Holidays in Washington State

It's been a long time between updates, so here's a set of photos showing what we've done over the last few months.

Ocean Shores

Alex has a driver's learning permit, so she got some good experience as we headed out to the coast. Tasha considers legroom to be very important.

Lots of Evergreens in the Olympic National Forest

Ocean Shores resembles what I imagine "the end of the earth" might look like.

Cold day in the middle of summer!

The girls and I rented this contraption to use on the sand. Not nearly as much fun as it looks, particularly as we couldn't convince Rupert to pull.

View from our hotel room, which was behind the dunes.

Ruby Beach. Not a postcard, but deserves to be!

The driftwood along the Pacific Coast beaches always reminds me of bleached whale bones.

Brackish pond we encountered.

Leavenworth

Leavenworth is a small town in the Cascade mountains that the railway bypassed in the 1930s. It suffered a slow decline until the 1960s, when it reinvented itself as a Bavarian-themed village. Today it's a thriving tourist destination with strict ordinances to keep the town looking.... well, see for yourself!

Downtown Leavenworth

Despite the glaring sun, Tasha really wanted to give this giant bear a hug... because she'd seen the photos of the last time we took her to Leavenworth:

Scary bear!

Alex bought this hat for a friend.

Heidi and I in the park square.

We stopped at Lake Wenatchee... might come back here for a camping trip.

Silverwood

Silverwood is a theme/water park in Hayden Lake, Idaho.

This tinkertoy contraption would fill up the bucket approximately every three minutes. 30 seconds before it tipped over, a bell would start to ring, signalling the kids to take cover!

Alex, Tasha, and Alex's friend Sloane.

Halloween

Pumpkin carving time

Nearly finished!

Our front door on Oct 31st. I thought of dressing up like a scarecrow and frightening the kids, but that could be dangerous.

Dessert: Braaaaaaiiins!

Even Rupert got dressed up.

Thanksgiving

My own stuffing recipe: day-old french bread, bacon, dried cranberries, apple, celery, broth, brown sugar, butter, chicken stock, red wine, and spices.

22lbs ready to go....

...5 hours later. This bird was so big that I was able to cut enough meat to feed 7 people without ever hitting bone.

We had an unexpected storm in November that dropped a few inches of snow and ice.

Mzungu-Matic

Google Earth is a magnificent piece of software. If you are at all interested in travel, geography, maps, or just "cool shit", definitely check it out (it's free!) It uses the same map set as Google's online maps, but it's in a local application so not only is it faster, but you can do some really nifty stuff like panning and 3D landscape/buildings.

It's not just an interesting toy, either: it has definite practical advantages. Take my brother and his wife, who are currently blogging their adventures as they travel through Africa and South America. With a bit of patience (and $30/year to get the "create path" feature for Google Earth), it's very easy to create a map of where they've been (click to zoom):






Here's a closer view of one of the places they visited:



I'm working on a permanent home for updates to their travels, as well as a way of allowing you to download the data file for your own amusement in Google Earth.

There's a couple of features in the new beta version of Google Earth that let you overlay your own photos and GPS trip data onto the map; I suggested that Greg try do that while on his trip, but he was rightly worried about things like finding batteries in the middle of the Serengeti. It's also possible that he may get into trouble carrying a GPS receiver into some of the places he's going; it's ex-military technology and in some of these places you don't want to take a chance. Regardless, I'll keep tracking his journey and see if there's a way to integrate it into his blog or make the data available for download.

We're leaving for Ocean Shores today; the cameras and GPS are ready to go. When I get back I'll see what kind of interactive A/V presentation I can put together. Here's a photo from the last time we went:

Sunset at Ocean Shores (try doing that on any eastern coast!)

In the meantime, you can stay amused by checking out some of the nifty things people have found with Google Earth (including a very weird place in China), or take a stroll around Mars or even the moon (make sure you zoom in as far as you can go!).

If you're seriously into this kind of thing, you will also want to check out NASA's World Wind which does everything that Google Earth does and a whole lot more.

