This post could very well be...
The by-product of a FRIED BRAIN!!!

Yes, I am fully aware that there are hotter places on the planet besides here in North Idaho. I know that. But, when summer gets here, there's no "breaking-in" period; you wake up one morning and all of a sudden it's HOT out there. That's the way it's been the last 3 or 4 days. My little house doesn't even cool off until 4 or 5 in the morning, so it's useless for me to try and go to bed before then. Then, something surprising happened today. It cooled off. And I've been yawning and experiencing pervasive TIREDNESS all day; it's as if the cooler temperatures allow my body to relax. Right now, a wet dishrag has more energy than I do. Yawn.....

Could you kindly smoke in another county dept.: There was yet another article in the paper today about the dangers of second-hand smoke. I don't know how that's affected me; both Mom and Dad smoked all during the time I was growing up; at either end of the dinner table, cigarettes would be puffed on with my sister and me in the middle, breathing it all in. Anyway, last week while I was playing guitar, a couple of guys sat on the sea wall near me to listen, and one of them was puffing away on his cigarette. Well, when I went to bed later that night, I began coughing and coughing, and I had a lot of garbage coming up out of my throat, and the overall feeling was of harshness; I am wondering if the cigarette smoke somehow got inside my body, and I had to cough it out...it was MISERABLE. I do know that, not having been around much cigarette smoke since I quit playing drums in the bars years ago, and not having consumed alcohol for a long time, I find I'm sensitive to both smoke and drink. On New Years' Eve in 2004, I tried to drink a couple of O'Doul's non-alcoholic beers (well, they do have a "smidgen" of alcohol), and when I got halfway through bottle #2, I was getting tipsy, sick to my stomach and I had to go home!

A lotta bang for your buck dept.: It's that time of year again when the community is looking for donations to the annual "Fireworks Fund". I've never paid a cent. Does that mean I can't watch? The annual fireworks display on Coeur d'Alene Lake is always wonderful to see, although the thousands upon thousands who fill up city park, and the downtown area serve to make it less so; normally, I'd stay away from all those people, but the 4th of July is an "occasion" for me, ranking right up there with Christmas. I wonder how much local business maggot...er, 'magnate' Duane Haggadone donates...I've heard, "NOTHING". Makes sense. After all, he has to save money for his OWN fireworks celebrations, such as the one he had TONIGHT down near the Cd'A Resort Golf course, which of course, he owns. I guess that proves that once in a while, we all need to indulge in some good old-fashioned hypocrisy. After all, this town let him violate all kinds of building-height ordinances so he could build his mega-story rezzort; does he give back anything to the town? Nooooooo. Not unless he derives some benefit somehow.

A new potential non-mobile electorate dept.: I'll bet THAT 'portion title' has got you thinking, "huh? what?" Anyway, evidently there is some kind of movement afloat which is advocating that felons in prison have the right to vote! They are doing us a valuable service, after all. They make sure our prisons are full, thus putting our tax dollars to good use. After all, an empty prison would be a waste of money, rrrright? I say, go ahead and let 'em vote. They couldn't do any worse than the rest of us. Now, before you come to the conclusion that I am a pathological stark-raving loony, let me pose the following observation...how many of us have ALREADY elected criminals to public office? Maybe they weren't criminals going IN, but they ended up that way. And, my observation on a woman Prezzident: Sure, why not? A woman Prezzident couldn't screw things up any WORSE!

Back to a league of their own dept.: The Seattle Mariners, like many of their American League counterparts, have been playing "interleague" games with National League teams. And the M's have been winning! Now, before you line up to buy World Series tickets so you can see the M's, take this into consideration: National League pitchers generally toss more fastballs, seeing as how the pitchers can't hit (pitchers have to bat in the NL). That, according to the M's broadcasters, who also said that hitters who bat behind pitchers generally aren't that great, either. They generally strike out on fastballs. Not that I can hit a fastball (I can't), but fastballs are allegedly easier pitches for good hitters to hit than curveballs, sliders, etc. They're also easier to throw. American League pitchers have to be trickier, because they don't pitch to pitchers (who can't hit). They pitch to more "good" hitters per game. This year, the American League teams are dominating the National League teams in interleague play. I must congratulate Seattle; they actually are now one game OVER .500, with a 40-39 record. Well, soon, the M's will again be playing other American League teams. Can the M's continue to win? I hope they do, but I have reservations. I still predict that the M's will be 2nd or 3rd (probably 3rd) in their division, with a record just below .500 when all is said and done. So, come on, Seattle, surprise me and PROVE ME WRONG!

Well, guess I'll end it here, but before I do dept.: I was going to type about a few more things, but what the heck, the few things I've typed here rambled long enough, don'tcha think? Well, anyway, I haven't been getting a lot of great historical photos of the area lately, but there's a site called "Webshots" where people can dump their pictures for all to see. So, tourists with digital cams take photos of Coeur d'Alene, which end up in "Webshots", where I then proceed to pilfer them for my own lascivious (?) use. Such as the example below:



This is Coeur d'Alene Lake, with the photo being taken from Tubbs hill. I'm not sure what direction this photo depicts (my guess is that it looks to the northwest), and there are some nice yellow flowers in the foreground which obviously keep all the honeybees busy. So there's yer compulsory "visual variety" which hopefully makes this blog a bit more tolerable.
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I'm posting rather haphazardly these days. Actually I try to be outside as much as possible when the days are long, like they are now, which leaves me less time to blog. On a winters' eve, it's dark by 4:30pm, which gives me a lot of added blogging time. Not so in late June! By the way, it's not too late to think about trying to have a safe 4th of July; it'll be here sooner than U think! Watch out for alla the wacko drivers out there!