Brad 的个人资料Booming Prairie Chicken照片日志列表更多  |  工具 帮助 |
|
5月28日 Welcome to the People's Republic of MinnesotaWelcome to the People's Republic of Minnesota
Just leave your property rights at the border.
Laurie and I are presently at a 'Flying J' truckstop in Sioux Falls. We will be crossing the border back to Minnesota within the hour. We enjoyed our visit to South Dakota but will soon return to a place where property rights are subjective to political whim and the Bill of Rights is still considered eligible for interpretation. Maybe someday people will wake-up to the idea that some of the founding father's ideas were more than simple rhetoric.
We should be home within another three or four hours. Departing DeadwoodDeparting Deadwood
Laurie and I have to leave Deadwood today. We both have to be back to work tomorrow and its about a nine hour drive back to the Twin Cities. The way I figure it we will need to hit the road around 8:00am. We won't make a lot of stops on the way back; probably just our inevitable visit to Walldrug and a couple fueling stops. We always visit Walldrug even if only briefly. There are treasures to be found at Walldrug! This is where we find a lot of the gee-gaws we bring back for people. They also have one of the better bookstores you will find on the Old West tucked away there amidst all the tourist trash.
I'm always a little sad to leave Deadwood. I know that Laurie feels the same way. We make friends here with every visit and find ourselves more comfortable with the area. We did find some valuable information to assist with moving here someday. I imagine some people might think we are a little crazy to be considering moving here but, then again, I think some of these people are crazy to stay where they are at!
I did find more materials to assist in making the game. At this point I think I will be able to start on some of the major construction next weekend. I will have the time and money to do it then. I am also reconsidering some of our vacation planning for July. We usually stay at the Hampton Inn - Four Aces Casino when we are here but the Bullock is such an incredible place! The Bullock has that feel of the historic Deadwood that draws you right into it. Laurie and I even managed to drink some Scotch in the bar last night and really feel the historic atmosphere of the place. It would be nice to stay a few more nights here.
I do want to mention 'Miss T's House of Sweets' while I'm on the topic. Terry Siefert and her family run what has to be the best coffee shop in Deadwood. It's right on Main Street across from the Mineral Palace Casino. This was our major stop for caffeine and cold non-alcoholic beverages.We always make it a purpose to visit there several times while we are in Deadwood. Besides, there are no less than five free Wi-Fi hotspots that overlap this site! 5月27日 Deadwood and BullocksDeadwood and Bullocks
About 7:00am this morning I thought we had a little problem; I woke up and found the hotel had slipped the check-out sheet under our door. I thought we had the room booked through the 28th! Well, I did find out I had screwed-up the booking. It also isn't always easy for Laurie and I to change rooms at the last minute. We do prefer a smoking room and they're not as readily available anymore. It was looking like we might have to make an early departure from Deadwood.
Then we got an inspiration of sorts. Why not check to see if the Bullock Hotel had a smoking room available? We have always talked about staying at the Bullock. This is probably the most famous hotel in Deadwood, original built and owned by the famous lawman himself. It is also allegedly haunted. You really don't want to say it is 'allegedly' haunted to some people; they take the ghost of Seth pretty seriously! The hotel has been featured on the television series 'Unsolved Mysteries' and has been the subject of a number of paranormal investigations. Well, Laurie is more than a little enthused about the whole idea.
Now the only potential, but minor, problem I am seeing is that the Bullock might not have internet access. In this day and age there are still a few places that haven't made the change to the 21st century. Actually this wouldn't bother me for a night. Besides the Bullock is very much like a page out of history and somehow my laptop just wouldn't quite fit in. This doesn't mean I won't shoot more than a few digital pictures!
So far this has been a very fruitful trip. We stopped at the Adam's House Museum yesterday and purchased over $250 worth of books. When you consider that we get a 10% discount with out membership this does mean we got a lot of books! The fact of the matter is that a lot of these are replacing the titles that we have managed to wear out. Still, we did get about ten new items that we have never read before.
We also made our first big purchase towards the Cowboy Action Shooting thing yesterday. The sport or hobby or whatever you want to call it is quite active in this area. One of their big yearly events is now staged in Deadwood. They also have several local groups around Spearfish. Yesterday we found an excellent gunshop that sold us a Norinco reproduction of the venerable Winchester Model 97 pump action shotgun. This weapon was one of the best combat shotguns in history; it not only saw use in the Old West but with the Army and Marines in both the First and Second World Wars. It was also the weapon of choice for law enforcement in the days of prohibition. It was a bit of an investment but now we have it.
Okay, more later today, provided we have internet access... 5月26日 Talking about Poll: More cite hardship from gas prices - Oil & Energy - MSNBC.com
Quote
5月25日 Deadwood Again....Deadwood Again....
