Lag Time

Back in our hippie days -- I always feel as if maybe I should spell that latter word "daze" -- one of our touchstone books was Be Here Now, by Ram Dass (aka Richard Alpert.) After chugging lots of acid with Timothy Leary, Alpert trundled off to India and found a spiritual teacher, gave up drugs, and Be Here Now was a kind of fat graphic-novel presentation of what he learned.

The upshot was, that being in the moment was the way to go -- the past was history, the future always just out of reach and all you had was the present, and that you should live in it.

It resonated with a lot of folks, still does. Can't see the future/ can't change the past/ all you have is just the moment/ and it never, ever lasts ...

I had occasion to revisit Tor Norretranders outstanding book The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size this past weekend, and, strictly speaking, we don't consciously live in the moment -- we are about a half-second behind ...

This is great stuff, and in this instance, the section called "The Half Second Delay," he addresses this concept in detail. The gist of it is, the unconscious brain is aware of our intent to do things about a half second before it becomes action. There is a Readiness Potential, followed by a Conscious Wish, the initiation of Control, and finally, the Act itself. This has been determined experimentally, using assorted tools, including EKGs, and the wonderfully-named Wundt's Complexity (or Complication) Clock. (Consciousness kicks in a mere 0.20/second before the Act, not much more than a blink, but the subconscious mind knows you are going to wiggle your finger 0.35/second before you are consciously aware that you are. Which is -- not to muddy the waters or anything with the term, but -- mind-boggling ...)

It brings out all kinds of philosophical questions. The author has a wonderful line about our consciousness, that it is " ... but a little tin god pretending to be in charge of things beyond its control ..."

Norretanders is quick to answer those who hold up reaction time -- it doesn't take half a second to pull our hand off a hot stove -- as a demur. Reaction time lives in the unconscious brain -- you jerk your hand off the stove and then say "Ow!" not the other way around.

He then tosses up assorted reasoned objections to this notion, and promptly shoots them down. It's a great lesson in science, and I urge you to have a look at the book. It will make you wonder about all kinds of notions you normally take for granted.

What I find really interesting as a writer (and a martial artist) is, if there was a way to access this Readiness Potential directly, how that might be used in a fight? If I were to be a third of a second ahead of an opponent, and I had position and skills to make us of this beat, how much of an advantage would that be?

You can't outdraw the drawn gun, but if you could, boy, wouldn't that be a neat trick?

Tape

Over the years of a fairly active life, I have been fortunate in that I've had relatively few injuries that sidelined me. Some -- and while that's part of the risk, I know plenty of folks who don't exercise at all who have had worse -- and are in terrible shape, to boot -- so I'm happy with the trade-off. Live slow, die old, and leave an ugly corpse ...

One of the worst things for me has been jammed fingers, especially the proximal joint in my left thumb. If you've never suffered this particular affliction, consider yourself fortunate. I have managed to bang my thumb enough so that if I am not careful, I can -- literally -- sprain it while taking my sock off. (The reason for this is that every time you seriously strain or sprain a joint, you create some scar tissue. Scar tissue is less elastic than normal, undamaged stuff, and past a certain point, much less likely to stretch when put under tension -- instead, it tears. Once you have damaged a joint, it never will be 100% thereafter. Sorry, I didn't make the rules, but that's how it is.)

My affliction is known by various terms -- "Gamekeeper's Thumb," or "Skier's Thumb," "Nightstick Thumb," or "Boxer's Thumb ... " you get the idea.

I've had this for thirty years, and since I need my hands for activities other than martial arts, I have tried half a dozen orthopedic devices to stabilize that proximal thumb joint when it is apt to get jammed, including a couple I custom-made using Sculpey.

Most of these work really well when you are sitting in a chair watching TV, but not so well if you are moving. Those that allow thumb-motion generally aren't supportive enough; and those that are supportive enough, don't allow the range-of-motion I want. I need to be able to make a tight fist.

The appliances range from thick Spandex, to heavy-duty leather and Velcro, some with metal inserts, and they can get pretty spendy.

After some trial and error, I came across NexCare's Absolute Waterproof Tape™, a stretchy material that comes in a couple of widths. The one-inch works best for me. I've fooled around with wrapping patterns, and settled on one that seems to work pretty well. It gives my thumb support, but still allows me to open and close my hand.

