The Cat Guy hits the road.

I killed a man, Father. I am afraid I am going to Haiti!

2009-04-03T15:57:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't that be Hades, my son?

Nay Father... HAITI! It's MUCH worse! Think on it... voodoo, AIDS, transient governments, those National Geographic boobies, terrible whiskey!

Aye my son, to Haiti yer goin'.

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After leaving the Sedona (during my worldwide tour of Arizona), I decided I had had enough of the good life and ventured into the desolate town of Panguitch, UT. That was a FUCK of a drive, let me say. I had to go up through Flagstaff and took 89A out to the Colorado river, the painted desert, across the border, through Kanab, UT and into Panguitch. There is one RV park open in Panguitch (pronounced PAIN-gwich) and one restaurant, which was mom-and-pop style grease burger, greasy fries or MEAT chili. Tough to be a vegetarian in Utah.

Below is a video of my drive along with some pics of the painted desert. The desert is incredible in its beauty and majesty. Again, why the good lord Jehovah gave the most pristine parts of our country to the people He did... beyond my ken, fellow testicle-munchers.

I found BFE in Arizona, my friends. (Yeah, I know I labeled the video wrongly.)

Here is the painted desert, which actually looks much cooler than these photos. I suck. But... it pays the bills.

I finally got to the Colorado River. In the Bible, it states that after God made the world 6000 years ago, the mighty Colorado carved out the Grand Canyon in a few weeks. It is in Leviticus. Believe me. HAVE FAITH!

Here is a video of me taking in the wonder of Jehovah.

After all this driving, I meandered across the Utah/Arizona border and stopped outside of Kanab, UT to buy some rocks and gemstones. I was open-carrying at the time, which I prefer to do in the Wild West. The proprietor of the gem store eyed my sidearm and launched into an Anti-Obama tirade, assuming I was a good ol' boy or something to that effect. He has no love for the man, apparently, but respects the office he holds and there is a fag on his son's football team, but if he plays good ball, let him play. Ahhh... the southwest, what can you do. How soon can I get back to Seattle? HELP!

In Panguitch, I stayed at a little mom and pop RV park. The lady that eventually came down from some unseen locale was a laugh riot. Across the room, I could still smell the Johnny Walker on her breath. She wanted to charge my CC for 25K and take off to the Bahamas with me. She was too drunk to go see what spots were available, so I walked around the park and found a good place to park. There was ONE restaurant open that night to eat. Since I didn't want burgers, chicken, ribs, or... burgers... I settled on the fish and chips, which I had to leave for a date with the shitter 5 minutes into my meal.

I hurried out of there the next morning in a rush of bullet fire and diesel smoke. On my way to SALT LAKE SHITTY! As the luck of the Irish would have it, it decided to snow for two days, my bike got a flat for which I had not kit to fix, and my main battery acted up. I had dinner with the ex-inlaws, which was extremely pleasant and gracious, and off I was to West Wendover, NV.

So, Wendover is an interesting place. Half of the city exists in the Utah and the other half in the Nevada. I was not sure of the carry laws in Nevada, so I disarmed once I got inside state lines. But on the way, I stopped at the Bonneville Salt Flats to take a pee. The young man attending to the rest stop asked about my carry and we talked guns for a bit. He carried a Springfield Arms .40, which is a GREAT gun. I have fired that model a few times. Clean, low-recoil, accurate. He started getting lippy about my 9mm, so I shot him dead and put him in the salt flats to make good jerky for future travelers. Oh! Here is the salt flats.

This shit is FLAT, my friends...

Since homeboy's name was Sim, I figured I should label the salt, so his family would know where to find his caliber-discriminating ass.

Now, when you pull into Wendover, you definitely know which side you are on: Sin or Salvation. You can guess which side I chose.

More to come, including pics of my excellent hotel room in Wendover. I won big money that night playing the craps. I have a certain flair for throwing 7/11 on the come out. Don't ask me why but I made a lot of people a lot of money. Do I get a tip? Hells naw!

Much love to all included!

Fucking burros!

2009-03-26T17:55:00.000-07:00

I had to leave the airport of Pleasant Valley, Peoria or I would be in massive credit card debt for glider flights. But moreso because of the strange occurrence of 'Boogey Burros." What you say? You have heard of the Boogey Man, but not the Boogey Burros? To quote the good senator from AZ... "My friends..."

When you are in your RV late at night and the wine is upon you... and you are writing very long intricate emails... and outside your fucking window you hear the braying of the ass... what would YOU do? I almost pissed myself, I admit. Yes, I admit.

I shut off my interior light and peered through the slats of my blinds to discover the source of said sound! Nothing was to be seen! Yet... again it came, riding on the desert wind as a knife to my gut. HHHHH--SSSSS! I cowered in fear. I scrambled for a weapon and peered out. Nothing, my friends. Nothing.

After a while, I calmed down and turned on my light again, expecting to see out the windshield a demon burro with laserbeam eyes, piercing my brain. Nothing, my friends.

The next day I inquire as to this phenomenon. The glider pilot, Rick, my instructor, tells me of a herd of wild burro that make their way across the runways at night and drink at a tub of water on the park grounds. My fear abates, my friends.

The next night I wander, as I am wont to do, toward the runway to have a cigarette and talk to the gliders. A superstition for good winds the next day. Then I hear them... footsteps. Plodding hooves moving with intent toward my position. I freak out and head back to the RV. I hear them behind me... dozens of clopping sounds. Yet nothing is to be seen, my friends! I hang back by the RV door and then I hear it. The ghostly braying. Not one but two... three.. four beasts crying into the night, their thirst overwhelming them. Their parched throats seek purchase of cool liquid. I saw shadows against the lights of a far off desert town. That was when I hopped in Althea and hid in the bathroom.

If you think Boogey Burros are something to be fucked with, my friends... you will end up as the small compact green lumps that cover the runways every morning. Think... again.

Before I get to the trip to Sedona (dud), I wanted to share a tragedy for America (fuck yeah!). I was riding my bike through a construction yard and found the sad remains of Iron Man. We knew he was lost in flight in late 2008, but this was insult to injury. To be nothing but a pile of rubbish in a town already full of rubbish... an American tragedy.

So, I sauntered into the Sedona area. I have not been here for almost nine years and man, is it different! Houses everywhere. This is from the road on the way in.

Here are some rocks in Sedona.

This is the Javelina Cantina, my honkies!

My bad assed vegetarian enchilada with potatoes, spinach and cheddar and green sauce. What? The margarita you say? It is prickly pear puree and tequila.

*** NERD STUFF ***

So I was looking to see what satellites were visible tonight and tripled over in laughter at the fact that that toolbag that floated away from the ISS during a spacewalk/repair mission is being tracked and you can see it! At mag 8! HAHAHAHAHAH... AHAHAHAHAHA!! That is seriously one of the funniest things I have ever read on a technical astronomy site. Track the Toolbag! HAHAHAH... at mag 8. Yeah right. Like you could even see that from any city in the U.S. OMG... funniest thing ever.

So, I am walking from the RV park today to the town center to get margaritas and this pink Jeep drives by with the sign on the side, Pink Jeep Canyon Tours or some shit like that... full of people on tour, and this kid leans out and points his finger at me and yells, "YEAH MAN!" to which I point the gun hand back at him and yell, "Yeah!"

What the hell? Why does everyone in Arizona have to make note of me? I wasn't even carrying today and I get the AZ salute!

So, I have to wonder... they have parking spaces for disabled people. Well, if you are disabled you really aren't going anywhere are you? When my car is disabled for instance, it doesn't go very far. Why have a parking space for it? Oddness.

Top secret: Whenever I pull out of an RV park, I put the Star Wars Main Theme on the iPod and blast it though the stereo. People look at me kinda weird, but fuck man, it is like the Millennium Falcon pulling out of Mos Eisley! Give a Wookie a break!

Up.. up... and away.

2009-03-23T19:52:00.000-07:00

Took my second glider lesson today at Turf Soaring School here in way north Peoria. Images below have information no one needs known, except myself.

My excitement builds! I had to image it for future recollection. When my mind is slow and feeble. (NOT!)

This is me and Chiquita, my glider girl. I made the name up myself, cause everyone called her N30485 or something. Yes, there was a phallic moment with her. Rick, my instructor called it 'taking ownership.' I figure she needed a stroke before I put her through the abuse I do. You can see by my pants the force of the wind upwind from the field.

I am onboard, testing the elevator, ailerons, rudder and spoilers. The big red knob is the tow release. Zoom! Ignore my dorky clothing. Speaking of clothing, all the glider pilots wear the same kind of hat, not a ballcap like me. Luckily I brought the kind of hat they wear on my trip, but did not wear it this time out. You can see the altimeter is preset to 1600 ft MSL, which is the altitude above Mean Sea Level of the Pleasant Valley (P48) airport I am staying at. If you don't do that, you crash on approach. Well, not really, but you can't gauge altitude correctly and in bigger planes, yeah, you WILL crash.

I think that is Jeff towing us out. At this point, there is a lot of scraping of the skidplate against the gravel runway edge. In a few seconds we are balanced on the landing wheel and then we put the elevator down and we are up.

I am about to release from tow and soar away to find thermals. I think we are about 3000 MSL (so, 1400 ft above ground). I was supposed to note the release alt. but was feeling the tow instead.

Smoggy ass Phoenix in the distance.

Lake Pleasant. Woo!

I found a thermal, now I am trying to stay in it. Instructor Rick had to whack me on the head a few times to remind me to watch my bank angle and shit. I can't think of anything more exciting than this, really. It is like a video game. You search out thermals or bubbles and get lift until they fizzle, then glide to another one. Clouds, birds, and other gliders are the keys to finding good ones.

Me... flying. No shit. It is not EASY, but it is not HARD. Once you get the feet/hand coordination down, it is pretty straightforward. It is really a whole body thing, like playing the drums. And these things are SO lubricated and tight you can feel your ship respond to everything you are doing.

The Turf Soaring School airport where I am staying.

Be, being insane in Chiquita. That is Rick behind me. HE is wearing the appropriate hat. ROXXOR!

The airport again. You can see Althea there in the fucking dust. We had a crazy dust storm the other night. This RV was rocking and not in the GOOD way.

Chiquita after I abused her. Rick let me do most of the landing this time, downwind, base and approach. He said to level her at 1 foot above the runway. Well... when you are in the cockpit, it is hard to tell 1 foot. And I dropped her a little early, not realizing how much runway I had left, so I leveled her at three feet and he took over and dropped her. With gliders, though, you don't land on the actual runway or you will skid to Mexico. The gravel beds along the edges are where you drop the glider and then the skidplate hits and you crunch to a stop. Thanks Rick! That rocked!

And for good measure, here is an Iridium flare I captured tonight about 9º SE of Polaris.

And that, as I say... is all.

How high am I?

