The Boogeyman

Mos Def is hilarious. He had me laughing out loud seven times in this video:

1) The police,
2) Text/video messages,
3) The moon,
4) We've got a situation,
5) Otobots and Decepticons,
6) Clintons and Bushes passing the presidency around like a party joint,
7) Sasquatch,

He's going to be at Sasquatch! Hell yes!

In addition to the laughing, there is some great discussion. The topic of religion is brought up, and I have never really thought of religion in the terms Cornel West describes--using religion to resist the ugly forces, not cause them. I've thought for a while that religion is a huge problem in the fight for world peace, and I still do, but I had not thought how much good religion brings to the table.

How can I believe that the world would be a better place without religion, but also believe that it is better to have love and lost, than never loved at all? I like passion, and religion brings both good and bad passion to the table, just like love.

Rants and Raves

Squeeks is such a bitch. He is like the old racist grandfather with one leg that nobody likes, but he lost his leg in the war, so everyone puts up with his shit. Squeeks killed Ichi's soul. He didn't allow Ichi to eat until HE was finished eating. Now Ichi scarfs down his food and starts swatting at Watson until Watson leaves half of his food still in the bowl, fleeing in terror.

Ichi eats birds. He has eaten so many birds. And if not for Squeeks, I bet Ichi would just playfully toss the birdies with Watson out in the back yard. But Squeeks corrupted him, made him taste the flesh of animal, and now Ichi has THE HUNGER.

And that hunger came back to bite Ichi in the ASS yesterday. He climbed onto my lap and his entire ear was white. WHITE! What turns a cat's ear white? You fucking guessed it. Shit. Bird shit. The birds must have bukake-teamed up on his ass, because he could barely hear out of his ear. I think he was crying.

I just thought I would let you know how this bitch of a cat turned my cat into the whore that he is today. Speaking of today, Ichi was ripping a little bird to shreds this morning as revenge for yesterday. And I bet that is why Squeeks is smiling in this picture.

On the inside.

-your Ex

<3

http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/rnr/1089288728.html

Flight Attendant Rap

Good stuff!

Three Day Weekend Hijinx

Three day weekend for me this week. I spent Friday morning up at Stevens and re-learned how to snowboard, day 17 up at the pass this year, not bad! The snow was slushy, and I stuck to groomers all morning, but by the end of the morning I was doing laps on the backside, which tired me out quick. My boots are a bit too big, and whenever I do a toe-side turn my heel comes up out of the boot, so I am putting all of my weight on my toes, particularly the big knob behind my big toe.

Once I tired out boarding, I hit the Foggy Goggle for a beer and catching a few March Madness updates. I caught one of my two championship-game teams, Pittsburgh, struggling against E. Tennessee State, which isn't a good omen for the games to come. My bracket is in shambles as of Saturday night, but at least all of my Final Four teams are still intact, which can't be said of half of my pool for picking Washington to make it to the Final Four.

Parents made it home Friday afternoon about 30 minutes before I got back from the pass. It was great to see them again and hear their fun stories from Arizona. It is sad not to have the house to myself anymore, but I also missed having them around. I can't make fun of them nearly as much when they aren't here goof-balling around to make fun of. We watched basketball until the last games of the day were over.

Andrew and BAM picked me up, and we headed up to Kenmore to one their college buddy Ross's house. We got a poker game going, and I cleaned house. Poker is easy when you get cards and hit flops. We followed up poker with Liar's Dice, and played a dozen rounds of liar's dice, which lasted until 4am. Liar's Dice just might surpass Quarters as the game kings play. I don't think I ever won a game of Liar's Dice, but I had a majority of my buy-ins paid for by side bets.

Alarm clock woke me up at 11am, nice and hung over. I didn't really drink that much the night before, but when my head hit the pillow on Friday night, I knew I'd be in for a rough morning today. Yes, indeed. I chugged cranberry juice and hopped on the motorcycle and headed down to Tacoma for the PLU BBQ ultimate frisbee tournament. Riding a motorcycle for the first time in a month, in 40 degree weather is one of the best hangover cures I have ever experienced. I felt fine on the ride, but when I got to the fields and changed into my cleats, I nearly toppled over because my head felt like it weighed 30lbs from still being hung over.

