As boring as Perth can get, you get to see some pretty hilarious shit, like yesterday I saw a water fountain that had been attacked by some feral kids, and not with graffiti for once, but with suds and food colouring, and was spewing out bright blue bubbles onto the side of canning highway.  Now, this would've been funny enough for me, except there was a homeless man somewhat resembling Jesus frolicking in the bubbles.  I presume that he was having a pretty good day also.

Este Texto está tomado de una excelente web creada por ciber Hobo, cito completo un artículo en el cual define un nuevo concepto el de "cyber hobo" que mantiene vigente en pleno siglo 21, en medio de la globalización y la web 2.0, la elección del hobo anet el mundomoderno, o post-moderno.

El texto no tiene desperdicio, si alguién no sabe inglés avise que lo traduzco. Les dejo el link de la web del Cyber hobo.

A Quick Definition is:

A Hobo is a person that travels to work
A Tramp is a person that travels and wont work
A Bum is a person that will neither travel or work

The name "Hobo" first started appearing in the 1800's, one book says 1864. A Hobo is an independent and resourceful person who travels around for work. Most people look at the hobos. homeless and tramps, as being the same. That's like saying a Harley and Kawasaki are the same, they are both motorcycles or a BMW and a Yugo are the same!, hopefully you get the picture. A Hobo is a person who travels to work, but due to circumstance and/or desire is not tied to a permanent job or trade. They do what a lot of us wish we could do.

Jefferson Davis, who is believed to have once reigned as King of American Hobos, made his own distinction... "The hobo," he said, "does not believe that society owes him a living, but he does believe that society owes him a chance to care for himself..."

Well a CyberHobo is similar except in modern society instead of trains we have computers and the internet. Since 1992 CyberHobo's travel to work but use the Internet and computers as a trade. Being that trains are more scarce these day we don't always hop a train for transportation. We can travel and develop website while in journey to our new destinations, just as our brothers before us carved their famous "Hobo Nickels" for lodging or food. The work is different but the longing for the road is the same. We are just a much a Hobo's in our hearts as any has ever been.

The New Definition is:

A CyberHobo is a person that travels to work
A Homeless Person is a person who is at the moment is without a home, and it's not by choice!
A Tramp is a person that travels and won't work - they'd rather beg!
A Bum is still a bum... a person that will neither travel or work.

Being a CyberHobo is a way of Life...

Una gran velada, en la cual los wirros rendimos homenaje a ese grupo de hombres que nos inspiran
con su mdo de vida. Los Hobos. Para tal ocación contamos con un menú acorde a la situación, llenamos la parrilla de salchicas parrilleras, de la delicia locacl embutida conocida como "chori" y una carne digan del Hobo Rey. Fue acompañado por varias bebidas alcoholicas vinito, cerveza y varios Whisky / Whiskey para proporcionar alegria a la fiesta. Contamos con la presencia clásica de la formación wirra incluidos tope como alegre visitante, y ezequiel amigo de toda la vida, acercandose a compartir una copa de vino.
Desde Bueno Aires, este fué nuestro humilde homenaje a los Hobos, pos su inspiración,
su way of life, su forma de encarar la vida, señores Hobos, los wirros los amamos...

Nauj Wirro

Heroku (before today) would let me do everything except clone my remote apps to my local machine, which is more convenient, and in some cases essential (as when doing Rails apps with Hobo). Observe this:


$ heroku clone hobocookbook [/Data/Rails] [DrTeeth]
Initialized empty Git repository in /Data/Rails/hobocookbook/.git/
The authenticity of host 'heroku.com (75.101.141.116)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is 8b:48:5e:67:0e:c9:16:47:32:f2:87:0c:1f:c8:60:ad.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'heroku.com,75.101.141.116' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/heroku-0.3/bin/../lib/heroku/command_line.rb:37:in `clone': could not clone the app. Is git installed? (RuntimeError)
from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/heroku-0.3/bin/../lib/heroku/command_line.rb:6:in `send'
from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/heroku-0.3/bin/../lib/heroku/command_line.rb:6:in `execute'
from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/heroku-0.3/bin/heroku:36
from /usr/local/bin/heroku:19:in `load'
from /usr/local/bin/heroku:19
$


If I may cut to the chase...it appears that the Heroku setup process assumes that the public key you give it will be your default or only public key, while in fact I made a key pair just for Heroku. So once I added some details to my ~/.ssh/config file:

Host heroku.com
Hostname heroku.com
Port 22
IdentitiesOnly yes
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_heroku
TCPKeepAlive yes
User brandon


So far as I know, this solution isn't listed anywhere else on the web, but I found a tiphere that mentioned changing your default public key, which tipped me off as to what the problem was. (Of course now that I know the solution, I could much more effectively Google to see if anyone else has found it--one of the shortcomings of current search technology as a strategy for finding answers. The keywords you really want to use are the ones in the answer, but of course you don't know those until you know the answer.)

