Hut Trip

They are called huts, but don’t let the name fool you. Although these structures have a history as a simple system of shelters used by shepherds as they moved their sheep from one mountain pasture to the next, they have evolved into a collection of cabins used by summer hikers and winter, backcountry enthusiasts. Today the simple wooden shacks have been replaced by sprawling cabins complete with large windows that open to breathtaking views, efficient woodstoves, comfortable sleeping quarters, and battery powered lights that are charged by solar panels.

To reach the hut I visited this past weekend, we hiked 3.5 miles over 9 inches of fresh snow that covered the season’s accumulated snowpack. The trail rose nearly 1600 feet from the trailhead parking and took about 3 hours to navigate.

My brother Blake has been on 4 similar trips and my schedule finally allowed me to join him. Also in our party were my brother Cody, Blake’s friend Hull, Hull’s coworker Kerry, and her husband Mark. My brothers and I are snowboarders and use a system called a splitboard to hike on the snow, (I’ll discuss my split board in a future post), the other members all ride tele skis which transition easily from carving to hiking.

Once we reached the hut we quickly emptied our packs of anything but the safety essentials and headed back out to carve some turns.

The recent snowfall gave us numerous powder turns, and I soon realized this trip was going to be special. You see, here in the NW the snow falls at a temp just below freezing and is usually met by rising temperatures, causing the snow to feel heavy. What I found in Colorado was much different. Their snow falls when the mercury reads 10 degrees and it regularly stays below 20 keeping the snow light and fluffy. Light, cold snow offers an effortless glide that is amazing to ride.

The next day was spent exploring and riding the numerous glades around the hut. The snow continued to fall and kept us from venturing onto the slopes above timberline because of high winds. This mattered little since the trees protected us from the weather and offered remarkable stashes of powder-filled delights.


On our final day the storm receded, and we climbed the large snowfield above the hut where we found generous carving options. My brothers and I enjoyed them so much that we hiked back up and rode them again even though it meant we would be caught in the afternoon traffic-jam that was sure to clog I-70 as the ski resorts sent people home for the night. Such are the sacrifices for a group of powderhounds intent on satisfying their fix.

As grand as I’ve made this all sound, there were moments of severe discomfort. Not only is my NW snow different from that found in Colorado, so is the altitude. I live at about 300 ft above sea level. Our first day’s hike began at 10,160 ft and climbed from there. Most of the time I felt as if I’d had 7/8 of my lungs surgically removed. It didn’t help that Blake’s friends are amazing athletes each competing in numerous adventure-races, triathlons and ultra-marathons; not to mention the fact that they live at an elevation over 6000ft. I am grateful for their patience with me as I often practiced the deadman’s shuffle up the trail behind them.

So why endure such pain? Surely there are powder-covered slopes that can be accessed with the assistance of chairlifts? This is true, but they come with some unavoidable nuisances. The best snow is snow that no one else has touched. At a resort it will mostly all be touched in a couple of hours, so you are always racing to beat everyone else to the ‘goods’. You also have to wait in line with a bunch of knuckleheads who, like you, feel cheated that they spent so much on a lift ticket only to waste all of their time in a slow lift line. The closest I’ve come to a fistfight as an adult was waiting in line for a ride to the top.

In the backcountry these problems are avoided. The snow is limitless and lift-lines are non-existent.

The turns I enjoyed on this trip were some of the best I’ve seen. The soft, CO powder dropped from beneath me as I weightlessly glided down the slopes. For those of you who haven’t experienced this, pick something in your life that you enjoy and then imagine enjoying it under the perfect conditions. Your favorite meal shared with your closest friends. Watching your favorite team beat their rivals as you cheer from the student section. Listening to your favorite music performed by your favorite band in a private jam-session. A kiss that lingers on your lips and tastes as sweet as honey. (Do you feel me?) Such were the joys of this trip.

In Search of Mrs. Hagel

After 15 years I can still name every teacher I had in High School. I owe much of the knowledge I rely on today to their tutelage. The memories I have of their classes range from blurry, general impressions to crystal-clear lessons that I can still recite today. One  of those lessons has shaped almost every day of my life since.

The class was journalistic writing and the teacher was Mrs. Hagel. Mrs. Hagel was younger than some of the teachers at Powell High who continued to lecture the same lessons from well-worn texts year after year. She brought a vibrancy and enthusiasm to her classes that I enjoyed. She instructed more as a mentor than as a teacher. As advisor to the school newspaper she had two classrooms, one with traditional desks and the other with large round tables that we would gather around to collaborate on group assignments, (very forward thinking in 1986 Wyoming).

