A bright light in the East

That bright light came up in the Eastern sky again today.   At long last the leaves have emerged from the trees.  Spring must fear coming into a world with Trump in charge.  Ice cannot seem to melt on the lake which is rising very quickly.  So here we sit in Hazen, North Dakota where the simple minded make loud noises with their magic chariots of idiocy.  An otherwise peaceful hamlet is constantly disturbed by surges of testosterone in the idiots.  Somehow the local Hoopleheads believe that they can attract a mate with a loud exhaust from a pickup or motorcycle.  Perhaps it signals to stupid women that there are stupid men available.  Hazen has a deaf and blind police force.  The local gendarmes would assist a bank robber carrying money out to his car.  The Hoopleheads not only like to disturb the air with their sounds, but they love visual displays of junk in their yards.  In hot pursuit of drug dealers the local police have no time to enforce the laws that make life pleasant. What fun is that when you are hot on the trail of someone who drank too much coffee. 

The house if for sale, and so is the good ship.   Only one sniffer on the house. The sniffer spent two hours here looking at the estate.  According to Mrs. Realestate the sniffer liked the palace, but we have not seen any cash waving in the wind.  Also one far off sniffer on the boat.  The boat sniffer seems to be a nigifiddle.  The fellow wants to know if Kadizzle ever farted in the boat.  The good ship was built in 1983.  It has been up and down the lake a few times.  It has been a wonderful ship, and Kadizzle loves the old girl, but it has a few scuffs and scratches.  It has been sailed, not polished until the paint is worn off.

Rita, God bless her sole sewed the mainsail yesterday.  Rita has become he de facto sail repair lady.  Thankya Jeeesus for that.  Rita fixed the sail for free, but Kadizzle insisted on paying her.  It would have cost sixty dollars just in shipping to have the sail fixed in a proper shop.

Once Trump showed the Republicans how easy it is to lie, and fool the Hoopleheads in North Dakota they all decided to jump in.  So now we have my nemesis Cramer trying to unseat Heidi, and we have another Trump lickspittle trying to fill Cramer's old position.  Give the Hoopleheads a forty dollar tax break to buy beer, and promise them they can carry their gun to church, that is all it takes to win in North Dakota.

The Preacher came by

Watching CNN doing a little show on southern West Virginia a knock came on the door.  Who could it be?  It was Kadizzle's minister.  Now this is a strange thing if there ever was one.  Kadizzle is an Orthodox Agnostic.  Years ago when Kadizzle first had a run in with cancer God sent a messenger to Kadizzle.  Very strange story, but Kadizzle and the minister have become good friends and often share a bottle of wine together.  Now for the strange part.  Had someone asked Kadizzle about the man Kadizzle would have got it all wrong.  Kadizzle thought his preacher was as hard core a conservative as is possible. As life always does it threw a curve.  The more Kadizzle gets to know the minister the more he finds the man to be extremely liberal. 

The strangest twist to the story is the minister's relationship with one of his flock who happens to be a good friend of Kadizzle.  Lets just call the friend confused.  Well confused has been a faithful listener to the minister for over twenty years, yet confused voted for Trump, and my preacher would have never considered it.  This is also the case of another good friend who goes to the same church.  It just seems too strange that people can get up on Sunday and go to church and hear what they want to hear.  Even though their minister is telling them Jesus was a liberal they are walking out after the sermon believing Jesus wants them to vote for Trump.

The root of the problem is those who preach the word cannot be too honest, or they will not have a job.  The men of God have to hint at the right thing to do, not actually be too pushy with love and sharing.  This all had a strange twist.  One day the minister said " As far as I am concerned Kadizzle is the best Christian in Hazen".   Of course he did not call me Kadizzle, but you get the point.  Kadizzle has not attended a Sunday Church service in over fifty years.


So what is the moral of the story?  No one is who you think they are.  You are never seeing what you think you are.  Last but not least  " The lord works in strange ways".  Kadizzle might add to that the God of the Bible  surely works in strange ways.   Trump supporters say " Sometimes God uses evil men to do his work".   God could not have chosen a more evil man.  Apparently God had the same scheme in mind when he chose Hitler. 

The minister knows Kadizzle has a reputation far and wide as a non-believer, at least in any traditional sense.  Strangely this gives the minister freedom to talk to someone with absolute freedom.  There is no doctrine that has to be adhered to.  There is no special way the world has to be viewed.  So like so many professions it is nice to take off your official hat and just be yourself.

There is an entire other side to this story.  The good preacher who drinks the communion wine with Kadizzle has been a volunteer forever on the local ambulance squad.   Kadizzle did a short jog on that crew.  It is a real sacrifice.  You are on call.  That means you have to get up in the middle of the night, and that means you don't get to go where you want or do what you want when you want.  It is a tremendous service to the community.  Hazen has as many preachers as it does views on how to telegraph God.  However, none have sacrificed so much time in real service to humanity that Kadizzle knows of.  It might be the old practice what you preach.  It doesn't happen very often.  The evangelicals proved that when they elected Trump.

Life is flying by

This morning Kadizzle tried to find some pictures of the Sovereign.  The boat is for sale and someone wanted more pictures.  This forced a review of photos from the last six years. Of course the photos are in no order so Kadizzle had to go back on the computer and just do an old fashion search.  Often life seems pretty mundane and boring, but when you look at all those pictures you realize how much you actually do in life.  Pictures from Belize, Vancouver Island,  the Green River,  The Missouri, and so many other adventures.

People should keep better notes of their life.  It is easy to forget all you have done and the places you have been.  One reason this tome gets written every day is as a log of life.  What good is a log of life if you never review it? Kadizzle never does. The memories come and go.  What triggers a memory?  Just made a cup of coffee.  That reminds Kadizzle of a tour of a coffee plantation.  The young tour guide showed us how to properly make a cup of coffee.  Now, where in the hell was that?  Seems like it was Costa Rica.  Forgot we had ever even been there. 

Now the scary part is we are making the final run.  Kadizzle will hit seventy next March.  Wow, that is scary.  Should we deplete the savings and let the kids fend for themselves?  Sure why not, lets jut go broke in glory. 

This all gets to the current situation.  We are do for a life change.  It is our last chance.  We have done the North Dakota summer thing too much. Time to bust out and do some other things before the clock runs out.  So that is why the house and the boat are for sale.  Seems sort of like getting your hair cut. 

Spring has taken forever to come this year.  The trees finally are pushing some leaves out.  Spring is coming at a crawl.  Once it does get here summer will no doubt blast by.

Gaslighting

Kadizzle studied the term gas lighting for awhile last night.  Use of the term comes from an old movie.  In the movie some evil character turns the gas lights up and down and makes them flicker.  His wife sees the lights changing.  The man acts as if the lights did not change, even though he knows it is him that is manipulating the lights. The woman begins to question her sanity.

Trump is the master of gas lighting.  Trump gives the rich a tax break and tells the simple minded they got one. The simple minded believe Trump is their sugar daddy.  Trump has the Hoopleheads so confused they don't know what is real and what is not.  One day Trump tells the Hoopleheads one thing and the next day the story changes 180 degrees.  The Hoopleheads by their contract with the Republican Party must believe everything Trump says.  This makes it hard for the Hoopleheads to keep up.  Now to make matters worst some of the reporters on Fox News state media are helping with the confusion.  When everyone is supposed to lie in unison and someone makes up a new lie without telling everyone else it creates confusion.  So in the end the best thing for the Hoopleheads to do is take the advice of George on Sienfield " If you believe it, it is true".   Now if you believe one thing at ten in the morning and Fox tells you just the opposite at noon don't worry, the truth is very flexible.

Kadizzle got on that lying scale in the bathroom this morning.  There is no scale that puts out fake news like the one in our bathroom.  According to that liberal lying scale gravity is pushing down on me even though I know I am getting thinner every day.  Of course the same people that made the scale have made these cameras that take fake pictures showing me chubby.  People lie about seeing  me in the kitchen eating indiscriminately and I have to pay them   $130,000 to quit telling people I ate all the ice cream.  My legal team is suing the company that manufactured the scale.  We all know that just because there are a lot empty ice cream containers in our kitchen I had nothing to do with it.  Yes, there is collusion.  The scale is colluding with the refrigerator.  Why do people tell me I am overweight when they know it is clear Hillary ate cookies.  Look at me, look at Hillary, who do you think at the cookies?  Lets not concentrate on the scale nonsense, lets look at what Bill Clinton did that is more relevant.  Bill  got caught in the cookie jar.  Everyone eats cookies so what if I did eat cookies, other people ate cookies.  OK, I did have some cookies, but I did not get them in the kitchen I paid a lawyer to bring them to me in the backyard, so I had nothing to do with it.  The lawyer is paid to do what he thinks is necessary to protect my reputation.  I did not want the cookies, but what were we supposed to do with the cookies when he brought them out.  Sure just leave them in the yard?  How would that look?  It would look like I ate cookies and ate so many I left some in the yard.  Now you see why I had to eat the cookies so fake news would not spread? OK, maybe I did eat the ice cream, but no one mentioned the refrigerator wasn't working it was going to melt.  How did I know I accidentally unplugged it.  So what if it was obvious to Mrs. Kadizzle the refrigerator was unplugged? There were some Russians in Hazen, and they want me to look bad and more than likely they unplugged the refrigerator.  I am smart, and I use words, good words, lots of words, so just follow my tweets and everything will be clear.