Anyway, I hope this helps the legions of other people out there who would love to use Heroku but can't because their use case was overlooked by the set up program.

Swill was the most recent underage hangout. Back then it was difficult enough to get a pint at sixteen, but the odd bar would chance serving youngsters for a while before getting caught, or more likely, they were planning on not renewing their license so it didn't matter a fuck for the month or two they'd remain open.

The Swill was such a bar. Whispers spread around about some place. I only got to go the once.

This time it was me and my buddy heading out to town for drinks - no older cousin or friend's brother 'chaperone'.
The Swill was a small enough, run down enough square room, upstairs on the corner of a building overlooking the street from small windows both sides. The walls were painted dark yellow as well as nicotine stained. The bar was dirty and old, but the room seemed to take on a hue of delightful peach to me as I ordered, from the exquisite bartop, two of the cheapest - bottles of san miguel. Never have seen them in this country before or since.

But what really shook me about the place was the girls. Girls I'd been to school with until age twelve, girls I knew from the school down the road. Girls I'd see out and about during the week or hanging out in the evening and weekends. Girls. Girls? Girls no longer! These were women creatures all around us.
Women, sipping alcoholic beverages with style, class and sass - like they'd been frequenting trendy cocktail bars for years.
Women with made up faces; huge sparkling eyes, brilliant strings of pearls shining the from the dark ruby drapes of parted lips, then pouting out to grace a cheek in a flirtatious playful formality I'd only before witnessed on television.
Figure-hugging dresses and skirt/top combos cut low to show off something I'd never imagined were beyond these women... eh, girls' clothing until then.

A beer dangling in one hand, the other snaking around an old classmate, eyes peering into batting lids, this was a level of sophistication never dreamed of.

Of course, we were playing 'grown-ups', but it was new, it was exhilarating it was an eye-opener to say the least; and it was fun. The best.

I got tipsy but not drunk.
Snitz led me a new way to the last bus, through a dark arch/alleyway.
A bum lay seeking slumber under cardboard covers. His cup lay by his head to catch coin while he slept, his bottle, no doubt tucked safely by his chest.

The downsides:  It's PVC, not leather, and the material is a bit flimsy.  the construction is solid, but I'm not sure how well the material itself will stand up to my abuse.  Same goes for the lining,  I'm a sucker for pointless details like an adorable lining that makes me smile as I dig for that wayward lipgloss, but this is just flat black cotton that may tear when jabbed with a handful of car keys for the millionth time.  The zipper sticks a little, but doesn't seem to have any major issues.  Overall, the appearance, roominess and hardware of the bag outweigh any faults in the materials, and I'm confident that it should still last me at least until my next favorite handbag comes along, and at $39.99, what does it really matter?  Buy it!

Congratulations!  You've been pre-approved!

So with most of this week in the books, I've been trying to motivate myself by looking at beach pictures and imagining myself picking out my wave in just a little under 48 hours. If I close my eyes hard enough and shut out the clatter of fingertips on keyboards, I can almost feel the sand between my toes and smell the salty breeze of the Atlantic. Unfortunately however, I am tossed back into reality by the chimes of emails and looming to-do list growing on my desk.

My coworkers and I joke pretty consistently about the fact that we could really give a shit less about a majority of the work we do. Of course, there are moment of pride peppered into our weeks, but on the whole...not so much. In a passing conversation via IM, a comrade and I were talking about our worst jobs, mine being the month or so that I spent underwriting mortgages. If any of you know me, you know that I write, I drink tequila, I surf. I don't do finances. So when I mentioned this past career detour, my coworker laughed. He said, "Knowing how you are now, I couldn't picture you working for a mortgage place. 'Hobo off the street that smells like whiskey? Here's a mortgage because I don't give 1/64th of a shit.'"

