Predictions for 2023

I have been reading (in various sources) a lot of predictions for the year 2023.  The prognostications range from mundane to grim.  Following are a few of my own predictions for this year:

• Montana State University researchers will achieve a breakthrough by producing non-perishable battery plates made from fruitcake and Twinkies.
• Elon Musk and Tesla will produce a line self-driving cars that identify as males, but the line will fail because the cars refuse to follow driving directions issued to them.
• By midyear, Facebook will run out of space because Filipinos have posted too many photographs and videos.
• Scientists will create a new element in the lab and accept my suggestion to name it “stuff.”
• Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, will record and release three minutes of complete silence, earning him critical acclaim. 
• Desiree will consider replacing me with a lemon tree she has been nurturing in our sunroom.

—Mitchell Hegman

Good Is the New Bad

Huckleberry jam and cheesecake are at the top of my list when it comes to treats.  A couple days ago, Desiree made a cheesecake with swirls of our homemade huckleberry jam and a crust of crumbled Belvita blueberry breakfast biscuits.  I nibbled at a slice of the cheesecake when Desiree sampled it for the first time an hour or so after pulling it from the oven.

The taste proved otherworldly good.

And that’s bad.

For the last dozen years, my weight fluctuated up and down by no more than two pounds.  Since the arrival of Desiree (and her good food), I’ve packed-on something near five pounds.

Good is the new bad when it comes to my diet, and I’ve been fighting the urge to eat the entire cheesecake ever since I tasted it.

Desiree’s Huckleberry Swirl Cheesecake

—Mitchell Hegman

Time for a Bib

I don’t know if there is rule on this anywhere, but there should be.  I am talking about a rule governing the practice of drinking a glass of red wine as you sit on your sofa.

I am not advocating something crazy such as banning the practice.  I am, instead, suggesting rules should establish what sort of clothing you wear when drinking red wine on the sofa.

Light colors are out.

This morning, I woke and pulled on the same light-colored shirt I wore last night as I sat on the sofa sipping on wine.  As you can see by the photograph posted, I dribbled a fair amount of wine on the shirt.

This is not a rare occurrence in Mitch-world.  I have stained more than my share of shirts over the years.  I am seriously wondering if it might be time for me to put the internet to work in finding a bib I can wear when I am drinking red wine.

—Mitchell Hegman

Food, Food, Food

Beginning today and extending through the weekend, a frigid winter impulse will embrace our region.  As is typical during such an event, most everyone I know is planning on hunkering down inside their own home for a couple days.

My neighbor, Kevin, made a trip to town yesterday for the specific measure of stocking up enough food and goods to remain home for a few days.

The idea of running low on food is no longer a concern for me.  I live with a woman from the Philippines.  Filipinos are totally motivated by food.  They celebrate all events by feasting.  Images of fancy lunch and dinner dishes dominate the Facebook postings of Desiree’s family and friends.  Desiree is perpetually finding new recipes and fancy dinner dishes on the web.

She is (all kidding aside) a world-class cook.

Given all this, we have gradually stocked up enough food in my house to last for several months.  A good thing, that.

Still, I enjoy teasing Desiree.  I often approach her when I find her surfing the internet on her smartphone and blurt out: “Food, food, food!”

—Mitchell Hegman

A Lucky Person

A lucky person isn’t someone who wins the lottery.  A lucky person is someone who finds two chunks of pork inside a can of pork and beans.

—Mitchell Hegman

Questions (They Never End)

• How do you calculate the difference between stealing and banking charges?
• Who gets to decide which is the weed and which is the wildflower?
• Where is the best place to hide a key?
• Is it just me, or has this winter been a bit too much like winter?
• Why doesn’t lifting up your sagging parts as you stand on a scale reduce your weight?
• In a balanced life, how do you accommodate the urge run off to the circus and become the first live tarantula juggler?

