Existing In BFE

A few years ago Mr. and Mrs. Wombie and I went on a roadtrip around Media, Illinois to see the old train trestle.  It wasn't hard to find and I took a lot of pictures that day.  Think I can find them?  Nope.  I think I know where they might be and I'll look for them later, but they may be lost forever.   The real historical factor of the trestle was the fact that it was such a vital artery for war materiel during World War II that it was guarded by the military.  On my last visit to Northlandia Neighbor Tim and I took off toward Spoonies in London Mills for lunch but I wanted to detour a bit and show it to him.  He enjoys a good historical story and I thought I had come up with a pretty good trifecta:  bike ride, lunch, history.   I came into town and stopped at the old high school that, by the way, was the place my Dad went to school.  It is still standing, oddly, in an era of bringing old things down.  I decided I needed T...

This is an essay I read in the New York Times a few months ago.  I liked it.    Driving due south in spring is like speeding up time. My mother, who grew up on a peanut farm in Lower Alabama, believed that the growing season expands northward at the rate of a hundred miles per week. I thought about her theory as I was driving south last month, watching the new-green leaves near home fast forward into a denser, darker verdure. I had set off from Nashville in springtime, but when I arrived at my sister’s house near Birmingham, it was already full summer. I think about my parents every day, but there’s something about watching the hardwood forests of Tennessee give way to the piney woods of Alabama that brings them back to me with a fresh aching. Perhaps it’s the pine trees that set off the longing — straight and tall, lining the highway like a giant guardrail, shunting me in the right direction, a marble on a downhill track. But maybe it’s only the familiar landsc...

++++++++++ You know those slide show traps on Yahoo that usually suck you I with titles like "See what your favorite movie stars look like now", or "See where Hugh Hefner lived and we could cry".  You know, stupid salacious stuff that wastes your time with 70 slide shows of people you don't know or who have died in the last five years but they still keep sucking you in.  The last one, absolutely last one I will ever get sucked into, as Lord is my witness, was titled Overrated Tourist Attractions.  Just this week.  So like the slavering drooling imbecile I am, I decide to check it out.  And honestly things like the Eiffel Tower, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Mona Lisa and the Louvre, the Washington Monument and, gasp! the Pyramids!  Well, that's like the best attractions in the world.  And they are all overrated??  What, the biggest ball of twine in Darwin, Minnesota beats the Pyramids?  Absolutely the last time I get suckered in. ...

Everything changes.  Nothing remains the same.  The Flashback Friday feature is on life support.  Existing In BFE will keep going, but with less posts.  We ditched Mondays a while back and now we eliminate the Friday posts.  Not entirely.  Friday is going to become our "Take Out the Trash Day".  That refers to Episode 13 of Season One of West Wing where the White House disposes of all the stories they don't want heavy coverage on.  It has nothing to do with politics - my bent or yours - its simply a twisted metaphor.  You know what a twisted metaphor is, don'cha?  You just put your lips together and blow.  Oh wait, that's something entirely different.  Sometimes I feel like I'm on a runaway train.  Man, I loved that movie.  "I thought ya liked me, Manny?"  If we come up with a photo or something the editorial staff feels is worthy of mention, then we'll post it.  We'll have a mish-mash of things today ...

Todays lecture by Dan Gilbert on economics and happiness.  "Wealth is a poor predictor of happiness. It’s not a useless predictor, but it is quite limited. The first $40,000 or so buys you almost all of the happiness you can get from wealth. The difference between earning nothing and earning $20,000 is enormous—that’s the difference between having shelter and food and being homeless and hungry. But economists have shown us that after basic needs are met, there isn’t much ‘marginal utility’ to increased wealth. In other words, the difference between a guy who makes $15,000 and a guy who makes $40,000 is much bigger than the difference between the guy who makes $100,000 and the guy who makes $1,000,000. Psychologists, philosophers, and religious leaders are a little too quick to say that money can’t buy happiness, and that really betrays a failure to understand what it’s like to live in the streets with an empty stomach. Money makes a big difference to people who have non...

Imagine yourself on a levee with the only noise is the soft hum of the river moving deceptively quiet but with unrelenting strength.  darkness all about you except for the street lights behind you illuminating an empty village. Then, to the North, searchlights of a barge begin to pierce the black with its swords of sight.  Closer.  Slowly.  Closer.

Yeah, we've got too many guns. (Apparently my gif here isn't working anymore.  It was a cartoon clip from the 20's that showed a mouse pulling out a gun and shooting at a cat.  Oh well, what's a first-day-back without a glitch.) ++++++++++ ++++++++++ Back from vacation and it was one of the better ones.  The perennial hosts (Mr. and Mrs. Wombie) still act like they don't mind the Guest-Who-Never-Leaves and even gave me hugs at the airport..oh wait...well, they are gracious hosts. We took advantage of dark skies and have lots of pics of night photography, went to two car shows with The Frump, had 2 Whitey's (and if you don't know then shame, shame, shame, saw two folks I worked with at MDH (one in a nursing home), rode the bike till Monkey Butt went away, went through two houses to possibly buy, had a cider donut, and had great eats and cold beer. But now I am back in the hot embrace of Kitschland.  All good things come ...

I kind of said we'd be back today, but, sorry, we are all still on vaca.  That's a hipster way of saying vacation.  I'm no hipster, but I play one when I'm due North.  Fact of the matter is I'm not in Flo-Ville yet.  That's a gangsta wannabe Boomer disguising himself as a gangsta wannabe Millennial.  Anyway, me and my posse are still watching dark skies, ridin' till we get Monkey Butt, showin' old iron and eatin' Midwest cuisine, so stay cool, my friends, stay loose cause we still be here instead of there. Maybe next week for the one or two of you out there mildly interested.  Fist bump and all that jazz.  Be cool.