Is it just me?

Is it just me or have even the most simple of tasks become incredibly complex and frustrating? For instance; I was at the Bass Pro Shop cashing in a gift certificate, actually it was a prize gift certificate that my fishing pardner Arnold and I had won while at a bass fishing tournament last spring. I know, hard to believe that Arnold and I could win anything while we were so busy just trying to stay alive on the lake, but that's another story.

Anyway, I'm checking out the aisles when I see a nifty rain suit with the label Frogg Toggs. Arnold has one and I had admired the quality: water proof, breathable, and light weight. I find my size, check out with my certificate, and drive 25 miles home where I discover that the jacket and pants are of different sizes. I may have put on a few pounds but XXL is way, way, TOO big.

Next day I grumpily drive 25 miles back for the exchange. I find the same color on the rack, a snazzy sky blue, and head for the returns counter, making absolutely sure I have matching sizes. I notice a scowl on the clerk's face. "These are different prices," she says. "This one is ten dollars cheaper than the original suit you bought."

I"m as puzzled as she is, then it hit's me. "Let me take a look." Aha, it's the same brand, same color jacket and pants, but the pants are not of the bib variety. To me, bibs on rain paints are essential. If you've ever been in a driving rain storm, on the lake, with Arnold, and you bend over to keep the rain from hitting you in the face, you will find that without the bib, the water runs off your back and down the crack of your... well, let's say pants.

Another trip down the aisle. See, what I mean? Complications. Nothing's easy anymore. And to top it all off, no sky blue in my size with a bib. But I did find a brown one and that's okay, maybe even better. This one matches my eyes.

This is a rant. This is not a drill.

Rant alert. This is a rant alert. This is not a drill.

The longer I watched the National Geographic program on Tue. night concerning oil exploration in America and the continued desire of the oil companies to drill on the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, the angrier I became. While it's true that I, nor many Americans, will ever have the opportunity to visit that refuge, I strongly believe in it's preservation.

Consider this: The native residents of that particular land took a poll, asking whether they should vote to allow exploration. Even though each and every one of them would become rich by allowing access, the poll showed they wanted to bar the oil companies and preserve the land of their ancestors and for their children.

Yes, we need oil. We always will. Wind farms and solar energy help and should be developed but we will always need oil to preserve our present way of life. Oil is used for billions, yes billions, of the products we use everyday. One set of tires for our cars needs 22 gallons of oil to produce.

The U.S. uses 20 million barrels of oil daily. We produce less than half that. Will ANWR fill the gap? No! ANWR comprises only 5% of Alaska's North Slope. The Prudhoe Bay pipeline is now pumping less than 1/3 of the original flow. Alaska's entire oil production is 1/2 what it was ten years ago. It has been estimated that ANWR would supply the petroleum needs of the U.S. for less than six months. Do we really want to damage this pristine wilderness for such a drop in the oil bucket? Remember, it's believed that offshore Alaska contains as much oil as half of the entire lower 48. So should we rape ANWR so that that some oil company CEO's can buy a new yacht? Because that's all we, the common people, will see from it. If you believe the price of a gallon of gas will drop due to wells drilled in the middle of the caribou migraton path, I got some beach area in Arizona I'd like to sell you.

It's not only caribou, the polar bear is slowly losing it's habitat as well due to ice melt. Twenty percent of the ground there is frozen tundra that is slowly melting and releasing CO2 into the air. One third of Earth's carbon is frozen in the ground. This carbon will, sooner or later, be released into the atmosphere, exacerbating the problem unless something unforeseen happens.

Oh no, Senator Inhofe, there is no climate change. It's all a hoax by the scientists just as you claim. As Forest Gump might say, I'm not a smart man Jenny, but when I see that in the 1850's, Glacier N.P. had over 150 glaciers and only 26 today and expected to disappear completely by 2030, I say hmm, something must be going on. When I take a tour of Glacier Bay and see photos taken by early explorers such as John Muir and see how the edges of those glaciers have drastically retreated by miles and miles, I say why? There has to be a reason. Granted, some of it may be cyclic but surely, some is due to the atmosphere where we dump tons and tons of contaminants every day. Whatever the cause, to deny that nothing is happening, to say that it's a hoax, to me, borders on dementia.

So go ahead, Sen. Inhofe, keep on airing those folksy campaign commercials where you walk through the fields of Oklahoma in your shiny new denim work shirt as America The Beautiful plays in the background, tell us once again how you are right and the best scientific minds of America are full of crap. The truly pathetic part is, you'll win the election in another landslide just as you always do.

Me? I'm voting for the bears.

I gotta get out of this place

Cool temps, sunshine. no gale force winds, can this be Oklahoma? One of the finest seasons of the year for us Okies has arrived! I gotta get out, somewhere, and take some photos, burn some pixels. I'm filled with guilt and ashamed, ashamed I tell you, to be sitting here in front of some damn computer screen at the absolute best season possible. Chilly mornings, almost jacket weather, with warm afternoons, and fluffy clouds. Some some call it call it bluebird weather, a perfect description.

But where do i go? Yes, there are parts of OK I've never seen, a very few. But I'm looking for majestic, sweeping vistas of color, mountains, clear streams flowing over lichen covered granite boulders, large animals, elk or bison, grazing on acres and acres of cinnamon colored grass. Where do I find that in Okie land? Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge? Comes close but been there, done that, many times.

Right now I'm thinking Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. Done that too, but never with a digital camera. The Bosque has Sandhill Cranes by the thousands, ditto Snow Geese, always a few coyotes, and a wide variety of ducks. Nothing new mind you, but the wildlife is there. And where there are animals, there are photo opportunities. Thing is, prime time for the Bosque is Nov. through Jan.

Must be patient. Must force myself, in the meantime, to settle for Okie critters; pelicans maybe, at Salt Plains. Or migrant birds coming through the Tallgrass Praire. Or new backyard birds. No, that's out. The cats are out there...waiting. There's that. Not an option.