coffee and other habits

Why I Chose the Nook Simple Touch eBook Reader

2011-08-17T16:53:00.000-07:00

First off, I'm one of those people who, not very long ago, said that I would never in a million years want to use an "e-reader" (or "e-book reader"--whatever). I just had no interest in the things. In fact, I told Anastasia, "Don't ever buy me one of those." This surprised her because I read a lot.

I took these e-readers as an affront to the many little things that make books so enjoyable. The tactile things. The aesthetics. The touch, the smell, the feel, and yes, even the cover art. Sure, these things are peripheral to the actual work inside, but they're important nonetheless. And why on Earth would anyone ever want to read a book on a screen?

Flash-forward a year or two and we're at Anastasia's parents' cottage in Northern Michigan. She is reading The Help on her mom's Nook (1st Edition) so I pick her brain about whether or not she is enjoying the experience. She is. So, I toy with the the device every now and then when she sets it down. My interest is piqued, but I'm not convinced I'd like one. It felt a little heavy to me and I wasn't thrilled with the controls or the interface.

What changed my mind? Two things:

First, I've been immersed in George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones lately and am looking forward to reading the next four books in the series. Thing is, these books are lengthy and physically huge. I've been packing Book One around with me every day and the next installments are even bigger. I got to thinking how nice it would be to pack a small, lightweight device with me instead during my daily bus commuting.

Second, a couple of months ago, Barnes & Noble released their next generation Nook (the Nook Simple Touch). Since that time it's been getting rave reviews from CNET and others, with the general consensus being that it is an all around better device than the Kindle 3.

Having done my homework on Nook Simple Touch vs. Kindle vs. Nook Color vs. all the others out there, I had all but decided that the Simple Touch was the one for me. After trying one out in the store, it wasn't long before I had my final answer, though, I was a little taken aback at first by its size. It's smaller than I had pictured, but it has a great feel to it. Ultimately, its size, shape, texture, and lightness all appealed to me.

Now the question I most often get is, why not the Nook Color or an iPad? My answer is that I wanted a reader and only a reader. Tablets are very cool, but I'm not in the market for one right now. That, and the Nook Simple Touch (like the Kindle) uses infrared touch-screen with E ink Pearl technology instead of a back-lit LCD screen, so in that sense, it's more like reading a book. LCD screens are nice, but can wear on the eyes after hours of reading and can have glare issues and be hard to read outside in the sunlight.

How am I liking it now that I've used it for a few days? I love it! Once I got over the initial strangeness of not holding an actual book, I found I really enjoyed the experience of reading on this device. I'm actually reading more than I was before because it's so much less cumbersome to hold and to use than that big book I've been hauling around.

There will always be books that mean enough to me that I will want to physically own them, to have them there on the shelf like old friends. But for on-the-go, day-to-day reading, the e-reader is where it's at.

when a song becomes more than a song

2011-06-30T13:45:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a hole is just a hole. Until you take that first peek down the hole. Once you've done that, it's never really just a hole. Look a little further, maybe lean over a little too far, you might just fall right in. Right down the rabbit hole.

Sometimes art is just art. And sometimes art is an encapsulation--visual, audible, or both--of something very real. The art is there to say, Hey, this horrible thing happened and this is the only way I can process it.

Earlier, I wrote a little post for our family blog, in which I reference a song by The Drive-By Truckers called "Two Daughters and a Beautiful Wife" (lyrics below). It's a gorgeous, yet sad, song that I've loved since I first heard it years ago.

The "rabbit hole" I mention is, in this case, the internet. While casually scanning the comments on the YouTube page for that song, I saw mention of this being based on a true story. Looking a little closer, leaning over a little too far, I read that it was based on the Harvey family of Richmond, Virginia.

Down the rabbit hole I tumbled.

On New Year's Day, 2006, Bryan and Kathryn Harvey and their two daughters, Stella and Ruby, "were found beaten, slashed and bound with electrical cord and tape in the basement of their burning house." Kathryn was co-owner of a popular toy shop. Both parents were beloved in their community. Their deaths were part of a senseless killing spree that occurred over seven days, claiming the lives of seven people in total.

"Is there vengeance up in heaven?" the song asks.

So the song became more than a song. It became the heart-breaking account of a loving family destroyed for no good reason.

Two Daughters and a Beautiful Wife

When he reached the gates of heaven
He didn't understand
He knew that folks were coming over
Or was it all a dream?
Was it all a crazy dream?

He saw them playing there before him
What were they doing there?
It felt like home, It must be alright
Or was just a dream?
Was it just a crazy dream?

Memories replay before him
All the tiny moments of his life
Laying round in bed on a Saturday morning
Two daughters and a wife
Two daughters and a beautiful wife

Meanwhile on Earth his friends came over
Shocked and horrified
Dolls and flowers by the storefront
And everybody cried
Everybody cried and cried

Is there vengeance up in heaven?
Are those things left behind?
Maybe everyday is Saturday morning
Two daughters and a wife
Two daughters and a beautiful wife
Two daughters and a beautiful wife

same as it ever was

2010-11-08T09:36:00.000-08:00

Life has a funny way of disorienting you. It can grab you, blindfold you, spin you round, and shove you forward in directions unknown. Then you remove the blindfold and look around wildly at your new reality and maybe there's a moment of confusion or even mild terror. But you stop. You take a deep breath. Maybe you close your eyes, count to ten. Then you look on your new surroundings with new eyes and you smile and you think, Yes. I can do this.

Realizing I am going to be a father soon has been one of these disorientating moments. Not in a panic-laden oh-my-god-what-am-I-going-to-do kind of way. Nothing so dramatic as that. Just, you know, a little dizzying.

Don't get me wrong. I'm extremely happy and excited. Whenever I look over at the ultrasound photo taped to my cubical wall--the one showing a clear profile of my baby with what looks like a subtle smile on his or her face--a warm feeling of love wells up inside my chest and into my throat.

As happy as I am, let's be honest here (nothing wrong with that, right?). It's a frightening thing, learning you're now going to be one hundred percent responsible for another human being. One who starts out so fragile and dependent on you for its very survival.

The strange thing to me is how I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the big picture. Not the birth, or the feeding, or the diapers, or the long hours and lack of sleep. I'm strangely not bothered by these things one bit. It's looking beyond all that. It's daydreaming of this new person becoming a kindergartner, a teenager, a high school student, and so on. It's the very idea that I have invited another person into my life. It's a commitment that goes beyond any relationship you'll ever have.

They are a part of you, always.

Again, I don't mean to sound apprehensive. I'm not. I just can't help but dwell on these things. My mind is a whirlygig of swishing and spinning thoughts, flying past each other and sometimes colliding in bright bursts of colorful worry.

Silly, I know. Sometimes I just have to process and work through all of my fears and self-doubts until I reach a conclusion on the other side. In this case, my answer is simply this: This new person, this baby... he or she will have a firm hold on my heart and I won't have a choice in the matter. So quit worrying and enjoy it, jackass.

I blame nature for allowing me the time to dwell. While the mother has--at least biologically--an instant bond to the child growing inside her, the father waits. He waits to finally see and feel this new person who has stubbornly remained tucked away for so many months.

For now, I have this ultrasound photo. I swear he or she is smiling.

I know I am.

Stars, Ice, and Impossible Beauty: Backpacking in the North Cascades

2010-09-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

[Photos HERE]

Lake Ann is not a big lake, but what she lacks in size she more than makes up for with her grace and charm. She's also a calming force and an escape of sorts, from the surrounding drama of our main star, Mount Shuksan. When Shuksan is not fogged in it seems to spread itself across the entire sky. When it begins to feel like too much, one can simply turn around. Ann is there.

Fairly popular among day-hikers, you'll see everyone on this trail from hardened mountain lovers to families and even white-haired grannies. That said, it's not exactly an easy hike. At 8.2 miles and 1,900 feet of elevation gain (both round trip), Lake Ann is a bit more of a day hike than I'm usually up for, so, to those grannies who actually get there and back in a day, much respect.

As for my friends and me, we decided to backpack in and stay two nights at the lake so we could do a day-hike to the Lower Curtis Glacier on Mount Shuksan.

We began our hike on Friday afternoon, Labor Day weekend. The sun was shining and the sky was clear. A more perfect day simply could not exist for hiking in the North Cascades, where everywhere you look there are craggy, snow-capped peaks vying for your attention. As we set off on the trail with our heavy packs, we were almost giddy with excitement. Unlike a lot of trails you'll find, this one actually drops in elevation by about 900 feet from the trail head, winding its way through lush forest and eventually landing in a gorgeous little valley where dogs and humans alike may cool off in the many creek crossings. Views of Mount Baker and the surrounding mountains kept us stopping often for photos.

Another crossing and the trail then moves back into the trees, winding its way along the toe of the Shuksan Arm before bottoming out again at a junction where one may choose to go straight for Lake Ann, or turn right for a trail down the Swift Creek Valley to Baker Lake. From this junction, the trail climbs and climbs and climbs. We navigated switchbacks, scree fields, and the seemingly never-ending 1,000-foot slog up an exposed ridge, sucking water like crazy from our CamelBaks.

As we reached the saddle and looked down at shapely Lake Ann, we felt very happy we'd soon be ditching all the weight on our backs. After descending about 100 feet to the lake, we made our camp at the south end, near the outlet of the lake. Evening was setting in and it quickly grew much cooler out. Campfires are not allowed out here, so we wanted to set up camp and get to cooking our dinner to warm up, but Mount Shuksan was not making it easy. The evening light seemed to change the mountain every few minutes. We’d stop whatever we were doing to take more photos and gaze, open-mouthed, at the alpenglow lighting up this colossus of rock and ice dominating the sky.

After dinner, we sat atop our rocky point, sipping Irish whiskey and making casual conversation. We tipped our heads back, watching the stars appear. When it had grown completely dark, we unclipped the straps of our seats and lay back against the granite. The sky now directly above us, we were like children. The Milky Way spread itself across the sky in a dense band of light. Not much was said, save for an occasional remark on the beauty of this place and exclamations over shooting stars.

Eventually, the chill got to us and we turned in. I lay in my sleeping bag, in my little tent, reading Lonesome Dove (not a smart book to bring backpacking, for its size and heft--but I couldn’t stop myself from packing it) and as I began to feel the weight of sleep coming on, I happened across these words: "Augustus lay back, his head against his saddle. It was a clear night, the stars just beginning to appear." I laughed a little at the coincidence. I switched off my headlamp, closed my eyes, and slipped away to the sound of the lake's outlet babbling at my feet while glacial waters roared down the mountain above me.

The following morning was eerie. We were completely fogged in so that you couldn't even see the other side of our little lake. As we ate our breakfast and cleared our heads with hot coffee, we could feel the sun fighting to show itself. It never completely cleared up, but that was fine. The constantly shifting dance of sun and clouds throughout the day kept things very interesting. We were just happy it was not raining.

Once we were powered up and the sun was peeking through, we decided to set off for the Lower Curtis Glacier. I stuffed my pack with just the essentials (water, snacks, first aid kit, warm hat, extra layers) and off we went.

If our map was correct, the glacier is less than a mile from Lake Ann, but it took us over two hours to get there. To be fair, part of this is due to the fact that we stopped to take pictures every ten steps, but it's also because this is no walk in the park.

After angling away from the lake, we landed in a creek basin where everything suddenly felt very prehistoric. Above, the fog moved in and out of massive rock spires, while at our feet we walked among beautiful alpine flowers, wild blueberries, and lush, bright green ferns surrounding enormous rocks. The trail then climbs numerous switchbacks toward the Fisher Chimney, a popular climbing route for those planning to summit Mount Shuksan. As we continued, the glacial water rushing down the mountain became extremely loud, while far down the valley, Baker Lake came into view. By this time, I was wearing every piece of clothing I'd packed with me. After crossing a couple of tricky and steep rock gullies, we arrived near the edge of the glacier. One more scree field and we were there.

I was on the glacier before I knew I was on the glacier. Carefully placing each step, I started to notice more and more ice between and underneath the rocks. A little further and there was no mistaking it.

Whoa.

Standing on top of the Lower Curtis Glacier, looking up at the craggy pinnacles surrounding the Upper Curtis, and across the snow and ice-filled cirque of Mount Shuksan was, well, very affecting.

We didn't have a lot to say.

Getting there: From Bellingham, take the Mount Baker Highway (State Route 542) east about 60 miles to the trailhead (parking lot on the left, about 1.5 miles beyond the Mount Baker Ski Area). Call ahead to the Glacier Public Service Center for trail and weather information, (360)-599-2714.

Well Hello There, Summer

2010-06-24T14:34:00.000-07:00

Summer appears to have finally arrived here in the Pacific Northwest. I say finally, as it is June 24th, but this is the way it is most every year. Summer weather really kicks in around the end of June or beginning of July. Most years, June is a time of gray skies and a restlessness that fills the air we breath.

After a long, dark, and soggy winter, we want to be outside. We ache for the sun, to feel her warmth on our bare arms. To feel her rays invigorate us in the morning and leave us drowsy and smiling at day's end.

Summer is here. So bring on the spontaneous barbecues, afternoon bike rides, long lunches away from the office, and campfires under dark starry skies, in the company of friends.

Welcoming the New Year from the Rose City

2010-01-03T16:11:00.000-08:00

Portland, Oregon. The Rose City. Home to wonderful music, divine beer, and lots of facial hair.

In some ways Portland is a lot like Seattle. They both share a distinctive Northwest culture (perceived or real?) of bookish organic farmers sitting in a cafe, enjoying soy lattes and vegan muffins while agreeing with everything on the Huffington Post.

In other ways, however, Portland is very different from Seattle. It's smaller for one thing. It's not as geographically strange, so it's easier to get around. There are more strip clubs. It's actually soggier if you can believe that. And it's far more lumberjack-y than Seattle. Everyone there dresses like a lumberjack. And has a beard. Even the women. Kidding, mostly.

Anastasia and I love Portland. We've made five trips down there so far--a few times with friends and once we took her parents to McMenamins Edgefield Manor (Disneyland for adults). It's a great little city to get away to every now and then. And now that we're pretty familiar with the place, it's just as fun to go and explore new areas of town as it is to revisit those restaurants, bars, and shops that we've enjoyed on prior visits.

So when we were thinking of things to do for New Year's Eve this year, Portland fit the bill nicely. After working a half-day Thursday, Stasia and I bused down to King Street Station and hopped on a Portland-bound train. Note: It doesn't get much better than sitting back on a train, sipping red wine, watching the trees, water, ships, and farm houses pass by.

We didn't really have a plan for New Year's Eve. We had dinner reservations, but beyond that, we'd be celebrating the new year wherever we happened to be when the clock struck.

Walking around the east end of the Pearl District, we found a lot of bars and clubs, but many of them had people lined up at doors through which heavy bass music pounded mercilessly. We looked at each other knowingly, took a sip of our Metamucil and continued walking until we happened upon a corner bar that looked quite welcoming with its warm atmosphere and copious Christmas decorations.

Turns out, it was a gay bar. Stasia called it before I did, but by the time we'd found a booth and ordered our first drinks, it was pretty obvious. Thing is, it was far more laid back than most gay bars. Imagine if CHEERS was a gay bar. That's how this place was.

We thought we'd have one drink and then maybe see what else was down the street. Then we decided to have a second drink. By then the bartender was my best friend because his drinks were strong and not overpriced. About half an hour to midnight we relocated to a table closer to the bar and, therefore, closer to the celebration.

Another drink (or two?) and we joined the rest of the crowd with the countdown, followed by countless horns, balloon-popping, and other noise-makers. We had a blast and were quite happy with how we rang in 2010.

Here are some other things that happened:

We went to a Wisconsin-themed bar called Saraveza. Great beer selection.

Stasia had a custom cone of yarn spun together at Yarnia.

We found a place that apparently sells FRESH HAIR, which is marvelous. BECAUSE I'VE BEEN LOOKING.
A crazy magic door appeared in a cafe men's room. I DARED NOT ENTER.

A drunk woman stopped and peed in the middle of the sidewalk as we passed by.

NO PHOTO

Thanks, Rose City. See you next time.

The Cold Quiet of Alaska in November

2009-12-29T13:36:00.000-08:00

Originally posted on The SunBreak.

All photos HERE.
Slideshow HERE.

November is a strange time to visit our large cousin to the north. It's cold, but there's very little snow. Every new day loses another five minutes of daylight from the previous. The whales have gone south. The bears have had their fill of salmon and are working on making their dens nice and cozy for the winter slumber. You can count the number of actual vacationers on one hand. Most of the out-of-towners appear to be there on business, as was the case with my wife. I tagged along because I can't pass up an opportunity to go to Alaska no matter what time of year it is.

We spent our first few days in downtown Anchorage without a vehicle. We stayed at a bed and breakfast called the Copper Whale at the West end and spent most of our time walking the streets, ducking into shops, boutiques, cafes, and brewpubs. There was a lot of bundling up, covering the ears, neck, and hands, only to shed it all again minutes later.

The high temperature during our stay was 35 degrees, though at times it was much colder than that. Still, I felt kind of silly, wrapped up as I was inside my snowboarding parka while hardened locals strolled by in little more than a flannel shirt. I told my wife I was glad it was so cold. "It makes the trip seem more exotic," I said. Luckily for us, the sky was clear, even sunny, so we were able to keep an eye on the surrounding mountains to be sure they were not misbehaving.

If you visit Anchorage, I recommend you not leave until you've consumed the following: the Crabby Omelet from Snow City Cafe, the Big Orso Burger from Orso, beers from Glacier Brewhouse and Snow Goose Restaurant and Brewery, and trivia night at Humpy's Great Alaskan Alehouse.

After a few days in Anchorage it was time to drive south to the Kenai Peninsula in a rented mid-size SUV. This is a breathtaking drive. First one must drive around the Turnagain Arm, a large inlet ringed by snow-capped peaks which seem to launch straight up from the icy water. The highway then ducks into the mountains and snakes its way through the gorgeous Chugach National Forest. The road then nuzzles the turquoise glacial waters of Kenai Lake and the Kenai River before eventually straightening out into a more even landscape dotted by marshes and small lakes.

Moose love Kenai. I don't think a day passed without seeing one of these huge, goofy-looking things in someone's lawn, on the side of the road, or, as was the case once, crossing the road right in front of me. I'm happy to report that the brakes worked wonderfully in my rented Toyota.

Located at the south end of the peninsula is the beautiful town of Homer. If you believe the bumper stickers popular in the area, Homer is "a quaint little drinking village with a fishing problem." If you ever get the chance to visit the area, you must visit Homer. It is stunning. And it has a spit.

As my wife was busy working for two days, that left me with a vehicle, some magnificent country, and ample time for exploration.

I drove around the first day, somewhat aimlessly, without an agenda or a destination in mind. I took photos, watched the sun rise over the Kasilof River, visited an old Orthodox Russion Church in the town of Kenai, and then drove around some more. Feeling like I must be missing something, I decided that my second day of solo exploration needed to be a little more organized.

