Flathead Lake picture

Here's a picture of Flathead Lake from my morning kayak outing the other day. I think it was one of the only moments I was actually calm and not in too much motion this weekend. Got to hang on to that moment... Live in that moment when you're in that place where you want to be.

That's kind of a hard thing to do actually. It's sort of a moving target..

Cedar trees

Here's a picture of some Cedar trees in Idaho. They usually aren't in the water like this but it's been raining a lot lately.

Kootenay National Park photos

Queenie and I went to Kootenay National Park to see the "Paint Pots" It's really beautiful there. The actual paint pots are pretty cool too.. or something... They are more yellow than Yellowstone.. But they're not exactly like Yellowstone.. More like yellow mud. Stay on the trail,.. that's all I have to say.

In contrast here is a picture of Queenie's foot taken at our Inn after a long day of paint potting.. You're probably not supposed to get IN the paint pots like I did..

The view as we hiked out of the paint pot area. It's only a 20 minute hike in to the three "pots". They don't exactly tell you that.

I liked this picture because it showed the color of the dirt/ mud... It's totally worth checking this out if you are in the park.

End times

If tomorrow is the last day on earth,as some are saying, then I'm going to be a little upset that I went to work today.. Well if I get sent to hell tomorrow at least I won't have to go back to work on Monday..

And with all of this "modern" music in church these days I think more than a few people are going to be disappointed when they get to heaven and have to sit and listen to harp music for eternity.. Cause there aint no electric guitars in heaven my friends..

Hey, that could be a country and western song!..

There aint no guitars in heaven..
Don't let them tell you there is..
If you want to crank up the volume..
Get off that that no fly list..

Um.. or something like that.. maybe it should be get ON the that no fly list..

UPDATE:

It's Monday... Stan says there's accordion music in hell so I guess I'm just back at work..

Spokane Bike to Work Week

So I figured I'd better ride my bike to work during the actual Bike to Work Week here in Spokane. It turned out to be a very nice morning ride. There wasn't too much traffic until I got into the community where I work, and then the insanity of everyone driving cars or should I say great big trucks to work started to sink in again.

Lately there are more small cars on the road, but there are also a lot of people who drive trucks big enough to haul freight with to and from work. That's just insane.

Police report

This is why I love Montana. I picked out a few entries from the local police report. The names and places have been removed to protect the innocent..

Apparently, but not surprisingly, there was a creepy short man with missing teeth at a bar.

A resident reported that the neighbor’s rabbits are out of control “again.”

A woman on reported that a man is holding her lawn mower hostage because her niece owes him money.

A 19-year-old male admitted to driving like an “idiot” after a fellow driver tattled on him.

A cow, a red Angus to be exact, was standing in the middle of the Road. Deputies were unable to find the cow.

Two big Burmese Mountain dogs, according to a resident, are always standing around in traffic.

A man reported that he left his camera on the top of one of his vehicles and now it's gone.

A mom reported that her neighbor was filming her kids. He claimed he wanted to record them doing annoying things.

A woman complained of a local stray cat that has attacked her cats twice in the last year.

Someone said they saw a mustached man who smelled like pot riding a bicycle that was too small for him.

Someone reported hearing screaming and yelling. The disturbance turned out to be a man talking loudly on his cell phone.

A man in possession of a pot pipe explained that he did not have a medical marijuana card yet but was anticipating getting one soon.

A pack of feral teenage boys were excessively rude to the mother of one of their friends.

A 14-year-old in a purple halter top yelled and cussed at her mom.

People on Main Street were mooned by a man in a white truck.

A man reported that his wife’s intrusive mother was at his home, refusing to leave and threatening to take his T.V.

A scruffy-haired, toothless drunk was spotted driving his Buick through town.

(Hey, I wonder if that was the same toothless drunk who was seen at the bar!?. If they catch him they'll have to rush him off to the barber and dentist for treatment..)

Mini Cooper eyelashes

It turns out I know the woman who owns this mini! I'm a little gealous too except if I owned it I'd have to take off the eyelashes, as well,. I wouldn't be able to drive it up to hunting camp like that..