Throw it out, throw it out, way out.

The settlers had to lighten their load as they realized they would never make it to the end of the trail if they carried everything they owned. We all remember those westerns where they are pitching stuff out the back of the wagon.  Then you have the movies where the ship is sinking and you have to pitch stuff overboard.  Of course there is the airplane in WW II when they had to shove stuff out the door to make it back to England.  All this is going on today. The special thing that has been sitting in the basement for twenty to thirty years just waiting for a purpose went today.  Do we really need that can of rainmaker or that sunshine concentrator? Out, out dark spot, and out out old crap we never use.  Now if someone does not buy this house it will be extremely clean. 

Of course there is the regular fight about what finally has to go. It is like negotiating with Iran or Korea on nuclear weapons.  I will throw out this if you will throw out that.  Clean is all in your head.  If Kadizzle cleans rest assured it is not clean.  Only a well paid professional cleaning lady is qualified to dust here.  There is no rag or magic potion Kadizzle can use to dust that will satisfy the empress. The hardest dirt in the world to clean is imaginary dirt.  Some women, and perhaps some men have a knack for imagining dirt.  This make Kadizzle think of old Fabuloso.  Fabuloso camped across from us last year and won the nigifiddle prize.  Fabuloso shot Kadizzles socks right off his feet when he told him he removed the dual wheels from his 45 foot half million dollar motor home so he could polish the chrome on the inside.  Now that is a world class niggifiddle.

So we are being careful not to leave traces of humanity until the sniffer looks at the house tomorrow.  This is the first time the Kadizzles have ever been involved in selling a house so it is new to us.  We must show no signs humans have inhabited this place.  Hope no one notices the underwear on the floor or the spit in the sink. 

A sniffer turns real

The headquarters for Kadizzle Inc is for sale.  May have to move into the Earth Module if the place gets sold. Finally a sniffer asked to see the palace.   Mrs Kadizzle will go nuts any minute now with the need to clean the dump before the new possible owner shows up on Friday.  Will they notice the flaws of this place?  When you look at your own house what do you see?  Do you see the scuff marks and the tiny place the wallpaper is peeling ?  Will the sniffer see it and refuse to buy because the paint is not perfect or a nail on the siding is loose?

The joint pops when the grass turns green the price goes up exponentially.  If only spring would come it would be worth millions or maybe an extra grand or two.  The problem is if the Kadizzles don't get enough cheese for the castle the next castle will be unaffordable.  We could be stuck in the Earth Module or in your basement, or the kids basement.  So send us a rich buyer who wants this historic place where the only liberal in Mercer County lived.

The Remeadigus

Back in Hazen Kadizzle has been on the Remeadigus.  That is the trip taken through Hazen a couple times a week to shoot the shit with the locals.  The route is almost always the same.  A stop a Shiny's if her shop is open, then over to Rita's,  the library, and maybe city hall,  once in awhile down to see Berg, and then maybe a stop at Archie's garage.  Dave's garage is off the route since he went on to Jesus last year.  Surely Dave is up there working on a car telling Jesus dirty jokes.

As you listen to the people on the route you get a feel for the mood of the local atmosphere.  Not much goes on here, but one thing is clear the disease of stupidity brought on by Trump has seriously taken it's toll on our hamlet.  Talking to some of the local dingers is like hearing a book report on Trump, Rush Limbaugh, or one of the North Dakota right wing prophets.  The poor people are caught in the past.  Every Trump sin can be justified by citing something Hillary supposedly did, or Obama, or Clinton.  If Trump slapped Ivanka,  your typical dinger would say it was okay because Clinton had sex with Monica.

Not one dinger denies any sin of Trump, but says it is acceptable because this is normal behavior for presidents. The mind of a dinger is like the mind of someone in the seventh grade.  Some kid smarts off to the teacher.  The seventh grader is amused and likes the idiot who disrupts the class.  The dingers always think " Wouldn't it be nice to give the finger to the banker when he refuses you for a loan?",  " Wouldn't it be nice to say something nasty to the policeman when he gives you a ticket?".  So when the dinger sees a president act like a seventh grader it gives them a thrill.  These are the people who watch fake wrestling on television.  Remember Trump's appearances with fake wrestlers? The dinger imagines himself as a wrestler slamming the bad guy.  The dingers love it when the fake wrestlers put the microphone in their mouth and taunt each other.  Trump knows the dinger mentality and play to it perfectly.  Dingers think educated people are a problem.  In their mind the dingers know they are the victims of intelligent people so anyone who attacks thinkers is a hero to the dingers.  No one attacks thinking like Trump.  Trump has put the most ignorant destructive people in his cabinet, and the dingers love it.  The dingers know they are an oppressed people, and they want someone to stand up to their oppressor.  Strangely Trump plays this perfectly.  The dingers are oppressed by Republicans who want nothing but tax breaks for the rich.  Trump delivers for the rich by giving the dingers the circus they want while Trump helps the rich pick their pockets.  Trump will go down in history as the ultimate con man. 

Where you find them

Kadizzle always wonders who reads this nonsense.  Yesterday Kadizzle went to the boat to putter around.  On the way back from the lake it looked like something was amiss up ahead on the road.  As Kadizzle got closer he noticed the hood was up on a car.  In North Dakota that is a signal for help.  Slowing down to check if help was needed Kadizzle was greeted with "It's Kadizzle".   Standing beside his perfectly restored car was an old friend from Kadizzle's days at work.  Kadizzle had not seen him for a long time and at first did not recognize  the old comrade.  Who could be greeting Kadizzle with the secret password on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere?  Slowly the mind kicked in and Kadizzle discovered another reader of the morning drivel.  This means all things are possible.  So Trump if you are reading this after you watch Fox and Friends welcome aboard.

Donald if you call this fake news, in this case you are correct and it will be one of the first times you accidentally tell the truth.  Kadizzle did have to admit the Donald may have pulled one off with Korea.  What does a crazy dictator fear?  Of course another crazy dictator.  So having an insane president can be parlayed into a peace negotiation.   What kind of agreement will they sign? Two lying, scoundrels sign an agreement, where does that get you?  The virtues of insanity should be the biography of Trump. 

The lake is still covered with ice, but it is looking pretty rotten and may not last the week.  The boat is for sale, the house is for sale, but nobody wants either one. Both may be over priced, but that is a sign for the heavens above we are supposed to stay put.  It does mean thins have to be spruced up.  Mrs. Kadizzle lives in fear someone may actually want to see the house.  What if someone comes and sees a peanut on the floor the elephant dropped?  Sale over. 

The great plan is to sell out in Hazen and end up with enough cheese to build a house in Arizona.  Then if the boat does not sell life will be in reverse.  In the summer the Kadizzles will live in the Earth Module in North Dakota, presumably somewhere near the lake.  In the winter Payson Arizona will be home.  If the plan works out the home will have two extra bedrooms for anyone to use if they read the blog, are ordained liberals, or members of the Crazy Club.   It will be a temporary mental institution.

A year of change

Last night the Kadizzles gathered with local friends.  It was time to swap news of the winter and local goings on.  Things are changing.  People are making life style changes.  Moving to Bismarck, or some other location.  Once you retire in Hazen it seems you need more than watching snow melt to keep your mind going.  At some point you have to realize Hazen, and Beulah are bedtime communities for all the local coal mines, power plants, and perhaps even farmers.  Get your pile of money and get out.  The lake is all this area really has going, and few take advantage of that.  So you can fish, hunt, boat, and have coffee with the delusional.  This is Trump land, and that is why a lot of people want to escape.  Both the Kadizzle kids say they could not come back to the land of guns, Trumpets, and drill baby drill.  North Dakota with the advent of Trump has taken vast pride in just how stupid and uninformed we can be.  Local radio blares mini Rush Limbaughs, and the real rat himself.  The newspapers never do any real reporting and pumping up the right wing dolts seems a given. Sorry, but the rantalator got going.

Stroupini and Kadizzle sat on the boat in the boatyard and shot the shit in the sunshine yesterday.  The boat is chomping at the bit to jump in the water and sail away.  It is a bit of a problem with an ice covered lake.

The other day we went to a meeting for slip renters. We got to listen to the state people tell us how the state is having budget problems.  In this oil rich state there is no money for the common good, but drive around and see multi million dollar homes popping up.  How does that work?  Is there something wrong with trickle down.  No, trickle down means trickle from the billionaires to the million airs.  It has nothing to do with the old working people.

What about taxes?  Nope, nope, nope.  You can never, ever raise taxes.  Even if you have a war. In the old days when they had a nice war the rich were asked to help pay. Bush put an end to that shit.  Now if you want a nice war it is put on the credit card.

With no taxes the schools, and roads will fall apart.  So what you idiot.  The rich have their own schools, and they use jets not roads, so why should they pay for your kids to go to school.  God and the rich provide us with everything.  That is why we pay god on sundays, and the rich the rest of the week.. Sorry, too much coffee, and the rantalator got going again.

Well the sun is out and if the wind doesn't blow us over it might be a nice day.  The penguins are moving north so spring must be coming.

