insert witty title here

Four thousand miles later...

After spending last night in Cannon Beach, I arrived back home this afternoon to the drudgery of laundry and tossing out moldy cheese. I have to say that I had a great trip - my little car performed admirably and I wasn't molested, arrested or detested. I took dozens of photos, which I will download and find a website-home for.

I did the entire coast from Coronado, California to Astoria, Oregon with nights in San Diego, Huntington Beach, Venice Beach, San Francisco and Crescent City.

My conclusion: Canada was shafted when it came to drawing the border between us and the United States. Sure we may have all the clean drinking water, but how about some damn beaches that you can drive to? Or better yet, weather warm enough to sustain palm trees without resorting to this.

Returning to my "life" always brings me a feeling of regret rather than relief. I think it's why I tend to not take a lot of time off work...coming back to it bothers me much more than just grinding it out every day. Nevertheless, it was a terrific trip and I feel better for having taken it.

I'm in sunny San Diego, having arrived here yesterday afternoon from Las Vegas. So far so good on this expedition... no breakdowns (mechanical or emotional) and I left Las Vegas eight dollars wealthier than when I arrived.

The drive down to Boise was nice and uneventful and Boise itself seemed like a pretty town. The University is called Boise State, which means students are attending BS University. I can't say that I can recommend the Boise Motel 6...unless you like your lighting floresent and your floors sticky.

I really liked the drive from Boise to Las Vegas, particularly between Contact (population 5) and Caliente. It was a nice, empty highway and a cool September day.

What can I say about Las Vegas that hasn't been said before? Well, apparently there's a municipal ordinance requiring all female visitors to display their cleavage no matter how large, small, full or withered it is. I even saw two female midgets and a woman with middle-stage multiple sclerosis in low-cut shirts and push-up bras. Nothing against 'little people' or women with MS, I just don't usually picture them when I think "boobies". Getting mooned by that stretch Hummer full of drunken twenty-something girls out on a female stag was a nicer treat.

It's too nice a day to sit in the hotel typing so I'm off to stroll the waterfront and sigh wistfully over all the lovely sailboats.

ciao

I wrote the LSAT a year ago and I haven't done anything about going back to school since. I didn't choke on the test but I don't feel like I did well enough (67th percentile) to have my law school application taken seriously. I also found that many of the school application questions were pretty intimidating on their own: "...list all of the organizations you volunteer for..." "list all of your scholastic awards and acheivements..."

While in Hell I took it upon myself to get the local Search and Rescue group started up and organized again. After a few months of regular meetings I opted out of it and had them elect a new president because I couldn't think of one person who lived there that I'd want to go out of my way to search for, let alone rescue.

As for scholastic acheivements: **cue long silence**

The exam was a good mental workout though and I'd encourage anyone who's been out of school for a while to take the lsat just to give your brain some real exercise. I definitely felt like I was thinking clearly after studying and preparing for it.

These are sights on my "Things-to-see" list for this road trip:

In Boise it'll be a visit to the Bitter Creek Ale House thanks to Tori's suggestion.

Between Boise and Las Vegas I have to take a photograph of the Extraterrestrial Highway sign.

No real plans in Las Vegas (I'm not much of a casino guy) but I would like to see the Luxor Hotel.

Always wanted to see Joshua Tree National Park so that's what I'm gonna do.

Haven't been here since I was six.

Saw this place in a movie back in the early eighties and I have wanted to see in in person ever since.

Can't visit the Los Angeles area without a stop at Venice Beach.

It deserves a visit too.

I worked here in the summer of 1979.

My pilgrimmage to honor Kerouac and Snyder.

Can you smell what The Rock is cooking? Well I soon will.

Is there a prettier place in all of California?

My last chance to walk along the open Pacific will probably be here.

Call me a fledgling curmudgeon but when did inserting the word “like” several times into every statement become an acceptable form of the English language?

“So, I was all like, whatever, and he was like, you know.”

“This assignment is like, hard”

I totally liked that movie, it was like, way cool.”

When Frank Zappa came out with the song Valley Girl in 1982, the use of English in it was treated as novelty humor. Twenty one years later that same manner of speaking is so commonplace that I feel extremely anachronistic when I say: “It’s hot out” rather than “It’s like, hot out”.

I think I’m the last generation for which the word “like” isn’t a compulsive addition to every sentence. Personally I think this “like” business is just another reflection of how lazy Western Civilization has become. Why maintain a vocabulary of more than eleven words when you can just elaborate with “like” (or it’s cousin: “totally”).

I guess I’m like, old fashioned…



whatever.

Four more days until I'm out of here for a while. Wednesday night I plan on sleeping in Boise, Idaho. I've never been to Idaho before and I'm hoping it's not as chock full of white-supremist survivalists as the media makes it out to be.

