Category: OCF

Pleasant Fiction and Painful Reality

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Today was a fiction writing day.  I made some good progress on the plot.  But I was stymied on an aspect of the story that only recently occurred to me.  What I realized is that one of my main characters doesn’t have enough back story.  He has a reasonably well-defined personality but he’s floating alone in his little bubble of the story.  I need to tell the readers why he is the way he is.  So, I started making up this past in my head but then I realized I need a way to have him tell this info to the readers.  That’s an awful lot of exposition.  So, what I’ll do is come up with a situation where the protagonist and this character are involved in some scene where they’re trapped together and forced to wait for some crisis to pass and that’s when I’ll have them swap histories.  To make it more natural I’ll have them both talking about their pasts.  In the context of both of them not knowing if they’re about to be killed it makes it a little more likely, emotionally, for them to be talking about their lives.

And one other problem remains.  Where does the story end?  This will be a series of books and I want to end the first book with a bang but I have to make sure that the empire will be able to strike back.  So, I have to leave enough villains to allow them to regroup.  Maybe there’s more to this writing thing than I thought.

I saw a news article that said that the FBI took Trump’s passports.  Isn’t that just too cute of them?  Apparently, they’re pulling out all the stops.  I think that’s good.  November should be the perfect storm.  We should know for sure whether there’s any hope of fixing the system.  And if the Deep State commits themselves to every banana republic tactic and holds nothing back then we’ll have no doubt about whether this is our best-case scenario.  If the mid-terms aren’t a referendum on Biden’s incompetence and the Deep State’s unconstitutional behavior then there is no conceivable way, we’ll ever push them out of power.  And it doesn’t matter whether it’s an honest election or not.  A loss for us either way says to me that it’s all over.

And I don’t say that in a melodramatic way.  On Wednesday November 9th if the Democrats still hold the House and Senate, I won’t be donning sackcloth and sifting ashes into my hair.  I won’t even put a for sale sign up in front of the Compound.  But I will be weighing my options and making some changes.  After all, living in a country that is run by an oligarchy that is proven to have an unshakeable lock on the levers of power and is also clearly working to disenfranchise your family isn’t necessarily the best option, even if it is the richest and most powerful country on the planet and has always been your home.

So, I’ll think long and hard about what’s best for me and mine.  I’m sure I’ll have plenty of company in that contemplation.  The 2020 election fraud was a shock.  But with the COVID lockdown being used to allow all kinds of irregularities it left a question as to whether the fraud could be reined in afterward.  If it’s repeated this year then it can be repeated indefinitely.  If the Justice Department can run two kinds of “justice” then we’ve already ceased to be a legitimate state.  So, many people will be reflecting on these facts.

But, enough of that gloomy talk.  Tomorrow is Liz Cheney’s Primary Day.  I intend to enjoy that event to its fullest.  Maybe she’ll give a tearful concession speech or a defiant vow to be back on top someday soon.  But either way I will savor the moment.  Quoting Khan Noonien Singh (or actually Herman Melville) “to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee,” I revel in the spite inherent in punishing the RINOs.  It’s the only thing that we can do to redress the injuries these people inflict on us every day.  The least we can do is celebrate their defeat.

Summertime and the Living is Easy

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Day after day of bright sunny weather has spoiled me.  I’m now hopelessly cheerful which is disastrous for a conservative blogger in Creepy Uncle Joe’s America.  Whereas I should be railing against runaway inflation and fascistic FBI activities, I’m too happy.  Whenever I get bored in the house I go outside into the blinding light and I feel my batteries recharging.  This Saturday is the last big summer party of the season and I’m anticipating the fun of seeing all the kids one more time before they have to start school again.  Burgers and dogs, sausage and peppers, potato salad and watermelon, lemonade and ice cream, and ricotta cheese cake.  Just a great way to end a nice hot summer.