2009-03-22T08:34:00.000-07:00

Well, I was high as 7000 ft MSL yesterday during my first gliding lesson. Today there is a crazy windstorm that is keeping the planes on the ground, so I am not going up again today. Will try for tomorrow. One of the pilots and I are going to bike out to some petroglyphs this week, hopefully. I will get some pics up. On a ride today through the desert I brought my camera to photograph some cacti for my new website, mycactihatesyou.com. I will post some samples below. In one cactus, there was a special treat! An owl's nest with at least two, that I could see, babies in it. Scanning around, I knew the folks would be nearby. And then I found them.

The cactus on the left has the nest. You can see fluff!

Here is a shot from the 17mm cropped and enlarged of the nest.

This is with the 300mm. The owlings? moved between lens changes.

This is either daddy or mommy owl watching me.

And the other one.

Beautiful animals, aren't they? We are blessed!

Yesterday I was riding my bike along the highway, open-carrying my Glock, and this car full of young dudes drove by on their way to the lake nearby to get MORE drunk. One kid puts his hand out the window and makes a gun with it and yells, "Bang bang cowboy! WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOO!" What is it with kids yelling at me on my bike. Maybe my 'safari' hat prompts these calls to me.

It's NOT a dry heat! - Pt II - Nerdly things.

2009-03-21T20:29:00.000-07:00

If you didn't read the beginning of this bullshit, read yesterday's entry. Wait... who am I talking to? My-fucking-self of course!

I would be remiss to be here in the relative darkness of the Arizona desert without looking at the sky.

*** WARNING - Astro-Nerdiness ahead! ***

The Phoenix Nebula in the southern sky is a travesty, let me begin by saying. Firstly, it has grown from what used to be maybe 30º on the horizon and maybe 10º in altitude to over 60º wide by 30+º in altitude. One thing I lack in the Pacific Northwest is the ability to see anything below -25 Declination. This means that most of the Sag. Complex, Ophiuchus, Libra, Scorpius, etc. lay on the 10 degree of horizon that is mostly unviewable and definitely cannot be photographed. You can see Antares, but the seeing is terrible at that altitude from horizon.

So, it is nice to come down to the south where you can see stuff like that. At 14º lower latitude, all sorts of stuff come into play. But I am 30 miles NORTH of the Phoenix Nebula, which is reaching up to -30 Dec these days and I can's see SHIT!
Okay, I still got the northern skies and the celestial equator, which for me at this time of the year is not that interesting. Orion is almost setting by midnight, as is Auriga, Perseus, Gemini, etc.

Virgo, Böotes, Ursa Major, etc. are at zenith, and they are fun to play with, but Spica is almost swallowed in the south and the VGC is a bit washed.

So I figure, okay, I will do some binoc Messier viewing. I started in the west cause I wanted to catch the Open Clusters in Gemini and Auriga. As I poke around the south-central region with my Russian 9x63's, I start counting off the OCs and then it dawns upon me what a confused little Frenchman Messier must have been!

The two outer OCs in Auriga are M37 and M38, while M36 lies in between them and M35 lies about 9º away.

So, if Messier is hopping from OC to OC, in Gemini dig?, he is like oh! nice bright cluster that is NOT a comet... I call it... M35! hmm hmm hmm... *keeps going* Oh! here is another one just inside the Auriga boundary. I will call it... M37! *keeps going* Ahh! Another one, in the same linear path at the last two... I will call it... OH! I skipped 36. I will call THIS one 36! *keeps going* Another one! I will call it... hmmm... M38!

What Tomfoolery is this, I ask!? Why not get your eraser (yes, I know he had a quill) and fix that M37 to M36 and do not confuse us 250 years later! I NEVER understood that logic. As if you can't see 4 BIG ASS CLUSTERS in a row. You know they are not comets because you can resolve stars. Yes, I know he had a 2" scope or whatever. Still.. he is like... the French Observatory's village idiot!

Anyway, I tried to get The Triplet in Leo, no go...M104(The Sombrero Galaxy)... no go. I found Praesepe though! But it is in my constellation (Cancer) and quite viewable. Since Cancer, also known as the Dark Sign, was in a fight with Aries for being the suckiest constellation, God gave it the Beehive Cluster (M44) and put the issue to rest. It is known by four major names, The Manger, M44, The Beehive Cluster, and Praesepe, which I have always chosen to call it. The Greek names are the best. The Pleiades, the Hyades, Praesepe. I give the Persians their due, but names like Zubenelgenubi make astronomy tests HARD. I am not making this stuff up, folks!

So, I had some time to play around with my digital camera and took some star trail shots. The first one is just a fun little exercise in taking a long exposure and putting a 'hat' over the lens for a minute or so, then re-exposing for about 20-30 seconds.

Orion is particularly fun for these kind of exposures because the north-most star on his belt, Mintaka lies just below the celestial equator. This means that any star north of Mintaka will swirl around Polaris and any star south of Mintaka will swirl around the southern celestial pole. (They are too poor down there to afford a pole star although Polaris is not really at the TRUE celestial north pole, but shhhh... no more words.) So, a long exposure involving Orion will show slight curvature in star trails in either direction on either side of the belt. If you look closely you can see it in this pic. As Sniper says in Training Day, "This is some trippy shit, Holmes!"

Ehhh... maybe you can't see it in that image there. It is a 50mm shot... should be... 28 or less to really get the effect. So... here is a photo of BeBop and I. She loves to take my hat off... which she is not doing in this photo.

It's NOT a dry heat!

2009-03-21T08:07:00.000-07:00

Because of various issues with the North Phoenix RV Park, I took my show on the road this morning... 40 miles north of town to a nice little place called Turf Soaring School where you can pay some ducats to be towed aloft in a glider and sail around silently for awhile then hopefully land safely and live to tell the story. I can see the airfield from my writing desk, in fact.

Oh course, now that the temps are reaching the 90's, it decided to get cloudy, which means of course... humid. So, now instead of walking around like Hannibal himself, I am sitting here wishing I was in Puerto Vallarta, where it HAS to be nicer weather.

AND in the process, the viewing for the Spring Equinox star party at Lake Pleasant (which is a total fucking misnomer) will be 'clouded out'. Which sucks cause Saturn is BRILLIANT out here, even though his rings are within 5% of edge-on. Still! There are moons to be seen and storms and shit.

Note to self: when you first turn on the overhead AC after 4 months, make sure there is nothing edible under the vents.

Next to me is a purple and pink trailer looking as if it has been here for awhile. I am guessing a woman lives there.

Yesterday, I was able to take in the first game of a Mariner's doubleheader with the Cubs. Of course it was a split squad game... which means I got to watch every player that will NOT appear on the starting roster of this 2009 season.

Here is how it went down.

I was standing out here where the guy is, described by the large red arrow.No, that is not me, but I look just as dorky, believe me.

Waiting to get this: (I apparently lost my ticket after the game, so i hadda sub the one from Tuesday)

Then, I heard a plop and looked behind me to see a ball hit foul out of the stadium veering away from a point not two feet distant from myself. I am standing directly behind home plate, mind you. I look around to see if any kids are going to chase it down, but there is nothing but my elders discussing their Madhoff investments. So, I take a stroll and pick it up after photographing it, seen below.

The great part about this whole game was this: the game was apparently sold out, so the parking guy said... well-uh, befoh ya pay for pahking, you go check about a ticket! So, I drove to the ticket window and asked. Oh, they have lawn seats. Well, fuck... just like a Dead show man... all that matters is getting in! So I bought the $6.00 ticket, got back in my rental van and headed back to parking. Well, after the 2nd inning (which is when I returned from ticketing), the parking leaves, so I just parked for free and found a good seat on the lawn and I was drinking!

Me: whitest guy in Air-eh-zone.

So, the game, yes...

This guy stood around a lot.

These people were there.

Okay... this thing...

This is a close up of the LED matrix for the big scoreboard. Because we are dealing with transmitted light, we are going to be using RGB values here, correct? Ergo, this matrix should contain modules of either three discrete diodes with perhaps 255 values for brightness OR one tri-color diode. But, as far as I know, three individual SUPER-BRIGHT LEDs will be seen at a greater distance and one tri-color. And there is some weird bleed you get at distance with tri-color. So, here we should be dealing with three large, bright LEDS of each of the primary colors. Which means each module of three discrete LEDs would represent one pixel (which as I moved away from the board, this was true). Nothing interesting here, yet. But then I looked at the modules and as you can see, the colors appear in different positions within their module. Red would always be in the right corner of the triangle, but blue and green would change position up and down, which to me makes no sense at all. Now, I did not notice that blue and green would change positions within the same module, but from module to module they would appear at random vertical positions. The only thing I could figure is... they got one batch of modules from one manufacturer and another batch elsewhere, where blue and green were juxtaposed. This makes no difference to the viewer, of course, because it still appears as one solid pixel color, given enough spatial relationship. Anyone got any ideas?

Then... these guys were on base and... nothing happened. We lost 9-2.

The flags of our nations.

The elusive Mariner's Bullpen Catcher's Gear.

That was the end of the game. We sucked. And some other fucker was wearing Junior Griffey's #24! WTF MAN!?

Something about Phoenix and hos. I went to see Watchmen (which I will get into later, but let me say that it was exactly what I was expecting and worth seeing again and again.) and saw this movie playing. There were a lot of little chunky white girls in line to see this! Seriously. I think it was sold out.

Then as I left the theatre, I saw this on one of these girls' truck.

Crazy shit, mangs!

So, I am gonna go take a bike ride through rattlesnake country. When I get back I will post part II of this relating to the cool star pics I took last night and some crazy explosion shit going on in PHX.

Big secret of the day : When I watch basketball games and the players step on the lines, it makes me cringe.

Until then... I am chilling like a villain.

They said my feet were too flat.

2009-03-18T10:53:00.000-07:00

I don't think a lot of people GOT Mork & Mindy. How many people knew about Boulder at the time? My next sitcom is going to be in Arcata, where my soulmate awaits me in a drunken stupor outside the Red Onion pub and livery.

My fate is construction. Downtown Seattle, I moved into the Nettleton, total disaster. For the entire year I lived there there was construction upstairs and downstairs so loud I could not find my space before going into the show. Reciprocal drills, banging of pipes, all sorts of shit to eventually culminating in me being moved to the OTHER tower in the complex to stay for a month. Which was the worst, cause it was right down the way from Vito's nightclub, which was great for when I was high on Absinthe and the fools exited the place. Of course, it was a yo-yo night club, so at 2am there were usually sisters screaming at each other from four feet away about "where they tampons be at?"

To create balance in this scene, there is the move last year to Alki Beach next to a conspicuously empty lot. Within hours of my move, a new building was being put up! You gotta dig the trip, here, man. I am at home all the fucking day, where I work, sleep, or slay. It is hard to make quick with the slashy-slash when all I can hear is mariachi music and pile drivers. After my six month lease was up, I fucked off back to Des Moines.

Here in the desert town of Phoenix, Arizone, I am at the lovely (and admitted ex-worst-tweaker-park in the city) North Phoenix RV Park. I have the 'best spot in the park' right next to the office, laundry (also internet kiosk), bathrooms, showers, pool, etc. As luck would have it... THIS week, they decided to start remodeling the building! Which means at 7:00a here comes the mariachi music and the nail guns and rotary saws and Fuckall™.

