Again, I need that book.  Calling these daisies and blue/purple flowers seems a bit weak.  There were yellow flowers, too.  Wow, I pretty much know the Latin names!  There were green things, too.

I had a much easier trip and I credit that to the weather.  I took more photos, and had a pretty relaxing time of it. I am anxious to see the rest of the photos, and am hopeful that the lab does a bit better job of it.  I am looking forward to developing the black and white film that I shot.  I will be developing this in a bathroom--I haven't done that for 30 years.  The more things change...

It may seem that all I do is walk around and take photos, but I do work.  Some have asked what exactly I do at my new job.  It is still being determined, but I am gaining a better idea.  Here is what I know for sure.  I go to meetings.  I deal with the same things that I have seen at four different colleges.  It is more a matter of scale, I think, but the topics under discussion area the same.  They include distance ed and on-line classes, staffing of classes, funding, budgets, enrollment and on and on.  People here do seem to be pretty friendly about it all, which helps.  Most of the people who are my direct reports have met with me, and told me what I should do and need to do and shouldn't do--they haven't had a new person to do that with for a while, so that it is to be expected.  My bosses have been great--I think that we both have more questions of each other than any real answers, but so far it has worked out well and I have enjoyed getting to know them.  One boss and I share a program assistant, and she is wonderful--that is more important than most people realize, and I feel lucky for the accident of staffing.

I think that I travel next week for a few days to someplace exotic, like Everett.  I am sure that it will get busier and busier as the start of school approaches.  It is very different preparing for a start date of September 22!  I have heard that the enrollment numbers are pretty good for the fall, and I think we will have a full house.  It is nice to see more and more people on campus.

No ideas as to what what I will be doing for the long weekend.  It is odd.  For most of the last 5 or more years, I have been so much busier than I am right now.  I have no doubt that it will get busier, but right now, for the first for a long time, I have a what I think you would call an "8 to 5" job.  That is great, but different.  Now, I have to get a life of sorts outside of work.  I don't know how to do this.  Does Costco have them?  Do I look on the internet?  I think it might involve getting a hobby, or something like that.  That might be theme these next few weeks, and I am sure it might be worth a post or two.

I think that I need to buy a book on alpine wild flowers--calling these daisies seems somewhat inadequate.  These are smaller, with spikier petals, and they grow in far more inhospitable space.  I suspect that I broke at least one or two federal laws even leaning on the alpine meadow habitat, and it is easy to recognize how fragile the meadows are.  

Table Top from a different angle, a more imposing view that you can see on the way up.  The hike up is on the other side.  The trip up this week was very different.  The light was different, as mentioned, but the weather was different as well.  Last week it was in the high 80s, but yesterday it was but 45 when I started hiking.  

What a difference a day/week makes.  Light changes dramatically, of course, but the weather was very different as well.  I had the mountain to myself for more than an hour, an amazing feeling, and almost intimidating.  Clouds were coming in, and by the time I left, Baker and Shuksan were both increasingly shrouded by clouds.  It made for dramatic photos with very different moods than then photos I took last week.

I did bring a 4X5 on this trip up Table Top.  A small one, but it was fun.  I found this little alpine "puddle" filled with snow melt and found it worth a photo.

While there are many big trees, it is sometimes difficult to remember that most of the trees that you see are not "old growth" forest but really trees that are about 100 years old.  At the end of one road near a trailhead, the remains of several of the old trees were visible.  These were almost the size of my car, as the stumps were easily five to six feet across.

More photos...

As I mentioned, I did take a regular film camera, a significant medium format camera that weighed 10 lbs. and that has incredible resolution and lenses.  My new lab, however, had some challenges.  It processed my color negative film as color slide film.  Ooops!  It altered the color dramatically and in some cases to the detriment of the photos.  Some "artists" do this on purpose.  I am far too much the realist to ever do this with a photo.  Still,  you should be able to begin to see the quality of the photographs, even from these scans of the corrupted originals.  Some are kind of cool!  The top photo is of Picture Lake and Shuksan, one of the most famous photos of the region.  I am very interested in taking more wild flower photos.  I see real potential in these photos.

