Monthly Archives: June 2016

Announcement ! We’re On A Mission

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Or more accurately we were on a mission. That’s why there have been a dearth of posts lately here at BigShotsNow-The Blog. Saving lives and getting huge ATTABOY’s are what we live for. We’re back now. The patient lived and is properly grateful. Some of you know, at least the ones we’ve rescued from certain disaster before, that *The Institute has a search and rescue facility on site. We get distress calls from individuals all around the globe who have gotten themselves into some sort of medical emergency and needed our immediate response. Consequently we have semi-trained technicians, although they are not always medically trained, that can provide life saving procedures if necessary. Usually they just stand around leaning up against the mess hall wall, looking for someone bleeding or dragging around a severed limb so they can jump on them and save ’em. There have even been unsubstantiated reports of an unsuspecting new-to-be patient getting struck in the brain pan area with a brick or small length of two by four to induce what they call “patient-dom” so they have something to do. Otherwise they serve no useful purpose until a call come in.

But when a call does come in, jump back, because then they go gonzo nuts grabbing their med kits, getting a fix on where the calamity is, piling into the our private medical dirigible,”The Mother Theresa”, and springing into action when necessary. There is no accident or mayhem or chaos that is too far away, or too huge for our team to handle. Their motto is “Yeah, Well, How bad can it be?”

Lets just say you’re in the tall grass just outside of Mburu Buro slightly north and west of JoBerg and you get bit by a Black Mamba, (also called the ex-wife snake) one of the fastest meanest snakes in the world. They’re so mean that if there is no one else is around to bite they’ll bite themselves. You call us, we fire up the dirigible and we’re on the way. Unfortunately in that case you’re SOL because Black Mamba bites are deadly in a about two and a half minutes. Sorry. But thanks for calling us any way.

In each of our med kits we have life-saving equipment, such as big gauzy pads to hide all the blood, point and shoot cameras for selfies and to document our procedures and maybe some scenery shots if we go someplace cool, little skinny bandages that are good for holding someone’s eyelids open when you don’t want them to go to sleep. Lots of different sized baggies for placing over stumps and the rolls of duck tape to hold them in place. Specially grown sticks off of the Hawthorne grove down in the valley to bite on in case we have to remove a limb or larger portions of torso. A small hammer wrapped in a resilient foam-like material to gently tap the patient out with. We cannot, due to a screw up with the licensing procedures, carry any anesthesia or pain medication so we found that a short-term, manually induced coma works just as well, and is more profitable for us. Anesthesia is expensive, just saying.

Recently a very good friend had a procedure done in a normal medical facility run by a For Profit corporation ( first mistake ) that sent her into a total tailspin causing a crash that nearly gave her severe whiplash along with the loss of her spine and resulted in her calling on The Institute to come to her aid. Which we did. Luckily for her we were able to call our team back from that Black Mamba incident and get to her location in time to assist her. It took a few days to get things completely under control, but we did, and now she is happy, not to mention pert and sassy, and in nearly perfect health.  Plus she looks marvelous. She’ll have a few scars but they’re tasteful ones and unless you know her well will never see them anyway. She has a new opinion of The Institute and its Director, which is favorable. Lets hope all that feeling of good will remains after we bill her.

So there you have it. That’s why we’ve been out of touch but there’s plenty of old stuff to read until we get back so don’t go away mad. Remember if you get into trouble “Who You Gonna Call?: The Institute that’s who. We’re standing by.

* Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled The Institute on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining regarding The Institute after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about the Institute, Nevermind.

Holy Mackerel !

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Is that bird blue or What ?!? As The Director I’m always looking for things that are eye-catching, dazzling, stop you in your tracks beautiful, and as I was walking by the media center here at *The Institute I happened to look up at the several Jumbo-trons we have placed around the Great Hall. On the screen was an image with the most brilliant blue imaginable. Instead of changing to the next image the shot remained on the screen, flickering, casting its blue light across the room as it kept its place in the que of gallery images that are shown throughout the day.

We use the Image Selector, our patented, proprietary little black box that is in charge of picking the image for the day, the one that sits on the desk of the head of our Pick a Picture for the Blog Today department heads’ desk. We never realized that it had a predilection for the color blue, all shades of it actually, and when it came across this image of a Stellar’s Jay it just froze up. Stopped dead in its little electronic tracks. So far the image has been playing non-stop on the overheating Jumbo-trons for seven hours and twenty-eight minutes and shows no sign of stopping.

