WSR My Life in Stories

Either Or

2012-01-13T18:23:00.000-08:00

My philosophy about life, in part, is that every morning when you wake up you have a choice, a real choice about yourself, your life and your world. You can either get better or you can get worse. There is no in between. There is no status quo. There is no today will just be another day and nothing changes.

Everything changes. Even you. Physically, mentally and emotionally. You get one day older and it doesn't matter what you do or don't do, it just happens. Time is always there, not your friend, just doing what time does, passing along. You are simply another person on the path to the future.

You can't get off for a moment, it's just what is, time. And that means you get older every day and you have the choice to get better or worse. You can do both in the same day, and mostly we always do, but at the end of the day, while you are still older, you will be better or worse.

Twice in my life I've faced being what I thought was my worst. When I turned 49 I was physically the best I'd been since my 20's. I was running 3-4 miles 3-4 times a week, which for me was the farthest and most often I'd run. Then the pressures from work took it all away by the time I turned 50 I was a physical wreck, 15 lb heavier and I couldn't run a mile.

I spent the next year and a half to get back to close to what I was, and only got close but never there. The body just didn't seem to have the ability to get there, it always got tired when I approached that goal. So I settled and stayed about the same, running 3 miles 3-4 miles a week for years before getting older and slower to my mid-late 50's.

And then the proverbial wheels came off as I slowly quit running and gained the weight back. I tried walking which worked for awhile but then the body had problems as I've noted, so, when I turned 62 I was even worse than before, the worst I'd been in my life, again, and I saw no end to getting, let alone being or feeling, better.

Then I started walking ~6 miles to town and back. First 2-3 days a week in October-November and now in January I'm up to 4-5 days a week. Not without issues again. Blisters were the first issue but now I simply tape my feet to avoid them. Then the toes (black toenails), and those I haven't resolved, but I'll live with them.

The worst is the infrequent problem I've always had all my life, shin splints. They've haunted me more with running since my 40's. Usually they last a few weeks and go away with consistent running, but they haven't gone away with walking. For now I just walk through them and by mile 2-3 they're gone without any return problems until the next walk.

I have an underpronation with my left foot which causes more stress on the outer muscles of the shin and results in shin splints. This only happens with running and extended walking (more than 1/2 to 1 mile), and can continue for another 1-2 miles, less with running. There are months it's not a problem and then suddenly it is for a few weeks to months before going away.

And that's why I have the choice every day now, to walk and get better despite the problems, and hope they'll get better, or not and know rest won't make the problems go away and I'll go back to gaining weight and feeling crappy. At my age, the choice is pronounced and obvious, and the decision even more important.

So, despite the body not wanting to get out in the winter cold and often rainy weather, I have a choice, to do nothing knowing hope won't make me better, or to do something with the chance I will get better. For now, the effort is the better choice. Every morning of every day for the rest of what life I have left.

Every mile walked is a mile away from who I was and a mile closer to someone and something better. What I don't know, but I'm slowly working up to 7 miles with plans for 8 or more miles, as they say, down the road. I have the routes to town planned out to add increments of 1/2 to 1 mile when I'm ready. When I'm better.

And by then I'll be better to add the distance. And with each trip I carry the backpack to bring home stuff from the local commercial area where the turnaround point is, with the cafe as the reward for the halfway mark. Add 10-20 lbs of stuff and the walk becomes more exercise with the return route with some elevation gains and losses between there and home.

And that's the either or for me now, but it's less the either or the or and simply what I must do to stay alive or slowly get worse.

Labels

2011-12-08T12:34:00.000-08:00

We all are faced with being labelled every day by every person we meet. And we do the same with others. It's human nature, to catagorize everyone, to simplify to what we remember. Compexity isn't our nature. So with that in mind, here is what I am according to the labels most recognized.

I'm shy and an introvert. I prefer being and doing things alone, something I've known from childhood. I'm a very private person, but when I retired I decided to tell the world about myself and my life, or at least what I want to share with the world.

I hoard empty boxes. Yes, everything I buy I keep the box. I recycle shipping boxes, or most of them as I keep some to ship things to others, but I will almost always keep the original box, just in case I'll need it. I never do and never have outside of moving and then only using the boxes for special things, stereo, computers, etc. But I still keep the boxes anyway.

I have genetic, lifelong Dysthymia. It's a milder form and doesn't require drugs. I use exercise and personal work in place of drugs. I have fallen into periods of double depression at various times of my life - the feelings are never out of my mind. I have thought about and even come close to suicide. Twice, at 28 and 50. There won't be a third time, or at least to live.

I'm an INTP person on the Myers-Briggs personality test with a few differences or quirks, whichever fits. I tend to trust my intuition slightly more than my logical thinking. I'm also very hard on myself when I make mistakes, good or bad, dwelling on how stupid I feel or how bad of a decision I made, to where I often end up hating myself.

I'm also a great procrastinator about decisions, which often leads me to reply to requests or questions, "I'll think about it.", meaning either I don't want to answer no or don't have an answer right now. Small note about this is that if I respond with that twice, it means I'm not interested, and if it's the third time, it's a polite no, meaning don't ask me again.

I can not sing, dance or play an instrument. I love listening to music, but I can't understand it beyond that it feels good. I once tried to learn the guitar, actually my parents tried and I failed, because I realzed my hands work together, which works well for coordinating movement and control, but doesn't when playing an instrument.

I used to stutter, from age 6 to past 21, and while I've learned to adjust for it in public situations, it's always hiding and waiting. it's why I also respond with some sentences when a few words will answer, the sentence overcomes the possibility of stuttering. This is all instinctive to me now.

And the rest of me is something too. It's just who I am. Just am. Just like everyone else who they are, I am.

Iron Butterfly

2011-12-01T15:52:00.000-08:00

I saw this group in concert in 1969 at the Denver show with other bands, Big Mama Thorton, Frank Zappa and Three Dog Night. I wasn't high, stoned or drunk, and this band blew me away, especially with the really long rendition of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, like 30+ minutes.

Well, I've never forgotten them or this album I bought a few months later when I had a stereo system to play. I was in technical training at Lowry AFB in Denver, Colorado before being assigned to McClellan AFB in Sacramento, California. The concert was in the old Denver stadium about where Mile High Stadium is today. The accoustics were all that great but no one minded.

We attended the Friday concert and the next night the concert had a fight with erupted into a riot and closed the concert. The Sunday afternoon concert went better. But the Friday concert was great, outside of the occasional individual being too far gone to realize where they were and needed to be helped or escorted out of the crowd.

We had good seats and stayed the whole time getting back to the barricks well into early morning. After that what can I say, I was 19 years old, it was 1969, and music was cool. And they were awesome. And for what it's worth, Erik Braun, one of the guitar players, was a violin prodigy before playing the guitar. And folks then thought rock musicians were self-taught, garage practicing players.

It's always a turn-up-the-volume album and ... the neighbors music. Even now in my 60's.

Veterans Day

2011-11-11T12:50:00.000-08:00

Before there was a Veteran's Day, there was Armitice Day. This occasion was the day of the signing of the treaty to end World War 1, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. The day was changed in the US to Veterans Day after World War II and remains as it was created, a time for reflection on the sacrifices of our ancestors

My maternal grandfather emigrated from Germany around 1912, changed his name and joined the American Army to go fight against the Kaiser. He returned from that war to Boise, Idaho where he married a young woman from Soda Springs, Idaho, and become the Postmater of Boise. She was as strong minded and willed as he as she spent some of the younger years working as a cook in lumber camps.

One of their daughters, a young socialite, fell in love with and married a year later (1943) a young Army Air Corp officer stationed at Mountain Home Army Air Force Base. The officer, my father, served from 1940 to 1964, transfering to the new Air Force on its inception after World War II. They had three children, and one son, me, who served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War era, 1969-1973.

Let us give thanks to all veterans over our country's history and let us hope and pray we'll need fewer in the future and fewer still who will be injured, disabled or killed.

Being Naive

2011-11-01T06:30:00.000-07:00

I am naive. I've been naive all my life. Often stupiditly naive and occasionally innocently naive, but still naive. I still am and will probably always be somewhat naive. Less than in my youth for obvious reasonsIt's who I am and will be. The reality of how I see the world.

I have been so naive I sometimes forget where I am and what possible risks I have found or put myself. This was and still is true when I do street photography. I love to walk around and take pictures of the ordinary, or what I call walking around images, and occasionally find I have lost track of the world around me.

I have also often, but less often now, when meeting people of all descriptions and walk of life. I remember a time a homeless person was walking down the other side of the street yelling at the world and people. He suddenly walked across traffic to the plaza were I was standing still yelling. People anywhere near him were scattering.

When he saw he everyone leaving he approached me who was just watching the whole event. He kept yelling untill he got about 5 feet from me and stopped. After a short while he stopped yelling and I asked, "What's your name?" He suddenly froze, he face blank. I asked, "How can I talk to you if I don't know your name?"

He remained still and quiet, just looking at me, without knowing what to say. I have no idea what he was thinking but when the police arrived and walked up to him, he gently put his hands behind him to be handcuffed and walked with them, calmly and quietly. He looked back once to see I was still there watching.

It occurred to me all he wanted was someone to talk to and when he found that person, he didn't know what to do or say. I didn't see him as a threat. I didn't see any real risk, and could have easily avoided anything if he had. I just thought he deserved a chance. Yeah, naive.

I often wonder what happened to him. Did he get the help he needed. Did he find someome to talk with. And more importantly did he find a friend. That's all he wanted, we just didn't see it. And I doubt we helped. Yeah, naive of me too.

Halloween

2011-11-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

Update November 1st.--Well, between 7 and 9 pm I had all of 3 trick-or-treaters, all small kids from the apartment complex where I currently live. Last year I had none and about half a dozen the year before. And now I have a really big bowl of snack-size candy bars. Hmmm...., far too many calories and sugar for me.

Original Post.--I hate halloween. I don't know why I do and I've tried to overcome it but it's always there, the desire to hide halloween night by covering the bell with a big pillow so I can't hear it and going to bed with everything dark. Not matter how much I've tried to enjoy the halloween parties, I just don't get interested let alone excited.

I've often wondered if it's because I can't remember one Halloween we celebrated as a family. I just can't remember one. I don't remember any school parties. I don't remember ever going out to trick or treat. It's a big blank what we did that night. So I have no childhood connection to make it a happy holiday.

It's also since leaving home I don't really like parties. I'm one of those who lingers in the corner in quiet conversations until I can leave. I don't seek attention, and in fact hate it. I don't like be anywhere near anyone who's the "life of the party" as I've found those people often irritating.

Ok, I'm not a fun person. Blame it on my Dysthymia and being someone comfortable being alone (and yes, we're normal too). It's who I am. Even these days, when I out and find all the socialization tiring, I want to say, "Can I go home now?" and mean it. And then leave. And I don't like people invading my privacy, like with Halloween.

Such are some people. We're all normal, just different. Not any better or worse, just ourselves.

Burger Chef

2011-10-11T14:08:00.000-07:00

Sending e-mail back and forth with a friend reminded me of a time long ago and two things, mescaline and Burger Chef. Yeah, strange combination, but not if you were there in the late 1960's. Ok, and the story goes how?

I served in the US Air Force (USAF) from March 7, 1969 to January 2, 1973 (everyone who served remembers those dates and days, enlisting and being discharged). After basic training at Lackland AFB in Texas and electronics training at Lowry AFB in between Denver and Aurora Colorado (now gone, turned over to the city), I was stationed at McClellan AFB north of Sacramento, California where I spent the duration of my service when not on temporary duty assignments (TDY's).

It was there I was introduced to drugs and fast food restaurants. The drugs were marijuana, of course, and something more interesting, mescaline. While marijuana was the drug of choice of many of the service people at McClelland, of those who partook of drugs, with the close proximity of San Francisco there were others but far less so.

A friend in our dormitory was the local drug source. Knowing and trusting your source and knowing the quality of the drugs was paramount then, one bad trip or buy and all could be disasterous, as one found out when the marijuana was laced with speed. His source didn't last very long after that as we stopped buying.

Anyway, while this was going on, on the east side of the base was Watt Avenue, the main thorough fare for north-south bound traffic from Interstate 80 and all areas north, which at that time was pretty much open country once past the base. But on the east side of the avenue was housing developments and small commericial malls serving base personnel, like a lot of fast food places.

And one of those was a Burger Chef. At the time they were popular and had good food that rivaled all the rest. One of my favorite was the Big Shef, a hamburger, when it was actually meat, with mayonaisse-like dressing instead of ketchup or mustard. With fries, it as a great meal then.

And when I was on marijuana, it was the place of choice for the munchies, followed by the local pizza place (long forgotten the name), but mostly I loved Burger Chef, and on mescaline, it was heaven. The problem was that on the drug you have no sense of the world around, only what you thought you felt and saw.

That was good if you had a guide, someone to make sure you didn't do anything bad or stupid, especially in public. Sounds strange to some folks, but once I tried to cross Watt Avenue, a four-lane major highway, during rush hour against the light. Not smart, and my guide held me until we could cross.

There are more memories of those days and those trips, drug-related or not, and of those people. The memories we have of then, lost in the back of our mind, filed in mental shoe boxes in storage until someone jingles the bell to remove it and open the lid, to remember an interesting time and events. And something lost, drugs and Burger Chef.

Realization

2011-09-20T19:52:00.000-07:00

I came to the realization I'm chasing a physical ghost I can feel but doctors can't see. I tell them but they're not listening. I show them, but they're not looking. I explain to them but they're not hearing. All they see is normal and my imagination while I see a ghost I know and feel in my body. They just won't believe me to care. And so we sit looking at each other, they wondering when I'll leave and me wondering when they'll ask to help.

The Conundrum

2011-09-06T07:33:00.000-07:00

Here's the conundrum about eating.

With respect to the digestive issues and problems, I can't go anywhere if I eat breakfast, brunch or lunch because I don't know how and when the system will react. I can't eat anything if I go anywhere for the same reason.

With respect to the recent problem of Temporomandibular Joint Disorder I'm not supposed to eat or only eat soft foods or liquids, so the muscles and ligament can heal in the proper position. If I eat any food, soft or otherwise, the jaw may still shift out of joint for the rest of the day and has to be gently pushed back into place.

If I eat I get tired, sleepy and go to the bathroom, often. If I don't eat I get tired, sleepy and hungry and still go to the bathroom, only less often.

So that's it, damned if I eat and damned if I don't.

A Lost Year

2011-09-03T18:56:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, Sunday, I turn 62. Precisely about 6 pm to be exact. Yeah, about then, and since a few weeks after that day and time last year I've lost almost the entire year, all of it chasing a digestive system that went south and having a good doctor who understands but specialists who don't. I'd say they suck, but that's impolite, even if it is appropriate.

There's nothing worse than a specialist who is totally dismissive and condescending. Really. She didn't want to hear what I had to say and even interrupted me to say it was my imagination and that every thing was normal, at least according to the results of the proceedures and lab tests, but they didn't look for what I wanted to know, only for obvious abnormalities. Which is ok if that exists, but they wouldn't answer my question, what i if normal is abnormal.

And so what happened, like you want to hear a story that's not much except irritating to live with and frustrating to find an answer? After taking some photos of the tissues masses the doctor finally said they clearly appear to be blood clots, or most of them, some were really, "Huh?" masses.

Anyway, she ordered lab tests for some, except they didn't analyze them for what we were looking for, only for the obvious. Like one had blood vessels attached and they didn't see it or at least said they did, or they called it normal tissue. The thought was that my small intestine is bleeding in several places, or so it appeared from mulitple moderate to large clots.

Anyway, as always happens, it got better after the latest tests where it's not obvious (blood clots) but still a problem with consistent mild to moderate diarrhea, like 3-5 times a day depending on when and what I eat. It's more of the same I tell my doctor, "I only feel good when I don't eat and that's not a promise things won't still go wrong."

So, from last October when it started to just a few weeks ago, I spent chasing diagnoses for something no one can find, or really wants to look, and without a diagnosis I can't get more test to eliminate ideas. The new cost-efficient and effective healthcare, if it's not obvious, then you don't get test. You only get them when the doctors think something is wrong.

It's the catch-22. You know something is wrong but they don't believe you, so you can't prove it either way because they won't order test because they don't think something is wrong, only it's your imagination, or your diet, lifestyle, health, fitness, etc, but still it's you. So I'm back to square one only 11 months later and older.

On top of that, last winter they discovered a 20% blockage of my Aorta, you know the artery that supplies blood to the lungs to replenish the oxygen in the bloodstream and leave carbon dioxide behind to exhale. It's been there about 20 years since I noticed I get short of breath when I exert myself and I have to rest or slow up to catch up.

I had some of the more extensive heart tests where they discovered it. Otherwise, my heart is good and sound, only one very small artery on the bottom with a slight blockage at a high heart race, which is the reason it can race from normal to over 180 beats per secongs in seconds, which is what happens when I exert myself. My heart races trying to feed the lungs with blood but can't until the body slows up to balance the supply versus the demand.

So on statin drugs I went, which last about 2 months when my body crashed. This is not uncommon but two statin drugs later, the same results but each time the reaction is sooner and worse, so I'm off statin drugs until the cardiologist has some ideas. Because it's only a slight, long-lived blockage, the only issue the high cholesterol which they want to get below normal where it's never been.

So that's on the horizon when I can get the digestive problems sorted out or better, or we can find something that fits in to those problems and not thoroughly crash the body into being a permanent couch potato. And this last June I got Temporomandibular Joint Disorder (TMD) where the joint in the upper jaw shifts position.

It's caused by the cartildge shifting, yes, it's not permanently attached to anything, from tired or weakened muscles and ligaments or from pressure from chewing. It's often caused by stress or other physical problems. So when I eat my jaw shifts slightly to the right and the teeth don't fit and sometimes grind. The dentist wasn't optimistic it's cureable but merely treatable.

And as always my Raynaud's Syndrome effects both my hands and feet now. Below 50 my toes swell and turn bright red, along with the feet swelling unless I keep them inside shoes, but then swell when I take the shoes off. My hands are still the same, it takes temperatures near 40 before they become stiff and cracked.

Gee, and they say life doesn't suck. Wait, that's doctors. Life just is what it is. And the sad part is that the last 3+ years chasing a minor digestive problem into a bigger one (March 2008 to October 2010 for the minor ailment and this from there for the obvious one no one wants to see) has diverted another change in progress, which has had it's own issues and problems, but that's another story.

The rest of the issue I don't have a choice but to live with them. The digestive one is optional but first I have to find a specialist who will listen enough to think beyond obvious and think beyond routine test. I'd rather they do that and prove something, even if I'm wrong, than keep hearing it's me. But then without a diagnosed problem I don't get a specialist or tests.

Maybe the next year will be, like what, better?

It's the Little Things

2011-08-05T06:21:00.000-07:00

It's always the little things, but with age, they compound themselves over your life and somewhere between the time you're 50 and 60 they begin to become noticed, and then after 60 they become real, the daily part of your life you can't ignore and have to resolve to live until the reason can be found and fixed or for the rest of your life. Those pesky little things.

I'm no different, and time, age, genes and life has found me and given me some of them I now live with and hate to no end. Yeah, just bitching about and at life. Nothing new, just mine and me, like everyone else facing being over 60 and the pesky little things become part of myself and what I now live with. They're annoying, but there is nothing I can do about some of them.

And then some new ones seem to find you, or me in this case, to add to the list of those pesky little things. And what, if you're still reading this and wonder what?

Well, for one, the Raynaud's Syndrome which have had in my hands since my early 40's found my toes two winters ago and since then they're progressively getting worse. They're now perpetually swollen and red no matter the temperature and my feet, especially my right foot, often swells too. Kinda' makes shoes uncomfortable.

I know it's not something else as I've done the things to help other problems and nothing changes very much. The ends of them are always mildly to moderatley scabbed and in cold weather look like little popsicle only to turn cherry red when the weather warms up, still popsicles just red.

In June I came down with Temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ) when the cartlidge in my upper left jaw shifted and the joint has a mild to moderate clicking sound. The dentist agreed and could only suggest an OTC to help reduce the inflamation and time. Then when eating a few weeks ago there were some very loud clicks and most of it faded imediately but not all, so now it's a little inconvenient click with soreness.

I learned the cartlidge in the jaw is permanently atttached to anything but floats in the joint, held in place by ligaments and muscles, and the cartlidge can, and will as I experienced, shift causing noise, problems and more so pain. Lots of pain. A number of years ago I had a blockage in a salivary gland which almost required surgery. Not fun so, at least this isn't as bad and, like that probem then, slowly healing.

I've written about my digestive issues, and we're slowly resolving them. We'll know more in a month or so when the lab analyzes the samples of the tissue masses, but the current diagnosis is that the masses are blood clots from the small intestine because it's bleeding, and likely in several places. When the lab confirms what the tissues are, and all aren't just clots but something else too, then I'll get to see a gastroentrologist.

I haven't decided if I want to go back to the first one, she was condescending and dismissive, but with real evidence it would be hard to deny it's my imagination this time and hard not to think her initial diagnosis of IBS, age and diet, was premature to say the least and now worse because of her decision not to get more information. I'll make that decision when we have something.

On top of that, the whole issue has made me add 10-12 pounds I can't seem to lose. I don't overeat, and am eating less these days and still gaining weight. Yes, I'm not exercising as much and that's critical for me as I easily gain weight when I don't exercise, but this weight has come since last October and this problem. It's a sudden weight gain, something I really hate the feeling.

Now, well, slowly developing over the last few years and only recently really obvious, my left hand goes numb. Namely 2-3 fingers. It's always been a problem when sleeping and why I can't sleep on my left side, my left hand goes completely numb after about 15-20 minutes. Not fun waking up with that feeling, or lack of it.

I'm sure there are many people, if any are reading this blog, who would say, tough shit or live with it. Like I have a choice. I can and we will resolve the digestive issue, not that I look forward to the examination and proceedures, but still maybe something better than bathroom visits 4-5 times a day. The rest, yes, I will learn, as I have, to adapt and adjust, and just be pissed at what life handed me.

I know it could easily be worse, far worse, and I'm lucky there. So, this entry is more a rant or vent on life than anything, and all those pesky little things that hide until you're 60 and remind you about yourself. Nothing you can undo or change, and everything you have to live with from now on until life decides otherwise.

Father's Day

2011-06-19T19:57:00.000-07:00

I was wandering around the Web and found an interesting blog, found here and got to thinking if there was anything beyond my existence as his son that I'm thankful about as his son. And sadly nearly 17 years after his death, which I wrote about it two years ago, I struck me with the blog entries he did it before me.

And the "it" is? Well, when he was 19 after his first year of college his Dad told him the same thing he told me then, meaning the front door, but he got to stay around awhile until the war started and he enlisted in the Army 1940. He then served 23-plus years and rarely went home again. His Dad died when we were in England, and as far as I know didn't go home to Kansas for the funeral.

Anyway, the blog about Dad doing it before us is right, my Dad did to me what his Dad did to him. My Dad treated his oldest son, my brother, like his Dad treated his oldest son, my uncle, the same way, as the son who stuck around hom and could do no wrong. My Dad was the black sheep of the family as I became because we were the same at that age.

But I won't thank my Dad as he never said, "I love you.", beyond when it's expected. He was a very private person and rarely even said it to Mom in front of us kids, so I couldn't expect it from him. He probably did what he learned from his Dad, who did it before him. The English half of my family (the other German).

I will, however, thank my Mom when she said a few years before he died, "Do me a favor, don't become your father." Ok, thanks Dad for showing me how not to be. You did that before me as your father did it before you. I owe for that, but don't expect a thanks for it. It took me too long to realize it and change.

The only thing you taught me was what I taught myself. And that you didn't do before me.

Looking for Abnormal

2011-05-03T06:30:00.000-07:00

I was trying to think why the Gastroenterologist(s) can't seem to think that something is wrong. Well, besides the obvious that they assume something wrong is obvious, even after the patient flushes away most if not almost all the signs of something with the preparation liquids which cleanses the digestive tract for the proceedure. And besides the fact they're looking for something abnormal instead of normal being abnormal.

Well, my thought while making coffee this morning? It's not what they're looking for that matters but what they're looking at that matters. They're looking for something wrong. When they don't see anything wrong and the lab test (biopsies) are "normal" then they think everything is normal.

But it's what they're looking at that is the problem, the normal which isn't normal, but since the "evidence" isn't there and what they see is normal, then they don't suspect the normal is abnormal. That's because when normal is abnormal, then the abnormality, in their thinking, should be there, and when it's not, then normal isn't abnormal.

That's because they looking for those abnormalities. So when the results are normal, then it's the patient and it must be IBS, age, diet, and all thing the patient is doing wrong. Except when a recent finding noted there are actually three distinct types of digestive bacteria, then what is normal for whom?

When Gastroenterologists have always assumed one size, or type with digestive bacteria, fits all, then what about the others with the other types which are distinctly different? They're not looking for anything different, they're asuming the standard and when there are no signs of any difference, then nothing is different. Except everything is different, and all the abnormalities are different too.

So, what they thought was normal, isn't normal for that type. I can say this because we, as patients, know what are body is telling us, and when it says something is wrong and there is a difference from before it started, then we're frustrated with the medical profession over their inane insenstivity about our condition and us. And blow us off as an overly sensitive and obsessed patient.

And that's also now the crux of the issue. When the patients knows the symptoms and sees the signs of something wrong, including that which seem to defy the Gastroenterologist's knowledge, or what they take as common knowledge, then there isn't much the patient can do short of looking for a specialist who will listen and maybe actually do something to help. What's the adage there, good luck?

Which gets to my question, even if the specialists actually knew something was wrong and they had the test results which showed normal was abnormal, what if there isn't anything they could do anyway? What if there wasn't any treatment, no drug and really no cure. That the abnormal is the patient's new normal. Get used to it?

Gee, that's comforting. But isn't that one of the most common results? How many times do doctors and specialists chase the conditions to find there isn't anything they can determine, and nothing they can do, or at least all the known treatments have little, if any, effect and no cure?

I say that because here's what I know. I have a normal bacteria that is abnormally out of control for periods of time until the body finally rids the tissue masses from the digestive system. The body, meaning me, then feels good and normal again, just like before it all started, for awhile until the bacteria gets out of control again, triggered, by of course, food.

And since it's not a known bacteria which does get out of control, the specialists don't know what do look for or what to do when they see it. And there isn't anything they can do anyway even in the face of all the information. They're as useful as we are about it, meaning useless, so what do they do? They don't see it as abnormal, and our abnormal is their normal, so our abnormal doesn't exist.

It's easy for them to just be blind to see beyond their own knowledge and experience. If it's not obvious and not obviously abnormal, in their eyes and mind, then nothing is wrong except the patient's own view of things. It's, as they like to say now, IBS, age and diet, when in fact it's their own indifference and ignorance, and their own insensitivity to want to understand to learn.

And they blame the patient and cite the common wisdom about IBS, age, diet, exercise, or lack of it, and other things. Have a nice day. Next patient please.

And so what now

2011-04-25T08:35:00.000-07:00

It's been two months since I wrote the last entry about why some medical tests fail, for the obvious reason the preparation remove much of if not nearly all of the signs of any abnormal condition and the proceedure is looking for both the obvious and the abnormal. This means the test will miss the obvious when normal is abnormal, it's something they're not looking for and not seeing.

But that's aside from the conundrum between my digestive condition and my pulmonary artery condition. What's good for my digestive system, meaning food which it will tolerate, and what's good for my artery, meaning drugs, namely statin drugs to reduce my cholesterol and hopefully begin to remove the plaque on the artery, a 20% blockage if you don't remember. It's significant but not enough to warrant further proceedures or surgical intervention.

What's left on the table now is that I'm at the age, and have the genetic predispostion, to have additional problems from a higher than normal cholesterol level (in the mid 200's), such as additional plaque and late onset type-II diabetes, which my father had later in his life and really wrecked his one hobby, cooking and food.

In the time since the last entry, I've been on full dosage of a statin drug (Simvastatin) and off it, several times and then permanently when it crashed my digestive system and my body. I became a couch potato and did very little else. Everytime I went off I started to feel better and every time I went back on it, even at half and then quarter dose, I crashed.

So I went off it permanently and about a month later felt almost good again. Ok, but not great. Then my cardiologist prescribed another statin drug in the form of a health supplement (Red Yeast Rice similar to lovastatin). Well, less than a week into it, ditto, the same thing, my digestive system and my body started to crash. I went off and am slowly feeling better again.

And that's the conundrum. The two aren't compatible for successful treatment for both. One has to get and be better and the other suffer what happens. The digestive systems seems to be getting better with time, and watching my diet to avoid foods which cause temporary problems, or just get through those periods when it does. But it's a matter of the body solving itself.

We know the artery problem won't get better unless somethings happens and I change. I'm working on the latter, but it won't be enough, that's obvious. It started and happened when I was in my best health and fitness so anything less won't make it better. But I can slow down or stop making it worse, and then hope the body can and will do something to help, all by itself, at least keep it from getting worse.

So that's the tale to date. It's the old adage, if the illness doesn't kill me, the (drug) treatments will. So, it's choose my own poison. And so far I've chosen food and living than being a nothing on a couch.

When Tests Fail

2011-02-26T08:43:00.000-08:00

I was thinking, as it seems a lot of late considering the situation and circumstances, about why the Gastroenterologist couldn't find and didn't report any "abnormal" with my recent test (colonoscopy and lab tests). In her words, "Everything is normal", and despite the obvious symptoms of something being wrong, she decided the problems were IBS, age and food sensitivities.

As the old saying goes, "Yeah, right." But in defense of her, from her perspective, and while there was reason to investigate the problems more and didn't, she went with the obvious. Except that at the same time, she dismissed the obvious of why the results failed. There are two reasons.

First, with a colonoscopy you have to do the preparation preceedure which is 2 quarts of a liquid which flushes and cleanes the intestinal tract. I mean really flush and cleanse, no pun intended. It's terrible stuff and causes terrible reactions. The problem is that, while food and all the normal stuff in the testinal tract is flushed and the tract wall cleansed, any signs of problems is also flushed away.

The colonoscopy is designed to look for obvious physical problems, such as infections, perferations, etc of the wall, protrubing polyps, and other problems. Lacking those, the diagnosis is that everything is normal. Except, what was lost in the flushing and cleansing which would have indiciated problems, no one will know because that's all down the toliet.

Second, the lab test looks for the obvious. When everything is normal, then obviously to them, everything is normal. But that only accounts for the signs of the normal biochemical processes. It misses one obvious issue and raises the question.

What if normal is abnormal? This is what Pseudomembranous colitis is, an abnormal and uncontrolled growth of the normal bacteria in the intestinal tract. In some cases the infection, of which only a few have been recognized, leave signs in the wall of the tract. But what of the other bacteria which don't leave signs but create the same symptoms?

What if the preparation proceedure removes all the obvious signs of any abnormal and uncontrolled growth of bacteria? And wouldn't the abnormal growth of any normal bacteria in the intestinal tract produce similar symptoms but won't necessarily be obvious?

This is something they can't answer, partly because they don't know and partly because they don't test for them since it's harder and not obvious. So they call it your imagination, but in medical terms like IBS, age and food sensititives. It's the line from the Dire Straits song, "You have industrial disease. Next patient please."

So that's where I'm at. The symptoms haven't changed for the last 3 years now and more so since last October. But the test show everything is normal and thus it's my imagination. Tell my intestinal tract that. It's not listening.

Fear of Eating

2011-02-21T16:58:00.001-08:00

I wrote about food and my body, and about the battle between my taste buds and my digestive system. It finally occurred to me that I have a fear of eating. Not the many definitions of fear of eating, but a simple fear of eating, despite that I really like to eat and really like food, because I don't know how my body, and more so my digestive system, will work and react.

I used to keep a list of foods I could eat without problems, foods I keep trying now and then to see, and hope, I can eat them more, foods I know I will have problems and foods I just can't eat. During the last nearly three years that list was always changing and it still continues to change. For brief periods during these years, I could throw the lists away and eat almost anything and the body was ok.

Since last fall, the list has changed weekly and sometimes in days, and for periods nothing was on the list. It's created a situation where I fear eating because I don't know what I can eat because the digestive system just won't work. Nothing changes it and nothing helps it. And as quickly as the system stopped working, it would work, I mean (hint) really work.

