timeless peace in the deepest void

Tonight while I was driving I happened to glance up. The stars were so bright. They were so beautiful and serene standing completely apart from the freeway lights. Tomorrow I am flying out East for a family gathering, but tonight there were the stars. Praise God and there were stars. Words won’t do it, they reminded me of some things I had forgotten, and I honestly can say I wish you could have been here to see them.

A moderated view

At the small group from my church my wife and I attend we recently had an in depth discussion concerning musical styles and preferences as it pertains to worship. Having thought about it myself I propose a moderated view of worship in the context of a Christian church setting.
First I would like to point out that I think it is foolish to try to ignore that fact that musical style and tastes will effect how easily a person can actively worship God. The music a person likes is a reflection of the person’s personality and their view of the world. And that will not be the same for everybody. We all see God more clearly in different areas, whether we see Him in nature or people or something else. None of us would expect it to be the same for everyone. Music is no different.
That said though, just because the musical style chosen for worship does not match a person’s particular tastes doesn’t mean they should not attempt to reach out to God. You choose to seek God in worship. The music might not make it easy but that is irrelevant to the choice. There is no justification for quitting or not trying just because it isn’t easy.
The worship leaders are there to serve to help the most people that they possibly can worship effectively. That means the music chosen should be agreeable to the largest number of people. The music should serve to help the church worship as much as it can. There will be people the music misses, as in any democracy there are those left on the side lines. These people should not try to force the people to bend to fit there preferences and should instead use whatever kind of music is at hand to try to worship God, realizing that worship isn’t about them.
The thing that I find interesting though is that most of the people who are really against what they perceive as people being “musically picky” seem unaware that the music played in most churches are essentially of one general genre. Because it is the one they connect best with they are inclined to look down on those who can’t connect with that music as well. I look at them and can’t help but think that they are their parents in another ten years. When the next group comes through bringing their new music with them, the old guard who now forms the new movement will probably oppose the change just as much as their parents opposed the inclusion of the electric guitar.
It makes me laugh, but not because it’s funny.

written while listening to Nyana by Tiesto

“Daylight fading

Come and waste another year

All the anger and the eloquence are bleeding into fear”

Last Saturday Elaine and I were graciously allowed to attend the Andersons Company bowling night. I had a really good time. Jared and his girlfriend Megan were there as well as his brother in-law Nate and his sister Heather. We all bowled on a lane together, drank beer and enjoyed ourselves and the alleys exceedingly inaccurate computers. (I.e. A gutter ball might get you a score of three pins and a strike might only get you eight.) I got an award for most unusual approach. Apparently I bowl as if the lane personally wronged me. Megan asked if it had perchance killed my father.
It was a good party and I was struck by how nice it must be to work for a company that does that kind of thing. It wasn’t just that they threw their employees a party, the manner in which they did it really, in my opinion anyway, showed the employees that they were valued and that they had a direct stake in the company. I wish the jobs I have had were more in that vein. I have had some jobs I really liked but they all lacked the sense of community that the Andersons company has.
I thought about it and the answer was very simple. In every job I have ever had I was replaceable. Then again I have always been replaceable. I am and have always been supremely average. I am a hard worker. Any job I am given I do to the best of my ability. I guess the truth is my ability just isn’t that impressive. In the second part of my college experience I focused to graduate, I worked hard for the average grades I got. I got my degree and the act, though it is meaningful to me, is still average. The fact that my degree is not that wonderful has been made readily apparent by my employment difficulties. I can’t get the experience I need. It honestly looks like I am going to need to get a masters after all. And get it sooner than I had planned.
This last week I guess I have just been discouraged by the way it’s gone. We all want to be important, respected, and talented. Sometimes I am fine with being average but every so often; when the day dreams are vivid it almost makes me sad. I know how Eric feels with his writing and his programming because I feel exactly the same with my degree, accomplishments, and the little I have learned vs. the majority I have forgotten. When I was younger I used to get angry and vow I would come back to all those people who said I would never amount to anything after I had “made it”, whatever that meant, and show them. I suppose I have accomplished more than a lot of people would have assumed I would. But I haven’t been anything more than average, so it’s nothing to brag about, nothing surprising.
This whole last week I haven’t called any of my friends, not that I didn’t want to talk to them, its just I couldn’t find the mood to dial (I hope that makes sense to somebody). I feel bad about it.

“Eventually guilt will be our defining characteristic.”

