A Walternative Universe

Check out my Wordpress blog

2010-09-11T12:45:00.000-07:00

I'm coming out of blog-retirement for a while to write about my upcoming knee replacement surgery, so check out new posts at http://whereintheworldiswalter.wordpress.com/

I'm trying something new

2010-09-02T08:46:00.000-07:00

I've been playing around with WordPress as a blog host/template to see if it's any less annoying than Blogspot. If you want to see how it's going, check this out:
http://whereintheworldiswalter.wordpress.com/

The End of the Line

2010-07-26T08:11:00.000-07:00

Well, my faithful readers, after 18,826 page views of 450 posts over almost 3-1/2 years, I'm going to retire from blogging for a while at least. StatCounter tells me my readership is down over the last few months, and I admit that posting for me is becoming more of a pain than pleasure. It's likely those two facts are related.

Anyway, it's been fun while it lasted. Check back once in a while. You never know when I may just have to post a political rant or distribute some pictures from some exotic (or mundane) location.

'Bye for now....

Captive

2010-07-14T20:09:00.000-07:00

No, I haven't been taken hostage.

Yesterday I listened to Jere Van Dyk being interviewed on the local NPR morning show. He is a journalist who had been in and out of Afghanistan since the '70's and who went back in 2008 to the "tribal" areas on the Afghani-Pakistani border to find and interview various Al Qaida and Taliban types. To hear it said that way, I make him sound like one of these swashbuckling, adrenaline-loving writers who put their lives on the line just to prove their manhood. And maybe he was at one point, but I enjoyed the interview so much that I called Megan up and asked her to go with me to hear him speak at Townhall that night.

He's on a book tour promoting his book Captive, about how his best-laid plains in Afghanistan went badly awry. He ended up being held in chains by the Taliban for forty-five days. In person, he does look like the swashbuckling, adrenaline-loving kind of guy. He's 60ish, very fit, and with near-Hollywood good looks. But in his talk he came across like he did on the radio: a very soft- but well-spoken and intelligent storyteller with a great deal of humility. I think he may have gone there as a swashbuckler, but he had the crap scared out of him, and came back a different man.

His talk was so engrossing that I bought his book (a dead-tree edition, not for my Kindle). I've just started the book, but so far it's a pretty good read. I'll report back when I'm done.

Birthdays and World Cup Soccer

2010-07-12T07:58:00.000-07:00

As much as I wanted to watch the World Cup final yesterday, Megan had a better idea even though I had no idea what it was. I trusted her, and it turned out my trust was not misplaced. She can be a truly devious woman, and she managed to keep her true intent a secret until we were there. Where was there? It was Sunday brunch at the restaurant at the end of two chairlift rides to the peak at the Crystal Mountain ski area.

The weather and views were truly spectacular! For all you flatlanders out there who might not recognize it, that's Mount Rainier in the background.

Here's Megan, looking rightfully pleased with herself for her deception!

Not only were the views spectacular, the food was great! A good spread of fresh fruit, the usual bacon and eggs and hashbrowns, and a lovely roast of lamb with a horseradish a cream cheese condiment. I'll have to try and re-create it the next time I prepare lamb.

But what about the World Cup? Megan was able to keep me updated with an app she downloaded on her very smart Droid phone. I was cheering for The Netherlands, but it was hard to be too despondent on a wonderful day in the mountains. Thanks Megan!!

Report from the CITW

2010-07-10T07:03:00.000-07:00

Here it is. The first post from the CITW. The fiber optics cable that resides inside the conduit I so lovingly installed is now officially lit, and I am now connected with the outside world.

I installed the orange stuff coming out of the ground. The PUD installed the rest.

The internet company hooked up a wireless modem and turned the internet on.

And I even have a phone attached to a plug in the wall! How '80's is that? The phone is not absolutely necessary, but cell coverage out here in the wilderness can be pretty spotty at times. And there is something to be said for a phone that is associated with a place, not a person.

While all this was going on, I wasn't sitting by idly watching. I built this 22 bottle wine rack.! Now all I have to do is fill it up. Those two bottles there look pretty lonely.

World Cup Soccer

2010-07-07T09:50:00.000-07:00

I'm not much of a sports fan. I think American football is ridiculous; baseball is boring; basketball is a game for mutants; and hockey is only moderately interesting (in my Canadian genes or something). I do watch golf once in a while, especially the major tournaments, but I can certainly understand the feeling that it's like watching paint dry.

But not so with World cup Soccer. The game at this level is fascinating and spellbinding and has me hooked. I've watched several games, and for the most part I've watched them alone, so it's not like it's a social thing. I've jumped up and down and yelled at the TV to point that Farley retreats to his cage when I'm watching a game.

The Ghana v. Uruguay quarter-final game was heartbreaking. Ghana, the underdog and the only African team left at that point, scored first and were taking it to the Uruguayans. Then Uruguay scored and it was tied. The game went into 30 minutes of extra time, and on the last play of the last second of extra time, the Ghanaians kicked what should have been a sure goal. The goalkeeper was way out of position, and the ball was only stopped at the goal line by another player using his hands. The result - a direct penalty kick, is a goal about 80% of the time. The Ghanaian missed his chance, time was up, and the game went to the penalty kick shootout. The Ghana team lost the shootout 4-2. This had to be one of the best games ever in the history of sport.

Other games I watched and enjoyed included Ghana v USA, 2-1; Brazil v Chile, 3-0; Germany v Argentina, 4-0; and The Netherlands v Uruguay, 3-2. In a couple of hours I will be watching Germany against Spain; on Sunday I will be watching the final; and in 2014 I think I'll go to Brazil for the next World Cup.

In the meantime, does anyone out there want to come over to Fremont for a World Cup final party?

For those of you with Iphones or want to get one

2010-07-01T13:03:00.001-07:00

Watch this all the way through. It's pretty funny....

Gulf Oil Spill

2010-07-01T09:12:00.000-07:00

If you want to get pissed off or depressed or both, check out these apocalyptic images from the Gulf.

American Exceptionalism

2010-06-30T08:29:00.000-07:00

I had read reports about how the US had refused help from foreign countries in containing and cleaning up the mess in the Gulf, but I had dismissed them as the usual anti-Obama blather from the usual right-wing-whacko sources. Then I came across this article from the Financial Post, a respectable Canadian publication. Here's an excerpt:

Some are attuned to the possibility of looming catastrophe and know how to head it off. Others are unprepared for risk and even unable to get their priorities straight when risk turns to reality.The Dutch fall into the first group. Three days after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, the Netherlands offered the U.S. government ships equipped to handle a major spill, one much larger than the BP spill that then appeared to be underway. "Our system can handle 400 cubic metres per hour," Weird Koops, the chairman of Spill Response Group Holland, told Radio Netherlands Worldwide, giving each Dutch ship more cleanup capacity than all the ships that the U.S. was then employing in the Gulf to combat the spill.To protect against the possibility that its equipment wouldn't capture all the oil gushing from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch also offered to prepare for the U.S. a contingency plan to protect Louisiana's marshlands with sand barriers. One Dutch research institute specializing in deltas, coastal areas and rivers, in fact, developed a strategy to begin building 60-mile-long sand dikes within three weeks.

But wait, there's more:

The Americans, overwhelmed by the catastrophic consequences of the BP spill, finally relented and took the Dutch up on their offer -- but only partly. Because the U.S. didn't want Dutch ships working the Gulf, the U.S. airlifted the Dutch equipment to the Gulf and then retrofitted it to U.S. vessels. And rather than have experienced Dutch crews immediately operate the oil-skimming equipment, to appease labour unions the U.S. postponed the clean-up operation to allow U.S. crews to be trained.

If this is all true, the US government is truly exceptional - , EXCEPTIONALLY ARROGANT, EXCEPTIONALLY INCOMPETENT, AND EXCEPTIONALLY STUPID!

Check Engine Light

2010-06-30T07:47:00.000-07:00

I think that Audi (and probably most car makers) should replace the check engine icon with a check wallet icon. My check engine light came on a couple of days ago, and today I'll pick the car up with the light off, but my wallet lighter by $1500!

I guess I shouldn't bitch too much. The Audi can be expensive to maintain, but it's been a great car and has over 100,000 mostly trouble-free miles on it.

A Few Firsts

2010-06-28T17:32:00.000-07:00

This weekend saw a few firsts in my world. I finished The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. It was the first fiction book I'd read in a while, and I quite enjoyed it. I tend to read mostly non-fiction, and I quite enjoy the genre, but I should mix in the occasional page-turner more often. TGWTDT is a gripping whodunit like the board game Clue where there are a limited number of suspects because the crime happened on a small island that was totally closed off completely at the time of the crime. It's smart and sexy and a bit gruesome in spots. All in all it's a good read. I might even pick up the second one in the series.

I took Megan the Elder up to Edmonton with me. It was her first time in that fair city, and the first time she'd spent any significant time with my Mom and sister Marian, and it was the first time she'd met Peter, Tom, Devin, Sarah and Alvin. It was a typical family weekend with lots of food and drink. A good time was had by all, and by all reports, everyone passed inspection.

Here's Tom at the grill. I'm sure it wasn't his first time at the grill, but it was the first time he'd cooked for me.

Here's a shot of Mom and Megan on the deck at Tom and Dev's place.

But wait! There's more! When we got back to Seattle, we took our first ride on Seattle's light rail system. It worked pretty well taking us to downtown Seattle quickly and comfortably, and all for only $2.50! I think this will become my usual way to get to and from the airport. Bus connections are good from Fremont to downtown, and from there it's a quick, CHEAP, and hassle-free way to get there.

I laughed out loud

2010-06-24T17:41:00.000-07:00

I got an email from daughter Megan who, as some of you know is working this summer in the wilds of Alaska. She shared some of her experiences up there, and mentioned the possibilities for a love-life up there. (Men outnumber women by a zillion to one.) She quoted a line about a woman's chances there saying,

"The odds are good, but the goods are odd!"

More Big-Boy Toys

2010-06-24T15:05:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a few days "working" up at the CITHW. There is always lots to do up there and my project list is endless. Fortunately most of the projects have a big fun component to them. This week's project was to move a bunch of dirt to improve the drainage in my yard. Here's a "before" shot looking at what is a small lake after the snow melts or a big rain.

Here's the fun component, another big-boy toy. Here it's doing double duty holding the tape so I can measure the grade with a theodolite. And no, a theodolite is not a person from Theoddle. It's that telescopy-looking thing in the foreground.

The tractor has a loader on the front and a scraper on the back. It was pretty well suited to moving fairly large amounts of dirt around a relatively small area. And it came with all the modern conveniences....

When I was finished with the grading, I got a couple of loads of gravel delivered and spread them around for the finished product you see here.

In spite of the use of powerful big-boy toys, there was still a fair bit of manual labor doing the finish raking. To add to my exercise, I cut up the tree that fell onto my porch a couple of months ago. I fired up my new Husqvarna, lopped the log into fireplace size pieces and then split them with my new muscle-powered maul.

Who needs a health club membership when you have a CITW?

Gulf Oil Spill

2010-06-17T11:33:00.000-07:00

I won't bother redoing my calculations of the spill in terms of Olympic-size swimming pools or tanker trucks. It's too depressing and ugly out there, and it looks like it's only going to get a lot worse. This is a good article on what is probably going on down there. It's written by an industry insider and even though it has a fair bit of jargon in it, it's pretty much understandable to a layman like me. Essentially what he's saying is that the well is compromised "downhole" and that explains why all the efforts to cap the well on the sea floor haven't and will not work. The only hope are the relief wells being drilled, but in the meantime, the oil will continue to gush unabated.

And if, like me, you've wondered about the mechanics of drilling a well offshore, here's a great article written in easy to understand language.

Read them and weep.

Sarah Palin is truly an idiot

2010-06-17T10:22:00.000-07:00

She can't even survive a friendly interview with Bill O'Reilly. And even Bill O'Reilly can't hide his exasperation with her inane idiocy. She can't put a coherent sentence together, and when she comes close, she lies. She complains that Obama hasn't accepted help from nations that have expertise in oil recovery and containment and won't even return their phone calls. According to this article in the Washington Post, Obama has accepted expertise and equipment from Canada, The Netherlands, Mexico and Norway.

Oh well, none of this will penetrate the fact-free zone of the Tea Partiers and Republicans.

And to think she was a contender to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency, and to think she's a serious contender for 2012.

I'm off to the CITW

2010-06-14T09:38:00.000-07:00

Now that I got the Abby Sunderland semi-rant off my chest, I'm headed out to the CITW to do some chores. Except that they won't really be chores. I bought a bunch of stuff to continue rigging the Hobie cats, and I want to rearrange some of my toys in the shop so I can get them all inside. (Right now, cat #2 is outside) I also want to make like a lumberjack with my new chainsaw and cut up some dead fall. I do need to replenish the wood supply for next winter, and with some luck the wood will be suitable for firewood. With all those trees around, it would be a shame to actually buy firewood.

I had a good weekend on the water. I took WaveGuide to Bremerton on Saturday morning and raced on Great White with Dan and crew. You can read Dan's take on the race by clicking on the Dan's blog link on my blog. Dan's a great example of a really good sailor. He knows his boat inside out, he's great technically, he's patient (both with the wind and water conditions and semi-experienced crew like me), and he's got more local knowledge of the winds and waters in the area than anyone. We waxed the competition!

Dan warned me about the currents in the Bremerton Marina, but I pooh-poohed his concerns thinking that with my 700 HP, twin screws and bow thruster, I could get out of anything. As it turned out, my boat was moored east-west on "P" dock, and by the time I left, the currents were running pretty strong to the north, pinning me against the dock. My bow thruster did not have the power to get my bow pointed away from the dock, and I had one hell of a time getting out of there. So much for all my years and thousands of hours on WaveGuide! It wasn't pretty, but I made it out without doing any damage or hitting anything. Whew!

Abby Sunderland's Somewhat Creepy Adventure

2010-06-14T08:49:00.000-07:00

The idea of a 16-year-old girl (or boy) sailing around the world alone bothers me on a whole lot of levels. Living your dream is one thing, but whose dream is Abby living? Is this a replay of the Balloon Boy syndrome where publicity-hungry parents try to get a meal ticket from their kid's adventures? Are the parents living vicariously through their kids? Is Abby risking her life to live up to her parents' hopes and expectations? Who pays for all this? Who pays when it all goes wrong?

I tried to embed this video made by the LA Times before she left, but some reason it wouldn't take. You can watch it here.

On one hand, in an age when so many parents are so paranoid and fearful that they won't let their kids play outside alone, it's refreshing to see parents let their kid play alone in the world's oceans for six months. On the other hand, isn't there a happy medium between smothering your kids and sending one of them off alone on a sailboat around the world?

I've done quite a bit of sailing over the last few years, including an open water multi-day adventure sailing from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas, skippering bareboat charters in Croatia and Greece, and lots of racing in the Puget Sound. Every time I go out, I learn something new, I do something stupid, and I realize how little I know about sailing. Even after ten years and thousands of hours on the water on power boats and sailboats, I only know enough to be dangerous. It sounds like Abby was born sailing, and that's a different learning dynamic than a prairie boy like me taking to the water late in life, but it's difficult if not impossible to imagine someone sixteen years old having the skills and maturity to take on a task like a solo round the world voyage.

And then there's the creepy part. Abby and her family are all born-again Christians. They prayed about the decision to let Abby go in the first place, and they're crediting her rescue to the prayers of thousands around the world. What kind of family is this, and what kind of god do they worship? Are they so arrogant and self-important that they believe that god will protect Abby if things go wrong? Are they so fatalistic that no matter what happens, it's all god's will? Have they dumped their parental responsibility on to god's lap? Do they really think that god succumbed to public pressure and changed his mind about letting Abby live after presumably sending the storm that wrecked her boat in the first place?

I don't get it.