I’ve been watching good movies and eating good food for the last couple of days.  Brando in Julius Caesar, Mutiny on the Bounty, A Streetcar Named Desire.  Chicken chop suey and homemade chicken pot pie.  Even watching that goofy Wolf Man movie the other day was a summer indulgence.  The end of summer edges us closer to the next milestone of the calendar, Halloween.  And that means classic monster movies and not so classic horror movies.  And that spells shorter days and the first nip of frost in the air.

Last night it was fifty degrees.  The cooling trend is there.  Backsliding into the mid-eighties is predicted for next Thursday and onward but the writing is on the wall.  Soon the air conditioners will be put away for another year.  Lemonade will be off the menu and hot coffee back on.  Watermelon will give way to apples and hot soup will reassert itself in the weekly menus that Camera Girl will present me with.  And all of this should make me SAD (seasonal affective disorder) but somehow, it’s just too bright and sunny to work the trick.  Maybe September will work its melancholy magic on me.  But until Labor Day rings the bell on summer I can’t seem to believe in winter just yet.

Looking a little ahead we have “Liz Cheney Appreciation Day” coming up on Tuesday.  That’s gonna be a humdinger.  I have to see what special celebration I’ll select for that.  I’ll try to capture my joy in a special schadenfreudian post that sings the praises of representative democracy when it actually works.  Also, Camera Girl has promised to bake me a huckleberry pie from real Montana huckleberries.  Wednesday, I meet with the Dunwich Committee to Re-elect Cthulhu.  Thursday and Friday I’ll have my chores in support of Saturday’s party and Sunday will be the cleanup.  By next Monday I’ll try to develop some post-summer let-down.  That will stand me in good stead when trying to summon the gloom and doom needed to opine about the current state of this fallen republic.  I’m sure by then Biden or one of the other odious carbuncles that supposedly run this country will have offended the public decency with various high crimes and misdemeanors.  By then I’ll have built up a level of bile sufficient to vent my spleen at these toads.

But until then I’m just too darn merry to groan.  I’ve got thousands of Yellowstone photos to review and process.  I’ve got a load of bug photos from around the grounds and I’ve got repair projects to address.  So, pardon me if I whistle a happy tune and luxuriate in the season.  Misery is sure to have its day soon.  La dolce vita.

Celebrating the Rituals of Summer in Stalinist America

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So yesterday Camera Girl and I travelled to our favorite seaside paradise to celebrate the sun and surf with all of my descendants and their spouses in the appropriate fashion.  There was swimming, boogie boarding, sand castles, crab hunting, sea shell collecting and sun bathing.  Afterwards there was way too much fattening food and an enormous portion of ice cream.

All this was followed by various board games.  I was unsurprised to discover how many of my descendants were very good chess players.  But the game that they really got excited about was Yahtzee.  Now I’ve been known to join in the game.  But I was shocked by the maniacal chants of “bonus Yaht” that echoed around the vacation house as an inordinate number of these five of a kind dice throws occurred.  In fact, I volunteered the opinion that the dice were loaded.  These shrieking fanatics, which included Camera Girl, paid no attention to my analysis and cheered the shocking luck.  But it was impossible to deny that I had a better time watching this game than I can remember watching any professional sports game in the last dozen years.

This morning we got up early and were treated to a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, potatoes and sweet bread by our host.  Then we took a walk on the boardwalk and saw the sights such as they are.  Unfortunately, one of the destinations was a souvenir shop where Camera Girl added two more hermit crabs to her colony.  Princess Sack of Potatoes finds these shell-shifting crustaceans fascinating so Camera Girl uses them as an attraction which gives her leverage over the diminutive royalty.  Apparently spending time with these invertebrates is a bargaining chip for such behavioral manifestations as hand washing, vegetable ingestion and cooperation at nap time.

