Sam and Kate

Yellowstone

2012-01-03T09:36:00.001-07:00

We went to Yellowstone for our anniversary slash new year slash annual escape. When we got here we were both nursing colds so for the first couple days we just drank tea and watched Star Trek Voyager on Netflix. Luckily for us, we started feeling better right when the weather cleared up.

Saturday - we went xc skiing around West Yellowstone. There are ski trails everywhere, and we took one that took us down to the Madison River - the Riverside Up trail. The trail was groomed about half-way until a Y, where the trail split to Up and Down trails. Only the down trail was groomed. We took the road less traveled because the groomed trail was already murdered by a beginner skate skier ahead of us that left diagonal gashes everywhere. We're glad we did. The path was skinny - just the grooves left by lots of skiers. It rolled gently downhill until the it curved to run parallel to the river. After a few miles along the river, the nice grooves disappeared. We found our way thanks to orange tags and arrows that marked the path, and you could see where skiers had gone most of the time, but it had snowed quite a bit since anyone went this way. There was fresh powder from the last 24 hours of snowfall. The trail turned back up into the hillside and we had to climb a really steep hill, which is awkward in skis, until joining up to a trail at the top that took us through the trees and into Yellowstone park. There were rabbit and coyote prints winding through the trees. It was nice to escape the sound of snow-mobiles, and nice to do something physically challenging.

Sunday - we jumped in the car and headed further into Montana. We drove toward Ennis, along the Madison River and past Hebgen and Earthquake Lakes. We slowed down when Sam spotted a bighorn sheep on the road. We stopped and stared for a while, angry we'd forgotten the camera. Then we continued, and about 100 feet later, we saw a huge herd of bighorn sheep, at the bottom of someone's ranch road. At first we counted about fifty, but then more joined up. I think we saw close to one hundred big horn sheep, male, female, and juveniles. I loved the baby bighorns - they had fuzzy necks and downy coats. It was such an impressive sight. They were digging through the snow to find grasses and roots to eat. Now I was really disappointed we'd forgotten the camera. We continued on toward Ennis, past Cameron, where you could see the towering peaks at Big Sky to the east. We planned on looping back by heading east at Norris and then back south to W. Yellowstone through the pass that goes by Big Sky, but a big accident halted all traffic both ways and we had to double back the way we came. We stopped and ate at a pizza place for dinner and browsed the real estate magazines they had there. A 20-acre ranch for $200,000? Yes, please!

Monday - we took a snowmobile tour into Yellowstone Park. We left around 8:30am and the temperature was hovering around zero (fahrenheit). We had bundled up but that first leg was so cold I could barely keep my eyes open. But the day was beautiful, and the snowmobile trail followed the Madison River upstream to the Firehole. We stopped at Firehole Falls and our camera wasn't working. (The cold weather makes our camera think it's out of battery). So we got no pictures until later when the day had warmed up and our camera came back to life. Anyway. Firehole Falls looked like a scene straight out of Narnia during the White Witch's reign. In fact, the whole parked looked like a fantasy/sci-fi world. Firehole falls is a medium-sized waterfall, and the early morning mist was rising off the water and the wind from the falls sent it billowing over our heads. The spray covered every rock and branch with white crystals.

As we climbed uphill, the mist got so thick in places we could barely see the snowmobile in front of us - just thick white fog. We made a couple more stops to look out points and thermal features and the day started to warm up. We got to Old Faithful around 11, and watched the geyser erupt. It starts with sputtering some water, then again, only taller spray, and then it starts roaring and rumbling and shoots water dozens of feet in the air. The mist from the water was so thick you couldn't really see the water, but the roaring was impressive. We ate our lunches of peanut butter and honey sandwiches, and tried to warm up in the stove-warmed yurts near Old Faithful. We stayed and watched a second eruption of Old Faithful, and this one was bigger and louder. We also found out about a few more geysers that are cooler, bigger, louder, and better, but they're either less predictable or they only erupt every 14 hours.

We boarded our snowmobiles once more, and headed to a look-out point. This would have been the quintessential Yellowstone photo, if it weren't for our silly camera. Imagine, if you will, a panorama of mountains, a cold but still totally unfrozen river winding through a valley where dozens of bison roam, the mist from the hotspots winding through the trees... It was really pretty.

The next stop was the Fountain Paint pots, where we discovered our camera had woken up! This place, I can finally present a picture or two:

These pots are essentially little mounds of boiling mud. They sound so nice as well, glub glub glub.

We walked from there down a boardwalk that took us through two geysers that happened to be erupting at the same time, on either side of us.

Then we walked here, to this boiling pot of muddy water.

And to this one.

From here we stopped once or twice more for wildlife or photos. Here are some of the photos of the ride home.

Our holiday letter 2011

2011-12-12T20:07:00.002-07:00

Policy Design I: Degenerative Politics

2011-12-08T14:22:00.000-07:00

My masters thesis is comprised of policy and discourse analysis surrounding a water policy issue here locally. For my research I've been reading a book on policy design, which focuses on the content of policies (their target audiences, guidelines, rulings, etc.) to expose the role of social construction in policy.

I think it's important to understand how the current patterns embedded in our political process (including the influence from media, lobbyists, etc.) have created a degenerative system, where policy isn't used as a tool to solve issues in the interest of the public, but as a tool to discredit the "other side" and embarrass or weaken political opponents.

From "Policy Design For Democracy" (1997, Schneider & Ingram). All italics are from the text. My comments are in blue. Chapter 5: Social Constructions of Target Populations: Degenerative Policy Designs, p. 102 - 149

In degenerative ("politicized") institutional cultures, various individuals or factions use issues to further their own cause quite apart from any consideration of the actual merits of the issue itself. There may be little or no effort to find common ground or to pursue the public interest of the organization as a whole or of the constituencies it is expected to serve. Degenerative institutional cultures often contain "in" groups and "out" groups that attempt to frame issues in such a way that they can claim credit for themselves and embarrass the other side. Divisive and disrespectful language are common features of degenerative institutional cultures, (Remember charming Allen West?) and there is a marked loss of trust, civility, and collegiality. Public policy is not a means of solving problems or even resolving conflicts among competing perspectives, but is instead an instrument of power that can be used opportunistically by each faction to further its own legitimacy, popularity, or future power position. Interaction patterns are confrontational and competitive rather than discursive and cooperative. Communication styles tend to be antagonistic, deceptive, and secretive. The ethics and norms that guide cooperative interaction are largely absent. People do not have to be honest (just say, It was never intended to be a factual statement, and you're all good!), to state real reasons, to weigh empirical evidence in terms of the nature of the problem and the probable effects of the policy, or even to treat one another with respect."

Does this sound familiar to you?

Some policy-making institutions may exhibit degenerative traits on almost every issue they consider and others may seldom show these tendencies. We expect, however, that most institutions move from one to the other depending on the characteristics of the issue, the personalities of the participants, and the risks or opportunities offered by the various policy designs that might be devised as responses to the issue. Issues for which failed policy may constitute a severe threat to the institution itself may bring out a less degenerative form of politics--but even here there is no guarantee. If some persons or factions are so bitterly opposed to others or alienated from the institution itself, they may politicize even the most threatening issues in an effort to actually facilitate the failure of the institution (How about the freshmen congressmen who threatened to refuse to reach consensus during the ridiculous debt ceiling "crisis?"). The point here is that institutional cultures and policy-making dynamics are not permanent structural features, and a particular institution may handle one issue differently than another. The U.S. Congress, for example, often is able to consider serious foreign policy issues in a "nonpartisan" manner in which everyone seems focused on doing what is best for the country, whereas domestic social policy is much more susceptible to degenerative politics.

Participants within an institutional setting have the capacity to help direct policy making toward or away from degenerative styles. Leadership can shape the culture and standard operating procedures of an institution and attempt to construct issues so that they will be considered through a more cooperative, discursive policy-making process; or they can "politicize" issues and use them to their own advantage. Events from within or outside can create sudden "shocks" that unmask the dysfunctional characteristics of degenerative interaction patterns and grant participants and leaders the opportunity to bring about significant change. Nevertheless, the power of institutions to adhere to historical patterns of interaction that shape the beliefs and behavior of members should not be underestimated. Institutions have powerful effects on their members and newly inducted members are more likely to take on the culture of the institution than to challenge it effectively. (The crime that sent Martha Stewart to jail is apparently standard operation among congressmen, using information they have on companies they legislate about to get rich. Read about it here. A first-year congressman may come into Congress as a middle-class citizen, and within a year, amass millions from lobbyists and insider-trading. That's quite a lot of money to keep even fresh, idealistic freshman lawmakers from changing the institutional culture for the better.)

You've probably noticed that some of my comments are pointed at republicans, which I acknowledge. I think they are the guilty party at the moment, simply because we have a democrat in the White House who happens to illicit divisive reactions anyway (which could be for a variety of reasons, including racism). When George W. was in the White House, Democrats and the media were particularly nasty to him as well. The reality is that obstructionism is the name of the game, and has been for a while, but it seems to be intensifying. Any move on the part of one faction is immediately opposed, despite any possible merit, by the other.

I have no idea what to do about our degenerative political system. All I can say is from right here, things look mighty dire.

Apples! Apples! Apples!

2011-11-05T15:30:00.001-06:00

We found an old farm last week that had been ignored for a few years, and there were two overburdened apple trees waiting for us. We picked WAY too many and now have to make two apple pies a day in order to use them all.

We got the tip from a local, namely Sam's mom, who helped us pick as many as our car could hold. She's one lucky gal, too. This is the view from her back yard.

The view from their under-construction basement:

Idaho sunsets do not disappoint.

Ampersand LIVE

2011-09-14T19:35:00.000-06:00

Last Saturday Liz and I had a sweet gig. She flew all the way from the mid-west to come do a couple shows with me, and I got some footage of the house concert we did. So I'm just embedding a few of my favorite tunes of the night:

This is a tune called "Bears," which was written by Jenna Moynihan, a great Scottish fiddler who played with Liz in Folk Arts Quartet:

Johnny Has Gone For a Soldier is a traditional tune that has Irish roots but is common in America, too. We jazzed the rhythm up with a sweet cello pizz riff:

Cold Fish is a jig written by the wonderful Julie Metcalf, a Boston-based Fiddler-Extraordinaire.

"New Time" is a composition by Liz. We condensed her quartet arrangement for fiddle + cello duet:

My friend Cat came up and joined me for this one.

This is a traditional tune that Liz played with Folk Arts Quartet, and that I learned when I played as an honorary FAQ member at a gig in Boston this summer.

There! Now it's like you were there!

Maine in August

2011-09-01T22:47:00.000-06:00

In August my grandma had a birthday bash with the whole extended family in Maine. Which meant:
LOBSTAH!

Lots and lots of LOBSTAH!

Then I went with Matt, Becca, and their kiddos to the Faery Festival.

Then we went to Monheegan Island. By this time, Sam had flown up to join the fun for the weekend.

After Sam flew back home, I stayed for a couple extra days to hang out with my family. We enjoyed one very, very wet afternoon in Boston.

Click on any of the photos to see the whole photo album.

Recent excursions to the north

2011-07-29T18:33:00.002-06:00

We have friends that live a couple hours away in Pennsylvania, so we drove up a couple weekends ago to say hello. They live in quite a picturesque area:

...and have quite photogenic kiddos.

They took us to a yummy Asian Buffet restaurant and then we headed down to a hidden park with steep cliffs for climbing and a river for wading in.

This is my favorite picture. It looks like they have just entered Narnia and are looking around in wonder.

About a week later, Sam and I drove up to New Jersey so he could give a presentation at his company's headquarters and so I could have a vacation in New York City. (Fair is fair.)

First thing was I met up with Liz. We ate latkes and blueberry donuts from Zabars and we strolled around Central Park counting nannies with rich folks' children. When we met up with Andrew we took a walk around the fashion district until we found food.

We then took the subway over to Columbus Circle to see the Design Museum. It was amazing. I couldn't take photos but their website is worth checking out, especially the stuff from their current exhibit, Otherworldy.

We walked from the museum up to Magnolia's Bakery on 69th and Columbus where my friend Sarah and her mom met us for cupcakes and iced tea. Sarah and I have been friends since pre-school. Can you tell by the photo?

The next day Sam and I returned to the city to do a few things we've wanted to do: Visit the Museum of Natural History and eat at Lombardi's in Little Italy again.

Lombardi's was the best pizza I've ever eaten in my life last time. This time? It wasn't quite as good, but still better than any other pizza ever.

The Museum was a little weird. After spending the previous day in a museum as well designed and thought-out as the MAD, this museum felt tired and outdated. They had some cool things, but it wasn't lit well, the floorplan is confusing, and the exhibits didn't really make any sense together. It seemed about thirty years behind. I'm spoiled. I live near DC, where the Natural History Museum is amazing (and free!) so I wasn't too impressed. However, I liked some of the dinosaurs. I wanted to be a paleontologist when I was a kid and the passion for bones is still there.

Mountains and New Tunes

2011-07-11T16:22:00.000-06:00

This last week I got to go to Mt Shasta Fiddle Camp. It's a small camp at a park where the Sacramento River begins. You can drink the water right out of the river. There were lots of amazing musicians there with me. I got to meet and play music with some fantastic folks, and it's going to take me a few weeks to digest it all.

I had an idea occur to me while eating one of the delicious vegetarian breakfasts. I should learn a new fiddle tune everyday. And then I realized, But I'm too lazy. So then I thought, I'll start a blog to keep me accountable.

