June 2004 – Page 2

Simon, P.

After catching Tightwad Tuesday at the Hedge House, Michelle and I spent some time relaxing in the yard, then turned on the tube. VH1 had a show with Journey’s Randy Jackson encouraging discussion from John Maher and Paul Simon. Not being a John Maher fan, I was skeptical, but Paul is one of hte greatest songwriters ever, so we watched.

I was impressed by John for the first time, but I was pulled back to the summer of 1999 when Michelle insisted that I go with her to see Paul Simon in concert. It was a perfect day with a perfect sunset in the 4th row. Paul hadn’t toured in a while, and standing atop the Gorge with ravens flying overhead and a natural amphitheater of happy people, he was elated. The show was amazing. Paul infected people with his elation. Its too bad that Bob Dylan had to kill it. Sure Bob’s great, but that was a while ago. His live show suffered, so we left a bit early.

3-2-1 Contact

My sister used to get the magazine 3-2-1 Contact growing up. I often read it on the can. One day I read that hair can grow up to 80 MPH in spurts. A few days later, my friend Andrew brought up this otherwise obscure fact on the playground, probably while not getting picked for a basketball team (you see, he often took the ball and ran off). I was surprised that we read the same magazine, but it turned out to be true of many things. We read a lot on the can.

Anyway, this fact came up again when Michelle was pointing out how much my scruff had grown, and was amazed how quickly hair grows. I recalled the fact, which she called into question. I pointed out that someone else knew this to be true. So he’d better leave a comment.

Shout out for my wife

Michelle typed this in while I was taking a sip of beer: “3 shout outs to ny wife”. I think she meant “my” wife, but its difficult to type from across the couch, so I figured I’d clarify then post.

How to disenfranchise voters

How do you mootify (v. – To render moot) democracy? Take a maniacal president whose power is already in question, put him in the running against a luke-warm bowl of soup, and then provide the voting public with example after example after example of totally ineffective voting machines. What are you doing in November?

P. S. – there are plenty of examples!

Downtime

After donating blood, I went in to work a little early to get some stuff done. We’re right in the middle of finals and doing an upgrade to our online course software. When I walked through the door, I was informed that the server was down. Another hardware failure. So I quickly returned a few calls to understandably flustered instructors then went and got coffee. Today was supposed to be a very busy day. Everything I was planning on doing today had to do with our server, and having it down means I’m at a loss for what to do. So I’m doing this and enjoying my coffee. I really hope we didn’t loose any data. This is the third hardware failure in a year.

5 favorite shoes

5 favorite footwear

No.	Shoe	Reason
1	Teva Universal Guide	Five ten Rubber, fastek clips, teva skink, green roof stain. Miles of backpacking, bouldering, misc in these. I broke these the same day I may have broke my ankle. Teva quit using Five Ten in favor of their own Spider Rubber, which I think is inferior. They also quit making cool shoes about the same time, so I’ve been unable to replace these. These are my favorite shoes by a factor of 10. Teva – please make more. Utility rocks.
2	Adidas Adventure Low	Looked cool and were comfortable. Rounded toe with full rubber nose, torsion bar that got ripped to shreds. I wrecked my bike a couple times because these were wider than the toe clip straps.
3	Asolo Tele-Pro	These boots sucked, but I loved them. I had to rebolt the toe back on after riding for a day, and they leaked. Asolo replaced them with the inferior TeleBreeze. Asolo no longer makes Telemark boots.
4	Chuck Taylors	New school year, new pair.There’s a reason that artists work on canvas.These were usually too narrow for my feet, but style seemed more important.
5	Teva Thongs	Thong, Thong Thong Thong Thong.

Reagan, Dolly

Michelle is having me watch Crossroads (a CMT show) with her. It’s Dolly Parton and Melissa Ethridge. Its really good, and it brings back memories from elementary school. You know, the joking on the playground about finding part of a voit rubber ball and joking about it being part of a her boob.

Anyway, this was the first time I actually listened to the words of 9 to 5, and I was reminded that life is pretty much the same. Here we are in 2004, still working 9 to 5 lining someone’s wallet. It was odd timing considering the events of the weekend included the passing of former president Ronald Reagan.

I really don’t have very many memories of President Reagan. I remember the Challenger speech, which still brings me to tears, but that’s about it. Most of what I know about the man’s presidency I learned after the fact from music and anecdotal books. So it strikes me as far too ironic that I’m listening to Dolly and wondering what we learned. The amazing thing is we’re still at it.

100 Hikes in Oregon

Thursday Michelle, Jason, Scott and I went down to Patagonia to see Douglas Lorain’s slide show and discussion about 100 great hikes in Oregon. The show was timed with the release of his new book, 100 Classic Hikes in Oregon, and was quite an impressive collection of both stories and images. One of the most appealing aspects of the show was that he includes a best time to visit, which is often missing from many books. In Summary – Don’t go anywhere in July because of flies and mosquitos.

One of the most inspiring parts of the show were the images of places in Oregon that I didn’t know even existed. I know Oregon to have plenty of beautiful locations, but I didn’t know it had some of the great granite wonderlands like the Alpine Lakes Wilderness of Washington. Now, all I need is some time and gas money to visit these places.

Finding parking in The Pearl was a challenge. There was a block party up near Rogue, a massive party and concert at a Jamison Square, live window galleries, a farmers market, and throngs of fit, hip, and attractive people. As a new urbanist, I should have been ecstatic at this proof of life, but at the time I just wanted to park and get to the slide show. It took half an hour to find a spot, and another 15 minutes off my life from the seething anger and stress that parking creates in me. Chill dude, Go by Street Car.

Kerryopoly – the point is?

The RNC has commissioned a game called Kerryopoly that supposedly mocks the jet-set lifestyle of Presidential Candidate John Kerry.

Am I missing something? Are they making fun of his wealth? Are they ignoring the hands that pull their strings? I guess they could be mocking the diversification of his wealth, which Bush has done an abysmal job at. I guess W. doesn’t need to diversify if he can use the entire will of the country to fill his pockets.

I’ve made my own copy for W.

Concerned that about the source of some of these numbers? I found them all using Google. To the best of my knowledge, they are accurate, but if the RNC isn’t concerned about the truth, neither am I

Food, in tube form

I’ve just ended a 4 day streak of eating food in tube form. That included bratwurst, Tofurky Brats, pretzel sticks, tater tots and zucchini. What broke the streak? A burrito. Oh… wait….

I’m nearing the end of Day 4 of Tube Food Week.