Yeah. That's pretty accurate.

IMPERDIBLE

Este viernes los Wirros reverenciamos a los Homeless haciendo una parrillada callejerera al mejor estilo HOBO, cocinaremos unas buenas salchichas parrilleras y unos choris en honor a nuestros héroes urbanos. Cada persona colaborará con una buena lata de BEANS y podrá disfrutar de un buen fuego para combatir el frio. Es imperioso vestir como Hobo. Al menú se agregará una mondiola y mucho vino para poder digerir bien. se invita aa traer banquitos para sentarse en la calle lo más comodamente posible.

La cita es en Santo tomé y Argerich en el barrio de Villa del Parque, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina a partir de las 22:30 en adelanta, todos aquellos que estén interesados en venir ponganse en contacto.

-cualquier consulta a wirra@hotmail.com -

The carnival workers of Conklin Supershows don't see the big-city glam of the CNE or the PNE. From April to October, they travel small towns, setting up shopping mall midways and county fairs. It's a fading way of life with few rewards.

A few weeks ago, they had set up a sad little show in the nearly empty parking lot of the East York Towne Centre, with rides for the kiddies, a couple of bored elephants shuffling back and forth under an awning in the July heat, and some small performing dogs racing back and forth in an enclosure.

I was reminded of Sara Gruen's wonderful book, Water for Elephants, which is a must-read for anyone who is fascinated by the circus, elephants, or the Depression-era hobo life.

As a young man, Jacob Jankowski was tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. It was the early part of the great Depression, and for Jacob, now ninety, the circus world he remembers was both his salvation and a living hell. A veterinary student just shy of a degree, he was put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie.

It was there that he met Marlena, the beautiful equestrian star married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. And he met Rosie, an untrainable elephant who was the great gray hope for this third-rate traveling show. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and, ultimately, it was their only hope for survival.

After Jacob puts Silver Star down, August talks with him about the reality of the circus. “The whole thing’s illusion, Jacob,” he says, “and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s what people want from us. It’s what they expect”

Dave Weich of Powell's Books interviewed the author. An excerpt of the interview:

DW: Is it true that you’d never been to a circus before starting your research for Water for Elephants?

Sara Gruen: It’s true. I had no history whatsoever. No interest, no connection to anyone associated with the circus. I grew up in northern Ontario. I don’t know if they didn’t come up that far or if I just never went, but if I did go it made such a little impression on me that I didn’t remember it.

DW: What wound up being your favorite act?

SG: In the end, the liberty horses... A person, usually a beautiful woman, comes out with a group of twelve horses typically, sometimes all white, sometimes black and white. She stands and makes signals with whips in the air, and she talks to them, and they obey her.
I have a horse, and I think it’s very cool that they can get horses doing that with no restraint and no halter.

DW: Marlena is that woman in Water for Elephants.

SG: Yes, and in fact I modeled her act after ones I had watched.

DW: And Rosie was based on a real elephant?

SG: Several elephants, yes. There was actually an elephant that would pull her stake out of the ground to go and steal lemonade, and then she’d go back and put her stake back in the ground and look innocent while they blamed the roustabouts.

DW: One of my favorite details in the book, having nothing to do with the circus, describes the boys in the hobo jungle: when they sleep, they take off their shoes but tie them to their feet. How did you educate yourself in Depression-era America?

SG: I wasn’t quite sure at first that this was the era I’d set the story in. A circus photo set me off on the path of the novel, but then I got on a sidetrack about hobos and I realized that something like 80 percent of them were under twenty-one. You think about hobos and you imagine middle-aged, dirty men by the side of the track, but no, they were kids.

DW: So much happens on the train or just off the train. It’s the book’s main setting.

SG: The whole of a circus worker’s social life happened on a moving train. When they were off, they were setting up or they were performing or they were tearing down, so everything happened while they were moving. Once they collected your quarter, they did their act and then they got out. You were leaving by the front end of the tent, and they were hauling the benches out by the back end—they’re done, they’re finished, they want to get on the train.

SG: For Water for Elephants, which was the first historical thing I’ve written, I did all the research ahead of time. I needed to feel that I knew the subject matter in and out. I hate outlining. I hate outlines, hate them, hate them. I usually know what the crisis of the book is going to be, though I don’t know how I’m going to get there. I try to make it bad enough that I don’t know how I’m going to get out of it. And when I get there, I have to get out of it. I just get myself geared up, and I write every day and see what happens.