So I did! The new blog is over at www.newtuneaday.blogspot.com and I'll be posting a new tune that I learn everyday. I'll play it through slowly at first, and then up to speed. My goal is to post at least 5 a week. After a few months, the blog will have quite the collection of tunes for people to learn themselves on whatever instrument they play.

Tour de Maine

2011-06-24T08:36:00.000-06:00

I spent the last two weeks touring with Liz's Irish band New Time Ensemble, subbing in for their fiddler. It was awesome. We played in Maine and Massachusetts. We got to spend time at Leslie's (the flute player of the band) family cabin by a lake in rural Maine.

Leslie and Liz on one of the rocky islands in the lake.

See New Time Ensemble's music here: http://www.newtimeensemble.com/

See Leslie and Fred's duo Folk Ragoût's music here: http://folkragout.com/Welcome_~_Bienvenu.html

Also, here's a recipe for my favorite post-run recovery shake, inspired by a shake I tasted in Boston. You're welcome:

1 frozen banana
3/4 c. unsweetened almond milk
1 TBS peanut butter

(Blend, pour, consume. Makes 1 serving.)

I went here when I was a brownie

2011-06-05T16:53:00.002-06:00

I came to the C&O Canal as a girl scout. My girl scout troop, number #1456 (just kidding, I don't remember our troop number) came out here, learned some history stuff, dressed in historical dresses, learned some history songs and dances, and watched historical boats cross the canal through historical locks. And in return for my services rendered as a visiting brownie, I got a BADGE! Right away my mom hot-glued it onto my brownie-sash.

C&O was one of many awesome things my troop did, along with a culture night about Thailand where we all gave mini presentations on Thai culture, language, and food, and then went out to eat at a real Thai Restaurant. That was the first restaurant I'd been to that had buttermints sitting in a bowl as you left. (Those are the ones that look like little squares of chalk but when you put them in your mouth they melt into minty ecstasy.) I thought for a long time that buttermints were from Thailand. They're not.

Another brownie-scout memory: Girl Scout Camp. It was real camping, with real fires that we made ourselves, real fire-cooked meals, real mess kits that we really washed ourselves and hung from tree branches in home made mesh bags to dry as we went on real hikes through real woods with real bears. And the first year I threw up all night long after day 1. And also: ticks.

But back to the C&O Canal. Sam and I went there today. We visited the cool old Tavern, where a Park ranger gave us the unabridged history of the canal. It took a while but if you ask I can tell you a lot about this canal. We watched as a boat made the cool trip across the elevator locks, and hiked to the Potomac Gorge outlook to see the 70-foot drop. Photographic evidence below.

There were about a dozen herons fishing along the rapids while we were there.

This is the lock right in front of the Tavern. After they closed off one side of the lock, they slightly opened the other gate, letting the lock fill up, raising the level where the boat is sitting about 8 feet in just a couple minutes. Then they opened up the gate all the way, and a pair of mules pulled the boat down the canal.

Staring into the bright sky made my face do weird stuff.

Big Cities

2011-05-30T07:44:00.003-06:00

Saturday: Washington DC. We saw the Library of Congress and the National Gallery. I loved the inside of the Library of Congress: mosaic art everywhere and the gold emblazoned letters of important authors arranged around the ceiling: Shakespeare, Herodotus, Chaucer, Homer, and more. Also, Thomas Jefferson's book collection is amazing.

Sunday morning: Philedelphia!

Sunday, later on: New York City!!!

We took the ferry from Staten Island to Manhattan. Then we walked uptown a bit and saw the Merrill Lynch bull, surrounded by a Romanian dance troupe.

We took the Lexington Express to 86th street and walked over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But before going in, we sat on the steps and enjoyed gourmet cupcakes from the "Cake and Shake" food truck. I had a chocolate with buttercream filling and salted carmel frosting. Sam got the pumpkin cupcake with cinnamon and nutmeg cream-cheese frosting. And Sam also got a Haitian Mango shake. I love New York.

Two Stradivarius violins... These ones are extra long compared to his normal design so they would stand out in a solo setting. The one on the left is the The Gould, and the one of the right is the Francesca. I hate seeing them in there. There were two more Strads there in a special display. I don't know how often the Met loans them out to performers, but I know the Strads have to be happier on stage with an orchestra that trapped behind glass.

I really should dedicate an entire post just about this pizza. It feels cheap to say, "It was the best pizza I've ever eaten in my life." But I don't know how else to say that. It was the best pizza I've ever eaten in my life. I can't imagine how a pizza could possibly be any better. So, everyone, GO to Lombardi's Restaurant on Spring St. in Little Italy. No joke, it's the best pizza in the world. Perfect thin crust, not the white bread thick sugary gooey crap you get at your local pizza delivery place (the comparison is actually offensive). Perfect tomato sauce: not sugary, not acidic, but perfectly balanced. Perfect cheese in the perfect amount (not too much). Perfect basil. Perfect pepperoni. And perfectly baked in a hot coal pizza oven.

This is downtown. We strolled back to the ferry along the shore here watching people and boats and the sun going down.

Dad came for a visit.

2011-05-25T13:27:00.002-06:00

First thing was I picked him up from the airport...4 minutes away. Then we went and picked Sam up from work and headed to Little Italy in Baltimore for dinner. We ordered one salad and one entree with a side to split among the three of us, and still ended up with too much food.

Day 2, we went down to Dad's office, sorted mail, walked to Farragut Square and ate the food from the famous Fojol Bro's food truck (serving food from the mythical land of Merlindia.... masala peas and paneer and chicken curry). Then we headed to the mall, wandered around the modern art museum and sculpture garden. Then we drove over to the Eastern Market and browsed cheeses and fruits. After that we headed to Takoma Park, my hometown, and visited the nostalgic sites such as S&A Beads, Now and Then, and House of Musical Traditions. I bought a shirt made out of bamboo! Because it's Takoma Park! Then we went and looked at our old house.

Once upon a time, my family rescued a very old house that an evil empire wanted to tear down. It had a great history. Once it was a plantation farmhouse. Then a war hospital. Then a gambling hall and "speak-easy." Then it was boarding school for upwardly mobile girls. Then it was just a regular private school. Then it was abandoned and was home to hobos and crack-dealers. That's about when we moved in. We moved the house away from the bulldozers on big airplane wheels across a three-acre lot. Then we put in electicity, plumbing, tore out wall paper and grungy carpets, put in a basement, poured our hearts and souls into it, and when it was finished we moved to Utah. (WAH!?) And then we sold it to a lovely couple who ran it as a B&B until they split. The next owners used is as a squatter house for illegal immigrants. We were worried that the house would again fall into the wrong hands. So we were overjoyed when we got to the old house and a sign in front said,

"Missionaries of Charity."

And it was painted a Virgin Mary blue. And it's a Convent!!! We are so relieved. They still have the tree swing in the back yard and the house and garden are lovingly cared for. Very happy.

After that we picked Sam up from work, went and got Jamaican jerk chicken, and came home and ate while watching "127 Hours" which isn't good dinner-entertainment. (HE DRINKS HIS OWN PEE PEOPLE.) (Oh yeah, and he cuts off his own arm, bla bla bla.)

The old tree swing!

My mom's handprint in the cement foundation is the same size as my hands now! You can see her initials KPD next to it. You can also see the top 4 fingers of Liz's baby handprint below.

Thanks for the visit, Dad!

Saturday

2011-05-21T19:20:00.000-06:00

To celebrate the end of the work week (or world) we left the apartment early to visit a few places, starting with Mt Vernon. The day was sunny and pleasant and we know the weather here is going to get progressively muggy and hot. By August we'll be hibernating in our air-conditioned apartment.

The drive there is gorgeous, twisting tree-lined roads and charming red-bricked homes and churches that partially hide behind the greenery. Mt Vernon itself is beautiful, sitting on higher ground above the surrounding area, the river on one side, their plantation and trees on the other. The highlight was the woman who played Lucy Washington. She was a genius. She said things like, "Well we do enjoy having young people visit here. Where are you ladies from?" (Georgia) "Wonderful! The general went down to the Georgia, during one of the most difficult years...." Or "I had the pleasure of spending many pleasant hours with Dr. Franklin, during a most heavy time. This was while we stayed at Cambridge." The woman was an encyclopedia. Unfortunately, this photo caught her during the middle of a blink:

Also, at Mt Vernon, a full-time for-real Blacksmith. I can just imagine him at a bar talking to some girl. She says, "So, what do you do?" And he responds, "I'm a blacksmith for General Washington." So sweet.

Here's the view of the mansion from the rear:

After that we headed Alexandria and ate country-fried steak and turkey-and-corn chili at a little restaurant called King Street Blues (Check it out here). It was a crazy place, totally silly southern/Cajun-style decorations. Apparently they're world famous for their bbq ribs. We'll have to go back for those.

Then we headed to DC to browse the Smithsonians.

Sam with a obelisk growth on his nose:

As luck turned out, today was National Asian Culture Day, so there was a huge street fair going on downtown. Thai-food stands selling chicken on a stick and bubble tea, Middle-eastern food, a belly-dancing show, a Japanese drum production.... it was an amazing amalgamation of colors and smells... the kimchi a prominent nose-stinger.

Picture of the day:

(I have to admit I was a little worried that at 6pm today Sam would disappear during the Rapture and I'd have to reach over, take the wheel, crawl into the driver's seat, and navigate my way out of downtown DC by myself. I wasn't worried at all that I'd be raptured, obviously. I do think it'd be nice if all the people that thought the rapture was happening today really did disappear... maybe the world would be a little more tolerant and peace-loving?)

Phew.

2011-05-14T20:17:00.001-06:00

Spring semester finally ended. Twenty minutes later (no, really) we hopped in the car and drove 2100 miles across the country, sleeping in the car, and eating trail mix and jerky. Sam started work the following Monday and I have been writing my thesis proposal and exploring the neighborhood.

On our trip we passed through This is where Sam grew up, which is now a flower farm:

This is at Annapolis Harbor.

Festivus for the Rest of us

2011-03-12T23:43:00.001-07:00

Killarney, Killarney! This weekend we got to play at the Evanston Celtic Festival on the day we released our new Album, Pull the Knife. (Go here to order and download: www.killarney.bandcamp.com) We opened for Väsen, and Darol Anger & Mike Marshall. It was a really amazing concert. Väsen's sound is so round and rich.

After the show, members of De Danann (including Alec Finn) and a bunch of people got together for a Session. It was really fun to be around such awesome players. The next day Mick Conneely gave me a few tips on Irish fiddling - new insights on ornaments and stuff. He's an incredible player and a very nice person.

We're playing at Green Street Pub at Trolley Square in Salt Lake City on St. Paddy's, so if you're near, you're invited.

We had grand plans for our Spring break, involving Mesa Verde or Florida or New Orleans or somewhere else cool. But then I got sick and then Sam got sick. We'll have to go somewhere warm after the semester is over... how about Kuwait?

Big Big Big

2011-02-22T22:37:00.000-07:00

I got to spend the weekend in Montana at the Big Sky Big Grass music festival. Among the performers: Crooked Still, The Infamous Stringdusters, the Emmitt-Nershi Band, and Peter Rowan.

I wonder if I can really describe what it was like. I'll try. But this photo will help. (This photo was taken by Bob Troutman).

This is at approximately 4 am in the hotel lobby at Big Sky resort. Jam sessions were held there every night into the wee hours of the morning. This was the last one, on Sunday (technically Monday morning) and drew the biggest crowd. There are some incredible musicians sitting in this photo. I'm sitting on the table next to Vince Herman, who is across from Aoife O'Donovan from Crooked Still. Members of Growling Old Men and Great American Taxi are in the crowd. Everyday after a full day of skiing (for those people with comp ski passes or lots of money) there were live shows starting in the afternoon and it didn't stop until everyone passed out.

The jam sessions were my favorite part, and I prepped every night by sleeping for a few hours before heading down around 2:00 am. It was a good move, but it usually meant I was still completely awake when everyone else decided to call it quits. C'mon guys! Just one more tune! ONE MORE!

The highlights for me were

5. Standing at the very front next to the stage, dancing and listening to the Infamous Stringdusters. Although I wasn't as enthusiastic a dancer as one girl next to me who had very sharp elbows and incredible lung capacity. Her screaming was impressive. Honestly. But the Stringdusters music is delicious - sophisticated and tasteful and kick-butt at the same time.

4. Standing outside to look at a full moon above a white mountain, music emanating from the buildings around me.

3. Playing tunes with a new mandolin-playing friend Sean and Johnny Grubb from the Emmitt-Nershi band until 4 am Saturday night.

2. Listening to Crooked Still the second night. They are magic. This was at a smaller venue with no screaming people, just a polite audience who clapped and whooped at appropriate times!

1. Playing with Brittany Haas

1a. Jumping up on stage with a bunch of super-uber-really-good bluegrassers...Here's a picture!

This was the last day. Members of many of the bands that played for the festival jammed on stage, playing favorite songs and tunes. Brittany Haas invited me up and I got to play along! (That's me on the far right). It was quite a rush sharing the stage with so many greats. I don't consider myself primarily a bluegrass fiddler since I focus more on Irish and Old-time, but playing up there made me think about switching paths. It is really fun.

Brittany Haas plays a 5-string John Silakowski. It's very fun to play. I'm saving my pennies.

Look for this fiddler in about ten years. She's going to be awesome. (And maybe by then she'll fit her instrument a bit better...)

