A Creepy Man

This whole thing with Brian Kohberger pleading guilty to the murder of four University of Idaho students has been haunting me. No—creeping me the hell out. It's like a shadow that won't go away. And it's got me thinking about serial killers. Make no mistake—Kohberger was one in the making. If he hadn't been caught, he would’ve killed again. You can see it all over him.

After the murders, records show he searched the internet for information on Ted Bundy—like he was studying up. He stalked his victims, just like Bundy did. And the brutality? It fits the serial killer playbook. Stabbing. Beating. Up-close violence. That’s what they crave. They want the rush—the blood, the screams, the power. All the raw, immediate input. All the horror.

This stuff drills into me.

It doesn’t just disturb me—it violates something deep inside. It’s completely alien to my sense of humanity, to everything I believe in.

Brian Kohberger is terrifying, through and through.

I posted two of his selfies. The first was taken just six hours after the murders—he’s flashing a thumbs-up like he won a prize. The second is worse. His eyes are empty, like something vital never existed there.

He is the kind of man who walks unseen among us—until it’s far, far too late.

Six Hours After the Murders

Kohberger in a Hood

—Mitchell Hegman

Something Earnest Hemingway Said

—"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.”

—"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”

—"Never mistake motion for action.”

Space Rock?

On second thought, I took a step backward.

While walking the road down to the lakefront, I had stepped over an oddly colored rock in the graveled rut. After stepping back up the hill, I scooped up the rock and found it astoundingly weighty. Moreover, the rock had the look of iron.

When I showed the rock to some folks gathered at the lake to celebrate Independence Day, several people wondered if it might be a meteorite. A later experiment proved the rock highly attracted to a magnet.

Once home again, I scoured the internet for information about the rock. Two possibilities emerged: meteorite or limonite.

While a meteorite is space stuff, limonite is a common, earthy iron ore made up mostly of hydrated iron oxides and other iron-bearing minerals. It forms in a variety of low-temperature, near-surface environments as part of the weathering and oxidation of iron-bearing minerals. Limonite is often found in river and lake sediments (especially oxidized gravels), which exactly fits the bill for the virtual pile of rocks upon which my road traverses.

I’m leaning toward limonite on this one.

My Heavy Rock

A Magnet Stuck to the Rock

—Mitchell Hegman

Incompetently Flying Juveniles

I’ve got another public service announcement for you. This one is pretty straightforward: be on the lookout for incompetently flying juvenile magpies.

You can’t miss them. They look like your run-of-the-mill adult magpie, except their tails are conspicuously short and they have a bit less iridescence in appearance. And they don’t fly worth a damn.

Since they are just learning how to fly, they’re still working out the details of lifting, landing, and braking. Some of them simply don’t pay attention. In the last few days, while driving to and from town, I’ve nearly collided with two juvenile magpies lifting from roadside ditches. One of the birds remained unscathed only because I swerved and braked hard to avoid striking it.

So, be careful out there. Give yourself a little space as you approach the next magpie.

—Mitchell Hegman

The Rock Band That Isn’t

A strange thing is happening over on Spotify. A band called The Velvet Sundown has suddenly emerged from the digital mist, fully formed, with two full albums and—at last check—more than half a million monthly listeners. Problem is, no one seems to know if they’re real.

The supposed members—Gabe Farrow, Lennie West, Milo Rains, and Orion “Rio” Del Mar—don’t exist anywhere else online. Not in other bands, not in old interviews, not in the musical sidebars of the internet where even the most obscure garage acts tend to leave a trace. Their Spotify profile includes a made-up quote from Billboard. Their Instagram is littered with glossy portraits that fall apart under close inspection—too-perfect faces, visual tells that AI image generators often leave behind.

Music platforms like Deezer have already flagged their tracks as possibly AI-generated. Spotify and Apple Music have not.

This all raises the larger question everyone’s dancing around: What does it mean when AI-generated music gets pushed into our ears right alongside the work of struggling indie bands, live musicians, and lifelong artists?

Are we hearing the entirely digitized future of music?

The song “Dust on the Wind” has garnered a lot of traction. I will admit to finding it a catchy song, though slightly formulaic in structure. The lyrics, though, leave me feeling cold. Having seemingly been fed through a rhyme generator, the words strike me as thematically abstract and empty.

So, here we are, floating somewhere between false echo and invention.

I’ve posted a photograph of the band and a video featuring the song “Dust on the Wind” so you can listen for yourself.

The Velvet Sundown

—Mitchell Hegman

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzX1YFZW0jc

Bad Ear Update

Welp, the results are in. My right ear has a case of athlete’s foot. I can now state with some authority that an ear-based fungal infection is both uncomfortable and frustrating.

There is a possibility the infection is related to psoriasis, which I have been battling in on-and-off fashion for a couple of years now. Psoriasis, despite its spelling challenges, is an autoimmune disorder in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks healthy skin cells. Both genetic predisposition and environmental triggers are believed to play a role in its onset. In most cases, it presents as a scaly rash that is irritating but not severely debilitating.

The fungal ear infection is a bit more of a barroom brawler. I was informed today that it may take several weeks to beat down the infection. Several more trips to the physician may also be required. For now, I am an ear-drop warrior and still not hearing things very well. So, if you happen to see people yelling at me, they’re not being mean—they just want to make sure I hear them properly.

—Mitchell Hegman

Amid the Flowers

I never tire of drifting among wildflowers, whether they’re spread across open parks or gathered in the half-light of the forest understory.

My favorites: paintbrush, beargrass, fairy slipper orchids.

Here in our region of the Rocky Mountains, spring and summer are brief. But what they lack in duration, they make up for in a fervent dedication to wildflowers.

After spending Sunday and Monday driving mountain roads on both sides of the Great Continental Divide, I’d like to share a few images of the flowers I encountered along the way.

Parry’s Townsend Daisy

Thimbleberry

Paintbrush

Lupine, Arnica, and Paintbrush

—Mitchell Hegman