Friends of Mine

What ITAR is for the uneducated

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Traffic_in_Arms_Regulations

What it really is:

We make computer chips that makes these thing work.

Off to S-F tomorrow night to learn all about ITAR Licensing. This is a wonderful thing. I'm useful and I get to take my favorite ten mile stroll around the city Wednesday night. Polk to Fisherman's Wharf to City Lights Bookstore and then back around through Chinatown. Leaving at 5:30ish from the St. Francis. Come join me. See how much has changed in 30 years. Heather was born here (a bear I don't talk about), but it deserves a song. There are a thousand songs to write. What fun to discover something new in one's not so old age.
May we all be so blessed

Gail's Party in Irvine

Hardly seems like a year has passed since we made the last one. We played for about four hours. A lot of good music and some not so good. I played a couple of my originals and an old Mickey Newbury song that no one knew. Last year I was terribly intimated by these guys. This year, I make a fool of myself easily. What else are you going to do? We talked almost everybody into singing and picking songs.

We when off to square dancing after and flew around the room, mostly really screwing up. The caller was too fast and I had forgotten a couple of simple things and the "angels" that were there to help us looked as lost as us newbies. It kinda felt like this:

We need to practice more. Went for drinks afterward with a few of the folks.



You would think this kind of thing would be simple. Anyhow, one of the ladies we dance with has her father's banjo LPs, she says I can take a look see at.

This is what it really looks like

Probably just as old. I'll let you know how long it will last.

Officially qualified

Well, we graduated. We can square dance now. (We actually have another eight weeks of plus level classes) (but who's counting?) It's definitely an old person's thing in West LA at least. The youngest person in our class id probably 55.  As we travel doing this stuff, I'm hoping we'll find younger people- like out in the valley or east somewhere. The graduation ceremony was a little like the initiation ceremony for the Boy Scout Troop. Except with the Boy Scout Troop you get blind-folded and the other boys make animal sounds as they walk you in. The guy in black in the middle was / is the caller / teacher. If you're gonna do this, find him. He's probably the best teacher around. The Red Ribbons in Santa Monica is the place to go.

New Old Bike

When my tired old bike died a year and half ago, I looked around and decided that I couldn't afford a $1,000.00 bike right now (then). So I ordered a bike from an internet mail order firm for $250.00. It's worked ok, except that it was made very cheaply and made noise and now creaks badly every time I get on it. So, I started looking on Craig's List, thinking of something else. A guy had a 60CM bike for sale in Carson. So I tooled off there at lunch time. He had sold the one he advertised, but in the back of his pile he had a 65CM Peugeot that is/ was about 25 years old. The frame was still in one piece, so for $100.00 it was mine. I had a new derailer, new chain, new tires put on and the handlebars taped. I added a water bottle holder with pipe clamps from Home Depot. It feels like I'm a grown up suddenly with a grown up bike that actually fits my oversized mcnay frame. Still working on getting used to it. It has the very old style brake handles and a set of narrow (by today's standards) racing handlebars. I've not quite figured how to ride it up my 1/2 mile hill on the way home, but I'll get it eventually. It looks better that the thing here, but it feels good. And it doesn't ache like an old rocking chair.

I'm a bit confused

This are what I'm reading lately. Theroux hates the South Pacific, but he's going through a divorce and its a form of self punishment I think. Twain, is of course, a thousand years old spiritually and remembering his entire life for us. And McClure is just twenty and self loathing and doing a lot of dope and alcohol just like we did in 1970. Now I remember why I liked the beats. Probably the only keeper is ole Sam.

The crack

It was a boarding house above Cannery Row- around 1976. I was working as a janitor at the Hotel Carlos downtown Monterey. I had the only room upstairs that had two doors. One went to the hallway, one went outside to the outside stairs. Tim had a back corner room which had a wall that looked like this. He was working  cleaning fish down the hill. He had just come back to Monterey and wanted to go back to the community college  there. He was a musician and a painter. Had tried to ride the rails a year before and fallen and had broken his leg in three different places and had to go hang out in his old bedroom in his parents house in the midwest to mend. We had a little one night and decided that his room needed an abstract painting to hide this ugly crack. We started painting the wall and it brew and grew until the painting finally took over the entire wall. Several nights later, we had to move his desk to finish the wall. It really was abstract expressionistic. He found a house in Pacific Grove and with a third guy moved in. He bough a Vibraphone and taught himself to play it while I wrote the Great American Novel upstairs night after night. My girl friend hated him and I had to move out to keep her. Never saw him after that. I don't remember his last name. So its kind of hard to track him down, even with the internet. He played nice.   

