March 9, 2010 by mike.

   This past week I was in Washington D.C..  June was attending the mid-winter NCAI conference.  Me, I was hanging out at the Starbucks playing on the computer*.  I finished-up and left.  Walking back up Vermont Street, there is a building that cantileveres out to the sidewalk. supported by brick columns. They are maybe twelve foot tall. As I was walking up the incline toward those posts, a person popped up from behind each of the first three pillars. The choreography of their appearance and movement back out of sight appeared orchestrated.  At the speed of light, in a small confined area, a memory came to me.

   Many years past June and I & our kids were hiking the Garden Trail in Glacier Park.  We had just come out of the trail segment called the Alpines and were on a straight path with an uphill slope.  Then out in front of us, at spaced intervals from piles of rocks, appeared three marmots.  When we approached, they each went back into their borrows.  The two instances immediately meshed.

   I didn’t want to spill my coffee, so I held in the real laughter and only grinned and chuckled at the synapsisical correlation.  There are people who will smile over the happenstance of such things.  Others will believe the correlation to be arcane.

   But, to this old country boy, walking down a big city street.  It just cracked me up.

* See posting March 1st 2010

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March 1, 2010 by mike.

   It’s not often that someone jacks up my corner of the world, hoses me down and cleans me off.  This time I have ended up in Washington D.C.  When these things do happen I am sometimes surprised and other times irritated by the life that I have been inserted into.  The current reason for my irritation is that here in the nation’s capitol I have been forced into paying for a wifi connection to the Internet.  How rude!

   There have been a few places where I have also been forced to such measures.  Some high end hotels (which is a jerk-off), airports (which is a rip-off).  And now even a Starbucks!  It is not that I am a total provincial.  I have been to casinos, and hotels around the country (some high end others less so), in an airplane, even a piddly KOA on the prairies of Montana and have had free access to the Internet.

   I will  admit that I have been spoiled.  I am from the leading edge of the continent. Progressively, culturally and geologically,  The city of Portland is covered with free wi-fi, as is the airport and hotels.  One can even sit out in the open air and commune with the ether.

   In any case here I sit huddled against the back wall in a D.C. Starbucks, wondering weather the home office knows that this little pissy franchise is charging their customers for something the hometown folks (Seattle) wouldn’t dream of putting up with.  There is something of interest that I have learned.  Internet is a proper noun, that is what my spell check tells me.

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February 19, 2010 by mike.

   I mentioned before that the things that interest me might not be of interest to anyone else.  However, I did find something that should be of interest to everyone.  For quite awhile I have been aware of the dangers of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS).  It has replaced sugar, such as cane sugar or beet sugar in almost all of our processed foods.

   The producers of HFCS maintain that there is no difference between the two products.  A new paper by Dr. J. Mercola lays out just what those differences are and how they can affect the body.  He puts forth just what and how fructose reacts with the metabolism to in general screw you up.  Right up front it contributes to obesity, high blood pressure, elevated triglycerides and LDL, and in general has negative effects on the entire body.

  Dr. Mercola in the article explains the basic differences between the way fructose and glucose are metabolized.  And it is not pretty.  Glucose is used by the body almost immediately with only a small percentage processed through the liver.  While fructose is processed entirely in the liver.  A full thirty percent of fructose is stored as fat, and contributes to a long list of unhealthy wastes that do not do very much except to cause your body to deteriorate.

   The body is a complex unit and has evolved with a set of it’s own checks and balances.  It secrets one hormone that tells you when you are hungry and another that tells you when you are full.  When one eats foods with fructose the hunger hormone is not shut off and the full hormone is over ridden.  Hence, the obesity epidemic that has it’s roots way back in the last century, when HFCS was first introduced to the American diet.  It, also, is a big old fat contributor to diabetes.

   This really is an ugly thing.  If you care to learn more or even become really really scared over your diet.  I would suggest that you read his (Dr. Mercola’s) article titled “Sugar maybe bad, But this sweetner is far more deadly”.  I originally found it at the Huff Post on the 17th of Feb.  He also has a website mercola.com.  This is  important information and goes along way to answer the question “how can I have diabetes? no-one else in the family ever did”.  Read the paper and then check your diet.  You will see that since the introduction of the massive amounts of High Fructose Corn Syrup has been added to our peoples diet it is no wonder we are constantly sick.

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February 18, 2010 by mike.

   Out here on the edge of the tall timber/clear-cut my life moves at a pace consistent with nature.  I take notice of the things around me and the energy involved.  As an example. Day before yesterday I was buzzed by a bumblebee, unexpected, and neat.  It was a wild native bee, cute like something from a cartoon or a greeting card.  A couple of weeks ago a bobcat drifted through.  There is a game trail back in the brush from the edge of my property line.  It was a good looking animal.  The sound of his footfalls followed him on the trail.

