NEVER JET HOT

The Mrs. thought it would be fun to go to the local street fair; You know, when they block off the street and put up tents hawking sunglasses, risque potholders (??), there's always the "sand art" thing, what else? Oh yeah, I always take this opportunity to get the Sunday paper for about a third off the newsstand price. His pitch was "Free newspaper! Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back!" but like I said, I was there to do business, he had me at hello. Then, the garage sales. There are always several this time of year. We went to one and I picked up $3 DVD's, H.G. Wells' "Time Machine", and a Sinbad movie, the one with the multi-armed dude and the cyclops. Still looking for Jason and the Argonauts with the fighting skeletons, guess this will have to do for now. Oh, and an "Incredible Hulk" throw to keep in the truck. (I have a green and tan truck) They had so many movies, video games, and toys of every description at that yard s...

I do remember riding my bike during a lightning storm once, but I'm sure mom didn't send me out there... The only other kids out were those Swedish kids that had a trampoline in their back yard... Exercise nuts... They lived one house up Corliss from the house that was kitty-corner from Trudy... Heidi and uh, Wilhelm? The boy had an odd name like that. I think they missed the middle off trampoline too much, but then again I was out in the storm too... Anyway... I am loving this cool and rainy weather. We don't get a lot of lightning storms in these parts. Hopefully that bit is over now. Mom has been doing so well. I got maybe nine hours of sleep total today, still not quite awake. That's why I am liking all this rain. It's conducive to sleep. When I retire I think I will move to a cool/rainy place like Aberdeen or Hoqium. Wonder if there is bad blood between those two "gateway to Ocean Shores" cities. Maybe I will open a store in Hoqium and have a "Ts...

Here in Hellhole, Wa. people don't wait until it gets snowy to forget how to drive. Last weekend there was a 17 car pile-up on I-5 up by Mount Vernon. It involved several SEPARATE collisions in perfect driving weather. Most of them were caused by inattentive driving, according to the state patrol. The problem is, there isn't a gadget the police can make them blow in that measures that sort of thing.

I took the family up to Bellingham on Thursday, Frank wanted to see some comic/trading card shop up there, we ended up at this really neat Railroading Museum, with typical museum stuff, plus several model trains you can run, and a train operator computer simulation- Plus a geocache inside the museum! Kind of funky, some well detailed models, then some off the wall things, like Barney the Purple dinosaur tied to the track. And it's all right downtown! You wouldn't see that in Seattle. We ate at an old restaurant called the Horseshoe, I knew the food would be good when I saw the waitress had a huge tattoo. That's one of my rules of thumb for fine dining. We didn't get to go everywhere we wanted to, plan to return soon to see the Antique Radio Museum in the same area, the Science museum, and more. Bellingham has a sort of Bohemian feel to it, I know it's a college town but the downtown isn't full of starbucks and mcdonalds on every corner, I wonder if they set old ...

One time in the middle of the week in summer, when the kids were little, we were on vacation in the Cascades, went up a long dirt road to check out a remote campground. There was a couple with a VW bug, no one else up there; and they had a flat, and a spare but no jack. They were trying to do a thing with a log and a rock. I dug all the camping crud out of the way and got the jack that resides under the floor of the cargo area in my SW, and let him use that (He wouldn't let me help; I think he had packets of hashish in the wheel well and didn't want me to see) That was my good deed of the day, it was later rewarded by being inundated with chipmunks at an overlook, and in the evening just before dusk we were driving down a gravel road through a field, and a bunch of (Groundhogs? Moles? Gophers? Prairie Dogs?) whatever they were- popped up out of their little hills to have a look at us. I think that was one of my favorite trips. Someday all this snow, wind, rain, and cold will g...