Bike Ride

This is how my brother-in-law, James, exercises his dogs.



I made this video for him as part of a video interview for his application to appear on American Gladiators. Best of luck to you James!

Time, time, time

Last year on the evening of my twenty fifth birthday I stood at the edge of a lake in Lethbridge, Alberta with the sun going down behind me and felt a tremendous sense of closure to my old life. I had already lived a whole quarter of a century, I had just graduated from college, it was the last day of our road trip to Canada and we were heading back south the next day. Everything I had looked forward to was over with. And the future more than at any other time in my life was a great unknown.

Today, one year later, it's my birthday again. I am twenty six. In talking to who are the close to the same age I am or a few years older, twenty six is when people start to become more and more surprised at how old they're getting. I've heard younger kids joke (and I've done it, too) about how old they're getting when they turn twenty or twenty one. But they don't fool themselves. They really know that they're still young. But at twenty six you start to get a sense of youth slipping away from you. It becomes stronger and stronger every year. And for a lot of people it's frightening. Time zooms by faster every year with more speed and force, and we feel more and more powerless to slow it down. It will be in a little while that we will be truly old.

From conversations I've listened to amongst people much older than me, this surprise at how old we're becoming never stops.

"I can't believe I'm thirty five already!"

"I can't believe I have a kid in high school already!"

"I can't believe I'm forty already!"

"I can't believe I have a kid in college already!"

"I can't believe my youngest has already graduated high school!"

"I can't believe we're grandparents already!"

Realizing that people are surprised by these things every day makes me determined not to be surprised by them, and by their accompanying sense of oldness. I know we can't stay young forever but we don't have to feel old if we don't want to. Right now, I am in the best physical shape of my life. I eat healthier and run six miles at least three times a week. I feel much more energetic than I did when I was a fast food guzzling twenty two year old. So in a way I feel younger now than I did four years ago.

Apparently I look young, too. A couple of days ago someone my age asked me if I was fresh off my mission. No, I said. It's been five years. But apparently I can still pass for a twenty one year old.

And we can still love birthdays, no matter what number is attached. Rather than seeing a birthday as a harbinger of decrepit old age, it's always a terrific reason to have a party.

Hero of Our Time

I've been looking forward to writing this post for a long time.

No matter what any one says, movies really do have the power to influence us for good or for evil. "The Matrix" influenced many an awkward teenager to dress in black and look like Keanu Reeves (Keanu Reeves is not the Hero referred to in the title of this post). "Rocky" inspires every one who stands on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art to run up and throw a few punches into the air, even if they only saw "Rocky" once when they were five years old (as much as I would like it to be, the Hero I mentioned isn't Rocky Balboa, sorry Rock, next time). "The Lord of the Rings" movies to this day inspire legions of people to dress up as wizards and hobbits (I'm talking about a Hero of our time, not the third age of Middle Earth). "Top Gun" inspired a whole generation of impressionable young men, who wouldn't be caught dead in a hobbit costume, to become Navy fighter pilots (Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, sorry boys you're not the heroes I'm talking about either).

But through out my life no movie or Hollywood star has been more a constant mentor to me, and as good a friend, as Will Smith.

When I was thirteen years old, I found myself in the middle of the target audience of "Independence Day." I saw it opening day with my friends Mike and Jordan (this is the same Mike I went to the midnight showing of Indy 4 with twelve years later). We went to the largest and best theater we could get to at the time: Tigard Cinema. When we arrived it was already crowded so we had to sit down in the first few rows. These turned out to be ideal seats for the scenes when the gigantic alien spaceships show up. Like those poor people in the movie we just looked straight up at them, the edges of the ships spreading out past our peripheral vision. And when they started blowing everything up, the gigantic fireballs surrounded us.

And then Will Smith came and took down one of the little alien space ships, which is more than any one else could have done. Then he opened up the little alien spaceship, and an alien reared its nasty head through the smoke. A woman off to my right screamed. Then Will Smith gave the alien a right hook and said: "welcome to earth!" The audience cheered and applauded. It was awesome.

Will Smith taught me how to fight aliens that day. What other lesson does a thirteen year old boy want to learn? To attract girls, maybe? No. For the type of kid that I was, fighting aliens seemed much more important, and more probable, at the time. That's how pitiful I was.

Will Smith taught me how to fight aliens again a couple of summers later in "Men in Black," but he taught me how to look good while doing it.

It wasn't until a movie called "The Legend of Bagger Vance" came out that Will Smith fully embodied his role as a mentor, by coming out of the mist and teaching Matt Damon (and us) about golf and the mysteries of life.



In "I, Robot" he taught us how to fight robots, just like he did with aliens, only this time he showed us that you can overcome prejudices against robots first, and then fight them. But by the time "I, Robot" came out I wasn't interested in learning how to fight robots and aliens any more. I had grown up and moved on.

Will Smith moved on with me. In his next movie, "Hitch," he stepped back into his mentor role and gave me some much needed tips on how to impress women and dating.

But he didn't stop there. He amazed and educated me yet further in the "Pursuit of Happyness" by teaching me how to jump on the corporate ladder, even when all of life's forces are trying to keep you off of it, just like they're doing to me right now.

Then again, during a lonely time of my life, "I Am Legend" came out and Will Smith showed me how to deal with loneliness by being the last man on earth.

For all of these movies, I would like to shake Will Smith's hand one day and say "thank you," or "thanks, man."

Now after so many life lessons, when a new Will Smith movie comes out I can only ask myself: "what is Will going to teach me this time?" Today a new Will Smith movie is coming out: "Hancock." What can I expect Will Smith to teach me? After watching the trailer



I can't hazard a guess.

Musings, Rabbits

Our relationships with stories fascinates me.

This week I'll be finishing reading the book "Watership Down." My first exposure to this story was through an animated film I saw in grade school. Like many children, I presume, this movie completely freaked me out. All I can remember is the story is about rabbits, and that it filled me with dread. So much so that I couldn't go near this book ever since, until a couple years ago when I watched an early "Lost" episode that showed Sawyer reading it.

Hmmm . . . said I.

