I need to be at school at 3pm...DOH!

I had my head completely up my butt today.  I was screwing around all morning, waiting for my Humanities class to start in the afternoon.  I looked at the clock numerous times and even thought that it seemed kind of late to be starting class at 3PM. Well, it was kind of late. About 2 hours late. The class actually starts at 1PM. I didn't put together the fact that my math class starts at 3:30 and it would be impossible for Humanities to start 1/2 hour before then (it's a 2 hour class). I didn't even realize what was going on until I tried to go to the classroom and it  was the wrong class. I was utterly confused, thinking maybe I had the wrong room or even the wrong building. What a dummy. I had to email the instructor and tell her what I had done, hoping for some understanding. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come for this term.

You saved your anger for what?

I can't take credit for this. There have been more than a few posts on the interwebs in this same vein, but this one came from some guy on Facebook named Henry B. Lee. I just thought he said it plain and simple. Is this you? If it is, you have some explaining to do.


Birthers, Deathers, TEA BAGGERS, and Angry People . . .

You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.

You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy.

You didn't get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.

You didn't get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.

You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.

You didn't get mad when we spent over 600 billion(and counting) on said illegal war.

You didn't get mad when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq .

You didn't get mad when you saw the Abu Grahib photos.

You didn't get mad when you found out we were torturing people.

You didn't get mad when the national debt doubled under the previous President from $5.674 trillion to $10.024 trillion.

You didn't get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans and the President lied about it.

You didn't get mad when we didn't catch Bin Laden in Tora Bora.

You didn't get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.

You didn't get mad when we let a major US city drown!

You didn't get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark.

You finally got mad when.. when... wait for it...............

When the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick.

Yes! Illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all ok with you, but helping other Americans... well that makes me mad!

Fun with textbooks

Finals went OK. Not great, but OK. I'm pretty sure I got a B on all of them. I did end up with A's in all three of my classes though, which is great. I'm much more comfortable with what I learned in math this time. I'm glad that I retook this class.

I registered for MTH112 (Elementary Functions), HUM100 (Intro. to Humanities), and EC203 (Economic Applications). I'm pretty sure the economics class will be canceled. There are only 5 people registered for it and there is no longer an instructor listed for this course. This was the only class I was really looking forward to this term. A few days ago while thinking I should have another class lined up if this one didn't happen, I put myself on the wait list for HST218 (Native American Indian History). But just now (!!!) I decided to go ahead and take WR122 (second of two college level English requirements) instead of maybe (or not) getting into a class on the wait list. I found another highly rated teacher and decided to just do it and get it over with. I wasn't all that thrilled about another writing class. It takes me a long time to write anything. For example: I'll probably make multiple edits and rewrites for the next day or so on this post and this sentence is the first of those. I thought briefly about taking a statistics course instead of writing. That thought made me feel icky. Two math classes at the same time? No, no, and no. Bad. No.

I already bought the text for the about to be canceled class. With shipping it was about $44, brand new. This is extremely cheap for a college textbook. The reason it is so cheap is that it is an "international version". What does that mean? First, the cover is different. Second, it's not widely sold in the US. Third, it costs less ($121 new US version at the college bookstore). And that's it. The rest is the same. I have a lot to say about companies that do things like this. And very little of it is complimentary. Most colleges get newer versions of textbooks every 2 years or so.

Used copies go fast, if they are even available. There is a thriving used textbook market online. I'm hoping to resell this one, but I don't think it's a very common one. I also bought an international version if the humanities text. It's $146 new at the bookstore and mine was $70, never used.  I'll check the student lounge used book sale for the writing text that I now need. Hopefully they made the change last term and there will be used ones available. They are cheaper here than used at the bookstore. And more money goes back to the students too. I used this last term and sold one of my textbooks. I got $50 for it versus selling it to the bookstore's vendor for maybe $15-20. Sometimes you get stuck with a book that no one wants. I still have a couple of those.

Nice day for a ride

I headed north today, to Stevenson, WA, on Hwy. 14. It is next to the Columbia River and is a very scenic road. Much nicer than I-84 which is on the south side of the river.

