This blog features photography, stories and opinion. To see more photos, please visit https://davidarment.photos
Pam is working at her desk in her “craft room” and I see a cold drink with ice in the living room on a table…
Me: Do you want me to bring you your drink?
Pam: No, I’ll be out of here in a little while.
Me: It’s no problem.
Pam: No that’s okay.
Me: I’d really like to do it for you?
Pam: Why are you acting more weird than usual?
Me: I really want to do something nice for you?
Pam: Why?
Me: Because then you will owe me one.
True love.
Taking concert pictures was something that was nerve wracking at first. Now I enjoy doing it. The people at the Blue Gate are so great to be around and work with. They are a wonderful team. I spin around the periphery of what they do and admire their skill and team work.
If you get a change to come and see a concert you should do so and then spend the day at the Flea Market.
https://www.davidarment.photos/Curated-Concert-Images
Today Pam and I were listening to a person on YouTube. It was someone who is on the radio every day. Portions of their broadcast are replayed on YouTube.
This person was talking about some politicians who had done some really bad things… allegedly. The commentator was suggesting serious consequences for these naughty politicians .
I said out loud, “Hang ‘em!”
Pam said in enthusiastic agreement, “Yeah, like they used to do with cow wrestlers.”
Me: “Cow wrestlers? I don’t think you mean wresters, I think you mean rustlers.”
Pam started laughing and that short conversation was over.
It reminded me of my friend Mike.
My friend Mike wanted to be a worm wrangler.
Sometimes you have jobs that lead to long lasting friendships. Other times those friendships evaporate after you separate from an employer. My friend Mike was in this second category, so that I never found out if he got to be a wrangler.
When Mike wasn’t working I had the distinct notion that he spent a lot of time at the bait shop nearby to where he lived somewhere in that mysterious state of Arkansas. They drank coffee there at the bait shop, and were routinely interrupted to sell bait.
Men, retired and wishing they were retired, would go to the bait shop and drink coffee, talk about the weather, the fishing prospects and most importantly to swap stories. Mike was good at all of that.
Apparently he was also really good with worms.
He wanted to retire and be a “worm wrangler”. I don’t know if he was going to get paid in money or if he was going to be paid in coffee. If he were paid that would make him a professional and he might have to join the PWWA… Profession Worm Wrangler Association and pay union dues and go to meetings etc. So my bet would be that he just got paid in coffee, and maybe smokes. I don’t know if you can smoke in a bait shop, but if you can, Mike would.
Mike traveled in his job and I traveled in mine. Our jobs necessarily overlapped and we would find ourselves working together. When that happened we would drink coffee, talk about the weather and the people we worked with and how the world could be better if we were in charge. We did a lot of driving and that driving was intrrupted by calling on customers and wannabe customers. (Wannabe, meaning we wanted them to be customers, but they were reluctant for some unknown and unknowable reasons.)
On the occasion of meeting Mike I would ask him about his dream of working in the bait shop upon retirement. I would purposely mis-state his dream job by asking something like…
“Are they still holding open that job for you at the bait shop as ‘worm rustler’”
I knew this would cause fireworks. It always did and I was very entertained.
He would say, “What is wrong with you?!?!?! How many times do I have to tell you it ain’t rustler… it is wrangler!”
Mike was not a big person and he talked with his hands. So when he would get excited his hands would start beating the air and he would be shaking all over because of the flailing arms.
“Don’t you know the difference between a wrangler and a rustler? I’m a wrangler!”
I don’t think he ever fully explained the difference between a wrangler and a rustler.
Nor was there any instructions on how to wrangle a worm. In my pea sized brain you “herded” them into a styrofoam container making sure there was some dirt in there with them to make them feel good about their short lives and put a plastic lid on. Maybe you would write with a marker on the outside the container “Worms”. Or maybe you would scribble the type of worm “Night Crawlers”. Or “Red Worms”… if there is such a thing.
Was Mike an actor and played a part when asked about his future rustler endeavors? Did he really think that I couldn't remember that we had done the rustler vs wrangler bit many times? I couldn’t tell. He played his part over and over again and the theatre lasted until the friendship was over.
I hope Mike is wrangling worms somewhere in the hills of Arkansas…
… and I hope Pam does not take up cow wrestling.
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| Log Cabin at David Rogers Park |
One lady was waiting for something. She asked me if we had a child to drop off. She was waiting for a boy who had not shown up the day before and wasn't there today for camp. I opened the door of the truck and pointed inside at Dan and asked if she wanted him.
She didn't seem interested in Dan as a day camper. Her loss.
I told her we were going to take pictures of the cabins and we would NOT be getting any of her kids in them. She tried to tell me / us that they had signed waivers for picture taking. I listened, but we had no interest in her kids who had all but disappeared over the hill and were heading toward the pickle ball courts.
She told us that one of the cabins was going to be town down. The one in the picture above.
That is sad.
It does however need to come down because it is old and falling down anyway. It is an accident waiting to happen for someone not paying attention to their surroundings.
The park is a great park. The cabins are the centerpiece and they are going to disappear.
One cabin at a time they will go.
Then I don't know if it will be a park at all.
