A Desk Full of Misc

2012-02-12T21:11:00.000-08:00

If somehow I'd never heard it, and you gave me a copy of The Cure's Disintegration today and said, "this album affected me profoundly, and even now there's nothing I'd rather listen to if there were just one left on Earth," I'd look at the guy on the cover, say "Is that lipstick?" and then shake my head.

I'd listen to it, sure. Maybe all of the way through, at least once. I'm not sure what it would do to me, though. Listening to it right now it's impossible to separate it from what comes along with it, which is to say every second of every day of years 16-18. What I'm saying is that I understand that the record itself might not mean anything to you, there's probably one that does. And as it plays, I have to admit to myself that yeah, at 32, with so much more experience and a wife and a family, it really is the best. Freaking. Album. Ever.

As I think back, there are probably other CDs I've listened to more. Add it Up, by Violent Femmes, maybe. I can still recite that entire album from start to finish without playing it. Oingo Boingo's Boingo Alive is up there. The self-titled Rage Against the Machine. The Wall. Nothing, though, takes me back to specific moments of my mixed-up teenage years like Disintegration.

I listened to it in the projection booth at the Newgate Movies 4, for example, as I closed up. Cleaning the projectors, covering the film on those massive platters with the big cloth, turning off all the lights in each of the theaters. Driving home at one a.m. on a school night, nobody on the road, "Fascination Street" playing on home stereo speakers spliced into a car stereo that sits loose between the two front seats.

Most of my friends hated my whole 80's catalog (a decade too late), so much of my listenings took place on my own, which is the best way to listen to Disintegration. There's just too much sound going on at once for it to be background sound to a car full of noisy kids who think it's a good idea to shoot plastic disks at passing cars from their parents' minivan with the easily remembered vanity plate. It's for long drives home from dates that you're not sure if they turned out or not, and if they did, is that a good thing? Because if you had fun, it just means you like her more, and as a teenager liking a girl a lot never turned out all that hot.

The clashing, clanging intro "Plainsong" is for playing too loudly in your headphones on that massive discman as you ride in the too-small backseat to your last Scout Camp. Where you'll find out that while you're too old for the knots and the white kids dressed like Native Americans, you will take a backpacking trip and subsequent 200-foot rappel down a rock face that will foreshadow the pursuits of your (so far) adult life.

"The Same Deep Water as You" lasts for nine minutes and nineteen seconds, but feels like an hour. Somehow in a good way. It's the track where at some point you forget that you were listening to anything, and you find yourself in the middle of thinking about something you've never considered before. The soundtrack for a brain that, while being absorbed almost completely with growth and chemistry flowing throughout, is still capable of profound insights that will stick with you forever. Even as you remind yourself constantly how stupid you were the rest of the time.

Also, you will see The Cure live at 17 with your friend. And a gay guy and a cute girl. You'll find out later that they both had crushes on you.

And then there's the tracks that give Robert Smith his reputation for depressing breakup songs. "Pictures of You" with its line "If only I'd thought of the right words, I could have held on to your heart." And the title track, Disintegration, the perfect song for the kid who fell in love with every girl only to talk himself out of it the time she doesn't say hi back in the hall.

So it's all come back round to breaking apart again

Breaking apart like I'm made up of glass again

Making it up behind my back again

Holding my breath for the fear of sleep again

Holding it up behind my head again

Cut in deep to the heart of the bone again

Round and round and round and it's coming apart again over and over and over

Now that I know that I'm breaking to pieces I'll pull out my heart and I'll feed it to anyone

...It's easier for me to get closer to heaven than ever feel whole again

And even then you know it's too dramatic. You're aware that you have to have a girlfriend first to break up and then wallow in a good breakup song. And to get a girlfriend you're going to have to somehow get past the point where your mom has to offer to pay for it before you ask someone to the Homecoming Dance. And even then someone else is going to ask her for you.

But you do understand that part about not feeling whole, because you're not. Not when you're 16 or 17 or 18.

And yet later on in that timeline, at 21, you'll listen to the album in another dark movie theater with your future wife. She'll tell you years later that she fell in love with you to The Cure. She'll fall asleep with her head on your chest as you listen to it eleven years later and you figure that if music helps make you who you are, and this one helped make you someone that a woman like her would love, at some point you're going to have to call it your favorite ever. Even with that lipstick.

2012-01-30T17:32:00.000-08:00

I know, two blogs in two days. Don't let that distract you from yesterday's, because it's only just a little below my normal quality. Not a lot. This one is long and doesn't have a lot of pictures, I'm afraid.

So I finished another book. This one is The Known World, by Edward P. Jones. The majority of the book deals with a handful of families in the antebellum South. I looked up antebellum, by the way, just now. It means "before war." My guess was "before bellum," which shows what I know.

I did a Google Image search to see what "antebellum" brings up and there's pictures of some country band and I'm like what the crap is this? Eventually there's a house.

Anyway, in The Known World there are freed black slaves who own slaves of their own. And there are others who are just free and trying to get by. And there are whites around who range from noble to awful, but I'll give away one little spoiler: most of them are awful.

The thing about this book, I think, that you're going to love or hate is the narrative style. I think the closest approximation would be listening to someone tell a story, but a good storyteller, you know? They can be distracted into long tangents, and they do that thing that older folks do where they remind you who everyone is again and again. Often a character is introduced, and the reader is told right there how old he or she will live and a quick synopsis of their life.

Actually, you might not love or hate it, it's certainly plausible that you're like, "I liked that book and neither loved nor hated the narrative style." That's totally an option I will buy into. What I will not abide, however, is your not loving the characters. And I don't mean that you love them like, "Man that's a great person," because there aren't a lot of those (though the good ones are VERY good.) I mean that they'll be fully fleshed out human beings in your mind. They are good characters.

Last year I read Jonathan Franzen's Freedom, because it was on everybody's list. And I've got to be honest, I freakin' hated it. It took me a while to realize why, other than almost every character was detestable and it was too long, but The Known World helped me figure it out. In Freedom everything that the author wants you to think and feel is said outright by a character, or is there in the internal dialogue. The book requires you to do nothing, because it's just right there for you. And I way agreed with a ton of it! Still bugged me.

I guess I like to have things alluded to and I figure them out, like in a Hemingway short story. Or a video game. Give us some credit, author. Your point will come across much better if you lead me to it, rather than just lay it on me like a dead squirrel.

More like "Bore"dom, amirite?

The Known World gives you some credit. It means you might have to stop and reread a passage, because what's happening is coming a little obliquely, but it's right there for you, because you're smart. At least I am. Man, I am super smart.

2012-01-29T20:16:00.000-08:00

Well, as past blogs have shown, I am nothing if not not current with my media reviews, so I figured I'll stick to that pattern as I discuss my most recent adventures in the adventures of others.

I'll start with Hanna, starring Cate Blanchett's legs.

I have to admit. Outside of the Olive Garden, I love women in ties.

Hanna, in case you've already watched some movies from 2011, is about a young girl who has trained her whole life to be an awesome super-spy, aside from the being able act like a normal human being part. I assume that can't really be trained when it's just you and your dad in a remote cabin in Finland. She's being hunted by the aforementioned Blanchett's legs, which are attached to a very steely and just a little unhinged Blanchett.

She's only kinda scary, though, and is nothing compared to Tom Hollander's jumpsuit-wearing euro trash Isaacs.

Look at the shoes. Aren't you unnerved?

Dude's creepy.

Anyway, I liked Hanna. I was surprised to learn that it was directed by the same guy who did the Kiera Knightley Pride and Prejudice, which is a favorite in our household. Which led me to put two-and-two together on this Tom Hollander fellow. Turns out he played the ridiculous Mr. Collins, the vicar who tries to marry Liz Beckett and eventually marries a zombie.

"You might not have realized this, Ms. Bennett, but your collarbone looks like a child's drawing of a seagull."

One of the most compelling things about the movie, to me, is the fighting style they have young Hanna use. It was developed by a guy who studied under Bruce Lee and was specifically tailored based on the girl's small size. Saoirse "Don't-Ask-Me-How-To-Pronounce-It" Ronan trained for 4 hours a day for two months to get it down. I like that kind of commitment. I also liked Cate Blanchett's shoes.

Whew, three pictures for one movie. And I've got two to go.

We also watched Moneyball. It definitely appealed to my economist side. I love that contrarian side of things where you find out that one little statistic makes all the difference in the world. In books like Freakonomics you find out that there's a correlation between how many sprinkles are on the cupcake you eat at 10:30 and the frequency of traffic accidents on the road you work on (this might be a made-up example) and in Moneyball you find out that the only statistic that matters in baseball is how often your players get on base. I learned that baseball can be interesting when it's in movies. Also, Brad Pitt is getting old.

Oh, and last night I took Ethan and Joanna to the Muppets while Kristin took Ginny to see Beauty and the Beast in 3 dimensions. We were stuck with the two dopey dimensions. Unless you count sheer, nostalgic joy, in which case we had something like 5. Are we still talking about dimensions? I got confused there for a bit, but my 15-year-old niece did say as recently as this year that she heard that 4-d movies were coming out soon. That was charming. And no, Spy Kids, smell is not a dimension.

Anyway, Muppets was a delight. I realized that I must have watched the original show more than I thought, because there was some deep nostalgia in there that got tweaked pretty hard, I have to admit. And when I say that I mean that I almost cried. And when I say that I mean that I DID cry. So good job, The Muppets. Joanna cried, too, but it was because of the giant images on the screen and the loud noise. I think she spent the bulk of the movie hiding under my sweatshirt. So good job, The Muppets.

A Treatise on "Scenes."

2012-01-14T19:48:00.000-08:00

So I'm on the record for not having resolutions. I haven't made them for the past maybe 5 years or so, and I feel like I'm pretty much on the same general path of progress as when I would make a list and not do much about it. That being said, I have sort of declared 2012 as the year that I become more well-read. Essentially that means that I don't read anything that I don't believe will change my life for the better. No empty calories, essentially.

That doesn't mean I won't read detective books, it just means that I'll only read authors that I feel have something to say beyond just spinning a crackerjack yarn. It's a small distinction, and it's going to be personal, but there you have it.

Totally on my list.

My general guide in this journey is to adhere somewhat loosely to Esquire's 75 Books Every Man Should Read. I like this list because it covers a broad spectrum of time, places, and subjects. Also, it's not 100 books, so that's nice.

Diving into the world of relatively contemporary fiction has its pitfalls, obviously, and I'm not surprised why so many people I know tend to hang around in the juvenile fiction section of the book store. Fiction meant for adults has a lot of, uh, adult situations. These are not, unfortunately, the kinds that Hobbes suggests when Calvin asks him what this means:

Calvin: The TV listings say this movie has “adult situations.” What are “adult situations?”

Hobbes: Probably things like going to work, paying bills and taxes, taking responsibilities…

Calvin: Wow. They don’t kid around when they say “for mature audiences.”

Hobbes: I’ve never understood how these movies make any money.

If only, am I right? Instead, a lot of these books have scenes. As in, "It's a really good book, with a great message and it really makes you think. There's a scene, though, so I don't know if I can recommend it."

I've just finished two very good books, but they've got scenes. So keep that in mind. I don't want to get into a situation I found myself in as a teenager when I used to write for the teen section of the Standard Examiner. See, I recommended Heathers to my fellow teens as a good satire on high school life. I forgot, though, to point out that it is an accurate portrayal of how some people speak and act in high school, which is to say R-rated. I heard a few weeks later that some family members had picked it up at the video store on a whim at my recommendation and were, um, concerned.

Don't.

Plainsong, by Kent Haruf, is one of the most satisfying books I've ever read. There's a stream throughout of inspiring human kindness and humanity that even two days later gets me a little choked up thinking about. It made me want to take Kristin to breakfast the next morning, get chicken fried steak, and buy her the equivalent of a great crib. Um, you'd understand the reference if you'd read it. There's also manliness, justice, and good people facing an unforgiving world. The prose is that spare kind of Cormac McCarthy/William Faulkner thing where there aren't any quotation marks and the sentences go on forever. Yeah, like the plains that Haruf writes about. The metaphor is not lost on me.

So vast. Right? WE GET IT.

Anyway. There are scenes. Most of them are, I guess, PG-13. One isn't, though, and for my conscience to be clear I recommend that if you're iffy on the sex stuff, you just skip pages 52-57. They are kinda important for the story, as they set up a revelation later, but it's alluded to well enough that if you know you're not up to it, you'll get by just fine. Otherwise, my goodness, Plainsong.

My guess, though, is that you want to avoid the Hallmark Hall of Fame adaptation.

Apparently one of my favorite jokes is to put up something that I'm NOT talking about and say, "Not this." This song does rule, though.

Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore is very different. Where Haruf employs a modern style to tell an old-fashioned story, Murakami writes in a very traditional way - or at least is translated that way - but his subject matter is often straight bonkers. In this case the two major characters are a 15-year-old boy with a PHD's grasp of philosophy as he runs away from home and a mentally handicapped old man who talks to and rescues lost cats. I've read one other book by Murakami and I loved it until about the last fourth where it just got too weird for me. This one tends towards that, but wraps up in a very satisfying way.

This is the kind of book where characters will discuss profound things in a way that seems completely normal. They reference art and music pieces in a way that makes them seem encyclopedic, but at the time it seems fine. It's a story where a character dressed as Colonel Sanders finds a guy a prostitute, and you're like, "OK."

Oh, and this one? Not for kids.

Yes, I am definitely alright with this.

Anyway, that's that. I have a pile of books waiting to be read, and not surprisingly, while I'm writing these things they don't get read. So I'll get back to that.

2012, The Year of Consumption

2012-01-12T11:19:00.000-08:00

I don't mean tuberculosis, by the way, which I've just learned was what "consumption" was. Can you think of a worse name for a disease? Oh, I just did. It's scurvy.

Anyway, instead of wasting your time with my year-end media inventories, I'm going to instead give a running commentary on the things I'm getting into these days, media-wise, as I get into them. (This will also waste your time, just more regularly.) That way I'm not missing out on any gems (or pieces of crap), and therefore you aren't either.

As I start to write this, I'm forced to consider the possibility that the only person interested in the particular mix of interests I have is me, and that as much as it delights me to read my own writing, it might not justify an actual blog. Luckily nobody reads this besides me anyway, so I hope you love it, Matt. Also, why are you spending all of your time with other people's creations and not making your own?

Hmm.

We just watched Midnight in Paris, which is Woody Allen's take on Paris both in modern times, the 1920's, and - briefly - the 1890's. In it Owen Wilson's modern-day character ends up going back in time every night at midnight and hanging out with the post WWI ex-pats who ended up shaping a generation and more with literature, art and music. He deals with Heminway's unceasing manliness and clipped style, watches Zelda Fitzgerald torment poor Francis Scott, and basically just strolls around the Paris that he'd romanticized so much as an aspiring novelist. The experience inspires him, among other things, to take his novel in a different direction and do that pursuing of dreams we hear so much about.