Narrative for the Grand Canyon

It's a big climb down. I ride my bike most every day back and forth from work, about six miles- I have a huge hill to climb every evening coming home- so I'm in pretty good shape for 59. I've never been a fanatic or a super jock type of guy. I don't do gyms or workout stuff. I do yoga once a week so I can get up off the floor. Going down was painful. I have a little arthritic stuff going on in my left knee and in both feet. Going down I was thinking "Shin Splints" and "Water On The Knee" and wanted to be able to finish the trip so I slowed down a whole lot. A lot of aches and pains I don't think I've felt in a while. We had left at noon to start down, so there was no lunch break, so we had seven miles to go to get to the first camp.

Anyway, its 130 degrees in the sun down there and 100 in the shade. There a creek that runs the whole distance beside you (from the North Rim)  and the three 17 year old guys we were with spent a lot of their time there in their down time. I floated in it the afternoon we stayed at the bottom for a day and it was paradise.

The second day was another trek from the Cottonwood Camp to the Angel Campground that was 1/4 mile from the Colorado. Another 7 miles. I had a bit of heat exhaustion by the time I got there and immediately passed out, with my head on my backpack for about an hour after reaching the camp space.

We were actually a day ahead of our permit for being there and did have a problem the last day as we were coming out. We thought it might be cool to get back home a day early and have a whole weekend to recoup. Nobody hassled us the first night. Yosemite Rangers don't ask to look at your permit. I've been backpacking in Yosemite the last five years. Grand Canyon guys make it into this big deal. The guy came into the camp at the bottom and naturally assumed that the four guys I was with were separate from me because I had the long hair and didn't have a tent. We were a day ahead of ourselves and in a group campsite that was supposed to accommodate 7 or more and we had only five. I made up a cock and bull story about we started down and didn't realize until we had gotten down the first day that we had out dates mixed up and that we were supposed to have three more people but they had started on the right day and were behind us.

He had to go make a phone call. He came back and changed all the dates on my permit and said we were ok, but we had to clean up our food and get it into the metal shell boxes they had in each camp to protect the food from the squirrels. They have to be experts on something.

There is running water and toilets and no bears and no mosquitoes.

Coming out, halfway out, the Ranger didn't believe that the Ranger down below had changed all the dates on the permit because he didn't initial it. I had also did my little convoluted story about our original mistake of coming in a day day early and about our missing other three people that never showed and we tried to call from the Colorado camp and etc. He had to go make a phone call. He came back and made us move out of the group camp site, mostly because there was a party of 11 that showed up and wanted it. He said it was a double booking and we were made to sleep on the helicopter landing site pad which was mostly gravel. And before he left he proceeded to confirm that we were going to carry out our trash.

They just weren't built for us folks that didn't respect the rules much.

The views were grand. The day hikes were better if you started at five and finished by 11:00 am. My buddy and I talked and talked and talked. There were deer all over the place by the river. I stuck my tootsies the Colorado.

Coming out we were adopted by a girl (mid-twenties) who was just bored with walking by herself. She worked at the South Rim and had decided the walk from rim to rim and back in her days off for the hell of it. She had finished college, but was park hopping from server to server job just for the hell of it. She had encountered a mountain lion on the trail the night before and hid in the bushes for a couple of hours. She walked with us until a guy appeared that was her age and who was walking in the same direction and was another staffer somewhere.

The people out there all were nice. Some of the folks that were at the river came down on horseback and were staying in little cabins and got to ride out. You can buy a beer at the bottom.

Probably won't go back. But its worth seeing once!

