Beer, Camouflage, and Dead Zebras

It’s show season and this weekend I had the pleasure of attending the annual Portland Sportsmen Expo. February in the Northwest is not a real hotbed of recreational opportunities but the sportsmen show for many is one of the few reasons for the dedicated hunter to get out of bed, put on your best Sunday camouflage, hop in the truck, and shop for all of the latest gear.

For me it is mainly about people watching. I love people but I wouldn’t exactly say that the average sportsmen show attendee and I run in the same social circles. It’s a different crowd than I am used to but I always find the show entertaining as well as educational. For instance I learned that a cold beer is a perfectly acceptable breakfast beverage for the avid sportsmen. I also learned that…….

You can take an otherwise perfectly functional boat, glue sagebrush to the entire surface area, and you now have an almost undetectable $40,000 high-tech duck hunting blind. That’s commitment.

I learned that for less than the price of your average automobile you are guaranteed to come home with your very own leopard carcass. Of course one must ask if it is still “hunting” if they guarantee your success. At the point they could just UPS it to you.

I learned that it’s actually possible to compensate for undersized genitalia if your elk horns won’t fit above the fireplace.

I learned that it’s possible to stuff a dead animal and make it look a little TOO real. Not recommended for households with sleepwalkers.

I learned that just when you think you’ve shot and killed every animal there was to kill, there’s always those ferocious zebras still out there grazing on the savanna. Roy Rogers stuffed Trigger so why not?

Yes it’s always an entertaining weekend and this year was not disappointing.

The STP: Seattle to Portland!!!

For the last 10 years my brother-in-law (Brian) and I have vowed that one day we would ride in the STP. The annual Seattle to Portland bike ride. Every year 10,000 people converge on the University of Washington campus to begin a two day (and in some cases one day) journey through the state of Washington. As far as bike rides go it seems pretty straight forward. The terrain is relatively flat, lots of on-course support, and even the few hills that are on the course are fairly small. At first glance it would seem that the STP ride would be a goal that is reasonably easy to achieve. And it would be aside from one small detail..….the 206 miles of road that separate the two cities.

200 miles is a long way and there’s really not any way around that fact. I complain about driving in a car for 200 miles much less sitting on a bike for the same duration. Even 100 miles is a long time on a bike. A couple of years back I did a century ride (100 miles) and it took a team of surgeons over an hour to extract the bike seat from my ass. Not pretty I assure you. I could not fathom having to go to bed and get up the next day and do it all over again.

Only an insane person would ride 200 miles in two days. However, as daunting as 200 miles seems it becomes almost ludicrous when you consider what my brother-in-law suggests that we attempt. Brian is completely convinced that not only can we do 200 miles in two days, he feels we can join the ranks of the certifiably insane and do the ride on a single day. This, my friends, is what one would call, “talking out your ass”. I love Brian and I appreciate his bravado but at some point fact must be separated from fantasy. While I could get into why this isn’t possible for us I will forgo the details in lieu of the following. As they say, "A picture is worth a thousand words” and here we are.

While I certainly wouldn’t consider this our finest hour, you can clearly see that neither of us will ever get mistaken for Lance Armstrong. Given the current state of things I would consider 200 miles in TWO WEEKS a more attainable goal.

While I am slightly concerned with our ability to complete the 200 miles I do have reasons to be hopeful. Brian is currently working with a trainer, a life coach, and a nutritionist. So while he probably needs to add a “realist” to that list he is at least on the right track and is probably burning calories as we speak.

Understand that I am equally concerned for my own ability to complete the ride. I have a lot more riding experience and may be closer to the 200 miles goal but I have certainly been in better shape than I am now. So it’s back on the bike for me and I really feel confident that with a few months worth of training and it is something we both can accomplish. Albeit in TWO days.

Confessions of a spending addict…

This month my girlfriend Jenn and I have undertaken the monumental task of non-consumerism. I confess this was originally Jenn’s (of Jenn’s Coop Blog fame) idea since between the two of us she has the more dominate tree embracing tendencies. Usually I will just follow along if I think it’s a good idea or ridicule her mercilessly if I deem the idea pointless.

The latest idea consists of eliminating the purchase of anything other than unprocessed food (preferably from a farmer’s market) and essential items involving basic needs. Personally the term “basic needs” is tricky since often my insatiable need for my morning Starbuck’s overrides my commitment to reduced consumption. So while I’ve had several relapses I have actually gone two full days subsisting on food items gleaned from the refrigerator.

As rewarding as this feels, it has been eye opening in that I realize how many times a day that buying something crosses my mind. Anything really. It doesn’t matter if it’s an Egg McMuffin on the way to work, running over to the bike shop on my lunch, or dropping by Target on the way home. I’ve found that a good portion of my life revolves around spending money. Sometimes it’s a little, sometimes it’s a lot, but it all comes down to the same thing….consumer high.

