Mud

Well, after a great winter with very little rain, Oregon opened up with a March that had nearly double the normal rainfall.  The trails are wet, the ground saturated, and trees are falling over for very little reason.

My first MTB race was to be the Mudslinger, and the team had a pre-ride two weeks before the actual race.  Nearly 20 people showed up and we rode the course, through a little rain, snow, and even sun.  It was my first time in the Starker forest, and it was pretty.  The Starkers (a big logging family) are open to folks using it for recreation, and big props to them for that.

The Mudslinger course is two loops (a figure-8), and at the end of the first loop there's a downhill called Panama Canal.  Why do I point this out?

Turns out, I chose a really poor line on that trail, corrected late, and did a slow-motion somersault, with my bike.  Somehow I bust my lip:

 Luckily this happened pretty much at the end of the first loop, so I just rode out.  I'd car-pooled with a friend, and he took me to the ER to get stitched up.  Not an hour later, I walk out sporting 3 stitches:

Five days later, Mary removed the stitches (we were not near the hospital to get them taken out - yay Mary!)  It's all healed up now, and I had the actual Mudslinger ride on the 1st (the day after my 40th).

I chose to ride as a Clydesdale so I could do the full 22 miles (4000' elevation gain), and ride down Panama Canal two times.  Game time!!!!

I didn't hear the call for Clydesdales to start, so I got about a 30 second late start and had to catch up to the rest of the Clydesdales.  I rode the first 6 miles pretty well, passing people on the up, mostly holding my own on the easy downhills.  Just before the only singletrack uphill my chain dropped off the small chain-ring and got stuck in the bottom bracket.  I was very frustrated, and flipped my bike over and yanked on the chain for several minutes, swearing as all the people I'd passed slowly passed me.  And to make things worse, I knew I'd figured out a way to fix the problem but I couldn't remember it (even more frustrating).

I took a few breaths and finally remembered I have a Z-link and could just disassemble the chain, pull it out, and re-assemble.

Some 5-7 minutes after the chain became stuck, I flipped the bike over and began pedaling up the muddy singletrack.

I was cold and frustrated at this point.

But I continued and changed my attitude from racing to just checking out the course.  You see, I'd been racing from the back of the Cat 2/Clydesdale pack, and the chain fiasco put me right between all the slow Cat 2 climbers and the Cat 3 folks (who only do the 11 mile loop), and people were pretty spread out at this point - kinda lonely.

I finished the climb and began the descent.  About 1/3 of the way down Collarbone Alley I drop my seat way down so that I feel like I'm 10 and riding my BMX bike with my knees running up to my armpits, and that is what finally lets me feel fairly comfortable going down the crazy-muddy trail.  Then a little road, and down the single track that is Panama Canal - full of long puddles and brown mud through a mossy carpeted forest.  I get passed, but I'm cool, no crashes, no more stitches.

Before I know it, I'm done with Panama, I raise my seat, and I begin the long climb to the top of the 2nd loop.  It's real long and I pass the few people I see on the road.  One section (First Trail) has a 30' long puddle that is nearly a foot deep.  Wheee!

There's an "aid" station at the top of the climb, which consists of a tent and some people standing there handing out cups of water and Heed.  Rather disappointing - I was hoping for food.  I down a Builder's Bar, some Heed, and finish the climb and begin the scary-steep descent.

The trails that follow, Root Down and Super Tree are scary steep.  They would be fun if the trail were dry, a little hairy, but doable.  But, with the mud, they're just no fun for me, so I jog down about half of it.

At this point we're back on the first loop, climb up the single track where I lost my chain, over to Collar Bone and Panama Canal.  I drop the seat, ride a little more confidently (but just as slowly) down the singletrack - vowing to catch all the folks who just passed me on the road.  Sure enough, we get to the road and have <2 miles to go (a chunk of it up hill), and I catch a number of people.

I finish in just over 3 hours, 6th out of 7 Clydesdales, I'm all in one piece, and evidently I'm happy b/c the photo of me at the finish line shows me smiling.

I clean up, change, hose down my bike, get some food in me, and head home.

I came in only 9m30sec behind 4th place, so had the chain not broken, I might have gotten 4th.  If I'd raced in Cat 2, my time would have placed me 28th out of 33 - not exactly impressive, but easily not last.

Next year I will try for the podium (that's 15 minutes faster than 4th place this year, so not an easy task).  This was the wettest year in history, so the mud shouldn't be as bad in the future, and hopefully I'll have a little better idea how to ride mud.

One thing that came to me is that if I upgrade my bottom bracket to the new style, there won't be space for the chain to get stuck.  Hmmmm...

So, a successful first race this year.  All my goals were accomplished: finish in one piece, have fun, and not come in last in my group.

Next year: the podium.

Quote Of The Day

"Boys aren't queens" - Simone, age 5

So much to learn...

Riding In The Snow

I've had 3 rides in the snow in the past two weeks, crazy!

The first was at night, and there was just too much snow.  We just went up horse trail and back down after finding that there were nearly 6" of snow at the top.

Then, last week, I rode a ride with blue sky and sun, and just a sprinkling of snow - about an inch.    It was phenomenal - one of the prettiest days of riding I've had in months.

Today I set out in the rain with gray clouds, not quite as exciting as the sunny day.  But as soon as I started climbing up the hills in the forest the snow started collecting fast.  I ended up riding through about 3" of snow.
\

I think 3" is about the limit of snow I'll ride in.  Coming down it was OK, but going up was tough going because I spun the tires some.  Plus, the snow really started to build up in the gears and in the rear triangle.

I would have never guessed that I'd have 3 days of riding in the snow in March!

Politics, March 2012

I just posted my BranBrain Dump, and realized I had neglected my political thoughts.

