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"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence."

--Napoleon Bonaparte

Sunday, June 12, 2005

Wanderings

Twice this week I've been standing on a street corner waiting for a signal to change and been asked the exact same thing. "Where's the Walmart?" I don't think that's ever happened to me until this week and then, boom, twice in two days.

I thought about this as I drove on Highway 95 south of Las Vegas. It was early Saturday morning, not much traffic. Just me and a big rig with a prominent Walmart on the back door. I was following and smiled, a bit amused. I still smiled as I drove north on the same stretch of road the next afternoon and followed another Walmart freight truck. Was that weird or is Walmart taking over the world.

My married-to-a-marine daughter decided to move home. She's expecting and due the end of July. It's much nicer in Farmington, weatherwise, than Twentynine Palms, California. So I drove my Chevy Silverado to Twentynine Palms to pack up her things and escort her back. I was surprised by how fast the drive went. I was also surprised at how barren and unpopulated the world is between Vegas and Twentynine Palms. Very dark on a moonless night.

Selecting tunes on my iPod has become tedious. My disk is full and the last time I updated it all of my playlists were wiped out. Not enough memory, I guess. Based on iTunes logic one giant playlist was created with all of my songs. Without the playlists I usually just choose to play songs by artist. That's too much work so recently I've selected the shuffle setting and I'm working my way through the all-encompassing playlist.

So going down and back, spending about 24 hours on the road over the past 48, I worked my way through more than 800 tunes. Some I just skipped right past. Others are on my shuffle and I hear them often, so I didn't bother listening. It's amazing how many of the songs I'd forgotten about. It was enjoyable to rediscover parts of my music collection. Oh, and what's up with that disco thing. It's embarrassing and I found myself wondering where some of these songs came from. Oh, well.

Driving past Mesquite late this afternoon the temperature was 83 degrees. By the time I got to the top of the Virgin River gorge it had dropped to 79 and by the time I stopped for gas in St. George the thermometer stood at 71 degrees. It's mid June in southern Utah. It's a strange weather year.

It was good to get home before midnight. Today I've been resting and getting ready to unload my truck. Donna had a bit more to pack than I'd expected. The only way to get it all in was to fill every space under the shell, the entire back seat and the front passenger seat. All of my past moving experience really paid off..........

10:24:09 PM