Arizona

Another shot of Montezuma's castle















Beaver Creek Near the cliff dwelling
















Low Rent District















More of Redrocks (Sedona area)
















The Desert

Hunting

The one thing that helped shape me as a person and is responsible for bringing the clan a bit closer together as well was the annual deer hunting trip. Before you get in a tizzy about Bambi’ s mom having her guts spattered all over every other tree in the dark forest, please bear in mind no, or at least very few, deer were ever harmed in the making of this hunt. Ok, maybe a few man made artifacts took a hit (hey, have to sight in the ol’ shootin’ iron, don’t you?). Thinking back deer were probably not even the main objective. It was just nice being together and sharing the experience.

It was not a strenuous hunt. Though dad was probably a die hard hunter back in the day, I do not think any of us were the “get up four hours before dawn and sit in the woods covered with eau de skunkass so the deer can’t smell us, freezing to death” kind of hunter – hell, even the deer aren’t that stupid. Dad would pull the trailer up to the lake and we’d bunk out there and even come back for lunch!!

If your idea of hunting is eating a half frozen sandwich in the middle of the woods with the wind trying to find a way through your clothes, you wouldn’t have enjoyed our hunt. Screw being uncomfortable! In fact that is how I found my spot. I always looked for a comfy log to sit on, if there was a game trial nearby, bonus! My brother and I weren’t too far away from each other, my dad off on a hillside overlooking a swampy area. It was nice because I could just sit back on my log and absorb the sounds of the forest.

I loved being in the woods, smelling the moldering leaves, the fresh breeze, hearing the squirrels chatter, the drumming of the wood peckers. You could see and hear the trees swaying with the wind, the leaves made a colorful carpet for the chipmunks as they ran around looking for whatever chipmunks might look for. We were in the wilds of the Kettle Moraine, rife with stands of hardwoods. Shagbark hickory, oak, maple, Ash, Hawthorn, with Birch, Poplar, and some pines mixed in for good measure. It was beautiful, cold, sometimes rainy, but always beautiful.

There are some smells that bring the memory or our woodland jaunts rushing back – a frozen Hershey bar with almonds for instance. The candy bar would generally freeze in the coat pocket and seemed to taste better than ever. Putting it in the freezer comes close, but it still isn’t quite the same.

The other smell, oddly enough, is the putrid smell of an Olympic contender (deonstration sport in Bejing) asparagus piss. We always had steak and asparagus for dinner the night before we went out and it became a tradition to mark our territory before hunting with a hearty asparagus piss. That may well be the reason we rarely saw any deer, if it smelled that bad to us I can imagine what they thought, if deer do indeed think much of anything.

Things change as time goes on and we don’t go out anymore either by ourselves or together. Dad is gone, that is one reason – it wouldn’t be quite the same. My brother and I live halfway across the country from each other now and that doesn’t help. I took a look at the guns I own and they have deteriorated to the point where I am not sure I would care to pull the trigger. I have no desire to shoot them any longer and I will probably get rid of them. Not because I am opposed to guns or hunting, just because I have little use for them and if someone has a gun, often times they feel obligated to use it, even when the situation might not warrant the use of that much force.

As far as the folks who don’t understand hunting, let me quote the unwritten law of nature – “Life is short if you taste good”. I like venison and at that time there was only one way to get it, not that I ever got what I went out for, but the opportunity was there. The father of one of my son’s friends got the concept. They were watching Bambi when my son’s friend said “that’s Bambi’s mom” to which the father retorted, “don’t get too attached”.

The House of Mud

The local Indians have figured out a new way to leverage their heritage by establishing a casino in an apparent attempt to consecrate one of their ancient sites. Despite the renewed attempt to scalp White-Eyes, this time at the black-jack tables, the area is very interesting. Scrape away the third rate Elvis impersonator and you will find “Montezuma’s Castle”. Though there may well have been trade between the Central American Indians and local tribes it is doubtful Montezuma gave this are a second thought, much less built a castle here. Rather, it was a pueblo established by local tribes for protection. The area is beautiful with a creek near by. Considering the desert lies not more than a few miles down I-17, this was like paradise back then. The original inhabitants moved on for whatever reason long ago, leaving this monument to their civilization.