The tape costs about four and a half bucks a roll, if you buy it in bulk, and I use about half a roll each session -- I do both hands, and most of my fingers' middle joints, so it adds two dollars and little to the cost of my workout. Cheap insurance any way you figure it. The tape is waterproof, doesn't slip off with sweat, and if you use the palm-wrap, stays in place. (I have managed to get sand under the palm-strip when we work out in the sand pit, but even so, it tends to stay on.)

It's not perfect, but it's the best I've been able to devise after a lot of looking. An ounce of prevention and all.

The short movie attached is how I apply the wrapping before each silat class. There is one caveat up front: DO NOT STRETCH THE TAPE AS YOU APPLY IT. Just like an Ace Bandage, you don't want to cut off circulation by stretching it, you want it to be able to give.

If you tension the wrap too much and your thumb rots off, it's your own damn fault, I just told you not to do it.

More Gun/Knife Notes for Writers

Got a query from a writer friend about a Glock handgun, (HQ in Austria, but with other plants around the world) and while I'm hardly the world's expert on guns in general, and this kind in particular, I knew the answer, passed it along, and was happy to do so.

Lot of writers put these pistols in the hands of their heroes and villains, and they are what most police in the USA carry these days, so in the continuing series of Gun Notes for Writers, some basic information about Glocks.

I won't go into great detail -- you can look at the pictures above and get a lot of what you might need, but there are two things you should know, and that writers seem to commonly miss, even those who should know better.

1) Much of the Glock handgun is made from black plastic. High-tech, strong, wears well, but plastic. Not the barrel or the internal parts, but what you see when you look at it is mostly plastic. It will not pass a metal detector because there is enough steel in it to set the scanner off.

2) Glocks do not have external safeties, as in "He flipped the safety on." or "He thumbed the safety off." Not there. No button, lever, or other controls. Yes, there are internal thingees that make the thing safer, but Your Hero won't be fiddling with them. Pretty much, if you don't physically pull the trigger, it won't go bang.

More information here.

A general admonition: If you are going to arm your Heroine or Hero and you aren't absolutely sure of the hardware you give 'em, do not go into detail. Just say "gun," because even using "pistol" or "revolver" will get you in trouble if you don't know the difference. Better -- ask somebody who knows, or go look at one of them down at the local gun store. If you don't know it, don't say it, 'cause if you do, you are just going to have the gun nuts shaking their heads and calling you "stupid ..."

Which you will be for not doing basic research.

Ditto knives.

Lot of good and bad guys in novels will carry sharps, tactical folders, neck-knives, sheath knives, automatics or assisted-openers, even friction folders, aka grandpa's pocketknife.

You don't need to know a lot about them -- you can say "knife," and maybe how long it is, but if you wander off into brand names or point types and edge-grinds, you had better know that "tanto" is not the Lone Ranger's sidekick ...

Warehouse 13

Okay, so SyFy -- Lord, that abomination of a term looks incredibly stupid every time I see it -- Channel premiered its new show last night, Warehouse 13, which looks like a cross between X-Files, Eureka, and the first scenes in the last Indiana Jones movie -- the latter of which, I am given to understand, was the spark for it. Hey, what a cool warehouse -- what if we do a whole series based on it?

This is what happens if you do that. I have two words for you: Houdini's wallet ...

Saul Rubinek, as the cryptkeeper -- uh, custodian -- is always worth watching, though CCH Pounder is wasted as the über-spook in charge. The two Secret Service agents dragooned into their new jobs as spook hunters (Eddie McClintock and Joanne Kelly) have as much chemistry onscreen as Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman did as Anakin and Padmé, which is to say none whatsoever. Good-looking guy and gal who meet cute and who -- surprise! surprise! -- don't get along! He's a mystic and has hunches; she's a hard-headed doesn't-believe-in-magic girl. Haven't we see that one before?

There is an attempt to give them backstories, but it's all tell and no show, and for me, they rate a term you sometimes see in screenplays when speaking of background characters, "ND," which stands for "nondescript." As in, it doesn't matter who they cast, long as they are warm bodies ...

If the special effects on this show got any cheesier, you'd have to put them in a can and serve them with Ritz crackers. X-files was fairly silly throughout its run, B-TV at its best, but at least you liked watching Mulder and Scully bounce off each other.

