Number of the Day

Thanks to Introduction to Physical Anthropology, 10th Edition for this one. "1,000 billion." Then, it broke the number down in parentheses in case anyone was confused by the non-number (1,000,000,000,000). No wonder people think physical anthropology is hard!

Torture* is Illegal

*Concept defined by the President. Not subject to Judicial Review.

Starting around 400 years ago, my ancestors left countries that now have free healthcare, strong economies with lots of jobs, still uphold the Geneva Conventions, and have ratified the Kyoto Treaty. Life is unfuckingfair. I don't want to go back from whence my late fathers and mothers came. There are no trees in Ireland. I LIKE TREES, GODDAMMIT! Sure, there are trees in other parts of Europe, but I'm not too excited about learning yet another language. I realize that many more hardships than having to learn a language were endured when those seeking freedom came to this continent; yeah, I respect that. But I'm a whiney bitch on top of everything else, and besides, immigration requirements into most countries of the EU are pretty damn strict for Americans.

If you're wondering what I'm ranting about, the House and Senate just passed a bill that allows tortures, officially. Except it's sneaky in that it SAYS it doesn't allow torture; it claims torture is illegal. What makes it different from the Geneva Conventions is that the extent of and the definition of torture are distinctions made by the president. There are other issues dealing with the concept of Habeas Corpus that are probably better explained by people more inclined to dissect legal jargon than I. Apologies for having to resort to a cliche, but our consititution is dying the death of a thousand papercuts. This bill is a few more scratches.

Have the forests been trampled to death by the sheep in New Zealand yet? I hear it's pretty there. And yes, I will admit that Ireland does have some trees, just not in the prodigous amounts that I've grown up around here in Oregon. And their concept of "mountains" is cute, at best. They even have a Mountain Rescue! I met a guy who worked for them; he even had a rope and a helmet with him! I thought it was adorable, having all the gear, just like a real mountainman. Please... Achill had some pretty impressive sea cliffs, I'll give it that, but otherwise, if I can hike (or, "have a wander," as they so kindly liked to put it)to the top of a rise with little more than sore legs then it's not a mountain - it's a fucking hill.

Ya Know What I Don't Want to do Tomorrow?

....leave by 7:00 to bike four miles through downtown rush hour traffic just to show up at my 8:00am geography class, dripping with sweat and looking like I just got off of a real life roller coaster ride! And YEAH! helmet hair!

I think I'll take the bus.

Word of the Day

Ugh, geologists. I'm not even IN a geology class and I have to put up with their crap! First there was "clinkery," now there's "hummocky." Seriously guys, don't you have someone proof these things?

While I was in Ireland researching my essay topic, I came across a few funny terms, this time from geographers and archaeologists. My favorites included "neothermal," which is a pretentious, academic-y term for anything after the Ice Age, and "post-prehistoric," which is just plain ridiculous.

The Bestest Summer EVER! pt III

The last weekend of summer was all I expected it to be and more. Four shows in three days! The Cherry Poppin' Daddies AND Flogging Molly? TWICE? Such the stuff dreams are made of. (if that sentence is arranged grammatically correct it reads like this: "such the stuff of dreams are made." see what happens when you attempt to NOT end a sentence in a preposition? grammar shmammer, i say.)

Anyway. FRIDAY - The Cherry Poppin' Daddies played the Doug Fir, a bar down the street. It's been five long years since I've seen these local legends, and my how times have changed (and yet haven't at all). The guys who once had a video on a steady rotation on the various MTVs were now loading their own gear. Gone were the fancy zoot suits, and in their places were new wrinkles, bald spots and matured faces. The set started off with "Teenage Brain Surgeon" a verrrry old song from their first album that came out at least 15 years ago. They played a lot of their older songs, some fan favorites like "Sockable Face Club" and "Irish Whiskey," but also some stuff that I'm not sure I've heard live before like "Hazel, South Dakota." There were a few songs I didn't recognize at all, all ska numbers, that they didn't name.
When I used to go to CPD shows on a regular basis, I usually came home with a plethora of bruises. I have a vivid memory of somehow getting my face smushed against the barrier three feet above the ground and having the mesh imprinted on my cheek. Most of the people back then were about ten to fifteen years older than me, were usually wasted. The crowd on Friday were those same people, except older and slightly more mature (although I did see a couple of at least thirty-five years old sucking face in the middle of the dance floor before the set even started). The tameness of the crowd is what really cracked me up. I was bumped into, slightly, only one time - and the guy apologized! Instead of fighting for a spot near the front, I was (gently) pushed up to the stage where I could actually see the band. Would that have happened five years ago? HAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!
There was a little bit of dancing and the band seemed to enjoy themselves. I was pleased with the selection of songs overall, however, I really would have liked to have heard "Don Quixote" and "Master and Slave."
After the show I met some friends at a pub near my house and found to my delight that yet another place serves Smithwicks! I had no idea this beer was so prolific! Woohooo! It was good to catch up on things with them. I'm still working with the idea of having the people I grew up with now married and with children, but it's coming along. The whole crew - two couples, one with two kids - live together in a huge house just a few minutes from me now, so that's exciting.