It is too bad that many of the interesting archeological sites have seen encroachment from developers – such as housing abutting White Tanks and the Deer valley Rock Art Center, and that the state and tribes are callous enough to allow this to go on. I guess it just goes to prove money talks and if we have to pave over the past to make lots of it, so be it.

So Long Mr. Limpet!

I hope they remembered to put one bullet in your shirt pocket ...

I wonder if someone in India has trouble with their computer and calls the help desk, does he get an American?

The Word According to Phelps

Ah, once again the most merciful and loving god everyone keeps yakking about seems to be in the news. Apparently he is angry with the US over the homosexual issue and some Kansas snapperhead Baptists believe god is punishing us by having the rabid bastards over in the middle-east kill off our young troops.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, a daughter of Fred Phelps and an attorney for the Topeka, Kan.-based church, said neither state laws nor the Patriot Guard can silence their message that God killed the soldiers because they fought for a country that embraces homosexuals.
"The scriptures are crystal clear that when God sets out to punish a nation, it is with the sword. An IED is just a broken-up sword," Phelps-Roper said. "Since that is his weapon of choice, our forum of choice has got to be a dead soldier's funeral."
The church, Westboro Baptist Church, is not affiliated with a larger denomination and is made up mostly of Fred Phelps' extended family members.
During the 1990s, church members were known mostly for picketing the funerals of
(image placeholder)(image placeholder)(image placeholder)(image placeholder)
AIDS victims, and they have long been tracked as a hate group by the Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project.

These shit-eaters go to soldier's funerals and stage protests disrupting the funeral and think they are doing “the lord’s” work.

Since I railed on Muslims so much I think it only fair the christians get a couple shots… It’s tough to get folks to buy your brand of crap when people who claim to represent you are being disrespectful, hurtful, and cheer the death of those that are trying to protect their right to be total flaming assholes. Someone needs to put the lid on those bastards once and for all. I said it before there are rules to live by, if you can’t live by them then quit living and do us all a favor.

Woody Whacker and the Glyphs

Made a pilgrimage to the Deer Valley Rock Art Center, where Indians (everyone born in America is a native American) left samples of their art on the rocks. No one is sure what the images actually portray, though there are a lot of theories. My theory is they were just plain bored - back in their day all that was there were rocks and sand - lots of rocks.



Woody Whacker, the Gnome decided to act up a bit by "finishing the glyph"



Trying to get his corn ground:


And poisoning the water hole



All kidding aside it is an interesting park and worth a look-see if you are out in Phoenix, especially if you are interested in rock art...



Don't forget to bring your pack Huskies!!

The Tragic Tale of Mr. Snake

War sucks especially if you happen to be part of it, but there are some glimmers of humor, like using the fire from burning classified material to light your cigar. Mr. Snake was also one of those glimmers.

We met Mr. Snake in a Bahrain toy store. There he was in all his green splendor, very realistic. We lived in tents and there was always the fear of company in bed, so Mr. Snake seemed like he had a lot of potential. 1 rial later he was on his way home with us. Every new troop in the tent got a visit from Mr. Snake in the bottom of his sleeping bag. The results were hilarious; I swear one dude almost hit the top of the tent he jumped out so quickly.

Alas, not everyone has a finely developed sense of humor. We had smuggled Mr. Snake into the middle of one dude’s laundry parcel. He wasn’t amused when he opened the bundle and discovered Mr. Snake. That is pretty much how the Snakester met his end; the guy tore Mr. Snake’s head off. Well, it was fun while it lasted, looks like a trip back to Manama to see if we can find a rubber scorpion…

You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet

If they went so wild over the cartoons, what do you think they'll do when they find out about the urinal stickers??

