I scream, you scream, we all scream for . . . .

These People Sell Seriously Excellent Ice Cream

Especially good with a little bit of gooey flavoring added. They are located over by Borders, on the other side of King Ave, past the car wash, then look around. Make sure they don't go out of business like Krispy Kreme did.

Day Trips from Billings II

Day Trip: BIL to MSP

This Mall of America is an amazing place: a very big place with all kinds of kiddie entertainment in the middle, kind of like a carnival or fun fair. Lots of shopping. Good restaurants. And some fairly good exercise just by walking around. We spent about half the day walking and still did not see all the stores that desperately wanted to sell us some stuff. Sadly, the Lake Woebegone Store is no more. Some big department stores still survive on the corners, i.e. Macy's, Sears, and a couple others too.

We had a couple of excellent meals, evening and mid-day at Twin City Grill and Napa Valley Grille. The extra "e" on Grill usually adds about $20 or $25 to the tab. Still, it was pretty good food and drink at both places.

An Answered Prayer

Cool: Swiss seek Pope's blessing to stop glacier melting

Friday is offbeat story day at AmP, and this week delivers:

After centuries of praying for a local glacier to stop growing, Swiss villagers are now seeking an audience with Pope Benedict to get his blessing for prayers against the global warming that is causing it to recede.

In 1678, the inhabitants of the Alpine villages of Fieschertal and Fiesch made a formal vow to live virtuously and to pray against the growth of the Aletsch glacier, Europe's longest, which had caused a lake to flood into their homes.

To reinforce their prayers, they started holding an annual procession in 1862, when the glacier reached its longest during the mini-Ice Age Europe suffered in the mid-19th century.

But the villages now want to seek permission from Pope Benedict to change their vow as the glacier is melting fast due to climate change and have requested an audience with him. (Reuters)

A prayer to stop glaciers melting, eh? Ha! Find me that in the book of blessings.

update: I should have learned to not issue challenges to my savvy AmP readers long ago....

[AmP reader Joshua says] "I don't know about the Book of Blessings, but number 28 under "Blessings of Places not designated for sacred purposes" there is a Blessing against floods. That would work I think."

... albeit an incredibly slow-moving flood. :-)

From American Papist

Just In Case

If you may have been wondering who is the funniest writer on the World Wide Web, here is my nomination. Iowahawk wins hands down or up. I hope he doesn't get too political or he will surely wind up in the crosshairs of certain White House occupants.

Dr Muskett Returns

I was getting worried when I hadn’t heard for what seemed like months from my favorite cardiac-turned-plastic surgeon, Billings’ own Dr Alan Muskett. I know I’ve blogged about him in the past but I couldn’t find the entries, though I did find in back pages of the Gazette a number of other good articles by Dr Muskett. Chalk it up to advancing age, mine, not his.

By the way, one of the many ways you can measure your own decline is to re-read a few of your past attempts at sensible blogging, which I did while searching for blogs about the good Dr Muskett. Well OK, I enjoyed a few of them, mostly those I had borrowed from others. I think I actually improved the blogosphere a little by deleting some. I should have been an editor.

Now then, in today’s Gazette Dr Muskett tells us lots of dark medical secrets, admitting that surgeons, including himself, actually do the terrible things that our president says we do. Such as taking out perfectly fine tonsils: well, that is actually only done by the evil ENTs of course. He says it in a humorous way, hoping that his readers will think he is being ironic as usual.

After capturing our attention with the light-hearted truth-telling he then goes on to the meat of the matter, which is that the reason we pay more than the rest of world for our medical care is that we are sicker and it is our own fault. He proves his point by citing his own recent need for a coronary stent. What a rhetorical stunt!

Dr Muskett says that our politicians do not tell us the truth because it is politically unacceptable: that we consume way too much health care, that we are too fat and too lazy, that we expect something for nothing, and that we expect to live forever.

What is the cure for these prosperity-related problems? Dr Obama and his friends have their egalitarian answer. I suspect it has something to do with "spreadin' the wealth around a little" as Joe the Plumber learned. Read the article for yourself. As always, Dr Muskett makes a lot of sense.

Saint Patrick's Co-Cathedral Billings in Ordinary Time

From Wikipedia—Ordinary Time is a season of the Christian (especially the Catholic) liturgical calendar. The English name is intended to translate the Latin term Tempus per annum (literally "time through the year"). Ordinary Time comprises the two periods — one following Epiphany, the other following Pentecost — which do not fall under the "strong seasons" of Advent, Christmas, Lent, or Easter.

How do we get "Ordinary Time" from "time through the year"? I'm not sure: perhaps having something to do with being numbered? I didn't realize that this is one of the unintended consequences of Vatican II. I think a better explanation is given here.

A mild touch of irony here is that the usual liturgical color for ordinary time is green. I didn't notice that until after I uploaded the picture.

Fiesta on the South Side

I'm not sure what the occasion was but South Park was full of Mexican music and flags as well as a lot of older American cars. These folks above were not in line for Reconciliation—aka Confession— I'm sure.

The food was good but the cars were amazing, all in really nice shape, some for sale. I asked one guy why he was selling his car. He told me he had seven other cars of the same make and model and was running out of space in his garage. With a straight face too.

After closely examining the "rumble seat" in this model A Ford, I'm not sure whether I believe some of the stories my parents used to tell about the things they got up to in these seats.