Here is my beautiful friend Lacey, famous for her awesome fiddling in the Dry Lake Band as well as the Pretty Darns. She did all the driving and I depended on her for social navigation! She knows everyone. Also, she would win a Bluegrass Trivia Contest. I'm writing an email to the Big Sky people to request a high-stakes Bluegrass Jeopardy session next year just so she could win.

So if you like festivals, don't miss the Evanston Celtic Festival coming up next month! (March 11-12) Killarney will be opening for Darol Anger and Mike Marshall and Väsen on the 11th at 7:30! I'm so excited! For more info go here.

Fictionist - ain't no lie

2011-02-15T14:01:00.000-07:00

These guys are so good and they absolutely deserve to be splattered on the cover of Rolling Stone and win fame and fortune! RATE them with 5 stars!

No camera in paradise

2011-01-30T23:42:00.001-07:00

On the way out the door I felt that unsure feeling that we'd forgotten something important... We'd decided to drive down to Moab to explore Arches National Park, and celebrate Robbie Burns Day in one multi-function trip. Kate MacLeod was playing with Natalie Haas and Chris Layer at a Burns Dinner, and since Natalie hardly ever plays in Utah, and we were needing a mental health break from yucky inversions, stressful classes, and our cold basement apartment (and narcissistic professors, but that's a different story), we packed up the car and headed south.

That nagging feeling is never very specific. Thank you, natural selection, for allowing humans to develop a vague, "something's not quite right" intuition without including a "you forgot your CAMERA and you're going to the most beautiful place in Utah, go get it, you moron!" intuition. What's with that?

I brought my laptop which has a camera, but couldn't really take a laptop on the hike to Delicate Arch or the Devil's Garden... but here's a shot from a pull-over site along the road.

Arches National Park is breathtaking all year round, but there's a strange oddness to it in January. I wonder if I can really describe it. A picture would be better (@#$%!). One snow-packed trail wound along a tall rock wall on one side, deep red. On the other side of the white trail, a gnarly juniper sent grey and green spindly arms down in a twisting pose, and pale yellow stalks of yucca and sage brush poked through the snow. It felt like a movie set, with the colors so stark and the plants like improbable props. I expected to see a coyote lying in the snow, where it would calmly watch us as we walked by, or it would mutter something like, "Find your soulmate, Homer" and off we'd go on a soul-searching journey through the reds and purples of the desert canyons.

The Burns dinner was a lovely and relaxed event. The city of Moab, though small, has a loyal base of supporters of folk and acoustic music. And they are able to bring in some incredible talent from all over. I'm jealous because even when Logan succeeds in getting great musicians to come play, so few people turn out. What are Loganites doing instead? Watching TRON 3-D?

But I digress. The Moab has a lovely new events center called The Grand Center, and they hosted a Burns night.

Robbie Burns, how I love that man.

Sam's alright with it. I told him yesterday Robbie Burns was one of two of my "dead historical figure" crushes. The other is John Wesley Powell.

So somehow, Moab is lucky enough to get to hear from Natalie Haas for this Burns night, and she's the premier Scottish cellist in the world. She was perfectly genial and lovely and so was Kate MacLeod. The concert was divided into two parts. The first just featured Kate, Natalie and Chris, and it was delicious. Then after they piped in the haggis and distributed it on crackers to everyone in the audience, the local Moab Community Dance Band joined in for the second half. It was a sincere performance. (At one point, though, I had to fight the urge to go tune one of the violins which was tuned to a perfect G-D-A-Eb). It was really cool that the community was so supportive of their local performers, and so willing to come to events, that they could pool the money required to brings such amazing talent.

Anyway, it was an inspiring weekend, arches and fiddles all.

And if you need a cheap place to stay in Moab when you go yourself, check out the Lazy Lizard hostel! It's just what you picture in your mind when I say the words, "cheap, Moab, hippie, hostel."

Reflections on the Fleadh

2011-01-23T21:13:00.000-07:00

Irish Fiddling Competition. The very idea makes me shake with fear. But, if there's one thing I LOVE about Comhaltas, the organization that puts together the All-Ireland competitions, it's that they put all the audio and video up on their website for me to download for free! I'm learning tons of new tunes and from some of the best young fiddlers.

In Ireland, traditional fiddling is really stylized. In America, we "Celtic" fiddlers can get away with playing a sort of watered down Celtic-ish style that's really an amalgam of Classical, Old-time, Scottish, English, or anything else we've been exposed to. Here, that's okay. There are no Irish police (unless you go to certain sessions) checking to make sure you don't do the wrong kind of ornamentation or play a tune too slow or fast or with the wrong kind of bowing.

When Liz was in Ireland doing her MA she'd send me recordings from her lessons with some of the top fiddlers. From there I've been doing a search for Irish tunes and fiddlers and trying my darnedest to stay true to the style without letting others creep in. It takes concentration and discipline, which is something I haven't really given my fiddling for a long time. I'm actually practicing tunes rather than just playing through them.

Anyway, the Mid-west Chapter of the All-Ireland Competition is this April in Chicago. I'm slightly tempted to go, but this semester is KILLER so I can't. That gives me 14 months to prepare some tunes for next year.

This summer we're taking off to go to Kuwait, and I've already made some friends! Click here.

Statistical Significance and I don't care

2011-01-18T22:44:00.000-07:00

Yep, having a really tough time mustering up the will (stamina? courage? grit?) to face my statistics reading.

On a happier note, I have a new album that is underway - it's mostly finished actually. I'm very excited about it and I hope lots of people will buy it. You can hear sneak previews by going here. The group is Killarney and it's an Irish duo with Colin Botts (octave mando player) and me on the fiddle. Unfortunately Killarney is doomed to a short life because Sam and I are leaving this summer to go to Kuwait and when we get back Colin and his family will have taken off to go to Ireland. So, yup. Get it while you can, folks! Join our mailing list and see us play before it's too late!

Sneak preview of the album cover:

Okay. Statistics. One more chapter. Here we go.

Les Trois Tétons, et puis le ski

2011-01-04T21:49:00.000-07:00

I think a clear, glorious morning is something not to be wasted in Jackson Hole. Most days were grey and snowy, but still beautiful. But Monday morning was sunny, and we seized the opportunity to do some cross country skiing in Teton National Park.

(Many people go to Jackson Hole for the downhill skiing, but a. it's expensive, and b. there's better and cheaper downhill skiing in Utah, and c., you can get into the park for five bucks during the winter.)

Sam's first time on skis, and he was disgustingly good from his first glide. Hmph. I just get so irritated with coordinated people sometimes. For me, getting up from the couch without spilling the hot cup of tea at my feet is a real challenge. Getting cross country skiing down (which is basically walking) was a triumph I secretly treasured until Sam showed me that it's just one of those sports anyone can do on his/her first try...

Dashed egos aside, the trip was really fun and the views were incredible. We got really lucky with the weather. We saw no other soul on the trail the whole day.

So now that we've had a vacation, I guess we can begin school again. A feeling of dread overwhelms me as I contemplate it... school... I'm taking statistics this semester. Statistics. I may die.

Bull.

2011-01-02T18:24:00.004-07:00

We took a sleigh ride through the most elk-populated part of the refuge today. All around elk were digging through the snow and munching on grass, or lounging around with their friends. They were unperturbed by the horse-drawn sleigh, but the driver said if someone tried to get out, all the elk would instantly run away.

Our toes and faces grew numb sitting in the sleigh, despite the heavy blankets they supplied.

Check out the frozen snot on the horses. If you're itching for a sleigh ride through the elk refuge, here's the link to the Visitor's Center. Wear warmer boots than I did.

Some cute deer wandering through a parking lot... One of them had a bum leg. It will soon be a wolf's lunch.

Look, an elk!

2011-01-01T18:42:00.003-07:00

We left our cold, wintery, snowy town for vacation and went to... a cold, wintery, snowy town. But this one has some advantages: it's away from home, it's got an elk refuge, and great skiing.

If you haven't been to the National Elk Refuge in Jackson, WY, I recommend you go. The refuge is 25,000 acres and thousands of elk and bison winter here. If your lucky, you can see lots of other wildlife, too. In the picture below, every dark spot is an elk.

From the car photo!

We got lucky and saw this and two of its friends.

Then we went to the National Museum of Wildlife Art, where I discovered that I like this artist, Carl Rungius. Here's a taste. Really they're gorgeous in person.

The grand Teton (the tallest peak) was covered in mist when we took these photos but she came out of hiding a few minutes later. And I thought the mountain men who named that peak téton had obviously not seen a woman in a very long time.

Happy New Years!

(And by the way, I updated my Fancy Fiddle Products page! Click the tab at the top of the page or go here.)

Christmas food and family

2010-12-26T09:51:00.003-07:00

On the eve of Christmas, we drank some cheer with joy - and Joy.

Hung the ornaments on the tree:

On Christmas morn Sam finally opened the present I've been patiently keeping a secret for a month...

a Mini-Raclette!

I received a beautiful coral necklace.

The African Noah's Ark we received from DeAnna and Lee looks nice on our shelf, under the ominous shadow of the giant jaguar.

They also sent us a Nativity set with the people made out of corn husks. Unfortunately it didn't come with a Jesus. And as I always say, without the baby Jesus, it's just a bunch of people standing around.

Raclette cheese is très cher, so we used pepper jack and muenster. And it was délicieux!

If you've never seen one before, this is the mini-version. The top layer is a grill for your jambons fumés, viandes séchées, and petites saucisses. (We used bacon.) It's also traditional to have some small canned onions and pickles.

The bottom layer is where you place your small pan with a piece of cheese. Melt it until it bubbles and browns, and then pour it over you meat and potatoes.

Raclette!

The Ebay Curse

2010-12-23T00:10:00.001-07:00

I know a lot of people who have managed to start up successful home businesses through selling stuff on ebay. I like this idea. I visited ebay recently. But all I did was buy stuff.

A ball gown for $9! Seriously? How could I say no to that? It's black taffeta! (Technically I haven't bought this yet, but I made a bid. I kind of hope I win.) All I could do was visualize myself in that dress. It would look a little like this:

(okay, so it's a hack photoshop job. I don't have any idea how to use that program.) But I sure would enjoy having a waist like that.

I accidentally bought a pair of flip-flops, too. But they're comfortable chacos and will probably outlive me - well worth the $20 price tag.

Now I just need to find some stuff to sell. I have lots of single socks, worn-out ex-library books I got from the DI, sheets with holes in them, and tupperware containers with no lids. My home ebay business should be up and running in no time.

Me no can dance.

2010-12-13T22:47:00.000-07:00

Should I take lessons or something? I look like I'm a rusty robot being controlled by a drunk person with no rhythm.

Despite the cell-phone quality, I think this little clip proves how awesome Kill Arnie is. That's the name of the duo Colin and I put together. The tune we played is "Contradiction," which refers to the apparent contradiction of our awesome music and terrible moves.

Contact me. We need gigs.

logos extremisitis

2010-11-21T23:01:00.001-07:00

You may have noticed a drop in blogging activity. This was a decision I made with my health care provider due to a serious condition known as logos extremisitis. Sadly, my verbal repository only allows for a certain amount of words to be written per month. A few term papers and a research proposal have exhausted my monthly supply. Blogging would be an endangerment to my frontal lobe.

I'll check back after the semester is over.

Thanks.

Goblins are good in October

2010-10-18T21:56:00.002-06:00

Southern Utah's own Terra Cotta army:

Sam is king of the echo-people.

Irresponsible graffiti some thoughtless adolescent must have scribbled onto the ancient canyon wall four thousand years ago. Ha ha (laughs ignorantly).

This picture is also slightly ghoulish, in keeping with the October/Halloween theme.

Fambly

2010-08-29T21:43:00.002-06:00

"ooooh!"

Baby M with our great neighbor!

Recipes

2010-08-05T09:52:00.000-06:00

On our way to the airport, we stopped to see some glaciers, near Portage. And then we FINALLY SAW A BEAR! It was a small black bear by the side of the highway.

Here's a selection of the recipes of some of the food we ate in Alaska!

Rhubarb Cake with Rhubarb frosting
Blend: 2 c. sugar
1 c. oil
4 eggs
Add 2 cups blended rhubarb (reserve 1-2 TBS)
Sift and mix: 2 c. flour
1 tsp soda
3-4 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp salt
Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir. Use 2 greased 9" pans
Bake 40 min. at 350.
Frosting
5 c. powdered sugar
12 TBS butter
12 oz cream cheese
1-2 TBS blended rhubarb
1 tsp vanilla

Halibut Fish Tacos

Chop and divide:

1 habinjero

2 jalepinos

3 cloves of garlic

1 onion

Fish prep

Marinate the fish in:

1/2 of the onion/pepper blend

1 tablespoon chili powder

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon onion powder

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1/4 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon paprika

3 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 squeezed lime

salt, pepper to taste

Grill the halibut until flakey.

Guacamole:

1/2 of the onion/pepper blend

4 avacados

1 diced tomato

salt/pepper

squeezed lime

or use Anna's recipe!

We had this with coleslaw on our tacos but it didn't need it.

Salmon with Lemon Glaze and Rosemary Crumbs

Grill or bake 4 salmon fillets

Crumbs:

1/4 c. olive oil

1 garlic clove smashed

1 sprig rosemary

3/4 c. bread crumbs

1/2 tsp lemon zest

salt/pepper to taste

Warm olive oil with garlic and rosemary

Add bread crumbs until golden crisp

Remove sprig

Add lemon zest, salt/pepper

Glaze:

1/4 c. honey

1 1/2 TBS lemon juice

2 mint sprigs

In a small sauce pan, combine honey, lemon juice, mint

Stir on high for 1 minute

Brush honey mixture on salmon fillets, and then sprinkle on the bread cumbs.

