Colorado... wild and wooly? Not!

People often get the impression that Colorado is a Western kind of place, filled with no-nonsense pioneer types whose favorite pastime might involve discussion of the finer points of water rights or the best way to raise cattle. While such folk do inhabit the area, we have our share as well of what may be called the "granola fringe" (e.g., fruits, nuts, and flakes).

Soon after we first came to Pagosa Springs, a group whose purpose was to prepare humanity for its first contact with aliens moved into the area and actually rented an office next to mine over the Liberty Theater, which is located on the main drag in "downtown." I soon became an object of their scrutiny. There I was, elbow deep in computers (a sure sign of strong alien ties), fluent in the languages of both space-faring superpowers, and actually helping these superpowers fly humans and hardware in space! I was, they told anyone who'd listen, one of Them (not them - the loonies - but Them - the aliens).

The fact I was located in Pagosa Springs was significant, as its geographic coordinates - and here it gets fuzzy, as I never could get the details straight, except that Chimney Rock (a site sacred to the mysterious Anasazi) figured prominently in the patter - all but guaranteed that the first contact with a benevolent race of aliens would occur here.

We left for Houston before the prophesied Close Encounter, but having returned, it seems the loonies are still around, and in force; it's just a different shift, is all.

This morning, I was over at the Wolftracks coffee shop when I noticed a local character named Nomad starting a chess game with another fellow. Nomad is a slim black man of medium height with pale blue eyes and salt-and-pepper hair and beard. He wears an ornamented burnoose and flowing robes, in what I imagine is Bedouin style, and can often be found walking in company with a tall walking stick. He earns money, I am told, by house-sitting.

With my hot java in hand, I greeted the players and sat down to kibitz.

Behind me, I overheard a conversation that, frankly, covered such a wide range of fantasy, that any attempt on my part to describe it in detail would fall short of the mark. The talk was rife with mention of "planets" and "alignment," and when I glanced over to see who was engaged in this exchange, I saw a young man earnestly talking to an older fellow over an open real-estate sheet.

Turning back to the game, I tried to put the conversation out of my mind. Nomad and the stranger were playing very cautiously, and I might add poorly, as there were plenty of opportunities on both sides for victories, if only they had been exploited.

Suddenly, several people joined the table behind me and the talk turned directly toward the Twilight Zone.

The ringleader of the group spoke eloquently of elaborate legal traps that he had escaped by taking advantage of little known facets of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence as applied to federal land management regulations. This, despite his assertion soon after that all subscribers to the bar first swear allegiance to - and here it gets fuzzy - the British Crown, then someone else, and then only to the Constitution. Someone else noted, with significant heaviness in his voice, that the bar was the only business in the State not required to file taxes.

The conversational ball began to bounce around the table ever more erratically, with the talk turning ever more loony, and taking the form of questions designed to show off the knowledge of the person doing the asking.

"Well, you guys know who wrote the IRS code, right? . . . The Jesuits!"

And that launched a tirade that involved the Catholic Church, the IRS, Congress, the Masons, and the International Monetary Fund.

At one point, in the middle of a pregnant pause that followed the question "Do you know who's the power behind the Vatican?" (the speaker, you see, was preparing to completely blow away his audience with the answer), I fought the nearly irresistible urge to turn around, fix them all with my patented piercing gaze, and scream "Fools! I am the power behind the Vatican! Mwahahahahah!" (So filled with effort was my forbearance, I completely missed the answer. Sorry.)

In any event, I finally was able to focus on the game in front of me, which was seesawing frantically between the players and dwindling down to a Rook and Pawns vs. Bishop and Pawns ending. The eventual winner was Nomad's opponent, playing the Black pieces and who hailed from Somewhere Else (here in Pagosa to visit kin) and who had come to the coffee shop equipped with a study Bible and a notebook.

It takes all kinds, I guess.

By the time I sat down across from Nomad, the Cabal of the Uncoverers of Plots at the next table had dispersed. Nomad played the same overly conservative game that he had against the Biblical scholar, and lost again.

That game (from memory, with impromptu and not very deep annotations):

AlexPGP - Nomad, French Defense (?)
1. d4 d5 2.e4 c6 3.Nc3 e6 {Black had started to play a Caro-Kann opening, but with this move, the formation looks like a French Defense. So far, so good.} 4.e5 Be7 {Very passive; either 4...Bb4 or 4...f6 would be better, IMO} 5.f4 Nh6 {Literally marginalizes the Knight; 5...f6 is better} 6.Nf3 O-O {In the French setup, White often attacks on the King's side. The gathering storm on that side makes this a poor move for Black. Maybe 6...Nd7, intending 7...f6, would've been better.} 7.Bd3 Nf5 {The idea of centralizing the Knight and blocking the long diagonal reach of the Bishop on d3 is good, but won't hold water because of...} 8.g4 Nh6 9.h4 {White, whose moves have gone unchallenged from the start, is now in attack mode against Black's castled King position.} 9...Nd7 {Too little, too late.} 9.Ng5 Bxg5 10.hxg5 {Black's Knight is now trapped, while White's King Rook is now breathing down the half-opened h-file.} 10...Nf5 11.gxf5 {Clears the line to h5 for the Queen.} 11...exf5 12.Qh5 Nf6 {A last-ditch effort in a lost position.} 13.gxf6 h6 {13...Re8 won't help, because of 14.Qxh7 and mate next move.} 14.fxg7 Kxg7 15.Qxh6+ Kg8 16.Qh7 mate.

Cheers...

Next time, use faster film...

The processed film from the Sunday morning's Leonid meteor shower yielded just slightly better results than my Kodak digital camera. I caught exactly two meteors in the 24 shot roll, if we don't consider the multiple exposure at the end of the roll, which looks like nothing intelligible, though you can see oddly directed streaks on the image.



The stars in this image are from the constellation Leo, and shows the head of the lion just over the treetops. The stars in the photo look like parallel lines owing to the fact that this was a long-duration exposure, which allows the earth to move with respect to the sky, causing the starts to appear to move. The irregular brightness of the star trails is due to the clouds that were moving through the area at the time (when a cloud blocks the light from a star, the star "disappears" from the image).

The meteor is the streak at the right side of the image, and its brightness appeared to vary above and below the sensitivity level of the film as it steamed through the sky.



This photo was taken past our house, looking toward the north. The "W" of Cassiopeia is visible above the flat part of the roof to the left of the chimney; the Little Dipper is in the upper right quadrant of the image, with Polaris being the bright star just to the right of center near the top of the photo (the one around which all the other stars appear to move). The meteor in this scanned image is barely visible, located about a third of the way up and a quarter of the way from the left edge. The streak builds from nothing and then fades away as the sand-size particle that caused it vaporizes upon hitting the atmosphere.

The lesson is clear. Next time (and there will be a next time), use faster film. This was shot using 400 speed Fujifilm. I could have (and should have) bought the 1600 speed film, which would have brought out more detail.

Cheers...