Driving Miss. Cleatus

Phoenix, like most cities is just nuts when it comes to driving. There are quite a few reason for this. There aren’t anywhere near enough police to scare motorists into driving more slowly or more sanely. The police have tried some pretty interesting tactics to give the impression there are more of them then motorists think. My favorite is the decoy - a police car parked on the side of the road complete with a uniformed manikin holding a radar gun. That does seem to work better than the cameras Scottsdale installed to catch speeders. Analyzing the film reveals “drivers gone wild”. Everything from the standard finger to the more artistically appealing fruit basket. Oh yes, and all at speeds in excess of 100MPH. The current record holder comes in at 139MPH.

The range is from Gramps and Grams out for a spin in the old horseless carriage to the 2Fast and 2Furious race driver wannabes loudly weaving their way through rush hour traffic. The call of the Phoenix driver can be heard all through the state and goes “more freeways, more freeways!!”

There are two sides to the freeway thing. On the plus side we’ll kill all the assholes off a little faster (though they usually take some innocents along with them). There is a much bigger minus side. You have to displace homes and people to build these freeways because the various governments allowed developers to go on building sprees. No easements were allowed for freeway expansion (where was the State in all this?) There was a news article just recently about a fellow that discovered his home was on one of the potential paths for freeway expansion – after he bought the house. Of course the oh so scrupulous real estate agent and asshole builder forgot to mention that fact.

There are also some environmental concerns. Over the past few months everyone has been yakking about the “Brown Cloud”. A filthy soup made up of dust, vehicle emissions, smoke, and BO from the dude down the block. There are undoubtedly some other odds and ends in the mix, but vehicle emissions stand out. Now Cursed Tongue will tell you I am not the poster child for environmentalism. I use a burning tire to start my grill, have sealskin carpet, and am working on a way to get the car to run on a mixture of whale oil and sawdust from rare tropical hardwoods. My attitude has generally been that by the time it gets really bad, I will already be dead anyway. That death may come quite a bit sooner in the shadow of the aforementioned cloud. The cloud that makes folks with respiratory ailments go tits up. Ironically, the doctors used to send their patients out to these desert locales for the fresh air!! Now lets do some math – no worries, that is far from my strong suit as well…

More freeways + more cars = more dense brown cloud. Simple, yes? So how these folks can bitch and moan about the brown cloud in one breath and demand more freeways in the next is beyond me. Then we get to the 2Fast and 2 Furious and their cousin Johnny NASCAR. Gas is becoming increasingly expensive (said the Exxon exec while evilly rubbing his hands) and the fumes from the exhaust are bad for you, so why drive so fast, why drive a huge Monster truck or a vehicle that even the junk yard would turn away? We have an emission inspection in the state but I think it is more of a pencil whip, “here’s your $27”, in other words just another way for the folks in the capitol building to get their hand in your pocket (probably to pay for more freeways).

Well, while Johnny NASCAR has to use a ladder to get into his too tall pick up (He likes to run around out in the desert and screw that up too, although out here it is only a matter of time before a land pirate tacks up some more chicken wire and bird shit houses so what’s the diff…) and Sterling Moss Junior loves how loud his POS Civic sounds with the new straight pipe, things just continue to get worse and the state and local governments prove how useless they are.

Well, gotta go dump that old oil out in the park next-door, so until next time, drive like there is no tomorrow, cause their ain’t.

Olympics Schmalypics

The Olympics –who gives a shit. Kwan quits – who gives a shit. As if there wasn’t enough jock crap on TV, now we have the Olympics. I thought it was once every four years, but it seems like they have it every year. Like “American Idol”, just when you think it is safe to watch FOX again, AI is back on. I think maybe sports would be more appealing if they did like the Aztecs and lop the heads off the losers. That would certainly improve the game and keep team owners from carrying millions of dollars of steroid enhanced gene-doped dead wood.

The whole thing may have meant more before we started using ringers. Just another thing the powers that be chose to take from the grasp of the common people (though they generously let us keep stock car racing which could be a special Olympic demonstration sport next year – yeehah!).

