More Book Stuff, The Abyss

Hello everyone.

First things first: Here's an amazing book report of Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, written by a high school student a few days after 9/11. Click on the link and read it, now. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Now that you're back, let's get to it:

Rob Happenings

The past several days have been all about spending time with friends. We had a couple of friends from Oregon visit and stay the night with us a week ago. Then we reconnected with some old friends who live up here in Idaho last weekend. Then a couple of other Oregon friends stopped by last night. So the past week or so has been tons of fun and a great way to break up some of the monotonous solitude that's typical with rural living. Plus it was just great to see everyone.

The two friends who were here last night were among the ones I'd sent copies of the first 50 51 pages of my book to.  It turned out one friend only read the first few pages (which means she's either really busy or my book is really awful), but the other managed to make it through all 50 51 pages. After some beer, a little prodding on my part, and a lot of "please don't take this the wrong way" prefacing on his part, he gave me some solid criticism. Here's what I took from the conversation:

1. My writing often reads like college composition, not fiction. This is definitely true. After all, I was a college student for five years until quite recently, and that's where I honed my writing chops, so to speak. I also tutored students in college writing composition for three and a half years, so I'm finding it tough to break the habit. But that's stuff that can be fixed when I go back and edit. On the other hand:

2. My main character (a Christ-like character) is alternately brilliant and stupid, and I need to pick one. Either he knows everything or he doesn't. If he knows everything, he doesn't grow or change throughout the book, so what's the point?  If he's an idiot, he's just not believable.  I tried to get around this with a cheap plot device, but I just don't think it's working. Which means I'm going to have to reconsider my main character and his motivation. That's a much tougher one to get around.

3. There are a couple scenes and secondary characters that I might need to eliminate. I envisioned them coming back later near the end of the book to tie things together, but I'm not so sure now. I'll have to think about this one.

I don't enjoy criticism (not that I know anyone who does), so it stung at first, but I needed to hear it, and I'm glad I did. This particular friend is one of the most intelligent people I know, and he's not one to blow smoke, particularly about something like this.

All this is a reminder to me that writing is hard work, and I shouldn't expect to be a pro at it right from the get-go. For a brief moment earlier today, I considered scrapping the book and doing something else. But it's too late for that, so I'll just have to fix it. What would Kurt Vonnegut do?

Beer Happenings

As mentioned above, beer was consumed last night, including a special treat, a 2007 vintage The Abyss from Deschutes Brewery out of beautiful Bend, Oregon. Like a dumbass, I forgot to take photos of the beer as we sipped it, so here's a shot I took today of the empty bottle:

The Abyss is an imperial stout brewed with licorice and molasses, with 33% aged in oak and oak bourbon barrels.  I usually hate licorice, but I love beer, and this one has got to be near the top of my list of all-time favorites, if not right up there at the top.  My cousin bought me a case back when it first came out in early 2008.  When we were kids he must have done something horrible to me that I've since blocked from my memory, and now he's trying to atone.  No one could be that cool just because.  This bottle is number eleven out of the case of twelve, and if you're not a math pro, that means I'm down to one bottle of 2007 left.  I might not ever drink it.

I've been keeping my Abyss stash aging in dark, cool closets or basements of various placed we've lived over the last almost-four years, and like a fine wine (except better because it's beer) The Abyss only gets better with age.  Last night, I scraped away the wax coating Deschutes puts over the cap to ensure the seal and opened the bottle.  After it breathed for a minute or so, the initial alcohol burn (it's 11%!) evaporated away, and in its place was thick, chocolatey, coffee-ish, sweet-but-not-too-sweet goodness.  I couldn't really taste the oak or licorice flavors in this one as I had in some of the ones I'd tried that hadn't aged as long, but I didn't miss those flavors at all.  It was perfect.  It was like an orgasm in my mouth.  Except my own orgasm.  In someone else's mouth. 

Anyway, if you love beer, particularly big, dark beers, you owe it to yourself to try The Abyss if you can get your hands on it.

In Closing

Here it is, your moment of Tucker, taken last March at the Oregon Coast:

Rob

Marco Rubio and I Discuss Social Security and Medicare

Hello everyone.

I'd planned on working on my book today instead of blogging, but then I stumbled across something that I thought deserved to be blogged about. So let's get right to it...

Politics

The something worth blogging about is this quote from the junior US senator from Florida, Marco Rubio:



In case you can't see the video and don't want to click on the above link, here's the quote:

"[Social Security and Medicare] actually weakened us as a people. You see, almost forever, it was institutions in society that assumed the role of taking care of one another. If someone was sick in your family, you took care of them. If a neighbor met misfortune, you took care of them. You saved for your retirement and your future because you had to. We took these things upon ourselves in our communities, our families, and our homes, and our churches and our synagogues. But all that changed when the government began to assume those responsibilities. All of a sudden, for an increasing number of people in our nation, it was no longer necessary to worry about saving for security because that was the government’s job."

Let's dissect this one sentence at a time, shall we?  It will be like Senator Rubio and I are having a nice, reasonable back-and-forth discussion:

"[Social Security and Medicare] actually weakened us as a people."

Hmm. How does one define "weaken"? According to Think Progress:

"Prior to Medicare’s enactment in 1965, 'about one-half of America’s seniors did not have hospital insurance,' 'more than one in four elderly were estimated to go without medical care due to cost concerns,' and one in three seniors were living in poverty. Today, nearly all seniors have access to affordable health care and only about 14 percent of seniors are below the poverty line."

I don't know. Maybe he's right. Maybe living in heated homes and not working has turned today's seniors into a bunch of weaklings, as opposed to the "good old days" when old people (who weren't wealthy) were tough because they were forced to work until they dropped dead, and if they could no longer work or work wasn't available, begging on the street corner out in the elements instead of relaxing indoors is what toughened them up.

"You see, almost forever, it was institutions in society that assumed the role of taking care of one another."

Aren't Social Security and Medicare "institutions in society"?  "Social" and "society" even share the same root word, for crying out loud.

"If someone was sick in your family, you took care of them."

You sure did, and you still do today. That is, if you can afford to do so. If not, they're screwed. But I'm sure Marco Rubio will gladly tell you that's your fault.

"If a neighbor met misfortune, you took care of them."

How often does that really happen? I just can't see shelling out $50,000 to pay for my my neighbor's quadruple bypass surgery, even if I had enough money, though I'd probably pitch in five bucks (depending on which neighbor it was) if someone started a collection.  I guess the solution is to live somewhere where you have 10,000 neighbors willing to pitch in a few bucks apiece.

"You saved for your retirement and your future because you had to."

Everyone saves for their retirement every time they work and payroll taxes are taken out of their paychecks. In addition, my wife and I contributed to a 401k until we became self-employed. Unfortunately, we lost about half of it because Wall Street and the banks tanked the economy. I suppose that's my fault, as well.  I should've known back in 2005 that collaterized debt obligations were going to tank the economy, even though I'd never heard of them.  Personal responsibility, and all.

