The Bump Warriors

Last year we managed to get about $2,000 in free flying by being bumped from flights. We have more time than money so why not. Today we started our bump adventure in Bismarck.  The Kadizzles were told the flight from Denver to Phoenix was over booked, and we had a good chance to get bumped.  Once in Denver we ran to the counter to make sure we would be fist bumped.  At first they said we would be bumped for sure and we would get two $500 vouchers.  We called our daughter and said we would spend the night with her.  Then they said no they had room and we had to fly.  So on the plane we went and sat down in some good seats in the exit row they gave us for being loyal bumpers.  We called Erin and said forget it we are going on to Phoenix.  At the last moment they told us to get back off the plane, and gave us the prizes.  The poor people on the plane left about 45 minutes late as they screwed around trying to see what was going on with the seating. I think if we got back on the plane for a second time we would be killed. So here we sit with our first bump of the season. Tomorrow they gave us very good seats to get to Phoenix.  Maybe we can get another bump and double the prize money.

Kadizzles best bump ever was in Minneapolis.  Kadizzle got bumped from two flights to Las Vegas.  The airline booked him on a third flight.  All three planes took off at the same time and Kadizzle had two sets of free tickets in his pocket.

That Big Jet Engine is playing my song

That big jet engine will be playing our song, "Thank God and Delta were gone".  Behind us will be cold winds, snow, and being stuck inside.  Back in the glory of sunshine Kadizzle may fire up the Yamaha pony and go for a ride.  Now if you get a burr up your ass and want to get away from the cold, come on down. We don't have anywhere for you to sleep, but we can feed you, wash you, and entertain you. If you bring a tent, and a matt we can make you comfortable.  Back in the wilds of AZ we will resume our job with the Forest Service working on trails.  The Commander, Cliff, and Kadizzle will head up the mountain and get to work.  Sometime in the near future the chrysocolla mine has to be visited to see if Kadizzle struck it rich. Most of the people who made money in the old gold mine days did so by selling stock.  That is the plan for the chrysocolla mine.  Bilk the gullible.  So Kadizzle is offering both stock and partnerships.  You can buy as much stock as you like.  A dollar is fine, or a hundred will work. Part of our plan is to sell as much stock as people want. This will dilute the value of your stock but will enrich Kadizzle. Some of the early investors will get a return from the later investors. The good old ponzi scheme.  Kadizzle may never have to actually go to the mine, but he may have to go to jail. Our second partnership is more difficult.  You put on a back pack we blindfold you and you help carry the precious stone.  You get 50% of what we make. Remember 50% of nothing is nothing, but you might enjoy the hike.

Praise be Unto Jeesus, Hallalujah, Ali Akbar

Old Kadizzle made it to and from Bismarck for his check up. The news was good.  The cancer devil seems to be held at bay.  The young doctor also said Kadizzle will only need one more round of girl juice.  Girl juice suppresses testosterone and produces hot flashes.

Of course even the best news has a downside.  Kadizzle will live longer. What is the down side to that? Kadizzle runs his finances with a special program that takes life expectancy into account.  Cheech is in the process of buying a home in New York that will break the bank.  Kadizzle is expected to donate.  On a monthly basis the shorter your life the more income you have.  Of course the opposite is true.  So Cheech who loves Kadizzle dearly said we have to recalculate.

Kadizzle discovered the program for retirement before he retired.  The wonderful thing about the program is you can adjust when you die.  If Kadizzle can manage to be dead by 80 things will be peachy, but if he goes past 85 things could get dicey.  It really comes down to the quality of the nursing home.  There is another whole aspect to this.  The Commander has to have some cheese to live on.  The Commander is a tough bird, and Kadizzle once ran a computer program on how long The Commander would last.  The Commander could easily go past 100.

We leave for Arizona today so we could be killed in a plane crash and this all may be wasted ink.  Kadizzle does not want to see the old Commander destitute after he goes on to meet the lord, so Kadizzle has set up an adoption for The Commander.  Cheech, and Little Granpa have agreed to adopt The Commander.  Little Grandpa knows how this works.  Little Grandpa's father adopted his mother Gam who now lived the life of ease with Little Granpa's dad.  This can work.

So now we have a financial plan.  It is as sound as the one my friend Shanika has.  Every month Shanika buys lottery tickets to pay for his retirement.

Getting Slammed

Recently we found out a person that is indirectly involved in our lives had a terrible tragedy.  An accident on the beach in Hawaii may leave his son paralyzed for life.  Many years ago our oldest daughter was seriously injured playing basketball.  Her kidney was shattered into three pieces.  She was bleeding to death, and it took a long time for the medical people to realize how serious her condition was.  As she was rushed to the hospital by ambulance while dying from internal bleeding Cissie and I followed in our car.  Shortly after the ambulance left New Salem it pulled off the road and shut off all the emergency lights. I thought the very worst. My mind said it had happened. Erin had expired and they were going to break the news to us.  There is no way to describe this.  By the grace of god they had only stopped to check her vital signs.  It damn near killed us.

I am sure many people reading this have gone through the same type of thing.  Even as a distant person the shock seems worse because you have been through it.  Erin is fine today and we have our wonderful Sylvie. With all our hope we want our friends son to recover.  If he can only get to the point where he can breath on his own it will be a blessing.

Both the things I have written about were accidents. Now think about it.  What if you were in a country where someone shot you father or son just for fun.  The night before last with dread I watched a documentary on American soldiers that was shown on Frontline on PBS.  A deranged sargent decided to start killing Afghan civilians for absolutely no reason.  He talked his men into the scheme.  His group would go out and shoot a farmer plowing a field and then plant a weapon by him and claim the man came after him. The whole episode was so disturbing, but remember this happens in every war.  I have personally spoken to people who took Vietnamese up in helicopters.  They would push a couple people out then question those left.  Even those who talked were pushed out.

War is not pretty.  Republican war mongers are trying to get elected by saying things like Ted Cruz does. Let's kill everyone so we are sure we get the right guy.  We are all human beings and when you drop a bomb and kill someones child by accident it might be meaningless to you.  It is not meaningless to the parents.

Why am I affected by the tragedy of a distant person I somewhat know?  It is because I do know them, and I do know their connection to us.  I never gave a damn about Honduras, but last summer a very nice young person stayed with us from Honduras.  He was a human being, a very nice, polite, hard working, caring human being. How easy is it for us to forget that other people are human. What you do and what you think does matter. When you casually make a decision it may get someone else killed, or it may take resources away from someone else who needs them way more than you do.  Don't get me wrong, I am about as far from perfect as you can get, but I at least hope I am conscious to the world around me.  When I see Donald Trump or a television evangelist stealing I get an emotion.  If you get an emotion when you listen to Ted Cruz, or Donald Trump, and it is a good feeling, you need to lay down turn out the lights and think about the way you see the world.

Let's Tax Stupidity

What if you set out to tax stupidity? How would you go about it? It would make sense to have the more stupid pay more.  We have the perfect systems in place. The perfect tax on stupidity is gambling.  The poorer and more stupid you are the more lottery tickets you buy.  If you have a little more money you can go to Las Vegas and get your pockets cleaned in style.

Remember when the Indians scared buffalo and ran them over a cliff?  That works with people.  You scare people and sell them guns.  You scare people and take their money and give it to the military.  Remember all the big scares that never happened?  Remember Y2K?  Remember Ebola?  On it goes, get people scared and take their money.

It is a simple fact, the dumber you are the more you pay for everything.  Who pays the highest credit rates? Who pays  8 dollars for a pack of cigarettes? Who watches QVC on television?

Sadly our country runs on abusing the ignorant.  A good supply of stupid people is essential to so many industries.  Watch people buy and use fireworks.  When you buy and use fireworks you are literally burning money. Who buys the biggest quantities?  Yup, it is the guy who is broke and drunk.

How about tattoos?  Isn't it usually the guy with the least brain cells that has the most ink on his skin?

The highest tax on stupidity is some silly war.  Some poor kid thinks he is going to be a hero.  He goes to the wrong country and gets killed.  That is Iraq.  That is the highest possible tax on stupidity.  The stupidity tax has a way of imposing itself.  My daughter will talk on the phone while she drives in traffic.  She may pay a very high tax for her stupidity.

Death Row

Up as usual having coffee feeling no pain.  However we are on the planet Earth.  Life can change in a moment. Someone we know just went through an unexpected life change.  In less than a minute their life went from a sunny day on the beach to a complete disaster. We don't expect this to happen, but think how many people in the world are caught by war, floods, disease, and you name the disaster. In many parts of the world a bomb could drop through your ceiling as you have coffee.

