List of Things I Will Not Do on Purpose

• Eat liver
• Knit a sweater (not sure how this would be done unintentionally, but it could happen…)
• Leave a store without paying for every item in my cart
• Wear mismatched socks (though you would never guess this by past practice)
• Throw out a perfectly good nail or screw
• Forget your birthday (but I likely will)
• Convict an innocent person of a crime
• Stab myself
• Go to jail
• Listen to an entire Milli Vanilli album (I am serious here)

—Mitchell Hegman

Vinyl Gloves, Silicone, and Duct Tape

My approach to plumbing is the same as my approach to watching French avant-garde movies.

I run as fast as I can in the opposite direction.

Yesterday, necessity forced me to attempt an emergency plumbing repair.  I tried, but could not reach my plumber.  And calling what I did a “plumbing repair” is something along the lines of calling Steven Seagal a gifted actor.   

Let’s have some background here.

Yesterday, I discovered that the very first plumbing fitting connecting the polyethylene pipe from my well to the metal piping in my house was leaking.  Squirting madly, actually.  The fitting was rotten.   I recall not liking the steel fitting when I installed it thirty years ago.  I wanted to use brass at the time, but could not find the fitting required in brass.

The fitting is located in my raw-earth crawlspace.  A large pool of water had formed around the fitting and was seeping into the earth without any harm to my house.

After shutting down the water and well pump, I devised a quick, questionable fix.  I would squirt a pile of silicone sealer on couple of vinyl gloves, wrap the gloves around the fitting, and then wrap that mess up under a few layers of duct tape.

If duct tape can save Apollo space capsules, certainly my plumbing had a chance.      

And in the end?

Still leaked.

I am, more or less, without water.

The Leak

Vinyl Glove and Silicone (Almond Color)

All Wrapped

—Mitchell Hegman

Reaching Across the Sky

We experienced an unusual sunset last night.

Okay, the setting sun was entirely normal.  The orb itself rolled away down the backside of the mountains to our west, just as every other evening.  The unusual aspect of the sunset was the arm-like bank of clouds extended over the lake at my back door.

Soft-bellied and stretched long across the expanse, the cloud formation drifted only a little as the sun gradually slumped into the abyss beyond.  I rather camped on my deck and watched the cloudbank blushing through colors.  Over a stretch of something near ten minutes, I captured a series of photographs.  Posted today is the first and the last photograph I managed.

First Photograph

Last Photograph

—Mitchell Hegman

Thanksgiving Dinner with Miss Desiree

I celebrated a non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner yesterday.  By “non-traditional” I mean exceptionally unusual but, in the same breath, lovely.

I spent much of my day, listening to reggae music and converting film slides from my 1985 trip to China to JPEG so my computer can eat them.  I also dialed out and accepted a host of phone calls, and walked down to the lake just to stare down into the water.

Happy Thanksgiving!

In the late afternoon, Miss Desiree video-called from her Friday morning in the Philippines, half-a-planet away.

Desiree wanted to help prepare my food and then attend my small, celebratory Thanksgiving dinner.  Her first such celebration.  This, again, by means of a video call on my smarter-than-me-phone.

My meal consisted of the following:

• A not-so-wee dram of Glenlivet Scotch (aged 18 years)
• Spaghetti squash cooked in the microwave and seasoned with pesto
• Curly’s precooked baby back pork ribs reheated outside on the grill
• A slice of huckleberry pie I made earlier (from berries I picked in August)     

A fine meal.  And, sincerely, in the spirit of our Thanksgiving, a satisfying celebration across miles that don’t hold us quite as far apart as once they did.

Much love, to all of you: Des, family, friends!

—Mitchell Hegman

Patterns

If you look for patterns, you will find them in virtually all systems and all things—no matter how chaotic they may appear at first glance.  This applies to the entire atmosphere churning around the globe, and all the way down to the crystalline structure within a grain of sand at your feet.

I like simple.  If I had my way, all of these patterns would be either plaid or checkered.

