Sanders "Edge-of-Civilization" Ranch

We moved into the Sanders "Edge-of-Civilization" Ranch Sept. 11, 2005. I realized I never put up any pictures of the new addition. (By new addition, I mean two rooms - one of them a bathroom.) So here is a few pictures showing the beautiful woodwork done by Ike Lovvorn - the incredible "Do-it-all" man - (Adena and I helped) ... and a few pre-addition pictures too.

Ya'll come by now, hear? And bring yer pa!

I caught you a delicious bass, Ariel

I caught you a delicious bass, Ariel.

At 5 1/2 pounds and 23 inches this is the biggest bass I've ever caught. I caught him on the Sanders "Edge-of-the-Civilized-World" Ranch between Wimberley and Blanco here in the beautiful Texas Hill Country. I used my traditional black rubber worm with my own special no-weight, embedded-hook, and light-tension line technique. I caught him April 2, 2006 in the Blanco River. He's possibly a record Largemouth for this river.

He's getting stuffed to be added as another interesting fixture to my classy cabin decor.

Just more proof that I've gone completely hillbilly and am reaping the benefits. Yee haw!

A Normal Day in Baghdad

[below is an email from my son who puts out car bombs in Iraq]

Hey dad, here’s some pictures of my day today. Basically you can kind of see the general process of when a VBIED (car bomb) hits the checkpoint on the inbound lane to the IZ. This one was a stolen suburban like from a private security team, it had tinted windows and even with a sign like “keep back 200 feet” tried to sneak in like they do but of course didn’t get very far and blew up. The guy was handcuffed to the steering wheel so I don’t think he was to happy but whatever.

So you can see me in a lot of the shots, I’m wearing firefighter bunker pants and a black flak vest and black Kevlar helmet with sunglasses. Well in the beginning I’m not because I’m fighting the fire but later I take my pack off and stuff. So it’s pretty simple, car blows up, army secures the scene and goes far up the road to blow up or shoot any more traffic coming in (they shoot off a lot of warning shots so it’s kinda nerve racking when you’re working and they start shooting like crazy up the road.) then the forklift guys come in and clean up the cars so we can wash the roads down and pretty much that’s it. The rest of the time we’re walking around BSing and helping Army folks look for larger body parts. Of course we’re walking in body parts the entire time because the people are blown to a million chunks but some of the larger ones like limbs and torsos can travel pretty far and have to be accounted for. So beware I’ve thrown in a few gory pics just so you can get a little sense of reality.

This is a pretty usual routine, we were doing this like every day at certain times - like last summer was pretty crazy. But then again nothings really gotten better, as you can see this was just today, atleast 5 people died but I sure haven’t seen anything on any of the news organizations. Ok well enjoy the tour!

Oh yea the big guy is my fire chief, he’s been here longer than anybody and he’s a really great and extremely hilarious guy. The other white helmet is our assistant chief.

Honky Tonk Hendrix

Adena and I saw the incredible Junior Brown play his #1 house-rocking style music - as voted by Guitar Player magazine. He played in the backwoods of my own Hays County in a little swanky place called Lucy's in San Marcos. He was incredible. He's got that rare combination of slow deep pure country voice mixed with a honky-tonk Hendrix telecaster mounted on this funky steel guitar that rocks the house like nobody but maybe Robert Randolph could. This guy is a living legend and represents Austin style music as nicely as only Willie himself does.

For an encore, Adena and hollered out a request for "My Baby Don't Dance to Nothing but Ernest Tubb." He nodded at me and honored the request by singing it and introducing the song as a tribute to his old buddy, the Texas Troubadour himself - Ernest Tubbs.

You can't get more Austin or more Texan or more Honky Tonk than that. A pure experience touching back to days I barely remember and mostly only dreamed about.

Don't miss him if you get a chance.

It's really hard to sleep when people are making a suicidal offensive on the green zone

Things in Iraq- well what can i say. things haven't gotten any better, with the exeptions of a few american built facilities for coalition use only. in the short term these new conveniences (subway, burger king, bigger PX, better chowhalls) seem great, and then you must realize that they are further proof of our long term stay. which must be very depressing for the troops that are forced to be here and are driving around in the red zone everyday having their lives threatened. as for the booms and bombs, we had a HUGE firefight the other day right near where i live (but across the tigris of course) it woke me up around 3 and didn't let up until around 8 with continual morter shelling, rockets, explosions and small arms fire. i was pissed because i had to go to work and it's really hard to sleep when people are making a suicidal offensive on the green zone.
well that's all cheerio!

