Seriously, I know the price of a gallon of gas is directly tied to my salary, and even the fact that I have a job. BUT...........something's gotta give. When I filled my wife's Suburban with gasoline a few days ago, it dawned on me that I have actually bought licensed, inspected and running cars for less than I paid for that tank of gas and guess what else?????? The cars I bought came with......... ......a full tank! I listened to the chairman of Royal Dutch Shell attempt to explain that WE were the reason that gasoline is so expensive. It was basically a crock and an attempt to justify the reason the oil companies are holding us up. To compound things, with the lame approach our government is taking towards ethanol production (using corn instead of cane), coupled with the price of fuel, now we are getting bent over the table on food prices too. It's pretty easy to see who's pulling the strings in Washington, isn't it?

I did a piece on drive in movies a year or so ago. I even alluded to the fact that a new one screen drive in was apparently being built in the prairie north of here, roughly forty miles outside of Houston, and pondering what it's chances for survival might be........I am elated to report that the Showboat Drive In Theater is not only going strong, but apparently prospering and has recently added a second screen, and is packin' 'em in on a nightly basis. Our blogger in hiatus, Jeannie, lives near the place, and kept me up to date on construction progress, with the stipulation that I give it a review after my first visit. I could get giddy and babble for a while on this one, but I'll try to keep it short.....for me. Suffice to say I was like a kid in a candy store, dragging my boys and some of the neighborhood kids out for their first drive-in movie experience. When I rounded the last curve, and those kids saw those screens, the playground and the snack bar, I became just a ride home to them! The joy in that bunch brought back a lot of memories. The folks there have put together a first rate, family friendly, affordable operation, that rivals any drive in I have ever been to. They prohibit cooking out, but beyond that, look the other way as far as bringing snacks and drinks, and they have priced the snack bar items such that one might even consider eating there or having the kids grab something on one of their many runs up to the latrine. I highly recommend the experience to anyone with some time to kill on a weekend. The location away from the city and "no drop off" rule, seems to favor a family crowd, free of bad elements. The movies are all first run films. (We saw "Pirates" the night before it's general release!) If you come, bring the usual - bug spray just in case, and a good quality boom box to pick up the audio if you want good sound. Yeah, the days of the old tinny sounding, hang on the window, cast aluminum speakers are a thing of the past(along with stealing or forgetting they are there and driving off with a broken, cloth insulated wire dangling from the glass.......). The Loon and I were discussing this phenomenon(swiping the old speaker cans) over coffee with his significant other this morning on his porch, and she had to query us as to why we would take one of tose old things.......a valid girl question, I guess.......I could get a bit more detailed as to my past drive in esapades, but I won't. I'm still young enough that some datd of former girlfriends might get wind of this, so I'll close on a safe note by saying that a relic of my past seems to be alive and well, and fifteen minutes from my house. I must be living right........ For those interested in a fun, if nostalgic night out, go http://www.theshowboatdrive... target='_blank'> to the Showboat's website for details. Heck, contact me, I might even meet you there and bring the Deep Woods Off and some Pop Rocks, Twizzlers, and Fizzies - you bring the water - five waters (for a fizzies party)! Here are a few shots of the place: And if all that' not enough, here's the damage report........