Old lady perfume

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately. I've had a lot going on. I removed some old shrubs from the front of my house and have been mowing lawns and bla bla bla..

Yesterday, I went and got my hair cut because my hair was growing like my lawn and getting out of control. So I go to my hair stylist gal, who is moving out of town BTW which sucks for me because I liked her so much. She just seemed to know what to do with my hair without me having to tell her and I was always really happy with the way she cut it.. Anyway I go there and she was busy cutting some old lady's hair so I had to wait.

Well the old lady (bless her heart) had old lady perfume on creating a strong old lady smell. My hair stylist gal got the smell on her and transfered the smell to me when she cut my hair.. I went home after I got my hair cut and washed my hair, mainly to get all of the little cut hairs off of me because that drives me nuts, but I coudln't get the smell off and had to deal with it for the rest of the day.

So there's that.. I always wonder what poor labratory animal they squeezed to make that perfume..? I think there are two kinds of perfume.. The kind that they squeeze the gland of a small animal to make, and the kind that they make out of leftover chemicals from the chemical factory. Some of it smells a lot like what I spray on my lawn to kill weeds, and some of it smells like insecticide. I noticed that mom had this sunscreen/ insect repellent. I suspect that it was made to be just sunscreen but they figured out it would also kill insects so they just advertised it as sunscreen/ insect repellent. They should make a perfume/ herbicide ..

***

Picture of the pictures in my hair salon above. And the message in that picture is that if your worried about getting your hair cut, bring a hat with you..? I might have to do that now that my gal's leaving..

Flathead Lake picture

Yet another morning picture of Flathead Lake. I always take the same picture over and over. It's always a little different though. It's finally starting to warm up. Grass is growing, weeds are growing, lawn needs mowing... I'd better get going.

I retain all rights to my photos.  Please do not use any of my photos without permission.

Calm morning on the lake

I usually like at least one cloud in the ski, and there's one about to come up in the distance.

Canoe on Flathead Lake

A picture of my canoe on Flathead Lake. The lake could actually flood this year. There's a lot of snow in the mountains and it keeps snowing.

(I retain all rights to my photos.  Please do not use without prior permission.)

Shooting Stars, wild flowers

I have my own little patch of shooting star wild flowers at Flathead Lake in Montana. Well my mom and I do.. She said a bird must have brought the seed in because they aren't anywhere else around there that I've seen. None of the neighbors have them. They're sort of out of place there anyway. I've taken ownership of them because one time I mowed them down before they went to seed and my mom said that they might not come back as a result. So now every year make sure that they have gone to seed before I mow in that spot. Each year they come back to greet me, so each year I take their picture. They mark the arival of spring for me, at least in Montana at Flathead Lake.

This picture doesn't show how big the patch is. It's huge by shooting star standards, as they are very small flowers.

I retain all rights to my photos.  Please do not use any of my photos without permission.

Mandolin set up part 2

Ok so the first time I changed the strings on my mandolin, I decided to flatten out the bottom of the top part of the bridge as it didn't mate right and I knew it would lower the action. So I did that. But the action was still on the high side so I did some surfing and found that I should remove material from the bottom of the bridge where it meets the face of the mandolin and raise the turn wheels up until I had the right string height. Well I found out that it is a lot harder to do. But none the less I was determined to do it.

So first I marked the position of the bridge with a piece of electrical tape on the body forward of the bridge, and I lowered the tension on the strings so that I could flip the bridge forward onto the tape and remove it without scratching the finish. Then I scribed along the bottom of each foot on the bridge a mark of how much material I wanted to remove. slowly with some sand paper on the edge of a table I sanded until I met the mark and matched the radius of the face. But I had to keep working it until I couldn't see any gap on either side. I didn't want the bridge to put uneven pressure on the face of the mandolin. That process took over 2 hours.

Then I used the turn wheels to raise the top part of the bridge until there wasn't any fret buzz. I was getting just a little on the D string. I had to bring the strings up to pitch and back down again a couple of times and turn the wheels. I coudln't turn the wheels with the strings under tension. I finally got the height to what I read online was ok. .070 inch on the G string above the fret at the octave and .060 on the E string.

