The 90's

So we just finished watching VH1's top 100 songs of the 90's, and it did 3 things:

1. Reminded me of this video.
2. Reminded me how totally hot I am for Liz Phair (listen to Flower... I mean GOD!)
3. Made me wish I could remember my own life more vividly, more often

Man, it just amazes me how music can bring back memories like nothing else:

Into The Great Wide Open playing as B and I raced down the Texas highway, to go climbing in Mineral Wells

Under the Bridge as I went to get my motorcycle registered with a yuppie republican girl from my scholarship program named Allison... I remember she used to come to class with a "Texans for Bush" bumpersticker pasted across her crotch (that was Bush Sr. for you kiddies!)

The first time I heard Smells Like Teen Spirit... B came over to my hovel on 35th street with a cassette tape of Nevermind; we listened to the whole thing, amazed and thoroughly amused by the sheer balls of the song Polly.

I could go on and on, but I won't. I'm just glad for the music, because I have forgotten (or at least put out of mind) most of my short existence in this life, and sometimes music brings it back, if only for short moments.

How Erin ruined my vacation, part 1

So we're at the beautiful Rock Creek lake, and we'd just found the coolest little hike-in camping spot, and I'd FINALLY caught a little brook trout after months of anticipation, when we decided to move to the lake to fish. Here it is:

So I set Erin up with a spincast rod and a rooster tail, because they are the easiest and most likely combination to help her catch a fish. As I was just settling in and had my eyes on a roaming rout, I hear "Um, honey. I hooked my leg. Can you come get it out?"
Well, I figured sure, it'd be no problem. Wrong again. She'd lodged TWO of the tines on the treble hook firmly in her leg. I didn't have a knife or a razor, so we got the camp host to clip off the rest of the lure from the hook. It looked like this:
Anyway, we made an unexpected trip to the ER in Mammoth, where we had the quickest ER visit EVER, though they looked at Erin like she was a dope for coming in to get a hook out, until they realized it was two tines. Then the doctor tied string around both parts, gave a yank, and the hook was removed. The best thing (besides the quick turn-around) was that it cost us nothing at all... Hooray for E's bitchen insurance!
Here she is finishing the admittance paperwork. Notice the hook still in her leg.


We made it back to camp in under 3 hours, got a decent night's sleep, and were up and fishing at 7:15. I caught 5 fish this morning, and Erin hasn't maimed herself yet, so I guess all is well and I can forgive her for the lost hours of fishing last night. She even tried her hand at fly-fishing again this morning, though she promptly got tangled in a tree immediately following this photo:


We had to make a run to town (hence this blog-post) but now we're headed back to camp, and more fish. This morning was good, and though the five I caught were from 8 to 14 inches, I nearly fell in when a bruiser of a brown trout (he was at least 20 inches and 3 lbs.) swam right by my feet as I was casting to a pod of risers. I have needs to make said fish my bitch, and barring any catastrophe, will give it my best shot.
And by the way, you better not fall in, hook yourself, get bitten by the giant coyote roaming camp, contract rabies from a marmot or whatever else might interfere with my pursuit of fish Erin! :)

Gaaahhh!

Some people have too much time on their hands. I'm one of those people, at least for the next month or so. I'd like to be one of the ones who knows how to use their free time to do something creative, or constructive, or social, or whatever, but Elaine pretty much nailed it when she said "look around, say 'fuck it,' and go sit on the couch and look for more cool things on the internet" in response to my post a few days back.
We have had friends visiting from Cali for the last few days, which has been great, as it's gotten us out of the house. However, Toyota still hasn't finished our car yet, but they at least gave us a rental with AC so we can now leave the house without having to put up with extreme discomfort. I had to drive the van across town yesterday at 4:00, and I'm not exaggerating when I say it was at least 120 degrees in my car, because it was about 112 outside and my van was much, much hotter. By the time I got home, I was hot to the point of nearly tearing up, and I was practically delirious. But then Erin showed up in a scion with excellent AC, and I was so happy we just drove around the block a few times to recapture the feeling of driving without being miserable.
So anyway, we were out with our friends, hanging out by the pool after dark, and, to my horror, Erin was wondering "who the fat guy with our friend was," when she realized it was me.
Fucking ouch!
But it is true. My spare tire has expanded in the last months or so up toward my shoulders, and my thighs brush against each other when I walk, which is really, really annoying.
I don't look like a blimp or anything, but goddamn it if I haven't always assumed I'd be skinny as a rail without ever having to worry about it. And now I'm not.
I eat pretty healthy, but have done dick for exercise for the last few months, and it's starting to show.
So we went to the gym today, but I'm not very hopeful at the moment. I've been doing the gym thing on and off for several years, and I'm obviously not doing something right. Although to be fair, I've never really gained significant weight or changed pant or shirt sizes until the last few months. This simply will not do.
OK, enough complaining and enough whining. I'll post something more cheerful someday, maybe.

another reason why I LOVE Texas... The Texas GOP!

