Mccall is a snowy place. The mountain was great for skiing last week but a warm up and high winds have changed it to an obstacle course. Gina and I had great days of deep soft powder with no base below. Caleb and I ripped up Dixie bowl. no time for pictures, it was a powder day, with lots of people so I needed to get rippin.
Other than that, a decent cross country ski at Ponderosa State park is the only other out door activity I have done here.
Went to the bars two nights in a row. The first night I was home by 11pm, the second home by 3am. Foresters is open in McCall and the atmosphere is totally different than the old days. However, the cleaner, smoke free atmosphere is more enjoyable. The sound from the bands is great also.
Went to Gold Fork Hotsprings yesterday for my last lithium dose of the year. Moscow does not have any decent hotsprings within the nearby vicinity and the proximity to hotsprings is one of the spoils of living in central Idaho.

Winter is here and this town is not good at plowing snow. I love the medians of snow that get piled up and make a three land road into a two lane track. I was going to leave for mccall tomorrow but may just get a move on today.

The place I stayed the night in is a house that Mark is building. The frames of the house and shop are made from old timbers from the Potlach Mill. WOW. the house walls are stawbale, the windows are recessed (?) and each has a foot wide stoop and the edges of the walls are curved, aside from the window bottoms, there are no sharp corners in the whole house. So dreamy!!!

Solstice

Winter times in Idaho are great if one has the motivation to enjoy it. Henry and I went up to Moscow Mountain yesterday. A classmate has a cabin up there and hosted a gathering. The snow was deep and the skies were blue on the 6 degree skin up slope. It was a very cold night and thank goodness for indoors and a wood stove.


Henry did very well on the trip. People enjoyed him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4tlhVpRI8M

the border collie looks like my dog. Now I have more tricks to teach Henry.

Mi casa

Its another fine Saturday in Moscow (Idaho that is). spent lots of time playing fetch with the dog. Last night I chilled out at my house, tried to relax, ended up cleaning my living room. Here are some photos of the pad.

Winter freeze out

It was a chilly day today. frost was on the ground early and as the sun shone, various patches began to melt. some road spots were slick with the shear frozen moisture. My new space heater was working awesome through the night. This drafty house I am renting is a wonderfully old carriage structure. a few weekends ago i sealed with shrink wrap most of the windows, some of which had 1/4 inch gaps that allowed a breeze, not a draft, of cold air in and most likely warm air out. the thermostat downstairs also has a gap in it, a temperature gap. It cannot decide if it wants the room to be a comfortable 65 or a hot 85. Seriously, it is a dial on the wall, I have a thermometer next to it, and it is just turned on to the first click, no where near the "comfort zone" on the dial. Due to this malfunction, last month's electric bill was $104!! Yikes, and the deep cold has not hit yet!

Happy Halloween

here are some autumn shots from moscow.

























This is from a bike ride henry i took a few Saturdays ago:

sunlight on a rainy day

School is not that bad. I guess my blog looks so depressing cause it is only when I am burned out or bummed that I actually write on it. When i am happy..like today...i rarely have time to sit!

I talked to an Environmental Science student advisor (different than my advisor) and when she saw what my course load was for this fall, her response was "no wonder you are stressed out!" So on that note, she recommended that I do not take as many courses in the next few semesters here. I figured that the number of credits the course has is equal to the amount of course work. Boy was I wrong. Here is my fall schedule:
ENVS 500 Seminar 1 credit
Fish 500 Seminar 1 credit
NR402 GIS 1 Credit
ENVS 502 DS:proposal writing 1 credit
WR 504 iNterdic study 3 credit
FOR462 Watershed.. 3 credit
TOTAL CREDITS 10, total classes 6!!!

Now here is the homework load:
ENVS andFISH 500: presentations in both so the pressure is on while I make the presentation
NR402 atleast 5 hours per week
ENVS 502: some weeks 3 hours, others over 10 hours/ week
WR 504: 2 hours week
For462: 2-3 hours a week.

In other words the classes with the less credits are the most work!!!
So next semester will be different and not so busy. Only 3 courses...3 credits each= 9 credits

funny commentary

Oh YouTUBE and my political news addiction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw70YP38pdc&feature=related

The infomercial commments are funny but after 2.25 minutes...shut up already.

