Transcend the, well, never mind....

Hey look at the cool cup I bought at one of my favorite stores:

 

It's supposedly dishwasher safe, so I washed it. This is what happened:

So I brought it back to the store where they said they have never seen this happen before, and cheerfully gave me a new one. And then the same exact thing happened. The way it flakes off, I think it's just a decal. I am not going to return the new one because I finally get it. I am going to transcend the bullshit. Happy to be a part of this performance piece! YOU GOT ME!

Almost done with my three weeks of hazmat schoolin'. Bittersweet.

Boffo roundup of autumnal doings.

It really has been a great autumn so far. Can you believe the color of these roses?

I have a sore back today, so "lum'bear'" with me, while I do a little recap of the last week or so. It's the meds...

Last week, Sarah and I went to Oktoberfest at the convention center. We had a good time. Look at how tall Manuela Horn is! Ach du lieber!

Here she is with Mayor Condon.

He and Stacy Cowles, the publisher of the Spokesman-Review, tapped the firkin. Like I reported in Facebook, it seemed like a good setup for the beginning of a cheesy horror movie. But no Nazi zombies sprung from kegs, nor did any lederhosen-clad yodeling vampires. It wasn’t exactly packed on the day we were there, Friday, but it was fun. I hope there was a good enough turnout for it to become an annual event. Sarah did well in a feat of strength - hoisting and holding out a liter of water!

Then there was the moon:

Ever wonder why that basket of flowers between Bennidito’s and Rosauer’s isn’t thriving like all the rest? Well, the drip/spray watering system is a little off target. It is a refreshing spot for an early morning shower.

I had to cancel the planned October 17th BrewRunRun. I am still working on the website.

As usual, you can check in here for all the Spokanarama links.

One of the reasons I cancelled the October 17th BrewRunRun is because I have been and will remain busy in Hazmat school for a while. When I was a little kid, the only thing I wanted to be, that I’m comfortable with disclosing in this forum, was an astronaut. Time is running out on that dream, so getting into the hazmat suit and stumbling around like a befuddled and blinded Neil Armstrong is probably going to have to suffice.

Speaking of hazardous materials,  if you want to know how to make a device to cook two pizzas at once on your BBQ, let me know.  The materials are all around you!

Haiku Friday continues! I hope you have been able to tune in on Periscope. The YouTube channel is here. And here is last week's:

Probably will be a first ever this week - Haiku Friday in the evening! That’s how crazy busy stuff has been. Perhaps, a cocktail hour version.

I have not heard anything from anyone after I submitted my online Spokane Poet Laureate application. So, it’s not looking good. You would think they would give a poet a courtesy reply. One thing I will do, if selected, is bring civility back to the Spokane poetry scene. As a confession, I did crash the poetry reading at Aunties on Friday, while they were shutting down the stage. If I was not discourteous, I was a little indecorous. The audience seemed to like my poem - Starkisser.

Next posting, I should share my application packet for the poet laureate position with you. Keep your fingers crossed!

No, Spokane doesn't suck, and neither does your mom...

OK, a guy moves from TEXAS and finds that Spokane is nice. That shouldn't be a surprise. When he runs into the locals, he finds that they put down their hometown. That shouldn't be a surprise either. Spokane is a polite place. Most of us love it here. If you can make a living in Spokane, there are few better places to live, in my opinion. But, we are pretty self-effacing about it with transplants, especially if they are from such an awesome place like TEXAS.

What is surprising is that this guy made a kickstarter account and is making money with  t-shirts emblazoned with "Spokane Doesn't Suck."

If you are from Spokane and you wear this shirt, I think it makes you sound a little defensive.

My first reaction was to make a shirt that looks like this:

But, wouldn't that be mean?  It seems like it to me. However, if his "Spokane Doesn't Suck" t-shirt is supposed to be complimentary, I guess this shirt would sound supportive. Maybe it is. Anyway, potentially hurting people's feelings is not how I role (as the kids say). So, here is the shirt:

If you want one, and really I don't know why anyone would, you can order it here.

3D Manito Duncan Gardens

Click on the picture of your choice to make it bigger. Cross your eyes to form a third picture in the middle of the two already displayed. Look at that middle picture. Hey, it's in 3D!

Lists

At work, I usually have very little control over the day. There are things that must get done each shift but all those "musts" can fall by the wayside when the bell hits. I can bike through the station doors with the best of intentions. A list sits in my pocket with some specific training evolutions or station work scribbled in only to have the plan shitcanned due to a big fire, unscheduled training by admin, multiple medical calls or other emergencies that pop up during the day (the real job). A shift with twenty calls leaves little time to do more than drink some water and take a leak between the calls. I have to say that these are my favorite kind of days. I like being busy and I enjoy running calls. My grandson Jack gets it!. Thanks to my daughter-in-law, "Li'l Sarah" for the picture.

On my days off, I schedule my activities, or at least I always have a to-do list. Which is pretty weird, I guess. I would imagine most people have very scheduled workdays and look forward to not having a specific schedule on their days off. When I am not scheduling things on my days off, it is a conscious decision - "I am taking a break today." Yesterday, was like that.

