Pass

This is the coming out of (what is call by some as) the pass from Alger into Bellingham by Lake Samish. This interstate, along with State Routes 9 and 11 are the only roads that separate Bellingham from the rest of the United States. Canada is a wide open twenty five miles to the north, incidentally.

This picture was taken today on I-5 when I took a business colleague to see our plant in Anacortes. Then back for a speaker on seed cultivating and saving at Village Books. I think it was a huge success, as the room was full of people and more and more chairs were added. I am glad to be part of this wonderful community in Bellingham. In three weeks we will have a seed swap and we hope that it may turn out to be just as well attended.

Oddly enough I still am in a state of opposition with myself, as the evil Monsanto that is literally taking control of the seed stocks throughout the world by purchasing their genetic fingerprints is the same company that sells Round-Ready Canola to farmers in Snohomish Counties so we can make biofuels to gain our energy independence while offering the farmers a sustainable livlihood so they don't need to sell out to tunr thier fertile farmland into pavement or more lawns. And besides, grass clippings by far are this country's largest agricutural crop. And residential gardeners on average apply ten times the pesticides and herbicides of farmers. Oh, I could go on...

Bike

If there is sun to be had, Magilla will find it. Sometimes she thinks she's a cat. Here is a common morning perch on the back of the couch. On a similar note, I found that I cannot get visitation rights for my ex-dog. What I bitter divorce.

But today I was physically relieved by this bug that I'd caught, only to be bitten by another bug of consumerism. I've had my cruiser for well over two years and have really been getting the itch for something much lighter and faster. And you guessed it, this bike is something I was looking for for the past year - single speed convertible to a fixed gear: simplicity and functionality. (I could do without the color combination though.) And to make matters worse, I searched the internet and the after finding the cheapest price anywhere in the world?...Well the bike shop right around the corner is selling it for $70 less than the price I found on the web. Ack.

I once calculated the cost of driving and maintaining my paid-for VW that I owned. With insurance, gas, oil, repairs and maintenance, I calculated that I spent about $250/month on it, so I consider that a car payment unit (or CPU). And I don't own a car anymore, so I have been banking these CPUs. My last bike cost me one CPU; this one (with fenders, a rack and lights) I could get for less than three. The cunningness of marketing is gradually transforming this want into a need.

Yoga

Here's a picture taken from the ferry landing on Orcas Island last summer while we were waiting to return home. It was fun on a motorbike because you get to enter the ferry first. Or actually behind the bicyclists and pedestrians, but before all the cars and trucks.

Today was a day that my sickness left my body. I would have rather blown off yoga tonight but at least two people said it would be the best thing for me. So I went and I was glad I did. Whenever I get a three day flu, I always think of how nice it will be to be better again. Imagine the feeling of having an ailment from which one never recovers? Every day is a gift in our tiny self space in the huge expansiveness of time and other relativities.

And I should really get to bed, but when I got home Breakfast On Pluto was in front of the DVD player, so I popped it in - a disturbingly crude, yet enchanting movie.

Today was a seasonable mid-forties and cloudy. I'll take this versus thirty and sunny any day. I wouldn't be surprised is winter is over and it starts to warm up. I recall that things start germinating in mid-February.

Fish

Ralph Lloyd of Ferndale fly fishes for steelhead
in the south fork of the Nooksack River near
Van Zandt on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009.
"I've caught all four species of salmon here
before," Lloyd said.

Let me post a picture of someone that enjoyed the day more than I did. For me, it was a day of sleeping until eleven with a lazy dog that didn't resist. But I feel the sickness leaving my body, and tonight is a night of moonlighting while getting caught up on e-mails. Could they almost be under control?

Tomorrow is the dreadfully early day that I have of waking at six for a seven meeting. It's a networking meeting and I really do not have much need for networking anymore, as these are mostly local businesspersons that have been around the community for quite some time. But it's at the country club and the breakfast is very good too, so I keep going. And I am the one riding my bike while others are in their big shiny cars. Bu I'd bet they don't get to ride through the majestic, enshrouded firs of Cornwall Park on a Thursday dawn. Getting up early sucks, but the ride through the park is among my favorites.