"Green Grass and High Tides Forever"......this picture illustrates the unusually high tides caused by the weekend storms. The second one is from the same vantage point, just taken a year or so ago at normal tide level. Provides a little perspective.....
I took a stab at walking between the raindrops on this rainy long holiday weekend. I guess I was semi-successful. Met the boat at Clark's in P.O.C. and got a rainy ride to the island and "Little ..Adrift". Had a bit of a storm tide, and proceeded to get the van stuck up to the axles in soft sand, but it worked out okay. While we were waiting for someone to pass by with a vehicle big enough to yank us free, we passed the time reeling in a mess of whiting, a lone pompano, and simultaneously fattening the local hardheads, all while getting drenched and pummeled by a storm surf. Bottom line: I got to go fishing - and I caught some fish! We had 'em for dinner within a couple of hours with friends.....drinking rum and juice and listening to the surf and wind and some nice Cuban and Jamaican music. Can't get a lot better'n that folks. Oh, did I mention friends? I made some new friends, thanks to my brother in law. They were John & Patty(sp)- and their daughter Holly and granddaughter Lexie(I s'pect Alexis), a toddler who taught us all how to dance to Reggae and Ricky Ricardo's Baba Looey Band....... My only regret, was that I didn't have a few more days and nights of hanging out with that bunch. John had not nearly enough time as far as I was concerned, to begin to tell his stories of Costa Rica, Mexico, Farmington and the high desert of the Four Corners area. Patty just had a friendly warmth about her, and I can't begin to describe the way the two of them were enjoying their granddaughter, daughter and friends present. Yep, island life - it agrees with me. I slept like a baby last night. Even needed a blanket to warm me from the sea breeze. Mother nature provided the light display with the storms all around. Oh yeah, the testing of the electronics.......first, we left a boom box CD(brand unknown) out in a downpour, and after we poured out the water, it still worked just fine. Then I poured a glass of rum through my Verizon LG camera phone. It proceeded to run through a series of strange, new ringtones, then died immediately. About three AM, it came to life on it's own, with a few more new sounds, then wouldn't come back on for love or money. While I was conjuring up a cock and bull story for the folks at the Verizon, sitting at the dock in Port O'Connor this morning, I plugged the thing in, and it came to life once again........just like out of the box - back to it's original factory settings: wallpaper, ringtone, and all. I'll rate the phone two thumbs up, but with the caution that it doesn't do cheap rum well, and tends to have a hangover......

......the future's uncertain and the end is always near.. Reckon Jim found that out, huh? His bath, was Jimi's smack, was Mama Cass's ham sandwich(the Karen Carpenter should have eaten)...... i didn't really have a beer.....yet(but I know it's five oclock somewhere). Well in this case noon. I'm sure Willie Carl and the boys are in place and countin' the minutes from the "drankin' bench" out in the grass, just legally off premises from Pic Pac. Not sure why I started this off as a substance abuse plug........it's anything but. I actually woke up had an O.J. and some watermelon, and poured a cup of coffee for the road and left for the bike trail without takin' any of my B.P. meds or vitamins.......hardly noticed, or if anything, maybe felt a bit clearer headed w/o the chemicals I've come to infuse before I finish my first cup of joe daily. Whatever - I know I owe one on the drive in movie - it's comin'(hint - awesome - I'm a hero with a half dozen kids who'd never been & I have pix to back it up)

No, I'm packed for a trip to the bay, and just rattling off a "good morning world" babble b4 I split. The bike trail was alive this morning!Steamy and dripping with dew and fog after yesterday's monsoons.

At the risk of setting a cool precedent and enduring a summer of pestering to "do it again, dad" nightly, I plan to take my kids and some of their friends on a trip back in time tonight. As I wrote recently, we are living in a new place now, and the boys are really adjusting well to the upheaval in their lives - probably due in a large part, to the fact that we landed in a really good area just beyond the madness of the city, and in a neighborhood where they were immediately welcomed and befriended by a few really good kids and families. Oops, wandering again - we're goin' to the country tonight - to the drive-in movie. Yep, the Showboat Drive-In, out in the Katy Prairie in Hockley/Tomball Tx. First feature (I think) is "Pirates of The Caribbean 8 - At Worlds End, Then Shrek (12,I think), if we are up to a double feature........UggggaWamma, SNACKBAR! Jeannie, I'll report back as soon as possible on the first time there for me........ Doubt if I'll try any stunts from my youth, but a good one would be to stop just up the road, put all the kids under a tarp in the back of the truck, cover 'em with oil cans and carbureators, tomato crates, and just pay for one adult at the gate..........wink, wink....then have 'em all pile out and go back to the ticket booth and pay up for their tickets......

