It is very trying, this business of keeping up a blog.  The last post that went out did so with the omission of an entire paragraph, which is why it made no sense. Somewhere between the last edit and the “publish” button it become folded into a time warp — that’s the best I can offer. I won’t bother revisiting it.

Still more to come.

All For Now — KB

A woman exhibiting exceptional posture, wearing what I’m told by those whose mission it is to impart such information was a type footwear referred to as “flats”, and attired in a longish white smock of the sort which, together with the stethoscope draped over her neck, indicated she shared some portion of the gravy that flows from the paychecks of hardworking blue collar drones into the coffers of various and sundry health insurance agencies’ bank vaults, miniscule portions of which begrudgingly trickle their way back to her, her colleagues, and the failing health care industry, was spied traversing the parking lot of the so-called “Natchez Mall” this past Friday, towing behind her a number of young people of varying heights, weights and outrageously multi-colored habiliments of a less than complimentary nature; not the range of colors, say, which one might consider when rendering, by instructions offered in a gilded invitation, the general “theme” of a pre-schooler’s birthday party—in that method best meant to attract as much attention among as many gift bearing young friends of the given celebrant as is humanly possible; an invitation—perhaps more pointedly—to those mothers and not a few house-husbands of “the proper standing” who, under the rubric of success, would soon discover, about the hostess-of-the-party, much coveted space in our local society magazine, “Bluffs&Bayous”, where, on at least one occasion I have enjoyed the privilege of having published a short story, in serial components, the subject of which involved kayaking, meatloaf, tattooed grandmothers wearing tube-tops, and a certain threatened character named Big Daddy who, having fed with great flourish upon a platter of double-beer-battered, butterfly fried shrimp, found himself, at a high point in the story, in a state of asphyxia, a decapodious crustacean lodged in his throat, and the fleeting conviction that his future was quite uncertain.

To get to this point in today’s exposition required 305 words; a mere grain of salt among the required 50,000 words demanded of writers for consideration as a WINNING contestant in the recently held NaNoWriMo; that thirty day dash from inception to completion as a contestant in the National Novel Writers’ Month competition, at the end of which, if completed, one has the opportunity to have a bound volume of their work printed, and the chance to have it offered for sale on Amazon.com, presumably in electronic download.

What does any of this have to do with the Phatwater, or KayakMississippi? Not a damn thing. It’s just meant to let you all know that you can never expect what can be expected. Case in point:

Today’s level on the Phatwater is a seasonally high

 36.88′

thirteen and a half feet above this date a year ago. Or, eleven feet, give or take, below flood stage, with more coming.

Wanted to mention, for those of you interested in the coming season, the Arkansas River Race, in Little Rock, will be held June 2nd, 2012, assuming water conditions are favorable. Race director, Phil Capel, is in need of volunteers and requests suggestions. He may be reached: capelph@sbcglobal.net

Phil is also a Stellar Surfski dealer for anyone interested.

All For Now—KB

It’s noon-thirty on this Thanksgiving Day and the Phatwater on the Natchez gage is currently at:

 24.68′

about eight feet above a year ago, and a good four foot higher than it was during our latest outing. Ordinarily I would have said, “four feet higher”, but today I was feeling kind’a country.

I’m also already feeling beersty though am fighting the fine art of imbibing despite the years of practice I’ve undertaken on behalf of not only this nation’s brewmasters but as well those of all continents save Antarctica, as, at the South Pole, there exists no micro-tap, or, if in the face of confidentiality there does, it simply hasn’t yet been publicly disclosed, exports are still an opportunity to be realized, though this poses no real issue since their long term refrigeration for the duration can be reasonably assured.

Here’s something to consider:

http://playak.com/news.php?idd=1652440833730

I’m anxious to give one of these babies a spin. I’m paddling in the same PFD I wore on the Middle Fork of the Salmon in 1999. It has served me well, and will be kept in the stable, but I’m due for an upgrade.

For our cheese cutting Wisconsamsonites, it can be expected that much belly patting and belching are part of the current chorus, as the Srekcap surge against the Snoil. For my part, some of you will recall my rant involving the Logo of the Miami Dolphins from a few years ago. I don’t really remember what I said at the time, but I think, apart from the ridiculous anatomical appurtenance of a football helmet suspended over the blow hole of said Miami Dolphin mascot, the two worst logos in all the NFL are battling it out on Ford Field as this is being typed, although Jets and the Giants are hot on their heels.

Feedback? Bring it on!