Cobblestones. I'm a sucker for them.

It wasn't necessarily the movie itself, but it might have been part of it, that reminded me of a line in a book I'll talk about in a minute. In it two characters are talking about how a good piece of music can change someone inside, and one of them says, "We have an experience - like a chemical reaction - that transforms something inside us. When we examine ourselves later on, we discover that all the standards we've lived by have shot up another notch and the world's opened up in unexpected ways."

While I was watching the movie I was thinking that I need to read more of these authors, but I had a hard time justifying it since there are so many other draws on my attention. Watching the movie and then reading that line reminded me that when we read, or watch, or listen to something of a very high quality, it makes us better people who see the world differently. So when I'm ignoring my children as I read a book, it will probably help if I tell them that it's making the standards I've lived shoot up another notch, and they'll totally understand.

So long story short, I'm trying to kick it up a notch with my entertainment choices.

Like this:

I don't know if it elevated me more than just the thrills of seeing amazing things on a screen, but boy howdy, were these ever some amazing things. There's a scene in this thing that, let me tell you, it's just so freaking rad. The portrayal of Victorian London, the castle perched on a mountain side, the chess game where moves are shouted at each other without either player moving the pieces. Kristin put it best as we left the movie theater, "Well that was delightful."

Another thing that is delightful? Kristin.

I guess that's the movies so far of this year, right? I watched the Disney Beauty and the Beast again on a big TV in high def, and that thing is beautiful. It's the first time that I noticed that not only are the backgrounds hand-painted, but it's also in an expressionist style. Also, Belle is very cute.

No, not this one.

Next you can look forward to books I've read so far. Then maybe video games? We'll see.

Proto-tomato

2011-07-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

There are basically two things I blog about: my garden, and which women's field hockey team I want on my zombie fighting crew. This time it's going to be about the garden again. Besides, this year's US women's team are clearly the top squad, even if they might not have the right implements for zombie beheadings.

Maybe they can do a zombie killin' dance, like in Thriller?

An aside, and then we'll get to the garden. I'm in a bit of a dilemma. I love our US team. Look how awesome this is!

I love that when a women's team is doing well at sports, people say they have so much spirit. There's just so much heart on that team. How about this? This team is awesome and they are incredible at their sport. Can't we just call a women's team a bunch of bad a's who dismantle a defense?

Also, Megan Rapinoe's hair!

But here's the problem. I am on the record as having a fascination with female japanese athletes who are probably bad sports. Who to root for?

Apparently the Japanese team is nicknamed Nadeshiko, after a pink flower that symbolizes the ideal Japanese woman full of grace and beauty. I looked into it a little more, though, and there's more to this Yamato Nadeshiko thing.

Yamatonadeshiko was apparently government propoganda during World War II. Here are more ideal women traits:

feminine
chaste and devoted to her husband
always respects and obeys her husband and never opposes him, even when she thinks he's wrong (she should wisely find an indirect way to prevent her husband from doing something wrong without letting him know, that is to say without humiliating him).
looks weak, delicate and gentle (like a flower) outside her family, but is able to cope with householding, raising kids etc.

Ok, problem solved. Not as tough of a question as I thought

Anyway, I've been doing this for a few years now, so here's the yard and garden update.

For reference, I will again show you the "before" pictures:

Buying a house when the backyard is covered with snow and

realizing later that there is no grass under it is the best surprise

I don't have pictures of the front yard, but it was similar, but at least had some grass.

Since this picture we trucked in some dirt and spread it around and used grass seed. It's still a work in progress, but it's coming along!

Don't look too close. Still a little weedy

I don't know about you guys, but that looks like a place where a dad can try to teach his kid to throw a football, not for the child's sake, but for the dad's. Because a man should have a son who can throw a spiral.

The garden's where the real action is this year, though. And by action I mean four different kinds of basil and EIGHT DIFFERENT TOMATOES. I don't even remember the names of the tomatoes! I think one is called Stupice! And another is something my friend made up called Black Hole Sun but that he originally wanted to call Black President before wiser minds intervened. (Apparently the skin of the tomato is so dark purple it is almost black and it's bright yellow inside.) I will take pictures of these crazy, crazy tomatoes when they exist. One of them is supposed to have zebra stripes! It comes from a tomato bred with a zebra!

In the front there's a peach tree surrounded by herbs. Top right corner is peas,

garlic, onions, and carrots. Top left is broccoli, tomatillos, watermelon and cucumber.

Bottom left is tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes.

I will use them to make BLTs.

Also, two cherry trees in the front yard. Remember when I said last year that you could come over and have whatever you want in my garden? The cherries are mine.

That little pine tree is a bristlecone, also known as the oldest-living

living species on earth. I'm hoping it lives till next year

Have a Summah

2011-07-14T09:05:00.001-07:00

To combat the endless summer days and the constant requests for tv and video games, we've tried to come up with some more creative ways for the children to spend their time without the requisite "you're rotting your brain" talk. This experiment has been met with varying degrees of success.

There are a couple of ways to get the kids out and being active, aside from the soccer, baseball, and flag football games in which we are required by law to participate.

Yeah, these guys are going straight to the championships.

1. Let them play with the future criminals in the neighborhood.

This usually goes OK. They run around and pretend to be shooting each other or selling meth or whatever. At some point the entire neighborhood runs through the house asking for Otter Pops.

Pros: Kids are out of the house, running around, learning swear words.

Cons: toys mysteriously disappear from inside and around the house during the Otter Pop run. Sometimes, hours after everyone has gone home and we're trying to get the house back to normal, we'll find a neighbor child still playing in one of the rooms under a pile of toys.

2. Create an elaborate home-made water feature in your backyard. Here's how that works: you spend an entire day making several runs to Lowe's because the guy there doesn't know what a PVC socket joint is. Then, with only a drill, several sprinkler nozzles, a lot of PVC glue, and the swear words your kids learned earlier, you get something like this:

This is the penguin slide. He learned it from New Super Mario Bros.

Kristin found the plans for this online and apparently it was called a "kid car-wash." Combine it with a camping tarp and you get something called a "ghetto slip-and-slide." Actually, we had a debate about this and decided that the ghetto slip and slide was when someone opened the fire hydrant in the inner city. This is the trailer park version.

Pros: it's home-made! It's do-it-yourself! It's pretty well-built! You can use it on the garden!

Cons: it is entertaining to the kids for about 20 minutes, or the length of one episode of Go Diego Go! Over the course of about 18 summers of this every day, you get the time you spent on it back.

3. Make them do chores.

Pros: stuff gets done around the house

Cons: stuff gets done very poorly around the house. Flowers get pulled instead of weeds, plants are watered very sporadically, and the new starter Ethan put into the truck is - let's face it - a little iffy.

4. Video game/tv marathon. The only thing required of the parents is to occasionally start a new episode of Dora or Mythbusters between lounging on the porch under a fine water mist while sipping tall glasses of iced Mountain Dew with little umbrellas in it.

Pros: Ethan develops the motor skills necessary for maneuvering a scope or lasers for complex surgeries someday when he's a surgeon, Ginny and Joanna learn spanish from cartoon characters who stare, unblinking, at the television for sometimes minutes at a time, and everyone learns that you can't have your clothes blown off of you by explosives without your organs liquifying in the process.

Cons: I don't know? My mom said once that if we sit too close to the tv we can get X-rays? Those probably aren't ok.

An Amusing Discovery

2010-09-05T19:31:00.000-07:00

Since yesterday's post, which you may find here, I've been looking into my blog traffic, and found some interesting facts.

The first one, and my favorite, is that by far my highest activity has been to Howie's Easy Solutions to Difficult Problems. I'll be honest, I found this to be very pleasing. I'm quite proud of that post, and assumed that I was bringing in folks from all over based on the strength of my easy solutions to difficult problems.

Not so, I'm afraid. I found that the source of most traffic came from Google Images. Go check out the post and then come back.

Yep.

I guess that if I really want to generate the hits on the blog, I need to include significantly more man candy.

More info:

The words ferret, black-footed ferret, and "world's cutest animal" each brought in a hit.

I googled "world's cutest animal" myself and found my humble blog on page 3. What a bizarre place, this world wide web (www).

Rest assured, dear readers, that I will not stoop to cheap tactics to get hits on my blog. Nothing but the purity of words, artfully arranged in an effort to wring the most humor from each carefully constructed sentence, will adorn this space.

The Suspended Novel

2010-09-04T17:22:00.000-07:00

I've hesitated in hawking my wares on here, but if you're interested, I've been posting a novel over here. For a while it went up daily, and now it's been scaled back to twice weekly (Wednesdays and Fridays).

If you like what you read, add yourself as a follower and heck, why not pass it on via twitter or facebook or whatever you kids are using. Only if you like it, though.

I need people to look at it to motivate me to finish it. I need clamor. SO CLAMOR ALREADY.

The Summer of the Owl

2010-07-26T21:36:00.000-07:00

As anyone who's been around me much this summer knows, it's been a busy one. I try not to complain because I am beyond psyched to be working and catching up after a weak summer followed up by a heinous winter, but sometimes it gets the best of me and I get a little exhausted and whiny. Being as I am in the middle of said summer, I thought I'd reflect a little on it. Publicly, of course, since anymore it doesn't happen if you don't share it with potentially the entire world (or at least the 500,000,000 who are on the internet).

This season, at least early on, had kind of a dominant theme. One that was completely unplanned and a little lucky. Well, lucky for me. Not so lucky for the folks trying to get projects off the ground. I saw more owls in the first couple months of the season that I had previously in my whole life put together. It all started with these fellas:

What you're seeing here is a mom and three babies of the long-eared owl variety. My favorite is the little guy below the mom just poking his lil' eyes above the branch. We stumbled across this little family doing nest checks and kept track of them until the branched out and fledged.

Little blighters grow up fast.

Long-eared owls are pretty rare, it turns out, and the equivalent to me of spotting a player from the Utah Jazz at the airport. Well, of spotting a baby Utah Jazz player and watching him grow to adulthood. If you can imagine such a thing. I just did, and it was weird.

Anyway, same project, same day, we're looking for nests and come across this sucker:

He's watching a helicopter. No, really.

What we have here is a burrowing owl. I took that shot through a spotting scope and between you and me? I think it's piiiiimp. These guys, if you're unaware, are rad. Instead of living in converted magpie nests like our long-eared owls, they take over mammal burrows and set up shop inside.

One thing they do that I think is especially sweet is fly around collecting mammal doo-doo and laying it around the edge of the burrow. The poo then brings in bugs which the owl takes down to the mom and babies. Nothing like setting up a little home office, you know? Let the work come to me, is what I say.

Anyway, I got to spend some quality time with this one watching it through the spotting scope as it hopped around snatching beetles and stuff, and I like to think we got to be pretty good friends. Not, like, the kind that you invite over or get invited over to visit, but the kind who you might watch through a spotting scope while they tolerate your presence. You know. That kind of friend.

I think you'll be amazed to learn that these two were not the limit to my owling experience this summer. In fact, I've managed to go on two sets of all-night owl surveys in California. We basically stayed up all night in these gorgeous forest sections and played owl calls and listened. And you know? The little monsters sometimes talked back. Over the trips I heard flammulated owls, northern saw-whet owls, long-eared owls, and watched some barn, short-eared, and great-horned owls as the flew around effortlessly. Dark shapes against the already dark sky. And stuff.

What I'm saying is that owls are awesome. Here's a flam (not a picture I took this time).

This is adult size!! Don't you want one?!?!

The Lawn Wrangler 2: Part B of the Increasingly Confusingly Named Series

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

Hey, remember how a week ago I said you'd get this blog and you did? Man, I love that story. I am the Karl Malone of blogging. (Karl Malone was the Mailman. Because he, uh, delivered. Stirring speeches. I KID KARL.)

Last time we spoke I told you about a few aspects of the money, time, and natural resource suck that I have behind my house. Yes. This lovely garden will save me money. In 800 years. The way I justify this is in the skills I'm learning. If you've spent more than 5 minutes in my presence, you have learned that I am always preparing for "when the zombies come." Now I know the real zombies aren't coming (though I do have a rifle in case they do), but I like to use the zombies as a metaphor for whatever disaster could befall our sleepy town of Smithfield (at best) or the entire USA/World (at worst). If we, heaven forbid, get cut off from the steady stream of twinkies and frozen dinners we depend on, I want to know how to scratch out my own living from the very living earth.

Of course, the way I'm going, this will depend on a lot of chicken manure mixed with wood chips. Am I going to be mixing that stuff up? Stupid zombies.

Anyway. I like having fresh stuff that I grew, just like I like having a basement that I built and children whose psychological hangups are home-grown. It is human to want to dominate one's surroundings, even when one's plot of the earth is a quarter of an acre of some of the rockiest soil known to man.

I say these things as an introduction. What you have seen are the very first fruits of my lovingly cared for garden. And there's not a lot. Yet. But maybe we'll grow a lot. And with canning and drying and storage, maybe I'll feed my family with something I grew myself. I submit that there are worse goals.

Here is my biggest motivation:
As an adult I tasted fresh asparagus for the first time in my life. I've loved asparagus, but this stuff, fresh from the gardener's market, was a revelation. You've hopefully had a similar experience. A fresh peach, or apple, or tomato, whatever. I grew up with tomatoes and peas and peppers from my mom's garden, so I should have known better. But man, this was good. I realized that for a lot of people, they'll never know the full potential of produce, because they get it from a grocery store, and most grocery store produce is shipped while it's still green so it will ripen en route. This robs it of the plant's sugars that will make it truly something wonderful. Then we think that fruits and vegetables are gross. Or, at best, inferior to pop-tarts.

Dad, are you preaching again?

So I don't know if this venture will save me money. On paper it will, but there's been a reasonable amount sunk into wood and soil and amendments and wine barrels and tomato cages. It might take a while. In the meantime, though, maybe I'm showing my kids what it's like to create something big out of something tiny. Or perhaps this is a lot of justification when all I have to say is come try one of my tomato sandwiches.

When the zombies come, don't come running to my house. Well, do. But don't go saying I didn't tell you so.

The Lawn Wrangler 2: My Struggle to Control a Tiny Patch of Nature

2010-06-30T20:15:00.000-07:00

For those loyal followers of my blog - and honestly, why wouldn't you follow something that is updated every 6 months, usually just with a random bunch of things I like? - you'll remember I did a post called The Lawn Wrangler. Go over there and catch up. You'll find some "before" pictures. And a gnarly pair of pants. Approximately one year has passed, and I feel I'm squarely into the "middle" of the affair. Nobody posts pictures of the middle, because sometimes it's a bigger mess than the befores. That is the kind of bravery I exhibit, however, on a daily basis.

