How the West was writ'

Imagine the odd dramatic license and melodrama of Ivanhoe, combine it with the overwrought emotional focus of The Scarlet Letter, and set the whole thing in late 19th century Utah. Actually, just imagine an old silent movie that takes itself very, very seriously.

I just finished reading Riders of the Purple Sage, by Zane Grey. To say that it was a "hoot" would probably be all the description just about anyone needs, because no one is ever going to read it.

But I've been curious about Grey. Zane Grey wrote westerns between 1910 and 1930, and during that time was one of the most popular and richest authors in America. If you don't read westerns, then you probably haven't heard of him. But he's considered one of the two founders of the genre.

So when I stumbled upon Sage -- considered his most important work -- at the library, I checked it out, read it, and spent a lot of time trying not to snigger.

Some of the book's more amusing touches:

• Chapter 6 begins with, perhaps for the first time in history, "Meantime, at the ranch, ..."
• Poor attempts at writing dialects, such as "I been nicked, but I'm some wet an' the hoss's has been throwin' lather, so all this ain't blood."
• Of course, it's better that the bad English is answered with dialogue like: "Oh, you fierce-blooded, savage youth! Can't I teach you forbearance, mercy?"
• A woman is able to pass for a man simply by wearing a Lone Ranger mask.
• The story has an odd streak of anti-Mormonism. They're treated like some kind of exotic tribe out of New Guinea.

Still, after I put the book down I had to admit it was a pretty good story -- fun characters, good villains, not completely far-fetched.

Everything has to be translated a bit through the filter of its time, and Grey wrote sexist melodrama that belied a simple pride in being able to read and write when so many people of the time could not.

I often think that people who look back at our time will be laughing at us -- the most spoiled and pampered generation ever -- and the gritty grit-like grittiness that permeates most of our creative work.

Capitalism is awesome (burp)

The Star-Telegram bidness section had a story today on the town's Rahr Brewery, which is selling its beer faster than it can be made. They are literally taking beer directly from the production line to the trucks to ship out -- with no time in storage.

It's a good thing. I first heard about Rahr when the company opened. The staff consisted of the owner and a group of volunteers who liked beer. I remember the first golden lager I had. It was the first time I've done a double take with a beer, as in:

Drink.

Look at beer.

"My, that's tasty."

Drink.

Since then I've been recommending the beer to friends, and spreading the word along with six packs on the few occasions when I drink beer, which happens rarely if ever nowadays.

They just added more brewing capacity, and if you're in Texas, you'll probably be able to get some soon. That reminds me that I need to tour their brewery sometime.

Anyway, their success reminds me of this documentary Reason put out a few months back on the history of American brewing and the development of microbreweries. Don't worry, it's not political.

GuMo

(Guadalupe Mountains National Park)


I think that I've figured out the golden rule for backpacking, at least for me:

Overambitious and out of shape does not make for a happy camper.

I kept it in mind while planning and hiking last weekend, and things went about as well or better on a trip as they ever have for me. That doesn't give me a lot of stories to tell (I.E., no near heat stroke, no hiding in a bathroom to avoid the cold), but I can say it went well and we did what we set out to do. That's a rare enough thing.

Plus, Todd took some good pictures of the experience, so here's what happened, in brief.


What happened:
After grousing here that I was getting restless to take a trip, college buddy Todd, who sends me stuff to link about all the time, said he'd be willing to try this hiking thing.

Two weeks later -- last Friday -- we set off for Van Horn. It's a nice little town in Far West Texas. Apparently John Madden stops there often for the Mexican food. We got our hotel room and settled in.

About 10 p.m., we heard people banging on the roof of the building. I went outside to find out that the noise was actually from a fireworks display. It went on for 45 minutes. I still have no idea what people were celebrating.

The next morning, after a bacon-free "hot" breakfast at the hotel, we drove the remaining hour to Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

I've taken three trips there before. It's a great place to get yourself beat up, badly, by nature. It's basically a mountain range surrounded by desert. It's also home to the highest peak in Texas, which is not saying much, but still.


The peak stands at the end of a four-mile trail. Easy eh? Neh. The trail isn't four straight miles. It's four miles of up. You climb up one hill by going in switchbacks up its face. Once on top, you begin climbing another hill, with more switchbacks.