DW: Has your technical-writing background helped, or has it been a hindrance?

SG: It was great training. For one thing, it taught me to sit down and write for eight hours a day. For another, it taught me not to take personally editorial comments. The first instructional project I gave to an editor ten years ago came back covered in red. I was practically in tears. It has to be a thousand times worse if it’s a piece of fiction, but I don’t take it personally anymore.

DW: Did you get up close and personal to elephants in your research?

SG: At the Kansas City Zoo, I observed the elephants with their ex-handler for a couple of days, taking notes on body language and behavior. I got into the habit of walking up to elephant handlers at the circus and saying, “Hi. I’m writing a book. May I meet your elephant?” I got lucky twice. The first time was right after I’d been out with this elephant handler at the Kansas City Zoo who had been gored by an elephant. He took a tusk through the thigh, one through the rib cage, which just missed everything vital, and another through his upper arm. So I still had that in mind. I was standing beside this huge thing with his amber eye staring down at me.

The guy said, “Go ahead. You can touch her.” I was shaking, but I touched her. I said, “Okay, I’m done now.” Several months later, I met the second one. It was one of these little circuses that throws a tent up and says, “Free tickets!” And then it’s twenty-dollar popcorn. I snuck out of the big top because it was small and pretty cheesy, but during the show I asked to meet the elephant; the handler gave me a bucket of peanuts and stuck me in an enclosure with this thing. He shut the gate. I was alone with this African elephant. I was looking at her, and she was looking at me like, This is not part of the usual repertoire. So I fed her the peanuts. By the end of it, she was such a love bug. I was hugging her and kissing her, posing for photos. She gave me a kiss, a big, sock puppet, mushy elephant kiss with the end of her trunk. It was really memorable.

Sara Gruen's website

Elizabeth Judd's review at the International Herald-Tribune

The carnival workers of Conklin Supershows don't see the big-city glam of the CNE or the PNE. From April to October, they travel small towns, setting up shopping mall midways and county fairs. It's a fading way of life with few rewards.

A few weeks ago, they had set up a sad little show in the nearly empty parking lot of the East York Towne Centre, with rides for the kiddies, a couple of bored elephants shuffling back and forth under an awning in the July heat, and some small performing dogs racing back and forth in an enclosure.

I was reminded of Sara Gruen's wonderful book, Water for Elephants, which is a must-read for anyone who is fascinated by the circus, elephants, or the Depression-era hobo life.

As a young man, Jacob Jankowski was tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. It was the early part of the great Depression, and for Jacob, now ninety, the circus world he remembers was both his salvation and a living hell. A veterinary student just shy of a degree, he was put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie.

It was there that he met Marlena, the beautiful equestrian star married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. And he met Rosie, an untrainable elephant who was the great gray hope for this third-rate traveling show. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and, ultimately, it was their only hope for survival.

After Jacob puts Silver Star down, August talks with him about the reality of the circus. “The whole thing’s illusion, Jacob,” he says, “and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s what people want from us. It’s what they expect”

Dave Weich of Powell's Books interviewed the author. An excerpt of the interview:

DW: Is it true that you’d never been to a circus before starting your research for Water for Elephants?

Sara Gruen: It’s true. I had no history whatsoever. No interest, no connection to anyone associated with the circus. I grew up in northern Ontario. I don’t know if they didn’t come up that far or if I just never went, but if I did go it made such a little impression on me that I didn’t remember it.

DW: What wound up being your favorite act?

SG: In the end, the liberty horses... A person, usually a beautiful woman, comes out with a group of twelve horses typically, sometimes all white, sometimes black and white. She stands and makes signals with whips in the air, and she talks to them, and they obey her.
I have a horse, and I think it’s very cool that they can get horses doing that with no restraint and no halter.

DW: Marlena is that woman in Water for Elephants.

SG: Yes, and in fact I modeled her act after ones I had watched.

DW: And Rosie was based on a real elephant?

SG: Several elephants, yes. There was actually an elephant that would pull her stake out of the ground to go and steal lemonade, and then she’d go back and put her stake back in the ground and look innocent while they blamed the roustabouts.