"Emancipated minor" in a casual conversation about driving age in Texas with a young friend. Am I just that "old school" when it comes to family units. or is my life that sheltered in the suburbs, that I had never heard the term before? It dawned on me rather quickly, how Adrienne came to use the term so matter of factly. You see, she is an electrical engineer I work with by day, but by night, and on some weekends, she drives an ambulance and is an emergency medical technician in one of the busier suburbs out here on the western fringe of the city. Emancipated minor is a legal status, used when for whatever reason, a person fifteen to eighteen years of age, has been left to his or her own devices, and ruled competent to exist that way, free of adult intervention or supervision, by the courts, and subsequently a legal term that a public servant would have a reason to understand and become adept at identifying. In other words, these kids are divorced/estranged from, or for whatever reason, without their parents. From talking to my friend, I gather that these kids for the most part, fend well for themselves, and their situation in itself, is probably quite a character builder. I also gather, that much like the general population, there is a ratio of those kids who go bad or don't make it on their own. No suprise there either. I guess most of all, I am just shocked, as I pass my mid fifties, that I was stumped by a term so apparently commonplace, that I had never condidered before. It's something that just strengthens my resolve to be there for my kids and to see that they are nurtured and guided as best as I can do, to young LEGAL adulthood. Does anyone have any firsthand dealings with young people forced to live and provide for themselves as adults in this mean, crazy, overpriced world?

Well, I got my wish - my slow boat ride up the coast. I must admit, it was the R&R I expected, and more. We were delayed in our journey - but not by something so seafaring as a problem with a mast or sail or a leak in one of the hulls, but rather by a power failure at the boatyard. The boat was ready to go mind you, but a more modern culprit, a stinkin' computer, kept us hanging in the air until the light company got the power on so we could pay our bill! So much for the pirate's tale of paying with a sack of gold dubloons and being on our way. We got the boat out of the shipyard down on Aransas Bay, and ferried it back to Calhoun County, probably a good 55 miles, maybe 60, at a breakneck clip of about 7-9 knots. There was a time, as an impatient young man, that that trip would have seemed excruciatingly slow to this old Irish Setter. I was accustomed to piloting a 40ft crewboat that would run fast enough to pull a skier Hell, with two 671 GM diesels, make that an even dozen skiers...... But not so this time. We were in "break in" mode on the twin Suzukis for the first few hours. We did however, at the urging of Buba's brother, on the cell phone though, kick it, just to see.....and to our amazement, the damn thing, all 52 foot of barge, broke over on top and planed..... Fun, but in the grand scheme of things, this was a bonafide work boat, and running at that speed, would drink gas like nobody's business, so we settled back in to the task at hand.

This is where I must shift gears, because a "task" would hardly describe the day from my point of view. You see, after thirty plus years of piloting a desk, this day was a joy to me. The bays, the intracoastal, the rigs, towboats & sailboats, the birds, dolphins, and the wind and salt spray brought back so many memories and reaffirmed to me why I am proud to be an old bayrat boatman. There isn't much to compare with life on the water in my book. To make it even better, I spent the day with my sister Sue and her husband Buba Taylor, and again, there ain't much that beats that. Over the past thirty years Buba and I see each other at family gatherings, or maybe a weekend on the island, though not nearly enough. But he and I go back a lot farther than that. We spent a few years together climbing poles, hopping rides on cabooses of freight trains, and walking the entire length of the Illinois Central Railroad from New Orleans to Chicago, the kind of work and trip where it's important that you got each other's back. So all in all, I had a rather special time of it. A trip back in time, driving the boat down the old route I once ran daily on the crewboat, and a good long visit with a friend, a person I have a lot of respect for and one of the smarter individuals I have had the pleasure to have been associated with over the years. I'm charged. It made me realize how much I miss the bay and how important it is that I expose my boys to that life as soon and as much as possible. I'll close with a few pictures from the trip and by saying that all in all, the ride back, had me feeling like I had been there all along, and that this was just another day on the bay. There was the white sand bluffs of the Aransas Wildlife Refuge. the back channel into Hopper's Landing, and the gauge platforms off Mosquito Point. Then I noticed that something was out of whack as the back shoreline of San Antonio Bay came into sight. I remembered that the landmark of the old water tower was no longer there, but even more noticably absent, was the old Hotel Laffite. Yes, I knew it was gone too-burned down, but until I came in by boat, I hadn't realized how much I would miss it. Bonnie and Clyde stayed there! My wife and the mother of my boys and I were married in the foyer of that old place........(a bit after Ms. Parker and Mr. Barrow laid low there though)...........

