Blather

After the success of making my trailer's claustrophobic bedroom into a comfy sleeping area, my next big project was to work on the garden shed. Why? Because it's been there awhile. And I want to make this house better. So ....




Here's a quick look inside- the studs are not exactly uniform, but they work well enough. That hole is for a heating duct that the previous owner intended as ventilation but I think that was a poor reason to cut a hole in the floor of an otherwise usable floor.

Before the floor was nice and nearly white, it was black with mold and grunge and rot.






Here's my home-made skylight. One-inch hardware cloth with fiberglass cloth and boat resin over the top. Not only does my skylight fit the precise opening, it's a lot cheaper. Now it looks like I left the lights on all the time. The white floor helps, too.





Here's the final result- the concrete piers provide eight inches of distance between my wooden shed and any ground bugs. Note the floor jack in the trench. That's the flat-nosed shovel I used to make a nice, flat trench for the floor jack to sit in.








You can tell it's a five-sided shed. The sliding door is on one corner, making the shed's missing corner into a useful entry. The three piers are along this short wall because I anticipate stepping on this section a lot. There's the outdoor light that my son disconnected. The pipe touching the wall holds wires that he'll connect back up after we bore a new access hole. Down at the left front is the radio I had in my office in Embassy Bangkok. At the right is the can't-stop-me ivy. The sliding door has an artistic bit of driftwood nailed to the front; hanging on the nail is a possum skull with a few vertebrae attached.




This is the far back corner, looking towards the ivy-clad chain link fence. That bottom board looks bad; it needs replacing. Just beyond that loose brick was a couple of square feet of ground that had some huge ivy stems. In addition to the few loose boards to replace, I'll need to spend some resources on stain or fence paint for the weathered boards.







The roofing felt gets stapled around a corner. I started on the top, bent the paper over the edges and stapled what I could.





To the right you see the quasi-hip roof covered with 30-pound felt paper. I have nothing but respect for roofers now.






The roof is 3/4 done. You can see the mitering I did over the slanted part of the roof. Also visible is the home-made skylight- one inch steel mesh covered with fiberglass cloth and resin. Lots of that Henry roof repair from the can went around the edge between the roof and the skylight.






This is the other part of the shed before it gets the top coat. Mitering kept the bumps down caused by a flat center with five sloping hips around the edges.

I sat on the top while Kimmie did the flat facia boards.





This tired old garden structure came with the house. When we bought the house in 1995, the house inspector had nothing good to say about parking a wooden structure so close to the ground. In the intervening dozen-plus years, the shed hasn't elevated itself.

I had an image of what I wanted- a clean shed, in the air a bit. The operative words were "clean" and "in the air." I began the nasty work. I took everything out- a couple of darkrooms, some plastic toys that my small son played with, shelves, a beer fridge, some gym lockers, more shelves and this huge wine rack. While unscrewing the shelves, my foot went through one corner of the rotted plywood floor. I got out my Sawzall and cut out some of the bad floor. (Nothing works as well as a Sawzall when you need one.)

When I pried up the cut-out plywood, I found a gazillion old plastic bags and a quantity of paper shred. After I removed a couple of armloads of plastic bags, a possum scared the crap out of me when he stuck his head up, as if to say, "Hey yoo! I'm livin' heah!" As the adrenalin died down, I collected all the trash and plastic bags and put 'em in the trash can for the Monday morning pickup.

On Saturday, I drove to Castro Valley Lumber, a place that's wonderful because it *smells* like a lumber store. A bit dark, but you know where you are- a place where lumber and concomitant accessories are the main and only commodities. The knowledgeable, helpful but slightly gruff proprietor sold me a sheet of 3/4" CDX plywood. I glued and screwed some cleats to hold up the replacement floor. I laid the plywood on the floor and used the hole as a template. The new floor went in with Grabbers and I Bondoed any evidence of my less-than-perfect carpentry. After dinner, I sanded the Bondo and the entire floor and put two coats of paint on the floor. It's now a sort of warm purplish light grey.

Sunday was the day to chop away the neighbor's feral and ferocious ivy that grows on the cyclone fence between our yards. At my age, chopping unwanted vegetation gets exceedingly old all too soon. I was covered in cobwebs, sawdust, funky grunge from the unknown varmints who'd made their home in my shed and dripping sweat. All in all, I needed a shower pretty badly! But before I could rinse off the nastiness, I had the added pleasure of scraping ivy from the external boards of the shed- the ivy spanned about 18 inches to the shed and had been growing into the side of the shed for a few years. Being able to walk around the back of the shed was a modest goal that I made impulsively and when I got to that point, I stopped chopping and lopping and chopping and raking and lopping and raking and ... well, you get the picture. Boy, that shower felt goo-oood!