Maybe I am just being a little petty. I mean the Olympic committee blew off my idea of featuring baby seal clubbing in the Winter Olympics. It is a winter sport and think of the publicity for the Louisville Slugger company. Hell, we could make the Slugger the official bat of the Olympics. Even have a slogan – “Real men go for their wood”. No one takes me seriously so we’ll never hear the satisfying crunch of ash against a tender baby seal skull and the rich and famous will have to do without their seal fur jockstraps and whatever else the rich and famous wear that is enhanced by exploiting helpless baby animals.

Remember, people don’t kill baby seals, bats kill baby seals.

Happy Valentine's

Happy Valentine's!!

This is basically a florist’s holiday where they have convinced the male of species that buying the female gifts (expensive and lots of them) will get his chili peeled. Not happenin’ dude. The woman will always take the money and run – want to buy that kind of action, you’ll have to find a hooker and pray Timmy Rottendick wasn’t there first.

On the other hand, if you forget the significant other(s), life will suddenly turn cold and dark. What do you expect, you are dealing with a female – you ain’t gonna win. I did manage a draw once by buying lingerie, the gift that keeps on giving unless your mate is a complete farm animal. And if she is a 4H project please for the love of whoever (whatever) you worship do not post her picture on the Web. I have some pretty grim images permanently scorched into my retinas – I am almost afraid to blink anymore. If you are into borderline beastiality and want to see some real livestock check out the Blue Tiger next time you are in LaCrosse, WI, but please, no photography.

Anyway, happy Valentine’s. Enjoy your time with your “friend” and if it happens, it happens. If you are an avid NASCAR fan. please use protection – we don’t need any more of you. There’s a male talking, equating sex with love and I am sure I’ll hear about that.

Shotgun Boogie

Be verwy, vewry quiet, I’m hunting lawyers… While a noble ambition, and there should be a bounty on everyone of those ambulance chasing bastards, it is none-the-less disconcerting. Here is a man a heartbeat a way from controlling our military (read many, many guns) and he can’t even control a shotgun. The real shame is that he didn’t do a real Fudd and look down the barrel to see if the gun was loaded. I know that’s not a nice thought, after all shit splatters. No harm done, the lawyer will recover. We have to introduce the Dickster to some larger caliber weapons.

What a great day. Hit breakfast and then off to the tractor show with a friend. That’s right, a tractor show.

Folks bring their tractors from hither, thither, and yon to show them off, compete, and just have a good ol’ time. I know I did! I was a little disappointed there were only two really old tractors, an Oil Pull and a Case Steam tractor, but there were lots of old Johnny-poppers, Cases, Farmalls, and Allis Chalmers to make up for it. Most from the 40s and 50s.

They had a tractor pull, a contest that had its roots in early consumer testing – the farmers got together and pulled weights with different tractors to sort the factory claims about the tractor out from reality. Even then industry was out to skin the unwary. Now it is just about bragging rights.

There were engines of various types, demonstrations of cotton ginning and butter churning, and chickens. I think the chickens were part of the ambiance of the Sahauro Ranch where they held the show.

There were some tractors for sale, but if I would have brought one of them home, I would have wound up here –

Even better, after looking at the tractors, we headed out and did lunch at Thee Pits Again, a great B-B-Q place my brother had turned me on to. Not a bad day all in all. Can’t beat tractors and barbeque all in one day. We resolved to have another boy’s day out soon…

Chocolate Dreams

All he wants is a chocolate world...

Wrestlemania

Let's get things rolling. If the Crusher and Jesus were in a tag team match against Mohammed and Mad Dog Vachon, who' d win?

If no one is allowed to make a picture of Mohammed, then how does anyone know what he looks like - it could be anyone in those cartoons...

So Sari

There was a Sari-sari store not far from where I was staying in Angeles City, PI that had the most excellent pork skewers.  They were grilled to order (while in Korea and the Philippines the main rule I had regarding dining is that I saw the food being cooked) and dipped in an extraordinarily hot barbeque sauce.  The store itself was basically a counter under a tin roof with a grill out front; the main amenities were fluorescent lighting and a jukebox.  This was the ideal place, that and they had San Miguel beer for what amounted to 20¢ a bottle.  This is as close to heaven as I think folks will ever come.