Monday, another day

Went to Mccall this past weekend and enjoyed myself greatly.
Friday Henry and I rejoined at Gina's and we had a great pork dinner and conversation. Saturday morning was a walk in Ponderosa Park with Leslie, once again good conversation. Errands most of the day and lots of back and forth driving but my storage unit is now empty. Relief.
Saturday night was girls night out and the soft opening of Foresters. More decent conversation, but it was more of a hello fest, saw many folks I have not seen in a while. Unfortunately, it was another late night and Sunday i was exhausted. Sunday morning was another Bistro breakfast with positive conversations with Odos. then to Violets and on my way home.
Today was a monday and a bit of a let down. I was starting to feel blue almost immediately. why? What is it about here that makes me so blue? the Lack of good conversations? yes. The lack of good friends? yes. The feelings of inadequacy? YES! Being surronded by Doer's makes me feel like a Loser. I am projecting and making assumptions about others here. Feeling a "them" and "me" separation. I went to lunch alone today. Others went to lunch with someone. that is what I am seeing, which leads to my low feeling.
But, today was a beautiful day! The leaves in this town are golden and bright. The sky today was blue and the sun was strong. Temperatures were warm but yet still cool enough a jacket was required. I looked good too.
Pictures...i need to carry my camera everywhere and just push the buttons.

up for air

For all those who have known me for years, you have heard me complaining about living in a bubble and not being aware of what is going on in the other world from the mountain resorts. Either I have known this and forgotten or never heard the news but Spaulding Gray passed away January 2004. I really enjoyed his perspective of the world and life as he knew it. Hopefully he has found peace in the cold water.

I am deep in the throughs of writing an introduction to my proposal for my thesis project. Wow, what an exercise. It was due on Thursday but now I am hoping for a Monday or Tuesday date. Distractions have been many but they also have been a relief. My focus has been greater after good productive distractions...thank you girls!!!

Politics. Such a negative propaganda. when are we going to get back to the issues instead of mud slinging. I know mud slinging can be fun especially at an outdoor concert in the rain. This mud slinging though goes straight through the old adage 'Sticks and stone may break my bones, but names will never hurt me." In the political arena, a misplaced fart can hurt you.

The clowns we have running for the Republican party scare me. Inexperience, yes Sarah, running a huge economic machine like the whole US requires lots of experience and knowledge. Head of the PTA is not experience. Alaska is a big state and has big issues, but compared to the population of many other cities..not states just the condensed seething decay of cities...Alaska is like running a boys camp, even if you are wearing a skirt.

McCain, well he will probably have to have a jar of glycerine pills on election day just to make sure he doesn't kick the bucket before sitting in the desk. electing him is like electing Darth Vader...war war war. Ugh, have we not enough of it already? that is my biggest complaint about the man, his fraternity style war mongering. fighting does not always help..brains do. What was your class rank?

Now you may be thinking that I am super pro-democrat. Usually i am but this time around Obama has slowly been letting me down. why? compromise and softening of his views. He claims change and environmentally clean energy but has since claimed to endorse some of the worst polluters and environmentally hazardous energy methods...clean coal and nuclear. Where is your back bone? Are you just saying this stuff to get support of oil hungry, energy consuming citizens?

I do not know much about Bieden to comment. His performance on the VP debate was not stellar. He also does not seem to stand tall on his views, always saying what the Obama campain is going to do. Just a bunch of cattle.

Who is there to support the movement toward sustainability? Who is there to lay the heavy hand down and force America to change? Ugh.

what about the independents? Now they have progressive views that I can subscribe to however, I do see the lesser of two evils being a major component of every election. This is america folks, this country was formed with having choice, go to the store and try to buy milk, you have more choices than whole or skim, there is 2%, organic, homogenized, chocolate, half-half, heavy cream....Dairy Gold, Western Family, Tillamook... you get my point.

If you are wondering about your vote....
http://www.velvetrevolution.us/

spent

So let me fill you in with the past few weeks. They have been painful. After returning from Shelley's birthday party, I have been in terrible pain. It was distracting from school. It appears as if everytime I turn around, something is going wrong with my body or there is an external distraction from what it is that I need to be doing...like this blog is a distraction and doing dishes is a distraction. Do i really want a master;s degree. ouch, it hurts trying to get one.

I have not done any exercise lately either. my diet has been crappy and although I know better, i am putting crap into my system..like lots of beer! This always happens, I make a decision to do something better for my body and then two days later, i fall back into the bad habits with a vengence.

