Trees Turning

Photograph of trees and brush turning colors taken from above a bend in the gravel road between Gibson Dam and the road to Benchmark, Montana.

--Mitchell Hegman

Sun Canyon Cabin Window

A photograph I snapped this morning in a rustic cabin at Sun Canyon Lodge located in Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front Range near Augusta.

--Mitchell Hegman

Welcome to Sequin World

If sequins were people yelling rather than decorative thingumajigs, my house would be the equivalent of a huge stadium filled with thousands of fanatics.

Let’s begin with this picture:

 

The photo is of a few of the zillions of sequins I have vacuumed, swept, pinched, and dabbed from my floors and carpets over the last few days.

I sometimes suspect that the sequins are breeding in the wee hours, though I know better.

I know where they came from.

Technically speaking, they came from my clothes washer.  More specifically, the sequins were shed from a dress in my clothes washer—a long, slinky dress (once) covered with them.  The sequins virtually poured onto my floor when I first opened the washer and pulled forth a pile of clothes.  The other articles of clothing were measled with sequins.  Now my whole house is afflicted.

I am guessing the dress had directions for washing.  I would further guess that gentle washing by hand was suggested.  Here is the thing, I am an electrician and Ariel Murphy is an Ariel Murphy and neither an electrician nor an Ariel Murphy is inclined to read some silly directions before proceeding on anything.

We know how to do stuff!   

--Mitchell Hegman

Rainbow Searchlights

Photograph of compact discs purposely shot out of focus for effect.

--Mitchell Hegman

Three Inventors

·         The electric chair was invented by a dentist.

·         A gentleman named Thomas Crapper invented the toilet.

·         Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna led the attack on the Alamo and later helped invent chewing gum.

--Mitchell Hegman

List of Things We Are Born To Do

List of Things We Are Born To Do

·         Pretend-drive abandoned cars in weedy fields when we are children

·         Walk along soft sand with bare feet

·         Juggle emotions

·         Run without a sound

·         Kiss on the lips

·         Travel to distant stars

·         Jump from stone to stone

·         Drink water from the palms of our hands

·         Tell our children we love them

--Mitchell Hegman

List of Things We Are Not Born To Do

List of Things We Are Not Born To Do:

·         Walk with a cane

·         Die in a roadside ambush in Afghanistan

·         Live with our eyes shut

·         Juggle fire

·         Walk on our hands

·         Sit on our hands

·         Live in abandoned cars

·         Use the word tintinnabulation in any form of normal conversation

·         Eat sticks

·         Ignore stars falling from the sky

--Mitchell Hegman

Mountain Ash

Photos taken at a parking lot in Helena, Montana yesterday.

--Mitchell Hegman

Thought #33

In a more perfect world you never would have wasted your time reading this sentence.

--Mitchell Hegman

Ariel Murphy!

Today is Ariel Murphy day!

--Mitchell Hegman

In Matters of Love and Electrical Circuits

In matters of love and electrical circuits, three solutions to a problem are at least one (but probably two) too many.

--Mitchell Hegman

To Live

To live and then die is nothing.  To live and jump and shout and then die is everything.

--Mitchell Hegman

Raise Your Beer Glasses to the Right

According to University of Arkansas psychologist, Scott Eidelman, most people tend to tend to become more conservative in their thinking as their level of intoxication escalates.

Obviously, these studies terminated at some medium level of intoxication.  Had Mr. Eidelman continued to survey his subjects at higher levels of intoxication he would have discovered that at some point many people become convinced that they need to remove a few articles of clothing and then run off to join the circus.  

--Mitchell Hegman

Bullet Points on Yesterday

·         I slept for 10 hours instead of my normal 5 or 6.

·         I witnessed a black widow murdering a moth in my garage.

·         I dreamt that I was bidding on an electrical trenching job in Great Falls and everyone was worried that the trenching machines would fall off the side hill where the work would be performed.  I intended to include lots of extra money for that but awoke before the bid process was complete.

·         I worked on a Power Point presentation about grounding and bonding solar photovoltaic systems—which is way more interesting than it sounds.

