The End Of The Line

"That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved."

(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

W.N.I.D.?: T.S.R.: Rained Out

Mongo has had a tough go of it on the bike since last Monday's Hammerfest. The weather, along with my work schedule, has only allowed me about seventy miles in the saddle. Luckily, I went out early Saturday morning just in case it was going to rain yesterday...and it did.

Tonight is the final 23/2300 Hammerfest of the Summer season. The weather is clear, and there are still positions up for grabs, so Mongo is expecting a huge turnout. It has been an extremely enjoyable Summer of "Festing". My fitness and skill levels are at an all time high, so I'm planning on seeing this last one out with a bang...Stay tuned for the race report!

The Stink Is Gone: "Slappy" Wins

At least the National Champion's jersey won't smell like doping, shame, and embarrassment for the next twelve months.

(Photo:Jon Devich/CyclingNews)

Growing old and alone in Fremont

What a shock to open up the Times Digest, a condensed digital version of The New York Times that arrives in my "in" box each day just before midnight, and see a Fremont, Calif., dateline on a truncated story headlined "Quietly, Elderly Immigrant Population Surges."

A shock because while I'm used to the Times spilling lots of ink on the place where I was born (Berkeley) and the place where I live now (Portland), I don't recall more than a mention or two of the place where I moved as a 5th grader and lived until age 19 and the start of my junior year of college.

That place, of course, would be Fremont, a suburban bedroom community 40 miles south of San Francisco. Previously, we'd lived in Union City, a smaller, adjacent town, in a working-class neighborhood populated by fellow Mexican American families. It was a jolt when we moved to Fremont, where I was greatly outnumbered and initially intimidated by my white, middle-class peers.

One of the fixtures back then was the Fremont Hub, an outdoor mall at the corner of Fremont Boulevard and Mowry Avenue, roughly half a mile east from where I attended high school. I remember the mall as a strictly functional place where we shopped at a discount drugstore and department stores like Mervyn's and Montgomery Ward, both now defunct. It was not a place where I hung out, at least not in the way teenagers do at today's cookie cutter indoor malls.

So, imagine the incongruity I felt upon reading about The 100 Years Living Club, an all-male group of elderly immigrants from India who meet five days a week at The Hub to sip their chai tea and commiserate over the loneliness and isolation they often feel as new arrivals in a new country. Many are widowers and live alone.

In the full version of the article, "Invisible Immigrants, Old and Left With No One to Talk To," Patricia Leigh Brown reports that these Indian men make up America’s fastest-growing immigrant group -- the ethnic elderly.

"Many are aging parents of naturalized American citizens, reuniting with their families. Yet experts say that America’s ethnic elderly are among the most isolated people in America. Seventy percent of recent older immigrants speak little or no English. Most do not drive. Some studies suggest depression and psychological problems are widespread, the result of language barriers, a lack of social connections and values that sometimes conflict with the dominant American culture, including those of their assimilated children...

"Immigrant elders leave a familiar home, some without electricity or running water, for a multigenerational home in communities like Fremont that demographers call ethnoburbs," Brown writes.

"A generation ago, Fremont was 76 percent Caucasian. Today, nearly one-half of its residents are Asian, 14 percent are Latino and it is home to one of the country’s largest groups of Afghan refugees (it was a setting for the best-selling book “The Kite Runner”). Along the way, a former beauty college has become a mosque; a movie house became a Bollywood multiplex; a bank, an Afghan market, and a stucco-lined street renamed Gurdwara, after the Gurdwara Sahib Sikh Temple."

My mother, in her early 80s, still lives in Fremont, so I've seen these demographic changes take place over the past two decades. On my visits home, I have become accustomed to the sights of turbaned Sikhs and hijab-wearing Afghan women and wasn't at all surprised to meet the Indian doctor who performed an angioplasty on my mom last year.

Here in Oregon, where Latinos constitute the largest minority group, it's easy to imagine a lot of elderly Mexican immigrants feeling just as lonely and out of place as the members of The 100 Years Living Club in Fremont.

