Yesterday I wrote about a con Jimmy McGill and ride-or-die friend Kim Wexler pull against a prosecutor in Better Call Saul ep. 4.08 to get her to reduce the charges against Jimmy's associate, Huell Babineaux. At Kim's suggestion Jimmy wrote a bunch of letters as a fake letter-writing campaign from ordinary citizens of Huell's hometown, attesting to what a wonderful person Huell is and promising the judge to come protest his unjust prosecution at trial. The judge tells the prosecutor to offer a plea bargain to keep the case away from trial. The prosecutor, suspecting the syrupy sweet letters of being phony, takes them back to her office and sets her team to investigate them.

This is where Jimmy is three steps ahead of them.

First, those letters from people in Coushatta, Louisiana are all mailed from Coushatta— a real town. Jimmy traveled there by bus to post the letters from the tiny town's post office.

Next, many of the letter included phone numbers for the people who supposedly wrote them. Those phone numbers....?



Remember Jimmy— actually he did this as Saul— the phone salesman from a few episodes ago? Yeah, those phone numbers are all real. They go to a bank of phones Jimmy purchased and set up in his office. And he's hired his 3 member film crew of UNM students, including "Drama Girl", his script-writing and makeup consultant, to answer the phones. They put on laughably thick Cajun accents and downhome mannerisms as they impersonate eah of the letter writers the ADA and her staff check up on. Jimmy himself lays it on thick as the pastor of the Free Will Baptist Church, while "Sound Guy" plays a recording of church organ music in the background.

Oh, and Free Will Baptist Church? You know the prosecutor and her team are going to Google that. They're not idiots. But again, Jimmy is ahead of them. And the showrunners hid an Easter egg.



The prosecutor's team pulls up the church's webpage. It's got a photo carousel of Huell Babineux being thanked by various members of the community— including firefighters thanking him for rescuing senior citizens from a burning building. The prosecutor, at this point, gives up. She contacts Kim to offer a plea bargain.

When I saw this come up on a laptop screen in the show, following the crazy accents on the phones, I was practically crying with laughter. Then after watching the episode I discovered something even better— an Easter egg.

That pic from the website? It's not a a screen-cap from the TV series; it's a screenshot I made by visiting https://www.freewill-baptistchurch.com. Yes, the Free Will Baptist Church of Coushatta, Louisiana is fake... but it has a real website we fans can visit!

The main page has the aforementioned photo carousel of Huell Babineaux (Lavell Crawford) and his many charitable acts. The "Testimonials" page has 3 audio recordings of the Better Call Saul cast pretending to be small town parishioners. If you call the number on the website, you hear a recording of Bob Odenkirk's hilarious rendition of a Cajun preacher. And the "Donate" button really works— though it redirects to a real, legit charity, the Food Bank of Louisiana.

My partner and I like to have fun with our stuffed animals. ...Okay, it's mostly me. I enjoy posing them in situations and telling stories about what they're doing, and she mostly finds it funny. Mostly. For example: hawk on her dragon's hoard of beads, hawk on a hoard of coins, Hawkes wine tasting, learning we'd mis-gendered an eagle.

We're not into just any stuffed animals, though; or even the common ones. We have a lot of hawks because they're my partner's namesake. Hawks are hard to find, though. Owls? Slightly easier. But owls suck.

Where can one find stuffed hawks? We keep our eyes open. Sometimes we find a beautiful hawk in the darnedest place.  We like to check out visitor centers at national/state parks because that's where we have a better chance of finding such toys— or "liberating a hawk", as Hawk calls it. When we visited Amicalola Falls in Georgia a few weeks ago we saw one or two hawks that we already own copies of... but we saw two other interesting stuffed animals.

For the first time ever I saw an Ent or Treant— or "Enchanted Tree" as manufacturer Folkmanis labels it. I presume they went with that generic name to avoid licensing issues with whatever global megacorps currently own the rights to Tolkien's works and Dungeons and Dragons, though a quick web search I did indicates that the words "Ent" and "Treant" are not trademarked and have been ruled by the courts to be in the public domain.

