letter to nephews and nieces

eating fish in Spain
- summer 2013

Dear nephews and nieces,

When I was a little boy I noticed that many adults ignored children. They acted like I wasn’t there. They didn’t say hi to me, even though they said hi to all of the adults. They didn’t talk to me or look at me – or other kids. I felt like saying, hey, I’m a person too! I decided then that when I was an adult, I would say hello to everyone, including kids. Kids think and feel and notice.

Well I haven’t always done that. When you are an adult things can get complicated. Some adults think that their kids belong to them, and they don’t want other adults to talk to their kids or look at them. Kinda like if you don’t want other people to pet your dog. So adults end up acting like kids aren’t there. I think that’s bad manners, even though lots of people do it. Kids are not pets or objects to own, but they are younger people that must be protected.  

Other times adults are afraid of each other. They want to protect their kids from other people who might hurt the kid, or talk about something that the parent doesn’t want their kid to talk about. Adults sometimes don’t know who will do something inappropriate, so they could be afraid of everyone. Maybe they only want certain people to talk to their kids.

*****

When I was a boy I thought that I was a bad kid because I had a secret. When my parents or other people told me that they loved me, I thought, “Yeah, but if they really knew who I was, they wouldn’t love me.” My secret was that I really wanted to talk about sexual things, and I was really interested in other boys. Most of the other boys, when they got older, were really interested in girls. So I was different. And very bad, I thought.

When I got older I told adults about my secret. Some of them hugged me and told me that they would always love me. They were nice and stayed my friends. Others were angry and upset. Some cried and said that they wished that I was dead instead. Some of them stopped talking to me forever, some just for a few years.

Some of them were scared. I was scared too. Some of my brothers and sisters were scared because I was different. They had been taught that people like me were bad. Some adults were taught that if a man wants to marry another man, he also wants to marry children! Or do things that married people do with children. Silly shit.

Others of my brothers and sisters kept inviting me to dinner and sending me Christmas cards and birthday cards. Thank goodness.

I am glad that I shared my secret. I feel better to have other people know me, and see all of me. I don’t share all of me with everyone, but I do share all of me with some people. I am not bad. I am good. Loving men, enough to marry one, is a beautiful thing to me.

*****

Some of you nephews and nieces I’ve felt very close to. I’m happy for that. I value you. It is a privilege and an honor.

Some of you I have not even said hi to when I saw you. So I have become that adult that doesn’t say hi to kids, and pretends like they are not there. Up until now I’ve felt like I had a good excuse.

But you know, I don’t want you to feel bad about yourself. Or think that your uncle Percy doesn’t like you. Or somehow think that you’re doing something wrong. I have to give you credit, because when I was a little boy I just thought that those adults who ignored me just had bad manners. I did not internalize it. Maybe you just think I have bad manners and am an inconsiderate self-absorbed adult who doesn’t see you standing there in the room.

You know, I’d rather you think that, than tell yourself something negative about yourself. But the truth is that I really do think about you often. And in my dream world I would probably jump up and down when I saw you, and run over screaming like a silly excited person and hug you, and laugh, and maybe dance up and down in a circle, or ask you how you were doing, and rest my arm around your shoulder, and just glow listening to you. Then we’d go jump on the trampoline, or play soccer, or sing around the piano, or watch funny youtube videos, or just be in the same space.

In my ideal world we would be a support to each other for a lifetime. A big network of a family. A family with lots of participants, lots of eyes, lots of ideas, conversations, adventures, history, whether scarce because we live in different cities, or frequent because we live in the same town or spent a summer or trip together. When you’re young I would talk with you and listen to you, play games, build things, adventure, protect you, teach you, go on trips, and take care of you. I would feel satisfied and happy, excited, alive, and in love. When I’m old we would still talk and listen to each other, you’d visit me, play games with me, visit me, go on trips, adventure, protect me, teach me, and take care of me if I needed it. Like all of us would for each other.

So you know what, next time I see you, I’m doing to do things differently. No matter who your parents are, I’m at least going to say hi and smile at you. If things are cool, I’ll use your name and shake your hand. If things are even better, I’ll hug you and talk with you.

*****

I think I’m going to keep that promise that I made to myself when I was a little boy. I’m going to say hello to everyone, including kids. Starting with some people that mean a lot to me: my nephews and nieces.

my indigenous uncle jeff

Uncle Jeff is one of my Dad's six brothers. Story-teller, makes you laugh, kooky, sentimental, says-hi-to-absolutely-everyone-everywhere, cry-easy, risk-taker, wild-man Jeff.