Serve

Still no bears so far

2010-07-31T12:57:00.004-06:00

But we saw some cool stuff nonetheless:

A Russion Orthodox church:

And also, Sam and I made some delicious food:

Grilled Salmon with rosemary crumbs and a honey-lemon glaze:

Sam getting some salmon ready to smoke:

Stuff besides fish in Alaska

2010-07-29T13:37:00.003-06:00

We hiked up a hill past a series of lakes, looking for bears. We didn't see any bears, but we saw pretty flowers:

Then we took a day trip over to Seward to see the port and hike over to Exit Glacier.

Gift shop oddities.

Exit Glacier:

Birdprints in the glacial silt.

Fish. And hanging on for dear life.

2010-07-24T02:26:00.003-06:00

We are in Alaska! We're lucky to have relatives here to impose ourselves upon (upon whom to impose ourselves?) who are gracious enough to take us fishing, almost daily, on their beautiful boat. We've logged 2 days out on the ocean fishing for halibut, and a few days on the Kenai river, fishing for salmon. Here's the photographic proof:

Out on the ocean:

lookin' awesome in orange bibs.

Our handsome nephew!

Puffin and puckerin'

One fun fact I learned: if you fall in, the water is so cold you'll probably die. The window of time to save yourself and get back on a boat is about two minutes. After that you're toast because your body starts to shut down and you can't move. Our second time on the ocean the waves were much bigger and I kept thinking how short two minutes are. As we drove the boat, it would pitch into the air on a wave and then come crashing down with a loud bang into the next wave. The strong manly men I was with would yell something like, "Whoa! Who needs Disneyland!?" and laugh like hearty seamen. With every slam of our sturdy vessel on the water, scary bits of episodes from "The Deadliest Catch" flashed through my brain. I just closed my eyes, wrapped my fingers around anything I could find, and prayed that if I was flung into the ocean, two minutes would be enough. Or that a pair of friendly porpoises would rescue me.

Out on the river:

The brothers.

yum....salmon....

We'll be here for another week, so I'll post again, hopefully with a photo of a bear.

Glamour Shots

2010-06-28T13:51:00.000-06:00

KJ is a photograsuperhero.

Finding roots

2010-06-20T23:07:00.001-06:00

I've always been into Irish and Scottish music. I thought for a long time it was because I was of Irish or Scottish lineage. Turns out I'm Danish.

So out of curiosity and an over-abundance of time, I looked up Danish music today. Thanks to youtube and emusic such a thing is not difficult to do. After combing through the awful "polkas" overburdened with accordion, I found some really cool stuff. Some of it speaks deeply to my DNA in a way that even the Irish music I grew up playing doesn't.

This video's not the perfect example, but if you have an emusic account, look up Harald Haugaard. He's a well known Danish fiddler with excellent taste.

It would be so cool to learn tunes that my great-grandparents would know. Then someday we can all play together in a giant Danish folk band in the sky.

Best Bike Ever

2010-06-11T11:34:00.000-06:00

I love love love love love my bike

I ride ride ride ride ride my bike

My bike bike bike is what I like

I'll speed speed speed down the turnpike

Fiddle-camps, Photo-shoots, and how things can happen really fast

2010-06-04T16:53:00.003-06:00

So this week I decided it was over. I am done with my music hiatus. I'm ready to jump back into the scene. So, I sent out a few emails, and this is what happened:

-I am starting a local Celtic/Old-time band up here with a local guitarist

-I got invited to teach at a fiddle camp this summer

-I get to judge a fiddle contest in September

-I had to get a fancy photo-shoot done so I could send out my pic./bio. Luckily Sam's super good at backyard photography.

Here's my pick from the shoot. If you look really closely you can see the tail feathers of one of my chickens.

For the whole (silly) photoshoot, go here.

For info on the Musik For Life Fiddle Camp, click here.

For info on the Peach Days Fiddle Contest, go here.

And, wahoo! I'm a fiddler again!

I have a wolverine on my head

2010-05-31T08:43:00.004-06:00

This weekend we attended the local rendezvous. You all knew my dear husband comes from a long, proud, line of mountain men, right?

People set up their teepees and camp out all week, buying a trading wares like coonskins and tomahawks, or sitting and playing Woody Guthrie songs...how I love a mixed metaphor.

This is Danny, our favorite trader with his grandson. He is selling Sam's buffalo hide that he did last year. In fact...

there it is!

South African Melktert

2010-05-08T17:13:00.000-06:00

I was reading through the journals I kept while I was in South Africa and found my dear friend Aurene's recipe for melktert, which is the best damn custard pie there ever was. So, I couldn't help myself. I LOVE this pie. Yum.

Here's the recipe: (thanks Aurene!)

BASE
125 g. butter
1/2 c. sugar
1 egg
2 c. flour
pinch of salt
2 tsp. baking powder
Cream butter and sugar well; add egg and beat well. Add dry ingredients. Press into pie plates at bake at 180 C or 350 F until golden brown.

FILLING
4 1/2 c. milk
3 eggs
1 c. sugar
pinch salt
1 TBS butter
2 1/2 TBS flour
2 1/2 TBS corn starch
1 tsp. vanilla
Boil milk. Beat eggs and add sugar, then dry ingredients. Add egg mixture to milk and cook on reduced heat until thick. Stir in vanilla and pour into bases. Cool and sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg.

Anyone in the market for an unhappy donkey?

2010-05-04T15:29:00.000-06:00

No? C'mon. Look at him.

mon penchant inévitable pour le thé

2010-05-02T21:24:00.000-06:00

In Salt Lake City over the past few days I attended the Great Salt Lake Issues Forum. It was excellent, but now I must live with the unfortunate impulse to applaud after someone finishes speaking to me.

While I was there, I had the pleasure of meeting my friend Anna at a fancy teahouse known as the Tea Grotto (where they also serve decadent gelato...and it was the real stuff.) I came home with a bag of Rooibos Chai, hoping that my quest for a good rooibos chai would finally end. All of the stuff at our grocery store is gross. It is quite common in S. Africa where rooibos is the tea. I've had a really hard time finding a good one here in the States.

And guess what-- this tea is honestly the best tea I've ever had in my life. If you live within 500 miles of the Tea Grotto, you absolutely must go. Or, click on the links above and order online.

The cookies are shortbread thumbprints with a dulce de leche filling. The dulce de leche is a gift from my world-traveling dad. Thanks, pa.

Venez m'aider

2010-04-30T08:07:00.000-06:00

Alma 34: 28
“If ye turn away the needy, and the naked, and visit not the sick and afflicted, and impart of your substance, if ye have, to those who stand in need—I say unto you, if ye do not any of these things, behold, your prayer is vain, and availeth you nothing, and ye are as hypocrites who do deny the faith.”

3 Nephi 6:10-12,14,15
“There began to be some disputings among the people; and some were lifted up unto pride and boastings because of their exceedingly great riches, yea, even unto great persecutions;  For there were many merchants in the land, and also many lawyers, and many officers.  And the people began to be distinguished by ranks, according to their  RICHES and their CHANCES FOR LEARNING; yea, SOME WERE IGNORANT  BECAUSE OF THEIR POVERTY, AND OTHERS DID RECEIVE GREAT LEARNING  BECAUSE OF THEIR RICHES.  And thus there became a great inequality in all the land”

Mosiah 4:17-23
“Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just— But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent; and except he repenteth of that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God.
For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind?"

From the Mormon Mayday website:

The Idea

In light of the recent Gallop Poll which calculates that 60% of active Mormons self-identify as Conservative or Republican and that over 60% of inactive Mormons who still consider themselves Mormons are self-identified “Liberals or Moderates” suggesting that the more liberal you are the more likely you are to go inactive; in light of Glenn Beck’s recent public comments where the prominent Mormon declared that social justice was a code word for Communism and Nazism; and in light of the recent invitation by a Nevada Stake to Democratic Senator Harry Reid to speak at a fireside which was met by threats of violence and canceled.

As moderate, liberal or radical Mormons, it is time to make our voices heard WITHIN Mormonism. I for one am weary of hearing Republican talking points pass for Gospel truths. The Gospel is for everyone, not just Republicans; guided by the spirit, liberal and radical interpretations of the Gospel and scriptures are just as valid as those made by Conservatives.

On May 1st 2010, International Workers’ Day, or May Day, we will participate in local May Day festivities and organize ‘Social Justice and the Gospel’ Teach-ins/Firesides all across the country.

On Sunday May 2nd, we will hold a special fast for those who are working all over the world to advance the causes of the Gospel, social justice, environmental sustainability and fighting the root causes of poverty. Then, we will attend our local Wards and, guided by the spirit, bear strong, sincere and non-confrontational testimonies on these themes.

I find that when I express my opinions in church, people don't think they're radical at all if I avoid "buzz words" like feminism, liberalism, redistribution of wealth to the poor, social justice, environmentalism, or even the term "sustainability." Truth the told, I have no idea why such ideas are anathema to the mainstream Utah Mormon community; these themes run through the scriptures and teachings of Joseph Smith and later church leaders.

Another article: Eric Samuelson's Glenn Beck, Cleon Skousen, Amerigo Vespucci, and Me on the Sunstone Blog. An exerpt:

It’s possible, for example, to believe that the Constitution is an inspired document, while also recognizing its limitations, flaws, and political compromises. Elder Dallin Oaks, in a 1992 Ensign article, said “one should not expect perfection in a document that must represent a consensus.” He went on to say “reverence for the United States Constitution is so great that sometimes individuals speak as if its every word and phrase had the same standing as scripture. Personally, I have never considered it necessary to defend every line of the Constitution as scriptural. For example, I find nothing scriptural in the compromise on slavery or the minimum age or years of citizenship for congressmen, senators, or the president.” And Joseph Smith faulted the Constitution for the national government’s lack of power to intervene when the state of Missouri used its militia to expel the Latter-day Saints from their lands. Given Skousen’s attachment to states’ rights arguments, it’s worth pointing out that Joseph Smith blamed the Constitution for giving insufficient power to the federal government. Mormons know President Martin Van Buren for his famous line to Joseph Smith: “Your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you.” According to Skousen’s reading of the 10th Amendment, Van Buren would have been justified if he’d said “Your cause may be just, gentlemen, but this is a state matter. The federal government is powerless to intervene.”

Anyway, in my ideal world, the dialogue in Sunday School and other church settings will welcome a balanced and tolerant conversation where all points of view, not just the conservative-to-extreme-right can be voiced and appreciated. Many of my generation leave the church as a result of feeling politically alienated, since too often, in church settings, right-wing politics are equated with official church doctrine. This needs to change.

what to do if you have leftover egg whites

2010-04-24T11:04:00.001-06:00

Le sacre du printemps

2010-04-17T17:33:00.001-06:00

I had my doubts that Spring would actually arrive this year. But as it turns out, the weather is warming, buds are appearing, and despite the likelihood of another snow storm or 2, spring looks imminent. This is a happy thought because winter all the time would be awful, just ask Narnia.

I must admit, the idea of stuff growing in our yard this year is really exciting to me. The things I missed while we were traveling were primarily gardens and kitchens. There's a part of me (the part that resents female stereotypes) that feels funny about the fact that I was preoccupied with those housewifey things. Oh well. Whether it's my genetic inheritance or I've been socialized by my upbringing to fill that role, I like growing stuff and then eating it. So there. Take THAT!

These are our starts under the grow light.

Budding plum branches:

Green and thinking, drinking sun

Blossoms. Fruit. Waiting.

Coreopsis:

Raspberries. Oh how I love them.

Growing chickens.

Showy Rhubarb.

Optimistic onion sets

The big two-six!

2010-04-05T12:04:00.001-06:00

Sam blessed the earth with his presence 26 years ago today! We celebrated yesterday. Here he is being very tolerant of my insistence on having a birthday breakfast with presents and pictures. I love birthdays.

Tolstoy and Dumas were his gifts this year, as well as some actual 4x6 prints of our trips.

Eric came over to express to Sam his undying fraternal devotion, share his brotherly wisdom, and partake of the joyous occasion of his youngest sibling's birthday...

Sam's the best, and he only improves with age, like a French cheese or a good garden compost, only less smelly. This is the third of his birthdays in a row he's allowed me to share with him, and he tolerates my zeal for gifts and gateaux remarkably well. Sam is my sweet heart and I'm glad he was born.

Happy Birthday Sam!

Birds etc.

2010-03-30T12:37:00.000-06:00

We have birds in our backyard, but also we live in one of the best places for bird watchers. We're close to the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, Salt Creek State Park, and tons of geese, ibis, ducks, cranes, and songbirds just hang out nearby. I took a trip with my water class to some of these places:

Also over the weekend we spent time with my side of the family for a collective birthday celebration for all the family members with end of March - April birthdays.
Here are the birthday kids:

The next day we had business at the capitol:

...it has such nice light.

And to top off the weeked, we had a picnic in the park with Dave, Kris, and Andrew. Dave brought homemade ceviche, and we supplemented lunch with $1 tacos from the stands that line the street in downtown Ogden.

