Dude, where's my car?

During yesterday's sudden snow storm and subsequent traffic snarl, dubbed "worst traffic ever" by longtime Portlanders and state officials, at least a thousand vehicles were abandoned in Portland and eventually towed. Somewhere. So many cars were towed by so many companies that some people are apparently having difficulty finding out where their car went and how to get it back.
Fortunately I made it home OK, and with the car - though it did take 40 minutes to drive the 3 miles home. Some less fortunate drivers were stuck in traffic for several hours. Think I'll take tomorrow off. :-)

Christmas

It's Christmas already! Every year we say we're definitely not waiting until the last minute to send out Christmas cards and gifts next year, but it never seems to work out that way. This year we decided to forgo many gifts for the family and spread the wealth (such as it is) to people and families we knew could really use the help. This has been a tough year for just about everyone and we feel very fortunate to have everything we need. Austin has been particularly thoughtful towards others this year and that's about the best Christmas present a dad can get.

Merry Christmas!

Familial Resemblance?

Strange, but I think Austin's starting to resemble some of his girl cousins...

Someone's Feeling Cranky...

And it's me. My back went out again on Monday. (What the heck does that mean anyway? Where did it go and when's it coming back? Some say they "threw their back out." I'd like to throw mine out.) But I digress... I can't sleep because I wake up shrieking every 15 minutes when I try to turn over, I can barely walk - assuming I can first stand up, the big painkiller horse pills and muscle relaxants are just useless, and this giant glass of wine is only raising the level of sarcasm. Not that anyone's noticed. Aarghh! OK, I'm done. :-)

Pie!

Look what our friends from the cafe dropped off! Mmmm...

Happiness is...

OK, it's probably bad form to make a blog entry that's nothing more than a link to another blog, but...

http://www.happinessprojecttoolbox.com/

We can all use a bit more happiness in our lives. Check it out and see if you don't find one or two things that resonate for you.

Outdoor School

Oregon has this program/tradition called Outdoor School where sixth-graders go spend a week in the woods and learn about nature. The hand sign means I Love You, not Go Longhorns!

Halloween Pics

Not much to look at, but a few pics are on our Picasa thingy - http://picasaweb.google.com/pdxbears

Separated at Birth?

Rudy went to the zoo the other day and found what may be Bugg's long lost brother. You be the judge:

Fall Fun on Two Wheels

My green motorcycle is still mostly in pieces so Ben let me borrow his green motorcycle for a while. Woo-hoo!

Went to the Bagdad to see the movie "Up" yesterday. It was a typical Pixar flick - funny, action-packed, and with animation that is somehow always more astounding than in the last movie. For an animated flick with a ridiculous premise, this one really succeeded in pulling every emotional string. By the end of the show several overstimulated children (and a few adults) in the audience were near-hysterical. It was pretty entertaining. Plus, if my Grandpa Johnson had been animated, he would have looked exactly like the main character.

Camp Westwind Photos

It was just me and Austin this year at Family Camp. Rudy stayed home with Bugg the diabetic pug, watched horror movies and ate cake.

Photos of camp and Bugg's birthday:

http://picasaweb.google.com/pdxbears

Bugg Turns 13

Austin and the Rain Chains

Hottest Day Ever

...well, at least since 1859 or thereabouts. 108 degrees. I'd say more about it if my life force hadn't evaporated. And it's raining in Oklahoma. WTF? (Stands for "Weather's Terribly Fickle", Mom.)

The Week in Review

Let's see... 100-plus degree heat for days to come, found out Bugg (the pug) is diabetic (two shots a day from now on - yay), major layoffs at work (Why are they still called that? It's not like they'll be calling anyone back. I guess "mass firings" just doesn't sound very good), Duke (our tenant) sliced his hand open last night and came down to bleed all over our kitchen (Brought the health care debate into sharp focus since he lacks health insurance. People in this country shouldn't have to choose between getting a serious laceration stitched up and groceries). Oh, and I can't breathe - at least not easily. Not sure what that's all about.

