about the overabundunce of pine trees being the true cause of our dependence on petroleum.)

Not Another Blogger?

2006-06-13T12:25:00.000-06:00

Dim the lights. Cue the music. Drumroll, please. Starting now, it's just what you've been waiting for:

Yet Another Blog!

That's right, folks! In case 15 bazillion blogs floating around in cyberspace wasn't enough for your unquenchable search for thoughts, opinions, and stories of your fellow human beings worldwide, I've decided to help you out by adding another blog to the cyber-morass!

Just what does this blog offer - besides random words like "morass" - that other blogs don't? Secret plans for the first perpetual motion machine, available only to subscribers? A plan to make money in real-estate that really does work? A plan for sustainable world peace? The highly researched recipe for the world's single greatest chocolate chip cookie ever created? Are you ready for this blog's secret ingredient, as it were? Here it is:

Nothing.

Sorry to disappoint everyone who was expecting world peace, and especially those who are now crushed about not being able to sample that sought after chocolate chip cookie. To those who can't forgive me for setting them up for such a fall, I give you my permission to leave now. No hard feelings.

Anybody left? Anybody? Truth be told, I already maintain a blog on a private family website, and can proudly proclaim that all of my faithful readers from that blog (both of them) will probably still be reading this post right now. It's nice to have a following for your blog. It gives you that special warm fuzzy feeling that can only be compared to finding an old quarter on the street - and retrieving it before the approaching traffic runs you over, finding a pair of hiking boots that actually prove to be more comfortable and useful for hiking than your old sneakers, and discovering that you can actually cram 24 marshmallows into your mouth without choking, or retching.

Then, there's that amazing experience that occurs when one of the faithful readers (both of them) actually leaves a comment! Now, that is an experience that is truly gratifying, like climbing Mt. Everest, finding a recipe for mindblowing cookies and brownies on the peak, and finding a sherpa willing to translate it.

I digress.

I was going to tell you what this blog offers to the reading public that the others don't. I believe I had just said that this blog offers nothing that the others don't.

Random thoughts. Observations. Belief that your opinions actually mean something to people who read. These are not uncommon themes in the blogs of today. So, within that context, what can you expect from this blog among bazillion others?

The fact is, even though so many blogs are so similar now days, the great thing is, they are all written by different authors, with different lives, different opinions. At the other end of the endless posts is a unique author furiously tapping away at the keyboard. That is what makes all these blogs so interesting. That is what I hope to add.

My name is Kent. I currently live in Ouray County, Colorado along the Western Slope of the Rocky Mountains. I consider it one of the most gorgeous mountain areas around. Period. I am a trained classical musician, exploiting that training on the bassoon and the piano. I am also a computer programmer who works for a large company by developing websites and database applications.

I also love to write, whenever I get the chance. I've tried my hand at one short story, and I've entertained ideas for a novel, but so far, I only have the patience for the shorter essay style pieces that ends up online. In my own warped mind, I see these posts as column style posts you might read in a newspaper, except that, here, you don't have to read department store ads, don't have to frantically look for the end of an article on page Q17, and you will never smear black ink on to the ends of your fingers.

And that's it. That's what you'll find on this blog. Opinions from Southwest Colorado. A quick digression for your reading pleasure. Complete sentences. (Except that one. And this one. Dang it...) Random thoughts. No newspaper ink.

I will probably transfer a few posts from my old blog to this one, keeping the original post dates in tact, so, even though this current post was my first on this blog, you will probably begin noticing posts showing up after this. Don't be alarmed.

I now leave it to you, dear reader, to read, enjoy (hopefully), and comment. I love comments of any kind - from a real person, that is. Examples may include, "Cola is the best soft drink ever.", "How many feet of snow do you get in the winter?", and "I watched a slug in my backyard for three hours this morning. I found it more stimulating than your last post." I look forward to hearing from you.

And now, as a bonus for making it to the end, I give you the secret plans for a generator that uses only the air in the atmosphere, and can power you home, and your car. Start with an empty peanut canister, some fishing line, two hairs from a dog's tail, and ...

(...continued on page Z37)

Ode to Summer (and Headless Chipmunks)

2006-06-07T14:00:00.000-06:00

Summers in the mountains are pretty much as good as it gets, in my humble opinion.

Sure, living here means you have to drive at least 45 minutes to reach the nearest real grocery store, get used to the fact that driving on dirt roads means that your car is never clean, and put up with small town newspaper editors who have nothing better to do than sue the local government. (Politics around here would make anybody from a city collapse in a fit of giggles and mumbled phrases like "Are you kidding me?", "I can't breathe!", and "I'll have another buffalo burger with the onion ring on the side!") I probably don't need to mention shoveling snow in the winter, because - let's face it - if you're someone who sees that as a plus, well let me just say that I know of a driveway where you could have lots of winter fun.

The common response around here for winters is, of course, "Well, at least there's skiing." That's true to a point, I guess. To get to skiing, however, you have to wrap yourself in layers of warm clothing, drive over icy and snowy roads, and once you get to the resort, you have to put up with the filthy rich folks who pay millions of dollars to build castles on the mountain and then only actually live there for ten days out of the year before moving to a beach house in Mexico and spending weeks on 150 foot yachts while eating caviar and drinking endless amounts of champagne I mean when you drink that much can you even drive a yacht but I guess you don't have to worry about that oh no not you people who can hire some guy named York or James to drive the yacht for you and then retire to your master suite that's twice the size of most people's entire home and every once in a while you go skiing but you can only do the snow plow when you go because you've never actually practiced skiing you just do it because it's fashionable to ski directly out of your castle onto a ski run on your fancy skis I hope the next time you do a face plant on your $1500 goggles I'm around to watch it and enjoy BWA HA HA HA HA!

I digress.

Ah, but summers in the mountains. How many places allow you to actually look forward to summer? When temperatures hover somewhere around the mid 70's? Where air conditioning means opening your windows to let the breeze in? Where you can look out your window and see alpine vistas, aspen trees blowing in the wind, and deer and elk grazing just outside your window? More than that, when you can look out your window and see that most of the time? There's nothing quite like it. Sure, my wife and I may move one of these days to purse the oppurtunities that will bring us, but nothing will match the sheer spectacular every day routine of summers in the mountains.

My brother and I went over Corkscrew Pass last Saturday - a startlingly scenic 4x4 road that takes you up between the peaks of two of the Red Mountains between Ouray and Silverton. Being up around the 12000 foot mark while in a Jeep surrounded by peaks anywhere you look is a singularly exciting experience - especially when that experience includes shelf roads carved into the mountainside that are barely seven or eight feet wide at times, and include tight switchbacks that actually require you to perform a three point turn to get going the other way. What is the penalty for missing a turn like this? Oh, just a little matter of plunging over the edge and a thrilling drop of a few hundred to a thousand or more feet before you come to an exciting and very abrupt stop. It's funny, though. When my brother and I were actually in the midst of driving it, I didn't think about the dangers of screwing up. I simply got caught in the moment of actually being in the midst of this alpine paradise.

And remembering to set the parking brake on a tight switchback before putting the Jeep in reverse to prevent rolling forward that last 8 inches over the side and becoming a large version of roadkill. You know. Little things like that.

Speaking of roadkill, what is up with the hundreds of rodent carcasses lining the highway between Delta and Grand Junction these days? I'm not kidding. There were hundreds. Most of them were actually headless. I have never seen anything like that before. I couldn't help but wonder what on earth caused such a mass of roadkill? Too many squirrels trying to cross the highway? Too much traffic on a holiday weekend confusing those little rodent brains? As I ponder the possibilities, I can think of only one good reason this might have occured:

Mass Chipmunk Rebellion.

How else do you explain this massacre besides a bold, brash, but ultimately failed attempt by the rodents to take back their land that had been cruelly stolen from them for this black road of death? I think the chipmunks had simply had enough. In a truly stirring wave of patriotism, they rounded up troops from all walks of the rodent set, and convinced them this was a great and heroic action to take.

General Weezer: Men! Today's the day!
Rodent Army: Hurrah!
General Weezer: Today we take back what's ours!
Rodent Army: Hurrah!
General Weezer: Today we fight the giant intruders, and reclaim our land!
Rodent Army: Hurrah!
General Weezer: Today we mark the unity of rodents everywhere! Chipmunks!
Chipmunks: Hoop! Hoop! Hoop!
General Weezer: Squirrels!
Squirrels: Bring it on!
Sergeant Mouse: And mice!
Mice: Squeak.
General Weezer: On my word we march against the giant invaders! They have size, yes, but we have the sheer numbers! There are thousands of us! Squirrel and chipmunk warriors!
Sergeant Mouse: And mice!
Mice: Squeak.
General Weezer: For the glory and the nuts, then!
Rodent Army: Hurrah!
General Weezer: On my mark! Three! Two! One! CHARGE!
Rodent Army: RAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH! (thump thump thump thud thump squish thump thud thud squash thump thud thump squoosh thud ploosh thump)
Sergeant Mouse: And the mice!
Mice: Squeak. (thump thump thump thud thump squish thump thud thud squash thump thud thump squoosh thud ploosh thump)
Last Mouse Standing: Screw this. I'm going to go find a yacht and drink champagne.