Fisheries Supply

2010-06-10T12:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to Fisheries Supply to buy a few odds and ends for my Hobie cats. I've been shopping at Fisheries for years for all sorts of things for my boat. They have a great selection of all things boat related, and they have a knowledgeable and usually helpful staff. But yesterday I was shopping in the sailing hardware section of the store, a section of the store, that given my history of powerboat ownership, I had rarely ventured into before. I needed a bunch of things, from shackles to quick-release pins and from righting lines to bungee cord. I wasn't 100% sure exactly what some of these things were, and I certainly didn't know where to find them. The 60' of 1/4" bungee cord was the first thing on my list. I didn't immediately spot it among the racks of reels of various types of lines, so I asked the sales guy at the desk. He pointed "over there" but it wasn't immediately obvious to me where he was pointing. I asked, "Where?" and he said, "Look at my hand, look where I'm pointing!" as if I were some sort of dummy. I again asked, "where?" and in exasperation, he took me the reels that were a couple of aisles over from where we were. I thought he would give me a hand measuring and reeling off the cord and cutting and labeling it. Instead, he pointed at the marks on the floor and told me to measure it out myself. OK, I can do that, but when I was done I asked for his help with the other items on my list. Until this point, I had tried to keep it light and hoped to engage the guy in the story of my Hobie cats and get some help and advice from him. He walked away from me telling me that he wasn't a "personal shopper." I really had to fight the urge to dump my basket of stuff, scream some obscenities at this guy, and walk out in a righteous huff.

But given that Fisheries is probably the best place to get all this stuff, and given that I didn't want to run all over town tracking it down, I put my head down and kept shopping. I eventually found most everything on my list. I did have to ask the A-hole for help one more time to get some wire rope and fittings for the forestay. He said he'd be a minute, but five minutes later sent his associate over to give me a hand. The associate, having surely been told what an unreasonable ass I was, was cordial but cool.

I got what I needed and left the area, but on the way to the checkouts, I stopped as the customer service desk to complain to the manager. He was quite sympathetic, thanked me for my input, and said he'd deal with it. I had the distinct feeling that this was not the first time he had heard complaints from irate customers about the sail rigging department personnel.

A day later, I still have mixed feelings about how I handled all this. On one hand, I think I took the adult and rational course. On the other hand, it would have been much more satisfying to blow up, create a major scene, and let the jerk know how I really felt.

Last Night at The Tractor

2010-06-10T11:32:00.000-07:00

Megan and I went to see Eilen Jewell last night at The Tractor. Even though The Tractor is my favorite music venue in Seattle, I hadn't been there in months. I'm not sure where I first heard Eilen Jewell's music. It was either Pandora or KBCS, but wherever it was I was immediately struck by her voice and her style, and it wasn't long before I bought one of her albums. It's hard to pigeonhole her style, but I'd call it a sultry jazzy and bluesy style of swing. It's a bit of a retro sound, and physically she's a bit of a retro woman. She's attractive enough, in a 50's sort of way. She's got a great group of talented musicians backing her up. From the first chords of the first song, you knew that you were listening to a polished and professional group. She played all the songs that drew me to her in the first place, and played enough of a new album for me to buy one on the spot. Good stuff!

Zoe Muth, a local Ballard singer-songwriter, opened for Eilen. Zoe's got an interesting voice, but she needs some more interesting songs to sing. Her opening song was a bit of a depressing dirge that almost put me to sleep. Her backup band was pretty good, but somehow didn't quite mesh. That became glaringly obvious when Jewell's far more professional group took the stage.

I thoroughly enjoyed the night out, and will certainly go to see Eilen Jewell again any chance I get.

On the Water

2010-06-09T07:46:00.000-07:00

The maiden voyage!

She's kind of pretty, isn't she?!

Mike and me approaching the dock.

I'm looking pretty pleased with myself, aren't I?!

Cats in the Woods

2010-06-08T10:53:00.000-07:00

We had a great weekend at the CITW. Our mission was to assemble one Hobie Cat and to get both of them rigged and ready to sail. I hadn't really done anything other than look at the cats in the garage since I delivered them some months ago, and even though I downloaded the Hobie 16 manuals (isn't the internet wonderful?) and got Mike Sinclair's written hints and tips from 20+ years of Hobie racing, I wasn't looking forward to sorting through the piles of parts and cables and try to put it all together.

Fortunately, I convinced Mike and Kris (and Marie and Jerry) to come out for a weekend and give me a hand. and I'm sure glad they came. Mike knows these cats inside and out and could have put them together blindfolded. Left to my own devices, it would have taken me several days to do what we did in seven hours last Saturday.

As it turned out, I was too busy working to take even a single photo, but fortunately Megan was able to digitally document our progress. I don't have the originals, but I managed to copy a few of the photos from her Facebook page. If you're Facebook friends with Megan, you can see a whole bunch of photos on her page. When I get the full complement of photos I'll post more. In the meantime, here's a taste:

If at first you don't succeed, get a bigger hammer. Especially one from the woodpile.

Megan took a break from taking pictures to give us a hand getting the mast up.

Here are the two of them - on land, but pretty much ready to sail.

After the boats were assembled and rigged, we took down the sails and got them ready for transport. By then it was 7PM, so we retired to the cabin for some well-deserved brats and beer.

On Sunday, we took one of the boats to Fish Lake for its maiden voyage. It was a bit drizzly, and there was virtually no wind, but we went for it anyway. The Fish Lake boat ramp is sheltered in a bit of a cove, so once the boat was in the water, Mike and I had to paddle out a little way to catch some wind. There wasn't much out there, but Hobie cats are so light and have so much sail area that it doesn't really take much to get them moving. We had a good sail and I more or less learned the ropes without the danger of going too fast to get out of control. When Mike and I were done, Mike and Kris went out for a bit, and then Megan and I went out. Judging from the ear-to-ear grin on her face the whole time we were out, I think I may have a sailor on my hands.

We did learn a valuable lesson getting the boat out of the water. Once the boat was on the trailer but not yet tied down and with the mast still up, I pulled it out off the ramp so that others could load their boats. Well, like a dummy, and even though we'd been warned about the overhead wires, I proceeded to try and pull down a power line with the mast of the boat. Fortunately, I was going about a half mile an hour when the mast hooked the power line and tried to slide the boat off the back of the trailer. Even then we didn't immediately realize what was wrong until someone looked up. I backed up, we pushed the boat back on, and proceeded to a safe area to drop the mast and tie down the boat. It was a good lesson to learn, especially without doing any damage.

I won't have any pictures of the boat on the water until Megan posts them on Facebook or I get my hands on her memory chip, but I will post them when they become available.

Thanks again to Mike for all his expertise. We couldn't have done it without him.

Oh, and one more thing. The boats need some names, and I'm having a hard time coming up with anything other than the less than socially acceptable names that first came to my depraved mind. So if anyone can come up with some catchy names other than Breaking Wind and Blow Me, let me know.

Grottfest '10

2010-06-03T21:44:00.000-07:00

For those of you not lucky enough to be one of the Facebook friends of me or Hal or Mike, here's one of my favorite shots of Grottfest '10.

A few ways of looking at the Gulf oil spill

2010-06-01T20:25:00.000-07:00

It's been confusing trying to figure out how much oil is spewing from the broken pipe from the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf. Not only is the actual volume hard to figure, but the news media talks about gallons per day or barrels per day, and unless you're really paying attention, they're all just a bunch of big numbers. And then they'll say that the Exxon Valdez dumped 10.8M gallons of oil into Prince William Sound. How many barrels are in 10.8 million gallons and how does that compare to the spill in the Gulf?

What got me thinking about this when Megan the Elder asked me to put this all in perspective by putting it in terms of Olympic-size swimming pools. I figured that might make sense, so I did some number crunching. When the well first blew out, the amount of oil being spilled was estimated at 1,000 barrels/day. That was later revised upward to 5,000 barrels/day. Since then numbers like 10,000-20,000 barrels are tossed about, but I've seen guesstimates as high as 60,000 barrels/day. Nobody knows for sure.

I checked on the volume of Olympic-size swimming pools (OSSP), and found a number of 660,253 gallons. A barrel of oil is 42US gallons, so there are 15,720 barrels in a pool. That's well within the current range of estimates for the daily discharge from the blown-out well, so for the sake of argument, let's say the well is dumping out one OSSP of oil per day.

Another way of looking at it is in terms of acre-feet. That's the unit used for measuring large volumes of water stored behind dams or in lakes. An acre-foot, as the name implies in an acre of water (or whatever) one foot thick, or 325,851.4 gallons, or 7,758 barrels, or roughly half an OSSP. So the well in the Gulf is blowing out about two acre-feet of oil per day. Most residential lots are 1/4 acre or less, so imagine you and eight or ten of the lots in your neighborhood inundated with a foot of oil every day.

And yet another way of looking at it - Your typical tanker truck holds 9,000 gallons of whatever. In terms of OSSP's, it would take around 73 tanker trucks to fill the pool, or truck away the oil from the spill if that were possible. That's a truck full every 20 minutes, every day, for 43 days so far. Something like 6,300 trucks and counting. If each of the trucks are 50' long, and if each of the trucks were lined up nose to tail, the line would be 60 miles long!

In summary, so far the spill has dumped these equivalent volumes of oil:
-43 Olympic-sized swimming pools
-430 big city lots covered 1 foot thick
-60 miles of tanker trucks lined up end to end
-2.6 Exxon Valdez tankers

It was a bit of fun to crunch the numbers and put everything in perspective, but that's about the only fun thing about the whole sordid mess.

Why are we in this hand basket and where are we going?

2010-05-28T12:45:00.000-07:00

I haven't done a political rant for a while, but that doesn't mean it isn't pretty depressing out there with gushing oil rigs, markets melting down, and various never-ending wars.

In spite of the fact that it looks like the economy has bottomed out, I've never quite trusted the financial "recovery." Unemployment is high, housing is still in the toilet, and bankers seem to be back to business as usual. I came across this scary video during my morning net-surf. The ups and downs of the current market are eerily like those of a couple of years ago.

Watch it and weep. Or have another drink.

Alberta Oil Sands

2010-05-27T09:13:00.000-07:00

Normally I'm proud of my Canadian roots and the fact that Canada really is a kinder gentler nation than my adopted homeland. Canadians don't torture people as a matter of government policy; they have universal healthcare; right-wing-whacko fundamentalist politicians are rare; and on and on and on. But on environmental issues, Canada is not so kind and gentle. One big one overshadows all others.

H2oil animated sequences from Dale Hayward on Vimeo.

Fiddler on the Roof

2010-05-27T07:49:00.000-07:00

Having earned a well-deserved reputation for sleeping through various musicals, operas and plays over the years, I was pleasantly surprised that my eyelids stayed in the upright and open position for the entire performance of Fiddler on the Roof last night at The Paramount.

I think this is probably one of the best musicals of all time - not only because I stayed awake but because, unlike a lot of musicals and operas, the music and storyline are understandable, moving and entertaining.

Megan the Elder loves the musical and the movie. She owns a videotape (how 80's is that?!) of the movie and brought it to my place a few months ago to watch it with me. I was vaguely familiar with the storyline, but I had never seen the play or watched the movie in its entirety. And in spite of the fact that musical movies don't usually work for me, I was quite prepared to do my boyfriendly duty and watch it with her. I was unprepared to enjoy it as much as I did.

So when this highly professional production came to the Paramount, I jumped at the chance to grab a couple of tickets to see the real thing. Having already seen the movie, seeing the stage production was a bit like reading the book after seeing the movie. I was prepared to be disappointed because there usually are big and sometimes huge differences between the original and the movie. But not in this case. The movie was a faithful reproduction of the the stage version, and both are fabulous!

Big Boy Toys

2010-05-21T10:04:00.000-07:00

In some ways it seems kinda odd that such a low-tech exercise like digging a trench is necessary for such a hi-tech convenience like the internet. And yes, I know that things like wireless internet through the cellular network and WiMax via a cellular-like infrastructure can bring modern communications to a lot of places without digging a trench to that place, but neither of them are available at my CITW. And no, I haven't forgotten that back in the day when I used to work for a living, I made a good living (which continues to this day) on the low-tech side of the very high-tech communications revolution of the 90's.

In Chelan County, as well as providing power, the Chelan County PUD (a semi-communistic power co-op) provides the fiber optic cable that various internet, CATV, and telephone providers use to compete for customers like me. Normally, the PUD would simply pull the fiber through the existing underground conduit that brings power to homes and cabins like mine. And they would do this at no cost to me! But unfortunately, my cabin was built in 1974, about the time that underground power installations were shifting from direct burial cables to cables in conduit. My cabin is fed with direct burial cables. In those cases, the PUD would trench in the new conduit for the fiber, again at no cost to me. But with recessions and budget cutbacks, the PUD no longer supplies underground conduit runs of more than 50'. The run from the road to my place is more like 150'. So after some conversations with the PUD, they offered to supply the conduit at no charge if I took care of installing it.

I leapt at the chance to rent a giant Tonka Toy and brought Hal along to join in the fun. The object was to dig a trench from the house to the utility pole by the driveway without cutting the existing power and water lines. I had a locate service mark all the underground lines and fortunately they were all on one side of the driveway. We only had to be extra careful and dig by hand in the areas right at the pole and near the house. And while we were in the digging mode, I bought a 20' culvert to install at the driveway.

If I had grown up in the video game age, operating the excavator might have come more naturally. There are two 4-way hand controlled joysticks, two 2-way foot controls, and for extra added excitement, one of the hand controls has two extra directional functions. So by my calculations, there are at least 14 different ways to move things, and all of those functions can be engaged simultaneously with any one or more of the other functions. To calculate the permutations and possibilities are beyond my limited mathematical capabilities, but trust me, the possibilities are endless!

Here's Hal at the helm. Fortunately we never came to blows about whose turn it was to be the operator and whose turn it was to portray the typical utility worker leaning on a shovel.

Now it's my turn. It takes a while to get all the moves coordinated, and then just when you think the machine has become an extension of your body, it all falls apart and you have to think about every move.

Notice the look of intense concentration. And jeez... is my gut really that big? I guess that's what happens when I haven't played racquetball for three months. But then again, if I ever have to rejoin the labor force, I could get a dirty wife-beater T-shirt, some tattoos and a cigar so I could pass as a heavy equipment operator.

The trench has a nice graceful curve to it, don't you think?

Amazingly enough, we managed to install both the conduit and the culvert without breaking anything. I tried to use the excavator to do some badly needed grading in the yard, but the machine and my limited operating skills weren't up to the task. So I'll have to leave that for another time on a different machine.

I can hardly wait!

The trip back

2010-05-15T12:50:00.000-07:00

I had a good visit with my Mom and family back in the Homeland. And if anyone doesn't think I was in the Homeland, get a load of this:

And a half block away:

These shots were taken in Rosthern, Saskatchewan, the town closest to the villages that my parents grew up in.

The trip back was great. Sister Marian and I drove from Saskatoon to Edmonton listening to several episodes of This American Life. I spent the night there, drinking beer and playing dominos with the Dukovacs, including Sarah and Alvin who recently moved to the wilds of Alberta from the wilds of Zambia. It was good to see them all.

I had a good drive back to Seattle, leaving St. Albert at 5:30AM and arriving back in Seattle at six in the evening. The drive through the mountains was fabulous, with lots of sunshine and lots of deer, elk, and even a couple of black bears.

I took a few shots of Mount Robson, which more often than not is shrouded in cloud. I tried something different this time, taking multiple exposures of the same shots, and then manipulating them in a program to get high dynamic range (HDR) photos. Here's the normally exposed original photo:

Here are the underexposed and overexposed shots.

With the magic of computer manipulation, here a couple of the results:

Here's another variation:

I'll have to play with this program some more, but it looks pretty cool. You can get anything from almost comic book to painting effects. I've meant to play with this style of photography ever since I did the Left Five Dead photoshoot. You might remember this photo from that series. It was done in the same HDR style.

