It's about that corner in Winslow, Arizona

The corner in Winslow, Arizona. Catch the truck off to the right. This photo came from my friend but names and images have been left out to protect the guilty.

Any guy who's ever hitchhiked has entertained the fantasy of being picked up by a beautiful woman in a fancy car and, as Robert Frost might have written it, she takes him places, and she takes him places.

A statue of Glenn Frey, who co-wrote
the song, was placed near the corner
in September 2016

That fantasy was memorialized in the Eagles' song "Take It Easy" with the line "Well, I'm standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona. I'm such a fine sight to see. It's a girl, my lord, in a flat bed Ford slowing down to take a look at me." Who hasn't heard that song and that line and put himself on that corner?

So today, during a long drive, the song came up on the stereo but when the line rang out, the girl in the flatbed Ford wasn't there. Instead it was three friends in Facebook photos standing on the very same corner, two scruffy Alaskans and one beautiful Arizona woman who I'm pretty sure doesn't drive a flatbed Ford.  Wait, what? The image would not go away and the song passed without any more accompanying harmonies from me.

The thought lingered for a while. How dare reality wipe out a perfectly good fantasy, but it is probably gone forever. Like they say once you see something you can't unsee it. The song's still good, it just won't be the same any more.

And much as I love my friends, I want that girl in the flatbed Ford back. Fortunately or unfortunately I still have the four that want to own me, two that want to stone me and the one says she's a friend of mine. And, still out there, also, is "that lover who won't blow my cover;" don't you know,  "she's so hard to find."

 

 

 

Eagles "Take It Easy."

A BIT OF AN AFTERTHOUGHT: Someone July 7, 2014, found this post using the search words "real teen girls naked Winslow Arizona." I'm pretty sure he didn't find what he was looking for here.

The remains of the storm

So, you say you have a big spring yard cleanup?

Please.

Still cleaning up the mess from last fall's storm.  Looking now for a wood chipper because warm and dry weather has us under a fire warning.

The former top of a cottonwood.

Part of what remains of two trees.

Remains of two more trees.

Remains of three trees with stump.

A most difficult stump; up to Plan E.

Oh no, there's another one

This image was posted on twitter by UK-based digital and social agency Tokyo with the caption
 “just a small bridge in Japan."

Over the years there has been a recurring dream, one that has never come up in discussion so far, mostly because there isn't an easy interpretation and for that reason alone it has been disturbing. It involves driving a vehicle over a bridge, only the bridge is so high and the road so steep, the vehicle never makes it to the top and the effort paralyzes the driver in fear.

And yet another:

This one's in St. Petersburg, Florida,

Read the rest here: A bridge too far … up

Accidental gourmand

Sometimes it's kind of fun to look at something and guess at its origins: words, particularly idioms; tools particularly new ones since the basics have been covered for centuries; and food.  Food raises some interesting questions. Take eggs: Who was the first guy who looked at an egg and thought "hmm this looks good, think I'll crack it, pop what comes out into a frying pan and see what it tastes like."  Or milk: I mean who looked at a cow and thought: "think I will pull this and see what comes out and then taste it." And who thought that stringy stuff coming out of a worm could be woven into one of the finest textiles known to man.

Scientists are still discovering uses for things that come out of animals of one form or another.

Once the basics had been discovered, who tried this or that thinking it might add to flavor? Spices, condiments, sauces, all evolved from someone's curiosity.

So now take a guy who lives alone and one night pops a frozen dinner out of the fridge and discovers it contains macaroni and cheese. Now this is un-American and sure to draw the wrath of some patriot  or network pundit somewhere but I don't like mac and cheese.  I don't like peanut butter either and I guess the combination makes me one step short of a communist.

