A geographical oddity

The zipper in the wild!

We took a much needed break from technology, work, and the city this weekend. I had a hard time keeping a straight face when I told my students I wouldn't be available by email from Friday-Tuesday--their final is on Wednesday. (They always look shocked and horrified, and I can't tell if it's because they can't imagine being out of cell service for that long, or if it's because they had plans to email me--I'm going with the former).

Taking full advantage of our newish, super gas-mileage vehicle, we took a whirlwind camping, walking...and generally being lost...tour of the east of our fine state.

I also took great joy in capturing the "wild car" (as seen in this series to the right) and making fun of us for our lack of subtlety, driving around in a red, sporty car.

Within the state, I'd never been further east than Bend, so this was a real treat for me. Joe made a plan, purchased foodstuffs and we were off on Saturday morning bright and early.

Our destination(s) were a mystery to me, which (for those who know my driving tendencies) made me much more willing to take things slowly, stop whenever, and soak (literally) it all up.

The scenery was spectacular. And we found ourselves quite alone pretty much all weekend. Exceptions included the cows, ground squirrels, antelopes and birds that made me glad that we weren't sharing the road with other vehicles as I weaved in and out of our lane to avoid disrupting the circle of life. I was mostly successful.

Our first view of the mountains was obscured by clouds, but we circumnavigated the Steens and acquired a thin veneer of dust (which only grew) on the gravel highway and dried-up lake.

Within the same extraordinary scenery we stopped at a tin shed on the side of the road--which some of the guide books know about and some don't. We enjoyed the diverted hot spring and took full advantage of having the pools to ourselves and soaking up the view.

Lately, our camping has mostly been backpacking with our lighter gear. So, car camping with our bigger tent was a revelation to me...it was so roomy! We stopped for the night along a river in Rome...really really. It sounds sexier than it was. In fact, it was incredible, but not terrible, to wait 45 minutes for gas at the only station within 100 miles (remember, we're not allowed to pump it ourselves here).

Stuffing his cheeks with breakfast...while waiting for gas.

This drive was amazing, the canyon incredible, and our destination, missing. Perhaps it was out of season. Try as we might (I'll admit, we = mostly Joe--the snakes and bugs were a huge deterrent for me, and yes, I'm sure the snakes were an asset to the bug situation, but still...), we could not find the crossing to the trail to the hidden hot springs. We drove for close to 4 hours on dirt and gravel without seeing another human. Cows, however, were in abundance.

Apparently our heads were in the way of the canyon...

Looks like the picture in the hiking book...hot springs deemed MIA

Preparing for the ascent out of the missing canyon (happy defeat?)

And really, best of all, was the cows. How can you feel defeated about a misplaced hot spring when there is mooing? I love cows. And the following photos--taken at different locations should assist in dispelling the myth that livestock only block roads in places like Mexico, India and Burkina Faso.

Joe brought not 1, but 4 books to assist us in taking advantage of the remotest part of the eastern region. As a result, our constant inability to find things and need to reconfigure our route led us to declare certain destinations in the southeast corner of the state geographical oddities.

We claimed our greatest successes in getting lost and relaxing, if not, in finding newer and different places to go that were about the same distance from everywhere. I suppose you could say that despite our best efforts at sticking to a plan and following the maps (the quality of the map is definitely under discussion in this case--I left the infographics one in the other vehicle....), we were constantly regrouping.

For perspective...it goes on for miles

The road to our planned campsite...30 some miles in...closed.

Caring not...at the closed road.

Do we have time to do this hike before sunset?

I don't think we have time...

The only disadvantage to being lost wanderers was the equivalent loss of daylight. We spent sunset on a gamble, arriving at--what the map showed as another dead end--another unplanned and beautiful camping spot.

Other unplanned stops included active (and famous) paleontological dig sites and wildflower meadows.

Disappointed at the lack of velociraptors.

All in all, not a bad way to spend a few days.

Soporific Sisters

Who doesn't want to travel to "Dull, in association with Boring"?

Two-pronged

I have recently become interested in fan-activism--as an educator I find it extremely intriguing to see what motivates young people. I have had extensive theoretical debates (with myself and others) regarding the current fashionable movement, but this news story crossed my desk the other day and then I saw foodies blogging about this. And I think that's pretty damn curious (and I mean that in a friendly way).

It raises interesting questions for me about what actors and actions will be mobilized and who their target recipients are...

Who controls the bubbles?

I use these Infographics in my classes every quarter, but I am always thrilled when a new one has been researched and added:

Click and scroll to zoom in and see who owns your suds.

Sustainability for the few

What type of message does it send when the price tag, on what has been framed as the most effective sustainability technology, is so ludicrous?

