Sarah Palin Stepping Down as Alaska Governor

CNN Breaking News tells me that Sarah Palin is resigning as Alaska's governor, and already there is speculation that she's considering a run for the presidency in 2012.

If I stop and listen, I can hear a the murmur of liberal pundits, writers, humorists and bloggers throughout the land saying with one voice:

. Run Sarah Run

Her running as the running mate of a competent contender is what was worrisome in this past election as having her one step away from the presidency almost by accident was more than a nightmare.

But she, herself, running for president? How perfect is that? We get two years of entertainment and slightly appalling flashes of being presented with Too Much Information, and get to watch the Republican Party try to manage her and not be able to. I really want to see her debate Obama though I know she won't get that far. As Stephanie Miller said: I miss the [Palin] word salad. I'm sure Rachel Maddow will be thrilled also.

Oh this should be fun or a train wreck or both.

Ill Tomato Plant

I am so bummed. One of my tomato plants is clearly dying and I have to decide whether to take it out to save the other one or try and nurse it till the tomatoes ripen (more than a month to go).

Here are my two plants. They've been doing well for the entire time:

Then right after a heat wave it started showing wilted leaves, so I thought it needed more water (many of the plants showed some stress after that), Extra watering perked them all up except this one. On further examination I see that things are not looking good at all. It's dying from the root up and there are bumps all over the "trunk."

What makes things hard is the tomatoes on the ill plant are looking good.

So now it's off to do tomato research.

As I feared this is bad. Southern Blight is what matches the description:
http://gardening.about.com/od/vegetablepatch/a/TomatoProblems.htm

Southern Blight is a disease that can hang out in the soil and comes out when it's hot and wet. (Drat.)

There are similar distressing photos here:
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/publications/tomatoproblemsolver/root/south_blight.html
and here:
http://www.lsuagcenter.com/en/our_offices/departments/Plant_Pathology_Crop_Physiology/Plant_Disease_Clinic/Disease_Image_Gallery/Herbs_Vegetables/Tomatoes/Tomato+Southern+Blight.htm

This site:
http://www.thegardenhelper.com/blight1.htm

says I need to remove the plant and burn it (good luck with that in my city), and don't compost it. My recycling company uses a high temperature composting method that you can even put rotting meat into, so I don't think composting is a problem.

Here's one novel solution:
http://gardeningtoybox.bloghi.com/2009/01/20/how-to-get-rid-of-tomato-blight.html

But I don't think I need to do that. I have complete control over the soil in that planter and had completely changed it out this year. My planting mix is a simplification of Martha Stewart's (make fun of her all you like, but she knows her stuff)
http://www.marthastewart.com/article/all-purpose-soil-recipe?autonomy_kw=soil&rsc=header_3
I notice that her mix keeps changing, bit by bit - didn't used to have bonemeal or charcol.
The dirt is actually optional and I don't use it as it's too much of an unknown.
It used to be: peat moss, compost: sand, dirt (optional), vericulte and perlite
I'm a little suspicious of soil with pure white things in it (perlite) so for a while I haven't used it or vermiculite. Being lazy this year, I didn't add sand in and only used peatmoss and organic compost (chicken shit actually). Now it would be easy to suspect the virus hanging out in the poulet merde (the google spell checker must know french though I don't know how to turn it on) but I think the fatal mistake was not having enough things in the soil that didn't retain water (sand, perlite, even gravel) - apologies for the double negative, so even though it was on a drip system it was still retaining too much water and it would get occasional hand watering as well.

So depending on how much work I want to do today I may be able to make a difference here.

First take the ill plant out and put it in a separate planter - it's probably doomed, but I can give it a hospice bed if it's quarantined and not sharing soil. For the healthy-appearing plant it would really help it to get sand in its soil, but I'm not sure how to do that without traumatizing it. With the ill plant gone it might be able to dry out on its own. I'll have to go see how difficult this is going to be. It's a bummer as I'm so proud of the elaborate tomato cages I created this year with bamboo stakes and tie wraps but I can always do it again.

[time passes]
And that's exactly what I did. The ill plant is in a large pot that I had sitting around waiting for another job besides holding agility PVC. I lined the bottom with play sand which I had left over from a stepping stone project. Why I didn't use it in the soil mix escapes me, unless I did and just didn't use enough of it. Put the sick plant in and filled in the rest with sandy Alameda dirt which I usually never do as these houses didn't have trash service for a long time so all sorts of rubbish is literally in it (though the plants I put in the ground have done well - what does that mean?

The remaining plant I aerated some with a pole and poured a bunch of sand all over it and tried to work it in also leaving the hole where the other one was mostly open. There is signs of blight on the remaining one's tomatoes so all may be lost, but I'll give it my best shot. I don't know if my Farm Agent grandfather woutl be proud or appalled. Farm people take the heavy handed approach and quickly. Both plants would have been destroyed immediately and the soil scattered to dry or let fallow for a couple of years. But I am a not a farmer, but a namby pamby home organic gardener (that would completely puzzle him as he passed away before any of us could spell organic.) Maybe I should talk to one of my cousins who did a stint as an organic farmer.

Perhaps Some Lessons in Marketing to Americans are in Order

New restaurants in Alameda are fond of littering our doorway with menus. One that just appeared is a new combination Chinese-Vietnmese place. Now I love a lot of the non-beef Vietnamese food as they often use very fresh vegtables and the noodles are delicious. Having it be combined with Chinese food which is so often famously bad for you in that high fat often tasty way gives me some pause and I wonder if we have a literally mixed marriage here.

I open the menu and look at the noodle soups (a favorite), and I realize I am looking at a few 100 items none of which are veggie. Now I eat poultry and seafood, but I often eat veggie and tend to use the precense of veggie items as a mark of at least some sort of awareness of healthier choices and what a lot of people want (some alledgedly fine dining places are equally guilty of no veggie choices which is pretty inexcusable given that the don't have any cultural barriers to deal with). I find a couple of accidentally veggie items on the very last page, and ONE veggie and tofu rice plate. Not a good sign, not a place I'm going to bring veggie friends to.

Going back to the top of the menu I see Pho Ga which is Chicken Noodle Soup and decidedly not your mother's Cambell's Soup, and is often delicious. The very next item is "Pho Ga Long Trung Non" which in the points for honesty category is Chicken Noodle Soup with Intestines added. Pause. Now I was taught how to cut up a chicken, I know that even though I find them off putting, they're ok to eat. Though we would remove the intestines, my Farm Agent grandfather ate them and he lived to be 86 back in the day when it was still unusual for a guy with heart disease to live that long (the 70's), so it clearly wasn't harmful to at least him. But still, a lot of Americans of European descent aren't going to want to hear about Chicken intestines, especially things like Combination Chicken & Intestine Porridge (ok, that made me shudder a bit) and Pork Blood Porridge.

Ok enough of the menu. I close it and put in on the desk. I can't resist looking down at it. The reason? There is a picture of (a) a bowl of Pho (b) a dead plucked hanging duck and (c) a complete and very dead pig with one ear pointing up. Eeeek. OMG, can you say cultural divide? This is why you see ducks hanging in the front window in China town. They consider it truth in advertising. Someone needs to explain to them that perhaps that's a bit much truth.

So even though I've completely lost my appetite right now I will probably give their Pho Ga a try someday when I've worked my courage back up.

GPS pondering

Part I

So after having driven off the map multiple times and having no inclination to stop doing so, I need to either go back to maintaining a great set of maps (might still so that), or buy a GPS.

Unlike backpacking GPSs, where they keep the price the same and just keep piling more features in - though in all fairness they're not that much money, in-car ones have come down in price and have gotten quite affordable as long as you're talking portable and not the specialized in-dash variety.

Just for fun, I checked to see how much that in dash Navigation System is for my Scion (which I turned down at the time.) $1800. Eeeeegads. That's enough to buy two top of the line portables and still have considerable lunch money, and I don't even need a top of the line one.

I'm a Garmin fan and I don't have any need to change so I started there first:

On the road-Automotive:
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=134&ra=true

After some time with the Comparison feature I decided that I wanted Widescreen and something I could update (they all can do that it turns out), and having the street names read outloud to you sounded like a nice touch "Turn Right on Elm St" (rather that just Turn Right)

So the nuvi 1300 looked like a good choice:
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=&pID=30950

Great - where do i get one? Well since I've never used an automotive GPS, going to look and touch one at a brick and mortar store sounded like a good idea. Garmin tells me that Sears and Best Buy and another one I'm forgetting have them. Well I like Best Buy over Sears, so I checked out their site to get an idea of their stock and they talk about a 1300T which the Garmin site doesn't even mention. The difference is that instead of just having the maps to the 48 states preloaded it also has ones for Hawaii and Puerto Rico. I pause a moment to consider this. I've driven in Hawaii - all around Oahu. One single map was just fine thank you. Ok 2 if you include the trail map. A GPS was most certainly not necessary. The idea of paying extra for such a feature amuses me, but sends me back to look further.

I probably should of just stuck with the 1300T. On checking the Garmin comparisons further (they highlight the differences with a slightly different color) I see that the nuvi 1350 has a feature that tells you what the correct lane you need to be in. Oooo that's a feature worth paying for since most of my misadventures start with being in the wrong lane. However is that worth $50? Hmmmm.

I think it's time to backtrack to the cheapest Widescreen and go from there.

Part II
Fortunately Garmin allows you to limit the blizzard of choices by selecting features on the left.

I selected Widescreen and the choices shrank down to just a couple of pages. Glancing down to the cheaper ones I see there's a different family of the nuvi that is the 200 series: 205W, 255W and the 265WT. So I compared those and the 1300.

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/compare.do?cID=134&compareProduct=30950&compareProduct=13432&compareProduct=13431&compareProduct=13430

The 205W doesn't have the street name announcements, and a friend said her experience was that the street names helped a lot. The difference between the 255W and 265WT seems to be Bluetooth and the stated advantage is that you can use your phone hands free which doesn't sound like an advantage at all.

To quote:

For hands-free calling, nüvi 265WT integrates Bluetooth® wireless technology with a built-in microphone and speaker. Just pair it with your compatible Bluetooth phone and talk hands-free through the 265WT while staying focused on the road. Simply dial numbers with nüvi's touchscreen keypad to make a call. To answer calls, just tap the screen and speak into its built-in microphone. Enjoy convenient one-touch dialing for contacts and points of interest.

I don't think that's worth $50 more than what the 265WT is to the 255W.

So the 255W's page is here:
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=&pID=13431
List price is $219.

Checking Best Buy ...
As luck would have it it's on sale for $169.99

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=pcat17005&type=page&_requestid=152721

Sold. Cool.

An Honest Man - The Gabriel Method for Weightloss

I keep an ear/eye out for scams, frauds, come ons and general bad deals. (I am also a fan of mixed metaphors which is why the one in the title is still there - I swear it was an accident - they make the best ones). When the bottom fell out of the housing market, my favorite one, and how this all got started, the predatory house lending offer, has pretty much disappeared fortunately and I have to look elsewhere.

What gives me hope for humanity are the ones that hold up to scrutiny. The ones that accidentally made themselves look like scams by their choice of advertising such as AM Radio commercials and Facebook advertising. (Examples are Laurel Langmeyer's The Millionaire Maker, and James Lehman’s Total Transformation Program for dealing with your kids - use Google to learn more - this isn't about them)

What this is about is Jon Gabriel and The Gabriel Method.

In 2001, Jon Gabriel weighed over 400 pounds and in his words had tried every weightloss method there was and got a handy dandy wake up call by being scheduled on the ill fated, and famous 9/11/2001 United Airlines flight 93 to San Francisco - a flight he actually didn't make, and which lit a major motivational fire under him (funny how nearly dying does that to us mortals - never mind that if we're dead it doesn't matter anymore). So he set off to figure it out himself and things started to click. Fast forward to 2004. Garbriel now weighs 184 pounds and is maintaining that loss. We're talking a 220 pound weight loss and he has no extra skin (http://www.gabrielmethod.com/about-jon-gabriel). What he describes is convincing his body that it wanted to be thin. This is very much in the "the mind is a powerful thing" category.

The fact that his mind could influence the cell programming of his fat cells to reset to a lower preferred level is what is catching my attention. As many know (I should get a ref but well, I know you know :) your body has a preferred size, making weigh loss difficult. If you try to starve it off, when you stop paying attention, your body will shift into a super efficeint mode to horde every calorie and you could well gain more weight. This happened to me. I carry an extra 10 pounds got sick of it and got impatient and decided to just starve it off (it's only 10 pounds for heaven's sake). I got half way there and then the holidays happened and I stopped paying careful attention. Shazam. I regained the weight plus another 3-5. Boy was I peeved. I'm now back to my usual weight and am wondering whether Mr. Gabriel's approach might be perfect, but I digress.

Full disclosure I don't own the book though I may get it since his methodolgy is very intriguing, but what I really find interesting about him is what he's not doing, and he's showing incredible restraint in doing so.

Here's the deal. For $25 you can buy his book (I'll skip the link since it's certainly not benefiting me :) which describes his story and approach. Fair enough. And after you read the book you can get a CD of his with visualizations (Sounds to me like self hypnosis). Right. And how much is that? Zero. It's free with the purchase of the book. It's what? What kind of guru is this guy?
Oh wait I see a "limited time offer" in fine print so he may not be the complete financial golden child, either that or a business advisor had given him a talking to about giving out free advice that could easily make him more money.

And according to this website: http://www.womens-health.com/boards/weight-loss/7103-gabriel-method.html he's been giving free advice over the phone and there is a whole bunch of him on You Tube (I can see his business manager slapping him around right now). I have some You Tube links below.

Doing the research on this amused me. The cons to his method were listed as (my comments in []):
- holistic, not specific [because I need to be told exactly what to do]
- gradual, too slow [I think it's been proven over and over again that successful, non-surgical weightloss is gradual, and look at the dates on the pictures on his site - it was pretty dramatic.]

Refs:
http://www.gabrielmethod.com/
http://www.dietsinreview.com/diets/the-gabriel-method/
http://redesignedmom.com/2009/04/11/the-gabriel-method-new-article-series/
http://www.womens-health.com/boards/weight-loss/7103-gabriel-method.html

Gabriel has over 10 videos on You Tube. Here are just 2.

Visualizing Your Ideal Body:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFYBtzirD3Q
The Mind-Body Commection
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Knc8Qzf6COs&feature=related

Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett; Change of Heart, The Lion's Game

While I'm still miffed that Jackson's death has overshadowed Farrah Fawcett's, it is understandable. Fawcett was a little older (62) and has been battling anal cancer for 3 years, her death was very sad, but not a complete surprise. Jackson's death, while on some level not a surprise at all (kinda frail, subjected himself to a whole bunch of medical procedures, though a great dancer and still in ok physical shape), did seem to take a whole bunch of folks unawares. Jackson was only 50 and was working on a new show. People were really hoping he could grow up (dammit) and get past some of the drama that has plagued him, and to summarize: just shut up and dance. It will be interesting to hear what the autopsy results show.

Taking a break from the book Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult.
I'm halfway through listening to Change of Heart and I desparately need a break from all the angsting. So I decide to get a highly rated spy thriller The Lion's Game by Nelson Demille. While it doesn't have quite the same moral angsting that Change of Heart does, it's not like it's relaxing. In Change of Heart 2 people die, Lion's Game is up to a few hundred and I'm only 1/4 of the way through it. There's just less dwelling on the deaths. Change of Heart has characters reliving their guilt trips over and over again, and agonizing about how to make decisions in light of what's happened, Lion's Game is the much more simple: chase those bad guys.

Farrah Fawcett, Health Net, The book: Change of Heart, Michael Jackson

Going to try to treat this a little more like Twitter since I've seen other bloggers do it, though here I get to use as many lines as I like. I could also do Facebook updates, but am conscious of overwhelming my friends news feeds, so I try to keep that down to two a day or so.

Farrah Fawcett
CNN breaking news tells me that Farrah Fawcett has died at 62 of cancer. Details aren't out yet, but will be soon. I grew up watching Charlie's Angels and while I'm not at all like her (I'm more the Kate Jackson type) I did admire her being out there hair and all. However what is giving me the more pause is realizing that Fawcett had the world's best medical care and also took care of herself. She's been diagnosed for a while and was in remission but it came back and didn't let go. I find this sobering. It's easy to kill yourself over time by not taking care of yourself, and not getting good medical care, but for this to happen to someone who's done probably everything right and to be so relatively young is sobering. These days you have to financially plan on living to 90, and people of both genders routinely make it to 80 these days (my own parents are 83 and 86), but it doesn't always happen that way, despite all of our efforts.

The Health Net Dance
My own annual Health Net dance is entering what I hope is the final act. Each year because they way, way jacked up the cost of my copayment for my M.S. medicine I meet my max out of pocket expenses for the year in about February and then I start the 3-4 month process of telling them that I've met it and to please tell all the providers that. This time the part that I've met me maximum happened in record time (2-3 weeks) the problem is they left out the part that involves giving me my overpayment back. Plus there's also this part about having to file an additional claim to cover the part that I had to pay while they were taking their time processing the original part (which sometimes isn't necessary if they're paying attention).

It's now the end of June and I've now received my reimbursement check now it's time to get that last copayment overpayment back. I was hoping that this part wouldn't be necessary but this year it appears to be - sigh. Trouble is I have to keep reminding Health Net what they're job is without knowing what their job is unles they think to tell me. I've started keeping careful notes (thanks Google Docs) and can look up the pitfalls year to year. It's getting better, but it's still a pain in the rear each and every year.

The novel Change of Heart by Joli Picoult
http://www.amazon.com/Change-Heart-Novel-Jodi-Picoult/dp/0743496744
My book club is reading this and let's just say it's not light reading or listening (I'm going through the audio book). It's about the death penalty and several perspectives on it, plus some apparent magical reality showing up just when I was about to give up just to really complicate things. Other fluffy topics are freedom of religion, what exactly is religion, what compromises will you make to save your child, revenge, letting go of revenge. It's from multiple perspectives and all of the characters are 3 dimensional - even the secondary characters. It makes me cry (multiple times), yell, laugh, argue. It's just exausting. I'm nearing half way through and I think I'll stop and listen to a spy novel or a light comedy.

Michael Jackson Cardiac Arrest
I'm just ever so slightly offended that Michael Jackson is having heart problems the day that Farrah Fawcett passes away.

http://www.bestweekever.tv/2009/06/25/open-thread-michael-jackson-cardiac-arrest/

Now I read that he fell into a coma and died. I've removed the stuff of the history of his face.
Now the superstitious "these things go in threes" speculation begins. Trouble is that has been my experience so I am waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop.

Denali dreams

It's funny what one's mind does when you read about things that are incredibly hard (sometimes impossible), but still sound fun. Ah, romanticizing. I wonder why we do it. It's like the opposite of a survival mechanism. It serves no obvious purpose yet we clearly need flights of fancy as we have been telling each other stories since the time when we figured out how to talk. (Ok, I don't know that, but neither does anyone else and it's something we all seem to mostly agree on.)

Denali (AKA Mt McKinley) is a gorgeous mountain that I have spent most of a week looking at while taking a class on the Ruth Glacier in Denali National Park in Alaska. Here's a photo of it that I can proudly say that I took:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellenclary/668251238/in/set-72157600562308186/?addedcomment=1#comment72157619790543347

I've also written before (and many others have also) that it's one seriously bad ass mountain (I have at least two books about that very subject). It's 20,320 feet, but at its high latitude apparently the effective altitude is much higher and it's cold, cold, cold (there are a lot of references for this which I should probably put here when I dig them up). The wind can howl for days - if you like being stuck in a small very battered tent for days, you will be in heaven (not I). Some people (heresay) say that Everest is actually easier (probably because they have the invaluable Sherpas). I don't know about that, but let's just say it's not Disneyland.

I write all that to remind myself of the reality, and in a valiant effort to not feel whistful when I read that American Alpine Institute has just had their 4th summit this season:
http://alpineinstitute.blogspot.com/2009/06/denali-summit-is-reached.html

Sigh. Now for more reality.
4 people have died on Denali this season and we're not talking amateur hour like you get on Mt. Whitney and Mt. Hood:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iL2d-SYDkcdlkzagLN4ThFBmKHowD98PHE982

Mountaineering is a fabulous way to get yourself killed, but I now have a family (a wife and 2 dogs :) and even though I do carry life insurance which is designed to cover the mortgage and would make a decent apology: "Sorry I died, but how about a nice paid for house?" For some reason, I don't think I'd be very easily forgiven.

Going with an excellent guide service like AAI certainly makes a huge difference and one of the best ways to increase your odds of coming home safely, but that's no guarantee. It's also the hardest climb they do (this is from one of their employees). You have to be able to carry a 60 pound pack and tow a 100 pound sled using snow shoes, not skis.

And there's the altitude thing which is what really kills it for me. You can't train for altitude really. Sure you can be in really good shape so at least you're not distracted by that aspect, but altitude can take you down even so. The one good thing about big mountains that you don't get with the smaller mountains like Rainier, and Shasta is that they build in a lot of aclimatization time and you can get pinned down which forces you to spend time at that elevation (or go down). But then I'd just get lonely and miss my family. I swear I'm just so not cut out for this. Fortunately my other obsession is dog sports is highly social and I'm going to be starting to learn group road biking which should be fun.

But I still get whistful and I think that's just going to be the way it is. I'm sure I'll come up with some compromise solution, but for now the only thing I have planned is Mt. Whitney and even though that's pretty high, I'm pretty sure I can succeed at it since I've done most of the route (and know it very well - I could guide it easily), we are going up gradually, and I've since gotten really good at pressure breathing (put a ref in here), and it's a silly, well used trail (you're not route finding - which is sort of a bummer since that's the fun part), and I've been sick often enough to know that so far, what I get is Acute Mountain Sickness (not HACE or HAPE) and I can cope with that for a day.

But Denali. Sigh.

Check Fraud - Wrap up and Lessons Learned

I've been delaying writing the end of my check fraud misadventure as the final details had not wrapped themselves up, but I'm going to take a chance and say they are.

As I detail here, someone(s) created and wrote fraudulent checks against my checking account.
The bank asked me to speculate who I thought it was and I cheerfully did so as the obvious suspect was a large, busy Doctors' office who I had no history with and written a check to.