Now this may be a first among all the fancy recipes that show up on the internet; a dish based only on enhancing a TV dinner. Hating to waste food, I stared at that mac and cheese for a couple of moments and then thought about cheese sauces and came up with this.  After the first round in the microwave. I threw a handful of frozen broccoli florets into the cheesy mess and let them thaw and cook for the second three minutes.  They came out just right, warm all the way through, but still a little crunchy.  I never did eat the macaroni but I did have a vegetable albeit in suspect cheese food sauce I wouldn't have had otherwise and had found a way to at least use part of that foul concoction. So, no need to shy away from the frozen dinners that contain mac and cheese any more, except for the necessity, really, to stay away from processed foods altogether.  After all, they are foods attached to television commercials.

But then, not counting side dishes, is there a whole new recipe book out there somewhere that features additions that can be made to frozen dinners? Maybe I can write a best seller yet.

You'll never eat anything again

Georgia on my mind

There's not much to worry about, given the gun-handling shenanigans  of these folks.

One of my favorite parts of the day is just after waking up and staying in bed for a while letting my mind wander wherever it wishes. Sometimes it finds wonderful and creative places, at others it finds the world news quite depressing.  And then there are times when everything melds together.

This morning was an example of the last of those. It being Friday morning, thoughts went to what entertainment might be fun today or this evening. Since most of my recreational activities are alone or with Walter, once in a while there's a desire for some company. Some days I just don't want to be alone. Coupled with the news of the past few days I came up with the wild idea to strap on a sidearm and head for Georgia, see if I can't meet one of those gun-loving peaches who must be all over the place these days.

The news this week has been that the Georgia legislature passed and the governor signed what has been called the most nonrestrictive gun law in the country. Basically you can take a gun everywhere you want in Georgia. It makes Florida's "stand and deliver" law, oops  "stand your ground" law look like a bathroom rule for kindergartners.

Now, before a whole state full of people is painted with the same brush, I only know of and am only slightly acquainted with three people in Georgia.  One is a member of a group I joined on Facebook, another was an online instant messaging friend and the third is a love from a past life.  None of these three would be any kind of a gun advocate. You have to believe there are more like them. But in an age where elected representatives don't represent anything except their own beliefs, I suspect my friends don't have much voice on the issue. We only have one representative for Alaska and he has said he only represents those who voted for him, and he is a hunter and NRA backer.

A meme from facebook 4/26/14

It's been sad to watch the trend in legislation since the horrible shootings at the school in Newton, Connecticut pushed gun issues in front of the American public. More states have actually liberalized restrictions on guns than have tightened them. And the slaughter continues. Now the National Rifle Association wants a universal (read federal) law governing gun ownership. According to news reports, all 50 states now allow people to carry concealed weapons. What the NRA now wants is a federal law guaranteeing those permits will remain in effect as people move from state to state.

This is one place no one has to worry about Alaskans. If we drive we have to go through Canada and those folks want no part of gun-slinging Americans.

In light of what's happened as we look back, what is evident is the outrage over wild firearm murders in schools has only served to solidify the gun folks in their efforts to prevent regulation and they are the folks who are winning the argument. The do it with the help of timid national representatives along with their state counterparts who are afraid to stand up to the NRA which apparently wields more influence with them than the majority of the American electorate. Polls be damned, we got to keep 'muricans armed.

That became so obviously true when federal officers tried to enforce an order to that Nevada rancher who has refused to pay grazing fees on public lands for the past 20 years, despite three court orders and numerous warnings to the contrary. And who comes out to support him? Guys with swastika neck tattoos and all manner of firearms. I love the wife of the guy who said she has a shotgun and knows how to use it. Wonder how she would do when the drone targets their little encampment. Not that I would advocate that, either. But it is ludicrous for a handful of shotgun toting wackos to think they could win an armed conflict with the federal government. And speaking of the government, this rancher says he does not recognize the United States of America as his government. But he flies an American flag over his ranch and cites the U.S. Constitution as justification for his armed stand against a government that has put up with his bullshit for the past two decades while other ranchers whose stock roam public lands pay the fees.

What that guy doesn't recognize is that land he says is free for his cattle to roam, belongs to all of us, the American people, and he is trying to drop cow pies on others' freedom while he demands his own.

