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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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May 29, 2014 - 08:08pm PT
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"Yurt too late, Bucky. We got it patented last month."
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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May 29, 2014 - 08:16pm PT
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Heck, I'm looking forward to Idaho.
I figure if I take the first available slot for surgery it will be too late anyway.
It's the VA, after all, a government unto itself masquerading as a branch of the feds.
I've never dealt with the hospital in Fresno.
Roadside Anesthetic Tales
"Hit me over the heard again, Moosedrool...
I can still feel it...
again...
one more time...
here, let me do it."
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zBrown
Ice climber
Brujo de la Playa
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May 29, 2014 - 09:12pm PT
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Well, mFm, you're either a very knowledgeable and/or well-connected birthday boy.
So, can you explain the origin(s) of the phrase(s)
God Dome It
or
God Dome it to Hell.
Ha!
These two phrases may well come in handy in dealing with the VA. Walk in and start speaking in you loudest, yet still polite voice
God Dome It
God Dome It to Hell
I paid my mutherfocking premiums
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lostinshanghai
Social climber
someplace
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May 29, 2014 - 11:39pm PT
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Fresno? VA
Hell! They sent me this the other day. My next appointment is in the Philippines.
I asked why Manila, I am in Northern CA. They said this was the only next available date and place. I then asked anything closer and they said they have an opening in Japan.
Well at least they are paying for travel.
I will tell them I lost my VA card and hand them this:
I will colour my hair the day before.
Will call you before I leave.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Just another day on the Taco with no Taco.
But,then, of a sudden: “What sound through yonder window breaks?”
‘Tis the Reverend Jeff Mathis and his truck, which I call privately Whiteman’s Burden. It’s still road-worthy, though getting hoary with age, as we set out to prove by circumnavigating Castle Air Base, or Castle Air Park, or Area 99, as I may sometimes call it privately.
I was trying to channel the Dolt the whole time. I don't think it worked this time, though.
There is still a large runway out there and landing lights, and a tower, an there is a lot of air traffic--the landing pattern passes directly overhead of the center of town.
I know there was a helicopter flight school located out there, but don’t think they are operating now. Their craft used to be seen out there from my window after dusk, red lights flitting around, sometimes as many as three, mostly just two. I haven’t seen them in months.
There is the Federal Penitentiary out there, as well, on the northern end of the parcel that made up the air base. It has two lone watch towers. The Reverend says his folks toured it when it opened and there is not one window in the place, it’s all blank concrete inside and out. They have a decent library, I happen to know, having sold them the roots of it in the year they opened.
The chickens across the road don’t need no stinkin’ books, though.
There are farms on the other side of the road all the way around the base, as you can tell from the pictures. I was riding shotgun and managed to get some (Quote) “good travelog fodder.”
“HAHAHAHAHA!”--the Rev's reaction
When we got into town again, we had Double-Doubles at the In-n-Out. Along with about fifty Korean tourists en route to YNP.
Chevy HHR "enflamed."
We stopped to gaze at the past at the Castle Air Museum. The Dolt's vibes were very faint.FINALLY!!!!Second half of the journey awaits.
"The Mystery Tour route." A Grade II!!
Mostly all these shots are facing AWAY from the base, cuz frankly, the place is less than imposing, except for the prison.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Noonish – Friday
Well, the Rev got mysterious on me. As we drove out of the burger joint we headed out G Grade. All he said was that he had a route in mind for the afternoon.
He’s the jefe and I’m the shotgun. He calls the shots, though.
Since he called this a “route,” it was easy for the two of us ancient teenagers to slip into the jargon of our youth.
The drive to Snelling, where I stepped out to relieve myself (the “piss of fear”) represented the “approach.”
The first pitch ended badly, with us “down-climbing” and trying a different way, for it was “off route.”
More “retreating.”
His intention had been to find a diversion dam across which he and his grampa and his siblings "traversed" to get to the south side of the Merced, and he figured it was one of these two spots which we investigated, and we got out and walked in to both of them from their parking areas on Merced Falls Road, my older bother's patch.
The first "attempt" led across a field on a paved road to a men’s and ladies concrete block toilet, totally unused and lonesome, hadly the romanticist's vision of an "alpine hut," but there it is, Merced style.
There was a short dirt pathway that led to what I’m privately calling the Shrine of Our Lady of the Blackberries. It’s a small, canoe-sized slot which goes out to the river through brambles and cattails. Not the place we wanted to be at all, and I knew we were way short of MID's Crocker-Huffman dam which forms the lake in front of my brother’s house.
But the Rev is calling the shots and we backtrack (“You realize we are going further away, don’t you?” No answer, really, just a grim look and a firm grip on the steering wheel to the next parking lot.)
And another fruitless “lead.”
There was a white Chevy truck parked out there in the rock piles—-must be a local. I kept on truckin’ while the Rev found the pretty girl who drove the truck--she said we were in the wrong spot, that the place we want is miles up the road. He yelled at me to come on back, but mostly I’d decided already that there was too far to go to get to the river, given my bloat from that burger and a coke, even if the dam is still approachable, and I was ready to descend and beat a retreat.