I took a small break over Memorial Day, going to Ardenwood Farm with my son and his girlfriend for the Victorian experience. What a nice place that is! Gonna have to go back, the next time with a charged (not flat) battery for my camera, and take some photos for another piece here. Kimmie got a contact for help with her spinning wheel and Richie got to play with some horses and sheep, like the small boy of 37 that he is. After we got back, I chopped and lopped and raked and hoed some more. But only for an hour or two.

Tuesday I finished digging up some ivy that was left in the ground after I hoed the area for the third time. This time, a pickaxe got the job done. My son and his girlfriend dug up a lot of weeds and out-of-control berry bushes in another part of the backyard while I was shopping for concrete piers, but they helped me when I got back. They did an amazing amount of work, those two good kids.

My son the big, strong, smart and omni-competent mechanical engineer had doubts about the success of this next part, but in my optimistic ignorance, I plowed ahead. (I like to achieve failure rather than let common sense bestow defeat on me. Who knows, maybe I'll accomplish what others think is impossible.) I used the pickaxe to dig a shallow trench, about six or seven inches deep and about a foot by two feet, close to the wall and underneath a few inches. I lugged my floor jack from the garage across the back lawn that grabbed the tiny wheels of the jack and didn't want to let go. I shoved the jack under the edge of the shed wall. I cranked that five-ton floor jack until I got the walls elevated about four or five inches. Then I put some flat pieces of concrete under two corners and let it down.

I dug a similar trench on the back of the shed, but it was much harder because I had so little room to swing the pickax and shovel. I had to put the jack at a very shallow angle to the wall, and that meant more digging. This required some trial-and-error with the pickaxe and a straight-bladed shovel, but I finally got the jack under the perimeter beam and started lifting that side of the shed. When I got it up about ten inches, Kimmie and I dug out some serious ivy roots that were partly under the shed and partly right next to where we wanted to put the piers. After we cleared the ground of those large and tenacious roots, I put some flat pieces of concrete under the corners and set concrete piers on top. I let the jack down.

My son let me do all the placing and jacking by myself, though he stood by in case I got hurt. He's the one who chided me for climbing a ladder with a chain saw, all by myself, when he left for Wisconsin with his girlfriend. He loves me and doesn't want to see me get hurt. He has a lot more technical savvy than I do, but I manage to stumble into success occasionally. He was right about the chainsaw and the ladder, however. The chainsaw only left a scratch, but the tree gouged my back when the piece of tree that I topped knocked my ladder sideways. Oh, no worries- it's healed fine.

I got the shed in the air with no one suffering any damage.

I went back to the first jacking location and lifted the shed again, this time taking the shed to about ten inches in the air. More flat concrete and more piers and I let the shed down. It's pretty level. I thought about fussing and getting it perfectly level, shimming this corner with two-by and that corner with one-by but I think it's only about half an inch out of level. I'll wait till after the next rain to see how the ground settles down and then I'll try to level it again with more concrete or some pressure-treated two-by-six.

The shed sat with no felt paper for a couple of days while I built that smoker and took a bit of time to pay bills, do other house chores.

Then I became adept at climbing up and down the ladder to get on top of the shed. Each little piece needed carrying, I'd forget the hammer, the stapler ran out of bullets, I'd need more paper, then I forgot the putty knife for the roof goop. And each time I got hungry, I realized that I'd need to wash my hands with paint thinner to get the goop and tar off my hands. But the job made progress.

Helping me to staple the felt paper to the eaves was my son's girlfriend Kimmie. She stood on a ladder as I sat on the roof. We took turns stapling and trying to get the lumps out of the felt paper. When she went to trim the orange tree, I began with the roll roofing. This was easier because I let it get warm in the sun. I decided to miter it along the five (!) corners since I only needed a bit of overlap. I gooped the edges of the mitered pieces and it looks very good.


Nothing succeeds like success, eh? A week ago, I had a stinky, cluttered, rotted-out shed with a rodent tenant. Today it's clean and structurally sound and eight inches off the ground. Sure, there may be a homeless possum on the city's census, but that's not so bad for him- he'll be fine in the huge vacant lot next door. Our cats have inspected underneath the shed and rendered their feline approval by leaving it alone.