After I sent that off I started receiving nasty grams from Telecheck, who does the electronic check handling for Wal Mart. They had their undies in a twist about Wells Fargo stopping payment on the 2 Wal-Mart checks, and they wanted their money. By that time Wells Fargo had sent me a letter about the Wal-Mart checks saying that they obviously weren't mine and that the money had been refunded to me. Tele-check wanted a full notarized affidavit, but that was if I didn't have the bank behind me (in other words, if I was just reporting it to them), so I just sent them the bank report. The Wal-Mart charges were resolved just by a phone call to Wells Fargo, the 4 figure Nordstrom Rack nonsense is the one where I had to do the written affidavit (but never needed to notarize it - since it wasn't my signature that was in question.)

Some days pass, and I nervously watch my checking account get clobbered by late fees. Even though the account is frozen, electronic and pre-authorized transactions (both electronic and paper check that I've told them about) still go through. This is great as it protects me from further fraud but other things are not impacted. However there is a catch. I had forgotten about two rather large monthly preauthorized payments that went through overdrew the dwindelling funds (Tired of being ripped off, I had removed most of the funds except what I needed) and incurred still more overdraft fees. Peeved I called Wells Fargo and ran into a wall I'd never run into before. Customer Service said they'd be happy to help but they can't since the account is frozen and under investigation. Escalating to a supervisor got me the same exact story. Frustrated I printed out the details and wrote a letter to the fraud people supplying the case number. The fees disappeared a few days later. They might of anyway if I'd done nothing but I felt better. WF did charge me $2 for the phone call even though it did me no good - I was not charged for reporting the fraud.

A few days later the Nordstrom Rack money reappears and all the service charge fees disappear, and I mean "disappear" they don't refund the fees like customer Service does, they make them completely vanish. Now that's power. Now I'm just waiting for one last check to clear (the Forest Service for Mt. Whitney)

Now you have to assume with these things that you're never going to hear back if anything happed from any investigation, but I got in the mail a letter from the merchant I pointed the finger at. It's written to all of the patients in the practice (not to me specifically) saying that they have received information that it's posible that some patient check or credit card information may have been compromised. GOTCHA! It's like you want to ask the person(s) responsible: "Was that really worth it?" You likely don't have a job now. You definitely are being investigated. You may be arrested. You may be sent to jail. You are or will be considerably poorer that you were before you decided to take this risk. You probably did this to get out of some severe money problems. Now those problems are worse. If you have a family things for them just got worse also, unless having you out of the picture helped.

This all appears to be winding down and guess who reappears again. It's TRS - Telecheck and the letter is mostly in CAPITAL LETTERS demanding payment (i think I saw them jumping up and down in it) saying that a collector will be contacting me (I'd welcome that, but they never did). It's like you want to sit them down and gently say: I'm so sorry, but there are bad people out there and sometimes bad people steal from you. (Especially if you're a large company dealing with a lot of money - probably why the letters get so strident.) I call the Wells Fargo check fraud people and the person helping me asked if they've sent me a "Merchant Letter." "Er, no."' I repond. After confirming which transactions we're talking about she says: Ok, we'll send you one out and you can just make copies of it and that should take care of it.

A few days letter as promised Wells Fargo send me an official letter saying that this transaction was fraudulent and this "in no way should reflect poorly on [me]." I send a copy of that letter off to TRS. Some days after I hear back from TRS acknowledging that they've received information that I may (ha) have been a fraud victim and could I help them out by doing this and this and this oh and this also, and please have it all notarized. Now normally I love helping out with investigations as I find the process completely fascinating, but I really have had enough of Telecheck, and after a careful reading of the letter to make sure that it's a request and not a requirement, I just file the whole thing with everything else.

I'm hoping I'm done with Telecheck. I must admit fearing I'm not. The thing is that I rarely use their service so how am I supposed to know if I'm still on this blacklist? The only way is to write a check to my regular Dr. who uses them which I guess I should do just to test it out, but I'm just not sure I care enough - but for completeness I should.

Lessons learned
- The first one is obvious. Don't write a check to someone you don't know. Use cash (I hate cash so this is an adjustment - I now record cash spent in my register which makes me feel better about it). If it's a business then use a debit or credit card. The problem with this is with tradespeople, but tradespeople don't have large offices so there's less cracks for a check to fall through.

- The other one was much less obvious. Whilw you shouldn't use that checking account again, don't be in a hurry to close the account until you have downloaded all the information you want from it. After I closed that account I immediately lost my online access to it. Calling up to complain about it repeatedly did no good. Asking to reopen the account did no good. My only access to it now is to ask Customer Service to mail me the statements. I know they keep them for seven years so I'm just leaving it be for now but I'm out about a year and a half of statements since I was a bit lazy about downloading them. I have switched all my accounts back to online and paper. This is ironic as I usually scan and shred most of my autopaid bills now, but this will cover me if I don't do it right away.

So I have emerged from this more educated and only about a few small dollars in small service fees (less than $10) poorer. I got all my money back. Wells Fargo did an excellent job handling it even with the stumbling blocks.

And let's hope I'm done with Telecheck.

Lassen Peak: Let's Hear It for Plan B

I am semi-bummed because we were rained out of our Shasta trip, but I admit to being kinda relieved too. It rained HARD all night long at Treva's in Redding on Wed night and we were supposed to leave Thur morning, but consulting the weather channel that morning showed the entire Western States under a cloud of rain and predicted to not lift until Sat.

More sobering were the thunderstorm predictions. If there is some place you do NOT want to be during a thunderstorm it would be on a mountain, especially when hanging on to an ice axe or trekking poles: "Here lightning lightning lightning, I have your favorite target right here." Well ok I could have been playing Golf on a mostly flat golf course, but still... I also decided that I didn't want to hang around in a wet 3 season tent as I like to climb in near perfect conditions (light snow falling is great, rain is not great at all). A 3 season tent is fine in the rain, but needs time to dry out - eventually it's going to soak through. I'll pass.

So it turned into a day trip to Lassen which was fun as the whole time we were in at least part of a cloud. Since it was a day trip and we were dressed for Shasta the weather just didn't matter (save for thunderstorms and there weren't any) and the rain became snow in just a few feet of elevation gain. that's right in June, snowing on Lassen at at just under 9000'. How cool is that? Patricia took a photo of me and since I was completely bundled up I was completely unrecognizable. She said I looked like a muppet.

We didn't get all the way up as, my friend, Patricia's knee started to catch (she has some torn cartilage in it that she needs to address), but we'll go back in Summer so she can see the mountain. Though she's been on it, she's actually never seen the mountain in person.

So it's time to focus on Whitney where Terri and I will be going in mid July. I'm pretty confident about it and I like that very much. The best thing going for us is that it's a well used TRAIL and not cross country. The other good thing is that there won't be much snow. Trouble is I love snow. You can fall in it and usually be ok, and you stay a lot cleaner, but snow progress is much slower than dirt when you're on foot unless you're glissading or skiing or sometimes snowshoeing. But dirt it is for now. Will keep training in the gym on an inclined tread mill 5 deg 15 min; 10 deg 15 min; 15 deg 30 min, and working in elements of my Shasta training plan that Courtenay at Body Results designed for me.

Predicting Trends and Getting it [Mostly] Wrong

I am pretty bad at predicting what will last and what won't.

While I'm not as bad as the person who quit his job at a start up because he was completely convinced that what they were involved with was completely ludicrous. They were working on something where someone would actually "log in" to a computer network and talk to other people - who would do that? What they were working on was related to the internet which as we know was a complete failure.

I at least had the fortune to see how powerful the internet and email was because I was thrust into the middle of it in grad school. I saw how useful it already was because we were using it. I didn't have to use my imagination.

But I've sure gotten other things wrong. I wish I had the email where a friend emailed me about this research project they were working on in Europe. It was called the World Wide Web and everyone would have a website where other people could come and check out what they had on their server. I was sending out an email newsletter at the time and would I be interesting in converting the newsletter to a special language they used called HyperText Markup Language (HTML)? Now I was in grad school. I routinely heard about lots of different research projects. I politely declined, though I at least knew to keep at ear out for such things, so I could tune back in when I saw "www.blah.com" show up on business cards and some really geeky magazine ads.

Ok so the Web I got semi-wrong. I got another one completely wrong. During the beginning of the DotCom boom there were a lot of online communities that were petering out. Things like AOL, and eWorld, and several others. Everything was becoming a fad and would have very brief but bright times in the spot light and 1000s of suddenly wealthy companies were trying to turn just about any idea into money. Everything was trying to move online including some people who tried to live their entire lives online (remember that?). So it was another time to be dubious of things even during that wildly optimistic time where nothing can go wrong (Can It?).

Someone (actually more than one) had come up with this idea of having auctions online. Where people could bid real money in an attempt to buy something they'd never seen before. Now if you've been to a real auction, you know there is a time before the auction where you can inspect what you're going to be bidding on. I bought my now vintage guitar at auction and I had a chance to play it before bidding on it. The idea of having auctions without an inspection period was completely nuts. Who on earth would do that? Really now. Come on. Oops. Yeah well I've bought many things on eBay since then - good thing I didn't go very public with that opinion.

If I was asked to guess how long people would put up with the chore of texting I'd get that wrong too.

So now we have Facebook, My Space, Twitter and a ton of other social networking sites. I don't see My Space lasting forever as Facebook does such a better job of it. Facebook is an obvious juggernaut and while I delayed getting involved in it for a long time, the phenomina of having people from 10, 20, 30 years ago plus some folks I didn't even know existed (an unknown cousin in my case) is most definitely a jaw dropping one.

But what's going to happen to the short attention span specialist Twitter? Facebook has a Twitter like function where you can say what you're doing right now, but Twitter is more set up for having your own page of updates without overwhelming your friends' news feeds. I don't know though. They really need to find a niche and they're certainly trying to. It's great for someone who is really busy and really interesting, and who has a fan base who wants to know what they're doing. Rachel Maddow has one which is great but wouldn't it be great if Obama had one (maybe he does I haven't checked.)

So I don't know what is going to happen to Twitter, but there is one prediction that I'm willing to put in print. Facebook will kill Classmates.com. I've complained quite a bit about the Social Extortion tactics of Classmates (will put a link in for that entry) where they will encourage you to contact someone you went to school with and then won't show them the message until that person pays them money. Apalling extortion. Even dating sites have higher class. In dating sites, the person who wants to send a message pays money, not the recipient. Because of Facebook, I have come into contact with many, many more people than I have with Classmates. Classmates.com will die it's only a matter of time.

A Legal Same-Sex Marriage: California's Version of "Honorary White"

Those of you who either remember or have studied the bad old days of apartheid in South Africa may have heard that a status sometimes awarded to those of a different race traveling to S. Africa was "Honorary White." I had heard of the term in 1982 from a friend who was from there and it made such an impression that I remember the conversation clearly. Now that I'm researching it I find the specific details a a little different according to this 1962 Time Magazine article, as it was used for Japanese who traveled there because, well, money talks - at least then it did.

What relevance does this have now? Well none I wish, but the analogy keeps occurring to me.
According to the Calif Supreme Court, my same-sex marriage is legal. My marriage is one of 18,000, which lands us all in this really strange position. We have been granted admission to a country club that has shut the door on all the other riff raff just like us. The law of the land is that sames-sex marriage is not legal - oh except for you. What does that make me? An honorary heterosexual? You've got to be kidding. While I'll take it as I very much want to be married, that's equally as ludicrous as Honorary White. This will not last and it appears the court is of that opinion too and the court has requested the legislature fix the equal protection fubar that this leaves us in.

So we will vote on this in 2010 and possibly again in 2012. The cool thing is that while I'm annoyed at how much money this past election and the future ones will cost me in donations, I did not spend my life savings on it like some completely short sighted Yes on 8 morons let their church talk them into. If they spent their life savings on this past election, then they don't have it for this one or the next one and it also means they are completely illiterate when it comes to reading the writing on the wall. They're still stuck on "But we voted on it. Aren't we done?" (As if you can vote on someone's civil rights.) Um, remember prohibition? That was a US constitutional amendment and so was the undoing of it. The California constitution is much easier to amend (look it up).

And it means they're not noticing that children don't care nearly as much as they do about who marries who, save for maybe their children that they've succeeded in brainwashing.

So we continue to live in interesting times.

Rattlesnake Canyon

This week's Car Talk Puzzler is about Rattlesnake Canyon in Santa Barbara a place that I've hiked in many times, while I was thrilled to hear about it, I find the timing ironic as parts of the area just burned in the Jesusita Fire in early May. (Yes, like 3 weeks ago.)

http://www.keyt.com/news/local/44397807.html

http://www.independent.com/news/2009/may/12/jesusita-fire-nears-containment-new-phase-begins/

The puzzler is why is the water level higher in August than in the beginning of summer even though the rainy season doesn't start till Nov or so. I could swear there's a hot spring on the trail and was sure that it had something to do with that (the summer heat maybe bringing the water out more), but I can't find a reference to a hot spring, just a description of the pool that people would play in created by a very old filled in dam (this part i remember well). There are also a lot of very cool small falls on the trail. The water is clearly from a spring, so it's possible that the fact it's from a spring has something to do with it. Though I can't figure it out as the spring on Shasta stops running late in summer so it's probably not from a normal spring which brings me back to there must be a hot spring in there somewhere. My memory of the area just isn't clear enough - guess I spent too much time playing around the water (it was a great obstacle course) and didn't soak in the water much. There are worse fates.

Anyway I'm sad about the area burning. I know it's intended to burn, but that doesn't make it any easier.

Shasta Prep

I have a mountain of food in the living room and I'm just not really up to organizing it, so I've asked for Patricia's help. I'm getting less and less thrilled with playing house in the mountains. I like to climb things, but the mechanics of going on a trip into the mountains I am not fond of. If I could keep up with groups, I could just always go on group trips. Problem is that I like to do my own trips and itineraries as I'm pretty good at route finding. Maybe I should just hire someone to help me prep for a trip (menu creation and organizing). I don't know who does that, but someone must. There are plenty of underemployed guides who cook. While I'm dreaming I could just have my own sherpa and a cook too.

It's likely going to be wet and rainy at Shasta. I don't know whether I'm disappointed about that or relieved. given that my goal is just to get above Helen Lake (hopefully up to the Red Banks), that should be completely doable in the wet, but if the temperature doesn't drop enough at night to refreeze the snow, it would mean being in soft snow the whole time and that just won't work and I would not be inclined to leave at midnight which is what it would take for me to get that far as I climb slower than average. Mountaineers leave at night because frozen snow is much easier to climb (using crampons), and mountain weather in the afternoon is unstable so it's best to head down at noon. I can climb to Helen in the dark as I've done that part of the trip more than twice. I've been as far as 50-50 Flat (which is not flat just not as steep) around 4 times, as far as Spring Hill more than 6 as I can reach it during a day trip from the Bunny Flat trailhead. So the lower part of the route I know well - well enough to know that the trail to Horse Camp is actually harder than just staying in Avalanche Gulch proper and then traversing left at the treeline.

However past Helen is where things get really steep and really tough (though no crevasses fortunately). The slope on the part of the route just below the Red Banks is over 30 degrees. It's that part that I want to try just to see how it is. Fortunately I have good ice axe skills (I'm a glissading queen) and am good at self arresting (using an ice ax to stop yourself when you fall on a snow slope), however a 30 degree slope is usually not where you want to test your skills as simply hanging on to the ice ax in that scenario is really hard and if the snow is firm you may not be able to get the pick into the snow and you may find yourself taking a fast trip back down to Helen. This happens to a Shasta climber one or twice a year though deaths aren't common fortunately (there's a dangling modifier in there but it's too awkward to fix - I'll assume you understand that it's not just one Shasta climber that this happens to.)

For the most part we're going to be hanging out at the Sierra Club's beautiful "Horse" Camp. There are no longer any horses there, in fact you can't even have dogs there, though you can outside of the Sierra Club property. In fact you can take your dog as far as Helen. Which dog would be a fun question as Yoshi is in better shape and there are hardly any dogs there but he's such a nervous boy. Trek is more resilient about the outdoors, in the snow there would be no poop to find and eat or roll in, and she'd love the quiet though she's currently not in as good of shape but we're working on that. I'm supposed to be writing about a snow trip and I'm again writing about my dogs - what does this mean?

Star Trek: Sylar as Spock

Google tells me that I'm about a year and a half behind on this, but I like the fact that I didn't know this going into the film as then I got to experience the unsettling realization firsthand.

Sylar, the serial killer in Heros season 1 (played by Zachary Quinto) is now Spock in the new Star Trek film. Ok, Sylar isn't there but those Quinto eyes have an intensity that both Sylar and Spock share, and underscore the uncomfortable fact that the characters are two sides of the proverbial coin. An ambiguity that the always brilliant J. J. Abrams seems to thrive in.

According to this article
http://www.tvguide.com/news/Heroes-Baddie-Logical-13093.aspx
Heros creator Tim Kring thought it was cool too. It is a fun circularity as Sulu shows up in Heros.

Check Fraud

I've been waiting to post about this until I had some resolution, and now I do.

In early April, I received an email from the bank saying that they'd transferred money to cover an overdraft. I knew there was enough money in the account so I immediately checked and saw two charges totaling $800 to two different Walmarts. I never go to Walmart so I called the bank and we went through the process of filing a report which involved answering a series of questions that basically said I had nothing to do with the charges and I was not involved in some elaborate, impressive sounding theft conspiracy involving buying things and then walking away with the merchandice while claiming fraud (people do this? yeesh.)

That all completed I had two incident numbers and a promise of 10 days to resolve it.
(though it all worked out in the end.) Since they weren't sure if it was just a mistake or actual fraud, they suggested leaving the account as it is for now while they check. To cover some real checks I had coming in I transferred money to cover it. That was a mistake

The next day I checked the account and the balance looked similar except there was a minus sign in front of it. Hmmm. Checking further showed that evil check kiter had written 1300+ to Nordstrom Rack on two different visits. I didn't even know it was possible to spend that much at Nordstrom Rack. The reason the account balance looked similar was a coincidence. They had sent it into the red to nearly the same amount it was in the black yesterday. $#@%@#!!! I could see the check images and they were completely different, but had my name and address on them and my account number. I had the actual blank checks of the check numbers they had chosen. Peeved I called the bank again and this time they said I should freeze the account and go to the branch and open a new account. I told them all the checks that were outstanding. They told me that electronic access would still work but only those checks would go through.

So I went and opened a new account, and told the 5 parties who had the checks. All but the Forest Service said they'd destroy them and I wrote them new ones - the Forest Service had already been sent off and later cleared.

Wells Fargo sent me an affadaviat to fill out. I did and on form they asked my who I thought might be responsible. They're actually asking me to speculate? Wahoo, because I sure had a very good idea who it might be. You see I usually only write checks to friends and dog agility orgs. I have a long history with all these folks and I trust them. The only unknowns were the out of town Forest Service, and a relatively large local Dr's office who I had never been to before. Given that our steroidal shopper was very local and the Forest Service is in Bishop, I had a nice big target to point to and I did so and said why.

Also in my report, just to make things plainly obvious, I included printouts of the cashed checks and my completely different looking blank checks with the exact same number.

To be continued...

Self Sabotage

I keep having to remind myself how much I dislike hiking by myself. I forget. I start thinking about how fun it will be to climb something and someone else isn't around who wants to go, and when I go and do it I find myself pretty much instantly now saying "I hate this" It's the weirdest thing - a complete cognitive disconnect. I wonder if this is what childbirth is like? No, this isn't even close, but the crave/hate phenomena seems to come up in a lot of ways. Addiction comes to mind but I don't have an overpowering urge to hike, I just like to explore, but don't like to feel like I *have* to do it alone.

One issue is that after snow, dirt just isn't any fun at all. Climbing snow is much more work, but snow is much more fun. It's prettier, and it often doesn't hurt when you fall on it. (Though granted it can be cold, and it can be hazardous in different ways than dirt and rock.) My last snowshoeing day trip I was fine, my last time on dirt at Mt Diablo (Eagle Peak) I was miserable even though everything went well.

I'm also setting myself up to fail on Shasta and I'm not sure what's going on. I'm not getting enough time to train and am unwilling to make more time. I even paid a trainer to design a perfect strength workout for me, but the best I can do is once a week instead of twice. At least I am exercising in some fashion pretty much every day, but it's not likely to be enough. My goal at Shasta is pretty modest. Get further than Lake Helen as that's the furthest I've been so far. This is totally within my grasp as I've been up to Helen at least twice and could have gone further, but wanted to glissade. Now that I've spent a couple of winters skiing I can probably resist the perfect glissade and continue on.

But I'm having a major attitude struggle and after this climbing season I really do need to take a break from it. (It really is time to get that road bike and deal with my hip injury). Though I fear pausing climbing as I will be 50 in a few years and while people climb well into their 70s, it's harder, and I fear my MS symptoms coming back and interfering with things like walking. Of course, this worry and stress doesn't help preventing my MS symptoms. They say that MS really isn't stress related (an old disproven theory was that MS was stress related), but the more stressed I am the worse my symptoms are. Within 3 hours of learning that my beloved dog Cali had a spleen full of tumors and had to have it removed right then, I went half blind in one eye. This wasn't psychosomatic, a later MRI showed damage to the optic nerve. Fortunately, I recovered from that, but the lesson for me is pretty clear. Beat up on yourself at your peril. Of course, then I start beating up on myself for beating up on myself. I'm so good at this. Sigh.

Beware of Trial by Media

The distressing case of the murder of Tracy girl Sandra Cantu, is getting more distressing by all the media coverage, speculation, and the invitations by Kron 4 and others for people to share their views. I'm obviously a huge free speech advocate, but I also believe in our judicial process. The more we stir up a lynch mob, the less and less chance that her accused killer (look it up if you must) is going to get a fair trial anywhere outside of a mountaintop monastery in Tibet.

We all have a right to our opinion, but we do not have the right to try and convict her accused killer especially even before the wheels of justice have even started to turn. Take a breath, slow down and let those in charge do their jobs. Rushing to judgment is not going to bring Sandra Cantu back, nor is her killer any less guilty, and if it turns out the wrong person has been arrested then the real killer might get away with it.

Maybe we have been watching too many cop shows and want it all tied up within the hour.

Perhaps Not the Safest Place to Be on the High Seas

So just to stay semi-current on geo-political events I looked up where Somalia's location is. They are the eastern-most tip of Africa located on the Gulf of Aden right near where the Suez Canal lets out, which is seriously prime real estate if you're in the business of commandeering loaded merchant ships.