Last night Kadizzle experimented with a little solar light meant to improve life for people in the third world who have no electricity.  The light could be life changing for a person in a hut in the middle of nowhere.  Kadizzle felt guilty holding it, when he knew he should send it to someone who really needs it.  The little light can provide five hours of light on one five hour solar charge.  It puts out a lot of light.  It is called a solarpuff. Check it out, it is a neat idea.

Life has it's little ups and downs and once you have cancer you really see how this works.  Every so often you get a test and they tell  you if the devil found a new home in your body, or you have held him at bay. Tomorrow Kadizzle will get the devil test.  It gives you a vague feeling of being on death row waiting for the governor to issue a reprieve.  Many cancer patients get a cycle of good news, and sometimes bad news.  In the end one realizes how fragile life is and the importance of enjoying it while you can.

Since Kadizzle has encountered the cancer devil he has been preaching to anyone who will listen to quit a job if they don't like it, and retire.  No matter what you will not live forever, you will not get healthier every year. While you have good health enjoy it.  Too many people are prisoners of their own mind.  They want one more dollar. They live in a state of fear.

In two days we will go from our home with wifi, heat, music, food, hot showers, and the luxuries we all strive for.  We will move back into our little winter abode.  We will trade arctic cold for the warmth of the desert sun.  We will be living a simple life where we put out the solar devices to harvest the sun every day.  Many times a simple life is a satisfying life.  The rat race of a bigger home, a more expensive car, a fancy cruise, and all the other pursuits of happiness often shrinks into perspective just sitting in a chair feeling the sun and watching a hummingbird.

The new year will soon start. The trick is to make it a new year.  A simple way to do it is to think about it differently.  Be a new person in a new year.  For some reason this brings George Wallace to mind.  The man was a terrible racist, a terrible human being.  After he was shot and paralyzed George Wallace was pushed around in a wheelchair by a kind black man.  The universe must have been sending George a strong message.  George Wallace changed.  He saw the evil of his ways, and he actually saw how evil he had been as a racist.  His best friend was the black man pushing him in the wheelchair.  Having the weight of hate, and racism lifted from him by simply seeing the world differently must have made a great difference in his life.  All he really did was change the way that he thought about the world.  How many people could change the world simply by changing the way they think about the world.  What if the guy who thinks the poor are lazy welfare cheats see them differently.  What if he sees them as people born with no inheritance, from broken homes who gave it their best, but failed?  What if we all just looked at people and tried to see the good in them instead of the bad?  What if we saw people as potential friends, neighbors, and quit seeing them as the person about to pull a knife or gun?  You get to decide how you see the world.  If you see the world as a dangerous mean place, you just put yourself in prison.

A nice little starter home

Today Kadizzle will be off to the Credit Union.  The goal is to borrow enough money to fill a wheelbarrow.  Cheech has decided she needs a home in New York City.  The first house she looked at with her love was a nice brownstone with a hoarder living in it.  Mrs. Hoarder wanted one million for the house which included the dog droppings in the corner.  Mrs. Hoarder will probably get her asking price.  Now Cheech is hot on the trail of another brownstone in much nicer shape.

For someone who remembers when you could get a big candy bar for ten cents, see a movie for 25 cents, or get a haircut for 50 cents, the world has changed.  The closing cost will be close to what Kadizzle paid for his home in 1980.  It is the same old story. Cheech is moving into an area that is becoming "gentrified".  Of course this means you got to get in on the ground floor and the value will shoot right up.  Cheech might be right. She showed me a chart where houses are going up in value 2 percent a week.

Good news, and bad news, if Cheech gets the place someone will be renting the basement apartment from them.  The good news is the income will offset the price, the bad news is if this whole deal breaks the Kadizzles Cheech will have the Kadizzles in the basement.

So Kadizzle will have to go to the bank and pledge the yacht as collateral.  The first time Kadizzle saw his old sailboat listed as a yacht he almost laughed out loud. Not a good thing to do at the bank.  The bank has never seen the tub, but it was their decision to call it a yacht.  It sounds great on paper.  The yacht is insured and if Kadizzle starts to sink surely the yacht will.

The old days are gone.  My other daughter the Snoocher Bear has provided us with a wonderful grandchild.  In the old days you could pop one out and raise a child on bread crumbs.  That day is gone.  Erin has spent more on child care than old Kadizzle spent to put both the kids through a good college.

Try getting sick at today's prices.  Kadizzle's insurance has paid out over 200k for his prostate cancer so far, and a friend is over a million with colon cancer.  The good old trickle down the Republicans have promised better get here soon.  So far we have been trickled on, and it is not money they are trickling on us with.

The Mother of all Christmases

Off the Kadizzles went into the country to celebrate Christmas with the inlaws.  Daughter Erin married into a family of seven.  The numbers go wild from there. The tradition is for everyone and their grandmother to come to the house and be together.  This often means there are up to 28 people sleeping in a six bedroom house.  People end up stacked everywhere.  Go early in the morning and it looks like there has been a mass shooting of people in pajamas. One question is always " Do they have enough Christmas trees?".   As usual they had eight this year. Eight fully decked out trees.  Opening presents can take two hours.  Then there is the dinner.  Two large tables and one childrens table are set up to accommodate 32 people dining together.  Two 747 turkeys sliced, hundreds of pounds of potatoes mashed, and wine flowing freely.

After the great feast it is time for the talent show.  It must go by age. Sylvie and Clair do a song and dance routine that drives the crowd wild.  Next are Christmas carols accompanied by the piano.  Since Peggy has been teaching piano to kids for hundreds of years, plus her own kids some good music is sure to emanate.  The grand finally is Tim tickling the ivories. Tim has attended the party for 35 years and not every year does he display his talents. Of course a piano tuner would get the notes right.

Today the Kadizzles will host a reception for Cheech and Sam at the local golf course. Megan married Sam last September and the wedding was in Vermont, so the locals did not get to meet the couple yet.  After this things will slow down and the Kadizzles will migrate with the geese south.

At the morning weigh in Kadizzle was shocked to see the toll gravity has exerted on his body.  Expecting to wake up a little lighter Kadizzle actually gained weight in his sleep.  This should be impossible, but people should be caution.  Perhaps sleeping less is the answer.  When we get back to Arizona lugging and extra five or eight pounds up the mountain will teach Kadizzle a lesson about over indulgence.

Dare to be Stupid

Way back when Kadizzle was a young man there was a movement called " Dare to be Great".   It was one of those zippity do da deals where a bunch of young Christians go nuts and think they are actually going to change the world to make it better.   It was the " What would Jesus do?", mentality.  The Dare to be Great bunch got on buses and went around the country singing and stirring up people in the old evangelical tradition.

My younger brother was very funny and could do some great routines calling the group "Dare to be stupid".  So many times in the life of Kadizzle, Kadizzle has played Dare to be Stupid.  The game can be played in so many ways.  You can go out and sail in fifty mile an hour winds.  You can get drunk and offer to fight a guy twice your size.  There is not end to the variations on the game.  If you are lucky a little thing in your head may go off when you are about to embark on a game of dare to be stupid. If this does not stop you, you need to keep a few things in mind.  Gravity never takes a break.  Electricity is invisible.  A tiny flame can set off an explosion.  You only have ten fingers.  Babies come from somewhere.  If you lose at dare to be stupid you will look stupid.

Sometimes there are people who win big at dare to be stupid.  Look at Donald Trump, George Bush, and a host of others.  The trick to Dare to Be Stupid is to be on the other end of it, or just an observer.  Las Vegas has figured out how to quench the thirst people have for playing dare to be stupid. Republicans have figured out how to appeal to the dare to be stupid crowd.

If you want really bad to play a good game of Dare to Be Stupid your best bet is to get in a state of mind where you can suspend reality.  You can do this with chemicals, religion, or just by reading nonsense.

So have some fun and play a round of Dare to be Stupid.  If you really have a good game you may make the local news.

A New Tradition every year

 Unwrapped from their velvet cases the sacred flutes of Festivus begin to play.  These musical instruments make a music so sweet and mellow Festivus participants wonder if their ears deceive them, or it is the Festivus juice that has the magical effect.  People begin to gather in the holy cul de sac.  They begin to shout "Oh come to us King of Festivus."  The sacred panels lift with the help of the garage door opener.  A large man in a red suit and a special hat that enables him to get thoughts from James Bean emerges from the sanctuary.  The crowd cheers madly. In his hand is the tickling stick.  Anyone who is not happy must raise their arms and be tickled with the tickling stick.  Again the flutes begin to play.  Led by the Festivus King who walks in a fake stumble to the frozen creek.  Only those who have signed a waiver of liability are allowed to follow.