I don't have answers anymore. Not even the Gastroenterologist has answers beyond IBS, age and food sensitive, and of course the obvious advice you hear everywhere, eat right, watch your diet, exercise, get the proper amount of sleep, and so on down the litany of common sense. And you pay a specialist for it?

So, that's my life for now. Eat and hope it works today, tomorrow and a few days on, or not and be ready when it doesn't.

Laurel and Hardy

2011-02-03T11:59:00.001-08:00

Somedays I feel like my body is like Stanley Laurel and Oliver Hardy. My appetite and taste buds are Stanley and the rest of my body Oliver, meaning what I crave, cook and eat will leave the rest of me with a fine mess as Oliver always said, "Well Stanley, here's another fine mess you got us in." I've written that at times food is my enemy, and of late more so like Laurel and Hardy.

The problem is that I love fried chicken, especially crunchy deep fried chicken. Recently a store (their on-line store) had a good one on sale. It's the same brand, Breville, as my other recent acquistion, a convection oven. The oven is way cool for cooking a lot of foods. You don't have to worry about watching it or the time to take it out when it's done.

The only real issue I have with it is broiling things, like bacon or other foods which splatter. Don't, simply don't. It's messy. Use a real oven where you can put a big pan around or under it. Otherwise I use it several tiimes a week, often for a favorite baked chicken. Yeah, after fried chicken is baked or roasted chicken.

Anyway, I got the deep fryer up and running, prepared breaded chicken parts, and cooked up a platter of chicken. The Stanley in me felt good and the food was really good. Ok, I need to find a good breading recipe. But alas it was short-lived as these days are with food and the Oliver reminded me later into the night and the next morning.

Needless to say I won't give up. I suspect, ok hope, it was the spices than the chicken or the deep frying as I've had deli fried chicken without problems. And I can work toward really good stuff, homemade potato chips and french fries and the best, doughnuts. If you have had a fresh homemade doughnut, you're missing a great food.

And on the horizon now is, according to Jimmy Buffett, the eighth deadly sin, Pizza. Stanley is alive and well despite the problems and medications. Oliver will do what it does and wants, and yes, I'll learn about it and live with it, but that's later.

Consistently and Constantly

2011-01-29T05:50:00.000-08:00

What do you do when you're taking a medication and the side effects are worse than the benefit of the drug? And you have to take the drug consistently and constantly, meaning you have to take it at the same time every day and not skip a day. It's one of those drugs, or at least it's what the pharmaceutical company and doctor(s) say, that you can't skip one without problems.

Yet people miss them and they even provide instructions when you do. That's not my point here, it's the side effects. I'm taking a statin drug to lower my LDL or bad cholesterol for the 20% blockage in my pulmonary artery. And the side effects are making my life miserable, especially with the digestive system which I've written about and seemed to be improving, but this drug made it worse.

If it weren't for the physician to send me to a cardiologist as a precaution, we wouldn't have found the blockage. My heart (muscle) and arteries on and around the heart are fine, nothing wrong. The problem is just the pulmonary artery. But it started nearly 20 years ago and has been, or at least from what I know personally, been about the same for the 10 years.

And that's the question, when you do decide to discontinue a drug because you want to than the physicians and specialists say you should?

I have just over 2 months on the high dosage (one month of half dosage and then full dosage) before I have another evaluation, with a blood test, to see if it's working. If so, and toward the goal, they'll either discontinue the drug or lower the dosage. if not, then it's a decision of directions, continue the dosage and continue personal changes, medical intervention or something else I don't know.

That's the question. At 20%, it's significant but not significant to interfer with life that I can as I have make adjustments. The goal with the drug is something I've never done, get my cholesterol below the upper limit of normal (LDL < 100) and more so get it to about 70. If the drug can't lower it significantly, it's a question if or when it will get worse.

That's the conumdrum, we don't know what will happen until April, but until then the drug is unliveable on a daily basis. When my Dad was just a few years older, he was on 11 drugs for a variety of medical problems and just over half of the drugs were for countering the effects or interactions of the drugs. It turned him into a physical wreck.

And watching him then, I can't see becoming him. And even if it's just one drug, to me it's one drug too many. Yes, I take a number of supplements every day and have for nearly two decades. Some are the normal recommended supplements and some help with the body and aging. Their effects are small but over the years have kept things from getting worse beyond normal aging.

So, that's the question I face. I hate the side effects of the drug and the drug is one of choice. Necessary, probably and helpful, absolutely. But at a price of my daily life.

When an answer isn't

2011-01-12T13:13:00.000-08:00

When is an answer isn't an answer? When the answer isn't an answer. When the answer is they know you're right from your perspective but they don't have anything to prove you wrong, only something to prove them right. Really.

Well, I went for my followup for the colonoscopy three weeks ago. Ok, They took the video, took some samples for biopies and whatever else they do when they shove the scope up your ass (fortunately you're sedated and likely asleep, I was). Anyway, despite the evidence my digestive system hasn't been normal for nearly 3 years, worse for about a year, and even worse for 3 month, there isn't anything obvious.

They didn't see any signs of an infection or other condition. The lab and biopsy results were normal. And so all they can offer was more of the same rhetoric about lifestyle changes, meaning watching foods and diet, drink less coffee, drink more water - the recommended 6-8 (8 oz) glasses per day except that's never been studied let alone proven to be beneficial as your body extracts water from any liquid and not just water itself, so any 6-8 glasses of liqiud will do - and get more exercise.

And above all, find a food regime that works and stick with it. Gee, that's sound medical advice from a Gastroenterologist? I mean I'm not doubting her or her advice, it's good and sound, but it's nothing I couldn't get from any physician or even a naturopathic doctor. Or even any health or nutritional specialist. And for that I paid good money.

The truth is, as she kinda' admitted, they really don't know very much about the digestive system beyond the obvious problems when they are obvious, like something physical or someting lab tests or biopies can find. Anything else is simply beyond their knowledge, partly because the system is complex and partly because the state of knowledge isn't very good beyond the obvious.

I'm sure she thinks I'm a nutcase, like many other nutcases, er people, she sees and hears about digestive problems. And that's why it's call Irritable Bowel Syndrome, the catch-all condition when they can't tell and can't determine anything wrong outside the experience of the patient. We're not dumb, although some medical professionals would like to think we're imagining things, and they're not stupid.

I could tell she knew she wasn't convincing me and it appeared to me she wasn't convinced of her own advice will help beyond the rhetoric already said. She's always kept asking if I had more questions like my expression was that obvious I'm not convinced, and I had to eventually say no and accept the reality this is what I will have to live with, or hope it improves by itself because they don't have anything to offer.

In the end we're just at a place we know what's wrong and they don't know what's wrong to find a treatment. There's a gap of knowledge in between our experience and their knowledge, and there is no bridge connecting both sides because the knowledge just doesn't exist to build it let alone to answer the questions.

And so until they do, I don't think I'll go back again unless it's really obvious to me it will be obvious to them.

Memories Not Forgotten

2011-01-01T15:50:00.000-08:00

We all have memories of our past, of places, people, events, situations, and whatever else we remember. Some memories fade away over time. Some don't and evolve into something resembling reality but not really. Some are clear as yesterday. And some just exist quietly in corners like shoeboxes in mental closest which accidently fall out and spill out into the consciousness.

One such memory is when I was 6. I have a visual memory. I remember places, scenes and landscapes, and this is no different. We lived in Wherry Housing on Mountain Home Air Force Base. We had moved there from Sculthorpe, England where we lived in the country (1952-55) and found ourselves in the southern Idaho desert.

We lived in the end townhouse of a row of them. It was a two-story house with a small backyard and a fuel oil tank in the back near the gate. The townhouse had two bedrooms and one bathroom upstairs and a master bedroom and bath on the first floor with a den and the rest of a normal house with a living room, dining room and kitchen.

My parents decided that my year-older sister and I were a bother to his work and her social life. So they emptied the den and gave it to us to play. My sister didn't want it and used her bedroom. I used to create cities with my cars. I collected those metal cars called Dinky Toys and Corgi Toys, and created cities with books and magazines and anything else I could find (really steal for awhile).

I stayed there for hours. It was then I realized, and really looking back where it started, I like being alone. I hated being in class, in groups or playing with others. I never changed from there, and all through my life have always been most comfortable being alone. I'm rarely lonely, which is a big difference, if you don't know.

In that room it was just me and my imagination. No one to interfer or intervene. No one to tell me what to do. My parents just left me there, and while in later years tried to get me to learn other things, like Cub Scouts, guitar lessons, etc., it always failed and I eventually started stuttering which lasted through high school and is always there which reminds me in some situations.

I still have the box of about 40+ metal cars which I added when we moved to Germany 3-plus years later. I loved Germany but missed that room. Outside the townhouse was a big open field, which was encircled by the rows of townhouses. It was designed to give kids a safe space to play. My brother and I though chose the desert out beyond the townhouse.

We loved to walk endlessly around the housing areas isolated between the enclaves of other developments, the school a mile away, other housing areas in the distance separated by more desert, and the commercial area with the base exchange and grocery and other places for adults to be and socialize, where my Mom went most days.

And out the main gate the long road to the town of Mountain Home where my brother went to high school, only an elementary and junior high school on the base. We often took our dog, Judy, a Boston Terrier, who was dumb as a post but loyal and obedient. He always came back when called so we never worried if he ran off chasing jack rabbits.

But it was always that room I remember most from that time, my world and universe. Everything I needed and wanted, at age 6. I don't miss it but often find myself in my own mental room with the same feeling, where I'm most comfortable, like sitting here writing this about a memory not forgotten.

Waking up

2011-01-01T04:46:00.000-08:00

I've always had trouble waking up. Before it took just a few minutes but it's taking longer the older I get. You see, it's not the actual waking up that is the problem but opening my eyes. There are three body processes when you wake up. First your mind becomes alert to your surroundings and you realize you're awake. Then the body slows increases its function to be fully awake so you can get up.

The third, which surprises many people, is your eyes. They're on a separate mental-physical process than the mind and the body. They have to get the signal to open and stay open. Ever notice how you feel awake but just can't seem to hold your eyes open? That's it, but out of a regular sleep, it's the last to come awake.

And that's what's been the problem. When I was young it took only a minute or two. And in my forties, roughly three to five minutes where I'd think about the day ahead and then get up when the eyes opened and stayed open. Now is often 10-15 minutes and sometimes longer. The doctors say that happens with age for some people.

Like me. Gee, thanks. And so I lie in bed most morning, the mind alert and paying attention and the body ready for the day, but the eyes won't open, or they open and quickly close to stay close no matter how hard I try to hold them open. It's strange because this doesn't happen when I take a nap, all three wake up in seconds. Or when I get up in the middle of the night.

Only when it's morning. I lie there trying to decide if it's better to go back to sleep or wait it out for the eyes to come awake. They said it's a innate action so we can't really force it, except of course walking around trying to hold our eyes open which don't want to open yet. And that often leads to confrontations of the body, usually the toes, with immoveable objects and a sudden realization of the impact which automatically open the eyes.

You see the this process has some built-in reaction to open when faced with sudden events. Why we wake up to strange sounds. Why we wake up to get a glass of water or go to the bathroom. And why we wake up from a bad dream or nightmare and get up to relax to get back to sleep. It's the process when we wake up in the morning where it often has problems, and with me, increasing ones.

And yes, I wrote this post in my head while lying in bed with my eyes closed waiting for them to open to the day.

When you lose what you were

2010-12-28T06:02:00.000-08:00

All of us over 50 have been there and many people under 50 have already faced this, and that's the reality we can't be and won't be who we were, healthy and fit, ready to do anything we're physically capable. The mental health changes when we discover our bodies don't work as well anymore and won't do what we did before.

Nothing new or news there, just the reality of getting older, and for many, getting sick or injured for life. This recent bout of problems (digestive system infection, or some professionals think but not the specialists) caused me to stop running and hiking. The better, or is it the worse, part of two years I won't get back. I miss running and while I can resume running, it will be with a different perspective.

I now know why I run out of breath quickly past any point of physical exertion. I can recover to some degree, but the body just can't do what it did. And although this problem is nearly 20 years old, I just slowed down or walked until I could breath again and continued running. I kinda' knew this when the walks were longer, I just ignored the reality. Now I know the reality.

So I've gone back to walking, 5-6 miles for starts to the local commercial center near where I live. It has a lot of places including several cafes to get a reward of a coffee drink before buying carryable stuff and walking back. Once I get my legs back under me I'll resume the weight training which I stopped because first I realized I reached my maximum muscle development and second the problems made me too tired to even try.

I read where we're born with the genes which controls our muscles more than previously thought. That's common sense, but having almost all slow-twitch muscles, not the fast-twitch muscles necessary to develop muscles, I read that our genes also determine the maximum muscle we can develop (meaning more strength training doesn't produce more muscle, just more exercise), I simply couldn't get stronger and won't get stronger than I was. I can get back there to some degree, just not any better.

And that's my lot in life now past 60. Not fun but I can't complain. I do and will still complain but it's really meaningless and useless except to waste energy. But now I can simply walk it off while my physician and the specialist argue about the cause of the problems and find a treatment, if one exists. It's the old adage, "It sucks getting old."

A Heart is a Heart

2010-12-08T05:59:00.000-08:00

A heart is a heart. Or not. All of us have a different heart, physically and figuratively. Well, last Friday I had a second echo sound of my heatt, the first in July 2005, and a radionuclide rest and stress test. Since the early 90's whenever I run or hike I get short of breath very soon into the exercise and my heart rate goes from normal to over 180.

I usually have to stop for 1-2 minutes so my heart can slow down to exercise rate and I can catch my breath. And I often have to do this again during the exercise or hike if it's an exertion, usually a hill. This has been my normal pattern since my mid-40's. Well, I didn't get it tested and the doctors didn't see to get me tested. Until now.

And low and behold I have a 20% blockage of my pulmonary artery which worsens with exertion. The surrounding arteries help during the stressed periods but they reach a limit where my heart just can't pump any more blood into the lungs, which are fine, willing and waiting with lots of air. It's just the blood can't get there.

So, with that I will be (when I get the prescription filled) on an agressive dosage of statin and the health supplement CoQ10 for a few months to get my cholesterol down where the body will absorb some of the blockage and increase the blood flow. Or not and it will be what I will live with for the rest of my life, like it's already has been since it started.

Fortunately the heart itself is fine and health with a small murmur from Rheumatic Fever at age three where there is a small area of damage to one valve, but nothing significant anymore. There are no blockages of the arteries on the heart and the heart muscle is sound and strong. That's cool to know.

Five years ago they discovered my heart has an "extra" connection to the brain which quickens the heart rate faster and higher than normal. It can increase from normal to 180+ beats per second in a few seconds, like a breath or two. They saw this on the 24-hour monitor during my exercise workout. They think the heart is correcting for the lack of oxygen with more blood flow, except it simply can't with the blockage.

So, that's my future, lower my cholesterol, which will be difficult if not impossible as my cholesterol level has never been normal, always above. But I have a high (good) HDL count which keeps a lot of stuff in suspension in the blood, but that's also high and needs to come down. I need to get the body to rid itself of most of the floatsom in of the blood.

In the end, the best we can do is keep things from getting worse and work to get it better a little at a time, with lots of hard work, meaning drugs, diet, exercise, and whatever else. And then keep track of this small abnormality so it doesn't spread to my heart or other places herein my body. Like I want that to happen.

So a heart is a heart, and is my heart. Now and until it decides differently. And the best I can do is help it.

Alas being found

2010-05-10T06:36:00.001-07:00

This is more about credit than life, but I've had the same credit card account since 1984. The bank has changed hands over those years, where I think I'm on the 3rd or 4th bank and card from them, but it's been a continuous line of credit. Don't tell the bank that because each time I've had to rebuild my credit rating with them. For some reasons, the new bank in takeovers erases the old credit history of the old bank's customers, or so it seems.

But over the years this time I've built the credit back up. Until this last week when they called to ask if I had made some charges to the account, all in the amount of about $100. This seemed unusual until I checked the charges themselves to discover they were to an on-line porn site. It explains why they caught it. And so they automatically suspended the account, pending my decision, which I agreed to close the account and start a new one.

So after 36 years, I'm one of those who's credit card information has been stolen. I have a list of companies, one really, who stole it, and likely some employee using it to hide his (rarely are these porn-loving people women) obession, and likely addiction, to pornography. He'll find the money wasn't paid and the credit card is useless. But now I have to watch if something else is stolen from my identity.

So, alas, I've been found and am a victim. Small and just a minor inconvenience to get a new card, but still found. Is that what's normal anymore, when you can say you're one of the many who's had their credit card stolen, kinda' "Been there, done that." At least, so far anyway, it's not worse. And what I've learned is how such a few things about yourself are hung off your identity and credit.

I won't say what company I suspect one of their employees of stealing my credit card number, yet. I have to wait to see how they handle a refund. I bought a piece of computer equipment from them, except the first one didn't work at all and the second was a knock-off (not a real company product) of the wrong model. They owe me $130 and I'm still waiting after sending the second mouse back (USPS tracking) nearly 3 weeks ago.

First they offered store credit, except there's nothing they have I want to buy and not from them anymore. Then they offered to credit my account, except it's now closed. And so they're stuck writing a check, which I'm not holding my breath for. I'm not positive this was the company an employee stole the card number, but it's the most obvious one since all the rest are companies I have used before without problems.

I hope he gets caught and fired. I notified them the number was stolen and they're on the very short list of suspect companies.

The Boxtops

2010-03-06T14:55:00.000-08:00

Few folks, even many of my generation, will remember the Boxtops. A late 60's group. I didn't know who they were let alone their music. I had heard it on the radio, I just didn't attach the songs to the group. Naive about the music then is an understatement. I knew what I liked, bought albums what I really liked, and ignored the rest.

Anyway, a friend in my technical class in the US Air Force invited me to stay at his parents home in Poulsbo, across the Puget Sound from Seattle (Bremerton-Seattle ferry). I had never been to the area and had a week off between school and my first station (McClellan AFB outside of Sacramento, California). I thought, "What the hell."

Well, my friend grew up there. We travelled around the area, especially into Seattle on Saturday night, doing the obvious, trying to score some grass (you figure it out). Well, we did, but it turned out bad stuff and while it kinda' worked, it left me with a headache for the weekend. Anyway, while coming back from Seattle on the ferry, he decided to stop by a local club with live music.

I'm not sure where we were the whole time I spent there, especially that Saturday night, but it didn't matter. The club was typical of clubs then, and many still, but less fancy. It had one door at one end to enter and exit but no one checked anyone. You simply walked in. On one end near the door was the bar, full of people.

A little way in pass the bar you went through an opening which opened to a big dance floor, again full of people, with a stage on part of one of the longest sides opposite the entrance. On the stage were the group The Box Tops. I only remember a few songs which I later looked up on their records. There were a pop 40 and more a bubble gum band.

After a set we left and went home. The rest of the week was a blur and lost to forgetfulness. All these years later the only thing I really remember is the music. But sure making listening to it fun. That and being 20 in my mind again.

Water Temperature

2010-03-04T04:13:00.000-08:00

I spent the first 13 years of my USGS career as a field technician, the first 6 as a hydrologic technician and the next 7 as a professional hydrologist. All of those years were in what was called the basic data section or in a field office, first Eugene, Oregon, next Phoenix, Arizona and last Tacoma, Washington. The USGS requires all field people to have a thermometer to measure water temperature.

It is a requirement during every visit to any surface water (creek, stream, river, etc.) site or gage to measure the water temperature and record the date and time associated with the measurement. This goes back to the 1950's and the information is available on every field inspection summary (from 9-207) for every site or gage.

At some of the sites, the USGS operates a water temperature recorder. The technology of the water temperature instruments has obviously evolved from the 1950's thermograph, to digital sensors with paper tape recorders, to fully electronic sensors and recorders. The data is published in the Annual Data Reports for each state.

At the end of the water (also government fiscal) year (October 1 to September 30) the data is reviewed and published. The water temperature data was produced and reviewed under some rules which the USGS felt at the time were reasonable. It's safe to say now, it wasn't right, just reasonable to avoid conflicts in the data. Some of those rules still exist, which are based on some assumptions which aren't entirely accurate or correct.

Really? Yes, the USGS thought they were common sense and they weren't interested in getting embarrassed with the data. So during the production and review process there were checks for these rules and the data was "adjusted" to accommodate the rule. The adjustment wasn't great and really insignificant, but still an adjustment. And they were?

First, flowing water freezes at 0 degrees C (water temperature was always published to degrees Centigrade for international standards). This isn't exactly true and flowing water can be colder than 0.0 degrees, even as much as -1.0, but that's extreme. It's common to measure and record temperatures up to -0.3 degrees when there was sufficient flow to keep the water from freezing.

I know this to be true because I measured it one day at one of the gages on my field trip. Winberry Creek near Lowell, Oregon (12-150800). It was a cold January day, where everything was frozen. I got to the station about 8 am and after checking everything I went down to the bank to read the outside gage and take the water temperature. I measured -0.2 degrees.

The air temperature, something we also measured, was far colder (can't remember exactly, but very cold, in the ten's). Since I had my wading boots on, preparation for making a discharge measurement, I waded into the stream and up and down the stream taking more measurements to check.

And sure enough, while there was ice in the stream near the banks, the entire stream was at -0.2 degrees. The recorder also recorded this value. We later changed the value to 0.0 degrees to fit the rules for publication. So, when you see 0.0 degrees in the USGS data, it could be from -0.2 (or colder) to 0.05 degrees. Trust me. As they say, been there done that.

The other two rules I think have been either revoked or ignored in recent years because it doesn't make sense or match reality. It never did, the USGS only decided they didn't want to publish data that seened odd. And how so odd? The rules were simple.

The first is that the lowest (coldest) recorded temperature of any day couldn't be higher than the highest (warmest) temperature of any adjacent day. The second is the corollary, the highest temperature of any day couldn't be lower than the lowest of any adjacent day.

This rule breaks down under two situations.

First is when the weather changes dramatically across midnight from either a cold spell to a warm spell (storm or cold fronts) or the reverse. This happens in the data because you're recording data at 11 pm, the last measurement, for one day and midnight for the next, the first measurement for the next day. The water temperature for the last value of the day (11 pm) could be lower than or higher than the opposite extreme of the adjacent days.

The second is at gages below reservoirs where adjustments are made in the outflow from differents parts of the reservoir. Normally there is adequate vertical mixing in small to moderate reservoirs where the water temperature isn't so extreme, but for larger reservoirs there can be significant differences in the vertical profile from the different inlets to the dam and in the subsequent outlfow.

This means changes in those outflows can significantly change the water temperature of the river. This is seen in the data for large reservoirs where the water temperature will jump several degrees in a short time, usually hours. This, if timed right such as overnight, will cause the temperature anamoly in the data between adjacent days.

The USGS overcame this rule by making every day 25 hourly values and including both midnights in the dataset for the day. This avoids this conflict, but it will happen occasionally that the same value (midnight) could be recorded as the extreme for both days, which is another conflict, but one they'll live with the rarity of it.

Anyway, this is just my experience and thoughts on water temperature.

Blood Sweat and Tears

2010-03-03T19:16:00.000-08:00

The 1960's group, not life or the related substances of life. It's was a popular group in 1969 when I enlisted. I remember in basic training when when got two Saturday passes. The first one was a town pass, which I learned to regret. A group of us decided to catch the bus downtown (from Lakeland AFB to San Antonio). We ended up on the river walk which was relatively new then.

We walked the distance of it before crossing and walking. Some in the group wanted to go to a porno movie, common then before it took off as a commercial development. Two of us declined saying sitting in a theater was the last place we wanted to be on our afternoon off. So we kept walking until we met the bus back.

The second time is the one that sticks in the mind the most. We had the Saturday afternoon off and I found there was a dance going on at the on-base hall, which was a converted bomber hanger, meaning it was huge, on par of a large convention hall commonly found in downtown centers.

And in the center of it was a huge wooden dance floor. There was hundreds of airmen standing around the floor listening to the music and watching the lucky ones who got a dance with the few hundred young women bussed in for the dance. I don't recall where they came from, all were older high school, young college or just young (18-24) women.

It was kinda the old USO type event. The music was from the sound system by the DJ there to spin the records. All I really remember was walking in the main entrance door which replaced the hanger door to another set of doors to the dance hall from the foyer, probably to help keep control the temperature.

Well, walking into the large dance hall, the first song I heard was Blood, Sweat & Tears song, "You make me so happy." The opening organ and the singer. I don't know why but that song has been with me the whole time, because not long after the song started and I walked to the edge of the dance floor when a young women asked me to dance.

I accepted. So we danced. At the end we parted, I said thanks and she went on to another man to dance. But I still remember and wonder why she picked me out of hundreds just standing there waiting to be asked. Me. A shy, partly stuttering, can't dance young man.

When I finished basic training, and then technical training, and was assigned to McClelland AFB north of Sacramento, CA, I bought a simple stereo system. And their album was one of the first in my collection. For one song, and then liked the whole album, but mostly just one song, a memory and a long-forgotten woman who danced with me when I most needed it.

I don't remember her, obviously, but I remember the song. I stayed until they played it again, never got to dance again, and left. And yes, the song and her made me so happy. If only for an afternoon. It has lasted a lifetime.

Getting older sucks

2010-02-02T18:55:00.000-08:00

Sometimes. Ok, most days once you're 60, sucks and the prospects aren't much better. It's the old idea between 40 and 50 you're ok, but after 50, the downhill slope starts and after 60 steepens. It doesn't really matter how fit and healthy you are, everyone goes downhill and all the small things you were up to then come to live with you fulltime.

You can exercise all you want, it won't change things except for the rare person who's genes afforded them a better body to stay fit and healthy longer. But even for them, it comes at a price, excercising harder and longer to slow the rate of the decline. They can't get better, only keep themselves from getting worse faster.

And I'm among the crowd now. Gone are the mornings of running easily 3+ miles, hiking 8-12 miles in a day with a 30-40 lb pack, even with significant elevation gain, and feeling my body at its best. It hasn't been in years and won't be there again. And that's what sucks the most.

And all the small problems that plague us in your youth become significant ones and even important ones. The persistent cold hands then is now constant from fall into spring, even year around taking stuff from the refrigerator and stiffening up within 10 minutes outside in 40 or below temperatures. All the gloves in the world won't help.

And now it's in my toes. My toes are always cold, often turn white then red when warmed. The toes are always slightly to moderately swollen. And all the socks and shoes in my closet won't keep them warm. And with my hands, this condition won't fade with time, and only get worse each year. The reality of my genes.

The problems with food and my digestive system, then considered reasons for a joke, are constant. Food can be and often is my enemy, watching what I eat every day and planning 3-5 days out just in case things don't work or go wrong. And there is nothing medical science can do to diagnose, let alone resolve it.

It's simply a food-sensitive system. I actually feel better when I don't eat. I only feel tired and hungry, instead of eating and feeling full, tired and sleepy. I tell people it's simple, I can write the list of approved foods on a 3x5 postit note. The list is longer occasionally but then the system and body goes south and shuts down for days on end. No matter what I eat, if anything.

And yes I know, in many ways I'm lucky to have only these few aliments at 60. I'm generally fitter and healthier than most people at 60. I can still run some distance and walk farther. I can go my outdoor photography with 40-50 lbs of camera gear, if only for a few miles. All when on the good days.

My Dysthymia comes and goes from mild to moderate (no drugs), and occasionally goes south for a few days. I know the symptoms and I've learned to float through them by puttering ("sweep the floor") on better days and watching TV (couch potato) on worse days. And I know it fades back to normal (chronic low to ok) eventually. I have just be patient.

And no, there's no cure, no "Get over it" thing, no drug, etc. that helps. I've learned at times to find the value in it, like even now, seeing what I'm thinking and feeling. To explore where I'm at mentally and emotionally, and find outlets, which not surprisingly helps get through it.

This is something you don't get over, only through. I don't want to chase the drug regimen, the forever, lifelong path of finding a drug, waiting while it works, hoping it does (all are only 50% effective), then monitoriing if it's fading to increase the dosage or find a new or additional drug. And repeat this cycle every 2-3 years. No thanks.

Knowing who I am is better than not knowing if it's me or the drug. This way I know the truth and reality of me. Nothing else, just me. I can deal with that. And writing is one of my drugs. Even while writing this in the darkening evenng hours I am slowly feeling better, like the depression is draining out my fingers.

And my humor comes back. That's my mental and emotional thermometer. My quirky, obscure, obtuse humor. I little Gary Larson, a little Robin Williams and a little Will Rogers. Weird huh? But friends love it when I'm funny. At least the smile and even laugh. It's tells me I'm normal again, for me.

And I don't see being 60 as bad. I don't hate my body as much (have always hated it). I can see, understand and accept the reality of my life. Appreciate the life and work to date. Look forward to tomorrow and the future. And feel ok, comfortably ok. For now and for, hopefully, awhile longer, until everything comes back.

But until then I'll smile and watch life and the world go by with some measure of satisfaction and enjoyment. And slowly the photographic eye and motivation comes back to pick up the camera bag and venture again to look, see and capture. In the end, what else is there?

Cooking

2010-01-09T05:37:00.000-08:00

In the past, I've always hated my cooking, with only a few exceptions, and mostly baked chicken. I was always good at fixing the obvious simple meals, a sandwich, oatmeal, eggs, etc. I learned it from the time I was about six. My parents taught us the basics of getting through life and as kids it meant knowing and doing the basics. We kept our rooms clean and orderly, made the bed, made our breakfast and lunch for school, and so on.

But I never really learned to cook, and the military didn't help living in barracks with a mess hall and local fast food places. And when I was married Linda was the cook. And she was a great one. Horrible at cleaning, but that was my job. The kitchen always looked like a hurricane came through after she was finished. She never left anything untouched, usually with grease, butter, flour, etc. and never left a pot or pan unused. But she could cook.

When we separated and later divorced, she gave me the basic cookware set and gave me one rule, which is simple to remember. She said, "You can cook anything at 350 (degrees) for one hour." Well, it's true 90+% of the time and the rest you simply adjust the time shorter or longer. And I've lived with that rule ever since. The only difference was about 10 years ago.

One day the handle on the last frypan broke. I had nothing to cook eggs. So I noticed a large department chain had Calphahon cookware on sale. I went there and liked it, so I bought the large basic cookset and a few specific types of pots, pans,bakeware, utensils, etc. And over the next few years added a few more when the need arose. It's cool stuff.

I mean really cool stuff. You don't know how bad cookware can be until you've used cookware of this quality and calibar. It's a lifetime investment you'll never regret. Ever. It pays for itself with the way it controls and dispense the heat for the cooking. You have to be really bad, totally forgetful, or stupid to ruin or burn food with this stuff.

Then I proceeded to learn to cook more meals. At least until my digestive system really went south and it collected dust until this year when the system began sorta' working again and I could try new foods and try cooking again. It happened in June, when 3 monthes earlier they found an infection in my jawbone which had destroyed all of the inside the jaw around and below a tooth and spreading to the neighboring teeth.

I still have another 1-2 years before the jaw is fully healed and completely normal again (no drugs), but, while the system is going through some dynamic changes and reactions, it's slowly getting better. Ok, different. Better is relative because it's still not normal, but at least my list of approved foods is longer and including more foods I've long had problems with.

Since then I dragged out the cookware, replaced all the foods in the cupboards (long expired) and set a plan to try one new food or meal a week, from all the meats to all the grains and fresh and cooked vegetables. And all with the Calphalon cookware. It restored my faith in them as the best cookware for ordinary cooks like me. You don't have to worry about the cooking, only the food.

And I've slowly began to like my cooking, even some baking. In the past I've been what I call, "the 5-minute cook", meaning if I can't fix it in 5 minutes or prepare it and stuff it in the oven in 5 minutes, I don't cook it. I've extended it to 10-15 minutes for dishes you have to watch, stir and add components during the cooking process.

What does it mean? Well, last year I routinely told people the list of foods I can eat you can write on a postit note with room for notes. On one side too. Well, it's now longer for routine foods and even longer for occasional foods. To test foods or meals I use the baseball rule. I give the food or meal two tries.

