Rosco and the Chronicles of Narnia

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Rosco and the Chronicles of Narnia

It was the spring of my 22nd year. Like most, or practically all guys that age, there were a few things which could and would inexorably attract my undivided attention. One thing in particular. Most of you know what I mean.

Now it is 40 years later and when the occasion presents itself, I (usually) get just as interested. But I am not waiting expressly for those occasions very much. I am just about as interested in beer, beer with the guys, beer alone, dressing up in hockey-goalie equipment and getting abused by whoever my companions are at the time, responding when the writing muse strikes (or, usually, merely whispers in my direction), soaking in hot water, and the juxtaposition of place and climate and time for a nap.

However. I had an on-again off-again girlfriend. She would get the mood sometimes, and if I was lucky, I was around. I was in the mood all the time. But that didn’t matter — the ring on the merry-go-round would present itself on rare occasions, so I had to be eternally vigilant.

We were talking one day. She mentioned a series of books she had read and enjoyed, and I said that I didn’t know a thing about them.

She measured me with a steady gaze. I can’t remember exactly how she said it, but she would withhold certain, shall we say, favors, until I read those books.

Turkish Dee lite !

It may have been within minutes, at most the next day, but I rushed down to the Boulder Public Library. Reading those books became the foremost and most important objective of my life. Well, a means to an end.

I obtained a Member’s Library Card. Where the heck were those books? The Children’s Section, of course.

I was slightly embarrassed, but as I said, there was a very important result to be obtained. So, I became familiar with venturing to that section where the only other adults were there with their children.

There was a young man in charge, and he tried to diffuse my not-completely-convincing attempts to act un-embarrassed.

“This is a great series. It doesn’t matter how old you are. And,” he conspiratorially whispered, “I still read these myself.”

I checked out volume one and sauntered home quickly to read it. I had to admit, that even without the incentive, this was fun. I was immersed in the C S Lewis world and knew that I would enjoy subsequent visits.

Narnian.world.map[1]

Girlfriend-at-the-time gave me the Book Quiz. I knew all the important character’s names, their relationships, how they got there, what was going on, what destiny intended to be going on, how the story ended. And I was awarded my prize.

I checked out the second book in the series. A couple days later, I’m back for book number three. She probably had an ulterior motive, perhaps several motives, but I was hooked. If the star by my name during the summer-school reading program was not to be issued, the probability that I’d still read the remainder was not miniscule. Never-the-less, to my delight, there were a half-dozen or so books remaining.

Oh, that all assignments in school, and in life itself, had incentives like this. Having said/written that, it could easily be argued that yes, all assignments do, indeed, have, if not the same exact incentive, an incentive which is identical in other unforeseen and equivalent ways.

Thirty or so years later, the Chronicles of Narnia movies started coming out. I’ve seen them all so far, and I wonder, sitting in the audience, if I’m the only one who views the screen with a curious mixture of romantic tugs from the past, the shreds of actual memory of the story line, and waiting to see what happens next.

Aslan2005[1]

Beyond Parkour

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BEYOND PARKOUR

naked_bluMesa

(My WP buddy, BlueInThisLight, posted a “parkour'” experience recently, and)

We all, all of us,

have, haven’t we? traveled REALLYfast THROUGHtime &SPACE, perhaps instantaneously, at least once.

I read “Mitch the Singing Cowboy”s remembrance of performing parkour as he was chased by a 2700-pound bull when he was 10 or so years old.  A spark (or, if you don’t think my clouded mind has the necessary ingredients for combustion, perhaps something akin to even a primitive form of pre-ignition) went off in my head.  There was an occurrence in my life where I, and a friend, translocated instantaneously several dozen yards when we felt our lives were in danger.

“Allow me to explain.”

I used to study paranormal and psychic phenomena, and the term “translocation” meant the ability to move one’s body instantaneously from one location to another.  That sort of thing …. could have …. happened to me, and a friend, once.*

Kevin and I and the rest of the high school track (and field) team had just finished a workout and, like cows back to the barn, went to shower in the locker-room.  There were more athletes than shower spigots available, and Kevin and I wandered out into the hall to go to the girl’s locker-room.  Now, this was usually a ‘safe’ thing to do, as the girls did not (as far as we knew) use the locker room at this time.  There would be plenty of room, hot water and soap, and we’d saunter back to our lockers, dripping clean and wet, without having to wait our turn.

