If you could help out and/or pass along...

My friends, Jay and Naomi Burns, are currently in the process of adopting two adorable girls from Ethiopia. As with any adoption, in order to ensure children make it into a good, quality home environment with responsible parents; many forms, policies and processes are involved, and can make the cost of adoption rather expensive. Despite this fact, they are determined to keep on course to start their family. And my family is currently helping out where we can, including facilitating more channels where ever possible to help them out along this wonderful journey.

So if you can, read the following excerpt which I have copied from their adoption blog http://burnsadoption.blogspot.com/ . If you can find it in your heart to help out with their latest fundraiser, I know they'd really appreciate it, and so would I. You can also reprint this and pass it along to others, as a way that they can help, or even show ideas of how anyone you know who might be looking into adoption can work towards their goals.

Please Read Below, and Thank You:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It will be official tomorrow. We are accepting our placement. As mentioned below, Ethiopia does not allow us to publicly post photos, but we will have a picture with us and close to our hearts. We can send a personal e-mail of a photo. If you would like this, please let us know and give us your e-mail account.

Here's how you can help. Our next fundraiser starts tonight! We have purchased a 500 piece puzzle (below). We will put the puzzle together and hang it in the girls' room. You can adopt a puzzle piece(s) for $5 each. Simply click the pay pal link on the right and make a donation. When you adopt a piece, your name will be written on the back.

If you would like to go above and beyond purchasing a piece, forward our blog and info to your friends. Post it on your facebook, tweet it...etc. We appreciate all of the help that we can get. We need to raise $15k in the next 4 month. This is one of four fundraisers planned.


40 of 500 pieces have been sold so far! Thank you for your donations! If you have not purchased your piece, click on the PayPal link on the right to donate. You DO NOT need a PayPal account to donate, just a debit or credit card. If you would rather send a check in the mail, make it out to:

Ethiopian Hope Adoptions
822 Jonathon Road
Powell, WY 82435

This goes through Harvest Church in Billings, MT (www.harvestweb.net) and these checks are tax deductible. Donations made through PayPal are not tax deductible. If you are mailing us a check, please write on a separate sheet of paper the name(s) you would like to have written on the puzzle for your donation. Again, THANK YOU for all of your help!!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All payment methods and links for PayPal can be found on Jay and Naomi's Adoption blog here and not on this blog. Again, Thank You very much.

Camping in the heart of Bear Country

Well, for your entertainment, you lucky few who got in on the ground floor of this blog....HEre I am, decked out in high fashion with Doggles. Yes, I said Doggles...when your dog rides on the back of your 4 wheeler, and he needs to keep all that dust and dirt out of his eyes, turn to Doggles, the optimum product for Canine recreation optical protection. With state of the art plastic lenses, some straps and a few other things made from aritificial materials, how can you go wrong? Doggles....available where ever they are sold. And now, back to Bob Barker with a message about spaying and neutering your pets...

Jay's mom and stepdad came out to the campsite for supper, along with a couple other friends of theirs. Oh yes...I was surrounded by America loving hatemongers. It really was such a horrible experience, having to surrounded by essentially like minded people. And then there was Jay's mom, Linda. Oh yes, the woman who was my 2nd mom, and had tanned my hide on more than just one occasion after getting caught messing up with her boys. (I swear, trouble found us and wouldn't leave us alone..but did SHE believe us...noooooo, its always, "you boy's are gonna knock this stuff off RIGHT now"...suuuure mom! we'll get right on that.) Besides my parents, Jay's parents also suffered from enjoying child abuse just a bit too much. Clearly we were innocent victims of their mental illness. Didn't clean your room... beating. Peed on your little brother or sister for fun and then got ratted out...beating. Ratted out little brother for peeing on you...called a tattle tale, and then beaten. Didn't eat all the stuff on your plate, or skipped the 'nasty stuff' to get to dessert...beating. Oh YES, dear Mama Linda apparently being a grandmother cures that abusive nature.
You see, Linda was sitting across the table from Buggy during supper that night. I noticed conspiracy goings-on from there section of our camp (all good hatemongers develop the ability to see conspiracies at every turn you know). I couldnt figure it out, but there was a long time between Buggy starting his hot dog and finishing it. I clearly spelled it out for him that he ate the HotDog, then Fran's famous pork and beans (now made without gas!), and then he could have the chips on his plate. Linda was looking pretty suspicious and guilty everytime I looked over at her. I didn't know what was going on, but something was definitely going on. LAter on, with my super detective skills (also read lucky happenstance), Linda confessed to the crime of feeding Cheetos to Buggy under the table. It really was almost hypocritic treason. This was the same lady who threatened no dessert if we didnt finish our plates, and here she is, 20some years later feeding snack food to my youngest, on demand. I really couldn't believe this, and as I instructed Buggy as to the nature of getting his food eaten, Linda looks right at me and tells me to stay out of it. WHAAAAAT? Just as I felt I was losing the parental battle of wills to the child and his surrogate grandmother, a hero comes to my rescue. Chad, Linda's husband immediately looked Linda dead int he eyes and says "exactly". He had told her to follow her own advice and did so without coming off overbearing or nasty about it. But the message was clear. When in the outdoors, MEN run this world! Thanks Chad!



