The Annals of Gawpo

It's that time.......

2009-12-08T21:50:00.000-08:00

Oahu Scuba: Sea Cave, Wall Drift, and Corsair Dive

2009-05-21T13:39:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago I went on three dives which began in two locations.

The Corsair Dive took me to a WWII relic which, from what I've read on the web, wound up on the bottom because of the number one cause for engine failure in airplanes to this very day: Fuel starvation. Or, in layperson's terms, "Ran out of gas."

After converting air into lenticular cloud-shaped bubbles, we ascended properly and safely and were dropped off at Oahu's Sea Cave. Jumping off for the ten minutes or so into the cave, we then began our third and final portion of the dive: The wall drift; the current took us along the sheer lava face until we surfaced and were picked up by our magnificent boat owner and captain, Joey Zbin.

When we were over the airplane, Joey pointed out that the clarity was so good that we could actually see from the surface the Corsair sitting on the bottom in over a hundred feet of water. Yikes!

The Corsair dive is (depending on the tide) 115 feet deep, and is considered an advanced dive. But it is also as simple as following the anchored line down to the object which, at least on this day, you could see from the moment you giant-step jumped into the water.

The ascent from the airplane to the surface is a very slow, hand-over-hand stroll along the rope until you reach a depth of 15 feet. The three minute safety stop is a perfect pause in the parvis prior to parting from the pocket of sand holding the shadow you can still see beneath you (Man, can I alliterate? Or, can I alliterate? w00t!).

The Sea Cave dive is surreal. There's your diving and seeing fish and structure (like the Corsair), and then there's your Oahu's Sea Cave dive which places you in a dive situation you cannot prepare for unless you've done it before. It's Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean when you were nine years old; it's the dream-come-true for which you prepared every time you stared off into the corner of the next cubicle at work, unable to recall drinking that last cup of Kona.

Located just "this side" of Hanauma Bay referencing from Hawaii Kai, the Sea Cave (click on the link for a second video) is a boat-entry event that places you right at the entrance of this capacious aperture in the otherwise solid wall of cooled lava. A lucky bubble? A subsequent crack coaxed along by some good erosion? Dunno, don't care. It's a mind-blower, though. It's a Carlos Castaneda exercise in swimming into the wall where the wall isn't.

As you are dumping the air from your BCD and beginning the descent to something like 40 feet, you can peer into the cave through the unparalleled visibility of a calm Hawaiian ocean day. There are huge boulders which are walls unto themselves, life-encrusted megaliths you can easily scale like Spider Man, thanks to your body being weightless (neutrally buoyant) and whose facets of frozen bubbles and cracks teem with drive-by colors accented with their edges of fins and gills. A giant green sea turtle slolomed our party of seven as we entered. There was so much sea life, I didn't even try to count species of fish and urchins.

Remember that dog that held the keys outside the jail cell in the Disneyland Pirates of the Caribbean ride when you were nine? Yeah well, this cave dive grabbed as much joyful amusement as that dog's mouth grabbed attention. Freedom is sweet.

As you enter the cave, there is no need for any autonomic claustrophobia to kick in because you truly begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel: Instead of a dark terminus, there are diffuse photo announcements that all shall be well should you decide to continue to enter. And you do. And it is.

Click on the picture and you can see the the top hemisphere of the cave's opening.

This is Joey. I can't say enough about his friendly and courteous professionalism. We met at the boat at 9:00 a.m. and he explained through casual chat while we were underway what the dives would be like when we got there.

If you dive, or if you know anyone who does and you hear they are coming to Oahu, have them give Joey a call. The number on the back of Joey's shirt is no longer current. He can be reached at: 808-330-0083.
I lugged my regulator, fins, mask, snorkel, full-body lycra suit and boots in a carry-on for the 5 1/2 hour hop from Portland to Oahu. All I needed from Joey were my tanks and BCD (for those in need of some explanation, please check out these two BCD links for your deepened---sorry---knowledge base). That second BCD link takes you to the one I just bought, but I got a screamin' deal on Craigslist for $275. Yeah. Ain't no way I was gonna lug it on the plane, though. Rental is cheap when all you need is a BCD. Wet suit? We don't need no stinkin' WET SUITS. Not here, you don't. The lycra saved me from the sun and jellyfish exposure, but the water was so warm that I wasn't anywhere near cold.
This is a closer shot of the opening of the Sea Cave after a very short boat ride from the Corsair. The wavy marbling of the lava makes it all appear much as it did when it was a cooling fluid. Uh-May-Freekin'-ZING.

Diamond Head from the Sea Cave
Koko Head from just outside the Hawaii Kai marina
The three on the right are Japanese divers. After all four non-Japanese divers had surfaced, I turned to Joey and said, "We're missing some people, Joey. Where are the Japanese divers?" He just looked at me with 10% chagrin on his face and said, "Japanese don't breath, man. They probably have all their air left and they'll just come up when they're bored." Oh, to have such lungs.

Joey pointed out that it is unusual to be able to see Maui (the highest point is Haleakala), Molokai and Lanai from Oahu. But there they are...

Sandy Beach

2009-05-18T19:21:00.000-07:00

I am currently in a house where there is good internet. In my own house, not so much. Coming to visit Nelson and Marti means it just so happens I also go to Hawaii; they live in Honolulu, a bit south of town, and only 6 minutes away from Sandy Beach.

After I started getting some interesting captures of boards and bellies in the surf, one of the guys who'd just surfed up to where I was standing pointed out to the closest surf break and said, "Did you see the turtles?" After that, I did...

We saw this guy arrive at about the time a white limo drove into the parking lot. We just figured there'd be a wedding party. Or not. Everybody wants to get into the act...

They say that if you are a photographer and you take a picture of a photographer taking pictures of something else, then you win.

I win.

Here they are. Marti and Nelson. Marti is my friend, Jeremy's sister. Jeremy checked in via Skype this morning from his room at Sant'Anselmo in Rome. Nelson is wearing one of Cindra's husband's creations, a "Critter Tee."

Happy Anniversary of Mount Saint Helens eruption day.

Have Wheel, Will Throw

2008-12-22T20:53:00.000-08:00

My friend, George told me I could put some of my pots in his brand, new Minnesota Flat Top kiln, a Nils Lou design. So I said, "Ok."

This is the very first time George would be firing his new kiln. What an honor.

I had lots of bisque ware in my old studio. Eighteen years old. There are people who weren't born when I threw some of these pots and some of those people, after they got borned and stayed alive for eighteen years, voted in the latest presidential election. I found a bowl that I helped the daughter of my then girlfriend make. I didn't realize this until I turned it over, and there it was: "Kymber 7/24/91."

I took each bisqued piece and washed it thoroughly to cleanse it of all those years of dust and mice poop. We let the pots dry before applying wax resist to the feet and then glazing them. My wheel sits in my kitchen. I threw 14 mugs and then knocked out another dozen bowls to make sure I'd have enough to contribute toward the 14 cubic foot load. Turns out there so many pots, that George could have loaded the entire space with just my ware, with pots left over. After we tore down the door, George was wishing he'd let me fill it.

Funny how reduction works. What you have to do is starve the firing atmosphere of oxygen so that carbon (in this case from propane, but it could be natural gas, wood, etc.) does its little chemical reaction trick in the glazes to make them all nice and pretty. Well, not having fired the kiln before, it was all guess work. Add to that the fact that George had previously only been firing in smaller updraft kilns and this baby was all down draft. Yeah. So his glazes didn't get enough reduction and they sort of sucked, while mine didn't get enough reduction and turned out just fine. Reason for that is this: George wanted to use different glazes from the ones I chose. Luck of the draft. Uh, draw. Whatev.

It's good to be back.

Now I'm on my way to give Kymber her pot.

Merry Christmas, Peeps. I love you.

He Turned 78 Today---Happy Birthday, Pa

2008-08-15T12:17:00.000-07:00

Ain't no way he'd make it past the Senate hearings. But there are good and honorable reasons for that. Here's my father at work at a recent pro tem gig in Manteca. I'm puff-chestedly proud of my dear 'ol dad. We still do some good Auggie Doggie and Doggie Daddy schtick. He's especially good with the "My son, my son" line.

Please join me in wishing my father a very happy 78th. He doesn't look a day past 77.

Journey To The Center Of The Island

2008-08-13T18:17:00.000-07:00

Lined up on the center line, ready for departure, runway one-three. I am on my way to see my favorite two people on the earth who, by the way, celebrated their 57th wedding anniversary on the 12th. I have already pointed out to them that this represents one hundred and fourteen years of marriage experience between them. And there's been a lot between them in that time.

Gee, I don't know. There's just something about being nearly two miles above the ground and all that view that goes with it, and maybe just a little bit, it's the being able to go over 150 miles an hour (legally), in a straight line, with no traffic. Just maybe.

Level cruise at 9,500 feet, the Columbia River looking toward Astoria in the fog.

Orcas is the largest of the San Juans. There it is in the way far away with the two humps.

If you biggen this one, you will see the cut in the trees that is the runway.

On the approach to the small airstrip on the island, Mt. Baker. God's tooth...

The runway is listed as 1,600 ft on the AirNav website (identifier: 78WA). 1,600 feet. Rrrrrrriiiiiggghhhht.....

My sister Karen, my Mom and friend Mary waiting for me to disembark.

Three minutes past midnight. I love my picturer.

Mr. Gawpo, Sr and I put each of our shadows on a tree off the back deck and took time exposures. This was near midnight. FREEZE!

This is what I woke up to this morning. Actually, it was the pileated woodpecker that woke me, but I couldn't get the picturer out in time. There was plenty 'o time for this, though.

Mr. Gawpo, Sr. upon returning from the crabbing and shrimping venture.

Fresh Dungies...

Dinner:

Yes, it is true...

2008-08-07T13:01:00.001-07:00

...that normally a purist, I do on occasion take cream in my coffee.

And I did do so last year. This simply goes to show that Gawpo is unpredictable.

Lightning Strikes Twice

2008-07-22T08:59:00.000-07:00

I can't believe my LUCK! Seems like just about every other day on my logging road ventures to or from my house, I either see an owl, or in this case, an Al....

Uh-oh. The Al sees me. Yet remains, cautiously transfixed on the creature with that strange contraption pressed to his face, making clicking sounds. What could it be?, he thinks to himself. Will it hurt me? Should I stay? Or should I go? Phight, Phlight, or Phone Phor help?

You're up, Joe. Which Al is this? Genus and Species, please. The white crown and dayglow orange breast should give it away. But I'm.......(sorry).....STUMPED.

This explains it all. Nesting. The female of the species must be out looking for food. The DQ is 10 minutes away.

As you can clearly see, the Al is still looking at the spot I so stealthily (how else could I get these incredible shots?) vacated. Little does he know that his awkward fledglings are completely safe. And that there are plenty of cones for them to eat. In fact, this is the very picture of.......(sorry again)........chipper.

Hoo You Lookin' At?

2008-07-19T12:03:00.000-07:00

Three days ago, just as I was about to turn up from the logging road onto the driveway proper, this caught my eye. Leaping out of a red alder, and with a smaller, darkly plumed unidentified flying object in hot pursuit (smaller than a robin), the stealthy and normally nocturnal B-1 Bomber of the forest made its way across the logging road, left to right, and lighted in another alder, giving me time to furiously fumble for the 300VR and get it swapped out with the 28-55 before the next leg of the flight. Just as I stepped from the car, the bird flew from right to left, over the logging road/driveway junction and lighted in one of my doug firs. Perfect. We spent some time there, eyeball to eyeball, while the lens sucked in the beauty of this very rare opportunity, yet just one of many that remind me why I live where I do.

Time To Cut The Cheese

2008-06-12T12:02:00.000-07:00

Pecorino Romano, many say, smells like baby's barf. My father buys a 55 pound wheel every couple years. He buys one. My Uncle Charlie buys one. We drove over to Redwood City from Turlock yesterday to claim our wheel. Can you say, "I'd like to buy a vowel, Alex"? The fortune comes in the knowing that a 55 pound wheel of Pecorino Romano, at 8 bucks a pound, and after adding the sales tax, rings up at $479.16. My cousin Denise said she only brought nine hundred and fifty dollars with her to the deal that went down in San Francisco. Hey, did you know that San Francisco is both a city AND a county? Yeah. Cool, huh? For this reason, it can never expand geographically. Where was I? Oh yeah. Not enough money. She was ten bucks short. But the guy at the counter said, "Fuh-GET-uh-BOUT-it" and sent her on her way with her 110 pounds of cheese. Yeah, I'm in California again. I'm home. And once home, it's time to cut the cheese. So what, you might ask, does one use to cut the cheese? We're Sicilian, remember. What else? Piano wire...

This is my Uncle Charlie, eldest of the five Sicilian brothers, all born in New York prior to coming to California in 1940. My father says they stopped at a dairy on the way over and bought ice cold milk for 10 cents a gallon. Many dinners came about thanks to road-killed pheasants, rabbits, "whatever we came across, we barbecued it."

Uncle Charlie took me fishing in the ocean when I was very young. He smoked Cuban cigars. Turned me on to exotic foods (like those caterpillars in a can that came from Mexico) and he made GREAT red wine. He is 85.

We got a tour of the huge garden. That is my Aunt Amada. She is from Quito, Ecuador.

This is a tomato tree. Yes, a tomato TREE. They grow in Ecuador and they produce tomatoes just like the vine. I laughed and called my father right after seeing a sign in the produce section of the local market in Newport that read, "Vine Ripened Grapefruit." Don't be so quick to laugh when you start seeing signs reading, "Tree Ripened Tomatoes," because as Judy Tenuta would say, "It could happen."

The next day, ask Mr. Gawpo, Sr. and I were going through the photos from his brother's place, we looked at each other and said, "Dang. We shoulda brought some artichokes back." There were plenty that were in perfect shape. We did snag about four pounds of cherries, though. My father makes the best cherry brandy this side of Camporeale.

"I knew I shoulda taken that left"

2008-05-15T08:25:00.000-07:00

There aren't many people who don't remember Bugs Bunny's famous line when I tell them I am going to Albuquerque. Or, "Albuhkoikee," as Bugs would pronounce it.

So yesterday I flew to Albuquerque. The lovely Amber was waiting for me at the foot of the escalator and not much later, we were on our way to the bag claim. Yes, I said bag claim. In New Mexico---or Albuquerque, anyway---that's what all the signs say: Bag claim. Now I can't help but wonder what people are going to be saying to each other about getting into a new relationship when THIS way of talking takes hold across America: "Gee, I liked the guy, but he came with a lot of bag." Or, "Yeah, she was HAWGHT, Dude. But between her kids and her mother, I just couldn't handle the bag."

Back to Amber. Had it not been for her kindness, I'd have had to get on some shuttle and dropped of at some disclosed location in Santa Fe where I would THEN have had to be picked up. But this woman has a huge heart and I am deeply in her debt. Or in her brain. Probably more the latter. We talked like girlfriends who had all their lives to get caught up on. We TAWKED. We broke up into small groups and discussed.

This is Amber. What a face. Very, very smart. Very, very funny.

The reason I came to New Mexico was to attend friends. George and Janet live where I do in Oregon, but they have a daughter (Melissa) whose daughter, Sadie, is graduating from High School. That's all I had to hear. I bought a ticket the day I was invited.

As Amber and I were tawking at mad paces, I was snapping pics along the way. I like to photograph road signs. Moments after Amber and I arrived at the house, Janet pulled in. Said she had car trouble. Overheated. Was stuck on the side of the road. Amber and I looked at each other: We saw a car pulled over with a cop about half a mile behind, also parked on the side of the road. Was that you, Janet? For the heck of it, I checked my photo gallery.

Yep. That was Janet with the Prestone can at her feet. Did we stop to help? Heck no! We
were tawking!

Recognize the clothing on that hottie blonde on the left? Sadie, the graduate,
was not home yet. But her two sisters enjoyed the story. Lucia far right. Mexika
(mah-SHEE-kuh) to Lucia's right.

My flight out of PDX (Portland) was at 10 a.m. So I got there early. I entered the building at about 7:40, walked up to the kiosk, punched in my confirmation number, presented my one BAG to later claim, brought it over to the nice man attendant at the huge X-Ray place, then presented my passport and boarding pass at the security checkpoint, listened to the "this is a security announcement" recording for only maybe a dozen times, and I had my shoes back on by 8:02. Had some time to kill. Or, as I like to think of it----give life to. I entered the Starbucks line. When it was my turn, I said to the pretty young lady, "I'd like a B double F C with no RFC." With a half second gaze into my eyes, she reached for a clear plastic cup and as she began lifting it from the stack I said, "Nope." She replaced the cup and started whispering the letters to herself. Then she asked me to repeat the letters. "I'll have a B double FF C with no RFC." She gave up. I leaned in and whispered, "A big, fat fuckin' coffee with no room for cream." She took it well. She smiled. Then she said that it might have been interesting if I'd just let her make something that matched the letters. Dang. Why didn't I think of that?

With my B double F C in tow, I walked over to a small table and fired up my new black MacBook for the very first time in a public setting to take it for a Wi-Fi ride. Not long after beginning this very post, I heard a woman say to her female companion, "And they said they kept calling my name, but I didn't come." I pivoted in my chair to the woman speaking. When she looked at me, I pointed at her and said, "YOU missed a flight." Big smile. I told her my story from two blog posts ago and even showed her on my laptop. While we were talking, the very airplane that I missed was taxiing past the windows. I confirmed this by matching the tail number to picture of the plane I missed two posts ago. Amazing.

Asha and Lili and I spent some wonderfully friendly time. Asha's flight was a bit earlier than Lili's and mine, so she had to leave us. But we all hugged before parting. I love becoming human.

Lili on the left, Asha on the right.

Founders of the Missed Flights (West Coast Chapter), Asha and Gawpo.

While Lili and I waited, these guys happened. Be sure to biggen by clicking and check the dude's massive sunglass visor and oxygen hose.

I'll take Things That Fly, Alex. Okay, and the answer is: THE DAILY DOUBLE! All of it, Alex. All of it...

We're headed into Santa Fe to an art show. Ciao4niao, Peeps!

Columba fasciata: Bandtail Pigeons Revisited

2008-05-03T20:35:00.000-07:00

A post such as this is surely to return annually, but only as long as its inspiration continues to return. I've been feeding these birds since the latter part of the last century. The first bird is usually in the tops of my red alder in early March of every year. This year was no exception. I saw the first one on the 12th. Okay. So that's late early March. Maybe even early mid March. You get the point. This year is different, though. Cuz I have the new picturer to freeze them. Thanks to Somewhere Joe, I have been able to slow the wings down a bit. The first captures were blurs. Thanks, Giusepp, for some good sharpening tips.

These work for me. My favorite pose is when the wings beat forward, nearly enveloping the body in a hollow hug. Next favorite is the bird whose elbows touch on the wild, slapping upbeat. I hope you enjoy their beauty as much as I do. What you can't "enjoy," however, is being woken up as hundreds of these birds explode off the tables in their ritual survival maneuver that is based upon the instinctive axiom, "Don't stay in any one place too long." As quickly as they jump up, they begin fluttering back down to the boards in drizzling layers of participation until once again getting "that uneasy feeling" and thundering off into the lower branches of the alder and Cascara sagrada.

Once again, here they are...

This was taken on April 19th at 0730 hours. It felt more like 7:30 in the morning, though.

They will stay in the higher branches of the alder for several hours. Then they move down to the lower branches of the Cascara.

The first thing I do every morning is take look through the skylight of the guest bathroom to see who might be lighting in the tree tops. This is what I get to see.

Here is a lucky shot---four birds in the forward wing beat, two in tandem and nearly perfectly synchronous.

This is what makes the thunder in the morning. Birds bumping into each other. Birds stepping on each other, adhering to the rubrics of panic. There could be a hawk. Or a bobcat. You can't be too careful. Every year I come home to some fresh blood on the table and tufts of feathers gathered on the ground in whatever areas of the lawn the prevailing breezes pushed them along until they came to their final resting place, never again to fly.

Then it's right back down for more of the glut.

The scare tactic worked. The bandtail kicks up a dusting of oiled sunflower in its wing vortices.

While the mature sport this beautiful green metallic plumage on their necks, this guy to the left clearly has pin feathers. Young bird? Repairing bird? Dunno. An anomaly I cannot explain. I found a pin feather on the board the other day and wondered where it came from.

We do not have blue jays here. There are scrub jays over in the Willamette Valley. We have steller's jays here, tufted heads and all. Voracious cleaner-uppers are they. Raspy songed opportunists whose beautiful appearance attempts to excuse them from their rudenesses.

And when the crows and the jays aren't around, these folks get a crack at some chow. I'll see your four pair. And raise you.