I'm sticking mostly to the vegetable and fruit garden we've got rocking this year, but I'll talk about the yard and the landscaping shortly. And this time I mean it. Probably. Before I get into that, though, let me show you one "after" picture. Remember the pile of dirt on the side of the house? It looks like this now:

It's been flowering in stages. Right now it's not as colorful as it has been. That's mostly because Ginny picks everything as soon as it grows. You'll kind of have to take my word for it that it's very pretty. Most of this is on its second year, but I have a new batch of seedlings growing up. They're all flowers native to the Rocky Mountains. I'll be honest, though. I don't know what most of them are yet.
Anyway, on to the garden. Last year I built three raised garden beds and we had some big plans. Turns out, though, you need some dirt to put in those babies, and our backyard has so many rocks just under the surface that there really isn't a lot to go around. That found us bringing in a truck of the stuff this year and spreading it around the back yard. The main point was to put in grass, but we had plenty to fill the beds and three lovely half wine barrels.
The trellises are for watermelons, acorn squash, and cucumbers. We're trying to keep them off the ground so they don't get soft spots. In the front we have four rows of corn and in the back there are carrots and onions. We grew some purple carrots, which are lovely. And nasty.

You know how sometimes you see an heirloom fruit or vegetable and you say, "that is clearly not something that God intended," and then you eat it and it's delicious and then you think, "you know? What else do I think I know and don't? How else have my prejudices held me back from enjoying fine things"? Well, this is one of those cases where your initial impression would have been spot on. I'm being harsh on the purple carrots. About one in five tastes like a normal orange carrot. That's about as glowing of praise as I can heap upon the things.

You know how small children are usually so adventurous and willing to try new things? Especially the kinds of things that are immediately different to them? And new? Well, these kids stuck to the orange variety. I've eaten a lot of weird purple carrots. And I'm just starting to not develop a taste for them.
Enough about the carrots. Let me walk you around the rest of the garden, if you don't mind. This wouldn't be necessary, by the way, if you would just come up and visit. I mean, it's an hour drive for most people. How hard is it? What, you need an invitation? HERE IT IS. YOU ARE INVITED.

Alright. In the wine barrels we've got brandywine tomatoes. Have you eaten one of these things? Amazing. The best sandwich tomato on earth. Here's what you do with them. You get your wife to bake some bread. If you don't have a wife you might be able to get one in a catalog. But it's not guaranteed that she bakes bread. If she does, though, it will be that amazing Russian dark rye. I say that because most mail order brides come from Russia. The good ones, anyway.

After you berate your new wife into baking bread, using whatever strange combination of hand gestures and loudly spoken English, you're going to slice it and drizzle a little olive oil on it. Then, while she's walking into the other room saying heaven knows what in that guttural language of hers, you're going to put it in the toaster oven. Now slice up one of these gorgeous brandywines. Grind on some salt and pepper, lay a few basil leaves on top, and pull out your toast, placing that fat tomato slice on top. As your wife calls a lawyer and concocts an elaborate lie about your so-called "temper," you're going to lay on a few rough slices of white cheese. Present this open faced sandwich to your lovely bride and all will be forgiven. The lawyer charges $150 an hour, though, and that monster rounds up.

Here's where you'll get the basil.
And rosemary, and mint, and Thai basil, and thyme, and sage, and oregano. Just knock on the door first. BECAUSE YOU ARE INVITED.

That concludes the first part of this two-part blog, which is the sequel to a previous blog. So we'll call this part 2a? Glad you're still with me.

In case you're worried about there being no part 2b, don't be. I'll be working on it immediately after this. I'll just date it so it doesn't show for a week. This is truly the future we are dealing with.

Media to Consume

2010-03-24T19:26:00.000-07:00

Yeah, yeah. Long time no blog. Just a post about vaguely dirty-sounding birds and then a long, long pause.

I don't have a ton tonight as I'm just taking a break while packing for a ten day trip to an ugly, ugly desert. I figured, though, that I'd throw some wisdom your way about a few things that I have quite loved recently.

The Worst Hard Time - Timothy Egan

At the end of the year blog from 2008 I recommended World War Z. I loved it because it took something kind of silly, a zombie invasion, and put it in a context to teach us all about how our nation would respond to a worldwide disaster. The Worst Hard Time, on the other hand, is a real oral history about the American dustbowl.

It is, in a different way of course, every bit as compelling and horrifying as World War Z's zombie apocalypse. Smaller scale, sure. Significantly less gory, OK. But for a wake up call about how prosperity can disappear almost overnight and hundreds of thousands of people can go from having a big house and a Model T to living completely off of their vegetable garden in life-threatening weather. Then watching their garden disappear in one dust storm.

If you took me up on my World War Z recommendation, I exhort you to read The Worst Hard Time. Because it's totally true.

Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3, Xbox 360)

Yeah, if you know anything about video games you know that this one is good. It's won, or been nominated, on just about every best of the year list. I'm amazed by Arkham Asylum for a few reasons. First, games based on existing properties - especially comic books - are almost always terrible. Second, it was developed by Rocksteady, a studio with one very mediocre game under their belt. Out of pretty much nowhere they come out with not only the best comic book game ever, but one of the very best games, period.

I love Batman when his stories are told best, and Paul Dini is the best Batman writer around. He knows that Batman is best when he's a detective, instead of an invincible superhero. Mark Hamill's Joker is brilliant, the writing is probably the best I've seen in a game, and man do you feel sweet as Batman when you take out a room full of guys without any of them knowing where you came from. I especially love how for every dude you snatch from a gargoyle and dangle upside down, the remaining bad guys get even more scared.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian - Sherman Alexie

A teenage kid raised on the Spokane Reservation gets out and goes to a white farm school. Turns out he's pretty amazing, but never knew it given his environment.

I don't want to say a lot about it, other than it's very funny and moving. It's done in a very casual diary style and has some lovely cartoon drawings.

Breaking Bad - AMC

We don't have TV at home, so I never know what's good unless it shows up on Hulu or I catch the DVDs later. I do watch TV in hotels, though, when I'm traveling for work. My most recent trip I caught a marathon of the best episodes of Breaking Bad. And good heavens, what a show. Brutal and uncomfortable all of the time, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.

It's about a high school chemistry teacher who, after being diagnosed with lung cancer, starts selling meth to pay for the treatments. What follows is a downward spiral of lies, crime, and the increasing dehumanization of someone we see as a great father and husband early on turn into something much, much worse. Bob Odenkirk is especially fantastic as a criminal lawyer, emphasis on the criminal.

There you go. A blog.

These are a Few of My Favorite Birds

2010-01-19T15:02:00.000-08:00

What with the bird feeders swarming with free-loading little monsters who stare into our window brazenly, probably judging us on every aspect from diet to parenting, I've thought today would be a good time to list some of my favorites.

This list is in no particular order, of course, I hope that it will be informative.

Western Wood-Pewee

The Western Wood-Pewee, as you can see, is a lovely little bird. You'll find them all over the western U.S. Note the lack of an eye ring. That's how you can tell them from the other flycatchers. These guys hang out in pine-oak forests and open conifer stands. Also in canyons.

Red-Breasted Nuthatch
Very cute, eh? The first time I saw this I thought it was a really fat chickadee. Really fat. Of course, the call and the buff underside quickly proved me wrong. After I looked this sucker up, I was excited to add a new bird to my list. They're very common, though, so no one else is impressed.

Nuthatches like to eat bugs and some species make a cool nest where they'll line the outside with the guts of blister beetles, whose smell deters squirrels who like to use the same tree cavities for their own nests.

Blue-footed Booby
These suckers, when fishing, will dive from up to 330 feet up in the air!!! They hit the water at 60 mph!!!

Plus they've got blue feet.

American Woodcock
American Woodcocks are found in wet forests and they like eating earthworms. During mating season, they'll perform a very elaborate spiraling flight, their wings creating a twittering sound. They're kind of dumb, though, because the males will continue this display well after mating, even after the young have successfully hatched and moved on. Idiots.

Bushtit
Bushtits are one of North America's smallest passerines (sparrow-type birds) and definitely one of the most adorable. A lot of the time you'll find them in flocks of Chickadees, whose elaborate song and call system is an effective way to communicate with all kinds of birds. You'll find them among oaks with a scrubby understory.

Dickcissel

Dickcissel's are identified by their distinctive call, which goes something like this: "dick-cissel-cissel-cissel."

You'll usually find them in fields. Their yellow breast can lead to mistakenly identifying them as Meadowlarks, but they're quite a bit smaller.

Well there you have it! I'll bet you didn't know that birds were this fascinating.

End o' the Year. OUGHT NINE Y'ALL

2009-12-31T15:45:00.000-08:00

Ok, 2009, I think we can all agree that you sorta blew. I don't want to dwell on the bad, but man. Let's just say this. When the year started, you were a cute enough baby. But honey, you got real ugly.

I'm going to try to focus on the awesome, though, with my annual best of the year list. And really, despite its dry periods, 09 had some good things to offer me. I didn't have a ton of work, but the work was varied. As far as being a biologist goes, I became many orders of magnitude sweeter. Which brings me to my first category.

RADDEST ECOSYSTEM of 2009

This year I got to work in a lot of new places, Rock Springs, Idaho Falls, Cedar City that encompassed all sorts of plant communities I'd never experienced before. Birding in conifer stands: excellent, counting deer poo in the aspen/sage ecotone: alright. Nothing compared, though, to the temperate rainforest. And, you know, the whales.

That's why I'm going to have to give the award this year to Angoon, Alaska. Better luck next time, sage shrub desert.

ALBUM OF THE YEAR

This goes, as always, to Faith No More's, "Album of the Year." Obviously. Dang that thing is still awesome.

This category was tough this year, for sure. I listen to a lot of music, but much of it is not current. The album that I could not seem to get enough of this year came out in 2007. I'm not going to give it the official nod, but man I loved Cex Cells by Blaqk Audio. It's been ages since I've listened to an album all of the way through and immediately listened to it again. Today, while climbing at the gym and then shoveling snow, I listened to it three times. I don't know if you care, but it's Jade Puget and Davey Havok of AFI's other band. Electronic. And awesome.

I've also listened to an enormous amount of The Coup, mostly 1994's Genocide and Juice and 2002's Steal this Double Album. Hey, they were new to me. I don't know a lot about hip hop, but the fact that I'd never heard of Pimps (Freestylin' at the Fortune 500 Club) until this year is a tragedy of the highest order.

The number one spot this year goes to Imelda May's Love Tattoo. I was kind of introduced to rockabilly a few years ago through bands like Tiger Army and Ogden's own The Debonairs. I dug the sound and looked into psychobilly's roots and found gems like Wanda Jackson. Imelda May's voice and songwriting makes the genre fresh again. And I adore Love Tattoo.

Also good this year: Muse's The Resistance -- The Uprising would be my song of the year if I'd made that category -- and AFI's Crash Love. Delicious.

MOVIE

Making this list reminds me of how little I consume each year's media fare. The list of movies that came out this year that I actually saw is quite small. On the bright side, I loved every one of them. I'm so picky about what I'll actually go see, or rent, that I'm rarely disappointed.

Of what I saw, though, there's nothing that could compare to Fantastic Mr. Fox. I don't know if I can think of a better time I've had in a theater. There is so much tiny stuff on the screen at a time. Tiny, tailored clothes, tiny washing machines washing tiny clothing, I can't wait to see it again just to marvel at the thought that went in to every shot. I've been a recent critic of Wes Anderson making the same movie over and over. Who would have ever thought that pairing him with Roald Dahl - another hero - would be such an amazing success?

Runners up here would be:

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, my favorite in the series so far

Drag me to Hell, Sam Raimi's return to low budget horror

I haven't seen most of the films on everyone's top-tens, but I'll catch most of them eventually. I can say that I liked Up a lot less than I thought I would. And I'm not going to watch Avatar. It's too long to watch in a theater and I'm not going to watch it on a little tv. So don't even bring it up.

VIDEO GAME

I only have a Wii and a Mac. So my options are limited. Of the games I played this year I have to give the award to Nintendo's reboot of Punch Out!! It is so choice.

If you played the original Punch Out!!, you probably remember the main characters being huge.

Check it:

Compare it to the new one:

The point I'm making is that here Nintendo pulled off the impossible. Not only did Punch Out!! turn out as fun as the original, it's as fun as our memories of the original. And for this is should be heartily applauded. I applaud you, Punch Out!! Even though I can't beat Mr. Sandman.

Runners up: New Super Mario Brothers Wii, Contra Remix, Beatles Rock Band

So it wasn't all bad, eh?

2010, though, I'm watching you. And I expect better things.

So far, so radical.

2009-12-06T20:53:00.000-08:00

Check it, y'all. I've been writing a book this month. Last month was National Novel Writing month, whatever that is, so I decided that this is the month for me. That's the kind of guy I am. So basically if I can manage to write 1,600 words a day I'll have 50,000 words at the end of the month, which equates to around 175 pages of awesome. A short novel, sure, but after rewriting and unnecessary bloating it could be a total book. The rewriting, of course, will take me 17 years, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Anyway, it's Sunday, which is totally a day of rest and inappropriate for writing a novel, so I'm watching 30 Rock and writing a blog instead. This is very uplifting. It's cool, though, because I'm ahead. I'm six days in and hit 10,000 words yesterday which puts me at almost exactly 1,600 per day. Let's give myself a big pat on the back!

I'll be honest with myself here, while some of the stuff I've written has been really good, a lot of it is full on garbage. Which doesn't matter. I just need to write and get better at it. The millions will come later.

That's just a joke. I would give away any millions I earned to corrupt charities and invest it in Jaleel White movies. What I really want out of this is to make a goal and freakin' do it.

So anyway, every Sunday will be a report blog. I guess if I'm taking Sundays off, though, I've got to do 2,000 words a day. Man, that blows.

Here's what everyone has to do: remind me of my goal all of the time. Like every time you see me, so that I don't let myself get lazy. If you don't I'm going to beat someone up. I'll pick the victim random out of all of the people who I predict read my blog. I'm pretty sure it's going to end up being Soleil Moon-Frye, but if you see her, don't tell her. I want it to be a surprise.

And it Came From the Basement. Part II.

2009-10-29T18:00:00.000-07:00

If you remember from the last post (if you didn't read it, scroll down and read it first). I had just torn a big hole in my house.

After breaking out the door frame, there was some drywall to do. First time for that, but I have to admit, I was awesome at it.

After drywall, we paid a dude to put in the floors. Hickory, it turns out. I'm glad we didn't do this ourselves because the installer discovered that our walls aren't straight. Dodged a bullet there.
I'm good. But I'm not this good.
Look at the bottom right.