First, the GOP candidates for president are just nuts (Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, Paul).  You've got Romney, a fairly "centrist" republican who is trying to appear as "conservative" as he can be and failing - he's the candidate the GOP doesn't want.  You've got Santorum, a hard-core social conservative who basically thinks women belong in the kitchen making sandwiches.  Gingrich is obviously old school, cheated on both his wives, and says he's not a part of the establishment, even though he actually created the current back-stabbing conditions in American politics (and who was ousted from power by his own party b/c of corruption).  And then there's Ron Paul, the isolationist - who has more views I agree with than any of the GOP candidates - and more than I agree with Obama.

Needless to say, I'm not a fan of any of them.  I'm actually going to write in Scott Adams (yes, of Dilbert fame).

We're still at war in Afghanistan, and bombing several other countries via unmanned drone.  We're still imprisoning hundreds of "terrorists" (without enough evidence to even have a trial to see if they're worth holding).  We've killed an American via a targeted drone strike, and Obama's justice department justifies it by saying that "due process doesn't mean judicial process." Nobody from the Bush administration has been prosecuted for war crimes/torture, nobody from Wall Street has been charged with anything due to the financial collapse, no real reform has been made in either situation - in fact Obama has gone after whistle blowers more vigorously than all other administrations beforehand, he's expanded executive power more then W did, etc. etc. etc.

Needless to say I'm not happy.

I am happy I've found this comic strip, here's an example of their work.  It's spot-on and absolutely hilarious.

You've got the media talking about nothing but the political races, and completely ignoring actual policy debates.

For example, Iran.  Everyone from Obama to the GOP candidates are trying to sound tough on Iran, completely and whole-heartedly supporting Israel's desire to bomb Iran.  Yet when actually pressed (though nobody ever does), people in the know agree that there is no evidence that Iran is actually pursuing nuclear weapons.  Nobody talks about the fact that Iran actually had signed an agreement to give up the enrichment program - and the US decided to just go ahead with sanctions instead.

And the media just goes along with the party line - both parties in fact, and repeats the same B.S. - which is what led us into Iraq.

It's disgusting.

Brain Dump March 2012

Forced post to jump start this blog.

My LASIK has gone incredibly well.  I just had my 2 month checkup and the doctor says he has trouble seeing the edge of the corneal flap.  Plus, my left eye is spot-on - no astigmatism and perfect vision.  The right eye is slightly near-sighted and has a slight astigmatism.  The left eye is 20/15 and the right is a slightly blurry 20/20, and both together can read a couple of the letters on the 20/10 line.  woo-hoo!  Other than an odd dream where I saw the doctor b/c a flap had come unhinged, everything is going super well.

I'm still doing Weight Watchers and am coming out of a 2+ month slump.  I've basically had the same weight since December, but am currently at my lowest weight since I started: 240.4#.  I've been occasionally eating crummy food at work (someone brought baklava, and there were donuts, and pizza) and feel kinda tired when I do that.  So I'm doubling down and eating good food to see if that helps with the energy levels (and weight).

I've been riding 2 or 3 times a week in the mountains and been loving it.  We've had some rain in January and February, but even with all the "crummy" weather, I've only had to ride in the rain maybe 3 times since I started riding in the fall.  On Tuesday of this week I went out for a lovely ride in the sun and blue skies with an inch of snow all over the hills.  Amazing and beautiful!

I don't think I mentioned it on my blog (quick search... nope) - I joined a mountain bike team this year: Team Dirt.  It's got some really amazing riders on it, and I figured they could use some help rounding out the team profile (ha, round, get it? I'm overweight, i.e. round, heh heh).  The team is loosely organized, though this year it's applying to be a non-profit and the guy running it is making the team and the races he organizes his job (as in, he quit his other job -  but he's got a wife who brings in the money).  There are lots of plans for the future - building more trails, more races, changes to the team to be more inclusive (allowing people who just want to do trail work and not ride).

One of the active team members has a regular ride on Monday and Thursday nights from his house and there are 2-3 guys who consistently show up to ride.  I've joined that crew on Thursdays (after my WW meeting) and been riding with them for about a month.  They're a good group of guys who wait for me at the tops of the climbs.

What's been real fun is that a number of people on the team are using strava.com to track their rides.  What makes this site different than others (for the moment, I figure they'll have competition soon, if not already) is that  it automatically recognizes segments of rides for you, and it recognizes when other people have ridden that segment.  So, for example, the climb to Dimple Hill is a segment, and every time I ride it, the web page tracks my time and shows how I'm doing relative to everyone else.  An aside is that my personal goal is to make that climb in under 20 minutes (by the end of June).  Plus, there's a social aspect to the site where you can follow people and get updates on their activities.  So I'm seeing what other guys on the team are riding and how they're doing - which meant that I already had some rapport with the guys I ride with on Thursdays before I'd even ridden with them.  It's been surprisingly fun.  You can see my riding here.

I've got the Beaver Freezer coming up, and a friend from Wings is going to join me and race too.  I've yet to dip my foot in a pool since the last Freezer - perhaps this weekend.  And, I just found out today that my trusty old road bike needs ... $900 worth of work.  (shhhh, don't tell Mary, she doesn't know yet).  So there's some decisions to be made on that front.  (new crank/chain/cassette/bb, shifters old and worn and old enough they need to be replaced, new tires, cables/housing, front derailleur - basically everything but the brake arms, frame, headset, hubs and rims).

When Mary and I visited Victoria last fall for our anniversary I bought a pair of custom sandals from Heart And Sole Shoes - kind of on a whim (Mary was the one who was interested in the shop and sandals).  I've been wearing them regularly since then and have been enjoying them.  They're definitely unique, and I've gotten comments like "Jesus sandals" and "gladiator sandals" all the way to "are you wearing your wife's sandals?"  They were made just for my feet and have proven to wear very well so far in the 5 months since I've had them.  I do need to trim the leather strap that goes around the back of my foot (it stretched a fair amount).  I'm mostly including that note to see if I ever get around to doing it.