The idiots convention

Imagine you are sitting in a garage with two piston brains.  One is so stupid he is almost incoherent.  The other is actually smart, but uneducated in the traditional sense.  The brick dumb one just makes noise, but the other fellow is an old friend and reads good literature, and would be a different intellect if he had been exposed to the right education.  The topic is politics.  If you see a person with meth rotted teeth you know what happened.  They got their brain rinsed with chemicals.  Well this is sort of like the same think, but Kadizzle is talking to a guy who has had his brain rinsed with Fox News, Rush, and the usual suspects.  How do you explain to someone how Fox News works?  The discussion went round in circles as it usually does.  Kadizzle was accused of being a liberal elitist.  Then it hit Kadizzle what education is all about.  Education comes down to one simple thing if it works.  Education is about honing one's  ability to distinguish fact from fiction.  Unfortunately the Trump supporters believe that if you hears something you like, it is true.  If you think the poor are welfare cheats, and you like the idea, and Fox tells you it is true then the matter is settled.   How do . you break through this mind set.  Well if you tell someone the brakes on their car are inadequate and they don't believe you, you have to wait until they have a wreck.  So that is the Trump problem in a nutshell. 

Down at the Crazy Club

The cookies and brownies sat on something that looked like an antique hat box.  Down at the Crazy Club we had a nice turnout to celebrate Stroupini's birthday.  The head of the South Dakota Chapter showed up, our new member Luan was seated with the rest of the gang.  Shanika drove up from Mandan.  One of the first things discussed was making the bathroom into a confessional. It would be convenient. The tiny bathroom sits in the corner.  This all came up because Kadizzle let a secret leak. Kadizzle told Luan's husband a funny story she told at the last meeting.  He was not happy about it and Kadizzle was severely chastised.  So the idea was floated to  have Shiny go into the confessional and Kadizzle could confess his sins through the keyhole.

Shanika came to Hazen to attend the meeting, but also to go up to the lake and fish for Northern.  Kadizzle and Stroupini went up to watch him fish hopelessly.  Giving up on the luckless fishing Kadizzle and Stroupini went over to smell the boats hoping for spring to come.  Next a trip to the hamburger joint over by Riverdale.  On the way back we stopped to see Honest Omar's old ship. The new owner supposedly is going to fix the cracked keel.  So this is an update for Honest Omar on his old boat. Perhaps Honest the leak you always had a problem with was coming through the keel?  Sure miss Honest Omar and his sweet wife who was the Julia Childs of Lake Sakakawea.  In the good old days you cold drop in on Honest Omar after a weekend of sailing and enjoy a glass of wine and a fine meal right there one the docks.  Get another boat Mr. Omar.

Here we go

The realtor showed up yesterday and when she left there was a for sale sign in the yard.  We pulled the plug.  So this could lead to a massive head ache, going broke, and more adventure.  The plan is to somehow live in Payson AZ.   Like simple minded dingers we bought a lot there and in no time we may be into a massive mess building a house and going broke. Then again we may never get what we want from the current shack which means we will be back to square one.  So let the wheel spin and lets see what happens.

One of the things selling the joint means is fixing all the little blemishes, and god knows there are plenty.  After you get everything fixed why move?   Boredom seems to be one big reason.  On this flat prairie one can get lulled into an insanity based on blankness.  With Jasper Littlebottom's unbounded energy she has to be hiking all the time.  This brings up the next subject.

Jasper and two other high energy people are planning on doing a 250 mile hike on the John Muir Trail this summer.  The planning for this hike is much more complicated than the invasion of Normandy.  Hours and hours of phone conversations on what to take.  Do we take two green beans or three.  Jasper has had to purchase every conceivable type of trail food to test.  The trail bars come in the mail and have to be sampled.  You must have the perfect everything from water filter to shoes.  The cost per mile for this hike will bankrupt us before a new home does. 

Jasper is even doing practice hikes.  Yup,  Kadizzle had to go to Beulah yesterday so we pitched Jasper in the car with her pack loaded to hike back from Beulah.  People are like cars they wear out.  Jasper is going to be worn down to nothing before she even starts.

More than you can shake a stick at.

Growing up old Kadizzle worked with an old farmer.  That old farmer had a lot of hillbilly expressions. " More than you can shake a stick at" , was one of his expressions.  Well get your little fingers dancing on your keyboard and head on over to the New York Times.  Read the article about how Mueller is uncovering all Trump's fraud.  Trump is entangled in more crooked dealings than you can shake a stick at.  The ability of Republicans to deny Trump's sins is amazing.  If Trump touches it you can bet fraud is involved.  Trump is Satan's best friend.  If Satan wanted to destroy Christianity no better partner could be found than the Donald. The old Trumpster has turned decency upside down. Rob the poor, bilk everyone, worship money. 

The Sun Also rises

Today the good weather will explode.  Yesterday Kadizzle made a trip up to the boat.  Finally you can cross the boatyard without wading in snow.  The game is on and it is time to polish, and fill the boat with crap.  It takes about a pickup load of junk to prepare the boat.  The sails have to be put on, the cushions hauled up there and on it goes.  It all leads to a good place.  The sail finally goes up and the wind gently propels the good ship Sovereign down the lake to some peaceful cove.  With a glass of wine and thoughts of the steak on the grill you sit there and watch the geese with their young swim around. 

Shanika wants to go up to the lake and fish for Northern.  When there is a big enough gap between the shore and the ice the Northern fishermen line the lake trying to catch one of the big aggressive fish.  Bob up the street and Kadizzle toured the lake settlements yesterday.  Beulah Bay has experienced acute prosperity.  A development of million dollar homes has sprung up. Oil money or Republican graft must be the root cause.

The slip renters met with the Park and Recreation department in Washburn on Thursday.  A lot of empty promises were thrown out.  The state is in a crises because the oil wells in western North Dakota are not pumping the prosperity the state was counting on.   Republicans reduced the taxes on the oil gang which only made matters worse.  So the state is going to try to cut the budget for everything.  Trickle down just will not trickle.  Could we just tax the people who hit the jackpot and are building huge houses in Beulah Bay?  No, no, no, we need to cut back on everybody else. 

Driving about one sees the new Republican mentality.  The hell with you I got mine.  In the old days people used to band together and build roads, schools, and things everyone could enjoy.  No more.  Now you get stuff.  You get as much stuff as you can.  What do you do with your stuff?  Well first you build a house with three or four garages.  You fill the garages, but you still cannot store all your stuff.  Now you build a big ugly steel shed and put more stuff in the shed.  If you still need more space for your stuff you rent a storage unit.   You fill it with stuff.   You have all this stuff you never see or use, but you got stuff.   You have a population of idiots that voted for Trump because you bought stuff instead of schools.  You have slummers cropping up everywhere with their stuff scattered in their yard because you will not pay working people.  You used all your money to buy stuff not pay people.   The ocean is full of floating plastic stuff.  The roadsides are full of stuff, but there is no money to operate the parks because we need money for more stuff. Trains pull stuff from California to New Jersey.  The stuff in the trains comes from China.  China takes our garbage and makes new garbage.  Making stuff pollutes the air,  and the air is full of stuff.  We breath the stuff and we get full of stuff, and we die from the cancer the stuff causes.  Well I got to hall some stuff up to the boat today.

The Battery is dead on Spring

Spring just cannot seem to get going in this god forsaken frozen tundra they call North Dakota.  We have been beating the tiny scraps of snow with shovels hoping to get rid of the devil they call winter.  What causes wind towers to sprout up everywhere here. Well of course it is the wind.  Today it will finally be sunny and nice, except for the goddamn wind.  The wind will melt ice, praise be unto Jeeesus for that.  The lake is sitting up there with what people say is thirty inches of ice.   Apparently the calendars are broken. Thirty inches of ice and it is April whatever.  Summer will come and be gone so fast our heads spin.  Another thankya Jeeesus we did not stay here and endure the whole winter.

Decline

Pretend like it is not happening. That has always been a good solution.  Here in the heart of North Dakota coal country the ability to burn the crap is slowly coming to an end.  Kadizzle's whole career was involved in burning coal.  The simple minded say that means Kadizzle cannot be critical of anything the coal industry does.  A lot of things make sense at one point in history, but times change. Republicans are not prone to admitting change.  Lignite coal is a filthy low grade coal no matter how you slice it, but it is our coal.  It is like our president.  He is a terrible man, but he our president.  Now there are two lines of thought. We should support him because he is ours, or we should realize what a mess we have.  Now, back to coal.  The coal fired power plants are getting old and inefficient. The plant at Stanton has already closed.  Leland Olds has been limping along for years.  Two big things are giving coal fits.  First is natural gas, and second is wind power.  Natural gas is now cheap and plentiful, so plentiful they are just flaring it in western North Dakota to get rid of it.  The problem with wind power is the wind goes up and down.  To match demand that means the coal fired plants need to go up and down. That is hard on the old coal fired plants.  A coal fired plant takes time to go up or down.  On the other hand a gas fired turbine can quickly respond to high demand.  Gas burns much more cleaner than coal, and is more efficient. 

In coal country everyone keeps repeating the mantra "clean coal".  When you try to clean anything you burn you almost always use energy to clean it.  So when you put more and more pollution control on coal you end up using more and more of the energy just to clean the exhaust.  In the end if the Republicans fail to face the reality of coals demise the coal towns will be ghost towns.  So North Dakota needs to come up with a new game.  Kadizzle thinks the new game will be nuclear power. What?  While people have been sleeping big advances in nuclear technology have been made from an efficiency standpoint, and from a safety point of view.  If North Dakota got ahead of the curve and actively embraced nuclear we might survive, but that is unlikely.