One quick word about San Miguel.  While in the PI it was the drink of choice, and was great beer, especially for the price.  The other main choice was Red Horse, more like malt liquor and it seemed no two bottles were quite the same in alcohol content or taste.  I liked San Miguel so much that when I got back to Korea I ordered some and found out that either it doesn’t travel well or someone was bottling goat piss in old San Miguel bottles.  I tried it again in Spain, same result – goat piss, though marginally better than the local Spanish beer.  So when you dash out and buy some San Miguel at Joe’s Liquor don’t blame me when you find the beer tastes like water from a roadside ditch.

Anyway, back to the Sari-sari.  There I was filled to the gills with San Miguel (the good stuff) and had to take a leak. Most countries in that region you are more than welcome to improvise, but I didn’t want to do the Ugly American thing, so I asked about a bathroom.  I was pointed in the direction of a there was a cement block structure out back of the store, three walls and roofless with the bottom part of a toilet and a barrel of water, ostensible for flushing since the tank part of the toilet wasn’t present for duty.  The yard looked like a petting zoo gone terribly wrong – it was the restaurant’s stock room (in more ways than one) in that many of the dishes featured on the grill out front where on the hoof back here.  The biggest baddest resident of that zoo was smack dab in the middle of the doorway of the whizzateria. In that door way was the largest turkey I had ever seen, and he didn’t look happy to see me.  The turkey was huge – that bears repeating.  I was busily searching my San Miguel addled brain for turkey lore to decide if I was going to have a problem with this big boy or not.  The call of nature soon overpowered my sense of danger and I finally decided to bluff the bird despite any threat it might pose (did I mention how big this sucker was?).  Mr. Turkey was, as the old adage goes, as scared of me as I of him and decided to heave off and fight again another day, if turkeys do indeed fight.  I heartily thanked the turkey gods for forgetting to bless their charges with any kind of brains and went about my business. I resolved to research turkeys more thoroughly – I could only remember geese putting up a fight and being very mean, but nothing about turkey, other than they taste pretty good.  Unwritten rule of nature – if you taste good, life is short.

It only took about three of four more San Miguels to forget the incident and move on to a turkey free life.   The next time I visited my arch nemesis wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Leading me to believe the unwritten rule mentioned above was applies in the Philippines too.

Nancy, wherever (whoever?) you are

Nancy,

Hope you find your biologic folks and they are everything you hoped they’d be.  Sorry to have bothered you – won’t happen again…

Beer For My Huskies

It doesn’t get much better then this. It is a lovely evening and I am out on the patio typing with a Four Peaks Kiltlifter in hand. Looks like the laptop has lashed up to the wireless network, even way out here in the back 40 (40” in my case, the yard ain’t that big). I am not sure if it is my network or the network belonging to the neighbor who apparently threw the book away before reading the part on security settings. Might as well surf porn on her nickel and have J. Edgar Bush’s top secret phone police knocking on her door. They’ll want to know why she likes looking at hooters, but then, who doesn’t like ot look at hooters?? Hooters make the world go ‘round if you think about it. Boy wants hooters, boy gets job, boy makes money, boy gets hooters, boy doesn’t make enough money, boy loses hooters and throws self out into traffic – the circle of life my friend, the circle of life. Why do I go to work in the morning? So there’ll be hooters waiting when I come home.

Damn that Kiltie’s is good – had to throw that in for my brother. I do have some ribs I could toss on the coals right now, but figure I will save those for tomorrow night. If you live in Arizona and you aren’t drinking a Kiltlifters right at this very moment, or haven’t tried a Kiltlifters, grab the nearest blunt object, smash yourself in the head, then kill your entire family and leave the bodies in a duffle bag down by the railroad tracks. That’s punishment for being an idiot.

