Ray.

The week before last, on Monday, the Tribe started blowing up my phone. I got the word that Ray Carter, AKA Gay Cynic (of Northwestern Free Thinker), had been sent home from the hospital for hospice care. He was given about two weeks to live. I called Ray, and told him that I was coming on the weekend. He said that he looked forward to it. He seemed in good spirits. We texted and emailed through Wednesday, but I had to work on Wednesday and Thursday, and was so busy, I wasn't even getting by enough to see my father in a rehab hospital, where he was mending from an infection in his ankle. (And still is.)

I flew up to Seattle on Friday, 27 May. I arrived tired and with a headache, and checked into my room as quickly as I could, and sent Ray texts to let me know when he was ready to receive a visitor. After a few hours, I sent some to his mother, but got no response. Finally I called her, left a message, and was called back: "He's not doing well. He took a turn yesterday, and he's not really able to receive visitors just now." I told her that I didn't want to be a burden, but that I would come over in the morning, after calling ahead.

The next morning, I called, and Ray's mother said that he wasn't doing well, but maybe a visitor would help. I arrived at his house on a lovely street, full of flowers, at about 8:30AM. I was let in, and waited in his room to meet Ray. I met his brother Tim, who was very nice. When Ray came into his room where I waited, he was lethargic from the OxyContin and Oxycodone that he was receiving to ease the pains from end-stage liver failure. But he was there. We talked as he lay in his bed. He swung his feet off the bed and said, "Let's go." He wanted to sit in the living room.

Under an afghan on the couch, Ray fielded all kinds of questions that I had about his early life. I've known this guy for over 7 years, and I really didn't know his origins. He had wanted to be a police officer, but felt that a gay cop at that time (the early '80s) would never receive backup. He had worked as a night security guard at a college, and as a dispatcher. He had been an office worker. He had sold electric cars and bikes. He had worked for the Second Amendment Foundation. Throughout the talk, his mother and brother filled in what Ray couldn't say. Ray fell asleep often, and then grew cold and had to go to bed.

I excused myself, and got lunch, and spent a couple of hours at the Pike's Market. I bought fruit from a stand where the vendors used sharp knives to hand slices of peaches to passers-by. Some years ago, Ray had led my family though the market, and an attractive Asian gent handed each of us slices of peach. He was probably about 21. My then-14 1/2-year-old daughter was grinning and blushing as she accepted the peach, obviously quite taken with the looks of this guy. I then realized that behind her, Ray had a very similar expression as he stood back a bit to appraise the bounty of the fruit stand, before accepting his own complimentary slice. I laughed at the memory of this.

I didn't find the coffee shop where I had gone with Ray down on the Market, some years back. He had to use the restroom, and since I was in line, he handed me a $10 and asked me to order for him what in my family has come to be known as the "Ray Carter Special." It's an accomplishment when an order for a drink can make a downtown Seattle barista's eyes widen, but apparently asking for 8 shots of espresso over ice in a to-go cup will do just that.  I did find a nice coffee shop in the Moore Hotel, and ordered a latte, which came to me with coffee art on it.

I went back to Ray's house a little bit depressed. It is a lonely thing, to go alone to a place where you had enjoyed yourself with family and friends.

Ray looked better. He was awake and sitting up on the couch. A new crocheted afghan was laying across his lap, sent by our friend Bonnie. He liked the flowers that I had brought from the Market. His sister-in-law and niece were there, too. We talked some more. He sat on his recently-delivered hospital bed.. He fell asleep. I talked into the night with his brother and mother, and then went to the motel.  The family wanted to know about Blogorado-- they said that Ray always lit up when he talked about it, and looked forward to it, year 'round. I knew that they weren't of my political bent, but it was important to me that they know that this was a group of people from different walks of life who loved each other as a chosen family.

In the morning, I bought a cup of coffee from a bikini coffee hut, and went back to Ray's house. I was met at the door by his brother Tim, who told me that Ray had passed away in the morning at about 3:30 AM. I was fine, and entered, and said nothing, and then realized that I had owed Ray a lot of hugs sent by friends, which I hadn't really given him. In our group, no one gets away without a hug, but that's for leaving, or maybe initial greeting. I'd sat in bed with Ray, and held his hand, and gripped his arm, but I hadn't wrapped him up. I started to mention this to his family, and for some reason my voice cracked.

My friend Zercool had sent me an email that he had tried to send to Ray, and had asked me to read it to him when I could. I had failed there, too. So I read him what Zercool had sent me to say to him. I didn't do well. In fact, I blubbered a bit. But I got the words out over Ray's remains.

I hugged his family and left to SEATAC, playing Grateful Dead's "Box Of Rain" on the rental car stereo from my iPhone. I'm not a Grateful Dead fan, but this song spoke to me, as it was written by one of their band members, for his father who was on his deathbed. I played it on repeat, and sniveled a bit as I drove through the softly-falling Seattle rain. And then I came back home to north Texas.

Ray Carter was a good man, who cared more about family and friends than anything. He was a man with eternal optimism, who went by the moniker of "Gay Cynic." We are all --even his political adversaries-- diminished by his passing. I'm glad that I got to see him one last time.

Bullet points and Northwest Vacation recap.

--I had a friend ask me to fix his Beretta Tomcat. I tried. I finally gave up and took it to my local gunsmith, who tried to help me by swapping out some parts that he had on another one in the shop while I waited. The bitty little recoil spring plunger went flying. We found it, and he showed me how he put it in... only to have it go flying again. It took a couple of days for Brownell's to get him a new one. My gunsmith friend Joe Speer, upon hearing this, said, "Yeah, we order those by the dozen every week."

--I also dropped off another friend's 6" Ruger Mk I stainless heavy barrel, which he'd lost the safety ball spring detent. Yes, that one. I never got around to buying it, so I punished myself by paying to have it done.

--I picked them up today, and function tested them. The Ruger shoots about a inch right and an inch and a half low at 25 yards. Not a big deal; they're adjustable sights. The Tomcat shoots 5" low at 10 yards. The good news is, my friend can fix that very easily with a file.

--20 minutes at the range without shade today was enough. It's 104 degrees out there right now. Hell with that.

