Hitching on the Mojave Road

Been in a bit of funk lately. I guess I am trying to get geared up for the next big project{s}. I am starting work on a Powerpoint presentation on the history of our Main Street (route 66). I am also planning on editing/writing three books in the next year. First up is compilation of the first 5 years of my column, I will also help edit an autobiography of a neat lady called Vanola Hughes and then I am working on a 40th anniversary book for our next barbecue.

Started the Powerpoint program yesterday. I don't know Powerpoint but I am learning fast. The first few slides I have created are looking good. I have to get a working draft going soon because I am talking to the local Soroptmist group on the 29th. Talked to them before the barbecue and they liked me so much they want me back.

Thursday I have an interview with a neat lady. Mrs. Garcia is a member of an Indian dance troop in town called the White Cloud Dancers. I already know much of her history, it will make a great column. Have to arrange another interview for the Juneteenth column, we will see how it goes.

On top of all that I am reading a lost of books lately, here is a list:

 Lies my teacher told me : everything your American history textbook got wrong 

Very interesting, eye opening book. Knew a lot this stuff but the author puts it all together for a good read. There is sequel about historic sites the I am going to have to check out

 Chronicles, Vol. 1 by Bob Dylan

A rambling almost non linear autobiography. It reads like Bob is sitting with you and talking a bout old times, good read.


 Men of tomorrow : geeks, gangsters and the birth of the comic book

Yet to start this but I am comic-geeking to get started

The smartest guys in the room : the amazing rise and scandalous fall of Enron

Expect the revolution to start after I finish this one, I hate greedy bastards

Long time no write. For the month of April I gave my life over to the Museum's 39th Annual barbecue. When I started planning this barbecue I started working towards a large number of events and ideas thinking that about half of them would come to fruition. I guess I am too good almost all my ideas came true and it seems that a whole lot of people had fun. The downside is the stress and planning got to me and my health suffered. Nothing major just 1 month of not sleeping well and feeling lousy. Because of that I am not going to run the barbecue next year, I don't think I could do it. Read a report about all the doings here.
(Me before the hack job, note the half eaten pizza)

After the barbecue on April 30 I have been getting my life back together and having some fun. This past Saturday I went to the Calico Early Man Site to see a speaker and eat too much potluck. The speaker wasn't the most organized but the subject of the Indians of the Coachella Valley was interesting.

After the talk we went to my friend's warm spring, Paradise Springs, for the night. We decide to do some thing a bit crazy. Instead of taking surface roads we decided to drive straight from the site to the springs at ten at night over rough dirt roads. We hadn't scouted the route well so it was one big adventure. We could see the road that runs beside the spring through most of the trip so it wasn't to dangerous. We got lost once and then split up only to meet at the springs later. All in all, good fun.

Got the first of three parts of a story up today. This one was great fun to write and research on it was dead easy. I went to a hundred year anniversary/family reunion the week before the barbecue. All the research I needed was at the event, I wrote pretty much of all three columns the next day.
Click on dad to read the article.

Giving blood today, if you can, you should too.

Fun time at the museum the past couple of days. I was approached by the Sierra Club for them to use the museum for a meeting. In the past the museum has always opened for different local groups, so I didn't see any problem this time. So yesterday I released a press release about the meeting and one of the board members got all in an uproar. The Sierra Club is not a popular group in our area but I thought that things have died down a bit and that this meeting would go over with very little controversy. One board member sent a e-mail to anyone that would listen about how the museum shouldn't be hosting the Sierra Club, he also is trying imply that I was trying to sneak something in. I am not going to let this upset me, life is to short to mess with cranky Republicans.

I have a new hero, read about him here. This graffiti artist that goes by the name Bansky snuck a number of his works into some prestigious New York museums. that is what art should be a about subjugating the dominant paradigm. His web site is here.

Found this Butternut Squash comic that pretty much sums up my attitude about now.

Bad day yesterday. I took a sleeping pill the night before and for some reason my system could not clear it out. So I worked at the museum in a complete fog luckily very few people came in and no one asked any difficult questions.

What is weird about days like this is that I seem to get a lot done. I researched a column on the beginning of our Marine Base and found a lot of good stuff for the piece. For the whole weekend I wrote two columns and got research done on 4-5 more so I am doing well on that front.

I have a friend that lives near L.A. who sent me this I answered and sent it back to her. I figured I post it here. Sad part is she has to use web TV and she can't read my journal.

This friend and I met in an unusual way. She read a letter I wrote to the X-Files comic book and she wrote me and we have been friends since.