The Crazy Club

Imagine a shortage of chairs at the Crazy Club.  As Kadizzle walked in there was Shiny, Stoupini, Marsha,  and a new member, Mrs Flower.  Now the Club has reached parity.  There are as many crazy women as men.  Mrs Flower is a nice fit, she is outspoken and plenty crazy.  Bev from South Dakota will be here next week.  Hopefully we can have the biggest meeting ever.  Perhaps Shanika can come up from Mandan.  We need to do something special.

Mrs Flower gave an excellent report on her trip to Roatan with her husband.  The report has inspired Kadizzle to consider Roatan a good place for a family gathering.  Roatan is of the East coast of Honduras.  Kadizzle checked it out an you can rent some nice beach side bungalows there pretty reasonable.

If you are subdued, shy, or easily offended, you do not want to be in the Crazy Club.  People speak their mind out loud at the club and if you think someone is full of it, no problem tell them right away.  The Crazy club has no qualms about gossip.  It is spread like butter on toast, and has about as much truth as a Trump cabinet meeting.

What do you do on a dreary day in Hazen.  Thankya Jesus for the Crazy club.  The basis of the Crazy Club is the Brooks House.  Just for historical review remember the Brooks House was originally the town phone company.  It is actually just a house where an old lady lived and operated the switch board down in the living room.  It must have been something in the days of the party line.  Now, it is a little art store.  It has all the wares of the local artist.  It does less business than the funeral home.  Shiny is good with arranging things and retail so she has it fixed up real nice.  Maybe Kadizzle can get some pictures today and post them here.  The little room has some nice windows, and comfortable chairs.  It ends up being a good place for group therapy.  It is like a bunch of mentally ill people who cannot afford treatment getting together for some kind of self cure that doesn't work.  You walk out thinking you are normal because everyone around you was the same as you are.  Of course the delusion is created because everyone in there was nuts.

Beat on the Snow

Jasper Littlebottom was out in the driveway beating on the snow before the sun went down.  Kadizzle gets a little obsessed with the idea also. It seems like there is some magic in trying to get all the ice off the driveway and street.  It is really a hopeless undertaking, but it makes you feel good to cut the ice into smaller chunks and force it to melt.  The Kadizzles have just become too accustomed to the warm weather of Arizona. Waking up in the morning and going outside with a T shirt is a thing that is a long way off in North Dakota.

Even with Trump puffing up the coal industry things are looking dim around coal country in North Dakota.  Republicans think you can stop the future from coming, but somehow change is inevitable. North Dakota has the dirtiest most worthless coal in the country, yet the politicians want to hang on. In the last few days Kadizzle has talked with some insiders in the industry.  Things are not looking good.  The gas plant in Beulah is scheduled to lose millions for years into the future.  The Spiritwood plant near Jamestown is struggling as the malt plant shuts down. The mine at Underwood is in high cover or to put it another way the coal is getting too deep to get out of the ground cheaply. Rather than face the future and go to nuclear power or come up with something new the brain dead Republicans want to outlaw wind power.  A dolt woman in the legislature in Beulah wants to tax wind power so it cannot be so competitive.  If solar comes on strong in North Dakota there will be a tax on sunshine. Maybe that is why it has been so cloudy. 

The North Dakota legislature is really a sleeping club for old white goats.  The goats snore away until a vote is needed. They awaken the goats and ask them to raise their hand.  The goats have no idea what they are voting for, but after they vote they give them lunch and put them down for the afternoon nap.  There is only one party in North Dakota. If you want elected, promise to do what you are told, buy a gun, join the NRA, and profess your love for tax breaks to the rich, and the Republican Jesus.  Almost forgot, you have to be from North Dakota. No outsiders, that might contaminate the goats sleeping sessions. If you get elected you have to give the Republican motto " If you believe it, it is true".  On the test you will be asked one question "What does education do to people?".  The correct answer is " Education confuses people".  Now you can vote and sleep with an exclusive crowd.

Sleepy Town

The tide of boredom rolls into our little town like gravity itself.  The streets are deserted, but the simple minded idiots are starting to roam the streets with their roaring cars.  Driving no where with a loud muffler seems to be the new sport of idiots.  It makes no sense, but it might be a redneck mating ritual.  The piston brained driver makes loud noises with his car to attract a mate.  If the dinger does find a mate it will be a female as devoid of intelligence as the noise maker himself. Now what kind of off spring do you think these two will produce.  McDonalds needs these people so it is not all wasted breeding.

The snow still sits around in piles and the lake is frozen solid.  They may as well cancel summer this year.  Driving around to check out the town on our return Kadizzle sees a lot of empty brand new real estate.  Out on the west end of town are about six new homes all with for sale signs that have been on the market for about a year, no takers.  The city got behind some new senior housing.  Again over thirty little senior apartments brand spanking new.  One is occupied.  If the oil boom does not get cranked up full bore we got a problem here.

Lift in the Arctic

After great consternation with the boss Kadizzle just got the Earth Module to it's summer home beside the house. The boss insisted it would not work and be a painful experience. It worked out fine and now one more job is done. Part of the goal is to let the sun hit the driveway.  With the ground frozen we did not have to plow up the yard with wheel tracks. Checked out the Sovereign up at the lake. It was like seeing an old friend. The boat came through the winter well and is raring to go. A big problem is a the lake is still frozen solid. 

It is time for a life change and the Kadizzles are throwing the dice.  The boat is for sale, and the house may soon be. If someone meets our price we may be building in AZ in the small town of Payzon.  If no one wants to pony up the cash the Kadizzles will just keep on keeping on.  Such is life.  So many of our good friends are getting shot up with the prizes of aging. The sand is running through the hour glass and there is more sand on the bottom than on the top.

Being back in the house does have it's benefits, all the showers you want, music in every room, stores nearby, and plenty of room to make a bigger mess.

Had an informal meeting of the Crazy Club on Shiny's back porch. Elected Stroupini philosopher emirates. Then we looked up the word emirates to see what it means.  If you ever have a strong desire to see nothing Happen, or watch snow melt come to Hazen. The streets are empty, the stores are deserted, and the big excitement is the sun going up and down.

Summer is bound to come bounding down the pike in a week or two then it is mow, mow, mow, and weed, weed, weed.  So the Earth keeps spinning and orbiting the sun at 67,000 miles per hour. No wonder we are getting older and worn our. 

Daniel Norgren - Everything You Know Melts Away like Snow

What is your political view?

This little illustration says a lot about how you think.  The one on the far left seems to sum up the Republican view of life.  Republicans don't care for the one in the middle, nor do they particularly care for the one on the right.  Think of the tall guy as the rich guy.  The tall guy wins no matter what.  The inheritance tax is a classic case.  If you get a bundle just because someone died you get to see the game. Not the case if you are born poor.  If your parents don't set you up you have to get your own box to stand on.  Republicans say "Dad can give you his box".  Now explain how that is fair?

The Earth Module returns

Not even six A.M. and Kadizzle is up drinking coffee.  Still dark out, but the ground was covered with snow last night.  A bit of a shock after waking up every morning to sunshine and desert.  Cory had a picture on Facebook of a big rattlesnake up on the Frazier trail which we work on all the time. So perhaps it was time to get out of the desert.

Back in Hazen a visit to the Crazy Club was mandatory.  Old Shiny and her little dog were still at it trying hopelessly to peddle some art to a town that is asleep.  Asked City Hall to do something about the old jalopy pickup truck that has sat in the driveway up the street for five years.  Same old answer,  "If we make one person obey the law, then we will have to make everyone obey the law".  Seems like something out of the Trump administration.

What do you do at 5:30 in the morning?  You read about Trump's similarity to a mobster boss.  Everyone agrees, even his own people that Trump is incapable of telling the truth.  Most figure he lies about six times per day.  The F B I director Trump fired just came out with his book. Trump is so similar to a mobster according to the book.

To make sure the world is still spinning Kadizzle visited the Fox News site on the internet.  A little amazed Kadizzle found Fox was telling the Hoopleheads about the FBI directors comments.  Of course Hannity who is about as delusional as you can get puts the Fox Spin on the story.

So we have according to some of the NYT columnist tribalism.  We have the fundy tribe of evangelical nuts, the gun tribe, the redneck tribe, the trickle down tribe, and have to admit the liberal tribe.  Each tribe has it's own mythology. 

The truth no longer exist.  There used to be measuring tapes, calculators,  measuring cups, and all sorts of devices that could help you get to something similar to the truth.  No more, now we believe in the rain gods, the trickle down gods, and the "Deep State".  Nothing is what it appears.  If there is a pot hole in the street it is a false flag by the city to stir up a drive for taxes.  Just make life easy and believe whatever you want.  This is certainly the best way to save on an education. 

Peace and Quiet

After the intense city life of Denver we sit tonight atop a hill overlooking a beautiful lake on the East side of the Black Hills.  Such a change.  Just walked by eight mule deer. They watched me closely and I watched them. They figured out Kadizzle was harmless.  Sun is slowly sinking and kept it's warmth up until the very last.  Tomorrow we will hopefully get up and be back in the land of frozen. 