--Want to see a cool time sink? Check out this realtime depiction of the planes flying over your area. Zoom out. Zoom in. Click on an airplane and get its flightpath, rate of climb, speed, altitude, destination, all that. Pretty cool.

--I'm still very relaxed from my vacation.

--While at Powell's Bookstore in Portland, I again cringed at a trend among crime/cop novel covers to use fake handcuffs on their covers. More than two links in a pair of handcuffs, they're generally fake. You can get away with that in a distant shot, but the photographers insist on using what undoubtedly was a sex shop prop in tight closeups like this one:

Here, you can see that the links aren't even welded or soldered closed, and the ratchet teeth are just pressed out of sheet metal, in a photo that is about 6"X9"!   Shoddy. The photographer and the editor should be ashamed. A pair of Smith And Wesson Model 100s are about $30 at your local cop shop. 

--Some random things that I saw on my trip to the Northwest: 

This was carved into a pair of Ponderosa pine (or was it a lodge pole pine? I disremember.) behind a little convenience store on the east side of the Cascades while returning from Crater Lake: 

Yes, the water really IS that blue at Crater lake. It's amazing.

They actually have a sign up explaining why it would be so very blue.

While in Oregon, my friend Blake provided me with a wonderment of gastronomic delights, including locally-grown ripe boysenberries and strawberries and marionberries. My daughters didn't get why I didn't like they name of the last fruit. "But Dad! They don't taste like dirty politicians!" Damn right, they didn't. They tasted like fresh, delicious valley fruit from an Eden. 

--At the Oregon Country Fair: 

I didn't attend this session. I would have gotten myself thrown out. 

People walk around all day dressed up in costumes at that hippy extravaganza, which would have caused them to pass out of heat stroke on the same date in Texas. 

--Some shots from Seattle: 

$200 a night gets a view of downtown when you wake up, I guess. 

Seattle is a pedestrian-friendly place to move through, if you don't mind hills. 

Come to Seattle. See the old architecture against the modern. And huge adverts to go elsewhere. 

These guys had INCREDIBLE cheese, made in-shop. 

Pikes Place. I really enjoyed listening to this young lady, and then read the Post-In in her violin case. She's 14? Good heavens. I gave her a buck. Sure. 

Yeah, I've become that guy who takes photographs of fire engines in distant towns, now. Seattle's take on an engine. Not so different. 

After seeing this, I laughed out loud to see how lucrative this activity could be. (According to The Onion.)

 Check out what they put on their street hot dogs:

--While camping on the Olympic Peninsula, we hiked among a lot of old-growth forests. When I say "Old Growth," I'm talking about being surrounded by a triple canopy that goes over 200 feet above you, with trees over 500 years old around you. Lots of old cedar and Sitka spruce. I tried, and failed, to document what I saw with an old point-and shoot. 

Click to embiggen.

---We went to the wet coast of the Olympic Peninsula at low tide, and looked at tide pools. We were visited by a mature bald eagle: 

We wondered along the near-empty beaches through the fog of the early morning (when the tides were lowest that week): 

Evidence of boys. 

My elder daughter walked off. In a minute, with the sea and the fog, she couldn't hear me shout. You could get very alone, very quickly.

As here, when I was shooting pictures of the eagle, and turned around to find my family a quarter mile off. Those trees on the cliff's edge are all about 200 feet tall.

I love this country. I want to see the rest of the world, but this nation is made up of amazing sights. 

Thursday's Prattlings.

--We're due to reach 100 degrees for the first time this year today. That's actually pretty late, for us.
Edit: We broke into triple digits with a bang:

--I write this as much for my future reference, and for my kids' future reference, as for anyone else.

--I have a decent blog-worthy story that I can't post right now. But it ends with the question: "What caliber for douchebag?"

--It's pronounced /puh Kawn/. PEE kan sounds like what you put under the bed at night.

--I worked a 24 hour shift with the fire department yesterday, and not only ripped the tags off of the new wildland firefighting apparel* that they got me about a year ago, but also got it smokey and covered with soot. A welder caught some tall grass while putting in corner posts for a new fence, in the dry 17 mph wind. Right next to him was a stack of sections of old fencing that had probably 10 years' worth of weeds and brush growing up amongst it. I can think of no finer way to start a fire without accelerants. We had to unstack the flaming pyre and douse each level of stacked fencing one by one, and then get the particle board beneath it, and then go moving old rusty farm implements to get under all that. Finally we got all that done, and went to mop-up. When we finally got all the flaming cow turds busted up and stomped out, I climbed dirty and sweaty and ash-stained into our brush truck with our paramedic firefighter, and remarked that the hymen on my new brush gear had been perforated. Startled, he said what?!? I suggested to our best medic that he had heard me just fine. He laughed.

--I just finished reading Cormac McCarthy's No Country For Old Men on my Kindle. I reviewed the movie five years ago, in which I said of the main character, aging sheriff Ed Tom Bell:

I know this man. I've been around him for years, wearing different faces, standing different heights, and carrying different weights. They mostly all spoke with a drawl, and they all wondered sometimes how it all got to be so crazy. Between McCarthy, the Cohens, and Jones, I saw the bewildered squint of people that I've known personally, perplexed and aghast.

 Having read the book, I'd have to say that the Cohen brothers kept the movie's dialogue very true to McCarthy's original work. Sheriff Bell knows that the nation is doomed, and feels like he has lost control of the part of it that he is supposed to keep peaceful. He feels like a failure. I have to admit that I thought a little about whether I help the big picture. I don't take it as personally as he did, I don't think. I know my limitations. The job of a law enforcement officer is to limit damage; he rarely gets to stop it altogether.

I just downloaded Blood Meridian. The reviews show that it's a pretty dark portrayal of the American West in the mid 19th century. We'll see if I start it anytime soon.

--A family member and friend of mine is grieving the passing of a close friend of hers. I've been pretty poor about helping her deal with it. Recently, my wife pointed out the meaning of the lyrics to the Grateful Dead's song "Box Of Rain." I've never much been a fan of the Dead, but I've got to admit that there's a gentle calmness that one can feel from auditing this (first) song.

"What do you want me to do, to do for you to see you through? 

A box of rain will ease the pain, and love will see you through." 

