Bears! Bears!

“Bears, Bears! Don’t get in the van! There’s two bears in there!” I ran to stop my wife and sister from getting in the van, but they weren’t listening.
“Honey, stop! There are no bears!” My wife said as she opened the door to the van.
“No!” I tried to grab her, to stop her from entering the trap…

Flailing wildly in the bed, I kept yelling, “Bears! There are two bears in the van! Bears! Stop!”
“Honey, stop! There are no bears!” My wife tried to calm me.
“Yes there are! Two bears.” I continue to yell, probably waking the baby and the neighbors by now.
“Honey, we are in bed, there are no bears.”
“Well if there aren’t any bears, I guarantee you we aren’t in Australia.”
Silence.
“I told you we weren’t in Australia because I didn’t see any kangaroos.”
At least I got something right.

-Dreamineer

Dead Deer

March 29, 2007

When I first saw the tan patch on the hill south of my parents house, I knew something was wrong, dead wrong. It was a dead deer. There were more, I found another, and another - at least five. I tried to swallow – this was bad. They had all been shot, killed on our property, but it wasn’t any of us. My parents lived in the mountains, and we had legally harvested deer on our property in the past, but this was not deer season. We knew we had to report this and make sure suspicion did not fall on us. Division of Wildlife agreed to send someone the next day.

Next day, I got up early, right at dawn. I walked outside and froze – shocked to see an old brown Chevy truck half-hidden in the trees. It was an early 60’s model, tailgate was smashed in, sides dented and rusted and the door falling off. There was a man inside, sliding a rifle into a case, it must have had some kind of silencer. The truck lurched awake and started moving. I started running toward the truck, trying to get a look at the man inside.

As I sprinted toward it, I looked in the driver side window, but there was no steering wheel. The steering wheel was on the right side like a British car. I saw a man driving.
He was an older man with wispy white hair, thinning on top. He had a small frame and thin shoulders. He wore small round glasses and a trimmed gray beard.

It wasn’t hard to find out information about the old Chevy truck with the steering wheel on the right – we found out it belonged to a man named Hayes. We found out he was a trouble maker that lived right in town. My dad and I went down to an auto store to ask some questions and we dug a little too deep. His brother owned the shop and found out we were asking about his brother. Then it started to get ugly, his brother was drunk and started yelling. We quickly realized we were in the wrong place asking the wrong questions. People moved in the shadows, cars drove away behind the shop.

We quickly got in the truck and drove away. Suddenly the old brown truck was behind us with the two Hayes brothers in it – following us. What would they do? We crossed the railroad tracks and stopped. The car stopped, and they got out holding something. Guns!

We had two rifles in the truck from hunting season. We grabbed some cartridges and shoved them in. They were drunk, it was obvious. They started firing and yelling and coming towards our vehicle. Another car and two more people got out. We hid behind the seat, now we had no choice. They were only giving us one choice, it was us or them.

We were hunters – I was born and raised with a rifle or a shotgun in my hand. I could shoot quickly from any position and hit an 8 inch target at 200 yards every time.

They were drunk and angry and outnumbered us. They did not have a chance.

Timing my shots and making sure every shot counted, I turned and fired through the back window of the truck... one down…my dad fired, another one down… I fired, third down… my dad fired again, last man down and the shooting stopped. Our ears rang and the gunfire hung in the air like a thick fog. I slumped in the seat and nausea overcame me. I threw up.

My detachable foot

My detachable foot

It was the most advanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) equipment I have ever seen. I could see all the bones of my foot in a three dimensional image that moved with my foot as I flexed and extended it. The doctor could even rotate the image to see different angles. I had been having foot problems so I was having it examined.

The problem was between my tarsal bones, the group of small little bones beneath the talus – which makes up the ankle. We could see where I had had surgery five years ago to remove a bone spur on the talar-navicular joint. Everything in the area of the surgery was fine. The Doctor actually stuck his finger between the bones and felt them – we could see it on the MRI. Strangely, there was no pain in that joint, even with his finger in there.

Then he rotated the view so that we could see up from the bottom of my foot and we noticed a new joint. My whole foot was attached with a “tongue and groove” joint. The groove was front to back underneath the tarsal bones. My foot had slipped forward out of place, causing me great pain whenever I flexed the joint. So the doctor took a rubber mallet and pounded it back in place so the bones were flush, and you could hardly even tell it was there.

“The joint is still a little loose.” The doctor said.

“Do you think my whole foot could slip out of the joint?” I replied.

“O yeah, let me show you.” He tapped the back of heel a couple of times and gave it a solid whack. My foot slid right off into his hand, and he handed it to me. Astonished I looked it over and quickly asked him to put it back on.

“Don’t worry, it doesn’t come off unless you hit in just right spot. We’ll put you in a splint for a couple weeks and let the joint tighten up so it doesn’t slip anymore.”

He put my foot back in place and wrapped it firmly with an elastic bandage.

I woke up and flexed my foot a couple of times, no pain. I felt for the joint and realized it wasn’t there – AHA! My foot can’t fall off!

A conversation with my wife at 3:27 a.m.

April 3, 2007

A conversation with my wife at 3:27 a.m.

We were riding mountain bikes across the West, from Colorado down to Arizona, up to Oregon and back to Colorado. We rode trails as much as we could, but when we had a long stretch of road to travel we put on road tires. Sometime during the trek I had an idea, and the idea grew and grew and the trip faded away before it was complete…. and I awoke.

“Honey, what do you think about mounting the camera on the handlebars?”

No response, Sarah is laying beside me.

I go on,“You would probably need a plate to support it, and then you would need four screws, one supporting each corner. You would have to drill a hole in the handlebars, then you would need another screw that actually fastens on to the camera…”

“Honey stop talking and go to sleep.” Sarah interjects.

“I’m not talking, I’m asking you a question, just answer my question, should I put the camera on the handle bars? You know, so you could take pictures while riding your bike. Of course, I don’t know what would happen if you crashed. I suppose that is a good question…”

“Go to sleep.”

“I was sleeping, now I have to figure this out. It would be nice to have it right on the handlebars so you could just snap pictures as you rode by… but I suppose they would be blurry. You could take a video though. It would be like real life, what you saw as you rode along. What do you think?”

Silence.

“I suppose I could just hold the camera on the handlebars for a little bit and take a video, then I wouldn’t have to figure out how to mount it on there. You’re right, I didn’t think about crashing. I’m still talking out loud, aren’t I. You want me to stop talking and go to sleep don’t you?..... Goodnight”