·         I tried to read 2 different blog entries on a blog called “M-Phi” which is dedicated to “mathematical philosophy” and far beyond my cognitive abilities.  Here is a sample of what I read there:

o   In mathematicsese, U(n) is the unitary group of $n \times n$ matrices, and U(1) is the case where $n = 1$. The elements of U(1) are identified with the complex numbers $e^{i \theta}$, and group multiplication is simply complex multiplication.

·         I decided that I will try to figure out sex first, philosophy second.

·         I opened a new bottle of red wine.     

--Mitchell Hegman

Small Birds That Stay Trading Places with Big Birds That Go

In this late September sky, small birds that stay have traded places with big birds that go.

The lakeside children have dispersed against the up-hill trees, their shatter and hum voices thinning to whispers.

The final cutting of hay lies afield in neatly stitched rows of green bales.

All doors now closed against the morning chill.

The broad blonde seas of grass remain calm.

The mountains tall and silent as a dry stream.

Enough, then, the small birds that splash into disarray from their neat power-line rows.

Enough, the so-blue-it-startles sky.

--Mitchell Hegman

Nudity

Because we did not invent nudity, we must all do our best to perfect it.

--Mitchell Hegman

Financial Ruin, Part II

Pictured today is Splash, my cat.  Splash represents 20 pounds of the 40 pounds of housecat I presently live with.  After sitting on my lap and “helping” as I paid some monthly bills, Splash decided he’d seen quite enough.  He pushed some papers and envelopes onto the floor at my feet, then jumped down to flop on top of them and strike the pose I captured with my phone.

 

--Mitchell Hegman 

Direct Line

The only direct line between reason and an ideological train-wreck is a presidential election.

--Mitchell Hegman

Red, Red, Sunrise

Near fires.  Distant sun.  Sunrise, September 10, 2012.

--Mitchell Hegman

Math (3 Views)

In rocket science:  1 kilometer = 0.621371192 Mile

In a pointillist painting: … = :.

In love: 2 = 1

--Mitchell Hegman

An Awakening

One day, quite by accident, a man brushed against a woman’s shoulder and thigh as they jostled though a crowded airport.  The man walked on and lived out the rest of his life.  But the woman stopped in her tracks.

The woman stood there for a very long time, allowing the crowd of people—the individuals—to caress around her.  Hair brushing along her cheeks.  Sleeves pulsing like waves against her wrists and her open palms.  Thighs touching thighs.

Not until then, late in her life, did she realize that sex was a perfect form of energy.   

--Mitchell Hegman

Mountains and Bikes

John and I left the car just before sunrise yesterday morning and started riding mountain bikes up a narrow gulch in the South Hills pressed fast against the city of Helena.  The chill air stung my fingers as we climbed into the timber and stone mountains.  We had not gone far before a sound echoed down from the high parks above us.  We stopped on the road and stood there holding our bikes.  The sound penetrated the mountains again.

“That is not a coyote,” I said.

The howl echoed above us again.  “Nope,” John replied.

“That has to be a wolf.”

We stood there for a bit more.  The constellation Orion lay frozen in the sky above us. 

“I ain’t scared,” I said.

The mountains fell silent.

We started up the road again.  After a few more minutes we diverted from the road and began to traverse a narrow trail that climbed higher into the forest.

In the last 100 years there have been 2 incidents of wolves killing humans in North America.  Domestic dogs, on the other hand, kill 20 to 30 people every year in the United States.  Another 4.5 million Americans are bitten by dogs every year.

Fido is dangerous.

The mountains are where I want to live.

While John (25 years my junior) pedaled circles all around me, I alternated between pedaling the bike, walking it up long steeps, and just standing there, panting.  At the top of the narrow trail we encountered mist layered through the parks and light frost on the blonde grass.

The downhill trail whip-snapped through timber and stone.  Nearly terrifying, the blurry ride back to the car was the next best thing to dancing with John’s little girls after breakfast.  And hearing a wolf at your back door is something, too.  

                                                       John Colley

                                          Me

 

--Mitchell Hegman

 

Dancing after Breakfast

This morning, I met John at his house before we started our workday.  When I arrived at his place, he was just finishing feeding his twin girls breakfast.  The girls, Anya and Colette, are something near 2½ and nothing shy of adorable. 