OK, I guess that was mostly the bad and/or ugly. On the bright side, I'm still employed, which means we can afford things like insulin and air conditioning. And food. And health care. And I have a supportive and caring family. Come to think of it, things are looking up. :-)

Fireworks Fun

Spent the 4th with our friends Kevin and Kelly and their sons Adam and Jordan. Here are some photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/pdxbears/July42009#

Austin Goes to Camp

Took Austin to Camp Westwind yesterday and we're childless until next Thursday. This is the first time he's been separated from both of us and it was a little hard to let him go. But, Westwind (see link above) is a phenomenal place to be a camper, the staff is excellent and he's in good hands. I'm not sure he grasps quite yet how fantasticly beautiful the setting is and how lucky he is to be able to go hang out there. He's boarding a ferry in the photo because the camp is only accessible by boat (or helicopter, I suppose). The first day, they give them all a serious talk about how to avoid being attacked by a cougar or bear (never hike alone; stay calm; don't run away; if "buddies" walk too far apart, it's usually the smaller of the two that gets eaten, etc.). I'm not sure how many campers have actually been eaten, but the counselors don't have any problem keeping the kids in their cabins at night. :-)

Anniversary

Ten years ago today, a certain sneaky friend of mine invited me to go see a movie at the Bagdad Theater. The sneaky part was that he also invited this handsome and charming guy named Rudy. Well, y'all know the rest. :-)

Water Works

Some photos to go with Austin's blog:

Installing the main water line:

Azalea with Borg-like feeding tube:

Forts and Planes and Growing Pains

Since Austin didn't post any fort pictures, here's one . He was building airplanes out of scrap lumber on Sunday when he missed a nail and smashed his thumb into a bloody pulp with the hammer. Ugh, it brings back all the pains of childhood - skinned knees and gravel-abraded palms, bruised shins and smashed fingers and toes. It's a wonder we all lived through it.

Austin Flies

There's a national program called Young Eagles where pilots take kids up and fly them around in their own planes for fun and to possibly develop an interest in aviation. One of the Portland chapters of the Experimental Aircraft Association had one such event today at Fort Vancouver's Pearson Air Museum and Airfield and Austin got to fly in a Van's RV-7a. Harrison Ford is the current Young Eagles chairman and has flown over 250 kids in his own plane (one at a time of course). I thought there might be a slight chance of him being there since he's apparently very active in the club and is in town doing a movie. Well, he wasn't there, but we got Dave Salesky (everyone's favorite Portland weatherman) instead - not doing the news, but flying kids in his plane; very nice of all the pilots to give up their time and planes - at some expense - to give kids a chance to get up in the air. Anyhoo, here are some more photos.

Forty

I've been imagining and somewhat dreading my 40th birthday since I was about 13 - when my parents turned 40. For all the fear and loathing, it turned out to be a pleasant, unremarkable day. As Eckhart Tolle might say, it turns out that no matter how old I am, it's always now.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for all the notes, cards, and phone calls. I feel loved. :-)

Dozer Day

Took Austin and Gray to Dozer Day yesterday. Dozer Day is an annual benefit at a local quarry where kids (with some assistance) get to drive real bulldozers, backhoes, and other big tractors, plus some food, games and general mayhem. Transportation to/from the festivities is via giant dump truck. It was a lot of fun and a perfect day weather-wise. Here are some pictures.

Tree Day

We decided to enclose the side-yard so that Austin would have a semi-secure place to goof around outside and to make the yard a little more private. After some debate, we settled on a hedgerow of arborvitae. My Extreme(ish) Gardening sister might be thinking this would be a great opportunity for me to get my hands dirty and enjoy some dirt time outside in the nice weather. Personally, I'm more of an Extreme Makeover kind of gardener. The way I see it, my part is to look out the window occasionally and make sure the guys are putting stuff in the right places while keeping my check-writing hand limber and at the ready. Should be done today. Whew! :-)

Fat Dad Update

186 lbs - 17 lbs down, 8 to go. Problem is, I can now see that my goal wasn't low enough 'cause I'm still plenty fat. Should I move the target now or wait until I reach the original goal? Hmmm...