( A Little About Me )

Way to busy lately. With the barbecue coming up and me (and Bob) being the only one that seems to treat the museum with any priority things are getting ridiculous. I used to go to the museum to have some fun but those days are dead. Can't wait until the barbecue is over I also won't be the Vice President anymore so things will hopefully settle down at that time.

Finished reading  Shadow of the Sentinel  in the middle of the book I realized some of the signs they used to mark their stashes are around Barstow. I am beginning to wonder if I need to go on a gold hunt.

Here is a comic that really cracked me up.

I usually don't do the meme thing but when I saw this one  on princesamari's journal it looked fun so here goes.

Fun with GIS! (Google Image Search) Look up the following on the image search and post it to your journal

1.place you grew up
2.place you live now
3.favorite cartoon
4.favorite food
5.favorite drink
6.favorite song
7.favorite smell
 8.favorite shoes

Fun storm yesterday hail (twice), rain and truckloads of thunder. I think by being raised in the Midwest I have a different view on bad storms, they make me feel excited and at peace all at once.

During the storm I called a friend and she told me that there was a tornado warning in Apple Valley, a town thirty miles+ from Barstow. My cousin lives there so I called her up to tell her , she doesn't pay much attention to the news. Got a hold of her and we talked excitedly about the potential destruction. In the middle of the conversation my cousin told me that her 3 year old daughter has some news. After a biit of rustling I got the message "I pooped in the potty." I love little kids. We had to cut the conversation short because of lightning affecting the line.

Here in Barstow the storm did some damage. The local Gem and Mineral Society could not meet in their usual place because of lightning hitting a transformer. They called us and asked to use the museum. We were afraid that the power would go out there also but it held up. I was amazed at the turnout of the meeting 35 rock hounds braved the storm for the meeting. I knew a lot of people there so it was fun touching base.

Earlier in the day we had a visitor come in and bring some cool rocks. In regular light the rocks are nothing to get excited about but under short wave black light the glow really well and in different colors. He brought a light and we played with that a bit. Beth, one of the founders of the Gem and Mineral Society, has a rock shop so we talked her into bringing a black light for the meeting. She ended up giving us the rig so that was fun. Bob and I gave a brief demo of our new rocks to society. Then a number of us holed up in a windowless room and played with light some more. I think I may have fired my eyes a bit everything was hazy for a while afterwards.

Been sick lately, I have always gotten bad headaches when I get tired. I have always hesitated to call them migraines because I never got the other symptoms (nausea, sensitivity to light). Tuesday I had my first migraine. I didn't sleep well Monday and by Tuesday afternoon I was hurting bad. Usually if I take a nap, or just rest, my headache goes away, this time it just got worse. I couldn't eat anything and moving was agony. After sitting quietly a while it mellowed out to a tolerable level. Since then every time I get a bit tired I get hint of it coming back. Yesterday was no different but I went out to Paradise Springs for a party. One weird symptom of this headache is that when it goes away I am starved. At the party I had three pieces of chicken, two types of pasta salad, some weenies, spanish rice, some mystery meat (I was assured it was beef) and a two pieces of cake. Started feeling real good when I ended the day in the springs. After all that food I was still peckish when I got home and had some crackers.

Despite all the pain I got a lot done this week. Wednesday we had a speaker/slide show on petroglyphs. Had a good turn out. Thursday I did some work on the coming barbecue and Yesterday I wrote a column. I guess if I time it right I can get a lot done between bad spells.

I am riding a weird wave on my columns. Just a few weeks ago I was wondering if I could continue writing them. It seemed like I was running out of ideas. I didn't tell anyone of my concern, I thought I could work it out myself. Since then almost daily I have been getting e-mails, letters, phone calls and personal communications that will all lead to different stories. Yesterday at the party in just talking to a couple of people I got a new column idea and a new piece of one I am working on. It looks like I am going to be writing these for a long while now.

Speaking of which I got a interesting package yesterday. Back in November I got a call from a company that was doing a site survey for a pipeline near a old Route 66 town call Cadiz. They found what they thought was a post World War II camp. On further investigation they discovered that it was more recent, 1964. They did some research and found my columns on the war games of 1964. The lady interviewed me a bit and promised to send a copy of the report if the company that paid her to do it would let her. She finally got approval and it came in the mail. When she talked to me I thought that she had already done the report but when I read it there is a direct quote from our conversation in it. She also sited my column in a number of places and listed them in the bibliography. I always think it is cool when some uses my fun little column as a source. Here are the columns part 1 part 2.

The first sign of spring in happening right now. A door behind me in the kitchen lets in the sun on my monitor every spring and fall. I usually take an old towel and cover the window so I don't get blinded. Buck up snow people winter is almost over.

