Fun With Fuel Sources
50 Ways To Leave Your Yellow Jacket
Ed's Flag
I spent the entire day sitting on the side of the river reading. The Asbestos Kid, Diamond Jim and Dane-O went for a hike up to the top of one of the canyon walls. There is a ledge at the top with a lone flag flapping hard in the wind. This is Ed's Flag. Diamond Jim knows who Ed was and a bit of the story. Will get that from him one of these days. Diamond Jim knew every inch of this entire river.
While I had wanted to go on the hike, I felt like a peaceful day by the river would be fantastic. And it was. The boys got back around 1:00 PM and we had a great lunch of peanut butter sandwiches, chips, dip, salsa, fresh fruit, some more swiss mocha and tuna fish. We pretty much sat around, took naps and did half as much of nothing. The Asbestos Kid and I gave Dane-O the stink eye for the PBR incident.
The Asbestos Kid caught a yellow jacket in his water bottle. He was fascinated with it and took it down to the river and sank it in the water using large rocks to hold it underwater. In response to our inquisative stares he responded that putting the bee under the water would drop the temperature in the water bottle to the point of putting the yellow jacket into a hibernation so that he could "have his way with [the yellow jacket]sic." I wasn't sure I wanted to know the depth or bredth of The Asbestos Kid's way with this insect. I also thanked providence he had his own tent.
As a cloudless evening started rolling in, we cooked up a grand dinner of spuds and Walla Walla sweet onions, sauted mushrooms, a bottle of red wine with juicy, thick steaks BBQ'd over the coals. It was ridiculously good. I ended up eating it with my hands because it was so juicy it had soaked through two paper plates. To top it off, Diamond Jim brought out a chocolate cake for desert. Then he served Seven and Sevens. With ice.
Booze began flowing pretty freely at this point. We had stolen some wood from the camp next to us so we had plenty of wood for heat. Diamond Jim picked up the lighter fluid at some point and began to have a lot of fun squirting it on the fire, dancing with delight at the large flames licking the juniper tree the fire was under. Dane-O, taking Diamond Jim's cue and squirting the fire with the lighter fluid. Conveniently, he did it anytime I walked up to or in front of the fire. It only took me hitting him twice with a stick before he saw the error of his ways. Hims a fast learner.
Diamond Jim was mixing them strong into the later hours of the evening and the trains were strolling in every twenty minutes or so. We didn't have the ambience from the rain as from the previous night, but it was a very crisp, clear night challenging us with our collective knowledge of the constellations, which, while lacking, wasn't terribly unimpressive. The Asbestos Kid started pouring the wiskey into his water bottle, measuring in sub-liters versus good old ounces. And when this simple concept of translation causes Mars expeditions to accidentally crash into its final destination, it tends to be an important translation. This was the case with the wiskey. It's a small difference to be measuring in ounces and millileters, but it's an important difference. This can be expressed in mathematical terms:
Wo = wiskey in ounces
Wl = wiskey in millileters
M = mental state
ap = inebriation level
Ak = The Asbestor Kid
33.814 = Subjective Incomplete Constant
[{(Ak)33.814} + M]/ap = WI/Wo
In order to make this theory even slightly acceptable, which it is not and I can prove it doesn't, you have to understand that this proves it correct by knowing that it can be proven incorrect. All smart people know this. The Republican Party understands this theory and use it very well. Regardless, it basically means that when he started slugging 100 ml worth of wiskey it's not equivalent to drinking a fluid ounce of wiskey.
It was a very short time before The Asbestos Kid was stumbling rather closely to the flames of the fire. At some point earlier in the evening, Diamond Jim had place the lighter fluid between his legs and R. Kellied a la Napalm Piss all over The Asbestos Kid. And now The Asbestos Kid was standing within a flame's licking distance with lighter fluid glistening on singed haired shins. And he didn't catch on fire. Diamond Jim was amazed at this and decided to test it further by squiring more lighter fluid on the The Asbestos Kid. I am not sure how many of these experiments it was going to take before he accepted the fact that The Asbestos Kid don't burn, but I really didn't want to let him find out. After taking the lighter fluid from him, Diamond Jim informed me he "really [is] Darwin material." As I looked behind me after this pundant, I noticed The Asbestos Kid had picked up the lighter fluid and was forming a small pool in a large pit of rock next to the fire. He had begun his own scientific experiments with the hypothesis of:
Lighter fluid needs a fuel source underneath it in order to actually burn.
While I was interested in his discovery, I wasn't sure he fully understood the very simple fact that clothes soaked with kerosene can and will catch on fire if exposed within inches of open flames. We made a new rule at this point that while being Darwin material may be good and all, trying to push the motto into a political statement of burning flesh would be a real buzzkill.
(Drunk People + Kerosene) * Open Fire = Bad Things
After taking away the toys, we had a great evening. Booze, conversation and idiocy flowed as freely as congratulations to a mohel after a successful bris. We all stumbled off to bed and tried to not hear the trains roaring by us all night.