Pics of the Trip- Down to the Colorado and back

The Littlest Things

I got back yesterday. The boy bear was gone off to his new job and new apartment in Maryland. I took down posters from his bedroom wall he didn't want any more. Tried to decide which if any of the multitude of youth sports trophies to keep and which to toss. He would get them for everything he did. He didn't put them in the box of things he wanted us to store. Found a published book from their middle school years that was a collection  made by their poetry teacher of the middle school kids. This was his:

"Today you become a man!"
he exclaimed,
and chuckled.
I laughed too
even though I didn't get it
like it was a quote from a book
I hadn't read,
He seemed to bring it back
from his vast memory.
He watched me through his weary eyes
timeworn and kind.
He looked down on me,
one of the only people that could do so,
and smiled.
He handed me the electric drill.
My eyes widened.
I was seven.

-Chris McNay

I'd fake yell behind them the first time they would squeeze the rigger on the drill. The cub scouts were making sort of abstract wooden animals and I was giving them a taste of power tools under closely watched supervision of course.
And finding this, about me, kind of made me choke up yesterday in the nearly empty room.
His room was next to the kitchen and he had rice paper screens on a window in between. He always wanted the kitchen light on at night, even as a college student home for the summer (even with a guest with him for the night). We can turn the light out now.

Off for the Grand Canyon

I'm off to the Grand Canyon Saturday morning. Will be gone a week- no phone, no pool, no pets. I'm also playing in Fountain Valley tomorrow night with the band, so I will bring you back pics of the canyon and maybe videos of Rhubarb.

To tide you over: the next installment of Daydee's adventures-

“You were lucky to make that turn coming in,” he said.

                “Glad you liked it, sweetie.”

                He frowned.

                “No, seriously.”

                “Seriously, I could give a flying damn about what you think of my driving!” It was out before she could stop it. But she did smile.

                Frank looked at Winston.

                “I don’t think he’s going to help you,” she said.

                “Sorry, Miss McIntire. I was just concerned about you hurting yourself.”

                “Hey handsome, let’s not let it get us down. So what’s going on with the farm?”

                “You want a tour?”

                “Not today, love. Next time for sure. So what do you have planted?

                “Its half soybeans, half corn, about 180 acres each. I’ve got a futures offer for 7.40 a bushel on the soybeans that we probably should take. It won’t go any higher than that.”

                “I don’t know what that means,” she said.

                “We get offers to buy the crop before it even comes out of the ground. Most wait until mid-summer, but it’ll be below that by then.”

                “Let’s do it if you think we should.”

                He was smiling now.

                “Yes, ma’am. I’ll bet you a percentage if you want.”

                “No.”

She held out her hand. He swiped his on his rear and then shook with her on it.

                “What about the other farm?” she asked.

                Frank shrugged at her. She looked at Winston.

                “You’re thinking of your Great Aunt’s land?” he asked her.

                “Yeah.”

                “Your mother ended up with just a parcel. Edward owns the rest now.”

                “How did that happen?’ she asked.

                “Come on, let’s go there. I’ll tell you about it on the way.” Winston said.

                “You be careful driving, ma’am.” Frank said.

                “You mind your own business, Sweetie.”

                After they were in the truck and turning out on the road, she remembered the clock.

                “You have his phone number?” she asked Winston.

                 “Yes.”

                “So what happened with the land?”

                “Edward represented your mother in the murder investigation. She traded to him for what she owed him, I think. She wouldn’t ever talk about it. I thought we’d go by to see him this afternoon. He’s the lawyer for her estate.”

                They drove a few more miles and then turned in a driveway again. This led down to a large grove of cypress trees and wound its way through them to a small lake. There was a oil derrick ahead and a small shed. Around the lake was another derrick that looked like it was operating.

                “I think it’s just about ten acres,” Winston told her. “The rabbit hunting down in here is great.”

                “She struck oil?”

                “Not exactly,” Winston laughed. His laugh cracked, as if he wasn’t used to doing it. “The owner of the adjacent farm filed a suit against her. Turned out when she started drilling, he got big eyes and had his land tested and found out the oil was under his land, not hers. Sure enough, she was trying to build a well that ran over to his oil.”