And who is on the other side of this not so quiet body of water? The nice calm (not), and nearly completely lawless country of Yemen. Yikes - Can you say shooting gallery? Trouble is, if you need to go from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean then the Suez Canal is just about the only practical way to go which makes the whole adventure a not so welcome crap shoot.

This newscast says that a 10th of the world's cargo travels through there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjAhAJVSgLM

What's really surprising to me is the size of the ships especially the ones described here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSp9OGK69oA

I was thinking that the best defense is not to stop and some have out run them, but some how they are able to catch the ships. And now the pirates have rocket launchers. Eek.

Dealing with Fraudulent Charges - Getting Worse

(this is Part 2 - Part 1 is below)

The day I discovered the Wal Mart charges. I checked pretty much everything financial having to do with me. I looked at all my bank accounts, and pulled all of my credit reports. Everything looked fine so it appears that the problem is isolated to a stolen checking account number.

That same day because I wanted to cover some outstanding checks and I didn't want my friends to have to deal with returned checks (my fees will be refunded but I can't say the same thing about there's), I transferred $ to cover those checks. Today I took a look and the number looked similar but there was a minus sign in front of it. Uh oh, that'll teach me to put more money in a questionable account. Looking at the account detail reveals that two more checks have come in and these are actual checks:

[I will put the images here once I edit them]

Looking at them shows the person didn't even try to match my signature and a coworker tells me that what the store is looking for is a match to a drivers license signature. That implies that they have a driver's license with my name on it which is a little scary and makes me wonder if I should get a new one - however they're using a different number so that won't help. And I just love the high end places they're going. $800 and $400 at Nordstrom Rack? How the heck do you spend $1200 at Nordstrom Rack? What kind of clothes horse are we dealling with here? A not very bright one or a desperate one as the checks are stamped with the time, date, and cash register number and these places have cameras. Maybe she (let's be sexist and assume she - there's a large home depot just down the street from that store) is wearing a large hat or something. And she is able to print off new checks (I really wish that wasn't possible), and get a hold of a fake driver's license.

So the recommendation now is to close and freeze the account, and open a new one. I've done that, but now I'm in a 2 week poor house holding pattern while I wait for them to return the $2000+ to me. I do have some money in the house account that I can use and there's Bank of Terri and my work has graciously offered to help out if I need it.

So the question is how did this happen and what can I do to avoid it in the future. It's clear that I need to use cash and avoid checks for lower amounts to buisinesses I don't know which is a royal pain, I hate cash more as it disappears so easily, so I'm going to have to treat cash like a check and write it down in the register. As far as what happened to the check, number one suspect is a large dr's office where I'm not a regular customer. Most of my checks are to friends and to well known agility organizations who I trust. I almost always use my debit card for retail situations. Ironically it's the house accout that's more vulnerable since more large checks go through it, but so far it's been ok.

It would be cool to have an account that stipulates the checks have to look a certain way and only that way. I'd put my photo on a check if it would help.

I sent email to those folks that had outstanding checks, saying that while I had told the bank about their checks that it would probably be better if they destroyed that check and I could write them new one.

So I wait.... (tick tick tick)

Dealing with Fraudulent Charges - the Start of the Story

(Good grief, this is the 301st entry of this blog - how'd that happen?)

I logged in this morning to find an overdraft alert email from my bank. First concern is - is it a legit email, but the language looked correct and more importantly they quote the correct last 3-4 digits of the account number.

I log into the account online (what did we ever do before the internet?), and what do I find? Two different charges from Wal Mart (where I never shop fortunately) totaling over $800. Yikes, to the phone I go to call my bank (after grabbing the checkbook so I have the account number).

The person helping said that these were ACH "checks" which is a paper check converted to an electronic check. She also pointed out that the check number of the original check is listed there. The number was just a little ahead of my current check number, and she asked if I had that check number with me. Fortunately I did and assured her I was looking at my own version of that check number.

She explained to me that they were going to investigate to see whether or not it was a simple mistake (like a digit transposition), or actual fraud. I had to answer some formal questions and got an incident number. Because there were two charges we had to do it twice and I noticed that the second number was 13 above the first. I asked "you mean that it's possible that 12 other cases were filed in the last 2 minutes?" She assured me that given the call center size that it was more than possible. Yikes.

Because it's not clear if it's fraud or not they weren't suggesting closing the account just yet, so we're leaving it open for now.

The plot thickens in the next entry...

That One Missing Set of Photos

Likes a lot of folks I take a lot of photos, and like for many folks they are a challenge to organize but I had a reasonably working system where I file them by date in drawers that can hold photo envelopes. (Digital photos now actually make this a while lot easier, but I digress.)

And like most everyone else there are always some photos that don't quite make it into the drawer or at least right away. I know this because I come across them from time to time, flip through them, "ha ha look at that," and often as not, instead of filing them, just put them back down right where they were. This can go on for years.

Then some knucklehead invented Facebook, and friends from 28 years ago are now gathering and trying to figure out who is in what photo. A set of the pick up and set down photos I have are of these folks. Some really funny ones. And guess what? I CAN'T FIND THEM!!! These photos have an audience awaiting - how often does that happen? They want to see them right now and the moment will lose its relevancy in a few weeks or months. The time for these very silly photos is NOW. #@!#@!$!!! Sigh. It just figures. I've gone through 100s of photos and they're not there. This means that they are sitting around somewhere. Somewhere close like within 20 feet of where the rest of the photos live. I have seen the photos in my house even though the photos are older than the time I've owned my house. They exist as I'm not the type to toss photos. If they could only talk. Well I guess it's just as well they can't.

This calls for major unearthing of long standing stacks of paper which is a small mountain of distractions so staying focused on the original goal is a challenge. I'm fairly organized except for paper which is my downfalling and I struggle with it. I'm shifting over to paperless which helps with the incoming things, but I'm not going backwards on that so I'm just going to have to do it. In my spare time of course.

Later...
I did find the photos. In a photo album. The rest are still missing, but the best ones are of course in the album and I've scanned them and posted them to Facebook much to my friends' delight and horror.

Sorting out the "G"s

Pretty much ever time you hear the news you hear something about G-some-number. I finally couldn't take it anymore as they were all running together in my head, so I had to at least try to parse it out some.

G stands for "Group" - they really need to think of something more original.

There are
G7 (formerly G6)
G8
G20

The G7 ("Group of 7" Yes, really.) are the finance ministers of seven industrialized nations:
France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, United States, and now Canada

The G8 (you can just guess what that stand for) also includes Russia and particularly focuses on the Northern Hemisphere and is a more general "heads of state" and has several subgroupings.

With the G20 we're back to finance ministers and government banker types of these governments:

• Argentina
• Australia
• Brazil
• Canada
• China
• France
• Germany
• India
• Indonesia
• Italy
• Japan
• Mexico
• Russia
• Saudi Arabia
• South Africa
• South Korea
• Turkey
• United Kingdom
• United States
• European Union

The current G20 meeting is in London and the UK is also suffering a major recession which is why they're getting some very angry protesters.

Ref:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102592516

Meal Creation by Wandering the Supermarket Aisles

First of all, full disclosure, I cook for fun. I do not have to do the amazing feat of feeding people on a day in day out basis. In fact, I'm not sure I could or if I did I would have no energy for anything remotely creative wrt cooking. Terri and I both cook and we don't have human children.

Just for fun today I was standing in the grocery store and was pondering lunch and my imagination got carried away and found myself dreaming up something that was a dinner not a lunch (for lunch I think I just had something simple like take out chicken wings and a salad.

So first I picked up some salad stuff and grabbed an onion and a head of garlic, then wandered past the meats but was still in lunch mode and thought that was too much trouble, but then I took a right into the canned/packaged fish/chicken and a small package of Wild Caught Salmon called out to me.While holding it I imagined onions, garlic, tomatoes, and capers all simmering with the salmon over a nice pasta.

The trick is remembering what you did. I'm not sure I have it all yet.

Salmon, Tomatoes and Klamata Olives over Pasta

olive oil
1/2 small white onion chopped (could have used more)
2 cloves garlic smashed and chopped (could have used more)
1 3 oz pkg Chicken of the Sea Wild Caught Smoked Salmon
1 16 oz can diced tomatoes
some water (approx 4 oz)
salt
pepper
pinch of coriander powder
some dried basil (1 tsp?)
some dried oregano (1/2 tsp?)
5-6 klamata olives pitted and chopped - pit them like you smash the garlic - press down with the side of a knife the olive will separate from the pit.
red wine vinegar - I have no idea the amount, try 5 seconds of sounding like the Muppet Swedish Chef while shaking the bottle over the pan

What I wished I had
Italian Parsley
capers - forgot to buy them

and of course pasta - I used thin spaghetti but penne or bow tie would be nice

saute onion and garlic in olive oil till soft and delicious smelling, add salmon and let it heat through for a minute or so (it's already cooked). [Right around here put the pasta water on to boil] Add tomatoes and water (optional) bring to boil then as sauce reduces, add salt pepper, coriander powder, basil, oregano (and whatever herbs strike your fancy) reduce heat, [you should have the pasta in the water by now] let cook till sauce is further reduced and then add olives and sprinkle liberally with red wine vinegar, let cook for another few (I dunno 3-5?) minutes until it looks and tastes right.

Optional: Serve with salad and a baguette.

Ref: http://frap.org/Cooking/

Interest Rate Free Fall

I have a semi high interest savings account that I pay house expenses out of.

This is from a reputable bank fortunately, but the interest rates have recently been readjusting at a startling rate: Here it is from late 2007 on:

Nov 1, 2007 Interest Rate Change to 4.121% (4.20% APY)
Dec 13, 2007 Interest Rate Change to 4.025% (4.10% APY)
Jan 23, 2008 Interest Rate Change to 3.590% (3.65% APY)
Feb 1, 2008 Interest Rate Change to 3.348% (3.40% APY)
Mar 11, 2008 Interest Rate Change to 3.057% (3.10% APY)
Mar 19, 2008 Interest Rate Change to 2.960% (3.00% APY)
Oct 9, 2008 Interest Rate Change to 2.716% (2.75% APY)
Dec 30, 2008 Interest Rate Change to 2.472% (2.50% APY)
Jan 20, 2009 Interest Rate Change to 2.374% (2.40% APY)
Feb 3, 2009 Interest Rate Change to 2.178% (2.20% APY)
Mar 3, 2009 Interest Rate Change to 1.638% (1.65% APY)
Mar 21, 2009 Interest Rate Change to 1.490% (1.50% APY)

In 2007 it hardly changed at all, then went through a spate of changes in 2008, then it stabilized and now in 2009 it's jumped off the building. Wow. A friend jokes that soon we'll be paying them. i just saw Hero's for the first time (the first DVD). Maybe the interest rates will suddenly figure out how to fly just before hitting the ground.

Gimo Investigations - And So It Begins

Well we can't say we weren't warned. In this post:

http://www.frap.org/Blog/2009/01/bye-bye-gitmo-investions-next.html

I did a summary/rehash of the information contained in a Phillipe Sands interview on Fresh Air mostly just so I would have the names of the major players we were likely to see again within easy reach, and sure enough what he said is prophetic. The Spanish are considering opening an inquiry into Gitmo and funny if a lot of the same names crop up again:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/03/28/international/i150618D86.DTL&tsp=1

And funny how we're hearing all the players protest their innocence even though we all knew the potential for this to happen was all too real.

This may get nowhere, but it is amusing to watch even this much transpire.

Roche vs Genetech - An Agreement is Reached

I got my latest black plastic encased mail from Sharebuilder. I've started looking forward to them. This one tells me that they actually have reached an agreement. The letter is from Genetech and not Roche and the offer is for $95/share and they recommend I take it. Given that the current value is around $81 that's probably a good idea.

So the Genetech board suggests "tendering" the shares. And what happens if I don't? Pretty much the exact same thing if I did though I would be "paid" later.

Ok fine, I'll tender my glorious 1.5 shares. But just trying to follow instructions is proving to be a challenge as the site isn't responding.

I enter the site and enter my control number and it says that the site isn't working please try again later (I've tried at 2 different times). Oh and when does this offer expire? In 3 days. Thanks guys for yanking me around. You ask me to do something, say it's urgent, and then things don't work. I do believe the proper response is sod off.







I will try one more time on Monday then will just let them do whatever they are going to do. I did send Sharebuilder email about it though have not heard back

A Jacket to Help You Feel the Movies? I'm not so sure about that

I'm a member of IEEE an engineering professional association mostly so I can qualify for their life insurance (which for me is mortgage insurance). I normally don't pay too much attention to their newsletter, but once in a while I take a look as it's often quite fascinating to see what people are working on.

This time one of the articles talks about a jacket you can wear that helps you experience the emotions that a character might be experiencing: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/mar09/8287

While it sounds intriguing, I thought it through, and started to shudder.
You see I have much too good of an imagination. Visual images (especially violent ones) stick with me for a very long time especially if there is some emotional impact associated with it. I actually had to learn to get more, not less, emotional distance from what I was watching just so I could watch things like CSI, and enjoy the eye-candy of certain NCIS characters (of both genders) without freaking out about the open chest on the table. I watched Blair Witch Project on a beautiful Sunday afternoon and I would take the time to stop and look out the window and say to myself "What a nice DAY it is. Such a beautiful, peaceful DAY" (and breathe :) Can you imagine something designed to help you experience the same stress level of the BWP characters? Heebe-jeebe-jeebe.

AIG: Finally a Consensus

After all these years, it was starting to look the Left and the Right were were never going to agree on anything ever again. Then AIG had to come along and try to pull off probably the most openly egregious and audacious (and shockingly oblivious) abuse of government funding ever attempted, and suddenly we have unity. Nothing like a good public flogging to bring people together. Fortunately, AIG isn't even a scapegoat, they completely deserve it. I can hear the fires being lit right now that certain executive feet will be held to. I wonder if a lot of AIG execs (and ex-execs) have fled the country.

Songs for Riding a Bike to Nowhere

I've been taking RPM/Spin classes at my gym for over a year now and am pretty used to what makes good music for it and have been working on my own sets for when I can't make it to class but want to go in and use the Spin Bike on my own.

RPM classes feature a lot of cadence changes, but lack in maintaining a pace for an extended period of time, so I tend to do that more when working on my own.

Here's my current list:

Songs for Spinning

• Sheryl Crowe - Everyday is a Winding Road
• K T Tunstall - Suddenly I See
• Sneakerpimps - Walking on the Sun
• Offspring - Come Out and Play

Stand in the pedals for the choruses of all 4, the songs build in intensity - do the same.

• Oingo Boingo - Weird Science

Now to crank the heartbeat- do 1/3 of the song anaerobically, standing in the pedals, the song seems slow but is excellent at getting you to work harder.

• Oingo Boingo - Dead Men's Party

Mixed terrain recovery - lots of ups and down, just like Oingo Boingo. I've also used "No One Lives Forever" but got tired of hearing about my doggy getting old in 10 years so swapped it out.

• Prince - Take Me with You

Recovery - cruise like the song does, or since it's a short song, double your pace and stay at 110-120 rpm.

• Sheryl Crowe - My Favorite Mistake

Everybody's got one (I have around three :) - sit down, add resistance and grind your way through the metaphor like you know you can.

• Alanis Morrisette - Thank U

Do whatever you need to do to recover from the last one.

Tons of other options
Sheryl Crowe - All I Wanna Do (yes, the silly bar and car wash song)
Garbage - just about anything, but it's really easy to get caught up and completely overdo it.
Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus or Enjoy the Silence
New Order - Blue Monday, or Bizarre Love Triangle, or Perfect Kiss (haven't tried them in a workout yet)
k. d. lang - Constant Craving works nicely as a recovery track or even a drive home track
The Police - Murder by Numbers is a great recovery track
Romeo Void - I Might Like You Better If We Slept Together - actually kinda long and I took it out.
Midnight Oil - Power and the Passion - also long
The The - Uncertain Smile extended mix - one of my all time favorite songs but still quite long
RPM - Losing My Religion

Things I haven't tried yet but might be fun are
The Go Gos
B-52s (same overdoing it caution as with Garbage :)
English Beat
any of the 80's haircut bands
Billy Idol - Dancing with Myself - worked nicely when an instructor played it just for fun

I have an RPM instructor who occasionally tries to kill me with doing intervals to Cheap Trick (I'm blocking out which track :)

Squaw Ski Lesson

Apoligies, but this is a bit dry and techie, but it's what I learned and I don't want to forget it.

I just blew the rest of the season's ski budget on a 2 hour private lesson with an instructor I like at Squaw Valley. "Blew" implies wasted, it wasn't. It was very effective and I'm not likely to forget it though I want to get it all down here as best I can.

My instructor was Greg Rosenthal, and Greg is very good at deconstructing the mechanics of skiing and what makes a ski turn smooth and effective. (Those classic S shaped turns.)

Sadly, it now is completely evident to me that I'm not going to become good enough of a skier this season to feel comfortable on Shasta with its ungroomed slopes and little details like steepness and these things called trees that inhabit the less steep parts. I think for me to feel comfortable off piste, I'm going to have to be able to ski without thinking about the mechanics of turning and that's going to take another season. Right now, there's about a month left in the season and I certainly could spend it skiing, but I'm going to Shasta to climb it in May so my time is probably better spent training to go up the mountain instead of down. :) though it would be so nice to just ski up on skins as that is easier than walking. Ah well, some day.

Back to the ski lesson. First bad, but important, news is that I'm working too hard on my right turns and overusing my left quad instead of shin pressure on the boots to cut the turn too short and slow myself down. I've always struggled on the right turns, but never realized that it was the over-braking that was exhausting my quad (it's been two days and it's still tired). I need to learn to stay in the turn longer and not put so much effort in my quad, but instead use skletal force from my shins to the front of the boot to weight the ski. In other words, bend at the knees, and lean more forward. Like really lean forward. I actually tried falling forward (slightly terrifying - what a trust exercise) and suddenly I had a lot more control because the front part of the ski is widest and the easiest to steer. I tend to lean backwards even after stopping carrying a pack.

Greg taught me another way to learn to shift forward by showing me how to ski backwards. Skiing backwards resembles a silly terrain park trick, but you simply can not do it unless you shift your weight forward and this helps you to learn that positition which is what you need going forward as well. What was fun, that skiing backwards involved overturning all the way around which is something I do by accident all the time when I forget to look down the mountain and turn my hips up the slope. So now I feel I have a touch more things I can do when that happens and I feel a bit less of a dork.

Steps to turning
- stand up (out of any bent position)
- with your weight evenly balanced between the skis, steer your feet, meaning turn your feet in the direction you want to go. Many ski lessons now only empasize putting the weight on the outside ski, but on anything but a green run that's actually not quite enough (In my head, I'm saying "point your feet" - in the direction where you want to go). The skis will turn and start to head down the hill (eek - don't panic)
- now just before it starts down the hill, weight the outside ski and bend your knees applying forward pressure from your shins to the front of the outside boot (make sure your weight is forward). By bending your knees you can put more than body weight pressure on the ski.
- hang in there and let the ski turn (this is where trying to fall forward really helps). If your inside ski's inside edge seems stuck, roll your inside knee out some which should let the ski slide over.
- if you feel you're going too fast turn up the hill .

You can see how well you're going by examining your tracks. Mine generally look like backwards number 2's :) which shows me cutting my right turn too short.

Other Notes
You can learn a lot by watching others while you're hanging out on the ski lift. It's disheartening to see how poorly people ski when you're looking at an intermediate run. One day, I should take a video camera and film the expert runs. The trouble is that the expert skiiers are not always easy to see or get to, unlike us amatuers who are everywhere. :)

Also I had just bought a really nice North Face Ski Jacket from REI (on sale - $120.00 off!) and was really glad I did, because at Squaw, I was being pelted by blowing snow while sitting on a chair lift at 8000'. Which was pretty funny since it was a gorgeous snowless day.

Anyway I got to spend the afternoon practicing what I'd learned so it could set into my muscles, but have decided to say good by to the rest of the ski season and spend the rest of winter snowshoeing and training with a pack. Thank you to the weather gods for providing us snow to have fun on and to give us water for the rest of the year. More snow is very much welcome as we really need it here in California.

Humor: The Prejudices of Healthy People

This was meant to be a silly thing that a friend (not in my dog circles) sent me. However it belies some assumptions that I can't stop thinking about. First of all here is the platitude. The punch line is at the end:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How Enlightened Are You? A Test:

If you can live without caffeine or nicotine;
If you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains;
If you can resist complaining;
If you can understand when loved ones are too busy to give you any time;
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment;
If you can ignore friends' limited educations and never correct them;
If you can treat the rich and poor alike;
If you can face the world without lies or deceit;
If you can conquer tension without medical help;
If you can relax without liquor;
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs;
If you can have no prejudice against creed, color, religion, gender, sexual preference, or politics

— then you have almost reached the same level of spiritual development as your dog.

ANONYMOUS
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cute. However it reveals some really interesting prejudices of some who consider themselves striving to enlightenment. The key is what does spirtitual enlightenment have to do with your level of health. Ok, some Kudalini Yoga people would say everything, but personally I see them as separate which is totally non-holistic of me but I think a great stride towards sanity and less self-judgement, because honestly what does caffiene have to do with spiritual development. Really??

Despite my MS, I am one of those healthy people. I try not to be an annoying healthy person. I do not scold or cajole or convince anyone (well besides Terri, who needs no such convincing), unless they ask me to about diet or exercise or other healthy habits. I am not in the health gestapo and I think that people should make there own choices. Not to mention our idea of what is healthy changes as our knowledge changes. Some alcohol is actually good for you, same with caffiene, and there are a ton of people who need some sort of herbal or medicinal help sleeping. That does not make them inheritly less spiritual and I think it's completely arrogant of those in the no caffiene, no alcohol, no fun crowd (I'm in that crowd I get to say that - not by choice, more by what my body prefers) to claim that they are somehow more spiritually evolved. I believe the correct response to that is: Oh eff off.

So for fun, I'll take this test (be a fun one to put on facebook)

If you can live without caffeine or nicotine
Yes. Well except for dark chocolate, if you haven't be paying attention that's actually good for you.

If you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains
What's so wrong with complaining? The point is to whine all you like, but work through it, not suppress you feelings and frustration with the healing process.