Mary is doing real well - she's begun her practice part-time (half a day a week, to selected patients only), she's fit as a fiddle and looking great.  Plus, she's been learning to ride a horse since last fall and loves that very much.  I don't like commenting bunches about her on my blog b/c I wouldn't want to speak for her, but I think she's pretty happy overall.

Simone, on the other hand, doesn't have a blog (that I know of), so I'm continuing to take the liberty to talk all about her.

She's loving kindergarten at the Waldorf school, and after spending the first half of the year talking mostly about a couple of kids she'd gone to preschool with, she's talking about other kids now.  One, Xavier (?), was very prominent for a week because they were "in love" - and they'd kissed (I guess Simone is very lovey with most of the kids).  You can keep your jokes about "just wait until she's a teen" to yourself.

The biggest shock to me was that we're going to keep her in kindergarten for another year.  Long story short, when the thought of next year first came up I'd assumed she'd be going onto 1st grade next year, and when that came into question I was a bit shocked.  I quickly realized it was all about my ego (as if that should matter in determining what's best for her).  The school had a meeting for parents of soon-to-be-1st-graders and talked about what they looked for developmentally and talked about the differences between kindergarten and the grades.  It became clear that Simone is still pretty dreamy and probably wouldn't adapt to the requirements of 1st grade without a bit of a struggle.  She's been reading lots, spelling words, writing letters/cards/stories - so she's ready academically, but honestly, I don't think she could really handle sitting for 2 hours out of the day.  She does that on her own schedule all the time, but it's never when she's "told to" (like when I'm working from home and Mary is out for some reason).  Plus, part of the reason we chose this school was for the personal attention and their emphasis on social growth - and if the teacher is suggesting she stay in kindergarten - it'd be foolish to ignore her advice.  Ultimately, there's no reason to rush Simone off to college, let her be a kid a little longer.

Off Road!

Simone and I rode the Trail-A-Long to Avery Park this afternoon.

Right when we got there I asked her if she wanted to take the dirt path that goes around the park.  She was very excited and we rode it all the way from the Mary's River crossing to Lion's Kitchen.  And then we rode it back the other direction.

Lots of "whee!" interspersed with "boing" as we went over rockier portions of the trail.

Hopefully the first of many off-road adventures.

Running

I started running again - with the intention of seeing whether or not my body would be agreeable to do it for another Beaver Freezer.  A friend from Life Works (that seminar I just finished) told me she'd come and race with me if I did it (she has a goal of competing in a race of some kind in each of the 50 states).

So, I'm spending January figuring it out.

My body isn't crazy about running, but I think it will be ok with me doing the Freezer.

Yesterday's run was in the mist, and the streams were flowing high.  I took a couple of crummy photos with my iPhone.

At the end, my knees complained a little bit (I resorted to more walking than running), but was happy to be outdoors.

Self-Made Coloring Book Pages

Just the other day, Simone decided to draw some pages to color in.  We've had a couple of different coloring books, and she likes them well enough.  Lately she's paid a fair amount of attention to coloring in the lines and choosing very specific colors.  I've always preferred her free-hand drawings, but some of the colorings have been very pretty.

This, however, was a new twist.  She drew two pictures with black pen and we colored one in together.  I had artistic reign over the fairies (well, one had to be a rainbow fairy, oh, and they needed blue eyes and gold hair, but I did the coloring), and I colored in the brown roof, the chimney, and the tree.  But I just love her drawing, with the wings and the tu-tu.

And then she drew another page, which we didn't get to color.  It's a drawing of Jade (the larger one) and Juptier.

Simone Book

Simone loves creating things.  Last fall (Sept 2011) she wrote a book.  Well, she wrote many books, but one in particular stood apart.  I just scanned the images in, and here it is.

Of course it has a title page, which is her name:

Mary got some watercolor pencils, which are way cool.  You draw with the pencils, using whatever colors you want, and then you come back with a water brush and apply the water and you get a water color painting.

Simone loves using them.  She draws with a pen for the outline, and then colors it in.

I can't remember if the next drawing was a boat, or just the clay birdhouse we have in the back yard.  Ah, that's probably it, the birdhouse was sitting in one of the clay pots that have soil.

I knew I should have kept notes, I'm pretty sure this is a picture of Hazel.  She was really missing Hazel last fall.

 Flowers are a big part of her drawing.  Though this one actually reminds me of a duck.  This one is a black-eyed susan.

 I believe the next one is a self portrait, note the blue eyes and blonde hair.  She is wearing her Hawaii dress.

Rainbows were probably the first concrete thing Simone started drawing, and they make frequent appearances.  Edit: Simone informed me this is a sunset - which makes sense, there's no green.

From another picture she drew about the same time, I think this is a picture of the horse named "Red."

After creating all the pages, Simone ripped them out of the notebook and stapled them together.  She's made a number of books, some are full-blown stories, and some are more abstract.  This is certainly one of my favorites.

Edit: This morning I showed Simone the pictures and she read the file names and corrected me on several accounts.  So, she recognizes the words rainbow, clifford (I'd incorrectly named the in the filename).

Three Weeks In

We're in the new year, and what's happened?

I had LASIK (at PCLI) and it went really well, though I'm itching to get back to mountain biking (I took a week off as a precaution, then had other things get in the way - including the flooding of Corvallis which has closed down the forest b/c of landslides).

I finished up the Life Works seminar, which was  a great experience.