Some of my favorite memories of him growing up were his bearded haka-dance (ancestral war cry of the Maori people) after his mission to New Zealand, the proud guided tours of his backyard garden and rabbits, one time he sitting at the piano singing loudly to descending octaves bar chords - with his shirt ripped off from sheer energy, demon snow-mobiling up dangerous snow banks and zigzagging telephone poles racing us in the pick-up, and canoe trips.

Now he's had multiple heart surgeries. When his heart rate lowers dangerously, a pacemaker resets it with a punch "like a donkey kicking me in the chest," he smiles big. I'm not that comforted. He's more gentle with his thinner body. He eats healthy. I'm surprised by the crow-feet wrinkles of his thin facial skin and the redness. His voice doesn't boom as loud. Still it barely contains his zest. Eyes twinkling. Body tired. Soul wild. Eager to say hello and chat a while.

I remember him teasing me in college, where are the girlfriends? Why are you bringing your roommate over for dinner, where's the girl? Damn he's ugly. Playful.

And later him struggling with Andrea. We estranged cousins talking on the phone lamenting our family's judgments and awkward loving. A few years later I was tickled to hear that he motorcycled cross-country with her. Dad and daughter. I leapt inside at the news. Parallels to my own journey and distances covered.


Now I reflect in grad school on philosophical underpinnings. What animal(s) am I like? How close or far am I from the cycles of nature? How did my childhood influence me, and where do I go from here? Who are my people, my culture? What dream figures awaken? Where is my home?

I muse at how I revel in the sky patterns, notice expressions and animals, touch a tree (and even steal a hug when I think no one is looking), cry at a silly commercial, dance like a mad-man to electronica and city beats, write and tell stories, run to feel better, connect more wildly than I ever dared before.

And I think of my Uncle Jeff, noticing the elk or deer on the horizon, pointing out the eagle nest, glorying in the Snake River, looking at his cows standing there looking back at him. Then something in me remembers that this memory or awakeness is not entirely my own. These fondnesses are not just mine, my Uncle Jeff's, or remnants in my genetic line. They are the DNA-affections of millions of my kind.

Modern rhythms deafen. Clamor. But if I unearth some stillness, see the plants reaching up from sidewalk cracks, smell the crisp air, notice flocks swooping to catch the sunset insects, then I come home to a way, a manner that is in my blood, a music-making poetic eloquence that is the way of our collective us.

silence and its implications

a bench under a tree at the grad school I go to in Santa Barbara

What am I saying when I am silent?

when the insecure kid bullies

when the preacher condemns

when the congregation shuns

when some family rejects

 

What am I saying when I am silent?

when an adult rebukes

when neighbors deride

when a parent calls names

when the fight leaves a bruise

 

What am I saying when I am silent?

when the years have gone by

child wonders alone

when I don’t speak up?

justice and reparation

Justice is not just punishment and retribution.

The other side of the coin is reparation.

paragliders off Whidbey Island this summer

Having spent six weeks in prison as a nurse I’ve been especially attentive to articles and radio shows that talk about incarceration and punishment. I’ve thought a lot about the men I see and talk to who live their years behind metal bars. Thousands. I contemplate their sentences and their crimes. I’m called to the scene after they’ve been pepper-sprayed. A young man is brought in to me when he wants to kill himself. I call the doctor, and they lock him up in a supervised cell with a mattress on the floor, in a special restrained gown.

 I check the man pacing in the cell. Open your mouth. I want to see if you’ve swallowed the pill. Then diabetic line. The men say thank you and please.

80% of them are from 23 to 44 years old. I read about the war on drugs, and see how by the thousands we lock them up. Non-violent offenders we call them. Then they get in here and do harder drugs than they ever did on the outside. And get more violent. The United States incarcerates 2.7% of its population. The next highest nation jails 0.6% of theirs. We imprison more people, by far, than any other nation on earth.

I wonder about punishment. And what good it does. Who does it make feel better? What does it repair?

Our country is based on this religious ideal, that the wicked must be punished. So we jail our young men. And when they come out, they are no more equipped to live any better life. In fact they are angrier, more aggressive, less socially skilled or normalized, more frustrated, more apt to snap, or withdraw, or commit an even greater crime.

What about education? What about job training, anger management, emotional literacy, sex education, writing catharsis, financial instruction, social skills, and teaching to care for self?