I love A & E. At night, I turn on the old laptop, plug in my cable TV tuner in and have real life crime shit on while I am playing with photos, writing, and digital manipulation. In the matter of twenty minutes, I get to see probably 5-10 corpses in various forms of decay. Brilliant evening imagery.

There are big balloons floating around the desert here. I will make photon-collection reproductions! You will make sticky!

I want to change my name to Sincock. It seems like the Federal thing to do.

Why do shows like Dog the Bounty Hunter get renewed? It is a travesty. It is not informative, it is not enlightening, it doesn't help anyone. You get this hambeast of a woman screaming at people who get pulled accidentally into orbit around her boobs. You get this mullets-r-us Hulk Hogan-a-bee that is still high from way back when yelling shit about brah and Jesus and his crew of people who are unable to carry real weapons because they are poseurs who probably steal cable.

My next unscripted game show is going to be on some deserted isle off Tahiti where everyone has to have sex with the fauna and guess as to which venereal disease they have contracted.

I finally got my ass to the Spring Training yesterday and it was NOT the M's, but the Padres and the Angels. It was actually a really good game. The haloes stomped in the ninth. The bad assed thing about the Spring Training is the fact that the stadium holds 11K, but only about 4K show up. So, you get to just hang about wherever you want and talk to the players and kick little kids in the kneecaps and drink 6 dollar margaritas in the hot sun of the desert. Here are some pics!

My favorite avenue in all of Bisabol!

The Peoria outfield.

Some action on the field! What is happening? I have no clue cause I have... Margarita! (and not the dippy Russki down at the Enterprise Rent-a-Car who can't figure out that you CAN put a bicycle into a cargo van!)

More child abuse by the Padres' Burke. I saw him throw a kid over the railing earlier.

How baseball was meant to be seen.

The BOMB ASS Mexican food in Peoria. This place was completely empty except for Jessica, the server, and myself, Jim. Everyone was down the street hanging out at the Mick joint getting stupid non-compostable green plastic bead strands and shitty Budweiser with food coloring in it. Me? To quote the great Bukowski, "I'm drrrrrinkking!"

Today the M's are 'away' playing the Royals. The stadium in which that contest is to be held is only 5 miles from the Peoria Sports Complex. Interestingly, there are TEN stadia here within a few miles of each other. How Columbo!

Behind the RV park I am in is a nice little mountain I will be hiking up later. I should post pics. Also there may be some hot air balloons in the sky I will try to bring to light.

In the next few days or next week, I am going to try to get out to Roswell to see where I was born. My birth certificate says Torrance, CA, but I think that is some kind of crypto-anagram for Roswell, NM. I remember a bit of the birthing process and there were these rocks and mountains all around and a Big Wheel and a Nerf football and a Spirograph. Also gotta stop at the Carlsbad Caverns which is where I was raised by the outcast EBE's from the M51 system. It if funny that most of us tend to think of alien races in terms of the Zeta Reticulans, the Pleidians, or maybe the Mizar Binary groups, but these are all in the Milky Way. Think about all the Exosystem Entities. The EEs make up a FAR larger population of overall EBEs and EQEs and those are just the carbon-based organic biological ones. I am not even counting the Androidal Multipedal races from the Magellanic Cloud Collective. To them, Roswell is like... Bakersfield... which is like Roswell to those from Bakersfield. We don't have a proper contingent of representation there in Bakersfield, but there is a small underground transfer station not far south near Lamont.

Gotta run, droogies! Gotta date with Junior Griffey. Funny thing, I have his rookie card at home. I should have brought it down here to get autographed on the last year of his career! You see? The alpha AND the omega!

The Lord is in Phoenix.

2009-03-13T19:03:00.000-07:00

Finally having arrived in Phoenix, I have procured a camping spot only EIGHT miles from Junior Griffey. How lucky am I?

Well, I am camped out at the North Phoenix RV thingy-ma-bob and was given the nicest spot in the camp, so I am told. I am under a big Euc, with my very own picnic table. See the picture below to see how lucky I am. Is it the Irish... or the karma of the good Buddhist? We will never know, but I am loving it here.

How do I love the desert? To the north are majestic red mountains covered with a variety of cacti. To the south is the now-sprawling city of Phoenix. What is Phoenix up to? Well, I can say this: when I was here last in 2001, it was a small city surrounded by glorious desert and abandoned roads that led to nowhere. It was along these roads that Steve West and I took our killer telescopes and found a plot of land and watched the skies all night. At 1:00am it was 70º and I sat in a tee-shirt watching the stars glow overhead.

Yesterday as I pulled into town, at that same road, there were unseen miles of tract home developments. The vacant scrub we scurried through in our 4x4 was now shopping malls and SUVs. This is 30 miles out of town mind you. This was no-man's land 8 years ago. Now, it is Wal*Mart and chain restaurants. It brought a feeling of shame and hopelessness over me. No longer are the skies to be bright and clear, the Phoenix Nebula a glow on the Eastern horizon. Now the light of man encroaches into the places where people once knew what the Milky Way was and some generations ago marveled at its perfection.

The dark skies of the American Southwest will soon be a dream of astronomer's past, like myself. The delicate shrub and majestic cactus standing for so many generations have been plowed over in the quest for a good profit margin. The roadrunner and quail will find new feeding grounds or extinction. And so it goes.

I travel on the road in a very lame outfit of hiking boots, cargo shorts, and an earth-toned sun hat. Today as I rode my bike along Deer Valley Rd, some very nice young men drove alongside me and the passenger chortled out, "Stay true to the safari, Nigga!" I raised my thumb to give acceptance, but was still slightly puzzled by his insinuation. Am I on safari? Well, I posit that perhaps I am.

I made a left on 27th and headed down toward the 101, where not too far away I would find the Junior Griffey. I ended up in a mess of road construction which was NOT good for one on a bicycle. So, I came back to camp. Along the way, I recognized an intersection as the one that Steve West and I had an unfortunate accident in 2001 on an astronomy trip. We were in the wrong lane, bound to turn to the left, when we wanted to go straight. Steve West put the Jeep into reverse so as to move into the abutting lane to go forward. As the ill luck would have it, there was a very SMALL car behind us and we destroyed it. It would not move again.

We got out and apologized for the accident and helped the woman push her car into the corner AM/PM whereby the police were called and brought to the scene. While we were waiting, I think we went in to ask the young (17 year old) woman at the counter for some help with something. During the interrogation from THE MAN about the accident, THE MAN brought up the fact that the young girl in the AM/PM mentioned smelling alcohol on Steve West's breath. I looked at THE MAN and said, "You mean the 17-year-old?" (Cause I asked how old she was earlier). He nodded and then sort of forgot the issue. What would a 17-year-old be knowing about the smell of the booze? Steve West got a ticket for unsafe backing and we went on our way. The bonus is that Steve West and myself were pretty fucking loaded and prolly should not have been driving. We finished a Mariners' spring training game and went and got drunk with the team... then went out and got... drunk. Then tried to find our motel. Then crash. Thank you, 17-year-old girl!

This is the good life, I have to say. Every RV around me in this park has the blessing of Jesus Christ upon it. I feel the heathen! The Texans are particularly proud of their Lord and Savior, and their license plates say so. Even though I do not take JC as MY Lord and Savior, I feel I am protected from random flash floods and tornadoes by association. The sun is out, the wind is warm and gentle, how blessed more can I be?

Upon returning from my ride to nowhere, I ended up at the Times Square Italian Restaurant, which has a full bar and REALLY good food. I met AJ, the daytime bartender and talked about his collection of sports memorabilia. Thanks, AJ. It rocked steady. What a delicious salad and Trumer Pils! And the CC/7-up. After my buzz was upon me, I biked to Althea and locked my ship up tight. The only 'net connection in the park is in the laundry room which closes at 9pm, so I must get this entry done and posted by then with accompanying images. Super bouns: the ari-eh-ZONE does not deal with that daylight savings bullshit, so I am in the same timezone I left in the Pac NW.

So, I lit out from Seattletown some time last week and cruised to the wonderful little mountain town of Ashland, Oregon. (remember, we pronounce it ore-eh-GOHN) That was a blast, as usual. I hung out at Alex's restaurant for the evening. The very same place I have been going since at least 1991 on any road trip down the 5. The place was the same as always, but the principals were older. In the big chairs next to the roaring fire were the college kids talking about theatre and Shakespeare and the upcoming festival. To mutilate Matt's line from "Dazed and Confused", I keep getting older, but those college kids stay the same age. It is really a great place, I recommend it. And as I am walking through downtown, there are deer munching on lawns of houses. I remember when deer used to exist in West Seattle when I moved there in 1990. They have since lost their habitat, so goodbye deer.

My next stop was in Coalinga, CA. Well, maybe NOT Coalinga proper, but the little stop off the 5 that has a road TO Coalinga. It was a very interesting little park. I swear I saw all sorts of weird apparitions running around that night, even one going under my RV. As I tried to sleep all I could hear was the croaking of frogs from the water treatment plant next door along with some odd machinery sound that made me think of Dr. Moreau.

While outside Coalinga, I decide to take the girl into the city to get food. Man, what a mistake. I think I spent 25 bucks in gas just getting into and out of town, much less getting lost IN town and LEAVING town. I hadda get this Messican food to go, cause there was nothing open except some really YAHOO bar with guys beating themselves with pool sticks. Not each other, mind you, but themselves. Go figger. Small town I-5. The next morning I was on my way to SoCal.

I was concerned about Althea getting up the Grapevine, but let me tell you this: out of Ashland to the south, you hit the Siskiyou Pass, which is the highest elevation on I-5, at 4300 feet. It was a fucking blizzard up there. In March, I say! The 5 was down to ONE lane, going very slow and no visibility. It reminded me of when I moved to Seattle in 1990 and there were three of us in my old beaten VW bus with all we owned, off to the Pac NW to start new lives. We could not see 30 feet in front of us, we had bad tires, a battery that had frozen open and no longer worked, no snow chains, and a lot of weed. I think that saved us. In my induced state of mind, I let go of the wheel and let the deep ruts from the 18-wheelers guide us down the mountain, avoiding the drop-to-fucking-doom cliff at the edge of the freeway. This was little different though, in that I had a 6-ton vehicle bearing down the OTHER side of the pass in slick conditions. Hey man! It is just another freaking day baby!

So, you take I-5 south from Ashland and it is pass after pass after pass... UP and DOWN and UP and DOWN until probably past Shasta. But once you get over the border to Cali, you get to stop at the inspection station. Oh!!!! The officer asks if I have any vegetation on board and says he must come inside. So, I welcome him aboard with those exact words and tell him, "Hey, forget that tiny booth in the snow, let's go to Mexico and get mai-tai's on the beach of Cabo! He laughs and says he can't leave his post. Wink-wink.

Here are some pics of Cali in the sun.