Unfortunately or not, depending on your tolerance for blue, we cannot shut down the Image Selector for various reasons (See http://www.bigshotsnow.com/first-light-3/ ) so we are patiently waiting for the algorithm that controls the color choice in an image to finally gets its fill of blue. If it doesn’t knock it off by tomorrow we’re going to try hitting it on its flat little top with a rubber hammer. Meanwhile if you like blue you’re in luck. Here’s a good example of it.

* Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled The Institute on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining regarding The Institute after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about the Institute, Nevermind.

How Not To Listen For Ground Squirrels

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There are several things wrong going on in this image of Otis Onebear listening for ground squirrels. First is after digging a fairly large-sized wallow in an exploratory gesture to see if ground squirrels were even in the vicinity, he assumed a posture that is very uncomplimentary to bears. Second would be listening for ground Squirrels when it is really hot out.  Sound travels through the earth at a much slower rate when the temperature is above 90°, so you have to wait longer to hear it. Third is leaving your great big bear head in the same place too long instead of moving it all over the place sampling for ground squirrel activity.

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Of course the end result of all of this is preordained. The ground feels so good. The buzzing of the flies is hypnotic. The heat was bearing down on that big shaggy black coat. His butt weighed way too much to be held up in the air like that for very long and the inevitable happened. His big butt slowly and embarrassingly sank down into a pleasant resting position and he was instantly plunged into heavy sleep. Busses full of tourists came by laughing and pointing, taking flash pictures of him in broad daylight. Someone tried to sneak up on him to pin a “Kick Me I’m Sleeping ” sign on him but his tour translator caught him in time and explained about the negative result of “pinning” bears, even if it would be funny back home.

Eventually Otis Onebear woke up, wobbling to his feet and looking around with that baffled expression of  “What?” before heading off into the trees with the vague idea of campsites, lickable empty tin cans, maybe one of those tied up dogs they leave to bark in the afternoon while they’re off falling into geysers and what not. Anything would be better than listening for ground squirrels.

Ninth Annual National Get Outdoors Day

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Well, don’t we feel silly. Today, as no doubt all of you know, is the 9th Annual National Get Outdoors Day. That’s right. Snuck right up on you didn’t it. To be honest I didn’t know about the other 8 annual ones that have passed already. I must have been outdoors doing something.

A very good friend clued me in this morning about it so I quick jumped on Google and found out she wasn’t lying. There really is a National Get Outdoors Day, and it seems everybody is quite proud of it. This is what they say, “Participants from federal agencies, nonprofit organizations and the recreation industry are again teaming up to host the 9th annual National Get Outdoors Day (GO Day) to encourage healthy, active outdoor fun at sites across the nation. On Saturday, June 11, 2016, these diverse partners will offer opportunities for American families to experience traditional and non-traditional types of outdoor activities. Prime goals of the day are reaching currently under served populations and first-time visitors to public lands, and reconnecting our youth to the great outdoors.”

Gob-smacked, that’s what I was. And as the leader of one of America’s greatest learning, teaching, researching, exploring, and publishing organizations, more better known as *The Institute, I feel like we have let down a huge portion of the American Public that looks to us for guidance and up-to-date  announcements of worthwhile things that are happening.

So we did what we always do when we feel the need for some expert counseling and guidance, not to mention therapy to assuage some of the guilt we feel for letting down our readers. Above is our ‘go to’ specialist in the world of therapy, Dr. Kai Ote. A Jungian and recent graduate of “Become a Therapist for Fun and Profit” online college and Snack shop. We cannot begin to remember the number of hours spent in his office telling him our tales of woe, and of the staggering numbers of problems we have running a worldwide organization like ours. The staff problems, about which we go into excruciating detail, and how it takes all of our energy to keep the interns from revolting. Not to mention the disappointment and frustration from being turned down by the government for yet one more grant to do our valuable work. All of this and more we tell him until you would think a normal therapist would lose interest and strangle you from sheer boredom.

 But as you can tell by the expression on his face, he revels in helping us, hanging on our every word, showing you by his expression how he feels about you. We don’t know what we’d do without him.