Now this cheap import is about as good as it's going to get. There's no fret buzz and it really did improve the intonation. Over the weekend I replaced the strings with D'Addario J73 Phosphor Bronze Light ones. That seemed to help the intonation a little too because I could hear the harmonic overtones better and that helped tuning.

(photo will get bigger if you click on it)

April showers

I went skiing on Saturday, which could have been my last day of the season and it was my 32nd day of alpine skiing for this season. I guess the pictures tell the story. I got soaked in the the morning but then I rode the gondola down to the parking lot and changed my jacket and then it cleared off so the afternoon was somewhat decent. Plus it didn't cost me anything because when I was standing in line to get my lift ticket this guy asked if I wanted a "free" lift ticket, and of course I did.. So bonus!

A picture from inside the gondola. Got to get every turn in I can at this point..

Barry Bonds and Lance Armstrong

Ok I'm going to try this one last time! They changed the code or something and now for the life of me I can't make a paragraph. Even the tag Jules sent me doesn't stick..

Anyway there's an article called Lance Armstrong's Endgame in Bicycling by Bill Strickland in which he suspects that Armstrong did use performance enhancing drugs. He didn't have any evidence BTW or even anything new, just a feeling about it. They were talking about this and the Barry Bonds trial on NPR the other day. One caller asked why they are spending so much money on Bonds,. as if it didn't matter. Another caller thought they should leave Armstrong alone because he's done so much good for cancer patients..

Well here's why I think it matters.. If someone like Marrion Jones wins a gold medal in the Olympics by cheating she has denied someone else who might have been clean the honest fame wealth and career, and they might never get another chance.

If we have to cheat at sports, then heaven help us. It goes to the core of our morality as a society.

Certificate of Live Birth

Donald Trump was on TV this morning doubting Obama's citizenship saying that a Certificate of Live Birth isn't the same as a Birth Certificate..

Ok so here's a picture of what I always thought was my "Birth Certificate". Gosh I wonder if The Donald is going to fire me, and kick me out of the country if he becomes president.. Take away the passport I got with this.. It's reason enough for me not to vote for him anyway.

(I was actually born in Kenya but don't tell The Donald.. They gave us all these phoney birth certificates.. and the way you can tell they are phoney,.. they say "Certificate of Live Birth", not "Birth Certificate"...)

Good grief.. Can you imagine if Trump actually became president..?

Bike to Work Spokane

outside of the bubble has been listed on the Bike to Work Spokane website. I suspect Bike to Work Barb is behind this.. :) but I'm guessing. That's cool as I do try and bike to work at least some of the time and with gas prices going up every morning it is going to make a lot of sense for me. Now if they'd ever finish the bridge I usually use to cross the river I'd have a pretty safe commute, and about half of my commute would be on a bike path.

Well there's always some reason not to ride a bike to work. But there seems to be more and more reasons to try and make it work. (picture of me last summer on one of my old bikes)

All these worlds are yours except Europa

I was in Walmart today and they have these flat screens that sense when you walk by, they come on and try and sell you stuff. It's kind of surreal. This is a new store so it's always kind of empty for a Walmart and I get a sense of isolation and space in there. I always feel like I'm in a movie myself or something.

Anyway I was walking by the cereal department, and of course I was thinking about, well,.. cereal because that's all I saw, and suddenly this screen comes to life and this woman starts telling me all of the things I could do with Frosted Flakes.. Very strange..

So I stopped and watched the program about cereal. After a while I expected her to say, "All these worlds are yours execpt Europa. Attempt no landings there.."

Flathead Lake spring picture

I decided to add this photo (above) to this post. I took it from out in the canoe as night fell on Flathead Lake. My hands got cold as I made my way back to the cabin.

Since the doctor said I can't ski this weekend due to my thumb injury, I decided to go to the lake and take the canoe out for the first time this year. It was supposed to rain and be nasty but it was clear and nice out. Here's a picture of the bay on Flathead Lake as the sun went down. He was a great doctor BTW. Didn't charge me to look at it again after he sewed it all up. That meant a lot to me. I'm already playing the mandolin again. (not very well..) Hey, I need my thumb for that!.. and many other things actually.