Ah, summer in the mountains.

Dirty Cops

2006-04-25T15:21:00.000-06:00

I have never been pulled over by a cop in my entire driving life. Ever.

Until this morning.

We took our Explorer into Montrose this morning for repairs. My wife drove the Explorer, and I followed her in our Taurus.

I saw the cop to the right, waiting to turn on to the highway. As most of us do, I did the "cop speed check", involving the automatic momentary upward movement of my foot off of the accelerator while I glanced at the speedometer. No problem - I was right at the speed limit. I gave the cop no more thought as he pulled into the highway behind us, then pulled into my lane behind me.

CRAP!

His lights flashed on behind me, and after cruising for a few seconds, I realized that those lights were meant for me, and that he wasn't suddenly gearing up for a high speed chase elsewhere that he had just heard about on the radio.

I had no idea what the issue was as I pulled over to the side of the road, and stopped. I figured I'd have a few minutes now as the cop got stuff together, ran checks, etc. Cop stuff. So, I went through the glove box, and retrieved the registration and insurance cards, then turned to the window to wait.

CRAP!

He was standing right there, waiting for me! I rolled the window down, and he greeted me with the standard "Good morning, sir." Cops are infinitely respectful, it seems. They could have just wrestled you to the ground, slapped the cuffs on, and discovered kilos of drugs in your trunk, but it's very possible they will tell you to "watch your head, sir", as they push you into the backseat of their cruiser.

As it turned out, the reason he pulled me over was a rather humorous - if rather irritating - reminder of the type of place I live - weather and geography included: the back end of my car was too dirty. He had a hard time reading my license plate and seeing my brake lights when he came up behind me, so he decided to pull me over and give me a lesson in the proper maintenance of car appearance.

"Hose the back down at least once a week," he told me, like a wise old professor lecturing his class. I wasn't in any position to pop off, so I nodded and agreed with him.

When he saw from my license that I lived in Ridgway, he acknowledged that it made sense that my car was so dirty. Nevertheless, he wrote me out an official Montrose Written Warning to keep my car cleaner. After handing me the warning, and telling me to "have a good day, sir", the session with the "Dirty Cop" was over.

I've brushed with the law, and the law won. I've seen the light. I will always keep my car clean from this day forth.

Pbbbbbbbbb....

UPDATE on January 2, 2008: Please pay as little attention to the first comment as you can. I thought about just deleting it, but since my blog is supposed to be humorous (NOT a political soapbox), I decided to leave it right here for your amusement.

Phone Follies

2006-02-23T09:53:00.000-07:00

Ridgway has less than a thousand people living here. Consequently, it gets away with one three digit phone number prefix. Since every number here starts with a the same three digits, however, only four digits are left. No problem, right? That's 9999 individual numbers, enough to fulfill Ridgway's need for years and years.

Ah, but if it wasn't a problem, I wouldn't be writing about it. You see, writing about non problems is just not as interesting. For example:

"Today, 400 cars drove past the intersection of Highways 550 & 62 without incident."

Boring! Who cares that something that was supposed to happen actually happened? That's not in our nature. We want something interesting to talk about. Consider this revision:

"Today, a riot broke out at the intersection of Highways 550 & 62 when a local heifer walked on to the highway, and began giving the finger to passing motorists."

That statement provides so much more to talk about. For instance, who was involved in the riot? The 400 motorists? How on earth could a cow even give the finger in the first place? Some sort of prosthetic device? And, of course, why was the riot held in the highway, instead of the core historic district where it belonged? (sorry - local inside joke)

Speaking of Highway 550, what is with the drivers on that road? One evening, we were driving north toward Montrose in our Explorer when one of those little Toyota Priuses drove up on our tail. Despite the fact that there were five cars in front of us, this little hybrid devil mercilessly tailed us for miles, swerving back and forth behind us trying to get a look at this massive delay that was limiting us to a mere 63 1/2 MPH. My temper finally reached the boiling point when we all slowed down for a car in front of us turning left, and the stinking Prius got so close, I could see the granola between the driver's teeth, and the "Sierra Club Member" letters on the T-shirt he wore. Ridiculous! In a wave of rage I could see (it bounced harmlessly off the windshield), I flashed my brake lights at him. Yeah, that's right! I live on the edge, taking chances where I must to make a point. Nevertheless, he continued to tail me until the moment a dotted yellow line presented itself. I continued my angry driving by jerking the truck to the right, and staring angrily out the window at him as he passed. Do not make me angry, folks!

Of all the stupid meaningless driving tactics our fine motorists exhibit these days, tailing is probably the stupidist, most pointless manuever in existence. What are these drivers thinking? "I'm going to show this moron how slow he's going by coming so close, I'll leave my Toyota nameplate embedded on his big steel bumper if he so much as touches the brake pedal! Bwa ha ha!"

Specifically, a Prius tailing an Explorer? Excuse me, but we have a slight weight advantage, here. Further, you're driving a car that is chock full of battery packs. What would happen if I had to slam the brakes on to avoid a deer? Huh?

"Today, a riot broke out on Highway 550, when a Prius rear ended an
Explorer, causing battery acid to burst into the Prius passenger compartment,
resulting in 2nd degree acid burns over most of the Prius driver's body.
The Ouray Board of County Commissioners were on the scene, wondering why a study was not completed on the effects of battery acid on the local environment.
The driver of the Explorer was fined Ouray County's new 'Battery Acid on
the Road Use Fee'. The entire scene was given the finger by a spotted cow
a few feet off to the side."

Then there's the passing lane, where drivers who have been forced to follow a 93 year old woman doing 41 MPH for the last few miles can finally get around her. Except, of course, for the fact that, once we are all within 200 feet of the passing lane, granny turns into a NASCAR driver, and the whole passing lane quickly turns into the "Rigdway 500".

"And they're approaching the passing lane. The Explorer pulls into the lane in a move to pass the Buick, but wait! Suddenly the Buick surges forward, taking the driver of the Explorer by surprise. Both vehicles are accelerating furiously, reaching speeds of 78 MPH! What a race, folks! Just as the lane ends, the Explorer is able to just squeak past the Buick, and pull in front of her, ending this heart stopping race. In defeat, the driver of the Buick slows back down to 42 MPH. What a race, folks! Hey! What is the cow on the side of the road doing with its hoof in the air?"

Never a dull moment on Highway 550.

Anyway, the problem with having only four digits that are different in a Ridgway area phone number isn't the quantity of numbers available - it's the pattern of those numbers. For instance, 5589 is a completely different number than 5859, but it is so similar to the finely trained dialers of Ridgway that those two numbers are somehow interchangable. Wrong numbers are rampant in this town! That is not my main beef, though. Nowdays, everybody has answering machines. Everybody. They are as common as shoes with soles, slow moving Buicks on Highway 550, and illegal movie downloads on the internet. Therefore, when a machine answers the phone, and identifies the owner, it is common sense that the caller will actually listen to the message, and react accordingly.

Common sense? What common sense? Consider the following message left on my work machine. This is an example of what has occured numerous times:

"You've reached the office phone of Kent. I am away from my desk right now. Please leave a message."
"Yes, hi, Jennifer! I was just calling to let you know that the tickets to the art show are here. Lunch yesterday was fun. Give me a call when you want to do it again!"

Uh, hello? Did you bother to listen to the machine? I'm not Jennifer! What about this one:

"To leave a message for Kent and Mindy, please wait for the tone!"
"Yeah, I'd like to order a dozen roses from your shop. Can you make sure they're fresh this time? By the way, your message is confusing. It doesn't sound like a business. I have to go, there's a cow outside that's making an odd gesture at me."

This actually happened! This caller did listen to the message, but assumed that, since his number dialing prowess was comparable to Yo-Yo Ma's work on the fingerboard, it must be that the business is using a confusing message. It couldn't be the fact that he dialed a wrong number!

Ah. I feel better now. Now that I've reached the end of my post, it's time to go over what we learned today:

Riots happen a lot in the Ridgway area.
Priuses must be approved by the Ouray County Board of County Commissioners.
Dialing a phone number and playing the cello are two completely different things.
Never, ever, make a cow angry.

The Big Track

2005-12-10T16:45:00.000-07:00

Yes, we live up a (currently snowy) hill with only two relatively close neighbors. Mountain people though we have become, I still like to check in with my former home desert city. My usual method of accomplishing this is to log on to AzCentral.com. Who need papers, these days? Reading the news online is so much quicker and easier. The only advantage I can think of that remains for the "dead tree" version is that, while you're flipping to a new page, you don't get smacked in the nose by a popup piece of paper that obnoxiously advertises low mortgage rates.

Anyway, besides the great news of the Phoenix Suns winning their ninth straight, there was what I thought a particularly funny article in their "Offbeat" section this morning.

Please read it before continuing.