And this guy had a laser. How am I going to compete with that?

Laser envy. (That was a Toy Story joke. See, it was a double entendre. I'll explain it to you some other time.)

So what you're thinking is, floors are in, drywall's replaced, all you need is a coat of paint and some baseboards and moulding, and you're golden.

That's what I was thinking, too. In fact, though, those dumb things took as long as the big stuff. I won't bore you with the details, but there are a lot of little spots that don't get painted. And all kinds of measuring to do with the moulding, and several trips to other states for work, and filling in gaps, and blah, blah, blah.

I'm not a detail oriented person, and this part killed me.

BUT DUDE, CHECK IT OUT.

It's not completely finished yet. We're going to install a bookcase in the left-hand side of what used to be the closet. Something dark and stained and pretentious looking. It's not my dream library with the ladder on wheels yet, but you start somewhere.

Raymond Chandler hardbacks would make great basement warming gifts. They have to look good on a shelf, though. You think I was going to read them? C'mon.

Also flat screen TVs.

The People Under the Stairs... I Mean at the Bottom of the Stairs. I Mean in the Basement.

2009-10-28T21:47:00.000-07:00

Before we bought our house, I did a handful of handy type stuff. Once I redid all of the wiring in my grandpa's rental house because I was the only person skinny enough to fit in the crawlspace. I basically just did what I was told and remember very little of the ordeal. I remember that it was dirty and dark and I remember one day walking out onto the grass, blinking, and hoping a girl I liked who lived around there would see me and say, "What have you been doing that you're all dirty?"

And I would say, "Oh, you know, just rewiring my grandpa's house. No big thing."

Instead I just went home dirty and took a shower and probably played video games or something.

Another time I put new shingles on the roof with my dad. And then one summer a couple of years ago I worked on a landscaping crew installing sprinklers. Oh, and I put together some of the most jury-rigged car stereos this side of Mexico (I say this because everything in Mexico's all kinds of jury-rigged. It is because they are a very resourceful people. I mean, MacGuyver, right? Half mexican. His dad's side, obviously.)

Anyway, I have some experience with wrenches and pliers, and that thing you hammer nails in with. I think it's called a slammer? But there is certainly more that I don't know than do when it comes to things that involve tool belts. I still don't know, for example, why male strippers are always wearing them. Maybe in case their boom box causes a short in the wiring?

Since we bought the house, I've done a handful of small projects. I built some raised garden beds, as you've heard, and caulked the bathtub. The bathtub caulking is especially indicative of my prowess. I bought a tube of caulk, sort of squeezed it out along the tub, and made a bit of a mess. I was so excited to go to the Home Depot (as opposed to the Apartment Depot -- which, according to Mitch Hedburg, consists of a bunch of guys standing around saying, "I don't gotta fix sh--.") and buy something for my home. The point is the tub is caulked and it looks like crap.

I have come a long way since then. I write this blog in a very comfortable basement living room that, until very recently, was un-freakin-finished. Observe:

Carpet remnants on the floor, cement underneath, weird slapdash paint on the wall

As winter sets in, it became increasingly obvious that even with the extra square feet we have since we moved into the house, our kids would be stir crazy before the snow melted. And, to be honest, we wanted a little place where we could lock the kids in when they were being rotten. It's OK, though, because there's a TV down here now. So it's not abuse.

I'm not going to bore you with too many details, I'll just show you some befores, then some afters, and then bathe in your praise.

Here's the hallway. Note the door frame. I think whoever had the place beforehand wanted to make this into a bedroom so they'd put a door in. We thought that was stupid. Especially since the door wouldn't close with an actual floor in.

The door frame, therefore, was the first to go.

Question: on a scale of one to awesome, how fun is it to smash wood apart with a slammer and crowbar?

Answer: rad.

Busting stuff up is scary, though, and I tore some wood out that was attached to a sketchy looking light switch. So I, uh, turned off the power before continuing. Plus I wasn't sure if I could set it right again.

Did I ever fix it? Did I electrocute myself? Did it lead to divorce? You'll have to find out in the NEXT POST. Don't worry, it'll show up tomorrow (for reals this time.)

Howie's Easy Solutions to Difficult Problems

2009-09-22T21:36:00.000-07:00

Often, when I'm in conversation with other people, I find myself coming to these brilliant conclusions. Pretty much I'm saving the world. Except for one problem: nobody else is privy to these conversations, at least not people with the power to make the changes. Usually these solutions will fix problems that I don't have, so for this reason I have decided to share them with everyone in the hopes that I'll be able to, in my small way, change your life for the better so that I can later ask for stuff.

So here's one: If you're female, and in a male dominated workplace -- say fishing boat, army barracks, or prison -- where it's still appropriate to hang naked pictures of women around, and this bothers you, I have the solution. Hang pictures of naked dudes around your space. You probably don't like naked pictures of dudes as much as the guys like the pictures of the women. This is not the point. The point is that dudes like naked pictures of dudes much less. They, I am comfortable to say, hate them infinitely more than you hate the naked women.

But here's the awesome part: since they started it, there is nothing they can say about it without looking like idiots. The only way they can get the offending man-meat out of their sight, you will be clear to point out, is to remove their own images.

Problem, as they say, solved.

Moving on. Say you dislike a certain political talk show host. And let's say this certain political talk show host is all of a sudden everywhere you look in the media. People at rallies praise him like he's the modern-day John the Baptist, preparing the world for the second coming. People on Twitter hate him like he's cooked vegetables. This is strictly hypothetical, of course (I'm talking about Glenn Beck), so I'm not going to name names (Glenn Beck).

The solution? NEVER MENTION HIS NAME AGAIN.

Now I know what you're saying. You're saying, "Howie, that didn't work with Voldemort, did it? Remember when Dumbledore was all like 'Harry, you should say his name and stuff'?"

Here's the distinction, though. Growing up, I realized, eventually, that there are two kinds of bullies. The violent ones need to be dealt with in some way. You have to stand up to them, maybe use their own medicine. These are the Hitlers and the Voldemorts. The physical bullies usually back down at a sign of force or die in a ditch covered with petrol on fire.

Then there are the emotional bullies. These feed off of you like vampires, but the best way to deal with them was not with a punch to the stomach, and any attempts to beat them at their own game just make you look like the stupid one since they've got a crowd of friends and you don't (or you wouldn't be the victim, duh).

The best way to deal with the emotional bullies is just to keep on walking.

Here's a simple equation: every time you mention a political pundit's name, he/she gets five dollars. I just gave one ten dollars in this blog, but I hope it was worth it to make a point. You think you're making them look stupid, but what you're really saying is that people like you hate him. If a member of the opposing party/ideology sees you hating said person, they're only going to love him/her more. This translates into $5 more in ad revenue.

Do you really think that a bunch of dirty hippies in the desert burning Bush in effigy changes minds? If nothing else, there are two rednecks on a couch in a trailer somewhere saying, "man, if those guys hate 'im, he must be doing something right, eh Jethro?"

These guys are not running for office, they don't have to please the center, they are never held accountable for what they say or do, you can catch them in an outright lie or crime, broadcast it to the world, and they will still make money. Please understand this.

Here's another one.

You have a cat that will only eat Fancy Feast but you can't afford Fancy Feast and you want to give him Friskies instead.

Put Friskies in a bowl and leave town for 5 days.

This also works on picky children.

THANKS EVERYONE. HAVE A GREAT NIGHT!

Sorry it's not funny.

2009-09-07T19:09:00.001-07:00

Let me begin by saying up to this point I have been very pleased with the level of education that has been provided to my son by Sunrise Elementary. The teaching has been top-notch and we have heard nothing but good reports.

However, as the son of a public school teacher and an ardent supporter and defender of public schools in general, I'm extremely disappointed in the school's decision not to show President Obama's speech to the students. The reason, that the speech is during "reading/instruction time" is vague and so broad that it makes it seem that there just isn't any room in the elementary students' schedule to listen to an 18-20 minute speech by the President of the United States. This decision, to me, invalidates the words of the Pledge of Allegiance spoken by the school children every morning. If there is time for that gesture of patriotism and respect for one's country, than there should certainly be time to listen to an inspirational speech by the nation's most powerful man about the benefit of a good education.

I have clear memories as an elementary school student of watching historical events as they unfolded during school hours. We gathered around the television and watched broadcasts of three space shuttle launches, for example. I remember clearly the effects of the Challenger tragedy when I was 7, and the discussion it inspired when I returned home. These events, and others like them, made an impact on me as a young student.

As for having us return to school to watch the broadcast at 3:30, I will be out of town for work, and my wife will have her hands more than full with our other two children. We will be discussing whether we should come to school and pull our son from class long enough to watch the broadcast at home, but this is a terrible alternative, and one that I imagine runs contrary to the message our president has planned for the children.

I hope that this decision was not politically motivated. But regardless of the reasoning, I think it teaches our children at a very young age that the thoughts of a president who was elected through a democratic and fair process are to be considered so insignificant that they don't warrant a minor change in schedule.

What a privilege these children are missing out on. To be addressed specifically by someone so busy and responsible for so much. I expected better from Sunrise Elementary.

Thank you for your time,

Matt Howard

Addendum: Ethan's principal responded with a very nice email. She said my letter had made her think, and that's all I could have asked for.

Alaska Blog 2: The deep, dark forest.

2009-07-26T20:56:00.000-07:00

Hey, remember when I said that I'd write the next blog the next day and I totally didn't? Man, I love that story.

I'm writing it now, though! 25 days later! So all's right, right?

If I remember correctly, I left off the last blog with me settling in at Whaler's Cove. My room was named after a bird of some kind, I don't remember which. I think it was something boring. There wasn't a bathroom so I had to walk outside onto the cool wooden deck to a public one. This was fine except for some reason, with the difference in time and the amount of water I must have been absorbing through my pores, I had to go to the bathroom over and over, all freaking night long. Which is something you wanted to hear about.

Luckily it was Alaska, so it was never dark. And it was always just this cool, beautiful evening out, and I enjoyed the little walk.

This is the best I've got of me on a boat. And I'm not in it.

So here was the work routine. We'd walk out to the boat dock and wait for a little boat to take us across to Admiralty Island. Once there, we'd drive to the float plane dock and get on another little boat. This one would take us across Favorite Bay to one of the three project areas. We'd unload into the soggy beach and head to the edge of the forest.

Floatplane in the foreground, the wall of forest behind

Now I'm not used to forests like these. In Utah you can see a ways in, and you can see a ways in every direction. These temperate rain forests were like a wall. As soon as you were in, you were in. If someone turned me around 10 times blindfolded and let me go, even if I were just 30 feet into the forest, I would be completely lost. This forest, too, had a lot of verticality to it. As in, there were trees, and when a tree would fall down, new trees would grow directly from the old tree. The ground was never solid, because it wasn't really ground. It was feet of dead matter, live matter, and roots. I've never been somewhere so alive. And I was at a Paula Abdul concert once. So that's saying something.

A rare sunny day. Still dark when you get further in, though.

The work itself consisted of walking along the proposed airport and roads and identifying the plants we saw. We would take points when we came across a wetland (when it was all really a wetland), and we'd take pictures. It was very scientific.

Well, actually it was. I worked with some just primo people, who knew a buttload about plants and wetlands and everything else in there. We worked with this great naturalist from the area. And when I say great naturalist I mean everything you'd expect. By which I mean a lot of knowledge about everything and crazy hair. And an antenna for his GPS sewn in his hat.

If I'm simplifying it's because you can get a good idea of what I did by looking at the pictures, imagining me tromping through those woods, sometimes so dense that you literally couldn't see 3 feet ahead of you, and asking, over and over again, what the plants are. Sometimes one of us would yell out, "Hey bear!," or "Whoa bear!" or "I poop bigger than you, bear!"

This was to let them know we were there. Did I mention the bears?

This is a very bad mommy. Teaching her cubs to eat at the dump.

Apparently, Admiralty Island has more bears than the entire lower 48 combined. That's one bear per square mile. I say apparently, because the only bears we saw were at the dump. Speaking of dumps, though, we saw a lot that the bears left behind. And I'll be honest. I don't crap bigger than they do. Not by a long shot.

Sorry, but it was awesome. Alaska Part 1.

2009-07-01T20:55:00.000-07:00

Yes. This is ridiculous.

I know everyone got sick of my Alaska updates. I was supposed to be, you know, working, but I was acting like I was having the time of my life. The thing is, though, that I really was having the time of my life.

I know it's a tough time out there, and I should be glad just to have a job and some work, and I shouldn't rub in people's faces that not only do I have a job and some work but that for at least two weeks it was awesome, but there it is. I'm back home now, and all of the stresses about trying to stay busy in a time when nobody is busy are back, but I figured I'd better put down some thoughts on the trip while it was still fresh and before I'm consumed again with worry. Bear with me.

Anyway, here's a quick breakdown with pictures.I started out in Juneau, which is where my flights ended up. I should, though, point out that there was a layover in Seattle, and that layover included the best strawberry shortcake I've ever eaten. I should also point out that the strawberries were picked that morning and that I ate said shortcake on a plane. I've always wanted to bring something actually, you know, good on a plane to eat while everyone else ate pretzels and a tiny glass of coke. I did and it was great.

Anyway, Juneau's kind of dumb in a cruise town kind of way. We did manage to find some spots out of the way where they served pizza that was so good that it was stupid. From a restaurant I saw a rainbow and some float planes.

I humbly submit that this was neat. And a little taste of what was to come.

Anyway, just an afternoon in Juneau with an early morning on the Alaska Marine Highway system. Back when I worked for Scenic Byways Online I wrote a lot about the Alaska Marine Highway and hoped someday to be able to ride on it. This proves to me that if you have a dream, you don't really have to chase it. Just kind of hang around and it will happen to you.

Feel free to put that on a sampler and frame it. Jazz it up a little, though.

While on the ferry, I saw a little thing we wildlife biologists like to call humpback whales.

Yeah, no pictures, though. Here's one and you can imagine a massive head popping out of the water and then retreating and me saying softly to myself as I look through the binoculars, "oh snap."

Look at me I'm on a boat.

The boat ride took 5 hours and included a charming thing that happened to all of us who ordered the fish and chips. We got chicken and chips. Good thing it was pretty good and cost 13 dollars. I had a slice of cake with pudding in it.

Yes. Food is going to be a theme of these blogs.

We arrived at a village that has existed for at least 3,000 years continuously though it was probably more like 5,000. It's tiny, and economically depressed, and really charming in a tiny economically depressed methy kind of way. There were bears at the dump.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's blog, or the one where I actually start to do work.