Oh - and since our collective diet has been modified, Rudy says he "accidentally" lost 10 lbs. Whatever! :-)

Fat Dad Update

189lbs. Now we're getting somewhere. 14 pounds gone, 11 to go. Woo-hoo!

Close Shave

Well, I accidentally shaved off my beard today. As I was finishing my bi-weekly facial hair cleanup, I spotted one last wild hair and, forgetting that I'd already removed the guard from the trimmer, cut a clean swath right across my chin. Not much you can do with that but finish the job. :-)

Fat Dad Update

OK, it's May 3, I still have 15+ pounds to lose by the 28th, and 'sensible diet plus exercise' isn't going to make that happen. Desperate times call for desperate measures - or at least radical change. Starting yesterday I'm consuming 0 (zero) carbs on the Atkins theory that consuming little or no carbs forces your body to make blood sugar from stored fat. I've used this method a couple of times before with good results and it took years of senseless eating to gain the weight back.

Cons: Ketosis breath - stock up on sugarless breath mints. Heckish few initial days where limbs feel like they're made of lead before the body figures out it's really not going to get any sugar and had better go to plan B. Elevated cholesterol levels, though I already take Lipitor which hopefully offsets some of this and a few weeks of high cholesterol probably isn't going to make much long-term difference to heart health. Slight chance of long term imprisonment if I murder someone for their blueberry scone.

Pros: Quick results - I think you'll see what I mean as I start posting major losses. Loss of appetite - sounds odd to list this as a "pro", but I feel like I'm a slave to food, always having to eat first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and every couple of hours during the day. The whole blood sugar battle goes away and is replaced with an energy level that is a little low but blessedly stable. Fewer headaches - well, there's the "hunger headache" for the first day or two, but after that (based on past experience), I have few actual migraines while on this diet. Tells me that migraines and blood sugar are somehow related - at least for me. And did I mention Quick Results? It's the only way I know of (short of amputation or childbirth) to lose a lot of weight in a hurry without being completely miserable - especially handy if you have a firm short-term goal, or you're trying to win a bet (or a new pair of jeans - Tessa). :-)


Stay tuned.

Fat Dad Update

And the scale says...

(drumroll...)

195lbs.

WTF?! (Where's The Food?!)

Either not exercising enough or still eating too much or both. Grrr...

Fat Dad Update

195lbs. Not losing as much as fast as I'd hoped, but still headed in the right direction.

Fat Dad Update

198lbs this morning. Instead of the five miles I had planned to walk this week, I actually walked thirteen including the seven mile round trip to work and back today. Unfortunately, by the time I got to work I was ravenous and ate three doughnuts. Oh well.

Fat Dad Update

200lbs this morning. Not a huge decrease, but I'll take it. I'm supposed to be walking a mile a day during lunch. Only walked four miles last week instead of five, but it's better than none, plus we did a ton of work around the house this weekend. So far so good. :-)

Fat Dad

On Monday nights, Austin is in a group/class where they talk about and practice social skills. You know - look people in the eye, stand up straight, don't mumble, don't talk about yourself the whole time, etc. (If you're thinking yours truly should go to that class, well, you're probably right.) Anyway, it's after dinner and I'm just sitting down to read the last of "The Tao of Pooh" when Austin decides to try out his new mojo on me. "Dad?" he says seriously. "Yes?" I reply with equal coolness. "I don't mean to offend you, but you could stand to lose some weight," he says proudly. I'll give him a B+ for delivery, and mostly overlook the content because I think Things Kids Should Never Say To An Adult (like "Wow, you're really old!" or "What's that smell?" or "You could stand to lose some weight.") isn't until week six, and it's only been a month.

But the facts remain: Dad is fat, and weak, and vulnerable to injury and weird medical anomalies as happened recently. Dad is turning 40. Dad is depressed. Dad is excessively referring to himself in the third-person.

