Snow White and Big Head Discuss Smoke, Covid-19 and Parasitic Diarrheal Disease

 Big Head:

“What a day.  The smoke is so bad here.  I’ve never seen it so bad!  It’s our anniversary today and we were headed to the coast for a hike but saw the Cliff Mass Blog and he said “Don’t bother”.  How are you holding up with this all this covid and smoke?  Protests and crazy stuff going on in many places.  Waiting to hear some new protest songs!!  Where are they?”

 

Snow White:

“Yeah.  The smoke is worse than yesterday here.  Fires. Plague. Darkness.  If I hear that Lake Washington has turned to blood I’ll be fixin’ to see Frogs and Locusts next.

 

Big Head:

“I seen a giant gerbil chasing a Sasquatch.. They was goin’ north”.

 

Snow White:

“I know and there’s Giardias everywhere.  I seen them, too”.

 

Big Head:

“What does giardia poop look like?  Watery, sometimes foul-smelling diarrhea that may alternate with soft, greasy stools?  Fatigue or malaise?  Abdominal cramps and bloating?  Gas or flatulence.  Do you track the Giardia’s by following their poop?  With Sasquatch I just follow the footprints

 

Snow White:

“Wow!  Ya know I been waitin’ forever hoping that someone would be smart enough to ask me that. 

So, the deal is there are some things that you need to know about Giardias if you ever hope to see one for yourself.  As you know, their existence is not universally accepted and nothing but a radical-left conspiracy as far as Qanon is concerned.  Seeing one, or a herd of them, is not nearly as common as trippin’ over a Sasquatch turd in the Arboretum or even up in The Ravine.  I mean a turd so large that you trip over it is hard to deny.  But Giardias, well, they are a whole ‘nuther thing.

To start with, and I’m tellin’ you this now in the strictest confidence, their shit is bioluminescent which makes you think that “Hey, spotting glowing shit is easy”, right?  At least that’s what I said but it isn’t easy at all.  No, and it’s also really dangerous to expose yourself to them so seeing them for yourself can come at a price.

The deal is they are really fucking teensy, right?  So, a single glowing teensy turd doesn’t really jump out at you.  Ya see, you can’t really see just one Giardia turd so in order to see them at all you have to find a whole herd of them.  Only when you are in a huge group of them will there be enough glowing shit that you know that you are in their midst and when you are surrounded by them they attack you and bite your gentiles.  I shit you not.  I seen them and undergone their attacks so I know.

The first time I seen ‘em I was with some friends in the forest smoking some Thai stick.  After many lungfuls of smoke I saw that I was in a cloud of teensy bioluminescent shit.  When they attacked me, they knocked me onto my back but The Force was strong with me and I quickly jumped to my feet.  My friends were all laughing at me so I knew that they had not seen the shit and therefore were unaware that I had been attacked.

I thought that maybe seeing ‘em was my gift or something, sort of like you and your ability to see dead people, but the next day my crouch was itching like crazy and I decided it was gift I didn’t want.  The itching was driving me crazy so I went to the doctor and told him that I had been attacked by a herd of Giardias.  He said, “Giardias huh”? Then he told me to go to the drugstore and buy a bottle of something called RID, which I did.  I followed the instructions which made no mention of Giardias.  It did come with a teensy comb which not only helped remove the Giardias but provided a great styling tool for pubic hair.

The second time I seen ‘em was at Volunteer Park.  I was with some friends and we had dropped acid.  Pretty soon I started seeing that I was surrounded by colorful geometric crystals floating around.  This time I wasn’t the only one who saw them, though.  We all seen bioluminescent stuff but didn’t realize that it was Giardias.  They are sneaky fuckers, I tell you, and because we all saw ‘em it didn’t cross my mind that we were under attack.

A few days later it started burning when I pissed and I got suspicious.  When I pissed that golf ball, I put 2 and 2 together and realized that those fuckers had gotten me again.  I went back to the same doctor and told him that it was another Giardias attack but he said that it was something else called Gondolarrias or Gorgonzola or something like that.  He gave me a shot to get rid of it.

So yeah, I seen ‘em and I hope to never see ‘em again.  I would rather be abducted by aliens and have them stick that needle in my belly button again then undergo another attack on my gentiles by rampaging Giardias.  They are a total fucked story.

Shirts and Skins

 

Behold the Montlake Pennant.  I bought this at one of the last Montlake Carnival I attended (1962 or ’63?) but lost the staff that came with it.  The staff was simple wooden dowel with a dark green ball on top.  Note the school colors of Hunter Green and Grey. 

The word pennant or pennon came from the Latin word penna meaning “feather” or “wing”.  It originated in the Middle Ages when they were carried on the lances of warriors.  Various colors were used to denote who’s side a warrior was fighting for and that concept has carried over to this day as seen on sport team’s uniforms.  Makes it hard to confuse a Cincinnati Bengal for a Los Angeles Ram or a Flying A from a Longacre Colt.  

n.d. - Stategikon

At Montlake in the early ‘60’s our basketball team had no Hunter Green and Grey uniforms.  Heck, we had no uniform of any color and our league schedule pitted us against just two rivals, Bryant and Stevens Schools.  They also were without uniforms.  

n.d. - Craig Daily Press

 But, we didn’t need no stinking uniforms because we had Shirts and Skins!