You see, there's something strangely cinematic about scenes in movies and TV where a character just sits there and reads. Books are experiences and knowledge that we can share with each other. When a fictional character in a movie is reading a book that we've read, we also share that experience and knowledge with that person, even though he doesn't actually exist. But if we haven't read the book we might ask "what is going through that person's mind in this scene while he's reading?" The character in the show has an advantage over us, so to speak. He knows something we don't.

What insight was Sawyer gaining from this book that could explain the mysteries of the island? I wondered. It took me a couple of years to get around to it, but after reading "Watership Down," I can't say. "Lost" is still just as big a mystery as it ever was. But I am extremely glad that I can soon say that I've read "Watership Down," and not because I've read a book that Sawyer's read.

No, no.

This book is spectacular, and completely imaginative in a way that so few are. It's like the scenes in "The Once and Future King" where Merlin turns little King Arthur into various animals. But it's so much better than "The Once and Future King" (which would have been good if the king being referred to in the title was King Arthur and not King Pellinor, who doesn't just show up once, but keeps coming back again and again in his quest for the questing beast, but that's a discussion for another day) After a morning reading "Watership Down" I feel like I've experienced life as a rabbit.

It's strange I can't really describe this book without giving it justice. I'll just say that I'm a bit maddened that such a scary movie had kept me from reading this book earlier.

Incomplete Optimism

Lets see, if Peter Pan were to teach me how to fly and told me to think happy thoughts, here's a possible scenario of what would go through my mind of things that make me happy (in no particular order):

bookstores

jazz

chopsticks

documentaries

couches and comfortable furniture



family

nephews (& niece)



friends, both old and new

swapping jokes

magic tricks

boomerangs

reading books

thai restaurants

. . . let's see what else . . .

running

hot showers



grandeur, delusional and real



jaunts through the woods

the spirit of exploration

drawings

sketchbooks

westerns

violins

guitars

balloons



the fact that this is an incomplete list

There are many more things, than pictures in a scrapbook, to discover that inspire happy thoughts.

Monkey Brains

This is what happened in Indy 4 right after Shia LaBeouf got done swinging with the monkeys:

Journeys Through Forests, New Friends, Old Friends, Indy 4, Getting Married Movie Style

Yesterday was one of the more interesting days I've had in a while. First, a few friends and I went hiking through Forest Park. I've included some pictures here. I've lived close to Portland almost my entire life, yet for some reason this park has escaped me, until now.

Forest Park is nestled right against downtown Portland. My friend, Gabe, lives close by so this week and last we, and a few others, have gone exploring. This park has it all: tall old growth trees, cathedral like canopies, beautiful streams and ponds, a castle like ruin called Stone House, salamanders, slugs, and hollow trees. It's a quiet sanctuary from Oregon's metropolis which is less than a mile away.

Afterwards I hung out with Gabe at his place. Not long afterwards, Gabe's girlfriend, Ariana, came over. They were nice enough to let me have dinner with them, and afterwards the three of us went to a movie called "Run Fatboy Run" about a man named Dennis who, five years after leaving his pregnant girlfriend at the altar, decides to become a more prominent part of her -- and their son's -- lives again by competing against her new boyfriend in a London marathon. I hope you don't feel spoiled by me telling you that in the end Dennis completes the marathon and wins back the respect of his son, and the heart of his ex-girlfriend, who he still loves. I will discuss this movie again later on because it was still fresh in my mind when I saw a midnight showing of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" a few hours later.

After the movie was over I said goodbye to Gabe and Ariana and walked around the corner from Gabe's apartment to my friend Mike's place.

Mike and I are both avid Indiana Jones fans and he had invited me, and our friend Bryan, to a midnight showing of "Indiana Jones." I had actually known Mike since the second grade and I've been friends with Bryan since kindergarten. It looked to me that the majority of the audience at the Indiana Jones midnight showing were mostly high school kids. So that would mean that Bryan and I have been friends since before many of these people were alive. And Indiana Jones had been around before either of us were alive! That in itself is a sobering thought.

. . .

I wrote all that on May 23, now it is June 16 and I am finishing this post. I promised earlier that I would discuss Indy 4 when it came out. Now all is said and done and almost all my friends have said they hated it because of the aliens or whatnot. The aliens didn't bother me, really. I wish they weren't computer animated, and that they would have made a puppet or had a really skinny guy in an alien costume, like in the X-Files. That would have been fun. But before I talk about what really struck me as disturbing about Indy 4, I'm going to say what I did like about it, for the record:

I thought the Russians made great bad guys. They looked almost just like the Nazis. The uniforms were a different color and they spoke Russian instead of German. I'm guessing the average Indy fan can't understand a lick of either language so who cares, right? Other than that they were practically interchangeable. It occurred to me that by setting the movie in South America during the 1950s they could have easily brought back some Nazis because that's where all the Nazis were at that time. But they probably wouldn't have been able to show up out of nowhere and point their machine guns at Indy like the plot required the Russians to do a dozen times or so.

I liked that the villain was a product of the Soviet mind control and telepathy experiments. That was a very nice touch.

The quicksand scene was probably the single greatest scene of Harrison Ford's career. This is the second:



I liked that they brought Marion back almost thirty years later. She wasn't the Marion we remember, though. I would have liked it even more if she would have gotten into a drinking contest with the Russians.

I liked that Indy survived a nuclear explosion in a lead refrigerator. I know a lot of people complained about this, but really, how else are you going to survive a nuclear explosion? And it's even more plausible than . . . well, I'll get to that later.

The flesh eating ants were cool.

Now I am going to talk about what really disturbed me about Indy 4, and I'm going to talk about some plot points in detail, so if you haven't seen Indy yet don't say you weren't warned.

About three quarters of the way through the movie we discover (along with Indy) that Shia Labeouf is really Marion and Indy's love child. You see, Indy and Marion were about to get married, but Indy left her at the alter while she was pregnant. At the end of the movie, Indy wins her back and they get married.

Wait a second! I had just seen a movie a few hours earlier where the exact same thing happens! It was called "Run Fatboy Run." Is this what Hollywood is teaching us these days? That in the end it really doesn't matter if you are a chubby English bloke or Indiana Jones himself, you can still leave your pregnant girlfriend at the alter, but you will be able to win her affection again?