If you can resist complaining
See above. Oh and my dogs complain too, unless my nut ball is chasing a sheep or a squirrel.

If you can understand when loved ones are too busy to give you any time
Well ok.

If you can take criticism and blame without resentment
Well ok.

If you can ignore friends' limited educations and never correct them
No, I correct them. Politely.

If you can treat the rich and poor alike
No, I give the rich a much harder time.

If you can face the world without lies or deceit
Wow, you tell the complete truth the whole time?
Remind me not to trust you with sensitive information.

If you can conquer tension without medical help
Just because I can does not make me more enlightened.

If you can relax without liquor
You really aren't any fun are you?

If you can sleep without the aid of drugs
Yes, but piss off.

If you can have no prejudice against creed, color, religion, gender, sexual preference, or politics
Oh I sure do when it comes to Right Wing Assholes, and I don't feel that's something I have to rise above.

So I guess this means that my dogs are more enlightened than me. Guess I should tell them. I'm sure they'll say they already knew that.

The Data Backup Dilemma

I have my new Terrabyte disk and I'm thrilled but now I'm left with - how do I back it up? I guess I can take the approach that we use at work. We use multiple USB disks of the same size. This works great but I don't have those kind of resources.

I take a lot of photos and video. Video data storage is quite large, and I'm likely going to do more, not less.

What I envision is a digital library of easy to access photos and videos, and I want to have it all online but backed up as well. When I started to run out of disk space I copied all of my older electronic photos to CD and took them off the drive. This drives me nuts having to go grab the CD (though it's nice to see that the CD works fine.

This is a common topic and the British Museum is struggling with it:

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2007/10/16/227474/strategies-for-long-term-data-retention.htm

But even us ordinary humans are trying to cope. This is an excellent article written in 2006, about Mark who is a videographer, and wants to keep his videos past the time he dies. It's interesting to read both his thoughts and the 100 comments as well.

http://diveintomark.org/archives/2006/05/08/backup

Though I can't believe some people still like tape. I hate tape. I hate that it's slow. I hate that it's not reliable. I had to deal with it for over 10 years and I'm so happy that we've moved to disks.

Someone mentioned Blue Ray DVDs that hold 25 Gig (single layer) or 50 Gig (dual layer), and a 100 G in the works. That would be perfect.

More info: http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/
and http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2005/08/68539

And a Sony bright, shiny object
http://gizmodo.com/5054187/sonys-bwu+300s-blu+ray-recorder-burns-50gb-in-30-minutes

More speculation is here:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10065439-1.html

As usual, no mention of Mac compatibility, but it will happen.

Staying tuned. In the meantime, I'll keep my 300 Gig disk around to help with backups.

More Mailbox Drama: Genetech Fights Roche's Buyout Offer

In a completely unsurprising move. Genetech just sent me a letter (to all stockholders - of which I have a glorious 1.5 shares of)

WE URGE YOU NOT TO ACCEPT ROCHE'S OFFER--WE BELIEVE IT SUBSTANTIALLY UNDERVALUES YOUR INVESTMENT

I could have told you that. Oh wait, I did. But it's nice to see they agree.

Genetech continues:

We consistently indicated our willingness to consider an offer from Roche that reflects the full and fair value of Genetech and the significant benefits to Roche of full ownership. It is ironic that even after our many efforts to engage in constructive dialog, Roche not only refused to increase its initial offer [of $89/share], and refused to engage in productive negotiations with the Special Committee--it reduced [italics mine] its offer price to $86.50 per share.

How stupid does Roche think we are? Jerks.

Scary Lily

We have a Lily that we got as a wedding present that has died back this winter. I think that's normal, but because it was a gift I've been keeping an eye on it. Now that it's Spring it's growing back and the rate that it's growing is a little disconcerting. About 1 cm every 24 hours. These photos are taken a day apart. I'll continue to be nice to it as I don't want it mad at me :)

Prop 8 Showdown this week

(I know I've blogged about this before, but wanted to say it again.)

The Supreme Court Prop 8 Showdown is this week on Thur March 5th and the nation will be watching. It's been so strange for me. Getting married is such a personal decision, and even though I knew I was signing up to be a political football, I still wasn't quite prepared for everyone to have an opinion about it. Fortunately, there's overwhelming legislative support to overturn Prop 8. I can only hope I get to remain married in the state's eyes. I know I will always be married, but I really do want for it to stay that way legally as well.

The court will have 90 days to issue a decision after the hearing, but you know they've already made up their minds so I think it will be more the time it takes to write up the decision.

Remembering Peter Decker

This is not about the famous fictional detective, but instead about a childhood friend. Peter Decker is pictured in the photo, he is standing on the right and his friend Scott is on the left.

It's been raining for a couple of weeks in California and usually at least once during the rains I am reminded of Peter who we lost during a rainy season.

It was 1976 or '77. I had just started high school and Peter, a year younger, was still in junior high. That year the rains were heavy and relentless. Our horses were in knee deep mud and the bottom part of our orchard was a river a couple feet deep. This was Southern California and NOT normal.

At one point during that time, I was in a car driving past the nearby country club golf course - part of which you can see from the street (Yorba Linda Blvd). A very impressive impromptu river was flowing down the middle of it. While being duly amazed, , I didn't think much more abut it. Peter and our mutual friend Scott, took one look at that and thought what many young boys thought. Rafting!

But there is a common tenant in river running: Know the route - usually by visually inspecting it from the shore. This, of course, didn't occur to the boys. All they saw was a good time, and who could blame them?

The boys fashioned a raft or rafts out of something (I'm not sure what), and started down. As with most flowing water, it was going much faster than they expected. At the end of this section of the golf course (around Kellogg Dr. you can see a sat photo here.) the river of water hurtled into a drain pipe. Scott bailed off, but Peter was sucked into the drain pipe. At this point, this would have been a traumatic, but survivable event. What turned it into tragedy was that for reasons I have never understood, there was a metal grate at the end of that pipe (and only one end), and Peter drowned.

These days such a scenario has wrongful death written all over it but being a grieving kid, I don't know what happened in that regard if anything.

Peter was like any Junior High School boy, A perfect tormentor of girls near his age. Our friendship was just as typically combative. He would relentlessly tease me and I'd beg for him to stop or go away. That year we were in different schools so I hadn't seen much of him, but just a few days before he died chance had it that our buses let out at the same time and we walked home together. This was not a happy experience for me. We lived on country blocks and I just double checked the distance with Google. 1000' of Peter torment (more that 3 football fields). What's amazing is that I have absolutely no recollection of what he said, but rest assured it was content-free - things like mangling my name, or making up ridiculous scenarios and asking questions about them mostly having to do with if it's something I would do/contemplate. The usual crap.

But then we'd reached my house (his was 3 houses further), and he suddenly dropped his barrage. Asked me a normal question about my day and we actually had a brief, but genuine conversation which was highly unusual. And we parted on civil terms. Even said polite goodbyes to each other which at the time I found to be a pleasant surprise. A few days later he was dead, and I'm left to wig out about it for every rainy season for the rest of my life.

I Can Finally Ski Decently

After struggling for two seasons, I can finally ski decently (albeit relatively slowly). Parallel turns, weight on the outside ski, don't freak out about the speed (mostly), and even pole plants. This is on moderate blues like Trailblazer at Sugarbowl. Harder blues (like the ones on Mt. Disney) I'm quite bad at and am not even thinking about blacks. The major breakthrough was ponying up for better, more responsive skis. When I ask my current skis to turn they say "Right Away" My older ones though parabolic, were more "Let me get back to you, well, ok." Perfect on greens, but tough on steeper slopes. I am a little concerned that my Tele skis are also this type of ski, but I think I'll wait on worrying about that.

My left leg fatigue is still there but improving. I don't know if it's because my skiing skill is better and hence less wasted effort, or my legs are getting used to skiing, or because of the heavier weight training - (I'm lifting way more than I ever thought I could because of a mountaineering trainer's encouragement) or a combination.

Noticed a tele lesson going on and went over to say hi. It was actually an Alpine Skills International group which are the exact tele lessons I'm thinking of taking. I'd been waiting to take their class till I was a better skiier, but I think I'm as good a skiier as his students. His name was Jeff.

I'm just so happy that I've come so far from falling off of chairlifts when trying to exit. Today I steered around two different spills at chairlift exits and I avoided crashing into a snow boarder who wiped out right in front of me. He was very apologetic and I told him it was ok as I got to work on stopping. His instructor was amused.

Coming Out: I was Once an ASH'er

Warning this is not a cheery topic though I have 10 years of distance on it. Those who have come to know me (after that time period) will likely not believe this. It sounds like a different person. And that's exactly what major depression is like.

A decade ago, I was desperately depressed and suicidal (mostly inwardly, but some very subtle outward). I needed a place to talk about the hell I was going through. To talk bluntly about it. Very bluntly. No encouraging words. "No hang in there" crap. Just needed to tell an understanding group of people that I seriously wanted the hell out of life, because depression makes life so physically and emotionally painful that all you want is out.

ASH was that place. ASH is a USENET newsgroup that stands for alt.suicide.holiday. It no longer exists today but now is just mostly a spam trap. I haven't worked up the nerve to post what name I used there. Nor am I sure how relevant is it to this particular post.

ASH was not a support group, and yet it very much was. Just by being a place people could go and talk about what they were feeling with out someone trying to talk them out of it is (to make a really bad word choice) refreshing. It was an emotionally risky place (I created a post like that on ASH which someday I might post the link to) to be as you come to care about the people there, even though you support their right to end their lives and their suffering if they so choose. Most people survive their stint on ASH (the newer antidepressants save countless lives, but there are 15% of people for whom they don't work for), but the exceptions haunt you.

And I think that is the most important thing. If someone you know even mentions vaguely in passing thoughts of suicide, talk to them about it. Find out how their feeling and try not to cheer them up unless you sense they truly do want that. Depression is a horrible awful place to be and the more you are able to listen the better. If it's too much (it often is), then really encourage them to talk to a therapist. Reassure them that they're not going to get locked up unless the therapist thinks they are an immediate danger to themselves or someone else.

Facebook - I Finally Gave In

I'd been resisting joining Facebook despite multiple invitations. I have so many email accounts that it was hard to muster up the energy for another time sink. But I kept noticing just how many people I knew were on it which made it more intriguing.

But the thing that put it over the top for me was a different thing. I am working on a long blog entry about the drowning death of a childhood friend that rocked my community pretty hard (the rains remind me of him and his story needs to be told to the internet.) I did find references to it. You guessed it - on Facebook. Now most of the information I could get to and not be on Facebook but at that point since I was already there, it was just as easy to join and get full access.

Facebook is bewildering and that's even with help. What's scary is the amount of matching it can do and find people to suggest as friends and it turns out you know these people. Well most of them. There are a couple who sought me out and I don't know why they are. One of them I think I'll send email to and ask, politely, who the heck they are (we have one person in common so they're not a complete stranger.) the other was likely looking for a videographer as that invite happened when I publicized my No on Prop 8 video.

I must say this does bring up old High School anxieties. Even though it doesn't happen to me now (actually it never did - that was more my fear), what if someone were to send out friend requests and nobody responded? You could orchestrate a virtual shunning - something that I bet high schoolers are really good at. Especially since Facebook is really good about saying who took who as a friend. I can just imagine the drama. "You took Person-x as a friend? You are dead to me." Oh the tension. Oh the very real pain for some.

At least it's less tacky and more adult than MySpace and more relevant that Tribe, and I do have my advisors and it's a great way to keep track of agility people though that's not very hard. Just go to an agility trial with in 100 miles (or more). You'll find them. There are agility people who live hours away (even out of state) that I see on a regular basis. Now that's dedication.

Now about this sheep being thrown at me...

Skiing in Warm Snowstorms - Yeeck

So I had what I thought was a great idea. On Sunday, there was going to be a storm coming in at night, but the report said that it was only supposed to be snowing lightly during the day. I wanted to go skiing, but didn't want to have to do what could be an exciting drive on top of it so I instead took the Bay Area Ski Bus (http://bayareaskibus.com). Well there's one leetle thing that I neglected to take into account. How warm it was going to be. Snow falling in warm conditions often turns into rain, but I'm jumping ahead.

First bad sign was that the host came on the PA when we were around Dixon and said it was raining at Sugarbowl (where we were going) and many of the lifts were closed. Two other resorts, Northstar and Sierra at Tahoe were offered where conditions were a little better and the group selected Northstar. Now the bummer of the bus is that there isn't some magic opt-out button. You are stuck with the group decision (I was hoping to still go to Sugarbowl, but was happy to do Northstar as I hadn't seen it in years.) Fortunately the ski bus had Northstar lift tickets for only $40 which was less than what I would pay with my Day Pass at Sugarbowl.

So we get there and it is raining, but we hear that conditions are better higher up. So we all take the gondola up to the "Mid Mountain Lodge" where it is sort of snowing, and the final day of the Dew Tour Snowboarding Super Pipe Competition is going on which is cool

Then I notice what the falling snow is doing. It's melting the second it lands. Snow normally when it lands on you, just easily brushes off. Not this. This really isn't snow. This is rain falling in the form of snow. Just walking around checking the place out, I'm getting wet. I take two baby beginner runs and I'm soaking and I can hardly see - I didn't bring googles, just sunglasses. I retreat into the lodge to dry out and read my book (about mountaineering accidents - yes, really - I do like cautionary tales as I learn from them).

After a while, conditions improve some and the women are going to be doing the final runs, so it seemed like a good time to go up and watch. It sure was. I saw the winning run by 17 (!) year old Austrailian Tora Bright. and I also saw Kelly Clark's high flying second place run (which was also stellar). The atheticism and the eye candy almost made it worth it. :)

I took 2 longer runs before conditions worsened again and I then gave up. The really good skiiers who were able to get higher up on the mountain where getting all snow and were having a magical time which we all were getting drenched which is a reason to get that good.

Then came the long, long drive home. Because we are now on the wrong side of Donner Pass chain controls are in effect and Cal Trans has blocked off lanes to check all the vehicles and we were on a smaller highway before even getting to I-80. Just to get going on 80 took 2 1/2 hours which would normally be under 30 minutes. They had brought a bunch of movies, so I got to watch that paeon to paranoia The Game and also some forgettable Office caper film. But it still was just arduous and I was thinking that if I had driven to Sugarbowl I could have left at noon when I realized just how bad it was and spend the day with Terri and go play with the dogs.

So the lesson was twofold
- snow in warm conditions can easily turn into rain or melt-on-contact might-as-well-be-rain
- the Ski Bus can get you there in questionable conditions that you may not want to drive in, but there is no guarentee that you will like it.

And the most important take away for me is that: I'm working on building my ski skills. Less than optimum conditions take away from that focus since that is not what I'm working on. I really need to stick with good weather conditions to get the most out of my ski time.

Help! There's a Hostile Takeover in My Mailbox

I innocently opened up the mail and in it was something from Sharebuilder that looked like it would be an annual report though it's a bit late for that. I was just about to toss it into the ignore for a while pile but something got me to open it.

It's from Roche offering to buy my glorious 1.5 shares (Sharebuilder gets the credit for allowing me to buy partial shares) of Genetech for 86.50 per share. Now given that it's a great time to be buying stock, but a rotten time to be selling it, my "Scooby Sense" (as Rachel Maddow is fond of saying) stated to go off.

Reading further I see:
On July 21, 2008 Roche publicly announced an

unsolicited proposal to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Genentech common stock not owned by them, and proposed a merger at $89/share.

On Aug 13, 2008 a committee of the board of directors of Genentech said sod off. No, that's not what they said. It says they:

rejected that proposal as substantially undervaluing Genentech.

It goes on to say that

In light of the lack of progress, we have decided to make an offer directory to Genentech's stockholders thereby giving the public stockholders the opportunity to determine whether to accept the offer.

Yikes, that doesn't sound friendly at all, not only that, they are offering stockholders a lower offer than the rejected offer - what do they take us for - morons apparently. I do believe this is a hostile take over that has just been hand delivered to me by a US Government Official (my friend Pierre gets credit for that description :). Once again, the news is affecting me (though granted this is no Prop 8).

Doing some casual checking of actual news sources, rather than what I've been handed shows:

Genentech Rejects Takeover Bid from Roche
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/business/14drug.html?ref=todayspaper
Roche takes its offer to Genentech Shareholders [that's me apparently - wave]
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/09/BUQT15QHSV.DTL

And what would Roche do if they are successful? Take all their new toys and go home. Yep, they would absorb it into Roche and de-list it from the NY Stock exchange. Now I don't mind semi private holdings at all, I work for a private company. But to have a good public company be taken away (via a Low Ball Offer even) and deprive ordinary stock holders of any benefit of Genentech's innovations, just really rubs me the wrong way. Although I guess we would all become Roche stockholders but that means that Genentech's actions would be wholly within Roche.

Fortunately, I don't have a lot of money invested in them and it's worth it for me to just hang in there just so I can write about what is going to happen next. Actually, even if I had a lot of money invested I wouldn't take such a bad offer anyway. Should be interesting to see how this all works out. The Reply deadline is March 9, 2009.

The Arkansas Ice Storm (Jan 2009)

On Jan 28-29, 2009 Arkansas, Kentucky, parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee and other surrounding areas were hit with a fierce ice storm. Here in Calif it made the news once or twice and then disappeared. A week after that I got a call from my friends in Arkansas. They just got phone service, but were still without power and were looking at at least another week without power, and that turned out to not be an exaggeration.

The full impact of such an experience can not be carried off in the media, but it was certainly underreported here. Now I don't get CNN, but I get CNN news alerts via email and there was hardly a mention of it.

The night of the 28th was completely unreal as ice was falling from the sky and accumulating on the trees and power poles and transformers. When the weight of the ice became too much for the object being piled up on, it would splinter, crack or just explode. It felt like bombs were going off. They've been there around 20 years and have never been through anything quite like it. 90% of the power grid was impacted.

A sobering reference is here:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/6239492.html
though that link no longer works

Here are some closely related ones:
http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=2009_4696114
http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=2009_4695789
http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=2009_4696662

And alarming images like this one can be found at
http://www.aecc.com/content.cfm?id=2209

And my friends? It took them over a week to clear the trees from the driveway so they could get out. This is only after being imprisoned in the house for a couple of days because it was just too hazardous to go out because of falling ice.



This is John standing in front of their driveway that you can no longer see and the downed trees were much worse further back:





They lost a lot of trees and many more were damaged:



The other more heroic effort was to keep the birds and the fish alive. They lost a lot of fish as they had to hand pump oxygen into the tanks. Furthermore their primary source of heat became the wood stove (after they had all piled into a much smaller part of the house) and the parrots skin dried badly in the lack of humidity so they had to be misted which must of puzzled them no end.



Fortunately my friends have survived the ordeal (there were 50 or so deaths having to do with falling ice, hypothermia, and carbon monoxide poisoning) now have power and are enjoying hot showers again. What's alarming is that there are some still without power according to the Power Cooperatives website. This is not for lack of trying. Some 700 people were involved in the restoration of miles of downed power poles.

When they got power back I got this celebratory missive:
i HAVE POWER!!!!!!! i AM BACK ON LINE!!!!!! i AM GOING TO GET TO TAKE A BATH!!!!!!!! AND COOK!!!!!!! AND HAVE ICECUBES!!!!!!! AND DRINK WATER THAT DOESNT TASTE LIKE PLASTIC!!!!!!

i AM SO HAPPY.

Sometimes the most impressive of dramas are going on not very far away.

A Real Skiing Lesson - The Alpine World Championships

I'm not used to having what ski instructors tell me show up at the World Championship level, but that is exactly what's happening now.

A basic truism of skiing is keep your weight on the outside ski - there are a ton of references on this, but my fav is Lito Tejada-Flores with his DVDs and web site: Breakthrough on skis. It's easy to think that this is just something they tell you to help you learn, but I'm watching the Alpine World Cup on Universal Sports Womens Super G that was just held 3 days ago on Feb 3rd (well the whole competition will be going on for a while) in Val d'isere, France. This is a tough, very curvy Super-G course and the object lessons were (a) memorize the course carefully (you don't get to practice on it) as there were a lot of missed gates and (b) keep your weight on the outside ski. You are going at very unforgiving speeds: if you lean in you will go down or your inside ski could catch an edge and send you flying. While there were good examples of that in that competition, an excellent example of that happening, also happened on Dec 5th at Lake Louise, NY to Romanian Edith Miklos here. A different less dramatic example is here.

American Lyndsey Vonn is currently in the lead of the entire competition (she did win the Super G event with a beautiful run, and also Lake Louise as well), and will no doubt become a household name during the Olympics in Vancouver. The results page is here.

So keep that weight on the outside ski when turning.

Altitude Blinders

I just realized that I am a world class idiot, but I'm not supposed to look at it that way. I'm supposed to be giving myself a break with this realization and just because I was too blind to not figure it out years ago does not mean I get to stop giving myself said break.

As I've whined before, I struggle with altitude, especially above 11,500' though I have been able to adjust to 12,000' and have been up to 13,000' 3 different times. When I was younger and MS-free and hiking with my Dad, climbing was relatively easy if I spent one night at altitude beforehand. I've climbed San Gergonio peak, Kearsarge Pass, and Gardiner Pass.

Well in one of those k'duh moments, I finally looked up the altitude of such lofty places. They are, in order: 11,500', 11,700, and 11,250'. None, precisely none, were at or above 12,000' Up until I started the Whitney and Shasta follies, I have probably never been above 12,000' unless it was on a plane or on a Swiss cog train. My pre-Whitney adult hiking experience (after those Sierra hikes with my Dad) was in the relatively low California coastal mountains.

So I need to just lay off on myself and take the proper time to aclimate. The trouble on the Whitney trail is that the altitude jumps between the camps are 2,000' and my body and most official texts on the subject of aclimatization prefer 1500'. Fortunately in the Outpost (10,000') to Trail Camp (12,000') climb there is Consultation Lake which is around 11,680' and a lovely place to camp from what I understand. I hate to give up that 400' on summit day, but it beats being sick even before summit day.

Want to Climb Mt. Whitney? - Apply for a Permit Now (Feb)

Mt. Whitney being the tallest mountain in the continental U.S. is probably one of the most popular trails in the entire country. Good reason too - it's a very beautiful striking place. However its popularity means that the trail has quota restrictions on it for half the year (May 1 to November 1), and that there is a lottery to decide who gets the permits. Unlike the various state lotteries, the odds of securing a permit are actually very good if you are flexible and go with only a few people.