The above is from the end of an email sent to me by my son who is presently working as a combat firefighter in Iraq.

Remember When the Web was Fun?

I got this interesting threatening email. Supposedly I put up a photo(?) that someone else created. I went to his site and typed a search for the photo that he claims is his and it doesn't come up. I went to my site and scrolled through everything but can't find anything of his. I admit I do have a few pictures I pulled from news services or from somewhere else on the web (e.g. one of Mike Tyson) but by and large everything up there is my own creation - photographs, artwork, etc.

I don't want to step on people's toes and I sure don't want to take credit or use something someone else made without their consent, but hasn't this intellectual property thing gone a bit overboard? I mean, isn't that what posting things on the web is all about anyway? I don't care if anyone takes anything from my sites. In fact I'd be honored. That's why I put it out there on the web.

I hate to be nostalgic for the good ole' days, but the web used to be a fun place and it's not anymore (sigh).

Nothing good lasts forever I guesss.

If you're interested, here's the email I got. (But heck, that may be copyrighted too. I'll probaby get another threatening email):

From: "Kris King"
To: lipswhiteboymccoy@yahoo.com
Subject: Hey Mitch
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 10:31:48 -0500

As lawyers you should know copyright laws better than anyone. I am shocked to find my COPYRIGHT photo on your blog.

The use of my copyrighted (registered) photographic images in any form is strictly prohibited without my express written permission and payment of a licensing fee. I have spent thousands of dollars in the making of my high quality images, not to mention the time and expertise involved, and do not allow their use without due monetary compensation and a contractual agreement.

You have two choices, either remove the photo (lilies) or contact me about payment for the illegal use of my photograph.

Kris King
Photographer
You stole the photo from kriskingphoto.com

Strung out in a Post-Modern Career

I just started working at company A. The recruiter lady met me at a clinic where I took my urine test for drug abuse and I filled out some papers. We went to the Broken Spoke honky-tonk and had lunch, visited, and will probably never see each other again.

Company A hires technical people to work for Company B. Company B hires people through company A to work for a company C - which is a large computer manufacturing firm that out-sources a lot of work.

I report onsite to company C.

After moving through 3 different cubicles and meeting several groups, teams, individuals within a few short weeks, I'm starting to figure out who I work for.

The direct boss that I'm supposed to report to lives somewhere in India. He is boss A. He is Indian and communicates to me by email, IM, and phone. His boss lives in this city (Austin, Tx.) I've met her twice. She speaks good English, is Indian and says I'm supposed to report to her - Boss B (and to him, but to her "really") since we live and work in the same series of buildings. (There are multiple big buildings like a little city here. There is even a full time bus line that ports people between the buildings.)

I've now been moved to a different building than Boss B and am told to work with and for this other group of people. I'm introduced to co-workers A and B and am told by co-worker A that I really work for him. So co-worker A is really boss C. He is only 5 cubicles up and 1 cubicle over from me. He is a very nice guy.

My paycheck comes mailed to me from company A. I email them my timesheet which I input into a web application at company C. I send weekly PowerPoint updates (a few lines of words only) to Boss A. I am supposed to keep Boss B up-to-date (supposedly, but she's really gives the impression of being way too busy to ever actually talk.)

Boss C, from (I think, team B) tells me I actually am a team member of this other team in this other building whom I was introduced to my first day here. Team X?

So, I sit in my cubicle working for teams A and B and X, reporting to Bosses A, B, and C, and getting paid from Companies A, B, and C.

I email and IM and try to figure out what code I should be working on and who I should try to please and what exactly should I pursue.

It's very abstract. It has this weird feel of 1984-Brave-New-World
[times] a David Lynch film [divided by] the “Lost in Space” TV series.

Everyone is very nice though.

(Maybe they’re all robots. I hope someone keeps sending me a check.)