Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Yup, it's April in Montana, all right. As I'm typing this, we're getting the beginnings of what the weatherguessers are claiming will be up to an inch of snow over the next 24-48 hours:

(click to bigger-ize and clarify)


It isn't unusual for us to get one last snowstorm in late April; likely as not, it'll be a real biggie with the big soggy flakes that end up breaking off tree branches. This time we're getting off easy.

Recreation

Went out with a couple of friends last night to a local microbrewery by the name of "Angry Hank's".

I'd never been in the place before, but after last night's experience, the only thing I can think of that might be making "Hank" angry is that so damn many people are drinking his most excellent beers.

I started the evening off with an obligatory trial of something they call "Dog Slobber" -- I mean, come on, doesn't that just BEG investigation? Well, it was pretty damn good beer: a brown (but not 'dark') ale, it had a nice flavor and a little more of a kick than I expected. When I looked at the big chalkboard that Hank's has on the wall, I saw that they were nice enough to indicate the alcohol content of their different brews (as part of the descriptions). The lowest alcohol level they serve is 4.5%; the highest is 6.5 -- that is, anywhere from half again to double the strength of regular 'commercial' brews such as Budweiser, Michelob, and the like.

After I finished my Dog Slobber, the next thing I sampled was their Griz Wizz (are you noting a 'theme' here?). Definitely a different flavor, it was more of a pilsner -- though still a trifle darker.

The last thing (by Montana law, brewpubs must limit customers to 3 beverages per evening; Hanks issues everyone a wristband that they put a mark on each time you make a purchase -- 3 strikes and you're 'out') was their seasonal beer "Oktoberfest": more of a red than brown, it was 6.5% and bloody fucking good. It kinda snuck up on me, though; it was good enough that I really didn't realize how fast I was drinking it until the alcohol started to kick in. I was feeling pretty good and mellow about that time...

Nice thing about Hank's is that they offer what are called 'growlers': a glass jug (with their logo on it) that can be filled for home consumption. Growlers appear to be half-gallon sized, and I'm told that they hold four pints. I don't know if there's any limit on how many growlers can be bought at a time, but I may well find out -- Hank's offers some damn fine brews!

Incomplete voting

That's the end result of my visit to my local polling place this morning.

There were a number of situations where I didn't like any of the choices offered to me on the ballot (most notably the Presidential contest), so I simply declined to vote for any of them. I did, however, cast votes for those offices where the options didn't make me want to hold my nose...

Thinking that the vote-counting machinery (we use fill-in-the-circle ballots) might puke, I carefully penciled in a brief note (in an unused area of the ballot) stating that the blank spots were deliberate.

This whole electoral college, delegates, superdelegates, and assorted flim-flamery undoubtedly made sense back when transportation and communications were slow and unreliable; but in these days of jet aircraft, radios, the Internet, and all the rest... I think it's time we re-thought the whole process with an eye toward updating it to more accurately represent the desires of the people actually casting the votes.

Welcome to Montana

This morning, the 2nd of May 2008, I woke up to the following scene:

Last night, the weather guessers thought that we'd get just a 'trace' of snow here in Billings; off toward the east (Hardin, MT, for example) the prediction was for as much as two feet from the storm. Here is what really happened.

I think Mother Nature needs to lay off the recreational pharmacology...

End of the season

Well, it looks like we're about done with this year's wildfire season: they've finally gotten control over the largest fire in the state of Montana this year: Chippy Creek.

At 99,090 acres (that's just shy of 155 square miles), it was the largest --- but certainly not only --- wildfire of 2007. Shucks, the darn things were even visible from space.

Wildfires like these are simply a fact of nature here in Montana; indeed, they're considered a natural event, and the general approach is only to try and contain them to keep them from destroying life and property, not actually try to put them out.

The only ones that seem to have a problem with this is the folks that move here from somewhere else (most notoriously Californicate), build a house/cabin right on the farookin' edge of the forest (preferably out in the middle of nowhere), and then demand 'city' services like ten-minute response times from volunteer fire departments twenty miles away. The vast majority of these dipsticks would benefit from reading the Code of the West, and re-thinking their options.

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I've lived in several different parts of the country (including Jersey [Hackensack, Westwood, and Bergen]), and always been fascinated by the idiots that move from Place "A" to Place "B", and then immediately try to make the new place like the old one. By way of example, I grew up (in part) in Albuquerque, New Mexico - which is, essentially, part of the desert Southwest. Yet there wasn't any lack of ding-dongs that would move there from places like Ohio, and insist on trying to grow a nice, lush, green lawn in an area that patently didn't naturally support such.

There's an area of Albuquerque just a little north of 'downtown', where the owners have small-acreage properties (suitable for a horse or two, for example). Most of these folks have homes that are appropriate to the history of the area: ranch style, adobe, and the like, done in traditional Southwestern earth tones and pastels. Well, except for the one putz that decided he just had to build a white 3-story Southern plantation style, complete with columns. Needless to say, it stands out like a turd in a punchbowl.

There is a similar situation in Phoenix, Arizona - a city once known for it's dry climate is now facing problems brought about by steadily increasing humidity caused by folks that don't grasp the concept of 'desert'.

Yo! Moorons! If "home" was so much better than "here", how about you go back there, and leave us the hell alone? WE moved here because we like the way it IS NOW, and we consider this "home", now, not where we came from. 'Kay?