Now what is really more realistic? That these lessons Hollywood is teaching us about how to treat your fiance are true? Or that in order to survive a nuclear blast simply insert oneself into a lead refrigerator?

If a nuclear blast is like hell, with fire and dead and melting things and all that, I suppose one could say that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Orc Report

I haven't checked my youtube account in a while, so when I did so today I found that my most popular video, "the Orc Report," now has 314 views! Last time I checked it was at somewhere around 280. It's getting up there! So to celebrate it's surpassing the 300 mark I am posting it here for all of those who have not seen it.

And no, in case you were wondering, I am not the only person that's watched it, and watched it 314 times.

Just to sum up what it's about, I made this in April of 2007 shortly after all the trees were cut down on the BYU-Idaho campus. This investigative report reveals why.

Another Episode of Listening to the Classical Radio Station

Mother's Day Afternoon. I am driving home to get to the Mother's Day party. I am listening to a listener request program on the classical music radio station. Coincidentally this is the same program I was listening to that I described a few months ago in this blog post. Unfortunately nothing so transcendental is about to happen to me this time, just a simple observation is all.

The music that's playing is, I would describe as, hauntingly beautiful. It is slow and melodious and there is a deep female vocal part that, combined with the violins, communicates to me a sense of longing and exile. Really quite remarkable.

The piece finishes and the announcer comes on (do you call them disc jockeys when it's the classical station?) and I must point out that this particular gentleman has a very deep gravely voice and British accent which I find delightfully erudite, but my parents think is obnoxious because he sounds like he's caressing the microphone as he speaks.

He says: "That piece gets to me every time I hear it. That is the second movement of Symphony Number 3 by Henryk Górecki, the 'Symphony of Sorrowful Songs' requested by Lloyd in Happy Valley."

What kind of place is this happy valley? I believe this footage holds the answer:

Thought for the Day

"I've loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night."
-Galileo Galilei

Another Post That Puts Me On My Nerd's Soapbox

I don't think George Lucas will ever read this blog, but I really want him to, because I would like to offer up an idea. And I know that in recent decades Mr Lucas hasn't listened to a lot of ideas from other people (forgive me Mr Lucas if you actually are reading this and refute that as not being the case, it's just that that's what it seems) I really want him to consider this idea.

I just watched the trailer for the new Star Wars Clone Wars animated movie coming out in theaters on August 15. If you haven't already, you too can watch the trailer at starwars.com. I'm not saying that this doesn't look good. I'm not saying that I wont go see it, because I will. It's just that if animated films is the new direction of the Star Wars franchise, it seems that setting them in the Clone Wars isn't as interesting as other possibilities.

Didn't George Lucas say that he was originally planing six more movies after the original trilogy? There were episodes I, II, and III which were made, and episodes VII, VIII and IX which were never made, supposedly because they dealt with the continuing story of Luke Skywalker and friends, and now those actors are all too old to come back.

However, since Star Wars is now going in the direction of purely animated films anyway, why not make an animated Episode VII, VIII and IX? And instead of giving the characters with faces that look like they were made for a Play Station video game, give the animation a photo realistic feel like they did with Beowulf. And make the movies about the continuing adventures of Luke, and Han, and Leia. The original actors don't even have to be in it, they can just be animated versions of what Mark Hammil, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher looked like thirty years ago.

If Mr Lucas was fibbing and he never came up with stories for Episodes VII, VIII and IX, then they can be based off of the Thrawn trilogy books which were written by Timothy Zahn and take place five years after the Return of the Jedi, and indisputably the best of the Star Wars books written by other people.

This is just one Star Wars fans opinion, but I'm getting a bit tired of Republic Clone Troopers and battle Droids. I want to see X-Wing fighters back in action, and the return to the Millennium Falcon with Han Solo and Chewbacca on a whirlwind intergalactic adventure! I want to see Luke Skywalker continue to develop his Jedi skills. But this meager blog will never reach George Lucas's sphere of reading material, so all I can do is go back to dreaming.

And participate in productive activities that will benefit society while I'm at it.

What Is That Mysterious Thumping Noise?

A couple mornings ago I was alone in the house, lying on the futon in my dwelling space (I don't really have a room right now) reading a book ("Black House" if you really want to know, which I found at a used book store a few weeks earlier for fifty cents). In the room directly upstairs I heard a

thumpthumpbumpbumpthump!

I wonder what that could be? I asked myself, but was in no mood to investigate because I just had to find out what happened next in the book I was reading. So I stayed where I was. About five minutes later I heard

thumpthumpbumpbumpthump!

I didn't move and kept on reading, curious about what the thumping was, but not enough to go see. I was really into this book.

thumpthumpbumpbumpthump!

thumpthumpbumpbumpthump!

The same thumping sound kept on going for about an hour, but I was too engrossed in my book. Did I mention that this book is a supernatural thriller, and I was at a particularly scary part? The manly side of me wants to say that I was able to disconnect the scary story I was reading from the thumping I was hearing upstairs in a house I knew was empty. But the manly side of me is a chump. I was starting to get nervous.

thumpthumpbumpbumpthump!

thumpthumpbumpbumpthump!

. . .

thumpthumpbumpbumpthump!

The sound kept coming in about five minute intervals. What was that mysterious thumping noise? At last I got up, went upstairs and looked around. Nothing was out of place. Just as I thought, I was alone. I slowly walked to the glass door at the end of the kitchen and looked outside. My nose was only an inch away from the glass. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Just then a robin dashed and swooped down from above and hammered its little head into the glass in front of my face. Right at eye level.

thumpthumpbumpbumpthump!

I jumped back, more startled than I ever have been before in my life. I must have also scared the poor little robin, too, because afterwards he never came back to make the thumping noise. So far this is my life's closesed experience to this infamous poem:



Good thing this bird didn't talk to me. And my voice doesn't sound like Christopher Walken's.

Jane Austen Dream Team

My mother recently saw a two disc DVD set of the new BBC versions of "Sense and Sensibility" and "Persuasion" in Costco for $32.99. "Mother's Day gift," she told me.

