Iron Fist

I’ve noticed that Kevin has been doing a Friday Flickr feature on his blog, and I thought “Surely this a good idea for me!” because 1) I have been noticeably lax on producing new content lately due to a variety of circumstances, and 2) the handful of people who read my blog and who have not consumed alcohol with my lately would probably like some assurance that I am still alive and in control of most of my faculties.

Unfortunately I had this idea late on Friday and proceeded to be rather busy on Saturday, so this first Friday Flickr is happening on a Sunday (I know, right? I guess I should probably get that New Year’s Eve recap post up soon too).

To start with, this photo that I took in the command center of my newly constructed secret underground headquarters.

Kidding!  Saturday was a free day at OMSI, and we went so that we could bathe ourselves in SCIENCE! for an afternoon.  They had this nifty “Science on a Sphere” display, which cycled through a number of cool presentations about the planets.  I also took this very cool one of Mars:

….and that’s what I got for today.  Please be sure to join me next week when I will probably miss my self-imposed Friday deadline again.

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I finally got around to cleaning out some old filing cabinets (read: throwing away large volumes of crap I had been carrying around for years) when I discovered that for one reason or another the proofs from my senior photo shoot had been stuffed in a folder with some old tax documents and a random birthday card.  I tweeted about the discovery, and then a few people totally wanted evidence so I snapped a quick picture with my phone and uploaded it to the Flickr.  For those of you out there who aren’t stalking me on either of those other networks I might as well throw the photo up here along with a quick post about it.

Kerri asked why I was wearing a tux in one of them, and the answer is this: I don’t know how senior photos worked for all y’alls, but at my high school we were sent the name of a photo studio in the mail and a date and time on when we were expected to show up.  You were supposed to wear something sort of nice, and the photographer would snap a few pictures of you doing some unnatural silly things like sitting on a chair backwards and looking all serene or whatever, and then everyone had to get a few shots in with this silly half-tuxedo shirt with the tie already attached and a jacket thrown on over it.  These were the photos that ended up being used in the yearbook.  I really don’t know who decided these things.

It’s funny, looking back — I remember being the pudgy kid all through middle school and high school, but looking now at the sixteen year old version of me I don’t think I was fat at all.  If anything, fleshing out over the course of the years has meant that I’ve “grown into” my super-sized head, and finally coming to terms with having curly hair and letting it grow out longer than an inch has worked wonders for camouflaging my massive forehead.

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I took a (very brief) road trip to Montana the other day, and discovered that just like in the Pacific Northwest they are still getting rain as late as July.  I spent about twelve hours total there, which is a whole different story, but for now really I just wanted to show you a few pictures I took while driving home during the day.

And also to tell you this: Montana rest stops have some of the friendliest rodents around.  We pulled over just prior to crossing back through Idaho to stretch our legs, and I noted what looked like thirty or more chipmunks or squirrels running riot all over the lawn near the restrooms.  I wondered aloud whether it was mating season, but soon realized that these rodents had just keyed into a crucial secret of survival: if you hang out near where humans are passing by and are cute and fuzzy, humans will go crazy over you and shower you with food for your time.

I got a little closer to try and get a picture of one, and as I bent down with my phone to get a closer shot, the little bugger turned and ran right at me.  I backed up a step or too, trying to keep my feet away from him while trying to keep my phone close enough for a decent shot.  Thinking that surely I must be holding out some form of foodstuff for him, the little guy sat straight up and looked at me to let me know he was ready to receive his due.

Almost made me wish I had a cracker for him.

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You were the prettiest one out of the lot (as we told you any number of times), which is why we kept you, the rest of your litter given away for free over a few sunny afternoons in the summer of ‘95.  It was your white fur offset by a black spot above your tail, the bit of color around your eyes, the way your ears stood up.  We decided you looked like a Muggsy, and it stuck.

You barked a lot when you were young, and never were all that well behaved when we took you out.  Like that time we took you to the beach, and you tried to fight that other dog when you thought he was getting to close to us.  And then that wasn’t quite enough to establish your territory, so you ran over to some other people’s towels and peed on them.  But you loved the ocean, though, wanted to keep running into those waves as much as I did.

We brought you with us from our home in San Diego when the family moved to the Oregon countryside, and free of that little backyard in suburbia we discovered how much you loved to run.  You had a hard time remembering you were supposed to stay with the house though — more than once we’d get to the end of our long, long driveway only to discover that you’d chased the car all the way to the road, and we’d have to put you in it to take you back.

We always babied you, and when I’d come home for the weekends you’d come up to me and I’d pet you and ask you to tell me how things were, and you’d start to whine, and then I’d say, “Is it that bad, Muggsy?  Tell me a story!” and this would only encourage you to whine even more.

You had a really bad habit of sniffing everybody’s crotch.  And neutered or not you had a really bad habit of humping things.

You were always our puppy, and I always thought of you that way, until I counted off how many years you’d been with us.  Ten, then twelve, and maybe there’s something to this country living because you didn’t slow down too much till you were thirteen.  Finally you hit fifteen years and change, and that’s a good long run for any dog.  You couldn’t hear too well at all there near the end, and your legs started to give out, and you barely ate, and I wanted to you to just keep on hanging in there for another summer but that’s awful selfish of me if you couldn’t go out walking with us anymore.

If there are some Elysian Fields somewhere for dogs, endless fields of green bound only by blue skies above, I hope you’re running in them now as freely as you did when you were younger.

Stupid old dog.  Sure am going to miss you.

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