Hunter S. Thompson killed himself. I always figured he'd go out more spectacularly, possibly in a fire fight with local authorities. I have read some of his essays and his style wasn't my particular cup of tea but I always wanted to read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Ordered it from the library.

One more book on my list to read. Right now I have a bit of a eclectic  list. Today I will finish up the Austere Academy, the fifth book in the Series of Unfortunate events books. After that I am going to read Shadow of the Sentinel the true story of Confederate gold in Arkansas. Then I am going to read  Hughes: The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters followed by a book called Number about the history of mathematics in the world. Also I have a book awaiting me that my mom is reading about radical polygymist Mormons.

Going on the radio tomorrow, to talk about our speaker this month. This will be hard because I am not sure how to pronounce his name. "Fake it 'til you make it"

The world is still wet and the weather is affecting my bum knee, not too badly thank goodness.

The earliest books I read were collections of the Ripley's Believe it or Not comic. I still read it today. Here is today's installment:

First off Happy B-day melsky

Yesterday could have been hellacious but it turned out pretty good. First off I was wide awake at 4 in the morning, insomnia is a bitch. Took a sleeping pill last night feeling good today.

Yesterday I was debating whether or not to go to the museum. I called museum Pres. Bob about something and he said he was going up, so at the last minute I decide to hitch a ride. I was just going to spend a bit of time and do some research but things got busy.

We had been fighting the phone company for a while now about our phones at the museum. Every time it rained the phone would die. We went back and forth with the company, sometimes they told us we needed to an buy extra line and DSL for them to fix it. Other times they just refused to fix the situation or didn't show up when they were supposed to. I think our constant bitching finally got on their nerves and they sent a couple of techs to fix the situation. They replaced the line all the way out to the pole and gave us an inside junction box. Everyone is a happy camper now. We were also worried about a couple of museum burglaries that happened recently, this phone work will make us a bit more secure.

While all that was going on Bob was working with a guy about our black-light display. Certain minerals glow when hit by black-light. We have had a display of some of the minerals for a long while, a big hit with our younger visitors. The problem with our display is that samples we got got don't glow very well and we found out that they are not local. Bob worked out with a guy to help us with the display and he is going to donate a collection of rocks that glow well and are local.

We also worked with one of our friends about some fossils. His company digs up fossils from time to time. He has designated the museum as a repository for these fossils. This means that we get to keep, display, make copies of all the fossils and his company pays us to do it. He is working with authorities to name our museum as a repository for the whole High Desert. This really doesn't mean that much more work but is does mean more prestige for the museum and possibly grants in our future to take care of the fossils.

On top of all that I did research on an interesting person in our history and when I got home I worked on the next three columns. All in all it was one of those days that makes you glad that you woke up, even if it was at 4 in the #@^*(~! morning.

The world is grey today. Yesterday I had a bad/good day.

The bad: I woke feeling like I hadn't slept and with a raging headache. What really pissed me off was that I took a Tylenol PM to fix those problems and it seemed to make it worse. Needless to say I was cranky all day.

The weird good side is I had pretty productive day. I wrote a column on the Pioneer antenna that may be coming to town. Usually my columns are written all on my lonesome but I need a bit of help on this one so I ended up making  about a half dozen calls to everyone from JPL employees to the mayor. As a side note I got my first donation for our raffle in one call. I got the column written and I also worked on a letter to fax/email for the raffle project. If anyone has any idea or connections for raffles prizes let me know.

Today I have a few more calls to make. I hate talking on the phone I find it exhausting but I have to buck up with the BBQ fast approaching I am going to be on the phone a lot in the near future.

Didn't do anything for V-day, no one special to share it with. No biggie, I have come to the conclusion I work better by myself, just the way I am wired I guess. I am jonesing for chocolate though. I have a weird trait when I get a bad headache. If the headache occurs in colder months I crave chocolate after the headache is gone I crave chocolate. During the hot times I crave salt. Some kind of chemical imbalance i guess. Doing grocery shopping today so I will pick up some chocolate milk.

The column front is going well I just got done with a two parter on a gentleman called Lee Berry (part one  part deux) I have gotten good feedback on the columns from Texas, Missouri and Alaska. The is one of the surprises about writing a small town history column, how it has gotten around. I have columns on display in England, in a private collection in Australia and and the Danish embassy in Rome has one of my columns on file. Really cool how the column has gotten around in the past four years. This week's is on the Civil War in our area, I am quite happy with it.

On days like this the clouds seem to seal up  to the mountains forming a grey dome over the desert. It is not supposed to rain today but it looks like it might try.