Brown has done a splendid job illuminating an issue that goes beyond Fremont or even California. Since 1990, she reports, the number of foreign-born people over 65 has grown from 2.7 million to 4.3 million — or about 11 percent of the country’s recently arrived immigrants. Their ranks are expected to swell to 16 million by 2050.

That's a long time from now, so who knows how accurate such a projection may prove to be? In the meantime, it's good to see Fremont mentioned in the same breath as Chicago as cities that are responding to the needs of elderly immigrants.

"Fremont began a mobile mental health unit for homebound seniors and recruited volunteer “ambassadors” to help older immigrants navigate social service bureaucracies," Brown writes. "In Chicago, a network of nonprofit groups has started The Depression Project, a network of community groups helping aging immigrants and others cope."

My old hometown. A national leader in culturally-specific social services? Imagine that.

Photo: Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Vintage Plastic Jewelry Box

A find from the weekend's thrifting . . . this pretty box. I will use it for my desk to hold paper clips and such.

Love Letter

I have been without a home desk for far too long. I've taken to carrying most, if not all, of my paperwork with me back and forth to work. Why, I have no clue. It's not like I have hours on end during the work day to tackle home bills or organizing personal files. We have a computer table in the craft room with a file cabinet (which holds the printer), but that space isn't designated mommy space. And so this past week I rearranged a bit, moving the seafoam green chest of drawers from the ken into the living room, replacing the typing table behind the sofa with the maple tea cart, and relegating the typing table to the ken to become my own personal space (I also moved my file cabinet out to the ken, putting the printer onto a small chest of drawers in the craft room). I can't tell you how liberating it was. All my stuff in one place.

Instead of taking up valuable desk space with a lamp, I brought a floor lamp out from the bedroom. And hung this beautiful "Love Letter" from papaya art on the light switch. Here are some of the beautiful letters in the collection:

Health care for all: Now!

I rise early on this Sunday morning and I'm confronted, once again, by the headlines that should make any clear-thinking American cry out for meaningful health care reform -- and the sooner the better.

From today's editions of The Oregonian:
-- "Big hike in store for health insurance"
Bill Graves' front-page story explains why we're looking at fewer insured people and higher costs that threaten the ability of consumers and small businesses to buy insurance. (Christine Chin Ryan, above, president of a Portland software company, will see health insurance rates for her company jump by 33 percent in September, which means it would cost $663 a month to cover employees such as Giorgio Shaunette, left.)

-- "Obama's health care proposals put Canada's system in spotlight"
An Associated Press story on page 2 reports that while Canadians have their complaints about their health care system -- about long waits for elective care; shortages of doctors and nurses, particularly in rural areas; and the growing costs of covering an aging population -- the system enjoys broad political support from the left and right, including the Conservative administration whose views are similar to U.S. Republicans.

-- "Five myths about health care around the world"
In the Opinion section, former Washington Post reporter T.R. Reid presents the facts (facts, imagine that) that give the lie to a number of misconceptions about health care in other countries. Chief among them: that foreign health care systems are all socialist-based, inefficient, bloated bureaucracies that result in limited choice for patients.

From Bill Moyers' Journal:

-- "Money-Driven Medicine"
On Friday, Moyers presented "an investigation into the profit-hungry 'medical-industrial complex,' " based on the reporting of financial journalist Maggie Mahar. I caught only a part of it, so I'm viewing/listening to it right now, even as I type this post.

We're the best in the world when it comes to "rescue care" (expensive, complex surgery for cancer, for instance), one expert says, but we lag far behind in the basics: treating diabetes, controlling pain, providing primary, preventive or community-based care. Why? U.S. health care is skewed by a system that puts profits over patients. As costs rise, access goes down, down, down -- so much so that emergency room care increasingly is going to middle-class rather than low-income people.

Dr. Donald Berwick, a pediatrician, cuts to the core of the moral issue in a quote that closes the program:

"I think health care is more about love than about most other things. If there isn't at the core of this, two human beings who have agreed to be in a relationship where one is trying to relieve the suffering of another -- which is love -- you can't get to the right answers here.