So, Saturday, weather permitting, I am going to do this again.  I promise not to, as one of my audience said, "whine like an old lady" and do this with a bit less drama.  I am still not sure if I can become a vegan, which was their other suggestion!  I might not take as many digital photos but I will bring my medium format and a 4X5 camera.  More photos soon!!!

People who know me know that I don't take many sunset photos, but it was a wonderful night last night, and I took two, very different sunset photos.  One was inside and was outside, and I like them both, though one is a tad bit more dramatic.

I took this one--I shoved the camera onto a little rock shelf, and used that handy self-timer thing.  I would like to say that I am red because I was sunburned, and I was/am, but I suspect it is more because I was overheated and overworked.  Still, it shows the neighborhood I was in, and shows how close the mountain seemed.  It is actually more than 6 miles away.

I found a better photo of Shuksan from Table Top.  Shuksan looks like a mountain should look in the Northern Cascades.  Its all craggy, imposing, and almost foreboding.  Baker, on the other hand, looks like the mountains that we as eight year olds drew in art class.  They were formed entirely differently, too.  Baker is an active or live volcano, and Shuksan is a geologic formation--much of it at one time was under a sea.  Shuksan has been widely photographed, far more than Baker, and it graces cups and key chains, mouse pads and posters.  

Below is his royal old pudgy-ness.  I might add that this was taken by about a 65 year old woman who passed me going up.  I am smiling at a family that had just made it up, with all of them, including the 8 and 10 year olds who apparently skipped up.  I guess I was the only one who thought the climb tough.  

mountains

Mount Shuksan, from the top of Table Top Mountain

Mount Baker, from about 3/4 of the way up Table Top Mountain

I climbed a mountain today.  Admittedly, it was a short mountain, but a mountain none-the-less, and it is on the maps and everything.  It is called Table Top Mountain, and it is more or less in the middle, between Mt. Baker and Mt. Shuksan.  It towers at about 57oo feet, though to put it in perspective, it is only about 1/2 the height (altitude?) of Baker.

Why in the world would I do this?  I wanted to go on a hike, and one of the books I read about all of the trails said this is a walk in the park.  The trail is only 2.r miles long, and considering my basic level of conditioning, I thought that I might hike a little more than two miles.  The challenge was the vertical rise over those that mile.  The trail was carved out of the mountain in the most expedient way, which is as close to straight up as possible.  It raises at more than a 25% grade over that mile.  And it was hot, more than 80 degrees.  And I am old and fat and clearly out of shape.  Really out of shape.

But lets put this in better context.  First off, in the past six months, excepting Prague, I have been unlikely to walk two miles in one exertion.  And remember where I lived--there are no hills, much less mountains, in NW Ohio.    Still, I thought that I could do this without major pain.  Silly me.  Below is the mountain.  The trail starts at about 4700 feet, and ends at a bit more than 5700 feet.  

I made it.  The altitude thing really hurt as did the heat, and I was hurting, nor did I set any speed records--lots of stops until I stopped gasping like a Koi out of water.  But the real question is why in the world did I do it?  There were vain, personal reasons.  I am/was denying this age thing, I am sure.  I wanted to quit, but I would not let myself--stubbornness I am sure.  I am apparently young at heart, if not young in being, or so I would like to believe.

But the photos on the top of this post are perhaps the key reasons why I sweated and basically humiliated myself to make it up this tiny mountain.  What views.  What a church to visit.  And what a place to visit.  I have pushed my mind with a new job, pushed my heart to leave much of what made or makes me "me" but I also need to push my body, too.  But most of all, I need to always always remember where I am in this world, and reconnecting with a mountain that are ages old, puts all of this in perspective.

It did inspire me.  I am planning on my next summit, which tomorrow might be a flight of stairs, considering how I feel about now.  But still.  I also wonder if I can make it up the mountain more quickly the next time, and maybe with an even bigger camera!