--Speaking of music, my daughter was singing the title music to Singing In The Rain, and I wanted to hear the original, so I played this video. I come away thinking: (1) Gene Kelly was a genius dancer. (2) Even accounting for the poor synching of the sound to the video by YouTube, it's obvious that they dubbed in the tap sounds. But Gene Kelly was still a physical genius. (3) That street was a giant sound stage in Hollywood, right? Where they had to make their own rain? That was a BIG budget movie scene. (4) I cringe seeing Kelly dance through the puddles in his brown leather shoes. I can not stand having soaked shoes.

--Lately at work, I'm plagued with subpoenas to get. Think I don't beg help from the DA's investigators? Haw.

--I need a best location along the coast of Oregon or Washington (Olympic Peninsula?) for two things this summer: Tide pools and yerts.

--I'm planning an epic vacation with the girls and my wife.

--My friend Susan makes a good point: "When hanging around with drunk people...if the topic of conversation takes a turn toward Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy Theories...it's time to leave!!"


_____________________________
*Typically abbreviated to "wildland gear," which then becomes "Wild man gear." This is tough, light Nomex jeans and topshirt (usually comes with work gloves and boots, but I just use my fire gloves and bunker boots) that one pulls on over street clothes, which prevent embers from immediately burning through, but which have no insulative properties. Combined with a light plastic helmet (kept on the brush truck) and light goggles, this gear actually provides some protection without causing your firefighter to succumb to heat exhaustion in regular bunker gear.

"The Obligatory Cow Reference."

I had forgotten how well Stingray had written up a certain humorous-and-yet-tense moment, a couple of years ago, at Blogorado.

I just read it again, and laughed for a minute straight.

Blogorado 4-- why I suck.

I suck because I didn't spend enough time talking to FarmDad, or FarmMom.

I suck because I didn't get all that ammo that I brought out properly for people to use.

I suck because I never got around to sighting in OldNFO's rifle, as I had promised on the phone to do.

I suck because I didn't get ANY pictures for you.

I suck because I never shot the .50 BMG this time. Nor the muzzle-loaders.

I suck because I didn't do enough to set up nor tear down the range.

I suck because I didn't get more face time time chatting with Jay G, or Sal, or FarmGirl.

I suck because, having chipped it into the waxing madness I didn't leave any cash for expenses for our gracious hosts. And that I forgot this year completely. (I suck so sorrowfully for that one.)

I suck because I still owe the Nerds for a second hot/red/steak/cheese New Mexican burrito.

I suck because I didn't spend more time with my dad and Holly.

I suck because I didn't manage to keep my footing when a Stingray jumped on my back.
I suck because I didn't chat more with GayCynic.

Or Weer'd and his wife. Or SciFi. Or Mrs. SciFi. Or Speer's friend (and ours, too, now) Jason. Or Rennaisance Man, or Wing. Or Evyl Robot, or Jennifer. (No, WeeBot, I didn't forget you. It's just that I got enough time with you. ;) )

I got in some good chatting with Ambulance Driver, whom I roomed with and drove up with in caravan.

I got in some good chatting with Tam, whom I insisted ride with me a couple of times, and whom I sat with at breakfast a couple of times.

I suck because I don't remember some of the more memorable lines that caused literal spit-takes around the campfire, to share here. But I remember the reactions.
I suck because one of the only ones that I do remember laughing at was kinda dark, and kinda harshing a friend's mellow, and because I just grinned at it again. ("Hey! The sun is shining!" "Oh, you have wondered over to the wrong group, here.")

I suck because I did not remember Farmgirl's brother T's name right off. And he's a good guy.
I suck because I didn't chat more with Christina LMT more. Nor with AEPilotJim.

I suck because I didn't have more one-on-one chats with LawDog, and Phlegmmy-- some of my best friends. We spoke in groups, and that exchange was awesome. But sometimes you feel like you miss out on one-on-one chats.

I suck because I've missed someone, here.

Three days among my friends is not enough. 

BR4 The Road Trip.

My departure was not well-planned. I threw some stuff into the car haphazardly, and forgot some things, and brought some things that I didn't need. Fortunately, when one takes a Subaru Outback station wagon all by himself, good packing isn't really necessary. Ambulance Driver came by the house on the afternoon, and we convoyed all the way to Sooper Sekret Site together.

Passing through some construction on the outskirts of Amarillo, I thought about how there was a helium plant nearby, and idly wondered, as a volunteer firefighter, if there were any special considerations for first responders there, with regard to what was basically an inert gas. I began giggling as I imagined the 911 call there:
         Dispatcher: "911, what is your emergency?"
         Caller: < Lollypop Guild voice > "Come quick, there's been an accident
                at the helium plant!" .< /voice >
 Well, it cracked my sleep-deprived ass up. I started to call A.D. in front of me, when we topped a hill, and drove through a scene of carnage.

Clothes all over the road. Debris. I swerved to miss what looked like a body. Already a silver SUV was parked on the right shoulder, with no lights on. I stopped, backed up carefully, and pulled in behind the SUV. I could see someone inside it. As I backed, I called Ambulance Driver, and told him that I was investigating and calling 911. He said that he was turning around and coming back.

I called 911 while looking over the car. No apparent damage. I've seen some cars roll pretty badly and still be drivable after the wreck, but you could see something that indicated that it had seen a wreck. I could see nothing. The female driver looked at me in her rear-view mirror as I made contact with Potter County 911. "What is your emergency?" she asked, causing my recently giggling mind to stop down for a beat with self-inflicted deja vu.

"Road blockage. Possible 10-50, unknown type. Copy out-of-state 28." I gave her the tag number and the location.  

"Oh, that. We've already had a call about that vehicle" the dispatcher said. 

"Well, send me a deputy again anyway, please. There's a bunch of debris in the road just beyond the crest of a grade, and someone is going to have a wreck avoiding it. At least one pile of clothes looked like a body in the road," I said. "It's not, though. I don't know what I've got. I'm going to make contact with the driver, and I'll call you back."