I've been there several times and I'm realizing that people aren't always familiar with the permit application/lottery process.

First of all, the absolutely most important page to consult is this one:

http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/inyo/recreation/wild/mtwhitney.shtml

and the most important factoid to gleem is that February is the month to apply for the Main Trail permits for May1 - Nov 1. Which means NOW! If you want to go up Whitney on the Main Trail (by far the most common), you need to get your rear in gear.

The information page on the lottery itself is here:
http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/inyo/recreation/wild/whitneylottery.shtml

First you down load this form (this is the pdf version):
http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/inyo/recreation/wild/applications/lottery_only_application.pdf

Fill it in listing as many possible dates as possible. By far the best thing you can do is list something like "any 3 [or how many you want] days from [start date] to [end date]." Generally the snow hangs around till early July. I assure you that if you include June in your list, you will get June. It might (sadly) be a low snow year and that may be ok, but odds are good you will see snow, and if you don't have snow skills, it could put the kabosh on your summit bid. It happened to me and that was my inspiration to learn snow skills, so it ultimately was a good thing, but you may not see it in that positive of a light. :)

When you're done filling out the form, you must mail it in to the address listed on the info pages with a Feb postmark. The lottery process starts Feb 15th so mailing it in now is a Really Good Idea. Applications received after Feb 15, but still in Feb will just get added to the pile. Remember the more flexible you are with dates the better the odds that we'll see you on the mountain.

Day vs. Overnight. While carrying a pack is not that fun, the overnight people suffer much less than those trying to climb and descend 6000' over 22 miles in 24 hours. Honestly, I've never tried it in a day and hope to one day, but for a first time, you will be far happier if you do an overnight trip.

Camps. Most people push on to Trail Camp at 12,000' which probably makes the most sense if you intend to summit in 2 days, but the lower camp: Outpost at 10,000' is much, much nicer is below treeline and has a lovely waterfall.

One thing. If you do get a permit (ok it's a voucher that allows you to pick up your actual permit the day before your trip), remember to reserve a camp spot at Whitney Portal the day before you go in. The pain-in-the-rear reservation site is here:

http://www.recreation.gov/

and using it is akward at best. On the left in the search area set the state to California and in the Park or Facility name say "whitney portal" and that should get you started. If you have registered with them before it may have your info - or not. :(

There are walk-in campsites, but I never have tried it as the very last thing I want to contend with right before an important climb is a full campsite. The main portal campsite is very nice and I have my favorite spots but I'm not telling. :)

When you're there, you absolutely must go see Doug Sr. at the Whitley Portal Store. His knowledge of the mountain is amazing and he truly is a dear, who I love visiting with. Plus the food is delicious especially after you've been on the mountain a while. Warning if you order a pancake, split it with someone as it's the size of a serving platter - this is not a joke. Also, if you are ever planning on going up the "Mountaineer's Route" (not the Main Trail) talking with Doug Sr. about it is invaluable. I also have an older trip that has details on the lower portion of the Mountaineer's Route (up to the two Boy Scout Lakes) here.

Oh, and in the Major Bummer dept is you have to:

• carry and use a Bear Canister
  
• carry and use a "Wag" bag for packing out your poop
  

If someone comes up with a way to make the Wag bags stink less I'd love to hear about it. They do stink less on Shasta but that's because it's in snow and much colder.

Best of luck and hope to see you on the mountain.

Sue Grafton's T is for Trespass

Sue Grafton's T is for Trespass is one seriously creepy book.

It's not the violence, there is some, but not a lot by today's standards. It's about those who prey on the elderly. getting them to trust them and then abusing them and slowly and systematically robbing them blind. I have elderly parents (fortunately with 3 kids who keep an eye out), but even so the heebee geebee factor is way high. The mind games (and the complete lack of empathy) of the perpatrator just completely unsettled me. My compliments.

I love Grafton's books as I lived in Santa Barbara for 9 years and even though most of the street names are changed she only changes them a little so fans like me know exactly were she's talking about. Cabana Blvd is actually Cabrillo, Capilo is Castillo (there's also Carillo, all major streets - Santa Barbara is tough for lost tourists). Floresta is actually Firgueroa. Far as I can tell where Kinsey lives is completely made up, but with some exceptions, that's about it the rest is completely easy to vizualize which is totally cool.

I listen to the audio books from audible.com and I really like this narrator, more than the previous one with a New England accent (Kinsey lives in S. Calif - decidedly not from New England). My only complaint is that neither of then can pronounce San Luis Obispo (Louis! not Louie - if you can't guess I live there too)

I know Not to Test Drive Cars I can't Afford but ...

I know not to test drive cars I can't afford but didn't know how that applied in other circumstances like skiing.

I went skiing today and yesterday rented skis from Any Mountain.
My choices were the basic super-stable beginner ski, a higher end ski with more stiffness and speed, and some demos. I said that I probably wasn't an advanced enough skier to control the demos, but was interested in the second one. After some description I decided that it was worth trying especially if it would help me learn to ski better.

I brought my old slow skis to Sugar Bowl as well just in case I couldn't control the skis I rented. Turned out the rented skis handled beautifully, easy to control and very responsive. I had a great day skiing and I don't know whether it was because of the skis, or my improved skills or better leg strength (though I will have some left quad weakness), or a combination.

On the way back I decided to check out how much they were as I'm planning on skiing 4 more times this season and it might make sense to just buy them rather than rent. So when returning the skis I asked to see the equivalent retail model.

Well. It turns out that what I thought was a nice midline ski (made by Volkl) is actually a high performance ski. The responsiveness and control I noticed comes from the fact that there's a thin layer of titanium (!) embedded in it. And it's $800-$1000. Ack!

Here's one reference: http://www.rei.com/product/774394

And here's a similar, woman specific, model that they have demos of that I'll have to try out sometime: http://www.rei.com/product/774405

They say they do sell them at the end of the season, which is tempting, however that doesn't help me right now. Maybe I'll just rent demos since it appears that I can actually handle high performance skis.

I always say only buy [quality-wise] up to what you can tell the difference. Unfortunately now I can tell the difference (ouch).

THIS JUST IN
At the time of writing, eBay did not show any Volkl skis in my size, but today (the next day) Liquidation Sports did show a used pair (probably also from a rental fleet) and the buy it now price was reasonable ($120), so I did order that. Shipping of skis is steep which drives it up to $150, but that it still cheaper than 4 rentals. These will probably be fine for another season or two and then I'll probably be so hooked that I want a new pair.

I'll look into selling my old Rossignols on Craigslist. I like Craigslist as then I can deal locally and not have to deal with shipping.

Altitude: so it's not what I thought it was

So I've been assuming that my altitude issues were getting worse as I seemed to hit a wall just above 7000'. I'm discovering that that's not the case and what I've been observing is something that's always been around and something I can work past.

The 7000+' issue is there but it's something I noticed a long time ago when climbing up Sentinel Dome at 8122' in Yosemite from the Valley floor (~4100'). I gallivanted up to Glacier Point at 7214' no problem, but when I did the rest of the distance up to the top I struggled some though was able to do it. This was 15 years ago. Now that I look at the numbers I see it would be a great training hike for Shasta though that trail is technically closed in Winter (though some leap over the barrier). Anyway, this is [mostly] not the issue i was having on Shasta.

The reason I've never really noticed the magic 7k' before is more of my climbs start above 8k', so in all cases I had to acclimate some. Once on Lassen I didn't acclimate, but just went up and was fine till about 9k and then hit a wall. Maybe I just need to pace myself better knowing that I've going to run out of reserve oxygen.

Last weekend we went snowshoeing on Shasta and got up to above Spring Hill (over 8500'), and sure enough right around 7200' I felt the oxygen dissipate from my muscles. Mentally I was like: Hey wait! Come back! But it was like the air had been let out of a balloon and all I could do was sort of observe it happening. The cool thing though was that I was then able to feel that even without that oxygen reserve I could keep going, though did a lot more pressure breathing and the weight training I've been doing is helping.

So I'm still left with - what happened on Shasta last year? I really thought I was ready but I was actually in good sealevel shape, but not able to cope with the stresses of higher altitude and also pushing myself to keep up with a group (something I'm probably not going to do much of now). It appears that to compensate for low oxygen, you have to over train and Courtenay, the Body Results trainer I'm consulting with, is emphasizing heavier that typical weight training and intervals.

The relevant Body Results pages are:
Intervals: http://www.bodyresults.com/E2intervals.asp
Strength: http://www.bodyresults.com/s2hiking-strength.asp

And a good altitude reference (and description of pressure breathing) is
http://www.bodyresults.com/E2altitudecoping.asp

But I can't escape the feeling of futility. The fear that no matter what I do I'm going to fail. I also can't do the full program and do all the dog related things I like to do. It's striking a balance and it's really tough. I'm down on myself for not keeping up and I have to stop myself and say "Hel-lo! You just did 100 lb squats after doing RPM and then you walked both dogs. That's pretty cool in and of itself - give yourself a break."

One issue is that if I don't get enough intense aerobic exercise (like the RPM spinning class), I start to get depressed. My exercise program does include aerobic training, but not in the quantity that my brain apparently needs. It sneaks up on me gradually but became clear this week. I did RPM today and feel good but I need to do it very consistently for a while to keep me from getting worse even at the expense of training. If I get depressed then everything stops, my perspective goes to hell, and I would need to go back on medication which I'd rather not do if I can avoid it. One thing that helped me realize that I was tettering on depression is that I don't seem to realize that the fact that my altitude issues are not worse is really great news. More correctly I know it's great news, but I don't feel it. The joy just isn't there and that's a red flag.

Bye Bye Gitmo - Investigatons Next?

Obama signed an order to close Gitmo (Ref.) and I just listened for a second time to a Fresh Air interview with Phillipe Sands on what might happen next and just how far reaching the implications of the Bush administration being involved in torture.

What was interesting about the Sands interview is that he goes into detail about what might happen, and who it might happen to.

Torture is considered an international war crime, right along with Genocide. What I didn't know is that these crimes are considered crimes against the whole world and most any country can investigate them and in fact is to some degree obligated to. If the US does not advance an inquiry into just what happened at Abu Grab and Guantanamo Bay, then another country is very likely to do so.

It's easy to think in terms of Bush and Cheney who have some sheilding by just because of having been the pres and vice pres of the US, but those who are really vunerable are those who were just underneath them, but in very high profile positions.

Names that we may be seeing again in terms of being investigated are these attorneys:
Donald Rumsfeld: former Sec of Defense
David Addington: Cheney's General Council and Chief of Staff and very central to policy making, and credited with coming up with the general climate that torture is ok.
Jim Hayes: Legal Council to Donald Rumsfeld, and now a lawyer for Chevron
John Yu - Attny who authorized aggressive interrogation methods, author of the torture memos
Alberto Gonzales: former Attny General and White House Council
Doug Fife & Paul Wolfowitz - helped dispense with adhereing to Geneva Convention

It's very interesting that Bush did not pardon anyone preemptively and Sands points out that even if Bush were to pardon all involved, then another country will step in.

Also if any of them were to travel things get really interesting because of extradition agreements. This is not theoretical. In 1998, the despot Pinocet went to London for a medical procedure. He thought he was safe there, but Spain who was investigating him and which Pinocet knew to avoid, asked for extradition, and he was immediately arrested.

It means that all these people are in some sense imprisoned here. Not much of an imprisonment, but it's a start and like that their freedom is curtailed at least some.

What's appalling is that precisely none of these people are apologetic about what they did. Ironically the one who has come the closest is Bush himself.

What's also interesting is that this screwup is entirely from the Administration lawyers and not the military lawyers who apparently were very opposed to this.

Staying tuned.

When Training is Emotionally Risky

Anyone who has trained for a physical goal has dealt with this, it's that classic fear of failure combined with a sense of futility and inevitability.

It's particularly difficult when it's something you've failed at multiple times, and yet refuse to give up just yet. While training for ski mountaineering this season, I find that I again am going back to Shasta and will try to climb it. While training for skiing right now, I'm not completely convinced that my skiing confidence will be enough to make me feel ok in ungroomed areas like Shasta, as I'm only recently figuring out how to ski without exhausting myself, so I may instead default back to climbing.

Because I want to give myself the best shot I can, I've hired mountaineering trainers Body Results, and Courtenay is designing programs for me first aimed at ski mountaineering and then for climbing. Her idea is that if I concentrate on strength and intervals that may indeed help me with my altitude issues.

Courtenay says that women always underestimate what they can lift. Sounds right, it's what we've been taught. Well I got to see this theory in practice as I went to see her while I was up visiting my parents in Seattle. We talked about dumbbell rows (here is an example). I mentioned that I normally do them with 15 pounds, and she said ok. Try this. She pulls out a 40 pound dumbbell. Eek! But she was encouraging and said just try it. I was able to do about 6 and that's all she was asking. I had no idea I could do that without getting hurt. The training regime for the first month had me doing 30 pounds, which is a great confidence builder.

She also showed my how to set up and use a squat cage, and even though it wasn't a part of my program I have been doing them anyway just because of the shear novelty of them and because it was cool to get past being intimidated by it. Now I can squat weights that I had no idea I could do. I started at 45 pounds (that's the bar weight) and added 5 pounds each time. I'm up to 85 pounds and am going to stay either there or at 90, as it's getting difficult. She's also having me deadlift 40 pounds and that's harder as it's tough on my back though I've figured out how to make it easier by raising the barbell up on step risers (the big boy weights that are too heavy for me, are wider in diameter so they don't have to bend over as much as I do.)

But during training I still have this inevitable feeling that it's still not going to help me magically deal with altitude. I don't let it stop me but the feeling is still very much there. Altitude issues are tough when you live at sea level and I've written about them a lot before, I'm going to Shasta this weekend to snowshoe and will get above the magic 7500' level where I usually have trouble. I was up at 8000' at Squaw Valley but that's downhill skiing so I don't know how much of a test that was though I was going up stairs at that altitude and didn't feel out of breath so there's hope.

The thing that I have to keep in mind is that I have these great adventures, while not reaching my goals despite how disappointing as it is and how much of a failure it makes me feel like. I may not have gotten above 10,300' on Shasta, but I have been there multiple times and what a gorgeous place to be. I know my way around the lower Avalanche Gulch area very well and can tell others how to navigate it (not that it's that hard mind you, but in snow everything tends to look the same unless you're familiar with it.) I have good mountain skills, I'm comfortable in snow, and know how to snow camp (something that a lot of hikers dread and I think they really should learn how so they don't have to be so limited to just summer), I've been snowed on in June which is a magical feeling, and I'm a really good glissader. I'll glissade by someone struggling up the mountain and they say how they want to be in my position and I happily tell them: "It's the only way to fly." I'm also in the best shape of my life. My genetically inspired high cholesterol and triglycerides is under control with exercise, diet and supplements.

But it does nag. Struggling with altitude gives me a lot of self knowledge. I know that it's AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness) treatable with Diamox, and not something more serious. Knowing this, I'm going back to Mt. Whitney this year and I'm going to summit if weather conditions allow. I've done the hard part (to Trail Crest at 13,000') twice and run out of steam. This time I'm not going to stop unless it's something more serious (I know the last time I was at that altitude I could have pushed myself, but it would have been an exhausting step by step grind). The gotcha will be if the 7500' altitude wall I've been running into of late (a new development for 2008) stays or lets up with persistence and acclimatization.

For not reaching my original goals I certainly have a fine time doing so, and I have to keep perspective on this, even it it means that I may have to find lower altitude adventures. Fortunately, there are many challenging mountains that are 10k' or close to it. The often challenging and sometimes deadly Mt Hood is merely 11,249'. Mt Adams in Washington state is heavily glaciated and is 12,281'. There are other peaks in Washington which are difficult and even lower.

Selling a Dream

One of my jobs at work is to go through our Spam Queue to look for things that got caught by mistake. It's an appalling sort of job going through email that tries to appeal to our most base desires, so to cope I spend time analyzing the trends.

The trends are remarkably simple:

• sex, sex, sex (meaning enlargement, viagra, russian women, some porn site advertising)
  
• beauty / body image (lose weight, abs of steel, fake pharmacies; Closely related to sex)
• money (get rich quick, get out of debt, refi, avoid foreclosure)
  
• business (also money - but more specific)
• Advertising such as
  - As Seen on TV (e.g. pedipaws - a dressed up dremel)
  - Free and likely a catch (fake watches, gift cards, test and keep, bootleg software)
  - Buy this (the usual advertising but surprisingly little)
  

And that's pretty much it. Five topics sum up our most basic desires, and the first two are pretty much the same. What does that say about us? Are we that simple at our most base level?

Commercials (radio and TV) run along similar lines but starts to differ in interesting ways.
AM radio is very snake oil and skates quite close to spam. FM radio and TV are more expensive and more regulated so what shows up is more beer and cars.

And sometimes you see a cross over. I saw an enlargement ad on TV and was shocked that someone could afford to do it (or that someone took it). And Viagra is everywhere it seems.

But they all are selling a dream. I'm still not sure what that says about us. I think it means that a lot of us crave companionship and fear loneliness, and there are far too many of us that are happy to take advantage of that vunerability.

Prop 8 Supporters being Willfully Dense

From: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/06/MNNK1541BC.DTL

But Prop. 8 proponents said Monday that Brown was carving out law where none existed. They argued that if the attorney general's argument prevailed, it would be virtually impossible for voters to amend the state Constitution whenever the courts determined that inalienable rights were involved.

DUH! For precisely ONE time they got the point, but refuse to learn ANYTHING from it.
"What do you mean we can take away rights? That's just not right " (ok, that's me putting words in their mouths.)

Willfully dense. Just amazing.

Jerry goes on to say:

It would be "tyranny of the majority" to allow such rights to be taken away by a simple majority vote, he said, arguing that such an action is "inconsistent with the guarantees of individual liberty in the state Constitution."

You go my man!

John Stewart is also very much on the My Hero list with his respectful skewering of Jim Huckabee. You can see that interview here. (The URL is a little long so I didn't put the full thing in here.

Zappos: faster than a speeding brick and mortar

I have nothing against going into stores, but it will usually take me more than a week to actually get myself to said store (except for the grocery store). The advantage of a brick and mortar clothing store is that I can try things on.

Zappos is trying to challenge that advantage and appears to be being successful at it. They usually have things priced at pretty close to list price, the difference is the speed that it appears and they pay for shipping both directions. What a great business model. They actually encourage you to order several items and return the ones you don't want. (They do have to be in new condition so wear them inside first.)

The shoes (they sell other things too) show up amazingly fast the next day even when I order after 5pm. This is to the point that I've started inadvertently testing them out. At 8:45pm last night I ordered a pair of running shoes that I've been putting off buying for a while. At 11pm I got a shipping confirmation (say what? who works then? I guess they do), and at 11am (just over 14 hours) the shoes appeared. That's just astounding. I think about going to the store for longer than that.

I still like going to physical stores as I like to see the selection but this is just amazing.

Are We Musically Unshockable Now?

I've been wondering for a while now if we're past being shocked by music anymore.

In the 60's the Rolling Stones singing Why Do We Live Together created a huge stir.
This continued with all the inuendo of 70's disco.
Then the 80's and the door pretty much came down
Though the 80's was when i was paying by far the most attention so my perspective may be skewed:

- Violent Femmes Add it Up where Gorden Gano asks: Why Can't I Get Just One Fuck?
- Frankie Goes to Hollywood openly sang about oral sex and it later became clear the singer was gay.
- Prince and his Little Red Corvette which wasn't a car
- Madonna getting it on with a holy statue in the Like a Prayer video
- Rap really got going and while it started out in politics (my favorite) it quickly became (or went back to), getting really explicit about sex (and misogyny).

In the 90's and the 00's people get more in to a lather about the conduct of the artists than the music, which is nothing new. Keith Moon blew up toilets, 100's of guitars and hotel rooms have been smashed and trashed. but now it's more about celebrity drama and bad judgment. We have Wardrobe Malfunctions (which was more just a risky choreography move gone really wrong on one of the most public of stages - the Super Bowl), leaving your babies in a car while you go shopping, somewhat controversial African child adoptions. But none of this has anything to do with the music. Even when the Dixie Chicks were having their CD's run over by red state tractors it wasn't the music, it was them dissing Pres. Bush. (which puzzled the blue states and funny how that doesn't happen anymore even in the red states.)

Even songs like Detachable Penis are novelty songs and no one that I know of protests them.

I got my hopes up while listening to Alice Radio (97.3 in the bay area) when they played "I kissed a Girl and I liked it." The singer, Katy Perry, goes on to say she hopes her boyfriend doesn't mind. The DJ came on and said that her boyfriend did mind and dumped her and has written this blog entry about it (I should look it up, but I haven't). But is anyone protesting the song? Ok Google tells me that a church in Ohio is trying (by putting on their marque that homos are going to hell - yawn, be more original please) and it seems to be backfiring or having no effect at all besides people being really annoyed at them (Ref.) So once again, it's about the backstage drama, not the music.

My research continues, this is fun.

Dear Harvey, We need You Now

I just saw Milk, which is a Gus Van Sant film about Harvey Milk. I hope both Sean Penn (wow he's come a very long way over the years) and Gus Van Sant get Oscars for it as this is such an awesome film, and they took pains to nail the details.

And everything felt so Deja Vu when they were talking about the Brigg's amendment. Milk talking about the importance of coming out and making sure every voter knew a gay person. Prop 8, while not as heinous as the Brigg's amendment, showed us that we still have work to do in that area, and I dearly wish he was around to offer his wisdom.

I realize that the odds of him not getting shot, or then perhaps dying of AIDs complications in the 80s, or just simply not surviving to age 78 (he was killed when he was 48. 30 years ago), were not good, but I still wish we had him and his insight around.

We miss you Harvey. We really do. Thank you Gus and Sean and everyone else for bringing him back to life.

I had a Great 2008 and Wow I Feel Guilty

I watched a lot of new year's celebrations here on TV (feeling lazy and didn't want to go out, so instead cuddled with Terri and the dogs - we do these inadvertent sofa puppy piles to see how little horizontal space we all can take up). Everyone interviewed on TV was saying 2008 good riddance and were hoping for a better 2009.

While I completely understand, I feel gratefully way out of step with this perspective.