Carbon Footprint Expanders

2010-05-05T20:18:00.000-07:00

I delivered my latest toys up to the CITW yesterday.

I unloaded them and put them in the garage to wait for next winter. I don't feel too bad about my carbon footprint. I figure that expansion is at least somewhat cancelled out by the two zero emission toys next to them.

Oh, and Hal said if I buy two more of anything, he's going to start calling me Noah.

I'm in East Glacier, Montana right now after a long day on the road from the CITW. I drove through driving rain, snow and lots of sunshine in between. Here in East Glacier, the temperature is 24 degrees and there's lots of white stuff on the ground. The roads were wet, but clear. I hope it doesn't get any worse and the drive to Saskatoon tomorrow isn't too "interesting."

The Price of a Trip to Canada

2010-05-03T09:40:00.000-07:00

Since I'll be heading up to Canada tomorrow for a week or so, I thought it would be a good time to examine some of the costs.

The semi-disposable wood fiber (fibre for you Canadians) dish cloths I can find only at Home Hardware in Canada.

$1.99

Roger's Golden Syrup. A sugar cane syrup that is far tastier than any of the corn syrups so readily available in the States.

$2.59

Mother's Day with my mother.

Priceless!

Espressicano

2010-05-01T08:49:00.000-07:00

Whenever I go into a coffee shop, I know what I want but I don't know how to order it. I usually ask for a short, double-shot Americano with lots of room, or I ask for a double espresso with a double shot of hot water. What I want is a cross between an Americano and an espresso, but I don't want to use ten words to describe such a simple drink. So the other day I came up with espressicano, and ordered one at my favorite drive-up coffee stand on the way up to the CITW. The barista laughed, but she knew what I wanted.

Cool! Maybe we can start a trend. If each you, my six loyal readers, used espressicano to order a coffee, it could go viral! Who knows, it could be another "shot heard 'round the world."

Burn Baby Burn!

2010-04-29T09:05:00.000-07:00

Maybe I haven't been watching the news closely enough lately, but I haven't seen any of these images from the Gulf of Mexico on the mainstream media. I also haven't heard many chants of Drill Baby Drill!

Another great baseball play!

2010-04-25T20:52:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I posed what I thought would be the baseball play of the year. Well, now I'm not so sure. Take a look at this:

I'm still not that much of a baseball fan, but a few more plays like this could change my mind.

Debate with a Tea Partier

2010-04-23T11:03:00.000-07:00

I recently concluded a lengthy correspondence with the author of one of the ranting emails that I posted a month or so ago. As it turned out, this guy would have denied being a Tea-Partier, and thought he was being quite reasonable in his arguments. He is an atheist, not an overt racist, apparently not a gun-nut (guns didn't really enter into our conversation), doesn't support Sarah Palin, and readily agreed that Bush and previous Republican administrations were far from perfect. I never met the guy and didn't talk to him - our only contact was email. When I replied to his email with facts, not rants, he replied in the same civil tone. I thought this might be the opportunity to understand the mindset of otherwise reasonable and educated guys like him.

He is certainly an advocate of personal freedom, but I was not successful in getting him to define freedom in anything beyond the usual bromides of personal responsibility and the caricatures of rugged individualism and American exceptionalism so beloved by the right. When I pointed out that in my opinion universal healthcare would be good for personal freedom because it freed you from the worry of bankruptcy due to illness, the freedom to move to another job or the freedom to start your own business without worrying about insurance. He replied that yes, that would be good, except that you'd be trading freedom for security, implying that the more secure you are the less free you are! I replied that using his logic, the best place for personal freedom is a country like Somalia where there is no security. He acknowledged my point, and didn't want to follow the Somalian model, but didn't (or couldn't) elaborate further.

He had a distinct nostalgia for what America used to be and bemoaned the direction in which we're headed. He was one of the air traffic controllers who replaced the striking PATCO controllers who Reagan fired back in '81. He hates unions and loves Reagan and what he thinks Reagan stood for, even though he was unable to say what Reagan stood for beyond the bumper sticker sound bites. I acknowledged that unions had their excesses but that on balance it was unions that built the American middle class and created the "good old days" that he longs for. I pointed out that inflation-adjusted wages actually declined during the Reagan years and that the only reason household income rose was because more women entered the labor force. In fact inflation-adjusted wages actually peaked in 1972! To support his argument, he replied by sending me a chart showing household income had risen during the Reagan years at least partly due to the increase of women in the labor force!

He talked a lot about economic freedom being linked directly to personal freedom. I sent him a paper by done by the Heritage Foundation (not a left-wing fringe group by any means) ranking the economic freedom of countries around the world. #1 is Hong Kong, #2 is Singapore - not exactly beacons of personal freedom in anyone's books. Interestingly enough, #3-#6 are Western democracies that he would define as "socialist." Canada is ranked #7 and the good ole USA is #8. What does that say about the link between economic and personal freedom?

He talked a lot about the constitution and what the Founders originally meant, but was like talking to a person who believes in the literal truth of the Bible in spite of the many contradictions. No, he didn't want to reinstate slavery, but he certainly was for State's rights. I couldn't pin him down on the line between federal government and state power.

Deficit spending was a huge issue for him, but he wouldn't (or couldn't) point to anything substantial he wanted to cut. He thought that the 47% of Americans who don't pay federal income tax were free riders on the rest of us tax-paying patriots. He neglected to include the payroll taxes, property taxes, sales taxes that those 47% still pay. He also neglected to acknowledge that many of those non-income tax payers simply didn't make enough to pay taxes, and he neglected to say how much income tax he pays. I suspect he's retired and pays little or no income tax. He definitely wanted to keep his social security and medicare but wanted them "reformed" - whatever that means. He agreed that military spending would have to be trimmed, but big cuts weren't necessary.

I could go on and on, but at the end of the day (don't you hate that expression?) it wasn't a very satisfying dialog. He acknowledged the points I raised, but towards the end or our correspondence, he essentially said that he couldn't raise the facts or statistics to support his arguments, but he knew what he felt in his gut.

It's impossible to reason with a "gut feel."

Projects at the Cabin, Kabine, Hütte, whatever

2010-04-22T17:58:00.000-07:00

As noted in my last post, daughter Megan and I drove up to the CITW on Tuesday to work on a few of my projects. Getting the massive table there was a bit of a trick, but the Audi was up to the task. And no, I didn't duct tape it to the roof rack. The duct tape was a futile attempt to keep the straps from vibrating noisily at certain speeds.

I borrowed a belt sander from Hal to take off the existing finish and sand out a few gouges in the table. Well, in the final analysis, I think I added as many gouges as I removed. I think you should have to be licensed to operate one of those things. They can be dangerous. I was going to take off all the finish and give the table a clear finish, but sanding the pedestal down to bare wood would have been a major chore, so I didn't. My intent never was to restore the table as a fine piece of furniture, and in that I was successful.

So that the table top would match the base, I decided to stain it all. It turned out a bit darker than I expected, but it'll be fine.

When I wasn't working on the table, I was working on the deck gate. I had been blocking off the opening so that Farley wouldn't take unsupervised excursions in the area. Making gates is always a bit fun, a bit challenging, and a more than a bit satisfying when it all works out. You want to match the gate to what's already there, you want it simple and strong, and you want to make it swing through it's arc without binding or twisting. It all seems pretty simple, but it always gets complicated. It took me a while to figure why the gate didn't line up all that well with the deck railing, even though the gate was level and true. It turned out the existing deck railing was off kilter! I was able to adjust the existing railing fairly easily, and now everything's fine.

Here's the table in what I think will be its final resting place. I've still got to put on the last finish coats and get some chairs, but I think the table will work out perfectly in its new location.

I initially thought that I'd move the TV and stereo over to the other side of the living room, but that turned out to be more difficult than I had first envisioned. So I gave up and left it in place, and now that the table is in, it looks like there should still be more than enough room for the couch and TV. I did move the love seat over to the other side.

All in all, it was a successful trip.

Die Hütte im Wald

2010-04-20T06:55:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to come up with a snappy new phrase to describe my cabin the woods, but so far haven't come up with much. Given the Bavarian/Swiss/bratwurst architectural style in Leavenworth, a Germanish name would be appropriate. Die Hütte im Wald kinda works, but it's not really any better than The Cabin in the Woods. A Plaut Dietsch version would be something like Kjleene Kot enn Woolt. I guess I know the perfect name when I hear it.

In any case, I'm headed up there for a few days to work on a few projects. I bought a great table for $40 from Goodwill to replace the crappy little table that came with the place. It can sit eight comfortably (as soon as I find some chairs), and will be great for eating and drinking and games and just generally hanging out after a long day on the water or in the woods. The table is a bit beat up (what do you expect for $40?), but if I sand the hell out of it and slap on a couple of coats of something, it should be just fine. I also want to rearrange my TV and stereo and build a gate on the deck so I don't have to keep an eagle-eye on young Farley every time he wanders out on to the deck. It should be fun and keep me out of trouble for a while.

I haven't got internet up there yet, so I'll be cyber-silent till the weekend.

Cortisone Update

2010-04-19T08:07:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if the full verdict on my cortisone shot is in yet, but I'll give you an update on my impressions so far. I got the shot on Wednesday afternoon, and by Thursday evening, for the first time in months, had absolutely no pain. I was tempted to go play racquetball. Instead, I cut back on the Diclofen (a prescription NSAID) I've been taking for months to see what effect that would have. On Friday afternoon, I walked the three miles around Green Lake. By the time I finished, I still felt pretty good even though a little pain had reappeared. So I took a Diclofen that night, and the next morning, and the next, and today I'm still trying to get back to the pain-free state I was in on Thursday.

Right now, I'm certainly in no worse shape than I was before the cortisone shot, but I'm not convinced I'm much better off.

Second Opinion

2010-04-14T18:44:00.000-07:00

I went to see another orthopedic doctor at Group Health this afternoon. I'm not sure exactly why I made the appointment - I guess I just wanted to talk to a different doctor. I'm sure the first guy I saw is well-qualified and I really had no intention of changing doctors, but I had problems connecting with the first doctor. During the two previous appointments I had with him, the doctor was very professional and very much by the book, but for some reason I had problems feeling comfortable with him. He was giving me a very cautious prognosis for life after surgery that was at odds with what I'd seen and heard from people who'd had the surgery. I think what he was telling me was what he'd tell an 80-year-old patient, not a somewhat active (dare I say youthful?) 57-year-old guy like me.

Anyway, the new doc and I hit it off pretty well. I discussed some of my concerns about the communication difficulties I had with the first doctor, and asked him if there were any other options, like cortisone shots, that might delay surgery. Doc #1 had dismissed cortisone shots as not being an effective alternative. Doc #2 said they work pretty well for some people and asked if I wanted one. Like now. This minute. Having heard that these shots can be quite painful, I said 'yes' with some trepidation. Did I mention I'm a bit of a wuss when it comes to pain? I wasn't sure I was mentally prepared to bite the bullet that I neglected to bring along. Anyway, Doc #2 disappeared for 30 seconds and came back with the biggest damn needle I'd ever seen. I got the shot, but it wasn't as bad as it looked. But I can see why some people could be intimidated. He shoved all 4" of the needle right into my knee. I thought it would hit a bone or come out the other side, but it didn't. He warned me that the cortisone doesn't usually kick in till the next day, and that I might have a pain flare-up at the injection site. Four hours later, so far so good.

I'll be pleased if regular cortisone shots work and delay surgery for a year or two or more. I never was all that convinced that surgery was the only option. But in the meantime, I'll keep my place in line.

Knee Replacement Surgery

2010-04-08T09:34:00.000-07:00

As some of you know, I'm in line for knee replacement surgery sometime around the end of August (who'd have thought there were lines in the best medical care system in the world?). Yesterday I went to a comprehensive three-hour class about what to expect before and after surgery. I was expecting to be in a class with a bunch of 400lb couch potatoes, but I was wrong! I was in a class with a bunch of nursing home refugees. God, were they ever old! I suspect that I was the youngest there by at least ten years. So there wasn't much talk of how soon one could get back to normal athletic endeavors. Instead there was lots of talk about getting in and out of bathtubs and the benefits of raised toilet seats.

As I said, the class was comprehensive, and in spite of the age of my colleagues, it was pretty interesting. They covered the administrative side of the procedure, and provided a checklist of all the things that have to be done before surgery. A couple of things surprised me. One was that I have to get certification from my dentist that I don't have any ongoing oral infections. There are all kinds of blood tests and even an EKG before surgery to make sure I'm healthy enough for the procedure.

Another thing that surprised me was that it appears that I have a choice of the type of anesthetic. I'll have to look into the spinal option. I'm somewhat convinced that my inability to remember names is as a result of the 10+ hours I spent under general anesthetic when I had my face remodeled back in '87. It was either that or the cheap drugs I ingested voluntarily back in the 70's.

But the biggest surprise came near the end of the presentation. Though it was of little concern to my colleagues, sex is not recommended for 4-6 weeks after surgery.

I might have to re-think this whole procedure!

Baseball Play of the Year

2010-04-06T06:47:00.000-07:00

I'm not that big a baseball fan, especially this early in the year, but even at the end of this season this play will certainly be in the running for play of the year. Enjoy!

This video should be required watching

2010-04-05T20:22:00.000-07:00

This video should be required watching for anyone who thinks that the Iraq War was (and still is) a good thing. The video was taken from an Apache gunship during an "engagement" in July 2007. The video is graphic and disturbing, but what to me was most disturbing is the recording of the radio conversations between the helicopters and their controllers. Even though as far as I can tell the helicopter was never in any danger from the "insurgents" on the ground, the gunner is at times almost begging for permission to shoot. And even though this is a long video, watch until the end when the crews involved are justifying the shooting of children. There's nothing in this video to indicate it was at all unusal. I'd be willing to bet that this kind of "engagement" with "insurgents" was commonplace. This is war at its worst.

I wouldn't blame the Iraqis for hating us forever.

Sarah Palin's Legs

2010-03-31T22:00:00.000-07:00

Even before I knew she was a wingnut, and even though she looked pretty good at the last McCain rally in black leather, I didn't really think Sarah was all that hot. And even though she said she was a runner, I didn't quite believe it. I think this picture from Hawaii is proof of those two things: she's not that hot, and she's not a runner.

I ran across a couple of great dog videos yesterday

2010-03-31T12:10:00.000-07:00

I could certainly see Farley doing this with a deer.

Maybe this is where the term "dogged" originated.

Langley Whale Watching

2010-03-29T07:40:00.000-07:00

Farley and I and Megan the Elder took WaveGuide up to Langley this weekend to watch the California Gray Whales who are on their annual migration from Mexico up to Alaska. Apparently the big detour they take into the Puget Sound is worth their while because of the sand shrimp or something that they find in the area around Langley. If you want more information, look it up. Do you think I'm a whaleologist or something?

In any case, the weather on Saturday was decent, and the whales even cooperated! Eat your heart out Marian!

This guy got so close to the boat and came up so quickly that I didn't have a chance to unzoom my camera.

We did see one guy who looked like he (she?) was auditioning for an insurance commercial or something. He came way out of the water, straight up, looked around and flopped back down. Of course I wasn't quick enough with my camera to catch it, but it was cool, very cool!

I hadn't had my boat out for over a month, so it was good to stretch its sea legs. All was well, no problems, and a good time was had by all.

The Lunatic Fringe Doesn't Represent Most Americans

2010-03-23T19:58:00.000-07:00

But there certainly are a lot (maybe 20% overall) on the lunatic fringe. There are so many, it's not really a fringe at all. But in spite of the pessimism of my last post, I was gratified to see a national poll just out that show that generally, most people support the health insurance reform. A lot of them are probably like me. They think the bill sucks, but it's a step in the right direction, and it's better than nothing.

It's Scary Out There

2010-03-23T19:31:00.000-07:00

I've posted a few times about all the whackos out there. Now that health insurance reform has passed, it's only getting worse. Democratic offices in various cities across the US were vandalized over the last couple of days. And it's not just the lunatic fringe. Here are the findings from the latest Harris poll of Republicans:

67 percent of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist.

