On Sunday morning it was either the mice or the maggots or the heartbreak, but the trailer got a thorough cleaning. The beauty of living in 240 square feet is that it is easy to clean. It can still take a couple of hours to do a good job.
The mice had kept me up, they were banging around feasting on a bag of tangelos I had forgotten about in the cupboard under the sink. They crapped in my bread baking bowl. Don’t ask about the maggots. I hate them worse than just about anything. Not my fault, and the problem is solved. I'll be truly finished when I find out where the pack rat hid the pistachios.
Two hours of soap, towels, the vacuum and a bottle of 409 and I was just sitting down for a cup of coffee at 9:30 a.m., the trailer as clean as it’s been since I moved in, when the phone rang. The server was down at work. Files inaccessible.
It had been acting up. All the computers had been acting up. Gremlins. Phases of Mercury. I’ve been fighting even getting the back up drives to back up. I had just finished sending an e-mail to the office asking if the server was up, because I could not log on from here at home.
That wasn’t the only crash. Lauren came by late on Friday to say our relationship wasn’t working for her any longer. She arrived in tears, would not let me speak, did this most courageous thing most beautifully. It had become messy, ill-defined, the kids could not understand. Through her pain she organized, she compartmentalized, she's a lawyer after all, she filed me.
So even computer hell was a welcome distraction. It was soon obvious that I was over my head. Called the tech, who was at the beach with his family. My disk recovery program could not drive the ancient monitor attached to the server, he surmised with a long distance diagnosis. Most definitely a bad drive. There is a store open in Bend.
Two hours in Bend, back to the office with a new monitor, Chinese food from Safeway, four new hard drives since we had been hitting the limit on the ones we have. The trashed drive decided it would come back to life long enough for me to clone it. It’s my boot drive, I am going to have to find out why data drives are mirrored but the boot drive is not.
Even though it would not repair with my most sophisticated utility, it lasted just long enough and the data seems intact. I took the time to do some housecleaning there, too, repaired permissions, tuned it, straightened out some accumulated disorder.
The files themselves, all 100 GB had been backed up on Friday because I got lucky, or maybe not so lucky because that’s what I was doing instead of going over to Lauren’s, which was just the last straw, there had been bales of straw though, she wasn’t being unreasonable.
It was 10 p.m. when I finished the Chinese food I bought at Safeway at 2:30 thinking I would have dinner at six. The hard drive works, the server is serving, I just logged on from my hill top and it knows me.
Tomorrow I am supposed to give a speech on chaos. There's irony, there.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Our imported food
A couple of weeks ago China executed its top food and drug regulator, Zheng Xiaoyu, 62, for taking bribes. (Read it here) Now that’s accountability.
It is one thing to import T-shirts into the U.S. It is another thing to import toothpaste with diethylene glycol, shellfish with nitrofuran, malachite green, gentian violet, and flouroquinolones, pet food contaminated with melamine.
This will no doubt give the protectionist wing cause to chortle, but our imported food needs a higher standard of protection than it has been receiving.
It is the role of government to test, objectively, our food and to ensure that what we eat will not kill us (aside from fructose). At least government should publish the results of testing so consumers can make informed decisions if government lacks the courage to stand up to special interests who would poison us for a penny saved per pound.
To be effective, markets need information, and the U.S., under Cheney/Bush has toadied to special interests who put profit above public health, and by extension, money above morality.
Instead, the Cheney/Bush has put polemics ahead of protection and politicized agencies that were charged with regulation and those publishing science.
Of course, problems with our food are not limited to imports. Castleberry's Food Company is recalling nearly three-fourths of a million pounds of chili sauce and corned beef hash (read it here). And dog food. They say that they had problems on one line of their production facility. And I can only guess why chili and dog food were both affected.
China has set an example of accountability. Our own government has shown a callous disregard, or a naiveté beyond comprehension. To correct this miscarriage, a few heads should roll here as well, figuratively speaking, of course.
It is one thing to import T-shirts into the U.S. It is another thing to import toothpaste with diethylene glycol, shellfish with nitrofuran, malachite green, gentian violet, and flouroquinolones, pet food contaminated with melamine.
This will no doubt give the protectionist wing cause to chortle, but our imported food needs a higher standard of protection than it has been receiving.
It is the role of government to test, objectively, our food and to ensure that what we eat will not kill us (aside from fructose). At least government should publish the results of testing so consumers can make informed decisions if government lacks the courage to stand up to special interests who would poison us for a penny saved per pound.
To be effective, markets need information, and the U.S., under Cheney/Bush has toadied to special interests who put profit above public health, and by extension, money above morality.
