Out west

This Buckaroo walked by me today so I took his picture.

He was heading west last time I seen him...

Ride a bike to work

It was the perfect day to ride a bike to work. It rained last night and today it was clear and cool. Nobody was on the bike path. My favorite time to ride a bike is after a rain shower. The air felt cool on my body so I didn't break a sweat. It wasn't even 60 degrees and no wind. I saw various birds, and one squirrel. I felt sorry for all of the people driving to work in cars. It's nice to be able to ride a bike instead.

Last night I repaired the front brake on my single speed. If I pulled the lever the caliper would go in but then wouldn't return to fully open. And it felt terrible like metal grinding on metal. It started to do that on the SpokeFest ride at the end of last summer. Instead of fixing it, I just quit riding it and switched to my regular road bike, but now I've been wanting to ride it again. I hardly ever have to do anything to my bikes, but now and then you have to fix something. Usually a tire.

So I bought a new housing and cable thinking that would be the easiest fix. I had ruled out the caliper and the lever. It ended up being the cable housing. It's working fine now and I rode the single speed to work.

Morning on Flathead Lake.

Morning on Flathead Lake. When the day starts out like this it's going to be a good day for sailing. It's always nice at Flathead Lake though even when it's stormy. There aren't really any bad days. I really should get up earlier and see the day break, but I just wanted to sleep in. When I did get up I took my camera and coffee down to the shore.

Bear Grass

The Bear Grass is blooming in Montana. Now and then I'll see one and the top is broken off, like something came along and ate it.

Where's my camera ! ?

I freaked out today. My boss came into my cube and said "Don I have an assignment for you." She wanted me to go out and take pictures of the local area for a project. Where is my new Nikon?! It must be at home I thought...

I usually carry two camera bags with cameras in them to work. I almost never go anywhere without them. I had one bag with the little camera in it but I coudln't find the big one with the big camera. I'd been at home for lunch and went inside my house and left the windows of my car open. Did someone walk by and take my camera? I just didn't know. I remembered another artist at work had lost a camera out of his car.

At work, I'd parked my car under a tree for shade. Did I leave a door open? I did leave the windows down a little. I know that. Did I leave my camera in the car where someone could see it and take it?

We'd been picking things up off of the floor at work as we were going to have the carpet cleaned. I usually plop my camera bags down on the floor in my cube. I hauled stuff out of there did I haul off my camera and forget where I put it?

I drove home after work and looked around the house. No camera. Then I drove back to work. No camera.

I was sick about it. I started to think someone must have taken it out of my car when I left the windows down at lunch.

Then I thought about looking in my truck. Yesterday I'd taken my truck to a place to drop off a bunch of tree branches and then drove it to work. After work I'd gone to the store and covered up my camera bags with a vest so they wouldn't be seen in the cab. I was in a dark mood yesterday after work and stormed inside when I got home.

There it was in the cab of the truck. My new Nikon. What a relief. I think I'll sleep with it tonight.

Lavender's blue

Diane wrote a heartbreaking post about riding the school bus when she was young and looking different than the other children. Lavender

***
let the birds sing, and the lambs play
we shall be safe, out of harm's way

Gertrude's old pink cabin

They are going to paint Aunt Gertrude's old cabin so I decided to take a picture before it lost its pink patina. They're painting it the same color but it won't be quite the same. Well at least not until the sun and weather ages it properly. A lot of people I've been close to have gone through this door. It's a door into my past.

Now people build great big homes along the lake. There's something lost in them. I'd rather stay in a place like this.

Aunt Gertrude always had a bag of yarn and would crochet things. She made me an afghan and a poop duck, and she made things that looked like poodles to put toilet paper in. She was prolific, and there was something calming about being around her while she worked. She was like a spider spinning her endless web looking through old cat eye glasses.

I don't bother putting extra toilet paper in a thing that looks like a poodle but I might if I had one...

If you look closely there's a little bird poking its head out of the bird house that's sitting on the electrical service box. I bet that bird is realted to birds that came here when Gertrude owned the pink cabin.

***After Aunt Gertrude left, Aunt Mildred and Aunt Dorothy moved in. They weren't really my aunts like Gertrude was, but they were other people's aunts. So I called them aunt as did everyone. They were no spring chickens. Mildred had gone to the Art Institute of Chicago. She had a potters wheel in there, painted and composed music. I used to go there and talk art with her while I was going to art school. She gave me a great big book on Leonardo. I also have one of her pots. A tea pot.

All of those aunts are dead and gone now. The people who come and stay there have no idea.