So, I forked over the card and even carried the paper bag containing these refugees from a seafood bar.  And before we knew it the trip was over.  We weren’t staying the whole week like the younger contingent.  As the elder statesman my mission was to give the benediction that confirmed that the next generation had mastered the skills needed to host a family event at Old Orchard Beach (OOB).  And then to get out and leave enough room for the young to enjoy the facilities so full of my descendants.

As we drove home, we reflected on all the traditions that we built up over the couple of decades that we brought our kids to this seaside town in Maine.  And now the torch is passed and the grandkids are getting to do the same things.  When we first moved to New England, we tried the more popular resorts on Cape Cod.  But not only were they very expensive but the atmosphere was too refined.  There was too much antiquing and bicycle paths and not enough bumper cars and roller coasters.  So, I asked an engineer friend of mine who was about thirty years older than I was where could I bring a bunch of kids on vacation that was actually fun.  He said, “OOB.”  Apparently, it was the working-class destination I was looking for.  What it lacked in cachet it more than made up for with a nice white sand beach and clean water.  And the rest is the family dynamic of enjoying the company of your kids.

And while I was driving the considerable distance back to the Compound, I reflected that even under an Orwellian regime like the Biden gang there is still an inner life that can be cultivated with the people who really count.  Sure, we don’t have much money.  With the economy crashed we’re all struggling to make ends meet.  But it doesn’t cost much to play Yahtzee.  And even I still have hermit crab money.  So even in a banana republic life goes on and summer must be celebrated.  So, I’ll put off my despair over the Stasi raids and the 86 million new IRS agents for another day when I’m not as happy and contented.  Bonus Yaht!

The Big Heat

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This early in the Dunwich winter (August 1st to June 30th), we can still have temperatures in the nineties.  Today the grandkids and their friends were in the pool and so we vacuumed it last night.  And Camera Girl’s garden is filled up with various squash varieties; zucchini, spaghetti and butternut.  I took a look at it today and found a medium sized frog hiding among the squash.  I guess he was working for me keeping the bugs off the vegetables.

And the last of the daylilies are blooming like crazy.  In another week they’ll be gone.  So, the swallowtails and the monarchs are flitting around them like their lives depended on it.

And the heat was like a wave of energy radiating from the grass and the plants.  I could feel it in the skin of my face and the hair on my arms.  It seared my lungs when I breathed it.  It made me feel intensely alive.  So, I took a bunch of photos of flowers and butterflies and a couple of the frog.

Looking over the various news items is depressing.  Not because things are getting worse but simply because they are so pathetic.  There is a consensus that no one wants Joe Biden running for re-election, not even Democrats.  But the powers that be haven’t figured out how to force Creepy Uncle Joe into a hospice.  I think they’ll probably get a veterinarian to put him to sleep.  It would be cheaper.

Most of the opinion pieces today align with what I expect the publication’s readership would want to hear.  Lots of cheerleading.  As I said, even though things are trending in our favor right now, I find myself a little down due to just how abysmally bad the state of the world is.  What can you say about the state of the world when we’re forced to choose sides between the Chi-Coms and Nancy Pelosi?  How do you win that bet?

I was having a discussion with an old friend and we were sort of talking about this same thing, the pitiful state of the world.  And I was making the point that we have to stop expecting a big victory that will fix all these awful things.  These awful things are the baseline conditions of our times and it’s up to us to fix them in our own lives.  Sure, we can hope to elect better leaders but what we have to do is find solutions in our own lives.  Your kids are the only future there will be for your world view.  Teaching them what you believe to be true and right is your best chance of saving them from the groomers.  Giving them a good education is the best way of preparing them for making a decent living.  Helping them get on their feet is the way to pay forward the help you were given by your parents.

Of course, I was preaching to the choir but I thought it was worth saying it out loud.  Sometimes we can let ourselves get discouraged and then we need to put things in perspective.  Regardless of what Washington or the Blue State leaders say is policy, we have access to our kids and we can do an awful lot to shape their minds and souls.  And we need to make that our priority.