—Mitchell Hegman

Star Stuff (And Other Poetic Nonsense)

We are made of star stuff.  All of us.

We emerged (squirming, I expect) from the dust of comet tails.

The hydrogen in our arms could be,

in another life, Proxima Centauri

or our own Sun.

 

We are star stuff, but soft and dithering.

My family, for example, produced a clutch of hopeless drunks.

Locals claimed my uncle what’s-his-face

had his ass permanently glued to a barstool.

 

Me?  I was afraid of the wind.

The wind, which is nothing.

 

There are times when I am convinced

a rogue asteroid is streaking toward me.

Not you.  Me.

The asteroid is shiny and blue-black and is my first cousin.

It has been given a number instead of a name.

 

I made a strong point of never buying my uncle beers

and I used the word “gravity” as often as possible when talking to him.

For his part, my uncle called attractive young women birds.

Our conversations never really went anywhere important.

—Mitchell Hegman

An Equitable Agreement

Desiree and I have been together long enough to determine I am super finicky about painting walls and trim.

She is not.

On the other hand, Desiree is incredibly fastidious about food preparation.

I am not.

Given this, we have reached an equitable agreement.  Desiree will allow me to paint all closets and trim and I will allow her to do all the cooking.

—Mitchell Hegman

An Inordinate Length of Edge

One of my strategies for piecing together a jigsaw puzzle (also shared by most people I know) is sorting out and assembling the edge pieces first.  This strategy has proven largely impossible for a puzzle Desiree and I started assembling a bit less than a week ago.

The 1000-piece puzzle, themed from the television comedy series The Office, depicts a Christmas sweater.  As an extra twist, the puzzle is also in the shape of a Christmas sweater.  Given its odd shape, the puzzle has an inordinate length of edge.  Moreover, the curvy style in which the pieces have been cut further complicates classifying edge pieces from the rest.   

Neither Desiree nor I have watched an episode of The Office, but we both find the puzzle challenging and whimsical.  At present, the sweater looks as though it has been subjected to an explosion, but the shape is getting there.

I may need to stream an episode of the show after we complete the sweater.

 

The Office Sweater Puzzle

—Mitchell Hegman

Aluminum Beer Can Melting Guild Meeting (January 21, 2023)

Though sparsely attended, we managed a meeting of the Aluminum Beer Can Melting Guild down at the lake yesterday afternoon.  Of special note, the fuel for our melting process was rough-cut dimensional oak salvaged from shipping pallets.

The oak made for an exceptionally hot fire with an abundance of red coals flexing away below the stacks of new fuel constructed around the melting crucible.  Better yet, the sun was generous and the air remained calm throughout the time of our gathering at the edge of the frozen lake.

Desiree also witnessed her first full-sized vehicle scooting across the lake when one of our neighbors drove his truck onto the ice for the express purpose of fishtailing across the expanse.

Good stuff, that.

Tad, our chief furnace tender (and lakeside metallurgist), singed only a few dozen hairs from his wrist and produced a fine pour before the gathering concluded.

I have shared a few photographs from the meeting, along with a brief clip of Tad making the pour.

Desiree Watching the Fire

Tad Dropping a Can into the Crucible

Desiree with a Fresh Ingot

Video: Tad Making a Pour

—Mitchell Hegman

Snowshoeing In for a Winter Fire

This time of year, visiting my cabin requires me to snowshoe across winter’s accumulations of snow for the last few hundred yards.  At present, something near two-feet of snow blankets the understory of the pine forest surrounding the cabin.  Yesterday, Desiree and I strapped snowshoes to our winter boots and tracked our way into the cabin – a first for our island girl.

She immediately took to the snowshoes.  I am impressed by how fully Desiree has adopted our northern winter.  She finds the snow and frost and winter skies beautiful.  She has embraced all manner of outdoor winter activities and definitely enjoyed snowshoeing through our untracked meadow.

