History has taught us NOTHING.

I have a subscription to the New Yorker magazine (thanks to Paul). There was an article I just read about Herodotus' Histories. He's the guy that invented history- as a genre. He wrote a massive 9 volume series on the history of the Greek-Persian wars. Half of the series is about the back-stories of the various peoples involved. And the other half is about the actual wars between the various Greek city states and Persia. Xerxes was nuts, but if you saw 300, then you already knew that right?....
Anyways, the article ends with this:

Then, there is the story itself. A great power sets its sights on a smaller, strange, and faraway land—an easy target, or so it would seem. Led first by a father and then, a decade later, by his son, this great power invades the lesser country twice. The father, so people say, is a bland and bureaucratic man, far more temperate than the son; and, indeed, it is the second invasion that will seize the imagination of history for many years to come. For although it is far larger and more aggressive than the first, it leads to unexpected disaster. Many commentators ascribe this disaster to the flawed decisions of the son: a man whose bluster competes with, or perhaps covers for, a certain hollowness at the center; a leader who is at once hobbled by personal demons (among which, it seems, is an Oedipal conflict) and given to grandiose gestures, who at best seems incapable of comprehending, and at worst is simply incurious about, how different or foreign his enemy really is. Although he himself is unscathed by the disaster he has wreaked, the fortunes and the reputation of the country he rules are seriously damaged. A great power has stumbled badly, against all expectations.
Except, of course, the expectations of those who have read the Histories. If a hundred generations of men, from the Athenians to ourselves, have learned nothing from this work, whose apparent wide-eyed naïveté conceals, in the end, an irresistible vision of the way things always seem to work out, that is their fault and not the author’s. Time always tells, as he himself knew so well. However silly he may once have looked, Herodotus, it seems, has had the last laugh.

See? I told you no one learns anything from the past. Life is cyclical. Turn!

Amber Alert

Alert! Due to events out of my control, the BBQ/Sarlacc pit was not finished.

I did eat some great sushi late Sat night, after work (which became an unfunny joke with me as the punch line), go for 2 good runs, and attended a BBQ.

Next saturday I hope. Or else.

Pit

I've been pretty distracted & unfocused this week, but on Sunday I have big plans:

I am making a BBQ pit.  In my backyard.  It's gonna be sweet.

I'll be using an old Weber grill for a few components and bricks for the bottom part.  Maybe I'll be lucky enough to have it done in time to do some pork shoulder all afternoon....

Now that's what I call a BBQ Pit!

Sweet Home Alabamski

Without further ado, the Finnish band the Leningrad Cowboys with back up from the Russian Red Army Choir!

Empire

Empire Ice Cream's first press of the year!

We're to be in their July issue too.

The stock image of the cones was not my idea- we don't even HAVE cones.

It might as well been a picture of anything else....

Finding Satchmo'

Well, I found proof the Satchmo' exists:

He's so intelligent that he was able to delete pictures of himself of the trail- camera of my friends, and figured out a way to only leave pics of us on it!  That sneaky snake!

We were up in the remote foothills, following elk trails, sustaining ourselves on miner's lettuce and fiddlehead ferns.  In other words: eating things that taste like dirt.

It was nice to be out there, but it was cold (unseasonably, actually for those in other countries, i.e. SNOW).  Lots of elk around, supposedly there's a herd of over 200 living in those parts.

I went down to Oly after these adventures, and built some boxes with my dad for tasting ice cream out of at the markets.  They have a removable wire mesh tray to keep the ice cream off the dry ice directly.  Obviously, you can tell which one I made, and which one he made.  (But mine was done in 1/3 of the time!)

Sasquatch!

I'm going sasquatch hunting this saturday.  Seriously.  I've been invited.

Check out this site! I don't play!

Apophis Asteroid

This is why old people aren't always right. A 13 year old German boy has proven NASA made the wrong calculations. Those dumb rocket scientists!

"The shockwaves from that would create huge tsunami waves, destroying both coastlines and inland areas, whilst creating a thick cloud of dust that would darken the skies indefinitely." Yeah!

BTW, Apophis was the main bad guy in Stargate: SG-1 seasons 1-4.
What a bunch of nerds at NASA!.....er...yeah, nevermind.

UPDATE:

Turns out the kid was wrong, and NASA was right.  Those mutha uckers!

The Worst Foods In America

Are ironically, from a steakhouse with an Aussie theme.

Outback Steakhouse Aussie Cheese Fries with Ranch Dressing tops the list.  

The description:  "This weapon of mass construction is the caloric equivalent of eating 14 Krispy Kreme doughnuts, before your dinner arrives. Even if you split this "starter" with 3 friends, you'll have downed a meal's worth of calories."

Ahh, America!

This is part of Men's Health Mags "No-Diet Weight Loss SOLUTION."

The solutions involve eating a Big Mac instead of a Whopper.  WTF?

Best. Related. Music. Video. Ever.

I knew Wal-Mart was messed up...

...when I read this article. Apparently, the bosses are dressing up in drag, and being recorded.

Actually, I knew it was a messed up place before that. On my roadtrip, I stopped at Wal-Mart to get some camp fuel, and other low-priced items. (This was in Kingman, Arizona).
There was a (modeled after the NYC version) shirt that proclaimed, "I Jesus!
They use 5 times the plastic bags that one really needs. I'd hate to strain myself on that gallon of 2%!
I looked at all the shoppers, and I realized that they're literally all fat and ugly.

And I'm an accepting person.

Delusion.

A nice blog post about how Hillary Clinton claims Memphis to be the NCAA Champions.  Even though they lost.

