To · Speak · of · Many · Things · ...

Monday was also the day the backlight arrived in the mail. I'd ordered the $12 part from Ebay. Backlights are long, thin florescent lights (new technology uses LEDs) and are used to improve the visibility of liquid crystal displays. A friend had an old laptop, a Thinkpad T22, with a failing backlight. I offered to replace it--no guarantee. It was a new experience, but plenty of advice existed just a google away.

Several weeks ago, I disassembled the laptop display, pulling apart the internal frame so I could remove the faulty backlight. I had to measure it to make sure I ordered the right replacement. The new and the old backlight are in the following picture. I placed a quarter under them so they could be easily located. The new one is an eight of an inch shorter than the old.

Today, I soldered the wires to each end of the new backlight, allowing for the 1/8 inch, and reassembled the display.

The laptop works! And you can see what's on the display!

Monday, I mailed my latest science fiction short story to Asimov's magazine. Although it ranks as one of the shortest I've written, I think it's my best ever. I have little hope of acceptance and when I drop the package into the slot, I feel like Charlie Brown kicking a football held by Lucy. Circulation of pulp magazines has dropped drastically over the years. Asimov's is about 17,000 now, and I suspect that aspiring writers are the only subscribers. The competition is fierce. Most of the stories in the magazine are from well-known writers; only one or two each month come from wannabes like me. I can understand that, and I can understand that taking one of the workshops sponsored by the magazine would likely improve my chances of acceptance. It's harder to turn down someone you know. But that's not my game plan, or why I write.

I tell friends that my genre is rejected fiction.

Sunday, I went for another walk in the snow which is showing unusual persistence for this part of Oklahoma. This time, I took along a little buddy. Two activities are infinitely more fun with a kid: walks in the snow and kite flying. I took a camera along this time. The heavy overcast caused my camera's light meter to lie. I did a bit of exposure correction online.

We had lots of fun snowballing each other, and we did some small animal tracking.

We've had several days of winter storm. The storm left six inches of moist, fluffy snow on top of a thick layer of icy slush and a glaze of ice on anything more than a foot above the ground. Fortunately the ground temperature was slightly above freezing; otherwise, our situation would be worse.

We dodged the bullet this time. Most of the iced-over destruction was south west of us. Thousands of families are without electrical power. The tv news said power poles were down like rows of tipped-over dominoes. Been there, done that. I feel sorry for the folks, but I'm glad it's there, not here.

I took a nice walk down to the creek yesterday. The trees were shiny with their glaze of ice. I was disappointed that I'd forgot my camea, then decided the overcast day wasn't that great for pictures anyway. The walk in the snow was uneventful, I'd hoped to scare up some wildlife: quail, rabbits, and such, but I guess they preferred to stay put, wherever they were. I heard the shrill call of a hawk. I spotted it, a red tail, floating above the meadow just across the creek. I decided the hungry hawk was more disappointed than me over the lack of wildlife.

Gar Creek, the other way from our house, is larger with more trees and ground cover and is a better destination for a wintry walk to see wildlife, but my insight, gained over years of experience, told me to walk against the wind going out so the way back would be more pleasant.

Back in the yard, I noticed a fluffball in a tree, a mockingbird. It hopped from branch to branch, not much interested in flying. Its feathers, ruffled for insulation, made it appear twice as big.

Then I heard the honking of a dozen Canada geese overhead, grumping no doubt, about having chosen a winter-over lake that was too far north.

I'm reminded once more why, after being a member for 40 years, I quit the Republician Party several years ago.

The present Republican Party is not the party of honest and decent conservatives like Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.



Anyone care for a dose of bigotry?

Today was my first 3-d view of the impossibly rare mineral unobtainium.

It was my second view of the movie Avatar. I had wanted to see it in IMAX 3D, something I'd never done before. Kathy and I had intended to go during the last week of last year, but the IMAX 3D version of Avatar was sold out before we arrived. Plan B was to see It's Complicated. However, at the last minute, we had succumbed to the pleading of a young grand-nephew. He was with us and had zero interest in that movie. He wanted to see The Squeakquel. You know; the chipmunk movie. The three of us compromised on the regular screen version of Avatar, which was not sold out, and a promise from Kathy that she and I would go this week to the IMAX 3D version.