As they form a circle around the huge pile of debris about to be set alight they sing "Father forgive us". " Father forgive us for what we must do, you forgive us and  we will forgive you, we will forgive each other until we all turn blue".   At this point the King of Festivus takes a long drink from the spirit of fire bottle, which appears to be labeled Vodka.  Vodka was an old norse God that was believed to be responsible for creeks freezing.  If the Festivus King is not knocked to his knees from the spirit of fire, he pours the rest on the tickling stick.  Magically the tickling stick burst into flames and the King tosses it on the fire.  The flames rise and soon the flutes will play to begin the airing of grievances.  Customarily the King is the first victim.  Usually people start with mild criticism like " You leave your underwear on the floor".  When the spiritual juice kicks in the grievances accelerate.  After each person has had a chance to air their grievances those who have not left give hugs and say " I just had to get it off my chest".  It is customary for the men to say " I always liked your chest".

Participants take a break and enjoy the fresh air.  As the young skate and play the adults prepare for they lying contest.

They don't make Jews like Jesus anymore.

OK boys and girls one of the Kadizzle fans is bitching because there has been nothing here for two days, so here it goes, some rambling nonsense.

Kadizzle is in a mixed marriage, so are both his daughters.  What is the mixture?  We decided to mix religion, not color, a much safer thing in the world where they shoot black people in the back for overtime parking.  At any rate we are gathered around the kitchen table with Megan and Sam.  Let's back up a little.  Kadizzle was born into a Methodist, Presbyterian mix.  Kadizzle's father had little use for religion. He was adopted by a Methodist minister.  What could possibly go wrong?  Kadizzles mother went to the local Presbyterian church for the terminally wealthy.  After they tried locking Kadizzle in the Sunday school room at a very early age Kadizzle had little use for organized religion.  Kadizle has become an Orthodox athiest.  The Commander is a pure bred Jewish girl.  So our children are half breeds, but there is a but.  The Jewish law says the genetics for being Jewish are through the mother. So if your mother was or is Jewish you are automatically in the club.  Now, Sam, Megan's husband is the son of a Jewish father, and a Catholic mother.  Their family basically considers themselves Jewish. Now Sam had to have the goyim rinsed out of him.  A goyim is a non Jew.

This all gets us back to Kinky Friedman.  Kinky Friedman is a strange songwriter, and country western singer. Kinky Friedman is Jewish so the combination of being a country western Jewish cowboy type leads to some good humor.  We are sitting here listening to Kinky Friedman.  Kinky wrote a song "They don't make Jews like Jesus anymore".  Before he sings the song Kinky tells a story about coming across a statue in Texas.  At the statue a cattle baron, and a poor Mexican are praying.  If Kadizzle can pull it off he will put a video of the song on here.

Here is a short version of the monologue.  The cattle baron is in front of the statue praying to Jesus.  The cattle baron complains to Jesus that all his Cadillacs are broken down,  the cattle have the blight, the oil wells are dry, and the IRS are after him.  As the cattle baron prays he hears a noise behind the statue.  Walking around behind the statue the rancher finds a little Mexican man on his knees praying.  The Mexican says his wife is pregnant with her twelfth child, she is sick, they are about to lose their home.  The cattle baron reaches in his wallet and pulls out one hundred dollars.  When he gives it to the Mexican he says, " Here little buddy don't bother Jesus with that shit anymore".  Kadizzle really gets a kick out of this monologue.

Now Kadizzle loves irritating the right wing conservatives.  Kadizzle wants to adapt this story to North Dakota and see if he can get the Bismarck Tribune to publish it as a letter to the editor.  The idea would be to have the same situation occur in the oil patch in North Dakota.  The children and wife say this is plagiarism.  It is but who will notice.  So Kadizzle if his ambition gland perks may work on a fictious story that imitates Kinky's story.

Preparation continues

Bulletin, Bulletin,  Festivus will be on December 24, starting at  1:00. 

Sylvie loves to build a skating rink on the ice.  If we can only find some skates for her. The Festivus preparations went full bore yesterday.  Wood is stacked high. The exact date and time has not yet been set, but everyone in the World is invited. Festivus is non-denominational.  So anyone without a gun is welcome.  

Kadizzle wondered several years ago at the first Fesitivus if the fire would burn through the ice.  It turned out it did not.  This year however the ice is thinner.  Now the Festivus tradition is that if the fire falls in the water it will not be a good year.  Pheasants abound along the creek and we even found frozen tracks of some dog like animal in the ice. 

Two important things must be kept in mind. First, Festivus is a time to air your grievances. So if you have been holding back with something all year this is the time to fire it out.  It is sort of like confession, but you will not be forgiven.  The second aspect is the feats of strength.  You can wrestle, challenge someone to an act of balance, life a heavy log, or make up your own, but you need to be prepared. 

Kadizzle has scrapped the snow away to form huge letters in the snow that spell FESTIVUS.  Hopefully planes will see it and land on the ice or at the airport.  Hazen, North Dakota has a 5,000 ft runway and can accommodate private jets.  Please call ahead for airport pickup. 

Excellent, Toxic to Conservatives

Kadizzle works tirelessly day and night to save people from the evil of erroneous thinking.  This video is such a simple explanation of how it works.  If you have an Uncle Bob you will want to watch this. Try it and watch him explode in a Donald Trump puff. Money back guarantee. 

Festivus for the Rest of Us

Back in Hazen the preparations for Festivus are under way.  Part of the tradition is the sacred wood chopper.  Our sacred wood chopper has come down with lung cancer, but he is doing well and said he can make it.  The wood chopper must drink beer.  He will come in a red truck and wander down to the creek.  Special trees will be selected for the Festivus bonfire.  Huge logs and many branches will be piled on the ice.  Snow will have to be scraped off the ice so the little Ice Princess can come and ice skate.

Places to sit will be made from logs and massive amounts of grog will be taken down to the sacred site.  This year in addition to feats of strength an new event will be added. Lying will be part of the program and the person who can tell the biggest whopper will get dunked in a hole cut in the ice.  Of course there will be the airing of grievances.  The date for Festivus has not yet been set, but everyone will be invited. 

The Niggeefiddle

What is a niggeefiddle? A niggeefiddle is a person obsessed with details that just don't matter.  Sad to say The Commander has turned into a niggeefiddle. The Commander has become obsessed with dirt. It is everywhere.  Sadly most of the world is made of dirt. You cannot avoid it.  At some point a crumb will fall on the floor.  Crumbs are not radioactive, but if you watched the commander you would think they were. If Kadizzle vacuums the house or dust for hours the house is still dirty.  If The Commander pays the cleaning lady millions of dollars to do what Kadizzle just did then the house is clean.

Kadizzle himself is a walking dustbag, dirtbag, germbag.  Anything Kadizzle gets near or touches is contaminated.  Once you become a niggeefiddle a major portion of your life is devoted to clean.  Leaves fall in our yard.  Last year in one week we raked and manicured the lawn three times.  Invisible invaders are always ready to attack.  The two most heinous invaders are flies and mice.  A mouse is always sitting in a little chair by every door to the house reading a newspaper. That mouse is just waiting to come in.  The mouse of course has a friend that is a fly.  Now when Kadizzle goes out to do yard work and wants to go in and out of the garage he likes to leave the garage door open because he must constantly go in and out. The niggeefiddle constantly closes the door because the mouse sitting in the chair will come in.  No one has yet seen the mouse. He must go for coffee once in awhile.

Ice is a classic with a niggeefiddle. It melts at a speed that is unbelievable.  For thirty years we have been taking ice to our boat.  We always have ice left over after any trip, but the niggeefiddle thinks if ice is exposed to a ray of sun for one second it is gone.  Kadizzle has bought a bag of ice many times and taken it to the lake by himself. Kadizzle just throws the ice in the car and away he goes.  When he gets to the lake the ice is just fine. Not the niggeefiddle.  You cannot put food or ice in the cooler until the very last moment. Coolers must not be exposed to sun shine for even a moment.  If you do attempt to make it to the lake with ice in a cooler you must cover the cooler with something and be sure to park the truck in the shade if you stop for an instant.