The Lawn Wrangler

2009-04-27T16:12:00.001-07:00

I am an enthusiastic new homeowner. A lot of it's probably because I'm so late to the party when it comes to buying one's own home, so I've got about a decade's worth of dreams and plans to carry out. Whatever the motivation, though, it's like I'm on meth I'm so excited.

We've got some big projects in mind, but we'll have to wait for our Obama money to get processed by the IRS before we can embark on, say, finishing the basement. In the meantime I'm keeping myself occupied with the melange of little things that I can do for little to no money. Most of this has to do with landscaping.

I started out with the compost and raised garden beds. This was awesome because I got to buy a circular saw. I played it a little loose with the measurements, so they don't stand up to close scrutiny. They look OK out there, though.

The grass back there, as you can probably see, is poo. It's just weeds so we're trying to kill them, till it, and plant some new drought-tolerant grass. I've sprayed it all with round-up but so far it's hanging in there.

The grass on the south side of the house was in pretty good shape though. Naturally I went on all-out war against it because that's where I want my property-value lowering desert garden. First Round-up. I guess the grass was too long for it, though, because after 4 days it didn't mind a bit. So I tried the tiller. Here's a bit of a tip. Tillers, at least the one I was using, are not very effective against sod, even weakened as it is by my chemical warfare.

Four passes later and a lot of hoeing, pitchforking, and shoveling, it looks like this:

It's an interesting thing about Kentucky Bluegrass. We work so hard to keep it alive, yet it can be such a bugger to tear up when you want the crap dead.

Anyway, the plan here is to plant some native shrubs: a big mountain sagebrush, a bitterbrush, a mountain mahogany, some fringed sagebrush, and maybe an atriplex. Then I'll lay down a bunch of rocks between them and fill the spaces in between with native wildflowers and grasses. And some lichen on the rocks to finish it off.

This guy's been waiting for a place to live.

Bonus:

Ginny loves the dirt

I present the evidence

Exhibit A

The End of an Era

2009-02-07T12:47:00.000-08:00

When I was seventeen I got my dream job as a snowboard salesman at Pedersen's Ski and Sports in downtown Ogden. I worked with cute girls, got a sweet discount, and we had a Powder Mountain season pass in the shop. I barely got paid for it, but I didn't really need any money anyway. Five bucks an hour plus 2% commission usually ended up being 5 bucks an hour. One week during Christmastime I hauled in around $9 an hour, so that was hot.

Anyway, I bought a snowboard there, my second really, but the first one that counts. My first snowboard was literally one of the first that Burton made. I got it for $25 at a pawn shop and used it exclusively on the hill behind South Junior High School. This was an upgrade to the real scene, though. We'd gotten some kind of sweet deal on these 5150's and I picked up the board, the bindings, and the best boots on the market at the time for around $150 with my discounts and have ridden that setup ever since. It's been 12 years, I reckon. This year I've finally upgraded.

As I removed the bindings from the ol' battleaxe, though, I caught myself getting a bit nostalgic. There are a lot of stories wrapped up in that shop, this board, and my experiences on the mountain. I liked it, even though in certain lights it looked pink. Everyone knows, though, that its color was melon.

My first day snowboarding I went with a friend of mine who'd just gotten a board that year, too. Neither of us had any idea what we were doing, so at the top of the lift we just pointed our boards down the hill and let gravity do the rest.

Gravity did its part, alright. I figure I'd just about broken the sound barrier when I decided that I needed to stop. So I sat down. Fifty feet later I stopped rolling. Luckily, a neighbor who'd been a ski instructor happened to be there and showed us the basics. I'm amazed I tried again.

I did, though, and got good enough that I felt like teaching a friend at school. OK, a friend I totally had the hots for. I swung her a ridiculous discount on a coat and pants (my boss was sympathetic of my hopeless crush) and put my name down for both of the Powder passes for the big day. I rolled into the shop that morning to pick them up, and it turned out our regional manager had walked in, crossed my name off the calendar, and took them both so that he and his wife could go. This is a guy who was making 6 figures.

Yeah. Anyway, it was expensive and I didn't marry her. Not sure if I came out ahead on that one.

The best story probably comes from when I tried to grind a rail. I'd done it a couple of times before without incident, and gave it a shot in front of my college snowboarding class. I fell off, kinda weakly, and slapped my hand on the ice.

It didn't feel like much, but when I pulled off my glove I saw two lumps rising up on the back of my hand. I was feeling a little nauseous. My friend said that the swelling would go away and I'd be fine, but I went home and had Kristin take me to the emergency room anyway.

The metacarpals were so broken that they'd been pushed up into my skin, making all four of my fingers even when I held my hand up. One surgery and 6 weeks of physical therapy later, I was back in action. Metal plate, 15 titanium screws and all.

I've had some good times with good company on that board. I've never gone more than 5 or 6 times in a season, and aside from a pretty good proficiency at shooting tree runs at a good clip, I've never really pushed it as far as what can be done. With a professional paycheck and some paid vacation, though, I hope to spend a lot more time on the mountain in the next couple of winters. It's time to trade in the old hoopty for something a little slicker.

I hope it doesn't mind.

Bein' kinda mushy

2009-01-28T20:00:00.000-08:00

Kristin will probably kill me for this post, but here goes anyway.

Lately I've been kind of infatuated with her, it turns out. She's always looking hot, is the problem, and I've been following her around with a camera. It's got to drive her crazy.

Anyway, I don't want to brag or anything, but I ended up with a hot wife.

Remembering the little things

2009-01-27T13:09:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I catch myself thinking that if just this or that were a little bit different, things would be so much better in my life. Say, if I had enough extra money every month to get Netflix back, or if they served sugar cookies every day at the Old Grist Mill, or if I had a Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting machine in my house.

Unfortunately, I don't as often acknowledge the truly wonderful things all around me. Let me just tell you about one of them.

Just down the street from my office is a little pizza/italian sandwich place called The Factory. It's one of those basement college hangout types of places where you get peanuts and throw the shells on the floor. I don't like the pizza much, as I find it to be roughly four pizzas worth of dough topped with about half a pizza's toppings. I do, however, love their sandwiches. I usually get a Capone, which is a roast beef sub with mushrooms (whole mushrooms, not the sliced can ones) bell peppers, and mozzarella. You get a pickle and three yellow peppers and it is a fine meal.

Anyway, the sandwich alone is something worthy of praising life and humanity, but the clincher is the Simpsons pinball machine. And here's where I kind of waxed philosophical. I've had some horrible jobs in my life. I unloaded dusty cardboard boxes from tractor trailers at 3 am amid so much dust that my snot would be black, I dug holes in hundred-degree weather, I pushed papers around my desk from 4 pm to 1 am every night while listening to an obese woman in the other cubicle simultaneously close on a house and file for bankruptcy. Today I strolled from my own little office, ordered a sandwich, and played a few rounds of Simpsons pinball while it was being prepared, nabbing two extra games before returning to a job that I actually don't hate.

And I figured something out. Things could be a lot worse.

Welcome 2009. You're already being a brat.

2009-01-12T20:28:00.000-08:00

So I posted on my Facebook this week that I've been keeping my New Years Resolutions of not blogging anymore and playing more video games. I found this to be a fine joke. Because, of course, these are not noble resolutions. Nor are they very difficult to keep.

Fact is, I don't really do resolutions for New Years. I don't keep 'em, it turns out. And messing up on your resolution less than 12 hours after making it doesn't do much for my self esteem. Making resolutions of doing something every day or every week or stopping something completely from this day forward isn't my scene anymore. Instead I try to keep an ongoing list of talents I want to develop and things I want to do. If I pull them off that year, then righteous. If I don't, there's always next year. No deadlines on these things.

For example, I still haven't pulled a 360 on a snowboard. I made that goal back when I was first married. I haven't made pasta from scratch, either (well, not from semolina... I don't count egg noodles). I have lead 5.10 sport climbs, though. And I've made cheesecake. I've reproduced. Thrice. My son can now handle some of the bouldering problems in Ogden, so that's something.

A lot of the things on the list are kind of mundane. Graduating college (done), getting a full-time professional job (done), buying a house (close, I hope), getting published in a print publication (not yet, though I've got a little portfolio of online publications). None of them come without effort, though, and for a lot of those setting a one-year deadline isn't feasible. Other's it's downright impossible.

So no, my resolutions don't really include playing more video games and not blogging. On the other hand, they aren't to stop playing video games or blog every day, either. Maybe resolutions work for people other than gym owners and diet book writers, but they don't work for me. By taking the longer view, I save money on home exercise equipment that I can put towards a down payment on a house. So that's something.

Hey 2008, Don't Let the Door Hit Ya Where the Good Lord Splitcha

2008-12-17T19:43:00.000-08:00

Those of you with calendars have probably noticed that it's late into December. This month means several things. We celebrate the Christmas season, watch snow begin to pile outside, and if you're an Isaacson or Howard, gather around as families in the grim ritual of pinata murder. We also spend this time to remember the year that has passed and reflect on its bounty.

With that in mind, I'll use this little space I've carved out of the internet to remember a few of my favorite things of 2008. Bear in mind that my passion for buying things at less than half price means that I rarely experience things the year they were released to the public, but I'll try to keep this as current as possible.

And without further ado 2008's bests:

Best Album

The Faint: Fasciinatiion

I got into The Faint a few years ago and pretty much loved their 80s electronic sound mixed with their merciful lack of 80s cheesiness and listened to the poo out of Danse Macabre. When I picked up Fasciinatiion on the recommendation of a friend via an out of the blue text message, I was met with some disappointments.

First of all, the car stereo in my little Toyota Tercel was woefully unable to handle the hot bass The Faint insisted on pumping out. Second, I wasn't sure if I was feeling Fasciinatiion. I'm glad I gave all of the songs a couple more listens, because man is this album awesome. I've been constantly using quotes from it as my Facebook status to the confusion and consternation of more than one of you, and I love singing along to it.

Thank you, The Faint, for making 2008 a little bit more bearable.

Best Book
World War Z - Max Brooks (October 2007)
So I'm not sure if I read a book that was published in 2008, which embarrasses me. Hold on, let me check on something... Ok, I did read Now and Then by Robert B. Parker. I'm sure I loved it, because I love Spenser mysteries just so much. I forget them quick, though.

Anyway, forget it. It doesn't matter what year any of the books I read this year were published, because there's one that affected me well beyond any of the rest. That's Max Brooks' unrelentingly badical (cover quote right there) World War Z. I bought it on Amazon along with a few other books and when it arrived, just looking at the cover and how cool it is, I knew I had to save it for last. When I finally got to reading it, and finishing it, I realized that if it were another 500 pages, I'd read each one with equal relish.

It sounds cheesy, going on and on about a book about a zombie apocalypse, but World War Z has made me think more than any book I've read in ages. From world politics to the lack of real survival skills among our modern society, Brooks describes the nightmare scenario in a way that makes you really feel like you're living a history you hope to never be a part of. His ability to narrate through so many different perspectives in a way that is immediately fresh and unique is just fantastic.

Plus, it's got some really good advice for surviving a disaster, regardless of its source.

Thanks, Max Brooks, for making me get a wheat grinder in 2008.

Best Movie
The Dark Knight

Ok, so the first time I saw it, I was underwhelmed. I thought it was too long and too heavy-handed. I didn't like the voice overs constantly telling me what the movie was supposed to be telling me. I was over it and there were 40 more minutes to go. Everyone said to see it again, it's better when you're not trying to keep track of everything.

But I was sure that either Hellboy 2 or Wall-E would be my numero uno. I was wrong, of course, which is fine because I'm often wrong. Both of those movies held up upon second viewings (Hellboy, let's be honest, was much diminished on a smaller screen) but when I saw The Dark Knight again, split up into two nights (as it should probably be seen), I was pretty much astounded.

The Dark Knight rules. I know it's trendy to call it one of the best, and I thought about not doing it just for that reason. But that would be petty, and silly, and so me in high school, so I avoided the temptation.

Thanks, Dark Knight, for somehow pulling off the line, "you complete me."

Video Game
World of Goo - Wii, PC, Mac

Just watch the video. You have to see (and hear, especially hear) it in motion. Then buy it. It was made by two guys and you can get it for $15 on the Wii or $20 on PC or Mac. This is the kind of video game creation that absolutely should be encouraged. So classy.

Worst Town in the World of 2008
Rawlins, Wyoming

So there I was, a fresh college graduate starting out a new life and career for me and my family, driving out to Rawlins, Wyoming to start out as a Restoration Ecologist. It started out ok. I saw some bald eagles on the way out. The second I arrived and got out of the car, though, things went downhill. Let's just say the job was driving a tractor, the double-wheel trailer where I'd live with a 50-something welder for the months until we could afford to rent an outrageously priced house and live there was disgusting, and the pay was crapola.

I turned around and drove my trash home. Toot-sweet.

Cutest Baby of 2008
Ginny Pig.

A Quick Note - Don't Let it Distract You From Last Night's Post

2008-11-21T08:12:00.000-08:00

I did a guest blog for an old mission buddy's new venture.

Head on over to The Official Guide to Stuff Mormons Like.

I might do some more if I think of other great things that Mormons like. This should also be funny if you're not a Mormon, but live around them.

-Matt

TMI with MRH

2008-11-20T20:30:00.000-08:00

Here's something I'll do when I run out of blog ideas and it's been, like, way too long since I last posted. I got this idea from my ipod post a while back. As I flipped through songs, I realized that many had stories linked to them. I've realized that the impetus of this blog was to tell some stories of my past. Many of them are unpleasant. I don't mean unpleasant because they are painful, or traumatic. I mean they make me look really stupid.

Let's see if we get any this time.

First on the list... and we get:

Temptation - Vast

Ok. It was days after I'd come home from my mission. I went to Salt Lake with my friends but I don't remember what we were doing. On the radio the music was good. I was told it was Vast. Back then people had heard of Vast. They had a big hit on the radio, it was "Touched." I liked it. Found out they were playing in Utah soon, so I bought two tickets for me and a girl I liked.

The concert ended up being a lot of fun and I married the girl I took. One thing I remember is that at the show I saw a kid who used to hang out with us. I hesitate to call him a friend, but he was OK. "Hey Chad," I said, when I saw him.

"They call me Kain now."

"Who calls you Kain, Chad?"

"Some people."

I looked at him for a minute. "I'm going to go ahead and call you Chad."

He nodded.

"Okay."

Bunnies - Horse The Band

I think it was my first or second day doing field work out in Vernal. I was talking to a couple of people who, not too much later, I would consider very close friends. We were just getting to know each other, though.

One of the early things everyone does out there, in the field, is compare iPods.

As we talked music, someone remarked that I had a lot of stuff on there they'd never heard of. "I've got music," I said, "that will put you off of music forever."

I was referring to Horse the Band.

