On this date…
1953 - Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became first men to reach the top of Mount Everest.
1986 - Colonel Oliver North told National Security Advisor William McFarlane that profits from weapons sold to Iran were being diverted to the Contras.
1997 - Jeff Buckley drowned while swimming with a friend off Mud Island in Memphis.
The Devil’s Dictionary - Ambrose Bierce
LAWFUL, adj. Compatible with the will of a judge having jurisdiction.
Homesteading
Here we are the last week in May and the weather here in western North Dakota has been more like January — overnight lows reaching the freezing mark. So not the best time for my move into the original ranch house here on the property, considering the 1940’s era building currently has neither hot water nor heat. I didn’t know about the ‘no heat’ aspect of it the first night (there were renovations in the basement and everyone thought the furnace had been hooked up again…nope!). I went to bed after my shift at 2AM so tired I didn’t much think about it but when I woke up at 4 in shivering spasms I knew something was amiss.
I have two blankets on the bed but they’re about the thickness of kleenex. I got up, put on all the clothing I could, piled the rest on top of the blankets and finally went back to sleep. The hot water is supposed to be fixed by the end of the week. (The shower-house will have to do until then). Two space heaters now keep the chillblains away.
Still and all, my room has two windows, a marked improvement from my earlier quarters in the basement of the restaurant, a tiny, windowless cubicle in which, as the saying goes, you couldn’t swing a dead cat. To say my outlook has ‘brightened’ would be correct.
Never boring here in the Badlands.
Time waits for no-one
H/t Shidoobee
The Devil’s Dictionary - Ambrose Bierce
BAIT, n. A preparation that renders the hook more palatable. The best kind is beauty.
Quote of the day
You’re not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.
- Dean Martin
True or false?
Robert Johnson and the Devil. Did they really meet at midnight down at the crossroads?
This is probably the sweetest thing you’ll see on the internet. Ever.
H/t Boing Boing
(Source: Boing Boing)
On this date…
1647 - A new law banned Catholic priests from the colony of Massachusetts. The penalty was banishment or death for a second offense.
1974 - In London, 1,000 people needed medical treatment and a 14 year old girl died when a crowd lost control at a David Cassidy concert.
1977 - George H. Willig was arrested after he scaled the South Tower of New York’s World Trade Center. It took him 3 1/2 hours.