All For Now—KB

In the coming weeks we plan to reconfigure this here web site in such a way as to allow greater flexibility and ease of editing. Ease of editing, or “Edit Ease” is not to be confused with “Ed — At ease!” or “Etta tease”.

Across the Phatwater, over yonder in Vidalia, Loozy-ana, there is a cigarette & smokeless tobacco, chicken-on-a-stick, boudin, fried cracklin, Liquor, Beer and over-the-counter-condom Emporium that sells lotto tickets to Pentecostal Ministers known as “Papa T’s”. I don’t think “Papa T’s” carries quite the same weight as “Pop-A-Ts” — a casual reference to the ubiquitous Ring Pull Tabs of many of our youth.

Let us pause for a moment and take a look at that last one. Many of youse will think I am in error — will think, in fact, I am wrong! Will think it should be “Many of Our Youths”, as opposed to “Many of Our Youth”. But as I see it, throughout the long and boulder strewn passage of life we are in possession of but one personal youth; however fleeting it may be, though it is true You and many other youths are the stuff of many a youth’s youth. Ever confusing is our idiom.

So, why the changes? Well, as best as I can explain it, our old web site has “conflicting architecture”.

That is, we have an “old house”, in terms of our web design, which worked fine at the time it was built, but new building codes (in this case internet servers) require that the windows of the old house be upgraded.  Here’s an illustration:

There have been ongoing problems, some of which some of you may have noticed. Those of you who’ve not noticed are not to be chided for inattentiveness or dismissed for taking perhaps an intentionally shallow, vague, or dim view of our proceedings. You probably just don’t give a damn, much in the way I just don’t give a damn or have time for language such as: “Trackbacks are a way to notify legacy blog systems that you’ve linked to them,

or,

“Pingbacks were designed to solve some of the problems that people saw with trackbacks. The official pingback documentation makes pingbacks sound an awful lot like trackbacks,”

or, worse still,

“Using metadata, it is possible to create customizable tags for markup languages such as XML and SGML,”

This kind of doublespeak has made lawyers and klipspringers rich; “klipspringers”, in this case, in no way referencing those diminutive rock hoppers of the lowveld,  but instead used as a pejorative for that vast group of devious minds who make their way writing computational “code”, though who at the same time have no Earthly idea how to communicate with it, or through it in order that the rest of us can understand it.

As to lawyers, well. Someone once asked me, “Keith-o, why did you never consider law school?”

My sentiment could best be summed up in a line from a novel I once wrote, which had about as much chance for success as a Baptist wine tasting. About lawyers, my character offered, “I wanted to be a lawyer like a pig wants to be bacon.”

I’m a simpleton, okay? I don’t need a remote control for my mattress. I don’t have kids because I don’t seek litigation. If I was told to walk the plank, it would seem only reasonable to me that I traverse it toward the ship to which it was attached, and not in the other direction.  Hey, call me a non-conformist, please! When I stumble across insights such as the above, I exercise initiative and skip right past the rapturous ambiguities in search of something more provocative which might just turn a profit.

That is to say, in the coming weeks, those half-dozens of you who are not ignoring us outright may notice changes which will not necessarily be permanent, but which will continue to evolve, visually, until we get to some point of common ground. Think of this transition as you might of a man, or woman, living on a resource scarce island in relative comfort, though with the realization that the food and water may be coming to an end, then seizing the opportunity to gain a toehold on another distant, resource rich island just over the horizon. Finally there comes the day, at last, when it is time to set out blindly, to swim to this distant shore, perhaps during the middle of the night; perhaps with the added realization that storms may well be brewing in the path of the swimmer before that distant shore can be reached.

I don’t know about you, but this image I can conjure far more easily than that of trackbacks, pingbacks or metadata.  Metadata, incidentally, is defined by at least one source as: “data about data”.

Data about data. Sounds strikingly similar to the ping-pong tournament of ideas being volleyed back and forth down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Panic not! We are far more progress oriented than Congress. As Ty Webb once offered, “Be the ball, Danny.  Be the ball. . . ”

Phatwater today is at:

20.71′

up from a year ago about 3.25′.