I have to go find some Motrin and a masseuse.  

OK, I know that I said that I wasn't gloating about being here, but I admit it, I am gloating right now.  Today was an incredibly busy day, and I had but a few moments of my own.  I saw this the other day, and I have been kind of carrying my camera, my real camera around for a moment when the sky was clear.  Today was wonderful--70 degrees and perfectly clear, with low humidity.  This is the view that I see when I walk out of my office and turn to the left.  The road at the bottom of the photo is the road that I cross every day about 10 times.  OK, I am done gloating.

Musings

There is probably a significant percentage of my audience, if you can call the few that have this address an audience, that wonders why I spend so much time on this blog.  It is not to gloat, though did I mention that it was a beautiful day, and that before out cabinet meeting, our president MADE us take out our coffee and walk along the beach and look at the ocean, the mountains, and the Canadian shore just across the way?  OK, I might be gloating just a tiny bit...

I am writing this in part because I am pretty lonely out here.  People have been wonderful, and I do like it, but I am lonely.  No one, excepting Linda, and we don't see each other all that much, really knows me and still likes me, a favorite definition of a friend.  And sometimes I know and feel that the people who do love me or have to love me are far away.  I do feel that.  So I write to ease the distance and to share my (limited) life with my people who are far away in distance but close in my heart.  I am still struggling to be happy out here and I have not fully attained it.  I miss people.  I get frustrated because I don't know where to turn or find the best cheap, but good, Chinese food.  I have had that level of comfort for a long time, and then to struggle with the day to day stupid stuff without a support system that I could just call makes it hard and lonely.

But through this blog and with phone calls and emails, I celebrate and share the little victories and the little signs of happiness that come my way.  It doesn't mean that I am settled or in a complete comfort zone or necessarily where and what and who I want to be.  But I am working on it...thanks for indulging me.

My favorite piece of art so far.  This is a fountain, carved out of local rock that was dragged from British Columbia by a glacier, and left on a Bellingham street.  The ball is 40-inch sphere, and it basically floats in a socket that is just a tiny bit larger.  Water is forced in the socket under pressure, and though the ball weighs tons, you can move it with a gentle shove.  I have seen these with a three inch ball, but this is cool.  I plan to sit out by it in the sun and rain, listen to the water, watch the ball slowly turn, and then contemplate my navel.  I mean, think deep meaningful thoughts.

This is Kulshan Hall, the building where my office is at.  There are two major pieces of art visible.  On the left is a representative view of an snake, and there is a fountain on the right.  The campus is filled with art, and the buildings, while not pathbreaking, are interesting.  I came from a campus that aside from one building, art was considered painting the concrete blocks rather than just leaving them plain.  What a nice change!

Some people have teased me about changing just because I am in the NW.  I may have "adapted" just a bit, but I haven't changed.  For example, I bought square toe shoes, bowling style shoes, something that I resisted for years since a trip to London.  How cool, finally, am I?  So cool to almost overlook how little I have changed.  So I had a retreat with the cabinet today, and Jason went with fountain pen ink all over my hands and with several blobs all over my pants.  So I am a little less cool, shoes not withstanding.

Downtown Bellingham is a mix of upscale and well, let's say, less upscale.  There a a million pictures to be taken there--this was another wet Sunday morning photo/

A wet Sunday morning in Bellingham.  There are 14 Starbucks in the city--this one is downtown.

Fitting in in Bellingham

I made it through my first official day today, and I think I avoided stepping in anything, putting my foot in my mouth or anything like that.  I think that I avoided saying stupid things, often spoke in complete sentences, and was quiet when I should have been.  I would call that a successful day.