If memory serves, I don’t think we brought towells, so cavalier were we in our sense of security and mastery of our corner of the universe.  Showering complete, we went to open the door from this locker-room into the hallway …

We heard laughing chattering happy girl’s voices, lots of them.  The locker-rooms were across the hallway from each other, down a corridor accessible either from outside or down from an interior stairway.  To make matters even more scary, the boys locker-room door was ten or so yards closer to the stairs than the girls door.  The chattering and laughing intensified.  We saw the first pairs of feet appear at the end of the hall, coming down from where the hallway framed the descending stairs.  Kevin and I froze, giving each other brief piercing stares of sheer terror as our immobile and electro-shocked brains went into hyperdrive in an attempt to assess the situation.

The next thing we knew, we had instantaneously zipped flippulated willed ourselves back to OUR locker-room, panting and out of breath.  The shock of our experience must have been etched deeply in our faces.  Fred “Smokey” Barnes, the team’s affable genial giant state-ranked shotputter, wrapped a towell around his bounteous middle and sauntered out into the hall.

He came back later, laughing, and said that the dozen or so girls had “seen something” out in the hall.  They claimed that they heard two sets of doors slamming loudly, with a flesh-colored streak connecting the audible dots.

I don’t know about you, but if you were a geeky pale skinny guy with low self-esteem, this was as close to outright humiliation, setting the stage for many weeks of school-wide ridicule, which we had, apparently, narrowly escaped.

*I will attempt to contact the other party involved.  We were bestest of friends for many years, and for reasons (or no reasons at all) unknown to me, are not, anymore.  Never-the-less, “in the interest of science” I shall endeavor to send THIS STORY to him, whose name is Kevin, though we all called him the affectionate nick-name of “Slum” back in those halcyon daze — to ascertain if he remembers this, and, if so, is his memory congruent with mine.

Please log on to blueinthislight.wordpress.com and read a recent essay about bulls not liking children.  Mr. Blue, IMHO, describes an experience in which he utilizes “parkour” even though he did what he did at the time without a label as to what he was doing.

Of Hydraulic Conductivity, Perhaps

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OF HYDRAULIC CONDUCTIVITY, PERHAPS

One must strive for inner naked bo-buddhiditty.

— Ricardo Cabeza

“What do you know about hydraulic conductivity?” the Goat King asked the Corpse.  “Every molecule of water adjoining other water is in contact, so to speak, with all other water molecules in the pool.  Water molecules in contact can pull each other along.  When you step into the ocean, you are in hydraulic conductivity with all the water in all the seas.”

Corpse just shrugged.  The Goat King was showing off, as usual, and eventually the conversation would segue to something they all could relate to.  Beer, hopefully; or bar skanks, or maybe a pool hall with a strong possibility of fights.

Dave (the Goat King’s ‘everyday name’) was not to be ignored.  Turning to the others in the room, he asked, “Does anybody know where we are?”

“The ride, man, the ride.”  That was Jason.  He had just finished shaping a four-foot-long ‘party’ sub sandwich into an alligator shape, even sticking bits of bread in as legs.  The ride he was alluding to was a carnival ride they may or may not have gotten onto.  The Lost Highway ride.

Under cover of darkness, the carnival pitched its tents, midway, and appurtenances thereto.  The following morning, residents of the nearby town of Green Hill (known affectionately among many residents as “Green Hell”) seemed surprised at the appearance of the next-door neighbor.

“Looks kinda creepy,” offered Jason, fingers making a visor as he peered through the fog.  Although having been erected overnight, there was a hint of moss already.  As if emerging from the humus, proto-amphibian-like, spontaneous generation.

The Corpse could not resist carnivals.  The lure of gambling, no matter what form, was usually irresistible.  Karma was similarly inclined.  Without much difficulty, they dragged the gang along.

They lost most their pocket change in the midway.  Not even a medium-sized stuffed bear to show for their efforts.  “We’re not schwinging successfully,” lamented Jason.

“Let’s go chill on a slow ride,” suggested Jowers.

They ambled towards the furthest end of the midway.  Under flickering lights, partly veiled by overhanging tree branches, one could easily miss the entrance to The Lost Highway ride.  Chaz, the sixth member of the group, involuntarily gasped in astonishment.  Astral dragons, multi-faceted fingers of mist, the shimmer from beyond.  Chaz blinked, and saw the entrance clearly.  “Whad ya see, Chaz?” sneered Dave.  Though Dave would ridicule the quiet and shadowy borderline-outcast member of the group, the Goat King realized the utility in a combination court jester/empath.  Chaz only shrugged.

“Anyone got tickets left?” Dave said as he stepped past the androgynous stunted gate-attendant.  Jowers fumbled beneath his coat and produced the requisite string of segmented light cardboard.