The last weekend of LW, Simone caught a bit of a stomach flu and was puking all weekend, I returned from my weekend away to help out as Mary got winged by it, and then I took a day off because it laid me low for a day.  I think it's our first illness that got all three of us.

Simone is drawing lots (I really want to scan them in... maybe that'll be tonight's project), and speaking more and more complicated - I wonder where my little girl has gone.

This weekend is a papa weekend as Mary is at a conference.  Simone and I played outside in the brief patch of  sun, we made mustard and kimchi, we read lots of books, and then more books, and we've been eating lots - including rice pudding for dessert.

Mary hung up some paper lamps in the bedrooms, and the fairies turn them on and off for us.  The three in our bedroom are remote-controlled, so the mystery might still be holding there.  It's hard to tell if Simone is just playing along or if she still believes.

Tonight I read "A Fairy Went A-Marketing" to Simone while she took a bath.  Cute book, great illustrations.  How geeky of me was it that when the fairy gave a coat to a frog my first thought was, "That's not right!  Frogs are cold-blooded!  What is this book teaching?!"

The year has started off well - looking forward to the remaining 49 weeks!

New Year

Well, it's a new year.

The highlights so far - a lovely 3+ hour walk with Mary through the woods (Lewisburg Saddle to the top of Dimple Hill, down Dan's and back) while Simone was at school, then lunch at Vietnamese food, then a 2 hour mountain bike ride up to the top of McCulloch Peak (taking nearly 3 minutes off my PR, yay!), and coming home to see Mary and Simone, both happy to see me.

The lowlights so far: Spending nearly 8 hours re-installing all the software on my laptop from scratch (yes, I could buy a new one, but facing 8 hours versus $1K, I went with the time I had).

It's Good

Simone woke up early this morning and called out for me.  When I came into her room she wanted help blowing her nose and then asked if I could snuggle.  As I snuggled in next to her she said, "It's good to snuggle in the morning."

It certainly is.

Breakfast

So we're at the beach for Thanksgiving.  Mary, Simone and I drove through Astoria because 101 is flooded just south of Seaside.  The road is flooded because there was a crazy storm happening, winds up to 60mph (seemed like 80, but what do I know).

We woke up (I use that term loosely, I slept in until 8:30) and then decided to have some breakfast.  Oatmeal porridge was on the menu, but for some reason Mary pulled down a package of marshmallows, and she said the word "marshmallow."

Of course Simone heard this and came into the kitchen asking about them, face very bright and excited.  There were two bags.  One of the ridiculously over-sized large marshmallows - large enough that you need a graham cracker the size of a piece of sandwich bread to match.  The other bag was the regular size marshmallow.  Simone told us how the big ones make her sick and she'll "never eat those again" ("never" and "always" are popular terms right now, everything is absolute).  However, she did want one of the regular-sized ones.

She had 3 marshmallows, very excited about each one - I should have gotten it on video.

We did actually eat oatmeal after than, and then I high-tailed it to McMennemin's to put in half a day of work, leaving Mary to hang out with Simone hopped up on sugar.

good-luck!

Riding With Simone To School

Simone and I rode to school today.

Yup, she's in kindergarten at the big Waldorf school, it's her second full week.

We woke up this morning, had breakfast (hens in pens), dressed up nice and warm, hopped on our bike and road the 6 miles or so to school. It was super foggy in parts - I meant to take a photo of some trees in the fog, but I wanted to be to sure to get to school on time.

We got there in plenty of time, being the second kid in the class to walk in.

Simone peeled off her many layers, kissed me goodbye and she was off.

It felt great to ride her to school, and I hope to do it a few more times before the rain sets in.

I took a slightly longer way home, riding along Walnut/53rd, and I did take the time to snap a photo of the sun shining through the oak trees. I was on a bit of a hill here, and was just barely out of the fog, about 2 minutes later I was back in the thick of things.

I do love the fall weather - let's hope it sticks around for a while longer.

If Only "The Onion" Reported Real News...

I didn't read/follow much of the 9/11 navel-gazing that happened, but I saw that The Onion wrote a piece and thought I'd check it out. It's worth a read (it's really more sad/ironic than funny).

U.S. Commemorates 9/11 By Toasting Stable Afghan Government From Top Of Freedom Tower | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

NEW YORK—In a moving and beautiful ceremony held atop Lower Manhattan's gleaming, 120-story-tall Freedom Tower, the nation commemorated the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by raising a glass to the stable democracy of Afghanistan and to a decade of unprecedented peace and prosperity across the globe.

A sobering/depressing read

Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult:

"If Republicans have perfected a new form of politics that is successful electorally at the same time that it unleashes major policy disasters, it means twilight both for the democratic process and America's status as the world's leading power."

He heaps a lot of blame on the Republicans and (more or less) discounts the Democrats as incompetent. I think I'd disagree with that statement about the Democrats - I think they're basically in cahoots with the Republicans. This isn't Gilligan's Island, the Dems are professional politicians - they know what they're doing, they know who butters their bread - it's the same as who butters the GOP's bread - large corporate interests...

I do have half a mind to take Mary up on her occasional, "we should move to another country..." thought.

Wouldn't that shock people.

Farm to Farm - a ride for me

Mary noticed a bike ride coming up, the Farm to Farm.  It totally has my name written all over it.  A ride through the countryside, with 4 stops along the way at farms with fresh food, ending with a meal made from the ingredients from the farms.  Woo-hoo!

I'm in.  Anyone else?

Studying Obesity

(From the archives, a post started in January 2011 but never finished)

Today I saw two articles. The first was in our Friday paper: "OSU wins $5 million grant for rural childhood obesity research", and the second was a blog post "The American Fast Food Syndrome". Oh, and I heard a story on the radio last night, "Overburdened Food Banks Can't Say No To Junk."