But more to the point, are we really supposed to believe people don't think they need to save for their future?  Perhaps the problem is not that Social Security and Medicare made people think they no longer need to save money, but that people simply don't have enough money to save, because most people aren't millionaire senators like Marco Rubio.

"We took these things upon ourselves in our communities, our families, and our homes, and our churches and our synagogues."

But if you're part of a poor (or shitty) community, family, home, church, or synagogue, then what?

"But all that changed when the government began to assume those responsibilities."

Um, the government is not assuming squat. We each pay into Social Security and Medicare. It's our money, not the government's.  All the government has been doing is spending the surplus we used to have.

"All of a sudden, for an increasing number of people in our nation, it was no longer necessary to worry about saving for security because that was the government’s job."

They problem is that we don't worry enough?  Great, let's get back to the "good old days" when people used to worry about how they'd support themselves when they were too old to work, or whether or not they'd be able to pay for that life-saving medical procedure.

Also, is he really trying to suggest no one worries about saving money anymore?  Maybe not people like Marco Rubio, who simply forms political committees, gets big contributions from rich people and corporations, and then uses the funds to pay his personal expenses--including government-backed student loans--instead of working for a living.

I guess that's what happens when you're a puppet for the wealthy.

In closing

As long as politicians keep making asinine comments like these, you can bet I'll be back soon.

Rob

Facebook Friends and Enemies of Enemies

Hello everyone.

I'm kinda glad the month of August is almost over. It's been in the 80s-90s every day this month, and while that might not seem too bad compared to what people in, say, Texas have been dealing with, we've had only one incredibly brief moment of rain in the past six weeks or so, when it sprinkled for all of three minutes. The rest has been nothing but sunshine. I love sunshine as much as the next person, probably even more so, but the problem is our well is beginning to dry up, and we've lost some of our garden crops as a result. It doesn't help that our neighbor waters his lawn pretty much every single day, and I'm sure he's pulling from the same aquifer we are. Thanks a lot, jackass.

I just want us to have a nice, big rainstorm for a day or two to recharge our water supply and give the plants a good drink, and then we can go back to the sunny weather. I guess I should get used to this as we continue to pump carbon into the atmosphere and the climate continues to change.

It's funny how whenever we get a big winter storm or cold-spell, you often hear inane phrases such as, "So much for global warming," but when Texas has summertime highs in the 100s for two months straight, you don't hear a peep about climate change. People can be really ignorant sometimes.

Rob Happenings

I've been on Facebook for the past five years or so, and I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with it. On one hand, it's quite a time-waster, and it was a big part of the reason I took a hiatus from this blog. I felt Facebook gave me my Internet communication/interaction fix, even though I had to sift through a bunch of crap, such as people inviting me to join them in a game I had no intention of ever playing, or people talking about things I had absolutely no interest in, such as who got voted off American Idol, or what grades their kid got in school. On the other hand, Facebook has put me in touch with old friends, some that I haven't seen since elementary school, as well as putting me in touch with new friends I've never met in person, and overall I think that's pretty cool.

One thing Facebook does is offer "friend suggestions," which, for those of you not in the know, is a list of people Facebook suggests to "friend," meaning you can follow them and they you. Most of the friend suggestions are people who share mutual friends with you. Today, I looked at my friend suggestions and was amazed at the number of people on the list who I was once friends with, which meant that they "unfriended" me at some point.

These are almost all people from high school or before, which means they're people I haven't seen in at least 20 years or so, and my only contact with them has been on Facebook, never in person. So you'd think it wouldn't bother me that these people "unfriended" me, particularly since I generally don't care what people think about me in real life.  But I can't help it--it does bother me. I don't know if it's the nature of Facebook itself in that "friendships" or lack thereof are official and available for others to see, so if someone "unfriends" you, it means they made a conscious decision to do so, and it's hard to not take something like that personally.  Or maybe it's just that it tends to be people I knew from high school, and so whenever I'm confronted with evidence of being "unfriended," I find myself reverting back to my high school mentality, when the most important thing in the world was to be liked and accepted, even by people I might not necessarily like.

I really don't want to care, but I can't help it. It's all very strange to me.

And those who "unfriended me" pretty much across the board held political and/or religious views that were in opposition to my leftist, anti-authoritarian, atheist views, and some even debated me about articles or comments I'd posted. On Facebook I'm pretty open about and willing to express how I see things, so I can only assume my viewpoints and my willingness to share them was ultimately their reason for "unfriending" me. I don't understand this. How weak must a person's views be in the first place if he or she can't handle being exposed to differing ones?

Of course, some people think that discussing politics or religion in a public setting is considered rude and shouldn't be done, but I think that's a bunch of crap. These are issues that affect our lives, so of course we should talk about it.

What a great segue to the next section:

Politics

According to a leaked cable, Senator John McCain promised to help Muammar Gaddafi acquire US weapons when the two met a year ago at a meeting that also included Senators Joe Lieberman, Lindsey Graham, and Susan Collins.  A quote from the cable really stood out to me: "Lieberman called Libya an important ally in the war on terrorism, noting that common enemies sometimes make better friends."

Ugh. When are "our leaders" going to learn? Here's a (somewhat) brief history lesson of failed alliances based on common enemies:

During the 1950s, the people of Iran elected a guy named Mohammad Mosaddegh to be its first Prime Minister, and his government took over production of the country's oil. Up until that time the British essentially thought they had a right to pump the oil out of the ground and keep for themselves. In response to this the CIA staged a coup to overthrow the democratically-elected government and installed the Shah, a brutal dictator who imprisoned and tortured thousands of his political opponents during his almost 30 year reign. The Iranian people finally determined they'd had enough and ousted the Shah in 1979, kidnapping 52 Americans in the process.

The Reagan administration then sold weapons to the Iranians in exchange for a release of the hostages, and they then used the profits to fund the Contras in Nicaragua, who fought against the socialist Sandinistas by using tactics such as murder, rape, torture, and kidnapping.  Somehow I think there are better ways to win over the "hearts and minds" of the people you're supposedly trying to liberate.

Meanwhile, despite illegally selling them weapons, the Reagan administration didn't want the Iranians to get too powerful, so they armed their neighbor to keep them in check.  This neighbor?  Iraq, led by a guy you may have heard of named Saddam Hussein.  The two countries ended up fighting an eight-year-long war that left over a million dead.  Later the US ended up fighting Iraq in two separate wars that caused another million deaths.  

While all this was going on, we were nearing the end of the Cold War, thanks in part to the Soviets being stuck in a quagmire in Afghanistan. The Soviets might have had an easier time if they hadn't been fighting the CIA-trained Mujahideen, which included a guy by the name of Osama bin Laden. I wonder what happened to that guy?

Also worth mentioning: Manuel Noriega worked for the CIA until he fell out of favor with the powers that be, and they determined our military needed to invade Panama and capture him in 1989.

And of course, there's Muammar Gaddafi, who was "an important ally in the war on terrorism" until last year, and is now being ousted by rebels supported by our military, and may even be dead by the time you read this.  Someone else will take his place in Libya, and if history is any indication, we'll probably end up going to war with them in a decade or two.

