A gem of a find in Cheyenne

A Gem of a find...

So I found the bus depot at last in Cheyenne, only to discover the bus would not leave until Three, (yes, 3!) A.M. This at about 5 in the afternoon. That left time to kill and recover some mobility, as just sitting for a few moments had locked up my legs tighter than still flowered maiden...

So there I was, sore as heck from hauling around two heavy packs all over town as said before. Walking had to be done, but it made me want to scream as I tried to work it out after the cab ride, and arranging the bus ride to SLC, a decision made by not having enough to go to Reno or Vegas and still have anything to gamble against whoever has been messing with my life of late.

And there, where once lived a larger resturaunt than now there, was a blast from the past. A board and RPG playing game store. Not just the kind's now made to try luring the kids out of those addictive video games that do not teach them the things that you learn over a table, with the other people there, so you can soak up the adoration, or be pelted by the dirty looks of those who have learned in the quick the meanings of Hate and jealousy.

This store, and for a change, as this guy is just starting up, is called Cyborgs, Puzzles and Games. I know, I say I won't reveal things like that, but heck, its starting up when the economy is still staggering around like a bad extra actor in a drinking scene from a Mel Brooks spoof movie. I admmunmire that kind of determination, and the owner showed a great deal of salesmanship, but I was safely by way of being broke. I still bought the sodas I needed to stay awake from him, as we talked away.

Its Owner, Marshall, waved me in as he saw me reading over his signage with the look of a man who knew games. Yeah, I grew up on RPG's, not the wimpy electronic ones, but the real things. Toon, Car Wars with our characters moving on in the original rules, several other board games of strategy over the years, and of course, the ongoing games of D&D we ran for a decade, and a bit more even. He had high end puzzles made with superior craftsmanship and imported from Europe, as American manufacturers had not made any he could pass along to his core crowd, and you have to keep the main audience, even if expanding the old. Marshall spoke of the difficulties, how things were tough, but he still had hopes. I do too. This guy, in the face of the downturn, and the unceratain hiccups yet to come that could eat his dream up in a roller wave of earth or sea, to be sacrificed to save the big box stores.

Yet he is staring it down, and doing the fight. Not without his trials, but he is giving it a try, something fewer and fewer folk tend to do in a tight resources situation. We tend to sit on it, not swing it wide asa credit score lasso to find a steer that has wandered off.


So if you are out there, in the Cheyenne area, up off I-25 and Central exit, and are a gamer, give him a try, he has gaming tables set up in there, and a great selection of newer and older strategy games there, you can even go in and play one first, if he has a demo version available at the time. Think about that, he offers up the trial of the games, just like at an auto dealer, lets see the big boys do that with more than demo versions of the electric games.

And that is me violating my own rule, but I enjoyed the conversation, even amidst the pains of my week from Hell.

Announcement

Well, things are still in the pits for me, now I am living in the car as well as unemployed. This is all from a series of mistakes I have made, though I feel Lady Luck is dealing me off the bottom an awful lot this year as well.

So, that is the news, this blog will stop being fantasy stories, and convert to real life tales of the world as I roam it. There are some things and places I have desired to do and see for a while again now,
I will be drifting west, slowly, have gas money for two tanks... so however far and away I get blown, its all in the hands of the Parcae, the Fates of the Etruscans, and any storm that draws me to it, as I seek enlightenment.

I will try to keep posting but not making any time promises now.

I accept the blame for this happening, so have no tears, and no fears for me. I am resilient, like the 'Bombles of Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer, I bounce, or am able to climb out of my Dave shaped hole like a coyote we all know so well.

See you all out there, some day, some way........
    but in case I miss you, queue the music from Guthrie now....
      "So long my friends, its been good to know ya..."

Major announcement forthcoming

I will be making some major decisions in the next 48 to 56 hours. When these decisions are made, there will be lots of flak and other complications from folks who read here, and especially from those who know me.

I wish I could say this was good news, but it ain't. Not for anyone.

The Retired Farmer's Game - A poem of Small Town America

Around the table they go
the players and their cards
sipping coffee as they play
cussing government and dealer
with equal vehemence and laughs
as they spend the rainy day
waiting for the ground to dry
so the tractor can be run out
and scare their children quick
that they still do the farm chores
when at an age they should not
even still live outside nursing home
but the tough ones still thrive
more on the game they play
not at the table with cards
but of getting the kids to farm
and keep the family tradition alive.

Counting Coup on the Coops - A poem of the open road

To the brotherhood of the road
its still called by that name
even though few still use CB's,
you know when the coop is open
by the pile up of eightteen wheelers
at the Flying J's, Petro's and TA's.

For when the house of the scales
is open for its business
those overloaded are stopped
by the fines they can't pay.
Fines made by idiot hostlers
shippers and loaders, all on union pay.

Oh, you still hear the term
from the older guys, or young ones
lured to the road by old movies.
The cant of the seventies
and terms like smokey, pigpen
double nickel and Colorado Koolaid.

Sooner or later, one group or the other
will give ground in some way
either the deadline looming
or overtime banned by a governor
will let one side count its coup,
as the big rigs keep rollin' night and day.

Branches of Lost Time - Poem of Time and Legends

Yggsdrasil has a big brother
the Tree of Alternate Realities
whose branches my degenerate form
swings around amongst gleefully
seeking some place to fit it
as the melting Dali Clocks
slowly block me out
from moving into realm
where time has indeed
run out.

Yet it does not seem to matter
those branches of Time lost forever,
where the worlds are all charred cinders
slowly cooling down from the flames
that made them once so hot
as to fly off store shelves
into the hands of geeks
who like me sought
release from the mundane
and piteous lives we lead
in books.

Biting Bullets - a poem of westerns' inspiration

They dig deep into the ground
stirring up the dust as the drill
new burrows into the earth
seeking to find a new tomb
back in earth if not my flesh.
Not that I ain't deservin' 'em

Got in this mess by fool's gold
soft galena that in town I used
to trick some greenhorn idiot
out of most of his fancy kit
for a taste of the west's riches,
metals, cattle, goods for the takin'.

Never knew until I was pinned
under his relentless fire here
outside the salted claim I planned
to sell him for what little he had
that he was no pilgrim new born
but some wildcat in slicker's kit

Teethed on the lead in Kaintucky
among many feuding kith and kin
this seeming dandy was no skypilot
yet he had come to read me from
that good book and piss on my grave
for the sins I had done unto him and others.

Bit my own bullets over the years
and never thought would come to this
to die over a simple jumped claim
that other dead men had defended
when I came to this bit of desert
to steal what I did not deserve.

Pain tears through me as at last
he finds his mark and stops teasing
to lure me out, but decides with mercy
I had not shown him when skinning
to put me down like the dog I was
Fires of the pain, first taste of Hell' Flames.