It got me to thinking about obesity again, and wondering how much money will we throw at studying this problem and how much time (lives) will we waste?

The OSU research has a goal of "improv[ing] the fitness level and reduce the body mass index of rural children, ages 5 to 8." That's a great goal, and you do need specific goals in order to win research money. Which are you more likely to give money to, a study with the goal, "make people happier" or one whose goal is "decrease incidence of days of depression in 20-25 year olds"?

We, in the U.S., seem to like to research the hell out of things and not do anything about it. How many diet/lifestyle studies do we need to do?

It's clear that if we feed ourselves too much food, and crummy food at that, we're going to get fat.  The government heavily subsidizes corn/soy/wheat/sugar and that gets turned into cheap junk food.

Biking and a Hike

We found a trail-a-bike (tag-a-long) on Craig's List yesterday and I picked it up today.  We should have gotten one in the beginning of the summer...  oh well.

We hooked it up and Simone and I went riding off into the summer day.  She had a blast, and so did I.  Simone  felt very confident on the bike (after the initial 30 seconds of "I'm tired"), and about half way into our ride she was pedaling enough that I could feel the help.  I'd occasionally stop pedaling (on request) so she could be the one to make us go, and I'd do all the steering.

We went through Avery park, to Noah's house (he wasn't there), and then on to Bohdie's (he was, we chatted for a few minutes), and then we came back through Avery park to see the big train engine there.  All in all, we covered nearly 8 miles, and Simone would have easily gone another 4 (she was asking to go further).

Instead we came home to connect with Mary, who was hanging out at home recovering from her first half-marathon.  Yay Mary!  She did it with Tracy (Bohdie's mother), so the papas and the kids rolled down a little later to catch the mamas as they crossed the finish line.  Tracy finished 49th out of the 1000 - running way fast (about 1h45m).  Simone and I walked them back to their car and made it back to the finish line a few minutes before Mary crossed - so we cheered her on.

Anyway, we came home from the bike ride to tell Mary all about it, and then headed out to Alsea Falls for a little hike and to cool our feed in the water.  We rarely go out there, and I don't know why - it's lovely.  We crossed over the creek and headed down the trail to where it got a little slippery.  But we made it down to the water and hung out in the bottom of the gorge on big rocks, wading in the water, feeling as though we had the entire forest to ourselves.

A wonderful labor day to finish a great weekend.

It Begins

Today was my first meeting at Weight Watchers.  I weighed in at 263.8 pounds (socks, shorts, t-shirt), and I've got my goals set.

The leader (Sandy) is energetic and pretty entertaining (though she reminds me a little bit of my mom...)

Here's to reaching some new goals and staying there.  The medium-term goal is 235 pounds, but first I've gotta lose 5 pounds (you get a gold star! - it's just like kindergarten)...

An Adventure

We woke up this morning and figured we'd try something new, and adventure perhaps. So, after a rousing game of bananagrams,

Mary made one of our favorite breakfasts, sunny-side-up eggs over a bed of wilted spinach. yum! We then piled into the car

and headed off for a little hike just outside of Lincoln City called Drift Creek Falls. We'd never been there before and it sounded neat. The last 10 miles of the drive there were through a narrow, winding road, and it seemed as though we were going into the middle of nowhere. But, when we arrived, there was a huge paved parking area with space for 20 cars, most of which were filled. We parked, hopped out, and headed down the path. The trail is very gentle, mostly following a ridge down to a little creek at the bottom. You walk through a variety of sunny forest with lots of vegetation, and darker forest along a steeper portion of the hill.

After getting to the bottom, we had a snack next to the stream:

Drift Creek from Trey Jackson on Vimeo.

We crossed the stream, walked through some nice old growth forest

and then came to a neat suspension bridge over a surprisingly large gorge (very little water seemed to flow through it)

We then hiked down to the bottom to dip our feet in (Simone came fully prepared with water wings)

The hike back out was almost as nice - a little busier, and uphill of course. Simone did find one little fairy chair to sit in on the way out.

After the nice hike, we drove into Lincoln City and found lunch at a wonderful cafe named Blackfish Cafe. The fish and chips was awesome, Mary's fish tacos were delicious - almost as good as her glass of wine. And the hostess said dinner was even better (reservations recommended). The fog rolled in, and Mary and Simone started to fall asleep, so I pulled into Agate Beach (a childhood favorite of Mary's) and we played in the sand there for an hour. There are sand dunes all over the beach, ranging from 2 feet tall to nearly 6 feet. Much fun for climbing, sliding, jumping and the occasional tackle.

We finished the day with a light dinner at Mo's, some ice cream (and brownie!!!) for dessert and then headed home.

A very good day indeed.

Camping In Her Room

Last night Simone camped in her room, it was very exciting.

 

Vision

I went to the eye doctor about a month ago. It'd been... 6 years? Something like that.

My contacts were beginning to bother me, which, it turns out, is expected because the lifetime of gas permeable lenses is 5 years. Oh, and the fcsking cleaning product tells you to clean it in a way that warps the lenses.

So I go and get some soft contacts. I like the gas permeable, but they shape your eyes a little bit. And that's a problem if you want to get LASIK. So I'm in soft lenses, and my eyes are slowly changing shape - reverting to whatever their "natural" shape is.

It's been 5 weeks and my eyes are settling down pretty well. With my next set I should have 20/10 vision.

For Fox Sake

I've been debating with a guy about a variety of things, he's arguing from the standard GOP talking points.

I've come to the conclusion (broad generalization coming) people like him live in a constant state of fear: fear of Marxists/communists trying to subvert the government, and fear of the global Muslim jihad. It's not a grip of fear that controls every aspect of life, but a constant fear nonetheless.

Another theme also seems to be that the liberal media is just not giving their viewpoint the time it deserves. If the rest of us (non-Republicans) just knew what they (Republicans) know...