During the course of my life, I've known three women that had been raped. I've probably known more, but there are three who shared that part of their history with me.

The first was Lyla, who I met when I was 18. She sometimes hung out at the local movie theatre (where I occasionally worked to make some extra money). She was a couple of years younger than me and, without any hint of sexual attraction at all, we became friends and used to yak about life and stuff. She had that charismatic quality about her that made everyone stop and smile when she walked into a room. An inner light that everyone could see. Her parents had been hippies in the 60's and she was raised on peace, love and trust in mankind.

One Friday night she came by and wasn't her usual upbeat self. We found a quiet corner in which to talk and she told me that she'd been raped that afternoon by a guy she'd been seeing. She had gone over to his apartment to visit him, like she'd done many times before but this time it was to tell him that she didn't think it was working out and that it was over. He responded by beating her up and then putting a revolver in her mouth and holding it there while he raped her. Afterwards he told her that he'd be by her house that weekend. Her parents and little brother were away and she was scared about being alone in the house all weekend. I couldn't think of anything else to do but offer to stay with her and keep her safe. She did agree to go to the ER so that's where we went before going to her house.

I was at a total loss for what to say or do...all I could think of to do was to encourage her to feel that she was in complete control of her life now - so when she said that she didn't want to make a police report I didn't push it. I figured that the last thing she needed was a man telling her what to do. I wanted to hold her and comfort her but, to my mind, I couldn't see her ever wanting another man touching her so I just stood around awkwardly instead. I sat outside the bathroom door while she had a long, hot bath and I made her a sandwich and sat at the table while she ate it. Then came bedtime and when I told her that I'd be sleeping on the living room couch she said that she preferred me to sleep in her bed with her. So I lay there all night, wide awake and fully dressed, watching her sleep and wishing I could take the last twenty-four hours away from her.

The next day (Saturday) she wanted to stay inside and not go out, so we watched television (this was in the era before VCR's) and chatted about innocuous subjects and napped. Saturday night was a repeat of Friday night and I stayed with her until early Sunday afternoon, as her parents would be home shortly. When I fell into my own bed on Sunday night I felt totally drained and just as useless and guilty for being a man as I did on Friday night.

After that, Lyla always seemed to hold me in affectionate regard and we remained good friends until I moved out to British Columbia. The last I'd heard (many years ago), she was happily married and living in Alberta.

Other than when being present at childbirth, I don't think there's any other situation in which a man feels as totally and completely useless as when someone he cares about has been raped. While I can't speak for other men, I think my reaction is probably pretty typical: gender guilt...helplessness...awkwardness. I think to myself: "...the last thing that this person needs is to be around another goddamn man. By being here, all I'm doing is making her relive the whole thing. I'm ashamed to be a guy..."

I don't know if I did the right thing or not, or even if there was such a thing as a "right thing" to do. All I know is that I wanted to take Lyla's pain away and I wanted to hurt her rapist and I didn't accomplish either.

Better words than mine: "Two Septembers later, Bush has logged one indisputible victory: except for the anthrax attacks at the end of 2001, whatever they were about, terrorism has not killed one more American on American soil."

Today blog after blog consists of a tribute to 9/11. I sincerely hope that over the years this doesn't evolve into a trite, one-day affair where everyone gets all solemn for twenty-four hours, talking about how we're all really one world family and then afterwards we all go back to our sarcasm and self-absorbed focus. Because we already have a day set aside for that each year. It's called Christmas.

Mike summed it up: "I'm a little worried about what the 9/11 memorial will actually turn into. 9/11 itself is already a product. It's been used to sell everything from t-shirts and hats, all the way to a full scale war with a country that had nothing to do with it. It's the national tragedy that practically sells itself!"

I respect Mike's anger about 9/11 because it burns inside of him all year 'round. Nothing short-term or superficial there.

Boohoohoo, poor ol' George...maybe he should give Angelina a call.

Does anyone out there really care? If you're sitting at home truly concerned that George Clooney finds dating to be a chore or that Angelina Jolie wants to get laid, then I'd suggest that you need to acquire a broader world perspective. Do you think this child will ever get a chance to have George and Angelina's problems?

shallow shallow shallow

You know, with the amazing number of Catholic clergy caught buggering little boys, you'd think that the Church wouldn't want to draw attention to itself on the subject of sex....

Angelina Jolie says that she's tired of being celibate.

I feel a minor bout of huffiness coming on....

