Encounter The Grizz

Trump Card

2008-01-23T21:46:00.000-07:00

Kathi Barlow is a lunatic. And no Susan, not because she has to live w/ the idea that her hottest daughter is married to me. She just returned from a four day trip to Arizona that in a moment of fleeting prudence she saw fit to take my two boys along w/ her. Understand that she was going by herself, no B-Low, Angel, Annabelle, Paige, Adrene or any other responsible party just her w/ my rugrats in tow. I waited to comment on this junket until her return because I wanted to see if was upright and mobile. She was happy and resolute, said it "wasn't bad." Are you shi*#ing me. I think she's self medicating. They're my boys and don't think I could handle them for 4 days alone and take them to McDonalds, let alone go through the rigamarole of air travel and not forgetting how fun two unruly males and carry-ons would be while enjoying the abortion that is airport security. Why did she do this? I think she's a sadist w/ a death wish. She did it because she suffers from a disorder common among Barlow women, i.e. Angel. Kathi lacks the ability to say NO! Some folks are born w/o genes, limbs, brains, personality or whatever and Kathi's cross is no less daunt. You see, Max down in Phoenix needed supervision while his parents attend a conference so instead of telling Angel and I "No, I can't watch your kids this week" what does she do but dream up an idea that must make sense on her planet and offer to take the kids w/ her.
Here is the lesson.
When dealing w/ your in-laws or more specifically mother-in-laws, Kathleen Birrell Barlow is your ultimate trump card. Should you need anything like, dinner, daycare, dinner, a spare car, dinner, storage, dinner, laundry, dinner, house cleaning, dinner, money, dinner, mending, dinner, diet coke, dinner, painting, dinner, kennel service, dinner, over-the-top gifts, dinner, errands run, dinner and lastly in case I forgot to mention... dinner, and if your in-laws do not happily oblige just politely let them know "Well ok, but Kathi would." You might say thats a bit manipulating, I say its fool proof. Guilt is the great motivator. Having a mother-in-law like barlow is in a lot of ways like having a 2nd wife, minus the hibbidy dibbidy, (She hasn't tried anything yet but if she walks the same trail as her mother it won't be too long before she starts getting frisky.) a second wife that doesn't care if you put your clothes away or leave the seat up. Untapped generosity and all you have to do to keep it flowing is abstain from the following; flatulence, belching, and body art.
The great blessing reaped while Kathi had the kids further south was that Angel and I got to remember w/ it was like before kids. It is AWESOME!!! We slept in and went on a date for the first time in an age. We had a few gift cards saved up giving some indication of our dating frequency so off to the Gateway.
The night was needed. No kids, I ate like a Donner Reed survivor and it didn't cost a dime so Angel was giddy and the best part of all is that we still like each other and it's not just about the sex. It could be but it's not. Have you seen my wife?... Hot. I'm distracted, oh yes, in-laws and barlow. Learn from this, keep the Kathi Barlow card in your pocket and use the hell out of it. In-laws everywhere should do more, like barlow, it sure makes married life and raising kids a helluva lot easier. Your kids might have issues w/ who their real parents are but we'll cross that bridge later. Thanks Kath.

P.S. Ask your self this question. Would your Mother-in-Law drive out to a College Football tailgate to pick up your kids so, A: you didn't have to cut out early and take them home yourself thus miss a majority of the tailgate or, B: so you don't have to take them into the game and deal w/ that pile of B.S.? If yes, would she do it every week? If she would you've got something special and you'd better not screw your marriage up.

In Answer To Your Question...

2008-01-20T15:46:00.000-07:00

Folks have continually asked why the greatest blog on the www is titled "Encounter The Grizz" so w/o further adieu here is your answer.
"One final paragraph of advice: Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am -- a reluctant enthusiast... a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it's still there. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much: I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards."
That is my motto. It comes from Edward Abbey, Rob's favorite author. If you have yet to read his prose you have cheated yourselves. Abbey was a desert anarchist and polemicist who had the capacity to contradict and make an insane amount of sense at the same time. Look him up.
In regards to the above quote if you fall in the category of enemy remember it is Ed that is calling you a bastard not me even though I personally agree w/ just about everything this man has ever written it's him doing the name calling and further if you are an "enemy" and did take exception to being called a "bastard" it's because the truth hurts and maybe you are a "bastard." Now go outside and do something! Find your Grizz and savor the encounter.

Do You Have a Rag For a Gas Cap?

