Cle Elum - Oct 2013

Cle Elum 2013, a set on Flickr.

A couple weeks ago I took off with my pal M and we jumped up I-90 to Salmon La Sac Road to take some pics of what little Fall colour we could find.

While we didn't find that much fall colour it was one of the most beautiful Fall days in the mountains that you could possibly imagine. Almost 70F, dry trails, a picnic and some nice wine. What a perfect outing.

A New Voter Initiative for the State of Washington

I've been thinking of creating a voter initiative for the State of Washington.
I've thought this through and I think this will create employment, remove traffic deadlock and conserve gasoline. The macroeconomic cost savings will be enormous.
My father once quipped off-the-cuff (and claims to not remember it), "Brakes are for people with poor planning skills" when I asked him for some money to repair the front brakes in my 1986 Mercury Lynx (white, all vinyl interior, 5-spd, cassette deck AND air conditioning - stop ladies, I'm taken). Although his response was sardonic and showed what little regard he had for my life at that time he did have a really good point. It's an excellent point. It is a point I've been thinking about for the last 25 years.
The bugs clearly need to be worked out as I am not a lawyer, but the idea is this. If you apply your brakes on an Interstate Highway a government sniper will shoot you in the head. It's very simple. Touch your brakes, you forfeit your life and your car. I do assume that there will be savage congestion in the short term as the populace gets used to the idea and acclimates to the new rules of the road but there is no risk of repeat offenders. Congestion will be reduced significantly over the medium term as the citizenry complies and those that were unable to adapt are no longer on the road.
Unnecessary braking is extremely wasteful. Do you know why your car's city mileage rating is lower than its highway mileage rating? It's the gas that is used getting back up to speed. If you don't slow down there is no need to get back up to speed. Let's also not forget about all the asbestos we've been spinning into the air over-applying our brakes over the decades.
I think the cars recovered by this law, if in a good and safe condition, could be given to job seekers. I'm sure there are other uses as well. We'll sort it out. That's what committees are for.

If successful I will roll out my next idea.. the death penalty for left lane obstructors.

Henry lugging my lenses

Henry lugging my lenses, originally uploaded by seattleforge.

I took today off as there would be sweet F.A. to do. Our contractor was trying to get through a lot of work today, so I risked Henry hating me and took him outside.
It was hard to tell if it was going to be nice this morning but it was a lovely day. We had a pancake breakfast, hiked through the arboretum (I was testing out a new fisheye lens I was given as a gift), we played chess in a coffee shop, read our kindles, bought the stuff for Christmas dinner and then turned for home.
We are very close to having this project at an end. It will be great to have our house back and in better shape than before. But I will miss our contractor, Troy. He's an ace human being.

Cheers,

S.

Vancouver Skyline from the North Shore

Vancouver Skyline from the North Shore, originally uploaded by seattleforge.

On Thursday night I got a call from my pal James.
James grew up next door to me from the 7th grade through the end of high school. His Dad was a product of Windsor's toughest neighborhood, Drouillard Road and he worked the Ford foundry there. The foundry is the toughest job in Ford Motor. It is unbelievably hot, dirty and dangerous. There is a premium paid for working there but most of the guys working there are paying on a habit they still can't afford. It is a soul crushing, body killing grind that only a few people come out of whole. James' Dad Mike was a ridiculous tough, alcoholic mick with a gambling problem and he liked to take it out on the kids and his wife upon occasion. Rarely with his fists, but I don't know that the distinction matters.
James was at our house a lot. He is my brother's age. He and my brother were friends, but my brother isn't easy to be friends with. Pretty soon James was coming over just whenever he wanted to be out of his house, which was a lot. There was even a time when he had his drum kit set up in our garage when his Dad told him he was going to sell it. In high school it was not unusual to see James chatting my with my Mum at the kitchen table and doing his homework before heading home for dinner. I didn't realize it until a few years ago but there were a lot of kids in our house all the time and most of them were there because of my Mum.
After high school James got a job at Ford and I didn't pick up with him again until we linked up on Facebook. He had just moved to Vancouver. He had quit Ford and started college (sound engineering). Moving out of the cocoon of FoMoCo and Windsor James' world grew quite a lot. it was great getting reacquainted with him. It was great sharing reading lists. He was having a tough time though. Finances were tight. His house back in Windsor couldn't hold a renter and his renters were like rats vandalizing the place. He got through school only to see the entertainment biz in Vancouver get gutted by the Canadian dollar coming up to par with the USD. He's struggled to keep everything going.
He called to tell me that he had to move back to Windsor. The last set of renters completely vandalized his house before eviction. He didn't have the money to fix it to get it rented again and couldn't pay the mortgage and rent. He had a job lined up back home that would allow him to get things back on the rails again. He's hoping that this would only be a four month trip. He wants to get back to Vancouver as soon as possible. The people might be odd, the city is incredibly expensive, but the views are staggering, the air is clean and there is a vibrant economy (at least compared with Windsor). I told him to consider it a business trip. He liked the idea.
Friday I headed up to Vancouver (a trip I had been promising for months to make but didn't - for all sorts of reasons). I helped him a bit with the packing up and then we went on a tear. I haven't laughed that much in ages. It was a cure. It was sooo great getting time with someone who gets where I'm from and being able to joke, jab and parry. James is a great guy. I'm hoping he can get things on track.
Heh.. one thing off track. I hardly ever drink coffee anymore, but he gave me an espresso machine. James only drinks tea, but his brother re-gifted James one of his wedding presents last Christmas. I got it running this afternoon. Tomorrow I'll toast James with a cup of the black stuff.