Sarah and I did Spokefest yesterday. She hasn't missed one! The only one I missed was last year when I had to work, and to be honest, it took some weight off my shoulders to end the streak. So, yesterday we did the Classic Loop, rode back home, ate and drank at Benneditto's, watched the Seahawks lose, napped, ate popcorn and watched Sense8 episodes (a new favorite here). What a great day!

This morning, I was back on my schedule. So what did it look like?
Run 3.5 miles
Pay some bills, other admin stuff
Errands - Station 11, Library, Grocery shop
Rake pine needles
Pick vegetables
Study for my paramedic recertification
Edit poetry book
Obtain ISBN number, Library of Congress info for poetry book
Design cover art for poetry book
Spokanarama post (hey that's what I'm doing now)
Reading (soon)

These are pretty common tasks. I do something I call "The Spaz Workout" twice a week. Sometimes, I will have longer runs. Haiku Friday takes up time some of the days. I will design new t-shirts and then have to print up shirts as well.

It was a great weekend. My son Ike and I hung out with my brother Joe in Saltese. The heir to the Russian Crown brought us goat milk, bread and a dish towel commemorating George Washington's dad's birthplace. Why am I not blogging about that? We flyfished. Sometimes, you have to deviate from the schedule.

Posted with Blogsy

Eleven Years of Spokanarama

To many, it seems longer.

I realize there have been many ebbs and flows in the blog. Issues of quality, content, timeliness and overall WTFery have not been a concern for the last 10 years or so. And it shows. I promise to continue this lowering of the bar.  If necessary I will shovel.

There have been some recent developments in my sidewebbiness. I have made or will make sites for all the side projects this blog has spurred. If you go to www.spokanarama.com, there they all are - smack dab and unaesthetically at the top. Some of you know other wacky projects I have shepherded. I will get some of those up there too.  It is not a very nice looking website, but it is functional. Thank you former USSR for design inspiration.

I have two main side projects that I have been involved with lately - Haiku Friday and a book of poetry that I would like to see on the shelves of your local poetry-warehouse/convenience-store sometime in October. I have also thrown my hat in the ring for Poet Laureate of Spokane. What I lack in actual works of poetry, I make up for in a can-do attitude and pluckiness. I promise to bring rhyming back!

Spokanarama has always been my number one. I try to celebrate Spokane more covertly in all my other work, but this blog has been, sometimes,  a gushy love letter to the weird and wonderful place I live and love.

My real job has become busier and I have a lot of work that I will be doing in the upcoming months off duty. I think this will help me get more of the web, writing and art stuff done. For whatever reason, when I am busy, I can really add more stuff on, and it seems to help propel all projects.  

Thanks for your readership and participation.

Macklemore and Lewis DOWNTOWN video - filmed in Spokane

A lot of this was shot near the fire station I work at. Looking good Spokane!

Sasquan!

My first brush with Sasquan was not as a participant. I was working Friday when a lot of conventioneers were already well into the fun. We responded to a call in the convention center where a fellow was not feeling well. Later on that night, we had a lady who was feeling the ill-effects of our smoky atmosphere. Downtown was hopping that day, and especially that night. The brownish air and the smell of smoke provided an apocalyptic off-world setting for the doings. Not a bad thing for a science fiction convention and overall partying downtown, but not so good for breathing. A frolicker at Zola's punched a sprinkler head around closing time, so we spent a long time there helping to get them back up and running. It was a day of a lot of calls and a busy night, as well.

Saturday, Sarah and I joined her siblings at the Pend Oreille county fair and had a great time. I was wiped out from the day before. A perfect fair frame of mind. Here's Sarah and her brother Steve. Steve has an encyclopedic knowledge of just about every car ever made. He'll let you know it too! An amazing guy.

  

Here's an intersection at the fair. Watch out for traffic!



Sunday, with a good night of sleep under my hat, we went to the closing day of  Sasquan.

 

We had a blast. I wore a shirt promoting my 1997 novel Millennium Laxative as a joke that only I would appreciate. Sad, yet funny, I guess.



$40 seemed like a lot to get in. By the end of the day, I had had way more than $40 worth of fun. We hit three seminars. The first was a panel discussion on the health effects of global warming. It was a great talk. I thought I was up on most of the climate change information, but I learned a lot. The second presentation featured artists and directors from Z Nation. This was not very well-attended, but was very good. We heard a few spoilers for the next season and also learned of some new featured locales. This show uses Spokane and the neighboring countryside to chronicle the characters' departure from New York and their trip across the country. Spokane is such a great place to make movies and TV shows because of the variety of scenery and the great urban core. I was a big Walking Dead fan in the beginning, but after it became too melodramatic, I lost interest. Z Nation is a fun show and I like the comic book feel of the stories. The last presentation we attended was on creating your own web series. Instead of a panel, there was just one guy. He did a good job, and during his talk, I realized that I kind of have a web series with my little Haiku Friday dealio.

Sarah and I talked to artists and writers, as we made our way through the trade show. We tried on helmets and crowns. Why not?







I admitted to one author that my knowledge of current science fiction writing probably peaked in 1974.