You'll Like Tacoma

 Originally published 12/9/2020

Credit - Clayton Kauslaric

The Klondike Gold Rush of 1897 offered Seattle a unique opportunity for growth and visibility on the World stage.  Folks heading north to make their fortune in the Alaskan goldfields bought their supplies and boarded ships in downtown Seattle which had eight years prior been totally reduced to ashes by the Great Fire of 1889.  Successful prospectors returning by ship disembarked at those same docks and left much of their new wealth with local businesses.  

Twelve years later, in 1909, Seattle hosted Washington’s first World’s Fair in order to promote growth by highlighting the connections between the city and local resources, riches to the north and the entire Pacific Rim.  It was called the Alaska, Yukon, Pacific Exposition or AYPE.  The event ran from June 1^st through October 15^th. 

During that 4 ½ month period special events were staged to draw fair-goers from far and wide, in part, by highlighting other cities and states.  On “Kansas Day,” Kansans were issued sunflower badges and treated to a giant picnic.  “Oregon Day” featured a performance by the “Portland Festival Chorus” a promenade and a dance.  On “Bellingham Day” souvenir postcards, fresh Whatcom County cherries and sample bags of rich soil the cherries had grown in were given out.

Father's Day - 2022

 

It’s Father’s Day and if my Dad was still around he would be 109…….but that didn’t happen.  As it is he has been gone for quite some time.  In the photo he is the skinny guy on the left making the anvil ring and learning the family blacksmithing trade from his father, Wallace, who is standing proud, front and center.  

I never knew my Grampa Wallace or Carl Goff and Ed St. Germain, Ford County Kansas locals who are standing in the back.  Hard workers, all and decent men.  If I could talk to them, I would thank them for being part of the village that raised my Dad and for making him the man that he was.  

If I could talk to my Dad again, well that conversation could go on forever because he was so bright and inquisitive, willing to talk to anyone about anything, had a lot to say and was full of brilliant solutions.  My friends liked to come over to hang out and spend time talking to him.  I mean…….Who can say that about their Dads?  He and I have a lot to catch up on.  

For now, I will just say: “Daddy, thanks for being the Father that you were and making me who I am today.  And that hammer of yours in the photo?  I still have it, still use it and think about you every time I make an anvil ring.

Happy Father's Day.

Skills Development

 

Life is a process of observation, exploration, recognition of risks and development of skills.

Choosing to avoid undesirable risks and developing skills to manage those deemed worthwhile.

Discarding what doesn’t work and refining what does.

James Frederick Dawson and Trouble With the Curve

 

James F. Dawson

The Cultural Landscape Foundation

In 1902 the city contracted with the Olmsted Brothers to have a grand plan drawn up for a system of connected parks and boulevards.  Automobiles had come to Seattle just two years prior but the Olmsted Brothers were sophisticated in their thinking when compared to some others.  Their vision acknowledged that the horse drawn buggy was on its way out and that “pleasure drives” in automobiles were the future for Seattle.  The shoreline of Lake Washington was a great place to build yet-to-be-planned parks and to locate such a grand connecting roadway with its pleasing and complex curves.  In 1904 they sent partner James Frederick Dawson to Seattle to review plans, document progress and ground truth their planned visions for the city. 

1904 - ONHS - Image by J.F. Dawson

Madison Street Trestle Out of View To the Right - Lake Washington Blvd Descending On the Left

In August of 1904 construction began on the first section of roadway before the plans had even been finalized.  That road started at the east end of the Madison Street Trestle and descended north along the hillside that was tightly squeezed between the deep and wooded ravine to the west (today referred to as Washington Park Playfield) and previously platted land between what we refer to today as Washington Park Playfield and Broadmoor. 

Backing In at Big Southern Butte

Every year at this time I think about that hang gliding trip that I went on to Utah with Roger (Black Weasel), Dan (Dangerous Dan), Robbie (Mr. Natural) and his dog Kona (Frisbee Scumbag). My moniker was Jon Boy. That trip was full of brotherhood, adventure, chills and thrills. September spurs us to get in touch to reminisce and this year we ask ourselves, “Could it really have been 41 years ago today”? 

So many stories and new acquaintances came out of our time together and many of the pilots we met told us of amazing flights that were being had at Big Southern Butte in the Idaho desert. We had read stories about the place and knew that there had been some fatalities there but we always rationalized that pilots who died had done something stupid that we would avoid. Since Big Southern Butte wasn’t too far out of our way we decided to stop there and fly. 

Driving north beyond Pocatello we turned onto a secondary highway. It was dark and after a while we turned off onto a dirt road and followed it, dodging jack rabbits and potholes. I would guess that it took about an hour on that dirt before we came to Frenchman’s Cabin where we would crash for the night. All we could really see in the headlights was a ragged log cabin, and an even raggedier shelter for livestock, a couple of piles of junk and log fence. It had to be the place and we were beat so we grabbed our sleeping bags and started for the door.