A Slice of Life in Farmington, New Mexico

My mom was in Milwaukee over the weekend. We had a great time, dined on fantastic food and had a Miller Time yesterday during the Miller Brewery Tour. Anyway, my mom is a great person, always bringing me little treats and gifts when she comes out to visit. She brought us a new game, called Bananagrams. It's a blast. She also brought out a few coasters for my collection. She brought Kate a small, Caribbean blue vase. This is debatable, but I think the best thing she brought out was a clipping from the newspaper in Farmington, New Mexico. The following passages are copied verbatim from The Daily Times, with the headlines first, and I must preface this hilarity with a longstanding opinion held by myself and many close to me, that the Olive Garden sucks. It isn't genuine Italian food. It isn't good. If a friend takes you to the Olive Garden on your birthday, or, for that matter, on any other day, that friend is no longer a friend. Olive Garden is the place for break-ups, not get togethers. The anomaly, which most people obviously don't grasp, is that they can make better Italian food at home with a box of pasta and a jar of Newman's Own Sockarooni Pasta Sauce and some freshly grated parmesan. But perhaps I am the naive one here for thinking pasta is something everyone can cook. I digress, to the breaking news:

The Wait Is Over

Olive Garden opening greeted by hundreds of hungry patrons

After years of anticipation, the wait is finally over and Olive Garden is open in Farmington.

The Italian restaurant opened on Memorial Day to hundreds of diners eager to enjoy the first dishes that Olive Garden General Manager, E------ L-------, and his staff could send out.

...

We want to make sure that the Olive Garden is a great place for families to come and get a genuine Italian dining experience.

Lining up at the front doors two hours before they opened at 4 p.m.....

....arrived in Farmington at 9:30 a.m. to see if they could get lunch, but were forced to drive around town for hours before joining the line...

Simultaneously, one of the funniest and most depressing few paragraphs I have read in a long time. The article in its entirety must not be missed. Follow this link.

This Just In: People Make Mistakes

As my time in Milwaukee comes to an end, I am seriously considering rejoining Facebook—after a 19-month hiatus—in hopes that it will help me stay in touch with friends in Milwaukee. After spending a significant amount of time off the Facebook grid, it should be easy to evaluate whether or not I feel more connected to friends or if communication with them has been eased and made more accessible. If Facebook proves once and again to be inconsequential to maintaining close friendships, and instead becomes a waste of time (no matter how many minutes are burned up by it), then I will quit it again.

But just as I am about to sign back on, I read this article at NYTimes.com called “Company on the Verge of a Social Breakthrough,” by Michiko Kakutani. The article is about Facebook and a new book about it, which was written by David Kirkpatrick, titled The Facebook Effect. Kirkpatrick was granted unprecedented access to the Facebook team for months and was presented with arguments in favor of the social-networking tool’s presence in our lives. He writes in his book, “Some claim, for example, that because of Facebook, young people today have a harder time cheating on their boyfriends or girlfriends. They also say that more transparency should make for a more tolerant society in which people eventually accept that everybody sometimes does bad or embarrassing things.”

I take issue with both of those claims. Firstly, I doubt the first statement is true. If it is, provide me with the numbers showing the decline of relationships having come to an end because of cheating. Facebook’s transparency does not contribute to moral fortitude, it perhaps makes having an affair or cheating on someone harder to hide, but when it comes down to that moment when you commit yourself to an affair, Facebook isn’t going to be in your decision making process. If you are going to cheat, you are going to cheat. Facebook, cell phones, text messages, Twitter and the blogs aren’t going to stop you. Additionally, people are increasingly voyeuristic (the other meaning) when it comes to their Facebook addiction. They love, in a sickly way, to see people stumble, to see flaws. And there are also those people who are more tempted to cheat on their boyfriend or girlfriend because of the social shockwaves it will send through Facebook. These people most certainly suffer from narcissism, they crave admiration and are willing to get it even if means self-abasement.

