Goodbye Old Friends

You've been quite a pair, I have to say. Odd looking, but very easy to get along with. From the very first day, you'd go anywhere...from around the block to Coyote Wall to Mt. Hood to Oneonta Gorge, to Bend, to the WA Canadian border, to California, Texas, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Rain or shine. Rocky trail or smooth path, city sidewalk or back country. You did it all. I can't even count all the miles we've walked together.

But there comes a time when you've got to make the break. I tried to make our relationship last a little longer but the fix was temporary. You just couldn't support me the way I needed you to anymore. So today I said goodbye.

RIP Keen Targhee II's, October 2009-April 2012.


Meet the new travelers. In true thrifty New Englander style, I found them on clearance at the local Footwise shoe store in Hood River (where I bought the dearly departed pair). Anyone who knows me gets how excited I am about this. The first pair was NOT on sale, but I figure they cost me $48 a year. I won't tell you how many cheap boots and hiking shoes Lloyd has gone through in that time. If these last as long, they'll be down to about $28 a year. Now THAT's a DEAL!

I do need to be on the lookout for some regular hiking BOOTS for this season. After all, Wilderness Steward training is coming up in a few weeks...

Shake It for a Do Over!

Okay, I know you all played with Etch A Sketches when you were kids. I loved Etch A Sketch. Kids today would scoff. They all have I-pads and such. But now the awesomeness of the Ohio Art product has been knocked down by the former one term Governor of the great state of Massachusetts. Well, people are actually buying them this week, but I'd think again about doing that.

As if it isn't bad enough to think of his campaign manager wiping the slate clean after the primary season by just shaking the screen...Hey, let's start fresh! No flip flops allowed! But THIS is just too juicy. We can't make this stuff up.

For 40 years the Etch a Sketch was produced in Bryan Ohio by the Ohio Art Company. But in 2003 production was moved to China – putting 100 employees out of work in this small town of about 8,000 who had for decades billed itself as the home of the Etch a Sketch.

But WAIT, there's MORE!

There is no evidence Romney’s work at Bain Capital impacted the decisions at the Ohio Art Company, but as Bill Sloat reports, Bain Capital, the buy-out firm founded by Mitt Romney, has sent hundreds of other Ohio jobs to China in similar moves.

Now, it's all just appearances...but you gotta admit...it's quite an amusing coinkydink!

Hey Idaho, I'm Done With Your Potatoes

Add another state to the list of those governed by legislators who have no respect for women. The Idaho senate just passed a bill requiring women to have invasive, expensive, medically unnecessary mandatory ultrasounds before they LEGALLY terminating a pregnancy. The house is expected to follow in their footsteps. But wait, there's MORE!
An Idaho state crisis pregnancy center has invited the lawmakers to witness ultrasounds being performed on women, one from each trimester, to let the fetus speak for itself. Of course, it doesn't matter that more than 90% of abortions are in the first trimester, and most of those are in the first 8 weeks. It makes for a much better show when you throw in the more mature fetuses, don't you think?

Which leads to the most obvious question -- when they perform a first trimester ultrasound, how far along will the woman be? A vast number of abortions would be done at a point in which an abdominal ultrasound would not provide the detail or the heart beat sounds required by law. But what are the odds that the House is going to be shown exactly what goes on during a trans-vaginal ultrasound, especially since that won't provide the instantly recognizable features everyone has grown to expect from the proliferation of 20 week anatomy scan ultrasounds all over the internet?

This is twisted on so many levels, I do not have printable words. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Women can be trusted to make their own decisions about their bodies and health, with the help of their doctors, their families, and their own consciences. Legislators, you are not medical doctors so STAY OUT of our medical business! It might also be good to keep in mind, Women Vote.

Thanks, Juanita Jean, for the graphic!

Update!
May good sense prevail. Pass this at your peril, lawmakers. Sounds like the women in Idaho are watching you!

We All Own This

I've felt all along that there were more gray areas in this story than black and white. This soldier was on his 4th deployment in 10 years. And had a TBI in his 3rd. And the clearance for TBIs has been suspect. And he had problems at home. Can anyone else see a recipe for disaster???? Anyone? I came of age in the Viet Nam era. Our troops lived through unspeakable horrors, many detailed in popular award winning films of the era. We will be watching films of history in the making any moment now. Or we should be. I've seen a few, but they aren't mainstream. They should be. This is on all of us. WTF are we doing here?