"It begins so much for me in that relationship -- that everything built around it had better make damn sure it's supporting it, not hurting it."

For nearly 24 years, I have been blessed to work for a company that has furnished generous health insurance (plus dental and vision plans), even going so far as to pay every dollar of my monthly insurance premiums. Starting January 1, that will change; along with other employees, I will begin paying 25 percent of the cost of those premiums. I think that's fair and proper, given that one out of five Oregonians have no insurance at all -- and there are now 46 million uninsured Americans.

To go another year with the bloated, horribly inefficient and frighteningly expensive health care system we have in this country is just unconscionable. If Congress fails to deliver a reform package this summer, it will be a failure of the first magnitude -- even more disappointing than the gridlock that killed federal immigration reform during the Bush Administration.

I suspect I'm preaching to the choir on this blog. If so, I hope you'll take every opportunity to challenge those who would defend the abysmally unfair system we have now -- especially when they resort to parroting the lies, half-truths and misrepresentations spewed by the likes of Limbaugh, Palin and O'Reilly.

If not, if you're one of those who believes the U.S. system is fine as is, take some time to read these stories above. Take some time to view the Bill Moyers video. Then, let's talk.

Photo: Brent Wojahn, The Oregonian

Not Exactly The Toughest Field

Am I the only one who finds it statistically baffling, as well as fairly amusing, that the top three finishers in the US Cycling Pro TT Championships are named Zabriskie, Zirbel, and Zwizanski ?

(Photo:Trish Albert/CyclingNews)

A moment in time

Seems I've been pretty serious in recent posts, so here's something that's both lighter in tone and, hopefully, more universal in appeal.

A fellow editor at The Oregonian, Galen Barnett, posted this on our Opinion blog, called The Stump, and it was such a refreshing change from the blogosphere bile that often discourages me that I thought I'd share it here.

Click. Reflect. And pass it on if you like it.

Last Minute Predictions

1. Schleck(A)

2. Valverde

3. Sanchez

4. Basso

5. Evans

6. Kreuziger

7. Schleck(F)

8. Devolder

9. Gesink

10. Vinokourov

Gen Y: Taking on the challenges of journalism

"I miss Oregon already, but classes are a whirlwind of excitement. I even kind of like our little apartment. It's cozy. I'm learning the bike route to work/school and the best restaurants for ordering late night vegetarian burgers ;P."

The e-mail arrived earlier this week from Lillian Mongeau, whom I got to know in the fall of 2007, when we selected her for The Oregonian's Community Writers, a program that gave a dozen citizens the opportunity to write an opinion piece every week for 12 weeks on a topic of their choice. Originally from Massachusetts, she was living in Hood River, following graduation from Columbia University and a stint with Teach for America in Texas.

This month, at age 27, she started graduate studies in journalism at the University of California at Berkeley.

"I'm looking forward to next week when I get to write again. This week we're doing multimedia," she writes. "I probably shouldn't tell you this but they used The Oregonian's website (specifically the multimedia 'section') as an example of how not to integrate multimedia with text stories. Meh. If it makes you feel better, though, they didn't think many papers did it right, so there's still tons of opportunity for The O to fix that blundering old site!"

It's hardly a revelation that OregonLive.com, The O's affiliated web site, has its flaws, so I take no offense. Some, though, would question why a smart young woman -- someone who won a top undergraduate writing prize at Columbia -- would willingly take on thousands of dollars in new student loans in order to study journalism at a time when the industry is undergoing an epic transformation.

True, newspapers are shedding thousands of jobs and some metro dailies no longer even exist. But opportunities in online journalism, particularly for those able to combine multimedia skills with a traditional set of reporting and writing tools, continue to grow.

Working with Lilly for nearly the past two years, I've come to admire the intelligence and idealism that she embodies on behalf of Generation Y, the almost 60 million men and woman born in this country between 1975 and 1990. (All three of our kids also were born in that time frame, making them fellow Millennials, as they are called.)