I was unfamiliar with Disc World, which seemed to be a crowd favorite at Sasquan!

I picked up a novel from a writer I struck up a conversation with. We purchased a t-shirt for our grandson. There was a vendor selling nothing but Red Dwarf stuff. I bought a DVD set from him and he, kindly, threw in another one for free. Plus, he showed us some articles, with pictures, of the ill-fated American rip-off of Red Dwarf. This was something I had heard of but had never seen anything about. Very cool!

Here I am posing with the costume of a space age Davey Crockett. Yeah!



Sarah and I had lunch and a beer in the alien setting of a cantina. Folks were playing a game based on the artwork of John Picacio.  Mr. Picacio, himself was running the game. How very cool.

All in all, a great time, and I really enjoyed the fans who wore costumes and celebrated what they loved.



Personally, it  rekindled a lost time for me. From about fourth grade to eight grade, all I would read was science fiction. I bought Ray Bradbury paperbacks (and MAD magazines) from the grocery store with my lawn mowing money and plowed through them. A religious experience. When I started junior high, the library there was my refuge. Weirdly enough, it was well stocked with Kurt Vonnegut books and a lot of other novels that would probably be banned in today's new puritan movement. At Quimby Oaks Junior High School, the book baton was passed from Ray to Kurt and then on and on.

Today, I saw this article about Ray Bradbury. The FBI was keeping an eye on him! I could pick them even back then. Way to go Ray!

I was inspired by what I saw, heard and the people I met at Sasquan. I am doubling down on my own writing, which right now is a small book of poetry,  and I'm going to start reading more contemporary stuff!  Four contemporary science fictiony type books I have read lately are The Martian,  The Windup Girl, The Library on Mount Char and On Such a Full Sea. Any suggestions?

Welcome Sasquan!

The world science fiction convention is in Spokane this weekend! Incredible. This is where they pick the HUGO winner!
 I dedicate this Haiku Friday to you science fiction fans who gather here in Spokane - Happy Sasquan!


Love Science fiction
Raised by writers of my youth
Stars to steer my life

There’s Ray Bradbury
Vonnegut, Arthur C. Clark
Asimov, Herbert

Do you like them boiled?
Brooklet peanut festival. 
Nutty place to be. Joel

Pale skin and black mane.
Punching Doc Martin princess.
Ghostly butt kicker. Joey

I don't get this post.
The message is lost on me.
I'm out of the loop. - Bob

The party is now over
Formerly young men return to their lives
Only the lonely souls remain … Scott

Spokane Engine One...
To the 'Mill as water flows,
Butterfly immersed. Kelly

 "Let's make a movie. One second, twenty four frames. You, me, and our friends.” Steve

"Oooo! I can't get my hair wet"........

Quiet solitude
Of late afternoon showers;
Gift from vanity - Craig

Confused bees ponder
Poppy boings from painted lawn
Nectar of the clowns - me

More Expo '74 song singing

The grass is greener!

I painted a section of our lawn the other day. It's a part that is mostly dead weeds and dirt interspersed in ancient grass. I thought it would be funny to have the transformation take place while Sarah was away for a couple of hours. She noticed the next day and thought it was an improvement. So I painted the rest of the front lawn. It's like our grass has been sloppily replaced - a turf version of  Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I like it.

At $30 for a thousand square feet of coverage, it's kind of expensive. It's supposed to last for months.

Next year, I might make my own version with some built-in turkey repellant.

Yes, you can! IN SPOKANE!!!

My buddy Eric sent me this. I hope it adds a little zip to your day.

325th Bomb Sqdn Reunion

 Really excited about my old bomb squadron's reunion this weekend. The 325th Bomb Squadron got its start in WW 2. Notably, on a mission (I think maybe the first mission of the squadron) they launched on a bombing raid over Germany. Everybody got shot down. The only guy who survived, so the story goes, was a guy who had been DNIF (Duties Not Involving Flying) that day. Basically he was sick in bed and then became the entire squadron.

 I started out as a navigator and then moved over to the radar navigator (bombardier) seat. Life was pretty simple. Mission plan one day and fly the next. Once every four weeks we would have to be on alert at the base. There were six crews with six members on each crew. each crew had a B-52 bristling with nukes parked next to where we slept. We would live in the alert facility for a week at a time, and then would get three and a half days off before we started flying training missions again. Actually, it was a lot of fun. Lots of pranks. Lots of movies and talk. I entered the Air Force as a Reagan Republican and left on the opposite end of the spectrum, thanks to conversations with my lefter-leaning friends on alert. I wonder how many can say that their military service did that? The Air Force was, in fact, the most socialist organization I have ever been a part of, and functioned very well. This somewhat creepy painting hung in the stairwell at the partially subterranean alert facility:

B-52s left Spokane about a year after I left B-52s. Before their departure we had the crash and that really made their subsequent absence in Spokane skies all the sadder. I used to look up when I heard that familiar noise of eight engines. I would think about who was on the plane as it passed overhead. I guess I do the same thing now when I hear a siren and see a fire truck go by. It's been cool being surrounded by friends in the air or on the ground, just about all the time.

So, to say I'm excited about seeing old pals (and we are really old now) is an understatement.