2008-01-13T15:31:00.000-07:00

My wife is certifiable whiskey tango, white trash, 2320, redneck or whatever your slang of choice might be. While watching an Evil Kineval like record setting jump on New Years eve I, after 10 años of wedded bliss, learned something new about my smok'in hot wife. Watching this lunatic make his jump my bride nearly wet herself due to uncontrollable excitement. You'd thought she just saw fire for the first time. I was a bit scared an did my best to ignore it but then a couple of days later she comes to me w/ "Monster Trucks are coming to the E Center, Britton would love it!" Now admittedly I do look stupid and I am a railroader w/ no education but c'mon sweety, Britton would love it... huh? I guess now I can go with the, "You know what babe, I think we should get some new Taylor Made irons for my golf bag, Britton would love it." I called her bluff and happily let her know the success rate of trying to bullsh!* a bullsh!*er and told her that if she had the proverbial itch to scratch we could check it out.
Off we go to the E Center w/ the Pearl and Ty Webb in tow and Angel was floating. The worst part of all was that we were headed out 2 hours before kick off because it was explained to me that "We have to get there early because the pits open @ 6!" Well ok, now that we're all on board I'll get us our duckets and pit passes. She was right Britton did love it but no more than she. The Pearl, not so much. Apparently there is something in the rubber of a monster truck tire that emanates evil and should not be touched. After an eternity in the pits Angel let us go to our seats were we got to sit FRONT ROW. I figured if you can't be the king at a redneck convention you can't be one anywhere. The seats were great, the entertainment was shockingly adequate but it was the scenery that wooed me the most. Ty Webb and I felt like Charles Darwin in the Galapagos. So many new and undiscovered species. Mullets mostly but also indescribable clothing combinations and new untellable variations of hygiene. What an eye opener. I've attended rodeos, fairs, carnivals, NASCAR events and never before did I gaze on so much of God's creativity. I even saw a t-shirt on a very large elderly woman that said "When I drink Whiskey I get Frisky" it was perfect.
It was an epiphanal moment. I'm no different than these folks, except I might bathe more often. We are all rednecks at heart. Who doesn't like big, loud, shiny things that jump and go boom? If you don't my charge to you is that the next time monster trucks are in town load up the kids and head out. Odds are w/ my wifes new affinity we'll see ya there. I just hope that now that she's out of the closet she won't pick up a new hairstyle that might break my ceiling fan. Pray for us.

View From My Office Window

2008-01-10T15:55:00.000-07:00

The kind of cold that Marc Hardy's nightmares are made of.

Newfoundland Mnts. on National Geographic's 10 most desolate places in the U.S.

Beautiful Downtown Lucin.

NW end of the Great Salt Lake. The water is red. Seen it before? Didn't think so.

Wasatch Front from waaaaay out on the lake.

R.I.P

I'm Back, Damnit I'm Back

2008-01-09T20:52:00.000-07:00

I’d like to be the first to welcome me back to the blog after a much-needed hiatus. (Holidays were great, kids are spoiled, and "The Pearl" can eat a whole camel.) Now back to work and on the road again it didn’t take long for me to find something that is worthy of a little rant.
The Railroad gives me a great opportunity to patronize a wide variety of dining venues and I am grateful for every last calorie, but there is one thing that irritates me more than looking at Hillary Clinton’s face. It all starts with buffet’s, and more recently casino buffet’s. Now in a casino I think that we would all agree that they have figured out everything. They have figured out how to get people to leave the comfort of their homes, travel to sh!* holes all over Nevada and spend their children’s college funds. They have also figured out how to get us to do that while sharing a black jack table with the 90 year old human cigarette that someone calls grandma and make us think that we are happy to be there. In addition they have figured out how get us so addicted to their drug that we will give them every dime we have and tens of thousands that we don’t, even to the point that we would move back in w/ mom and dad, cancel our cell phones, take jobs w/ questionable legality, abandon friends leaving you w/ your only means of transport home a bus filled w/ nicotine soaked octogenarians, and a sense of reality that you can travel 120 miles w/ your last 40 bucks and turn it into $8,000. Oh wait, that last part might not apply to all of us. Just people who my wife and little sis find irresistible atop houseboats floating on the moon drenched waters of Powell. Now with all this casino genius in mind, realizing they can do anything they want, limitless resources. Why in Hells name why can’t they figure out how to keep the bowls in the buffet’s next to the soft-serve ice cream slightly cooler than the surface of the sun? It must be an insanely difficult task. Right up there w/ cancer’s cure. Now tonight’s meal at the Rainforest Buffet has in no way been this soldier’s first rodeo. My sweet boiler is testament that I am no stranger to the all-you-can-eat. So why in all my gluttonous experience have I yet to find a cool let alone a luk-warm dish to prepare the pinnacle of every buffet goers experience? Think about it. Casino’s have security cameras that could find a tick on a dogs a$$ all the way in Tuscaloosca and can tell when your gonna scratch before it even itches but they can’t chill a desert bowl? Impossibility is the only answer, it simply can’t be done. Asking buffet ice cream to hold its form until you get back to your table is like dividing by zero. Please if any of you know of a place that has achieved the zenith of frozen dairy wonderment I’d love to know of and frequent this mythical heaven. Thank you for your time and farewell from Bend-over Nevada (or for anyone north of the mason-dixon "Nevaaaaada").