I retain the rights to all of my photography,  Please do not use my photography without my permission

Freak skiing injury

This was one of the last pictures I took before disaster struck.. I was down in this bowl taking pictures yesterday, did a step turn to get a different view, and my ski came off. I fell into the ski with my gloves off and it sliced my thumb open down to the bone with the sharp edge. Then I started to slide down into the bowl. I pushed my arm into the snow and came to a stop but realized I was cut pretty bad and my day was over.

I had a bunch of tissue in my coat pocket so I used that to stop the bleeding. I got my ski back on (no small feat when it's so steep and with the snow so soft). You couldn't stand up without skis on but I didn't get seperated from the ski so that helped.

Then I still had to ski out of the bowl. I put my wounded hand in my coat pocket and I made a traverse over to a groomed run falling once along the way. I skied down to the bottom of the backside where I cleaned the wound in a bathroom then I rode lift up, and skied to the front and to the ski patrol who dressed the wound proper. Then off I went to the doctor who had to sew it up inside and out. It didn't cut the tendon or joint so if it doesn't get infected I should be ok. They gave me a shot in the hip and put me on antibiotics.

I guess there won't be any skiing for me this weekend.

Spring skiing

The ski searon is coming to an end, but it continues to snow. There's enough snow now and I just wish the sun would come out again. Here are a couple of pictures from Lookout Pass. I guess they had the most snow at any ski area in the world for a period of a week. Over six feet of new snow.

I raced, and I got third (out of three in my catagory..) but I was only out of second place by .5 second, so I didn't fee too bad about it and they gave me a medal.. My bronze medal looks exactly like my gold medal from last year.. (exactly..) So last year I got the gold (because the only other guy fell.) And this year I got the bronze (because there were only three of us)... Hmm...

Well it was a beautiful day to be skiing anyway, and I didn't get hurt.. that's always a bonus.

Bitterroot Valley picture

I took these pictures down the Bitterroot Valley in Montana a while back.

My uncles horse, or one they take care of.

Ski chair

I think I'm going to make a couple of ski chairs like this. I have a bunch of old skis and I've been wanting to do something with them. I recently saw this chair at Blacktail in Montana. I like the design except for the seat. I think I'd use flat boards for that. Curt said to use Lodgepole pine for it. There's plenty of that around. I'd probably bark it and seal it and make it look more finished. Then I can put a couple of these down by the lake.

Heck, I have enough skis to make all of my furniture!

Hauling water

Decided to go on a ski trip to Montana. Here's a picture of my friend Curt going down to the lake to get some water. (Yes,.. I have a friend..) The bay was frozen over in places. I haven't seen that for a while. I've been wanting to go out on the canoe but that will have to wait I guess.

Montana Highway 382

Here's what Montana Highway 382 looked like today. It's not far from the road pictured below. I wonder how many times I've gone down this road?.. Quite a few.. It's a great road because the best thing about it is going down it. You go down it, the view changes and you leave. There's really no place to stop and stay for a while. I guess that's a good thing. If too many people stopped and stayed that would change it.

Montana Highway 28

When I was a kid I used to hate going down Montana Highway 28 in the backseat of the family car. It was usually hot and dusty, and my sister was back there too. For the most part it went like this,. Dad drove. Mom rode shotgun,. I sat behind mom and my sister sat behind Dad. Good thing there were only four of us..

I don't mind driving down that road now but they recently improved the highway around Niarada. It's kind of sad in a way, and I miss that old road. It had more character. Felt more like Montana should..

Here's a picture I took of Highway 28 before they changed it.

Long cold winter

I keep thinking that if I can just get through this winter... And then the rest of the year I long for winter again.. That's just a little crazy..

It was cold on the hill this weekend.. And those hand warmer things don't seem to work when it's 0 deg F.. They heated right up when I got in my warm car.. They should put more stuff in them or something.. (Just a suggestion hand warmer guys..) I guess I was expecting them to be warm.. Maybe they don't work so well when it's cold out?..

Snowboarders in the wind

It was windy on the top of the ski hill today. (or should I say snowboard hill..) Made it hard to keep your balance at times.