I enjoyed seeing Avatar the second time, though for me, the IMAX 3D version wasn't worth the extra hassle. For one thing, I was distracted by the lack of focus or fuzzyness in the background of many scenes. That detracted from the 3D illusion of reality. I hadn't noticed the focus problem in 2-d version, although I'll bet it was there.

I won't be a spoiler, even though everyone who wanted to see it has probably done so by now, except to observe that it has every element of speculative fiction you would ever expect to see. James Cameron had a very long list of 'wantasees.'

A report on the US stimulus by Tom Coburn (OK Republican), well-known US Senate fiscal watchdog, and John McCain (AZ Republican), Senator and 2008 presidential wannabe, details only $7 billion in what the pair consider wasteful spending. This is out of the roughly $220 billion spent thus far. By my calculation that amounts to a waste of 3 percent; not bad for a government program.

I've always considered the program to be misnamed. Rather than an economic stimulus, it is actually a program to sustain the country until the economy recovers naturally. It provides funds for state and local governments, police, etc., extends unemployment benefits, and funds infrastructure projects in addition to a few energy-related efforts.

I suppose calling it a sustenance program would have been a hard-sell among the politicians.

A pleasant, uneventful Thanksgiving Day. Turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes, and a peach cobbler came from next door. Kathy cooked a ham, green beans, corn, mashed potatoes, several mixed-vegetable salads, cranberry salad, cranberry sauce, pecan and pumpkin pies, and (Blue Bell) vanilla ice cream. Relatives contributed several other desserts.

The day started early, before light, with food preparation and ended late, after dark, with dessert-seeking folk who had eaten dinner elsewhere. It was the usual crowd, a couple of dozen or so, with some exceptions: Kathy's aunt, still in the hospital from a knee replacement on Thanksgiving Eve, lo5an, and Angelina.

We're still eating leftovers.

What am I thankful for this year? All the usual stuff: good health, good luck, and good friends. Oh yes, and the tripling of the IQ at the White House.

I'm still seeking closure for our Grand Canyon Tour.

GCT Day 10: We traveled from Trinidad, CO to Woodward, OK by way of Raton and Clayton, NM. The road near Clayton parallels a railroad track. As we were traveling east, we met a complete train of desert-tan army tanks going west.

On the outskirts of Clayton, we drove by a yard of sheet-iron sculptures. We stopped for a few pictures.

Shortly after leaving Clayton, we entered the panhandle of Oklahoma. I looked at the expanse of grassland and remarked to Kathy, "You know, I used to think this country was dry." We agreed that the countryside was lush compared to northern AZ.

My brother lives in the panhandle, and he was home so we detoured his way for a visit. He gave me a ride in his newly restored 1929 Chevy touring car. Bill is a master craftsman. The car restoration has been a decade-long hobby interspersed among all his other interests.

No trip through the Oklahoma panhandle is complete without grain elevators, pig farms, and bashful sunflowers.

GCT Day 11: In Woodward, we visited one of my cousins and some old friends.

GCT Day 12: Home again. It had rained seven inches while we were gone, unusual for this time of the year. The yard was overgrown, and my tomato vines wilted. Our dogs seemed glad to see us.

GCT Day 9: This morning we decided to head toward home. We'd planned to go northwest and visit the national parks in Utah, but scenic vistas, plateaus, deserts, cliffs, canyons, etc were losing their appeal. Utah would wait. We drove east and north toward the Monument Valley and Colorado.

The Grand Canyon is vast, picturesque, and colorful beyond description. It is a dynamic landscape that varies with the time of day, the cloud cover, and the interplay of shadows on the canyon walls. It is also an international place, with many visitors from every part of the world. Many, many visitors; the polished walkways testify to that. I would like to return one day, to spend some time absorbing the vistas, and to walk some of the trails.