I think it's terrific that beautiful, millionaire, hollywood movie stars can choose to live without sex but there are some of us for whom celibacy was not optional: it was thrust upon us by virtue of our social or physical unattractiveness. Being in that demographic leaves me feeling somewhat unsympathetic to Ms. Jolie's plight. Let's face it, she is only a sultry look away from sex on tap, whereas many of us are resigned to a lifetime of furtive bouts of onanism in the wee hours.

Frankly I find it a little galling that Ms. Jolie thinks her itch warrants a press conference in order to get it scratched. What's next on the movie-stars-with-ADD press junket? Is Billy-bob regular enough or is he looking for a few good prunes?

feh.

The history of my eyeballs:

I've worn glasses since I was in grade three. Grade three was in 1972 so as you can imagine, eyeglass style consisted of thick black plastic frames that went well with multi-coloured polyester. Picture a small, brown, skinny, long-haired Drew Carey, but without the sense of humor. That was me in grade three.

Over the years I eventually switched to metal frames in my pursuit of something that would ungeek me but to no avail. In the late seventies and early eighties it was aviator style frames with coloured lenses ::shudders at the memory:: Eventually I gave up my search and found a pair of plain, round, small, metal frames - I've stuck with them ever since.

I didn't get my first pair of contact lenses until I was 23 and it opened up a whole new world called "peripheral vision". It was also the first time I could clearly see my glasses-free face without standing three inches from the mirror, so after that I hardly ever wore glasses. I also discovered sunglasses and went nuts buying all sorts of cheap pairs that probably ended up doing even more damage to my fried eyes.

I kept my contact lens habit for a number of years, until my lazy lens cleaning habits gave me a mild eye infection that forced me to go back to glasses full-time for a few months. That was in 1993.

Since then I've pretty much stuck to glasses for work and contacts for recreation and in doing so I've begun to notice something in the past few years: With my glasses on, I'm apparently invisible to women. Without them I'll get the occasional second glance but when I wear glasses, it's as if I'm not there at all. Out of curiosity I've even tested this out. With glasses on I've made a bit of chit-chat with female strangers and received uninspired, inattentive responses. Without my glasses I get smiles and even the rare flirty comment from the same people. I feel like Richard Mulligan's character in "Soap", when he thought he was really invisible because everyone ignored him.

With typical irony, it's only an annoying sort of social invisibility. If I'm going to be invisible to women, why can't it be the full-meal-deal so I can fulfil all those old sophomoric 'sneaking into the locker room' fantasies? Or better yet, I could find a bank staffed only by women so I could wander into the vault...

How was that for a boring topic?

I think that the greatest period for parents is when their kids are toddlers. Kids that are between eighteen months and four years are at that wonderful stage of life where everything is brand new and they're on their own two feet, trying to explore it all with wide-eyed wonder. There's no such thing as self-consciousness or embarrassment - it's like they are falling in love with the concept of being alive.

I look at my kids at the ages they are now and remember that it was only a few years ago that they were at that stage too. Before Spongebob and Barbie and Playstation got ahold of them. I used to play 'hop on pop' with the boys when they were 2 and 3. The book was one of their favorite stories so I'd lay on my back on the living room floor while the two of them repeatedly jumped up and down on my stomach, giggling and shouting "hop on pop! hop on pop!". I always ended up feeling as though I'd just done four hundred sit-ups but in return it made two little boys happy...and their dad as well.

Being eight, my daughter is closest to that stage and I find that sometimes it's hard to encourage her to grow up. In some ways I want her to be that three-year-old little girl forever, riding around on my hip and giving me spontaneous hugs.

It can't be "jet lag" but I've been really sleepy since getting back to town. I think I'm going to succumb to middle age this afternoon and have a nap.

I ended up working until midnight last night - local fire patrols. It's kind of amusing...they've set up this "nerve center" here in Chilliwack with all sorts of maps and radios and long lists of schedules...they've got roving patrols and barricades on logging roads...all they're missing is an actual fire. Quite a difference from Nelson where they're too busy fighting fires to create all of this fluff and nonsense.

Went to the gym in the morning and then cd shopping in the afternoon: Leonard Cohen - "The Future"; Madonna - "Ray of Light"; The Who - "Quadrophenia"; and Marilyn Manson - "Mechanical Animals".

Other than that it was nice to have a day to myself. Tomorrow I'm taking the kids to the local wave pool.

These are some of the web searches that brought people to my blog in the past two weeks:

"insert witty title here"
"my twenties and thirties"
"barr farouk"
quebec mounted police ass
Canada + legal codine
homework help on example sentences of the word epidermis
guilty until proven innocent
plucking chicken pictures
"forest fires" "canadian border" "Nelson"
Napoleonic code + guilty
Farouk + Penis

I keep wondering about the motivation behind a google search for plucking chicken pictures. I'm sure it's probably something innocuous that just seems strange at first glance...but it can't be that common a search query...can it?

