Back from Vacation

I'm back from vacation. Kate and I had a great time up north, it was a great way to spend my birthday visiting all five of my old mission areas and showing off the amazing scenery of northern Idaho/Montana/Washington to my wife. The only real downside was coming home and realizing no one got me a mustang, MG42 or DeLorean. Shame on you guys! I did get a subscription to The Limbaugh Letter and Rush Limbaugh's website from Kate's uncle, renewed from when he got me that last year; so that's very cool.

Speaking of which, before I go on, woohoo for Sarah Palin! Now I have someone to vote for, rather than holding my nose while I vote against Obama. We now have a VP nominee with better qualifications and more experience than the Democrat's presidential pick. Also she's willing to push for domestic oil, which is a big plus. Is McCain finally waking up and coming back to conservatism? This gives me hope. As one Limbaugh caller put it today, (mocking Michelle Obama), "for the first time in years I am proud to call myself a Republican!"

Okay, now I'll save the politics for a boring future post.

Two observations from the trip: The Jeep Cherokee definitely gets the best mileage by far at around 55 mph. Also, gas on Indian reservations is much cheaper, since they don't have to charge for tax; as a result, they are the only ones who actually make a real profit on the gas itself.

We left Rexburg late Monday morning, and arrived at Farragut State Park that evening, where we camped for two nights. Farragut State Park is on Lake Pend Oreille, which is pronounced Pondaray by people who, like the french, can't remember what sound half those letters make. Here's Lake Pend Oreille:

If I had it all to do over again, I would totally camp there again. Great scenery, right in the dense forest, and a nice trail around the lake. Next time, though, we'll go prepared to canoe on the lake. The park is right near Coeur d'Alene, Idaho (another french name that requires holding your nose to pronounce like they do in france), and as a bonus you have to go through a tiny town called Athol. Yes, I know I'm completely immature, but I think this name is hilarious if you say it out loud and pronounce it wrong. It sounds like a rude word with a lisp, and is extra funny if you say "Entering Athol":

If you notice, I'm actually wearing a coat. The weather was awesome! There was rain, and overcast clouds to hide the evil, oppressive sun most of the time, and it was mid-40s until late morning both days we were at Farragut. Any weather where I think about putting on a coat is good weather.

On tuesday we took a scenic loop around the lake and through northwestern Montana up to Troy, Montana, then back through Bonner's Ferry, Idaho, which was my second mission area. This was just a scenic trip; there's nothing to do in Bonner's Ferry, and no one I really needed to visit.

As we were headed east past Clark Fork on Hwy 200, we saw these cool rock outcrops (you should really click for the full-sized image):

I really didn't take as many pictures as I expected, we mostly enjoyed just driving, and only stopped for the most spectacular things, such as those outcrops. We got back to camp with plenty of daylight left, so we went to Coeur d'Alene because there is a store there that sells a line of purses Kate is interested in. Naturally purses aren't my thing, but since most if not all of you who read this blog are women, you may be interested in these, which are made out of recycled seatbelts:

They're very expensive, so she didn't buy one yet, but Kate was very excited to see them so they were a planned stop on our vacation. Afterward we went into Spokane Valley, about 30 miles west of Coeur d'Alene, which was my third mission area. The best friend I made on my mission I met in this area, but she lives in Utah now, so we didn't visit her. Instead we tried to find our way through a maze of construction; literally every major road in this part of town had been ripped up and was closed to through traffic. I thought the construction crews in Rexburg were lazy with the planning, this was ridiculous! We finally made it to two people I wanted to visit, though, but one wasn't home and the other had moved away. It wasn't a big deal, though; they weren't major reasons for the trip, just old acquaintances.

We ate that night at The Mustard Seed, which is a great Asian (generic Asian, but good anyway) restaurant that is local to Spokane and serves great food. If you ever find yourself in Spokane area, I highly recommend eating there.

The next day we went up through north Spokane (my fourth mission area), which doesn't have much to offer scenery-wise but gives a fine taste of how hard it is to find your way around Spokane. Spokane may be the worst-planned city of all time. It's a maze of one-way streets (none going the way you need, of course), confusing intersections and rude, careless drivers. I've never seen a city that is more frustrating to get around in than Spokane, not even close.

So we passed through that area up to my fifth and final area, north of Spokane in a small town called Deer Park. There were two families we planned to visit here, and fortunately both were home. First there were the Helms in Deer Park, who when I left had been planning an African safari. Cliff Helm is a big hunter, and their house is full of mounts of various animals he's hunted, and he showed off his African kills. I'm not big on hunting, or mounting animals and keeping them at home, but he did have some cool ones, like a leopard and a zebra and a lion and a hyena. Almost five years ago, at the Helms' place, I got to cut up a whole pig (unfortunately I finished my mission and went home right before I'd have gotten to eat it) with a saw and a big knife, and I got to go to the ski slope (before snow) to dig up some small trees for Cliff's landscaping business. Fun stuff.