Secondly, let’s focus on the next statement about the transparency of Facebook leading to “a more tolerant society in which people accept that everybody sometimes does bad or embarrassing things.” Which is to say, what? That before Facebook people didn’t believe or accept the idea that everyone screws up every once in a while. Please. The fact that humans aren’t perfect isn’t exactly breaking news. Maybe folks over at Facebook and its most ardent supporters love to believe this, but to attribute the discovery of human infallibility, and its acceptance as a universal trait, to a social-networking site is absurd.

Furthermore, this statement assumes we benefit from knowing every bad or embarrassing thing our friends and acquaintances do. I am not convinced this is healthy. Concerning our lives, mistakes and errors in judgment included, privacy is important. While sharing with a close friend or relative about a bad thing you have done is very important, sharing about that bad thing you have done on Facebook via a status update hinting at a mistake, or a post, video or picture about it is not comparable or healthy. While the former approach is an attempt to heal, the latter is more of an exercise in narcissism once again and a cry for help from someone who doesn’t know how to share the old fashioned way. We are left to assume that friends of the person who takes the latter approach will meet the other person halfway and make a connection with them, but I don’t believe that is happening on Facebook, at least not in most cases. Why? Because Facebook—ironically called a social-networking site—is outrageously impersonal. It is too easy to walk away from someone crying out for help on Facebook. It is not too easy to walk away when they call you on the phone sobbing or show up on your front door completely broken. The latter scenario is both harder for the person seeking help and for the person who help is sought from.

Lastly, I wouldn’t be that surprised if the transparency on Facebook, which, people say, helps people accept that everybody does bad things, doesn’t lead to more tolerance, but leads to lowering the standards of human behavior and morality. I know, this makes me sound old, like some fuddy-duddy who just doesn’t get it. Well, is it so hard to imagine a world in which every one of our mistakes is known by our friends and relatives because of Facebook’s transparency? No, it isn’t and in this world would we become comfortably numb to errors in judgment from one-night stands to trying cocaine? Yes, it is possible. ‘Everyone screws up’ and tolerance are great things to practice, but it is dangerous to let them become your mantra because although we all screw up, we all need help too. While Facebook may help with bringing the former truth out of the shadows, the latter truth, the one that speaks directly to our love, compassion and our need to edify each other, isn’t exalted by the saturation of our world by Facebook and all of its friends.

WolframAlpha

Have you ever been to WolframAlpha.com? Well, I just went there today for the first time after my dad wrote me to tell me about something cool on the internet that he knew about before me. This did not make me feel hip.

WolframAlpha is similar to Google, but let's say I want to find out the population of Denver. If I type that in at Google and hit enter it lists links to websites, which, Google finds, will give me the answer I am looking for. However, if I type 'population of Denver' into WolframAlpha, and press enter, I am provided with an immediate answer on WolframAlpha's site. In addition to that answer, you get a lot more additional information. For example, in addition to the population of City of Denver (598,707 - 2008 estimate), the site tells me Denver ranks 25th in population in the U.S. I am also presented with a graph showing population history, the metropolitan area population (2.552 million) and the population of nearby cities (Aurora - 319,057).

Type in a date. I chose February 3, 1983, my birthday. The results: time difference from today, 27 years 4 months 5 days, or 1426 weeks 5 days, or 9987 days, or 27.34 years. No observances for February 3, 1983. Events on February 3, 1983, Birth of Dimitry Patzold and Michal Slesingr (both athletes I am not familiar with). The daylight information for that date in 1983 is given. Sunrise was at 7:33am CST and Sunset was at 5:55pm CST and the duration of daylight was 10 hours 22 minutes as recorded in Newton, Kansas. There was a waning gibbous moon that day.

I punched in another date, June 25, 1951. An event listed for that day, "CBS becomes the first to broadcast television in color." I typed in Oak Creek, WI, the quaint, boring little suburb of Milwaukee I live in. Of course, I get population, but also current weather, cost of living index, median home price, unemployment rate (8.2%, ouch), total sales tax, rate of violent crime and property crime, elevation and nearby cities.

Milwaukee: 604,477 people - ranked 24th. Take that, Denver.

Unemployment rate: 12.3% - Take that, Milwaukee.

Notable people born in Milwaukee: William Rehnquist, Spencer Tracy, Bud Selig and Gene Wilder.