Kathy would add that the Grand Canyon is a dangerous place. Her fear of heights kept her (and sometimes me) away from the edge and the trails. At one of the gift shops, she discovered a book about deaths in the park, Over the Edge. Later, at the Kiabab Plateau ranger station, she learned that the death count for this year was five. One fell as his picture was taken. I wonder if that photo is on the Internet. Two were a murder-suicide and another person drove his car over the edge. The ranger said the car was still in the canyon, painted the same color as the rock to lessen the danger of someone falling in while looking at it. Later, when fewer people are around and they have a crane or helicopter in the area, they'll pull it out
.

From the Jacob Lake Inn, the road took us to Page, UT and Lake Powell. In Page, I snapped a photograph of a huge houseboat that seemed out of place considering all the miles of desert we'd driven through. In addition to recreation, Lake Powell likely provides the cooling water for the electric generation plant we saw along the road. The plant is powered by Navajo Nation coal mined near Kayenta, AZ and delivered to the plant by an electric train. In this seemingly vacant land, I was curious who used the electricity. The Navajo Nation? Flagstaff? Surely, Las Vegas is too far away? In our travels thus far, I was disappointed at the lack of solar installations. With all the sunshine in AZ, one would expect solar panels to be as ubiquitous as tv antennas and satellite dishes or ... Mexican restaurants.



After the sandstone buttes and mesas of Monument Valley, we passed through a corner of Utah and saw more desert and more canyons. We turned at Mexican Hat, UT to follow the San Juan river to Colorado and the town of Cortez where we spent the night.

GCT Day 10: I had planned to go up to Rico, CO to visit my brother. He and his wife volunteer each summer at a National Forest ranger station near there. But we were unable to contact them and I wasn't sure the station was still open. Winter comes early at those altitudes. We learned later that they were traveling too, after making a tour of the Utah National Parks, they were about a half a day ahead of us on their way to Oklahoma.


We left Cortez, went through Durango, crossed the Continental Divide at Wolf Creek Pass, and ate lunch in South Park. From there, it was a quick downhill drive to Trinidad. Hey, when we start home, it's like releasing a rubber band! Besides, we'd already seen this part of Colorado. We stopped near Del Norte at an Elk farm to buy jerky for a young nephew. It's funny, after we purchased the package of elk jerky, one of the farmhands said they only had one elk, a bull. The farm had been quarantined for eleven years after buying a diseased elk from another farm. The place was now a processing and shipping facility for other elk raisers.

We spent the night in Trinidad. We ate dinner at a good Chinese restaurant, Wonderful House. It was a welcome change from our usual diet of Mexican Food.

On day 9 of our trip, I discovered I left my laptop power cord behind at the Jacob Lake Inn. This ended my day to day reporting. We returned home, caught up with life and yard, finally received the power cord in the mail, and took another trip.

I have time now to to start bloging again, and rather than skipping to the present, I plan to seek closure by continuing our trip report.


GCT Day 7: Today, we traveled to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, crossing the Colorado River on the Navajo Bridge near Marble Canyon and historic Lee's Ferry. Here, at end of Glenn Canyon and the start of the Grand Canyon, the roadway is only 470 feet above the water.

The sunny weather we enjoyed thus far turned toward storms and rain. We were caught in several furious downpours before reaching the Kiabab Plateau. On top of the plateau, we turned south at the Jacob Lake Inn and drove down through a pleasant series of forest-ringed meadows to the North Rim vantage point and lodge. The lodge overlooks a side canyon called Bright Angel. Bright Angel Canyon erodes a fault line that cuts transversely across the Grand Canyon.


The North Rim Lodge shares the vantage point with a number of cabins. We really liked the cabins and decided next time we would get reservations far enough in advance to stay there.

The North Rim is higher than the south one, is cooler, and is heavily forested because it gets more than twice the rainfall.

It was overcast when we got there, cold, windy, with an intermittent fine, misty rain so we looked, took a few pictures, and left for our lodging back at the Jacob Lake Inn. The Grand Canyon is a fantastic place, is huge, and defies description, but after several days of seeing it, we were jaded.


GCT Day 8: A day of rest. We explored the area around the Jacob Lake Inn by car and by foot. Jacob Lake is a small limestone sinkhole a few miles south of the Inn. We saw several other sinkholes along the road to the North Rim. Small and insignificant today, but they were probably important sources of water in the early days.

