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The Kid, carving (close up)
Originally uploaded by corey_porter.

Lindsey, The Kid and I carved jack-o-lanterns (photo set) yesterday. It was great fun, and we got two rad jack-o-lanterns and a big bowl full of roasted pumpkin seeds out of the deal. Yay!

Kitsch
Originally uploaded by barbfi.

In high-school I went camping in New Mexico with my Boy Scout troop. We would hike anywhere from five to fifteen miles every day over some really beautiful mountains. It was a lot of fun.

About an hour after we went to sleep one night, I heard some noises outside of the tent. My tent-mate, Stephen, looked over at me, as he clearly heard the noises as well. Panicked hand gestures started flying in the tent. Somehow, we managed to communicate without sound that we both agreed that there was a bear just outside the tent — clearly not a good situation.

The first thing you have to understand about North American Black Bears is that they’re possibly the most lazy creatures on the planet. If they have to lift a finger to do something, odds are that they won’t do it. That considered, the most common prescription for dealing with aforementioned creatures is to make as much noise as humanly possible, letting them know that whoever you are, whatever you’re doing, you’re trouble and that maybe they should go on to deal with something easier.

We screamed. At the top of our lungs, we yelled and hollered and whooped and carried on. We stopped and listened, and it was still right there, outside of our tent. Again, clearly not a good situation.

We took a second go at screaming. Equally loud, but with a fire that we simply didn’t have the first time around. That’s what we needed — fire — to make the bear go away. Otherwise it would rip open our tent and eat us.

The rest of our camp took issue with our screaming in the middle of the night. They all had to wake up and hike ten miles with sixty pounds on their backs the next day and would like their rest, thank you very much. What on earth were we screaming for, any way?

“There’s a bear right outside our tent!” This seemed perfectly reasonable to us. Why not yell and hoot and holler in this situation? It was the correct thing to do.

We heard a tent unzip, presumably to get a look at the bear that was about to eat us alive. “Yeah, you sure do have a bear there. It must be six, eight point.” There was much laughing at us after that, but we went to sleep anyway, secure in the knowledge that the deer probably wouldn’t eat us.

Colors at "Park Merfeld"
Originally uploaded by Wattwurm’s View.

When I was a kid I use to go to Loose park in the winter with my mother and my sister to go ice skating on the frozen pond. It didn’t freeze over every year, and sometimes when it did the ice wasn’t solid enough to skate on. Those years when everything worked out perfectly were pretty cool, though.

One thing you could expect when the pond at Loose park did freeze over properly is a camera crew from the local TV news showing up to do a story. (This is what passes for *news* in Kansas City.) They would always want to interview the one kid who actually knew how to ice skate (there was always one) and the two kids pretending to play hockey. They mostly left the families alone, though.

I decided one year that I was going to be on the TV news from Loose park. I didn’t have it in me to learn how to properly ice skate — that’d be a whole lot of effort. I didn’t know anybody with hockey sticks, so that wasn’t much of an option either. The plan that I settled on was wandering back and forth on foot in the background of every shot they took, hoping that I’d make it in to something that they would show on the air.

At the end of the day, my strategy worked. I was on the far left side of the frame for a fraction of a second at the very end of the segment. The news coverage of yours truly was a bit underwhelming, I’ll admit, but it was nice to have set a goal and accomplished it.

Seattle’s symbol
Originally uploaded by Dean Forbes.

It’s a little-known fact that the Space Needle is the hub of all communications for the World Supergovernment-Alien Alliance. It’s true. I learned this when I was in Seattle for a conference a couple of years ago.

I don’t know if this is the best place to talk to the aliens. There are a lot of nerds in Seattle. Microsoft is up there. I think Google has a facility there as well. You’d think that with that many geeks around, somebody would have stumbled upon the such a vital link in the doomsday pact between man and alien. I guess not, though, because it hasn’t been on the news.

If it were up to me, I’d center all communications in one of three places: Madison, WI, Lawrence, KS, or Berkeley, CA. What do they have in common? Well, they’re all college towns, they’re all peopled largely by strangeo’s, and they all excel at manufacturing controversy. I don’t think anybody would notice a bunch of black helicopters arriving at a facility to transmit ultra-low frequency messages in to space. It would fit right in.

Hick On The Hill
Originally uploaded by aqui-ali.

I use to know a guy who had a truck like this. It didn’t run very well. Whenever it would rain he would have to sacrifice livestock to make it start. This was inconvenient because we lived in a city and livestock was hard to come by.

