Hard at work.

To anyone who feels sorry for me for having to work so hard that I can't play on my blogsite. Don't feel too bad for me... I took this photo with my cell phone while at work. Does anybody have stuff like this in their office.

Can anybody guess where it is?

Sometimes you can just "feel" life.

I started this post as a reply to a post that Indie made about Townes Van Zandt. Here’s what she said:

“One of these days I'll write a whole post about the late Townes Van Zandt. I'm in love with his poetry, in love with his heart, his soul, his sad cowboy voice and his dark eyes. He was the king of the mixed metaphor, but I don't care. He speaks to my soul.”

To those that don’t know Indie, she is an English major, She lives in Arcata, She is steeped in Humboldt State, and she works at the Mckinleyville newspaper. Usually, that is the type of person that would scare the hell out of me to be around, because I’m a walking treasurer trove of literary mistakes.

To which I replyed:
Indie,
“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances ;”

I started out to take that metaphor and mix it up, but I just couldn’t do it. It hit to close to home for me to be irreverent.

Indie, it isn’t often that English majors can sort to the bottom of a persons life and feel the soul of that person like you do. Usually that means that a person has suffered some pain in their own life. There is an old saying “When the country and western songs are all about you, you know that… Well you get my drift.

In my life I’ve seen many people pushed aside because of their poor command of the English language. Some of the people that I knew, when I was a lad, were mostly poor people that moved out here from the poor states, Okalahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, or Texas. They moved here and went to work in the lumber industry. They were mostly poor folks and struggling to make a living. They didn’t have an education and they didn’t get any jobs other than those that were mostly just labor. They were usually called Okies and people usually shunned them. The kids were made fun of in school. People would make fun of their accents, and generally looked down on the things that they did. The “Okies” soon learned to shut up around “educated folks” and not say anything around the kind of people that criticized them.

Even as a child, I was fascinated by these people, I still am. They all had stories. Some had stories of survival. Some had stories of their trips to California and all of the things that they saw along the way. The one thing that they had in common is they were doers. I became great friends with a kid from Arkansas. Like I said these people were doers. Gary was ten and I was eight when we first met. Gary and I got in more darn trouble than you can ever imagine. But we had more darn fun than any of the other kids around. He and I were pretty fair mechanics and we would get the old cars that were behind my dads garage running and race them around my grandmothers orchard.

I’ve always been good at fishing out stories, and Gary’s dad had endless stories. When they came California, they came through Texas. Being fairly uneducated, they under-anticipated how big Texas was. They were driving as far as they could and sleeping in the car and taking turns driving. The way Gary’s dad told his story is:

“We’s fixin’ to come to California, so’s we get out this here road map and it has this big blue line that the man at the garage say’s was the color of all the good roads. So’s we takes off with a pocket full of money and a tank fulla’ gas. It waren’t long for we was in Texas. Wall, after we’s hit Texas, the roads got real long and straight. We drove for hours and it looked like we was in the same place. We figured we’d drive faster and get there quicker. We was moving right along real regular like, but seemed like we was still in the same place. Soon it’s my turn to drive and I figured I’d get ‘er done, so I started driven’ real fast like. Things was going by pretty fast and the folks was looking at me like I was crazy or somethin’. But when we looked out the window it still looked like we was in the same place. So I picked her up a little bit. Soon we was going as fast as that poor old car could go, it woun’t go any faster, but we was still in the same spot. Well, we was drivin’ along real good and I was getting purty tired when we came to where things didn’t look the same, and there was this durn turn in the road. We was going too fast to make that turn and I knew it, so’s I just take the old car right off the road and through the dessert. Cactus was flyin’ ever’where, the kids was a screaming like they thought they was gonna die. Finally we got stopped, there we was, stuck in the sand out in the middle of this Texas dessert, with one durn turn in the middle. I never did figure why they put that turn there. It took ever’body to push the car back on the road, so’s we got in and took off again, only this time I had to drive slower. The kids always like to tell the story about how their dad could go faster, and faster, and faster, until pretty soon he’s goin’ “mowin’ the cactus speed“. So now ever time I drive real fast like, the kids say that I’m “really mowin the cactus now.”

Somewhere along the way an “Okie” kid taught me how to whittle a green willow whistle. Can you do that?

I like people that can tell a good story, I like to listen to them even more.

Indie, thanks for the reminder, If you don’t taste, smell, hear, and feel life, it ain’t worth living! Now, Nora Jones singing Townes Van Zandt. That’s livin'.