If it creates mild adverse reactions with those times, I mark it on the list to avoid, but maybe try again later. If it still creates a bad reaction, it's out for a longtime, only to revisit well into the future. If it doesn't change, It's on the list of something to try again for a third time in the near future. In short, I give food three strikes before it's off the list of even possible foods or meals.

The problem is that some foods are creating mixed reactions as the body fights and recovers from the infection. But I don't know if it's the food or the body, because even former ok foods are creating mild adverse reactions. I just have to keep waiting for the body to recover and the digestive system to find itself where I can know better about foods and meals.

But until then I love my Calphahon cookware. It makes me a better cook and makes the food better to enjoy.

Finding Linda

2010-01-02T05:04:00.000-08:00

Folks, I need to find Linda Brown. She used to be Linda Knowles. We married in 1971 and divorced in 1984. After that we remained in contact until these recent years. I didn't send out Christmas cards in 2008 and the last contact I've had with her was in 2007 when she was living in Brownsville, Oregon and working at a hospital in Eugene, Oregon. She has sold her property and is probably in retirement somewhere.

She was, and still is, a wonderful person and woman. I owe a lot to her over the years we were married. We had fun, and as usual went through all the trials and tribulations of marriage until we separated in 1983. I was an amicable separation and marriage because we realized we had changed so much, and while we loved each other, we would marry each other. So we let each other go and have a life, and hopefully find a new and maybe better love.

She remarried, hence the new last name, and then divorced a few years later. She had plans to move to Italy or Spain when she retired, but some injuries and illnesses a few years ago changed the plans, or so I thought. So she may have moved to accommodate any medical treatments or move closer to work if she hasn't retired, and in the process forgot to let other folks know.

Anyway, she's in my will and estate plan, and so I need find her if only to update her contact and address, but really to see how she's doing. So, if you know her, please let her know to contact me. She's knows my e-mail, also found here. I'd appreciate it. And if you do, I'll give you a box of ten photo cards of your choice of eight different sets.

Thanks for any help people you can provide. Unfortunately, this was the last photo of her, dated in the early 1970's. She's the same except older, like we all are since then, with shorter hair.

New Year's Resolutions

2010-01-01T05:57:00.000-08:00

We all make them and we all break them. But it's not really about the latter, but more about the former and that we're aware of what we should do rather than what we would like to do or even will do. That's what New Year's resolutions are for, looking ahead and promising we'll do and be better. And like the old adage, "Yeah, right."

Well, I'm no different, so here's what I plan to do this coming year, or at least work toward those goals or make some progress for finishing some projects and work. To me, it's all about increments and the old saying with these, which is sometimes something is better than nothing. So here goes something and in no particular order of priority or importance.

First, finish my life project I started in 2006. This one actually isn't really late or I'm behind, since the average time from start to finish is 3-5 years. So I'm doing ok, and progress now is more about the money and finding it in the budget to finish or be almost finished.

Second clean the storage area. This one is the annual add to the list and hope something is done, but I know nothing has been done in 3 years now. It's overdue and needing a week of work, it's not something I look forward to. It's a lot of driving back and forth and finding places to recycle or trash the junk. And it's a lot more time finding buyers for some of the treasures.

Third, finish the Mt. Rainier NP photo guide, which by all accounts can be done. The followup is to produce the draft book version of the guide, as on-line PDF's and publication copy to find a publisher, either a company or self-publishing.

Fourth, get back in shape. With the health issues the last two years and the life project, my fitness has gone south. It's not bad, but it's not what it was, and being 60 now exercising only makes it harder and tougher. The point is simply try and try consistently.

Fifth, get the damn business license. It takes a day trip to the capitol (city) office of licensing. Then learn the accounting or tax work or find a CPA.

Sixth, ride the mountain bike and walk more. See the fourth item. Town is only 2.5-3+ miles away. What's not to understand to save wear and tear on the van and save gas too.

Seventh, save more money and get rid of the last debt. The latter is more important for the immediate future.

Eighth, replace the computer with a new Mac G5 Pro so I can continue with the work, business and projects. It's a G5 PPC which isn't supported very much by Apple and won't be by Adobe and other software companies as the proportion of them drops.

Nineth, get the van fixed, waxed and kept cleaned. It has a few minor bugs which I've lived with or ignored. Time to get them out of the way. The van runs great and is reliable and durable. Only the small things are for appearances.

Tenth and lastly, simplify my life. I have too much stuff and too many things to do.

And so, that's it. I'll look back at the list occasionally during the year and see how it's going. They're all doable and some even accomplishable. That said, I'll keep you posted.

Year in review

2009-12-18T06:15:00.000-08:00

Well, it's the time we all, or some anyway, sit down and look back on the year. For me it was actually two years, starting in mid-March of 2008, when I photographed the St. Patrick's Day parade. All was fine for a few days, since any bug or virus takes 2-3 days to incubate in you, until I began to feel sick, with reverse flu-like symptoms, meaning the opposite reaction with the digestive system but otherwise all the rest.

Except this lasted for months, and over the course of that year and into 2009, food is my enemy, became more so. It was in December 2008 the dentist and then the endodontist in March 2009 discovered I had an infection in my jawbone which likely effected the rest of my body. The tooth is fixed but the body will take 2-3 years to recover without drugs.

That said, this year has been the rollercoaster for my body and food. Needless to say, it had the emotional and mental effects too, and not for the good. In short I lost interest and energy last year and this year frustrated with the problem and why doctors couldn't do much beyond keeping trying tests.

I can't and don't blame them, it's hard to diagnose something so vague as your digestive system doesn't work right and swings between the extremes for no obvious reasons or as a result of specific foods, except some produce consistent results and effects but not always, or reaction to something or some event. In short, my life and work was scheduled around food and eating, the what, when, where, etc. so problems didn't happen when I wasn't ready.

I think you can get the picture. It simply brought my life, my work, and my photography to a minimum, and over the last few months it's getting better. Not normal, just better. And better enough to do more, except it's winter and cold (Reynaud's Syndrome). but I'll take it. Like I have a choice?

I did mange to get a lot done with the Website and Mt. Rainier NP photo guide and history projects. Which leads to 2010 plans, which is, hopefully, get better, resume my fitness regime, which took a hiatus, to resume hiking again, and finish a personal goal among other things which are as follows.

First, finish the first complete draft of the Mt. Rainier photo guide. I have three sections to research and write and all to update and expand. Then, convert the mess into a book of some type and format, initially a PDF with embedded links to the Website. The second is into a publication format complete with maps to find a publisher, and as they say, "Yeah, right."

Second, finish the Mt. Rainier history projects, or at least the major ones, like the 1896 expedition and the 1915 topographic map. But these need more research (a couple of archives) and writing some type and format of a report for publication somewhere. That's the unknown except folks at the NPS and USGS have expressed interest, but what and into print they can't say.

The other history project, the early photographers (1890-1900) will need more time, research and conversations with archivists to see the original negatives or get scanned images of them. Of those found, many are too fragile to work with and all are in controlled environments with restricted access. And some still haven't been found.

Third, get the photography back on track, both the Mt. Rainier work photographing trails and places and the large format work. I know and learned the basic, and produced good transparencies to date (paid having a few decades of film experience and some common sense), but I need to just to more, but at $5-8 per sheet, it's not a cheap hobby. And I need my new camera, still "in production" (since December 2006) for the other lenses.

Fourth, get a new computer. I was unfortunate to buy one of the last Power PC Mac G5's. And sometime next year, there won't be any new software for it as Apple and Adobe, among others, drop support for the PPC's. That's a big cost item next year, but at least all the peripheral hardware and sofware and some applications I have on this PPC is transferable to any new Intel G5.

So, that's the review and forecast. And as they say, it will happen as it happens.

Writing for myself

2009-11-16T07:38:00.000-08:00

As folks may notice I write a lot here and the other five blogs and the many Web pages on my Website. Sometimes it's the old adage about verbal diarrhea, just a lot of stuff with no substance. Ok, I know that and live with it, because you can always just skip it or ignore it. You have the choice of reading it.

But it's why I write that's important to me. It's less to inform, but often is, and more to release. To release what I want to say. I had a father who rarely said more than a few words to his three children and even less to me, his third. He was a very private man who took a lot of experience to his deathbed and grave.

To his friends, however, his never stopped talking. But they were almost always his friends from the service. You see, he loved the 23 years he spent in the service. He loved the friends he made. And he loved meeting other veterans his age. In retirement, he spend every morning at a coffee shop with them.

You've seen those groups of older men. I see them around where I life. Commonality. They live in that and nothing else besides their families and other friends. It's also sad to me. They miss so much of the world and people, and complain so wrongly about generations. It's the world they're comfortable in, and my Dad was no exception.

It was also after he passed away Mom found a drawer full of iou's people had written Dad for money. Not a small drawer either. And not one of those did they repay my Dad. He simply gave the money to friends, all servicemen who worked with or for him. And not one marked paid.

The truth is he never expected to be repaid, and it's likely Dad told them, "Don't worry, pay when you can." And the never did. She didn't bother to add it up, because she feared how much he had given away during their marriage, which all be a few were from, the rest the 3 years between his enlistment and their marriage.

She also found stocks he had bought, none of which were worth much anymore, and papers about money she wasn't told, let alone knew about. Dad never said anything to her. At best he never told her the truth and at worst lied to her all those years. He kept his checkboork and account locked in the desk with all the papers and iou's.

I'm not him. Nor do I want to be. But, I'm also so much like him. it's what my Mom saw and told me once, "Whatever you do in life, don't be your Dad." She knew him better than anyone. And she knew what he did to us children, but she had little power to change it, only advise us to get away and change.

Sadly, my brother tried didn't succeed, and didn't have a happy life., And my sister didn't but was eventually rewarded for her loyalty with the estate. I left and tried never to look back, but family is family. I wasn't understood and barely rewarded, something I accepted, but not without some regret. But I was and am better and happier for it.

When I retired I worked toward building my photography business and projects and buidling my Website. The latter included blogs I had planned to finally release what I knew, thought, felt or whatever. As noted on one blog, often just opnions and ramblings. In short, I didn't want to leave here without at least being vocal.

It's not that my life, work, experience, ideas, etc. are out of the ordinary. Far from it, quite ordinary. But it is my life and it's what I am and what is. It's why I decided to talk about my Dysthymia. Why I decided to talk about my long study, albeit infrequent and mostly superficial, of Taoism. Why I decided to write about my life.

Simply put, I'm not my father. Or trying not to be.

Choices

2009-11-09T14:33:00.000-08:00

Our life is full of choices. Always choices. If not just do or don't, but always choices, more often multiple choices, some never going away, patiently persisting on the sidelines of your mind and memory, "Oh, I forgot about..." And then, there in the foreground of your mind. We make the moment we wake up (to rise or stay under the covers a little more) to the time we put our head on the pillow and close our eyes from the day.

And when we retire, choices don't disappear. They don't even dwindle to fewer or lesser ones. It's the nature of life today. We face the same choices just to get through life. It's age independent. But when we retire we are faced with the ultimate one, what to do with time. Our time.

When I chose to retire, I also chose to start a new career, to further develop my photography into something better and a personal business. Little, and naively, did I know how much that entails for time and effort. I also added I wanted to get back into shape from sitting in the office for too many years. And then I wanted to develop my own Website and work on a photography guide to Mt. Rainier NP.

And now almost four years later, I'm still working at all of it, but I'm also noticing the choices aren't disappearing or dwindling but adding as I get older. More to do and more to learn. And the world keeps getting larger with even more choices every day. Nothing is constant, especially the choices, and not even me.

I didn't realize how the photography work would go. I bought a digital camera system to help and a 4x5 system to enjoy and learn. I expected to get the personal business started in 3-5 years, but to o what I didn't know. I now produce photo cards and prints for family, friends and others wanting them for gifts, announcements, thank-you's, etc. I haven't yet decided how much to become commerical.

The problem I've learned is that every time I do photography I feel guilty I'm not working on something else or just taking care of all the stuff of life I've put aside all these years thinking retirement would be good for it, but I haven't done it. And I've discovered that approaching 60, my health and fitness aren't what I had planned, so doing photography is more work than before or thought.

So, there are weeks the camera bags sit ready to go. They pick up their ears when they hear me coming into the office, and they stretch their feet to wander toward the door to get in the way and remind me what camera gear is for, taking photos. And all too often this last year or so I've simply stepped around them or moved them aside for other things, saying, "Sorry, guys, maybe another day."

I also didn't realize where the photography guide would go. I only knew I wanted to produce the first book version in 5-7 years. I knew I wanted to develop the book to market to a publisher, and if not, then self-publishing through the Website. But to do that I needed to learn the production side. And alas, I learned what it takes to get, run and use a computer for photography, Website work, and a book.

In short, more time than I had, after you subtract life and everything else that knocks on the door wanting your attention and time, and expending energy chasing problems or something you didn't cause, didn't want, but found you anyway. It's the rule of entropy of life, more energy lost in the friction of situations and events, not contributing to anything except being spent.

The fact is that sitting still or doing nothing anymore will only find yourself going backward relative to everything else. And the reality is that not only is the body just not what it was, it's slower and less able, meaning just geting old. And it seems true to form, problems wait until you're retired to find you.

In short, the harder I try, the more tired I get and the longer the body takes to recover. It's not new, just new to me. And it's the limitations my body has, as we're given. The reality of being and being older. There's no choice there except keep trying and keep going. Otherwise, the alternative isn't all that fun.

And I'm always living on the edge of my Dysthymia. Again, no choice there, it's what I'm given. Only the choices are how to live with it and get on with life. Sometimes like the evening winter rain here, darkness outside, rain falling all around, and only the light I make inside to see. The weight of the world, life and all the choices, many not made or lying around waiting.

And that's it. Simply choices. And those we make, whether we make them or not.

January 2, 1973

2009-11-07T08:00:00.000-08:00

I was listening to a story on NPR about 1973 and they asked people what they remember about that year. After a moment, which wasn't a long moment, it was easy to remember that year. On January 2, 1973, I was discharged from the US Air Force after my 4-year elistment was up. I've written about some of my experiences during my service, but not about that day.

When I was discharged, due to previous circumstances with my bosses, I was given my full and complete discharge. Normally you're given a discharge from active duty and put on 2-year inactive reserve (the 6 year service). They decided that them and I should part company, so I was excused from inactive reserve duty and given a full and honorable discharge.

I can't remember much about January 1st, only I was married, we lived in an apartment in a suburb of Sacramento, California. I had already registered for classes at American River College, and was already working the graveyard shift at a local gas station. This meant, working nights, school during the day and sleeping evenings. While it worked for me, it didn't work for Linda (wife).

She worked days and didn't like coming home to find me sleeping, getting up at 11 pm to work midnight to 8 am. I also grew to dislike the graveyard shift. It was the only shift where one person manned the station. We were just off an interstate and one of the few stations open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And graveyyard was when you locked the station except for two doors (the front service entrance and the lobby to the bathrooms.

Since the station was just outside McClellan Air Force base, we got the civilian shift workers going home. Midnight to about 2:30 am (when the bars closed at 2 pm) was always busy. But then from 3 am to 6 am was pretty much quiet. My job was to clean the outside of the station, the gas service area (one on each of two sides), the windows, they lobby and bathrooms, and whatever else the boss left a note to clean.

All had to be done by 6 am for the morning commuters. Most nights I was done between 4 and 5 am so I had about an hour to find something to do. Fortunately next door was a 24/7 restaurant, so I would lock the doors, turn off the pumps and sit in the window booth getting warm. Remember it was winter when I started and worked this shft. The waitresses knew to leave my coffee cup and table alone when I left to service a car.

We were a full service station then, no self-service, and we checked the engine, cleaned the windows and anything else on the car the customer wanted. At that hour, most people just want gas to go home or back on the Interstate. The only other work was the service contract we had for the cars with a package delivery service. All 6 cylinder white Plymouth Valiants.

They were a Sacramento based company and serviced the entire middle San Jaquin-Sacramento Valley, going about 60 miles north and south and to San Francisco (downtown). They worked mostly overnight so their cars were coming in at all hours for gas and service. They were the only customers I was allowed to unlock the service bay door to work on cars. After that I could only do that for travel emergencies, for the mechanic in the morning.

In some ways I liked the job, the free time after the cleanup. I could read, study and do homework for the day. What's ironic is that I never got robbed. Only the occasional person who drove off without paying. The boss allowed some loss to that (if I reported the crime), but not too much as it may appear I'm selling gas on the side.

Anyway, after about a year at graveyard I moved to swing shift, 4 pm to midnight. It was always busy until about 9-10 pm when there was little to do, but there was always two people there. Once they learned what we could do as mechanics, we were often working on cars in the bays for the next day, usually just routine or minor service and maintenance. And we could sell and service tires.

After that, beside the job and school (went year around, even summers - GI Bill), there wasn't much time for the marriage, but we managed, which was mostly pack the 1971 VW Bug and travel around the area and visit San Francisco. At least one weekend and often two weekends a month just travelling and visiting.

In retrospect, it was probably one of the best years I've had. Nothing spectular, just ordinary, but free of the service and exploring life. In hindsight, Linda was and still is a great person and woman (divorced in 1984), but our marriage was almost always tenuous at best, a compromise between to disparate personalities and characters. I cherish the time, but I also realize how naive I was not to have done more and better.

But that's all history, a year in a life. And thanks to NPR, a jog to remind myself of a time when.

Communication

2009-11-03T17:39:00.000-08:00

You said something about interpersonal communications?

I kept this next to my workstation at work visible to everyone who came in my office to sit and talk. It was aimed at those people who always came it to say, "I want to talk with you.", really meaning, "I want to talk to you.", which translates to, "I talk and you listen." This applied to almost every manager and supervisor and senior scientists. Arrogance knows no job position when the person is closed-minded and condescending.

Everyone know the tune and tone there.

I'm not sure if they got it, since those people don't, but it doesn't mean I can't try, which I did. My policy was simply. I treat you as you treat me. Not the Bible, just common sense about human decency. I respected everyone who was open, honest, respectful and fair, not matter their job title or position. My job was to help them do their job better and if I can help them or give them new or more information, great.

And I also treated people with humor. I may take my job and work seriously, even passiontately as many knew me or heard me at meetings, but I never took myself seriously. And I found often people came in to chat. I didn't mind. Sometimes productivity is improved when people can just chat or think out loud. And always see things anew.

And to those who got too serious, which I sometimes was a sounding board, I would listen, offer advice and then say, "Ok, remember it's just what it is, and sometimes just not that important." And I'd ask them to talk a walk around the downtown area where our office was to see that life goes on, regardless of their problems or issues. In short, get a perspective.

And I also found myself telling myself the same thing. It's why 3-4 days a week I took a lunch hour walk. Since I couldn't eat lunch beyond a snack (long different story), I'd pick a direction and just walk for 30 minutes and then turn around and walk back. it sure did help the perspective.

Anyway, there's not much here. I just wanted to note the picture and saying. And yes, there were some folks, I would love to be Ralph (the Sheep Dog).

Outside looking in

2009-10-28T07:36:00.000-07:00

I've always been a non-group person, also known as an alone person. That means I've always shied from group things, support group, focus grups, meetings, events, etc., and I only go to photograph them now. But that also means I always looked at groups and their issues from the outside, like someone who peers over the edge of a box looking inside where everything happens.

While it's not afforded me the opportunity to be part of anything or a group, and obviously missed a lot of the inside stuff and work, it's afforded me a different perspective on those same groups and their issues and stuff. But this being outside wasn't all my doing or choice as I've found many groups are often very elistist and heirarchal, meaning new members aren't heard or seen, just there, and for the grunt work.

Well, I don't take to that attitude. I had this the time I joined the Sierra Club. I had been a member for years but decided to become an active member when they announced a weekend workshop for interested new members. Except it wasn't so much a workshop as a weekend camp of work while the team leaders and senior club members and leaders behaved like dictators.

Since I paid for the workshop I expected more than what happened. For one when I arrived I was told where I'd sleep, some old bunkhouse without rooms let alone bathrooms and what I'd be doing in the kitchen, meaning cleanup for which meals - aka, busboy, dishwasher, and dining room cleanup.

Then I was told what workshops I was eligible for as a new member, which were lead by people who told you the Club's views on issues and what you'd be doing to help the Club on those issues. And when I raised question or questioned their views on the issues, I was less than politiely told there was the Sierra Club's view (straight from SF office) expected from all members. No other view or opinion is tolerated.

Here I was with a MS degree and many years in the USGS ready to help on water resources issues and problems, and I'm told I have to start by writing letters, stuffing envelopes, and making phone calls for ballot initiatives. They simply didn't care what education, experience, skills or talents you had, you're just a body for their bidding and work. Not what I do.

Suffice it to say, I left early telling them where to stick their workshop and where to put the Sierra Club. I also left the Club at the end of the next year's membership - I didn't renew it. While they have achieved a lot for the environment in this country, I still think the Club sucks. I don't and would never recommend being a member of it.

But that's what I could do being outside looking in, to see them at face value and in the light, and then walk away shaking my head. And, as I said, I didn't get there wholly by myself. Only it started by being naive and becoming a believer in that old button, "Question Authority".

Unfortunately I learned this in the Air Force with my court martial, but that was after a previous incident. Once a year the squadron had to assemble for a full inspection, meaning the General walked through and looked at, and sometimes stopped and talked with, every member of the squadron.

After the inspection four lower grade Non-Commissioned Officers (NCO) were called to the commander's office for a talk for presentation and uniform violations. We met the commander as a group and he proceeded to exclaim what we did wrong and what reprimand would occur when I asked, "Why were there only four of us picked and not any senior NCO's who were obviously and some more so in violation?"

I was taken aside and asked about it and I explained since the senior NCO's were the one to called the troops for violations, they didn't note any of them when I saw several worse than me - sideburns, pants too short, unshined shoes, etc., within eyesight. The general wanted names which I refused to give until he promised anonimity after which I told him.

Well, that didn't sit well with the senior NCO's, because half a dozen were reprimanded and we (four) were exonerated. But the squadron first sargent was cool with it and told me thanks. But this started me on the life of that button, always question and always ask why.

And it continued through graduate school, being one of two "representatives" of the graduate students to present the Chairman and faculty of the Department with grievances (I didn't volunteer but was "elected") and into the USGS, but there I learned when I got promoted to middle management and a supervisor to pick my fights, but still, when the chips are down, always be willing to bet your career against management.

I say this because I learned if you did your homework and had support from some regional or headquarters senior staffers you could challenge local management on almost any issue and win, or at worse get a draw. I helped others' careers and work, and earned respect for being a manager who did represent and speak for the staff. But I lost recommendations for promotion for it - you need their approval and recommendation.

They didn't want me one of them at that level, being a data chief, and it pretty much sowed the seeds with my bosses (two layers up) to retire earlier than planned. But while they thought they won, they lost. They lost a great employee, dedicated believer in the USGS and its work, and passionate manager for the staff.

But I won my freedom. And even now on forums or in groups I'm still the outsider looking in and getting in trouble with others who disagree with me. They don't understand or don't want to understand opinions are just that, opinions. Everyone has one and everyone's is equal. Just don't tell them that.

Which is something I haven't learned yet and likely won't now. People hold onto their opinions so hard and tightly they can't see the truth and reality of them. They don't know to put an opinion, idea, decision, whatever, on the table for everyone to see, review and question. You never know where a better idea, more information, or something to change your mind will come from and from whom.

But if you live in a box, you'll only get the views and opinions from others in the box. Outside I can see more and see the broader life and world. While it's often lonely standing out there, outside of any box, But then I've always try to follow the advice I keep on my quotes Web page.

"Be good, be kind, be truthful, and be free."
"I know what it takes to be lonely; I know what it takes to be free."
"Knowledge is free, but you must bring your own container."

And especially the lines from the song "That's what living is to me" by Jimmy Buffett

Be good and you will be lonesome.
Be lonesome and you will be free.
Live a lie and you will live to regret it.
That's what living is to me.

Not much more to say except I'll keep on wandering outside the box.

Being a Data Chief

2009-10-26T07:05:00.000-07:00

At one point in my career, mid-1990's I considered to try and be a Data Chief. This is a job where you are responsible for the operations and management of the basic data work of the Water Resources Program (WRP) for an individual state - each state being an automonous district within the WRP. It's a separate section within a district along with the respective investigations section for the scientific work of the USGS WRP in the state. And to me it was always a cool and really neat job.

Ok, you don't go into a senior district management job thinking it's cool and neat, but I loved basic data. Everything about it is interesting and all the people in the field office terrific. After 13+ years of field work in three districts (states) and then the section chief for the data management work, I knew I could be a Data Chief, which involves managing 20-40 people and a few million dollar program with two to three dozen cooperators.

It's a job where you oversee and lead the whole basic data operation for the state working with everyone from the field people to the managers with the various cooperators (government agencies, organizations, companies, etc.). You are the one that makes it all work, keeps it focused on the future, and provides the leadership to the staff. What's not to think isn't cool or neat about that?

And add the importance of the public and you get something really cool and neat. You see, the USGS WRP collects most of the water resources data in the United States, and produces and disseminates it to anyone interested. The work is paid through the contracts with the cooperators, mostly through tax dollars or water/power rates. In short, it's all paid by the citizens of this country to share with everyone.

So, I began applying for Data Chief jobs around the West or elsewhere, eight in all over a span of about three years. I got a few interviews and some recommendations from senior regional and agency folks, but wasn't the one offered the job. It turned out, not understanding politics at that level, five were predetermined for someone in the district. Of the remaining three, I was second in two.

And so after awhile and passing 50 I kinda' knew the chances of another opportunity were slim to none. In the USGS WRP you get a window of opportunity in your career and rarely once it closes it doesn't reopen. Many people had their potential careers shortened when it closed, so it wasn't new. And in pursuing my career goal I did manage to anger some folks.

You see I have a view of the job which conflicts with what most senior managers like and want in their executive staff. You see I have some basic views about being a boss/supervisor, which are:

One, it's who work for you that matters, not who you work for.

Two, you represent the (section) staff to management and not management to the staff.

Three, be a Data Chief, meaning believe in and promote data and the section to everyone, and don't be a senior district manager.

Four, be a human being, meaning be understanding and honest with people, and respect people for themselves.

Five, be yourself with management, don't play politics for the sake of management games.

I put my priorities as first, the staff (who does the work), second, the cooperators (who writes the checks), third, the public (who funds the programs) and lastly, management (who does something else).

So you can see I don't sit well with senior managers. I was passionate about basic data, from the field work and people to the production for the cooperators, the public and the reports. Everything else fits inside that, and isn't a priority over the work and the staff.

It's why I didn't get the chance to be a Data Chief. I'm not sure I would have been all that good, but it sure would have been fun to try.

The sound of rain

2009-10-26T06:27:00.000-07:00

I've always like the sound of rain against something. It's why I live in the top floor apartment of the building, the rain against the roof. And during the summer I forget the sound until the first serious rain storms sweep through the Pacific Northwest and just rain for hours on end, only changing intensity and occasionally clearing overhead to remind us the sun is still there above all those clouds.

This last week I had to drop the van off for its annual service. Their shuttle service doesn't cross the Tacoma Narrows bridge so they drop me off at the last on/off ramp and I walk home, just about 2 miles one way, most of which is across the new bridge. The day I went to pick it up, it had rained most of the night and had lessened only slightly in the morning during the walk. But when I got to the pickup place the driver called to say he was running late, about 30-40 minutes.

So I stood there, in the rain, waiting, when the rain decided to pour down in earnest and not let up. But I wore my Northface Expedition rainsuit which I bought about 20 years ago. I had wore out my original Gore-Tex rainsuit from work which I bought in 1978 (now in the extra clothes bag in the van for emergencies). I remember paying about $750 for the Northface then because it could withstand any storm and had a lifetime guarantee.

Well, it does and I've never had to test the warranty yet. But just standing there, all dry and warm, was interesting just listening to the rain against the hood and coat. It reminded me what my boss said when I started with the USGS and came back from the first winter field trip.

I had bought myself one of those clear plastic raincoats. And on the 2nd day of the week field trip it leaked and then tore. I spent the rest of the trip in the Oregon Cascade Mountains cold and wet. When I got back and talked to the lead technician about the weather, the boss, an old crusty guy about my age now, said, "There's no excuse for being cold or wet."

Well, that day I spent $100 for a new technology Gore-Tex rainsuit. It last the five years I spent in Oregon and the five years in Arizona. It didn't survive the Washington winters so in 1988 after resealing the seams and repairing leaks every few trips, I replaced it with the Northface suit, and never got wet again.

Cold, however, is what you wear underneath it, and there are times when the cold doesn't honor clothes and just goes right through you to chill your bones. When that happens there is nothing you can do to in the field except work fast. But mostly the Northface was a champ holding in heat too.

What I also learned years later about my boss is that he could say that because he rarely did his field trip in the rain, and never in the cold. He had the easiest field trip and always tried to go when the weather was warm and clear. He always found excuses for worst weather, and only went we had to measure floods, but even then he often sent us as he had to "man the office" during the events.

Yeah, right. Anyway, I remember doing many field trips for the week in the rain. I grew to hate it sometimes because you were always in it and you had to write which meant my hands were always cold and wet even with fingerless gloves. It eventually lead to the onset of Raynaud's Syndrome and getting out of field work in 1991 when another job opened in the office.

I still continued to hike and bike in the rain, but then slowly faded out those trips to Mt. Rainier NP when I spent a hiking trip in the rain and got tired of everything being wet all the time. I eventually just hiked out and went home. Rain now is something I like to pick when I go out in it and how long I stay.

I also continue to run in the rain, and in fact love it more than when it's not raining. Rain forces you to focus on the run and mostly the road and trail. Since the runs are shorter these years (30-40 minutes tops), I don't really get very wet with a good rain/wind shell and pants, and know home is always at the end of the run.

But sometimes, though, it's just nice to stand there letting it fall on and all around you, just to listen and feel it. And remember.

Being 60

2009-09-16T08:47:00.000-07:00

Yes, this month I turned 60. I don't feel 60, or at least it's a feeling somedays but not others which more often feels like 60. It's the thoughts and feelings from my youth and the thoughts and feelings of being older. It's about growing old than getting old. And it's about fighting an aging body and increasing depression.

In other words, it's the normal stuff of approaching age. I'm no different. I hate growing old and I have to keep fighting getting old. It's just so easy to quit and let time do what it does to everyone, and we become curmudgeon in our own body and mind, whether we know it or not or whether others see it and tell us or not. It's the entopy of being human, we get smaller and narrower of mind and body.

And often it seems and feels like fighting entropy is the biggest problem than anything else. Not working on the photo guide or the history projects, or getting my ass out the door to do some photography, or worse getting my ass out the door to run or jog/walk. It's often easier on days like today to take a nap and let everything else go and go by.

After all it's a wonderful fall (ok, technically late summer) day. Nice blue sky with high cirrus clouds (but aren't cirrus clouds high by definition?) and cool temperatures with a slight breeze, just enough to tickle the bamboo chimes to produce gentle notes and silence. Open all the doors and windows. Let the breeze and cool air fill the rooms. Just plant the butt and close the eyes.

Put the todo list aside. Let the list of places to go, things to buy, errands to runs sit. Just lie down and relax. The rest of the world will still be there later. The day won't feel any different, just later and older. The entropy will continue to expand with the universe. Everyone else will still be busy with their life. Nothing will have been accomplished but sometimes it's the only thing that matters.

Just the passage of time feeling good.

I live along the Narrows Strait across the now twin Narrows Bridge(s) and opposite Tacoma. I overlook the strait with the trains running by on the other side of the strait, the boats and ships going through the Narrows, and the planes flying in and out of SeaTac airport and McChord AFB. And in the far distance Mt. Rainier stand majestic as every, at least when it's not shrounded in clouds or we're all shrouded in rain and/or snow.

This means throughout the day, besides the sound of the weather and the trees, there are the sounds of the trains, ships and planes. The sounds of the world and like Paul Simon said, "Everyone loves the sound of the train in the distance." And close by the sounds of the neighborhood, kids, cars, dogs and whatever else goes through or by. And every now and then, silence. Nothing.

I've always liked living here. For that alone. And for the place I live, a lot like me, old and worn but surviving enough to get by. And turning 60, it's all the more sweet and important. If I want the noise of the city, I've several a few miles to an hour drive away across the bridge or on the ferry. If I want the peace of the wilderness, an hour-plus drive I'm in Mt. Rainier NP, or the Olympic NP, or the Cascade Mountains.