Finally, I got through the Grapvine (see video below) and into the Los Angeles area. I hung out with the folks and family for a few days, celebrating a few birthdays along the way, though I did not get to celebrate Julie's birthday cause I passed out I think. Sorry, Jules. For my sister's b-day, we had the Inn of the Seventh Ray brunch buffet... BUT it is smaller than it used to be. A lot of the good cheeses are gone and the desserts. I ended up with the foods below. Drool at your own risk, farghins!

Me trying to get through the fucking grapevine!

Hanging with the Edgars.

This is a pic of the fam at the infamous Top of the World, off of Stunt Rd. I can't tell you in good faith how many trips were taken here by me and my friends. Trips, I say!

Food from Inn of the Seventh Ray. This place USED to be THE hippie hangout, all veggie goodness, with herbs grown locally around the restaurant. Nowadays, Britney Spears shows up without panties to make us all ill.

And a flower for your time.

After L.A. I zipped to Oceanside and drank too much. But that city never stops drinking, I think. I read reviews of bars there and talked to peeps there and it was like, "Yeah... drinking and the surfing, man!" Here are some pics.

Crazy beach houses in Oceanside.

Some evil denizens.

The lifeguard stations on the beach there.

O'side kicked me out (twice actually) and I headed to the San Diego place where there was my ex-agent Ted to have lunch with and discuss AIDS, New York, Publishing, Fish Tacos, and what is next for the Chargers. Just kidding. Pics and vids below.

Me and Ted after eating FISH! Ha ha, Ted. That was a hetero joke, sorry ;) I love Ted and he knows it.

One of those odd birds looking for love in all the wrong places.

This guy was too cool for words. Honestly. He was a son of a bitch!

Finally I hadda bail and get to PHX for the spring training of the Mariners. Now, I am eight miles away and prepared to get it on! The heat is the best. I miss NOT the snow of the Seattle! or the rain of the Pac NW! FEH ON IT!

But let me tell you oh my brothers (and twin sisters), that if you think the 5 coming out of Ashland to Redding is a mess, holy FUCK OF ALL UNCLEFUCKERS... I-8 from San Diego to Yuma is like the Roller Coaster of Big Brother. As one maneuvers the passes from 2000ft to 4000ft back to 3000ft up to 4000ft, down to 2000ft, up to 3000ft, down to 1000ft, up to 4000ft, one gets the sense that it will never stop. You will be going up and down for at least until you get to Louisiana. But somewhere around Yuma it stops, NOT however before you get stopped by the Dept. of Homeland Security at least twice and grilled about your intentions in your OWN FUCKING COUNTRY! Well, Mr. Man, I am from Washington, a state within our union, on my way to another state within our union. Are there any drugs, bombs, or homies in my RV? Your fucking dog should know that... he is sniffing up my asshole. Do I have illegal terrorisms in my RV? No... oh, by all means, come in and look around. Yes, that is my weapon I am legally allowed to have... yes it is loaded as this is my residence. Yes, that is a camera bag, with a camera inside it. There are no illegal terrorisms in the fridge, but please have a look, cause you NEVER KNOW how small they can be. Such a shakedown I have never encountered. The good thing is... they never found the dope I DID have. I told the nice freckled woman I was not into those terrorisms, but she hadda smell my bung for good measure.

I have never seen more Border Patrol in my life. They were hidden up in the mountains in Jeeps, Humvees, all sorts of shit. Not so well hidden from the highway, but if you were coming across the border, your ass is grass. Some of them were waking around in the hills with very large rifles. I made a video of it (but I missed the Holmes with the rifle) you can see.

Here are some fun videos I made that you can gag on.

The Border Patrol Video!

My musings on the Messican border fence thingy.

A windfarm in Cali. WooOoOooOoO!

Me entering the air-eh-ZONE!

I was driving past the Imperial Dunes and there were these huge banks of floodlights that were shining across the desert. WHY, I thought? Then I saw, a stones throw away, the BORDER... a huge black fence that took off into the dunes to the east like some kind of badly set cornrow. It was not grated so that you could climb it, but enough that we could see someone on the other side and blast them with our superior firepower! AMERICA!... fuck yeeeaahhh!

Wait... I forgot the all important... SkittlesMobile!

People think I am weird cause I name my RV and talk about it like it is a person. Well, let's see here. I have friends who have kids, James, James, Beth, Angela... I have friends who have animals, Michelle, Beth, ChriSharon... and I have neither... so, give me a break. I have an RV. She is my protector, my traveling companion, my muse even. You don't like it? What do YOU have? A stuffed teddy?

Let us not forget the secret combination lock trick. Be forewarned, this takes about... 2.5 years to pull off.

Here are some pics of me hanging around PHX.

And the salad I called, Never Getting Laid Salad... with an extra helping of onions. Holy shit, my friends!

To answer the question...

2009-03-02T15:40:00.000-08:00

of why I named my coach Althea, you need only watch the video embedded below and experience the stoniness that is my reality.

To move gently away from such a relaxed scene as the one above... to one of pure disgust.

Is it not a tragedy that Rush Limbaugh has not expired as an organic entity yet? I had the misfortune of listening to his today and realized what a diseased, hateful being he is. From the Buddhist perspective, I am ashamed to be related to him. He is vile and gross and has nothing but evil to spew. He doesn't talk about anything really, he just sits in his bowl of Jell-o and pontificates to the myriad sheep who love to hate.

I was listening to him talk about how the LIBERALS are not doing ANYTHING about the economy, they just want to watch you suffer... and on and on. The ONLY thing he did not say, verbatim at least, is that the LIBERALS want you to DIE. That is the only thing that didn't come out of his mouth, but everything he said intimated that idea. I would posit that he does not represent talk radio, but rather a kind of propaganda machine, very Himmler-esque in its quality. If there were only ONE Democrat left in the country, he would stick his phallus-replacing cigar in his chubby mouth and tell everyone how evil that one Democrat is and how he is destroying the country.

Mr. Oxycontin yourself, disgusting in your filthy Anti-American ideals, why does Heath Ledger die, but your barely-living carcass still strolls around, gobbling down steaks and looking lewdly at young boys in shorts?

When are you going to be relegated to a ham-beast-mobile to move your lard around the neighborhood? I would love to see you in a scooter so I can run you over and stomp on your skull with my boots and ram a tire iron up your lubed-up craphole.

This would be in the interest of the greatness of America. You speak for no-one but yourself and your ego that demands attention.

Wow, you are really gross.

When I take my pistol to the shooting range, I love to use your face as my target, fyi.

If you aren't going to hell, don't worry about it!

2009-02-26T08:41:00.000-08:00

For those like myself who give attention to such folly as the new CERN particle collider, do we not have to wonder? Are there remnants of generations removed from the reality of our sciences that presently mill about with opalescent orbs for eyes, blind to the glare of factual and diligent observation? Verily, I say, there are... and in hordes!

We have all heard their primitive rumblings, their Luddite calls for revolution against Satan, their spurious claims of Armageddon brought to Earth by man himself as if to supplant the role of the Almighty in the end of days. Even some of our own, those whose minds are adept at the interpretation of nature and her forces, hold forth that we will summon the power of creation into our midst and conversely unleash destruction of all that we know. We will create black holes a few angstroms across that will devour civilizations, evacuate the wombs of those with child, rend mountains like so much papier mache and take from God the power that HE HIMSELF may only wield!

Abstractly, I have this to offer those who wish the evolution of our knowledge base to cease. If in fact a micro black hole were to be created, it would be extremely unstable and last perhaps a few microseconds, though I have seen some estimates depending on the Plank Energy of the particle beam interaction that mention a few seconds. Of course you have to wonder if the mBH starts absorbing the particles in the stream, can it grow larger and eventually eat the solar system.

Either way, I must say to those who live in the proverbial Caves of Garrten, if you die instantaneously from the mBH sucking you into a stream of elementary particles and your soul/consciousness continues to 'exist' (it not being a function of material interactions), where will it go? As a Buddhist, it is a hard one to say for the fact that the ability to reincarnate with the intent to progress along the evolutionary path to eventual enlightenment has been permanently hampered by the destruction of all Earthbound entities that might have served as parents to a future incarnation. (this does not of course take into account OTHER realms which may serve as instant hotbeds of incarnative potential, as the Buddha said this is not the only world.) But if the supposition can be made that this IS the only world and it gets swallowed into non-material existence, I guess from my perspective, I have achieved nirvana and am now a cumulative entity, deed done.

If I am a Christian and have either heaven or hell to look forward to, then I better have my shit in order. So now we see where the real concern comes in. Behold my weak extrapolation! The nay-sayers and hypercritical folk are worried about going to hell. That begs the question, what are they hiding from us? What secrets in their closets? Whose blood on their hands? What sins in their hearts? Were they Christ-like, they would hold their head high with the knowledge that they will surely be with their God when the Earth is swallowed. But they are hand wringing and sweaty of the brow because their judgment will certainly be unfavorable. Is THIS not the time to make amends? Now, more than ever before? If you aren't going to hell, don't worry about it.

For the Nihilists and common agnostics, there is nothing to say to you. You don't believe in shit anyway.

There is a funny aside to all this. I was once discussing the smashing of atoms with someone and mentioned how you use a fairly substantial isotope as your target nuclide. And they asked me, "Isn't that an alcohol?" (talking about isotope) Ha ha ha ha! Sorry if that person is reading this, but that was pretty funny. I didn't realize what a noob you were at the time. So much for having intellectual conversation at the Owl and Thistle.

Much to my dismay, I find myself watching more political television than ever. Upon querying my most secret places, I find that I do it for those of us who have no fucking clue as to what is going on in the world. So on the off chance that someone asks "Who is the Mayor of Kabul", "Have they found Saddam Hussein yet?" I have a cohesive response.

The talking heads of MSNBC, et al, are bad enough to have to watch (except my ex-girlfriend Rachel Maddow), but the pundits they interview are unable to use the English language. They start nearly every sentence with the following triumvirate: listen, look, let's be honest. And a sprinkling of "I mean..." I just watched a five minute interview when Shlepply McSchleppers started six sentences with "listen". He spoke as if the host was NOT listening, speaking non-stop, or perhaps playing Nintendo DS Super Mario Bros. 3. None of those three were evident in the moving video I was watching.

Oh fucking HOORAH to Gary Locke, ex-governor of my fair adopted state of Warshington for being picked as Obama's Secretary of Commerce. I have a strange and varied relationship with Gov. Locke, it may be said. From almost spilling my beer all over him during the inaugural baseball game at Safeco Field in '98 to a bizarre chance encounter with him while working at Microsoft to bumping into him around Seattle here and there. I have told my friends that we are somehow karmically linked and are destined to merge one day into a fused being more powerful than anyone can imagine. Of course, I am a full foot taller than him, so I may shrink a bit. Anyway, good luck brother!

So so so... let me see. Oh yes, Jim, back to the traveling, which IS the point after all. You need to remember the following things:

Wireless dongle.
Battery charger.
Re-chargeable batteries.
Neti pot.
Leave checks for bills with roommate.

Re-adjust mirrors.
Fix XM radio antenna.
Get iPod wire.
Make cable for the CG-11.

More random pics I fergot to post.

