Ahh, the old black and white

In lieu of tree photos, please enjoy these these photos of darkroom progress.

Homesick | Gawker | Tree

Well, I'm not really homesick today, but I was reading this.

I was also reading Gawker yesterday. Can anyone tell me why there isn't a list of Gawker properties available there? I know about Wonkette and Fleshbot, but why isn't there a list? Am I missing something?

Any finally, tree pics. Picked 'em up from the chemist, then promptly left them at home. You'll just have to wait a little longer. We've got all the firewood stacked though--two big piles. L really doesn't see this as an excuse to get a damper installed in the fireplace. I think we could at least get an estimate.

Arboreal surprise

Yet another good occasion for a digital camera: the dang tree fell on the house last night! Well, half of it did--but it's a big tree!

At 12:30am, I was sitting on the couch with a beer and Same Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, L was long asleep. I heard a loud thump and then some bumpy dragging. In retrospect, I thought a car had jumped the curb and sideswiped the house. We ran upstairs (thinking about a cat disaster), ran downstairs (I have no idea why), then went outside. A neighbor was standing with his bicycle (he still hasn't said why he was biking at 12:30) in the street and said: "Dude, your tree fell over."

Huh?

So I turned to go into the back yard and was confronted by a solid wall of leaves. Going around the corner, we could see half the tree had come down on the house. A guy camping in his van insisted that he had been unable to sleep an hour earlier because, "Man, it was like there was electricity in the air. You know how that feels?" Lydia asked "Like right before a lightning strike?" "No, like electric dust man."

At this point Eugene's finest pulled up and asked what was going on. I just pointed up, and couldn't think about exactly what to say. I think it came out as "There used to be a tree there."

So today we are spending emergency money. Whenever we talked about how much we should have on hand, it was always for a hot water heater or a washing machine. It never occurred to me that emergency tree removal would be on the plate.

Mountain man / Digicam

L looked at me Thursday night and said, 'Let's go camping this weekend.' Even though I had just gotten back from a week in Seattle, this sounded good to me. I haven't done nearly enough fishing yet this year.

We headed up to the French Pete campground on the S. Fork McKenzie--a native fishery that's all catch and release (which the state regs doesn't mention. Not that I've ever caught a fish big enough to keep anyway). It turned out to be a sweltering weekend, so props to L for coming up with a great plan.

I think this is the first time I've ever returned to a campground where I've already been, French Pete being the same place I went with friends from Chicago last summer.

On Sunday morning, we walked up French Pete Creek itself--just recreationally, not a hike or anything. We were mostly looking for a place to sit down by the water. The first good spot was taken by some hike-in campers. We were just about to turn back to an OK spot (I was fearing that we were heading away from the creek at that point) when an older hiker came down the trail. This was one of those people you don't expect to see on a hike: no pack, no water, wearing dress pants and suspenders with a windbreaker tied around his waste. I asked him if the trail went back down to the water anytime soon. "Oh, yes. Just a few hundred yards up there's a nice campsite that you can scramble down to. Here, I'll show you." With this he whips out a little HP digital camera and starts showing us his snapshots on the preview screen. "See, there's a fire ring, and rocks on the creek you can sit on. The scramble's not hard at all."

Now, I've been with people with digital cameras who've passed it around immediately after taking a picture. On a hike or at a party, the dynamic always seemed identical to passing a polaroid around--in fact, eerily like passing a polaroid around. The feeling was almost retro. But this was something different, and for the life of me, I'm still not sure what the feeling is. Documentary evidence? A digitally mediated memory? My first useful ubiquitous computing experience?

Oh: no fish. Not even a bite, despite what the Hoodoo guy said.

Blog the past, or blog the future?

I should be writing about my week in Seattle, and all the cool stuff that I learned.

But instead I'm excited about taking a last-second, impromptu trip up the McKenzie to throw dollar bills into the river (aka: flyfish) and shake this dang cold/sinus infection thingy I've had going on--which forced me to drink far less beer this week than I had planned.

So we'll try to escape grass pollen land for about 36 hours. L wants to make the most of the solstice sunlight. We'd go tonight, but a friend is de-camping Eugene for the Bay area--her first PhD full-time gig. One problem I'm having is: should I go to the fly shop? I'm at an awkward spot in my development: I have now accumulated about 60 flies in my box, but I can't name more than a dozen of them. I need a cheetsheet or a reference book or something. If I go to the shop, there's a real danger I'll duplicate something I already have. If I don't, there's the chance that there is something going on at the South Fork that I don't know about and I'll be completely unprepared.

Perhaps this is the weekend I'll get hooked.

Something strange afoot at the Circle K

While picking up milk this morning, I noticed a stack of CD-ROMs for sale on the counter: each was the first 10 issues of some seminal Marvel comic.