The driver was recoiling within her car, away from the window, as I approached. I could see a dog inside, and hear it barking through the cracked open rear window. I badged her and identified myself as a peace officer, and asked how I could help her. She flung open the door and began yelling at me. Without quoting here, I will tell you that she told me that she had been there for two days and that no one had stopped to help her. She said that her car was dead, and her cell phone was dead. She said that she had no food and no water during that time, and that her poor dog's stomach was rumbling from lack of food. I put my hand to the little dog's nose, and found it very moist. The dog licked my hand (I had been eating beef jerky as road food). Its tongue was very moist. That dog wasn't missing water. No food is bad, but it's water that I worry about.

We were on a significant highway, just outside of a city of more than 120,000 people, in a metro area of about a quarter million people. It wasn't like she was in the middle of the boon docks.

I interrupted her to ask about a traffic accident. She said that there had been none. I asked about someone else in the car. No, just her and her pooch. I asked her how all the clothes and debris got in the road. She got evasive and looked away as she told me that she didn't know how they got there. She amended her statement to say that they were like that when she got there. I looked at the SUV packed full of boxes like the emptied one on the ground. I looked at the slender women's clothes that were at a rough guess appropriate for a woman like the one that I was talking to.

I listened to the woman rail on a bit more. At about this point, Ambulance Driver came forward. He had his tactical light out (where was mine? Didn't I tell you that I packed poorly?), his hand was back behind his hip, and he gave me an eyebrows-up questioning look. I could tell that he had already at a distance been able to deduce what I had figured out: This woman was disturbed. She wasn't making sense.

I asked the woman if she was hurt or ill. She said no, and then said, "Well, I'm not feeling too well, right now!" I almost referred her to a paramedic that I knew nearby. But here's the thing: She was physically fine. She'd been moving around* just fine in that SUV. She gave NO indication of any kind of physical injury or trauma. She might have been emotionally disturbed, but she had made no indications that she was going to hurt herself or other people. She was clearly not telling the truth about it having been two days that she had been there, or of her having no clue about the clothing and stuff in the road.

"Ma'am, I'll get help. Stay in your car." I told her, and muttered to Ambulance Driver that she was 10-96.** I went to the back of her car, called 911 back, and updated them on what I had. They told me that a deputy had already been there, and left. "Well, send a deputy back here, please. She seems to have strewn things in the road, probably to get people to stop. You have a road blockage and a disturbed person here," I said.  I looked over to Ambulance Driver. "But we're leaving." He nodded. I hung up.  I hollered to the woman that a deputy was en route, and we proceeded on.

Back in the day, I would have stayed on scene until the deputy got there. I would have involved myself more. Possibly hours of my life I would have devoted to a person that didn't specifically ask for my help, when it wasn't my job to provide it.

As it was, I alerted the local authorities. I checked on her welfare, and on that of her dog. And I disengaged. It was my vacation.

__________________
*Some might say that she was gesticulating.
**Although he nodded at that statement at the time, A.D. later told me: "I didn't know that 10-code before, but figured, given the context, that it meant 'Crazy Person.'"

Random stuff.

--Last night, we drove my mother and my newly-minted 14 year-old to dinner last night for their respective birthdays. We went to a French bakery and cafe that, while a chain, still puts out some really great food. Mom got a Sacher torte, and moaned: "This is as good as the one that I had in Brussels." Mom had gone on a tour of Europe after graduating from SMU in the mid-'60s.

My brother's eyes shone. "My mother has been waiting over 40 years for just the right opportunity to say that!" he proclaimed. I laughed so hard the excellent coffee that I was drinking almost came out my nostrils.

--While checking out some city property on duty last weekend, I got stung in the right earlobe by a wasp. After finishing what I was doing, I found some Windex to spray on my ear, the ammonia in which actually did quell the pain somewhat. For the next several hours, my ear lobe was bright red and swollen, but it went down within the day. But for the next several days, there was a seriously sore nagging kind of itch behind my jawbone in the neck, ranging up to the ear. The venom must have managed to get to the mandibular nerve, and sat there.

Back in police academy, they taught us how to use the mandibular nerve as an effective pressure point for pain compliance techniques.  One technique was to place the thumb into the notch behind the jaw to activate the mandibular nerve, and the stiff blade of the hand rolled firmly into and across the philtrum to activate the infra-orbital nerve. This is called the "C-Clamp," and is pretty effective at getting an uncooperative person (especially if they are sitting, as in an automobile) to move where you want them to go, without causing injury. We practiced it on each other repeatedly in class, and the soreness behind my jaw felt a lot like it did after those pressure point classes, but with an extra kick. Today it finally feels better.

--The Subaru Outback that we bought had a lot of road noise in the rear. The salesman that demo'd the car to me assured me that it was a tire that needed replacing, with a broken belt in it. I didn't think so, and took it by my mechanic. He rode in the back seat, and pronounced the problem to be the right rear wheel bearing. He then got out his laptop, and I bought a new bearing for $79 and had it sent to him. I took the car to him yesterday. He chatted with me as he swapped out the bearing over a leisurely hour in his driveway. We hopped in the car to road test it, and it was silent. Success. I picked up some cash from the bank to pay the guy. This was undoubtedly why no one else had bid even $7k on a car that was about $30k six years ago. Success! The wife is happy (it's her car), which means that I'm happy.

-- The Outback has heated front seats, with a rheostat for each seat. This will be really useful for that weekend when the temperature drops below 30 degrees.

--I've signed up for a Public Administration graduate class this semester. Three hours. $1370. Good gawd.

--My old roommate Bill needs a gun to shoot his CHL class with. I'm borrowing Dad's Glock Kit, which is a .30 cal ammo can stuffed with a Glock 19, a loaded magazine, two spare magazines in a carrier, a Fobus paddle holster, a box of 9mm, and usually an oily rag to keep everything from rattling around. Dad keeps it as a quick and easy loaner kit, and frankly, I think that it's a great idea. It also would make a great car gun set, in its almost indestructible O-ring-sealed steel box. I need to set up something modular like that, myself.

--My 14-year-old daughter doesn't much want her picture taken. She's okay with her Dad, but she's aloof. Hugs are rare. The 10-year-old still loves to come hug Daddy. But I know that the time is coming when she'll be too cool for that, too. I expect these things. But it still makes my heart ache a bit when they come to pass.