Instead, the Cheney/Bush has put polemics ahead of protection and politicized agencies that were charged with regulation and those publishing science.
Of course, problems with our food are not limited to imports. Castleberry's Food Company is recalling nearly three-fourths of a million pounds of chili sauce and corned beef hash (read it here). And dog food. They say that they had problems on one line of their production facility. And I can only guess why chili and dog food were both affected.
China has set an example of accountability. Our own government has shown a callous disregard, or a naiveté beyond comprehension. To correct this miscarriage, a few heads should roll here as well, figuratively speaking, of course.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
It's their victory
It may often seem like racing cars is an individual sport. One-on-one with steeds of steel. But it’s not.
Last year I was headed over to a race in Portland, pulling the trailer up a long grade toward Madras and wanting to get by a semi before I ran out of passing lane. A whistle and “KABLOW!” and I had no power. I figured, correctly, that I had blown a hose off the turbo diesel, and limped into Madras.
Even though they were short handed and their diesel mechanic was buried, the guys at Miller Ford in Madras put a new hose on the Excursion and I was on my way in little more than an hour. Cost me $100 with the truck still under warranty.
I went on to win the race that weekend. I always meant to send Ford Motor Company and Miller Ford a copy of the results sheet with a thank you note. I would not have been there except for that hour they took out of their schedule.
Last week Portland was a little warm in the afternoon, but pretty nice weather. I qualified second to a Corvette driven by Steve MacDonald of Seattle, and took second in the heat race on Saturday after chasing MacDonald for 20 miles of “two feet away” racing.
If he went wide, I went close, if he went close, I went wide. I tried to get by him on the straight, inside corners, braking into corners. He was too tough, and never gave me an opening, even though a simple half-second bobble on his part was all I needed.
Behind us, cars were spinning and fighting on what one driver called “a track littered with drama.”
In practice on Sunday, morning, I’d done about three laps when all of a sudden my transmission gave up. It was certainly driver abuse, either accidental compression braking (only twice, I swear!), overly enthusiastic power shifts ( I never...!) or a missed downshift from fourth to third or to second. At 11 a.m. I had a case full of pieces where my tranny should have been.
Jon, Rippy, Mike and Mark went to work. In less than three hours, they had the broken tranny out and on the ground, a new transmission and new clutch back in. I looked for parts, oil and alignment tools and bought lunch; in other words, I didn’t do much, except to line up to race at 4:10 p.m.
My biggest contribution was getting them some cheeseburgers.
The green flag came down and we ran for the first turn. The track was greasy that late on a hot July day. During the race, an original midyear Z06 Corvette spun and got hit in the chicane, a vintage Cobra got T-boned by a Porsche and collected a Mustang GT350, others were off the track and on again.
I took second to MacDonald, again. Though I turned the best lap of anyone in the group that day, he was smart and backed off to save his tires when he could. In trying to catch him, I went faster for a short while but used up my tires and fell further behind.
But we raced, because of what those guys were able and willing to do. Others in the paddock around us were impressed with our crew of irregulars. “That’s the best part of racing,” said the driver of a vintage 50s race Corvette next to us. He had seen a lot in his years at the track, he had the alignment tool we needed, was impressed we had a transmission.
I wish I’d won the race that afternoon, but the fact that the car was out there at all should have made those guys proud. That by itself was a victory, all theirs.
Last year I was headed over to a race in Portland, pulling the trailer up a long grade toward Madras and wanting to get by a semi before I ran out of passing lane. A whistle and “KABLOW!” and I had no power. I figured, correctly, that I had blown a hose off the turbo diesel, and limped into Madras.
Even though they were short handed and their diesel mechanic was buried, the guys at Miller Ford in Madras put a new hose on the Excursion and I was on my way in little more than an hour. Cost me $100 with the truck still under warranty.
I went on to win the race that weekend. I always meant to send Ford Motor Company and Miller Ford a copy of the results sheet with a thank you note. I would not have been there except for that hour they took out of their schedule.
Last week Portland was a little warm in the afternoon, but pretty nice weather. I qualified second to a Corvette driven by Steve MacDonald of Seattle, and took second in the heat race on Saturday after chasing MacDonald for 20 miles of “two feet away” racing.
If he went wide, I went close, if he went close, I went wide. I tried to get by him on the straight, inside corners, braking into corners. He was too tough, and never gave me an opening, even though a simple half-second bobble on his part was all I needed.
Behind us, cars were spinning and fighting on what one driver called “a track littered with drama.”