I've always been struck with the saying, "Stand in your own space and know you are there." And sometimes it's become more important every day. For in the end, it's all you have, what you are then and there. Everything else is what you leave, the stuff of your life and career and the love you leave in the heart's of others.

I'm not really sure what that's means in an ordinary life. I remember when working with the USGS I used to look back at the history of some of the gages, which go back to the late 1890's in Washington State. The USGS keeps all the papers for a gage in one place in file cabinets. It's all there, and it was a great way to waste an afternoon walking through the history from the original letters and permits to every discharge measurement ever taken.

And then knowing what I had done in my 28 years is now there with all the others. One among the many. And all the work filed with the rest, archived in a warehouse somewhere, lost again until someone opens the box, picks up the file and reads the history. All the past hydrologists who left their work. Thanks USGS, it was fun, well most of the time, and rewarding beyond what I imagined when I started.

After that, all my life has been pretty ordinary, like the billions who have already been here and the billions who are already here. My thankful I made it this far, my brother didn't. My Dad did but most of his life after 60 wasn't much of one with all his phsical problems. He mostly just puttered his life away for 15 more years.

After he passed away, Mom told me, "Whatever you do with the rest of your life, don't be like your father." She then told me when he retired he simply faded into nothingness, leaving nothing for the time and only taking up time and space. She said, "Go do something you love and don't stop until you die."

Advice we've all heard, but how many of us actually heed it? And by the time you're 60, did you follow it? Do you plan to follow it? Do you realize it sneaks up on you? Being 60 that is. One day you're young, then birthdays seem to go by and then you're looking at 60 on the calendar. And you sit down and wonder about your life and wander back through your life.

Do the good outweigh the bad? Does the did something outweigh the I had plans? Did the right choices outweigh the regrets? And the most obvious one to many, do you still like yourself? Are you comfortable being yourself at 60?

I ask these because being here I can. I can't answer for me yet, I'm still wondering and wandering. I probably won't know even in the future. Hindsight isn't my speciality and more often than not, not my interest. Just waking up some days is important enough, and doing what I would like, planned or have to is often what happens.

And so, it's the ramblings of an old(er) person, and like our minds, often fuzzy and ambiguous. A lot like life, ill defined and uncertain, to which I'll ponder and write more of the next year, like cresting the hill and standing on the divide between then and there. Youth and old age. Gone and ahead. Been and going. Done and will. And so on.

No Sympathy here

2009-09-01T05:05:00.000-07:00

Sunday (August 30, 2009) I read the story in the New York Times, "A Life Story in Need of a Rewrite", found here. I'm not sorry to say this person gets no empathy and no sympathy from me. Harsh, maybe. Cruel, not. Because it's the old adage, he made his bed (life) and now he has to lie it (live with it).

As I'm learning now having to write a six in front of digits for my age, while I harbor regrets and other emotions about my life and past, I fully realize it's done and can't be changed. It is what was and what happened, and like it or not, it's there, whether in my memory or that of others. I can apologize about my mistakes and forgive others for theirs, it still doesn't change the original and lingering emotions and feelings, mine or theirs.

But to imply some sense of empathy or sympathy for a man who anyone would consider modestly weathly with a good paying job, sorry not here. When he made 3-4 times the median family income in the US, there isn't much to think about. And now he's been out of a job for 18 months. Like the rest of the unemployed should shoulder his anger or whatever he's feeling?

I won't argue, he and his life needs a rewrite, and he has to reinvent himself. But who hasn't? I'm still doing that nearly 4 years after I retired early (long story about bosses and staff reductions). I saw my new life long before I retired, the ideas of what I wanted to do and I planned the finances, or as best I could, a few years before walking away (not long enough, but good enough).

It's been hard work and more than I had envisioned. It's had it's ups and downs and will have more ups and downs, partly do to my own genetic and lifelong Dysthymia. That's more the battle than the things and events in life, but then they go hand in hand too. What I have learned though, is that there is always more to do and even more than I can imagine doing.

A rewrite? I don't know what that is except to keep rolling on with what I love to do, and find ways to keep it going. And you can bet above all, I can stand on my deck knowing fully what I've done and have, and knowing I'm grateful for my reality and being. I'm not broke or poor. Money is an issue but not the day to day stuff of life. In short, I'm modestly independent to be free enough to enjoy where and what I am.

So, no, I have no sympathy for someone who has had a better life than me and faces similar hardships as I've felt. As I don't expect it from others of me. Quite the opposite, I respect those working harder with less, circumstances in life wasn't necessarily as kind to them as me. But the guy in the article? Sorry, not much to say except keep going and you never know.

And at the end of the piece, he seems to have some clues and insight. What else is there?

Father's Day

2009-06-21T11:18:00.000-07:00

Today is Father's Day. And while that is good for many sons, it's just another day for me. Not that I had a bad father, I had an absent one. Not that he left, he and Mom were married from March 1943 until his death in November 1994. But he had a career that was more important than his children, and especially me.

I was the last of three children and the second son. My brother, six years older than me, was the favored son and my sister was their treasure. And me? Well, Dad explained it decades later when I asked him why I felt like the after thought. He said, "Well, we planned two children, a boy and a girl, and when you came along, I didn't know what to do, so I figured if I ignored you, you'd find your way."

That was over twenty years after my first year of college when we sat down on Christmas Day 1968 and I handed him the letter the College of Engineering had "released" me to the general university student population and I couldn't enroll in any more engineering courses. While my brother had five years of college paid by Mom and Dad and my sister had two years of community college paid by Mom and Day, I had to work to pay one third of my tuition and all of my books. My brother paid one third and my parent the last third.

Dad quietly read the letter, then said, "Son, I want you to have a life. Just don't have it here." I asked how long can I stay until I can sort out leaving and living on my own. He said, "Three months." Just over two months later I entered the US Air Force. My Dad and I rarely spoke after that and those conversations weren't all that pleasant. Kinda' like an after thought to his life with the other two kids who stayed within driving distance of home.

During the service I was stationed at McClellan Air Force Base north of Sacramento. I loved it, married and never left the West, always within driving distance of the ocean except for my years in Phoenix, Arizona. I only went home for reunions and family gatherings. I decided Linda, my friends and living away was my life and world. And since I wasn't welcome home beyond a courtesy, I didn't miss the family.

Over the years after his death, I learned more about Dad than I did before. He was a quiet man, never was a father in the sense of one, his career was more important. And with his friends I learned he was the opposite, open, friendly, conversant, and as we learned, generous. Mom found a locked drawer in his desk full of IOU's from friends he loaned money to over the decades before and during their marriage. It broke her heart to read all them and not one person paid him back. All gone, friends over family.

The last I saw my Dad was the year before when he and my Uncle was returning from an Alaska fishing trip. He stayed overnight, which I wrote a poem about, see Dad, poem I. A year later after fulfilling his goals in life, which were pay of his 30-year mortage, celebrate his 50th anniversary, and life to 75, and two days after his birthday, he passed away. And left a wife and a family wondering what and why.

He simply decided give up and die. He went to bed after his birthday party and never woke up. Mom called to say it wasn't necessary to come because he wasn't recognizing anyone and was talking to people long dead, his mother and his oldest son who died 3 years earlier. Mom has was hurt and angry. She got more hurt and angry settling the estate and going through his papers to find a man she never knew.

Not only had he loaned a lot of money to friends over the years, he invested other money in really bad companies, and even decades later the stocks weren't any more valuable than when he bought them. Nothing earned all those years. And then she found a deeper truth.

When my Dad told me to leave, he didn't tell Mom, only that I had decided to leave and then enlist. He lied to his one love in life. She finally understood all these years, but by then it was too late, the damage was done and the emotional wounds permanent scars. All done by her husband and my father.

So Father's Day isn't much for me. He was a good man to many, just not his family. He was decent to us kids and good to Mom, but always was distant and focused on life outside us. Before my departure I can count the times we were together just doing something on one hand, and that's a stretch along with all of it during the four years we lived in Germany.

I summarized him another post, see My Father, like this. "In the end, Dad lived with his own demons, from his time at home in the late 1930's before he joined the Army during WW II, and he took them with him. I'm sorry he never learned to express himself. It was his personality but he missed the opportunity to be a father and a dad."

A Note About the Rules

2009-05-13T15:35:00.000-07:00

I updated the rules, see the side bar for the rules for this blog. I added a few more and a comment about commenters. If I don't know you or have a way to check who you are, don't be surprised if or when your comments are deleted, and forever (you have a choice with delete option). It's what I get to do as owner and administrator. And while your comments may seem innocuous or not, I don't care. If you can't be visible when posting, then don't expect respect for your post.

That's not hard to understand. I don't tolerate or accept anonymous commenters. It's my choice. Unless it's an obvious spam or advertisement, both of which are immediately deleted, I keep them for a few days. I'm not quick to trash some comments even if I disagree with them. Sometimes I like them because they challenge me. But there are some issues I don't and won't tolerate. We all have these issues, the passion drives our view and expression.

Why the reminder about the rules. Well, I wrote the essay about guns from my personal perspective. It's what I'm entitled to believe and say. I've had enough experience with guns to know they're useful for some activities and they're a part of our world and life. But I don't like the right to own them crammed down our collective throat. It's not our Constitutional right because it's our right to be free, safe and secure, and guns threaten those rights that I'm against guns.

Guns aren't necessary in the everyday life of almost every American. I'm not denying the truth or reality, but I will argue if we didn't have so many guns, our lives would be freer, safer and more secure. And a lot less violent. To say guns are ok because those who don't misuse guns denies the reality of the many who do misuse it. That's the view the NRA takes, forgetting the sheer number of crimes committed with guns over the rights of legal gun owners.

Somewhere we need to look at what guns are doing to our country, our nation and the people, and make a decision about our future. Do we really want to live in fear and suggest we all have guns because the other person has one and just might decide to use it? Wouldn't it be safer if we knew others didn't have guns? Maybe it's time to draw the line when and where guns are legal and acceptable in everyday life and who really needs to own them.

Anyway, that's the new rule. And guns? Well, I have my view. If you want to express yours, use your own soapbox.

Raynaud's Syndrome

2009-05-10T12:32:00.000-07:00

I have Raynaud's Syndrome. It struck the winter of 1990 when I was doing field work in the Olympic Mountains. I was on a December field trip where it had snowed for the previous days. I went drove up the Wynoochee Valley Road to the gages on the Wynoochee River and smaller streams. I had finished some of the lower gages and went to the gages below Wynoochee Dam and Big Creek, a creek entering the Wynoochee River below the dam.

I arrived in the morning to Big Creek where having driven most of the road through a few inches of snow to about at foot at the gage. I parked and did the usual routine of servicing the instruments in the gage (takes about an hour) and then prepared to do a wading measurement. The water was much above freezing and the snow had dimished to just a gentle snowfall. I put on the chestwader (warmer than hip boots and helps avoiding getting wet if you slip), grabbed the measuring gear and walked to the measuring section.

Measuring streamflow is done by a variety of methods and instruments, but the traditional methods are either by wading or from cableways or bridges. Wading measurements are made with a tagline for measuring the width and determining location in the cross-section for individual vertical measurements of depth and velocity, with a wading road and attached velocity meter, and a stopwatch and station-measurement notes.

Once you set the tagline across the stream, you determine a 20-28 representatives sections for individual measurements. This takes 1-2 mintes per section, taking 40-60 minutes for the whole measurement. You're constantly holding your wading rod and adjusting the depth of the velocity meter with one hand and holding your field notes and pencil with the other. When you're done you release the tagline, wade back across and reel in the tagline.

To do the last thing you put down your wading rod and field notes (aluminum note holder). I laid the wading rod down and realized my left hand wouldn't move to release holding the wading rod. My hand and fingers was literally locked around the wading rod. My right hand was also locked in a postion from holding the pencil. There I was with two curled hand and fingers which wouldn't move.

I finally slid the rod out of my left hand, and with the curled hands reeled the tagline in, bundled up all the gear and went back to the truck. It took several minutes to grasp the truck keys in my pocket and open the door to start the enginer and heater. After the heater begin blowing warm air I put my hands over the vents for 15-20 minutes and they uncurled enough to finish the work (another 30 minutes).

I went ahead and finished servicing and measuring the second gage for the day. It was a cableway measurement which is just a little easier because you're using and changing your hands continually throughout the measurement so they don't get locked in one position. And later that afternoon the hands got better, but the problem persisted throughout of the rest of the field trip.

I went to the doctor the next week who diagnosed I had Raynaud's Syndrome, and likely the secondary type and a genetic hand-me-down. Once it triggers it doesn't go away the rest of your life. Since it prevented continuing in the field the following summer I moved into an office position, a technical manager where I spent the rest of my career.

And over those years while doing photography I found the condition got worse for two activities with photography during the winter. The first is simply the exposure of my hands in the cold with my cameras where I use fingerless gloves to ensure I can hold the camer and use the controls. I'm down to about 15 minutes where I have to warm my hands for another 10-15 minutes before resuming using the cameras.

The second is photographing events or situations where I have to hold the camera. It's the same issue. I can't hold the camera for more than 15 minutes before I have to relax and move the hands for a few minutes. But over the time in the cold, the hands become stiffer to where after 1-2 hours, I have to quit and seek shelter for 30+ minutes to warm the hands and get the fingers moving again.

I thought all this was just in my hands, which is the most common experience, and mine so far because I've always been able to walk around barefoot even in the winter, even walking home barefoot 3 miles in the rain this last fall because my shoes blistered my feet so bad I couldn't wear them. Or so I thought even through this last winter.

Well this spring when the first real warm weather began I noticed my toes, which had been cold and nearly white all winter, started to swell and turn bright red, and for a week literally hurt. Over the next month the red turned to deep reddening and then blistered. Not big obvious blisters, more like thin scabs, but enough to realize it's a mild-like case of stage two frost bite.

This last winter the temperatures didn't get below freezing, but the sustained cold with Raynaud's Syndrome created the same situation when significant circulation returned to the toes, they reacted like frostbite. And now I have 3-4 toes on each foot with the damage. I still go barefoot most days around the place, but until the weather gets better I'll have to wait for the toes to fully recover and return to their normal size and color.

So that's my life now and my work in photography. And I won't touch on the issue it's also a problem with my nose. No one likes a cold nose.

30 Years Later

2009-05-06T18:27:00.000-07:00

I wrote an essay about my Christmas Day in 1969, when a friend I went through technical school and I missed dinner at the chow hall, and finding all the local restaurants outside McClellan Air Force Base in Sacramento, California closed, we walked to the last place to eat, the flight line cafe, only to find the kitchen had closed for the day and all that was available was pre-made sandwiches, chips and coffee. That was my Christmas dinner.

Well, that friend, one of ten of us who graduated from special electronic technican school (AF job id 99125) at Lowry AF in Denver, Colorado, and I went our ways, him to the Squadron's airborne outfit and me to the ground based system I was trained on. All my career was spent in depot research, development and repairs, and outside of some temporary duties at Edwards AFB, California, Denver, Colorado, Fairbanks, Alaska, Washington DC, and Hanover, Germany, I spent the entire time there, being discharged January 2, 1973.

My friend, Richard Dickison, was later stationed in Japan, and stayed there after being discharged before coming back to the State in the mid-1970's with a Japanese wife. As I noted in the essay (above), I lost track of him along with all of the other 8 in our group. Well, that friend somehow found me and sent me an update, see his biography and sent along the link and an update to his life since we last met.

Well, life seems a quirky thing, especially these days with the Internet. And sure enough, the organization I was in has a Website, the AF Technical Applications Command. The command had several squadrons, one being the 1155th Technical Operations Squadron at McClellan AFB. I was there from September 1969 to January 1973 after basic training and technical school, March to September 1969.

What we did then was to be the US Government's monitor of the Nuclear Test Ban treaty. We had a number of systems to monitor nuclear tests and any denation similar to or related to nuclear tests anywhere on this earth, underground, underwater, surface and atmospheric, even on the moon. It's the nature the earth and nuclear explosions. I working with one of the system which monitored the earth's magnetic field, used mostly for the location, general timing and power of the test.

At the time our command was one of the highest priority organizations after the Strategic Air Commands Squadrons. During the 1970's many of the sytems were phased out or replaced with satellites and the organization was downgraded to Secret and dropped in priority. For awhile in the 1990s' the work was contracted out before being reassumed by the military about a decade or so ago (as far as I can find information, updates appreciated).

It was an interesting four years. We were the score keepers in the event of a nuclear war. There wasn't a place we couldn't detect a nuclear bomb explosion, even on the moon. Scary thought and nice to know we weren't really needed except to keep the other nuclear nations honest as they with us. The then Soviet Union has a complimentary organization as other countries had smaller ones or relied on either the Soviet Union or us for information.

And now the Christmas 1969 story has an ending.

My Rules

2009-03-12T15:15:00.000-07:00

I've written about Internet forums and those who create them are kings and dictators. I won't go into those issues here, because I want to explain what my rules are here for people interested in entering comments on the short essays. They're actually pretty simple and straight-forward as I'm fairly open-minded and flexible with comments and give the commentor a lot of latitude.

And with that said, here are the rules.

First, remember it's only life, meaning smile. I will take almost anything with a smile.

Second, be positive. Negatives will get your comment deleted. It's the old adage if you can't say anthing positive, don't say anything at all, and if you can't express a negative in a positive way, learn. It will save you all of anger at you later in life.

Third, be honest. Don't bullshit me.

Fourth, be on point. Off-point and your post is history. Want to say something else, get your own blog.

Fifth, teach. If I'm wrong, cool, teach me what you know or think is right.

Sixth, be open to discussion. A closed mind doesn't let any light in to refresh the spirit and soul, let alone learn.

Seventh, be real. Don't hide or disguise. I don't.

Eighth, don't advertise. That's the quickest way to be history.

Ninth, be understandable, meaning write correctly.

Tenth, be respectful. No personal attacks.

Eleventh, don't be indignant. Make your point but don't bludgeon the reader.

That's it for now. They're flexible and I'll update them as appropriate. And if you can't abide by them, I don't have a problem. I'm notified of comments and I'm the administrator. Your comments can easily be history. After all it's my blog. If you want to rant against my essay, use your own blog.

Looking Back 2008

2008-12-28T08:41:00.000-08:00

Many television shows, especially the news and information ones along with specials, take a look back at 2008, the people who left us, the events which changed the times, and places changed. And we all do that individually sometime between Christmas and New Years. I'm no different, so here's my thoughts looking back.

First, I didn't know John Stewart, the musician and later member of the Kingston trio died suddenly in January. I just now heard on a CBS Sunday Morning's look at people. I'm sorry. I followed the Kingston Trio with my brother from their founding to the split, and I saw them in concert later in the 1970's at a reunion show. I have many of John Stewart's albums after he left the Trio. A great writing and performing talent. I'm sorry.

Randy Pausch. What else is there to say, except watch his video or read his book.

Food. I love to eat many foods, and especially Mexican, Italian, German, and Japanese (no sushi though) foods; almost any meat, such as seafood and fish, poultry, and a really good roast and steak; and especially good old fashion American, from Pizza to hamburgers. But this year food doesn't like me, or worse, my body, namely my digestive system, doesn't like food. The tests to date can't find the cause or a cure, only that food, while enjoyable, isn't fun anymore.

Alas, I miss food. There's a hope an answer will be found in 2009. And it left me feeling tired most of the year making it harder to get back to where I was when it started. The best I can do is try, and I will.

Running and hiking. I didn't do enough. My mountain bike collected a lot of dust too.

Photography. I'm better but didn't do enough. I'm still learning large format (4x5) photography and it's still fun. Sometimes frustrating, mostly because you work for 30-60 minutes setting everything up and it's all in the last minute when you insert the film holder, cock the shutter, remove the film cover, trip the shutter, and put the cover back.

And you won't know if it worked - the exposure - until you get the film back from the lab. At $4+ a sheet now, there's not much room for many mistakes. And you feel good about your work when it does work. There's nothing like a 4x5 slide.

Ok, enough of not doing enough. The Mt. Rainier NP photography guide got a lot of new Web pages on-line. I have more in the works or on the list to do next year. But it was the 1896 expedition and the first USGS maps of the NP that took on a life of their own.

The period, 1890-1899, was a very important time in the work to get Mt. Rainier designated as a National Park. There was a lot going on in and around Mt. Rainier, namely a lot of people living and working in the area, and within the eventual NP boundaries, and a lot of pressure to develop the area and mountain.

It's turned out to be an interesting venture in learning about something we take for granted today, and see the history behind the work for its designation and the work afterward to preserve it with the pressure to develop and promote it. And overall they succeeded to give us the NP we have today.

Tying the past to the present is the fun part as well as learning about that period in the Pacific Northwest. To find archive material, from unpublished manuscripts and letters to published reports, is more than worth the work. To stand in the same places and see the same mountain, what more could you ask? And then read their thoughts expressed.

You can read all the reviews and news of the national events of 2008, I've added my opinions over the year in this blog and my other news and opinion blog. Mostly they're just thoughts and ideas in passing. I still believe what I wrote, but time has put them in perspective, sometimes right, sometimes wrong, and sometimes just there.

I'll continue into 2009 to do more as there's always something to say about the news, events and people. So, until this time next year, I'll just write about life as it is or I see it.

Christmas 2008

2008-12-25T11:27:00.000-08:00

I'm not a Christian, so the whole Christmas season and especially the day has different connotations and values for me. It's not that I don't believe in God, or some higher universal power, all religions and faiths and even agnostics believe in God. It's the religion and all its tenets, arbitrary values and innane practices that bothers me about all Christian religions.

And no religion is immune from the criticisms I level at Christian ones and Christianity. Being a Taoist I understand it's simply human nature and the social contract people create and make with each other. It's the simple reality and simply just is. There is no value judgement of good or bad, right or wrong, us or them, and so on with all the issues that Taoists believe, but the simple reality of humanity.

This doesn't mean we accept everything that happens. No one can argue that people do bad things, whether it's a common crime that occurs everyday in this country or you swindle people of $50 Billion. No one can argue that discrimination happens every day by ordinary people, many believing their faith assures or affirms it's right and just. It's not, but that fact doesn't stop them. And no one can argue that we're all self-centered and self-serving for most, all to some, things in our life.

Knowing it happens doesn't alter the truth and reality of it, only keeps in present in our consciousness that it's ever present. And we're just one of 6-plus billion people on this planet. Nothing more, nothing less, just one of the many. The difference is the qualitative judgement we make about it. And that always leads to the saying, "Everything is relative."

So, it's always our relative. Just don't make it universal to others. Be understanding and forgiving. After all, they're doing the same to you.

Observational Photographer

2008-10-23T07:28:00.000-07:00

I've always, like we all do, searching for the word(s) that describes me. It's the old question after we meet someone for the first time, "So, what do you do?" And we try to answer with short, cryptic words which summarizes our work to date. Like it really means anything?

For instance, I've always considered myself a geographer by education and a hydrologist by work, but it's really more than that. I'm innately a geographer. I'm a visual person, but more so, I see almost everything in terms of images and places. I see everywhere I go, not just seeing but remembering. I don't navigate by directions unless it's a place I've never been. I always navigate by scenes and places.

Geography is interwoven into my being, it's really that simple. And I'm a hydrologist by my career, but it's also more than that. I love rivers. Yes, I like being there and trying to understand them. But it's the flow of water that takes a whole new meaning to me. As a Taoist. It's a metaphysical thing. Rivers are just cool for themselves, and in and of themselves, and everything about them.

The whole dynamics of a river, the water, the landscape, the river course, the energy, and on and on. It's a Taoist experience. And that's interwoven in my mind.

But then I've always called myself a nature/landscape and street photographer, but that really not it. It was a handy description to use with people because they have an idea what and who that is. But then I found a term which fits the best. You know when something, like a word or a decision fits best when it both feels and thinks right?

And that is something Kent Budge uses. I'm an observational photographer. I take pictures of what I see. I try to capture and present that, what I saw. Nothing more and nothing less. Just what my photo-mind saw at that instant and decided to capture in the camera.

Almost all my street photographs are taken at eye level, looking in whatever direction I point the camera. The same is true of my nature and landscape photography, most are at eye level. I don't usually try to squat down or stretch up for a shot. I just see, capture and move on. Only occasionally will I spend more time looking for different angles or views, but almost always still photograph at eye level.

So, that's the best word I've found to date, I'm an observational photographer.

Ten years later

2008-10-21T17:54:00.000-07:00

When I was 49, shortly after my birthday, I was in the best physical shape I had been in since my military days. I'm not much of an exercise person per se, just enough to stay fit. Partly because I discovered I don't have fast twitch muscles to build strength and my metabolism doesn't allow prolonged activity such as running or hiking. At 49 I peaked at running 4-5 miles 3-4 days a week with once a week weight training.

And then the proverbial bottom fell out at work, they added additional work on unrealistic deadline, and my fitness fell along with it. I ended up in six months later 20 pounds heavier losing all the fitness I had spent the previous 3 years working hard to achieve. By my 50th birthday I was back to about half the running and nearly the same weight training, but not the same anymore.

At that time I made the promise to get better every year and evaluate my progress every birthday, and see if I can get back to the same level of fitness (and health associated with that fitness) as I was at 49. And you can guess the results, and while I found I didn't gain much ground I didn't lose ground either. I was ever so slowly getting better.

Until my 57th birthday when I started losing. And now at my 59th birthday? Well, I didn't lose but I haven't gained either.

I remember reading a story with Alan Page, one of the famous Minnesota Vikings defensive players during their heyday. He said he quit football in his 40's when he discovered it took more energy and time to keep the same level of strength and fitness the year before. And experts have said after 50 the best you can do is slow the decline of your body, fitness and health.

And so for my 59th birthday I'm trying to make the promise I made at 49, to be better by my next (now 60th) birthday and ever so slowly get better, or at least not get worse. Or so that's the new plan. I have no ideas anymore if that is realistic, let alone possible, but considering the alternative, it's better than them.

As for progress, I'll keep you posted.

Stay warm and dry

2008-08-05T17:39:00.000-07:00

I joined the USGS August 14, 1978 with the Eugene, Oregon office. I spent the Friday before starting the following Monday in the Portland, Oregon office with the personnel specialist becoming a USGS employee and civil servant with the US federal government. I was then a "civil servant" and relished in the role representing the public in my job and work with the USGS. Linda and I went back to Eugene where we found a house to rent to get ready for Monday.

My first few days with the office was sitting at a desk, getting organized - meaning getting my own streamgaging equipment tested and ready, reading manuals and becoming familar with the place and people. I spent most of the first month on field trips with the three other field people learning the basics of stream gaging and producing the data (called records then). I learned three different ways to service gages and making discharge measurements.

I wasn't until the late fall where I got my own field trip (Willamette River trip from Eugene to the headwaters in the central Cascade Mountains) after going on the trip with the lead technician to learn the gages and work. And it wasn't until the winter when I got my first real experience streamgaging in cold, rainy weather. But Linda helped getting what she thought was a good rainsuit. And I thought too.

Well, my first field trip entirely in the rain was interesting. I hate being wet. I don't know why, some childhood trauma or some such thing, but I hate being wet. Anyway, but Friday afternoon the raincoat was shredded. The seams tore and leaked and the pant ripped. The whole rainsuit was junk, plain and simple, and after the last gage on Friday I was thoroughly wet. I drove back to the office and put the stuff on my desk, and said I would clean out my truck Monday.

But just after bitching about my rainsuit, and Mikey (lead technician) listened with a smile of knowledge and experience ("Been there, done that."), the boss walked up to me and in a callous tone said, "There is no excuse for being wet or cold.", and walked out the door to go home. That pissed me off.

So, the next day I went to an outdoor recreation store in Eugene and bought a new (then) technology Gore-Tex rainsuit for $100 (remember it's 1978 prices). It was plain and simple. No pockets, minimal seams (sealed), and totally rainproof. I also bought some good wool blend long underwear and an English wool fisherman's sweater.

I spent the next years in the field with the Eugene office being warm and dry, and only my hands got wet. I have never regretted the money spent then, and all of the clothes are still in use. The sweater still fits and works great. The underwear has been replaced with synthetic wool-blend ones but I still wear them in very cold weather. And the rainsuit?

Well, its survived through the four years in Oregon and five years in Arizona before the seams leaked after washing and resealing and the Gore-Tex began delayering (bubbles) on the inside. But it's sits in the emergency clothing back in the Van to use if and when it's needed. It still does a great job except in downpours and long periods of rain. For that I upgraded to a new rainsuit.

In 1988 I bought a North Face Expedition Rainsuit at their store in Seattle ($750 in 1988 prices). It has a lifetime warranty and has done weeks on end in the rain and cold and I'm always warm and dry. I couldn't be happier with it. It doesn't work well in warmer rainy weather but I have other raincoats for those period, but once it's below 50 degrees, and especially below 40 degrees, it's a godsend.

And so my advice to anyone who works or wants to be outdoors is the same, "Stay warm and dry." And I am quite comfortable and warm no matter the rain.

My Thesis

2008-07-02T14:01:00.000-07:00

I was wandering around the Internet the other day and found the the on-line listing of my Master's Degree thesis in the catagory of the library at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. My sole claiim to academic fame, well outside, of the one study I've had published, which was an article for "Shore and Beach" professional journal in graduate school for a professor researching coastal erosion.

Both were interesting to do, but the thesis was the second attempt at one. I actually left the university in 1978 to start my career with the USGS in Eugene, Oregon. Since my first thesis topic, the perception of floods and flood hazards in the Skagit River valley, Washington, imploded, with well over half of it done - long story about doing survery in small populations where you need a high level of cooperation and participation, I bagged the whole idea until a few years later.

When I went through college after the service (USAF 1969-73), I started with a local community college (American River College) and found a terrific instructor, Bob Christopherson, who went on to write a series of "Geosystems" text books, and travels, lectures and other publications after his retirement from ARC. And I found what I like to know more than anything, geography.

After getting my basic course and introductory geography courses done, with a few not so great grades in classes I didn't care much for, after all it was the early 1970's and I was young, married and working - ok, nice excuse but the stuff was boring and I wanted to learn other things, I transferred to California State University Sacramento. For all of $100 per quarter plus books I got a BA degree in Geography and got accepted to Western's Geography Department.

On the way to Bellingham, being December 1975 when it was under a 100-year flood, we crossed the Skagit River valley and I was enthralled and amazed at the place, the sheer extent of flooding and flood damage. I wondered how in the world could people not see the potential destruction and the reality of floods. I decided then and there that was my thesis topic, and everything else was secondary.

Nice concept, and it almost worked. I spent my independent study credits to do the background research and get the thesis framework done. I used the coastal erosion study to research and learn natural hazard perception study pioneered by Gilbert White at the University of Chicago Geography Department. When I had finished the formal coursework I had two of the three chapters for the thesis done.

I only needed to get the result of the surverys. I had surveyed three communities in the upper Skagit River valley, Concrete, Hamilton and Lyman, all in the floodplain and severely flooded in the December 1975 flood. Each had about 50 houses, so I needed 30-40 respondents from each town. That was the plan. I got about ten from each, even after followup contacts to help get responses.

I later learned from some people that while there were the best places for the study I simply picked towns with people who hated government and/or anyone like me who wanted them to fill out a survey or respond personally to someone. Several professors said I had the perfect case study, one suggested making it PhD dissertation since I was pushing the envelope of the technique and application.

I just wanted people to fill out my survey or answer them in person. I and the thesis was stuck and I needed a job. Anyway, two months later the USGS called with a job offer which I accepted to start in Eugene, Oregon office.

When I was (forced) transferred to Phoenix, Arizona, meaning move or be fired (long story about management ineptness and dumbness) I decided to get a conversion from being a hydrologic technician to a professional hydrologist. Why? Money, pure and simple. I wanted to get to a GS-12 and higher if possible to retire before 60 with a good annuity. That was the plan and as that plans needed, I needed the MS degree to get the conversion and promotions.

And so reviewing the old thesis I discovered it wasn't worth the time and travel, so I found a new one. Bob Hirsch, currently Associate Director for Water Programs but then a research hydrologist had developed a statistical technique to assess water quality data over time. They applied this to the NASQAN program data being collected at several hundred stream gages around the country.