--This weekend, I have to do some work on a state grant, and get a hunter's license, and get my text book, and install a new porch door for my mom, and get Bill his loaner gun, and speak to my university adviser, and... I better get moving.

A time to listen.

19 years ago last month, I took a trip with the woman who would eventually become my wife. We didn't know where we were going, really. We had a Ranger pickup, and some camping gear, and a very little bit of money, and a desire to go see some countryside.

We headed south, because we wanted to see the Hill Country. And we headed west, because we wanted to camp in the desert. We didn't know where we were going to camp until we pitched our tent, the first night, in the Monahans Sandhills.

We went on to explore the petroglyphs among the great climbing rocks at Hueco Tanks, because my father had told me of some interesting ones that he had found there. I went right to the ones that he was talking about. I had listened.

We went north from there, and, running on fumes, stopped at the entry to the Guadalupe Mountains National Park for directions for gas. The desk ranger laughed with a friendly smile, and advised me not to give up driving north; I had stopped 400 yards shy of a gas station just around the bend from the entrance. She invited us to come back to the park. 11 years later I did, and wished that I had come back earlier. But I had listened.

We got to Carlsbad, and saw the Caverns, and continued north to Carizozo, where we met the friendliest people I've ever met, who helped us with our ailing tire, and provided us shelter from a passing thunderstorm before giving us instructions to a (then) new campsite called Red Clouds, up in the mountains north. In these days of GPS, it is surprising to think that I found the remote campsite, up a gravel track miles off the secondary roads. But we did, and we marveled at the beauty of the oasis in the mountains, green and cool above the desert below. We had listened, and were glad.

We went on to Taos, and up into the Kit Carson National Forest, where another tire let go on us. We couldn't change it because the previous owner had put lock lugs on the tires, and they had been wallowed out by over-enthusiastic air hammering. We used a repaired foot pump every mile or so until we made it to a mountain general store, and learned that the last plug patch had been sold. A passing fly fisherman heard my plight, and pulled out from his truck an enormous tool kit, from which he removed a hammer and chisel, some giant Vise Grips and a breaker bar. He saved our trip, because he had listened. (The vacationing mechanic from Clovis would take no money.)

We went on to part of the Cibola National Forest, where if we had listened better, we would have donned some clothing before the National Guard helicopter flew over us at treetop level. We still laugh about that.

Then we drove home, across the droning emptiness that is far eastern New Mexico and West Texas. This is the Llano Estacodo that has worn out many a traveller with its sameness. It is miles and miles of miles and miles. For the first time in our trip, my someday-future-bride-to-be and I got snippy with each other. It was just the irritation that the nine-day trip was over, and our money was gone, along with our vacation time at our respective crappy jobs. But looking back, I fell in love with my wife on that trip. We listened to audiobooks on tape during that trip together (I recall Scott Turow's excellent Presumed Innocent was one.), which helped, but we also listened to each other. We told each other stories and anecdotes which are now old to each other.

Hear me: the roadtrip is an experience-building opportunity for you and your companion. In this case, my companion eventually became my lifelong companion. But I think back to trips that I've made with my father, and my best friend, and my roommates, which are benchmarks in our relationships. They're a great time to talk, and to listen to others.

We can't trust until we've unearthed the corruption.

Thanks for nothing, NOLA P.D.

You've helped create a national distrust of police that affects me every day that I work.

While the five New Orleans Police Department officers convicted today weren't found guilty of murder, they were found guilty of improper actions resulting in the unwarranted deaths of citizens, and the cover-up of the shootings on the Danziger Bridge.

I live a few hours west of New Orleans, and regularly am told that I simply have to visit the place. For the culture. For the food. For the history.

Y'all can keep that stuff. I'm not voluntarily going to a place where, when you're in trouble, you don't dare call the cops, because you're afraid that they're crooks, too.

Having never been to New Orleans, I have thus never left anything there, and have no reason to go there. From what I can see, it is our nation's greatest shame. Why didn't we just quit the town, after the hurricane?

Climate vacation

I was caught at a weak moment.

My wife and I had been talking about where we were going to go for our vacation. Somehow we had managed to get the same 10 day period off in July. We had talked about how we didn't have much money. We had talked about maybe taking the kids up to the foothills-called-mountains up in northeastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas.

I got distracted from finishing this conversation, when I was returned to it abruptly whilst in an attic.

Attics in Texas are not very fun places to be, in the mid-summer. In this one, I had just finished blowing insulation into it, and was cutting a hole for a gable vent. Because I was doing this in the morning, the temperature outside was still just under 100 degrees. The temperature inside the attic was a little hotter.

*Ring* [I scrabble to get my cell phone out of my pocket.]
"Hello?" [Sound muffled by my air filter.]
"Matt? Is that you?"
"Yes."
"It doesn't sound like you."
"It's me." [Getting a little annoyed, and trying not to fall through the ceiling from the joists that I can't see, buried under blown-in insulation. Finally, pulling up the filter and taking a gasp of dusty, insulation-enriched air.] "Now, can you hear me?"
"Yes. Better. So I've been thinking about where we're going for our vacation."
"Do we have to do this now? I'm in..."
"Yes. Now. Our elder child's in band camp that week, and our younger child can stay with your mother, and..."
"What?"
"I want to drop the hammer on tickets for you and me to Seattle."
"What's the price?" She told me.
"What about a car?" She quoted me a price for a rental with unlimited mileage.
"What's the weather doing up there?"
"Highs in the 60's. Unseasonably low temperatures."
"Do it."
___________

A week later, we were both moist in the face from our dash to the gate. (The remote lot that we had first gone to turned out to be full.) It wasn't dawn, yet, it was 81 degrees Fahrenheit. Today was going to be warm.

We finally landed in SEATAC airport at about 3:00PM their time. It was 64 degrees. I checked back home, where it was 5:00PM: 105. More than 40 Celsius. I felt no regrets for coming.

After getting our car and assuring the lady at the desk that we did NOT need the spacious luxury vehicle or the satellite radio, or the GPS, or the upgrade in insurance (good lord, the upgrades would have been double the price of the car rental), we headed south. I was a bit tired, so we stopped in Tacoma for a cuppa coffee.