I remember she was one of the first teachers to have a computer in her room. It was a Mac Plus that was used by Mrs. Hagel and her newspaper staff to layout the school newspaper with PageMaker and a LaserWriter (can you believe the LaserWriter cost $6995 back in 1985?). Although I wasn’t on the official newspaper staff, she would allow me access to her computer. I think even back then I was a bit of a geek and as such was pressed into service when the silly box with a keyboard and mouse was not behaving. I am solely responsible for installing the Moose on her computer. (That didn’t last long.)

The writing I do today is strongly influenced by her class. We discussed many usages of grammar and I call on them often. One that I remember fondly was the use of the serial comma. Only that’s not what we called it in her class; I’ve only learned that name for it recently. My memory of the lesson is vivid, for it seemed that she was giving me a nugget of grammatical truth that would set me apart from my under-achieving contemporaries. The lesson went something like this: “You know how as a freshman you were taught to separate each item in a list with a comma? Well, modern style calls for the omission of the last comma. So instead of snow, rain, and sleet, you can now just write snow, rain and sleet.” I remember thinking that Mrs. Hagel was on the cutting edge for giving us this piece of tradition altering knowledge. Because of the advent of proportional width fonts I had just unlearned the use of 2 spaces to separate sentences, so I absorbed the dropping of the comma readily. With her warning that the older style was still accepted and many would not embrace this new usage, I held my head high as other teachers marked my papers. I raised my nose and sniffed at the air as I saw my classmates stuck in the past constantly typing commas for which there was no need.

I have continued this practice unswervingly for the past 15 years. I had assumed that eventually the rest of the writing world would catch-up to us early-adopters and I would only see that final comma in the oldest of manuscripts. Except that never happened, instead [Pullout: ]  I see generous comma usage all around me. Perplexed, I went looking for an answer to this inconsistency. I found numerous discussions on the topic and they all led me down a path that I did not expect.

It appears that each comma of a list is very much required in modern writing style. The reason is quite sensible and has everything to do with clarity. Consider this, “Much thanks to my parents, Blake and Christa”, without the serial comma it could be interpreted, by those who don’t know my family, that Blake and Christa are my parents. When written like this, “Much thanks to my parents, Blake, and Christa”, it is clear that I am thankful to all 4 parties listed.

Numerous style authorities document serial comma use. The dissenters to this style are British guides and newspaper guidelines, namely the AP style guide. It seems that the space saved on a newspaper page by omitting the serial comma is enough to forego its use.

Could it be that she was teaching the AP style and I missed that part of the lesson? It was a class on journalistic writing. I don’t remember discussing many style guidelines that were reserved only for journalism, so this one should have stuck out if that was the case. Could it be that I was eager to differentiate myself from the other writers at Powell High School, so I ignored the part about its journalism only usage? My ego could be at work here. I can’t imagine that Mrs. Hagel got it wrong. (Although I think her husband was the editor for the local paper, hmm. Perhaps in her house AP style was the only one that mattered.)

Whatever the reason, I’ve been incorrectly skipping the serial comma for years. One only has to scroll back to my December, 9 post to see its misuse right on this page. I have begun using the correct style and soon it will seem natural. I doubt I will ever place a comma before a conjunction again without wondering if Mrs. Hagel is still teaching, what her students are learning about the serial comma, and whether she knows how far her lessons have reached.

One Page Essay

What I did over Christmas Vacation


I celebrated Christmas with my family. My family includes 1 wife, 3 brothers, 2 sisters-in-law, 2 parents, and 2 nephews. This Christmas was the first time we had all been together. Blake and Kim hosted in Colorado so that the kiddos wouldn’t have to travel. Not everyone could get off for the same days, but we were all there for Christmas. Mom and Dad arrived a few days early with Josh then left 2 days after the 25th. Christa and I arrived on Christmas and stayed until New Year’s. Cody and Tina live in Colorado so they were there the whole time, although now they have their own apartment.

My favorite part was meeting my new nephew Adam and checking up on his big brother Griffin. Experiencing the holiday with kids gave me a fresh perspective. I am by no means a scrooge, but I have seen it all a couple dozen times. Watching my nephews see it for their first couple of times made it new.