Yurts in Oregon.

I have no idea where this was, but as I was getting gas a Mynock attached to the side of my RV.

Some RVs I coveted along the way.

My CG-11 setup. That is the Losmandy G11 mount and the Celestron 11" SCT.

This is the G11 with the Orion 4" semi-APO refractor.

Hahah! The Rogue brewery has the local public RV dump in their parking lot. I hadda snap it!

The Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport, OR. What a great day to be alive!

Some historic house in Newport. But look... KITTIES in the window!

El Tapatio Mexican food in Astoria, OR. Not very good, though. Sorry, ET!

This guy was perched overlooking the big-time seal party going on below.

The seal party mentioned above.

Then this guy showed up and everyone got quiet. I think he used to date one of the girls on the rock.

That is all.

Gimme that Oscar, Heath!

2009-02-24T20:38:00.000-08:00

It is well known that I should be winning tonight, but that ham Heath Ledger stole my shit. They totally overlooked my part as the guy in the bank that was scared and got down. It was the best 'scared' of the year, but I get no respect.

On the other hand, I have to give an award to "Jared the ex-Huge" and Subway for finally coming to their senses and listening to all of the emails that have been sent to them discussing the antiquated values they were working from when deciding to dump my main athlete Michael Phelps. I will eat there again now that they have said "Like most Americans, and like Michael Phelps himself, we were disappointed in his behavior. Also like most Americans, we accept his apology. Moving forward, he remains in our plans." Go Michael! I do not know many folks in my life who have NOT picked up the bong and said goodbye to the nights annoyances and gone on a delightful journey to Cheech and Chong-land for a bit. Why I myself as a young man was known to hit the glass princess once in a while.

After my maiden voyage with Althea (my RV), I arrived back in Seattle a few days ago having tooled about the wild reaches of Oregon for some time. The goals of the trip were accomplished for the most part, those being the following:

Determine average miles per gallon.

Adjust to new steering and braking systems.

Measure time needed for full set up and break down of external hookups.

See how she handles on foggy twisty mountain roads that lead into stamp-sized town.

Retrieve Oregon's highest quality potables for my friends, all four of them.

Determine if I really enjoy sleeping in a fiberglass box with only the freezing sleet outside to keep me company.

See how my electronics hold up being bounced around for ten days straight.

Make note of how many hours in a row I can listen to recordings of the Grateful Dead band before a spontaneous flashback occurs. (answer:14)

If I had a "Mission Accomplished" banner to hang outside my home when I returned, I would have done it... and MEANT it! Though, not all was peach cobbler and honey dust brushed lightly across Heather Kozar's bosom. Indeed I had my trials and tribulations.

Of course there was the issue with the 120V panel, which is still unresolved as a whole. Then I had to deal with the county sheriff of Noname, Oregon (still pronounced ore-eh-gohn'), who was hiding at the bottom of the twisty foggy hill right past the speed limit sign which was invisible in the fog. $264 for going 50 in a 30. It is a ticket I really do NOT need at the moment. There was no getting away from Mr. The Man, though. He could have nailed me for a bunch of other shit, but he 'gave me a break.' AND the weather sucked for the most part. Getting back to Seattle has not been much of a change, nor will it be until the middle of July. Such is life up here. But there are solutions, Jim, there are solutions.

Another odd thing that happened was the loss of a vent cover from Althea's roof. It was there in the picture of her wanting the whiskeys in Hood River, but when I was topside cleaning off her awning, the damned thing is gone. AND it is not the kind of thing you can just go buy another one of down at Piggly fucking Wiggly! What this means is the wonderful Seattle rain has been pouring into the evac fan for the LPG range. And there is some Romex hanging around as well and some high voltage tie-offs that I do NOT need getting wet. Oh! Here is a picture of her with her top down.

It was sunny here in Seattle, yes. That is NOT an altered image. But.. twenty minutes later, it was pouring rain again. One may be thinking, "really, Jim? A blue gradient?" And if one is thinking that, it shows what a master of the ESP am I! During the year of 1990, Tioga (pronounced tye-OH-gah) produced RVs in a few color schemes.

Notice the merlot, rose red and pale taupe?

Or how about the light and opera mauve...

So, I think I got the good one, HOOOONKY!

Unknown fact that I might tell someone if I were going to die : I used to run a BBS back in the early 80s called The Microchip - 6510, which ran on a Commodore 64, one 170K floppy and a 110/300BPS modem on a single phone line. I had over 100 users, but most of them used Apple ][s. We didn't care cause no one was BBSing at the time, and we were just glad to have a use for our modems. Then we ate a lot of pizza at the pizza parties and one of the nerds brought a homemade explosive and blew the hell out of a trash can lid. It was an impressive device for someone aged 11. That was Beryl. You know who you are, Beryl! I had a crush on Deana Steiner, too, as I recall. She was the 'hot nerd' girl who knew how to write programs that sat in the floppy controller RAM. Pretty cool.

Oh shit! What now!?

2009-02-11T21:47:00.000-08:00

Well, nothing interesting, but I did fart around the Nye Beach district of Newport today. It is akin to Alki Beach in Seattle. There are some local artisan shops involving both food and touristy goods. I did not get images of all the shops cause they were not that interesting to me. Here are a few shots of the town and of the ocean.

Newport Chowder Bowl. I had some food there. It was standard fare.

Fish 'n' chips at Newport Chowder Bowl

The evil ones at work.

Nana's Irish Pub in the Nye Beach district. I met some interesting folks here. Mostly local sailors and one guy that had one tooth. I said hi to him and he said "frrsh ya bllee bllee... garryya slooghh!" I was hoping he was a hallucination because I turned away for a second and he was gone and replaced by a tray of marinating beef. No lie. That actually happened. The barmaid saw the pic of the beef on my camera and told me to delete it, so I did. I was freaked out.

So, I turn back from taking the pic of the beef/sabertoothed-man and I find this on the counter in front of me. And all I had done by now was ordered a pint of mother's milk, which is the second pic. Very fucking odd. Very.

So I go take a piss and come back and the freaking state of Utah is on the bar! I told the sailor next to me I had to leave. I think he was an otter, though. It was a long day.

I left the bar and went around the corner and ran into Tinky Winky's pirate vessel! Holy crap! This turned out to be QUITE THE DAY!

I am exhausted now. But tomorrow I share sneaky RV insight with you... AND... more pics of the beach and shit!

Night night.

Oh real quick, I caught a peek of Althea taking a pee today. I know it is naughty, but here it is...

THAT is all...

RV repair story ahead... enter at own risk.

2009-02-11T08:28:00.001-08:00

If you don't want to hear my pontificating, please move to the pictures of food below. That is, if anyone besides me is reading this.

For anyone who doesn't know how an RV electrical system works, here is the gist of it. You have a battery in the front of the coach for starting the engine and the general car-style dashboard gizmos. You have an alternative battery that runs the rear of the coach, though I have two because I like redundancy. Those batteries run the 12-volt cigarette lighter jacks for plugging 12-volt things into like TVs or iPod chargers and the lights in the back of the coach. When the engine is running, all the batteries are charged.

When one plugs into camp power, it is the same 120 volts you have running through your home. In an RV, the 120 is used to power standard home appliances that are built into the coach, like an air conditioner (a big one on the roof), a microwave, some outlets in the coach to plug your laptop or hair dryer into, AND a converter that drops the voltage to 12 volts (and rectifies the current to DC) to power all the things those two alternate batteries have been powering. And all the batteries are charged from the camp power instead of the car's alternator.

When you are boondocking (living off the grid), there is a petrol-powered generator built into the side of the RV that generates the 120 volts for you, if you need it. Trust me, you do. There are a whole lot of switching relays involved, too, that allow all this stuff to happen seamlessly.

So, when I am sitting here on me laptop and the lights start flickering off and on, I have about 4569 places to start looking for problems. As it turns out, it was a quiet night when I finally decided to deal with this. It has been going on for a while, now. Turns out, it only happens when I am plugged into camp or home power. Aha! That barely makes the situation any easier. Due to my sharp hearing, I discover that there is an arcing problem in my 30 amp main breaker. In this part of the system, the power is still at 120v and uses Siemens-standard residential circuit breakers. I pop the cover panel off and I can actually see bright blue arc flashes. Which is great... for welding, but no so great for your RV.

First thing to do is take the 30A breaker off and examine the damage. That is easier said than done, however. In the process of pulling the top of the breaker down to pop it off the the bus bar (the metal piece that it supplies power to or from), the entire bar breaks off of the TINY FUCKING ALUMINUM rivets that hold it to a piece of plastic. See diagram below for example!

Okay, the bar did not break off the rivets, SORRY. The rivets broke off of the piece of plastic (shown below) that also acts as the anchor for the circuit breakers. So now, what is there to do? Well, I say, go buy the replacement plastic bracket/bus bar assembly that just broke, swap it out, put the new 30A breaker in, pop the old breakers on, and voila!

FYI : the 30A main had to be replaced along with the bus bar because both had been pitted from arcing, which is a very HOT activity and damaged the shitty metal bar, which HAS to be totally smooth to allow the current to flow through the main breaker into the rest of the bar. ANY gap between the contacts in the breaker and the bar itself will cause... you guessed it, arcing, which is again good for welding or sparking an internal combustion engine but not good for RVs. So sanding the bar smooth was out, because it would never be smooth ENOUGH.

As my luck would have it, that piece of plastic does not come off and is not replaceable. It is a part of the entire converter/battery charger unit which is obviously not made anymore but CAN be replaced for about $500. So, my post from yesterday was not written accurately. This has not cost me $500.00 YET. But it probably will, because of my rash decision to extricate the rest of the plastic mounting piece with a rather large set of pliers. In my mind, if I take that out of the way, I can possibly fabricate a workaround to take its place.

In the meantime, I bought a residential 80A sub-panel, seen below, and removed the bus bar mounting from inside and have moved my breakers onto it and nestled it gently inside the cavity where the old mount used to be. The design of the original bracket was perfect for its purpose. I do not know how I am going to duplicate it, if I even can.

The real reason I am actually journalling about this is as a more detailed record of what work has been done to Althea since I purchased her. I guess I should add in the gennie tune-up and oil change, the re-wiring of the halogen fogs and the subsequent replacement of the insidious relay that fires off of the front right running lamp. An interesting workaround that one, but I can't take credit for it. Today I am getting the dashboard cigarette lighter outlet fixed and the grey water tank valve replaced.

NOW FOR FOOD TALK!

So, this whole thing yesterday takes me about 4 hours or more of driving up and down Highway 101 from RV shop to electrical supplier to RV shop to auto parts stores, etc. I am hungry right about then, so I am trying to find Cafe Mundo, which I hear is THE vegetarian restaurant to check out whilst in town.

