2006

There were 210 posts published in 2006 (this is page 9 of 21).

Golden Summer

I’ve always been a sucker for things falling from the sky. I don’t mean planes or rain or meteorites; I mean light, delicate things: snow, blossoms, mist, and leaves. I bought the DVD for the awful Tom Cruise flick Legend simply because it has gorgeous scenes of meadows filled with floaty things. (Seriously.)

This evening I am sitting on the back porch, reclined in what has become my Writing Chair. Toto is sitting on the arm, watching me type. (She is my constant companion lately.) The sun is sinking low in the horizon behind me, and the quality of the light has turned golden. The locust, which towers just over there, just across the lawn, is bathed in the soft, warm light. A gentle breeze blows, stirring the locust leaves, causing the boughs to bob. As they bob, they shed small, yellow leaves, leaves which drift upon the breeze, forming a tumbling rain like canary feathers, floating across to me, landing on my lap.

It is like magic.

Toto moves to the other chair — her seat — and we listen to the sounds of the neighborhood. Curt and Tammy are working on their roof next door. Ka-chunk, ka-chunk (or puh-fut, puh-fut): Curt staples down shingles. Dogs bark in the yard behind us, but only aimlessly — barking for the sake of barking. A car surges past on Arista Avenue. Harvey and his family were out earlier, but they’re not now, although I think it’s their grill I smell. They’re cooking something savory and sweet. It smells like burning honey.

Somewhere, in the distance, I can hear the ice cream truck again. From here its tunes sound mournful.

I noticed berry prices at the Farmers Market last Sunday. Nearly everything’s $3/pint. (Or is it a quart? I don’t know.) That’s amazing! We’ve been in berries for two months now, and they’re thicker than ever.

“We must have eaten a hundred dollars in berries this year,” I told Kris.

“Easily,” she said.

Our peas are still on, too, but I think we’ve given up on those. We’ve never had peas so prolific. But two months of peas is enough for any man. Kris ate her first tomato today: a Bloody Butcher. She slurped it down, raving the whole time. She also picked some cucumbers, but she says she needs a few more before she can pickle them. She brought in a zucchini, too, and threatened to make some sort of muffin with it.

This is the best garden we’ve ever had.

(If only we had grapes, but there are none on the vine.)

Rediscovering Ramen

In college, like most folks, I was an enthusiastic devotee of ramen: that quick and delicious (and cheap!) meal of noodles and salt. Oh, how I loved to boil the water in those little plug-in appliances (the name of which now escapes me), to split the cake of noodles in two, two add the seasoning packet. What camaraderie to slurp a bowl of noodles with a friend. A tasty meal for only ten cents.

With actual adulthood came actual meals, though, and ramen noodles faded into memory. That is until I bought a couple packages on a whim a few weeks ago. Why not? It was a twenty cent gamble. Since then, I’m hooked: So savory! So delicious!

Why, I’m enjoying a bowl this very moment…

My First Book

Blogathon status: 8 sponsors for $151. Come on, folks: sponsor me! Even $4 or $5 makes a difference.

Lee wonders:

What’s the first book you remember reading?

That’s a difficult question to answer. As long as I can remember, books have been a part of my life. Mom and Dad did a wonderful job of making me a reader. As I look at the kids I know now, I’m ecstatic to see that in almost every instance, their parents are fostering a love of books. (Jenn and Jeremy have been especially great: Hank and Scout fairly breathe books.) But the kids I know are universally well-off. Rich, even. They can afford books, and their parents believe in the value of reading. Not every child has this advantage.

But what was the first book I remember reading? I don’t know.

I remember having Small Pig read to me at a young age. Also Millions of Cats and Dr. Seuess’ Sleep Book.