After droning on and on about how we forgot about National Get Outdoors Day we asked him for some advice, “What should we do, Doc?” and as always his response was dead on. “Uhmm”, he replied, “Get Outdoors.”

See what I mean, he’s worth every penny. So we can only pass on this invaluable advice and hope that you follow it. “Get Outdoors, you’ll feel better, and the feds won’t come down on you.” That’s always a plus.

* Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled The Institute on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining regarding The Institute after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about the Institute, Nevermind.

First Light

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Its been a while since we visited the canyon. The sunrise was so beautiful his morning that our image selector here at *The Institute would not even consider any other picture but a sunrise. The Image selector is a tricky beast. It is actually a small device that sits on the desk of our Image Selecting Department head and chooses the images we use here on the blog by a complicated method utilizing algorithms, coin tossing, electroshock, and a gut feeling of what you the viewer would like to see. The Department head uses a selection method based on Eeny Meeny Miney Mo.

Consequently many times there have been heated arguments over which image to use. The Department head, a wizened little gnome with only one eye, will insist on a particular image while ” the Selector” the little black box with the flashing led’s on the front of it will want another one. There is little compromise between a heartless electronic device and a heartless, mean little man. When it gets right down to the nitty-gritty the Department head will often hit the Selector stoutly about its flat back surface until it yields, or as a really last resort yank its little plug out of the socket. This is very effective, however it has its downside. The next time the department head turns on the selector it will send a spike of 440 volt electricity through the keyboard out of spite. It has a long memory. After losing the first department head they rapidly learned to turn the selector on wearing those heavy, made to avoid electrocution, thick rubber gloves. Since 440v is the same electricity that is used to run hotels, huge electric locomotives, and the setting on the coffee machine at McD’s, it is very dangerous stuff.
The Selector chose this image, the department head signed off on it and there  you have it. Beauty for you and for me. This might just be a good day.

* Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled The Institute on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining regarding The Institute after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about the Institute, Nevermind.

You Might Have Missed’em Already

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We do not usually issue dire warnings here at *The Institute but we felt that this new discovery warranted immediate publication. Many of you know from friends and family or seeing old videos on the Travel Channel that we  have a world-famous collection of Sand Dunes here in America. In Colorado in fact, down near Alamosa in the southern part of the state.

You can find them right next to the road and stop and look at them for absolutely no cost for as long as you want. This a right given us by Mother Nature and signed off on by the Colorado House of Representatives, the State Senate and by our Governor as well.

However the problem and hence the unexpected issuance of the dire warning has to do with a problem that our team of Sand and Gravel and Indigenous Rock researchers have come across. We have researchers that travel the U.S. picking up rocks of all types, big, little, round, flat, those shaped like Uncle Skid’s nose, nicely colored ones, ugly ones, a few that are so large we can’t cross bridges with them on our flatbed trailer we haul along behind one of our research vessels. Consequently we have to dump them alongside the road at the first sign of a bridge. This research is critical to determining just how many stones, rocks and other hard things of a sedimental-like nature we have laying around on our American soil.

As the team proceeded with their gathering of rocks along the edge of the Great Sand Dunes they made a startling discovery. Each morning when they returned to begin picking up rocks they noticed that the dunes had moved father to the right. That’s right the whole darn dune. To test their theory they left a rock right up next to the edge of the tallest dune at the end of the day and sure enough the dune had moved to the right significantly. “Holey Pantalones” they cried. ” The Dunes they are moving. Wowser!” ( I know, we don’t always get those cool quotes you hear those fake scientists in the movies make.) They were stunned. If this is accurate and who says it isn’t unless you came out here and did the work yourself, hauled your own rocks and had to drink warm Tang and everything to keep from collapsing in the noon day sun, then we might pay attention to what you think.