It’s handy that the truck was, well, a truck, because schleping out to the sticks to find livestock would be a bitch in a Civic. You couldn’t even fit a goat in one of those things without it tearing up the interior. I bet some people would try to put chickens in the back of a Civic — especially if it was a hatchback. That would be a mistake. They won’t stay there. What were they thinking, putting chickens in the back of a Civic?

We were never shot at while hunting for sacrifice-ready livestock in the busted up pickup. You’d think that being out in Erie and Newton and Hayseville with city slicker tags and city slicker clothes and city slicker attitudes in a busted up truck trying to coax a llama or an ostrich out of its yard would draw more attention and perhaps ire. It did not. Country folk just don’t care about morons in a broken down truck. They’re wise that way. The country folk, that is.

Most of the time we didn’t bring back any livestock. We’d drive around rural Kansas, not stealing things, maybe stop by the Quick Trip for a cool, refreshing Squantrum of soda (or pop: Kansas does not have a cola-nomenclature preference the way Chicago or Los Angeles does). When it would rain we’d have to take my car, which was much less exciting on account of it would always start, even in the rain.

One day, after a particularly good thunderstorm, the truck refused to start. My friend wasn’t in the mood for killing animals so he got a loan at the credit union and bought a used Grand Am. It wasn’t nearly as much fun as the truck, but it had a better stereo (with a tape deck).

Blog Marketing Works
Originally uploaded by corey_porter.

A while back, I mentioned that Harvey Danger was giving away mp3’s of their new CD to try to drum up business. I downloaded them and listened to them. It’s not the greatest album ever recorded, but it’s pretty good, and I was so pleased that I was allowed to listen to it before making the irrevocable purchase decision that I ordered a copy from Amazon.

So here’s the message, record labels: if you want me to with any regularity buy CD’s produced within the last thirty years, let me listen to them first. It costs you nothing, and at the end of the day your customers are more satisfied with their purchases. You can’t lose.

Issues
Originally uploaded by corey_porter.

I played chess with The Kid the other night (photo set). It was pretty fun.

Apparently he’s been playing at school and doing pretty well. Some of the other kids go to an after school program called “Chess Masters” where they are taught how to play a simplified variant of chess. The Kid’s dad, however, is a jerk and doesn’t believe that learning a simplified variant of the game is a good thing, so he doesn’t go.

I won when we played, and he was rather put out. How uncool is it to lose to your dad? It took me explaining and actually producing evidence that I did in fact use to play a lot of chess for him to not feel bad about the loss. Not that he’s competitive or anything.

Sushi with The Kid
Originally uploaded by corey_porter.

A brief parenting tip: it may not be the brightest idea to give your growing son a taste for sushi. Worse yet is teaching him about “chef’s special.” It turns out that kids can say “what’s good today?” and snork down whatever the chef hands them all night long.

Welcome to the LA County Fair
Originally uploaded by corey_porter.

The Bramlets, The Kid and I went to the LA County Fair (photoset) this past weekend. It’s truly wonder of nature, the fair, and easily the best excuse to stuff corn dogs in to your face, drink watery American beers and spend some quality time with livestock. Plus: mullets! Mullets galore! You’ve never seen so many! Hoo boy.

The Kid geeks out over the animals and the old-timey/blacksmithy stuff. I get in to the photo contest and some of the artsy-craftsy things (plus: corn dogs). It was the Bramlets’ first time, so they were taking everything in. Good times. Good times indeed.

One of the oddest things about this trip is that we went on the day when ZZ Top was to play. Now, we don’t get a lot of the ZZ Top here in LA County. That’s really more of a San Berdoo thing. The crowd was impressive. I saw one obese 60-something woman in a mechanized wheelchair with a ZZ Top t-shirt on. I don’t think that could be topped.

One thing I can recommend to anybody thinking about going to the fair: show up early. We got there around 10:30, and it didn’t really start to get crowded until after 2:00 (at which point it really started to get crowded). Also, if you show up in the AM, the “standard” parking only differs from “VIP” by fifteen feet or so.

I put a LA County Fair photoset on Flickr. I hope you enjoy it.

We’ve been JAMMED!
Originally uploaded by corey_porter.

The Kid and I went to the Pasadena Farmers’ Market this morning to buy some berries. We’re both big fans of blueberries and strawberries, so they go very quickly every time we have them in the house. The Farmers’ Market is a really good chance to stock up for the next few days at a somewhat cut rate.

Because I’m a giant dork, I took the camera out with me and took a few pictures (photoset linked to above). The Kid watched over my shoulder while I was entering titles and captions for a few of them, and when I keyed the title for this one in, he absolutely terrified me. “There’s only one man who would dare give me the raspberry!” He said. We finished the though in unison: “Lone Starr!”

I swear that I am not trying to teach him to do this. Honest. You believe me, don’t you? Please?