I see the Portland paper finally put in a mention of the California meteorite, thanks to the fact that a couple of collectors had found bits of the debris. That would be an interesting hobby -- or is it a job? -- to be a meteorite hunter. It's amazing that two different collectors have found bits of this one already, given that the pieces are so small, and could be anywhere within a radius of who knows how many miles. I wonder how they pinpointed where to look, and how they went about looking, and how much these little bits of space rock are worth. I see one was found near the town of Coloma, and the other near Lotus. I wonder if those towns are now filled with collectors, with all the motels filled up (or maybe there are no motels there), and the cafes full of meteorite-seekers in the morning, chowing down on bacon and eggs before heading out to do their prospecting. Maybe those towns will have to hire Wyatt Earp-like sheriffs to bring law and order to the once-sleepy towns, now filled with drunken meteorite collectors, space rock robbers, and prostitutes.
I found a tick on me yesterday, and ever since I've been feeling imaginary ticks walking all over my body, under my clothes.
For some reason, I've been spending a lot of time doing yard and garden work this spring. Maybe it's because we've been having glorious April weather, and I don't mean this gloomy, overcast crap that you revel in. No, it's sapphire-blue skies all the way, with no dismal clouds to clutter up the heavens like floating white funeral shrouds. At any rate, I have been digging out unwanted scrub growth, and cutting down tree limbs that are dead or disorderly. Of course, the real work begins once these bushes and trees are cut down and lying there on the ground. They have to be all cut up and taken to the dump. NOT! I am serious advocate of the "find it and grind it" approach. I take any branches, twigs and leaves that aren't ridiculously large, and spread them out over the lawn, which needs mowing anyway, then go over them with the lawn mower. It's amazing how the mower tears this stuff up and makes it vanish. Sometimes you have to go over it several times, but the lawn ends up getting mowed in the process, plus I tell myself that all this shredded organic matter is good for the soil. I'm killing three birds with one stone. Bring it on! It's so much fun, once I've eliminated all the bad stuff, I'll probably do after all the good plants and bushes. I'll grind everything, until we're living in a zen-like zone of complete emptiness.
There was an interesting piece in the paper about a 42-year old guy who died in the Portland area recently. Each day, the paper focuses on one person who died -- usually people who led inspirational lives -- and writes up a story about him/her. That sounds like a great job, by the way, being the reporter who writes that article, provided he has no other duties or responsibilities, which I'm sure he does. Anyway, the article starts off talking about how everybody loved this guy who died, who looks kind of like of like Brent only smaller, and was saddened by his death. Then it said that he has been in AA for the last two years, and it really turned his life around, and how he had a license plate that said GOD-AA or something like that. He was a short-order cook. His mother talked about how glad she was that he was getting better, she was so glad he had finally turned his life around, and how inspiring he was to other alcoholics. Then it reveals that the way he died was that he was driving at high the wrong way on the interstate at 2:30 in the morning, and his SUV had flown off the road and he was ejected from the car and killed instantly. His relatives had no idea where he was going at that time of night. Then it said he lived with his mother. And a brother said the guy had started drinking again about two months ago. The end. It's almost like the reporter started writing the article right away when he first started interviewing people, and the negative information only started coming out when he was halfway through the article. By that time he probably realized this guy really wasn't appropriate to be the person to write the article about, but he figured what the hell, he'd already started it and it was too late to look for someone else.
--edward
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