After trekking to the cabin, we joined our mountain neighbors for a winter fire near the iced-over creek at their place.  We needed to scoop down through the snow to locate the firepit before building a fire.  Once we managed to get warming flames scissoring away at some split rounds in the pit, we sipped naturally chilled drinks and watched the downy clouds sail over the valley.

Desiree and Our Snowshoeing Gear

Walking Untracked Snow

The Cabin in Snow

Our Neighbor’s Picnic Table

Selfie With the Crew

—Mitchell Hegman

A Brief History of Downhill Skiing (Part Three)

There are other downhill skier types needing mention.  You may see, for example, pole-poking dawdlers or bowling-ball-headed kids.  Beginners.  Bunnies.  Lately, snowboarders have been making a mark for themselves, perhaps a mark against themselves as well.

An interesting lot, boarders.  Youthful and boisterous, boarders thrash and bash down the slopes.  Sometimes, you might think they hit the hill just to make a lot of noise.  And by their own admission, more or less, most snowboarders are trying to inject a bit of animal instinct back into the winter herd.

Snowboarding is not just a skill, it’s an attitude.  Strapping yourself to that single wide board requires a lot of faith in your ability fall well.  Once you’re cinched down, you become the equivalent of a human trophy on a very slippery base.  Snowboarders listen to music that sounds like heavy equipment being operated at improperly high speeds.  They are the sort of people who volunteer for sleep deprivation studies.  Ironically, snowboarders, according to most ski area operators, represent the best hope for consistent business in the future, given the current decline in the number of skiers.

Once you’ve assembled all these folks and given them a shove downhill, you’re in for quite a show, something akin to what you might see if you stuffed your head into one of those big popcorn makers you see at movie theaters.

Sweet chaos.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Brief History of Downhill Skiing (Part Two)

Some skiers on the slopes are best defined as ‘carvers,’ and to them the mountain is their medium.  They make pretty turns and leave lovely curving marks in the snow.

You’ll see carvers smoothly sailing downhill, swooping gently back and forth.  These, mind you, are the same people who fold their clothes the very moment they remove them from the dryer—which is only seconds after the buzzer sounds.  These people label the boxes in which they store things.  They keep track of tax information throughout the entire year.  They make money.

A close cousin to the turn carver is the turn ‘thrower.’  You need to give these guys a little room on the hill.  They aren’t there to make friends.  Down they go, throwing hard turns from side to side.  To them the only disgrace is in falling.  They will do anything to stay upright: sacrifice a pole, wipe out the person in front of them.  These are practical people, mostly men, who feel no compunction about taking all their dishes—which they have not washed in weeks—to a carwash so they might spray the crust off.  A turn thrower most likely invented duct tape.

I would be negligent if I failed to mention extreme skiers, especially if you ever decide to ski an area with any notable cliffs, as it is likely that one of these types might land on you.  Where the Yuri Skier (the jumper) detests gravity, the extreme skier eats it for lunch.  The object of this kind of skiing is to commit suicide without involving the messy dying part.  These people fall off cliffs on purpose.  They also drive rear-wheel-drive automobiles and marry money.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Brief History of Downhill Skiing (Part One)

I am going to try something new with my blog today.  I will be offering, in the form of installments, a longer piece I wrote back in January of 1996 and revised in the early 2000s.  Without further introduction, I give you A Brief History of Downhill Skiing:

On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin, a Russian, became the first member of our species to complete an orbit around Earth.  Disappointingly, he was not strapped to his alpine skis at the time.  Almost since the first brave soul cinched a pair of barrel staves to his boots, it has been assumed by skiers that the object of skiing is to launch themselves from jumps that will propel them ever higher and higher into open space.  The landings, mind you, will be sorted out in due time.  If someday they didn’t have to land, that would be fine, too.

