My #2 son Bernie is a pip.  He's straight out of being the hero in this movie whose name is Blackie.  A half feral, half Mexican, half redneck, half mechanical genius who's a "collector," if you know what I mean.

Bernie is a mountain man.  He can live in the Oregon woods for a few months.  If World War III ever happens, he' ll probably be the King of the West Coast.  But for now, he's a contractor who for a variety of reasons has decided to move elsewhere, half a mile down the road to a 1950s farm house that was used as a grow operation for 14 years before he landed in there.

The new place is a sweet deal -- 140 acres of prime riverfront property with its own salmon run.  Four bucks live in the blackberry bushes on the property, and they walk right by the house. In the fall, Bernie's going to get his deer rifle and drill one of them while they walk by the door.  He does the same thing when he goes Canadian Goose hunting.  Can hardly say that he's a sportsman, but the countryside is that way. And Bernie doesn't want to go to his cabin deep in the woods.  He's lazy.

 His landlord right now is a perfect asshole -- some yuppie scum living in the Bay Area who enjoys his life style just a tad too much.  So far, he's stiffed Bernie for fifteen grand on a small farmhouse construction project that he was working on, and they're in a pissing contest right now. 

By the way, never get into a pissing contest with Bernie.  He'll always win.  I know. I can tell you that. Right now, the lawyer from Palo Alto is calling and emailing Bernie every day, just being abusive.  But Bernie doesn't mind. Nobody knows it, but Bernie is really a honey badger.

Bernie has many adventures.  What do you do with a guy who's collected an antique Austin Healey, two three boats, two ?? snowmobiles, two three tractors, some assorted logging equipment, and a 1930s folk art cigar store Indian.  And none of them work. So moving is great fun. He has two barns full of STUFF! And he's moving them to his new property, which has three barns!!!

Like for today for example. Bernie is trying to settle into his new house by the begining of September, and that has meant  single handedly rehabing the old grow house into a classy joint while he has a dislocated shoulder in a sling. I mean  -- doing the entire house rehab. Bernie feels no pain.

Today he's moving his houseboat with his tractor.  He doesn't know that there's a huge swarm of bees underneath the houseboat who are terminally pissed, and they attack Bernie on the tractor. No problem.  Bernie goes back to his barn and sprays some carburator cleaner on the hive, and he lights a match. The ether makes a small explosion.

But that's nothing. While he was on the tail end of finishing the little red farmhouse for his asshole landlord the other day, he was attacked by a 40 lb. swarm of red ants.  He tried to bug bomb them, but thousands of them got on him.  I would have been dead, but I guess he ate them.

Bernie's that kind of guy.