That was firecrackers, right? It’s getting closer to fourth of July, I guess. Or maybe it’s someone’s birthday. Please tell me that was firecrackers, because if it wasn’t … ugh … there goes the neighborhood.

Yeah, well … we went to bed to the sound of gunfire last night. Some knucklehead pulling a Yosemite Sam imitation right out in front of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. Could be they thought the place was empty – it is, after all, abandoned. Anyway, we sent Marvin (my personal robot assistant) out there to have a look. He’s kind of like one of those tactical bomb-sniffing robots, except that he doesn’t have a tactical bone in his body and he hates the smell of explosives.

Anyway, he tottered out there and took a look around, then came back in with a couple of bottle caps. Not 100% sure that was related to what we sent him out there for, but there you have it. We may be looking for a gunman who enjoys drinking soda while he/she is shooting up the place. Hey, look … we have to go with the robot we have, not the one we wish we had. He’s not a tactical robot; he’s more of a strategic robot in that he helps us map out our plans for interstellar tours. (Trouble is, he does it in a language I don’t understand … a language shared by maybe a half-dozen robot assistants worldwide, all built by Mitch Macaphee.)

Needless to say, the recent degradation of our little neighborhood is hastening our decision to go out on the road again. And when I say “road”, I mean deep space pathways … imaginary lines through the trackless void. We’re working on an itinerary for a Spring Tour 2019, starting off in the outer reaches of our own solar system, then moving on to some of the more distant locales where the gravity is unpredictable and the audiences more profoundly diverse. It’s all still on the drawing board, but we’re thinking it looks something like this:

• May 12, Neptune
• May 15, Proxima system
• May 20, Barnard’s Star system
• May 27, Procyon system
• May 30, Epsilon Indi
• June 5, Jupiter, red spot

Naturally, we’ve got some gaps to fill. And then there’s the question of transportation. Details, details! Don’t bother me with trifles. We gotta get on the road before some of these local Yosemite Sams start using us for target practice. Tour for your life! (Hey … there’s a theme.)