Over the years, especially as equipment improved to a point where safety and ease of function allowed the masses to try skiing, the sport evolved into a sport anyone can enjoy.  Moreover, many styles of skiing have emerged.  If you stand on the slopes watching for only a minute or two, you’ll see just about everything.  The Yuri wannabe will fly past (or perhaps over) you sooner or later.  The Yuri types normally traverse the hill in wide arcs, working the best jumps on the hill.  The object of skiing in their eyes is ‘air time.’  They have little use for gravity beyond holding ice cubes in their drinking glass.

The near opposite of the Yuri is sort of a cross between an arrow and a downhill skier.  This type would never dignify a mountain by actually making a turn on it.  This type points the skis straight down the mountain and streaks from crest to lift line in the fastest and most direct route.  I learned to ski at the age of eighteen from friends who had been skiing since they were toddlers.  One of these pals was an arrow type skier.  He often shot down the mountain in front of me and then stood there at the lift waiting until I arrived many agonizing minutes later.  “You make too many turns,” he once told me.  “Making turns is for pussies.”  Sadly, most arrow type skiers come to a bad end, either by crashing into a tree or by marrying someone from Kansas who insists they move back to the Midwest to be near family.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Few Mostly Unhelpful Facts

Claiming something is “as American as apple pie” is problematic because apple pie is an English creation.

Thanks to the expansion its steel structural parts, the Eiffel Tower is six inches taller on hot summer days.

The dot found above a lowercase i or j is called a tittle.

Sloths can hold their breath for up to 40 minutes.

Most Muppets are left-handed.

The shape of Pringles potato chips has a scientific name – hyperbolic paraboloids – which can be expressed as the equation z=Ax2+By2.

In 1992, a crate containing 28,000 rubber ducks fell into the Pacific Ocean and spilled out its contents.  These so-called “friendly floatees” have been drifting ashore in various parts of the world for over 20 years.  They have appeared on the beaches of Alaska, Hawaii, Australia, Indonesia, and Chile.

—Mitchell Hegman

Source: beano.com

Weird Loops of Thought

I woke twice last night and experienced difficulty in falling back to sleep because my mind entered into weird loops of thought.

The first time I woke, I got to thinking about an acquaintance and his son.  When it struck me, I couldn’t remember the son’s name, my mind began scrambling about seeking his name.

Pretty soon, I was flailing about in names: Roger?  Nick? Nickolous?  Mike?   Curt?  Curtis?  Bill?

Eventually, I settled on “F… you Ralphy” and fell asleep.

The second time I woke, I fell into imagining how someone could kidnap me and make me eat foods I don’t like.

Mustard!

Cantaloupe!

Hot peppers!

Dammit!

—Mitchell Hegman

ChatGTP (Artificial Intelligence)

 Something less than two months ago, Chat GTP was launched by OpenAI.  If you are unfamiliar, ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a chatbot.  In simple terms, ChatGTP is an artificial intelligence system humans can converse with.  ChatGTP can write technical papers for you.  The bot can write computer programs for you and then provide you with the proper code required.  It can generate songs, images, original scripts for movies, and on and on.

After interacting with ChatGTP, a number of people have reacted with alarm.  Others are cautiously optimistic about the possibilities and use of ChatGTP.  I have read several articles and watched perhaps a dozen videos about ChatGTP.

I am not sure where all of this will eventually land, but I think it may be fair to say that this bot (and the offshoots that follow) will in some way influence your life in the not-so-distant future.  I have posted a video just to give you some idea of the splash ChatGTP is making.

—Mitchell Hegman

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-hB-4fnqtM

Happy Animals

While traipsing around on the internet, I found an uplifting ten-minute video compilation presenting happy animals reuniting with their human friends after an extended time apart.

The video featured hordes of happy dogs bouncing about with abandon, tails wagging; some barking and whimpering with joy.  I saw elephants stomping and trumpeting.  Chimpanzees ran and jumped into the arms of their humans.  A kangaroo hugged a woman tightly with its little arms.  Lions and bears grabbed and squeezed their loved companions.  And then, toward the end of the video, a housecat saw its favorite human and wanted to be fed.   