Back, yet? Okay, good. You needed to read that to fully appreciate the high action drama that I am about to present to you below.

In case the link has been somehow removed, the summary is this: During a dog race in Phoenix, the dogs all managed to escape, and were rounded up a couple hours later on a very busy street. Only a couple minor injuries to the dogs occured. I thought the article was kind of funny, and, having nothing better to do, I decided to waste the next hour or so with this:

The Big Track
A High Action Drama with Suspense, Chases and Biscuits by Kent Hurd
Based on a true story.

Just another night at the track. Man, I get tired of this. Lined up with my competitors in these tiny steel cages. Running around a big oval trying to catch a rabbit night after night. The track is dusty, and everyone I race with smells bad. They're all pushy, too, constantly trying to get in front, mashing their hind ends in front of me, tails raised high. Why, I ask, are they trying to say hi to me, if they're trying to win this race? Such hypocrites.

Plus - I have no proof of this, now - I don't think that rabbit's even real. I don't tell the others this, though. I'm not sure if they would believe me.

Yup. Great life I lead. About as rewarding as claiming a fire hydrant, only to discover halfway through the ceremony that it's already claimed. Still, it's a living I guess. A lap around the track, a couple of biscuits, and a warm blanket to curl up in every night. Sure, some of the other guys get kinda noisy at night - especially Champ, who howls at night in his sleep while he dreams of being a professional singer - but overall, I can't complain too much.

BANG! The starting pistol fires, the metal door in front of me swings open with a metallic crunch, and my world is suddenly opened in front of me. In a split second, we're all charging out onto the track in a blur of tails, dust and paws.

"Get the rabbit! Get the rabbit! Get the rabbit! Get the rabbit!" Everyone around sounded the battle cry. I looked around for it as I sprinted down the track. THERE! Running along the outer edge, I saw it scrambling for all it was worth. With new purpose, I flattened my ears, lowered my head, and took after it, quickly leaving everyone else behind me. All of the strange big dogs in the stands started cheering.

I have to hand it to the little guy - that rabbit is fast. Only a few of us have ever caught it. We try every night, though, because catching it means we get to retire from the track, which is something I long for on a daily basis. Just the thought of the possible rewards - my own private den, private water dish, and even a quiet place in the country - kept me going. Tonight, those thoughts pulsed through me, and fueled my legs.

Tonight, I would catch that rabbit.

Head down, I ran for all I was worth. Slowly, little by little, I gained on him. The world around me faded and disappeared. All I focused on was the puffy tail on that rabbit - and the strangely electric noise it made. (Every rabbit I've seen always made this noise. Weird creatures.) I ran and reached with my last bits of strength as we started around the corner.

HA! That rabbit was mine! I was going to get it! I would grab that little guy and - wait! Where did he go? He was in front of me, and suddenly he disappeared. I looked back. I was startled to discover that I had run through a small gap in the fence without knowing it - I was so focused. Ah HA! I had discovered another track! The rabbit must be leading me to another track!

The guys behind me saw me go through it, and followed me, still yelling their battle cry - "Get the rabbit! Get the rabbit! Get the rabbit! ". What a bunch of lemmings.

We hadn't run very far before we left the stands behind us. The cheering of the big dogs in the stands became quieter as we ran. Clearly, this was a very large track. We ran through a grassy field, past some gravel, then made a right at a large building, and suddenly, we were on a huge track that was paved. Not only was this track enormous, but the Large Ones were running by in massive packs as fast as they could go.

Everyone knew the Large Ones were the real alpha dogs. Even the big strange dogs that watched from the stands knew this. At the end of each race, we could always see the strange dogs leave the stands and jump onto their Large Ones, who were always waiting for them just outside. The Large Ones were noisy, fast and mean. We had heard legends of guys like us standing up to a Large One, and getting mowed down mercilessly. We feared the Large Ones. We knew to stay out of their way.

"Get the rabbit! Get - the - rabbit. Get. Rabbit. Get the..." The guys behind me tried to press on, but it was obvious they were just as nervous as I was.

Cautiously, we jogged along the side of the track, while endless packs of Large Ones roared by us. This was getting unnerving. This track was huge. It seemed to go on forever. And where was that rabbit?

Behind me, I saw Champ start to get restless. He started making passes at a few of the Large Ones. Stupid fool! I had to stop and warn him.

"Champ!" I yelled, turning toward him. "Stop! Leave them alone!"
"No! I must get one to help!" He answered. "They know where the rabbit is. They are the wise ones!"
"They won't stop for you!" I warned. "Stop right now!" I raised the fur on my back to let him know I was serious.
"Here comes one! He'll stop!"

Champ tried to cautiously greet him, but the Large One didn't stop of course. When it passed, it cruelly knocked Champ out of the way. Champ spun around onto the ground.

"Champ!" I yelled, running to him. "Are you okay?"
"I. I think so." He muttered. "My leg is hurt! Why did he do that? Why didn't he stop?"
"I don't know. We can't understand their ways." I looked him over. He seemed fine, overall. He'd have to continue on three legs, but we always knew that's why we had four to start with.
"Come on, Champ." I said. "Let's go."

He got up, and took a few steps on three legs to make sure he was okay. The other guys had long since stopped, and had circled around us to see what was going on. As soon as they saw Champ stand up, they got excited to keep going.

"Get the rabbit! Get the rabbit!" They shouted gleefully, and then we were all off again, down the track, looking for our one prize.

We never found it. We marched on for what seemed like forever, but it was clear that the rabbit had escaped. We also had no idea how long the track was, and the Large Ones running by us the whole time quickly wore us all down.

Just as we were beginning to lose hope, a Large One ran up right behind us, but, amazingly stopped. A strange big dog ran out from behind the Large One. We all recognized him immediately as the one who pays us our wages in biscuits every night, and were instantly relieved.

"Waw. Waw wawaw waw!" He said to us. We can never understand the strange big dogs. But usually, we can get a sense of what they're telling us by the motions they make frantically with the legs they're not walking on. "WAW! Waw waw awawaw waw!" We all got the idea he was pointing us to the Large One, which now opened a mouth on its side. Apparently, we were supposed to enter the Large One's mouth. We had all done this before, but we never enjoyed it. It was unnatural to be inside a Large One. This time, though, we decided it was better than being on this endless track. We all slowly paraded up to, and into the belly of the Large One.

Once we were all in, the Large One shut its mouth, and the strange big dog hopped in in front of us. With a low growl, the Large One ran off as fast as it could. We got back to our apartments not long after, and all collapsed on top of our blankets. The strange dog gave us all an extra biscuit in payment tonight. Nice thought. The benefits of working here really aren't too bad.

Champ was off to the team doctor, and was back later with his leg in a bandage. He collapsed on his blanket, and was asleep immediately, singing noisily in his dreams to his appreciative audience.

I lowered my own head on to my blanket, tired but glad to be back home. I was so close to catching the rabbit. Oh well. There's always tomorrow night. I wonder if the rabbit will lead us to another big track tomorrow. Should we all follow? Who knows.

Just another night at the track.

Return of the Atari!

2005-11-29T16:49:00.000-07:00

From the title, you could easily deduce one of two things.

You could deduce that I enjoyed the Atari that I described in my last post so much that I decided never to deal with these overpriced modern game machines again, and decided to wrap myself in the pleasure that only the timeless games of the 80's could provide. A triumphant return of the Atari!

(Cough. Snicker.)

Or, you could deduce that I played the Atari I bought for awhile, enjoying memory lane, then quickly got bored with these outdated, antiquated, and quite frankly pretty cheesy looking games, packed up the whole system, and took it back to the store from which I bought it. An unceremonious return of the Atari!

Unfortunately for all you retro fans, the title refers to the latter. Sorry, all. The Atari 2600 is as cool today as phones with cords, power typewriters, and an 8-track deck in your boxy looking car. Bring on the present! Bring on magnetically controlled vehicle suspension! Bring on downloadable movies! Bring on digitally networked automated homes! Bring on reality television! (No - scratch that last one.) Bring on Halo 2! Oh, yeah.

Which reminds me - what gives with the lady sitting in one of our comfy chairs at Starbucks and knitting? That's right - she had a bag of yarn next to her, two huge wooden needles, and was calmly knitting! I guess nobody told her that those comfy arm chairs with the wraparound windows - giving us an unparalleled view of the jewel that is nighttime Montrose - those soft, warm chairs that allow for enhanced consumption of roasted caffeine were our chairs!!! Normally, even if someone made the regrettable decision to sit in them when my wife and I obviously had rights to them, they would at least sit and drink coffee, which means that, after a few minutes of stimulant enhanced convesation, they would leave, giving my wife and I the clearance to swoop in and park our rears in the vacated (and now soothingly warm) chairs. But this lady had her coffee on a table next to her, and completely ignored it and knitted! The unfortunate reality was that there was no way she was moving any time soon. With heavy hearts, my wife and I retreated to a small round table with a chessboard painted on it, and sat in hard, backbreaking, bed-sore inducing chairs. I sipped my latte in silent resignation.