I wrote a letter of recommendation for Lilly, and I'm confident she will emerge as one of the J-School's best and brightest. Lilly is curious, passionate and outgoing, and she welcomes constructive criticism -- all essential ingredients in the makeup of a journalist. Plus, she shares a perspective that lured many of us to this profession, as she explains in a July 25 column she wrote for The Oregonian.

Given the current state of the economy in general, and the news industry in particular, it is perhaps more important than ever that young journalists view themselves first as public servants. Hokey though it may sound, I can honestly say that service is ... one of the driving forces behind my desire to be a journalist. After two years teaching English on the Mexican border as a Teach For America corps member, it was clearer to me than ever before how many stories there are out there that need to be told.

In my past role as newsroom internship coordinator, I came to realize that only those with passion and perseverance would succeed in this highly competitive profession. More recently, as I've informally offered career advice to newsroom interns, both past and present, it's become abundantly clear that Gen Yers will need to be more resourceful and resilient than any generation that's come before theirs. There will be disappointments and setbacks en route to getting a solid foothold in the industry.

But for every discouraging turn, such as the former intern who got laid off this week from a medium-sized daily in Oregon, there will be a success story, such as the ex-intern who just landed a job as a national reporter at the Los Angeles Times.

All of us who value intelligent journalism in the changing media environment should join in wishing Lilly the best as she embarks on her studies at Berkeley. "In two years," she writes, "I'll let you know if J-School managed to eat my brain."

Family Portraits at the Hilton Hawaiian Village

This family celebrated Mom's birthday at the Hilton Hawaiian Village recently. Dad surprised mom with a family portrait session, something she has been wanting for a while. While the kids were hunting for hermit crabs, we took some photos of mom and dad.

Commercializing The Stoke

Check this out with the volume up...Pretty smooth!

Live Or Memorex

"We do not enjoy poetry unless we know it to be poetry."

(Henry David Thoreau)

And When At Last The Work Is Done

"Open your eyes and smell the night

Embrace the clouds below your feet

Surround yourself with overflowing emptiness

Dissolve the rust on stainless steel"

"A gift from Africa"

And now for something totally different...

If you like baseball -- heck, even if you don't -- and you appreciate great writing, dig into this inspiring piece by Gary Smith in Sports Illustrated. It's the most unlikely tale: an impoverished black teenager from South Africa, where cricket and soccer are the traditional pastimes, chasing his dream of playing major league baseball.

Smith is, by some accounts, the best sportswriter in the country and I've read enough of his work over the years to hold him in high esteem. So let me get out of the way and hope these first few paragraphs draw you in as they did me. (FYI, "Bucco black-and-gold" refers to the colors of the Pittsburgh Pirates. "Pirate City" is the name of the team's spring training facility.)

Word came down from above: Make the kid feel at home. Sure, said the clubbie ... but the clubbie always said sure. He bled Bucco black-and-gold, Pat Hagerty's superiors raved in reviews of his work as the Pirates' minor league clubhouse and equipment manager. He was master of a million chores, the guy who kept the radar guns juiced, the resin bags dry, the coaches' coffee hot, the lint out of the players' jocks and the alligators out of the pond at the team's complex in Bradenton, Fla. But then he paused and pondered: How the hell does a white-haired 48-year-old Irish Catholic clubbie from Steubenville, Ohio, make an 18-year-old Sotho tribesman from Africa feel at home?

The tribeman walked into Pirate City wearing a thick bush of black hair and a hoodie studded with stars. No, he didn't walk. He hopped. He skipped; sometimes he danced. He could outleap, out-ululate and outlast all the other Sotho in the dawn-to-dark dancing ceremonies around their ancestors' tombstones back home.

His head swiveled, absorbing all the dorm rooms, all the emerald fields, all the bats, all the balls; more more than he had witnessed in his life. He headed toward the clubhouse, chafing to bust out his blue-and-red glove and get cracking on his dream of becoming the first African ever to play major league baseball.

The clubbie exited the laundry room that morning last October. What language, he wondered, would a black South African speak? Even if they could communicate, what would a Pat Hagerty and a Mpho Ngoepe have to talk about?