Round, Round, Get Around, I Can't Get Around

2008-04-05T22:49:00.001-07:00

Really. It's hard. I want to pay more attention to my peeps, see what you are all doing on your blogs. The work marathon persists, however, and it's all I can do to eek out a quick jaunt to a few slices of paradise's pie when I get home at 8:30 every night. It's as though I have not been home for several months. Well, since about October. This will all be over come flying weather. We get a good week of blue skies in July. Can't wait.

Every once in a while, though, I can lay some eggs and let whomever has the notion to help incubate, do so. So.....plop.

(Oh---and, tink...)

Be sure to click on the pics to get them into some good CSI'ing position. Especially for Ray. You'll see....

When these flowers open, they are stunning. We eat the fruit in the fall.

This is Ray Eggman. Long time family friend who lives down the road a piece. Ray Eggman is a bee man. See? Bee.

That's my Dad...

My father sometimes cures a prosciutto. The process is easy. Waiting 9 months to eat it is difficult. Prompted by Joe, I had to CSI this sucker real close to find out what exactly it is Mrs. Gawpo, Sr. is eating back there. It's a bag of mixed fruits and nuts with M&Ms that she'd just purchased at Costco. BAM! Case closed, Joe. This was not easy. But I did it in the first 48 and that's all that matters. That's my sister, Karen helping with the hoist.

Judging by size, it is more important to go slow than the cats themselves. Odd sentence. But I'm leaving it like that. You can see my shadow to the right.

A tree in my sister's yard. This little guy had somewhere better to be.

So after giving up my seat, I got to chatting with a very nice couple who were waiting for their children to arrive on a flight from Seattle. We got to talking about cameras. I pulled out the 300mm and happened to see something I hadn't seen in over 30 years: a jackrabbit. Out on the taxiway. I was enthralled. I ignored everything else.

See in the upper left hand corner of the frame? Yeah. That's the tip of the elevator. That means tail wing in non-airplane-dude talk. That elevator is about to begin pulling away from the terminal dock. I still don't realize that I am supposed to be ON that plane, contributing something to the weight and balance. The time was 2:18:55. The plane was scheduled to depart at 2:20.

Here it is. My plane. Nose wheel off. Me still on. Dang.

I had some time to kill. This woman was talking to a soldier in desert camo. She listened intently and I snapped a few as the exchange went along. All of a sudden the soldier must have said something terrible, something so graphic that she vomited with her skin. I had no idea there were muscles in our faces that could make us do this.

I took this picture of the lady getting off the bus and didn't realize until I zoomed in to see what I had that she was really stepping off the river and those two guys were cheering wildly her transition to land. They are looking right at her. Nice, huh?

Finally, ain't no doubt about it---this is one of Ray's. Flower people, please tell me what this blossom is.

Never Again

2008-03-31T13:37:00.000-07:00

Last December I passed up a free ticket to any Alaska Airline destination. They called and called and called for a volunteer to give up their seat. But I did not want to inconvenience Mr. and Mrs. Gawpo who would have had to drive through darkness at a late hour to pick me up here at Sacramento International. Yes, I said here. Typing is not easy from the iTouch. But I have some time because when they called for that volunteer to give up a seat, I was all over it, having sworn back in December NEVER AGAIN to pass up such an opportunity. I called my friend, Amy and adjusted the pickup time. Got 16 bucks in meal money. Now I have to decide where to go. They do fly to Mexico. Hmmm...

Please feel free: Where would YOU go?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

THIS JUST IN!

Ok.

So.

Cindy at the counter thanked me for giving up my seat. She extended her hand to indicate the girl whose life I had saved. (some inconvenience.) The young lady smiled her appreciation. Her father shook my hand. I felt great. Got a free ticket, after all. Helped a young teen. So there I was with time to kill. And kill I did. Got talking with a very nice couple about picturers because guess what I was doing the whole time ? Got some great shots of a jackrabbit out on the taxiway, even. Yeah. Cool, huh? Even got some great shots of my jet taking off. Yes. MY jet. Without me ON it. So here I sit. The first flight was at 1:15. The flight I missed, 2:40. The next flight ( the LAST) is at 7:28. And it is overbooked....

Stand by for some stand by.

Sigh........

Piazza del Duomo Florence, Italy

2008-03-23T21:42:00.000-07:00

My first attempt at uploading directly to Blogger:

HAPPY EASTER!

A Color Kiss

2008-03-07T18:37:00.001-08:00

Somewhere Joe says that he's all about the color. And that once in a while an angel hands him a good one.

The Ken Trueman Center is an alcohol and recovery treatment center. Now that right there makes this right here an angel swoop if ever there was one.

When I saw the red pickup coming, I got nervous; I pooched it, sacrificing some focus for the bird in the hand. Oh well. It's still a kiss. Just a bit of a sloppy one. And that ain't bad.

Sorry so sloppy......Joe. (Good gawd, I'm funny.)

Journey To The Center Of A Dying Star

2008-03-06T21:16:00.000-08:00

I had to get off the gripe. I like a good gripe. Especially when it is founded in fact. I have this saying, though. And it has served me with a tolerance of injustice (my biggest complaint in life). It goes like this:

"It's not so much that they are unkind; it's that they are just kind of un."

There is so much more beauty than injustice in this world. In beauty there is honesty. Death begets life. And so it goes.

So I give you this:

Taking Care Of Business: My Rant

2008-03-04T22:38:00.000-08:00

811.425 Failure of slower driver to yield to overtaking vehicle; penalty. (1) A person commits the offense of failure of a slower driver to yield to overtaking vehicle if the person is driving a vehicle and the person fails to move the person’s vehicle off the main traveled portion of the highway into an area sufficient for safe turnout when:

(a) The driver of the overtaken vehicle is proceeding at a speed less than a speed established in ORS 811.105 as prima facie evidence of violation of the basic speed rule;

(b) The driver of the overtaking vehicle is proceeding at a speed in conformity with ORS 811.105;

(c) The highway is a two directional, two-lane highway; and

(d) There is no clear lane for passing available to the driver of the overtaking vehicle.

(2) This section does not apply to the driver of a vehicle in a funeral procession.

(3) The offense described in this section, failure of a slower driver to yield to overtaking vehicle, is a Class B traffic violation. [1983 c.338 §640; 1991 c.482 §16; 1995 c.383 §68; 2001 c.104 §307; 2003 c.819 §15]

What I am about to disclose is quite embarrassing. It's a character flaw. No doubt part genetic predispositon, part Neanderthal. But it is truly the case. So here it is, plain and simple: I detest slow drivers.

I'm a nut case in the driving world. Not only that, but I believe that slow drivers are responsible for more crashes than most speeders. Let me qualify. What I am saying is, if someone is exceeding the speed limit by 15 mph, there's a very good chance that, if detected, they will receive a citation. That's one form of speeding. Then there's the ridiculous speeding which, for some unknown reason, does not result in a crash. Those people need to be removed from the show completely. With regard to the former, I don't worry. And here's why.

You figure that, at 60 miles per hour, a car travels at 88 feet per second. That's a nice chunk of geography exchange. But it is reasonable. And in this state, we have a thing called "The Basic Speed Rule." What that boils down to is this: If I can explain to the judge that, given the conditions, my going 84 mph to overtake and pass that car in front of me was not unreasonable, I can be found not guilty. And guess what. That actually happened. Not by me, but by a smart attorney who got popped out on Highway 18, going through the Van Duzer Corridor. But this is not about speed. It is about the lack thereof. And it's about doing the right thing. It's about justice.

In this state, you will notice that there is no rule about having a minimum of three or four or five of six cars stacked up behind you. If you are driving less than the posted (or presumed) speed and you have even a single vehicle behind you, you are required by 811.425 to, as I like to put it: P.T.F.O. If you do not P.T.F.O., then you are not only in violation of the law, you are probably pissing off as many people as are occupying as many cars as are behind you. And when tempers rise, this cannot be anything but bad for driving. Sad to say, people are more likely to take chances, pass in less-than-ideal stretches of the road, and that's when "mierda pasa."

Here is why I believe that slow drivers cause more crashes than speeders:

811.425 is a B violation. The highest is A, the lowest is D. Not stopping at a stop sign or running a red light---B violation. Not wearing your seatbelt, a D violation. Not taking it upon yourself to P.T.F.O. is considered rather serious. Yet this law is rarely enforced. By the time the line of 18 cars and trucks go by, it's a bit difficult to work your way up to the front of the line in the patrol car to overtake (i.e., catch up to) the offender. In this language, the word "overtake" means that you were going the speed limit and you would be continuing on your journey except for the person who had decided that they are the only person in the world who matters. YOU don't matter. You weren't there, then you were there. But you don't matter. And that is just wrong.

Here's how I used to explain it to the slower driver after I did work my way up through the line of cars they were forcing to go 42 in a 55: "Look, here's how the law works. You have the right to drive any speed you want. But you don't have the right to make me drive any speed you want. If you don't feel comfortable driving 55, then all you have to do is pull over and let me drive the speed limit. Then you can pull back onto the travel portion of the roadway and do your 42 miles per hour for as long as you like until the next person appears in your rearview mirror. Kuh-PEESH?" Well, it didn't exactly go like that, but it was close.

When I teach the new reserves in their academy, I always point out that you can take any law in any state and trace it back to one thing: Love of others. All the laws are about love. They are not just about not hitting and not killing and not stealing. Those are easy. Those are Ten-Commandment-easy. But the Golden Rule kind of love requires more. It means waving someone through when it's safe to do so. It means being vigilant for pedestrians who are poised on the sidewalk at the crosswalk. It means stopping for the yellow light when you really can. It means putting your signal on to let someone know what your intentions are before they come to your intersection. It means pulling into the next lane to let someone onto the highway. It means pulling over so that those who caught up to you can continue at the posted speed. All you blogger peeps know what is nice. I don't have to tell you folks what nice is. Right here is where nice reigns.

But I do hate to drive. It's why I fly wherever I can. No cops. No speed limit. No slow fliers. It's also why, when in a car and when possible, I let someone else drive.

Here are a few tips to help you in a traffic stop situation. Hopefully, if you are stopped, it's not because you were holding people hostage to your slower-than-the-limit speed. Because if you are, then the next time you glance in your mirror, you may be seeing this. Next, you'll be looking at this. And if you get caught doing it again, then this. And if you lip off, then it's THIS.

Drive careful out there. And just please P.T.F.O.

The Winner Is: Number 7!!!

2008-02-14T21:39:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Sheila, Mother Of Blue, I did not have to spend tons of time cutting up paper. The random generator is truly a modern marvel. After one quick click, there it was: Number 7. Lucky number, that!

The winner of my bracelet giveaway is none other than Deabusamor whose blog is "Overstimulated Undercaffeinated." I do not know this woman, but she's got "amor" in her name and because of that, I like her. I like her a LAWGHT.

This was Dea's comment:

Deabusamor said...

I think I'd frame it if I got the bag with teeth marks, along with a picture of the Somewhere Joe in action!

Please enter me in your giveaway!

Thanks for the giggles,
Dea

Listed as a student and from Hesperia, California, Ms. Deabusamor says in her profile:

"Art has always been important to me but only recently did I discover that tactile art -- specifically sculpture and sewing -- was a required daily dose for my sanity. I work primarily in Polymer Clay though I also dabble in wire-wrapping, sewing, digital painting and various other mediums. (Craft ADD!) Most of my designs are for sale at my Etsy Shop (http://deabusamor.etsy.com) and I welcome custom orders."

Please fellow bloggers, do yourselves a favor and go see what she can do. She can do beauty of the first order. Trust me. Go with me on this one.

Follow now three Presentation Poses. Poses both Valentinian and Gawpoean, all three of which are performed in my now famous red sweatshirt, fruitful boon of a dumpster dive. (The Russian judge only gave me a four, but I got straight 9s from the rest, so it's all good.)

Pose The First:
The teeth which indent for the purpose of creating a record. This, if you will, is my seal. A biting down to symbolize, Ms. Deabusamor, your own mastications of life's beauties, not the least of which was how we came to meet. One World. One Heart. One bite.

Pose The Second:
Holding out this little morsel of gift to you, as though a consecrated host, the which is so lovingly embodied in our own host, Ms. Lisaoceandreamer. I hold this gift in my hands and therein consecrate the friendship that relates us, the friendship that erases any strangeness that stood between us and the hundreds of touchings that all participants left in the way of comments on each others' pages.

Pose The Third:
You, Oh Deabusamor, were randomly generated. Face it. Fate is at times a luck. You were number seven. Lucky number seven out of a possible 211 entrants. (Okay, a few less than that because I had to rule out some duplicates as well as Somewhere Joe who disqualified himself due to his maniacal humility.) I bow down my head, therefore, and close my eyes. I pray you into favor with your life, with your own gifts from which flow wonderful creations of your own hands. No, I did not make the Giveaway bracelet. But Monica did. And I gladly bequeath to you as her ambassador this small token of my own One Heart on this Saint Valentine's Day. I pray love into the package. And the dried shrimp themselves rejoice, longing for your taking them onto your tongue as a communion. (But you don't have to if you don't want to.) Just send me your address, Dea, and you will surely score that picture of the Somewhere Joe Jocular Microwave Move to go along with the bracelet and shrimp and bean.

Finally, a word about the painting which I have chosen to back my ground. It is a creation of Rick Bartow. Rick is a longtime friend. A musician. A father. A husband. A Vietnam veteran. A Native American. A loving man. Last year I bought this painting. Rick had offered it as a way to help the family of other friends whose 12 year old son, Keegan was battling cancer. Rick donated the price of the painting to the family. Keegan and I shared birthdays. May we some day share the same day of passing. I would like that. I only this week got the painting framed. I love how it turned out, floated and simply bordered, as is your art, Dea; as also ought we strive to live our time here: Floated, and simply bordered.

***UPDATE 021508 @ Twenty-Zero-Seven Hours***
I was a bit too vague. And I do apologize. Keegan did not survive the cancer. And I am not certain he made it to his 13th, my 53rd birthday. Yes. Very, very sad.

Keegan flying my airplane:

Literally "out of the blue," after some minutes of flying the airplane and keeping the craft well along its path of straight and level flight, Keegan turned to me and spoke these words through the headsets: "Thank you."

So I turn now to you, Lisa. And I utter the same: THANK YOU.

And The Winner Is......

2008-02-13T23:38:00.001-08:00

....going to have to wait until late tomorrow. It is not quite yet midnight. I have to work in the morning. A twelve hour shift. Yes. Half of an entire day.

When I get home tomorrow, I will include every entry up until midnight Pacific time. Hey, Lisa's rules. If it were up to me, I would count votes until ten past midnight. But she's a stickler. She is so STRICT!

Anyway, I will come home and use the random generator link that Sheila (MOB) sent me (Oh, thank you so much dear labor-saving Mother Of Blue.....mwuah!) and the winner shall be announced with a Fan for his or her Fare. As of 18 minutes until midnight, I have 210 comments. Some are duplicates and I will reduce the whole lot to a single entry per person. Per person. That was so fun to write that I had to do it twice.

Stay tuned.

Oh----and Happy Saint Valentine's Day!

Xs and Os to all!

G

One World One Heart Giveaway

2008-02-03T11:48:00.001-08:00

***This just in 02/03/08 Super Bowl Sunday @ 1605 hours: Lisa says to add this:

That anyone wishing to should leave a comment between now and the 13th of the month. I will then draw a winner on the evening of the 13th and make the YOOOOOGE announcement on the 14th. That is Valentine's Day. Hey! I get it now! COOL! Valentines Day? Heart? World? (nods head knowingly and with a deep sense of satisfaction here..) Okay, where was I? Oh yeah, I am supposed to ask folks to leave me a link to their blog, an email address (I love those) or some way to contact the winner to get an address to send this AWESOME OWOH GIFT to.

Get it?

Got it?

Bueno.

(now back to our regularly scheduled post...)

***

This is Neropaco. It is a store. It is a store that sells creations uttered in glass by the owners. The owners are brother and sister. Neropaco is in Venice. More specifically, it is on the island most famous for its glaziers, Murano.

This is my sister, Karen. On her left (yes, to your right) is Monica. Monica assists her brother in the making of fine glass pieces. Specifically, Monica makes some of the smaller pieces.
Even more specifically, Monica made this.

And she included bags to go with each piece Karen and I walked away with. Yes, you get a BAG. A Venetian Bag! w00t!
But that's not all. When you win this One Heart piece, you win also an individually wrapped bag of Japanese Dried Shrimp With Green Bean. It is a bit spicy. And the shrimp are cute. (notice cheap plug for Jeremy's book all propped up nice next to the giant hooka.) No. You do NOT get my red sweatshirt salvaged from the dumpster in a rich residential area NOR my cap which I found on the ground at the beach all wet and dirty at the time. (So was the cap, by the way.)
And what would a giveaway such as this giveaway be without some showmanship. In honor of Somewherejoe's magnificent feet....uh.....yeah they are magnificent, but what I mean to say here is fete, you can receive with a smile the knowing that your Venetian bag with its contents of one Murano glass bracelet and its accompanying individually wrapped bag of Dried Shrimp With Green Bean has been clenched ever so lovingly in my teeth while performing what has come to be known as The Somewhere Joe Jocular Microwave Move. And yes, there will be teethmark indentations on the bag. (notice cheap plug for my ability to associate with blonde hotties---friend, Summer---as depicted in deliberately posed framed photo. nana g on fridge and cold water salt water aquarium on right.)

NOW GOOD LUCK!

Two Days With A Friend

2008-02-01T22:20:00.001-08:00

It snowed some more at my house. This is my view to the southwest.

I waited until the weather reports gave me permission to leave my hill. There was a good deal of snow along the route and roads didn't improve until reaching the Valley. Interstate 5 was clear though, and the rest of the journey was a breeze. Jeremy and I had planned this time together for some weeks and I really wasn't up to suffering a disappointment. The plan was for us to meet at the Abbey and then we would head up to the hills, to the Milk Ranch on the Abiqua. I am about to lay down some tracks in the freshly laid blanket.

In about 2 1/2 hours, I was at my destination. The first time I saw this sign was in July of 1972. My vocation director, Larry McGovern, was scoping out an alternative seminary to St. Patrick's in Mtn. View, CA. I returned in September to begin what would wind up being over a nine year relationship with students, staff and an introduction to a phenomenon I had never yet heard about: Monasticism.

I left the scorching heat of the San Joaquin Valley on that July day in 1972 and landed at the Portland International Airport where it was cool and misting. In July. Yes. Father Adrian, the assistant Dean of Studies and Father Anselm, the prior of the monastery at the time, were there to meet me. Anselm would become Abbot not long after our first meeting. The new bell tower is last year's addition and smacks of all the beautiful towers I saw in Italy. After a quick tour of the new digs, Jeremy and I headed for the hills.

This is St. Anselm's Hall. It housed a high school on the third floor and us undergrads on the second. The first floor was administration and classrooms. My Greek class was comprised of me, Steve Obersinner and Father Gregory. That's it. The larger classes were stuffed with upwards of a dozen students. I felt lost in those large classes.

Along the way to the Milk Ranch, I snapped this shot of one of the many hopyards that border the Abbey's edges.

This is the place. On the walls of the house are pictures of some of the monks who worked the farm around the early 1900s.

I cooked dinner and we supped well on pasta and sliced tomatoes and red onions in balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

I brought Big Night. Jeremy had not seen it. Here I am spying on Stanley Tucci and Isabella Rossallini after a sordid romp behind Mini Driver's back. Those Italians!

The last time I had been at the Milk Ranch was as a monk of Mt. Angel. They still had two of my pots. I was touched. Inside this one was a used dryer sheet. Not having remembered putting it in there, I removed it.

My signature at the time.

We rose none too early and I prepared a frittata, coffee and toast for breakfast. My mother and father and grandparents would slide the frittata out of the pan and onto a plate to be then inverted in the pan for finishing the top. One day I just said heck with it and tried an idea that I now see routinely demonstrated on Food Network: You slide the pan under the broiler to finish it off. Lots easier and the surface looks so beautiful. We prayed Divine Office at the table after eating and later celebrated Mass in the small downstairs bedroom converted into a chapel. It was easy to fall into the role of acolyte again. And it felt good. This day marked one month to the day that Jeremy's father, Dick Driscoll died. We celebrated Month's Mind with Dick very much in mind. I knew Dick well and loved his every wrinkle of being. A funny, funny man who would call out from the bathroom nearly every morning after waking, "Oh my God, it happened again! I got better looking while I slept." Me, he referred to as "The Little Devil" and Jeremy said that Dick often asked what his son had heard lately from The Little Devil.