In practice on Sunday, morning, I’d done about three laps when all of a sudden my transmission gave up. It was certainly driver abuse, either accidental compression braking (only twice, I swear!), overly enthusiastic power shifts ( I never...!) or a missed downshift from fourth to third or to second. At 11 a.m. I had a case full of pieces where my tranny should have been.
Jon, Rippy, Mike and Mark went to work. In less than three hours, they had the broken tranny out and on the ground, a new transmission and new clutch back in. I looked for parts, oil and alignment tools and bought lunch; in other words, I didn’t do much, except to line up to race at 4:10 p.m.
My biggest contribution was getting them some cheeseburgers.
The green flag came down and we ran for the first turn. The track was greasy that late on a hot July day. During the race, an original midyear Z06 Corvette spun and got hit in the chicane, a vintage Cobra got T-boned by a Porsche and collected a Mustang GT350, others were off the track and on again.
I took second to MacDonald, again. Though I turned the best lap of anyone in the group that day, he was smart and backed off to save his tires when he could. In trying to catch him, I went faster for a short while but used up my tires and fell further behind.
But we raced, because of what those guys were able and willing to do. Others in the paddock around us were impressed with our crew of irregulars. “That’s the best part of racing,” said the driver of a vintage 50s race Corvette next to us. He had seen a lot in his years at the track, he had the alignment tool we needed, was impressed we had a transmission.
I wish I’d won the race that afternoon, but the fact that the car was out there at all should have made those guys proud. That by itself was a victory, all theirs.
Monday, July 2, 2007
For want of a nail
The race ended badly, the weekend ended well.
The girls helped prep the car. I showed Sabrina how to torque wheels, K.C. how to take tire pressures. I then went back over both before the race, explaining to them that I was not doing so because I did not trust their work, but because it was my job to double check, to make sure everything was just right.
Including the nut holding the accelerator pedal, I told them after the race. Not anybody’s fault but mine. That’s racing. They were disappointed but tried not to show it, except for K.C. saying “you were in first” when it happened.
The accelerator pedal broke. The nut holding the bolt holding the pedal to the rod connected to the carburetor came off. It was a stupid, preventable, hidden, subtle, ordinary thing. For want of a nail. For want of a nut, the race was over early.
I was leading, but only because MacDonald was making it interesting for the field, for the crowd. He dominated all weekend, two seconds faster than me, I was a second faster than Jim Click in his Cobra out of Arizona, who was third. I belonged on the front row and was looking for a good race with Click, plus I thought I had found a second in practice that might have let me stay closer to MacDonald, but the pedal broke and I was out early.
On the way home we stopped once in Portland after about two and a half hours, for coffee, tea and cocoa, and a bathroom. We listened to their music and laughed. We rode with the windows down and the wind howling through the Excursion, Sabrina in the front, K.C. in the small seat behind Sabrina next to our boxes of food.
Sabrina asked if tea had caffeine, I said yes and she said that was probably why she was acting so crazy. I told her she was crazy most of the time and she liked that. K.C. handed us Triscuits and cheese and small sliced sandwiches from Albertsons from our dry goods box and the ice box. They knew the words and sang to songs so silly I had to laugh out loud.
They put on their gloves and helped disconnect the trailer. It went faster because of their help, we were home by 9:30, six hours from when we left Pacific Raceways. It was a nice drive home. It was a wonderful weekend.
The girls helped prep the car. I showed Sabrina how to torque wheels, K.C. how to take tire pressures. I then went back over both before the race, explaining to them that I was not doing so because I did not trust their work, but because it was my job to double check, to make sure everything was just right.
Including the nut holding the accelerator pedal, I told them after the race. Not anybody’s fault but mine. That’s racing. They were disappointed but tried not to show it, except for K.C. saying “you were in first” when it happened.
The accelerator pedal broke. The nut holding the bolt holding the pedal to the rod connected to the carburetor came off. It was a stupid, preventable, hidden, subtle, ordinary thing. For want of a nail. For want of a nut, the race was over early.
I was leading, but only because MacDonald was making it interesting for the field, for the crowd. He dominated all weekend, two seconds faster than me, I was a second faster than Jim Click in his Cobra out of Arizona, who was third. I belonged on the front row and was looking for a good race with Click, plus I thought I had found a second in practice that might have let me stay closer to MacDonald, but the pedal broke and I was out early.
On the way home we stopped once in Portland after about two and a half hours, for coffee, tea and cocoa, and a bathroom. We listened to their music and laughed. We rode with the windows down and the wind howling through the Excursion, Sabrina in the front, K.C. in the small seat behind Sabrina next to our boxes of food.