                They stopped. It was a pretty place, except for the derricks. Could have been a nice place for a summer cottage, if you had a mind that wanted that kind of thing.  When her Great Grandmother and Great Uncle were kids their father had owned 1000 acres here. When he died they split it up and then proceeded to lose a lot of it. Her great grandmother had two children: Daydee’s Grandmother and her Great Aunt that never married.  Daydee’s Grandmother and grandfather had lived over in Indiana and never came here to visit. Daydee’s mother and father had come here right after she was born. Their thought was that they were going to inherit everything over here and they were going to fix up the great mansion in town when everyone died. She wondered why none of the women in her family had ever thought of this place. It would have been a paradise away from the wide flat corn fields that went on forever.  A nice place for the kids to run around away from town.

                “What happened to my Great Aunt’s farm house?” she asked. “That’s the one I remember when I was a kid. We were out there a bit.”

                “They moved it into town and lived there when they were too old to work the farm. Your Great Grandmother ended up living to ninety seven or something like that.”

                “Winston, do you know everything about my family?”

                “Your mother and I were close for a number of years. Before and after her second marriage.”

                “It’s important that I know that?”

                 She could feel him staring at her. She looked at him.

                “I guess it is,” he said.

                “So where to now?”

                “Well, I’ve got a errand to run. You can drop me back at the cemetery or you can come with me. And then it’s lunch time.”

                “Tell me where we’re going,” she said, as she put the truck in reverse and headed out the way they had come in. He directed her. She was beginning to get a little better with the truck. She’d have to go get a book to study for the driver’s test.  He took her to a convalescent home just inside the city limits. She luckily found a pull in spot to park. She started to roll up her window, but Winston got out without touching his. No one locked their cars here. She climbed down and tried fluffing out her tangled hair without much luck. Everyone inside knew him. They went back to a lounge area where there was a television on and a few were watching. There were a number of men and women sitting in wheelchairs, just staring off into space. One man had a football helmet on. Everyone was over seventy. Winston pulled two chairs over near an old woman. She was very frail looking with scraggy white hair.

                “Deidre, this is my wife. Martha, Deidre.”

                The woman didn’t even look at him. He talked to her softly, but she made no sign that she knew he was there. He asked her questions that she didn’t answer.

                “I’m going to find a restroom,” she said and left him. She took her time and got her hair untangled. The scene hadn’t changed at all when she came back.

                “She’s been like this for ten years now,” he said. “They are about to have lunch, do you want to stay or go find a restaurant?  The food isn’t too bad here and nobody thinks to ask you to pay for it.”

                “We can stay.”

                They wheeled her into a little cafeteria and sat at a table by a big window. Outside, it was getting overcast. Thick clouds were moving across behind the two trees in the yard outside. No one ever went out there, she decided. Winston feed her. It was just little lunchmeat sandwiches and oranges and pudding in prepackaged servings.

                “You come every day?” Daydee asked.

                “Pretty much these days. I used to go help out with the High School Football practices, but they have a new young coach that doesn’t think too much of me.”

                “You were the coach.”

                “Yep, but I retired a long time ago. My assistant took my job and he didn’t mind that I came around. He retired himself last year. Went off to Florida.”

                “No kids?”

                He shook his head.

                “I got lots of friends,” he said.

                 He wiped his wife’s face and they wheeled her back. He pecked on the cheek and patted her hand and they went out.

                “What are you going to do?” he asked.

                “You’re a good husband,” she told him.

                He laughed with the cracked laugh again.

                “Let’s go talk to Edward,” he said.

                They drove back downtown and on main street parked in front of an old limestone bank. The lae offices were upstairs through a side entrance that led to stairs. It all looked well to do. The office had double doors with the law firm name engraved in the glass and a posh reception area with Oriental rug and potted plants and law books in shelves that no one had touched in twenty years. They were dusted however. Winston approached the receptionist rather apologetically.

                “We’d like to see Mr. Stills, if he is free. We forgot to make an appointment.”

                He gave their names and then sat on one of the couches. If he had had a hat, he would have fiddled with it. The receptionist went into one of the solid oak doors. Daydee looked out the window and then wandered over to a Currier & Ives print of a steeplechase on the wall.  She half expected Burl Ives in a white suit to step out to shake their hands. The receptionist held the door, and announced that Mr. Stills would see them now. Mr. Stills didn’t get up. He had on a beige suit and sat a very large desk. Behind him was a large window that looked out on the street below. He was Jack’s buddy. The other football star. He had a paunch. He was handsome, but had a frown that wouldn’t leave. He motioned them to the chairs in front of the desk.