Here we sit in North Dakota.  Soon the niggeefiddle will go nuts because there is snow in the driveway. We will spend hours making the driveway snowfree.  This means scrapping every bit of ice away.  What happens if the wind blows? Run out there and shovel.  It is a disaster if a car drives in on snow. That means there will be tire tracks. Get out there and scrape them off.

Niggeefiddles like to worry.  Worrying about things like what if a mouse dies in the house and we cannot find it.  A niggefiddle can spend all day being concerned about something they can do nothing about, or a problem that may not even exist. The niggefiddle got all excited about the water hydrant hooked to our camper in Arizona. Is it going to freeze?  The people who lived in Arizona and worked with the water where we camp for twenty years said don't worry it has never frozen.  So what if it did freeze? Aint our problem.  So goes the life of the niggeefiddle.

One thing The Cammander likes to do is clean the hell out of the camper.  Kadizzle is always assigned to beating the dirt and dust out of the rugs.  If you have ever been involved in doing this you have probably noticed you will never get done.  Hold the rug in sun light and hit it with a broom. Do it a thousand times. Dust will always come out of the rug.  No matter how hard you try the niggeefiddle can come out an claim you did not get the rug clean.  Once upon a time Kadizzle sold vacuum cleaners while he was in high school.  The boss always said " Pull dirt".   What he meant was show people how much dirt is in their house.  The way you did this was by putting a filter in the vacuum line. You would tell the simple minded dinger about to get ripped off for a fortune by investing in a new vacuum cleaner, to use their vacuum.  After they used their vacuum Kadizzle would hook up the zippity do da vacuum cleaner and get a lot more dirt out of the couch, carpet, whatever.  It never failed because there is an infinite supply of dirt in carpets.  If the homeowner used his vacuum after Kadizzle did the zippity do da, he would still get dirt.   The moral of the story is you can vacuum your carpet for days and you will not get all the dirt.  A fun part of selling was to yell at the home owner "Get up".  Then you would vacuum right where the person was sitting.  The dirt would be caught on the filter.  You would put the filter down where the person was sitting and tell them to sit on it.  They would say "No".   Then you would say "Why not, you were sitting on it before?".   Never did it fail to find dirt in any couch.  So keep your house clean, but don't think you will ever win against the mouse and the imaginary dirt. 

Back to the Arctic

Kadizzle and The Commander head home today to the arctic encampment of Hazen.  No more T shirts, no more walking outside at night in your underwear.  Frosted windshields, cold hands, and slippery sidewalks will be the norm.  Cars will not always go where you point them.  Sometimes after Kadizzzle gets home in the spring he thinks to himself that was not a bad winter.  Then he remembers he was not in North Dakota.  So in a couple hours we will get in a long tube.  When we get out of the tube the world will be different. We will get to see family and friends, and that will make the trip worthwhile.  Sylvie claims she got to see the real Santa Clause.  It will be good to hear the report.  Apparently Santa has a lot of imitation helpers and Sylvie knows how to spot them.

 Sylvie could probably spot terrorist better than most of the Republican candidates for president.  Ted Cruz says bomb everybody and you are sure to get the right guy.  Trump says kill their families, and that will help.  The spirit of Christmas is raging in the country and there will be a lot of happy people finding a new gun under their tree to express their love for their fellow man.  Always remember Jesus died for your right to carry a gun to church.  Had the disciples been armed things might have been different.  All that love your fellow man got our savior killed. If he had been more like our current bunch of GOP candidates those middle eastern thugs would not have messed with him.

Intelligent Life exist on Earth.

Woa be unto a person from outer space if they are getting signals from Earth.  If they happened to tune into the GOP debate they would conclude there is no intelligent life on our planet.  Kadizzle reads the New York Times every day.  How refreshing, people with brains actually using them.  Just when you give up you get hope that there are millions of people who can see through the Republican fog of fear and gun insanity.  Read the editorials.  Gail Collins has a great one as usual today.  Read the editorial on guns.  Yes, there are people who have solutions to problems that don/t involve guns, tax breaks for the rich, or fighting a war on Christmas. There are sources that have real information, and actual data, and research.  The Economist is a good example.  When Kadizzle went to school you had to back up your bluster, you could not just make things up.  The GOP debate had goofs like Donald Trump as usual just making up lies on the spot.  His whooper was that the nine eleven terrorist sent their girlfriends home before they flew the planes into the World Trade Center.  The story is a complete fabrication, but he tell the lie on national television to millions of Americans and they believe it.  The nonsense that comes out of these people is accepted as fact.  Kadizzle would have received an F minus for that kind of work even in grade school.

A Frenzy of simple mindedness

People love to be concerned.  Perhaps I should say people love to be scared.  Lets look at the recent past.  Remember the "Year 2000 computer disaster"?  People and companies went nuts over absolutely nothing.  Remember  Ebola?  The most dangerous thing you will do today is get in your car? It is no fun to be afraid of driving to the grocery store.  Some simple minded teenager texting will T-bone you and kill or injure you. That is the most likely way you will get hurt.  You will not get robbed, raped, or blown up by ISIS.  Those are all fun scary things.  A bunch of lunatics flew a plane into the World Trade Center.  They managed to kill about 3,000 people.  Gun violence kills ten times that many people in the country every day.  We spent billions and even trillions on the silly fight with the middle east.  Worse yet many more American soldiers were killed and maimed than the number of people hurt in the 9/11 attack.  All of this is great fun and keeps people scared and diverted from reality.  Americans have been bombing each other and committing mass shootings for years.  No one really cared, but when you give lunatics a special name and create a vast conspiracy it all works out great.  Best of all it give us a reason to piss away millions on the military.  One of the Republican clowns said " Planes in the Air Force are at the lowest number in years".  Works great to sell planes, but leaves out the fact that we now use drones.  The number of horses in the Army along with mules is at an all time low.  So we ignore the fact that bridges are falling apart, the roads are a mess, and we have the dumbest kids in the world because we will not pay teachers, but lets bomb the hell out of someone because we are scared.  We bombed the hell out of Iraq, but we are still scared.  Now we have a wonderful selection of right wing dolts running for president, using the word safe over and over.  We will make the country safe.  Selling hype and fear, and destroying logic and common sense, that is what sells.  Look at the gun nuts.  Every six months the NRA trumps up some scare about Obama taking away guns from idiots. Idiots rush to buy guns and ammunition. Do the idiots ever feel like suckers?  The people who feed off of war and violence give Republican war mongers money to get elected.  The right wing rodents beat the drums of war, and the militray pisses away our tax dollars in every concievable manner.  Yet a bunch of rag heads with nothing but AK 47s and Toyota Pick up trucks take us on and scare us to death.  Are we really that stupid.  The simple answer is yes.  It works every time.  Scare people and sell them alarms, guns, fences, locks, and mean dogs.  Now the best part.  Who causes all the problems in out country.  Of course it is the lousy welfare cheats. It is not the insurance companies, the Wall Street gang, or the pharmaceutical companies, it is the welfare cheats.  The welfare cheats use 2% of the GDP and only make up 20% of the population.  On the other hand the rich tax cheats make up 1 percent of the population and use up 60% of the GDP.  So who is the cheat?  The reality is most of those so called welfare cheats are single moms, people working two jobs, and the elderly.  50% of the wonderful job provider on top just inherited the cash. They did nothing but breath to get the money, but they are special. They deserve everything.  ISIS is everywhere be careful, get scared, vote for the meanest most hateful Republican you can find. That is the solution.

How is that Peterbuilt running?

Wow, The Commander just spilled something under the sink and she aint happy.  Words suitable for a truck driver are emanating out from under the sink.  When The Commander gets ornery the words can fly.  In just a few minutes if you listen you are qualified to drive a truck. Often when one of these storms erupts Kadizzle says to The Commander " How is that Peterbuilt running".  Peterbuilts have a reputation for being one of the nicer trucks, and that is what The Commander drives.  No matter what happens it is usually somehow Kadizzles fault.  If an asteroid hit our car The Commander would blame Kadizzle for parking in the wrong place.  Now she is under the sink having a good time and she is calmed down.  Apparently that steam release worked.  The engine on the Peterbuilt has been shut off.

Today we leave for home to celebrate Christmas with our children.  Kadizzle is pretty much an atheist but Christmas is fun.  In the last two years we have been celebrating Festivis.  What in the hell is Festivis?  If you watched Sienfield you would know.  George's father invented it.  Festivis is the holiday for the rest of us.  You celebrate Festivis by putting a shiny pole in your living room. The custom is to air your grievances and do feats of manliness.