All For Now — KB

20.16′

is the current reading on the Phatwater at the Natchez gage, on this fine Friday morning; our first morning at 32° for the season. We’re three and a half feet above this frosty morning of a year ago, ♬Look Away♬,  though the day promises 73° by this afternoon, with 77° in the forecast for Saturday. Provided the winds aren’t severe, it should be an excellent weekend for paddling anywhere in our area. We may strike out for parts unknown if I decide to enlist irresponsibility as my co-conspirator for the weekend, eschewing the completion of neglected housebound tasks, or that even stronger desire to delve once more into the world of fiction, and its promise of great riches and fame; equal ingredients in the simmering stew of that sort of world for which my general disposition is entirely unsuited. That is not to say that I am a cave dweller, or should be, though it is also not to say that were I bound by such habitation, I would spend my idle moments collecting the bones of past conquests and tidying my environment in preference to setting out for yet another thrust of the spear.

I feel some sort of profundity being kicked about in that otherwise hollow closet that holds my brain in place and my ears medially mounted, having to do with fund raising for next year. In February we will meet with REI of Houston, in an effort to access their largess. We’ve also plans to move a large trailer of west coast boats to Phatwater XI; that their arrival will be the inspiration for the gilded-haired surf riders to catch a flight. Efforts to establish an adaptive paddling program for the Wounded Warrior Project are underway. It’s a slow process, but hopefully in developing this incentive, we can attract the troves of numerous prosthetics purveyors, and get some major scratch for next year.  Our prize money, for next year, will more than double to $10,000, CONTINGENT UPON TURNOUT! We hope to announce hard numbers by the end of June.

I did want to mention this:  Melissa Maedgen, Women’s solo 1st Place for Phatwater X, returned 80% of her winnings to the Phatwater as a donation to be split between the Natchez Adams County Humane Society, and KayakMississippi.com.  What can I say? This was unexpected, and blew us away.  Thank you, Melissa! Can’t wait to see you next year.

Reports from Timothy Gibson, of Pensacola, bode well for Stand Up Paddleboarders for next year.  Our first female paddleboarder, from Pensacola, has entered a year-long training session. Now if we can just get Phatwater supporter Dr. Randy Tillman to dust off his SUP and get that six-pack-abs thing going . . .

All For Now—KB

Phatwater on the Natchez gage today is at present,

19.51′ although it was 19.45′

and flatlining when I originally wrote this. No sooner had I completed this post than my Internet Service Provider decided I had been provided with enough Internet Service for the time at hand and subsequently quit providing service until moments ago.

I added that ‘flatlining’ thing because conditions have been rather calm of late, but also because I liked the idea of introducing a little medical drama into today’s post as we page through the several catastrophic disturbances occurring in other parts of the world.

Yesterday evening I was attuned to Fresh Air, with Terry Gross, and for once I took her position on a topic. Not that Terry and I are at loggerheads on most other issues. My conservative friends reading this will groan and bend their teeth to learn that I would even bother wasting my time listening to someone so skewed in their thinking as Terry Gross, while my liberal friends will scoff at the notion that anyone so bellicose and militaristic as I could ever discern the true crux of such high minded initiatives as those being advanced by so cerebral a broadcast as Fresh Air. “Of course nothing that comes from Fox News can be taken seriously . . . ”  Well, if this is true, then why does Rachel Maddow’s nose keep getting longer?

But, I’ve escaped my objective. So Terry, yesterday, was interviewing this interesting fellow on the topic of Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, and how they are essentially taking over the world, which is good because somebody should take over the world while there’s still a chance to get all the above ground powerlines in the Northeast grid buried, so the Weather Channel can adjust its present focus.

Beyond the discussion of world dominance, the conversation next moved to a subject near and dear to my heart — Email Etiquette. Terry and host went around and around for a bit, but then landed on this: “In typography, before there were typewriters, when people manually set type, the long time tradition was to use one space after a period. The reason two spaces were put into place was because of the manual typewriter.” The guest went on to explain that monospace fonts, in typography, did not work quite as well for typewriters as proportional fonts, wherein a “w” for example, would take up more width space on the typewriter keys than an “i”, and in order to make typewritten text more readable, the double space after a period was added as a standard rule for typing. But now that we’ve gone back to monospaced type keys, on modern computer keyboards, there no longer exists the need for the double space following a period. A tough habit to break, according to Terry Gross, who apparently was taught to type by the same set of standards as I, and for this I agree with her. Still, though the double space dictum is taught no more, it remains for those of us who were taught it an unbroken habit as we continue to struggle to comprehend the velocity of the modern world, and the resulting “new way” of doing things, and the wholesale acceptance of  the absurd, such as why the world has eschewed paper milk cartons for plastic ones, and cloth diapers for paper ones, lined with plastic?

