Brian Martin

I hope they're able to expand the investigation over the entire US.

I can almost hear and smell this image. I recognize many of the PNW spots you post and you certainly have a talent for getting pics that bring the viewer right there vs "look at where I was" pics if that makes any sense.

I was about to give-in and have a vending machine lunch, but I've suddenly lost my appetite.

Support for just about anything seems to steeply fall beyond the bumper sticker level.

A lot of overlap among both crowds. An envirosci prof I had in '00 that had been very involved in the events in WA and OR shocked me at how vicious his comments about her were. Anytime a movement forms around calling attn to something, assholes like that professor need to make it about themselves.

That Julia Butterfly Hill caught more flack from w/in the movement than from outside, says something of some of the personalities involved at the time as well.

My take...it was a combination of seemingly robust protections being enacted and that many of the destructive occasions of interference were more often "normal" vandalism than any kind of organized campaign.

That leaves the question of did he lose the work to someone else or did the administration jump into this without thinking that far ahead?

Making a game of driving out some of the most senior technical experts seems like the kind of thing that would create a vacuum for contractors to fill.

A crow facing the sun on a weathered shake roof. One leg raised and poised in a manner reminiscent of dressage. The background is out of focus moss covered branches.

I can't be convinced that this crow isn't practicing dressage movements.

I imagine stickers/signs like that are about to get much more common

In hindsight, not to excuse it but I kind of miss the 'its exactly who you'd expect' part of living in Monroe. I don't know exactly when the shift happened, but Duvall seems to have an unsettling large number of people that somehow are both anti-MAGA while still sounding like Yarvin.

Seems like a lot of MAGAs in the area were quick to hide the signs/flags/hats last year, but the subtle clues remain.

I was one of the people that doubted how much Sinclair ownership could change KOMO, now I can't recall the last time I watched a KOMO news broadcast. Looks like KING is a Tegna station so I can clearly imagine how that is going to go.

For at least a couple of elections, I think Kim Wyman was the only Republican I had voted for and was also the last. It almost feels like the WA GOP just wants to raise money w/o having to do the work that's supposed to follow getting elected.

I read "portal" as "poodle" several times before I caught my mistake, but that cloud...it kind of fits.

I don't know about the shells in particular, but I can say with certainty that incompetence is behind a significant portion of similar delays.

I've done a bit w/Meshtastic, but haven't taken the time yet w/Meshcore. Overall I'm impressed and it fits multiple use-cases. Depending on the settings can be quite a challenge to fox-hunt with typical ham methods as well which kind of reinvigorated that element of the hobby for me.

Those maples should help keep it from becoming a heron feeder 😉

From the trajectory we were on, that night, I couldn't have imagined today.

Thank you! I enjoy watching them too, they seem do everything with so much intensity.

"Covered in layers of sand" is in part due to days like this. No, sand is not supposed to be pouring from there.

A crow with its wings spread in flight carrying something in its beak. An out of focus hillside is in the background.

A squirrel on a tree branch with its front feet holding the red fruit its eating.

Mealtime! A crow and the same squirrel from last weekend.

One of the most unsettling clicks I've heard was the firing pin strike in an empty chamber of a Remington Model 11 when the butt (rather gently) hit the ground.

And this evening

A bit more

Needed some distraction this morning

Thank you, really! It only occurred to me much later after I asked that I should have scrolled through your page to check for recommendations so you wouldn't go through the trouble. I'll check with my local bookstore next week!

Do any others stand out as suggestions? Most of my current to-read stack is more horror, dystopic, even some of the more historically focused have too many parallels to some current events that I could use some brief escapes from each day.