Unabashedly liberal

Watching the presidential debate tonight reenforced my belief in the progressive liberal worldview I hold.

I believe that a healthy, peaceful and successful society provides for the common needs of its people.

But what are these common needs and how does a society implement them?

The second part is easier to answer. Government, particularly representative democracy, I feel is the best way for providing for a society.

The first part is a longer answer. I believe a society (through the government) should provide for defense from foreign threats, national disasters, and domestic terrorists.
I believe society should invest in science and technology and the education of the citizens from preschool through college to understand and use the developments that come from that research.
I believe that a society needs to provide for the safety of citizens with a well-funded and well-trained police, fire, paramedic forces.
I believe a society should provide for the health of its citizenry through a national health service for physical and mental health. I believe in protecting the environment through strong personal and corporate regulation of pollution creation and removal.
I believe a society should do all of these and more in order to have an educated, healthy and innovative citizenry. I do NOT believe we should leave this to individuals to fight for these protections. We need to all work together fighting for the greatness of the society and help raise all citizenry to a place where they are safe, healthy and contributing to the common good.

and if this makes me a heartless commie bastard, so be it.

Apples vs. Man

We have decided on a tradition of making and giving preserves for Christmas gifts.

so each year we go out and pick a ridiculous amount of fruit. We made peach jam this summer. Now, we are tackling our apple pickings.

Apple butter is in the slow cooker reducing as I write. Apple pie filling was madeclast night, though some sealing problems, so we'll be eating some pies and cobblers now instead of through the year.

Jelly, sauce, and dehydrated is what's left on the agenda.

I really enjoy preserving and storing food. Good practice for the apocalypse.

Attempt #1287 at writing a blog

I just want to type some words that explain my day, my thoughts, my experiences. Do I want people to read this? Well, being famous from blogging would be cool, but being a personal, private diary is tempting, too. Somewhere in the middle is where it will end along with all other dreams in life, never the pinnacle but never the depth of bottom, either.
In the world of me since last we spoke, h was born. Number 2 is in the oven. I was promoted at work, the wife quit her job and I need a root canal.
I will 32 next week. 2^5.
I have only started formulating real, attainable life goals instead of fanciful daydreams. That may take me nowhere.

gardening

one of the reasons we bought a house with a decent yard is gardening.

my inner hippie wants to grow his own food and lower the carbon footprint of our household.

so this year i built three 4x12 raised beds on the south end of our yard.  here's what they looked like this morning:

the bottom one has tomatoes and broccolli that are doing really well.  peppers and eggplant that haven't loved the wet weather. 

the middle has chard, cauliflower (which has been fantastic!  almost a peppery taste) carrots, beans and peas that have overwhelmed the trellis at the end.

the top one has been success and failure.  tried watermelon, cantaloupe and squashes that all died in the cold wet june we had.  the brussell sprouts and zucchini have thrived though.  the pumpkin is starting to take off.  the cucumbers on the left side have been uber slow to grow anything.  so i filled in the empty spaces with lettuce, spinach, beets and radishes.

the tomatoes are ridiculuously huge with tons of flowers on them:

this isn't the only food we are trying to grow in our yard, either.  we planted 2 apple trees and 2 plum trees.  a strawberry patch that is doing quite well.  carla was mad i wouldn't let any strawberries grow this year, but we want the plants to grow strong the first season so next year it's berries galore!  trying blueberries, but i don't think i have the right soil for them.  raspberries and blackberries along the fence line as well.

next wife convincing project:  our own bee hive. 

i'm petitioning mother nature to never make it above 90 in portland again

Image via Wikipedia

we are in the first hot stretch of the year.  which means my first miserable stretch of the day.  98* yesterday and i'm not talking the nick lachay band!  who were awesome by the way.  and today looks to be just a little cooler.

here's the breakdown for how miserable it is:  i sweat standing still in the shade!

i sweat easily as it is.  i prefer it to be colder.  i wear shorts to work year round.  even in the snow.  i don't need anything to make my sweat arrive more quickly.  and yet when the mercury gets over 90 i can't even go outside without hating myself and cursing all of existence.

the plus side of oregon heat?  no humidity.  it's not like massachusetts or minnesota where you stick to everything and taking a shower is pointless because there is so much moisture in the air you can't even get dry.  when i was there, i couldn't even tell if i was sweating or if it was just the humidity.  the suck.  total suck.

