Prehistoric Pranksters

I'm realizing (after 30 straight 100° days) that if you want to do anything outside, it might be better to do it in the morning. So I got up at six and drove a couple hours to Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose. It was a fun drive and I got to see more iconic Texas things. Like big ranches with gates that have their names over them. Oh, an vultures in the middle of the road eating a raccoon.

So, I get to the park as it is opening up and take the lay of the land. Apparently, the story is: someone was putting in a new concrete sidewalk and the two jamokes pictured above, or someone matching their description, ran all across it leaving footprints.

Big footprints.
It should be easy enough to track them back to their hideout and get to the bottom of this.

Except, oh wait: it wasn't a nice flat sidewalk, it was a muddy riverbed and the trails look more like this.

At first it's like trying to pick out the dog footprints in a snowbank kids were playing in. The undulation of the mud and action of the water makes it harder to see them. But after a while walking up and down, you begin to pick them out and get a feel for the rhythm.

I got there early and had the bed to myself for a half hour or so. So I'm taking my snaps and whatnot and I hear what sounds like someone sweeping a broom behind me. I turn around and it's this guy:
A big vulture and his pal. They saw me sitting on the ground not moving for a bit and figured maybe they would sneak up and eat my carcass. The sweeping sound was his wings as one touched down. It was a little unsettling as I realized I really was alone out here in the woods. Especially because instead of immediately flying away when I turned around they just ambled along casually like they were doing something else. It wasn't until I pointed a camera at them that they went into a tree to wait for me to die from a distance.

So, it took a while to get into track spotting. At first it seemed like the one or two they had roped off could have been made by bigfoot-style pranksters with trick sneakers but as you went up the river it was interesting.

Turns out these weren't by the headlining T Rex and Brontosaur either, but less-famous also-ran dinosaurs. They aren't even really sure who. But one was a carnosaur raptor-type deal. Maybe Acrocanthosaurus. Yeah, ok. The other was a sauropod. maybe Paluxysaurus jonesi. The riverbed is the Paluxy and that sauropod was named the official dinosaur of Texas in 2009 so he seems like a good candidate, but the raptor was the hit of the riverbed in this reviewer's opinion.

The wicked toes were easy to spot and made neat slices into the rock. He was way funner than the jonesi, whose tracks looked like the work of a shoddy post hole digger.

After a couple hours of this, I had seen all I needed to and it was getting to be 95°, so I hit the bricks.

Just outside of the park was another attraction: The Creation Evidence Museum. Apparently it's dedicated to proving that human beings and dinosaurs lived together at the same time, just like in the Flintstones. I was quite interested in checking this out. But being Sunday it was closed. Ah well. I left feeling sorry for T Rex and his comically-useless arms.

Like a Honey Badger

So, I think that States have cultural identities. People from Maine are different than ones from say, Vermont. The stories I heard growing up in Maine were about loggers and fishermen. Whalers. People who did ballsy things and had to rely upon themselves. I think Mainers value independence and self-reliance. Vermonters, what were they- dairy farmers? They had to rely on each other in tough times and made a virtue of it. Now they are all hippy types.

This is, admittedly, a stretch and a gross generalization.

But as I live here more, I begin to see and accept more of the Texan culture. And I think I have uncovered a key element: they do not give a fuck.

And I mean that in a positive way. Let me tell you an little story.

I was thinking about a chum I hadn't seen in a while. We used to drink cokes with a splash of coconut rum by the pool and I got to thinking that that might be a refreshing summer beverage in this heat. So I figured I would go find a bottle and maybe some sake while I was at it. I haven't had any hard liquor since I've been here, so I had to locate a liquor store. Turns out it was in the next county. Texas blue laws are weird, but whatever, here we go.

So, I GPS the store and twenty minutes later there I am. I walk in and am confronted by a podium they have set up for a promotional tequila tasting. Yes. People are bellying up to what is, essentially A BAR IN A LIQUOR STORE doing tequila shots. They had booze on ice and shot glasses and a pretty young girl laughing behind the bar.