And the rest of these are views from our camping area. Pretty nice area around Deer Creek. But dont let that fool you...we were clearly warned that we were in the heart of bear country, and were reminded of that by the big metal box in the middle of our campsite that was specifically for placing our stuff into for protection from any bears that might be dumb enough to wander into our campsite. Not that it matters, WE'd just wake up Josh and Buggy, and send them out armed with sticks and rocks to teach that dumb bear a lesson. If that didn't work, well, us adults would clearly have a head start on the kids...(I'M JUST KIDDING...now I know I'll be getting a phone call from my mother telling me just how 'not funny' that is..oh well).

You'll see, being rich elitists like we are, we got the mansion of all tents....yep, plenty of room, including a 'closet' and a little connected entry mat....I thought about taking some paint and painting "Welcome" on it, but then I realized I had a mental lapse in how the social order of things go, and that I hate people, especially those in the lower socio-economic levels, like my buddy Jay, who could only afford this little dinky tent, emblazoned with Hillary's political propoganda. But, I still associate with him, after all, he did save my life back in the Great Ravine Wars, so he squeezes through. Other than that, only rich country clubbers fit into my social circle. And of course even they don't get to just drop in unannounced. They have to call my secretary and schedule an appointment prior to even thinking about coming over. That includes during emergencies as well. Hell, I make my wife schedule her personal time with me, thats how important I am!


Now, to assure my manliness, let me tell you what happened that night. I was awoken my my keen sense of manliness which told me that I had to pee, and doing so inside the tent was probably not the best way to go. I may have come out to Wyoming to poke a bear, but irritating a wife by peeing on her is probably going to bring about a much worse fate. No matter how manly a guy is, this is a stupid idea, and any false sense of manliness would be exposed So I unzipped the entry and proceeded outside. WE had already been pestered by this random cat who spent most of the night yowling all over the place, looking for someone to pay attention to him or her. However, as I was outside watering a couple plants, I heard no cat, but many sticks snapping. My mind was messing with me hardcore. Had a bear come down out of the hills to see what's going to be his late night snack? I spent time divided convincing myself it was nothing, and wondering if I wasn't an idiot for dismissing the posssibility of a bear coming up behind me. Then the oddest thought came to my head. I have the canister of Bear Mace tucked under one arm while doing my business. Now, as any guy will attest, once we start, we like to finish uninterrupted. Cutting off the stream can be painful and is to be avoided at all costs. But what if a bear did show up behind me. Would I sacrifice my sense of relief watering-wise and turn on this bear with the mace? Would I use just one hand to mace the bear while finishing my business? Or would I turn around, drop the mace can and just pee on the bear? And would either of these options workout for the best?

Sure this seems like an awful lot of thinking to have been performed while merely taking a leak, but I assure you, I had been hydrating myself pretty well as of late. So, now that you have clear visions of me urinating while wearing Doggles, have a GREAT DAY!

More from Yellowstone

We conducted a participant survey while in Yellowstone. It turns out that 5 out 5 Ground Squirrels prefer Nacho Cheese Doritos over the leading brands. I had one come up and sniff my leg and begin to beg for a handout. But then the people who's truck was parked next to Jay's showed up and scared the little bugger off. Obviously they are nature haters, and against interspecies diplomacy. Damn hatemongers!
After a few days, you can see that Jay was clearly tired of me being around and proceeded to kick me off a canyon cliff. He told me it was nothing personal but he "likes the wife and kids much better."
You ever wonder how a 5 year old manages to have total energy after a long day of traveling about??? Well, my kid has learned to flash his grill and take full advantage of his aunt and uncle (although in this one its me actually toting the little scheister around) and get them to give him rides everywhere we have to go on foot. At least as long as there isn't rocks to be climbed, or animal poop to be thrown.



And here we have Nomi and Jay standing outside enjoying the scenery I'm sure they take for granted now. Of course Jay has his morning coffee, otherwise he would have been the first bear I would have had to poke. And I would've been kicked off the cliff a lot quicker.

Visit to Yellowstone

Here you will fidn the most modern of abodes where we spent the night during our entire trip, our friend Naomi's place. Her hubby, my buddy Jay also gets the privilege of living here. I'd say he definitely got the good end of the deal here...a beautiful wife and a nice place she allows him to stay in!! They were gracious enough to open up their house to us while we were in the area for a few days, and take us everywhere. Talk about good gas mileage. Sitting in the driveway for 4 days really makes the travel cheap! When we weren't out exploring, we played a new game to me called Cardbles (at least I think that's how you spell it). The first night, Jed and I thought we were pretty cool, defeating our wive's soundly. Our last night there, the wive's returned the favor. I'm pretty sure they cheated, as they took our color of marbles this time around, as well as other un-provable ways to cheat. So we stand at 2 wins and 2 losses. Now I have to go back so we can hash this out and find a clear victor.