You get the point. WolframAlpha is great. Hopefully, like all cool things on the internet, it isn't bought by Google or some other huge corporation. Maybe it is already owned by a mega corporation. I don't know.

Go there. Check it out. Another way the internet will gobble up your time.

The Man

John Wooden, the Wizard of Westwood, dies at 99.

BP Boycott Ineffective

Let me preface, I don't regularly visit any BP stations in Oak Creek or the Milwaukee area. I am not a regular BP customer who is now boycotting the company. I am a one-in-fifty-fill-ups-at-BP customer.

That said...

I did a little more research about a BP boycott and I found a lot of articles like this one, which essentially say, a BP boycott would be ineffective and it would only hurt the station's owners and not affect BP all that much. Which is to say, a boycott would be detrimental to BP's bottom line, but you are going to have collateral damage. That damage in this case would be station owners and employees. It makes me feel bad about wanting to boycott BP and I start feeling like I am contributing to a station shutting down possibly and people losing their jobs. But do I have an obligation to give a gas station, which is in contract with BP, any of my business? The name of BP and their logo will always be associated with the spill in the gulf and I am not going to pull into a station which is in contract with them, even one time out of fifty.

Boycott BP

Before I set out on my 2,500 mile road trip to Colorado, I vowed to not stop at any BP gas station. The way this company has handled the oil leak (lies, distortions and no success in stopping it) is embarrassing. They do not deserve to be awarded with our money or bottomless gas tanks. My thought, feed your addiction somewhere else.

I didn't know of an official boycott of BP, but I was thinking while driving over a thousand miles in one day, there has to be many more people out there doing the same thing. I just did a quick google search and found boycottbp.org

Visit it. Take a look around. It would be great if we didn't have to stop at gas stations at all, but when your low fuel light is on, think twice about what station you pull into.

Bachelor Party Backpacking Pics

Seven of us hiked up the Greyrock trail on Wednesday, May 26, 2010. We spent the night under the stars/clouds. The weather held after a rainy morning. It was a beautiful start to a long weekend of celebration leading up to Erik and Brianne's wedding. Above: Chris, Erik and Ryan during a water break on the way up.

The man of the hour/day/week, Erik Haagenson with beard, before he would, quote, "GQ it up a bit" before the wedding.

A lookout on the way up.

After we arrived at the campsite, we needed to find firewood. We set off to gather some up by any means possible. Hands, feet, medium-sized boulders, leverage and Kyle's hatchet. This hatchet probably wasn't the hatchet Gary Paulsen had in mind, nor were we the handlers of the hatchet that Paulsen likely imagined. We are large, fit, barrel-chested men, not scrawny, stranded boys. This hatchet could only last so long. Fittingly, Erik was the man using the hatchet when it broke, but it could have been any of us. Above: Matt uses the pathetic head of the hatchet to unsuccessfully split some firewood. Stem of broken hatchet seen in foreground. Broken. Useless. And, I think, plastic. That could have been the problem.

I probably got the best shot of all the group of Fort Collins, pictured above, just beyond the lowly, sunlit foothill. I did have the most powerful camera and the biggest lens. The guys were impressed when I turned my camera off and the lens automatically retracted into the body of the camera. It was a very powerful moment.

Erik and co-best man, Chris, pose near the eastern summit.

I don't mean to toot my own horn here, but I do. Above: Chris and Erik stare contemplatively at the horizon, making for a damn fine picture. When I look at this, I see their adventurous spirit, I feel our bond and I think of their history of climbing, camping and mountaineering together and the reverence they have for God's majestic creation. There isn't much else to capture.

Erik and I, trying to gameface.

Our campsite, just at the top of this pond, was picture perfect, flat, with pre-formed fire pit and accessible water. Chris can be seen climbing down from the rock outcropping in the lower-right corner of the shot.

Nearing sunset, taken from the eastern summit. This is my desktop background right now and it is destined to be blown up and on a wall soon.

Collecting firewood. Chris and Erik with a prized catch, a piece of wood which probably burnt up in five minutes later that evening.

The aforementioned hatchet buried in wood after throwing many a small to medium-sized boulder at it. No one will free this hatchet.

Facing west from the summit of Greyrock.

Wes facing westward.