Image via Wikipedia

if this is the consequence of climate change, i vow to the world to take up al gore's tarnished megaphone and give that powerpoint presentation until my voice gives out. 

i proclaim to the world that if that's what it takes to get everyone to pay attention to their carbon footprint, i will make millions off a book and dvd and nobel prize. i will. so help me God.

coasting it up

my wife posted about this daytrip before i could, curse her desk job with plenty of down time!
wait, i'm on my weekend.  curse my sleeping in and desire to do nothing!

tillamook ice cream was the purpose, goal, unified theory of everything of this trip.

and we succeeded!  cake batter for me and peaches 'n' cream for the lady.

the frozen dairy seemed to be everyone's reason for being at the factory.

you had to stand in a line just to order your cream and then a separate line for actually getting your ice cream.

but it was freakin delicious.

we also bought some pepper jack, garlic cheddar, cheese curds, summer sausage and fudge.

we ventured another 6 miles west and hit up the ocean.  it was extremely windy.  and not just windy but windy as in having to brace yourself against gusts so you didn't fall over.  i used the bloggie a bit chasing a seagull around.  we took a lot of belly shots of the lady, so hannah will see what her first trip to the ocean was like.  it was also like 80 and clear skies, so the wind made it actually really nice.  we walked on the beach for awhile taking pictures and listening to the waves.  you decide the cuter couple:

next blog>>

since i haven't been much a part of the blogging community in a while, i thought i would just click the "next blog>>" button on the top of the page and see where it takes me.


just going by the 100 or so blogs i've seen over the last couple days there are a few "genres" of blogs on blogger:

• mommy
• bicycling
• christian
• AA
• artists
• and combinations of the above

i have come across very few blogs that are what i think my blog is and what i remember blogs being 8 years ago:  random posts about random topics sprinkled with metacognitive musings and existential angst.

does everything have to have a theme now?

what if i don't want a theme?  i never had one before and i was a semi popular blogger (couple hundred hits a day in my prime).  and it's not that i am looking to become popular and be linked on fark.com or anything.  i really just want an outlet for my thoughts.  something to release the built up mental pressure.  good drugs are just too hard to find, so i'm stuck here.

would i like people to read this and find it enjoyable and just spend all their time gushing about how brilliant i am and telling everyone they know about how i changed their life?  well, yes, of course.  but that's not realistic.  i'm not willing to put in the effort to make that happen.

i'm a "don't try too hard to succeed, just wait for your name to move to the top of the list by attrition and/or by another's success" kind of person.

it's been keeping me at a nice level of mediocrity for a good decade and a half now.

don't know what i'm doing

so yesterday we got a bloggie in the mail.  it is a little handheld camcorder.  it does full hd, has a swiveling lens, and is pretty sweet.  i spent quite of bit of time playing with it yesterday.

with a kid on the way and youtube videos bringing in $150,000 i thought i should jump on the vlogging bandwagon.

we will see how well i do keeping this regularly updated before i jump into putting videos on the web on a semi regular basis.

of course, this will probably go like all my other hobbies (including this blog at one time) and i will get sick of it after i dumped a few hundred dollars and six months into it.  things that have gone this way that last 15 years or so: woodburning, card games, computer programming, painting, guitar, photography, botany, videogaming, online gaming, writing, going to college, exercising.  and then there is the list of hobbies that i thought were interesting but i was too lazy to even start doing at all!

currently hobbies that i do on a semi regular basis:

• home brew

hobbies that i have the equipment for wish to do regularly:

• bonsai trees (bought 2 from trader joe's.  starting 3 from seeds.  bought 3 books)
• blogging and vlogging.  (so far so good)
• making my own wine (need to convince the wife it is worth the start up cost)

so the world is filled with possibilities and i am overflowing with potential.

author's note:  i need to work on finding my voice again here.  this posts are too short and too boring.  need to focus.  need to reread old posts.   need to read blogs i used to like.  need to reread stephen king's "on writing" again.  need to not suck.

