A little over a month ago, Emmett and I undertook our second hike.  We thought we’d try the four mile trail to Monte Cristo on our bikes.  And we’d take Everett along in the trailer.  The trail was supposed to be pretty well snow free, and mostly and easy grade.  And it was.  Except for these big piles of snow.

We’re not the sort to be put off by a little snow, so we forged ahead.  But then we ran out of road.

(I don’t have a picture of this, because at the time I wasn’t thinking about how it would be much easier to tell this story if I had some illustrations.  Instead, you’ll just have to imagine it.  We didn’t mind hauling our bikes over stuff like this, so the washout was pretty impressive.)

So, Monte Cristo was out.  But of course the Mountain Loop Highway is full of delights, so we simply turned back toward Granite Falls and stopped off at the Big Four/Ice Caves area.

Here again we ran into a bit of trouble.  The parking lot was technically closed, and the trail blocked, but we decided we could have fun anyway.

Everett investigated the snowpack levels.

I took in the views.

Then I got a little ambitious.

And figured out what the “digital macro” setting on my camera was for.

This is only the beginning.

This guy tried to join us for lunch.

Everett thought it would be more fun to catch him.

We rounded out the morning with a romp in the river.

Notice the pointy fingers.

The most difficult part of the day came at the end.  Just try getting an almost-two-year old out of a spashy river before naptime.

Maybe later this summer, when the trail is repaired, we’ll get a chance to actually hike out to the ice caves.  I have the feeling they might have melted by then, though.  Of course, there’s always next year.

Posted: June 30th, 2009 under all, hiking, outdoors, travel.
Comments: none

Being in Ellensburg all week, I’ve wandered past Jerrol’s several times.  Jerrol’s is something like a bookstore on steroids.  Not in the way that Powell’s might be considered such.  More in that in addition to books, they carry clothing, art supplies, lots of papers products, provide services like faxing and fancy copies of stuff, and can special order a ton of stuff you just can’t get in town anywhere else.

Interestingly, I was rarely a customer of theirs when I was an actual student and might have benfitted from their offerings.  But I find myself more and more often drawn there.  Today I decided to go shopping.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I don’t really consider myself an artsy person.  Or artistic.  Whatever… I would not generally use any form of the word art as part of an adjective attached to myself.  I don’t know if this is because I tend to resist crowning myself with titles, or because I look at people like my friend Scott and think, “I don’t know that I could ever do something like that.”  (There’s more of his art here… I tell you, these images do not to his work justice.  You’ve got to see them in person.)  In either case, I just don’t find myself creating in that way.  Pretty much ever.

Except…

That I kind of do.  I’ve now taken classes where I’ve learned to:

• oil paint
• watercolor
• draw
• charcoal
• solder metal into jewelry
• twist metal into jewelry
• make nifty pots and sculptures out of clay
• play the piano

For no real reason except that it sounded like fun.  And in addition to all this, at one time or another, I’ve learned to crochet, knit, sew, bead, work with leather, make candles, use acrylics, collage, make fancy personalized cards… the list goes on, I am sure.  Oh yeah, I take pictures, too.  Admittedly, some of these skills I’ve lost (like sewing and crocheting).  The point is that when it comes to art there isn’t all that much that I haven’t at least tried.  This once got me accued of being a dilletante.  At the time I was very hurt, but couldn’t articulate why.  I realize now that it’s because from my point of view I was just trying to have some fun and kind of find my groove.  Since it came from an “established” artist, in that the guy knew what he liked to do with his artsiness, I took it as severe criticism.  After all, whom but an etablished artist would know whether or not I was ever going to turn out to be something other than a meddler in the arts?  Right?

I guess not.  While the term dilletante still carries a bit of a sting, I have to just admit the truth: I am capable of doing lots of things, so have yet to find a reason why I ought to limit myself to something like painting or drawing.  Or even things traditionally considered art.

My ideas here are only partially formed, and to avoid getting too far off topic I’ll try to flesh them out better over on my philosophy blog, but briefly, I would say that art is concerned with things like elegance and beauty, both of which can manifest themselves anywhere.

But that’s not the story I wanted to tell today.  No, I want to talk about what happened when I went to Jerrol’s.

First, I walked in the door.  Then, I went to the back of the store.  That’s where they keep the art stuff.

