Congratulations to my best friend Danny boy and his wife Erica. They had a baby boy this morning at 6:12 AM. I don't know why those babies always wait until the middle of the night! Rachel and I are heading over there after I get off school today to meet the boy, Kerrig James......
It's Friday, I had a great week at school and THE SUN IS SHINING! It's a perfect fall day outside and I am just about to take the beast to the dog park. But first, we have no plans this weekend so I will likely be putting the garden to sleep for the winter, so I thought I'd take advantage of the sunshine and snap a few shots of this year's garden in its final days....
My ma sent me this letter in an email this morning. After so many years of telling people I'm from Nebraska and them saying, "I drove through there once, it was terrible..." Finally somebody understands the beauty I see in that perfectly flat landscape, the sweet smell of the air, haystacks and, yes, even livestock. Our enthusiasm for football is no secret though and I am glad this USC fan was shown such a great time. The descriptions of the people and places have made me a bit homesick for Autumn and football in my hometown.
How--and why--I became a Big Red fan (from an USC guy)
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I arrived in Omaha in the dark Friday. An early fall chill was accompanied by the sweet smell of crops in the air which was exciting just because it was so different than Los Angeles.
When I woke up Saturday morning I was bummed because I wanted one of those crystal-clear, bright blue never-ending sky days on the plains I had read about or seen on TV. Alas. We had breakfast at the Denny's off of exit 84 between Omaha and Lincoln. Then the beauty began. The countryside was just so beautiful. The rows and rows of tassled corn, the old barns off in the distance, passing over various creeks and rivers--I got goosebumps. Our hotel was waaaaaaay out of the way: America's Best Value Inn out at NW 12 st and Adams. We walked all the way into town--it was the best. Breezes rustling in trees, that sweet smell of the earth...
So we make it to the parking lot of the baseball stadium at the Haymarket when some Huskers fans collar us and invite us in to their tailgate. Soon we're helping them with the keg-emptying process and having great conversatiion. Turns out, we all had lots in common, starting with a shared love for the game of college football (and sports in general). Mike, Ross, Chad and the gang were awesome! So then, they insisted on taking us to "Rock the Dock" (something like that). Anyway, it's the place right outside Embassy Suites--what a great place. Cool live music, and the biggest six dollar beer I've ever had in my life. We were swallowed in a Sea of Redbut everyone was very cool--just wanted to have fun.
We left there and headed up O Street to The Watering Hole. A great place! Great pub grub and people bought us beer, including our new friends. So we chat about all sorts of interesting stuff with cool people in there. I got to know our new friends more. Farm life in Lawrence, NE. Wow! It truly is so different from life in suburban Los Angeles. But I couldn't admire it more. I think people forget just how tough--yet necessary--agriculture is to the existence of us all. I could see in the eyes of these young guys a genuine honesty that was very refreshing. We talked about the gamble that is farming. Yet I knew they wouldn't trade it for the world. The lifestyle, the people, the land. Which makes rooting for Big Red a very noble thing. Go Big Red is go big sky, go big land, go necessary rain, go sweet smelling earth, go John Deere, go flooded summer creeks, go people that have been there my whole life and always will be, go pork bellies, go old fashioned sensibilities, go things not changing too much, go quiet Sundays when you get to relax, go the feeling you worked hard outside all day and you fall into bed dead tired but wouldn't change it for the world, go being away from all the rush, go Runzas, go Saturdays out at the lake...
Our new friends made sure we got over to gate 2 on time. Everyone was really amped up by this time and there is much hooting and hollaring (as there should be). So, I ask "Where are y'all sitting?" They all replied matter-of-factly: "Oh, we don't have tickets. we just wanted to make sure you guys got here on time." Damn! Now that's what it's all about.
The stadium was, of course electric. My favorite memory of the game (yeah, I loved the score, but what I'll always remember) is at the end of half-time I was walking back up the ramp to my seat. I was able to look out past the campus, past the black line of trees to a sun that peeked through, bleeding Red into the land because it--like me--was tied to the land and the people that make it so great.
Gooooooo Biiiiiiiig Reeeeeeeeed! GO BIG RED! Fight On. Beat the hell out of everyone and know that y'all made a Husker out of me this weekend.
