A Tale of 2 Speights

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Hitchcock Was Right

Alfred Hitchcock classic The Birds inspired fear in many people for our winged companions. Pretty far fetched movie you say. Well what if Mr. Hitchcock was right?

About a month ago Rette and I decided that while her mother was in town we would make a trip to the Tracey Aviary to check it out, the aviary that is, not Hitchcock's thoery that birds are evil.

I was impressed with the variety of birds that they had there. Some of my favorites were the golden eagles, and the emus. The emu especially caught my interest because of the sound it makes. When I was standing near the emus I kept hearing this low pitched thudding noise, which I assumed was coming from some construction going on in the aviary. After listening for a little while and goading the emus to speak to me I realized that the sound was coming from them. They make a very guttural thumping/clicking noise in their throats, their beaks don't open. This made me appreciate the emu even more.

The best part of the visit was when we got to feed some of the birds. If you pay $2 extra at the gate they let you go into one one the enclosures and feed a type of Brazilian Parrot, I forget their actual name. They give you these little sticks with pieces of apple stuck on them and you hold them out and the birds will land on you and start eating.

When you first step in and hold out the food 20 or so birds flying right for you is quite intimidating. However, they quickly settle down and begin enjoying their apples and the opportunity to be so close with these beautiful birds really is something.

Despite their being so adorable these birds posses very hard sharp beaks which make me a little uneasy and in this case rightly so. One of the birds becoming bored with his apple began to peck at my finger right below the finger nail. This hurt quite a bit but because I had several birds on my hands and arms I didn't want to just violently shake them off, so I had to try to slowly brush off the offender. He easily left but not before cutting open my finger. I don't know if it was the cold or something else but it bled quite a bit. The aviary worker who was with us felt really bad for me and kept apologizing for the behavior of this bird. It wasn't that bad I'm glad that it happened to me and not my wife or her mother if it had to happen to one of us.

I seem to have bad luck in these situations as a similar thing happened to me at a Petco several years before. One of the workers was showing off a bird and asked us if we wanted to hold it. She instructed us to hold out our index finger and the bird would perch right on top. I remember asking , "these birds don't bite, do they?" She assured me that they did not, but as soon as I stuck out my finger out to take the bird from her it latched on my finger with its beak, not its feet. I think this one hurt worse than the pecking incident. Once again I couldn't just shake the darn thing off because the Petco lady was standing right next to me. She coaxed the bird into letting go, but this took several painful seconds.

Despite the injury I still had a great time at the aviary. As we left with my finger bandaged my wife and mother-in-law asked me if I should get checked out for bird flu. I told them that I'd take my chances.

Here's a blurry image of the attacked finger.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Coast Fun

Rette and I got a little time of to head out to Nahalem, OR and enjoy a weekend at the Oregon coast with my Family. We got 3 days of coast and 3 days of rain but I won't complain, it was still a vacation.

Because of the wind and the rain conventional beach activities were hard to enjoy, so we played with bull kelp. Here's Wes and myself doing a little jump rope with the kelp. Then there's Wes trying to whip Josh. Rette was impressed with how fast Josh was running.

Not everyone was enjoying being out in the weather as Max showed more visibly the way that we all felt.

We did manage to catch a break in the weather long enough for us to enjoy some of the senery. That's Wes taking in the view at Cape Kiwanda State Park, and Rette enjoying the trees at Munson Creek Falls.

We also got to try a long jump competition in the sand dunes. As Max is demonstrating getting up to the top of the dune is the definitely the hardest part.

What's the best way to end a beach trip you ask, why by shooting things of course. So here are some pics of Wes and I shooting things. Most significantly we put my old IBM thinkpad to rest with the help of two potato guns and a couple of potatos.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Sawtooth Serenity

Rette, my father, my brother (who just got back from a two year mission to Norway), and I went on a 3 day backpacking trip to the Sawtooth Wilderness area. Here's a little photographic journey for you to enjoy.

Wearing the appropriate clothing is a must for any backpacking trip. Here Wes demonstrates the European look that is all the rage in Norway, while I try and show off my new pants

We hiked the 18 mile Toxaway loop which was absolutley beautiful. We spent a night a Alice Lake and also at Toxaway Lake.