Yeah, I know my posts have been slow and boring lately......taking a coupla days off, I am. Headed to the lower coast tomorrow, very early to help my brother-in-law Buba, ferry a dive/workboat back up the intracoastal to it's home port. I'm way overdue for a slow ride up the ditch. Maybe I'll snap a few dolphin or chupacabra pix from the boat ride, to share with the story........Maybe I'll even toss in some of my own "Sea Hunt" stories of Caribbean and Gulf adventures, including one of the "Deep Six Club" - not(see mile high..... and wing it) with my report on the trip. A good weekend to all.......go outside and play. remember......."You don't stop playing because you get old.......you get old because you stop playing".

I don't know if anyone's copyrighted that one yet, but I could certainly add a few chapters. For all the digital pics I have snapped, I can't for the life of me figure out why I haven't shot one of somebody losing it behind the wheel around this town. Lord knows the opportunity presents itself almost every day. Well maybe I do know why I haven't......that might be the last straw for the right(wrong?)person, one with a license to carry a firearm and well.....
I don't know what it is about being encased in a 5000lb automobile that makes the meekest of souls just turn beet red, blood squirting from their eyes, profanity they probably never, ever use anywhere else, rolling from between their clenched teeth, nutso. Any guesses? All of this is coming as a result of a national road rage survey that was released today. Surprisingly, Houston wasn't even in the top ten. Even more surprising to me, was that Denver was 20th, way behind Houston. I have found Denver to be worse by far, the year that I lived there. Of course, driving a big white "yacht" of a full sized conversion van with Texas tags may have had an impact on my perceived "target potential" while there, too..... I think the Loon says it best in his oft used saying: "too damn many people". Oh, big surprise, NYC was numero uno on the list, followed by Miami(NYC south) here's a good example of New York road rage and impatience at it's best: Happy motoring. Got gas?

I suppose it could have been worse....at least the pop foul that landed out of play with Scotty's ashes aboard, came down in the bleachers reasonably close to Roswell, which has it's own little tie to "the final frontier". For those of you too young to remember, I am speaking of the actor James Doohan and the sub orbital space mission that carried some of his ashes and those of a couple hundred other folks for an oh, so brief journey, allegedly into near Earth space(as opposed to outer space, I suppose), and upon re-entry, was lost in the San Andreas mountains of southern New Mexico. Much as I think it's okay for private industry to get involved in space exploration, this little venture strikes me as a cheesy little bottle rocket/slingshot operation. I would have thought that Mr. Scott deserved better, possibly even a shuttle ride up to the "final frontier" and a taste of the real deal. Hopefully his wife saved a few ashes for later, when some of the up and coming space ventures are able to provide that service......I almost wish I had something left of my sweet little ol' Irish Setter, "Tribble", one of a litter of seventeen, born on a night when the Star Trek episode "The Trouble With Tribbles" aired on TV in Austin. Let me tell you about a litter of seventeen Irish Setters....to begin with they looked for all the world, like a pile of Tribbles, filing out of the overhead compartment of the Starship "Enterprise". Wish you coulda seen the look on poor old mama "Sadie's" pooch face when I put her in the box with that herd as they scrambled for a spot at the spigot!