Folkmanis makes stuffed animals that aren't just stuffed animals but hand puppets. Our first hawk ever was a Folkmanis red tail hawk, a treasured gift that sadly wore out after enough years and had to be sent to the great aerie in the sky. Though we did find another copy of the Folkmanis red-tail hawk on eBay a few years ago.

I had fun checking out this "Enchanted Tree" hand puppet. I made a short video showing how, as I discovered, you can put your fingers in the branches atop the tree's head and move them around. ...And this bad-attitude Treant can give you the finger!

Now, laughing at rude poses with hand puppets wasn't the only thing we did at the park's gift shop. While we did see a hawk or two there and they were ones we already own better versions of, we did find a hawk "accessory"— a snake!

We bought the snake as gift for our hawks to play with.



Here's one of our red-tail hawk toys, "Winter", enjoying his new toy/meal as a reward for waiting patiently in the back of the car as we were out hiking. 🤣

Non-Vegas Vegas Weekend Travelog #1
Henderson, NV - Fri, 14 Feb 2025, 9pm

After 4½ days of work meetings wrapped on Friday afternoon it was time to shift gears. I shifted from being in Las Vegas and ignoring all the glamor and gambling for work, to being in Las Vegas and ignoring all the glamor and gambling for leisure! Instead of me flying home Friday evening I had bought a ticket for Hawk to come out and join me. And it was even Valentine's Day.

"Wait," you might wonder, "Don't you mostly ignore Valentine's Day?"



Yes, I do! The main thing I've done on Valentine's Day the past several years is go to work. And that's partly because my company nearly always schedules SKO on the week of Valentine's Day. I guess they get a cheaper rate or something as other companies are trying to give their employees a break by not scheduling mandatory offsites that week. Mine even ridicules Valentine's Day as fake holiday.

It's a good thing Hawk and I agree. 😂

But even so, just because I roll my eyes at Valentine's Day doesn't mean I want to stay at work on Valentine's Day. Especially on a Friday after a long week! I skipped out from a post-meeting round of drinks with my department head at 5:05pm and boarded a Lyft car to the airport.

At LAS I met Hawk in the baggage area. Her flight had landed 10 minutes earlier. We scooped up our large bag once it hit the conveyor belt, called another Lyft car, and rode to our hotel for the next 3 nights.

We're totally off-Strip for the weekend. We're out in Henderson, at a Marriott Residence Inn. The closest thing to gambling around here would be trying the runny scrambled eggs at the breakfast buffet in the morning. 🤣

For dinner this evening we walked to a Mexican restaurant a block or two away. The walk was actually more than we bargained for as the temperature was dropping and wind was gusting. Oh, and the sidewalks out here aren't meant actually to be used. But the food was good. We both enjoyed the dish of guacamole we split as an appetizer. It was as good as our best homemade. And when they brought more out with her taco she set the remainder of first dish aside to take back to the hotel. I had quesabirria which was way more filling than I expected, so I took some of that back, too, to save for breakfast tomorrow.

We're back at the hotel now, and I'm crashing hard. Even though it's only 9pm I'm not too surprised as it's been a hard week for me. I haven't gotten to bed before midnight or gotten more than 5½ hours of sleep a night the past several days. So, going to sleep at 9:30? I'm due.

Thanksgiving '24 Travelog #2
37,000' over Iowa - Sat, 23 Nov 2024, 12:15pm

Well, our flight from Oakland actually did leave on time today. Right now we're somewhere over Iowa and still on track for an early arrival in Baltimore, Maryland. I had to look out the window to make sure blurry vision wasn't causing me to misread the flight map....



Of course this is one time I don't care if we get in 30 minutes late. My schedule works either way. I took the hit on catching an early flight today, including going out of my way to drive to Oakland airport at oh-dark-thirty and then pay through the nose for parking, to prevent against an all-too-likely flight delay scrambling my evening plans.

