Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

                   I know it has been quite awhile since I've written anything. I would like to take the blame, but honestly, I can't. The blame rests solely with my daughter Autumn. Let me explain. Some time in the not so distant past, I had mentioned to her that I would love to have a Hoochy Cake. Never having seen one before, I thought it would be a novel idea. My birthday came and went, and I believe I had a cake, which, though appreciated, wasn't all that memorable. I believe she baked me an apple pie though, that was pretty tasty. I prefer pie over cake. I think birthday pies should be offered at bakeries and supermarkets around the country. Perhaps I can work on selling the idea to various outlets.   In any event, I was a little disappointed that I didn't get a Hoochy Cake for my birthday. Low and behold, Father's Day arrived and Jan and I went out to Autumn's in-law's lake cabin to celebrate the day. We had hot dogs and burgers and of course chips, d

  This past ten days or so, all of my kids have been visiting, as well as grandchildren and great grandchildren. To say the least, it's been hectic. I wanted to spend a little time with my older son before he had to leave, so we decided to drive around and look for a spot to go fishing. As we were driving outside the neighborhood, we came across several considerable pot holes in the street. One is located right in the center of the road, making it almost impossible to miss. I was cursing the borough for not getting around to fixing them, as they have been a problem for the better part of a year. He,  in full agreement remarked, " down in Ketchikan, people got tired of complaining to the city council, so they started painting penises in front of the holes." "Are you kidding me?" "Nope. They had plenty of time to fix things, but our complaints fell on deaf ears, so some folks decided to take matters in their own hands. It worked too. Pretty soon the city was

   I said that I would write about the trip we went on a few weeks ago, but I've been rather busy since we returned home, so I'm just now getting around to it, sorry. Of necessity, I've got to split this up into several different posts, just so I can share more pictures and maybe things will make a little more sense. We left Anchorage on  April 24th in the middle of the night. Fortunately, our very good neighbors ran us into the airport at 11:00 PM to catch what was supposed to be a 2:30 AM flight, the only one to Cincinnati that would work. Of course we didn't leave on time. We had to wait over an hour for a stewardess to arrive on another Alaska Airlines flight, so they could be fully staffed, so we finally got away closer to 4:00 AM. No surprise. We arrived in Ohio at 5:40 PM, since we gained four hours flying east. Of course the rental car we were guaranteed wasn't available, but they did manage to find me a suitable one with a built in GPS. The next day we went

  I know that some of you are waiting for me to do a blog post about our recent trip, and I will, but I needed to do a post for Fan Story, and I decided to postpone the vacation blog until next time. I promise I'll do it. Meanwhile, I hope this will suffice.     Those of you who know me, know that even the every day things that most people do as a matter of living, for me can be a struggle. What gives? Am I the most incompetent man who ever lived, or do I just bitch a lot and blow things out of proportion? Tonight I'd like to say a few words about fitted sheets. No doubt they are an asset, if for no other reason than at least you know what sheet to put on the bottom. I don't recall ever having to deal with fitted sheets when I was growing up. Are they a fairly recent thing (in the last fifty years) or did my folks just not have any? I can't say. Perhaps it was because I wet the bed when I was little and mom didn't want to deal with the fitted sheets. I can't say

   When I was  a little kid, I used to tell folks my dad was a carpenter. When he found out, he got mad and corrected me, mentioning that he was a contractor. I didn't understand the difference at the time, but know now that the knowledge he possessed was far beyond carpentry.   One Christmas I received an Erector Set. For those who aren't familiar with such a thing, it was a set that had numerous thin, flat bars of aluminum or steel, all of which were drilled with multiple holes up and down the length of the bars, which were about twelve inches long and maybe 3/8 inches wide. Also included was a number of little screws, as well as nuts, and an illustrated catalogue that showed the various things you could make; towers and small buildings and cranes and  I don't recall what all else. I suppose the idea behind the set was to encourage future engineers and architects or iron workers. It all fell flat with me. For a short while, when I was bored on a rainy day, I would dig out

    I was on Fan Story today reading some posts by various authors that I follow when I read one by a friend named Jim Wile. He's writing a book about a fellow who finds himself working on some innovative idea to miniaturize a camera to assist people who have dyslexia. For reasons beyond my comprehension, I was reminded of an incident that occurred back when I was in Great Lakes Illinois at Radarman "A" school. A whole bunch of us had flunked out in the third or fourth week during a class on maneuvering boards.  They were basically just sheets of paper with concentric circles about an inch apart. A circle of course consists of 360 degrees, and on the paper, each degree had a mark on the outside so that you could get an accurate bearing on a contact on the radar. With the maneuvering board a pair of dividers and a parallel ruler,  you could trace the contact for three minutes, and determine what it's course, speed and closest point of approach would be. Now of course