That night we went up to stay overnight with the Hansens up in Elk, Washington, who are the coolest people ever. I should have taken a picture of their house, which looks like it's straight out of Better Homes & Gardens both inside and out. When I was a missionary there, Galen Hansen had been Ward Mission Leader and superintendent of the school district there, and he and his wife were housing six young troubled girls at their home. These are girls that had been either neglected or abused, and in some cases were only not in jail because they'd chosen to stay with the Hansens instead. Galen has since retired, and Kathie Hansen (who runs a business or something that is in charge of sheltering the girls, a different group now) had found a group home at which to house the girls, which made for a much less noisy house.

When we got there Kathie was in the middle of cooking a meal for a huge family that lived down the street whose grandfather the night before had been killed by a bull. This was my favorite area of my mission, not only for the scenery, but because it was such a tight-knit group of the nicest people ever. The night after we left the Hansens were planning on having a couple dozen extended family members of the Vanderholms (the family who'd lost their grandfather) who were headed in for the funeral. I often get fed up with the exclusivity of Mormon culture, but these guys up in the middle of nowhere are the real deal, true Latter-day Saints; we could have been crazy strangers, and if we'd knocked on their door they'd have given us a room to stay in for the night.

Oh, yeah, and Kathie Hansen is an amazing cook, too. After cooking a huge meal for the Vanderholms she threw together a very good meal for us and her family, and the next morning did the same again for breakfast that included homemade maple and huckleberry syrup. Also she introduced us to possibly the best salad dressing I've ever had, Walla Walla Sweet Onion and Summer Tomato Salad Dressing:

I plan to order several bottles at some point soon; some will go on salad, some will probably serve as a beverage. I want to try their sweet onion and honey mustard, too. Yum.

That night I had a weird dream where I was on a nature preserve on the Helms' property, and he'd captured live African animals rather than dead ones, but they'd gotten out like in Jurassic Park and I was stuck outside and had to defend myself from lions, leopards and hyenas with a big blacksmith's hammer. I think the hammer came from a character in The Wheel of Time who is a blacksmith but also fights battles with a huge axe, but wishes he only had his hammer. This has nothing to do with the trip, it was just a cool dream that I almost forgot until just now.

The next morning we left to go home, and traveled south through Lewiston, Idaho. The trip from Spokane to Lewiston is through very cool rolling hills covered in wheat that I should have taken a picture of. Since I didn't, here's a picture from the internet from near Palouse, Washington, which we passed through:

We took a detour to drive through Moscow, Idaho, which was my first mission area. That's a real hippie town, and if we get a chance in the future we will visit on April 20 someday, to go to HempFest. Moscow is a town that really knows how to celebrate 420.

Then it was back through Lewiston on the way home:

From there we took highway 12 east to Missoula, simply because it was the quickest way home, slightly quicker than going south through Boise.

We almost went through Boise simply because we'd never been there before, but we're glad we took this route because it was yet another awesome scenic drive. It's part of the Lewis and Clark trail, and follows the middle fork of the Clearwater River. If possible I'd love to get friends together and do a float trip down this river, because the scenery is great. For the first half of this leg of the drive we were in more rolling hills, but the road cut through recent (as in Miocene) basalt flows, which were fun to look at. There was one point in particular that had some spectacular columnar joints, but unfortunately there was nowhere to stop the car for a picture. I'll take one when I take that float trip. Afterward it was down into older rock and denser forest, all the way to Missoula. Then it was dark, and we got home at 1am Friday morning. A good trip.

And on the way home on highway 12 we got stuck for awhile behind the BioDiesel bus:

Oh, yeah, and I'm older even than I was now, with more gray hairs. I am now officially older than a quarter century old! I think I get to pay my tuition this year with social security.

Birthday Vacation

I turn 26 this Tuesday, on the 26th. Kate says that's special, I say I already have enough gray hairs, and mysteriously didn't before I got married. It's a coincidence, I'm sure.

Kate and I are spending my birthday camping at Farragut State Park in northern Idaho, by Lake Pend Oreille (it's a french name, so naturally it doesn't sound anything like it's spelled, half the letters forgotten). We're leaving tomorrow morning, and we're going to spend the next four days visiting people I knew on my mission in the Spokane, Washington area. There will be scenic drives in northern Idaho, northwestern Montana and northeastern Washington. We'll be back late Thursday night or early Friday morning, just in time for me to get ready for my geology field trip and then the start of the Fall Semester. Fun stuff.