To the best of my knowledge, every war (or military skirmish not officially called a war) we've fought during my lifetime--and there have been plenty--has been against countries or groups we'd previously armed and/or supported, or else were directly caused by us arming and/or supporting someone.  It's all because we've had politicians who believed the mantra, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."  Perhaps, a more appropriate mantra should be, "The enemy of my enemy will soon be my enemy, too."

Of course, a cynical conspiracy theorist would probably say all of this is no accident, that our government is arming our potential military rivals on purpose so we'll have to fight them later, and this is all a way to justify invading resource-rich countries and spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year on our military.  I'm not ready to believe that yet, but then again, if some people are willing to kill a stranger for the $20 in their wallet, is it really a stretch to think someone might be willing to let strangers kill each other on the other side of the world to secure a billion dollar military contract?

In Closing 

Let's end on a positive note.  Here it is, your moment of Tucker:

Rob

Beerfest and Tucker Swims

Hello everyone

I've got lots to talk about, including photos, so let's get right to it!

Rob Happenings

Last Friday Cathy surprised me with tickets to the Brews Fest at Silver Mountain Resort. For those of you unfamiliar with Silver Mountain, it's a ski resort in Kellogg, ID, a town east of Coeur d'Alene that sits in Silver Valley, which is carved out by the Coeur d'Alene river.  Kellogg was built on mining, including silver, hence the name of both the valley and the resort, and the ski resort sits on top of the mountains to the south above the town. One of the neat things about it is that the only way up is to ride in a gondola (or hike). To the best of my knowledge you can't drive up to the top, although there must be a service road for the employees to use because we could see rental trucks behind the stage. Anyway, I'd never been to Silver Mountain before, even during the eight years I lived in North Idaho during the 90s, mainly because I never had any reason to.  Whenever I went snowboarding, I always went to nearby Schweitzer, and I'd always heard Schweitzer was better, anyway. So I was kinda excited to see Silver Mountain and ride the "world's longest gondola" to the top. But let's be honest, I was really excited about the beer.

The ride to the top was what it was: a pretty uneventful 20 minute ride to the top. the views were great, but it's not like it was an amusement park ride or anything. We shared our car with another couple, and the lady seemed pretty afraid of the whole thing, especially at the section that crosses a valley pretty high in the air. I'm not a fan of heights, but it wasn't an issue for me, probably because there was glass (or plexiglass) between me and the ground below, aside from two small sliding windows on one side.

We got up to the top and stood in line to each get a mug and seven beer tickets, which were included in the price of admission to the event. Our mugs said "2005" on them, and the guy handing them out said they were "recycling."  I hope he meant "getting rid of leftover unused supplies," not "reusing the same plastic mugs for six years straight."  Anyway, a woman in another booth helpfully explained that one ticket was for a "taster" of beer, and that four tickets filled your mug. So naturally, using the skills I learned in college-level algebra, I assumed that one ticket meant 1/4 of a mug full. Some of the beer vendors apparently had other ideas.

I knew Ninkasi was going to be there, so I headed to their booth first. I was a little disappointed they only had Total Domination IPA and Believer Double Red on tap, two very good beers, but probably their two most common ones. But I decided to start someplace familiar before branching off into more exotic territory, and I chose a one ticket "taster" of Total Domination, while Cathy chose a "taster" of Believer. I was wearing a Ninkasi hat and a Stone brewing t-shirt for the event, and while the Ninkasi guy poured our beers, he commented on my clothes, and we chatted about good beer and Eugene, where Ninkasi is located and where until recently I was located for a decade or so. He handed us two mostly-full mugs of beer, not exactly 1/4 of a mug, not that I was complaining. I didn't try any of Cathy's Believer, but the Total Domination was predictably good, with a strong floral hop flavor and relatively clean finish, just like the other hundred or so times I've had it.

The extra-large "1/4-full" mugs seemed to be a (mostly) recurring theme. We headed over to the Deschutes tent and I sampled their Conflux No. 2, and IPA brewed with Belgian yeast. Blaugh. I realize Belgian beers and other styles brewed with Belgian yeast are all the rage these days, but I still can't get into it. The Belgian yeast flavor really turns me off, though I don't hate it as much as I used to, so maybe it's just an acquired taste thing. But the Belgian yeast and northwest hops together were just not a good combination, as they seemed to bring the worst in each other. The citrusy flavor of the northwest hops that I like so much was almost completely lost behind the pungent, sweatsock flavor of the Belgian yeast.  The yeast also seemed to amplify the hop bitterness, but not in a good way. Not a fan. Fortunately, this was the smallest (although still more than 1/4-full) taster I got, so I choked it down and moved on.

Cathy and I decided were were hungry, so she volunteered to stand in line at the sole food booth they had set up (Fail) while I got us some more beer. I ended up chatting with the guys at Odell, who had 90 Shilling Scottish Ale and Myrcenary Double IPA on tap. My shirt and hat proved to be yet another conversation piece, as I ended up chatting with the Odell guys about the wonders of craft beer before they offered me a (non-ticketed) taster of each. Both were excellent. The 90 Shilling was probably the smoothest Scottish ale I've ever had, and the double malt-level of the Myrcenary provided a nice balance to the double hop level, creating a big beer that didn't really taste like a big beer. I asked for a one-ticket taster of each, and the guy handed me two almost-full mugs. Yeah.

Cathy and I found a shady section of grass to eat our food pulled pork and pulled chicken sandwiches. Until last year, I had been a strict vegetarian (well, technically pescatarian) for thirteen years, and when I decided to start eating meat again, I vowed to only do so if it was sustainably and humanely-raised. Something tells me that wasn't the case here, but by the time I came back with the beer and we made it to the head of the line, we realized the only non-meat food they had available were tiny bags of potato chips.  This meant we'd either have to compromise our principles, starve, or take the gondola back down to the bottom. We opted for the former. So we choked down the crappy food (which actually didn't taste that bad), but at least we washed it down with good beer.

Next, we visited North Idaho Mountain's beer tent, and I sampled two tickets worth (which worked out to pretty much be a full mug) of their sunset red. This was a solid Irish red ale, a bit on the malty side with a slightly bitter finish, and it hit the spot. Then we headed over to Northern Lights' tent, and Cathy tried a free sample of their chocolate dunkel, which she liked so much she got three tickets-worth, even though she had planned on not drinking any more because she was going to drive us home. I ended up finishing that one for her later on.

North Idaho Mountain Sunset Red (left) and Northern Lights Chocolate Dunkel

We found another shady spot off to the side to enjoy our beers and listen to the music of the Kenny James Miller band. I'm not really into the blues, but the bass player was more than willing to funk things up on his 5-string, and after a rocky start due to technical issues, the band made up for it with long, extended jams that were more reminiscent of Widespread Panic than BB King, and so I ended up enjoying them. Also, I was on my fourth beer by this point, so I probably would've enjoyed the music regardless of the band.