Laurie and I are back in Deadwood again. We took of this morning at 5:00am, visited my Mom in Rochester, crossed the South Dakota stateline at 10:45am and made it into Deadwood about 6:00pm Central Time. We didn't make a lot of stops along the way. We are a bit tired but we are here safe and sound. Tomorrow, after a decent nights sleep, I will write more. 5月24日 Tomorrow the Journey begins...Tomorrow the Journey begins...
Tomorrow morning, bright and early, Laurie and I begin our latest journey to Deadwood. On the way we will make an early morning stop at my mom's place but after a short visit there we will start making the trip west! We will make one stop in Sioux Falls at one of the Flying J's there and then at Mitchell (home of the Corn Palace) to visit the Cabellas there. After that we will head straight to Deadwood with a possible stop at the world famous Wall Drug!
The most daunting thing about the current trip has been the high price of gas. The funny thing was I filled the gas tank on Tuesday night thinking that the price would just keep going up as we got closer to the Memorial Day weekend. I paid $3.28 a gallon to fill the tank. Now today the price of gas is actually lower! I passed several stations today that had it for $3.18 a gallon. It will be interesting to see what the prices are like along the interstate and how much traffic there will on a holiday weekend. I don't know that the high price of gas will stop that many people from travelling.
Right now I am putting my new laptop through a thorough testing to see just what it is capable of. One of my big problems on the road and particularly in Deadwood is pulling a good Wi-Fi signal; the hotel we stay at in Deadwood has Wi-Fi but the strength can be very low. Well, right now I'm sitting in my favorite Caribou Coffee in Inver Grove Heights and I can pull a decent Wi-Fi signal from the Dunn Brothers Coffeeshop a quarter mile away! I don't think this thing will have any problem.
I have also discovered some other nifty technology that is going to make these roadtrips even easier. Western Digital, a company I put a huge amount of faith in, has these nifty little 120 gig portable drives that can fit in your pocket. These gadgets are also powered through their USB links and come with a fairly interesting item of back-up software. The only drawback to them is the slower drive speed of 5400 RPM but for $129.00 these are a bargain. I can still remember about ten years ago when a gig internal drive was easily a thousand dollars! Now you can get it for about a dollar a gig. These two little wonders fit right in my computer bag and will save a lot of valuable space in the swag box.
I have quite the shopping list for this trip. I will be picking up some backup copies of various books on the history of Deadwood. I am also keeping my eyes open for some new titles; there are a number of books I am actively looking for and they might just show up in Deadwood.
My best current estimate is that we will arrive in Deadwood no later than 6:00pm tomorrow night. 5月20日 Talking about 3 dead in Idaho shooting spree - Crime & Punishment - MSNBC.com
Quote
5月19日 The Making of a RadicalThe Making of a Radical
I never intended on making the Booming Prairie Chicken a political blog. I still don't plan on making it a political blog. The fact of the matter is that there are tens of thousands of political blogs online right now. You're no farther than a few clicks from a thousand blogs on any and every topic under the sun; the World Wide Web is an incredible medium for political expression and discussion.
Here is the thing, and it is not a pretty thing, there are forces at work to silence certain voices in the discussion of politics. Of course this is all a matter of perception; there are some people who earnestly believe they have the right to talk over others. There are some people who believe the freedom of speech only applies to so-called 'politically correct' rhetoric. They may not have the legal power - yet - to prevent open discussion but they are working avidly with every other means of suppression they have available to them.
Now I'm just as concerned about the future of the United States of America as most Americans. I see a lot of problems facing our generation and every generation to come. I've got a two year old grand-daughter and I often wonder about the world she will inherit from us. She is just learning to talk now but in twenty years will she be allowed to speak her mind? I also wonder if we will still be the nation of relative freedom we are today or if we will surrender our rights in the name of a questionable greater good?
I'm no fan of the any of the political parties in office currently. I don't like the present administration all that much but I don't like their opposition either. Every day I see them fighting their political turf wars and not actually doing anything about the problems we face. The biggest thing that bugs me though is how many of them work to silence or discount valid ideas about solving the problems we face!
I never really got to know my dad very well when I was growing up. He wasn't around the house much. I really don't blame him for this; he worked for a living and work essentially means a commitment of time. What I have come to know now, almost twenty years after his death, is that he was an original thinker. He had a unique way of approaching problems and solving them. This was one of the reasons his employer kept him so damn busy. Now I remember some of the things he said to me and I see what he was saying a lot more clearly. He told me that if a person dares to think outside the conformed view of the world they risk attack. Most of the world prefers the comfort of their learned perception of things. If a person challenges the idea of what is 'right' or 'correct' they take terrible risks.The sad fact of the matter is a lot of brilliant people are looked on as fruitcakes at the time of their most incredible discoveries. The real question is whether they have the strength and courage to express their ideas in the face of opposition?