The Kiabab Plateau is surrounded by deserts and canyons, isolating it and its creatures from the rest of the world. Some of the creatures have evolved unique sub-species. In our exploring, we saw some small animals with black furred bodies and white tails cavorting beneath the trees, Skunks, we decided, and dared each other to get close enough for pictures. Then one started climbing a tree like a squirrel. The others quickly chased after it. That was our first introduction to the black and white Kiabab squirrel. We saw others that day, but none allowed us to get close enough for pictures.

We ran across a human traveler in the woods and took pictures of his three mules. I asked him where he was from, and he said "I live out." Nothing more, as if that explained things. He seemed anxious to get south of the Grand Canyon before cold weather. He was irritated with park rules about such things as campground limits and reservations. Apparently, he'd experienced some trouble with the park rangers in the Canyon the year before and was trying to follow rules this year.

The Inn is a generational enterprise that has grown with its owners over the years. There is a restaurant, a bakery, a number of small cabins, and a couple of multi-room units, all of typical quality for a historic remote tourist location. I can recommend the cookies, baked fresh each day, especially the chocolate parfait ones, but not much else, except the locale. Their advertized wifi proved to be non-existent.

We took shuttle buses today to see the parts of the south rim we hadn't seen yet. Afterward we drove down to Tusayan, a small tourist town just south of the Grand Canyon park. We watched a nice film on the Canyon at the National Geographic IMAX theatre. We stay another night here at Cameron, AR. Tomorrow we visit the north rim and stay the next two nights at the Jacob Lake Inn.

Road sign in the park:

Pictures at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7ony/sets/72157622219430003/ I've re-ordered the set so the latest ones are in front.

Wireless was intermittent yesterday evening, so now I cover two days.

Day 4: Gallup is a major craft outlet for the Pueblo Indians. We spent several morning hours shopping. I bought a chunk of blue turquoise. Years ago I carved a small turquoise frog, and I want to try carving a larger something. Kathy bought some necklaces for her kids. We left Gallup about 11 am. Next on the agenda was the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert National Park which took us the rest of the day. The park has some startling and beautiful vistas, well worth the price and time. We spent the night in Winslow, AR, a well-known Route 66 town. It's also a railroad town. The tracks run parallel with the 'Mother Road.' I counted at least three during the night. Almost non-existent wireless.

Day 5: We were up early and on our way to the Grand Canyon National Park. On the way, we stopped to visit the largest meteorite crater in the US. It's a big hole. Ate lunch in Flagstaff and took the scenic route north to the park. Arrived there about 2pm. The Canyon is amazing, incredible, and too large to comprehend. The crowds were huge and from everywhere in the world. And I thought this was the off season! We're spending the night in Cameron, a town on the nearby Navajo land. There are many roadside craft stands between the park and the motel. We stopped at one. I saw my first mountain lion crossing sign today. I'll try to get a picture of it tomorrow when we return to the park.

Our pictures are now in an ordered set on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7ony/sets/72157622219430003/

We left the motel in Tucumcari after I had a spirited discussion with the manager about health care plans and GWB. I wanted to tell the guy he listens to too much talk radio, but didn't. Most of his opinions echoed those of big mouth Rush L.

We saw more mountains, cacti, mesquite, and cedar, then stopped at Kline's Corner for awhile. Lunch was eaten at Padilla's in Albuquerque. Good food. Kathy chose it based on an Internet recommendation. We spent most of the day on the road, stopping at the Laguna Pueblo and the Sky City Casino for a few pictures and for Kathy to lose a few dollars at the latter. We arrived at Gallup about 5pm local time and shopped at an Indian jewelry store where Kathy bought a silver and turquoise pendant for a souvenir. We'll hit a few more shops tomorrow before heading to the Petrified Forest National Park in AZ.

The photo is the view from behind the Sky City Casino. These Indian Casinos really clutter up the scenery. The money derived from them wasn't evident at the Laguna Pueblo.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I actually had a talking companion after we left Kline's Corner. lo5an loaned us the new Alan Dean Foster book Flinx Transcendent, and Kathy read it most of yesterday. She finished it this morning; my turn starts tonight.