What drew me there was this hankering I’ve had lately for some charcoals.  It’s been well over ten years since I’ve even held one in my hand, and I’d pretty well completely forgotten that I’d ever even owned any.  But then the thought just popped into my head the other day.  I can’t speak to the quality of the art I make with charcoals, but I can tell you that I love their messiness.  I am drawn to messiness in general.  Sometimes because I want to clean it up (that can be enormously satisfying), sometimes because I just want to get dirty.

No, not like that. Come on, people.  This is a family show.

Back to my story: as I meandered along the aisles, looking pointedly for some charcoal, I found something else - an art box.  Now, I have an art box, of sorts.  It’s big and clunky and although I could theoretically take it with me places (it is a box, after all), it’s pretty inconvenient.  And a we all probably know by now, things that are inconvenient for me may as well be impossible.  Having so many ways to entertain myself, why would I choose the hard one?  But this seemed like genius.  So I bought it.

Now this box doesn’t have enough room for all my art stuff.  But that’s something I’m now considering a benefit.  I’ll have to pick just a few things to store in there.  The level of convenience will go up, and the number of choices down.  I won’t spend the afternoon pondering the various merits of each posibility, and fritter the day away in consideration.

Not that that’s a bad thing… it just kind of defeats my goal here.

Since all my art stuff sits at home, about 200 miles away, I also decided that I would gift myself with a set of charcoals.  Since I already have paper (that’s another story, but a less interesting one), I am now set to actually play around.  If only my day weren’t quite so busy…

One thing I did find time for was to decide what I’d start with in the box:

• charcoals (obviously)
• watercolor pencils and brushes
• pens and ink
• twisted jewelry tidbits and tools
• maybe some regular colored pencils

I am so excited!  I wish I could drive home right no and get this all together.  But it will have to wait.

Posted: June 18th, 2009 under all, art.
Comments: none

Warning: This post might ramble and make little sense.  I literally just woke up from a very long and intense dream, with the feeling that I really ought to write about it.  So here goes…

For as long a I can remember, I’ve had a set of recurring dreams that all revolve around the same theme: running.  They invariably either start at my childhood home or take place completely set there, although the actual home of my dreams may change slightly (for example, there is no basement, but in one version we have a very deep one and it’s filled with the aliens from Pitch Black.  For those of you who know that I don’t like to watch horror movies, that’s why - the bad guys invariably come to inhabit my dreams in unpleasant ways).

The general plot line is thus: I am home and happy and everything is great.  Then I begin to sense some kind of danger.  No one else in my family (literally my family or some group of people I identify as such in my dream) senses this, so the first stage is me having to convince them of the danger without exposing them to it.  The second stage consists either of some elaborate escape, wherein making it down the driveway constitutes safety (and I ake up), or the whole world is danger and I literally run all over it.  In this latter case, my family members usually drop out of the scene early on in the chase.  I wind up waking up at some point, just before I am caught.

I have literally had this kind of dream since I a a little kid.  But last night I had a new one.  This time, I didn’t run.  I stayed to fight.

The dream started when I dsicovered that someone got into the shed and stole all my stuff there.  Not exactly the end of the world by any means, but certainly extremely annoying.  I then spent a considerable time canvassing the neigorhood, asking people if they knew who took my stuff, and telling them that I wan’t really angry - I just wanted to know because I wanted a few things back (namely some old pictures).  One of the characters was Furio from the Sporanos.  While not exactly helpful, he seemed like a kind of good guy.  Don’t ask me why.  Maybe it’s the pony tail.

Back to my story… My asking around seems to trigger something, and soon groups of people are trying to break into our actual house.  My mom and dad are both there (the three of us are currently living in my childhood home together), and we work to prevent them from gaining entry.  Yes, they are trying to break in while we’re there.  At first I think they just want to take the rest of the stuff, but after several foiled attempts I discover that they don’t want our stuff, exactly.  They want us.  And not in a good way.  This is the point in my dreams when I usually find some way out and take off.  What’s really different is that rather than coming from within the house, the danger comes now from without.

And somehow, I am leading the defense.  My parents are at best supporting cast members.  This is typical of these dreams, however.