Here you will find that the normally wide awake and on the go Buggy even found that 6am can be just a bit to early sometimes. Apparently full days of hiking and climbing on rocks to throw stones off took its toll on his body. His older brother on the otherhand, seemed rather ecstatic about being in the front seat of the truck with us men.

Well it took us about 12 hours of going all over Yellowstone, but it finally happened. While I was fully prepared to write a scathing letter to the Wyoming Board of Tourism and their role in hiding all the bears from me, we finally found one. Thanks to the keen eye of my buddy Jay, he spotted this grizzly about 100 yards up a wooded draw, digging in the ground for grubs. It was a dream come true for my vacation out here. As promised, I poked a bear! Not to be outdone, both my sons saddled up and rode the bears. SHOWOFFS!


Of course we saw Old Faithful. This was well before the "bear incident". At first we had to wait about an hour, then they started getting sketchy on the +/- ratio of when it might happen. Then it began, sputtered, and disappeared...repeatedly. Naomi looked over at me, and sympathetically apologized to me, as there had been no bears and now Old Faithful was appearing to be broken during my first ever visit. Clearly the State of Wyoming was conspiring against me. But, eventually Old Faithful erupted. I guess the valve release operator (come on, we all know the 'natural' process being so timely is one of many government funded conspiracies) took a little longer on his smoke break than initially anticipated. Maybe his buffalo burger was a bit undercooked and he was dealing with certain lower GI issues? I don't know for sure, but he finally cracked open the valve and we got to see the eruption.
We sawe a bunch of people parked alongside the road, and found out there were a couple elk hanging out underneath a couple trees on the hillside. My wife got a great picture of one of them here. They still have the felt on their antlers. Pretty cool. And colorful steampots are okay, but the smell....woof! You'll also see a picture of some buffalos roaming around some steampots on the opposite side of the river. Two things you wont see in this picture are somewhat amusing and disturbing at the same time. We had 3 buffalos downstream from us, and eventually they attempted to outflank us and trap us from escape to the truck, and keep us between them and the river. Buffalos, being about the size of a tank had apparently been doing some battlefield reading in their downtime. Rommel, you magnificent sonofabitch! I read your book!
And the other incident unphotoed of course was Buggy, who chucked a big rock into the stream. What he didn't realize was that 'big rock' was actually a nice pie left by the buffalo at an earlier time. YUCK!

Wyoming- Part II

SO most of these pictures came from a daytrip my buddy Jay took us on our first day at his place. This monument stone, while unreadable here, denotes this place as Dead Indian Summit. Apparently during the Nez Perce march away from Union soldiers, one had been injured and left at this summit, where he was found dead by the soldiers. And thus came its name. It is along the St Joseph Scenic Byway.
And here is one picture of a cactus and its rosebloom, one of many dotting the landscape in this particular area.
A look over the river canyon. As usual, us boys just need some good rocks to be out on, and Buggy of course is quite content chucking rocks into the river. Ahhh, to be a 5 year od again, when the biggest decision of life is "Which rock should I throw over the edge first?"

And finally a nice look over the mountain ranges lying in the Yellowstone National Park area ahead of us.

Wyoming- the Second part of our vacation (pt 1)

So these first two pictures (I forgot that the last ones I choose end up being first...and our mouse is a bit busted, so the whole copy and paste to change order didn't work) are from the Bighorn Mountain Range in Central Wyoming. One is of a mountain, the other is looking from the roadside back over the stretch of eastern Wyoming we had just crossed. As we neared the top of the mountains during this trek, the sun was going down and it was a rather winding road, with lots of construction going on. I did about 13 miles on a dirt road bed they had removed the pavement from. I spent time trying not to hit the orange cones on one side, and not falling off the slope on the other. FUN!!! The trip down the western side on 10% downgrades for another 13 miles or so while winding back and forth was really good for my nerves! But obviously we made it, since your'e reading about it from me, rather than some actual news publication detailing the accident. Coming back in full light was much easier, and better for photographs, although we took less on the way back through. My wife took a total of 670+ photos during our vacation, along with some video.



And our first stop in Wyoming was Devil's Tower. We got here a day early after deciding Deadwood was a gambler's paradise, instead of the slightly fmaily friendly town it was 20 years ago when I last visited. A very interesting landmark, Devil's Tower was supposedly formed by a volcanic intrusion exposed after all other sediments surrounding it were eroded away. My personal professiona opinion is that it was the model for the Tower of Babel, but with the original architect killed in a building accident (something about a steel I-beam falling from the makeshift crane's hook), it was forgotted about and never torn down to use the materials for future building products As you can see, the boys STILL only need rocks to climb on to be satisfied with themselves. One guy was nice enough to offer to take a family photo for us as we hiked around the base. I'm the photogenic one with the hat on.