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To telemark again

Cost and time have been preventing me from skiing much the last several years. However, I started this year with a trip up to Mt. Hood Meadows with my sister for a half-day on the slopes. We were virtually alone on the drive up and the parking area never really got more than 1/4 filled. Somewhat of a surprise for the first day of the year. I guess folks knew about the wind and decided to nurse their new-year hangovers off at home.

After putting stiff boots on in the rain, we headed up to the lodge for tickets and a bathroom stop. I was able to use a $50 gift card I’d received several years earlier that has been in my daughter’s play purse much of that time. Meadows is surprisingly expensive, and the gift card only covers about 70% of the ticket cost. The whole endeavor is rather expensive.

The first few turns were awkward, off-balance, and I typically over-turned and did a lot of stopping. With each dip, I asked my thighs if they remembered the balance required for a stable telemark turn. Eventually we reached an agreement and my feet settled happily in to the massive plastic boots. On the third run, the slopes pushed back at my feet with a comfortable force that I had sorely missed. The burn in my thighs, the snow sticking to my beard, and sensation in my fingertips as I brushed the ground during deep turns were intensely therapeutic. They also unlocked wonderful memories.

My sister and I were able to ride just enough to satisfy ourselves without actually getting hurt. It was a lot of fun to spend the day with her without any of the other noise of life. She’s much better than I remember and it was a bit of work keeping up. Now we just need to make time to go again.

Meet Millie

Millie

Millie is the newest member of our family. She was Michelle birthday gift to Ella, though she was also a gift for herself, and a gift from me to her. Complex, I know.

Millie is a tabby from the Oregon Humane Society that Ella picked out with our help. Millie is even the name that Ella picked, and we’re not actually sure where she got the name, but we all agreed that it is a good cat name. Ella wanted a pink cat, and since no such thing was available, we went with the most immediately affectionate kitten that was compatible with Barley, with the girls, and hopefully with the chickens. Well, we haven’t actually decided about the indoor/outdoor thing yet. Michelle and I agree that litter boxes are a nuisance, but worry about the likelihood of roadkill in this neighborhood.

So far Millie fits in well. It’s a little weird how similar she looks to the late Tigger Lee, but he was a handsome devil if nothing else. Let’s hope his voice was unique and not a characteristic of the breed.

Camping as a family

This weekend Ella, Madeline, Michelle and I took our first camping trip as a family. We were actually camping with a group of college friends celebrating 10 years of friendship and stuff. The camp site was at Horseshoe Cove Campground, on Baker Lake up in Northern Washington. It was quite the haul, as I’m sure our friend Joe can attest. He rode with us from Portland to the campground and back wedged between two car seats. He did a great job of keeping the girls entertained, and seemed in good spirits about the whole thing. I later figured out the ratio of travel to camping at something like 15.5:36. We’ll have to work on those numbers, especially with the ‘lil ones.

In many ways, this camping trip was a test for the future of camping for our family. We all made some sacrifices, especially when bed time came and it became clear that neither Ella nor Madeline were going to sleep in their designated areas. All 4 of us ended up sleeping on a double air mattress that leaked. My butt and hips were touching the ground at almost all times during the night, but my mass helped keep the rest of the family reasonably inflated. We also tested the early stages of a camping kitchen, and things went quite well. I learned yet another way that my mother showed her love too; by her doing camping dishes. Without a good place for them, camping dishes are wretched, especially without a dog (he stayed home… no room in the car). I may boycott bacon on camping trips from now on despite how good it was on Saturday morning with some home laid eggs and coffee.

Our friend Clem and his daughter Talia also came on the trip so Ella had a playmate the entire time. She seems to have had a blast, which is a relief. Not only that, despite a 2 am outburst, the girls were quiet during then night and I think our friends largely forgive being woken up so early by kids. We were rather worried about the whole kid thing since we’ve been doing camping trips for a decade now that were..rowdy. Turns out that’s normal, and the two camp sites near us fit the same profile, and they were even louder than us.

I bought a fishing license in hopes that we could enjoy some trout for dinner on Saturday night. I had no luck though until after dinner, though the 4″ trout wouldn’t have been much of a meal. So I put it back. Ella actually watched me catch the fish and release it, and she wasn’t scared or upset. She even got to reel in a few casts, which I think she rather enjoyed.

So besides the great comfort of old friends and the joy of seeing them all again, I think I’m just tickled that the trip went so well. It will embolden me to camp again, and soon. Here’s some photos.