A moose is asleep. He is dreaming of moose drinks.
A goose is asleep. He is dreaming of goose drinks.
That’s well and good when a moose dreams of moose juice.
And nothing goes wrong when a goose dreams of goose juice.
But it isn’t too good when a moose and a goose
Start dreaming they’re drinking the other one’s juice.
Moose juice, not goose juice, is juice for a moose.
And goose juice, not moose juice, is juice for a goose.
So, when goose gets a mouthful of juices of mooses
And moose gets a mouthful of juices of gooses
They always fall out of their beds screaming screams
So, I’m warning you, now! Never drink in your dreams.

I have strong memories of each, including memories of going to the public library for Small Pig.

I can remember learning to read in first grade using the Star Reader books: The Wee Light, We Feed a Deer, etc.

I can’t remember which book I first picked up on my own, though. It was probably something in my grandmother’s parlor, something like The Bobbsey Twins or the Hardy Boys in The Tower Treasure.

Getting kids to read is vital. It lays the groundwork for lifelong learning. Because of this, I’m raising money for FirstBook this month. On July 29th, I’ll be blogging for 24-hours straight at Get Rich Slowly. Your sponsorship helps, even if you just give a buck. Please take the time to pledge your support.

Lately I’ve begun to read “success” books: self-help and motivational tomes and biographies of famous people. A common thread among these is: successful people read — a lot. I’m thankful to my parents for having made me a reader. Now I have a chance to foster reading in others.

Look! It’s one of those rare days on which I’ve made a weblog entry every year since I started:

Family Reunion

Kris and I hosted a family reunion on Saturday. Out of the 80+ possible Roths and Swartzendrubers, about 35 showed up for food, fun, and fellowship. It was great to see everyone, even Tammy.

When I was a boy, my father’s family was quite close. We lived just down the road from my grandparents’ house. Aunts and uncles and cousins made frequent visits. Because we didn’t do a lot with neighbors or friends in town, family gatherings were special. They were the most important social events. We saw each other several times each year.

As we grew older, though, we grew apart. Grandma died. Grandpa died. Aunt Janice and Uncle Norman died. My father died. The cousins spread across the country. For ten or fifteen years, we saw little of each other. Then, about five years ago, we gathered at Tammy’s house between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We had a fine little reunion. That’s now become something of a tradition, one that I look forward to, but it seems unfair to always be imposing upon Tammy’s hospitality. (Although it builds character in her.) Now that Kris and I have a large yard, we volunteered to host a summer gathering.

This is a family of story-tellers. Not everyone is a writer (though there are many among us), but everyone loves to tell stories. On Saturday, we clustered in the shade and listened to Mart and Scott. Kris loved Mart’s tale of buying cheap boots, which will lose a lot in translation:

Mart went in to the Wilco farm store in Oregon City. They were having a sale: $50 off all Justin Boots. Since Justin Boots are normally about $150, this sounded like a good deal to him. He rummaged around, looking for bargains. (See? It runs in the family. Mart’s father is Pop from Pop Buys Pop.) He found a pair of custom-order boots that somebody had never picked up. They were marked at $60. When he went to the counter to pay, he pointed out that all Justin Boots were $50 off. The clerk hemmed and hawed, but called her manager, and sure enough, Mart got the boots for $10. They weren’t in his size, though, so he gave them to his brother. A few days later, he decided to go back to look at the boots again. This time he found a pair of custom-order boots marked at $50. Sensing a fantastic bargain, he went to pay for them, fully expecting to get them for free. He found the same clerk who’d helped him before. She recognized him. Mart asked if he could have these boots for free, and the clerk was going to call her manager when an older clerk came forward. Special-order boots weren’t eligible for the $50 discount, she explained. Well then, Mart wasn’t going to buy the boots. The clerks stopped him and asked if he’d take the boots for $25. He would. These boots weren’t in his size, either, so he gave them to another brother.

Sounds pretty dry in a weblog, but it’s quite funny when Mart tells it. I also liked listening to Val’s stories. Valerie was always one of my favorite cousins, but I haven’t seen her much in twenty years. Her little tales of life in Idaho were gems. My favorite dealt with animal intelligence:

One morning on the farm, the cat caught a crow. This was amazing in and of itself, but what was more amazing was that as the captured crow cawed and struggled, other crows descended. Ten, twenty, thirty crows landed in a circle around the cat, raising a terrible din. The cat was frightened, released its victim, and fled from the advancing flock.

