Episode –

Whilst Slackington was here, prevailed upon The Professor to host us at The Trident.

Deep within Neptune’s bowels, The Trident is a first class drinking establishment in the third incarnation (dating, mostly, it’s a complicated story, from 1926) of the Hotel Del Monte which the Navy purchased and moved from Annapolis the Naval Postgraduate School in 1947.

As this is Tuesday, Uniform Day (the rest of the week is mufti), the bar is replete with the khaki and ribbons … and blue of a foreign student.

Also colorful is the green of the Green Flash on tap.  I liked seeing men in uniform, I think it denotes a level of earnest you don’t feel with business casual, no matter how intent an entrepreneur is about his latest iPhone app that tells you how many strokes up or down on your toothbrush you ought.

Following a manly yo-ho-ho splice to the main brace, The Professor gave us a tour of one of his labs, this one devoted to analysis of on-the-ground derived information about hierarchies.

In the zones where we’re now engaged, tribal culture – not superimposed, quasi-cosa nostra like governance structures – holds sway.  As such, knowledge of and an appreciation for the tendrils of family and clan associations can help the warfighter.

Who is related to who in the smuggling and money-making pyramid?  Whose influence, if cultivated properly, can have a multiplying effect?  Where are the bad seed that even their relations want stomped out?

I can’t speak to the techniques used, but I’m convinced that there’s value in collecting and interrelating tribal relationships with the end goal of a better stroke the folk and whack the jack.

The Prof veers off, Slackington and I review our Captain’s Tour at The Bulldog.  Been years.  They’ve renovated.  Lawrence Welk approved faux ‘brick’ wallpaper.  Also retrograde, beer selection stuck in 2003:  Smithwick’s?  Fullers?  Prices contemporary, though.

Episode –

Slackington is man enough to not only volunteer pounding around on his chronically bad right ankle, but also pony up the thirty six spondulicks the bouncer at the door wants to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

The otters do not disappoint, the jellies are always a contemplative thrill, we’re on schedule for the sardine feeding in the Outer Bay Tank, the bagpipe-sized octopus is out and wandering around the tank like I’ve never seen it.  But for me, well, maybe except for the penguins …. and the jellies, there is nothing more evocative than the invertebrates, particularly the tube anemones.  To see them is to be in awe of life.

Can anyone, no matter how stunned and brain-washed with mass-merchandized myth, stand in the presence of these stupifyingly simple yet perfectly functional creatures not feel, no, know that anywhere in the universe – under the ice of Io, on planets straked with neutron radiation, at places even our far-seeing scientists have yet to confirm – that anywhere there is some form of life?

Lord God, maker of heaven and Earth, employer of only one single DNA shared across trees and worms and bacteria, Thy mighty powers could ought have called into being 2,346,203 different molecular pathways, as Thy created all and can create anything, even alternate interpretations of Thy Will, whereas by thy guiding hand, proteins might be created from which all Life springs forth.  But no, in Thy Infinite (but not infinitely creative, for verily, even the Creator of All must take time off) wisdom the Greatness of Thy Plan of Your Holy Only One Way Based On DNA be hidden from us (except for scientists) for surely as there are stars in the holy heavens, there is another way to build a protein….?

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Episode –

Some weeks ago a shattered looking man walks into the Slackrage, Michael, the fellow with the bullet hole scars on his scalp.  He returns this episode with Morry, who apparently runs an antique shop on Forest Ave.  He’s looking for ‘quirky’ no shortage here but was unwilling to introduce he and Michael to the joys of the Impermanent Collection within.  What have I to sell?  Legacy?

THISDAY –

Out of the scheming of The Professor comes an invitation –  I am invited to this Month’s Cavalry Ride.  First since December 2012, and first since I’d made plain my desire NOT to be a groupie.  In sum, The Cavalry is split on whether to accept new members.  Until and unless this changes, I am an also-ran camp-follower, a role which I do not wish to extend.

Yet, The Professor is wise.  Perhaps in inviting me to this confab, I can appear to be a member in extremis, or merely appear.  And in doing so, be.

Worth a try.

The stoopid ugly hot cloudless skies without wind oppress us.  Well, maybe not “us” but certainly does affect a man who’s parka’s do not get sufficient wear.

Here’s The Professor right on time, 11:22 AM so as to convey us out The Carmel Valley for the Cavalry Ride, not at The Lab as the Steinbeck Center is running tours, but at Richard Rosen’s chateau.  Our schedule is so tight as it will not to allow even a pre-drive Lagunitas.  Onward.

In Sum:

Tight group, 17 all told, core, solid, Uncle Ray’s Chardonnay holds sway.

Meeting – many, perhaps too many big cat stories.  Pumas, cougars (no MILF’s) seen but not taken.

Many – not too many songs sung by Miles (Stage ? Prostate Cancer).

Hospitality – who wants a gang of tipplers spilling all over their hardwood floors?

Outlook – Hopkin’s nee Palumbi seemingly jake with Lab Bunch intentions….

Food – overpaid for too little savory or sustenance.

Conditions – hot but not too for mid-val.

Ambience – excellent doggies – mutts, Boston Terriers, and more mutts.

As the venue is far afield from The Lab, attendance is less than desired; but then again, suasion toward acceptance of new initiates is perhaps rendered more facile.

The Professor kills no one, that we know of, driving back down the valley and to Castle Slackton where kimono opening is worth what was paid.

You get lucky sometimes and I’m sure y’all get tired reading that phrase.

I don’t get tired living it.

WINDAY –

The torpid stillness of yesterslack this day gives way to vicious, killing gusts.  Too Much Wind.

Too much to spray on any more urethane to Kabinet Kren and so the Oversight Committee declares the project Finished.

After the usual photo session comes the quandary – where to put the thing?  I was going to lend it to Congo or Curtis, but the flaws are simply too grotesque to allow the abomination to be seen by others, and so as a temporary measure install it in the Office awaiting a better plan, such as campfire.

Into the shop marches Leigh and Rodger, the two swells renting the Little Blue Cottage – there’s two black stallions worth $120k parked in front.  I show them the Kren Kab, Jefferson’s Revolving Bookcase, but no sale.

Guess they’re saving up for that down payment here in PG.  But for that, all they need do is hock the Porsche.