I drive about the historic Nye Beach district trying to find it. But I can't. So I head up to the 101 and go to Thai Elephant! I love Thai food and figure I am good to go. Well, the place had the standard Thai feel: Buddhas everywhere, pictures of the Thai king and queen (whom I believed are venerated by the populace), crazy gold fabrics, etc. But the essential element is missing: Thai PEOPLE! I only saw a honky server and no one else. I perused the menu and saw the standard fare, that being some curries, some stir fry and rice. So I got the eggplant and basil and rice. For $6.95 out the door, not a bad price. But the food suffered from NW Food Syndrome, which means they are catering to white Pac NWers who would fall over dead should they actually get some food with a little bit of ZING to it. I ordered 3 stars and was not impressed. The flavors also were rather dull.

I think they do not wish to insult the natives, these ethnic restauranteurs, by overwhelming our palettes, but in the name of all that is holy, THAT IS THE POINT of patronizing these establishments. We WANT something DIFFERENT. I can only eat so much damned potatoes and broccoli. American food SUCKS, yo! Steak and potatoes=bullshit! If you want to be a heifer with heart disease, sure, great... eat yer meat and carbs. Where's the CRAZINESS, MANG!? I want skull-splitting flavors that put me in an alternate reality. I want to see GOD in my SOUP! Next trip... SW USA, babies! You are all coming along to experience diarrhea on a whole new level!

So, here is when you walk in the door... an elephant orgy.

Then the meal shows up.

Then I see they have my favorite dessert for only a buck ninety-five! How WONDERFUL!

That was real exciting, I know. But it is pouring rain here, I am about to be blown into the bay, so why not sit here and ramble in case anyone gives a shit.

Is it just ME or does anyone else get a sort of high from eating hot peppers? I have noticed this in the last few years. I eat a few pretty hot pepperoncinis or a jally and I am like... WOOOO... stoned red, baby.

Now... off to the shower!

RV terms to know:
Coach - the motorhome itself. RV refers to anything from an ATV to a PWC to a Class-A tour bus.
Boondocking - living off the grid, camping in the boonies with no hookups or external amenities. Think... Nascar parking lot.
Toad - your vehicle you tow behind your coach for moving about town and off the main highways. Bumper sticker I saw on a towed Suzuki Sammy yesterday : I am loved, I am toad!

Long... boring... post.

2009-02-10T16:50:00.000-08:00

So, I left the Hood River and stopped over in Bingen (pronounced, yes, bingin') WA which is right across the Columbia River from Hood River. I went to Los Reyes (the kings) for lunch and had a delicious chile relleno/enchilada combo and two margaritas. Their chips were fresh made from WHITE corn, and were light and very crispy.

That was a TINY town but apparently is home to Boeing's secret military weapons factories. There are a few of them strewn along the river by the railroad tracks. They build the unmanned drones that do service in Iraq and elsewhere. And the different facilities are used so that no one factory knows the WHOLE secret. The electronics are built here, the wings here, etc. Spooky!

The campground I stayed at was superb. A very nice little spot by the river, and subsequently by the train tracks, which was a bit annoying at first, but living by the airport in Seattle, it was not such a big issue for me. They have the free wireless and all hookups, hot showers, etc. for about $30.00. The place is called Bridge RV Park and Campground. I recommend!

An off note... the first time you dump your black/grey water tanks in an RV is interesting. The smell that is. I dumped mine for the first time at Fort Stevens State Park in Oregon and the dump sites were very clean, which can go either way. Feces should be in the hole people, not all over the dump site. The valve on my grey water tank is some funky alternative setup which was broken the way it was supposed to be used. I figured out how to dump it anyway. Whoosh! Bye bye poop!

So, I left Bingen and headed off to Corvallis, OR. After being in the city for 50 seconds I opted for Newport, OR, which is a favorite destination of mine for many reasons. I checked out some parks I found on the Internet and they didn't hold my interest, so I looked at a little park across from the Rogue Headquarters. There were no pay instructions, so I went down the road to South Beach State Park. Incredible little place. They have elec/water hookups for $18.00 a night. My next post will be about some basic RV stuff that I have discovered, which includes the benefits of State Parks. This is nothing new to old-timer RVers, but for me, it was great to discover. I signed up and headed back to Rogue Brewery, from where I am posting this tonight.

So, I roll into Rogue and here are some pics.

The Rogue silo of doom.

Rogue bubbles of love.

The pub inside the brewery. Me LIKEY!

The delicious Rogue barleywine and their hazelnut spiced rum.

So, then it snows upon Althea and me. We did not know what to make of it. Well, she is an RV, so what does she know. I went down to the beach and took some shots (of pics, not the evil Rogue rum) and a video. Here is the snow on the beach. Big whoop, I know. I think the video works, though.

Here is a cheesy video. LOL on me :}

This is the Newport Belle Bed & Breakfast. I went onboard and tried to order pancakes. The woman there said something like "you go now! No pennie cock for you!" Well, I say! I shall NOT be boarding that vessel whilst nude again!

This image is only being shared because we have divided the secret plan into many cells around Oregon. The plan is to distract the security guards (I have met them, they are easily subdued with a doughnut or perhaps a shot of Rumplemintz) and move the huge trove of Rogue goodness to the getaway vehicle in the form of one Althea Harvey III. The screenshot will show it all. If you are NOT in on the plan, the picture you should see will be of llamas eating heather in a field in Peru.

The previous picture (of the llamas) was taken from the bridge below. Now, let it be said that I am deathly afraid of bridges. It combines my fear of heights and my fear of water to make one big SHIT STORM of fear. I actually put my nuts in a rubber band and rode my bike up to the midsection of this bridge. No biggie for most. For me, it was the event of the decade. The picture here is taken from the public fishing pier.

This is me after my descent from the bridge of doom. Do not mind the shit stains in my pants.

From another angle there was this maelstrom that hit land not twenty minutes later. I hid in Althea for the onslaught.

Apparently Rogue's distillery has closed to the public. This is a shame because they had all sort of crazy and wonderful alcohol mixtures available for sampling, including various infusions with mango, herbs, and I think a human skull. Here is the sad evidence.

This is the marina of the Newport before Satan arrived and smoked all these ships in a big fatty.

That is all for tonight. Tomorrow I get to tell you how my 120VAC 30A main breaker started to arc causing me to disconnect from camp power and start an all day journey to replace a $3.00 bus bar that eventually cost me about $500.00. The interim cost was about $45.00 and is a hilarious work-around... if you are a gearhead.

Until then... I KISS YOU!

Boycott Subway? Can it be done?

2009-02-08T08:38:00.000-08:00

Before I get into the strangeness that is the Ore-eh-gohn, I am trying to find the willpower to boycott Subway Sandwiches. Though they are not the most innovative or interesting sandwich provider, I have gotten used to their flavorless fare and still patronize them when I get the urge.

But now, you see, they have dropped Michael Phelps' contract for one of the most retarded reasons, I can think of. Michael Vick, certainly. Barry Bonds, of course. I would throw Kobe Bryant out of the fucking building for his behavior, but his sponsors stick with him. And Ray Lewis, of course is a real winner. But Phelps gets a buzz on at some party and ADMITS TO IT, like a fucking real man, and gets dropped by Kellogg and Subway. Kellogg can go suck a frosted flake, but Subway I actually enjoy. Needless to say, I am well aware of their reasonings, and I think they are full of shit so they won't be getting anymore money from me. And the sheriff or whatever that wants to prosecute him... they can go screw themselves also, no-evidence-having unclefuckers.

Back to the Ore-eh-gohn. You see, I pronounce it that way because Phil Lesh sings it thusly in Pride of Cucamonga. Oh yeah, Phil and the boys. I will tell you if I have not already told you. XM/SIRIUS radio is the shit. The Grateful Dead channel. Are you kidding me? I can drive all the day (and night) and listen to ENTIRE live shows and never lose the signal. Or listen to Air America and my favorite left-wing pundits and fellow insane asylum members discuss the state of my great country.

So, Althea and I left the Ass-toria and headed eastward along the magical Interstate 84 to the lovely little hamlet of Hood River. Why? What the hell is in Hood River? THIS is the question I have been awake nights trying to answer. Finally my testicles grew to the size where I would be able to discern the truth of my query to the gods.

On the way to Hood River there is a little loop of highway full of waterfalls, the most notable being Multnomah Falls. I did not stop to take pics cause I have already done that in years past. Fuck those falls! They are all wet!

So, I think I have figured out rural Ore-eh-gohn. It is like a Merle Haggard concert waiting to happen. The guys all have the same beard and haircut. WTF?! It is like a cookie cutter went crazy on the Ore-eh-gohn. And all the rejects got dumped in Portland. I remember when I moved to Seattle and everyone up there was like, oh the Oregon people. When they show up you will know. And I swear to it, it was true. You could always tell someone from Ore-eh-gohn. Seattle at the time was a bit rube itself, and I think our neighbors to the south were a bit more.

Honestly though, these days it is hard to really say because of the influx of homies from all over the place. The OR rubes and the WA rubes are kissing cousins. I think the folks of Seattle are a bit more sophisticated than the PDXers... BUT the Portland is a very relaxed, friendly place where you don't get the Seattle 'tude. That is something that I have come to NOT like about my town. Back in the day you could wave or say hi to anyone and get it right back. Now... no one has the time to say hi, give you directions, or a quickie in the alley.

Please believe me that I am not condemning anyone from Ore-eh-gohn but for the sake of jest and satire. The people in Ore-eh-gohn are marvelous and very cheerful. Still... seriously, it IS a Merle Haggard concert waiting to happen. (whenever you see Oregon in the rest of my posts, please pronounce it Ore-eh-gohn. gohn rhymes with bone.)

When the radio announcers say, "The greatest hits of the sixties and seventies," the 'h' is so silent, they actually say, "The greatest tits..." I swear it. Listen. And then listen again. They be laughing in the background. "Tiiiiitttttssssss......"

So, this is what is going on in Hood River. Pictures ahead!

This is an old train depot no longer used. Unless you count the graffiti artists.

If you stop at a viewpoint the name of which I forget at the moment, you can look across the Columbia River Gorge and see a network of sluices that floated logs over nine miles from one town to another decaying on the side of the mountain. I had to pull out the 300mm lens to even see it on the other shore. Here is a section of it.

This is a small section of the Columbia River Gorge that divides WA and OR. The haze was tremendous, even more than my UV filter could handle. It is quite majestic. Really overpowering.

Some random pic of the forest I was admiring. Nothing really interesting, just a lot of fucking trees.

A small slice of heaven. Except that Full Sail (THE brewery in Hood River) is not that good. And their food sucked, too. But the locals swear by it. I just swore.

Here is the artichoke soup I got... which was suspiciously congruent to the artichoke dip. Except the dip came with more bread and some salad shit which I found hard to eat with a spoon, the only utensil I was given. Dip is the bottom pic.

Ah Nora's. What a great little bar and... consignment shop? Stoned I was not. I went in and asked for a whiskey/sour and the woman said to me, "I don't know that brand. Is it from Kansas?" She is lucky my camera cost more than cranial surgery. She lives another day.

One of the many odd denizens of Hood River. I actually took this picture completely level with the rest of the scene, but I heard this dude murmuring something like, "Ah... a pinch of mandrake and a fist of sulpherous ash and my mana will be at full strength! Then the Beast of Eugene shall quake in its cavernous den!" and my camera shook uncontrollably.

