Engine Three Meatloaf

Six pounds extra lean ground beef, four eggs, one chopped onion, 2 pounds of broccoli, garlic powder, pepper and a tiny bit of salt. Place in big-ass pan. Cook long time.

Somewhat paleo-approved (I left out bread crumbs) and a bargain at only $10 per firefighter. Luckily, we had been saving up for this one.

Finished!

While running home from work the other morning, I came across this. What could be a more fitting advertisement for the Windermere Marathon?

Thanks Barb Chamberlain! As always, you rock!

Saw this on John's blog. And it was so good, I had to do more than link it. Especially since the cranks have been complaining about bicyclists since yesterday's SR article.

Cranks! Do other cities pay this much attention to the whiners who aren't happy with anything? How much money does the city waste trying to appease the unappeasable? Every time I get on the bike, I feel like I am cranking against cranks.

Watch this and it will make you feel good!!

Pajama Jeans!

Saw this commercial the other day, and was going to share it with everyone. and then I forgot. Luckily, BoingBoing had it up this morning and it reminded me of my mission.

There is something about it that makes me nostalgic about my brief stint as an ad wizard. Can't put my finger on it though. Better watch it one more time.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

While walking below High Drive the other day, Sarah and I encountered this coyote frozen in the snow. There was another one above that looked in much worse shape. Much of its flesh had been stripped off by, I believe, the bald eagle pictured a couple of posts ago.

Winter is very picturesque right now.

Along these lines, we are currently experimenting with the Paleo Diet at our house. It is all part of my ten-year plan.

This month's OUTSIDE Magazine had a big article on the Paleo Workout. It was good, but I was a little miffed. Two years ago, I unsuccessfully floated my idea for, what I dubbed, The Wildman Workout. It was basically the Paleo Workout with a few key differences, mostly along the lines of merchandising opportunities:

1. The Wildman Spear. Run with it. Stretch with it. Put it in a tree and do chin ups with it. Spear an attacking pit bull and eat it for dinner... with it. Differing prices reflect the spear's composition - wood, aluminum, graphite, nanotubes.

2. The Wildman Game Bag Drag. Here's how it works. On your usual checkout at Rosauers, when asked "paper or plastic," you say neither. Then you toss on the counter what looks like an animal carcass, but it isn't. Made out of the finest cordura and enhanced with 3M light reflection, the Wildman Game Bag allows you to stuff it full of your groceries and then drag this what-looks-to-be-an-animal-carcass home. Pack the ketchup in the bottom for more realistic dragging action. Sized right for carrion luggage.

3. The Wildman Loin Cloth. Just a loin cloth... but made out of CoolMax! Comes in fun colors.

I wish I had my gear on when I came across this coyote. It would have looked good on the WW catalog. Always a day late and a dollar short.

As an aside... Please, next time when you see me doing my Wildman Workout run in Manito Park, don't call the cops. They are tired of responding and have already told me my spear is OK. Plus, they implied that they would never put me in the back of one of their cars while I am wearing just the loincloth. I told them it was CoolMax. They don't care.

Operators are standing by!

A few of my favorite 2010 things...

Favorite Album (Do the kids still call them “albums”?) - Die Antwoord, $O$.


This South African sensation (Ninja, Yolandi Fisser and DJ High Tech) keeps you guessing as to their intent and their legitimacy. All the songs are real toe tappers, with lyrics that bounce between obscene and descriptively clinical. I don't think any of their videos are something you would want to watch at work or with your mom. My favorite is Enter the Ninja.

A close runner-up is Major Lazer's Guns Don't Kill People, Lazers Do.

Favorite Kilts - Utilikilts are great. They are made in Seattle and are really pieces of art in themselves. However, lately I tend to favor Sport Kilts, made in So Cal. They have more options than Utilikilts - lots of different tartans, designs and colors. Plus they weigh a lot less than a Utilikilt. Unlike Utilikilts, unless you order a Sport Kilt with pockets, you will need to get a sporran too. I think your best bet is buying The Works version - it comes complete with belt loops, leather straps and a fringed side. Think of all the money you can save not buying underwear anymore.

Favorite Restaurant - For consistently good meals with great service, it's hard to beat Picabu Bistro.

The menu has almost all bases covered, and when you factor in their daily special, it's gastronomically unstoppable - in a good way.

Favorite New Store - The Apple Store. Hey, I know it's corny, but buying an IPhone there was futuristic and smacked of fraternal lodge pledging with less hazing. It is an awesome place to people watch.

Favorite Old Stores - A tie - Boo Radley’s, Time Bomb and Harbor Freight.


