The Highest and Lowest Points in Montana

It is widely known that Western Montana is home to the mountains, while Eastern Montana is given to the Northern Great Plains. Yet, in a strange twist of fate, the highest point in Montana is found in the east, and the lowest in the far northwest corner of the state. Granite Peak, towering at 12,799 feet in the Beartooth Range, is Montana’s highest point, its jagged silhouette a testament to the tectonic forces that forged the region millions of years ago. Meanwhile, the Kootenai River, flowing out of the state near the Canadian border in the mountainous west, drops to an elevation of just 1,820 feet.

Between these two elevation markers lies a state that rarely settles for a single elevation for very long. There is always a fold, a drop-off, or a mountain confronting you as you travel from point to point. And, if that were not enough to garner your attention, we also have that “big sky” thing.

Granite Peak (Photo: USFS)

—Mitchell Hegman

From the Heart

Today, on the shortest day of the year, I am posting a video that sometimes moves me to tears. It features a song written and performed by James Blunt, which is deeply personal. The song serves as a tribute to his father, Charles, who was battling stage-four kidney cancer and in need of a transplant at the time it was written.

I’ve read that the song was recorded in a single take and that the tears in the singer’s eyes are genuine.

—Mitchell Hegman

Video Link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTFbGcnl0po

Signs of Adulthood

You can officially register as an adult if one or more of the following applies to you:

• You can find a flashlight at your house that actually works (other than your smartphone) within two minutes.
• You occasionally check to see if your spare tire(s) are fully inflated.
• You have purchased spices, a throw rug, or a new plumbing fixture within the last six months.
• You feel bad when watching a figure skater fall during a performance.
• You have a bird feeder.
• You need to dig through things to locate a beer in your refrigerator.
• You have a drawer or cabinet where you keep all the warranty papers and instructions for every appliance and tool you purchase.
• You regularly receive mailers for hearing aids.
• You have a favorite brand of trash bags.

—Mitchell Hegman

The Three-Hour Board

When building our house in 1991, we opted for a wallpaper border around the top of the walls in the bathroom off our bedroom. For the past two weeks, Desiree and I have been working to install trim boards over the wallpaper border. The boards are locally sourced, rough-sawn, ten-inch-wide fir siding planks. We had to sand the planks down and stain them before cutting them and nailing them in place.

Every board has been a struggle, given the wild nature of the wood. Few of them lie flat. Most are slightly cupped, and sections with knots tend to be warped out of shape. From the outset, I assumed the longest board—a thirteen-foot-long beast—would be the most difficult. I could not have been more wrong. The biggest battle turned out to be the smallest board, one a mere five inches long. Between the two imperfect adjoining boards, the irregularities in the drywall finish, and making the “live” sides meet at the bottom of the trim, I needed to make four custom angle cuts and heavily sand the live edge.

It took me three attempts and three hours to finally get the five-inch board to fit properly.

I’ve posted photographs of my work. You can see the smallest board finally nailed in place at the upper-right outside corner in the last image I posted.

The Smallest Board

The Boards Put Together

—Mitchell Hegman

Another Observation

While grocery shopping with my wife, I made an interesting observation. Somehow, I had outpaced her with the shopping cart. When I finally spotted her, she was walking through the intersection of several aisles. That’s when it happened: she absolutely froze mid-stride, and a wholly blank expression washed over her face.

My observation is this: no matter what corner of the world you come from—be it an island in the South Pacific, somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, or Timbuktu—you get the same silly expression on your face when three shopping items you need suddenly collide in your brain at the same instant.

I watched in amusement as she remained frozen for several seconds. Finally, a look of resolve appeared on Desiree's face. She pivoted on her feet and barreled down the aisle to her right.

—Mitchell Hegman

Something Neil deGrasse Tyson Said

 —"No one wants to die, and no one wants to die poor. These are the two fundamental truths that transcend culture, they transcend politics, they transcend economic cycles.”

—"Perhaps we've never been visited by aliens because they have looked upon Earth and decided there's no sign of intelligent life.”

—"Kids should be allowed to break stuff more often. That's a consequence of exploration. Exploration is what you do when you don't know what you're doing.”

An Exploded Diagram

Some things are simply not helpful. One example is the cheap screwdrivers some manufacturers include with their unassembled furniture. Another is the 2-inch-long tags on some shirts. This also applies to any “help” phone number that directs you to Shivansh’s garage in New Delhi, India.

I recently purchased a sliding compound miter saw. At first glance, the saw appears reasonably complicated, which prompted me to actually skim through the instruction booklet that came with it. Sadly, the instructions are skimpy on pertinent information. However, they did provide a very unhelpful exploded diagram of the saw. I am sharing the exploded view in the unlikely event that it might prove helpful to someone else.

Exploded Diagram of the Miter Saw

—Mitchell Hegman