What about reparation? – Working to give back a gift commensurate to the one you’ve taken, even if grossly inadequate. Does it not do a human good the opportunity to repay, in whatever way possible, the debt? This debt which he can never really repay, but perhaps make symbol and amends? Make a path for his redemption? Perhaps the family, individual, or neighborhood wronged could be the personal recipient of these efforts to repair. Money, art, books authored, songs, furniture built, buildings, personal reparations. Can the soul ever redeem itself?

Are we not all indebted in some never-repayable way, but which it does all parties good to at least try to give restitution? Is not some of our effort valid? Does not this effort change us in some way deeply for the better?

There are and were simpler tribal cultures, where the elders asked the offending member to do a work, allowing his psyche a path back into the mainstream.

I’m not talking blood restitution. That’s punishment. I’m not so sure I want to punish.

I want to make safe. For everyone. Some people DO belong in prison. That small percentage who, no matter what, will continue to kill, or hurt, without a second thought. No remorse. Yes, keep them apart to keep us safe. Not to punish. To keep us safe.

The others, non-violent, greater majority, let’s mend their souls. Address deficiencies directly. Not leave people in cells to rot. In gowns restrained. Yelling and crying. Mental, social, emotional issues must be addressed. Coping skills, mechanisms, patterns seen, taught, encouraged.

These our brothers, sons, neighbors, uncles, nephews, cousins, somebody’s child, our own selves. Somebody’s future husband. Somebody’s future dad. 

I hear about a Scandinavian country that is closing down the majority of its prisons. They’ve found that their education programs are so effective, that their recidivism rates are almost non-existent. Offenders are housed and rehabilitated in facilities resembling the communities and patterns to which they will soon return. Equipped with new skills.

All these thoughts pass through my mind when I hear a program on NPR (National Public Radio) saying:

 

Justice is not just punishment and retribution.

The other side of the coin is reparation.

mental illness

The term mental illness is one that I've long thought needs replaced. We say mentally ill and mentally disabled, which is still better than crazy or nutty, which society used to say a couple of decades ago. We're improving, but we're not there yet.

A mental condition, like schizophrenia, or bipolar, is one that most people are born with, or acquire in life. It is not something that they chose. It is something that happens to them, over which people only have some influence on how to handle and try to live.

in a forest near Seattle

Just a few years ago people were calling me and people like me sexually sick, perverted, wrong. For being gay. Heck, people still do. Over a way of being that I did not choose, that is just a part of me, a central part of me. It is not ugly, or shameful, or "fixable." Wouldn't it be nice if we just celebrated and helped each other live well?

So I don't like any human soul being called sick that is not mainstream. Implying shame over something over which they don't decide. We don't do that for people with cardiac problems, diabetes, stature variances, skin diversity (well, we're trying), cultural medley's, sexual identities, abilities, so let's stop doing that for people with mental uniquenesses of various types.

Let's make them a part of us. In a country saturated with nearly-weekly shootings, gun-violence by individuals who are unsatisfied or marginalized, let's prevent at least some of this by including people into the mainstream, helping everyone feel welcome and valued (even if a person has a head tick movement, or doesn't respond to nuance, or hears voices). Let's acknowledge that some of the terrorist exists inside each of us, not just outside of us in foreign territories. And knowing that, we can recognize our own part in marginalizing others and making people outcasts in their own homelands. Think: how does it feel to be on the other side of hearing these labels?

Next time you see a headline in the newspaper, or hear a conversation about them mentally ill, perhaps you can bring some non-violence to your little nook by speaking about all people with compassion, and maybe use other words more suited to what you believe. And when you see a beautiful person like this on the bus, in the grocery store, in your church, you can be a personal friend. Be someone that includes, prevents, protects, knows, understands, reaches out, blesses, calms, and celebrates.

october 2013

Hello. Here's a little log of some of the things that we've been up to.

This past week was the week of dinners. Wednesday we had our neighbor Laurin over for a delightful dinner and long chat. Thursday we had dinner with new friends David and Keith. Saturday we had our wonderful Mormon friend Kristin over for the same. Casey has known her for years through school and work, and we continue to delight in her company. Sunday we went to the 24-years-together celebration dinner for Tom and Dennis, accomplished medical people.

I returned from my weekend of grad school in Santa Barbara, had an interview with the Jail to work there possibly, oriented at a new hospital, and saw the musical Anything Goes with Casey. Love these full and diverse weeks.