After having breakfast at a little diner in the town of Soldotna, where Fox News played on the television and a table of old men complained about big government, I drove to a wildlife refuge outside of town and stopped at a visitor's center to hopefully get an idea as to how to spend my last full day in Alaska. They told me about a nice scenic bypass off of the Sterling Highway out to Skilak Lake. I bought a good map, thanked them and set off on my way.

Now for a drive like this one, alone and in the woods on a winding dirt road, one must have the proper music to travel by. This meant a quick stop at the Soldotna Fred Meyer where, after a brief perusal of the CD racks, I found the perfect companion: a 2-disc collection of the best of Willie Nelson.

Willie and I hit the road and this was it. Perfection. This dirt road, taking us higher and deeper into the trees. It rose and fell and wound its way around many of the smaller lakes and beaver ponds surrounding Skilak Lake. The air was crisp and bit at my nose whenever I got out to look around and take pictures. It was quiet.

Very quiet. Not a soul to be seen, or heard, but for the geese flapping their wings on the other side of the lake. It was peaceful, and yet I couldn't help but feel like I wasn't supposed to be there.

I didn't feel threatened. Just small and alone. Some people never truly know solitude. It was thrilling.

Compass and Rose Tattoo

2009-12-28T14:31:00.000-08:00

When it comes to tattoos, there are generally three kinds of people: those who have tattoos (and will probably get more), those who would never get a tattoo, and those folks in the middle who like tattoos, but may never commit to getting one themselves.

I got my first tattoo ten years ago, not long after moving to the Seattle area. It's located on my left shoulder blade area and depicts a young man sitting on the ground, hunched over, head in hands. Above him, flying out of his head are three faces. The first one is a hooded fellow who looks something like Death himself, the second is a rather angry-looking skull, and the third--the largest and most defined--is a fierce, resolute, and powerful character. You might say he represents an alter ego of the young man sitting on the ground--someone he wishes he could be.

Needless to say, I was going through some things when I got that tattoo. Even with plenty of friends around, it was a dark time for me. Depression is a bitch. I've grown up a lot since then, a lot of great things have happened to me, and though I may strike a mood every now and then, I'm generally a pretty happy person.

Because of its location on my body, I often forget I even have that tattoo, but it's always there. It doesn't represent who I am today, but that doesn't bother me. It's a mark in time. A reminder of things past.

For the past few years I've been wanting to get a new tattoo, but like many people I had a difficult time deciding what to get. I wanted it to mean something to me and if that thing was important enough, I wanted to be able to see it.

So here's the story behind this tattoo. I have an old compass that belonged to my grandfather Jack. We were pretty close when I was a kid. He was always chasing me around the house, threatening to tickle me; I always had a blast at his house.

When I was about 11 or 12 years old he took his own life. The older I get, the more the memories fade, but the event itself--the finality of it--that has always stayed with me.

The crack pattern in the glass on the tattoo matches the real crack pattern on my grandfather's compass.

The rose? Well, compass and rose imagery have gone hand in hand for ages. Also, I've always loved classic rose tattoo design so it seemed like a great fit. I guess you could say the petals falling are significant.

Lastly, the compass needle points northwest because the Pacific Northwest has been my home for the past ten years and is where so many great things have fallen into place for me. This is my home.

Four Months Later

2009-12-28T10:30:00.000-08:00

GOOD DAY TO YOU, my hundreds--nay, thousands--of blog readers. So many of you I cannot possibly remember all of your names. There's Eliza over there, in her bicycle shorts, smiling and upbeat as usual. And oh, here's Tiffany over here, taking a break from tossing the tennis ball for her funny dog so she can read the latest updates online. And then there are the rest of you--whether you exist here, with your feet held firmly to this giant rock, or you reside IN THE SQUISHY QUARTERS OF MY MIND, here you are.

I am sure you, army of readers, have spent the past four months sucking your thumb in the fetal position and wondering, "When... when will he post again? Will he never?" Have a little faith dear reader, not to mention some self respect. Go on. Get off the floor. Dust yourself off. ENOUGH OF YOUR BLUBBERING.

So where have I been? Here and there. Working, playing, traveling. And Facebook. Like many others I've been sucked into the black hole of Facebook and neglecting this blog. But I'm going to try to post here more often.

Facebook certainly has its place in the vast intertubes, but it's not exactly an orderly place. There are people poking each other left and right. Mafia wars stumbling onto people's farmvilles. A friend of mine had a baby recently (IN REAL LIFE), causing him thereafter to neglect his virtual cafe. Before long, the scones had grown moldy, the milk had soured, and the smell had drawn flies and caused patrons to pass out in the booths (why they stayed so long to begin with is beyond me, though, perhaps this is good news--evidence that the machines have a ways to go before they completely take over the world).

So, since Facebook is not an ideal location for recording one's journey through this mess, I plan to update this blog more regularly and will start by bringing it up to speed on recent happenings such as our second trip to Alaska, our kitchen remodel project, and photos from Christmas.

Stand by.

Busy Summer!

2009-08-14T09:25:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy Summer for Anastasia and I. In addition to our big kitchen remodel, we went on a great hike to Wallace Falls on July 4th with friends Ryan & Tiffany.

The hike wasn't too difficult. About 5.5 miles round trip with 1,200 feet elevation gain. It was pretty hot, however, so we were definitely sweating by the time we stopped for lunch after reaching the upper falls. And of course we brought our dogs along; they had a great time playing in the river on our way back to the trail head.
(Photos here).

The following weekend, Anastasia, Annabelle (the Annabeauties) and I camped out at Rasar State Park along the Skagit River. Here's us trying out our new sun shelter:

We'd never been to Rasar before, so we didn't really know what to expect. It turned out to be a really nice, well maintained park, perfect for families and large gatherings. The campgrounds were the type you'd expect to find at a state park, but the campsites were spaced well enough that you have a little bit of privacy.

A short walk from the campgrounds takes you to a really nice day-use area perfect for picnics, parties, and playtime. A trail from here takes you down hill to a big field begging for some frisbee time. Keep going and you'll find a couple of trails that take you to the shore of the beautiful Skagit River. I tried fishing, but the only thing biting were the mosquitoes.
(Photos here).

During the last week of July (and first week of August for Anastasia--she stayed a week longer than I), we spent a wonderful, relaxing vacation in Northern Michigan at Stasia's parents' cottage on Lake Huron.

We kayaked down the Sturgeon River and biked to Rogers City for burgers. We read books in the sun, the shade, and inside the enclosed balcony, under blankets and safe from bugs. We paddled around in Grand Lake and Lake Huron. And we celebrated Stasia's mom's 60th birthday with family and lots of pie!
(Photos here).

The Big Kitchen Remodel Project - Part II

2009-06-22T22:25:00.000-07:00

Two days later, I'm still tired and very very sore, but it's the good kind of sore--a sensation of accomplishment. And pain. And also pain.

Saturday, along with a fair amount of yard work and house cleaning, we got the kitchen walls primed. No more green/blue/white/brown walls. Sunday morning, my buddy Jason came over to help me install the new bamboo hardwood floor in the kitchen/dining room.

We've got a lot more photos and I'll get those up in a gallery soon, but for now, a quick update!

Our kitchen Saturday morning.

Our kitchen Sunday night. Behold! The transformation!

Jason was a huge help when it came to installing the new floor. Thanks Jason. You're a king among men!

Celebration time!

The Big Kitchen Remodel Project - Part I

2009-06-19T14:16:00.000-07:00

Exactly one month ago today, Anastasia's parents, Paul and Kris, flew out here from Michigan to help us get started on our great beastly kitchen remodel--which includes the dining area and the laundry room. By the time they flew home a week later, we had completed demolition, new drywall, electrical, new lighting, and about half of the new plywood floor.

We actually didn't mind our kitchen for the most part. It wasn't great, but we could live with it. Thing is, we absolutely hated the floors. We figured if we were going to rip the floors up, well we might as well hit this thing all at once.

We have a lot more photos than this, and I'll share them soon, but I thought I'd start off with a summary view of where we are today.

Here's a photo of our kitchen mid-demo. The dining floor had been removed along with some of the kitchen tiles and some of the cabinetry.

Total destruction. Here we see Paul pulling out old nails and Anastasia hammering away at the tile in the laundry room. Watch out!

Paul installing our new can lights. The fixture in the middle is new too. No more track lighting in the kitchen. Also Paul is not supposed to be sitting on that part of the ladder. He found that out later.

One of many glorious layers of flooring we uncovered in the kitchen and laundry room. Why anyone would ever cover this up, I don't know!

This is where we do dishes now. In a plastic tub on top of the washing machine. On the upside, I accidentally found a cool trick: put the dishes in here while the washer is on spin cycle and the water in the tub agitates like crazy, making the dishes easier to clean a few minutes later!

And here is where we are today. Drywall work is pretty much done. Plywood floors are down. An ironing board serves as a temporary counter.

Tonight and this weekend we're making another big push. We'll be priming the walls and installing our new bamboo hardwood floors. By Sunday evening the place might look halfway done!

More pictures to come. Wish us luck.

Best Lunch Break Ever

2009-06-10T14:58:00.000-07:00

Full post and photos HERE.

Snowboarding at Mount Baker

2009-03-22T18:26:00.000-07:00

I was standing out on our back deck a little bit ago, watching the dog as she sniffed around the yard, when suddenly in the corner of my eye I saw a large, dark shape fly out of view. I whipped my head around in time to see an adult bald eagle flying just above the neighbor's trees.

This happens from time to time--a reminder of how beautiful this region is. Sometimes it's a little thing. Sometimes it's huge.

Yesterday, some friends and I went snowboarding at Mount Baker Ski Area in the North Cascades. I'd never been there before, but had heard nothing but great things about the place. Someone asks, "What are you doing this weekend?" I answer, "Going to Mount Baker," and they smile and their eyes drift off to the ceiling, before eventually they say, "You're going to love it."

Yeah, I love it.

The drive itself is a wonderful trip through farmland, tulip country, and lush forests. The road winds through small, picturesque communities before snaking its way through the mountains and ending in the parking lot of the ski area.

Upon stepping out of the vehicle, my mouth dropped open as I looked around. Towering snowy peaks in all directions, the most overwhelming of which is Mount Shuksan, a massive glaciated peak that would remain in our sight for most of the day. The ski area itself is located on the Shuksan Arm, which connects the 10,778-foot Mount Baker with the 9,127-foot Mount Shuksan.

With such amazing surroundings, sunny blue skies, and Baker's incredibly diverse terrain, this was easily my best day of boarding this year, both in terms of sheer fun and my own performance. A perfect end to the season. Now, bring on the camping and hiking!

Photo Set HERE. Slideshow HERE.

From Sunny Florida to the Snowy Cascades

2009-02-26T09:49:00.000-08:00

Well, we had a great time in sunny Florida. Anytime I can wear shorts and flip flops in the Winter, I'm happy. Photos here.

Went snowboarding at Crystal Mt. last weekend. The weather was great. Hardly needed a jacket at all! Sky was clear and sunny and from the top of Rainier Express (or "Rex" as we call it) we could see clearly in all directions, from Mt. Adams to the south to Mt. Baker to the north. It's pretty amazing being able to see from one end of the state to the other from one spot. And of course Mt. Rainier, just across the valley, was enormous and beautiful.

It was a perfect day for pictures, but because it was warm out, I'd decided to travel light leave my camera in the car. Fortunately, at the top of Rex there was a photographer taking pictures which you then have the option to purchase down at the lodge after reviewing the photos. Unfortunately, however, the photos ended up being $25, so we decided to skip it and buy beer instead. Too bad though, it was a really great photo. Oh well. We're hopeful that we'll get another chance this weekend. A group of us are heading back up to Crystal Mt. on Saturday and if it's clear out, You can bet I'll have my camera with me this time. The forecast, by the way, is looking amazing. It's been snowing there all week and this Saturday is looking like it might be sunny again. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it!

If everything works out weather-wise and we get some good photos I'll be sure to post them here. In the meantime, here are a couple of photos from last weekend when we walked Annabelle around Greenlake:

Off to the Beach We Go

2009-02-04T10:46:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow morning we're heading to Florida for a few days to see my mom, aunts, and grandma.

Looking forward to seeing them and to spending some time being lazy on the beach! We'll be in Pensacola part of the time and spending the weekend at a hotel right on the beach in Panama City Beach. So far it's looking like it will be around 70 degrees and sunny.

Viva Florida!

Praise Song for the Day

2009-01-20T10:49:00.000-08:00

A transcript of the inaugural poem recited by Elizabeth Alexander:

Praise song for the day.
Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.
Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.
A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."
We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.
We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."
We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.
Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.
Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.
Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."
Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.
What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.
In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

Favorites

2009-01-07T21:46:00.000-08:00

I've created a "Favorites" set on my Flickr photostream. As the name suggests, it's a collection of my personal favorites of the photos I've posted thus far on Flickr.

Set is here. Slideshow is here.

Naturally, this is one of my most favorite...

Christmas at Home

2008-12-29T20:42:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Molly, Amy, Leta, Ben, Jill, Joey, and a little dog named Matson, we had a great little Christmas at home this year.

After a delicious dinner of standing rib roast, cheesy potatoes, and asparagus (all prepared by the lovely and talented Mrs. Anastasia Hollenbach), we enjoyed some dessert and a dvd/book gift exchange.

All the photos HERE.

First Day of Winter

2008-12-21T21:10:00.000-08:00

Today is the first day of Winter and what a fantastic day it has been.

First of all, it's still snowing. Yeah, no big deal to you Wyomingites, Coloradans, Michiganders, and the rest of you out there, but here in the Seattle area this is huge. It just doesn't do this here very often and when it does, it usually melts right away and we all go back to trudging through the darkness and the rain until Spring finally arrives.

This week, however, the temperatures have stayed below freezing and the snow has continued to fall. Everyone we know has been in a celebratory mood about it. Anastasia and I have certainly been loving it. Annabelle, she can't get enough of it. She tromps about, leaping and bounding through the white stuff, sticking her face in it, biting at it, and kicking her back legs out and "swimming" through it.

This afternoon, I walked Annabelle down the main street near out house, down to 167th Street, which is a very large, steep hill. It was closed of course due to the snow and many people were taking advantage of this closure, turning the street into a large sledding area. Inspired, I walked back home, grabbed the snowboard, and we all walked back for some fun on the hill.

Check out those and other photos from today's wintry good times HERE.

And now, the happiest dog on Earth:

Staying home on a snow day

2008-12-18T12:32:00.000-08:00

It's snowing all over the Seattle area today, which means the teevee clowns are yapping about snow! and ice! and roads! and WINTER STORM SNOPACALYPSE 2008! Oh my! And the city pretty much shuts down because they're unable to clear the roads and anyway many of the roads are steep and turn to ice and the drivers can't drive because they don't know how so they throw up their hands and abandon their vehicles at the side of the road or even in the middle of the road.

Oh dear, oh dear. Well, I was going to go to work today anyway, but I talked to a couple people at work who informed me that it took them nearly two hours to get there and that the buses downtown are all backed up and stuck everywhere.

So I stayed home.

I walked Annabelle to the grocery store and got some eggs and milk and things for dinner later.

And now I'm just kicking back with Anastasia and our furry friends.

More Santa pics

2008-12-13T23:14:00.000-08:00

Santa & his lovely assistant

Air!

Santa takes advantage of quiet time

Angry Santa

The Trials of a Pet Store Santa

2008-12-09T10:25:00.000-08:00

When I looked down and saw the small pool of copper brown gel on the soft white cuff of my Santa uniform, the scent that had been offending me for nearly half an hour was suddenly made clear. Just to be sure, I brought the sleeve to within an inch of my nose for a little sniff. Yes, there it was. A decidedly potent Preparation H-like substance that must have come from the small, terrified dog I'd met earlier who would have nothing to do with me. As the dog had struggled and pushed away, kicking violently with its pointed little feet, it had slimed Santa with its anal gel.

After washing the cuff with soap and warm water, I could still smell the offensive odor. A further examination presented yet another smear of the brown slick mingling among the coarse white hairs of my beard, mere inches from my mouth. Luckily for me, a back-up beard waited in the employee lounge. Does this happen often? I wondered. Clean and newly bearded, I walked back to my post at the front of the store, thinking to myself that however sorry I felt for the little dog and its apparent discomfort, I thoroughly hated the human who'd set its exposed, hemorrhoid gel-covered anus in my arms.

During lulls in the photo-taking, I would occasionally walk outside for fresh air and wave at people at random. I would also wander the aisles of the store, often catching people off guard. I found it amusing to imagine someone suddenly seeing Santa in the corner of their eye, flipping through a book regarding the proper care of ferrets. It was during these expeditions that I made an interesting observation. Often, adult men would give me an accusing look as if to say, "Just who the hell do you think you are?" Women, however, would almost always smile and say, "Hi Santa," thereby proving my theory that all women want to sleep with Santa, which, comforted by this knowledge, is how I made it through two long days dressed as him.

Early on in my first day, I got very hot in my hat and beard, so I took them off. I was there for the pets, right? It wasn't long before the store manager came along and said, "You should never not be Santa when you're out here, especially when there are kids around." Not knowing what else to say, I replied grumpily, "They know I'm not the real Santa." Ultimately, however, she was right. After the first little girl lit up and exclaimed, "It's Santa!" my heart melted. From then on, the uniform became a weighty social burden and I did my very best not to let any small children see a Santa compromised by lack of beard or hat.

And then there were the other children.

As I sat on my bench, waiting for the next set of photo ops, a young boy stopped a few feet away and began pointing at me and calling me "a fake." That's how he said it too. "You're a fake! Mommy, he's a fake!" "No," she replied tenderly. "He's a helper. He helps Santa by working here and then he sends daily reports to the real Santa." I squinted and smiled agreeably at the boy, thinking this would be the end of it, but it wasn't long before he resumed his pointing and accusing.

Now, the beard I wore was held in place by a pair of elastic bands which stretched from my chin, over my poor ears, to the top of my head, the whole apparatus feeling much like a tight fitting jock strap meant to keep my chin firmly in place. I believe this is to keep Santa's mouth shut when faced with snot-nosed brats such as this one. Had the torturous beard not been there, who knows what I might have said to the innocent child. "Your mommy told me you were a mistake," came to mind. Or perhaps, simply, "Santa hates you."

But this was about animals, not kids, so I concealed my contempt for this little boy calling me a fake and instead concentrated on smiling for the camera and not dropping various cats and dogs as they squirmed in my arms. I met many wonderful dogs including a great big Newfoundland (or "newfie") who took up most of the photo, and an affectionate pug named Bruno who cleaned out my sinuses with his tongue. I even met a few charming cats. One cat, however, was very old and smelled as though it had already died, perhaps the prior day. It was sad, knowing that this would be its last Christmas, but the nice thing about a nearly-dead cat is that the expectations are quite low in terms of its on-camera performance.

