It's the first day of deer season here in rural/rustic/scenic Pacific County. It's an odd community "event" of sorts out here, as locals take their deer hunting very, very seriously.

I'm sure there's a great deal of sport hunting going on, but the vast majority seems to be folks who just need a cheap source of protein. It's a pretty economically disadvantaged area -- worsened by the flooding a while back -- and so, for a large number of families, venison is the major source of meat in their diets.*

It gets a little creepy, though; I used to live a few miles from a military base, and grew accustomed to the steady thunder of artillery practice. But I'm still a little twitched by sporadic bursts of gunfire echoing through the woods.

On the other hand? It is an incredibly gorgeous fall morning. The skies are a vibrant blue, and there's a warm blanket of sunshine that blunts the air's chilly edge.

Plus, it looks like I'll be heading southward tonight, that my wife and I might visit with the Ruckas, whom we have not seen nearly enough of, of late.

Watched a couple movies last night while plugging away on the Vertigo book, which reminded me, I'm way behind on updating the "100 Movie Meme" stuff.

I've also been surfing political blogs and current news stories and just getting more and more angry, which I thought I'd sorta gotten past. Dear lord. Perhaps not the best way to spend my morning.

Anyway, that's about it. Nothing of interest here. Move along. :)

*Not kidding. The first month I lived out here, my neighbor--who is a local youth pastor--had mentioned to some of his "kids" that "one of the guys who worked on Halo moved into the old Jones place." Sure enough, a bunch of them showed up on my doorstep and wanted to talk videogames. Really sweet kids, I hasten to add, and I was happy to chat with them. But I was a little concerned by one thing: the kid driving the car they showed up in. This kid looked all of about twelve -- very small, very slight. So, I asked him how old he was, and he had ID to verify it: he was SIXTEEN YEARS OLD. And, some gentle questioning revealed, the only protein in this kid's diet was from deer he bagged during hunting season. (Further, he was even more eager for deer season, because he'd finally managed to acquire -- a gift from my neighbor, I expect -- a rifle suitable for deer hunting. He'd been hunting deer with a .22.)