East meets West

At Marshal pass. Yeah, we rode it.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Good food here.

And the first nonsmartass we met in Colorado. Of 'course she was flirting to get a good tip, but what's that say about these shitferbrainstreehuggin'hippyasswipes ?

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

No sense in takin' the easy way....

This is the old stagecoach route across Los Pinos pass to Lake City, Co.

Of course, we took it. And discovered there has been some serious degradation in the quality of the road over the last 150 years....

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Top of the world!

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

We're not in Kansas anymore.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

The mountains are growing.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Long Canyon NM

Had to repost.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Only the best for us!

Not exactly the Ritz....

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

The shame.

I hesitated to post this, but that's my brother making lime-ade out of a Modelo.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

I had the Grilled Tiger Shrimp. I ain't got the words....

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Salad on a tin plate and beans served in a mason jar.

Yes, that's a Shiner.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Hungry!

Black Jack's Saloon in Trinidad Colorado.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

FYYFF

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Caught speeding in Branson, Colorado.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Here we met a cowboy.

This is on switchbacks in Colorado an just around a sharp bend. I turned the corner and found the road completely blocked by cows. Red ones. We BS'd with the cowboy riding herd on them for a bit and had a smoke and a sit.

He had met a few folk riding our route and knew what we were up to. Seems we are a day behind a another group on its way to utah.

The trail looks steep because it is.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Long Canyon, New Mexico

Like night and day from CO.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Oklahoma behind us

Hard to believe we blew acros this state 5 yrs ago in 3hrs.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Sunflowers by the mile.

Talked to the farmer. Said he needs to plow them up, "thems just weeds" but  he's workin' abput two miles up the road and he'll eventually get here.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Freezin' my ass off in Oklahoma.

Maybe they'll let me stand by the stove....

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Up and at 'em.

Colorado today!

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Oklahoma provides a distraction from

Hot, flat, and dusty.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Cowboy graveyard I found.

Nathan rolled right by it. Kids these days.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Cactus Jacks!

Good eatin' and the first sweet tea we have found sinve leaving Tennessee.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Bad Company

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

This much fun should be illegal.

Or not.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Wtf?

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Efficient interstate travel

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Oklahoma

Wish y'all were here.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

BW givin' a shout out!

Above is our most gracious host in front of Bunker/bungalow/porn studio

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

West bound.

There's been a change in accoutrements, and we're a bit behind schedule bit we're headed for BW's (from Nathan's blog) place in Missouri to liberate my Grasshopper and Nathan's JAKL from trailer bondage (we can hardly bear the shame).

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

I like these

But they won't fit on my suburban. Dammit.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Deer strike.

Long leeged rats.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Gettin' there.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Much better.

You show promise, Grasshopper.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Only in America....

...can you get to be 70 years old without figuring out government isn't the "by the people, for the people" warm, fuzzy, maternal entity they told you about in grammar school.

Drudge is covered up with hellraisin' "town hall" meetings about the government takeover of the medical industry, and it's the oldsters givin' the guff with snotty do-gooders who know what's best for us on the receiving end.

The delicious irony here is these blossoming curmudgeons are the same folk who have been standing around with their hands out and shifting responsibility for their own well being more and more to these same type party hacks for decades.

The bright side of all this is it gives the lie to the idea that what is deemed to be undesirable public opinion can be managed in extremis, whereby folks are pacified by platitudes and hippy soviet style propaganda, sort of the scientific approach to public opinion or what I see as an attempt at management in a void of leadership. I guess the Obama crew will have to replace "Like, it's 2009!" and "That's so yesterday."

This will not do, Grasshopper.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

So we begin

Pedestrian to predator.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Nathan needs new goggles....

Check that item off the list.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Prime time summer time.

The blackberries are ripe! Two gallons in the freezer already.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Step 8.

Admire your progress. That's Mad Scientist Jamie there prepositioning the minikeg tank. We kinda ran out of steam due to the rigors of step two and called it a night. 5 liters is a lot of beer....

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Step 7.

Fit automotive filler neck.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Step 6.

Remove CO2 charge canister and its mounting goop.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Step 5.

Enlarge Bung Hole.
Please make juvenile comments.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Step 4.

Prepare the Plasma Cutter. You don't really have to prepare aplasma cutter except for plugging it in, but I thought it deserved its own step.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Step 2. OK, no sense in belaboring the obvious, so on to Step 3.

Mad Scientist Brent is extracting the bung.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Step by step instructions for constructing an auxilliary fuel tank for a KLX250s

Step 1

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

[Insert Cryptic Message Here]

Whoo Hoo!