If this flight does arrive early it'll have another benefit: it's shorter. The scheduled time of 5h10m is a long flight with Southwest. They don't offer meals onboard, even for purchase. The only food is a small bag of pretzels or cookies, and soda served one small cup at a time. Knowing this I packed a few protein bars and filled a water bottle at the airport. Though today the cabin crew has been generous and brought us the full can to drink!

We'll see if this flight continues to track to an early arrival. I have every confidence that Southwest, or air traffic control, or ground operations at BWI, will find some way to delay us before we get to the gate.

Last night I booked a trip to go hiking in the mountains this weekend. Shortly after writing that blog this morning I checked my news feed and...



It's on fire.

Overnight the Park Fire near Chico, California exploded in size (Sacramento Bee article via Yahoo! News, 25 Jul 2024), growing from under 6,500 acres to over 45,000 acres by morning and 71,000 acres by midday. The fire was just 3% contained at last update in that article. That means it's burning out of control and growing in every direction simultaneously.

When smoke from a fire affected our day of hiking in the Sierras a few weeks ago I wrote that maybe we'll have to check not just the weather forecast but also the fire forecast before we travel. I wrote that as grim humor, not as a literal prediction! Alas my grim humor is the emerging grim reality. Summer in California is becoming fire season. Anywhere in the state may be burning or choking on smoke from a fire.

Fortunately the effects of the Park Fire are currently only indirect on where we planned to go hiking this weekend. Like the fire near Fresno a few weeks ago there will be dozens of miles and some pretty high mountains between it and us. But like then the smoke could be an issue. Already the smoke is definitely an issue in Redding, where we're stopping on our Friday Night Halfway. And it might be an issue up in the Shasta-Trinity mountains if the wind shifts strongly to the northwest (though that seems unlikely).

Incidentally this Park Fire is not far from Paradise, California, where the 2018 Camp Fire killed 85 people. (A note about naming fires: "Camp Fire" does not mean it was a campfire that got out of control. It was given that name because it started near a local road named Camp Creek Road.)

Update: this afternoon I saw news that authorities have arrested a man on suspicion of arson in deliberately starting the Park Fire! Example coverage: KCRA News Sacramento article, San Francisco Chronicle article. Witnesses say the suspect pushed a burning vehicle into a gully. So maybe it wasn't his intention to start a massive forest fire destroying numerous homes and requiring thousands of people to evacuate the area, but that's been the result so far of his deliberate actions.

Update 2: As of midday Friday, the fire has grown to 178,000 acres and is now rated as 0% contained.

Update 3: As of Friday evening, the fire has burned 239,000 acres. That's 373 square miles. 1,600 firefighters are working on it... and it's still 0% contained.

Update 4: As of Sunday morning, the fire has grown to over 350,000 acres. Cooler weather on Saturday slowed its spread and enabled firefighters to establish some containment lines, otherwise it could be even worse. Miraculously there are no deaths reported from this huge fire. Thousands of people have had to evacuate. To their credit and authorities' credit, people got moved to safety quickly. I'm sure plenty of people living in the area remember what happened in Paradise in 2018 when a half day of "wait and see" delays before evacuation orders came caused pandemonium and dozens of deaths.

Update 5: Tuesday check-in.

So many places on the web want you to sign up with a name and email address in exchange for access to content or services. As an end user I'm like, "I just want this one free thing you're offering, I don't want you to spam me with daily advertisements for the next umpteen years!" So I have an alter ego identity I use.

Here's how I signed in for free wifi at the airport recently:



Yup, Hugh Jass is my alter ego. I've been joining webinars, downloading free pdfs, and connecting to airport wifi as Hugh for years.

"Wait, why's this tagged as humor?" you may ask.

Read the name. Say the name. Hugh Jass. It sure sounds like "Huge Ass", doesn't it?

I'm hardly the first person to make this joke, of course. It's one the names Bart Simpson uses to prank bar owner Moe in The Simpsons, as far back as at least the early 1990s. There was even a 1991 episode in which a guy named Hugh Jass actually answered the phone at Moe's Tavern, foiling Bart's prank.

What about a real-life Hugh Jass? A quick web search finds a number of hits, though many of them are pages discussing pranks. LinkedIn claims there are 240 contacts matching "Hugh Jass"... though there, too, the top hit looked like it was an account created as a joke. But at least a few others at cursory glance seemed like they could be legit.