So what to do? The best weight loss method I've found so far is to tell everyone what I weigh and how much I'm going to lose. So here it is. This morning I weighed 203lbs. I'm going to lose 25lbs - to come in just under 180lbs. That's still on the upper end of where I should be, but it's a start. I'll post my new, improved weight at least weekly so y'all can scoff or applaud, as the case may be. Oh yes, and by my birthday. Stay tuned.

Pretty much sums it up...

...well, except for the XBox part.

Still My Dream Car

Lazy Sunday

It's another gray and drizzly Sunday so Austin and I went to the Bagdad Theater today to see Marley and Me and eat pizza. What a tearjerker that was. Good thing everyone had napkins to blow their noses on. Marley's bad behavior and ultimate demise reminded us a little too much of Simba. Then stopped by Powell's Books on Hawthorne where Austin picked up another Simpson's comic book. Time for a nap.

Creepy Dreams

When I'm sick I always have the weirdest dreams. Yesterday I dreamt (is that still a word?) that I was very old. Someone was interviewing me - might have been my hundredth birthday. Anyway, I was blind from diabetes and when they asked about my mother I started crying because I could no longer picture her face and though I held her photograph, could not see it.

God Strikes Again

I was just reading a blog in which my sister referred to a limousine ride we shared in 1989. We also apparently share the memory, though my point of view was from the back seat and hers from the front. Seems simultaneously like last month and a thousand years ago. She also wrote about time. Oh, just go read it. No point in my trying to rephrase what she already put so well. But come back for the God part...

So while I'm reading this, I'm holding one of Eckhart Tolle's books. Not because I'm reading it, but because I need something to set my laptop on since it's becoming uncomfortably hot on my lap and The Power of Now happens to be within my grasp (literally). :-) Austin is playing a song on his guitar that I think is by James Taylor, so I try Google to figure out what it is. The following lyrics pop up and I have one of those little moments of superconsciousness - like a flashbulb going off in my head, illuminating everything for an instant, but leaving me with only the afterimage...

The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time
Any fool can do it
There aint nothing to it
Nobody knows how we got to
The top of the hill
But since we're on our way down
We might as well enjoy the ride

The secret of love is in opening up your heart
Its okay to feel afraid
But dont let that stand in your way
cause anyone knows that love is the only road
And since we're only here for a while
Might as well show some style
Give us a smile

Isnt it a lovely ride
Sliding down
Gliding down
Try not to try too hard
Its just a lovely ride

Now the thing about time is that time
Isnt really real
Its just your point of view
How does it feel for you
Einstein said he could never understand it all
Planets spinning through space
The smile upon your face
Welcome to the human race

Some kind of lovely ride
Ill be sliding down
Ill be gliding down
Try not to try too hard
Its just a lovely ride

Isnt it a lovely ride
Sliding down
Gliding down
Try not to try too hard
Its just a lovely ride

Now the secret of life is enjoying the passage of time

-James Taylor

What's In A Name?

Old name: Donald Stephen Metz
New Name: Stephen Metz-Lago
Donald is dead. Long live Stephen.

The Master Within

Another of Malcolm Gladwell's (see post #1) postulates is that the time required for complete mastery of a subject or task is about 10,000 hours. Think about it. Think of a master. Tiger Woods, David Beckham, Michael Jordan. Those are easy. They are celebrities, celebrated for the mastery of their art. Who else? Yo Yo Ma, Louis Armstrong, and any number of "virtuoso" performers, musicians, actors, singers. How did they become masters? According to Malcolm, practice, practice, practice. While it's true that there has to be some degree of inate talent, some basic ability, the thing that sets the masters apart from the rest of us is that they did what they do for thousands upon thousands of hours.