Here's a shot of The Little Devil at table with Dick Driscoll's son.

I took this picture with my new picturer, and I love it.

We were sort of hoping we'd get snowed in.

We were somehow able to plow our way out and we returned to The Hill. This is the monastery's laundry building. Novices get to do the laundry for the entire house and it is in this room that I spent my first year as a monk after changing my affiliation from the Diocese of Stockton to the monastery of Mt. Angel Abbey. My bishop was not too happy. I really didn't understand that. Vocations aren't from whim, you know.

Jeremy and I then walked back to St. Joseph's Hall where Brother Claude Lane has his studio. As we approached, Claude was writing an icon.

In Claude's studio is this piece which we all three collectively named, "Jesu Sub Tavala" or "Jesus Under The Table." We decided that Jesu Sub Tavala would be the Patron Saint of all those who labored for cash without paying taxes. Hey, someone's gotta support those folks.

Speaking of working under the table, Claude proudly displays his new shipment of "Community Coffee" which comes from another Benedictine house which may or may not be reporting their income from bean sales. Being not so sure, I don't want to burn their name, but the fact that they put chickory in their blend, well.....you can narrow it down from there. Claude and I were trying to explain to Jeremy the importance of Scarlett Johannson to film. You can see the edge of her IMDB filmography on the computer screen. We kept trying to describe Lost In Translation, but trying to describe Scarlett Johannson to a brilliant theologian is like trying to describe chickory in coffee to a tea drinker. Or something like that. A rare serious pose from Claude, you can see just how firmly he feels about that coffee and chickory. So do I. And I am not smiling as I say so.

Here Claude is basically saying he has no idea why his icons are so unbelievably, utterly beautiful. Okay, he didn't really say that, but they are. So is he. Not to mention being one of the funniest persons I have ever met. Claude introduced me to Mississippi John Hurt and Bo Carter and the Mississippi Sheiks. No one has heard of the latter. When Jeremy and I arrived, the former was playing on the stereo. Okay, he knew we were coming, but it was fitting.

If Claude cared to leave a comment, he could explain all that's going on in this icon he wrote, "The Giving Of The Rule." It was done for a Carmelite house. That little flower growing there means something. Claude said what it meant. But I am old now and cannot remember.

Here we are.

And there's the former Brother Gawpo, front row center.

I'm Back And I'm Viewtiful

2008-01-25T11:43:00.000-08:00

Hello.

Apart from working lots of overtime to pay off the extravagant avionics upgrade for the airplane, and the trip to Italy, I have been compromised on two fronts with internet issues. Those who care to are heartily invited to inquire via email. Oh, I'd be only too happy to make like an abandoned rock quarry and-----fill you in. Thanks for not giving up on me. I love my peeps. That said, let's get started.....

At the beach recently, I was trying out the new picturer on some seagulls. I was discovered by Juniper's eldest, Chellbelle on her lunch break from high school. The instant she showed up with what seagulls consider a delicacy (anything they can fit, or reduce to fitting, in their mouthes) the floodgates opened. You'd have thought Mr. Hitchcock was doing the sequel of The Birds. I will use The Belle as my assistant in future pictorial forays, to be sure.

Sheer terror on the young lady's face tells the story well...

"Another seagull?," she cried? "No," I shouted----"DUCK!"

My friend Don buzzed my house today in his Piper Tri Pacer. Again, this is the picturer's debut picturing such an event. In the past the HP Photosmart R707 point-and-shoot took way too long to refresh. These images are so clear that I can see Don in the cockpit in some of the frames I snapped. Here you can see the ribbing under the wings and fuselage poking through the fabric covered airplane. Yes, fabric folks. Not metal. In the second shot you can find the plane about to emerge from between a couple branches of a Doug Fir in the front of my house. In the third frame, you can see what happened last night, and what took most of the day to mostly melt away. I still have a goodly amount in the yard. But the branches are brown again.

For a second there, I thought I actually saw two that were exactly alike. But then I noticed a subtle difference and am once again a subscriber to the axiom that no two ARE alike. I'm still looking though...

Yes, it is true. You've heard it all your lives but wondered if in fact it was a fact. Well here is proof: U.S. Highway 20 DOES begin in Newport, Oregon and DOES end in Boston, Mass.

These girls were in my yard one morning. I had heard three rifle reports nearby in the woods and learned later that it was the closing weekend of the Roosevelt Elk Coast Range Rifle Season. Spike or better, these cows and their yearlings were safe. You can see their apprehension. You can also see sunlight in the diaphanous nostril of one elk. That was a gift I hadn't realized was there until I enlarged the photo.

The elk filed up the front side of my hilltop and emerged to cross the driveway for the big huddle in the yard, planning on what to do and where to go next. Say hello to Cow #8 (see right ear adornment).

And say hello to Cow #9...

A few days ago I swung by the beach near the Sand Bar (yes, Cheesy...your favorite steamer clam joint) to get this one....

Merry Christmas From The San Joaquin Valley

2007-12-24T12:18:00.000-08:00

This may take a bit of CSI'ing: There's an English Sparrow in there...

Our father's large cactus plants bear abuntdantly. My sister and I shared one of these while we were in Sicily: Fichidini (prickly pear)...

Shadows lengthen near the setting of the sun...

A member of the thistle family...

This variety is the Fuyu. Sliced and dried in the Ronco Food Dehydrator, they are unbelievable...

Merry Christmas to all!

Looking Across The Estuary

2007-12-16T12:09:00.000-08:00

About a week ago, I drove across the bridge on a mission: Get fresh saltwater. That always sounds just a bit confusing. Fresh water and salt water with water and fresh and then salt in the same sentence. I was after saltwater to replenish the old saltwater in the cold saltwater water aquarium. Ah, forget it. You know what I mean. Anyway, I drove over to South Beach to get some fresh saltwater. When I got there, I saw things in a way completely different from my many previous visits. What changed the way I see, you ask. The new picturer did it. I no longer see through eyes. I see through the viewfinder implant that I received with the Nikon D40. A great way to see, if you ask me.

The picture fest began at last light. The exposures were mostly a little over 30 seconds. The orange glow off in the distance is from the sodium vapor lights on commercial fishing vessels coming back with their loads of dungeness crab. Keep in mind that, except for the bridge, just about everything in this shot is moving on liquid cold fresh saltwater water.

It's all about color. And color at night in a picture is like stealing. I feel naughty.

The United States Coast Guard helicopter paints a faint smile over our fair city.

That streak of light bars on the left is actually a fishing boat traveling left to right. It has illuminated the F/V Seeker quite nicely.

Here you can see the tail end of the fishing boat entering the Port Docks, protected by a rock jetty.

Parting shot: Sunrise as viewed from the logging road between my little hill and the world of paved roads.

A Storm Is Brewing (and we're all gonna die!)

2007-12-02T12:26:00.001-08:00

For some reason, the news media are hyping storms with a kind of storm of their own. They didn't used get all worked up. Maybe it's a liability thing. When a big storm was coming, we just settled in and waited for it to come and then to pass. The lights would go out for a couple days and we'd call it good. Not now, though. It's all over the news and everyone is buzzing with "the big storm" talk. I may be proved wrong, but when I had had enough as the umteenth person came up to me and asked if I was ready for "the big storm," I turned to them so that I could see their eyes. I removed my glasses and sent my chin on a one inch dive so that the rest of my face could make a serious comment. I said, "Yeah. I'm ready. And do you know what's going to happen?" "No. What?," came the reply. "Nothing," I said before putting my glasses back on.

I hope I don't have to eat those words along with a half cord worth of splinters from the rotted top of that red alder in the front yard after it comes crashing through my living room windows.

The first of two big storms came through today. To my surprise--and delight--I didn't feel much of it. I went to the local airport weather report on Weather Underground and saw that it was blowing 48 mph with a peak gust of 78 mph. Nice. Top wind gust for the state took place on Cape Mears in Tillamook County---105 mph. I was vindicated on the first go-round.

The "big one" is scheduled to reach landfall sometime after midnight. We are expecting winds in the 80s. Just in case, I have filled 7 of those 5 gallon plastic buckets with toilet flushes, topped off all the plastic water bottles I could dig out of the recycle, and I did the laundry. So far, the power has only gone off twice, and very briefly both times.

The first two pictures were taken last week. This is Depoe Bay, "Smallest Harbor In The World," the sign says as you come into town before blinking and then realizing you have passed on through. They have a restaurant there called, "The Spouting Horn." It is named after what you are seeing in the pictures. A good high tide is all you need to send saltwater skyward when it all gets rammed into the narrowed channels that create the phenomenon.

I went out on my front deck to record what could be the last photographs of Gawpo. I went out there to say good bye because, according to the news, we are all going to die:

The mug was acquired in Cefalu, Sicily. Come to think of it, so was the Gawpo. But in Camporeale:

The Gawpo leaning back in smug repose, waiting for "the big one." In French, "the big one" is spelled G-A-D-O-T. See that red sweatshirt? That is Gawpo's favorite sweatshirt. He found it in a dumpster. True story. Once washed, it retained all its glorious stains thus consigning itself to the category of favorite. See that knit cap? Gawpo found that, too. Found it, in fact, the same day the pictures of the Spouting Horn were taken. The hat was wet. Once washed, it was good as new, thus consigning itself to Gawpo's newest favorite cap. True story.

As I sit here this evening and type, I can't help feeling a bit apprehensive. It was blowing pretty hard today. It was noisy outside. Right now though, it is eerily quiet. It is....well, how shall I put this: It is "eye" quiet.

Gulp.

I Love My New Picturer: Florence, Italy Says So

2007-11-22T22:39:00.000-08:00

I could hardly believe I was standing at the foot of The David. But I was. It was as if I had met some part of myself that I had kept deep inside my soul since the day I learned of this magnificent work or art...

After an hour or so (not enough) with The David, we set off for the short walk to the Duomo di Firenze - Cattedrale di S.Maria del Fiore. The Cahtedral of Saint Mary Of The Flower.

We met a family at the top of the Dome. We asked each other to take pictures. They were from Ireland. The Dad landed a three year contract teaching in Italy. Their youngest was quite good at Italian. (T-shirt art courtesy of Cindra's husband, and my friend, Tom.)

Karen and I climbed the 463 steps to the top of the Dome. If you look to the right of the bell tower, down there on the ground, that is the very spot I would stand later to take the evening shots of the piazza...

Here is a glimpse through one of the few windows on the way up to the top...

The piazza at dusk...

When we sat down to eat this, Karen brought up Don Novello's wonderful Guido Sarducci character and this bit he did once where he says, "We're gonna play a little-a game-a. It's called, 'Find-a the Pope inna the pizza.'" It was only then that I remembered that I had brought a papal prop along that I was going to set up for special pictures. Here is the result.

I couldn't find that particular Sarducci piece on YouTube, but this will do. Prepare to laugh a LAWGHT:

One of the girls caught me snapping pictures of the group as they socialized over beer and cigarettes around the corner where Karen and I sat down to find-a da Pope-a inna da pizza. She organized what turned out to be a series of group shots. It was as if they did this sort of thing every day. They look so comfortable and relaxed.

You don't go to Florence and not walk on the Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge). They say it's a miracle from God that this bridge did not fall victim to World War II. A miracle, I tell you...

On the way to the hotel, we stopped at this supermercato and scored big time!...

A Thankful Hapsgiving to all.

My Friend Came To Visit

2007-11-16T12:49:00.000-08:00

This is Jeremy Driscoll. I love him. And I love his face.

Jeremy is a monk of Mt. Angel Abbey. He is also a priest. Ordination to the priesthood does not occur automatically with monks. In fact, in the old days even the Abbott wasn't normally ordained. St. Benedict of Nursia was born in 480 A.D. and is considered the founder of western cenobitic monastacism. The Greeks booked out their own form prior to Benedict. Prior. Get it? You might have to be--or have been--a monk to get THAT little joke. The Abbott would just have one of the monks kneel before a bishop for the laying on of hands so that the community could celebrate the liturgy of the eucharist without having to dial for a rent-a-priest from the diocese.

Monastic life is a calling. Sort of like being a doctor or an attorney or a writer or a police officer. Being a priest and a monk is regarded as a vocation within a vocation. Priesthood is secondary to that of responding to the call of being a monk. But here's a little bit about monasticism that most folks are not aware of:

There is no such thing as a vow of silence. Never has been. Never will be. I suppose some cultist could come up with such a thing. But the thought of such is just pure silliness. As with most cult tenets.

Monks live the cenobitic life. That means they live together in a community. In very rare cases, a monk may petition the Abbott to set off in a discipline known as the eremetical life. "Eremos," in Greek means desert. Only a monk who has done very well living within the contexts of community has a shot at becoming a hermit. Hermits are still joined to their community and in most cases it is insisted that he or she attend some community functions, especially Chapter. Chapter is where all the solemnly professed monks gather to vote on matters of various importance relative to the functioning of the house.

Monks take three vows: Stability, Obedience and Conversion of Life. They do not take Poverty, Chastity and Obedience as is often thought. No. Not so. Mendicants do that. A mendicant belongs to an order such as the Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites and Augustinians. These are not monks. These are mendicants. The word comes from the Latin meaning "to beg." The word "monk" derives its meaning from the Greek "mono," hinting at singleness or aloneness. But the monastic life has very little to do with going solo. It is all about being purged in the fire of community that one becomes holy.

The vow of Obedience literally means to "incline one's ear," to "listen up," to "pay attention." Ob-audire. Audio. Audience. Obedience. Get it? This concept is key to the beginning of St. Benedict's Holy Rule For Monks and you see it in the opening lines of the Prologue. If you go to the link, there follows a commentary by Father Philip Lawrence, OSB (Order of Saint Benedict). He is currently the Abbott of Christ in the Desert near Abiquiu, New Mexico. Phillip is also a former monk of Mt. Angel Abbey.

The vow of Conversion of Life embraces both poverty and chastiy. The latter is necessary to the function of celibacy. And it is celibacy which permits one to cleave to no single person other than God. It's a concept that has been lived out by millions of people over thousands of years. And not just Christians. The practice of celibacy predates any known manifestation of even the earliest far eastern philosophies. There are just some people who are called to be "set apart" for the sake of walking with the Creator. Even if there were a married clergy in the Roman Church, there will always be those who are called to celibacy. Many people are chaste. But that does not make them celibate. Celibacy is a way of life, a conceptual framework flowing from a sense of having been called and having responded to that call. People always ask me why I left the monastic life. Truthfully, I'm not sure what happened. It is much easier to answer why I entered and why I stayed as long as I did.

Besides cenobitic and eremetic monks (hermits), there are the anchorites. Julian of Norwich (not canonized, and so not a saint, but a terrific mystic of the 14th Century) was an anchorite. Julian speaks of Jesus as "the Mother of mercy." Anchorites literally anchored themselves to a church and in some cases were walled up and unable to leave their cell. But not so the cenobite, not so.

The vow of Stability refers to the monk's resolve to make vows to a particular community. That is the family he will live with until he dies. There is no putting in for a transfer. Jeremy teaches theology half the year in Rome. But he always comes home to his community and that will never change.

It was good to be able to spend some time with him. We took a walk along the edge of Yaquina Bay:

You will recognize the pintails and wigeon in this one...

The large birds are geese. Black Brandt. The others are wigeon...

Here's what's going on here: About five years ago, I was headed out to the flats at low tide to harvest some Upogebia pugettensis for a planned sturgeon fishing trip the next day. I happened to glance up at a seagull flying overhead and carrying an object in its mouth. I watched the bird as it crossed the flats and when it reached the beach, it was as if it put the brakes on and almost came to a dead hover. It climbed about 10 feet and then began a descent. As it did so, it released the object which landed on the beach with a thud. The bird quickly landed and reclaimed its object whereupon it repeated the action. I realized that the bird had picked up a cockle and was cracking it open. I have lived here since 1981 and had never noticed this activity. It's as though the birds have learned this trick in the last 10 years or so. This is a picture of the increased sophistication they've achieved. One of them tried it on a roof. Apparently, a fad was begun. Can you imagine working inside this building and hearing the bombardments?...

Jeremy's most recent books are What Happens At Mass and A Monk's Alphabet.

I miss him already...

Sicily

2007-11-10T11:26:00.000-08:00

Camporeale. If it were a Spanish word, I would assume it had something to do with a field. "Camp" comes to mind. All I know is that my father's parents were born there and that, after two and a half hours in the home of a complete stranger, neither she nor her 80 year old retired veterinarian brother, Bartoldo could piece it together that, although we did share surnames, we were not related by blood. But, anyway you cut it, we have two new friends in Camporeale.

This one is for Scarlet. If you are in the language loop on this inside joke, you will get a chuckle. (Hey Scarlet---what do you think that initial "G" stands for? I have my own ideas, since this IS in Sicily, after all!!! Let me put it this way: It ain't a "P" for pequeno! LOL)

Here is something Somewhere Joe would never, EVER come out and say. But I am going to come out and say it: I just LOVE this shot! Taken at the seawall in Cefalu (cheh-fuh-LOO).

It rained in Cefalu:

My sister, Karen and Judy at our hotel (Baia del Capitano Hotel) in Mazzaforno, just outside Cefalu. Where it rained:

I couldn't have said this any better. I got it here.

"Cefalù, small port on the northern coast of Sicily, in the province of Palermo, on the railway to Messina. Located on a narrow coastal plain at the foot of a peak rising about 300 m (nearly 1000 ft) out of the sea, Cefalù is the center of a fertile agricultural region. The city's cathedral, one of the most remarkable examples of Norman Architecture in Italy, was begun in 1131 by King Roger II, the first king of Sicily, and completed in 1148. Population (1996) 13,882."

Here is my take on the interior. I didn't use a flash, either (click on the mosaics link in Galen's website and see what I mean). I had to hold that new picturer really steady. Galen, I think, swaps the numbers a bit when he says the cathedral was begun in 1131. Actually, all the other sites I've checked say it was begun in 1311. Not 1312 or 1313. No. 1311. And not by the FIRST Norman named Roger, but by the second one named Roger. Anyway, the text that Jesus is holding is written in Greek. And it appears to be from the Gospel of John. It begings, "I am the light of the world." But it is written in an old script and a bit challenging. I will work on it some more. Galen does go on to say that it was completed in 1348, so there ya go:

This guy had a dog. I think that's pretty cool. I'm a dog lover. And a cat lover. But this guy had a dog:

This is something extra you won't get on just ANY blog. The initials to the left and right of the Virgin Mary (they used first and last letters of words) stand for (on the left) MATER (MAY-ter) or Mother, and then on the right OF GOD (thay-EW[ew, like when you step in something bad]). And those aren't just regular angels flanking her, either. Oh, no, no, no. They are ARCH (ark) ANGELS; RAFAEL (not RAFE-ee-ul; it's raw-phai-EL) on the left with his name tag conspicuously displayed, and GABRIEL on the left, following same company name tag policy. Down there underneath the main stage are the grouping of the Apostles beginning (as pictured) with MARKOS on the far left, then Matthew to his left (our right), the Peter. I can't make out the other guys to our right. Sorry. I am guessing that the second one is Thomas. But I doubt it. (HA!!!! Get it?! Thomas? DOUBT it! GAWD, I JUST KILL ME!!!!)

I Am Being Held Captive---Send Help!

2007-11-08T09:34:00.000-08:00

Okay. Here's what happened.

I flew my little airplane up here to Auburn, Washington so the guy could put the Garmin GNS430W in the panel. September 4th. He said he was "shooting for the 12th" and then the 17th, and then the 26th. Of September. September came and September went. No airplane. The install did not take place.

Went to Italy (see previous posts). Returned from Italy (see previous posts). October came and October went. I returned on October 29th and called the avionics guy. He said, "Hey, when are ya gonna come up and get your airplane? I need to get paid." I tell him that Monday the Monday the 5th of November (no, not September because that had come and gone; not October for same reason), but November.

So I got a guy to fly me up in his beautiful Cessna 180 with 300 horsepower P-Ponk conversion. Yeah, I know. Can you believe that? Dave says he'd be glad to do it. It would be a great day to fly.

On Sunday evening the avionics dude calls and asks if he can have one more day. I ask him again (as I had already done)---"Is the airplane DONE?" He says, of course, it's done. But the kid is sick and the wife is sick. I tell him it has to be Monday. No room to budge. Got plans Wed/Thurs and am working overtime on Tuesday. Has to be Monday. He acquiesces.

Dave and I call prior to departure from the beautifully sunny Oregon coast. The avionics dude asks if we've checked the weather cuz it was foggy "up here in Auburn." We tell him we have checked and that the weather will improve by the time we get there. It had. We landed.