Their results determined that some basins didn't have any significant or even discernible trend, two of which were on the Oregon coast where I was one of the two technicians who collected the data over the years of the data. I wanted to know why there wasn't a trend in the data. So I found Hirsch's study and report he developed with Jim Slack.

And yes, I discovered why, which wasn't the fault of the data so much as the timing of the data collection and flow for the period of data collection. But I also discovered the coastal rivers were unique in that the water quality was unusually low in major constituents with significant contributions from precipitatioin and that the water in the groundwater system has a short residence time, meaning from precipitatiion to streamflow was measured in a months than the normal years.

When I reported the results of my research which showed we (USGS) needed better ways to monitor the timing of routine water quality data collection, I was ignored. The problem is that consistently timed samples are the best for time trend studies but not good for representing flow, and samples collected for representing flow don't do well for trend studies. The answer was a combination where you sample for flow within time windows.

But this isn't what management wanted to hear. They liked work scheduled, and let the rest take care of itself. That, however, misses the importance and power of the data to be useful for additional analysis of other factors besides just time. It's sometimes more important to have the data represent the basin characteristics other than time, such as flow, events, surface/groundwater contributions, etc. Or so I thought but they didn't.

Anyway, I think it's funny that something I did over 20 years ago has come back to find me, or I found it. And sorry, it's a very dull read, so don't waste your time.

My Father

2008-06-14T08:55:00.000-07:00

Father's Day is this weekend. My father died November 8, 1994, just two days past his 75th birthday. In his later years of life, after a quintuple heart bypass, which the cardiologist said would only extend his life a year, two at most, he set three goals in his life, to pay off the 30-year mortage to his home in Aurora, Colorado, the first and only home my parents every bought and then owned, to celebrate the 50th anniversary with my Mom, and to see his 75th birthday.

And the morning after this birthday, he didn't get out of bed. He fell into a semi-conscious state and died the next day. He didn't recognize anyone around him and he kept having conversations with people long dead. My sister and brother's children were there and try as they may to say goodbye to their grandfather, he didn't even recognize them. My Mom was saddened that he, the man she spent over 50 years with, didn't even recognize her. I doubt she ever got over it, until she died in 2006.

So what can I say about Father's Day? Not much because I was estranged from Dad and he was enstranged from us kids. He kept to himself for the entire time we grew up. He was an Air Force officer with a career goal in mind, which I suspect he didn't quite get there, retiring one rank lower than he wanted, as is the politics in the military. When we were in Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, he wanted to be a full colonel, but that wasn't in their plans.

So he agreed to transfer to Germany, get the promotion to lieutenant colonel, and retire with 23+ years. I can't argue with the time we had there, it was great for a kid to live there in the early 1960's. And while he made time for some events in our lives, he mostly spent the time working. I can only really thank him for the trips to auto races in Germany and France, seeing international Formula and sports car races and some of the greatest drivers in the world.

It was at one of those races I pretty much lost any interest my Dad had in me, and really more of anger and maybe even hate. It's a long story but my brother and I were horsing around and caused a pot of hot water to spill into his lap as he was making dinner for us on the last night there. He was taken to a local hospital, but he blamed and never forgave me. I can understand but can't understand. Aren't parents supposed to love you?

Anyway, he was also a little angry at Mom when we left Germany. He was being transferred to the States to retire (requirement). Mom wanted the family to go home, visit the folks (both) and then move to Colorado. But Dad had a lucrative job offer to work in London with a significant pay raise in the same field of security. Mom threatened to take the family home if he took the offer.

I'm not sure if she would have done that but Dad decided to decline the offer. My brother and I agreed with Dad. Having lived in Eurpore for half my life then I liked Europe and wanted to grow up in London and England. And Greg was in his first year of college so he could transfer anywhere and also liked living in Europe. I don't know what my sister wanted, but it always seemed Mom was the only one who wanted to go home.

After we travelled around and settled in Denver, Dad found a job with the Civil Service as an entry level property manager. Over the years he rose to a GS-1, a grade lower than he wanted, but always took pride in his work. Then when faced with some extensive surgeries his boss told him to retire instead. Again, faced with the choices, he didn't meet his own expectations. And in retirement, he rarely did anything as his ailments and conditions simply caused his body to slowly quit.

Over the years after I was kicked out of the house, we rarely spoke and mostly his advice was do what you're told and don't complain. What could one expect from a career civil servant? He rarely spoke about me with the other kids, let alone having done some of the first thing in our extended family or to accomplish some career goals.

He never understood why I went to graduate school to get a Masters degree in geography, and when I sent him the thesis, he put it away and never mentioned it again. When I was promoted to a GS-12 he didn't say anything. Only when Linda and I divorced, the first in the extended family did he mention I didn't do enough to keep the marriage together for the sake of the family.

The last time I saw him was a year before he died and less than a year after his heart bypass. He was so self-absorbed he didn't really notice much except just living. He looked, as they say, like death warmed over, as I learned the next year when Mom called to say he passed away.

In the end, Dad lived with his own demons, from his time at home in the late 1930's before he joined the Army during WW II, and he took them with him. I'm sorry he never learned to express himself. It was his personality but he missed the opportunity to be a father and a dad.

Being angry

2008-05-20T05:13:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine lives in the southeast and her friend is currently in Phoenix for a workshop. She wrote me about a short trip her friend took which reminded me of the nearly five years I spent in Arizona and the big desert rivers northwest of Phoenix on the highway to Williams. I had that area for field work for a year, the standard time after which trips are rotated.

My friend wrote that she was sorry about the painful memories, and I had to think they weren't painful, as I've said the experience there was professionally very rewarding but personally sucked. Not because of the rivers, although there were times I hated the work, but because of living in Phoenix, and one other thing that haunted my entire time there. Having to go there and having to be there after promises by management about my future there.

At the time I was sent there I only had four years in the USGS, all in the Eugene, Oregon office with four other people, an office chief, a secretary and two other field technicians. The office chief and one technician had their minimum 30 years in the USGS and were eligible to retire. But the senior management in Portland had decided they were immune from pressure to retire.

Then the news came down the (Oregon) District wouldn't balance its budget if it didn't lose people. And so employees on a list of people who were single and didn't own homes, meaning could transfer soon and cheaply, were selected and offered to other Districts. The Arizona District which had a problem recruiting people accepted two on what's call forced transfers.

A forced transfer is where your "ticket", meaning your personnel slot - every federal employee has an assigned slot to meet personnel requirements for staffing and quotas - is transferred elsewhere and you either accept the transfer or "be resigned", meaning your resignation will be submitted in your place. That's the deal, keep your job there or you're fired.

Doing some homework, these are technically illegal and the requirements for the list of names is discrimination. In addition, more money is saved forcing a retirement that forcing a transfer, generally two or three to one, based on salary and benefits. So the forced transfers weren't about money or people. So what then? Beats me as I've never understood it.

Anyway, the technician, who like me was new to the USGS, was given the choice of Flagstaff or Phoenix, you can guess which he took, and I got the other one. And so I went to Arizona. I was angry in Eugene getting ready to leave, on the trip there and the whole five years there. It changed my career and life, and I still haven't gotten over the anger at the management in Portland about the decision.

And worst of all is the anger I had there. It shaped my whole attitude there. I was promised a short time and a transfer back within 3 years, except I kept seeing vacancy announcements for the Portland field office for the jobs they sent us here for. But it took applying for two of those vacancies to learn I wasn't even being considered to return. The management had made the decision to forget I ever worked there.

I eventually got a conversion from a technician to a professional hydrologist in Phoenix and some project work with reports which I never got to write after doing most to nearly all of the work on them. I also got the chance to learn a new facet of the USGS, real-time data systems and get the opportunity to transfer to Tacoma, Washington. It's as is always said, "And the rest of the story...."

My friend reminded me of my anger. During our exchange of e-mails I used Google Earth and Map to check out the some of the desert gages I serviced and see how much my anger inhibited me from being open to the desert environment and learning more than I did there. And while I worked in and learned about five of the seven desert zones of the Southwest (California to New Mexico and Nevada into Mexico), I could have learned and enjoyed more.

I wore my anger like a shirt (you don't need coats in Phoenix) and never took it off the whole time. I did a greater variety of field work there than I did in Oregon or Washington combined, and much of it in the desert and moutain backcountry. It's beautiful country and I let my anger prevent me from seeing all I could see.

The moral of the story is that anger never helps you and only hurts. Not just you from having new experiences and becoming a better person, but the people around you who see and feel your anger. You don't hide it, it's as obvious as they say, the nose on your face. It's always there in your body, your manner, your words, your tone and tune, etc. You hand it out every time you work or talk with someone else.

And setting it aside isn't the answer. You have to get through it and forget it. And despite hating your situation, it's all you got at the moment. It's your reality, and that's the one thing you can control. It's your choice, and from experience I can say anger isn't worth the trip and baggage.

Mother's Day

2008-05-12T05:55:00.000-07:00

This last three years I've let Mother's Day slide. Mom passed away St. Patrick's Day 2006 after a stroke a few days earlier (at age 87). Although I was kicked out of the house at 19, my Dad's famous word, "Son, I want you to have a life, just don't have it here.", and joined the military (Vietnam era), I kept in touch with letters and phone calls. I only went home for reunions and funerals. Suffice it to say I wasn't their favorite child (of 3), and as I learned later in life I wasn't planned and left to my own devices for life and learning.

My Mom was a socialite when she was young, and after marrying Dad, became an officer's wife. She revelled in the social scene. She's a people person who wants and needs friends, and her children were just that, children. We had nannies until we came back from England and once we were in school, she showed us everything we needed to get ready for school, how to fix our own breakfast, make our own lunch, get cleaned and dressed, and schedule our time to meet the bus.

She also showed us how to get through life, from cleaning our room and helping around the house with chores. Although she did the work wifes are expected to do, she only liked it when she was preparing for parties, and when Dad retired from his first career to start another, she went to work for her own career, becoming his equal in the terms of position and pay. She also put the rest of life learning on us to become self-sufficient.

When Mom retired, and after Dad retired for the second time, she became a social person again, joining clubs and doing volunteer work. Simply to be around people and enjoy friends. She even left Dad to his own devices. When Dad passed away, and after the estate was settled, she moved into a condominuim to simplify life and be around people. Until my sister and her family moved back to Montana, where she moved.

And can't know the details of her life there, but I gathered from the calls it wasn't what she wanted nor liked, but accepted as my sister was the last of her family, except me who wasn't around and didn't like travelling anymore. She suffered a stroke March 14th and lapsed into a semi-conscious state, and according to my sister, never fully regained consciousness. She passed away quietly the morning of the 17th, was cremated and then buried two months later next to Dad.

When my sister, being the executor of the estate, settled everything she sent me a copy of the will, because I wondered why all I got was the small life insurance. The will explicitly stated that I was to recieve nothing of the family estate. It turned out that since my sister (and parents in the mix) and I have issues with each other, I didn't attend her son's funeral (suicide). Mom never let me know she was hurt and she never understood why my sister and I disagreed throughout our lives on almost every issue.

Anyway, parents are an interesting mix of people and parents. I saw them as people and they wanted me to see them as parents. But how can you when they made your life lonely and miserable? And then come home when they want you to and show your love? For all the guilt they piled on? I know a lot is my own doing, but I'm not entirely to blame, everyone else in the family can stand in line and take some of it to balance it between them and me.

So, in the end, Mother's Day has always been a day of mixed feelings. While I celebrated what she did for me, what she taught me, even though some of it wasn't intentional, and for what she gave me, I can't help but still find my love for her has reservations. The old adage, "I love you (pause), but..."

My first jobs

2008-05-07T16:34:00.000-07:00

I was reading an article recently about the prospects of summer jobs for young people. The news didn't sound good since it said the unemployment rate of 16-19 year olds for the summer of 2007 was 35% and most of the new jobs are the obvious entry level, minimum wage jobs. Well, I guess while the minimum wage hasn't increased at the rate of inflation over the years, it made me think of my first jobs.

I graduated from high school in June 1967 (when I was 17) and since I worked the previous summer doing landscaping work for the family and neighbors it really wasn't a real job. So I had the choice before I began college in September of that, which I hated, or find a job on my own. Well, I had applied for the civil service and hadn't heard anything by Memorial Day. But then I got a call for an interview, after which I was hired.

My first job was with testing center for the now Office of Personnel Management. The government in the 1960's used a central test distribution center for all government tests for government and military jobs. All tests were printed, stored and distributed from the one facility in Denver. I would be a sorter and packer at the entry level of a GS-2 step 1, about $1.60 an hour. Really.

My job was to take orders for tests from offices throughout the government, go around the warehouse to collect all the materials needed, such as booklets, forms, pencils, etc. for the number of people requested. We used several long tables where one person would get and spread out all the materials, a second person would check the number and materials, and a third would put all the materials in to boxes.

The first person would then prepare the package(s) so that no tape end seam showed and the last end seam was covered by the shipping label. This would ensure than anyone opening the package in transit would leave a cut or end seam that would be evident when received. We also checked all materials which were returned from offices to ensure all the tests were accounted for by the testing office to us.

That was the whole job. Every day doing basically the same thing, packaging tests and checking the returned tests. Our supervisor did the work if the numbers of returned test didn't match those sent. By late August I had my fill of filling new order and checking return orders, so I quit. They wouldn't let me work part-time or other than normal hours to go to college, so it was the choice of the job or college.

Well, college won but Dad told me I had to continue working. I never understood that logic since neither my older brother and sister didn't have to work while in college. But then I was told that there wasn't any money left for my college. After my brother's five years, his transfer to Oklahoma and return, his marriage and first house, and after my sister's junior college (in western Colorado), Dad was nearly broke.

To pay for my college my Dad, my brother and I split the tuition. In addition I had to pay for my books and car. So I needed a new job. Well, it took a few months into college but driving home one day I passed a small shopping center. One of the stores was a Gold Bond (stamp) redemption store. In the 1960's stores gave stamps as incentive to buyers. The stamps were collected into books and the books could be exchanged for merchandise at their stores.

In the window of the store was a sign, "Help Wanted: Warehouseman". I stopped by talked with the manager a few minutes and about 20 minutes later I was hired. I was their only warehouseman (small store) and the job was to unload truck, usually filled with pallets of merchandise, check it against the shipment inventory, put it all into their warehouse, and then help customers out with the merchandise to their cars.

It too was a $1.60 an hour job. The same rules with my Dad applied for paying for college, but during the next summer I worked extra hours and days to earn money. This included working in other stores, a larger one where I later transferred because it was closer to college with more hours, and the main warehouse in north Denver. I worked there until I left for basic training in the Air Force in March 1969.

Looking back, it wasn't a well paying job, but I liked it. I was in charge of a warehouse, and kept all the merchandise in place and the warehouse clean. And in 1967 and 68, everything else was the greater world I would eventually wander into in my life.

My summer of 72

2008-03-26T12:08:00.000-07:00

I got an e-mail from someone through my Website after reading my post about my almost court martial, wanting to know if I was one of a dozen or so troops who spent the summer of 1972 (about Memorial Day to Labor Day) working outside of Eielson Air Force Base (AFB), Alaska. I had almost forgotten that time.

I can't remember the circumstances behind the reason the group of a dozen or so of us lower grade enlisted troops were sent from McClellan AFB, but it was the closest unit and base in our organization and being the central global maintenance and engineering unit for the organization. For me, they just wanted me away for a while after winning the initial round of hearings cancelling the rest of the court martial.

Anyway, we flew to Anchorage on commercial airline, transferred to a military cargo plane to fiy to Eielson AFB. It was late May and I remember the sun not setting until after 2 am and rising about 4 am. I didn't sleep well the whole time for the amount of daylight. We had two major tasks.

The first was to remove all the buried pipe associated with the sonic or weather system used to detect, er. monitor nuclear detonations. But first a diversion.

All nuclear explosions have common characteristics, which are part of the actual explosion or material. We had a system for each of the different types of detonations (underground, underwater, surface or atmospheric) and specific characteristic(s). These were housed in ground-based locations, and included seismic, magnetic, electrical, barometric, sonic, and light systems with airborne and ship-based systems for direct observation and sampling.

The barometric system used an array of specific size and spaced pipes and sensors to detect the pressure wave generated by a detonation. The sensor array and equipment are used to capture the pattern of atmospheric pressures changes and any anomalies, such as a sudden pressure wave by a nuclear detonation. This system was being phased out, and under the agreement with any landowners, we were obligated to remove any signs of our equipment.

All I remember is much of the old pipes and sensors were buried - meaning long since not working as they have to be exposed to the atmosphere to work, and they were on the University of Alaska campus. Try removing hundreds of feet of pipe with sensor heads about 10 feet, some of which was buried a few inches to a foot or more wasn't fun. And one pipe section actually went under a tree. It was left there broken and the closest joints.

The other work I remember was installing extra cable for the seismic arrary miles from the station on the base. The organization had what they called a "deep hole" seismic sensor, down just over a mile. Nuclear detonations send seismic waves similar to an earthquake which reverberate around the world. Most of the seismic, B system, sites had shallow sensors, about a thousand feet or less, but Eielson had the deepest hole for testing and monitoring.

Every system had its sensors far from any human activity and far from the station to ensure a better signal and reduce noise and inteference. And every system ran a duplicate sets of cables, one set not used, but then avaiable to simply switch connections at junction points during cable breakage or failure, common in some areas from weather or people, or during bad weather or immediate situations.

The problems with cable failure was common as it was normal to go through a complete set of spare cables in 1-3 years. In Greenland and Alaska the problems was simply the cold weather would snap cables or break connectors. In some areas, like Thailand, Iran, etc., sections of cables, which were in quarter mile length between connectors, were stolen by local theives.

In Alaska we were running them a new direction to the station, across the backcountry around the base and along roads to and on the base. In some cases the poles were only just installed a week or so before and hadn't fully settled into the ground to the permafrost. They swayed with leaned against and moved or tilted when cabbles were hung. Not a fun job climbing the poles to secure the cables, something I refused to do.

But it was the backcountry that was the best experience. It was my first trip there. We used a Nodwell, painted bright yellow with a stakeside bed for the cable spools and extra equipment for connectors, etc. This, also, was my first experience with these vehicles. And they are cool.

Our job for the first stretch was to unspool the cable and lay it on the ground. We did this through the forest, just laying it in cable bundles on the forest floor. And we did this across open areas, which is where I learned about fen, a type of subarctic bog. It's different in its structure, composition, soil, plants, water source, etc. from bogs, muskeg and other types.

It's the water source that distinguishes it. It's fed by groundwater where the land is completely water logged with a mass of plants living in an anaerobic environment. Underlying it could be peat or other material and more water, but the permafrost is significantly deeper than other areas around it.

The last distinguishing feature is that it supports weight, almost any weight, including the Nodwell, weighing in with all of our gear and equipment at over 12 tons. I know this because my job was to follow it and unwind the cable(s). And walking behind it across a fen is literally awesome.

It's like walking across a sponge filled shallow lake. You almost float on your feet. Each step sinks about an inch, feels bouncy beneath you, and fills quickly when you move your foot, like you weren't even there. You simply trusted you won't sink and you don't. And the Nodwell only sank a little more than your foot. They just drove it straight across the fen.

I could write more stories about the work and with the Nodwell, like taking it vertical over a railroad bed (it's rear drive literally pushes the front, and as long you can have traction, it willl climb, and almost straight up), or almost losing it when it decided to slide into a lake (we backed out and took a different route around the lake), or after crossing a bridge we saw the sign that read, "10 ton limit", or getting a lesson in ways to high center a 12 ton tracked vehicle (meaning you are really stuck).

It is the fen that I remember the most, those small patches of nature that surprise the senses. I went back to Alaska in the early 1990's, to Anchorage for a week. This wasn't an enjoyable trip and Anchorage in the spring, just after snowmelt, isn't pretty. And I didn't get to travel beyond work and the hotel, and then travel home.

But I will remember the fen, and of course the Nodwell.

The choices we make

2008-03-22T13:02:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this on a Saturday where I'm more or less puttering around the place. But it's also a beautiful day here in the Puget Sound, a rare early spring day with sunshine. And even with cirro-cumulus clouds, thin as they are, the sun shines through. And despite the cool temperatures, freezing this morning and barely near normal with the sun's warmth, it's good enough to open the windows wide and clear the stale air inside. In short, a great day to be somewhere, but home.

But home is where I am, today. I often take days off from life, especially now in retirement - I won't say officially that I also took an occasional mental health day from work for days I just didn't feel like being there. Now it's often a day a week, one-seventh of my life, just to be home and not go anywhere, to just be here in comfortable surroundings and do what the moment thinks, such as mentally wandering in a post on this blog.

And I get to not think, but just open the mind to whatever occurs.

And in this day when the temperature barely sneaks into the low 50's, mild compared to the rest of the northern tier of this country this day, where snow falls on everything and freezing temperatures chill the day and people. And melting snow the river valleys south floods land and scurries people from their homes, I like to feel cold. As I get older, I get more sensitive to the cold, but I seem to feel the need to feel cold to some degree.

When I lived in Phoenix, Arizona, I wanted so to feel cold I sometimes drove to the northern rim of the Grand Canyon, to just stand on the edge of time and feel cold. Down to my bones, down into my bones where cold had replaced everything part of my body's warmth. And then I would drive home. I still do that occasionally, stand in the cold day to just feel cold until my body is cold. And then I go inside.

I am always struck with this need. I suffer from Raynauds syndrome. I've always had cold hands, even in warm weather. People always said the old saying, "Cold hand, warm heart." Well, it's partly true because it's the result of this syndrome. And it was triggered during some field work at Big Creek near Grisdale. I never recovered and moved into supervisory and later technical management within a year.

And now anything cold, even taking something out of the refrigerator and especially the freezer gives me problems, where my hands begin to get so cold the fingers begin to stiffen. Within a few minutes, if I held it, I wouldn't be able to have much movement. In the winter the skin on my fingers becomes so tight it splits open under and along the nail, at the knuckles and especially at the tips of the fingers.

And in the last few years it's snuck into my toes. I love walking barefoot, even in the winter around the house or even outdoors for quick chores like the taking out the trash. But now, while I still walk barefoot, the toes get cold and start turning white, and turn bright red when blood flow returns. The issues of getting old, nothing new but it's still new to me.

And I get to putter in the kitchen. I love a nice eye roast. It's one of the few meats I can eat anymore as a result of an overly sensitive digestive system. I describe it as it's not what I can't eat anymore but what I can, all of which can be written on one 4x6 postit note. Makes shopping easy, one would think?

But nay. I love food and I love wandering in a good grocery store, the smell and sight of all the foods. It makes me feel alive and there in the moment. And the thought it all, through the tremendous global ecomonic system of today, exists for me then and there. If only we in America can learn to appreciate what this means when most of the world doesn't even know and many can't grasp the scene.

Because poverty rules the world. Poverty of our own making. Poverty we can overcome if it weren't for politics and greed. Simple human traits. We can't overcome those with our goodness. I haven't figured out why, and likely never will, but accept the opportunity I have now to experience a grocery store. And don't get me started on drug stores. Or shopping centers. The state of the world we have and live in. It should be better, and we're both the problem and the solution.

And so my mind can wander around the mischievous thoughts that happen. Even wonder who left their newspaper. And did they leave any thoughts with it or take them with them.

A Court Martial

2008-03-09T14:42:00.000-07:00

Well, not quite, because I was saved, but damn near. For a court martial to happen there is a long, involved procedure, from the investigation to the actual hearing and judgement. And before it all happens someone has to read you your rights, usually your commanding officer. And not your immediate one, but usually the senior commander of the organizational unit.

In my case, being in the 1155th Technical Operations Group at McClellan Air Force Base, Sacramento California. It was depot maintenance and repair facility for the worldwide operations of the 1035th Technical Operations Command. At the time we were the only Command outside the Strategic Air Command groups with a high priority and classification in the Air Force.

What made us so important? We monitored the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (test ban) Treaty. In the early 1960's the US and then Soviet Union (unofficially) agreed to each having systems capable of monitoring any nuclear explosion (test) anywhere in the world. We each had almost parallel systems of types and locations. It's now done by satellites, but it was then all done with ground systems with airborne and naval systems for live monitoring.

The whole thing required top secret clearances from the lowest level airman to the highest general. I had one as well as many other young enlistees. I served my four years and left, but not without some drama.

When I was on a temporary duty assignment at our headquarters southwest of Washington D.C., I made an off-hand comment to a senior sargent - I was a first year sargent - and he took offense. When I got back to my normal work station two weeks later after being in Germany, I was greeted with a notice by my supervisor that the sargent had filed a complaint demanding I be investigated and court martialed.

Well, the first thing that happens is someone reads you your rights. In my case our group commander, a two-star general stood about a foot from me, looked at me, and read me my legal rights. And then explained the proceedure for a court martial. After a pause, and before excusing me (you just can't leave a room, you have to be ordered or instructed to leave), he wished me good luck.

After I left the room, I talked with the first sargent, a unit's highest ranking non-commissioned officer (NCO) who handles all affairs with NCO's, who also wished me luck. I had a good company first sargent and commander, they knew the situation and the people, and both enjoyed and liked the young NCO's. But they had to follow the rules and intent of Headquarters (where that sargent was stationed and I made the comment), but they didn't have to mean it.

Anyway, after an investigation, there is a hearing. The unit I worked in was technical engineering where my immediate supervisor, a career Captain was an asshole. He didn't like young NCO's. but the office commander was a Lt. Colonel who had served two tours in Vietnam. After reading the charges and the initial investigator's report, he was simply astounded.

The key here is that you, the charged, have a choice. You can admit guilt and accept an adminstrative reprimand or face a general court martial, investigation, hearing and all, and the odds aren't on your side. In almost every case, some charges are found to sustain disciplinary action with the either a demotion or discharge. In short, if you force the issue to the court martial, they will find you guilty.

I was faced with the choice of the lessor or, as they say, bet the farm. I talked with friends, one of whom had accepted an administrative reprimand and regretted it. Everyone, except the Captain, recommended I make them prove their case. I told my commanding officer of my decision. He called me into his office before the hearing. We had an interesting conversation, and all he asked for was honesty and after heariing my side of the story, he told me he would represent me at the hearing.

It was interesting having a senior commanding officer as your representative. He made it clear to the hearing officials the charges weren't worth more than an apology, and that wasn't from me either, but the board. He said he had found a lot worse offenses in Vietnam, almost all of whom were excused as incidental, and not investigated, let alone requiring disciplinary action. And he told the board he was willing to defend me throughout the whole proceedure.

This was my saving grace. Having a respected Lt. Colonel on your side against the establishment changed the dynamics. They couldn't just accept the complaintant's story, since it was just between the two of us, as fact. And they had to face if the charges were really that serious. It was 1972. I was young with an excellent record, no bad or black marks. And while all my supervisors said I did have an "attitude problem" they all said my work was outstanding.

At the time I worked with a variety of engineers. My job was being a member of a team building and testing new equipment, having spent 2+ years repairing the equipment. I had to turn engineering plans into prototype models, test them, and then develop and write instructions and manuals for the installation and maintenance of the new equipment. I also went on world tours installing the new equipment, like headquarters where I made the comment.

In the end, the board dismissed the charges. They didn't have the interest to fight the Lt. Colonel. But they also didn't want me to get away without some disciplinary action, and the most they could impose was removal from consideration for promotion in the next cycle. That's the key, if you lose, you can lose everything, but if you, you win everything and keep them from doing anything against you.

So, that was it. All that was left was the notice about my promotion, or being removed from consideration. I was called into a room with three senior NCO's. They explained the decision and handed me a document to sign accepting it. I read it and asked if it was for only the next cycle. "Yes.", they said. "And I'd be eligible for the one after that?", I asked. "Yes.", they said. I quickly signed the document.

They were kinda' stunned. I smiled and started to leave. They stopped me, and said, "You signed it very quickly. You're not worried about losing eligibility for promotion?" I replied, "No, because I didn't qualify. I will make the cycle after that and be promoted." You could almost feel the sudden feeling of stupidity. I asked, "You didn't with check the promotion board?" "No.", they said. "Well, I did.", I replied.

So I left. And the rest of the story?

Well, I did make the promotion cycle after that and was offered my fourth stripe if I re-enlisted. I didn't, and as luck would have it, I took my discharge. The Air Force even forgave me the 2 year inactive duty required with enlistments, and gave me my full discharge. And so on January 2, 1973, we parted company. I walked out of McClellan AFB and never looked back.

And even 36 years later, there hasn't been anything I've done that's been that tough. And I tell people after a two-star general reads you your rights, everthing else isn't all that bad.

The Choices we make

2008-02-13T05:03:00.000-08:00

The choices we make eventually come back to knock on our door. We don't pay much attention to most, if not all of them, until later in life, when they're standing in front of us and there is little we can do except realize the reality of them. This is an old thought in human history, and something all of us do, the decisions and actions of our youth played out. But they find us as we find ourselves facing our past and facing the decisions and actions of others from what we did and said.

On my desk is a small cutout of one panel of a Peanuts cartoon from long ago. Charlie Brown is lying in bed with the sheets puttled up to his chin and head against the pillow with his eyes wide open. Above him is the caption he is thinking, "Never lie in bed and ask yourself questions you can't answer." It's always stuck with me, because it's something we all do, and we all find ourselves in the darkness wondering, either why or why we're thinking why.

The reason for this thought? My Mom passed away March 17, 2006. And easy day to remember. She lived her later years in Billings, Montana. Not a place she loved, but lived to be near my sister who moved there shortly before from Denver, Colorado where both of them had lived since 1964. After Dad died in 1994, she sold the house and moved into a condominium. But neither she or Dad were good money managers and my sister had to help her manage things.

And this is the reason for this essay. I live outside Seattle, Washington. In December 1968 I was told by Dad to leave his home (essay about it). My Mom was never told about this for another 25+ years and always thought I left for my own reasons. And even after my brother's funeral and my Dad's death, she never understood why I hated to come home.

It's one thing to reconcile past differences and another to ignore they ever happened. My Mom choose the latter and even after our frequent conversations and my letters she never came around to understand my feelings and perspective about what happened between Dad and I in the years between his statement to me and his death. She wanted to make things right with the family, but in doing so, made it worse. She never saw that.

She also never understood that continually asking for me to come there for family events, because I was single and being easier for me to travel, that I stopped going there for several reasons. I never earned near the income my brother or sister and spouses earned but was always expected to pay an equal third for anything. I was always expected to travel there where they didn't have any of the same expenses to get and stay there.

And lastly, no one ever offered to come visit me wherever I lived since leaving home. They always said it was too expensive for their family, but cheaper for me being single to come there. And so after attending the funeral of my brother in 1991, I told everyone I wouldn't come home again. I lost the best person I ever knew to an early death for reasons that no one saw wasn't his but our father's.

My father died three years later and I was told not to bother. He was cremated and buried in the national cemetary in Denver, where my Mom was buried in May 2006. My sister was the executer of the estate. I won't go into the details why I haven't spoken with her in over 30 years but suffice it to say we just don't get along. And I learned this again, and faced the choices I've made.

Once the estate was settled it took me nearly 18 months to get a copy of the will, to discover I was excluded from anything in the estate. Not by giving everything to everyone else, but by writing in it I don't get anything. It's one thing to be ignored and another to be intentionally excluded. I can't say it really hurt that much because I understood and knew it was what happened. The hurt was being mentioned to be excluded.

And so I laid in bed in the darkness one winter morning wondering why but knew the reason. When I left home decades before I didn't close the door, I wanted my parents to open it and talk to me. I discovered it was closed behind me by the same people I wanted to open it. I'm not absolving myself of any blame in our relationship, I'm just not accepting all of it either. My parents never understood the basic rule of being parents, you always love your children.

They made their choices and I made mine. And in the darkness of the morning I know the answers this time. But it still hurts and still makes me wonder why.

The Pass

2008-01-16T13:13:00.000-08:00

On May 18, 1980, anyone of any decent age, remembers Mount St. Helens erupted. And, like me, many in the Pacific Northwest were awaken to it, even as far as Eugene, Oregon where I was living, and farther by the sound and ash as the eruption spread throughout the region. I remember the sound thinking it was the garbage folks, but a minute or so later realized they don't work on Sundays. It only took turning on the television to realize what had happened.