Adam is just a few months old so his perspective is a bit limited. I imagine for him the presents and food went mostly unnoticed. I do not, however, think he missed the lights. His big eyes caught every twinkle and color as he was passed from relative to relative. I’d guess his impression of Christmas is never wanting for someone to hold him. Parents, grandparents, uncles, and aunts were all nearby to fill his holiday dance-card. Each dancer with their own rhythm, song, and technique for holding him.

Griffin is 2, so present time was not wasted him. His tiny fingers deftly released each treasure from the colorful paper. Pausing to tryout each new plaything filled the short gaps before another gift was placed in his lap. Each gift brought a new surprise and a new reason to be thankful for a large family that is mostly filled with adults.
This is a position that he takes on with gusto and he rarely moves from the center of attention. Only on occasion will his infectious spirit be overshadowed by an Uncle. I imagine for Griffin Christmas means a big audience. There was always someone to coax into a game of Rescue Rangers, share a cookie with or take a ride on his brand new trike.

It sounds a little cliché, but they reminded me that Christmas is family and getting everyone together makes it a holiday.

BTW, I highly recommend the book I Stink which follows a New York City garbage truck as it saves its citizens from Mount Trash-O-Rama. A fun read and a Griffin Favorite.

Preach On (Love is the Answer)

I came across this speech by Martin Luther King Jr. when I was researching a previously discussed topic. Many of the words make me shudder.

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing- oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered...

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted concept -- so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force -- has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John:

Let us love one another; for love is God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. If we love one another God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.

We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate.

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter -- but beautiful -- struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

He's right, you know. The longer you and I wait to change, the worse things get. People are more important than things. And love is still the answer that will change the world.

Treehouse Memorial -repost

(I had the security settings for the Flickr images set wrong so the slide show wasn't working. They should be working now.)

I just went and read some of my early posts from when I began building my treehouse. I remember thinking back then that I would mostly use this blog to post updates about the my progress. Little did I know all the events that would get covered here. Looking back it makes me smile to think of all the terrific times I spent in my backyard playing with my tools; sometimes on the ground and other times hanging from a branch. I’ve really enjoyed having grown-up sized resources to follow small-person sized dreams. For me it’s all about doing something that I am passionate about. In my career I haven’t chosen to follow a passion, so in other parts of my life I don’t want to waste any time. I’ve also been joined by a faithful group of supporters and builders. I caught the passion for this treehouse while helping build one for Greg. Since I have started mine, he has been by my side every step of the way. Without his faithful assistance I would probably still be hoisting the main beams. Others have helped too and to each of you I am thankful and look forward to using your help on the rebuild. Here’s some previously unpublished photos that make me smile. Enjoy.

Treehouse

Stepping Back

The shock of what happened to my treehouse Tuesday night is starting to wear off. I am now able to step back from the tragedy and see the entire project.

From this viewpoint my mistake is very obvious. I turned a blind-eye to the weight rating of the all-thread. Heck, I didn’t even know what the weight rating was. I just assumed that it was sufficient. I knew my cables could each hold 14,000 pounds. I also knew that the crimps on the ends where rated at 30,000 pounds and the eyenuts, turnbuckles, shackles and eyebolts all fell somewhere in between. But the all-thread was a mystery. I’ve since learned it was not sufficient, hah! I’ve found some suppliers that sell all-thread with a rating as high as 300,000 pounds. That is probably a bit excessive, but I will not skimp when it comes to my next design. I’ve also decided to pattern my cables and beams after a cable-stayed bridge and will triple the number of cables I use, thus spreading the weight over more tree attachment points to avoid what happened the other night.

More cables means I won’t want them running through my house and I’ll need to adjust the placement of the walls. In the end I’ll probably have a smaller house due to the narrow distance between my trees.

Don’t know how soon I’ll get to work on all of this, since the weather is a bit crummy right now, but I will keep you posted on my progress for sure.

Tragedy

Warning: Due to the graphic nature of the following photos, viewer discretion is advised.