Hey, knitting-in-our-comfy-chair-lady! A pox on your warm, knitted winter scarf! May a cold mocha be spilled on your jaunty beany!

No bitterness, here. Honest.

Attack of the Purple Blocky Cursor Thing

2005-11-24T16:51:00.000-07:00

Montrose - the town about twenty miles north of us - is actually big enough to host not only a Starbucks, but also its own book, video, music, and game store. Imagine that. All the comforts of a big city in a small tidy package a mere half hour from our mountain hideaway.

Anyway, it was at this book store that I stepped back in time. I know, my last post was about people going through time, too. And, no, I won't try writing a post that dumb again any time soon. Don't worry. But, I digress.

Something I found for sale at this store sent me back in time. Honestly. Maybe I didn't really physically travel anywhere, but my mind traveled on its own back to when I was just a kid in the eighties. You see, while I stood there, holding this new found treasure in my hands, kids were swarming the floating employee about the just released XBox 360 system. (You know what I mean by "floating employee", don't you? The guy or gal that just kind of wanders aimlessly through the store in an apparent attempt to make it look like the store cares about customer questions, and staffs its aisles with knowledgable and caring professionals, but when you actually ask them a question about something, and all they manage a monosyllabic grunt that is no help whatsoever, you realize that they're only on the floor because they could never find the "Enter" key on the cash register.)

"When will the next shipment of XBoxes come in, sir?"
"Humph."
"Do you have a waiting list I can get on?"
"Ugh."
"Does the basic system come with the 40 gig hard drive, or do I have to upgrade to get that?"
"Ffttptptptpff."

The kids were apparently satisfied, and walked away, giving me my chance to ask the floater a question about my own discovery.

"Excuse me," I said, approaching him.
"Zugh?"
"Which games are all included in this Atari Flashback Console? It says there are 40, but it only lists a few on the box."
"Buuuuh..."

That's right! At a time when brand new state of the art systems are on their way to market, with the most intense graphics processors available, along with massive hard drives and 3D games so realistic, you'll stain your new white shirt from the blood spattering around the game's battles if you sit too close to the TV, and super surround sound enabling you to hear the alien you just blasted shriek in unearthly pain behind you - at a time of sheer gaming nirvana, I discovered my own technological marvel: An Atari Flashback Console!

Remember the Atari 2600 of the mid eighties? Remember when that was state of the art gaming? Remember that huge black console with the simulated wood venting on top that was so heavy that it was, by itself, responsible for more than a few broken TV trays that finally collapsed under its weight? Remember the switch it came with that actually let you switch it between a color and black and white TV set? This is what I held in my hands that day at the bookstore! A recreation of gaming from times past! A replica of a machine in which I spent hours of my happy childhood (and hours and hours) in front of!

Well, sort of.

You see, state of the art technology of the eighties is so puny and weightless by today's standards that they actually were able to store 40 of the old games on just the console itself! No cartridges floating around. No electric contacts to get dusty and blown off. They're all right there on the console itself.

I bought it. When we got home, I ripped open the packaging, and was further surprised by how small the console was - not much bigger than two cartridges of old next to each other. This little guy had 40 games on it! Simply amazing. I plugged it in to my HD widescreen TV, turned the power on, and selected "Centipede" from the main menu. In seconds, the old favorite was playing, and I was in control of the warrior responsible for destroying the evil multi-segmented insect.

I stared in wonder at the display which must have included at least 5 colors. I listened in astonishment as the sound effects pulsed with all the emotion of an old 286 PC speaker. My pulse quickened as I took aim at the enemy itself - a string of purple blocky cursor things that randomly moved past grey and yellowish type blob objects. NO! Where was my imagination? That was an evil centipede on its way down past giant mushrooms to annihiliate me and the rest of civilization as we knew it!

I swear I heard my TV chuckle at me a couple of times. I could almost hear it mutter in disdain, "Iz zis all you haff fur me? I am eensulted! BAH!" Apparently, HDTV's have foreign accents.

I played through most of the games. I even played head to to head with Mindy on a couple, like Breakout. Remember Breakout? This is the game where you knock out rows of multi colored blocks by directing a white block at them and keeping it from leaving the screen by blocking it with another long block at the bottom?

Ah, those were the days. There's still something fun about those simple games. I can kind of see, though, why the old Atari went the way of the turntable and huge bangs. Thanks to technology, we don't have to imagine that that little round dot floating around a screen is an evil enemy from a blood-thirsty planet. We can now see every detail of that alien - from its shiny scales to its bloodshot eyes to its shiny razor sharp claws which, of course, are only meant for one thing - death and carnage to all non aliens!

I have a sudden urge to go play Yars' Revenge. If our race of superintelligent flies survives the attack by the blocky swirling thingy, I'll let you know.

Dead Musicians' Society

2005-11-22T18:52:00.000-07:00

I sat at the computer, listening to a recording of Hindemith's "Symphonic Metamorphosis". I have always really enjoyed that piece of music, both from listening to it, and performing it twice - once on the second bassoon part, the other on the contrabassoon. I especially love the second movement, with its constant orchestral crescendo leading into an almost bluesy brass fugue. I was listening to the climax of the first big crescendo, when, suddenly, someone tapped my shoulder from behind me, and asked, "Where is the music coming from? I see no orchestra, but I hear such loud music!" I turned in a start to see who this was.

There, in weird looking shoes with buckles, short, knee length pants, and a white powdered wig, stood a man who looked straight out of the history books. His eyes searched between me and my computer, and his brow furrowed in confusion.

"Who are you?" I asked, looking him up and down, suspicious of this odd visitor. "How did you get here?"

"My name," he answered, "is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart." He announced this with a low bow, and finished with a flourish of his arm. "Now then, again I ask you. Where is this music coming from? It is unlike anything I have ever heard before!"

Mozart? In my room? Speaking English? I coudn't quite comprehend the odds or the possibilities of such a visit occuring in the early twenty-first century. Part of me feared the man was nuts, and I considered calling the police. I could just tell him the music was coming from my phone, as I quietly explained to the operator my unusual situation. The other part of me argued that I should at least play along with this guy for a couple minutes. It might be interesting. Besides, how rough could the guy possibly be with a thick long jacket, and shiny knee high pants?

"Well, Mr. Mozart," I began, slowly jumping into the situation. "The music is coming from this box right here." I motioned to the computer. He followed my hand and stepped toward the computer.

"I can't imagine how this is possible", he muttered quietly as he approached. "And yet, when I get closer, the music gets louder." He leaned in close to the computer, over my shoulder. Some powder from his wig landed on my shirt. "Where is the orchestra that is playing this? In the next room?"

"No," I answered. "There is no orchestra. It's just a recording." Mozart stared at me, his confused look telling me I had just made matters worse. Slowly, he grinned.

"No orchestra?" He chuckled. "I see. I suppose this is a new type of keyboard I'm hearing, then. Even then, it must be located somewhere. It sounds as if four hands are playing this. It's much too complicated for one person alone. What is this Recording you mention? Is it a hall next door? I should like to see this new keyboard."

I tried to brush the powder off my shoulder as I thought about how to answer him. It streaked, and ended up looking worse. I wondered if my detergent would get this out? Commercials always mentioned grass stains were no problem. They never mentioned the possibility of eighteenth century wig powder.

"Look, " I said. "This situation is highly unusual. You are in a place and a time you don't belong, so you are going to find a lot of things don't make sense. You'll just have to take my word for it that what I say is true, even if you don't understand how. Does that make sense?"

Mozart looked around, glancing at the furnishings of my room with little understanding. He looked back at me as he answered. "All right, then."

"Okay. Tell me, Mr. Mozart. Have you ever heard a performance of a piece of music that was so inspiring that you wished that somehow you could capture that performance? Maybe store it somewhere, so that you could listen to it again? Any time you wanted, without having to go to a concert hall, or hire performers to play it?"

"Well, that is an interesting idea. It might be an interesting trick to do that, but there is no possible way for that to happen. How would you store it? In a book, perhaps?"

"As I said, you're not going to understand a lot of this. Let me just say that what you're hearing is exactly that: An amazing performance of a piece of music that has been stored for me so I can listen to it any time."

Mozart's eyes grew wide as he considered this. "You must be joking," he finally stammered.

The movement of the piece came to a close. "You know, you didn't get a chance to hear the whole movement. Why don't I play it again for you?" As the third movement of the piece started, I clicked the "Back One Track" button on the the media player. The third movement was unceremoniously cut off, and the second movement started again with the familiar chime.

Mozart could only manage a throaty, muffled grunt as he tried to comprehend what just happened. Slowly, he leaned in once again close to the computer to listen to the recording. I moved out of the way this time. I didn't need any more powder.

The basses started the main theme of the piece, which would be repeated again, each time with different instrumentation, and different orchestral textures, all the time getting steadily louder. Mozart listened, transfixed. As the piece got louder, though, his expression changed to a grimace. As the full orchestra began belting out the theme, he stood.