A screeching sound alerted them to the approach of the next ride car.  Sparks and the smell of ozone.  All but Dave tried to get in but the Goat King stopped them with an upraised finger.  “Jowers, Corpse, and … uh, Jason; get in this one.”

The first trio disappeared through the hanging-down rubber strips, much as a tray of dishes is sent into the washer.  Dave turned to Karma and Chaz, grinning.  “You guys think that this is not as it seems?”  Chaz attempted to conceal his answer, but was betrayed by involuntary shaking and beads of sweat on his brow.  It was not a warm evening.

The next carnival-ride conveyance arrived as screechingly as the previous.  Karma was beyond annoyed.  This experience deeply penetrated and ravaged the thin façade of a mere waste of time.  The tinny static-y polka music through the loudspeakers was bad enough.  The flickering neon lights portraying Americana highway times gone by – Karma fought back expurgation of recent midway hot dogs and chili.  Exhibits of Model T’s chugging over rocky hilly passes, the obsolete donkeys pulling wagons waiting off to the side.  The Cleaver family, glowing hair, radiantly freshly-scrubbed with shining apple cheeks, off to Disneyland in their Edsel.  Subcompacts full of collegians hurtling, lemming-like, to the beach at spring break.

With a crackling of ozone-punctuated acrid nostril-searing smoke, the second car crashed into the first.  Angry yelling.  Dave turned to assess Chaz’s reaction.  Chaz seemed as swept up in the illusion as anyone else.  Surprisingly, it was Karma who first stepped back from emotion, so to speak, and attempt to rationally weigh the situation.

He grinned.  The others were so swept up in their mass hallucination, that Karma could actually see the emotional and energy fields surrounding them.

They were in a sort of room.  Like a mobius strip, the floor eventually became the ceiling, sound became visible objects, and thoughts were actions.  Everyone was comfortably seated.  The sun shone in, the moon brightly illuminated, they could see the milky way at noon.  Events, pictures, what might have been, what could be, flowed in.  Flowed past.  Swirled.  “Kind of like hydraulic conductivity,” remarked the Goat King.

“What?”  The Corpse was annoyed.  Later even Corpse would have to admit that each sensation they experienced would fade, drawing an adjoining related vision.  The core of each would largely overlap the previous, but different in some aspect.

Dave launched into a contemporaneous treatise on the inter-connectedness of all things.  Only Chaz and Karma feigned any interest, the others yawned, held fingers to their ears, scratched – anything to ward off Dave’s attempt at labeling the unlabelable.

Later, Jowers would reminisce that it was like a front porch party that lasted for hours.  Unemptiable coffee cups; beer mugs.  Jason was custodian of a large sandwich.  The others frequently hungered, but satiation was forthcoming and, briefly, absolute.  Chaz started to disrobe, muttering something about his favorite philosopher.  “Get dressed, idiot!” barked Karma.  “That Spanglitch Carbooza writer has you brainwashed.”

The screeching crackling sound of a ride car interrupted their reverie.  It stopped on tracks they hadn’t noticed until now.  Dave motioned for Jowers, Corpse, and Jason to get into it.  Back to Green Hell.  He and Karma and Chaz stood, waiting for the next car.

Please Close Gate

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PLEASE CLOSE the GATE.  (Another boring high-desert ramble Wif Da Dorgz)

I don’t know what they’re keeping out, or in.  Perhaps they just want to make all the motor-idiots slow down, even stop, while going from one side to the other.  This gate nor fence wouldn’t deter the bighorns, below …

The Nine-Mile Hill bighorn sheep herd, part of which is pictured above, hadn’t been very visible these past few months.  Today, they’re out grazing, in their full glory for all the nearby highway traffic to view.

Meanwhile, back at “the gate” Rocksea, Sleven, and Dually engage in a pre-hike sniffaroony.

We stop on a ridgetop just south of what I call East Pass to Cactus Park.  View is to northwest — with snow-covered Pinyon Mesa on the horizon, and the red desert sandstone cliffs along Unaweep Canyon beyond the relatively flat Cactus Park.  What would be impressively visible just a couple miles further west — unseen from this vantage point — are the massive pre-cambrian granite cliffs which displace and replace the reddish sandstone.

Turning 120-degrees to the east, we look to the shaley steep slopes of theBookcliffs.  What you can’t see is that my house, along with a few thousand others, is on the valley floor before the Bookcliffs.

Gibbler Mountain, the primary west-edge landmark of Cactus Park.  A pleasant breezy cloudily-scattered-cloudy day.