Sabrina asked if tea had caffeine, I said yes and she said that was probably why she was acting so crazy. I told her she was crazy most of the time and she liked that. K.C. handed us Triscuits and cheese and small sliced sandwiches from Albertsons from our dry goods box and the ice box. They knew the words and sang to songs so silly I had to laugh out loud.
They put on their gloves and helped disconnect the trailer. It went faster because of their help, we were home by 9:30, six hours from when we left Pacific Raceways. It was a nice drive home. It was a wonderful weekend.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Seattle
It was raining by the time the race car was set up shortly after 1 p.m. The girls helped a lot, Sabrina got the winch jammed once but I showed her how the cable had to be wound from side to side to fit on the drum.
K.C. crawled under and undid the tie-down chains at the back of the car, and without direction placed them neatly to the side, and when asked she laid the fire suit out on the back of the car for technical inspection.
We passed “tech” and there was an afternoon ahead of us to explore Seattle. Off we went.
Caught James St. or Madison off of Interstate 5 and burrowed down through the business district to Alaskan Way, where we paid $20 to park for three hours or all night. Could have driven another 100 yards and found a better spot on the street, but I was in a hurry.
We wandered up from the abandoned rail road tracks under the freeway to the top of Pike Street Market, where we bought hot almonds and walked from the famous fish monger down the long row of produce and bright silver jewelry and flower stands that exuded fragrance from cut tulips and lilies and flowers I don’t have enough life left to learn all the names or even describe the colors, across from stands of Queen Anne and Bings cherries selling for $2.75 a pound. Taste the current jam.
We caught a cab to the Space Needle, Sabrina did not like the elevator ride up or down but we walked the compass points and stood at the telescope where she could see people walking the decks of ships and on islands far out in Elliott Bay. Then we took the monorail back toward the market, had a bite to eat at the food court and wandered down to the ferries.
Another hour and a half to Bainbridge Island and back. The girls stood at the front each way, on the way back there was another rain squall but they did not back down, they faced forward the entire way and toughed out the cold drops that drove me inside until nearly back to the dock.
We have done Seattle. K.C. knew which way Lake Washington lay by pointing without a map. Sabrina pointed from the ferry terminal toward Auburn without hesitation. The girls know the surface texture of another great city, they now have a center in San Francisco and Seattle and Portland. Vancouver B.C. is next, I don’t care about L.A.
The day will come when one or both will need to have a city that is their home town, for college or adventure, and then of course they won’t just hit the tourist spots. But they know how to “see” within the urban canyons.
Cities have color, and the great cities on the ocean and bays of the Pacific and the Northwest have a color all their own, different expressions of green and gray iridescence like oil on water in the late afternoon, fading to an evolution of neon sparks on wet pavement after the sun goes down.
I want the girls to be comfortable in these cities as well as the lovely lonely isolation of our 80-acre ridge top, facing mountain sunset silhouettes and sleeping in a tipi. I panic at times that there is too much to share, and so little time left I have access to their wonderment.
K.C. crawled under and undid the tie-down chains at the back of the car, and without direction placed them neatly to the side, and when asked she laid the fire suit out on the back of the car for technical inspection.
We passed “tech” and there was an afternoon ahead of us to explore Seattle. Off we went.
Caught James St. or Madison off of Interstate 5 and burrowed down through the business district to Alaskan Way, where we paid $20 to park for three hours or all night. Could have driven another 100 yards and found a better spot on the street, but I was in a hurry.
We wandered up from the abandoned rail road tracks under the freeway to the top of Pike Street Market, where we bought hot almonds and walked from the famous fish monger down the long row of produce and bright silver jewelry and flower stands that exuded fragrance from cut tulips and lilies and flowers I don’t have enough life left to learn all the names or even describe the colors, across from stands of Queen Anne and Bings cherries selling for $2.75 a pound. Taste the current jam.
We caught a cab to the Space Needle, Sabrina did not like the elevator ride up or down but we walked the compass points and stood at the telescope where she could see people walking the decks of ships and on islands far out in Elliott Bay. Then we took the monorail back toward the market, had a bite to eat at the food court and wandered down to the ferries.
Another hour and a half to Bainbridge Island and back. The girls stood at the front each way, on the way back there was another rain squall but they did not back down, they faced forward the entire way and toughed out the cold drops that drove me inside until nearly back to the dock.
We have done Seattle. K.C. knew which way Lake Washington lay by pointing without a map. Sabrina pointed from the ferry terminal toward Auburn without hesitation. The girls know the surface texture of another great city, they now have a center in San Francisco and Seattle and Portland. Vancouver B.C. is next, I don’t care about L.A.