Shellac in ’09

I’m a last.fm junkie. Two weeks ago while listening to Trans Am radio or something similar, a Shellac song came on and I clicked on the “loved” button. I also noticed that there was a small “on tour” flag next to their name. Curiosity caused me to click on the link and I was pleased to find that they were in Portland for 2 nights only 2 weeks from that day. And tickets were only $12. Suck on that, Ticketmaster.

I started listening to Shellac in high school when the band leader for a band I was in gave me a tape of stuff he was inspired by. Shellac has released a few albums in the decade since, but I kind of expected I’d never see them; they’re famously picky about where they tour and have no need to make more money. So I jumped on the opportunity.

The show was at Berbati’s, which isn’t my favorite, but it’s been really good to me the last couple years. I’ve seen several really great shows there, and frankly, the sound and venue beats the bigger venues any day. At Berbati’s, the furthest you can be from an artist is roughly the same as the closest you can be to an artist at an arena or concert hall. And now that there’s no smoking, you come home only smelling like sweat and whatever drink someone spilled on you.

Suffice to say, the band was fantastic. I went alone because the only person I know that listens to Shellac was some distance away. It was actually quite nice except when I came to some realization about the band, and instrument, or something, there was no one to share it with. Not that anyone would have cared.

Regardless, it was a terrific and unexpected show. I’m actually surprised so few people know about the band since it’s such a cornerstone of post-rock, post-punk movement. I don’t exactly know how to describe it other than economical driving rock. There’s none of the drama or overzealousness of metal, none of the insipidness of punk, and none of the sad-sack business in most indie rock. I guess there’s last.fm if you’re curious.

Grandpa Barn

My Grandpa Stuehrenberg passed over the weekend. He was a fantastic grandpa and brought so much joy to my childhood. As things go, his death wasn’t simple or quick, so it’s with a portion of relief that I mourn him. The rest of my family has flown back to Nebraska for the funeral, and while I don’t regret the decision, it would have been amazing to see the turnout. Not only did he have an immense family (my mom had 7 siblings), but as an athlete, soldier, milk man, insurance salesman, and county commissioner, he kind of knew everyone. He was so outgoing and interested that a 5 minute trip to the store rarely wrapped up in 20. All throughout my childhood, we’d be driving around town, or even dozens of miles away from town on some empty farm road and he’d run in to someone he knew. And he didn’t just know of them, he knew things about them, like they crops they grew, how many kids they had, what their plight was and he seemed to empathize with most of them.

Grandpa Barn (we nicknamed our grandparents after memorable objects – can you pronounce Stuehrenberg?) was a child at heart, I think, and that’s what made him an excellent grapndpa. I have so many fond memories, but I left him with one on Friday. My uncle Bill was kind enough to hold the phone to his ear for me, and who knows how many other of his children, his great grandchildren, and possibly even some of his great-great grandchildren. I recalled a failed hunting trip he took me on one fall day where we took the brown ford out to a wooded section of land outside town on a farm of someone he was friends with. We were hunting quail and spent some time traipsing through the scrub until Jesse (his english setter) flushed out some quail. He would let me shoot first, and if (when) I missed, he’d quickly shoot the bird, and Jesse would retrieve. We ended up with two birds, but he knew I wanted to shoot some more, so we set up discarded bottles and cans and he let me have my fun shooting garbage. We had intended on building a fire to make some hotdogs, but given the time and wind, decided to instead eat the cold hotdogs on the drive back. They tasted fantastic, which I’m sure had more to do with the experience than the actual dogs.

One of the last things I said to him was to thank him for loving me and accepting me, even when I showed up with hair down to my mid-back, or with what many have called a terrorist beard. A haircut and shave were two things he took very seriously, but he never let that get in the way of spending time together. Maybe he understood the importance of the time, or maybe he just knew that every single cousin would make fun of the hippie for him.

Recent milestones

In the past week, the following milestones have been reached:

Ella asked “Are we there” in the car for the first time
Madeline found her voice – at 5am
Michelle turned 30
Ella asked “Are we there” for the 100th time
Madeline sucked on her thumb, in ernest
Michelle went to bed without taking out her contacts
Ella golfed for the first time
Madeline slept without a blanket
Michelle woke up and could read the alarm clock without glasses

Now you’re upset?