What few folks may not know is that another small eruption happened a week later, the next Sunday morning. In between emergency search and rescue folks were busy trying to find and evacuate people along with the many scientists and other people trying to evaluate the event and the scene. And in between the folks at the USGS office in Tacoma, Washington were on the phones trying to assemble teams to conduct field studies.

When I went to work in between the eruptions our office chief got a call wanting to know if anyone had the interest to do the field work to assess the event, scene and damage the eruption caused. Both the lead technician, Mike Crimrine, and I quickly volunteered. We didn't give it a second's thought to go. And Monday the 26th we were on the road to Tacoma to join the other USGS technicians and professionals.

But there was a problem the USGS has to resolve first. After the May 18th eruption, since the land was under the jurisdiction of the US Forest Service and Weyerhauser Timber company, the authorities declared a "red zone" surrounding the mountain partrolled by the Washington State Patrol and National Guard. To gain access into the red zone, outside of those agencies and the USFS, you had to have a pass. I got mine May 29th (photo above).

Since the USGS's Geologic Division was the arm of the USGS monitoring the mountain since it first began to spew smoke and ash about six month earlier, the geologists were the folks in charge for the USGS. The hydrologic technicians, like myself then, and hydrologists were called geologist to keep things simple for those checking our id's and passes. No one argued or disagareed, and let us proceed to do our work.

And so I spent the next two weeks working just inside and around the red zone on the team installing satellite telemetry equipment and another doing cross-sections of the North Fork Toutle River, since I was a newer employee, while the more experienced one were in the upper North Fork Toutle River basin doing the same work. Every one of us has some stories, some funny and some serious, even life threatening, about the work we did.

I can even show friends the few pages in the USGS Report on the eruption where the data our team collected was published, pages 470-477. There was a lot more data not included in the report, some of which was more interesting personally but maybe not scientifically or significantly enough to include in the chapter on the ash flow.

Near the last day of the work, one of the senior scientist gave small groups of technicians rides up the North Fork Toutle River, around the mountain and into the crater, and return. I had friends who had to pay for rides around the red zone - since the air space and land were off-limits to non-essential aircraft and people, so this experience was a joy to talk about later. The benefits of volunteering when asked and working when needed.

It was, still is and will always be one of those experience you really had to be there to understand. I haven't forgotten.

Cibecue Cr nr Chrysotile

2007-12-26T09:07:00.000-08:00

The Cibecue Creek near Chrysotile, AZ was always an interesting adventure just to get to it, let alone the work, and then gettng back out to the highway. The gage was always the second one on the first day of my field trip to the Salt River basin on the Apache Indian Reservation northeast of Phoenix.

First of all it's a two-hour drive from the office through Globe to ShowLow. At one point north of Globe you drive into the Salt River canyon. I personally like this place, kinda' a small Grand Canyon. At the bottom there is a bridge over the Salt River and a wide spot on the inside of the big u-turn to drive up and out the canyon. A small grocery store is in the wide spot where you can get some supplies.

Back up from the bridge on the way down into the canyon is the turnoff for the Salt River near Chyrsotile gage where you drive past it if you're not looking. It's two ruts in the road that run parallel behind the guard rail. You have to swing wide and make a tight turn to follow the ruts for a short distance and then the parking spot to this gage. It's a picturesque place and interesting to be.

By around noon or so you would be done and drove out to the store for a break or lunch. After that while absorbing the beautiful landscape you drive across the highway to a dirt road. The road leads to a campground alongside the river where people often put in to run the Salt River to the lower reservoir. You're still inside the reservation but once on the river, you leave it behind in a few hours onto state or federal lands.

Cibecue Creek is a box canyon about ten miles beyond the campground. The road isn't routinely maintained and can have rock slides or washouts for a short period before it is fixed by the Tribe. The road after crossing the creek goes on to other canyons and eventually up to the plateau north of Roosevelt Reservoir but it's always a 4-wheel drive road after the creek for the problems and crossings since it's not maintained at all.

The gage on Cibecue Creek is a mile upstream from the crossing, so you have to decide to ford it and park to hike up, carrying your hipboots and backpack of stuff or park and wade across to hike to the gage in your hipboots. It's always the question because if you drive, the ford is always up to if not over the wheels, and any additional flow will require you to wait until the flow recedes. But it's almost always wadeable.

The trail is on the far side along with the gage and cable car, so you can't get to it from the near side as the creek runs just along the canyon wall and has no access past some points without wading the creek. I usually drove across and parked at the makeshift campsite the indians built. Every now and then I would meet the Tribal police patrolling this road as it's used by indians and other people for illegal camping, parties and access down river who often get stuck.

Once parked there is a narrow trail along the creek to the gage. Here is where life can be interesting as you can't see more than about 10-20 feet in front of you for all the bushes. Once I walked around a bush and right into the middle of a family of javelinas. We all froze for a moment. I was lucky to have surprised them and they all ran up the hill so fast I quickly lost track of them into the brush. Lucky because as a family with small ones, they usually defend themselves.

I just stood there for a awhile watching them scurry up the hill and continued on, but it was awhile before my heart got its normal rate back. Servicing the gage and making the measurement was usually straight-forward stuff, and at the end it was always interesting to sit and take in the canyon. Since the work for the day was done and all that was left was to drive to Pinetop, time was now yours to enjoy where you were.

Once we had to fly in by helicopter to do service a series of gages in one day after some local floods. We told the pilot about the cable way at the gage, a requirement because they often fly at river level for navigation and observation purposes. He was good enough to literally put the helicopter right under the cableway in the middle of the creek. When we left, we had some daylight left, so we flew up the canyon.

I was totally blown away at the canyon upstream, totally inaccessible from above by the canyon walls and only from below by walking up the creek. We found eagle nests and hidden caves in the canyon walls before coming out on the plateau and going back down the creek to the Salt River and then home. Most of the pilots with the company we used were former Vietnam pilots so they were partly crazy but outstandingly good, and very adventurous.

I never got stuck on the far side except once for an hour or so waiting while I felt better about fording it, and other than a bad start to a field trip twice, that was about it with this gage, drive out to the highway and north to the motel for the week. Once, though, on the highway in my first truck I lost the fuel switch to the twin tanks. I had to switch the gas lines to the tanks and drove the field trip on one ten-gallon tank.

The other time I got two flats on the road out but limped it to the grocery store. They didn't have a garage nor a telephone to call the office (remember it's before cell/satellite phones and we didn't have shortwave radios). So I parked and locked it and waited for a ride to ShowLow. But it took two rides.

The first ride was with a family of Apaches in a pickup truck. They took me to the turnoff they took to White River where I got out and waited again. Then an elderly couple, not trusting my government id, with a fifth wheell trailor let me sit in the back of the pickup to ShowLow. Another technician came the next day to get the truck to ShowLow and fix the tires so I could finish the field trip.

Before I was transferred to the Phoenix office we operated a gage on Canyon Creek near Chrysotile, and I always wanted to see it, but was told the gage was discontinued because the road was too often too bad to drive and the trip was too expensive to helicopter. I didn't want to have to hike out to report I went where I wasn't supposed to be or go in a government truck. One small regret I didn't try once.

But then this gage was a nice reward by itself.

AF68111677

2007-12-23T04:10:00.000-08:00

Just a number. Everyone who joins the service gets one. Or used to. Until 1970 everyone got a unique number we had to memorize and stencil into our clothes in basic training. In 1970, the services switched to social security numbers so no new ones were issued when you enlisted and went through basic training. Mine was that number, AF for Air Force and the rest I don't know except maybe some sequential number or some office and sequential number.

Ask any service person and they'll likely remember this number. It was who you were, not a name but a number. It was on everything you owned. It was you. When it was assigned to you, you were expected to memorize and recite whenever asked. It was the first thing on any form about you.

When I enlisted, we were taken by bus to the Denver airport and given tickets to San Antonio, Texas. When we arrived about midnight, we were escorted onto another bus and taken to a dormitory where we were told we'd get a few hours sleep before being processed in. They were right, a few hours was all we got. We were woken up to take showers get dressed, make the bed and get ready.

From there we were escorted into a large empty hanger with lots of chairs. I mean lots, like hundreds upon hundreds in neat rows and aisles with long tables of staff at the front and the back. And all the recruits were told to sit somewhere until our name was called, and then report to the person who called it. That's it, sit and wait. For your name.

While everyone else seemed to be called by someone from one of the tables at the front, I was called by someone at a table in the back. I didn't know what I had done or what. But I went. It turned out I was selected for a top secret unit and they wanted me to fill out the paperwork about my past. At 19 I had a past? Ok, family, past addresses, references, jobs - the two I had before enlisting, and so on.

I did and went back to a chair before being assigned to a basic training unit. A lot of the rest is a blur because you're handed your clothes, given a haircut - whether you need one or not, poked and proded, given shots, and sent to a dormitory to change your clothes - leaving all your civilian stuff on your bed, into your first uniform. And you stood at attention while your drill sargeant went to each recruit examing them, their locker and their old belongings.

Basic training was interesting. I was in one of the brand new dormitories built on LackLand AFB. The dormitories for the recruits were in a cross pattern, one squad per wing on a cantilevered extension to create space underneath for assembly, excercise and drill instruction. The central part of the first floor had the mess hall, classes and administration rooms.

The goal of the open space below each dormitory wing was to provide outside shade during the summers and to stay dry during the rainstorms for drill instruction, exercise and fitness tests. Unfortunately I went there during the best weather or the worst time to be there as we did everything every day because it wasn't too cold, hot or wet. This also meant that I, being underweight going in, gained 25+ pounds in the eight weeks of training.

What I thought was funny that when the drill instructor inspected my civilian belongs the first full day he found a card I used which identified my father as a retired Air Force officer. He told me, "We'll fix that attitude." When we graduated I was voted one of the three most to succeed in the Air Force, even my drill sargent said I did well against what he originally thought.

The irony is that I simply put my mind in neutral to do whatever I could to survive. I was one of 60 recruits who I had never known before from all over the country, including some pretty racist young men on both sides of the racial divide. I decided to get through basic training and not let anything or anyone get in the way. So I got along with everyone.

And even more ironic, I wonder what they would have said if they knew 3 years later I was charged with insubordination and scheduled for a court martial hearing. It was a stupid act on both sides and a senior sargent I met on temporary duty didn't understand a joke, so he filed a complaint with my commanding officer, a two-star general. It's an interesting experience to have a two-star general stand a foot from you and read you your legal rights.

Anyway, I survived thanks to a full colonel who represented me (voluntarily too). And about a year later I left with a full honorable discharge, having turned down a substantial re-enlistment bonus and a promotion. Go figure. I never regretted it. And on January 2, 1973 I walked out the front gate at McClellan AFB for the last time, went home and got on with my life.

My Brother Greg II

2007-12-17T09:24:00.000-08:00

I spoke of Greg's life and death in part one. This is, as they say, the rest of the story. August 21, 1991, was going to be a good day for me. I had spent much of the previous week waiting the arrival of my new 1991 Volkswagon Vanagon Syncro, the four-wheel drive version of the Vanagon. The dealership had taken my deposit and agreement to accept my 1985 Volkswagon GTI as trade-in if they could find one.

Volkswagon had discontinued the old version of the Vanagon in Europe more than a year earlier in favor of the Eurovan, and they had announced the replacement in the US in 1991. They didn't plan a four wheel drive version of the Eurovan, and only a few years later produced one for European markets. I've always wanted a VW van, so I made the deal for one, if they could find one.

They called me a few days earlier to say they found the last two in western Washington, that dealers would give up, in Everett, and what color would I want, silver or white. I said it didn't matter. They got the white one. And on that day I took the rest of the day off from work to sign the papers and take delivery of it. And driving it away from the dealership was one of the coolest days I've known.

It turned out to be a base model with four wheel drive with one exception. It had the "power' package, meaning air conditioning, power windows and locks, and cruise control. It had removeable middle jump seats with rubber mats. It was meant to be a commercial van, but was now mine. It's virturally unchanged and still 100% stock parts except the addition of higer power headlights and a pair of driving lights.

Well, I got home about 2:00 pm and noticed a message on my answering machine. It was Mom, "Greg has passed away from a heart attack. Meet us at the Denver airport to fily to Kansas City." And the next trip in the van was to the Seattle-Tacoma Airport to fly to Denver and then on to Kansas City for his funeral.

Flying from Seattle to Kansas City was a stark contrast. It was hot and humid every day. The family stayed in Greg and Jo's house to save money (I slept on the couch). Greg was cremated with the stipulation his ashes be spread over the Gunnison River from the bridge in Gunnison, Colorado, his favorite place he ever lived. I would learn years later Mom and Dad had to finally pressure Jo to do that.

Dad was totally quiet throughout the days we spent there and on the way home. He didn't speak to me, which I accepted as my reality and his loss, the loss of what he had put his life into believing his posterity. He never realized he had created Greg's life into an early death. He also didn't speak to me for another year or so, and I only saw him for an overnight stay a year before he passed away in 1994.

When they held the ceremony I kept one of the small bouquets. I packed it in my suitcase for a reason Greg spoke of years earlier.

When Greg was the CFO of AMC Theater company and negotiated the takeover of AMC by a California investor, he had to fly to Los Angeles for the final deal. He said he never saw the Pacific Ocean, and despite the time in LA he couldn't arrange the time to go to the beach somewhere, anywhere, just to stand there and say he saw it.

When I returned home, the first real trip in the van was to the coast, namely Westport south of Aberdeen. It's a quiet stretch of public beach. The north side of Grays Harbor has all the tourist because you can drive on the beach. The south side has the sport fishing community of Westport where I used to go there monthly on groundwater work.

This saturday I parked behind the dune, walked throught break for people, and spent the time watching the ocean. At the end I went to the water's edge, and gently placed the bouquet on the surface, and watch is slowly drift out with each succesive wave. It finally was caught in the outgoing waves and drifted out into the ocean before disappearing from view.

I drove home and decided the van would be called "Spirit" for my brother. And every year I celebrate the day and honor him. My brother. Thank you, Greg.

My Brother Greg

2007-12-17T08:34:00.000-08:00

This is a photo of my brother, November 30, 1943 - August 21, 1991, (sorry, it's a scan of a poor print) in 1990, a year before his sudden death from a heart attack, when he was the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for a automobile transport company. He was hired only about a year or so before being the CEO of American Movie Corporation (AMC Theater). He was the CEO for a year after being the CFO and negotiating the takeover by a California company.

My brother began with AMC Theater a long time before that when it was a small regional theater company and wanted to go national. He was the chief negotiator in the takevoer deals for many regional theaters into the AMC chain of theaters in the 1970 and 1980's. He loved this job as it was always changing with each negotiation for the buyout and the transfer of the resources into the company.

He hated a routine job, any routine job, even though he graduated with a Bachelors degree in Accounting. After college and a few years in a larger account firm, he split off into numerous partnerships before becoming a regional accountant for a Denver-based company. He was living in Gunnison, Colorado and was in charge of southwest Colorado accounts. He loved the job, and especially loved the place.

But his family didn't like the remoteness of Gunnison and our parents hated driving over the Rocky Mountains for visits. So after about two years he moved back to Denver and then accepted the job with AMC in Kansas City, Kansas. While his loved the job, he hated living there. He knew, however, as the elder son and our father's hope for the future, he knew his fate in life.

The one time when I visited him in Gunnison for a family reunion we had a good conversation about life. He spoke of his frustration of his life, being the elder son and all the things Dad wanted to see him accomplish. He was in effect, our Dad's older brother, to be something and have a good family. He always said how much he hated it.

It was also the first time I learned how our father viewed each of us sons. He, being the executor of the estate had all the responsbility of that but he wasn't mentioned in the will until the last of a six page will. I was mentioned somewhere in page three. Our sister on the other hand was in the first two-plus pages. He said that alone was a statement.

I urged him to consider making his own life, even if angered our parents, I certainly did, and maybe resulted in a divorce, which mine was the first in the extended family. He smoked 1-2 packs a day and drank quarts of whiskey a week. He was on the fast road to death, and he knew it, but after all the words, he knew the reality of his life.

I suggested he consider being a senior accountant, CFO or Treasurer for some non-profit organization, a university, or something that had the variety of work, be around a lot of people, was in a place he liked, and be something far less stressful with his family and our parents. But with a wife and three kids, he accepted the reality of his life.

After turning 40, he began to see the real reality of his life. After 20-plus years of smoking and drinking, he had a heart attack. A few years later he had an angioplasty to remove blockages in several arteries. A few years later, he had both lungs pumped when they were half full of liquid. The doctors told him the next time he'll need his heart and both lung replaced.

About a year after this photo was taken, he did something he had never done, he went home for lunch. It wasn't a short drive for him, but mostly he didn't really like being at home, seeing the reality of what he had brought into the world. He had three good kids, but they weren't the easiest to raise. On top of that, a child psychologist and our parents blamed him and Jo, his wife, for the problems with the oldest.

I didn't like that and told our parents in no specific terms that I supported him against anyone. Not so much he was my brother, but because I felt our parents shouldn't interfer and the child psychologists had their views, some right and some wrong, but I would leave it to Greg and Jo to make the right decision for them. They did and the kids came out ok, but it was hard for about 5-6 years.

When he got home for lunch, he went into the house, told Jo and each kid how much he loved them. He then sat down on the couch to smoke a cigarette. He didn't get to finish it as he had a massive heart attack and died within minutes. When they did an autopsy they discovered both lungs more than half full of liquid.

He knew the reality of his own life and his own death. He choose the circumstances of it, and while it wasn't a good things for the kids to see, he wanted to be home.

Dad and I

2007-12-11T10:27:00.000-08:00

My Dad and I rarely spoke to each other especially after Christmas eve 1968, and he wasn't much of a talker to the rest of the family, only to his personal friends we hardly knew, but as told to me by my Mom my Dad and I had similar lives for a short period in our youth that defined the rest of our life. Except for the times and places, he and I were the same.

When Ace, my Dad, the nicknamed he got somewhere in his youth - short for Alva Clyde, not a name you want to be known by - graduated from high school in Valley Falls, Kansas, a small town about an hour drive northwest of Kansas City, he worked in his Dad's store, the only general store in town, until he went to the University of Kansas. It was 1939. We all know the history that was about to be bestowed on this country.

After his first year he returned home to work in the store and start his sophomore year, or so he thought. You see Ace was the third child of three and the second son, Kermit his older brother. My Dad's father came to the United States from England about 1908, moved to Valley Falls, set up his business, built a house a few blocks away, married Elfreda Anna after she immigrated in 1910, and spent the rest of his years raising a family.

I never knew what Ace's relationship with his fatrher was, but from what I've been told it was a mixed one as his Dad apparently favored Kermit and his older sister. Kermit got four years of college and went on to a properous insurance business in Kansas City never venturing far from the family home. I don't know about the sister except she married young and left for Colorado. My Dad and his father had a falling out about colllege.

He never spoke about it, but from tales from friends and relatives, he apparently didn't use college so much for learning as for enjoying life and the world away from home. And I gathered that his Dad didn't offer to put him through another year of a life away from home, so he stayed working in the store, and in the spring of 1940 Ace enlisted in the Army.

All I know is that my Dad's father "invited" him to leave to make a life for himself, just not there sometime while at home. He did just that serving 23-plus years in the Army and Air Force, eventually settling in Denver, Colorado when he retired, to work for the US Bureau of Land Management. He retired a second time in 1984 after 43-plus years with the federal government.

My Dad was a very private man. While he was generous with friends, as Mom would later know after his death to find a drawer stuffed full of iou's to him for money he had loaned to friends over 50 years behind her back, he was barely generous with us kids. Only later did I learn it was about the same his Dad treated his kids. A solid middle class upbringing and nothing too much or too fancy except for the special occasion.

What bothered me the most throughout the life I knew him after leaving home, was that he never spoke of his past. Never about growing up in rural Kansas, never about his service in World War II (non-combat), his military career (much in secret commands), or his retirement. He never wrote about it either, despite all of our attempts to get him to talk. He never did, and took all his experiences to his grave. Lost forever.

When I graduated from high school in 1967 I had plans to work but the draft made it clear I had to go to college too. I wanted to go a Colorado school out of the Denver area but Dad decided I should attend the same university my brother graduated from and become a mechnical engineer. My brother was the favored son, as with Kermit, got his full college paid. I, on the other hand, had to pay a third of my tuition and all my books.

After the first year, where I barely passed, I was put on academic probation. After the first quarter of my sophomore year I was released from the College of Engineering, and as explained in the Christmas eve story, my Dad said to me, "Son, I want you to have a life, just don't have it here."

Less than 3 months later I enlisted in the Air Force and left home, rarely returning, and rarely speaking to my Dad. We had another falling out when during my enlistment and facing a disciplinary hearing my Dad criticized me for not be a good soldier. I hated the military and the Vietnam War, but I loved my country to serve. I never forgave him for his words then as he never apologized for them.

Nearly twenty years later after my brother suddenly died of a heart attack, my Dad didn't even talk to me whole the time in Kansas City for the week of the funeral and cremation ceremonies. My Mom had to speak for him. He had lost his, in his mind, the only son who mattered to him. In the years in between my brother's death and his death 3 years later, we rarely spoke. He had lost his sons and was wrestling with his own demons.

He died shortly after his 75th birthday. My Mom's only advice a few years later was, "You and Dad are so alike it's scary, but please, for the rest of your life, don't be your father." The best advice I ever heard from my parents and am still living it.

Christmas 1969

2007-12-09T15:54:00.000-08:00

I enlisted in the US Air Force March 7, 1969. After basic training and an extra stay in fabulous Lackland Air Force Base (AFB) outside of San Antonio, Texas I was given orders for electronics training at Lowry AFB, Denver, Colorado. When the ten of us graduated from the training, we were ranked in order of our grades for selecting our first assignment. Starting at the top, they gave each a choice of, one, going into airborne and later in Japan, two, depot maintenance McClellan AFB near Sacramento, and Edwards AFB, southern California.

There was one exception which was for headquarters in Alexandria, Virgina where one electronics technician was hand-picked. It wasn't a surprise he was from Virginia. Anyway, I was fifth in the class as I only had one year of college studying mechanical engineering, and those ahead of me had either degrees in electrical or electronic engineering or technical college degrees in electronics. I was the best of the rest after these four guys.

There were six assignments to Sacramento, three to transfer to airborne and initially stationed in McClellan AFB, Sacramento before going to Japan and three for depot maintenance. There were three for Edwards AFB and one for Washington D.C. In short when the Sacramento assignments were gone the last three got Edwards AFB, which meant the first six of us took the fomer as we knew Edwards was in the middle of the southern California desert.

Of the Sacramento assignments, within a year one, my roommate in the enlisted troop housing, went to Chang Mai, Thailand. The three in airborne went to Japan after finishing their flight training, but until then the six of us became good friends. We didn't always hang out together after work but we didn't forget the others. My closest friend then was one who eventually went to Japan, but we shared some off-hours interests, namely exploring Sacramento and many people's favorite hobby then, drugs.

Yes, a lot of young serviceman explored drugs. Of the six of us, only Rick and I were single, one was married, two engaged and eventually married, and one was too quiet and reserved to try, let alone enjoy, drugs. And as you may guess, drugs in California in the late 1960's weren't that hard to get, and one in the dormitory was a small-time dealer for marijuana and some non-hard drugs, like mescaline, etc.

But this essay isn't about my drug experiences, that's another story, it's about my first Christmas away in a strange place. Rick and I were out exploring Sacramento. We liked to see how far we could get on days off riding the bus, catching rides or walking. On Christmas day we got back too late to eat dinner at the base chow hall, they had an early one so everyone could get home for the holiday. So there we were at about 6:00 pm hungry.

We looked outside the base where there were some restaurants and they were all closed. So, we decided to try the flight line diner, and after getting some general direction (try the control tower and flightline area), we started walking. And after wandering around a lot of hangars we arrived at the flightline diner about 8:00 pm. Only to find the kitchen was closed and all they had were pre-made sandwiches, chips and drinks.

So, my Christmas dinner was a sandwich, chips and coffee. After a few hours of talking with anyone there, we got a ride back with a newly arrived flight crew and were being transporting to the overnight housing. Somehow, all these Christmas dinners since then, this one sticks in my memory as one of the best. Who would have thunk it all these years later.

Rick eventually finished flight training, went to Japan, married a wonderful Japanese woman, and came back to the States. I saw him when Linda (my then wife) and I were living in Sacramento. Both Linda and I were working and going to school. Rick and his wife did a tour of the western US before coming to Sacramento. He eventually joined rejoing the Air Force to study nuclear physics. That was the last I heard from them.

But for awhile life was interesting exploring California, drugs and life, a memorable Christmas dinner.

Christmas 1968

2007-12-08T19:36:00.000-08:00

I didn't realize on Christmas eve 1968 that the next year will be the most pivotal period of my life. Overstatement? Not really because when we're 18-20 we're discovering the world outside our home, beyond the news on the television, stories in the newspapers, and the world outside the town limits. All by ourselves. And that's the pivotal point.

We had a normal Christmas with all the family, from the grandmothers to all three of us kids. My older brother had married and lived in Denver now after a year in Tulsa, Oklahoma. My older sister was home from community college in Grand Junction, Colorado. And I had finished the first quarter of my sophomore year at the University of Denver. I hated going there. My Dad required that I worked fulltime and pay a third of my tuition, something he didn't do for my other siblings. I wanted to go to Colorado State University or the University of Colorado.

In short, I wanted to go somewhere away but not far away. Both offered engineering schools, but my Dad has decided I should be a mechnical engineer, and within driving distance of home. But he said there wasn't the money. He had blown it on five years for my brother college at the University of Denver and the two years for my sister. There wasn't any more money and we had split the tuition costs between him, my brother and myself.

I worked 40-plus hours a week as a warehouseman at a local area department store. I worked at a local branch as the sole warehouseman unloading, stocking, and inventorying the goods and helping customers load their purchases into their vehicles. I also helped at the central warehouse unloading and stocking from trainloads of goods. All for $1.60 an hour while taking a fulltime engineering course load.

That is a recipe for disaster and it was. After my freshman year I was put on probation for my C average. There was just too little time and too much work and college. And I wasn't really ready for college. I enjoyed working for a change and having money, although most of it went to pay expenses to Dad for living at home, having a car and paying tuition and books (I bought all my books and supplies).

And the first quarter of my sophomore year wasn't any different. I thought I had a year to clean up my act, but I guessed wrong. On Christmas eve I got a registered letter from the College of Engineering. The family was cheerful and doing the things family do on Christmas eve in the house with too many people. Being joyous.

I took the letter to the top of the stairs to the basement, away from everyone. But Dad saw the letter and followed me. He sat down next to me. The stairs led to the basement Dad had refinished to have two bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room, a laundry room and a workshop. I was the only one using it after my brother left for work and marriage. I hated it as it was dark with only a few small windows.

My Dad had designed the floorplan around the steel support jacks holding the floor. The house was underbuilt and before we could really use it, all the floorbeams had to be reinforced or doubled and a longitudinal beam with support jacks added every 10 feet. This restricted the arrangement of the rooms. And I got the room farthest from the stairs and the darkest with one small window that wasn't much help.

I hated it for being so isolated in my home and in my life. It's why I often studied at college until I had to go to work and then go home to eat and sleep, to start the next day again. I hated weekends having to stay home when I wasn't working or studying. I was 19 and wanted to leave but didn't have the money. We all know this story of our youth.

I slowly opened the envelope and took out the one page letter. Addressed from the Dean of the College. It was short. It simply said I was hereby expelled and prohibited from enrolling in any more engineering classes. My name was sent to the university to decide if I could enroll in general education classes or other colleges. And my name was sent to the Selective Service that my student deferement should be reviewed.

I handed the letter to Dad, who silently read it, paused and said to me, "Son, I want you to have a life, just don't have it here." I asked him, "How long can I stay?" He responded, "Three months." He handed the letter back, stood up and returned to the family celebrations. I didn't say anything about the letter, and neither did Dad, and later in the month said I wasn't enrolling in the winter quarter.

In January I started receiving letters from the Army which stated, "Please feel out this form at your convenience and return it in 3 days." Really. I've never understood that statement. I even had to go through the Army's physical while filling out all the papers to enlist in the Air Force and given a March 7th report date. Just before I reported, I got my 1-A status from the Army.

My Dad and I didn't really speak after that letter. He had spent a 23 year career in the Air Force and only encouraged me to enlist in the Air Force and not the Army. I knew that because I didn't really want to go to Vietnam. I hate combat but I wanted to serve my country. The morning I reported no one said goodbye, I took a cab because both of my parents had to go to work and I had to report at 5:00 am even though I didn't leave for airport until late in the afternoon.

And so it was an interesting Christmas, and spun my life in a direction I never expected. My Dad and I never really reconciled our differences, but that's another story.

Big Arizona Rivers

2007-12-07T18:17:00.000-08:00

When I was (forced) transferred to the Phoenix, Arizona - which is another story - I drove the less travelled highways from Eugene to Phoenix to get a sense of the country, the eastern side of the Sierra mountains, Nevada's basin and range mountains, and northwest Arizona. In Arizona drove from Kingman through Wikieup to Wickenburg into Phoenix. It's a 3 hour drive through the open desert. I didn't realize two years later I would be driving this highway once a month as part of a field trip.

While I was driving I kept an eye out for "rivers" or what I thought rivers would look like. I had never been in Arizona so I had no idea about desert rivers let alone big desert rivers. The first of these was the Big Sandy River. I approached a long bridge where the sign of the river was noted. I crossed what seemed to be just more desert except it was a few feet lower than the surrounding desert.

Near the middle there was this small, 10 foot wide, stream flowing, more wandering within a 300-foot wide river channel. With no cars around I stopped to see what was happening. Standing in the middle of this very long bridge over this very wide river channel with this one small channel of water I thought out loud, "Shit, I'm in trouble." And so it would be both and understatement and an overstatement.

As I would eventually tell people after I left Arizona, the whole five years was professionally very rewarding and the best thing I did in my career despite being forced to go. But personally it sucked. I hated Phoenix, hated living there, hated the heat, the long hot summers, and hated having to live in air conditioning almost year around. Remember I drove a 1971 VW bug then.

After about two years in the Phoenix office a new technician had arrived and wanted my field trip (upper Salt River and adjacent basins) and I had managed to anger the lead technician, so he switched our field trips. I got his which was the northwest desert. It started just outside Sun City and went to Wikieup. It was a scheduled once or twice monthly trip so the first week of every month I was on the road 5 days the first week and 2-3 days the third week.

The trip has a diversity of gages, rivers and roads into them. And I had to address the one thing I really hated about desert. Critters. Like rattle snakes, scorpions and spiders. They all love gages. Gages in Arizona are made of thick steel to prevent damage from survivalist and hunters with high powered rifles and handguns, and who love to shoot gages. So the gages heat up during the day for critters to live inside.

Well, my two farthest gages were the Big Sandy River near Wikieup and the Santa Maria River near Bagdad. Both were different but similar being big desert rivers.

The Big Sandy River gage as I learned was miles downstream from the bridge I crossed on the way into Phoenix. There were three ways into the gage, all off the highway, but depending on flow and river conditions you forded the river three, one or no places, respectively in order of priority. The two shortest were 2 and a half to 3 hours from Phoenix and the longest 4 hours, one way.

The standard route was the turn off the highway to dirt road that eventually forded the Big Sandy River three times, the last ford about mile where you turn off onto an semi-road sand path to the river. From there you hike about a half mile upstream. And there, bolted with braces attached to a rock wall was a 40-foot high stilling well. The cable way was at the gage where during high flows you hiked to the left bank platform to use it to cross the river to the gage and make a measurements.

I never had to do that except to ride and inspect it once a year. The flow was always low enough to wade to the gage and measure the flow. The real problems were after storms. The locals kept the first two fords solid, meaning packed and graded so hard sand so cars can drive over them with only about 6-12 inches of water. The flow isn't sufficient to undo the hard packed sand.

But it usually took them a few weeks to do this, so the second choice was the road with the last common ford. Except this ford was rarely graded and packed. The local person charged with this didn't like doing it so often, even when the grader was parked right there. So, you had to gamble it would be driveable because it's an hour drive off the highway to the ford - and only a few minutes to the gage, and if it wasn't driveable, you were stuck going back and taking the last choice.