SATURDAY - Went to the Portland Pirate Festival! Ahhhh, Portland is weird..... and I *LIKE* IT!! I spent an incongruent amount of time standing in lines during this event, but the day was beautiful and the festival was located at a park under the St. John's Bridge, which gives a gorgeous view of the city, the river and the mountains; the bridge itself is quite nice, too. There had to have been at least a thousand people there, more than several of them dressed up. There was a staged "fight" with black powder cannons (the kids took that with mixed results), Irish set dances done with swords, pirates on stilts, "Dress Like a Pirate" booth, etc. My favorite thing was watching some kids wearing pirate hats have a mock swordfight... a few minutes later one of the kid's mom was trying to leave and had to shoo the other one off, "go find your parents!" she said. The kids didn't even know each other! They just started playing and were having the time of their lives with total strangers!
In the afternoon I then drove down to the parents' house to chat for a bit before I continued south to watch the first Flogging Molly show. I hadn't been to the McDonald Theater before and I was rather impressed. The sound system was phenomenal. I did take issue with the area I was standing in, as there was an aisle way with several different floor levels - serious ankle-breaking danger if moshers come along. And come along they did. Sheesh, the kids were moshing to the recorded music playing over the loudspeakers before the band even got on stage! I only caught one of the opening bands, a group called Bedouin Sound Clash. They had a reggae sound, with lots of bass and effects. Kind of mellow to be opening for Flogging Molly, but I do intend to pick up a CD of theirs. They ended their set with a medley of U2's "New Years Day" and the Clash's "Guns of Brixton" and "Police and Thieves." I'm not ordinarily a huge fan of cover songs, but this was great and I've had bits of each song in my head since then.
Flogging Molly's set was pretty similar to the one in Seattle back in March, with the additions of "Laura" and a new version of "Black Friday Rule." For some reason a mosh pit started wayyy on the side, where I was standing, and remained there the entire set. After awhile I didn't mind, as most of the big kids seemed to tucker out four songs or so into it. The pit monitors did a good job as well, picking people up and bear-hugging the bullies. There weren't any crowd surfers and people kept checking up on one another to make sure they were ok. There was at least one dude who was stoned/drunk out of his mind, but in a mild falling-over sort of way. He kept putting his arms around people like he was their closest friend, but really he just couldn't stand up straight. That people were nice to him and that he didn't puke on anyone is amazing. (note: mosh pit monitors are non-official enforcers of pit etiquette and keep people in line so the big, bad security men don't have to do it for them. people can continue to mosh and no one breaks a leg.) (another note: if you are the guy that was standing next to me wearing flip-flops, you're INSANE! flip flops? to a punk rock show? good lord.....)

SUNDAY - Dad made waffles and Tony called! Despite Tony's status as ex-boyfriend he's surprisingly pleasant to talk to and I was relieved to learn that he's officially going to spend the rest of his contract doing a safe job in Korea rather than out in the middle east in the worst unit ever.
In the afternoon Amadan played a free outdoor show at the Corvallis Fall Festival. The crowd was huge and lots of people were dancing (including some librarians from across the street, apparently!). They played most of their good old songs and quite a few new ones. Highlights included the panicked expression on the singer's face when he realized that there were children in the audience and the song he had chosen to sing had nearly every foul word in existence, and the humorous attempt to work around it. They were truly happy and excited to be playing in their hometown to such a large crowd and they kept thanking everyone they've ever known. It's nice to see the local boys done well.
After that I raced back up to Portland with just enough time to eat dinner, put on my jumpboots (so as to not have my toes smashed like the night before) and get down to the second Flogging Molly show. I timed it pretty well and only had to stand around a few minutes before Flogging Molly got on stage. Unfortunately, there was not a coat check, and the thought of riding the bus home in the early morning hours with potentially creepy men made me decide wear my leather jacket to the show, so I was forced to wear the thing throughout the night. I only felt woozy a few times, and even joined the large mosh pit at the end of the night - voluntarily! I got the feeling though that people were being nice to me in there simply because I'm a girl. Ohhhh well. I got to dance, run into people and pump my fist in the air like a maniac! Yeahhhhh!!!!
The set seemed shorter for some reason, but it was very well-played and we could actually hear Bridget sing! I sweated so much my leather jacket was soaked through, and in fact, was still wet this morning. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!
After the show I waited around a bit to see if the band would come out to shake hands, but the security guys kept yelling at us, so I headed outside. In front of the theater some kids wearing the standard punk rock, chrome-studded leather jackets, and the old man paddy hats (Donegal hats? is that proper name?) played traditional Irish tunes on the guitar and tin whistle. I stood across the street at the bus stop, listening to them and smiling. What a fitting way to end the summer, I thought, to stand on a street corner in Portland, after witnessing my favorite band, with the sound of kids singing "Dirty Old Town" drifting towards me.