57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim
45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president"
38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did"
Scariest of all, 24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama "may be the Antichrist."

And it's not just in the national polls and news media. I know lots of right-wing whackos. Right here in the famed liberal supremacist enclave of Seattle. Here are a couple of emails I received from people I know over the last few days. They are a bit long, but if you want to be stunned by the ignorance of otherwise intelligent people, read on.

> Subject: E-Mail of the Year
>>
> WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT TO TURN ON THE TV AND HEAR ANY U.S. PRESIDENT,
> DEMOCRAT OR REPUBLICAN, GIVE THE FOLLOWING SPEECH?
>
> 'My Fellow Americans: As you all know, the defeat of the Iraq regime has
> been completed.
>
> Since Congress does not want to spend any more money on this war, our
> mission in Iraq is complete.
>
> This morning I gave the order for a complete removal of all American forces
> from Iraq . This action will be complete within 30 days. It is now time
> to begin the reckoning.
>
> Before me, I have two lists. One list contains the names of countries which
> have stood by our side during the Iraq conflict.!
>
> This list is short .
> The United Kingdom , Spain , Bulgaria , Australia , and Poland are some
> of the countries listed there.
>
> The other list contains every one not on the first list. Most of the world's
> nations
> are on that list. My press secretary will be distributing copies of both
> lists later this
> evening.
>
> Let me start by saying that effective immediately, foreign aid to those
> nations on List 2
> ceases indefinitely. The money saved during the first year alone will pretty
> much
> pay for the costs of the Iraqi war. THEN EVERY YEAR THEREAFTER It'll GO
> TO OUR SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM SO IT WONT GO BROKE IN 20 YEARS.
>
> The American people are no longer going to pour money into third world Hell
> holes and watch those government leaders grow fat on corruption.
>
> Need help with a famine ? Wrestling with an epidemic? Call France .
>
> In the future, together with Congress, I will work to redirect this
> money toward solving the vexing social problems we still have at
> home. On that note, a word to terrorist organizations....
> Screw with us and we will hunt you down and eliminate you and all your
> friends from the face of the earth.
>
> Thirsting for a gutsy country to terrorize? Try France or maybe
> China .
>
> Iam ordering the immediate severing of diplomatic relations with France,
> and Russia . Thanks for all your help, comrades. We are retiring from
> NATO as well.
>
> I have instructed the Mayor of New York City to begin towing the many UN
> diplomatic vehicles located in Manhattan with more than two unpaid
> parking tickets to sites where those vehicles will be stripped, shredded
> and crushed. I don't care about whatever treaty pertains to this.
> You creeps have tens of thousands of unpaid tickets. Pay those
> tickets tomorrow or watch your precious Benzes, Beamers and limos be
> turned over to some of the finest chop shops in the world. I love New
> York.
>
> A special note to our neighbors: Canada is on List 2. Since we are likely
> to be seeing a lot more of each other, you folks might want to try not
> pissing us off for a change.
>
> Mexico is also on List 2. Its president and his entire corrupt government
> really need an attitude adjustment. I will have a couple thousand extra
> tanks and infantry divisions sitting around. Guess where I am going to
> put 'em? Yep, border security.
>
> Oh, by the way, the United States is abrogating the NAFTA treaty -
> starting now.
>
> We are tired of the one-way highway. Immediately, we'll be drilling for
> oil in Alaska -which will take care of this country's oil needs for
> decades to come. If you're an environmentalist who opposes this
> decision, I refer you to List 2 above: pick a country and move there.
>
> It is time for America to focus on its own welfare and its own citizens.
> Some will accuse us of isolationism. I answer them by saying, 'darn tootin.'
>
> Nearly a century of trying to help folks live a decent life around the world
> has only earned us the undying enmity of just about everyone on the
> planet. It is time to eliminate hunger in America . It is time to elminate
> homelessness in America . To the nations on List 1, a final thought.
> Thank you guys. We owe you and we won't forget.
>
> To the nations on List 2, a final thought : You might want to learn
> to speak Arabic.
>
> God bless America .. Thank ! you and good night.'

If you have the stomach for more, here's another one.

OK, I am sending this to almost everyone in my address book. If you don't want to hear my opinions, just delete this. If you want to respond, I welcome throughtful rebuttal. I know many of you will disagree. I usually bite my tongue, but can't any longer....

Yesterday was Black Sunday for our country. What the hell are we doing? Against the will of the people, our congress passed legislation that was a victory for: government intrusion, political corruption, backroom dealmaking, fascism, nanny state socialism, government beauracracy, a stall in our short term economic recovery, and the hastening of our long term economic downfall.

It was a slap in the face to: personal freedom, personal responsibility, limited government, the constitution, honest politics, free enterprise, economic prosperity, freedom of choice, fiscal responsibility, and economic reality.

Tactics. We were promised an end to politics as usual. No backroom dealmaking. Negotiations broadcast on CSPAN. Bi-partisanship. Ha, this was politics at it's sleaziest. A bill that is 2500 pages long, contains unrealated goodies and bribes, and has not been read, nor can be understood by the averarge congressperson should be rejected for those reasons alone. Does no one stand on principle?

The constitution. The tenth ammendment... does it mean anything? What business does the federal govt have in health care at all? None! It is prohibited. States my dabble in health care, the feds may not. Let each state try what works. People are free to move to the state that suits their desires. Where can we go to escape Obamacare?

Economic reality. Does anyone believe the lies of the proponents regarding cost? Has any social progam not cost multiples of that projected? Does government ever project accurately? Is there anyone gullible enough to believe that the numbers are honest and the truth is not being stretched? This entitlement will grow out of control... as all have.

Economic reality II. We are broke... worst than broke. The federal government has debts that can't be paid. We have no plan to pay them. We are on the road to ruin. We are the equivilent of a family with credit cards maxed out and monthly expenditures that far outpace income. If that family were to adopt two more children and buy a new car, it would be like taking on this health care bill. What the hell are we thinking?

Economic reality III. Demand on health care is increased by providing it free or cheaper to millions more. Supply is reduced by lowering doctor compensation. How does this not result in higher cost or a serious shortage of care? The law of supply and demand is kind of like the law of gravity.

Fascism. For the first time in history, the federal government is mandating that all people buy something... health insurance in this case. What next? A warm hat, a recycle bin, the right kind of light bulbs? Will butter be outlawed as an unhealthy drain on the collective? Will the few left that are financially able, be required to buy a new two cylinder GM Barrakmobile because it will save the planet and the jobs of union autoworkers? Does this government intrusion not concern everyone?

Socialism. Socialism at it's purest has been shown to be an absolute failure. Think U.S.S.R. Cuba, China, and North Korea. Yet we continue to believe we can nudge closer to it and maintain our high quality of life. Europe is trying... and teetering. Socialism is a trade-off of supposed fairness at great expense to overall prosperity and particularly personal freedom. Socialized medicine, or anything else, comes at great cost.

Throw those bastards out of office!

I think Fred Eaglesmith was right.

Politics

2010-03-19T17:08:00.000-07:00

Even though I haven't posted much on the healthcare debate lately, I have been watching it with interest. It's like watching a good sporting event where your team is winning and looks like it will win, but you're never sure until the final whistle. It looks like the thing will actually pass this Sunday. Intrade, a real-money stock exchange where people put their money where their mouths are, rates the chances at 85%. Nate Silver, of fivethirtyeight.com fame, the primo-predictor the last election essentially agrees. Obama and Pelosi have pulled out all the stops and put on a full-court press and whatever other metaphors you want to use. Obama is in full campaign mode, and still has a little of that old magic left. If the bill doesn't pass, it will be one of the most shocking defeats of a presidential initiative ever. I still think it's a really crappy bill, but it's better than the status quo and will help real people at least a bit. And besides, I couldn't bear the chortling of the right-wing-whackos if the bill fails to pass.

In the meantime, the Republican Governors Association is putting out commercials like this:

Note the music from The Omen (and every other horror movie). Inspiring stuff, isn't it?!

Just call me Admiral!

2010-03-14T18:38:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, I like sailing, and I like sailing fast. I've had my beautiful power boat WaveGuide up for sale for more than two years now with the plan of buying a sailboat as soon as WaveGuide sells. But the economy being what it is, it's a buyer's market out there. So what did I just do? I joined the buyer's side, and snapped up not one, but two two Hobie Cat 16's, bringing my boat ownership up to three (four if you count the dinghy on WaveGuide). So with a fleet that size, you can call me Admiral!

Yesterday Megan and I delivered them up to the Cabin in the Woods. As I've noted before, the CITW is also near a couple of lakes, and what better way to enjoy those lakes than to go sailing? Here's a shot of the catamarans (there are two on the trailer) just before tucking them into my garage.

I bought the two Hobie 16's and a trailer on Craig's List last week. They looked like a pretty good deal. One is complete and more or less ready to go with lots of new rigging, while the other is disassembled, but all the parts (some new, some used) are there. I'll put them together, and we'll have some racing on Fish Lake!

Who knows? We could soon become YouTube stars!

It's more likely I'll end up in this kind of video.

Toyota and Torture

2010-03-10T20:21:00.000-08:00

I've been struck by all the heat that Toyota is taking for its "unintended acceleration" problem. There have been at least 34 deaths linked to Toyota's accelerator in the last ten years in the USA. Whether or not Toyota is the cause, let's assume it is. What have they done about it? Recalled something like 9,000,000 vehicles, spent 100's of millions of dollars, watched sales collapse, apologized to Congress, and suffered incredibly bad press and public outrage for weeks.

And a quick aside - Why is it that only Americans suffer this fate? Toyotas are sold all over the world, yet a quick Google search didn't find any reports of deaths elsewhere in the world. Why does Toyota hate America?

As for torture, over 100 detainees have died in military or CIA custody in the last ten years. Dozens are missing or unaccounted for. Recently released internal CIA documents could be called Waterboarding for Dummies. It's truly a chilling read. Here's a taste:

"The doctors were also present to monitor the detainee "to ensure that he does not develop respiratory distress." A leaked 2007 report from the International Committee of the Red Cross says that meant the detainee's finger was fixed with a pulse oxymeter, a device that measures the oxygen saturation level in the blood during the procedure. Doctors like Allen say this would allow interrogators to push a detainee close to death – but help them from crossing the line."

Doctors were present!! Doesn't this violate every oath a doctor takes? Where is the outrage from the medical profession, let alone the public?? Specially designed quick-tilt gurneys, medical professionals, emergency tracheotomies were all part of the officially sanctioned waterboarding procedure. What happens with the press? The story gets buried in the blogosphere.

What's the connection between Toyota and torture? None really, but if the numbers are to be believed, your chances of being tortured to death by the CIA are about three times that of dying in a runaway Toyota.

Avatar

2010-03-10T19:28:00.000-08:00

Daughter Megan and I went to see Avatar 3D this afternoon. I don't remember the last 3D movie I saw, but in this one, the effects were really impressive. Not only was the scenery amazing, but there were floaty things (bugs, pollen, whatever) in the jungle that sometimes appeared to come from behind me. Truly spectacular.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that this is the most expensive moralistic cliché-ridden piece of Hollywood crap I've ever seen. It was a Western; it was a war story; it was sci-fi; it was a love story; it had evil capitalists; it had virtuous natives. Did I miss anything? Oh, did I mention the movie was long? After an hour I was thinking, "Get on with it." After two hours I was saying, "Doesn't this thing get any better?" After three hours, I was saying, "Enough already!" But I stuck it out for another 40 minutes, just to say I did it. No wonder the Academy said no to Avatar. You can too. Take my advice and save yourself the $12 it costs for a mid-week matinée.

As for the Best Picture of 2009, of the nominees I've seen, Up in the Air is my pick. It was funny and sad; George Clooney and Vera Farmiga had sexy chemistry; and Anna Kendrick was the perfect annoying recent MBA college grad. The best part is that it wasn't a predictable, feel-good movie where everything works out in the end. I liked this movie a lot. It deserved more recognition than it got.

Oscar nominations

2010-03-07T09:43:00.000-08:00

Even though I can really enjoy a good movie, I'm not much of a film buff, and I don't really care all that much about the Oscars. But I did see a couple of Oscar-nominated films in the last few days that are worth a mention.

The first one was Crazy Heart, a movie I was totally prepared to love. I like Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal, and I love down and dirty country music. In the final analysis I liked the movie, but didn't love it. Jeff Bridges did a great job as a down and out whiskey and nicotine soaked C&W singer-songwriter, even singing his own songs, but maybe it was too good a job. I could almost smell the booze and tobacco and BO on Bridge's character and found it unbelievable that a classy woman like Maggie Gyllenhaal's character could ever jump in the sack with him. Megan the Elder watched the movie with me and concurred totally. I also like Robert Duvall's work, and was surprised to hear that he can even sing a bit, but this movie was in many ways a remake of Duvall's 1983 movie Tender Mercies. Crazy Heart was pretty good, but I liked Tender Mercies more.

I am a big fan of Coen Brother's movies and was anxious to see A Serious Man. It certainly was a classic Coen Brothers movie with a somewhat odd plot, quirky characters, and plenty of dark humor. As with many of their other movies, I laughed out loud at times and was well entertained, but at the end of the movie wasn't quite sure I got it.

I haven't seen enough of the Oscar-nominated films to make any educated guesses as to who will win what. Lack of knowledge doesn't usually stop me from making my opinions known, but I guess in this case I don't really care enough.

Stuff that scares the crap out of me

2010-03-05T09:08:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of items that popped up in the news recently that make me wonder if there is any hope.

Check out the Army of God story here, and check out their website here.

And then every liberal's favorite conservative David Brooks writes this:

"About 40 years ago, a social movement arose to destroy the establishment. The people we loosely call the New Left wanted to take on The Man, return power to the people, upend the elites and lead a revolution.

Today, another social movement has arisen. The people we loosely call the Tea Partiers also want to destroy the establishment. They also want to take on The Man, return power to the people, upend the elites and lead a revolution."

To equate the counter-cultural movement of the 60's with the Tea Partiers is the height of intellectual dishonesty. As I recall, the protest movement of the 60's was ignited by the core concerns of an unjust war and civil rights. The war eventually ended and civil rights, both for blacks and women took a huge leap forward. Sex and drugs and rock'n'roll were fringe benefits.

What unites the Tea Partiers? Taxes, loony conspiracy theories, and a racist-fundamentalist-nihilist-apocalyptic Christianity that smells a lot like the Taliban. And they all have guns.

It's hard to imagine anything good (or fun) emerging from it.

Ps. For the best-ever take down of David Brooks, read this piece by Matt Taibbi. Here's a taste:

I’m always afraid to write about David Brooks, because I worry that my attitude toward this guy is colored by certain strong feelings I have about his appearance — he just looks like a professional groveler/ass-kisser, and every time I see him in public I have to fight off visions of him home at night in his Versace jammies, feverishly jacking off with one hand while caressing in the other an official invitation to, say, a White House event, or a Harvard Club luncheon.

It was a busy weekend

2010-03-01T14:51:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, I got up dark and early to take my boat over to Brownsville to meet Dan and the crew of Great White at 8AM to go racing in The Jim DePue Memorial Race on Puget Sound. It's times like this that I love my boat! It's about 17 NM from Elliot Bay to Brownsville, and it only took me an hour to get there. If I'd gone by car, I'd have a drive, a ferry ride, and another drive, and far more than an hour to get there.

Like the forecast for the Toliva Shoals Race, the forecast was for light winds and rain. As it turned out the winds were great, and the rains never got past the drizzle level. We had a good race, coming third across the line even though we bumped one of the marks and had to do a penalty 360. By the time the times are corrected for handicaps, we'll have finished third or fourth. Thanks to Dan for another opportunity to race!

We even got back to Brownsville in time for me to make it back to Seattle in daylight. That was a good thing because there was a lot of debris in the water which would have made for a very stressful trip back in the dark. So I got back to the dock, washed down the boat, teamed up with Megan, and headed for the Cottage in the Woods.