"What is the meaning of this music?" He demanded. "It follows no form! It's just repeating the same theme over and over! Does the composer think he can just add more instruments to make it different?" The climax of the crescendo crashed over us, causing Mozart to jump. "It is nothing but a jumble! Too many lines going on at once! And so noisy! How do the instruments play so loud? Why would you want to?"

"The audience at the piece's premiere seemed to appreciate it," came the response from the door. Both Mozart and I looked toward the door. There, in a simple grey business suit with a bow tie, stood a man with short buzzed hair slowly receding from the man's forehead. He ambled into the room, looking straight at Mozart. "And who are you to criticize my work? You look right you're off to a costume ball."

His work? The man must be Paul Hindemith himself. I thought for a moment on whether or not to consider the odds of two visitors from two separate points in history arguing about a piece of music in my room. I decided I better not.

"My name, sir, is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart." Another fine performance of his introductory bow. "And you are the composer of this - piece? What is your name?"

"I am Paul Hindemith. And you are calling my piece a noisy jumble. What do you mean?"

That's odd, I thought. There seemed to be no surprise from either of them as to their identity. They simply got right into the music.

"I mean that it's a noisy jumble! Endless repeating of one theme! Wrong notes in an odd tonality! Layers upon layers! Where is the form in this piece? How do you expect anyone to understand what is going on?"

"The form is the constant crescendo. The idea is to take one theme, and make it different each time, even though it might at first seem to be the same. There is something different every time. The layers upon layers you refer to took much thought and hard work to assemble all of them into one sound. I am pleased with it, and I would ask you to try and come up with something better!"

Mozart stepped up to him. "I could in a minute, sir, come up with something infinitely more concise, more understandable, and more enjoyable to the listener's ear! I would employ a key signature, first of all. I would use a form to express my thoughts, and I would weave intricate melodies and counterpoint that would delight the listener, not confuse him!"

"Your music, sir, is well and good," Hindemith growled, "but antiquated and outdated. You rely on rules and standards to write your music. Where your system is rigid, my system is much more flexible, and free to explore. Form, tonality are important, but they are only servants to making fine music - not masters. I can assure you this works, and I can assure you that my listeners appreciate this! You would do well to understand that!" As Hindemith spoke, his voice rose, as did his finger, which was leveled squarely at Mozart's chest.

"You suggest we throw out all of our rules, then? How is there a common language to understand your music? How does one know what's coming?"

The second movement had ended long ago. The third quietly came and went, and now the fourth began with its triumphant opening fanfare.

"How do people even listen to such an intense noise?" Mozart continued. "Are they forced to cover their ears?"

"How dare you talk that way of my music!" Hindemith hissed. He poked Mozart's chest with his finger as he spoke. "Did you not even think that music would change through the centuries? Did it even occur to you that people would understand more and more? That music would evolve? Do you really think that music from your time would remain the only correct music for all time?"

"Do not touch me, sir!" Mozart swatted at Hindemith's finger. "And do not dare to call my music simple! It is anything but! Just because it is not overly noisy, and follows a discernable path, does not mean my music is simple!"

"Go back to your own piece of antiquated history where you belong, you musical relic!" Hindemith yelled as he pushed Mozart, who staggered back toward me before regaining his balance. Powder covered my shirt.

"Oh, come on, guys!" I tried to interject, but no one heard me. The fourth movement was building to its huge brassy ending.

"If this piece I'm hearing is where music is going, I would like nothing more than to return and never hear such noise again." With that, Mozart gave Hindemith a hearty shove.

The piece blasted through its final, triumphant bars as I got to feast on two amazing things: Hindemith's musical work of art coming to a close, and Mozart and Hindemith in the same room, coming together across time and space, and coming across the floor of my room for an all-out brawl. What a scene.

Fists, shoves, grunts, growls and insults swirled together with the ending of the piece. Just as I was beginning to enjoy the irony of this most unusual scene, Hindemith got a good right hook in on Mozart who fell back on me like a sack of bricks, knocking the wind out of me, and suffocating me in a mist of white powder. I coughed and hacked to try and get a breath, but couldn't as I wheezed, and blacked out on my computer desk.

I came to quite suddenly, and picked my head up off of the desk. I looked around the room. No sign of any fight, much less any visitors at all. I sat up as I glanced around. My shoulder was powdery! That must prove that - no wait. There was a powdered jelly donut on the desk right where I had slumped over. I jumped as Mozart's 27th Piano Concerto began playing on my computer. I eyed the computer screen suspiciously. There it was: a playlist I had created inluding both Hindemith and Mozart.

I had to sit back and shake my head as I recalled what had to have been a daydream. What would two musicians actually say to each other about each other's music if that was ever possible? Would someone from times past appreciate a modern piece of music, or would they understand it? Could any moral possibly be drawn from my wandering thoughts?

Only one I can think of: Mozart, Hindemith and jelly donuts don't mix.

Married to a Juggernaut

2005-09-14T17:33:00.000-06:00

I am married to a truly wonderful person. She is friendly and caring. She is funny and ornery. She is a beautiful woman with long blond hair that still makes my heart skip a beat when I see it moving delicately in a breeze.

She is also a ruthless game playing juggernaut. I'm not kidding. How someone who is normally so sweet can be so cold and efficient when sitting down to, say, Double Solitaire, is beyond me. She's unbeatable, I tell you! Unbeatable!

There are those who will read this and say, "Well, he's just being a sore loser. Everybody loses now and then, and after all, they are just games." To those people, let me give you this tally of wins for the games we have played in the past three weeks:

Wife: 24
Me: 3

That comes out to me winning one game for every eight we play. Let me give another statistic, which is how many of those games were actually competitive:

Competitive: 6
Blowouts: 21

Now, to those people who said that previous statement about being a sore loser, look at those statitics! Wouldn't you be just a little frustrated? Wouldn't your hide be a little chapped? Wouldn't your apples be just a little soggy? Wouldn't your oil pans be just a little graveled? Wouldn't your rain gutters be just a bit carbonated?

Mine are.

Here, for your enjoyment, is the play by play of a typical hand of Double Solitaire:

MIKE: Hi, everyone! We're here watching the Double Solitaire match between Kent and his wife. Thanks for joining us!
DAN: That's right, and let's hope tonight will be better than the last few weeks. Kent just seems way out of his league against her.
MIKE: Well, as you know, she's a ruthless, cold and efficient game playing juggernaut.
DAN: Good point, Mike. What is a juggernaut, anyway?
MIKE: No time, Dan! Here they go! And the hand has started! Kent is looking at the first three cards of his hand. He seems pretty confident, as he reaches to place in Ace in the middle, and...
DAN: WOW! How about that! She's out!
MIKE: No doubt about it, she completely used up her pile, putting a quick end to the hand! Kent doesn't look too happy about it.
DAN: No, he doesn't. Do you think he'll throw the cards at the dog again, like the famous incident last week?
MIKE: What incident is that, Dan?
DAN: The...uh...Throwing of the...Cards at Dogs...Incident. The one that happened last week!
MIKE: Thanks for clearing that up. It doesn't appear we'll see a repeat of that - incident. Instead, it appears that Kent has decided to play the long time favorite game "52 Card Pickup"! And, boy, what a setup he just accomplished!
DAN: WOW! How about that! Let's see a replay of that last hand!
MIKE: We would, Dan, but the replay operator has reviewed the tape, and reports that her motions were too fast to pick up on camera!
DAN: Not again?! We warned them last time to use a special slow motion camera!
MIKE: Well, we'd like to bring you the rest of the game, but apparently our sponsors have just pulled their advertising. They say no one is watching, and also mentioned something about "dirt being less predictable." Hmm. So that brings this broadcast to a close!
DAN: Thanks for watching everyone!

That happens to me EVERY TIME! The game doesn't matter! Double Solitaire, Skip-Bo, Aggravation, and now with our newest game, Risk!

Ah, Risk! That game of world domination! That battle ground for warriors and conquerors! A man's game!

One more game where I get beat by a girl. I feel my manhood withering even now.

If you'd like to see her cruel efficiency and ruthlessness for yourself, come on up and play a game with her sometime. I'd write more about this subject, but just now, I have to run into the kitchen to get my wife some tea. I think I'll use a cup with the floral arrangement around the edge. One or two flowers in a vase on a tray would look quite lovely, too, I think.

My Pants in a Sack

2005-08-15T17:11:00.000-06:00

I had the coolest experience this weekend with camping. I think I still have a bit of a glow about me.

I got hiking pants this weekend! Lightweight. Quick drying. The pant legs zip off to leave you with shorts, and two very useful windsocks with which to measure the weather. The coolest feature of these pants is the back pocket, which, when pulled inside out, becomes a sack in which to stuff the entire legwear assembly - windsocks and all! What do you do with it, then? Realists would say "store it in a much smaller space, you moron!" I think it would be cooler to hand it to someone who requested trail mix. They would open the bag expecting a peanut and some raisins, and get, instead - PANTS! Bwa ha ha!

The pants don't top the sleep mat that I now have that automatically inflates as you unroll it. It actually has an insulatory R value, too. Comfy and warm!

