They have more than animals at Idaho Falls’ Tautphaus Park Zoo.
They got some nice shady shadowy places to rest.
Sweetie and SuperPizzaBoy took advantage of the bench.
We are back in Tulsa now and we are loading SPB up to drive half a day down to Texas to deliver him to a Summer Camp. We’re going to miss him! But we are going to have fun ourselves. I hope that we remember to go pick him up.
The Silver Linings Playbook is a novel a man’s attempts to reenter society after being in a “neural care facility” for several years. The man is “Pat” he is in his mid 30’s and we meet with him just as his mother signs him out of the facility (what Pat calls the “Bad Place”) and brings him and a load of prescriptions and an appointment for a psychiatrist.
Pat is really concerned about ending the “apart time” with his wife Nikki and thinks that if he really changes himself to become a more positve person, and to be kind instead of right, and if he can lose enough weight by doing multi-hour workouts and running ten miles a day then the apart time will end and he will be reunited with Nikki.
When Pat gets home we see part of the reason he is so messed up. His father is totally disconnected from his family and is a big fan of the Philidelphia Eagles and lets their winning and losing determine his mood for the coming week.
The best parts of the book concern the dedication and daffiness of the football fans. The elaborate hours long tailgate parties complete with generators, satellite televisions, and lazyboys. Pat’s doctor it turns out is part of the “Asian Invasion” fans, all from India who come in their own bus and wear identical jerseys.
Anyway, to cut to the chase, this is a book about a messed up guy who slowly finds his way back into life and learns to face his demons and face reality. I loved it and I’ll give it four stars.
The book was made into a movie. I can’t say one is better than the other. They are two separate things in my mind. Check out my movie review.
We had a family reunion on a ranch near Island Park, Idaho last week. While there we signed up for a trail ride.
As we gathered brother Bob and nephew Shiloh honed their roping rope untangling skills.
Sister Ellen, (left), Dad, and Sweetie chattted.
The smirking stars of the day were trying to figure out who of the dudes they were going throw off during the ride.
The lead wrangler was showing us how to get on the horse. I didn’t catch his next move where standing where he is, he jumped and swung his right leg over the horse and into the saddle as smooth as silk. Without breaking his serious face he asked if we had any questions. I love smart alecky wranglers.
So after everybody was on their horse (using platforms) we were ready to go.
Off we went across the sagebrush and up a hill against a beautiful blue sky.
Alongside a small lake.
Across lush green meadows.
And through the woods.
We stopped and the wranger took photographs with our cameras. Left to right is brother-in-law Irv, brother Bob, sister Ellen, SuperPizzaBoy, nephew Mr. Beans, Sweetie, and Me!
Irv documented the return trek.
Here is my horsecam view of yet another small lake close to the stable.
All of our butts were a little sore but we were happpy.
“The Kill Room” is right up to the minute and far ranging book. It involves the sniper killing of an American activist at a luxury hotel in the Bahamas. The Bahamian authorities dont’ seem to be interested in investigating the murder but a New York Distric Attorney thinks it is a targeted killing by an obscure US Federal Agency and is intent on conducting a conspiracy to commit murder investigation, come hell or high water or national security concerns.
The book stars Deaver’s recurring character Lincoln Rhymes, a consulting forensics investigator who has been given the job of analyzing the evidence in the case which is a good trick since he is in New York, and the murder occurred in the Bahamas. He doesn’t have much to work with but he works with what he has.
Things soon get dangerous. A foodiphile murderer is determinted to derail the investigation by whatever means including eliminating what little evidence there is and eliminating witnesses if has to do so.
This is a very absorbing book on several different levels. There are several plot twists and turns, all of which make sense and even a grizzled murder mystery reader like me didn’t foresee the ending. I give it four stars out of five, which is great!
I got mine at the library so I’ll have to return it. I read it during a trip to the Rocky Mountains. So if you are in the Tulsa Library and you get a whiff of spruce trees, sage brush, mountain meadows,and trout streams just follow it to the book.
On our recent trip to Idaho my sister and I would grab our cameras as the sun went down and walk along with our families to find some pictures to take. I’ve learned that timing is everything at sunset. I want the deepest colors and I often find myself alone with just the mosquitoes for company. Sometimes I get a decent shot, many times I just have itches.
Late evening at a small lake near Island Park, Idaho.