Ryan and Chris with his significantly weaker camera.

Ryan, taking in the view, and Erik, thinking about being a runaway groom.

Ryan, still taking in the view, and Erik, with a reversal of mood, deciding to now go through with it and seeing the beauty in it all.

Chris proudly exhibiting his fascination with man, especially hairy-chested, New Belgium Ranger IPA-drinking man.

The morning after. I was first to wake. I felt very old and thus sat by the burned out campfire thinking about the other times I have felt much older than this group of friends while they slept on.

Sarge. He joined us for the trip. He's awesome, massive and a great hiker.

Our last stop before heading down to Fort Collins was our traditional cliff-jumping spot. Only three people jumped. Above: Erik jumps and begins his rotation for the gainer that he successfully and safely completed before plunging into the snowmelt.

Matt takes a leap into the frigid Poudre River, ending the festivities in the mountains.

Time For A Little Bromance

The man in the middle is getting married next week. I'll be driving out for the occasion. Leaving Sunday. Doing it in one shot. 1,045 miles to Fort Collins, a beautiful horizon, best friends and the wondrous outdoors, like only Colorado can deliver them.

I have four books on CD, Red Bulls and a case of New Glarus beer in the trunk for Mac. Bring on the open road.

It's Like AOL All Over Again

I saw this guy in Starbucks last weekend. He had a computer. I couldn't see what he was doing on it as I was sitting across the store from him, but he seemed to be having a lot of fun, even smirking at times with muffled laughter. I guess I believe the general population to be pretty perverted, whether accurate or not, because I sat there thinking to myself, he's looking at porn. No doubt. You see he was up against a wall so he was the only one that could see his computer screen. Perfect. He's in Starbucks, mooching some internet, looking at porn and there is nothing anyone can do. What a sicko. It makes it gross that he's in his 50s. Eww. Why is he smirking? Weird.

I leave. I come back today and see him again, with that same look, although this time I can see his computer screen. With one glance I instantly see the thing that this old man has discovered. This preoccupation, like a person seeing snow for the first time, utterly infatuated he sits and smiles and laughs. It's sort of still porn. It's Facebook. And he's chatting. Oh, how cute, Grandpa's discovered Facebook. Now, just don't get too excited.

Movies: North Face

North Face chronicles the attempts of Germans and Austrians to climb the Eiger in 1936. No man had climbed the north face, and this, among other crackpot goals of the Third Reich, was not acceptable to Hitler and his entourage. Thus, it was decided that summiting the Eiger would be the perfect way for Nazi Germany to jumpstart the 1936 Olympic Games.

A summit was encouraged and two of the climbers, Andreas Hinterstoisser and Toni Kurz, made an attempt in July of 1936, although, it is worth mentioning, not for the glory of Nazi Germany, which makes them much more likable in the movie. North Face focuses on their attempt, although other climbers weave in and out of the story. To be cliché, but accurate, it is an edge-of-your-seat thriller, which has received many positive reviews. I would also recommend it for its beautiful shots of the Alps and a window into the now extinct era of exploring, when you could say you were the first to summit the Eiger via its north face.

More Orwell

"Stamp-collectors are a strange silent fish-like breed, of all ages, but only of the male sex; women, apparently, fail to see the peculiar charm of gumming bits of coloured paper into albums." - "Bookshop Memories" - George Orwell

Sport as Warfare

With the World Cup nearly upon us, I find the following passage to be appropriate--almost necessary--to counteract all these lovely commercials on TV depicting football players and fans as cheery and peaceful. I love sports, but I have to agree with the following.

From George Orwell's essay, "The Sporting Spirit":

I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates goodwill between the nations, and that if only the common peoples of the world could meet one another at football or cricket, they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield. Even if one didn't know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principles.

...

Anyone who has played even in a school football match knows this. At the international level sport is frankly mimic warfare.