I feel ill when I read comments that scream for this man to be left to the angry Afghans. People who have no appreciation for his LONG service. For what he has suffered, and lost. For his wife, kids and family. I feel ill for the families in Afghanistan who have lost their loved ones because one soldier was one step over the line into insanity. Their burden is huge. Their country has been at war for way too long. We in the USA have never fought a war with an invading force on our soil. The Revolutionary War doesn't quite fall into that category.

We all go about our merry ways. Two wars over the last 10 years. We should all be feeling this much more personally than we are. Like the families of soldiers are. Like Afghan families are.

Green Road for St. Patrick's Day?

With all the news flying around lately, my head has been spinning and my brain hurts. Too much to comment on, so little time. I don't need to waste my time piling on to Rush, or making fun of the GOP candidates. Others do it so much better than I. So on this snowy Wednesday in mid March, I came across this gem. Wonder if Jon Stewart will catch it. Get ready for some potty talk!

My great State of Washington has the first authentic Green Road. That's right. Well, maybe not quite a road, more like a path...but hey, size doesn't matter....

The Town of Bellingham used 400 toilets to complete a multi-use interurban trail. Yep. Toilets. Crushed up toilets. Freeman Anthony of the Bellingham PWD had the brainstorm when he got a call from the local housing authority, which was upgrading housing and had a load of porcelain gods to dispose of.

It turns out that hard, glass-like porcelain makes a strong aggregate. And soon 5 tons of toilet became four truckloads of concrete.“When it’s mixed in at 20 percent,” Anthony says. “It acts just like regular concrete.”

But according to Anthony, this formula for what he now calls “poticrete” isn’t the most interesting part of this project.

“The toilets were just one small part of the project,” he says. “We didn’t do your standard ho-hum road. We tried to make a better road and more sustainable road.”

The retrofit project is now chock-full of sustainable elements — low-energy LED street lighting, pedestrian and bike-friendly amenities, porous pavement and bioswales that filter stormwater runoff.

I don't know, Mr. Anthony, I think the toilet ARE the most interesting part! Just think what you could do with Fiesta ware!

RIP Husum Roadside BBQ

I forgot to mention this, as I was caught in the despair of an unfortunate end to the fabulous Super Bowl game the other weekend. It was just too much bad news to deal with at one time. The winter storms took their toll on the MASH tent that had so much potential for good times. The big ice storm, which caused an estimated $2.4 million in damages around Klickitat County, delivered the death blow to the aged canvas.

BBQ John says he'll reopen for the Annual Husum 4th of July Parade, .1K micromarathon and celebration. And he thinks he might do special orders. We'll see. He also said he has to find a 'real job'. It might be a long time before the denizens of Husum enjoy a good Combo again.

Thanks, BBQ John, it was great while it lasted.

Oh NO! Italy Joins the 'War On Relgion'?

A bit of shocking news on page 10 of the Oregonian this morning: Church to Lose Tax Break. Yes, the Italian Government is breaking from its business as usual, that is passing laws that benefit the Catholic Church with little fanfare. It hasn't been in the habit of publicly taking bennies away.

"The government of Prime Minister Mario Monti took that step Wednesday, telling the European Commission that it intends to change Italian law to ensure the Church pays property tax on the parts of its buildings used for commercial ends."

So now the convents that offer B&B services, and the churches that rent space to shops will have to pay their full share of property tax. No small change: estimates range from $650 million to $2.6 billion. And could set off a wave of such changes in tax exemptions across cash strapped Europe. There was no link to it from the O, so here is a Reuters link instead.

Hmmmmmm.

Love Is Blind- Get Over It

(Political alert)

The ink wasn't even dry on the Marriage Equality bill that Gov. Gregoire signed yesterday when Rick Santorem rolled into town to whip up the homophobes and try to advance his chances of winning the GOP nomination ahead of the March 3rd GOP Caucuses here in Washington State. He couldn't give supporters of the bill one damn day to celebrate. He spoke in Tacoma, just blocks from an Occupy group, and was honored with protesters and a glitter bomb.

As he hypocritically charged intolerance of religion, his own intolerance was showing like a long slip under a short dress. His intolerance of the rights of women. His intolerance of those who don't believe strict Catholic dogma. His intolerance of those whose sexual orientation is not to his liking.

Rick, honey, that speech won't play well west of the Cascades. But you can keep on giving it wherever you like because it's making it easier for the rational among us to motivate the voters.

Reach out to those gay and lesbian voters. They love being treated as second class citizens. It's such a shame about VT, MA, CT, NY, IA and Washington DC. They've just fallen apart and gone to h-e-double hockey sticks since voting in Marriage Equality laws.