Oh, yeah, did I mention it was my birthday coming up? I know you've all already picked out what you're going to get to me, but I'll give a couple suggestions anyway in case you've gotten me the wrong thing.

You could get me a P-51 Mustang, that would be cool:

You could get me an MG42, an extra-cool machine gun used by the Germans in World War II:

Or you could get me a DeLorean. You get bonus points if it has Back to the Future modifications:

I know you guys are all on college budgets, so those suggestions should be enough. I don't need all of them, but I expect at least one of them; pool your money if you have to.

No more blogging until I get back.

Polar Bears: Number One Threat to America!

I don't like commercials. Sure, there's an occasional hilarious commercial on TV or (more rarely) on the radio, but they get old quickly and the rest are forgettable to annoying. But there are two commercials - public service announcements, rather - that really make me angry, because they tell outright lies and are a blatant scam. The Worldwide Fund for Nature (the ones with the scary fish head ad I mentioned in at the end of an earlier post) wants you to pay them $16 dollars per month to solve an imaginary problem: the extinction of the polar bears. "Polar bears are on their way to extinction," they say, and if we don't donate $16/month that will go who knows where, the majority of polar bears "will die in our children's lifetime." Well, that's true, most if not all of the polar bears alive to day will die in the next 50 years, and polar bears rarely live longer than 25 years. Of course, they're talking about the overall population decreasing.

These commercials feature either Sharon Lawrence, an actress in no movies I've seen, or Noah Wyle from E.R., reading from a teleprompter about the threat to the polar bears with over exaggerated concern and carefully calculated pauses. At first commercials like these get me swearing and yelling at the TV, but that gets tiring so now they just make me want to vomit. If you have a strong stomach, go ahead and watch the commercials:

Sickening, huh? Algore is on the polar bear bandwagon, too, claiming that more and more polar bears are drowning due to melting ice in his movie. He even has a sad animated polar bear to prove it. He doesn't have footage of a real polar bear lost in the water, because it doesn't happen. Polar bears can swim six miles per hour, and can swim over 100 miles without a problem. In 2004 four polar bears were found drowned after a major storm. These are the only known drownings in recent decades other than a few documented cases in 2007 of polar bears found drowned that had first been shot with tranquilizer darts. The idea that polar bears have to swim farther than they are able due to global warming and drowning is completely false.

People eat it up, though, because those polar bears are just too furry and cuddly, who wouldn't feel sorry for them? There is only one time in my life that I have deliberately watched Oprah, and that was because Algore was there to promote his movie, An Inconvenient Truth. By the end I was honestly surprised Oprah and Algore didn't start making out, and my stomach could barely hold what I'd put in it. Several clips from the movie were shown, including the one of the fake, animated drowning polar bear (sorry for the subtitles):

Notice that he never names the scientists involved in the study, just says "a new scientific study." He is probably referring to studies of polar bears that have found them as far as 60 miles from shore and is assigning a non-scientific conclusion that they must be looking for the ice! No, they're just good swimmers; they don't have to swim that far to find ice.

Oh, yeah, I was talking about Algore on Oprah. The whole thing was nauseating, but it ended with a frightening moment when Oprah asked her audience if what they'd heard had influenced their opinion. One woman said she was skeptical before the show, but was now convinced of global warming. Oprah asked the woman what in particular changed her mind, and she said it was the clip with the sad polar bear. The fake, animated polar bear*. To quote Limbaugh, the woman was a "glittering jewel of colossal ignorance."

So what of the polar bear population in general? They are not decreasing. The best estimates from the 1960s say that there were about 5,000 total polar bears, while today, due mostly to stricter regulations on hunting, the polar bear population is estimated around 25,000, according to the World Conservation Union. Break down the numbers even further and we find that according to Dr. Mitchell Taylor, polar bear biologist for Canadia's Department of the Environment, "Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present." In fact, the decreasing populations are in places that are getting colder, which makes sense when you consider that though polar bears are adapted to extreme cold, warmer weather still means more food. Speaking of polar bear food, polar bears eat cute baby seals:

Which would you rather save? They eat people, too, if they're hungry and provoked. They are the most carnivorous of all bears. They are very smart and very stealthy, their prey usually unaware of the polar bear until it strikes. The Inuit Eskimos consider them a genuine threat, as well as a source of food; and who are we to argue with native Americans?

