Odds and ends...

Returning to yesterday's early morning, I captured the following with my digital camera:
There were four fires out there, pouring thick, greasy black smoke into our nice mountain air. I called the local fire chief and he had someone go out there to investigate. He said it sounded to him, from the description I gave, as though someone may have used a tad too much diesel fuel (yech!) to start a controlled burn, or may have been burning a number of pine stumps.

Aside from being able to observe the curious way in which the smoke layered itself, I'm simply not too happy with this particular neighbor's idea of dealing with his trash. Ugly, is what I call it.

Segue...

I watched Gladiator again tonight, at least the part after Maximus turns the tide in the "Carthaginian spectacle" dramatized for the crowds in Rome's Colosseum. That was followed up by the viewing of a tape called Monkeybone, with Brendan Fraser and Bridget Fonda.

The first word that comes to mind is: contrast.

Gladiator presents a hero, a farmer who happens to have exceptional leadership qualities, exceptional physical skill with weapons, and a sense of honor and duty. The honor and duty are pushed largely under the surface after the emperor orders the torture, rape, and murder of Maximus' family, at which point "The Spaniard," as he is called, who has become a slave gladiator, lives but for one end: vengeance. The actions of the other characters lend interest to the plot, as you wait and wonder: who is going to do what, and to whom?

On the other hand, Monkeybone's hero is something of a loser-nice-guy character, a cartoonist with a dark side. That dark side is embodied in the character of his cartoon figure, which ends up betraying him while he's in a coma. The fantasy "Downtown" that he inhabits while in the coma makes for some nice special effects, but in my opinion, the effort was wasted. While there may be a point to this latter film, it missed me.

Despite my griping, it was a good day... and I'm almost one hour into a new one... time to go to sleep.

Cheers...

Where did the day go?

Okay, so I slept in until 9:30 am, but that has little or nothing to do with the fact that the day went by like Wile E. Coyote headed toward a cliff.

We decided not to go to Paonia, Colorado. While it certainly would not take 6-plus hours to get there, it would certainly take at least 4, which would make for 8 hours behind the wheel, and there are Things To Do.

Among them is finishing the translation and fixing the downstairs rooms for Drew and Shannon.

I had proposed going up to Williams Lake (a nice, remote spot about 25 miles off the main road), but was overruled. (Paonia would have been okay, as we'd be going to look at alpacas, but simply going somewhere to sit and do nothing...? That rubs Galina the wrong way, apparently.)

Anyway... Between Drew and Galina, they'd removed the wallpaper from the downstairs rooms, tearing the underlying gypsum board up pretty well. (Next time, maybe someone will listen when I say "Rent a steamer.") So, Drew, Galina, and I spent a bunch of time sanding the edges down and then applying a thin coat of joint compound to the damaged areas.

After the compound dried, we sanded the areas down, sponged them to remove any residual dust, and did a test application of some primer. Unfortunately, there are parties involved in the project who feel that activity equals progress (by definition), and that if we need to spend another $20 on a gallon of primer, so be it... So, we ended up applying most of the can to the several walls in the room. I can already see we're going to have to go back and apply some more joint compound in places. (I don't even want to think about the places that bubbled up when we applied the primer.)

Once that was finished, Galina and I drove to the other end of town, and then some. We drove all the out to Treasure Falls, which is literally at the start of the upgrade that takes you over the Wolf Creek Pass and over to the other side of the Continental Divide. It was pretty windy at the falls, so we stayed in the car with the windows cracked open, so we could hear the falling water.

On the way back, I directed Galina down the road to the West Fork trailhead, just to see what we could see. There is a humongous project under way in the area, called Bootjack Ranch, with prominent "No trespassing" signs all over the place. Rumor has it the owner is planning to create some sort of religious retreat out of the place... it would seem he has enough real estate to create a new country, but I digress...

We turned down a road to a National Forest campground and stopped to look around. The rate to stay at the campground is $8.00 per day. There are johns scattered around the area, as well as water pumps. I worked one for a while until clear, cold water came cascading out... pretty neat.

Once home, we had a quick dinner (or, rather, I did, as Galina was not hungry). A little leftover ham, a spinach salad with feta cheese... I still feel hungry, but I need to lose some weight more than I need to feel satiated. Or at least that's what I keep telling myself <grin>.

Gotta finish the translation tomorrow, so that I can start on another one. Then there are some paperwork things associated with the store that are way overdue. Then there are bills... but let's take one thing at a time.

Cheers...