Saying those things out loud actually helped my mood.  I walked away from the computer screen and spent some time annoying Camera Girl.  I could sense that she needed valuable feedback from me on what she was making for dinner and stuff.

Next week we’re going to spend a day and a night up in Old Orchard Beach, Maine with the grandkids and their parents.  This will be a kind of revival of sorts.  About twenty-five years ago we started going there with our kids in the summers.  There’s an old-style amusement park with rides, bad fried food and crooked carnival games.  The beach is actually quite nice and compares favorably to any of the other East Coast resorts in terms of white sand and clean water.  I’ll get to walk down the beach with Princess Sack of Potatoes just as I did with her mother when she was that age.  And I’ll probably have to carry her when she gets too lazy to walk back.  The littlest boy will fly a kite on the sand and dig a sand castle.  And if I’m not careful I’ll be pummeled by him in the bumper cars at the amusement park.  And all of that is the fun part of paying forward what my parents and grandparents did for me.  Spending time with these people is the reason we do all this.  Otherwise, we might as well give up and let the whole world go to hell.

The Last Day of July 2022

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“August up ahead. Sure. But the way things are going, there’ll be no machines, no friends, and darn few dandelions for the last harvest.” – Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

Today is the last day of July.  So, tomorrow is the first official day of winter in Dunwich.  I know that seems odd but it’s true.  July is the only truly bulletproof month of the year.  By the end of August weird freaky cold spells can happen and June is certainly no proof against frost.  Also, it’s only in July that heat can blast all the cold out of old bones and a soul and convince you that there is still some kernel of boy left in an old man.

Of course, I’m ignoring the multitude of annoying problems of summer.  Mosquitoes, poison ivy, wearing hats and sunscreen, stifling houses, watering plants, cutting grass, etc. etc. etc.  But all of that pales into insignificance when you sit on a porch and listen to the crickets chirp and watch the fireflies flash.

And if you’re gathering with friends and family, it’s especially nice.  The long, long days of July have enough time for all the fun (and the chores) that go along with summer.  By definition the Fourth of July cookout is the cornerstone of the month but there is room for a bunch of barbecues and parties.  This year we lured the grandkids over a bunch of times to swim in the pool.  And that of course means taking care of the pool which is a royal pain but the reward ratio is still plenty high to make up for it.

Well today is the end.  August is a summing up.  It’s rushing in whatever is left to do and making sure to start getting ready for what comes next.  For the kids that’s school and fall.  For adults it’s beginning to put away all the summer stuff and prepare the winter equipment.  So, I’m going to enjoy today for sure.

Yesterday was a family get together.  A younger nephew had a birthday party and my kids and grandkids showed up with other of my siblings and their kids.  Over pizza for the kids and some very good Italian appetizers we talked about this and that.

I had an interesting discussion about a report I read about how faked biomedical research on Alzheimer’s disease has set back the course of finding a cure at least fifteen years.  The feedback was that fake research and shoddy peer review is now endemic and that science is thoroughly infected with quackery.  This jibes with the growing pseudoscience of climate change and all the nonsense that gets reported as research in the social sciences and psychology.

And maybe we’re kidding ourselves and it’s always been like this.  But it does seem to me that the public has reached a point where gullibility is dangerously high.  The COVID madness proved that supposed adults will do anything they’re told if it’s wrapped in a government program.

But for me it’s just one more reminder that we’re not “all in this together.”  Critical thinking and maintaining options may save your life and definitely will save you a lot of grief and money.  The Left has clearly shown us what they intend to do.  They’re looking to make us serfs.  It behooves us to work with whatever resources and allies we have to make that as hard as possible.

Well, anyway, enjoy July Thirty First.

 

 

And then, quite suddenly, summer was over.

He knew it first when walking downtown.  Tom grabbed his arm and pointed gasping, at the dime-store window.  They stood there unable to move because of the things from another world displayed so neatly, so innocently, so frighteningly, there.

“Pencils, Doug, ten thousand pencils!”