As far as hugh.jass@gmail.com... whoever owns that I'm address, I'm sorry for the extra spam I create for you. 🤣

Our niece, A., graduated high school. The ceremony was last night.



These are her parents, my sister and brother-in-law, with her after the commencement. (Yes, the background there is the folded up tables of the high school lunch room. 😅)

Some students' families went all-out to celebrate their graduation. Some had huge, loud cheering sections. I saw at least two groups with personalized t-shirts, sporting a picture of the graduate on the front and emblazoned with text specifying their relationship-- "My son/brother/grandson has graduated!"

I teased my family that we were going to paint their car up like this:



Or maybe paint our car, "Are Neice done Gradiated!" 🤣

BTW, last night two of are neices done gradiated! A.'s cousin, B., graduated from high school in Virginia. Family couldn't be in two places 1,000 miles apart on the same day, so Hawk and I joined here, while my mom and youngest sister celebrated with B. and her parents.

And yes, A. has college plans all lined up. In September she's starting at Savannah College of Art & Design.

Yesterday I wrote about how comparing things to memorable dates can make you feel old. For example, do you remember the Apple Macintosh? (I do.) Well, the Apple Macintosh launched closer to WWII than to today. 😳

That's a form of comparison I described as "X happened closer to Y than to today." Another type of comparison that can make you feel old is to consider what would happen if memorable TV shows or movies about times past were remade today.

Back to the Future, 2024 edition

For example, Back to the Future was released in 1985. If it were remade today (2024), it would feature hero Marty McFly traveling back in time to... 1994.



Marty would be like, "Hey, where can I get on the Internet?"

And he'd cringe when old-time Doc Brown says, "Oh, you mean AOL?"

Then he'd meet his parents at a high school dance listening to oldies music from Ace of Base and Salt-n-Pepa.

Okay, let's try another one.

That '00s Show

If they remade That 70s Show today it'd be That 00s Show. The teen nostalgia show that aired from 1998 to 2006 portrayed the years 1976-1979. So today it'd premier with teens living in 2002.



Teens in That 00s Show would be sitting in someone's parents' basement together after school sharing their fears about more 9-11 style attacks, lockdown drills, the war in Afghanistan, and whether the US would invade other countries, too, like Iraq.

They'd be trash-talking about which movie, Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, each of which had just been released months earlier, was better.

The kids would likely have internet access to help pass the time... but it would be slow because it'd be a dial-up connection. The warble of the modem connecting would be a regular sound effect indicating what was happening. And somebody's mom picking up the phone and breaking the connection while downloading music illegally would be a regular trope. Oh, and in later seasons the kids would discover this great new teens-focused service, MySpace. 🤣

Sometimes in role-playing games like D&D funny moments arise when a newer player is surprised by one of the rules. Such a thing happened to some friends of mine years ago. I'll share the story as I've embellished it over the years.

"A gust of wind in the cave blows your torches out," the GM advised the players.

"It's okay," Phil said (I think his name was Phil), "I'll light two more."

Then another gust of wind blew out the torches. And again, Phil proffered two more.

Understand, BTW, that "A wind blows out your torches" is an old time-y trope in games like D&D. Back in the 1980s it was typical for adventures to be written specifically to foil players' preparations. The dungeon designer wanted the characters to have to face a challenge in the dark, generally because that was the one thing that made it hard, so they included something like a perpetual wind gust to exhaust the supply of torches the players equipped their characters with.

But Phil's supply was not exhausted. "I light two more torches," he said a third time.

The GM, suspicious, peered over the GM's screen. "Just how many torches do you have, Phil? Are these all written down on your character sheet?"

"Right here," Phil pointed to his equipment list. "When we were in town, I stocked up. The player's handbook says torches are 1/2 copper piece each, and I didn't want to make change for a gold, so I just bought 200."

"200 torches?!" the GM exclaimed. "They're, like, 18 inches long and weigh a pound each. You're like a walking wood pile shambling its way through the dungeon!"