I just made a guest appearance today for a few games with the WSU team, and we won the last game of the day in thrilling fashion. Down 4-7 at the half, then 4-8 after the next point, we mounted a very nice comeback to win the game on universe point, 13-12. I stuck around for burgers and beer while watching the showcase game, then motored back up to Seattle.

Tomorrow I go help Marc install a hot tub at his place, watch more basketball, and yes, probably even drink a little more beer.

Waffles Divorce

I left a heartfelt comment, in fact the first comment, on Waffles' re-entry into bachelorhood. I couldn't believe my eyes when my comment posted and the new word verification came up:



Watch out ck... watch out!

Stevens Pass Day 16: Best Day Yet

Well, I've done a piss-poor job of keeping the ski tally accurate, but through meticulous notes, I have determined that today was day 16. Conditions were perfect. It was a Monday, four feet of pow. in the last 48 hours, lightly snowing... the conditions were perfect. My one slight snafu was forgetting my jacket, with season's pass inside of it.

I walked up to the counter and asked what my options were. The guy behind the counter said he could print me out another pass for $10. I declined, because I am a cheapskate, and gave him a counter-offer.
Me: "I can print you out another pass for $10."
Attendant 1:"Hmm...can I hike up to Southern Cross and just go ski on the backside?"
Me: "Um... what? You are going to hike up the mountain?"
Attendant 1: "Well, I need to warm up anyways, since I forgot my jacket."
Attendant 2: "You're WHAT?! Hiking up the mountain?! You're crazy!"
Attendant 1: "I guess that is OK, I don't see why not."
Me: "Excellent."

I wound up sneaking onto a chair, so I didn't have to hike, but that would have been interesting.

The Moose Drool hoodie kept me warm and dry all day long, despite one amazing swan-dive face plant of mine in the powder off Southern Cross. I thought yesterday was the best conditions of the year, but today had another 16" on top of yesterday's morning base, and I hit the mountain much harder today than I did yesterday. We hit the glades off of Southern Cross, the trees off of Big Chief, and had powder runs on the backside all day long.

Yesterday I made an impromptu trip up to Stevens, even though I was supposed to play a triple-header of ultimate games, and then host a hot tub gathering. I woke up and it was snowing, which meant two things: 1) I really, really wanted to go skiing 2) The ultimate games would either suck or be canceled. It turns out 2 of the 3 games were canceled, and I invited the Tacomites over to hot tub without the host.

Yesterday marked the first time I had to put chains on the Saab, as I was unable to get the car out of the parking lot. By the amount of snow accumulated on the car, I'd say it snowed a good 8" while I was up there yesterday. Having to put chains on was somewhat of a bad beat, because if I had not used the chains I could return them for a full refund in April. My parents will be back Friday with the Honda Pilot, so I was four days from getting my $70 back, but, I'm sure I'll use the chains in the future. Actually, chains were required on the pass today, but somehow Kristy and I made it up and back without having to put them on.

I met up with Chelsey for the first time yesterday, and I was disappointed. For all of her love of snowboarding, and going up 30 times a year, she wasn't the sexy super boarder I expected. Granted, she's been sick for 3 weeks and had boarded the past two days, but she was blowing it. I did get a big spray in, which I promised her if we ever met up on the slopes. And I did get to see her make a couple of incredibly gnarly spills... like seeing a jump, heading into the jump, then biting it right before the jump and face-plant-sliding 15ft down the mountain. We mutually ditched each other after a couple of runs.

I've got cohort party night tonight, to which I am bringing 18 tall boys of PBR, playing cards, and a shit load of dice... if that does not spell party, I don't know what does.

March: The Best Month of the Year

I just came to this realization.

March Madness
Still Ski Season
Sporadic nice days of Spring
NBA Season
Ultimate Spring League starts
Spring Break

This is a pretty sweet month.

