Way to Go, LBR's!

Thanks, Maggie, Goatherder, Wayne & Spudboater for truly giving me a gift on this trip.  Ya'll have no idea how inspiring and uplifting and energizing your comments and emails have been to me.  Whatever sparked all these great and truly memorable comments must be a pretty amazing episode of "all in a day's karma!"  THANK YOU!

Well, I took the little netbookie thingie back to Sam's.  I told them I didn't like it because it was really SLOW.  The clerk, Amanda, actually turned it on--something no one has ever done on a computer return.  Her first words were, "Wow, you're right, this thing is REALLY slow!"  She then said she hadn't worked on a computer that slow since the mid-1990's.  Whatever Dell did to that netbook sure didn't help it much.  OK, so the question is, how am I posting up to the blog?  Glad you asked.

We are sitting this evening in the "internet room" of the Tippecanoe County Library.  The computers here are easily the weirdest public computers I have ever used.  I can't even really describe them except to say they are set under some flat glass with some sort of a diagonal reflector and a hood and you really can't see the screen unless you want to lean forward and get a carpal tunnel neck.  They say you get 90 minutes but I can't imagine I could possibly last that long on this thing.  But, whatever, it's free and it's the internet so who's complaining?

I once lived directly across the street in an 1870's Victorian building.  Who could have known back in 1970 that someday a truly fine library would be right across the street?  There's lot of old stuff here.  I was musing today that Purdue was founded in 1869 about the time that what's-his-name-one-armed-guy was poking around with wooden boats on the Green River at the edge of the map that showed a flat earth.  There's lots of houses that date into the 1840's and 50's here and ones that were built in the late 19th century are so numerous as to be ho-hum common.

I won't be posting up any photos tonight--that's WAAAY beyond the capability of this public terminal.

We finished October Skies early this evening.  It is a 428 page book so it takes awhile to get through it.  It is one of the best reads I've had in quite awhile but somehow I suspect GH's book is gonna trump the Rocket Boys.  Bryson is a real hoot--I've read some of his stuff but not the book that GH sent to our gross post office box.  Anyway, finishing October Skies actually made me quite sad and put me into a genuine melancholy mood.  The ending of the book isn't supposed to do that, of course, because the Rocket Boys won the National Science Fair for Coalwood and it was a real triumph for people from BFE everywhere.  But somehow that's what happened--a funk  So, I come down here to the library in my funk and then read the blog comments and BAM, as Emeril would say, ya'll pulled me right smack dab out of Da Funk and helped get my groove back again.  Ain't that what friends is for?  THANK YOU!

Today zipped along pretty fast--three hours of house cleaning and then lunch at a Golden Corral and then a visit to a Goodwill where, remarkably, neither of us spent a danged dime and bought nary a speck of anything.  By and by, I got around to doing a load of laundry and even squeezed in a visit to a Barnes & Noble, too.  Now, it's time to wrap up our chatter and batten our hatches and get ready for a Travel Day tomorrow.  I lift out of Mom's Place at 6 am to catch a 6:30 am shuttle in order to wait 3 hours for my 10:20 AM flight out of Indianapolis.  Due to the time difference, I arrive in Phoenix at 11:30.  Susun gets in at 1:30.  We should be back at 2nd Chance Ranch no later than 5 pm after dawdling here and there at the likes of places such as In-N-Out, Harbor Freight and Ham Radio Outlet.  We will have plenty of time to get a right and proper campfire up and running and that's a good thing, as Martha Stewart once often said.

Oh, I almost forgot to report about the fracking film last night.  There were well over 100 people there--the place was packed to the gills.  I watched 90 minutes of the documentary and then split.  I figured if the kid couldn't wrap up his shtick in 90 minutes or less he was brutalizing his audience.  It was definitely a one-sided, very biased film and I found that to be very disappointing.  The film-making techniques were really bad but I guess these days nobody knows the difference.  That it could get nominated for an Oscar speaks poorly of whoever in charge of nominating things for the Academy.  Basically, the film had one line that it repeated over and over to the point where my head was battered senseless by the heavy two by four the kid tried to smack us with: fracking is bad.  Oh,. did I tell you fracking is bad.  Hey, wait, I gotta tell you fracking is bad.  Yikes, I practically sprinted out of the place after 90 minutes of incessant brainwashing. 

Not long after I left the stuffy, sardine-packed church, I knew immediately that everything was put back into order again and that life is good.  The route back from campus takes me over the Wabash River on a relatively new bridge with expansive views to the northwest.  Lo and behold, the sun was this GIANT, brilliant deep orange orb drifting slowly to touch the horizon.  It seemed to hang in space forever.  I was able to stop in the middle of the bridge can take photos and watch breathlessly as it put on a show the likes of which I haven't seen in many a year here in Indiana.  I was so totally gratified that the Gasland show stunk.  Otherwise, I would have never seen such an awesome evening solar display back here in the Hoosier Heartland.  My angst with the film turned to gratitude that it had brought me to that point at precisely the proper time and place.

  Yea, verily, Life is good.  Life may have its twists and turns and blind corners but life is good.  Let us all celebrate the goodness of life every day in every way.

Have a great evening and Many Cheers!  jp