Eureka, which is also silly, is at least enough fun to watch to be considered a guilty pleasure. You gotta like it that the main viewpoint character is always the dumbest guy in the room, and that somehow, he always winds up acting smarter than anybody else. You don't have to believe it, but you gotta like it ...

I don't think Warehouse 13 is going to make anybody forget Battlestar Galactica -- either version.

I probably wouldn't have even watched it, save that the guy who makes steampunk keyboards and about whom I've posted here a couple times, did a keyboard that Rubinek uses on his desk, and he sent out a note telling folks.

It might get better, and to be fair, I'll give in another try, but I can't say my hopes are real high for this one.

More Music You Gotta Love

First:




My aunt sent me the second one -- there's a set up and it doesn't really get going until a little over a minute in, but have a listen:

Another Brick on the Load

Got an email from my collaborator Reaves yesterday, and we agreed to flintphone today -- this is our term for an iChat videocon, and so-called because we use the Our Man Flint presidential phone ring-tone. If you saw the movie, you probably remember it. Same one I use on my cell phone: Buddah-bah-Buddah-bah-Buddah-BAH-Buddah-bah-Buddah-bah ...

Um. Anyway, Reaves had an idea for a movie, and -- amazingly -- I thought it was clever ...

I was tickled enough with the notion that it kicked in the I-really-don't-have-time-to-be-doing-this-but-it-sounds-like-fun response that sometimes happens when I'm in the middle of a book, and I thought, what-the-hell; life is too short, and it won't take that long to hammer out a treatment and a draft, it's only a screenplay, not a novel, so ...

We are going to take a shot at it. Spec, of course, but hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I can't tell you what it is yet -- we haven't fleshed it out, and until we get a draft done and to an agent, we don't want to queer the deal -- though I can say that it is close enough to some of what I've written that my fans would probably go see it, if somehow it got made, and into a theater near them. A matinee, at least.

Is that vague enough?

Anyway, that's what I'm working on for the next little while ...

Summer Movies

Had to put this one up:

Star Wars Geeks Rule

Looking to customize your car? Check this one out ....

Dad? Can I have the keys to the X-wing?

Did you do your homework? What did you say? I didn't catch that.

I didn't say anything!

Careful how you speak to me, Luke -- I'm your father ...

Listen ...

So, by now you have probably heard that Sarah Palin is resigning as governor of Alaska, effective at the end of this month. Political pundits question this move -- much easier to get the party's nomination as a sitting governor than as an ex-governor.

Me, I'm listening for the sound of the other shoe to drop. I can't help but think there is a reason for this resignation that will not reflect well upon Sarah. I would not be surprised, nor, I confess, would I pass up the chance to cackle with glee if it turns out to be something criminal.

Some days, you get the bear; some days, the bear gets you -- me, I'm rooting for Gentle Ben on this one ...

Happy 4th of July

We have a lot of problems in our country -- it's not Utopia; still and all, as places go, I'd rather live here than anywhere else.

Happy Independence Day.

Got a Friend Who Smokes?

Tobacco Smoke Enema (1750s-1810s)

"The tobacco enema was used to infuse tobacco smoke into a patient's rectum for various medical purposes, primarily the resuscitation of drowning victims. A rectal tube inserted into the anus was connected to a fumigator and bellows that forced the smoke towards the rectum. The warmth of the smoke was thought to promote respiration, but doubts about the credibility of tobacco enemas led to the popular phrase 'blow smoke up one's ass.'"

Todd sent me this link to old medical-surgical gear. Go have a look, if you aren't squeamish. I liked the arrowhead-puller and the artificial leech, too ...

Law and Justice, Part II

So, to continue the moral/legal discussion, and skying now off into the realm of reasonable doubt ...

In criminal cases, the burden of proof is greater than it is in civil cases, and that's a good thing. Better, the saying says, that ten guilty men go free than to imprison one innocent one, and that's a good thing, too, at least philosophically in my mind. If you are going to execute somebody or put them away for life, you are supposed to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

Which brings us to O.J., Robert Blake, and Michael Jackson ... (I used to use Phil Spector, but they finally nailed him.)

Okay, a show of hands: How many here believe that O.J. did not kill his ex-wife? That Robert Blake (Mickey of The Our Gang comedies, and Baretta of the can't-do-the-time-don't-do-the-crime same-name TV series) didn't have his wife killed? That Michael Jackson didn't molest those little boys during their "sleep-overs?"