I've seen this commercial a couple of times tonight and can't stop laughing:

Inspired

Woke up.
Went to school.
Got reamed in the lesson I taught.
Came home for two minutes, fed the cats, brought in the mail, grabbed chips for the road.
Job Skills conference from 5-8pm, learned a lot to make myself a better candidate for jobs that will not exist.
Drove home.
Instantly shed clothes, grabbed beer and soaked in hot tub.

The night sky was remarkable.
The moon was shining bright, over a clear sky with clouds to the far south.
Orion's Belt was there for all to see.
Above was a deep dark blue, getting lighter and lighter as my gaze descended to the city.
Downtown had a protective (or poisonous) glow to it.
A lone plane flew due north, directly overhead as I gazed up at the sky, cutting an amazing line between the stars without ever clipping one.

Dr. Chako: you've still got squares to find, of two different-sized areas. Now you're on to the tough ones.

Brief Reprieve

It snowed three inches in Seattle last Thursday, and today I'm sunbathing on the porch with Ichi and Watson. I stayed up until 4am last night working on my literacy projects. I should probably be napping, but the sun feels amazing, especially with the weight of those literacy papers off of my scrawny shoulders.

This morning I woke up to my second alarm clock (my phone), which I rarely ever set. I have no recollection of a first alarm clock or subsequent snooze attempts, but the cell phone blare definitely woke me up. I stumbled downstairs and while walking down the stairs, I heard a slight commotion coming from the kitchen. There wasn't meowing going on, so I hesitated before opening the door. When I peaked my head into the kitchen, I saw what looked like a blue jay (or a blue bird) flapping its wings and trying to fly out of the closed windows. Watson was inside, sitting on the kitchen table staring up at the bird, and Ichi was outside on the hot tub cover pawing at the bird from the other side of the window.

I opened the back door and tried shooing the bird outside, but it, and its eye-ball piercing beak had other ideas. Eventually, I grabbed a towel and covered the bird, and carried it outside and placed it on a branch. It flew/hopped into the interior of the tree, with a damaged wing. I had wondered if our cats might go after bigger birds one of these days, and that question was answered this morning. The bird this morning was about the size of my hand, and could probably do some damage to our cats, if our cats weren't such good hunters!

I've got a resume to start on, and an observed lesson plan I need to start writing for Thursday afternoon. I also need to head inside and not get a March 3rd sun burn. Mom pointed out to me that today is square root day, 3/3/9. She said the next square root day will not happen until 4/4/16. Why doesn't 9/9/09 count? Does it have to be the whole equation, or does each number just need to be a square number? 4/4/09?

Speaking of math, Dr. Chako responded quickly with an answer to Math Question #2. He got the same answer I got quickly, until the math teacher said there are more boxes. "Try to create a square with an area of two," she said. "If you can create a square with an area of two, you will see how to create additional squares with areas of more than just 1, 4, 9, and 16."

The questions remain, from a 5x5 dot drawing, by connecting dots with a straight line:
1) How many different-sized squares can you make?
2) How many total squares can you make?

Math Problem #2

I'm sure this is not the second math problem I have put up on this blog, but I started writing "Math Prob..." and the only other title entry was Problem #1, so I guess I should start up a series.

We did a fun math problem today in class, and I thought I would share the problem, and my extension of the problem with my internet friends.

Draw a 5x5 square of dots, so five dots across in a row, and five rows down:

. . . . .
. . . . .
. . . . .
. . . . .
. . . . .

The above drawing might not be a perfect square, but ideally the space between dots would make a perfect square for each foursome of dots.

The two questions are:
1) How many different-sized squares can you make?
2) How many total squares can you make?

The two questions are a bit trickier than meets the eye. One hint is to see what area of boxes you can make. Can you make a box with an area of 1 (assuming the distance between each dot is 1)? How about 2?

I've got answers for both, although I'm not sure if my answer to the second part of this question is correct, so I'd like someone to try and see if we get the same answer.

We used Geo-boards in class and had rubber-bands to band around the pegs, if you have an old Geo-board lying around at home.