It begins......I started design school at the University of Washington this week. My classes are Ancient Art History, History of Design and Design Drawing. The design drawing class is my favorite so far. It is taught by an excitable German dude named Axel who sounds like the guy from Ikea and thinks everything is 'crap.' (that drawing is crap, that brand of pencils is crap, your face is crap, etc) He says we have joined drawing boot camp. He fully expects us to go through an entire 500 sheet package of 11x17 printer paper with our sketches this quarter. Ancient Art History is fun, particularly since the professor specializes in and has great passion for Roman art history. I got to visit many of the great works of art she is discussing on my trip to italy this last spring. In the design history class yesterday we watched an incredible film about the Shakers, you know, the people with the boring furniture. Well, after watching this video, I get it, it's beautiful because it's boring. They showed the interior of many of the shaker homes and they were absolutely stunning in their simplicity. I've instantly become a huge fan of the shakers, oh, and they're called shakers because of the way they dance, cool.
Two other notes real quick, I am typing up this post on my brand new Macbook Pro (by far the most expensive required school supply I have ever purchased). She's fun, she's stylish, and much to rachel's concern, I have named her Nadia and she tells me the time in a sexy synthesized voice. Also, I have joined the ranks of the hardcore Seattle bike commuters. After years of griping about these rabid hyenas on wheels, I have become one, and am proud of it. My first week of weaving in and out of downtown traffic with my head constantly twitching back and forth watching for obstacles made me understand the mind of the bike commuter and what gives them that nervous tick. It's scary..........fun, but scary, its like being on a roller coaster you can steer, with cars, dog leashes, trucks, pedestrians and pigeons constantly making every effort to veer directly into your path. It is a pretty darn efficient way to get around though, it takes me 45-60 minutes to get to campus, about 7 miles away, which is actually pretty competitive with taking my car in rush hour when you consider the time it takes to park and then walk to the campus.
This happened a while ago but it definitely needs to be posted before I forget. On the way to camping, my Jeep roared past its 150,000th mile! Now for many of you, your car is just a way to get around. My Jeep is a member of the family, much like my dog. I bought her at 88,000 and she has reliably transported me all over this great country for six years now. So, we celebrated this milestone by pulling off the interstate into a less than desirable part of Tacoma and creeping around the neighborhood until we hit 150,000. At that point Rachel pulled out the champagne she had brought(thanks babe, I forgot) and we took a couple swigs and poured the rest on the tires of my other girlfriend. Sound crazy? You wouldn't understand.....It's a Jeep thing!
Clearly.......because the senator of my home state has enough spare time on his hands to sue God. Literally. It is not often that news from WOWT pops up on my morning skim over the Google news headlines but this morning it did, with this tasty little tidbit...... Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers has filed a lawsuit against God. He says he just wants to make the point that the constitution allows a lawsuit to be filed for any reason. The action seeks a "permanent injunction ordering Defendant to cease certain harmful activities and the making of terroristic threats." The Plaintiff (Chambers) is identified as "the duly elected and serving State Senator from the 11th Legislative District in Omaha, Nebraska." Full story---->
Ernie Sues God
Particularly interesting is this little rhyme session he threw into the document.....
"Defendant directly and proximately has caused, inter alia (among other things), fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornados, pestilential plagues, ferocious famines, devastating droughts, genocidal wars, birth defects and the like."
At the time I read the article, it had drawn 138 comments. Many insulted Ernie Chambers but a surprising amount stood up in his defense and truly understood the point he was trying to make. I have not been involved in Nebraska politics since my second year in the Navy when I sent in my last absentee ballot. At first I wrote this guy off as a looney-toon, but reading through some of the comments shows he has great support and may actually be quite a visionary. Most importantly, he got people talking with this action, sometimes it takes extreme measures to get attention drawn to wrongs that normally drift by unnoticed. For stirring the pot Ernie, I commend you.......
I am at work right now, finishing my chores early so I can head to the monthly Brewmaster's Dinner at Mccormick and Schmick's downtown. The dinner features a different brewery every month and is a five course meal with each course utilizing a different beer in some manner, whether its in the sauce, part of the marinade, or baked straight in as in the chocolate stout cake or 'beeramisu' desserts. Between each course the brewmaster and the chef come out to discuss their respective creations. This month is our local Pike Brewery and features one of my favoritest microbrews, the Kilt-Lifter IPA. Its hard to go wrong with any IPA but this one is particularly exciting. Just throw on a traditional celtic man-skirt, toss one back and you'll see why, it is HOPPY!!! Anyway, the brewmaster's dinner instantly became a favorite tradition with the inner circle of our urban family. As I said, it's a five-course meal, but also includes all-you-can-drink beer and costs only $49.95, tax and gratuity included. A smokin' deal!