After being rebuffed by the magic of Merlin there, I stumbled off to the Big Horse Brewpub and hung it on. Bartender Lacey (whose backside is shown below) gave good ideas for beers. I obliged. Then the deluge of skiers from Mt. Hood showed up and demanded the best of this and that and why the hell didn't they stay in freaking Aspen?

Althea was grumbling about not getting the good barleywines or the whiskeys. I told her she would be rewarded in a later life as a toaster to some king of a defunct African nation.

Lacey's backside as promised. Not as interesting as the frontside. But she was shy. And high on speed, I am pretty sure.

The evil toll bridge that cost me $1.50 each way cause I have TWO axles and the lady in the booth was jealous cause I could walk upright without helper monkeys.

I have exhausted all interesting topics for the day. I am now in Newport, OR, land of the delicious Rogue brewery. I will post more on that tomorrow. I can't seem to get away from Rogue! I am drinking one currently!

Oh yeah... if you are ever in (I forget the name of butthole town, OR) do NOT get pulled over for speeding. I was going 50 in a 30, right? On of those sits where the cop is RIGHT on the other side of the NEW speed limit sign. So, 20 MPH over. How much you think? I will tell you how the fuck much. $264.00. How is that for sticking to the out of towners. They think I am not going to come to court cause I live in Seattle. Dudes, I live in an RV. I will park outside the fucking courthouse and shit on the lawn. First I eat lots of black beans and corn.

Ass-toria... oh ass-toria!

2009-02-06T20:18:00.000-08:00

Surely it is a wonder that Lewis and Clark lived as long as they did, given the travails of their historic journey. But here they came, to view for the first time as Americans, the great Pacific Ocean. I am camped not far from the trial they forged for Jefferson. Did I say trial? I did! I meant trail.

One man's trail is another man's trial, of this I am certain. And so here I am, in the mire of NW Oregon (pronounced ore-eh-gohn) known as Astoria. What is this mire, exactly? During this time of the year, it can be broken down into the following: gloom, fog, rain, moss, mushrooms, drizzle, muck, lichen and cold.

Yes, this is all true, but I have to say with all honesty, I love this damned town. Not just because there is a Rogue alehouse, which is the personification of the Pacific Northwest's identity as the microbrew progenitor, but because the Pacific Coast lurks only a few miles west from any point on the map. And with the Pacific Coast, you get such interesting entries into the photo journal as the following:

The "Peter Iredale" shipwreck on the coast of the Fort Stevens State Park.

The lone fisherman trying to get a steelhead at Coffenbury Lake.

The shore of Coffenbury Lake inside Fort Stevens State Park.

The bridge to Astoria says it all. The end of the world my friends, the end of the world. Or at least the end of Washington as we knew it.

I did NOT fall off the edge though. At the other side of this soup was a quaint little coastal town replete with booze, history, famous movie locales and black and white water fowl.

And I ended up at the Evil Astoria Rogue alehouse at the mercy of Amanda the Fierce and Jimmy from Escalante, UT. Here are some secret photos taken at risk of life and limb!

Lo' and behold mine fine friends! I neglect to mention that abutting the fine Rogue alehouse is one of the original Bumble Bee canneries. There is a COMPLETE museum with all the necessary goodies to prove its mettle. I found this out whilst trying to find a place to pee. The road to the loo was long and arduous indeed. For one, this ominous plaque scared off lesser men than myself!

It was posted along the route (via painted blue line through a cannery) to the pissoir! After relieving myself, I found these gems inside some rotting rooms. You could look through the floor and see the ocean below, no doubt. I did not take pictures of the ocean. They would be uneventful.

This dude was just sitting on a bench, presumably dead? :(

Here are some more pics of random shite.

Althea Harvey outside the Bumble Bee / Rogue pier 39.

This is my black bean/quinoa salad. Not shown is my yummy Rogue beer or the Dead Guy Whiskey shots I was impelled to take by Amanda the Fierce.

This was a check written to one of their Finnish workers to get him back home. It is an obvious copy and enlarged version, but back then a lot of their workers were such folks.

Here are some ducks that were just laying about for the taking. So I took... pictures of them!

Ahhh, well... the sneaky Rogue peoples sold me the barleywine for the road... luckily I am not ON the road. This stuff knocked me to next week... so I will have to sign off for the night, but I will leave you with a picture of the sun going down over the Columbia River. It is in B&W cause I forgot to change me settings on the camera.

Night all from the Great Northwest!

2009-02-05T20:26:00.000-08:00

Maiden voyage ho!

I am currently on my first trip with Althea. After making sure that the mission critical systems were operational, I filled her with petrol and LP and started driving.

I took along my MacBook, my iPod, two still digital cameras and a digital video camera as well as my bike.

I was having a strange issue with the LP system, whereby the physical level gauge on the tank would show one level while the electrical LED level system inside the coach showed something else. I took Althea in for a look into that and they said the board was old and dirty and showed some extra resistance. A few hundred bucks to rebuild it as it was old and unavailable in new condition. Screw that! I can use the physical meter, braving the cold of the Pacific Coast in my sleeping bag if that lets me down. Go REI!

Within the first few minutes of my maiden excursion, I discovered that the cockpit cigarette lighter doesn't work. Well, that is a pain, because that was where I was going to plug my cell, iPod, and XM radio into for charging and usage during the voyage.

While I fueled up at Fred Meyer in Burien, WA (a.k.a. Burine) I ran into the store and picked up a 10' cigarette lighter extension cord to run from the cigarette outlet behind the captain's chair to the console area. Got back into the RV and plugged everything up... then came the suckage. First suckage was that the cord, once unwrapped, is coiled, which means it is really 4'. I stretched it out to 7', fucking up the coiling but it is okay. Second suckage is the fact that the dashboard stereo with the 1/8" input for AUX audio is powered by the cockpit/starter battery. The coach outlets, i.e. the one behind the captain's chair, are powered by the two auxiliary batteries.

What does this mean? Ground Loop! The voltage potentials of the two devices are different with regards to ground, whereby they would be the same if the devices were connected to the same power supply. This means... HUMMMMMM and possible damage to the devices, though they are low voltage. So, I gotta get the dashboard outlet repaired. The iPod will have the same problem, but the cell phone should be okay because I don't plug it in to any other device.

One little gripe I have with Althea is she has a kinda loose steering column, so I have to be careful driving on winding roads, since I have to over-compensate when returning from a veer in either direction. I like my women loose, but not so much so.

Crikey! With respect to XM radio, the antenna is a magnetic block that just plunks onto the roof of one's vehicle. Well, great, except my roof is rubberized fiberglass. So, plunked it onto the hood of the cab. Well, that is all well and good, but it is overshadowed by the cabover bed. Which means that if you are driving along a road abutted by forests (as so many roads west of the Cascade Range can be) you can lose signal more easily than if you had it on the roof. So, I have to figure out a way to get it onto the roof. I will find something metallic up there, I assure you, or I will put something metallic up there!

I thought about going down I-5 to the Portland area to camp for the first night ever alone. Yes, I am a weenie. Then I thought... Portland, wtf!? Nay! To the coast with me so I can rape and pillage!

That was a mistake in judgement, ala Michael Phelps, who I will get to later.

Three hours after I left the Seattle metro area, I rolled into Ocean Shores, sabers waving, flags flying high, rum flowing, and...

Finding it deserted and lacking anything worthy of a good rape and pillage, I pulled out a rock and threw it at a sign in frustration. The town I remember so fondly overflowing with rich stupid tourists waiting for armageddon to rouse them from their languor was nothing but two lanes of sand-blown reeds and seagulls picking at the remains of the owner of the Seashell Motel.

I put the driver's side window down and rolled slowly through town, sure to find something diabolical to pursue. Breaking and entering crossed my mind, but what would I do with an RV full of rainbow kites and children's roller skates?

I tried vehicular manslaughter, but the gulls were too fast for me. All I got for my acceleration was a windshield spotted with half-digested mussels.

Arson it is! I thought. Turns out sand dunes do not burn easily, but my polyester pirate suit does :( I am lucky there was an ocean nearby.

Ah, down to the waterfront to make problems for those beached seals!

Sooo... I ended up at the Shiloh Inn talking to an elderly cocktailer about the weather and how many pieces of fish came with the all-you-can-eat Sailor's Special.

This was my Bloody Mary.

After realizing I was without a fervent release for my Pacific Northwest rancor, I asked where I could find a good place to park Althea for the night. Ocean City State Park was the answer. Five minutes out of town, on the beach, full hookups for RVs, hundred something acres, private sites and only 21 bucks a night.

By this time it was five-thirty in the pm and I needed to get set up before total darkness. Off I went.

This was a bad assed park. Open year-round, they have tons of sites for RVs, either backup or drive-through with full hookups, 20 and 30 amps, sewer, water. Every site has a firepit and a picnic table. I recommend the place. Hot showers and toilets, group camping sites, and more! From the main camping areas, there are little trails off to the beach. Living by the airport is sort of loud if you are not used to it, this was LOUDER with the ocean just over the dunes. The constant roar was comforting. I missed the roar of the 747s but the great Pacific put me right to sleep.

This is not true, cause I have never camped alone. I know - RVing is not necessarily camping, but I tell you this. It was wet, foggy and freaking COLD outside. I will take an RV over a tent any day. But you can't haul an RV up into the mountains of course.

So, here are some pics of my first night with Althea. With the half-moon out and the sky full of moisture, the lighting was interesting in some of these pics.

This is all moonlit except for the yellow from Althea's porch light.

This is Orion in the lovely hazy night.

Some gloomy park scenes that are all too common in the Pac NW.

Well, this is all I can post tonight cause I have to sleep. The interesting part for me about traveling in an RV is that as it gets dark outside, I start to get sleepy. So I am sleeping early. Nothing really else to do. I look at the other RVers about the park I am in and people shut down early. Of course, they are mostly retirees and elderly, so they need their sleep. But four in the a.m., they are up and about, making trouble for me and Althea.

Love you all!

'They' found me!

2009-01-12T17:34:00.001-08:00

When I started to write the title to this installation, the word 'fondled' auto-filled instead of found. That would have been a laugh riot.

But the fact of the matter is dead serious. As serious as a heart attack, 'they' would say. But then, if it was OJ Simpson having a heart attack, would it really be that serious?

Cellmate : You okay Juice?

OJ : Ahhh... My chest hurts. I think I am having a heart attack. AHH! *cough* Go get a guard, man.

Cellmate : Does it hurt?

OJ : Yes... please. AHHH!

Cellmate : Does it feel like maybe someone is stabbing you over and over in the chest, Juice?

OJ : Yeah, man. *cough* Please... hurry.

Cellmate : Does it feel like multiple incised wounds of your face, neck and chest?

OJ : What? Come on man, I can't breathe.

Cellmate : Say if you suffered a superficial incision to the neck and a deep gash of the throat, that is how you feel?

OJ (falling over) : Please, I can't... *cough* help please.