At the end of the second day, tired and wondering what I had become, I was leaning against a wall outside the store, wanting a cigarette. I don't smoke, but something about the scene made me think I should have a cigarette hanging from my mouth.

My mood instantly changed, however, when I locked eyes with a young couple practically skipping toward the store with their dog, all three of them wearing the loudest red Christmas sweaters I'd ever seen. "I hope you're here for a photo," I said. They were so excited that I imagined they either must have been planning this for weeks, or they'd just had the idea a couple hours before and had managed not only to procure the hideous sweaters, but also to make it to the Petsmart on time, Santa waiting for them outside.

By the end of the weekend, a lot of people had left the store quite giddy to have a framed photo of their beloved pet sitting or squirming with Santa. Half of the proceeds went to Oasis for Animals, a local no-kill rescue organization. Once home, I took a very thorough shower.

Want to have your pet's picture taken with Santa? You still can (though, sorry to say, it won't be me in the suit). Simply find your nearest participating Petsmart and skip your merry way there December 13-14 and 20-21, from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. And be nice to Santa.

Closing Out the Weekend

2008-12-01T21:04:00.000-08:00

Dog sleeps under coffee table. Cat nuzzles penguin. Man reads book by a mellow gold light.

I am thankful for

2008-11-29T11:53:00.000-08:00

My wife, our home, our family, our funny dog Annabelle, my job, and my sister and her roommate Amy for hosting Thanksgiving this year. You done well girls. Thanks!

Check out Anastasia's blog for more Thanksgiving photos and recipes. And if you scroll down far enough, a picture of me dressed as a cow for Halloween (along with Anastasia as a milk maid).

November Sunset

2008-11-15T22:02:00.000-08:00

Elliott Bay, Seattle

This IS Our Generation's Civil Rights Movement

2008-11-15T21:44:00.001-08:00

Saturday November 15, 2008. National day of protest following the passage of California's unconstitutional Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage.

Photos HERE.

Obama Dance Party in the Streets of Seattle

2008-11-05T16:18:00.000-08:00

To the sweet sweet sounds of Journey.

Courtesy of toddblocksom.

A New Day

2008-11-05T09:36:00.000-08:00

In Kathryn and Albert's living room, sipping red wine, watching the results come in. Making jokes because that's what you do in tense situations.

Electoral votes rising, rising, rising. Excitement growing.

And then

NBC very abruptly fills the screen with a photo of Barrack Obama and beside it, the words, "44th President of the United States of America."

A mistake. They must have hit the wrong button and brought the graphic up too soon. But then Brian Williams confirms it.

And we're sitting there--well, three of us are sitting there. Anastasia can't sit anymore. She's dancing--and our eyes are locked on the television screen. Is this real? Is this really happening?

Then we seen that Obama's electoral votes are at 276, then 284. Before long, the numbers climb above 300.

Oh my God. He did it. We did it. I can't move, so I pull Anastasia closer to me and begin hugging her leg while she runs her fingers through my hair. I'm trying not to cry.

With the exception of my wedding day, I can't remember ever feeling such profound happiness. Feeling so full of joy and hope. So proud of my country and of all the Americans who turned out in force to vote for a change.

This is amazing.

And yet, I still feel like it hasn't fully sunk in. It's a lot to process.

Last night, thousands of people in Seattle took to the streets in celebration. Separate gatherings marched toward each other and converged in an amazing display of human affection. Drivers who couldn't move because of the crowd, got out and hugged strangers and celebrated with them.

My heart is so full today.

An Open Letter to McCain Supporters

2008-10-28T09:15:00.000-07:00

Dear McCain-supporting family member or friend,

I respect you and your opinion, but have to disagree.

First, the tax cuts that we all received under Bush were simply a bandage on a boil. There's a lot wrong with our economy and a temporary tax cut can only be a temporary means to ease the pressure of a growing problem.

That said, part of Obama's plan is to (A) cut taxes for 95% of workers and their families, (B) cut taxes for low and middle income seniors, the uninsured, and those planning for retirement or for college. All of this means that you and I (the shrinking comfortable middle class) will either see a tax cut or see our taxes stay where they're at. (To be honest, I don't know for sure if that means where they're at now, or where they were at prior to the supposed-to-be-temporary cuts). Again, these tax cuts are a bandage and Obama has said as much. To fix the problem, however, you have to do more than cut taxes.

As for redistribution of wealth, fair enough. Call it what you want. It's a fundamental difference between not only you and I, but the country in general. A person of extreme wealth may believe "my money is my money," or one may believe that those extremely fortunate individuals have a social duty to provide additional aid to those who need it. Personally, I believe the latter.

Capitalism is a tricky system. At its best, it allows people to succeed, expand business and support their family and local economy. At its worst, it can be argued that it is immoral and relies upon the existence of poverty. Don't confuse this statement as an argument for Socialism. I firmly believe that Capitalism is the best system there is. The problem is in finding a right (moral) balance between greed (hording wealth acquired off the backs of others) and community (reaching out to the less fortunate).

There is a common sentiment among middle and upper class whites to assume "less fortunate" equates to "less motivated." For sure, there are those people out there who will never work for anything, but I believe it to be a pretty damn insignificant fraction of those considered below the poverty line. To believe otherwise is to ignore White Privilege (a real thing) and an economic "trickle down" policy that has proven unsuccessful. Trickle down economics does not work. The widening gap between the haves and have-nots proves this.

Lastly, I'm not an economist. I don't fully understand the intricacies of how our system works. Anastasia pays our bills. I do, however, think I'm fairly accurate in my more big-picture assessment of things.

The population is growing. Cities are sprawling. The global economy has become so closely tied that what started as a credit crisis in the U.S. became an economic disaster half the world over. Things are changing and if we don't do something other than business-as-usual, it will only get worse.

Do I think the richest Americans have a responsibility to those who can't get a job? -to those who are stuck making minimum wage and can't get anywhere because for them there is no where to go?

Yes.

Respectfully,
Jack

A Walk Around the Lake

2008-10-20T12:36:00.000-07:00

Greenlake was alive with color yesterday. Striking red and gold leaves lit up the sky, bringing smiles to the faces of our fellow trail goers. Took a little longer than usual to make the trek, as we (and others) stopped often to take pictures. Unfortunately, we only had our phone with us, so these will have to do for now.

Everyone from the impeccably fit to the man in his bathrobe with broken arm and bandaged face was out there. Even he seemed to be in a good mood.

Some folks jogged in their sexy little outfits. Others rollerbladed or glided along on shapely longboards. We walked with our dog Annabelle and lived both there by the lake and in our headphones with the soothing Sunday music of Arthur & Yu, Fleet Foxes, and Rocky Votolato.

We could lament about how that was probably the last nice day in Seattle for a while, but we know that's just not true. Even in the thick of winter we get the occasional gorgeous, sunny day when the mountains are bright white against the icy blue sky. In fact, tomorrow and Wednesday are looking to be quite nice. Why not duck out of work early and head to the lake? It's good for ya.

all the small things

2008-10-13T11:15:00.000-07:00

in our kitchen, there is a drawer
___it sticks, so it takes a good tug to open
certain things belong in this drawer
___pens, coupons, menus, coffee filters
one day, I added a rubber band
___eventually, so did she
one day, she added a twist tie
___eventually, so did I
and now those things belong there too

And Then He Went--Back To Wyoming

2008-10-06T15:02:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a wonderful trip to Wyoming. Dad picked me up at Denver International and from there we aimed the truck straight to Medicine Bow National Forest.

We didn't get a deer this time (twice, Dad had one in his sights--including a nice buck--, but never had the right shot), but it was a great trip nonetheless. We camped in a beautiful valley, alongside picturesque South French Creek. We hiked through golden aspens, fished in the shimmering, burbling creek, and talked about this and that by the crackle of our campfire. We spotted a family of moose numerous times (twice, they walked right beside our camp) and we were visited by a beautiful red fox one evening.

After a few days in the mountains, we drove to Cheyenne, where I was born and raised. I got to spend some time with Dad's wife, Penny, and their two sons, Cody and Tyler, and see their new house out in the country. The boys and I threw the football around for a few hours (had a sore arm after that!) and I got to meet a likable goat named Merle.

Click HERE for the photos.

Night Art

2008-09-17T21:09:00.000-07:00

Oh the things you'll see when you're wandering Seattle after dark.

There is a block of buildings along Broadway Avenue in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle which will soon be demolished to make way for a Sound Transit Light Rail station. The tenants have moved out and, for the moment at least, these art installations have moved in.

Beer is Proof that God Loves Us

2008-09-16T15:50:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, in celebration of my friend's marriage, we went to Gallagher's Where U Brew in Edmonds where we made our own beer.

Full post and photos HERE.

Hiking to Snoqualmie Lake

2008-09-04T20:50:00.000-07:00

Campsite at Snoqualmie Lake by Kathryn Ponio

We've already shared the first half of this hike with you when we posted about our trek to Otter Falls. That hike got us curious about what lay beyond. What would it be like to keep going? Keep walking past Otter Falls, past Big Creek Falls. Keep walking until you nearly reach the end of the Taylor River Valley and then climb the 1400 feet up to Snoqualmie Lake. Seems easy enough. On a map the lake looks to be only a few miles further up the trail from Otter Falls. What would that be? Seven or eight miles, tops? That's no big thing. Easy.

For us, it wasn't so easy. We set off from the trailhead a little later than we'd planned last Friday--about two hours later actually. Though, we didn't think much of it. We were excited. For the rest of the weekend we'd be relaxing in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. We'd go fishing. We'd sit around the campfire laughing with friends. Maybe we'd go for a swim, if the lake wasn't too cold.

As mentioned, the majority of this trail is fairly broad with little elevation gain. It's a leisurely stroll through a densely wooded valley. Occasionally, the trees move aside, allowing views of the Taylor River and the surrounding mountains. There are streams, waterfalls, and plenty of spots for dogs to cool themselves off and grab a drink.

About halfway down the main trail, it started raining. Softly at first, but as we got closer to the side trail to Otter Falls, it became a full-on downpour, the kind of rain we almost never see in Seattle. It wasn't long before we were soaked to the bone and we still had about four miles of hiking ahead of us.

At roughly five and a half miles, our party came to a sign pointing uphill. Snoqualmie Lake, two miles. That's it? Only two more miles and we'd be setting up camp and gathering wood for a fire. We knew the sun was supposed to set at 7:50 p.m. We knew we only had about an hour before then. But it's only two miles.

As the trail crisscrossed its way up the mountain, we felt we'd definitely make it. It wasn't long, however, before it got steep and our leisurely stroll became an exercise in not slipping on the wet rocks and muddy slopes. Our friend called out that we had twenty minutes before sunset and that we'd better hoof it. We hoofed it as best as we could, but we were sopping wet and getting more exhausted as the sky became darker by degrees.

Still thinking we had to be near the top, but not really knowing, we donned our headlamps, for it would soon be completely dark. We trudged along, putting one foot in front of the other, headlamps beaming a few feet in front of us at the rocks, the mud, the streams of water running across the trail from the heavy rain. Before long, it became impossibly dark as the clouds overhead horded for themselves any amount of moonlight that might be up there.

We lost the trail. After helping each other down a large boulder, we looked around with our lamps and all we could see were rocks. All we could hear was water as the source of the Taylor River rolled down the mountain ahead of us. We climbed back up the boulder, back to the trail and looked the other direction. More rocks. More water. We were wet, cold, tired, and frankly, a little pissed off. We turned back the way we'd come to find a place for our tents.

We didn't have to backtrack too far before we found a spot that would work. Our friends set up their tent on one side of the trail, a spot between two trees, just flat enough that they wouldn't slide down the mountain. We set up on the other side of the trail, mere inches from a small stream running downhill. There wouldn't be a fire this night, or dinner for that matter. After some cereal bars and a bit of whiskey, we climbed into our sleeping bags to warm up. Didn't sleep much that night.

In the morning, we packed up and finished the hike. When we got to the place where we'd lost the trail the night before, we could see why. The trail itself runs atop a rocky stream, and is marked only by a few small cairns and a bit of pink ribbon. In about half an hour, we made it to the top and to Snoqualmie Lake.

Once we made camp, the rest of our Labor Day Weekend was a blast. A little wet at times, sure, but we had occasional sun breaks and it never rained for very long. If you plan to build a fire up here (it's allowed, as Snoqualmie Lake is below 4000 feet), come prepared with fire starters and a willingness to scramble under rocks and downed trees looking for the dry stuff.

Getting there: Take I-90 to Exit 34, just east of North Bend. At the exit, turn left onto 468th Ave SE. Turn right at SE Middle Fork Rd (NF-56) and follow it about 12 miles. You'll come to a bridge crossing the Taylor River, and following that, a junction where NF-56 veers right. Continue straight another half mile to a small parking lot where you'll find the gate, the foot bridge, and the trailhead. Northwest Forest Pass required. Fill out a permit slip at the trailhead.

Annabelle at Snoqualmie Lake by Kathryn Ponio

North to Alaska

2008-08-27T15:16:00.001-07:00

Friday morning. Sitting back, sleepy, looking out the window of the silver double-decker AmTrak train, watching the Puget Sound pass by in the morning haze. For a moment, we watched a bald eagle flying alongside us, clutching a large fish. I took it as a good omen of things to come.

We were on our way, Anastasia and I, from Seattle to Bellingham, where we'd board the Alaska Marine Highway's flagship ferry, the M/V Columbia. Our departure, however, was not until 6:00 p.m. So, we had a lot of time to kill in Bellingham.

Not wanting to stray too far from the ferry terminal we spent much of the day just a few blocks away in the Fairhaven neighborhood, a charming community full of old buildings, fancy boutiques, cozy cafes, and bookstores big and small. We wandered, we ate, we napped in the grass, ate again, had a beer, then made our way back down to the terminal to prepare for our departure.

The Columbia was built in 1974 by Lockheed Shipbuilding in Seattle. It is approximately 418 feet long and 85 feet wide, and is designed to carry 932 passengers and 186 vehicles. There are 103 cabins on board for those seeking a little more comfort and privacy during the long journey through the inside passage. It is the largest ship either of us had ever been on.

Upon exploring the Columbia we found it to be a lot nicer than either of us had expected. There are two comfortable forward observation lounges, a cafeteria-style snack bar, a very nice dining room which serves great breakfast and dinner options (we never ate lunch there), a cocktail lounge straight out of 1970's Reno (Anastasia made a great joke, asking if there would be "ferry-oke" in the evening), a small video game arcade, gift shop, theater lounge, and plenty of outdoor seating, including a heated solarium.

Many passengers set up tents in two designated areas aft of the ship, using duct tape to keep them from blowing into the ocean. Others simply rolled out sleeping bags under the solarium, or in the theater lounge, or in any other corner of the ship they could find. Not us. We got a cabin.

Our cabin was a modest little thing. Bunk beds, a private toilet and shower, a small vanity, a place to hang your clothes, and a window to the outside. A cozy space all our own, away from the wind and the nighttime habits of other people.

On our first evening at sea, we sat in the forward lounge, enjoying the view, eating sandwiches I made (we'd packed a soft-shell cooler with us--a move we heartily recommend), and stealthily sipping red wine from a shared Nalgene bottle. We smiled to one another. And we listened to the captain announce that someone's blue tent was about to fly away, that they might want to check on it.

There are two important things I learned on the ferry. First, the inside of the ship is not the best place to spot wildlife. Bundle up, grab the binoculars and go outside. Second, seek out those salty characters who look as though they've never touched a razor to their face. Say hello. Talk to them. They have stories to tell.

Early Sunday morning, we finally crossed into the U.S. waters of Alaska and around 7:30 a.m. we docked in the city of Ketchikan. This would be the only stop along the inside passage that allowed us enough time to actually get off and explore for a few hours. We were hungry for breakfast and anxious to walk on land after being on the ferry since Friday, so off we went in search of a diner.

After walking a while and looking over our map, we soon realized that downtown Ketchikan was about two miles away from the ferry terminal. No matter, we needed the walk. Once we reached downtown, we found that the best thing about our walk was that it enabled us to see the real Ketchikan--the one made up of fisherman, mechanics, and waitresses--real people and real businesses to serve those who actually live here. Downtown, however, was a different story.

Downtown Ketchikan, being the first stop along the Alaska Marine Highway, is a tourist trap of epic proportions. Three gargantuan cruise ships dock here, allowing thousands of people with "Alaska T-Shirt Company" plastic bags to ascend upon the many shops chomping at the bit for their money. Nearly everything here is new construction made to look "old west" and in any direction one sees at least a dozen jewelry shops. It feels like there might be more jewelry shops here than people. Worse, very few of them are locally owned and the items they sell have absolutely nothing to do with this region.

In the end, we did find a small local diner and after devouring a satisfying breakfast, we took a cab back to the ferry terminal.

The ship made two more stops that day, at the towns of Wrangell and Petersburg. The 45 available minutes of exploration time proved to be more than enough, as it was Sunday and most everything was closed here.

The rest of the day was spent doing the things we'd been doing all weekend on the ship. We played cards, read our books, listened to the Forest Service's excellent presentations on bears, glaciers, and other wild things. I spent a lot of time outside, taking pictures, talking to people, and generally just enjoying myself as I looked in awe at everything around me. At some point I realized we weren't going somewhere anymore. We were already here. One need only to look around to know that. The mountains, the glaciers, the wildlife. All of it larger than life. I'd already spotted a male orca, a handful of humpbacks, sea otters, harbor seals, Stellar's sea lions, and groups of Dall's porpoises sending their rooster-tail spray into the air.

At 4:30 a.m. Monday, we docked in Juneau. The Juneau ferry terminal, like most others in Alaska, is miles away from anything, so the only way to get anywhere is to either walk a mile and a half to the nearest bus stop or take a cab. Not being familiar with the bus system, we opted for a cab ride to get us to the airport where the smallest plane I've ever seen was waiting to take us over to Gustavus, a tiny outpost with no bathroom outside of Glacier Bay National Park.

After landing (alive!) in Gustavus, we were shuttled over to Glacier Bay Lodge's handsome accommodations near the waters of Bartlett Cove. We both needed a nap at this point, but the room wasn't ready so we ate lunch and went for a short hike through the woods, keeping an eye out for bears all the while. Soon our room was ready and we went to sleep for a couple of hours.

We'd signed up for a "dinner and whale watching" cruise before our nap and we're glad we did. This was one of the big highlights of our trip. At 5:00 p.m. we boarded the double-decker catamaran and said, "Salmon please," when asked if we preferred the salmon or the chicken. We were in Alaska, after all. Who would ask for the chicken? The dinner was splendid, served with garlic mashed potatoes, steamed vegetables, and eye-poppingly tall glasses of wine.

As we finished our meal and donned our jackets and warm hats, the excitement began. We were crossing Icy Strait and were almost to Point Adolphus, a place the lodge called "one of the most renowned whale feeding grounds in the world"--a grandiose statement, but absolutely true as we were about to find out.