Kenny James Miller Band

It was at this point that we began to worry about our dog Tucker, who was hanging out in the car at the bottom of the mountain. We had found a shady area to park, put a sun shade over the windshield, and left our tinted windows open enough so air could flow, but it was a sunny August day in the 80s, and we were beginning to feel like bad dog parents. So I polished off the red, and used the remaining four tickets at the Elysian tent to fill my mug with the exceptional Immortal IPA. Then we headed back to the gondola and down the hill.

Me with Elysian Immortal IPA and Cathy's Northern Light's Chocolate Dunkel

We didn't have to share the gondola with anyone else, which was fun, mainly because we could walk around the car and stick our heads out the window for better photos.

At the bottom, Tucker was chilling out just fine in the car. He didn't chew anything up like he's been known to do when left in the car for a while, so we rewarded him with some ball-playing time at a boat launch down the Couer d'Alene river.

"Throw the damn ball, already!"

"I can't believe you're making me beg!"

"That's what I'm talking about."

It's amazing how quickly he's gone from being scared of the water to just jumping right in. But since he's so obsessive about getting the ball, it shouldn't be a surprise.

In Closing

We have some friends from out of town coming in today, so I might not be doing much blogging for a few days while they're here. But I'll definitely be back soon.

Rob

Book Steps and Scary Rick Perry

Hello everyone

Well, I had been doing a good job at blogging every two days or so, but now it looks like it's been five days since my last post. Still, it's better than over two year long hiatus I took up until recently, so there.

Rob Happenings

There's not much to report on the Rob Happenings front.  I guess the biggest news is that I edited the first 50 51 pages of my book and sent it out to a few friends to look over, and maybe tell me what they think.  This may not seem like a big deal, but to me it is.  Only Cathy has seen what I've written up until now, so to have someone else, even friends, look over what I've been working on for over a year now is leaving me quite anxious.  I haven't yet heard anything back from any of them, which means they either think it's pretty awful and aren't saying anything, or they just haven't gotten around to looking at it yet.  I'm obviously hoping for the latter, and since it's only been a few days since I sent it out, that's probably the case.  Plus, Cathy said she thinks it's great, but then again she's my wife, and she's supposed to be supportive and all that.  So yeah, nerves.

I guess I should get used to it, though.  If all goes to plan, lots of people will end up reading what I wrote, and some will no doubt hate it, and that's how it goes.  As long as they pay full price for the book, I guess I won't care what they think.  That's not true, of course.  Any negative criticism will no doubt drive me up the wall, because that's how I am.  Oh well.

I'm considering posting the first few pages of the book here, on Rob Dow's World, but it's not yet ready for public consumption at this point.  A few friends, including ones with English degrees, reading it?  Sure.  The general public?  Not quite yet.  But it will probably happen soon, so stay tuned.

Politics

Unsurprisingly, Texas Governor Rick Perry has decided to run for president.  A while back, I had an online conversation/debate with someone over Sarah Palin, and the guy claimed that I was "scared" of Sarah Palin.  I had a hard time comprehending how that was supposed to be a compliment to Sarah Palin, but then I realized the other guy had a sports team mentality about politics.  His team was the Republicans, and he wrongly assumed I had the same mentality, and that my team was the Democrats.  To him, it was like a sports team drafting a good player, and the rival team being afraid of losing.  I've never understood that kind of thinking.  I don't give a shit which party wins--I just care about the policies they enact, and how they affect me.  If anything, my team is me and my family and friends and neighbors.  But I suppose in a way he was right, because the idea of a President Sarah Palin does scare the hell out of me.

I feel the same way about Rick Perry.  The more I learn about this guy, the more afraid I am of the idea of him being president.  I'm not sure what's worse--that 30,000 people attended his public prayer session, or that they were oblivious about being used by Perry to position himself in the media spotlight ahead of his presidential campaign announcement.  Meanwhile, 100,000 people showed up in a different part of town for free school supplies for their kids (the organizers expected 25,000), because the schools weren't able to provide them thanks in part to Mr. so-called Christian's policies of cutting funding to schools and programs designed to help poor people.

I'm also disturbed about how Perry embraces the anti-science movement.  Although I'm not a fan of the way this mom coached her son into asking questions, the real story here is how Perry responded, calling evolution "a theory that’s out there," despite the fact that evolution is not really a controversial subject within the scientific community, and we've even seen evolution take place in our lifetime. And yes, evolution is "just a theory," but so is gravity. In science, "theory" means "a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena," as opposed to everyday usage of the word, meaning "a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation."  It bothers me that I have to even explain this distinction.  It should be something most people know, but that assumes we have a decent educational system, which of course we don't.  See my earlier comment about cutting education funding.

Speaking of education, Perry also has pushed abstinence-only sex education on Texas school kids, despite plenty of evidence it doesn't prevent teens from having sex and doesn't cut down on teen pregnancies.  When confronted with this evidence and the fact that Texas has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country, Perry refused to admit reality and insisted that it worked, to the point that people in the audience were actually laughing at him.

Perry is portrayed as some sort of fiscal genius for "creating jobs" in Texas during a recession, but if you look at the fine print, you realize that jobs he supposedly created were almost all part-time minimum wage jobs (which Texas leads the nation in) with no health benefits, and that the while the job rate is growing, the population rate is growing even faster.

And do you like never-ending war?  Expect plenty of it with Rick Perry, not that the current president is much better in that regard.

Oh, and apparently he's got a complete messiah complex going on.

I could go on and on, and I just might in another post.  But for now, you get the idea.

And Now, a Musical Interlude

I'm usually not into music this poppy, but I can't get this Kings of Leon song out of my head, and so now you will have it stuck in yours.



Although, am I the only one who thinks the video is a kinda country-ized ripoff of this one? Probably.

In Closing

According to blogger, I've had over 1,000 page views this past month.  Of course, many of those are probably the same people, including myself, visiting this blog more than once.  Although I do appreciate the comments that people have left so far, I'd love to see more.  In fact, since I started blogging again, I've gotten more spam comments than real comments, and that's even including my own responses to other comments.  So don't be afraid.  Leave a comment.  It's just not fair if I have to do all the work, no?

Rob

Photo Happenings and the Five Worst Guitar Tones in History

Hello everyone.

In case you haven't noticed, I've been changing some things around here on my blog.  I feel like I'm still getting back into the swing of things, blogging-wise, and so I have to admit this blog is a mess in terms of consistency in subject right now.  That's one of the problems with having lots of interests, I guess.  So far splitting topics up into their own sections seems to be working okay, although sometimes it's difficult to narrow my thoughts down to one subject.  Such is life.  Anyway, I might play around with changing the formatting, colors, font, etc. until something "sticks."  I realize all both my readers are savvy enough to follow along without any trouble, so I ain't worried.

Also, Blogger changed their post editor while I was on hiatus from blogging, and while the new program seems to be intuitive and better than the old one, I'm still getting used to it, so I'll apologize in advance if the formatting looks shabby for a while.  I'll be a pro at this in no time.