I'm not yet finished- the loose boards and roof repair remain, but the shed's sturdy and off the ground.

Woo Hoooo !!!! Now moi has a place to do some gardening, maybe smoke a cigar and listen to PBS. Yep, life is good and sweet in the Executive Garden Shed.

Here's what the aft end of Last Resort looks like. That's a folding chair just below the open window. The bed is to the left, the small TV is just visible on a makeshift ledge on the right. That's a very nice tapestry I brought back from Kyrgyzstan, thick wool, embroidered with folk designs from a very different part of the world.

With the camo pad gone, you can see the painted headboard with modified steel frame. The wall behind is about 38" wide; headboard is 39." Note the gap between headboard and wall- the bottom of the headboard is touching the wall. Storage tubs slide under the frame with about an inch and a half clearance. Allow for the thickness of the mattress and you still have a good height for a bed.

Here's the curved corner. Visible are five angles that make the curve. Also visible is the obviously modified spring arrangement. The walls slope, though the amount of slope may not be obvious- at the foot, it's about four inches from the floor to the edge of the bed.

Home sweet home. Not a huge bed, but comfy and very cozy. I've got to get some better linen than these pink monstrosities, but it works. I tried it out and it's very easy to fall asleep there. Not visible is the small TV right behind me as I take this pic.

This is the $30 king headboard I started with. An ugly greenish oak color with a few dings, but the alternative- a 30" Home Depot kitchen counter didn't look as good and cost three times as much. Not counting the legs, this is 20" from top to bottom.

Below is the headboard with some sanding and staining. The astute reader will note that the legs are missing. I really like my Japanese saw- it cuts a very straight line, allowing even a so-so craftsman like moi to cut a straight line with a hand saw. Varathane stain and two coats of the boat resin make this tatty headboard into a good-looking shelf/desk/workspace.

Here's a shot of the finished shelf. It's supported on the right by that small built-in cabinet and a scrap of maple from the white headboard. The white stripe at the edge is a reflection of the sky from the window.

Here's the aft end of the workspace/shelf/desk. Note the top end of the leg is inverted and supports the shelf. Oops! On the floor is the scrap piece of two by two that I used as a template for the leg. Disregard that.

See that dark square in the window screen above the outlet? That's my pike opening.

My trailer has a name.

When I got him, I was afraid that my then-wife’s financial choices would lead me to live my reluctant retirement under an overpass with a shopping cart full of aluminum cans. Because I like double entendres, I named him “Last Resort.” The “resort” part was because I want him to be a comfortable place to live, both for short periods of aluminum-twinkie style camping and for extended periods of residence in some distant place. The “last” part is because when I am forced to leave my home, I’ll have something suitable to live in, as in, “That old Airstream Sovereign is my last resort when it comes to housing.”

A few weeks ago, after taking him on a long weekend to the School of the Renaissance Soldier, I decided I didn’t like the 20-year-old, stained and matted rug. So I began by pulling the rug out. Then I thought the double bed should go, too, since I plan to travel solo. So the bed came out. Then the two built-in tables in the front had to go as did the built-in hide-a-bed couch. I was left with ugly plywood floors, naked except for a gazillion rug staples and a few bits of caulking that the factory's assembly line didn't clean up. Last to go was the rug in the bathroom. I’m not sure who thought that a telephone-booth-sized bathroom needed a carpet, but it was there, so it came out, too, smelling old and musty.

How to replace the carpet? I considered more carpeting, but thought it would end up like what I took out. I didn't want to drive around with a carpet full of what fell off my shoes. My son’s girlfriend recommended stick-on vinyl tile (cheap and easy to apply) and several RV forums on the net said this was a good choice. Home Depot had good tile, but I was afraid of the glue letting go, then little bits of dirt getting in the cracks.

I was looking for something durable and attractive. A trip to TAP Plastics in San Leandro (just north of Hayward) showed me some examples of boat resin that I liked. People use this resin with fiberglass cloth to make boats. And since boats kinda have to remain waterproof, I figured the material was pretty good. (I’ve never heard of anyone making a boat out of stick-on vinyl tiles.) I returned from my first trip with some bondo and resin and two-inch fiberglass tape. I filled the obvious holes with bondo, then I used the fiberglass tape and resin to ensure the plywood wouldn’t create visible seams- Last Resort now has a completely seamless floor. After another trip to TAP, I applied the first coat of opaque resin. That looked very good. The second coat got sprinkled with color chips from Orchard Supply Hardware’s garage paint. Sanding the chips that stuck up, I put a third clear-coat on, putting extra thickness right inside the door and in front of the sink. When it cured, the floor, including the bathroom, looked great! I’ve been going in and out for a couple of weeks and all I need to do is broom the floor and it’s clean.

