Just a couple more pictures. Click:
26
Jul
Author Archives: tim
23
Jul
Hikes Galore
I’ve gone on some sort of hike every day for the last five days. Without missing any of the Tour de France! How do you like me now?
I uploaded a dozen photos to the coppermine in a new album called Excursions.
Day one: Mosier with Frank.
Day two: Wahkeena Falls and Multnomah Falls with Gina and Ken.
Day three: Wahclella Falls with Eileen.
Day four: Oregon coast with Eileen.
Day five: Forest Park with Frank and Eliott.
Seeing some great scenery despite mostly cloudy days. Tember is in heaven.
16
Jul
Adventurous Weekend
Let me just begin with a disclaimer: I know. I know I’m a big, fat sissy.
Okay, then.
This past weekend, Eileen and I got to know Portland a little better. On Saturday, we drove to the West side (which means west of the Willamette River). We explored the Multnomah and Hillsdale neighborhoods, and we got a couple of cinnamon rolls (on a recommendation) from a greasy spoon diner called Fat City Cafe in Multnomah Village, a quaint, homey town with a Door County feel but without all the tourists.
Good start to the day.
Then we went to Sauvie Island, which is ten miles outside of Portland to the northwest. It’s a huge island with some little lakes in the middle, and it’s all pretty undeveloped. There are a few little stores and some farms and some private residences. It’s known for its u-pick berry farms, which was right up our alley, and since we didn’t bring swimsuits to hang out on the beaches, we decided to berry-pick instead.
Tember helped. She wouldn’t eat the fallen ones, but she would eat them right off the bush with a little assisstance.
We came home with four pounds of blueberries and two pounds of raspberries. Total cost? $8!
That night, we went out for sushi at this place called Saburo. We got there at 5:00, thinking we’d beat the rush, but we still ended up waiting about 50 minutes. We ordered about $30 of sushi, which is usually enough to fill us up. When it came, we were staring at the biggest sushi rolls we’d ever seen. I don’t know if you could have fit one of them inside a coffee mug. So we left with Sunday night’s dinner, too.
That was Saturday. Good day.
On Sunday, we toyed with the a few different options, but ultimately, we decided we’d eat breakfast at Fat City Cafe (cuz the hash browns looked really good) and then go to Body Worlds 3 at OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry).
It’s a good thing we ate first.
We walked in and beheld Skin Man, seen here holding up all his skin.
I’m sure everyone knows, but just a reminder: Body Worlds uses real cadavers that are preserved through plastination and arranged in active poses with various layers peeled away and exposed to “aid learning.” There are displays on the walls full of well-written, subtle justifications of the whole exhibit. They talk about things like how some cultures in the past were much more comfortable with death and with dead bodies, etc.
So you can get lulled into thinking that it’s not weird that these bodies were all once living and breathing. Plus, they willingly donated their bodies to science — specifically to plastination — so okay.
Next hurdle you might have to get over is the fact that some living people (in the mold of Hannibal Lector and Ed Gehn and other such famous killers — fictional and non-fictional) took pleasure in arranging these human bodies aesthetically and taking off their skin, etc. Of course, you don’t have to think about those people any more than you think about the engineers who designed your car.
But if you’re me, the reaction you’re having is not at all rational. Your wrists suddenly get hypersensitive and you feel that having them exposed is really iffy. So you curl your hands like a palsy (I’m not going for laughs with that statement), or you fold your arms. And what you really want to do is get into the fetal position on the floor.
I’m not sure how to describe what comes over me. It’s the feeling that I’m looking at my own insides and that the only thing that separates me from them is a sharp knife which could suddenly appear at any moment. It’s all just too literal for me.
Honestly, it was the closest I’ve ever come to having a nervous breakdown.
I could handle the camel, the fetuses, and to a certain extent, the arterial exhibits, which were just skeletons plus all the arteries and veins in the body — no muscles, no tendons, no ligaments.
Needless to say, I was relieved to get out of the exhibit. I’m still happy I went, but it wasn’t comfortable.
And then to top it all off, I read the last 30 pages of “The Time Traveler’s Wife” when we got home and I spent about a half an hour weeping.
Luckily, we hadn’t seen the Tour de France earlier in the day so, we watched the re-aring of it while we ate our leftover sushi.
So there you have it. I can run with the bulls, skydive, and do an Ironman triathlon, but a trip to the museum and a love story about a time traveler leave me completely drained.
09
Jul
Colorado
So, we just got back from a Storm family vacation in the mountains of Colorado. Eileen and I didn’t take many pictures; we figured we’d just mooch off of the rest of the picture-takers in the family, most of whom are better at it than we are anyhow.
Day 2 was our day to go rafting. We began the trip by going to the wrong rafting company and then hurrying to the right one just in time. I was the runner, which meant I had to interact very quickly with multiple rafting guides. Not the brightest bunch. I think they like the idea of their jobs better than they actually like doing them.
Of course, maybe that’s all of us.