DW: One of my favorite details in the book, having nothing to do with the circus, describes the boys in the hobo jungle: when they sleep, they take off their shoes but tie them to their feet. How did you educate yourself in Depression-era America?

SG: I wasn’t quite sure at first that this was the era I’d set the story in. A circus photo set me off on the path of the novel, but then I got on a sidetrack about hobos and I realized that something like 80 percent of them were under twenty-one. You think about hobos and you imagine middle-aged, dirty men by the side of the track, but no, they were kids.

DW: So much happens on the train or just off the train. It’s the book’s main setting.

SG: The whole of a circus worker’s social life happened on a moving train. When they were off, they were setting up or they were performing or they were tearing down, so everything happened while they were moving. Once they collected your quarter, they did their act and then they got out. You were leaving by the front end of the tent, and they were hauling the benches out by the back end—they’re done, they’re finished, they want to get on the train.

SG: For Water for Elephants, which was the first historical thing I’ve written, I did all the research ahead of time. I needed to feel that I knew the subject matter in and out. I hate outlining. I hate outlines, hate them, hate them. I usually know what the crisis of the book is going to be, though I don’t know how I’m going to get there. I try to make it bad enough that I don’t know how I’m going to get out of it. And when I get there, I have to get out of it. I just get myself geared up, and I write every day and see what happens.

DW: Has your technical-writing background helped, or has it been a hindrance?

SG: It was great training. For one thing, it taught me to sit down and write for eight hours a day. For another, it taught me not to take personally editorial comments. The first instructional project I gave to an editor ten years ago came back covered in red. I was practically in tears. It has to be a thousand times worse if it’s a piece of fiction, but I don’t take it personally anymore.

DW: Did you get up close and personal to elephants in your research?

SG: At the Kansas City Zoo, I observed the elephants with their ex-handler for a couple of days, taking notes on body language and behavior. I got into the habit of walking up to elephant handlers at the circus and saying, “Hi. I’m writing a book. May I meet your elephant?” I got lucky twice. The first time was right after I’d been out with this elephant handler at the Kansas City Zoo who had been gored by an elephant. He took a tusk through the thigh, one through the rib cage, which just missed everything vital, and another through his upper arm. So I still had that in mind. I was standing beside this huge thing with his amber eye staring down at me.

The guy said, “Go ahead. You can touch her.” I was shaking, but I touched her. I said, “Okay, I’m done now.” Several months later, I met the second one. It was one of these little circuses that throws a tent up and says, “Free tickets!” And then it’s twenty-dollar popcorn. I snuck out of the big top because it was small and pretty cheesy, but during the show I asked to meet the elephant; the handler gave me a bucket of peanuts and stuck me in an enclosure with this thing. He shut the gate. I was alone with this African elephant. I was looking at her, and she was looking at me like, This is not part of the usual repertoire. So I fed her the peanuts. By the end of it, she was such a love bug. I was hugging her and kissing her, posing for photos. She gave me a kiss, a big, sock puppet, mushy elephant kiss with the end of her trunk. It was really memorable.

Sara Gruen's website

Elizabeth Judd's review at the International Herald-Tribune

The spectacle served as my morning caffeine and I rose, knowing it futile to try to gain more sleep.

With a smile, I stuffed my bag into my pack, found the railroad tracks and followed them west towards Waynesboro. Forty-five minutes later a freight rumbled out of the east. I jumped it and rode it to Clifton Forge, a CSX locomotive fueling depot. The town of Clifton Forge is built along the Jackson River, which runs through the middle of the town. One of the reasons I wanted to visit this town, other than it is a railroad town, is that the Civilian Conservation Corps - which in my platform, I call for its reformation – built the nearby Douthat State Park.

At a late breakfast, I asked the old timers at a local café what they thought of the idea of revamping the CCC. The question was akin to asking the church choir what they thought of music in church. I shook hands and even signed my autograph on napkin. I bid the crowd farewell and hoofed through town before returning to the train yard. Within an hour, I was crossing the border into West Virginia.

Beckley WV: I strolled into this quaint town nestled in the heart of Appalachia. My mouth dry with grime of the rails from the last leg of my journey. This was my second time in town, once, in my hobo days, I passed through, camping a night in Babe Ruth park. I stepped into Billie Joe’s and the six eyes that were in the bar turned my way, five of them looking at me and one off to my left. Quickly four eyes turned back to an Olympic boxing match. The other two, belonging to a middle-aged woman, appeared to look at me and the back bar simultaneously.