I just don’t get these tax protests. Mum is the word for 7 years while over a trillion dollars is spent in and on Iraq, but when the money is being spent domestically, people stage protests. Protests sponsored by a news organization. I think someone has been duped.

The girls’ dresser

On Friday night my dad and I moved this finished dresser in to Ella’s room. It took roughly 3 months to build due to some distractions, but Ella (and Michelle) are happy to see a finished product finally sitting in the room after many afternoons over in my dad’s shop.

The idea was to build a matching dresser for the furniture my dad built for Ella’s arrival. With two girls, we were going to need a little more space for clothes and blankets. My dad is the craftsman on the project, but I tried my best to be as involved in the design and building process as time would allow. I used Sketchup to come up with an initial design after measuring the existing furniture, only to have it thrown out when my dad pointed out that it was half as wide as I intended it. “You want it to be a square?”
So the second version was much better (below), though my dad made some design changes based on things he’s learned since building the originals, and based on access to certain materials. The original dresser had a bunch of birdseye maple in it that he got on the cheap from a cabinet shop in Yakima. To get even enough birdseye for the top of this project would have tripled the price. So we went with a nice-enough selection of rock maple (some with great figuring) and used Pacific Coast maple and some poplar for the innards.

This is the first project like this that I’ve been involved in from start to finish, so I was taking every opportunity to learn from my dad. He also took the opportunity to not be sold on sketchup for design, since it seemed that we were correcting mistakes at every point of the project. I blame this more on my creating a plan and his modifications of it, so we had no single accurate plan at any given time. I also learned from some bone headed mistakes, like if you modify the height of the piece, you have to redraw all the drawers if you don’t use sketchup like a pro. Needless to say, I learned one of the most important things in woodworking – how to back out of a problem.

It was a little frustrating that it took so long (I’m sure my dad would agree, since it was holding his shop hostage), but I had a lot going on at home. And when I tried to rush in some work, I often made the biggest mistakes. But I also got to learn to use his shop and the process from design, to purchasing the wood, to planing and cutting boards, assembly, and finishing. I’d done individual parts in the past, but never all as one project.

Having made the piece, I can see all the flaws and errors, though they’re relatively minor. Hopefully it isn’t obvious to Ella and she decides she’d rather have IKEA stuff for the rest of her life. It was a lot of fun, and I’m hoping to find another project to do soon. Right after my thesis.

Perils of spring weather

Michelle and I took full advantage of the glorious weather to work the yard in to shape. We also added a third raised bed in the front yard, which Michelle agreed to with some trepidation. It’ll be nice to have another bed that gets more sun and won’t be as likely to have heirloom tomatoes plucked by passer-bys.

This evening after a second full day of yard work, we decided a walk to Pause was in order. On the walk there, we discovered that the two warm days was enough to get the ants out, and we passed through hatch after hatch of flying ants. The patio at Pause was even getting swarmed, but I seemed to be taking the brunt of the, well, nuisance. The nuisance quickly turned in to sheer terror when one ant landed on my ear lobe and crawled up and in to my ear canal. A quick finger after him wasn’t enough and he crawled in to some place that tickled like hell. The movement somewhere that only water and wax goes was the stuff of childhood nightmares. The tickling was roughly where my jaw hinged, and it was not normal. For the next 4 minutes I thrashed my head around, used my finger to suction and plunge, and finally flooded my ear with water. That seems to have done the trick, though I kept having to remind myself that the ear was a closed-enough system that nothing could go too wrong.

Still, I hope that never happens again.

A contributing member

Today was my first day back at work. We’ve not yet developed routine, but this morning we probably started something like one. It was a hybrid of what mornings were like 2 months ago and what mornings were like last week. Amazingly, we made it though – dog got walked, kids were fed, Michelle and I each ate something and took steps towards getting caffeine. The hard part was actually leaving my girls to rejoin the workforce. The shuttle ride to work was quite sad, partly because I didn’t recognize anyone, and partly because I’d grown accustomed to being around my family.

The day picked up though because my office mate put cookies on my desk. Breakfast cookies and coffee rock. The rest of the morning was like a light version of a regular day because no one knew I was back, and because my phone system wouldn’t allow anyone to leave voicemail.

It was nice to be back though, in some ways. I know this is a really loaded thing to say, but it was really nice to think again. I like my job and trying to do it from home with two kids was difficult and frustrating. That being said, if Michelle steps up and becomes my sugar-mamma, I’m all about going stay-at-home.

So, here comes the rest of our lives.