Friday Donuts

Friends, One of my early forays into recreational writing was as the night clerk at the Lake Lodge in Yellowstone National Park. The “shift log” was a notebook, intended to convey pertinent information about the evening’s events to the morning shift. As the last person manning the front desk at 1 AM (at which point we closed), I was entrusted with this sacred duty. Most nights were uneventful, so I started writing top ten lists (à la David Letterman) to give the morning folks a reason to consult the log. I sampled all manner of superficial topics which ranged from “top ten things people think JP stands for” (yes, Jalapeño Pepper was among them) to “top ten statements I’ve overheard tourons say” (a portmanteau of tourist and moron, used to refer to some of the park’s visitors). If I were to write such a list today, it might go something like this.   Top ten subtle changes brought about by the pandemic 10. Hand washing. Wait, that’s a change? For whom?? 9. Green thumb. It’s eas

Friends, Christmas in July is a Yellowstone tradition which, according to lore, started when a July blizzard trapped a tourist group in the park. They made the best of it by exchanging gifts on the 25 th . Whether it has any basis in fact, when I worked there concession employees would decorate a small conifer tree in the Firehole river with tinsel and leave a case of beer for the rangers who cleaned-up the mess. With this holiday gaining mainstream traction, it begs the question: if tomorrow is Christmas, shouldn’t next Saturday be New Year’s Day?  January 1 st is, after all, a rather arbitrary day to start a new year. Why not hit the reset button next week?. It might be fun to have a mini new year’s eve (aka Año Viejo) celebration. And, I’ve got a coronavirus mockup we could burn at midnight (I had been considering making it a disco ball, however, my inner pyromaniac keeps whispering "burn it"). Then again, there’s the whole social distancing thing to keep in mind and,

Friends, With Colorado hosting one of the nation’s most competitive senatorial races, science news has been a welcome source of relief from political coverage and mud-slinging advertisements. Deep space exploration and deep sea discoveries are a great escape from the deep divide our politicians like to cultivate and exploit. Hmmm… sounds like a challenge. Maybe, I can be the one to politicize these discoveries. Challenge accepted! Have you checked-out the new comet? Look northwest an hour after sunset, and just below the big dipper you’ll see NEOWISE  comet! If you are in the northern hemisphere, that is –sorry southern hemisphere folks. How does this comet get away with discriminating against half the planet? Literally! There’s a new X-Ray map of the sky with twice the X-Ray sources as its predecessor. On closer examination, it looks suspiciously like POTUS watching a solar eclipse (I’ve augmented the original SRG spacecraft image

Friends, I like summer. Watermelon on a lazy afternoon. Grilled anything with a beer. Warbling and chirping fill the air, while fragrant white and yellow jasmine transport me back. Long days pack more activities and warm evenings lure me outdoors. It’s the perfect time to wind down a lazy river or bag a fourteener --or three. A great way to start a day so filled with possibilities is to bite into a warm airy donut and let the mind wander. Ah, the possibilities! What does your summer weekend hold in store for you? Happy Friday!

===[Note: a plain(er) English version follows this abbreviation-laden message]=== Friends, YOLO but, TBH, FOMO does not justify this. IMHO, TLAs are overused. IOW, just B/C you can, don’t mean you should. Granted, perhaps a PEBKAC. FWIW, OGs are guilty 2. WRT this trend, the GOP and DEMs contribute alike. From them we learned terms like NIMBY and it's ugly cousin BANANA. It’s in the news (LMK if you agree MLK would support BLM). It’s in sports (AFAIK, MLB will BRB in July). OBTW, I find the progression from LOL to LMFAO to ROTFL humorous. Anyway, this 4 th , you should try OMG donuts (they’re GR8!). Just try not to catch the ugliest abbreviation of them all (COVID-19) while you're at it. Apologies if this message was TL;DR. Anyway, g2g, so TTYL. TGIF!   P.S. LMK your thoughts on the DL via DM ASAP.   ===[as promised, the translation, in case you missed any of the abbreviations, acronyms or jargon]=== You only live once but, to be honest, fear of missing out does n