I've added a banner ad to the top of the page and moved the rectangular one to the bottom of each post.  That way it's not annoyingly at the beginning of each post like before.  Also, there are now two opportunities for people to click on them, which I hope will happen a lot, though for the record I'm not encouraging anyone to do so.  As mentioned in a previous post, I'm prohibited from doing such a thing.  However, I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to mention that the ads are the only way I'm going to be able to make a living at writing until I finish my book and it (hopefully) gets published.  Anyway, if you don't see the ads, you're probably running something like Mozilla Firefox with AdBlockPlus, which is what I usually use to browse the internets, just like the good hypocrite I am.  You should use ad blocking software on other sites, just not this one.

Rob Happenings

I decided to change the heading for this section from "Personal" to "Rob Happenings."  I realize that people might not give a shit about what's going on in my life, and I respect that.  The point of having a heading was to break subjects up and make it easier for people to skip on past.  But calling it "Personal" wasn't very accurate because I was blogging about stuff going on in my life, but really not anything of a personal nature.  This is a public blog.  You'll have to do some serious digging if you want to find out about any of my skeletons. 

Anyway, I had a great time yesterday at our friend Michelle's family ranch.  She and her husband and kids were up visiting from Texas, and her family owns a gorgeous (and huge) ranch tucked away in a valley to the north.  We spent several hours taking photos of the property and Michelle and her family, and Cathy unsurprisingly got some great shots.  This was actually Cathy's third or fourth time taking photos up there over the past couple weeks.  Yesterday, I managed to get lucky and shoot a few keepers, but with a piece of property that beautiful, you can basically point the camera in any direction and wind up with a great shot.  Most of the time I just follow behind Cathy and do what she does.  Yesterday I didn't have to.

I have to say it felt great to take photos.  It's something I hadn't done in a few months, and I didn't realize how much I missed it.  Anyway, we'll have some up soon at Out There Photography's website which I'll plug right here: outtherephotography.com.  Do yourself a favor and check back there periodically to see the photos.

Music

The other day when I was working on my novel, I was writing a scene where I wanted to have music playing in the background.  But not just any music.  This music needed to have an annoyingly bad guitar tone.  I thought of several songs that would fit the bill, and ultimately the one I chose to go with had less to do with the annoyance level than with other story considerations.  But I thought the concept of bad guitar tones would make for a great thing to discuss here on this blog, so without further ado, here is my list of...  

The Five Worst Guitar Tones in History

To be clear: I'm not talking about the song writing or musicianship of the guitar players, which are both far superior to anything I could churn out.  Rather, I'm focusing on the guitar tone each used on the recording, which has nothing to do with skill or ability, but is all about taste, or lack thereof.  Each of the guitarists here made the conscious decision of making their guitar tones sound the way they did, and I can only assume it's the result of too much cocaine or the encouragement of some out of touch record company executive who might have been better suited to a job selling insurance.  Let's get to the list.

Dishonorable Mention: Peter Frampton, "Do You Feel Like We Do"



The guitar tone throughout the beginning and end of the song is actually kinda tasteful.  The problem is Frampton busts out the stupid talk box in the middle.  "Look, I can talk through my guitar!  It's the same uninspired lyrics I sing over and over again throughout the song, but now it sounds like a guitar!"  If I could sum up this idiotic vocal/guitar effect in just one word, it would be "gimmick."  Guitar-ish sounding vocals might be an easy way to earn some quick notoriety, but by about the 378th play on the classic rock radio station, it just sounds dumb.  There's a reason why no one else does it, and that's why Peter earns a dishonorable mention here.

5: Boston, "Don't Look Back"



I probably could have used any Boston song, since they all sound the same. But this is the only one I could think of by name. Guitarist Tom Scholz, who has a Master's in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, designed his own effects and amps to achieve the sound he wanted, proving taste is not something that can be taught by college professors.  After Boston became famous, Scholz started his own amp and effects company until it finally went out of business during the 90s.  Apparently, the elusive "let's piss off the roommate" demographic isn't big enough to sustain a company.  Listening to this song actually hurts my teeth.

4: Bon Jovi, "Livin' on a Prayer"



Woah-woah-woah
Woah-woah-woah
Woah-woah-woah
Woah-wah-woah

Every time I hear Richie Sambora's guitar intro in this song, I'm immediately transported back to seventh grade. And that's not necessarily a good thing. True, there were some great things about being twelve years old, but the music definitely wasn't one of them. I never liked Bon Jovi--I was probably the only one in my whole school who didn't--but I couldn't escape hearing this song and "You Give Love a Bad Name" on a seemingly hourly basis until Guns N' Roses came along two years later. It seemed everybody in my class not only had Slippery When Wet on cassette, but they carried it with them at all times. I think they must have handed out a copy to each kid at school one day. Fortunately, I was absent that day.

3: Yes, "Owner of a Lonely Heart"



Steve Howe earned a whole lot of accolades during the 1970s for his guitar work with the progressive rock band Yes. But by the 80s, Howe was gone and replaced by a guy named Trevor Rabin. I think the new guy realized he sucked compared to Howe, so he overcompensated with tons of effects.  The result is a guitar intro that sounds a lot like my neighbor's leaf blower. I'm aware that "Owner of a Lonely Heart" was a big hit during the 80s, but you have to remember this was the decade that also brought us minivans, parachute pants, and Kirk Cameron.

2: Survivor, "Eye of the Tiger"



I can't listen to this song without thinking of Rocky III. Actually, I can't listen to this song at all, at least not all the way through. It's terrible. The video is even worse, but if you mute the sound, it's kinda funny. Aside from that, everything about this song is awful, the least of which is the guitar tone. It sounds like an old lady with emphysema trying to clear her throat. And that's being generous.


1: Toto, "Hold the Line"



You know, I've always wondered what it would sound like if someone took a cheese grater to my ear, and I think I have a pretty good idea now.  What would prompt someone to make their guitar sound like a swarm of retarded bees?  Perhaps the guitarist was trying to be as annoying as possible in order to distract from the ridiculous warbling of the singer.  What a mess.  But I suppose that's to be expected from a band that took its name from the dog in The Wizard of Oz.  Fail.

In Closing

If you're thinking about getting me a present, here's a not-so-subtle hint:



Cheers.

Rob

Camping, Pavement, and Taxes, Oh My

Hello everyone.

I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing on a beautiful, sunny August morning than blogging. Actually, I can think of lots of things. But here we are, so let's get started.

Personal (with a little food and beer talk thrown in)

We had a fun time camping last night. A few months ago, we picked up a huge new tent to replace our old one, which had taken quite a bit of abuse when we went on our huge, five-week long mega trip. If you click on our photo website, OutTherePhotography.com, you can read all about the trip, and, of course, take a look at some of the many photos we took along the way. Anyway, we had been excited about trying out the new tent, but most of the summer so far has been spent traveling to writing conferences, art shows, friends' graduations, etc., that we just haven't had the chance (or haven't made time) to go camping. We finally made it happen last night.