Last month we were also able to go to Spain with Gary and Tod. I was impressed by the heat and olive groves of Andalucía, many of which were planted by the Romans a couple of thousand years ago. After several hours of riding a bus through as-far-as-the-eye-can-see hills of olive tree rows, Gary commented that he couldn't possibly see how everyone in the world could eat this many olives. We could see where he was coming from. The people were amiable, the history rich. I was impressed by how alike, in some ways, the people were to South Americans, more than I would have thought. I was also impressed by the egalitarianism and the dignity which is afforded all citizens.

We continue to revel in our neighborhood, and in having found each other.

above El Alhambra in Granada, Spain, at Generalife

 

towering high

A mural in my neighborhood depicts Mt. Rainier towering over Seattle. Something about this perspective inspires awe. Places us humans in our place.

august 20, 2013

in the Swiss Alps in July

These last few weeks I've worked at a prison a couple of hours away from home. The nursing temporary agency put me up in a hotel five days a week. It has been a good and eye-opening experience at work. On the home-front it hasn't been so great to be away from Casey most of the time.

I'm preparing for Burning Man, a phenomenal festival in the desert in Nevada for a week. I'll be going next week, you can see the pictures of one artist here. Beautiful large-scale art, and people dressed as art too. I've thought about it almost every day for months.

Summer has been busy but also really great. I'm surprised by the diversity of experiences that this full life brings.

bullies

My recent time working at a prison has me thinking about bullies. As well as several journal-like entries from readers to a magazine (The Sun) on bullies.

I see lots of bullying behavior to this day. From correctional officers, from inmates, police officers, teenagers, children to each other. I have some "bully" of my own that I can remember as a kid, particularly with my siblings - me as the oldest one. I think most of us can summon at least a memory or two where we acted bully-like.

I see bullying too in less-obvious places: parents with their kids, teachers towards their students or each other, a nurse on a telephone. What is it that causes us to be mean, to put down another person, to be violent to them even in subtle words and looks?

Part of it is the animal-like hierarchical tendency. This notion we have in our head that some of us are higher than others. Society encourages it everywhere - boss-employee, officer-prisoner, teacher-student, parent-child, older-younger, senior-amateur, husband-wife, wife-husband, us-them.... this separation, which we sometimes try to enforce in manipulative ways. Or ways that are outside of our values, if we thought about it.

Where is the bully in me? What can I do to bring awareness to my unawareness?

picture spring updates

Pre-dinner with some of Casey's friends,
a great couple from Oregon.

With Casey's nephew Scott, and his friend from Zambia,
in town on a sky-diving teaching stint.

After breakfast at the farmer's market with Tania.

Mark and Justin's wedding in Walla Walla.
These guys have been great hiking buddies.

Salmon run - swimming back up the river
in which they were born to spawn
- as seen at through an observation wall
at the Ballard Locks.

The ship canal in an adjacent neighborhood
called the Ballard Locks,
a very small version of the Panama Canal.

On a running trail overlooking the Puget Sound ocean inlets - Discovery Park.

 

abuelito frias

Mom, Tio, and Tia being silly about the bug spray on July 4th

This weekend I spoke with Tia Martha, and she reminisced about her father, my grandfather. She shared some experiences that I didn't know about, and I thought I'd share them here.

coup d'état or "golpe de estado" prisoners

I mentioned that I started working at a prison as a nurse for a temporary assignment, and Martha reminded me that Abuelito (grandfather) also worked as a military prison medic for most of his career. I had forgotten.

Chile's military prison often housed political prisoners, as was the case in the country's military take-over of 1973. Grandpa saw many governors, senators, doctors, artists, or other socialists where housed overnight before a quick military trial the next day, many of them being executed within hours of trial. Some would be released, to be shot in the back as they ran. Some exiled.

Tia Martha tells that Abuelito often helped prisoners as best as he could, talking to them, calming a governor's frazzled nerves, slipping him a sleeping pill for the night so he might get some sleep before standing "trial" the next day. For these helps he could have lost his life. She remembered another respected doctor that was killed in those days.

I reflect on what serious times he lived through.

curfew and bodies by the plaza 

Martha recalled the split between my grandparents politically, Abuelita (grandmother) being very much against Pinochet for his hauling off and disappearing of so many young men, and Abuelito (grandfather) appreciating the order he restored to the country. Martha sided initially with her father, being close to him. She also thought her mother was being over-dramatic and inventing things.