I got married. I am employed. My spouse is employed. My employer is in good financial health. I have a house with a good fixed rate loan that I can afford. I have a car that I can afford. If it turns out I can't afford the car I can sell it and just use my truck that I keep for the house (and because it's paid for). We have 2 great dogs, one who is doing very well in her agility training and hopefully going to be a star, the other, who has been a behavioral pain in the rear, is improving and is doing very nicely in his herding training.

In short, it's been a good year for me. The passage of Prop 8 was a bummer but there is growing high profile opposition to it and the Supreme Court will review it in March. My parents are in so-so health, but are coping, and my mother just had a knee replacement and that is proving to be life changing in a positive way. I still have MS, but it's been stable for years (I'm a good kid and I take my medicine), and I still train for mountains and skiing. (Which I'm not that great at yet.)

This is all making me slightly paranoid. I feel like: "Don't get too comfortable" - like there's a disaster around the corner. I sure hope not - I like this.

Maybe Gold isn't the Perfect Investment

Fradulent housing refi offers have disappeared from my mailbox and I just have to do something to fill the void, and I need to avoid shooting off my mouth about Israel honing the art of over-reaction as I don't know enough about that very deeply tangled situation. (Few do.)

Terri has been listening a lot to Air America and other liberal radio networks which is on AM radio on Green 960 (used to be called The Quake which is a much better name). I love it and really, really hate the ads. Even the legit ads like Laurel Langemeier's, sound like snake oil. Most of them are based on half truths and it drives me nuts. I'm forever shouting at the radio "That's NOT true!" which amuses Terri at least.

So I should spend time analyzing the ads, but it takes more time researching it than a simple fradulent refi offer that shows up in the mail, so I won't be able to do it as often.

But here goes. One thing I really hate is that they sometimes pay the announcers themselves to read the ads. These are people whose opinion I respect and I really resent that I suddenly have to carefully filter what they're saying (I'm sure they hate it too). One ad nearly all of the radio hosts has read is about Buying Gold with ITM Trading (and other companies).

The claim and implication is that gold is a great stable investment especially given that the dollar is down, the economy doing poorly, and with "geopolitical concerns" and that "some experts" claim that "gold's rise has just begun." After I'm done loudly exclaiming "WHAT rise??" I wonder just what the heck they're talking about. I've noticed that the ads change slightly every, so often just to keep the spin going.

If you bought gold in 2001 when it was under $300 an ounce, you'd be doing pretty well especially if you sold it around March of this year when it was in the high $900's. Now it's hovering in the $800's.

The trick with gold is that the prices are generally all over the place (I'll be referring a lot to the charts on the left - click to enlarge), much more so than the stock market which over the long (long) run tends to trend upward. Gold and other precious metals like silver, trend up and then correct steeply downward. If you get that wrong, it will hurt. An example (again, see the chart) is in 1976, gold was around $150/oz and if you bought it then you would have seen it go as high as $750/oz in 1980. But what if you had bought some right then (since it was clearly the thing to do). If you did - I'm so sorry. It plunged to $350 and for the next 19 (!) years has stayed between $350 - $450.

You would have been much better in the stock market even through the dot com crash and maybe even now. It's not that gold or other precious metal are a bad investment, from a diversity point of view it's fine. It's just not the (ahem) silver bullet that it's being pitched as. I personally have no idea which way gold will go. Given that the stock market is doing so horribly, it will probably trend up some, but there's been so much loss of cash that people don't have quite as much money to spend, so I really have no clue. The reason they're advertising so much is that they know that people are disenchanted with the stock market and are looking for other places to put their money. AM radio advertising is all about selling a dream which is a theme I'll be coming back to over and over. When evaluating investments it's really important to look at the long term.

Basic disclaimer, while I'm a fan of analyzing pitches, scams, and other financial lures, I'm not a certified financial expert by any means. Before investing please consult with a financial expert - one that you pay them for their time and who has nothing to sell. Remember that Free is rarely Free.

Social Significance of Shoe Throwing

I with the media would talk more about this. I'm no expert, but even I know that in the Arab world, having someone throw a shoe at you means you have been royally insulted. According to this reference, the sole of your foot is the dirtest part about you and flinging something associated with that at someone else is a grave personal attack.

The fact that no one publicly filled the president in on this is kinda sad That journalist is being hailed as a hero.

Jerry Brown - My Hero

Jerry Brown, doing what I didn't think it was within his power to do, filed a lengthy brief with the court asking them to invalidate Prop 8. He doesn't even go in the historically losing direction of arguing that it's a revision and not an amendment to the constitution, but flat out says that it's not consistent with the rest of the constitution (Ref.) which is what Ive been hoping the judges would rule anyway. I'm really relieved that he has placed something that says so for the court to rule on as I don't know if judges can make up their own arguments or have to have a filed argument to rule on.

Apparently Brown is required to defend the Calif law unless he "cannot find reasonable legal grounds to do so."

The article goes on to say that witch hunter Kenneth Starr (the same) says that judges don't have an obligation to protect minorities. What planet has he been living on anyway?

Obama's inugaural religious bookends - a steep high road

So Obama has chosen Rick Warren to do the inaugural opening and Joseph Lowery to do the benediction. The LGBT community is angry at the choice of Warren since Warren has compared gay people to pedophiles and opposes abortion. Lowery is much more liberal and opposed Prop 8 (Ref.) It will be interesting what Lowery has to say.

Obama swears he fiercely defends LGBT rights, but that he thought it was important to reach out. I can see his talk to your enemies approach and it is brilliant but it still grates. I really wish he chose someone else though I'm sure there are no shortage of bad choices out there. But think about it. He's got Warren talking to Democrates and that way Warren can't help, but come in contact with LGBT folks and familiarity is how social change happens.

I can only hope it works and Obama doesn't start making compromises I wish he wouldn't. And I really dislike being tossed under the bus.

Enough Already, Just Loan Them the Money

The American Automakers that is.

For years I've been saying American cars suck, but it's one thing to whinge about them and quite another to torpedo the entire economy just because you thing they deserve it.

This has been a series of hard lessons all the way around. First and foremost is that what people say they want and what they need are two different things. Hinging all your marketing decisions based purely on what people say they want will only work when things are going well. People say they want big cars so the Big 3 make them. Trouble is when things don't go so well with the economy, consumers change their mind in a heartbeat and after they take a reality pill, go buy that Toyota or Honda, and leave the US automakers who spent years making said big car holding the keys.

Thing is, the US Automakers are what I consider to be on Iconic industry. They're an important part of our history and culture. There is precedent for helping out such businesses. We helped out Harley Davidson many years ago with Trade Tariffs (need to find a ref for this).

Also Japan, who has no business growing rice when it is so much cheaper to get it from Thailand considers rice such an important part of their culture that they susidize growing it within the country (find the ref).

The point is that some things are considered important and it's worth helping them along. Sure Toyota and BMW who have non-union factories here may not agree, but they don't have the same amount of history.

And maybe the US Automakers should be history, but not until we find a way so they don't influence the economy quite so much. Maybe they need to be broken up into smaller companies.

And let's be fair, the US Automakers are working on more efficient cars. Yes, they're slow about it (killing the EV was a horrible mistake), but they are and they should be given a chance to make a car that sucks less.

Oh and I totally agree with Frangela on the Stephanie Miller show. Don't go begging for money in your private jet (they learned that lesson - duh). In fact, sell your freakin' jet.

Dealing with Muscle Weakness and Fatigue

I've been dealing with muscle weakness and fatigue these past few days. To the point of having to sleep off a couple of afternoons. It's really discouraging and I can't figure out if it's a weird virus or an MS attack. It kind of doesn't matter as I'm maxed out on MS treatment (until they come up with something better), unless I wanted to switch to Copaxone, but I've been doing so well on Rebif I'm loth to change.

I'm still struggling climbing at altitude - I feel like I hit a wall at 7300' - and I'm trying not to worry that this attack or whatever it is happened after a Shasta climb. (albeit a short one.)

Researching what causes muscle fatigue here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_weakness

Interesting that there is perceived and real muscle weakness.

After some digging I found this article
http://www.mothernature.com/library/bookshelf/books/16/153.cfm
which talks about how a virus causes fatigue by causing inflammation of the muscle fibers which interfers with proper contractions. The author goes on to say though that it's important to not be too sedentary as

Movement builds up the proteins needed for muscle contraction. If you're barely stirring, the proteins deteriorate. "After a week spent flat on your back with the flu, you'll be weak as a kitten for days afterward," says Dr. Siegel.

I've been going to work 1/2 days for a couple of days wondering if I was doing more harm than good. The above implies it was the right choice.

It just occurs to me that if the fatigue is caused by inflammation I should be taking an anti-inflamatory - I'll try that.

Over doing it has its cost though. The proteins in the muscles link up so they can cause contractions. Over-stressing them causes the links to tear and it can take days for those to rebuild that article doesn't say where normal weight training falls. You want some break down to occur but I don't know how much.


Other things i happened across:
Glasgow parkour:
http://traceurzeno.blogspot.com/2008/04/overcoming-my-weakness.html

Oh and in the category of don't believe everything you see on the internet:
Hokum hokum hokum:
http://www.cayce.com/multiplesclerosishansen.htm

I did do a sit against a wall test to see if I was doing any worse.
I'm not. I was able to sit against the wall for 1 minute 30 seconds which is double the excellent level for men.

I want to climb and climb strong. This is driving me nuts. I get these brochures of beautiful places and trips that I want to go on, but if I can't keep up I can't. I'd love to be able to climb and to run and to do adventure racing or whatever else I want. I'm not giving up on this.

I want to keep working on this, but winter is coming and I'm going to have to snowshoe to get to those altitudes which is fine but that takes more time. But of course the big project this winter is learning to ski (wa hoo).

I can't figure out what to do on Saturday. common sense would say just workout easily in the gym and maybe do a little yard work, but it's way tempting to go on a hike as well. I think one way to get a handle on this is to get really good at weight training as that helps weakness (I read that somewhere - can I remember where? - of course not).

Prop 8 The Musical

I'm a little bored of Prop 8 coverage but people are coming up with some very brilliant ways of addressing the issue.

I saw this first on the front page of SFGate:
A community college in Sacramento (allegedly) managed to convince some very famous people to participate in a Prop 8 "musical" and made a short video of it. It is just stellar and it's fun picking out all the famous faces. You can see it here. (I usually like to put the text of the actual link in so you know where you're going, but it was way too long.)

And in another very insightful video, the creator uses text, historical images, and an odd choice of music to tell a very powerful story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuVi9xan8f4

A couple of times I've hear religious leaders, one catholic and one mormon both local oddly enough, say that it's time we moved on (meaning we should just accept what happened and accept the will of those particular churches). Wow, what wishful thinking and I think I'm hearing an edge in their voice (though I may be putting it in there) that is really saying something like: We see the writing on the wall and are just trying to forestall the inevitable.

One thing I couldn't work into my own video was Mark Leno's speech which mentioned all the things the conservatives tried to prevent (equal rights for people of color, segratation, no mixed marriages) and he kept saying "And they lost again." His words still echo in my head and every time I hear a prop 8 proponent saying that I hear those words. "And they lost again."

No on 8 Rally Video Montage

At a No on Prop 8 Rally on Nov 9, '08 that Terri and I attended, I brought a video camera. The area around the main speakers was too crowded to get very close to, but there was a ton of other things going on. Then I noticed the amazing array of home made signs and the real story started to emerge for me. This was much more than a carefully scripted event, this was a whole group of people who felt deeply wronged by society and who were really pissed off about it.

I started video taping all the signs I ran into and wound up with 130 or so (I've lost count). All showing an amazing amount of creativity, and initiative. And they wanted to be heard. They wanted to be filmed. While filming, I nearly fell over a little girl who wanted me to see her "I Love My Moms" sign. I was totally charmed, and on the spot, I made the decision to make a finished video. (She and her sign and her mom's are in the video). I hope they get to see it. Unfortunately, I don't know who they are.

I started out by turning all the signs into 3 second still frames and that was pretty cool in and of itself, but it really needed audio. I thought about just using some music, but discarded that idea as getting the rights to any music that would have the impact I wanted would be too expensive.

Then I had one of those "Duuuuh, you idiot, use the audio of the rally, use the chants, use sound bites." So I got to comb back through the raw footage to find audio clips that helped give the impression of what it was like to be there.

Then the iMovie wrestling match began in earnest. I have a buggy, out of date, copy of iMovie 6. I didn't know it was buggy until I started working with the audio. In iMovie, you take a video clip and if you want to mess with the audio, you "extract" it so you can work with it separately. That part works great. The part that is buggy is when you copy and paste an audio clip, the clip appears to disappear, but it's actually been pasted somewhere else on the audio clip sequence (sometimes even underneath another clip) and I had to go find it. This was complete crazy making, but there wasn't time to get an updated copy from eBay and I didn't want to fork over $100.00 for a retail copy (plus I'd have to learn a whole new interface), so I coped by memorizing the audio clip name and did a lot of hunting around. I got pretty good at it, and things started to come together over a week and a half.

The cool thing about video editing especially when you're working with adding audio is that it's very reinforcing. You get immediate feedback on whether your addition worked, and every good addition seemed to make the images more compelling. iMovie allows for two audio tracks, so I could layer audio also. Pretty cool, but I think I am going to upgrade the software though I'm already really over-stressing my Mac Mini and if I got a new computer then it would come with iLife which contains iMovie et al. Funny how you can talk yourself into spending a lot of money this way. Oh and I want a better video camera too.

At some point in time, I recover my senses, and remember that my big goal for the winter is to become a really good skiier. That's going to be expensive enough and I find it ironic that I'm interested in a hobby (videography) that make pricey things like skiing look cheap. Maybe I should take up flying next. (My brother is a pilot and I've actually had a couple of lessons, but I don't love it enough to give up everything just to be able to fly.)

Anyway, last night at 1:30AM I finished the video and this morning I uploaded the video to You Tube. And here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJLZ1ZvOV4A

It's only been hours and it's already having an impact. That's cool. My timing turned out to be good as there was another rally at the State Capitol today.

Beware of "This Way is Shorter"

(Enough of Prop 8 - let's talk about something else)

Also known as Mt. Tallac: Not Even Close
So today I drove over to Lake Tahoe in hopes of climbing Mt Tallac (local vernacular calls it Ta-LOC')

Now Terri and I have been to this trailhead a couple of winters ago, but do I remember anything about it? Of course not. Do I remember that the turn off is marked prominently? Nope. So I proceed to take every other possible access road before I ever got to the correct trailhead, but I found myself on the road right beside Fallen Leaf Lake which I see on the map takes me to a different trailhead. Wending my way down to the road's end I look around for a trail but don't see one. I'm about to give up and go back to the other one but I saw some folks working on their house so I stopped and ask if they could locate me on my Desolation Valley map (thinking I may have been at the wrong spot.) But I was at the right spot and the guy I'm talking to points out the slightly hidden trailhead and says "This way is Shorter" [than the regular way].

Intrigued I decide to give it a try. Now this is a much less used trail and it's over grown and it's rocky and I'm having to go down the trail by the lake looking for a trail that goes up the mountain. Trouble is that I don't know just how far down to go so I take a couple of E Ticket wrong turns that have me scrambling up a large pile of loose rock. During one of these forays I realize that it's (a) Thursday - I took the day off (b) I'm hiking by myself and (c) I have not seen a soul on this trail. My solution to hiking by myself is to use popular trails where there's someone around. I'm suddenly feeling rather alone and I pick my way down the wrong turn talus slope very carefully.

I'm realizing that shorter does not mean faster if you've never done it before and I'm wasting a lot of time on these wrong turns. Frustrated I sit down to think about what to do. "Use the force" comes to mind. Great the force doesn't seem to be terribly interested right now. Then I realized. "Hello? You have a GPS." "Yeah but I haven't loaded the more detailed map into it." "But you have a map." The light slowly dawns. I look more carefully at the map and it tells me that I need to go 0.7 miles before the turn off. I look at the GPS - I've gone 0.5 miles. D'Oh. Gee I think I need to go a touch further. Because of all of my previous wrong turns I needed to go a bit further, but then a trail did appear that wasn't all talus.

The trail was rough but doable up to a point. I'm past my turn around time and I've hardly gotten anywhere but I decide to go a bit further. Then the deciding factor appeared. 3 downed treed and a boulder blocked the trail (see photo) and I couldn't find where it continued even after jumping over one of the logs. Seeing how the shadows were growning I decided to bail and maybe do the main trail at a later date.

Things learned
My boots worked great at protecting my ankles and keeping my footing, though my feet are a little sore and I'm wondering if I should switch back to Spenco's rather than the Superfeet.

I used my poles with the right angle grips which I still like (even though they're wearing out) but I should use some padded bike gloves with them.

I didn't get over 7500' (only up to 6950') so I'm not sure how I'm doing on the altitude issue.
I deliberately took my time and when my breathing was getting a little heavey I stopped and drank Gatorade and ate chocolate. My legs did not fail ever and was able to lift myself up some large boulder steps.

Photos:
Wrong Turn Tallus Slopes and Fallen Tree (shows gradient)


Fallen Leaf Lake:

I am Married and They Can't Take That Away

Funny how these moments catch you sometimes.

The advantage of getting married in the backyard is that it's really easy to revisit it in a very surpisingly viseral way. I found myself standing in the same place as where I said my wedding vows to Terri and as the moment sank in I realized that no matter what happens, they can't take that away from us.

Regardless of its legal status, we are married.

I need to really take that to heart when I'm feeling down about all the politics.

Supreme Court to Review Prop 8

Well what we hoped would happen is going to happen. The Supreme Court is going to review Prop 8. This also means that our own marriage will hang in the balance for 4 to 6 months which is a very odd feeling though I trust the supreme court a heck of a lot more than the electorate at this point.

Marriage is one of the most intensely personal decisions you will make in your life. And I'm having all these strangers weighing in on it. It's like if some distant second cousins who weren't invited stormed the wedding and said that they objected. The inappropriateness of it is beyond words.

Rather than cite a newspaper article here is the surprisingly readable court release (pdf format):

http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/presscenter/newsreleases/NR66-08.PDF

Here's the gist (quoting):

The court’s order, issued in the first three cases that had been filed
directly in the state’s highest court challenging the validity of Proposition
8, directed the parties to brief and argue three issues:

(1) Is Proposition 8 invalid because it constitutes a revision of, rather than
an amendment to, the California Constitution?

(2) Does Proposition 8 violate the separation-of-powers doctrine under
the California Constitution?

(3) If Proposition 8 is not unconstitutional, what is its effect, if any, on
the marriages of same-sex couples performed before the adoption of
Proposition 8?

The more general link is here:
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/courts/supreme/highprofile/prop8.htm

And of course the yes on 8 people are talking about trying to recall the judges if they don't get their way. Given that 8 only narrowly passed, that's really not very likely. Though I don't see them giving up very easily at all as we make such a nice punching bag.

And that really pisses me off. It should be a crime to persecute lgbt people like this (or at least really tacky). And it's not only those of us who chose to be in the line of fire by getting married but every single lgbt person even ones who have no intention of marrying.

I am not looking forward to the next 6 months.

Schedule
"In its order, the court established an expedited briefing schedule, under which briefing will
be completed in January 2009 and oral argument potentially could be held as early as March
2009. "

A decision would be within 90 days after that

Whacking a Nest of Hornets - Nationwide Prop 8 Protests

The Prop 8 folks have whacked a hornet's nest.

Anti Prop 8 protests happened all over the country Saturday.
San Francisco, Oakland, San Diego, Los Angeles, Fairfield (you go!), and even little Alameda, and many more throughout the state.

But this SF Chron article here (and an earlier one here) and accompanying CBS5 video on the same page, say that there were protests in Boston (where same-sex marriage is legal), New York (where the fight is just beginning), Philadelphia, Las Vegas (which African-American comedian Wanda Sykes came out in) and FARGO, ND! (where it was literally freezing).

Let's hope this momentum continues. The Prop 8 folks are completely caught off guard as they are naively thinking this is all over. They are so wrong.

NAACP joins the fight against Prop 8, also Nationwide Protests Planned

What I missed yesterday is which minority groups were filing against Prop 8.

Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund
Asian Pacific American Legal Center
and in a move that should go a long way towards healing:
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
(and two other groups that this article didn't name.)

And tomorrow should see the start of several nationwide rallies against Prop 8.
Details are here. It also mentions that there's a financial fallout as the identities of large donors to Yes on 8 are being circulated - even more detail is here and here. The article goes on to talk about how this could become a national movement, even as far a New York (honestly, NY really should already have same sex marriage). Wouldn't that be cool. The ultimate unintended consequence.

The Laramie Project - A Great Play

I went to see The Laramie Project at Alameda High School mostly to support the students (since a friend's daughter is involved in it.) What I hadn't planned on is that I learned a lot from the play. It starts with the attack and moves forward from there through the trials. The play is a summary of 100's of interviews that the playwrights made with the people of Laramie. While I find the subject very upsetting, I was also intrigued and wanted to know the ins and outs.

The acting is surprisingly good for the high school level and some of the actors very much have a future in acting. These were hard roles to portray. These were people who had there lives turned upside down by the acts of two of their members. It made them question the very integrity of their town and question their judgment of who is decent and good person. The dilemma showed though. Many kudos.

And Phelps? He was shown in the play since he and his minions and their signs were there for Shepherd's funeral, and were cleverly covered up by people dressed as angels. I realized that I was silly to worry about these kids dealing with Phelps - they'd be fine, they'd likely welcome it. However a local Alameda Police Detective Brock took a lot of time to verify that the Phelps crew has changed plans and will be going directly to Hawaii to do the noble thing () of protesting at Obama's grandmother's funeral (because she was such an in your face threatening activist? Huh? Low lifes.)

That aside - go see the play. You'll learn a lot, and have a thoughtful evening.
Alameda Little Theatre - 2200 Central Ave. at Walnut, Alameda, CA
Remaining Dates are today (Friday) and tomorrow: Nov 14-15, 7:30pm (get there around 6:45pm or 7pm). $10.