I did some recon, looking for an outdoor shooting range north of Stevenson, WA.  I had been there before with some friends and wanted to go there again. I found out from a local, an older gentleman riding a Sportster, that the range had been shut down a couple of years ago because yahoos were up there breaking things, shooting stuff they weren't supposed to, and generally being asses. Thanks guys. So, this road, Loop Rd., does a loop (go figure) north of Stevenson, with the ends of the road at opposite ends of town. I went up the east road and came to a "Road Closed" sign and a couple of jersey barriers in the middle of the road. There was just enough room between them to slowly drive the bike through, so of course I did. I've made it a habit to go around barriers like these, because its fun and I frequently discover that its something that I can drive around on the bike. This time was just like that. Just up the road from the barriers, the road had partially washed away. This is a pretty common sight in the spring on roads like this. I drove past the washout and a little farther on I saw the other set of barriers. For some reason, I decided to turn around, went back into town, and found the other end of the same road.

I drove up Loop Rd. again, until I came to the barriers that I had seen from the other side. It was even easier getting through these. I drove around one corner and stopped about 100 ft. from the beginning of the washout. I turned off the bike, got off, and decided to eat lunch. I brought my JetBoil and a freeze dried meal. I use these a lot for camping, or to be able to have a hot meal in the middle of nowhere when I'm riding. They are surprisingly good. But I forgot to bring a spoon. I ended up using a piece of wood. It worked well.

 Tastes better than it looks

This hadn't really taken that long, so I decided to drive a little farther up Hwy. 14 to Carson and then head north towards Mt. St. Helens.  Last night I checked and found out that NFR 25 was still closed because of snow. This Forest Service road goes to Randle, WA and is the road that takes you to Windy Ridge, which is the road to the top near the crater of the VOLCANO!!! I find it very amusing that I live 50 miles from an active volcano. The roads are fast and fun. The scenery is hard to beat. This is the first half of one of my favorite rides.

My Iron Butt - part zero

The weather has been warming up nicely and there hasn't been much rain. Riding has been on my mind a lot lately. I think I will go on a ride tomorrow. Finals are over. I need a little two-wheeled therapy.

I thought it would be fun to write about my first documented 1000 miles in less than 24 hours motorcycle adventure. This may take a while and will be spread out in many different posts. I may go on tangents and the narrative may not be totally straightforward time-wise. I might even finish it eventually.

It's hard to believe it's been seven years since I did this trip. When I finished it I felt like I had done something pretty amazing. At least until I rode in the Cal 24 endurance rally the following year (I finished 8th), but that's another story.

Here is a very rough outline of what's to come

Route map with gas stops

Google Maps says 1,021 miles. The odometer on the Kawasaki said 1,058.4 miles. I believe the Google Maps figure is much closer to the actual mileage. This represents a +3.53% error which is fairly typical.

Filled up at 515 NE 82nd, Portland, OR on Saturday, March 29, 2003 at 11:26pm
Odometer 33,069.1

3am on Interstate 84 in northern and eastern Oregon in late March is a very cold place. I had to stop several times in between gas stops to try and warm up.

Got to Ontario about 10 minutes before the gas station opened at 6am. It was nearly unbearable waiting for them to come out and turn on the pumps.

Unscheduled emergency potty break near the "shoe tree" about 16 miles east of Juntura, OR on Hwy. 20. Good thing I brought a roll of toilet paper.

Breakfast at McDonalds in Burns, OR on Sunday from 8:28 to 8:56am
Odometer 33,588.8
9 hr 2 min
519.7 mi elapsed

I finally started to feel warm when I rolled into Oakridge, OR for gas at 2:45pm.

Home on Sunday at 5:51pm
Odometer 34,127.5
18 hr 17min
1058.4 mi elapsed

That is 1021 miles in 1097 minutes. The average speed over the entire trip was 0.9307 miles per minute (55.84 mph) using the Google maps figures.

Prius owner a liar?