Weekends just don't get any better!

Thin Ice

2010-03-01T14:36:00.000-08:00

As planned, we went up to The Cottage in the Woods armed with skates prepared to practice our moves on Fish Lake. Alas, it was not meant to be. The last week was warm and sunny, and the lake, which last week was covered with ice fishermen and skaters, had turned slushy, and no one dared venture out on the ice.

Here's the "rink" in the late afternoon sun.

Megan practicing her moves on the deck.

The spirit and flesh were willing, but the weather was weak. We had hot cocoa anyway, and had a wonderful time pretending that we'd had wonderful day pirouetting and carving graceful turns on the ice. Oh well, there's always next year.

Just back from the Cottage in the Woods

2010-02-28T19:54:00.000-08:00

And I missed the gold medal hockey game! It sounds like it was quite the game, but the best team won!

Looking at the final list of medals, Canada is third in the total standings, but it had the most gold medals. Does that mean that the USA has more second and third-rate athletes? Just wondering...

Depressing trip to the QFC

2010-02-26T13:40:00.000-08:00

I go the Wallingford QFC when I need something (like Spam or toxic householder cleaners) that I can't get at the Fremont PCC. Today I went there to pick up some deli meats and a couple of odds and ends. Usually there is at least one panhandler out in front, and more recently with the recession and all there have often been two, but today there were four asking for money. One seriously old guy was especially pathetic in his battery powered wheelchair. He was up against the outside wall near a 110V outlet. He gestured for me to come over, and I did. He'd obviously had a stroke or something because he could barely talk, but he did make it known he wanted his wheelchair plugged in. But look as I might, I couldn't find the power cord. I went inside to get some help from the store, but the manager promptly informed me that the guy was around a lot, was nuts and that I should just ignore him. OK... I guess.

So I grabbed a basket and went over to the deli counter. There was no one right there to serve me, so I stood waiting patiently for a while. Finally a little old lady (she must have been at least 80) appeared behind the counter and asked if she could help me. I asked for a half-pound of sliced roast turkey, and then watched as she fumbled around for several minutes trying to find some in the display case. Finally a co-worker told her she'd have to get a new piece from the big cooler. The LOL disappeared into the cooler for quite some time and finally reappeared with a factory-wrapped turkey breast. I watched in sympathy as the LOL, who also is afflicted with a Parkinson's-like trembling, tried to get past the industrial strength plastic wrap. When she finally got down to the meat, my sympathy almost turned to horror as I watched her load the breast into the slicer. I thought I'd end up seeing her spraying her blood around the deli. but I guess the machine is foolproof and safe enough that even an 80-year-old with Parkinson's can't do any damage. It was excruciating to watch her lay out the plastic wrap on the output tray of the machine and then to watch her slice off one piece at a time into her hand and then lay it out on the plastic. She finally got enough cut to weigh it, but it was only 1/3 of a pound, so she went back to slice more. I told her it was close enough. I didn't have the heart (or the patience) to ask her for the 1/2 pound of pastrami that I also wanted.

I don't know what to think. At first, I figured, good for her to get out and work, and good for QFC to give her a job. Then I thought what a pity it was that this obviously frail old girl had to go to work for whatever reason, and then I thought that QFC should have put her in a job where couldn't do much damage to herself and to QFC's sales.

When I went outside to my car, the four panhandlers were still there, and the old guy in the power chair was still trying to get someone to hook him up to the AC outlet.

Who'd have thought a quickie trip to the store could turn out to be so sad?

Lack of Rants

2010-02-23T09:51:00.000-08:00

I haven't done a good political rant for a while, but it doesn't mean all's well or I'm not paying attention to what's going on. Sometimes it's just too depressing to follow the news too closely. Here's a story about Israeli plans in Hebron that made my heart sink when I read it. Megan and I were in Hebron last year and were absolutely appalled at what the ultra-orthodox whack-job Jewish "settlers" were doing there. Their only mission in life appeared to be to humiliate the local Arab population. Now Netanyahu wants to make the Cave of the Patriarchs an Israeli heritage site! That will surely help the peace process, or what's left of it.

Closer to home, it looks like there is some hope for health insurance reform, and the public option, though still on life support, has been brought back from the dead. The Democrats appear to have finally realized that they've got to pass something and that they will get zero Republican support for whatever they do. So if there's zero Republican support, they may as well go for broke and jam through reforms that include a public option. One can only hope.

The torture memo lawyers, Yoo, Bybee, et al., appear to have gotten off scot-free. I would have preferred to see them in jail or at least on trial. In Nuremburg in 1947, sixteen Nazi jurists and lawyers were tried in the Judges Trial for among other things, "War crimes through the abuse of the judicial and penal process, resulting in mass murder, torture, plunder of private property." That indictment seems to me to fit perfectly what Yoo and Bybee did. Four of the defendants were acquitted, but the remainder were given sentences ranging from five years to life. Over here, where freedom reigns, Yoo still has his job as a professor at Berkeley, and Bybee has a lifetime job as a federal judge.

The American nutritional-industrial complex seems to be at it again, this time with their arch-enemy, salt. But at least there is some push-back this time. Not all researchers are swallowing assertions that lowering salt in the typical diet will improve the health of the average American. I love salt; I use lots of it; and I've always been skeptical of claims that lowering salt intake lowers blood pressure which decreases the risk of heart attach and stroke. I've never read a study that showed conclusively that lowering salt intake in an otherwise healthy person was beneficial at all. I went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago to have my arthritic knee looked at, and of course my blood pressure was taken. It was 112/75.

So instead of getting too worked up about stuff I can't control, I'll go skating with Megan on the ice at Fish Lake near my Cabin in the Woods. Last night we went to Play it Again Sports, and she bought me the first pair of skates I've had in what, 30 years?? Thanks Megan.

She bought herself a pair of figure skates, so we'll soon start training for the pairs competition at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi.

The Cabin in the Woods

2010-02-19T10:31:00.000-08:00

I'm using the updated template from Blogger, but so far it's just as annoying to post pictures as the old one was, but here goes anyway.

Good grief! Here I am 20 minutes later seeing how the pictures and text have migrated all over the page. I think the new template is even worse than the old one. Or maybe it's just me. There are millions of people using blogger, and I've seen some pretty good looking sites, so maybe it IS me. Oh well. Bear with me.

Megan, Caroline, Farley, Sandy and I went up to the cabin on Wednesday for the night, and came back yesterday. We've officially broken the place in, having steaks and a few drinks in celebration. All in attendance had a good time!

The place came pretty much furnished, but of course we (I) had to buy a bunch of stuff to put the Friesen stamp on it. It came with a coffee maker and some left-over Folger's coffee, but life is too short for crappy coffee, so we went out and bought a coffee grinder with beans to follow. There are lots of pots and pans and cutlery there, but they're all the cheap and tinny stuff you find in a place that used to be used for nightly rentals. More substantial stuff will have to be found because everyone knows how much the Friesen clan loves to cook (and eat).

Here's a shot of the 20'x30' garage. The former owners did a good job of cleaning it out and getting rid of the bodies that had been stacked up like cord wood. (Actually I don't know if bodies were stacked up in there like cord wood, but since I couldn't get in there the first couple of times I saw the place, I figured that must be the reason.)

Even though we didn't do much in the way of exercise while there, there is something about being in a cabin in the woods in the snow that makes you just want to crash.

Farley liked the place too, and went off exploring on his own for an hour or more. For some reason he goes totally deaf when he's running full speed away from the people who are calling for him to come back. Fortunately, the neighbors seem to be pretty dog friendly, and Farley's a friendly dog, so no one was upset about him running around loose.

This place has the easiest-lighting woodstove I've ever used. The previous owners left quite a lot of wood for the two stoves, but there was no kindling, and the pieces were so big I didn't think they'd ever start without the help of some flammable liquid. Well, once again I was wrong. I followed the instructions for lighting the stove with paper, and was absolutely flabbergasted at how soon the fire was roaring. I guess I can take the axe off my to-be-bought-immediately list.

When the fire is not on, there is an electric forced air furnace to keep the chill off.
Here's the view from the kitchen looking into the living room. The only thing missing from the kitchen is a dishwasher, but I guess that's why I have daughters. I'm thinking of maybe extending the kitchen floor into the living room area and putting in a big long table that can seat eight or ten people. There are all kinds of possibilities for arranging and re-arranging the floorplan, but I don't think I'll do anything drastic until I've been there a bunch of times.

Megan the Elder and I are going up there later today, so I'm sure more decorating ideas will develop.

Dan's Blog

2010-02-15T07:56:00.000-08:00

Check out Dan's blog for more information, photos, and even video of the Toliva Shoal Race. I also added a link to his site in my Links section on the right.

A Long Day

2010-02-14T18:26:00.000-08:00

Yesterday began at 4:30AM with a wake-up call from the rarely-set alarm on my TV. My planned time to leave for Olympia was 6AM, which came so quickly (time flew with breakfast, walking Farley, final packing of my sailing gear, etc.) that I didn't even have time for a shower. I was supposed to be in Gig Harbor at 7AM to rendezvous with a couple of crew members with whom I'd carpool to Olympia. But because I was running a bit late, I didn't check the map before leaving and I assumed I'd find my way to Gig Harbor. I'd been there several times before by boat, and I knew it was west of Tacoma, and I knew how to get to Tacoma by car, so I'd be OK. Too many assumptions too early in the morning, I guess. I got off at the main Tacoma exit, and ended up winding my way through the city before asking for directions and finally getting on the right track. In the end, I wasn't too late, and was able to hook up with Jim and Kathleen for the rest of the trip to Olympia.

Once we got down to Olympia, we parked and headed down to the dock to meet up with our skipper Dan and the rest of the crew on Great White, a J35. I had raced before with Dan when he was our "consultant" on Surt during last year's Race Week. He's a good guy and a knowledgeable skipper and racer, and I was glad to have the opportunity to race with him on his boat in the annual Toliva Shoal race.

The forecast from the day before included rain, but had 10-15kt winds. A good day for racing, I hoped. But as usual, the weather forecast was at least 50% wrong, and wrong on the wrong 50%. The front had stalled, so we had rain, but no wind. Not such a good day for racing. The start was delayed by a couple of hours, and we thought for a while it might be called off, but the winds came up a little and we finally did take off on a slow start. The full race is a long race (36.8 nautical miles), and we hoped that the winds would pick up. They never really did, but we had a race, albeit a shortened one, anyway.

In spite of the lack of wind, the race was a good one for me. On Surt, I am usually working the foredeck, rarely venturing to the back half of the boat. On this race, Jim handled the foredeck mostly on his own, and I worked in the back trimming the jib upwind, and trimming the spinnaker when running downwind or reaching. That was all new to me. Other less exciting firsts included sailing backwards when our forward progress was less than the current pushing us backwards. It was interesting to watch the current in action. There were times when we were stalled and other boats were running past us in a river of current less than 100' away. But in the end, everyone got stalled one way or another. At one point, we were seriously considering digging out the anchor to stop us from sliding backwards like some of our competition did.

In the end, the race was shortened by about half, and we had our greatest excitement when a competitor's boat rightfully claimed overlap at finishing buoy and pushed us off the line, beating us across the by seconds. We ended up third in our class, not too bad at all. We continued on to Gig Harbor where I had left my car 14 hours before. I drove three of the crew back to Olympia where they picked up their car. (If the race had gone it's full length, we would have ended up back in Olympia, and Jim would have driven me back to my car in Gig Harbor).

It was a long day, but it was a good day. Thanks to Dan for the opportunity, and thanks to Kathleen, Peggy and Jim for being such a good crew to sail with. I'll do it again in a heartbeat.

Chalet in the Woods

2010-02-09T19:36:00.001-08:00

Well, it looks like I've bought a chalet in the woods near Lake Wenatchee. I signed the papers today, and am only waiting for the closing date to be set. It would only take me a couple of days to arrange for the transfer of funds, but I guess the title insurance people have to do something to earn their money, so it will probably be next week before I get the keys.

The cottage lies on a 0.8 acre lot and has a garage and woodshed for outbuildings. Even though it's in an area with lots of other homes around, the lots are all big enough and set back far enough that you don't have to strain too much to imagine
that you're really out in the boonies.

I've liked this area ever since the first time I was out here a few years ago. It's about two hours from Seattle and 40 minutes east of the Steven's Pass ski area. It's convenient for downhill skiing, and in the middle of literally hundreds of miles of trails for cross-country skiing and snowmobiling. And since it's east of the Cascades, there's a lot more sun here in the winter than in Seattle. Lots of snow too! As much as I hate stinky and noisy snowmobiles, I might even buy a couple of them. I hear that if you go fast enough, you leave the smoke and the noise behind you! There are
two lakes in the area, Fish Lake and Lake Wenatchee, plus several creeks and rivers. Apparently the fishing can be pretty good, and

the snowmobile/ski trails can be used for mountain-biking or hiking.

It's truly a year round recreation area.

I looked around here a bit after I sold the condo in Whistler, but the prices were too high for my taste. But as everyone knows, real estate has taken a hell of a beating in the last couple of years, and the prices in this area dropped enough for me to start looking seriously again. The price on this place dropped 30% since its initial listing last summer!

The place is pretty much ready to move in, but that doesn't mean it doesn't need any work. The garage will have to be rewired and I think I'll just tear down the woodshed and and build a new one. The house itself needs a bit of work, but nothing that will prevent me from using the place right away.

I've got lots of plans for the place. I can build a workshop in the garage, and I think I'll replace the woodshed adjacent to the house with a brewhouse where I can make some wine and beer and hunker down for the coming apocalypse.

Who Books This Stuff?

2010-02-08T07:09:00.000-08:00

Jeez, who books this stuff? Or maybe it should be spelled geez, with a hard "g" for the geezers, aka, the Who, who played for the Super Bowl XLIV halftime show. I used to love Teenage Wasteland, but somehow it doesn't ring true when played by millionaire geezers forty years after their best-before date.

I looked up the halftime shows here (isn't Wikipedia great?) to get the list of entertainers at Super Bowls past. I'm guessing The Who were booked by the same people who booked Paul McCartney (Super Bowl XXXIX), The Rolling Stones (SB XL), Tom Petty (SB XLII).

Isn't this like booking Guy Lombardo for Super Bowl I or Rudy Vallee for SB II? They were at the top of the charts in 1930.

Ps. In spite of my tendency to call the spectacle the Stupid Bowl, I watched about half the game, saw some of the best plays, and the right team won!

Mmmmm, good!

2010-02-05T15:46:00.001-08:00

Megan's coming over this evening, and rather than having a humongous New York steak grilled to perfection on my Big Green Egg, I decided to make some light, yet delicious food to snack on. But I still had the primeval urge to cook with fire, so I fired up the BGE to about 500°F and made some pita bread to go along with the hummus and parsley/tomato dips I'd already made.

I've liked this Mediterranean and Arabic style food ever since I went to Jordan for a couple of weeks in 1991. At that point, you could not buy hummus in any corner grocery store here - in fact I had never even heard of the stuff. But in Jordan, you never get to work (it was a working trip for me) without first having a plate of veggies and dips and flat breads with the locals. I liked the hummus so much that while still in Jordan, I went to the local Safeway (yes, they had a real Safeway in Amman) and looked around for the jars or tins of hummus. I couldn't find any, so I asked for it. They looked at me like the ignorant foreigner I was and told me that you don't buy hummus, you make it. I asked for a recipe, and they said that everyone had their own recipes, but the basic ingredients were chickpeas, sesame oil or ground sesame seeds, garlic, and lemon. So I bought all the stuff and made some back at the hotel. The stuff I made today has all of that, plus some sun-dried tomatoes.