The kid extended his hand and flashed a glittering smile. "Hello, sir!" he sang out to the clubbie. "My name is Gift!"

Read the rest of the piece here or in the Aug. 10 issue of S.I.
Photo: Trev Stair's photostream on Flickr

Vow Renewal: Waimanalo Bay, Oahu

This family flew in from San Diego to watch Mom and Dad renew their vows on Waimanalo Beach this summer. Congratulations and best wishes!

OMG OES!!!!!!!

Yesterday evening I had a meeting at church. After it was over I made a stop into Goodwill, always on the lookout for items to use in Ali's upcoming wedding and reception. Imagine the rapid-heartbeating moment I had when I spied someone's collection of Old English Sheepdog figurines. The collection was about 20 in all, from a sleeping foot-long dog to a mini 2" sitting pooch. 

The resin ones (which accounted for most of them) didn't appeal to me. But the ceramic ones came home with me. The sitting one is Goebel. The running dog is Heredities Creamware. The one in the upper left is made by Sylvac.  The other is unidentifiable, with only the word "Sheepdog" written in script on the belly. So, I got  these four for $20 (a little on the steep side for one of my Goodwill jaunts, but based on what I found online regarding their value, a real steal).

Fun story: I took them up to the register and got to gabbing with the woman behind me and the check-out guy (who just happened to be the manager). We were talking about not getting something that strikes your fancy at a thrift store, getting home with that feeling of regret, and then going back to find whatever it was gone. This was the last thing I wanted to have happen with these figurines. The woman behind me said she felt the same way about the milkshake machine and space heater she was buying (and, of course, went into detail about how much she loves milkshakes, and how cold her bathroom gets). I also laughed about the fact that I chose this particular evening to come in, and lo and behold there are Old English Sheepdog items there, and a lot of them. What are the chances of that??? The manager then said, "you know what makes this whole buying experience for you even better? A woman was in here about an hour ago and had all the figurines in her basket, got up to the register, only to say 'I don't need these," and then put them back on the shelf."  This was meant to be.

I couldn't help  but wonder, though, who would give away a collection like this. 

"Seeing beyond the hijab"

Ramadan, the annual month of fasting observed in the Muslim world, got underway Saturday in North America, so I was pleased that we offered readers a timely essay by local writer Tom Krattenmaker titled "Seeing beyond the hijab."

Tom is a former journalist, with an interest in issues involving Christianity in public life, who is now an associate vice president at Lewis & Clark College here in Portland. He continues to write for USA Today, the Los Angeles Times and The Oregonian, among others, and has a book that's coming out in October on Christianity in professional sports.

Anyway, Tom wrote a thoughtful piece stemming from the Oregon Workplace Religious Freedom Act, a new law that ensures the rights of employees to practice their religion by wearing certain religious apparel at work and taking holy days off.

As he notes, however, the measure upholds an exception for school teachers that's been on the books since the 1920s. The exception was upheld by the Oregon Supreme Court in the 1980s in a ruling that sought to make a distinction between religious apparel that merely expresses one's faith and clothing that has a more overt proselytizing effect.

"Because of the way the ban has been interpreted and enforced, its practical effect has mainly been felt by Sikhs, who wear turbans, and Muslim women, many of whom wear the hijab, or headscarf," Tom reported. Meanwhile, Christian teachers wear less-conspicuous cross necklaces or lapel pins and Jewish teachers wear yarmulkes, with no evident repercussion.

Tom concedes that the hijab and turban stand out, but raises a larger question by asking where is the line that separates legitimate religious expression from the unconstitutional promotion of religion. During an online chat Monday morning that I orchestrated for OregonLive.com, a handful of readers and I joined Tom in exploring some of the issues raised by that question:

1. If one favors the separation of church and state, why should we allow any religious apparel (including jewelry) of any kind in our public classrooms?
2. If one allows the hijab, do we also permit T-shirts that depict Jesus or quote a Bible verse? Do we allow a T-shirt that promotes the Wiccan religion?
3. Which carries more weight? The intent of the wearer (who knows what, if any, meaning is attached to the wearing of an article of clothing) or how it is perceived (and possibly misconstrued) by another party?
4. If we hope to encourage tolerance for the increasing diversity in our society, shouldn't we allow the hijab in the classroom, on the theory that the more familiar we become with it (whether in schools, airports, grocery stories or doctor's offices), the less mysterious or threatening it becomes?