You there? Your hand is up? Oh, yeah, okay, you can go to the bathroom. Anybody else?

Uh huh. That's what I thought.

Lizzie Borden was found not-guilty too, recall. ("Lizzie Borden took an axe/ and gave her mother forty whacks/ when she saw what she had done/ she gave her father forty-one." According to the pathologist, this was incorrect -- he figured nineteen and eleven, respectively. And here's the part I like -- the house where the slayings took place is now a bed-and-breakfast inn ...)

But, the law said that Lizzie, O.J., Blake, and Jackson were not guilty, at least criminally. Either prosecutors didn't make their cases, or the juries were drinking something stronger than coffee, or some god just likes fucking with us.

On the civil side, O.J. and Blake got sued into the ground and were found liable for millions they didn't have, and MJ coughed up a sum reportedly between ten and twenty million to make the first kiddie fiddle case go away, which is a fair amount for an innocent fellow to pay, leastways so it seems to me.

Was justice done in these instances?

By all accounts, Lizzie did it, there were never any other suspects, nobody with motive, means, and opportunity. She tried to buy some poison earlier, but the pharmacist wouldn't sell it to her.

O.J. was a helluva football player, an okay actor, but beating the rap didn't make him smarter, apparently, and he eventually wound up convicted on other felony charges, which result was ten to fifteen in the slammer. Did he think he was bulletproof because he skated on the murder?

Blake married Bonnie Lee Blakely -- who had been married nine times before -- because DNA finally showed that he had gotten her pregnant, though they all thought the father could have been somebody else with whom she was also sleeping. She lived in the guest house behind Blake's, that's how much in love they were. He suspected she had roped him into marrying her and said so, loud and repeatedly, and he apparently didn't much care for that, or her. They went out to dinner one night, the Blakes, and his story was, he had to go back into the restaurant after they got to the car -- because he had left his gun there.

Anybody out there packing? Ever leave your gun in a restaurant?

While Blake was inside fetching his hardware, some bad guy passing by shot Mrs. Blake in the head and killed her. Well, she had a lot of enemies. Or maybe it was just, you know, random?

MJ -- well, we all saw the news coverage of that one. As Chris Rock pointed out, we loved him so much we were willing to let the first one slide ...

The law can nail the second litterer I used in my first posting, and in theory, takes care of people who murder or molest when these things come to light. But here's the difference: The law is supposed to apply to everybody equally, across the board.

As somebody pointed out, if Playboy's Miss August drops her ice cream wrapper onto the ground and the LEO who steps up is male, young, and hetero, chances are she won't be getting that ticket -- all she has to do is take a deep breath.

It is true, ladies. We are pigs. Well, goats, more like ...

Yes, the police should have some discretion; however, that the law is there is always a hammer that can be used. I recall being pulled over late one night by a local PD K9 unit. My brother and I were doing private eye work, and we had just come off a surveillance. Soon as we showed our ID's and badges, we were golden. Why did he stop us? It was late, he was bored, but he didn't say that. His excuse? Well, somebody robbed a 7-Eleven across town and your car fits the description of their getaway vehicle. He smiled when he said it. We smiled, too.

And there is no question that rich people have an edge. All the animals in the barnyard are equal -- except that some or more equal than others ...

I recall a discussion when the O.J. murder trial verdict came in. Black guy I was talking to said, this wasn't about black or white, it was about green -- as in the color of money.

Yeah, Bernie Madeoff got a hundred and fifty years, but that's only because he stole so much money from other rich people. If he had just killed somebody, he'd probably never have seen the inside of a cell ...

Musical Interlude

You got to love this Korean kid:



No, really, you do:

Laws and Justice

Bear with me on this one -- I'm going to float a couple of notions first, and then get back to this in another post, if I get any responses. (It has to do with Michael Jackson.)

So let's talk about ... littering ...

Say you are walking down the street eating an ice cream sandwich in a city, state, or federal jurisdiction in which littering is illegal and punishable by a fine. Let's assume for the sake of argument, you know this, having passed twelve signs that say so, all with pictures just in case you can't read.

So, you slurp down the last bite of the delectable junk food -- which is less junky than usual, because it is made from organic cookies; ice cream produced from the milk of contented cows; sugar from happy canes, all of which are processed by workers who get paid well and have health coverage. Naturally, it costs thrice what the crappy ones cost. Doesn't really matter, any of this, but at least it's got some prana.