Hail to the King - No Use for a Name

OK, this one's a stretch, but I'm running with it. In high school one of my very favorite movies was Army of Darkness. If you're unfamiliar, it's kind of a campy movie where a wisecracking Bruce Campbell gets sent back in time to defend a medieval people from an undead menace that he accidentally brought with him when he botched an attempt to get back home.

Trust me, the movie rocks. One line, at the end of the movie, Bruce is doing a voiceover, where he says, "around here, I am King." Then he turns to a girl who he's holding and says, "Hail to the King, baby."

During these years I worked at a movie theater, and made some really good friends there. I was always talking about how sweet Army of Darkness was and how everyone needed to see it. Finally, the Cinedome, a huge, awesome, luxury theater in Riverdale that's now out of business, showed it as a midnight movie.

I roped some of my coworkers into seeing it, two girls, and afterwards they were just laughing and shaking their heads.

"Did you like it?" I asked, breathless with the anticipation.

"NO!" They both said, "but we enjoyed it because it was SO YOU. That was the movie made for you."

I'm still not sure what to make of that.

And now, a haiku

Seven syllables right here

And then it's just five

Bein' Sweet in the Desert

2008-11-09T14:13:00.000-08:00

You've probably heard me talk mess on Vernal, Utah. I spent all last summer out there, and have made a few trips this year looking for ol' Sclerocactus, the endangered darling of the Uinta Basin. I need to emphasize, though, that although I think the town itself is a nasty-A pile of bad service and horrible food, I love the surrounding wild lands. So much.

My first season out we were having kind of a huddy day. Brian, my boss, caught the low morale in our walk and decided it was time for a golden eagle nest check. While on top of that cliff, getting threatened by an angry momma eagle and scaring up a bobcat, we looked out and saw a pretty weird little place.

Filled with interesting red-rock formations, it looked like a final drain for the region's water. Deep cuts in the rock, rocky washes, the works. By itself the terrain looked alien and obscure, and that wasn't even counting the fossils. Mars, as we ended up calling it, is filled with fossils. Turtle shells are everywhere, prompting one of our paleontologists to call it "turtle hell." But there are other ones, too. Teeth, skulls, bones. Rad.

This is a turtle shell, but that should be totally obvious.

The weather this trip out was perfect for photography. Lately my landscapes have been more sky than ground, and this time out the skies were definitely cooperating.

My last night in town I went out to the Ouray Wildlife Refuge. Passed by this little gem on the way in.

I saw some great vistas and wore out the camera battery, then just around the corner we started seeing the porcupines. You'll have to take my word for it, but they were adorable. Then the great-horned owl in the tree. Then the hundreds of Sand Hill Cranes. Then another owl.

Note the moon up in the right hand corner.

It was good for me, though, to see these things without a camera. Makes me appreciate it rather than worrying about getting the shot. If I can't enjoy things in the moment, I need to start leaving the camera at home.

Another muddy day in the desert.

What Happens in Vernal...

2008-11-09T13:11:00.000-08:00

How about I start with the raddest story from Vernal first, and go from there?

Right on.

Anyway, when I arrived, I immediately declared "Howie Week." As everyone knows, Howie Week is when I hit a town with a list of things I demand to do with the people there. Sometimes Howie Week is just a weekend in Ogden where I decide I need to go bouldering, longboarding, and snowboarding, all in two days. Vernal's Howie Week really just consisted of bowling and some good Mexican food. Bowling was set for Wednesday.

When the big day rolled around, we all headed out to Dinah Bowl. Upon arrival, we were informed that leagues were in session and that we'd need to come back in an hour. "No problem," we said. "We'll be back."

Everyone went to their ATMs and stuff and reconvened at the alley a half-hour later. A different girl with the kind of face that only years of scowling at out-of-towners can create told us that no, there would be no bowling after leagues, because they "had school tomorrow."

I was peeved, but the evening was not ruined. Instead, we decided to go to the brand-new recreation center for some pinging, and, if lucky, ponging. In spite of the unfortunate circumstance that nobody could drink beer while playing, everyone came along. I had a standing rivalry with one Reid that needed taking care of, and I quickly dispatched him during the first match (by quickly I mean an never ending volley at the end of what was easily a 30-point game) before taking out another. I then lost, and went to play some pool.

Upon returning I found that one of our party had struck up a bit of a volley with an honest-to-goodness asian player from the table over. These guys were taking the game pretty seriously, as it is meant to be taken, and sported the authentically Chinese pen grip. As I walked up, I took up the paddle and faced off against a decidedly non-english-speaking opponent. Our styles matched up well, the game progressed at a furious pace, and I emerged victorious.

Then, American flag draped over my shoulders, I was paraded around the track for a victory lap. Our nation's dominance over Red China was again asserted, just like it was in virtually every non-judged Olympic event.

First of all, that last part may not have happened. Second of all: Oh Snap, I went there.

I then proceeded to lose a string of games, including two in a row to Reid (he always always gets the last win), and went home all razzed up.

And that, my friends (ha ha McCain lost), is my first Vernal story.

Discuss it amongst yourselves while I compose the next one.

First Gen iPod: I Totally Had One

2008-11-01T19:46:00.000-07:00

Last year during the summer, while doing cactus surveys in the Uinta Basin, my boss brought out some mini speakers. We plugged his iPod in and started surveying. Everyone was totally into it, saying how awesome an idea it was, and how it was going to revolutionize cactus surveys forever. A couple of hours later, someone said "put in Howard's iPod."

So we did.

An hour or so in, many songs and genres later, my boss said, "Is that Frank Sinatra?"
"Yes," I said.
"I'm about to throw that iPod."

While I was contentedly listening to songs that have, over the years, enhanced my life and made the world a better place for me, my coworkers were, at least some of the time, miserable.

Here's the thing about my 'pod. It may not have something you like on it, but it is sure as heck going to have something that you'll hate. This is, I think, the way it should be. Music is just about as personal as it can get, I think, and if you're into it, your playlist should match no one else's in the world.

As far as I can think back, I've had at least a few bands and songs in my collection that have earned the absolute derision of my closest friends. For every Soundgarden and Pearl Jam during the 90's, there was Violent Femmes and Oingo Boingo.

We were all elitists back then, so I'm not going to make myself out to be any sweeter than those losers, but there was a list of acceptable music. If you had something that wasn't on it or something that you should have wasn't, it was, to use the vernacular of the time, "whack." I missed out on some good bands at the time because they were "trendy." I didn't touch The Offspring, for example. Who I think at the time I would have loved. Missed opportunities.

Things aren't much different now. I have several of the requisite indie bands, the hip-hop classics that we white people love now, and a few ironic throwbacks, but a perusal of my iPod rarely receives a full approval. Guilty pleasures like My Chemical Romance and AFI boast absurdly high plays, for example, while The Arcade Fire rarely gets a spin. There is even, and I shudder to think of what my 17 year old self would think of this, some classic country on there.

So next time you're in the desert, and someone asks you to put on your 'pod, and everyone at the end of the day tells you how rad it was? You're doing it wrong. We're all our own people, and our bookshelf, movie collection, playlist, and Pokemans should reflect this.

Anyway, the first 10 songs that came up on random:
Lost in Space - Aimee Man
I Still Miss Someone - Johnny Cash
This Time - RX Bandits
(Untitled) - Pretty Girls Make Graves
Static - Kool Keith
Jettison - Neko Case and Her Boyfriends
I Feel You - Depeche Mode
Symphony No. 40 - Allegro Molto - Mozart
Walk Among Us - Misfits
Without Me - Eminem

Cold night, sound travels

Just higher air density

Adios mystique

Digital Detox

2008-10-26T18:16:00.000-07:00

I have realized lately that I don't give myself anytime to think. When I drive to work, I have NPR on in the morning, or I'm playing some loud music. If I decide to ride the bus, I listen to my iPod on the longboard ride to the bus stop, then play my Nintendo DS on the bus ride into town. Once I'm at the transit center, it's back in with the iPod headphones. I feel like Michael Phelps, but without the, you know, world record breaking.

While at work, I'm listening to music and occupying my mind with work and the occasional Youtube break. Then, at 1 o'clock, it's off to the skate park for some sliding and hip-hop. Finish work, repeat with the drive/bike (headphones again)/bus ride home.

At home the digital distractions are equally numerous and compelling. There's a tv, Wii, PS2, and a fancy new laptop to compete for my attention. Then there are these just noisy, messy, adorable bundles of smiles and crying and hair and sticky hands that just can't get enough of daddy.

There's maybe 15 minutes or so every night, when Kristin has fallen asleep and I'm still trying, when it's dark, and there are no distractions, and I try to do a whole day's worth of thinking. And I'm thinking it's not enough.

This last week, well some of it, was supposed to be a bit of an experiment. I called it "digital detox," and the plan was to avoid any screen-related entertainment for a week. Give myself time to write and read, but mostly just to look at stuff and think. Then, uh, we got a brand new computer and it pretty much went out the window.

I still think that the concept is valuable. The idea right now is to define "entertainment related screen time." Do I cut out music, or do I say that music helps me think and enjoy my surroundings? Is blog-writing in or out? Do I stay away from sites like Facebook and my fantasy football team? Or just limit the views to once a day? If Ethan wants help getting past a boss on a video game, am I strict, or do I throw down my skills?

The idea is to cut it all away for a week, then reintroduce what I think is really important. Hopefully I'd fall out of the habit of doing some time-wasters, and in the absence of technology, realize what's really important and just stick with that. Right now I just have too many options.

Anyway, I've heard that no goal is real unless it's written down. Also, I've found that publicly stating a goal can encourage me to stick with it, because I know that people are watching me. So for now, lights out.

I'll still blog, but it will probably be things transcribed from my leather journal. I'll respond to internet communications, but probably won't initiate any of my own.

Time to take a breath.

Brisk, chilly mornings

Honestly, it's just butt cold

Can I just sleep in?

Haiku D'etat

2008-10-25T06:09:00.000-07:00

Yeah, that title is enormously clever. I didn't think of it.

Anyway, lately I've made it a goal to write one page a day. It's better than saying, "man, I wish I wrote more." But it's not as bad as sitting down to write a novel in an evening. A page a day isn't bad. It could add up to, you know, like a lot of pages by the end of the year.

I write it all in a little leatherbound journal I got a long time ago but wouldn't write in because I was too self-conscious about writing junk in a sweet leatherbound journal. I'm doing it anyway. And some of it is junk.

At the end of each writing session (they're kind of journal like, but also include a passage of an ongoing short-story/possible someday novel or just a non-journal observation), I include a haiku. I got the idea from Colonel Steve Rotkoff. While stationed in Iraq he made many of his observations in Haiku form, including this gem:

Where is WMD

What a kick if he has none

Sorry about that

I've been doing them backwards, 7 syllables, then 5, then 7. I'll probably switch back soon, though.

Anyway, here are some of mine:

Joanna holding her doll

doll just says "mama"

Now left face down in the dirt

Rodgers, my rad quarterback

Shoulder's sore, hurts bad

Toughen up, you sissy girl

(that one has to do with my fantasy football team. I love you, Aaron Rodgers! It's in fun!)

Ethan with a half-foot mop

Asked mom for "poofy"

It's crazy hair day at school

I've been aiming for a conversational tone in the haikus, and it's fun taking something that is usually associated with wispy Japanese watercolor and using phrases like "sissy girl."

I think from now on, though, I'll end blog posts with a haiku. That way, even if what I'm talking about is boring or not related, you know there's a little prize at the end.

Tiny gray kitten
Leaping from footprint to print
Shaking snow from paws

Back in Podunk Hicktown

2008-10-18T12:39:00.000-07:00

So I have a longer post in the works about my "business trip" to San Diego this week. For a lot of folks trips like these are old hat. For me, though, this was my first time in a plane or seeing the ocean since Ethan was an unborn fetus. So that's what, at least 6 years?

I kind of think of myself as pretty worldly for a Logan, Utah dweller. I'm pretty well-informed, know what movies and music everyone's talking about, and try to be aware in general of the world around me outside of the kind of weird space that is Utah.

Turns out I'm just another hick rube.

Here are some things I thought were weird or interesting:

Fancy restaurants, it turns out, like to print menus without decimal points. This is how you know the restaurant is fancy, you see. People spend more on booze than on their meals, even when said meal costs $50. They do this because they put the meals on their company credit cards. We spent one night walking around the Gaslamp District and I just stared at everything open-mouthed. I'm surprised I never used the phrase, "Aw shucks."

If you're a cool guy in the Gaslamp District, you're wearing a suit with the tie off and your shirt unbuttoned. You're saying, "I just finished work at a high-powered business place but I'm letting my hair down. I'm rich, but can relax."

I feel like I started to get acclimated, though. I could get used to seeing other places on someone else's dime. That being said, I love coming back to my quiet little domestic life where everyone missed me.

We'd Be Standin' Round with our Britches Down

2008-10-10T12:20:00.000-07:00

Ok, so listen. We're all really, really sick of this election already. Right? I am.

Here are some things I can do without from now on:

People being terrified/amazed that someone is actually going to vote against the candidate that they themselves like.
Listen: it's about 50/50 as far as political parties go, and it has been for some time now. Just about, in fact, as long as I've been alive. Are you seriously saying that fully ONE HALF of the entire population of the country is just plain old wrong? That's 150,000,000 people. You might be able to write off half of the country as ignorant, buck-toothed and pregnant gun-toting rednecks or elitist college professor lesbian ACLU lawyers, but I can't.

We're a good country, but it's not in spite of our differences in opinions. It's because of them. The very fact that your neighbor disagrees with you is what makes things work as well as they do.

Check yourself. You know, before you wreck yourself.

Proxy Sensitivity
Seriously, your candidate has an entire staff of people who are very well paid whose job it is to make their candidate look good. You're not getting a penny of it. I know that you think you're saving the world by flying off the handle every time your pick is mentioned in even close to a negative aspect, but you're not changing any minds.

THIS
I can do without that.

Laugh at yourselves a little, no matter who you support. Laugh at them. The American Campaign is a comedic farce along the lines of a Mel Brooks movie. Go vote, sure. Research the candidates. Know them well enough to intelligently argue your point, but laugh about it.

Time for Some Campaignin' | Funny Jokes at JibJab

Somebody's got a case of the Wednesdays.

2008-09-24T08:58:00.001-07:00

I just realized, like right now, that I can often tell what kind of a day I'm having by how early I drink my Mountain Dew. Today I rolled into work a little late (I don't have a set time to come in, it's just that the later I come in, the later I get to go home to my loving little family), so almost from the get-go, I'm off to a bad start.

It's 10 a.m. and I'm already thinking hard about that Code Red in the mini-fridge.

I wish I could remember where I first came across this concept, so that I could give "propers," but I've heard it told that if you replace, "um," or "uh," or "well..." or any of those fillers in conversation that make one sound indecisive and unable to properly deliver a message with "now," you suddenly seem like a go-getter. Someone who is doing something with their life. Someone who can put together a sentence.