Dool pauses alongside an inuk-thingy in the trees.

Rocksea peers down …

The truck is just off the “road” towards the left.

We get home.  The kitten is prostrate at the foot of the Lithograph of the Cat-Saint Bearing Fish.

… we’re in trouble.

Cry, Kwakiutl

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The semi had hit the telephone pole exactly mid-front bumper.  This was a straight stretch of highway, and so, the patrolman noted that the abrupt change of direction the tire marks made on the ice on the pavement did not “make sense.”  Did the driver quickly and erratically spin the wheel due to a dropped cigarette?  — or perhaps a latent heart condition kick in?  The answer should come from the truck’s custodian, unconscious and en route via ambulance to the clinic at Llano Naranja.

The driver was checked-in by Marta Dominguez, working the night shift at the clinic’s emergency room.  As she helped transfer the gurney into the receiving area, she had an odd sense about this patient.  A look of shock and bewildered apprenension seemed etched onto his face.  She had the feeling that this facial message presaged the accident.

It would be two days before the driver regained consciousness, his presence at the table of “the Here and Now” further impeded by the drugs administered to block the pain of cracked ribs and broken nose.

Marta had gone to the movies earlier that month with a male friend, and afterwards stopped at the Orange Flats Diner.  She had barely settled into her seat when a hand tapped her shoulder from the adjacent booth.  “May I join you?”

Marta turned to her companion, who shrugged ‘why not?’ then back to Fescue Tseyka, within whose gray and weathered countenance could be any combination of ethnicity.  Turned out he was half-Tlingit Indian, far from the tribal homelands of the Northwest.  A competent and efficient handyman, he had done odd jobs at both of Marta’s places of employment, and she had made his acquaintance.  But something was troubling him this evening, and Marta and friend were to become the outlet for Fescue’s epistle.

“Miss Dominguez, I have watched you for some time.  And your companion seems of kindred spirit.  I think I can share something with you.”  Marta and Beta, noticing the nearby waitress, pointed to their coffee cups and turned back to Tseyka.

“I am far from my ancestral home, but I have followed the spirits of my forefathers to this place,” continued Fescue.  “Many years ago my people lived not only in harmony with the land and sea, but with the spirits of those places.  The holy men would strive to become conduits for their spirit guides and allies.  Messages from these spirits would be transmitted to the people through Potlatch.”

“Potlatch?” inserted Marta.

Tseyka continued.  “Each passing of a chief, or a change of dynasty, moments of deep significance for my people would be marked by Potlatch.  Each Potlatch would be commemorated by a totem for that occasion.  Our spirit guides and allies would reveal the totem’s form through the holy men.”

Beta squirmed, though he knew, no matter what, he had to be polite on this date.  “The holy men were like spirit mediums?  Coffee appeared in their cups, with menus left unobtrusively at the table’s edge.  “The spirits worked through the holy men?”

Tseyka looked at Beta benignly, and with a hint of a smile continued.  “Not my tribe alone, but our neighbor tribes could read their ancestor’s history through the totems.  The Tsimshian, the Haida, the Nootka, and others whose names are gone but their spirits continue.  And,” he sighed, “cry, Kwakiutl.”

Fescue lapsed into silence, his eyes momentarily closed.  Marta politely waved “we’re fine” to the puzzled waitress, who then was able to concentrate on other customers across the diner.

“When the white men began to intrude upon our lands, they tried to take everything.  It was not enough to take our livelihood, our best hunting and fishing.  They could not take Potlatch, so they tried to take us from our spirits.”  Tseyka took a long slow sip from his cup.  “The creation of totems was outlawed.  None fought as hard as the Kwakiutl.  The white men were especially ruthless in their squashing the Kwakiutl’s ancestral ways.”  Another measured silence ensued, their coffee cups re-filled.  “My uncle was part Kwakiutl,” Tseyka resumed.  “He told me of his five times great-grandfather, a holy man of powerful medicine.  Rather than abide by the white man’s edicts, he and a few disciples went directly to the spirit realm to continue the old ways.”

Both Marta and Beta had been patiently listening, but this last statement was in need of clarification.  Fescue allowed himself a wry smile.  “They left their bodies and have been in the spirit realm ever since.  When my uncle told me of this, I realized that I have always been aware of my six times great-grandfather.  He and his tribe are near this place.”

“They practice Potlatch, sometimes their totems briefly intrude upon our realm.  When the light is just so, at twilight, or when a dark cloud hides the sun, I can see their work.”  Tseyka allowed himself both another smile and long sip of coffee.  “Oh!  I better let you kids have your dinner.  Thanks for listening.”  Fescue Tseyka grasped both their hands in his, scooped up his coat, and left.