clearing out the nextflix queue

while i enjoy not being productive, watching tv and movies requires a large amount of my mental attention.

i've rocked out 3 documentaries and one movie this morning.  before we get to may marathon, i have to say i love the netflix streaming combined with the wii.

i never tried out the streaming before because i don't really like watching movies/tv on computers, but with the wii disk i can do the instant streaming on my tv!  the little screen of a computer (i know, they make massive widescreen monitors, but f that.) just does not cut it for me.

don't judge me:

the auteur is a movie about a porn director.  it was filmed here in portland.  one of my coworkers also has a bit part in the movie.  only one line, but closest i come to knowing a moving pictures actor.
i gave it a 4/5 on my netflix.

i.o.u.s.a. is a documentary about the federal debt and how screwed we are.  it's kind of a lovefest about fudiciary responsibility.  also, george w bush ruined everything good and holy that bill clinton managed to create during the 8 years of americas golden age.

food, inc. is basically a book report on fast food nation and the omnivore's dilemma.  while i enjoyed both books and the movie of fast food nation was pretty good, i didn't really learn anything new.  or have my viewpoint changed:  we, as a society, are fucked.

nerdcore rising is a docu about the nerdcore subgenre of hiphop.  it follows the "king" of nerdcore, mc frontalot.  it seems that nerdcore is filled with white geeks that have an ability to rhyme.  and to rhyme about geek and nerd topics:  computers, internet porn, magic: the gathering.  basically the things that would make a top 10 list of my interests.  i did not even know this genre existed, but it is now my favorite genre right behind acoustic surfer indie and just above indie bands with hot female singers.

POW! 3 updates in a week.

so yesterday was the organic brewers festival in portland.  6th annual.  meet up with shakes and sarah and proceed to drink lots of organic beers.  some good.  some not so good.

my favorite was the oakshire chocolate porter.  nice creamy body, not a lot of chocolate, the roasted malt was almost burnt.  it was excellent.

a few of the runner ups:  ambacht's golden rye,  fort george's spruce ale (made with REAL pine tree!), laht neppur's peach hefeweizen, roots' gruit kolsch.

here's this year's program so you can see what you missed.

the weather was near perfect.  70s, sunny, slight breeze.  got a nice tan action.  carla got a nice sunglasses burn.

we had gyros and elephant toes (like elephant ears, just little pieces) and mint lemonade.  it was quality everywhere.

there was a large field with a stage at the end.  the bands were pretty decent.  especially the one that came on 5pm.  target for tomorrow.  or it may have been i was totally drunk by that time, but the music moved me to dance.  carla, of course, mocked my total lack of rhythm.  but it don't stop me.

what? friends can listen to "endless love" in the dark.

so the ultimate goal if we ever win the lottery is this:

we buy 10+ acres and build a super-efficient-as-off-the-grid-as-you-can-get house.

i'm talking geothermal/solar/wind energy. rainwater collection for gray water uses. crazy composite materials for insulation and building materials. next generation glass that hasn't even been invented yet.

just crazy off the grid.

except for cable. probably satellite. there's no way to not have internet/200 channels.

a couple of the acres will be dedicated to grapes. we will have our own vineyard. i have to support my habit somehow.

we will also have goats. carla likes goats. and i like goat cheese.

it will be modern day house on the little prarie. with a 60" tv in the living room.

until i have millions or a sizable down payment on this rural utopia, i'm stuck living a suburban "lite" version:

we have raised beds that providing vegetables (though, we need to work on our raise from seeds program, failure this year. had to buy already grown)

planted 2 apple trees (braeburn and granny smith), 2 plum trees (stanley and italian).

strawberry patch, blueberries, raspberry and blackberry canes round out the fruit selection.

and we have chickens! we have 4 chickens. 2 rhode island reds and 2 orpingtons. they are not old enough for egg laying yet, but they will get there. and then i will be eating the freshest eggs possible!

just living the pseudo-hippie dream...

rantsandraves 4.0

well, it has been a little over 3 years since i dropped an update on this bad boy.

there was a time when this was an important part of my identity and life.

roughly may 02 to july 03. then another string of updates nov 03 to jan 04 then a sputtering of posts and vows of perserverance of returning to blogging greatness. ok, mediocrity. but i have ambition!

so, that ambition is back. i will have a less rigorous standard to hold myself against this time around (read: lowering the bar again!).