While I don't think Comedy Central is necessarily the place to look for objective reporting. I do think this recent Daily Show segment sums up how I felt during the debate very nicely:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Oh, for Fox Sake
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Plus, there's the classic Stephen Colbert quote, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."

Climbing Through The Eyes Of A Five Year Old

Simone drew some pictures of Sam and I climbing Mt. Hood. I think they're great.

The first is just the two of us on the mountain.



But, as the second drawing shows, as Sam and I reached the summit, a blizzard began.

The Horror

We babysat a monster this weekend, reminiscent of Jack Torrence in The Shining.

Words can not describe the horror, I'll let the photo speak for itself.



Note: she got along swell with both Jupiter and Hazel - actually chasing Hazel around.

Arguing...

So, I've been debating/arguing with a guy on facebook. He's someone I knew at Intel, and also works at Mentor too.

He initially commented on my status about Osama Bin Laden:

Note: Obama said "justice has been done" - and that pretty much sums it up. U.S.A. where we either hold you indefinitely without charge, ore we kill you without trial. You're either with us, or you're against us. And you'd better hope you fall on the right side of that line b/c there's no recourse if you don't.

And we began a discussion. It turns out he's more of a GOP/Tea Party/Fox News kind of guy, and I'm obviously not.

I've been hoping to learn something about the way folks with his view point think. I figured, he's a highly paid engineer, he must have somewhat an analytical mind, maybe he can shed some light on the views I clearly don't understand.

Clearly I was wrong. It's almost as though we were speaking two different languages. I'm certain he's making absolutely no credible arguments, and he's probably thinking the same of me. At one point I mentioned that he was throwing around wild accusations without any proof, kind of like Glenn Beck. And this guy said that he loves Glenn Beck.

I've found some value in the discussion - I've certainly looked into some of the things I believe in a little closer, and found them to hold up pretty well. I've also read most of the links he's sent my way, and I feel comfortable saying that (for the most part), they are a series of diatribes about people with barely any connection to reality.

One of the threads is about George Soros - it started with a post of his pointing to an article showing how Soros has given a bunch of money to journalist schools and organizations. I had heard the name Soros a couple times but didn't know anything about him. I posted that the Koch brothers spend lots of money and asked what the difference was. Turns out, Soros is evidently a Marxist (whatever he wants that to mean), along with Obama, and he's undermining the country. It took an untold number of posts for him to actually point out something that Soros has done that could be interpreted as undermining the country. And, of course, the two things that were "undermining" seemed either very loosely connected (friend of a friend kind of relationship), or weren't very malevolent.

Long story short, my foray into arguing with someone from the right hasn't given me much of a basis to understand their side. So far, it just seems to be a bunch of fear mongering, vague accusations w/little to no evidence, conspiracy theories and name calling.

Oooh, some more responses. Back to the battle.

Hood

I climbed Mt. Hood with Sam Wednesday night.

We'd wanted to climb last year, but the weather never cooperated. This year things looked better, and the weather opened up nicely this week. We'd planned on climbing Thursday night, but things looked good a day early, so we pulled the trigger and went up early.

You can read Sam's riveting account, and check out the pictures he took.

We took a nap at his place, but both woke up after less than an hour, which was a little disappointing. I packed up a bunch of things I borrowed from Sam, the gear hound, and we headed up the mountain shortly after two guys Sam knows showed up.

It was raining a tiny bit as we drove up the mountain, and rain just turned to fog as we turned off to Timberline and continued driving up.

I put my old school leather boots on while Sam put on his fancy boots with integrated gaitors, and we began the trek.

We started in the clouds, quickly stripping off layers because it was pretty warm. After about an hour of hiking up we started to come out of the clouds. The moon was half full and kicked off enough light that I didn't use my headlamp until it set, an hour later. The clouds were a dark gray, and looked like the fake clouds you saw in the movie Airplane - but they were very real. There were even a few shooting stars.

We got to the top of the Palmer lift after about two hours where we took our first big break to eat and drink. The pace was good, the snow was even better.

Sam had been feeling a little ill before we left his house, some stomach cramps, but he was climbing stronger than the rest of us. I was feeling a little winded but fairly good - all my hill climbs were paying off.

Sam pointed out Illumination rock to the west, which you could barely see silhouetted against the horizon. I then looked to the east and saw a an even larger face of rock and snow (don't know its name) looming over us.

The snow got steeper and the going got a little tougher. We found some steps people had already kicked in, but they disappeared as we passed some tents where folks were camped out. At that point we had to make our own steps, and it was steep enough that it was difficult walk with your heel on the ground. Sam kept the pace up, but I caught up when he slowed down on the ascent of the Hogs Back. The snow got a bit soft and it took us a little longer than we expected, and we were happy to reach the saddle for our second rest, some food, water, extra clothes, and crampons.

Sam roped us up and headed up the saddle, and I waited for the slack to get out and then followed him up. Other people were starting to climbing up the Hogs Back.

This last push was definitely the most strenuous. I took several rests on the way up - the calves were pretty tired from standing on my toes for an hour. Sam kept making sure I was doing OK, but kept lying about how close we were to the top.

One couple caught up to me but decided to go up a different chute than what Sam had chosen. We saw them about 40 minutes later to find out the chute was a dead end and they had to back track. This was important because...

Sam and I reached the summit first. boo-yah!

We were up there before everyone else and in time to watch the sun rise.

Sam broke out the cocoa (made from half and half, wow that was good) and we relaxed for a short bit. I don't know that I appreciated it enough, but it was pretty amazing to have reached the tallest point in Oregon. And to think, 25 years earlier, dad and I did the same thing.

