Weather: Low clouds and lotsa scattered showers as far as you can see. The fire season is officially a "wash-out" this year. Good! After the month-long smoke of August 2003, I enjoy the change. (The house painter is coming NEXT week.)

Wildlife: A squirrel was chasing a raven across the lawn here at the college. The bird got bored with that game and flew away.

Charity Alert: The Animal Rescue Site : Feed an Animal in Need

In the Community: The Hockaday Museum of Art is doing TWO events tonight -- an auction, plus staying open for "Fun Friday." I'm going to shoot pictures all over the valley!
Hockaday Museum of Art - Prime visual arts resource in Flathead Valley of Northwest Montana.

Media Watch: I finished a book about J.R.R. Tolkien's experiences just before and after World War I. Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth by John Garth. It went on a bit about details within The Book of Lost Tales, but was otherwise well-paced. I learned much more about the origins of his writings and mythological interests.
One of the very first passages I ever read by Tolkien was in the introduction to Lord of the Rings:
One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918, all but one of my close friends were dead.
This book has Tolkien's calligraphic imprint on the cover, and is published by Houghton-Mifflin. The very personal information inside leads me to believe that it is countenanced by Christopher Tolkien and his family.