This is a lot of up.

I should add that there are a lot of rocks.

And to explain the next few pictures: We climbed a bit, checked out the scenery, rested a lot, and otherwise wore out various parts of our feet. Todd had a GPS that gave us our altitude along the way. I'm not a fan of tech-stuff on the trail, but it was kinda cool to hear that, after the last bit, we had climbed another 50 feet up.

It took us longer than we thought. At one point, sunset was about 45 minutes away and we still had half a mile to go. Finally ...

To those who are curious, the marker on top is a memorial to those brave people who deliver your mail by plane.

We signed the log the Park Service keeps up there, and Todd recorded the moment with his GPS. (The altitude was off a bit, by the way. Needed to be re-zeroed or something.)

Standing on Guadalupe Peak at sunset.

We made it down before it got dark. I tried out my new backpacking shower. Mainly, it didn't get me wet enough, and then it didn't rinse off the soap. I was also attempting to wash in a mountain breeze. I'm still glad I did, though. Climbing all day will give you an unholy stink.

The weather was perfect. The wind didn't blow much, and it never got hot. Resting in my sleeping bag, I looked up and saw around 20 shooting stars and a few satellites drifting by. And had only one skunk visit that I know of.

The peak, next morning, before we took off.

People think the desert is ugly. Feel free to leave more of it for me.

At the Fort Worth ISD job fair

Standing in the lobby at the Will Rogers Center in the Fort Worth Stockyards, I killed a few minutes by counting the listed jobs and the number of people applying for them.

Number of Math teaching positions: About 30
Number of applicants in the lobby: About 500, give or take a couple hundred

I realized that with no experience and with so many other people applying, I'd have to transform into the Sham Wow guy to make any sort of impression. And I don't do the Sham Wow guy.

(Actually, I have never seen the Sham Wow commercial, but I can make a fairly strong guess as to what it's like.)

Ah well, nothing to do now but wait and hope. And maybe expand the area of prospective job locations. Maybe they have spots in Kansas. I get the feeling I'd like Kansas. At least the non-Kansas City parts.


Speaking of commercials
The digital change has come and gone, leaving us in the lurch. We have no cable, satellite, and we didn't bother buying a box.

Why? We love the Netflix, but just don't care about TV enough to keep up with it. Also, laziness.

The only thing the house TV is getting now is a broadcast of extremely earnest man telling us not to worry, it'll be OK. We can get this box thing and get our TMZ back, plus we'll have all these new channels.

Does anyone doubt the new channels will put the "r" on the end of "lame?"


Lights on, lights off
It's been an exhausting few days.

The electricity went off. Then on. Then off. Then on. Then off. Then I screamed and demanded to leave the house. (About an hour after which, it came on and stayed.)

We blew through way too much money for eating out, transportation and ice. On the other hand, we have a really nice new cooler, and that should come in handy.


Tooth brush
This picture was harder to set up than I thought, and I'm still not happy with it. What's with the giant door knob?

Still, good enough for a Monday after a disaster.

A post in honor of Oncor energy providers

You people -- bite me.
The lights and A/C are out?
Let's visit in-laws.

This haiku inspired by Todd. Who has lower back pain.

My lower back hurts
been this way for three days now
hoping it stops soon.

Hico trip observations/RomCom notes

I’m posting this late or I won’t get around to posting it at all.

I spent a day in Hico over the weekend – did some farmwork, slept in a screened-in porch, and took the dog for a midnight walk under a full moon. I would have had to parachute in beer to make it better.

Some things I noticed on the trip:

• The mosquitos this year are big, proud and aggressive. Seriously, these mosquitos deserve to be a little league team’s mascot. They looked like trophies, flattened against my windshield as they were.
• The closest a civilian can get to driving a tank is driving a tractor. You get to plow over rough terrain and knock over just about anything you want. (Or mow over it, whatever.) I realize that some will disagree, saying that the monster truck is also similar. But the thing about driving the monster truck, as opposed to the tractor or tank, is that monster truck driving requires a certain amount of stupidity. Oh, I’m sure it’s fun, but you can’t get away from the celebration of the "Yee-haw Yee-haw (banjo interlude) h-yuck" that is monster truck society. Tank and tractor driving – that’s all practicality. Good old American practicality.
• The wildflowers this year are better than ever. We have entire fields covered in yellows, reds, whites and purples. And I couldn’t help but think that we created this environmental wonderland by poisoning hundreds of mesquite trees, with gallons of kerosene per tree, to clear the aforementioned fields.
  