—Mitchell Hegman

Pat Robertson is a Poor Listener

On the 20^th of October, televangelist Pat Robertson announced on his show, The 700 Club, he had consulted with God.  According to Mr. Robertson, God told him “without question” Donald Trump would win the election.  The televangelist also forecasted disaster for the country, including civil unrest, at least two attempts on Trump’s life, and a war against Israel that will be “put down by God.”  This will be followed by five years of peace before the Earth is stuck by an asteroid.

Obviously, the very first of these revelations proved false.

Considering God is infallible, that surely must sting the televangelist a little.  My theory is, Pat Robertson is a poor listener.  I am not sure what God conveyed to Pat, but obviously he would not say Trump was going to win considering he didn’t. 

Oddly enough, this is not the first time Mr. Robertson has missed the mark following an audience with God.  He has issued prophecies of demise previously.  In 1976, he predicted the world would end in 1982.   In book, "The New Millennium," published in 1990, he said the world would be destroyed on April 29, 2007.

Again, God is not going to dispense bogus information. The errors are necessarily on the receiving end of these communications.  I fear, If the world doesn’t end one of these times, Mr. Robertson’s flock is surely going to stop following him.

—Mitchell Hegman

Stud Finder

I have great news!  For once, I can prove I am not a total moron.  Mostly moron, yes.  But every so often I swat one out of the park.

A couple day ago, I contacted an architect to see about help with the design of a whatchacallit—as the reader, you are welcome to choose between sunroom or attached greenhouse.  I will be attaching the sunroom (my choice of words) on the south elevation of my house with access from the living room.

This is not a new idea.  I wanted to build the sunroom when I first constructed my home in 1991.  We didn’t have the money reserves available for the extra room at the time.

“Tell you what,” I said to my wife, “I’ll frame in a door for future use.  Someday, we will build the sunroom.”

Some thirty years later, that day has arrived.

Before meeting with the architect, I wanted to locate the door I framed in and then finished over.  Fortunately, I and a group of my most excellent friends, built the house over the summer of 1991.  This allowed me to document every step of the project. Yesterday, I located a photograph, taken in June of 1991, of the wall in which I framed the door. This gave me a rough idea of where to find the door.     

Next step: grab my Zircon stud finder.  Since I presently live with only my cat, I was forced to deliver the obligatory joke to him.  “We gotta be careful not to direct this stud finder toward us when it’s on—it will likely explode sensing a couple studs like us.”  Satisfied with that maneuver, I used the device to locate the studs and framing around the door.  I stuck a couple strips of masking tape on the wall and penciled exact locations for the studs and door opening 

The door opening is there.  Proof I am not a moron.  Or at least a step in that general direction.

 

Framed Wall

Tape on the Wall Today

—Mitchell Hegman

Attack of the Spiders

Early yesterday morning, as I sat on my sofa sipping coffee and watching some news, a leggy spider trekked out across the carpet.  I am not a fan of spiders, leggy or otherwise.  Upon seeing the spider, I slipped the sock off my right foot, pulled it over my right hand, and captured the spider sock-puppet-style.  I then pitched the critter out my front door.

Spider problem solved, I thought.

A while later, while seated at my kitchen peninsula, I somehow managed to come across a video about the most dangerous spiders in the world.  Naturally, I had to watch the video.  About the time the seventh deadliest spider appeared on the video, a blur of motion on the countertop to my right caught my attention. When I turn to focus squarely on the motion, I found—you guessed it—a second leggy spider sprinting in my direction.

I immediately identified the spider as a black recluse fiddle belly widow mini-tarantula.  Or something close to that.  And I did what any normal person would do: I yelped.

Removal of this spider required the use of a nearby dish towel.  I even considered gloves and safety glasses, and would have found some if given time.

I was a little frazzled by the end of the second spider attack.

Posted is the video I was watching.

Keep a wary eye out for spiders as you watch.

