12/23/2012

• Night number 2 in screen shelter #4 and so far so good. I took a long hot shower, ate some stacios, jerky and dried pineapple and drank some Gatorade. I've slid into my nice warm sleeping bag on a queen size air mattress. Things could be worse. I don't know what the pioneers were complaining about.
• There is a woodpecker pecking wood close to the shelter.
• Betting On The Horse Races For Dummies is the title of a book I saw at the library yesterday. It is also it's own punchline.
• I bet riding a penny farthing would feel way cooler than it would look.
• I'm curious to see how my Middle Eastern patients will treat me as my beard develops. In Iraq men would go out of their way and use our interpreter to tell me they liked my mustache.
• Blackie's Country Cobra Bar is the name of a bar in Mineral Wells.
• When people not from the area go to Mineral Wells they inevitably say something to the effect of, Uh, well- It's different... I don't have an ax to grind when it comes to the place- I've worked there, trained there with the guard, gone to church and have plenty of friends from there but I get what they mean when they say thing like that. Earlier I went to Wally World. I have never seen so many people wearing cheap cowboy hats, wife beater shirts, flip flops, camouflage, outdated jeans and other clothing items in my life. There were a lot of people with meth mouth. There is always a lot of, if not homeless - shiftless, dirty looking people staggering around town.
• There was a guy in the Walmarts puffing on one of those electronic cigarettes. His wife might have weighed 90 pounds soaking wet and had greasy looking blond hair with long black roots. She had sores all over her face and an awe inspiring case of met mouth. My guess is he had very early onset emphysema or even lung cancer.  The electronic cig made him cough his head off.
• There was a beaver out by the shelter just now. He was munching on a tree shoot. His tail had a huge healed deficit taken out of it that looked like a snapping turtle had a little late night snack one night. Literally- it was the perfect shape of a large snappers beak.
• I have had A Perfect Circle's The Noose on my mind for the past few days.
• Put and take trout fishing seems at best, odd to me.
• In the Army sleeping bags are called fart sacks. May I never outgrow that making me giggle a little inside.
• A beaver is chewing a tree on the other side of the shelter now.
• My feet are a little cold.
• Owls have been hooting to each other on either side of the shelter for a couple of hours now. OK guys I get it- you're an inspiring symbol of all that is noble in the timeless woods and blah, blah blah- give it a rest. I'm pooped and can't sleep with all this racket.
• Death Cab For Cutie Baby Please Come Home