                “This is Deidre,” Winston told him.

                “You won’t mind, you understand. I have a legal responsibility.” Edward said. “Can I see some identification?”

                Daydee pulled her wallet out. She handed over her Louisiana ID Card.

                He fingered it as though he was about to hold it up to the light like you would a $100 bill, but he handed it back.

                “No Driver’s License?”

                Oh, oh.

                “I left it in my luggage. It expired two days ago. I was coming up here, so I thought I would just get a new one here.” She felt like she was talking to a cop.

                “So you are planning to be here a while?”

                “Looks like it.”

                He handed her a document. It was her mother’s will. A couple pages stapled together.

                “You can read it through and if you have any questions, you can call me. You get everything. There’s a living trust that was set up by your Great Uncle, for the house in town and the farm. Your mother sold the house in town and deposited the money in a bank account which belongs to the trust.”

                “How much is that?”

                “Looks like about five thousand dollars.”

                “For that mansion and the land it sat on?” she asked.

                “You’ll have to talk to the accountant about that. “

                “I thought that the trust meant she couldn’t sell it.” Daydee said.

                “That’s technically correct, but we consulted the court here and they gave her permission as long as the profit was deposited to the trust. “

                “Five thousand for that house? There was at least two acres of yard.”

                “You have a pretty good memory of things, Deidre. I’d suggest you go look at the transcript at the courthouse and the transfer deeds if that will help you. There might be copies in your mother’s papers. “

                “What happened to my Aunt’s farm?”

                “That was quick deeded to me for services rendered.”

                “Do you have copies of that transaction?”

                “You can get them from the County Office over at the court house, but look through your mother’s things first.”

                “Off the record,” Daydee said. “You think she killed him. I won’t repeat anything you say.”

                He leaned back and put his hands behind his head. He looked at Winston in the same way that they rest of them had.

                “Yes,” he said. “She had brought in something to me that would have hung her. I told her to get rid of it. I will not tell you what it was, that’s client privilege. But she did it. He probably deserved it. He made your lives a living hell when he was living with you. And then to come back after all those years.”

                He shook his head.

                “So. You are the executor of the will. If there’s anything you want me to handle for you, I’d be more than happy to. The first thing is to organize everything and file the will with probate. My rate is $35.00 an hour. I can defer it until things get sold.”

                She didn’t like him at all. If he was a john, she’d turn him down.

                “What makes you think I want to sell anything?” she asked.

                The frown became set in stone.

                “That’s just what people that have left town usually do. They don’t want to stay.”

                “I haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet. But I don’t have to be back in New Orleans ever. I’ve closed up shop there.”

                Those were probably not the right words to use in front of a cop.

                “The people here are set in their ways, Deidre. You might find it hard to fit in,” Edward said.

                “Everyone else has been real friendly.”

                She stood and walked out to the receptionist and paused to pick up his business card, mostly to see if Winston was coming. He seemed to be in a hushed heated discussion with the lawyer. She turned and when downstairs without him. She took her time, hoping Winston would come running out after her. She started the truck and sat for another minute. He appeared; looking worried and then scurried over to get in.

                 “What a sourpuss,” she said.

                “He’s angry a lot these days.”

                “You were whispering away in there when I left.”

                “I was trying to convince him to give you a break.”

                “Is he even a honest man?” she asked.

                “Well…I…he may not be.”

                “You were his coach in high school. If anyone knows, you do.”

                “Well…I guess he’s not.”

                “I’m going to dig up all the records. It all smells shady to me.”

                Winston looked out the window.

                “The world isn’t always the way we wish it would be,” he said.

                “My mother was another one,” Daydee said. “Where to now?”

                “There’s the accountant.”

                “Ok, show me where the mansion used to be. It’s on the way?”