It sounded like a tornado in our backyard. When I went to check on it, this is what I found. I called Greg and he came to help clean up. I was a little numb so the pictures aren't all that great. It looks like the all-thread, that was going through the tree and had the eye-nuts and cables attached to it, broke. This sent the southeast corner falling and then the house just slid off. The platform is still in relatively good shape considering one of the cables is no longer holding it. It is hanging, suspended by the other 3 cables and some branches that the east beam came to rest on.

hill_ja to hillj30

Today was the first day I got my username correct every time it was requested. I didn’t think it would be such a big deal, but I’ve been working at this new job for 13 days and until today I had to use the backspace in combination with my mistyped username at least once a day--sometimes more. I think the problem stems from similarity and frequency. At my last job they used last name plus underscore plus first and middle initial to construct usernames. Mine was hill_ja—it should have been hill_jl, but I was hired as a contractor with little notice and in lieu of a middle initial they just took the first letter that came along. At this job it is your last name followed by the first letter of your first name—should be hillj, but there are lots of people here and I’m not the first hillj to sit at a desk and type so I get hillj30. I don’t know if that makes me the 30th hillj or not, but I tend to think so. hill_ja to hillj30, you can see how I might get goofed up. Plus I have to enter it like 30 times in a day, so I tend to disconnect that task from my brain and just let my fingers type. It has taken 13 days and probably 390 logins to get consistent enough to make it through an entire day. Proving once again the incredible nature of muscle memory.

If you’ve been following my occasional ramblings, you may be wondering what all this ‘new job’ talk is all about. “Hmm, I remember way back in July when Jason quit his job, but when did he get another one? And what does that mean for the treehouse.”

Well, the treehouse is a work in progress and I am watching window caulking on one of my windows dry as I type this post. When it dries, in 2 days, I’ll paint it and then get it in the treehouse, where it will be followed by 4 more, plus a door.

I am currently working a 6 month contract, at Nationwide Insurance in Portland, doing various web related coding tasks. It is not saving the world, but it does pay the mortgage and gives me time to do some other stuff.

As far a logins go here is what I remember:

Nationwide: hillj30
Pacificare: hill_ja
Webridge: jasonh
adidas: hilljas
Oddly, I can’t remember any more than that.

Is it Too Early for Fireworks?

Josh and I returned to Mt Hood this weekend to ride 13 inches of fresh snow. Wanting to dodge the crowds and enjoy the untracked stuff, we opted once again for the Glade Trail. At the end of our second run some teens were hanging out in a jeep right where the trail meets the road. I answered a few of their questions about the trail and during our exchange, one of them reached out the window and offered me a bottle-rocket. Now, I love fireworks as much as the next guy, but I declined. It makes me chuckle even now. What were they doing with bottle-rockets? And what made them offer one to me? I guess in all my snowboarding gear I don't look like a 34 year-old, volvo-driving, computer nerd, who isn't even carrying a lighter or an empty bottle to enjoy such a toy.

A Tale of Two Americas

While I agree with my friend Adam that there are more productive activities than watching TV, I confess that I do sometimes bask in the warmth of its glow. That being said, I will dispense with the apologies and continue with a discussion of 2 documentaries I recently watched.

I have close friends who admire Michael Moore, but I had never seen any of his work. While this would sometimes leave me on the outside of their conversations, I couldn’t bring myself to pay for any of his showings. A few weeks ago Bravo aired Bowling for Columbine and I caught it on Tivo. Now, I’ll admit that I am a bit to the right of MMoore’s views and that may have motivated me to avoid his work in the past. But, I try to approach issues with an open mind. I will often find my self listening to progressive talk radio just as often as I hear the conservative stuff. I am in favor of less government, but I don’t think the way we do healthcare in this country is working. I am a registered Independent who takes an honest look at each issue and tries to avoid making decisions or judgments just because it is the party line.

So, with remote in hand, an open mind and my faithful companion at my side, I watched; and I was entertained. He had me from the opening scene where he gets a free gun at a bank for opening a CD to the end where he pesters Charlton Hesston into an interview and challenges him to justify gun-ownership. Bowling had it all: interviews, cartoons, surveillance footage of the Columbine tragedy and wacky gun-toten militia-men in Minnesota.

Did you know that the creators of South Park are from Littleton, and went to Columbine? They provided a funny little cartoon titled A brief History of America that, although humorous, drives home Michael’s point—we white people are living scared and we have the guns to prove it. According to the film that is what drove the murders at Columbine—I think. It was a bit hard to follow his arguments, mostly because he makes so many. Was it the militia in Minnesota? He spent more than a few frames talking with Timothy McVeigh’s brother; perhaps that was what inspired them?

Could it be because the world’s largest weapons manufacturer is in Littleton? Moore actually asked a Lockheed Martin executive:

"So you don't think our kids say to themselves, 'Gee, you know, Dad goes off to the factory every day and, you know, he builds missiles. These are weapons of mass destruction.' What's the difference between that mass destruction and the mass destruction over at Columbine High School?'"