I can't remember what the name of the other dip is, but I'll always remember it too, because it is the first dish I'd ever had in which parsley was a major ingredient. I think most of the parsley sold in America ends up as a garnish on a plate and then in the trash. Arabs consider parsley an aid to digestion, so they actually eat it. Until then, I didn't know how good parsley could be. I've modified the basic recipe of chopped tomatoes and parsley by adding goat cheese and garlic.

Good stuff!!

Haiti and Racquetball Update

2010-02-01T21:18:00.001-08:00

Here are some of the Haiti-bound crutches that Megan and I helped to collect. A doctor friend of a friend of hers went to Haiti yesterday and put out the call for crutches to take with him. With all the broken bones there, I'm sure they'll be put to good use.

But no, I was too selfish to send the Ray Wylie Hubbard and Eliza Gilkyson autographed crutches I used on my Broken Ankle Tour of 2006. I went to the local Goodwill store instead and bought several pairs. I figure I should get double gold stars in heaven for helping devastated folk in Haiti by helping out the poor in Seattle. But even if no one is keeping track, it was the least I could do.

And alas, I am not the champion of the Intermediate Plus Racquetball league at the Olympic Athletic Club. I am number two, so I guess I'll just have to try harder next time. I wasn't very pleased with the way I played tonight. My serve was working reasonably well, but I made way too many unforced errors. Final scores were 15-13 and 15-11, so at least I didn't embarrass myself.

Racquetball

2010-01-29T17:18:00.000-08:00

Holy Cow!!! I'm in the finals!!

I've been playing league racquetball for a few years now, and have done respectably well, but I've never made it to the finals before. Today I beat my arch-nemesis Jerome. He's a wily old fart, and I've beaten him in games before, but never in a match. Today I beat him in the semi-finals 15-11 and 15-1.

Finals are Monday evening. You'll know who won soon after.

I messed up the link in the original post

2010-01-26T07:52:00.001-08:00

Yes this is a winter landscape, but not an earthly one. Believe it or not, this is a shot of the landscape in a polar region of Mars! Pretty cool eh?

For more information and more incredible pictures, check out this site http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_007962_2635

I'm glad I didn't have a mouth full of coffee when I watched this

2010-01-24T22:22:00.001-08:00

Road Runner Funny Clip - For more funny videos, click here

Get some balls!

2010-01-22T10:03:00.000-08:00

Here's another posting taken from Andrew Sullivan's blog. Considering that he is a gay, religious, and somewhat neurotic conservative, I sure do like his stuff. (Maybe his gay, religious, and conservative impulses have something to do with his neuroses)

Where in the world is Obama?

2010-01-22T09:06:00.000-08:00

Obama desperately needs to turn things around before he (and America) become toast. He campaigned on change and being everything that Bush wasn't. Throughout his campaign, he exuded a cool and calm and competent demeanor even when everything seemed to be melting down around him. No drama Obama. But he could give one hell of a passionate speech and connect with people in a way that could bring a tear to the eye of even a hardened political cynic like me. He could connect with ordinary people who struggle with jobs and healthcare costs and who ordinarily view the government with suspicion and cynicism. He could connect with the people who followed politics on a deeper level and were greatly concerned about the rise in the power of the President, the shredding of the Constitution, and the rise of money and power on Wall Street. For the last year, he has hung on to that calm cool and cerebral demeanor, but the passion and connection with the people of any sort are gone.

Here is the current state of the Union:

-Healthcare reform looks like it's dead.

-Wall Street continues its shenanigans with record bonuses while unemployment is over 10%.

-Iraq is off the radar screen, but maybe not for long.

-Afghanistan is in the middle of a military surge.

-Guantanamo is still open, and indefinite detention without trial is now Obama's official policy.

-And Haiti, let's not forget Haiti.

So Obama's probably got more on his plate than any President ever, and unless he truly was a superhero, there's no way he can fix everything at once. But one would think that he would fix some of the problems, and one would think that he could retain some of the popular and populist support that propelled him into office.

Here are a few things (not necessarily in the order of importance) he could do:

-Tax the hell out of Wall Street bonuses rather than proposing wonky fixes no one understands.

-Ram healthcare reform through congress. If nothing is done, Obama and the Democrats will still be tarred with the brush of failure.

-Blame Bush more. People have forgotten that Bush created the economic mess. It took two terms of Bush (and arguably at least one term of Clinton) to create the mess we're in. No reasonable person could expect it all to be fixed in a year.

-Blame Bush more. Bush created the quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan.

-Repudiate rather than embrace the Presidential powers that he inherited from Bush. Close Guantanamo and either try or free the current inmates. And while you're at it, investigate and try former Bush administration officials for war crimes.

-Give Haiti some real aid. While the rubble is still being cleared, give incentives to business to open a few sweat shops there. While do all our t-shirts have to be made in Vietnam anyway? Provide boatloads of propane and stoves for cooking and start a major reforestation effort to restore the land to agricultural productivity. Set a goal of spending 10%/year in Haiti of what we're spending in Afghanistan.

And finally, bring back the passion and conviction. Use the power of the bully pulpit. Grow some cajones. Don't try and compromise with your opponents. Just do what has to be done and if you fail, you'll go down in a blaze of glory.

Video at 11

2010-01-21T08:59:00.001-08:00

Have you ever wanted to lose six pounds, cleanse the body of all those nasty toxins that have built up over the years, discipline the mind through fasting, and watch rarely seen video of your inner being? It's easy and cheap! All it takes is thirty hours of your valuable time, a $14 prescription for Colyte, a $30 co-pay, and an appointment with your local colonoscopist!

Video at 11.

Massachusetts

2010-01-19T18:38:00.000-08:00

If I were part of the Democratic leadership, I don't know what I'd do about Martha Coakley's loss of Ted Kennedy's Senate seat to the teabagger Scott Brown. I don't know if I'd try to ram the Senate healthcare bill through Congress so it doesn't need another Senate vote, or whether I'd scrap the whole thing and start over. Democratic officeholders will be tarred with the bill no matter what happens, so on one hand they may as well go for it. On the other hand, they've done such a crappy job of selling the bill to the general public that they should stop digging the hole that they're in. I don't know.

What I do know is that the Republicans have made the country ungovernable with their obstructionism. There's nothing that the Democrats can do on the major issues facing the nation like global warming, financial regulation, deficit reduction, fiscal stimulus, unemployment, etc., etc. With far smaller majorities, Bush was able to roll the Democrats because he was ruthless and always managed to get a few "conservative" Democrats on his side. It seems unlikely that Obama can get any "liberal" Republicans on his side, mainly because there aren't any. Even Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe have maintained party discipline.

I think that Obama should say to hell with bipartisanship and do what he can with executive orders and use of the reconciliation process in Congress. If he's going to be a one-term President anyway, he may as well get something done what he can while he still has some power. Who knows? He might even succeed in creating some change we can believe in.

District 9

2010-01-16T18:08:00.000-08:00

I watched District 9 this afternoon, and even though I'm not usually a big fan of sci-fi shoot-em-up thrillers, I quite enjoyed this one. It came with good credentials with Lord of the Rings producer Peter Jackson at the helm. The premise is that an alien spaceship comes to Earth and hovers over Johannesburg, South Africa. Why any self-respecting aliens would choose Johannesburg isn't explained, but it doesn't really matter. The spaceship just sits there without any aliens making it to earth. When humans finally enter the spaceship, they find tens of thousands of starving and sickly creatures, and create a refugee camp called District 9 for them near the slums of JBurg. Twenty years later the aliens, dubbed prawns because of their shrimp-like appearance, are becoming restive, and the humans nearby are also getting fed up with with these ugly and repulsive creatures living nearby. The action starts with a plan to move the prawns to District 10, a couple of hundred miles from any major population centers. The main protagonist is a low-level bureaucrat tasked with moving the prawns to their new home. It's quite something watch his transformation from a not very nice, bumbling civil servant, into a true hero.

The movie is done in a combination of cinema verite, newscasts, surveillance video cameras, interviews with journalists, and more conventional shooting styles. There are also the usual cool, but now pretty ordinary, special effects. The film works well as a fast-paced action thriller, but if you look a little deeper there are all sorts of undertones of the evils of the military-industrial complex, race relations, and redemption.

I quite enjoyed it, and would highly recommend it.

And while I'm on the subject of movies, check out Roger Ebert's best films of the decade. Roger Ebert has been reviewing movies forever at Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Siskel and Ebert, the Chicago Sun-Times and more. He's still reviewing movies even though he's suffering complications from thyroid cancer and can no longer eat normally. For a moving first person account of his troubles, click here. His list of movies contains some famous ones, and some I've never heard of, but one stuck out. Silent Light, that Mexican-Mennonite movie I've previously written about made the list! Maybe Ebert's got some Mennonite blood in him, or maybe all the medications and lack of food had something to do with it.

It's out of this world!

2010-01-12T20:51:00.001-08:00

This is one of the most amazing photos I've ever seen, and it's even more amazing when you find out what it is.

You can find out more here.

You'd think I'd know better

2010-01-11T09:13:00.000-08:00

After my episode a year or so ago when I lost a crown to Milk Duds, you think I'd know better than to taunt the dental-industrial establishment by chowing down on some peanut brittle. But noooo! I not only have to learn lessons the hard way; sometimes I have to have essentially the same hard lesson twice.

A few nights ago I had an irrational urge for some peanut brittle. I don't normally have a sweet tooth, but for some reason the thought of caramelized sugar and nuts was irresistible. Maybe I was just bored. So I got on the internets, pulled down a recipe, and went out to get some nuts. I made the peanut brittle pretty much according to the recipe, except that I substituted Roger's Golden Syrup for the recommended light corn syrup. It turned out pretty well, but was more like a really hard toffee rather than the peanut brittle I was expecting. Maybe it had something to do with the syrup substitution. I was careful while chewing it, knowing that I had already lost one crown in a similar situation. But unfortunately I wasn't so careful when it came to breaking off a chunk of the stuff with my teeth. There was no pain, but the tooth felt funny to my tongue. At first I thought that a chunk of the toffee/brittle had stuck to my tooth, but I wasn't so lucky. One look in the mirror showed that I'd broken off the front half of the crown.

Oh well, there goes another $1100 I didn't really want anyway.

And yes, I'm growing back the facial hair. I've been shaving it all regularly for at least a year and a half now, so I think it's about time I took at least a partial break and grew some winter facial foliage.

The Onion Strikes Again!

2010-01-06T14:41:00.000-08:00

VH1 Reality Show Bus Crashes In California Causing Major Slut Spill

Thoughts on the Knicker-Bomber

2010-01-05T12:19:00.000-08:00

I can't remember where I first heard or read the name, but "knicker-bomber" must have come from some British blogger. It rolls off the tongue rather nicely, doesn't it?

This attack should be met with derision and laughter rather than fear. Is this the best that the mighty all-evil Al Qaeda can do? The guy couldn't succeed in bringing down an airliner, but he did at least succeed in giving himself some serious burns in a very sensitive area. If he had been successful and made his way to paradise, I wonder what the 72 virgins waiting for him in paradise would think when he arrived without his junk.

There have been many calls from the right-wing fear mongers to torture this guy. His own father tried to turn him in, and even though his warnings went unheeded, do they think that he would have done so had he known his son would be tortured?

Sometimes I think that Republicans are either nuts or have serious a serious memory disorder or both. They're criticizing Obama for waiting a couple of days to make a public statement about the attempted bombing. Have they forgotten that it took Bush six days to respond back in 2002 to the Shoe Bomber? They are criticizing Obama for prosecuting the guy rather than sending him to a black site somewhere. Have they forgotten that the Shoe Bomber was tried in regular American courts and is now serving a life sentence? Have they forgotten all their cries of treason when anyone criticized Bush on any national security issue?

So now we're going spend a few more billions on full body scans for everyone. I wish someone would put this all in perspective. In the US, something like 30,000 people die every year in car accidents. Something like 20,000 people are murdered every year. 40,000 people die prematurely every year because they lack health insurance.

How many have died from terrorist attacks? Let's get real.

Things I missed in Sunday school

2010-01-03T14:42:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading the Book of Genesis, Illustrated by R. Crumb. For those of you too young to remember the 60's and for those of you who lived them but can't remember them, R. Crumb is an illustrator and irreverent comic book artist whose work includes Keep on Trucking, Fritz the Cat, and the cover of Janis Joplin's Cheap Thrills album.

It should be noted that Crumb only did the illustrations. He did not change the text with any additions or deletions. Some of it's from the King James version, and some from other translations, but it's all there.

I knew that the Old Testament is filled with sex and violence and that God could be capricious, mean, and pretty stupid for an all knowing being, but I'd never read the Book of Genesis from end to end before, so I wasn't directly familiar with the whole book. Quite frankly, most of it doesn't make sense, or if it does make sense, it's impossible to pull some deep moral meaning out of the stories.

Right off the bat, he's got two versions of the creation of man. Chapter 1:26-27 - Then God said,

"Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea.... So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."

In Chapter 2:7 he created man "...from the dust of the ground and breathed life into the nostrils..." It's not until Chapter 2:22 that he made the woman from Adam's rib. In the first chapter, he makes man on the sixth day; in the second chapter he makes man, "before grasses of the field had yet sprouted," which would be on day three. Oh well, the Bible never was all that great on consistency, but to me the really weird part is the version in the first chapter when God say, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness..." US??? OUR??? I always thought God was supposed to be the one and only. But wait, there's more.

Get a load of these lines from Chapter 6:1-4.

"When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the Lord said, "My spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal, his days will be numbered to a hundred and twenty years."
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days - and also afterward - when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

What the hell is going on here? Sons of God (again, I was taught that there was only one Son of God) coming to earth and knocking up the beautiful daughters of men? And then limiting the offspring's lifespan to 120 years so that God doesn't have to deal with a bunch of immortal half-humans? That story I had never heard before.

One story I had previously heard about (from Megan the Elder) occurs in Chapter 34. This is really nasty! Dinah, the daughter of Leah and Jacob, went out to see "some of the daughters of the land." Shechem, the son of the Prince of that land, sees Dinah and defiles her. But he falls in love with her, and wants to marry her. After lengthy negotiations between Shechem's father Hamur, and the sons of Jacob, they reach a comprehensive agreement to share land, cattle, and women. The kicker was that all the male members of Hamur's tribe had to become circumcised. They did, and on the third day, "while they were still hurting," Jacob's men came into town and killed all the men and looted the town taking all the women and cattle for themselves.

Now what could the moral of that story possibly be?

Anyway, Crumb's Genesis is a work of art, and I highly recommend it.

And thanks to my old friend John for recommending the book to me.

Christmas in Edmonton

2010-01-01T19:04:00.000-08:00

We had a great time together in Edmonton. It's not all that often that Mom and her kids and most of her grandkids and her great-granddaughter get together, but we did it this Christmas. Mom was in good shape, even making buns and cinnamon rolls. As is usual with our Mennonite heritage, we didn't drink that much, but did we ever eat! Marian and Pete did a great job of keeping us well fed and entertained. I didn't take a whole lot of pictures in Edmonton, or at least pictures that are worth keeping. Here's one of the few that made the cut.

One of the attractions of Marian and Pete's place is watching the birds at the various feeders in their backyard. This year, we were witness to a cold-blooded murder. Or at least a bird-feeding of a different kind. A merlin, a.k.a. a pigeon hawk, swooped down and grabbed a sparrow who was too busy eating the free seed to notice death was lurking nearby. The merlin retired to a nearby spruce tree where he had his Christmas lunch.

As I noted earlier, it's not in the Mennonite tradition to drink much as these kinds of gatherings. But there are some of us who like to bend the rules and push the edge of the envelope. I went out for a wine and beer run, and as I often do when buying beer for a crowd, I bought a bunch of different kinds. Dev had the bright idea to do a blind taste test and see who was best at identifying the various beer we had available. She and Megan labeled the bottoms of a half-dozen glasses, filled them with the appropriate beer, and away we went.