I can't quantify how many humpback whales we saw that evening. Lots of them. There were at least two pods out there, including a calf or two. The calf was the most fun to watch. It was very playful, rolling around, lifting its head out to get a look at us, and breaching numerous times, seemingly for the fun of it.

For short periods the whales would disappear entirely as they dove, circled, and rose again to the surface, all together in a "bubble-net" feeding maneuver. We'd see six, seven, eight whales at a time, arching their backs gracefully into the water, a stubby dorsal fin followed by their sleek, shapely fluke, rising out of the sea and disappearing again. They'd blow water ten feet into the air and you'd hear it from hundreds of yards away. And they made noises I'd never heard before. Bizarre, emphatic exclamations about how great it is to be a whale.

We awoke early the next morning for our second cruise. This time an 8-hour tour of Glacier Bay. As per usual in Southeast Alaska, it was raining, but we tried not to let it bother us too much.

The catamaran left Bartlett Cove, moving southwest around a group of small islands, then north into Glacier Bay. On this day, we really bundled up with warm hats and multiple layers. Good thing, because the further into the bay we went, the colder it got. The rain and gray skies may have actually made this part of our trip better. The heavy rain created hundreds of small waterfalls, cascading down the steep ice-carved mountains surrounding us. The gray overcast skies made the dense blue ice of the glaciers that much more vibrant. At times, when the clouds hung low over the gray-blue glacial sea, the scene became otherworldly.

The glaciers were awe-inspiring, but what really got us excited was the wildlife. From South Marble Island to the Grand Pacific Glacier, we observed Stellar's sea lions, harbor seals, Dall's porpoises, tufted puffins, cormorants (a black, duck-like bird), and countless other species of bird.

When I heard there was a brown bear off the starboard side, my heart nearly jumped right out of my chest. The two animals I really wanted to see on this Alaska vacation were the humpback whale and the brown bear. Instantly, when I heard the words "brown bear," I ran to the other side of the boat, slipping twice and nearly falling on my rear. There he was. A big beautiful brown bear, paying us no mind, just walking along the rocky shore. At one point, the bear couldn't negotiate the rocks any further, so he lowered himself into the water, swam about ten yards, climbed out and then shook himself off like a gigantic dog. We watched him for a few more minutes as he made his way along the shore. And I couldn't stop smiling for the remainder of the day.

As it was explained to us many times during our trip, brown bears and grizzlies are really one in the same. Biologists (and most Alaskans), however, refer to the bears of the interior as grizzlies and the coastal bears as brown bears. One reason for this distinction is because the coastal bears tend to be larger than the interior "grizzly" bears. This is because coastal brown bears eat a lot of salmon and other fatty, protein-heavy foods. Kodiak bears are also of the same species, though, some biologists argue that they're a unique sub-species because they are geographically and physically isolated to Kodiak Island.

For more bear viewing, we'd considered chartering a float plane from Juneau to Camp Creek on Admiralty Island, but we ultimately decided the cost of the plane was beyond our budget for this trip. Native Tligits call this island "Kootznoowoo," meaning "Fortress of the Bear," as Admiralty Island is home to the highest concentration of brown bears in the world. Maybe next time.

We returned to Juneau that evening and checked into the Capitol Inn, a beautiful bed & breakfast located across the street from the state capitol building. After talking a while with Linda, the owner, we tossed our bags and made our way down to the waterfront for dinner. At Linda's suggestion, we found The Hangar. If you're ever in Juneau, eat at The Hangar. What was once an open-air waterfront hangar for sea planes--back when the place was owned by Alaska Coastal Airlines--is now a cool restaurant with views of Gastineau Channel and the mountains of Douglas Island. The place has a great vibe, really good food, and a lot of different beers on tap.

Wednesday morning, we joined Linda's other guests for a family style breakfast at her big dining room table. "There are a couple rules at my table," said Linda. "First, no leftovers. Everyone clears their plates. Second, no religion and no politics." We laughed and agreed those were good rules. We passed around plates of pancakes and sausage and carafes of juice and coffee. We talked about what we were all planning to do that day. A family from Seattle was heading out to Admiralty Island to watch the bears feed on the salmon runs. A couple from Brazil was headed home. This breakfast marked the end of their Alaska adventure.

We got to talking with some folks across the table and realized we all wanted to see Mendenhall Glacier and the black bears, often observed feeding at Steep Creek, a short walk from the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center. We decided to travel there together and we decided further that a trip to the Alaskan Brewery afterward would be a good idea.

Mendenhall Glacier is just one of 38 huge glaciers that flow from the 1,500 square mile Juneau Icefield--North America's fifth largest accumulation of snow and ice. From the Icefield, Mendenhall Glacier is pulled by gravity, grinding its way downward 13 miles to Mendenhall Lake.

The glacier was stunning, but we had bears on the brain. We set off on the short, elevated trail above Steep Creek, a common feeding ground for Black Bears. Unfortunately, we didn't see any bears here. I asked a park ranger if he'd seen any today. "No, not a one today," he replied. "You shoulda been here yesterday. It was like an all-you-can-eat buffet!" We could easily imagine. As we'd walked around the trails we'd seen dozens of salmon carcasses strewn atop large areas of matted down grass.

After a brief stop at the Alaskan Brewery where we sampled a variety of tasty beers (I "sampled" the same beer three times), we caught a bus back to downtown Juneau where we found lunch and a lot to explore.

"You guys missed it!" Linda yelled. We'd barely walked through the front door of the bed & breakfast before she was in front of us, telling us all about the bear in her kitchen. "I was standing over here by the stove," she said quickly, motioning to the side of the kitchen furthest from the door which opens to the patio outside. "I hear something behind me. I turn around and holy shit! There he was. He's been here before you know. Well I threw my hands in the air like this"--Linda reached both arms straight up toward the ceiling--"and I yelled, 'Get outta here bear!' I tell you that bear turned right around and ran right out that door."

Anastasia and I stood open-mouthed and wide-eyed as Linda went on.

"I shut the door quickly behind him and took a moment to catch my breath. But I could see he was still out there, so I threw open the door, went out a few steps and again yelled, 'get outta here bear!' That's when he charged me." Anastasia gasped. "And a ran back inside and shut the door and I was just so pissed off at myself for not holding my ground! I knew it was probably a false charge. I shouldn't have ran. I should have asserted myself."

To me, that's the key word: "probably." It was "probably" a false charge. We'd heard many times on the way to Alaska about bear behavior and false charges. According the experts, about nine out of ten bear charges are a bluff. And with bears, you never run. You always stand your ground. Unless, that is, you've got a kitchen door right behind you and you're worried about that one out of ten chance that the bear isn't bluffing.

Linda went on to show us the dirty paw prints on the outside of the door and then the claw marks on the tree outside from previous visitations.

That night, as Anastasia and I lay in bed reading, we heard yelling outside. We immediately wondered if it was Linda and if she needed help. I opened the window to the street below and then heard a man yelling to his dog, "No! Leave the bear alone!" I pictured this poor black bear, sitting up in a nearby tree, probably scared and wondering when this damn dog was going to go away.

And that's Alaska for you. Even when in town one must be aware of bears.

The following morning, we all sat down to breakfast again, except for the family from Seattle, who had gone bear watching on Admiralty Island the day before. Nobody had heard them come in during the night and they were nowhere to be found this morning. We worried a little about them having to spend the night out with the bears, but it was hard to worry too much, because Linda had made us a mouthwatering breakfast of King Crab Benedict, with a light hollandaise sauce that had just the right amount of flavor so as not to overpower the delectable crab meat.

Not long after breakfast, the missing party came through the front door, looking chilled and happy to be back. Their float plane couldn't make it in the previous night's weather. They were rained in. Lucky for them, there was a cabin on the island where they spent the night with a couple of park rangers. A small part of me is envious of their adventure, but then I remember that I spent the night in a warm, comfortable bed and woke up to a breakfast of King Crab Benedict.

At 4:00 p.m. Thursday, we boarded the M/V Malaspina, bound for Skagway, the northernmost community of the Alaskan Panhandle. The ferry ride from Juneau to Skagway may be the most beautiful part of Alaska's Inside Passage. The surrounding mountains launch straight out of the water and seem higher than those we've already seen. Often, they are capped with snow and ice from which glaciers creep to the sea. Some glaciers end abruptly, thousands of feet up, the ice melt becoming waterfalls taller than any I've ever seen.

Skagway is a small community of only about 900 full-time residents. This population doubles in the summer months to accommodate the over 900,000 visitors to the area. It's clear this is a tourist destination right when you step off the docks. The great thing is, however, that over 100 of the buildings making up the historical district are original buildings from the days of the 1898 Klondike gold rush.

Skagway's perhaps best-known resident was a man by the name of Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith. Soapy was a big-time con man who thought of himself as a "Robin Hood" of sorts. On the surface, Soapy was the nicest gentleman one might ever meet. He stopped lynchings and even gave money to widows and "fallen doves" (ex-prostitutes). However, Soapy also lead a group of thieves who bilked rookie prospectors of their money with cards, dice, and slight-of-hand games. He also ran a telegraph office that charged five dollars for each message sent to "anywhere in the world." Problem was, there was no telegraph service in existence to or from Skagway until 1901.

Skagway's greatest attraction is the White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad, a narrow-gauge railroad (meaning the tracks are closer together, allowing for tighter turns and less mountain-blasting) that winds its way through the Skagway River valley and up 2,864 feet to historic White Pass, British Columbia. The train once operated all the way to Whitehorse, the capitol of Canada's Yukon Territory--word is, Canada is working to re-open their end of the route.

The train ride to White Pass was jaw-droppingly gorgeous. The sun was was even shining.

Upon return, Anastasia and I had a great time exploring historic Skagway. We walked the wooden sidewalks, ducking into local art shops, and we each had a burger and a couple of beers at the Skagway Brewery.

At locally owned Skagway Art Works, we found a framed print that we both loved, called Raven Feather in Snow, depicted in the native style of the region. It's a beautiful piece, now hanging above our fireplace.

We also each purchased a silver ring, portraying the Eagle and the Raven, their beaks touching. Eagle and Raven symbology plays a major role in native Tlingit culture and folklore. One might think of them as a similar concept to what the Chinese call the Yin and Yang. The Eagle is all business, representing power, peace, and friendship. The Raven, symbolizing creation, prestige, and knowledge, is also known as a playful trickster. Additionally, Tlingit tribes are broken up into clans, the two most prominent being Eagle clan and Raven clan. Historically, Tlingit people have always arranged marriages between the Eagle and Raven clans.

When Eagle and Raven are portrayed together, their beaks touching, they are known as the Lovebirds.

On Saturday, we ferried back to Juneau and on Sunday we flew back to Seattle. On one hand, it was great to be home. We were exhausted from all of the traveling. On the other hand, it was hard to leave Alaska. We'd seen so much, but had also just scratched the surface.

We'll be back.

For all of our Alaska photos CLICK HERE.

1,000 Miles to Juneau

2008-08-06T13:43:00.000-07:00

This Friday, Anastasia and I depart on our Alaska adventure. We've got our rain jackets, a new camera, and a cooler of food and beverages. We're ready.

Our trip starts early Friday morning as we take a bus to downtown Seattle where we'll then get on a northbound train to Bellingham. The Ferry to Juneau departs at 6:00 p.m.

Lots of photos and a full report when we return. See ya!

Capitol Hill Block Party in Brief, Les Savy Fav in Briefs

2008-07-27T21:22:00.000-07:00

The block party was a blast, but we're tired now. Read about it here!

Viva Park City

2008-07-25T11:39:00.001-07:00

Made a quick trip to Park City, Utah this week for a work function. It was so great to be back in my old stomping grounds, even for only a couple of days. The weather was gorgeous, the food and wine delicious, and the people I met from other offices were really fun to be around.

Not long after taking off from a slightly overcast Seattle, we were met with this lovely surprise--Mt. Ranier:

The Goldener Hirsch Inn, where I stayed:
A couple shots of the wind sculptures outside our meeting area:

Ya Know, Ninety-Six Degrees isn't so Bad

2008-07-21T09:44:00.001-07:00

When you're doing a backstroke in the crystal clear waters of Lake Wenatchee.

New Front Yard

2008-06-23T20:25:00.000-07:00

2 weekends, 2 men, 1 woman, 3 rentals, 4CY compost, 4CY gravel, untold number of beers.

After lots of hard work and incalculable brawn, the new front yard is in.

There are still a few things to do, including the stone pathway, but if you're curious, HERE ARE THE PHOTOS.

Sasquatch! Photos

2008-06-03T22:12:00.000-07:00

Three days in the sun. Three days of music. It was a blast, but I was sure happy to be home afterward! Here are the photos.

Sasquatch, Here I Come

2008-05-22T09:58:00.000-07:00

It's almost painful sitting still these last couple days leading up to Sasquatch Music Festival.

This year marks the first time I will have attended a multi-day festival like this. Sasquatch runs three days this year and I'll be there for the whole damn thing! Should be interesting to say the least.

Anastasia and I will head out there together Saturday morning. Come Sunday, however, she's abandoning me and heading back to Seattle. I'll be rocking and camping with friends for two more nights and returning to Seattle sometime Tuesday.

And now, here is the Sasquatch Survival Guide I wrote for Seattlest yesterday.

See you soon you beast of a weekend...

Incredible Weekend

2008-05-19T13:43:00.000-07:00

Stasia's parents, Paul & Kris, have been visiting us this past couple weeks and it's been a blast! We've had a lot of fun with them and have done too many things to list here with my current energy as it is.

For a recap of all the fun we had this weekend, click HERE.

The Magical Mystery Poo

2008-05-05T09:36:00.000-07:00

Stasia and I went up the stairs the other day to check on Lily, the pregnant cat we're currently fostering. Stasia arrived on the scene first, saying, "Oh my god, you have to see this."

What I saw was staggering. Perched on the side of the litter box was a massive turd, standing upright, like a miniature brown snow man.

I have no idea how this cat managed to do this. It is a feat of incalculable proportions.

A Surprising Email in My SPAM Folder

2008-04-28T09:52:00.000-07:00

What's Up?

2008-03-16T15:33:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon, well-behaved citizenry.

It's Sunday and I'm sitting on a blue couch writing to you. The dog is napping somewhere. The cat is napping somewhere. The wife... is napping somewhere. I'm in my headphones, listening to a band called Arthur & Yu. They're an Indie/Americana duo from Seattle and their sort-of new album, In Camera, is fantastic.

The cat and dog don't really deserve their naps as they haven't really accomplished anything today that would warrant needing a nap. Anastasia, however, ran a 5K this morning; the St. Patrick's Day Dash. So, I'm letting her rest up while I read and relax a bit myself.

Pretty soon I'll be heading to the kitchen. Our office is having a St. Pat's pot luck lunch tomorrow and I'm pulling out all the stops. I'll be making in Irish Quick Bread and a double-batch of Guiness Beef Stew. Mmm...

In the meantime, I think I'll get back to the book I'm reading: 1776 by Pulitzer Prize winning author, David McCullough. As I'm sure you can surmise from the title, it tells the story of the Revolutionary war from both the British and American perspectives. I'd picked it up while just killing time in a bookstore downtown and by the time I was a few pages in, I was hooked!

Why I Love Jon Stewart

2008-03-10T13:10:00.000-07:00

Yeah, it's an old video (2004), but still relevant and still warms my heart.

Perfect Weekend Away from it All

2008-03-04T21:13:00.000-08:00

Just had a fantastic weekend with our friends Ryan and Tiffany at and around Mt. Bachelor, Oregon!

Check out the PHOTOS.

I Review: MAME @ 5th Ave Theatre

2008-02-22T10:34:00.001-08:00

Review HERE.

Sen. Ed Murray on the Bigot Rev. Ken Hutcherson

2008-01-29T12:27:00.000-08:00

This fantastic letter via Josh Feit, The Stranger:

Principal Randy Taylor Mt. Si High School 8651 Meadowbrook Way S.E. Snoqualmie, WA 98065
Dear Mr. Taylor,

Today, every American is familiar with Dr. Martin Luther King’s great leadership in the fight for civil rights for African Americans.

However, Dr. King’s example was not simply limited to the tireless quest for equality. It was also found in the manner in which he treated his opponents, embracing them with respect and without vitriol – even while they denigrated and insulted him. When we honor Dr. Martin Luther King, we would do well to remember this, too.

One man’s own personal experience of racism, while certainly regrettable, is not enough to qualify him as a spokesperson of Dr. King’s values. To truly uphold Dr. King’s example, one must also uphold his humility and his fundamental objection to derogate those who disagreed with him.

Rev. Ken Hutcherson decidedly does not follow in these footsteps.

Here is a man who, in his battle against equal rights for gays and lesbians has said: “You know how the Bible says, ‘Turn the other cheek?’ Well, I did that. But I’m not giving them the big cheeks.” These kinds of degrading remarks about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender citizens are simply obscene.

Here is a man who, after viewing the movie ‘The Passion of the Christ’ told a reporter that the Jews were responsible for killing Christ: “The truth is that they did push to have Christ crucified. That’s just plain truth… that’s Biblical truth.” This libel has resulted in the suffering and death of millions over twenty centuries of Western history.

Intolerance and contempt are objectionable enough. Using Christianity to support them – to use, in other words, the tools that Martin Luther King developed not to extent rights but to deny them – is a cynical order of magnitude worse.

History has taught us that we must speak out, and speak out vigorously, against these slanderous attacks. There are many leaders in the African American civil rights movement, including some who oppose my position of sexual orientation, who would have better represented the example of Martin Luther King.

As an agent of intolerance and contempt, Hutcherson should not have been invited to speak at your school’s Martin Luther King Day event. I have no doubt that he has very painful stories of the inequality he has experienced in his life. But his story today is about perpetuating inequality among gays, lesbians and Jews. And that cannot and should not be condoned.

A member of your staff thought as I do, and, at the end of Hutcherson’s remarks, respectfully questioned him about his commitment to the values of acceptance and respect as they apply to gays and lesbians. I was shocked to learn that you issued Hutcherson an apology as a result. This – and your subsequent “fact-finding” inquest into your staff’s actions – only adds insult to injury.

Although a minimal amount of circumspection alone might have helped you determine that inviting a known bigot to speak on Martin Luther King Day may have offended members of your student body, staff and faculty, I am heartened to know that you plan to examine your policies and standards related to speakers and presentations at your school.

However, to not disavow Hutcherson’s presentation at your school will continue to amount to an endorsement of his views and values – neither of which follow in the footsteps of Martin Luther King.

Sincerely,

Sen. Ed Murray

Snowy Morning

2008-01-28T11:33:00.000-08:00

What's Going On

2008-01-08T12:41:00.000-08:00

Well, for starters, we had a great time in Chicago with Stasia's brother. Deep dish for dinner and an awesome brunch the following day -- a day which was colder than should be allowed.

From there, the three of us drove to Lansing Michigan, home to Stasia's family, where we commenced with a week of reading, relaxing, eating too many cookies and generally slothing about.
Whilst in Michigan...