And Moore wasn’t kidding; the polite executive just stood there for a minute and replied,

“I guess I don't see that connection.”

Moore interviews Marilyn Manson so we know the cause wasn’t the music.

Soon the movie begins to build to a climax when the possibility that gun violence in the U.S. is triggered by the number of guns Americans own is explored. It is just so easy to get a gun and since everyone has one, that must be why we lead the world in gun crimes; and it probably explains Columbine. However, Moore points out that Canada has even more guns than we do, yet they only have a fraction of our number of gun homicides. So the problem can’t be the guns. I really didn’t see that coming. Up to this point in the film I thought Moore had been leading me down the need-for-gun-control path. But here he is saying it’s not the number of guns we have—just look at Canada. So what is different about Canada? According to Bowling for Columbine, Canadians don’t live in fear. They leave their doors unlocked, they have great healthcare and their news is ‘nice’. Much different than the U.S. where we live in fear which is perpetrated by the evil media.

I don’t necessarily buy all of this, but it seems to be leading somewhere and I certainly can’t turn it off. Now comes the kicker, Moore is wrapping up and he has one last punch to throw. Given his last line of reasoning, I expect him to go bother some media exec. They are, after all, responsible for instilling all of the fear that makes us shoot each other. But, instead, Moore uses his final scene to interview Charlton Hesston and question him about gun ownership. This seems misplaced to me since he just convinced me that the number of guns isn’t our problem. Oh well, the credits roll and I don’t feel cheated, just a little confused.

(You don’t have to spend much time on the ‘net to find a lot of talk about Bowling for Columbine. It spurred a lot of interest and there are many people who claim it is filled with lies. There are also plenty of people, Moore included, who stand by this work as truth. I’ve tried not to comment on this debate. I figure if that interests you, you can go decide for yourself. What I was impressed by was its ability to entertain, where I felt it lacked was in the failure to complete its argument.)

Another underlying theme in Bowling for Columbine is the horrible state most things are in. The media is bad, wages are low, healthcare is failing, we have too much violence, too much fear and things are not getting better. Even the places where you’d expect goodness, like a suburban public school, are torn down in this film. Moore’s interview with South Park co-creator Matt Stone ends with a rant about schools messing up kids:

“… the teachers and counselors and principals don't help things. They scare you into conforming and doing good in school by saying: ‘If you're a loser now, you're gonna be a loser forever.’ They just beat it in your head as early as sixth grade: ‘Don't *&%@ up. 'Cause if you do, you're gonna die poor and lonely.’”

So, wow, the schools are bad. That kind of put me in a funk...

Until the other night when Christa brought home a documentary titled Paper Clips. Paper Clips is a documentary that spends its time asserting that there are good things going on in the world, especially in Whitwell, TN. When the story begins we meet the Whitwell Middle School principle and she tells us that she has decided to do something about a problem at her school. You see, everyone in her community is the same. They are all white except for 5 black students and one Hispanic. They are all protestant. And for the most part the students, in this small town of 1600 people, do not have contact with people who are different from themselves.

Her solution was to start a special program focusing on the Holocaust. Under the direction of teacher Sandra Roberts and Assistant Principle David Smith, students were introduced to the atrocities carried out by Hitler. At one point early in the teaching they were discussing the number of Jews that were killed and one student asked, “How many is six million? I’ve never seen that.” From his question the journey begins and their goal of collecting 6 million paper clips is born. They learned that during World War II paper clips were sometimes worn on lapels as a sign of resistance to the Nazis so they wrote letters asking for donations of paper clips.

The documentary traces their collection process, which starts slow at first, but picks up momentum after an article by the Washington Post and a segment on the NBC Nightly news. Each step of the journey is captured in this film and I could sense the changes the students and teachers were experiencing as their world began to grow. You see, each shipment of paper clips that came to their tiny school was accompanied by a letter which usually told the story of a Holocaust victim or survivor. Then they were visited by a group of survivors from New York who shared their stories at a town meeting. Students who had only read about Jews and the horrible suffering they endured were now sitting across the table from people who were actual concentration camp survivors. It was touching to see the people of Whitwell soften as they heard the survivor’s stories.

When the Whitwell students reached and then surpassed their paper clip goal, they built a memorial to house them. Now they conduct educational tours for other students who come to visit them on field trips. It was amazing to see them not only learning about tolerance, but also teaching it. I couldn’t help but wonder what Michael Moore would have to say about this town. They are the very people he mocked in his History of America cartoon—Whitwell is only 116 miles from the birthplace of the Klan, they are mostly white and I am sure that they are armed.