—Mitchell Hegman

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8xyRHOvl7g

List of Apps I Would Like on My Smartphone

1. An app that makes my bed with a right swipe and changes bedding with a left swipe

2. An app that exercises for me

3. An app that keeps me from laughing when I see a man (outside of a wedding, where they are actually cool) wearing a bowtie

4. A mustard removal app that removes the taste of mustard from anything

5. An app that locates missing jigsaw puzzle pieces

—Mitchell Hegman

Television Binge-Watching Report

If you are regular reader of my blog, you have likely learned a few things about me.  For example, I have a strong tendency toward idiocy.  I live with an obese, lazy cat that hunts sleep.  I like birds.  And, finally, I binge-watch TV when I watch.

Today, we will discuss a little binge-watching.  I am currently watching a DVR stash of The Voice episodes recorded from the current season.  The Voice may not satisfy the television watching needs of brainiacs, but it is close to perfect for me.  I enjoy music, and get a kick out of the coaches and their interactions.

But a bad thing happened on one of the episodes I watched last night.  One of the contestants murdered a song.  A song a really like.  In trying to “make the song her own,” this contestant converted single notes into long, trampling runs that stomped overtop the simple and beautiful tune I so love.  She took the song up too high and down too low.  And then she changed the lyrics to suit herself.

“Ungood,” as my buddy Rodney would say.

Following the performance, as a matter of self-preservation, I paused the show and scampered out to the kitchen for a wee dram of Scotch.

—Mitchell Hegman

Unpacking My Grandparents

I unpacked my grandparents yesterday and hung them on the wall in my den.  Not my actual grandparents.   Framed photographs of them.

A couple years ago, before starting a complete remodel of my den, I packed away three photographs of my grandparents I had hanging on the walls there.

The manner in which I am now displaying the photographs is another story.  When I remodeled, I finished my walls with a type of corrugated metal.  The metal makes for challenges insofar as hanging pictures and such.  While I ruminated about how and where I might hang some of my photographs and pictures, a funny thing happened.  By funny, I mean a desk I ordered (one I needed to assemble) arrived busted-up from shipping.

Several replacement pieces of the desk were shipped to me after I contacted the seller.  Among the new pieces was the desktop, because the original experienced shipping damage on the bottom.

And then a thought struck me.

Posted today, is a photograph of my grandparents.  I affixed photographs of my grandparents to the desktop which is, in turn, affixed to the wall above my new desk.

—Mitchell Hegman

Thanks, Dolly!

I will admit, I Dolly Parton’s voice sometimes scares me.  When she climbs way up there on her singing register, I am afraid either something inside her is going to come unglued or something near me will explode.  There are also times when I need to thank her.

Her song Jolene is thank-worthy. 

I would like to thank Dolly for the movie 9 to 5.  I enjoyed that one.

Today, I would like to thank Dolly for donating money to Covid-19 research.  She did not give a little.  She gave a lot.  A million dollars a lot to be precise.  A chunk of Dolly’s money funded the development of Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine.  Just this week, Moderna announced their vaccine achieved 94.5% effectiveness against coronavirus, according to their data.  The company determined this by means of a 30,000-patient study.  Moderna will file for an emergency use authorization with the Food and Drug Administration in the coming weeks.

This is good news.

I could listen to this all day long.

Thanks for everything, Dolly!

—Mitchell Hegman

My Work Here is Done

Here is how the deal went down.  I drifted out of my living room and into the kitchen with a handful of trash.  Mostly crumpled sticky notes.

Earlier in the day, I had dragged the waste basket out from under the sink and set it on the floor at the end of my kitchen’s peninsula counter.  I then stood there at the counter for a while, sorting through some bills and legal documents, pitching into the basket any outdated material as I found it.

I looked directly at the waste basket at the end of the counter as I whisked over to the sink, opened the cabinet door where I normally keep the basket and pitched the trash into the empty space inside.

