Malaise

Man, Aku is such a great villain character...

Fires

I mentioned fire season when things got burning, a few months back.
It's still here...


The Milli fire, over by Sisters is at something like 18,000 acres, as I understand it.

More still, are burning across the state.


The haze is near constant, with the smell of a campfire marking days when air quality is bad.
Only on rare days, when winds shift, is there a chance to see blue sky.

Nuts

Dr Evil

Oh, man, this is some Dr Evil level of engineering...

At least as good as some sharks with laser beams attached to their heads.

Hmm

What manner of madness leads to this?

Dusted

This guy again...
Not only does he hate tires, he seems to take a lot of anger out on dirt.



Sure, it's a commercial, but it's one with some WRC car mayhem...

Vision

"Let me tell you, I have the best eye sight, the greatest eye sight, believe me..."



(Turns around, walks into wall.)

So

That happened...

Status Update

Strangely, it seems pretty quiet here.

Like, less busy that a typical weekend...

Maybe we have just figured out what to avoid on tourist days.





Of course, there was that plane crash...
And some wild fires are forcing evacuations around Sisters.

Here

A picture of a goat standing on another goat.


There is no hidden message here, I am just exhausted by the world and thought a picture of goats might improve things.

Very slightly...

Few

I kinda like that...

Eclipsing

Yeah, the eclipse...


So, up the road from here, between here and Portland, is Madras.
One of the spots NASA told everybody was a good spot to see the eclipse...

It has a high average of clear days and is right in the totality path.
It is also a tiny, tiny town.

So, there are lots of people headed this way.
To rural, remote, central Oregon.

Predictions are vague and folks are planning on being inundated, overrun, overwhelmed.


Lots of people, two lane highways, peak fire season...


What could go wrong?


Well, they cover that in this article., if you are curious...


Cartoon credit.

Stop

Found this trick ceramic disc brake upgrade kit on ebay, for cheap...

Really

This weekend, white nationalists, Nazi sympathizers, actual self declared Nazis gathered together to promote their (protected) vitriol and voice their dismay that some statues of actual traitors to this nation are to be removed.

And people were killed...

There are actual Nazis fighting with and killing our fellow citizens.
Nazis, white nationalists, beating and killing people in our streets.
That is a reality of today.


Now if you thought that is active racism had gone away in the past few decades, I am not sure you have been paying attention.
It's been here all along, an unfortunate component of our national identity, really.
Now, again, increasingly obstinate and overt...


Fucking hell, man...

And now we get to watch as everybody points fingers at some other party, because nobody is personally responsible.
"Oh, the cops should have done more."
"Geez, those counter protesters were not very nice."
"Gosh, I planned a Nazi fun time party, but had no idea people would be naughty and mean."
"Heck, I didn't even know that guy in the car."

These people got together to express their displeasure that a statue depicting a traitorous secessionist, who led an army in the fight for continued slave ownership was being removed...
And to have a goddamned race fear circle jerk, while waving around tiki torches.


This is the state of the nation...

I am not sure if I am more angry or embarrassed.

Good Idea

It's great that we get to think about all this stuff, still, again, more...

Xtreme

When can scooters stop being a thing?

Flopsy Bunny

For more information, please reread the poster...

It should make perfect sense why shit gets serious at about Lady Bird and only gets worse from there.


Given the whole North Korea situation, I think it's a good idea to brush up on this stuff.

Buggy

Been busy enough that I haven't even had a chance to think about how much I need a dune buggy...

(Which may indicate that I don't actually need a dune buggy.)

Ya Know

Ya know, that just doesn't seem like a good spot for a bike ride...

Flutter Update

In that previous post about fluttering insects, I mentioned a plethora of monarch butterflies...

Turns out I am wrong with that.

The ones all over the place, here, are California tortoiseshell butterflies it seems.
Like that one in the picture...

You can see how one might make that identification mistake, as a butterfly layman.


No doubt, all of the local, native butterflies are pretty pissed off about these damned California butterflies...
Moving up here with their fancy lifestyles, driving up butterfly home prices and all that.

Switch

OK, it is kinda cool as is.


Now if each trick was done regular and then switch, with each light to dark shift...
That would be epic.

Flutter

Lots of fluttery things here, I notice.


We had a run of some normal looking moths earlier in the spring.

A few weeks ago was a big run of Pandora moths.
Big ones.  That picture is of one...
I guess their life cycle is a couple of years, most of which is in the larva and transition stages which happens underground.
Then every couple years they turn moth, mess around and lay eggs to restart the circle.
This year was one of those moth party years...

Last weekend, I saw more butterflies than I ever have.
Just a swarm of Monarchs, out in the hills and mountains...

And I hear there is another moth species about to show up as well.
The hawk moth maybe?
It's black and white, I think.


So, yeah...

This was a dull post inventorying the various fluttering bugs I have seen this year.

PBY Not

I like boats.
I also like planes.
And projects...


Anybody want to go halfsies on a PBY project with me?

(By half, I mean I have like seventeen dollars to contribute.)


Anyway, pretty neat tour of a PBY.
I have never seen one of these in person, but their history is pretty cool.



Growing up, I hung out with this guy who was a war photographer in WW2.
He had a fondness for these, having spent a fair amount of time in those side blisters.