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Hung over aussies

No surprise there....

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Whem Jamie finally makes it to Kentucky...

I found a job for him.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Weird Folk of the World

I had a conversation with that Reardon boy down in Aussie land last night, seems the cheeky bastard has been posting off the cuff dialogue with unsuspecting americans on his blog.

I'm gonna provide you with the link, but be forewarned; there is nothing on there even remotely related to music. Click the clips at your own risk and don't come cryin' to me.

The Mad Aussie Sister Boy Who Makes Sweet Love with His Amorous Aboriginal Brothers

"News of the World" is good stuff, you might sample that, but scroll down for Jamie's own brand of wiretapping.

Internet Safety

The Third World Approaches

I know some South Africans.

They all express the same emotion lately: deja vu


Community Organizers in Training:

dozens of teenage boys, who shouted ''This is our world'' and ''This is a black world'' as they confronted Marshall and his family.

Now, I don't know where these folk live (except "in the city"), but chances are they reside in or near a neighborhood of nearly homogeneous ethnic makeup and even though it ain't right for black folk to run around acting like that, it makes no sense to reside in an unwelcoming and obviously at-risk environment. Regardless of how the MSM, the city council, and the local revenue production officers (cops) want to depict race relations.

Pre Review

The handheld computer is fast approaching and in many respects is already here. The first iteration was the venerable Palm Pilot; primarily an organizer of contacts and calendars with some boutique apps thrown in with the ability to synchronize data with the old desktop computer. Then came the Handspring corporate offshoot which spawned the Treo; the father of all smartphones. The parallel developement of the Pocket PC eventually led to the Windows-based phone. Palm bought Handspring out and started really working the Treo, eventually producing a version running Windows Mobile and one running PalmOS. There have been others both by manufacturer and Operating System. IPhone comes to mind and is significant for being the first phone with a decent screen.
Throughout the last few years of developement of smartphones the Linux crowd has been chomping at the bit to get a toehold into cellphone Operating Systems. There should be a ripe market for a finished Linux OS given the clunky and resource hoggish OS Windows Mobile and Apple offer.

Just like turning back the clock Palm flips the Pre' out into the marketplace with a Linux based OS (officially WebOS), cloud based resource computing, automatically fully integrated, merged, and synchronized contacts and calendars, a gorgeous capacitive touchscreen at HVGA resolution, a fully capable browser (that's what I said - read it again) and a slick highly intuitive user interface.

Can you tell I'm diggin' it?

I have been using, and I mean using hard, Organizers, PDA's, Pocket PC's, mobile phones, and portable computers of one stripe or another for decades and have been wistfully awaiting the successful integration of all of the above for sometime now. The Pre' has integrated the usefulness of the above listed devices with special attention paid toward the most common and commonly useful functions.

How's That? By running the Web.

Similar in concept to the Vista system whereby the internet browser is the primary interface with the machine, WebOS works along the same lines in hyperdrive with the device itself being the primary interface to web and personal data (as in information - not bytes) but with the addition of a comprehensive merging faculty. It works and it works in the best way - invisibly and unobtrusively; it's almost creepy; like I'm carrying around a thing that knows way too much about me for comfort and automates 80% of the functionality of competing Windows based system.

It never asks, "Do you want me to merge these contacts?" or "Shall I apply this information to that contact?", but it slides it in there and the next time I access it the option for the new avenue of communication presents itself. I go around thinking I am slacking and should be organizing contacts, bookmarks, etc., as I go though the day using the Pre'.

The wifi functionality is singularly impressive and works to conserve battery power when using data intensive apps. Again, it just hums along in the background seamlessly without my input or command.

The camera rocks and recycles very quickly. Took pics of fireworks fer pitysake!

It multitasks well with the proper priorities evident.





Notifications are quick and concise, appearing at the bottom of the screen and are easily dealt with or dismissed by a gesture and without sorting through menus. The middle photo illustrates how the Pre offers a choice between running applications or functions with an interface reminiscent of Ubuntu running with all the optional effects wide open.

The screen rocks. Did I say that already? The screen rocks.

The browser works. Said that, too. Browser Works.


Conclusion:
You ever picked up a tool or device and thought, "Well, This here's how these damned things should have been made all along! What's everybody else been thinkin?" and it just seems obvious now that it's been done? That's the Pre'.

Scary.

PS - Spare me the iPhone comments until that ladies' fashion accessory can Copy, Paste, and do that nifty Multitasking trick.

Anyhow, it's important to maintain your perspective and keep in mind that using Apple products doesn't make you a better person. That's what Linux is for. - Vox Day