Now.

Environmentalists Outraged Over Destructible Environment Physics

2008-09-19T07:42:00.001-07:00

Greenpeace, fresh off their last criticisms of the video game industry, has decided to focus their upper-middle class college student rage on one of this generation's most prized advances: fully destructible environments.

"As you know, we've always been critical of Link's wanton slaughter of living trees in the Legend of Zelda games," one Greenpeace activist, who preferred she only be referred to by her Spirit Mother title of Sunflower, said, "but the trees almost immediately grew back. We were dealing with a renewable resource. These new video game characters are destroying literal acres of precious video game rain forest and old growth."

When videos started cropping up online of people destroying entire islands' worth of trees on Crysis, and word got out that video game characters will be able to chop down trees in Fable 2, Greenpeace activists immediately sounded the call to other trust-fund babies to put down the bong and unite. Within a few days, patchoulli wafted in the air around both Microsoft's Redmond office and wherever the Crytech team is located as protesters rallied around.

An activist at the protest, Soleil Moon-Frye, took a break from waving her hand-made "Reduce Greenhouse Gases in Albion" sign to sound off about the potential ramifications that millions of players cutting trees apart in the Fable 2 universe might have on greenhouse gases. "I mean," she said, "it's just, you know, totally messed up, that these kids, like, who play these video games, they can like, cut the trees, you know, down? They spend all this time getting, like, a wife and some kids and stuff, but they don't even realize what they're doing to their family, you know? It's just soooo ignorant, right? Whose going to preserve that forest for that kid who's growing up?"

When asked if she realized that the world of Albion was, in fact, a fantasy world consisting of only computer code, Moon-Frye was quiet for a moment before saying, "Well, my boyfriend was saying last night that, you know, maybe none of this is real, right? Like, maybe we're just somebody's dream or something? He's, like, really deep."

Bases Loaded, Pitcher's...

2008-09-19T07:42:00.000-07:00

Quick one.

Back when I was in elementary school, the very worst insult you could level against someone (or something) was that they were "croded." I guess it was kind of like cooties, but worse. The dirty kid who smelled bad? Croded. The nasty drinking fountain downstairs by the computer lab? Croded. And the tube slide that the big kids supposedly peed in? Cuh-roded.

Looking back, years later, I realized that we were saying corroded. The most common kind of corrosion we're familiar with is rust. Moral of this quick little story? Kids are weird.

Anyway, for fun, and to see if someone else has this same memory, I googled "croded." Thanks to a lot of people who can't spell worth the proverbial beans, I have these examples:

First off the bat, we've got "The croded streets of Washington." This theme is followed for several entries down the page. There are croded beaches, croded streets, and this amusing question:

"How croded does Cape York get during school holidays?"

If it was anything like my school holidays, I would say pretty croded. Pretty croded indeed.

I especially like this one, from one anime fan offering room space to another for the big anime festival: "You are perfectly welcome to crash in my room if you want... it's a little croded but bathtubs can be comfortable too."

No thanks, homes. As much as I like some good anime (and believe me, I don't), I'll keep looking at my options.

I Wanna Get Ill, so I Go to the Place Where my Homeboyz Chill

2008-09-05T14:06:00.000-07:00

Kristin has informed me that based on my most recent blogs, the ladies in the neighborhood are going to "think I'm weird" (like it's not too late for that). In an effort to remedy that just a bit, I give you a normal blog entry.

Don't get too excited.

Anyway, a week ago we went down to Ogden, and I had a very specific list of goals. I had called my friends down there in advance and informed them that during the Labor Day Weekend I would longboard, play ping pong, go bouldering, and go on a long mountain bike ride. I was going to do all of these things in spite of the threatening rain. Funny thing about weather forecasts. When they're wrong, you're like, "man, what's with the weather forecasters? They're always wrong!" When they're right, though, you've been counting on them being wrong, so you're mad anyway.

The point of this? Freaking weather forecasters. Bouldering and mountain biking ended up being out.

Anyway, we rolled into town Saturday afternoon. After hitting the Costco - hard - I got together with a buddy and we hit some nice hills on the longboards. These pictures are from early this spring, but who cares?

In order from top: Dave, Yours Truly, and Brandon
Almost immediately after this adventure, in which Dave and I spent a lot of time discussing offshore drilling (don't ask), and avoiding Latin-American Christians as they amassed on Weber State's campus for some kind of gathering, we hauled the ping-pong table down the stairs for some outdoor action.

In this one the blur makes my arm look really strong. So I put it in the blog.

In attendance: Ian (green shirt), Dave (bald), and Dan (Dan's the one who's back of the head you always see. I'm mad because he always won.) Joanna's really cute out there.

During this evening we discussed illegal immigration (in loud voices, to the point where Kristin called it "fighting"), global warming, and video games.

I started playing ping pong on a slightly more than casual basis back in high school. Dan had a table in his basement, and we drew all over it with sharpies. While our peers were out dating girls and going to sporting events, we friends spent our time in the basement, Tool on the stereo, chowing Lemonheads, screaming and laughing to the rhythmic, hollow sound of ping pong.

It's in your head, it's in your hea-aa-eaaa-ead.

2008-09-04T18:41:00.001-07:00

In a lot of ways, I'm kind of a loner. I quite enjoy a solitary mountain bike ride up the canyon, for example. As some kind of combination of guilt and self-sufficient delusions, I don't like depending on others; I hate putting other people out. There is one time, though, when I know I'll need some compatriots. When going it alone is just simply foolhardy.

You guessed it. Zombie invasion.

I've had zombies on the mind lately, as have many of those who have surrounded me. I've finished World War Z - the post-apocalyptic tales of the Zombie Wars - and the Zombie Survival Guide, and I'm doing my best to get ready for the possible invasion. This includes practical things like stocking up on basic supplies (canned food, a backpacking stove, water filter, assault rifle), picking out the place where you might end up restarting the human race in safety, and learning some basic farming techniques.

The number one task, though, the one thing you can't do wrong, is the selection of your zombie fighting team. The team should consist of 4-8 folks you can trust (add two or three alternates in case members of your initial team get munched on the way to the rendezvous point) who will make up the survival squad.

I've thought about including real people who I know personally, but I'm afraid of alienating any of them. Plus, who's to say they want me on the team, you know? I'm working on my gun accuracy, and hope to have a plan in place with all of the contingencies worked out, but I'm not at tip-top zombie slaughter conditions yet.

Anyway, without further ado: my zombie survival team.

First of all, I want an old hand to the destruction of the undead. Someone who knows his way around a variety of weapons, someone who's been there, someone with a chainsaw for a hand.

Ash's prowess at beheading, shooting, and chopping up the undead with his car will prove to be absolutely crucial to the team. Nobody can get that many blasts out of a shotgun without reloading. That alone puts him at the top of my list.

Next, we'll need someone resourceful. Someone who can make something out of almost nothing. We'll need to know our way around motor vehicles, explosives, chemistry, defense, and more. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that sissy MacGuyver. Man, that dude never killed anyone. Never shot a gun. Forget MacGuyver.

I'm talking about these guys:

The Mythbusters. I saw an episode where they rigged a cop car to be run with a remote control. How could that not be useful in a zombie war? Rig that thing with some explosives and you've got a way to lure them away from your camp and blow them to pieces. Mythbusters, I choose you.

Three: Mace Windu

Check it.

Surviving the zombie war isn't all about the fight. If it gets bad enough (and when planning for scenarios like this, you expect the worst) we'll be away from society for a long, long time. It's possible we'll be the last bastion of hope for a burgeoning new human civilization. For the kind of long-term planning, we need a lady's touch (and, let's face it, some wombs.)

For straight up know-how, including some handy healing, defense, and just time-saving help around the start-up community, you could do much worse than Hermione Granger. Who needs a doctor on hand when she can throw together some quick bone-mending charms? Sure, Harry gets all the press, but in the end, it's Granger who knows the spells and the knowledge to back them up. She knows some stuff about just about everything. When it comes to a wizarding representative (and hottie), she's my choice.

Oh yeah, we'll need them too:

Because, you know, they play field hockey. They can smash zombie noggins with those sticks. That's why. Why the Argentinians? It was the first team to come up when I googled "Field Hockey," that's why.

Really, and women's field hockey team will do (I'm leaning towards the Swedes, personally.)

Finally, since I'm tired and it's bedtime, here's my final choice. I think this'll pretty much seal the deal. We need crops, he's our man.

Sorry Dollface

2008-08-15T22:00:00.000-07:00

I've never been into the Olympics much. Growing up, they'd be on the TV quite a bit during the big events, but I never really liked it. It seemed, like it does now, that it's just a lot of swimming and gymnastics. This year, though, I'm completely hooked. I watched the men beat those cocky frenchy froggy frenchies at the relay, almost cried when Sasha Artemev NAILED the pommel horse in men's gymnastics, and put my hand to my chest and gasped when Kerri Walsh lost her wedding ring! "Six feet of sunshine" indeed.

I've decided that I need an Olympics crush, though. All the girls are talking about Michael Phelps' awkward one-ear-bud-in ipod-trance and kind of humble cockiness and I'm sure that Jonathan Horton has found himself a fan club, so why not me? Well, besides the fact that I'm married and shouldn't have crushes, I mean?

Any guesses? I think Kristin would guess Stephanie Rice, because I talk about her a lot, and how it's cute that she wears earrings, and how those big brown eyes are just so big. And brown. And how she looks like a darling little elf.

But no. What about Nastia? She's 18, right? Or those fencing cuties? They're all ivy league school graduates and look waaay less bulky out of their fencing armor.

Pretty tempting, I know. The field of potential crushes is vast, but I think I've settled on one. A little nontraditional, a little sassy in a little skirt, and a little asian. Yes, you guessed it, I'm crushing on Sayaka Hirano. She's got a lot going for her besides the pixie little haircut that looks so good on a Japanese girl.

First of all, she seems like a terrible sport. She just glares across the table before serving -- which, Kristin points out, is probably her watching for advice from her coach, but I'd rather think it's eye of the tiger type stuff -- and frowns menacingly. Then, when she gets a point, she smiles and screams at her opponent. Sometimes she'll point at her with a face of open mockery. When she loses a point, she's all like, "It's totally a game, c'mon, relax."

This is a lot of fun to watch.

Second, and most importantly, she freakin' WHALES at ping pong. I know they call it Table Tennis in the Olympics, but I'm going to call it ping pong.

Table Tennis is the only sport in the summer Olympics that I can honestly say I'm intermediate at. If you pulled 10 people off the street in any street that's not in China, I can beat at least 8 of them. Oh, and you know how there's that stereotype that everyone in China knows Kung-fu and if you have a math class with a person who looks to be of asian descent and you're like, "Hey man, do you know Kung-fu" and he gets all mad and he's like, "Man, just because I'm asian and I'm supposed to know Kung-fu?" and you're like, "Sorry, dude, I was just asking. You must be good at math, right, can you help me with math?" Well, it's totally like that with Table Tennis. Like, they all seriously know how to play it.

Wait, what was I saying? Oh yeah, my crush, (scrolling up to remember her name, oh yeah) Sayaka Hirano, is good. I think I like her because she uses a lot of backhands and that's my forte as well, or maybe because she'll balance the ball on her hand and stare at it before throwing it up to serve, or maybe it's how she openly laughs at her opponent when she wins a set. Whatever it is, keep it up Sayaka.

Rerun: The world's cutest animal.

2008-08-10T21:24:00.000-07:00

Some of you have already read this. I don't have any ideas and my last post has been up for a while, so here's a bit to tide you over:

Here are some interesting facts about the Endangered Species Act. Let's discuss!!

-There are currently 268 candidate species on the Fish and Wildlife Service waiting list.
-The average waiting time is 17 years
-Since 1973, 27 species have gone extinct while on the waiting list
-In 2003 the FWS estimated that just processing these candidate species would cost $153 million, but they received only $16 million.

To put that into context, the Marines are ready to spend up to $100 million EACH for a broken airplane.

Oh, and here's a fun story that involves our good old state of Utah and our beloved president. Enjoy the story of a Bush-appointed Civil Engineer who put the stop to the listing of at least 5 species:
"She Blinded me with 'Science'"

Including the fairly cute White-tailed Prairie Dog. Why do I care so much about Prairie Dogs? I'm glad you asked. I guess they are ecosystem managers, churning up soil and allowing the growth of vegetation, their burrows invite badgers, burrowing owls (see last post), and a variety of bugs and rodents, but the real point is this: Black-footed Ferrets eat them and depend on them.

Behold the cutest animal in existence:

Don't steal this idea. I'm going to make a shirt that says, "Black-footed Ferret, MY BFF"

She's Stuck in my Heart Now, Where my Blood Belongs

2008-07-30T18:48:00.000-07:00

Well, Marci stole my thunder on this one, but as promised, an ode to my hot little loverhoneypunkinpie:

I've put together a few little examples that, um, exemplify why I'm still stoked on her.

Reason #1: Kristin operates on a higher plane than I do.

When I'm going to park my car, I just look for the nearest spot possible. Not necessarily the nearest one to the door, but the nearest one to where I am when I realize I should be looking for a parking spot. This is the only thing on my mind.

Kristin, on the other hand, has a whole 'nother idea in mind. Not only is she looking for the spot, but she's also looking for shade. She'll go just a few minutes out of her way in order to park in a place that will ensure a cooler vehicle when we finish, exhausted and ornery, and climb into the car. There you go. Another plane. Multiple layers going on in there.

Reason #2: She notices things that I don't, puts them into words, and blows my frickin' mind.

Now we don't watch Saturday Night Live very often. And by very often, I mean we probably never did in the entire time we were dating or married. One night, by some chance, we were watching it. Flipping through the channels, stopped when we saw Christopher Walken (a long held policy of mine) and got stuck there. Now I was mildly entertained, but not really into it. It was enough to stay on the channel, but not enough to say that I was enjoying myself. Couldn't place it, though, you know?

Anyway, Kristin finally grabs the remote, changes the channel, and says, "They can't give up on a joke! Every skit starts out ok and they just keep going and going with it!"

And in those words, she explained to me why I've never enjoyed that show, or really any other sketch comedy show since MTV's The State. This is a life-long source of conundrum summed up in one sentence by the hot girl sitting on the couch with me.

I can only really handle a joke three times, no matter how outlandish it gets. Obviously there are exceptions, but they are few and they are handled by experts (O Brother Where Art Thou comes to mind. I think George Clooney says "Damn, we're in a tight spot" 5 times. This works, though, especially since the fifth comes off-camera, and quiet.

Anyway, mind blown, heart racing with pure love.

Moving on...