But taking out the bed left a functional void- I needed a bed. I tried putting the twin bed I slept in as a child in there. (The bed is something I took from my mom’s house when she died a couple of years ago.) Little did I suspect, but inches are important in an RV where they don’t matter so much in a house. The double mattress I took out was only 73” long and my twin bed is 80.” My old H. C. Capwell's maple twin bed wouldn't fit. This perplexed me a bit.

Another factor that I couldn’t avoid was the aeronautic shape of my old Airstream. The walls taper inward, making the floor footprint a wee bit smaller than the mid-point of the walls, as if the designers were airplane builders. Well, they are, so that explains the curvature of the Airstream. And this brings me to my next consideration- the curve of bedroom corner. Yep, the corner of the bedroom isn’t square; it’s rounded. So what to do about a bed? How to make it fit the curved bulkhead?

I wanted the bed to be along the side wall at the back of the trailer. I thought of making a plywood box, putting a foam mattress on a hinged top, then cutting the foam to fit the curve. But I didn’t like the notion of sleeping on a plywood box because it could be a bit too firm. Lifting the mattress to access storage would require three hands. Sleeping on the couch in front showed me how comfortable a bedspring support, covered with some foam, could be.

Last Tuesday, I took myself out and bought a metal twin-bed frame. We’re all familiar with this- made from ugly brown, painted angle-iron, with holes punched for springs, looking like a a reject from the Army’s basic training barracks. I took some of the springs off and traced the cardboard template curve onto the metal. I acetylene-torched a series of narrow “Vee” cuts into the top part, and then heated the vertical part so the right-angle corners became a curve. The results are pretty good- the five angles correspond to the curve of the trailer wall plus or minus an inch all along the corner. Getting focused on my work, I forgot to eat lunch but I drank three or four bottles of water. Skipping lunch earned me some chiding from my big son and his girlfriend. I made up for lunch by eating a lot for dinner.

Wednesday saw me pick up a garage-sale queen headboard. I cut it down to 39,” reinforced the cuts with strips of wood glued and screwed to the back of the headboard and filled the evidence of my faulty workmanship with more bondo. I put the first coat of paint on the headboard and two more coats of paint on the frame. I cut the extensions off the frame (where it bolts to the headboard and footboard from the factory) and welded them below the frame. This shortened the frame about four inches, making the length just about perfect for the space I wanted. The frame has to be about three inches shy of the back wall because that back wall tapers in, making the floor footprint smaller. I put on the first coat of Rustoleum enamel. Now the length is perfect, even with the three-inch-thick headboard.

Thursday was the day I second-coated the frame, measured and drilled holes for the frame into the headboard and footboard, carried the freshly-painted headboard and footboard and the much-modified frame into the trailer and assembled them. Then I took a few photos and watched TV as I lay on the bed. Woo hooo!! Broadcast TV has over a dozen channels.

On Friday, I went to Home Depot to look at kitchen counter tops because I thought that a Formica top would make a good work surface. After a bad case of sticker shock, I decided I didn't want 30" of counter sticking into my small bedroom. The backsplash was also something I didn't need. And they didn't even carry any faux-wood formica. I wanted something that looked like wood because I like wood. So I chose a used king headboard. This remnant of 70's-era furniture styling was a bit dark, even fading to murky green with age, but the piece was was 75" of solid wood with a 3" ledge. I cut the legs off, using Lee Valley Hardware's Japanese hand saw. Then I sanded the surface with my belt sander. Good job I had some very coarse belts that made short work of age and grime. Varathane stain made the color warm, improving the feeling you get from wood. Since I like the floor's shine and durability, I covered the surface with two coats of boat resin. My shelf/desk/work surface is now very durable and glossy with a very nice warm wood color. I recycled one leg into a support for one end and used some left-over maple from the bed headboard as support brackets.

Another of my on-the-road goals was to carry my pike with me. For the Sacramento SRS event, I unscrewed the back window screen and slid the 16 feet of steel-tipped ash through the window and let it sit on the floor. But that meant I couldn't open the window because bugs would come in with no screen. I put some new screen material on the tired screen and made two squares of leather (visible in the photo above) and sewed Velcro to the leather. With a lot of trepidation, I cut a hole in my new screen material and attached the two pieces of leather through the hole. Now I have something that comes off, lets me slide my pike through, and closes up with just some Velcro. This sounds like a minor thing, but it's really a good thing for me: I can take my pike and not worry about bugs.