Friends, they drink gooood coffee, up there. And the barristas know the name of the guy who roasted their bean. And the latte art is amazing. My wife laughed at herself for getting her mocha iced, out of habit. No need. It was cool out.

In Portland, we stayed at a friend's house. She was actually not there, but had left a key. She also had left a tiger trap. It seems that she'd been looking at replacing the wooden (!) grate over the updraft floor vent. I walked to the window to look at the view, and fell through, with my legs dangling into the basement. A small and ultimately unnecessary patch of skin the size of Montana was removed from the love handle covering the crest of the right ilium. As I flailed, I managed to chicken-wing my right elbow into a ceramic pot (RIP) and its brass stand (RIP). I like to think that they slowed my descent, ultimately caught at the right armpit and left leg.

Ever had the floor just fail to be where it should have been? You feel rather shocked and unable to explain yourself as you stop your descent. In this case, the crashing sound of me going through the sheet metal below the vent (removing about a yard of unnecessary skin on my right shin) made me terrified that I had oafishly broken the 1920's vintage Gibson banjo hanging on the wall about one foot from where I had fallen. I notified my friend (en route to a music festival), and she responded, "Holy crap! You're there for five minutes, and you're already breaking stuff!" I informed her with a sniff that, in my defense, I had actually been there for eight minutes.

Ibuprofen cures many ills, friends.

We continued south to Eugene, Oregon, and stayed with dear friends of my family, and ate like kings. Blake characteristically was cooking for his neighbor's wedding, which my wife and I were invited to. It was held outdoors. The groom wore walking shorts, and the bride wore a sun dress. The music was performed by a band of kazoos. As a man who's played a little kazoo in his time, I sat in with the band. The vows were moving. House finches played in the hemlock. We ate Texas barbecue. It was a great wedding, and I had only met the bride and groom 2 hours before the wedding. May they always be happy.

The next day, my bride and I went with friends to the Oregon Country Fair. This is not like a little local county fair, like I had grown up with. It's a gathering of hippies. Honestly, it's fun to step into their world, and see what they'd like to believe the world can be like. It was very clean. People were very friendly. They wore amazing costumes, or nearly nothing at all. (A cache sexe was required.) The food was good, the music was good, and the art was good. The weed was smoked only in designated places. No alcohol was served. Great coffee was. I met a friend from my youth (my best friend's little brother), just strolling around the 40,000 people, 1900 miles from home.

We came back to my friend's house tired and happy, and my friend Shannon brought out some GREAT local wines. (May I suggest the 2007 Gold Note Zinfandel?) We ate locally-caught grilled fish of four varieties. I had never eaten grilled sturgeon, and was surprised that it was every bit as good as the grilled tuna steak. Who knew? The salmon and the haddock were both good, too. My friend Shannon and her parents fought over who got to host us that night. That's a mighty hospitable position to be in, friends.

We went back north, ate pie and drank more great coffee with tiger-trap owner Meredith, and had her give us a tour of downtown. We went to the local Chinatown, and then couldn't resist an hour in Powell's. Don't know Powell's Bookstore? That's a shame. It's several stories on a city block, of what a used bookstore should be.

We continued on to Olympia, Washington, to visit my friend Billie Jean at her new house. It was cool and wet, and after an incredible dinner prepared by her boyfriend, I borrowed a jacket (forgot to pack one) to go for a walk with the dog with them. Olympia is a lot like Austin used to be-- small, friendly, easy to get around, and still the state capital. Austin, alas, is now overgrown and is hard to negotiate.

The next day, we visited my wife's neice in the oddly-named Sedro-Woolley, and held her new baby. Then we continued north to Canada.

The crossing was easy, as I had no weapons other than a Spyderco that John Shirley gave me for Christmas. We exchanged some money, and were shocked to realize that the U.S. dollar is now worth $0.95 Canadian. All my life, our dollar has been worth a fair bit more than the Canadian dollar. Now? Theirs buys more. Sad times, friends.

We stayed in Vancouver, and found it to be an interesting city. The Asian population there seems to make up half the city, and our hotel was in the Asian district. We had some congee soup. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good. Probably my last bowl.

We took the ferry to Vancouver Island to Swartz Bay.

These things are huge. Large trucks on deck level with the water. Passenger cars above that deck. Passengers in the decks above. The three lowest surface decks load at the same time. 30 miles for $15 isn't bad for passengers ($2 for your bike), though $60 seems pricey for a car. We left our car and cruised at 21 knots to Swartz Bay, and took a cab to Butchart Gardens. I can't do justice in explaining this place. It's a theme park for gardens. Each garden is like a ride. They do things there with flowers and color that I've never seen before. Good lord, it's lovely, and worth the trip. People come from all over the world to see these gardens, with good reason.

Well, for example, check out this view as you come through a tunnel in the trees to the Sunken Garden, a former limestone quarry that the owner's wife had started fixing up after it played out back in 1907:



It got better. My little Sony CyberShot literally could not process the depth and pop of the reds of some of the flowers, as witnessed by this washed out pic:

I cannot describe the fragrance. Intoxicating.



We bussed to Victoria, and found it to be a very pedestrian and bike friendly city. We stayed outside of downtown, and just walked in the next morning. We went to an organic bakery and coffeeshop and ate and drank things the likes of which I'd never had before. I demanded to speak to the baker, to thank her. The night before, we giggled when we saw the weather forecast, where they literally apologized for the cold weather, but reminded us that it could be worse: we could be in Texas, where it was 41 degrees (C) or hotter. I'm not kidding.

We bussed back to Swartz Bay and took a bigger ferry back, through the San Juan Islands, in what is now called the Strait of Juan de Fuca, lately called "The Salish Sea."

This trip is worth it for the sights to be seen on it, in its own right. Though it was chilly (64 degrees, humid, and with at least a 22 knot wind) out on the observation deck, it was worth stepping out to see the sights there.

Wear a sweater or a windbreaker.

We arrived back at the Tsawwassen ferry port, and drove back to the U.S. We coordinated on the way, and met up with Gay Cynic, who directed us to a fantastic seafood place (Duke's) where he took us to dinner. He let me buy dessert at a place on Capital Hill that he described as being like "a gay Denny's." We ate very, very well. He then showed us a very nice view of Seattle, where I stretched my camera's capability of taking night shots.

