This month is certainly one for adventure. Basically every weekend for the next 3 I will be out of town. First off is a conference up in scenic Rock Spring, Wyoming. In high school I had the hots for a girl who lived in Rock Springs before she moved to my fine home town. She described it as the "armpit of the universe." I've been to Rock Springs before, and I tend to agree. Well at least it isn't Rawlings. I am trying to round up the gang to just come up there on Friday night and keep me company so I don't drink myself silly because of sheer boredom, but we'll see.

The next week finds me deep in the heart of fall break. I like fall break.

Everything culminates in the big trip to Hershey, Pennsylvania the next week. I haven't been to PA in a long while. I'm hoping there is enough time to break out of the heartland and go to Philadelphia or NYC, but we'll see. I'll take pictures, but I can't guarantee that I can post them, since I haven't explored that aspect of my posting program. I've had it for some time now and just activated its ultra-secret remote posting utility. Activate the dome of silence, 99.

Poker night. Our Austere Circle of people who get together and talk randomness about literature has evolved into a poker group. Now some might say "devolved" but I would argue that. I think poker has much to say for itself as drama. One certainly has the pathos and euphoria that a text might produce. It would be rather insipid, however, to continue on with this analogy. I am not the first, however, to discuss in grand terms the nature of poker. The great Walter Mathau said that it "exemplifies the worst aspects of capitalism that have made our country so great." Furthermore, Sommerset-Maugham stated that it was the only game "fit for a grown man." Mark Twain concluded that "There are few things that are so unpardonably neglected in our country as poker. The upper class knows very little about it. Now and then you find ambassadors who have sort of a general knowledge of the game, but the ignorance of the people is fearful. Why, I have known clergymen, good men, kind-hearted, liberal, sincere, and all that, who did not know the meaning of a 'flush'. It is enough to make one ashamed of the species." Enough said.

We do miss Diamond Dave, however, and his speed-dealing, fast-talking twenty one. Many of our chips, however, once belonged to the Gueveras: one of the last vestiges of them in Salt Lake City.

Well Friend Jonathan and Friend Sarah (ok if I keep that up you all will think I'm an unreformed Quaker) have set up shop in Edinburgh. Yes, that's right, Scotland. You can read and see about their adventures with cheeses, churches, Greek, Safeways, laundry, studies in divinity, and brothels here. From the looks of it, I think they're doing a lot better in Edinburgh than they were in Anchorage last year. This calls for Bobby Burns, I think:

Address To A Haggis
Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, 
Great chieftain o' the pudding-race! 
Aboon them a' yet tak your place, 
Painch, tripe, or thairm: 
Weel are ye wordy o'a grace 
As lang's my arm. 
The groaning trencher there ye fill, 
Your hurdies like a distant hill, 
Your pin was help to mend a mill 
In time o'need, 
While thro' your pores the dews distil 
Like amber bead. 
His knife see rustic Labour dight, 
An' cut you up wi' ready sleight, 
Trenching your gushing entrails bright, 
Like ony ditch; 
And then, O what a glorious sight, 
Warm-reekin', rich! 
Then, horn for horn, they stretch an' strive: 
Deil tak the hindmost! on they drive, 
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve 
Are bent like drums; 
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive, 
Bethankit! hums. 
Is there that owre his French ragout 
Or olio that wad staw a sow, 
Or fricassee wad make her spew 
Wi' perfect sconner, 
Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view 
On sic a dinner? 
Poor devil! see him owre his trash, 
As feckles as wither'd rash, 
His spindle shank, a guid whip-lash; 
His nieve a nit; 
Thro' blody flood or field to dash, 
O how unfit! 
But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed, 
The trembling earth resounds his tread. 
Clap in his walie nieve a blade, 
He'll mak it whissle; 
An' legs an' arms, an' hands will sned, 
Like taps o' trissle. 
Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care, 
And dish them out their bill o' fare, 
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware 
That jaups in luggies; 
But, if ye wish her gratefu' prayer 
Gie her a haggis! 
 
--Robert Burns, 1786

Well I was going to drive to work today since I had one off-campus commitment, and since I was nice to Christine this weekend by cleaning her, changing her oil, fixing her skeewumpus positive battery terminal connector, and buying her a snazzy barbed-wire-print seat cover, she promptly decided to not to start this morning. Now in a sick panic*, I thought the timing belt might have slipped, but upon inspection when I got home from my now enforced public transportation commute, the belt was tight to specifications, so I assumed it was something electrical--particularly the spark. (That is generally the first place you start when trying to figure out what the fuck is up with a dead engine, and particularly so in Christine since oil can easily get into where her spark plugs area, and it has caused issues before.) While I was removing the spark plug wires, they refused to budge and two of the wire promptly decided to part from the connector still attached to the spark plug. Somewhat relieved that it wasn't the timing belt, I took the sudden $50 loss in stride, sealed Christine up and called it a night. It is nice not to be completely reliant on a car, but, of course, it is a pain in my hairy ass not to have one at all, but I was in no mood to start calling friends to run me to auto parts stores to get ignition wires that may or may not be the culprit for Christine's no-go status. So it will be another day. If you stand in front of my house, you will undoubtedly hear a slew of obscenities that would embarrass a sea captain. You have to swear when you work on cars, you see. It is required.

I've been having fun dreams lately--dreams full of various adventures with non-ninja themes. Last night was a great one, but, unfortunately, I only vaguely remember plot details. That sucks, of course, because when it woke me up I recall that it really was a cool plot--well worth retelling. Ah well, if I would have written it down I would have never gotten back to sleep. Peter Ustinov taking out ghost aliens comes to mind, however. Ghost aliens. Hmm.

We ended up at Deer Creek (a reservoir) which just happened to be right across from the big fire that has been filling the Salt Lake valley with smoke since the middle of the week. It took a while for it to settle in because of how the light was, but all the mountains around the lake were charred. Smoke billowed out in pockets on the foothills and there was a continual stream of smoke from behind the ridge line to the north at Soldier Hollow where the whole thing started. By sunset, the fire had reached one of the minor peaks, despite the regular dumping of water from the helicopter depicted to the right. The scope of the fire is enormous, and it seemed difficult to see how one dragon-fly-like helicopter (despite its large size) could have any effect whatsoever. I would say that the fire is ranging over about 20 miles in length.

One could get angry about such fires, but it is the way it is. Next Spring the foothills will be covered in seedlings. It is too bad about the big old pines, of course, but change happens. Change is not the suck thing for the environment, of course, and I will admit there is something awesome in seeing destruction on this scale. That helicopter way surpassed cool too.