Ok, ok...

I really only am fond of Texas for its geography and the few of you that still live there.
BUT...
I am amused (in the same way you can be amused by the senile old uncle who's so brain damaged that he gets away with racial slurs and blatant sexism) of the shamelessly racist, anti-feminist, and otherwise bigoted way that the Texas GOP handles itself.

At least in Texas, they don't secretly pretend not to be racist while cracking nigger jokes and wetback jokes under their breath, no sir. They proudly hock things like this at their state republican convention.

Who says Texas aint great?

Trying to find something constructive to do

So since I'm not going to Switzerland, we don't have a trip to Tetons/Yellowstone in the works, and I'm not teaching summer school, and I just finished my second 6 hour doctoral class by writing a 24 page paper (with sappy accolades from the professor and a high "A" ), not to mention the fact that our only car with A/C needs a new engine (and it's been hitting the 100-teens in town the last few days), I find myself for the first time facing a summer break with no plans, no transportation, and no money (the car's only going to be about $2200 instead of $4000, but still). So I'm trying to find cheap, constructive things to occupy my time. Erin and I will go camping once the car is fixed, but in the mean time, I'm not sure what to do with myself, so I made a list, and here it is:

make a trailer for my bicycle

pack up my old classroom

fix things around the house, including but not limited to a broken window, loose faucet, roof leak, and broken tile in the bathroom

do some routine maintenance on the motorcycle

clean up yard

I fully anticipate having these things completed by this coming Sunday. The only hitch is all the outside things will need to be done early, because it's just too hot to sit in the driveway, for example, any time after about 10:00 a.m.
So anyway, while I was trying to find the link to the plans for the bicycle trailer, I found this site which is full of great DIY projects... Check it out.

Jesus Christ, did you see that?!

OK,
For what it is worth, I have sooo felt like Tammy before, wishing on the one hand that I had it in me to just give in to the fairytale of the prevalent Christian faith, for no other reason than to feel connected, both to others and to the big scary unknown, and on the other hand, being afraid of that happening to me against my will.
I've known too many good people over the years who, after not having seen them for awhile, have suddenly found Jesus, and become less than they were. I'm sure they would see it just the opposite, but I'm speaking selfishly here. When people I've known go all Jesus-y, they invariably become more shallow in every conceivable way as far as my interactions with them are concerned. Period. I NEVER want to do that. And I don't care to enter into any type of theological debate here either. I'm just saying that in my experience, every person I've known who has found Jesus has suffered a tangible loss that affects me directly. And it isn't just my bias against religion that makes me see it. I've noticed the change in certain friends before they revealed their new-found faith. It's nothing I want, and while I can understand their belief in the benefit of their new faith, I just don't believe it to be anything more than a giving -up, or a settling-for.
Death, God, what happens next.... all of it is so uncertain, and I as much as anyone else yearn for the truth... but not so much so that I am willing to accept anyone's belief structure because parts of it seem to ring true. I am constantly struggling with reconciling my belief that there is a God and the uncertainty of ever knowing. One thing I know IS certain is that life is short, very short, and it is all we know we have, and that the only consequences that I am concerned about relate to this life. I struggle not with the what-if's of what comes after, but with the choices I make with the limited time I have.
I'm not a person who needs a great deal of comfort, and I guess that is both a blessing and a curse.
My father's dying made me realize that I squandered a lot of time, and I wish I had worked harder at setting things right with him. But now that he's gone, I'm not concerned with ever seeing him again. What I have left of him that he left behind is nothing tangible, but it's enough... it has to be. There's nothing else.
But that's OK.
I used to be afraid of turning into my father. And there are parts of him, big parts, that I see in myself that I am still afraid of and that I don't want. But his passing has revealed to me the good parts he's left in me, and they are good things.
I believe in the divine nature of the human spirit. And I don't mean spirit in the sense of some entity that goes on after our bodies perish. And I don't mean divine in the sense of some omnipotent power. I mean spirit in the sense of a human willingness to step into the unknown boldly and joyfully, embracing the fear and uncertainty that comes along with doing so, just to see what is possible. And I mean divine in the sense of brushing against something larger than just one life. Whether that's an idea, or a force of nature, or some collective subconscious or whatever, it is connecting to something bigger than just our own limited experience.
Though my dad made his way back to church in his later years, that is not what he left me that I value. He left me something greater than that.
His appreciation of performance art and music verged on awe, and this perception is something we share. It is a huge part of what gives me comfort. It is the way I see the divine, and it doesn't come from an outside source; it is purely human.
It's in the amazing stories of people exceeding the limits of what came before, whether in art or science or politics... in all the thousands and thousands of ways people do it every day, that I find comfort and hope and connectedness. And most importantly, inspiration to join in and participate in the unique gift of being human.
To illustrate my point, I offer these few things; they are just examples of some of the amazing things people can do that happened to come my way today.

