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Excerpts from a letter to Flink (2018)

November 26, 2018 by campbell Leave a Comment

Banner image of tweezers holding a Soviet stamp of Lenin, speech bubble says "put me down this is serious, i dserve a srious font, goddammit," lower text says "Excerpts from a letter to Flink, Early 2018"

12 February 2018

Line drawing of a man slapping a patch on his chest, the patch has a Starfleet logo drawn on it and a speech bubble says "Riker to Bridge"

Snow is falling again. It’s right around freezing and doesn’t seem to want to stick. I sectioned up a bunch of firewood this morning so I have plenty in reserve for the next week or two.

Back in Iowa ten years ago I had a chainsaw — never used it. I think I may have had two chainsaws. But I would just buy firewood from friends or whoever. I never learned how to use a chainsaw properly.

Now I know better. Somewhat. It’s been a learning experience. I dulled the chain pretty quickly due to my carelessness — oops, I forgot to add chain lubricant, oops, I chainsawed a rock — but the good news is I’m more on top of my chainsaw maintenance game now than ever before.

YouTube is pretty cool; it taught me how to sharpen a chainsaw properly. The first video was a Russian guy being like, “A tree fell down in my yard; let’s do a chainsaw tutorial. File kit ready, set, sharpen!” Then there was a dude filming his dad sharpening a chainsaw, not as good as the first video but still a couple handy pointers. And finally an ADHD Canadian lumberjack dude with lots of fully explained asides: “Who’s calling? Hold on, I have to get this — it could be the cable company.”

19 February 2018

My folks are in town for the weekend and it’s good to see them. It’s good to be like, “Hey, would you like to hold the baby?” And then I can, well, I guess what I probably should have done was take a shower.

Collage of a ticket to an event called "Why monuments matter" and a line drawing of a water filter pumping into a water bag

10 April 2018

Hey man. Greetings from a Trader Joe’s parking lot in Phoenix, where I’m hanging out in the back of the family SUV with my overtired seven-month-old son while Mandy shops for dinner. Max got his flat-head-fixer-upper helmet today, and we’re enjoying the blazing-but-not-brutally hot upper 90s Phoenix temps. Public comments on the scoping phase for Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears’ new management plans are due soon, and I knocked out a rough draft of those earlier today while Max was sleeping, so, you know, civics, I guess.

A colorful collage of a grapefruit juice label with marker-colored technical drawing and an outline of a woman's figure full of numbers, and text that says "Rhapsodic utterances of joy"

26 April 2018

Good morning, Flink! It’s 5:41 am and the sun is just about to rise because this is Arizona and Arizona knows that Daylight Savings Time is for chump states. Arizona is a Benjamin Franklin state, early to bed and early to rise, especially for light-sensitive babies!

Did you know: in June the sun will never set any later than 7:49 pm … but the sky will begin to get light at 3:22 am! I mean, I’m being dramatic here, 3:22 am is Arizona’s earliest astronomical twilight, which begins in the morning when the sun is 18° below the horizon. I guess if I really want to be fair I should tell you that astronomical twilight ends after sunset at 9:38 pm on the solstice.

Well, that concludes today’s installment of Arizona star talk; thank you for listening to me bitch about the movements of the sun and earth.

Collage of a southwest sky and text that says "Double Burgers: In our own way, we each found wonder"

01 May 2018

The power is out. I was sitting at my desk, getting stuff done, and then: Beeeeeoooowooprt. Everything electronic was dead and I was like, “Okay, now what?” Well, now I’ll write to Flink and complain about the frequency of power outages in general and also the inconvenience of this outage specifically.

I vividly recall your last email to me, which included the following request (quoted verbatim from memory): “Mike, in your next letter, please be sure to complain at great lenth about minor inconveniences over which you have no control.”

And I thought, man that’s a tall order, but anything for Flink. He is a true friend and if he wants to read about the fact that sometimes it is too windy and sometimes when the honey in the cupboard is too old it crystallizes and won’t pour smoothly and sometimes — oh my, I can’t think of anything else to complain about; I am sorry, I must have deeply disappointed you here.

I had hoped the power would be back on by now so I could be like, “Complaining works again!” but nope, guess I gotta complain about how complaining doesn’t work.

A collage of two tents in the desert with cacti, and text that says "Monday to Friday 3-5 pm"

A long handwritten block of text criticizing the misogynistic behavior of the members of Led Zeppelin

A collage of father and son on a surfboard, with text that says "2-topping" and "the prof and the pontiff"

Knowledge is a beautiful thing

November 19, 2018 by campbell Leave a Comment

Collage of a woman's face with engine-building advice and text that says "Knowledge is a beautiful thing"

Will more cylinder-head flow always make more power?

The intake-port numbers primarily establish the engine RPM where peak power occurs, and for best results should be matched to a complementary camshaft.

KNOWLEDGE IS A BEAUTIFUL THING.

Welcome to Zip Drive

November 12, 2018 by campbell Leave a Comment

A collage postcard of Zip Drive clipart and text that says "Welcome to Zip Drive!"

Reverse side of collage postcard, with postcard text and cut-out headline that says "A sweet result"

Hey Jon —

Here’s a fun fact. PC World ranked the Zip Drive as both the 23rd best and 15th worst tech product of all time. It’s true! I fact checked the Wikipedia article. Knowledge is power and now you know.

Sincerely,

The 23rd most powerful person on Earth

Improve your odds

November 5, 2018 by campbell Leave a Comment

Homemade postcard collage — Exploded technical drawing of a cruise missile, with text that says "Improve your odds"

Back of homemade postcard

15 Nov. 2017

Hey Matt — How are you doing, man? We’re both dads now. That’s pretty wild. I’m currently enjoying a Jim Beam from your spring 2017 advent calendar. Truly it is the gift that keeps on giving. Back in 2005-ish, the advent calendar would have supplied enough alcohol for about half an evening of drinking. Now we’re both dads. Are you good at it yet? I feel like I’m just starting to get good at it.

Mandy is in Sedona with Max and a friend, so tonight I have a fire burning in the wood stove and I’m thinking about life. I spent the day doing paperwork and it’s good to have it done and now I’m just thinking about stuff. I ate four baked potatoes for dinner because that’s about the level I’m operating at right now, culinary-wise.

We should talk on the phone soon. Come visit Arizona some time. If we lived in a smaller country, it would be impossible to live so far apart. Germany is … like, Germany is the size Delaware. I mean it’s not, but you can’t get as far apart as Seattle and Arizona in Germany. Maybe at most Seattle and Boise. At most. I don’t know. Mostly I just wanted to say wow, and hi.

—Mike.

The Story of Mozart (Composer)

October 29, 2018 by campbell Leave a Comment

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born a baby, the son of a grand piano and a domineering mule deer father.

Drawing of a mule deer standing by a piano with a baby in it

The elder Mozart recognized his son’s skills, and worked to develop them.

Drawing of a mule deer watching a baby play piano

Soon young Mozart was thrilling the most important people in Europe.

Drawing of a man in religious garb watching Mozart play piano

Then Mozart became an adult, and things went haywire. He developed a drug problem.

Drawing of Mozart about to hit rock bottom

It was then that Mozart wrote his famous series of “gutter concertos.”

Drawing of Mozart sprawled on the ground, writing a concerto with a quill pen

Soon he was back on top …

Drawing of an irresponsible Mozart in a hot-rod carriage

But he quickly spent it all.

Drawing of Mozart sprawled on the ground, having difficulty with his life

Then Mozart’s dad died and Mozart got really sick.

Drawing of Mozart sick in bed.

It was the end. The genius was dead.

Drawing of Mozart's tombstone

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