Category: life

where everything else happens

A Sunday Drive.

Sorry about the fuzzy phone-cam shot… like an idiot I left my “real” camera in the barn when we drove out!)

My friend Dan O’Donnell is in town this week on business. I’ve “known” Dan for a dozen years… since 1995. To but a more dramatic scale on it, since he was 38 and I was 31! Oddly enough, though the bizarre nature of “Internet Friendship” we never met face to face until just a few years ago. Funny how that works. We do have a lot in common and know a lot about each other as a result. I almost bought a vintage car from him in the late 90s (a 911sc targa), and later, when he was trapped in a job-from-hell scenario, I made an introduction (I think we’re supposed to call that “social networking” now) that resulted in Dan landing a dream job. I love it when that happens. Since that day, he’s promised me a dinner as a “thank you” for that intro, and he finally settled that debt this weekend.

Dan celebrated his 50th birthday this past Saturday and I was privileged to have him spend it with me & Sue, at our favorite local restaurant in Arlington. It was an odd accident of schedule that our long-delayed dinner fell on his birthday, so it was odd to have him buying dinner. In exchange I gladly nabbed a wonderful Pinot Noir from the Captain’s List. I know Sue thoroughly enjoyed the conversation, so a fine time was had by all.

The weather I’m sure was a shock to his Southern California system, as he arrived at Sea-Tac on some pre-dawn flight from LAX into drizzle and low clouds… topped off by the melting remains of an eight inch snowfall up at our house up in the Cascade foothills. In preparation I had a fire going in the fireplace and despite what I recognized as a rapid warming trend (the snow disappeared in a matter of hours), he was obviously appreciative of the extra warmth afforded by the fire. In fact, when it died off he sheepishly asked if I’d stoke it up. We enjoyed an afternoon of just chatting. Dan’s had a rough time of late as his father recently passed away, quite suddenly. We talked a lot about fathers, sons, and family relationships… and he had the opportunity to witness it all as I fielded calls from both my father and Christopher, who made an unexpected call from Chile Saturday afternoon.

When we returned from dinner, the stars were out and I made a bold prediction that we’d have a sunny Sunday. Sunny enough to take the E-type out for a drive. Well, I was wrong and we awoke to high overcast. Undaunted, we took the Jag out anyway. The roads were dry, but it was quite … “brisk.” I drove the car east on SR 530 to the location of the famous “Miss January” photo, where we got out of the car and admired Whitehorse Mountain. I invited Dan to take the left seat for the trip home and from that moment on, he just had this goofy grin on his face.

Like all genuine “car guys” he treated the machine with respect and tenderness, but could not resist the temptation to play with the loud pedal now and then. Doing that just made him grin even more. I got the distinct impression that he enjoyed it. I enjoyed it too.

Hypocrisy in the Middle East

Hypocrisy in the Middle East
“If honest democratic elections were held throughout the Middle East tomorrow, many countries would elect religious fundamentalist leaders hostile to the United States.”

In six short paragraphs this Congressman has summarized exactly why the US’ actions in the middle east over the past six years have been complete blunders. As Robert David Steele, the founder of the Marine Corps Intelligence Command famously said: “America has begun a hundred-year war on six different fronts precisely because the President lacked intelligence in every sense of the word”

The boobs in the White House have gone off half-cocked in all the wrong directions, over and over again. Completely unable and unwilling to finish what they start. If you recall the initial attacks were to bring Osama bin Laden “to justice”… well they abandonded that after a while and decided to institute a “regime change”… leaving that job unfinished, they then dropped that to win an election at home… something they actually accomplished, but with the message “stay the course.” I kept asking “What Course?” but nobody ever answered that question. Go figure. Now they’ve decided to “bring democracy to Iraq.”

Congressman Paul states the obvious point that I have always made, which is IF we allowed the citizens of these Arab nations actually vote in free elections, they all vote for Mullahs. Mullahs whose campaign promises and platform would all be “Death to America!”

Even a dim bulb like George W. Bush should be able to figure that out, right?

Apparently not.

Christopher’s first email from Chile

The beach was nice, but the pacific seems to be cold no matter where I go whether it be Alaska, Washington or Chile. I religiously applied sunscreen and avoided the sun as much as possible, but I managed to burn the one part of me I didnt expect to get burned or bother to apply sunscreen, back of my damn hands.

We received our first email from Chris in Chile today!

I emailed friends and family with his contact details last week. If you would like them let me know via email. (note: If you READ rather than click the “contact me via email” link over there in the right-hand column you can figure out how to contact me.)

He sounds well, and as I suspected is not quite up to speed with his Spanish language skills, but that will sort itself out naturally as time goes on.

The Truth About Cars | At some point in the not-so-distant future…

The Truth About Cars | At some point in the not-so-distant future…
“At the moment, car dealers’ profits increase in direct proportion to their ability to screw their customers and bilk the manufacturer.”

Farago does it again… distills the ills of an entire industry into one sentence. This is one of the reasons TTAC is by far my favorite “car” site on the Internet. The editorials and commentary are the most insightful and entertaining reading to be found on the subject. Anywhere.

Update on our downed tree.

If you recall, back in December we had a fierce windstorm that brought down a 103′ tall Douglas Fir in our backyard. We subsequently removed all the branches, and the top 30′ or so of the trunk to repair the fence. Since then life has been quite busy and complicated. But with Christopher finally away, we found ourselves a free weekend.

My friend Shawn Hammer, who grew up working for his dad’s logging company has the skills and experience to deal with this sort of thing, and he volunteered to assist. Armed with a chainsaw, he deftly had the tree down on the ground, and the bifurcated trunk separated. From there it was just a matter of slicing the trunks into fireplace sized chunks for me to later split.

Above: Shawn works his way along the first trunk.

Above: One down, one to go.

Thanks Shawn!

Now my backyard is filled with small Tootsie-Roll proportioned wood cylinders. Nick & I will have to gather them all up and move them to the driveway, and as soon as the sun comes out, I’ll have to start splitting and stacking them. At some point this spring I need to rent a back-hoe with a box blade to fix our gravel driveway, and I’ll take that opportunity to right the root ball.

Missing Christopher

As much as NOT having an incredibly tall, usually grumpy teenager around the house should be refreshing, I find myself really missing Christopher. I was wandering around the house after dinner and stopped in front of a bookcase, looking at a shelf full of his collection of history books. I saw his two books by British historian Antony Beevor and recalled discussing them with him on a similar evening after dinner. I picked one up to read. Maybe it will keep my mind of his absence.

I received the flyer for the local MG car club’s “Tulip Rallye” in April. Chris & I have done this run every year since 2004. I’ll have to find a new navigator for this year’s event. 🙁

Above is Chris biding his time on a Tulip Rallye segment with minimal navigation somewhere on Whidbey Island a few years back.