Now I’ve got pretty much what I want- a good floor, a multi-purpose desk/shelf and a single bed along the wall, comfy and cozy. Oh, I may yet get that European Sleepworks mattress and cut a corner off to fit, but for now I’m happy with the camping pad on top of the springs. And plenty of pull-out storage in those tubs. Yes, I have more things to do- get new curtains and refinish the shower but I’ve gotten past some big humps- the floor, the shelf/work surface and the bed.

Yep, Last Resort keeps getting better and better.

Sitting in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, I’m thinking about the last couple of days. I left my house Sunday morning with my son Richie driving Kimmie’s 4-Runner to Oakland Airport. I had packed enough clothes for three days. Now I’m waiting three hours for my flight to Phoenix, then I’ll have a 100-minute layover until the connecting flight brings me back to Oakland at a quarter to midnight.

The first night was in the American Airlines Training Center, about 15 minutes from the airport. The hotel was huge, but ran pretty efficiently. Because so many people spend a few days at this hotel, they grew a cafeteria. Like many burocratic enterprises, the results depend on the resources someone pours in, and someone’s decision to fund the cafeteria well has resulted in pretty decent food. They offer the standard in breakfasts- eggs in various forms, oatmeal and grits, fruit, yoghurt, milk, coffee, tea, toast, etc. The lunches are also good, and vary a bit from pretty good to downright tasty. Dinner brings a variety of entrees and the people who wear a cafeteria uniform appear to be happy with their work. Ever deal with a cafeteria matron whose hands are putting food on your plate while her mind is out near the orbit of Mars? Well these folks are great- they listen, they are prompt, and they smile at you.

The group consisted of 12 other guys: Norman the former Border Patroller is from Florida and will go to do Border Enforcement with me. The rest were former sheriffs, police or state trooper types. They’re going to work with Iraqi police, while the two of us will work with Iraqi border police. I enjoyed a cigar while one of my colleagues tells me why he’s here. Former police, did a stint as a guard at a private prison, has an ex-wife who calls him a couple of times and a girlfriend near the Dallas area. The gym rat who merely smiles at the physical challenges we’ll face, joins us. Good guys, mostly.

Monday most of us got to the dental and physical exams. We took X-rays. Then, because the hotel had overbooked, we got bounced to a nearby Day’s Inn. While it seemed to all of us that reservations at a huge hotel seemed to be a certainty, this, like other events broke the “it’s not logical” ice. Remember, Dyn-Corp is a big company with plenty of money. So when they make reservations for 13 people, you’d think the hotel would keep them happy so they’ll keep bringing other groups back. But such was not to be. We had dinner there, then vanned to the Day’s Inn, where the beds were larger but the amenities were much fewer. Dyn-Corp, in its corporate wisdom, decided that we had to share rooms, so I got a roommate, a very nice guy from Alabama who put the basketball game on the TV and promptly fell asleep, snoring all night long. I didn’t sleep well at all.

At six AM (four AM California time), I woke up, dressed and vanned back to the first hotel. After my second day “usual” breakfast of oatmeal and fruit, we went to the conference room where we waited for the corporate folks to talk with us. We got the party-line speech: “Here’s my personal email if you have any trouble” and “When you sign for a year, you’d better plan on staying because we’ll blacklist you.” (I think he meant “blackball,” since only HUAC blacklisted anyone.) However, he was mostly straight-forward with us, so I took that as a good omen.

Then the paperwork minions began on us. These were corporate burocrats who worked under a belief that the security background stuff had to be “just so.” The less on the forms, the safer it was because the Department of State investigators had to approve each of us. To a few in the van, I opined that the contractors were likely not State investigators, but contractors, like us, whose paychecks depended on getting the work done. This process let credibility to my tenet that “If you want someone to do something, (like Department of State approval for each of us) you’ve got to do it yourself.” So Dyn-Corp’s folks helped us tweak the background clearance paperwork so that the DOS investigators would have to do nothing but approve the submitted forms.