The attempts to gain entry begin with stealth, progress to trickery (the most notable example being a pizza delivery guy who shows up in the middle of the night… but we didn’t order pizza), and then to outright attack.  In the final sequence, a hugely unreal pickup truck with a large number of “bad guys” in it drives down the embankment behind our house (which was strangely denuded of trees) and is getting ready to actually drive right into the side of the house to breach the walls.  This is plausible, as most of the house is an old trailer.  Not that a dream has to be plausible, but hey.  This is my story.  At this point my dad has disappeared, and mom is there but frozen.  I run for a gun (rifle) and some bullets, which I can’t immediately find.  I keep yelling at mom, “Where are the bullets?!?” but she doesn’t answer.  Finally I find them, load the gun, then go stand in the middle of the rec room (their target is the french doors leading into it), and shoulder the rifle.  There are some confusing bits right at the end, flashes of the front corner of the truck breaching the door, my consideration as to whether I should shoot to kill or maim, and then I wake up.

And this is where one of the most interesting things happened.  Normally when I wake from a dream like this I just think, “I’ve had another one of those dreams.  I wish I knew what they were about.”  This time, I not only knew what this morning’s dream was about, but get the older version, too.

In the older version, I am running from internal danger.  I used to think that because the danger came from within the house that I must have thought, deep down, that the greatest danger in my life lurked in my childhood home, and then feel bad because I don’t consciously believe this.  Now I know that my childhood home represents me.  I have both dreamed and lived where I needed to respond to situations that were too intense by running away (after, that is, I’d convinced other people they were too intense).  Apparently I’ve undergone some kind of major shift in consciousness (or is that unconsciousness?).  Rather than seeing myself as a source of danger, I am my own source of strength.  Now I defend myself against others, instead of running from my fears.

I consider this a major breakthrough.

Posted: June 15th, 2009 under all, daily life, thoughts, well being.
Comments: 3

Or day, really.

Today is the last day of spring quarter, here in the great Northwest.  That means that as of tomorrow, I don’t ever have to think about building envelopes or impedance or energy again.  Unless I want to.  And right now, I don’t.  This quarter has been an exercise in drudgery, which is pretty odd: I find both electricity and energy efficiency to be pretty interesting and useful.  That’s normally a powerful combination.

Tomorrow I am having a true vacation.  Hiking in the morning.  Artist’s Way in the evening.  Then a week of house-sitting in beautiful, sunny, bike-friendly Ellensburg.  And no pressing obligations.  I don’t often take real vacations, but this time around I feel like I really deserve it.

And, assuming I have internet access, I’ll be working on putting together posts on my recent hikes (both the one I’ve completed but ignored, and the two I’ve got planned for this coming week).  For those of you who may be more interested in my intellectual side, I’ve actually begun to write out my own thoughts on the philosophy blog I share with Ben.

The trick is to get through these last few hours.  Had I a bit, I would be literally chomping at it to get home and pack for my little trip, put away my spring quarter books and things, and get out my Spanish book.  Not only because this quarter has been really trying and I just want to be done with it, but because being done with this quarter means something else as well:  I’ll be done with all my math endorsement classes, and will jut need to focus on completing my master’s degree (which includes certification).  Anything else (like my Spanish classes) is gravy.

So here’s to summer being just a few hours away (by my accounting)!

Posted: June 10th, 2009 under all, daily life, travel.
Comments: 1

Another funny one (if you have trouble reading it, click on the image):

Posted: June 6th, 2009 under all, entertainment, randomness.
Comments: none

About two weeks ago, one of my brothers and I went for a hike.  He brought his son along for fun (just in case the outdoors wasn’t entertaining enough).  My nephew is not-quite-two.

The Robe Canyon is a hike off the Mountain Loop Highway, not too far from our hometown of Monroe, WA (for those of you not familiar with the area).  From the trailhead, you basically descend into the canyon, then follow an old railbed that was originally cut from granite.  There are a couple of old tunnels, and some amazing river-in-a-canyon scenery.

About two weeks ago, one of my brothers and I went for a hike.  He brought his son along for fun (just in case the outdoors wasn’t entertaining enough).  My nephew is not-quite-two.

The Robe Canyon is a hike off the Mountain Loop Highway, not too far from our hometown of Monroe, WA (for those of you not familiar with the area).  From the trailhead, you basically descend into the canyon, then follow an old railbed that was originally cut from granite.  There are a couple of old tunnels, and some amazing river-in-a-canyon scenery.

This, obviously, is the railbed.  Can you imagine the work it must have taken to build such a thing by carving it out of granite?  In the late 1800’s, no less?

We’re talking some serious work, here.

Of course, having an office view like this probably helped.  And if you got hot, you could always take a quick dunk in the icy-cold, snow-melty, glacially-freezing water.