Avionics dude walks up to me as I get out of the plane and says, "Damn. I goofed. I have some bad news. I cut the number two com wire by mistake." I ask him how bad that is and can I at least leave because I HAVE AN APPOINTMENT AT 3 O'CLOCK IN CORVALLIS. He says, "Oh. No way. You can't leave." I go look at the airplane. Not only is it not done, but it has never BEEN done. There are empty holes everywhere. Wires dangling everywhere. I feel sick to my stomach. Dave and I look at each other. I say some words to the avionics guy. I have to restrain myself because he still has my airplane.

Dave and I leave. I pay the 171 dollar fuel bill (at the cheapest place in the state right now, Newport, @ $3.99/gallon). I call my appointment and tell him to go ahead and bill me for the missed appointment.

Avionics dude says he will have the plane done "in a day; it will be ready tomorrow." Tomorrow, at that point, was two days ago---Tuesday. But I had to work.

By some miracle (thoughts become things!), the weather was still good on a November day when we normally pull down 18-22 inches of rain in that single month. Sunny day. Beautiful day. I call the avionics guy and confirm our appointment. He says he has one thing to do that will take about a half hour. One hour and 16 minutes later (GAWD, that 180 goes fast!), we land in Auburn, Washington. The plane is not done.

The avionics guy says "I have to do this, and that will take about 10 minutes. I have to do that and that will take about 10 minutes. And then there are these things to go in. So, it should be done in two hours."

Two hours? Dave can't wait two hours. He and I were going to fly back together. I was going to take off first and see how long it would take for him to pass me. He was going to help me push my plane into the hangar when we got back.

Dave took off. I sent him on his way. We landed at 2:15pm. I took off last night at 7:15pm. But the weather had deteriorated and the weather dude on Flight Watch at the frequency of 122decimalZEROzero said conditions are IFR along the route, VFR not recommended. There is a saying: "There are old pilots and there are bold pilots; but there are no old, bold pilots." I returned to the airport.

I love the Auburn Days Inn. My room faces the airport and I can look right down the runway. There is free coffee and belgium wallfel action in the lobby. And get this: Internet is free. FREE!!! I was expecting them to charge me 7 Euros for one hour or 4 Euros for 10 minutes (like that one place in Florence).

I called my friend, Tom last night and cancelled our fishing outing planned for this morning. I called Cindra. I called Juniper. I called Dave. I callled Bob. I called Don. Now I will call Logo and Lime.

It is foggy here. Very, very foggy. It is supposed to lift.

I want to go home. And I can't. And I don't like that. But it is a great little spot I have found and I know I will return some day. Albertson's is right across the street. I am going to go buy one of those huge pomegranates and make lemonade. Well, you get the point.

No change in the fog and it's 10:05am.

Less A-typical

2007-11-02T11:11:00.000-07:00

Okay, here's a more typical one:

I have a thing for person hole covers:

Here's another one:

Another:

As an I/A officer, I am sometimes assigned to the Rome desk to make sure things are on the up-an-up. This investigation is still pending. If any of you reads lips, please feel free to assist with this task:

The A-typical

2007-10-31T12:07:00.000-07:00

I took lots of pictures with the new picturer that you won't see in most tour (or even history) books. For instance, here is a picture of the Roman Colosseum:

That little chunk of quartz crystal predates even the building it boldly contributes to the cause of the continuum of support. Reminds me greatly of that wonderful William Carlos Williams poem, "El Hombre":

It's a strange courage you give me,
ancient star:

Shine alone in the sunrise,
toward which you lend no part!

And this is a shot of the beautiful Tiber (TEV-eh-ray in Italian):

(I thought of you, Joe, when choosing the pose.)

This is a really great opportunity for some CSI'ing.

So is this one. Are there a couple purses in there, perhaps?

I just expanded this one and, truth be known, I had no idea that guy was even in the shot.

Isn't that Ilya Kuriakin's partner down there?

"Hellooo? Mr. Solo! Mr. Vaughn? Is that you???"

Many more to come. More prosaic, I promise.

First Reports From New Picturer

2007-10-27T07:06:00.000-07:00

The new picturer is a 6.1mp resolution machine. It stores exactly 2,680 exposures to a 4 gigabyte SD disk. Here is one from the Piazza di San Marco in Venezia:

I took lots of pictures of stuff like this:

Venice...

You lift this ring and tie your boat to it:

It's like this during the day....

...and this during the evening...

Venice

2007-10-25T12:36:00.000-07:00

If at all possible, don't just continue to know that it is here and not come and see it and smell it and touch it. Cuz it's amazing. No, we did not take a ride in one of them fancy conoes. But the boat ride on "the 82" out to the Piazza San Marco was sheer magic. And then there was the journey on water out to the island of Murano to take in what has to be the most concentrated occurance of beauty in glass ever to occasion this earth. If you have never heard me utter that mysitcal axiom about where we live, then here it is: "Earth is the best planet in the whole world."

If you come to Venice, you will no doubt head out to Murano. When there, do stop in at a shop called "Neropaco." Monica and her brother do the glass and then sell the glass. My sister and I not only scored some lovely keepsakes, we made a friend in Monica (pics to follow).

In terms of friendliness, I am giving Venice a disappointing 6 out of a possible of 10. Yeah, I know---typical American having to quantify. But I just have to say that I was "impressed" by several less-than-friendly interactions with the "staff." The exceptions brought the score up from a 3 or 4. For instance, this was the first place where the lady in the W/C (whizzeria) said, "One Euro" as I entered to get rid of some number one. I replied to her, "One Euro? You want me to pay one Euro to whiz?" She said, "Si." I said, "Well then, Si ya later." True story. I felt like an ugly American. Who still had to whiz. Oh well. I have my standards.

There were some really nice folks. And some great places to enjoy some very fine food served up by some very friendly fellow human beings. I want to come back here. Every year. And stay for a year. Every year. Sigh...

Since I am calling this "the appetizer tour," we are cutting out of Venice and headed for Firenze tomorrow.

Ciao to all!

OFF TO SICILY!

2007-10-19T23:21:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all for keeping in touch.

I am leaving the monastery of Sant'Anselmo and am joining my sister at Fiumicino Airport where we will then continue on to Siciliy, and Camporeale, the birthplace of our father's parents.

Hopefully, I will be able to get some time at the board of keys in an internet cafe. This free monastic internet has spoiled me.

See you there!

Ciao,
G

Entry Level Picturer

2007-10-10T15:32:00.000-07:00

My new camera came today. I can't wait to use it. I have decided to load up a bunch of photos from here to share with others when I am over there. Picturers nowadays make, after all, great photo albums, too.

Maybe I'll be able to get some shots like this one with my new Picturer. This shot makes like a strong wind against a snow drift----it just blows me away:

Rather than reveal my own CSIing conclusions, I will invite each of you to come up with some of your own. I am sure you will see some things I have not. There is only one CSI characteristic that I lay claim to, and that is simply because, well---As JFK says on that ill-fated Kennedy parody, "The First Family," that came out just prior to the assassination: "Because it's my ball, that's why."

Look for it at 5:10

New Camera For The Trip To Sicily

2007-10-07T13:16:00.000-07:00

I am getting this one.

Cheendruh! tells me that this camera will perform "just fine" for what I need a camera to do. No, it is not the high-ender. But crap----$649.95 buys me a 6.1 megapixel unit that I can take pictures with and be proud to post right here.

Sheila (MOB), Bleu (DOS), Murray, Joe? Your thoughts too, please.

Oh, and Bazza. You too, please.

Heck----ALL of you who are into photography.

The unit ships out tomorrow (Monday the 8th) and should be here, two day express, on Wednesday.

My friend, Summer and I decided that we are no longer going to refer to these contraptions as cameras. They are now PICTURERS. That's what they do, after all. Since when has anyone ever talked about cameraing something? Right. Never. So.

Sure, I won't have any Kodachrome. But I will have a Nikon camera.

I'm so excited. It's a wonder I can sleep at all....

Tres Idiomas

2007-09-29T09:33:00.000-07:00

Weren't they great?

Palindrome Means: "Runs Again" in Greek

2007-09-22T16:21:00.000-07:00

******THIS JUST IN: HOT LINK TO A GUH-ZILLION PALINDROMES******added 092307

Just follow this link.

The word, "Palindrome" means literally, "To run again." "Palin" means "again." And "dromos" means "run." A palindrome runs both ways. Get it? Good.

If you ask Sheila, she will tell you that there is another word for "run," "trechein" (pronounced: trech-ayne, but trill the "r" a little and make a sound like you're going to hock a loogie when you hit the "ch" part).

An anadromous fish (ana=up and dromos=run) literally "runs up" the river into the mountain streams where it was born 3-5 years before it's run. Here on the coast of Oregon, we see a river and we say, "A fish runs through it." (Get all the laughter out. I'll give you a sec.)

Done? Good.

The only good palindrome that I knew prior to watching this video was: "Do geese see God?" I watched for it. And sure enough, there it was.

What palindromes do you know? Write them down, if you like. Then watch this:

Erik 'n Sarah, Sittin' In A Tree, Now They Are Mar-ar-ar-reed.

2007-09-17T09:31:00.001-07:00

This is my friend, Erik. Erik with a kay. And that is his friend, Sarah. Sarah with an ayche. Erik and Sarah have been friends for a long time. Maybe 30 or 40 years. I'm not sure. Okay, well maybe not that long. But they got married. To each other. Yeah. And then they made Quinn happen. (No more Eskimo jokes, please.)

Erik and I used to hunt wild bandtail pigeons together. I no long hunt them. I feed them. I go into serious debt on black oiled sunflower seed fot those critters. I figure I owe them. Erik and I also used to fish. Lots. But since the move to LaGrande, well....time and distance, I guess.

Anyway, Sarah is the controller of the keyboard when it comes to being kept in touch with these kids. They are moving from LaGrande, Oregon. LaGrande must have gotten its name from being the biggest town in them parts. The parts in which it is, that is. But like I said, they are quitting the big LG. I wonder where they're moving? Could it be to a town near me?

I have flown into the LaGrande airport. It was so that I could attend the reception of the newly wed couple. Pre-Quinn. I brought oysters to BBQ. Now look what happened. Took a couple years, but they worked.

Look at that happy mouth! Can't wait to really meet this kid. I did get a quick sighting when the happy trio was in town over a year ago. But, my how he's growing.

As you can see, there is not much to do in LaGrande except play a strange form of bowling. Due to the odd shape of the balls, a perfect score is 1.

They do not have automobiles in LaGrande. Those haven't been invented yet there. But there is still some great travel by rail to be had. The cold winters, however, make for some bundling up because they haven't invented walls to enclose the cars.

I couldn't resist.....
(the stills are cool in this video and there's an airplane in it!!!)

So, go check out Erik, Sarah and Quinn here. Say hello. Tell 'em Gawpo sent you.

"And Underneath The Stars..."

2007-09-14T10:45:00.000-07:00

Love should be this simple:

When I was in the 8th grade, I had a crush on the Thompson girl. She lived way out on Zeering. Zeering Road, to this very day, is located on the outskirts of Denair. I must report, however, that the only thing out of its skirt back then was Denair.

Debbie Thompson. I wanted to kiss her so bad. She gave me a Mammas and Papas album. (Yeah, that's what we called it back then. Okay, just kidding.) I made a point of putting the vinyl on the turntable one evening and cranking it up so loud that no one could have a conversation in the house. I don't recall being told to turn the music down. I then called Debbie. She answered. I wanted her to hear my appreciation in the background. Unfortunately, that's all she could hear. I tripped, stumbled and fell on the way to the record player in the living room to lower the volume of the song by the same name. When she told me she couldn't hear what I was saying "because that music is too loud," I was embarrassed beyond blushing.

Since I didn't have a car or a bike, and I really wanted to see that Thompson girl one fine summer day, I decided that I would walk to her house. So I did. I called ahead, of course. No music in the background this time.

See that trailer park to the left of the house with the swimming pool with the field in back? Well, that trailer park used to be a field of baby's breath. Not many people have seen this flower before it gets dead. The house with the swimming pool and the field----that's where our house used to be: 229 Twentieth Century Blvd. We sold the house to some people who remodeled the existing 800 sq ft home into the big bucket it is today with the Spanish tile. And no, we never had a swimming pool. But that field. Oh, that field. We had walnut trees.

My sister will tell you about the time she was running away from me because I was throwing dirt clods at her. Again. I was so mean as a big brother. I feel terrible about it now. But this one time---at clod camp---she stopped in her tracks for some reason and turned around. If she had kept running, she wouldn't have had to wash a quarter pound of sand out of her hair. It was beautiful. The timing. Man, do I feel bad about that. To this day. But the timing. The timing.

Sorry, Karen.

But this is the house I walked from in order to get to Debbie's house out on Zeering. Best I can tell, this is the Thompson place. When I got there, we did the "So, what do you want to do?" "I dunno. What do you want to do?" We walked out to the barn and she showed me her horse. (Yeah. That's what we called it back then. Okay, just kidding again.) Nothing happened, really. We talked. We didn't even hold hands. I was nervous. She was cute. Blond. Freckled. Sweet. By best estimates, the walk out there was about 4 miles. So was the walk back. I remember being so thirsty. It was summer. I considered drinking from the canal. But lived to say that I resisted the urge.

I wonder whatever happened to Debbie Thompson. I wonder if she had kids. Got married. Is still alive. All I know is that our paths crossed and for whatever it might amount to in the grand scheme of things, we are in each other's brain. My guess is she remembers me. I know I sure remember her.

If there's one thing I've learned, though. It's this: Love is wonderful. Love is strange.

PARANOMASIA or "Yes Ma'am!"

2007-08-31T11:28:00.000-07:00

Turns out that Candace is a punster. Punster of all punsters, actually. And of course, Gawpo has himself been known, on third and long, to occasionally drop back ten yards and pun. So it seemed appropriate to delve.

The "Yes Ma'am" part of the title to this post comes from a comments interaction with Candace during which time she pretty much commanded me to post again. So, being the obedient soldier that I am, I basically said, "How high?" What I didn't want was a flank assault by Armander. When Candace says, "Dance," then it's time to do the BOSSanova. Working SWINGshift affords plenty of opporTUNEity to STEP up to the plate.

There is one other fellow Blogger who can pun with the best of 'em. I wonder what she will come up with?

Now let's just think for a minute. Where do you think puns come from? Cabbage patch is out. I already checked. Thought I'd give you a HEADS up. Got to the CORE of that myth. Not a SHRED of truth to it. And I had to LEAF through four books until I found the answer. Let me tell you, when I got there, I couldn't believe what I slaw.

See? It's not only painful. It's fun.

In paranomasial fashion, you too can amaze friends (well, soon-to-be former friends) with your clever wit.

After reading about puns, I learned something that I did not know before. And that is that a pun can be considered word play based on something other than to treat homonyms as synonyms. And you can read all about that here.

Remember Norm Crosby? I found a great quote by him that goes: "When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty."

Norm was the King of the malapropism. He spoke from his "diaphragm" and drank "decapitated" coffee. Personally---and thanks to high doses of Norm in the 60s---I often refer to the person who greets me in the doctor's office as the "perceptionist." Mr. Gawpo, Sr. was full of these malapropisms. Come on. When I can get a psychiatrist friend to double over in laughter every time I see his pager and I refer to him as an "on-call-ogist," it's all worth it. Believe me---that right there is some funny stuff.

I don't know what you would call a person who reverses the first letters of words. But that's me. Such utterances as "sockcucking, futhermucking bunofasitch" are not words I have heard anyone else come up with. Thumb to kink of it, that's not such a thad bing, now is it?

Enough about puns. Now this completely unrelated quote....

OFF THE WALL QUOTE OF THE DAY:

The following quote comes from a performer who plays the guitar and sings. Any guesses (without Google-ing!)?

"All I can think of is my love for James Taylor," he said. "Do I have every one of James Taylor's records? Yes. Do I have the Greatest Hits album that's just the white cover. Yeah. ... Do I have his latest greatest hits [CD] that has those same things on it? Yeah, I do. And, for me, the reason why James is worth it is because his music is the soundtrack of my life."

----GARTH BROOKS (ANSWER ADDED 09/02/07)

Thanks To Candace (Fidel Castro Might Be Dead)

2007-08-25T11:31:00.000-07:00

Candace brought me to realize that a post really doesn't have to be all that involved. She suggests just taking a short moment to pop in, say hello, and call 'er good.

So I says to myself, I says-----yeah. Wine ott? Short. Sweet.

This has always been the bane of my existence. This has always been the albatross that hangs around my neck. This has been my Achilles heel. I will procrastinate if I can't do something perfectly. I won't send that birthday card because I don't find just the right one. I place requirements on myself that I would never think of placing on another.

What is a bane, anyway? Is there a cure for that? Bane surgery, maybe?

So here it is, Peeps. A big, fat hello. A perfect howdy. A shout out to my favorite people in the whole, wide world.

And there will be TONS of flying pics to come.

There. Done. See ya in the comments box.

And now, the news: READ THIS

And if that wasn't enough, here it is in living color: The Fall Of Fidel Castro

Trip To The Center Of The Island

2007-07-30T18:12:00.000-07:00

I took a trip.

But, Mr. and Mrs. Gawpo, Sr. came to visit me the week prior to my flying up to the San Juans to return the favor. They drove from California to north of the southernmost portion of Victoria, Canada. Drove. In a car. Together. You do the math. My dear father is attracted to certain language. See below:

This was an inscription protesting the military action in Iraq. But overruled overruled Mr. Gawpo, Sr's attention. Nothing personal. Just business. The man is a magistrate. What should I expect?

Now, my trip...

Having departed at 3:15 Post Meridian, four minutes later I am looking back at the beautiful Yaquina Bay and Bridge. My target altitude is 9,500 feet. Because my heading is between 181 and 359 degrees (355 degrees for this flight), I must assume an altitude with an odd numbered thousand (like 5, 7, 9) plus five hundred feet. Anyone flying a heading between 001 and 179 degrees must assume an even thousand plus five hundred feet. This provides a safety margin of separation.

Nine minutes after departure and I am climbing through five thousand feet. Not quite enough for the mile high club, but nearly. The airspeed indicator shows that I am maintaining 100 mph to help engine cooling. The vertical speed indicator shows that I am taking it easy with a four hundred foot per minute rate of ascent. The heading indicator shows that I am flying slightly east of 360 degrees and that will have to be corrected by the time I complete my ascent. The artificial horizon indicates a slight nose-up attitude.

At 9,500 feet in under 20 minutes. Not bad.

224 miles to go; 1:22 minutes to get there; 160 mph (statute); and flying a heading of 355 degrees. S47 is the airport designation for Tillamook; KPFC is the designation for Pacific City. Just put the little airplane on the line and you will get there. Gotta love the GPS!

Roughly 45 minutes to Astoria, Oregon's northernmost airport. In the middle of that river--the mighty Columbia--lies the border between Oregon and Washington. Lewis and Clark were here.

In about an hour and fifteen minutes, I am already at Hood Canal. Just below me is the city of Shelton, WA. To the right is Olympia (it's the water).

Descending through 8,700. Speed is rewarded with the airframe's acquiescence to gravity.

To the left are the Olympics, a mini-8,000 foot wall to catch the great storms off the Pacific and render the locale in their shadow with the same weather you'd expect of Nevada, Eastern Oregon or Eastern Washington, all of which sport low annual rates of precipitation owing to the Cascades and the Sierras. But instead of the high desert in the rain shadow of these mountains, the Olympics run interference for a different clime: An archipelago of islands that turn the ocean into a series of connected lakes whose mirror-like surfaces can be traversed by vessels as small as a canoe. These are the San Juan Islands.

That snow up there represents billions of rain drops cheated of reaching the San Juans. Average annual precipitation ranges from 19 inches at the foot of the mountain range at Sequim (pronounced Skwim) to 27 inches at the northernmost island, Orcas.

To the left is Sequim and Dungeness Spit jutting out into Puget Sound. Off in the distance is none other than Vancouver Island and the city of Victoria. Oh Canada, Baby. Dungeness Spit is the world's longest spit into the ocean.

Destination reached! Friday Harbor. That's where you'll find OC and Quilldancer these days, you know. Because of my injured back--another story--I was not able to fly over and see them. I had to pick up the nephew and his girlfriend and beat feet over to our little island in paradise, Center Island. Little did I know on this Monday that I would be lying on the carpet, on my back, on ice packs for the next seven days.

Yes, he's a babe. And yes, he's legal. But he's taken......

.....by her.....

While Uncle Gawpo flew the airplane, Nephew snapped pics of Mr. Gawpo, Sr's boat headed back to the island with the rest of the family.

