Parkade Ticket has great instructions on the back

Dirty Dash Team Photo

Tony Yuen's BBQ Sauce and Video wins TreeTop Prize!

A while back ago, I told you about this contest. Well, we won! A big function at Stn 13 yesterday. Lots of VIPs from TreeTop were there, as were the local media. Somebody said it will be featured on HGTV. I was invited because Tony had me write the script and direct the video. Dean Pearcy, the fire department's AV guy was responsible for the awesome editing and effects.

And as usual, Tony was the cook and everything tasted great!

Thanks for everyone who voted. Gleed received the most votes, so it received a $1000 check from TreeTop.



Here is the video again, if you haven't seen it:

Yellow Jacket Traps

Cleaned out the traps yesterday and it didn't take long. First video is after 15 minutes, the second after an hour.



I would say there are more yellow jacket condos like the ones Sarah destroyed here.
BTW, I do believe these traps are manufactured out at the industrial park in Spokane Valley.

Dirty Dash

A great time out at Riverside State Park yesterday.

For those of you who might have been wondering why it took an hour to travel from Downtown Spokane to the intersection of Ft Wright and Government Way, it was the Dirty Dash. There were thousands of people nicely spread out, with a start about every 20 minutes for the 10K course. Mudpits, balance beams, straw bale obstacles and mud-filled culverts were climbed up and through and over. There was even a quick dip in the Spokane River.

Tons of families and groups of friends were doing this together. I was lucky that my son, Kirk, let me hang out with him and his cool friends. My other two boys (Ike and Aidan) hung out at the finish line and took pictures and cheered us on. Thanks again for that! Sarah was stuck in traffic for half an hour and u-turned home. I think we are all on-board for doing it together next year.

There were plenty of cyclists and runners who made it to the start quicker than we did by car. File that one away for next year. No car. Although, it might be a miserable ride/run home covered in dried mud, or it might be kind of fun.

Any run that starts off with a beer is a good one. There was also a beer obstacle at about mile 4.5 featuring some of my favorite.





There were a lot of out-of-state license plates at this event. I would imagine it pumped a lot of revenue into Spokane's coffers. Again, Spokane shows itself off as a place where we can stage big events. The traffic stuff will have to be worked on.

Near the finish line it looked like a mass casualty incident. Lots of IVs. Apparently there were some broken bones and other afflictions. AMR had their hands full, but were doing a great job.

Here's the Dirty Dash website.

Hey New Belgium, look at us! Bring the Tour de Fat here. We've got to be more fun than Boise!

Hodge podge from a busy week!

We've been members of the MAC since it first opened. Never noticed this sculpture of an owl riding a fox riding a deer on top of a platform, until today. It reminds me of my favorite cereal from the 80s - Big Mixx.


We were there to see the DaVinci displays. Very nice. The LC kids who were docents did an excellent job. Totally worth it!

Yep, he invented the bicycle chain. Why not?

These folks were having a good time.


Sarah and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. Before and after photos.

I look more scared, 20 years later. When we were married, I made 20 bottles of mead. Every anniversary, we opened a bottle and these are glasses poured from the last one. I have to start brewing again.

Every year, the mead tasted a little different. Just like the bitterness of our tears. No, not really. It has been a great 20! Looking forward to more!!!

On the roof of the Ridpath Hotel. It is beautiful up there, but a very long way down.


The garden is looking good, except the tomatoes are nothing.


Sarah went on a killing spree, digging up the ground and destroying an entire generation of yellow jackets. Sad :(
Lastly, been helping a guy who wants to help the world with his gift of sage advice. I am helping him start a blog. So, I will link it up here if it gets better.

Sandpoint Long Bridge Swim Last Saturday!

I wanted to write up a more extensive post on the Long Bridge Swim. This morning was the planned day to do this. But then the phone at home was answered at 9 or so this morning, while I was sipping coffee in my PJs, and off I went to go to work at the three alarm fire. And it was work, I will tell you what.

So, I will give you a very abbreviated account of the swim, as I feel pretty darn tired right now.

Here is the official route:

I think it is 1.7 miles long.

Here is the route I swam:

I don't know how long that was.

Sarah watched me and Susan, our friend, swim - plus chauffeured us all over N. Idaho. While she was watching the spectacle, she saw a kid approaching his friends. They shouted, "Dude, you're already done?" His reply - "I freaked out at the beginning," his voice cracked with emotion, "I don't know why, but I was so freaked out I had to get out of the water and call it quits." This kid looked like a triaathlete, Sarah said. His friends looked at him with curiosity, a "you've got to be shittin' me" glare. They weren't too sympathetic.

My friend, I hope you know that this was a very prevalent theme of conversation on the bus ride home to the parking lot. There were so many people talking about having the same feeling - not being able to breathe right, feeling like swimming was not natural and fighting for every stroke. Many felt the urge to quit, not because of physical reasons, but because the psychological weirdness was overwhelming.

That's how I felt too. It was weird. I was really creeped out for the first quarter mile. However, by about three quarters of a mile, I was having the time of my life. I was so into it that I wasn't watching where I was going and was way off course, repeatedly. I finally ran into a kayak. Literally. The helpful paddler apologized. She also said that the finish line is "back there." So I turned around and went back.

I want to do more open water swims. I had a very good time, after the whole freaking out thing subsided. I sure didn't expect that.

Weird clouds the other night!

Annual Family Rafting trip - GLACIER!!!

I think the last time I had been to Glacier was when I was 14. I don't know why it has taken so long to go back. Well, I wasn't able to drive for the first two years after that for one thing, I guess.