He and I got back to the truck, rolled the windows down and headed up the road, discussing our options. He thought he knew where she was talking about, and I concurred. It’s the parking lot at the sharp bend in Merced Falls Road at the PG&E power dam, a well-trodden place in the past by thousands of littering bait fishermen, but it’s fenced off now.
There is only the upper lake, a remnant of what was the log pond for the lumber mill, a wretched place to fish, and which is also separated from the top of the wooden dam and spillway by fences.
So things have changed around here in the sixty or so years since the Mathis clan came out to play with their grampa. Not surprising: berries grow, fences abound.
Berminghams move into the neighborhood and it goes to hell.
We intrepidly began the second pitch of our Grade II. By then I'd guessed where we are heading--Hunter valley.
We drove Hornitos Road from Merced Falls Rd. I’d been out this way last summer and once again on a ramble with Amyjo, ending up at the graveyard at St. Catherine’s chuch in Hornitos. From Hornitos we took Bear Valley Road northward.
We looked at a map (!) and found Cotton Creek Rd., my choice, a dirt road as it turns out. El Jefe said it’s the next, Hunter Valley Rd. We ascended a grade that is steep, one which goes up to the same elevation, roughly, as the Guadalupe Grade south of here on Hwy. 140. There are low stone walls all over this area--not to mention tons of loathsome poison oak and scrub oak and dry brush and no cattle right now.
We came to the fire house and stopped a minute to look at the map on display. I'll admit we were both unsure as to where to go. Neither of us had been in here, ever.
“Take that turn, OK?”
“Why?”
“I reckon It’s beckonin’ to me, is all.”
He ignores my request and keeps on for another bit and it turns out that his move is the right one because here is where we should be, finally. It’s been a struggle all day finding where we need to be.
At long last we came upon the burn.We continued past Detweiler Road, which we could take, because it takes us closer, but instead we settle for this long view from the Smith’s place (nice old junker, eh?).
On the way out we only saw one Cal Fire unit, a FWD with one man in it, maybe coming in to check out the effect of mopping up. There was a water truck parked in front of one of the ranchos, its driver asleep in the seat.
And we begin our “descent” back to the valley floor, past the Griffith Ranch, into Merced.That's Bilderberg, Bozo.Jeff had been working a month straight. He decided a short respite was in order. I am glad to have been of service, old buddy!!!!
We shook hands when we got back to Middle Earth on yet one more successful Flames “climb.”
Anyone know where can I get my "Beckon-Reckoner checked?"
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Thank you, Marlow. I have probably heard this song ONCE before, whenever I listened to the album back in the dark age.
One Brown Mouse
Smile your little smile, take some tea with me awhile
Brush away that black cloud from your shoulder
Twitch your whiskers, feel that you're really real
Another tea time, another day older
Puff warm breath on your tiny hands, you wish you were a man
Who every day can turn another page
Behind your glass you sit and look at my ever open book
One brown mouse sitting in a cage
Do you wonder if I really care for you
Am I just the company you keep
Which one of us exercises on the old treadmill
Who hides his head, pretending to sleep?
Smile your little smile, take some tea with me awhile
Brush away that black cloud from your shoulder
Twitch your whiskers, feel that you're really real
Another tea time, another day older
Smile your little smile, take some tea with me awhile
And every day we'll turn another page
Behind our glass we'll sit and look at our ever open book
One brown mouse sitting in a cage, one brown mouse sitting in a cage
One brown mouse sitting in a cage
-Ian Anderson
Now all you mice behave yourselves, hear me?! Jaybro and Ron, stop that!
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/h/homeowner_resources/mice/index.html
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Eight days a week, thirteen moons per year.
But wait...there's more!
June 4, 2004. Granby, Colorado. And YOU ARE THERE!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Heemeyer
Colofornia leads all states in shootings, mass murders, father-rapings, and mother-stabbings, etc.
Definitely ahead in Bulldozer Revenge-taking.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Brought to you by Transformers, the Movies.
And THE FLAMES OF CAMP 4.
"CLASS comin' out of our butts."--new ST motto rejected by CMac
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Keith who?[Click to View YouTube Video]You've seen this before, haven't you? I haven't. Moon's crazy as...
a sh!thouse rat!
Can you dig it? The concept of a two-holer outhouse never penetrated until I found this informative video.
[Click to View YouTube Video]I always thought that it meant...you know...
Please don't squeeze the catalog. " :0) "
Idle thought, while the subject is nigh:
Who of youm has climbed The Sphincter up back of Camp 4?
It was...unusual.
How'd you like a mouse up The Sphincter?
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Butt first...
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Two-thirty a.m. horizon.You can't tell it from enlarging here, much, but there are other lights out there in these shots.
Brought to you by Deacon Beacon's Van Storage and Bait Store.
And Wilkes Osprey brand.Brother Tim is ready to put his boat in the water this week. We're trying to decide when.
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One brown mouse
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