Anyhow, the guy at the right place told me to check in at the office. He said this like I had just asked him how many feet are in six feet. “Yeah, where’s the office?” I answered, not trying to disguise my disdain, and he said, “Right next door,” while pointing at a place labelled “Espresso.” Oh, duh.
Fortunately, both groups of Storms got nice guides. We divided up into the Holmen raft (pictured below), and the non-Holmen raft (pictured belower).
As you can see, I’m all business. I heard the guide say something about looking at the camera, but I guess I thought the photographer would be swimming.
Angie caught on early:
And then gradually, so did everyone else:
Except me.
And then it was too late:
But we all had a lot of fun. There were some nice rapids, but nothing too scary. Our guide said we were the best group she ever had. And we immediately called her on that: “Sure, you say that to everyone, don’t you?”
Of course, we were the best. The best she’ll ever see. And the Holmen group was probably the best their guide will see. Ever.
28
Jun
Watch out, I’m getting political.
Okay, I’m trying to begin to articulate some of the issues I’ve seen in past years with race and privilege, and much of my summer research is revolving around this stuff, so I figure I might as well share it. These arguments are in their infancy, but by trying to express them, I hope to get closer to making sense.
“You know, talking about race makes people uncomfortable.” — Kathleen Brose, parent who sued Seattle Public Schools over the district’s race-based balancing of school diversity.
Outside of the U.S. it’s easy to see the lack of political engagement of US citizens. Here, it’s a cultural trend to be apathetic toward social issues and toward the leadership of the country. Yes, we have talk radio and blogs and news, but in how many families is injustice a topic of conversation at the dinner table? I know that when my relatives all get together, we don’t talk about Darfur or Iraq. We tend to focus on more personal stories – what happened to us at the grocery store, how we got locked out of our car, those sorts of things. Not that such topics are a problem. But it might be a problem that political discussions are compartmentalized in this country, seen as only appropriate in certain limited contexts, and not a central part of our social lives.
If anything, new media – like podcasts and blogs and youtube – show what we actually thirst for discussions of political/social issues. Though the discussion are not often very civil on the web, people are indeed interested in more than just dramatic prairie dogs. A recent viral video proves that the internet community’s interests are about: it’s a clever little mockumentary called “Teenage Affluenza Is Spreading Fast.” Interestingly enough, it addresses the topic of disengagement. In fact, it ends with the lines, “Do something else. Do something real. Do something.” It’s a call to action for us wealthier, citizens to do something to help out the poorer people of the world. It doesn’t say how, and that’s another discussion. But it’s effective at least in making its point: we should keep our affluence in perspective.
I saw the video for the first time today, just after hearing news about the Supreme court decision to reject using race as a factor in school placement. On an NPR radio segment, they interviewed a Seattle parent who was among those who got this case rolling in the first place. It was an interesting juxtaposition – the ironic affluenza video vs. the disgruntled white woman. Here’s an audio clip of the interview with the parent.
I don’t disagree entirely with this mother. The Seattle system of school placement is certainly not flawless, but what’s implied (not stated outright) in her explanation of her daughter’s legitimate complaints about the school placement is that the family ultimately ended up opting for a private school. (** Turns out I’m wrong about this. The daughter stayed in a public school. **) And they sued.
Clearly they have money and power, a combination which often results in getting your way.
As a high school teacher, I see this sort of thing all the time. Wealthy – often white – parents occasionally like to “fight for their rights.” I’ve endured insulting meetings in which I had to justify why a student earned a B+ rather than an A in my class. I’ve had people in my neighborhood come to my door asking me to sign a petition to prevent the school district from re-drawing the district boundaries so that the children on the west side of such and such a street would be moved to an Inferior School. And I’ve seen how year after year, the district’s budget crisis puts the strings program on the chopping block and how at the last minute, it’s always saved by the parents’ campaigning at school board meetings. Meanwhile, special ed programs get cut and sports fees increase.
The less power-savvy parents don’t know how to talk to the principal or the school board to get their way. They don’t go in to school and talk to their kid’s counselor to change his schedule. They often don’t have the time to go into school (because they’re working jobs with less flexible schedules). And many of them know that worse things can happen to you than not being allowed to attend your first choice high school.
The affluent(za) parents are often financially very secure. Many of the more active parents in the district don’t have full time jobs – or any real jobs as far as I can tell. So they have the time to complain. And they have lots of energy when it comes to fighting for their child’s privileges (not rights, actually).
I live in a liberal college town – one with plenty of Volvos and Subarus and backyard vegetable gardens. Occasionally, on one of those Volvos, you’ll see a bumper sticker that says, “Think globally, act locally.” I fully support that sentiment, but too often, the self-righteous parents who get their way at school board meetings fail to follow the admonition. They think locally. Which is why our city remains very segregated and why our state has been rated as one of the worst places in the country to live for African-Americans.
It’s the sense of entitlement and the fighting for privilege amongst the already-privileged class that ultimately institutionalizes racism in places as high up as the US Supreme Court.