I suppose a case could be made, amid the ongoing, other world catastrophes, for avoiding the danger of safety pin pricks, for surely there must result from such an inopportune malady some phobic reaction among legions of mothers, nannies, and au pairs who, having once stabbed themselves, or their young charges, must thereafter face a lifetime of costly therapy, resulting from the incident, in order to overcome the guilt and/or trauma suffered.

But then, what if we discover, somewhere down the line, the glue on disposable diaper closures is carcinogenic? Or, worse still, find that its technology was developed by an employee of  Google who claims his/her discovery took place in his/her basement or backyard extracurricular work center, and that he/she was cheated out of copyright by an overzealous managerial corporate nazi and was thereby robbed not only of his/her personal genius but the potential royalties resulting therefrom, having been crushed by the weight and threatening financial ruination to be visited upon him/her in the lengthy litigation to follow?  Google, in the meantime, if you can believe those whose job it has become to Occupy, would undoubtedly find some mechanism allowing them to to circumvent the applicable legal channels by trading the technology to Apple in an ensuing stock split with Amazon, while signing up a billion “likes” on Facebook? Oh, the grief that lies upon our distant horizons. Woe is I. Woe am I?

All For Now—KB

I can’t think of anything to say today so this post will largely involve things I won’t be saying.

I will say this: The local weather is and continues to be quite inviting; although, I am gleeful for those of you who live in parts of the country where this time of year you are invited to commune with personal snow removal devices while siphoning away precious, dwindling fossil fuel reserves in a fashion that allows you to “get outside and get some exercise”.

I have never operated such a device. I’m sure there must be some preferred technique. I’m sure there must be those who profess expertise in the proper form associated with “snow blowing”. Perhaps there are short courses in snow blowing, given by local community colleges. The “art and science of winter driveway clearing”, featuring former NFL Green Bay Packer Preston Ovaldsen, Wausau Polytechnic College.

I have operated a snow shovel. As with a paddle, it has but one moving part. I was reasonably proficient with it, although I never took a course, nor was I ever coached in the proper technique. This was back in the Nineties, when I lived in Colorado, where the snow, they tell me, isn’t the same as the snow in Wausau, where I’ve never been, though some day hope to visit.

If I do visit, it will not be during the snow blowing season. It will be during the twelve days of summer, when the only two-cycle noise I would expect to encounter would be that of a weedeater; when all the previous winter’s snow has turned to slush, and the slush has turned to runoff, and the many veins of brooks and creeks and rivulets have sent their bounty south, so that the cycle may be repeated and the Mariana Trench, once again, will be visited, from time to time, by molecules once dripped from a thawing stalactite of ice; a Stalactice, pulled back to the Earth one drop at a time, during the waning 24 hours of what’s come to be known as the Wisconsin spring.

Phatwater on the Natchez gage, today, is:

19.55′

about a buck and a half below this date last year.

All For Now — KB

At

19.37′

the Phatwater on the Natchez gage, today, is exactly what it was a year ago on this date.

Here lies an example of why results have to be adjusted, constantly, days, weeks, even months after the Phatwater.

In an effort to find out who the winners of certain giveaways were, I began scrolling through the photos we have to match people with photographic evidence.  Here is the winner of this year’s Epic Wing, but I do not know who she is and would like one of you, perhaps the actual winner, to identify her, s’il vous plait.

Never mind the guy on the right. We have his test scores and know his application to Mensa has and will continue to be denied. Left you say? Well, not from where he’s standing.  See?  This is just one of the communications SNAFUs we are forced to deal with as a matter of routine.

So anyway, I went casting for evidence and came up with this:

Although the paddle shirt and certain other features match with the above, I don’t believe them to be the same person, but more to the point, you will notice in the second photograph the boat # is absent.  From our point of view, the bib number is probably 75, although from the point of view of the timekeeper/scorer’s table, they as likely as not could not see the bib number, and in the absence of the boat number, for confirmation, they were unable at the time to fasten a time tattoo to the individual paddler.  So . . . in the future . . .

We’ll get a time recorded, eventually, but guys, try to help us out by complying with things like boat number placement. In many cases it’s all we have to go by. And it makes recess much more enjoyable.

All For Now-KB

Millions of people have asked me, “How do you know millions of people have asked you something?” Well . . . there you have it.

The Phatwater on the Natchez gage, today, is dancing around, about four and a half feet below last year’s stage on this date at:

 16.92′

The weather, by my definition, is mild.Those organisms inhabiting the Mariana Trench, however, may take exception to my view.