I hope there are a few out there who remember that blacklight poster from back in THOSE days. Grin. Try as I might, I have yet to Google up an image of it, or it would be posted here. The above title was the caption on a poster that depicted two skinny buzzards, sitting on a dead tree limb, looking out over a desert landscape, forlornly waiting for something to die. This morning, in the Chronicle's weekly EarthWeek feature, is a story of a place in Southern Spain, where ranchers and farmers are having to deal with attacks on their livestock by starving vultures. Sounds to me like they just need to double the speed limit on the back roads there to get the roadkill back up to a quota that will keep pace with those buzzards' dining requirements.....
Anyone else have any old blacklight, hippie era posters that come to mind as special to you? Another that I recall in the racks at Oat Willies, was an image of John Wayne sitting on a horse on a ridge shielding his eyes from the sun, asking an Indian on the horse next to him....."Wherethefugarewe"?
For those inclined to read about the planet's weekly natural and unnatural goings on on a weekly recap, I recommend you take a look at EarthWeek, A Diary of the Planet. Some pretty interesting reading, there about earth news, the weeks temperature extremes, etc. planetwide.

.....and look away from the monitors, stretch out like a houndog, lay way back in my chair, take off my spectacles and close my eyes and rub them really hard.....I see the Who's "tommy" album jacket(in pristine condition - no seed burns), and a series of Peter Max Posters, etc. Is this normal? Or do old Norwegian guys see plaid patterns and psychedelic colored patterns of Northern Pike and walleye scales..... Just checking.

I e-mailed this one to a few folks this morning with the caption: Beats chasing ambulances...... While considering the price of gasoline, there may be a lot of truth in that, I think that in general, it is a sad statement, however applicable, on the times we live in. (Is this part of the democracy we are trying to install in Iraq? No wonder they're pissed). I have had a couple of folks reply and say they had seen this on the news. Somehow, I missed it. Funny, the sign got yanked, due to lack of permitting, though, and there was a minor public outcry of indignation in Chicago where it was seen, as well. The law firm who put it up, mounted a weak defense of it both morally and legally, but in the end, it is down - for now. For the full story on it you can go http://www.wftv.com/family/... target='_blank'>here, to Florida TV station WFTV for a look.

Not a lot really, considering that I have resigned myself to my eventual and ultimate demise. With the knowledge that as fast as modern medicine is finding ways to cure ills, mask aging, and even prolong life expectancy, I've seen nothing yet to give me reason to think that I'll see 150. Would be cool though, 'cause I'm having fun so far. I guess I'll just have to wait and watch, but do so somwewhat secure in the knowledge that my family has a history on both sides of longetivity and being pretty hardy in soul and body, if not mind as well. I have tempted fate a time or two though, which I realize, could in a split second, negate the fact that on this Mothers Day my mom will be eighty and my grandmother knocking on the door of the century mark. In the "tempting fate" department, my closest call in a while occurred yesterday, which may have had something to do with my writing this. I bike on mostly backwoods trails daily, but there are a couple of street crossings, one with 40-60mph cross traffic. I'll push the button to stop traffic if the road is busy, or wait with others, but if traffic is light, and knowing what a pain it is to grind to a stop in the car when I'm driving, I'll usually just look for an opening and blast across between Buick and Peterbilt, rather than make 'em stop for me. Well, yesterday as I approached the intersection, I looked left, saw I had time to make the median, and blew across. Problem was, when I should have looked right, I was distracted by a couple of cans on the walking path, and kept going across the road but looking back instead of right. They didn't quite have to swerve or screech their tires to miss me, but their horns were wailing as they blew by, just inches behind my back tire as I disappeared into the woods on the other side of the road. Talk about a boost in the heart rate....but then Houston traffic(and some cans) will do that to a guy.