We started climbing down as bunches of people started up. Sam and I talked and I decided to go down un-roped. I felt pretty solid going down the steepest part - the foot holes had been enlarged by all the other people coming up and I just took my time. The worst part was that my toes started getting cold and my hand got cold holding onto the ice ax head I put into the snow.

We made it to the hogs back, snacked, and headed further down. After we got to a not-so-scary-steep part of the mountain, we slid the next 3 miles down the mountain, only having to walk the last 1/2 mile or so, making a quick exit.

I put up some of my photos here.

NBA Finals and Mary

The first game of the NBA finals were tonight, I told Mary that the Heat won. She remembered that there was talk about a group of guys going to the team. Then I told her the other team was the Mavericks, and her response:

"With that short guy .... Spud?"

June 1, 2011: Edited to say the Heat won.

Memorial Day

We did a bunch of yard work over the weekend, and the weather cooperated beautifully.

But it wasn't all work, Simone got to hold a new bunny (who fell asleep in her lap):

Simone's Birthday

It was a very busy day.

We started off with some Swedish pancakes filled with blueberry compote, and candles of course.


Then it was time to dress in white for preschool.


At preschool we had a little puppet play showing how Simone came to be with us, we said some of the things we remembered about Simone each of her first five years. As a part of the celebration, Simone got to wear the birthday crown and the birthday fairy wings.


The grandparents all came for the show as well.


Then it was back to the house for a yummy lunch and presents.

Mary made a doll (named Lilla by Simone) which has become a new bedtime partner.


Here's a closeup of Lila, and she has the felted doll of Simone that Christine Waters made for Simone.


At bedtime, Simone snuggled up with Lilla and Daisy, and we read stories and began learning a new nighttime saying.


All in all, a fantastic day.

Tent

I made Simone a tent for her birthday, here's the one photo I took of it:



All in all, it looks pretty good. Mary gave me the link that showed me how to do it.

Time To Mow

It's been a while...

Last Day @ 4

Simone turns 5 tomorrow (5am if I recall).

One thing we've done for most of her 5th year (yah, her 5th year) was running hugs.

She'll tell me to stand in just the right spot. I crouch down with my arms open wide. I have to have my mouth open, in a big gape. If I don't, she reminds me.

She goes to the other side of the room, puts her arms out wide, opens her mouth open wide, and runs full speed at me, slowing to swerve around any objects in the way.

At full-tilt, she collides with me and we both fall down giggling.

It looks like a slow-motion fight scene where the two guys are screaming at each other. Only it's Simone and me and it's nothing but love.

I hope they continue when she's 5.

Lemonade

"Lemonade is one of the colors of the sunset!"

We squeezed two oranges into a can of frozen lemonade, mixed it up, and drank our fill using straws.

Bedtime and Books

I just went into Simone's room b/c she was calling out for a little attention - it'd been an hour since I finished reading/singing and saying goodnight.

Her room is pretty dark, the sun has been down for a little while, but she has around 8 books on her bed. I start picking them up, telling her, "I'll put them right here beside your bed."

"But I want to read them in the morning."

"Yeah, they'll be right next to your bed in the morning."

I then look at her and notice she still has her eye mask on. So I ask, "How can you read with your eye mask on?"

Giggling, she responds, "I don't know. "

Silly girl.

Gee... thanks Senate

If you read the headlines, "Senators Grill Phone Execs On Mobile Privacy", you might think they care about the privacy of the citizens.

Yet my first thought is, where were the investigations into AT&T's illegal behavior of handing over personal data to the NSA? (phone calls, emails, web browsing, etc.) Oh, right, all the companies involved in tapping our phones were granted immunity.

Way to look out for the citizenry.

OBL is dead...

So we killed Osama Bin Laden over two weeks ago, and I thought I'd write down some thoughts. I recall exactly my position about invading Iraq (against), but don't remember where I stood with Afghanistan (would like to think I was against, but that could just be wishful thinking).

I saw the news that OBL was dead when I came out of Simone's bedroom. The images were on the TV and the closed caption said he'd been killed. My first feeling was a little stronger than "meh", but not a lot - it was probably a combination of "meh" and relief.

I did see that President Obama said that "justice has been done". That struck me as odd. I would have expected that "justice" would have meant bringing him back to the U.S. and trying him for crimes, or heck, trying him for crimes in any of a dozen countries where he was wanted on terrorism. Instead, our form of justice was to just out-and-out kill him, old west style.

I'm not sorry he's dead, I'll certainly lose no sleep over it. My problem with what Obama said was that it continues the "us versus them" and the "you're with us or you're against us" mentality that the U.S. has in its foreign policy.

Since 9/11/2001 we have invaded 2 Muslim countries and bombed another 3 (Pakistan, Libya, Yemen), and that just seems wrong.

We continue to pursue an aggressive military "solution" to the "war on terror" when both DARPA and the former head of the CIA's task force to find Osama Bin Laden (Michael Scheuer) agree that:

1. "The threat to the U.S. arises from Muslims plausible perception that the things they most love andvalue - God, Islam, their brethren, and Muslim lands - are beign attacked by America." (Michael Scheuer)

2. "policing and intelligence, rather than military force, should form the backbone of U.S. efforts against al Qa'ida. And U.S. policymakers should end the use of the phrase 'war on terrorism' since there is no battlefield solution to defeating al Qa'ida." How Terrorist Groups End

So, the Department of Defence and the CIA both recognize that our current approach is the wrong one, yet we continue ahead full-steam.

I'm frustrated at the Obama administration for not closing Gitmo (where only 40 of the original 700+ people have enough evidence against them to even go to court), I'm frustrated at our abandonment of the Nuremberg Principles (starting with W), Obama doing a 180 on signing statements/declaring war, militarizing the CIA, attacking government whistle blowers more fervently than W, and attempting to assassinate a U.S. citizen! I'm frustrated.

