book burn

"Although having a girlfriend or wife didn't exempt some of the men from being assholes, they were usually more comfortable with me"

That's a quote from a book I'm currently reading. [Hotshot: A life on Fire]. It's a memoir written by a woman who'd worked several seasons as a wildland firefighter. (Note: they currently identify as nonbinary, but during the firefighting days, "they" was "she").

I'd originally picked up the book for tips on building trails and managing the surroundings at our boonie property, but it's interesting learning her experiences in such a physically grueling, male-dominated job. I purposely chose a book written by a female author for those latter reasons. 

It's also interesting to me since we live in a state that gets its share of wildfires. In fact, our new property is in recovery mode from a 2012 fire. The book isn't just memoir, it gets into ecology and pros and cons of wildfires. I'm learning stuff.

It also marks my 26th book of the year. Recall I'd set a goal to read 26 books in 2026, and I'm ahead of the pace. Here are the books I've completed since my last update in April. Recognize any?

 

Goodreads profile pic

I will note that none of these scream "Favorite book of the year!" for me. They were all fiction except for "Eager" and "Cheap Land Colorado.

For the most part, I liked all of them well enough or I wouldn't have finished them. But they're quite a mix. "Bunny" is super weird, for lack of a better term. The two books by Emily Austin deal with pretty flawed main characters and read like a series of random journal entries. Some readers don't like that, but heck, I read blogs, so that works okay for me.

Whacha readin'?

sticks and stones

I was supposed to have a remote tutoring sesh a little while ago, but my student no-showed me. I texted her at 5 minutes after and got the old "Oops, forgot to tell you I have a doctor's appointment..." 

Speaking of lies, that excuse is about as worn out as the homework eating dogs. Welp, two strikes and she's out as per the general rules. I've got another student scheduled for this afternoon, so the day's not a total bust... so far.

Yesterday, Magnum and I found ourselves with some extra free time, so we headed up to our place in the clouds to do a little trail bustin'. 

It was a beautiful day for it, and we broke out our shiny new trail building tools, one of which is called a Mcleod. We'd bought it a few weeks ago, and it was brought out to us all shrouded up. We undressed it, and I was a bit surprised to see that it's yellow. The catalog showed it as "dark metal" colored.

I'm not disappointed, I saw it and immediately thought of Big Bird, mainly Big Bird's feet. 

That's it parked next to my rough draft of trail. "Trail" seems too impressive for what I've created so far. "Path" is maybe more fitting.

I tried spotting places where the deer have already formed trails and following their lead. Hopefully they'll continue to travel that path, thus helping to maintain it.

So it was just nice to be out there in the quiet and fresh air. A turkey vulture circled overhead, likely waiting for one or both of us to keel over.

Meanwhile, we're getting used to the idea of owning this land. There are actually several other landowners surrounding the area. We met our closest neighbors on our last trip, and we've since gotten access to the discord group, which seems friendly and welcoming. I'm sure we can use their advice on all relatable things.

As I was toiling along, I thought, "wouldn't it be fun if I dug up something of value?

Nevermind, that sort of thing doesn't happen to me.

But who knows, as we get to know more of these "mountain people", maybe they've got some cool cult we can join.

Okay, never mind. I may have gotten too much sun.

no filter

"Is that why you like True Crime? Because you're happy you're not the victim?"

"Yeah", I say, "but it's also because I'm happy I'm not the perpetrator".

In the latest novel I'm reading, the main character likes to listen to true crime podcasts in her spare time. I also like me a good dive into certain true crime stories, and I know I'm not alone (otherwise, I'd be a little paranoid about the interest). It's my understanding that many, women in particular, are into the genre. 

The character in my book is mainly into serial killers, which don't hold much fascination for me. What I sometimes get caught up in are the people who appear to be "normal" - or exceedingly above normal - who turn out to have a whole 'nother thing going on beneath the surface.

Ruby Franke, Chris Watts, Kouri Richins, and Elizabeth Holmes are of the criminals whose stories I dove into a bit further than the surface. 

I think what I find so interesting is their ability to lie and keep on lying, creating huge snowballs of lies that eventually crash into them. Do they think the stories will just "go away"? I get stressed out just hearing about their actions. Heck, I get stressed out when I see a friend on social media who has used an obvious filter for their profile pic. I mean, aren't they worried about people running into them in real life and wondering what happened?? 

This morning, we met with Wolfgang and Meego for breakfast. We do this about once a month. As was typical, there was a waiting list for seating. I didn't want to get on the list until we were all there, and Wolfgang was running late. He let us know he was on the way, and the restaurant host told me there was about a 20-min wait. 

So I went ahead and gave my name, table for 4, and painfully stated, "yes", when asked if all 4 of us were there since I was 90% sure Wolfgang would arrive within 20 minutes.

Damn if that host didn't text me TWO minutes later that our table was ready! So the three of us checked in. I had to confirm 4 people. 

"Yes, he's in the parking lot...", omg, what is happening to me?

Wolfgang did arrive a few minutes later, before I was completely overcome with guilt. But still, the ordeal was enough to swear me off the lying. Enough criminal activity for me.

hands and fingers

Last week, while I was at work in testing, a woman came in for some certification exam, I don't remember which.

I was getting her checked in, and at one point, I had to get a digital signature from her. She signed the pad, and I saw that she'd drawn a little cat face as part of her signature. She had an "i" in her name, the dot of the "i" was the cat's nose. I'll demonstrate via this dramatization:

One reason we collect signatures is to see that they match signatures on the required IDs. When I saw the cat face, I was about to comment to her that she should sign her name the same way she signed her ID. But lo and behold, I looked at her drivers license signature, and there it was. The cat face above the "i". That actually is her official signature. Why not?