By car, from Spokane, it's only five hours away, and not a five-hour drive through the Columbia Basin. Not that the Columbia Basin isn't beautiful in its own way. It is just that as you head east out of Spokane, mysterious and wondrous things happen. Things that make five hours fly.

First off, if you head east, you know in your heart that you are from the BIG CITY - SPOKANE, until you start getting Minneapolish. If you head west, you will always be the hayseed. So, it's good for your self esteem, plus it puts you in the city slicker driver's seat for the feast that awaits. This ontological reframing heightens the experience of an eastward trek through roadtrip Americana - national parks, quirky museums, drive-through bear prisons, life-size fiberglass dinosaurs, pioneer sod houses, gold mine tours and always the 50,000 Silver Dollar Bar - where you must stock up on edged weapons and everclear. Head east and you are the Griswolds. Head west and you are just self-conscious and suspicious.

Plus when you travel east, you hit the no-shit Rocky Mountains, big waterfalls, and incredible roadkill.

The destination of Glacier Park/ Glacier National Park/ Glacier International Peace Park would be well worth it if the drive were twice as long. Great hikes. Unbelievable mountains and waterfalls. And the people!

Lots of people. Glacier is so beautiful, so unique, so much of a destination, that its visitors are from all over. Hiking up a trail, you witness America's verbal accents from Bronx to Southern Belle. There is Japanese, German, Spanish, Dutch, Portugese, French and Italian sprechen on the trail. Sometimes it's quiet. Young families and grandparents not speaking a word, just being there in the movement and in the splendor. They get to share with another generation what they think is important and beautiful to them. And they don't need to say much because, well, holy shit, look at that.

So we were there to do some day hikes and to do some rafting.

Our family has made a practice of going on a rafting trip every year for quite a few summers now. This year, we rafted the middle fork of the Flathead. This river separates Glacier from the Bob Marshall. The temperature of the water was 38F while the air was pushing 90. Rapids were kind of subdued because the water was so high. And it was beautiful. We have rafted enough, over the years, that we could probably get our own raft, but I really like having a guide, having someone cook for you and all that. There is something really cool about all of us rowing together really well after having done it so much. It's nice.Here is a bear "experience."
It's a place where you can pay $15 a head to drive around some black bears. I really liked their sign and its philosophic intent:

Amen. Amen.

When you go through Polson on Flathead Lake, make sure you visit the Miracle of America Museum. I heard the owner telling a German lady how much he hated President Obama because "he's not very American." She told him that she didn't like her leader very much either. The fellow has it all figured out with displays like this:




I don't agree with his politics and some of his beliefs, but my hat is off to him. Incredible stuff:


There's a new distillery with a tasting room in West Glacier, too. Wow!

New Firehouse!

Well, it's new for me anyway. The last two months I was in an interim promotional position, so I had to fill in at a couple of different stations. A little over a week ago, I was officially promoted. There isn't a fire lieutenant paramedic slot at Station Three, so I had to go someplace else. Which meant moving out of my station of nine years. I had a lot of locker cleaning to do and a lot of gear to move out. And of course, on moving day, as soon as I got all my stuff packed up, my old crew was off to a fire! Figures.

I moved stuff over one bike trip at a time, after I brought it all home in my car.



My new station is Station 11 - up on Perry and 32nd. It is a nice place. The crew I am on rocks! I was on an engine but am now on a pumper-ladder. It is sort of the hybrid bike of fire apparatus - part engine, part ladder. So, there's a whole lot of stuff to reacquaint myself with.

PL-11 used to be PL-15 - my first assigned truck, so it's all coming back.

No more hill climbing coming home. Just a slight rise on the way to work. It's about a mile closer too. There aren't quite as many calls there as Station 3, but it's a fairly busy place and it's pretty close to home. All in all, I really lucked out.

Seen at Walla Walla museum today.

I guess lice were pricier back then.

Spokane fire station cook has shot at winning national acclaim! Please Vote!!

Tony Yuen, who is about the nicest guy you will ever know, drives Pumper Ladder 13 up on Wellesley and Jefferson. Tony is also a great cook and can throw together meals that are inexpensive, delicious and big - the trifecta of fire house cooking.

Tony entered a contest via TreeTop to come up with a BBQ recipe using TreeTop products. Out of all the recipes entered, his was in the top ten. So, Tony received a lot of stuff from Treetop, including a little camera to shoot a video that had to be 4 minutes or less. Tony called me and another SFD guy to help him make the video and we think it turned out pretty good. Right now Yakima and a town in New York are ahead of us in votes.

If you have a few minutes check out the Spokane video and vote for it!

And if you want, you can vote every day for Tony Yuen and Fire Station 13's video!

Don't Forget - Summer Parkways Tonight!

6-9 PM- Comstock/Manito Neighborhood (map)

The slimy underbelly of organic gardening...

Every year the vegetable garden slug infestation gets worst. These slugs are usually no more than an eighth of an inch long. Some have gotten as big as about half an inch. Yet, there are hundreds of them, and by the end of the growing season, they have trashed the garden.

I have tried beer in saucers, wet newspapers, diatomaceous earth, insecticidal soap. These methods get a few. I think the diatomaceous earth dustings might have saved the green beans this year.

So the other morning, I had my face buried in the peas. A nice couple walked by and asked if I was talking to my plants to help them grow. I replied, "No I am squishing slugs." And then popped one right then and there.



A reminder to my vegetarian friends that, even though organic veganism is certainly the most ethical way to eat, there are still plenty of animal casualties. This squishing brings me no joy, and is unpleasant for all parties including you who are now reading this blog.

Every morning I do this. Every morning the fields run green with the guts of gazillions of gastropods.