Those annoying Facts

A Day of Murals

Today we walked miles through the streets and allies of Denver.  Denver has some program in place with has encouraged murals to pop up everywhere. Denver feels like a different city somewhere in Mexico or a strange land. It is fun to see hundreds of these things and one sees how diverse the human mind can be. You have to admire people who can let something flow out of their head and onto a wall.

Our passes through Denver are always enjoyable. The city is growing at an unbelievable pace, and generally speaking doing a good job with it.  Coming from the remote part of Arizona into the vast suburbia is a big change.  Eating and Drinking are major productions in Denver.  If any thing has a garage door on it you must make it into a brewery.  You cannot go fifty feet without finding beer flowing and people sitting around tables consuming it.  Yesterday the Kadizzle clan went to Firehouse 26, which no longer puts out fires, but does put out beer.  This place will actually can a beer for you to take home. Some friends sat at our table and one guy had a very big can of beer.  They had just canned the beer for him to take home.  It looked like a big beer you might get from the shelf anywhere.  Coming from Hazen, North Dakota where you have to travel 75 miles to find a couple of good eating places we are blown away by the infinite variety of eating places in Denver. In summery, murals, breweries, and restaurants, that is Denver.

Mass Transit

Every visit to Denver the Kadizzles use the new light rail system.  The rail system is a great asset for Denver.  A couple blocks from our daughter's house we can jump on the train and zip downtown.  Best of all you can take your bike.  If you don't want to take a bike Denver has free bus service up and down the main part of town.  Once this system is completed to Boulder life will be even better.  To add icing to the cake the rail system goes right into the Denver airport.

Hopefuly the Earth Module will be en route to North Dakota on Monday.  Weather will be the deciding factor.

Kadizzle is in a constant fight against the forces of evil.  As readers of this diatribe may know Kadizzle had a kerfuffle with Congressman Cramer.  Kadizzle put 23 dollars down the shirt of the Congressman.  Kadizzle did not shove, punch or assault Cramer.  A variety of right wing media people have sought to distort the incident into something it was not.  Two of the people who portrayed the incident incorrectly are right wing touts for Trump.  Scott Hennen does his best to be a mini Rush Limbaugh on KFYR radio.  On Facebook Scott Hennen claimed Kadizzle "shoved Cramer around".  This is quite different from trying to give Cramer money to pass on to a distressed mother.  Kadizzle asked radio host Scott Hennen to call him and discuss what actually happened.  Rather than hear the truth first hand Hennen persist in his lie and refuses to give Kadizzle a call.  Distortion is the new standard in reporting.  Sensationalism is the key to Fox News, and it's imitators.  The truth is of little value.

Six beans or four beans

The famous Jasper Littlebottom is engaged in planning her hiking trip on the John Muir Trail in August.  Never in the history of mankind has an assault been planned in such detail.  As Kadizzle sits here three air mattresses are laid out on the floor for a total cost of $500.  Littlebottom intends to practice sleep on each one to insure she picks exactly the right one for the great hike.  The losers will hopefully be returned.  With her buddy Deb they have discussed details of the 225 mile trip for hours on the phone and in person.  No detail can be overlooked.  How much does the toilet paper weigh?  How many sheets will we need?  On Wednesday will we put three green peas in the soup or four?  D Day was do da compared to this planning.  The research also goes on forever.  Hours spent on the internet.  What shoe, what underwear, what flashlight?  Now what Kadizzle fears most.  A lot of this stuff, which they do not give away may only be used once or twice during the rest of our life.  So this adventure will be pricey.  The good news is it means Kadizzle has an athlete in bed beside his lump of a body at night.  Kadizzle may be without adult supervision for up to three weeks this summer, and there could be some long stretches of peace and quiet.  Now Littlebottom just expressed some doubt she may even make the trip.  If she cancels quickly we can avoid the $80 dollar bear proof canister for the hiking food.  Oh yes the hiking food.  First it is expensive, but then comes the testing.  So you have to buy the food twice. Once to test it, and then once when you actually take it on the trip. Hope the bears enjoy the expensive food. If only Kadizzle could eat dehydrated food and get himself dehydrated.

Standing on the Bridge

Yesterday Kadizzle stood on the bridge over the railroad tracks in Denver.  No, the plan was not to jump. The plan was to watch the coal train pass underneath until the end of the train. No doubt the train load of coal had come from the Powder River Basin and was headed to some power plant.  At first tKadizzle assumed it was a 100 car train, which is typical, but then he concluded it must be about 125 coal cars long.  Each car holds 100 tons.  So do the math, that is 125 thousand tons of coal.  It took a long time for that train moving at about five to ten miles per hour to pass under Kadizzle.  As he stood there he though about how quickly that coal would be burnt to make electricity.  He made up his mind to do a calculation when he got home.  How much coal per hour do we burn in this country? The amount is staggering.  If the calculations are correct the United States burns 3.1 million tons of coal per day.  What that means is that train that passed under Kadizzle will be burnt up in about an hour.  It took about twenty minutes for the train to go under the bridge. To look at that much coal an imagine it burning almost as fast as it went by was a shocking thought. No you have complete idiots that think global warming is not happening. If those idiots would give the matter some thought, perhaps they would think differently.  About every three miles there is a super tanker heading toward our country with oil for us to burn.  This does not include the oil we produce domestically.  Add that to the coal, and the natural gas, and just try to imagine what we are putting into the air.  At any given moment there are six thousand planes in the air spewing the kerosene they burn into the clouds.  Our planet is on a course to disaster. Remember this is just the United States.  Think about China.

How long did it take to put that carbon into the ground?  It took over five million years to put the carbon for the coal into the ground.  Does any reasonable person think you can release into the air something that it took five million years to take out, and have no problem.  We are doing in a hundred years what took the Earth five million years to clean up.  Do you think we might have a problem?

The Meltdown

Sylvie, my little wonderful granddaughter just had a terrible melt down.  She got new roller shoes for her birthday and she wants to wear them to school. Like Trump not getting his wall she did not take it well.  The whole explosion made Kadizzle think about being one of nine children. The meltdown created chaos at breakfast.  In a family of nine meltdowns were unknown.  There simply was not room for that kind of activity.  It is such a procedure launching one kid to school Kadizzle cannot imagine how on Earth nine of us got launched in the morning.  Kids had to take care of themselves.  Kadizzle can remember trying to find his cleanest dirty shirt to go to school.  The big sisters took us to school and we walked.  Big sisters brought us back.

Sylvie is a member of a tribe. Her tribe has one person.  That is entirely different from a tribe of nine.  Sylvie has no clue the good life she leads.  Sylvie has been on expensive vacations Kadizzle could never have dreamed of.  Sylvie has probably flown as many miles as a nine year old as Kadizzle has in his career.  Simply snap your fingers Sylvie and what you want will appear or be ordered. Not only does Sylvie have her own room, but it is equipped beyond the belief of a member of the nine tribe.  Clothing?  Hand me downs were so common in our closet.  Not Sylvie, she has a selection that any kid would envy. 

All things considered she is a wonderful, brilliant, talented, little girl, but keeping her from being spoiled as an only child is going to be a major undertaking.  No will be the hardest word she will ever learn.

The Water to the Earth Module Froze

Actually not a big problem, but when Kadizzle got up to pee he found the water to the Earth Module frozen.  A little warm water on the outside faucet and we are back in business.  Sitting above Colorado Springs the Temperature is now 31.   One more degree and no worries.  The park we are in was built in 2006.  Colorado did not spare the money.  It is a nice park with a good view, good trails, and a lot of nice facilities.  Cheyenne Mountain State Park is right next to Cheyenne Mountain which contains the NORAD center.  You know the place the next nuclear war will be run from.  More than likely the Russians, and maybe even North Korea have a bomb centered on the Earth Module.  So we are just one Trump tweet away from glowing for eternity.

Kadizzle set out for a short hike yesterday and quickly found himself on a long hike.  The maze of very nice trails here led him on a long walk, which was good.  As he walked he wondered why more parks like this could no be build instead of all the silly military nonsense.  Had our country not pissed away trillions on silly wars and equipment even the poorest person would live in the lap of luxury.  Just keeping all the planes and helicopters constantly buzzing cost a fortune, but so what it makes the military contractors rich, and that is our real goal.  Reagan is the Republican Jesus, but if it had been Eisenhower the world would be a better place.  Now we have Trump.  Did anyone ever think we would sink this low.  With Trump in the White House the swamp is about to flood the place.  Trump has proven what a thick seam of idiots we have in this country. 

Kadizzle was in the coal mining industry most of his life.   In West Virginia and Ohio the coal might run from twenty eight inches up to nine feet thick.  In North Dakota maybe it got over ten or twelve feet thick.   When the day came that Kadizzle got to tour a mine in Wyoming he was blown away by coal seems over one hundred feet thick.   Now, back to stupidity.  Most Americans thought the seam of stupidity in our country did not run that thick, but Trump showed us we had a vast supply of idiots no one ever dreamed of.  Fox News has been mining idiots for years.  They are out there and ready to be picked.   Idiots like simplicity, and that is what Fox and Rush Limbaugh have in abundance.  There is a simple paranoid explanation for everything, and the idiots want to hear about it.  The most precious commodity the media now has to offer is fake news.   Ironically the best salesman of fake news is now president, and he spreads it like peanut butter on the Hoopleheads.  They love it.  Will the day of factual information ever come back.  Not likely very soon.