3 updates a week.

and by a week, i mean monday through sunday

they could be mon, tue, wed or fri, sat, sun. or some crazy combination of any of the 3 days of the week.

(35 crazy combinations possible. n!/(r!(n-r)!) where n is number of days in a week and r is number of posts per week.)

so now that's out of the way, here's what's happened since we last spoke (importance, not chronological):

• we're having a baby!
• i got married to carla
• we bought a house in beaverton, oregon
• both sisters got married
• youngest sis had a baby and made me the Godfather
• promoted to merchant at trader joe's--one step from management and no more shitty hours
• added a second dog: maltese/poodle mix
• backyard chickens!

oops, i forgot about this for a month

updates:

i saw stomp last night at the keller auditorium in portland. it was awesome. besides the crazy percussions with brooms and buckets and paper and clapping, they also do comedy routines and audience participation. it was very cool.

all the cast members had fairly well developed characters, too. there was the leader dude, who looked just like mumbles, if any of you remember mike heylin. this little guy, the "newbie," was the comic relief. he was very good at it.

overall, i'm giving the preformance an ****/**** four out of four stars and a thanks to carla for taking me there.

BIGGER UPDATE:

i am going to minnesota tomorrow for a few days because my younger sister katie is getting married on saturday!

totally crazy right? quite. once i left minnesota and got trapped in massachusetts, i missed out on seeing my sisters mature. i keep thinking of them as my little sisters from high school or junior high. and now one is getting married in a few days and the other is engaged--with the date set for next march!

so i'll see you in a week when i get back with a new brother

i feel bloggy

this past weekend carla and i went to the beaverton farmer's market.
we bought some fresh asparagus, radishes and lettuce.

and on a whim, we bought a whole bunch of plants. vegetable plants.

broccoli, tomatoes, squash, zucchini, cucumbers and peppers.

so after dropping those off at home, we ran to home depot and bought a bunch of soil and turned these plastic bins we used to move into a container garden on our porch.

we already had some peas and spinach and herbs and carrots growing that carla had planted earlier, but now we are up to a full-fledged garden.

i'm excited about it because i haven't had a garden since i was living in minnesota.

every summer on memorial day weekend, we would plant the garden with tons of vegetables.

there was always a time during the summer when we would have these huge massive salads for lunch on weekends that were made from just stuff in our garden (except for the cheese and baconbits!). or cabbage and ham soup at the end of the season when the cabbage ripened.

it makes this apartment feel like home just a bit more.

sipping vinho verde

as a sip my second glass of the effervescent portuguese white, i will now espouse my thoughts on alcohol:

1. i love it.

2. i love almost all forms of it.

3. i like learning about it.

my adventures in oregon have been showing me that oregonians like there booze.
between the wineries and the craft brews and the bars on every corner in downtown portland, alcohol flows freely here.

i also work in a store that sells wine and beer. so i feel that, in order to be most effective as a knowledgeable tj's crewmember, i should know about wine and beer.

and experience is the only true teacher.

this is what i have learned about beer:
hefeweizen is my favorite kind of beer.
sam adam's summer ale maybe the best seasonal brew i know of.
i like fruit added beers. which may make me a fruit, but i'll accept that.

what i have learned about wine:
i don't like reds with most foods. i like them on their own or with sweet things.
i like white wine with food.
i like going to wineries and drinking the samples.

i have yet to tour as many breweries and vineyards as i would like to, but it is still early in my time here, so my plan is to...

oops, i need another glass...

spider-man 3

i've been waiting for this movie to come out for a couple months. since i saw 300 (which i absolutely loved) this is the movie i have most wanted to see.

the action and fight scenes and special effects and the look of venom were all awesome.

the dialogue was a bit hokey and forced.

i liked the acting and the range of emotion was good, especially by the dude that plays harry. i like him.

but it feels like they crammed way too much into the movie. they could have kept out the gwen stacy story line or kick mary jane to the curb for the whole movie. the sandman sentimentalism was a bit too much. (is sentimentalism even a word? my spell check says it is, but i don't know about that...)

it was worth seeing, but i'll probably be ok with that being the only time i ever see it.