One evening a lady friend visiting from San Felipe for tea lost track of the time, and before they knew it were past the 8pm government-imposed nation-wide curfew in those years. Tia Martha, not knowing the seriousness of the curfew, but still nervous, accompanied her friend outside to the plaza. There were several military trucks outside the communist headquarters building, and just then soldiers were hauling bodies out of the building into their trucks. Draped.

Martha and her friend then realized the seriousness of their breaking the curfew. And the seriousness of their new government's actions. She then knew personally that her mother was not making things up, she had seen it with her own eyes.

first suit

Years earlier, Abuelito's first job in a Santiago hospital allowed him to buy clothing, first a new pair of dress shoes, then a stylish suit. His uncle had recommended that this be one of the first things he do to fit in to the new prestigious job. The suit was the most forward style of the day: an elegant black suit with small white dots in the fabric.

Excited, he brought it home to show his step-mother. She immediately commanded him to take it off and give it to her oldest son, saying that her older son needed it more than him, and that he didn't deserve it. He felt wounded. Combined with other experiences like this from her, over the years he slowly distanced himself from her. Abuelito was the child of a previous relationship, and his step-mother never seemed to be able to forgive her husband, taking it out on the child. He had many severe experiences.

mentored by anesthesiologist

As a late teen an uncle took him under his wing. This uncle was in fact Chile's first anesthesiologist. He cared for young Abuelito like a benevolent father, tutoring him in how to work in the capital city, how to dress up for work, how to greet people properly, and many other things. Martha and I reflected that this man was probably the originator of Abuelito's many mannerisms, from dressing in slacks daily, wearing a button-up shirt, nodding his head at people, and many other formal niceties.

materials for feminine needs

Perhaps his medical/anatomical knowledge and his concern for others allowed him to give care that was daring and counter-cultural in his generation. I'm going out on a limb a little in sharing this story too. Although I think that stories like this could be shared gracefully more often to the benefit of many.

Mother previously recalled to me that as a young girl no-one had prepared her or ever talked to her about what changes would accompany her maturing as a young woman. So she was shocked and scared at the first occurrences. Alone. But she will always remember the consideration of her father, not her mother, who approached her with a handful of materials - perhaps gauze and bandages, and told her that she would probably be needing these now as a young woman. There was no further conversation. But my mother knew that he knew. And that she was not alone. She was extremely touched that he reached out to her in this very (then) taboo but important moment in her life.

 

grandchildren

Tia Martha says that Abuelito's life was punctuated by severe experiences and a sense of formal soberness - all until his grandchildren came along. Now whether that's the dramatic storytelling of my kin, or the exact truth, it does seem accurate from what I perceived. Martha says he'd tell his co-workers that there was nothing so beautiful as his grandkids, nothing that livened up his life as much as they (us).

I reflected that I remember seeing him light up with toddler Cristina, tasseling her hair, lightly pinching her cheeks, playfully teasing and engaging her. I do remember a formal grandfather, but one easy to smile, always seeking engagement with us. He sat in his spot in the galleria - inner sunlit porch - talking to us, making jokes about Chile and the U.S., cultural comparisons, praising us and asking us questions about how we were doing.

stirring up

I told Tia Martha that I'd like to write some of these memories. She said that she'd rather not stir up painful chapters - referring to some of the turbulent political history. She'd rather that they go with the way of their experiencers.

But I responded that it was not so much to stir up controversy about history, but to remember the hard and beautiful things that our loved ones went through. I explained that I thought it was useful for us posterity to know these specific things about their experiences, not just the white-washed version, because when we encountered difficulties in our own lives, we could draw strength knowing that "our people" had gone through tough things as well. Sometimes failing, sometimes triumphing.

Loving someone is also often related to knowing them. Knowing specific things about how they suffered, or went through, or how they lived.

on the new frontrunner from Provo to Salt Lake City

touring the Mormon conference center
with seating for 21,000 and famous organ

 

may pictures

in Kansas City at one of Casey's conferences -
what a great bunch of accomplished and approachable people
enjoying the art museum on our way out of town

before Portland's Red Dress fundraiser - for HIV

the next morning at Gary and Tod's for breakfast



enjoying the view out our window as the sun sets

 

three delights

from the local Avatar exhibit

Yesterday I experienced three delights.

1. Woke up and went to a group for Non-Violent Communication, led by the very-skilled Mel Sears. I'm happy because I gain new skill in communicating with my partner. The focus on empathy to self and others is incredible. And she lives in a co-housing community. I'll be back to learn more.