—Mitchell Hegman

Montana Weather Report

Montana is known for bonkers weather changes.  Perhaps you recall that time in January of 1980 when the temperature at the Great Falls International Airport rose from -32°F to 15°F degrees in only seven minutes as warm chinook winds cut through an Arctic airmass.  And little ol’ Loma, Montana, still holds the U.S. record for a 24-hour temperature swing.  There, on January 15, 1972, another chinook event forced a temperature rise from −54°F to 49°F.  That’s a 103°F shift in readings.

That is pretty crazy stuff.  Or, as we like to say in my hometown of East Helena, Montana: “Dammit!”

Over recent weeks, we have been ping-ponging between fall and winter.  I am confused.  The lake is confused (freeze, or not freeze).  Trees are confused.  Bugs are particularly confounded.

When temperatures rise into the forties, some of the local flying insects will emerge from hiding in our snowbound landscapes and take a spin around.  We ascended into the forties yesterday.  When I stepped outside late in the afternoon, I spotted a fly zipping toward me in the warmish air.  Before I could think “I’ll be darned,” the fly crashed full-speed into my forehead.

It’s a hard and confusing life around here this time of year.

—Mitchell Hegman

Something Epictetus Said

— We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.

— We should not moor a ship with one anchor, or our life with one hope.

— No great thing is created suddenly.

Catnap

Today, I have posted a photograph of my 20 pounds of housecat taking an officially certified catnap.  This particular catnap “overtook” my cat while he was lying on his back and grooming.  Apparently, grooming is hard work.

I would like to note this: At the same time my cat was sleeping, I was attempting to catch (in live traps) a mouse I spotted in my kitchen.  At one time, my 20 pounds of housecat caught mice for me.  Now he will only catch the occasional catnap.

  

—Mitchell Hegman

Ahania

 

The name Ahania appears in the mythology English poet William Blake invented as a way to express his spiritual and political concepts.  Ahania, in his writings, is the goddess of wisdom.  Closer to home, Ahania was all of that.  She was also the mother of my dearest Desiree and her siblings.

Yesterday, Ahania, mother of Desiree, passed on at a hospital in the city of Dumaguete in the Philippines.

Today, we begin our celebration of Ahania.  Not the Ahania of Blakes’s mythology.  No.  Today, we celebrate the Ahania who brought life and light to Desiree and all of the family.

Desiree and Her Mother, Ahania

—Mitchell Hegman

Describing Myself in One Sentence

Have you ever had this question thrown at you: “How would you describe yourself in one sentence?”  I have given this challenge some thought (maybe more than required).  I came up with a few sentences—any one of which would work to describe me.

Here they are:

1.  I am the place where good ideas go to breed mistakes.

2.  Ninety-nine percent water, one percent rock

3.  I am the guy looking of one more sock.

4.  Heading in the right direction with the wrong tools.

5.  Can you repeat the question, please?

6.  Two outta six ain’t bad.        

—Mitchell Hegman

60 Days In, Part 2

I wrote yesterday about watching the TV reality series 60 Days In.   While watching several more episodes, I witnessed a new dynamic in race relations develop among the male inmates.

Generally, the different races in the facility get along fairly well within the pods.  They interact with one another peacefully.  But for this peace to be maintained, three rules must be observed.  First, any inmate entering the pod must choose his gang (White, Hispanic, Native, or Black).  When eating, inmates are expected to sit with “their own kind.”  Finally, each gang is expected to police its own ranks.

I see the gangs as a primarily conservative construct (in the social sense).  This brand matters considering what happens within the pods next.

In a recent episode, two young men are injected into the pods.  One of the young men is of mixed race and does not wish to choose a race gang.  Another young white man wants to hang with the blacks because he doesn’t appreciate the white supremist tendencies of the white gang.

This liberal (again, in the social sense) attitude upsets the balance.  The gangs broil almost at once.  They don’t appreciate what they consider as “multicultural” relations.  Tensions rise markedly within the pods.

Violence is the controlling measure for most problems within the pods.  To force balance again, the multicultural inmates are, essentially, roughed-up and squashed into compliance.  

Ugly stuff, this.