Sara was arrested for being in possession of santa clause

Ahhh, fun with Google! Type, in quotes, "[your first name] was arrested for" and then hit search. The rest of mine were boring, like embezzlment, DUI, etc. But ya can't get much better than being in possession of santa clause!

Does menstration cause technical problems? Either it does or the gods truly hate me today. I couldn't get anything to work. From my internet connection to the friggin' clothes line, nothing would cooperate. Usually computer problems are pretty straight forward. When something is wrong, it doesn't work; it doesn't sorta work, or work sometimes, it just doesn't work, period. Not my computer today! Things were murky and got progressively worse, like waking up with the sniffles and ending the day with a raging fever and an ear infection. It seems to be working for now. I also managed to not only cork the wine bottle and have a glass, but also to rescue the cork from the corker (what DO you call that thing?). It only took a half an hour!

The Cherry Poppin' Daddies show started in about twenty minutes, but there are some bands opening and I really don't feel like walking down there just yet.

FLOGGING MOLLY TOMORROW!!!!!

...........AND THE NEXT DAY, TOO!!!!!!!

The Classes

I've been inquired as to what classe I'm taking this term, so here they are:

Social Theory
Intro to Physical/Biological Anthropology
Geography of the Pacific Northwest
Historical Geography of North America

Yippee. My new internet connection is already giving me problems. It works for about three seconds..... every now and then. It's a game. I wait for it to start blinking and then hit all the links I've been waiting on before it goes solid again. It seems to be winning.

Two Posts in One Day? Noooo!

DSL Man finally arrived here at 4:23pm, meaning I suspended all activities outside the house for 8 hours and 23 minutes in expectation of his arrival. Not that I had things to do!!!!

In any case, I'm posting some pics of my backpacking trip on my picture's website. Click on the photo below for enormous pictures (that way the enormous photos that I love so much won't screw up the margins on the wordy blog).

Update: There are also photos from Ireland up, too. They are many and in no order whatsoever. Explanations will be forthcoming.

Waiting for the Internet

Today I got up and cracked open one of those giant chemical filled energy drink things in preparation for heading back to my old apartment to finish the cleaning and dump out the mounds of trash. As I cracked open the can, however, I remembered that I'm supposed to be here during the block of time the DSL-installer-man is here. That window of time? 8-5. Cuz I don't have anything better to do for nine friggin' hours in the middle of the day. How do working people deal with this? Sheesh, I'm just an unemployed bum and I have problems with it.

Anyway, this hopefully means that in, at most, six and a half hours, I will be able to view everyone's blogs properly; ie, the pictures actually show up, comment boxes load and Explorer doesn't crash everytime it has to load something larger than 100kb. Freeeeeeeeeeeedom!!! (speaking of which, Charlie! Did you take Amy to see the hideous Mel Gibson statue that's encased in a metal cage? It says "FREEDOM!" on it. I was too horrified at the time to take a picture, but now I wish I had.)

My housemate is going to California for a week starting this afternoon! Hooray! Not that I have a problem with my housemate, it's just that for a week I can play my mandolin without embarassment, destroy the kitchen in an attempt to bake, and load the remainder of my stuff, making a horrendous mess in the process. And I'll have time to clean it all up before she gets back!

