various and sundries

It's the write-and-run season. The sun shines, the fire hazard is high, the evenings are lengthening, there is 27 hours worth of work to do in a 24 hour day. The up-side is that bloggers are allowed to write and run. It doesn't have to be polished or even cohesive. We can use titles like, "Random N'at" (That's Church), "Blogging, Netbooks, and Drinking . . . In No Particular Order," (Switch2PlanB) and "Beaches, Marvin the Martian, and other related topics," (me). And no one can stop us.

Bloggers are the rawboned cowboys of the wild west frontier of literature. We're allowed to shoot from the hip, and say what we think, and sing to the moon if we want. And then ride off into the the cyber-sunset on our digital horses and pretend we're footloose and fancy free. Until we wake up and realize that our next article is due in a couple weeks, and its current incoherent, ranting, raving, blog-style format is not going to cut it in the polished, published world. Or that our home to-do list is longer than the drive from the Texas range to the Kansas train yard, and our significant other is thinking dark thoughts about wringing our non-digital neck while we're ramble-writing. That's the down-side.

So, we write and run.

Speaking of writing, you can read my April article for the Fire and EMS Quarterly here.

And speaking of fires, the good fire-folk at Kam got to play with the big boys on Saturday.

Things have quieted down here in the far-flung peripheral edge, but there is no rain in the forecast, and it really doesn't take much to get the bush going these days. Rubbing the rabbit's foot and meditating on the longitudinal centre of Canada didn't work last time, and I still don't believe in knocking on wood, so I guess we'll just have to take things as they come.

Speaking of the wild-west frontier, the digital bronc busters at Microsoft are developing a system that uses your arms and hands as a keyboard. Snap your fingers and answer your phone. Tap your arm to start the next track of music. The next thing you know, they'll type a digital 666 in your forehead . . . now I'm really rambling.

Totally unrelated to fires and frontiers, George Washington, the epitome of trustworthiness and honesty, has a deep dark secret. He failed to return two library books, and owes 220 years worth of late fees.

And with that piece of useless trivia . . . I have to run.