Some of the fish were biting, unfortunetly the hungry ones weren't much bigger than 6 or 7 inches.

The 2nd day we headed up over Snowside Pass. Our timing wasn't great because just as we were reaching the top of the pass a thunder storm came rolling in on top of us.

Thanks to some quick steps and some classic Disney songs, we made it over the top and down into some trees in time to throw up a tarp before we got soaked.

Even though we got a fair amount of rain it was still bueatiful when if cleared. Plus it kept all the streams and waterfalls flowing.

Unfortunately for Rette her heels didn't like her boots very much, or maybe it was visa versa. Either way she still toughed it out and managed to walk out of there without being carried.

I managed to get one of the worst cricks in my neck that I've ever gotten and couldn't turn my head for a full two days. So in short summary it was the best trip ever! Seriously though, despite the rain, the bugs, Rette's heels and my neck this was a great trip to a beautiful area and we'd all do it again.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

What's Wrong With This?

Here's a great question that was posted to Craig's list from a women in New York. Just click on the news strip to see it larger.

I really love this post and the response is spot on. Of coarse there is the chance that this was just a joke, but I don't think it is. We've all know girls or guys (usually looking for something other than money) like this which is what makes the girl's question believable. The thing that strikes me about this woman is that she doesn't understand why she can't attract the right guy when any guy that's smart enough to make $500k is smart enough to stay away from her, hence her problem. It just blows my mind that their are people out there who think its worth it to marry just for money, not that marriages are that hard to end these days.

Just some food for thought. Leave a comment, I'd like to know your thoughts on this one.

Monday, July 7, 2008

For America!

What's more American than apple pie? How about an M1 Garand or about 5,000 personal fireworks and twice as many bottles of beer? That's what you get when you spend the 4th of July up near Crouch, Idaho.

Every 4th of July Crouch opens up its main street and shuts down the gas pumps. Hundreds of people come out to watch the town firework display and then head for the center of town to try their own. I learned a couple of things that night.

1. Ground bloom flowers work under water.

2. When intoxicated some people will try to light fire crackers in their mouth if you don't stop them.

3. Little kids can still sleep on a street with hundreds of drunk people lighting off fireworks.

4. When you run out of fireworks you can just start burning the used ones.

I wouldn't suggest bringing small children there, but that place is a blast literally. Rette, Quin, and I joined in the fun. I tried tossing a couple of flowers into the air and I must say I did laugh when one ended up going under a camp chair that some guy was sitting on. Normally I'd feel bad, but if you didn't want to be harassed by fireworks you shouldn't have come to Crouch.

One thing I got a new appreciation for was how hard it would be to fight a war with a black powder rifle. My father-in-law, Bart, let me and Quin shoot his and it's quite the process to reload those things. We only got off 5 shots in about 8 minutes, luckily there were no red coats around or we would have been in trouble.

Rette handled the M1 Garand well even though it was almost her size and weight.

All in all it was a great 4th of July. We got to raft, bridge jump, rope swing, shoot stuff, blow stuff up, eat Dutch oven cooking, and be American!

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Arnold My Computer

I've been inspired to start a blog, partially from the suggestions of my sister, and it reminded me of something that happened long ago. One of the earliest memories I have is of my sister creating a computer "costume" for me and us singing along to an obscure song called 'Arnold My Computer.' To wear this outfit I would kneel down and stick my face (which was cute at the time) through a hole cut in construction paper which made up the screen. Taped on to the bottom of the screen was more rectangular paper to represent where all the circuits of the computer were and a keyboard below that, covering my knees. We both thought that this was quite amusing especially since I got to sing the part of Arnold in my best robot/computer voice.

What strikes me is that this was back around 1986 before personal computing got started. I had a thought that this little girl that dressed me up like a computer and made us sing songs about computers in our heads wasn't to far off from what would be happening in the future. Technology has come a long way and it really is progressing to the point where we live more and more of our lives inside computers .

It's kind of a strange intro but starting up this blog just reminded me of that for some reason. I guess now more than ever I feel like I'm inside the computer. Well, look here in the future for more childhood stories, pics of our adventures, and maybe reflections on life. Thanks for stopping by.