Actually I am just kidding about the killing the family thing. We had a DJ out here go on a rant about how you should steal snacks from the gas station because they are stealing from you, noting the obscene profits Exxon made last year and now our sheriff has him under investigation for promoting crime. I am sure he was just lampooning Exxon and did go a bit over the top – you’d think with all the heinous crap going on in Phoenix the sheriff would have enough on his hands without stressing over a big mouth trying to get into young teen girl’s pants by being Joe radical DJ (not bad work if you can get it), but our sheriff, as good a sheriff as he is (like him or not he does an excellent job) loves the bright lights and goes catatonic if he isn’t on the news at least three times a week. Whatever floats his boat, but I want him to know I was maing a jest and not advocating familycide.

Now the sad part, the weekend is coming to a close. Tomorrow is nasty ol’ Mr. Monday ready to plant his pointy shoe right square up your ass. I work on computers, which have been running full tilt all weekend and aren’t getting any younger – that’s like going for a Red Sea cruise on an Arab Ferry – there’s going to be some frantic treading of water involved, or something we in this part of the country we like to call a Missouri Boat Ride. Ah, en’shallah, eh?

Well, time to hit the fridge again. Until next time kids, be sure to drink your Ovaltine and stay off any boats that haven’t seen maintenance since 1972.

Finis

It just keeps getting better and better. Now, because of some cartoons, the allahists have decided allah would like them to burn anything resembling a Danish Embassy. What a wondrous, forgiving, and loving god allah must be - and the prophet who shall not be lampooned, well say no more! The sooner we get rid of the oil shit the better. Then they can stay back in their crappy little sand box (I have been there and aside from drinking Foster’s on top of a hotel at the Cloud nine club the whole area is a steaming pile of shit) and chop each other’s heads off all the live long day. I see muslims running around here all the time, the women all bundled up apparently happy to be treated like a piece of furniture and can’t help but wonder if the Mideastern sun hasn’t baked the brains right out of the skulls. There is the hue and cry from the church here saying the muslims here aren’t down with terrorism or chopping off heads or burning embassies but I don’t see any of them doing anything to stop the shit. And why aren’t the Persian Gulf countries a little more active in helping straighten their neighbors out a bit? I know why - arabs don’t like getting their hands dirty, and import all the hired help (there were times I thought I was back in the Philippines whilst in Bahrain) so Bush-daddy has sold them our army. I was in the service; I fought in the first gulf war so I don’t want to hear any crap about not supporting our troops. The enlisted folks are giving their blood and soul over there, have seen there duty and do it without question as we always have, but enough is enough.

Got Yer Cartoon Right Here!

I happened upon another site and there were interesting items on religion, ecology, and accordions. I don’t know anything about accordions, except the group “Those Darn Accordions” are pretty good. Any rate, beyond the squeezebox, maybe religion isn’t an opiate, maybe it is a poison. The whole purpose behind the allah, jesus, and the rest was to establish some rules so we could all live together in harmony. Since the adherents to any of most religions have chosen to subvert, qualify, or outright ignore the rules that the deities they are ready to kill for set up with no repercussions, they have proven those gods are just fictional characters.  Religion has become the driving force behind most of the mayhem in the world – hell even the Skinheads use religion as a pretext.  I think it is time to turn our back on supreme beings and start realizing it is up to us to save our own collective ass.  

Life and the earth are very fragile, call it an accident, a miracle, whatever – we are here.  I think it is time to stop being a pack of assholes and start husbanding our very own dirt clod a bit more wisely.  It would be really nice if we’d forget the god crap and just start getting along as people and realize each life has a value, and oh by the way, there are rules to live by – no killing of any kind, no stealing of any kind, no lying cheating or finagling to get a leg up on your neighbor.  

The more I see of people’s actions from religious groups, government organizations, hate groups, and even power mad HOA fascists I have had enough of the controlling bastards and their crap religious superheroes.   There are no virgins, there’s no promised land, no happy snappy hunting ground dead is dead – make your life count now by making a helpful contribution to the welfare of others, to preserving our earth up until the time ol’ Sol has had enough expands out and roasts earth like a marshmallow on a stick.   Need to worship something to feel complete try your fellow man or the frikkin’ ground you walk on.

Ok, Now I'm Scared

Four years of staring at this shit?? Sign me up!!