Boo Radley’s always inspires. We have friends who live in fairly cosmopolitan places, but Boo’s is usually on their list to visit when they come to Spokane. They don't have anything like it where they live. If you are ever undecided on what to gift someone, go to Boo's.

Time Bomb has some of the best antique toys and furnishings around. A while back, I was waxing sentimentally about my 3rd grade bike - a Sears Super Spyder 500 from 1968. Time Bomb’s owner pulled out a 1968 Sears catalog and there it was! $5 later I was walking out with this catalog - a tome of Christmas wishes past.

Lastly, Harbor Freight is a Chinese dumping ground of cheap tools, sporting goods and all sorts of oddball crap - solar panels, combo radio/flashlight/fishhook removers and inflatable doll scarecrows. I try to buy American, but if I am faced with buying a $20 made-in-China, with an established name or a $3 no-name made-in-China, I go with the cheapo most of the time. You will walk out with some weird shit that you didn't know you needed to have until you saw it. Then you will have to figure out what you want to do with it.

Favorite Running Shoe - OK, not so much one shoe, but a company. New Balance features many shoes that are made in the USA. So I buy them. When I was a kid there was not much of a push to buy stuff made in the USA. Why? Because it was almost all made in the USA. It only made sense. Why get your tube socks shipped in from Pakistan? Thanks to other nations maintaining their tariffs and the USA abandoning ours, almost all of our manufacturing has moved to China. Here’s the good news, though. Sure we have lost a lot of good paying jobs and increased our global warming and oil dependency by having to have our Depends shipped in across the ocean. Yes, we have killed off entire US cities, and we drown in a mountain of cheap crap we don’t need (see favorite store - Harbor Freight above). The upside is that we have enabled investors and CEOs to become more wealthy and hire better attorneys and congresspeoples, so they don’t have to pay taxes. Pheeewwww. Now, you have to work really hard to find stuff made in the USA. New Balance is the last of the running shoe companies that still provide manufacturing jobs in the USA. Their shoes will have to get really bad before I quit buying them. New Balance, there is your challenge.

Favorite Firefighting Tool - the pick head axe. Sure, it’s a pretty old design but this beauty does it all. It chops walls. You can pull ceilings with it. Hold it horizontally like a battering ram and it makes short work of opening doors (both literally and metaphorically). You can pry open car doors to get a puller in there to unlock a door. It is the best. Make sure you get one with a wooden handle.

Favorite Paramedic Tool - The EZ IO.

Its a small electric drill. But, instead of a drill bit you use a big-ass needle. Whhhiiiiirrrrrrrrrrr! When you can’t get an IV because there are no good veins and the person is dying, you can instead drill into their tibia and deliver the goods into the bones vascular system. You have to use a pressure bag to keep the IV flowing, so don’t forget that. This device has saved more than a few in Spokaney-town.

Favorite Book Series - Flashman!


This series began in 1969 and continued until 2005. The author, George McDonald Fraser is now dead so there isn’t much chance that he will be writing anything new. The protagonist is a character who reminds me of Dr. Smith from Lost in Space only with skills and self awareness. He is lazy. He is a drunk. He is a cheat and scoundrel. He is a womanizer and a lousy human being on just about every level. His only redeeming grace is that Flashman knows these things about himself, and as he writes his memoirs, he is pretty honest with the reader about his motivations and shortcomings. You find yourself rooting for this scalawag, even while cringing at his utter contempt for anyone but himself.


Podcast - A tie - Marc Maron’s WTF and AM Coast to Coast. If you read this blog you already know of my affinity for Coast to Coast . Marc Maron is a comedian who you might remember from Air America’s Morning Sedition. He doesn’t talk much about politics anymore. Now, he talks about his personal life a little and talks to other comedians a lot. Funny stuff with a lot of behind-the-scenes glimpses of other standup comedians’ lives. I believe that doing a standup comedian’s job takes a lot of courage, and this podcast always makes me wonder what that life would be like, if I ever had enough guts to do it.

Favorite European Fast Food - Bicky Burgers got its start in Belgium, I think.


It isn’t much like McDonalds, in that the ones we saw were all kind of small, run down and with a lot of personal touches from whomever owned the individual store. There’s a counter at which you order. Under this counter, is a bunch of frozen items - burgers, McRibbish looking things, fish, you name it. Whatever you want, they throw in the fryer. There is no grill. Just a fryer. Maybe two fryers. The food tastes great. How could an entirely deep fried bacon burger not taste great? Plus, they're all located in the holy birthplace of the french fry! The meat tastes like it might be mostly-meat. The food and advertisements have a Lego feel to them. They’re cute. The startup costs would be minimal. A fryer, some cases of frozen food, lots of mayo, some buns and a spork or two. I don’t know how it would go over here in the USA. It might be fun to see.