—Mitchell Hegman

Knock on Wood

I am known for having the dropsies.  In my younger days, when my generation promoted regular house parties, a party was not truly considered underway until I dropped a beer or drink to the floor.  On more than one occasion, the sight of me dropping a drink elicited cheers from partygoers.  When washing dishes, eating, or working with tools, I tended to drop one thing or another before finishing.

Those days are not entirely gone, but I have moved on to regularly fumbling new materials.   Currently, my day isn’t complete until I drop my smartphone or a sharp knife.

I have stabbed my floor on a few occasions, but, weirdly enough, I have never broken the screen on my phone.

Knock on wood. 

—Mitchell Hegman

Downhill Skiing

Ski bunnies are not born, they are made.  Yesterday, I witnessed as my island girl transformed into a ski bunny.

A cautious ski bunny, this one.

Desiree and I drove up to Great Divide Ski Area at midday for her first ever ski lessons.  The weather could not have been better at our near 6000-foot elevation.  We were blessed with warmish temperatures and generous sunshine on the mountain.  Better yet, Desiree’s instructor, Mike, connected well with Desiree and displayed a perfect mix of patience and firmness of instruction.

After Desiree snow-plowed down “the back yard” for something over an hour, Mike took her (accompanied by me) for two runs on the Mountain Meadow chairlift.

Desiree held steady on the ski slopes.  Impressively enough, she completed the last run without falling.

No small feat, that.

Desiree and Mike (Her Instructor)

Desiree Learning to Plow

Desiree Ahead of me on the Chairlift

Desiree Skiing Video (An Early Attempt)

—Mitchell Hegman

Stuck and Unstuck

I managed to get my car stuck in snow down at my own lakefront the other day.

My car is all-wheel-drive and the snow depth was less than five inches in most places.  Normally, clawing through a little snow is not an issue, but the consistency of the snow tossed everything into treacherous territory.

The snow consisted of three layers: a layer of ice on the bottom, a couple inches of crusted snow in the middle, and a fresh layer of granulized snow on top.  Driving downhill in the midmorning presented no problem at all.  But attempting to drive back up the hill in the late afternoon proved impossible.  The warmer afternoon temperatures more or less unlocked the upper layers of snow, creating a single layer that plowed up in front of the tires in any direction I tried to go.  This found me spinning out on the ice underneath.    

I tried rocking my car back and forth.  My friends tried to push me.  We dug down a clear path to make a running start and repeatedly tried to climb the hill.   Nothing worked.  After twenty minutes of trying, I opted to leave the car at lake overnight and Desiree walked up the hill. 

Early the following morning, Desiree and I hiked down to lake with shovels, hoping to dig out a longer runway.

Temperature is everything in matters of snow.  The colder the temperature the “stickier” and firmer it gets.  As we walked down the hill in the chill of morning, I said: “Desiree, this snow is sticky.  Even the ice is a little sticky.  I think we will be able to drive out.”

Upon reaching the car, we discovered all of the snow we had churned up the afternoon before frozen into a solid mass.  “We’re not even going to dig,” I said.  “Lets just throw the shovels in the car and try to climb out.”

We quickly tossed our shovels in the hatchback and hopped inside the car.  After starting the car and allowing the engine to warm for a few moments, I punched drive and drove up the hill without notable issue.

It’s not often when colder temperatures are your best asset, but there are times.

—Mitchell Hegman

Foot Warmer

The other day, some friends came out to our place for a day of ice fishing.  While our friends used an electric auger to drill holes in the ice (now nearly two-feet thick) and set rigs, Desiree and I started a fire in the freestanding cone fireplace at our lakeshore pavilion.

For the next couple hours, Desiree and I fluttered back and forth between the fishermen and the fire.

“My feet are getting cold,” Desiree mentioned at some point when we found ourselves back at the fire.