The day will come when one or both will need to have a city that is their home town, for college or adventure, and then of course they won’t just hit the tourist spots. But they know how to “see” within the urban canyons.
Cities have color, and the great cities on the ocean and bays of the Pacific and the Northwest have a color all their own, different expressions of green and gray iridescence like oil on water in the late afternoon, fading to an evolution of neon sparks on wet pavement after the sun goes down.
I want the girls to be comfortable in these cities as well as the lovely lonely isolation of our 80-acre ridge top, facing mountain sunset silhouettes and sleeping in a tipi. I panic at times that there is too much to share, and so little time left I have access to their wonderment.
Even girls race
We are at the races. A day early.
It was the right decision, to come on Wednesday. When we arrived, the vast new parking lot at Pacific Raceways was nearly empty. Drag races were happening. The girls went down to watch the drags while I put the trailer in its designated spot. I found them still at the fence after about an hour.
“Dada, they go really fast.”
“Dada, one the the drivers of a motorcycle is a girl.”
“Two of the drivers on motor cycles are girls.”
And the girl on the orange bike, blond braid down the back of her black leathers, didn’t look much bigger than my 13-year-olds. She was hideously fast, I think she turned the quarter in the nines, at about 150 mph.
I explained to the twins that our race is a road race, that we would be coming around that turn there and dive down that hill there, up that hill and back to this stretch of road right here.
Okay, yes, this is one reason why it was important to me to bring the twins. Girls race. Girls work on cars. That doing is more fun than watching. I don’t expect the twins to race, nor especially want them to, or even to love cars. But I do want them to taste this from Dada’s world, to know that a ratchet is among their options.
They do not want to be “girlie girls.” On the bridge of adolescence, they don’t understand those who do nothing but talk about how they look or about what the boys are doing or thinking.
My twins demand to drive the truck up and down our half-mile driveway at home. They sleep in a tipi. They have come to the races after a six hour drive with one stop and not one complaint, not one video game, handing up almonds and Triscuits and cheese. Today, in a few hours, we will see the Space Needle and Pike Street Market.
And tomorrow they will see some of the most wonderful cars in the world making some noise.
It was the right decision, to come on Wednesday. When we arrived, the vast new parking lot at Pacific Raceways was nearly empty. Drag races were happening. The girls went down to watch the drags while I put the trailer in its designated spot. I found them still at the fence after about an hour.
“Dada, they go really fast.”
“Dada, one the the drivers of a motorcycle is a girl.”
“Two of the drivers on motor cycles are girls.”
And the girl on the orange bike, blond braid down the back of her black leathers, didn’t look much bigger than my 13-year-olds. She was hideously fast, I think she turned the quarter in the nines, at about 150 mph.
I explained to the twins that our race is a road race, that we would be coming around that turn there and dive down that hill there, up that hill and back to this stretch of road right here.
Okay, yes, this is one reason why it was important to me to bring the twins. Girls race. Girls work on cars. That doing is more fun than watching. I don’t expect the twins to race, nor especially want them to, or even to love cars. But I do want them to taste this from Dada’s world, to know that a ratchet is among their options.
They do not want to be “girlie girls.” On the bridge of adolescence, they don’t understand those who do nothing but talk about how they look or about what the boys are doing or thinking.
My twins demand to drive the truck up and down our half-mile driveway at home. They sleep in a tipi. They have come to the races after a six hour drive with one stop and not one complaint, not one video game, handing up almonds and Triscuits and cheese. Today, in a few hours, we will see the Space Needle and Pike Street Market.
And tomorrow they will see some of the most wonderful cars in the world making some noise.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Post hoc ergo propter hoc
Sen. Kate Brown is stepping down as Oregon Senate Majority Leader. She has had a remarkable run.
We met Sen. Brown on a couple of occasions, once when she came to the Board of Medical Examiners to see what that organization did, another time in Salem. She is a smart and caring Democrat. She also was lucky to have a term that ended coincident with the implosion of Republican power caused by the stunning arrogance of Dick Cheney and his sock puppet, George W.
The accolades for Brown start with the fact that when she became leaders of the dems in the Oregon Senate in 1998, there were 10 of them, now there are 18.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Yeah, I know. Damn the effetes. But folks, it is a concept that has been around since Latin was the language of the civilized world, which is why it’s important that we remember we ain’t as smart as we think we is. Just because she was there then, and things are different now, does not mean she made the difference.
The second round of accolades center around what happened in this last session:
“increased funding for early education, K-12 schools and higher education; making health care more affordable and accessible; restoring 100 state troopers to protect Oregon’s highways; protecting consumers; investing in renewable energy; expanding the Oregon Bottle Bill; enacting landmark civil rights protections; and passing comprehensive ethics reform – Brown said she leaves her role as Majority Leader with a great sense of accomplishment.” (Salem-News.com)
Well, some of those might be accomplishments.