After the girls finished eating, John lifted them from their highchairs and stood them on the floor.  “Why don’t you show Mitch how you can dance?” he said.  Well, within a minute or two, both John I ended up dancing with the girls.   Smiles all around.

We danced for a while and then left John’s girls with his mother-in-law for the day.

At the end of the workday I said to John: “You know, I would not mind starting every day at your house dancing with your girls.  I liked that.  Every day should begin that way.”

--Mitchell Hegman

Idiocy Illustrated

The distance from Helena, Montana to Hilo, Hawaii is slightly more than 3050 miles, calculated as a direct path.  I would draw you a map, but that would actually direct us away from where this blog entry is going.  Instead, study the photograph I have posted below.

 

If you study the file cabinet (brand new and freshly assembled by me) you may notice something odd.

Yep.

I fastened the handle for the top drawer on the inside.

Okay, this is where the blog only sort of takes us—well, me—to Hilo.  That is where my mind was as I put the handle on the top drawer.  In Hilo with Ariel Murphy.

Spending time with Ariel Murphy is smart.

Thinking about her while assembling a file cabinet…not so much.

--Mitchell Hegman

Sunset and Sprinklers

September 4, 2012.

--Mitchell Hegman

Coldsmoke

My favorite Scotch whiskey is 18 year old, single malt, Glenlivet.  A single malt Scotch is produced at a single distillery from malted barley.  Malted barley is barley seed that has been allowed to begin germinating before being dried for use in the distilling process.  Scotch whiskey can be of the following types:

·         Single malt (single distillery and only malted barley)

·         Single grain (single distillery, malted barley, and an additional grain or two)

·         Blended malt (mix of two or more Scotch whiskies from different distilleries)

·         Blended grain (mix of two or more single grain Scotch whiskies)

·         Blended Scotch (mix of malt Scotch whiskey and single grain Scotch whiskey)

Scotch whiskey must be aged in oak barrels for a minimum of 3 years and, obviously enough, must be distilled in Scotland.  The term “single” always means that only one distillery was involved in producing the Scotch.  Finally, Scotch has one of 2 basic pricing categories: expensive and incredibly expensive.  

Age makes a big difference in both price and taste.

An 18 year old Scotch is very pricey and has an earthy aftertaste that tastes similar to the way you feel when you get up from taking a nap.  Nothing else compares to it.

Over the weekend, I held a gathering of friends at my lakefront.  One of my young friends, Randy, brought 4 Coldsmoke Scotch Ale beers.  Coldsmoke is a dark beer produced by a microbrewery in Missoula, Montana.  Randy, by the way, is a drinker of 12 year old, single malt, Doublewood, Balvenie Scotch whiskey.  This gives him much credibility in my way of thinking.  I drank one of the beers on his recommendation.  Heavy.  Earthy.   

A new like!

Those Scotch fellers got it going on!

The term “coldsmoke” is used to describe the puffs of crystalline powder that spray out from skiers as they swoop down through fresh powder snow.  The Coldsmoke cans feature a skier up to his waist in fresh snow and blowing-out a powdery turn.

Yesterday, I went down to the lake to organize everything down at my lakefront pavilion.  When I opened my outdoor refrigerator to make certain that I had not left anything in there, I discovered that Randy had gifted me the remaining 3 beers.  The space was empty save the beers.     

Thanks, Randy!

--Mitchell Hegman 

Parts

Photo taken at a lakeside barbeque.  And so summer ends…

--Mitchell Hegman

Because

Because sometimes my heart feels as though freshly scooped from a cherry-red flow of lava.

Because I stepped into the woods to see the Mariposa lilies where they spilled down through a stony cut like an opulent flood of porcelain and green.

Because the stuff of earth is the stuff of pine bark and the stuff of the human brain.

Because, again, light has context only in darkness.

Because I desire to hold you.

--Mitchell Hegman

Proof

Consider that all the elements we need for survival might be manufactured by the stars, that all of the stars are fiery factories and foundries waltzing around in the inky space around us.  And we are dancing through dark energy.  Through light.  Consider how the starlight echoes against our telescopes and radio waves pulse at our skin—proof that we exist.

--Mitchell Hegman