Stylin

DISCLAIMER: Normally, I try to keep this blog fairly apolitical. But, with the election only days away my natural tendencies are beginning to show. And, when events arise that demand attention, the dude abides.

The other day we learned about how the Republican National Committee spent $150K on Gov. Palin's wardrobe since her nomination. Now, we learn that the highest salary in Sen. McCain's campaign goes to Gov. Palin's travelling makeup stylist. Not the campaign manager. Not an economic advisor. Not a foreign policy advisor. Nope, it's the makeup stylist.

My friends, this post is NOT about Gov. Palin; it's about Sen. McCain. Yes, the unfortunate double standards that women live with are a fact of life and make it reasonable for Gov. Palin to have a makeup stylist and fashionable clothing. But, the spending of Sen. McCain's campaign reflect his priorities, and open a window into how he might govern if elected president.

If I was running for president with the economy in the crapper such as it is, I might invest a bit in developing an economic strategy to address some of our many problems. If I was being outspent in every battleground state like McCain is, I might hire a campaign manager that could help me overcome these obstacles.

However, I am not running for president. And, frankly, when I look at McCain's spending priorities and the state of his current campaign, it looks like he's getting pretty much exactly what he's paid for.

Taking the Shocker to Cody Canal

So The Wife and I ended up in Cody for a couple days this past week. For those who have never made the trip, Cody is well worth a visit--especially after the tourist season is over.

We wandered around the Sierra Trading Post Outlet, lamenting the dearth of smoking deals that once proliferated throughout their catalogs. We ate at the Wyoming Rib & Chop House, enjoying one of the best jambalaya dishes around until discovering the havoc it can wreck on your GI tract. I'd order it again. The Wife, not so much. In the morning, we ate breakfast in the shadow of Buffalo Bill at the historic Irma Hotel--a must see. If there is one place that screams old Wyoming, this is it.

After breakfast and a few hours of work, The Wife and I headed out to help the local Trout Unlimited chapter with their fish rescue project. Each irrigation season, thousands and thousands of fish are diverted from the local rivers into a complex network of canals. In the fall, when the irrigation districts shut down their diversions and the canals dry up, these fish become raccoon food.

Thanks to the devoted efforts of local trout eccentrics, some of these otherwise lost fish are trapped with electro-fishers and returned to their home streams. For the half-day that The Wife and I helped, we rescued around 270 trout. These fish varied from a six inch cutthroat to a brown trout around 25 inches, and everything in between. The day before we arrived, they shocked up a 29 inch brown. Ridiculous.

While I did a great job manning the electro-fisher, I did an exceptionally poor job manning the camera. Once I convince some of the locals to share their pictures, I'll update this post a bit...

"I always wanted a son named Zamboni" --Sarah Palin

Fishing Notes

I got out fishing last Saturday. Despite the recent snows, the weather has been quite nice and it seemed like the perfect time to rip big streamers for big brown trout. With the emphasis on big, I promptly tied on a small parachute mayfly that required binoculars to see once it hit the water and caught two smallish fish. On the other hand, my fishing partner for the day, Russ, managed to stick with the original plan of going big and was rewarded with a gorgeous fish. Yup, I am in fact a sucker for dry flies...

As it turns out, I wasn't the only one to go fishing this past weekend. The Brother of the Blog got out on one of his nearby rivers and, although he has no photographic evidence, claims to have caught a coho with his fly rod. My normal skepticism with this sort of thing was brushed aside quickly once I recalled that Josh could be the luckiest angler in the world. He accomplishes things with a fly rod through sheer happenstance that I could only do with a lifetime of practice and persistence like the world has never seen. Regardless, those coastal Oregon streams sure are epic...

This is October?

Lander got dumped on over this past weekend. Snow started falling on Friday and by the time the sky cleared on Sunday there was around 18 inches of the good stuff.

With The Wife out of town visiting the Old Country, I was without our regular camera and had to rely on my phone for the heavy lifting. Since I also chose the darkest possible moment to take the pictures, I'll apologize in advance for the poor quality...

This is Friday night, with a BL smoothie for scale.

Same thing on Saturday night. However, there is no need for alarm--the BL smoothie was safely consumed the night before and not sacrificed with the snow.

And, one bonus picture: