Posts filed under "Blog"

School daze update
I’ve left a few messages at the school, but haven’t received any response. I suppose on Monday I’ll start calling the main office. Meanwhile, I’ve been looking up some things about the corporation that runs this school (and others in the area) – “corporation,” not school district – and I’ve been going through the curriculum […]
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School daze
“What year is this?” That line is taken from a message I got from a friend of mine who lives in the Midwest and whose child’s “5th grade Science class teacher told the children that global warming is a lie and was made up so people could make a lot of money off of it.” […]
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Declining baselines; A Slow fading of the light
The idea of declining baselines is something that, while we are slow to see it and loathe to acknowledge it, we all instinctively know for what it is. It doesn’t take us long to understand the implications once we do give the idea some consideration. The concept is simply this: over time, constantly worsening environmental […]
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RIP Marmot
I found out this past week that the Bellevue Marmot store is going to be shutting its doors. It’s not like anyone couldn’t see it coming… it had been a topic of discussion for years among those of us who had worked in the Marmot empire at some point. It’s the kind of job you […]
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Overused words, Part 2
Adventure ad·ven·ture [ad-ven-cher] noun 1. an exciting or very unusual experience. 2. participation in exciting undertakings or enterprises: the spirit of adventure. 3. a bold, usually risky undertaking; hazardous action of uncertain outcome. Another word that has been trotted out more times than a carnival donkey is the word “adventure.” There is nothing I can […]
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Rules
When did all these rules start getting posted everywhere? It may be nostalgia on my part but I seem to remember it wasn’t always like this. How many times do you have to hear the word “No,” before your creativity is stunted permanently? How is it possible to maintain a positive attitude in the face […]
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Overused words, Part 1
sus·tain·a·ble [suh-stey-nuh-buh l] adjective 1. pertaining to a system that maintains its own viability by using techniques that allow for continual reuse. 2. able to be maintained or kept going, as an action or process. If this one isn’t on your list of words that has been neutered by overuse, then you haven’t been paying […]
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A Fine Line
In matters of creative non-fiction, it is often hard to quantify which is the dominant factor: “Creative” or “Non-fiction.” There are those who say that the more a topic is personalized and garnished with the observer’s point of view, the less it can be seen as objective. There is an agenda here, they say, and […]
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The Nook Backcountry Tent by MSR
I am always looking for a new tent. I had one that I really liked but it’s been in need of some repair for a while now and I’ve been using others that I had out in storage, remembering the specific reasons that I no longer favor them. None of them are terrible, exactly; it’s […]
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New Year’s Day, 2014
I don’t know what happened to the past 12 months… it hardly seems possible that they would be already gone. But here we are again, ready to do it all over one more time. One more turn of the calendar, one more trip around the sun. Exactly the same, yet completely different. It’s been almost […]
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