Existing In BFE

Happy New Year. We will return one week from today.

What was going on?  I kept jogging into town, which, by the way, surprised me how unwinded I was.  Surely I was an AARP marvel, fit, ruggedly agile, with the mental acuity of a twenty-year-old.  I made a mental note to sign up for the Rhubarb Days 5K.  I made another mental note to ask the Wombie if he'd like to join me?  Perhaps we could get WQAD down and write a feature article...but I digress.   Once back in Seaton I noticed a great deal of hubbub.  I walked over to an Army guy and asked, "Hey Bub, what's all the hubbub?" "The name's Bob.  Not Bub, Boob", he said as he lowered his infrared night goggles. "Hey," I said reduntantly, "Haven't I used you before in another post?" He looked like he could see right through me. I asked what had happened.   "Sadly, an unaliened flight from Planet Neatos crashed here in the northwest quadrant of the village."  There was no loss of human life, although ...

P osted by Jason Kottke   Nov 15, 2019 I grew up in Wisconsin, and have lived in Iowa, Minnesota, and New York. Except for a two-year stint in the Bay Area, I’ve experienced winter — real winter, with lots of snow, below-freezing temperatures, and little daylight — every year of my life and never had a problem with it. So I was surprised when my last two Vermont winters put me on my ass. In winter 2017-18, I was depressed, anxious, wasn’t getting out of bed in the morning, spent endless time on my phone doing nothing, and had trouble focusing on my work. And I didn’t realize what it was until the first nice spring day came, 70 and sunny, and it hit me: “holy shit, I’ve been depressed because of winter” and felt wonderful for the next 5 months, like a completely different person. Then last year I was so anxious that it would happen again that all that stuff was worse and started basically a week into fall. Nothing helped: I tried getting outside more, spent ...

My Holy Stone HS 700 drone flying over North Henderson.

So, it's Christmastime.  I have vowed this year to NOT watch any themed movies this year.  No It's a Wonderful Life , no Christmas Vacation , no flicks with Scrooge, Kurt Russell as Santa or "He/she saved Christmas".  Nothing.  Is it my mood, maybe.  Or perhaps it is living in a place where you can count on it NOT snowing.  This is Kitschland, the place where folks throw lights on their palm trees and shop in shorts and 2012 Bike Week T-shirts.  I refuse to put a ribbon on a pig and call it a Holiday.  In Dante's Inferno ,  he describes nine concentric circles of Hell.  Surely, Florida is one of them.      ++++++++++ I don't think we ever had these types of lights, but I think my grandparents did.   ++++++++++ ++++++++++ As they say in a gynecologists office, posts will be spotty for the next couple weeks.   ++++++++++ ++++++++++ For al...

Here I am. Stranded about a mile outside Seaton.  I've chased UFO's to Chris Jone's place and seen them out there walking around.  I tried to get back to town so I could help the wounded after they attacked but now I'm not far from Joe Garland's old place in the country.  I have to get back to Seaton - I can see the flames and smoke.  Just then, overhead, I see two UFOs heading back to town, followed by, Yes!, its the good old US Army!  Chasing those bastards out of town.     My run back into town finds the wreckage and devastation of the northwest quadrant of Seaton.  But why?  Why Seaton?  Why Chris Jones?  Why can't Chrysler make a fuel efficient Jeep?   The village Volunteer Fire department is doing what they can to contain the blaze, but since there isn't a lot of houses anyway, it won't take long for them to put it all out.  The sun is coming up and more Army guys are patrolling to keep the pea...

Poor Abe Lincoln.  The old Springfield rail-splitter has been knocked off his perch as the best Republican president.  The man who saved the Union, and laid the groundwork for a merciful and forgiving Reconstruction is now just another has-been.  The guy who abolished slavery in this country, created the national banking system, and signed into the law the Homestead Act which allowed lower income folks to own land is now just another contender for the throne. I guess I was wrong all those years when I considered him to not only be the best republican but, well, the best president we ever had.  Saving the Union is no small thing.  Think of America as a North and a South.  Imagine if we'd had two separate nations had Lincoln failed.  We 'd have one where slavery was still allowed and then us.  Pretty damn messy if you ask me.   I understand that with the shifting sands of time things get buried and other things get unearthed.  Wel...

Same day.  Same scene.  Same photographer at the same location. Des Moines.  1940's.  See my point about night photography?  

Birthday beers at Cheers On Main in Emerald City.  See the cute little bottle candle holders they gave the Wombie and I? ++++++++++   ++++++++++ Thanksgiving back in the Good Old Days.  Not so good for the ladies who had to cook all day and clean all night. ++++++++++ Speaking of Cheers on Main.  The Wombie and I spent an afternoon there one day while I was back.  It was an introverts paradise. ++++++++++ Remember hearing of the defectors from bad countries like Russia, China and North Korea? We always kind of inwardly applauded, "Way to go, and welcome to the good guys."  Nowadays I can't think of a single person who has gone from the Democrats over to the Republican side, but we have a boat load of people who have defected from the Repubs. ++++++++++ Stopped at an Amish store near where we live.  This guy who was manning the cash register must ha...

I rushed out to the Jone's place to warn them of the impending visitation from the UFO's, but when I got there, I was too late.    I got out of the Wombies ridiculously gas guzzling Jeep and crept through the corn field.  It gave me time to wonder why intelligent space creatures would bother Seaton, Illinois, population 220?  Why would they come all this way to bombard a little town that had nothing threatening to them.  And why would they go out north of town to the Jones'?  And finally, why can't they make a fuel-efficient Jeep?  I quietly made it to the edge of the corn and then thought how happy I was he hadn't picked it yet.  The cover gave me a good sightline to the house.  Should I warn them and risk being abducted?  What if they examined my orifices?  I looked at the garage where they spend all their time watching TV and thought of my orifices.  I saw two aliens looking in the window.  Then I wondered wh...

One of the things that amazes me whenever I gaze upon a night sky in Northlandia is the night sky.  The stars, and the sheer number of them, literally takes my breath away.  I found this article yesterday and decided to post it for the first week back.  Down here light pollution blocks most of the stars and I think of all the people who have never, and will never see a sky full of twinkling stars in their lives.  Falling in Love With the Dark I f you see a car along that road,” Tyler Nordgren warned me, “don’t look at the headlights. It’ll ruin your night vision for 2 hours.” Nordgren and I had pitched our tents under the brow of Mount Whitney in the Alabama Hills, a field of boulders near Death Valley. We watched it get dark, and in the nighttime horizon, the sky was perforated by stars and streaked by the Milky Way. Or, to put it in approximate scientific terms, it was probably a 3 on the Bortle Scale...