Please don't confuse my description of a sleep mat with my description of a chili dog, which automatically inflates ME as I inhale it. I would then have more of an "OH!" value, as opposed to an R value. (As in, "OH! What is that smell?") And, while the effect is not comfy, it is most certainly warm.

Hmm. That was kind of uncalled for. A little beyond the realm of good taste, and certainly nothing about camping.

Oh, yes. Camping. I digress.

My new sleeping bag is actually kind of scary. It's called a "mummy" sack. It's not kidding. Have you seen one of these things? It's like a Native American papoose for adults. Just to experience it in the comfort of my own living room, I decided to mummify myself. I quickly found out, this was not your average jump-in-and-zip-up sleeping bag. This thing was complicated, and required an exact process to render myself completely immobile, and subject to the whims of my dog's overactive nose, which was, by the time I finished, pointing down at my face, as menacingly as a loaded weapon.

What is the process? Well, first you get in, and zip up about to your shoulders. So far, this is no different than any other bag. After this, however, it branches out into its own field of what camp professionals refer to as "confined sleeping technology". Next, you reach outside the bag, and close the velcro seal. Now, rest your head in the bottom of the hood, and let your hands enjoy the open air, because this is the last time they'll experience it for a while. Hands inside, you now zip the main zipper all the way up to your neck. Reach up to the hood, and pull the drawstring tight, so the hood now seals around your head, leaving only your nose and mouth sort of exposed. Yes, the sleep mask is built right in to this baby.

Feeling that wave of claustrophobia, yet? Wait! There's more. Final step, search around your neck line, and seal the inner velcro seal, which creates a sort of ring around your neck, which you can now tighten by pulling its drawsring tight. You are now wrapped up about as tight as a loony in a straight jacket - although you are admittedly a little more comfortable.

The bag says it's rated at 0 degrees. It lies. Laying there, in hood induced blindness, with my arms pinned to my sides, I'd estimate the temperature was rising to around 104 degrees. I have to admit: I was getting claustrophobic in there. I knew I could get out, but the thought of not being able to instantly reach up and scratch my nose without letting loose two drawstrings and ripping open two velcro straps made me nervous. I mean, whoever heard of a bed in which you had to follow certain steps in a prescribed order to leave it? Dad says when it's cold out in the mountains, I'll welcome the warmth that comes from being mummified in that bag. I hope so. Sometimes I wonder where companies come up with this stuff that more resembles instruments of torture than carefree nocturnal rest.

INTERROGATOR: Well, comrade, you won't talk. Is no problem. We'll see what information you can provide in morning after spending night in MUMMY BAG!
PRISONER: NOOOOOOO! I'll talk! I'll talk!

I got a lightweight tent, also. It was the only tent I could find, so I'm trying to keep my weight down, as a result. My question is: Why do you have to get a tent that specifically matches your own weight? I don't get it. Anyway, I'm not sure what the cutoff weight would be for, say, a midweight tent, but I'm trying to keep my weight under that, regardless. I hope I don't break the tent when I get in it.

To carry all of this cool stuff, I got a real camping backpack, complete with what I believe is called "internal framing". This is useful for wilderness photographers who want to be able to take a picture of a charging bear, frame it inside the backpack using it's internal framing feature, then sell it to the bear as a souveneir for $14.95.

I love camping.

What? Describe the camping trip, itself, you say?

Oh.

Okay, the truth is, I haven't gone, yet. We're camping this weekend - Dad, Kirstie, Dave, Sherry and I - with the intent to hike to the top of Mt. Sneffels. That should be a lot of fun. You know why? I'll finally get to use all of my cool camping stuff! On a cold morning at 10000 feet, I'll be toasty warm while I have a claustrophobically induced panic attack. Once we're all on the peak, I'll be able to measure wind direction AND velocity with my nylon hiking pants. And, I can have the one-of-a-kind experience of role playing the part of a pack mule as I hoist every piece of camping molecule I own out of the wilderness on my back.

Seriously, I can't wait. If the camping itself is half as cool as the nifty equipment you get to buy, it should be one heck of a spectacular trip - pants, pack, and all.

Darkwood Chippers

2005-07-01T17:00:00.000-06:00

It's times like this when I'm really glad I have this instrument in which to reach the masses. I need to get something off my chest about an increasingly alarming problem in my area.

Unbearable pollution, you say? Urban sprawl, you ask? Explosion in crime, you venture hopefully?

You've got to be kidding. First of all, in case you forgot, I live in a town with less than a thousand residents. Around here, the problems we're most concerned with are prarie dog infestations, dust in the air from our dirt roads, and what you're supposed to do around here after 5:00pm. Second of all, I think that's really morbid of whoever guessed an explosion in crime, as if we're playing some silly game.

No, the problem I'm talking about is very serious. I'm referring to the rapid increase in dangerous roving chipmunk gangs.

Just today, on the way down the hill from our house into town, I had three separate close calls with chipmunks on the side of the road. Each time, the chipmunk watched me get close, then, at the last possible second, he charged across the road in front of me, narrowly missing my front tires before reaching the other side.

What kind of mentality drives that sort of behavior? I can hear your responses, now. They're stupid wilderness animals, who either don't realize or don't care about the danger represented by a speeding two ton object rushing at them. All their little furry minds can understand is that they're hungry, and just across the road is a plump and delectable chipmunk delicacy - perhaps a plant or a seed.

Not to stomp on your well thought out and educated opinion, but, frankly, I think you are foolish and naive!

You want to know what I think? I think their behavior is indicative of gang organization among the wilderness animals. The stunts I witness on a regular basis is most likely one of two things: An initiation rite for the new chipmunk recruits to prove their mettle to their new brothers, or a declaration of war to anyone who's not one of their own.

You can't tell me I'm stupid. I've seen documented proof of their malicious intent. Who can argue with the clip on TV that shows a squirrel running a car off the road, then celebrating the accident with his buddy? A car insurance commercial, you say? Conspiracy, I tell you! The squirrels want you to think that! They're organized and planning something diabolical!

I think that, in reality, that TV clip was a warning to the chipmunks, who are, of course, their arch enemies. They're trying to show the chipmunks they have the power to destroy the roaring two ton beasts, and that they can manipulate opinion so well, they can convince us it's just a commercial. Genius, in my opinion.

I fear the day the two rival gangs go to open war. I loathe nothing more than to see the Red Striped Tails take on the Darkwood Chippers. And don't pretend that you didn't think they had names. I've also heard rumors that each gang is trying to get as their ally another feared and evil group - the Velvet Antler Crew. It's said that, in addition to the Red Stripe's feared "Run By's" (as demonstrated on TV, and personally witnessed by myself), the Crew has another weapon - the dreaded "Dart In Front and Freeze's", responsible for many a dented fender.

There you have it. A terrible problem plaguing our once pristeen mountain utopia. What will become of this escalating turf war? Who around here will be caught in the middle of their fire? I don't know, for sure, but I'll keep my eyes peeled, and my ears open. The next time I see an angry pair of buck eyes staring me down, or a chipmunk with a bandanna, I'll be sure to keep you updated!

The Ish Factor

2005-05-03T20:02:00.000-06:00

I've recently learned what a valuable and useful little suffix "ish" is. I never imagined how freeing and liberating three little letters would be until I began experimenting with their use in just the past couple of months. What is so great about this? I'll show you. Take this for example:

Say my wife calls and wants to know when I'll be home from work. I can say two things to her: "I'll be home at 5:30pm." This is fine if I'm absolutely positive nothing important will come up, like a phone call from the office, finishing up a pint of Ben and Jerry's, or reading an article on CNN.com. If something does happen, though, and I show up at home at 5:35pm, or, worse, 5:58pm, then I would obviously have to explain my actions, and my tardiness.

There is the second possibility, and that is, when she asks, to calmly and confidently answer: "Probably 5:30-ish, or 5:45-ish at the latest."

The clouds will part. The sun will shine. The choirs will begin their triumphant chorus.

Now, despite whatever comes up and delays me, I will be able to get home at whatever time I see fit! If I show up at 5:38, 5:50, or even 6:10, I'm now protected, because I used that beautiful three letter suffix. I gave her specific times satisfying her question, but I converted them to ranges of times simply by using "ish". When she asks me, upon my arrival, with her arms folded and her foot tapping in impatience, where on earth I was, all I have to do is, calmly and confidently as before, tell her I was merely estimating my time, and remind her that I did, after all, add ish to my times. She will have nothing to argue! She knows she can't beat the Ish Argument!

Of course, when 8:00 rolls around, and she's still reading her novel on the couch, I don't suppose I'll have an argument, either, when I ask her where on earth dinner is. She will be more than happy to remind me, in her sweet feminine voice, that she did, after all, say dinner would be at 6:30-ish.

So, maybe wielding the vast power of Ish can be a bit dangerous. Maybe the situation described above wasn't a good use for it, after all. There are good uses, though. What if you were a weatherman trying to convince people Ridgway's weather was nice right now, and that it's okay to come visit? Now, there's a good use for it. Take this example:

"This week's forecast calls for thunderstorms each day, with rain likely and snow possible in the higher elevations."

