Bridges to nowhere, or somewhere

There's a part of me that's kind of a bridge nut. I don't like the newer breed (read: "newer" = "last 25-30 years") of bridges that exist solely to carry cars across water, with no soul and no charm and no character. Give me an old, possibly "haunted" bridge any day of the week.

Until the last year, there was a bridge on US 231 between Loogootee and Jasper, just north of Haysville, that took people across the East Fork of the White River. We had one just like it in our town (before that one was replaced when I was a teenager), yet the one on 231 seemed a little more narrow and scary. I'm sure there was a lot of folklore surrounding that bridge, and I don't recall exactly what any of it was, but I do remember driving across it at night with my lights off when I was a teen. I don't remember if that meant I was going to get laid or fired from my job at Dairy Queen; the folklore wasn't clear on this point.

Of course, with the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis just over a year ago, there's been a lot of reassessment of the state of our bridges. And a lot of these charming old bridges are probably going to be going away soon. Including that old four-spanner on 231; it's already met its maker and has been replaced by a lifeless bridge that looks a lot like this. (Which, incidentally, just opened this week, replacing a gorgeous - if frightening - Old Portersville Bridge.)

You'll note that photos of the new Haysville bridge isn't available anywhere on the internets. I wonder why. It doesn't have anything to do with it being strictly utilitarian, does it?

That's why, before it's too late, I'd love to go about an hour south/southwest of here and cross this bridge. Imagine - a rickety old wooden one-lane bridge that's about 100 years old, crossing the Wabash, which is a little bigger than your standard ditch - where if you look down at the floor, you can see the river below in spots. How breathtaking and awesome and terrifying. And what a cool name: the Wabash Cannonball Bridge.

I also would have loved to have seen this bridge, about an hour west/northwest, but it's been gone about 20 years.

Two other local bridges of interest that I hope my son is able to appreciate when he's older are Brooks Bridge and the covered bridge over the East Fork White River at Williams. People go apeshit over their covered bridges, so I'm sure that the latter will be around forever in one form or another, but I worry about the future of the former. Now that is a spooky bridge. I have always been certain of pending death when I cross it.

"We are THE Worldwide Leader In Sports, but we are NOT the Worldwide Leader In Spelling!" (Taken during ESPN's NASCAR coverage on Sunday night.)

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Pointing out the obvious:

No matter what happens this week with Hurricane Gustav, I am certain that no amount of evacuation/preparation/protection will mute the howling from the left, not unlike the insufferable post-Katrina bitching that takes place to this day. All it will take is for one person to be inconvenienced or ass-deep in water, and he/she will be the 2008 poster child for George Bush's incompetence.

And God forbid if that person is black (errrr, I'm sorry - "Black") - then he/she will be representative of George Bush's hatred of Black America. (Cause he gave orders to blow up the levees during Katrina, you know. This is a known fact on the left.)

Yes, just like Cindy Sheehan's experience is representative of every military mom's experience, and just like Matthew Shepard's death is representative of the prevailing American attitude toward gays, all it will take is one negative story for the left to seize upon as an example of why America in 2008 is the worst place in the world to live. Ever.

And someone's house will get wet. Let the caterwauling begin anew.

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That thing I said last night, about not voting for McCain? And that if he picked Romney, I was sitting out the election?

Speculation is centering on Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

And if we have a McCain/Palin ticket, I am in. Hell, I'd even put a McCain sign in my yard.

I'd be so stoked. Palin is pro-life, pro-guns, and has no issues with turning on her own party when she sees ethics violations. A strong governor with a 80-90% approval rating - even if she isn't in a swing state, I think McCain could do no better.

Man. What a great pick she would be. I hope the rumors are true.

If I knew absolutely nothing about politics, nothing about the deepening red/blue chasm that's become more prevalent in the last 15 years, I'd probably be swept away by Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the DNC tonight. Sounded like he is trying to be everything to everyone, and although it was a fabulous speech on the surface, I'm still not buying.

I believe in the American promise, but I don't believe that Obama is the one to sustain it (or restore it, as some believe needs done). I don't believe he's not going to raise my taxes, I don't believe he will take steps to protect the unborn, I don't believe that he won't come after my guns, and I don't believe that he will protect my interests when dealing with other nations on things like the scourge of terrorism or the fallacy of climate change.

(And no. I am still not voting for McCain, either, unless he completely wows me with his veep pick. If it's Romney, I am taking the election off.)

One other note: all sorts of lefty musicians and singers raise all sorts of hell when a GOP candidate uses their music at campaign rallies and whatnot. Yet I find it hard to fathom that Brooks & Dunn authorized the use of their "Only in America" as Obama soaked in the 80,000-strong Obasm that rained down on him at the conclusion of his speech.


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He put his foot in his mouth, it's the American way.