Except if you had the fortitude to risk driving across it. I only did this once, as it was a lesson in what not to do. The storm had eroded the opposite bank of the ford almost nearly vertical. After checking the stability of the sand I thought it's doablel in four wheel low, in granny gear and never stopping - as I was told and taught by folks there. Well it worked until I hit the other side and slammed into it where the front of the truck lifted up and scraped the whole underside on the bank climbing out.

It worked and it worked driving out too except a month later when the clutch was discovered to have been destroyed by sand and water getting in a vent hole Dodge built into their trucks. Talk about stupid. They don't use a plug but an open hole where sand got into from the bank. My boss only said, "Next time, be a little more careful." He told the grumbling mechanics it's part of the work.

The last choice was to drive to Wikieup, turn left and follow the road long on the very long 2 hour drive on dirt and sand backroads to the gage. You often felt you were driving to the end of the world. It was also this road I got my brand new Dodge truck totally off the ground. I was driving down a one lane sand road with 4 foot banks and hit a bump at 45 mph, and suddenly the truck was off the ground and then thumped back down. I slowed down. After breaking my old truck which was due to be turned in anyway - and why my boss excused me, I didn't want to explain breaking my new truck.

When you finished it was a short drive to the last ford to check if it was driveable, and help get out quicker, and if not, you drive back around to Wikieup again to rejoin the highway. And I'll say Wikieup is just a wide spot in the road, nothing to write home, or here, about so leaving there the next stop of Wickenburg or farther Phoenix.

The Santa Maria River gage was similar to the Big Sandy gage, both being standard big desert river gages, and the trip was similar, being long dirt and sand backroads to the parking spot and a walk up to the gage. But it was different in that there were no fords of the river until you got to the parking spot. And there everything was different.

Where the Big Sandy River was easy to wade and measure, the Santa Maria River is a nightmare where you learn to feel the river bed for soft sand and quicksand. You had to wade a 300 foot wide channel usually full of water at or just below the surface of the sand with a smaller stream wandering around, so solid was relative as you used the wading rod to feel a foot or two in front of you.

You would take a step, feel with the wading rod feeling for solid sand, and if it wasn't, the rod would start sinking, maybe a few inches or maybe a few feet. You had to do this for 300 feet to the other side winding your way across, then hike a mile to the gage, and do the same at the gage for the wading measurement. But here is where the two gages were different.

The Big Sandy River gage was at a rock outcrop face, like the Santa Maria gage, but at the Big Sandy the contol below the river was bedrock along with much of the channel for some distance, so finding good footing in the river channel was easy. At the Santa Maria, there was no bedrock on or near the surface, but 50-100 feet below with a huge cross-section of water-filled sand. Hence the quicksand.

The only advantage at the Santa Maria gage versus the crossing point at the parking spot was the some of the sand in the channel was dried out to be solid for walking. But that also meant the gage wasn't connected to the real flow, so you had to dig a small ditch 50-100 feet to get water to the gage to get or check the stage, especially after storm events which deposited a few feet of sand in the stilling well and you had to dig out to get the float back to the river level.

And the Santa Maria River was where I did have to make a cableway measurement. It was one of, if not the, worst cableway measurement I've ever made. I hiked up the river bank to the cable car - we kept one on each side to ensure you always had access to the gage from either side. The river was flowing the entire width of the channel, all 300 or more feet, and was clear as gritty chocolat milk, so you couldn't see below the surface let alone the bottom.

All you saw was sand filled water flowing 3-5 feet per second. In the end it was a bad measurement because the water was only 1-2 feet deep, bad for cable measurements, but the bottom was constantly moving, which meant a wading measurement would have only resulted in my sinking into the channel. There are techniques for sensing the real river bottom during moving beds, so the measurement was ok, just not great.

In the end, after about 18 months with this field trip, being transferred to another one and eventually to project work, my best times were after the work at the gages where I was only driving out. I could take the time to see the desert, even the one time it snowed in December. The whole desert covered with a little coat of white. At the highest point of the drive, I just stopped and stood on the truck to get the whole panorama.

When I left Arizona I drove the same highway out, and stopped at the bridge over the Big Sandy River and said, "Well, trouble or not, it was ok. But I won't volunteer to come back either." And waved goodbye to desert hydrology.

Rogue R nr Agness

2007-12-07T15:04:00.000-08:00

The gage for the Rogue River near Agness, Oregon, along with the Illinois River near Agness gage were the farthest from the Eugene Field Office. It was on the coast field trip which started with the Siuslaw River near Mapleton gage and lasted a week.

The coast field trip only had about 8 gages, depending on the year, because of the driving, along with 2-3 days the following week for the other gages that could be done in a day without staying overnight. The week on the road was spent in two or three different motels in different towns unless we had problems or changes in plans, and every technician did the trip differently to stay at their favorite spots.

I liked Agness. It wasn't much of anything let alone a town. It was a fishing resort in a rural area, and had a four room motel, a restaurant, a store and a gas station all in one long L-shaped building beside a RV park. A few homes were around the area, but for the most part it was where salmon fishermen/women came to fish and where the tourist jet boats from Gold Beach on the coast stopped for lunch and turn around.

Agness is about 50 miles inland from Gold Beach. It's acccessible from three directions, but only one open year around. The easiest was the highway from Gold Beach which split to go up the Illinois River valley for about 3 miles (deadend) and up the Rogue River valley to the "bridge" and turns to dirt for the long road over the divide into the Coquille River valley and the town of Powers. There was another dirt road to Grants Pass but it was only open for a few months in the summer if the winter storms didn't wash out parts.

The bridge over the Rogue River was interesting. Occasionally took water quality samples from the bridge and faced a problem because the powered B reel we used had to be double wound with a full reel line plus some extra wraps to get the full 60-feet plus we needed to get the sampler into the water and reach the bed of the river. In the floods of late 1964 the Rogue River was so high it threw trees over the rail onto the bridge putting dents in the guard rail.

This really meant we had two routes to Agness. I used to stay near Coos Bay to service the gages around Coos Bay and on the Coquille River and drive over to Agness to spend two days there. Mikey, the lead technician, liked driving to Gold Beach, staying thre and driving in and out to Agness before heading back north to catch the gages on the waya back. You see, Gold Beach is a real town with choices of motels and restaurants.

But I still liked Agness. The place was owned and operated by an ex-federal government employee. When I made reservations for two nights she would ask, "So what's the per diem rate these days?" I would tell her and she would say, "Ok, that's the rate. See you when you get here." And then they did several extra things.

First, you had to say when you expected to arrive and from what road. If you were late by an hour or more, they would send someone in a truck to go meet you. They knew people get lost or have accidents. They looked out for others. They never had to send someone for me but one time I was 50 minutes late and she had the someone ready to go if I didn't show up in ten more minutes.

Second, in the off-season when the motel and restaurant were closed for the season, she would open a room for you. The restaurant was never really closed, just to the public. Many retirees lived in the area so she would fix dinner family style. There would be 8-16 people in long tables with lots of plates of food and desserts. You didn't go hungry or lack company. And then she would ask what you wanted and what time you wanted breakfast. It would there ready and hot. And then she'd hand you a sack lunch for the day. After all she'd say, "You paid per-diem for lodging and food."

And you wonder why I stayed there two days? And the work?

The Rogue River gage was on private property about 3 miles from Agness. It would be the first of the two gages as each took about 4+ hours to service and make a discharge measurement. These are big rivers with big cableways and being the farthest from the office you took your time. You didn't want to get back thinking something wasn't done. The cableway at the Rogue River gage was at the gage and the one at the Illinois River gage a mile downstream so measurements were easily two-plus hour affairs.

And besides being in a cableway over a big river is really cool. It's one of the things I really grew to love in the field. It's just you in either a sit-down or stand-up car over the river. And some being 300+ foot spans, it meant a lot of arm, and sometimes foot, power to pull everything back and forth and arm power reeling a 50-75 pound weight up and down in the river. But my favorite was always the initial release to start the measurment.

The cablecar was at one end secured with a hook and lock. Both ends are the highest point in the cable, which drops to the lowest in the center. When you start, you pull the car up, move the hook, and release the car puller. The rest is gravity as the car speeds up down the cable. Both of these cables had about 80 feet of trees on both sides before you were suddenly flying out from the bank over the river to the center and up the other side. It was always a "Woohoo" moment.

One trip I took my (then) wife. Our boss in Portland wanted to have streamgagers share their work with the family so he would approve one annual trip (not paid for) for one near-adult family member. Since we used government trucks and access government property, they have to sign a release of liability, but no one every refused to sign and go on the trips. When Linda rode on the Illinois cable car, and I released it to go flying out, she was a little frightened.

Until we cleared the trees and we were suddenly soaring 50 feet over the water to the other side. She suddenly let out a scream of excitement and after that trip she was ready to ride any cableway to take notes for me. She eventually went on another trip, up the McKenzie River. She wasn't thrilled with wading measurements, just sitting on the bank taking notes, and always asked when we would do a cableway measurement.

This was where the these two gages were even more really cool. The Rogue River cableway was up a 40 foot tower on the gage side. Everything except your tools and stuff were at the top in a box on the platform. Once you got up there, it was kinda' scary for me as I'm afraid of heights (and yes, cableways are high but somehow I always felt safe). What worried me the first time I used this cableway was the opposite bank.

The cable on the right (opposite) bank went smack into the hillside underneath a paved road. The anchor (all cableways have heavy anchor on each end) was a large concrete block buried under the road. It was a real WTF moment the first time you released to go to the other side and start your measurement, racing to the hillside. You always slowed before reaching it and had to pull yourself up to start. But looking at the hillside was always, "I hope it holds." thought.

Anyway, the measurement was long but fun about 50 feet over the river. You often saw fishing boats float by, fishermen/women fishing while guides rowed back and forth and side to side trying to find the salmon. River otters would poke their heads out watching everything. And you could see the salmon below the surface following the boats and going to the opposite side of the river. The cat(ch) and mouse game they all played.

And you always had to raise the weight and meter out of the water so they saw the line. And surprisingly there would always been some stupid boat driver who would put the boat right under the weight and ask, "So, what's happening?" And you're standing there with your hand on the clutch which, in an instant, you can let the weight free fall, right into their boat faster than they could move it.

You don't, but sometimes, it sure was tempting. You smile, explain things and ask them to move so you can continue your work. When they see the (lead) weight, they often realized their own stupidity, and leave. It was never a dull measurement, you always found something interesting or something interesting happened. You only hated when you finished and had to pull everything up the cable to the platform.

And sometimes we'd stop and talk to the landowners. Once after going down the hill to the river to read the outside gage and get a water temperature I noticed a deer carcass on the bedrock ledge just above the water against the bank. When I left I asked the landowner and he said, "You just missed him. We saw the cougar kill the deer earlier in the week and move the carcass to the ledge. He comes down every morning to eat and clean himself. He left today about 5 minutes before you came."

After my heart skipped a beat I asked him how they live with a cougar in the area. He said if the cougar has enough to eat and you know where it's at, they'll pretty much leave you alone. But he said, a gun helps your sense of safety. And he said they usually leave in a week or so, so you time your times outside around him. And I remember just how innocent I moved around that morning. As they say, timing is everything.

After the Rogue River you serviced the Illinois River gage. It sat on a 150-foot high bank. To check the outside gage and crest-stage gage (used to measure the highest water level since the last visit) we had a one-inch rope attached to an anchor where you threw the rope over the 60-degree bank and climbed down feet to the river. The outside staff gages where lined up the bank along the rope's path.

It always made reading the outside gage and checking the crest-stage gages interesting, especially when you're done and look at the climb up the steep hillside. Once during a minor flood event where the river was high I saw a phenomenon I didn't know happened.

Rivers during a flood sometimes create harmonic waves, meaning the shape of the river channel at some stages causes the water surface to move down the channel in either standing waves or stationary or flowing cylical waves . This time I noticed the combined longitudal and lateral waves, the latter across the river, where the water surface rose and fell as the surface near the banks did the opposite. Two dimensional waves flowing down the river.

It's the point I always made to office hydrologists. You can't learn real world hydrology sitting in the office. And it's where I have respected the field technicians, the streamgagers, as the real hydrologist. They're the one standing by and working in or over the river when and where it counts. And sadly too many office hydrologists never saw the truth of it.

And another streamgaging is, especially with these gages on big rivers: it's real work. Maybe not continuously hard, but by the end of the day, you know you got a whole body workout. And doing that for a week, who needed an exercise program? And my (then) wife wondered why I felt tired after a week's field trip?

Winberry Cr nr Lowell

2007-12-06T05:52:00.000-08:00

Winberry Creek is one of the two creeks flowing into Fall Creek Reservoir west of Eugene Oregon. Fall Creek flows into the Middle Fork Willamette River above the Coast Fork and these two rivers form the beginning of the Willamette River flowing through Eugene, Oregon and north in the Willamette Valley to Portland, and into the Colmbia River.

The gage is the typical Oregon stilling well gage, with a 48-inch well and walk-in house, see similar one for Naselle River. The gage has a unique slope gage not typical with gages. There are stairs from the gage platform to the water and on one side of the support beam going down the length of the stairs are marks for the water depth in feet.

Normally outside gages are vertical staff gages, usually posts with gage plates marked in hundredths, tenths and feet to establish the stage, or water level, of the river. All the instruments in the gage are calibrated to inside and outside gages, and the stage can then be calibrated to the stage-discharge rating with discharge measurements, which you can read an explanation.

A vertical gage, often several from the lowest stage to the highest are usually 3-6 feet foot high posts positioned up the bank to the gage house, and sometimes on the side of the gage house if the water can potentially get that high. In some places, however, a vertical staff gage isn't feasible due to site condition or river conditions. An example is Alaska where the winter ice and spring break up will literally rip these gages apart, so levels are run every visit to get an outside stage value.

Winberry creek has a slope gage because in the long run it was the easiest to install when the gage was established. It's harder to set and calibrate a slope gage with survey levels, and requires more frequent checking to ensure the marks are accurate if the staircase moves or settles in the bank. And it also made it safer from vandals who often like to knock vertical staff gages over.

Anyway, I've wandered a bit. The gage is alongside a rural (dead-end) road above Fall Creek Reservoir. You can't miss it but the locals know it's there and so few people live in the area, there has never been any problems with vandalism. It's an easy gage to service and all measurements are made by wading near the gage or the cableway just downstream. It's one of those gages that makes streamgaging easy and enjoyable for a change.

It also taught me a think about water, especially freezing water. One December field trip the weather was below freezing. Everything was frozen or covered in ice or frost. I'm not fond of streamgaging in very cold weather, I can't bundle up enough to stay warm. Well, one of the standard tasks streamgagers do at gages with each service is to measure the air and water temperature. The air temperature was obvious, damn cold.

But it was the water temperature that was interesting. I measured a -.2 degrees Centigrade. The water in the creek was below freezing but the surface ice on the water was only along the six inches along the bank. The rest of the creek water had sufficient flow to keep from freezing. To check this, and I had my hipboots already on to make a wading measurement, I waded across the creek taking temperature reading. It was consistently -0.2 +/1 0.1 degree Centigrade.

I realize this flies in the face of what people have learned in school, that water freezes at 0.0 degrees Centigrade, or 32 degree Fahrenheit, but a physicist can explain that if you add velocity to any liquid, including water, the movement can prevent the liquid from freezing at its normal freezing temperature. And an article I read since then has proven that water can reach temperatures of -0.5 or more degrees and still not freeze. The trick is the movement.

The flow in Winberry Creek during the measurement measured near zero as water along banks do, was freezing on the surface. The flow in the channel was between 2 and 4 feet per second, just enough to keep it moving as it lost heat to the atmosphere and get just below freezing without freezing. While almost everyone since then has argued my thermometer was wrong - which has annual calibration tests, they weren't there to see it for real.

I serviced the gage and made the discharge measurement. But the measurement wasn't fun. Standing in this water for about 40 minutes was really damn cold. My toes were turning blue - with hipboots your only warmth is socks, big wool socks. Not enough to keep my body through the hipboots from losing heat to the water. It was one of those field trip where at the end you sit on the tailgate of the truck with your coffee and just let the world go by for a few minutes.

The stillness of the morning, the coldness of the air, and a job finished feeling satisfied was worth the whole time, albeit my toes and hands might disagree. But then there were other days here which also added to the memory of this gage.

Jack Mrowka (PhD), see tribute, was a professor at the University of Oregon when I started my work with the USGS. I walked into his office one day after work because I was told he taught water resources. That began a long friendship which we followed as our career moved us around the West, myself to Arizona and Washington, and Jack to Santa Rosa and Sacramento, California.

There were a number of adventures we went on in the name "research", mostly his, but sometimes jointly with my work. He showed me the USGS method for making discharge measurements had some flaws that could bias the measurement, but the method is basically sound as a common standard method. But it was Winberry Creek he had his best moment of surprise for me.

In his water resources class Jack taught about collecting, computing and producing streamflow data. But until we became friends he couldn't show how the field work was done by the USGS. One fall day I was at this gage and was just enjoying the quiet warm morning. The day was scheduled to service this gage and later the Fall Creek near Lowell gage, the other inflow into Fall Creek Reservoir. The following day was the reservoir gage and the Fall Creek below the reservoir gage.

I was in the gage house when I heard the sound of a bus. It seemed odd as there were only a few houses past the gage and the road dead-ended about a mile later. The sound of the bus stopped right at the gage. I stepped out to see why, and after the doors of the bus opened Jack stepped out. He had brought his whole class to see a streamgage and for me to show them streamgaging.

"Yippee" wasn't my first thought. But Jack had an infectuous spirit and smile, and it wasn't hard to enjoy a morning teaching 30 freshman-sophomore students about streamflow gages and streamgaging. I learned later that he called the office (I had told him the week before I would be on my field trip that week) to see where I was and get permission to interrupt my work. My boss thought it was cool, laughed and said, "Go ahead."

On another field trip, on my time, we took the class to the road end and walked the creek looking at the hydrology and biology of the creek. I don't know what the students thought of the two days in the field, but for me, it was part of the enjoyment of being a streamgager. And all the office hydrology (as many hydrologists are these days) won't change the reality of being there.

I learned sometimes the most ordinary of things can bring some of the best memories.

Big Cr nr Roosevelt Beach

2007-12-06T05:36:00.000-08:00

The gage at Big Creek at Roosevelt Beach, Oregon was a gage on a small river basin draining into the Pacific Ocean in the Oregon Coast Range. While all of the major river basins flowing directly into the Pacific Ocean in the Coast Range had one or more gages, there are very few in small basins, which react differently during storm events.

This gage was off Highway 101 on the Oregon coast north of Florence. It's a near two hour drive just to the small dirt road of the highway from the Eugene office. It meant for a long day of driving. And servicing the gage was always a challenge. Once you turn off the highway you drive about an half an hour plus up the creek valley which is heavily forested and damp on good days and soaking on bad days. It was so wet that ferns were so abundant that many people earned money collecting them for florist shop in Florence.

It was a gage that no matter the weather when you left the highway you always wore your rain suit, coat and pants, when you walked to and serviced the gage and made your measurement. It was just a day you accepted as part of the work and job. And besides you got to spend a day in a beautiful place, ok, minus the occasional dumped cars and trucks people would haul in and leave for the State of Oregon to remove.

But the neat thing about this gage after you had finished was that you drove out to the highway. And you were right there on the ocean, just a parking lot away. So, after being thoroughly wet, you got the chance to park the truck, get your thermos out, and sit on the beach for awhile, before you drive the two hours home. That's hard to argue is a bad thing or a bad day, even if the gage work and measurement weren't all the fun that day.

It was here that Jack Mrowka tested an idea. The USGS method to measure the velocity of water in a profile is to measure the speed and direction for about 40 seconds, only less during high flows or floods. The idea is that the speed variation during the 40 seconds will average out to a value within an acceptable accuracy. But this method, developed in the 1950's using measurements on larger rivers, has never retested.

Jack had the idea that the speed in a river cross-section has harmonics, meaning tthat the speed varies over a cyclical pattern where the length for a full cycle varies from about 15-60 seconds, usually 30-45 seconds. He had been testing this using A velocity meter and chart recorder, but he had never tested on a small stream and against the standard USGS metering equipment and method.

He was aware that the variation not only changes in the cross-section, it changes as you move up and down the river, meaning it's a three dimensional characteristic, and it changes with time, so it's a four dimensional characteristic of any river. So it introduces the problem it may be so complex it can't really be determined, and meaning individual station-based method would require consistent updates to ensure it representative.

This may be why the USGS established the 40 second minimum. With all the data they originally collected which determines the optimum minimum time was 40 seconds, it would be impractical to redo the research over a wider number of streams and rivers under varying conditions over time. It's a situation where you can't really disprove it because you could never have enough data to establish the method is inaccurate.

But Jack was taking his shot. He had this spirit that he liked to pursue a lot of ideas. He would collect some data to get an idea off the ground and into some degree of insight, and like a lot of academics, he never collected enough to prove or disprove anything, but just enough to make you pause that it's a realistic possibility and even a probablity. But how much? Well, as all academics write, more research was needed.

So, being friends, and getting permission from my boss, he tagged along one day to service this gage. He got his equipment ready and made some initial tests while I serviced the gage. When I was ready to measure, meaning tagline set, equipment in hand and ready to start, Jack followed me in each section with his equipment. I did a standard measurement and he did his, usually recording the speed for 2-3 minutes to ensure he had several complete cycles in the speed variation.

When we were done I let him copy my notes to his so he could make the comparison later, but he had some initial observations. He discovered that during the measurement I was making the harmonic cycle of the velocity was consistently in the cross-section to be about 30 seconds. This meant I was likely over measuring in some sections and under measuring in other sections.

The questions is, with that thought in mind, did it average out during my measurement, or did I bias the total with too many over or under velocities? I don't know, except that there are many factors effecting the accuracy of a measurement, from the cross-section conditions, equipment, choice of measuring sections, and so on, it seems likely the harmonics of the velocity is lost in the overall error.

It was an interesting day, something few streamgagers get to do, working directly with a professor as an equal, to understand the reality of rivers in the field. Most streamgagers don't really care for this but then a good number like to understand the theory behind what they do. And you couldn't have had a better companion for this than Jack.

And Jack knew where on the drive home there was an ice cream shop that made their own 18% butterfat ice cream.

Naselle R nr Naselle

2007-12-05T06:11:00.000-08:00

This is the gage for the Naselle River near Naselle, Washington. The Naselle River is the the far southwest corner of the state and flows into the south end of Willapa Bay, and was the farthest on my field trip for the Tacoma, Washington office, a two and a half hour drive. I used to service one gage on the way, drive to and service this gage and then stay in Astoria Oregon, the closest town, about 20 minutes away.

This wasn't a hard gage to access or service, just tedious. The gage was down a steep, often muddy hill from the parking, on a flat overbank where the ground was almost always soft if not inundated and a small stream flowed through it. The measurements were made wading in the vicinity of the gage, usually upstream - photo looking downstream, or at the cableway about a quarter mile downstream. Non-wading measurements meant servicing the gage, going up the hill to drive to the cableway and driving back and down the hill to check things after the measurement.

I liked this gage because it was the last of the day for this day, and where I scheduled it for the last days of the field trip to just drive back the next day. Sometimes with field trips you have to make your own good times. Streamgagers have 12-16 gages in their network and just doing them one after another wears on you so you have find time for mental breaks on the one or more trips you take.

What I always liked about this gage was the weather and area. It's on the coast so the weather is mild, the terrain mostly hills and forests in a rural area and staying in Astoria afforded the evening to see some sights. While supervisors often pressed streamgagers to do more in less time, most of them don't have the field experience to realize it's about enjoying the job and doing your best. Streamgagers will be efficient and productive if you afford them the latitude to do the job.

Many streamgagers do their work is because they like being in the field, especially in the less populated areas, especially USFS or BLM land and streamgaging. And one of the benefits is having the time now and then after the work to spend their own time while you're already there. Some liked to explore the immediate area, some fished (in season and with a license) and so on. It's the reward for the many times the work is hard and in really bad weather.

This gage is always a reminder of the reality of life. In the fall the salmon come back to spawn. And if I timed the trip right I could not only see them, I would have to make a wading measurement when they were spawning. I can tell you standing in the river with salmon spawning around you is worth the time spent in the river. And I can also say they don't like someone's feet in their area. They will swim by and slap their tail against you.

Along with that, in the fall when the days were getting shorter, it's was a cool place to simply watch the light. What could be better than standing in a river with spawning salmon when the days were waning and the light fading on the horizon?

Big Cr nr Grisdale

2007-12-05T06:10:00.000-08:00

This is the Big Creek near Grisdale, Washington gage. It's in the upper Wynoochee River basin, just west of Montesano and north into the southwest Olympic Mountains. Big Creek flows into the Wynoochee River just below the outflow from Wynoochee Lake.

When I transferred to the Tacoma, Washington office from Phoenix I was given the "old man's" field trip which was the network of gages in southwest Washington, from the southern Olympics to the Columbia River and east to the towns of Chehalis and Centralia. I never figured out why except it rarely snowed. It had tons of rain at times, sometimes all week during the field trip. I enjoyed for the time before transferring to data management, which this gage was the reason.

But not for this gage. The gage was a love-hate relationship. On good days, it was the best of streamgaging. On bad days, the worst, and all you wanted to do was go home and get warm and dry. Yes, those days the rain pelted your whole body - the upper Wynoochee river basin averages well over 120 inches of rain per year, and the cold with the dampness penetrates into your bones. And if it snowed, it only added to the misery.

The gage (house in right of photo) was a cinder block building over a stilling well. We later added a manometer and then a sonic ranger trying to get decent stage data from this gage and site. The reason was the problem with the river reach above, at and below the gage.

This is the channel about 100 feet above the gage. The flow during storms literally rips out of this small canyon into the reach through and below the gage and under the bridge over the creek. The top photo is looking upstream (gage on right). The creek flows into this reach from the canyon on the right in the photo. From above the canyon to the gage, the channel is bedrock which contains the entire flow and controls the movement of gravel.

Just past the gage, the creek spreads out into a long gravel reach for several hundred feet before merging with the Wynoochee River a little farther downstream. The continuous erosion and deposition of gravel from the high flows means the necessiity of a lot of measurements, especially low flow measurements to discern the changes in the channel which governs the stage at the gage. This meant more measurements than normal just to keep the discharge data accurate.

That, as you can guess, meant a lot of trips. But that's not really why this gage wasn't all that loved. The gage house was full of equipment. It was always dark and damp, and usually full of spider who made themselves at home. Where in Arizona, the first few minutes after opening the gage house door was spent finding and chasing scorpions out, here it was sweeping the spiders out of the house and still well.

And then there was December 1990. I was on the Olympic field trip,six gages in three days. It was cold and had been snowing several days before. By the time I got to this gage, there was a foot of snow on the ground and a lot more in the air. The sad reality is that streamgaging usually means the minimum or no gloves so you can write. It was here and this day I discovered I had Raynaud's Syndrome.

I waded across the creek to set the tagline to measure the width and sections. I made the discharge measurement, which took about 45 minutes, and when I got to the bank to put the wading rod (being a 4+ foot long aluminum rod used to measure depth and hold the velocity meter) down on the bank I couldn't let go of the top of the wading rod. My gloved hand was frozen in the position holding the rod. The fingers wouldn't move.

When I tried to undo my fingers around my left hand holding the rod I noticed I couldn't move the fingers of my right hand from holding the pencil and clipboard. I was stuck with two hands I couldn't move the fingers. I had to slide the wading rod out of the left hand without hurting the fingers, release and reel in the tagline, and carry everything back to the truck with curled fingers of both hands.

I slowly got the truck keys out and started the heater. After about 20+ plus minutes with my hands over heater vent my fingers would move enough to finish the field work and put everything away in the truck. For the next few days after my hands recovered they were painful to move or hold anything. The doctor confirmed the condition and advised not doing field work in the winter. He said once it's triggered it doesn't go away.

Well, you can't be a part-time streamgager, so I had to continue the field work until May of the next year and transfer into the office when a position could be accommodated. And the condition not only continues but slowly worsens each year. So the gage is a good and bad memory. And my hands remember it too. And in the end, even the worst gage and hardest field work was worth the effort because the reward is being there and the rest is what you do and what happens.

Black R nr Maverick

2007-12-04T06:06:00.000-08:00

This (right) is a photo of the gage for the Black River near Maverick in Arizona. I had this gage for the last year of its operation, but it was always an interesting day. It's on the US Forest Service land between the Apache Tribal Reservation (west) and New Mexico (east), southwest of Alpine, see map.

This gage was a 10-12 hour day to drive in, service and measure and drive out to Pinetop, depending on the weather, roads and river conditions. It was one you knew would be a long day when you started from Pinetop without any idea of how long it took and what you would encounter. It was at best a 3 hour drive one way and 4 hours at the worst. And when you got there you had to decide to park at the turnout off the USFS road and hike the 1+ mile to the gage or drive up the river channel (summer to fall only).

You started in Pinetop and drove to the Sunrise ski resort on the Apache Reservation and on to Hawley Lake where they have a fishing resort. If you didn't stop there you wouldn't see anyone again until you drove back. You keep driving south and east, eventually exiting the resevation onto USFS land to New Mexico. Then you come to the Black River bridge. There is a parking area just off the bridge.

After checking things, meaning the river stage was low and the river bed/bank was rocky and solid you could sometimes drop the truck into 4-wheel low and into first (granny) gear, and drive up the river channel, stopping when you run into the river about a hundred yards short of the gage, below. Notice the measuring cableway at the gage where you can see the equipment box on the walkway to the gage.

This is the end of the "road" to the gage, after driving a mile up the river channel. From there it's a walk, either with hip boots up the river to the gage and up the ladder or up the bank and over the rocks to the walkway.

Once you got to the gage, it took about two hours to completely service it where you computed the discharge to see if the rating was the same or not and a followup measurement was necessary, always another day along with the same amount of time. It's the norm of the work to make check measurements if the first one is off the rating and/or off the trend of the shift significantly.

After that you put it all away and took a few minutes to enjoy the place or explore a little bit since your day was done except for the 3-4 hour drive back to the motel and dinner at Pinetop. It was one of those gages that when you left you had a good day and wanted to do it again or you had a hard day and felt satisfied for your effort, and even then wanted to do it again.

But that was what you learned to enjoy, the time spent and the drive out. You had all the time in the world to just drive and see all the wonderful and beautiful terrain of eastern White Mountains. It was one gage I really hated to give up, as we lost funding for it. It made streamgaging worth your time and your life.

EF White R Ft Apache II

2007-12-02T16:44:00.000-08:00

Read part one for the pre-flood story. On Friday September 30, 1983 a storm went through Arizona and especially the reservation which generated record floods. I was told Friday afternoon to go and check the gages and make flood measurements. So another technician and I left Saturday morning and headed to the this gage as we knew it was the first to peak and pass, so it was critical to get flood measurement(s).

The gage was always interesting to service as you can see from the photo in the first part during a normal non-flooding visit. It is a 1980's Arizona gage, with an A-35 graphic recorder and stage encoder linked to a GOES satellite for near-realtime data (every 2-4 hours). The box on the walkway is for the two propane heaters. Each lasts about a month and are used November through April when it's likely to become so cold the water in the small well freezes the float in place, recording and transmitting erroneous data.

I had a third tank and would stop in Pinetop to get it filled. I would replace the near empty tank started at the last visit after switching to the full tank. The line from the control switch ran into the well, spiraled down the float tape and above the float where a nozzle was lit. This heated the float sufficient to prevent freezing. As simple as it was it worked very well. And surprisingly none of the indians messed with it or stole the propane tanks.

Making discharge measurements were a little difficult as the flow was usually over and around rocks and boulders, but could usually be made somewhere immediately above or below the gage and control where you could find or make a good cross-section for a fair or good measurement (you didn't move any rocks or boulders on the gage pool control). It was always time well spent just being and working there.

Anyway, back to the flood. The neat thing about floods in Arizona is that it's only cloudy when it's raining from the storm, often a thunderstorm or a fast moving front. Once it passes, it's always sunny, so you actually measure floods when the weather is good. The storm has passed, dumped it's rain and/or snow, and moved on. And you have the highwater to deal with.