March

2010-03-25T11:26:00.000-06:00

March is a temperamental month. One day its 60 degrees and sunny, and you get to spend the whole day outside getting your raised garden beds ready for spring. The next day it's a blizzard. You can hate it or embrace it. Last weekend Sam and I did the latter. We spent 2 days working in the garden, moving gravel, turning compost, weeding, shoveling dirt, etc. Then we drove up the canyon and went snowmobiling.

March gets hated on a lot. But I kinda like it. Its moody up and down swings sort of remind me of... well, me!

Fuzzy Wuzzies.

2010-03-18T14:24:00.000-06:00

When I came home from Hawaii I was inspired to nurture new life on this world, but didn't feel like having a human baby yet, so we headed over to IFA and bought these chicks. 2 are Buff Orpingtons, 1 is a Sexlink, and 1 is an Americauna (which will lay blue-green eggs!) I had to take photos now before they get ugly, which happens fast. Soon they'll be smelly feathery dinosaurs that eat a lot and don't lay eggs for a few more months. But they're oh-so cute now!

Adventures in Hawaii

2010-03-10T10:56:00.000-07:00

Shipwreck beach. We got there in time to see a bunch of brave (or crazy) body surfers.

A bird refuge/taro farm.

Good eats at Bubba's.

Kilauea light house is a lookout where you can see tons of birds and whales. All those white dots are red-footed boobies nesting on the cliff. I also got lucky that day and saw a humpback whale jump out of the water.

Waimea Canyon.

RJ, KJ and I had a good time hanging out.

The newest arrival! (Yet officially unnamed). She was 8 lbs 12 oz, and perfectly healthy and pink.

Paradise

2010-03-04T01:56:00.000-07:00

I'm just biding my time here in paradise...

hangin' with these lovely ladies--KJ, RJ, and Becca--waiting for the baby to arrive.

Here's Matt and his coworker. Matt let me tag along to a research site on a ranch on Kaua'i.

RJ is an exceptionally good dancer.

For those of you who have doubted the biological fact that bananas grow up and not down (ahem Andi) click the middle thumbnail for proof.

Sadly I had to leave Sam on the frigid mainland so he could continue working, so I'm here without him and that sucks. I'll be here for another week-ish.

My brain hurts

2010-02-16T15:43:00.000-07:00

School is so awesome. Er, rather, taking classes without having to earn a good grade is awesome, which is what I'm currently doing. And it is expanding my brain to extents previously unknown. I'm taking a social psychology class and whoa. It's awesome. We've been reading all these papers about how people form attitudes, how they change, etc. Turns out humans are altogether illogical and unpredictable. What we say we do has little statistical correlation with what we actually do; what we say we value doesn't translate into behavior, either. Also, I recently have become intrigued with this funny little phenomenon called confirmation bias. Basically, you only hear what you want to hear. Information is not taken in unless it agrees with opinions one already holds. So... sound science, logic, and proof can be easily disregarded because we just won't accept that we're wrong. There are so many cool studies demonstrating this.

It's so exciting to me! We're so silly, we humans, and we think we're so smart. But we only see and hear what we want to see. That's why Fox News still exists, I suppose, and on the other end Michael Moore. Since we only choose to believe what supports beliefs we've already formed, attitudes can polarize over time. Even looking at the same information, people can reaffirm their already-held beliefs. So creationists will only get more and more insistent (and keep pulling their kids out of public school), people scrabbling for proof against global climate change in the face of a growing mountain of evidence will refuse to accept it as fact, and people like me will keep of believing in the Lord above. I'm relying on Pascal's Wager for that last one.

...Which reminds me of a joke. This is p. 99 of Plato and Platypus Walk into a Bar, by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein.

A little old Christian lady comes out onto her front porch every morning and shouts, "Praise the Lord!"

And every morning the atheist next door yells back, "There is no God!"

This goes on for weeks. "Praise the Lord!" yells the lady. "There is no God!" responds the neighbor.

As times goes by, the lady runs into financial difficulties and has trouble buying food. She goes out onto the porch and asks God for help with groceries, then says, "Praise the Lord!"

The next morning when she goes out onto the porch, there are the groceries she asked for. Of course, she shouts, "Praise the Lord!"

The atheist jumps out from behind a bush and says, "Ha! I bought those groceries. There is no God!"

The lady looks at him and smiles. She shouts, "Praise the Lord! Not only did you provide for me, Lord, you made Satan pay for the groceries!"

If you want to have fun and read some studies on confirmation bias (I promise it's entertaining), do a scholar google search for confirmation bias, or just look up this paper:

Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises.

By Nickerson, Raymond S.

Review of General Psychology. Vol 2(2), Jun 1998, 175-220.

Anyway, what I got out of this post was this:

underused but nevertheless...

2010-02-07T20:40:00.000-07:00

First time I've ever used this bundt pan. It worked out well! This is an eggless, dairyless carrot cake. Very moist and dense. Good for breakfast. The recipe is from Moosewood Book of Desserts.

And while we're talking about breakfast, here was mine: Raspberry Cobbler from last summer's raspberries:

I used the recipe for sour cream crust in Joy of Cooking. Good with yoghurt or a dollop of cream.

Minor fall and major lift

2010-01-28T19:51:00.000-07:00

We sold our dresser, an old blue recliner, our bed, a gun case, lots of Sam's reloading stuff, several books, and we're far from finished. We're purging. And it's liberating. We now sleep on the floor on a couple of camping pads and a memory foam mattress topper. It means it's impossible to fall out of bed! But sometimes I have nightmares about spiders.

And today Sam got a raise at work!

By the way, we still have a lot of good stuff for sale.

And I have been dreaming about straw bale houses. I learned about straw bale construction a couple years ago in a sustainable living class. It's incredibly affordable, versatile, and low-energy building material. It's resistant to rain and wind, and it naturally insulates better than the typical American style house. I WANT! If you don't believe me, go here. Or here. Or here. If you want to build a straw bale house check local building codes. Here are some examples I found online of peoples' straw bale houses.

Snow-biling

2010-01-19T15:14:00.000-07:00

That's what Sam's boss' daughter calls it. Snow-biling. And it was fast and fun and cold and wow, fast. And it was my first time on one. And someday if they make affordable ones with quiet stink-free electric motors, I'll totally buy one.

Here's the view of Bear Lake. The blue is the sky. The lake is sleeping under that blanket of fog.

To enjoy some snow-biling yourself, contact Sam about his sweet hook-ups at his job.

Mountains and Valleys

2010-01-11T13:01:00.001-07:00

In our mountainous home there are many ups and downs. And since this is a blog, I'll just share the ups:

Sam redecorated the chicken coop:

We made Mountains and Valleys (also known as German Oven Pancake) for lunch:

Here's the recipe:
Melt 1/3 c. butter in a 13x9 pan at 425 f. In a blender, whip 4 eggs with 1 c. milk, and then add 1 c. flour, whip some more. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Pour the batter into the hot pan. Bake for 20 minutes or so. Eat with powdered sugar.

One of our chickens is laying the most enormous eggs I've ever seen. She might be part-ostrich by the looks of it:

And as for the downs, let's just say I've had my fill of the county police today. Oooh, let your imaginations run with that one!

...because I can't help myself

2009-12-30T20:14:00.000-07:00

Using the same crust as the apple galette from the previous post, I made some raspberry-blueberry tartelettes. And here's the proof:

The raspberries are from last year's crop. They've been patiently waiting for this moment in the freezer. I can't wait to try it out this summer with fresh berries.

I told Sam I'd try to only bake something once a week because I'm going slightly overboard with the baked goods. And it's too cold to run or jog all the calories off. So I guess today was this week's day. We also made an apple pie. This time I made a flaky cream cheese crust. My favorite part was designing the top layer of crust:

And if there's anyone out there that has a surplus of money and flour but a shortage of time and wishes she could fill her house with the smells of baked deliciousness, contact me. I can be your bake slave. I want to be your bake slave.

...and lest I forget:

2009-12-30T16:40:00.000-07:00

Apple Galette:

It's easier than apple pie. Really. The crust is much easier to tackle. It's a shortbread crust:
Mix together:
1 1/4 c. flour
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 tsp salt
Add
1 stick unsalted butter, softened if working by hand
Mash until it looks like coarse crumbs, then add
1 egg yolk
Mix into a ball, then flatten. If you're making a fresh fruit topping, pierce the dough with at toothpick and bake it at 400 for 20-30 minutes. Or arrange sliced apples or peaches in a concentric circle, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar and bake for 15 minutes at 425 and then lower the temperature to 350 and bake for an additional 20 to 30 minutes until it's golden-brown.

It's good.

Chickens are so in right now

2009-12-30T09:06:00.001-07:00

We just bought 4 more chickens. We just can't stop. This new set is so superior to the last one. They seem to be coexisting alright. The grand total now is 6, since only 2 of the last avoided the axe. One was sick and old, one was mean and didn't lay, and one was getting pecked to death by the others. I still have nightmares about the whole process.

But anyway. These new ones are nice and beautiful and friendly and in all ways better. And I have no doubt that the Axe Man, which is the name I now use to refer to my husband, will let them live.

A Week of Firsts

2009-12-18T10:08:00.000-07:00

Sam and I made apple pie out of apples from our neighbor's orchard. It was the first time I've ever made it. I did the filling. But Sam is a master of pie crust:

We got our first set of hens! We have 5 Rhode Island Reds and each one has her own personality. They're all over a year old, so they supposedly lay eggs. But we haven't gotten any so far. I think they're still getting used to their new home. Plus some of them are still molting.

This hen is definitely in charge. She has the others running away in fear.

And we bought our first Christmas tree. And it's fake. I've had a long-held prejudice against fake trees, until I realized I didn't actually want to chop one down, either. It's too sad. The only thing missing is that nice pine smell.

Making up for lost time

2009-12-10T11:36:00.000-07:00

In Korea we didn't have an oven, so since we've come home I've made up for it by baking a lot. Like everyday. Andi's "No-Knead" bread has been a success:

...and a total failure sometimes, but we wouldn't put a picture up of that. If you want the recipe it's online here.

We've also done an apple crisp, some speculaas and other cookies... but my favorite baking success is this:

It's a cake I made with yesterday's left over yams (or sweet potato as they're mislabeled at the store.) I'll put the recipe at the bottom of this post.

Some backyard scenes (for you Becca, here's some winter for you.)

Leftover Yam Cake: (adapted from Joy of Cooking's Carrott cake, but I use yams rather than carrots, apples and apple cider rather than raisins and pinapples, and butter rather than vegetable oil.)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
Whisk together in a large bowl:
1 1/3 c. flour (of which about 1/3 is whole wheat)
1 c. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp salt
Add and stir:
2/3 cup melted butter
3 eggs
Stir in:
about 1 1/2 c. steamed mashed yams
1 finely chopped, peeled apple
about 1/4 c. apple cider

Pour into 13x9 baking dish (greased or lined with parchment paper)
Bake 30-35 min.
Cool and top with cream cheese frosting (4 oz cream cheese, 1 cup powdered sugar, 1 TBS cream, vanilla)

Change of scenery

2009-12-01T08:54:00.000-07:00

We were here:

And now we're here:

This is up the Cub River in Idaho... we took a drive up there. Dozens of people were coming down the canyon with freshly cut Christmas trees.

It's nice to have some breathing room!

It all happened so fast...

2009-11-26T07:52:00.000-07:00

So, in a nutshell: Sam got accepted to grad school so we left Korea a little early. So, we're home!

Anyway, we're glad to be home for the holidays, and to be around friends and family.

Meanwhile, we have a few weeks before school starts, and we want to have one more adventure. So where should we go? Guatemala? Thailand? Mexico? Alaska?

Fishy...

2009-11-16T20:25:00.000-07:00

So, since we’re leaving pretty soon our hagwon is in contact with recruiting agencies to find replacement teachers. We were assured by our recruiter that hagwons look for qualifications like education and experience when hiring teachers. But sitting on our supervisor’s desk was a paper with a summary of an applicant. The only information it contained was a large picture, and a list of the following “qualifications.”

Physical characteristics:
Demeanor:
Race:
Accent:
Physical Appearance:

And that’s that.

Saturday Trip

2009-11-07T16:35:00.001-07:00

On Saturday morning I made my way to Seoul to help out with a Primary Activity, and Sam went to a museum with our friend Mark. We met up a couple hours later and headed south to Suwon where Anna and Justin live. We checked out a beautiful fortress there, and then ate the most delicious kalbi (Korean BBQ) we've ever had.

The proof:

(from the museum)

(the changing of the guard at gyeongbukgong)

(This is one of the gates at the fortress in Suwon)

NBF!

Can you spot the Big Golden Buddha?

We stumbled upon this archery demonstration:

The fortress wall is huge!

What goes around...

2009-11-02T20:54:00.001-07:00

So for two days in a row, only one student showed up for my and Sam's Kindergarten classes. Everyone is home sick; and in fact, we should be home because we're sick, too. But instead we're here, and they've decided to cancel Kindergarten for the rest of the week! Does that mean we get 3 days off? NO! Ha! This is Korea! Just because you have no work to do doesn't mean you don't show up (look at our supervisor!) We get to spend all day at the school pretending to work! Yay! Our afternoon classes are still on though, so we will have classes starting at 2:30 everyday. But from 9:30 until then... we get to surf the internet... and blog...