After mulling Tom's article and participating in the half-hour chat, I'm still conflicted. Generally, I don't favor injecting religion in any form in public settings, whether the classroom or the workplace. Yet I'm sympathetic to an individual's freedom of self-expression as well as to the rights of religious or ethnic minorities to assert their beliefs.

If you pressed me, though, I think I would generally be permissive. allowing people to wear whatever they like, as long as the attire is not profane, does not intimidate and does not cause an undue distraction.

Thoughts, anyone?

I'm Embarrassed For The Riders

Michael Ball is the "Michael Ball" of cycling.

(Photo:John Devich/CyclingNews)

Sarah Barracuda

Before August bleeds into September, I want to follow through with a post I'd meant to put up weeks ago, when Sarah Palin made her surprise announcement that she would resign as governor of Alaska.

Obviously, she's now the former governor -- which just goes to show how tardy I am with the post. Bear with me.

First, the obvious. During the presidential campaign and continuing into this summer, Palin struck me as a shallow, often shrill, politician who pandered to an easily manipulated base of white, conservative, small-town voters with little education, sophistication or inclination to tolerate (much less understand) those of a different race or religion.

It would have been nothing short of disastrous had the McCain-Palin ticket won last November. She was frighteningly ignorant of international affairs and seemed incapable of speaking in more than scripted sound bites.

And yet, I was willing to cut her some slack. I was willing to think that maybe -- unlike Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck -- she had some redeeming qualities. And so it was with genuine curiosity that I read the much-publicized profile of her that appeared in Vanity Fair's August issue under the headline, "It Came From Wasilla."

The piece went to great length to critique Palin's performance in the 2008 election and argued that McCain and his staff should have seen trouble coming. The author, Todd S. Purdum, relied -- too heavily, I think -- on anonymous sources to build his case. (If you're going to do a piece like this, especially months after the election, I think it's only fair to quote her detractors on the record.)

In short, Purdum writes, McCain should have realized that no political principle or personal relationship is more sacred to Palin than her own ambition; that she has an erratic nature and narcissistic personality; and that she had demonstrated a pattern of vindictive behavior as a mayor and governor. First and foremost, though, he says the Arizona senator could have learned what it means that Palin is from Alaska. And here is where the article offers its keenest insight:

The state capital, Juneau, is 600 miles from the principal city, Anchorage, and is reachable only by air or sea. Alaskan politicians list the length of their residency in the state (if they were not born there) at the top of their biographies, and are careful to specify whether they like hunting, fishing, or both. There is little sense of government as an enduring institution: when the annual 90-day legislative session is over, the legislators pack up their offices, files, and computers, and take everything home. Alaska’s largest newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News, maintains no full-time bureau in Juneau to cover the statehouse. As in any resource-rich developing country with weak institutions and woeful oversight, corruption and official misconduct go easily unchecked. Scrutiny is not welcome, and Alaskans of every age and station, of every race and political stripe, unself-consciously refer to every other place on earth with a single word: Outside.

So, of all the puzzling things that Sarah Palin told the American public last fall, perhaps the most puzzling was this: “Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.”

Believe me, it is not.