Reason #3: Even though she won't lead climb or learn to ride my longboard, Kristin is at least 14 times tougher than I am.

Now I'm not going to trot out the old childbirth thing, 'cause that's been done and done and really, how hard can it be?

Two summers ago I was working in the Great Basin doing plant surveys for the university. I would leave for 8 to 10 days at a time and go out in the desert and kind of count cheatgrass. There was more to it, but not, you know, a lot more. While the job consisted of many hours of very boring work in absurdly hot and buggy conditions, it was also a bit of a vacation. I would work all day, then go home to a bunkhouse or a tent and play video games.

If this doesn't sound like a vacation, then you don't have kids. At the time Ethan was maybe 3 and Joanna was pretty brand new. One day, while Kristin was taking me to campus to drop me off for what another stint, Ethan just explodes. Puke everywhere. All over the car seat, the seat in front of him, the floor, everywhere. Probably 10 seconds before we got to where we needed to go. While I packed my stuff into the Jeep to go to work, she stripped him down and began sopping up the worst of it. While Ethan screamed, "Don't go daddy, don't go," I gave him a kiss on the cheek wherever the puke wasn't and kind of trudged to the Jeep.

Here's the kicker. Kristin stayed. She stayed to nurse a nauseous 3 year old and a brand new, tiny little baby all by herself for more than a week. When I called that evening, worried about my kids and her well-being, everything was fine. Ethan was in the tub, Jo was asleep, and Kristin was calm. Now I'm not saying that there weren't moments when she was ready to break down and cry, and she might have, but between the time when I left and the time that I called, some kind of miracle took place and my family was happy, fed, and clean.

And that's the real thing. I think that Kristin always things she's barely got things together. When I come home from work the kids'll be messy, or the house will be messy, or 2 out of 3 will be crying, and she'll immediately point this out and use it as an example of why she's incompetent. But I know these kids; some of you know these kids. The fact that Ethan isn't tied to a chair and Joanna's mouth isn't duct taped (she puts coins in her mouth, like she's an addict about it. She'll say "Uh-oh" as she inserts the filthy copper pennies into her mouth) with Ginny being the little angel that littlest sisters often are is a pretty amazing feat.

And Kristin is an amazing girl.

Love ya angelbabe.

"I'm pretty sure she's baked at a professional level"

2008-07-27T13:30:00.000-07:00

I am going to take this time to speak to you about baked goods. "Goods" is the perfect word for this, because they really are that. Good, I mean. And they're baked.

So far, so, um, awesome.

I like them, baked goods, I mean. I'm in Vernal right now, and I'm feeling the absence of a nice, locally owned bakery that will sell objects that are frosted and filled with sugar and make a mess and bring joy to my life. There is a Wal-mart here, and they make CHOCOLATE OLD FASHIONED DOUGHNUTS. Which I did not know exist but now that I do I have to always print the word in all-caps. I don't have a CHOCOLATE OLD FASHIONED DOUGHNUT here or I would take a picture of it. They are not chocolate frosted, mind you, they are made out of chocolate.

Has anyone else had one? It's brilliant. But I dislike Wal-mart and don't really consider them worthy of this conversation.

So we'll talk about Logan bakeries. My first job in Cache Valley was at Shaffer's Bakery, where I arrived at 3 am, frosted doughnuts, ate some, and delivered them to gas stations and a few other businesses around town. Since the cops all hung out at Shaffer's and recognized the van, I could drive as fast as I wanted to. And I did. And I ate a lot of doughnuts.

I don't have pictures yet, I'm afraid, but they make the best cake doughnuts I've ever eaten. My favorites are chocolate frosted cake and cinnamon sugar. Dang, I want one.

When it comes to flour-concocted delicacies, though, there is one that stands above all of the rest, presiding over the field with a pompous air to its pink-frosted visage. Old Grist Mill's sugar cookies are the best thing I've ever eaten. They only make them on Monday and Thursday, but for some reason I constantly mix that up with Tuesday and Saturday. There is no reasoning to this, but I have gone into the store at the very least 4 times on a tuesday and 3 times on a saturday and asked for sugar cookies, only to be turned down and pitied.

This is genius. If they served these cookies every day, I would be there every day until I hated them. Instead, I'm writing an entire blog post as a love letter to the Old Grist Mill sugar cookie.

Stupid Vernal.

It's the wiggety wiggety wiggety wiggety whack.

2008-07-15T20:15:00.000-07:00

Kristin gave me a few ideas for future blog posts, and I thought I'd do them in the order she requested:

1: Making the transition from full-time student to full-time employee.
2: Schaffers' Doughnuts: how they're better than any other doughnut in existence.
3: Why my wife is so awesome.

I'll do these a day at a time, of course. I'm excited for number two because it will include my buying and then taking pictures of doughnuts. Then eating them. Also, in order to be complete, I will also buy an Old Grist Mill sugar cookie, photograph it, and then devour it. I'm looking forward to number two.

Number three, if done correctly, might lead to a heavy make out session. I'm looking forward to number three.

But today we're going to talk about being a member of the gainfully employed.

Right now I'm working for SWCA. Nobody knows what the acronym stands for. I think it's just the last names of the dudes who started the company. It's an environmental consulting agency. The "environmental" in the title might make you think that we're saving the world. We're not really. In fact, in some ways (not all, mind you) we're kind of participating in its gradual destruction. Me in particular, since I facilitate oil well construction near Vernal. I liken this to a girl who pays for college by stripping. She doesn't plan on doing it for the rest of her life, but it's paying the bills right now, whether she's happy with herself while doing it.

It's better than whore, right?

Anyway, in the company's defense, we are also involved in some really great things, like habitat restoration, and saving cute little animals like burrowing owls and cute little plants like Uinta Basin Hookless Cactus.

Wait, this isn't what my point was. My point is to talk about life as an ex-student. There are definitely benefits and drawbacks. A benefit is that as a student I had an excuse to work part time. The major drawback is that I could never fully relax because something was aaaalllways due. If I were a single guy, I would miss all the pretty girls on campus. I'm not single, though, and therefore I had no idea that there were pretty girls on campus.

It's neat having more money, though as anyone who has begun making substantial amounts of more money can attest, it rarely feels like it. J.K. Rowling would disagree, but I think for a lot of us, that's just how it is. With extra money comes things like extra health insurance premiums, a potential house payment, and sweet new longboards.

Happy birthday to me? We'll see how much it costs to fix the window Ethan busted

These are necessities, unfortunately, that come with affluence.

It's nice having a regular schedule, though, even though my schedule is flexible enough that I regularly abuse it and have to scramble to make up my hours late in the week. When I come home, though, I can be home. I don't have to worry about papers due the next day, and aside from the occasional freelance map I do for extra money, I can pretty much focus on my family when I come home. Or, you know, video games.

So there you go. While I do plan on eventually going back to get a master's degree, I don't plan on doing that terribly soon. Instead, I'll enjoy my 8 hour shift with a half hour lunch and two fifteen minute breaks for a while. I work right downtown and I'm surrounded by four great sandwich places (two of which I say rival any sandwich place in the state) and a mexican grocery store that sells tacos for a buck a piece and the good mexican coke with cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. Things could be much worse.

I'm off to Vernal starting the 20th, so I'll be celebrating my birthday there, that should be a story for the future.

Fake News: A little Bon-Bon to Make up for Previous Diatribe

2008-07-12T08:45:00.000-07:00

This is something I dabbled in last winter. I'll post one of these now and then. In case you don't know anything about video games and the industry, I'll never post one without posting something else that same day. This time I added it because my last blog was sooooo long. Go read it anyway, though.

HIDEO KOJIMA SNUBBED AGAIN ON OSCAR NIGHT

Great, another paperweight.

Hideo Kojima fiddled nervously with his bowtie, obviously uncomfortable with his Armani tuxedo, as the Academy Award for Best Director was announced. He clutched the sides of his seat, as if to stand, but fell back quickly as Joel and Ethan Coen's names were announced. With a great sigh, he looked around the tiny bar several blocks away from the Kodak Theater and asked for another bourbon.

Even though he hadn't actually published a game in 2007, Kojima still felt like this might have been this year. "Every year I wait for the academy to recognize the '30+ Hour Interactive Movie' category, because I know I'd be a lock for that one. Still, you never know when they might recognize my skills at directing stiff caricatures of human beings that are an abomination to human life."

Kojima, who originally planned on being a film director but changed his mind when he realized that there just wasn't a market for porn magazine-viewing and stepmom-diddling in Hollywood, has nonetheless held on to the dream of someday caressing the golden man-shape of the Oscar.

He remained optimistic, however, "This year I will be unveiling Metal Gear Solid 4, which as you know, will include several new subplots that I think the academy will like." When asked to elaborate, Kojima was cagey. "Let's just say that in addition to the themes of nuclear proliferation and flaws of democracy found in my previous games, this time you can also count on issues such as teen pregnancy, brutal murder, oil barony, and whatever Michael Clayton was about."

To ensure a nod in for 2008, Kojima is also hard at work on new sequels to Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hands and Policenauts. Gamers were told to expect a treatise on the consequences of global warming and a hard-hitting indictment of brutality inflicted by future space police.

Originally posted on http://phase1phaser.com

Apologies

2008-07-11T22:38:00.000-07:00

While I was on my mission, a friend of mine sent me a letter saying that he was going to be just like me. He was going to go on tons and tons of dates. While part of me was pleased that he had such a high opinion of my lady-wooing skills, another, secret part of me felt sick and ashamed at how awful I truly was at dating. Any impression he had of me being some kind of ladies man was only evidence of my ability to create such a ruse and uphold it constantly.

No, I didn't make up dates, I did actually go on them. I often appeared at the movie theater with a very attractive girl at my arm (not, you know, with her arm linked in mine, or holding my hand, but at the polite distance of a girl who is having an ok-but-not-fabulous-time.) I was pretty good at getting first dates. Even second dates. Even third and fourth and fifth dates. What I was not good at was making any kind of progress from date to date. As I've learned more about people, and girls and the women that girls eventually become, I started realizing how awful at it I was.

So, some apologies. I'm going to change names for the sake of the poor girls who I have confused, hurt, or annoyed in my mid-to-late adolescent years. Hopefully Kristin doesn't get jealous to know that I had been infatuated with other girls before I developed the super mega hardcore crush I still have on her now.

Honestly. Sooo hot.

I might as well start with my first date, a girl who, in retrospect, I think probably actually liked me. Unfortunately I had this problem, which will come up again and again, I think, that prevented she and I to actually, you know, become a thing. When I like a girl and it seems to be one-way, I always wonder to myself why she doesn't like me back. "What's wrong with me?" I'd muse, "I'm nice, I'm thoughtful, my mom taught me to always open the door for a girl."

On the other hand, when I am aware that a girl likes me, my first reaction is to think, "Hmmm, what's wrong with this girl? She must have some kind of issues to be slumming it with the kid with the funky breastbone, glasses, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle books?"

See the problem? As soon as a girl exhibited, you know, an honest and straight-forward sign that she was in like with me, I shut right off. I gave her space and pursued another girl on my list.

Tangent: there was always a list. Imagine a pyramid. At the top was the girl of the day or week or month. She got the full treatment: I made sure to see her and say hi and talk with her every day, I had an idea for a date within the next two weeks and hopefully had already asked her, and I thought about her roughly all of the time. Below her there were two or three girls who were getting a milder, but still a bit aggressive, amount of attention from me. On down the line were girls who were, for one reason or another, good for a date every now and then, and a good talk, but weren't top-tier material. I would have made a terrible polygamist.

Tangent over. So first date(s) girl, I apologize. I apologize because I didn't see that you liked me, or when I could see that you liked me, I didn't do anything because I didn't think I was worth a pretty, fun girl liking me. I hope you didn't lose sleep over it. I am stupid.

From here, these will jump around based on what comes to mind. Not chronological order. First kiss girl: sorry I pursued you when you probably just wanted to be friends because it turns out you were not into dudes.

Girl who I totally hit it off with when she moved to our school from FRANCE: sorry I smothered you. Sorry I called you so often and insisted on walking with you out of seminary and acted like a weirdo and then took you to a concert where everyone was smoking pot and you got sick. I'm glad we were able to at least be civil with one another before we graduated.

Girl who opened up to me about all sorts of things and we had this great talk until, like, 3 am: sorry I smothered you and got mad when you were talking to your other guy friends at the fireworks and thinking that I should have any right to do that when all we'd done is had a great talk. We could have been friends but instead I was totally all up in your business and pouty.

That girl: Um, sorry. I don't think I ever told you that I really liked you. I mean, I took you on lots of dates, and taught you how to snowboard (at least, get started with that) and got you nice things on your birthday, but a lot of guys did that for you. Here's what would have been better: I laid it on the line and you said you liked that other guy more but could we be friends? And I would say, sure we can be friends and then we wouldn't really be. That would have been better, huh? Rather than me being happy some days and sullen the next and you never knowing why because aren't we just really good friends? Why is he so mad that I mentioned that I'm taking some other guy to a concert that he totally just railed on about how stupid the band is and how lame it is I'm going?

Ugh. Thanks for being so nice at the high school reunion, like I was a positive thing in your life.

Wow, this is already getting too long and I feel like I'm just getting warmed up. Next time we'll continue. It will be cathartic to me and probably uncomfortable for you. How fun is that??!?!

Explanation

2008-07-09T00:55:00.000-07:00

A story:

Also a good introduction to my blog and a telling story about who I was as a child, and for the most part still am. Very revealing. Very bloggy.

Ok, no more sentence fragments. At least, not conscious ones (I can't stop!)

Our first computer was a Commodore 64. It had a program called Print Shop with some basic, very pixellated clip art. The clip art was organized into categories. Those that didn't fit into a category was called, simply, "Misc."

At some point there was a show and tell at my elementary school. Everyone was told to bring a collection and each collection would be displayed on our desks. In what should be a surprise to no one who knows me, I had no idea and showed up oblivious. When I realized that I was the only student without a collection, I pulled everything from my desk, random toys, Los Angeles Raiders pencils, drawings I'd done, maybe a winter glove, and piled it on top. I wrote "Misc." on a piece of paper and taped it to the front of the desk.

My teacher (I think this was 3rd grade, so it could have been one of many, as my real teacher was fighting cancer and I went through a variety of substitutes that year) told me to put it all away and I visited fellow students' collections, wishing, as I watched them pass by the blank wood of my own spot, that I'd brought all my Ninja Turtles stuff.

This blog, then, will be that desk full of Misc. It will have no main theme. Sometimes it will be about me, sometimes it will be an idea I had, sometimes it will be fake news about something esoteric that only I and a handful of other people would know anything about. I might republish things I've posted elsewhere.

If someone reads it besides my wife, I will be happily surprised (if she even reads it, that is.)