Hiatus Questions

Okay, here is three more questions to work on while I am Hiatusing.
Questions provided by commenters:

1- Oregon: "Does a house fly do a roll or a loop when it lands on the ceiling"?

2- Robin: “Will Ernie regret hanging a tarantula from his bedroom light switch?”

3- Robin on a more serious note: "What shall we have for dinner tonight"? I really could use some help with that one!



The "fly on the Ceiling" thing turned out to be far more interesting than I thought!
The fly flies along in it's zig-zaggy searching pattern, then directs itself up to the ceiling in a looping pattern, crashes into the ceiling with it's front legs over it's head. It's front feet clasp or stick to the ceiling, depending upon the texture of the ceiling. Once it's front feet are clasped to the ceiling, momentum swings it's body up, and it's other legs stick.

The slicker the ceiling the better it sticks. The little hair covered flaps on it's feet stick to smooth surfaces so well that it has to use it's claspers to un-stick it's feet. Yep, the fly has more trouble unsticking itself fron the ceiling than sticking. The diagram picture depicts all of the ways that it gets it's feet unstuck. the other picture is a photo of a fly foot.

Robin Shelly needs to know...

Robin Shelly Said:
“Not to change the subject - ahem - but since Ernie is on hiatus & not going to post anything here until Ground Hog Dog (& he did tell us to keep posting without him), I would like to conduct a little informal but important (to me) survey here. I would like to know:
Do you turn the bedroom light off BEFORE or AFTER you get into bed at night?
I'm serious!
Thanks.
And, Ernie, if you're out there reading this, I'd love to have your answer, too. (:”

I made a list of other “bedroom questions” to go with Robin’s question, but they ended up sounding like an obscene phone call so I didn’t go there. But, I did discover that I still have a fertile mind.

Oh, I need to answer the question; I turn the light off after I go to bed, because I like to read awhile before going to sleep, even though my body is exhausted, my mind is still racing at bedtime, so I read until it slows down. Then click… ZZZZZZZZ…

Robin, at some point we will need to know the reason why you ask!!!

A Great Past, and a Great Future.

The sixties were truly the age that showed us the way. “To go where no man has gone before…”

The sixties led us into civil rights, human right, women’s rights, led us into the space age, the computer age. They led us out of war. We had leaders that led, not followed, the trend. We had leaders that were proactive, not reactive. We had leaders that told us, like John Kennedy; “Do not ask what your country can do for you, but what can you do for your country?”

In Dr. Martin Luther King’s quest to free his people from the grinding oppression that they suffered, he took many chances, chances that human nature would ultimately agree with him. He gave his life while leading his people from the depths of their despair, and into an age of civil rights. Dr. Martin Luther King’s murder caused people to say; “Never again will we step back. From this point on we will only step forward.”

Today we stand on the precipice of all that the sixties were about. We are facing the greatest economic threat that world has ever faced, not only this country, but the whole world. We are on the edge of total world war. One man has stepped forward, and he has said that he is up to the challenge. He has implied that he can lead us out of all this despair, and he has run for President of the United States. We are in dire need of a great leader, like never before in the entire history of the United States.

It is ironic that the day before President Barack Obama is to be inaugurated as President of the United States, that we are reminded of Dr. Martin Luther King, who helped to show us the way.

If there was ever a time to push aside our petty partisan politics and foolish prejudices, now is the time. In the spirit of some of our great leaders like Lincoln, Kennedy, and Dr. King, we need to come together and support our President like never before. He has a challenge like never before, and if the sixties showed us anything , it is that we must join together to accomplish anything.

Today we all need to have a dream. Tomorrow we will have our first black President, and he will be leading us out of what may be our darkest time in all of our history.

Yeah, I got dog too.

Some people have been concerned about how I'm going to control my herd of flying pigs that I'm going to use to bypass Richardson"s Grove. Well, the dogs won't need to fly because the pig harness shop has made a special flying pig saddle for the pig dogs to ride.

Robin Shelly Said: “And about that stock... I'm glad to know you have real pigs to back it up but my main concern is what kinda stock dogs you got?”

Well Robin, I got the best. This ain’t no bull! My dog “Twizzle” is a genuine “Kekawaka Pig Dog”, specially bred to hunt and herd pigs. For those of you who doubt my sincerity. I have included a photo of my pig stock dog.