“Oh, my gosh! ” – Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

photog Pitches In

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So, this was the tail end of a baby-sitting marathon by Camera Girl.  One of my daughters had a five-day anniversary trip postponed earlier in the year by illness and rescheduled during my marathon trip to Yellowstone.  So not only was Camera Girl watching my young granddaughter on Monday, Wednesday and Friday but she was also watching my two younger grandsons from Tuesday to Saturday (today).

Being the highly evolved and supportive husband that I am, I provided all the help of which I am capable.  This consists of me saying things like, “Honey, are these kids allowed to do this?” and “Do you want me to take them outside while you shop, cook dinner and clean the house?”  Of course, that would be under perfect circumstances.  This weekend I’m jet-lagged, dehydrated and have a sore elbow so I restricted my athletic events with the kids to watching them in the swimming pool, playing billiards and being beaten at chess by young children.  The infamy!

Seriously I used to kid myself that I didn’t have to learn about chess strategy.  I was so smart that my instincts would carry me through with anyone below a grandmaster.  Apparently, grandmasters nowadays are really short and have squeaky voices.  My older younger grandson beat me three games running before I finally got a grip and distracted him enough to win.  Then the littlest guy gave me a run for my money in which I barely squeaked out a win.

But between these duties I had a chance to read a bunch of news and opinion articles.  It seems the Left and the Fake Right are trying to convince us that there is powerful evidence that the January 6th Investigation has turned the tide of public opinion across America and made electing Democrats all the rage.  Apparently, Bison Man cavorting in Nancy Pelosi’s office is much more compelling stuff than $5 gasoline, $10 hamburgers and teachers grooming children for sterilization.

Now we’re supposed to believe this notwithstanding that this week Creepy Uncle Joe bottomed out below -20 points in the approval/disapproval scorecard for the first time in his presidency.  Apparently the most unpopular president on record is leading the way to a Democrat landslide in the mid-terms.  I guess it’s possible.  But I’m gonna say no.

Other stuff I read seems more like the beginning of panic.  One guy kept asking how the polls could be so skewed against the Democrats when the Trump Republicans are just so evil.  That one was really funny.

Another pundit was worried by a strategy on the Left of voting in the Republican primaries for what they considered “far right” Republicans in the hope that this would increase the chance of Democrats winning in the general election.  This pundit was truly scared that this would backfire and decrease the number of RINOs by electing actual conservatives.  Terrifying!

One little ray of good news did leak through this week.  That Latino guy who was charged with second degree murder for defending himself against some crazy guy attacking him in the bodega where he works had the murder charge dropped.  Apparently, New York Mayor Adams put pressure on the DA and judge to recognize the self defense aspect of the situation and ended this travesty of justice.  Who knows?  Could some sanity begin to reassert itself in New York City?  Nah.

Now that the grandkids will be away for a day or so I can try to start catching up on my writing and pictures from the trip.  But I have to say it looks like time is running out on the Biden administration.  I saw he tried to declare a climate emergency this week but nobody cared.  It’s not like he can wave an energy wand and terawatts of power will just start flowing into the grid from rainbow fairy dust.  He’s out of make believe and the economy is starting to grind to a halt.  It will be interesting to see if they pull the plug on his presidency before or after the mid-terms.  Either way, I’m thinking we’re about to see some really ugly stuff soon.  Enjoy the summer.

Return to Reality?

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So here I am thirty-six hours after returning from the wilderness where for the most part I had no internet access or information on what was going on in the world for the last two weeks.  And to be totally honest I can’t detect any change in the status quo.

Sure, Joe Biden’s approval rating has sunk three or four more points.  The economy has continued to sink into stagflation.  And the progressive cabal is still doing everything it can to destroy what’s left of the American people.  But headlines from two weeks ago look more or less the same as today’s.