Those Wascally Democwats!

One of the greatest satisfactions in life is watching someone get hoist on their own petard; I think of it as a kinetic flavor of hypocrisy. So when I saw a promising situation unfold on Fox News last week, I couldn't help but smile.

A few days before the general public became aware of the great Gatorade Terrorist Plot of August 2006, British authorities quietly informed the White House that arrests were imminent. True to form, the Bush/Cheney White House swung into action and prepared to exploit the as-yet-unpublicized news for as much political mileage as they could. From behind the portable missile battery that guards his ranch in Wyoming, Vice President Dick Cheney uncharacteristically took time out from his holiday to conduct a conference call with the press, during which he blasted the Democrats for being "weak on terror" and giving comfort to "al Qaeda types" - laying the psychological groundwork for the news he was planning to break in the coming days.

By the time the arrests in London, the White House had set in motion the Republican propaganda machine, so that Fox News and other complicit mouthpieces could hit the ground running with loaded talking points and "TERROR IN THE SKIES" slug lines the moment the arrests became public. These "useful idiots" in the media pontificate about their journalistic ethics, but the fact remains that they all spout the same Republican talking points on the same day.

In their zeal to outdo each other in criticizing the Democrats' supposed "softness" on terror, it's perhaps inevitable that a few of them would make a meal of it. None, however, can hold a candle to The Weekly Standard's William Kristol, who released this beauty:

The Bugs Bunny Democrats
They're all carrot and no stick.
by William Kristol
08/21/2006, Volume 011, Issue 46

The content of the article doesn't really matter; the important thing is that the title is a snappy sound-bite/slogan that can be repeated during the sixty seconds that network news devotes to politics, or that can be plastered on the bottom third of the screen when you appear on Fox News (Kristol is a regular).

But think about this for a minute: if you look beyond the fact that Bugs Bunny is, yes indeed, a bunny rabbit - and as such can be occasionally seen eating the odd carrot - is calling someone Bugs Bunny really what you want to do?

In nearly every single Bugs Bunny cartoon, Bugs ends up defeating his opponent- through a combination of wit, humor, good planning, skill, and mental agility.

Kristol's criticism of Democrats as being like Bugs Bunny implies that he thinks Republicans are just the opposite: the "anti-Bugs", if you like. And Warner Bros has kindly provided for us a character who fits this description: Elmer J. Fudd.

George W. Bush, hot on the trail of those wascally terrorists.

I have to agree with Kristol: Elmer Fudd is a brilliant metaphor for Bush and the Republicans on a number of levels:

• Bush and Fudd are both simplistic morons with a single-minded obsession on pursuing a foe whose importance they have inflated as a means of justifying their ridiculous (and often hilarious) actions
  
  
• Fudd and Bush both have speech impediments and frequently commit dreadful social blunders

• Fudd is obsessed with guns yet an inept hunter; he frequently shoots himself or innocent bystanders in his fanatical rapture. While hunting cage-bred birds from the safety of his car, Vice President Dick Cheney shot a 78-year-old man in the face.

• While everyone else can see the fuse sticking out of the cake, Fudd is staring cross-eyed in the wrong direction, mumbling one of his homilies and plotting how to divide up the prize. Think Iraq.

• When frustrated as his inability to make progress, Fudd blasts away indiscriminately with his shotgun. When Bush's approval ratings fall, we suddenly start getting terror alerts.
  
  

And finally:

• Fudd's downfall is usually his own making. Were he only able to keep his mouth shut, his gun holstered, and think before taking action, Fudd might stand a chance of actually capturing his prize.

And Bill Kristol might have a chance of coming up with a decent metaphor.

Real Madrid vs. DC United

Ronaldo, Beckham, Zidane, Roberto Carlos, Emerson, Cannavaro, Baptista, Robinho.... you'll remember these as the stars from their respective countries at the World Cup in Germany. What you may not know is that these players all play for the same club when not representing their country... and that club is the legendary Real Madrid, who visited Seattle last night to play a friendly against Major League Soccer's best team DC United. We were fortunate enough to be able to attend the match which was held at Qwest Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks.