It will be interesting to see how I fit in.  I am not nearly outdoorsy enough, at least at this point.  I don't have a single pair of Keens, I don't have a carbiner that holds my keys, and in fact am uncertain on how to even  spell carbiner, though I know that the real NW folks use real ones, not the fake ones for key holders.  I get hyper when I drink as much coffee as some people do and am amazed that anyone is laid back with all that caffeine.  Honestly, today I stopped on the way to work and ordered a 20 oz mocha, and asked for an extra shot, only to be told that it already came with three shots, and did I want to have four shots instead?  Only if my cardiologist was on call...

I think that I could come up with a list of a few things that would help me blend in a bit better.  I need to come up with a physical activity plan--everyone talks about how they ran there, biked to that other place, kayaked back and then hiked a mountain on the weekend.  Saying I read a book, even one on renewable energy, doesn't cut it.  I need to lose weight.  I think that might come if the first thing is attained, but there are some fit people.  Annoying beyond belief.  I need to at the very least keep my roof rack on my car, and perhaps even use it, though I would gain acceptance points just by having a sea kayak on it, and I talked about or to or whatever they do with orcas.

Still, I think I do like it here.  Tonight I was sitting at the Bellis Faire Mall, and I ate teriyake from the Kojo grill which is proudly part of the food court there. It is a meal that I have eaten countless times in my other, previous life in Bellingham, and it was a renewed memory,  a warm memory.  The mall is a bit seedier and tattered around the edges, but so am I, I think.  The company (myself) was OK but different than before--it was a different life.  But those memories of eating that meal before going to a cheap movie on "date night" were so real.  And good.  Honestly, they were so real.  It helped that I think that the same guy still works there, and it was the same chicken, too!    Oddly enough it pointed out to me how much I have changed and how little I have changed.  When we ate that meal it was a real treat and pushed our budget to be able to eat and go to a movie.  Now, I suppose I am a bit higher up the economic food chain, yet I still chose the same meal.  The good thing is that this meal still meant as much to me, and was still a treat for me.

I think that I will continue to both experience new things and re-interpret old memories as I try and fit in and learn the area again.  That is OK.  The blending of memories and new experiences will certainly make it a richer life.  

This weekend I am going to Seattle to see John Lindrud as he visits his older brother.  It will be fun, and I will have more stories to share on the weekend.

In Idaho, you can feel like you are driving right into a wall of trees, and the air is pine-scented, and there is not a bit of Pinesol near...it makes you want to open the windows and take a deep breath.

I think that this is in Miles City, Montana, and it was the Teslow Elevator.  Great sky!

OK, I probably could have stretched my historical understanding, under duress, to make it through the Sacajawea Trading Post, but I choked on the "& snack shop."  This is just outside of the Teddy Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota.

It is amazing to see 100 million years of geologic history on one view--this is the Columbia River Gorge--a breath taking sight that makes the song, "Roll On Columbia, Roll On" seem more appropriate.

I am posting two of these photos just because I like them...esthey are kind of a cross between a sunflower and black-eyed Susan.  Probably more like a mini-sunflower.  They brightened a dreary cloudy start to day three of the four day journey

Photos, etc...

It is not that much work to figure out why they call it the Big Sky country

  

Change

First, I am here.  My little car and I made it all the way here, more than 2500 miles.  I have most of the stuff out of the car and my car is issuing several different kinds of sighs of relief.  I went to the grocery and bought a bottle or two of wine.  Done with the major traveling and heavy lifting, still working on the wine.

I think that I have avoided being too reflective in my posts, though there has been plenty of time to reflect on this journey.  One the luxuries and the curse of spending most of 4 days in a car, I guess.  I did the use that time to think but I also listened to books on tapes, er, CDs.  The highlight of that was listening to "The Kite Runner."  What a fantastic book, and I enjoyed every minute of the 13 hours that it took the author to read his book.  There are several themes in the book, but I think that the overriding theme was that of change.  That said, it fit perfectly into my mood and experiences.  