(Okay, okay-- the reason it's tilted is that I sat it on a post to take the timer shot.)

The next morning, as we were leaving the motel in Renton, my wife pointed up at a cellular tower over the motel parking lot. A nesting pair of osprey were flying to and from their giant nest of sticks built atop the tower.


I waited until I got the picture that I wanted:


We boarded our plane back to the heat of Texas very unhappily. We had ended our climate vacation.

We landed back in Texas just before midnight. It was 83 degrees. Back to life. Back to reality.

The next day it was 105 degrees again. That's 40.5, to you Canadians.

Got any pocket change?

I've got five... no, six! dollars, and 37 cents.

Let's all kick in and buy a Type 42 destroyer.

Sure, the engines and the guns are removed, but think of the fun we could have. I'm thinking that, once we've got some Mercury outboards mounted, we go make a run up and down the coast of Somalia.

I know whom I'm asking to captain her.

What, me?!? Are you kidding? Give up a gunport on the rails for a spot on the conn? You're out of your mind.

House Party XLIV

I turned in a request for 24 hours off this weekend, to burn some of the 400 hours of vacation and 80 hours worth of holiday time. I feel bad about having another guy work for me, but it's use it or lose it, y'know? Then too, there's the issue of where I went, and why.

Phlegmmy threw a bit of a shindig at her house for our beloved LawDog.

The food was rich and very plentiful. There was a case of Nerd Beer for LawDog (written on the side: "LawDog's! No Fraudulatin'!") And a case of Nerd Beer for the rest of us rabble.("Fraudulate all you want.")

The stories were thick and well-told. The weather, on Saturday evening, was shirt-sleeve-worthy. Christina, Vine, Old NFO, FarmGirl, Jennifer and EvylRobot, me and my wife, Phlegmmy, LawDog, Ambulance Driver, my dad and his bride, and others all chatted freely.

Old NFO (whom I cannot believe was not linked here. What the heck?!? My shame is boundless. I had him on my Favorites that I would click directly to him on my browser. Fixed.) handed me a couple of interesting pistols. There were grins when I double-checked each pistol before handling it. Apparently, this was something of a theme of the evening: EVERYONE multichecked each gun before handling. If only it were understood how common that action is among responsible gunfolk. I don't mean to say that it's absent-minded. I just mean to say that, when handed a firearm, I have the sudden urge to check the status of that gun that is as strong as the urge to pee after having a triple-iced-tea lunch.

Old NFO handed me a like-new S&W 637 that he's been talking about just flat giving me. I could not possibly accept such a generous gift without recompensing him with something, yet I couldn't afford to give him what it was worth. He kindly accepted a promise of a mere pittance from me. I later found out that Dad and Holly covered half of that! My heavens, but the generosity of the friends and family around me is amazing. Thank y'all. More on that gun in a later post.

EvylRobot brought his home-roasted coffee, which I incorrectly declared to be too darkly roasted, but which LawDog used his fancier French press to produce utterly superb coffee from. I restrained myself to only about 25 cups of that coffee. We reloaded the french press approximately 20 times during the weekend. Note to self: trust EvylRobot.

Ambulance Driver had called me earlier and asked if I wanted to go in with him on a nifty gift to LawDog: a signed first edition of Elmer Keith's hardcover book "Hell, I Was There!" I kicked in along with others (I'm sorry; I've forgotten), but this was all AD's idea.

My own meager contribution was a fair bit of good loose tea for LawDog, and some muslin bags to make teabags with on the run, and a couple of bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon for the the house, to belatedly celebrate Phlegmmy's housewarming.

As the air chilled and the hour got late, several of us retired to a very nice inn that was just two blocks away from Phlegmmy's house, and found our underpriced quarters to be very pleasant. We planned on going shooting in the morning after breakfast.

Come morning, a front had moved in. Shooting just didn't sound that fun. We broke our fast at a joint with heavy smoke coming from the barbecue pit. Note: ALWAYS choose the smoked meats at such a place. We camped at our tables until lunchtime, then moved back to the house, where we hung out into the Sunday evening. Phlegmmy fed us yet again with a very rich dish, of which I was only able to get two or three bowls* down.

I was glad to introduce my own wife to some people she had not met before, part of the tribe that I've become part of. She, ever the introvert, said little. She said she liked it.

LawDog, an introvert his ownself, was at home. He was among people that had come a fair distance to see him because they love him. He was at his home, with a lovely lady who admires and revels in him. I've seen the 'Dog stressed, and I've seen him happy. I don't think I'm speaking out of turn to suggest that he was happy, this weekend.

I hope my own 44th birthday is as good and filled with good cheer.

Happy birthday, friend.





_______________________
*Large bowls.

And this poor man doesn't think of himself as a libertarian, yet?

Big Bear is a man who just wants to go about his life peacefully.

He happens to be gay. The government says that he can't marry.

He happens to have family spread across the nation. The government says that he must be hassled more now than ever before when he flies.

He happens to wear a kilt.

Hilarity ensues.

Go read.

Can we just admit that the terrorists won?

Bin Laden and his ilk, as disgusting as they are, have been completely successful. They have succeeded even beyond their own wildest dreams: they've got us taking our own freedoms away, so that they don't have to.

We're handling crying little three year-old girls as they sob and scream "stop touching me!"

We're manhandling amputee librarians until they are driven to tears.

We're groping nuns.

Why? So that planes won't fall out of the sky? Or just crash for no apparent reason?

Recall that we got into this frenzy after a bunch of religious extremists took over aircraft with box cutters, 9 years ago. We mandated lockable, hardened cockpit doors. We allowed pilots to go armed. We changed policy from "do what they say at all costs." Our passengers have learned to attack their attackers.

This isn't working.

Fire the TSA, keep the locked cockpit doors and armed pilots, and use the savings to put a few more Air Marshals on the flights. Otherwise, take us back to September 10, 2001, or before.

In the mean time, opt out, and then formally lodge your complaints against what's going on.


___________________
Hat Tips:
Breda: First They Came For The Gimps "

Alan: Abolish The TSA "Like the war on (some) drugs, the negative externalities arising from the TSA are costing us dearly for no benefit."