I hate CD-ROMs. I've started to refuse to buy them for the library--especially since they've chosen a dedicated workstation approach instead of networking them to all public workstations. And besides--they're nearing the end of their useful lives.

But this comic thing. This is interesting. The covers indicated that the original cost of the comics were $.12. The CDs were $4. That probably amounts to about the same amount of money with inflation. CDs have been throw-aways (think AOL coasters) for a few years now--but I never equated them with pulp fiction or comics.

Found

Had a great evening out with some Bosco friends (who are also neighbors), Kurt, L, and an EPL librarian. We saw the editor of Found, and his brother, read and sing from the zine and book.

Ran into someone who had interviewed at the library earlier the same day. Just how much can one reveal about someone's job prospects when (a) you don't know her, (b) you're a little drunk, (c) she blew away her competition?

I just hope I didn't scare her off.

My hoards of readers will noticed that I have now, by popular demand, enabled comments. The only reason I have done this is that I am currently too lazy to move this blog over to MovableType and I am a little pissed off at their new end-user license. In exchange for this accession to your wishes, if Found hasn't come to your town yet--make sure you get there. I didn't wet my pants laughing, but I did spit out my beer a couple times.

Another el interface

Daaang Rich...this is a good find. I'm supposed to be grading papers, but instead I'm checking out musings on Bridgeport pizza and breaded steaks. Chicago, I miss you.

When I was in 4th or 5th grade, my ma went back to work. She taught home ec, cooking, and sewing at one of the last parish based high schools in the city--St. Mary of Perpetual Help. Occasionally, I would get taken along for a day when my school had a holiday that she didn't. The big thrill (actually, there were a lot of big thrills to this--I mean, come on: it was a HIGH SCHOOL and I was a little kid) was that I would get to walk to a little take-out place to get a breaded steak sandwich, which we would split for lunch. Man, it was exciting to walk around Bridgeport by myself as a 10 year old. Granted--it was only a block or two, but this was a very different type of neighborhood than I grew up in. And in retrospect, a lot like the neighborhoods I prefer now.

Now what was the name of that store? It would have been on maybe the corner of 32nd and May? Racine?

Ok, I must grade those papers.

Ain't life grand?

Stuff like this just makes me plain old homesick.

This afternoon I have been addressing envelopes by hand. It's brilliantly sunny out (and warmer than it's been the last couple weeks). My coworker Annie has started coming to work again. Spring flowers that we cut down to the ground are coming back for a second round. I taught my last class yesterday afternoon. Volunteers have sprouted from last year's tomato pots. My neighborhood softball team lost 30-10 Tuesday night. This year's plants have set fruit. The team has new, custom embroidered hats (go slugs!). We heard a proposal this morning to cancel $585,000 worth of journal subscriptions from a large Dutch publishing corporation.

Da Weekend

In the spirit of libboy, who I don't visit often enough. Here is a short account of the long weekend.

An old friend of L's visited, and it was a true pleasure to get to know him better. And truth be told, she has already mentioned that she got to know him a lot better this weekend as well.

We took 2 hikes that I can't believe we haven't yet taken. Yes honey, my calves really are sore today: they may not have been at the breakfast table, but they are now. Yesterday's, Silver Falls, was a great hike, and for the first time in memory, we got to walk BEHIND a waterfall. L says I've done it before, but I don't remember--I don't think I've been to Multnomah Falls. Anyway: we got to do it twice yesterday. 10 falls in 7 miles--that's a good rate of return for a relatively flat hike. We took the new live-in volunteer from Bosco House along with us. She admitted in the car on the way up that this is as far north as she's ever been (Texas native that she is). I think she was pretty amazed by the landscape.

Sunday's walk was up above Oak Ridge in the Cascades. It may have been a view hike, but there were scattered clouds--so we're not quite sure if that was one of the Sisters or not, and while the book said Mt. Batchelor was there somewhere, I can't confirm it. What I can confirm is that the meadow wildflowers were out in force. I don't know if we've ever had wildflowers like this before, or if L's newfound addiction to gardening is just making me more aware of the flora around me.

It's tres cool that she is enjoying it so much. I feel very connected to her while we are tending to our plants. I felt less connected to her at Helles Belles Saturday night. Don't get me wrong: I had a great time, but why did I never listen to AC/DC as an adolescent? Why am I 34 and only now going to shows that rock so hard that women feel compelled to bare their breasts?

I feel like I missed out on something in my yoot. Yood? You'd?

Nevermind.

Discussions with our houseguest strengthened my self-reflection about my rapidly coming to an end class. I am processing how it's gone and what I might do differently next time. I'm considering sending a lengthy report up the chain of command here. L has already suggested that I should re-purpose the course content into an article. There's a lot of material there, and some things could have been done differently (intellectually--not just logistically). So, expect more on this topic in the coming weeks.