You know the feeling……

…..the adrenaline rush of pulling that new item off the shelf, sauntering proudly to the checkout line, pulling out that small rectangular piece of plastic bliss, and exit triumphantly to your waiting vehicle. Cresting the summit of consumer high, you cross the threshold and into your home to display your newly purchased wares as the family looks on in awed silence. Then suddenly from the dimly lit hall emerges a dark brooding figure that asks, “So how much did all that crap cost?”

Instant buzz kill….   

Yes the high is usually short lived and we’re soon faced with the decision whether or not to go out and feed consumer addiction. Certainly my description of “consumer high” is tongue-in-cheek, but for many it is probably not too far off the mark.  My concern lately lies in how little I actually think about my spending and how mindlessly I make purchases without thinking through whether this is, in fact, a “basic need” or I’m just getting my next “fix”. I can’t honestly say I’ve gone cold turkey, but I’d challenge you to take a day or even a week and think about every time you spend money, or better yet, every time you think about it.  

Bears On Ice

Late one night I was surfing through the TV channels when a breaking CNN story caught my attention. There he stood, the once majestic Polar Bear balancing precariously on an ice cube no bigger than my sofa. The story went on to explain how the earth was getting warmer, all the ice was melting, and polar bears the world over were destined to carry out the rest of their lives floating around the arctic on small melting chunks of ice.

The news story hit me as hard as a 2 a.m. Sally Struther's starving kids commercial. Immediately the obvious questions rolled through my mind. What would happen to the bear once that ice cube melted? Were the other bears floating around on bigger ice cubes? Smaller?
Of course I imagine the bear was asking his own questions as well. Like "Why did those people with the camera put me out here on this ice?", and "I agreed to all of this for a couple of salmon? Or perhaps he was simply thinking, “When can I get off here and swim over to the 1000 square mile glacier I usually hang out on". Of course this is purely speculation since I have little to no experience relating to the thought processes of a polar bear. Although from the look on its face it seemed a bit confused as undoubtedly the camera crew, with footage in hand, high tailed it to the CNN studios leaving the polar bear standing in the dense exhaust of the boats' dual 1000-Horsepower gas powered engines.

However, the mental picture is a powerful one. Less powerful after seeing the same footage of the same bear on the same ice cube for the 468th time, but powerful nonetheless. I wanted to save polar bears and was determined to do whatever it took to assist in the bear rescue cause. Could we build ice caves? Artificial icebergs? Raise them as pets? Whatever the price we needed to be willing to pay.
Of course I was disappointed to learn that the "stranded" Polar Bear, unbeknownst to him, was in many ways being used to pressure the politicians to deem the bear endangered so we couldn't drill for oil in “polar bear sensitive” habitats. It always seems to come back around to oil doesn’t it?
The tactic worked, the Bush administration’s hand was forced, and the bear was listed as endangered. It’s hard for me to blame Bush for caving to the pressure. (I'm too busy blaming him for everything else.) I mean really, does anyone want their legacy to be “I killed all the Polar bears.” ?
Soon the memories of the CNN footage faded but it left behind thoughts of the earth and whether anyone is actually serious about saving it. Will politics always get in the way of our efforts or will we at some point step up and do what it takes as humans to preserve what is left of the earth? I still want to save bears, but in the process I wouldn’t mind if we also saved the earth at the same time.
On that thought I'd better go. Have to get to the Ford dealership to tune up the truck. Have to keep that ol' V8 engine running smooth. For the environment of course....

The Global Warming Scam Revealed!!

I suppose a good place to start would be to just get a few things out in the open. I’m a white Anglo-Saxon protestant, card-carrying conservative Republican straight from the womb. I don’t know that I had much choice in the matter. My first baby outfit was a “Pardon Spiro Agnew” onesie and at Halloween when most of the kids were dressing up as Spiderman, I was donning a navy blue suit and Ronald Reagan mask. I believe guns belong in homes, prayer belongs in schools, and illegal immigrants belong in their own country. I voted for George Bush, Bob Dole, and…..well….…even George Dubbya……twice. Although I don’t necessarily believe in rubber-stamping every Republican idea that comes across the table you sort of get an idea of where I’m coming from.
For this reason I find it disturbing that I have recently started thinking about the environment. For a good portion of the last few decades environmental issues were off the radar of conservative Republicans. Sure if a trash bin and a recycle bin were side by side we might make the extra effort to toss the can in the correct bin but we really didn’t have time to focus on such minor issues. We had much bigger fish to fry. Really important priorities like flag-burning, drug wars, picketing abortion clinics, and keeping our military safe from those pesky homosexuals. We had a full plate and didn’t really have the time to stop, glance at the global thermometer, and ask, “Is it getting warm in here to you?”
Meanwhile environmentalists were chaining themselves to trees, laying in front of developer’s bulldozers, and taking a courageous stand against the formidable Pro-“Baby Seal Clubbing” lobby. Thereby solidifying the Republican’s long-held view that environmentalist were in fact, wackos.
Fast forward to 2008. It now seems both Republicans and Democrats alike recognize that perhaps a few of those wacky tree-sitters might have been a little more on target than anyone thought. My daughter can’t leave her house without her asthma inhaler, we’re running out of places to put our garbage, and our glaciers are receding faster than Bruce Willis’ hairline. Now living “green” is hip, the “wackos” smugly pass by in their Prius, and even the rightest of the right-wingers are thinking, “Uh oh…now what?”
And this is where my journey begins……