Cellmate (donning a designer yarmulke) : Juice! It looks like someone put some digitalis purpurea in your food! Note to self, Orenthal, fuck NOT with the Jews! (kicks The Juice while he is down - uncool, but somehow overlookable)

There is a stalker present. Or at least someone who is 'following my blog.' Who could possibly know about this thing? No one is supposed to be aware of my presence on the web. I write expository, yes... but not for anyone to actually read. Now, what do I do?

The stalker has no picture, which enforces my suspicion that it is one of the elite intelligence agencies who has the capacity to keep track of my movement through the very device I use to communicate with the Reticulans from Project Serpo.

Henceforth I will communicate only in code with the Reticulans. I will still use English here so that I do not have to leave my public key laying around for misuse by the Powers.

I have a friend named Durin. I would say we are very good friends, but in truth, I am not that good of a friend to him. He is a good friend of mine, and definitely one of the smartest people I know. He has a beautiful wife, Tiffany, who I had the hugest crush on for the longest time (before they were together). They have a gorgeous little boy, Royal. The kid rocks. I remember right after my bar opened, Durin brought him in before business hours and we put him to The Test. He performed amazingly well. I have never seen a kid drink 32oz of beer that fast. Not at 2 years. We high-fived and took a picture for when he is older. He will appreciate it I think.

If you ever meet a guy named Philpott, don't let him touch your computer. I love him to death and would do anything for him... but let him touch my computer. No, computer is not code for 'cock.'

That is all. - Jim

Nothing frozen... everything gained.

2009-01-10T17:23:00.000-08:00

We have finally thawed here in Seattle and are now inundated with floodwaters of Biblical proportions. Which has closed I-5 for a twenty mile stretch south of me so I guess it is the coast for Althea Harvey and myself.

I am sure she won't mind the twisty windy out of Olympia. It is a chill drive until you hit the smell of Aberdeen with its 'Come as you are' sign trying to capitalize on its native and quite dead son. You can't blame them. What the fuck is there to do in Aberdeen expect start a rock band and hang out in Seattle?

After the thaw I inspected Althea for signs of damage from the freeze. I was having some doubts as to the veracity of the gauges that were showing the fresh water tank, the black and grey water tanks as being empty and the LPG as being full.

I was pretty sure there was something dumped into the black water tank during a test of the toilet. Maybe not enough to register a hit to the 1/4 tank sensor, I guess, as I took my 5-gallon Home Depot bucket and dumped about nine gallons down the toilet and the sensor showed 1/2 full. I am not sure how many gallons the black water tank holds because I can't find specs on my rogue or 'Maverick' Tioga, but I estimate 15-18 gallons.

I bleached my water hose and started filling the fresh water tank. I forgot that I had opened the drain valve during the freeze, so it would drain when the thaw came, so I hadda close that after an initial scare of 'crap, there is water pouring out of the tank!' I watched the level meter which lit up its increments as the tank filled. I started the water pump and turned some faucets. There went the grey water meter. I guess shit is all working after all.

Well, I had a scare with the water heater until I was told that it takes 30 minutes to really get some hot water. I also started the fridge for the first time and after 24 hours, it was cold and the freezer was frozen.

The only weirdness is that the generator meter is not working and the LPG meter doesn't seem to be working. It is showing full, but the gauge on the tank shows 1/3 or so.

I will have that all checked out before I leave for any period of time. Why am I telling you all this? I am not... this is all personal journal shit that happens to be publicly available. Don't make me slap you, you know you will like it.

One bit of oddness about this whole thing is the fact I am completely clueless as to how to decorate Althea Harvey. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, says to me... well, put things on the walls that you would like to look at. Make it feel like home to you.

Well, if you have seen my home, you would understand my dilemma. I have almost nothing on the walls. I do not have pictures of my family or loved ones (no offense to those concerned), I do not like pictures of trees or animals or cars or hot chicks or that kind of shit.

The only things I DO have on my walls are a fabric wall hanging that has no purpose or meaning, the national flag of Tibet, a picture of His Holiness The Dalai Lama, a picture of Barack Obama, a painting of Sakyamuni Buddha and Tara.

So, do I transfer all this shit to Althea? ^^ponders the implications^^ I will probably bring an image of His Holiness and maybe one of Jerry Garcia. Some Buddhist prayer flags might be nice hanging around. I will definitely need some for my awning should I ever use it. The colors are not all that bad, some kind of blue scheme is going on, but I will deal with that soon enough. I figure it is like the owning of a house, where it takes you awhile to really get the feel of what will work and what can be done.

Of course, I have owned my house for five years and it has five things on the wall.

Now, I have to shop for a toad, which is a towed vehicle behind the RV that allows you to park and set up camp and then drive to the local watering hole or off into the desert to be naked with the scorpions.

Oh yeah, word to all.. there will probably appear pics of me in various states of undress, as soon as I can find a nudist RV park.

Ohhh... just found 'em.

http://www.doegie.com

http://www.paradiselakesforrent.com/rvsite.html

Why is the Super Bowl in Roman numerals?

That is all. - Jim

Bowing to Insta-culture.

2008-12-26T13:40:00.000-08:00

Something I wish to avoid with this particular online journal is the requisite narcissism and ego-maintenance that accompany the very few non-professional 'blogs' I actually waste my time reading.

I tend to be long-winded and self-important in other places on the web, so I promise you -that would be any human being (sorry webcrawlers) who should be unfortunate enough to fall into this depraved corner of the virtual world - that I will attempt to maintain the humility with which I have been impressed since birth. Which of course on the face of it seems to be contradictory to the nature of online journals.

Why do we keep private journals or diaries? So we can look back on ourselves years later and see how immature, completely backward and hubristic we were, ergo we put them online so we can let everyone else know how immature, completely backward and hubristic we are RIGHT NOW!

Well, I already know all that stuff, so why let everyone else in on the secret? To that end, I plan not to engage in the proverbial puffing of the chest, the posting of the glamour shots, the outlining of the minutia that is the excrement of my life.

I will not pretend to be smarter, more important, ultra-clever or more beautiful than I actually am. With this comes one caveat: I may at times completely amaze myself, which will be noted here and would be noted in ANY private journal or diary anyway. i.e. AH was starting to smell like caca, then I realized I had not flushed her for three weeks. *ZING*

"Jim," you may ask, "if you are not so awesome as to need a place to advertise yourself, WTF man?"

In the interest of dissemination of information and a perspective thereon, I hereby claim this web address for ALL MANKIND to serve as a portal to... (oh, see! there is the hubris!)

Where does the word 'blog' come from? Interestingly enough the OED does not have a definition for the word 'blog', but it does have one of my favorite words, LYPEMANIA. Is blog not more mundane than LYPEMANIA? According to Internet references it is a short for web log. Which gets compounded to weblog. But then there are two letters removed, which gives you a contraction absent the apostrophe. So, it should be written as 'blog, but we omit the apostrophe due to the lack of the general public knowing anything about the English language anymore? (or anymo') I see the word til used very often without its requisite apostrophe.

I may use the form 'blog here just to piss you off. Yes, Jennifer Thompson, YOU! The word apparently originates on the web in 1994, but not in conjunction with 'web log'. Probably talking about someone's huge dump they took at Burning Man.

"Dudeski... I fukkking just blogged up that porta-squattie!"

"No way, broski!?"

"Way, broooo! Is it the mushrooms, or did my dick just fall off?"

So, where was I? Oh yes. I wish to chronicle my personal journey about the country in my motorhome. I could do it on paper, but my wrist would hurt after 20 minutes, and I script like shit. I could do it on my laptop and keep it personal, but inevitably (already in fact) I would be asked how the trip was going, post or send some pics, etc. This solves many problems at once.

Oh yes, the name! Having been asked about the name of my coach, I decided on a two-name approach. Her first name is Althea, after the Grateful Dead song and her last name is Harvey, which is cool because it has RV in it, and it is a cool name besides. If I get really pissed at her or need her undivided attention, I may even toss 'III' on the end.

"Althea Harvey the IIIrd, you get your ass up that hill or I will sell you to the fucking Gypsies! I serious!"

So, yeah... I'll try to approach this whole thing with a healthy dose of humility. Be like Buddha... be Buddha.

Hurry up and wait!

2008-12-23T15:59:00.000-08:00

This is my mantra while the Pacific Northwest is getting dumped on by feet of snow. I was hoping to leave next week on my worldwide tour of the Western U.S. I am NOT sure if this is to be, because I fucked up after I bought my RV.

The day BEFORE I had planned to winterize it, the storm hit us and I think might have seriously damaged my RV's plumbing. I am not SURE about this... but I have to expect the worst. I didn't have that much water in the holding tank (1/2), so I don't know how the freezing of that water has affected the rest of the system. I have not done ANYTHING since to attempt to thaw anything out yet, because I am paranoid about what might happen if I don't do it right. I was hoping that the eventual higher temps here will let things happen naturally.

This means of course, I will have to check for leaks and hopefully the pump isn't wrecked. If the system is damaged, I will have to figure out how to deal with it on the cheap, since the few bucks I have for the trip are not enough to replace the plumbing system, if need be.

We are expecting 5" of NEW snow tonight. Whoopee! I am dancing! Not really. It is hard to get anywhere in the city currently, much less LEAVE the city for warmer climes. I got the word that trying to get further than Eugene, OR, is out of the question.

If any one has any ideas on how to deal with a frozen plumbing system on an RV, let me know.

That is all - Jim

The beginning of the end, friend-o.

2008-12-03T20:34:00.000-08:00

So, it goes like this.

My name is Jim Edgar. This online journal is going to chronicle my adventures around the U.S. of A. in my wonderful new RV. Why Jim, you are asking?

Because... I opened a bar in Seattle called Georgetown Liquor Company in the summer of 2006. Due to certain issues, I have decided to sell it and while I am still young (39) travel around my great country and document my travels here.

My website My Cat Hates You is where you would usually find such drivel, but my users have complained about my blatant political ramblings. Being a hardcore liberal does not appease everyone, and I have lost some users because they are NOT liberal and just want to look at cats and not deal with my espousing of 'socialist' agendas and the power of freedom from our corrupt leader, Dubya.

If you don't like hearing about these things, I suppose you should go elsewhere. I plan to #1, talk about traveling in my vessel (yet to be named) and #2, delve into some political rhetoric. BUT, you will find that I do not ramble the party line or relate to issues in an ideological fashion. While I am an evil liberal, I deal in logic but moreso in compassion. These are aspects that I find beneficial to us as a culture involved in a larger world.

As a great, if not the greatest, world power, we have a certain mandate to create a leadership role model for others to adhere to.

I have been busy researching life on the road and adapting to the nomadic model. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by how I relate my experiences to you.

I am not sure where to go first. I live in Seattle, and that is about as far as you can go before you run into Putin up in Alaska or the orcas in the NW pacific. So from here, it is ALL south to me.

Let me plug my books Bad Cat and My Cat Hates You real quick. They are both in major bookstores and would be great holiday gifts. Buy 'em up. It helps me buy gas for my trip and is good for your karma!

That is all. - Jim