Now I know what to get her for Mother's Day! My mom is making quite a collection of movies based on Jane Austen books. She already has a version of "Sense & Sensibility" and "Persuasion" as well as two versions of "Emma" and three versions of "Pride and Prejudice." Because of my mom and my sister, I am as well versed in Jane Austen as I am. But those new versions of S&S and P, and thinking about those three versions of P&P, got me wondering how many versions of P&P are there anyway? As it turns out there are nine versions (according to the internet movie database) and I contemplated about them. Is there a version with Laurence Olivier as Mr. Darcy, since the man has played every other literary icon during his career? As it turns out there is. But are there other versions that we just don't know about? Who would have been in it?

I gave this more thought over the course of a couple of hours than I should have, and came up with my very own dream cast for an unknown version of "Pride and Prejudice" that would have been made around 1940. Here it is:

Katharine Hepburn as Elizabeth Bennet
John Wayne as Mr. Darcy−

"Wait, wait, wait a second, Evan!" I can hear my readers saying. "I can sort of see why you would think of Katharine Hepburn as Elizabeth (although she wouldn't have been my choice) but seriously, Evan, John Wayne as Mr Darcy?!" Hold on, let me finish.

Orson Welles as Mr. Bennet
Cary Grant as Mr. Bingley
Jimmy Stewart as Mr Wickham
Ingrid Bergman, Rita Hayworth or Ava Gardner as Jane Bennet, take your pick and
Peter Lorre as Mr. Collins

Ok, now I bet most of you still have trouble seeing John Wayne as Mr. Darcy playing opposite Katharine Hepburn as Elizabeth. So to help you visualize such a pairing better, I drew a picture:


Can't you see? It's perfect. John Wayne has played the Mr. Darcy archetype at least a dozed times. Of course he was usually shooting guns while in the role, but he wouldn't have to in this movie. In the opening scene at the ball, John Wayne would be throwing up his tough guy persona. We'd get an exchange between Cary Grant (always the charmer) as Bingley and Wayne/Darcy that would go something like this, I can hear their voices:

Grant/Bingley: Look at them, they're all beautiful girls, Darcy. Look at Elizabeth.

Wayne/Darcy: Awww, they're not all that pretty, especially that Elizabeth.

Grant/Bingley: Now see here, Darcy, we should dance with these girls.

Wayne/Darcy: Naw, dancing is all silly.

Of course Katharine/Elizabeth would hear this and think that that Darcy's a turd (but she wouldn't use the word turd because she'd be played by Katharine Hepburn). But he really does like her despite his tough guy facade. Then Elizabeth would get creeped out by Mr. Collins, played by Peter Lorre. Who doesn't get creeped out by Peter Lorre? Then she'd fall for Mr. Wickham. Jimmy Stewart would have made a great Mr. Wickham. He sounds so sincere whenever he says anything, but in an ironic twist it turns out that Mr. Wickham is really the low life who runs off and marries Elizabeth's sister Lydia (who could play Lydia? Lina Lamont from "Singin' in the Rain" will do). Who could have guessed it? Throughout all this Wayne/Darcy tries to get over his tough guy oafishness and express his feelings for Katharine/Elizabeth, meanwhile Katharine/Elizabeth finds out Wayne/Darcy is actually an ok guy who's tough, yet selfless, loyal and takes care of the little lady. They make some banter, Wayne/Darcy won't keep up at all with Katherine/Elizabeth's sharp wit, but he tries, and then they get married. All the while Orson Welles observes Katharine/Elizabeth's romantic misadventures from his view as monarch of the Bennet family. He would make millions off the marriage of Katharine/Elizabeth to Wayne/Darcy and retire to a reclusive mansion known as Xanadu. It would be perfect.

*Before I take off, apologies to all my friends and relatives who may never forgive me for having some fun with their favorite book.

Crazy Laser

It is the other night after work, at about 11:30, I am sitting alone on a waist-high concrete wall waiting for the bus. A guy (male, Caucasian, early twenties) comes from out of the darkness and walks up to me. He says:

"Hey, do you want to see a crazy ass laser?"

"Sure," I say, not knowing how else to respond.

He pulls out a laser pointer and points it at the top of a building across a courtyard and across the street. I can see the green laser dance about on the side of the building where he's pointing it. It's gotta be at least five hundred feet away. Even at that distance the laser is still bright. He points the laser at another building that rises above the building across the street. This building's gotta be eight hundred, nine hundred, maybe even a thousand feet away? I can see the laser beam just as bright shining on that building.

Then I have a flash of understanding about what this guy is about to do. He's going to shine this high powered laser in my eyes. And while I'm blinded he's going to rob me. He will leave me stranded and helpless in the street. I' ll call the police, but because I'll be blinded I wont be able to pick him out of the line up of the usual suspects.

But he just says: "crazy, huh?" And walks off into the darkness.

The Distance

Last Year I hit the age when all the junk food that I ever consumed had come back to haunt me. My waistline started to expand. The worn down, folded over notch in my belt moved away from the buckle in a direction it shouldn't. Whenever I tried running, I could only go five . . . maybe six hundred feet before giving up.

This has got to change, I kept telling myself.

I told myself that for months. Then right after Thanksgiving I started to run almost everyday on the treadmill. I started out easy, but kept pushing myself harder every day, adjusting the speed, raising the incline, increasing time, all that. What made this attempt at exercise unique was that I didn't stop after a week or two. I kept going.

A couple of months later, for what must be explained by global warming, it stopped raining and an unprecedented series of beautiful days in February followed. I stopped using the treadmill (which was getting really boring by that point) and ran outside. I ran out to my old grade school, looped around through some neighborhoods that didn't exist when I was in grade school and kept running. It was kind of like this:



Well, not really. I didn't grow a beard.

Using online resources (Google maps) I calculated my route to be a distance of six miles. I ran this route at least three times every week.

Around Monday evening, March 24, I started thinking that it was about time to push myself again. I was already running six miles up and down hills on a regular basis. What more could I do to push myself? DOUBLE the distance. Make two laps around the same six mile route, without stopping.

I started to get really excited about this idea and decided to attempt it the next day, Tuesday, March 25. Tuesday morning came and I started to run. No sooner had I taken my first few loping steps than I felt the beginnings of rain. Not wanting to run in the rain I turned around and went back inside. I would run my twelve miles the next day. Fifteen minutes later, after I had gotten out of the shower, the sun was out, not a drop of rain around.

