My brother took me on a raft flotilla down the Rio Grande yesterday.
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Bro is about to finish engineering school, and he perceives the world in such an interesting, engineery way. Quoth Everest as we floated through the warm breeze, "Air is a fluid just like water. We're on a fluid boundary." "What if the atmosphere were helium?" "Well," he said, referring to the ripples on the surface of the river, "there'd be fewer boundary effects, for one." Ah, nothin' enhances an experience like a shrewd observation and a bit of light vernacular.
Ev and his friend Matthew fixed a popped raft with a scrap of rope and a driftwood tourniquet.
Image may be NSFW.
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When I marveled at their airtight solution, Ev told me, "This is not engineering. This is just figuring shit out."
Image may be NSFW.
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Pretty sure this was engineering though.
Image may be NSFW.
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We were the only people on the river (love you, sparse population), and we surprised a few catfishermen dangling their lines along the brushy banks. The desert air is so thin that it's easy, practically obligatory, to call out a ship-to-shore conversation. Maybe it was the countrified accents and sparse grammar, or maybe I'm so recently back from Asia that I'm still unduly charmed by the sheer facility of casual chat with my countrymen, but this exchange struck me as so sweetly and typically American that I repeated it in my head all day so I would remember it:
Fisherman: "Where'd ya git in?"
Everest: "Socorro!"
Fisherman: "Where ya goin'?"
Everest: "San Antonio! Catch anything?"
Fisherman: "Got two earlier!"
Everest: "You usin' worms?"
Fisherman: "Shrimp!"
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
On a kind-of related note, I got this email from my German friend: "What're you doing back at home? Are you eating Pop Tarts and drinking orange juice out of gallon-sized containers?" I laughed about that for days, but anyone who thinks that Pop Tarts are still the States' national gross-out food obviously hasn't been here in the past ten years. Have you heard of this Wonka Wazoo sickness? I impulse-bought one yesterday. It's purple-flavored paraffin with foamed diabeetus inside, sprinkled with "candy crunchies" that the wrapper informs us were made in Thailand. I have a preternatural tolerance for sweetness and tend to enjoy any psychedelic perversion of sugar that Wonka throws on the shelves; I was titillated and pleased, but I'm not necessarily recommending this extraterrestrial acid bar to you, dear reader. This picture should tell you everything you need to know about whether this is the kind of thing you want to invite into your intestines for the next ten years.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Bro is about to finish engineering school, and he perceives the world in such an interesting, engineery way. Quoth Everest as we floated through the warm breeze, "Air is a fluid just like water. We're on a fluid boundary." "What if the atmosphere were helium?" "Well," he said, referring to the ripples on the surface of the river, "there'd be fewer boundary effects, for one." Ah, nothin' enhances an experience like a shrewd observation and a bit of light vernacular.
Ev and his friend Matthew fixed a popped raft with a scrap of rope and a driftwood tourniquet.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
When I marveled at their airtight solution, Ev told me, "This is not engineering. This is just figuring shit out."
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Pretty sure this was engineering though.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
We were the only people on the river (love you, sparse population), and we surprised a few catfishermen dangling their lines along the brushy banks. The desert air is so thin that it's easy, practically obligatory, to call out a ship-to-shore conversation. Maybe it was the countrified accents and sparse grammar, or maybe I'm so recently back from Asia that I'm still unduly charmed by the sheer facility of casual chat with my countrymen, but this exchange struck me as so sweetly and typically American that I repeated it in my head all day so I would remember it:
Fisherman: "Where'd ya git in?"
Everest: "Socorro!"
Fisherman: "Where ya goin'?"
Everest: "San Antonio! Catch anything?"
Fisherman: "Got two earlier!"
Everest: "You usin' worms?"
Fisherman: "Shrimp!"
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
On a kind-of related note, I got this email from my German friend: "What're you doing back at home? Are you eating Pop Tarts and drinking orange juice out of gallon-sized containers?" I laughed about that for days, but anyone who thinks that Pop Tarts are still the States' national gross-out food obviously hasn't been here in the past ten years. Have you heard of this Wonka Wazoo sickness? I impulse-bought one yesterday. It's purple-flavored paraffin with foamed diabeetus inside, sprinkled with "candy crunchies" that the wrapper informs us were made in Thailand. I have a preternatural tolerance for sweetness and tend to enjoy any psychedelic perversion of sugar that Wonka throws on the shelves; I was titillated and pleased, but I'm not necessarily recommending this extraterrestrial acid bar to you, dear reader. This picture should tell you everything you need to know about whether this is the kind of thing you want to invite into your intestines for the next ten years.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