Oh yes, and a quote. This book called The Good Rain by Timothy Egan, is assigned for one of my classes and like the nerd that I am, I've already started reading it. And, like the nerd that I am, I already like it. Here's an example of why: "Sunshine? That's for people who think salmon sprout from bagel factories in Iowa and come with little umbrellas." Ahhh, I love the northwest!

The Bestest Summer EVER! pt II

I've been far too overproductive for a summer vacation Monday. I mean, I rode my bike roughly 9 miles, ate breakfast, bought all my school books and it's only 1:15 in the afternoon. This, unfortunately, means that I need to go back out to 'burbia to my old apartment and do some cleaning and moving. This I do not want to do at all. Not one bit. But I kinda have to.... I have to be moved out completely by the 30th, a Saturday, and this weekend I won't be around because I have four - count 'em! - FOUR shows to go to! Flogging Molly is playing in Eugene and Portland, so of course I'll be going to both, Amadan - our own local trad Irish/punk band - is playing on Sunday afternoon in my hometown (before Flogging Molly plays in Portland that evening), and Friday the CHERRY POPPIN' DADDIES ARE PLAYING!!!!!!!!! In high school I was OBSESSED with this band. Take my fanaticism of Flogging Molly and add teenager and you're nearing the infatuation level I had. I thought they had called it quits long long ago, but here they are on tour! Woooooohoooooooo!!!! The summer will go out with a bang.... Social Anthropology 10:15am, Monday......

Did I tell you about my backpacking trip? No? Ok, well here's the rundown:
DAY ONE: Left late, ate a can of uberfatty chili in the car while driving through Sandy and up the mountain. Got to Timberline, with an elevation of 6,000ft and procrastinated in the parking lot while making sure all of my stuff was attached. I set off, first a bit up hill and then down down down. There wasn't a green thing in sight; everything was brown, ashy and rocky. I hit the White River valley and encountered my first obstacle. The White River is a glacial stream, which means that most of the time the water is itty bitty compared to the giant canyon it has carved out. There is no bridge, so one has to slide down the loose rock and ashy soil, wade through the water and then try and climb up the other side with wet feet and 40+ pounds on the back. After the blazing hot valley, I went into trees and climbed for what seemed like eternity. When I started to come back down again I overestimated where I was and ended up having to camp 2 miles short of my goal. Oh yeah, and I couldn't find the trail. Y'see, there was another river crossing... and the trail starts up a long way from the other side, and it's not marked. I walked around for an hour before I gave up and pitched my tent. It was a beautiful spot though, surrounded by boulders with a view of Newton Creek (really, a river) and Mt. Hood.
DAY TWO: Still couldn't find the trail in the morning and decided to turn around after an hour of climbing up boulders and landslides. While walking back and dreaming of toasted sandwiches back at the lodge, I found the trail. Almost reluctantly, I carried on, up Gnarl Ridge for an even longer eternity. The trees soon left and I was walking through open fields of rock and dirt and some alpine bushes and it was still uphill, with teasing little dips downwards. At around 7,000 - 8000ft I hit the snowfields. Most of these at most were a hundred feet across, but tilted down to the right to unknown and terrifying drops below. They looked like real life waterslides to doom. And because it was so hot the snow was slippery. It probably took five full minutes to cross each of them, with my arms outward, tiptoeing ridiculously. On either side of each snowfield was another impossible rise, and then a dip across snow and then another ridge. It seemed to go on until the end of the earth. While crossing what turned out to be one of the last beds of snow, I paused to see where the trail went thinking, "it can't possibly go up much more," and right then the ground fell out from underneath me. I fell, twisted and ended up leaning my shoulder up against the edge of the snow. That's right, Sara fell into a mini-crevasse. I am an idiot, it's official. Having been sufficiently scared, rattled and dehydrated, I made up my mind that I was only going as far as a campground 14 miles into the trail. I reached it that afternoon, pitched a tent and vowed to turn around the next morning.
DAY THREE: After unsuccessfully talking some fellow campers into giving me a lift back to the lodge, I set off back the way I came. It was only fourteen miles back from there and this time I knew the route. It was hot out, but really really windy. So windy that I put on my sunglasses to keep the small rocks from flying into my eyes. It was straight uphill for two miles and the wind was blowing me backwards. Still, I got good and sunburned crossing the open snowfields. The latter half of the day was downhill for a good long way. By the late afternoon I had made it to Mt. Hood Meadows, a ski place, and by early evening I was back in the White River Valley, just 3 miles shy of Timberline Lodge. I decided that I was too tired and the day a bit late to try and finish off those three miles, so I pitched a tent and hid out of the wind. I had a great plan: get up early, finish off the last uphill section and be munching on pancakes by half past ten. The wind kept going, blowing what I thought was sand into the back of the tent, and was pulling up sides of my rain flap, which I'd have to scramble outside to fix. At two am, I heard the distinct sound of rocks falling.... towards me.... and getting louder. I poked my head out to see a decent size rock coming to a halt about six inches from my tent. I squinted into the moonlight and realized that I had parked my tent under a landslide... and there was a boulder the size of a dump truck perched precariously in a line directly above my tent. Knowing I couldn't sleep with the knowledge of such a monstrosity waiting to squash me, I decided to move my tent. Somehow, I thought if I just yanked up the stakes, I could just slide it backwards without a problem. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!! Turns out, that wasn't sand blowing on my tent, it was snow. And there was a lot of it around. And the wind was howling. I probably lost half of my stakes in the wind, and ended up having to pin my tent down with large rocks. The poor thing never really recovered and it remained sunken and sad looking the remainder of the night. It also seemed to be getting closer and closer to my face.
DAY FOUR: When I finally decided that the storm wasn't going to let up any time soon and that I really needed to get to the lodge before the end of winter, there was about four inches of snow on the top of my tent. I gave up trying to be neat and strapped things where I could. Crossing the White River this time was much more difficult. The first day it was so hot that it was a relief to put on my water shoes and wade across, but in the middle of a blizzard was a different story. I tried hopping across rocks and was successful.... so I thought. Turns out I had just hopped over to an island and there was still another part of the stream to cross... and no rocks. So in the snow, I had to take off my boots, put on my water shoes, dash across and then put my boots back on before my toes froze off. It took an hour and a half before I was continuing on the path on the other side of the stupid river. The snow kept falling and while it was very pretty, I was wild-eyed and exhausted. I forgot how hellaciously tiring walking uphill in snow is and repressed memories of my time at Ft. Drum started coming back. Finally - FINALLY - I rounded a corner and there, in the distance through a haze of white flurries, was Timberline Lodge. I nearly cried I was so happy. Tears welled up, anyway. I changed clothes at the skiers lodge below the proper one and decided that I was too stinky to be around civilized folk, so I took off in my car home.

