Teachers rule.

My wife, her mom and my step-dad are like my favorite people in the world and they deal with weird mini-adult wannabes all day. They rule and I couldn't deal. We used to do middle-school trips to Europe as "chaperones" cuz Lisa (my wife not step-dad) is bestest friends with the french teacher. Free rides to a dozen countries with accommodation and meals comped and it was barely worth it. Weird when they are as big as me and act like American middle-schoolers... what was I thinking?

I pretty much came home after the Tetons and set up base camp here in Oregon. I fished really hard for the next couple years while still calling myself a student if I needed to. taken a few trips to Alaska, Belize, Australia, but been playing in Idaho and Oregon and feeling like there is so much to explore right here still.

Avery is 7 now. Regan is 4 - (pr. "Reagan" like the pres). Awesomest little girls I could ever have. They are teaching me to play with dolls and that only a gruff voice is needed in some conflicts. All three make me better as a real person everyday instead of some guy who could just live out of his truck and be "left the hell alone" with a smile.

We do a family camp event every year or so. My wife's idea of camping is room service. And with them it's my idea as well... so I'm not fishing as much I used too. But how can a guy keep up with 300+ days a year on the river and pay a mortgage?
... but they all dig that dad goes out and gets dirty and sleeps on logging roads for a weekend every other month or so.

I'm so lucky I actually have the perpetual feeling that I might win the lottery someday.

Howard Hughes and hubbing McCall

I'm watching a bio on Hughes and realize that the missing piece of the
empire in mccall is a small fast jet fleet airline and a car rental
company. Beautiful new composite jets with the latest in quiet and
fast turbine technology flying to Spokane, Seattle, pdx, as well as
the Colorado mountain towns and southern Canada. And really nice SUVs
and convertibles in the rental fleet. The rental company is in all the
small mountain towns that the fleet services.

Short little two-hour layovers in mccall coupled with a really nice
shuttle to downtown which is part of the rental company and advertises
the rental company in vail at their destination... And also showing
more people how quaint and wonderful mccall is for the future
destination spot and probably bringing the town a bit of cash in the
short term by selling a burger at "my fathers place".

Eliot

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The Neverending Story

Maybe the eyes miss deliberately as long as the wanderer believes his
own heart is pure and knows it for real.

Eliot

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The degoba system

It's mostly at our worse point when we really are inspired to do what
we are supposed to do. When Luke had freed himself from the cave of
the ice monster and was wandering around a snowstorm was when Obi-wan
told him to go the degoba system to get real intensive Jedi training.

In a euphoric state of hypothermia Kenobi's spiritualized hologram
speaks to him. Maybe that's when we listen best to the voice of our
Creator.
Eliot

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Things like this

It"s things like this that are the subtle keys to fatherhood. The actions taken by the dad that enable the healing and growing of the greater good... the entire family structure.

Playing catch with your kids. So cliche. No one but actors with a Tim Robbins smile are actually caught in the act of doing this. Most dads have though, at least on one occasion. Don't get all high-and-mighty, Even I, the father of two girls, have gone through this act; not because I'm super-rad, I am compelled to do so once every year or so. I like to crouch down and give them that same big target-of-a-mitt, time and again, to perfect a throw... just like a catcher.

However, the key is to make it a challenge on some level to myself. I use a catcher's mitt on my right hand which makes me learn some finesse while throwing with the off-hand.

But, you see. there are no left-handed catchers, therefore no right-handed mitts. They are as rare as an EMT dispatch call without "vomitous".

Think about it: A player with a right-handed catcher's mitt throw's with their left hand (the quick throw to second base is the most common). But the majority of batters will be standing right in front of that throw. So there are no left-handed catcher's, therefore the catcher's mitt for the right hand is pretty much non-existent.

But I have one. It's a Rawlings from "the sixties" I guess. My dad gave it to me about 15 years ago and he had it when he was a kid or something. Anyway, I gave it some Langlitz leather conditioner tonight for its first "drink" in half-a-millenium. Man it looks good and "old-timey".

I should throw the ball with the kids more often.

...

Every one of us is an actor to some degree. We have decided the roles, even when we feel we didn't approve the casting.

I think the the way to go though is in mastering the art of Directing so you don't inadvertently give that job up to someone else. It's your play for crying out loud.


Or is it God's?

It's supposed to be.



Maybe real mastery is when you have read the Director's notes thoroughly and have attempted to put yourself in His shoes to fully understand the authenticity of the scene.

Is He a Director of the ultimate improv?

An old foreign coin collection

Most of these coins are from countries where governments represented on them are no longer in power. My Dad gave them to me with a bunch of old trinkets that his grandpa, Ernest Ray Sprague, gave to him. I think the coins are mostly things my dad picked up in his tour of the South Pacific in the 70's with the Enterprise.

Avery is charged by her second grade teacher to come in with foreign money. We are going to throw a curve ball into her geography lesson and mix in some social studies and poli-sci in history.

They'll probably just notice the different colors of metal. I'm charged with taking a quick inventory to make sure nothing is worth a few G's per chance... to spice up her collection of Aussie coin and decade old money that was just prior to the EU. I would hate for that kinda thing to end up under the tire swing via some Gap Kids Overalls.

1. Research proper cleaning technique: Cleaning coins is hotly debated among collectors and could negatively affect their value. I am going to identify coins first.

A few coins:
1972 Hong Kong Dollar with Queen Elizabeth on the back. Been around for more than One-hundred years. No problem letting this one go with her.

1961, 1972, 1974, 1976 Peso. Again have at it.

the rest:
Ecuador
Netherlands
Peru 20 Centavos ... which is worth about 10 bucks probably or $35 at an online "police auction"
Argentina
and two odd ones that have the Mandarin symbol for dollar but no date or country.

... I'm not too worried where any of them end up.

An Intro

I would like to give you an intriguing background story on your author. One that instantly seals the deal with you, the reader. David James Duncan is the pro at that. But this isn't fiction and I don't know what the truth is. Sometimes I have heard it said I was a C-section baby with hours of excruciating labor and other times I was almost born on the way from my Dad's house on Lake Maloney to North Platte General. Sometimes my dad was driving, other times I think I have heard that he wasn't there. It is an event that I can gather as much data as possible on, but in the end the conclusion comes ultimately in faith about like The Big Bang theory, or evolution vs creationism... I wasn't really there so I'm not going to fight anyone about it or go to the extreme and place a bumper sticker on my car about it.

Jr. Bonner - Riding Sunshine

Ace: "Lord, that does ease the pain of a loser." (as he takes a shot of rotgut) "If this world's all about winners, what's for the losers?"

Jr: "Well somebody's gotta hold the horses, Ace."

Prehistoric Shark Tooth, Cat Tooth?

In 2007 I found a 2" shark tooth (or something) at 800' elevation while elk hunting in territory that I will only disclose to a scientist who doesn't hunt elk...

I originally thought it was just the splintered joint-end of a major mammal bone that had been eroded and serving as a calcium supply for rodents in more recent times. But I showed it to my wife's cousin and he kinda freaked. He told me that it's the most common fossil in the world, but this one, given it's size and location, needed to be shown around. I showed it to him in early August of 2008 and I am finally taking the time to document it. I guess I figured, "what's another couple months?"