With a majority (but not two-thirds, required to pass some reforms) and a Democratic governor (we forget his name) the Democrats also failed to implement fundamental tax reform, bring accountability to teachers, failed to create a fair and comprehensive health system (sorry, Ben Westlund), failed to reform school finance aside from dipping into a pot more full of money, and failed to fix Measure 37.
They frittered away much of their session on “feel-good” legislation.
Kate Brown is a good senator, and a good Democrat. But credit where credit is due. Just because some things happened doesn’t mean they were all good, doesn’t mean she gets the credit if they were good. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
We met Sen. Brown on a couple of occasions, once when she came to the Board of Medical Examiners to see what that organization did, another time in Salem. She is a smart and caring Democrat. She also was lucky to have a term that ended coincident with the implosion of Republican power caused by the stunning arrogance of Dick Cheney and his sock puppet, George W.
The accolades for Brown start with the fact that when she became leaders of the dems in the Oregon Senate in 1998, there were 10 of them, now there are 18.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Yeah, I know. Damn the effetes. But folks, it is a concept that has been around since Latin was the language of the civilized world, which is why it’s important that we remember we ain’t as smart as we think we is. Just because she was there then, and things are different now, does not mean she made the difference.
The second round of accolades center around what happened in this last session:
“increased funding for early education, K-12 schools and higher education; making health care more affordable and accessible; restoring 100 state troopers to protect Oregon’s highways; protecting consumers; investing in renewable energy; expanding the Oregon Bottle Bill; enacting landmark civil rights protections; and passing comprehensive ethics reform – Brown said she leaves her role as Majority Leader with a great sense of accomplishment.” (Salem-News.com)
Well, some of those might be accomplishments.
With a majority (but not two-thirds, required to pass some reforms) and a Democratic governor (we forget his name) the Democrats also failed to implement fundamental tax reform, bring accountability to teachers, failed to create a fair and comprehensive health system (sorry, Ben Westlund), failed to reform school finance aside from dipping into a pot more full of money, and failed to fix Measure 37.
They frittered away much of their session on “feel-good” legislation.
Kate Brown is a good senator, and a good Democrat. But credit where credit is due. Just because some things happened doesn’t mean they were all good, doesn’t mean she gets the credit if they were good. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Friday, June 22, 2007
The wind
Mike and I got the tipi up by about 12:30. Three, four hours. It is not a job I could have done alone, it is not a job I would do again. Practice would make it easier, but 60 pounds of canvas along a 22 foot pole is hard. Even following instructions, which is also hard, at least for a couple of guys who think they know how everything should work just by looking at it.
Jon stopped by on his motorcycle and carved down the ends on the stitching sticks. Thankfully, he did not offer suggestions.
We didn’t have enough cord to tie all the stakes to the ground, but I knew I would be going to town later and could pick up some more.
Yesterday I went to the seed company and bought four large packages of a slow growing bunch grass. I hoped to plant it and let it grow a little thicker than some of the local fescues. After the tipi was up, Mike went over to move rock with the track hoe, and I spread the seed over the new drain field. The seed was light and flew gently in front of the spreader. Along with 8 oz. of wildflowers.
It isn’t going to be a lawn. Even though the girls would like a lawn, I made myself a promise 10 years ago when we moved out of the log house that I would never mow a lawn again. I haven’t so far. And the goal of this concrete and steel barn on an 80 acre ridge hill top is to not be pinned by household chores.
I put the seed down in a crisscross pattern to spread it evenly, and ran with the spreader when I mixed in the wildflower seed to get some coverage. Mike came over with the track hoe to “walk it in” to the dirt. The powdery dust flew up, I tried to water the soil a bit to keep the bit of wind from carrying the dust and seed away. Mike pointed out that wet dirt would just stick to the tracks of the hoe so I stopped.
At about 2:30 I took the spreader back to the rental store, Mike was going to call it a day, too. We had had a good week. The rough plumbing is in the mostly graded subloor, packed and ready for the concrete guy to come wire for the slab on Monday. The heating guy can come tie his radiant tube to the wire, then we can pour the slab, and start framing the walls. The septic is in. We have power, we have water. It has been a good three weeks, and next Thursday we take off to go race in Seattle.
I was still in town when the light breeze of earlier became a howling wind. There was a big build up of clouds over the mountains to the west, a storm surf of clouds held at bay by Mt. Jefferson and Mt. Washington, the Three Sisters. But though the clouds were pinned, the wind howled in, angry it seemed. It made the trailer shake and feel insubstantial.