Having some problems at the museum. We have been doing some remodeling so things have been chaotic. Now that the work is done the chaos continues. People are coming in and out of the back constantly and they can't seem to keep the back door shut so it is always cold. It is to the point that I can't work there anymore. I also announced that I won't be Vice-President next year. That doesn't have anything to do with the chaos situation. Next year I will have written my column for five years and I would like to get a book printed of the columns. This will take some work to compile and also look for funding for the project so I am going to have to refocus to get the job done.

Read an article this morning that has me worried. There is a school that is requiring their student to wear radio signal emitting badges in a effort to keep track of the kids better. The head of the school sees no problem in this bit of Orwellian nightmare. I have always said that everything you want to know about Bush's agenda you can read in 1984. Trust me if you get kids used to wearing radio markers wherever they go it won't be long before they will be requiring adults to wear them. Read the article here

Also I read a piece that said that American anti-gay marriage groups are campaign Canadian officials to not OK gay marriage it looks like the fascist in our midst aren't just happy with controlling the US. Read the article here

On top of all that North Korea has nukes. I am thinking Switzerland would be good place to move.

Good weekend. Saturday I worked at the museum and then right afterwards headed to Paradise Springs. These warm springs were in the process of being bought by friends the Walker Clan.

Got to the springs in time for the potluck. I have a theory that potlucks have unconscious theme. This one was tomatoes. We had enchiladas, two different lasagnas and bunches of other goodies.

This trip was with our museum's four wheel drive group. I love to hang out with these people, we all have similar interests. We go all geeky discussing the Civil War in our area, the double refractive nature of calcite crystals and other obscure stuff.

Sunday we went on an excursion to an old tungsten mine, fun little trip up the side of a nearby mountain. The mine was only open about 100 feet so not much underground exploring. We tried to find some left over tungsten ore but we were hampered by the fact that we didn't know what the ore looks like.

The highlight of the weekend was during our typical awesome breakfast. The Walkers have trying to buy the springs for a few months. It was held by a the family of the previous owner. One of the sisters was holding up her signing the papers. We got the call Sunday she signed and the Walkers now own the place. We celebrated with pancakes and hot links.

Been an up and down week. I have been getting the paperwork together for a small outdoor stage the past couple of months. The process has been hung up by finding something called a plot plan of the museum's lot. This was hard seeing that I don't even know what a plot plan is. Went to a couple of offices and basically no one had the plan. I was about to get ready to go to San Bernardino 70+ miles away to see if I can find it. Then I tried one more office. They had small map of our lot but to me it didn't look like what I thought a plot plan would like. I paid two bucks for a copy thinking at least we would have it in our files. I faxed it to our architect and guess what it, it was the plot plan. Instead of going to San Bernardino I walked one block. Sometimes it pays to be more lucky than good.

This was complicated by one of our board members called Ron. This weekend he got a wild hair going and came up with a plan to have the stage somewhere else on the lot. His half assed plan would mean that the stage would have less than half the seating, be inconvenient to set up up and worthless due to traffic noise and the lights from a  gas station. The upside of his plan is that we wouldn't have to cut down a tree. Ron is an ex-Air Force colonel  and he does stuff like this to prove his is still the big cheese. His plan and the original plans of the stage are in flux because of something that happened yesterday.

The mayor came by and asked if we want this (the antenna not the gas pump). This would be a huge display that just about fills our yard. So now we have to figure out if we can put this in our yard and then fit the stage around the antenna. I am just happy that Ron's half assed scheme will die.

All in all the board meeting will be interesting tonight.

In a good but funny mood today. I am writing up a packet for the first barbecue meeting tomorrow. As I was doing this I got to thinking how we redefine ourselves. Just a couple of years ago the idea of me running an event like the barbecue (which is a very big deal) would be laughable to me. Now I am thinking of who could do what and I can actually picture the whole day in my head. I guess I am more confident now but deep inside is the old me screaming "Are you freaking nuts!"

The organization I talked to yesterday is the California Wilderness coalition http://calwild.org/. Their are an advocacy group promoting untouched wilderness in the state. Bryn, the person I talked to is working on getting funding for a free a guidebook featuring some of the historical sites in our wilderness. Sounds like a good project, I think she can put it through. It is nice to talk to someone like Bryn who is as fascinated by our history as I am. I took her out to Slash X and regaled her with a history of the place. I was particularly impressed with her when after we got done talking and eating I wanted to go across the street and look at a bit of history through a fence Bryn wanted to go also.

Gloomy day, I can feel the clouds sitting on my head.