What's in a Name?

I love living out here in the "boondocks" of Calhan, Colorado. We've got pretty much everything one needs within walking distance: grocery, small restaurant, Post Office, Town Hall, hardware store, feed store, butcher's, elementary & high school, park, walking trail, even an insurance company! (We used to have a bar and a bowling alley, but the smoking ban killed those. That's another story for another day....) Anyway, here in Calhan, the one thing we don't have is a library. Fortunately, our wonderful Pikes Peak Library District provides us with Bookmobile services twice a week.

Well, that is, they used to. Very soon, Pikes Peak Library District, in their wonderful wisdom, will no longer drive the Bookmobile out to Calhan anymore: From now on, they will be driving the Mobile Library Services um, vehicle? Van? RV? Truck?

The Cost of Marriage

Very likely later today, the Colorado senate will be voting on a proposal to raise the cost of a marriage license from $10 to $35. According to The Gazette, Sen. Dave Schultheis, R-Colorado Springs, is against the idea, arguing that the State should do "everything it can to promote marriage and should consider adding the fee to the cost of getting a divorce instead." I say Schultheis is not only wrong, but that the Senate should consider raising the cost of a marriage license higher. Much, much higher.

Colorado, like many states, makes it extremely difficult and expensive to get divorced. Now, I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, but I do believe the emphasis is in the wrong place. I don't think divorce needs to be made more difficult. I think we need to make it far more difficult to get married.

Why? Because it's cheaper - and simpler - to get married than it is to license my dog. Seriously. If I wanted to get married - and I don't - all I need to do is go pay $10 and sign a short piece of paper. Until not too long ago, you didn't even need to show an ID.

Just a harmless whistle....

This past Saturday night, a friend ruptured my eardrum.

You see, I went back to college five years ago, and to help support myself, I started a small karaoke business. Most Friday and Saturday nights I'm in one small-town bar or another, aiding and abetting the vandalism of many a great hit song. This past Saturday night, at one of my regular gigs, one of my regular singers decided it was too quiet and let out a shrill, high-pitched, extremely loud, excruciatingly painful whistle. You know the kind, with two fingers in the mouth, intended to be heard across football stadiums over 90,000 screaming fans. That kind of loud.

The first time she let out one of her obnoxious sirens, it literally knocked me breathless. I yelled into the microphone, half-jokingly, to quit it, she was making my ears bleed!

In truth, I discovered just a few short minutes later, she really did make one of my ears bleed. My left ear started to ooze a very small amount of blood, mixed with some sort of clear-ish fluid. Still ringing, and a bit numb, the bleeding and oozing stopped very quickly.