The tent was awesome. It was a clear enough night to leave the rainfly off, and because the top is almost entirely netting, we were able to look up at the stars when we went to sleep. During our mega trip last year, we did lots of camping, and so we had set ourselves up for sleeping comfort by including a queen-sized air mattress and two extra-large rectangular sleeping bags that we zipped together to make one giant bag. We didn't exactly "rough it" on our trip. Last night we used the same set up, and naturally it worked great.

But it couldn't be a camping trip without food cooked outside, preferably over a fire. In this case we cooked cheese smokies over a campfire. Back in my vegetarian days, I would've gagged over the thought of a cheese smokie (before gagging down my Tofurkey kielbasa), but I've since been converted. This was no Oscar Mayer crap, either. The smokies were locally-made from locally, sustainably, and humanely raised meat, which is the only kind of meat I'll eat.

There was also adequate beer, in this case Session Lager from Full Sail. I've been into "smaller" beers lately, and a few ice-cold lagers around a campfire after a hot August day was perfect.

Did I mention that all this took place in our backyard? Normally, we would go somewhere else for camping, preferably some place with water. But this was Tucker's first camping trip, and in the unlikely event of him freaking out and barking or whining or who knows what, we didn't want it to happen in a campground where other people would get disturbed. Of course, he seemed to have no problem with the concept of sleeping in a tent for the night. He was curled up on the air mattress ready to go for bed before we were. I guess he's saving his freak out for when we actually do go to a campground where there's lots of sleeping people nearby.

And Now, a Musical Interlude

I had a dream last night that Pavement was playing in one on the local bars up here, and I've had this song stuck in my head all day. So without further ado...



Unfair (Music and Lyrics by Pavement)

Down to Santa Rosa and over the bay
Across the grapevine to LA
We got deserts we got trees
We got the hills of Beverly
Let's burn the hills of Beverly

Walk with your credit card in the air
Swing your nunchucks like you just don't care
This is a slow, sick suckin' part of me
This is a slow, sick suckin' part of me
And when I'm sucking kisses, sour

Up to the top of Shasta gulch
To the bottom of the Tahoe Lake
Man made deltas and concrete rivers
The south takes what the north delivers
You film hack, I don't use your pay

Lost in the foothills of Mount Pine
Drinking Euro, say goodnight
to the last psychedelic band
from Sac to Northern Cal
from Sac to Northern Cal

Taylor, neighbor
You're my neighbor
And I need favors
You're my neighbor
You don't need favors
'Cause I'm your neighbor
I'm not your neighbor
You crazy street trash

Politics

An IRS report showed that almost 1,500 millionaires and billionaires paid no income tax in 2009. Why? Because our tax system allows for all sorts of loopholes, and most of these loopholes aren't available to us non-millionaires (or at least not in a way that we can avoid paying income tax altogether), because we usually don't have the ability to donate heavily to charities and don't have sizable foreign investments. This is an example of how our tax system is skewed to benefit the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us.

Other examples? Long term capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than regular income, so if you make your living from buying and selling stocks or real estate (other than your home), you pay a lower tax rate than a school teacher or firefighter.

But it's not just income tax. The Social Security Wage Base (cap) is $106,800 for 2010. This means that someone making $106,800 in 2010 will pay the same amount of Social Security tax as someone who brings in $106 million in 2010. Not the same rate--the same dollar amount: $6,621.60.

Property and sales tax tend to also be regressive. Take two hypothetical people: one who made $50,000 last year (we'll call him Jack), and the other $5 million (we'll call her Jill). Property tax is based on property value, and while it's likely Jill's property is worth more than Jack's, it's extremely unlikely that hers is worth 100 times the amount. So a lower percentage of Jill's $5 million in income goes to property tax when compared to Jack. Same with sales tax. Jill is likely to spend more than Jack, but 100 times more? Not likely. It's possible Jill spends more on gas (and thus, gas tax) than Jack, but is she using 100 times as much gas? No way. And on and on.

As I discussed previously, Congress is eliminating programs designed to help Jack rather than have Jill pay one cent more, despite the fact that across the board, Jack pays a higher percentage of his paycheck on taxes than Jill does. Congress is doing this to help pay down a debt caused by tax cuts that mostly benefited Jill, wars that people in Jack's income bracket are much more likely to fight than Jill's, and rampant unemployment caused by a financial meltdown created by people in Jill's income bracket. I don't know how it could be clearer who Congress works for. Hint: it ain't you or me.

So the next time someone claims we shouldn't tax the wealthy to pay for programs to help poor people or to pay off the debt because "we shouldn't punish job creators," remind them the wealthy are already paying next to nothing, and then ask them just where in the hell are the jobs?

In Closing

On that note, enjoy this sunny August day (assuming it's sunny and/or still August when you read this), and I will see you next time.

Rob

Home Again

Hello everyone!

I'm back from the Willamette Writers Conference, and I'm glad I went. I learned lots of good stuff about the craft of writing fiction. I had been writing pretty much on instinct, and that was going fine, but there's nothing like being able to step back and look at writing from a pragmatic perspective in terms of writing strong sentences, keeping the story moving while creating a setting, focusing on consistency in point-of-view, and avoiding lazy writing. A classic example of lazy writing is, "He walked angrily across the room," as opposed to, "He stomped across the room." I have lots of "walked angrily" in my manuscript, so I'll definitely be going back and making my writing tighter and more descriptive (and better) when I'm revising. I also learned that exclamation points are lazy, and that I should show exclamation with my word choices, not punctuation. My story is loaded with exclamation points, so that's another thing I'll need to work on.

I'm tempted to pepper this blog with tons of exclamation points just to get it out of my system, because blogs aren't bound by the same rules as fiction. But I think it's good to get in the habit of avoiding them in all my writing, so if you love exclamation points, this may no longer be the blog for you. And, no, that doesn't give license for smartass readers to point out in the comments every time I forget and use one, okay?

Personal

Important stuff I very recently learned: Sometimes you have teeter right on the edge of losing something to realize how important it is to you.

The above statement is as cheesy as I ever hope to get here, so if you're into that kind of crap, enjoy it while you can.

Moving on.

Politics

I shut myself off from the political world during my stay in Portland, so I can't comment on anything specific. But it's safe to say violence is happening somewhere, people are dying for no good reason, politicians are making truly outrageous and/or stupid claims, and the ultrawealthy are getting ultrawealthier. And most people feel powerless to do anything about it. Am I right?

Food

If you ever find yourself in Portland, do yourself a favor and head on down to the D Street Noshery on Division and 32nd and pick up some Bulgogi Tacos from KOI Fusion's food RV. Then sit down under the tent and wash your food down with a pint or three from Captured by Porches Brewing Company's beer bus. You'll be glad you did. I was.

I also highly recommend stopping by Genies Cafe on Division and 11th for breakfast. The chorizo scramble is all kinds of amazing.

In Closing

I'm going to wrap things up somewhat early because I'm motivated to get back to writing my book. Until we meet again!

Rob

I'm Still B-a-a-a-ck!

Hello everyone!