Random Vacation

Booked nine days in advance, Kate and I went to Cancun last week. It was originally a week that we had looked forward to for many reasons--all of which proved to be disastrous exercises in hope, following one's dreams, being adventurous, etc.--one of which buying our first house together and another, exploring our new, and hopefully exciting, hometown. As for the other one, you should know by now--and I am sorry if you don't--it ended miserably on April 5 when I received my tenth and final rejection letter in, what I had previously thought to be, my first and, as yet undecided, only attempt to get into grad school with all the factors in my favor: age (I am getting on in my years), maturity (personally, I think I've always been ahead of the curve here), connections (not many, but I figured good enough), and writing skill (which needs a lot of work and will never be perfected, I know this, but I thought it sufficient enough to get in, right?). Well, I was wrong, miserably, embarrassingly wrong. Chalk one up for the real world again. Another dream squashed and this trip, for me, was at least taken as an attempt to forget that, as I have said before on this blog, magnificent failure. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

The first site of Cancun. Caribbean beaches beckoning to us from the air.

All great beach resorts have a swim-up bar. We set up camp on the shores of this resort's swim-up bar on our first day, within lazily-wading distance of the bartender, Jesus.

The view from one of the restaurants.

A pier, owned by the hotel. The beach was great, the water as warm as a hot tub almost, the sand--superfine and white--was so soft underfoot.

Floating in the pool with diners in the background. Some tables were set out over the water so you could float right under people eating their lunch or dinner. That was sort of weird, but I liked it.

The view from our chairs one day. We liked staying up near the pool and then meandering down to the beach for a dip or a walk whenever we felt like it.

As with all resorts in the Yucatan, there were iguanas wandering around. This one actually jumped (I guess, can iguanas really jump?) onto some woman's chair. I zoomed in and took this picture from across the pool. This guy was at least forty feet away from us. It was funny when the owner of this chair walked up to it and finally saw the iguana. She shrieked and stood upright like a soldier.

The morning of our departure. We got up early to take some pictures of the resort and beach.

Wyoming pride, baby.

A busted pier. Actually, two shots of the same pier. One with the sun directly in the picture and one with it just out of the frame below. I prefer the above shot to the one below.

Looking back on the resort's pier as we stroll north on the beach.

The ubiquitous self-portrait with some other resort in the background.

The parting shot of Cancun, as seen from the exit row of the Boeing 737. AirTran, if you'd like to use the picture in an advertisement, please email me and we can negotiate a contract.

Cruising over Lake Michigan, almost home, and no land in sight. Our own little ocean.

Sullivan on Elena Kagan

"Her entire life seems to have been a closet - in the pursuit of a career." Read the rest here.

I am a little worried that the people who are supposed to do the research for us non-journalists can't even determine how a nominee for the Supreme Court would rule? What is she like? From the sound of it, being appointed to the court has been a life long goal. I don't think that's bad at all, but it seems to be mentioned more as a criticism then anything else. I suppose, if you wanted to be a justice on the highest court in the land, you would walk on eggshells for your entire life/career up until you actually find yourself on the court. This way, you could spend a vast portion of your life not sharing much of your opinions, and that is apparently what many people think she has done, for precisely this time, when the nomination has come and no one knows what to think about her. Well played, I say, if she is confirmed.

Tapping In

Writing to me now is a source of energy, a performance-enhancing drug. When I am swimming and I am in a tight race and I need some energy all I need to do is to think about writing, how it hasn’t done anything for me, how people think I am no good, I think of all of the schools standing on the other side of a doorway flipping me off and then the door shuts, and I pull from those darkest depths of disappointment and depression the reserves of energy and aggression that cannot be matched, that make me surge forward in the pool, or throw myself into the last turn on the track, or jump that extra three inches to block that guy’s shot. Writing is a drug right now that helps with anything but writing at the moment. I am indestructible when I think of it. I am the Hulk. I am Michael Phelps. I am Jordan. I am Usain Bolt. I am that blast of frigid air that spits snow in your face. I am a Category 5 storm. I am Arnold. Come with me if you want to live.

Volcano Pics

Via Sullivan at The Big Picture. Stunning images.

Volcano Video

Pretty amazing footage of the volcano in Iceland via The Guardian's blog on travel disruptions.

From The Onion Sports Section

Running down a list of memorable "Presidential First Pitches", The Onion writes about the highlights. My favorites:

1944: FDR laboriously rolls his wheelchair out to the pitching mound, then stuns the crowd with a 100 mph fastball.