The Kadizzles have invented their own version.  We celebrate Festivis by building a huge bonfire on the frozen creek by our house.  You sit around the fire, drink beer, and the feats of strength usually involve throwing large logs on the fire.  The amazing thing, and the religious part is that the fire does not melt through the ice.  For the last two years the fire has been a three foot pile of red hot coals.  The ice held.  This year could be touchy. It has not been that cold.  If the ice melts and we all fall into the creek that is a sign from God next year will not be good.  Everyone is welcome to Festivis.

Under attack

It was a hard day on the trail. We trimmed the brush for about four miles on the Tule Trail.  Back at the ranch the helicopters were practicing for the imminent attack by ISIS.  The military loves Lake Roosevelt for practicing insertion maneuvers.  When we got back to our lakeside home the helicopters were buzzing putting people in and out of the water.  In the daytime that is do da.  Just now the C130 flew over and  no doubt dropped some guys in the lake in pitch dark.  Now that is a whole new game.  If all goes as usual the helicopters will show up in awhile and pick up the guys bobbing in the lake.  Who knows why, but it is not a quick deal.  Kadizzle suspects they get in and out of the flying machine many times just for practice.  It is a cold windy night and we should be thankful these guys are willing to train.  Tonight Kadizzle and The Commander will sleep tight knowing we are protected. Hopefully they will be done by ten or so and there noise will be gone.

You cannot drive an intelligent thought into their head

Yesterday an individual Kadizzle used to work with wrote a right wing letter to the Bismarck Tribune.  The right wing dinger said climate change is not real unless 100% of scientist agree.  About 6% of scientist disagree.  In every profession you usually have at least 6% idiots.  One day Kadizzle was having a discussion with this particular right wing dinger and getting nowhere.  Kadizzle wondered if actual facts could penetrate the mind of the dinger.  Kadizzle went home and did some research. Kadizzle printed out an article with facts and took it back to the dinger.  Kadizzle made the dinger this offer.  You read this article and highlight anything you disagree with or think is wrong. Give the article back to Kadizzle and Kadizzle will give your church $20.  The dinger declined the offer.  On more than one occasion Kadizzle has offered Republicans money to read something, and they refuse.  The only logical conclusion is they fear reality , and facts.

An amazing thing that often happens with Republicans is they reject a fact if it is not presented by Fox News or Rush.  You can give a Republican a source such as The Economist, or any other highly respected journal, and immediately they call it a liberal rag and refuse to read it.  Two and two added together results in four, regardless of a Republican or Democrat doing the addition.  However, anything that does not agree with the party line is wrong.  All the factual evidence clearly shows trickledown economics has been a massive failure, but that is irrelevant, Republicans believe it just has not had enough time to work.  The rich just don't have enough money yet.  George Bush was unquestionably the worst president in history.  Most intelligent Republican reluctantly admit it, but the hard core never will.  Republicans live in a special world where " If you believe it, it is true ".  If the majority of people believe the northern lights are caused by light reflecting from ice, then that is the cause.  Even though the explanation works, it is wrong, and actually makes no sense, but to a Republican it satisfies the need for an explanation they can understand.  That is the important thing.  If you cannot understand the real explanation which involves science and knowledge, why not just get a simple cheap answer that fills your needs?

Obama is doing a poor job handling the weather.

Listening to NPR this morning as we always do the commentator said people think Obama is doing a poor job handling terrorism.  Republicans love this.  Republicans bitch about what Obama does, and make sure he cannot succeed at anything.  How can Obama change the weather?  When Obama is faced with an obstructionist Republican congress that stops every positive move Obama tries to make, then bitches he cannot get things done. Republicans defeat gun control, Republicans stop every positive initiative Obama proposes, then say he is not getting the job done. Republicans have never come up with a health care plan.  Republicans have never come up with a tax plan.  Nothing but negativityh eminates from the rodents, and they have the gall to blame Obama for having a flat tire when they know damn well they put the nails on the road.

Those Damn Binkles

What is a binkle?  Years ago when Kadizzle was purchasing his first "Smart Phone",  her majesty The Commander said, " What in the hell do you need that for?".  Now many years latter The Commander is addicted to her phone.  If we leave the house and she forgot her phone she panics like her pacemaker went dead.  Texting is the primary cause of binkles.  Everytime someone sends The Commander a text message the little binkle sound goes off on her phone.  Driving down the highway we get a binkle.  At any moment a binkle can come in.  So at night The Commander gives her phone a hug and puts it to bed by her side.  As soon as Kadizzle drifts off to sleep someone fires a binkle on The Commander.  Now a full binkle attack is on.  Usually it is one of the children asking how to butter bread or how long to dip a tea bag in the cup.  Somehow the universe knows when you go to bed so people can binkle you.  As if that is not bad enough a binkle may come in much later.  After The Commander investigates the binkle alert she decides " Well now I am up why not do an update".  The Commander loves weather.  She loves to watch the temperature gauge on the truck when we drive.  The Commander will check the weather every ten minutes.  So The Commander will no doubt do a weather update.  One check leads to another and now Kadizzle is trying to sleep with the bright light of the phone shinning beside him.  Damn Binkles.

Snow?

In the higher elevations it is snowing.  The Kadizzles migrated to avoid that white dust.  The weather my throw a crimp into our trail crew today.  If it does not clear we may sit it out.  Hopefully by late in the day we might be working on the trail.  Our plan is to go to the Tule Trail and advance the brush work.  It is a bit of a hike to the top, but you can see clear to Apache Lake and the view is excellent.  Seeing desert streams run is wonderful and perhaps there will be enough moisture to make it happen.

Sunday Morning

Yesterday the Kadizzles went to town for provisions. Town in this case was Globe Arizona.  Globe is a copper mining town. Kadizzle has been in a lot of mining towns, none of them were bueaty contest winners.  Most mine towns either go through multiple booms and bust or one big one.  Globe ebs and flows with the price of copper.  It would be nice if there were a polite way to say it, but there is not, Globe is a mess.  The streets were laid our by having an ant crawl over a map with ink on it's feet.  Most yards are decorated with found art, like the car I found in high school. There is the mother of all fribble stores in Globe.  It is called The Pickle Barrel.  It does have an excellent and unusual fribble collection. You know what fribbles are? Those silly useless items you put all over your house to remind you that it doesn't take much to buy fine art.

The town looks shot up and so do the people.  A hard scrabble life seems like the preferred way of life.  Main street has withered on the vine.  Like most towns Walmart has captured the market for those who need shampoo and Chinese junk.  There are some good Mexican food places.

Globe is surrounded by some very nice country.  The gun totters can be out in the woods and shoot holes in their old televisions in no time.  Farther from town things are pristine, but in the first few outlying areas the hills are torn to pieces by pickup trucks, ATVs, and whatever is needed to destroy the planet.  Apparently the people think the rest of the world should look like their town.  Their town is unique with huge piles of mine rubble right in the middle of town.  Since Kadizzle was a miner most of his life he has a soft spot for the miners.  They seem content enough and friendly enough.  The real sad thing about the human beings that extract the coal, the cooper, the iron ore, and the minerals we all need to live well is that they often end up holding an empty bag.  You can see it in Montana, West Virginia, Arizona, and on the Great Lakes.  The people who created the wealth are left with little or nothing.  The money migrates to the hubs of wealth, and the locals have run down schools and towns.

Kadizzle strikes gold

Last year Kadizzle and The Commander came across an abandoned mine.  The rock inside was a magnificent color of blue. Kadizzle thought it might be some offshoot of copper. Today Kadizzle and The Commander went to a store that had a mineral section.  Two of the people there said what we found may have been Chrysocolla.  Outside the store there were big chunks of this stuff they were selling anywhere from $45 to $95.   It seems from a little research the stuff might go for $5 an once.  Anyone interested in helping us establish a grubstake or a mining claim should call quickly.  On our next hike we may try to bring out samples.  The mine is about ready to cave in so we may not come back.