“Well,” I said, “you can do what we did as kids when we had cold feet around a winter fire.  You can take off your shoes and hold your feet near the fire to warm them.”

As I told Desiree this, my eyes dropped across a scrap length of 2 x 6 wood in my stack of firewood.  “I have a better idea,” I announced.  “I am going to make you a foot warmer.  Take your shoes off.”

While Desiree removed her boots.  I grabbed the length of 2 X 6 and placed it on the edge of the open fireplace to warm.  After only a minute or two, the board absorbed a lot of heat.  I pulled the board from near the fire the and laid it on the ground if front of Desiree.  “Put your feet on the board.  I just made you a warmer.”

Desiree’s face brightened almost the moment she put her feet on the board.  “This feels great!  Super warm!”

I repeated the board warming process two more times and then tried it myself.

The board immediately warmed my feet to the core.  I am thinking I should file for a patent on my warming board.  This is some good stuff!

Warming the Board

Warming a Foot

—Mitchell Hegman

Pink Winter

Yesterday morning provided a stunning winter sunrise event.  Prior to sunrise, we had experienced more than a solid day and night of fog and hoar frost.  When the sun cleared the Big Belt Mountains, the fog dissipated and pink hues washed all across the sky.  As the sun continued to ascend, the colors changed and began to paint over the entire landscape.

I have posted a series of photographs taken from my back deck as the sunrise progressed.

—Mitchell Hegman

Emergency Calls

Apparently, Canadians are as goofy as everyone else.   The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Saskatchewan, Canada, recently released a list of inappropriate, non-emergency calls placed to their 911 emergency line in 2022.

One person, for example, called the emergency line seeking help with deleting unwanted voicemails.  Another 911 caller wanted to report that their roommate had eaten their take-out dinner order.

On one occasion, a caller wanted help with a clogged drain.  The emergency center also received a call from someone who ran out of milk, and a person reporting that swallowing a mosquito had caused them to choke and lose their dentures.

Perhaps the most inappropriate call came from a prankster wishing to report a cougar on the prowl.  In this case the “cougar” referenced an older woman seeking a relationship with a younger man.

One man’s hottie is another man’s emergency.

—Mitchell Hegman

Source: UPI

Unusual Warnings

On a cardboard box: This container cannot be recyclized as aluminum.

On duct tape: Do not use this tape to secure live chickens to a post.

On a set of Phillips screwdrivers:  Not for internal use.

On a chair: This chair is not intended for use in taming lions.

On a box of frosted corn flakes:  A single serving of this product is not a substitute for professional council in times of duress.

On a hammer:  Always play appropriate music when using this tool.  

On a bottle of water: Do not directly apply the contents of this bottle to energized electrical circuits.   

—Mitchell Hegman

On With the Floor

In the end, the simple things always throw the biggest twist in construction projects.

Yesterday, Desiree and I finally managed to lay down the last of the interlocking floor tiles in our laundry room.  After forcing the final tile into place, I tasked myself with applying edging where the new tile overlays an existing section of floor in the mechanical nook.

That job quickly “went south” on me.

A single length of the metal edging trim was not long enough for the transition.  When I cut the second piece and knelt to install it, I discovered the metal colors (though they were the same product name and number) did not match.

After linking together, a string of inappropriate words, I dropped my tools and drove to town to grab a new, matching length of metal.

That didn’t go well, either.

The store employee selected to help me, displayed far more interest in baby talking to a dog leashed to another customer.  When I finally returned home, I discovered the factory edge on the new metal had been mangled at the time of manufacture.   Rather than lose another hour by running to town to exchange the metal, I hacksawed off the damaged material and carefully filed down the rough edges to make a fresh end of my own.

Though we lost several hours, we finally managed to complete the tile and the metal trim.

I finished with a Cold Smoke beer.

      

Mismatched Metal

Finished Floor

Matched Metal in Place

—Mitchell Hegman