Is this not a poster-perfect advertisement? Only golf carts are used for transportation on this island. The only gas rigs are used sparingly by the caretakers to help move bigger loads for folks when they arrive with supplies. The guitar is mine, but the Nephew plays a mean "Classical Gas."

It looks like we are having chips and corn, but you'll note the bowl with the prawns that Mr. Gawpo, Sr caught. Not pictured are the remnants of the rack of lamb BBQ'ed with an amazing Sicilian basting sauce. Salad, of course, too. Pictured are the Nephew and his Grilfriend, Mrs. Gawpo, Sr., Niece (with her back to us) and her friend, Taryn, whom I addressed as "Ms. Paper." It didn't take her long to get the joke, either. Smart girl. Gawpo likes people who get his jokes.

Saw lots of this guy and his friends...

Washed of her Original Sin, the "surprise" niece enjoys some holding from her daddy. At only .75 years old, she had a great time on the island. Mr. Gawpo, Sr is adjusting his bluetooth.

View off the back deck...

This is the first one I'd seen since they were removed from the Endangered list. I took out my Bushnell Yardage Pro and ranged the bird at 27 yards...

Last photo of my stay. This is Mt. Baker pictured in the last gasp of sunlight for the day. This is looking northeast from the back deck...

This is what you see just after taking off to the north from Center Island. In a minute, my left wing will be on the east side of my route. I miss my family already...

Mt. Adams on the left. Mt. St. Helens on the right...

Home...

This is the video of the landing upon my return. My friend, Don had my car out of the hangar and was there to push the plane in since my back was still on the mend. Thank you, Donaldo!

By the power of Grayskull, I have the POWER!!

2007-07-24T15:00:00.000-07:00

This is the Logophile, and I have hijacked de blog de Gawpo and made it my own, HA!
Here is a picture I took of Gawpo at my 'puter. His back went all wocky on his vaca though, so just moments after allowing him to view my blog I gently encouraged his to do some stretching and STOLE my computer back, bwah hah hah hah hah!

K, now he is sleeping on my floor, snoring ever so gently and I must wake him to haul to town and we will eat and then I will make fly away in his cool little airplane which is how he arrived here. I must go now.

buh byee

Some Time Ago

2007-07-13T11:34:00.000-07:00

Some time ago, I said I would go dig up some photos of an earlier time. When I was in California, I snapped some pictures with the Cell Phone (sorry, Murray!) of---get this---Mr. Gawpo, Sr's screen saver slideshow. So here they are...hot off the computer screen.

To this very day, seeing this exhilerates me. I am standing next to noneother than the greatest baseball player of all time. Well, in my eyes he was. Mostly because he played for the San Francisco Giants and I got to meet him. My father took the picture with his 4X5 Poloroid and we got Mr. Mays to sign the photo. I have it framed in my bedroom. Ironically, this function took place at the S.O.S. (Sportsmen Of Stanislaus) Club in Modesto (go to Diesel's page to see the latest rating on this city's liveability). What makes it ironic is the fact that people of color were not admitted into membership at this all white club. This has changed.

Ever a Giants fan, this is young Gawpo, the model, eating icecream at Penguin Icecream. This was an advertisement shot for the business. Photograph by Mr. Gawpo, Sr.

I think this is my father's 8th grade class. Redwood City, California. Mr. Gawpo, Sr is seated in the front row, far left as we face the photo. I believe that at the very far left, but in the very top row, is Dave Verner. Dave was in the YouTube video I posted some posts ago, landing with me and the MRE on Center Island. He looks older in the YouTube video than he does in this photograph.

Closer look at the boy who would become my father...

This is my father's father, Antonino. And I believe that he is with his father, seated. My grandfather was a barber.

My Jewish mother, Mrs. Gawpo, Sr. She is with Mumino--Sicilian nickname for "Jimmy," which is what he went by. He was my grandfather's brother.

This gangster-looking gentleman is George Joseph. George is Persian (Iran). If you ever get a chance to hear the C'e la luna mezzo mare rendition on Louie Prima's "Live At Harrah's," you will hear George Joseph and his buddies whistling from the crowd. They started out in the back of the room and worked their way up. If you listen, you can hear the volume of their whistles increase as a result of getting closer to the stage. I believe this is the rendition I posted some time back. George came to Salt Lake City when my father was in law school and handed my father a copy of the album with his whistling debut. Awesome.

The Baby Gawpo

This is Dora, my mother's mom. My mother says she is not sure if she is depicted, or if it is her sister or her brother. My maternal grandmother's side is from the Romanian diaspora.

These three classy broads are wives of judges. When these gals get together, let me tell you---court convenes! At about the time that lady on the far right had her first child was when I got borned. All three ladies have very Italian sounding surnames. But that one on the far right looks a little Jewish if you ask me.

Mr. Gawpo, Sr is a photographer. He took this shot on one of our trips to Yosemite.

You Tell Me...

2007-07-05T18:24:00.000-07:00

I have no idea how this happened. Had there been a camcorder set up in the house---just some interior surveillance equipment---we would all know. But we do not know. We cannot know. Yet, there has to be an explanation. A good one.

Last night I pulled into the carport after a very difficult 12 hour shift and the 18.2 mile drive out to the homestead. The sun had not yet set. The scorching heat of the whopping 87 (or so) degree day had begun to subside hours prior. It felt good to be home.

With a slam of the door to the Ford Exploder, I balanced my mail, my coffee mug, my keys, my camera. I ascended the seven steps to the back deck. And then I saw it.

You know how when something really out of place happens and your brain has to go somewhere within its experience to make sense out of something it has never reckoned with before? Yeah, that.

My first thought was that there was now a white lace curtain draped across the double pane sliding glass door. Who could have put that there? Not satisfied with this translation, my eyes continued to marshal data to my brain, but without any interpretation of what lay before them; something had been bizzarely altered. The entire door had been shattered and thousands of crazed avenues of refracted light spat out the beautiful contortions of a patterned report about a single, mysterious moment of chaos that had taken place when the tree fell in the woods and no one was there to hear it.

"All dressed up," and thinking possibly burglary in progress, I withdrew my sidearm and mini flashlight from their holstered perch on my utility belt. Very slowly, I opened the slider until I could see into my family room, just off the deck. The Bushnells I used the day before to determine if the deer in the yard was a doe or a buck lay inches from the door. I could see my old unstrung classical guitar---propped against the stereo speaker when I left for work in the morning---now lying on the carpet. Beyond the binocs, and just in front of the TV, was the displaced magnetic disk normally housed in the base of a magmount radio antenna. Beyond that, in the kitchen, were the shoes Cindra found for me at Goodwill two years ago. I had placed them the day before, shoulder to shoulder and neatly ready for my next slide into them after the work week. Now they looked like Sasquatch had tried them on, taken one step, and then dismounted from them where they now mocked me from their new configuration. Beyond the shoes, and under the dining room table, was my Yaesu FT-2500M 2 meter Ham radio with the 30 inch whip magnetic mount antenna still attached by the feed line. For those who don't savvy radio lingo, that's a cord.

And then just beyond the dining room table, in the little entry way, lay the explanation to what had happened. Oh---and did I mention I have a cat? Her name is Carmela.

I holstered my weapon and clicked off the flashlight.

But here's the big question: How did a wild baby bunny get into the house? The doors were secured. No windows were left open, save those with screens in place.

Apart from the as yet unsolved mystery of how the bunny got inside my house, this is what I have pieced together: First, the bunny was in the house. Second, Carmela saw the bunny in the house. Third, Carmela advanced on the bunny and the chase was on. During this chase, Carmela somehow interacted with the radio equipment. I am going to assume that she was under the computer table upon which rested that radio and from which dangled its many wires (power cord, linear amplifier cord, antenna cord--or to you who know radio lingo--the feed line). When she bolted for the bunny, she ran right through wires and caught them by her legs and or shoulders and then pulled the works along with the momentum of her hunt. The radio pulled the antenna, the antenna pulled the binoculars right smack into, and shattering, the window. Caught in the feed line to the antenna, Carmela panicked and then, tearing through the house, the magnet fell from its base.

There was no blood. No fur. Just disarray and a shattered 32X78 inch sheet of glass.

So, you tell me: How did the bunny get into the house?

Oh, and that deer the other morning. It was a doe. Fat with fawn. And yes, I am now really afraid...

You have to admire Carmela's feigned feline insouciance. As if with a shrug she ever-so-cautiously approaches the guitar as if to say: "Hey, look at this. This is strange. I wonder what happened here."

Sunny California: Flight To A Baptism

2007-06-26T10:56:00.000-07:00

The flight to California was awesome. I would rather say that it was aweful (you know, like careful, wonderful, etc.) but that doesn't sound so good. I flew my friend, Summer, to Visalia. We headed out over the beach, turned right, and in less than an hour and a half we were over Eureka. Yes, I found it. But with GPS technology, it was easy. This is the plane sitting out on the ramp of the completely neglected Turlock Air Park.

Every single one of these pictures was taken with the cell phone.

Looking south at the mouth of the Alsea (Al-see, like Uncle Al) River. The headland is Cape Perpetua.

This is looking back at the Newport Airport and Yaquina (yuh-KWIN-uh)Bay. The old airplane did not have a rear window. Now I have something in common with Jimmy Stewart. Even though this particular photo was taken through the front passenger window, and you can see a corner of the rear passenger window, the plane DOES have a rear window.

This is Summer.

This is what I found an hour and a half into the flight.

After dropping Summer off at the Visalia airport, I launched north again for Turlock and tried to climb out of the 95 degree heat to no avail. But all was well

Mr. Gawpo, Sr. shared my astonishment when my stopwatch revealed that the entire 580 mile flight took only 3hrs and 40 minutes, a 161 mph average.

When I stepped from the car, I saw this very interesting ant phenomenon: Same colony, two different sands and small wood-like shavings between the two hills.

Mr. Gawpo, Sr's newest crop. A year ago, Jack my clamming buddy gave me some cloves of garlic that are multi-generational offspring of some Michigan garlic. I brought some to Mr. Gawpo, Sr. and the braid on the right is the result:

At nine months of age, and not yet baptized, my newest niece already has her California driver's license:

Mr. Gawpo, Sr's Sicilian sausage:

Cominciamo il nostro pranzo con la salsiccia ed il pollo ed i favas. Rifiniamo con l'insalata...

I love this picture of my younger sister, K. This is at the post baptismal reception. I think we should call her Gawpa...

Gawpo, Gawpa and her hubby, Rich-ERT! at the baptism. Yes, cameras in church are acceptable pre-liturgy:

The ever-on-the-edge, counter-everything, hyper-hip Nephew #1 and, to our (but certainly not HIS!) right, the beautiful and formerly youngest niece. Each is awe-ful:

One of the last known photographs of the newest niece while still in a state of original sin. I wanted to paint a big, black "O" on her forehead so that it would wash off when the priest did the pouring of the holy water. But my idea was summarily rejected by the Council of Parental Control. Can you believe that! Mrs. Gawpo, Sr in the background where she almost always is (i.e., in the cocina)...

Sunset just south of Mt. Diablo...

Ok, This Time Strawberries And Lime

2007-06-21T09:15:00.000-07:00

I didn't have time to go with what I had intended when I put that last post together. I got so caught up in putting all the clamming stuff up that I totally forgot to take down the promise in the title of strawberries and Lime. I had a full day. And since I like to leave behind the traces of my forgetfulness, I thought I'd just leave the Strawberries and Lime part in the title of the post.

After clamming, I drove to the south end of the bridge to get more salt water for my 55 gallon cold water aquarium. The aquarium is really cool. I have set the chiller to 54 degrees. Now, that's cool. But the aquarium is another post.

After hitting the beach for the razor clams, and driving to the south end of the bridge for the water, I then drove out to the Valley and picked strawberries. While there, Lime and I had a wild time exchanging camera phone pictures of what we were doing on our respective coasts. She will tell you that she lives on the "right" coast. That means, by that definition, that I either live at the left coast or perhaps, at the wrong coast. I didn't push her for clarification.

So, in the course of our conversating (got that from some movie), I ask Lime if her phone can receive photos. She "thinks" it can. Right. So then she says that it can. Yes, it can. It can receive pictures, but she has no idea how to take pictures and even less of an idea about how to send them. She suggests that I teach her. Well, it didn't take Little Girl Limers half a second to reveal her eavesdropping when she shouted that SHE would teach her mother all about it. A kid? Picture phone savvy? What's HUD spelled backwards? It wasn't long before I had received on my phone the very first phone pic Lime has ever sent. Ladies and Geltlemen, I give you......SPARTACUS!

This is where you want to go to pick the sweetest, most flavorful strawberries this side of heaven:

We talked for about a half hour. In that time, I had filled (single-handedly) about half this box with berries. I was bluetooth enabled, but had to hold the phone out of my pocket to keep the reception in good order.

This is a scale. It measures in in pounds, not kilograms (Blue and Sheila!). The price per POUND is depicted on the right. Not bad...EH?

On the phone to Limers, I described the YOOOOGE field of mint that I saw on the out to the strawberry fields (but not forever). She reminded me that when she was out here on the "left" coast, she saw mint and parsley fields. I haven't seen the latter yet. But this field was over 100 acres and it smelled divine.

Here is a closeup:

The bridge behind me spans the Yaquina (yuh-KWIN-uh) River and Bay. The rocks are visible because of the minus tide. They are not visible even on a regular low tide. Lots of critters for the aquarium out here. This was taken right after the razor clamming venture.

This sea star is doing great in the tank, eating the little mussels I picked for meals in the new home. If you look closely, you will see that it is regenerating a leg.

Aquarium teasers:

Happy in the new digs...

The fish is found in tide pools. It is called, aptly, a tide pool fish. The interesting thing about these fish is that they will feed up and down the beach, along the rocks, throughout the high tide, but will always find their way back to the very same tidepool they started out from. How do we know this? They done studies, that's how we know. (SORRY, LOGO!!! Did that make your ears eyes bleed? HA!) The clam is a cockle. There is a California mussel in there, too. Found in Oregon, though. And my favorite of all, a monkeyface prickleback eel, poised just off the top of the fish. You can see the eel's head if you enlarge the picture. Be sure to go to the link and click on the picture to see how big these fellas can get.

Siliqua Patula, Strawberries, Lime

2007-06-17T11:07:00.000-07:00

The summer minus tide series are the most extreme for the year. The median tide line is set (somehow) as zero. Anything above median is a plus tide; anything below is a minus tide. Simple logic, that.

In the winter we have our highest plus tides, exceeding 10 feet above median. Add a storm behind that and you get what they call a surge. Add torrential rains to the surge on a 10 foot flood tide, pushed by a storm and you get just that: a flood.

In 1996 we received over 20 inches of rain in the month of December. There was a 10 foot (or better) high tide and fierce storm winds helping the sea, shoving it into the mouth of the river. "Take it all, bitch" took on rare, but not unseen implications for those who live in the lower tidal plains. It flooded. It flooded people out. What couldn't move, or be moved, to higher ground was lost. Animals perished, lives were saved---both sides of that tide flowed.

But in the summer there is little rain, seldom a storm and the greatest recessions of the surf reveal opportunities both pleasant and productive. I went clamming this week.

An interesting thing about tides is that their extremes increase as you go north. In California it was a big deal if we got a 1.5 foot minus tide. Here on the coast of Oregon, we annually see tides reaching minus 2.5 feet. In Clam Gulch, Alaska they got a 5.4 foot minus tide on May 17th. Nova Scotia, I have heard tell, has the lowest minus tides on the planet, exceeding 10 feet. Wow. You could just about walk to Portugal if you could do it in an hour.

The difference between the lowest and highest points of a tide cycle is called the exchange. This month we got a 7 foot high tide followed by a 2.5 foot minus. The exchange was nine and a half feet. In Nova Scotia the exchange is 33 feet. When the tide changes from low to high, there is a wave called "the tidal bore." It sometimes exceedes a meter in height. The bore sounds the alarm that, if you are on low ground, it's time to begin thinking about making like The Jeffersons and start movin' up.

Ebbs do not tarry. Low slacks last little longer than the time it takes to make a good act of contrition. I have been fishing on the rocks and wound up getting wet when having to swim the renewed lagoons. Our ocean temperatures are somewhere around 52 degrees F.

In this video, my friend Jack taught me what to look for in order to see the clam "necking." There really isn't much neck to see. The "show" is very subtle. The clams will just ever so slightly breach the surface of the sand, revealing the rosette pattern of the larger of their two valves (hence the name, bivalve) and then disappear. Jack showed me this clam and we waited for it to reappear to no avail. After we got tired of waiting, he thumped the sand to startle the clam into action. Hopefully, you can see the perfectly round hole containing the whirling sand as it retracts its neck for an escape. The show appears just before a wave obscures it. Sorry. It's quick. I was told early on that razor clams are the only clam that can dig almost as fast as you can. You will see Jack doing battle with this notion, but prevailing in the end. Jack was a bit disappointed that the clam was not very big. I thrill to see any size. And the smaller ones, as they say, eat better.

See, Annie? It's true. Turlock is not only famous for its turkeys, but it is the home of Medic Alert:

This is Dan, the reason I came to the beach. I threw pots for Dan in 1981. He is the person who took me razor clamming for the very first time. He doesn't remember it. But I do.

This is Linda (on the left) and Connie. I met them at the beach. They didn't know how to dig clams. They were so cute with their brand, new shovels with the stickers still on them. I told them that I am the clam whisperer. After each had their first clam I said, "My work is done here, ladies. You're on your own." Every time I go, I meet someone new. I give them some good Gawpo to take home with them, sometimes in the form of getting clams, sometimes just in the form of a friendly contact. These gals got both.

I liked the reflection of that person holding the two buckets. There were about 80 clammers on the beach. On this minus tide it was a long walk to the first wave. About a quarter of a mile.

In front of the sand dollar is a ghost shrimp. I got about ten yesterday. Fried in peanut oil they are DELICIOUS! No one eats them. Except Gawpo, that is. They don't call them razor clams for nothing. Those shells are thin and sharp. I cut my finger on one and forgot about the cut until I saw a bright, red orb in the water. It caught my eye. That is the job of the color of blood. All of a sudden it burst into tendrils not unlike the grand finale at the fireworks display on the Fourth of July. I immediately began my vigil against great whites. The limit is 15 clams. I am learning not to break the shell.

It's rare to find a whole sand dollar. This is the second one I found.

On this and a prayer...

These are cool.

This is Keli, the ODFW (Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife) checker. As I was walking off the beach, I saw her checking two people headed for the parking lot. She didn't see me before she noticed three other clammers headed to another parking lot. She bolted across the sand on a dead run to catch up with them. I stepped up my pace, knowing that when she was done with them she would see me. I slowed to a walk as she turned away from her last check and when I was sure that she saw me, she started to walk faster. I stopped in my tracks, then lowered my body as though I was going to run. I started running as if I was trying to avoid her. She began running really fast. I then stopped and laughed and yelled, "That was pretty funny." She yelled back, "What---me running or you?" I yelled back, "I made you flinch." She was a good sport. The checkers ask two questions: How many and how long. My answer was: Fifteen in 27 minutes. Naughty Gawpo...

Linda and Connie again, this time with the lighthouse in the background. Look familiar, Nana-g?

Nana-g

2007-06-12T19:06:00.000-07:00

Okay, this is sort of an emergency meeting that I am now moving to call to order.

Any seconds to the motion?

(in high, squeaky voice: "I say we let him go...")

Thank you, Pee Wee. The motion carries.

But first this: I tried to do something to change something by adding something to my sidebar and guess what happened? Well, let me put it this way: I LOST MY ENTIRE BLOGROLL! Grrrrrrr......

I did not (thank you so much for pointing this out to me LIME!!!) copy and save my template. So, let me give you a little advice: Before you try to change anything, you should copy and save your template.

Nuff 'bout dat.

Now that the meeting is called to order, you should do yourself a favor and go check out my friend, Nana-g's new blog. It has been resubmitted to my sidebar, along with the others that took me until nearly midnight last night to restore.

Nana-g is way deep and way funny and way cool. I love her. She loves me. You too will come to love her. This will be instant and persistent.

Read on, my brothers and sisters. And enjoy the love.

This meeting is now adjourned. (Gavel smacking thrice upon two scoops of Tillamook vanilla bean ice cream cone for splendorous effect.)

Nana-g!
Nana-g!
Nana-g!

Eugene

2007-06-09T15:30:00.000-07:00

I have a wonderful friend who sent me Pink Martini's "Hey, Eugene." Hadn't heard of the song, but she did introduce me to Pink Martini a couple years ago. (If you're reading this, Jaimie---HELLO!)