It should be noted that I was in great fear of being exposed as a beer fraud. For most of my adult life, I've loved drinking beer and prided myself on my discriminating palate, but I'd never done a blind taste-test before. So it was with fear and trepidation that I did the test. The beers were these:

Czujsko - a Croatian beer

Castle Lager - a South African brew Pete and I learned to love in Zambia

Hophead - a Canadian super-hopped microbrew

Alexander Keith's IPA - an IPA that's been brewed in Newfoundland forever

Heineken - needs no introduction

Czech Mate - a pilsner from a Saskatoon microbrewery

We were all essentially given the identity of the Hophead. Not only is it super-hopped, it's far darker than the rest of the beers.

After the first round of sips, I was absolutely sure of three of them - Hophead, Heineken (always tastes sweet to me), and Alexander Keith's IPA. I had drunk this IPA on several occasions, and it is definitely not a northwest microbrew style IPA. In fact I've always thought it was downright bland. It took another round of testing the remaining beers to pick out the Czech Mate. It isn't really a pilsner-style beer by my definition, even though it's quite good. I was pretty sure I picked it out because I could taste the microbrew edginess that big brewers somehow get rid of. So I was left with another round of Castle and Ozujsko. I've always liked Castle because it's light and crisp with a touch more hops than you'd expect in a mass-produced beer. Ozujsko is more like a Northern European lager in the Beck's tradition.

So how did I do? Well, alone among the seven or eight competitors, I was SIX for SIX!!! My reputation and self esteem, are still intact!

I'm Back

2009-12-29T07:28:00.000-08:00

I'm back after spending the Christmas holiday with family in Canada. I'll post more about the food and festivities once I get around to taking a look at the pictures I took, but in the meantime I'll share a few thoughts about airport security in light of the failed attempt to take down the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit by the Nigerian crotch-bomber.

First off, I'm surprised that the flight originated from Schiphol airport in Amsterdam. I've flown through that airport many times and I've always been impressed by the security procedures. Rather than having huge security lineups at the terminal entrances, the main security checks are done at the gates. Before going through the metal detectors and carry-on baggage scanners, passengers are treated to a short interview with a professional and polite passenger screener. They ask basic questions about where you've been and where you're going and why. I've never been asked more than the basics, but I assume that if the answers don't make sense or you appear nervous or distracted, more questions are asked. It's always seemed to me to be a good system that I wish would be instituted in the US.

I also wonder what it takes to be deemed to be a terrorist threat. If you make a dumb joke about bombs at an airline checkpoint you won't get on the plane, but if you're own father suspects you're a terrorist and warns the authorities; you buy a one-way ticket with cash and don't check any bags for a trans-Atlantic flight; and you spend time in al Qaeda-infested Yemen, you're good to go. Apparently this guy's name was added to the terrorist watch list, but there are already 500,000 names on that list and the airlines don't have access to it anyway. So go figure.

So what should we do? Invade Yemen? That would help about as much as our ongoing war in Afghanistan.

In any case, I braved the new and makeshift international flight security procedures yesterday at the Edmonton International airport so I could fly back home to Seattle. Normally international passengers are supposed to be at the airport at least two hours before flight time, but I couldn't find any information on the new procedures, so we arrived about 2-1/2 hours before flight time. We were greeted by a packed terminal with indeterminate lines. After standing in two of the wrong lines for a while, we were directed to the proper line by a sweet older woman who an airport hospitality volunteer. (Why anyone would volunteer to be yelled at by irate and harried passengers at an airport is beyond me!) Once in the proper line, we discovered that it wasn't moving at all because no one was at the Alaska/Horizon desk. So much for arriving early!

But arriving early did have its benefits. We were fairly close to the front of the line, so when it did start moving, we got through fairly quickly. I would normally have carried on my bag, but no carry-ons were allowed at all, so I had to check it. At least I didn't get hit with the $15 checked bag fee, but I found out later that I should have been charged. (Now it's all making sense. This is an al Qaeda plot to increase airline revenues!) Once past the ticket counter, it was on to security. Every pocket was emptied, every shoe was examined, and everyone was frisked. Oddly enough, my crotch wasn't frisked even though I've read that the Nigerian wannabe bomber had the explosives sewn into his underwear. Then it was on to immigration pre-clearance. (For all you American potatoes who've never left your couches, on flights from Canada to the USA, American agents pre-clear passengers in Canada so they don't have to clear customs at the US airport) There was nothing special there at all there. No additional questions, no piercing looks in the eye. The US immigration agents were as bored and disengaged as ever.

And then we were in the departure lounge, and the plane was more or less on time! I had been mentally prepared to stifle a crappy mood for hours, but in the end, those mental gymnastics weren't necessary. All things considered, the return trip home wasn't really too bad at all.

It's painful

2009-12-22T07:37:00.000-08:00

It's excruciating to watch the healthcare bill make its way through the Senate. The Republicans are throwing up every roadblock possible but the Democrats, so far at least, are sticking together. But even assuming that the Senate does pass the bill on Christmas Eve, it still has to get through the conference committee process to merge the bill with the very different House bill. If anything gets changed, you can bet that those pompous popinjays Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson will wield their self-aggrandizing power again. If there's a way for the Senate bill to be passed without amendment by the House, I think the Democrats should choose that route. If this bill passes the Senate and comes back to the Senate from the conference committee, I'd bet that it fails.

As crapulent as this bill is, I'm hoping it will pass. This bill is probably marginally better than nothing, and it would be a real shame to give the lunatic fringe (is there any other kind?) Republicans a victory.

This made me bawl like a baby

2009-12-20T12:12:00.000-08:00

Last Minutes with ODEN from phos pictures on Vimeo.

It reminded me of Angus.

This is pretty cool

2009-12-20T11:59:00.000-08:00

Here's a song written in gibberish that sounds like English. And it's got a catchy tune too! Enjoy.

Tip of the hat to Andrew Sullivan's blog.

Health Care Mess

2009-12-19T18:50:00.000-08:00

Well, it looks like the Democrats may get some sort of healthcare bill through the Senate. The debate and "negotiations" in the Senate were truly American democracy at its worst. Even though the Democrats won clear and overwhelming wins in both 2006 and 2008 and now "control" 60% of the seats in the Senate, they've allowed themselves to be held hostage at first by Republican "moderates" and then by conservative "Democrats." If this were a parliamentary system as found in Canada or Great Britain, there would have been no need for compromise with the opposition and a bill would have been passed months ago.

First, without even a debate, they gave up on the single best chance at cost control and universal coverage, a single-payer system, in exchange for a strong public option. Then they gave up the strong public option in exchange for a weak public option. Then they gave up the weak public option for an early Medicare buy-in. Then they gave up the early Medicare buy-in to get the support of Joe Lieberman, even though he had campaigned on that option as a vice-presidential candidate in 2000 and championed the idea as recently as three months ago. Then they had to strengthen the anti-abortion language to get the support of Ben Nelson. (Why, alone in the Western world, are Americans still debating abortion?) Opponents of the bill gave up nothing and got lots in return.

What are we left with? A mandate to buy insurance from private companies in return for not denying coverage to those compelled to buy from them. In spite of industry opposition to the bill, I think they are thrilled with the prospect of 30-40M new customers. They can still charge more for older and already sick people. And if those new customers can't afford the rates, the government will subsidize the payments. Sounds like a good deal except for those who will have to pay up to 17% of their income to pay for insurance.

The Democrats blew it big time. Starting at the top with Obama himself. He's been largely invisible in the whole process. If he devoted as much time to the healthcare debate as he did to Afghanistan, we'd be ahead in the game. If he were willing to spend as much on universal healthcare as he will spend in Afghanistan, none of us would ever have to worry about medical bills ever again. But no, he gave some fuzzy guidelines to Congress and let them hash it out. And hash is exactly what we are left with.

The Democrats picked the wrong enemy. They demonized the insurance companies rather than the rest of the medical-industrial establishment. There's nothing inherently outrageous about the way the insurance companies ran their businesses. It was like car or house or life insurance. Using actuarial tables and statistics, they try to pick the winners and try not to insure the losers. I'm not saying that body shops and parts suppliers are corrupt and monopolistic, but if car insurance rates were as crazy as medical insurance rates, it would be like singling out the insurers for the outrageous rates they charge rather than going after the corrupt and monopolistic body shops and parts suppliers. Medicine as practiced in the USA costs more than twice as much as every other industrial nation because every procedure, be it a CT scan or a blood test, and every drug costs twice as much as it does anywhere else, and American doctors order more of those procedures and prescribe more drugs. The 25-30% that US insurers take off the top only accounts for a small fraction of the difference in costs. (I think Canadian administrative costs are something like 8-10% of the healthcare bill.)

As far as I can tell, cost controls in the Senate bill are mostly non-existent. So the end result will be continuing high medical care costs and continuing high profits for the medical-industrial establishment, no improvement in medical outcomes, and a huge black eye for the Democrats. We won't get any real medical care reform until the system we now have collapses from its own weight.

Whackos are everywhere

2009-12-14T14:34:00.000-08:00

I stopped by a Les Schwab Tire Center today to get a quote for new tires for my Audi Allroad. I was greeted by a fat and greasy, but otherwise friendly slob who quickly enough gave me a couple of quotes for four new tires. I had never heard of the brands he quoted, Zexius and Tourevo, so I asked if they were made in China or what. He replied derisively that they used to be, but "Obama took care of that!" I wasn't sure what his point was, but there was no doubt he was not an Obama fan.

I guess my first point is that there is are large numbers of people, i.e., teabaggers, birthers, and Palin-lovers, who believe anything bad about Obama even if it makes no sense. My second point is that I'll go elsewhere for tires. If Les Schwab is stupid enough to give such a vocally ignorant guy a job, I'd hate to see what they do to my car, which is right up there with Volvos and Subarus as the vehicle of choice for tree-hugging, Obama-loving commies.

Obama's Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech

2009-12-10T22:31:00.000-08:00

I listened to parts of Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize speech today and then later downloaded the transcript to see what he actually said rather than relying on the color commentary of the talking heads of cable TV. My first impressions were that it was a somber and thoughtful speech skillfully delivered, but he used a couple of words and phrased that made my ears perk up. Fairly early in the speech, he used the phrase “just war” and listed preconditions for a “just war.” The three conditions he listed were: it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense; the force used is proportional, and whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence.

Those words reminded me of one of the favorite classes given by one of my favorite professors at UW during my ill-fated midlife return to academia six years ago. Anyone who studied history at UW over the last fifty years will remember Professor Jon Bridgman. His explosive barking laugh, his nervous pacing around the podium, and the witty stories he told made him and his lectures memorable. In any case, the class in question was called War and Society, focused on Just War theory using WWI as the case history. We studied Jus ad Bellum, the causes for a just war, and Jus in Bello, morality within war. Jus ad Bellum usually contains a few more preconditions for a just war than Obama listed. A couple of additional preconditions are comparative justice (the grievances leading to war on one side are greater than the grievances of the other) and probability of success (wars should be winnable, not just a vengeful slaughter or a hopeless cause).

A good case can be made that the initial war against Afghanistan in 2003 was a “just” war. America was attacked by forces trained and supported by al Qaeda in Afghanistan; sending in 1000 US forces and airpower to help rebel Afghan forces defeat the Taliban seemed about right proportionally; the USA did nothing to directly provoke the 9/11 attacks, and the probability of success was high. (Sparing civilians from violence is usually considered part of Jus in Bello.) So George W. Bush was probably morally right to go to war in Afghanistan. At the very least, Western world opinion was on the side of America.

What happened afterward is anything but just. Thousands of combatants and non-combatants were rounded up, tortured and held without trial or charges or hope for release, all in clear violation of international law. Including those held in Afghanistan, thousands are still imprisoned nine years later. So much for Jus in Bello.

But now we have a new president who offers change and hope that we and the world, as evidenced by the award of the Nobel Peace Prize, can believe in. He is sending in 30,000 additional troops to augment the 100,000 already there. What conditions exist today in Afghanistan that can possibly justify the war? The Taliban is long gone from government, and according to American intelligence estimates, less than one hundred Al Qaeda members are in the country. Are our troops fighting there in self-defense? Is this a war of last resort? Are the grievances against Afghanistan so great as to require the occupation of the country? What are the chances of success, and how is success defined? By any of the conventional just war arguments, Obama doesn’t have a moral leg to stand on.

Obama’s a brilliant guy, and maybe he is using some of that brilliance to rationalize to himself that he’s doing the right thing. But what’s with the line, “For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world.”? That’s a line right of W’s Manichean playbook. America is good. Our enemies are evil. I often wondered how you can fight evil, a supernatural force, with conventional means. Don’t you need God, or at least a superhero of some description, on your side to do that? Are we fighting a holy war? Is this Armageddon and no one told me?

This was a speech that Bush’s speechwriters may as well have written. The biggest problem is that Barack Obama, the man who was supposed to be everything George W. Bush wasn’t, delivered it.

Update 12/11

At least Obama didn't try to describe the Iraq war as a just war. He mentioned Iraq only obliquely by saying, "One of these wars is winding down." Even Obama, with his formidable intellect, realized there's no way to rationalize the morality of that war.

Healthcare Hope

2009-12-09T08:49:00.000-08:00

Just when I thought any meaningful healthcare reform was dying in the Senate, the Gang of Ten (as opposed to the Gang of Six, the Gang of Fourteen, and the original Gang of Four, but not to be confused with the energy Gang of Ten) appears to have come up with a plan that might just work. The bad news is that the public option is gone. But that's not really so bad because any teeth the public plan may have had have been negotiated out of it. In return for dropping the plan, it appears that people over 55 (like me) could buy into Medicare, the eligibility for Medicaid might go up to 150% of the poverty line, and the insurance exchanges would offer a version of a healthcare plan offered to members of Congress.

Expanding Medicare coverage would offer some real hope of cost control, and apparently people could buy in as early as next June. That provision alone would make more of a difference to more people than anything I've seen so far.

Maybe there is some hope after all.

Just a few thoughts...

2009-12-08T12:21:00.000-08:00

Wouldn't it be something if Barack Obama went to Oslo and didn't accept the Peace Prize? He could give a great speech about how he doesn't deserve it yet, but hopes to one day. Then he could go on to Copenhagen and put the weight of the United States behind a comprehensive global warming accord.

After he got back home, he could reverse course in Afghanistan and bring the troops home. To help Afghanistan stabilize, he would offer to buy all the opium that Afghani farmers could produce at "fair trade" prices. The opium could be used for pharmaceuticals, and if there's some left over, it could be destroyed. That would be a lot cheaper than having 100,000 troops over there, and the warlords would lose a lot of their power and financing.

Then he could accelerate the pullout of troops from Iraq. There would certainly be a mess in the vacuum that's left, but would it really be all that much worse than what's happening there now? Whatever came out of the vacuum would be more stable and viable than anything an American occupation can produce.

He'd still have lots left on his plate, what with Iran, Israel, US healthcare, saving the world economy, etc., etc., but he could go back to Oslo next year and get that Peace Prize that he would so richly deserve.

I can dream, can't I?

Morning Mental Health Break

2009-12-07T07:44:00.000-08:00

Afghanistan Costs

2009-12-05T17:01:00.000-08:00

Here are some interesting stats on the cost of the adventures in Afghanistan. Particularly interesting is the highlighted fact that in 2010 the US will spend more in Afghanistan than any other country in the world (except China) spends on their total individual defense budgets! As in healthcare, the US doesn't seem to get much bang for its buck. Or maybe that's all they get in this case - a bunch of big bangs as the money goes up in smoke.

Putting Afghanistan Troop Increase Costs in Perspective

Travis | Dec 02, 2009 | 0

Here's a little number crunching on the Afghanistan troop increase. For additional budgetary analysis, see Chris Hellman at NPP and Todd Harrison at CSBA.

Cost of Increase (Updated 1PM)

Adding 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan will cost $30 billion during Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 (12/1 speech).