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

Morning picture

I don't even know what to say about this. A picture from this morning.

Is there life on Mars?

It's a God awful small affair
To the girl with the mousey hair
But her mummy is yelling, "No!"
And her daddy has told her to go
But her friend is no where to be seen
Now she walks through her sunken dream

Natalia got me thinking about the whole abortion issue. These words came to mind.

GM bankruptcy

This is an ad from a 1922 Chevy dealer catalog. They were trying to sell cars to farmers. There was sort of a fine line between cars and trucks back then. Now GM has been selling farm trucks to city folks, but I think the gig is finally up on that idea.

Mitt Romney was on the Today show with Matt Lauer this moring. Lauer gave credit to Romney for calling the impending bankruptcy of the auto industry. Well it might be that billions spent to float GM and Chrysler was intended to avoid a total melt down of our economy while everyone came to terms with bankruptcy, or to try and give it some time to find someone to step in and take over.

And who names their kid Mitt anyway?...! Don't get me wrong,.. I like Mitt Romney,. If only he didn't seem like a used car salesman..

I guess what really bothers me about GM and Chrysler, and Ford for that matter is they mananged to convince everyone to buy great big trucks and SUVs, and then loaded them up with every possible option and charged 30 to 40 grand for one. Way more than people need for transportation in an urban setting. Now even reasonable people think they can't get by without an SUV or Truck for their daily transportation.

It's no wonder the whole idea imploded when gas prices went up.

The wind in the trees

I used to dislike the wind. I was going to say I hated the wind but I didn't hate it. I guess it's like a person who grows up on the prairie and feels crowded by the mountains. Tonight the wind is blowing in the trees. I'll leave the window open and let it in,. to take me out onto the prairie.

Cycling along the Mission Mountains

When I was in school I used to ride my bike up and down the Mission Valley to and from Flathead Lake. It was my first taste of freedom as a kid. Each summer I'd usually leave Missoula on a Friday morning and return on a Monday morning. I'd get my bike ready the night before, and I'd put quarters in my socks to use in pop machines along the way. I did it weekend after weekend.

Now and then I'd rope a friend into going along on the ride with me and they suffered like animals. Only one guy named Scott didn't suffer. He had a nice bike and knew how to ride it, but most of the time I rode alone.

I'd sleep in the basement of my parent's house and I'd keep my bike down there next to my bedroom. There was a stairway out of the basement that went up to the backyard. I'd walk my bike along the house through a gate to the frontyard, ride down the sidewalk to the end of the block and out into the street. I'd ride under the canopy of trees out of my neighborhood and out of town to the interstate. After ten miles riding west on I 90 I'd turn north on highway 93. Leaving Missoula on my bike like that was like leaving orbit and venturing out into space. The distances seemed vast. The reality out on the open road was often harsh. Wind heat and highway traffic. It was nothing like riding a bike around town.

I can never drive down highway 93 now without thinking back to those summers and all of those bike rides.

Today the clouds were closing in on the mountains and it was very bright and hard to get a picture without just blowing out the sky. So this is kind of a wierd picture.

I keep looking back

I keep looking back and not forward. I used to think that the days lasted forever when I was a kid. My childhood days on the lake. Time moved so slowly. I just wanted to move forward. Now I'm starting to want to move back.

I'm such a redneck

So I'm walking down the haul at work today trying to look artistic, with art thoughts on my mind. Design projects and stuff like that, and I pass this 21 year old girl who works for us. She looks at me and says "you're such a redneck.." I'm like, "What?!.." Well I was eating a hotdog, but I fail to see how that qualifies me as a redneck... Earlier I was comparing my "farmer/ bicycle tan with her spray-on tan... Perhaps that was it.

But the fact is, she saw right through me. I wish I could see the world so clearly.. So I put up a redneck bicycle log header. I have all of these cattle pictures and I continue to take more, so I might as well use one. I could change the name of my blog to redneck log, bovine log or prehaps Cattle log... Hey! I like that :)

I could call my blog, outside of the barnyard, cattle log...

***

Well today was an interesting news cycle. Obama spoke to the torture issue and Cheney spoke to the "enhanced interrogation" issue. I don't know why Cheney can't just be honest and call it what it is.

You'd think since I'm such a redneck that I'd agree with Cheney, but I heard somewhere that there are three things a democracy needs to survive. A lack of corruption in government, a legal system that is fair and just, and a banking system people can trust. Now that we've gotten back on track, I can't understand for the life of me why Dick insists on smelling up the clean air.