Truth be told, not all of the above stars made an appearance. Zidane has retired, and Ronaldo remained in Europe due to injury and general match fitness. Still, there was some awesome talent on display, and not all of it was from Real Madrid. DC United is a credible side, as demonstrated by the match's 1-1 result. Real had the edge (particularly in the second half), but United's 17-year-old phenom Freddy Adu showed why he's compared to a young Pelé or Ronaldinho.

I was a bit disappointed with the venue; Qwest Field is a new stadium, right next door to Safeco Field where the Mariners play, and to be honest it's nowhere near as good as its neighbor. For a start, we were frisked going in, and secondly the pitch was in terrible condition: most of the grass was brown, and there were visible lumps and debris. Although we had good seats quite close to the action, it was frustrating when the inevitable drunken idiots a few rows in front of us stood up and waved their beers around while making cellphone calls, oblivious to the calls of "down in front!" and the shower of peanuts and garbage being thrown at them. All it takes is one person to stand up, and this causes a ripple effect behind them. Essentially, we spent the last two minutes of the match standing up just so we could see the field at all. It also took a ridiculously long time to exit the stadium, a far cry from the five minutes it takes to get to the street after the last pitch at a Mariners game.

Sign of the times, perhaps: even with only three weeks notice, the entire stadium of 66,000 sold out. That beat the Mariners game that was played earlier in the day, and was in spite of the Tim McGraw and Faith Hill concert that was happening in Seattle at the same time. Needless to say, traffic was horrendous.

Apart from the venue, the match was great. Being a friendly there were an unlimited number of substitutions allowed, so Real played their entire squad during the course of the game. Robinho came on and provided some spark during the second half, and we missed Beckham who was replaced at half time.

Here's some photos from our vantage point:

Adu (center), and Beckham (bottom right; blue shoes)

Roberto Carlos (left; bald), and Adu (right)

The hightlight of the match was probably when Real were awarded a free kick just outside the penalty area, and Roberto Carlo came forward to deliver one of his thunderbolts. He blasted it around the wall, but keeper Troy Perkins made a brilliant diving save. The rebound caused a goal-line scramble, with the ball eventually flying just wide of the net.

All in all, an excellent and memorable event! This is the largest crowd I've ever seen a soccer game with, and it was encouraging to see just how popular the sport has become in the USA.

Chromatastrophy

Here is how our old house looked when we sold it:



Here is how it looks today:



Even our mail carrier made a point of mentioning how, er.... "different" it looks. Love that lawn color, too.

Law 11

Offside Position

It is not an offence in itself to be in an offside position. A player is in an offside position if:

• he is nearer to his opponents’ goal line than both the ball and the second last opponent.

A player is not in an offside position if

• he is in his own half of the field of play or
  
• he is level with the second last opponent or
  
• he is level with the last two opponents.
  

Offence

A player in an offside position is only penalised if, at the moment the ball touches or is played by one of his team, he is, in the opinion of the referee, involved in active play by:

• interfering with play or
  
• interfering with an opponent or
  
• gaining an advantage by being in that position.
  

Brazil vs. France

France is in the white, attacking the goal to the right. Zidane (top, near the Phillips sign) is just kicking the ball.

So: offside, or not?

Varekai

Cirque du Soleil presents Varekai

Review by Murray Chapman

The first circus I ever went to was Circus Vargas some time in the 1970s. They had set up their tent in the parking lot of the Lougheed Mall in Burnaby, BC, and I remember the experience emotionally but not completely. Details such as how they had driven large metal spikes into the bitumen to secure the ropes for the tent are still clear in my mind (vandalism, I thought!), and the fact that they had lions, tigers, clowns, and trapeeze artists remains in my mind. I remember there were three rings, and although they did a good job of directing our attention to the ring where the action was occurring, as a small child the action at the far end of the tent seemed to be literally miles away. The smell of popcorn and gunpowder burnt itself forever into my memory, even if I can't remember the names of the performers or specifically what they did.