Between rounds, the bartender took my order and set my tall blonde on the bar with a thud, took my money and slipped into the shadows. The woman spoke with a gravelly voice. “Gentleman may prefer blondes, but real men prefer brunettes.”

I looked at her, holding the gaze of her right eye a long second before giving into the impulse to look at her left eye and following its gaze to the back bar. “Don’t you get confused looking at two things at once?”
“I have broad horizons.”

I snickered, raised my bottle in toast and took a long sip. I learned that the woman’s name is Shari, that she is an alcoholic, is unemployed, her trailer was in danger of being foreclosed upon, her eldest daughter was murdered eleven years ago in Baltimore, and her husband is in prison in Kentucky all before she found out my name is Robert and I’m running for president.

She laughed, spitting out her drink. “You have as much a chance getting elected as I do getting a job modeling contact lenses.”

That Shari wasn’t sensitive about her lazy-eye made talking with her easy.

Especially, when my gaze found itself distracted - as she spoke, I found myself looking in the direction of her left eye, as if she was talking to me but watching someone else.

I bought her a drink and quickly learned she was passing through Beckley on way to Beattyville, KY to visit her husband.

“Want to share the road to Kentucky?”

“Sure,” I answered. We finished our drinks, left the bar and slipped into her Toyota Tercel. Surprisingly, she didn’t jump onto the freeway, instead she kept to back roads, making pit stops in Glen Daniel and Bob White, where I talked to a few folks at the convenience store, before stopping for the night in Madison.

In Madison, Shari introduced me to Hudson’s Bar and Grille. The local’s were receptive and I returned the favor by bringing my top game. Being Tuesday night, I bought a few votes by helping a couple new friends butcher karaoke. I am confident that no tapes exist and the threat of blackmail well mitigated.

Before Madison, I was concerned that I would not succeed in West Virginia. I pinned my attention on Beckley and allowed myself to be distracted. As things worked out, Madison turned out to be a much better campaign opportunity.

I have a cold at the moment. But coincidentally I also have this sudden massive sugar-craving onslaught. Can't. Stop. Sweet. Lollies. Chocolate. Ahaha, probably explains the existence of such thunder thighs bestowed upon me.

Hate it when there are places to go but nothing to wear. At times like these, the semi-formal dress code becomes the lamest shit ever invented. The perimeters of what you can or can not wear is so vague. Wearing a potato sack with heels might even suffice (inside my head right now). I dare you to test me. Go on.

But I'm sick so maybe I shouldn't risk my health for aesthetics (or lack thereof). Hobo-ism here I come. Semi-formal doesn't mean I can't rock up in 1000000 layesr. 1000000 HOT! SEXY! LAYERS!

Can you tell I'm trying to flirt with you?

(c) Subway Philosophy, 2008

I don't want to be what we now refer to as a 'homeless person', I want to be a hobo. A classic 1930's-era hobo, complete with battered harmonica, plaid 'kerchief bindle, plenty o' tinned beans, nary a care in the world, a head full of tales spun by the fire, and a heart full of homespun wisdom!

(There's lots of spinning to be spun in this particular fantasy.)

I want to have a lovable little mongrel dog named Patches who follows me everywhere, eating my scraps and licking my travel-related wounds.

I want to have threadbare clothes and a tattered hat and a full, manly-yet-scruffy beard upon my chin. I want to pee on every major landmark, freeway, picket-fence, radio tower, and policeman in the Southwestern United States.

I would like to spit "tobacki", and swear, and hold "tobacki" spitting contests, and swear while doing so.

I want every soup kitchen in a tri-county area to know me by name, and give me an extra slice of bread with my soup, and punch me lightly on the arm when I dribble soup in my beard, and who laughingly ask, "Oh! You mischievous little scamp, whatever do you get up to?"

I want to have thousands of true stories with which to answer that question, and to be able to tell them in a worn, gravelly voice with a look in my eye that makes them just know that I am telling the truth.

I would like to fall asleep on a pile of sweet grass and old newspapers, covered by my coat, looking up at stars that are not obscured by light pollution... or any other kind of pollution, for that matter.

Yep. I want to be a hobo.

And if I can't be a hobo, then I want to be... I'll describe that particular fantasy another time.