Stepping Stupid

I have a lot of little things to write about, and a few big things that take research. Guess what I am doing today? Anyway, our Chamonix traffic tickets reminded me of this.

Back in the 1970s I worked for an oil company in the downtown area of Billings, Montana. I parked a few blocks away in a non-metered area. While that was going on, the Billings Police Department announced a program called “STEP”, or Selective Traffic Enforcement Program. The great minds behind it thought that if they selected an area, in this case downtown Billings, and ticketed every offense they saw, no matter how small or insignificant, that people would behave better.

I am not kidding. They thought this was a good idea.

Continue reading “I was once a counterfeiter, and the rise of the Reds” →

I just learned in the past few weeks that the city of Denver has a basketball team. They are called the Nuggets. Last year I learned that Denver also has a hockey team, called the Avalanche.

At the gym a fellow told me that eleven people were shot in the subsequent downtown celebration after the Nuggets’ win last night. Now they are saying nine. I’ll take their word on it despite the suspicious numbers.

Continue reading “Nuggets win, city is fired up!” →

Last Saturday my wife and I, imagining that even in our seventies we are not frail, went on a five-mile thousand-foot hike, climbing Mt. Lagalt. It is but a mile drive for us to get to the trailhead, a wide and gracious uphill climb that at a certain point becomes a narrow and steep climb. It is not dangerous, but the last part, the ascent, is a bit of a challenge. You’ve probably no idea if you are younger, but at our age, the concept of a mile becomes longer than ever before. Each of us were runners in our younger years, and a mile meant nothing. In my best days, not even approaching the really good runners I realize, I was doing 7.5 minute five mile runs, and shorter runs on occasion at 6.5-minute miles. Those were the barriers that I never broke.

Continue reading “A dog encounter” →

Yesterday my wife and I were working on our back deck, she making planters while I tried to clean out a problematic gutter that sits over the ell part of the deck. I had to borrow a 13 foot ladder from our neighbor Tom, but before that thought that an eight foot step ladder was enough to reach a gutter twelve feet high. In fact, the eight foot ladder was enough, but only if once on the highest step I made no movements, used no force and applied no pressure to the various pain-in-the-ass parts of the gutter that clog up every year. (I have an extension ladder, but cannot lean it into the gutter and accomplish anything without damaging it.)

One time on  descent from the eight-foot ladder, I said to her:

I would not like it if I fell.
The reason why I cannot tell.
But this I know and know full well,
I would not like it if I fell.

Continue reading “If I fell*” →

While we travel and hike, we have come across some amazing and free programs that we use regularly. The first is called Seek, put out by iNaturalist. It is available for free at the Apple App Store.

Seek has many uses, but we primarily use it to identify plants. We merely hold the iPhone camera over the plant, whether leaf or flower. It quickly identifies it, giving us the common name, though on occasion it offers only the Latin name.

It does not matter whether you live in a large city or rural area, or as we have discovered if you are in a foreign country. Its database is so massive that if knows every plant and every subspecies. It is truly a wonder to behold. When stumped, it offers “dicot” or “monocot”.

Continue reading “A couple of useful outdoor programs” →

In the past, as my wife and I traveled, I made it a point not to make the blog a travelogue. I just let it rest, hoping other writers would chime in. I know I wrote now and then while in foreign places, most prominently in my mind in Buenos Aires, where I tripped on the crypt of Evita, or Eva Peron, said to have died young in 1952. Her crypt said she died at age 32, but actual birth records recorded her death at age 33  and voila!, I had uncovered another fake death.

Continue reading “Our little journey” →

This article, Kazakh Hunters and their Golden Eagles, has within it maybe a couple dozen amazing photographs taken by photographer Batzaya Choijiljav. They are simply stunning in their conception and execution.

Choijiljav used a five-pixel Canon Powershot A95, for photo buffs. I think it very likely that they are all copyrighted, and I do not want to violate his property rights, so I urge you take a journey over there to see these amazing people, their horses and birds.

Far be it from me to align with Democrats on any matter, as I regard their positions on many issues, such as Climate Change, outlandish and unstudied. But there is a matter going on the the Montana House of Representatives where that party is in the right and where the Republican majority needs to get a grip.

Rep Zooey Zephyr* (D-Missoula) is a transgender female. She ran and was elected as such. She needs to be seated. Right now she has been expelled and prevented from attending to her duties inside the chamber, and must cast votes from the hallway outside. There has been no official censure.**

Zephyr has brought much of this on herself by joining in protests and chanting from the gallery with other protests. That short of behavior is unbecoming. Any member who behaved in this matter, no matter philosophical alignment, would likely be censured, maybe even expelled. Elected officials are there to debate issues in a rational and sane manner, and not to hold placards and yell and shut down the legislative process. .

Continue reading “Zooey time in the Montana legislature” →

This morning I left the house for the gym, putting on my downstairs shoes. I keep two pair in slip-on slip-off state, one by the back door, one by the front, so that I never forget and walk on carpet with dirty shoes. I drove to the Post Office, and then to the gym, about seven miles. Once there I walked across the parking lot, slipped off my back door shoes and put on my gym shoes, and then completed my workout.

After I finished I took my gym shoes off and grabbed my back door shoes, and freaked.

Continue reading “A sad death for a little guy” →