We’ve all been there- some burocratic impulse constrains us to jump through hoops that have no relevance with reality, yet someone sometime has found the limit of mathematical uncertainty and ordained that 10 to the minus 100^th is, for the purposes of this exercise, equal to one point zero. Thus we have outlawed Fourth of July sparklers for 99.999% of the population because .001% may injure themselves. Similarly, if you can’t remember if it was June or August of 35 years ago that something happened, the software will allow an “estimated” drop-down tag, but the security folks don’t want to make the State department investigator have to consider the relevance of a variation of two months, 35 years ago. After a few tries, we got past all that. And like other top-down environments, when one person is satisfied, another one has to confirm that the information is, in fact, “OK.”

Norman and I, being penciled-in for a May deployment, had some urgency. So we finished the paperwork first. Then we went for shots. The Methodist Hospital HEB’s inoculations section was in a wing labeled “Lactating Mothers.” The two of us walked non-chalantly past racks of pamphleted tips for nursing mothers until we found the place where we’d get our shots. I met the nicest, friendliest and most capable RN in Dallas. Not only was she good at nursing, but as we chatted, she told me she likes to learn something new each year. Last year was music; this year will be learning to speak Hebrew. I noted that she had no Texas accent, and she told me she is from Wisconsin, near Madison, but has been a transplanted Texan for many years. Back to business, she asked about the inoculations I’ve had. I told her about being in the first Salk vaccine group, then being vaccinated for polio a few more times. I recounted how I had tetanus and HIV testing when I got stuck with a dental tool in Baggage. A few more questions and she gave me a ton of information about what I can expect in Iraq. She gave me four inoculations, loading up the syringes in front of me, and then showed me what each was. Two in each arm, one of which would cause me soreness tomorrow. Very little pain, but she put a band-aid on each arm.

Cholera and rabies exist there, but we won’t get cholera because we won’t be eating at anywhere but military cafeterias and Chez Dyn-Corp while we’re there. Cholera is curable with antibiotics, rabies with several shots. She advised that if I see an animal behaving strangely, shoot first and avoid rabies because the cure is quite painful. She also told me about a sand flea that leaves its eggs under your skin and subsequently causes trouble with your liver. DEET or its military equivalent are what I need to keep with me. When she talked to me about dehydration at my age, I noted that she had a lot of years to go until she was 62. She said she’d achieve that distinction in just a few years.

From the van, going back from the shots, the Dallas area looked great. There are some houses in the 2300 block of Murphy Street in (or near) Euless, TX that seem both affordable and comfortable. A bit older, but each was on a large lot with plenty of room to drive around the house. Tended lawns, mature fruit trees, and your neighbor about 100 feet away seem very attractive to me. A few of the houses were brick, a few were clapboard. They weren’t cookie-cutter houses, each being a bit different. One had two garages, one had a carport, one had no parking, but all were convenient to groceries, stores, etc.

Arriving at the hotel, I thanked Tommy, our driver and “soccer mom.” He chuckled a bit at the “soccer mom” designation but agreed that his job was, indeed, to take us in a van to various places, count noses to make sure each of us got there and got back and to make sure he didn’t lose any of his baby chicks.

Connor, the travel guru, got us tickets right away. Norman went to a different terminal, so we shook hands at the hotel before we took different hotel shuttles to the airport.

At the terminal, I vacillated over buying a one-day internet subscription. One part of me was saying, “It’s only ten bucks. Go for it.” But another, thriftier, part said, “Too much for one day.” So I decided to write this journal entry instead. I can wait a bit for internet.

The airport is populated with citizens. An elderly guy with some amazing shoes- they look appropriate for Victorian times, with tall (not high) heels sits dozing next to his wife who periodically gets up to take a flash photo through the glass of the baggage carts and the jetway exterior. Their seats are subsequently occupied by a crew-cutted guy wearing blue and white long-sleeved golf shirt while his wife speaks Chinese to him. Beyond them is a nice grey-haired lady with her feet perched on her wheelie bag. Next to her is a stout blonde lady stirring her slushie while her husband spoons frozen yoghurt. These could come from central casting for “SFO passengers.” Absent are any cowboys. I don’t see a single cowboy hat, pie-pan belt buckle, or even some dressy cowboy boots.

I wander the airport shops. I already read today’s paper and the selection of paperbacks seems limited. I’ve got more paperbacks in my downstairs bathroom than are for sale here opposite the US Airways departure gate. Maybe if I go back, I’ll find a magazine.

And I’d like to get Kimmie a pink “Texas” t-shirt. So maybe I’ll mosey over there, pahd-nuh, and see if Ah cayn’t wrangle me one. Gotta get something for Richie, too.