If the public swimming hole was a little too, well, public, there’s always this private little spot, tucked in the trees.

If baths weren’t your thing, the Robe Canyon was home to a number of gravity-fed showers.

A little something for everyone.

One of the coolest (literally) things about this hike are the tunnels.  To get some sense of just how big these were, and how much work it would have taken to build them, I’ve used my nephew for scale.  Granted, he’s not full-sized.  But he is big for his age.  This is the smaller tunnel.

None of my pictures of the big tunnel really do it justice.  See?

Just a little light.  Down there at the end.

This was an easy and relatively short hike.  A good place for beginners to start.  Or people with small children and/or short attention spans.

Posted: May 31st, 2009 under all, hiking, outdoors, photos, travel.
Comments: none

This morning is turning out to be a beautiful one, so I am off to Olmstead Place to go some volunteer gardening.  It should be in full bloom by now, so I’ll take some pictures and share them later today or tomorrow.  I’ve also got some photos of the last couple of biking/hiking trips I took (including the one where I figured out how to take close-ups of things like blooms).  It’s so gorgeous over here east of the mountains… I miss so much sunshine.

Posted: May 30th, 2009 under all, daily life.
Comments: none

About a week ago I started a new class.  Unlike my other recent classes, this one isn’t for college credit, and (probably) won’t help me get a job as a teacher.  It’s for fun.  For me.

Once a week I meet with a small group of women (we just happen to all be women).  We’re working through The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.  This is my second experience with the book.  The first time ’round I made it to the second chapter, then had to return it to the library.  I could have checked it out again, but I didn’t.  There were a number of reasons for this, but part of it was that the book asks you to do a lot of work, and without someone to hold me accountable, I decided I’d rather just goof off with my free time.  At the time, it was the best thing.

Now I’m in a different place.  Summer is approaching.  I am two short weeks away from completing all my math endorsement classes (a major step toward teacher certification).  I’ll be learning a new language this summer, something I always enjoy.

Although this book is ostensibly about becoming more creative and thus being comfortable calling oneself an artist, I am beginning to view its purpose in a different way.  I think for me it’s likely to become more a tool for motivating myself to try new things.  I don’t do nearly enough of this.  Cameron’s book is designed to encourage people to try new artsy things.  As I define art very broadly these days, I will use it to revamp my life.  Not that my life is dull.  Frankly, I find it pretty interesting.  But that’s not really saying much, coming from me.  I am a very curious person, so I find lots of things interesting.  I’d like to think of my life as something a little less mild.

That’s what this summer is about.  Learning to take my days a little further.  To get beyond the merely interesting and into the fascinating.  The riveting.  I want to be so engrossed with life that I lose track of time.  I want summer to flash before my eyes.

Think I can do it?

Posted: May 29th, 2009 under all, art, books, inspiration, learning, well being.
Comments: none

For anyone who might be interested in a brief introduction to my worldview, written in response to a discussion I had with some friends of mine, I’ve written a somewhat lengthy piece over at my other blog (you know, the one that gets even more ignored than this one does.)

Posted: May 29th, 2009 under all, thoughts.
Comments: none

Wow, it’s been almost three weeks since I’ve posted anything.  I don’t think that’s quite a record, but it’s close.  Guess you’re all due for an update.

I’d better just start right off with this:

I got into grad school.

The next step is to prove that some time in my dark, distant past I did in fact get immunized for measles.  Not sure why this is important these days.  Has there been some sort of new outbreak not being reported in the news or any of the other usual grapevines?  Or is this some sort of special challenge - track down my old doctor, retired now for 20 years (and probably dead) and ask him to look up my old records.

No problem.

After all, I’m a graduate student now.  I can handle anything.

I don’t have my thoughts organized into anything you might call, um, interesting just yet.  The last three weeks were both busy and a little rough emotionally.  They’re over, though, and that magic light at the end of the quarter is shining ever brighter.  I will be very glad when summer is here and I can focus on something new (Spanish, as opposed to sustainable energy issues and electricity).  And even gladder to be working on something I find truly meaningful and interesting, all at the same time next fall (that’s teaching, for those of you new to the show).

I’ll be writing more over the next few days and weeks, as my brain finally starts to let go of it’s singular fixation of recent months and allows some new stuff to germinate.

Posted: May 26th, 2009 under all, randomness.
Comments: 2