The way things used to be.

2007-11-13T21:35:00.000-07:00

It is now time for me to offer my thanks albeit tardy to all of our Vets. Thank you all and happy Veterans day. The above picture is of 5 staunch Republicans atop Mt. Democrat (irony) in Colorado and all pictured are current or former members of our Nations fine Army.

Kemmerer:
What a HOLE! What does it say about a town when your claim to fame is "The Fossil Fish Capitol of the World." or better yet "Home of the 1rst JC Penny's." It's a coal town filled w/ folks that are aptly suited to the coal industry. At first that may sound rude but think about it, the people of Kemmerer are as self sufficient and industrious as any. Hard exteriors and hard lives. I don't profess to have a profound knowledge of the town or its people but for the last couple of years basically living in these tiny bergs I have come to the acute realization that I really like small town folks. Most people in the civilized (if you indeed consider it civilized) world look at small town folks as country, slow, or backward. While there are some who fit that stereotype they are without doubt the exception. Rural folks are the same as all of us they just appreciate differently. They appreciate hard work foremost. They appreciate responsibility, your word, and good conversation over a warm beverage at the local cafe talking about the way things used to be. This morning such a conversation was carrying on when we walked in for breakfast and all the good old boys at the bar noticed the UP truck and invited us to join them. It's odd but small town folks consider all Railroaders kin and so we got to talking w/ Vern, Carter, Bill, and T with their respective ages Old, Older, Oldest, and Dusty, the script turned to days gone by. The longer I listened to my new and aged friends I couldn't help but think that in a small town the way things used to be are still the way they are. I love that. These old boys were great, they carried on w/ everything from how many bullets T had to put in that steer after it got "wired" over in Opal before it would stop breathing (9), and how soft their "gitt'in" over at the mine now that they've switched to 12 hour shifts. They truly appreciate the simple life. I envy these folks, I really do. Imagine living a life where you don't have to worry about all the B.S. that we plague ourselves w/ while living in suburbia. B.S. like traffic, unless Leroy is moving his herd to the lower forty cause then US30 is gonna slow for a bit. Or crime, unless the boys wrestling team steals a toilet from the hardware store and puts it on a ex-girlfriends lawn and hangs a sign "Debbie is a lying piece of S#!+, please leave your piece of S#!+." Or immorality, wait, every 16-19 year old female in a small town is knocked up so never mind. Just kidding, it's another untrue, but kinda true stereotype. I would love to live in a "HOLE" or a place whose claim to fame was "Home of Demaris Millicent the Guinness world record holder for longest toenails." But if for some reason or wife I am unable to enjoy permanent residence in a small town I hope that I'll be able to glean a bit from their way of life and maybe when I'm gone someone will be talking about the way things used to be and I'll make one of their stories, "Oh that old sunofabitch Rob..."

View from my office window

2007-11-13T21:21:00.000-07:00

When ya gotta go, ya gotta go!

2007-11-01T19:26:00.000-06:00

Randy's quite a picture taking phenom himself isn't he.

So I'm a little fired up tonight about a few things. Actually just two things; Levi Strauss and Joseph Glidden. You know who Mr. Strauss is and call me a nerd for knowing who invented barb wire. The frequency that I'm going through jeans is unacceptable. You always hear about how revolutionary the copper riveted denim jean was back in the day but my current battle of "barb wire vs. trouser" where trouser never wins is leading me to believe that Levi's invention was a fraud. Today I tore out the crotch in my fourth pair of pants in as many weeks and my patience is wearing as thin as the seat of my drawers. I guess part of the problem is that there must be an unwritten rule in the agricultural realm that if there is a railroad bridge on your land it is the absolute best and proper place to anchor your fence to. Every bridge in my world has the devil's rope attached to it in one way or another and unfortunately as I have determined the proper height at which Farmer Ted chooses to install his wire coincidentally coincides w/ my crotch. My worst fear is that some day I might have the sad misfortune of losing my footing wilst crossing over one of these dreaded baricades and give a whole new meaning to bareback rodeo at which point my pants become the least of my worries. Toot's you might not get that little girl you want. Or maybe you would depending on the severity of the straddle only you would be married to her. OUCH;-} Of all these wistful thoughts I can't help but be saddend by the idea of living in the time of old Levi Strauss. Think about it, the poor sacks that bought his pants thought of them as a Godsend, I think they suck. Pre-Levi pants must of been the shits! That's what is sad, no man should of had to live his life in such an unproper pair of britches.