Awesome.

As usual, there were family photos to share. Ben brought a treasure trove of large prints of my grandmother from around 1925, when she was working as a file clerk at Montgomery Ward in Portland (working in the building that is now Montgomery Park). I plan to scan these and post these photos soon.

Photography is always a hot topic at these gatherings. This time, my cousin-in-law Ruth brought with her a Mamiya RB67 Pro, a medium-format camera. Ruth used to be a keen amateur, but lately she hasn’t the time. She’s doing her best to convince me that I want this camera, and that I should buy it from her.

The kit she’s offering includes the camera, a prism viewfinder, a 90mm/f3.5 (which I think is equivalent to a 35mm or 50mm lens on a 35mm system), a 180mm/f4.5 lens (which is a portrait lens — this one’s shutter is broken), two film backs, and a polaroid back. “You can put a digital back on it,” she told me. But when I looked up prices for digital backs, I was shocked to see that they’re about $15,000! Ruth is loaning the camera to me. If I like it, I’ll offer her a fair price.

To test it, I made this image of my Aunt Virginia. I used the 90mm lens at f5.6 and 1/60 sec. It’s easy to remember this stuff because it takes a l-o-n-g time to set up a shot with this camera. And each shot is precious. The image is fairly poor, in part because of the outdated Polaroid film that I didn’t know how to use (note that the right-side is a mess from this), and in part because I don’t know how the viewfinder frames things. I cut off poor Virginia’s ankles!

It was a fine reunion. Scott has volunteered to host a gathering next summer, at which he plans to roast one of his pigs. Tammy thinks it’s too far to drive, but the rest of us will have some delicious fresh pork.

Sponsor Me for Blogathon 2006

Get Rich Slowly (my personal finance site) will be participating in the annual Blogathon on July 29th. Starting at 6am Pacific, I will post one entry every half hour for twenty-four hours.

Money raised from your sponsorships will be donated to First Book, an organization that fosters reading among low-income children.

First Book is a national nonprofit organization with a single mission: to give children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their first new books. We provide an ongoing supply of new books to children participating in community-based mentoring, tutoring, and family literacy programs.

[…]

First Book’s model is national in scope and local in impact. In our first year, First Book distributed approximately 12,000 books in three communities. Since that time, First Book has distributed more than 40 million books to children in over 1300 communities around the country.

Encouraging children to read is one of the most important things we can do to help them grow into productive adults. Reading starts kids down the path to success. It is the very first step toward getting rich slowly.

Sponsoring the site is easy. If you’d like to support First Book, simply pledge any amount — even a dollar. If you e-mail me after you pledge, I’ll add your name (and a link to any web site you choose) to the Get Rich Slowly sidebar. After the Blogathon, you will receive a reminder directing you to First Book to fulfill your pledge. And remember: you donations are tax deductible (at least in the United States).

I cant Spel

Suddenly my friends and I can’t spell. Our e-mail exchanges have become ghastly sights. I’ve always had a problem with homonyms — how many times have I used ‘through’ when I meant ‘threw’? — but now the problem seems to have exploded, and just when I’m writing more than I ever have before. Worse, I’ve begun substituting unrelated words for the words I intend. And sometimes my mind is racing so far ahead the I end up using words from later in the sentence before they’re needed. It’s very, very strange.

Here are some real-life examples from recent e-mails, both from me and from friends. I’ve bolded the offending words:

John David Roth: If I were to do an external hard drive now, I’d go for a laptop-sized drive, actually, which I think is 3-1/2″. By the drive, mount it in a case (sold seperately), and voila!

Paul David Carlile: (in reply to the above) Thanks. I know understand better what you mean.

John David Roth: Huh. Comments on Mefi Projects on world-viewable. Who knew? (should be “aren’t”)

Joel Alexander Miron: Wow, so JD one the league (right?) with the sixth-most points? Truly he was the Pittsburgh Steelers of 2005.