AAARRGGHH! The running barbarian yawped inside of me. Tomorrow no rain will stop me from running twelve miles.

The next morning it was cloudy, but it wasn't raining. I set out on my twelve miles. At about .1 miles I felt a few rain drops. At .3 miles I felt some heavier ones. But it would probably be like the day before and only last a few, maybe twenty minutes tops. At about 2 miles the rain hadn't stopped at all. The sky was getting darker. But I kept going. I ran out to the old grade school (3 miles), turned right and headed back for the next leg of the run. The rained continued the whole time. Trucks started spraying water behind them in their wake.

I completed my first lap. I was up the street from home and their was no sign of the rain going away. In fact it was getting colder, and wetter. I had a choice, complete my six mile run which I had done dozens of times already or finish what I set out to do that day, Wednesday, March 26. I turned back to start lap 2 and face the elements.

What I was also turning into was the the wind and the rain. I told myself that mere wind and rain only have power to make me go back if I actually do turn around and go back like I did the day before, and that was only a sprinkle. I was not going to give them that power this time. Not again. I kept on going. At about seven miles it got colder. The rain stung my eyes, my shirt was soaked through and it clung to chest. The wind blew into it.

I felt a war of heat wage, and the battlefield was my skin. On one side were the elements. The cold water and wind that struck me, and my wet shirt shirt magnified their potency. Defending against their onslaught was my metabolism, pushing them back by shear will alone.

As I ran past the school for the second time the battle had developed into a violent stalemate. At least, it felt that way. I imagined the children in the classrooms where I sat many years ago. One of the kids would be staring out the window, like I would have been doing on such a day, and see a figure in the rain. The teacher would tell the young student to pay attention, but would notice what he was looking at: me, running, through the rain, soaked through like a sponge. You should never run like that through the rain she would say to the impressionable young minds around her. You could get sick.

A half a mile later I was trying to think of strategies against the wetness. I could take my shirt off. No, the world was not yet ready to see me shirtless. I looked over my shoulder. Just as I suspected the back side of my shirt was mostly dry. While trying not to break pace I pulled my arms in through my sleeves and rotated the shirt around. It didn't want to turn it was so wet. But I turned my shirt around anyway so that the mostly dry back side was now in front. It did provide some protection against the wetness. The battle had subsided for the moment.

But it now felt weird to run with my shirt on backwards. What did I look like to the drivers in the cars going by? Did they think, what an idiot for running out in the rain like this, and look he has his shirt on backwards, what a retard!? Did they even notice my shirt was on backwards? Or were they chearing me on like a chorus in my own Greek tragedy?

I had about two miles left. The sky was dark as ever. Both sides of shirt were now equally soaked, and it was still on backwards. The rain kept coming hard like it was nobody's business to slow it down. But then a few drops did slow down. They meandered as they fell while the other rain drops rushed by. Could it be? No, it couldn't. It was almost April and the time for snow in these parts had been over for a while. .2 miles later I passed by a couple of teenage girls walking their dogs. They were laughing (at me?).

"It's snowing!" one of them shouted.

I still wouldn't believe it. I looked down at my wet self. And there I saw them, unmistakable, clinging to my waist, were snowflakes. There were snowflakes on me as I ran the rest of the way.

I made it back home. I completed the twelve mile run. I had done something I had never done before, set a new standard for my physical limits. I didn't feel any satisfaction just then, however. As soon as I went through the door I peeled my shirt off. It didn't want to go, like it was a squatter taking up residence on me. Once the shirt was off I looked down at myself. My whole torso was a splotchy red. Then, I took a bath.

That afternoon I was a bit worried that my personal victory might get me pneumonia. I ate a lot of hot food, kept myself dry, and paid close attention to if I ever started to cough, or feel a sore throat or feverish, or the chills, or anything like that. I waited for the symptoms to come. Nothing showed up that day, or the next. Now a few days later I still haven't felt any adverse effects, no scars to remind me of my duel with the elements.

In This Post I Will Reveal My Level of Nerdiness And Then Try To Talk About Something Interesting But May Reveal My Level of Unlearned Ignorance

Here's something I've been thinking about recently. I've been anticipating the creation of Amazon's Kindle for a while. I once saw a documentary called "How William Shatner Changed the World" hosted by William Shatner. It was about how scientists and inventors who were treckies used Star Trek to come up with new inventions that are now a part of every day society. The communicator/cell phone is the most obvious. Another case is Bones' tricorder being a model for noninvasive medical diagnosis. And when personal computers started showing up there wasn't a whole lot they could do. So one computer technician guy thought of a Star Trek episode where Data was listening to music on the ship's computer, and now we have Windows Media Player and i-tunes.

Whenever someone walked into Captain Jean Luc Picard's ready room he was always reading something on a small hand held computer device (Captain P. was no doubt brushing up on his Shakespeare and 19th century poetry to quote to the crew). Now, the electronic device that Captain Picard was often reading looks suspiciously like Amazon's Kindle in both design and function.

Now, I have not yet read anything on a Kindle. I haven't actually seen one in real life. It's been out for a while now so I'm sure I'm not saying anything new, and I must admit from the descriptions I've read about it, it does have a lot of really cool features. I'll probably end up owning one or some other similar kind of device in the future. Yet, I hope the Kindle doesn't replace paperback books. Here is why:

The very act of reading a book is an act of defying technology, of declaring independence from electric power. It's like sticking it to the technological Man. I'll try to explain better. Most media that we use is entirely dependent upon electricity. A DVD is just a shiny disk unless you put into a box, which is just a box unless it's connected by some special wires to another box, which is just a heavier box unless it's plugged into the wall. And voila! All the components come together to present to you, for your own enjoyment, a movie. You could watch something else on TV, but unless your TV has electricity feeding it, and the person that is broadcasting the show has like power, than the TV is just a very heavy box. The same is true with the computer, I-pods, cell phones, and laptops. They only last as long as the battery inside them does before they need to be recharged with electricity.

I'm not saying that this technology isn't great because it most definitely is! I'm just making the observation that books don't require such power to use them. And that is (one reason) what makes them great. It takes electricity to make them, sure, but to use them only requires opening them with your hands and using imagination. You don't need to plug a book into the wall, nor do you need a battery in it to enjoy one.