I seem to have misplaced the cord for my camera during the move, so the few pictures I took from the trip will have to wait to be posted. I'm glad I did it though. It seemed to be the unspoken motto of my family that if no one nearly died, it wasn't a camping trip. It's good to have adventures like that every now and then. It helps me appreciate how easy things are here in the city and I don't sweat the little things as much.

Well, I'm alive... sort of

Mt. Hood, you have my respect. Hot, blazing hot, windy, blizzardy... jeez, it ran the gamut. Perhaps I'll have details later, if I can bear to think about it again. It was very pretty!

Off to sleep for several days...

I'm off!

Taking off for my hike for real this time. Hopefully I'll be back in a few days and don't get lost staggering around in the snow. See ya!

Sourdough Revelation

OK, so I didn't really have a relevation while munching my sourdough bread slice earlier today, unless, "Mmm, I like sourdough," and "Man, I'm dehydrated," count as revelations; I really just wanted to use that as a title. Yeah, I'm a little weird.

And I'm a lot hungover today. Bleh. It was one of those mornings when I think to myself, "whyyyyyy do I drink, again?" The answer is unknown, but ever on I go, right. I blame the musicians! Damn them, playing their fiddles and flutes until the wee hours! Other questions I had this morning: "Did I send txt messages last night? .....were they INTERNATIONAL? What WAS I trying to spell?", "Why is my bra wet?", "Where the hell is my towel? And how did it get there?"

I am quite happy that there is a pub with decent trad within walking distance of my new home. Judging from last night, it's about a twenty minute stagger. Oh, and I learned that after a few drinks I sound like I'm from Cork. Two different Irishmen last night asked me if I was from there, due to my accent. Funny thing is, I've never even been to Cork!

Hmm, and the housemate quirkiness begins.... I just found about a dozen and a half glass jars in the oven! Unfortunately, I didn't find them until I'd preheated the oven to 425 and tried to stick my pizza in. Luckily nothing melted or exploded. Guess I'll have to check the oven before baking in case someone decided to use it as an alternative dish rack.

The backpacking trip has been postponed due to laziness and general unpreparedness on my part. Perhaps next week. I assure you that I actually do go on hikes every now and then, not just plan them (poorly) and talk about them a lot.