The Home of Kadizzle

Above is a picture of Wheeling, West Virginia.  Kadizzle was born there many, many, years ago.  Wheeling is about the size of Bismarck and in 1894 was the richest city in the United States. It was the original jumping off point to the west.  If you look closely you can see the Suspension Bridge.  That bridge at one time was the longest suspension bridge in the United States.  Kadizzle's Grandfather was mayor at one time, and supposedly he jumped from the bridge into the river as a young man.  It would be a daring feat.  The bridge in the foreground has my Grandfather's name on it. That is the Fort Henry Bridge.  If you ever drive east on I-70 you will cross into West Virginia at the Ohio River and immediately go through the twin tunnels.  Kadizzle's neighborhood was just on the exist side of the tunnels.  If you look down river you will see a blue stripe coming down off the hill.  This is the conveyor for the underground coal mine where Kadizzle worked in the summer while he went to college.  Once this was an area of thriving industry.  There were steel mills, glass factories,  foundries, and just about every type of manufacturing.  Those days are over.  The economy of Wheeling has slipped into some sort of haze.  The only thing keeping Wheeling afloat is the natural gas boom.  Just like North Dakota drilling is going nuts.  The coal industry is dead or dying.

The Cat Diet

Kadizzle will confess, he is plump, or as The Commander might say obese.  What can you do.  Unfortunately there is only one cure, stop eating.  One of the hardest times to control appitite is when massive amounts of good looking food are spread in front of you.  What can you do? Use the cat diet.  Here is how it works.  Some of that food laid out before you was cooked in the homes of people with cats.  You have walked into their kitchen and seen the cat licking the butter, and you have seen that same cat licking it’s exhaust pipe.

Well that pie that looks so good was cooked by Millie, the cat lady.  Rest assured it has butter in it.  Now some of that food probably came from good homes with dogs that stay on the floor.  You need to know.  So when you see those wonderful dishes look for people with cat hair on their cloths.  Ah, wow, look at the pudding.  Oh no she post cat pictures on facebook.  Damn that one is out.  

Perhaps this is all nonsense, you never know where food comes from.  Now for the clincher, Kadizzle once read an interesting article that cats carry a special virus that infects the brains of cat laddies.  This is not bullshit.  Have you ever gone into a home and just about been knocked over by the smell of cat urine?  You ask yourself “ Can’t the people in this house smell this?”.   Research shows the answer is no.  The cat has infected the brain of the cat lady with a virus that keeps her from passing out due to the cat urine odor.  Once Kadizzle went into a home where cats were present.  The cook was excellent, and it seemed like the cats were trained to stay where they should.  As chance would have it no one was home.  Being the evil fat guy he is Kadizzle decided to help himself to some of the wonderful roasted walnuts set out in a bowl on the kitchen counter.  Unfortunately the cat had mistaken the bowl for kitty litter.  The recipe for the walnuts was a very good one, but it did not include cat urine.  As a child Kadizzle remembers going into a distant relatives house that was not exactly the cleanest place around.  The relative insisted on feeding Kadizzle hamburgers, and such.  When they turned around Kadizzle had to put the hamburger in his pocket.  He wondered why a pack of dogs followed him home until he remembered the hamburger.

Shoplifting season has opened bring your gun and have some fun.

I hope you have your tissues ready, because you may need to loan them to Tatiana Duva-Rodriguez, the Michigan woman who fired wildly at a crowd in the parking lot of an Auburn Hills Home Depot. This “good gal with a gun” was everything the NRA says will save us: Her weapon was legal, she had a concealed carry permit, and she was ready to leap into action at the first sign of danger — or shoplifters, whatever.

Duva-Rodriguez pleaded “no contest” to one count of reckless discharge and was sentenced to 18 months of probation Wednesday after she fired wildly at the getaway car of suspected shoplifters as they fled the Home Depot. “I made a decision in a split second,” she told the judge. “Maybe it was not the right one, but I was trying to help.” Both men were later arrested.

It’s exactly those “split-second decisions” that the NRA encourages its acolytes to make, though it often does not turn out well. In September, for instance, a man attempted to stop a carjacking by firing at the criminals as they were getting away. He missed his target, but managed to shoot the victim of the crime in the head. Fortunately, no one was harmed when Duva-Rodriguez opened fire in the parking lot of a popular home improvement store.

A warm place.

It will be a little difficult to write this story and remain politically and politely correct,  so if you are delicate stop reading right now.  An old story Kadizzle likes to tell because it explains a lot is a story about an old secretary of agriculture, Ear Butz.  Butz ended his career when he said “I’ll tell you what coloreds want. It’s three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit. That's all!”.

Now please understand, Kadizzle does not endorse in any manner shape or form what he said, but there is a lesson here.  In the region where Kadizzle lives all most people want is a flat screen TV, a new pickup truck, gas for the truck, and a fishing boat.  Butz said black people did not vote because they had what they wanted.  Sadly so many people on the fringe of the economy don't vote.  If they do it is because Republicans whip them into a frenzy about religion, or guns.  Your typical person sitting in a run down mobile home really doesn't care if they are warm and have good television reception.  If they can get cigarettes, drugs, or alcohol,  and have a gun to deer hunt and scare away ISIS, why give a damn about anything. 

So things are not going to change.  Things only change when people are uncomfortable.  That means being cold and hungry, or best of all both. During the depression people were cold and hungry.  Things changed.  People voted, they formed unions, and they rebelled against the greed that put them out in the cold.  Kadizzle can beat the drum, and rant and rave, but the reality is until people are cold and hungry nothing will change. 

Kadizzle is sitting in Arizona.  Arizona is full of people living on the verge of poverty. They live in homes that are surrounded  by trash, and slightly more than shacks, but they are warm.  Warm is number one.  Right where we sit just about everyone has a fishing boat, and guess what a large flat screen TV.   Kadizzle was in Cottonwood on black Friday and the flat screen TV's were actually being brought up front by the pallet load.  
If you are broke, or like Kadizzle in his camper the only television channels you can get come on something called Me TV.  So when we watch television our choices are reruns of MASH, Mayberry, or some other brain dead thing thirty years old.  Also there is one of those shopping channels that sells everything you really don't need, or ever will.   One more channel has the stupidest game shows along with poor people fighting about who got their daughter pregnant.

Pick up a magazine in the laundromat,  the restaurant,  or the barber shop.  There will not be an once of intellect in any of them.  These people take pride in their stupidity, and are very careful not to be exposed to anything that might wake up a brain cell.  All news is just rumors.  

Our economy has always relied on a good supply of stupid people.  Who will buy the Chia pets if we don't have stupid people?  Now you want to see a happy dolt go up to the market.  In will come a guy with camouflage, a gun strapped to his hip,  and he will buy forty dollars worth of lottery tickets, and an eight dollar pack of cigarettes.  If the dolt decides to vote he will vote for the guy who promises him he can keep his gun.   He will not notice the guy who promises him he can keep his gun is going to drive him into hopeless poverty by giving the country to the rich.  Up and down the street in slumville there are dozens of "Bible Churchs".   Each has some simple minded preacher trying to make it into the big time where he can rob people like Billy Grahm, or Pat Robertson.   That stump preacher can get people to vote by screaming about baby killers.  Of course the dolts will vote Republican.   Freedom is wonderful.  You are free to be as ignorant as you can and use your gun to shoot all the stop signs you want.  With Donald Trump as president everyone will be free to be as hateful, fearful, and stingy as they please. 

Meet you at the OK corral.

The plan was to have an easy day for our little trail crew after two very hard days.  Kadizzle let The Commander, and Cliff off at the trailhead and drove to the corral.  The trail goes through the corral after about two miles. Cliff and The Commander cleared the trail and met Kadizzle for lunch.  Kadizzle went on down the trail from the corral and worked on the trail.

Out there in the adventure world there are people known as cairn kickers.  Cairns are what we mark trails with.  It is a simple deal where you pile up stones.  It keeps people from getting lost and on the trail.  Now the blasted cairn kickers are purest.  They think the cairns are insults to nature.  The purist like to think they can navigate the wilderness without cairns.  So the dingers knock them down.   Sadly this could result in some poor soul getting stranded, and perhaps dehydrated and dead.  If the purist were so uppity, why do they use the trails?  The trails are man made, and therefore should be an insult to their purity.  Kadizzle spent some time today rebuilding cairns.  Now his challenge to the cairn kicker is " Meet me at the OK corral".   We will have a shoot out with words.  You blasted cairn kickers don't mind using the trail Kadizzle and his gang just cleared of those nasty desert stickers.  You don;t bitch about the jumping cholla Kadizzle got out of your way.  Now you brave cairn kicker do something positive for the other hikers.  Pick up some trash,  or fix a bad part of the trial.  What if one of your fellow cairn kickers is lost and hurt?  Your buddy may be a victim of your purity.

