Free Association Thread 5

[Handley_Page]

I spent a full day outside my cactus-garden cinderblock shack in 29 Palms, across from the HQ of Joshua Tree National Monument (then).

It began in the velvet black of a starry moonless night. The desert's bare, ragged Pinto Mountains a couple miles south slowly became visibly violet. Cool zephyrs zephed. Creatures crawled and cried, The sky brightened slightly, then more. Another slug of coffee with cheap tequila.

My sunrise roadrunner zooms across my shack. The sky, brighter and brighter. Animal sounds diminish; traffic picks up, mostly on the highway a mile north toward the vast USMC base. Some artillery fire in the distance.

Midday, the Pintos glare brightly white under the unrelenting sun. Dead air, not as hot as it could be, but incentive to remain under shade. Some birds. Some jets. Some creature(s) moving in the open desert, I can't quite tell what. More Mexican coffee.

The sun sinks into Los Angeles and evening attacks the desert. More birds, breezes, creature noises. The Pintos have cooled from white to gray to reddish-bluish to darker, and back to ominous shadows on the too-close horizon. Then the blackness of night returns, washed by the Milky Way. Time to crawl in.

Who says a day on the desert is boring? I didn't even have to hike.

You lucky blighter.
Although I have had similar experiences in places like the New Forest.

I have mentioned this before.

Traveling, I stopped at a suburban Trader Joes store for meager supplies. A tour bus pulled into the parking lot just in front of the store. A scad (that's a score or three) of Japanese-looking guys, well but casually dressed, ages 20s through 40s, spewed into the store, waving varied cameras, photographing everything (but not each other so much). This lasted about three minutes. Then they surged back onto the bus, which sped away.

I have zero fucking explanations.

Ah; if it's Tuesday, it must be Austria [or similar]
(a standing joke)

 

[JKendallDane]

Ah; if it's Tuesday, it must be Austria [or similar]
(a standing joke)

Is it true that if you throw a boomerang in Austria it will land in Hungary?

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[Tio_Narratore]

Is it true that if you throw a boomerang in Austria it will land in Hungary?

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Doesn't really matter; they've both become fascist.

 

[Hypoxia]

Ah; if it's Tuesday, it must be Austria [or similar]

The Swiss army has accidentally invaded Lichtenstein a few times. Austria is just beyond. How could they miss?

 

[Handley_Page]

The Swiss army has accidentally invaded Lichtenstein a few times. Austria is just beyond. How could they miss?

They keep hearing the "recall codes".

 

[JKendallDane]

The Swiss army has accidentally invaded Lichtenstein a few times. Austria is just beyond. How could they miss?

They keep hearing the "recall codes".

Or maybe they made the mistake of trusting Google Maps?

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[Hypoxia]

Or maybe they made the mistake of trusting Google Maps?

Or their Garmin GPS. Directions to our home in this remote mountain hamlet will lead down nonexistent roads into private dirt lanes and dead ends. A robo-truck aiming here will drive through a neighbor's garage and off a low cliff.

Google Maps has not been able to locate any of our last three homes. Whew.

 

[JKendallDane]

Or their Garmin GPS. Directions to our home in this remote mountain hamlet will lead down nonexistent roads into private dirt lanes and dead ends. A robo-truck aiming here will drive through a neighbor's garage and off a low cliff.

Google Maps has not been able to locate any of our last three homes. Whew.

We put Apollo 11 on the moon and brought it back with less computer capability than what's found in a throwaway flip phone from Walmart.

If NASA had used what passes for today's GPS, Neil Armstrong's first step for mankind may have happened in Mars, Pennsylvania.

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[Handley_Page]

We put Apollo 11 on the moon and brought it back with less computer capability than what's found in a throwaway flip phone from Walmart.

If NASA had used what passes for today's GPS, Neil Armstrong's first step for mankind may have happened in Mars, Pennsylvania.

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Well, the software was mostly written by a nice young lady. . .

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Well, the software was mostly written by a nice young lady. . .

And the old "Maps & Streets" once told me that I couldn't get from Montreal to the Cahokia Mounds in Collinsville, Illinois because "there is no ferry service between Barcelona and Majorca."

 

[Hypoxia]

Well, the software was mostly written by a nice young lady. . .

Not a nice young lady, but a nice young man wrote the best code ever. One of the Voyagers (maybe with an 8008 CPU) had 128 bytes of memory unused. The lad wrote a 128-byte machine-code routine that discovered a new Saturnian? Jovian? moon. Gotta look that up.

Meanwhile, our GPS (we call her Rita) lost her mind in the heat yesterday. Sometimes she shows our location ~1/4 mile south of real. Please avoid the pastures and gravel pits, okay Rita?

 

[Handley_Page]

I meant Margaret Hamilton. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38076123.

 

[SamScribble]

I meant Margaret Hamilton. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38076123.

And 'Hidden Figures' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Figures

 

[JKendallDane]

And 'Hidden Figures' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Figures

Further proof that it takes a woman with a map to keep the man from getting lost.

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[Tio_Narratore]

Further proof that it takes a woman with a map to keep the man from getting lost.

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Sure thing. Moses wouldn't listen to any woman, and what good were his god's directions? He spent forty years wandering around lost, and never managed to get where he was going. See! There are lessons to be learned from the Bible.

 

[Handley_Page]

Sure thing. Moses wouldn't listen to any woman, and what good were his god's directions? He spent forty years wandering around lost, and never managed to get where he was going. See! There are lessons to be learned from the Bible.

There are some 'feminists' who'd claim that Zipporah would have get them home with a lot less trouble.

 

[JKendallDane]

There are some 'feminists' who'd claim that Zipporah would have get them home with a lot less trouble.

It probably didn't help any when she kept saying: "I told you to turn left at the Red Sea!"

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[Hypoxia]

Directions to reach Texas:

Travel cross-country till you smell shit. That's Oklahoma.
Travel south till you step in it. That's Texas.

[more Texas jokes deleted]

Q: Why wasn't Jesus born in Texas?
A: They couldn't find a virgin and three wise men.

]okay, so /me cheated]

 

[Handley_Page]

The definition of "God's own place" is still being considered.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

The definition of "God's own place" is still being considered.

Perhaps it's a backwoods cabin on the shores of God's Lake in Manitoba.

 

[JKendallDane]

Perhaps it's a backwoods cabin on the shores of God's Lake in Manitoba.

But you have to also consider John Denver's opinion.

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[Tio_Narratore]

But you have to also consider John Denver's opinion.

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Any self-respecting deity wouldn't accept "almost heaven," even if it were in West Virginia. (Though he might find a mountain mama a bit of a lure).

 

[Handley_Page]

Any self-respecting deity wouldn't accept "almost heaven," even if it were in West Virginia. (Though he might find a mountain mama a bit of a lure).

Perhaps the words are back-to-front.
Maybe her name is/was Mama Mountain?

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Perhaps the words are back-to-front.
Maybe her name is/was Mama Mountain?

Any relation to the Old Man of the Mountain?

 

[JKendallDane]

Any relation to the Old Man of the Mountain?

Ain't No Mountain High Enough

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