Until the Kindle!

Books probably wont go away. And, like I said, I will probably end up owning a kindle sometime down the road, just like when I resisted the idea of having a cell phone and now here I am. But the thought of me having to hand over my reading enjoyment to the availability of electricity in a battery makes me sad.

I also like the smell of books, of the pages as you flip them, of old libraries and bookstores. I have not had the opportunity to smell a Kindle, but I imagine it smells just like an i-pod. That is, it probably doesn't smell at all. Do you know what also you do not smell? What you do not smell is called iocane powder, which is odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid, and is one of the more deadly poisons know to man.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

A Foley Artist's Commentary of the "In Convenience" Trailer

This is a trailer to my friend Nels's movie that I helped do the sound effects for last summer. I don't know when or where this movie will come out, but everyone should go see it when it does, and support the independent filmmakers of eastern Idaho.



Most of the work I did isn't really here in the trailer (the footsteps, the papers and candy wrappers crinkling and all that fun stuff). Except for the part where the guy slides across the floor into the boxes. The sound of the boxes falling actually came from a sound effects library, so I didn't knock any boxes over, sorry to say. But the sound of the guys feet sliding across the floor comes from Tim (my partner at the time) and I sliding across Tim's kitchen floor. Ah, good times.

Regarding Frownet

Immediately after writing that last post I went outside and saw a long earthworm colored line stretched out under the mailbox. Oh no! Frownet had not moved from the night before! He was not back in the ground where he should be, cleansing the soil. The flash from my camera must have been too much for the poor, fat earthworm. I must have killed him with my efforts to exploit him, to show him off as the ninth wonder of the world. I had not learned the lessons from King Kong. I was no better than Carl Denham. I approached Frownet's dried out remains, and learned the truth: Frownet is a stick.

The night I first saw Frownet was wet and rainy. The earthworms were out and all over the sidewalk. I was tired after a long day of work and a long midnight commute. When I first saw Frownet I thought he could have been none other than the largest earthworm ever, the worm that dwarfs all others. If I would have reached down and touched him that night I would have realized that he was a stick. But I didn't because in the dark of night, and being as tired as I was, I thought it was an earthworm, and earthworms are slimy. I would have discovered that Frowney is not slimy. He, or it, is sticky.

So, all in all, I feel a bit daft for naming a stick.

But that's ok because I am not, nor will be, the last person to misidentify something. Here is another such story, which is much more scientific than my own.

Meet Frownet

This is the largest worm I've ever seen. He is so large that I had to name him. I was going to name him Smiley but that name had already been taken by a different worm. So I named him Frownet. Kind of like Frowney, but I put the T on the end to make it sound French. Furthermore I had to take a picture of him as proof that Frownet is the largest worm I have ever seen. I added the stapler to get a sense of scale. The stapler is five inches long.

I've come across Frownet three nights now at about 12:15 in the morning while walking home from work. He's always hanging out in the same spot underneath the same mail box. Good old Frownet, my own nocturnal, earthworm friend.

Next

I just finished reading Michael Crichton's newest book, "Next." I've been a big fan of Michael Chrichton since I was eleven years old, which was the same time the movie "Jurassic Park" came out. Coincidence? I think not!

Although "Next" came out over a year ago I've held off on reading it because of overwhelming negative reader reviews on amazon.com. So, I decided to wait until I could find a cheap, used copy before I would read it. The other day I found such a copy at a used book store. It costed $1.50 and it smells like its last owner was a chain smoker. I wrote a review on amazon.com so I could add my two cents about the book. Usually I don't feel a need to do that, unless I think I have something new to add to the discussion.

So, to save you the effort of hunting down my review on amazon.com which I'm sure all of you were so anxious to do, I'm posting a copy of it here. The following is my review, titled "A Crichton Storytelling Experiment Gone Amok." I gave it three (out of five) stars. Here it is:

***

About a hundred pages into "Next," I started to get worried that this book would be like Chrichton's Airframe, a book that really disappointed me because a dinosaur didn't eat the airplane. Crichton's stronger stories usually follow a small group of people (usually, but not necessarily scientists) who face off with dangerous byproducts of the irresponsible use of technology, like dinosaurs, killer nano-robots, medieval knights and giant squid. In "Next," Chrichton tries a different story structure that was successful in movies like "Crash" and "Traffic," where several stories are told simultaneously, with the only connecting tissue between them is a central theme. In "Crash" the theme was racism, in "Traffic" it was drugs, in "Next" the theme is genetics. This could have worked really well, except for the fact that the characters were overwhelmingly unpleasant and membrane thin. The theme could just as easily have been slimy lawyers, or cheating married people that hate each other, without much of a stretch.

Chrichton's strong point was never characterization, but that never bothered me before because where Chrichton's characterization really shines is not with the people, but with the dinosaurs, the nano-robots, the medieval knights, the giant squid and all the other strange creatures irresponsibly used technology can conjure up.

"Next" does have its share of said creatures. The thing that made this book worth reading (and which earned it three stars instead of two) was Gerard, the super intelligent parrot, who can do math, but even more surprising can quote movies that I never dreamed would be quoted in a Chrichton book. And Dave, the humanzee boy, who bears a lot of resemblance to bat boy, except he's half chimp, not bat. Not to mention an orangutan who can also talk, but only likes to say French swear words. The humans, on the other hand, like to say lots and lots of English swear words. Had the book put more focus on these characters, instead of the humans, I would have been a much happier reader.

Spiderwick in Labyrinth, Frankenstein Puppets

Yesterday I took my nephew and his friend to see the movie "The Spiderwick Chronicles." Here's a brief synopsis: Freddie Highmore (Charlie from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory") plays twins. One of the twins finds a field guide to the magical creatures that live in their back yard, written by their great grandpa. One of the twins reads it, and in doing so unleashes a whole bunch of nasty goblins, and a malevolent ogre, that they must defeat.