1833: Although the popularization of baseball is still decades off, Andrew Jackson begins the tradition of welcoming in the spring by hurling things at Indians.

Quote of the Day

From Kate, last night, during the second half of the Butler v. Duke game commenting on the obsession among the commentators and Butler fans with the movie Hoosiers. She wasn't even watching it, but working in the kitchen. Mind you, we were already a little fired up for other reasons:

I'm getting tired of all these references to Hoosiers. Get over it. It was a goddamn movie.

From Satellites

The first full length album from Ask You In Gray is available to buy or download. This is the group my great friend Trey is half of. The music is electronica/dance, so not up everyone's alley, but it's seriously good if you like that stuff. Personal favorites: I Can't Dance, Reckless, Farlands, Elaborate Betrayal, Break It Down, and From Satellites. That is more than half the CD. If you like it, buy it or download it. It is super cheap and you will be supporting two great guys from Colorado, Chicago, and now Portland.

Listen to the music at askyouingray.com

Follow the links on that site to get your copy.

Get to the choppa!

The search is over. The best YouTube video ever.

No TV, No Problem

Parting with TV for Lent has been great. It isn't easy to say on here what exactly I did with the time I wasn't watching TV. I am sure I read more in the last 44 days than I would have. I am pretty sure that I wrote more too. And, I've had to rely on the internet and the newspaper even more than I previously had for staying up to date with current events. On the flip side of that, I felt delightfully out of touch with current events at times and it is hard to feel that way unless one is backpacking.

It has been very nice to not watch the NCAA tournament. I never really care who wins or goes far in the tournament, but if I watch I have the tendency to pick some favorites and then I get really upset when they lose. It is stupid. I am happy Duke has made it to the Final Four. I am also proud that Butler, a Horizon League (Milwaukee's conference) team, has made it to the Final Four, but since I haven't watched previous rounds of the tournament I am not nearly as invested in their outcome. Honestly, even though Lent ends today or ended on Thursday (I'm not exactly sure when Lent ends for Presbyterians), I don't plan on watching the games tonight. I might tune in to the last few minutes, but I don't even know if I'll have the TV on tonight.

The one show that I missed the most was The Daily Show. It gives me a substantial dose of humor and journalism (yes, I believe it does) before bed. It reminds me daily why I have become disillusioned with politics after having spent a summer working for a politician. It reminds me of how crazy the media is. It reminds me that it is best to stay moderate in political views, or at least independent of political factions, because the Democrats often don't have the balls to get anything done and the Republicans, in all seriousness, are freaking crazy right now. Of course, anyone who listens to Sarah Palin and thinks, now that's a great candidate for President of the United States of America, could be found medically to be insane. It also reminds me that I don't really connect to the Democrats either. I don't know if I have anything in common with Nancy Pelosi. I'm not exactly sure we are the same species. It's hard to tell after that plastic surgery, but I think we were both for health care reform.

That's about it probably.

The USA Today

I am about to finish up Bill Bryson’s Neither Here Nor There. I thought I would complete the book before pulling some of my favorite quotes and putting them up on the blog, but this one can’t wait. The following passage is from the chapter on his time in Austria:

An old boy, who was dressed more like a housepainter than a waiter, brought me a cup of coffee without asking if I wanted one and, upon realizing that I was an American, began gathering up copies of USA Today.

“Oh, no, please,” I said as he presented me with half a dozen, “put these on the fire and bring me some newspapers.”

God bless you, Bill Bryson.

The Return of Tiger

The cover story in last week’s NY Times Magazine was about Tiger’s return to the PGA. Jonathan Mahler wrote “The Tiger Bubble”, and you can find the article in its entirety here. There were some hilarious and informative passages, some of which I have included below.

Speaking of Tiger, Mahler writes, “The athlete who dominated a sport of discipline, focus and self-control—his father, an ex-military man, once compared him to Gandhi—was a sex junkie. Even as Wood’s sponsors quickly began to drop him, their advertisements lingered awkwardly throughout America: a life-size image of the world’s most famous philanderer greeted airport travelers over Accenture ad copy that read as if it had been written for the occasion: “Go on. Be a Tiger.””