Look, another post! Yay me!

If you're one of the very few people who peruse this blog on a semi-regular basis, you may have noticed some changes recently. Aside from the fact that there have actually been new posts recently, I've also changed/updated the links to the right of your screen. But the biggest change is I'm now featuring ads. Yes, I've become a capitalist pig.

Actually, that's not true. I simply prefer eating to starving, so since the book I'm working on is nowhere near being ready for publishing at this time, well, like I said, I prefer eating to starving. But for those of you who really hate those ads, I'd be glad to remove them if you're willing to just send me money instead. And by send money, I mean real money, not some Nigerian bogus email scam, either.

The ad thing is interesting, though. It's one of those things where the more times people click on them, the more chance of me getting paid by them. The thing is, I'm prohibited from encouraging you to do such a thing, which totally makes sense because that would be fraud. So under no circumstances am I encouraging you to click on those ads, okay?

Moving on.

Personal

Part of the reason I'm writing is that I'm leaving tomorrow for Portland, and the Willamette Writer's Conference. I'm not sure what my schedule will be like (most likely, very full) and what sort of internet options I'll have, but it's likely I won't post again until, at the earliest, Monday evening when I get back. I point this out so that anyone who's reading this won't get it in their head I've already given up on blogging again. No way! I'm here to stay, whether you like it or not, because this is fun!

On a side note, to any tweakers who might be reading this and considering stealing our stuff while I'm gone, Cathy will still be here watching the house. And if that's not enough, our cute little guard dog, Tucker (pictured to the left) will be here, and if you get out of line, he'll bark and maybe lick you to death. So stay away!

Tucker came to live with us last December, and it seems like he's been a part of our household forever. Dogs rule!

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the conference. It should be really informative and lots of fun.

Politics

The more I read about the "debt ceiling" deal, the more disappointed I am, though I can't say I'm surprised. If you haven't been following it, this Mother Jones article spells it out way better than I could or would care to do, even if I had all the free time in the world. But it basically boils down to this: our government requires a certain amount of money for all the things it does, and it gets that money through revenue, usually in the form of taxes. The taxes are paid by individuals who make a profit when they work (or if they own "investments" that pay off dividends, or if they sell them for a profit, etc.), as well as by corporations when they make profit from sales. The thing is, about 90% of all the revenue comes from individual taxes from working: either income or payroll, and about only 4% comes from businesses (the remaining 6% is ad valorem, which can be either personal or business). The reason why so little comes from businesses is because there are so many tax loopholes available to corporations.

The point is that the vast majority of money the government takes in to run itself comes from people working. And guess what? The unemployment rate has been the highest it has been since the Great Depression. Why is that? Well, let's take a history trip, shall we?

There was a time, not too long ago, when banks used to just lend people money to buy things, such as houses. The bank would hold the deed on the house until it was paid off, and that's how they made profit. It was a decent deal: the bank made money, and people were able to buy things without having to come up with a bunch of cash up front. But at some point the banks decided that wasn't enough anymore. So they lobbied Congress for deregulation, and soon they were able to keep merging until they were bigger and bigger, and there were fewer and fewer of them. But that still wasn't enough. So they decided they'd rather just sell their mortgages to investment firms, which paid off less, but gave them cash much sooner. This meant that they could lend to more often, and they would make more and more profit. They even wanted to loan to people who really couldn't afford to buy houses, so they created a scam program called a sub-prime mortgage, where at first the payments would be significantly lower, but then after a couple years the payments would go up, and this usually happened after the bank had sold the mortgage to some sucker investor down the line. The banks and mortgage companies became really good at hiding the higher payment amount in a bunch of legalese on the mortgage forms, and they often trained their mortgage officers to focus on the lower payment amount and downplay the later higher amount, sometimes to the point of engaging in fraud.

It used to be that banks didn't want to make loans that people might not be able to pay them off, because they'd lose money. But now that they were passing the mortgages on to someone else, it wasn't their problem, right?

But that became a problem as well because people generally aren't big on investing in risky mortgages. So some dipshits on Wall Street created a scam program that used a lot of fancy numbers and was really complicated, and it basically allowed them to take a bunch of those risky investments and slice them and dice them and bundle them with a few token good ones, and then give the whole thing a safe rating. Then they were able to sell the risky mortgages to people and to organizations as a "can't miss investment." Guess what pensions for cops, firefighters, and teachers all over the country ended up tied up in?

When the bottom inevitably fell out, as it did in 2007, the market crashed, and the banks supposedly had no more money to lend businesses. This meant rampant unemployment.

But don't worry! Congress gave those same scam artists hundreds of billions of our tax dollars after they extorted asked for it, and now Wall Street and the banks are doing just fine! Granted, unemployment is still rampant, and people are getting foreclosed on like crazy, even people who don't owe money on their homes? Not Wall Street or the banks' problem!

Anyway, because of all this tons of people aren't working, and this means less people are paying taxes, which means the government is taking in less money and has to borrow more to keep things running as they are. Congress every so often votes on the "debt ceiling," or how much the government is allowed to borrow.

Well, so recently it was time to vote on another increase. But some of the bipartisan morons geniuses in Washington wanted to make some changes to ensure they wouldn't have to vote on this again. So what did they decide to do?

1. Raise taxes on millionaires and the Wall Street fraudsters who were responsible for the mess we're in?
2. Make cuts to the military and/or insist we end the endless, pointless wars we're fighting (what are we up to, now, 5 countries? 6?)?
3. Do away with subsidies to corporations such as oil companies and go after corporate tax cheats?
4. Some combination of the above?
5. Cut funding for graduate school financial aid and form a super-secret committee to chop away at popular programs designed to help poor people?

If you answered 1, 2, 3, or 4, congratulations on being reasonable, but you're wrong. In fact, our government's so-called "spending crisis" was so out of control, Congress decided to remedy this by increasing military spending by $50 billion.

See, it's only a "spending crisis" if it goes toward programs designed to help poor people.

If you've been paying attention recently, you shouldn't be surprised about any of this. But you should be pissed off.

In Closing

As I noted earlier, I likely won't be blogging until sometime next week. See you then!

Rob

I'm B-a-a-a-ck!

Hello everyone!

Yes, I'm pulling this blog out of the mothballs. I'm not sure if anyone follows this anymore, but that wasn't really the point when I started doing this in the first place, so if I'm merely writing to myself, that will just have to do.

So it's been a long time, no? Let's bring you up to speed on what's been happening. In the interest of making this blog more accessible, I'm going to start subdividing it into sections such as "Personal", "Political", etc. That way you can feel free to skip on past stuff you might not be interested in.

Personal

Well, a lot has changed over the past two and a half years, and to be honest I had to go back and look to see what was going on when I last left off. I suppose I should start by explaining why I stopped blogging, but I don't really have a good reason. I just wasn't into it, I guess. And at first, it was no big deal--I just hadn't blogged for a while, but then weeks turned into months, and the idea of starting up again turned into a big ordeal (at least in my mind), so it just didn't happen. But I never stopped writing. More on that later. But then I realized I missed blogging, so I just figured I'd start up again, and I think it's going quite well so far, if I do say so myself.