Fast forward to my next circus experience in around 1995: Circus Royale (I think), next to the RBH in Brisbane, Queensland. To say that it was a disappointment would be a dreadful understatement: even as we drove into the carpark it was unpleasant: we had to run the gauntlet of animal rights protestors who were trying to shame both the circus itself and those who attended. The entire experience reeked of fatigue and death: a tent that had obviously been in service since the early part of the century. Gilded props that were battered and torn. Animals - although probably not mistreated - that were certainly enthusiastic or even exotic. Costumes and design motifs that screamed "1972": flared trousers and Adam West-style capes. The performers were definitely "lifers": several generations of carnies hanging on desperately to a way of life that suffered a mortal blow with the advent of television, let alone video games and big-budget movies.

Perhaps I was just older and more cynical; was I seeing things with a different eye? Was Circus Vargas really the same, and I was just too young and naive to see it? By the time that "Captain Australia" had limped his way through his routine of checking his mighty cannon before being fired limply across the tent into a sagging net, I decided that circuses belonged in the same category as James Bond films starring Roger Moore: as a child they are the best thing you've ever seen, but as an adult you're almost embarrassed to watch them.

I gave the circus one more chance in around 1998, this time at Dreamworld. As a permanent attraction, I hoped that it would be more professional and suffer less from the bohemian fleetingness that was all too obvious during my last circus experience. Alas, it was even worse: we fled the tent after less than 30 minutes, driven by the raw stench of elephant dung.

And so I gave up on the circus.

While the traditional concept of the Big Top Circus may have (mercifully) become extinct, the essence of the experience never died. Dormant for decades, it is reborn and reinvigorated by Cirque du Soleil, a French-Canadian troupe which has single-handedly redefined the entire concept of cirque.

Gone are the animals and the flim-flam cheesiness, replaced instead by art and the wizardry of modern technology and showmanship. Part dance, part musical, part comedy, but above all featuring acrobatics and atheticism, the events staged by Cirque du Soleil suppress individualism to present an abstract yet coherent spectacle of light, color, and motion.

Varekai is the fourth Cirque du Soleil show I have seen; Mystere was the first (Luxor, Las Vegas), followed by Allegria (on tour, Seattle) and O (The Bellagio, Las Vegas). I would rate O as the best, but that's probably inevitable, considering that it is performed in a custom-built featuring a 1.5 million gallon water tank (O = "eau" = "water", you see!) and thus has an unfair advantage!


Still, Varekai maintains the standards of previous shows. Acrobatics, music, dance, and comedy all share the stage, with never a dull moment. The highlight of the show for me was (as I expected), the acrobatic components: the "Russian Swings" (l) and the "Icarian Games" (r) -- two men who would juggle two other men with their feet, spinning them over and around like a baton.

Other highlights include the clowns (who start their performances from within the crowd as it files in), and the contortionists, who seem to be able to survive just fine despite being equipped with several universal joints instead of a pelvis and a spine. It's often difficult to follow all the action: things can build up in the background, or performers suddenly fly up out of a hole in the stage -- or indeed swoop down from the top of the tent suspended by their head tied to a pair of nylon stockings... watch out!

Cirque du Soleil only comes around every few years; I'd definitely recommend you catch it if you can! Unfortunately, unless you live in Vancouver or Australia, you've already missed them.

Seattle seems to be having a rash of good concerts this year: as well as Varekai, I also saw Queen + Paul Rodgers. Next up, it's a journey into life, love, death, and madness -- another performance I never thought I'd have the chance to see:

Hypocrites Du Jour

An interesting day today, one sure to go down in the annals of hypocrisy:

First up, we have professional pinhead and lying loudmouth Rush Limbaugh. Back in October 1995 he was in fine form, railing against durgs and those who use them:

Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. And the laws are good because we know what happens to people in societies and neighborhoods which become consumed by them. And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up.
-- Rush Limbaugh, October 5 1995 show transcript

Can you guess what happened to Limbaugh today?. Let him dig his hole a little bit deeper first, before you make your guess:

What this says to me is that too many whites are getting away with drug use, too many whites are getting away with drug sales, too many whites are getting away with trafficking in this stuff. The answer to this disparity is not to start letting people out of jail because we're not putting others in jail who are breaking the law. The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them and send them up the river, too.
-- ibid.

