Victory!

  If you haven't read the entry previous to this one, do that now. This is the end of the story.

  You guys hear that buzzing sound? Neither do I, because they're all dead.

  At 2042 hours last night, "Lil Stinker" was successfully deployed on target. A BDA (battle damage assessment) was done this morning at 0700, and no wasp-insurgents were seen alive. It would appear that the weapon was 100% effective.
  The lawn was alive last night, friends, let me tell you. I took my flashlight and my giant can of wasp-death and shuffled quietly through the grass over to the nest-hole just before 9:00. There were so many crickets, gnats, jumpies and slimy slugs about that I felt like I wanted to just carpet bomb the whole place. When I turned the beam of my flashlight on the hole, I saw that there was a single wasp at the entrance pulling guard duty. For a second I thought, "You know, it really is an interesting insect society. They have guards, fighters, workers, a queen. There's a whole town under there." Then, I unceremoniously blasted the hole full force, filling it with a dense, white doomsday chemical. I imagine for that guard it was much like catching a neutron bomb in your mouth.
  It's really difficult to tell if the thing was fully effective, because so much of the hive is underground, but when I checked on it this morning, there seemed to be nothing alive. Some kind of flying bug came out of the grass toward me, and I let him have it. Not sure if it was a wasp, but I didn't take any chances. After checking on the hive this morning, I gave it another blast, just to be sure. Nothing like bombing the rubble.
  As for the lawn- it's now been mowed. As for me? I'm a tad itchy in spots, but looking forward to devouring the rack of ribs I just threw on the grill. Happy Labor Day Weekend, everybody!

WAR ERUPTS IN COASTAL EAST

  Cut loose a full four hours early from work, I jaunted home, had a delicious, relaxed lunch, and then decided to mow my recently neglected back yard. I've been seeding it, you see, to fill in some bad spots, and wanted to give it time to grow.
  I gassed up the old grass-chopper, rolled around to the back of the house and began cutting, iPod firmly in-ear.
  Not more than two minutes into the job, I suddenly felt a sharp pain in the middle of my back. Immediately, I knew something had bit/stung me, so I flailed my hand around and tried to knock the offending bug from my backside. Before I could even figure out what had caught me, I was hit several more times on the left side of my body. I immediately let go of the lawn mower, stalling out the dead-man switch. Looking down, I noticed I was enveloped in a cloud of very angry yellowjacket wasps.

                      Artist recreation of attack

  As I realized I was under full attack, I ran for my back door, taking a couple more stings in the process. I stepped over my garden hose and then stopped and picked it up, hoping to blast these insects off of me. Unfortunately, upon squeezing the sprayer, I realized the water wasn't on and I had cost myself precious seconds. Still under seige, I jerked the back door open and ran inside. About fifteen brave yellowjackets came in with me and continued their assault. I swatted at them with my hands and then a dishtowel, but they were too quick. I remembered then that there was a can of Raid under the sink, and I went for it, fogging the place up something fierce. A couple of the little bastards got sprayed directly out of the air and landed convulsing on the kitchen floor. Two or three stragglers were distpatched with the aforementioned kitchen towel of justice.
  I stood there, breathing heavily, heart racing, trying to look myself over. I found another yellowjacket trying to crawl up the inside of my pant leg and crushed him. I brushed my hand through my hair and still another striped kamikaze flew out and then got a dose of the towel.
  I went upstairs to the bathroom and took my shirt off to survey the damage. When I did, a last wasp flew out and met his end under my shoe.
  All in all, I took about fifteen stings.
  After applying a salve of baking soda and water, I decided to visit the local Home Depot and prepare for chemical warfare. I was going to find those responsible for this despicable attack and make them pay dearly. Before I left, I gathered up the carcasses of the wasps I killed in the kitchen and bathroom, threw them in a bowl and set them on the back porch. I wanted the rest of them to see what they were going to look like by the end of the day.

                      Intimidation bowl

  After returning home, I sat down to formulate my counter-attack while I enjoyed some soothing Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream.
  I would scout out their hidden fortress and then wait until just after dark, when the colony was asleep. I would then rain down chemical death on them from above, most likely talking a lot of shit in the process. I would obliterate them and their egg-laying hussy of a queen. That's right, wasps. I said it.
  After formulating my plan, I went outside to retrieve my lawn grooming equipment from the battlefield. It sat, embarrassingly, baking in the sun, abandoned in the initial panic of the attack. As I stepped carefully through the grass, I eyed a nearby bush that I suspected was the yellowjacket capitol. Just then, however, I noticed a finger-sized hole in the ground near my feet. As I peered closer, a lone wasp climbed out of the hole and flew towards me. I made a hasty exit, but I had ironclad intelligence now. Perfect overhead imagery, captured by my own two eyes.
  In the grand tradition of naming weapons of mass destruction, I am calling my genocidal device "Lil Stinker."