It's my understanding that cursive is no longer taught in elementary school. I think my kids were taught cursive, but if so, they were of the last. Meego may not have made the cut. I know they learned keyboarding early on, whereas I took typing as an elective in high school.

When we collect signatures from people in their 20's and younger, the result is often a sloppy printed version of their name, as in this dramatization, using my non-dominant hand for accuracy:

I'm not saying it's wrong to no longer teach people cursive as there's very little use for it these days. Some things still require signatures, but maybe that's going away too. Some of the tests we give don't require signatures but rather fingerprints. I wonder, if I had to take a test that required a fingerprint, would it work? Our fingerprints wear down as we age and become less readable, so I'm told. Well, actually, I had to be fingerprinted multiple times in the recent past before I got a decent image, so I know first hand. Mine are on their way out.

*side note: I'm not a criminal. People who work in public schools get fingerprinted. Recall my illustrious lunch lady career*

Maybe eventually, people will just have chips inserted at birth, doing away with any need for proof of identity. "Handwriting" will be an ancient word in anthropological archives

Do you like your handwriting?

June bugs

• It was my turn again on the Saturday rotation in testing this past weekend. I don't mind working Saturdays, especially now that the tutor load is light. But it does make for a shortened weekend. I worked with Daffodil, who is still fairly new at the job, but she's pretty much up to speed on everything at this point - thus the "privilege" of being added to the Saturday rotation.

I learned that she's originally from the Denver area, had moved out of state for work after college, then moved back when her boyfriend got a job here. I asked if she'd specifically been looking for part-time work, and got "nope, but after searching for such a long time, I'd take anything". 

Job market's tough out there, y'all. But I don't know what parameters she'd limited her search to, if she was only looking for college admin jobs, since that was related to her previous position. Either way, she's doing well and is a nice addition to our little group.

• We didn't get out to Middle Earth over the weekend, but we are getting some ducks in a row to get to work on the place. 

SOURCE

Our realtor is a former wildland firefighter, and he had trail building tips for us. He even presented us with this housewarming gift, known as a Chingadera. 

At closing, he asked if we'd heard of them, then lowered his voice, saying "do you speak Spanish?"

"Uhm, well, I know "chinga"', I replied.

Translated, chinga dera means "that effing thing"

I guess we can assume that some fireline people started calling it that, and the name stuck. 

• We did get out for a nice bike ride yesterday morning. After a very dry winter, it was nice to see a good volume of water in the Cache la Poudre (locally known as just The Poudre, pronounced POOH-der)  river that flows through town. Some late spring snows and rain helped.

I'd recently decided that I had too many bicycles and did a clearout. I had 4 bicycles - silly in my case. Now I'm down to one good general purpose. Sold two, donated a third. 

One buyer was actually a guy, but he was about my height and had a small build. I felt he was a good home for it.

A nice woman bought the other. She said she had a decent bike, but it was her ex-husband's, and she wanted to purge herself of him.  

Mission accomplished.

I, robot

Two weeks of summer break, and I'm having trouble keeping track of what day it is. 

I've been working a few extra shifts in the testing center - which never sleeps - so that's helped somewhat. The college summer session began yesterday, and I've already got one tutor signup whom I'll meet tomorrow. Thursday. Yes. Tomorrow is Thursday.

Meanwhile, I'm enjoying the extra free time. Today, I went to Discount Tire and had a set of new tires installed. Ever been to a Discount Tire? The entire staff is so dang nice and courteous, it's almost weird. Like Stepford Wives, but Stepford Tire Shop Staff. I'm not complaining, since human interactions become less and less these days.

Speaking of human interaction, of the jobs that have been replaced by AI, I fully expected tutors to fall away years ago. But here we still are. In fact, both my jobs at the college are being performed by AI, but there are still those who want real-life tutors and real-life test administrator/ proctors, and I guess I can understand that. 

AI tutors won't genuinely sympathize when hearing, "as if I'm ever gonna have to [insert annoying math concept here] when I get a job!"

AI test proctors won't compliment your cute shoes or empathize at how worthless women's pockets are when checking for cheat notes.

And speaking of unplugging, I'm enjoying these late springtime days. I caught some goose babies and a curious horse on my morning wanderings yesterday.

That was Tuesday. Which makes today Wednesday.

I think?

going primal

Greetings on this Memorial Day.

We went out to our newly acquired property yesterday afternoon. Magnum has been referring to it as "the property", which I find Bo-Ring. 

Here, I will refer to it as Middle Earth, for now.

This was our first visit since closing. We'd only been out the one time to look at it. I'd say I like it even more now than that first visit. No buyer's remorse as of yet. 

Meego and Wolfgang were along to help decide prospective trail routes, etc.

We located a small babbling brook, thanks to some recent rains. 

This dear deer hung out with us pretty much the whole time. It was there when we arrived, and seemed to be watching us as if to say, 

"Hello. Welcome. So... when're you leaving?"

As we were leaving, we also met our "next door" neighbors - a nice young couple. They have a house and some outbuildings and lots of equipment. I believe they live up there year round. 

They told us a little about the area and other residents - including the wildlife. 

They mentioned bobcats and the mountain lions that like to hunt the deer. I believe I'd found evidence of such while traipsing about.

As for us, we plan to keep it relatively wild. There's no electricity nor water source and just a small shed. 

Wilma Flintstone was more civilized.