At one point, the Assistant Principle tells us about the change this project has made in his life. He explains the prejudice that was passed down to him from his father, a Klan member, and the struggle that has caused him. He confesses that he has changed and plans to pass on a different model to his sons. When the film finished I was inspired with hope and motivated to pursue change in my own world.

Turns

OK, this picture was taken back in 03, but I rode this trail just yesterday. My friend Adam L. needed one last trip to the mountain before heading off on an extended African adventure and far be it from me to miss a chance to carve some turns. Our original plan was to climb up the snowfield above Timberline Lodge. When we arrived at the lodge, the conditions made visibility an issue that neither of us wanted to challenge. So, we opted for the Glade Trail that runs from Timberline to Govy. Aside from one set of cross-country tracks we had the snow to ourselves. At the end of the ride we hitched back up to Timberline and did it again. It gave up some sweet turns and I was reintroduced to that weightless, floating feeling that I have only felt while strapped to my board. I'm looking forward to many more powder turns this season, let's hope the snow is here to stay.

That Time of Year

I love Christmas music. It is one of my favorite things about Christmas. I grew up singing it in school choirs and have since developed a passion for it. To keep my passion in check, I've had to adopt two rules. We only listen to it from Halloween to Christmas and the first album played is always: An Evening in December by First Call.

I first heard this album in the winter of 1989, when my roommate Chris Smith played it for me on cassette. We also had a copy in the Music Haus on vinyl. I got my own copy when I found it on cd in a bargain bin at a music store in the mall a few years later and I still have it. It has spot on the first track where it always hangs, but that hasn't kept it from the top of my Christmas list since I bought it 10 years ago.

The arranging and creativity on this recording are timeless. It is a cappella, so the vocal talents of First Call shine through on every track. It weaves through the season with updates of classic hymns and fresh covers of contemporary songs. I'm partial to One Small Child for the simplicity with which David Meece nails the melody and the message annoucing the King.

One king bringing his gold and his riches
One king ruling an army of might
One king kneeling with incense and candlelight
One King bringing us life

Also, don't miss the 5/4 meter found in O Come, O Come Emmanuel--genius.

It is still available at Amazon and I've also seen it on Rhapsody.

The Eve

On the eve of an important holiday, I pause to offer this:

Don't forget the candy.

I'm not sure why, but my family observed Halloween. This is unusual because of all the holidays that are inflicted upon us by the consumer-driven society that we live in; my parents were pretty level-headed. Sure, we'd have a nice meal on Thanksgiving and exchanged gifts, (which never came from Santa), on Christmas; but outside of that, Halloween was it. I can only remember one Easter basket--which I only got because my folks were out of town and I was staying with a friend (my Mom's contribution to the booty was a toothbrush). We didn’t hang hearts in February or shamrocks in March. There were no trips to the cemetery on Memorial Day and I know for a fact that I did yard work on Labor Day. We never had a flag to fly on Flag Day, I don’t think we ever celebrated Arbor day with a young sapling and the only thing different on a 4th of July bar-be-que from any other was my brother and I got to blow stuff up (cool holiday, btw).

So why do I remember on multiple occasions our house being decorated with tombstones while costume-clad revelers bobbed for apples and played pin-the-nose-on-the-jack-o-lantern? If a Christian family is going to skip a holiday, why wouldn’t be the one invented by the devil himself? I can only offer an answer by way of my annual fascination for the individually-wrapped bits-of-goodness that for some reason I cannot resist.

Most of the year I am candy-immune—it just doesn’t call to me. However, when the harvest season comes I am lured by those little, colorful sirens to partake of delights I would never consider. Mr. Goodbar? Sure. Take 5? Never had it, give me 2. Mix in some old favorites like M&Ms and Sweet Tarts and I’ll tell you why we celebrated Halloween—Candy.

Free candy too, put on a costume and walk the streets and people just give it to you. When I got too old, I’d dress up my younger brothers and take them trick-or-treating. Then, as compensation for my service, I’d garnish a percentage of their loot. A trick I’m sure I learned from my Mom. Who, in her wisdom overlooked much of the don’t-let-your-kids-out-on-Halloween-they’ll-be-sacrificing-cats talk, and let us have candy.

So for the record I will reiterate:

Don't forget the candy.

• The average consumer celebrating Halloween will spend $48.48 on merchandise, up from $43.57 last year.