Inspired

2007-11-01T16:26:00.000-06:00

My life has recently been effected by the mind blowing work of a artist who's work is far ahead of his time. His name is R.S. Webb and his photographic skill may have just changed my life. Below is some of my personal attempts to re-create his genius.

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Death Sucks

2007-10-30T10:00:00.000-06:00

Funerals blow. Today was Gerald's service and it was nice. Here is the link to the obit. http://www.legacy.com/SacBee/DeathNotices.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonID=96787333 Come to find out the quiet and always smiley bridge inspector Gerald was a flaming Hippie! The things you find out when folks die. As we were sitting in the Funeral home waiting for the Officiators from St. Francis Assisi to begin they had a video/slide presentation of the life of the deceased and seeing pictures of Gerald from the 60's to the 90's was enlightening. Tie dye and VW vans aside my eyes were made open to the limitless possibilities of some outrageous side burns. Lamb Chops from the sixties were on a totally different plane from what I have known in my young life to be "en voge." The creativity was markedly more dynamic than what one would see on your usually UTA/Greyhound trip. The pictures were epiphanal. For the actual service it was mediocre. Not that it wasn't pleasant or solemn but for the most part it was chamber music followed by read prayers and repeat. All of which was greatly void of any English, St. Francis must of had a predilection for Latin.
The graveside was almost entirely missed by my car load in large part to the delinquence of local law enforcement in being unable to successfully run a congruent motorcade. I followed a car w/ lights on that pulled out of the funeral home parking lot that led me, and about 20 other cars that were in tow, to his house. Note** If at a memorial w/ no intentions of participating in the procession turn your bloody lights OFF! Eventually we made it to the cemetery in time to drop a handful of dirt in the hole. Speaking of holes, due to our tardiness we were at the back of the crowd, and struck up conversation w/ some of the grounds keeping personnel of which I asked a enterprising young man named Cesar a question about hole digging. "If it takes 2 men 12 hours to dig 5 holes how long does it take 4 men to dig half a hole?" He said, "Ine no good at math I juss mow de grass." I chuckled.

What am I doing?

2007-10-28T18:13:00.000-06:00

Well Toots, its with a certain degree of consternation that I involve myself in this blogging business. However, your new found interest has motivated me to give you one more blog to read before you "hit the hay." This way I can give you a little journal of your hubbies happenings while he is away on the road.

**DISCLAIMER** This is only a trial. If at any time should my attention wane and the whole blogging sensation cease to take root in either my daily habits or my markedly puerile attention span I will quit and you will have to rely on a nightly phone call. Understanding that as is the norm I will most likely be tired, preoccupied by the evenings ball games, or asleep and I'll call you in the morning. Granted morning is a loosely used term in that often lack of cell service in many of my bergs is marginal so it might be afternoon or maybe not till the next night where any of the above is likely to occur again. Kidding, my sarcasm leads one to think that our lines of communication are non-existent or strained at best. I look forward to and enjoy our conversations while on the road and I don't mean to poke fun at our plight. I guess my disclaimer could be more simple, If blogging sucks, I won't do it. There.

Sacramento:

Flying sucks. I really don't like strangers, and even more than my distaste for unknown folks I abhor poor hygiene i.e. coffee/morning breath. Apparently the gentleman who I was priveleged to sit next to, or is it sit on, (I can't remember with the seats of a canada air regional jet being so large) can best be discribed as large and completely unaware that he might at sometime in his day be in close proximity of other folks. He was rancid. Why don't I ever get the small people next to me that bathe? At least he didn't talk to me. I wasn't entirely interested in his amature kite making hobby. (That was the magazine he was reading and I'm not making that up.)

I got alot of work done on the computer this afternoon while waiting for Jason to show up. He flew in on the trailer park in the sky and was 90 min. late. I'm almost caught up. Had lunch in Old Sac, it's kind of the historic district here in town and pretty close to the Hotel. Lots of shops, you'd like it.

I think this is going to do it for this post. I'm bored, thirsty and to be honest w/ you i'm not really sure if i'm doing this right or following the format. Trisha's blog from waaaayyy down south is the only one i've ever read. I love you.