What's in a name?

Over the years I had forgotten just how many people still refer to me by a nickname. The nickname list is long and a good number of them I can actually repeat without offending my grandmother. There’s Big D, or simply D, Flemster, Fleminator, Flem-bone, and even Phlegm. Yes…I know…Phlegm. I realize that the word Phlegm doesn't always conjure up the most positive of mental images. However, in this context it is less a reference to viscous respiratory secretions and more a play on my long running and most popular nickname of "Flem".

Last week at my 8 year-old son Jake's football game the opposing coach happened to be my best friend Jon from High School. Before battle we met at the middle of the field, he stuck out his hand and said, "Good luck Flem". I returned the gesture and casually walked to the sideline. My son had overheard this exchange and asked me after the game, "Why did the other coach call you Flem?" I explained to him that it happened to be my nickname in high school and the coach was just referring to me the way most people referred to me back in the days of $1 gas. His question prompted me to think back at the origin, evolution, and history of my various nicknames.

In 1986 I was a freshman at a small private school. Enrollment was no more than 300 students on any given year and…..well…… not exactly what you would call "diverse". In fact 95% of the student body was upper middle class white kids. The remaining 5% were made up of delinquents whose parents thought private school would keep their kid out of prison, a few upper middle class non-whites, and the token inner-city scholarship kid so the basketball team wouldn't go 0-25 every season. I happened to represent the delinquents in the 5% category. We couldn't really afford private school but my parents probably looked at it as more of an investment strategy than anything else. The strategy being that the private schooling and the tuition that went along with it would save them from the imminent legal bills necessary to keep their son from being someone’s girlfriend in prison the rest of his life. So far so good.

1986 was a watershed year for diversity and the school found itself with two inner city scholarship beneficiaries, Noel and Gooch. Noel and Gooch were both seniors and brought with them a style, attitude, and swagger that was sorely missing in their fair skinned counterparts. Over time I grew rather fond of Noel and Gooch and they seemed to take a liking to me as well. I was a freshman and to them (since we're already liberally using inappropriate stereotypes) I was the big corn-fed, rhythmically challenged, stone-shoed white guy. Luckily I was just talented enough to endear myself to them and was soon a frequent mention in their almost continuous on-court trash-talk.

That season I learned three time-honored and critical trash-talking rules. #1: You must get as many words into a sentence as possible, #2: Once you start trash-talk you can not stop lest you allow your target an opportunity to engage. #3: You can add "dog" to any word or phrase and it immediately becomes correct and proper urban trash-talk. So to Noel and Gooch I became "Flem-dog" and use of the nickname in various forms continued including the oft-used "flem", fleming, flem-bone, flemster, and of course “Phlegm”. Strangely it appears the tradition will live on. Yesterday I dropped off my son at his mom's house. We walked up to the door and exchanged the usual goodbyes and I love you's. He gives me a big hug, looks at me and says, "See you tomorrow Flem".

Have we met???

I suppose it would be polite at this point to introduce myself. My name is Darrin and I welcome you to my blog.

This is not my first attempt at a blog but I intend for it to be my last. I enjoy writing, but between myspace.com, facebook.com, friendster.com, anonymousguyplay.com, etc. it's hard for your average every day guy to find a place to call cyber-home. I figure at some point a guy has to settle down and choose one blog amidst the myriad of blogs clamoring for my blog attention. I'm certain it's not a commitment issue or anything. :) My mom agrees of course, but then again my mom thinks I'm way too good for any blog. My therapist has additional thoughts on the issue but I digress...

I can't promise to impart my wisdom on a daily basis. In fact, when it comes to imparting wisdom I'm probably lucky to muster it up bi-annually. However, at times I do enjoy putting my thoughts on "paper" and intend to post as often as time permits. As most of my friends and family have come to expect I will always remain neutral, openminded, politically correct, polite, and non-offending. I Promise. Hmmm....on second thought "promise" might be a strong word. For now let's go with "attempt" So for your reading pleasure I welcome you to my blog....