Electric Mobility

The Earth Module landed in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Saturday was to be a day of rest before journeying  on.  With the truck unhitched we meandered into the town from Cochiti Lake.  Kadizzle had made arrangements to rent an electric bike.  Kadizzle has been seriously considering the purchase of an electric bike for some time so this seemed like a good chance to try  another one.  From the train station where the bikes are rented Kadizzle took off and surveyed the town.  Getting about on a bike is so much simpler than a car.  You can use the road, paths, or in some cases the sidewalk.  A nice feature of the electric bike is you can give a little boost to take off at a traffic light by twisting the throttle.  You set the amount of assist you want.  These bikes are perfect for exploring a dense part of a city.  Eventually Kadizzle found the way out into the country side and was able to try some windy bike paths with some steep grades.  It was nice to just give the bike a little juice to get a start up the hill.  On the level the battery seemed to be hard to wear down, but once on the steeper gravel pathway the battery did start to deplete.  The path followed the railroad tracks leading to Albuquerque.  When the bike was returned it still had about one third of the power left.  It seemed like the whole ride was around twenty miles.  Keep in mind Kadizzle has some meat on his body.  Of course the more you pedal the longer the battery would last.  Currently the Yamaha is strapped to the back of the Earth Module.  An electric bike would be a tremendous weight savings and it would serve about 80% of the duty the motorcycle does.  However, if you want to go up a steep mountain grade with rocks you better by on the Yamaha.  Kadizzle would recommend an electric bike for people doing the RV life.  It would be great for exploring and getting small amounts of groceries.

Advanced momentum management

Driving is a mental challenge.  Yesterday we made the trip from Lake Roosevelt to Cochiti Lake in New Mexico.  Pulling a fifth wheel trailer only enhanced the fun of coping with the insanity induced by cars.  Cars change people.  Once you put a person on the road that might normally be a calm kind human, you often create a crazed man or woman who no longer can resist the gas pedal.  If you were riding a bike would you peddle like hell toward a wall then suddenly slam on the brakes? No, but how many drivers run up to a traffic light that is red and hit the brakes.  Why not let the car decelerate as you glide toward the light?  It might turn green by the time you get there.  The same slap drivers, as Kadizzle calls them will run up behind a slow truck and slam on the brakes.  Every time you get to a congested bigger city the aggression of drivers gets more insane.  If you watch an aggressive driver jockey for position you often see they make little more headway than a sane driver.  The aggressive driver loves to weave in and out of lanes.  When you have a trailer on the back of you truck these obsessive idiots can cause a real mess.

So Kadizzle offers two classes that drive his wife, and his daughters crazy.  Puff driving is the first class.  It mostly teaches starting slowly and stopping slowly.  The goal in puff driving is not to use the brakes.  On a recent trip to Florida with brother in law Ned we took his van.  His van was equipped with a device that would report to the insurance company if he stopped too quickly.  This is a sign of bad driving.  When you hit the brakes hard the little device would emit a ding.  When you got too many dings you did not get the insurance discount.  The whole trick to avoiding dings is looking ahead and avoiding quick stops.  There is no quicker stop than when you hit another car.

Advanced momentum management is similar to driving a train or a large ocean liner.  Start a train too fast and you will tear it apart.  It takes miles to stop a super tanker.  So in both cases you have to manage the momentum.  If you do this with your car it will last longer and hit fewer other cares.  When our kids were small Kadizzle told them he drove from Mexico to Alaska without using the brakes.  For a long time they believed it.  To slow down you have two choices.  You can use the brake or you can cut back on the throttle.  Also you can down shift.   If you see brake dancers you know they are poor drivers.  As you look ahead and watch the brake lights you can tell which drivers understand momentum management and the ones who do not.  Kadizzle has never had the brakes replaced on any car he owns.  The combination of living in the middle of nowhere, and advanced momentum management are the reason.

Let me show you my gun

Kadizzle's head is still spinning from a talk with a gun nut yesterday.   As the conversation got going the gun fellow pulled out his handgun.  As if he was showing his penis with glee his face lit up with the goofy look gun owners get when they show you their gun.  As the conversation progressed and Kadizzle tried to argue for gun control it became more evident the gun slinger was of questionable mental capacity.  Kadizzle asked Mr. Gun if he ever had to use his gun to defend himself.  Yes, three times.  Kadizzle inquired further and Mr. Gun said he shot and killed a guy in the state of Washington.  Kadizzle asked where and when.  Next came a story about how a disgruntled employee was fired.  The employee went home and came back with a gun.  Gun hero shot him.  Kadizzled thought he should check out the story so he asked for more details so he could research the shooting on the internet.  Well, Mr. Gun explained it would probably not be on the internet.  The smell of rotting fish began to permeate the conversation.  As the conversation went on Mr. Gun slowly admitted he feared the government would get his gun.  Then the absurdity got worse.  Mr. Gun said he was part of a military unit that was trained to get the guns.  This is equivalent to saying I am afraid I might come get my own gun.

The conversation took a turn toward gun death statistics.  Kadizzle mentioned the effectiveness of gun control in Australia.  Cornered by a little logic the fake news flag came out.  All the statistics that say gun control works are fake.  Mr. Gun said there is a military internet called MARS that has the real information.  Now it is becoming evident that the man Kadizzle is talking to with meth teeth has had his brain cells pretty well rinsed.  No point on going on with the conversation.

Now this man is of questionable mental capacity and armed.  The scary part is how many more people are among us with a deadly weapon and an impaired mind.  The big Republican mantra is mental problems, not gun problems.  What better to do than give the mental problems guns. 

Morning in the Earth Module

In the background is the hum of the little electric heater.  Sitting in the warmth the sun is blasting in the windows already as it rises above the Eastern end of the lake.  We got the morning video of our newest member to the clan Evie,  a. k. a. Smiley McGumphley.  Smiley will be a genius like all her relatives.  It is obvious from her mopping skills.  At 14 months she has a little mop and does a perfect imitation of her mom. The best part is when she mimics using the mop ringer by putting her mop in a basket and raising the handle to squeeze the mop.

Kadizzle is thankful for two great daughters with two great husbands and two great grandchildren.

Prying Mrs Kadizzle out of Arizona is an impossible task.  It is time to pack up the Earth module and head North.  We can go slowly, but we need to get going. Kadizzle is bored and ready for a change. 
The rattlers are out and it is time to go.

There may be real hope to subdue the simple minded gun owners that are loyal to the NRA terrorist.  Kadizzle was blown away when the Mrs. came home yesterday and said there were 100 gun protestors in Payson.  Payson, Arizona is as deep in redneck country as you can get. Apparently there is a small group of people with a liberal bent that are not afraid to take on the crazies.

I think I will post the picture of Trump in Las Vegas.  You can see Trump in his disguise headed for a meeting with Stormy Daniels.

Idiots with guns

Many long moons ago old Kadizzle was a teenager.  Down on our hobby farm or brush farm or Booneville farm we were great groundhog hunters.  In his younger day Kadizzle could bring a vicious groundhog to the glory land with a 22 long rifle.  So one day Kadizzle took his cousin who had too much city in him down to Boonieville and the groundhog hunt was on.  After a fruitless hunt each of us was walking back up the road to the farm house.  Kadizzle noticed his cousin was continually working the bolt on the 22 he was carrying.  After working the bolt a few times to make sure the gun was empty the cousin swung the gun toward Kadizzle and pulled the trigger.  Accidentally as cousin swung the gun toward Kadizzle the cousin's finger hit the trigger and the gun fired. Cousin had intended to put the gun to Kadizzle's side.   Apparently one shell had hung up in the magazine on the last time cousin worked the bolt of the gun.  Cousin shot right in front of Kadizzle. Had cousin pulled the silly trick he intended he would have shot Kadizzle right in the kidney.  It would have been unpleasant.  It was a good lesson for all.

Hunting Kadizzle has more than once accidentally discharged a gun.  Things can go wrong when least expected.  One of the strangest experiences ever was pheasant hunting. Kadizzle had shot a pheasant and thought one more might get up.  So holding both the gun and the dead pheasant by the neck Kadizzle awaited the next pheasant to arise in the air.  As he walked the pheasant that was supposed to be dead suddenly came alive and kicked the trigger. The gun fired and scared the hell out of Kadizzle.

Now we come to redneck bubba land where just about every idiot has a gun.  Since Kadizzle has been in Arizona this incident has occurred twice.  A brave simple minded NRA gunman is in the parking lot.  Out of the store comes running either shop lifters or amateur robbers.  This is where the gun idiocy kicks in.  The gun hero in both cases started shooting at the alleged robbers.  Of course the gun nut misses, but does manage to shoot some holes in cars.  How can you be a good guy with a gun if you don't shoot suspicious people?  What fun is being a gun owner if you cannot shot a shoplifter every now and then.  The only problem with the NRA fun kit is the people in the parking lot who just bought groceries.  Who wants to come home and find bullet holes in their tomatoes?  The swiss cheese is no problem you expect that, but lead can ruin the taste of so many foods.