Give those BLM officers and their superiors credit for their patience and restraint. In the past, read the Whiskey Rebellion, the government sent in troops and quashed the rebellion with gunfire.

All of these less restrictive gun laws are designed according to their sponsors to make us feel safer, like we can defend ourselves against other people similarly armed. And then they give us protection laws like stand your ground where you can pretty much shoot anyone if you feel the slightest bit threatened. I feel safer, don't you?

Meanwhile I hear the whistle and the roar of that Midnight Train to Georgia, but I think I'll leave the gun locked up at home and take my chances there are more sane people in that state as there are here who settle their differences in an adult manner and leave the cowboy crap to others where it belongs a couple of centuries ago.


Ray Charles "Georgia on my mind."

NRA seeks universal gun law

Into the belly of the beast

When Plan B doesn't work

The problem: Hung up
about 35 feet above ground.

I think it's mentioned somewhere else on this blog how I learned to attack difficult tasks from a friend on a sailing voyage. On long ones something is always going to go wrong and what I learned watching him was he always had the next thing to try if this fix didn't work. The trick is to keep thinking; as you try one solution be thinking of what you will do if this one doesn't work. Sometimes you have to go pretty deep into the alphabet to find the eventual solution.

Today off that list of procrastinated jobs, two are complete and a couple others are farther along the way.

The biggest was finally getting that blow-down tree to the ground from where it had hung up in another tree. That one went to plan D and a half. The way it fell and stopped at about a 45-degree angle probably 30 or 40 feet above the ground, it was still attached to the stump. Some time ago I cut it free from the stump, but that barely moved it in the other tree. 

Plan D: connected and cranking. Those chunks on the 
ground are from earlier pieces whittled off the trunk.

The next was an attempt with some climbing rope and my old small comealong. The way the tree had come off the stump it was jammed against a hillock made by an older stump and that set-up wouldn't budge it. Plus the small machine and thin rope started to look a little flimsy for the job. I've always been a little timid about such things after I saw a U.S. Navy film about how a line snaps back when it breaks under tension.  

To demonstrate the force, they lined up nine mannequins along the deck of a ship and then backed down on a line until it broke. The snap back cut the first six or seven mannequins in half, and hit the next two or three with a force estimated to be fatal. As that line on the tree reached banjo string tension I decided not to go further. At that point, I left it for a few weeks while my mind worked on Plan C.

That plan simply involved more force. I brought a bigger comealong from the cabin, this one a 4 1/2-ton contraption made to move mountains.  I also brought some bigger rope to aid in an attempt to increase the power of the tug on the tree. Unfortunately that didn't do it and for the second time the line reached banjo tightness and I quit again in frustration.

I can't say I came up with Plan D myself. I pointed out what I was faced with to a plumber who came by one day and he said oh that's where your have to cut it at an angle and keep working up the trunk until the whole tree comes down. I thought about that for a while and came up with a variation that prevented the possibility that the cut would close and pinch the chainsaw bar between the two parts.

Down, finally.

I put rope and the big comealong in place about three feet up the trunk and cranked on it until the device took up serious tension. Then I started cutting the angled trunk with a cut perpendicular to the ground.  Instead of trying to cut all the way through, at about three-quarters, and before the wood could pinch the blade, I shut down the saw and took up more tension on the line. That broke the tree right at the cut and it slid  down but stuck in the ground before it could fall all the way out of the bigger tree.

The trunk however did fall away from that hillock that had it jammed and onto flatter ground so I kept cranking on the comealong and the tree began to move. But this was progress in inches. Six or seven times the effort took up all the wire on the spool and the tree only moved maybe six inches each time. But toward the end of about the fifth with a pretty loud crack it fell part way down the obstinate tangled tree and when it did, that reduced the angle against the ground. The base didn't dig in as much as I cranked against it.

Two more resets and the tree started coming easily, moving as much as a foot on each setting. While this process was tedious, progress was being made. But I was losing ground in another way.  It reached a point where the distance between the tree and the one I was using to anchor the line was so short there wasn’t much room to pull it any farther. Archimedes had said he could move the earth if he had a place to stand and I was running out of a place to stand. There wasn't another stout enough tree close and in line to which I could anchor the rope and I was starting to see how I could get the four-wheeler or the Jeep close enough to finish the job. Those would have been plans E and F.

