Today, Mrs C and I will be marrying our two female cats, Tricksey and Pepper. Our four-way inter-species marriage will be a shining example of the power of pure love.

We've been waiting for this for a long time. Thanks, SCOTUS!

Yes, the clouds above the water are blue and red. Or, at least that's the astounding illusion created by the brilliantly colored water, mineral deposits and bacteria create when they reflect sunlight back up into the steam above. You see it from a half mile away and you're sure you're going to need a gas mask to approach any closer. But they let you walk right up to it: 100 yards, 100 ft, still blue and red, you're expecting to choke and die any second now, 10 feet, 5 feet, and then you see that the clouds are really white and smell the same as all the other Yellowstone springs: hydrogen sulfide.

Yellowstone is pretty frikkin amazing.

Minus my beloved Leatherman. Finally found an TSA agent who thought it was worth stopping the X-ray machine and searching my camera bag over. Bah.

Jackson, WY by nightfall.

My fucking HP printer refuses to print anything until I update Adobe Flash Player for Internet Explorer.

What The Fucking Fuck?

As a lifelong career criminal, although I no longer enjoy the right to keep and bear arms, I'd like to take a moment to express my appreciation to the National Rifle Association for nonetheless protecting my ability to easily obtain them through its opposition to universal background checks.

Upon release in a few years from my current federal sentence on bank robbery and weapons charges, I fully anticipate being able to stop at a gun show on my way home to Connecticut -- where new laws have made it nearly impossible for a felon to readily purchase guns or ammunition -- in order to buy some with which to resume my criminal activities.

And so, a heartfelt thank you to the NRA and all those members of Congress voting with them. I, along with tens of thousands of other criminals, couldn't do what we do without you.

Gary W. Bornman,
The writer is an inmate at the federal "Supermax" prison in Florence, Colo.

Courant.com

It's National Bourbon Day!

Woodford Reserve, here I come!

(please allow me about 8 hours to get there, tho. shit to do)

Rubber Band Portraits

Ducks' Sleep Mode

Had some company last weekend, so we rented a pontoon boat down at the lake, for an afternoon. Bought a lot of beer and a lot of BBQ. Cranked up the engine and headed off onto the water.

Our first stop was the osprey nest where I took the previously posted pix, but nobody was home. We chugged about 100 yards down the shore and parked in a little cove. Within seconds, a bald eagle jumped out of the trees near us and flew away. Then, a few minutes later, another one did the same. Then, a few minutes later, an immature bald eagle flew over us. Wild. Those things are HUGE, close up.

Over the course of the afternoon we saw an uncountable number of great blue heron, some angry red-winged blackbirds and, a bunch more osprey - and we got to see some of the osprey diving to snatch fish out of the water.

All this just two miles from our house. Incredible.

No pix, however. An iPhone camera just can't focus fast enough to catch an eagle on the wing.

The Squirrel King!