It's Not About Me

Rocky Mountain Slide

What an incredible time in human history to be alive! First, I get to sit in a chair and zoom 100 miles away to the land of snow. On the journey I can pick from 10,000 songs hiding in a slab the size of a box of candy. Then, I sit in another chair that whisks me to the top of a mountain so that I can fly down over and over. Next, I get to show it to my friends all over the world - that evening! If that weren't enough, I have ibuprofen for the day after. Eat your heart out Andrew Carnegie, Ghengis Khan, Cleopatra, Louis XIV and all y'all, rich, famous and dead.

A Dreaded Gospel

 

Howlin'

This from the home town newspaper, The Wallowa County Chieftain, where the news is all wolves, all the time.

For those not up to speed on what's happening in the rural NW, the gray wolf was reintroduced to Yellowstone Park in 1994. With plenty of food for the taking the project was succesful and packs spread in every direction as the population quickly expanded. Last month, one GPS-collared male was even tracked into northern California where the last wolf siting was in 1924. Canis lupus has settled into NE Oregon making the greens happy, the elk hunters grimace and the ranchers, whose stock provide lunch, as mad as hell. (Me? I get all three positions.)

Anyway, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation have declared their position regarding wolf introduction on their own little piece of Oregon - if the wolf comes so be it, but no thanks to purposeful reintroduction. Why? Carl Scheeler, wildlife manager for the tribes stated:

"One is an act of man, the other is an act of wolf."

Sweet Lyrics #4

"If you're lying on the beach 
With the transistor going,
Kick off the sandflies,
Honey, the love's still flowin'. 
If your head says forget it,
But your heart's still smoking, 
Call me at the station 
The lines are open."
                                                  - Joni Mitchell, "You Turn Me On, I'm A Radio"    

Actually...

When we lived in NE Oregon I would occasionally take my 4-year old daughter to do weekend rounds with me at the hospital. Some of the older folks would enjoy seeing her young face, some not. If I was seeing a patient who would be less than happy with a busy girl in their room, I would park her at the nurses' station with a coloring book. One morning she sat there and was scribbling away, chattering at the poor night nurse who was trying to finish her charting and go home to bed. The chattering didn't stop when I came back to work on my chart so I listened in with one ear while I wrote. Both of us just had to stop and belly laugh after Lauren had paused in her harangue, looked over at the tired woman and matter-of-factly whispered, "Actually, I'm not a nurse."

Spring Cleaning

Not spring yet, but no snow to play in here, so I freshened up the book and music lists. Look left!

2011 Foto Favs

Clay Pigeons, Wallowa County, Oregon

 

Old City Wall, Tallinn, Estonia

 

Storebælt Bridge, Denmark

 

Aft Deck, Eurodam

 

Interstate 84, Idaho

 

After Rockwell

2011 Foto Favs

Wallowa County Panorama

 

 

Kalmar Castle, Sweden

 

Mangia!

 

Hallway, Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

 

Gas Pump, Green River, Wyoming

Best o' Twenty-Eleven

Ah, the "best of lists", for a blogger it's like popping ducks on a pond...  As usual, some of this stuff has been around for years, but it's new to me!

BEST NEW MUSIC:

Our new house band - Elephant Revival. Have been enjoying this Nederland, Colorado based group most of the year. Their genre? Try on "psychedelic country" or "transcendental folk" for a starter. I'm thinking maybe "grassgrass". We enjoyed them live just last night along with lots of old and young space-dancing hippies as we groooved to a 3-hour, end-of-the-year concert. You can get a little flavor on this YouTube, "Remembering A Beginning".

 

 

Continuing the alt/grass theme, I've also fallen for the Swedish group, Väsen. Got to see them this past spring touring with Mike Marshall & Darol Anger. This band features national champion fiddle and guitar players plus Olov Johansson on the nyckelharpa which looks like a cross between a fiddle, lap dulcimer and accordion. You'll pick up a decidedly Swedish flavor on this piece, Eklunda Polska #3.

  

 

FAVORITE QUOTES:

"History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes."   - Mark Tain

"Everywhere the human race goes, it drags a bell curve around with it."   - Doug Wilson

"Ignore the environment. It will go away."   - bumpersticker

"If God does nothing random, there must always be something to learn."   - John Calvin

"They lived outside. They lived with horses and cattle and dust and snow and moved all around a country they somehow could not learn to love because another geography was already inside them."  - Mark Jenkins, "Off The Map"

"If you're tired of parties, you go to the wrong church."   - Matt Barley

"When suffering restores us, burns away the empty shallowness,
And softening the heart, to be broken break and poured out wine...
When it rains it pours, turns life into a chalice,
There to nourish every soul, one at a time."

                                           - Phil Keaggy,  "Chalice" 

 

FAVORITE READS:

 

Patrick O'Brian continues to weave a spectacular tale. How can one man know so much sea faring history? How can one man write so many incredible sentences?

 

 

 

An absorbing adventure of a trek across Siberia by bicycle. I learned a new Russian word: "balota" болото (for "swamp"). I also got a peek inside of late 20th century Russia. Not many smiles there.

 

 

 

 

What a perfect storm of men and women that came together in late 18th-century America. Oh that a few stray bands of such weather would blow over us today.

 

 

 

 

RC Sproul walks you through the book of "Romans". A book that has literally changed the world (and more than once).

 

 

 

 

 

SCREEN FAVORITES: I did find Sherlock and Capt. Jack Sparrow to be entertaining. ("You walk like a girl." "You should know!") But really not much to be excited about on the big screen. There were however some jewels you can find in DVD sets such as "John Adams" for starters. Even better is the HBO adaptation of "The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" and the BBC's "Foyle's War". 

                                     

Merry Christmas (Eve)! 2011

"With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud.  A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death."  - Romans 8 (The Message)