The author reports a quote from Sean McManus, the president of CBS News and Sports, as saying, “I think the first tournament Tiger Woods plays again, wherever it is, will be the biggest media event other than the Obama inauguration in the past 10 to 15 years.” I’m not entirely sure of this. No doubt, the Masters, especially that first day, will be a huge event, but I think McManus assumes a lot to say only the Obama inauguration will overshadow this event in the timeline of the last 10 to 15 years. I have no knowledge about media events or what constitutes a media event, but wouldn’t the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics constitute a media event? Will that truly pale in comparison to Woods stepping onto the first tee? Maybe. I don’t know. I sort of don’t want it to. I wish it was just another Masters with Woods favored to win, but it is anything but that.

I learned a lot about the PGA season that I didn’t know before, like the first tournament televised by a major network is the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. As everyone knows, Tiger wasn’t present this year, but some old friends showed up. “One afternoon, an airplane hired by a local strip club flew overhead, trailing a banner that read, “WE MISS YOU TOO, TIGER! DREAMGIRLS.”” Wow.

Much of the article focused on Tiger’s impact on the game, which has, for the most part, been immeasurable. But there are ways to measure some of the impact:

Over the course of Wood’s career, the tour aggressively raised the price of entry for corporate sponsors. In the process, purses grew by an average of 400 percent. A lot of money found its way into Wood’s pocket. Last year alone, he won $10.5 million, bringing his career total to about $93 million. But there was also a powerful trickle-down effect on his fellow golfers. In 1996, only nine players on the tour earned $1 million. In 2009, 91 golfers did.

And this stat about the PGA’s charitable donations:

Earlier this year, it [the PGA] rolled out a new marketing campaign to draw attention to golf’s charitable giving, which is considerable. All tournament profits are donated to charity; last year, the total came to $108 million, which dwarfs that given by other sports.

I would have never guessed that tournament profits always go to charity, that’s awesome, but also not feasible in some other professional leagues due to how they differ in structure compared with the PGA. But that is freaking sweet.

If you have any interest in sports or Tiger, I recommend clicking over to the article. It is free for now, and you may as well take advantage of that. I think the days of free NY Times are numbered.

Out West

Kate, happy to see her Scotty dogs. Max and Molly.

What do you do in Laramie on a Saturday? Well, you could go to see the peewee rodeo. This was fun, albeit quite smelly. Made even more fun if you bring a vegetarian along and they start crying.

The smallest cowboy I have ever seen. He is tying a string on the goat's tail.

A look across Prexy's Pasture.

A sculpture on Prexy's that looks like it is straight out of the movie version of Where The Wild Things Are.

War Memorial Stadium, currently under construction and on steroids.

Somewhere between Laramie and Fort Collins on highway 287. Beautiful.

Leftovers of the freak snow storm we had in Denver on Tuesday night.

Back West

And you know we are going to stop at the Rio...

Back in less than a week.

To Allen Drive

I threw it into Lake Michigan. It flew threw the air like a rock I was trying to skip and it may have skipped if it hadn’t turned vertical and entered the water without a splash. I had been saving it for some sort of closure, waiting to throw it into a body of water. I was thinking as soon as I brought my arm forward it would fly out of my left hand and like people do in the movies, I would instantly feel better about what took place and the hole in my heart would be covered up instantly. It wouldn’t be filled, that’s impossible. Just covered up so I can’t fall into it again and again.

For minutes before I threw it, I held the piece of metal in my hand, thinking of where I had taken it, of when I received it; of the times I used it. For ten and a half years I have had it on my being. It doesn’t necessarily look that old, but it feels older. The metal texturing, similar to sand paper, has been worn smooth at the center of its broad end where I grasped it so many times, often in the dark, fumbling around in the cold.

I looked at it resting in my palm, noticing the unnatural bend of the metal, something I gave to it months ago out of anger. I had bent it to a ninety-degree angle and then felt embarrassed about my anger and I bent it back, but there is a scar now. It isn’t perfectly straight like it once was and I wonder if I could still use it if I needed to. But I know I won’t need to. It can’t be used anymore, but it is the last physical object of that place I have, giving it meaning beyond its functionality, which is the reason I still have it, five months after it ceased to be useful.