Spilling the Beans (Juicy Mega-post)

My loyal readership (my mom) called me out for pulling a Schaefer (i.e. not posting for a while). The reason I have not posted since Feb. 18 is not due to lack of action in my life, in fact, quite the opposite. In honor of my poker playing brothers Cayne and Doc. Chako, I shall begin with bullet points. Since Feb. 18, I have:

--Started a relationship
--Fallen for someone else
--Hiked to Scenic Hot Springs (with a college friend I have not seen in five years)
--Played hookie and gone powder-day skiing
--Lost 4" of my hair
--Hosted a teaching cohort poker night
--Ended a relationship

All while taking six classes and teaching two days a week. Not much time to blog, and I've got a huge project due Tuesday that I should be starting now.

Let's begin at the top. This post roughly details how Erin and I met. It was spontaneous and magical, in a way. I had no expectations of anything happening when I invited her over to watch Survivor, heck, I was pretty sure she was still in a relationship. She wasn't, and I felt like a gift had just been dropped in my lap, and I went for it. Turns out she had a small crush on me, and fireworks ensued.

Then something weird happened. I've never been in a situation or relationship where when we are together, everything is nearly perfect, but when other people are around I can't stand her, or when we aren't together, I don't spend time thinking about her. She is almost my dream girl when it is just the two of us, but when other people are around, she reminds me way too much of Stacey. The personality traits that I like, are the same ones that I can't stand. Erin is opinionated and wears her heart on her sleeve, but she tends to piss a lot of people off. When we aren't together, I think of reasons why we aren't going to last, and why I should try and break the relationship off.

To spice things up, two days after Erin and I first hook up, I rode my motorcycle down to Georgetown to play pickup ultimate. I run into Wynne and Lora from the Tacoma team, who I haven't seen in months. Wynne is playing on Riot now, and another Riot woman, Surge, is there. We get to talking, and it turns out Surge was one of two people that rode up to Stevens with Michelle the day I first met Michelle skiing with Jeremy and Sam. I invited her to go skiing the next weekend and she turned me down. This was before Erin, and I was pretty sure Michelle wasn't interested. Talking with Surge and Wynne, apparently I was wrong.

Surge says, "Oh! You're the guy that could keep up skiing with Michelle, she was talking all about you on the drive home!"

This, two days after Erin and I hook up. God damn it. Wynne and Surge ask if I'm in a relationship, and I say, "Does two days count?" Wynne and Surge now are on a mission to hook Michelle and I up. Two hours after pickup that Saturday, I get a text from Michelle, wanting to know if I want to go skiing on President's Day. The day of skiing was an unexpectedly good day, and I actually got up to the mountain before Michelle left from Seattle. I found some good snow and let Michelle know that it was worth the drive. As soon as I texted her, I headed in for lunch and hammered out a homework assignment on my laptop, knowing we'd ski hard all afternoon. Productive and fun ski day, who'da thunk it?

So I'm seeing Erin, and loving the time we spend together, but when we're not together I'm thinking about Michelle. Other people in the teaching cohort are starting to gossip about Erin and I, and it is getting a bit weird. I'm not willing to jump into a relationship with Erin 100%, because of where my head is at when we're not together, and my indecision only stirs the rumor mill in the cohort, making things more awkward.

Last weekend, I get a bit of a reprieve from my whorish ways. Jenna and Andy, newlyweds from Beaver, WA, come over to the city. Shannon also comes up from Tacoma, and I have not seen her since graduation day, five years ago. Shannon, Jenna and I were dorm friends from the first semester of college. We went on December trips to Whistler, and a spring break ski trip to Colorado. It was great to see them again, and we played cards (we played a ton of cards in college) Friday night. Saturday, we hiked to Scenic Hot Springs, a hot springs that is private and apparently not open to the public. The hot springs actually has its own blog, and the latest blog entry at the time was that the hot springs are "running cold." That isn't what you want to hear when you've never been to the springs before, and will be spending the majority of your day driving and hiking to the springs.