3/5 stars

new era

with blair, clinton and chirac all out of office now, all my favorite world leaders are out of power now.

which is too bad, because it seems like the world is shifting towards more conservative, isolationist and authoritarian regimes.

mainly that's too bad because i feel that's the opposite of where we need to be going in world politics.

the justifications we (the us, nato, the u.n., the e.u.) used to get rid of slobodan milosevic, liberate east timor, intervene in sierra leone, and now the belated call to dafur are righteous and morally correct.

those that live in free, prosperous democracies have a mandate to spread those ideals of liberty and justice to everyone.

for two reasons: one, security. if a small nation has a vested interest in democracy and world-wide free trade, you are less likely to see hostile military action or extremism take hold in government. two, it is the right thing to do.

putting aside everything that went wrong in iraq, if we would have used this reasoning to oust saddam and we used this as a first principle for planning our military action, i think fewer people would have been opposed to this from the start. i know i would have.

america is still the richest and most powerful nation on the planet. maybe even ever.
and that is fantastic.

but we need to let the world know that even if it's for our own selfish reasons, we will step in and force the tyrants out.
monroe doctrine, ww1, ww2, marshall plan, serbia, america has a track record of doing good in this world.

we cannot let a setback like iraq keep our country from losing the faith in our ability to be that beacon of light of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

happy birthday dad!

the dad-o is 46-o today-o!

happy birthday!

hope whatever you two empty-nesters are doing is fun and exciting with no children at home to get in the way of getting wicked drunk on your birthday, dad!

organization and time management

i am pretty good at keeping organized and managing my time when i am at work.
i get things done right away, i keep my inbox clean and i'll write myself to-do lists when i have more than i can keep straight in my head.

but at home, i'm lucky if i can remember to shower on my days off.

and it's not that i don't want to be organized and efficient. i'm just a procrastinator. i spend a lot of time calculating how long a task will take me and then i start it at the last possible second.

but, invariably, it ends up taking longer than i estimated or i get distracted by the tv or internet or a kitty that needs a good head scratching.

or i say i will take care of it on my days off. which leads to me sleeping in, taking care of the "honey-do" list posted to my bathroom mirror and me reading/watching the internet/tv/newspaper.

what i need to do is import the time management tools and techniques i use at trader joe's into my personal life.

i need to step up and keep my life in order. i want it to be that when i wake up in the morning that i look at the house and say, "damn, i have nothing to do. let's go watch a movie or sleep another 5 hours." instead of saying, "ok, if i sleep two more hours and watch this movie while i do laundry and dishes, then spend 15 minutes cleaning the bathroom then 5 minutes in the shower, maybe i can squeeze in enough time to get gas before i have to be at work."

which, of course, leads me to not doing half that stuff and praying that i don't run out of gas until after work.

so why don't i just make myself to-do lists and calendars and all that jazz of highly efficient people?

because it feels like work. i love my job, but i can only do so much work in a week. and 98% is used by the job that gives me money. so i don't have the motivation or will (ok, i do, i just don't use them) for chores and the like.

but i will.

tomorrow.

retail

i have probably mentioned this before, but people say some of the strangest things when you are working in retail.

take this for example:

on sunday, probably 3 or 4 different people asked me where a product was located. so i told them and walked them over to the right aisle and shelf.

"oh, you've moved this. it used to be over there."
"it's been here as long as i've worked here, and i've been here since january"
"no, it was over there the last time i came in"

now, either the last time they came in was last november or they are thinking of a different trader joe's or they're idiots.

yes, we do move stuff around and it may switch shelves or move over a section, but for the most part, we don't move entire aisles around.

these people think we do this stuff on a whim, but do you know how much work it is to empty a whole aisle and move it to another part of the store?

a shit ton. that's how much.

it's ok to admit you don't remember where something is or that you are thinking of another store or you haven't been in for awhile.

but i do not appreciate when it is my fault and our problem for you not being able to open your eyes and think for yourself.

don't get me wrong, i love my job. and i love customers. i wouldn't have a career without them. but for the love of God, think, people!