Marta was back on duty when the truck driver regained consciousness.  She reflected back to when she admitted him two nights before, and the apprehension she had had.  She then easily bridged another mental spark-gap, to her “dinner with Beta and Fescue.”  Afterwards, Beta mentioned that during his previous truck-driving job he thought he had seen strange protuberances from trees or signposts or even telephone poles “when the conditions were right.”  Marta remembered one time in particular in the forest when, for one several-second span, a tree had several faces, stacked one atop the other.  She looked again, and they were gone.

The driver moaned through the bandages covering his nose.  Marta took a few steps in from the door.  The driver opened his eyes and looked around the room slowly.  His gaze stopped at Marta.  His banged-up face could not disguise an embarrassed grin.  “You’ll never guess what I thought I saw.”

“Try me,” Marta grinned back.

SNOW RUN (& ‘drive’)

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This gallery contains 16 photos.

Satyrday nite, Nov. 10, we had our first ‘stick-to-the-ground’ snow since last winter.  Not a LOT of snow, but the accompanying cold temps (it’s also been a while since we’ve been sub-freezing) kept the white stuff around a while.  And … Continue reading →

Our Give-a-shit Expired Long Ago

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“Our give-a-shit expired a long time ago.”

The title is from a “search” someone typed into whatever internet search engine* and was directed to my blo(r)g.  So, whatever it means, it apparently is manifest, somehow, here in the blo(r)g.  Perhaps through-out.  The whole site, all of betunada@wordpress, might be, for all I know, positively (or negatively) dripping with it. Veritably oozing.

However, and not in my defense, I exemplify the Expiration of the Give-a-Shittyness, eh?

Betty, however, continues to have room not only in her heart but within the castle to provide a home for more foster children.

Yesterday she brought home “Waldo.”  FOR FREE while the supply lasts! looking lonely in a cage in the local pet-supply store.  He won’t quite replace Walter, our most-recently disappeared feline.  No, nobody, cannot be exactly ‘replaced’ — but ‘remembered’ and ‘revered.’  (Provided the entity warrants those.

(Define “warrants.”

“What!? Who are you?”

“The not-so-wicked twin of yourself.”

“Are you here to throw off my dialogue?”

“Yes.”)

So I shut him off, and presume EVERYBODY warrants some Regards, Reverence, and Remembrance.  But(t) heck, experiences yet to come (I just might live more than 5 or 6 years) could change that belief.  Prob’ly all too easily.)

So, we can’t really not make an effort, as we should at least go through the motions of taking care of our foster family.  And, to quote Paul Simon, we’ll continue to continue

to pretend

our lives

will never end

and flowers

never

bend

with the rainfall.

*And, later in this chapter, I typed in “why are internet search functions called Engines?” and will try to summarize just part of it.  A quirky weird part of it.

Well, the Amerikin elexions is/are apparently, over, for now. Now, granted, I detest the million$ and bazillion$ waystid awn the so-called ads and venomous schmegg-schlingging, but … if I had a “spare” few million $$$, I would have considered putting up (as) LARGE (as i could afford) BILLBOARDS in as many major cities as i could afford. saying: YOU DON’T HAVE TO VOTE FOR THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS: VOTE GARY JOHNSON, LIBERTARIAN — FOR PRESIDENT.

This moronic two-party doomed inert ineffectual sick inherently greedy and short-sighted and basically unresponsive system will have to end, or (as is likely, and obviously ongoing) drag us all down.

What’ll help is that here, in Colorawdough, mariuana smoking has become mandatory.  Maybe make things more tolerable …

Why, just tonight, we put in the movie “Marley” (No! NOT the cute puppy-dog Marley!) and, because of the just-voted-in state law which says POT SMOKING IS REQUIRED we had to indulge.  That movie is intense.  There are several tenents of Rastafarianism I think I could readily embrace, but acknowledging Haile Selassie as THE DIETY — well, I need more than a little convincing, there.  (But, still, I’d acknowledge the ‘validity’ (or actual/real/valid/main-line-to-gawd) of Rasta over, say, LSD (oops! LDS) or ‘take-a-hostage’ (or “convert or die”) varieties of Islam).