Those of you who are sticklers for accuracy may also take exception to my reference Mariana, insisting that it should be properly recorded as Marianas. This point is open to debate since the trench was so named after the Mariana Islands, at the bottom of which it is situated, though the Mariana Islands were originally referred to by the Spanish, who claimed them in 1668, as Las Marianas, in honor of their queen. The Spanish did not name the trench, however, for the trench was not ‘discovered’, which is to say described by sounding as the deepest point of the Earth, for another 200 years.

I mention all of this, for those of you who are terminally bored, because no matter what else you may believe, believe this. The depth of the Pacific Ocean, at Challenger Deep, which is what the scientific geographic community continues to debate as being the absolute deepest point on Earth, has, nevertheless, a direct effect on the depth, velocity and temperature of the Phatwater, thus giving rise to my assertion that if living organisms can be found at Challenger Deep, and they have been, then the Zeuglodon can and does most certainly live, and can therefore be expected, some day, to be seen breaching the waters between Grand Gulf and Natchez. These things just take a little time. So, stay tuned.

All For Now — KB

Today the Phatwater on the Natchez gage is reading:

16.7′,

five and a quarter feet below this date a year ago. Al Roker is on the Weather Channel, speaking with another superdome in Turkey about the recent “Turkey Earthquake”. I know this because I frequently post to the blog while in the aura of the Weather Channel, though I do so with the volume squelched. I’m trying to learn to read lips ahead of my class because the time will come when my ears will have heard all they care to hear. So all I can really tell you about what Al has to say this morning would probably go to what he has to say, off mike, about whomever was responsible for choosing his uniform of the day.  He’s got on some sort of pea-soup colored sport coat, behind which struggles the conflict of a dreadfully mismatched blue-and-white striped shirt and an equally egregious aqua colored tie. The slacks are probably navy, although they could be anthracite, which is the manner in which L.L. Bean would choose to label them since calling them black would register in a negative way with the people whose job it is to inform us that fashion exists to be sexy, dynamic, and at the cutting edge of all that is the story of American success, alternately known to those on the far left as ‘gross consumerism’. Seven billion and counting baby— you better grab it while you can.

There’s some sort of green and yellow kerchief in Al’s breast pocket. The other guy, over in Turkey, is wearing a much more stylish purple pullover with a white ribbed collar which sets off his bald pate in a rather princely way. It is doubtful the guy in Turkey has the funding for a wardrobe specialist, although it is not entirely out of the realm of the possible, knowing, as we do in America, that all things are possible if we just put our minds and hands to work; the one rare exception perhaps being reconstituting the shavings from a pencil sharpener back into the original pencil, though at the same time realizing that few of us use pencils anymore, so the, ah, pencil point point is therefore moot.

As to lip reading, this begs the question: Do dogs read our lips? Do dogs hear our accents? Do Turkish dogs hear Turkish accents when reading Al Roker’s lips, or do they, never before having heard Americans speak, imagine what an American accent sounds like, based on Turkish standup comedians parodying American speak? There’s simply so much to ponder, so much to consider in one lifetime. How might we ever be expected to get it right?

Hopefully this will be a provocative enough discharge to find swords of the literary kind being drawn either to defend or assail me.  I should expect to hear from Schmool, as well as Palmetto Junction, former jet jock, who recently announced his own demise; the result of an overindulgence of our seasonal candy cornography, about which he appears to know much.

I haven’t yet figured out how he wrote his own obit, posthumously, but as I said in the above, in America, all things are possible, with or without pencils.

But the real thrust of today’s missive was to return to last week’s Abarnostradamus.  It is by decree, for Phatwater XI, coming your way next October 13th, that we shall have before us, on the event of the awards, one of Signore Abarno’s original creations. The guy is getting rich with these things, though as I said earlier, although he is still with us, he won’t be forever, so it is my mission to pique his talents for the XIth Annual Phatwater Kayak Challenge, by having him sculpt an Abarno Kayak Mississippi original.  He has a year, minus, to perform his art on our behalf, and among the three-hundred millions of Americans and countless billions of non-Americans who pass up the opportunity to read this blog, I know he is harbored with the faithful seven who can routinely be counted upon to waste their time doing so, so let this serve as his commission, from which he shall neither tarry nor stray.

It will come with a cost, of course. What better mission am I to have than to work tirelessly to promote the fortunes of others?  So pony up, those of you who wish to fund his inspiration. We’ll need to pay him a modest fee.

Send in your laundry day pocket change, or open a lemonade stand, or sell your tresses to a maker of wigs.  Let’s get this effort underway. The man needs a new red cap. And a pencil.

All For Now — KB