I don't think we should need to find reasons to be against torture, but Obama made several points. The most important I think was that torture undermines the rule of law. Bush has been quiet on the issue as has McCain. Why is McCain so silent right now? It would be nice if he would step up and put Cheney in his place. It's no wonder he lost the election. McCain clearly didn't have what it takes to be a leader.

Calm water

It wasn't the best weekend for photography but it was nice and calm on Flathead Lake for my canoe.

***
I know,.. I haven't been saying too much. I'm getting cynical about everything. I've been watching a lot of TV.

I've been watching a televanglist tonight. I won't name him but he has a wife and an announcer and he quotes scripture and turns it all into proof that the end time is near. He's been doing it for years and the end time never happens. We've been close a couple of times though. I thought for sure Clinton was the anti-christ...

See what happens when I stop watching the food channel..

Cheney has been on TV a lot lately. What if you had him as an uncle or something? You'd have to invite him over for dinner on Thanksgiving. He could help you cook. "Just put that turkey in boiling oil!"... he'd say....

Dogs and cats

This drawing caught my eye yesterday as we were looking through student artwork. I think I know that dog on the left...

Camas Prairie Montana picture

The Camas Prairie picture slightly re-sized.

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

Betty Baker pasta

Sorry I haven't been too active posting. I've been out riding my bike. I do have something to share however.

I do a lot of cooking. I've found what I think is a really good dry spaghetti, and I've tried a lot of different ones. BETTY BAKER. I'm not kidding it's really good. I bought it just by chance the first time although now I see that they have a plant here. That might explain why it's so good but there must be more to it than just that. I'm not associated with them in any way and I'm not trying to plug a local company, but if you can find it where you are buy it. No sodium and no cholesterol too.

And to go with it I've found a pretty good pasta sauce in a jar. It's Ragu, Sundrided Tomato & Sweet Basil. It actually has sundried tomatoes in it and I love those. It's not as amazing as the Betty Baker pasta but it's pretty good for something out of a jar.

***
I recently heard you have to be careful what you endorse on your blog. So I want to make it clear, I'm not being paid by Betty Baker Pasta. I don't know anyone who works there, and I don't work for them. I didn't even know they made pasta here. But I eat pasta and this really is good.

Stop eating animals

But that would take the fun out of cooking...

Well it's one thing for me to give up meat, but I recently heard on the news that some vegeterians insist that their cats be vegetarians too. That might be going too far.. I'm not going to force my rabbit to eat meat, but who knows, it might already be a carnivore. I put a carrot out for it and it didn't touch it. Perhaps rabbits don't eat carrots. That might just be a stereotype. Come to think of it, other than Bugs Bunny I've never actually seen a rabbit eat a carrot...

***
And on the subject of food,.. Today at work we celebrated Cinco de Mayo. We all brought in "mexican" food...It was like a bunch of atheists celebrating Christmas.

But there was one high point. One lady made some outstanding salsa.

Stuck in a right wing rut

With the right wing nuts... Why I moved here I will never know.

My mind seems to be like the transmission of a Hyundai. It just won't go into gear. I don't know what it is. Ski season is over. Even if I had vacation I wouldn't be able to get away from work. I've been taking pictures that I don't like. Even my rabbit just lays around in the yard and does nothing. I'm still thinking about a name for it. I'm afraid it isn't spunky enought to be named Spunky.

Spunky used to go crazy at night. One time I woke up in the middle of the night and in a half sleep state, I went to the fridge to get a drink of milk. Out of the darkness, Spunky charged me and clamped onto my leg. Gosh it freaked me out, and hurt! I let out a yelp and and off she bolted, back into the darkness. No, the rabbit isn't half the beast that Spunky was.. The rabbit belongs on Teletubbies or something. Tinky Winky, or Laa Laa would be better names for the rabbit than Spunky. Spunky was a serious vicious animal, and would have been more at home on the Sopranos. If she had been a little bigger she would have killed and eaten me. Here's Spunky's mug shot.

No such excitement around here now. To make matters worse it seems that all of the people who voted for McCain and Palin live right here where I live. All 300 of them,.. What a constant source of annoyance. They are ticked off, and buying more guns and amo than anyone would could shoot in a liftetime, or a thousand hunting seasons for that matter. Well it's crazy... I don't think I go through a day without hearing one of them complain about the government. "Government is a self-feeding cancer." I remember a nice old lady saying on a public access radio program while speaking out about gun rights.

Most of these people couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with their guns but It might be a good idea to ramp down their radio propoganda for a while.