Because it's the whole point of the Pacific Northwest

Another banner weekend. Saturday we pointed the car West on 26, and headed away from the mountain to the ocean so I could get in my therapy session. I really miss the daily surf session in CA, when I drove past the beach on the way to work. In Portland, heading out is a bit more involved, with almost a half hour drive on either side. But a couple hours in the water keeps me smiling for a few days, and Saturday was an anomalously beautiful day- no wind, almost 70 degrees in the air, and maybe mid 50's in the water, and small but perfectly clean sets every couple minutes. Just a nice go out with friends. It was like June in Santa Cruz, except in July. And Oregon. Odd, and too wonderful to question.

We went out to the coast with some friends from down the road. He's a longtime SoCal surfer, and his daughter is almost the same age as T. The girls and the very indulgent (and slightly... is matronizing a word?) moms stayed on the beach and did the classic sun and sand activities.

I was trying to explain to K what surfing meant to me the other day. Which, really, for most surfers is probably a ridiculously common conversation. What made it surprising to me is that it came up in a discussion of religious practice. We had dinner with with another couple with a kid about T's age. (note the recurring trend? My social circle is collapsing to a group within 2 blocks who have kids. This blows. But they tend to understand why we can't get anywhere until 30 minutes after we said we would, and why we have to leave at 7:30 pm. My friends without kids! I still love you! I'll be in touch in a couple more years!) They were trying to figure out what religious frame work to raise their son in. This was funny to me, because neither of them practice any religion now. but they were raised that way, and felt that religious practice, or at least religious community, were an important part of their upbringing. So, what practices are important for me, and what do I want to pass on?

I really tried to think about this, and surfing is what I came up with. Surfing with friends is so much fun, but I've surfed for almost fifteen years now, and my poor skills and penchant for solitude means that most of my surfing has been done by myself, on the ugly breaks. What I remember from this isn't beautiful, clean, drops. I hoard the hours floating on my board, in the fog. Hours listening to the hiss of rain. The sounds of whales breathing nearby. Common dolphins rolling under my feet. Loons, cormorants, Vellella, pelicans, the sweep of the Pacific ocean, the two wave holddowns, the rafts of Macrocystis, the thought of sharks and the slow, cold, combustion of the largest food chain in the world. The important thing here is putting yourself into the system. Like most devotional acts, it's an acknowledgement and a participation in a thing beyond yourself. Paddling out is a mortification of the flesh, and an act of humility. Waiting for the waves, and noting the life around you is an act of bearing witness, paddling for the wave is hope, and the drop is joy. Mark Helprin once framed the western philosophical ideal in Mountaineering- the performance of difficult acts amidst great beauty. Surfing, and least the cold water surfing I'm familiar with, is similar, and if the act is less complex than that of the mountaineer, the beauty is greater.

From the ride home from work- Mt. Hood and a gibbous moon from the top of the Riverside cemetery.

How did this mountain get so high?

We made it back up to the mountain this morning for a quick ski. T skied from the car across the snow park and about 20 m down the trail. Not far, probably 100m total, but the farthest she's gone yet. Better, she seemed pretty excited. Well, not excited, but focused and happy. When she fell, she figured out how to untangle skis and self. When her skis crossed, she got them uncrossed (not on the first try, but without frustration). I like watching her hit these problems. She has an uncanny amount of patience with a problem for a 2.5 yr old. I try not to fix everything for her when we first start out because I don't want to cheat her of a challenge. Later because I want to see what she'll come up with next. Still later it's because I just can't believe she's still going at it. By the time she says, "I need some help", I feel I'm about to burst.

She's better than most people I've seen on their first cross-country outings, and better than myself on most days, in most situations.

After she started to get tired, I talked her into skiing to a little fallen branch, we had some chocolate. This was almost an out-of-body experience for me, because I remember so many time my dad would talk me into going just a bit farther before sitting down, and then the chocolate would come out. The role reversal was sharp enough to give me double vision- me and dad, me as dad.

After a section of Tobblerone, we popped T into a backpack, and K figured out how to strap T's skiis to the pack, and we dropped down into a little valley trail. T always wants to go faster- this is a real problem with having her go with LJ our first time out. But LJ doesn't crash, and my crashes were the things of song and story. Now, with T strapped to me, I've become so cautious. Children make you old. It's odd to worry about wadding after so many years of not caring- I used to figure that breaking stuff was bad, because things (skis, derailleurs, surfboards) cost money, but the body heals for free. But the last couple times I've tested my body's healing powers, I've not been keen on the rate or the quality of the healing. I worry that this new caution will become habitual, and that by the time she's ready to throw herself at the world, I'll have forgotten how.

We made it to the bottom of the trail, and while K and I were putting skins on, and T was discovering the magic of peeing in snow, a string of cowboys came up the trail looking for a missing bull. It made T's day; the smell of old hay, sound of heavy, sealion-like breathing, and the squeaking of heavy leather- all the things that go with horses. And the guys- leather chaps, grey walrus moustaches, big felt hats- T's eyes were like dinner plates. Nice little surprise meeting.