I have thought about this and of how to address this.  Maybe this is the best way.  One of my best friends ever in the whole world is addressing and facing lots of change right now.  As my friend moves to perhaps a series of radical changes, I am reminded of a truly great quote in the book.  He writes that basically when facing great change, one has to deal with what is the dichotomy of change.  You either face the certainty of turmoil if you don't change, but if you do, you face the turmoil of uncertainty.  This is very apt in my friend's case, but it also is reflective of what I faced.  If I had stayed at Owens, there is no doubt that I would have faced certain turmoil, some inflicted, and some self-inflicted.  It was certain that I would have it at work and in Findlay, broadly speaking.   Out here, I will face the turmoil of uncertainty, but somehow I like that it is unknown and uncertain.  

My friend worries more than almost anything about the the uncertainty.  But I have told my friend that the future can be shaped and controlled and you can be proactive in its unveiling.  Not changing simply means turmoil and  being reactive, and having to fight to affect ot change anything.  Now that things are changing, it offers a chance to make things happen that my friend can affect.  I look forward to being able to affect these coming changes.  I hope my friend is, too.

I will show and tell more about where I am at tomorrow, with photos.  It will be nice to show people  my new space as I discover it.  

In my little car

There have been two pictures of sorts of my little Honda Fit, but it deserves a longer mention.  First off, I do have fond feelings towards the car--it is practical, it holds a lot of "stuff" and it is one of the in cars for us hip and cool 20-somethings.  But I have to say that I really do feel sorry for it right now.  First, I have loaded it to the max, and probably well above the recommended load capacity.  And that is after I thoughtfully mailed out most of my books!  I don't know what it is complaining about.

It is full, from floor to ceiling and from side to side--even the front seat is full.  I see these mournful hitchhikers on the side of the road, and for right now, the main reason I don't pick them up is because there is not any room.  It frees me from worrying about picking up an ax murderer.  I just don't have room for the ax.

Then, I no doubt insulted its beauty and grace by putting on a car rack, and then putting on a bike and a huge cargo bag.  I am sure that it doesn't care that it rack and all is the best that Yakima and Thule make--they make it look fat and they do ruin its lines.  The rack and all certainly change its slippery shape.  It now drives like it has a piece of plywood on top, and it cut about 35% off of its mileage, as it has to work harder just to push all that air.

It has made my top speed 62-63 MPH.  That might hurt the most--believe me when I say that ND has to look better at 78 miles per hour...

It is also dealing with all of this AND much more difficult terrain.  Think about this:  My Fit is two years old and has 63,000 miles on it as it made that roundtrip from Findlay to Toledo five or six times a week.  But that trip has all of the geographic diversity of an airport.  This trip has already caused my poor Fit to cross the Continental Divide at nearly 7,000 feet above sea level, and I have two mountain ranges left to cross.  As someone told me, the squirrels that power that thing did not sign up for that!

But it is all going well, and while I never thought that I would have to stop every 200 miles for gas, it is good to get out and walk around.  So far no problems, and I have less than 500 miles left to go.  

More tomorrow.

Time is relative...

I always thought that I had a pretty good internal clock and an innate sense of time.  After all, most of life has been centered around measures of time.  Nine minutes in D-76 and 6 minutes in the fix, or 50 minutes or 75 minutes of class.  Geez, I even collect watches.  That said, I have to admit that I am totally confused with the time changes as I move west.

Admittedly I did sometimes get confused with the hour difference between Wisconsin and Indiana as some of my phone correspondents can attest.  I know that I sometimes called too early or too late even then.

But now I am simply clueless.  I am in Mountain time now, two hours behind Ohio, one hour behind Wisconsin, and one hour ahead of Washington time.  My watch was set on Ohio time, my computer on Central time, my Blackberry varies on whether it gets an upgraded digital signal or the older Verizon network, the clock in my car is on Eastern time and 17 minutes fast, too, and I took my watch off to even out my tan on my left arm as it hangs out of the window as I drive.  And I still have one more hour to lose.  Or gain.  I might as well be just looking at the sun, or waiting for the noon whistle.  I don't know when bedtime or breakfast is, and I suspect that I won't for some (sorry) time.

