Posted inRecreation

How to pack heavy for a weekend trip

You paid good money for a full-sized SUV or, as in our case, a station wagon. You need to make use of it! Fill it up! Learn to pack heavy for a weekend trip! Hey, gasoline is over $2 a gallon. If your rig is almost empty you’re going to burn almost as much expensive irreplaceable fossil fuel as if it were full. So why not load it up with as much stuff as possible? (click to enlarge) This is our packing philosophy, as evidenced by this photo I took just before we left for Camp Sherman yesterday afternoon. You…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Philosophy

Choking on communion

Looking back, I believe it was a sign from God that I almost choked on the wafer that was put in my mouth at my Catholic first communion. When you’re eight or nine years old this is embarrassing stuff, gagging after the priest put the wafer on my tongue. It stuck to the roof of my mouth when I tried to swallow it and wouldn’t go down. I remember hoping to God (still on my knees, of course) that I wouldn’t spit out the wafer and have it end up on the floor, an inglorious way to treat the body…
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Posted inNeighborhood Philosophy

There is no boat in this photo

I snapped this picture of Spring Lake about half an hour ago during my evening dog walk with Serena. There is no boat in this photo. Yesterday there would have been: a shiny aluminum rowboat upside down at the far end, barely visible, but irritatingly present. Boats left at our communal (common property) lake here in Spring Lake Estates are supposed to be locked to a cable near the picnic area. That rowboat wasn’t. Every time I walked around the lake it bothered me to see it beached in a place it shouldn’t have been. In my eyes it was…
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Posted inWriting/Weblogs

Writer’s revenge: reject the rejection slip

James Alexander Thom has a great piece in the Spring 2004 Author’s Guild Bulletin: “Rejection Flip.” I sometimes wonder whether forking out $90 a year to belong to the Author’s Guild makes sense, but articles like this one are priceless. Plus, I get a certain satisfaction in turning to the last page of each issue of the Bulletin and reading the names of some fellow members who serve on the Guild Council: Judy Blume, Mary Higgins Clark, Michael Crichton, Erica Jong, Scott Turow. Writing fame and fortune have evaded me so far, but hope springs eternal that someday I can…
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Posted inEntertainment

Vote for Rupert, Smile at Rumsfeld

Now that almost 24 hours has passed since last night’s “Survivor” debacle, the depression that hit me when Amber won is finally starting to fade. I should count my blessings, of course, because if Rob had won I’d still be in bed with the covers pulled over my head, trying to block out the harsh sunlight of reality. But since Rob proposed to Amber right there on live TV before the votes were counted, he ended up getting the million dollars anyway. Or at least as much of it as Amber will let him have, which likely is most of…
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Posted inEntertainment

Getting anxious about the “Survivor” finale

With all there is to worry about in the world today—Iraq, global warming, gas prices, getting Windows to work reliably—now I’ve got to spend an anxious 24 hours worrying about who is going to win “Survivor.” OK, I realize that many people don’t even watch “Survivor,” much less agonize over the outcome, but this is a pretty big deal for Laurel and me. Thursday night is sacred to us. We sit down together in front of the TV after the week’s episode has taped (or, rather, PVR’d) and hugely enjoy immersing ourselves in the reality soap opera that is Survivor…
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Posted inHome life Neighborhood

WildBlue satellite internet, my backup to Lucy Liu

My conversation with a Qwest DSL supervisor yesterday went just about as horribly as I expected. When I asked why the 70 or so homes in our quasi-rural neighborhood just five miles from the Salem city limits, and two miles from the nearest existing DSL “crossbox,” couldn’t get DSL, he evaded the question. “We’d have to go through too many gyrations,” he said irritatingly. “So this is something we’re just not going to do.” Well, thank you very much, Mr. Public Utility representative. Your dedication to bringing much-needed utilities to the public is underwhelming. To work out my frustration I…
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Posted inEntertainment Neighborhood

Kill Bill, Volume 1 (and Volume 3: The Qwest)

I’ve got a new plan for finally getting DSL in our neighborhood. I came up with it after making use of a two-for-one Hollywood Video coupon, which enabled me to watch “Kill Bill: Volume 1” along with “The Secret Lives of Dentists” the past few days. It took me that long to finish “Kill Bill,” because I had to watch it in snatches when Laurel wasn’t within eyeshot or earshot of the television. For some reason that, after fourteen years of marriage I still haven’t fully understood, Laurel believes that almost every movie should be (1) realistic, and (2) uplifting.…
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Posted inEntertainment

The Secret Lives of Dentists

We finished watching “The Secret Lives of Dentists” on DVD last night, a Sundance sort of movie. Another way of saying “Sundance sort of movie” is “grittily realistic, well acted, and a film that made us immediately watch The Daily Show so we could get smiles back on our faces.” Nonetheless, we enjoyed “The Secret Lives of Dentists,” which centers around Campbell Scott’s increasingly strong suspicion that his wife, Hope Davis, is having an affair with someone she met at an operatic production. And that just about sums up the plot line. Denis Leary, a trumpet-playing patient, serves as Scott’s…
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Posted inHome life Philosophy

Running so fast to become motionless

In my soon-to-be-published book about the Greek philosopher Plotinus, I quote Marsilio Ficino, a fifteenth-century devotee of Plato—who wrote about the folly of men who seek to find rest through motion: “Because of their ceaseless longing for what is to come, they do not enjoy what is present. Although movement has to be stilled for there to be rest; yet those men are forever beginning new and different movements, in order that they may one day come to rest.” All too true. The older I get, the more I realize how much time I’ve wasted in circuitous efforts to be…
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Posted inHome life Philosophy