This $30 billion comes in addition to the previously requested FY 2010 defense budget of $68 billion for Afghanistan, $62 billion for Iraq, $534 billion for DOD’s “base” budget, and $22 billion for nuclear weapons and miscellaneous defense needs.

Altogether, the troop increase in Afghanistan will push total U.S. defense spending in FY 2010 to approximately $716 billion.

Fiscal Year 2010 Funding Levels

Estimated DOD war funding now required for FY 2010:
Iraq = $62 billion
Afghanistan = $98 billion
Total = $160 billion (CRS)

Putting Costs in Perspective
References are to fiscal years

In 2010 alone, U.S. military spending on Afghanistan will equal nearly one-half of total spending on the war since 2001.

The United States will spend 92 percent more on military operations in Afghanistan during 2010 than it did during 2009.

In 2010, the troop increase in Afghanistan will cost each individual American taxpayer $195 dollars. (IRS)

In 2010, the troop increase in Afghanistan will cost $2.5 billion per month, $82 million per day, $3.4 million per hour, $57,000 per minute, and $951 per second.

In the time it takes you to read this post, the troop increase in Afghanistan will have cost $85,500.

In 2010, the United States will spend more on Afghanistan than every other country in the world spends on defense individually, with the exception of China. Of course, total U.S. defense spending in 2010, at over $700 billion, will be roughly five times greater than China’s total military budget.

With the additional $30 billion to be spent in Afghanistan during 2010, the United States could:

• Double the amount spent on nuclear nonproliferation, anti-terrorism, and demining ($1.6 billion)
• Double U.S. support of migrants and refugees throughout the world ($3 billion)
• Quadruple the Civilian Stabilization fund for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq ($1.5 billion)
• Triple federal funding for renewable energy research and development ($7.4 billion)
• Double overall contributions to international institutions like the WHO and IAEA ($2.1 billion)
• Double federal funding for DHS First Responder and CDC Disease Prevention programs ($4.2 billion)
• Strengthen capacity of Coast Guard to close off the far-more-likely route of nuclear weapons coming into the United States – through ports ($6 billion) (USB 2010 report)

Obama's Speech, Reaction Part II

2009-12-02T19:10:00.000-08:00

Obama is a really smart guy - certainly the most intelligent president of my lifetime. So what's he up to? He must know that he'll never get the support of the right, and he's losing the support of the middle and the left. He must also know that trying to pacify or civilize Afghanistan is a fool's errand.

He did a masterstroke by putting the war in the budget process. That will put the Republicans in the awkward position of having to vote for his plans, because the Democrats alone won't do it. If nothing else, that will embarrass the Republicans into giving a veneer of bipartisanship to his war policies. He also knows that his supporters have nowhere else to go. What are they going to do, vote for Palin in 2012?

But in the end, he'll still be spending billions and wasting American lives on a hopeless venture that does nothing to make America "safer."

So what's he up to? Maybe he's cut a deal with Pakistan to somehow hunt down Osama bin Laden in the border areas or allow the CIA to hunt him down in return for some favors regarding Kashmir and India. Or maybe it's just plain old-fashioned cash. But wouldn't that be the surprise of the century if Obama bagged Osama? Obama could then pull out all the troops with his head held high. His base would again support him, and the right would be crushed.

Truly a "Mission Accomplished" moment.

Obama's Speech

2009-12-01T19:52:00.000-08:00

I watched Obama's speech about Afghanistan tonight with a sinking feeling in my stomach. I don't know what he's trying to achieve and how "victory" will be defined. After a litany of how we got into the mess in the first place, he laid out his plan to defeat the Taliban so that they can't invite Al Quaeda back in and give them a safe haven. Exactly how Afghanistan differs from other terrorist-harboring failed states like Somalia or Yemen or parts of the Philipines or Indonesia, he doesn't say. And we have to keep fighting them so that the Pakistanis, who have their own Taliban/Al Queda problem will keep fighting them in the border areas. He going to do this by providing security and training Afghan soldiers and police so that they can do the job when we leave. The number of 400,000 Afghan security forces has been thrown around before, but I've never heard how the country can possibly support them. Last year Afghanistan had an estimated GDP of about $22B. At $5000 to equip, house, and maintain each soldier or policeman, their entire GDP would soon be gone. So I guess that even if we're successful, we'll be supporting Afghanistan financially forever.

The one bright spot in the speech was his promise of financial transparency. If the war is on the budget, and Congress has to debate and vote on the expenditures necessary to maintain it, it could make the Congress responsible for at least some of the coming debacle.

I don't know who was the intended audience for this speech. If you watched the speech, you could see that the young cadets were polite and more or less engaged, but the military brass looked positively pained by it all. The right will mock and block whatever he does; the left is leaving him in droves (MoveOn.org today announced their opposition to the Afghan surge); and the vast middle is just sick and tired of it all. I can't think of any block of people whose confidence he's gained.

He certainly has lost mine.

Canada, a kinder gentler nation?

2009-12-01T11:49:00.000-08:00

If, like me, you thought that Canada is a kinder gentler nation, watch this video. I'm not so sure anymore. Amy Goodman is not a whacko or a terrorist. She is a long-time progressive writer, broadcaster and journalist. She's prominent on the left, but doesn't get much airtime on the MSM. For some reason, the Canadian border guards detained her at the Peace Arch Crossing as she was traveling from Seattle to Vancouver.

I always thought I could run back to Canada when the US becomes a police state, but I'm not so sure anymore.

Health Care Debate

2009-11-24T20:14:00.000-08:00

The health care debate in the Senate is soon coming to an end one way or another, and I'm not optimistic about the final package. If the Senate does pass something, it will be so watered down that it will be nothing more than a gift to the insurance companies and will do nothing to contain costs. The already weak "public option" in the Senate version of the bill will probably not survive the filibuster threat of four so-called Democratic senators. If there is no public option, the insurance companies will have no competition, no incentive to contain costs, and a whole new pool of 45M people who are mandated by law to buy insurance from them. The process and the debate haven't made a whole lot of sense to me.

This isn't change I can believe in.

Afghanistan Policy

2009-11-24T19:50:00.000-08:00

It looks like Obama is going to announce his long-awaited decision on his Afghanistan policy, and if rumors are correct, he'll be sending something approaching the 40,000 troops McCrystal has requested. I think this is a huge mistake. I can't see how Afghanistan is anything approaching an existential threat to the US, and I can't see any way to justify the costs of an open-ended campaign to pacify the country. Going back to the time of Alexander the Great, no country or empire has been able to control Afghanistan. What makes the USA so special?

If you want to see and hear someone far more articulate than me give his strategy for the area, watch this video of Andrew Bacevich and David Frum debating Afghan policy. Andrew Bacevich is a very thoughtful and intellectual conservative and author of the book, Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. David Frum is the former Bush speechwriter who coined the phrase, "axis of evil." Canadian readers might know that he is the son of the CBC broadcasting icon Barbara Frum. David Frum is not a whacko conservative, and he styles himself as an intellectual conservative, but I think he was out of his league in this debate with Bacevich.

Israeli Slide Show

2009-11-24T19:34:00.000-08:00

In my last posting, I said I admired Caroline's teaching qualities and had seen her in action. Yesterday, I saw her in action in the classroom again when I gave a talk and slide show on my travels in Israel to four of her classes. The talks I gave went alright, and the kids were polite and reasonably engaged, but I doubt that I really connected with them. Caroline has a way of connecting with the students that I don't have, but I enjoyed the talk and I'd do it again. I hope that the students got something out of it too.

Congratulations Caroline!

2009-11-21T19:44:00.000-08:00

Caroline is a good teacher. She takes it seriously, works hard at it, and connects with her students. I know. Having been in her classroom several times, I've seen her in action. After putting in a bunch more hard work, she got notification yesterday that she passed the National Board Certification exams that she wrote months ago. That puts her in the elite 0.4% of teachers in the nation who have that certification as a "highly qualified teacher". This means that she can teach virtually anywhere in the country, it looks good on her resume, and if Washington State doesn't declare bankruptcy, an extra $5k per year in pay.

Way to go!

Kindle Review

2009-11-18T09:08:00.000-08:00

I bought a Kindle just before I left for Israel and read 3-1/2 books on it while I was gone. So here are my expert thoughts:

-Overall, it works pretty well. I got into reading it just like a paperback.

-The 5-way controller, a bit like a joystick, is cumbersome to use. Rather than just using my thumb, I'd end up using a fingernail to make sure I was engaging it.

-It's not as user-friendly and intuitive as I'd like. I had to reference the user's manual several times to do simple things like setting a bookmark.

-The screen is easy to read, even in bright sunlight.

-It doesn't handle some fonts very well. The italics in Brotherhood of the Rope were almost unreadable at times due to parts of the letters missing.

-It doesn't handle pictures very well. The fonts on the picture captions in Brotherhood of the Rope were so small I couldn't read them even after using the one level of zoom available.

-Sometimes the pagination and paragraph breaks were weird. In one case, a capital letter "O" was split between two lines. It looked like open and closed parentheses.

-It's hard to flip a few pages forward or back. Even if you hit the "turn page" control several times in rapid succession, it will only turn two pages at a time.

-The rudimentary 3G web access built into the Kindle is truly rudimentary and really not useable.

-It doesn't use page numbers in the traditional sense. It uses "location" numbers instead. If you totally lose your place, like I did a couple of times, it's hard to get back to where you were.

In spite of these complaints, I did like the machine overall.

If you are considering buying one, take a close look at the competition. Barnes and Noble came out with one just after I left on my trip, and on paper it looks like a better deal. That's mainly because they have true WiFi and 3G internet capability built in.

The Sony Reader is also worth a look. They cut a deal with Google, and all of the books in the public domain that Google has digitized are available free of charge. The only issue I see with the Sony Reader is that it needs to be hooked up to a computer to download books.

Israel recap

2009-11-13T03:39:00.001-08:00

Megan left at 4:30 this morning to catch a 7AM flight back to the real world. My flight doesn't leave until 11 this evening, so while I've got some time to kill and a decent internet connection, I figured I may as well do a blog posting. As usual, it's annoying to try and get pictures and text lined up, but here goes.

We rented a car when I arrived in Tel Aviv and spent the first night in Jaffa. The next morning we hit the road, heading south. We got about as close as you can get to Gaza at this border crossing. This used to be a busy crossing with people going to Israel to work and truckloads of fruit and vegetables crossing every day. But since the Israelis closed the border, it's pretty dead. While there, we talked to a group of Israeli veterans who were demonstrating for the release of an Israeli soldier who's been held by militants inside the strip for over three years now. We heard gunshots while we were talking to the demonstrators. They were unconcerned, saying that the border guards were firing warning shots to keep Arab sheep and shepherds away from the wall.

This is the view from our window at our overnight stop at the "hostel" at Masada. I put hostel in quotation marks because this has got to be the creme de la creme of the hostel world. It's an absolutely gorgeous hostel in a gorgeous setting overlooking the Dead Sea and underlooking (?) the ancient fortress of Masada, and comes complete with a half-size Olympic pool! You may recall that Masada is where something like 900 Jewish Zealots committed suicide in 73AD rather than surrendering to Roman forces in the aftermath of the Second Jewish Revolt.

This is the Israeli flag at dawn over Masada.

During the climb down the Snake Path, we were treated to the sight of this Nubian Ibex and his harem.

After we left Masada, we drove through a sandstorm that reminded me of a snowstorm on the prairies, complete with crappy visibility and drifting sand across the road. It was neat to see a storm like this, but the lousy weather prevented us from stopping for a swim (float?) in the Dead Sea.

And we got so see some camels!

The separation of Israel into Israeli areas wasn't really all that apparent after we left the Gaza border. It was evident on our road map, and was physically evident on this main road to Jericho, a Palestinian controlled area. The road was bulldozed shut. No need for a checkpoint, I guess.

There were lots of Israeli war memorials, both large and small on the roads we travelled. This is one of the bigger ones on the road north into Galilee.

In Galilee we passed signs pointing out the site of the Sermon on the Mount. (Remember the Beatitudes and all that from Sunday School?) Well, apparently it happened here.

After spending the night in a pretty grubby hostel in Tiberius, we continued north to the Golan Heights. The scenery and the roads were good, except for the occasional abrupt zig-zags surrounded by minefields.

We didn't venture too far from the car, just in case the signs weren't kidding.

Believe it or not, there is a ski resort in Israel at Mt. Hermon on the Syrian border!

It has five lifts, and actually looks pretty interesting. By the look of it, I've skiied in worse areas.

I wish I would have had my camera at the breakfast we had at at the Beit Shalom hotel restaraunt in Metula, on the northern border with Lebanon. We had loads of freshly made bread, homemade cheeses, olives, dips and jams. This was the best meal we had in Israel!

As for views from our hotel room windows, what could possibly top this view from the St. Gabriel Hotel in Nazareth? This is a converted convent, and either the nuns lived in the lap of luxury, or someone did one hell of a job on the renovations.

This is the interior of the Bascilica of the Annunciation. It was commissioned in 1969, and has got to be one of the best examples of modern religious architecture in the world. It has an austere interior of bare concrete walls and pillars, but for whatever reason, it works.

This isn't really the view from our window, but it is the view from the kitchen of the hostel we stayed at in Jaffa. It is right in the middle of the Jaffa flea market, which goes on for blocks and blocks. If my flea-market friend Hal ever goes there, it will takes weeks to drag him out. We turned in the rental car, spent the night in Jaffa, and then took a sherut taxi to Jerusalem.

We arrived in Jerusalem on the Sabbath, in time to wander over to the Wailing Wall at the foot of the remains of the Jewish temple that was destroyed in 69AD. It was quite a sight to see mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews praying at the wall.

All sorts of strange headgear were evident everywhere in Jerusalem.

One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. It was beautifully and movingly done, covering the rise of Hitler, the Final Solution in Europe, and the emigration to Israel.

The next day, we got another view of the State of Israel with and "alternative" tour to Hebron. We got our first look at the walls that Israel is building to separate the Israeli areas from the Palestian controlled areas. It was an eye-opening day.

Here's Megan and some of the other women in the garb they had to wear to get into the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the Palestinian controlled area of Hebron.

The mosque itself is quite modest in comparison to the Christian controlled cathedrals and churches.

The mosque is divided in two - with Jewish access on one side and Moslem access on the other. We came in on the Moslem side. This is the view of the Tomb of Abraham looking at the Jewish side.

There is a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews from Brooklyn living in Old Hebron. They moved in illegally in 1967,a nd have been there ever since. There are about four Israeli soldiers for every settler, and are stationed on rooftops and intersections everywhere.

There are checkpoints everywhere restricting the movement of Palestinians to the Old Town which supposedly is under joint Palestinian-Israeli control.

Humiliation of the Palestinians is a daily occurance. Here the Palestinian shopkeepers have installed a wire mesh to protect shoppers from the pelting of garbage they get from the Jewish settlers living above them.

Then, it's back to Tel Aviv, which seems devoid of the divisions elsewhere in the country. Tel Aviv is a modern European-style city, with highrises along its gorgeous beaches. You'll rarely see an ultra-Orthodox Jew or hear the Islamic call to prayer here.

There is lots of interesting Bauhaus-style architecture here, but unfortunately most of it isn't in very good shape.

The water and beaches, even at this time of the year are fabulous.

We had a great trip!

Tel Aviv

2009-11-11T21:17:00.000-08:00

After failing to find an easy way to get from Jerusalem to Jordan, we decided to spend the last few days of our trip a block off the beach in Tel Aviv. The weather here is still good, with clear skies and highs in the upper 70's, so we are getting a bit of beach time. Tel Aviv is very different from Jerusalem - more modern and more European in feel. It's unusual to see an ultra-orthodox Jew on the streets.

And here's a bonus tip for anyone trying to figure out how to walk around the labyrinth of streets in Israel (or anywhere else for that matter), Google Maps has turn-by-turn walking directions! We went and saw Julie and Julia last night at a theater about a half-hour's walk from here. We would never have found the place without the directions from Google. And yes, we both loved the movie!