And (she doesn’t know it, but, heck, it’s a plan) I pictured and (as)phyxulated upon A PLAN FOR THE FUTURE.  Betty and I should continue to practice being a folk-singing (or folksie-schlepping) duo.  While incarcerated within a senior-citizen medium-or-countryclub-security old age hoam, we can conduct our music-playing sessions IN THE CENTRAL LOBBY of whatever facility, and especially after having indulged in the state-sanctioned mandatory mildly-psychotropic substance.  Well, I think that’s better than the slow and gradual mental rot-ation which goes on anyway.

Betty continues to be what (or, more exactly, whom) I call “WulfMuthur.” The usual plethora of “wolves” clustered about.

Below, a poster child for yet another search-engine query:

“the why don’t people like me test.”

Yeah, that was another recent “search engine term” directing somebody (or if not a “some” and/or “body” — it could have been a robot!) to my site.  And, seriously, folks, I wouldn’t ask that question.  I don’t wanna know why people don’t like me.  if i took that kind of poopy seriously, i would probably have to seek therapy, whatever that is.  and i’m not too unhappy with the way i am and things are.  if only i could CONVEY or convince people of that.  but ’cause of the lack of concern of the, uh, test, why bother convincing anybody?

But(t) still, I thought my site was, more so than not, uplifting.

Sleven found a mostly-empty bag of nachos and went in to finish off the crumbs.  He prowled around the house like the bag-head-monster that he inherently is.  I considered taking the bag off, but it did have a transparent window, diminishing the banging-into-doors and walls a bit.  (He eventually extricated).

And I wonder about Dopey, still lost out there, somewhere.

Wolf-Mother doing what comes naturally.  Note the three dawgz under the table, and two cats atop.

Sleven stumbled about, and when all the nacho crumbs were inhaled, or completely slobberated, the bag either partly disintegrated or somehow disappeared.

And she’s out acquiring more wolves for the never-ending WulfMuthur Chronicles …

Good ol’ Wikipedia:  (re: search engine):

“an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system”

oh well, “they” (hooever ‘they’ are) had to call “it” (the engine) something.

There was a lengthy detailed response to my query.  Much of it was the history of how search-engines came about.  I copied just a part, about some characters from an old (lame) comic strip –>  Archie.[3] The name stands for “archive” without the “v”. It was created in 1990 by Alan Emtage, Bill Heelan and J. Peter Deutsch, computer science students at McGill University in Montreal. The program downloaded the directory listings of all the files located on public anonymous FTP (File Transfer Protocol) sites, creating a searchable database of file names; however, Archie did not index the contents of these sites since the amount of data was so limited it could be readily searched manually.

The rise of Gopher (created in 1991 by Mark McCahill at the University of Minnesota) led to two new search programs, Veronica and Jughead. Like Archie, they searched the file names and titles stored in Gopher index systems. Veronica (Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Net-wide Index to Computerized Archives) provided a keyword search of most Gopher menu titles in the entire Gopher listings. Jughead (Jonzy’s Universal Gopher Hierarchy Excavation And Display) was a tool for obtaining menu information from specific Gopher servers. While the name of the search engine “Archie” was not a reference to the Archie comic book series, “Veronica” and “Jughead” are characters in the series, thus referencing their predecessor.

yeah.  i knew that.  thanx, Wikipedia.

This reminds me of an philosophical and rhetorical question, stabbing at the basic essence of everything my life was when I got my present job.  What is an “engineer”?  The dictionary said — something basically like “someone skilled at working with machines.”

Now, THAT didn’t shed much light on anything.  Over 55% of what I “do” as an “engineer” involves staring at one or more glowing rectangles, while moving cursors and clicking and typing stuff.  But Archie and Jughead and Veronica, that was (and is) sorta funny …

Correr con los Zombies

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Los Extra-Térrestres:  otra vez hay uno de sus platillos voladores, disfraza como un nublado.

Mi esposa y yo estàbamos zombi’s en una carrera el sabado pasado.  Felizmente, no tuvimos una càmara — estuvimos tan ocupado cazar y perseguir corredors quien estan en “El ùltimo carrera de su vida.”

Corredors tuvieron correr por entre un ciento “zombies.”  Fue muy divertido.

Betty lleva una peluca (la mujere agente del gobierno de “Los Juegos del Hambre.”)  Yo llevo una hacha-de-carne a travès de mi cabeza, y una camiseta que tiene un zombi caza un tractor con un granjero (campesino).

“Eat locals.”

Domingo fuimos a recoger nuezes de piñon con mi hermano y su novia.  Tuve una bolsa para recoger — sentì como un niño a Pascuas.  Los arboles fueron lleno de nuezes.