We watched two movies: The holy-cow-funny-and-fantastic Charlie Wilson's War and the way-more-brutal-than-I-thought-it-was-going-to-be Sweeney Todd.

I read a book: The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It's an Oprah selection, but don't let that fool you. This was one of the most intense and satisfying books I've ever read. A story about a father and son struggling to exist in a post-apocalyptic world. Yeah, I know, sounds like a real pick-me-up, right? Well, it's not. In fact, I've kind of felt the need to recover or "come down" from that book before starting another one. Like I said, it's pretty intense.

Part of that intensity stems from its simplicity. The writing is very minimalistic. The scenery very drab. The emotions very numb. Humans are knocked down to a very primal existence. Some choose to follow the moral compass they've always known, while some spiral into methods of survival that sit in your stomach like a brick.

What else is going on?

We're having our roof replaced this week -- well, depending on the weather of course. Forecast shows lots of rain this week, but we'll see. If it's just a drizzle, I think they can still work on it.

We're pretty excited to see the finished product. Yesterday morning we woke to find a big truck parked in front of the house -- there to deliver materials. It's all stacked up on the roof now, waiting for workers!

Closing of the Crocodile Cafe

2007-12-20T11:24:00.001-08:00

Here's my two cents on the demise of Seattle's famous Crocodile Cafe.

just four more days...

2007-12-18T08:27:00.000-08:00

...before we're off on a much needed rest. Off to Chicago for a day with Stasia's brother and then off to Michigan for another nine days. Throw in New Year's Day and that's eleven all together. An eleven day break from project deadlines, from the daily yuk of Seattle traffic.

Viva Michigan!

Silly Rain

2007-12-04T21:07:00.000-08:00

The snow melted... fast.

And then it rained all day and all night.

Had to leave work Monday morning to take care of the house. Thought I'd be back after lunch but ended up having to take the day off.

Our driveway slopes toward the garage and the house. There's a trench drain in front of the garage that pipes to a catch basin in the street, but somewhere along that drainage line there's a blockage and so, the water rises and rises. Had to drain the driveway four times -- and thanks to the City of Shoreline, we were able to sandbag the front of the house to keep the water at bay.

Compared to a lot of others in Washington and Oregon, we were lucky. No damage. Just a soggy annoyance.

Kudos to Eliza & Levi for for doing their part to protect their neighbor's homes!

Photos from the Seattle PI HERE.

Wintery Weekend

2007-12-02T13:27:00.000-08:00

Was skeptical on Saturday. The weather reports tend to exaggerate. Come about 3pm, however, Seattle was being blanketed by a flurry of fluffy white stuff. Nice!

Ended up being a (mostly) great night for Annabelle. Stasia and I took her down to a nearby football field to get her snow on. There's nothing like watching a dog in the snow. She ran and ran and buried her face, rolled around, did her little "swimming" moves.

Somewhere along the way, poor Annabelle Fuzzypants hurt her paw. We didn't notice until we got back home and saw that she was tracking blood through the house. Looked like she broke a claw somehow. So, we bandaged her up and her spirits didn't seem to suffer at all for it.

Now it's Sunday. Stasia is off with friends at a craft fair and I'm just having a relaxing day at home with the fuzzy beasts.

It's a great day all around -- especially since the Seahawks beat Philadelphia 28-24. Lofa Tatupu is king!

Bandaged paw

Deep in thought

Evil Kitty... is making her plans...

Quite possibly the coolest video I've ever seen

2007-11-30T13:07:00.001-08:00

Sunday Bloody Sunday mash-up by RX2008

Today's Post

2007-11-29T22:32:00.000-08:00

The Stranger linked to the post I wrote for Seattlest today. I really appreciate when they do that because (A) it shows they read Seattlest and (B) they give credit to me/us instead of writing something up themselves and taking credit.

Here's The Stranger's post linking to mine.

And here's my post.

Hey, What's Going On?

2007-11-21T11:24:00.000-08:00

Well, let me tell ya.

First of all, what a difference twenty-four hours can make. I'm actually feeling pretty good today. Still a bit of a cough and still expelling a staggering and impressive amount of snot -- but otherwise, feeling a lot better.

Blah, blah, get over yourself Jack. What else is going on?

Well then.

Thanksgiving is upon us! Anastasia's been preparing all week, with one final trip to the grocery store this afternoon. Dinner will be the usual holiday fare: a sumptuous turkey (which Anastasia will have brined overnight for maximum juicy goodness!), smashed potatoes, veggies, sweet potato casserole (which I made last year to the ultimate delight of anyone fortunate enough to have had any -- delicious!) and, of course, the usual run of Thanksgiving desserts like pumpkin pie, and my new specialty, cranberry cream cheese pie. Again, delicious! (Not trying to overshadow Anastasia's efforts here. She's the real hero. She's the one doing all the planning and shopping, not to mention all of the more difficult stuff like the turkey. I'm just happy I'm able to make things which are actually edible.)

Our guests will be my sister and a friend of hers, and our friends (and newlyweds), Jill and Joey. It is sure to be an event full of inappropriate comments from Joey, attacks on my character from my sister, and squabbles regarding the benefits of doing the dishes now versus later.

For the day after Thanksgiving, we will be continuing our new tradition, now in its second year, of staying home (not shopping!) and watching a film with friends -- a classic film we've never seen before.

Last year it was "Gone with the Wind". This year: "Citizen Kane".

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

yak!

2007-11-20T14:51:00.000-08:00

Ah, I'm sick of being sick.

For a week and a half now I've been coughing up all kinds of nasty and it's to the point that if I exhale heavily, I sound like a dying regretful horse.

Time to visit the doctor? Probably. Not easy around Thanksgiving, however.

a nice pick-me-up movie

2007-11-08T15:58:00.001-08:00

not as beautiful for some

2007-10-23T14:52:00.000-07:00

Been couped up in the office quite a bit lately, but today it's beautiful outside -- perfect even. The sky is clear and blue, the temperature just right. I decided I'd better take advantage of this weather before our low ceiling of gray moves in for the next six months or so.

Bought a sandwich down at the market and went down to Victor Steinbrueck Park. The place is a strange mix, above and below, in that it's a grassy spread built atop an aging parking garage. The strangeness above has to do with the people. It's one of the only places in the city where you'll see families and tourists picnicking and sunbathing next to scatterings of homeless alcoholics and drug users. A juxtaposition of affluence and abjection.

And the most interesting thing: Everyone seems to get along just fine.

I finished most of my sandwich, but there were a few good bites left and I hadn't even touched the pickle or the little cup of pasta salad that came with it. As I closed up the to-go box, I noticed a woman walking around nearby. Thin body, drawn face, long gray hair, dirty clothes.

I'd seen her before. A couple of months ago, I saw her digging through the trash, picking out whatever food scraps she could. I'd walked over to her and given her my leftovers so she wouldn't have to dig anymore. She thanked me and I went back to work.

Here she was again. I don't know if she recognized me. Probably not. But she sat on a bench directly across from me and looked my way from time to time -- or more to the point, toward my box of lunch scraps. I set the box on the concrete beside me, knowing (or hoping) that as soon as I got up and left, she would claim it. Just as I was about to leave, however, a man came from behind me, grabbed the box and walked away, almost before I even knew what had happened.

I watched the man carry the box of half-eaten food across the grassy park to a spot beside a lone tree where he'd undoubtedly been watching for such an opportunity.

I got up to leave, looked at the woman. She looked at me and shrugged as if to suggest that I'd had the right idea. That there'd be other opportunities for her. And that the man by the tree needs to eat too.

Review: Built To Spill [07Oct06]

2007-10-09T16:00:00.000-07:00

In Which Seattlest Only Tells You The Ending.

Review: St. Vincent + The National [07Oct02]

2007-10-05T13:29:00.001-07:00

Just posted a concert review on Seattlest for St. Vincent and The National (Tuesday night show at The Showbox). I'm pretty happy with it. Check it out, if you like.

aurora dark

2007-10-04T20:07:00.001-07:00

three fifty eight
roll north
roll home

aurora dark
heart of seattle
beating pulsing
constant artery

old man get off
dig through trash
no food kick can
now what

little boy play daddy
let mommy sleep
she tired
tell baby sis no candy
no money
be quiet

doper pet doggy
and smile
no teeth that smile

pretty girl can't sit still
girl smoke crystal
pretty girl no more

three fifty eight
roll north
roll home

mellow, sort of

2007-10-02T13:34:00.000-07:00

Slow day, one of those days. Those days in which it's easy to get carried away.

Carried away, I was, to a bookstore for lunch. Lots of new books out I'd love to read and will, but in the meantime I've a stack of books at home I should lay my attentions on before spending money on more more more.

New books I'd love to read someday:
- Bowl of Cherries by Millard Kaufman
- Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson

Books I've alread got and are in the queue:
- What is the What by Dave Eggers
-A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas by Chuck Klosterman IV ...Technically this one belongs to my cousin Debbi, but she moved to Amsterdam, so what's she going to do about it? Nothing. Oh, and Debbi... I'm a really slow reader. Sorry!

When the work day closes, I'll head home for a bit and a bite, but then I'll be back downtown. Going to The Showbox tonight to see The National -- a fantastic band from Brooklyn.

I'm in my headphones now. I'm in there with Iron & Wine's new album, The Shepherd's Dog and it's a nice place to be.

life, summarized

2007-09-27T08:51:00.000-07:00

Sitting on the bus this morning, reading a book.

Looked up to see a woman and a man sitting next to one another, two rows before me.

The woman had a newspaper. The man had a magazine.

The woman was reading the obituaries.

The man was reading about how to invest more money for the future.

Thought it was amusing -- the advice on how to attain more wealth right up against a reminder of our mortality.

just tidying up

2007-09-21T09:34:00.000-07:00

I'll be deleting the other blog soon (Don't Wake Me...)

It's gone from being the primary blog to being nothing more than a photo blog, but now that I've purchased a "pro" flickr account, there's really no need to keep Don't Wake Me... around.

To be clear, I'm deleting the other blog entirely. This one, Coffee and other Habits, will be where it's at from now on.

There are some posts from the old blog that I thought I should keep, be they funny, or opinionated, or an essay that took a lot of work (On Being Content, On Envying the Faithful, etc.) -- those posts have been moved to the tail end of this blog.

To see which ones I've copied over, go to the archive on the bottom-right. For organizational purposes, everything I've copied has been saved to November of 2006.

Never Ending Story

2007-09-20T15:30:00.000-07:00

Several months ago, in a creative writing class, I started a short story. It's a story about a girl. She's young, alone, pregnant, and waiting for a train.

Her name is Amara.

Amara waits. She wants to leave her small Wyoming town as soon as possible. She's running from something or someone, but her train is late and so, she waits.

Amara meets a man. The man appears to be a transient; he is dirty, his clothes are worn, he sleeps on a bench a few rows away. Before long, Amara and the man are talking. She's nervous at first, but he has a fatherly way about him and eventually she opens up. She begins to tell him why she's leaving.

I think it's a decent enough story. Amara's character is well developed and the setting is there. The problem is, I don't know where this story is going. It hit a wall a long time ago and it's never quite made it past that wall.

Part of me wants to simply leave it. Move on. Let Amara sit in that train station for all of eternity so that I can think about something else. But I can't bring myself to do it. I need to bring some kind of conclusion to this story.

As it currently sits, the story is really about a conversation between two strangers. A conversation which, I hope, will enlighten both characters and help them to make a decision. What that decision will be, I don't know. It's up to them. But it is getting there, to that point that is difficult. That's where the story stagnates. That's where I'm stuck.

I don't want Amara to tell the man her entire life story. That's boring. I want at least some bit of mystery to it -- to why she's running away, with a swollen belly, from her home.

Any wisdom out there?

Oregon Weekend

2007-09-10T13:16:00.000-07:00

Ah, the wineries, the Ocean, McMenamins Kennedy School and of course, the Tillamook Cheese Factory...

A perfect weekend and the pictures to prove it.

Happy birthday Kathryn!

Vintage Seattle

2007-08-14T08:27:00.000-07:00

Came across this great blog a while back, called VintageSeattle.org

It calls itself a "High-Resolution Visual Historical Blog" and features some really great old and new photography and postcards, all capturing Seattle's fascinating history.

The interior and exterior photo's of Georgetown's Ranier Cold Storage campus are some of my favorites so far.

Adventures in Commuting

2007-08-08T10:56:00.000-07:00

So there we were, sleepy and half listening to the radio.

Our morning journey down Interstate 5 was going much the same as most mornings. In between yawns and thoughts of going back to bed, Anastasia and I made jokes about our silly dog. We talk about our dog a lot. Probably too much.

About ten minutes into our commute, we caught up to a dark green Geo Tracker. It was a soft top missing the rear cover, so we could easily see the driver and a passenger in the front and something in the back. The something was about as tall as the two people in the front, but covered with cloth or towel.

"Is that a dead body?" Anastasia asked with a little laugh.

"Yeah, I think so," I joked.

We smiled at each other because ha ha yeah right, but then, as we kept looking at the something sitting in the the other vehicle, our smiles shifted to a sort of suspicious half-grin.

"That's definitely a person," I said. "Look how the head's bobbing around with the bumps in the road."

We watched the body as it bobbed around, looking quite dead. We noticed the head was resting against a stick of some kind, like a broomstick, jutting up from the rear cargo hold of the vehicle. It didn't look comfortable at all. Looked like it was just there to keep the head from flopping over the back of the seat. And then the fact that the head was draped, at least from the back and sides, with a towel or something...

"That really does look like a dead body," I said.

"Should we call 911?" Anastasia asked. The mere idea of it seemed preposterous -- calling 911, telling them we're headed south on I-5 and that there may or may not be a dead body propped up in the back of a dark green Geo Tracker, license plate number...

Anastasia had the cell phone out as we changed lanes and drove up on the left side of them for a better look. What we found was a young man in the back seat -- pale, unhealthy complexion, eyes closed, mouth hanging wide open.

"Can't tell if he's dead or just passed out," I said. But what about the broomstick holding his head up? It looked like it'd be pretty painful to someone with a pulse. And the towel over his head?

As we got behind the Geo tracker again, we saw the guy's head finally move, like he'd just woken up. He sat forward, looked to either side of the vehicle and then reclined back against the broomstick.

And we laughed and laughed.

Because we almost called the cops on dark green Geo Tracker for having an ugly, sleeping passenger.

In the Immortal Words of Paula Abdul...

2007-08-06T10:47:00.000-07:00

He's a cold-hearted snake.

Marius (my ball python) bit me again. I forget, after a while, how much it hurts when that happens. But then it happens. And I remember.

It's a quick kind of pain, which is good. It doesn't linger like a burn or a punch to the groin. Just a quick "Yowza!" and it's over. Then there's the blood. His teeth aren't very big around, but they are many and they're long enough to puncture the skin pretty good -- so the bleeding is pretty immediate. Kind of like getting a shot (well, more like many shots at once), but without a nurse's kind finger to press a cotton ball to your skin.

Anyway, I was reaching into his tank and trying to take hold of the rear quarter of his body, to let him out of his tank for a while. I feel bad when he's just sitting in his tank for weeks at a time. So, occasionally I get him out, let him explore other parts of the bedroom. This time, however, he mistook my hand for a tasty rodent and there they are -- a couple of bandaged up fingers.

Many people already don't understand why a person would want to own a snake. Then, when you tell them it has bitten you, well, the mind automatically screams "snake bite!" -- and the question of why becomes that much more urgent and reactive.

Thing is, it's not Marius' fault that he bit me. And contrary to the silly title of this post, it doesn't mean that he's dangerous or mean. He's simply not gotten enough socialization (my fault) and is responding to an innate feeding instinct. That said, I am trying to sell him.

I'm not trying to sell him because he's bitten me a few times, but because I feel I can't properly care for him any longer. He needs a home with a reptile enthusiast who will give him more attention that I can. Right now it just feels like I'm maintaining him, in that I'm feeding him, keeping his water fresh, his tank clean, but beyond these necessities, he's not getting a lot of attention from me lately. And if we decide to have kids one day, well, he won't be getting much attention at all. I'd like to give him up before that happens.

Anyone know of a place to take him? Or of reptile enthusiasts who might be interested in him? That's the idea right now. Give or sell him to someone who knows what they're doing. He's an adult so giving him to a novice who doesn't know much about snakes is out of the question.

Mystery Music

2007-08-02T15:21:00.000-07:00

I was sifting through the music on my work computer today, looking for something to listen to that I hadn't heard in a while. Came across a series of "Unknown Artist" folders. Opened them up, gave all of the opening tracks a brief listen until I knew who it was, but then came upon one album that was not only really captivating, but also completely unknown to me as to who it was.

I listened to the entire album, thinking, Who is this? I must know! I had almost gotten through the album twice when I decided to do a bit of investigating. The file properties didn't tell me anything but there was the date -- I presume the date on which the album was ripped to my computer. I thought back -- back to March of 2006. Did that help? No, not at all. So, I mentioned it to a coworker and then had her give it a listen.

"Oh, that's Cloud Cult," she says. "I think the name of the album is Happy Hippopotamus."

Well, whattaya know. My mystery album is a happy happy hippo.

(I looked up the album online and found that it's actually called Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus.)

The snobs at Pitchfork seem to have loved it. They gave it a 8.3 rating, a score very few albums receive no matter how good they are. From Pitchfork:

There's a state of mind in which infancy and mortality meet. Death, its inexorability, and our fear of it render us as helpless as when we were toddlers. Many of us fill the resulting tremulous mental gap with religion ("our Father..."); others with work, love, or grown-up childishness like golf; and you and I, perhaps, with pop music. Cloud Cult bandleader Craig Minowa is obsessed with this space-- with infancy, mortality, and, alas, infant mortality-- and his grandiose fourth album, Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus, occupies it with messy, expansive, computer-ok indie rock.

Why I Write, or Don't

2007-07-31T14:49:00.000-07:00

I write because it's fun. And because people tell me I'm good at it and I like to believe them.

I write because I take an equally egotistical and masochistic joy in reading and re-reading each and every thing I've written -- because it's just as much fun to look proudly at the finished product as it is to spit on it, tear it to pieces and set it ablaze the very next day because it is so completely horrible and unworthy of human eyes -- like a lot of the poems on this page, for instance.

I write because, as laborious as it is, I enjoy the revision process. I enjoy taking a sentence I thought was done, deconstructing it and rearranging the words into something more enjoyable to read.

Then, I don't write.

I don't write because it's summer. Because I'd rather be outside, in the sun, with a book, or the dog.

I don't write because I'm lazy. Because it's easier not to.

I tell myself I want to be a writer. The problem, however, is that a writer writes. Always. I write. But not always. There's any number of excuses I could fall on as to why I don't write more. Work is busy, too many things to do around the house, blah, blah, blah. But we all know these are empty excuses. We know that everything worth anything takes time and dedication. Practice and perseverance.