Hmmm.. ever such a long time ago.

Oregon Road Trip 2011 (43 of 64), originally uploaded by seattleforge.

I have no been able to wake up this morning. Probably a mix of last night's sleeping pill and this morning's anti-allergy pill. YAWN!

I think I need to pack up my tent and spend a weekend sleeping outdoors before the good weather ends. It's too beautiful here to spend another weekend shuttling through traffic.

Sigh..

Yorkshire from RAW (3 of 20), originally uploaded by seattleforge.

I dropped Henry at camp today. He was still a bit under the weather and Jackie had a VERY hard time letting him go under the circumstances.
We stopped for a lovely dinner in La Conner at a gastropub that serves entirely locally sourced food. Delicious.
I'm restless though. No interest in going to work tomorrow. I'd rather be a scamp mooching bitter in Yorkshire.

Salmon La Sac & Cooper Lake Camping Trip

Salmon La Sac & Cooper Lake Camping Trip (3 of 20), originally uploaded by seattleforge.

I really hate that I've neglected this place.

This weekend has been absolutely fantastic. I took Henry camping along with my pal, Forrest. We were originally going to go camping near Skykomish but after looking at the weather report I thought we should go camp somewhere in the rainshadow. The trick is that neither F or I know the area well so it was a bit of a guessing game.
Friday night we headed up, grabbed dinner at The Brick in Roslyn (a town once made famous by Northern Exposure) and then made our way north on Salmon La Sac toward Cooper Lake. We wanted to get settled in before losing our light so we weren't too picky on our campsite. We did okay finding a place with enough wood to gather, a bit of privacy and good ground to put our tents down. The downside was that over a bluff from us was a rather large group of middle-aged wankers blasting bad 80s music. The local rangers did tell them to kill the music at 10pm and apparently someone in their party, who was quite drunk, promptly fell in their giant campfire on his way to telling the rangers off. They were quite quiet for the rest of the night.
Henry LOVED gathering firewood, tending the fire and cooking over it. He stayed up quite late with us and basked in the testosterone.
Henry was a HUGE help getting the tent all set up. I certainly had a lot more stuff in there than I would have if i was on my own. But he was pretty brilliant at arranging everything in the tent while I fed it to him from the car. Actually, he was incredibly helpful through the whole trip.
We both had as decent a night's sleep as you can have sleeping inches off the ground and woke up hungry as hell.
We got up a bit earlier than Forrest so we got out for a hike. Checked out a nearby creek, looked about some of the other campsites and marked a few places with the GPS in case we wanted to come back on our own sometime. When we got back F had a wee fire going and the campstove set up on the tailgate. Henry got his first camp breakfast of bacon, eggs and deformed hotcakes. We broke camp and decided to head for Cooper Lake proper.
Cooper Lake is further north and quite close to the snow line. After dicking about the fire roads for a while we settled in a spot not far from the lake just off a creek that feeds it. It was a brilliant spot. Well above the creek with good creek access. Loads of accessible firewood, trails, deadfalls to climb, etc..
Henry got a full day of romping around the woods, over the creek and down trails with his slingshot in hand. He was absolutely filthy and happy as hell. We were at a much higher altitude than the night before and it was COLD that night. Colder than we really packed for. But our sleeping bags are great and we survived the night with a sense of humour.
Sorry I can't make this more interesting. I guess you had to be there. It was a great thrill for me having Henry along and a bigger thrill that he liked it so much and wants to do it again. I can hardly wait. I think our next trip will be a mid-week trip to Spencer's Spit on Lopez Island. Clamming, crabbing, fishing, etc.. Good times.