Fuimos àpice o tope de “9 Mile Hill” — que es cerca del “Olivivas Wilderness” y “Cactus Park” — lugares que estuve y visitar de vez en cuando.

Entre nosotros todos, tenemos muchos perros (siete, pienso …)  Arriba, Ricardo Cabeza y algun de sus perros.

Y, otoño, tiempo por oro en los arboles …

Si … justo (derecho).

Indiana Betunada and the Wombat CowSkull Shrine

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Dogzeneye discover the Wombat Cow-Skull Shrine.

Darned E T’s.  What should be a glorious sunrise is compromised, thrown into a bit of doubt, by yet another of their hovering spy-craft keeping watch on us.  The thinly-veiled attempt at disguising it as a cloud didn’t fool me.  I think they’re wasting their time keeping me under surveillance!  So, later in the day I decide to go on a foray into the Olivivas Wilderness Area, taking the dogs along with.

The weatherman warned to “expect a bit of weather,” and bit of weather it (whatever “it” is) did, indeed.  What had been a dry mostly cloudless week rapidly changed.  The front rolled in …

Dually peers down into gathering fog.  Soon, it began to snow.  (First of “the season” for this area).  The white stuff melted pretty quick after it hit the ground, but there were brief intense flurries.

The clouds thickened.  The wind picked up.  RockSea gives the lower elevation one last look before we turned and …

… stumbled onto the Wombat CowSkull Shrine.  In a mysterious* open area where nothing grew, the word “wombat” was spelled-out with rocks.  Above it was a sort of … shrine? Totem? Warning symbol?

*(“Mysterious” as during our trek we moved through as thick a forest as one would encounter in the “high desert” — which our region is categorized as.  Yeah … this forest wouldn’t be “thick” in, say, the Pacific Northwest).

View of the Wombat from right-to-left, and

from left-to-right.

Rocksea and the mysterious assemblage of bones.  The dogs didn’t even linger to consider hauling off a piece for gnawing.  (There was a large enough collection of the rest of the skeleton nearby).

I checked the time and we would have to hurry to get back to the car before dark.

I usually have a basic idea of where I am when in the Olivivas Wilderness Area.  This time I was put to the test, what with fog and diminishing light.  And I had a difficult time keeping my cigar lit.   We arrived back where the car was parked with less than five minutes before it would have been completely dark.

Is everything related to everything else?  or are there many disparate un-connected random chaotic aspects and things and trends winding about?  Somehow, it made sense when I got home and checked the stats on my blog.  One search term which someone had entered, and was directed to this site was:

“Our give a shit expired long ago”

It’s like the man said, when this happens, I think you can then DO THINGS without a sense of attachment nor identification with the fruits of your actions.  Hompity ho …

KNOT SEW sturrrraayngge nooze frum Portland (ver 2.0)

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“what the predator sees”

“Grand-pa” and “Grand-ma” went to Portland (OR) earlier this month for the main purpose of BABYSITTING.  Our daughter was scheduled to work nights and Dad was out-of-town on an extended work field trip.  This past summer, Betty (gramma) flew out for a week and the airfare cost was about half of what the all-night babysitter would have charged.

Our send-off omen leaving home (west Colorawdough) was the spiral-mandala-cloud of sunrise.

For being first-time grandparents, and “the kids” living fairly far away, we’ve been lucky to visit with Eddy more than we expected — this would be Gramma’s 6th time.

I had thought to bring something bought at the downtown market a couple years back, the clever unique meat-cleaver thru’ the head thingy.  We usually try to attend the weekend downtown market each trip out there, and wearing the thing helps? contribute to the free-wheeling rollicking carnival atmosphere.  Fortunately, I forgot it, and we didn’t make it to the event anyway.  However, arriving at the airport, I did buy something which at first was IRRESISTABLE —

A kiosk of “made in Oregon” products had Rogue Brewery’s tribute to the essence of WEIRD Portland — I could NOT pass up VooDoo Donut Bacon-Maple beer.  Lovely kaopectate-colored bottle, eh?

As you might sus/ex/pect … one would have to be awwfully thirsty, borderline desperate — and just plain feelin’ wee-urd … which I was when we returned to the airport the following week.  It was, well, beer, but I’ll pass on the next one.  (Rogue’s other, more-normal, products are quite good!)

We tried to do and/or go somewhere/something every day — the sort of stuff we don’t have back home.  None of us, Rachel included, had ‘officially’ been to the Portland Zoo.  (We had been to it while running the Zoo Run during past Thanksgivings).