Tiffany Sue Gates: They think that I stained my
back…

Tammy Lee Jata: And heres the third time. We’re coming and most likely so will shelly and justin.

Etc. Etc. Etc. These are but a few examples.

I guess it could be worse. I guess we could all b l33t. or we cud do lik teenz whn txting.

Italy 2, Germany 0

I haven’t had a chance to watch as much of the World Cup this year as I had hoped. I did watch today’s game, though, and wow. It was great. Germany did not deserve to lose by two goals. The match was phenomenal. Italy outplayed the Germans in the first half, dominating possession, but were unable to put anything away. I thought Germany was the stronger team in the second half, but again they were unable to score.

During the first fifteen-minute overtime period, the game began to open up. Neither team seemed to want the game to go to penalties, and both sides made attacks on goal. Still scoreless heading into the second overtime period, things got even hotter. Still, the match seemed sure to be headed to penalties until Italy’s Grosso tucked in a beautiful goal in the 118th minute. Germany pressed in desperation, but this just freed Italy to make a strong counterattack and score a decisive second goal with seconds remaining.

A fantastic game, well-played by both sides.

A Job in Search of a Man

I entered the weekend with an enormous list of chores, some from Kris, some self-assigned. We’re hosting a family reunion next weekend, which means extra cleaning on top of the normal routine. Among other things, I wanted to:

  • Clean the workshop
  • Sweep the entire house
  • Mop the floors upstairs (we’ve lived in the house two years and have mopped the floors zero times)
  • Mow the lawn
  • Edge the lawn
  • Purge clothes I no longer wear
  • Dig out the laurel stump by the back porch
  • Clean the back porch
  • Install Kris’ new rain barrel

I also needed to spend some time working on my computer projects. I wanted to:

  • Redesign my comics blog
  • Add some new sections to my personal finance blog
  • Organize the files on my laptop (boy, are they a mess!)
  • Write several entries for these various places

And how much of this did I actually accomplish? Zero. Nada. Nothing.

That’s not to say I wasn’t productive. I worked hard. But I worked hard building horseshoe pits. Yes, you read that correctly. I installed two lanes — four pits. I scraped earth, poured sand, leveled paving stones, built pit frames, pounded in stakes, and so on. I spent many hours creating horseshoe pits. They’re far from perfect, but I like them.

I only wish somebody else had done my real chores in the meantime…

Twenty mp3s of Great Songs from 1901-1920

New visitors may also enjoy Vintage Film Sampler: What to Watch When You Don’t Know What You Like (an introduction to the films of the 1940s and 1950s), Graphic Novels for People Who Hate Comics and Sesame Street Video Clips.

It’s a shame most people are unfamiliar with American Popular Music. It’s great fun. It occurred to me today that a lot of this music is in the Public Domain — I could rip mp3s from my collection and post them. So I have. All mp3s in this entry are in the Public Domain — download and share!

The best way to introduce this music is probably to offer the entire 1991 RCA collection called Nipper’s Greatest Hits: 1901-1920. This disc is long out-of-print. It sells for $190 on Amazon. One copy recently sold for $60 on eBay. In the early days of eBay, I lost a bidding war for this disc. I contacted the winning bidder, and she graciously made me a copy of the disc and the insert.

According to the liner notes:

The selections of Nipper’s Greatest Hits: 1901-1920, are redolent of those days when performers played and sang into a simple acoustical horn whose vibrations were sensitized onto the wax of a revolving disc. Today’s digital restoration of the early shellac records not only eliminates unwanted ticks, pops, and surface noise; it also amplifies the sound signal, so that in this compilation one hears those musical pioneers in their best guise.

Here are all twenty songs from the set, displayed in chronological order, not track order. The song title links to an mp3; the performer name links to additonal information (generally from wikipedia).