Maybe I'll write something tonight. Or maybe I'll play with the dog. Or go for a bike ride. Or watch re-runs of M*A*S*H.

blood in the sand

2007-05-02T20:37:00.000-07:00

counting back from 2007
to 2003
not by days
or hours
or moments, watching the news
in slippers and pajamas

counting back from 3,213
to a "Mission Accomplished"
not by events
or headlines
or sound bytes
in your car, on the radio

counting back by bodies
lined up in perfect proud rows
draped in red
white and blue
the sum of their parts and principles

counting back by lies

old men in neck ties
spreading fear and disregard
truth means nothing
when opportunity awaits

head down, the news is on
count on the talking heads
to forget the blacks
what have they got that we want?
Darfur is nothing to us

save the oil, save the day

blood in the sand
war?
no -- conflict
it's all conflict
support the troops!
support the troops!

and the coffins

blood on your hands
keep ignoring us
everything we say
and don't you dare

don't you dare
look us in the eye

-jkh

Working Late

2007-03-12T13:59:00.000-07:00

long day, unexpected
hours producing
productions, pictures -- things
other men will build for real

and sweating

because they turn the air
off after 6pm

-jkh

Doggie Farts

2007-01-24T18:43:00.000-08:00

I saw a film once
called A Very Long Engagement,
starring Audrey Tatou
(A Very Lovely Girl)

as Mathilde, a woman on a relentless search
for her missing fiancé, lost
to the trenches of World War One.
It was good, this film.

However, there was another woman --
an older woman (Mathilde's mother - I think),
and she would say, "Doggie farts warm the heart."
And she would smile as she said this.

But I strongly disagree.

-jkh

Lunch, Late December at Le Panier

2007-01-05T12:58:00.000-08:00

Cracked statue on a stool
I am, static,
cold and coarse --
granite effigy of a man

breaking up as a holy smile
plays over split lips
like I know something
my compatriots do not.

But they likely know
in their own way
of the delight in reading, reviewing
people in passing --

their tourist's eyes fighting
in chorus,
the bitter breeze,
the insistent sun.

They likely know
of ham and Swiss cheese
on very French bread
and slurpy sips of sweet
velvet coffee in a white paper cup.

They likely know.

-jkh

In Your Navy Uniform, Standing in the Grass

2006-12-27T10:53:00.000-08:00

Forty years before you wrote your own end,
before you did your worst in a spoiled field,
before you drew from our swollen eyes
your own greedy tears -- left us searching,
sifting for answers among your sullen gray ash
-- before all this, you posed for a photograph.

On our dusty white window sill, your photograph
now rests. We keep you far away from the end
and near to the others -- the smiling faces now ash
or bone, soil or cypress. Guards and citizens in a field
of ancient stone. But for them, we are not searching
for meaning, clarity or life behind their eyes.

They see us and we return their gaze, but your eyes,
lost in the shadow of your brow, lost to a photograph
and to us -- your eyes, where are they? Searching
for something clean? A great escape? A winning end
to a losing life? Your eyes, they found a lonely field,
an outraged family, a shattered son, a broken body of ash.

Once a soldier, a father. Now 6 lbs. of pointless ash
on the wind, the leaves. We'll never know -- our eyes
and our minds -- never know why. Why that fucking field
instead of our arms? Why a God damn photograph
instead of our home? Who said you could choose your end
and send my father south to join the others already searching

for you? No one said a thing, I suppose. And no searching,
sifting or slamming our fists to the dirt will change ash
to a man -- a Grandfather. So we bury our questions. We end
our self-righteous suffering and look to our dreams for your eyes,
your weathered hands, cracked smile. All that a photograph
can not, will not provide. It's not enough to make that field

disappear. But it is something. It's re-tilling a tainted field,
planting sweet-pea and peony. Sending the cypress searching
for a new place to weep. It's holding your photograph
with both hands, thinking not what could have been -- not of ash,
but of a caring man -- strict and stern yes, with fierce eyes
that crumble. A man who maybe loved too much in the end.

All that remains is a photograph, a memory, the outline of a field
somewhere. And in the end, we're still, all of us, left searching,
sifting through the ash, trying to find your eyes.

-jkh

Waiting

2006-12-27T10:52:00.000-08:00

propped at a stop sign
sleepy and shifting in a ceaseless rain
I nod in solemn acceptance
to a dark and docile morning

January claws at my cheeks
bites at my nose
street lamps murmur and hum
casting broad galaxies
upon the shadowy face of the road

twin comets scream
flashing tails of rubber and steel
oil-spill nebulas shiver in their wake
and my breath disappears
swallowed whole by the universe before me

a house, small and gray
comes alive across the street
an explosion of light
we watch, every one of us

the waiting

as an old woman
short hair, faded bathrobe
enters the frame
our window to her world

she runs the tap
carries the kettle to the stove
infuses the fragrant leaves
pours for herself an ashen mug
of the steaming soothing tea
and she looks out at us
this collection of reddened faces
across the road

the waiting

wishing, every one of us
that we stood not here
but sat in there
in her kitchen
at her table

waiting

for our old friend
to pour the tea

-jkh

The Thief

2006-12-27T10:47:00.000-08:00

When I saw the boy steal
the Chocolate, I did
not know what to do.

Should I tell?
Like kids tell.

Should I glare?
As if to say,
you're bad.

He was small, pale and whips
of cinnamon hair hung
over his eyes – oily limbs
reaching out for his
freckled nose.

From the corners of these
sheltered eyes he
watched me as I
watched him, and I
pondered his crime.

Ready buddy? Let's go,
a fussy voice called out
from somewhere beyond
the processed meats
copper-top batteries
travel-size medicines

– more telling than asking,
four words to sever
our silent standoff.

If I told the man
about the boy,
would he scold
him in front of everyone?
to teach humility.

Would he march the thief
to the front
to make him apologize?
to teach shame.

Would he beat the boy?

The man and the thief
walked to the door
beyond the door
to an aging, rusting
blue and white car.

On his way out, the thief
turned to me
and smiled.

And so did I.

-jkh

The Tick

2006-12-27T10:41:00.000-08:00

In the company of wolves
I wear the Teeth,
the sly grin.

But am I too a wolf?
Eater of the weak,
claimant of the dead?
Not so.

I am but a tick,
sipping steadily from the fount --
the wolf's blood.

And falling down
to the dirt
when I am full.

-jkh

Alarm Clock Gnomes

2006-11-09T09:26:00.000-08:00

An interesting phenomenon has occurred in our household. You see, when we went to bed last night I set the alarm clock for 6:15am, same as I did every night this week. But this morning, when I woke up and saw the time, 7:17am, I knew something extraordinary had happened. Here is my theory as to how it all went down:

[int. bedroom]

Jack and Anastasia are settling in for sleep. The cat is nestled between them, purring and pleased to finally have some company in the bed she's been occupying all day.

"Did you set the alarm?" Anastasia asks.

"You bet I did," Jack answers, then double-checks the alarm. "Ready to go, 6:15 as always. Boy, I love getting up at 6:15. I love getting up early and going to work."

"Oh yeah? How weird! I love getting up early and going to work too!"

"Cool!" Jack exclaims. "That's great that we both love getting up early and going to work. It's like we were meant for each other! Good night Wife."

"Good night Husband."

...Meanwhile...

[ext. front yard]

The Alarm Clock Gnomes have assembled beneath the rhododendron in front of the bedroom window.

"Did you hear that?" One gnome says to the others. "These people love getting up early and going to work."

"Yes," answers another gnome. "We must terrorize these people. We must sabotage their alarm clock."

The gnomes all nod in agreement and begin their gnomey walk (which looks much like a regular walk, except that it is done by gnomes) toward the secret access point near the northeast corner of the house. Once inside, it is a simple matter for these small things to navigate the house, moving from room to room in complete silence until...

"Dog!" a young gnome screams. Just as he's turning to run back the way they came, an elder gnome grabs him by the arm.

"Quiet you insolent! This dog is no threat to us. I've met her before. She may appear as a great white beast, but believe me, her ferocity couldn't fill the pointy hat on that dim head of yours."

The elder gnome slowly approaches the big dog who is looking down at him inquisitively, cocking her head from side to side and making little whimpering sounds.

"Okay now big girl," the elder gnome says to the dog. "Let us rub that marvelous belly of yours. How does that sound?"

At that, the dog lays down and rolls to her side. Three of the gnomes stay behind, stacked atop each other's shoulders, rubbing the dogs belly while the others push forward to the bedroom -- the object of their mission.

Once they reach the doorway they decide they must make sure the humans are asleep.

"Squirrels are raiding the garden," one gnome proclaims. And the woman does not stir.

"There are delicious pancakes out here," another gnome calls out. And the man does not stir.

"Okay, they're definitely asleep. Our time has come fellow gnomes. Let us now do our worst to that alarm clock!"

What happened next, I cannot say. No one has ever witnessed what feats of magic or simple engineering these gnomes perform on the innocent alarm clock. I only know that in the end, we slept right through the clock-radio's cues for us to start our day and upon close examination of said clock, all was in order and we should have woken up.

-- Which is why I firmly believe these gnomes -- these Alarm Clock Gnomes, are the only reasonable explanation for our late start this morning. Please beware, my friends. You have been warned.

ABC = Liars

2006-11-08T09:23:00.000-08:00

In other 9/11 film news...

ABC is soon to air it's "docudrama" Path to 9/11 and there's a lot of heat over this movie.

The reason:
It's full of shit.
The film is full of inaccuracies but ABC claims:

"The Path to 9/11″ is not a documentary of the events leading to 9/11. It is a dramatization, drawn from a variety of sources including the 9/11 Commission Report, other published materials, and personal interviews. As such, for dramatic and narrative purposes, the movie contains fictionalized scenes, composite and representative characters and dialogue, and time compression.

Not a documentary? A dramatization? Fictionalized scenes and dialogue? What the fuck?

This isn't a story about a kid who was trapped out at sea, on a desert island and we don't really know what happened to him, except that we found his journal so we made a movie about what his last days may have been like. No. This is the story about something that really fucking happened. Something that affected people's lives all over the world. Something that has reshaped each and every one of our everyday lives in this country and many other countries. This was an event that set into motion an onslaught of new laws, new policies, new crimes, new lies, new wars and new death.

The point is, you don't fucking fictionalize an event that changed the course of world history. You don't "improvise" dialogue by people supposed to have played a major roll in the 9/11 timeline.

Another quote:

ABC is marketing its docudrama, The Path to 9/11, as “based on the 9/11 Commission Report.” It is defending the films multiple inaccuracies by claiming some scenes were “drawn from a variety of sources.”

But yesterday, writer and avowed conservative Cyrus Nowrasteh admitted that the films most controversial scene was based on nothing at all. Nowrasteh told a right-wing radio station that the scene was “improvised.” From the New York Times:

Mr. Berger’s character is also seen abruptly hanging up during a conversation with a C.I.A. officer at a critical moment of a military operation. In an interview yesterday with KRLA-AM in Los Angeles, Cyrus Nowrasteh, the mini-series’ screenwriter and one of its producers, said that moment had been improvised.

“Sandy Berger did not slam down the phone,” Mr. Nowrasteh said. “That is not in the report. That was not scripted. But you know when you’re making a movie, a lot of things happen on set that are unscripted. Accidents occur, spontaneous reactions of actors performing a role take place. It’s the job of the filmmaker to say, ‘You know, maybe we can use that.’ ”

Nowrasteh’s attitude appears completely inconsistent with ABC Entertainment President Steve McPherson. In promotional materials accompanying the film, McPherson said, “When you take on the responsibility of telling the story behind such an important event, it is absolutely critical that you get it right.”

Additionally:

FBI Agent Who Consulted On Path to 9/11 Quit Halfway Through Because "They Were Making Things Up."
James Bamford, an author and journalist who has written about security issues, appeared on MSNBC to discuss “The Path to 9/11.” Bamford revealed that an FBI agent who worked as a consultant to the film quit halfway through production of the mini-series because he believed the writers and producers were “making things up.” [watch the video here].

Disgusting.

take a shit, call it news

2006-11-07T09:20:00.000-08:00

I was reading Tom Tomorrow's blog today and came across this quote by Glenn Greenwald:

The White House is sure to follow suit any minute now, insinuating; or explicitly claiming; that this incident proves that Bush was right about the whole array of our country's foreign policy disputes, from Iraq to the current Israel-Lebanon war. This naked exploitation of terrorist threats for political gain occurs every time a new terrorist plot is revealed, no matter how serious or frivolous, no matter how advanced or preliminary, the plot might be. Each time a new plot is disclosed, administration officials and their followers immediately begin squeezing the emotions and fears generated by such events for every last drop of political gain they can manufacture.

But this effort is as incoherent as it is manipulative. Nobody doubts that there are Muslim extremists who would like to commit acts of violence against the U.S. and the West. No political disputes are premised on a conflict over whether terrorism exists or whether it ought to be taken seriously. As a result, events such as this that reveal what everyone already knows; that there is such a thing as Islamic extremists who want to commit terrorist acts against the U.S.; do nothing to inform or resolve political debates over the Bush administration's militaristic foreign policy or its radical lawlessness at home. Opposition to the war in Iraq, for instance, is not based upon the premise that there is no terrorist threat. It is based on the premise that that invasion undermines, rather than strengthens, our campaign to fight terrorism.

Invading and bombing Muslim countries do not prevent terrorism or diminish the likelihood that British-born Muslims will blow up American airplanes. If anything, warmongering in the Middle East exacerbates that risk by radicalizing more and more Muslims and increasing anti-U.S. resentment. And the more military and intelligence resources we are forced to pour into waging wars against countries that have not attacked us, the less able we are to track and combat al-Qaida and the other terrorist groups that actually seek to harm us. There are few things that have more enabled terrorism than turning Iraq into a chaotic caldron of anarchy and violence; exactly the environment in which al-Qaida thrives.

I wish more people understood this. Most of us just can't be bothered to think things through logically. We'd rather get our news from Fox TV and belch our foul, belligerent opinions based on what "side" we're on. It's disgusting, the level of ignorance, disinterest, and overall stupidity so prevelant in this country.
The media doesn't help either. Local news agencies cherry-pick what they're going to cover based on how sensational it can be made out to be. Case in point: The recent shooting in Seattle at the Belltown Jewish Federation Building. Without knowing anything at all about the suspect, the local anchors made presumptions that the crime had to do with the current Israel-Hezbollah conflict. As it turned out, the shooting had absolutely no connection to what is happening on the other side of the world. -The guy was found to have a history of serious mental illness.
The local media is just part of the problem though. There's Fox News, who's motto, "fair and balanced," is an ironic joke. And CNN? Hah! CNN used to be a respectable news agency until they started paying attention to their ratings and replacing distinguished anchors with cutesy, glossy-lipped women straight out of Perfect 10 magazine.
No, today you have to work a little harder to get the real news. Forget the television. There is no news on TV. -Only the blabbering of bubbly brunettes with plunging necklines. To get the real news you have to go here, here, here, here, or here, and maybe here.

A World Away: A Short Travelogue

2006-11-06T09:03:00.000-08:00

After three days of sea-salt air and playing on the beach, we didn’t know if we could leave this place. We’d stepped out of life for awhile – abandoned our homes, our jobs, our cars, pets, worries, calendars, phones. We’d deserted our own music, in favor of the surf, the eagle’s clever tongue, jokes by friends old and new, the sizzle and pop of damp driftwood on fire.

Kyle and Z had spent the afternoon building a beach shelter about twenty yards from our group’s campfire. It was a lean-to structure, with a solid roof of long, fat trunks of driftwood – held up by two support beams, looking scanty in comparison to the massive roof. I’d decided that I wouldn’t be sitting under Kyle and Z’s shelter that night – not with toothpicks holding up a small forest.

At the same moment, my wife, Anastasia, was up the beach a ways, pointing to the sea and gesturing with her hands – explaining to Kathryn which direction she believed the looming storm was headed.

I looked seaward then, at the black wall sailing toward us. Rain. Lots of rain by the look of it. If it made landfall, it would be the fourth time we’d be hit on this trip. Unlike the day before, we’d be prepared. The day before was our second on the beach, and had started with a morning downpour for all and a hangover for many. In addition, half of our party had not arrived at camp until very early that morning, tired and wanting nothing more than to set up their tents and crawl inside for the last remaining hours of predawn sleep. And since they were the ones who had brought the rain shelters, they’d not been assembled yet.

It was a miserable morning, that second day. Heads pounded, fingers fumbled, wet sand clung to anything not completely wrapped in plastic. All we wanted was some coffee and a moment without sand between our fingers, in our shoes.

No, if it rained this day, as Kyle and Z built their questionable shelter and others played on the beach, it would only be a minor annoyance. The canopies were up and anything out in the open could easily be moved beneath them, including ourselves.

As Anastasia and I both considered the probability of rain from opposite ends of camp, I heard roars of laughter and turned to see that Levi had fallen on his ass for the second time since the start of this day’s Buoy Olympics. He’d had a bit of whiskey and had overzealously spun himself dizzy while launching the buoy for the distance event. Now, the buoy wasn’t really a buoy, so much as it was a float for a fishing net – a large, black, heavy plastic sphere with two eyes on the side, through which a blue and white rope was tied. For ease, we just called it the buoy. From the rope, we’d swing the buoy either as far as we could for distance, or, for the accuracy event, into a tire that had somehow beached itself near our campsite. As there are no roads in the area, we decided the tire must have come from the Pacific somehow. Funny that this made the most sense to us – a tire arriving by sea.

No roads. The trail to Toleak Point is about seven miles with alternating stretches of beach and overland trail. A handful of rope ladders moves people between the two.

Our journey begins on Friday afternoon, Memorial Day weekend, in a dirt parking lot alongside Highway 110, La Push Road. It’s raining and we’re beginning to wonder if this is what we’re in for. Four days of rain? But our packs are on, their waist-belts digging mercilessly into our abdomens, keeping the impossible weight of three nights’ supplies off of our shoulders. It’s Eliza, Z, Kathryn, Albert, Anastasia and me. The other six people in our group will start from this same spot after the sun has set tonight. They will hike in under a New Moon (moon-terminology meaning “dark as hell”), led by Eliza’s husband Levi. They’ll wear headlamps so they can see the trail before them and nothing else. They will think they see things that are not there. They will miss things that are. They will hear things.

As we set forth on the Third Beach trail, our first obstacle arises. Pants. A few within our group are not used to such weight sitting on their hips from these heavy packs, and their pants are falling down. Z notices his jeans have dropped halfway down his ass and says, I feel like a gansta, sagging like this. Like I’ve got a load in my pants. After some adjustments, some rolling up of pant legs so they’re not dragging through mud, we continue.

The trail to Third Beach is pleasant, broad – roomy even. Couples can walk side by side, and they do. It’s a mile and a half of virgin rainforest, a gradual drop in elevation, and there you are. The beach. Most people take this trail simply for this beach – day-hikers, families, picnickers. They look at you, with your massive pack, your look of determination, and they wonder, Where could he be going? The beach is just ahead. But they don’t ask. They nod, smile, say Hi. They look over their shoulder as you disappear around the bend, into the trees.