You see what I did there? I used the same sort of emotional tactic used by scaremongers including Algore and the WWF that allows them to perpetuate a lie and get you to donate money, but my argument had facts to back it up. Want more? Here's Discovery Channel footage of a hunting polar bear:

And here's a Russian polar bear brutally, mercilessly murdering a walrus:

This is what we want to save? The WWF commercials depict polar bears at ease in their natural environment during the summer melt and break up of the ice that happens every year, but with sad music that makes the bears look helpless and pathetic.

Okay, I actually am a huge fan of the polar bear, and if I thought there was a legitimate threat by global warming, I'd be up in arms and taking all the action I could to save them. It's just not true! Even if we accept the premise of global warming, remains of polar bears have been found from as much as 100,000 years ago, since which there have been periods of time a bit warmer than today. Polar bears are very adaptable, and have adjusted to conditions both warmer and colder than today, and will continue to thrive.

Do you really want to put your trust in second-rate, washed-up Hollywood actors and waste $16 dollars per month? I'd rather rather you used it to buy me a new DVD every month. At least then you know where your money is going. If you don't know which ones to buy me, I'll email you a list of DVDs I want. My birthday is Tuesday, so hurry to the store.

*It has recently been discovered that footage in Algore's movie of calving ice sheets was taken straight from a CGI shot made for the movie The Day After Tomorrow.

Music

A couple days ago I finally finished setting up a really great playlist for my blog. If you recall awhile back I found a site, FileDen, that was the only file storage site that I could make work with Project Playlist. I uploaded my 100 songs, the maximum allowed by Project Playlist in a single playlist, and it worked perfectly for two days until the bandwidth on a free FileDen account was exceeded. I have that playlist back up and running, and theoretically it should last just fine unless my reading audience exceeds five.

Here's what I did, and it's a matter of opinion whether it's because I care about music so much to go to so much effort for a blog with such a huge audience, or if it's just that I'm a nerd. I bet it's halfway between. I actually set up 20 FileDen accounts and spread the 100 mp3 files between them. This meant I had to set up 20 bogus email accounts as well. It really wasn't that much effort, just tedious; but I could multitask while files were uploading.

The harder thing was sifting 100 songs out of my music library. I think I've done a pretty good job. There's quite a variety, from Cake to Björk to Harry Connick, Jr., and even a few of my favorite tracks from movie soundtracks. I left off the Weird Al, but I tried to stay away from mainstream stuff for the most part, even mainstream stuff I like. What's the point of sharing music everyone's already heard? So I have some very unique music on there, the oddest of which is probably Portishead, who is quite well represented in the playlist. There is a bit of mainstream stuff, songs that are just too good to ignore, and if there is a song from a mainstream band such as Evanescence, it's likely not a major release (I think her "Origin" album, from before she was famous, is far better than anything she's released since). Of course I included Dark Center of the Universe, by Modest Mouse, which is where I got the name for this blog (I'm not very creative at coming up with names). I think it's as good a representation of my taste in music as can be managed in only 100 songs, even though quite a lot had to be left out.

I'd love to hear feedback on what you find interesting, what you like and don't like and why, and any music you'd like to recommend to me. In a few future posts I'll probably go through some of it and explain why I like it and maybe put some of it in context (like some of the Björk songs, which come from an excellent soundtrack to an awful movie, Dancer in the Dark). Meanwhile, I hope you hear something you enjoy, especially something new that might broaden your musical horizons.

Since some of the song names don't always appear properly in the playlist (MacOS plays nice with Icelandic names like "Dánarfregnir og Jarðarfarir," but the Windows server I uploaded them onto in FileDen doesn't), and for reference, here's a list of all the songs and the bands responsible for them:

1. Rooster - Alice in Chains 
   
2. Nutshell - Alice in Chains 
   
3. Siúil A Riún - Anúna 
   
4. Bittersweet (Instrumental Version) - Apocalyptica 
   
5. Seemann (ft. Nina Hagen) - Apocalyptica 
   
6. Faraway - Apocalyptica 
   
7. Helden - Apocalyptica 
   
8. Play Dead - Björk 
   
9. It's in Our Hands - Björk 
   
10. I've Seen It All (ft. Thom Yorke) - Björk 
    
11. Scatterheart - Björk 
    
12. New World (ft. Massive Attack) - Björk 
    
13. All Is Full of Love - Björk 
    
14. Hyperballad (ft. The Brodsky Quartet) - Björk 
    
15. Það Sést Ekki Sætari Mey - Björk Guðmundsdóttir & Tríó Guðmundsdóttir
    
16. Wonderful Life - Black Box Recorder 
    
17. I Wonder - Blind Melon 
    
18. Sheep Go to Heaven - Cake 
    
19. Cool Blue Reason - Cake 
    
20. Dream On - Depeche Mode 
    
21. Blasphemous Rumours - Depeche Mode 
    
22. Enjoy the Silence - Depeche Mode 
    
23. Lento - Elliot Goldenthal 
    
24. Zeus Cannon - Elliot Goldenthal 
    
25. She Moved through the Fair (ft. Sinéad O'Connor) - Elliot Goldenthal 
    
26. Finale - Elliot Goldenthal 
    
27. Today Has Been Ok - Emilíana Torrini 
    
28. Ten to Twenty (Sneaker Pimps Cover) - Emilíana Torrini 
    
29. To Be Free - Emilíana Torrini 
    
30. If You Go Away - Emilíana Torrini 
    
31. Lay Down (Candles in the Rain) - Emilíana Torrini 
    
32. Ruby Tuesday - Emilíana Torrini 
    
33. Tuna Fish (Acoustic) - Emilíana Torrini 
    
34. The Ecstasy of Gold (L'Estasi del'Oro) - Ennio Morricone 
    
35. The Last Day - Evanescence 
    
36. Anywhere - Evanescence 
    
37. Why (ft. Emilíana Torrini) - GusGus 
    
38. Danny Boy - Harry Connick, Jr. 
    
39. Gollum's Song (ft. Emilíana Torrini) - Howard Shore 
    
40. What are You Asking Me? - James Newton Howard 
    
41. I Cannot See His Color - James Newton Howard 
    
42. Little Wing - The Jimi Hendrix Experience 
    
43. Hurt - Johnny Cash 
    
44. Woodstock - Joni Mitchell 
    
45. Blue - Joni Mitchell 
    
46. Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin 
    
47. The Man with the Golden Gun - Lulu 
    
48. Angel - Massive Attack 
    
49. Teardrop - Massive Attack 
    
50. Dissolved Girl - Massive Attack 
    
51. Group Four - Massive Attack 
    
52. You Brought Me Up - Méav 
    
53. New Dawn Fades (Joy Division Cover) - Moby 
    
54. Dark Center of the Universe - Modest Mouse 
    
55. Butterflies and Hurricanes - Muse 
    
56. Ruled by Secrecy - Muse 
    
57. Knights of Cydonia - Muse 
    
58. Sunburn - Muse 
    
59. 99 Luft Balloons - Nena 
    
60. Stormy Weather - Nina Nastasia 
    
61. You Know You're Right - Nirvana 
    
62. Hold Your Hand (ft. Emilíana Torrini) - Paul Oakenfold 
    
63. Behind Blue Eyes (Acoustic) - Pete Townshend 
    
64. Too Much of Nothing - Peter, Paul and Mary 
    
65. Roads - Portishead 
    
66. Strangers - Portishead 
    
67. Cowboys - Portishead 
    
68. Western Eyes - Portishead 
    
69. All Mine - Portishead 
    
70. Seven Months - Portishead 
    
71. Elysium - Portishead 
    
72. Half Day Closing (Live) - Portishead 
    
73. Plastic - Portishead 
    
74. Threads - Portishead 
    
75. Hunter - Portishead 
    
76. Humming - Portishead 
    
77. Who Wants To Live Forever - Queen 
    
78. Nebel - Rammstein 
    
79. Halleluja - Rammstein 
    
80. Engel - Rammstein 
    
81. Mein Herz Brennt - Rammstein 
    
82. Pretty Little Ditty - Red Hot Chili Peppers 
    
83. Aeroplane - Red Hot Chili Peppers 
    
84. Mo Li Hua (The Jasmine Flower) - Rolla High School Chamber Choir 
    
85. Paint it Black - The Rolling Stones 
    
86. Flugufrelsarinn - Sigur Rós 
    
87. Hjartad Hamast - Sigur Rós 
    
88. Ný Batterí - Sigur Rós 
    
89. Viðrar vel til loftárása - Sigur Rós 
    
90. Starálfur - Sigur Rós 
    
91. Dánarfregnir og Jarðarfarir - Sigur Rós 
    
92. Gong - Sigur Rós 
    
93. I Am a Rock - Simon & Garfunkel 
    
94. Tonight, Tonight - The Smashing Pumpkins 
    
95. Muzzle - The Smashing Pumpkins 
    
96. Grazes - Sneaker Pimps 
    
97. Half Life - Sneaker Pimps 
    
98. Lightning Field - Sneaker Pimps 
    
99. Farewell Transmission - Songs:  Ohia 
    
100. Highway Song - System of a Down
     

If you ever notice a dead link (the song turns red and the playlist skips to the next one), please let me know and I'll take care of it. Thanks!