Part of me was agog. Isn't his dangerous? Isn't it illegal? What about the children? Okay, I didn't think that last one, but I was still pretty surprised. So I do my shopping and proceed to the checkout. The bartender girl is now working behind the counter and she rings me up. She sees the bottle of Malibu and holds it up with two fingers like she had discovered something distasteful.

"Do you know about Malibu Black?" she asks.

"Ah. no."

"Well" she says "It's 70 proof...you can put it in the freezer". I tell her I think I'm all set with the regular kind. I just want a splash. But she proceeds.

"It's 70 proof. More alcohol. Same great taste. 70 proof? More alcohol?" As she says this arches her eyebrows in a manner that expresses that she has a strong opinion about my decision to stick with the regular stuff. This gentleman is a pussy is what her expression says. But I don't want the booze, plus by now I don't want to be talked into it so I stick to my guns. Reluctantly, she drags the bottle across the scanner like a transaction of such wimpiness had somehow cheapened her by proxy.

About this time, two of her co-workers come over. A smaller girl with ferret-like teeth and a lumpy guy. Ferret teeth whispers something in Tequila Bartender's ear, barely able to suppress her squealing laughter. Turns out Lumpy Guy had made a pair of numchucks out of cardboard and Ferret Teeth wanted to let her friend know right away. I am not making this up. They were in his back pocket.

So my checkout girl scolds her jokingly, telling her that this is a place of business and no place to be making or discussing ninja weapons. She looks at me and explains how difficult it is to work with these people. Ferret Teeth will not let this slur stand and begins to convince me that it is really Tequila Girl who is the handful to deal with at work.

"Oh, I believe it" I tell Ferret Teeth "She seems like a real pistol."

At this point Tequila Girl gets a reflective, faraway dreamy look in her eyes and tells me that she is not a pistol, but in fact she carries one with her. Now what caliber was that? A .40 or a .44? She's not sure. No wait, wait, now I remember: it's a .40 caliber. Yes. She loves that gun.

In a five minute errand we went from impromptu tequila bars, to implications of sissy drinking, a brief stop by cardboard numchucks and into the caliber of a young girl's handgun all with a sense of reckless glee.

And I began to understand that Texas doesn't give a damn what you think.

I got into my shiny new muscle car and sped off laughing.

Va-voom and Varoom

So, as many of you know, I bought a new car.

It's a 2012 Mustang V6. I got the leather and premium interior package. I had been thinking along these lines since I rented one at the end of last year.

It's my first non-used car and it's a damn joy to ride.

The process also represents the last tangible connection to my Portland days. I finally got a new driver's license. I had held onto my Maine one the whole time I was in Mass. Partially that was due to sentiment, but realistically, I was a traveling devil most of that time. It was dang hard to get a day clear to go run errands to the DMV. Or maybe that's just a convenient excuse.

But now I'm all legal and Texas-y and have road trip fever. I want to haul ass all over this state.

But first several notes on the car-buying experience.

It was very Texas. I heard stories about illegals trying to buy cars and being arrested by the FBI right out of the dealership (the poor woman had bought a social security number connected to the wife of a drug kingpin). I heard stories about the "big celebrities" that came in all the time. Mostly it was football players like Too Tall Jones, who I would have liked to see, but the rest were all like some guy who was in the original Longest Yard. "He's just like he was in the movie!" Oh really? Ho Hum.

Here's a typical moment. The service guy is explaining how the customer survey I'm going to get works. He's trying to explain that there is a big difference between a 5 and 4 and basically I shouldn't hold onto my 5's too tightly. A 5 counts as 100, a 4 is 50. In the course of this he says "Now, we ain't trying to say we're perfect or anything. There was only one man that was perfect and they went and crucified him!" Yes, we aren't Jesus, but please give us a 5 on our survey.

My salesperson was 62. He looked like Sam Elliot's uncle. He was a good guy and I liked that he also did what I think of as Texas things. For example, we were walking across the dealership. He was in mid-sentence and stopped abruptly, putting out a hand to stop me as well. What brought the non-stop sales patter to a dead stop? The sight of a marginally-attractive woman walking across the grounds. We both took a minute to watch her pass and then got back to business. He whistled tunelessly. Oh, Texas.

Anyhoo. So what color is my car?