The sudden sound of the Pacific Ocean meeting the rocks and stumbling onto the shoreline somewhere ahead of us, causes a stir inside. The heart works a bit harder. The lips start to curl up at the corners. Laughter feels imminent. We stop looking at our feet so much and start looking up – expecting, any second now, to greet the infinite gleam of the Pacific.

The sound grows louder, and soon we can see open sky just beyond the last bit of forest separating us from the sea. We round a corner and someone says, There it is, and, God, that’s beautiful.

Before us is the Pacific, with its shimmering horizon and massive sea-stacks launching toward the sky. We stop and take it in for a moment. Z takes some photos.

I ask Anastasia, Where’s my camera?

She squints, smiles, and answers, Um, somewhere about halfway down in my pack.

Great. We’re at the ocean, this spectacular view before us, and my camera is inaccessible. She reminds me we’ll have plenty of time and plenty of pictures to take. Plus, she’s sure Z and the others would gladly share their photos. She’s right, of course.

We move on, down the semi-steep trail to Third Beach. The rain has stopped. We’ve removed our jackets and strapped them to the sides, tops and fronts of our packs. The sun warms us and I can’t believe how beautiful this place is.

Geography and the tides make it impossible to reach Toleak Point without making a couple climbs up and away from the beach. As we head toward the first overland trail, our boots slide a bit with every step in the loose sand. Before long, our group stands at the base of a steep bluff, looking up at a rope ladder tied to the trees above. The ladder itself isn’t actually rope, but a pair of steel cables fitted with large wooden rungs for stepping. From the same trees above, a heavy rope sags alongside the ladder for additional support, as the climber makes his or her way up the steep, loose earth.

We decide to send a guy up there first, in case any of the girls need a hand at the top. Albert volunteers and starts the climb, and we watch and study the difficulty he does or doesn’t have. For fun, we cheer him on as he journeys upward. Go Albert, it’s your birthday, someone sings. We applaud him as he releases the rope and smiles back to us from his little summit.

Once we’ve all scrambled up the first rope ladder, we continue our steep, zigzag accent through trees and thick groundcover, eventually stopping at the base of yet another ladder. This one is a bit steeper than the last and places its climbers another thirty or forty feet up.

The trek goes on, through dense rainforest – up, then down, then up again. Around this corner and that one, and Hey, watch out for that rock. It’s loose. And that puddle. It’s deeper than it looks. At one point, a narrow wooden stairway helps us down a hillside too steep to otherwise navigate. Near the bottom of the stairs, off to the left, sits a wooden platform to get us back onto the trail.

Talk about a stairway to nowhere, Z says. Look at that thing!

I look and notice that the stairway actually continues its descent for a few steps past the platform. The stairway really does lead nowhere, or rather, it ends abruptly, hanging over a washed out part of the hillside. I picture Wile E. Coyote unwittingly continuing down the steps and falling to the rocks below.

I think about the rest of our group hiking in tonight, in the dark, and I feel for them. I can’t imagine making my way through here with only a beam of light from my forehead.

The next day, the night group will recount tales of nocturnal jumping spiders. Accounts vary as to how big they really were, but all agree that they had freakish hind legs, like a grasshopper, and that, They fucking jumped.

Elyse, Levi’s sister, does not like spiders. In point of fact, she is mortally terrified of them. While others at camp argue over the true size of the jumping things, Elyse stares into the sand, lips tight, brows furrowed, arms crossed rigidly across her chest. She is lost, somewhere else, until her boyfriend, J.P., changes the subject. She looks at him and smiles.

Another stretch of beach, another overland trail – this one not so intense as the first. There is no ladder this time, but a pair of ropes hangs from above to help negotiate the unstable dirt. One rope is weather-worn, crusty and hurts the hands. The other stretches too much and is awkward to use. Both make for a difficult climb.
Following this overland trail is the final stretch of beach that will bring us to Toleak Point, our home for the next three nights.

The point itself is a widow’s peak of hard-packed sand, cutting into the Pacific. It is marked by a magnificent rock formation – an immense, whimsical fortress of pointed spires thrusting skyward.

Piles of bone-white driftwood adorn the pale body of this beach. The wood serves as windbreaker, as furniture, as fuel for fire. Beyond this, amongst the trees, are our tents.

There are certain precautions that must be taken when camping in these wild places. Since we are as far downstream as one could get from any freshwater source, water must be filtered and treated with chlorine to kill the bacteria; flavored powders such as Crystal Light are then added to kill the chlorine taste. Bear canisters must be packed in and all food stored within them, to prevent black bears and raccoons from making a mess of camp. In this regard, scented items like toothpaste, lip balm and deodorant must also be locked up, kept away from the tents. Attention must be paid to the tide charts, so as not to find yourself trapped on a rock you’d been exploring at a low tide.

Anastasia or Z or someone else would sometimes ask about the time. On the first and second days, I had the answers. About three-thirty, I’d say, or, Nine o’clock – the sun will be setting soon. On the third and fourth days, I didn’t have the time. I left my watch in the tent because I didn’t care what time it was. It didn’t really matter. Also, no one was asking about the time anymore. The only place we had to be was here. Our only appointment was with each other, on this beach.

Time had danced off into the night with the smoke of our campfire. We learned to nap when we wanted, eat when we wanted, play when we wanted, sip whiskey when we wanted.

It didn’t rain as much as we’d feared on that third day. And I did end up sitting under Kyle and Z’s impressive beach shelter. It would have been rude not to.

* * *

It’s the first night I’ve ever spent on an ocean beach. I’d imagined being lulled to sleep by the waves making landfall, the way a stream or river soothes when sleeping in the mountains.
But the ocean at night is deafening.

Laid Off

2006-11-05T09:01:00.000-08:00

Before you freak out, no I haven't been laid off. This is the story of when my roommates and I lost our jobs many years ago.

Laid Off

The alley behind Dimension4 Inc. was accessed by a one-way locking door, kept propped open by a short stub of two-by-four pine. I spent so much time back there, in that alley, that it’s really the first thing I think of when remembering that place. Not my desk, nor the kitchen, nor the receptionist, nor any of the other guts within the office’s stale body. That alley, with its landscape of cracked, uneven concrete – that’s where the mind goes first.

There were generally between four and ten of us back there at a time, sometimes more. There were the appointed hours, the givens, when I was assured company in the alley: First thing in the morning, before and after lunch, and before heading home. But then there were also the random, spontaneous meetings in between. I’d be propped up at my desk, maybe working, maybe not really, and someone could at any moment, tap me on the shoulder, do a little sign language – two fingers to the lips, followed by a nod – and I’d follow them out to the alley.

We kept each other smoking. It was resource reciprocity really. Like those Eskimos up near the Arctic Circle, the Netsilik tribe. Everyone eats no matter who hunted and killed the seals on that particular day. We didn’t deal in seal meat of course. Our commodity was cigarettes, and if anyone ran out, that person was provided for, because we knew they’d have us covered when we’d run dry ourselves. We were a tribe of smokers. And we loved to play hackey-sack.

We spent hours every day, standing in the alley, in a poorly drawn circle, smoking and kicking that small, dirty sandbag around, trying desperately to keep it from touching the ground.

“Ah shit. Hold on.” Alex got on his hands and knees to retrieve the hackey-sack he’d kicked underneath a car in the parking lot abutting the alley.

“Nice kick Alex,” I’d prodded. Alex was a small, wiry guy with pale skin and sparse facial hair that showed either laziness or sheer dedication on his part.

“Got it,” declared Alex. “Game on bitches.”

Dimension4 Inc. had provided me my first job after moving to Washington State. Located in downtown Bremerton, a modest city across Puget Sound from Seattle, the company specialized in the conversion of old hardcopy drawings into digital CAD files. The work was easy. One would essentially sit there at the computer, tracing over existing lines with new ones. Literally anyone with eyes and fingers could do the job. Brains not required. Seriously. My friends and I would often go drinking during lunch. Vodka mixed with whatever juice sounded good that day. There was even a group who would spend their lunch break smoking joints at some guy’s house. They’d come back to the office high as a kite, eyes glossy and bloodshot. It didn’t matter though. Nobody bothered anyone. We sat at our desks, sometimes intoxicated, blasting music through our headphones, doing our mindless work. And we loved it.

Though there was really no way to move up in the company, there was also no reason to leave as we saw it. We considered ourselves lucky. There were about twenty-five of us, all about the same age, some of us roommates, most of us friends and hanging out on our off time. The money wasn’t great, but it was better than I’d made before. Towards the end of my time there, I got to be the highest paid drafter on staff (which really wasn’t saying much), because I’d taken a lead role on a couple projects. I was playing manager to a group of about six people, all straight out of high school. This granted me the ability to delegate work to the newbies, thereby freeing up more of my own time for the important matter of downloading music online. There was nowhere else to go from here. Either I’d reached the top, or the ladder had fallen out from under me.

In December 2000, a couple weeks before Christmas, our manager, Jeff Rochford, asked Jason Green, Jason Munich and me to please meet him in the conference room. Jeff was a character straight out of Gary Larson’s “Far Side” comics: Small eyes hidden beneath a heavy, protruding brow, and a miniature head, disproportionate to a greater, pear-shaped torso.

Jeff had been pacing around the office all morning, making strange noises with his lips and carrying a look of guilt upon his face. We didn’t think too much of it at the time. Thought maybe he’d screwed something up again and was trying to work his way out of it. Jeff had a knack for making mistakes in the drawing files and trying to fix it himself (thereby aggravating the problem further), then asking for one of us to help him out.

The Jasons and I sat waiting in the dull, lifeless room with the big table. These guys were my best friends, and at the time we were sharing a two-bedroom townhouse in Silverdale, a sleeper town just north of Bremerton. Green resided on the couch most nights, unless I was away at my girlfriend’s house, in which case he’d occupy my room.

We sat there for a few minutes, the three of us, wondering what this was about. Maybe we were getting a raise? Each of us had, after all, taken lead roles on a project or two.

After a few quiet moments, Jeff finally entered the room, looked at each of us, and then put his eyes to the floor as he made his awkward way to a seat across from us.

“Hey guys. How we doin?” he asked.

“Uh, okay,” Munich answered. Green and I sat still, silently watching Jeff’s nervous movements: One hand sliding across the table before him, the other tapping the side of his chair, his buttocks shifting around like he was training them to use chopsticks.

Finally, he sat back, looked up at the three of us and said, “So, you’re all aware we’ve had to make some adjustments here.”

“Yeah,” I answered. I understood. Our teams would get smaller, our workloads larger.

“Things are slowing down,” he added. “Money’s tight.”

I glanced over at my roommates. They stared at the floor, like they could see what was coming. I couldn’t see anything.

“Guys, they’re letting you go. Laying you off.”

The words were fists. They punched me in the chest, broke ribs and made my heart skip.

“Seriously?” I asked, for no other reason but to break the silence. I hated the silence. I hated that I could hear the fluorescent lights humming above me. Most of all, I hated Jeff for telling us we’d just lost our jobs. I knew it wasn’t his decision, but I hated him just the same.

“Yeah, seriously,” Jeff answered. “It sucks. I want you to know, I fought it. Brandon really fought it.” Brandon was the senior office manager. He’d been the one to hire us, and the one to party with us from time to time.

“Alright,” Munich said flatly. We looked at him, expecting more, but that’s all he had to say.

“The good news is, well, if you want to call it that,” Jeff looked embarrassed for trying to rationalize the situation, “you’re being laid off, not fired. So, you’ll be eligible for unemployment benefits.”

It seemed a full minute passed, then, defeated, I asked, “So how does that work?”

Jeff explained the process to us. Said there were forms to fill out. He’d get them for us, show us what to do. Said it was easy. You just send in this form each week, stating that you contacted three potential employers. As long as the form is sent with the three contacts, you’d get a check every week. Simple as that. Said it wasn’t much, but enough to get by on until we found new jobs. He finished by assuring us that he’d give us a good reference. He’d already started our letters of recommendation. Been working on them all morning.

I made my way back to my desk, careful not to look at anyone. I was desperately trying to keep it together. Jeff had said we could either clean out our things now or come in on Saturday to do it. There was no way in hell I was going to do it now. Not in front of everyone. I walked to my desk, grabbed my jacket, my keys, and turned to leave. My friend Mike stopped me, a worried look in his eyes.

“Hey, Jack, where ya goin?”

I looked at him, making eye contact with the first person since walking out of the room where I’d just lost my job. “I don’t know,” I replied, my voice cracking. I felt ashamed that I was being made to leave, ashamed that I was fighting back tears, ashamed that I was taking this so personally. They didn’t understand. This wasn’t just a job. This was my life. These were my friends. This is where I went every day after waking up. This was the first place I’d ever been where I felt important. The first place I’d ever been where I felt that I was part of a group – a group of people who actually liked me, thought I was funny and fun to be around. The first place I’d ever been where I was actually respected.

“I don’t know,” I’d said to Mike, hardly slowing my step as I feebly answered his question – a question which, unbeknownst to him, was much larger than he had meant. The question itself was what did me in. Where are you going? I don’t know.

The fists hit me in the chest again and again as I rushed down the stairs, toward the back door of the building. I threw the door open, didn’t bother closing it, and stood in the alley for a moment. I lit up the last cigarette I’d smoke in that alley, and then walked off to my car, feeling the first tears of rejection show themselves past the lower rim of my sunglasses.

Hey, Jack, where are you going? I’m going to the liquor store, Mike. I’m going to the liquor store and then I’m going home to get drunk with my newly unemployed roommates. I’m going to smoke a pack of cigarettes, drink too much, and call my girlfriend. She’s going to come over and have sex with me in the garage because she’s so sorry. Feels so bad for me. I’ll take the sympathy, and then I’ll rejoin my roommates, drink more and get sick. That’s where I’m going Mike.

As it turned out, unemployment wasn’t all bad. Jeff was right about the checks. We’d send our little forms into the state, promising that we’d tried real hard to get a job that week, and they’d send us money. And between the three of us, we actually had plenty to pay the rent and still have a good time. Of course, some car payments were deferred, some utility bills paid a little late, but we always had beer, cigarettes, and enough money left over to subsist on peanut butter & honey sandwiches and Kraft macaroni & cheese. We slept late, played video games, and drank beer. We stayed unemployed for three months. A paid vacation, courtesy of Dimension4 Inc. and the great state of Washington.

Late one morning, Green and I were lounging on the couch, watching reruns of “Friends,” when Munich suddenly came around the corner and into the living room. He carried a smile on his face and a bright orange bowling ball in his hands. He was excited because we’d decided we were actually going to leave the townhouse that afternoon and hit the lanes.

“Nice ball, Jason,” Green had said, just as the strangest thing we’d ever seen was about to take place.

We watched as Munich took his bowler stance, raised the ball about eight inches before his face, brought it forward and down in a graceful arch, and then forward again as if to practice his follow-through. Except, he followed through. For real. His right arm brought the blazing orange ball to an angle perpendicular to his upright poise, and then, he released it. He released it!

His thumb had gotten stuck.

Life suddenly slowed to a crawl as we sat there, unmoving, unflinching, on the great, gray sectional couch, snaking its way around the edge of the living room. Green and I watched as the bowling ball hovered through the air – a cratered moon orbiting a carpeted planet. Only, this moon was headed straight for the sliding glass door at the other end of the room.

The sound of the glass shattering and showering to the ground was heart stopping. We watched as the bowling ball continued past the exploding vertical plane, took a bounce on the concrete patio outside, tumbled into the grass beyond.

We sat still, staring at the disaster for a few seconds, allowing time to adjust to its proper pace. Then we looked back at Munich: pale, mouth hanging open, eyes wide. Then we looked at each other, both of us surprised to see the other one smiling a crazy kind of smile. A smile neither of us had seen on the other’s face in a long time.

That was awesome.

That’s all we could think of: Holy shit. That was awesome.

That’s when I knew the stars were, in fact, not against me. Life meant something again. This was the turning point, when life and all its unfortunate humor had slapped us in the face. Woke us up. Got us moving again. Got us filing a fake police report over the phone, so the apartment complex would pay for the damages. Vandalism, we’d said. Kids. Damnedest thing.

It was easy. Cops don’t actually show up to check out a little broken window. I gave the woman on the phone the carefully constructed white lie. She gave me the case number which I was to pass on to the apartment manager.

I don’t know what it was exactly about that bowling ball, exploding through the glass door like that, but it seemed to have woke us up – reminded us we’d been laid off for a reason. We got off the couch. We got new jobs. I moved to Seattle and made many new friends, including the wonderful woman who would become my wife.

That bright orange bowling ball, soaring through the air with its shimmering tail of glass.

A comet careening toward the Earth.

jkh

On Envying the Faithful

2006-11-04T08:59:00.000-08:00

It seemed the whole world was holding me. Why had I ever thought I was alone? I was in the embrace of the earth, of those who loved me no matter what they thought or understood, of the very stars.
“Father,” I said. “I am your child.”
-Anne Rice,
Christ the Lord, Out of Egypt

Death has always been the only phenomenon to bring about the resurrection of God in my life. Not birth, nor marriage, nor love. When a new baby is born into the world, I see not a miracle, but an act of biology. When I said my vows and exchanged the symbolic rings with my wife on a Catholic altar, I agreed with the Monsignor that the words and the act were sacred, but not because we’d just been wed before the eyes of a God. To me, these words and these acts were sacred because I loved, adored, and most importantly, respected this woman I’d just married. They were, and are, sacred because I made a promise before the eyes of all our friends and family – a promise before the eyes of the faithful.

I’m not sure exactly when I lost my faith. Though, I seem to remember elementary school science classes playing a role in it. I was on a fourth grade field trip once, to Estes Park, Colorado – an overnight excursion to learn about the natural world. We’d studied plants, trees, birds, compass orientation, and now we were to learn a thing or two about the things above us. We gathered in a dark room, on benches made of trees split in half, lengthwise (which quickly numbed our behinds), to watch a film about the origins of space and the fate of our planet. It was in this dark, uncomfortable room that I learned about the theory of the Big Bang, and about how the universe will eventually cease in its expansion and draw back in upon itself, essentially reversing the Big Bang and imploding. Now, this in itself might have been enough to make a nine year-old boy question God, but there was more. We then learned that the sun is growing, and that some millions or billions of years into the future, the sun will eventually envelop the Earth.

Why is God going to let this happen? I wondered. I was nine years old and didn’t exactly have a tight grasp on concepts of time, and even events millions of years into the future seemed imminent and terrifying.

Why would God let this happen?

A year earlier, I’d been called out of class by the principal of my school. He had a message for me stating that my mother was there to pick me up, and that I should meet her outside. I didn’t understand, as it was early in the day, but I packed my things and met her in the bus zone where she waited in the car. My sister, Molly, was there too, in the backseat. There was nothing curious about her being there, because Molly was only three years old, and my father had left town the night before, "for work," I'd been told.

