Third Weekend of October 2004

I'm not really sure how Frank and I survive our trips out to Midian. We're both half-crazy (for admittedly very different reasons) gun nuts with a propensity for stubbornness, yelling, insults, and irritability. Together we've come perilously close to succumbing to fatal traffic accidents, gun accidents, giant enormous machinery accidents, and tractor accidents on numerous occasions. Yet we go off on these batty "father-in-law and son" weekends with shocking regularity. I suppose we both derive some sort of emotional satisfaction from our mutually shared low tastes, as well as the fact that Frank is a simple man who fathered complex children while I am a simple guy who has a complex father. Or maybe I think about things too much.

Anyhow, our weekend started out with breakfast at Harrahs and, a few days later, ended with dinner at Harrahs.... which is fine because my cooking isn't so hot. Frank digs Harrahs because it's an "old school" casino where people pretty much go to gamble, smoke, and drink.... period. There's no sexy women, no albino tigers jumping through rings ‘o fire, and nothing for the children to do except maybe get a virgin bloody mary and an early case of lung cancer. Nope, just hard looking cowboys, down-on-their-luck businessmen, and Asian grandmothers blowing their social security checks as far as the eye can see.

So, after a brief stop for food, we made the drive out to the Midian where, against the explicit wishes of mother nature, I managed to finish painting the ranch house, pulled apart the tractor's starter motor, replaced its serpentine belt, and mounted the house's generator in its new box. Super Dave showed up out of nowhere with one of those massive bucket trucks and helped me pull down my windmill, which I have since repaired (or so the bench tests tell me). We also did some quality target shooting, which was a lot of fun as well as pretty needed in my case.