Stacked and drying.

But that's where the "D and a half" came into play. I pushed on the tree and found it moved side to side fairly easily. And, each time I shook it, I could hear cracking up where it was stuck.  So I kept shaking and in time with a loud crack up there somewhere the whole thing came down. Finally. One job that's been a bother since last fall and now that tree was on the ground.

It only took about an hour or so to buck it up and haul the wood to the growing pile. Sometimes great satisfaction comes from solving some rather mundane problems.

One less task to procrastinate about joined that growing side of the list. Last night I planted all the seeds in the flats and pots and arranged them in the sunny windows, so that one's done too. Oh yeah the right ball hitch is on the four-wheeler now and I have a new receiver for the other trailer so it, too, will take a 2-inch ball.

So, tomorrow is a day off. Except for a doctor's appointment which is near the big box hardware store where I need to buy bolts for the small trailer hitch and tie-downs for the new trailer. One leads to another and another. Vonnegut again, "and so it goes." And pleasant to know I had Plans E and F in the bank.

On taking procrastination to a whole new level

On taking procrastination to a whole new level

The yard this year will be (is) a monstrous undertaking.  Along with the usual cleanup after winter, there are the branches and brush left over from the five trees that fell last fall, a hole in the driveway where I pulled the stumps out. Most of the good wood that came from those trees still needs to be split and a lot of it is so green it seems better to let it age and dry a little before tackling it. And then there's the garden to get ready. Today I learned that's going to be a while; about four or five inches down, the ground is still frozen, hard as a rock. So, patience. I did get a bunch of pots and flats filled with soil ready for the seeds I bought the other day. And, of course, the car is dirty, the house needs a cleaning, there are dirty dishes in the sink, laundry is piling up, visqueen to take off the windows and screens to put back, and there's always this book that keeps agitating from way deep in my mind; it goes on and on.

So, with all those chores ahead, the task seems insurmountable. I learned years ago that when you  (damn, just got my first mosquito bite) have a huge project ahead, it's best to break it into manageable sections. Tackle one task at a time and the project doesn't seem so insurmountable and you can go from smaller task to smaller task rather than think constantly of the intimidating big picture.

But with so many smaller tasks, each one fairly big in itself, procrastination has become a way of life. Without thinking, I have taken it to, as people seem to say way too often, a whole 'nother level which in the long run has turned out to be self defeating.

Walter sings two-part harmony with Bruce and the E Street Band

First of all it probably isn't a smart thing to do getting a sweet tooth and going to the store late in the evening for a french silk chocolate pie. Pretty sure that would be a suspicious indication of the munchies and given the convoluted path the issue has followed in this state, I am not sure how legal pot is in anymore. Tough, the urge for something sweet overwhelmed any paranoid tendencies. For the record, I didn't smoke anything or drink anything for that matter, it's just been so long since I had anything sweet it became an obsession tonight.

Second, it's probably not a good idea to try to shoot a video at something going on in the back seat while you are driving down the road. Between the two I was probably a prime suspect if a cop had happened to see me.  Fortunately we made it home in one piece without an arrest and with the pie also in one piece, and this video which I promised the other day.

Now, the camera is a bit shaky and the lighting is awful, but in my defense, I couldn't pull over and I had to aim the camera into the back of the Jeep and see the viewfinder via the rearview mirror.  But, I got it in all its glory.

I can't resist throwing in the John Fogarty line, "I can still hear my old hound dog barking…" from "Born on the Bayou."

The newest member if the E Street Band

The newest member of the E Street Band

It may have been mentioned on this blog elsewhere how a hound baying in the woods is music to the ears. You have to hear it to understand, it is the voice for sure and the duration of each note, but it also is the acoustics of that bay echoing through the big woods or across a field of harvested corn. Elsewhere that sound may not be appreciated as much. Although, I had a neighbor once who speaking about how my black and tan Boone would ride in the back of the pickup baying the whole way through our little subdivision, said, "You know I hate dogs barking but when your dog sounds off, well,  it's cool."

