Sun Valley

I spent the last two or three days with a colleague. We drove from Boise, Idaho to Hailey. In Hailey, we stayed with friends, played Dictionary, and enjoyed the company of our gracious hosts, their niece and nephew from New Mexico and some very fine dogs, Wiley and Charlie.

After a night at the house in Hailey, we explored, via my car, roads to ride for a future bike trip. I'll think of it as training for my research adventures. 

Beavers can really change the landscape from a typical riverbed in an arid canyon into a lush marsh. The above marsh is popular with moose. 

This is where the road ended for us. If we were on bicycles we could have continued.

Birds: Long-billed curlew, Red-naped sapsucker, Stellar's jay, Black-capped chickadee, Western Taneger, Bullock's oriel, Dark-eyed junco, Black-headed gross-beak, House finch, Pine siskin, Swainson's hawk, American kestrel, Red-tailed hawk, Mallard, Yellow warbler, Yellow-rumped warbler, Violet-green swallow, Red-winged blackbird, Brewer's blackbird, Calliope hummingbird. 

More on record keeping

I realize that the title of this sounds like "Moron record keeping," but that is alright with me as that is  how I often feel when it comes to record keeping.

Another step toward keeping track of stuff. Most of the training diaries that I found, even one from Runner's World, were too fancy. They were full of dietary tips, training tips, photos, and, yuck, inspirational quotes. One had emoticons to circle to indicate whether you smiled or frowned during your run. This one was the simplest and cheapest, like me, simple and cheap (for that is the goal, right?). This one does have words of wisdon like:

Runners share a secret. We know we may look and act a little weird by the standards of the sitdown world, but we know too that our running is settting free the thoughts, words and sensations which stagnate in non-movers

What I Talk about When I Talk about Running was born out of a journal that Murakami wrote while training for the New York Marathon. That is about all I can say about the book other than I own a copy and that I have wanted the book since I first heard of it in or around 2007.

Record keeping

One reason for this blog is to keep track of stuff. I also have a notebook for record keeping, which is another way of saying keeping track of stuff.

This notebook is from Muji.

On the left are lists of birds. It is important for me to keep track of the birds I see everyday for obvious reasons. On the right is a drawing of what I hope will be translated into and actual backdoor for a cabin that I am closely associated with. Under the door is a sketch of a poet featured in the book the Dharma Bums and whose children I used to know. Japhy Rider was his name in the Karouac book and Gary Snyder is his actual name. This is becoming a tangent but I will continue to digress a moment longer. The closest I get to writing poetry is drawing a poet. I admit to being a philistine when it comes to poetry, but I like Snyder because he loves nature (who doesn't you might ask?) and specifically writes about the nature - the land - that I am most familiar with, the Sierra Nevada. Maybe it is the land that I am most in love with rather than most familiar with.

Back to the subject at hand. Record keeping. I find notebooks aesthetically pleasing - other people's notebooks. Even Kevin Spacey's notebooks in the movie 7 or Seven and those of brother of Robert Crumb, Charles Crumb's complete with its "graphomania" as R. Crumb called it.

But my own... not so pretty or visually compelling. So, I think it might be a good idea to hire a person with nice pen chops to remake my notebooks. I am not picturing calligraphy but I wont rule that out. I know quite a few women with lovely handwriting, Jenny Hunter, Jen Beeman, and this old lady who used to spend several minutes writing a check at the fish market in Berkeley (they were works of art in the high craftiest meaning of the word and worth every minute the customers behind her had to wait). But these women write in too feminine a style for my journals. That said, I will take all applicants for the job. I will pay up to $1 per word. Did I say word? That's not what I meant.  Price negociable. Celebrities will of course be given preference. Imagine the title: Jonathan Sadler's Journal as Handwritten by William Bradley "Brad" Pitt or "A Journal by Jonathan Sadler Handwritten by Destiny Hope Cyrus, the Only Celebrity Whose Real Name Sounds More Made up Than Her Stage Name." A group that will be given only slightly less consideration is well known scientists, poets, writers and talkshow hosts: E. O. Wilson, Billy Collins, Marilynne Robinson and Oprah Winfrey for example.

Step one

Or step two: Buy strings. I think step one was being at a friend's house while looking like I could play the banjo.

Stuff

I admire people who have very few possessions. People like Gandhi and Chuck. Although, one of the ways Chuck ended up with few possessions was by giving them to me. Gandhi never gave me anything. After Chuck's visit last summer, I now have almost every book ever written concerning the Pacific Crest Trail. I also have three or four nice pairs of telemarking and cross country skis. One pair I found in a dumpster, I already owned a pair, and Chuck gave me three pair - hence my three or four.

I've always found a well organized workshop a thing of beauty. No offense to you, oh youthful unknown reader, but I associate a neat workshop with old men. It is especially appealing to me when the workshop has one of each essential tool, not several of each, like mine (although calling what I have a "workshop" is a stretch). I aspire to be the kind of guy who has one tape measure (as opposed to eight), one square, one level, one drill, one laser guided mitre saw. At our house we have at least five cordless drills. One is an impact driver but it still adds to the redundancy of use. When I walk the isles of my local hardware store (a quaint little shop called The Home Depot) I have to stop myself from picking up another tape measure, speed square or pair of pliers. I am particularly drawn to Channel-locks and vice grips. And clamps.