• Candy remains a holiday staple and the largest spending category at $1.16 billion. The average person plans to spend $18.07 on sweets and 94.6 percent of consumers planning to purchase in that category.


• Halloween maintains its spot as one of the biggest decorating holidays of the year, second only to Christmas. 59.8 percent of consumers plan to purchase decorations and 47 percent expect to decorate their home or yard. Consumers will spend approximately $840 million on decorations.


• Halloween remains the sixth-largest spending holiday after: Winter Holidays ($435.3 billion estimated), Valentine's Day ($13.19 billion), Easter ($9.6 billion), Mother's Day ($11.43 billion), and Father's Day ($8.23 billion). Because it is not a gift-giving holiday or an apparel holiday, it ranks lower than other annual holidays in terms of spending.


• Costumes are the second largest spending category behind candy. Consumers will spend approximately $1.15 billion on costumes, with 53.3 percent of consumers planning to buy a costume for Halloween. The average consumer will spend $31.88 on Halloween costume purchases.


• 3.78 million children plan to dress up as a princess on Halloween, making it the most popular Halloween costume for kids this year.

Source: National Retail Federation 2005 Halloween Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey

Peering From the Foxhole

I’ve been working on a big photo project for a friend the past few days and it seems like old times. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to watch the sun go down and then come back up all from the same seat. Not fun, but every now and then you have to pick up a weapon and stand a post, I just happened to draw the night watch.

Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: That Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.
(beat)
You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.
(boasting)
We use words like honor, code, loyalty...we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use 'em as a punch line.
(beat)
I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it. I'd prefer you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post.

Fortunately for me I’m just in the National Guard and I don’t have to do this for a living. However, I am pleased with the results and my friend is as well.

Photo with Johno

My friend Johno is in town for NYMS at Cascade and he had a little time to kill in between lectures, so we drove over to the Japanese Gardens to burn some film. (Which more accurately should be clichéd: capture some pixels on flash memory, but I don't like the way that sounds.) The gardens are beautiful and today were exceptionally gorgeous with clear skies and temps in the upper 60s. I only wish we could have stayed for longer. Here's another shot I liked.

Biscuits

I've been home quite a bit lately so I've been getting a few household chores done like laundry and dishes, but I am lacking in the go-grocery-shopping task. So, we are out of food. It is so bad that for a late breakfast my wife had low-fat, microwave popcorn. You’d think, “why not a bowl of cereal?” But, silly husband has not gone to the store to pick up milk and Capt’n Crunch does not taste right with water.
So after I went for a run with the dog, I was thinking to myself, what can I possibly eat that won’t mean a trip to the store. I’m too hungry to skip the meal altogether, so I must do something… Well, we have no bread, maybe I can bake some?—too long to wait. We might have Bisquick? Yeah, but only reduced fat, ~sigh~ that’s ok, I’ll just kill it with I Can’t Believe Its Not Butter.
I grab the Bisquick box and check out the biscuit recipe: all I need is Bisquick and milk? I wonder to myself if it would taste ok if I made it with water? Probably. Then I think, wait a minute! I’ve got powdered milk from my last back packing adventure and biscuits won’t care if I use powdered milk like the Capt’n would.
So I heat the oven, mix it up and cut the biscuits. I place them neatly on the Pampered Chef stone and wait for the magic. Not 7 minutes later I was looking at what can only be described as an oasis of nutrition in a desert of empty cupboards.
And let me tell you, standing in my wet-from-rain-mist, running shorts in the warmth of the residual heat of the oven I did not even reach for a plate. I put a knife in one hand and chunked generous dollops of I Can’t Believe Its Not Butter on the biscuits that my other hand was rhythmically feeding my mouth. I only slowed down on the third biscuit when I remembered we might still have some raspberry jam, which we did.
Exhibiting a small amount of discipline, I stopped after 3. I’ll save the rest for lunch. I’ll let you write your own moral to this story, but rest assured we are a blessed people and I am reminded of it daily.

Brothers

I have very few childhood memories that do not include my brother Blake. Blake was born when I was 12 days short of 2 years old. I don’t remember him being born, but I can tell you of countless adventures that we shared. I often marvel at the wisdom of my parents placing us so close together. Without Blake around I wouldn’t have had a constant playmate to laugh with, make up games with and learn to deal with shared living spaces with. I’m not sure how people without close siblings get by and I am glad to see that Griffin will not face the challenges of childhood alone. His new brother Adam will bring him numerous laughs, games and shared living spaces challenges.