When Harry, the other technician, and I arrived late in the afternoon and the above photo was what we saw. The flow was roaring by the gage. The peak had passed, and left its mark on the propane tank cabinet, just at the three white dots below the numbers. The peak was about 1.3 feet higher than the stage at the time. We made sure the gage and data were ok, since we couldn't do much anyway if there were any damage.

After that we went just upstream to a box culvert bridge. The river was straight above the bridge before making a right turn to flow under the bridge and make a left turn just past the bridge and on to the reach flowing by the gage. In short, a horrible place to measure a flood as the box culvert was nearly full of water and with the faster flows on one side (left bank). But we didn't have a choice since there wasn't any other place.

When we were looking at the situation, this is what we saw upstream heading at the bank before turning and flowing under the bridge.

And his is what we saw downstream. The flow on the left is overflow as the normal stream channel is along the right to the gage.

The bridge had a short rail so I could use a bridge board while Harry took the field notes. This is a long extension where you have the A-reel on one end and the line extending out, over a pulley and down to the velocity meter and weight on the other end. You can either use a two wheel base or a rope to your foot to add balance and keep things from going over the rail or let loosse if you snaggged any debris - yes, it's common but mostly on the rise of floods and only rarely on the recession.

I used a rope looped around my foot I could release quickly if necessary, but it wasn't. But by the time we started to make the meaasurement it was getting dark. So Harry drove the truck to the end of the bridge and turned on the high beam headlights. And we finished the measurement in the darkness surrounding our small world. Afterward we check the gage again, mandatory, and headed to Pinetop.

We decided to come back the next afternoon after checkiing another gage and making a flood measurement at the White River near Fort Apache gage in the morning. This is required to verify the original flood measurement for the stage-discharge rating. We discovered the flow had recessed for while but was rising again with the same stage reading.

We made another measurement under the same circumstances, at the bridge and under headlights. It's the nature of the work. You not just accept it but you have to love it and respect the force of rivers. All streamgagers love their work, but not always under all circumstances. And that's the challenge of it, as well as the beauty and reward.

Months later after we did all the flood work at all the gages which had floods I took photos of the damage when the flow was back to normal, as seen below.

As you can see in the second photo the water level at the peak was at the three white dots, which was at the base of the gage house. When all the records were produced, the flood peaked at 2,700 cfs and our measurements at 985 cfs are the two highest measurements for the history of this station.

The other interesting experience was being on the reservation on a Saturday night. As we drove back to White River and then north to Pinetop, we passed a huge, maybe 40 acres, field with many groups of cars and people standing around bonfires, maybe a half dozen or so. People just hanging out and drinking. What else is there to do when there is no other entertainment and tv reception sucks? Sunday night was the opposite, just the occasional small group and bonfire, but mostly everyone home or somewhere not outside.

Such are experiences over time at gages. It's about the place, the times, and you. The rest just happens.

EF White R Ft Apache

2007-12-02T12:56:00.001-08:00

This is the East Fork White River near Fort Apache, station 1209492400). It's typical of a gage on a small stream in the southwest. This one is on the Fort Apache (northern) half of the Apache Tribal Reservation northeast of Phoenix in the White Mountains. The gage is east of the community of White River (map).

I had the Apache Reservation field trip for just over 18 months. It's was always interesting but a long trip, where 80% of the time was spent driving, from the first gage, a two-hour drive from Phoenix, to the farthest gages, four-plus hours one way. I usually stayed in the town of Pinetop just outside the northern boundary of the reserveration or ShowLow just west of Pinetop, depending on the room availability as Pinetop was near the ski resort on the reservation.

The trip was a full week in the area, leaving Phoenix Monday and returning Friday afternoon, and then another day for one last gage north of Roosevelt Reservoir. I did one gage on the way to Pinetop and then spent the next three days on the reservation servicing five gages and the last day servicing one gage on the way home. The following week was the last gage. The middle three days was spent driving the back roads on the reservation to the gages, which was a lesson in reservation life.

For one thing I learned the Apaches don't practice taking care of pets. They let them do what they will and sadly if they have litters they don't want, they simply take them into the backcountry and leave them for the coyotes and other predators. It's a horrible form of pet birth control but it's theirs. In addition they have a problems with packs of feral dogs which are more vicious than coyotes. They used to offer bounties for killing dogs in the packs.

This taught me it's not uncommon to come across wild pets driving or near gages. The cats weren't a problem as they avoided you, but the dogs wanted food and the only safeguard as I learned from contractors was either give them your lunch or carry a gun. Since we couldn't do the latter, you simply made sure the dogs weren't there when you arrived. And I also learned there were cougars and occasional bears. I saw cat tracks but never bear tracks.

In addition they let their cattle and horses roam loose over the entire reservation and conduct an occasional roundup of cattle in some areas to take and sell them. I don't know what they do with the horses they collect in roundups. But it's not uncommon to be driving in the remotest back country areas, round a corner to come face to face with "white face elk", their nickname. It's also why you don't drink from any of the streams as it's where most of the cattle spend their time.

And the last thing to worry about were simply people. The reality is that reservations are soverign nations inside the United States and governed by Tribal laws, not non-Tribal local, state or federal laws with only a few exceptions where the FBI has some authority over non-Tribal citizens. And while the Apaches were easy going, friendly people they had the same problems that all tribes have, high rates of alcoholism, especially among the youths in groups.

On the first field trip to see the gages with the lead technician we stopped for some snacks and refreshments. The Tribal liquor store was inside the general store and two things I learned real quick. First, someones stays in the truck and locks the doors or some of the members loitering outside will try to get in the truck. Second, they don't have any refreshments on display but behind a counter window. You tell them what you want and they get it for you.

And, as I also learned, there always is a long line. Try being the only white guy in a long line of alcoholic Indians. You find yourself surrounded by them and you learn to keep you hands on your valuables and don't do anything stupid. Then you order what you want quickly when it's your turn, pay and quickly exit the store. I'm sorry to write this but it was the reality of life there at the time. But there were some good things and some other bad things.

And this gage was at local hangout as it was on the road into the backcountry east of White River. For some reason they never bothered the gage itself but it there were often debris from parties or people occasionally living there. If there were people I simply drove on, turned around and drove to another gage, and came back later or another day. I simply didn't want to be the one government employee among many who didn't necessarily like government employees.

At the time the Apache Tribes was involved in displutes with the State of Arizona and the Salt River Project over water rights of the Salt River basin. And the USGS having the gage contract paid by their adversaries wasn't appreciated by the Tribe. We accommodated their needs for data and information about the river basin and the reservation, but without additional funds to adequately study things, which they didn't have, we were stuck.

So while we were tolerated, we weren't really liked. I never had any bad exchanges with them but I also didn't go out of my way to interact much either. When I looked at staying at their motel for the week I discovered to prevent people from using the rooms they only have one entrance which is locked at 6:00 pm every night until about 6:00 am the next morning. And they only had one restaurant and grocery store. It's why I stayed in Pinetop.

The good part was the restaurant. The best home cooked food you'll find in all of northeast Arizona. It was awesome. And it's there and elsewhere I saw the inter-Tribe discrimination that happens on this and likley other reservations. All Apaches are paid as members and have jobs if they want. All non-Apache are hired for the lesser, non-managerial and higher service jobs. It was interesting to see the diversity of people.

Anyway, that was the human side of things. Part two has the work side of it.

EF White R Ft Apache

2007-12-02T12:56:00.000-08:00

Streamgaging and photography

2007-11-21T12:57:00.000-08:00

Ok, it's a "Huh?" Well, not really, and you can insert any profession or endeavor for streamgaging and relate it to photography. Just for me though, it's streamgaging. I spent 13-plus years streamgaging in Oregon, Arizona and Washington. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and although many days weren't so enjoyable then that's the reality of it and my history.

I wouldn't change or trade it, which, if you can say that, is one of the few great things in one's life. To get to the end and realize it was worthwhile and fun. When I started I had the great fortune to learn from two senior technicians whom each handed me their different generation of knowledge and experience. I have always been grateful to them for my first years of learning the basics and finding the enjoyment of streamgaging.

One of the technicians was from the 1950's generation. He started in the Bureau of roads surveying in several of the highways in western Oregon before transferring to the USGS. He was hired when techicians did the basic job of maintaining river and lake gages and do the field work servicing them. They later taught them to produce and review streamflow data. I can't begin to recount the field work we shared.

The other one was from the 1960's generation and the one who really taught me streamgaging. He started in the northern California office when the Redwoods Park controversy was raging. He taught me about consistency of your field work, and meticulousness of your field notes. Both of these you don't realize the value for several years when you've found they're embedded into your work psyche. And you see the value, not just to streamgaging, but many other things in work and life.

Which is? Streamgages, or even lake gages, are small houses with one or more stage sensors attached to one to four recorders, which in later years are attached to various telemetry equipment. There is a proceedure you go through the minute you drive up to the gage, from the initial outside work, the work inside the gage house, any discharge measurement, any necessary repairs, and the last review before leaving.

This is where being consistent, methodical, and precise is necessary. You have to service the gage(s) in the same way you do every gage, from the time you unlock the gagehouse door to the time you lock it. It's that mundane routineness that frees you to focus on the other things and think through problems you encounter while still working on the gages. On one plane you're working instinctively and the other thoughtfully.

It's the simple idea of what I always termed being awake and aware when you're standing in the gage house. And when you were done and all the paperwork completed, you had the complete satisfaction and trust you did your best and didn't leave anything undone. Your whole world for that short time was that gage house and that discharge measurement. Nothing less and nothing more.

When I was reading about large format photography, I was overwhelmed with the equipment, the process, the field work, the films and on and on. But when I got the camera in the field, I realized my training as a streamgager and focusing on the basics of the camera and lenses, the exposure and metering, the thought process of the images, and the whole thing together, it turned out far easier than I had imagined.

First, I knew the basics of photography from over 30 years as a hobby, such as light, metering, etc. so it's was a matter of sorting it out for that the image and exposure. Second, the camera and lens, even being totally different, was something to learn and work with consistently, methodically and precise. Something I did for 13-plus years. And third, the thought process is simply focusing on the work and being in the moment at that time and place.

When I got done with my first few days with the system and then when I got the film back, I discovered I wasn't as bad as I feared, but then, I could have done better, which is the reason to do it some more. And more after that. The joy of being there and photographing what I see. Thanks to Duane and Mike.

Colorado R at Lees Ferry

2007-11-18T16:40:00.000-08:00

photo copyright Brian J. McMorrow

Since the first half of my career with the USGS was as a streamgager, and while I did a lot of other field work, servicing streamflow gages and making discharge measurements and the subsequent office work to produce the real-time data for the Web and the annual data report data, much of my best memories are from times in the field. That's because you're where the real world of hydrology is and where you are in the world. Not sitting in an office being a scientist, but around rivers where it happens.

Well while I was in the Phoenix office, the USGS was contracted to study the sediment transport and deposition on the Colorado River below Glen Canyon Dam as part of a government inter-agency task force to see if the lower Colorado River regime could be restored as the years of clear water had eroded numerous beaches and redefined the hydrology of the river. The Flagstaff and Phoenix field office chiefs realized the study was to begin without anyone doing some initial data collection before the releases were to begin.

To resolve that they dispatched another technician and I to the Colorado River at Lees Ferry gage for the period leading up to the start of the study, meaning about two weeks or less depending when the study crew showed up from Flagstaff. This gage is just downstream from the starting point for the rafting trips down the Colorado River, see a photo with the gage on the opposite bank (tall concrete house - access and measuring cable just upstream, not visible in photo).

Well, for those who haven't driven to Lees Ferry from Phoenix, it's about a 5-6 hour drive. Driving north from Phoenix you venture in and out of the Verde River valley before getting up on the Mogollon Plateau into Flagstaff, going from about 1,500 feet to over 7,000 feet at Flagstaff. You drive through Flagstaff north to Page. It's all down hill from Flagstaff, often straight for miles and miles. The only stops are along the Navajo Reservation towns.

Just south of the Colorado River the highway splits to Page and to the Grand Canyon. We stayed in Page the first night before going to the gage the next day. Our job was to measure and take sediment samples twice a day. It's about a 4 hour job to do this as you measure on the way over to the gage, service it, and sample on the way back. With the equipment setup and takedown, it consumes a morning and an afternoon each time.

On the first day we went to Marble Canyon for lunch. Then it was a town if you stretch your imagination to include a small motel, restaurant, store, and gas station along with a few tourist shops because it's on the highway from Page to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and on to southern Utah. In short, it was a wide spot in the road. But we liked it so much we went back to Page, cancelled our room and stayed at the motel.

What we liked most of all was the area around it. The Vermillion Hills were beautiful in the evening. And there was the bridge, the desert, and the small roads to check out. No one questions workers in government trucks on back roads. So we had a great time, and although the work as routine, we liked watching all the boats leave the launch site in the morning and paddle or power underneath the cable while we worked. And watch them setup in the afternoon for the next day's launch.

Well, it was memorable for just being routine and magnificant too. It's the adage I tell folks about streamgaging. We got paid to go, stay and work in places people go on vacation, and pay to stay. And we contribute to the study of the nation's rivers. What's not to like about that?

Black R nr Fort Apache

2007-11-15T14:10:00.000-08:00

The Black River near Fort Apache, Arizona streamflow gage was a great memory (larger view - 490Kb). It was always an adventure going in and coming out the backcountry road on the Fort Apache side of the Apache Indian Reservation. And it was one of those gages I didn't necessarily like doing the work but always liked afterward.

So are gages a love-hate relationship for streamgagers? For many streamgagers and their many gages, yes. And this gage was the best at the extremes of my love-hate relationship with my field work.

The gage is about 30 miles south-southwest of the town of White River, on the dirt road past the gravesite marker for Geronimo off highway 73. You're on the high Natanes Plateau where the land is flat and only broken by the entrenched river valleys and the low mountain divides. From the highway you head south to the White River valley where you have to watch out for packs of feral dogs. After coming out of the White River basin you go into the Black River basin.

The road is on the clay layer in the rock layers so driving in severe winter rain and snow storms become a nightmare where even in 4-wheel drive it can slide off at 5 mph. In addition as you drive down the divide into the Black River valley the road dips into the flood zone, so you can drive all the way but the last 3 miles where you can see the gage but you can't get to the gage because of the 3-6 feet of water over the road.

And even when you can get to the gage, as you can see in the photo of the gage, you climb over the bridge rail and down the ladder to the small 3x5 foot platform, which is about 30 feet above the river. In addition, to check the inside and outside water level you climb down the ladder on the outside downstream side of the gage. This is ok for most flows, but during high flows, and the river is about 20 feet deep and rushing by your feet at tremendous velocities, it's just a little scary.

One time I had to get in to service the gage and make a measurement following the early October 1983 flood peak. I couldn't get into the gage the first time as the river was over the road. I could the next day, but discovered the flood was so high it ripped the cable car from the cable way which had be broken into by vandals and released into the center (something they did routinely). Only the support bars and pulleys where left dangling from the cable.

In addition, the water had gotten so high it washed out the base of the left bank A-frame and made any measurement impossible until the whole measuring cableway could be repaired. We did a slope-area measurement in the following weeks, see the peak streamflow listed for the gage (above link to gage data). We later discovered the riffle just below the gage had moved upstream above the gage and bridge.

Once all the work was done, I checked the historical record and discovered the riffle which controls the gage-height (gage pool) migrated from below the gage to above the gage and back in 20 years cycles. The river channel after the flood was almost identical to the photos taken in the early 1960's. Such is real-world hydrology.

And the real event at this gage? Well, among others one comes to mind. I had to do some maintenance which required two people. For some reason I can't remember why we took the other technician's van. When we finished the work we decided to take a short cut out to the highway back to Globe and Phoenix. This back road starts at the gage and winds south and west through the San Carlos half of the reservation to highway 60. Or so we thought.

It's a reasonable good road, with only some rough or slippery spots in stormy weather. But driving down into a small creek valley with a 180 degree turn, I drove down and then up and out of the valley when I suddenly heard the feared sound, "Psssttt", of a flat tire. I was halfway of the hill when it went totally flat. We couldn't change the tire on the hill so I slowly back down the to the curve. Then I heard a second feared sound, "Psssttt", as I discovered I ran over the same thing a second time.

Now both left side tires were flat and we only had one spare tire. We weighed our options and it was clear. Remember this is before cell and satellite phones. So we walked seven miles to highway 60, except about half way out it started to rain, and it rained the rest of the way to the highway where we hitched a ride to Globe. Needless to say, you can have a good conversation with someone walking seven miles in the rain.

It was near midnight when we got to Globe, so we got rooms at a motel and in the morning called the office to get approval to hire a tow truck to retrieve the van. From the rain though, the tow truck almost didn't get past the first mile as the road was so slippery he barely kept it on the road. But he did and we got the van out and back to a tire dealer. It was into the evening when we arrived back.

In the end, despite the love-hate relationship for this gage, it actually was one of my favorite gages. You spent a day in the remote areas of the reservation which had seen the history of the Indian wars, establishiment of reservations and Indian resettlements, and the operation and management by the Tribe. Much of the land hadn't changed, only the management of the land for timber harvesting and open range for cattle, horses, and ever-present feral pets.

And stopping in the town of White River it was always interesting to see how indians manage and operate reservation facilities, and how Apaches treat other (non-Apache) indians. While it's nice to think all indians and treat other indians equally, they don't. They're not necessarily as bad as white or other minorities, but there is a hierarchy with and within any Tribe and tp other Tribes.

And how so? Well, all the managers where Apaches, but none of the restaurant and motel staff were Apaches, but other Tribes. All the cashiers at the grocery and other stores were Apaches, but all the workers other Tribes. But the reality was that all the top managers below the Tribal council and senior management were non-indians. There was a reason for this as I learned from one of them.

It seems in the past Apache Tribe had different major and minor sub-tribes, some were allies and some enemies of other sub-tribes and of other Apaches on other reservations. It's why the reservation has the White River and San Carlos halves run by separate councils. But over time these differences faded and Apaches treat other Apaches almost equally, which means the consider all Apaches family.

And being family an Apache can't say no, meaning jobs, help, etc. Over time the Apaches found their beauracy bloated with many "family" members, so much so they were going broke in the commericial ventures in timber, sport hunting and fishing, cattle and horse management, and so on. So they hired white managers to fire people and keep the jobs to the minimum.

The nearly two years I had this field trip was an interesting experience. With all it's good and bad, and driving - where 75-80% of the time in the field was driving even when I stayed the whole week in Pinetop just outside the reservation - I would do it again. So that's my story for this gage, this time as memory serves.

Gray Creek nr Oakridge

2007-11-12T10:26:00.000-08:00

The title and image don't match? Well, let me explain, as this photo, taken in 1979 shortly after I started working for the USGS in Eugene, Oregon, has a connection to my work and my life. We installed the gage and stated collecting data on Gray Creek in July 1978 and operated it to October 1986. The gage was part of my field trip in 1978-79 and 1981-82.

The gage was on a small creek on the south side of the Willamette River along Highway 58 a few miles west of Oakridge (map). Access was on a one lane logging road off Highway 58 used by log trucks hauling logs out of the Willamette National Forest. The gage was just below a one lane bridge made entirely of large logs. We parked at the turnout for the bridge and serviced the gage on the left bank.

We made our measurements by wading at the gage. It was a fairly good cross-section about 6-8 feet wide and <1-2 feet deep for most measurements. Highwater measurements could be made from the log bridge when log trucks weren't using it, but you could usually wade the creek anywhere from a few feet to a few hundred feet downstream where the creek went around a bend and spread out into a wider creek.

The creek above the gage made a 90-degree bend and went almost due south into the headwaters. About a few hundred feet above the bend a giant (about 4 foot diameter) Douglas Fir tree had fallen across the creek, leaving an 8 foot gap between the creek and the lowest part of the tree. Over time, storms had washed other trees downstream which got caught into a logjam, along with rocks that rolled along the bed. It was a small, naturally made dam.

When I first saw and explored it one summer day there wasn't a lake behind it, it had filled with rocks, trees and debris collected over the years and the creek level was at the top of the debris and over the Douglas Fir tree holding everything up. All the storms up until then hadn't managed to dislodge anything and just kept adding to the debris in the logjam behind the tree. And so we thought our gage, protected by the log bridge, was safe.

In December 1981 we experienced several major storms in the Willamette River valley and the tributary basins. Then we got a phone call from the Forest Service folks asking if we had been to the gage. They hadn't been to the gage to check their sediment gage, but residents in the area heard a number of really loud sounds overnight coming from the upper creek valley. And being my gage, it was my job to check it out.

When I drove around the last bend I knew something was terribly wrong. The log truck bridge was severly damaged. The length of the creek and creek bed from the upstream bend past the downstream bend was filled with lots of rocks. Not small cobbles. Big and really big rocks. And while the gage was there, protected by the bridge, it was leaning downstream, had some dents in it, and was surrounded by the those big rocks with all the dirt gone.

There weren't any highwater marks to do an indirect there, and two weeks later, in the middle of a snowstorm we did an indirect a few hundred feet upstream of the highway some distance downstream from the gage. That was also an experience I won't forget (try finding a white survey level rod in a snowstorm through a surveyor's level/scope). But the real story was upstream of the gage.

After servicing the gage and make a new measurement, I hiked upstream around the bend. And not much to my surprise but really to my amazement, the entire logjam was gone. Completely. And the creek was then in the original channel before the logjam began to collect material and debris. It was a normal creek again. And the giant Douglas Fir was also gone, presumably broken into pieces and gone downstream. Such is the real world of hydrology. It's not sitting in the office, but in the field standing in creeks and rivers.

The other thing this gage taught me was measuring a creek. Making wading measurements is fairly straight forward, but there is one basic rule to judge when you're in over your head, really over your chest waders, or under your feet. The rule is that the maximum velocity times the deepest depth should not exceed 10, and you adjust it according to your experience. Most streamgagers can wade a factor 7-8 easily but over 9, it's becomes difficult for most normal size men, and above 10-11, you either better be big or tall.

This factor is adjusted when the maximum velocity and deepest depth in the same place, same vertical profile, in the creek, meaning the creek is at its highest energy at that point in the cross-section, which means during storms events, the energy is moving the bed material. You normally lower the factor by one or two to be safe. But sometimes you're faced with the choice of trying or not getting a critical measurements.

Well, one winter storm on Gray Creek I was faced with this issue. I really wanted to make a measurement but the flow was high for the creek. And being a new streamgager wanted to show I could do it. When you make a wading measurement, you have to first wade across the creek to set the tagline, then wade back, and then get the equipment to make the measurement, wading across and back again.

Well, about halfway across to set the tagline, I got stuck. I simply could not move. I was standing parallel to the flow using my wading rod for support as I tried to move each foot. The flow was so fast I had a standing wave on the front (upstream) side of my body like the bow of a ship. The velocity was so fast the rocks on the bed were moving and taking my feet downstream. I knew if i lost my balance, I would be gone downstream, part of floating debris in the flow.

Well, while standing in the middle of the creek with storm water flowing swiftly by and using my wading rod to just stand there while slowly sliding downstream, I thought of John Muir. And this is a really big, "Huh?" Well, John Muir wrote about hiking up a canyon in the Sierra Mountains once when he faced a vertical rock wall with the choice to climb it using a gap in the rock to the top or hike back down.

He chose the gap and began climbing, until he suddenly found the crack just as wide as the length his body from his shoulders to his feet. If it got wider he would fall, and he couldn't use his body to go back down. He was stuck with several hundred feet of air between him and the base of the rock face. He paused for sometime before he continued upward as the gap didn't widen. He realized his luck and his stupidity.

Anyway, I decided to waddle my way across, thinking if it got worse I could simply let go and float downstream or it would get better. It got easier to make it to the other bank. I set the tagline and waded back across, very slowly, sliding and waddling with my feet. And then I did it all over to get the measurement and release the tagline. I finished the day servicing the gage and calculating the measurement to drive home. Except two things.

One the measurement had a factor 12 and at the same point in the cross-section. I just sat there wondering what the hell I was thinking. And two, the photo. While I was catching my life again, I walked around the area. Since I often took my camera with me to take photos of the gages, work and just being in places few people go. I saw the leaf on the rock and took the photo. It was dark (overcast sky and deep in the creek valley), and had to use a slow shutter speed without a tripod.

I forgot about it until I got the slides back. Somehow it touched me as it still does. I had a print made then and another about 10 years ago with a professional print lab. It hangs by my desk as a reminder of our life. And so the photo became a personal story and feeling. The ephemeral and the eternal. Aren't we all the sum of each?

Willamette R nr Oakridge

2007-11-10T05:49:00.000-08:00

Ok, while I'm on streamgaging - hey I spent 13 years streamgaging in Oregon, Arizona and Washington - I'll talk about another gage, another time. Quite the opposite for a winter field trip. The Willamette River near Oakridge. It's on the same river as the Dexter gage but this one is above the reservoirs, and used to measure the inflow into the reservoir.

The gage is just off Highway 58 from Eugene to Oakridge, just past the halfway mark up the Middle Fork Willamette River valley, and often where the weather changes from the Willamette Valley (Eugene to Portland) to the river valleys. It always was the last gage on the field trip where I stayed in Oakridge for a few night to head back to the office. It was a nice trip ending gage. It wasn't an easy one, just an enjoyable one.

The gage and cableway has easy access and is easy to service. The cableway is about a 350 foot span about 40 feet or so over the river. You release the cable car on the left bank (facing downstream) to glide over the river to the right bank and begin the measurment. It's not unusual to get cold and rainy weather, but mostly the valley in the immediate area seemed to trap the warmer air so you may be cold but didn't freeze (your whatevers).

Well one day on the way back, it didn't seem all the cold, on the edge of rain or snow with a thick cloud layer. I serviced the gage and set up to measure the flow. I released the car and flew over the cable to the other side - something I always thought was the coolest feeling, free gliding over a river in a small car. When I got the right bank location, I lowered the weight and meter to start the measurement.

Measuring the flow is a fairly straight-forward effort. While keeping track of your distance to get the section and total width, you measure the depth of the water and velocity of the flow at selected places in the vertical profile. That's the science part of the work. The art of it is the on-going calculation to get 4-5% of the total flow in each of about 24 sections. My experience is that this is a skill you innately learn or not.

While on this day, as I began to measure I felt the temperature drop. Since you bundle up anyway to stay warm - after all you're sitting in a wooden car for one to one and a half hours - it's not hard to just zip the raincoat a little more. The more I measured the colder it felt. And then, in a moment, everything changed. It took away my concentration on measuring.

I looked up and noticed huge snowflakes slowly and quietly gliding down. All around. The whole sky was filled with slowly falling snowflakes, the biggest one I've ever seen in my life. Suddenly the whole world was silent. Like all the snowflakes absorbed all of the sound in the world, except for the sound of their falling. I could barely see beyond a few dozen feet except the faint view of the hills and the river.

I stopped my work and just sat there. I lost a sense of time, and even place, watching the sky with huge snowflakes filled the air around me. They slowly settled on everything, near and far, including the roof of the car and the two seats of the car. There was little wind so the snowflakes just fell, and a few into the car. I held my hand out and watch as it filled with the light snowflakes. They weren't cold, just snowflakes.

I don't know how long I watched and listened to the silence. I know I had to get back to work, and get on back to Eugene, but even after I finished the measurement I just stood on the bank of the river feeling the wholeness of the time and place. I've never had a similar experience, and doubt I ever will. Being overe the river in the valley all alone with the world, and in the midst of a sky filled with snowflakes and silence.

And they say streamgaging isn't fun.

Willamette R nr Dexter

2007-11-09T16:29:00.000-08:00

I was reading the Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff about the story of the three men tasting a sample of vinegar. And this relates to the USGS streamflow gage? In way. It's about feelings, and anyne who finds vinegar a bad experience could relate.

I worked for the USGS in the Eugene, Oregon office from 1978-82, where I started with the USGS as a hydrologic technician. The USGS assigns field work by streamflow gaging networks. In my first year I was assigned the Middle Fork Willamette River and Mohawk River. The network had about 15 gages which were serviced every 6-8 weeks and in between based on events, such as floods.

One of those gages was the Willamette River near Dexter, the first gage below the larger reservoirs on the Middle Fork Willamette and the last tributary before merging with the Coast Fork Willamette River and flowing through Eugene. The gage was built post World War II in preparation for the three upstream reservoirs. It's on private property with a big field behind the house down the hill to the gage on the river.

We used to move the goats to the gage so they would eat the bushes while we did our normal annual maintenance work at the gage. We only had to remember to keep them from getting near the trucks as they liked to eat whatever paper and other stuff that was easily accessible to them. Remember goats aren't picky, but they sure did eat blackberry bushes very well. Ok, so why the connection to vinegar?

Well, in the winter the area was in a valley where cold air settled and the temperatures dropped well below freezing. This wasn't so much of a problem when measuring the flow from the cableway suspended over the river (which was at the gage just downstream). The measurement took just over an hour and during the whole time you were sitting in a small cable car measuring and writing everything down.

If you were there on the wrong day, the wind would blow up the river, and you could see the waves of freezing fog move toward you, usually every 5-10 minutes. The cold would go through you and chill you to the bone. And then deposit a layer of ice on the windward side of your coat, rainpants and hat. You couldn't hide from it. You couldn't even hunker down. It simple overwhelmed you, went through you, and moved onward up the river.

After the hour-plus time over the river, you would be colder than you've ever felt. You would sit in the truck with the heater going for 15-20 minutes just to start moving again before you continued the field work. It was a lesson in being. I used to really hate going there in the winter, but one time I decided to turn it around. I remembered my worst day measuring the flow, the day I was covered in ice and felt so cold I could barely move.

That became the standard, and any day after that I thought was bad, I would think if it was worse. If it wasn't I would be happy knowing I've survived worse. And if it was close, I would ask if it was a new standard, because if it was, then I've set a new standard, a new cold I could survive. It never was than the worse day at the Dexter gage, but to this day it's still there in my memory as the worst day of field work I've ever had.

The whole situation about the Dexter gage showed me the relativeness of life and the control everyone has over the perspective they have to any situation. I loved streamgaging and had a lot better days, even in the winter (another story), and looking back the worst day was still good to remind me about living and being. And walking away at the end of the day with a smile.

And I learned to always bring a really big thermos of hot coffee.

A photographer's perspective

2007-10-08T17:12:00.000-07:00

When I read about Alexandra Boulat I went searching for information on her short life. I found this image without a photo credit (credit added from comment below), so it's obviously by another photographer at a checkpoint somewhere in her travels. You can read about her on the VII Photo Website.

Photographers are a quirky bunch of people. Each one belongs to a group of similar photographers, usually by the type of photography they pursue and present to the world. Conflict photographers are in a class and value by themselves. And yes, I truly believe this. Who else when being personally searched and her equipment thoroughly inspected turn to the camera and smile with a sense of humor you see in her face?

These men are serious and everything there is serious. You don't (pardon the expression) fuck with these people or you will know what happens in no uncertain terms. But within the framework of it, Alexandra finds the humor of the situation to smile. While I can say I've had my taste with authority in my photography, it pales by a lot with any one of her experiences. I would be too cautious and anxious to stand there, especially with a smle.

I prefer the quiet solace of nature, more specifically Mount Rainier NP. The trails have very few people, and none with automatic weapons and armored vehicles ready to shoot and kill when necessary. And only rarely people in camoflage uniforms, such as the paramilitary people I met in the deserts of Arizona when I worked there with the USGS. But I will add they are spookier than soldiers.

That's because military people, generally, have orders and rules to follow in engagement and the use of force. Private paramilitary people don't and hearing gun shots ignites the senses - yes been there, done that. And while I've met some walking in the desert I've never had an encounter with them like Alexandra routinely did for her work. I give her far more courage than I'll ever imagine, let alone know.

Even in the street photography I also like to do, it's always in the daytime in cities where I'm not too far from the public. I'm not an extreme street photographer either. They're also their own group dedicated to the city environment and people. And occasionally their experience is not that different from a conflict photographer, just the place and events. It's the old adage, it's still about humanity or inhumanity, whichever is the situation.

And that's the beauty of photographers. It's the respect we have for the passion of our craft which inhabits the spirit and soul of every photographer that counts. It's the one constant, and each of us do what we can to do what we want. And the rest is just the world we live in to be there. It's our perspective, and hopefully with a sense of humor. After all, what else is there?