Justices ask Attorney General to respond to Prop 8 Lawsuits

After no word for a couple of days, I hear a heartbeat out of the courts. They have asked Attorney General Jerry Brown's office to reply to the lawsuits filed against Prop 8. Apparently that means that they are taking things seriously (well, duh) as opposed to refusing the case and making a lower court review it first. What they want to know from Brown is whether his office considers the cases valid for review (duh again - don't you love legal formality?). Apparently this is the first step of this process.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/13/BAMU1449RR.DTL&type=politics

The article goes on to say that the justices have the right to suspend Prop 8 while its legality is being worked out. Can you imagine what a charge to the alter that's going to cause?

In another well, duh, moment, supporters of prop 8 are reporting being shocked at the intensity of the response to the yes vote. Hello? If someone took away some of your rights you'd be pissed too.

Many people I talk to say that in a few years this will work itself out. Opponents of same-sex marriage are a shrinking majority and you can bet that there are some who feel really guilty about it (of course there are going to be those who dig in as well). And we will take pains to reach out to those who will listen (an admitted mistake of the No of 8 strategy, as the polling data said the measure would fail.)

What I'm wondering is who's the next enemy? Bible stuff aside, we don't make a good enemy. I'm thinking that next up is back to illegal immigrants (now there's a dilemma for the Central Valley as their agrieconomy depends on them), or arab-appearing Muslims. It will be interesting to see what happens as more American Muslims run for political office.

The Evil Phelps Group Threatens to Picket Alameda HS

Alameda is a relatively small city in the Bay Area. After some growing pains, Alameda has become very progressive and supportive of LGBT concerns to the point that they deputized the mayor (I'm sure it was her idea) and most of the city council to do same-sex weddings at city hall. That said, we're not really used to being in the limelight (ok the original anti-gay growing pains got us national attention, but that was 13 years ago).

Well Alameda High Schools decision to put on the Laramie Project has gotten Fred Phelps and Co.'s attention. Phelps is pretty much evil incarnate and get's his jollies off of picking things gay and progressive related, with the most appalling signage. Even among evangelical xian's he's pretty much a pariah. Word has it that they are planning to protest the Laramie Project at AHS on Friday. Word also has it (I refuse to put citations in for these bozos) that Phelps himself is off serving a higher purpose of protesting at Obama's Grandmother's funeral (!! - I did say he was a complete evil, agent of satan, pariah yes?), so his underlings will be there instead.

It remains to be seem whether they show at all (wouldn't be the first time they did a no show), but several people and the police and planning on putting up a buffer zone to shield the kids from this despicable vitriol. I also know they have some misinformation which I won't publish till after Friday.

I don't believe in hell but if there is one, Phelps will be there.

Alameda High puts on "The Larame Project"

My neighbor told me that her daughter is participating in Alameda High School's production of The Laramie Project. That is so extraordinary, that my brain simply didn't put it together at first. The Laramie Project is the story of Matthew Shepherd, his brutal murder (left to die on a fence in Wyo. simply because he was gay - he died after 22 hours), and the aftermath. My neighbor's daughter, is not only a cast member but is the stage manager and since I know how stressful the stage manager's job is (make sure every one in the cast is there and ready to go on at the right time, and calls every lighting cue), is to be doubly admired.

I'm going to see the play tonight, and I need to remember to bring Kleenex as the subject is deeply upsetting to me as unlike most of the cast (this is the 10 year anniversary), I remember all too well when that happened.

My neighbor is very justifiably proud of her daughter as am I.

More Prop 8 followup

I am going to take a Prop 8 hiatus but will readdress it from time to time.

This just in Connecticut. just ok'd same sex marriage. Hooray! (Ref. Ref2)
People from Calif. are already talking about getting married there and coming back here to ask for it to be recognized.

And while I don't have a reference handy for it I just heard on KFOG news that some Asian rights groups are joining in the legal brief asking the court to reverse Prop 8.

Which brings up, just how terrific the Asian communities have been in there opposition to Prop 8, as opposed to the lukewarm or even hostile response of other minority communities such as the African-American one. (The Latin commuity was split - and people like Caesar Chavez's granddaughter who had us all chanting "Si si puede" at the anti-Prop 8 rally, are terrific.)

I don't think it's fair to lay blame for 8's passage on the African-American commuity as there were a ton of Anglos that voted for it, but it was indeed weird to hear about those who voted for Obama and also for Prop 8. Feelings of betrayal in the LGBT community who voted overwhelmingly for Obama, were very present yet most seem not to be giving in to open hostility, just noting the irony. And those who are a member of both communities are really feeling pinched.

A well respected polling site has a great page on Prop 8 myths here.

The LA Times talks about the legal ins and out of the court challenges and what's ahead here.

And finally, Equality California is gearing up for a 2010 initiative, though since I am firmly of the opinion that civil rights are not up for vote I really, really hope it doesn't come to that.

I'm also quite happy that the Yes folks really suck at writing legistlation. They've screwed up twice now. The first one they didn't make it a constitutional amendment, and now that they did they neglected to make it retroactive. Now they're saying that's what they "intended" - like that holds any weight - morons.

The Legal Eagles Continue to Weigh in on Prop 8

This is likely to be a series of posts.

The legal experts are already starting to weigh in on Prop 8.

One third of the Calif legislators have files a friend of the court brief asking that 8 be overturned;

http://www.examiner.com/a-1683846~Lawmakers_join_call_to_overturn_Prop__8.html

And long time judge LaDoris H. Cordell has stated categorically that 8 will be overturned and also is of the opinion that we won't be able to convince religious African American voters no matter what we try and that it simply has to be legislated like everything else. Cordell is an African-American lesbian and grew up in that environment and became a lawyer and a judge (now retired), so she really is an authority.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/11/ED45141P46.DTL&type=politics

In my mind this all comes down to:

What part of Equal Protection Under the Law do you not understand?

Keith Olbermann on Prop 8

This deserves its own blog entry.

Keith Olbermann speaks out on Prop 8
His passion and eloquence are unmatchable.

I am in tears.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27650743/

The Law of Unintended Consequences

We went to a very encouraging, fun, raucous, noisy, peaceful anti-Prop 8 rally in Sacramento, which gave me hope that there are a lot of really pissed off people who are more that willing to fight this through. I took a lot of video of the very creative signs, which I will make a montage of. I was in particular thrilled to see Caesar Chavez's granddaughter speak as some of us were beginning to feel abandoned by other minorities (but that's another blog entry).

Ahnold has weighed in again saying he hopes the courts will overturn 8, and while I wish he were more outspoken earlier I'm thrilled that he's speaking out and bluntly. (Ref.)

But while the demonstrations show the state that we're not going to take this lying down, the real power is with the courts and that's where our attention will be pointed. Conversations with cooler, insightful heads reveal that the Yes on 8 folks may have painted themselves into a corner that they may very well regret.

Calif law dictates equal protection. The court can invalidate 8, or there's another option that I've heard someone describe as the "nuclear option." If the church is so attached to the M-word then it could just disappear entirely from the state law and we all would have civil unions. I've heard this echoed more than once (3-4 times I believe). Wow, I'm quite sure that's not what the Yes folks intended or want - the tricky part is that it will be considered the lgbt community's fault even though it was the Yes folks who started this nonsense.

I'm hoping that 8 is just overtuned - I do like being married rather that civil unionized, though I'll happily take either as long as it's exactly the same as what everyone else gets. This will still lead to lots of arguing, but years from now the dust simply has to settle.

Prop 8's Real Victims

While every lgbt person is a victim of Prop 8's passage, most of us will fight on and will be ok. Last night, it occurred to me that the real victims are young lgbt people who live in the Central Valley and other homophobic Calif places. They are currently trapped, and I'm really feeling for them.

What about the kid who was just about to come out to their parents when this mob mentality hit? What are they to do? What about in schools? The yes on h8 people claim they worry about same-sex marriage being taught in schools (a lie - unfortunately), but they are teaching their children to hate (in schools, in churches and everywhere else). In our area, it's the young people who are huge instruments for change, teaching children to hate is so wrong, and creates an environment of terror that should have gone out in the 60's. I came out in 1982 and while I had support, it was still pretty uncomfortable. Now I hear stories of it not being an issue at all. How refreshing. I want to save our young people from that pain. For them to perpetuate that pain is beyond despicable.

Terri (who came our more recently) says that this is the first time she's felt discriminated against as a minority. Though she's very resilient, that's pain I would have paid money to spare her from.

Putting the Hurt on My Obama buzz

And that just ain't right.

Prop 8 is headed back to the courts with some very powerful lawyers gunning for its defeat.

Jerry Brown undoubtedly has the weirdest and most uncomfortable position (ref).
The comfortable position is that he gets to defend my marriage (and the 18,000 other ones) as still valid since they were done during a time when they were legal.
The uncomfortable one (that I know he must just totally hate) is that he has to be the unlucky one to defend Prop 8 from the legal challenges filed by city attorneys from SF, Santa Clara, and Los Angeles, who are claiming that Prop 8 is so far reaching that it can not be a simple amendment, but instead a constitutional revision which takes 2/3 of the legislature and is far harder to obtain. Let's hope that Brown chooses to do a really bad job of defending it.

Another legal challenge is by the ACLU, Lambda Legal, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights who are saying the measure is inconsistent with the constitution. Making the point that if voters tried to take away freedom of speech for women and not for men that it would be certainly struck down. ACLU (who is now clearly the one to watch as Equality Calif is being quieter than I care for right now) has an excellent article on it here.

There is still the fact that votes are still being counted. I don't know if 400.000 no votes would turn up, but given the millions that voted on each side it wouldn't be unprecedented.

I'm just hoping that the courts do what they've so often done in the past. Protect a minority from the tyranny of the [very slim] majority (ACLU mentions that too - hooray.)

I really want to let this go and enjoy the fact that history was made. Back on Super Tues (scary that I've been blogging long enough to self quote) I said while I was happily angsting about Clinton vs Obama (In: This Time My Vote Counts) that "But the thing is that Obama could create a revolution Right Now." and he just very well may.

I am so hopeful right now about us being able to rebuild our place in the world to be less of a spoiled, resource hogging, do it our way, bully. Of course, expectations are going to be so high that there's bound to be disappointment and I don't envy Obama after oh three months in office. But he signed up for this and he is a born president. After 12 years of conservatives trashing our world image, I do so look forward to this.

Staying tuned. And much as I want to be done with Prop 8, I will continue to blog about the legal challenges to it as it works its way through the court system.

Legislating Hate

I'm reeling from Prop 8 maybe passing.

The Central Valley (I reeeeeeally dislike the Central Valley) has decided that their world view of equal rights for only people they like is the way it should be for the rest of us (Prop 8 failed soundly in the Bay Area). They chose to legislate their hate and claim that it's for the good of the children. Ironically, if the trends continue the way they're going, their children will likely grow up and decide that their parents were complete full of it.

What really gets me is they lied. Repeatedly. People who claim to be Christians lied because it was the only way they would win. Appalling. I do hope that karma catches up to them in either this life or what follows.

Fortunately, such a heinous initiative that strips one group of rights sounds very unconstitutional (even though it's trying to amend the constitution), Equality Calif and several city attorneys agree. More info here, and here (page down to latest news).

I have sent them email offering to help with the challenge.

Oh and the best one liner I've seen during this campaign is:

I don't recall voting on your marriage.

Election Day: The Waiting

I have never been so emotionally involved in an election. Terri (my wife) is masochistic enough to watch the polls from day to day, and the reassuring thing is that if the polling data is correct, she figured out that unless there is massive voter disenfranchisement/fraud, there is no way that McCain can win, which I find very reassuring.

Prop 8 will be closer and this is the first time (ok second, but Prop 22 was a long time ago - and I'm too young for the Brigs amendment - which much have been just awful to go through even though it failed) that I and my rights are being put up for popular vote. That's a really weird feeling and I'm not sure how to feel about that (angry, rueful, excited, you name it). Rights are not a popularity contest, nor have they been in the past. Social progress just doesn't seem to go that way. We make ideals (equal rights for all) and then courts make us hold to those ideals (no, it's not equal rights for some). If rights were a popularity contest then think how scary some states would be. It's an easy guess that some states would still ban interracial marriage.

It's so odd. The economy is tanking, we need to rebuild our tarnished world image and you're worried that my marriage is somehow cheapening yours? If my marriage can hurt your marriage then perhaps your marriage isn't quite the bedrock that you claim it is?

My hope is that all those unpollable cellphone-only young voters are going to trounce Prop 8. On Halloween each year we're invaded by hordes of Trick or Treaters. 3 different young teenagers saw our No on 8 sign and happily said "Vote No on 8" Made me wish they could too. They will someday and our future is with them.

Today I was called a Wife

I went into Summit's palatial and brand new Carol Ann Read Breast Health Center for a mammogram. The place feels like a spa and is probably the most warm and fuzzy place on Pill Hill. But the warm and fuzziness paled compared to one moment that took my breath away.

During check in they routinely go over your record to make sure all the information is still current. The woman said "And Terri is your Significant Other?" Unconsciously looking down at my left hand I said "Well, actually we're married now." She said "Ok, let me change that to Wife." Tap, tap, tap on the keyboard while I sat there semi-stunned soaking in the moment and trying to look casual. This has never happened to me before beyond getting married.

I am married. I have a wife. I am a wife. No judgment (not that Summit ever has - they're terrific about partnered relationships). No hand wringing. No hems and haws. Nothing. Just business as usual.

I realized in this moment this is something I really want to keep and am willing to go to the mat for. When I got back, I donated more to No on 8. http://www.eqca.org.

Puzzling through Certified Mail

So I need to send that letter with some sort of delivery confirmation to that collection agency. I'm forever confused by the post office options so I thought I'd take this oppertunity to learn it as I really need to do this with Health Net next year anyway.

I thought you could just send something "Return Receipt" but it turns out with much looking at http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm100/adding.htm that Return Receipt is only an extra service of Certified Mail and there's an extra charge on top of the $2.70 that Certified Mail costs (yikes). Fortunately, my work has the Certified Mail stickers and there was someone at work who could help me affix the label properly and retain the number on the receipt that I am supposed to keep (I was just about to give up and go to the post office.) There are instructions on the label and I had figured out some of it, but there is a place on the receipt for a postmark that apparently is not necessary since the tracking number is on there.

So the steps are:
Weigh the item
Calculate the 1st class postage (http://www.usps.com can help with this)
Add $2.70 for the Certified Mail
Affix the postage using a postal machine or your PCs printer (I wouldn't bother with stamps)
Get a Certified Mail Receipt form (either your work or the post office will have these.)
Fill out the form on the right hand side of the form (this is your receipt so it is optional)
The important part
Detach the left hand side of the form fold on the dotted line and attach it to the top of the envelope on the right hand side of the return address. The fold will be along the top of the envelope. Most of the label including the bar code will be showing on the front. Oh and peel off one of the numbers and attach it to your receipt - though I notice that number is already on this receipt so that's optional too. (Could attach it to something else I guess.) I'd have a picture but it already has been picked up.

[quote from http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm100/preparing.htm]
Extra Services
Place labels for extra services above the delivery address and to the right of the return address, or to the left of the delivery address.

Here are some screen shots of my initial investigation to see if I could just get return receipt with out certified mail - nope.

SF Chronicle Trial Subs have strings it seems

I was bemoaning that my mailbox was absent of predatory lending housing refi offers. Seems those jokers have moved on. But another writing opportunity just appeared today. Cool (I think).

In January I bought a trial sub of the SF Chron to help a student in a college scholarship. The pitch was that all I would have to do is write "Cancel" on the bill and that would be the end of it. Well after doing exactly that (twice), the Chron is trying to bill me for "transportation costs." I'm feeling stubborn and I want them to honor their offer, so I've been refusing to pay the silly $16.92. Well today I got a letter from a collection agency. Ya-hoo let's see where this leads. Here's the letter I just wrote to them:

From:
Ellen Clary
[address]

To:
California Service Bureau, Inc
3050 Fite Circle #107
Sacramento CA 95827

CC: SF Chronicle Subscription Dept.

Oct 29, 2008

Greetings,

I received a letter from your company that the SF Chronicle has turned over a bill in the amount of $16.92 to you.

This is in regard to a trial subscription that the Chron failed to cancel at the time it was requested.

Order of events are:
1/9/08 I purchase a $15.00 trial subscription for the SF Chron from a prospective college
student in a scholarship competition the understanding is that when I receive a bill
that if I no longer wish to receive the newspaper that I should write "cancel"
on the bill and that will be the end of it.
1/17/08 That check (#1407) is cashed (see enc)
7/10/08 I receive a bill and return it with cancel written on it (see enc)
8/7/08 I receive another bill and again return it with cancel written on it (see enc)
8/28/08 I receive another bill (this one for $16.92), I return it with a note explaining that
this was a paid for trial sub. and no further money is due. (see enc.)
(I incorrectly state the amount in that note as $35.00, but that was inclusive of
another subscription.)
10/28/08 I receive your letter


While the money is not really an issue here, the principal certainly is (hence the cc to SF Chron). A student was led to believe that the trial subscriptions he was selling were obligation free, for that not to be the case is distressing.

My preference is that this "debt" be simply canceled as this can not be worth your time and I write about financial processes and consumer issues.

This will go out Return Receipt tomorrow. Hopfully they'll get the hint that I can waste enormous amonts of their time. We'll see if I get Consumer Affairs or the Better Business Bureau involved. I don't know if they can do anything to my credit report as they did not extend credit to me and I'm happy to document this silly thing to all of them as well.

Olympia "Mountain"

Mountain is in quotes as it's only 2968'. However if you start from 700' and do a steep climb it's an excellent training hike. Olympia Mountain is in the rear section of Mt. Diablo State Park. It's a much more obscure part of the park and finding the trailhead off Marsh Creek Rd. at all was a challenge.

Not only that, but I was able to address some up the climbing/descending issues I've been having and learned something important. I still don't really like going downhill on dirt - it's pretty dull even when I'm able to descend steep slopes safely and pain free.

I went up the less steep way as I wasn't familiar with the route so I didn't know how ridiculous the trail might get (turned out, it would have been fine.) Even the less steep way was challenging. Ascending this time I didn't push myself into anaerobic gasping but instead stayed at a ground covering but reasonable pace. When I had climbed 1100' I stopped and ate some and that helped avoid any energy depletion or crashing. Then I was able to complete the steep ascent.

My original intention was to go up to North Peak, but once I got to Olympia I realized that it was important for me to figure out how to safely descend and I wanted to do that while I still had some energy, plus I had a dinner commitment. In summer the trails/fireroads in this area are dry and gravely and the footing is treacherous for me (see photo which is looking up a hill). I have slipped and fallen many times to the point where before I found the Micro Spikes that I wouldn't hike in summer.

I had brought my Micro Spikes, and had my new Vasque boots since the Keens are not able to protect my ankles from twists on steep descents, and of course I had my trekking poles (the Black Diamond ones). And since I wasn't exhausted I also had the all important ability to pay close attention to where I was stepping, and to my body position to make sure I wasn't leaning backwards.

It all came together and worked beautifully. I was able to go down trails that I simply would not have been able to. And there were at least two times where I would have twisted an ankle but the Vasques prevented it. The trade off is that there is much less cushioning with the Vasques and my hips are telling me about it (the day after), but that is much better that a screwed up ankle.

So I did it. I have successfully addressed most of the issues that I've been having around hiking save perhaps the important at altitude one. And with all that now taken care of in my mind I've able to see more clearly the real issue. Descending on foot on dirt is really dull. Your goal is usually to climb something and the descent is just what's left over. you're usually tired so it's often the riskiest part of the climb and your head just isn't in it (which makes it more dangerous and more accident prone.)

What makes the descent more interesting? Skiing, biking, glissading, rapelling - maybe paragliding though I've never tried it. Even using snowshoes on snow makes it more fun. Dirt is well, dirt.

So this winter, I'm going to be focusing on learning to be the best skiier I can be and learning backcountry skiing as well. I'm going to be spending a lot of time at Squaw as they have lessons of all levels every hour and there's this small detail of it being an Olympic site so you know the mountain is well regarded.


I'm going to be consulting again with mountaineering trainer Courtnay Schurman of Body Results but I think instead of focusing on trying to summit Shasta I think I want her to help me train for skiing. I'm going to be up visiting my parents in Seattle where she is and I'll meet with her in person.

So this was a surprisingly instructive little training climb as it's helped my get better focused. Of course in a week this may all change but this is something I've been working out in my head for a while now. The niggling problems were bugging me and I'm glad I've come up with solutions that work for me and it's an important lesson for me that unresolved issues drive me up the wall.

I still haven't given up on summiting Shasta, but I think I want to have more skiing skills first. I will also go back to Whitney as I still haven't stood a top it (even though I've done the hardest part of the climb twice now) and that's something I'm willing to suffer a little for. But I'm going to refrain from taking on very many hard Sierra climbs on dirt as I can only tolerate a few obsessions at a time. :)

And yes I did finally find my car. The trails at the start are confusing and not as well marked as I would like.

Oh and I've sure I've done this before but I really need to rant about the Mt. Diablo trail signage. Trails are sign posted like you're driving on the freeway. They're labeled where you going to, not where you are. That's totally confusing. A hiker wants to know if they're in the right place, then the may want to know about directionals. An example is to the left, You are not on North Peak Trail. You are actually on Mt Olympia Trail (see the teeny tiny printing at the top of the sign) and you are headed in the direction of North Peak Trail and you will get there in 1.35 miles. Confusing yes?

The local UCC church fights back

In the "you started it" tradition, the local UCC church First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ (which is very open and embracing of diversity) has put up a huge No-On-8 banner and is helping its members order No-On-8 signs. I was tipped off about this as the signs started to crop up in my neighborhood and I asked about it. I was just driving by on Central to go to work which is a slightly different route than I usually take and saw the banner so went back when I had a camera.

Oh an I spoke to another member and she tells me that the two guys that put up the banner: are heterosexual.

I normally think that churches should not be involved in politics, but given that the Mormon and Catholic Churches are pretty much trying to buy yes-on-8, this seems more than appropriate. Kudos from a non-Christian.

The effect of the behavior of strangers

So I take classes at my gym, and I often see the same people all the time. Generally it's "hi how are you" typical kind of acquaintance relationship sort of thing, but sort times I see a behavior that stands out and it catches my attention. There's a woman who I see a lot who talks a lot to some of the other people in the class but will speak maybe two words to me if I ask her a question or say hello. This time she set up the bike next to me and didn't say word one which is not atypical of someone you've never seen before, but we've seen each other for more than a year, so it felt really weird.

