Opinion: Choo-choo

I got a letter the other day from Donald J. Trump asking me to vote for him for president. I found this to be a bit ironic, considering that this is the same guy who claims that the U.S. Postal Service is fraught with scandal and cheating when it comes to actually sending my ballot back.

But this is not a column about politics (Though I must admit, the Democrats are simply being cruel and heartless to Sen. Steve Daines, ‘cause they keep making his head look even bigger than it really is. Why the last mailer I got his head looked three to four times as big as his body and he had little stick legs. I have seen the Senator in person and yes, his head is a bit on the large side, but then again, so is my nose. He does not, however, seem to have stick legs or stick arms. I suspect if I ran for office both parties would make my nose look like the beak on a cormorant. I say both parties because I would never run as a

Republican or a Democrat. I’m an independent, though sometimes I lean moderate Republican and other times conservative Democrat. I know, I know, neither of those people exist anymore, so I would get less than zero votes, Or as the president suggests, my votes would be thrown in the River Styx, where they belong.) But I digress.

This column is about spending money foolishly late in one’s life. Sure, I could have been happy as a photographer for the rest of my life, but I was not, so I got into video.

Anyone who has gotten into video knows that you can spend just gobs of cash on stuff that most people have never heard of or could care less about.

Why the other day I spent $45 on a nato rail clamp, stuck it in my bag and promptly managed to break off the little handle that locks a very expensive monitor in place.

Don’t even ask what a nato rail clamp is.

Then the other day I plunked down 700 bucks for a field sound recorder and then another 300 for some software to go with it so I could get clean sound of a squirrel chattering on a branch.

I got clean sound all right. Clean sound of the squirrel and the damn train passing by in the background.

This is what you get for a thousand bucks — a headache.

That train was probably full of ballots, heading to the voters of the land.

Hope it doesn’t end up in the river.