Toyota has had a difficult year with all of the recalls on their cars. And now, some guy from San Diego has caused a big media stink with his claims of a runaway Prius. Obviously I don't have all of the facts in front of me, but his story is not very believable to me. Even if there was an issue, how hard is it to pull the parking brake (a cop had to tell him to do this to stop the car)? Or put the transmission in neutral, stop the car, and turn it off? Is this guy really that dumb when it comes to driving? He sounded pretty calm on the 911 call, so he wasn't freaking out and had plenty of time to make the call. I would be interested in knowing what his financial situation is and whether he has been involved in any lawsuits in the past. Again, I don't have all the facts, but it sounds like this guy is just trying to take advantage of the situation. The real story will probably never be known. I have been disappointed in Toyota and their move away from quality control in order to get a larger market share, but I have doubts that this one is their fault. I expect to see more, possibly false, claims coming from Toyota drivers in the coming months.

Two down, one to go

Its finals week. Today I had final exams in macroeconomics and math. I feel pretty confident that I did well in both of these classes. I'm not sure when I will know what grade I got in econ, possibly later this week or early next week. I should know tomorrow what I got in Intro to Functions (math).  Now I can focus on studying for environmental science. It shouldn't be too hard, but there is a lot of material to go back over. The instructor gave out a review sheet, so that narrows it down quite a bit, but there is still a lot there.

Zenger Farms

We had our last environmental science field trip today (it's late, so now it was yesterday - Friday). It was at Zenger Farms which is a 16 acre "non-profit farm and wetland in outer southeast Portland dedicated to promoting sustainable food systems, environmental stewardship and local economic development through a working urban farm" that was purchased by the city in 1994 from the Zenger family. The farm had been in family since it was originally purchased in 1913. They could have sold it for for much more to housing or business developers but wanted it kept as as farm and wetlands.

It was an interesting place. The lack of growth made it less dramatic, but it is only March. Our guide was a cute blonde named Prairie (I didn't ask if that was her real name. Maybe its like a stripper name but for farmers) who had worked there for two years, was very enthusiastic, and seemed to love what she was doing. They had a couple of small hives of bees, mainly for pollination. It was only the second years they had kept bees and were still learning about them. They were keeping European honey bees, but were also trying some native mason bees. We went down into the wetlands and saw some geese (Prairie didn't seem to like the geese that much), a few ducks, and globs of frog eggs.  The Springwater Corridor runs along the northern boundry of the farm on the far side of the wetlands. There were also 30 chickens (Australorp - same as E & MK's) with a nice wheeled chicken tractor and a large portable enclosure. We got to taste some tiny purple broccoli, several other in the broccoli family, and some leeks. There was garlic, carrots in one of the greenhouses, and some overwinter clover crops growing but not much else. I would like to go back later in the year and see what it looks like. There are also a lot of volunteer and a few intern opportunities. I'm glad I got to see this place.

One of the small out buildings had an ecoroof with succulents and small ferns. Saturday morning I'm going to the second day of a free two day seminar/demonstration on green roofs. I found out about it from a classmate and the instructor decided to give extra credit for going there and writing a short blurb about it. That's great because I was going anyway. I told Erik and Mary Kate about it and they are going to meet me there.

So that's it for this class other than the final exam. I've studied a little for it, but have been concentrating on math and econ. I will start in earnest on Tuesday after my appointment at NAYA about my educational IDA account.

I'm looking forward to taking the other two classes in this series: Chemical and Geological. It sounds like enough people expressed an interest in these classes that they will have one of them over the summer, although I can't remember which one it might be. I said I would take it if it was offered. From what the instructor said, there are a lot more field trips in the summer and it is a lot more fun, plus the summer term is two weeks shorter than normal. Sounds perfect for a summer class. I was thinking about taking a digital photography class for one of my Arts & Letters requirements. Summer seems like a good time for that one too. I want to keep taking math, but I'm a little gun shy of taking math (calculus!) over the shorter summer term. I hated it when I did that last year. At the same time I want to keep going with the math without a break to prevent forgetting stuff. It happens.