I can only guess that Blake feels the same way, although I am sure his perspective is a bit different. I am confident that he and Kim will give Griffin and Adam the boundaries and freedoms that they will need to grow up as great friends. Nice job Blake, give that new kid a squeeze from uncle J.

Concert

My good friend Stephanie's brother-in-law played his first concert at the Aladdin on Friday night. They wanted some nice pictures, but didn't want to pay a lot of money, so they traded me 2 tickets for some images. Brent is definitely a master on his instrument and it was a treat to hear him play. His music is loosely categorized as world fusion and I would encourage you to check out his web site: www.brentgunter.com

I think I got some good images. It was fun to push the limits of my equipment with very little light.

On the lighter side, I was mistaken by a man as a professional photographer and a woman thought I was Lance Armstrong, yeah it was really dark. (But I was still flattered by both of them :)

Long Time Coming

My dog has been very patient over the last 6 months as I torturously work over her head and out of her reach. If you've spent any time with Labradors you know that they long to be with their owners--you will always find Sinopah in the same room as me. So, when I started climbing that evil ladder and leaving her behind she was faced with a challenge. At first she would bark at me to come down, and then she would just wait lying in the sun at the base of the tree for me to return.
Well, this week I finally finished the staircase to heaven and she can join me in my room in the sky. Her energy and intensity are magnified up here as she wags her tail for butt-scratches and watches the kids, dog-walkers and squirrels that she could never see when she was tethered to the ground. Sometimes I catch her gaurding our lawn from the landing in the middle of the stairs, I wonder what the other dogs think when they come by and see a dog 10 feet up in the air?

I'm working on the stair railings for the rest of the week and then I can begin putting in the windows and door. (Just in time too, the rain has already begun to fall.)

Welcome to the treehouse my friend. I'm sure we are in for some grand adventures up here.

Katrina Thoughts

I’ve been a little stumped about this post. I have more to say about my time in Louisiana, it just hasn’t materialized. So here are a few final thoughts:

I am humbled by the financial support I received
With one simple email request, God rallied His followers and completely overwhelmed my financial needs for this trip. I wrote in the e-mail, that I sent out the day before I left, that I think God empowers some people with the time to go and others with the resources to help send them. I do not think either role is any less important. I only hope that the people that helped to support me feel the joy of partnering in such a work. If you donated to this effort, know that you put me in a position to help people who had their world blown away by Katrina. Thank you ten times over.

I am an adventurer
I am the type of person that seeks adventure—if you know me, you are rolling your eyes and thinking, ‘duh’. Much of the draw for me to go to LA was the possibility of adventure. For crying out loud, the list of supplies to bring included a chainsaw. How cool is that? In my world that is the closest thing to a light-saber I will ever touch, how could I not be in for an adventure? Now, while I still consider my trip an adventure, it was not filled with the thrills that one might expect while wielding a gas-powered samurai sword. Instead, the Lord taught me a simple lesson about His need for workers, their expectations and what He really needs from them. The first day I was in Slidell, my assignment was to dig small holes in the ground every few feet to follow a sewer-pipe from one end of the Hilltop Rescue and Relief property to the other. Huh? What about the chainsaw? Where is the adventure in digging holes? It turned out that the 40 people who were working at HillTop shared one toilet and one shower and I was assigned to a team that was building a shower-house complete with 4 toilets and 4 much needed showers. I’ll admit that when it comes to ‘jobs’ in the Kingdom I often get the flashy up-in-front assignments, so this gave me pause. Does the glamour of the job define its usefulness? I’ve often preached that it does not and working that shovel I got to put my money where my mouth is. I spent 5 of my 7 workdays on that shower-house and I pray that God was glorified with each one.

There is more to do
I’m sure by this point hundreds of people have been a part of the Hilltop Rescue group in Slidell. I was only there for 7 days while others have been there for a month. They are still cleaning out houses, doing laundry and removing fallen trees. And they will be for many months to come. Please continue to support them in prayer and with contributions—the work they do is making a difference.

Where are the pictures?
I took very few pictures while I was in Louisiana. It is hard to explain why, but I just didn’t get out the camera. People’s homes and livelihoods were destroyed and I didn’t feel like taking pictures. I’m sure you’ve seen a ton from the news. Remember, every time you are shocked by a picture of the destroyed house, there is a real person or family that lived there. My good friend Johno got some images that remind me of just that.