Saturday, July 19, 2008

Pursuing an undriven life

One of America's supreme alpinists , Conrad Anker recently gave this soliloquy when challenged about making climbing his life:

"Do we improve the lot of the world?

"No. Climbings recreation and recreation is vital to human beings.
What we do as certified risk takers..."

"Kids need to know there are still some bad asses out there, doing incredibly demanding things to their bodies. Most people are so risk adverse."

Reported by David Roberts

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

An update

well, i am now back home in winthrop,wa. or as back home as home can get.

my parents are selling our home and moving down closer to town where the snow reaches 4 feet instead of a near record 7 up at the northern end of our valley where our home is now.

rather then rent out a place while the new house is remodeled they decided to stay true to their ll beanish roots and camp all summer on the property. yes, they are old and hard core. the conclusion to all of this is that im going to be housesitting most of the summer, up north, where everything is better.

graduated, yes thats me.

working at futher establishing an orchard for my father for the last month I am now debt free and considering options. teaching overseas is likely.

i am working a carpentry job until the fall to get on my feet. And climbing mount rainer this weekend.

life is decent and filled with good things.

Friday, April 25, 2008

Reality

An excellent expression of dreams coming to terms with death and vanity.

A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep--while I weep!
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

-Edgar Allan Poe

Saturday, March 01, 2008

The 23 year

It is curious that you go through an entire year before it is counted in you favor. I am now 23. And I have not just "turned" 23 but have experienced 23 years. There is certain maturity built into the classification of age and I find I rather like it. Well, this was fitting, strangely and to a degree.

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!
My hasting days fly on with full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.

Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth
That I to manhood am arrived so near;
And inward ripeness doth much less appear,
That some more timely happy spirits endu'th.

Yet, be it less or more, or soon or slow,
It shall be still in strictest measure even
To that same lot, however mean or high,

Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven.
All is, if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye.

- John Milton

Monday, January 07, 2008

Huckabee

To add to the general disapproval: A few thoughts on Huckabee


The President has been criticized, or worse, for being a simpleton. Opponents of Huckabee have classified him in the same way. President Bush may have simplistic solutions at times, for example “stay the course”, but this does not mean that he thinks everything is simple. He clearly surrounded himself with advisers of different angles from the start of his presidency. Huckabee is a candidate who looks at everything from one direction. He was at a time obese. He lost the weight and wrote a book. Which could be summed up in the combination of: exercise more and eat less. Of course if someone wants to loss weight and follows this formula in the right proportions they loss weight. No need for diet pills and Adkins. It is simple: control yourself and get discipline. Just do dieting the “good” way. And here in lies the rub. Huckabee can only outline the “good” way. This is also his appeal. He plays the guitar and sings caring songs. He does not conclude that the problems faced can be solved with a simplistic formula but rather the message of "good". Huckabee shows in his leadership a lack of ability to execute justice. If the main function of government is "to punish the evil doers" I do not see him as a candidate who can govern, much less uphold the conservative ideals.


He can inspire. For he built himself from scratch into a Tele-Evangelist. But a candidate needs to do more than inspire the populous to speak with "God bless you" at the end of every sentence.

A New Means in a New Media

A Harvard grad discontented with the state of intellectual fermentation has come out with a new idea... a you-tube for intellectuals. Just opened today the site will attempt to give interviews with top thinkers and leaders. Organized into national topics these are arranged around bigger issues. And hence the incredibly brilliant title, www.bigthink.com. You would think that if the man was truly committed to extending the interplay of ideas he would have taken a bigger step beyond American consumerism than to simply add "think" to the given American "bigness". But, after walking for fifteen minutes and proposing "evasiveissues.com" as a suitable alternative I admitted to myself that I was simply listening to NPR while in an unstable state over the holidays. Laying the sorry British imitation aside, I readily accepted the site. This initial acceptance was further strengthened when recalling that I could remember the address and had visited it without a paper clipping. Well I briefly visited the site, it looked legitimate, and thought of posting the word in light of the recent deficit of posts.