Kadizzle and Brooksie ride into the wilderness

Brooksie is a volunteer up at the National Monument.  She said she wanted to go on a motorcycle ride with Kadizzle.  Since she has a better and more aggressive cycle than Kadizzle he thought he might have trouble keeping up with her.  It did not turn out that way.  Not to far out of the gate Brooksie bit the dust up the first little boulder hill.  That hill is relatively easy compared to what we were about to take on.  The decision was made to go somewhere else less difficult.  We took off through the desert and ended up on the road to Peter Bigfoot's.  If you follow this blog you probably know who Peter Bigfoot is.  Kadizzle wanted to go to Bigfoot's to check on Alex.  Once more previous stories explain who Alex and Bigfoot are.  Alex is thriving at Bigfoot's and Peter has grown fond of Alex.  Alex is learning many new skills including organic vegetable gardening.  Nancy, one of he residents at Bigfoots gave Kadizzle some herbs to bring back for Winkie.

We took a side trip up another canyon and had another nice ride.  The cottonwoods are  starting to turn green and spring is slowly creeping into the desert.  Winkie took an Indian hike and checked out some more ruins.  The steak is on the grill and the cook is cutting up the cabbage so gotta go out and check the meat.

Amazing Indian Ruin

As often happens the Kadizzles have driven by Indian ruins unaware many times. For months we have been driving up Sycamore Creek, but today we got out an hiked on the way up to the trailhead. Mrs. Kadizzle was told of an Indian site nearby.  Once on a little mesa jutting out into the valley we found a huge site.  It is one of the biggest sites Kadizzle has ever come across in the wild. There could have been a hundred rooms.  Of course now it is all fallen walls and the outlines of rooms.  Mrs. Kadizzle found a money clip there with $26 some ancient must have lost. 

After pursuing the site for about an hour we headed back.  Heading back to the truck Kadizzle could see what the natives were up to.  Down in the valley floor you could see at one time there had been an excellent site for a field.  To top off the discovery you see where the stream had been damed and diverted.  This was a unique area perfect for growing crops with irrigation.  Knowing this site was in the area explain a lot more about other sites we had found nearby.

Don't shoot my kids

Kadizzle is a hunter of pheasants. Kadizzle owns guns.  You can register my guns, you can finger print me, you can do what ever you need to do to keep guns from the nut cases.  Kadizzle is 69 years old and never once in those 69 years did Kadizzle need a hand gun to feel safe.  There are very simple solutions to gun violence, yet our Republicans are owned by the NRA.  The NRA is nothing but a terrorist organization run to sell guns and get Republicans elected.

Radio Frequency devices could be put in guns that would set off alarms when the guns are near schools, banks, churches, and so on.  These are the devices used to keep people from stealing high end goods in stores.  The cost is minimal.

Kadizzle has two wonderful daughters, and two wonderful grandchildren.  Kadizzle is not going to wait for those people to be shot before he acts.  The simple minded scared little men who need a gun to feel manly have no place in my world and I will fight them and their insanity every chance I get.

Soon they will appear

Rattlesnakes generally do not bother Kadizzle, but the reality is we are in an area where there are plenty.  At the Tonto Basin Cave Dwellings the other day there was a huge rattlesnake on display. Kadizzle never realized how big they can get.  The Indians say that two weeks after you see the lizards the snakes will be out.  Well there have been lots of lizards moving about.

Kadizzle has had a couple encounters with the rattlers.  One of the most memorable was in a bay in North Dakota on the lake.  Kadizzle knew he was in a snake area so he was watching closely and using his hiking stick to warn the snakes ahead of him.  Shortly after starting a hike the person behind Kadizzle said " You just stepped over a rattlesnake".  Kadizzle thought he was joking, but he pointed to a fairly big snake making its way to the big rocks nearby. 

The closest call happened in California.  Hiking down a stream with big boulders Kadizzle made his way down between two boulders.  Ruth said she heard a snake rattle.  Kadizzle looked to his right and with in striking distance there was a rattler on a little ledge.  Once with daughter Erin, Kadizzle started hiking up a steep hill on the lake.  All of a sudden a buzzing of many rattlers startled Kadizzle and he jumped back and just about fell off the hill.  In the same area many years ago Kadizzle stood beside a friend.  The friend was looking through his camera and Kadizzle noticed the tail of a rattlesnake sticking our by his foot.  Kadizzle casually said " There is a rattlesnake's tail sticking out of a hole by your foot".  Friend did not believe Kadizzle and said " Sure and it's head is coming out of a hole over there".  Next he quit looking through his camera and looked down.  See the tail of the snake he jumped in freight.

Last summer in North Dakota with all the boats in a bay tied together.  The whole sailing group was able to see two large rattlesnakes in some sort of fight or mating ritual.  The snakes seemed to wrestle and then fall into the water. 

Strangley when Kadizzle give the matter some thought he realizes he has seen many more rattlesnakes in North Dakota than Arizona.  In North Dakota you know where the rattlesnakes are, here they are everywhere.

What to do today?

The three ladies are going to hike today.  Kadizzle does not know what to do, but a motorcycle ride up El Osso road might be nice.  The end is in sight.  After our stint at REI on Saturday we are done with the Forest Service for this year.  Another possibility is to ride over into the mountains. 

Sitting here with the ladies that are planning the great John Muir trail hike.  Debbie just informed me she is doing a smell test.  How long can you wear a t shirt before it smells.  She said this is day five and it is starting to smell.  These women discuss trail plans for hours.  Next they will be testing toilet paper,  and figuring out if they should turn their underwear inside out.  Hikers get obsessed with ounces.  Now, I am sitting here and they are comparing their sports bra's.  No actual try ons yet.  Oh, no Mrs Kadizzle actually just went in the bedroom and grabbed a pair of undies. I thought I was joking. 

Ladies Auxillary

Jasper Littlebottom, and her buddies are planning to hike the John Muir trail this summer.  So the three ladies are having a confab here detailing how they will do the trip.  Big decisions have to be made about how many beans to take, what kind of thingma jigs to take and on and on.  The whole trip will be 220 miles through very rugged mountains.  Kadizzle will be home alone sailing. 

Our stint doing trail work is nearing the end.  Saturday we will do an informational presentation at REI in Phoenix.  That will be the end of the season.  The Forest Service had the going away party yesterday.  Every year they give us a nice little gift. This year they gave us some badly needed chairs for camping.

The crew is going to hike today.  More than likely up towards Peter Bigfoots. 

Having a little fun with a political enemy.  A terrible right wing blogger in North Dakota that distorted my encounter with Congressman Cramer writes articles for two papers in North Dakota.  The blogger, Rob Port tried to claim Kadizzle tried to punch Cramer.  That was not at all the case.  Kadizzle did put money down Cramer's shirt collar.  Port posted a picture taken from an angle that made it appear Kadizzle was punching Cramer.  Kadizzle somehow has stumbled across a picture of someone who looks like Port in a fight situation.  Kadizzle has falsely been posting the picture claiming it is Port.  Just fun giving Port a dose of his own medicine.

Distortion seems to be the favorite tactic of the right wind so giving some back is fun.

Help I am down and I can't get up.

A perfect day at the perfect temperature so a motorcycle ride up the mountain was essential.  Being an ex safety person it seemed best to take the satellite communicator in case worse came to worse.  So Kadizzle tested his riding skills to the limit and made it up the most treacherous part.  Back down was no problem.  Then the decision to try a different way home.  Remember that satellite emergency device? Well Kadizzle could not find it so he said the hell with it and went without it.  That almost proved a big mistake.  After riding a long way down an unfamiliar wash back to the paved road Kadizzles worst problem appeared to come true.  It was going to be a dead end.  is had been following some relatively fresh tracks so he thought there must be a way out.  With a little search he came to a place where the other guy must have gone out by cutting the fence.  The fence was crudely patched and Kadizzle was able to get it down.  This is where the trouble started.  It appeared the last strand of barbedwire was on the ground, but not it was not disconected.  When Kadizzle drove over it snagged the cycle and pitched him on the ground.  It was on a bit of a hill so he was stuck on the downhill side under the motorcycle. It seemed he was pinned and could not get the cycle off him nor could he get his foot out. Now this would be the time to be able to call for help.  The whole little mess was withing sight of the highway. Kadizzle whistled at a couple of passing cyclist, but they did not stop.  Calling Mrs. Kadizzle was starting to seem emanate.  After a little struggling it became evident it was the tennis shoe that was caught.  Freeing the foot from the shoe enabled the leg to escape.  It was not easy, but Kadizzle got the cycle upright, and managed to get going again.

Morning in the Earth Module

To get out of bed in the Earth Module one must have some heat.  So a brave soul must get up and put a heat puff in the module.  The heat puff involves turning on the furnace, and the electric heater. The lucky person who stayed in bed can get up to a warm Earth Module.  Now you can lay in bed and do your update while the module warms.  Coffee comes next.  Winkie usually makes the coffee as Kasdizzle is considered to incompetent to do the simplest task.  NPR comes on in the background.  Now it is time to check on the fighters.  Kadizzle must subdue as many right wing dolts as possible and advance the Jihad against the Republican takeover of our democracy.  CNN, The New York Time, The Bismarck Tribune, and all the news outlets must be checked for false stories being spread by the Republicans to subdue the Hoopleheads.   The Hoopleheads and lickspittles are the curse of the Earth.  Hoopleheads easily fall for anything the NRA, Republicans, or Fox News puts out as truth.  Hoopleheads are the people who brought us Donald Trump.  Now to the lickpittles.  The lickspittles are the sorrowful people who promote the Republican agenda of tax breaks for the rich.  Every morning all these things have to be carefully checked least we be overrun by ignorance. 