It's important to note that Toby Keith's glowing words about Barack Obama do not necessarily constitute an endorsement, as was so breathlessly reported on various lefty blogs today.

Regardless, I think it's safe to say to Toby Keith: welcome to the end of your career.

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Remember this the next time you're watching the Olympics, either for the remainder of this week or in 2012:

Next time you're watching some ridiculous not-a-sport sport, like dressage or modern pentathlon or that ribbon-twirling deal or trampoline or even badminton, remember:

Those sports remain on the Olympic slate, but they dropped baseball and softball.

At that point, you should probably stop taking the Olympics seriously as an arbiter of sport. At least until the IOC stops being dominated by old-money Europeans brmming with corruption. Just saying.

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Hey man. Watch out for the cornhole.

I'm sorry, but I can't take the backyard game/bar game known as "corn hole" seriously. I didn't realize how widespread it was till my friend at work (whom you may remember I'd originally christened "Nemesis"), a transplanted New Englander, came back to work one Monday and said he was at a party playing corn hole on Saturday. Said it like it was nothing.

I'm sure it's a fun game and all, but the mere mention of the game gives me a case of the Butt-heads.

***

Also, The Onion's AV Club covered this the day after I had originally thought of writing about it, I shit you not, but can we stop using "man" as a prefix? Manscaping, manssiere, manboobs, mancave ... enough, already. What a bunch of mantards.

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FYI

Had a pretty fierce lightning storm here at the palatial BT Estates earlier in the week, and it knocked out my modem, so I am blogging and doing most of my internet activity via BlackBerry. In doing so, I am unable to reply to comments left here, but trust that I do read and ponder every last one that gets posted.

Fuckin' dial-up.

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Things that shouldn't upset me, but do:

"Cooperative weather observer needed," read the headline on the weather bureau's local page. I was intrigued and tapped out a note to the point of contact indicating my possible interest in the volunteer position.

I've long had an avid interest in the weather and weather-related phenomena. I took storm spotter training back in March or so, though I am not yet confident enough in my abilities to report weather conditions preceding a storm to the weather bureau.

In fact, I probably let the weather dictate my life a little too much. Chance of rain? I'm staying in. Might snow? I'm taking the day off work, and imploring my wife to do the same. And so on and so forth.

Anyway, I had about a week's worth of correspondence with the guy from the National Weather Service. We'd established a fairly good rapport, it seemed, and he Google Earthed my address to see if my yard was sufficient to put a small weather station (i.e., no significant obstructions, large buildings, etc. nearby to impede accurate temperature and precipitation measurements). It was sufficient, and it seemed that I was on my way to being a part of the team. Co-op observing is a Very Important Element in the weather bureau's climatology measurements and predictions.

"Great," I said. "I just have a couple of other questions about time commitments and whatnot."

The weather bureau guy copied and pasted some info from a webpage, and said, "Are you free Monday afternoon?"

But.

The info he sent me kind of put me off. Said that there were daily reporting requirements, and observations should be made between 3 and 6 in the afternoon. If there was no precip in the last 24 hours, you just log onto the website and report temperature readings, and you're done for the day. If there was some rain that day, then there's a little more effort involved. And if there's snow, it can take as much as a half-hour to measure it - you've got to melt the snow, and blah blah blah, and so on and so forth. Just sounded like a lot of effort, more than I was ultimately willing to put in.

The thing that turned me off the most, though, was the fact that they were going to bury some wiring to run from the station to a thermometer in the house, so temperature observations could be made without leaving the house. I just didn't dig the fact that they would be digging up my yard to run this wire.

I took all of this into consideration, and sent a very polite note back to my POC telling him that while I appreciated the effort and communication over the last week, that I couldn't make the commitment necessary, and thank you for your time, good luck in your search for an observer, and may the wind always be at your back and all that good-time-touchy-feely garbage that I've made an art form in my professional career.

And he wrote back, saying, "Thank you for your interest, and sorry that you won't be able to assist us, and good luck to you as well."

Just kidding. He didn't write me back.

And that's what pisses me off the most. You spend your time being a decent human being and showing an interest in something, and being genuinely upset that you had a change of heart, and your heartfelt words get roundfiled without the courtesy of a reply.

So, you know, fuck 'em.

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Weirdest dream I've had in a while was last night.

Kevin Harvick was living in my sister-in-law's old house. I was there, my wife was there, and my sister-in-law's kids were there. Except the house wasn't in our town, but somewhere north of Bloomington.

Harvick was shooting off illegal fireworks - shooting these amped-up bottle rockets off a cliff into a nearby lake about a half-mile or more away. They were carrying small bombs that made huge mushroom clouds when they hit the water. The police came.

The house smelled like cat pee.

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And so tonight, we were out of the house, when 7 o'clock rolled past and I said to my wife a series of words that have never been strung together before in the history of the English language:

"We need to get home so we can watch Jim Sorgi!"
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