Anyway, apart from Portland (our biggest city), there are only an even two dozen cities over 20,000 in population in the entire state. And ten of those are suburbs of Portland, itself clocking in at only a little over half a million. Second to Portland is Eugene, Oregon where 143,910 people on this planet have decided to live and move and have their being. There is little doubt that the minority were born in Eugene, but I am fairly certain that very few of them realize that the name of their city is all about birth.

Sorry, Limers---they are only counting incorporated towns and, as you could probably guess, Wagontire didn't make the cut with their two person population.

You know who used to live in Eugene? Ken Kesey, that's who. You know who else used to live in Eugene? Johnny Prefontaine, that's who.

So I got to thinking about the name, Eugene. Yes, it's Greek. But first, a few words about words.

Anytime you see the "eu" prefix, you can just go ahead and translate it as "good." Other words that come with the territory are "nice," "easy," "pleasant." Anything in that realm works. Like "eucalyptus,"---nice covering; "euthanasia,"---easy death; "eulogy,"---good word; "euphoria,"---pleasant bearing (phero means to carry or to bear, as in the weight of something), "eucharist,"---good grace (gift), "eutectics,"---good melting (potters know the eutectics of various glaze materials and often flux the glaze recipe such that things will melt at a higher or lower temperature in the kiln).

From the word, "eucharist" comes the word for thanks in Greek. If you want to say "thank you," you say: "Eucharisto." But it is not pronounced "you-kuh-rist-o." It is pronounced, ev-khat-ees-TOE." When you get to the "kha" part of the word, you want to sound like you are about to hock a loogie. It's a sort of throat-clearing from way back on the tongue that produces that "kha" sound (as well as loogies). The "u" in Greek is given a "v" sound, therefore the "eu" is pronounced "ev." And from that, you can pretty much figure out how "euangelios" becomes "evangelist" in our own tongue. The Good News---the Gospel---is "evangelion." Literally, a good message.

So in comes Eugene. Easy now, huh? You are betting that the "gene" portion has something to do with our word for "genetics." And you're correct. So knowing what the "eu" part of Eugene means, you can guess what Eugene really means. But first a few words about the words "genestheto" and "thelema."

The word for "will" (as in, To Will something to be) is "thelema." No, not Thelma. But it does sound a lot like it and so, who knows? In Greek you lengthen all the "O"s. In the Lord's Prayer, "genestheto to thelema sou" is: Thy will be done. Literally, "may it be born out [of] the will of you." It is in the genitive---"OF you." But it is not a reflexive verb, so don't worry. That would complicate things greatly.

Here are some Eugene related words: Generate, generation, genetics, genes, genealogy (and by the way, it's gene-AL-ogy, not gene-OL-ogy---one of the most mispronounced words in the language!), general---it's all about giving birth, making happen, bearing out, bodying forth, issuing from the womb of whatever.

Eugene. Nice birth. Easy birth. Well-born. You name it---if it's about coming about in a good and a positive way, then you've got a Eugene event.

In Russian, the name is pronounced "yevgenny" (hard "g" as in "Gawpo.") There is a poet named Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Some of you, no doubt, have heard of him. I came to his poems via his book "Stolen Apples." I liked the title because I stole some oranges from Sophie Rhorer's tree across the street once and went to confession for it when I had attained the age of reason: 7. Gotta love being Catholic. I generated ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys for my kakagenic idea.

When Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, he lays on them the notion that they need to resign themselves to what we, nowadays, refer to as the driving principle of: shit happens. Or, as I posted once, "Mierda Pasa." What does a General do except "make shit happen." Whatever that phrase "God's will" might mean, it sure doesn't mean anything that can be planned by us. "Genestheto to thelema sou" is not only in the dative case, it is in the subjunctive, thus rendering the whole thing: "That it might come about the will of you." There's this sense that, whatever does come about, might not be what we want to come about. It's a matter of thy, not my. And I hate that sometimes. This doesn't mean that whatever comes about, comes about as the will of God, either. But how we deal with whatever comes about---now that's what that part of the Lord's prayer is all about. You know: "God grant me the serenity, etcetera"? Does any of that ring a bell?

So, if good and caring people (such as you and me) discern what might happen to be the opposite of Eugene, namely, Kakagene (literally: Shitgene), then we need to fight to make it right; we need to take what comes and give birth to good by how we handle it. Whatever might come about, it is all we can do to pray that we will accept it as best we can and treat it as---Eugene.

Now for the entertainment portion of our program. I love this song. Crank it up. It has been viewed by nearly as many people as live in Corvallis, Oregon, just slightly north of....Eugene.

Gifts From A Friend

2007-06-04T13:40:00.000-07:00

06/07/07*****NOTE: Blogger wiped out the two pictures. Now does this post make ANY more sense with them replaced? Well? Or is it all just so much Urdo? (Whatever the heck that is, Sheila.)*****

Today I was presented with two wonderful gifts from my good friend, Deputy K. He had gone to Seattle to watch the Mariners lose to the Texas Rangers by a single, undeserved run. I am touched that he could still even think of me in his time of sorrowful mourning. Yet he did. And for that, I am eternally (in a plastic sort of way) grateful.

I have always wanted a plastic Jesus to have riding on the dashboard of my car. And now I have one. Now, finally, I truly can throw caution to the wind and not care if it rains or if it freezes. All of you who are old enough, know why. Thank you, Jason. Thank you so much.

And no, Candace, it does not say on the box whether these are left or right handed nunchucks. Believe me, I humored MuNKi and looked all over the box. What you will notice, however, are the little baby ammunition nuns at the bottom. I didn't catch it at first, but I see that the manufacturers took pains to include a Dominican (white), a Benedictine (black), a Carmelite (dark with light gray scapular) and that blue one. I don't know what that blue one could be. Maybe that's an S.N.J.M., also known as a Holy Names nun. Maybe she's that nun on the label of that sweet German virgin's milk wine that they drink over there. I've said it before on my and others' blogs, and I'll say it again right here: I am chronically beset with a strong urge to boil a kid in its mother's milk. Contrary to the Jewish dietary proscriptions of Deuteronomy 14:21, I struggle with this every day. Why do you think I took the easy route? Otherwise I'd be sporting the plastic Moses. Now I am finding myself wanting to boil a virgin in her own milk. I wonder if that is even possible. And this is just another fine example of why I should stay away from visiting Fab's blog.

At 82 years old, the performer of this next song announced the other day that he is retiring from acting. In this role, he is singing this song upon learning of the death of his mother.

The Donkey That Didn't Get A Callback For Shrek

2007-06-03T11:02:00.000-07:00

Ever had one of these days? You know, like a bad dream? Apparently, the man just wanted to use the field for nature's call. And, boy howdy, did nature ever answer.

Guess we'll never know how it turns out for the man. But I'm thinkin' it can't be good.

I hope this helps put things in perspective for you if you are having a hard day. Did I just say that? Okay, I mean a difficult day. That's better. But in any event, I do hope this brings a smile.

Yes, you do have permission to cringe.

One Flew Over The Still Cuckoo-As-Ever Nest

2007-05-30T23:06:00.000-07:00

I volunteered to come into work on my first day off this week in order to transport a severely and chronically mentally ill woman to the Oregon State Hospital over in Salem, our state's capitol city. Without betraying any deputy-patient confidentiality, I will simply tell you how this very interesting woman insisted we address her. I will also tell you that I obliged her on the request, but that it took me a while to get the name down. It's complicated. It's a formula. And it has to be said just so.

After months of languishing in a jail, she finally got a commitment order from the Court. She came in on what I like to call "the mentally ill person's criminal cocktail:" Disorderly Conduct (like disturbing the peace in other states) and Criminal Trespass II. What it boils down to is that she was being loud and obnoxious at the library and refusing to leave when told to do so by persons in control of the property.

Mrs. Doctor Attorney Jim Morrison is a very bright woman. African American, "born in Egypt," as she would cautiously disclose to me after many months, she came to jail because (and this was a no-brainer) she is bipolar. If you haven't spent any time with a person who suffers from bipolarity while they are off their meds and in their manic phase, then count your blessings. They never sleep. Rarely eat. And boy can they cuss.

On the way over to Salem, something happened that just amazed me about Mrs. Doctor Attorney Jim Morrison. She knew her music. She did not like my choice in radio (N.P.R.'s Morning Edition). Oh no. We had to listen to music. I selected an oldies station. When it began to fade as we stretched our distance from the coastal station, I changed the dial. In full-blown, pressured rant about God-knows-what, Mrs. Doctor Attorney Jim Morrison didn't break stride and quickly inserted, "Where's my Bon Jovi?" I was stunned. Had no idea she was even listening through the mental thickness of her own program. I guess I sort of recognized the song, but I was never a Bon Jovi fan. Not by choice, just by circumstance. I like Bon Jovi. I just don't know their stuff. But boy, she sure did. On one other occasion she was was talking 5,280 feet per 60 seconds and I said aloud, just to test the waters, "Boy, I have no idea who this band is." Nothing. Rant continued. So I changed the station and just like that, out pops, "That was Scorpion." Scorpion? "Oh, I said," and changed it back. A few bars into the continuing song she adds, "Scorpion is a German band."

Really? I haven't Googled it. I just believed her.

My point is this: Crazy is crazy. But I have always experienced, in clinical settings as well as in situations of incarceration, that there is a golden thread of sanity holding the mix together. Somewhere deep down in the muck of all the broken noise, human beings know they are crazy. They know their brain is not working right. And if for no other reason than that, they are always to be treated with dignity and respect.

I am glad that Mrs. Doctor Attorney Jim Morrison was taken off the street. But she doesn't belong in a jail. The de-institutionalization of the mentally ill is something this government needs to be ashamed of. I'm not advocating a resurrection of the old warehouse model. But something---ANYTHING---would be better than putting someone in a jail cell who really, when you get right down to it, is not a criminal. They are just ill. What if they put us in jail for getting the flu?

So we finally get to Salem. Building 50J. I escort Mrs. Doctor Attorney Jim Morrison through the double entry doors and, as usual, we just sit there. People with photo name tags come and go. I've seen it before. Not a single person stops to ask if we have been helped or if we need a drink of water or if we need to use the bathroom. Once you get there, you never know what to do next. You just wait like an insect somewhere close to trapdoor spider's hole. I have been to this facility a half dozen times and the same thing happens. Nothing.

So finally, a woman comes out through the iron mesh enclosure security gate and says, "Do they know you're here?" Ah. Relief. A nice person. I tell her that I never know what to do next when arriving. She says that she will call "up there" and then takes out her cell phone. She finishes the call and turns to Mrs. Doctor Attorney Jim Morrison, introduces herself and reaches out her hand. She got the response I thought she'd get---the smug look with cute African nose in the air and averted gaze. But this woman did a wonderful thing and for that I was appreciative. She welcomed my custody and smiled at her. She then told me she was the floor director. I introduced myself and she left. I got her name. I'm good at getting names.

Some minutes later, many people have come and gone through that security gate, none of whom asking if we had been helped. Eventually, a man and a woman came through the gate and sort of materialized out of the mist, becoming the people we were supposed to follow. I secured my weapon and magazines and entered. They did not utter a single word. I tried my best to get them to speak. I began to wonder if they were patients and not staff, but they had those photo name I.D.s on their blue shirts. I got the man to almost smile. Yeah, I saw the corners of his mouth start to elevate, but something reminded them not to move in that direction. And then there was that serious semi-frown they sported. I pulled out some of my best humor and he beat it.

After a minute or so, three more staff arrived. Same semi-frown. I introduced myself to them. They did not reciprocate. I had begun removing the belly chains and ankle restraints from Mrs. Doctor Attorney Jim Morrison without being directed to do so. I figured, well, if they didn't want that, they would tell me. After I cut her loose, I said, "So, are we done? Is that it?" I had to ask. I was told that we were done. "So I just go?" They nodded. There was so much I wanted to say. I had pertinent data. I knew this woman and wanted to tell them about her. I held my tongue.

I looked Mrs. Doctor Attorney Jim Morrison square in the eyes and said, "It has been a real pleasure knowing you, Mrs. Doctor Attorney Jim Morrison. I am so hoping we can meet after you are done being here." She just told me that she didn't like Jews and I told her that I appreciated her caring to share her opinion. Then I said so long, and left.

I drove across the street and took two cell phone pictures of the old Oregon State Hospital buildings. This is indeed where "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" was filmed. A security guy saw me in the cop car and approached the interior limits of the razor wired fence. I got out and walked up to him and in fine Gawpo fashion, introduced myself. He reciprocated. He was friendly. His name is Tom McD. He said that he began work at the place just a few months after the filming of the movie. "When it came out in the theaters, it was sort of funny because some of the patients were extras in the movie and it was like watching home movies." He said that the sink that was tossed out the window by "the big Indian" had been on display in the foyer of the main entrance until about a year ago. Tom said he didn't understand why they took it away, but that it is somewhere in storage. "Kinda crazy, if ya ask me," he said.

This is the east end of the old Hospital. Tom explained to me that the patients make pallets for large distribution companies. They put in a day of work and get paid for it.

The entrance to the old Hospital.

Just over the top of the car's roof are the double doors to some of the saddest examples of people in the business of helping others. They sure didn't help me. This is the new building.

Not long prior to his passing, a friend of mine saw Ken Kesey in a video store. Her continued staring was finally met with a knowing wink, "Yeah, it's me" it said, "thanks for knowing, and thanks for not rushing me for an autograph."

This video is 8 minutes long. You don't have to watch it all to get the idea. On my last trip over, though, I sure got the idea.

Louie Prima: C'e la luna mezz'o mare

2007-05-25T21:33:00.000-07:00

Since I was a little boy, this song has played on hi fidelity monaural, as well as stereo record players at Italian or Sicilian gatherings. Especially, as you will soon see why, at weddings.

The song is C'e La Luna Mezz'o Mare and there is no doubt you have heard several renditions by as many artists. But when my grandfather told me what the lyrics mean, I was a bit embarrassed. Be sure to check out the running translation in the right hand column.

Our favorite artist, hands down, was Louis Prima. I have two collections of his songs on CD. If you think you don't know who Louis Prima was, then just think back to Disney's "The Jungle Book." Mr. Prima played King Louie Of The Apes.

When David Lee Roth did "Just A Gigolo," I was delighted and astounded by how loyal the band stayed to the original. They done Louis real proud. Even the Sicilian "filler" words toward the end of the song were true to form in one version, but I can't find that on You Tube. Oh, well.

This You Tube video doesn't do Louis justice. But I love how his then wife, Keely Smith just stands there, nearly motionless and looking quite bored as all the other cools cats jumped and bounced.

In this short example of Keely Smith, you will notice the wedding ring. What a voice. What a pure and beautiful voice.

It's A Small World After All

2007-05-18T16:10:00.000-07:00

sorry, folks....comments were disabled. thx 2 sheila, MOB!

So one day I go to Blue's blog (it always seems to begin with Blue's blog) and I see this person leaving comments which appear interesting to me and I go to her page and her page is called Lisaoceandreamer and I really like that name and when I get to the page I am so totally drawn in by what she has to say and what she takes pictures of and so we start to leave comments on each other's pages and before you know it, we wind up on each other's blog rolls and then we are emailing and then one day I get an email telling me that she and her hubby, G and she are thinking quite strongly about coming up to Oregon for a little vacation and that they hoped that, while here, they would be able to visit a since-childhood friend of Lisa's and his wife and if she and G and I could all hook up for a visit, well, that would be very nice and I agreed and so I figured that her friends probably lived far away like maybe down in Roseburg or maybe even in Medford (barely in the state at all) or maybe way over in La Grande or Bend or Burns or Rome or French Glenn or Crane or Gladstone or Mist or Chemult or Clem or Drain or Post or Paulina or Dayville or Condon (not "m") or Metolius or Tumalo or Wagontire or Fossil or Bly or Shady Cove or John Day or The Dalles (one of only a couple cities whose names include a definite article like that, so I just had to use it in this sentence), or any number of other Oregon cities, so I just went ahead and told her the "town" I live in---which is really not a town at all, simply a rural area that shares the zip code that is housed in the Post Office that is housed in the last vestige of a town, the little ________ Store---and she wrote me back and said: "That's where my friends live. Their last name is _______." So I wrote back and said, "Oh! My! GAWD!!! You don't mean _____ and ____ __________!, do you?" And she said, "Oh! Her! GAWD!!! too" because yes, those ARE her friends.

_____ and _____ _________ live less than two crow-flying miles from my house. And I know them. And they know me. And Lisa and I got huge goosebumps. And we are amazed.

COME ON UP, YOU TWO!!!!

Columba fasciata

2007-05-16T21:40:00.000-07:00

I used to hunt Bandtail Pigeons. But as they say in my rural county, "Not no more." I kind of got the hint when they reduced the hunting season from the entire month of September to September 15th-30th. The bag limit also went from six birds per day, six in possession, to four birds per day and four in possession. Then the season went to Sept 15th-23rd. Nine days. And the bag limit went to two per day and only two in possession. So you pretty much had to eat what you got that same day if you wanted to go and hunt the next morning. Seemed silly to continue to hunt something that was in such obvious decline. Unless, of course, you subscribed to, "Them Fish and Game people don't know nuthin'." But I don't subscribe.

The last time I hunted was about three years ago. But it's been many years since I hunted a Bandtail. There are certain birds, however, whose flesh I have a weakness for.

I love any gallinaceous bird (just think of Pico de ______ to get where that word comes from). These birds, quail and ruffed grouse included, have white breast meat (just like Pico de _____) and dark everything else. That's because can only fly short distances. Not so much blood to keep the wings flapping as with ducks and geese and----Bandtail Pigeons, which fly many miles per day. When a quail or a pheasant "gets up," there's a good chance you are going to have to go home and change your underwear because the explode, often times right under your feet. And since Bandtails and other doves are not gallinaceous, I'm not missing much.

There are quail and ruffed grouse around here, so I suppose I may venture out again some day. But I pretty much only buy a fishing license now. Besides, look at what I get to enjoy while helping these critters.

These birds are extremely skittish. They have a routine whereby they land on the tables, feed warily, and then explode with a thunderous roar, only to return to the eating surface once satisfied the coast is clear.

You can see how I have had to rig my window to shoot the video without scaring the birds. I will have upwards of 300 birds by June. Toward the end of June, they all disappear to feed almost exclusively on
Cascara sagrada (Chittam), the bark of which contains a very, VERY strong laxative.

Two things about Bandtails: 1) as with all doves and pigeons, they are able to get the most out of a wing beat like no other bird, such that they clap their wings together on the down beat. And 2) unlike other birds---including (I believe) other doves and pigeons, these can drink water without having to hold their head up to swallow. Check it out in the video. Then go see if a dove or common rock dove (barn pigeon) can do the same thing. I will, too.

Happy Mother's Day

2007-05-13T15:52:00.000-07:00

This little angel is prepared to do battle should the scary monster come out and try to frighten her. I admire her resolve.

I found this first one on Manola Blablablanik's blog, "Sex And The Beach," (a beach upon which I could so easily play Hooky!) and promised I would credit her with the discovery. So.

And if you haven't seen Will Ferrell's short video, "The Land Lord,"then you are missing another angel straight from Heaven, Pearl.

The Landlord

If you listen very carefully, you can hear Pearl's real mother laughing under her breath near the very end. And then of course you see Pearl turn toward where her mother is hiding around the door and say, "Come, Mommy." Too cute.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all mothers and to all children of mothers as well. All you others can just wait for your own special day somewhere else.

CATCHING SOME SHADE(S)

2007-05-11T11:53:00.000-07:00

This amazed me. I questioned it. I watched it again.

This amazed me.

Human Life Is Precious

2007-04-28T16:31:00.000-07:00

It's amazing what humans do in order to preserve a human life. Unless, of course, we want to kill you instead of save your life. I am not going to argue capital punishment. Or war. This is not an argument blog. No ax. No edge to grind. I've said it before in the blog domain and I'll say it again: If I thought someone was going to hurt me, (or you) and I had to make the choice, I would do whatever I could to prevent a bad thing from happening. I would never make it in the Society of Friends.

In moral theology, the question: "When is it right to do an evil thing?" raises its beautiful head. There is a time when a person will have to choose between doing a physical evil and a moral evil. Yeah. Here's a good example: If the physician amputates a leg, that is a physical evil. Legs are supposed to remain joined to the rest of the body. But let's say the leg is infected and if it isn't removed, the rest of the healthy body will get dead. No problem. Except for one thing: If a person's body gets dead, then the person gets dead along with it. "We are our bodies," the Abbott used to remind us. His illustration was: "If someone steps on your foot, you say, 'Hey, you stepped on me. You stepped on ME.'" So sometimes you have to remove a portion of a person's body (which, while it is still is attached, is still them) in order to save the whole person. Yes, it would be a physical evil to remove the infected leg. But it would be a moral evil not to remove the infected leg.