But Sarah Palin herself is a microcosm of Alaska, or at least of the fastest-growing and politically crucial part of it, which stretches up the broad Matanuska-Susitna Valley, north of Anchorage, where she came of age and cut her political teeth in her now famous hometown, Wasilla. In the same way that Lyndon Johnson could only have come from Texas, or Bill Clinton from Arkansas, Palin and all that she is could only have come from Wasilla. It is a place of breathtaking scenery and virtually no zoning. The view along Wasilla’s main drag is of Chili’s, ihop, Home Depot, Target, and Arby’s, and yet the view from the Palins’ front yard, on Lake Lucille, recalls the Alpine splendor visible from Captain Von Trapp’s terrace in The Sound of Music. It is culturally conservative: the local newspaper recently published an article that asked, “Will the Antichrist be a Homosexual?” It is in this Alaska—where it is possible to be both a conservative Republican and a pothead, or a foursquare Democrat and a gun nut—that Sarah Palin learned everything she knows about politics, and about life. It was in this environment that her ambition first found an outlet in public office, and where she first tasted the 151-proof Everclear that is power.

Not long after the Vanity Fair piece appeared (and I doubt more than a handful of the Palin faithful read it), Palin held her rambling, incomprehensible press conference announcing she was quitting 18 months before her term ends.

The past couple of weeks have shown us what kind of havoc Sarah Barracuda, untethered to public office and unleashed on impressionable Americans, can wreak. Her deliberate misrepresentations and fabrications about Obama's health care reform proposals -- "death panels" that would send our grandmothers to an early graveyard -- are so mean-spirited and so out-of-touch with legislative reality that any shred of respect that I might have had for her is gone forever.

Sarah Palin may be, as Purdum writes, "the sexiest brand in Republican politics," but I don't think many people will be lining up to buy it in 2012.

What's New In Douchey?: The Sunday Ride

Mongo doesn't like repeating himself...to the hard of hearing, or on this blog. Originality is a Dragon that I am constantly chasing.

That being said, I do enjoy the chronic "what?" ling of my boy, Andreas Kloden in a humorous and soap opera-y fashion. Up until now, I have never felt the need for another episodic post, but the array of characters I deal with every Sunday makes me want to explore the weekend douche varietal.

Today, Mongo put in an easy 42 miles at about a 17.5 mph pace. I can't be exactly sure of the stats because my computer stopped working about twenty times during the ride. Too many damn batteries to worry about...pick-ups, head unit, HR monitor. Anyway, that problem has since been resolved.

As I was close to the end of the ride and thinking to myself how uneventful it had been, with no smackdowns or pursuits of any kind, I saw him! At first, I truly couldn't believe my eyes...this could not be happening. No one would be doing what this guy was doing unless there was an emergency or...he was the biggest dick in the world!

Pedaling towards me was a grey-haired gentleman on an 80's era road bike with a Nashbar-style matching kit along with mt. bike shoes and pedals. I see this kind of getup all the time, so by itself it wouldn't normally warrant more than a smirk. Here's the payoff...

This m***** f***** was sitting up in the saddle, no hands on the bar, and...wait for it...wait for it...reading a book!!!

I'm Rich

Hear ye, Hear ye...The debt has been paid!

Mongo's arch nemesis, formally known as "Snow Bunny", and currently known as "No Money", will now be referred to once again as "Snow Bunny".

Rubber Or Bareback ?

Is there any more of a buzz-kill than getting a flat tire on a solo ride. Sure, you have a tube and a Co2 cartridge, but once you've replaced the tube and pumped up the tire...then what?

You can either continue the ride with no spare or air and risk getting stranded with another flat, or you can turn around and go home unsatisfied like Mongo did today.

What Really Killed The Dinosaurs

2L2Q

For the most part, Mongo has always been a Shimano man. There was that brief period in the 70's when I experimented with Suntour and Dia-Compe, but I can't remember much and I served my time.

What about Campagnolo, you might ask? Mongo thinks of Campy like I think about a Ferrari. Though it would be sweet to own one, I can't afford the upkeep...so I would never be able to enjoy it without worrying about the cost of replacing a part.

This brings me to my new best friend...SRAM. Their cassettes and chains are fully compatible with my Ultegra shifters and derailleurs...and at approximately two thirds the cost of their Shimano counterparts, they are also lighter.

Susan Tedeschi: Like a librarian?

Just about the only down side of my job is that I have to work late on Fridays, typically leaving the office around 7:30 or 8 p.m.