And finished with your treat, you toss the biodegradable made-from-cornstarch-colorful wrapper onto the ground. Watch it flutter downward, in SLOMO, M.O.S. ...

A sharp-eyed LEO happens to espy you do this, appears like magic, and promptly writes you a ticket.

Do you deserve it?

In my mind, yes. You did the crime, you do the time -- even if it's only how much work you have to do to earn the bread to pay the fine.

Scenario #2. You have no ice cream, alas, but are still enjoying a pleasant walk. You see upon the ground the wrapper of the criminal who did have the delectable treat and who littered. But because it doesn't look like the usual foil ice cream sandwich wrapper and you aren't sure what it is -- might be money, or a treasure map, or the phone number of that hot redhead in the Spandex you passed earlier, you never know. So you bend and pick it up.

Alas, it is but an ice cream wrapper, albeit one that is from a good quality product. No maps, phone numbers, like that. So you drop it, and it lands where you found it.

Before you can take a step, the sharp-eyed LEO materializes and gives you a ticket.

Do you deserve it?

According to the law, yes. Littering laws do not speak to where you obtained the material you cavalierly tossed upon the ground, nor to how long you had it before you committed litter, only to the act itself. In theory, the SELEO could stand there and write tickets all day if passersby were intrigued enough to pick up and then re-discard that same wrapper.

(Were I a local municipality, I could see that as a great way to make revenue. Cut a deal with the local ice cream stores to use wrappers the same color and rough design as, say, a twenty-dollar bill, and people would surely stoop to pick 'em up and then toss them back in disgust. Ka-ching! Ka-ching! go the cash registers at the court house. I know, I know, I have a warped mind to see this road, much less go down it.)

But as to justice: You have added no more litter to the area than was there before. Had you not happened along, the net impact on the environment would have been the same. (Another aside: Years ago, my wife used to justify tossing apple cores out the car window with the rationalization that they were organic, that they'd feed the birds and beasts and bugs, and be gone in a day or two, so no harm, no foul. Of course, one might offer the same defense for leaving one's dog's poop on the ground, and that has not been an effective defense in court, far as I know. The law does not differ in the quality of litter.)

So, do you deserve the ticket in the second instance? As a measure of justice, I don't think so, but I'm interested in hearing from folks how they stand on the question.

Transformers

Okay, so I went to see Transformers II with my son and grandson, and my expectations were -- how shall we say? -- way low.

It wasn't that bad.

If you take out the two jive-talking hip-hop bots, which were just insulting and Stepin Fetchit to the point of groaning, it was your basic check-your-mind-at-the-door and enjoy your Icee and popcorn summer blockbuster. Lotsa robots getting blowed up real good, slomo shots of the young hottie jiggling across the desert, and even a fembot with a tongue that surely had interesting possibilities.

It had a few funny lines, a couple of nice set-pieces, and state-of-the-art CGI and sound.

My favorite moment was when the kid's car radio played "Your Cheatin' Heart;" if you go, watch for it, I dare you not to laugh at that -- and the next song it plays ...

I'm guessing the target demographic is eleven-year-old boys, and they nailed that dead-0n. (Speaking here as a man who used to write kidvid in which I got to blow up a lot of robots, I enjoyed that aspect of it. Boom! Boom! Ka-BOOM!)

Bigger than the first one, noisier, sillier. Brainless. Violent. PG T&A. Not a plot twist you can't see coming from ten miles away.

And far and away better than Terminator 4. Really.

Stupid Criminal of the Week

Unfortunately, this happened locally -- and they ran it on the evening news last week. Go and listen to the 911 call this dork made ...

(The end of the story, is that he did indeed finally get a cop to respond. Just not exactly how he wanted ...)

Busiest Blog Month So Far

Last day of June, and summer is finally getting cranked up here -- supposed to hit ninety tomorrow, and about damned time.

A quick look at the entry list for this month shows fifty-five posts, counting this one, which is almost two a day. Of course, several of these are naught but links elsewhere or YouTube video embeds, but still, such a number does indicate one thing:

I'm obviously not working hard enough.

Normally, bloggery is warm-up, before getting down to Real Work™, i.e., the current book-in-progress -- which, I must hasten to add, isn't really work compared to what most people do to put bread on the table.