As for Farouk+penis, I really don't want to know.


Other stuff, etc:

Less than two weeks until I'm out of here (see August 14th's post) for a bit. Over the past little while I've been increasingly looking forward to this trip. As long as I don't end up being randomly shot in the head by Cletus the slack-jawed yokel, it should be a nice break.

One more fire-related tidbit: The standard forest fire hose used in British Columbia is 1.5 inches in diameter by 100 feet in length. There are currently over 800 miles of it being used on forest fires here.

And from the Des Moines Register Crime Report: 8200 block of Sharon Drive, Aug. 27 - A mother reported that a bully twisted her son's nipples on the school bus.

I only had 57 work-related emails to go through this morning - and none of them were about someone's cat needing a new home or cookies being available in the coffee room. The folks here are actually pretty good at keeping stuff like that off the company email - the last place I worked was awful for that sort of nonsense: five or six emails a day about so-and-so having a washing machine for sale. Then again, productivity wasn't much of a priority for most of the folks there - which is why the place was downsized from 41 to 5 in 2002.

So I'll briefly blab about my firefighting expedition and then I'll try not to mention it again:

On the night of August 15th (a Friday) I was having a bit of a housewarming thing when the phone rang with my deployment order to be in Castlegar the following afternoon. Later that night I went to the office to get the marching orders that were being faxed to me, and to root through all my gear and decide what I should bring since they didn't give me any details other than to "Be at the Castlegar fire centre tomorrow afternoon, you're limited to a total of 60 pounds of effects." I went back home and finshed packing around midnight.

So the next morning I headed out at 6am for the drive east. I got to the fire centre around 2 pm and was told to "sit tight for a bit while we sort things out" I sat tight. For five frigging hours. At 7pm they said I may as well grab a room for the night as it was too late to send me on to Nelson. Good thing I got to Castlegar on time...

Nelson is about 45 minutes down the road from Castlegar so I arrived there around 8am to this reaction: "We weren't expecting you - who are you and what are you doing here?" By this time I'd pretty much realized that things weren't going to be particularly organized and maintained my relaxed attitude. Eventually they found my paperwork and I picked up some additional equipment from their warehouse and tried to get familiar with the local situation. It wasn't exactly the 'hit the ground running' I'd expected but I wasn't going to get too excited about it...after all, I was getting paid double time because it was a Sunday. Later that afternoon I checked into the Nelson Best Western.

The next day I tagged along on a helicopter reconnaissance of the "Kutetl Fire" in West Arm Provincial Park, just east of Nelson. Like many of the big fires in British Columbia, this one started in a park and then quickly spread to adjacent private property and municipal boundaries. BC Parks has a resource management philospophy of letting natural events run their course in wilderness parks - which is probably a good approach but for the fact that wildfire doesn't give a shit about abstract concepts like "this is where the Park ends and houses begin". In my somewhat educated opinion, I think a more proactive approach to fire management along park boundaries would have prevented them from escaping the wilderness areas. Say perhaps a fringe of reguarly applied controlled burning within the first 500 metres of the park boundary - where there are adjacent values such as houses or community watersheds. But I digress...

In the days that followed I surveyed out an access road that would allow equipment to get into the valley where the fire was threatening the city's watershed and then did a lot of ground reconnaissance along the fire's front in preparation of unit crews getting on site to begin actual firefighting work. The ground reconnaissance involved being dropped off by helicopter in an open area and marking out trails along the advancing face of the fire for the crews to follow. It was a lot more interesting than my usual work and being out there all by myself was refreshing for my inherent streak of independance. Unfortunately my kness got buggered and after only a few days of that and then assisting the unit crews in getting organized on site, I had to go see a doctor who said that I should take a few days off.

Since I wasn't prepared to do that, I suggested that I get installed on the facing ridgeline so that I could coordinate the air support and ground movements since I'd have a good view. I figured that would give my knees a few days to unswell (is unswell a word?) and I'd still be useful. Those few days turned into quite a few as the fire grew and I ended up spended the majority of my term on that damn ridgeline rather than on the fireline. I guess it was useful work - between directing five helicopters and 82 people on the ground I had lots to do but I still would have preferred to be in the thick of things.


I'm looking forward to a day off - my last one was August 10th.

I'm back.

Tired...unshaven...smelling a little smokey...but alive and intact. I ended up staying a little longer than expected but it was worthwhile.

Thanks to everyone who wished me good luck and also to those didn't give up on my blog - I'm back and will resume my regular broadcast (blogcast?) schedule tomorrow. Right now I'm goin' to sleep in my own bed - no more hotel polyester!

g'night