2. Finished a difficult technical couple lessons for my online Wordpress class for building websites. Worked through it at a new coffee shop, made myself sit. These last two lessons were multi-day exercises in working through what would have previously frustrated me to resignation. Emails to tech support, waits for responses, multiple re-readings, multiple days of new attempts, which bore fruit. What a feeling to do something difficult.

3. After several hours of sitting, I could not restrain my body any longer. I was more than itching to move in a big way. Put on my ted hose, music watch and headphones, baseball cap for the drizzle, turned up the electronica, and headed out for a run. My God I felt so free! There's a reason my animal name is Running Deer. This climate is great for exercise. I ran a few miles further than usual, over puddles and railroad tracks, along the waterways (lots of boats coming back from the long Memorial Day weekend), to a botanical garden along the ship locks. Kid you not, hugged a tree, wept for joy, and sat under the green living blessor before heading back.

april 2013

We like to do new things. In April we attended a few novel affairs:

• singing story-tellers in a bookstore - 1860's US civil war folk songs
• Moisture Festival - combination circus and family burlesque - very cool talents

• website-building online class (Wordpress)
• ukulele beginner III class

• gay/bi/trans men's weekend on Mt. Lemon outside Tucson, AZ
• medical conference Kansas City, MO

• new gym membership and classes together

I consider it an accomplishment and a life well-lived to experience these things.

attending a drag queen show Missie B's in Missouri

there's something pretty magical sometimes about this larger-than-life show
combined with music
and the love
almost archetypal



and then just plain funny
a huge guy dressed as a woman
some crass jokes
everyone enjoying themselves
normally I hate drag shows,
but this was the best one I've ever seen
loved it
transported

WWI liberty memorial

outside the kemper museum

whidbey island

Casey overlooking the west side of Whidbey Island on a hike

look at the para-glider in the sky!
farm-land along the beach

driftwood from storms, later in the day
the northwest can be full of variety
one moment cloudy and drizzling
the next moment sunny
we try to just go prepared, and still head out regardless
the green hills give me the impression of ireland
 

on the ferry ride back from the island
close to seattle

one more pic of the two of us
see the weather changing in the photo
rain clouds high in the left
sunny cumulus skies high right

welcome back

I rather go
Hungry being
Out in
Nature than
To fill
My belly with
Four walls and
Florescent lights

I rather dig into
The earth with
Hands to
Work for
My supper than
Wrap it in
Plastic and
Nuke it for
Warmth

I rather be
Here in
My soul in
My present
State of
Stillness
Feeling
What is
Real at
My core

Feel it
Run through
My veins like
Water to
The roots of
A tree—
I am
Nourished by
The beauty and
Strengthened by
The assurance that
No matter
How hard
Humans try
To create
Over it—
It lives and
It’s what I
Hunger for

It still
Exists outside
The four walls and
Florescent lights of
Modern day
Human existence

It is still
Forever filling
The world with
Living light
Welcoming us
All back to
What is
Real to
The life we
Lived before

 CL April 2013

found through facebook, the blog: The Rambles of a Waking Lamb

festival of colors - "give love"

Last month Casey and I went to the Holi Festival of Colors, celebrating Spring, in Spanish Fork, Utah. Here's a short clip of the event that Rita found. We went also with Jimmy and Joany.

 

 

march 2013

A few random photos I've taken recently:

Casey preparing dinner for us and a guest

flowers in an alley

old Seattle when it was a mining town, after the great fire

the old sewage system: hollowed-out logs. The problem was, they also burned. We took a tour of the "underground Seattle," a popular and revealing look at the city's past.

a view from the "space needle." The city center at left, the industrial longshoremen area center back, where ships come in and unload, and the Puget Sound waterways.

poster art downtown

Casey and our friend Jaime, enjoying the tour

happiness economic?

Gallup polls ranks several states according to happiness. I found myself a bit bothered by the statement: "Frank Newport, Gallup's editor-in-chief, told the website 24/7 Wall St. that well-being is important because happier, healthier citizens tend to have positive social and economic impacts on the places they live."- as if happiness, to be important, needs to be tied to increased profit margins! See the MSN link here. I see that everywhere, even, ironically, in the healthcare industry.

idaho hot springs

Justin, Mark, Curt

This past weekend I got to spend Saturday and Sunday at two hot springs outside of Boise, Idaho with friends. I've known Justin and Mark for about six years and been hiking and camping with them since. We've been outdoors in Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and Hawaii.

at Bonneville hot springs,
the hot water is pooled right next to the cold water river

steam coming off the hot water trickling down the mountain

taking it in