Say Uncle: "Personally, I’ll be driving whenever it’s practical."

Nebraska 3. The Hunt.

The Farm
Jim showed us around the farm. He led us around a section of woodlots, corn, alfalfa, and soybeans. When he mentioned casually that the deer would regularly come out of a particular woodlot and walk along the open, cut alfalfa field, I took notice. A farmer knows his land, and it pays to heed his advice.

Vine and I wondered around the place. We found a flock of young turkey, and I briefly regretted not having picked up a turkey tag. But at $95 for an out of state tag, it seemed a bit high. I play by the rules, and so I wistfully watched the flock walk away from 20 feet. I could easily have taken one with the M37 2" Chief's Special I had with me.

I decided to simply sit in the shade of a round hay bale in the middle of the cut alfalfa field. (Blue dot in the middle of the green field, upper left quadrant, above.)

The Rifle
I had a .243 Winchester with me that I had bought a few years ago from friend Art Eatman. The rifle, which was his uncle's, is an interesting specimen. It is a Featherweight, and has serial numbers that show that the receiver was made in 1955, the year before the first Featherweight in .243 M70 was introduced. Obviously, a short-action receiver was milled, put in stock, and pulled down and put into service later. From my reading, this was common to pull parts from different eras to put on current production rifles. It makes sense, and is the esoterica that makes for long searches and proud finds by collectors. This rifle might have had some collector's value, but it's a shooter. It has been carried through many a field. When I bought it from Art a few years ago, he sent along some boxes of ammo that his uncle had loaded for it in 1965 and '66, which I found grouped under an inch. (The load, which was penciled on the side of the old boxes, was within acceptable parameters. Call me a risk-taker if you want.)

I pulled out of my borrowed backpack a copy of The Model 70 Winchester 1937-1964, by Dean H. Whitaker. If I had realized what this signed copy was worth*, I would never have carried it out hunting. Fortunately, it came through it all right. As it amused me that I was using a pre-'64 Winchester Model 70 rifle as a book rest for a book on pre-'64 Winchester Model 70 rifles, I took a snapshot with the Nikon camera that Vine had loaned me.**


The Hunt

The situation was about as good as I could hope for. Clear skies, a cool (59 degree) breeze to my face, the sun to my back. Vine had wondered off to a meadow on the other side of the woodlot, to my right. A stand of corn was south of me, to my right. I didn't even bother looking straight ahead of me, because that zone was too close to the direction Vine was hunting in. I wanted to keep about 90 degrees of shooting arc away from him. Probably a 100 grain Nosler wouldn't make it through that woodlot to him, but why chance it?

I got chilly. The round bale that I was leaning against to break up my outline provided good shade, and I was lightly dressed. I stood up on the south side of the bale, and watched the tree line to the NE of me, as I read the book now propped on the bale.

The sun got lower, and the light changed. The Golden Hour commenced. I have seen more deer in the last hour of the day than all of the other 23 hours put together. I found that I paid less and less attention to the book, and finally just closed it. I looked at.... there. On cue, the large doe and her yearling stepped out of the woodlot to my northeast, and began to browse the alfalfa. I took a picture of them, and figured the range. Just shy of 200 yards. I watched them for 10 minutes to see if they got closer. Then it occurred to me that, if they got much closer, they would be decreasing my arc toward Vine. I took a rest on the bale, and shot the doe. (Red dot, above and to the right of the blue dot, in picture above.)

As seen before, I was at about 3.5" high at 100 yards. With that bullet at 3.3", the zero would be at ~270 yards, given that the 100g Nosler SPBT (B.C. .446) bullet was starting at 2850 fps (44g RL 22). I later paced the distance of the shot to 185 yards. I held dead on, and shot her in the right side chest. She ran into the nearby woodlot. I considered shooting her again, but given that the shot felt good, a second shot, highly likely to miss at the running deer, would just urge her to continue running. I held further fire.

Unless all was amiss, I knew that I had hit her well. She had run off without a reaction, but that's not uncommon for well-shot deer. I knew not to go after her for about 20 minutes.

I walked over to the spot that she had been standing in. Good blood.

At about this time, Vine arrived. We agreed to wait out the remaining 15 minutes, and went to get his truck, and my iron-sighted Springfield to go into the dark woodlot.

As we arrived at his truck (yellow dots), parked on the west end of the farm, Vine observed deer coming out of the woods at the joint with the corn field, east of us. We went prone, and he shot a good doe with his '06 Remington 700 scout rifle (purple dot), and I missed a young yearling. The doe, which was visibly hit hard, ran into the corn or the woods (south, at any rate), and the yearling and its sibling began running toward us. This is not uncommon. The bullets from the shots fired had struck the ground or brush behind the deer, and they heard that over the reports of the rifle. They galloped on toward us. We put the two yearlings down, at the very edge of the corn field. They each rolled into the corn.

I discovered that corn fields are deceptively good at hiding downed deer. It took us 20 minutes to find the deer at the edge of the field. One was four rows in, the other, only one.

My large doe, Vine found by smell, as we were entering the woodlot. The exiting bullet had pierced the gut. We dragged her out, and figured her weight at about 185 lbs on the hoof. She had managed to go between 30 and 40 yards.

The other doe, we searched for for hours. We searched in the woods. We searched in the corn. We retired for the night (there was a hard frost that night), and got up early to look for her again (this was when I took the video). There was no question that she was hit hard by Vine's .30-'06. There was no question that the deer was dead. But we finally had to accept that she was not recoverable. As ethical hunters, this pained Vine and me immensely. We don't like to waste meat. I'm convinced, based upon what I saw, that she didn't last much more than a minute. But we never found her.

The Meat

We had hung the field-dressed deer the night before, and we quartered the deer for the trip to Vine's house. At his house, we butchered the meat, and packaged it. We pan-fried some cutlets for supper.

Vine loaned me a cube cooler with the meat that I took home. Once back home, with no ice it it, I found that the full cooler weighs 67 pounds. The cooler by itself likely weighs 10 lbs. Thus there is 57 lbs of lean, boneless meat to put up. It's currently chilled with dry ice. Time to make the sausage.

_________________

*More than I paid for the scoped rifle.

**Strangely, the camera date is off. The date was actually October 2nd.