So anyway, what do I fear? I fear something happening to my kids or wife or family near and far, when I can't be there to protect them. Beyond that, I have things pretty much within my control....well there are a few things I rather DREAD, like the Outlook message on the other monitor at the moment, that my miniscule mailbox is once again "over it's size limit", but fear? Well, maybe some morning, sitting down with my coffee at my side and literally being unable to remember a single password. Trust me, I have some passwords. Wow, talk about dead in the water. But then when one is "dead in the water" one can always go fishing, can't one? Hey maybe I have stumbled on a new excuse for the boss, like calling in "sick". I'll just wake up some morning, pick up the phone and call in "clueless" - tell the boss I can't remember a single one of my pass23wor6ds. Think he'll buy it?
Oh, and I think the cans analogy should be worth an editorial "get out of jail free" card.......

A Story in the back pages of today's Chroncle states in title: "Army (U.S.) General Predicts Rise In U.S. Casualties". Well, let's try to figure out how he came to this conclusion. Our dimwit, war monger, corporate puppet of a leader is feeding a steady daily flow of fresh kids into this fray, in the form of a "surge". The insurgents are getting better and more efficient at eliminating said kids at the clip of about a half dozen or more every day lately...... While unlike the aforementioned leader, the general does appear to have an uncanny knack for seeing and stating the obvious, I'd feel a little less doubtful of the media's reporting of it all, if they didn't make the general out to be a budding Nostradamus with his prediction. I'd feel even better yet, if the powers that be actually read the reports from the war and understood what will be the inevitable outcome to this third world cluster f*7%! They are draining our blood, our resources and our ability to defend ourselves against a REAL threat on our own soil, and they are hocking our financial security for who knows how many decades to come to finance this fiasco. The real problem is that those who stand to profit from this war, are the ones calling the shots - for now.
It's time to pull out.Now.Completely.and to let those people get back to living their lives the way they have done since Mohammad wandered those deserts. If they want a democracy, they have the oil to finance one when they're ready. Let 'em figure it out, like we did....... Next time a rogue state invades one of our "Kingdom Democracy" filling stations in the sand over there, we just go back and do another 3-day drop everything we have on them until they back off as we beat our chest over another "Mission Accpmplished", Right?

And via Big Shot Bob In Texas:

The Establishment center... has led us into the stupidest and cruelest war in all history. That war is a moral and political disaster - a terrible cancer eating away at the soul of our nation.

- George McGovern

The Proud......




The Duped.......



The Misguided/Misinformed.....



The Maimed.....



The Body Bags.......




The Orphans.......





The Widows........





The Parents..........





The Reason Be All That You Can Be............

I spent the day biking, cooking, child rearing......normal stuff. How did you spend it? I listened to my local Pacifica station, KPFT some as well. Heard Sir Doug, Freddy Fender, Tish Hinojosa, and many more. Life is okay on the border, at least by me. Today, we all spoke a universal language - music - to me. Wrapped it up in grand style tonight I did, with my version of "the Opry": Austin City Limits and a wonderful hour long show by Juanes. In my heart, I know that in those happy faces of the kids in the place wherever they film those shows now, and in mine and in the hearts of those who sat down at their TV to watch, and feel the music as I did, there is a knowledge that music and the good that it generates, doesn't give a rat's *** about border fences, politics, corporate profits, or whether I cut my own grass or hire an illegal to do it. The good music on both sides of the Rio Grande, and the artists who write it, just feel the need for things to be right for and by all. WalMart, Conoco Phillips, and W don't even figure in to the equation..........in fact, there's no place in it for them.

Sorry I couldn't come to say goodbye. When I heard the bells from the boat, I wished I was there. I was just a kid - like you were. I didn't come because the grown-ups kept me away. Guess they thought it best for me then. I still have the last picture you gave me. I ride my bike out to visit you, Jackie and the others sometimes. Your house is still yellow, but it's faded and empty now. Boarded up and quiet, is the school where we played and where you spent your last day. The big old red schoolhouse with the long porcelain drinking fountains under the big cottonwood tree has been gone for years. So much has changed.