A fresh techno-fantasy

I’m writing this on my new best friend: a too-wonderful-for-words emachines M6809 laptop. “Emey” (pronounced ee-mey), as he wants to be called, is going to change my life in two ways, one shallowly technological, the other deeply philosophical. At least, that’s the spin I’m putting on Emey’s purchase with my wife, Laurel, who could buy a heck of a lot of $10 fused glass earrings on Ebay for Emey’s $1,390 Best Buy cost ($1,640 - $250 in rebates). On the technological side, I don’t think there is a better price/performance deal on any laptop, though Emey’s sibling, the M6805, is…
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Posted inBooks Philosophy

Still trying to set my hair on fire

I was sitting outside on our deck this afternoon, working hard at avoiding doing anything productive, when that damned voice in my head spoke words that I’ve been hearing way too frequently lately: “This moment will never come again.” The message was so clear it almost made me go back to my computer and get back to compiling the footnotes for the rewrite of my first book. Almost. Because, with a little more pondering of the Unfathomable Mystery that is our cosmos, I was able to tell myself: “So what matters is the moment, not what transpires in it.” Hence,…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Live dangerously: Imagine Bush’s head on a stick

Things have been sort of boring recently around the Hines household, and we haven’t gotten any visits from the Secret Service for, gosh, ages. So I’m going to live dangerously and not only imagine George Bush’s head on a stick, but also write about it in my weblog. Which I just did. I’ve just committed in narrative form the same sort of horrendous offense against the president that brought a 15 year old high school student to the attention of both the local police and the Secret Service. Except this boy reflected his imaginings in artwork, and I’ve described mine…
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Posted inNeighborhood

Halfway to a hydrologist limerick

“Thinking of hiring a hydrologist named Nick? You might consider if there is a better pick.” And that’s as far as we’ve gotten with our rather lame hydrologist limerick. But that’s OK—the Oregon State Board of Geologist Examiners hasn’t finished dealing with Laurel’s complaint against Nick Coffey, registered geologist (for now, at least). We were pleased, though, to check out the March 11 minutes of a board meeting and find in Item VII that a notice of intent to discipline Coffey has been approved. Those who have followed the saga of our land use appeal against the Nielsen lot partitioning…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Insight into Bush’s evangelical mind

Having recently pondered the mystery of how our president can consider that he is doing God’s will by going to war with Iraq, I was pleased to get some insights into Bush’s evangelical mind by reading four mini-essays on Bill Long’s website. Bill is an adjunct professor of law at Willamette University and a friend who participates in a monthly “Salon” discussion group here in Salem that Laurel organized many moons ago. On his home page Bill, well, bills himself as an author, attorney, historian, and biblical scholar in addition to his current professorial persona. In his current events section…
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Posted inHome life

How to get in tune with the cosmos for $59

Meditation? Tai chi? Prayer? Bible study? Nature walks? Yoga? Nyahhhh…too much trouble, too time-consuming, too unreliable. For my money ($59 at Costco, to be exact) the best way to get in tune with the cosmos is Casio’s Tough Solar G-Shock Atomic watch. I picked one up at the Costco store in Bend last Sunday and ever since have been feeling much more grounded to the rhythm of those amazing cesium atoms in Boulder, Colorado. This is my second atomic watch. Since Casio makes such reliable watches, and watch batteries seem to last for years and years now, I suspect that…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Philosophy

Is George Bush really doing God’s will?

Watching the interview with Bob Woodward on last Sunday’s “60 Minutes,” we were horrified to see a clip of Bush implying that going to war with Iraq was God’s will, and he was praying for continued divine guidance. There are so many theological and philosophical problems with this perspective it’s hard to know where to start picking it apart. So I guess I’ll begin, as humbly as possible, criticizing my own Godly misconceptions and then move on to how Bush has it wrong as well. In yesterday’s posting, “I’ve become the person I warned myself about,” I wrote about my…
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Posted inBooks Home life Philosophy

I’ve become the person I warned myself about

Partway through my martial arts class last night the head instructor, Master Allen, showed us some alternative moves in a kata that we had been practicing—it’s called Kanku Dai in Japanese, Kong San Goon in Korean. He said, “There is no one Way. There always is more than one Way. Anyone who believes there is one Way is limiting himself.” Music to my ears, now. But it would have been heresy to my ears, then, during the nine years I was studying traditional Shotokan karate. In Shotokan karate there is one way to perform a kata: the sensei’s way, the…
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Posted inPhilosophy

Could everything really be all right?

Once in a while an intuitive news flash speaks itself in my mind: “Everything is all right. Repeat, everything. There’s no need to stay tuned for further developments. This is the way it always has been, and this is the way it always will be. Now. Then. Here. Everywhere.” One of those moments happened today when Laurel, Serena, and I sat down on the banks of the Metolius, as close to the head of the spring-fed river as it is possible to walk on the side of the river we were on. I leaned back against the bark of a…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Air America audible in central Oregon (barely)

We were pleased to be able to listen, more or less, to Air America on KPOJ (620 AM) while driving from Camp Sherman to Bend today. Central and Eastern Oregon aren’t exactly Air America county, so it was a nice surprise to find that the Portland signal is able to bring some enlightened perspectives to Republican Country. If anyone, liberal or conservative alike, hasn’t given Air America a try, do it now. Especially you conservatives. I’ve put in many grit-my-teeth radio hours listening to talk-show hosts (Lars Larson, ugh, Michael Savage, double or triple ugh) who I disagree with, so…
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