It buffeted the tipi, but even without all the stakes, it held. Inside, the poles creaked against the rough rope. I quickly cut cord to finish tying stakes down, but with its respectful conical shape, the organic weight of canvas, the tipi seems impervious to the wind.
Not my drain field. When I walked out to move the sprinklers, my $80 of seed, two hours of spreading, and an hour of Mikes time pressing the seed down, were pretty much gone. The wind had taken the flour-like soil, the feather like seeds, off to my neighbor’s place, abraded the surface right down to the crust of the last watering.
At my frustrated suggestion, the girls and I lit the smudge stick that came with the tipi, I was hoping to perhaps buy us a little grace from the wind. It didn’t work, at least not yet. It was obvious hubris anyway. The ancestors could tell lighting the stick was a bribe, not thanks from a pure heart.
Jon stopped by on his motorcycle and carved down the ends on the stitching sticks. Thankfully, he did not offer suggestions.
We didn’t have enough cord to tie all the stakes to the ground, but I knew I would be going to town later and could pick up some more.
Yesterday I went to the seed company and bought four large packages of a slow growing bunch grass. I hoped to plant it and let it grow a little thicker than some of the local fescues. After the tipi was up, Mike went over to move rock with the track hoe, and I spread the seed over the new drain field. The seed was light and flew gently in front of the spreader. Along with 8 oz. of wildflowers.
It isn’t going to be a lawn. Even though the girls would like a lawn, I made myself a promise 10 years ago when we moved out of the log house that I would never mow a lawn again. I haven’t so far. And the goal of this concrete and steel barn on an 80 acre ridge hill top is to not be pinned by household chores.
I put the seed down in a crisscross pattern to spread it evenly, and ran with the spreader when I mixed in the wildflower seed to get some coverage. Mike came over with the track hoe to “walk it in” to the dirt. The powdery dust flew up, I tried to water the soil a bit to keep the bit of wind from carrying the dust and seed away. Mike pointed out that wet dirt would just stick to the tracks of the hoe so I stopped.
At about 2:30 I took the spreader back to the rental store, Mike was going to call it a day, too. We had had a good week. The rough plumbing is in the mostly graded subloor, packed and ready for the concrete guy to come wire for the slab on Monday. The heating guy can come tie his radiant tube to the wire, then we can pour the slab, and start framing the walls. The septic is in. We have power, we have water. It has been a good three weeks, and next Thursday we take off to go race in Seattle.
I was still in town when the light breeze of earlier became a howling wind. There was a big build up of clouds over the mountains to the west, a storm surf of clouds held at bay by Mt. Jefferson and Mt. Washington, the Three Sisters. But though the clouds were pinned, the wind howled in, angry it seemed. It made the trailer shake and feel insubstantial.
It buffeted the tipi, but even without all the stakes, it held. Inside, the poles creaked against the rough rope. I quickly cut cord to finish tying stakes down, but with its respectful conical shape, the organic weight of canvas, the tipi seems impervious to the wind.
Not my drain field. When I walked out to move the sprinklers, my $80 of seed, two hours of spreading, and an hour of Mikes time pressing the seed down, were pretty much gone. The wind had taken the flour-like soil, the feather like seeds, off to my neighbor’s place, abraded the surface right down to the crust of the last watering.
At my frustrated suggestion, the girls and I lit the smudge stick that came with the tipi, I was hoping to perhaps buy us a little grace from the wind. It didn’t work, at least not yet. It was obvious hubris anyway. The ancestors could tell lighting the stick was a bribe, not thanks from a pure heart.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Rush on the job site
“You are one of the only guys I know I’m kinda friends with that doesn’t like Rush.”
That’s a hard one. It’s meant as a compliment. Mike and I have been working side by side for a few weeks. I owe him more than a couple beers. He can do more in three seconds, and with more finesse, with a backhoe than I can do in ten minutes with a shovel.
But he listens to Rush Limbaugh while driving the backhoe, and Country music. My music, heavy guitar licks by Roy Buchannan or Pink Floyd, just don't cut it under the noon day sun. But I can’t stand the smooth new country, “Men in boots whining,” and I can’t stomach Rush. There are just so few ways to respond.
“Rush is just a mouthpiece for the people who want to own you. If you like your government telling you what to think, you are welcome to it.” When they were trying to sell us on a war, it was abusing patriotism to get us into Iraq. Now it is the jingoistic pitch against immigration. Being sold to a nation founded by immigrants.