So when we last left off, we were still in the Noughties (not counting the quick plug for Out There Photography), and I had just returned from a fun-filled trip to Maui and was convinced I caught the swine flu (remember that?), but it turned out I just had a regular old flu. I had also promised a big post about our trip, but this is where I'm going to have to officially break my promise. It's not that I don't want to talk about it--it's just that it's been almost two and a half years! I just don't remember all the details. But I can summarize it thusly: We flew to Maui. We stayed in a nice condo a short block from the ocean. We played in the water a lot. We went snorkeling. We drove the "Road to Hana" and explored the wet side of the island. We visited the Maui Brewing Company's pub and tried some of their delicious coconut porter. We had fun. What more do you need to know?

Moving on. So. A few weeks after we got back from Hawaii, our landlords decided to drop a bombshell and tell us they were going to renovate our place, so we needed to be out in 30 days. We had been living there for three years, and had no idea this was going to happen. Ah, the fun of being a renter. Anyway, we scrambled and found a place that seemed great at first: it was right in town so it was within walking distance of both Cathy's work and mine (at least mine for a while--more on that later), and close to a whole lot. Well, it turns out "close to stuff" has a few drawbacks when that stuff includes a homeless shelter/clinic and a university. We stayed there for about eight months (and accumulated lots of stories, which I'll share here in the future) before finding another place, this time still in a good location but farther away from drunken frat boys and homeless people.

Just to be clear: I'm not dissing homeless people. Most of the ones we encountered were no different from people who sleep indoors on a regular basis. But some of them were different, in a mentally ill way. So whenever we'd encounter a homeless person (which was often), we were never quite sure whether or not the person would be mentally ill, and thus unpredictable and possibly dangerous, and so that uncertainty was naturally a huge stress factor for us. When you can't relax in your own home, when you're not sure if the noise outside is someone digging through your recycling for bottles and cans to redeem or someone trying to figure out a way into your house, it's time to move.

So we did. And that place was good for a while, but then life happened, and we moved to Idaho, and that's where we're at now. More on that later.

Back to Eugene. I got a job at Lane Community College doing academic advising. I had been working there in various positions since 2005, and I became a student there in 2004, so it seemed more like a new position than a new job. The new position was great for a while. I loved the people in the department I worked for, and they treated me really well. I enjoyed working with the students, and I truly felt as if I was making a difference. People would come to me because they needed help, and I was usually able to help them, and when I couldn't, I could usually point them in the right direction. It was incredibly rewarding.

But it was also incredibly exhausting. My whole job was based on the concept of giving: I was giving advice, giving encouragement, giving information, and it often left me feeling drained at the end of the day. Add to that the fact that we were chronically understaffed--as is any publicly-funded institution these days--and students would have to sometimes wait hours to see me, which often pissed them off to no end (not that I blame them), so I sometimes felt like I was in a pressure-cooker. And I interacted with people all day long, to the point that I sometimes found myself hating being around people, even people I really liked.

But as I said, it was incredibly rewarding, so on balance I didn't really mind the negative aspects of the job itself. The problem was that it was part-time work, which meant no health insurance and pay that wasn't enough to support us. For a while that wasn't much of an issue, though, because Cathy's job had great insurance and paid enough that she could almost singlehandedly support us. However, she hated her job for a variety of reasons that I won't get into on a public blog, but because my job was part-time, with no health insurance, she felt obligated to continue on in a job she hated. And that sucked.

One bonus about my job being part-time was that it allowed me time to write, and although I wasn't writing for this blog, I did start work on a novel, which I'm still working on today. More on that later, as well.

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, life happened, and Cathy's father passed away unexpectedly. He was the sole caregiver for Cathy's mom, who has dementia, and I'm sure the incredible amount stress of caring for her is what caused his heart attack. Apparently, this sort of thing is quite common. People who have dementia often outlive their partners, because the stress of caring for them is so debilitating. I've come to have an incredible amount of respect for anyone who works as a caregiver, especially the ones that work at the facility Cathy's mom is at. I know I couldn't do it.

So to make a long story short, Cathy quit her stupid job, and then we took a five week long trip around the southern part of the country (one of the perks of working part-time is you can take five weeks off, unpaid, of course), and did some soul-searching. When we came back to Oregon, we decided we didn't want to what we were doing anymore, so we packed up our stuff and headed up to North Idaho. The idea was we would use this opportunity to follow our dreams and shit like that. Cathy is doing the Out There Photography gig (with my help), and I'm doing the writing thing (with her help).

It's definitely a change of pace. Here we have a nice house on ten acres that Cathy grew up on, and we're near Cathy's mom, and all that good stuff. Cathy and I first met when we were both living and working in Sandpoint in North Idaho, so it's not exactly a new experience for us, but now we're about 45 minutes away from Sandpoint, and a lot more rural than before.

I've got to say that taking care of ten acres is hard work! But I like it, though. We've got a big garden, and you can't beat the taste of vegetables and herbs that you grew yourself. We just picked a couple of gallons of service berries right from our property. I hadn't ever even heard of them before we moved here, but it turns out they're pretty tasty.

On the homebrewing front, I now have a dedicated beer fridge and a kegging system, which means no more cleaning bottles!

And as I said, I'm writing a novel. I've tried writing before, and it was hard to keep it going. Maybe I shouldn't have tried to write a book while I was in school. But now I'm doing it for real, and it's going well. I've got about 30,000 words written, or 90 pages of MS Word in double spaced, 12 pt font, and the ideas keep coming, so yay me! I know how the story is going to end, and I have a pretty good idea of what's going to lead up to the end, so it's just a matter of getting it down on e-paper now. When I come across something interesting, I usually find myself wondering how I could incorporate it into the book. It's a different sort of state of mind for me...

But I've become a fan of self-sufficiency, and that's a lot of what this move represents. And it's hard to leave family and friends, but we still see them from time to time, and we have other family as well as old and new friends up here. And of course we stay in touch on the innerwebs.

I'm rambling as I sometimes do. But isn't that what blogging is all about?

Anyway, that's the gist of the personal stuff. There's still a lot of blanks to be filled in, but that will probably happen in future blog postings.

Political

I kinda used up all my writing fuel in the personal section (in my defense, I was covering two and a half event-filled years), so this will be brief. I will say that the whole "debt ceiling debate" was an absolute farce. It's just another manufactured crisis to justify dismantling programs designed to help the poor and middle-class. When these programs inevitably go away, it will be interesting to see what happens. I'm afraid we're in for a rough ride in the near future, which is why I've been big on the whole self-sufficiency thing lately.

In Closing

Well, this has been fun. I just might have to do it again soon. In the meantime, I plan on cleaning up the blog a bit over the next few weeks, adjusting some of the links, getting rid of old/broken ones and replacing them with new ones, and maybe changing the colors and/or style. Or maybe I'll just leave it as is. Who knows?

Anyway, see you again soon!

Rob