Perhaps contradictorily, I like collections. I like my record collection almost as much for its looks as I do for its sound. In fact, I look at it a lot more than I listen to it. But a record collection is a bunch of things that looks similar but are different - as different as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, or Rubber Soul  and Abby Road, or The Specials and Special AKA. A Makita drill and a Dewalt drill can both make holes an 1/8 inch diameter. They can also both drive screws into a board.

I think this is my complicated way of reminding my self to simplify x 3. 

Pride

The thing that I did that I am most proud of I did two days ago. I did not have a child. Nor did I help a mother duck and her ducklings cross a busy highway. In the past I have done similarly heroic acts. At least twice I carried turtles across roads. This recent act - my proudest so far - was not one of heroism. I wish it was. That would sound cooler.

Before I tell that which made me so proud, let me set the stage. I had heard throughout the years that if one needs tires one should get them from Costco. That’s the scuttlebutt. So I thought I’d give it a try. Another bit of advice I had heard is that if one is going to get tires at Costco, one should get there early. With that in mind I arrived at Costco at ten minutes to nine. What I did not know was that Costco wouldn’t open until 10:00. So I had a pretty good cushion.

At 10:00 I was third in line for tires. I soon learned that tires were going to be $680 and they were going to be one size larger than factory recommendation. That is more than I usually pay at my local tire shop. Maybe the Costco tires are better. I attempted to pay with my credit card. Costco only takes debit cards and American Express, so I paid with my debit card. All this time I was wishing I had gone to a tire shop closer to home.  After discussing my situation with Jenny, I went in and asked for a refund. The tire salesman looked like he was about to talk me out of it until I said I just didn’t have enough in my checking account to cover it. He gave me a form to give to another person at another counter to get the refund. They didn’t have the technology to refund my card so I had to get a giant wad of cash. Then I sauntered over to the membership counter  - this is the proudest moment part – and asked to cancel my membership- my Executive Membership actually. That felt great. The membership guy was sympathetic. He told me that I hadn't used my membership since January so I had made the right decision.

I am so happy to be free of the shackles of my Costco membership.

Time off for good behavior

This is a chronicle of my academic sabbatical and subsequent Arts and Humanities Institute Fellowship. That’s academic speak for, “I have a year off with pay.” But of course the year off is expected, nay, required to be productive. As such, this blog will be self-serving and probably riddled with the pronouns “me” and “I.” I will use it to post images and to articulate ideas and thoughts. For example:

Lately I’ve been thinking about the difference between the person I am and the person I think I am. Or, put another way, the person I like to think I am and the person I probably really am. I would like much more to be the person I like to think I am. If I were I could afford to affect an elitist air, which would be nice. For example, with a supercilious smile I could correct other’s spelling, or math or pronunciation of phrases such as "Le Tour de France." But only if I were a better speller, mather, pronouncer, etc. This reminds me of the time some friends were playing music, and not on a record player the way I do it, when one of them handed me a banjo to play. I had to admit that I do not know how to play the banjo, despite wearing overalls and a flannel shirt. Someone else said, “Oh, just tune it like a guitar then and play it that way.” You see what happened? They assumed I had talent. I then had to tell the friends that I do not know how to play the guitar either. The me I like to think I am would be the person assuming and not the person assumed to. A similar incident comes to mind: I was interviewing for a teaching position at a university in Northern California. One of the interviewers was Russian and had trouble asking me a question in English. Another interviewer advised her to simply ask the question in German. As you probably already guessed, I do not speak German. I should have asked, “Do you speak Navajo?”

This brings me to the part where I compare the me I think I probably really am to the me I would like to think I am. I know I have done this before because this is feeling very familiar but here I go again.

I am a person who drives a lot. I get coffee at Starbucks probably five times a week. I will not attempt to verify that claim because it might well be more. As hinted above, I do not play a musical instrument nor am I conversant in a foreign language. I do not cook or bake as often as I have led you to believe – my sourdough starter simply gets fed daily like the rest of our livestock and pets. I have a gym membership but I cannot tell you the last time I have been there. It has been in the last three months though so that was a $90ish visit to the gym (note to self: cancel gym membership). I am like a smoker and my iPhone is my pack of cigarettes. I am always reaching for it with or without any intention. 

I could go on but at the moment I am sitting in my car in a parking lot in Eagle, Idaho waiting for Big O Tire to call me. This laptop is getting hot and so is my lap.

I will just quickly say that the me I want to be does not drive a lot or buy coffee at Starbucks many, many, many times a week. And he is a baker. During this sabbatical I hope to get closer to being the person I think I am. Or can be. Not better, just different. Ok, better. 

I think I’ll go buy strings for my banjo.

And I want a motorcycle.