Who would come to Ridgway when they heard that? If I wasn't already here, giving my muddy dogs foot baths every time they come in from using their version of an outhouse, I certainly wouldn't! Try this handy little description instead:

"This week's weather will be warm-ish."

Wow! That changes everything! Do you realize the range of weather that "warm-ish" could describe? That could mean anything from sunny and warm to thunderstorms and snow. Ish implies an estimation, after all. But using the word "warm" already imprinted the listener's preferred image in their minds!

Of course, when they come wearing shorts and sandals, and driving their convertible with the top down, and get snowed on before they ever get to your place to visit, they might tell you, with wobbly knees and grey clammy lips, that they did, after all, tell you they would be visiting for "a long-ish time", and turn right around return home.

So, there you have it: The power and the pitfalls of the most amazing suffix, "ish". A mighty tool of language. A double-edged sword. Use it wisely!

Here, also, is what gets written when I have nothing really to say, but want to post something anyway. By the way, when you describe this post to somebody, I won't be offended if you say it was "okay-ish". I better quit now. I told my wife I'd be home for lunch at noon-ish.

The Only Diamonds My Wife Wouldn't Want

2005-02-14T12:03:00.000-07:00

As of Saturday, February 12, 2005, I can now walk tall, hold my head up high, and enjoy the new found confidence I have in myself following a major and life changing event.

What is this amazing event that has so altered my path in life? A new high paying job here in Ridgway? A winning lottery ticket? A planned Hawaiian vacation? The answer to all of these is, no. It is so much better than these trivial items!

Saturday, for the first time, I actually skied a double black diamond run for the first time. As if that wasn't enough, I took a lift back up the hill, and skied another double black diamond run. That's right: TWO double black diamond runs in one day!

Now, around here, in an area so close to Telluride, and consequently so full of ski bums, there are potentially two reactions to this revelation of my lifetime achievement. The first reaction will come from those skiers who are working their way up to the double blue runs, and look down the entrance to a double black run with fear, intrepidation, and a sense of longing that, one day soon, they too will be careening haphazardly down that insanely steep chute of certain death with moguls the size of your average two story house in Ridgway. Their reaction will be one of deep respect and awe, and to them, I hold up my hands, and say with utter conviction: "You, too, can one day achieve this if you keep practicing, working hard, and, as I did, have someone push you down the entrance when you stand trembling at the top, your mind as unwilling to let you take that plunge as if a sudden blizzard blew through and left you encased in a solid block of ice."

The second reaction, of course, is from the "good skiers". You know, the kind that don't consider it a good run unless they've come close to breaking the sound barrier at least twice while mowing down at least seven unsuspecting skiers unfortunate enough to occupy the same hill, uprooting at least nine small pine trees with their frozen wake, and, once they reach the bottom in a powdery blur of perfectly executed S-turns, have their hair permanently blown back in an icy, yet oh-so-hip windswept style. These are the people who, upon reading my revelation, will look at their watches in impatience and wonder when I'm going to get to my real news.

Whoever you are, whether you are ready to kiss my skis, or ask me why they aren't twice as long so I can REALLY go fast, I have to tell you the truth, which is that I was extremely intimidated. Have you ever stood at the edge of the entrance to a double black run? The tips of your skis protrude over the entrance into mid air, touching nothing but an empty void. I looked down the run, and was sure I saw entire systems of clouds below me. Dotting the entire length of the run, I was sure I could see skiers crumpled into grotesquely unnatural heaps, their skis and poles in a broken snowy pile around them, reaching shaking hands toward the sky, and moaning things like, "I can't feel my legs!", "Get me off this hellish run!", or "Heed my warning! Don't come down this run!"

My brother, who was skiing with me, must not have seen those poor wasted skiers, because upon skiing to the entrance, he did the craziest thing I could have imagined at the time: He KEPT GOING. I stared down at him in a wave of panic. "Hey!" I yelled at him futilely. "Listen to the other skiers! Look at the clouds! Don't go any further! You're crazy!" Alas, he was already out of earshot. Resigned to my fate, I took a deep breath, planted my poles and pushed...

...Remember those action movies, where the amazing and utterly impossible car chase ends with one car hanging precariously off the edge of a cliff, the sheetmetal groaning as the front end tilts further and further, the car sliding inevitably toward the drop off, and finally, amidst a stream of terrified screams and pleas from the driver still stuck inside, plunges over the edge? That didn't come close to describing how I felt as my skis left the safety of the catwalk, and plunged through the air until striking that first mogul.

The good news is, although I didn't set any speed records that day, and probably looked like a dork, snaking down two or three moguls, then standing there, trying to plot my next move down the mountain as carefully as if I was in the final round of the World Chess Championship (except taking more time to think), I actually made it down that run, and lived to tell about it. Also, the injured skiers I thought I saw littering the run turned out to be a couple of tree stumps, and a very large squirrel.

To all of those double blue skiers, if, one day, you ever try a double black run, it's not as bad as it initially looks. To all the snowy powdery blurs I see screaming past me from time to time, one day, when I get to the bottom of the hill, I'll have a frozen hair-do as goofy as yours.

Time

2005-02-07T17:25:00.000-07:00

Time and age are such relative entities. Think about it. Time passes. People age. That much is certain. Have you ever noticed, however, how different the meaning of those two statements are to different people?

My wife is now 26. That age can mean something different depending on your own age. High school and college kids will see that age and aspire to one day be in her position in age and life - to be done with school, live on your own, and, of course (ladies, at least) be married to one charming, sensitive, intelligent, and stunningly handsome guy. (She may or may not agree that she has, indeed, achieved that last item.) To some people of advancing age - forties, fifties, and beyond (You know who you are!) - 26 might represent a time when you were really just getting started with your life, and wistfully shake your head in amazement that you were ever that young.

Those contrasting view points are exactly what I'm talking about. Twenty-six is twenty-six. It's a number that does not change in value, nor will it ever rebel against the laws of mathematics, and try to jostle its way past twenty-seven because it thinks that's a much better position on the number line. It's the meaning of twenty-six that's so varied and hard to grasp! When I was twenty-six, my wife and I had been married for almost a year. I thought I was so old. Had a wife, a house, a good job. I was making it. I was TWENTY-SIX! Now, that doesn't seem that old to me, anymore.

What's interesting is that, when I met her, she was 19. A teenager! At the time, I didn't think that was too weird, even though I was already 23. Yes, she was a teenager, but she was in college, after all, and I had only just finished. Nineteen seems so young, now, especially considering that my sister, who shares my wife's birthday of February 1, is now seventeen. Seventeen! A mere two years younger than my wife when we met! That's scary!

As weird as it is to look back, looking forward is even stranger. In two weeks, I'll be thirty. And, yes, I've heard all the comments, now. "Wo! The big three-oh!", "Thirty? You're getting to be an old man!", and so on. I feel that, at this point, I've led a decent life, and lived a good many years. Then, I think about people who are in their sixties, or older. That's TWICE my age! I'm not saying that to make any sixty-something feel old, or anything. I feel that I've lived a decent amount of time, already. I can't imagine living my entire life again, but, when I reach sixty, that's exactly what will have happened.

What will I do for the next thirty years? Will we still be in Ridgway in the year 2035? I hope so. Will I still make my living working with technology? Maybe, but I honestly have to say I hope not. I've always been fascinated with computers, but the fact that they are always changing, along with the required ways to talk to them, and make them do what you want, scares me just a bit. Remember when the internet first became somewhat common knowledge in the early 1990's? At that point, it was an interesing toy, but not really a useful tool. Barely more than ten years later, American culture is completely integrated with the internet. I make my living programming for the internet. What's going to be the next big technology breakthrough? When will it be? Will I have any sort of hope for a job, then?

What will my wife be doing? Will she still be teaching at all? By that time, she may have a baton twirling student of a student of hers teaching students! Did that make sense?

I talk with folks who have already been through all of this, who are looking back at their lives, and marvelling at how quickly it all went. What amazes me is that, without exception, people tell stories of such complex happenings, jobs they've worked, people they've met, problems they've had, places they've gone, it leaves me worn out and tired thinking that I am still, more or less, at the beginning of all of that. Yet, the end of of their stories ends with the phrase, “It all went by so fast.“ In my position in my life, I can only begin to fathom that statement. First of all, I can't imagine having the energy and determination to simply acheive everything they talk about. Second, and more importantly, I can't believe I could ever look back at my life, and with a wistful sigh, and a knowing smile, utter the phrase, “It all went by so fast.“

Time is a weird concept. So concrete, yet so hard to grasp, especially how our lives are so intertwined in it. Maybe I'll still have this blog in some form in thirty years. Maybe I'll look back at all my entries and wonder how all the events described within could have already happened. In the meantime, I'll take the optimist's opinion for what's to come. My time here isn't half over. Instead, I have twice as much time to live!

Deer and Cows and Houses! Oh My!