Favorite New Bike Stuff - My Carradice Camper Long Flap Saddle Bag and the shop apron Sarah made me. Again, you might have already read about the shop apron here. John let me borrow his Carradice and I was hooked. This thing expand mega big. It smells like an old canvas tent, and is made by nonslaves in England. Cheerio.

My only complaint is that it really moves your center of gravity up kinda high. The effect on me, in this regard, was to fall down a lot when I got stuck inside ruts.

That’s enough. Happy New Year!

Bald Eagle Returns to High Drive!

While out running today, there was a bald eagle swooping above Latah Creek. I tried to get a picture of it, but I was slow on the draw. So I photoshopped a facsimile. A magnificent creature and the symbol of America!

Slippery and fun ride this morning.

We had to chain up the fire engine this morning, after our last call at around five. I knew the ride home was going to be fun, and it was. The deep snow was a kick, but the rutted areas not so much. Saw another cyclist heading down Howard. The snow was flying!

I was the driver of the engine yesterday. Not usually my favorite thing, but yesterday I had a good time. It wasn't nearly as violent as Christmas Eve. That shift, almost every call was a stabbing, beating or overdose. Maybe everybody is getting an early start on their New Year's Resolutions.

Manito Greenhouse Christmas Lights

A cool moon on the walk over:


The place was packed:




OK. This is not very timely, but I will have something better in the next couple of days. Merry Christmas! Happy New Years! Happy Holidays! Seasons Greetings!

Portland and other stuff

I usually come back from Portland and am in a bit of a funk. It is such a coooool place. This time I have to admit, Spokane seemed to fare better in comparison. However, Portland has this cool bike rack:

I was surprised that I didn't see as many cyclists as usual in Portland. This is the first time I have ever visited Portland during mild wintry weather and it seems to put a bit of a dent in their pedal-pushing. The same can be said for Spokane, but come on, we have ice and snow. However, there are still plenty of cyclists here to be seen falling over in the snow and sliding sideways down the hills.

On another note, when Spokane's new bicycle lanes all disappeared in the snow, did you notice that the cranks continued their anti-bike-lane tirades on the interwebs? I am continually amazed how much power the cranks hold in our city. They are probably 1/2 of one percent, yet when they chat it up on the social media sites, you would think they are legion. They're not. Odds are they don't even live in Spokane. And when they bitch about 2nd Ave getting bike lanes, they probably have never driven on 2nd Ave. I think other nations have cranks, but they usually don't say much because they have some dignity and are afraid people will make fun of them. Wow, I don't know where that came from. Sorry cranks!

OK, back to Portland. We visited the 3D museum. It cost 5 bucks and you get a personal tour. It was fantastic! Did you know ViewMaster was headquartered in Portland? Not anymore of course. They don't even make Henry Weinhard's there now. HW's is now a restaurant where patrons with Klingon face implants hang out. No lie.

I was inspired by the 3D stuff. Here is a picture I made that you can look at with 3D glasses and just go apeshit over:


Many of you recognize this as our home's most endearing piece of seasonal art. Corny, cracked and maudlin - Sad Snowman kinda sums up the season.

Still commuting to work via bike unless the snow is too deep and then I run. I have big plans for improving my running speed in the upcoming year which I have already implemented. I have to admit those gosh-darned cross country runners inspired me, and I figure at my age, I either have to work on getting faster, or continue the inevitable slide of getting slower. Snowman knows.

Nike Nationals In Portland

Last Thursday evening we rented a car and drove down to Portland to cheer on Lewis and Clark's Cross Country team. Lewis and Clark's and North Central's teams had already flown out in the morning. Everything was on Nike's dime and they treated all the high school athletes from around the nation like royalty. I suppose, in the running world, they kind of are.



When Lewis and Clark's team and North Central's team were introduced, the announcer called Spokane the "Rift Valley of running in the United States." He pointed out that Spokane was the only city that had two teams to earn a spot at Nationals, and how that is usually the case. I overheard one parent telling another that they had read that if you are a promising female cross country runner, the place to live is New York State. If you are a male cross country runner, the place to live is Spokane, Washington. Pretty amazing, yet pretty unknown by most of us in Spokane, that our city is held in such high regard in the running world. This notoriety is especially amazing when you consider that, for a good deal of the year, our streets and trails are covered in ice and snow.


The day of the race was really cold and windy. The course was on the inside paddock of a horse race track, very muddy with artificial hills and a myriad of hay bales to jump over. It was a mess!