While at the glass factory (see previous post), I observed the workers pulling molten glass from the furnaces, shaping it into a square that was pressed into a sheet, then cutting the sheet into a pane. Each step required the glass to be within a narrow temperature range, so as the glass cooled, timing was everything. I'm not sure whether to describe it as a ballet or a human machine - each component working together perfectly. They had mastered their jobs and it was a beautiful thing. It occurred to me that this is what it once meant to be a master carpenter, for example, or a master mason. Unfortunately, I think mastery of a skill - unless it has entertainment value - isn't celebrated or even recognized as it once was and that's a shame.

On the other hand, if time and practice are the main ingredients in proficiency, then we are all masters of something. What are you a master of?

Ostriches R Us

For years I sat in an office at work with a street-level view of the back of some industrial-looking business. I always sort of wondered what they did there. The only clues were an enormous propane tank and the occasional sound of breaking glass. Turns out it's this place: http://www.bullseyeglass.com/

The boss invited a few of us to go on a tour. OMG, what a cool place. He (boss guy) is taking glass-fusing classes there and I think I might too. They only do art glass and business is booming. "Where did this come from?" I wondered. "How long have you been here?" I asked. "Since 1974," said our guide. Boy am I a dork.

I guess the moral to this story is... well, I don't know that the moral is. I should just pull my head out occasionally and take a look around. :o)

The Beauty of Democracy

I don't think anyone will be surprised when I say I didn't care much for George Bush. To me, the primary job of the President is to communicate; to bring Americans together, to uplift us, to persuade us, to remind us of our responsibilities, to tell us what's going on, and to sometimes give us the bad news. In this respect, G.W. was just abysmal. Some say he's a good man who just doesn't speak well, and that may be true. But to me, an inarticulate President is by definition a failure. In this respect, I even think Ronald Reagan was a pretty good president. Though I don't agree with a lot of what he did and said, he was a strong leader and an excellent communicator. I'm an unrepentant (Bill) Clintonite. He was a lot of things, some good and some bad, but damn he gave good speech. Hillary is probably more qualified to be President than Barack Obama, and is certainly more qualified than Bill was in 1992, but she doesn't make me want to stand up and say "Amen!" the way Bill did - or Barack does.

Anyway, the beauty part... The beautiful part is that all these people (well, except for Reagan 'cause he's dead, k?) can stand together on the same dais in support of our newly elected President and our country. George H. W. Bush lost to Bill Clinton and they are now good friends. Al Gore lost to... ok, let's skip that one. Biden lost to Clinton, who lost to Obama, but they will both be part of his administration. No one did a last-minute power grab and refused to step down. There was no military coup, no riots (at least not this time), nor shots fired. Partisan hacks mostly held their tongues. Like clockwork, at the appointed time, on the appointed day, power passed peacefully from the President we chose before to the one we chose this time. This is what America is all about - that we can have real and important differences and still live with each other. That we know that what unites us is a lot stronger than what divides us.

The older I get, the more significant this stuff is. Watching the machinery of democracy in action today was awesome and humbling, and gives me hope for humanity.

On a lighter note, I got to thinking about my sister's comments on the commie-propaganda-style Obama posters. That style has been popular lately for all kinds of things, but it's odd that no one seemed to put it together that the wrong message might be sent. Then again, maybe that was the message. Anyway, here are some semi-amusing knockoffs...

New Year Blues

Seems like this happens every year. After Thanksgiving, things slow down a bit at work as we become more cautious about breaking things during the year's biggest sales period. Then Christmas comes along with a few days off, food, naps, family visits, comfort and joy, etc., culminating in New Year's Eve - the big fireworks finale to close out the year.
All of this makes January 2nd my least favorite day of the year. The day of the post-holiday hangover. The day reality hits the fan. The day all hell breaks loose. The day life suddenly lurches back into gear. In this part of the country the weather is at its most dismal - dark, wet, and cold going to work; dark, wet, and cold going home. No real light - just various stages of twilight that pass for morning, noon, and night. The fog might burn off by mid-afternoon; just in time for it to start getting dark(er). And all the work we put off over the holidays is suddenly past due and top priority, meaning super-long days and sleep deprivation. And there's not a holiday in sight until Memorial Day. Ugh..