—Mitchell Hegman

60 Days In

I am several episodes into season five of the TV reality series 60 Days In.  The premise of the show is fairly simple.  Volunteers are planted as inmates inside jails to spy on the other inmates and assess the system itself.

In season five, three men are placed inside men’s detention pods within Arizona’s Pinal County Jail, and three women are placed inside a women’s detention pod within the jail.  One of the men is a police officer.  Another man is a reformed criminal with a history of incarceration.  One of the women is a self-proclaimed conservative republican who is convinced inmates have it too easy.

Each of the volunteers are given a mission.  Some are to determine how drugs are snuck inside and distributed.  Some infiltrate the gangs.  Others examine the jail system and facility.  All enter the facility with the idea of helping the Sheriff establish better control of the inmates and jail.       

An interesting dynamic has occurred over the course of the episodes I have watched.  The “plants” have all become sympathetic towards some of the inmates.  They have also learned to dislike the system and many of the detention officers.

I have adopted similar feelings in some regards. 

In spite of the crimes that landed people inside, and even given the violent nature of many of those incarcerated, the inmates adopt and self-enforce certain codes of conduct.  Thievery is not tolerated.  Inmates are expected honor their own race.

While much of what goes on is brutish and disturbing, the inmates establish a weird and tenuous kind of governance and hierarchy that limits chaos.   

—Mitchell Hegman

Your Name and Your Number

In the broader scheme of things, your name is a poor tag for your identity.  An uncommon name might help.  Or, you might give yourself a single moniker that boldly stands above the rest: Sting, for example.

But what if you are among the 40-some-thousand John Smiths living here in these United States of America?

You will need a number.  A Social Security Number. 

I got to thinking about this last night.  As a distinctly non-famous person, my name is of little use beyond the spacious valley in which I live.  For business purposes and legal purposes, I need my number.

Funny thing about that.  Even though this is your best identity, you must keep it secret for fear of fraudulent use.

A sort of paradox, then.

—Mitchell Hegman

My Blue Jays

Up until two years ago, I had never seen a blue jay here in Montana.  At present, I have four of them visiting my bird feeder.

The term “visiting” may not accurately describe what takes place.  All jays are by nature obnoxious—something along the lines of pre-teen boys at a swimming pool.  You can expect lots of noise and lots of splashing around.

My blue jays flare down around my feeder like harrier jets; often dispersing any juncos or LBJs (little brown jobs) that have arrived before them.  On the ground, they bop and quirk around as if spring-loaded.  On occasion one will perch in my nearby linden tree and jeer at me.

But, man, are they pretty!

I am not certain why the blue jays have suddenly established a presence here.  The range of blue jays is generally confined to the Eastern half of the U.S.  That said, a few maps of their range do show an arm of nonbreeding blue jays reaching into Montana.

Most certainly, they are here.  Interestingly, my magpie regulars are not opposed to hanging out with them.  Perhaps we might glean a message from that.

—Mitchell Hegman

PHOTO: https://www.courierpress.com

What Kind of World?

Reggae music originated in Jamaica during the late 1960s.  According to Wikipedia: Stylistically, reggae incorporates some of the musical elements of rhythm and blues, jazz, mento (a celebratory, rural folk form that served its largely rural audience as dance music and an alternative to the hymns and adapted chanteys of local church singing), calypso, and also draws influence from traditional African folk rhythms.

That’s a lot.  I can’t successfully interpret what all l of the means, but can say this—the offbeat rhythms generated by Reggae drill directly into the soul of me.  No other genre of music will set me to motion the way Reggae does.  I immediately begin swaying upon hearing a pure Reggae song.

Mo’ Kalamity is a French singer-songwriter and Reggae artist.  She is, for me, a recent discovery.  I have selected one of her songs to represent Reggae.