                He directed her.  The neighborhood was just like every other Midwestern neighborhood, with houses all built in the thirties that have been remodeled and painted over and over. Lawns were sprouting the light green of spring grass. The lot had a good sized modern building on it with a main entrance and lots of brick and plate windows.  There was a sign out on the yard. It was a medical clinic. This was the odd part. They had talked and talked about fixing the old house up. The trust business must have been the problem.  It wasn’t hers. It was Daydee’s. That must have rankled. Her Uncle must have laughed himself silly writing up that trust business. Daydee thought the whole thing was a shame. Had he left to her mother, it might still be sitting here, all spruced up and waiting for her. She had dreamed about the house off and on her whole life. Usually it had to do with a secret room filled with jewels. Or a little person that she would find sitting in that doll’s chair he used to have on his window sill. No doll, just a doll’s chair. And five thousand! What a rip off!

                “When your Great Uncle died, your aunt came over with a crowbar and went to work on the house, looking for hidden money. She tore up the fireplace and some of the floor. Your mother went crazy herself. “Winston was saying. “They never found anything, as far as I know.”

                 “They were all crazy. Cracked and useless. If I had stayed, I would have been just as bad.”

                “Your mother had her moments.” Winston said.

                “Maybe in the sack- for you. That was the only thing that anybody really liked. Did she keep her habit til the very end?”

                “I’m not sure what you mean,” Winston said.

                Daydee eyed him.

                “Yeah,” he finally said.

                “So the accountant is next?”

                Winston directed her to his office.  It was in a mini-mall, next to a chain drugstore.  It reminded her of a real estate office or a mall bank office. The plants were plastic. The accountant, Mark, was a very slender man that was entirely too blonde with eyebrows and a thin mustache to match. He seemed very feminine in his mannerisms and speech, but there was a wedding ring on his finger. He seemed friendly enough. He got straight to the point.

                “Your mother and her corporation have been operating at a loss for the last five years, losing about ten thousand a year on the bottom line. I have no idea how she was managing to stay in business. I had suggested bankruptcy a couple of years ago, but she wouldn’t hear of it.”

                “What is the corporation?”

                “Everything she owned: the apartment building, the cemetery, the oil exploration and the share crop revenue.”

                “You think she was making money in a way that she wasn’t telling you about?”

                “I’m sure.  Don’t know what, though.”

                Daydee looked at Winston.

                “I might have some idea,” he said. “But I need to talk to you about it in private.”

                “That’s better for everyone,” Mark said. “Why don’t I work up a detailed history and I’ll drop it by tomorrow afternoon. I could go over it with you and explain anything you don’t understand.”

                “Ok, what time?” Daydee knew this meant something else.

                “Say, around two?”

                She agreed, curious about what he had in mind.  Sometimes people just know who you are. That was the feeling he gave her. Or maybe that damn lawyer did a background check on her and told everyone. There were arrests off and on in her thirties for soliciting. She followed Winston outside.

                “So what do people know about me?” she asked him on the sidewalk. There had to be an explanation about the looks and the little discussions out of earshot.

                “N..nothing.”

                “Your buddy the lawyer didn’t check me out?”

                “No. At least not that I know of.”

                “Would you tell me the truth?”

                “Of…of course.”

                She lit a cigarette.

                “So what was my mother doing for money?”

                “I think she was dealing in drugs, but I’m not sure. I don’t think she was selling anything, more like acting like a courier.”

                “Mother with a big time stash in the trunk. There’s a thought.”

                “Every so often she would go out of town. The police would never suspect a little seventy-year-old of trafficking.”

                “You know, Winston, you’ve been very kind to me. I think I’m tired. I’ll take you back to your car.”

                She drove back to the cemetery.

                “So what do you want to see tomorrow?” he asked.

                “You know I think I’m tired. I’ll call you if I want to go out. I might just sleep in all day tomorrow.”

                He waited for her to drive out before he got in his car. 

The brother not in the picture

There's a brother in the bed in the foreground. He's always been there. You recall laughing with him, fighting with him. He was an electrical engineer in the making and become one. I've made an entire career out of understanding engineers. Even have a son bear that's grown the same mind set- must be in the genes. Missing him. He's as different from me as black is from white, but we are wired the same. Brothers grow your ability to have men friends. You can tell them to go f themselves and they will reciprocate. Only seen him maybe 5 times in the 20 years. 