We missed the forest service road our first drive by, and really had no clue how to get to the hot springs. Shannon had the brilliant idea of taking a digital photo of the google map before we left, so if we got lost we could always check the map on the camera. We checked the map a few times and knew a clear-cut for the big power lines were south of us, and that we needed to cross that clear-cut, so we started tromping through the snowy forest. Absolutely no trail to follow. We eventually find the road and footprints in the snow to follow up to the hot springs.

The hike was difficult. It was steep, and the trail was a combination of ice and powder. If you stuck to the footprints, you'd be on ice, but if you didn't use the foot prints, you'd have to hike up in a foot of powder, which makes hiking uphill a grunt. We were rewarded, though:



I snapped this photo on the way out. Jenna, Andy and Shannon are standing next to the hot springs, which is tucked into the snowy hillside. The hillside overlooks the Stevens Pass basin, and is really an incredible spot. When we got to the hot springs, there was a couple already there, who turned out to be two of the hot springs' caretakers. Randi and Matt were incredibly nice people, and they gave us the lowdown on the hot springs rules, and how as long as people are respectful of the hot springs (i.e. follow the rules and pack their garbage out), they are welcome.

We make it back to Seattle and pretty much just crash. I think we went out to the Duchess for dinner, but we ended up hitting the post UW basketball crowd of dooshes. Eventually they left, and we got to play some shuffleboard, which Andy and I dominated. We walked home, Shannon left for Tacoma, and Jenna, Andy and I watched "The World is Not Enough" on whatever station plays Bond movies all the time (TBS?). Andy and Jenna left the next morning after walking up to a cafe for breakfast. It turns out that Shannon is pretty big into rock climbing and mountaineering with her boyfriend, and they have a ton of random gear (including two spear-fishing poles?!), so hopefully I can get up rock climbing with them this spring and summer.

Reprieve from soap-opera life aside, Michelle invited me to go skiing Thursday. The problem with skiing on Thursdays is that I am supposed to teach a class of 4th graders on Thursdays. But... but!! the snow report says a foot of powder. What do you do? What DO you do? I chose to ski. I concocted a ridiculous scheme to get out of school Thursday, which included scratching my back non-stop through our Wednesday teacher after-school meeting. Steve was sitting right beside me, and eventually says, "Chris, you're scratching like crazy, you alright?" Thanks for picking up on the bait, fishy! "Oh yeah, I'm fine, just itches like crazy." At 7pm I give Steve a call on his cell phone and say, "Steve, it turns out that itch is a big rash! I haven't had a rash since I was 12 and had an allergic reaction to penecillin. The rash has spread up the side of my neck and I'm going to see the doctor tomorrow at 10am."

Funny how the little white lies spin completely out of control for me. Then, of course, it snows 2-4 inches in Seattle and school gets put on a two-hours late schedule, and I probably could have just skipped without repercussion, anyways. I feel bad about lying, and while Michelle and I were riding the chairlift, I wonder out loud how long it will take until I tell Steve about my rash story. I think once I've been teaching for a few years I'll have to track him down and let him know.

Skiing Thursday was unbelievable. Michelle and I got to the mountain right as it opened, and there were a dozen cars before us in the B lot. I usually park in the F lot. We had a foot of fresh powder all day long, and I had numerous turns in snow up to my knees. We hit the mountain hard in the morning, starting on Double Diamond, hitting the back side, Schim's Meadows, and the cliffs off 7th Heaven. We popped in for lunch, spent, and drank a beer and ate a slice of pizza. After a leisurely 45 minute lunch, we head back out and decide to do some hiking in the back country.

We take our skis off and start hiking the ridge on the back side. We pass a guy in his 40s on the ridge, who catches back up to us at the ski area boundary. Michelle asks where he is headed, and he says there is a really good section of trees just outside the ski boundary, but warns us that we have to cut over after about 1k vertical feet, or else we'll have a long hike back to the ski lift. After hiking the ridge for five minutes, a long hike at the bottom of the run is not what we're looking to do, so we ask if we can follow him. He obliges and introduces himself, his name is "Wolf."