—Mitchell Hegman

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=943vSCrQARA

Signs Indicating Things Are Not Going Well

1. Your mood catches on fire.

2. Watching reruns of Gilligan’s Island seems like a good idea.

3. A palm reader insists that emailing results might be better for both of you.

4. The instructions for an unassembled piece of furniture you are about to put together make perfect sense.

5. You find yourself pining for high school PE classes.

6. Your cat moves in with the neighbor.

—Mitchell Hegman

Winning a Nobel Prize the Easy Way

Generally speaking, if you want to garner a Nobel Prize, you will need to roll-up your sleeves, and hit the lab for a few years.  You may need to crunch some numbers, drill holes deep into the Earth, or juggle deadly infectious diseases in an isolation chamber.

Or, there is another way.

You can bypass all that perplexing and time-consuming stuff and simply make an alligator breath helium and then see if it will talk in a high, Micky Mouse voice like your high school buddy, Mikey did.

We are talking “breakthrough science” done the easy way.

The Nobel Prize in question was awarded in the field of acoustics.  According to the researchers involved: “Our question was whether alligators have vocal tract resonances like human speech,” said biologist Tecumseh Fitch, a member of the research team, who came from Austria, Sweden, Japan, the United States and Switzerland. “The hard part is getting an alligator to breathe helium.”

The “team” managed to overcome this challenge by forcing a female Chinese alligator into an airtight chamber and pumping in helium.  The helium—which makes sound travel faster—accounts for the altered sounds.

According to an article from Reuters: “The alligator on helium did not squeak, but let out a belch.”

Obviously, that is enough for a Nobel Prize in the year 2020

—Mitchell Hegman

Source: Reuters

Making the Cut

After many years of watching both The Voice and American Idol, I have noticed that a good portion of the people successfully landing on the show started out singing in church.

My chances for making the cut were likely diminished because I started out singing in the shower.   Well, that, and the fact I sound like a wrestling match when I sing.

—Mitchell Hegman

Sign

Deer hunting season is upon us.  While authentic hunters take to the field looking for deer and “sign” of deer, a few less-than-authentic hunters take to country roads and drive around, spooling out dust from their tires, and hoping to chance upon deer from the lower end of the gene pool just standing there beside the road someplace.

I live on one of those country roads.

I see a lot of road hunters throughout the season.  A few hundred yards from my house, the hunters driving our spur road encounter the open prairie and a clear view of my house.  For those savvy enough to understand section maps, they also recognize this as the boundary for a section of state land and the point where private property holdings begin.

Something of a turn-around spot develops there every hunting season.  I see plenty of rigs flipping around during the season.  Night before last, as darkness fell, a hunter stopped there for a while with headlights fixed on my house.  Eventually, the rig cranked around and climbed away through the juniper and pine.

Yesterday morning, on an early morning walk, I found sign of the hunter.  A beer can.  I have posted a photograph of the can with my house far off in the background.

—Mitchell Hegman

The Flood of 1981

In May of 1981, East Helena, Montana, experienced a destructive flood.  While sorting through all of my picture files, I came across several images I captured at that time.  I am sharing a few of those today:

The House My Mother Lived In

Prickly Pear Creek Below Riggs Street Bridge

Main Street Under Receding Waters

The Aftermath on Pacific Street

—Mitchell Hegman

Happy Birthday, Helen!

I conned my parents into buying me a cheap camera at the age of eight.  Ever since then, I have had a camera in my hand.  I upgraded to a 35mm SLR in 1978 (shooting slides for the most part).  In the year 2002, I dropped my film camera and picked up my first digital.  Today, my smarter-than-me-phone stands in as my camera much of the time.

I have captured, literally, tens of thousands of images over the decades.  

Today is my daughter’s birthday.  As luck would have it, I have been compiling digital photographs and converting slides to a digital format for the last few months.  My slides date back to 1979.  And, within my slides, I have plenty of images of Helen that bring a smile to my face.

In celebration of Helen’s birthday, I am posting five images that reach me.

Happy birthday, Helen!

Atop Hogback Mountain in the Big Belt Range (1986)

Helen and her Mother (1984)

Halloween (1986)

Touring my work at Toston Dam (1989)

Near Sapa, Vietnam (2009)

—Mitchell Hegman