I will say up front that I loved it. My nephew said he liked "The Golden Compass" more, but why compare the two? "Spiderwick" reminded me of those classic Jim Henson movies "Labyrinth" and "The Dark Crystal." There are creatures both good and evil, all on various levels of grotesqueness (I'm glad that my spell checker informed me that grotesqueness is a real word). Of course in "Spiderwick" the creatures are CGI, not puppets like Jim Henson used to make. But I thought their design and their personalities were similar enough that a character named Hogsqueal from "Spiderwick" could wander into Labyrinth and not look or act out of place. Or that David Bowie could show up during a scene with the Freddie Highmore twins in "Spiderwick" and say: "You remind me of the babe."

CGI can be cool, and the creatures in "Spiderwick Chronicles" were cool. But I do love puppets. Sometimes I think that puppetry is a dieing art, the puppeteers forced to work at Wal-Mart because they can't get a job using their puppeteering skills. I hope I'm wrong.

A couple of years ago I tried to make a puppet. It was going to be a Viking, but I gave up before I could bring it to life. It was like when Frankenstein (and here I am referring to Mary Shelley's book, not any of the movie versions) made his creature. He wanted his creation to look beautiful. He made it tall, gave it black hair and red lips. Only he did not know what he was doing. When he brought the creature to life his efforts to make it look beautiful ended up making it look hideous beyond imagining. Have you ever tried to draw a picture of a beautiful person and have it turn out looking awful? (If you haven't, just remember the scene from "Napoleon Dynamite" when Napoleon gives summer the picture he drew of her -- "I spent four hours shading your lip" -- and I think you will get a good image of what I'm trying to say here.) Well, that is what happened to Frankenstein's monster. Frankenstein did not realize his lack of artistic talent until it was too late, and the monster was off on a murderous rampage because he was too ugly for anyone to love him.

I'm pretty sure the same thing would have happened with my puppet. Lucky thing I realized that I didn't know what I was doing before I could complete my hideous creation. Maybe someday I will try again.

What's Mysterious

A couple days ago I read that the teaser trailer for the new Indiana Jones movie would be coming out today (you can watch it at indianajones.com, you should watch it now). So when I woke up this morning, that was what I was most excited about. Rather pathetic for Valentine's Day, I know, but when you're single, like me, on this blessed day you must find something to keep you going. So in my case, it was a happy jaunt back to my boyhood days before I ever cared about girls and watched "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" or "Raiders of the Lost Ark" at least once a week. For many years I heard rumors from friends that they were going to make another one, but I never believed them. Harrison Ford kept getting older. Spielberg's movies contained less and less the whiz bang excitement and sense of awe that his eighties movies had. And Lucas, well, Lucas was doing . . . something. But somehow, after all these years, they all pulled together and made a new Indiana Jones movie. How did it happen? I don't know. But let this be a lesson to all those who disbelieve. Just because you don't believe something will happen, that doesn't mean that it wont happen.

The movie is still forthcoming, I will doubtless have more to say about it come May 22. But we do have a trailer (which can be found at indianajones.com and before you do anything else, if you have not already done so, you should go over there right now and watch it) and I am excited beyond belief.

It reminds me of the same giddy feeling I got when the trailer to Star Wars Episode I came out. Before you roll your eyes, remember that this was back in the spring of 1999 before anyone had seen it and had any reason to complain. Star Wars was still the awesomest thing ever. They showed the Episode I trailer on the news, and we recorded it onto a VHS tape. I wore that little spot on the tape out from watching it, and rewinding it, then watching it over again. This was also in the days when we had a dial up connection for the internet and the only videos you could get online were tiny. I think the first trailer I ever watched online was for Harry Potter, but I digress.

I hope this new Indiana Jones movie (have you watched the new trailer yet? you really should) keeps the sense of mystery and danger that was so gripping in the other movies. Star Wars also had that sense of mystery and awe. But as it turns out, as we discovered in the prequels, there really isn't much mystery in galactic politics (actually there is, because it's a mystery how Jar Jar could convince anyone, let alone the entire galactic senate, to grant emergency supreme almighty powers to Palpatine, allowing him to position himself to become Emperor and therefor take over the entire galaxy, but that's not the kind of mystery I'm talking about). It's that sense of mystery and awe that you have when you're a kid, when you go on vacation to a place you've never heard of before, and it is all strange and new yet at the same time ancient. Then when you get older and learn about geography and global studies and all that, the sense of mystery fades. I hope that this new Indiana Jones movie will give me back a piece of that.

And if you've read this far without going to indianajones.com and watching the new trailer, than all I have to say is, you're already on a computer, what's stopping you?

Goldman

This week I re-read "The Princess Bride," the book, S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure abridged by William Goldman. This is one of those books that it is impossible to stay unhappy while reading, which is a very good thing because this week was worse than usual (come to think of it the first week of February has always been consistently the most awful week of the year for me, 2008 proves to be no exception, but that's another matter). I suppose there is some literary critic out there who can stay unhappy while reading "The Princess Bride", but I do not envy that person.

One thing that I find endlessly delightful apart from the story and all those lovable characters is Goldman's commentary. When I read this book before, his quirky little interjections made me laugh, and then I went on my merry way. This time they still made me laugh, but during this horrible, awful, no good, very bad first week of February, one thing that Goldman had to say stuck out to me.

Life is not fair.

While I was reading and being delighted by the book, all the while the details of this bad week still swimming around the back of my mind, a weird type of communication occurred between me and Goldman. Not William Goldman, the novelist and screenwriter, per se, but the Goldman that lives between the pages of "The Princess Bride." This Goldman could read my thoughts the way I was reading his book. I could imagine Goldman nodding his head knowingly as he listened to my thoughts while simultaneously entertaining me, and then say, "well, life ain't fair."

I don't know whether to find this knowledge liberating or oppressing. After giving it some thought, I suppose that if I dwell on it too much it becomes oppressing, but then if I get over it, it becomes liberating. That's the trick though. So, that's my job for the next few days. Life is not fair, get over it.