Map of Kekawaka Creek

I Told Twizzle to "sit", then I put her head in that position, and told her to "Stay" so you could get a full view of her biter. As you can see her ears are down in her ready-for-anything position, and her eyes are locked right on me in case I tell her do something. That's just a small sample of how smart these Kekawaka Pig Dogs are. I took the photo with the kitchen counter in the background, because most people think that she is one of those yappy obnoxious Jack Russell dogs. She weighs a full sixty pounds of pig biting muscle. She is from a long line of Kekawaka Pig Dogs, and as many real historians know, pigs in Kekawaka Creek go clear back to the 1850’s. That was one of the earliest Whiteman settlements in this area. It is an old story, but not confirmed that the Kewakawa pigs tails are genetically twisted from the pigs that were able to twist up their tails to avoid getting bit. Though not confirmed, like the rest of the stuff that I tell you.

She can run like the wind. You have probably never seen a dog run as fast as these dogs do. When the dogs are after a pig, you could swear that the pigs are flying. (Don’t let this out, but that is my Pig Whisperer’s ace-in-the-hole, he is going to chase the pigs so fast that they will sprout wings and fly!)

So stand-by and watch our "Ernie’s Flying Pig Service" take off. (Pun intentional, when I get excited like this, I can’t resist)

Umm.. Another cheater post.

I don't really consider this to be a post, because it didn't take much thought. But it is thoughty enough to make it to the front page, so here it is, along with a special credit card for our "Ernie's Flying Pig Service" stockholders.

Rely to Kato:

Kato Said: “I recommend training some of the larger sows for passenger flights…”

As you might have already guessed, we considered passenger service, but the government regulation for transporting passengers became too prohibitive. For instance, the Feds require that passenger service be provided by sows only, because they are much more determined than the boars. When two or more boars get put together they have a tendency to squeal, squabble, and argue. They make very slow progress, and they are easily distracted from the tasks that they are assigned. They like to drink too much fermented swill and they get stinkin’ drunk and mean. They are strong flyers when they are competing against each other, but they sometimes forget where they are supposed to be going, because they are too busy competing against each other, so it wouldn’t be good to have them transporting passengers.

We like to hold the sows back, because the sows are where baby Pigs come from. We like to keep them busy making little freight haulers for us. If you work a sow too hard she becomes tired and unattractive, and her ability to attract a boar is diminished and our business depends on a healthy supply of flying freight piglets.

Then, the passenger compartments have to be much more luxurious than freight containers. Food and water becomes a problem. There has to be sleeping facilities, and a kitchen car, not to mention sewage containment.

There seems to be some kind of a plot to simply hinder everything nowadays, and you don’t have to look far to find that our government is not being very helpful. We applied for some of the bail-out funding, and we were required to submit a business plan explaining what we were doing. They liked our plan, with the flying pigs and all. They like the fact that we weren’t burning diesel. But, they say that California is the worlds fifth largest economy and we should apply to Arnold. Arnold refuses to believe that pigs can fly, and says that we have to prove it before he will fund us. My pig whisperer is working on the “flying problem“ as we like to call it, but so far the pigs have only been able to become airborn for short distances, like from where they are standing to the trough at slop time.

Passenger service is a fine idea, but it’s just not in the cards right now. Plus, I’ve done my part to solve the north coast’s freight problem, and I’m anxious to move on to bringing about world peace.

I couldn't resist.

Ernie's Flying Pig Service is now accepting freight between Richardson's grove and Eureka. Environmentally bypassing the deadly grove
.

Differences

I was recently reading a post where the person was offended that people still used terms like "Black, White, Asian, American Indian and so on. The persons attitude was that it is time to stop noticing differences between people, and it occured to me that the differences are the things that I enjoy the most about people.

Nothing New!

I need to take a hiatus. Not that I want to, but I need to take break to get other things done that are becoming more and more pressing. So, rather than post slowly, or take great gaps between posting, I thought that I would just tell everybody that I won’t be posting until February 2nd (Ground Hog Day) That will save you endless trips to see if I’ve come up with anything new.

When I return, I hope my blog will take a more serious historical bent. I have a few ideas, that take some research, that I will be posting on at the culmination of my rumination. As you might have guessed, my blog will never be totally serious, I find too much humor in life to let humorous issues slip by without notice. Of course, I will still engage in “Bullshistory”. I can’t resist the opportunity to put twice told tales out there, just to see what other folks might know about it, or what their take on it is.

