IN DAYTON OHIO WITH ORVILLE AND WILBUR WRIGHT

Well... finally made it into my home town and am at the Dayton Public Library to use their computers to blog in. Spent some time around the University of Dayton where I got my BA and then went into the Oregon District to try and find a web cafe of some kind. Found one, but I'd need a wireless card to use it. I considered installing a wireless card in my little i-book before I left Spokane but didn't do it, more shame on me. I also found a cafe where I could plug in, but I always hate to do that because I'm so stupid about computers, I lose my link to my ISP when I get back to Spokane. I know-that's no big deal to most, but it is to me.

The Oregon district is a sort of upscale, revitalization project just off the edges of Dayton's downtown and only a few blocks from Stivers High School from which institution I graduated.

While there I met Eric an artist/philosopher and Dustin, a philospher and thinker. Standing out in the sunshine in front of their local cafe, we talked for a couple of hours and it was mighty fine. Hi, guys! Later, I hooked up with my talented, longest-running friend, Carl Tropea, and in a couple of hours we got the world straightened out between us and then decided that, according to what we know of consciousness, we really can't be sure of anything.

Tomorrow, it's off to Carbondale, Illinois where I more than once drove down the sidewalks of the campus in the middle of the night with a little too much booze in my system. I think I passed George Bush going the other way, one night, but he didn't inhale. Had the balls of brass monkey, he did.


INTERSTATE RIVALRY

North Carolina and Ohio are arguing about their places in aviation history. North Carolina motor tags say, "First In Flight" because the Wright brothers took their Dayton, Ohio built and developed plane to Kitty Hawk to fly it for the first time. Dayton Ohio has always billed itself as the "Home of Aviation". It is true that the Wright brothers couldn't fly their plane in Ohio because they needed a lot of hot air to fly their plane in, and they needed to find a place full of blustery, windy hot air. That place, full of hot air, was North Carolina. If being full of hot air is North Carolina's claim to being part of aviation history, then let's not be selfish about. Hats off to the hot air in North Carolina!


DEERKILL, PENNSYLVANIA

I've never seen more deer slaughter than I did, traveling across central Pennsylvania into Ohio at Youngstown. Every twenty-five miles or so, there'd be another deer carcass. I never saw more deer kill than in this area.

By the way, in State College Pennsylvania, I did find the Yogurt Express where the internet with computers supplied was only $3.95 an hour.

In the afternoon as I drove over to Ohio from State College on I-80, a car flew past me at about 90-100 miles an hour. I had just almost changed lanes in front of him. The car was from Florida! Yep, Florida.


A BUSHMAN HONOR

Mao, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Hirohito, Saddam Hussein and George Bush? What do they all have in common? They all invaded other countries which did not attack them first. Now do you understand why liberals have only contempt for George Bush, and why we don't trust conservatives to do what is best for America? Look at how he and his henchmen have dishonored America's reputation by aligning our ways of doing things with those of other dictators. If I repeat myself, sorry.


ENEMIES AND ENEMIES AND MORE ENEMIES

Was watching a movie yesterday and found one in which the Russians are portrayed as courageous. Had something to do with a Cold War incident in which a nuclear sub's reactor goes bad and the Russians lose many men, trying to stop a meltdown which could have led to WWIII. Harrison Ford starred. Yes, a sympathetic portrayal of former enemies, like in "All Quiet On the Western Front", eh?

I thought back over my life and found the Nazis flowing into the Russians flowing into the Iraqis, flowing into Chinese. Why do we peasants keep letting these paranoid schizophrenics, called world leaders, lead us from one conflict to another? When do we take control, be calm and say no more?