Then reach out to all those women voters. You know, the ones who are tired of being able to control when or if they become mothers (including an overwhelming percentage of Catholic women). Or deciding if they can afford to stay home or go to work for almost equal pay. Or who like their contraception covered, because it's a whole lot cheaper for insurers to not have to pay for childbirth and all those medical costs of raising lots of kids. You know better how it should all go down. And women are just not capable of making all those tough decisions.

Rick, Rick, Rick...I appreciate that you know who you are and what you stand for. I'm glad it all works out for you in your world. But the bigger world out there doesn't see things that way. You should have figured that out when you got bounced out of your Senate seat in 2006 by a measly 18 points was it? The NW prides itself on being progressive. Your dog won't hunt here.

And by the way, your slip is showing.

UPDATE: My awesome Governor blogged today on Huffpo. Read it here.

Fenway Fun

This year, Fenway Park turns 100 years old! I hope to catch a game in person this year, just because. I kind of have a big birthday coming up, too. Spring fever has hit. Saturday was Truck Day. And now there is a fun activity for all you die hard Red Sox fans out there.

Go here and choose your players for the All Fenway Team! They are tallying RH and LH Starting Pitchers now, and will add positions from now to mid May. Seeing as I'm slightly biased towards the Impossible Dream team, I was happy to see Jim Lonborg on the list. And who could forget Spaceman Bill Lee on the LHP list?

Oh, this is going to be so much fun. I can't wait to see who the other choices are.

34th Anniversary of the Blizzard of '78

A friend reminded me that on this day in 1964, the Beatles arrived in NYC to prepare for their 1st appearance on the Ed Sullivan show. And that it's "the anniversary of some blizzard that happened 14 years later".

I remember that first appearance of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. It was a turning point in musical history. I remember even better the Blizzard of '78. It was a turning point in my life.

The story starts in June of '77, when my fisheries coworker Linda and I took a vacation to Poland to visit the folks we worked with on the RV Wieczno over the previous few years. She worked in Woods Hole, and I worked in Narragansett. What an adventure for two wild and crazy single gals in their 20's. In fact, I celebrated my 25th birthday during that holiday. At the end of the trip I met a nice dental student in a town near Gdynia, the brother in law of the Bosun of the ship. We made plans to meet in February during his school break, and go skiing in the mountains. He would meet me in Warsaw, and we'd take the train to Krakow. How exciting!

By November, I'd met Lloyd. He was in a long distance relationship, so I wasn't taking him too seriously at this point. He agreed to stay in my apartment to take care of my cats while I was gone to Poland. Boy, I had it all covered. My best buddy Karen drove me to the Amtrak station that morning in her Karmann Ghia, in the snow that was beginning to fall. In this day and age, I'd have been online checking the Weather Channel, the airline and airport websites and never left Saunderstown. Back then, nada. We knew it was going to snow. Period.

I got to South Station, and rode the T to the airport, which was closing as I arrived. Wind was blowing through the terminal any time a door opened. I scrawled a note to my Polish date for the airline rep to forward to Warsaw. Poor guy would be wandering around looking for me. And there was no one for me to call, he didn't have a phone. Talk about being stood up!

I made it back to South Station in time to catch the train that was heading to DC. The Kingston stop was ordinarily about an hour and 20 minutes or so. We slowly made our way south, got stuck in Providence for several hours during which time the train ran out of booze. Four hours it took to get to Kingston. The snow was waist deep by then. People were stranded at the train station.

Neighbors had brought PB&J sandwiches and hot chocolate for us. I waded out to the main road where there was a phone booth. Remember phone booths??? I called Lloyd to tell him I was NOT in Poland. He said the road had been plowed by the house, he'd try to get there. So I waited by the phone booth. Built a family of snow men. Watched plows go by. Finally the phone rang again. No luck, there was no way to get to the station. So I trudged back and waited with the other refugees. Sometime after midnight, the station got plowed out, and the fire dept came and evacuated us to a makeshift dorm at URI. There was a buffet of food for the workers and refugees. We had cots to sleep on.

The next morning, we were watching the Today Show, amazed at the size of the storm. A pair of wet mittens fell on my face. It was Lloyd, come to rescue me. I never went back to Poland. The airport was closed for a week. I did mail clippings of the newspaper about the storm to the dental student in Poland, so he'd know I didn't totally stand him up. He never did get that message from the airline. But by the time the last of that snow had melted, there was a nice oceanography student who'd won my heart.

And they lived happily ever after.

For some great photos of that day, check this link.