Washington

Subscription postcards: The Tacoma aroma, a giant cube, and alpine megafish

December 14, 2012 by campbell Leave a Comment

Postcard collage of Tacoma sunset — Hello Carmel! I drove through Tacoma, Washington on my way to and from Thanksgiving in Seattle. I’ve passed through Tacoma probably about a hundred times, but I’ve only ever stopped there once. Tacoma is famous for what they call the “Tacoma aroma”. To be fair, the smell is a lot less worse than it used to be, but the name has stuck around even if I haven’t.

Postcard collage of gigantic northwestern Rubik's cube — Hello Evgeniya! This postcard has a Rubik’s cube on it, but to me it looks like the Borg from Stark Trek. I saw a page on the Internet that described in great detail the similarities between the Bible’s description of heaven and the Borg. Heaven is, apparently, accordion to scripture I mean, a gigantic cubic city 1,500 miles per side.

There is a lot of interesting stuff on the Internet. I saw another page that purported to show telescopically photographed evidence of intelligent life on Jupiter. It would have been way more exciting if the evidence didn’t appear to have been created in Microsoft Paint. There’s such a fine line between the work of crazy people and that of Kool Keith.

Postcard collage of high-mountain alpine fishing — Hello Jeff! Greetings from the Pacific Northwest! There are a lot of annoying environmentalists out here complaining about our nearly depleted ocean fisheries, but you’ll never hear peep from these negative nellies about our mountain fisheries, which are doing fine. All you need to eat like a king for a year is to walk up to the top of a volcano — like Mount Hood, shown here — grab your fish, and return home as our fathers did and their fathers before them. These succulent fish are light, tasty, and delicious, and thanks to their unique ability to metabolize volcanic gases, a 10,000 kilogram specimen can grow to maturity in just three weeks. It is virtually impossible to deplete these fisheries, but you won’t ever learn about this amazing food resource listening to Ralph Nader or Rage Against the Machine. In fact, pretty much the only place you will hear about these alpine mega-fish is Lyndon LaRouche’s newsletter, to which I urge you to subscribe. LaRouche is doing a lot of good work right now. He is the only major political figure working to advance the idea that global warming is caused by emissions from the Crab Nebula, an idea that I regard as being highly plausible.

Subscription postcards: Bigfoot, science, and a mess of eggs

December 13, 2012 by campbell Leave a Comment

Postcard collage of hungry Sasquatch about to eat footballer — Hi Erin — Greetings from Seattle! I got this postcard at a gas station along Interstate 5. Gas stations are where you can get some of the best Bigfoot swag. Do they have Bigfoot in Canada? I hope so. Last summer a guy in Montana was killed while he was trying to do a Bigfoot hoax. He was dressed in a ghillie suit, trying to scare motorists on a busy highway. Then a teenager ran him over. The police said the hoaxer had probably been drinking. I am skeptical, though. I want to believe that a real Bigfoot caught him hoaxing, and was so enraged that he ran over the hoaxer himself. Then the cops had to do a cover-up to prevent mass panic over Bigfoot’s vehicular homicide. If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. I think Bigfoot would probably drive one of those cars like Fred Flintstone has.

Postcard collage explaining the science behind Mount Saint Helens — Hello Beth! Greetings from Seattle, where I’m spending Thanksgiving. This postcard is billed as a before and after shot of the Mount Saint Helens eruption. I think that’s misleading. Really it’s a before and during comparison.

Postcard collage of Washington State Thanksgiving — Hi Kevin, and greetings from Seattle. I’m up here for Thanksgiving … and to move a truckload of stuff out of my friend’s house. Yesterday I picked up the rental truck from U-Haul. You will be happy to hear that the truck was in excellent condition, and the gentleman working there absolutely did not appear to be as high as you can be while still barely performing your work obligations at a U-Haul franchise. When they asked me to record any problems with the truck before I left, I wrote down “damage to all surfaces”. I figured that would cover any normal wear and tear.

Subscription postcards: Washington State, where specialists can help

December 12, 2012 by campbell Leave a Comment

Collage made from Washington state postcard — Hello Mollie! Greetings from Seattle. I’m visiting the city for Thanksgiving. Here is a short list of things you can buy in Seattle:

– Sleepless in Seattle shot glass
– Space Needle T-shirt
– Kurt Cobain memorabilia
– Coffee

I am always worried about a big earthquake hitting Seattle. My friend here has a magnetic knife holder in his kitchen. I asked him if the knives would fall off in a strong earthquake. Would it be safe? He said his plan is to be in another room.

Postcard collage of cartoon dog overflying Mount Saint Helens — Hello Elizabeth! Greetings from Seattle. Seattle is a city in Washington state. There are mountains on one side and water on the other. On the way here I passed Mount Saint Helens. It erupted in the year 1980. That was 32 years ago. The top of the mountain came off in the eruption! Thankfully, scientists told everyone to go somewhere safe before it erupted. Smaller eruptions are making a new mountain inside the crater from 1980. Mount Saint Helens is very neat. I climbed to the top once. It was cold and snowy up there!

Postcard collage about mountains — Sacha — Greetings from Seattle! I’m up here for Thanksgiving. It’s a little late in the year to visit St. Helens if you’re not climbing it. I climbed it on Mother’s Day in 2003. The tradition is to climb the mountain wearing a dress. I had a frilly yellow tutu on over my pants. There’s an extra incentive to be safe when you climb in a tutu — it would be embarrassing for rescuers to find your ridiculous-looking, tutu-clad body at the bottom of a cliff.

Later that year I duct taped the tutu to a satellite dish I found on the curb. I dragged the tutu-satellite-dish combo behind my truck while I drove down a forest service road. I wanted to see what would happen. I’m not sure what I was expecting.

As an added bonus, here are some pictures of the above-mentioned satellite dish and tutu. Here you can see my friend Tom helping to set up the experiment, plus a live shot of the test rig.

A conglomeration of things

Subscription postcards: The Tacoma aroma, a giant cube, and alpine megafish

Subscription postcards: Bigfoot, science, and a mess of eggs

Subscription postcards: Washington State, where specialists can help

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