Ready to find out?

Today, Rush Limbaugh was arrested on drug charges, specifically fraud to conceal illegally obtaining prescription painkillers. We're not talking about faking a bad back in order to score a few pills from a sympathetic quack, we're talking about serial doctor shopping to the tune of 4,350 pills in one 47 day period.

Limbaugh's mugshot, shopping list

This case has been brewing for a few years; the highlight of course was Limbaugh's October 10, 2003 on-air announcement that he was entering rehab to overcome his addiction to OxyContin and Lorcet. Today's arrest and immediate release was part of a plea deal in which he will avoid incarceration if he continues his rehab, pays a token fine, and stays out of trouble for 18 months.

Hybrid Hypocrisy

Gas prices in the USA have gome from around $2/gal to over $3/gal this year. Everyone has their own opinion as to the reason for such an increase; personally I believe it's no coincidence that over the same period of time Exxon/Mobil made a record three-month profit of $9.92 billion.

The recent public outrage has naturally been followed by an avalanche of politicians attempting to use it to their own advantage.

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R) and a few other political hacks held a press conference at a BP gas station in Washington D.C. today. Touting their support for alternative energy sources and hybrid cars, they promised to investigate the matter thoroughly, and proudly pontificated on their own responsible approach to energy conservation.

Such support apparently only exists as a show, however: shortly after driving away from the press conference in a hybrid vehicle, Hastert was caught abandoning it for his gas-guzzling SUV to complete the three block trip back to his office:

Return of the Champions

Here we stand, or here we fall;
History won't care at all.
Make the bed, light the light;
Lady Mercy won't be home tonight.

I had long ago abandoned any hope of seeing Queen live in concert: they hadn't played on stage in public since 1986, Freddie Mercury was dead, John Deacon had retired, and they hadn't released an album in over a decade. Imagine my surprise and joy at learning of their world tour with frontman Paul Rodgers (Bad Company, Free).

Tonight, Alex and I attended the Seattle concert... the fulfillment of a life-long ambition, all the sweeter because it never occured to me that it could happen.

Technically, it's only half of Queen: Freddie is still dead, and John is still retired. Nevertheless, even with only half the original members it's still an event to behold.

The concert was excellent; unlike some other classic British bands the vocals have not deteriorated at all over the decades. Brian May's guitar remains uncannily similar to how it sounds on the albums, and they even introduced some excellent new arrangements of some of their classic songs. I particularly liked the slow acoustical version of Hammer to Fall, which quickly swells to it's familiar arrangement for a hard-rocking finale.

There were only three disappointing parts of the evening: the lack of any material from ...A Kind of Magic; the elimination of I Want It All from the set list; and Roger losing a drumstick during the fast drum fill in Fat Bottomed Girls. :-)

Paul Rodgers has the impossible task of filling Mercury's shoes. He's a great vocalist, particularly on the slower tracks such as Reaching Out and Bohemian Rhapsody, and wisely doesn't attempt to mimic Freddie's vocal or performance style. Rhapsody was particularly touching as it was effectively a duet with (a recording of) Freddie Mercury performing the introduction with Rodgers taking over for the finale.

With Brian, Roger, and Paul all sharing lead vocals during the show we were completely spoilt. Brian's Love of My Life and Roger's These Are the Days of Our Lives were excellent, and Paul's rendition of the older Queen classics was superb.

There are only two dates left on the tour: Portland on the 11th and Vancouver on the 13th, so it's unlikely that you're going to catch them if you haven't already. Regardless, there is an excellent DVD of the concert already available.

As you can see, we had excellent seats; row 17 on the floor, only six seats away from the catwalk. At $200 each it was by far the most expensive concert I've been to... but this was a price I was happy to pay.