The $60 light bulb.

Feelin' yupster

At the spring fest...

A quest!

This is going to make house-hunting way more fun.

...nothin' wrong with this...

Happy spring!

And it's still coming down...

There's at least 5 inches accumulated on top of the fence. And, in an unprecedented move, the university is delayed by 2 hours.

...and it goes on and on

Wing nation, factory food.

Beyond the attention to the normal misogynistic, patriotically tinged and otherwise money wasting commercials that tend to dominate the non-football related reporting following the 'big game,' the next most analyzed item was the fare consumed during the game. Beer, yes, we know that one...and wings yes, we know that one too.

But how many wings exactly?

Apparently, according to officials, folks in the U.S. ate 1.25 billion chicken wings (100 million pounds). That's a lot of chickens. And that is only a portion of what is consumed on average in a year (roughly 25 billion total).

Prepare to get sudsy, because here is where I stand on the soapbox. The enormous amount of seasoning, barbeque sauce, hot sauce and dips masks an incredibly unsustainable food production system. Destructive to the environment and economically, socially and morally untenable; the large-scale industrial farming of chicken is only fed (forgive the pun) by moments of intense consumption such as this. A side-note: the same could be said about turkeys in November. 

The industrially produced chicken is one of the most manipulated livestock products in the U.S. Engineered and selected for particular traits, from birth chicks are selected, beaks soldered off (to avoid pecking in tight conditions), fed a diet of hormones, antibiotics, GMO soy and corn and offal. Bred in a contained atmosphere and given only weeks to mature, many become sick and die. The economic burden and risk is on the producer. The environmental externalities are taken on by the consumer.

And so on.

A liberal arts education...

The ads....

I object.
The institutional memory is faulty.
AB's insistence that "they say a man's work is never done" is an insult.
That phrase comes from the 'working' woman.

Cat Jawas

All that's missing is some brown robes and a couple of protocol droids...

On being outside...

Up in the Willamette National Forest.

"We can never have enough of nature..."

Clementine?

Iced logs

2nd tallest falls in OR

...it's good to get away from the desk.

The Catch and the stone

We're hoping this is a struvite and not something worse.

After watching Catch struggle to go to the bathroom all over the house we spent a few hours at the emergency clinic last night where they excised this stone from his urethra. It may seem small, but think of the size of a cat and then think of the size of their genitals (well maybe skip that one). In any event, his x-ray was pretty clean, so it's medication, surveillance (read: getting excited when the cat pees! and is otherwise behaving normally), isolation and wet food.

I ran to the grocery store last night before it closed and grabbed an odd assortment of wet food, I imagine I looked rather odd in my rush, just grabbing things that said seafood...somehow getting the cat tins of beef seems completely ridiculous (as if buying tins of square mystery seafood parts is any better). I will now devote the weekend (not going to Bellingham) to figuring out how to figure out feeding the cats wet food for their future urinary health. There's quite a bit of literature out there on pet food.

The two boys are howling at each other through the door to the bedroom, scratching at tails and paws in the gap between the door and the floor, which made for a fun night.

AB...D

I wanted the title of this post to be the alphabet song...you know ABCD...minus the C. But no strike-throughs in post titles apparently.
Although I have some superstition in announcing before I have all the signatures on the page (one of my committee members is out of the country for break), I think it is now safe to assume my new title.
I have successfully advanced to candidacy, making me a PhD Candidate...or in shoptalk, ABD, which stands for 'All But Dissertation."
I never have to do that again.

This, to me, was a huge revelation, one that I will likely swim in until my fingers become pruney.

In real terms, what that means is I now get to focus "almost exclusively" on my own research. No more classes, no more exams. Just me, my project and I.
The almost exclusively part reads: as a graduate teaching fellow I am still obligated to, well, teach. I'm the lead instructor for a course this coming winter on Latin America and I'll be a grader in the spring. I've been offered the opportunity to teach the local foods field course I developed last year again this summer, so I'm also looking forward to that.
The other part of the "almost" is the grant writing. I have two grants under review right now and will submit three more before the quarter is out. The grants are another huge step in fulfilling the obligations of an ABD...they serve two important purposes: 1) they prove that my research is interesting to an academic (and/or professional) audience via obtaining external funding and 2) they provide me with funds to complete dissertation research which is pretty fucking essential.

The full weight of being on this side of my degree has not yet hit me. So...ahem, "one stage of my journey is over," yet another begins.

From the immensely useful PhD comic

Nuptials

I'm Aunt Zee again!

Nearly there

After a 2.5 hour session today I can report that I emerged from my exam defense still whole. I have 1 rewrite and a small addendum to turn in next week.

I have conditionally passed my exam.

Whew.