This past weekend was successful at the study site. The weather was cooperative and we had a motor on the boat. whoo hoo making waves in pea soup. the water is infested with cyanobacteria and looks almost like pea soup. This summer about three warnings have been posted regarding high toxic levels of mycocystin, the toxin that can kill dogs and cattle. Dan was with me and he was a trooper in the cold wet weather. Near the end of the day he was loosing it and so was i, getting a bit delerious.

going to sleep now...feeling fried....

cripple

It sure has been while since I have published and it is not for lack of anything to say. School has been keeping me busy and my back has been killing me since last I wrote. I have revanped my desk area to make for better seating and posture at the computer. Thanks to the school surplus, i have a keyboard and mouse for my laptop. $3 each! now I can look up at the computer screen instead of down. I can relax my shoulders instead of having them in the middle of my laptop on the pressure pad/mouseless. This is not saying I am going to write more. I have lots to do for school and I am usually tired at night.... I am so fuckin lame.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5970133990962524386&ei=SIHYSK7yA4T0-gGG26W4Ag&vt=lf&hl=en

oh yeah, I paddled this river a few years ago on Memorial day weekend and flipped like these guys.

The sun is shining

Oh boy, those were some dark days earlier this week. I must be a bit manic and hormonal in my old age.

Last night I had a few cocktails with some colleagues at the Quiet Bar. We sat outside until happy hour was over, our drinks were gone, and the sun was gone also. I walked home with my new red bike. We passed McDonalds and there is a bike rack on the front lawn. A lone bike was placed there, street side. Woah, double take. It was my bike. I could not believe it, I looked around and reclaimed it! Lucky girl I was, walking home with two bikes! It was a long walk, 1.5 miles, yes up hill, but hey, the old trek is back!! Now the question is which bike do I take to school?!

I also did not sleep well last night. Woke up at 330am. Stayed up until 5am. henry was barking at the hooting owls outside. it may have been his first time hearing many hoots. The squirrels are setting up residence in my walls. Henry is particularly fond of the one in the bedroom wall, that noisy bugger kept Henry occupied for a bit.

There was a quiz in engineering class this morning, I blew it off. No class in Watershed mangt. So i slept in til 9am. Ahh.

Not practicing yoga, it has fallen out of schedule. I need to revisit it and put it back in some fashion.

There must be some forest fires to the west. Today is the second day for smokey air. Washington and Oregon have some fires, a few new ones too. They maybe what is blowing over. It is supposed to rain tonight and tomarrow, maybe that will damper down the flames.

Today i am once again wearing pants and a lond sleeve shirt. The buildings are so cold.

Good day to all!!

stuck up grad students

Graduate school. yup I am here in Graduate School and what a different game it is. Today's complaint is about the unfriendly grad students. They do not smile, rarely even say "hello" and in general do not appear friendly. I have said hello to practically everyone I see. Even in the study group within a Interdisciplinary course, they are unfriendly. It must be me. But what am I being viewed as? Not intelligent? Boring? Unfriendly? Mean? Communist? ugly? i feel like the last one, ugly, cause no body is picking me for their team. VICTIM!

Long Day

Went out in the field today to collect data to be used for my research project. It was a lovely day out on the reservoir. There is a sign along the way that advertises "Beer Lattes". It must be a miss understood sign or the miracle morning after drink.

Heart burn

Heart burn, it occurs when I eat to much grease and onions. That is not the type I am feeling at this moment.
Yes, it is the burn of lust in my chest. there is this male person who was nice and way to young, 10 years!! He showed up at the time I did not want to be complicated by men. He was persistent and each time I denied he persisted. It was kinda flattering. One day I gave into temptation and became physical with him. Uh oh, that was a big mistake. Within three weeks I was so confused with what I was feeling. So I decided to go with my feelings and explore the possibilities. Next was the drop. What upsets me so about the drop is just how the feelings of rejection have hung on for quite sometime. Physically there is over 600 miles between us, no contact via email or phone, and our lives are so different. We would not even of been a good match, not a thing in common. so why can I not get this dick off my chest? He was not even that good in the sack.

Bicycle Thief

It was such a great movie but to wake up, walk outside and see that your bike is gone sucks in reality. who would want to violate another's space? Luckily there was a bike swap going on and a replacement was purchased for a cheap price of $25. But my day was then put towards fixing up the new purchase, setting up a way to lock up the newbie so it does not have to be pulled inside each day I am finished using it. this ruby red beauty is worthy of a name, in time one should appear.

Henry and I on his first river trip. A short trip along practically flat water, a few rollers. We were in an inflatable kayak (IK). He did okay except for trying to get in my lap while I was paddling. His weight was on one side of the IK and this caused us to veer to one side. We are hoping that the future will have more river trips on store for us. He likes to swim and I like to be out there.

New born

Patience. Do we need time to be patient? Or is patience the non-observation of time?
This page is my reality. this page will be on my time. You must have patience, not observe the gaps in time between posts, to be part of my reality.
Do you want to observe my reality? Then watch this as I learn how to utilize the internet and discover the possibility of blogging.