So expect calls some time, maybe too early or too late, and I think that I will expect the same for a while.  

No one travels alone.  Ever.  Merciful is just one manifestations of the people who have helped me make this trip and prepared me to make this trip.

I love this photo--in one shot it literally captures the whole town, its character and really, almost the whole town, including the one stop sign, the gift shop, its patriotic Americana, and the now empty school.  Well, I did miss the grain elevator and the bar, but those are givens in rural North Dakota.  This is Stark, ND, perhaps one of the most fitting names I have seen for a town.

Of course, it is always important to remember that the best sunsets happen after the sun actually sets--these clouds were glowing.  Maybe because I was tired, I thought that this cloud looked like a dragon.  Still do, but then I am still tired.

At the end of my first day on the road, I was tired, but there were some rewards for being a road warrior.  This was in Western Wisconsin.

Who says you shouldn't or can't look back?  Photos are sometimes ironic--here my car/bike is a shadow on the road as I drive by the Owens' Findlay area campus.

No, it isn't the Beverly Hillbillies, just my car as I readied to leave...my friend in the window is Merciful, a stuffed Basset hound that was a long-time resident of my Dad's home. and a long-time friend.

What got me here in the first place...

There are many variations of this saying, but a decent paraphrase of one of my favorite lines is, "Man plans, and God laughs."  I think that I like that because I am living proof of that axiom.  I had planned on staying in Findlay/Toledo, and planned on only casually looking for jobs, thinking perhaps that next year would be a better year for that step.  Can you hear the laughter?  Instead, I left my position rather abruptly, looked in earnest, and with few other opportunities closer to home, accepted a career path "job" eight states away.

I guess that is what they call a bold step, and it, like most first steps, was taken with some (considerable?) trepidation.  OK, let's be honest.  I am scared to death.  I had finally, I think, adjusted to all the changes that brought me to and came with my  move to Ohio.  I had, I think, developed relationships to a few key people who were my support network in Ohio and Wisconsin, and then all of this came up.

What this all has taught me (and I am sure that the lessons are not finished) is that there is never any perfect time for change, but it will come whether you are ready or not.  And that it is usually not just one change at a time, but several that happen in sequence--serial change, if you will.   I would say mine started when my Dad passed away in April, then I left my previous job, and then interviewed and accepted this job.  I have also learned that my changes do affect others, like ripples in a pond and that these ripples can be both good and bad, sometimes good and bad at the same time.  Lastly, I think I am learning that you sometimes just have to go along with the tide of changes.  They certainly cause challenges, but I am figuring out that it is easier and perhaps more productive to focus on how to solve the challenges rather than just dwell on the challenges themselves.  That is, it's best to look forward rather than backwards as you go on a roller coaster like this.

So, I am on this roller coaster.  With a lot of help, I had a garage sale, packed up and left my apartment, and am on my way.

Transitions

For those of you who have followed previous blogs of mine, this might be a bit different--those were blogs for a specific purpose--one was for a trip to London, the other for a trip to Prague.  This blog comes at a different time in my life, one with filled with new opportunities and adventures.  It also comes at a time when I need to do a better job and want to do a better job keeping in touch with people, people who are now 2,500 miles away.  The audience is very small, but I hope that it meets this goal.

As hinted at, I am in a transitional phase of my life--I sold most of my "stuff," loaded up my Honda, and moved to Beverly...whoops, it just looked like the Clampett's were moving in my car.  I had a new opportunity be a dean-type person at a community college in Bellingham, WA, so I am moving/moved to there from Findlay, OH.  There are a few places in California further away, but it is a long way from Findlay, as I am often reminded.  New job, new place to live, and a new blog space...there is a certain symmetry.

I am certain of only one thing about this blog--I want it to be, and need it to be interactive, and a tool for communication both ways.  Please comment and share, and do so often.  I recognize that the procedure for doing so is awkward, so feel free to use my email to respond.  It is henry919@mac.com.  Share with me, and this will be a lot more fun for everyone.