In the end, NC placed 6th and LC placed 15th - a very good showing. LC's Kenji Biering finished 10th and NC's Katie Knight finished 8th for the girls.

Watching these kids race was very inspiring. We will see some of these kids again in the Olympics someday.



Mayor Mary Verner invited the athletes to Monday's city council Meeting where they were recognized by the city council for their dedication and their success.

All Spokane area high school runners, you make us proud! Thanks for a great season!

Some inspiration this morning!

From BoingBoing.

First snowcthulhu of the season. Nice work Ike and Aidan!

Casualty of the budget?

With a placard reading "STAIRS CLOSED," these steps at Cliff and Lincoln are always cabled off well before the snow starts. This means that people have to step over the cable on the top and the bottom to use them, oftentimes plummeting to their deaths (maybe not physical deaths).

The city usually outlaws the stairs when the leaves start turning.

When you outlaw the stairs in the snow then only outlaws will stare at the snow.

Here is a creative solution they came up with a couple of years ago for the Perry stairs:

It's a good compromise.

What's new pussycat?

It's been a while since I posted. A lot is going on!

1. RUNNING - North Central and Lewis and Clark move on to Nationals. LC's Kenji Bierig won Border Clash last week. NC and LC runners are still out there in the cold and snow prepping for the big one. For all of us mortal runners, Turkey Trot is tomorrow.

2. BIKING - First real snow commute of the season yesterday and the day before. Amazingly slippery going uphill. Over 10 percent grade, I was pushing my bike.

3. WORK- Busy with the usual. Almost all of our calls on the big "BLIZZARD 2010" day were alcohol related. One shirtless fellow tried to get into some lady's van while she was backed up on Maple. Scary enough, but more scary when we saw him running across Maple, pants around his knees sporting a homemade g-string.

4. UNION- Local 29 leadership has been in negotiations for months with the city to prevent layoffs. Last week the city accepted an offer made by Local 29. Right now it is being voted upon by the membership. We'll see what happens.

5. SAUNA- Awesome! However, I had it up to 180 yesterday and when I poured some water on the rocks, I think I burnt the top of my head a little. It looks like a sunburn (but it's not).

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

LC's Kenji Bierig wins Nike Nationals NW Region!

Pretty choppy video, but it looked like Kenji hung back until the very end and then poured it on to win! LC is poised to win this thing!!! Great job Kenji, Ike and the whole LC TEAM!!!

UPDATE: North Central placed First! Lewis and Clark placed Second! I would say that means Spokane, once again, is the Number One city in the Northwest for high school XC! Eisenhower from Yakima placed Third. CONGRATS TO NC AND LC!!!! Both go on to Nationals!!!

Watch the Nike Regional XC Championships online!

Coverage starts at 11am. I am not sure what the order is. All I know is our boys start at 1:30 pm. You can watch online here.

As seen in the "newspaper" this morning.

Good luck parodying this!

On to State!!

Lewis and Clark High School's Cross Country Team has done really well this season. They tied for first at Regionals with Eisenhower's team from Yakima. The tie was broken by the sixth runner from Eisenhower, so Eisenhower won. LC still continues on to the 4A State Championship this weekend.

LCHS is a 4A school. And, of course, North Central High School (3A school) remains a powerhouse - last year they were the number one high school cross country team IN THE NATION. This year, when LCHS and NCHS have competed against each other this year, it has always been close, with wins going in both directions. The Power Ade Fab 50 ESPN Rise Poll makes special notice of LC's team yesterday, as well as NC's.

I think Spokane has to be seen as the number-one high school cross country town in the nation. All the other 3A and 4A Spokane high schools are right up there with LC and NC too. There is a real kinship among them that I think comes from the heart of what makes these guys so good. At the beginning of every meet, you see the competing schools cooly gauge each other before the gun is fired. At the end of the run, you see all the runners celebrate each others' efforts with genuine joy. You really don't see that in a lot of sports.

Of course, I am writing this as a proud dad. I'm not only proud (more admiring and inspired) of the accomplishments of my son and the entire team, I am moved by the incredible work these guys have done to get here. Running year-round, every day - twice a day, in the dark, in the heat, in the snow, on the ice and on the steep, hot, trails, these guys have shown so much heart and so much dedication that I have to admit I am getting a little choked up as I type these words.

In a place where lunacy and laziness of thought and deed seem to now hold sway, in a time where instant gratification and an almost Alzheimer-like amnesia seems to have stupefied those around us, I look to the work, the dedication, the humbleness and the smarts these guys display - day in and day out - and I feel so good about the future of us.

Thanks for the example and the hope, all you high school runners!

Ride to work this morning...