Along with Too Much Blog, I have been flitting from project to project. Had a short story idea I dinked with. An old science fiction movie script with Reaves that I did another draft on, because a movie agent indicated he wouldn't be adverse to looking at such a beast. A story pitch for an anthology. A non-fiction how-to-write book based on entries in the blog that I have been touching up. Like that. All work, sort of, but in the way of things, they don't really count. Only the book-in-progress really matters ...

Too, I wonder if I should get back to the Matadors and do the last book in that series. I keep thinking that one of the three novels I've recently done, or am doing, might spark a desire from a publisher for said books, and then sequels, and have been trying to keep the time free, just in case. It would be nice to have a contract instead of working everything on spec. However, since the fish seem only to be nibbling and not biting, I am wondering about the best bait. And maybe even a Matador won't catch anything these days, and I'm not sure I want to know that.

Freelancing tends to be feast or famine. Been some fat times, some lean ones, and some where the wolf was close enough to the door so I could hear him breathing. The recession has hit the publishing industry and a lot of editors are hiding under their desks, for fear that sticking their heads up will result in sudden loppery, and it is hard to blame them; still, I do wish something would break on the sales-front.

Victories are ever so much more fun ...

Aching Heel Blues

Back when I was a runner, thinking I was someday gonna do the Boston Marathon, there were some injuries joggers had to try and avoid: Getting run over was at the top of the list; shin splints, back spasms, sprained ankles, knees and hip problems, and plantar fasciitis.

I was doing five or six miles a day, ten on the weekends, and was largely healthy. I pulled a back muscle once; got run off the road by a drunk coming out of the Federation of Eagles Christmas party -- which resulted in a badly-sprained ankle, but I had good shoes and avoided other foot, knee, or hip injuries, plus the drunk missed me.

I quit running some years back when I moved to Oregon and discovered ice storms, and other than walking the dogs and doing martial arts's forms, (djurus), don't spend a lot of time on my feet on hard surfaces. Even so, I have, somehow in the last couple of weeks, developed in my right foot what I am pretty sure is plantar fasciitis. This is known by a variety of other colorful names, ranging from "dog heel," to "policeman's foot," to "flip-flop disease." We were basically designed to walk on soft earth, and the sidewalk isn't that.

For those of you who slept through the Podiatry 101 lecture in medical school, this condition is an irritation of the -- ahem -- plantar fascia, aka the plantar aponeurosis -- which is the ligamental structure under the foot that supports the arch. In severe cases, you can get a calcaneus (heel) spur that makes things worse.

The differential diagnosis for heel pain is a short one, and the symptom that generally decides it is a horses-not-zebras thing: The heel hurts when you get up, either from sitting for a while or when you first awaken in the morning. It tends to get better after you stretch out a little, but worse if you push things. Given that presentation, the diagnosis is 90% for fasciitis, with a couple of other things, like stress fractures and nerve impingement to be ruled out.

About one person in ten has this at any given time, and it is more common in folks who pound a lot of pavement -- "mailman's foot"" is another name for it.

Everything is all connected down there around the foot bone, and the treatment for mild to moderate plantar fasciitis is pretty much the same for most tendon problems -- rest, ice, compression, elevation. Working the foot and ankle helps, Achilles tendon stretches. Picking up marbles with your toes, calf-raises on a step, like that.

One of the ways to ice it is novel -- freeze a water bottle or use a frozen juice can. Put it on the floor and roll it back and forth under your heel and arch. NSAIDs -- aspirin or ibuprofen -- help. Arch supports, heel cups, good shoes. Apparently New Balance makes walking and running shoes designed to treat this, and I expect I'll be hunting down a pair of them.

Never a dull moment.

Lurch

POD, or print-on-demand, may or may not be the wave of the future, given Kindles and other e-readers, but if you are curious as to how these Expresso POD machines work, have a look at the vid on the sucker. A bookstore in Vermont, recently featured in a Boston Globe story, calls its machine "Lurch ..."

Lazy Summer Afternoon

So, yesterday evening, sun shining, warm, a few hours of yard work done -- mostly bush and tree-trimming -- and we cranked up the grill and barbecued some chicken and whatnot. The wind was blowing, the dogs fed and walked and frisky.

Lot worse ways to spend a late afternoon in June ...