From a distant observer the county doesn't seem to know what to do with the propery. They put in a (or some) pickle ball courts. The area is very thinly populated so I doubt few will use them and they are at the bottom of a hill behind trees, so they are nearly hidden.
They put in some flower feature. That is why we went. To see how that was working out. Not so good so far. It's early June so maybe there will be some flowers later. But for now it is plowed ground and mountains of mulch.
The day campers loved to climb up and slide down the mulch mountains. I'm sure that was not the goal or intent, but it looked like fun!
Time marches on...
... we will see what happens next...
Today my friend Dan and I went to shoot pictures.
We had our normal gear. I had big camera's. I had big lenses. I took great pictures (I hope, maybe).
During the process we came up over a hill and there in our lane was a big turtle. We were on a country road with very little place to pull over so I jumped out of the truck and took these pictures with my cell phone.
The cows in the nearby field wanted to see what this creature was doing in the road. They were all crowded over by the fence to take a look.
I wonder if it bothered the turtle. Maybe he was on his way to that side of the road, but the herd stopped him. What do you think?
It reminded me of what I have often called myself, "The Restroom Photographer". That is not because i take pictures of restrooms. Instead it is because I have often seen my "work" in restrooms.
Once I approached a local business to buy and resell my pictures. The lady who I approached didn't say "no". I think she felt sorry for me and she purchased one framed piece. On a later visit when I had to go to the restroom I found it there.
Another time I was asked to accompany a local company to call on another establishment. So me and the owner of this other company went to call on a third company. Together we had created a sample for them to consider. It was custom made from one of my photos and made "ready to hang" by the process this company I was with was using. We thought this a good product for the company upon which we were calling that day.
We gave them the custom made sample we'd made for them.
They never purchased anything.
I saw the picture some time later... in the men's restroom.
And so many people are very complementary when they see my "work" for sale at a large, commercial tourist hot spot. And when they say nice things I just remember that in reality I am...
... The Restroom Photographer
I have a new toothbrush. It is electric. You don’t have to plug it in because it runs on some sort of battery. I try not to get the thing “overly wet” so as not to short out the electrical components, or to deliver a shock to myself by surprise.
It would be especially dangerous since my enormous brain cavity is so close to that potential electrical current and it could cause irreparable harm in an electrical shock scenario. On the other hand, maybe it would stimulate brain cells and I would become genius level intelligent (or geniuser). Either way could be upsetting to the status quo as we now know it.
And… the toothbrush came with an app. We talked about apps in a previous post. I think it was entitled “apps for apes”. Apes don’t use toothbrushes so we will have to come up with a catchy name for this post. Maybe I won’t think of anything snappy so maybe “apps of apes 2”?
If you brush your teeth you just use one hand. So this app is used by your other hand. You sit your phone on the counter and put the toothbrush into your mouth against your teeth. The apps operations are by “sliders”. So you can make the thing go faster and faster, or slower and slower by sliding the appropriate slider.
The bristles on the brush can go up and down or side to side. This is controlled by a second slider on your smart phone’s screen. If you leave the slider in the middle it goes both directions… somehow... it is just a general vibration.
You still have to move the toothbrush around in your moth on your teeth. So there is still some work involved for you.
The “on / off” button is on the handle of the toothbrush, which seems disappointing. But maybe they didn’t want you accidentally turning on your toothbrush from your hotel room in Minneapolis and come home to find that your toothbrush is dead. Gone. Kaput.
Now the truth is, I don’t have a toothbrush with an app. I do have a cheap electric toothbrush: but no app.
I thought I would write about it and we would all have a good laugh, because of the ridiculous idea of an app for toothbrushes.
…but…
It turns out there are multiple toothbrushes that have apps.
According to the AI app I use; one offers “real-time 3D tracking, AI brushing recognition, and personalized coaching. I don’t even know what most of that means. The only part I sorta understand is personalized coaching. So I guess you must “log on” and have a video session with a person who reviews the data your toothbrush sends them via bluetooth to your wifi and on to them at the world toothbrush headquarters, coaching division.
Maybe there is a tiny screen in the toothbrush and you can talk to your coach through the toothbrush. That would be convenient.
I assume that your coach has a four year degree in toothbrushing and / or toothbrush engineering technology. Maybe a minor in apps for toothbrushes.
Another toothbrush app “pairs… models to monitor pressure, ensure complete coverage, track your brushing streaks, and order replacement brush heads automatically”. (I think it means strokes, but it said streaks.)
The next one does about the same as the one above except it “rewards you for building consistently habits.” I bet they send you candy through the mail if you are a good brusher. It doesn’t say that the habits are related to brushing your teeth. I assume that if you are in the habit of not taking regular showers they are not going to send you a reward for that, but it really isn’t clear.
But you still can’t beat the bidet app we talked about last time. That app was crazy weird. You will have to go read about it so we don’t bore our readers who already read that particular post.
In closing (almost closing) below we briefly talk about an app that someone came up with that is unusual to say the least. I’m “cutting and pasting” from Google’s AI Mode…
RunPee
This morning I heard the potato cart.
I was in bed listening. The sound told me what may be coming.