What did change was that I had a chance to relax and think a little about the state of the world.  And I even had a chance to talk to different people about what they thought was going on.  And what I heard reinforced what I’ve been thinking.  Basically, the elites have the rest of us by the throat.  The mask is off.  We and they are not “us.”  They’re calling the shots and unless we want to lick their boots (and even if we do) they’re going to do whatever they can to make us disappear.

I heard the code words and talking points from both sides.  Listening to the conversations among the members of the managerial class on vacation with their families and among the deplorables was edifying.  Even out there in the middle of nowhere with grizzly bears and bison as your closest neighbors, people talk about the 2020 election and the 2022 elections and the January 6th Charade and the economy.  And it couldn’t be more polarized.  The so-called Republicans who hate Trump are searching for a way to get rid of Biden without facing up to the reality that Donald Trump will still be there in 2024.

The reality that I see is we’re just going to have to grind this out.  Any talk of bipartisanship is a ploy.  I read an article from Bret Stephens, a Never-Trumper, in which he tries to apologize for calling Trump voters “moral ignoramuses” but can’t quite do it.  After all they still want to vote for Trump now after the unforgiveable sin of January 6th.  Stephens’ point is that Republicans can’t really want closed borders, safe streets and fair elections because then Trump wins and that is beyond the pale.  From my point of view there is no meeting these people in the middle.  Whether they are progressives or establishment Republicans there is no middle.  It’s capitulation or war.  So, it’s war.

And I’m totally alright with that.  They are going to pull out all the stops.  There will be BLM riots and Antifa intimidation.  The administrative state and the Biden executive orders will make our lives a living hell.  But that’s nothing new.  And the sum total of all this misery is crystallizing the opinion in more and more people of every stripe that the Democrats and their allies are destroying this country in order to satisfy their agenda.

Green energy and the New World Order’s war with Russia are making middle class life impossible for everyone but the members of the elite.  And their war on the police has turned the cities into death traps.  This is the perfect time to see if the elections are completely rigged.  If the Democrats win the mid-terms in this environment, then what the dissident right says about not being able to vote our way out of this mess is verifiably true.  But if there is a landslide that crashes the Democrats in both Houses then that seems like a very hopeful sign to me.

It’s only four months away.  Seems like something worth waiting around to see.  So apparently camping out in the middle of nowhere isn’t really shutting out the world.  It’s more like proving that a microcosm reflects the macrocosm.  People are who they are.  Whether they’re waiting to see a grizzly bear chew on a bison carcass or tweeting about Trump.  They show their true colors.  That’s reality.

Yellowstone Expedition – Post 5

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Now that I’m back I can start gathering my thoughts and describe various natural history facets of my trek.  But I think I’ll start with the adventure that is flying back and forth to this crazy corner of Wyoming (with just little slivers of Montana and Idaho added because of rounding errors on the map.

On the trip out the most memorable event was the taxi ride to the airport.  Instead of picking me up at 4:30 as they recommended, I got a call at 3 am stating the driver was outside waiting for me.  Luckily, I was up and packed but what I wasn’t ready for was my driver.  She was very old, very obese and she wanted to tell me her story.

She volunteered that she had had a driving accident a year ago and this was her first ride since recovering.  She also told me that at night she couldn’t see the road because of the lights of the oncoming drivers.  And to demonstrate the truth of this statement she several times wandered onto the rumble strip when there was oncoming traffic.  Then she told me about her drug dealer neighbor and her abusive bosses who want her to drive faster.  And finally, she told me about her cancer.  When we finally pulled up to the airport, I gave her a good tip and fled her cab like my life depended on it.

The rest of the outgoing journey was uneventful.  But on the way home things got interesting.  From Bozeman to Denver everything went smoothly.  I even managed to have a very nice Reuben sandwich plate in Denver.  And when I was ensconced in my window seat with no one in the middle seat I thought my flight home would be relaxing and comfortable.  Ah, foolish me.  As our departure time approached a thunder storm engulfed the airport and stowing baggage had to be postponed until the lightning subsided.  When the plane was ready to take off twenty minutes later, we were behind six planes on the tarmac.  By the time we took off we were thirty-five minutes behind schedule.