This isn’t a comprehensive list of popular music of the era. Two of the biggest songs — “After the Ball” and “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” — aren’t even included. However, it’s a good representation music that was popular one hundred years ago.

Many of these songs sound quaint to our ears. Recording technology was primitive before 1925, and the best way to get a good recording was to be loud. Opera singers and brass bands made great records.

If you like this music — and I doubt that many of you will — check out modern interpretations of the songs. I’m particularly fond of After the Ball, which I own on vinyl. Joan Morris does a good job with piano accompaniment (though her style is operatic).

For more information on early American popular music, explore:

I’d love to start a weblog devoted to this stuff, but with this blog, my personal finance blog, and my comics blog (not to mention some secret stuff), I’m positively blogged out.

Please please please forward other sites that feature early American popular music.

Burglary Leads to Bizarre Kidnapping

“You wouldn’t believe how stupid some people are,” Dave often tells me. He’s a lawyer. “Criminals are just stupid.” Here’s a story from today’s issue of the Clackamas Review that supports his claim.

Burglary leads to bizarre kidnapping, drug charges
from the 28 June 2006 issue of Clackamas Review

A residential burglary went from bad to worse in Milwaukie June 16, leading to criminal charges for all involved.

According to Clackamas County Sherrif’s Office spokesman Detective Jim Strovink, the incident started out as the sort of case law enforcement often never sees: Someone burglarized a house and discovered a marijuana-growing operation. Although the resident reportedly had a medical marijuana permit, police say he was growing far more than he was allowed.

“You’ve got one individual who burglarized the house and got some marijuana,” Strovink said, “and recognized ‘what is this stuff — this stuff is great!'”

The homeowner, Bradley Poppino, 43, was apparently away at the time. The alleged burglar, Paul Canul, 18, of Milwaukie, reportedly decided to come back.

“He recruited a couple of mopes to go with him and said ‘I’ll give you a cut if you help out.’ Little did he know that the homeowner, Poppino, had returned and discovered what had happened.”

Poppino reportedly had a friend of his own, neighbor Andrew Kester, 27, also of Milwaukie. Poppino had parked his vehicle away from the house — to make it appear he had not returned — and was waiting.

“Sure enough, the three mopes come down the road there — two go to the front and one comes to the back.”

The neighbor saw them. “He said ‘school’s out and here’s three guys with backpacks — it looks unusual.’ He pops up, and Poppino comes out of his house.”

Two of the suspects reportedly ran in one direction; the third, Canul, fled with Poppino and Kester in hot pursuit. Canul reportedly had a pistol, but “they were not intimidated — they tackled him.”

Canul was brought back to the house and allegedly duct-taped and threatened if he didn’t return the marijuana stolen in the first burglary.

“They allowed him access to a cell phone, after they started intimidating him, saying they would cut off his toes — one for every hour they didn’t have the product returned.”

He was allowed to talk to his friends, to tell them to come and bring the marijuana; in the process, he made it known to them that he was still being held at the house they had allegedly tried to rob. They called the police.

“The uniformed officers go down there from the description provided to them,” Strovink said. “They go up to the door at Poppino’s house, and they’re greeted by these two individuals, Poppino and Kester. They split the two up and start talking to them, and they give it up to them.

“They go inside, and there’s this guy — sitting in a chair with a blanket in his lap — and there’s a mountain of duct tape beside him, and his shoe’s off.”

By that time it was about 7 p.m., and Canul had been there for about four hours. Strovink said Canul confessed to stealing from the house; officers took everyone into custody.

Poppino was charged with Kidnapping I as well as with manufacturing marijuana; Kester was charged with kidnapping, as well. Canul was charged wtih Robber I and Attempted Burglary I, as well as the unlawful possession of a weapon with the intent to use it.

“This is a rather odd series of events,” Strovink said. “But it’s not unusual to have people growing marijuana — manufacturing it — to be ripped off.

In this case, he said, “you’ve got guns, drugs, and stupid people…that’s the trifecta.”

It almost sounds like the plot for a bad buddy-comedy film.