But it is not the hypocrisy of bitter and sordid talk show hosts like Limbaugh or O’Reilly that is so offensive. It is the blatant manipulation. The subtle name-calling. The smirking, superior, “I am SO getting away with this,” lack of conscience, that is so galling.
30 years ago there was a TV show that featured Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker. Archie was laughed at by the left, his bigotry held up for ridicule. The thing is, Archie won.
Now we have a nation where about 45% of the population idolizes the politics Archie Bunker used to create laughs. We have a president who smirks like Archie, who came out in support of creationism, for crying out loud, and who manipulates hard working men and women who should be supporting labor rights and equal rights and supporting the individual over monopolies charging us to breathe clean air.
The Archie archetype himself got some polish and has radio stations and TV stations and employs Rush and Bill who spoon feed us hatred and bigotry right out of Karl Rove’s White House.
Not because Rove or Bush love war or hate Mexicans, but because by fanning hatred, outrage and bigotry, they control the discussion, they get reelected, and they can serve Pfizer and Exxon and ConAgra and all the others who buy them power.
Mike is a good man who knows how to work hard and takes care of his family. So am I. We have more in common than we don’t, but I sure wish he didn’t get his politics from talk radio.
That’s a hard one. It’s meant as a compliment. Mike and I have been working side by side for a few weeks. I owe him more than a couple beers. He can do more in three seconds, and with more finesse, with a backhoe than I can do in ten minutes with a shovel.
But he listens to Rush Limbaugh while driving the backhoe, and Country music. My music, heavy guitar licks by Roy Buchannan or Pink Floyd, just don't cut it under the noon day sun. But I can’t stand the smooth new country, “Men in boots whining,” and I can’t stomach Rush. There are just so few ways to respond.
“Rush is just a mouthpiece for the people who want to own you. If you like your government telling you what to think, you are welcome to it.” When they were trying to sell us on a war, it was abusing patriotism to get us into Iraq. Now it is the jingoistic pitch against immigration. Being sold to a nation founded by immigrants.
But it is not the hypocrisy of bitter and sordid talk show hosts like Limbaugh or O’Reilly that is so offensive. It is the blatant manipulation. The subtle name-calling. The smirking, superior, “I am SO getting away with this,” lack of conscience, that is so galling.
30 years ago there was a TV show that featured Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker. Archie was laughed at by the left, his bigotry held up for ridicule. The thing is, Archie won.
Now we have a nation where about 45% of the population idolizes the politics Archie Bunker used to create laughs. We have a president who smirks like Archie, who came out in support of creationism, for crying out loud, and who manipulates hard working men and women who should be supporting labor rights and equal rights and supporting the individual over monopolies charging us to breathe clean air.
The Archie archetype himself got some polish and has radio stations and TV stations and employs Rush and Bill who spoon feed us hatred and bigotry right out of Karl Rove’s White House.
Not because Rove or Bush love war or hate Mexicans, but because by fanning hatred, outrage and bigotry, they control the discussion, they get reelected, and they can serve Pfizer and Exxon and ConAgra and all the others who buy them power.
Mike is a good man who knows how to work hard and takes care of his family. So am I. We have more in common than we don’t, but I sure wish he didn’t get his politics from talk radio.
Tipi
The underslab plumbing is in the project. We may actually have a slab poured before July. The girls will be back on Friday, we go racing in Seattle next week -- the ZL1 is locked and loaded.
And this week the tipi has to go up.
The tipi will sit right by the trailer, and will more than double our square footage. The girls and I will end up fighting over it, but in this case, they get double my votes, plus veto power. I just hope they let me use it when they are at their mother’s house.
It is going to be an odd amalgam of living, the tipi. Aboriginal, wired with electricity for heaters and lamps, in the middle of hilltop rural acreage yet with highspeed internet, wireless laptops and wireless printer, adjacent plumbing, two futons, a raised firepit and Afghan carpets.
An adventure for the summer I don't think we will forget. Set up right, the tipi may serve for that first month of school, if the house is delayed.
And this week the tipi has to go up.
The tipi will sit right by the trailer, and will more than double our square footage. The girls and I will end up fighting over it, but in this case, they get double my votes, plus veto power. I just hope they let me use it when they are at their mother’s house.
It is going to be an odd amalgam of living, the tipi. Aboriginal, wired with electricity for heaters and lamps, in the middle of hilltop rural acreage yet with highspeed internet, wireless laptops and wireless printer, adjacent plumbing, two futons, a raised firepit and Afghan carpets.
An adventure for the summer I don't think we will forget. Set up right, the tipi may serve for that first month of school, if the house is delayed.
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