Male driven romance
Thanks to some movie selections recently made by my wife, we just watched "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and the not-nearly-as-good "Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist."

I was thinking about how both plots followed the formula of

• Girlfriend dumps boyfriend for new guy.
• Ex-boyfriend finds another, more awesome, girl.
• Old girlfriend goes freakin’ nuts and tries to win back ex-boyfriend.
• After some hemming and hawing, boy gives old girlfriend back of hand.
• Ecstatic happiness.

This is the only subgenre of the RomCom that I think is aimed at men. God knows how many of us have had this fantasy while we were licking our wounds after our most recent dumping, listening to Pearl Jam’s Black over and over and over.

But it’s a fantasy. I know so because it’s never happened to me nor any other guy that I know. And I know like 10 or 15 guys.

Really, the closest I ever came to living this was getting drunken phone calls at 3 a.m. from ex-girlfriends who wanted to tell me about how I was always so sweet ... and not like their new guy ... who was totally flirting with that ho Cindy at the club but that doesn’t matter because he's probably gay.

Obligatory Sam shots

We realized recently that, while Sam has enough toys to bury himself in, he doesn't have any furniture outside of the crib. We discussed buying him a chair.

Meredith got on the case, and we just got a collection of four cushions and a denim cover for only $137. Hooray.

(Mainly, I kept thinking, "What happened to the blowup furniture I grew up with? How bad a choking hazard was it?)

Sam on his new perch ...

Which also makes a pretty good place for Lego storage.

Death for salesmen and other notes

Recently the door-to-door sales dudes in our neighborhood have all been using a distinctive knock: Tap tap-tap-tap, Tap.

Yes, I know that’s useless. (But fun to write.) It should be familiar to anyone who remembers the "Shave and a Haircut" bit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Gotta say, I love the fact that the salesmen are knocking this way. First off, I know right away that under no circumstances am I going to bother opening the door to talk to a complete stranger about home security or my electric service provider. It’s like they’re telling me it’s OK to not acknowledge their existence. Beautiful.

Second, one day I will go to the door, throw it open and yell, "It’s two bits, jackass!" and slam it in the face of whatever sweaty guy happens to be there. Serves ‘em right. Door to door salesmen are becoming the new telemarketers. We get visited once a day, on average. I’m supposed to listen to an uninvited pitch for two minutes while the cold air leaks out and the bugs fly in? No, I say.

No.


The collect phone call of the wild
I realized this week that I haven’t been backpacking in more than a year, and a general feeling of antsyness is beginning to creep over me. I’d figure out something, but most of my camping buddies are pregnant, dealing with newborns or too busy.

It’s bad when your start going through your camping equipment, putting aside time to clean it. It’s really bad when you put on your backpack and look in the mirror to remember how it felt. I dunno. I’ve considered taking a solo trip before. It might be time.

　
Job search...
Is still going nowhere. Would like to update y’all with something, but I’ve received no word on anything from anybody. I’d say it was frustrating, but we passed frustrating a few weeks back, when the swine flu closed down my last chance to attend a major job fair.

I started a pre-calculus course at Tarrant County College last week, and I’m enjoying it. But at this point it feels like window dressing on a no-trafficked street. Things aren’t all that bad – I have a couple of years to find a job, and I could use the upcoming school year to take some more classes and get closer to qualifying for grad school.

On the other hand, things are bad enough that I now consider any school district within a two-hour drive to be a prospect. Maybe they have spots in Ardmore ...


Not a bad late thing
I’ve watched a few parts of a few episodes of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. I don’t know if I’m in the minority here, but I like the guy. He’s just different, in an enthusiastic and positive way. Everyone else basically does snark all the time. I don’t think Jimmy Kimmel has said anything non-ironic since he left Ben Stein.