2005-01-27T15:47:00.000-07:00

At almost six months since we've moved to Ridgway, we're finally going to get into our house this Saturday, January 29! The whole process has been quite an ordeal, from getting delayed by Ouray County, getting charged hidden fees by Ouray County, delivery of our modular house being delayed a month by Karsten Homes (don't get me started on that one), and working to finish everything in the middle of winter. Still, the actual construction side of things was very interesting to watch. In two days, it will all be but a memory.

The weather here has been really weird. It's actually rained more than it's snowed this year. That's helped our construction, though, so I'm not complaining about it at all.

Two deer have been in our landlord's yard since early this morning, just across from the window of my office. They know they've found a quiet grassy spot to hang out, and it looks like they have no intention of leaving any time soon. Deer are funny animals. They're so amazingly graceful, yet dumb as rocks. Have you ever looked into the eyes of a deer? It's like looking into a vast black void of pure stupidity. If you stare too long, the sheer emptiness of the look risks draining points from your own I.Q. storage tank. This is the same look you would see if, for example, you looked into the eyes of a cow, a cocker spaniel, or any driver from California.

The cow comparison is, I think, the most appropriate. A deer is like a skinny cow. Honestly. If a cow could run by leaping off of all four legs at the same time, and twitch its ears until they stand straight up, you basically would not be able to tell the difference.

All right, I suppose you could tell the difference if you looked really carefully.

Okay, the difference would probably be immediately apparent to you even if you were standing a mile away, and looking the other direction. Actually, the thought of standing in a field watching a 500 pound cow leaping toward me - its ears straight back - in a graceful yet ground shaking bovine dance of jiggling tail and udders gives me the willies.

I better get off this subject before someone from Disney reads it and gets some hideosly insane idea in their heads about a great new movie entitled "Bambi 2: Bambi and Bessy" (I can just hear the trailer: “Watch as Bambi and his new friend Bessy romp carefree through the snow covered meadows until tragedy strikes when Bessy gets buried in an avalanche caused by her jiggling udders. Will Bambi be able to find and save his new friend? Will McDonald's beat him to her? Find out in the thrilling new animated epic, 'Bambi 2: Bambi and Bessy'. Also be sure to buy the new XBox game based on the movie!“). That would be about as bad of an idea as they have had in quite some time, right up there with their new Tomorrow Land ride the "Rocket Rods", and, of course "The Mighty Ducks: D3".

The bottom line is: Deer are stupid. Cows are stupid. That's really all I was getting at.

And THAT is why we are so excited to be moving in to our new house in Elk Meadows! Until then, go out and enjoy a nice T-Bone steak, and remember that, with the proper steak sauce, even a cow can be graceful.

Seinfelding Your Conversations

2005-01-18T12:51:00.000-07:00

My brother got seasons one through three of the Sienfeld series on DVD recently, so every time I run on the treadmill, I end up watching an episode or two of Seinfeld. This is a show that people either love or hate - usually for the same reasons. I actually kind of like the show. I think it's clever the way the actions of each character usually end up affecting the other characters.

One of the funniest things about this show is the way they carry on conversations. It's hard to describe, really. They don't just say what's on their mind. They have to intro whatever it is first, then get the proper response, then they might actually say what's on their mind. This whole pattern of speech was rather hard to follow at first. I kept sitting there, watching, waiting, hoping they would get to the point. After awhile, though, they do get to the point, and - even stranger - you get used to their types of conversations, and even start to find them amusing. The frog in the boiling pot metaphor comes to mind, here.

For those of you who are convinced the “Seinfeldesque” way of talking is definetely for you, just remember two simple rules, and you'll be conversing like a Seinfeld pro in no time:

Rule #1: Always converse in a semi-confrontational, yet somehow non-threatening style.
Rule #2: Say as much as you possibly can without actually getting to your point.

In order for you to see what that might sound like, I have put together helpful examples with some everyday, normal conversations, and then, for your own education, I have translated them to Seinfeldesque.

Conversation #1

Normal
Jack: What's the temperature?
Jill: It's 43 degrees.

Seinfeldesque
Jack: I have a little problem.
Jill: You're a little problem.
Jack: Hey! I want to ask you a question, and you stand there and talk to me like that?
Jill: I'm sorry. What's your question?
Jack: No. I'm not going to tell you. No.
Jill: Come on!
Jack: You can't make me.
Jill: I said I was sorry! Now, ask your question.
Jack: You want me to ask my question?
Jill: Didn't I just say, “Ask your question” ?
Jack: All right. I'll ask you my question. All I wanted to know was what the temperature was. Is that so hard? Is that really so hard?
Jill: That's it? That's your question? The temperature? Was that your problem?
Jack: Yeah, that was my problem. Ary you gonna tell me, or what?
Jill: So, it's 43 out! Geez!
Jack: 43 out, huh? Just 43?
Jill: I can't believe that was your problem!

Conversation #2

Normal
Ed: I'm going to work.
Barb: See you later.

Seinfeldesque
Ed: Well, you wanna know where I'm going?
Barb: As long as you're going somewhere without me, I'm fine with it.
Ed: That's right, because as soon as I'm gone, you'll be off spending the money that I have to make!
Barb: Not that you make enough to spend, anyway.
Ed: Are you saying I don't make enough? Is that what you're saying?
Barb: Aw, get outta here, will ya?
Ed: I make enough! Oh, I make ENOUGH!
Barb: You're not making nothing standing there.
Ed: I can't take this anymore! You know where I'm going? I'll TELL you where I'm going. To work! THAT'S where!
Barb: Fine, go to work. Why don't you do a little work today, while you're there, huh? Don't act like you're sick and leave early today, either. I won't be here.
Ed: Whatever. I'm goin'. I'm GOIN'.

As you can see, speaking in Seinfeldesque is a bit of an art form, but with a bit of practice you, too, can become fluent.

You know what? You know what I'm going to do now? I'll TELL you what I'm going to do now. I've talked and babbled long enough. I'm going to QUIT writing. You got that? Is anybody reading this, anyway? Huh?

TV Show Beginnings

2005-01-14T21:44:00.000-07:00

Ever stop to think about how short the beginnings of TV shows have gotten lately? Not that I'm complaining. I personally think this is a great trend.

I began thinking about this last night, when my wife, my brother, and my parents all sat down to watch Magnum P.I. My brother, you see, got the entire first season on DVD for Christmas. The first thing I noticed was how ridicilously long the opening credits took. I was just old enough to start watching shows like this when it was actually running on the air (1980 - 1987? 1988?), so I have fond memories of the show as I was growing up. Actually, it was one of my favorite shows. Simon & Simon was also good, but not as good as Magnum P.I. Of course, that opinion may have something to do with the fact that I rarely got to watch Simon & Simon, since it was on right after Magnum P.I., which also happened to be my bed time. As I got older, I got to watch it more, but there was still a fair amount of whining involved sometimes.

I digress.

Anyway, the opening credits took forever. They must have gone on for three or four minutes! Do you realize how much air time real estate that burns? Mindy mentioned that maybe there weren't as many commercials back then, so they had more time for long opening credits. I guess that makes sense, but, there's something else that bothers me about this. How many times do you need to see the opening before you finally remember that the main character is played by Tom Selleck? Or that there's some old British guy who calls his dogs “the Lads“? Or that the show is set in Hawaii, and that, every so often (two or three times per show), you might get to see TC fly his helicopter around?

TV VIEWER #1 (watching his 17th episode of Magnum P.I.): Oh! There's that guy again! Tom What's-His-Name...I really can't remember. Hey! I didn't know there was a helicopter in this series!
TV VIEWER #2: And why do they keep flying around these amazingly green and steep cliffs next to the ocean? Where IS this place?

We get the point! We don't need to see it every time! Magnum P.I. is not unique, either. Don't forget about shows like Mary Tyler Moore, who had to have a hernia by the end of the series from stooping to pick up the hat she threw at the end of the credits off the ground so many times. Or, Home Improvement, which never misses an oppurtunity to show the series title with increasing amounts of gizmos and gadgets hanging grotesquely off its sides, added, apparently, by its title character (Who was that guy again?). That particular opening seemed to have audio problems, too, as there was a large amount of grunting in the background. Maybe it was the creators after watching the opening more than ten times?

Compare this to one of my favorite shows of late, Frasier. Do you know how long the opening was for that? About 10 seconds. Just enough to whip off another jazz band lick while the Seattle skyline magically appears over the “Frasier“ title. Short and sweet. Then, on with the show! Did you ever wonder how many different jazz licks they composed for the opening? So far, I've counted at least eight or nine. Which brings up another point. Even in a 10 second starting, they find ways to hold our interest in it by changing the music. Wow! The show's gotta be good, right?

TV VIEWER #1 (watching his 43rd episode of Frasier): Yep, Frasier's on again.
TV VIEWER #2: Dig that funky jazz they got going.

So that's my thought for the day. My thought, and also my message to all budding TV producers: Keep your openings short. Your viewers will remember what show they're watching with minimal cues. Oh, and jazz music is always a good choice.