What I would like is to do, is put more thought in the things that I post, to make them more pertinent and meaningful. I also will try harder to encourage those people that type with two fingers, like me, and that can’t spell, like me, and that have poor grammar, like me, to be more brave about saying what is on their minds. Some of the most interesting people in my life have always been people that have learned everything that they know the hard way, like me. It is difficult to encourage people that have been put down because of their poor language skills to make comments, like me. That is why I have a rule that nobody’s poor language skills should ever be corrected on my blog. Their concepts are another thing entirely, I encourage honest debate, because no two people think alike, if we did, there would be no reason to have a conversation.

I intend to try to get people to make comments on my blog. By “comments”, I don’t mean sniping, name calling and bitterness, but openness and honesty, presented in a fashion that might make you understand their position. I will always accept anonymous comments, because some anonymous comments are very well thought out. I fully understand the reasons that someone might want to remain anonymous. However all anonymous comments will get the “Smell Test” to see if they remain. If it smells like crap, it probably is, and it will go. Try to bear in mind that you should think of all of your comments as representing you personally.

In the mean-time, there are some new and interesting blogs out there, SoHumBorn is new to the blogophere, and is becoming a “must follow” blog. She has some interesting ideas about Southern Humboldt culture. She claims to be writing about made up stories, but it is obvious by her tales, that she is well steeped in the culture of So-Hum.

Indie has a new blog. Indie is the person that started “The Independent” newspaper in Garberville. She has moved up to No-Hum and has gone back to school, to pile her education higher and deeper. Her blog is very cerebral. If you are a “thoughty Person”, you will appreciate her blog. I go by and read it all the time, but ashamedly, I don’t comment often. She is more into life around her right now, but I expect her to start solving world problems any day.

And of course Eric’s Sohum Parlance is always a interesting read. He delves deeply into politics, sometimes to the point of minutia. He is educated on all of the workings of the political world, beyond what much of us could ever understand. He is also a lawyer. Sometimes I disagree with him, but I can’t give him a cogent argument so I acquiesce. I have no choice but to give in, that’s probably why he is a lawyer. A person doesn’t care about what they are charged with, as long as Eric gets you a good verdict. I would hate to be up against him in court. His blog has a fair share of people that like to argue, and it doesn’t seem to bother them that they lose. Some of his commenters have left the path of rational sustainability to the point that he has started, wisely, banning some comments. His blog is a much better read now.

Cristina’s “Nocturnal Nomad” is a very well written and interesting blog, but she has spurts of great productivity, then lapses of nothingness, leaving you to want more. More dammit!

Redheaded Blackbelt is one of Southern Humboldt’s most pertinent blogs. She writes about things that have great meaning to So-Hum, like diesel spills, pollution, neighborhood problems, and so on. It is plain to all, that she loves this canyon and the people in it, and she takes a proprietary interest in the canyon's details. Her photography is in the beginning stages of photography. But, she is a natural photographer, and knows well the things that she loves. My fear is that she may someday set aside her roots, and delve too deeply into the art of photography, and forget her real passion for this canyon. I fully expect that she will always return to capturing the real things that are around us here. Art is everywhere, but this is the only place on earth that has what we have. I hope that she will continue to express that for us.

Carson Park Ranger can delve into local annoyances with rapier wit and stinging intellect, while using several languages at his immediate disposal. Always a must read, but take the time to look for the deeper meaning than you would normally expect a person to present.

I don’t know what to say about “Heraldo” at the Humboldt Herald. First, We don’t know if it’s a he or a she, we suspect that more than one person is posting, or Heraldo is suffering from “Multiple Personality Disorder”. Herado’s posts are always important to Humboldt County in some fashion. Heraldo’s blog is the “Eight Hundred pound Gorrilla” on the North Coast. Heraldo attracts many comments and much bickering.

Rose is out to “Get Paul”. She is usually very conservative in a realistic way. If you talked to her she would probably say that she doesn’t see herself as a staunch conservative, but a realistic person. She has a very heavy blog that requires much thought.

"Chocolate covered Xanex" is our naughty little secret. "The girls" are often risque', but their writing ability is stellar. They make you feel life as it should be felt by everyone.

And last but not least, “299 Opine”. My old buddy Ekovox. His blog was the first to shake me out of my reverie and make me realize that there was an interesting Blogosphere out there. His blog is interesting, humorous, intelligent, and has a decidedly historical bent to it. I like tales about the good old days, mysterious north coast places, and the things that he posts in general. I understand that he knows a little bit about music also. Must Read!