The same day I saw the bumblebee I had decided to try to smooth out a pot hole in the drive.  The clay underlying the gravel pushes up when it gets soaked.  The depressions get deeper, the clay gets greasier and the hole gets deeper.  Well, I stepped out onto the porch to survey the job and startled a small flock of chickadees, bathing in the hole.  Then came a brave blue-jay.  He ruffled his feathers in the puddle, then pecked at some gravel, strutted around as if to challenge me.  Off he went as a pair of robins flew in.  Well,  I could hardly drain the bathtub that wouldn’t quite be neighborly.

As can be seen I live an easy going life.  So can you imagine my surprise when I went to my home page and saw a date beneath my blog line.  What a calendar? No, it didn’t change.  Well, I might take my time with things.  But I am not slow.  So there it was.  Now, every time I pull up Salmon River there is the date of my last post.  My life might be fun for me.  But, how will I ever come up with enough material that is interesting to others?  The Stress

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February 8, 2010 by mike.

   June is on the Tribal Council with the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, as such she goes to many meetings and gatherings for the tribe.  The result being that I either tag along or act as a chauffeur.  We usually end up at a Native American casino.  I very seldom throw any money into the machines or put money on the card tables.

   My dad was a pretty good gambler. In his latter years he settled for playing the nickel slots.  That was his adrenaline rush.  Me, I have never been a person who tries his luck against a stacked deck.  I’ve even worked in a casino, both as floor staff and as a dealer.  Because of that, I KNOW that the machines only pay 20% of the time.  Beyond that I KNOW, that with a six card deck at blackjack there is a 38% chance of beating the house.

   This doesn’t really stop the fools who want to believe they are winners.  You just can’t buck the odds and expect to walk away a winner.  But, it feels good for them when they do get Lucky.  As for me every day is a gamble. I joined the Marine Corps and came home from Viet Nam alive, and in one piece, Lucky.  I got out of an ill advised marriage, Lucky.  I’ve never been in a car accident, Lucky.  I’ve smoked now for fourty years and still don’t have cancer, LUCKY.  Eat red meat and pasta (stay away from pork, SMART) no digestive problems, Lucky.

   Now, that doesn’t mean that I don’t take chances and live on the edge.  I drive a 2010 Prius.  The new slogan for Toyota is “Drive a Toyota and you will never stop”.  So if you really want to gamble in life, drive down the highway at seventy miles an hour in a car that may or may not stop when you need it.  Drive a Toyota, it’s the last car you’ll ever drive.

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February 5, 2010 by mike.

   There has been a rather large stink made by those who want us to be constantly afraid.  We are told that in order to be really safe from terrorists.  We must pack them off to a military prison, hold them without trial and be properly interrogated.  If you are not a hypocrite, then you already know that that means torture.

Of course, the truth is that torture does not work.  Torture is, to quote Jonathan Turley “not a technique, as much as a desire”  A sad commentary on what sort of a people we have become.  From the time of our revolutionary war, when General Washington commanded our troops not to torture either the British captives or the prick Hessian’s who had sold themselves to fight against us.  All the way down through our history that precedent has stood.  German troops during World War II would surrender to our soldiers, because they had been told, by their fathers, who surrendered to us during WW I, that the Americans would treat them fairly.  Since the bush administration though, all bets were off.

We have now (under Obama) returned to the good old days of questioning  a suspect.  Not the practice of strapping one to a board and pouring water down his throat.  Or attaching electrodes to his genitalia and jazzing him with a jolt of electricity.  But a cool rational process that allows the prisoner to retain  his dignity and humanity.

This is leading up to our underpants bomber, Umar Faourk Abdulmutalalb.  After he was taken into custody, He started talking almost immediately.  And has been doing so ever since.  All without torture.  But, I was wondering, if the first question he was asked was, “Do you want to answer our questions here?  Or should we do this at Gitmo?”

I am probably only half as clever as I think I am.  But it is curious.

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January 22, 2010 by mike.

   There are many different critters that live in and around my yard.  There are the moles of course. I never see them, but I know that they are here.  The seasons are marked by the many different birds that come through.  Flickers, thrushes, robins, ravens, woodpeckers, hummingbirds, etc, etc, etc.  The bluejays are here year round.  Quite a few actually, twelve maybe fifteen.  The reason I mention it is because lately they have been perching in an alder tree out along the edge of the clearcut.  I have no idea what they are doing.  But watching them sit in the tree is disquietingly similar to the movie The Birds.  It could be that they are there basking in what little sunshine we’ve had lately.  Or maybe looking for food.  Curious.