Does anyone out there remember that SNL skit when Tony Danza was co-hosting and he and Joan Cusak are lying in bed as though they were a married couple and she starts asking him if he would still love her if she didn't have any legs, and then arms, and then she goes down the list of hypothetical amputations until she is just a brain? Yeah, that one? Anybody?

Here's a story example of what humans do each and every day in order to save a life.

Yesterday I was scanning the freqs (listening to the police/fire/medical channels) and I heard everyone screaming to a really bad crash. One patient was transported to the hospital and Life Flight was called. Very serious stuff. Lots of police, fire and medical responded to the scene, medical took calculated chances by driving really fast to the hospital, and the helicopter crew took calculated chances flying over to get the patient to be taken to a trauma center in Portland. But the helicopter pilot couldn't get into the landing pad at the hospital. Fade in/fade out. Part Deux....

So I'm sitting at the light and I see a helicopter flying low over the bay. At first I think it's the Coast Guard helo, but this one is red, not orange. Putting two and two together, it occurs to me that Life Flight has been dispatched for the patient associated with the really bad crash and that this is the Life Flight crew looking for a way around the marine layer that just showed up in the previous 20 minutes or so. I watch as the pilot flies west, then reappears in a steep bank and heads east along the bay and river, still flying low.

I was on my way to my own airport (a bit inland) to put the plane away from my earlier flight. When I get to my airport, here sits out on the ramp that big, red medical helicopter. I chat up the crew and get the pilot to help me put my airplane to bed. The pilot explained that the fog kept him from landing at the hospital and that the ambulance will bring the patient to the airport. Then it dawns on me that I am the only person who has a key to the airport gate, located about 80 yards from the aircraft. I go open the gate so that the ambulance can drive right up to the aircraft. Wow. I get to help! AND I get to witness what all these players train for.

Serendipity:

1) Later, after I show up late for dinner at my friends', I explain where I had been all this time. One of my other dinner guest friends explains that he had actually come upon the dust of the crash just as it was happening, but didn't witness the actual crash.

2) I had been flying earlier in the day with another friend (the one who has the green airplane---see pics, earlier posts). His wife is an intensive care nurse at our hospital. Her brother is an E.R. nurse in the same building and treated the patient from the crash at the hospital.

3) I had a flight lesson planned that did not materialize. Otherwise I would have pushed my plane into the hangar hours previous to all of the action instead of leaving it out. But because I left it out, I had to go put it away.

4) And because I had to put the plane away, I drove to the airport where I got to meet the helicopter pilot, check out all the cool flight instrumentation and witness the transfer from ambulance to the big red bird. AND someone there happened to show up with a key to the gate. HELLLLOOO!

No matter the circumstance, human life is precious. We can shine when we want to.

So, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it. Here are some pictures.....

If you want something to happen when you're filming, all you have to do is turn the camera off. And that is just what happened while I was waiting for the chopper to lift off. The instant I hit the "off" button, the RPMs roared to full throttle. By the time I could turn the thing back on, the bird was about 30 feet in the air. The prop wash was so incredible! I will never stand this close on a gravel surface again. But if you want a really inexpensive skin peel, this is all you'd have to do.

Four Minutes Of Healing And Hope

2007-04-18T19:39:00.000-07:00

Take four minutes to listen to this song. Watch the guitar players in the background do something on their guitars that will hopefully do what it did for me, namely, restore perspective and bring meaning to the human experiment.

The singer is Jackson Browne, showcased on David Letterman's Late Night. The lyrics are good. The singing, excellent. But what touches me is the "totality of the circumstances." That is usually a cop's phrase to articulate what was going down and why certain decisions were made. The performance of this song is a totality of circumstances, a collage. This is human beauty.

We will never know why someone would want to spray bullets into the bodies of fellow human beings, in the manner that took place in Virginia, in any manner whatsoever. If we did know why, then that would explain it. And I don't want that. No one wants that. I'm working on just trying to explain the resurrection. That's more than enough. Making sense of what is good in life is enough. The other stuff, well...it's maybe just to be endured.

Here's a song to help bring it all back just a little bit:

Happy Easter: Liturgy, The Work and The Vernal Equinox

2007-04-15T13:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, here's how it happens: I have a blog. I find out about another guy who has a blog and his name is Sean. I go to Sean's blog and there is a gal named Cora who goes by Mayden's Voyage or just Mayden. If you want to read some thought provoking stuff, go to Mayden's Voyage; if you want to see the cutest adult in braces, go to Mayden's Voyage. So I'm reading Mayden's Voyage and I see Corn Dog whose blog is titled: "Rubber Corn Dog." And on Corn Dog's blog, I see the following You Tube video. But of course, it can't just be a short post about a bunny doing something funny. This is an Annal Of Gawpo, folks. So you can peel off after the video that shows the cutest bunny trick I've ever seen (the bunny attacking the snake wasn't a trick---that was pure bunny balls!), or you can read some stuff about Easter after the show.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE BUNNY!:

IN HONOR OF CANDACE, A DIFFERENT BUNNY. WATCH OUT FOR THIS ONE!

DEFENDER BUNNY. DEFINITE EASTER IMPLICATIONS HERE, FOLKS:

I didn't post anything in honor of Easter on Easter Sunday. I worked on Easter. But I celebrated Easter. Wait. Let me clarify: I am continuing to celebrate Easter. And let me clarify something else: I didn't work on Easter in order to make Easter better; I worked at my job. To make money. Instead of going to church. Get it?

Easter falls on a Sunday. Which Sunday becomes Easter, Gawpo? How do they pick which Sunday to have each year's Easter fall upon, Gawpo? Well, I always assume that if I know something, then everyone knows it too. So those of you who were aware of the celestial formula, please pardon the appearance of the pejorative. It goes like this (but only in the Western Christian Church, not the Eastern, and I presume, not in the Northern or the Southern, either): Easter always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. "Equinox," you might have figured rather easily out, means "equal night." Just look at the word. Simple. It's like "what's HUD spelled backwards" it's so simple. Now I don't know what the word "Vernal" comes from, but I would hazard a guess that it has something to do with "green" or "verdant" (which has something to do with green, doesn't it?). I'll cheat Google'y later.

Now for the liturgical implications of Easter. If you are an espouser of Christian belief, you buy into the rumor that a man got dead at the hands of other men and then, after three days of still having gotten dead, got alive. But no one ever talks about those three "tweener" days. I'm sure there are books and articles, but I haven't read them. This is not the place or the blog for further speculation.

The resurrection narratives have always fascinated me. Especially the one where Jesus joins two of the disciples as they are walking along the road and the two guys don't recognize Jesus until after. I love that. Makes me try harder to recognize people when I am talking to them.

But this isn't a religious blog or a spiritual post. This is just a didactic pursing of the lips about how, in the Western Church, Easter Sunday is chosen and the Easter Season begins.

With Easter Sunday begins the Easter Octave. That's right, Easter is celebrated for a full eight weeks. That is why I am not late. It's still Easter, folks. Today is only Sunday in the second week of Easter. I'm really almost still early if you look at it in a procrastinator sort of way.

And no matter what you believe, believe this: Earth IS the best planet in the whole world and you are alive on it and you are joyful on it and sad on it and hopeful on it and struggling for hope on it and you are loved on it. If you are reading this, you are probably known to me in some small fashion, and are therefore loved by me in some large fashion. This is what liturgy means literally: The Work Of The People. And the work is love. That's what St. Benedict puts forth in his
Holy Rule for monks; that's what work is for G.I. Gurdjeiff; that's what work IS. Read his Fourth Way some time. You will love it. You may even work it.

When one amateur radio operator talks to another amateur radio operator, it is called "working." You "work" each other on 20 meters. You get to know each other. You talk as much as you wish or until the band closes you down. It has its own rubrics; its own liturgy. It's Easter on the radio. It's being connected and saved from being not connected.

I work each and every one of you right here on my blog. And, being worked by you, I work. It's about the work, you know. It's about really livin'; it's about recognizing that God walks along with us as we discuss all the events that have come to pass in recent days.

Happy Easter. Hope that works for you.

Ps, then Blue Made Me Do This (I Think): Thinking Blogger Award

2007-04-09T11:11:00.000-07:00

I'm not very good at links. Most of you know that. So don't be disappointed when you click on this Thinking Blogger link and it takes you to itself, but on a different page. Oh well.....

So, instead of just speaking of things, I will be speaking of
thinking.

Thinking of thinking, here are some defining thoughts on that topic:

Idea: the content of cognition; the main thing you are thinking about; "it was not a good idea"; "the thought never entered my mind"

Thinking: the process of using your mind to consider something carefully; "thinking always made him frown"; "she paused for thought"

The organized beliefs of a period or group or individual; "19th century thought"; "Darwinian thought"

Opinion: a personal belief or judgment that is not founded on proof or certainty; "my opinion differs from yours"; "what are your thoughts on Haiti?"

Speaking of Haiti, I had some thoughts on Haiti when I was there with the MRE on that cruise we took back in November. I remember thinking, "Wow. This is nice. This must be what Florida is like, but with colder water. Wow. Can't wait for that sumptuous spread they'll be putting out for lunch. Wow." Those were my thoughts on Haiti.

I have been MEME'd by Ps and now by Blue. I am honored twice over. I am at once moved, and moved to thought.

In Greek, the word for "Thought" gets arrived at thus: Literally, "Through the mind" (dianoia) or "In the mind" (ennoia). Here we go again, folks---it's that word "nous" again. For Theilard de Chardin, the noosphere was nothing short of "a planetary level to the evolution of the cerebral cortex in humans." The mind---the human mind---is a sphere of its own. We all share in this sphere and we all contribute to its growth through evolution when we venture forth by forming (which in and of itself is PER-forming)our thoughts. The Thinking Blogger Award recognizes this. I recognize this. Literally, "I know it again" as I am re-cognizant of this.

So here I sit, poised before the poison of having to choose. I have to decide. I do not like to decide. Ever. The word "decide" comes from the same word "scissors" comes from----it means to cut away (de-cisio). When you make a decision, you are usually forced to cut away more than you cut for.

I don't like this having to choose thing. I love all those assembled, so thoughtfully chosen, in my blogroll. ALL of those names represent their own uniqueness. So really, I am not excluding anyone. Diesel makes me think. Mr. Fabulous makes me think. Quilly, Kat, Brookie, Murry, Vicci, Lisa and on and on and on till the very last.

This just in: The rules for this Thinking Blogger Award include tagging people. Well, I'm officially not tagging the five blogsters mentioned below. Part of that rationale stems from the fact that two of them have already tagged me. Sean has just gotten tagged himself.

As with Blue, the following five choices are not in any order other than numerical:

1. When I think of who makes me think, I think of
Ps. Ps is a woman who thinks, expresses her thoughts and then makes you think. Ps lives in India. Apart from the fact that gravity in India pulls Ps toward the same center of the earth that gravity in Oregon pulls me toward, I have no idea what it is like to live in India. But I will say this: Ps is filled with the kind of thoughtful gravities that pull me to the center of Truth. She has a way about her that exudes love and that coats all her readers with same. Not only that, but from her body emerged two wonderful beings. The Boy Being calls me Uncle Gawpo. I will be making him think more as he grows. Right now I am sitting on the plans for a killer potato gun that I am just sure will make his Uncle Gawpo proud (if not perhaps also slightly bruised by my Blogger Nephew's mother...).

2. Sean makes me think. I have no idea what Sean really does for a living, but I kinda sorta have this notion that he is out there in the world teaching people military stuff. But Sean thinks. When he sees something, his tendency is to bring meaning, or to ask questions. He is a typical exception to the rule. Now just go and oxymoron your way out of that. I came to know about Sean's blog through another blogger who, sadly, felt that I had become a bit of a threat. I wish she knew me better. That's all I'll say about that. But through her, I got to Sean. And for that I am a very thankful man.

3. Paul is the author of a blog that consists of poignant visual drinks of humor and, at times, mirthful ponder. You go there, you view, you think. Then you come away enriched and replenished. I love going there. Paul sees. And you will enjoy his vision. There is a simple quote, a picture or cartoon, and presto: You're hooked. Going to Paul's blog will make you think.

4. Blue The Spa Girl inspires. That's what she does. Literally, (what did you expect!)--she enspirits any visitor to her thoughtful blog posts. Blue is soul- and life-giver; she is God's gift to Generosity itself. Blue is a eucharistic wafer, a symbol that contains what it actually symbolizes---she is sacrament. Her flaws, I am certain, cannot outrun her capacity for self forgiveness. She is a joiner in the process of what becoming human is all about. There are just some things you know about your friends. And I just know that Blue stirs thoughts like the Little Dutch Boy stirs paint.

5. Somehow Somewhere Joe comes to mind. When I think about how my nose is connected to my right middle toe, I think about connectivity with the tissues that travel seamlessly along the fabric of our family of bloggers who share so much of their selves through the ideas expressed in their blogs. Somewhere Joe calculates beauty and accurately reveals it through his pictures, his music and his unbelievable adeptness with the written word. If I were blind, I could hear him; if I were deaf, I could read him. If I were numb, I could still be touched by him. Somewhere Joe lives in Florida, the geographical equivalent to at least the Christian and Muslim notions of Heaven. What could be better than being in Paradise and playing Hooky in Paradise? In Somewhere Joe I have met my brother; I have met my other self. In terms of the mind-blog continuum, it is as though I have peered out into space and, landing on Joe's page, have gazed upon the back of my own head.

I doubt that I will again accept any tag that involves choosing. Simone Weil cited as her one reason for not converting to Christianity the fact that she would therein be asked to exclude all other expressions of the Truth. I'm kinda like that. Don't get me wrong: I'm a card carrying Roman Catholic. But I pray in everyone's church. And, as a Thinking Blogger, I will just award you all with that. I reverence The One True Truth in each of you.

Thank you, my brothers and sisters. In the name of all that is trying to get put together, I thank you; I think.

I leave you with this Gawpoistic pearl of 21st Century mystical exclaim: "Earth is the best planet in the whole world!" Now go think about that.

Hey Man, Now You're Really Livin'

2007-04-05T13:34:00.000-07:00

This is about "The Whole Thing." You know----life. Whether it feels good or hurts, it's "The Whole Thing." And when you take it as it comes, you come to take it for what it is---"The Whole Thing." To be really living is to embrace and to let go. Although I'm not going to post "Turn, Turn, Turn," the Old Testament had it right: To everything, there is a season. Seasons of laughter, seasons of tears; seasons of confidences, seasons of fears. It's all about really living. Right?

I love The Eels. Prior to her telling, I had never heard of them, but thanks to Cheen-druh! my life is once again enriched. This first video is actually Mr. E himself in what appears to be his rather humble digs, filming himself and singing along with himself because, as he explains, the group spent all their money producing their album. Can anyone tell if he is the one who posted it to You Tube? I think there are a few postings and I just happened to grab this one. The author is listed as: "Officialeels" and when you click on the link, it takes you right to their other You Tube videos. You are going to love his dogggie. The whole thing is simply heartwarming; the video, the lyrics, the whole thing.

For Cindra, who played this song for me over the cell phone last year.

For Blue

For Joe

For Logo

For me

For all of us here....that we may really live; this is my prayer:

This second one is moi, trying my level best to do another Eels song that I just love. Ladies and gentlepersons, Railroad Man...

******This Just In*******

I just got back from a visit to Blue's Blog. And I just can't believe what she has posted there. Okay, I really CAN believe it, but wow. When you go there you will see what I am talking about. Because of what I just read there, I am coming back to this post and am adding a second song that I just posted to You Tube this evening, but which I really didn't think to add here tonight. The lyrics speak for themselves. And for Blue. And for me. And for all of us. Melancholy, I think, is when you shake up the Etch-O-Sketch of life and start turning the knobs all over again.

Here is "Things The Grandchildren Should Know":

P.S. Mr. Gawpo, Sr is not dead. He is alive and well and cooking eggplant. But the line in the song reminds me of the inevitable. Right now though, man, he's really living.

Anachronisms: Sometimes They Somehow Work

2007-04-01T16:48:00.000-07:00

No one could have seen this comin'. Yeah, it does work, but somehow it works like, like......well, like the second one:

2007-03-30T13:11:00.000-07:00

Hi, it's chikken...formerly known as Cindra...and still often referred to as Cheendruh...

I have jacked Gawpo's blog to bring it to your attention that this is the day we celebrate the birth of Gawpo! Could you imagine the world without a Gawpo to grace us with such wit and wonder? I couldn't. So, here's to the world being a "much more funner" place with Gawpo in it.

I love you, bro. Happy Birthday

Two Landings, A Song, The River

2007-03-24T21:55:00.000-07:00

It is a work week. I don't get much time to blog, especially when I sign up for overtime on days off. So I apologize for not getting around to everyone. As I begin to get into the study portion of my Instrument Flight Rules rating, I will have even less time. But I will do what I can. Between work and studying for the Practical Test Standards Knowledge Exam (awkward, but that's what they call it), juggling time for the blog will be interesting. But I shall prevail!

After reading this, please cruise on over to Diesel's page and try to come up with a caption more brilliant than Gawpo's. You'll see what I mean when you get there. Candace, did you ever go back and leave one after going away to think about it? Hmmm? Keeping you honest.

Here are a couple landings and a song. Then some fog. G

Landing Runway Three One (we don't say thirtyone. that's why the short lived television drama, LAX didn't last, i'm just certain. the first time i heard heather locklear say "on runway twenty-two" i knew it's days were mispronouncedly numbered.) About an hour ago someone posted a comment on You Tube regarding this video: "You're a funny guy," he says. Yeah. If he only knew the half of it...

Every time I land---and I hate to say this because I don't doubt my skills---I feel like I have cheated death. I feel like I just walked out of a classroom where I took the year end final exam. I become a bit giddy. A bit up. But without a desire to ride a horse (Joe, Candace and Lisaoceandreamer will get that one).

The aircraft is my 1962 Cessna 182E Skylane. It has a whopping 230hp engine. Much more umpf than the 175 in the following video. Cessna likes to name its various models with a word following the word "sky." Skylane, Skylark, Skyhawk, Skymaster, Skywagon, etc. Then there's the Skynight (twin engine) and the Stationaire (holds six people like a stationwagon. get it?)

This is the approach into Center Island in the San Juans. Seated to my right is Mr. Gawpo, Sr's childhood (and since my own childhood) friend, Dave. Seated in the rear and filming with her own camera is the MRE (most recent ex). At one point on the approach I moved the camera which was resting on the glare shield (not the dash!) and decided to put it back where it was. This is my first airplane, a Cessna 175 Skylark which had, coincidentally, a 175hp Teledyne Continental GO-300-A powerplant. You can hear me say, as we are taxiing, "Thank you, Dear" in response to the MRE's compliment, "Nice landing."

This is nothing more than a huge potential for embarrassment. But what the heck? I didn't do a bunch of takes; left all the mistakes in there; and I can hear the notes I miss. I love this song. But I love and trust my blogger friends enough to "expose" thus. After the IFR rating, it's off to voice lessons. I'm serious.

By the way, Joe. I'm in my underwear.

So....

Finally, here is a less than one half minute video of the view to the south over the Siletz River where the fog forms each and every morning, becoming as I like to think of it, a hovering spirit-river of sorts. I had no idea the crows would be audible. I wish I had let the tape roll longer. I promise more in the future. I am standing on my new roof.

Gawpo's Anatomy: Mierda Pasa

2007-03-20T13:38:00.000-07:00

When I was nine, and just prior to being uprooted from California so we could move to Salt Lake where Mr. Gawpo, Sr. would attend the Univeristy of Utah School of Law, he sold the two pharmacies and we took a little trip. No, not along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip. But to Seattle. The World's Fair was happening.

We drove up in the white Plymouth Valliant station wagon and had a ball. But not everything went according to plan. My baby sister, on the cusp of becoming a toddler, cried so relentlessly that my parents decided to take the elevator back down to street level after we had waited for hours to get into the Seattle World's Fair's signature attraction, the Space Needle. The decision was made when it became apparent that little Baby Gawpo was drawing enough attention to indicate that she was vying for first place in the department of signature attraction. I remember being up there just long enough to discern that we were indeed rotating, but not long enough to fill the windows with a completely new view of the beautiful city and the lights out on the Puget Sound.

Yeah, I know. Another story of the Gawpos waiting in another line for hours, just like we would find ourselves doing in a couple months when waiting for J.F.K. to go around the corner on two wheels.

