All that said, I spoke to the Advisor, and did a Risk Assessment, and we're off to the races. I actually may purchase some stock here on Monday, if I can find a company that doesn't make me sick to my stomach. (Chinese oil companies are a growth industry, it seems.) My question is thus: how the hell does one sleep at night?

In that light, the first product to get the Treatment is the now-available Bounte t-shirt. Instead of the "any color you want, as long as it's black" ethos and "any size you want, as long as it's XL" we've gone with a range of sizes, and a heather grey shirt with black trim (known in the business as a "ringer" tee) from American Apparel. Now, obviously, these shirts are quite a bit more expensive than our normal fare, commensurate with the higher quality. Hence, the price is a bit higher than our normal t-shirt price. These shirts are 100% cotton made-in-the-USA, not some cheap-assed Chinese poly-blend. They are, in short, the best t-shirts made for screening, as far as we're aware.

So go buy one and see what you think. $20.00, and available in the full range of sizes. If this works out, we'll do all future shirts in this mode; that said, these are really slick, and we're quite pleased with the result.

Now, it's worth mentioning that the place I go swimming is on the Little North Fork of the Santiam River, while my mother's house is on the North Fork of the Santiam River. One would assume, from the terminology, that the river at my mom's house was the same as the first, only larger. However, dip your toe in and you'll rapidly come to discover that the two have little in common, other than ending up in the same place (the Pacific Ocean, eventually.)

The Little North Fork is a spring-fed mountain, uh, river. (It's just a little too big to be called a stream.) The water temperature yesterday was around 70. It meanders. It is, in short, perfect.

The North Fork is an entirely different beast. _Much_ larger and faster, it doesn't do any meandering at all. It is, in fact, a Torrent in certain places. But that can be dealt with; the problem is thus: it is glacial melt-water from the side of Mt. Jefferson just to the east. The water temperature rarely, even on a day where it is over 100, gets past 40 degrees. To give an adequate impression, fill a pitcher with tap water, put it in your freezer until ice just begins to film on the top, then pour it down your neck.

This river is cold.

But I love to swim, and it's very hot out. And I'm a Manimal. So I nutted up and jumped in that bitch. After the initial coronary-inducing shock, it was nice. For like 15 seconds. Then my fingers started turning blue and my teeth were chattering so bad it was making my ears pop. So that's done.

Anyways, the moral of the story? What with this Global Warming nonsense, Finland is looking quite nice.

It said in the paper this week that the Mill City Fire Department bought the maximum fireworks allowed by law for a town our size. I'm now able to quantify that: a fuckin' lot. The show tonight wouldn't be entirely out of place in a city the size of, say, Pittsburgh or something. Well, if you gotta have one thing your town is good at, it might as well be "blowin' shit up."

It's worth noting that fireworks are difficult to take pictures of. The above is the best one I got. I gave up about halfway through the show and just sat there and inhaled the smell of cordite. Go America.

Next week, I think we're gonna set our sights on the southern Oregon coast, pop down and look at the Redwoods, then back home. Should be a nice trip.

In other news, Bounte show on Tuesday, July 17, 2007 at Sonotheque in Chicago, so plan for that. I'm almost finished with Disk 1 of the next Micronaut album, and am starting to think about my next CR album. Let's see... that's about it for now, I guess.

So, I was pondering sending them an issue, but I wouldn't know what to do. Would it be Mill City Moose? How about the police blotter where someone calls in to report that Transformers are exploding and helicopters are attacking? (God's honest truth.) I would just send any given issue without actually having to circle anything, and they could do their whole Small Town News segment on our little paper.

But then again, I've got words for anyone that messes with my town that doesn't live here, so there's that to consider...