Thanks to Paul.

Hunting!

Shhh......I'm hunting for a Wii.  Those are elusive buggers!

3 things.

A couple un-related things:
-baseball season has started, which I love. The Mariners are going to be good to playoffs this year I think. They just need to sign Barry Bonds to fill the DH spot. Then we'll be solid.
-NCAA Tournament. I watched the semis last night, which were the 1st games I've really sat and watched this year. Memphis vs Kansas is going to be a good one I think, since they're 2 big and fast teams. There should be some awesome play. I couldn't believe that UK got up on North Carolina by 28 just over 1/2 way in the first half. I've never seen anything like it. UNC then came back as close as 4, then blew it again, and lost by 20.
-I went Paintballing for the 1st time. Had a blast, even though I got tagged a couple times. It was way out in the sticks of Duvall, and so we were in the forest, in the mud, and in the paint. I'm going again for sure.

Don't know what I'm doing today though....

Amazing Alligators!

Amazing! That's the only way to describe this photo gallery of my trip!

The little Alligator was our camp mascot. He can also grow 10x his normal size if you leave him in water, as well as melt on Angie's dash if he hangs out in the desert.
__
starting to get too into the Flight of the Conchords BBC radio documentaries....

I'm Back

Hey everyone. I'm back from my vacation, and it went by way too quick, as expected.
I don't have the pics for y'all yet, but I'll recap it for ya.

Down to the redwoods first. It rained. A lot. We abandoned the tent after the 1st night, and slept in the car. It turned out that our campsite sat above clay, so it drained really slowly. If we had let the tent lay, we would've been under 2-3 inches of water.
But the hiking was amazing, since it was serene and mystical, with the fog hanging around the tree trunks.
Then to SF, and a stay in the tenderloin, the seedy part of downtown. We had a great meal at Cafe Zuni too.
The next notable thing was going to Magic Mountain to ride the coasters. I was nervous at 1st, but quickly got over the feeling, and enjoyed them. Going upside down 7 times? Whatever!
We then we went to San Diego and saw my step sister Heather and Angie's friend Chris. We had a great time there- the weather was perfect!
Out to the desert. Joshua tree was very different for me. I've never spent much time in the desert, with it's quiet nothingness. The trees are quite peculiar as well....
Then to the Grand Canyon. It's one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. We hiked down into the canyon, descending over 2000 feet, on a 6 mile hike. One day I will go down to the bottom and see the river and look up to the top of the hole I've fallen into...

Vegas. I lost.

Sequoia Nat'l Park was really cool. I wanted to explore it further, but in reality, one needs to hike into the depths of the park. There's really only 1 road through the park, and you see probably 1/5 of the park from it. And in the adjoining King's Canyon, you see far less from the road.

From Sequoia, we went to a really nice lake outside of Fresno, and drove back up to Seattle with a stop in Ashland, OR- home of the Shakespeare Festival.

We spent a lot of time in the car, but saw a lot of my country, which I feel I haven't properly done in the past. But now I know this: There's a lot of truly beautiful land out there. It never failed to make me realize how lucky I am to live here for the splendor of the Nat'l Parks.
It was a great trip, and I'm sad I have to go to work tomorrow!

sunday reading

I just read this article on the oil/war conspiracy. It's nothing new to me, but it's nice it's in the Washington Post.

I also had a big meal of goat bbq last night (with goat meatballs too). Tasty!

Beware!

Oh those ides!  Always misbehavin'.

Who knows what and when I'll post next.  I leave tomorrow, and will be on the road.  So don't get too worried about the blogging absence.

Later.

Windy

It's been windy like Wellington this week here in Seattle.

It reminds of the time pretty much the same time last year, right after I returned, when I was downtown at a corner. A huge gust came and these 2 women right next to me went crazy. I laughed out loud (unintentionally) and they looked at me. I just said to them, "this isn't windy. I know windy!" I then put on my cool sunglasses and jumped into my sports car and drove away.*


*That last sentence may not have happened. But it may have too....

Great Dentists

Not much happening round these parts, except preparing for the aforementioned trip this coming weekend.

I did go down to Oly to see my brother and my friend Aki, both of whom came home for spring break.

One other note: save your money and DO NOT PART WITH YOUR MONEY TO SEE 10K B.C.

It was boring, oh so boring, and terrible!  But apparently, there were some great dentists long, long ago...

Tripping

I'm starting to make a pile in my (just cleaned up) room for stuff for my road trip.  Angie and I are leaving the night of the 16th, and will be gone till the 1st.  I have a big list I've realized.  And I can take a big list as well.  With an Honda Element we have a lot of space, but she just bought a roof rack, after a ridiculous amount of hassle.  But I'll let her tell that story (which I doubt she wants to revisit).

Anyways.  I think I've bought all the gear I'm going to need.  I like gear I've realized.  There's one new thing you can say you know about me:  Alligator likes gear.

And the number 1 question of the last 2 weeks:  What's your route?

For (hopefully, but I highly DOUBT) the last time:

Seattle to Portland

Portland to Redwoods Nat'l Park

Redwoods to San Fran

San Fran down Highway 1 to a park on the ocean out side of Santa Barbara

From there to Six Flags Magic Mountain (rollercoasters)

To San Diego

From SD to Joshua Tree Nat'l park

Then to the Grand Canyon

Then to Vegas

Then after I win big, to Sequoia Nat'l Park.

Then up I-5 to northern california/oregon border

Then back to Seattle

A lot of miles.  Some stops are a couple of nights.  Most are one.

It should be fun.