After the second cup of coffee has sunk in perhaps breakfast can begin, and so can the day.  Today the Forest Service will feed us at a going away party for all the brave volunteers.  The Forest Service is very good to us and a great organization to work for.  Every year they five us a nice gift for our volunteer service.  Will not be long before the Earth Module is hooked to the truck and we head North.

Knowledge raining down

For two days we have been presenting trail information at the Tonto National Monument.  Every year they have a little archaeological festival up at the monument.  It is a very nice event.  What gave Kadizzle infinite pleasure was talking to the friendly and very knowledgable people.  People who actually duplicate Indian crafts like arrow making, flint knapping, and fire making are a wonderful asset.  The man demonstrating how ancients started fires is very knowledgable.  He demonstated a way fire was made with a special rock that contained iron and sulfur.  Kadizzle never knew such a technique existed, and that it went back 25,000 years.  It was very unique because one rock was struck with another.  No spark appeared, but the tinder made from fungus started to smoke and a fire was created.

So much of the day was spent picking the brains of these knowledgable people.  Question like " How did the ancients keep a torch lit in a cave?".    Also Kadizzle has wondered for a long time about secret tunnels in and near Kivas.  Some good information was provided.

Find Johnny

Johnny is the walking blueprint for the National Forest Service here.  Johnny 88 years old was here when everything was built,  so when you need to know where something is you ask Johnny.  Johnny cannot sit still.  As we sit in the Earth Module Johnny is constantly driving about with his little white dog Bessie hanging out the window.

Poncho, Johnny's son in law drove up to the Earth Module yesterday and asked to borrow something to pull Johnny out of a hole with.  Kadizzle made some inquiries and volunteered to help Poncho retrieve Johnny.  Johnny went fishing down by the diversion dam.   That is the area where the Salt River empties into Lake Roosevelt.  The flatlands down there are a maize of trees and roads.  Now where in the hell was Johnny down in that hopeless tangle of roads.  Several times Kadizzle tried to phone Johnny, but no answer.  In the mean time we drove all over hell's half acre trying to find the stuck little SUV.   No luck.  At last Johnny answered the phone.  It was getting to the point we might have to call in the forces.  Johnny said he had walked out and caught a ride.  We were able to locate Johnny and Bessie.  Finally we found his vehicle sunk in the sand by the river.  The Johnny mobile was pulled out and Johnny took off to visit a friend like nothing even happened.  Johnny needs oxygen, and Kadizzle thought we might find him in bad shape, but no problem.  Poncho and Johnny's daughter stay with him in his RV near us.  Kadizzle suggested they put a lease on Johnny.  It would be great to have Johnny's pep at age 88.

Ted the sign man

Fat old Kadizzle stopped to talk to Ted the volunteer sign guy on his way back from the workout hall. Ted puts a lot of free labor into those nice wooden hand routed signs you see in the National Forest.  Now fasten your seat belt here goes the rant.  It breaks Kadizzles heart to think after Ted has spent a day or two making one nice sign that some simple minded gun dinger will take great pleasure in firing his hand gun into the sign.  The NRA terrorist like to portray themselves as patriots, but are they defending the country from signs? The brave hand gun wielding gun nuts shoot up millions of dollars worth of signs every year.  It is enough of a tragedy that they destroy the public property, but another aspect of giving idiots guns is safety.  The brave gun slingers shoot signs along the highway.  Do you think and idiot with a handgun has the good sense to figure out if anyone is in danger when he shoots a stop sigh?  Hell no. 

Just making the sign cost time, effort, and money.  Even with Ted working free there still is the cost of tools, and material.  Then someone has to drive out into the forest to put the sign up, take down the damaged sign and drive back. This is the cost of idiots with guns. Does the NRA care? Hell no.  So thank you NRA for not only making sure our school children die, but also shooting up public property.

Distracted Driving

Kadizzle hopped on the motorcycle and thought he would buzz down to the workout hall.  Why not reset the odometer on the way.  Starring at the little numbers and trying to figure out how to get it to zero just took too much attention. Suddenly Kadizzle looked up and realized he was about to hit the gate across the road head on at about 18 mph.  Fortunately the was just enough time to swerve and go through the open portion of the gate that was half closed.  Now the half that was closed is locked down in the center.  The motorcycle would have gone under the pipe gate and Kadizzle would have gone over.  A lot of somethings would have been cut up and broken on both Kadizzle and the motorcycle.  The little bout of stupidity was equivalent to texting and driving.  It was a good lesson. Kadizzle has been thrown from a bicycle at 15 mph once when the front tire dropped into a ditch.  It was a massive body slam.  Had this little crash taken place it would have been much worse.  The moral of the story is when you are moving your eyes need to be only on the road.  If you need to do some silly task pull over and stop.  Do this for me, and slap me silly if I do not do it for myself.  Put that phone down.

Ka Boom

Out side straightening up the Air force jest guys just came by on their weekly hide and seek. Now Kadizzle is not real knowledgable on this and needs a message from Honest Omar about the intricacies of flight rules.  It would seem the air space would be restricted when they practice these low level games, but Kadizzle notices a little private plane flying low about the same time.  The way the fighters fly they could easily pop over the mountain and through the front seat of the little plane.  If they could react quickly enough to avoid a pancake it would be amazing. 

So the call just came in from the Crazy Club in Hazen.  Shiny and Stroupini are doing a great job with marketing. The club may offer some different membership levels.  We are considering making Trump a platinum member.  With that membership you get an automatic guardian.  Also there is talk about franchising the Crazy Club.  We do have a Canadian division already.  If you are delusional, and you occasionally hear voices you might want to consider a membership.  Kadizzle oftern hears voices in the refrigerator.   The ice cream is the worst.  The poor little shivering voice of the ice cream saying "warm me up, melt me with your kind heart" is hard to resist. 

Should I keep gong.

Today was the perfect day for a nice Motorcycle ride so Kadizzle hopped on and took off up the mountain.  Half the fun is the challenge of a difficult ride.  The goal is not to crash.  This up and over the mountain road has plenty of opportunities to crash. Once you start up a steep section there is no stopping.  The key to success is picking a route that will work.  This has to be done quickly and successfully. If all of a sudden you are confronted with things the motorcycle will not go over your momentum stops and you fall over.  That is fine except when you are on an extremely steep grade you will not be able to start up hill once again.  This means somehow you have to get turned and head back. Sometimes if you are forced completely off the cycle just getting back on is a major problem on a steep incline. 

Fortunately the challenges were met.  Kadizzle made it to an intersection high on the mountain. Now this where the two brains got in an argument.  The smart brains said " Remember the last time you went down that road?".  "Yup" the dumb brain answered.  Well the last trip down that road narrowly avoided disaster, but the dumb brain won and we gave it another try.  The challenges were difficult and fun.  Lets just go a litter farther, and a little more.  Things got tougher and worse and the two brains came to a very steep hill that looked like sure failure.  Fortunately smart brain convinced dumb brain to turn back.  So smart brain and dumb adventurous brain made it home unscratched. 

The Day is Approaching

The body Kadizzle is occupying will soon be 69 years old.  One problem seems to be realizing those years have gone by and the brain does not seem as old as the body.  The body is heavy, it gets tired, and of course it is always hungry.

The body is like an old car. It is falling apart.  The rust is showing,  it does not steer like it used to. it has been patched, the radio doesn't seem to work right, the knobs are falling of, and the windshield is cracked and nicked.  On it goes.

So what do you do with an old car?  You try to maintain it. You wish you could trade it in,  you are used to it.  You don't drive as fast.

Sadly so many friends are going through the same thing.  At the moment it seems like 80% of our close friends are having health problems.  Because we are aging all of our friends are in the same boat.  Three good male friends are experiencing urinary problems.  Just about everyone has had a kidney stone by now. Oh what fun.  Prostate problems that plague Kadizzle are a standard for old men.  The women have their specialties.

So what do we do?   Kadizzle says enjoy every day.  Don't put off fun.  We will all hit some bumps, but in most cases that is what they are bumps.  After the bump things settle down and the sailing is good again. 

Summer is about to start and the warm breezes of North Dakota will propel the Sovereign down the lake.  Boats will tie together, old friends will tell stories,  and one more pleasant summer will be underway.  Flowers will bloom,  the garden will produce fresh food, maybe the June berries will be abundant.  The snow has piled up in the mountains and the lake will be full. This means the boats will be able to get back into our favorite places. 

In the end the key is to dwell on the good events coming up in the future.  The Kadizzles look forward to seeing Sylvie in Denver.  Sylvie had a blast with her mom seeing Hamilton on stage yesterday.  Guess grandpa is bragging, but Sylvie has turned out to be a very intelligent little lady.  She is fun to be with and full of pep.

Sylvia has been the victim of bullying by a mean girl at school.  Ella the bully decided to set up an arm wrestling contest.  The playoffs would determine the school champ.  When the brackets brought Sylvie up against the bully Ella,  Sylvie with her arms of steel defeated Ella.  Ella who was sponsoring the tournament on the playground immediately declared the tournament over.  Maybe Granpa will challenge Sylvie to a round of arm wrestling.