And so I knew it would be impossible to get off early enough to catch Susan Tedeschi in concert at the Oregon Zoo Ampitheatre. Here's what I missed, according to The Oregonian's Lynne Terry: "Susan Tedeschi roars through show at Oregon Zoo."

I was amused by Lynne's description of Susan as looking like a librarian -- you be the judge. It made me think of My Morning Jacket's song, "Librarian." Listen here:
http://music.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=music.artistalbums&artistid=4250396&albumid=8079604

And, not to overlook Susan, here are links to the two songs referenced in the review: "700 Houses" and "People."

If there's any consolation for me, it's knowing that at least I did see Susan at the the Aladdin Theatre seven months ago.

I Was So Much Older Then

"Re-examine all that you have been told... dismiss that which insults your soul."

(Walt Whitman)

Jenn and Jason's Wedding Reception

Finally, here are the pictures from the wedding reception I did. A little background into the theme . . .

The City Club of Buckhead venue definitely served as a point of inspiration. The wood-paneled site has a very traditional, warm, old library, men's club feeling. This "library" sparked the idea of using books in the centerpieces. Books are so symbolic. They have chapters, much like our lives. They tell stories. And the best of books have happy endings. All of these indicative of how Jenn and Jason got to where they are (not to mention that Jenn's journaling is a huge part of her own life's journey).

Loved the idea of creating mostly white centerpieces — a juxtaposition to the dark wood surroundings. The thrift-store-bought brass candlesticks, spray-painted white, were topped with frosted-glass tealight holders (I actually frosted them all myself using a spray frost). These were then attached to the candlesticks using Cling, a floral adhesive, easily removable. This allowed for there to be candlelight on the tables without the mess of dripping pillars, not to mention that tealights are so easy to change out.
The books were all covered in white paper (donated by Mohawk Paper — thank you Rebecca!) and decorated with cut white doilies, so reminiscent of bridal lace.
Brown satin bookmarks picked up the brown satin of the bridesmaids dresses. One book on each table had a family picture, printed out in sepia in keeping with the brown tone.

Since Jenn's flower budget went to the ceremony itself, the florals in the centerpieces consisted of twigs with white silk flowers glued on them. I hand glued the center jewels on each flower. Some flowers were sprinkled on the tables to give the look of them having fallen off the branch.

Jenn and Jason wanted to incorporate a charitable element into the festivities, so they chose three charities very dear and near to them (Greyhound Rescue, Gahanga Orphanage and USO). When guests entered the reception they were each given a library card (to fit in with the book theme). On each card I typed (using a typewriter) the book name — Happily Ever After — with the bride and groom as the "author." The date due stamp is their wedding date, and the borrower is the guest.

Tied to each card was an envelope with three flowers in it along with a card telling the guest what to do with the flowers.

The cards were filed in an actual card catalog file. . . perfect.
I found glass apothecary jars, labeled each (accompanied by a detailed description of the charity) and guests were to drop their flowers, as they saw fit, into the jars. Jenn and Jason, post-wedding, would then assign a dollar amount to the flower and make donations accordingly. Everyone at the wedding loved this idea, and it truly showed the heart of the newly married couple. (The library card then served as a wedding keepsake for each guest, the perfect bookmark.)





And for the gift table I always make a fake gift so that guests know exactly where to put their presents (and I make sure that it doesn't get put with the gifts at the end of the evening, which would prove to be a very cruel joke for the bride and groom when opening presents!)
I felt that the memory table needed to continue the theme. So pictures given to me by Jenn wound up in frames I found at thrift stores, each spray painted white and accented with the paper doilies. Even the guest book was decorated with a doily on front. Jenn's mom passed away the year I first met Jenn, and the wedding and everything leading up to it honored her. Her mom's middle name was Rose, so I made sure that every wedding-related event, from the bachelorette weekend to the bridal suite at the church had a red rose to remind Jenn that her mom was truly there with her.



Jenn and Jason did cupcakes in lieu of the traditional wedding cake. It was easy to decorate the table with twigs and flowers in keeping with the theme. And use the books as well.