Rain-X saved my vacation

Monday morning we managed to leave the TRRR&RR early. Pa and Chelle got up to see us off. We were sad to separate so soon. In the black morning, the rain was delicately pattering a pattern onto the dust on the hood of my Dragon Wagon (the Saturn we have loved since buying it new […]

Visiting the Treasure Valley

Tara’s Spring Break was last week, so I took the week off work, and we made plans for a road trip. Arno suggested going to Moab, Utah, since that is what he and the boys have done multiple times in the past. T and I were game. We went in separate vehicles, since I could […]

Dreaming of Mom

So, I guess my heart tries to work it out in the night, when my willpower is not as strong.

Marcus Eaton & Intervision

After our full morning with the Mt. Hood Cherokees, Tara and I then had an awesome evening when we took Arno to see my favourite musician, Marcus Eaton. ME also plays with Ben Burleigh on bass and Kevin Rogers on drums, but often I catch him in Portland when he’s solo. This was one of […]

JP Johnson teaches Cherokee culture

On February 25th Tara and I attended the monthly meeting of the Mount Hood Cherokees, who hosted cultural specialist JP Johnson and COTTA Technical Assistant Ryan Sierra, both visiting from the Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. The Community Organization Training and Technical Assistance (COTTA) Program was formed under the request of former Chief Chad Smith when it […]

In the shadow of a volcano

Despite having lived around mountains all my life, or perhaps because of that, I remain in awe of the awesome sweep of snowy mountain slopes that rise from valleys in the way that volcanoes do. I am simply not able to drive along our highways and not feel an emotional surge of admiration for volcanoes […]

D.C. via Tunisia

The way I see it, Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi shaped the U.S. 2012 election in a positive way. Bear with me here, I’ll make the links. In the 2012 U.S. elections, one of the key topics that candidates are being forced to address is wealth distribution (and income accountability, taxes, etc. etc.). This happened because of […]

Christmas 2011 – Part II

A deep river of lava poured through the valley following a volcanic eruption around 100,000 years ago.

Christmas 2011 – Part I

I’ll suggest you simply add the words, “…and it was damn cold” to the end of each sentence from here on out.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 8,700 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 3 sold-out performances for that many […]