On our way back from Seattle, Mr. Gawpo, Sr. decided to dazzle us with an alternate route back home. So we got on some road that took us to Eastern Washington where we visited friends in Ellensberg. These folks used to live in Turlock, but moved a couple years prior to our 1963 visit. When we got there, one of the sons had jumped from the haystack out in the barn and impaled his knee on a deer antler. To be sure, a ruminant's revenge. The kid's name was Chip. His brothers and some friends had pantsed him in the barn to investigate the severity of the wound. So when they brought him into the house, each arm over the shoulder of a concerned helper, I was wincing along with the tune of his pain. Chip was in so much pain that, when his mother reminded him that he was only in his underwear and the neighbor girl was seeing him like that, he said with a very pained look on his face, "I don't care." Wow. Now that is the definition of pain if ever I'd seen it. A 12 or 13 year old boy not caring that a girl see him in his white jockeys. There they were, out in the barn just trying to have some fun when something else decided to happen.

We left our friends and headed home, down Eastern Washington, Eastern Oregon on Hwy 97, and then on whatever highway takes you through Susanville before connecting to Hwy 99. Did I-5 exist back then? I don't recall.

Just a few miles outside Susanville it began to snow. Hard. All I remember before kissing chaos is our father yelling, "Hold on!" He raised his arms and braced himself on the headliner of the Valliant. We left the roadway across the right shoulder after spinning a 360 on the now slick highway. We rolled two times. And then one half time more. All I remember after coming to rest is the huge silver camera case that housed Mr. Gawpo, Sr's 4x5 Poloroid camera setup and its accessories. The camera case seemed to freeze as if in still frame just prior to falling on my legs. We were inverted and all was now a matter of discovering what was at the end of the anti-rainbow. It was eerily quiet. No one cried. My father's muffled voice called out a question about whether we were all right.

The baby got a tiny bump on her forehead. My younger-by-two-years sister got a huge knot on her forehead and a swollen nose when she brilliantly used them to knock out a side window so we could escape. My father had a small scratch on his forehead. My mother had a severe whiplash. She would be flying the flag of her injury, the flesh colored neck brace, for months after the crash.

The next single memory I have after exiting the overturned white vehicle in the field of white snow was that single spinning rear tire. Many years later, I would be keenly reminded of that vision in the film, Fargo. I ran to the roadway and immediately flagged down an eighteen wheeler. My father had told me to flag someone down. So, taking the directive to heart, I stood in the middle of the highway, caring not that I could be further inconvenienced by death and flagged that semi down. My father and oldest younger sister rode with the trucker. Mrs. Gawpo, Sr. and I got to ride in the CHP car along with the baby. I remember the sound of the police radio. And the heater. Already having been hooked similarly by Cheerios, I was here hooked on the goodness of cops.

The mural of the story? Mierda Pasa. Things happen to us that we cannot control. Or maybe it's a case of the Universe spinning us into what appears to us an unintelligible control of its own. See Blue for the explanation on that one.

The baby's cries brought an end to our hopes of eating in the Space Needle. I don't know where we went after landing on the streets of Seattle, but whatever it was, it became what was for us, the next meant-to-be.

Chip was just having some fun, and he wound up perforated, pierced, his arms outstretched across two pairs of shoulders, crucified by happenstance and a luck for which he had not bargained. His perizonium exposed and the usual attendant embarrassment temporarily suspended by the greater grip of his pain.

The happy family enjoying the rare spectacle of snow, smacked in the face by the rude logic of physics: lack of traction plus velocity plus momentum plus inertia plus what Newton says of gravity: "That nostalgia in things to become spheres." Rolling twice in a car and surviving can round anyone out. This became the only time in my life that I can remember my father calling my sister and me to his side, tenderly beckoning, "Come'ere." We walked to where he sat in that little chair by the door at the cheap Susanville motel, our mother proned out on the bed and unable to move her neck. Then just looking at us in silence for such an uncomfortably long time, I finally had to ask, "What do you want, Dad?" "I just wanted to look at you," he said. I didn't get it then. But now it's all too clear. We were out of control and alive. We had parents. We were still a family. Lesser events have killed many. I am grateful beyond measure for the deepened appreciation that has come with disappointment.

Mierda pasa. And when it does, sometimes you need to pay attention to what happens next. Life can rip the shirt right off your back just as easily as it gave it to you. I have so many more great memories over what happened after something didn't go according to plan than I will ever begin to have over the things that did.

Sometimes, I guess, you just have to wear your pants a little higher, that's all. Come on, cadets are marching. So, as Linda Ellerbee used to say, "...and so it goes."

Little Blue Riding Hood: Stan Freeberg

2007-03-17T02:50:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have never even heard of Stan Freeberg, you might remember him as the guy who did the Chun King commercials in the early 60s. Okay, never mind. But the guy was funny.

When we were little, Mr. Gawpo, Sr. had a 45 (rpm implied; you never said "rpm") of this video you are about to give a listen to. Because we were too young to know, our father explained that there are in this recording lots of references to the McCarthy era, people being investigated for their affiliation to communism: The Reds, they were called. Hence, the color has been changed to prevent an investigation.

My sister, K and I can recite this record verbatim. Including the flip side which I could not find on YouTube: St. George And The Dragon Net.

Both sides are parodies of Jack Webb's then radio only "Dragnet." This predates television, folks.

"You just played a hunch. Is that what you're trying to tell me, Joe?"

Have fun.

National Corndog Day In The Key Of So

2007-03-16T17:13:00.000-07:00

So it is once again that time of year: Aircraft Insurance Premium Renewal Time.

So I get the envelope with the form to fill out, letting the company know HOW many hours in type, HOW many hours in this make and model, HOW many hours as Pilot In Command (to date, 473.8), WHEN my last Medical was (if you are over 40---ahem---you have to have an FAA approved physician poke and prod you every two years. Prior to 40 it is every three years. Discrimination!!!), WHEN my last Biennial Flight Review was (in order to maintain a pilot's license you have to fly with a Certified Flight Instructor at least once within a two year period to demonstrate proficiency in whatever ratings you may hold), and a bunch of other impertinent, totally unrelated busybody stuff like have you had any DUIs or had any aircraft crashes, etc.

So I open the envelope and pull out the cover letter. It is signed by my lovely and helpful insurance policy broker person, Kristin. Kristin. Right. You just did it too, didn't you? You parsed the name and then went and looked up the periodic table of elements symbol for tin. Didn't you? You didn't? Well, I did.

So I call Kristin and she is busy with another customer right now and would I like to leave my number and yes I would and so I do and what was your first name, and it's Gawpo, and what is your last name, and I'm like: Puh-shaw, lady---how many Gawpos can there possibly be, so I give it to her. And then I tell her my last name. (rimshot)

So Kristin calls me back and when the area code from THE BIG WILLAMETTE VALLEY flashes on my phone's amber display, I launch out in a sing-songy candence similar to Carey Grant but without the accent from 'Ull: KRIS-tin, KRIS-tin, KRIS-tin, KRISTIN! with a double crescendo on the first syllable of the last Kristin.

So in the course of our conversation I tell Kristin that she could from now on just sign all her correspondence, KrisSn, explaining that Sn is indeed the symbol for tin in the P.T.O.E. She is delighted to have this information, as you can well imagine.

So we chitchat and I ask her what she's planning for her weekend, this being Friday and all. And she goes on to inform me that what she is going to be doing for the weekend is a little thing called "The Triple Double." "The triple double?" "Yeah," she says, "You eat 10 corndogs, drink 10 beers and consume 100 Tater Tots." She went on to explain that tomorrow is not only St. Patrick's Day, but National Corndog Day. I did not know that. I was not aware of that. On a fluke I ask KrisSn what she is going to be doing on her weekend, and she tells me about something that could change my life. The Universe is like that, I have come to learn. You have to ask. Or just look. Or just pay attention. It's all there, people. And in plain view. That, right there, constitutes not only reasonable suspicion, but probable cause.

So this concept is no longer just something that legally permits the cops to kick your door in after seeing the plant in the window. No. It's OUR permission to take hold the horns of the bull that is the Universe.

So all this over the pretext of finding out how much I'm going to have to pay to insure my airplane? Yep. KrisSn makes sure I know that there is NO WAY she can put down a hundred Tater Tots. The beers and the dogs, no problem, but that many Tots? Not gonna do it. Not prudent at this juncture.

So when KrisSn mentions that you have 10 hours in which to accomplish the three feats included in "The Triple Double," I get excited. I rarely get excited. I am normally very mellow and sloth like. You can even ask Cindra. But here I get excited and blurt out: Oh My God! That means that if you consume the 10 beers at a rate of one per hour, you could legally drive home because alcohol metabolizes, on average, and in a healthy liver, at a rate of about .015% BAC per hour. (Tell 'em Brookie!) And I'm really excited here because this is a field of expertise and training and experience and stuff, so I continue: "UNLESS!," I go on to caveat and, just for good measure double up on that last word, "UNLESS! you are a woman. And it gets even worse if you are a premenstrual woman." (Watch it, Rusty Nails! Don't be shouting any 'Ah-Ha's 'I told you so's.) Did I punctuate that correctly?

So she goes, "Really? Unless you're a woman? And premenstrual?" And I'm like "Yeah," and she's all "whoa" and I'm like "totally" and she's all "get out!" and I'm all "true story." And we stopped there because this was a serious business call about insurance.

So I explain to KrisSn that there is an experiment that you can actually perform in the comfort and privacy of your own home. All you need is one average sized man and one average sized, hopefully premenstrual, woman. Then what you do is you hang them up by their wrists, probably over the tub in the bathroom or over plastic in the garage, and you cut a hole (same diameter) in each of their big toes. Doesn't matter which one, you just want to be sure that you make it both left toe or right toe for consistency. Then you drain out all the blood. NOW, and this is important, you pour precisely measured ounces of beer or denatured spirits into the buckets of drained blood. It does NOT matter which beer or denatured spirts you choose, but please people, just be sure you use the same kind for the experiment. Say you pour ten ounces of Grey Goose into the bucket with the man's blood. Okay, well you just pour the same carefully measured amount into the bucket with the woman's blood.

KrisSn quickly sees the logic. She too becomes excited and screams out the answer: "The bucket with the most blood will dissipate the alcohol, thus rendering a lower Blood Alcohol Concentration! Right?" Yes, KrisSn, you are right.

So after giving her the experiment, KrisSn says, "But ew. That was sorta gross because I had the visual." I commiserate, telling her that this one always makes me feel rather sick, too. But people, knowledge does come with a price, now doesn't it?

So does airplane insurance. This year's premium: $1,061. But that is for a full year. Not bad, I think. Not bad at all.

So after we hung up, I addressed the envelope with my information form inside:

Courtesy of Diesel, here is a rotated version of the envelope. Thank you, Diesel!

I Am From (Courtesy of Lime)

2007-03-14T02:39:00.000-07:00

I am from the double pane window looking south, from Smoker Craft and ABU Garcia.
I am from the house on a hill in the woods, sequestered, yet visited and warm.

I am from the red alders, Douglas fir, both BLUE and sitka spruce, the cascara sagrada whose bark, if licked, will give you the runs. From the thimbleberry, elderberry, salmonberry and salal, stiff and waxy and as noisy as drums when going on walks where no road ever led. I am from the trillium that appear later this month.

I am from pizza from scratch, cuccidatta and the fig trees that fill them, pignoles, ossi di morti and matzo pancakes. I am from putting up olives and from kissing each other on the lips, yelling and forgiving, laughing and singing, from Carmelo, Carlo, Alfredo, and Gus, from Emanuel, Dora, Sadie, Babba and Jakob.

I am from the family meetings in our one and only bathroom and sitting around listening to The Brothers Four, Louis Prima, Bellafonte and The New Christie Minstrels.

I am from don't play with matches and "Oh, I suppose you can go swimming in the canal."

I am from being Jewish but becoming Catholic. From the ancient solemnities of rubric and rite. From incense and mystery and sharing the cloud. I am from near ordination and anguish over decisions to leave or pursue. From a best friend in Rome who put it like this: You've got 15 reasons for leaving; 14 for staying. And on such shall the greatest decisions be made.

I'm from Salt Lake City and Camporeale, Sicily, Romania and Russia, pesto and homemade pastas, from fruit leather dried in the hot Valley sun.

I am from the time my father responded from his drug store to the bank's clever robbery alarm, then winding up staring down the barrel of a gun, the walking on crutches after spraining his ankle when he turned to escape getting himself dead from a good deed done.

I am from all the times our mother just sat there thinking in silence when we pulled into our driveway after going to the store as we waited for her in our own meditations, wondering what she was thinking now that we were home.

I am from the oversize album still under the bed, from enlargers and cannisters piled in bags. From courtroom antiques and pharmacy jars and the full mahogany bar we yanked from the old Del Puerto Hotel out in Patterson (apricot capital of the world).

I am from the three meter board and meets as far south as Merced and as far north as Lodi. I am from watching my sister hit her head on the board on a reverse somersault in pike. And from a deep thankfulness that sharks are not prevalent in pools. I am from challenging for trumpet first chair. And winning only once, by default.

Since I am LINK restricted on this computer (MAC), I can only refer you to Lime's blog for instructions on how to get to the site where you can follow the formula for this sort of post.

***THIS JUST IN*** Thanks to Lime for posting the link in the comments. You're beautiful, man. Don't ever change!

***THIS JUST IN*** Thanks to Paul, I have changed browsers to Firefox and can now link and load.

Not to disappoint, here are some shots from today's flight with friend Don who was kind enough to fly me over to Newport to get my plane out of hock. Due to a hangar door malfunction, I had to impose upon the good folks at "the big airport" for temporary digs. We are in Don's Piper Tri Pacer. You will notice the undulations in his plane's "skin." It is a 1940s vintage aircraft and back then, they were only covered with fabric. Really, really strong fabric.

MARY'S PEAK. STILL SOME SNOW. DON'T PLANT THE GARDEN TIL IT ALL MELTS OFF. CLICK ON THE PICTURES TO ENLARGE. THE LONG WHITE STRUCTURE ON THE RIVER IS THE OREGON OYSTER FARMS. YOU CAN SEE THE RAFTS WHERE THEY GROW THE OYSTERS.

IN THE DISTANCE, CAPE PERPETUA

YAQUINA HEAD AND LIGHTHOUSE, THEN CAPE FOULWEATHER, DISCOVERED BY CAPTAIN JAMES COOK

THE BOAT WAS SPINNING COOKIES WHICH MADE A NICE EFFECT WHEN HE ADDED THE "STEM" BY DRIVING OUT OF THE WASH. COME HOME JACKIE. COME HOME BROOKE.

For Somewhere Joe, for Kevin Williams; for Rick Watt: Kenny Rankin

2007-03-11T19:22:00.000-07:00

I bought my first guitar in 1974. Yes, I have been playing guitar for thirty-three years. And when I bought my first guitar, I was twenty.

The guitar was, and still is, a Yamaha FG-110. The guy I bought it from was Rick Watt. Sadly, I don't know if he still is. This is a story about unpiad debts. Not only because I owe it to Rick for ordaining me with guitarage, but the price of the guitar was $70 American and I only had forty at the time of the exchange.

We did the deal in the choir loft of St. Bernard's Catholic church, 615 H Street, Eureka, California 95501. If you speak Catholic, you pronounce it BERnerd's. Not berNARD's. Don't know why. But same holds true for St. Bernard of Clairveaux. The only time you get to say it the other way is when you're talking about the dog with the brandy around it's neck and only when on a rescue in the Alps. If it's a rescue, say, in Utah's Uintas, however, I think you have to revert to the Catholic way. Just to piss off the Mormons? Again, dunno for sure. But if I were you, I wouldn't take any chances.

So Rick and I are sitting in the loft of St. BERnerds and he flips the guitar over and shows me the battle scarred one piece back. "It's not pretty," he says. "I've hitchhiked across the country with it; ate my lunch on it many a time. But it sounds good."

And it does sound good. Still.

I handed Rick my forty clams and he said I could pay him later. Some day. Somehow. But I haven't seen him since.

I think of Rick each and every time I pick that guitar up. And because Tom is seranading Cindra on my Martin D-35 right now, I am picking up the Yamaha FG-110, and my debts to Rick, a lot.

When I flew down to Redding in January (see my earlier post), the purpose was to attend Kevin's eldest son's wedding. Kevin, when asked, said he hadn't seen Rick either. He even called around to some of the other folks who had worked at the Catholic Youth Organization camp where I met Kevin and Rick. No word from Rick. No way to pay him his thirty bucks. No way to hear his beautiful Kenny Loggins-like singing voice.

Kevin taught me how to play my very first song: John Denver's "My Sweet Lady." He also taught me the second song I ever played: Kenny Rankin's rendition of the Beatles' "Blackbird." His interpretation of that song is very slow. Very sweet. Right there and then I was introduced to Kenny Rankin.

Kenny Rankin is from New York. Maybe Paul has seen him walking around the streets where Francis the dog remains ever vigilant for Fifi (see Paul's current post). Recently, Rankin was featured on BET and he cut a DVD which yours truly truly had to purchase. As Linda Richman would say, "Like Buttuh!" Johnny Carson fell in love with him so much so that he invited him onto the show 20 times. TWENTY TIMES.

If you have met up with the beauty that is Kenny Rankin, then please welcome into the fold, along with me and Somewhere Joe and Kevin the Godsent stylings of beauty incarnate.

And Rick, if you're listening----Dude, I owe you thirty bucks. Along with more than you will ever possibly know. Thank you, Rick. Thank you so much. You too, Kev.

Kenny will be playing at Jazz Alley on March 27/28. You who live where the bluest skies you've ever seen are, should do your Seattle Asses a big favor and get them to Jazz Alley on at least one of those dates.

This is a closeup of the interior of the sound box. I got this picture off the net. Not my guitar.

THIS is my guitar. The FG-110 that I still owe thirty bucks on...

Zoom in for a look at the sticker. Finding out they were still in existence, I emailed McCabe and Camp. They haven't seen Rick either. And they want to find him even more badly than I do. Seems he still owes them thirty bucks for the guitar. Ain't life strange? (Okay. Just kidding about Rick still owing money. The author apologizes for his character flaws.)

Yes, that is an Alamo amp. And yes, that is my trumpet case.

If she could speak she would be saying, "Gawpo, could you please help me with my zipper?" "Oh yes my love," I would reply, "Especially since after all those girlfriends you have helped woo into my life, you have more than helped Gawpo with HIS..."

YOU'D BE SO NICE TO COME HOME TO...

ROUND MIDNIGHT...

One of my top five Kenny Rankin favs....Pardon Me, Haven't We Met

I Have Been Tagged By Ps

2007-03-11T18:24:00.000-07:00

3 things you should know about the number 3
1. That first is Peeing
2. That second is Pooping
3. That leaves my favorite. But I really only NEED # 1 and # 2.

3 things that scare me
1. Mr. Fabulous
2. Diesel
3. That last booger (to quote Woody: It was the size of a BUICK)

3 people who make me laugh
1. Mr. Gawpo, Sr.
2. Spike Jones
3. Mr. Fabulous
4. And as Ps said, you can't say it all in three: Diesel

3 things I love (the three Fs)
1. Flying
2. Fishing
3. 'n #3 from above. But again, I only NEED #1 and #2

3 things I hate
1. War
2. Ringworm
3. Urethral discharge

3 things I don’t understand
1. Simple math
2. Mr. Fabulous
3. The ending to Mulholland Drive

3 things on my desk
1. My new iMAC with, as Juniper Rhoades explains it, its 52 inch screen (it's really only 24, but as it is it gives me a sunburn.)
2. Carmela, mi gato nuevo
3. My ham radios

3 things I’m doing right now
1. Respirating
2. Listening to the rumblings of my peristalsis
3. Leaning back in my chair and looking over my shoulder for my mother (that never goes away).

3 things I want to do before I die
1. Become a human being
2. Fly to Friday Harbor in hard IFR
3. Fly to Friday Harbor hard (which I am certain being able to fly in instrument conditions will no doubt bring about) Then, when I get there, maybe some #3.

3 things I can do
1. My trick with the pop cans (and yes, Paul, they are empty)
2. My other trick
3. Make people smile. Especially service people and complete strangers.

3 things you should never listen to
1. Self doubt
2. George W. Bush
3. George W. Bush

3 things I’d like to learn
1. How to drive a car with my eyes closed (longer than 20 miles this time)
2. What a woman means when she says, "No. I'm not mad."
3. How Somewhere Joe does all that music and movie stuff

3 favourite foods
1. Tripe
2. Squid
3. Tendon

3 people I'd like to tag
1. Juniper Rhoades (to get her ass back to blogging!)
2. George W. Bush (so that maybe I could finally listen to him)
3. That hottie at the Dutch Brothers coffee stand over in Corvallis. Suh-MOKIN' HOT!