Read about how scientists are combining viruses and nanotechnology to be beneficial.

Read here to check out one of my favorite poems by on of my favorite poets.

Now watch these videos. I mean, DAMN...

Second Childhood

My dad wrote for his church newsletter. The following piece was written by him, about a week before he died. I think it's the best thing he wrote.

Second Childhood
By Tony Downey

When I first heard the expression, "He's living his second childhood," I had no idea what it meant. I thought it referred to an older man purchasing a flashy sports car, marrying a woman half his age, or dyeing his hair and using tanning lotion - actions resulting from a desire to look many years younger and recapture his long lost youth. But now, after more than seven decades on this planet, I've come to realize what the expression really means, at least in my case. It is a mixture of nostalgia, youthful innocence, forgotten potential and unrequited love. I find all of these images in my recurrent memories, drifting back to my own childhood when everything was so clean and simple. I recall the sound of music, the taste of sweetness the thrill of cold rain on my face on a hot day, the unbridled freedom taken for granted, peer status with my pals, the smell of earth as Spring thaws the frozen ground; the softness of my mother's touch, the absolute authority of my father.

But then I grew up and learned the ways of the world: ambition, competition, conflict, jealousy, selfishness, arrogance, hatred, lies and frustration. Surrounded by these elements, I fought to stay above them, but fell victim to many - many more than I wish to confess. It is only by God's grace that I have survived, bent, but not broken. While not yet counting my days, I can see these final events looming on the not so distant horizon.

Falling back into my second childhood, remembering and relishing these boyhood memories of blissful ignorance, I am able to bask in the enduring peace and forgiveness and look forward to that ultimate reconciliation, when all that was will be again, and I return as a child of the light.

I don't hold to my father's religious convictions, but I am happy that they gave him solace, and that he died as he always hoped he would: quickly and unexpectedly, and at peace with all his children.

I have to admit, this is pretty uncanny...

So my brother sent me this link, and it is pretty cool... check it out!

Putting things in perspective

I am not always a good friend, a good husband, a good father, or a good son. In general I try stick by my ideals, but as I get older, I find myself more and more often living in the gray areas between. It hasn't always been this way.

When I was younger I was fiercely loyal; I sought to be just in thought and action; I had a high moral standard. I knew what was right, and more importantly, I recognized wrong, especially in matters of family, friendship and love.

Or so I thought.

I took great pride in being right, ocasionally at the cost of hurting or even losing people important to me. I realize now that I am older that being right isn't always the most important thing. Especially concerning the people I love.

It is no secret that I have never thought highly of my father. I could list all his shortcomings as a parent, all the ways he failed me, the instances where the choices he made came at the sacrifice of his children. I have been, to varying degrees, angry at him for most of my life.

It's been 12 days since his stroke, and 10 since he took his last breath. I don't know if I am handling things well, or if I am not. I feel ok about things at the moment, but that may change.

What I have come to accept, though, is that I didn't really know my father, and that I think I probably would have liked him had I had the opportunity and the circumstances of our relationship had been different.

I am not suddenly stricken with a whole new view of my dad now that he is gone. I am not romanticizing him; all I'm saying is that I wish things had been different between us, but it just wasn't possible; it didn't happen, and it it probably couldn't have been any different.

However, I know he wished the same, and right now, that's enough.

I've seen enough of my own imperfections and the havoc my choices have caused people I've loved in my life, to know that it's not always possible to undo the damage we cause, even though we'd love nothing more than to be able to do so. Though it wasn't always evident to me, I think my dad felt much the same, and it is comforting to know that he saw, and he wished.

And everything changes

My dad just had a stroke. He's not going to make it.