Saturday Trip: Moran Market

2009-10-26T01:47:00.001-06:00

On Saturday, with our friends Anna and Justin, we went to the Moran Market, which is just a couple subway stops from where we live. It seemed as though foreigners don't often come to the market; we received lots of oogly stares while we wound our way through the maze. Crowded tents and tables were selling grains, vegetables, fried food, plants,...oh, and dogs...but not dogs to keep as pets. These were special dogs bred for their meat. But they looked sad to me. There's something different and more appalling in killing and eating dogs than cattle or chickens or fish to me. Maybe it's that dogs demonstrate so much love and loyalty, and a fish couldn't care less? I don't know. Maybe there's no valid reason to attach more value to one animal than another, but I can't help it.

Here are the photos:

yum?

yeah. sad, right?

seaweed, anyone?

That salt. Mmmm, It makes my mouth water just looking at it:

Saturday Trip: We saw North Korea

2009-10-19T21:53:00.001-06:00

That's the North on the other side of the river:

South on the left, North on the right:

Watching the propaganda-rich film in the visitor's center:

Later on, in Insadong for dinner:

Sam got this:

Hungry for seafood?

...or how about feminist fashion?

Kid Stuff

2009-10-13T01:56:00.000-06:00

(Holding up a picture of a bottle of sunscreen)
Teacher: What's this?
Student 1: Sun...shine?
Student 2: Sun...glasses?
Student 3: Sun...KETCHUP!

Teacher: What are things that make you scared?
Student 1: GHOSTS!
Student 2: The dark. And dogs.
Student 3: I'm scared of dying.

That last Student 3 is the same one that told me one time: "My parents got de-married because there was no more love." He's sort of forlorn all the time.

But let me switch gears here and tell you about the candy.

Hi chews: akin to Starbursts but with a milder, friendly flavor, they come in strawberry (and other flavors we haven't tried).
Choco Babies: Small pellets of chocolate, sort of waxy on the outside, that come in pez-like containers.
Ghana Bars: Very cocoa-rich, thin bars.
Dars: Delicious bites of smooth chocolate.

And the cookies.

Sables: Crispy vanilla cookies. SO good with icecream.
Digets: In plain or with a chocolate layer, they're like British Digestives. And yes, there is no S before the T. It is D-I-G-E-T. Awesome. 11% WHEATMEAL is written boldly across the boxes.
Fake Oreos: The name is written in hangul. But they're pretty darn close.
Binch: Smaller than digets, these are whole weat biscuits with a chocolate coating.
Here's the ad for Binch cookies.

Once upon a long walk...

2009-10-04T04:32:00.000-06:00

The end.

Scroll down or click here for Friday's Trip to Namhansanseung.

Friday Trip

2009-10-02T19:43:00.000-06:00

We've gone to Namhansanseung one other time, and we took a hike to a beautiful temple. The whole area is a series of trails that wander through the hills and along the huge fortress wall, that was built to protect Seoul from the south. This time, we met some friends at the bottom of the hill. Together we caught a bus to the top and then wandered around. Here's the photographic proof: (For the whole picasa album, click here.)

I'm interested to know how the turtle fits into Korean folklore. Anyone know anything about that?

These are our friends, Anna and Justin.

Sam found this wooden board leaning up against the outside wall of the temple.

We resisted the urge to ring the huge bell.

Here we found a temple that was open. It had beautiful flowers in the front. Anna and I slipped inside to pray. It was a peaceful place.

A funny quirk about hiking in Korea: we notice that we are usually the most underdressed people on the trail. All the Koreans have gone all the way to insure that they are properly attired for the adventure; from name-brand backpacks and shoes, to the breathable sports shirts, jackets, pants, walking sticks, and gloves. Each hiker is a billboard for outdoor gear brands. And they have some pretty awesome brand names here. Check out Black Yak:

...or Red Face (not to be confused with North Face).

...my favorite outdoor gear brandname so far is definitely Kolon Sport. Sounds fun!

Along that vein, here's a picture of a restaurant we saw in Seoul last week:

Myeong-dong

2009-09-30T19:28:00.000-06:00

Last Saturday night the traffic was so bad on the way to Seoul we got out of the bus and walked instead of standing still in the road. And we found a short cut through this great spot called Myeong-dong. Lights, Octopus, cheap socks and ties for sale, people with microphones going off in long sermons about why you should buy this product or that:

four days

2009-09-28T02:14:00.001-06:00

Friday is a holiday, which means we have a four-day week this week! And I honestly think 4 days is the right amount of time to work in a week. And as long as our drunken upstairs neighbor decides NOT to thump his floor to marching band rhythms from midnight to 6AM, my sadly disturbed 7-year-old student manages to refrain from killing one of the other students, (his nickname is "White Rage"), and my mercurial supervisor makes it to her counseling appointments, it should be a great week. Then we'll have a 3-day weekend. Any ideas?

Yellow dust

2009-09-20T20:15:00.000-06:00

Yellow dust. It is coming upon us, so says our supervisor. It's rare this time of year; most often it plagues the Springtime.

What it is: seasonal winds from the deserts in China pick up sand and dust and blow them across Asia. It used to be just sand and dust, no big deal. But now it mixes and mingles with the poison gases spewing from China's factories and carries to Korea a toxic cocktail--coating cars, roads, and lungs with the stuff. So everyone is wearing masks, the black plastic Darth Vader kind. We'll have to purchase some, too.

Quoting wikipedia.org (which, this time, has a source, just to appease all you wikihaters): "Sulphur (an acid rain component), soot, ash, carbon monoxide, and other toxic pollutants including heavy metals (such as mercury, cadmium, chromium, arsenic, lead, zinc, copper) and other carcinogens, often accompany the dust storms, as well as viruses, bacteria, fungi, pesticides, antibiotics, asbestos, herbicides, plastic ingredients, combustion products as well as hormone mimicking phthalates. (Source: "Ill Winds". Science News Online. http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20011006/bob13.asp. Retrieved October 6, 2001.)" (Emphasis added.)

So, yes, we will definitely be purchasing Darth Vader masks. Thanks, China!

Swatches of Korean Scenes

2009-09-14T22:39:00.000-06:00

The concert the other night:

Hungry for any of these?

1000 won store:

Pot of kimchi:

A pink store in Seoul:

This looked significant but we didn't know how. That sign probably explains it all.

Click on the video (it will direct you to the picasa album) to watch part of the show.

From Suneo and Seoul

Tripe and Tears. But not in that order.

2009-09-14T01:26:00.000-06:00

Saturday evening, after prying ourselves away from Scrubs episodes, we went on a walk to neighboring Suneo. There's a 1000 won store there that we wanted to check out. It's a store full of junk from China for dirt cheap. (1000 won is about 80 cents.) Everything looks nice on the shelf from far away. I wanted to look at the cute little tea sets. A teapot was 3000 won, and that would have been a good deal except that the handle was glued on, and I thought...hmmm...tea...hot...glue...melts... nope. Didn't buy it. So our running total of souvenirs bought in Korea is still at 0.

We got lucky with timing, as it often happens when we decide to leave our vampire coven of an apartment and venture into the world outside. We noticed a huge throng gathering in the park. They'd roped off the perimeter and lined it with booths selling junk food and balloons. At the front there was a huge stage, with fancy lighting equipment and projectors and video screens. It looked like a big deal, so we sat down and waited for things to get started.

All of a sudden my ears melted because Korean-techno-koto-fusion blasted from the 50 foot speakers. On the upper level on the back, two dancers "drummed" on huge djembes, flailing their arms above their head, whipping their long hair to and fro to the beat. Then a dozen or so dancers twirled on stage, all wearing cream and yellow flowing dresses and carrying huge red fans.

And then my senses totally overloaded and I started bawling. The music was close to something you'd probably hear a 20 year old music school student come up with in his dorm while high on acid after watching Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, but for some reason it was perfect for the setting. It was so moving. We stayed for a while, and the dancing got better: there was one tumbling gymnast, several scrawny but amazing break dancers, one huge tough guy with huge arms bedecked with leather arm bands to emphasize his biceps who came out like Michael Flatley surrounded by lots of twirling ladies with flowing skirts. One number that blew our minds was an all male dance most of which was performed while balancing on one or two hands. They did one handed push-ups, with the rest of their body, including their feet, in the air. It was stunning.

It started raining so we left and found a restaurant that looked promising; it was the kind where you have to take off your shoes and kneel at a low table. They had four dishes to choose from, and we chose based on the pictures alone. Sam accidently wound up with something so hot it melted his guts, and I ended up with something that actually WAS guts... oops. (It was tripe)...so I guess it's good news that it took a month and a half of living and eating here in Korea to finally get let down by anything we ate. Honestly everything else has been wonderful. Now I just need to memorize the Hangul characters for tripe and I'll be fine from now on.

Eng-uh-lish-uh puh-lease-uh

2009-09-10T19:24:00.000-06:00

"Do you know what G-force is?" asks a precocious 6-year-old.
"Tell me!" I say.
"It's when hampsters have a mission."

"Danny is suh-peak-ing Korea!" the tattle-tale in my class practically chants this sentence all day long to get his arch-rival in trouble.

"The weather is sunny and rainy!" This is a hilarious EFL kindergarten joke.
"I am feeling angry and happy and sick and hurt and nervous and excited!" This is another hilarious EFL kindergarten joke.
"I am feeling silly and windy!" Now this takes EFL kindergarten jokes to the next level.

Eureka!

2009-09-06T19:28:00.000-06:00

So last week was a tough week ... out-of-control kids, long days, weird management ... so over the weekend we really needed to unwind and try our best to keep ourselves from spiraling down into a depressive state...the kind where we snarf down junk food and watch all the episodes from SciFi TV series Eureka.

So... we did what anyone would do ... we snarfed down junk food and watched all the episodes from SciFi TV series Eureka. All weekend.

Lunch and paper cups

2009-09-01T20:14:00.000-06:00

The hagwon we work at recently hired a chef. She has the big job of cooking lunch for all the staff, teachers, and students. Well, I don't know how she sensed yesterday when we weren't terribly excited about a lunch of white rice, kimchi, and what could be termed "soup," which was actually sprouts floating in mildly onion-flavored lukewarm water. It's okay if you're a kid and your daily calory intake requirement is like 800. My tummy was growling about 20 minutes after lunch was over.

After a couple hours, the irrestistable smell of oil frying in a pan wafted through my classroom. I shuffled the kids out of class 10 minutes early to investigate.

And the beautiful, amazing, wonderful chef had made Sam and me French Toast. It was the kindest gesture. She doesn't speak English, but she told one of the other staff how much she wished she knew how to make something we'd like. Sam and I aren't picky, especially with Korean food. It's all really good. But she doesn't really cook the classic Korean dishes. It's more like Korean kid food: 3 slices of a hot dog in soup. Rice. A spoonfull of Korean Beans. And lots and LOTS of kimchi. I find in incredibly awesome that in trying to come up with something "American" she came up with French Toast. Sam and I are big fans of breakfast food all day. So, it was PERFECT. We're tring to come up with some thank-you gift to give her.

The Koreans have revolutionized paper cups. We've wanted to blog on the subject for a while, because honestly, it's amazing. Cups aren't cups. They're envelopes. You open them up and pour water in and I'm sure it saves a million bucks on shipping. We like it.

Ooh, and the strawberry jam here beats the crap out of strawberry jam from anywhere else. But the grape juice sucks. So far. The milk is also very good, and whole wheat bread when you can find it.

Sunday Trip: Insadong

2009-08-30T21:46:00.000-06:00

We took the metro to Insadong on Sunday. It's a tourist-heavy shopping district near Anguk in Seoul. It was funny to see so many foreigners and tourists; they're rarer in Bundang where we live. It was also a nice break from the sleek and modern, steel and granite buildings that surround us at home. Insadong is a narrow street, lined by shops with old fashioned roofs, and all the Korean tourist kitsch you could imagine. Smells of onion soup, dumplings, kimchi, and kalbi (BBQ beef) wooed us to a corner restaurant with an outdoor patio, where we enjoyed yet another unbelievably good meal (one more point goes to Korean Cuisine). The meals were cheap; about $5 a plate. The tourist kitsche was decidely less cheap. Beautiful hand-made soup bowls were about 80,000 won, about $70. So we took pictures instead of buying stuff. As I left one shop, in which I had taken lots of photos, I said the usual "kam-sa-ham-ni-dah," to the shop owner, and she just looked up and grunted, "hmph."

Big Dumpling Soup

Kimchi assortment

Sam's Still Boiling Beef Deliciousness

Nearby is this Castle called Changdeokgung, but we couldn't go in because they only allowed prescheduled tour-groups (mostly from Japan) to enter, except on Thursdays. But here are some views of the front gate:

Mugung hwa, the flower of Korea, is blooming everywhere right now. In English it's "Rose of Sharon," or at least that's what google said. Wikipedia specified: it is Hibiscus syriacus.

Then, clearly reading the relative "No"

2009-08-25T18:29:00.001-06:00

I have Google.com set to automatically translate pages that are written in Korean. These results are from yahoo.com Q&A (the Korean site), under the tab "How to politely refuse" and they proove that we are lost beyond any hope here in this country: (found here.)

Q: I feel the decline phase can not tell how to avoid? Phase I feel you can not tell you how to refuse?

A:
1] Give me some time to think
Clearly be rejected on the spot for an hour even think of things to do (Pretending) Next
Clearly the relative shift of the opposition to refuse to buy less

2] That's a really good offer
Once approved the proposal of the other, With another busy at work say,.
Others say it will not explain what's going on gutyi

3] That's very nice
Once the opponent's commendable
Then " Working with you, but I do not do this time. "

...

5] I'm really sorry
If you ask for rejection prior to a difficult period that will make people understand the plight of

...

