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Mud Therapy

It is strange that the really great things in nature are never talked about. Nobody praises cold rain and mud. It was finally a good day to go mountain biking. I had to cross two wet streams to get to the 'trailhead.' I didn't even know there were dry washes there. But now enough water was flowing that I was forced to stop and study the situation. Recall the old "Do Not Cross When Flooded" signs. But I did cross because I knew the bottom was gravel. What a glorious thing it is to see water flowing! After the ride we found ourselves at a local coffee shop, unaccustomed as we are to places like that. Normally I would look up at any kind of shade cloth or viney pergola and admire it.   But today I deliberately chose a sunny table!  But exulting is cheap if it is just verbal -- let's do something real to celebrate the occasion, such as putting my anti-postcard policies on vacation, briefly. And one has to break in a new camera somehow.

A Movie That Actually Affects People

The other day I thought it strange to be delighted by a consumer/shopping experience, since that has happened so seldom in life, despite the fact that buying crap is really the only purpose an American serves. Today I was rewatching "A Dog's Purpose." Once again it is strange to think what a big industry movies/television is, and how seldom it really has any effect on us.  Why then do we watch all this crap? I suppose it is because it is an affordable and easy way to kill time. But this movie was one of the rare success stories. Let's think about other success stories over the course of a lifetime. Maybe they have something in common. There have been memorable musical scores for movies that really had an effect on me. Think Bernard Herrman, John Barry, and a half dozen other composers. But "A Dog's Purpose" had no effect on me musically.  It has been true that 'Boy Meets Dog, Boy Loses Dog' type movies have usually had a powerful effect

Liberating Yourself From Amazon

I have never been a big fan of shopping at Amazon. Can't people see what a trap they are falling into when they sign up for Amazon Prime? Paying $100 up-front is a real turn-off at Amazon, as it is at Costco. Even though I am moochdocking on a friend's driveway, I still had problems with getting Amazon to accept the address, despite having a real street address and a real post office box. That did it! I went on the warpath against Amazon. The good news is many other websites offer free shipping once you meet a $35 to $50 minimum order. And their websites work well. And I don't seem to have the problems with addresses, like at Amazon. All I can say is, "It's about time!" You'd think that somebody big like Walmart, Google, or Oracle would make a good website available to any retailer, and then let them disguise the appearance of the website to make it look a little more home-grown. (Thus, there would be no need for each smallish retailer to have in-

Wow Dude, This Was, Like, So Cool!

There was a time not so many generations ago when Americans actually made things for a living. Today we just shop for a living, either online or driving around in heavy traffic to stores. As hard as it is to believe, some people actually enjoy shopping. For my part, I haven't had a wonderful experience shopping more than a couple times in my lifetime. I had one today. It seemed like a good idea to put a metal dog tag on my new camera, since it is the most expensive camera I have ever owned. The machines that make these metal dog tags keep getting better. I made mine at Petsmart. Yes, it had a digital menu. Normally this would put me in an incendiary mood, but this menu was intelligently designed. You just slide the tag into the machine in an unambiguous way, and watch the laser-scribing through a glass window. Fascinating and beautiful! It could even scribe on both sides of the tag, so there was enough room to say, "Text" and then my phone number. I asked the sto

The Glory of Dirt

It has been so many years since I experienced a real winter -- rain, mud, and clouds -- that I have forgotten how dreary it can be. So it is hard to appreciate the desert as much as it deserves. Therefore the mind focuses on getting sick of cholla and rubble. But that is OK actually because it whips up an appetite for dirt again!    Just imagine:  the bike's wheels moving along smoothly, without smashing, bashing, and crashing on that damned desert rubble! Glorious grasslands and soil in southeastern Arizona. Soil really is the best geology.