Picture from Wild Horse Island

Here is a picture I took of Skeeko Bay and Dayton Bay from my last hike in the fall on Wild Horse Island. I don't think I posted it before although I did post some pictures from that morning. I like to hike up there on the island and watch the sun come up over Flathead Lake. I've been looking through pictures and dreaming about summer once again.. Not that I'm done skiing yet..

***
I noticed a couple of spots on this picture so I repaired it. You couldn't see them unless you clicked on the photo and enlarged it but it bothered me. I guess there's something to be said for keeping your lens clean.. My cameras get a lot of abuse.

I retain all rights to my photos.  Please do not use any of my photos without permission.

Pot Hole road

I tend to find and go down roads like this. As much as I try not to be a redneck, I guess I just can't hep it..

A room with a view

This is the view from the last hospital room. A room with a view.. It really wasn't a bad view considering, and at night you could see the whole beautiful city of Spokanistan.

I've been spending quite a bit of time in hospital rooms with famliy members lately. Everyone is ok by the way, but there's always that uncertainty.. Like, when is the doctor coming today?.. Are they going to let us out or want another test?.. So you wait and wait and wait.. They even have rooms just for waiting in.. Are you waiting for something?. I guess I'm waiting for test results, or paperwork to get done but I'm not sure.. Why don't you wait in the waiting room?.. There's more of the same uncomfortable chairs in there.. Will I wait faster in there?.. I'm thinking, why don't they make some of these waiting rooms into task accomplishing rooms?.. If they'd get things done faster we wouldn't have to sit around waiting so much..

***
Or put the people waiting to work.. Put a sign on the wall,.. If you have typing skills report to the blood lab.. Handyman with plumbing experience needed in hydrotherapy, floor 8...
***

I always wonder when I see a patient walking down the hall,. Gosh, I wonder what's wrong with that guy?.. I wonder if he even knows? Nobody seems to know what's going on. I'm not even sure the doctor knows what's going on because the tests results never seem to come back. He's like a substitute doctor anyway,.. only there for the day and tomorrow you get a new doctor who doesn't seem to know what's going on. Maybe they know and just don't want to tell you.

People in the hospital always feel trapped and want to get out. I always sort of feel like that,. like the whole world is moving along outside while you are sitting around waiting. Even if it's a town like this, it's still better than being in the hospital. When they built this town they managed to make the maximum congested mess in the smallest space possible.. I guess being in the hospital isn't too bad here when you actually think about leaving..

Camera phone pictures

I guess I'm the last person on the planet to get a phone with a camera on it.. And of course I got a really bad one, so I guess I'll go around and take lots of bad pictures.. (I'll convince myself that bad is the new good..)

I retain the rights to all of my photos.  Do not use without permisson.

First bike ride of 2011

I decided to go on my first bike ride of 2011 since the snow has all melted in town for the time being. This was a job for the old Schwinn Traveler with its chrome fenders and big tires. And this was what it looked like as I rode in the bike lane.

I've been wanting ride my bike since the snow melted in town and it was very nice. I rode past the golf course and ended up at a park across from a school. I sat on a park bench and watched the kids play while I listened to the radio in my ear buds. Some of the kids were playing football and some were playing soccer.. Various groups around the field all running in different directions. Their motions as they ran reminded me of birds flying around somewhat at random but following a lead. A bell must of rang and they all started to run away, to line up in the distance and go back to class.

Then I realized that I'm the old dude in this picture with an old bike sitting alone on a park bench watching the children play. Hmm.. I thought.. I guess that's not so bad.. Now if I just didn't have to go back to work..

Live to ski

Here's a picture of me on the lift last week. It was clear out and the snow was pretty much frozen solid. It doesn't look like it under the chairlift but the snow really was rock hard. I like it like that. You can really go fast on a week day with race skis. I live for days like that as there's nothing else quite like it. Fast cars don't do it, fast motorcycles come close, but there's nothing like a pair of race skis on a sunny day like that. It's raining outside right now. I suspect it will freeze the mountains again. That's good. Some people like powder, but I like the snow firm. I like the speed and you're less likely to get hurt on firm snow.