A Goldmine

Perhaps most of you won't be as amused as I, but I stumbled upon this website and it's had me laughing for hours. Like most sites, there's alot that's mediocre, but I've found quite a bit of stuf to make me laugh outloud. For example, they feature a "Photoshop Phriday" which produced these comic book covers:

If those don't make you laugh, how about these Science Fair projects?

In addition to the pictures, you can browse forums with topics such as

Compare your genitals to Musicians or

MSpaint your illogical childhood notions.

Anyway, that's how I've killed the better part of an evening, when what I really should be doing is reading my American School Law text because I have paper due on Sunday.

Choose your own adventure

I was poking around the nets when I came across something about choose your own adventure books (CYOA). I loved them as a kid, and I even bought a series of used Endless Quest ones for my classroom a few years ago on Ebay.


So anyway, as I was poking around, I came across this picture:


And I thought, "How cool!"
I remember reading many CYOA style books as a kid, and most weren't of the official line, but were clones, and are lost to me. I even had a few that were romances, fantasy fiction targeting a girl audience by having smarmy smooches mixed in with all the dragons and magic and stuff.
While I wasn't able to find reference to some of the more obscure series (I have fogotten their names!) I did come across some interesting new books, campy CYOA style books that are sort of a tongue-in-cheek combination of B-movie and harlequin romance.
With titles like Tangle in Tijuana, Beauty Queen Blowout, or the best one (shut up Michael!), Escape From Fire Island, how can you go wrong?
I remember writing a comp. program in BASIC in 7th grade where we were basically copying a Zork story, and I think it would be fun to try to perhaps do an audience participation type event where we make a CYOA story, only the choices would send a reader to someone else's blog; it might be a fun thing for those of us who wish we were writers to do this summer...
Anyway, I have to think on it for awhile. If you have any suggestions, let me hear them.

Dames, ya gotta love 'em

Especially if the Dame in question is Dame Juliana Berners, quite likely the first author on a sport in the history of modern English. I did a report on her as an under-grad for a History of the English Language class, and she is very unsual historically-speaking.

At a time when nearly everyone was illiterate, and little writing was done outside of religious treatise, here was a woman writing about fishing. Pretty cool, if you ask me.

Anyway, I am getting the fishing/camping/mountain bug pretty bad lately, and what with not getting to go on any trips last summer (I mean fishing trips; Switzerland doesn't count!) I'm just itching to get on the water. I get out of school a week earlier than Nick and Erin, so I am trying to plan a trip for a few days between the 30th of May and the 4th of June. Possibilities are:

The Sierra Nevada

Utah

Northern Nevada

Colorado

I love all these places, and each is great in its own way. I just can't decide which will be best for such a short trip.

Erin Nick and I are tentatively planning on going to go to Colorado to visit my sister on the 5th, so one possibility is to take the motorcycle and get there a few days early. As an added bonus, when they arrive I won't have to drag them around while I selfishly fish for 12 to 14 hours straight, and having a cycle in the mountains is just cool. However, the down side is that the weather there has been horrific (for the fishing) this winter and Spring, and I certainly don't want to be there if the run-off makes the waters unfishable, or if the ice won't be off by then. For example, it was an already-too-hot 92 degrees here last Saturday , while in Silverthorne, where Nicole lives, it was only a high of 30 degrees... and it dumped a few inches of snow as well. Nicole assures me that the snow melted the next day, but with weather like that h fishing might not get started until early July.

If the weather doesn't cooperate, we'll go visit her at the end of summer and I'll go to one of the remaining places on my list. Now that I'm thinking of it, I haven't been to Angel Lake in about 4 years, and the last time I went, it was a bust; it was a draught year, and the river was dry.

But the first time I went, it was Memorial weekend, the lake had just iced off, and the trout were stacked up like firewood in little holding areas in the drainage creek. The fishing was great! Plus, there's a little alpine lake about 2 miles up and around the escarpment from Angel lake that is supposedly little visited and filled with arctic grayling:

a rare find in the lower 48 west of the rockies, and especially in Nevada! I couldn't hike in that first year because the trail was still covered in 10 feet of snow, but maybe this time will be different.

So all told, I just can't make up my mind. But I suppose that's half the fun.

In other news, check out this alligator!

And you can click here to see me man-handling him. :)

IRC day!

According to the internets, May 4th is International Respect for Chickens Day! So everyone get out the party favors, cue up this song, and dance and drink to your feathered compatriot's glory!

For my part, I thought I'd post a few pics of our local fowl celebrity from across the street. When I cam home today I saw him strutting around and snapped a few fine photos. According to Nick, this cock was pimpin' as he literally crossed the street:

leave it to an engineer

This comes courtesy of Nicky's mom. You cat people will understand.