That pretty much covers my recommendations as “Must Reads”. These blogs, and some more interesting blogs, I have listed over on the left of my blog. That should keep you busy until I return. Start holding your breath!

Please post you thoughts here, I will see them. Again, you can always be off-subject if you want. I expect to be reading and commenting as catch-as-catch-can, but no certain schedule. I already miss my blog!!!

Richardson's Grove Realignment.

Along with everyone else writing lengthy opinions on the Richardson’s Grove by-pass, I decided to add some of my wisdom to the issue.

I was reading a blog the other day, about a man’s opinion of what should happen about the Richardson’s Grove road straightening. He was all for it. And, at the time I whole-heartedly agreed with his opinion that it was the best plan of many alternatives, but then “Anonymous” spoke up with wisdom like Anonymous often uses. He said:

“Leave the trees. Spend the money on developing modes of transportation that reduces our dependence on Diesel trucks and that don't contribute to global warming.”

It struck me that Anonymous is so wise. He can sit there in his armchair and out-think the most wise engineers and researchers out there. No wonder he doesn’t sign his name. The poor guy would be pestered to death by the rabble wanting his opinion on everything.

Being emboldened by Anonymous’ opinion, I decide to throw my lot in with him, because I am also a great thinker, but didn’t want to give other people the opportunity to make fun of my ideas. Having personally done extensive research on the best possible way to get freight in and out of Eureka, I have concluded that a fleet of flying pigs is the least environmentally intrusive way to expedite that end. Seeing the opportunity to be ahead of the growing need to get freight up and down the coast. I have formed a Corporation to channel the large amounts of funding that we expect to get when we present our idea to the world. First, I invested my money in buying up a large stock of pigs. With the economy in the tank, and with so many of us enlightened people moving toward vegetarianism, we have found pigs to be a huge bargain on the open market. In order to leverage our small corporations money, we used what little that we had to make a deposit to keep the pigs on hold.

The first and obvious problem, to anyone that has been around animals, is that nobody wants to have a pig flying over them. We hired a consulting firm, and their recommendation was to fit the pigs with diapers. Pig diapers are not readily available on the open market, so we put the manufacturing of pig diapers out to bid. Being environmentally conscious, we specified reusable and washable diapers only.

With the large amount of washable diapers, our corporation decided to corner the pig-diaper laundering business. That business should make the corporation a tidy sum of money by itself.

Take-off and landing areas for the pigs are being arraigned. We hope to use one of the defunct mill sites in the Leggett to Garberville area. The landing zone in Eureka will logically be the Balloon tract. It is already zoned industrial, and has been used for over a hundred years for handling freight. We are trying to find a way to take the property through a public domain process. This was our idea, so I see no reason to let the land owners cash in on our wisdom. As soon as we can clear that hurdle, we will start implementing our service.

Pigs are not heavy lifters, so we are having harnesses made for them to multiply their efforts. Each pig will have a tether that hangs down beneath them, like a helocopter has. As many pigs as needed can be attached to the larger size loads. We have also recognized the grand opportunity to cash-in in developing the pig harness business. Once I set my mind to this project, the opportunities seem to be everywhere. I wonder why other wise people have never considered this golden opportunity?

It seems that the reason that nobody wants the freeway to bypass Richardson’s Grove on the east, is because it would take out thousands of trees and the ground over there is highly unstable. So it doesn’t sound like anyone would accept that plan.

The other plan was a bridge down the river, which would have been ridiculously expensive. Nobody would want to pay for that. The other plan was to go far to the west and come up another canyon. That project was just to enormous to consider.

Recently the Highway People have proposed a plan with a few simple realignments, that would take out very few trees, and move very little dirt. This plan sounds very viable, so I need to get busy with my flying pigs.

My project coordinator just called, and me and said that they have discovered a problem with my plan. It seems that pigs don’t like to fly. But, we hope to get them airborne soon. With the proper incentives, healthcare, education, vacation and dental plans, they should become willing participants.

I will be glad to get this project off the ground, (Pun Intended) because I’m anxious to move on to another project.

I can’t reveal my plan yet, because I hope to cash in on it “Big Time” also. But, I will tell you this; It will bring about world peace, and it all that is needed to bring that about, is to get hippopotamuses to turn into butterflies. Soon you will be finding me in the history books along beside Einstein and Gandhi.