I thought I had taken photos of baboons, lions and tigers and bears oh my.  Either didn’t turn out or weren’t took.  “Bear profiles.”  (Eddy and me standing against a poster showing how big and tall various bears are.)

And guys feeding big seals.

Grandson watching seals, and seals performing while being fed. Scary, sorta.

eddy seez da seelz

We walked down a tunnel to see the seals below, in the wet stuff. Eddy involved in grokkation with the sealz …

Unda waddah and r and eddy mingling wif da sealz

Nearby, outside the boa constrictor cage, there was a camera and screen showing “predator” heat-imaging!  You know, the Predator sees our heat (or lack of).  Ostensibly, this is how the boa constrictor sees — in the infrared.  I don’t think we look very edible …

Speekinuv beasts …  we also communed and visited with Eddy’s “big brother,” Hugh.  Hugh has been with Rachel since 2003 or so.  I found Hugh and his sister as very small kittens in the field below our house.  I carried them up and Rachel, who was visiting but leaving right then, said “I’ll take this one.”

She (and Hugh) have lived at a half-dozen locations in Denver, two in Portland, and we have kept Hugh for many weeks and months when Rooch ‘n Ben would go on long trips (e.g., 6 weeks in New Zealand).

Hugh is obviously a dude.

Quite often we went out to eat, and quite often made good meals in the house, but sometimes I’d get hungry …

Nutella — Why hasn’t anyone told me about this before?

Above, we’re at House of Louie, in Chinatown.  I had to get my Dimsum fix.  This time was somewhat disappointing.  There’ve been occasions of enjoyable and quite satisfactory dimsum gobbling previously, in Portland Chinatown.  Hopefully next time as well.

Right after this, we toured the Chinese Gardens, in the rain.

Daddy came home earlier than expected.  They got the same eyes, nose, ‘n ears.

The first four daze there, the weather was uncharacteristically dry.  Warm.  Sunny.  Good climate for women playing guitar, women breast-feeding. Hippie stuff? We ain’t hippies … (no moah).

Ben had been wanting to cut down a ‘dangerous’ branch high up in a tree.  The branch was hanging on by the proverbial xylemical thread, and he eliminated the possibility of it falling down and killing someone.  And he wanted to play with his climbing gear.

After the successful dropping of the problem branch, Ben announced that he wants to “do big walls.”  Gear-intensive.  Rachel did not look very sympathetic nor excited about this.  I have a work-mate who wants to “do big walls” and I’ll see if they can get together…

Prior to visiting Oregon, I went on-line and entered myself and daughter in the ORRC “Blue Lake 5k.”

We’re starting …  I’m the veritable pixure of grace, tight-fitting racewear, form, eh?  (Ha!).  Below, I’m just goofin’, but shortly after decided to pick it up.

For many months now, each time I entered a race, I usually set my PW.  Runners strive for and talk about their “personal record” (PR) for a given distance.  Well, those times for me is long gone.  I figured I’d set another PW and planned on takin’ it easy.  A couple days before, Rachel and I ran around a park while Granma went swimming at the community rec center.  My daughter hadn’t run a race in over a year,  but was still in good shape, primarily due to riding her bike to and from work.  I mentioned, as she motored away from me on an uphill, pushing Eddy in the stroller, that she could probably run a 22-minute time easily.  “Probably,” she shrugged.  I figured I’d run in the 25’s, setting yet another PW.

“Da rooch” (my beloved daughter Rachel) cruises, smiling …  There were several out-and-back sections of the course, and each instance I’d count women ahead of her.  When she passed, I’d hold up fingers for what place she was in the women’s race.  As runners know, this race-within-a-race can sometimes be difficult to assess due to the numbers of men.  The first time I saw her, I held up 8 fingers.  The next time, I held up five …

She would finish a close third among women, 13th among all runners, in a time of 20:19.  The next day, when we were running around Tryon Creek State Park, she turned and said “Maybe I’ll start training.”  By that, I assumed she might start training specifically to run faster, in races.  Oh — I ended up not setting a PW, hitting the finish in 22:55, my fastest time for over two years.

Excellent form, eh?   “a thing of beauty”

Eddie plays with one of our “finisher medals” at breakfast afterward.  We each ended up winning our respective age group.

We enjoyed our week-plus out there, but there was a lot we didn’t do nor see.  The downtown market.  A day-trip to the coast (ocean experiences are few back where we come from).  This rock, below, basking in the west Colorawdough sun, was sediment in an ocean, more than just a few years back.  An ocean of lichen, eh?

the spiral sunrise of what some might consider the promise of a bright tomorrow, but, jaded Betty ‘n me, we know better …