Almost back to the trailhead, there's a section of trail where the trees open up, and one faces right up the summit of Mt. Hood. I was pointing out bits of geology for T with my skipole, more of a running commentary for her distraction than for pedagogical purposes, and she says, "Let's climb it!". So I do the whole explanation of perspective - that things can look close when they're close, or when they're surprisingly large, and here we're sort of functionally more in the second case. So T mulls this over and says, "When I'm older, older, can we climb it?"

Hell yes.

Snow day.

T's been talking about the snow pretty much constantly for the past week or so. Nothing demanding, just her normal, barely verbalized, constant monologue. Lately though, when I tune in, she's not talking about whatever toy is in her hand, but, "...then the snow comes, and there's snow on the ground, and snow on the trees, and I jump in it and I wear my skis and..." As far as I can tell, this is pretty much apropos of nothing. It did snow on Mt. Hood last weekend, but the mountain's been socked ever since. I have no idea how she found out or what put snow on her mind. But a trip to the snow seemed mandatory. This morning, while K went out for outrigger practice, T and I loaded up the car and went up to the mountain to find the snow.

A find it we did, though we had to go all the way to Timberline. Which was pretty cool, since thhe lifts aren't open, we got to mess around on the runs. T's actual skiing was a limited success. I got them on her for about 5 minutes, and then she wanted them off (Must...Not...Push.. Too.. Hard). Then we did a little sledding. But mostly sat in a snowbank out of the wind and made snow pancakes with snow syrup and snow butter. These are fun, but it turns out not filling, (or warming) so after about an hour, we adjourned to Mt. Hood Brewing for a burger and age appropriate beverage.

I'm calling this a good day.

So damn proud.

Hard to see here, but she's grabbed Neal Stephenson's In The Beginning Was The Command Line. Now if only I can find her a little used PDP-7...

You guys are killing me.

So... we had a power outage at work. Work where we have several thousand liters of fish aquaculture. Luckily, all of our pumps, filters and lifts are on emergency power- which is great except that Wednesday was some kind of electron holiday, and none of the emergency power actually came on. So that's ... nice. The fun part was getting to continue the easter egg hunt that the firm who built the system arranged for us. The most recent find was by Suzy, who pulled out of the pump baskets two 2" threaded ABS couplings, a buch of broken zip ties, and a handful of filter beads. I realize this is getting pretty aquarium geeky, but. Okay. So the filter beads... whatever. The zip-ties are tacky- that shouldn't be. But the 2" pipe couplings? What the hell? They were rolling around so let put them in the screen for a $1500 pump? I'd also like to note that we pulled out a whole instruction manner from another canister filter. Sopping wet and destroyed, but it must have been in there for months. Oh, and Friday morning I found that a small submersible pump had a big plastic sticker jammed in the intake. The best part is that it was a sticker FROM THE PUMP! Who puts sticker with water soluable adhesive on a submersible pump? Why do they hate me and my fish so much?

Sigh.

Bike to work

Rode in to work today for the first ime in a donkey's years. I'm working on driving one way with the bike in the truck, and then riding home, then riding back and driving home. Not an ideal situation, but it's better than I've been doing (i.e. getting fat), and it's a compromise between time at work, time at home, and the bike. This pic was taken this morning on my way through Tryon Creek park. Freaking brilliant. Made it to work about 15 minutes later than usual- that's what, like a coffee break? I call that damn fine.

The whole point of a doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret.

So, after having dropped my writing again, for, oh, let's call it 4+ months, last week I heard from two of my favorite people (Hey Liz! Hey Dionne!), who were sending out their blog addresses. This reminded me of several things- 1) I have a blog, 2) A blog is a pretty useless way to keep in touch with folks if I 3) Don't update it and 4) Don't tell anyone it exists.

Right! First I'll add something. Things here are mildly chaotic, but only mildy. I've almost cleared the last round of revision to my first manuscript, which has been a nightmare. One good round of scientific peer review, and a couple rounds of rugged copyediting. I think it's done, though, and on Monday I'll probably upload it. I have the feeling though, that if there's a single reference misspelled, the Editor-In-Chief will not only reject the whole ms, but fly over the Atlantic to egg my house. Hideous, hideous.

Work has been a bunch of pippeting "nucleic acids" into tubes.

In more fun news, K has joined a dragon boating team, and the big dragonboat races are coming up during Portland's Rose parade over 8-9 June. T and I have been really enjoying hanging out at the river on practice nights and weekends, watching the boats,ducklings, barges, and drawbridges, and generally just enjoying long spring evenings in the Northwest. We missed the last two practices for graduation parties and planting tomatoes (unfortunately, these weren't the same event).

Sweet! I just got to help LJ diagnose a headset adjustment gone wrong over the phone! Thanks to Sheldon Brown, Chris King and Al Gore for the internet.