Without a clue

So you go to the guy and you say: "The report doesn't work. It doesn't seem to be updating when you make corrections." He says: "I'll take a look." Two weeks later you go back and say: "Any Progress?" He says "My bosses have said, I need to be working on other things. It's too bad that there is no attention paid to your concerns." So I went to his and my boss. "What do I do?" My boss says tell him to give you his staff person to write a query." So I go back, and the guy gets mad and says the report works and why are we doing this and having people do quick fixes when we need to think about what we are doing, and I'm over worked and I'm sick. I say: "Well, I didn't know you did anything to the report. Let me look at it again." Guess what, he did nothing and the more I look at it the worse it gets." Guess who is going to get a long email detailing what the fuck is wrong with the report and guess who's bosses are going to see all of this. (This is the guy that told me point blank that he didn't want me to tell our bosses that a report is broken) Guess what?

Sang this out loud this morning to the bluegrass group

It's Complicated

Once, a thousand years ago, a buddy and I attended at Writers Conference in, I think, New Orleans at the the State school campus. They were just getting the Writers thing off the ground and had a problems getting writers and editors to attend the thing and so there was a "workshop class" run by a PR guy for the off shore oil company down there, that I cannot even remember which company it was. (We were twenty something.) Anyway, he started off his talk showing us a slide something like this and talking about how beautiful this was.
We got up and sneaked out without any comment except for a glance at each other. A buddy now, an engineer for a big oil company out here in California, who I have been backpacking with for four or five years has explained the problem in the gulf and economics of the low grade drilling that took over the gulf and why there is major oil in the swamps of Louisiana now, and it all makes perfect sense, except that the companies are making a 120% profit this year and eighteen and nineteen year old boys are dying so that these companies can obtain oil leases in the countries where we are destroying the governments. When we are dead and gone, someone very smart will write a brilliant history of the 21st century oil wars and everypne will understand it in that context. Now we are liberating the Middle East so the folks there can be free. Free to choose a capitalistic society so that the oil companies can make money for their shareholders/

We have meet the enemy and they are us.

Planning for the Backpack

I can do better than this. It looks like a lot of carbs and the same food every day. This is for seven days for one person. I'm doing 4 complete days (3 meals plus snacks) for four people so far. I can't do the carbs cause I'm diabetic. And I hate eating the same thing day in and day out. So I'm doing the REI freeze dried meals for two for two of the dinners, foil pouches of Chicken Breast and /or tuna steaks with added stuff the other two. Breakfast is oatmeal, or cream of wheat and oranges, Lunches are peanut butter and jelly and/or tuna and crackers and apples. Carrots wear well. As do summer squash- slice and fry them. I buy my jerky and my gorp from Costco and build my own gorp (cause I can't have the M&Ms the rest of world can eat. Bread is what will survive in a backpack. Bagels, tortillas, Ritz Crackers, pretzels do well. Those little packets of ketchup, mustard, pickle relish and mayo and soy sauce can do wonders. I can do vegan and vegetarian and high carb for the jocks. Hard Salami, hard boiled eggs, fruit cups that don't need refrigeration are great things to have. And cookies. And Rum, now that there aren't any Boy Scouts going along any more.

I've been doing this for eight years now. I do all the planning and all the food. And my buddies like me just fine. I keep thinking I'll write a camping cookbook one of these days, but I never will. This trip to the Grand Canyon has three days of car camping and car camp cooking which is a whole lot easier.

We're going in from the North Rim and down to the river and then back out the same way. I wanted to go before I got too old to do it and I thought it would be the last one with my two bears for awhile, but its me and a buddy and his son and two of his son's friend this year, Oh well, I'm doing this for me mostly.

 Gonna be here with my food a week from next Wednesday.

The Very Green House

The very Green house. A buddy has bought a fixer-upper over here by where I live. It is very green - all the rooms are painted green with very old green carpet. He's worried, but a little white paint can do wonders. I've been dreaming of very green houses filled up with furniture.It will be fun, if it doesn't interfere with his music. What do you do if you are sixty and have a hell of a lot of energy compared to the rest of the world? He and I have that in common. Besides the music. I told him we have another twenty years to play together. I think he believed me. I have been hoping when we rip up the carpet we will find a relative in untouched hardwood floors. I've told him I'll be there to rip up carpets. I've told him I have Teenagers that will work for next to nothing. I love green.