The glades section is perfect. Untouched powder, trees 10ft apart--I couldn't have asked for a better run. The three of us end up doing the hike and tree run a second time before Wolf and us part ways. Michelle and I do a non-hiking run on the backside, then drop into Tye Bowl from the backside for the second time on the day. I had never dropped in from the backside before, and you have two options: a skinny, steep chute, or an easier tree section out to the right. In the morning, we did the easy way, but for the last run of the day, I decided to try the chute. There are a few rocks sticking up here and there, but it looks doable.

I jump-turn into the chute, and on my entry I clip the side of the chute with my ski tip and lose a ski. I tumble uncontrollably down the 50ft chute, losing both of my skis. When I come to a stop, one ski is with me, and the other is about half-way up the chute. Looking back up the chute I see that I've just tumbled over rocks and a little 3-5ft cliff. I didn't feel a thing on the way down, all I could think is, "shit! shit! shit! I have no health insurance!" When I came to a stop and still had control over my limbs, I was happy. Stupid and happy. Michelle was able to ski around the easy way and knock my ski down to me from the middle of the chute.

Before heading back to Seattle, we had another beer and some curly fries to complete an amazing day of skiing. We drive back to Seattle and even though she didn't bring a suit, we decide to hot tub at my place to make the ski day perfect. As we're drinking our beers and soaking in the hot tub, she lets me in on a little secret. Her family has owned the Denver Broncos for the past 20 years. !!! The first thing that pops into my head is the Simpsons episode where Hank Scorpio buys the Denver Broncos for Homer, and Homer groans as the players out on his front lawn bumble and stumble around. Apparently Michelle's grandfather founded Regent Oil, one of Canada's biggest oil companies, then bought the Broncos and when he passed away, the shares were split between his sons. Michelle's dad just sold his shares of the franchise to her uncle, who is apparently not the nicest guy in the world (and he's the guy that fired Mike Shannahan on New Years Eve, which was seen as a good, but kinda ruthless move).

An hour after Michelle leaves, Erin comes over and we hop in the hot tub. I've got one dream girl as a friend (Michelle), and I'm with another person who is a dream to be around, but I just don't see us working out long term. I'm confused to high hell. Saturday I head over to Andrew's parents house for my semi-annual hair cut. We talk a bit about the whole situation and Karen's advice is to be as truthful as possible. I agree, especially after the little white lie snowballed into a flesh-eating rash to get me out skiing on Thursday. When the haircut is done, there is enough hair on the floor to create a wig, so we take a picture that will be sent down to my dad in Arizona, who may or may not have a dime-sized bald spot.

Last night, I have a few people from the teaching cohort over for poker, including Erin. We have a really fun time. Erin gets knocked out first, and storms off, hating poker. I get knocked out second when I think I have the nuts with a flush on a paired board... Erin and I play some Wii tennis and baseball. I own her at both, and she is not happy. We go out back on the porch and talk, and she wants me to let her win at games. I tell her I'm not going to, because letting her win by playing down to her seems more insulting to me.

After poker, we play some drinking games, including 21, liar's dice, and asshole. I almost win my poker buy-in back by winning the $1 liar's dice game. Easy money with kindergarten teachers, they don't know math!

Eventually everyone but Erin leaves, and we head to bed. We talk, and completely open up about our relationship. She sheds tears about not being able to open up to me, and I talk about the weird and confusing struggle I'm having. I tell her that I really like the time we spend together, but for some reason when we're not together I think of reasons why we're not going to work out, and that seems weird to me. I feel like I should be head-over-heels for her, but I'm not. I tell her I can't give her 100% of myself, because I honestly don't know what I want. I don't want her to be in limbo, because being in limbo is worse than breaking up.

She likes me and hates me at the same time for being honest. We both think this is a conversation most couples have months or years down the road, and we're having it on our third week together.

And here I am, 12:30pm on Sunday. Still confused, but happy that I have told the truth and gotten things off my chest. Paper time, then another group of friends over for hot tubbing and Catan.

Whew.