I don't pretend to be a big outdoorsman. I'm just an average guy who likes good scenery.

When I was just a kid—long before the internet existed to either kill off old irrational fears in avalanches of pedantic data or germinate brand new ones in its' rich and fertile fields of bullshit—I had a morbid fear of tornadoes.

A week later, the summer monsoons are still pouring down across the Rio Grande Valley, as my wife, Kirbi, and I wait here at Goat Farm for the birth of our son.

The monsoon thunderstorms are rolling in again as I'm writing this from our new home in the Rio Grande Valley north of Santa Fe.