PBS, Bitches

So I just went down to the pub to get some pizza and they were playing a bunch of early 90's club music, and a bunch of people were dancing, and I suddenly got very, very nostalgic for that period of my life. Most of you who read this were gone from my life during those years, but I was a dedicated club-rat, athe the time when clubs were all Night at the Roxbury style....




?!!


Sorry to do that to you, guys... here's the right one.









Oops, no, that's not it... Maybe this one:




Yep, that's the one!



Actually, I am really amazed at how many variations of the Roxbury dance appear on youtube; I've been distracted for like an hour looking at all the clips, like this one:



and this one:



Boy, I did love to dance.

It was one of the more pleasurable periods in my life, and I just kind of phased into a heavy-duty euphoric recall while I was there. Then I got my pizza, walked back to my room, ate my pizza, watched a Law and Order, and then flipped to PBS, where a most interesting show was on.
It's called History Detectives. It's really a very well-crafted program. Click here to read a transcript of the show, or better yet, find the show on a bittorent site... or if you're too lazy, click here for a short synopsis.

PBS, bitches.

Perhaps the second most awesome thing ever?

Once I got over the initial pre-judgement "this is gay" hurdle, I realized that this may just be the second most awesome thing ever (behind this, of course)!


Seriously, I'm going to use this with my class on Monday.
The clip comes courtesy of Teachertube. I can't believe I've never heard of this site before!
In other news, I think I'm changing the focus of my doctoral study from professional development for teacher retention to development of international learning communities, but more on that later. I have lunch, then another session to go to.

Fundamentalism is the bastard child of Imperialism and Nationalism

Man, I just spent the last hour and a half reading one of the links from my last post, all about Zionism and the 6 day war. All I can say is, Holy Shit! I've learned more about the Middle East in the the last hour than I did in the 37 years before, and I am having a hard time believing how poorly our government interacts with the governments of the region... it makes me say "Aah!"

Perspectives

Our keynote speaker today was Jeffrey Goldberg, author of Prisoners: a Story of Friendship and Terror. The topic was "Bringing peace to the middle east: an impossible dream?" There are several colleges within Walden University here for their residencies, so I wasn't particularly excited about this plenary presentation. I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised. This guy was amazing! I'm too tired (or lazy) to go into detail about his whole series of stories, so I'll put this link (be sure to read all 5 pages of corespondence!) and this one (which is probably the best one) for you to check out. Basically, he just recounted some of his amazing story for us, emphasizing the usefulness of tolerance and the ability to live with uncertainty as ways to bridge the gap between Jews and Muslims. What was really interesting though, was that during the Q and A session, nearly every questioner was either from an African country where "rebels" have been labelled as terrorists, or Muslims who were so emotionally attached to the conflict that they couldn't hear his message. There was one pertinent question about terrorism by an irate man, who it seems had a personal vested interest in Lebannon (I think he was from there.) The questioner pointed out that in some cases, organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas were at least somewhat representative and military in nature, and therefore legitimate in a way that Al Quaida, for example, was not, and he wanted to know why Jeffrey referred to them as terrorist organizations, but not the Israeli or US armies. Jeffrey responded by saying he considers Hezbollah and Hamas terrorist organizations because they target children. The questioner then asked about "collateral damage" by the US military, but by this point his emotions had gotten the best of him and he was shouting, quite agitated. Jeffrey actually handled things remarkably well, in that he simply told the man not to judge him or his positions until he'd read his book (which I decided I had to have!), though I'd like to have heard his take on the collateral damage, which he didn't offer.
Now remember that all 900 plus people here are working on either PhD or EdD degrees... so what happened next is all the more surprising...
The final questioner went on a tirade about Zionists (Jeffrey is an admitted Zionist; I had to look it up to understand exactly what it meant; its a long read but an interesting one!) and was shouting "Shame on Walden for it's biased support of Zionism!" He was so outraged by Jeffrey's invitation to be keynote speaker that he renounced his affiliation with Walden, presumably quitting the doctoral program.
I really felt sorry that he didn't hear what I heard, which was a (mostly) humble accounting of one Jew's experience in trying to gain perspective on the war between the cultures of Arab and Jew. The outburst was a perfect demonstration of how difficult it is to look at your "enemy" as human... which was the whole point, I think.

Existentialists rejoice! (or beware?)

Man, what DOES a doctoral program with a minimum investment of three years and 30 thousand dollars have to offer? Well HERE IT IS!

...and I offer it to you for free.

(You can thank me later!)