The Deer Creek adventure

It was not the Trail Crews intention to take a long hike, but it was a case of " What is around the next corner?".   Cliff and Cissie hiked until the trail ran out.  It must have been about six miles.  Kadizzle turned around and cut brush off the trail and headed back about four miles in.  The Mazatal Mountians are very rough and scenic. There were some old gold mines back in the canyons.  So here we sit ready to start another day.  The plan is to take it easy, but the possibility of getting drawn into another long hike is always there.

David Gowen Grave Site.

Today we hiked up Deer Creek.  We came across David Gowen's grave.  This is the story about David Gowen.

To say David Gowan's life was adventurous is an understatement. David was born in Scotland in 1843 to a fishing family. He served in the British Navy until jumping ship in Africa. From there he moved to the USA during the Civil War and joined the US Navy. After serving in the Navy, he returned to his roots as a fisherman, but during a storm he became the sole survivor of a shipwreck off the West Coast. Gowan then moved with a friend to the Arizona Territory where he worked as rancher and gold prospector. Additionally, Gowan aided Mormon scouts looking to settle in Arizona. During that time, Arizona was still the setting of violence stemming from the Indian wars and, under the threat of violence, Gowan once spent 3 days hiding in a cave under the Tonto Natural Bridge. Afterward, Gowan offered a claim of the site to his nephew, who accepted, and began to turn the bridge into the tourist spot we know today.

At the turn of the century, David Gowan began the Gowan mine near Payson, which he eventually sold for $10,000. Near the end of his life, Gowan lived in a cabin along Deer Creek and mined in what is now the Mazatzal Wilderness. Weekly he rode to a ranch to get his mail, but in December 1925, Gowan had not arrived for consecutive weeks and the ranch owner rode to Deer Creek to check on him. When he arrived, he found that Gowan had died. Days later, a coffin was prepared and Gowan was laid to rest in the spot where he passed away, right along the creek. Gowan's nephew had a headstone made, but unknowingly listed the death year as 1926 instead of 1925.

Despite the Willow fire of 2004, David Gowan's grave and headstone are well preserved and easily seen along the Deer Creek trail.we hike way up Deer Creek. We came across David Gowen's grave.  Here is the story.

Long Hard Day

Kadizzle, The Commander, and Cliff worked on the Deer Creek Trail today.  We hiked about ten miles and did some brush clearing and removed a couple fallen trees.  Cliff has joined us as a volutnteer on our trail crew. Cliff is a great asset and it is great to have him. Cliff is an Emt, and a good hiker. Cliff is our age and very enthusiastic about helping.   For Kadizzle this works great.  Cliff, and The Commander both are full of energy, and they can go ahead on the trail while Kadizzle hangs back and trims the trail.  We have worn ourselves out in the last two days.  Hopefully we can figure out something easy to do tomorrow.

Helicopter Bait.

The current Kadizzle encampment is a more or less abandoned heliport.  There is a little building they use for an office, and two nice pads equipped for helicopters to land.  As we sit here getting up to date there is the thump, thump, thump of a helicopter overhead.  For a minute we thought it might land.  The Commander puts out feeders for the humming birds it works.  The birds come.  So far we have had helicopters sniff, but no landings.  If Kadizzle gets time he will put a giant cheeseburger right in the middle of the H at the one pad. On the other we will put a big slice of pizza.

Hopefully we can attract Donald Trump's helicopter.  If he lands we will tell him we are Muslims and perhaps get a free trip to the middle east.  If we want to go to Mexico we can declare ourselves Mexicans. This could be the travel opportunity of a lifetime.

Living at the airport.

Kadizzle's daughter lives about a block from the old Stapleton airport control tower.  The old airport has turned into the fastest growing housing area in the country.  Erin has been fortunate with the location of her house.  Her family will be withing two blocks of the mass transit to the airport and downtown, and when this recreationf facility opens in the old control tower it will emensly increase the value of her propery.

Renewal of Control Towerhttp://www.cbsnews.com/live/video/abandoned-airports-are-reinventing-themselves

Up the Oak Flat Trail

The Kadizzles are up early.  Today the plan is to go up the Oak Flat trail with Cliff.  Cliff is a camp hosts that likes to hike and he volunteered to help us clear brush on the Oak Flat Trail.  More good news is that the road crew will soon be working on the access road.  Last year we put a lot of work into the trail, but it still needs more.

Yesterday we restocked some groceries and hope to make it until we leave for Christmas.  Gordon stopped by.  Gordon is a host.  Both Gordon and Cliff were old sea going merchant marines.  Gordon just barely missed signing on to the Edmond Fitzgerald just before it sank.  The people we meet are usually people who are living or have lived very interesting lives.  There are those with a sense of adventure, and those with a sense of what channel to watch on television.

Our boss gave us some tools to work with.  My eyes about popped out when Kadizzle saw the crosscut saw he gave us.  Maybe I can get a picture today.  You could cut down a redwood with it.  The blade is about five feet long.  Working for free I am not sure our crew will be cutting any trees down over three inches in diameter. However, if a huge tree blocks the road and Kadizzle cannot get home to dinner, we may give the saw a try.

The two little electric heaters have us at about at pizza cooking temperature.  The day looks pretty good.  Now it is time for one more cup of coffee.

Dangers of the internet

On a sunday morning what could go wrong? Two people shopping on the internet. The little Commander is clicking away, and Kadizzle can smell the credit card burning.  It is not all bad, she just bought Kadizzle a mesh T-Shirt.  It will be perfect under the adventure vest.  Kadizzle has been trying to perfect the ultimate day hike kit.  So what do you need?  A two way radio is nice. Often we don't take them thinking we will stay together, but it never fails The Commander gets a bee in her underwear and off she goes.  So we try to enforce the rule, two way radios go with us at all times.  Last year we bought the Delorme satellite communication system.  In an all out emergency we can get a message out via satellite and hopefully someone will come get us.  Hiking sticks are a must. Both Kadizzle and The Commander will not take two steps without them.  The number of times the poles have kept us from breaking a leg or twisting an ankle is infinite.  If you hike, take them and learn to use them.  A good flashlight.  Incidentally the two way radios have a flashlight built in.  A water filter.  The Commander has disdain for the water filter, but Kadizzle believes you should have one.  A multitool.  Again The Commander disagrees, but if you get in a real fix it could do the job.  Some sort of rope. We carry electrical pulling tape because it is light and very strong.  We carry about 100 ft.  Batteries are essential.  What good is your GPS if the batteries are dead.  Kadizzle carries extra battery power for the cell phone, and everything else.  Of course The Commander does not believe.  If there is any chance the weather may turn, you better have a light rain jacket/windbreaker.  It could save your life.  Kadizzle carries a space blanket.  Kadizzle just told The Commander to get him a signal mirror.  They are light and sometimes when Kadizzle wants to get The Commanders attention on an opposite hill he can flash her to turn on the radio.

After hundreds and maybe even thousands of miles of hiking we have had no real serious problems.  A couple times it looked like we might be lost, but they were minor incidents.  Once The Commander was missing and her radio was dead.  She came back late after being somewhat lost, but it was a good lesson for extra batteries.  Now an important notice.  Obey the rules.  This is a tough one.  Kadizzle has a rule that if you are out of sight for more than 15 minutes turn on your radio.  Guess who will not comply.  One of the most dangerous things Kadizzle has encountered are loose rocks.  If the person above you dislodges a large rock and it rolls past you or flies through the air past you, you are lucky. If it hits you, you may be dead.  Once of Kadizzles worst scares was a round rock about the size and shape of a tire that flew past him threw the air.  Luckily Rodger shouted and Kadizzle moved.  A heavy pack is a pain, but finding out you do not have a critical piece of equipment is worse.  When you take off think about what you are doing.  Kadizzle put a whole set of rules in The Commander's pack about emergency procedures.  Quickly she threw them out.  So we do the best we can.

Sunday in the desert

The stars which were extremely bright last night finally disappeared.  The Kadizzles are up and just finishing the first cup of coffee.  We are about ninety percent up to date.  All normal sources of informatioin have been checked.  The day has all appearance of being very pleasant.

Now the big question is what to do?   It may be a day for motorcycle exploration.  Yesterday the Kadizzles saw a dirt road off in the distance in the mountains.  We are not sure how you get to the road or where it goes.  Of course we are out to know every nook and cranny of this area, so we must know.  To accomplish our task we will have to load the Yamaha into the pickup and drive up towards Peter Bigfoots.