                                 "Lil Stinker" device

  Zero hour is approaching quickly. If you'll please excuse me, I have a colony to take down.

Cutting room floor

Click to biggify.

  A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that I was going through my picture archives to find a good shot to submit to the "Photo of the Day" contest over at Earthshots.org. Well, my submission didn't make it, so I'm posting it here. I've previously shown some other shots in this group, but never this one.
  This was taken on the side of Kilimanjaro at about 14,000 ft looking back at Mt. Meru. That's one of my climbing buddies, Mike, down at the lower left, watching a sea of clouds float by beneath us. This was an absolutely breathtaking sunset- easily the most beautiful I've ever seen. The photos don't do it justice. I remember standing there in the chilly evening breeze, camera snapping away, and not hearing a single word of conversation among the group.
  I'm going to add a bunch of pictures from that Africa trip to my Flickr account pretty soon, and you'll see more of this remarkable event.

Treadmill of DOOM

  So, I'm running full bore on my treadmill last Thursday when I notice that my stride is starting to feel a little mushy. This feeling gets worse and worse, and near the end of my run, I decide to stop before an injury occurs. I get off and check the thing out, but I can't discern any problems. I cautiously step back aboard, choose a slower belt speed, and investigate further. Sure enough, the deck is bending slightly with each footfall.
  Upon much deeper investigation, I find out that I have actually cracked the deck. Now, I'm no treadmill expert, so I had no idea these decks were made of wood. Fiberboard, to be exact, laminated on both sides to reduce friction with the tread belt. This particular piece of laminated fiberboard is cracked 2/3 of the way down its length, and about 3/4 of its depth. It's shot.
  Like any other red-blooded american, I seek out Google immediately. I come to discover that my particular brand of treadmill is no longer made, and there are no replacement parts available. Because I am my father's son, I decide, "Screw it, I'll make my own."
  Now, anybody that knows me knows this is not an uncommon occurrance. I tend to just craft things when I can't find what I want. Some might call this stubbornness. I call it... well, I also call it stubbornness. A new treadmill would probably run me about $350 on the low side, and that's unacceptable. I have put many miles on this one since I bought it, after moving to Spokane, but I didn't, in any way, feel like it had reached the end of its sweat-inducing life.
  After completely dissecting the treadmill, I took measurements of the old deck, made a couple of visits to Home Depot and one to Lowe's, and came home with all my materials.
  Over the last two and a half days, I have cut, glued, trimmed, adjusted, measured and cursed my way to a new deck. It was not an easy job, let me tell you. In addition to my Bri-manufactured parts, I had to make some adjustments to the other factory parts to accomodate changes, and getting the belt tension adjusted right on both sides was difficult. I have a perfectly working, fully functional treadmill again, though, so I can't complain. Take THAT, Sportcraft TX400!

I hate my roommate

  So much.

As the world curves

  Uh, wasn't your Kilimanjaro climb back in 2006? Yes, yes it was.
  The reason for this recycling is simple. I'm going back through my photos right now, trying to find some really good ones to submit to "Earthshots.org" in the hopes of being shown. Somewhere in the archives there's got to be a few good ones. In going through the old Africa shots, I came upon this one, and I'm not sure it was ever shared. It's the only shot I really have showing the view from the top of Kili. What's remarkable about it, and what stuck in my memory, was that I was high enough to actually see the curvature of the Earth. I've drawn a line for reference in the picture below: (click to biggify either shot)


  Pretty amazing view up there. The oxygen left something to be desired, though. Looking at these photos is getting the adventurer in me stirred and it makes me want to start looking into that Aconcagua summit again. It's about 2,000 ft higher and much icier. I've got my eye on you, Chile.

Hardy har har

  The third and final retrospective video is here! Ten minutes of bloops, goofs and outtakes. It was impossible to get them all in, and I had to cut a LOT of material that I thought was hilarious, but this is a pretty decent compilation of laughs.
  Thanks for watching my retrospectives. I hope you enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed putting them together. Now, forward with new projects!

  Click HERE to start the hilarity!