With that for a preface, we were coming home from town in the Jeep today, Walter tethered in back and watching out the windows while rock and roll blasted out of  the speakers good and loud. He has seemed to ignore music for the most part often hiding when it gets too loud. Then this song came up on the stereo, Bruce Springsteen "I'm on fire" with its long, lingering, plaintive musical notes in places.  

Suddenly a very recognizable voice joined in from the back of the vehicle. In the rearview mirror, Walter had his nose to the sky and howled right along with the song.  That's something he has never done before. It went on pretty much through the whole song and he closed with a couple more howls after the song faded out.  Walter and Bruce and me, a most unlikely trio but what a joy to hear. The song ended and the howling stopped and Walter laid back down on his cushion.

At home I tried to get him to do it again where I could record it but of course no deal. He was much more interested in going outside.  But I will keep trying and one of these days you may get to hear it too. I just need to catch him in a calmer mood. Meanwhile I will never hear that song again without the added vocal playing in my head.

Here they are in two-part harmony

After Japanese whaling decision, time to ask Sea World where's the science?

A whale and calf swim free in Prince William Sound.

So the International Court of Justice ruled the Japanese whaling industry has nothing to do with science and ordered the hunts stopped. So far Japan says the country’s hunters will abide by the decision.

Now, if the pretense of doing science is grounds for abolishing cruelty to whales, is Sea World far behind? That's the excuse the amusement park's executives use most often to rationalize holding whales in swimming pools. Perhaps a challenge along the same lines as the Japanese court case would succeed. After all, even if they do produce a little science, the main job of Sea World is to make money off the display of killer whales and other marine mammals. Perhaps they could be subpoenaed to produce proof of any scientific advancement made at their shows.

Of course, any science they can produce is based on whales in captivity not in the wild, so is immediately suspect. Now a new revelation has come to light that could further compromise any science produced.

According to the website The Dodo. com, Sea World has admitted giving anti-anxiety drugs to the whales in their amusement parks. Specifically the drug is benzodiazepines, which includes human compounds commonly named Valium and Xanax.  Also according to the website, quoting animal advocates, the drugs are used to ensure stable mental health, in mental stress caused by captivity.  There's another solution to that mental stress, of course: freedom.

Sea World defended the practice.

The charge this time emerged during a lawsuit between Sea World and Marineland over the handling of a killer whale transported between the two. The drug use came to light in an affidavit provided by Lanny Cornell who was fired by Sea World in 1987 after an accident in which a Sea World employee was seriously injured by a killer wale in one of the company's theaters.  The dates seem right and if memory serves me Lanny Cornell is the fellow I almost had a fist fight with in Valdez Alaska, over the company's plan to capture killer whales in Prince William Sound. But that's another story.

Earlier the Dodo had reported Sea World often used diazepam (valium) on whales to ease the stress when mothers were separated from calves. Incidentally that article documents all  incidents of those separations.

So, on the excuse of furtherance of science, Sea World is actually drugging the whales it holds so they will function better as performers in their expensive shows. How is science furthered by that? How does that help the whales in general, particularly the ones who still enjoy their freedom?

Perhaps it is time to challenge Sea World on the same basis as Australia challenged Japan's whaling: Where's the science?

About all you can say for Sea World at this point is at least, unlike the Japanese, they are not killing the whales, not on purpose anyway.

Japan cancels whale hunt for first time in 25 years

International court upholds Australia's bid to ban Japanese whaling in the Antarctic

Lanny Cornell's affidavit

The Dodo: Sea World admits giving orcas anti-anxiety drugs

The Dodo: "Blackfish" creators challenge Sea World to debate

"Blackfish"

Sorry, Sea World trainers, no sympathy

Whale watching, who's watching whom?

Singing whales of Alaska's Prince William Sound