How do they find parts for cars this old? I wonder if we can talk our friends in other countries into developing a hankering for these older beauties?

As we slowly sink as a country to the second tier of world economies, maybe we can promote antique tourism, as I'm fairly sure that the medical tourism business will be in the toilet in a few years. I'll bet our Chinese friends would love to turn that U.S. paper they have into something tangible.

That beauty above I remember. I graduated from high school in 1957. Lots of ordinary people drove these cars in those days. Maybe they cost around $2000, which seemed like a lot to a high school kid in those days, about what two years in a private college cost. I'm just guessing on these prices.

Is This Heretical or Blasphemous?

Just to see if some friends and relatives are watching.

Take Time For Paradise—Giamatti

That big green patch out there is a glimpse of paradise. Those of us sitting in the stands had some closer glimpses in the past and wish we were still there: perhaps a kind of purgatory. This is Denton Field in Miles City Montana.


Go east on the 94 but turn off about 2 hours down the road. If you get to Bismarck, North Dakota you've gone too far. The 90 first turns south into Wyoming and then eventually east through South Dakota.


The river and the railroad and the highway run close together in many places here in Montana. Each was the main thoroughfare at some time or other. The river of course came first, then the railroad, and now the highway. Do the routes in the air follow the same pattern?


This baseball park has been here a long time. My guess is that it was built some time in the 30s as parts of it have that Civilian Conservation Corps look but I couldn't find any cornerstone to prove it.


In a small town you can't specialize too much. This field does at least double-duty, serving as a football field for the Miles City Cowboys in the fall. The dimensions of the outfield are a little odd as a result: Centerfield is 438 ft away, while the right and left field corners are only 321 and 312 ft. away. The infield is a little dusty here. I have the feeling that if too much water is used it might turn to gumbo. The American Legion State Tournament is being played here from 25 through 29 July: two Billings teams, Bozeman, Miles City from the east and Kalispell, Missoula, Lethbridge and Medicine Hat from the west. How is that for diversity? Two teams from Canada in the Montana state tournament! We are thin on the ground around here. I imagine the folks from Helena feel a little hard pressed right now.

This is a diverse crowd though as you can see mostly European. They are all cheering on different teams and different players. Some put flowers on a monument.


Hard to believe that it's been six years since this tragedy: he was a pitcher for Miles City struck in the head by a batted ball, and died soon thereafter. Baseball in Miles City has not been the same since. They were "mercifully 10-runned" in both their games in this state tournament. After the third day of the tournament there are 4 teams left, three with a loss and one, Bozeman, thus far undefeated.



Miles City is a nice little town, less than 10,000 souls I'm sure. It remind me of what those of us from small villages in the 40s would call a big town. We would probably go there for Christmas shopping or to buy a truck. It has a community college, a reform school, a nice historic district, both downtown and residential, and lots of agriculture surrounding it. Below is a view out of the front door to the historic Olive Hotel in downtown Miles City.



There is actually part of a new town out by the interstate, which then gives way to the outskirts of a real town and then finally to the center of the town itself. I saw a number of buildings from the 1880s and some very nice houses from that same period, late 19th—early 20th century. The Legion baseball teams won some state tournaments in the 30s and 40s. This town was a lot more prosperous at some time in the past.



In case anyone is interested they have some great appetizers at the Rib and Chop Place out near the interstate. These are fried green tomatoes. The gumbo soup was excellent too. The Riesling tasted of apples and pears and the Chardonnay was just right, a little warmer than the just right cold Riesling.


The only discouraging word I heard or saw on this trip was at one of the rest stops. I wonder if this sign is as effective as the signs in our national parks saying that wild animals are not to be closely approached.

Some Appealing and Perhaps Useful Sniglets

Sniglet=a word not found in the dictionary but should. As in these: from this very useful website. And also from here. And this one too.

Bozone n.: The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future. I must confess that I have used this word, inadvertently I'm sure, to refer to the area around Bozeman Montana, not realizing that I was maligning all those from that splendid town. Please forgive me all you folks from Bozeman.

Nagivator (næg-uh-vay-der) n. A spouse who sits beside the driver of a car and criticizes his or her driving more than helping with the navigation. (Thank you Dr. Goodword)
Of course, there is no relationship between this word and any person that I know.

Sarchasm: n. The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
This one is so obvious. Why didn't the author of the word "sarcasm" come up with it immediately.

Sneezure (snee-zhur) n. A fit of several sneezes in a row. (Thank you LeRoy Vaughn)
My father often sneezed 5 times in a row. Never 4 and never 6; I know because we kids counted them. I sometimes do this when reading the morning papers but it usually varies from 3 to 5, though one time I counted 8 in a row. Am I allergic to newsprint or what?

Electile Dysfunction—The inability to become aroused by any of the candidates in an election (especially in 2008). I think this problem is older than a year ago. Even the kids will understand this one if they have paid attention to the TV in the past few years. I wonder, will these drugs be a part of ObamaCare? Are they part of MediCare now?

Wrap-rage—Furious frustration from trying to open a newly purchased factory-sealed item. (American Dialect Society) I sometimes make the store clerks open the packages before I take the items home. This does not endear me to store clerks, though I have noted that Radio Shack has made some effort to fixing this problem.