7] Um...... Why do not you.
But if you just want to say that no tteumeul appearance seems to worry him in..
Then, clearly reading the relative "No" Says.
Or is she still did not make the decisions of the heart may seem because.

+++

What does any of this mean??? What's funny is, this sounds exactly like certain individuals with whom we interact daily. And also like the funny Engrish T-shirts we see all the time.

Reading into this, it sounds like a Q&A on how to "not say no" while "saying no." Hmmm. That sounds familiar, too.

Sunday Trip: Namhan Sanseung

2009-08-23T04:44:00.000-06:00

Today we took a field trip to a Buddhist Temple near Namhan Sanseung. There's a big fortress there, too, but we decided to do the shorter and less crowded walk to the temple today. We'll come back and do the fortress when it's a little cooler:

It was a beautiful, peaceful and colorful place.

Bad weather: in which rain leads to misbehavior

2009-08-19T21:16:00.000-06:00

...And I have proof. Which really means I googled it and found someone that agreed. And in today's world of quasi-science and anecdotal evidence, that's proof.

A Child Development institute stated: Yes, we do agree that weather can affect child behavior... In our guidance nursery school we have observed that rainy days can be bad, especially when there are several in succession. But humid days may be worse. A good, cool downpour does not usually have as bad an effect on group behavior as does high humidity. Realizing this, the adult, whether parent or teacher, will, hopefully, make special efforts to keep the child or children interestingly occupied; will perhaps bring out new or special equipment, will herself try to be more than usually patient. (See the original article here.) This was published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1972, which is back when people didn't lie...(except for President Nixon, who was in fact, in 1972, lying .)

My students were totally off the wall today, and it's pouring outside. Cum hoc ergo propter hoc? Don't know. I'm just searching for answers.

My mom used a "Rainy Day Box" to quell our restlessness on days when the barometer dropped. It was filled with coloring books, paint, and craft materials, and we actually looked forward to getting it out when it rained. She was a genius. Between the Rainy Day Box and my green rubberboots/raincoat set, rainy days turned out to be some of the best days.

Maybe the Rainy Day Fidgety Phenomenon is related to the change in air pressure or humidity. Maybe it's due to the fact that kids can't go outside on a rainy day so they have less to do. Maybe it's just because they're wet and uncomfortable. Maybe it's completely unrelated, because John's totally crazy all the time, so today was not actually much worse...

Anyway if the rain gets much worse, we'll be floating home:

Saturday Trip: Seoul

2009-08-15T18:42:00.000-06:00

We took a bus (we live across the street from a main bus station, how convenient!) to Seoul on Saturday. It was Korea's National Liberation Day holiday, so it was even more crowded than normal. There was a lot to see. We had an incredibly fun time, and survived the 95 degree heat and muggy humidity.

Photographic proof that we actually ARE in Korea:

Thereal Dong dae mun market:

Procession in front of the Deoksugung Palace:

These guys were everywhere, to keep the liberation day riots down to a minimum:

Lunch! (just kidding.)

The Gyeongbokgung Palace:

This palace is a collection of hundreds of buildings, and we'd like to go back some time when it's not sweltering outside. It was really, really beautiful.

After that last palace, we wandered around the museum there (it had AC and a whole bunch of cool Korean historic exhibits) and then took the metro home.

Names: in which even Sam gets a new one

2009-08-14T20:19:00.000-06:00

...I just had to add, Sam got to name his students, and a couple of girls in my class gave him a new name, too. "Mr. Handsome!" They yell it and then melt into giggles. It does sound close to the actual surname. And it's true.

John: in which my classroom management falls short.

2009-08-13T22:34:00.000-06:00

It's Friday.

Praise Allah.

Morning Kindergarten was kind of rough. I have a student named John whose behavioral issues are enigmatic. He's not ADD, he's not bored, he's not over-excited, he's not grumpy....he's just living in his own reality, and it's draining my brain to find ways to invite him back to Earth to learn English.

Korea has: good cars, good sink drains, good food, good public transport, and I like those things.

____________________________________________________
Lost: In Which I name my students and eat an octopus! By Sam

Wow! What a week. So many interesting things have happened. We are not short on crazy stories and I have one to share with you. Our first day of class and I have five nervous children sitting in their desks in front of me. I say what are your names, your English names? Blank stares and one kid starts to whimper. You see when Korean children come to these English schools they are supposed to come pre-named. These kids and their parents obviously didn't get the memo. Now to me giving someone a new name seems like it should be a very serious thing so I did the only thing I could, I named them all after LOST characters. Yes thats right Juliet, Richard, Jack, John, and don't forget Ben. muahahahaha. And as for the octopus we have had octopus as part of lunch for 3 days in a row now. The ladies here at the school order lunch for us and we never know what we are going to get. Our friend Mike told us how his girlfriend likes to eat fresh still moving octopus. He said when he tried it for the first time the octopus latched on to his cheek and wouldn't let go. He said a surprising number of people die every year from octopus related incidents. So we were sure to chomp ours to bits. Chomp chomp.

Brain-dead: in which we survive our first 3 days

2009-08-12T01:55:00.000-06:00

It's been pouring and pouring rain for the last 36 hours, and it just barely calmed down. What's funny is, we haven't even gotten wet once. Our supervisor picks us up in the mornings (there's not yet a bus that goes to our school's town), we spend all day at school, and then someone, the principal's son Chris if we're lucky, takes us home at night. And we've been so completely exhausted that we never stepped out of the building or car to stop and smell the raindrops. It was impressive, though... The rivers swelled well above their limits and flooded the sidewalks and trails along the banks.

We each taught two kindergarten classes this week, one morning kindergarten class, and one afternoon class. Sam got the K-0 and K-1 levels, and I got lucky with the K-2 and K-3s. My kids understand anywhere from 50% to 85% of what I say, but Sam's kids are at about 10-30%...or less...plus they're very young. One kid in Sam's class today looked about three years old to me.

This 2 week kindergarten schedule is kind of like a trial run, for us, for the school, and for the parents. Starting in September they'll be enrolling permanent kindergarteners (for AM and PM classes) and elementary kids (for post-school classes.) So we'll be teaching the classes we currently have, plus 2 or 3 hours of elementary classes, as long as they enroll.

So far in my classes we've talked about oral hygiene, made clown masks, done "sight word races" (an idea I got off of youtube), done lots of worksheets, colored a million coloring pages, and read a billion boring kid books... Why, oh, why, when we have a library stocked with amazing kids books, are we reading the trash they assign us? Honestly. I've rebelled once or twice and brought in a good book from the library. mWahahahaha.

So far the best thing besides the kids has been the lunch breaks, because we order in food. Today we had some really good pan-fried rice that tasted like Spanish rice...there was cinnamon in it or something. Delicious.

The most disturbing thing (besides our supervisor's psychosis) is the parents. Ten minutes after classes ended on Day 1 there were phonecalls from concerned parents checking on the progress of their kids...this is a private school, and they're paying about $1000 a month, so they have a right to be concerned...I'm therefore frightened.

G-Ah-i-Jo: In which Byung-hun Lee lets Korea down

2009-08-10T05:50:00.000-06:00

Everyone here in Korea is psyched about Byung-hun Lee. He's a Korean celebrity who just made a break in Hollywood, cast as a martial arts specialist in the new G.I. Joe. We decided to buy into the hype, and bought movie tickets on Saturday to check it out.

We went to the afternoon showing, and it was totally sold out. We like the system here: when you buy your tickets, you get to pick your seats, so there's no "saving seats" or waiting in line for 3 hours to get good ones. (Awesome.) So we picked seats smack in the middle. Had we known that the volume knob was being controlled by a deaf person, we would have sat further back. It was astoundingly loud. We had our fingers in our ears for the majority of the film. In fact, I don't remember much about the movie because I was so distracted by the fact that I had to protect my ears from bleeding.

Oh yeah, I remember. So everyone's really excited to see Byung-Hun Lee, even though he's playing a bad guy...so when he finally gets his screen-time, everyone's glad...except for one thing. He's playing a Japanese Ninja! Wooooooo disappointment there.

Besides that, my only review for the movie itself is that it was loud.

Oh, and we taught our first kindergarten classes today, and 5 minutes before class started, my supervisor threw out the last 2 weeks of lesson plan prep that I'd done, and told me I'd be teaching a totally different class level with totally different materials. Thanks. But it was okay because the kids are cute, and some of them quite brilliant. And thank heaven Sam and I are together. If I were doing this alone, I'd have headed to Bennigan's across the street, bought myself something strong and kissed this world goodbye tonight. Sam got the kids who speak no English, and are only there because their parents insist they're brilliant. (They're um, 3 years old...) So he spent the whole day babysitting. But, really, the kids are cute. So today was exhausting. But good.

Midnight Shopping: in which we visit the Dong-dae-mun market

2009-08-08T18:10:00.000-06:00

...which isn't really a market in the way I'm used to saying the word. It's like 10 stories of ultra chic knock-off brand clothing in a collection of high-rise buildings.

...And it really comes alive from 10pm to 5am starting Friday night.

...It's kind of insane.

Here's an example of the Korean woman's shoe:

Pillows: in which we wake up sore, daily.

2009-08-06T17:32:00.000-06:00

Our pillows, which were generously provided by the principal of our hagwan, are horrible.

I think pillows here used to be filled with rice or seeds. With improvements in technology, pillow stuffing has improved, except that they still hang on to the mentality that pillows should be stuffed with lots of little things. The other day we opened up our pillow to see just what it was we were sleeping on. And, it was thousands of little plastic tubes, each about a centimeter long, about the width of a pencil.

We will commence a country-wide search of pillows stuffed with batting or goose feathers or anything else. I'll keep you updated on how it goes.

Training: in which we sit through a poorly written PPT presentation

2009-08-04T17:13:00.000-06:00

This morning we woke up wide awake about 6 am. We couldn’t eat because we had a blood test later on, and they required food-free blood. Around 8:45 am we went downstairs and Mike drove us to the hospital.

A health check-up is required for all aliens living in Korea. The hospital in Bundang is enormous, clean, tiled, and looks more like an office building or shopping center on the inside. After registering we were given two cards with ID numbers and Koreanized names in the Korean alphabet (Kah-i-tuh and Sahm-uh). We took these cards to our first stop, where we had a vision test, hearing test, and they took our heart rate, height and weight. Then we took the receipts back to the registration desk, where they gave us slips to take upstairs to the blood center.

Up there, I sat cringing at the desk with my head turned away gripping Sam’s hand as the nurse leaned over the table to take two vials of my blood from my right arm. It was traumatic and my arm ached all day. After Sam got the same treatment, we peed into cups, put the cups into a fridge in the hallway outside the blood center, and then went downstairs to the basement for X-rays. Sam didn’t have to take off any clothes, but I had to strip my top half and wear a smock. It was the quickest process of the day. After getting all the papers to the right people, we were told our results would take about a week. After we have the results, we can receive our alien resident card, which will mean we can open a bank account, and buy a phone and internet for the apartment. That’ll be nice. Assuming, of course, that we pass the health check-up. You know they were testing for cannabis? Weird. Good thing it's been a while. (ha!)

We were starving after the appointment, so Mike took us to a shopping center, the bottom of which had a grocery store café like unto none I’ve ever seen. All along a long wall, different windows show small kitchens inside of which 2 or 3 people make one specific dish. You pay for your meal at a register, and then the kitchen that makes your dish buzzes when it’s ready. It was like seeing eight different cooking shows at the same time. I ordered bibimbap, and Sam ordered a noodle dish. It was really delicious, as I’ve come to expect from Korean food, now.

After a while we finally decided to head on over to our hagwan. It was about 11:30 or so by now. It was a bit chaotic there; Two of the administrators were having some “differences” and Sam and I didn’t really help… Plans are constantly switching around and we get contradictory information all the time; the school's brand new so things aren't settled 100% yet. I tried to just avoid the mess and sat in the children’s library and wrote up lesson plans for next week’s classes. At around 2:45pm, Mike picked us up to take us to some important training meeting in Seoul. It was a thirty minute drive from our school, at the headquarters of this hagwan chain.

They’re on the fifth floor of a tall building in the middle of Seoul. The office is small, for a business chain. I was expecting something a little grander, and better looking. But it was sort of drab. An American stood up and said, “Are you here for the training?” And we said, yes. We were led to a conference room in the corner of the office floor, and eventually three other foreign teachers came and sat down too. The American guy walked it and sat down at a laptop to start the training. He was a tall guy, balding, with long greasy curls partly tied into a ponytail. He must have been nervous; he was sweating all over. He started up a power-point presentation and then read word for word what was on the screen, even when there were glaring typos and grammatical errors. It was getting sort of funny, and Sam and I and the other teachers started grinning at each other. Eventually he relaxed and we asked him questions about teaching, and about the structure of the corporation. It turns out, he didn’t really know much at all. I suspect they had him lead this training meeting because he was the only American in the office.

By the end of the meeting, it was getting kind of chatty and way more relaxed than the start. We stood up, said our goodbyes, left, and loaded back into Mike's car. Mike had just spent the 2 hours since he dropped us off at a Starbucks.

Writing has become my therapy: (And only half of what I write ends up here, haha. Oh, and don't I look swell? The dress code's a bit more formal than my normal jeans/chacos/Tshirt state of being.

Our teachers' lounge:

One of the classrooms:

afternoon stroll: in which we get to know the neighborhood

2009-08-02T15:57:00.000-06:00

not far from our apartment, this huge river cuts through town.