I overheard someone at a party talking the other night about these excessive tides around the world. Two locations that came up on simple Google are the low-lying Marianas Islands and Venice. I wonder if these are the bellwethers of globabl climate change? It would make sense that ice melts around the ice caps and get redistributed around the world in liquid form. Just a hypothesis, as science is not my forte.

Farms

Here is a picture of my housemate and her ugly dog. I hope she doesn't mind me putting a picture of her on my web log. It is nice when she brings me tea in the afternoon when I am on the couch under a blanket watching the Rockford Files on the only channel we get trying to fight a sickness today at one o'clock. When she goes to work in the early morning she opens up my door and Magilla jumps into bed with me. Poor dog seems to be cold quite a bit, as she has about as much hair as a baby rat. When I turn the little heater on and point it on her, she usually licks my face.

But work marches on and I needed to go down to Snohomish for a dinner meeting tonight and then a meeting with local farmers regarding the viability of planting oilseed, like canola. The farmers have a thankless life, with all the elements and uncertainties working with and against them. And add climate change to the equation (believe it or not, some scientific models project even more rain in Western Washington), and it only increases the risk they face day by day. But it is our company's effort to support local agriculture and to keep farming a viable activity in this incredibly fertile land (some of the richest on the planet) versus paving it over and replacing it with generic tract housing or more tacky strip malls for fat retirees, or flat people attempting to escape their homogeneous life in the suburbs, only to bring it along with them. Oops sorry. Keep it positive.

Monday

I wonder when I was sick last? I never get really sick, but today was a day of feeling crummy enough to take Emergen-C, eat veggies and fruits and listening to some albums since my new turntable belt came on Saturday. The sensation of doing something you haven't done in years and years (and maybe decades) - such as moving the arm onto an LP and lowering the stylus to listen to an album - brings back memories and sensations from long ago. And listening to the crackle of Jackson Browne, as well as the deep bass that CDs just do not replicate. Compared to albums, CDs seem tinny.

Not much more to say. A long day both at my day job and my moonlighting gig. It is an interesting social fabric that is woven at the local convenience store (where a graduate degree is a prerequisite to working there - that's the running joke, at least) and knowing the comings and goings of many of the customers and engaging in discussions and understanding the integral part of the web it plays in the little community of Happy Valley.

"I'm going to rent myself a house
In the shade of the freeway
I'm going to pack my lunch in the morning
And go to work each day
And when the evening rolls around
I'll go on home and lay my body down
And when the morning light comes streaming in
I'll get up and do it again
Amen"
- The Pretender

Seedy

Today was a day of organizing a local speaker to talk about heirloom vegetables and the seed gathering. It will be held Village Books next Staurday. Then in a few weeks we'll be having a seed swap in Bellingham - the first annual. Today was a tea: about five minutes of business followed by a few hours of eating, drinking tea and socializing. My unwritten rule-of-thumb is no more than one meeting per activity with this group. I get mired in enough meetings to want to inflict more upon myself. A loose group of people that are interested in urban gardening, and all sorts of things diverging from that, except having meetings.

And an interesting tidbit from an e-mail I received tonight:
Pierce County's very own Carrie Anne Little is in the running, along with nineteen other farmers nationwide, in a campaign called "Eat the View!", which will urge the Obamas to plant a large organic Victory Garden on the First Lawn, and to appoint an official White House Farmer. The White House Farmer would be responsible for plowing up the existing lawn and planting and maintaining an organic garden, which would serve the White House kitchen as well as local food banks, as well as promoting organic and local farming nationwide. Carrie Little is the owner and proprietor of Mother Earth Farm, located on 8 acres of farmland in Orting. She and Mother Earth Farm have been working with Emergencv Food Network since 2000. The entire production at the farm is given to local food banks. In 2007, Mother Earth Farm provided more than 162,000 pounds of organic, locally grown produce, herbs and honey to our neighbors in need. Vote for Carrie – she epitomizes public service, and deserves to be recognized for all her hard work on behalf of those less fortunate among us.

This is basically what we are doing. Maybe Mr. Obama does have a grasp of the potential severity of things.

And in case I forget tomorrow, it is my 500th post on this web blog. For what? I guess some day I hope to write for pleasure. Writing for business is generally flat and dry, and wandering around the keyboard every night for a fw minutes always keeps my mind nimble, versus the more analytical, structured business writing. I have stories of travels all over in journals that I hope to someday revise and do something with.