The other “critters” that I seem to have year around now are spiders.  I have no problem putting an end to their existence.  However, this past summer on into the fall even through our winter.  There seems to be way more around here than in past years.  These aren’t the cute spiders.  You know the kind, about the size of your fingernail.  They look almost furry and jump(oooooh scary)

No, the kind that I’ve been killing non-stop since last summer are the kind that when they finally molt to full size have a leg span the size of a half dollar.  They have a large bulbous body and definetly look like they should be squashed.  I have had these predators around here since we have been here.  But it seems to me, that this year they just won’t go away.  Little tiny things that float by on a breeze or drop from the ceiling in my shed.

It could be worse I guess.  I could have mice.

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January 18, 2010 by mike.

   Our rainy season is progressing pretty much on the norm.  We were about six inches short in the rain gauge for this past month of December.  However, for this month, we are on track for normal rainfall. There has been about twelve inches so far this January and after last night’s storm, we are even closer to the average of sixteen point three.  Still, it has been a different sort of season this year.  The temperature here for the last few days has been almost right at fifty degrees day & night. Different.

So is this evidence of global climate change?  No this is something different. This weather that we have been having, from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic, is being dictated by the erratic weather over the equator in the Pacific Ocean.  It is commonly referred to as El Nino ENSO.  The thing is that we are not in an El Nino or a La Nina.  The circumstance is actually one of flux.

A normal weather pattern would have the trade-winds across the equatorial Pacific blowing from east to west.  During an El Nino the winds change and blow west to east, the warm water then retreats to the east and North America experiences a decrease of precipitation across the northern tier of states.  That is only part of the overall effect.  The engine that drives our weather is the Pacific Ocean.

What is also different is the amount of moisture in the atmosphere over the Pacific.  That can be attributed to climate change.  The many years that I have been looking at the weather maps, this is the first year that I have seen so much water vapor over such a broad area.  That is evidence of warming.  Is it being caused by man?  I would not be surprised.  You can argue all you want, but we people are as big a nuisance as a three year old with a hammer.

What makes it difficult for us to acknowledge, what is taking place, is that we are confusing what are normal weather patterns for what we want to believe is one sort of change or another.  The change is real, yet we lose it within the normal fluctuations of the weather.  We have only been keeping detailed records for, maybe, two hundred years.  And comprehensively for less than one hundred and fifty years.  We may know a lot, but for something as dynamic as the global weather, We really don’t know much.  Without super computers we would have even less of a clue.  The earth just keeps moving and what lives on it can only go along for the ride.

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January 3, 2010 by mike.

   I have often and long wondered why we are not supposed to speak ill of the dead.  I can understand if the deceased was a good person and had few faults.  Or if that person was one who walked too close to the line of good vs bad.  Occasionally tripping across, by accident or even on purpose.  But what if that person was in truth a real asshole, a prick, a son-of-a- bitch?  Why then should we the still living be constrained from the truth?

I mean that there are real low downs in this world.  People who don’t just abuse others, but their own families.  People who steal and vandalize and destroy those around them.  A person, who is so vile that if he/she would hear someone speak ill of them would then hound the bearer of truth, heaping countless denigration upon the one who spoke.

Someone, who would and did teach their off-spring to be as vile and low down as they themselves have been.  Passing on the black heart with which they lived their life?  So, again I ask; Why should we be compelled to ignore the truth regarding that sort of a person and somehow neglect their rottenness?

Did I mention that I went to a funeral yesterday?  He was of the finest sort. Bless his heart.

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December 21, 2009 by mike.

   Another year has gone gliding and revolving into history.  And another year lays ahead of us.  The  winter solstice is one of the original earth holidays.  One where the ancients first noticed the turning of the heavens and realized the importance of it.  There was a lack of scientific knowledge, that led to a bit of uncertainty in regards to the actual day of this event.  That is why there are twelve days.  The earth wobbles a bit, retrograde, perturbations, astronomical stuff that leads to a longer time between sunrise and sunset.  But, rest assured soon enough the days will again be growing longer.

The past few days one of my chipmunks has been sitting on an old stump barking his presence.  I doubt that the animal has any idea that this is the time of solstice.  But, it sits and pronounces his being.

What we humans must do is be aware that this is the beginning.  Not of winter, but of a new year.   Take comfort. No longer is there a need to sacrifice virgins to bring the sun and summer back.  The scientific knowledge we now possess should lead us past the  superstition and fear of the dark, that we humans so dearly love to cling to.

So if you must, build a bonfire, share the fruit of natures vines, dance around naked and relish the fact that soon spring will follow.  Happy Solistice!

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