Well, it's been a while, hasn't it? I haven't done anything since Thursday, in fact. Happy Thursday!
No, it isn't.

Anyway, today marks a somewhat monumentous occasion in my life: I rolled my car over 100,000 miles today! Yep, an hour and a half or so ago, at 12:05 am, the sixth green digit on my dashboard lit up for the first time, excepting of course all those times I fooled around with the 'metric' toggle. Really, I've had many momentous occasions in my life, but none has summed up the others more than tonigh, when as a brilliant chamber-style violin/cello duet streamed over the radio and a rather odd-looking vehicle approached from the other direction, I glanced down at my dash to check my speed and noticed those dim green lights glancing back: 100004.

So that's my personal drive-home story for tonight. I had one about the beautiful full moon two or three nights ago, its light gently flickering against my arms as my car danced in and out of the long lunar shadows cast by the big pine trees just off the road, but I decided to sleep rather than record my musings. I remember it being... err... pretty, for what it's worth. When I tell people that I work in Keystone, the first comment I hear in reply is usually, "Wow, that drive must get old." And I usually respond, "It's not so bad," which of course is Midwestern for "I don't mean to contradict you, but frankly I love it." In reality, spending half an hour in a car before and after work, listening to music and news is a very relaxing thing. It could be just me. Or it could just be the Black Hills, which are not too hard on the eyes, especially under a full prairie moon and star-filled, cloudless sky. It's South Dakota's best-kept and perhaps only secret: we have hills here. Beautiful hills. Sharply-cast yet relaxed hills. These are hills so serene and ideal that the Sioux people consider the Black Hills to be holy land. The hills are shaped like a human heart, they explain, and is the heart of everything that is.

And so in the late 1930's and early 40's, a fellow named Borglum carved four heads into the heart of everything that is, and sixty years later, launching explosives into the air above them annually is a Big Deal. Such a big deal that 35,000 people were to have come to watch the colorful bursts of light this year. However, on Tuesday, the National Park Service announced that nothing would be blowing up this year in light of fire concerns. While this is a wise move on their part -- last year, a few shells went astray and ignited a tree or two -- it will seriously affect the local economy, as just about every shop in Keystone will lose at least 10,000 potential customers as a result. For me, it probably means a half-day off work, so I am most pleased with the Park Service's decision.

Some closing random thoughts:
Joan did indeed hypothesize to me that all NPR broadcasters are animals of some sort. I'm starting to think, however, that David Brancaccio is a living, breathing human being and not a super-intelligent, genetically enhanced marmoset.
KTEQ's benefit art-punk show at the Minnelezuhan senior citizen center next Wednesday is sponsored by Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut: making your ears bleed since 1962.
Hey, I have to get up in four hours, don't I? Well, good night...