Finals week

I had my last actual class of the term today. I have one field trip left for my environmental science class tomorrow. Next week is finals week. Two of my three exams are on Monday and they are the two hardest classes - macroeconomics and math. So my weekend will consist mainly of studying for tests. I really want to get an "A" out of both of these classes. I've done pretty well so far, and I think that even if I do pretty bad on the tests (meaning a low "C" or better) I still have a pretty good chance of ending up with the grade I want. That's a good thing because there is a lot of material that I kind of know but haven't mastered. That still won't stop me from studying more than I probably need to. I'm still really enjoying my classes and wish that I had more time to take more classes each term. Too bad I didn't feel that way in high school. I have much different motivations now than I did then. Partying and girls just don't rate quite as highly for me now as they did back then. Not that I don't like both of those, but an extra 25 years of life experience tends to change a lot of things. It's interesting to me that most of my classmates in econ and envr. sci. seem to think that I'm the smart one. I actually feel pretty stupid sometimes. I think that most of them just don't take school very seriously. I'm looking forward to the break between classes this time, but I would have liked two weeks instead of one. I have a lot of things to get done that I have been putting off for a while.

I should get back to studying. Wish me luck!

Polar opposites

There was no poker game last night. Instead, I went to J&L's (two of the other regular poker players and long-time friends of mine) and we watched a couple of movies. These two movies were both quite good, but they couldn't have been much different from each other.

The first one was Bolt. This is an computer-animated Disney movie about a small white dog named Bolt who, having spent his entire life on the set of a television series, thinks that he has super powers. When he believes that his human has been kidnapped, he sets out on a cross-country journey to "rescue" her. This is definitely a family-type movie, but is quite fun and entertaining despite my continuing hatred of Miley Cyrus, who does the voice of Penny, who is Bolt's human, and the Scientologist wacko John Travolta, who is the voice of Bolt. There are a lot of well-done animal mannerisms in the movie, including Bolt's fear of the super-power robbing substance, styrofoam peanuts. This movie made me smile a lot. It's worth watching.

The second movie we watched was not quite so family-friendly. Surveillance is the second film by Jennifer Lynch, daughter of legendary filmmaker David Lynch. This movie received relatively bad reviews (but also won some less prestigious awards), but I thought that it was a fairly decent flick. I especially liked the corrupt cops (including French Stewart) who like to shoot passing speeders tires and then play "good cop/bad cop" with their hapless victims. I know that sounds strange to enjoy something like that, but it works. At least for me. This movie is about two FBI agents investigating a series of murders and a missing woman. I won't give the ending away, but it was/wasn't a surprise to me (I had some suspicions during the movie). If you like suspense/thriller type movies, you will probably like this one. But there are a couple of very adult and disturbing scenes (no nudity), so you've been warned. I still recommend this one though. It has a lot to offer.

Just some stuff I've been thinking about

To a large extent, the Republicans will continue to oppose anything that the Democrats propose. Dems will continue to give up and pass watered down versions of anything meant to help our country. What happens with our economy in the next two years will be very important.

It is an unusual situation where there is nearly 0% inflation, a high unemployment rate, near 0% federal funds interest rate, and a near flat growth GDP. No one want to pay higher taxes. And don't forget, we are still at war.  This all adds up to something that hasn't been experienced in modern economies and no one has really knows what the answer is. Every fiscal or monetary policy will likely have negative consequences associated with it because of the existing conditions. We will eventually figure it out. But it will most likely be too late to help much with the current situation. We will probably be able to avoid this from happening again, but something different will eventually come along and cause another economic meltdown of a different sort. It's a sign of a continuously changing idea of what capitalism means and what economies should or shouldn't be allowed to do.

The 2012 election will be close, but the Republicans could win. Historically, the economic situation in the months leading up to an election decides the winner. Incumbents rarely win in times of contracting or stagnant economies. If the Republicans do win, the Democrats will want to get things passed and will give in to right-wing policies and agendas. Then the Republicans can say "Look! WE can get the job done. Not like those stupid Dems". So will the public stand around while the Republicans basically refuse to help Americans because they don't like the flavor of the help and opposing everything would be helpful from a long-run political point of view? Or will they start making at least some concessions so things can move ahead, but possibly hand the next election to Obama? I choose to stay optimistic for now, hoping for some better decisions from both sides. But at the same time, I am highly skeptical. We have a very long way to go.

The Republicans are much better at politics than the Democrats are. But that's like saying sociopaths are better at blending in than psychopaths are.