Black, right? Ah, not quite. It is a fancy new color called Lava Red. It looks black until the light hits it. Then you see there are li'l sparklies. Like these:

The result is that in the sun, the car is actually a dark dark maroon-red.

Like lava or something. Well, maybe not, but I do think it's kind of fancy.

I have more dumb car things to tell you, but I need to go buy one of those windshield cover doobies because it's murder hot out here. Va voom!

Recluse

There are two folks at work who have been bitten by spiders recently. These are stay-out-of-work-go-to-the-doctor type bites.

Everyone is concerned that biter may have been the dreaded Brown Recluse.

If you want to gross yourself out, Google the results of a Brown Recluse bite. The venom is acidic and gives you this flesh-eating creepout effect. Bleagh. Even without that drama, a regular bite can get you all swollen and troubled.

One of the kids on my team was talking about all the black widows she sees on her horse farm. She was talking about the marks like it was something you hadn't seen in comic books and horror films a billion times. Black freaking widows! Acid-biting spiders! Poison snakes! Dead armadillos! Go Texas!

So I was thinking about the vile critters as I rolled home. I was taking out the trash and a lizard took off like a shot. He was in the garage somehow and was now cruising across the pavement. He was a round little thing and his short legs gave his body a comedic swaying motion as he ran. I'd seen him around before, so in the hopes that he decides to come over again I decided to nickname him Fatty.

This of course is a nod to the hilarious Fatty the Groundhog that lived in my parent's yard for some time.

But what was Fatty doing in the garage? Just visiting? Cooling off? It was nearly 100° that day. But methinks there was a more culinary reason in his choice of hangout. So today I scoped out the garage to see what was up. Sure enough: weird beetles here and there in the corners. Gross. Not a lot of them, mind you, but enough to bring Fatty over for some nom nom nom.

They were all dead so I broomed them up and knocked down the spider web. But on the base of the stairs I found these two little creeps. Nothing crazy but I thought I would take a snap. So I flip them onto a handy piece of paper and it's click click click. While, imagine my surprise when after fifteen minutes the little one starts twitching and flips himself over. I'm a guy and have no problem killing bugs. Still there was a tiny part of my brain thinking: you had never heard of the Brown Recluse until two days ago. Who knows what other nasty crap they have down here?

I squished him in a tissue and continued my day.

Artless

I gotta find a new corner store. You may remember that I previously posted a karmic encounter at the store here.

So, it;s Friday evening, I'm done with work and headed home. At the last minute, I decide to stop in at my corner gas station place to pick up a six pack. A lot of other people have the same idea, so there is a general wait around the checkouts.

Now, there are two check out counters going, but they are unusually far apart. So you have to choose one or the other and cannot easily slide to the next available one.

You know where this is going. I started in one lane because there seemed to be some sort of gas-buying holdup on the other one. But that clears up and my lane isn't moving, so I change over. THere's only one guy in front of me, so this should be a breeze.

Wrong. Some guy comes in and starts asking the cashier about what was going on on gas pump 5. At first he's calm and she explains the situation. He's so calm that I get the impression he's a manager or something. Wrong. Turns out it's the former gas-buying-patron's husband that raised the commotion before and now he wants the story.

Well, here it is: the wife started pumping gas. She selected the cash option and pumped $2.14 worth of gas. Or she tried to pay for the $2.14 worth of gas with a credit card after saying that she had cash. Or something like that. It's hard to tell because the conversation became very heated. What it boiled down to was: pay the lady $2.14 in cash, and then you can pump the rest of your gas and pay with a credit card. Seems easy enough.

Wrong. THe dude is flipping out, saying that he is being penalized for the cashier's mistake and he is going to sue the place and call the police. The cashier is saying that calling the police is fine with her because they still owe her for the gas and please pay because I have your plates and will call the cops if you don't. This goes on and on and is now a shouting match with the guy becoming deeply wounded that he has somehow been wronged by the store.

Meanwhile I just want to buy a six pack of Tecate.

THis is like walking down the street and seeing a nickel sticking out of a bee's nest. Hmm. might be dangerous to reach in and grab it, and there's not much reward for the risk, but what the hell?.