People stroll along the sidewalks on either side. Many were wearing allergy masks, which was interesting...

We had a rematch with yesterday's delicious meal. And yes, it's still delicious.

Outside AK Plaza.

Our apartment. (That's me.)

Food: in which we get our butts kicked by red-pepper paste.

2009-08-01T21:57:00.000-06:00

Just down from our apartment building is a huge Plaza, with domed glass ceilings, shops like Christine Dior, Versacci, Coach, and Louis Vuitton, and a huge marble foyer where the stores have displays of their sale items. Outside, on both sides, a wide pedestrian street leads walkers from the busy neighborhoods on either side straight to the Plaza. Tall buildings line this street, and there are businesses of every kind on every floor. Businesses display their signs on the outside of the buiding, along with the floor number where they can be found. Some of these signs are enhanced with pictures, or speakers blasting pop or R&B. The air is filled with sweet and spicy smells from bakeries and restaurants. The people that stroll around the Plaza are dressed so well. I’m dying for a wardrobe re-do. And it’s so satisfying to see that a huge chunk of the population here is my size!

At around 1:00pm, our doorbell rang, or rather, the intercom buzzed. Mike came to bring us to lunch with Melinda, who is an administrator at the school. We followed them back towards the Plaza. My stomach was grumbling. But they seemed very concerned that we not get anything too wildly Korean, lest our delicate American stomachs reject the stuff so they dilly-dallied for a while, arguing about where would be the most appropriate restaurant for beginners like us. Sam and I assured them both that at this point we could eat anything, and please let’s just pick a place and go eat. The smell in the air was totally intoxicating. We turned into a narrow alley lined with restaurants, and walked into one that seemed the most crowded. As soon as I passed through the doorway I thought I was going to faint from total sensory overload. People sat around tables with round burners in the middle, spicy meat and vegetables cooking right there. We sat in a corner booth and ordered four cokes and a chicken/vegetable/noodle dish. The waiter brought out a platter of all the food raw, and then dumped it upside down on the oiled burner, splashed it with red-pepper paste, and stirred it a few times. In an excruciatingly long time, the food was ready. We each had four small plastic plates in which to put your own portion. I was feeling pretty confident, because the smell was so delicious. And for the first part of the meal, Sam and I were really enjoying ourselves. It was about halfway through that I realized I couldn’t feel my lips. I turned to look at Sam and his forehead was beaded with sweat. It was hot. And the more we ate, the hotter it got. But I couldn’t really stop. It was so amazingly good. When the amount of food on the burner was diminishing as we all took chopstickful after chopstickful, the waiter up all the meat and vegetables with scissors, dumped a plate of rice on our leftovers, drenched the mixture with some more red-pepper paste, and voila, fried rice. And omigosh, it was just as delicious. And just as hot. So, our initiation to Korean food was a wild success.

After lunch, we went to a bookstore to find a “learn Korean” book, and found a small little phrase book that has everything in both the Korean alphabet and phonetically spelled out, with a literal English translation and an approximate English equivalent. It has proved most useful. We’re trying to learn the alphabet. Mike was kind enough to purchase the book, which at the time seemed quite generous. Once we got home we wondered if someone was keeping count of all of these nice gestures, and whether we’d be expected to return the favors over the next twelve months.

The weather outside was cloudy and humid, and rain seemed imminent, but it never fell, it just hung overhead and leaked maybe one or two drops that I felt. It was hot, but I read the hottest months are to come.

After saying goodbye and thanks to Mike, we went to the local LotteMart, a supermarket grocery store, a la Kroger or Giant. The only trouble with the store was the fact that we couldn’t read any of the labels on the food, so we had to guess what we were buying. But we found some nice looking vegetables, fish, yogurt, and rice, and although the prices were higher than in Utah, remembering Hawaiian prices made everything seem a little better.

We intended to rest for a bit after returning home and then venture out in search of an internet café. Unfortunately, we fell asleep until about 10pm, when I woke up groaning from hunger, drank some yogurt, and then fell asleep again. We woke up around 4:30 am, totally disoriented yet somehow totally awake. Curses upon this plague, jet-lag.

For lunch today we decided to visit a dumpling place nextdoor to our building. We communicated our order in mostly hand-signs, followed with a gamsamnidah and took the warm box of 12 or so meat dumplings (and 2 gimchee dumplings he threw in for free) up to our room. Included in our order was a small packet of soysauce, and chopsticks. And I’m here to tell you it was the most delicious meal in the world. The dumplings were steamed, and they head a fantastically sweet flavor. Good grief. Yum.

Our apartment:

The view from our window:

time travel, in which we cross the international date line.

2009-08-01T07:36:00.001-06:00

our bodies didn't glow, we couldn't for even a split second read anyone's minds, and we didn't have to voice command so some central intelligence people, and all in all it was a disappointing experience. in fact, I was so distracted by a Zac Efron movie I was watching, I didn't even notice when it happened.

but now we're here, near seoul, and our neighborhood and apartment rock. and I love the food. I even had gimchee today it was good, as long as I alternated one bite of gimchee with one bite of a mayonnaise-laden pasta salad.

let the adventures begin!

Selling your stuff to strangers

2009-07-27T15:43:00.000-06:00

So, Sam and I like to sell our stuff online. It turns out you can get more money selling online on sites like www.craigslist.com and www.ksl.com than doing a yard sale. Last time we did a yard sale, we got a crowd of profession yard-sale goers, who end up talking my $20 blender down to 5 bucks, stealing some jewelry, and eating all my chocolate-chip cookies. It was humiliating and not very profitable. Online though, you can take that $20 blender and sell it for $20, or even $25 if you find the right buyer. Not to mention the fact that you can keep all the cookies to yourself.

But my favorite part about online sales isn't the money. We've met the most interesting and strange people. A sampling:

1. A polygamist (we think) who lived in a duplex with Family A and Family B down in Provo somewhere. He was selling Sam a gun.

2. Handfuls of right-wingers terrified their second amendment rights are soon to be ripped from their hands. These guys mostly bought Sam's ammo and a few guns and stuff. You can make lots of money when people are scared...just ask Fox News.

3. My most recent favorite: Marvin, the Salvadorian Prophet. He bought Sam's old phone. He recently won a settlement of $2.5 million for being tazered and targeted by the Police. He required surgery from the repeated tazering. Apparently, the fact that he was Hispanic and drove shiny new cars was suspicious. He's a car salesman. Oh, and he's a Prophet, cool, huh. God recently gave him a Mercedes Benz.

You have to be careful when selling and buying online. I got a Nigerian scammer who pretended to be interested in my old violin for sale on KSL. I recognized the British spelling and bad grammar, and the overall Nigerian tone...I hung out with lots of Nigerian shop-owners in South Africa...so I was not fooled. I was tempted to ask him how much he makes ripping Americans off, though. He wanted to do some weird payment where he'd send a check for like $5000 and then I'd reimburse him for the difference, since the price of the violin was much lower than that. How stupid did he think I was? Plus he didn't want to "try the violin out" which was another red flag. It would have been a long flight from Nigeria so I guess I don't blame him.

For a great NYT article on the questionable practice of baiting these Nigerian scammers, go here. Or to hear a This American Life episode on the subject, go here.

To buy and sell your stuff online, go here or here.

And by the way, we found out we're leaving for South Korea on Wednesday. I promise to update the blog often with our adventures there.

Go Jump in a Lake!

2009-07-22T08:37:00.000-06:00

This past weekend I was a mean wife and left Sam at home to pack up all our belongings, install a sprinkler system, teach our class, all by himself--and all that without a car. I drove south to meet my sister Liz, and we drove even more South to visit Grandma Louise who we never see. On the way we found a drive-through in Nephi that served sandwiches on homemade bread! They were delicious. We drove through Spring City to visit Horseshoe Mountain Pottery, and coveted all the cool stuff, lamenting that we were too poor to buy anything. Someday.

Seeing Grandma was great. We played some songs for her, and then she took us to a local greasy spoon, Los Amigos. Liz and I couldn't finish our food but Grandma cleaned up two whole entrees. We were mightily impressed.

The next day (Sunday) we had a brunch at my Grandma Betty's house, with lots of family I haven't seen in a while. After church we went to Andi's for dinner. Andi makes amazing amazing food. Fresh tomato, garlic bread, apple cider vinegar, paprika, all in a salad. Yummmmmmm.

Monday was my favorite day of all. KJ, Liz and I drove up American Fork Canyon past Tibble Fork Reservoir and hiked up the Silver Lake Trail. It was a warm hike, so jumping in at the Lake at the end of the trail was very exhilarating. I've hiked this trail many times before, but this time was the most fun. Once we started jumping in and goofing around we scared all the other hikers away, so before long we had the whole lake to ourselves, plus a moose.

Monday night we had a rare FiddleSticks concert at the Library. Lots of old friends showed up and it was great to see them before I leave again and don't see my old friends for another year at least. The gig went well. We shared the stage with some Storytellers; storytelling is a local mini-obsession. I'm sad to miss the Storytelling Festival again this year, as we'll be very far away.

Refresh Button Roadtrip

2009-07-16T12:55:00.000-06:00

We just took a short jaunt to Portland. It was lovely. We drove all day, ate smoked salmon on the road, stayed with my wonderful old roommate Darcy, dined at a fabulous bakery (I had the hazelnut cranberry scone, and Sam had fruit coffee cake), toured Lewis and Clark Law School (which, like my dad told me before we left, looks like an ewok village), drove to Canon Beach, ate a half gallon of mint-chocolate chip ice cream, and drove home.

Ahhhh, and life is just so much better now!

We ate at this greasy spoon in Meridian, ID. We were happy to support a local business, but not so happy with the achey tummies we had afterwards for the rest of the day. Hmmm...

We oohed and ahhed at the giant windmills along the Columbia river. There are thousands and thousands...

Dam.

This is where we stopped in Oregon to buy smoked salmon from a guy's truck. I couldn't believe how fairy-tale beautiful Oregon was. Yah. I want to move here.

He gave us a good discount, too. It was delish. We snarfed it down with our fingers. The car smelled like fish the whole rest of the drive. Worth it!

Here is an Ewok village, and yes, Lewis and Clark looks just like that.

"We aren't in Utah, anymore!" This is in the L&C parking lot. I have to say, it was a nice break from the regular old political banter I hear in this (meaning my current) neck of the woods. No 'fence. But I really loved campus. There was a great laid-back feeling there.

Canon Beach. So, the thing I like about coastal towns is their total photogenic-ness (sorry Grandma, not a real word.) Unfortunately, this is where the camera battery ran out. So, no cute pictures of the quaint town that had only local businesses (not a chain in sight!) complete with beautiful garden walls, dark woody architecture, and shockingly expensive ice cream and souvenirs!

This is where the river meets the ocean. This bright algae covers the rocks along the river. Very cool place. And, I thought it looked like the perfect place to swim if your an aquaphobe like me! (Look, no waves!)

For Sam and me, life works better when we get up and go somewhere crazy every so often. That's why we're moving to South Korea next week! See ya'll lata!

Demolition Derby 2009!

2009-07-13T10:15:00.000-06:00

I had no idea, but the demo derby is a big deal. Big Deal. It was my first time to one. And yes, after the initial "Oh my gosh, we paid to see people run into each other? You can see this for free in Utah Valley?!" shock, it was actually pretty awesome entertainment. Until we got to the phase where we were asking ourselves if the reason why this was fun was the same reason Romans liked watching Gladiators slice each other up in stadiums? Hmmmmm...

I snapped a couple pictures, accidentally blocking this gentleman's view. Because of the roar of the engines and the crowd, I couldn't hear him screaming, "MOVE! WOMAN! !@#$%! MOVE!! HEY WOMAN!!!" Sam had to physically remove me so this guy wouldn't pull out his side-arm and kill me. So then, I had to take a picture of him.

Our friends the Prices, who you may remember from the Buffalo Hunt. You can see Sam was prepared for the event in terms of foot fashion. Those are one of many pair of cowboy boots he owns.

This is Brett, who invited us. He let me try his camera! (swoon.) I wish I had a nice camera. And I promise I would use it for recreation and art only, and wouldn't start a novice photography business! I promise!

Maya!

We tried to get the beautiful people sitting next to us in this photo, but alas.

Here they are! They're friends of Brett. And aren't they pretty?

I was glad we weren't indoors. Every car was spewing stuff into the air. Announcements and commentary were blasted from that tower up there by a knowledgeable emcee . He used some pretty colorful language for a "family event." We noticed as they announced the drivers, they all seemed to have the same last name. It looked like there was some sibling rivalry going on down there.

The event went as such: Cars first heat, Cars second heat, (of which 3 were chosen for the championship round), Grudge round (for everyone that didn't make it to the championships), Truck heat, then the Car Championship round. At the very end, anyone who could still get his car running came back for one final, desperate showdown. These cars were seriously trashed.

Driving home was a little weird, we had sudden urges to plow into the cars next to us and send them flying. It was hard to remember to be civilized.

Happy Birthday, Andi!

2009-07-10T17:35:00.000-06:00

Andi is my step-mom, step-ball change, step events coordinator. She endured my last two years of highschool with me, wrote me faithfully on my mission, planned my wedding, and is the best.

Plus, she's hotter than Miley Cyrus.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Kira Day.

2009-07-07T19:31:00.001-06:00

...and sometimes life is like a bowl of raspberries!

2009-07-05T16:27:00.001-06:00

our first raspberries of the summer, straight from our bushes!

for photos of our fourth, go to KJ's blog.