There's something about coming up out of the valley fog as you drive up and into the sunshine that does your soul some good. This is a picture of the road up to the resort as I came out of the fog and into the sunshine. I was talking to a guy on the chairlift about this the the other day. The gloom in the valley is totally broken when you rise up and out of the fog and into the light of day. It's really an amazing transformation and it's one of the reasons I love to ski and why I feel so sorry for those who don't who live in ski country. They hate winter as they are always stuck down there in the valley fog half of the time. I know so many people like that and it's really sad..

I guess the sticker in the window of this truck says it best.. Live to ski.. I want one of those!

I'm back

I'm back,.. I couldn't log in for a while. I don't know what it is with me.. First I lost my cell phone. Then I lost my battery charger to my camera.. And then I couldn't log in to blogger...

I can't think of anything else to say about this so I'll post a wierd dream I had.

Weird dream

Ok, so I had a weird dream..

I dreamed that I went to my ex-girlfriend's place to stop in and see how she was doing. She hates me (for no reason) BTW, so when I got there she was less than pleased to see me. She was like,. What are you doing here?.. she said with a less than happy look on her face. Oh I just stopped in to see how you are doing. I said.

I looked around her small apartment. She had a dresser crammed full of shoes. Next to the dresser was an old green sofa, and in the corner of the sofa was a small yellow lizard that looked just like the Geico gecko except it was yellow and it had red shorts on, and a white T-shirt. It was standing there on its hind legs just like the Geico lizard.

What's this? I asked her. Oh that's my baby, she said. Really? I didn't know you were pregnant.. When did you have this? I asked as she went into the bathroom. Last Wednesday, she responded. His name's Sammy, would you mind watching him while I change. And then she shut the door.

I'm thinking,. my ex-girlf (who hates me for no reason) had a yellow lizard for a baby last Wednesday and put red shorts on him and named him Sammy?... No wonder we didn't get along..

Well there I was with Sammy, so I reached down and grabbed him around the waist with his arms arms sticking out above my fist. He just looked at me with that lizard smile. He was kind of slimy, so I put him back down on the sofa.

Then he jumped off of the sofa, ran across the room and went down the heat vent! Oh crap! I thought. She's going to kill me! I'll have to find him before she comes back. So I got my flashlight and was looking down the heat vent. Finally I saw him but it wasn't good. There were some birds down there eating him and all that was left were the red shorts and some leg bones sticking out.

That's how my dream ended.

A warmer time

As the winter weather outside chills us to the bone and dampens our spirits, I think back to a warmer time, and recent trip to Radium Hot Springs in British Columbia. We'll return soon.

It seems to be a place where nothing changes... except the people who go swiming. It's exactly like it was when I was young, and I think I'm getting better at understanding the how the lockers work, and which doors to go in and out of. I'm getting better at reading the signs too, some of which are in French and some are those international picture signs. There's one sign in there that says you can't wear boots. (it had a picture of a boot with a line going through it..)

Man tracks

What kind of beast made those tracks?!... I wondered as I looked at the line of tracks in my yard. Every morning there are different sets of tracks crossing my yard. Cat, dog, rabbit, bird,.. Oh,. wait a minute,. I made that one. I'd gone out to the car the other night and didn't bother to put my shoes on.

I'd blame the tracks on my ex-neighbor woman who I named Sasquatch Woman but she moved out long ago. I named her that because one night I came home in my car and caught her in the headlights and she looked just like a female bigfoot, her arms dragging with her ape like stride as she crossed the road. Only her cigarette betrayed her as a human, but I can understand why people think they've seen bigfoot.

Continental Divide Canada

I brought in the new year in Canada this year and I had a really nice time. It was beautiful today on my return. Here's a picture I took on the continental divide near Banff. I kept trying to get a decent picture of the ubiquitous Candadian flag, and finally got this one one. I'm guessing the other flags are BC on the left and Alberta on the right. Jules,.. you're going to have to help me out on this.

Here's a picture in Koontenay National Park of some of the forest fire burned trees. It will enlarge if you click on it. I wish I'd had more time to just take pictures as it was really beautiful up there today.