All it takes to be branded a radical is to have a radical idea and then publicly express it. The strength of an idea only gets tested when it is put forth for public debate. Sometimes, if an idea has a lot of inherent strength people who oppose the idea won't even debate the merits of the idea. It will be easier for them to ridicule the idea or fall back on the conformist dogma. They will brand the idea as dangerous, as being 'radical. This is the interesting thing about becoming a radical; you can not name yourself as being a radical and have it mean anything. You are only really a radical when detractors brand you with the title.
Well, I am getting fed up with the way things are going. I am tired of the lack of original ideas in confronting the problems ahead of us. This blog will still be what it is but you might see me expressing a few ideas. I'll admit outright that not all of these ideas are my own. I'll give credit to others where and when credit is due. It just seems like a time and place to start taking a stand on a few things. 5月18日 Deadwood RunDeadwood Run Coming Soon!
It is decided. Laurie and I will be making a run to Deadwood in another week. The reservations are set and the plans are in place. I'm not happy about the recent spikes in gas prices but the budget can still support the trip - even if we hit $4.00 a gallon. This will only be a run over the long holiday weekend but we both need the break. It will also be a chance to check out some things.
Laurie and I are seriously thinking of getting involved in the SASS or NCOWS. Yes, we want to join those happy groups of historical reenactors of the 'Old West'. They are now holding one of their larger events right in Deadwood! We will be checking out their activities in the Dakotas. We also have a small shopping list of items we need to pick up.
Don't worry, I haven't given up on the game. Things have just been busy with my stepson and his family moving to Minnesota. I am confident things will be back on track shortly. I finally got the game mat from HotzArts this last week and the plans to construct the town have been moving ahead. I might end up letting Kinkos do the actual printing. These PDF files buildings are incredible in some ways but they eat ink. It would be less costly to let a place like Kinkos do the printing and then haul the prints home for construction.
On a bright note I did pick up a new laptop last weekend. This thing is amazing! Another Toshiba with Dual-Core Processors, 2 Gig of DDR, a 200 Gig 7200 HD and enough gadgets to keep my geekiness happy for weeks! It also can more readily handle all my various projects including the game. I'll definitely write more on this over the coming weekend! 5月12日 Technology is a Wonderful ThingTechnology is a Wonderful Thing
There is a saying that there is a time and place for everything; a time to live, a time to die. This is also the case with technology. My old laptop, the one I've hauled from one end of the United States to the other, was starting to show it's age. Five years is a lifetime for most laptop computers. Most laptops start to slide toward the scrap pile literally from the minute they leave the assembly line. It doesn't matter how sophisticated or well-built they are; technology will race past them with a merciless inevitability.
Now my old Toshiba was showing its age. It would take almost ten minutes to boot even with a fresh defrag and minimal load requirement. I had to load a PCI card for good wireless access and the Ethernet port was shot a long time ago. The sixty gig drive just wasn't cutting it anymore. When I first bought that it was the largest drive then available for a laptop. It had 512 Megs of DDR RAM and I thought that should be enough considering how Microsoft tended to understate the real RAM requirements of their operating systems. The only thing that really helped extend the life of my old laptop was that it had three USB ports. Thank god for USB in this age of new gadgets and growing storage demands!
I also saw that with everything Laurie and I are planning we would not only need a more robust laptop but we should embrace Microsofts newest operating system 'Vista'. I was one of the unfortunate victims of their 'Millenium' operating system. Now Microsoft speaks of 'Millenium' almost like some bastard child disowned from the family but never quite gone. When I meet some pathetic fool who still has 'Millenium' installed I write them off as victims of a madness now banished to the pages of technological history. Yes, I still have an original 'Millenium' disc locked away in a dark drawer in my office. Whenever I need to remember the grim darkness of a technological nightmare I open that drawer and all the hideous ghosts of those days come screaming back to me. I know what evil Microsoft can spawn.
My new laptop came loaded with 'Vista'. I was very impressed with the numbers on this new machine; 200 gig 5400 spin drive, dual Intel processors, two gig on DDR Ram and enough gadgets to preoccupy me for months. Then you have 'Vista', the jury is still out on 'Vista'. I have my XP discs ready for a rapid install if things should get ugly. I know how rapidly a Microsoft OS can turn on you; I have seen how a computer can go from being like a loyal pet dog to a rabid frothing-at-the-mouth Hellhound seeking to rip your soul asunder. I have deliberately loaded software on the laptop to test the compatibility and tolerances of 'Vista' and, so far, it has accepted them without so much as a single error message.
I do see promise in the new Toshiba. So far it has not disappointed me.
5月7日 Chaos and PandemoniumChaos and Pandemonium!
For those of you who have been wondering I am fine. I'm back online and control is gradually being restored in my world. The various projects in my life will be up and running again shortly. Look for a new update on the blog next weekend. |
|
|