But it was time to let it go. Just the sight of it over the last months has vexed me. I don’t need to keep it for its meaning, I don’t need another thing lying around the apartment that brings to mind that hurt and shock. That was why I was there, I guess, on a sunny, warm day on the shore of Lake Michigan, because there will always be that hurt and shock, regardless of whether or not I keep this metal. So as I brought my arm back I was tempted to curse once again the people and places that made this metal useless, but I didn’t. I tried to let go of some of the aggression and I flung it into the water, which was Caribbean blue that day, hoping that some of the anger sank to the bottom of Lake Michigan along with the key to 706. I can only hope.

Jesus Called

I am not a fan of bumper stickers. There are two designs I will allow to grace my car, the Wyoming bucking horse logo and the MxPx pokinatcha punk face. Currently, neither of these stickers are on my car. I feel like if I have something important to say, I want to say it, and not have people read it on the back of my car. These opening sentences are all part of a tangent to the story I originally wanted to share with this blog.

Now that I’ve established that I am above putting nearly all bumper stickers on my car, I want to say that I still admire a great bumper sticker. I saw one last week. It read: Jesus Called, He Wants His Religion Back.

You don’t read too many opinions (at least in the West) that posit a highjacking of the Christian faith for purposes of power, persuasion, war, etc. Most of the time it is the terrorists who are responsible for a highjacking of faith (Islam). But our gaze is too often external, and what I specifically like about this bumper sticker is that it makes you think internally, at least in terms of the Christian body. Something about “Jesus Called, He Wants His Religion Back” stings and I figured out what it is. It is the truth in the statement. There are as many people involved in Christian malpractice as there are people involved in Muslim malpractice. The results aren’t always the same, especially in terms of coverage in the news outlets.

Jesus’ teachings are pure, beautiful, inclusive, and non-violent. The religion that springs forth from those teachings isn’t always that. Bugger.

Dark, Quiet, and Cold

I think I woke up because of the quiet. Maybe it was the darkness. I can’t remember exactly. I knew, somehow, in my sleep that something was different. Coming into focus, my eyes stared at the VCR (yes, we still have a VCR). The current time in its familiar orange glow did not stare back. I rolled over and looked at the alarm clock. Blank. My cell phone was the nearest reliable clock. I picked it up and it’s small screen lit up the wall at the head of my bed like a flashlight. 3:22am.

“The power is out.” I had needlessly said. My wife had to work at 7 this morning. I asked her if her cell phone’s alarm clock was set. It was. I asked her if I should set mine too for her. Yes, 5:45am. Okay. I did. We rolled over and tried to fall back asleep, but every once in a while we would chime in about the power being out. She shared a story about she and her sisters trying to warm ham in a pan over a candle during a power outage in her childhood. That’s a very Bradley thing to do. The first concern: food. How are we going to eat?

We finally fell asleep. For a moment we woke up a little after 5 when the power switched on, humming in high and low keys for a few seconds and then off. Back to sleep and up at 5:45 when the cell phones went off. We got out of bed and lit candles in the bathroom and living area. I used a mini Maglite to light my way around the house. We first went downstairs to the garage to see if the door would open. It did. Very slowly it crept up onto the rails parallel to the ground. My wife was moving her car outside. She told me to lift to help the garage door up. It didn’t make a difference. It opened all the way and I got in the car and we drove to ground level and parked.

Back inside the apartment I lay on the bed and watched my wife move about the apartment by candlelight. Immortalized by the soft yellow glow of the light. I stared, changing my position every half-minute, alternating from eyes closed and head down to eyes open and head up watching to see if she was ready to leave.

I walked her out to her car. It is darker now in the morning, the night the clocks sprung forward, robbing us of an hour we won’t get back until the fall. We could see just fine. The sun hadn’t yet risen, but its glow lit up clouds thousands of feet above us which were now operating as mood lighting, an orange glow from the far-off sun and nearby city lights. But the buildings were dark. No exterior or interior lights on. The only sign of life or inhabitance being furniture on patios and different arrangements of the blinds. We arrived at her car. A kiss goodbye and I turned to walk back into the darkness.