This one's for Mike

Last weekend, I went out to CA to see my best friend get married to a wonderful woman. I've known him since fall of 1994 when we both had Skaggs' surveying class together at UW. We also had geology class together that semester as well. Mike and I had many classes toegether the next few years, but our last year of college, we had nearly all of our classes together. After college, he headed to SLC, and I headed to Indiana. Several years later we both wound up in the Bay Area, working for the same company. Mike still works for them, while I have moved on (several times!)

So here's to you my friend, to you and your new bride, we both know it was a long time coming...

Chop 'em up, and move 'em out...

This afternoon, I was over seeing the family in Greybull. Dad and I went out to the airport since one of his clients was coming to get his airplane, as the annual inspection upon it was complete. After that was taken care of, we drove out to the storage ramp where a salvage crew is hard at work beginning to scrap some of the aircraft in the world famous former collection of the now defunct Hawkins & Powers Aviation. At this point, the things that have been ripped to shreds have been the planes that were too far gone to ever fly again... Several gutted Fairchild C-119 Boxcars (which is what the pile of rubble in the above picture was), several gutted Lockheed P2V-7 Neptunes, and a Lockheed P-3 Orion that had it's nacelles removed many years ago for a grand and ambitious project to retrofit a Neptune with the Allison T-56 Turbines from off of it... That project was never completed... I bet the "Turbine Neptune" will soon be meeting it's demise at the end of those pinchers on that Hyundai Trackhoe...

Big Ben

This a Bucyrus Erie Drag Line, which was sitting Northeast of Evansville, Indiana, as of May 1999, when I took this photo. If you enlarge the picture, you can see a Steiger articulated tractor sitting behind the bucket... This thing was huge!

CB Tract

Occidental Petroleum's Cathedral Buffs Oil Shale Project in Rio Blanco County Colorado - Better known as the CB Tract. OK, well, what's left of it at this point. I took this picture in January 2000. The main tower was 315 feet tall, and beneath if was a shaft 30' in diameter that went straight down 2600 feet. From off of this main shaft, there were many horizontal tunnels. I was told by several people that when the funding for this thing was cancelled, they got everyone out, and flipped the switches to the dewatering pumps, leaving behind all kinds of equipement deep inside the Earth. When I passed through the area in December 2005, the towers were gone...

Twitterpated: Part II

Remember kids... You're not an animated fawn, therefore, use the word "twitterpated" with care. Don't use it carelessly unless you really mean it.

You're in my way cat!

This is my little buddy, Berries... This is his favorite place to lounge... And, you guessed it, he only does this while I am doing something on the computer... I love the "what the hell are you looking at" look on his face... It's almost as good as his "if I could eat you, I would" look that he gives me every time I wake him up in the morning.

He'd be pissed if I got a new laptop or a flat screen monitor!

Get a real job!

Tonight I was at Walmart doing my dreaded weekly shopping. When I got to the checkout, I wrote a check as I always do, but tonight it wanted to see my ID. Now, in spite of the fact that I have lived back here in Wyoming for a little over a year now, I still haven't gone to the DMV here and gotten my Wyoming Driver's License, I mean, hell, would these people understand how hard it would be to part with the one that I carry? How long I had to stand in line for it even though I had an appointment? What it took to pass the rider's portion of the Class M1?

Anyway, this snot nosed kid at the checkout who was conducting the transaction gave me a really funny look,

"No, I haven't made it down to the DMV yet."

"You're one of those Californians that come here an' make things skyrocket."

"No, I was from here to begin with, and I came back to the area for a job"

"I have to live in Powell, because I can't afford to live in Cody on a Walmart Job."

"I see..."

What I really wanted to tell this little turd was that he needed to quit whining and to get his ass some sort of education so that he wouldn't have to work a dead end low paying job at Walmart. But, I didn't. Sometimes I am too damned nice.