It is the sound of a potato cart being turned over and the potatoes spilling out onto a wooden floor.
That is exactly how it sounds.
It doesn’t sound like people running upstairs on the floor while you are trying to sleep. Little kids running with complete abandon - back and forth. Unsupervised.
I only bring up the running kids analogy because maybe it is something you can related to. Maybe you can’t imagine a potato cart being overturned on wooden floors although that would be a more accurate description of the sound.
If you live in the plains or the midwest part of the United States, you know the sound. If you live somewhere else in the world where the vastness of grasses and trees that stretch out forever doesn’t exist then maybe you haven’t heard the sound.
I was in bed listening. The sound told me what may be coming.
First it would be wind. Maybe a little at first. Then more. And then the rush. The crashing.
Once I saw it coming across the plains. We were traveling West - maybe in “The Dakotas” or Nebraska I don’t remember - and we were parked in a small motorized RV.
Out on the plains.
Exposed.
Only two other RV’s in the park… not that it mattered.
I went outside to look at the sky because I heard the storm coming. I felt the wind on my face. The grasses nearby were bending showing you the direction of the wind. The rumble of the potato wagon was soft. It would get louder. Louder still. Then it would change and not be a rumble, but a crash.
The lightening would be upon us. Around us. I would then count the seconds from the flash of light until the crash of the thunder. The timing would tell me if it was close or far away. It was an exercise without true meaning because I didn’t know if three seconds meant it was in the RV park or a mile away.
While I was standing outside I could see the cloud front moving from the west. The wind grew stronger and the trees in the distance were in distress. The sky in the west was gray and the sky around me was a color that no one can agree upon. I call it green and no one else calls it green. They don’t have an alternative color to describe it. No one does. It is a weird color that accompanies these storms.
Everyone thinks that color bodes of a twister. A tornado, where the wind’s don’t sweep past you but twist around and around to carry whatever it wants away. They are terrible and have their own whimsical nature in that they don’t care. At their whim they will carry away a cat, a car, a tree, a house with a family of four. It doesn’t care.
Somewhere in a city far away there is a man or woman looking at a computer screen and they are telling their boss that there is a storm. These people will try to make sense of the senseless. they will try to understand the chaos. They will fail. They will leave the people on the plains to their own devices and watch the wind as patterns on a screen, protected by distance.
Maybe they will hit a button that will send a signal to that place on the plains far away. The signal will cause an alarm to sounds that says "get ready". It says, "do the best you can".
And the people at the computer screens may whisper a prayer or say "good luck".
The alarm will sound in a small city, no one in an RV park on the plains will hear it. They are, we are, "on our own".
Back on the plains I quickly stowed everything that was outside. There was nowhere to go. Should we go? Go where? Maybe if we left we would be driving into instead of away from the storm. Maybe.
Would it be better to jump into a ditch at the last second if needed. Or was it better to “ride it out” inside the beast of a vehicle that was the RV. It wouldn’t be too late to know, until it was too late to know.
The wind swept by. It didn’t sweep us up. We weren’t observers nor were we participants. Observers don’t wonder if their molecules might be instantly rearranged by thousands of volts of random lightening followed by a load BOOM that they would not hear. Participants on the other hand might be made one with the wind, swept up and swept away. Sometimes they find the still bodies of the participants and sometimes they are,,, just… gone.
The wind swept by and went on across the plains to terrorize people to our East. Suddenly it was calm. Some strange rain. Strange in that it was normal. And normal seemed strange after the madness of the storm.
Today I lay in bed and listened to the potato cart and remembered the day on the plains.
©David L Arment, 2026
This just happened. It was like, “right now”, but it isn’t right now because “right now” I’m typing. But it was as soon as “right now” can be without being “right now”.
I needed a screw driver. My screw driver is in the tool box. Normally the tool box is in the big truck, but I remembered that today it is in the garage.
I have a piece of art in a frame, but I don’t want it in the frame anymore so I need a screw driver. Maybe more tools later. Who knows. It is unknown and unknowable.
So I went to get the screw driver which is in the garage. I had to walk up the stairs.
At the top of the stairs as I entered the kitchen I saw potato chips on the counter. They were not put away yet because Amazon just delivered them and I wanted to remember to tell Pam all about how I’d just ordered them this morning and they were already there.
Seeing them made me want some so I opened the package. Of course I needed dip which was in the refrigerator. So I got the dip. It was all but out. What idiot would put it empty back into the refrigerator? Since only two people live here and only one eats this dip. I was pretty sure that he was the one who put it back in there. And he is me.
Then I had to stop eating because I will eat the whole bag if not careful.
I had to find something to close the bag so that the chips didn’t get soggy and there were no clips to be found. So I had to search. And search.
Pam’s not here to ask where things are. She knows where everything is. There is probably and “Omni” word for that. It wouldn’t be “omnipresent”. Or omnipotent. Maybe it would be “omniknowsewhereverythingis”.
So I closed up the chips and went downstairs to get back to work on my piece of art that has a frame, but now I don’t want the frame.
And now, when I arrive downstairs I realize that I need a screw driver which is upstairs. In the garage. Past the kitchen. Past the potato chips.
Dare I try it again?