Friday night was Session Two of my "City of the Dead" D&D game. Yes, we played two weeks in a row. In fact next Friday it will be three weeks in a row. We compared our calendars in advance (during Session Zero) to find 5 Friday nights that worked for everybody. It just so happened the first three were consecutive weeks.



After an overnight "random" monster encounter and tracking it to its lair in the morning consumed the entirety of the first session I was eager to get the party into the main plot line this week. As I've written before, there's an art to balancing "random" monster encounters so they enrich the story without subtracting from it.

Storytelling Improv— A Swing and a Miss

The group screwed around enough that they deserved two more incidental encounters. Rather than just say "Nothing happens!" to speed through it I decided to mix it up by engaging the group in an improv storytelling exercise. My aim was this would be (a) relatively fast and (b) fun. Alas it was neither as the players struggled to understand the simple instructions I offered for the storytelling improv. I cut the improv exercise short and then declared that the next encounter was rained out. Literally.

"It rains all night. You're cold and miserable. So is everyone and everything that would otherwise attack you, so nothing happens." 😅

This got the group on to the outskirts of Graymount, the titular City of the Dead.

Passing Notes FTW

One thing I hated back in the day was the GM and one or more of the players passing secret notes. I hated it as a GM because an incoming secret note generally meant one of the players wanted to do something hostile toward others in the group and expected to be allowed to waste their time at the table acting solo to do it. I hated it as a player because, well, the same reasons. That said, I do pass notes in this game— from GM to player, not vice-versa— and it's a good thing.

The purpose of the notes I send players now is to give them a tidbit of information their character knows that the rest of the group doesn't. Usually this is something connected to unique knowledge their character has, like "Trolls regenerate wounds except for acid and fire," and, "The lost cleric you're looking for almost certainly would have visited this cemetery first because it's in line with his faith to do so; you might find a clue to his whereabouts there."

I could just announce these bits of insight at the table when one player asks what his/her character knows about the topic. In the past that's what I've done because it's simplest. This game I've pre-written notes addressing questions the players are likely to ask (or should ask) and hand them over at the right time. This allows the players to share character knowledge in their own voices, which is really cool.

Clues Work, Clues Fail

The group found the cemetery outside of Graymount, the first stop on the main plot line. They immediately decided to try going somewhere else totally off script first. 🤣 With the help of one of those pre-written character knowledge notes they thought better of it. It was awesome that the note helped them make this decision organically.

In the cemetery the group fought through a small group of low-powered undead. They were heading to a walled garden in the middle, the place they figured would have whatever they were looking for. But when they encountered an evil spell protecting it they decided to go explore everything else first.

Silly me, I though that when the group signed up for a mission loosely described as, "Find the evil stuff, figure out what it is, and defeat it," they would interpret signs of evil as proof they're on the right path. Instead they took it as a "Wrong way" sign, turned back, and tried every other direction first. 🤣

More Improv— This Time it Works!

There was a section of the cemetery I forgot I detailed when I created a huge map I shared with the party. On the far side of the cemetery was a small monument on a stone platform. They decided they wanted to explore that.

As the players passed a statue on the platform they demanded to know what it was. Just "a statue" wasn't good enough. They bailed on all the evil stuff which was their mission but now they're sculpture critics. 🙄

I turned the question back to them. "You tell me." I paused as they looked confused. "Someone tell me what the statue is."

"It's a man who's a warrior, with a sword!" Hawk volunteered.

"That's awesome," I said with a smile. "That just changed the nature of the monster that's about to attack you. You're going to like this!" 🤣



With the sound of stone scraping against stone the lid slid off the sarcophagus beyond the statue. Out of the coffin climbed... a 4-armed skeleton! With a curved short sword in each of its bony hands!

Oh, the group had fun fighting that monster. A half dozen ghouls joined in from the sides to keep everyone busy. The cleric nuked the ghouls in a single shot (yay, Turn Undead!) to astonished faces around the table, then a cheer went up as the wizard finished off the mutant skeleton just before it finished off the party's scout.