Plus, I'm an idiot, so, I slap three bucks on the counter and say "Here! Here's your $2.14! Now go pump your damn gas!"

There is dead silence for a minute as nobody knows what to do. Then the guy looks at me square in the face and says "FUCK! YOU!" He punctuates each word with a finger point so I know it's me who should be fucked and then he turns on his heel and runs out the store in the manner of a crying teen girl.

That guy must have had a bad day. But anyway! It's beer-buying time and I'm the hero of the store, right? I bet they give me a discount, or at least a grateful grin. Wrong. I put my purchase on the counter and the cluster of cashiers just stare balefully at me and ring me up in silence. Somehow in a shouting match over two bucks I became the rude one for trying to move things along. I gotta find a new corner store.

Chocolate & Futons

The company that moved me here did a lame who-did-it-and-ran style job of moving me in. I learned this again today as I was working in the guest room. My moms is coming to visit next week so I thought I would hang some photos and spruce the place up a bit.

So I go to move the futon and it flops open wrong. I examine it and discover that they put it together backwards. Argh. Well, better to find this out now than when she needed to sleep on it.

So I get tools and begin the repair. With the futon disassembled, I can see parts that normally are hidden and I shake my head at the lame staining job someone did. Turns out that that someone was me.

Realizing this, I flash back on when we bought the futon all those years ago in Portland. It was a bitch to put together then, and it was a bitch to re-assemble alone today. Futons are built on tension so its easier of you can have one person hold something in one spot while another does the other bits. Nothing for it today but to do it.

Smashes toes, a jammed thumbnail and general frustration later it was done.

Until I moved it and it fell apart again.

Some parts had fallen out unseen that held the screws in correctly. So I fixed it again right this time and finished hanging the photos.

Anyway, as I worked it got me thinking about those starting-out days in Portland. I remember what a big purchase the futon was then. I was working part-time at a radio station and spending that much on an extra bed gave me a lot of stress.

The auld lang syn made me think of another recent purchase so after I was done with the futon I took some snaps of my old pal Pocky chocolate.

I haven't bought a Pocky in about 15 years but I definitely have a lot of affection for the stuff. I picked it up on impulse last weekend for no real reason. I like saying its name and thinking about more than actually eating it. I'm not much of a candy guy. It will probably stay in my cupboard for a long time.

I first found Pocky in the little Asian mart on Congress street in Portland, Maine. I remember the moment well. It was a fun afternoon; buying foreign candy blind to see what was inside. There was one package we bought because it had exploding Pac Man ghosts on the package. I opened it and it had cotton candy inside. Oh, ok. I get this. But as the candy dissolved in your mouth there were pop rocks inside. The explosion was unexpected and exciting. A double treat from an unknown package. That's what Pocky is to me: a link to unexpected pleasure from nothing. A time when we were starting and it was all good: Pocky is good.

I'm really looking forward to going back to Portland this summer. It will be the first time in 6 years I've spent any real time there. I wonder what it would be like to go to Amigos or the old places now. I bet it will be like the memories: the same but separated.

It is what it is

Storms hit in the middle of the night. One of the thunderbolts shook the house and knocked me bolt upright in bed around 2am.

This is earlier than that- around 10pm. I was just curling into bed with an episode of classic Star Trek. The one with the Trelaine: the all-powerful space brat with the magic mirror and the penchant for 1800's dress up. You know, not to get off on a tangent, but I could watch classic trek just for the lighting setups. They don't have any continuity shot to shot, but they are dramatic as hell. Compare with the bland, even mall light of Next Generation. Bleagh.

Anyhoo. Stam stam went the lightning, so I pulled on a hoodie and pants and tried to catch some snaps. This was about it.

After the blue sky comment in the other post, I figured I better read up. Basically, what it gets down to is the sky is blue for the same reason everything else is the color it is: because thats the color light it reflects. I did learn that the reason clouds are often darker on the bottom because that's the shadow from the top of the cloud.

But my comment meant more to the idea that even when things seem kind of black it doesn't mean that's how they are. I'm not always having the greatest time with this move and sometimes it gets to me. If you leave the shutter open long enough, things change up. The sky is still back there.