What do I represent to her? She doesn't know me, so it's very likely nothing I've done.
I have no idea of her sexuality so I have no idea if that plays into it at all. I feel like I've walked into a play and haven't been given the lines or even the plot. Forcing the issue wouldn't accomplish anything and this is not a relationship I need at all, but not knowing still bugs me, so I write it here.

It's a good exercise for my ego to realize that I don't have to interact with every single person, and not every person wants to interact with me. Believe it or not I used to be painfully shy, so maybe I'm over compensating by wanting to talk to lots of people. I like commanding attention now and am good talking in front of people.

It's funny what buttons being deliberately ignored pushes for me. Suddenly I was back in Jr High with the popular kids paying no attention to me at all. I write this now as a way to learn to step back and not be so frustrated by it. Let people be who they want to be as long as it's not hurting anyone else.

The other button is the "lonely in a crowd" one. Where you're surrounded by people, but they're not talking. The other day I heard a description of casual carpooling where there is an unspoken rule that people in the carpool do not interact with each other. Sounds like a personal hell for me. I would be running the carpool where everyone talks and heck with conventions. (I don't really have a commute since my work is close, so I've never done it.)

My brother and sister moved out of the house while I was pretty young. I spent a lot of time by myself and it has left me permanently weird about it. I can and do spend time by myself (I often climb by myself as it's hard for me to find someone who hikes or bikes at my pace), but I can only do it for so long and then I start missing Terri, friends, and the dogs.

One reason I love dog agility is that it's so inherently social, but even starting out in that was tough as I didn't know people well. The cool thing about the sport is that you train in classes so you get to know your classmates, and for an agility trial to happen at all, they need a lot of volunteers and most of the jobs involve social interaction. It's a blast.

But I can't help but wonder if there's something I've done to offend this woman. The answer is likely that the only thing I've done is resemble some person or type to her (I can come off a bit "hard core cyclist" sometimes, but she's pretty good at RPM too so I don't know). I need to let this go. Show kindness and give her space, and not try to force anything. This is not about me.

from a brave friend in Kern County

Cool, I have other people writing my blog entries for me. This is from Celia who lives with her partner (now wife) in Kern County. As you might imagine, Kern County is not exactly a hotbed of glbt rights. It's a place I visit to go hiking/climbing in the Sierra's but I would never, ever live there. To call her brave is way understating things.

---

I was at the river today and in a state of painful exhaustion, I broke down and cried. All the ignorant and hateful energy behind prop8 just sent me to my knees in utter and complete agony. And, of course,Nature performed her healing magic. Some things are too personal to write and some things are meant to be shared NOW. I flashed on the time I was confronted by a group of skinheads, how I saw beyond the hate and saw instead a scared group of kids. Imagine that, kids with chains and clubs were afraid of me! I did a Peaceful Warrior breathing technique and visualized them moving along peacefully. It worked. Flash to the last time I saw my father on this earth, him hobbling on the beach with a cane. At first I was in panic as he was walking my direction( it had been several years since I last saw him)then an unexpected and amazing thought came to me"It's not your job" what? I snapped out of my panic attack. "It's not your job to hate him. It's not your job to punish him". I became invisible to him as he walked right past me and the monster I grew up with was just a little old man with a hat and cane. Later in a vision, I saw him as a scared kid putting his drunk, alcoholic father to bed and dealing with his mother who was nick named"crazy Hazel".At one time I fantasized about doing a "go to hell" dance on his grave, I now found myself leaving a "Thank You" note instead.He was a scared kid.Flash to me several years ago, attending Westmont(christian collage) and again, in sheer and utter desperation, begging to die and contemplating speeding the process along.I was trying to change my feelings about the possibility of being Gay. The church people had prayed over me to rid me of the "demon of homosexuality", and, as I was extremely uncomfortable with strangers touching me with strange energy, I found a way out. I did the best performance of my life and acted like I was "slain in the spirit", falling to the ground and babbling, which they took as "speaking in tongues". It worked. they backed off feeling certain that I was "healed and now heterosexual". Still at collage, I was in a "support" group where, among other odd things, a counselor checked in with me to make sure I was not "falling into temptation" by masturbating.(creepy!!!!!!!!!!) Other young women were in the group and we were given the names of famous men who were cute. the fact that they had to TELL us who was cute should have given us a clue that heterosexuality was not natural for us!Again, I flashed on these people. Again they were scared.I flashed on growing up with unspeakable abuse at the hands of both parents, one man, one woman, heterosexual and "christian". I flashed on being in a good therapy group and listening to men who were abused by catholic priests only to be told to be quiet. I flashed on a time when I taught teaching credential students how to detect abuse in children. A woman told me that, as I was telling my story, she flashed on a girl in her preschool, reported suspected abuse and was right. The little girl was protected, given therapy and is doing well, the perpetrator in jail. I flashed on how different that little girls life will be because of that intervention and everything I had gone through now had a purpose. Knowing that I have helped at least one child makes the struggle worth while. Flash to now, prop 8.

I confess that there have been times when I have not been the "Peaceful Warrior" but the "Pissed Off Warrior", flipping certain hand signals at "yes on 8" signs and endlessly arguing with narrow minded bigots who spout off the "evils of the homosexual lifestyle" ad nasium.To many nights I have awakened to arguing with these stupid people who just won't listen to reason. I've been sick and painfully tired. Another flash, when I was one of those condescending, holier than thou narrow minded bigots. I went to church since before conception and was trained to fear anything that was different.I was scared.My spiritual path has taken me on many adventures and I've done more soul searching than there are words to speak. I have been to "hell" and, I have been to "heaven". Many of these experiences are just to amazing to put into words so I won't go there. What I will say is that I know who I am and I AM OKAY!!!!!!!!!!My spiritual health is great and it has nothing to do with anything written in a book. So, I don't care what religious people spout off about. They are afraid.I have compassion for them. So, I am reminded to bring back the Peaceful Warrior, see beyond the hate and love those who appear to be my enamies.Flash on Wayne Dyer and Marianne Willamson talks. When I pass a "yes on 8" sign, I say "In spite of my feelings, I send you love".  I feel better.

My spiritual path is my own and I know what I mean by prayer, God etc. I'm not into the bearded guy in the sky thing but I respect whatever path anyone is on as well as there being no path. I can only suggest that we ban together for the good of our world and make our part of the world a little bit better. For me, I go to nature. I am soooooooo grateful to be so close to the creek and river. Also, I'm soooooo grateful to have my theatre families in Ridgecrest and now in Bako. I can't imagine going through this without these wonderful people! And, of course, my dog Scodie who provides endless comic relief. Flash again to when "GOD" showed up in a "dream". God was a DOG and answered all my questions. I look in the eyes of dogs and I do see God. Makes perfectly good sense to me!

I love you all and I send you dignity and respect. Lets hope that everyone can send the same to us, or, at least, a majority of CA voters. I have my shields up against anything other than good energy and send out only good energy.

I have written some letters to papers to try to encourage grey matter activity. While I'm not great with the computer, I'll do my best to send them.

Take care and know that there are some good forces at work. If you need a comic relief, find a dog or watch Ellen [Degeneres]!

Love Celia

Consider Voting Absentee

I previously wrote that I liked to vote at the polls as I liked to feel I was taking part in the process and it always annoyed me that the Absentee ballots were counted last if at all.

I heard very recently that nearly half of California voters would vote absentee, and that combined with the absurd number of initiatives that are on the ballot it makes sense. (I hate the initiative process - do I look like a legislator? is my job description Legislator? Most initiatives that are not put there by the legislature are placed there to steer around the legislature and manipulate the public. Beyond irksome.)

With a sample ballot, you can sit down in front of the computer and do some research on http://smartvoter.org or other site and ponder the implications of arcane legal language even if it is summarized. Normally I would then tote that into the polls, but with so many things to vote on, I fear making a mistake and stakes are just too important in this election to screw it up, so last night I carefully transferred the information to a real ballot and mailed it in.

Note to Calif Voters. That humongous ballot weighs 1.1 oz and will cost you 59 cents to mail. I'm sure they'll take it postage due, but who wants to take that kind of chance? 11pm: THIS JUST IN - Most counties have an agreement with the post office to deliver ballots even if they are short of postage - ref.

For voters in contested states where voter disenfranchisement is rampant, voting by mail is a very effective way to sidestep the crap about all the voting machines for the polling place save one are broken and you'll have to wait for hours. Plus voting by mail means no voting machine to magically switch your Obama vote to McCain (I forget the ref - think it was on dailykos, but I'm not sure.)

However you do it, be sure to vote. My preference is you vote Democrat of course.

Cautiously hopeful.

The Most Passionate No On 8 People are: Heterosexual

I've had five (now over 10) or more conversations with heterosexual (all women) friends about prop 8. And they all tell me how angry it gets them. "It's a civil right." (Meaning not up for debate at all.) They are all married or have been married or are about to get married and are so happy for my partner and I being able to get married and they are all taking the yes on 8 stuff very personally. I am so deeply touched by their passion. It's funny how you get when your relationship and orientation are not taken seriously. You get used to the institutional discrimination as fact and feel privileged to finally be allowed to get married.

And I must admit to having Eeyore moments some times in the "Oh, they're going to take it away again. Oh well." Even though I would be profoundly disappointed if 8 passed, as it means a lengthy delay while we wait for the demographics to continue shifting in our favor as they already are, so the Calif Constitution could be reamended (Calif constitution is amended and reamended all the time so, while it's a pain, there's nothing written in stone about it at all.). But I'm digressing. My point is that you get used to discrimination and you kind of expect it. I've lived in the Bay Area for 15 years and it's been so refreshing to not be treated like a second class citizen, but I'm always aware that a large part of middle American would rather see me dead or at least not there.

Heterosexuals don't feel that discrimination, yet my friends are very aware of directed at the glbt community, and since they have not had the experience of being discriminated against, it makes them really angry to see us treated in this less than human way. Where us glbt folks (I'm a monogamous bisexual actually though I don't worry about such details in the fray of prop 8) are too used to it. I need them to feel the righteous indignation that I've had beaten (not literally, fortunately) out of me.

I am profoundly grateful for our heterosexual allies.

Classmates.com - Social Extortion

Classmates.com is an evil, evil good idea. I am firmly in their clutches and I'm not sure what to do about it. Signing up is free, entering some of your info is free, reading other people's info is free. You can see who else has signed up. This is all cool, BUT if you try to communicate, they want money (pay to play if you will). i thought I was safe as I never tried to use the service to communicate, but instead made a note of the person and resolved to use another method to find them (i.e. Google, online phone books, ...)

But there's something I hadn't planned on. Someone who I went to school with is trying to communicate with me. Classmates will cheerfully send me the email, but as soon as I click on it I get a message (see image left) that basically says: if you want to read this email from Sue (her first name) pay up. They are evil in that they carefully tell me exactly who(first name, last name) is trying to send the mail and it's someone I knew. I can just hear the subtextual: "neener, neener, neener, gotcha." Which I believe the proper response is "Yoooou bahstards!" :)

It is someone I actually am curious about and I do want to see how she's doing. I'm likely going to give in on this, but not without some public whining about it here.

The problem with finding her using other methods is that her last name is common in that area (Google is finding me all sort of incorrect people), and if she's at all like she was in HS, she won't be very technical or have much findable presence on the internet, and she probably won't know how to find me - which isn't that hard at all. But I've been surprised before and she is using classmates.com. The cool thing is that at least classmates will tell me her name and if she changed it and she hasn't. She was gay when I knew her so no name change is no surprise and despite my being very used to people who question their sexuality, I can't imagine her deciding that her orientation is different, but then again she's in her 40's now and I can't imagine that either.

Obligatory No on Prop 8 Entry

The Yes on Prop 8 folks have started their deceptive advertising, so I grudging am writing about politics again.

The TV ad shows a clip of Gavin Newsom saying the [same-sex marriage] floodgates are open and you better get used to it (that's a paraphrase). That's supposed to scare us? Oh, that's right I am hardly the intended audience here given that my same-sex partner are now married. I swear if it wasn't for Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda we'd be public enemy #1 in some people's eyes.

Anyway the claim is that 4 judges went against the will of the people. Er, hello, the California Legislator approved same-sex marriage twice. Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed it saying that he wanted the courts to decide. And sure enough the courts did decide and he certainly if fine with it and opposes Prop 8 saying that it's a "waste of time" and that there are more important things to worry about (such as a tanking economy).

So it's not just 4 judges, by a long shot. During the time in between when Prop 22 was approved (which was a very specific prop and not constitutional amendment - and I'm not going to look it up) and now, a whole bunch of younger people have reached voting age. Many of our youth have grown up knowing non-hertero people and don't see the big deal. Granted, there is still the thriving let's beat up queers section, but there appears to be a sea change in perspective (and I can't find the excellent sfgate article discussing the phenomena).

And the real heros here are some amazing heterosexuals. Gavin Newsom of course, but also Jerry Brown, our attorney general, who changed the wording of the proposition to say that what it specifically would do: that it would eliminate the right of same sex partners to marry (ref.), as opposed to something more general and flowery about defining marriage blah blah blah.

I just read that Jerry Brown says that Prop 8 is not retroactive and that those of us who are already married will still be married. Let's hope that remains irrelevant.

Respectfully Submitted,
Your Political Football

We Survived Getting Married in the Backyard

It really happened. We got married. And things actually worked very smoothly.

It took a lot of planning and key help from 2 friends Mark and Jan who agreed to be the wedding coordinators for the day and my sister who did the photography. And a lot of luck was involved. The weather was perfect, the only leaf blower on was way down the street (I had talked to my next door neighbors about the timing), the train that brought Terri's family over from Elk Grove was basically on time.

One unexpected thing that happened was that a cat snuck into the house because we had the back door open. Half way through the ceremony, Yoshi, the more nervous of my dogs, was in his crate and started barking furiously. Jan went in and he settled down. What I didn't realize was going on was there was some elaborate cat herding going on that involved a lot of closing and opening of doors. Thank you Jan.

We decided to have Trek our other dog be the ring bearer, and the risk was what was she going to do in that strange situation. She has an excellent recall, but I wasn't sure what to expect. She was perfect and brought the rings to us and then of course started to melt into the ground ("I want to stay with Mom") when I handed her back to Mark, but he picked her up and she was fine (she earned lots of treats for her trouble.)

After the ceremony, we then went to close by Ching Hua restaurant where we had preordered a whole bunch of appetizers and they could order whatever drink they wanted (sans coffee), which folks really liked since they didn't have to think about what to order and since they were appetizers if they didn't like one they could just wait for the next one.

Then we went back to the house for cake (a yummy dolled up chocolate mousse cake from local baker Boniere Bakery) and drinks.

It all worked and I didn't excessively cry during the ceremony and Terri and I were able to hold it together (Mike's advice of when in doubt slow down, really worked) and read our vows to each other outloud (and people loved the vows which was very touching to hear) and then repeat the traditional lines back that Mike (who was marrying us) said. I sometimes had to force myself to focus as I was marveling so much that it was all really happening.

Now to see what happens in the November election. With any luck we'll still be married, and will be planning some very large parties (since the ceremony was small). Oh and the cool thing about having the ceremony small was that you could treat them all very, very well.

We really are Getting Married in the Backyard

In July, Terri suggested we get married in the backyard which set in motion much angsting and activity (documented here in painful detail). Well, the ceremony is tomorrow, and as I look at the yard I marvel at what our patch of dirt has become. It's a real backyard now. The dogs in particular love the grass (rolling in it and chewing on it) when they're not tearing it up by rough housing on it. (It's established now, but still relatively fragile as it hasn't had time to develop that Tall Fescue turf toughness yet so it's actually much more pleasant to walk around on right now.)

Plus we got a lot of flowers first as plants and today I got a whole bunch of cut ones to make flower arrangements. I've discovered that if you have any artistic eye, that flower arranging is really easy to do.

And our friends and family have been so supportive mostly emotionally, but also helping out with all sort of things (even though we're deliberately keeping it to a very small almost entirely just family ceremony - with a look to a large party come November after the election.)

Now I just have to keep my head together enough to get dressed and made up tomorrow and try to keep the dogs from going completely nuts with 8 other people in the house.

Before:



Today:



Flowers:

The Ex-Homecoming Queen's Has a Gun

OMG I love Julie Brown and her novelty songs especially [Everybody Run] The Homecoming Queens Has a Gun. She's on The Stephanie Miller Show this morning and it turns out she's rerecorded the song to be about Sarah Palin: The Ex-Homecoming Queen's Has a Gun (The Girl-VP has a Gun).

It is a scream. Unfortunately I can't find Julie Brown on iTunes.

GOP chooses Sarah Palin and insults all of us

I've been avoiding writing about Sarah Palin for 2 weeks now hoping it would all blow over, but it keeps getting worse, and Move On is encouraging us all to write letters to the editor. I'll just consider this my letter to the editor.

So much has been said about Palin that it's hard to be original. She keeps proving over and again that she is completely out of step with current knowledge. She still thinks Global Warming is not human caused. She still believes that Iraq had something to do with 9/11. She's anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-evolution and thinks it's fun to shoot animals purely for sport (I'm not bothering with references - I trust you can look it up).

She was chosen not because of any qualifications, but instead purely on idealogy and because she's a nice looking woman. Never mind that this royally insults every Hillary Clinton fan, but honestly Palin is who should be insulted. Instead she doesn't mind being used - if there's something in it for her. What does that make her? Radio commentator Randi Rhodes would call her a whore for that (this isn't a letter to the editor so I get to write that, but there are plenty of men who do that as well so there has to be a better (but equally judgemental term let's hope) way to say it.)

One thing that scares me about Palin is one that is just now being touched on. If someone in her administration disagrees with her, she immediately tries to fire them. That may sort of work in small government (though it backfired on her twice - one with trying to get the librarian to consider banning books and the other with Troopergate), but every private enterprise CEO who turns to politics (not that she's ever being a CEO by any stretch of any imagination) has to learn the lesson that you can't do that with elected officials, you have to learn to negociate and compromise - that's politics. This more than a lot of things really underscores how woefully unprepared she is for life in the big leagues.

Call me prejudiced, but I want my presidental candidate to be a brilliant law professor who also does social activism and who is a caring parent, not a power mad, gun toting hockey parent and PTA member who doesn't believe in evolution and plainly isn't that bright.

I just heard that Obama has shattered fundraising records for August. Yahoo! I do so want this to be a decisive, landslide victory.

A friend just sent me the link to Women Against Palin which has a great video of the various signs that were at a recent rally. My favorite is: This Insults Pitbulls.

More Wedding Writing

There were two more portions of the wedding ceremony I needed to think about.
One is a special greeting that I wanted to be said by either Mike or I (haven't decided who yet).

Thank you all for coming today, both Terri and Ellen are deeply honored that you have chosen to join them in their marriage celebration. You are here in a ordinary backyard for a relatively uncomplicated wedding, but you are also taking an extraordinary part in history. This event simply could not have happened as recently as 3 1/2 months ago. They are grateful for your support and know that you will be with them regardless which way the legal and political winds blow. Thank you all very, very much.

The other is an optional reading. After going through several, briefly thought about writing something and decided that was too much work and far too presumptuous (it's more commonly a recognizable quote), I came across a great Diane Ackerman excerpt whose work I have admired before. It makes me smile. Though I did cut the quote off a line early as she talks about diatoms in the next line and I couldn't quite parse how small razor sharp little chips had to do with love and decided I didn't want me or anyone else in the audience pondering that.

from A History of Love by Diane Ackerman

“Love. What a small word we use for an idea so immense and powerful. It has altered the flow of history, calmed monsters, kindled works of art, cheered the forlorn, turned tough guys to mush, consoled the enslaved, driven strong women mad, glorified the humble, fueled national scandals, bankrupted robber barons, and made mincemeat of kings. How can love’s spaciousness be conveyed in the narrow confines of one syllable? Love is an ancient delirium, a desire older than civilization, with taproots spreading into deep and mysterious days."

Angsting about Vows

So yesterday we met with Mike, the person who is marrying us, to go over wedding details. The difficulty was that I wanted traditional vows and Terri wanted more original ones. I wanted traditional as I've spend more than 20 years being excluded from marriage and I want what I've been denied all these years.

Fortunately, Mike (a former priest who is now happily married) was terrific in reassuring us and laying out what the structure usually is while stressing how much flexibility there is. We finally decided with his help that we can do both. Have a non-traditional vow that we read to each other and then roll straight into the traditional vows. Sounds great but now I had to come up with something to say. Aaaaaa.

Fortunately Terri was nice about letting me stress all the while saying that it wasn't supposed to be a super stressful thing and that I could choose anything. I was flipping through various ideas and none seemed right. Then it finally occurred to me that if it didn't sound right then I already knew what I wanted to hear and I should just write it down.

Was that every a "Duh, of course silly" moment. Got a new window on the computer and started typing and had it in just a few minutes. A few more minutes of adding and rearranging and it was done. Maybe I am a writer (or just a good plagiarist).

Terri
I see the magic of your smile
and feel power of your gaze
I am awed by the brilliance of your mind
and charmed by your humor
and I know the love I feel for you is also
shared by you to me.

In this and in every setting
I give myself to you whole heartedly
With no regret or hesitation
To be a part of each others lives in marriage.

[traditional vows then follow]

Betrayed by Appetite and Metabolism

I've often been about 10 more pounds heavier than I needed to be and I've just sort of put up with it, but like many folks in their 40's, if I don't watch out, that number starts to creep upward.

So I decided that I wanted to at least lose the 10 pounds, so I would have a better margin if I got injured and couldn't exercise.

You would think that for an active person with a good diet this would not be so hard to do, but as just about anyone who's tried can tell you, it's very difficult to convince your body that yes indeed I want to burn that fat off. My body is programmed to be a certain size and it thinks it is life threatening to lose that padding, and convincing it otherwise just isn't really working.

So after trying many different (not radical - I've not really overweight) tactics, I've resorted to simply getting used to being hungry and not snacking in between meals and often not eating breakfast at all. I no longer trust my body's inclination to eat (unless I'm really, really hungry). My appetite is dialed into when I was younger and had a higher metabolism, and even with regular exercise that metabolism and appetite have not meshed. It's very difficult and not really maintainable, but it is sort of working. I'm part of the way there. Though I notice that if I give in for just a little bit the pounds go back on (though they seem to come off easier now too.)

I'm hoping to be further along on this before the holidays undo everything and I have to start over.