Interesting Resumes

A few summers ago I was riding the bus (good old reliable public transportation) on my way home from work. I had a very monotonous and unpleasant job which I really hated, and my whole life was in a rut. It was about 2:45 in the afternoon and an unusual thing happened. At a bus stop a group of at least 20 youngsters got on. I would say they were all about nine or ten years old. One sat down in the empty seat beside me and a couple of others sat in the seats behind me. I didn't talk to the kid who I was sitting next to because he probably wasn't supposed to talk to strangers, and I was a stranger. One of the kids sitting behind me, though, was quite the chatter box and talked the whole time while I had the privilege of being in his vicinity. I put it that way because something he said struck like a great hammer of wisdom. After I heard him say it, I turned around in a nonchalant manner so I could get a good look at him. Who was this kid, anyway? He was skinny, had spiky blond hair, and glasses (kind of like that kid on "Meet the Robinsons" come to think of it). The part that I remember of the conversation he had with his friend went something like this:

Kid With Spiky Blond Hair: I went to my friends house and his house was huge! And he had everything! But all we did was watch TV for eight hours.

Kid With Spiky Blond Hair's Friend: Yeah, some kids are like that.

Kid With Spiky Blond Hair: Not me. I want to be interesting.

When he said that I laughed. But then I thought about what he said for the rest of that day. And now, two and a half years later, a week hasn't gone by when I haven't thought about what he said. In fact, it's become part of the driving force behind my life. I want to be interesting, too. So I've tried to do some interesting things in the past couple of years, somethings were more interesting than others, and some may be interesting to no one but me. This brings me to what I was wanting to talk about when I started writing this post: Resumes.

But before I do that, I'd like to pay tribute to that kid with the spiky blond hair. He didn't know it, and I probably wouldn't recognize him if I passed him on the street today, but he changed my life. Have I ever changed anyone's life like that? If I have, then I'm probably as clueless as he is about how he affected mine. But even so, may all who read this, and walk in the street and ride the bus every day have such a chance -- when they least expect it, and don't even know it -- to change someone for the better, and take it.

Ok, back to resumes. When I was first introduced to the concept of resume writing I heard things like: write the resume that stands out above the rest, or, make your resume grab the employer's attention. Naturally when I heard this I thought, I've tried my hardest these past couple of years to be interesting. Of course I could come up with a resume that would stand above the rest and show how interesting I am. I wanted my resume to be interesting, too.

But then I learned about resume scanners, HR departments, and it's no wonder that my incredibly interesting resumes have not gotten me any results. Resume writing is actually an elimination game. The whole point isn't to stand out, but to not get eliminated. It's like the TV show Survivor. Except it's an office person that votes you out, without an island ceremony and flaming torches. And instead of competing for $1 million, you're competing for a job that will only make you $1 million if you work there for 300 years. Well, maybe not so long, hopefully.

So now, trying to be interesting is secondary. I haven't been doing such a good job at that in recent months, anyway. More importantly, I try not to get eliminated.

Before I go back to my job hunt, if any of you out there have come to this blog post looking for resume writing wisdom and are disappointed, but are still reading for reasons unbeknown to me, I thank you for your patience in reading my spontaneous thoughts. For your trouble here's a couple of web sites all about resume writing and job hunting which I found helpful: jobhuntersbible.com and susanireland.com. Good hunting!

Overture and Jazz

Yesterday, at around Super Bowl half-time, I went to pick up my parents at the airport. They went to San Diego for the weekend and had a wonderful time. But this is not their story. Nor is it my commentary about the Patriots and the Giants. It is the story of my drive to the airport.

It had snowed the day before, which quickly turned to slushy dirty wet stuff. The weather had been wet and miserable for most of the week. Add to it the fact that it was another week in my so far fruitless job hunt, and I was feeling down. I'd been feeling down all week, all January, in fact. But, weather-wise, by Sunday afternoon the clouds had scattered a little and the sun cut through enough to light up the world just a touch.

As I drove up the freeway I had the radio tuned to the classical music channel. I make no excuses for listening to the classical music while the super bowl was going on, I simply was. And then a marvelous thing happened. They played what could possibly be the greatest recording of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture ever performed. I didn't recognize it at first. I'll admit I'm not well versed in the classics, and have never recognized anything I've heard on the classical station. But that never stopped me from listening. The music began to built on itself and the horns played the famous melody of the 1812 Overture. That sounded familiar and it reminded me of Frank Capra movies. Then a children's choir started to sing. By this time the music hooked me. The freeway flew by under my feet.

When the music reached its climax, just at the moment of the first sound of canon to fire, the sun hit just the right part of the sky to shoot its rays in between the clouds and illuminate everything from a gray world -- the road, trees, other cars, the sky -- in golden light. What a glorious moment. Canons fired, children sang, and I felt as if I were soaring as I drove over an overpass.

After it ended the announcer even said it was probably the greatest recording ever of the piece. And who could say otherwise? I felt moved and invigorated in that way that celebrations of music and long dead composers by talented musicians you listen to while driving to the airport to pick up your parents has a way of doing.

For this wasn't the first time that a perfect meld of music and environment moved me while I was on my way to pick up my parents from the airport after their vacation.

About two years earlier my parents went on vacation to Hawaii, and I drove to the airport to pick them up on their return home. The night was warm and I had the windows down. This time I was listening to the Jazz station. I had already left the freeway and was on the long straight road that leads directly to the airport. The lines in the road, lit up by the cars headlights, ran together in the distance. At the point where they met I could see the control tower, standing like an obelisk. Directly aligned above it was the moon, a shimmering crescent on its way back from being a new moon, And surrounded by stars.

I felt the wind coming through the open window, moved my head to the rhythm of the jazz, looked at the road, the control tower, and the moon, all in alignment, and I said "cool." A word that's been overused, but invented for moments like these.

So all this to say, not just to my parents but to everyone, that when you're on vacation, the world has a way of welcoming you back. Now it's time to work again.

Before I sign off I must give credit to the performers of the 1812 Overture. After doing a bit of digging on the classical station's web site, I can give the statistics. It was performed by the Cincinatti Pops Orchestra with the Kiev Symphony Chorus and the Cincinatti Children's Choir, conducted by Erich Kunzel. Bravo.

Post the First

I would like to say that my life is like a Faulkner novel. That way I could win a Pulitzer Prize just for thinking. But alas, my cognitive processes aren't that profound. However, I will try my best to keep these blog entries interesting and varied for anyone who might happen to read this.

Actually, upon further consideration I don't wish my life was like a Faulkner novel. I wish it was like a PG Wodehouse novel. That would be much more fun. Or like a Sherlock Holmes story. I'll see what I can do.