It turned out the row behind me in the back of the plane was occupied by a single father and his two sons, Mal and Max.  I’d guess their ages as four and six.  The six-year-old, Max, was sitting behind me and he early demonstrated that kicking the back of my seat with both feet was something he needed to do.  His father begged him endlessly to stop kicking it but the boy responded by going into hysterics.  Finally, I told the father to switch seats with his son so the son could kick the back of the empty seat next to me.  This worked but it couldn’t prevent me from having to listen to the endless screeching from both boys demanding that they be allowed to leave the plane.  Somewhere over Kansas or Missouri I contemplated how I could help them fulfill this wish.  But eventually I rejected the idea and spent the rest of the flight contemplating which of my earlier crimes was being atoned for by my proximity to these howling lunatics.

As we travelled along our flight path, we were constantly surrounded by a line of thunderstorms that buffeted the plane.  Somewhere in the Midwest we took a detour to escape these storms and this caused our arrival time to slip further.  And finally, before landing the captain came on the radio to inform us that the long runway was unavailable to us so we would be making a screeching halt on the short runway.  And he wasn’t kidding.  The plane hit the ground and skittered around the runway like a jitterbug.  Inevitably the terror twins behind me were inspired to even louder ululations of outrage at their imminent demise.  But as we bounced to a stop, I smiled knowing it would all soon be over.  How wrong I was.

The captain came on the intercom again and in a jovial manner explained that we had been given a different gate but that there already was a plane at that gate and we would have to wait about twenty minutes to use it.  This twenty-minute delay and the time it took for the rest of the passengers to exit the plane in front of us sparked a performance from Mal and Max that can only be equated with some passages from Dante’s Inferno.  I’m surprised none of the stewardesses administered a tranquillizer dart from across the cabin but toward the end I would have welcomed a bullet in my direction just to distract me.  Finally, as the moment approached, I turned around and told the father of the M & M boys to leave ahead of me.  He thanked me and I assured him no thanks were necessary.  I left the plane last.  I wanted as much space between me and those whirling dervishes as I could arrange.  The last I saw the two of them were attempting to push their poor bedeviled father down an escalator.

So here I was at 12:30 am, about an hour after my scheduled arrival.  I gathered up my luggage and headed for the taxi stand.  By some miracle the taxi was still there and the driver wasn’t the poor pathetic woman who had driven me out.  She had made it seem that she was the only driver on the night shift and I was dreading the suicide run she was fully capable of providing.  Instead, it was a younger guy who drove with considerable skill and speed and I was home in record time.  I gave him an even handsomer tip and was greeted by Camera Girl with marked warmth even considering the fact that I badly needed a shower.

So, there is my tale of woe.  Now that I’ve recovered from the trip it almost seems silly to let things like these bother me.  But at the time I had dark thoughts about the way the universe was being organized.  In the next post I’ll limit myself to a photo exposition of Yellowstone natural history.

Biden’s Approval Rating – The Gift That Keeps On Giving

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While I was gone Creepy Uncle Joe broke through the -20 point approval/disapproval rating.  Isn’t it a beautiful thing?  Well I’ll be winging across America today but I won’t be home until the wee hours of the night so this is just a howdy to all the folks out there in the interwebs.

I’ll do my homework and start making fun of progressives almost immediately.  Enjoy the summer sun.

 

2022 Yellowstone Expedition – Post 1

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So I’ve been here in Wyoming for almost a week and it has been amazing.  I’ve seen wolves, bison, grizzlies, cinnamon black bears, pelicans and other beasties.  We’ve visited the thermal effects, climbed the mountains, visited the lakes and rivers and made an excursion to the Tetons for a couple of days.

I’ll have photos for weeks but I’ll start off with one that I quite like.