We just got back from a family reunion in Island Park, Idaho. Above from left to right is SuperPizzaBoy, sister Ellen, brother Bob, Sweetie, and bil Irv. As you can see the weather was nice where we are but there was a sinister looking cloud over in what I calculate to be Yellowstone Park not too far from where we were.
I’ve been a bad blogger lately and I’m sorry. I’ve been traveling. I used to prepare posts in advance for that but I don’t generally any longer. I like the interchange and conversations with other bloggers and it is hard to do when I am on the road or visiting somebody. Plus it is nice to get away a little bit and refresh and get more ideas and photographs and stuff.
The family went up to Idaho for a family reunion and to visit my Dad and we had a great time and I’ll be posting about the trip in the coming days.
I took my fancy schamancy all purpose scanner with me and scanned several hundred of Dad’s slides from the 1950’s and 60’s while I was there. The above photo is one of them. The little girl is my sister Ellen (Check out her blog News from the “Pole” Yard), then me to the left, and brother Bob to the right. It is on the square in Santa Fe and I’m guessing that it is 1962 or 1963. Santa Fe back then was a tourist town sure but real people lived there back then and they did their shopping downtown in amongst the tourist shops.
Note the 29 cent hamburgers, and the guys walking down the street with their cowboy hats on. Also note the rolled up cuffs on the jeans Bob and I are wearing. Anyway, there has not been a dime store on the square in Santa Fe for decades and I’m sure that it is some sort of expensive art gallery now. Hamburgers are probably a bit more than 29 cents also.
Just letting you know where my mind still is. My mind is still on the beach watching the sunrise, listening to the wind and the waves.
Skywatch Friday
Due to a Google mishap I’m no longer at yogis-den(dot)com. They are making it impossible to get it back so I’ve moved everything back over to the www.crustygasguy.blogspot.com while I ponder what to do, if anything. I like writing posts but I hate getting under the hood and trying to figure out the nuts and bolts when things go wrong. So I’m thinking I’m going to try a new domain name registrar and get a multiyear term. I would appreciate any recommendations on domain name registrars that easy to deal with.
I would also say beware to anybody out there who bought their domain name through Google even if you have auto renewal. A bunch of the renewals are failing, even with current payment information, and when it fails your domain name is gone and Google’s customer service isn’t up to the task of helping you get it back.
While on vacation recently we spent a lot of time on the beach reading. I put aside my regular books and read “beach books.” Courting Trouble is one of those. It’s a murder mystery featuring Anne Murphy a smart, young, single, gorgeous, red headed attorney with a shoe fetish living in Philidelphia. She goes on a trip out of town by herself for the Fourth of July but reads in the paper next day that she has been killed.
That piques her interest of course and she decides that she should stay dead for now and find out who “killed” her. So off the the story goes. It’s pretty funny actually all the adventures and misadventures she has while she recruits help in her search for the killer. She ends up using an Uncle Sam costume as a disguise for much of the book and she and the rest of her all female law firm dress up as hookers for much of the rest of the book. She gets “lonely” and spends the night at an opposing attorney’s place and then leaves before he wakes up but she can’t find her panties so that is something she comments on quite frequently during the book. She goes all over town I couldn’t figure out why she didn’t stop in at Target and get what she needs.
Anyway the book is kind of a lightweight and the plot is full of holes and anybody that has read very many whodunnits can spot whodunnit a long ways away but still the book is a fun read. I give it three stars out of five.
The book has been out a while and I picked it up for fifty cents at our local libraries bargain bin. It’s all broke in. The pages are sprinkled with a great mixture of beer, beach sand, and seawater so it is a genuine beach read. I’m putting it in the Goodwill bag unless somebody local wants it.
On our recent trip to Orange Beach, Alabama we went on a little kayaking expedition on Cotton Bayou.
We picked out the kayaks, got life vests, paddles and a map and off we went.
SuperPizzaBoy really took to it and did very well.
He left the old man in the dust, so to speak.
Sweetie was looking good also. She always looks good, kayak or not.
The bayou was busy. We got attached by a pirate boat. The pirates were all yealling “ARGH!!!” but we got away.
Or maybe they are the ones that got away?
For some reason Sweetie had the map. How did she get the map. I’m supposed to have the map. That way I can be telling her stuff, not she tellling me stuff. Do you like the thumb action in the photo?
We pulled up on a deserted island for a lunch of peanut butter sandwhiches.
And here’s a YogiCam view of the return trip. Tell you what my quads were burning after this trek but we had fun.