Mom was quiet. We drove out of the school parking lot as I began my interrogation: Why did you pick me up? Where are we going? What’s going on?

I could see the hurt in my mother’s eyes. Her lip quivered for a small moment and she pulled the car to the side of the road.

“There’s been an accident,” she said, her voice cracking a bit. “There was a gun. It was an accident. Your Grandpa Jack is dead. We have to go to Denver.”

I could see that she didn't mean to say it like that. But there it was.

She watched me. She knew how much I loved him – how close we were. She put a hand on my knee. “The funeral is in a couple days. Everybody’s going. Are you okay?”

I stared at the road in front of us – the unmoving, unchanging road and the dead grass lining the ditch at its side.

Dead?

It wasn’t that long ago that I was in my Grandpa Jack’s basement. I was drawing dinosaurs with oversized teeth on the green chalkboard at the bottom of the stairs when he hurried down, threatening to “get me.” I ran, as quick as my little legs would carry me, to the other end of the basement, but he got me. I let out a scream, muddled with laughter, as he lifted me up, spun me, turned me upside down, shook me a bit and set me down on the floor.

“Grandpa!” I yelled. He tickled my ribs, neck and hips with his bony fingers, sending me into a desperate fit of giggling and gasping for air.

“Are you okay?” She said again.
I looked into her eyes finally and I knew it was true. Grandpa Jack was gone.

Two days later, I sat upon a harsh wooden pew in a church in Denver – an unforgiving seat in this, a house of forgiveness. My mom sat to my left with Molly in her lap, and my dad to the left of her. I knew what we were here for. I knew that this was a funeral for my grandfather, but there was something off about it. I’d seen funerals before, on the television. There was always a casket at the front of the aisle, near the altar. But there was no casket here and I didn’t understand.

The funeral began. People said things. There was music. But I didn’t understand. I looked around at the people –my aunts, my uncles, my mom and dad, their eyes all fixed on something in front of them – not the speaker, nor the singer, nor the organist – something else. I looked forward and saw it: A small, simple, vase-looking thing sitting atop a white tapestry-covered altar. Despite the words and the song and the music, everyone looked at the thing.

I looked to my mom, her eyes moist and locked on the object before us. I looked to my dad. No tears, but a blank, sort of lost expression on his face, like he was staring at something beyond that which I could see. I looked back at the thing, then to mom, then to dad, then back to mom as she looked into my eyes, then back to the thing. I understood. My grandfather was in there.

I lost it and buried my face in mom’s shoulder, barely breathing for the remainder of the ceremony.

I would learn some years later that the shot fired that night was not an accident. My grandfather had had too much to drink, and an altercation with his new wife had pushed him over the edge - something about an ex-boyfriend or ex-husband of hers. He threw his wallet at her, muttered something about them not being able to identify him, and left. His body was found the next day. Beside him, an empty bottle of scotch and a pistol. A hole in his head.

On the night before mom picked me up from school, dad had left town “for work,” so that he could search for his father.

I prayed. I prayed all the way back to Cheyenne in the back of our car. I prayed for several nights after we’d returned home. I prayed that Grandpa Jack was happy and that he knew how much I loved him.

I wish today, that I could feel the kind of faith I felt as a child, even if only for a moment. I wish I knew in my heart that God was here right now, watching over me and my family. I feel something, but it’s not faith. Perhaps it is hope. Hope that we really are more than mere bodies. Hope, that in some shape or form, my soul will meet those of my loved ones after our physical selves are gone from this Earth.

It was summer's morning when I saw you
Lying there.
With lights dim, surreal
Was the moment.

I found my place among one of the plush, violet chairs
Lining the interior of the room.
I could not believe it was really you.
I allowed my eyes to fall upon you as you rested.
Tried to see where you must have been
That very moment.

I drifted,

Searching the banks of my memory,
Careful to stow away
Each and every piece of you left
Untouched by fog.

Silence was broken by cries of others,
And truth settled
Within itself.
My vision blurred.
Heart sank.

You were beautiful,
Grandfather.
You are still beautiful.

I wrote these clumsy words during a lonely night years ago, on the dock next to a decaying house I rented a few miles outside of Bremerton, Washington. I sat at the dock’s warped wooden edge, thinking about my family, many of whom I hadn’t seen in some years. I reflected on those I felt I’d lost, and those I’d actually lost.

Eventually, I thought about that warm summer day. I thought about my mom’s father, Grandpa Kenny, and I wished he knew how much I missed him. The only way I could tell him it seemed, was to write to him.

As I wrote, I was seventeen again, sitting in that room, staring at the elevated coffin holding my Grandpa Kenny. There he was, lying there, so calm. Not moving, not laughing his throaty laugh at the expense of my mother and my aunts, not teaching me how to properly swing a 9-iron, not torturing me with the dreaded “whisker-rub,” wherein he would pin me down and scratch my rosy cheeks with his second-day beard growth, and not reaching for the little mint candies he kept on the dashboard of his mammoth red and white van. He just lay there, sleeping it seemed.

It settled in, as it often does, when I looked into the wet, swollen eyes of my mother and her sisters. That’s when my vision blurred. That’s when I begged God to take my Grandpa.

I prayed.

Please God, accept my Grandpa in Heaven. Invite him into your home, your arms. Make him content and at peace. Let him meet and embrace those he has lost through the years. And let him know that we love him and he will see all of us again. Thank you.

Time passes, as do the emotions that go with mourning the loss of a loved one. Before long, I am questioning the existence of God all over again. I wonder how there can be the type of God that Christians believe in, when so many people are hurting. I wonder why God sometimes lets bad people live and good people die. I wonder why I can’t feel Him when I’m told I’m supposed to.

My questions never get me anywhere. I cannot believe in the Christian mythology of Heaven and Hell, or the Book of Genesis, or that God is an omnipotent being - a creator, and final judge as to how we spent our time on Earth. However, I also cannot believe that we are nothing but biology – that we live, we die, and that’s it. There has to be something.

Now, doesn’t that sound like a desperate statement? There has to be something. Isn’t that a prayer?

Please, be there. Whoever or whatever you are. Just, please be there.

I envy the faithful. I want so much to believe what they believe – to feel the comfort and the warmth in knowing, knowing that God is there. For now, it seems, I will remain the hopeful.

My dad’s mother, Grandma Betty, passed away when I was five years old. She’d been sick for some time, though I didn’t know it then. I would later recall having dreamt that I was thirty thousand feet up, on an airplane with my mom. I don’t know where we were going, only that I was sitting in the window seat, looking out over the blooming landscape of bright white clouds below us.

“What do you see?” mom asked.

“Clouds,” I said. “I’m trying to find Grandma.”

We were after all, flying over Heaven.

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
-St. Augustine

On Being Content

2006-11-03T08:56:00.000-08:00

...

It was a Sunday, in the early afternoon, with the sun peeking through wisps of slightly translucent clouds, as my wife and I worked in our front yard. She was planting a new variety of snow peas and spring flowers, while I battled the weeds and grass threatening to permeate the garden. While driving a shovel into a stubborn family of dandelions, I glanced over at our dog, Annabelle, a husky-heeler-comedian mix. I ceased my shoveling activities and watched her for a while. Moments ago, I’d laughed as she shoved her nose, neck, and back into the earth, rolling and sliding around, loving every delightful second of it. She lay a few feet away from us now, her white fur inundated with grass and other bits of nature. I watched as she squinted in the sun, turning her nose up to sniff the air. She seemed to be smiling.

Quite suddenly, her ears popped up as her attention shot to the ground before her. She began pawing at something, a bug most likely. She let it go and looked up at me. Now she really smiled, her tail wagging wildly.

Those who claim dogs don’t smile are kidding themselves.

Dogs smile.

I looked away quickly so that she would not feel obligated to get up. I waited a moment and then looked back. She’d gone on with her squinting and her sniffing and her smiling. I could see that she was just happy to be with us. To share the yard with us. To be among us while we worked. Even though we were not playing with her, stroking her belly, or talking to her in that voice reserved for only her, I could see that she was enjoying herself. I thought about this for while; Here was this dog, lying in the grass, sniffing at the sweet air, taking pleasure in the simplest of things because she was with those she loved. She was content.

We all strive for contentment. Few of us actually achieve it. We mistake contentment as being that time and place where the chips have fallen and landed in perfect patterns of love and success. Often placing more importance on the latter than the former. We have the career we’ve always wanted. The house we’ve always dreamed of. The lover we’ve always fantasized after. We feel good about our bodies and we fit easily into our ideal pant size. We have money. And the dog never shits where it shouldn’t.

The problem with this idea of contentment is its practicality. Especially for those of us who have grown up in the United States and other capitalist nations. For, one of the most basic of principles on which capitalism is based is the principle of dissatisfaction. We are reminded daily that for every item we own, there is a better, faster, sexier version of it available for purchase. We are inundated with voices and images of commercial interest no matter where we are at a given time. Television, radio, billboards and the internet provide the more obvious examples. But there are others. Commercials found within songs and movies. Posters found on and inside busses, trains, taxis, stadiums, libraries, restaurants, theaters, parks, gas stations, even schools. We are told every day that we need new cars, homes, jeans, shoes, underwear, and razors with five blades because they work so much better than razors with four. For Christmas, we receive the electronic toy we’ve been drooling over for months! Only to learn three weeks later that a new version has hit the market. A far superior version if only for its sleekness and size. Thus, making the toy we were once so happy to have received, inferior. Even embarrassing. There is a word for this ongoing purchasing of items one feels he or she needs in order to get ahead in life: Yuppie. In the 1989 anthropological book Our Kind, Marvin Harris calls the yuppie, “perhaps the most voracious and predatory consumers of preciosities the world has ever seen,” and further, that “it is an unrelenting condition of success imposed from above in a society where wealth and power depend on mass consumption. Only people who can prove themselves to the ethos of consumerism are admitted to the higher circles of consumer society.” The problem with this trek for the next best thing is that there is no ceiling. Once one reaches the “higher circles,” there is only more room for costly ascension, and consequently, more debt.

So how do we stem this relentless consumerism? Do we live in the past, as hermits against commerce? The answer can be found in equilibrium. It is okay to want to upgrade your life, but it’s not an upgrade if you’re simply taking another step down a path of perpetual dissatisfaction. We can be humble and proud and thankful for all that we currently have, while still working toward improvements in our lives. In essence, contentment does not equal complacency.

The same can be said of our families and our friends. Whether vocally, or internally, we often treat the ones we love with the same regard as a pair of socks… “I wish she were prettier… I wish he would read more…” We apply the rules of capitalism to our human relationships. We are satisfied, for a time, with our lover, but we keep our eyes open in case someone “better” comes along. We worship and respect our parents until we realize they’re only people, and then we visit them from time to time out of a sense of obligation. We abandon our friends as soon as they do not fit the current mold of our lives. I’ve done that. I had a friend named Mike. Overall, a good guy. We hung out all the time. Got into trouble. Got each other out of trouble. Even shared a house once. But as I worked to better myself, my job, my place in society, he did not. It frustrated me that he did not wish to follow me on my course of ascension to a better life. Since I grew into a “new person” and he did not, I abandoned him. We have not spoken for over 3 years.

I have fallen victim numerous times to the molesting consumerism of our society. I have gone into debt and had nothing to show for it. I have forsaken high school flames because of the opinions of others. I have lost friends because of my own self-righteousness. I have accepted these failures of mine, and used them to try and gain a more complete sense of what it means to be content.

Today, I have a beautiful wife, a great house, and a funny dog.
I’m like anyone else. Sometimes I wish my wife would wear a sexier pair of jeans. I look forward to someday buying a bigger house (One with two bathrooms). And I wish the dog didn’t sometimes shit in the garden. But I am not dissatisfied, and I am not complacent. I am riding that middle line. I seek improvement, but I do not take for granted the things I already have. Life is far too short for perpetual dissatisfaction.

So I continue my journey towards self-improvement, while taking pleasure in all the small, special moments of my life, of which there are many. Such as… My wife’s inspiring intelligence, and her jokes at my expense… Curling up on the floor with the dog, rubbing the soft fur behind her ears… A great cup of coffee… A great glass of wine… Seattle in the summertime… Discovering new music… Discovering a great book… Sun and rain simultaneously touching my face… Seeing the true expanse of the stars, away from the city lights…

Fear and Loathing in the US of A - Part II

2006-11-02T08:53:00.000-08:00

...As I was saying... I was high atop my throne, thinking about the dark and dodgy road our nation is currently screaming down.
We are the gas-guzzling 18-wheeler on the down slope of a mountain pass, break lines cut.
Maybe Keano Reeves will save us... He always does.

As we are now in the midst of the Congressional Confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice nominee Samuel Alito, we are reminded that there are those in the White House, the Congress, and potentially the Supreme Court, who would love to reverse Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision which recognizes a woman's constitutional right to privacy, thereby legalizing abortion. This decision has, for 33 years now, been considered a major legal precedence regarding not only what is right and wrong, but also a woman's inherent right to protect her own life as the case may be.
Whether or not abortion is legal, there will always be the pro-choice / pro-life argument. It is an argument based not only on individual morals, values, and faiths, but also individual philosophies on when "life" really begins... As in, when does a "human being" become a "person"?
But maybe it's not so bad... As my favorite comedian, David Cross, recently said (tongue in cheek), "What's the big deal? Last time I checked, all the wire hangers now have rubber tips..."
Criminalizing abortion will not stop abortion. Let's try to keep that in mind.
Women will have these procedures whether they're legal or not. Making them illegal will only make them more dangerous.
Question: What kind of free nation would allow a bunch of middle-aged, predominately white men to decide what is appropriate for a woman and her body?
It seems to me that this is one of those issues better left up to the individual. It is the individual after all, that has to live with the decisions he or she makes.

Energy…
This administration is hurting not only the United States but also the rest of the world because if its policies affecting this issue. Right-wing Republican leaders want so badly to begin drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, and they claim that doing so will help the United States to wean itself off of its foreign oil dependency.
Truth is, if this happens… If we begin drilling operations in Alaska, the only thing it will improve is the lining of rich white pockets. It’s the senators and oil companies that will profit the most if we open ANWR to drilling. Common citizens like you and I would realistically save only a few cents per gallon at the pump as a result of ANWR drilling, and that would be at least 10 years down the road.
Apart from the financial aspect of the whole thing… what are we really accomplishing? Do we really have to develop every corner of the world and suck whatever we can out of it?

In 2000, the world had 6.1 billion human inhabitants. This number could rise to more than 9 billion in the next 50 years. http://www.prb.org

As the population of the world grows exponentially during the next century, we will be faced with some difficult questions about our level of world resource consumption.
All we really accomplish by opening ANWR for drilling is the extension of an outdated system.
We as a nation need to start looking for new modes of energy which will not only sustain us today, but carry us into centuries to come.
Additionally, we need to stem this republican philosophy of instant gratification when it comes to U.S. energy and economic policies. If our government spent as much money on the research and development of renewable energy sources (hydrogen, solar, geothermal, biodiesals, etc) as it does on wars to protect current oil interests abroad, we'd have a better foothold on our country's future.
...I'm sure there are many out there who would disagree with me (and have disagreed with me) regarding that last statement, but that's a wholly seperate debate, centered on pure emotion and so-called "patriotism" versus unbridled fact.

I'll wrap this up with this (some content copied from an earlier reply to someone's comment from Part I)...
Any time anyone questions our governments policies, actions, motives, or calls them out on something that is fundamentally wrong, you get accused of being unpatriotic. Truth is, I f**king love the United States, which is precisely why I pay attention to what's going on, and speak up when I don't think something jives with the principles this country was supposed to have been founded on. The biggest and best reason that this is such a great country, is that people like me are permitted and even encouraged to speak freely and dissent when necessary.
People say, "How can you say these things at a time like this, when our troops are dying for our freedom?"
Our freedom?
The Iraq war is tied to our freedom?
I would love for someone to educate me as to how this war is in any way protecting "our freedom."
Iraq did not attack us. Iraq did not have the means to attack us. There is a laundry list of facts confirming this.
Yes, yes, yes, yes... we are doing some great things in Iraq. I'm not questioning that. We're creating a democracy where there was once a violent dictatorship. Saddam was a bad dude and deserves everything he has coming his way.
-That does not make it right to ignore crucial evidence, and to LIE to the American public as a means to rush into a war that would sacrifice over 2,000 American soldiers and (as a new and highly accurate study shows) approximately 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians.

In closing, those of you who claim that it is wrong for me to write these things "when our friends and relatives are dying"... could stand to learn a thing or two about patriotism.

Fear and Loathing in the US of A - Part I

2006-11-01T08:51:00.000-08:00

I was sitting on the toilet recently, thinking to myself, "Self, why are you so afraid for the future of our country? Won't things just go on and prevail the way they always have? Why do you worry so much about our government, our citizens, and our future?"
I was pushing really hard for an answer... Straining to find some reason behind my worries... And out it came.

It is true that throughout our history there have always been right-leaning leaders with extremely conservative agendas, just as it is true that there have been left-leaning leaders with more liberal or progressive agendas. As a nation, we've always been on a political pendulum, changing directions from one generation to the next. The question is: What has changed, or has anything changed?
Will this simply be a phase in our political climate? A quarter moon crossing the sky one night... a half moon crossing the same sky some nights later?
I hope to God this is true.
But I do know why I fear the path our country is currently on...
The truth is, today's right-wing conservative leaders really are a new breed of political animal... and they're working to rein in decades of human progress...

The "War on Terror"...?
There always have and always will be terrorists. There is no such thing as "winning" a war on terror. Rumsfeld himself has stated that he believes the "war on terror" (I shall continue to use quotation marks because I think the term itself is almost as big a joke as the "war on drugs") may last up to 100 years (a number he surely found somewhere up his ass).
For as long as we exist on this planet, there will be individuals from other parts of the world that will hate the United States, and will be willing to give their own lives so long as they take some of us with them.
For as long as our country's foreign policies work to exert our will upon other nations, there will be those who fight against that will.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not sympathizing with those who wish to kill innocent Americans. I believe these murderers must be dealt with... But to slap a patriotic label on it... "The War on Terror"... and to breed fear into the hearts and minds of Americans as a means to chip away at our constitutional rights of privacy, is just wrong. Our current administration as well as many members of Congress are committing a kind of psychological attack on its own citizens. Just think of the "USA Patriot Act". The Administration used a campaign of post-911 fear to get this unconstitutional document passed into law. After all, what congressional representative would want to be known as the one who voted against something named the "USA Patriot Act"?
-And what about these secret (and explicitly illegal) wiretaps the president authorized? Bush's argument is that the Constitution grants the commander-in-chief the right to do what is necessary to protect the American public. While this is true, it is a HUGE stretch to say that the president can go above the law and above the courts any time he sees fit.
I'd love to be able to break the law and then claim some vague interpretation of the constitution as my defense.

To be continued...