Day 1: We left town about 4pm and drove to Norman to spend the night and have dinner with lo5an and A.

Day 2: Left Norman about 10am, ate lunch in Clinton, stopped twice in TX, once at a rest stop
and once to refuel. We drove through my favorite country, beautiful eye-candy (at least for me) and saw motorcycles touring old 66 at various places. Since I grew up using Highway 66, I suppose I'm immune to its charm. I'd rather drive on Highway 40. Continuing west beyond Amarillo, we went through grasslands then rimrock country with cacti, mesquite brush and large wind turbines. The highlight of the TX drive was passing a sewage pump truck painted bright metalic magenta. We stopped at a rest stop on the NM border, proceeded through dark mesa vistas, saw more wind turbines and finally mountains. Well, one. Tucumcari Mountain is near its namesake town where we're spending the night. We're staying at the Safari Motel on Route 66. Yesterday we averaged 49 mpg; today with a headwind, 44 mpg. It looked like rain in the evening, but I doubt whether any hit the ground.

Some murals in downtown Tucumcari.
Some shiny for lo5an

Old half-dead elm with limbs askew,
Survivor of an ancient crew,
Now reigns over a field of grass,
Stoic witness of time to pass.

Scarred deep within the old tree bark,
A heart and names cut on a lark,
By young lovers who lingered there,
To testify their love and care.

The gnarled runes carved for all to see,
Out-lived the love twixt you and me.
An old promise of love not kept,
A sad truth we must now accept.

Come on a walk with me, my dear,
We'll reminisce that yesteryear.
And there again where we once stood,
We'll trace the letters in the wood.

Pictures of the items mentioned in my last post: two photos of the cannon and two of the 'store.' Click pictures to enlarge. Geronimo follows, the signature is on the back (not shown).




I've been scanning old family pictures and decided to post some of me at 1.5% and 33% of my present age. The last one was an extra of my first US passport picture. I must have sent it to my parents years ago.

My brother-in-law is an absolute pack rat. Kathy has the same tendency, except she is more selective. I think it's a gene thing. Their grandmother had a houseful of 'whatnots,' doodads,' knickknacks,' clocks, and ceramics. Kathy has at least 100 cookie jars and probably as many antique glassware pieces. All our closets and cabinets are stuffed to overflowing with them.

Back to my brother-in-law. He has several places in the pasture where he stores his 'bargains,' his items bought cheap or freely given that he might need someday. From time to time, when I have a need, I 'shop' his store. This time I was looking for a piece of heavy iron screen, something to use as a garden table top for Kathy. There amongst the rusty oilfield pipe, large diameter water pipe, old high line poles, old boat motors, pickups, farm equipment, and other odds and ends, I found a cannon. An old cannon, antique or replica, I don't which, but definitely old and well-rusted. Small, a muzzle-loader, about three feet long, it looked like it would shoot a 2-inch ball. I was amazed, and maybe a little envious. Although, what would I do with an old cannon?

I'll take my camera along next time and get a photo to post.

A couple of months ago, my brother-in-law brought by a plastic sack of old photographs. Twenty or thirty years ago he'd found them in an old desk he'd bought at an estate auction. He set the pictures aside, forgotten and covered up over the years. He'd found them again and thought we would like to see them. They were early photographs of Oklahoma, some original, others obvious copies. One of the originals was an autographed picture of Geronimo. I was envious that time too.

Each year at this time, Kathy and I fuss about our overgrown yard. She likes neatly mowed grass whereas I prefer the wild meadow look with scattered bunch grasses going to seed, clover flowers, and miscellaneous weeds. Okay, okay, so maybe I'm a tad lazy in the spring and early summer.

I'd just finished posting that last entry about Ms Teng when Kathy told me she smelled smoke. A cow pasture is all that separates us from a busy highway, and we have a constant worry about a carelessly tossed cigarette butt. I flipped on the back porch light and stepped outside. No fire in sight, but I did happen to notice a copperhead snake slithering away from me and sliding off the porch. It wasn't a large snake; copperheads tend toward short and thick, but still . . .

The yard gets mowed tomorrow!