The Commander declared a pancake day today.  Kadizzle likes pancakes, but The Commander loves to limit the amount of syrup Kadizzle can use.  A desert dry pancake is no fun.  Almost forgot, The Commander is also stingy with the butter.  Now what is a pancake without a lot of syrup and butter?

A Life Well Lived

Back from the hike and after the heart medicine Kadizzle sits with his earbuds listening to " A Life Well Lived".  At this moment in time, with the sun shining, and not a care in the world that pretty well sums it up. Today we drove up the dry wash an parked near Peter Bigfoots compound.  Peter Bigfoot has a little piece of heaven on Earth.  A stream runs through his little hippie compound and the stream never runs dry. In the desert there is no greater blessing.  Bigfoot has a wonderful garden and fruit trees.  If Kadizzle was younger he would try to buy the place. You can only experience it by being there.  It must be five miles up into nowhere.

Kadizzle and The Commander disembarked and headed up into the rocky terrain.  Wonderful scenery on every side.  The silence and beauaty of the destert burst from the very ground.  We had a nice hike.  We stopped at the top and took in the view while we ate lunch.

The southwest is so full of treasures.  It is like a candy store.  Up every valley and canyon there is something different and new. Get off your ass, put your hiking shoes on, and come on down.  You will not regret it.

Today's Hike

Kadizzle and The Commander will take an off trail hike today.  We did a preliminary check on a very nice area earlier this week.  It appears there are some great geological features in the area and we will be hiking up on some neat rocks.

Radicalized mice

The mice where we camp have become radicalized. The jihadist have launched several attacks against our pickup truck. Last year they chewed the wiring in the truck and it cost us $600 to have the repairs.  We are fighting back. Kadizzle has put bear spray under the hood.  Also there are dryer sheets and cayenne pepper to make life miserable on the mouse jihadist.  Will our best efforts work? We have heard mice under the truck hood chewing and shouting Ali Akbar.  We have found tiny prayer rugs under the truck.  We caught one mouse with a burka.  As in all military actions the innocent are hurt. This morning Kadizzle was puzzled to find a large rat trap had been sprung, and the trap was missing.  What could have happened?  Kadizzle had set the trap in front of the cave he believes the terrorist hide in.  Unfortunately an innocent rabbit was caught in the trap.  We believe the mice have become radicalized using mousenet.  Mousenet is available to the mice on low-fi.  They apparently get it through vibrations in the ground.  The mice are free to terrorize us because of the cold weather.  The rattlesnakes are resting for the winter.  Once the rattlesnakes warm up in the spring, the battle will be full on.  Like the middle east we have warring factions.  Even though the rattlesnakes support our war with the mice, they are not really on our side, and we cannot trust them.  At least the rattlesnakes leave the truck alone.

We think the mice have weapons of mass destruction. According to our sources the mice have something called the hanta virus.  If we follow the example of the Bush administration we will use this as an excuse to set a forest fire.  That should teach the mice a lesson, of course it might upset the deer, and a few other people in the forest, but you have to show them you are tough.

New Service from Kadizzled

Kadizzle's little sister just called. She was reading this mess and decided to just call instead of comment.  Patty said Kadizzle should accept calls. So now if you have a comment, make it live.  If you have a bitch, make it live.  The number is 701-748-6111.  If Kadizzle could figure out how to do a podcast, he might. Anyway, don't just sit there and stew if you don't like something, call in and Kadizzle can probably calm you down, or make your head explode free of charge.  Please don't call after 7:30, Kadizzle may be drunk or asleep, or maybe both.  According to many people Kadizzle is a know-it-all.  So we also will answer any question you ask.  Simple questions are fee, but if Kadizzle has to do research or make up a lie it is fifty cents. You can put it on your credit card.

Don't Stir the Bees

As a child Kadizzle had a father that had bee hives as a hobby.  Sometimes the bees were kept on the roof of the house, but most of the time the bees resided in the back yard.  If anyone in the neighborhood got stung our bees got the rap.

One day Kadizzle had an ingenious idea.  The idea was to tell Chris Hiles to put a stick in the entrance to the Bee hive and stir it around. Chris gave it a try.  A predictable result occurred.  Chris got stung multiple times.  Chris actually had a severe reaction.  What saved Chris was the fact that his father was a doctor. Chris ran home and his father took care of him.

This was a valuable life lesson for Kadizzle. Don't stir the Bees.  The United States has made the mistake of stirring the Bees in the Middle East.  If the United States would stay out of so many areas and quit stirring the bees the world would be a better place. Fox News, and Rush Limbaugh make millions stirring the bees.  Now we have a bunch of Republican nut cases stirring the bees.  People don't mind seeing someone else get stung, but remember not to stand too close to the hive.  Send someone else's kids to get shot, and watch the gun nuts shoot someone else's children.  Don't stir the bees.  A bee has a very small mind and you don't know what the bee will do.

Morning in the Earth Module

The Commander and Kadizzle slept well. We like it cold.  The Earth Module has only two rooms separated by a sliding door.  The bedroom is kept cold for sleeping, and the combo living, kitchen, and lounge is heated by an electric heater. First thing is to warm up the living area by turning on one more heater.  Next it is time to get the coffee going. The additional heat from the stove is welcome.  NPR has to be turned on to get the latest.  The first update occurs in bed. The Commander uses her phone for her first update, and Kadizzle has the Chromebook by the bed.  As we drink our coffee and really get right up to date a big decision on what to have for breakfast has to be made.  Fortunately the decision was made last night Yogart and breakfast cookies are the plan. Hopefully we will get some snacks at the Forest Service safety meeting today.  The sun is working it's way up above the lake, and The Commander is just now breaking out the cookies. Looks like a good day.  Hope yours is.

Give my knees to the needy.

John Prine has a song where he says what he wants donate  all his body parts.  It ends with give my love to Rose.  This set Kadizzle to thinking about being more specific about what happens with his organs if he is suddenly killed.  The belly should go to some skinny guy.  Of course whoever gets the ambition gland will be in a lot of trouble.  Kadizzle has decided to specify a few parts that can only go to certain recipients.  Kadizzle's bung hole can only be given to Dick Cheney.  A human heart was wasted on that devil.  Should Kadizzle die in a car accident and Cheney get a bung hole transplant from Kadizzle, Kadizzle knows what will happen. There is no way a good Democratic bunghole will work on a nasty Republican full of hate and greed like Cheney.  Cheney will get what he deserves.

The sun is setting on Lake Roosevelt.  We just had our evening aperitif.  Kadizzle had a wine called Dead Bolt, an appropriate name considering his current condition with prostrate cancer.  The Commander had one of her specialty beers.  Today was our day off. We visited Max over where all the bums used to live.  Max has converted a little cargo trailer into his winter home.   In his eight by 15 cargo trailer he lives well. He put a refrigerator in and has every solar device imaginable.  All the campgrounds are so empty. It seems everyone is apprehensive about the new rates the Forest Service intends to implement.  The Commander is going to make some good spaghetti with special sausage tonight.  Tomorrow we have to attend a safety meeting. It will be a very strange situation for Kadizzle.  For twenty years he conducted safety meetings for coal companies and power companies.  Never in those twenty years did he attend a safety meeting. It should be interesting.

Lets put guns in vending machines.

Some problems have very simple solutions.  Social security is a classic example. If people making over $118,000 per year were made to pay social security on their entire income there would be no social security problem.  It would be painless for those in that income bracket, but no one will even consider it.

How about guns? It could be a requirement that every gun have an RFD device implanted in it.  An RFD device is a radio frequency device.  Most department stores use those little RFD clips to keep people from stealing.  You know those little things they take off so you can go out of the store without setting off an alarm. The way they work is very simple.  When the chip is exposed to microwave energy it gives off a signal.  Now think about it.  What if guns gave off a signal when they were present? When you went in a school to murder children, or do a mass shooting, the gun would automatically set off an alarm.

Why don't we do this?  We are a country controlled by Fox News, Republicans, and Rush Limbaugh.  We have allowed the gun nuts to decide who gets elected. If you do not support the NRA in most states you cannot get elected.  So we have mass shootings every day.  So if guns are the solution and more guns are the solution according to the right wing gun nuts, lets put them in vending machines.  Once the gun fight breaks out you can use your credit card to get a gun at the grocery store, at the mall, and at school.  Why should anyone be denied the right to participate in a gun battle?  Are we really this stupid?