These are real live scientists from The Institute here and if they say the dunes are moving we think you should listen up and pay attention. What for, you might ask. How does this directly affect me? Well, consider this. You’re sitting home in your Barcalounger drinking watered down EverClear and the love of your life comes in and says” Cranston, You’re a fat slob. And you’re drunk too. We’re taking the kids to the Great Sand Dunes on a vacation. Go gas the car.” There is absolutely nothing to be said to that so you go gas the car. Two thousand miles later because you probably live in Pennsylvania or one of those funny little shaped states up near Maine somewhere that would fit in one of our garages out here, and you’ve got all seven of the kids with you and they already pulled all the stuffing out of the backseat to make a campfire on the console because they want to make s’mores and you won’t stop. You’re looking for the turn off to the Great Sand dunes and when you finally see the road you take it and what do you see at the end where all those dunes are supposed to be, nothing. The dunes have moved dude. They are like way the hell and gone down to the right. That’s correct, two thousand miles, screaming kids, your wife is telling you she is going to get a tattoo as soon as she gets home, and no Sand Dunes. Whatcha gonna do now.

If you had listened to us and paid attention when we said the dunes are moving. You would have gotten here, seen the dunes, sent the wife and kids off on a hike into the bear infested woods along the dunes where the compasses don’t work because of the high metal deposits concentrated under the sand, and it would be quiet again. Blessedly quiet. You could head back home through Vegas, yeah we know that’s a little out of your way, but so what. Get a room, play the quarter slots for a while, then point it back East listening to Springsteen and other people your kids hate. So, you going to listen to us, or what. We don’t do all this hard work for nothing. We do it for the good of the nation and the people that live in it. Don’t be a doofuss, pay attention when we tell you stuff. You never know when it will help you out.

* Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled The Institute on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining regarding The Institute after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about the Institute, Nevermind.

Three Strikes

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My name is Millie Elizabeth Smallfoot and I’m a Mule deer doe currently residing in Rocky Mountain National Park. You would not think it to look at me a but I am a twice convicted felon on the National parks Three Strikes program. I come from a good family. I have never offended before but now I’m one strike away from the death penalty. I do not know what I have done wrong.

Early one morning as I was making my way down to the creek to begin my morning ablutions I felt a blow to my left hindquarters, then a stinging pain. I became dizzy and disoriented but before I passed out I saw four large men in green jumpsuits approach me and wrestle me to the ground.

I don’t know how long I was unconscious but upon awakening I felt a foreign object in my ear. It was a sharp pain that scared me but that was nothing to the feeling I had the moment I found out that I had been branded or tagged as a criminal. One of the larger bucks who had one in his ear too came over to me and said ” Strange, they usually don’t do that to does.” I asked what it meant and he said it was the way management identified troublemakers and it was a serious deal. I had better watch my step he said.”You don’t want another one.”

Frantic and desperate to find out what this meant and why it happened to me I went to Park headquarters to speak to someone who might be able to help me. Instead I was met with outright hostility and contempt and told that I must have deserved it or they wouldn’t have tagged me. Pleading with them to explain what obviously was a mistake, they simply handed me a pamphlet titled “Three Strikes and you’re out, How the park system manages it Problem Residents.” and told me to leave.

The pamphlet explained that some of the larger parks had residents such as Grizzly bears that would make trouble and be rude to park visitors. These “bad” bears would break into trash cans, destroy tents and campsites, and even bite people. Consequently they were caught, had this device put in their ear and told not to do it again. One tag meant you’re were an at risk individual, two meant you were on the watch list, and three, three meant you were incorrigible and would be “put down” at the next infraction. It took me a moment to realize what “Put Down” meant.

I’m a doe, possibly the least offensive resident in the park. I weigh 72 pounds max. I’m not going to break into any trash cans or campsites or even bite someone. I’m a leaf eater for cripes sake. If i even see anyone I run and hide in a bush.

Apparently it was a mistake to take my case to management. Park headquarters took that as sign of aggressiveness and the next morning I received my second tag. Now I keep myself way up in the back country behind bear lake. I have plans to take my fawn and head out of the park. Maybe someplace like *The Institute where I’ve heard they don’t support tagging in any form. I heard that they can even take these tags out. I could have a new life, free, off of death row. The trick is to get out of the park. They feel that they own you and especially more so if you are tagged, they aren’t going to let you go. I’ve been planing this for months now. My fawn is old enough that she can keep up, the aspen are fresh with new green leaves, the mountain mahogany is budding out, there is an unusual number of visitors to the park this Spring so management is not watching as close. I know we can make it once we cross the park border. Fortunately there is no hunting season open right now so we should be in the clear. I just hope that The Institute will take us in. And I can finally lose these tags.

*Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled The Institute on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining regarding The Institute after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about the Institute, Nevermind.