The latest "battles" between Democrats and Republicans have all gone to the Republicans. Take the latest budget battle, which had Republicans starting with "$35 Billion" in cuts, Dems with "$10 Billion" in cuts, and the final budget being $38 Billion. eh? Ok, that's off topic. OBL...

But it's related, because what used to be GOP talking points have been completely adopted by the Democrats.

Gah!!!!!

And the "liberal media" just continues to repeat, without any hesitation, the talking points of the GOP and the government. I mean, we send in Seal Team 6 to get Osama, they kill him. Why did the White House have to lie? They changed their story 4 times in 4 days, OBL was using his wife as a human shield, there was a firefight, he was fighting back, he drew his weapon. Lies, all of them. Very few in the U.S. would raise much of a stink if we killed him in "cold blood", yet the government put forward this story of how he resisted. The Seals would have taken Osama alive had that been their task, they're the best in the world - and especially if OBL wasn't armed, it would have been a piece of cake. Now the government is leaking photos of OBL watching himself on TV, of his stash of porn. And the media is continuing to just regurgitate it. I don't know if it was true. I don't much care.

One post I read basically points out the the U.S. isn't ready to face the truth. With the lies and the retractions, we, as a people, can console ourselves over questioning what the facts are and completely avoid what the facts show about us as a country. I think they show that our government is continuing to pursue an aggressive, military occupation of most of the world, we care naught for human rights if they're not in our "best interests", the government represents and defends corporate interests over personal interests, and our population (for the most part) is happy to sit back, watch Glee, and remain ignorant about what our government does.

One piece, Obama's "bad negotiating" is actually shrewd negotiating, did shine a light on Obama's positions that changed my perception of his stance. The main point is that Obama hasn't "failed" at pushing the "liberal" agenda, he's been very calculated and chosen to side with GOP ideals because it's all about getting re-elected. It's worth a read.

Sheepy and Books

This morning I called home from work to see how Mary and Simone were doing. Mary reported that the morning, while a bit early, was a lovely one, and that Simone was in the process of making Sheepy a superhero costume.

I'll have to dig up the pictures of her costumes for animals she's done in the past. Needless to say, Sheepy gets a number of them. Sheepy is a soft, finger puppet with the standard two legs and a head. The previous costume was a hat and a coat - made of paper. Tonight I checked out the costume and can see that Sheepy's cape is bright red with a grey collar, and Sheepy has sleeves (gauntlets?) that are grey. Very fun.

And tonight I read stories with Simone at bedtime. We read three books in the big bed, then transitioned to her bedroom for the standard nighttime ritual. Unfortunately, we're in a little bit of a rut, and are having trouble falling asleep - due to the late daylight hours and never quite getting back on track from daylight savings. I'd been out of the room for a few minutes when Simone started loudly complaining that she was having trouble going to sleep. I went in and we talked for a minute - I suggested she tell a story to Clifford and Daisy (the cat), or sing songs to them. I leave and check back on her about 15 minutes later to find her sitting cross-legged on her bed, with Clifford and Daisy sitting next to her. She was reading them stories.

TV Critic at Large

So... I was working out at the gym the other day. I wasn't very inspired, so I avoided my weight lifting and decided to alternate jogging and walking, work up a good sweat.

There are three TVs at the gym, two were set to their customary shows at 8am, SportsCenter and Charmed. My brother-in-law turned me onto Charmed years ago and I watch it at the gym. The third channel was showing something called GMA, which took me 5 minutes to figure out it was "Good Morning America."

First things first, I like Charmed. Magic, demons, beautiful people, fairy tales, etc. - it's my kind of escapism. My gripe about the show is that everyone has such incredibly slow reflexes. It's not hard to figure out that when someone evil looking apparates in front of you, chances are they're gonna try to kill you with some magic, or steal something, or mess up your day. This happens every show, several times a show. The Charmed 3 just don't seem to get it, they stand, dumb-founded, and then get whooped, then later in the show they do the same to the bad people (winning in the end). Tightening up the action just a little bit would really help.

SportsCenter - the Dallas Mavericks happened to sweep the LA Lakers the night before, and the first 4 "stories" on SC were all about that - from the point of view of LA. "LA Swept" "What Will Happen To Phil Knight" etc. All the stories were about the losers, the Lakers. It was pathetic, the bias was disgusting. Fine, do a story on Phil Knight leaving, that makes sense, but give the Mavericks their due and show them *winning*, not LA losing.

Lastly, GMA. I have no idea why people watch this show. My comment on it is that they had a 10-15 minute segment on how good or bad frozen food tasted, having different groups of people doing a "blind" taste test of each. Some were regular Jills and some were foodies. The frozen food lines were things like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig. It was a blatant commercial for these foods, and if GMA had any desire to help educate people about how they might lose weight, perhaps they should show how to cook real food. It was disgusting.

Mother's Day Hike

We took a hike on Mother's Day. Simone wanted to take Clifford, so he came along.


We stopped for a snack at the rock quarry.


We took the road all the way out, and the path back. Last photo on the road, it was still sunny.


Patiently posing for a photo on the bridge...

The moss on the tree is sooooo soft, time for a snack and a nap after the rain and hail storm that lasted 3 minutes.

White Car Is White, the photo

The roof was nearly red from rust. I'll get to the sides/front/back later this year.

White Car Is White

Yah, the Mazda got a paint job.

I sanded and sanded and sanded and sanded the roof of the car to get rid of the rust. Then I taped up the windows with some help from Simone. And then came the cans of spray paint - two coats of primer and three coats of white with a few minutes between each coat.

Now it's white. ish

Simone was very proud of how the car was going to look. She said that everyone at work would be surprised how shiny it was, which is true.