The band Coheed & Cambria is one of my personal favorite bands. They are exceedingly talented and have yet to release an album that wasn’t awesome. So a few days ago while Christmas shopping I stumbled across a string quartet tribute to their In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3. I thought it would be interesting and so not suspecting much I tested it out. To my surprise, this album is really really good. It is one of the best music purchases I have made in the last little bit and since I enjoyed it so much I thought I would share.
And by the way if you are unfamiliar with Coheed & Cambria I suggest you remedy that.

They are another one of the bands I discovered during my sojourn in California and every time I listen to them it brings back fond memories of riding back from the airport with Ryan and Eric in his now defunct Audi.

All I want to do is say thank you, even though I don’t know who you are. You who helped me kill mobs…

Well I was…questing…in….yeah the rest of the lyrics can’t be converted easily. But that’s not the point. I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank holy…..something or other a mage on the Silvermoon server who restored my faith in teamwork in online gaming. I have not enjoyed playing with another character that much since my friends abandoned the world. So if I ever meet that person I will buy them a drink. But in the mean time…I give them Greggy Tah.

At least it's something.

“…it was not impossible that he might make a passable man-of-war out the Polychrest. He knew her tolerably well now: he and the master (he had a great esteem for Mr. Goodridge) had worked out a sail-plan that made the most of what qualities she possessed, and when he could alter her trim to bring her by the head and rake her masts she might do better; but he could not love her. She was a mean-spirited vessel, radically vicious, cross-grained, laborsome, cruel in her unreliability; and he could not love her. She had disappointed him so often when even a log canoe would have risen to the occasion that his natural affection for his command had dwindled quite away. He had sailed in some rough old tubs, ponderous things with no perceptible virtue to the outsider, but he had always been able to find excuses for them – they had always been the finest ships in the history of the Navy for some particular quality – and this had never happened to him before. The feeling was so strange, the disloyalty so uncomfortable, that it was some time before he would acknowledge it…”

I finally came prepared with my literary reference.
This passage by Patrick O’Brian taken from his novel Post Captain does a fairly good job of capturing how I generally feel about my job.

By the way the series that this book comes from is stellar. It is the finest depiction of naval warfare in the Napoleonic period ever, and just good all around novels besides.

Tomorrow night I dine at what my dad has dubbed the oriental fish heaven.

Once as a younger man of 22 years I along with several friends went to a Fred Meyer to buy some beverages for an evening spent watching carefully selected crap movies (think Deep Shock or Six-Stringed Samurai * ). I selected some high quality bottled root beer purchased it and attempted to leave the store. I was stopped at the exit by one of their employees and it went a little something like this. And she wasn’t joking either, trust me.

Fred Meyer Lady: “Excuse me Sir I am going to need to see some ID.”
Me: “Actually it’s not beer its just root beer.”
FML: “Sir, if I am going to let you leave I am going to need to see some Id.”
Me: “So…you’re carding on root beer now.”
FML: “Sir.”
Me: “Alright here it is, but I bought root beer.”
She looks at it.
FML: “Well, I guess its fine then.”
She hands it back.
Me: “Yeah I am 22 and its root beer.”
FML: “You just seem so young.”
Me: “Its just root beer!!”
FML: “Have a good night Sir.”
Exit me.





* The afore-mentioned movie is actually a highly symbolic representation of the struggle between surf rock and the forces of ska in the 1950’s.

pain is only a pulse if you just stop feeling it

So I thought I should do an update about what I am actually up to these days. Most of my posts tend to be sort of stream of consciousness bits without much cohesion or information. This one will hopefully be a bit different. I delayed a long time in writing about work partly out of fear that someone from work would read it (and yes I know how improbable that is) and partly because I had hoped to use a literary excerpt as means of explanation about my relation to my job. I should be able to post that tomorrow but in the meantime I will put up something.
I am working at Petco, getting about 20 – 35 hours a week now. And though the people at work are generally cool I must admit that I don’t like my job that much. Granted its good in a way that I can learn more about the pet industry and I hope to use the experience to learn more about aquarium management and maintenance but it’s hard to get excited about it. The other portion of it is I have a bunch of take home books to work through and tests to take so it almost feels like college again, minus the motivation. Tonight I worked a bit in a nice little 200 page manual - one of 16ish total books I need to go through. I don’t even know which ones I have to hand in or what is involved with the requirements and tests. They want to promote me as fast as they can, and that’s good, but what that requires me to do has been less clear. It is also kind of weird for me because I am hoping desperately that I get hired on as a biology technician by the city of Portland. So the whole time I am at Petco I am hoping to go somewhere else.
To make up for the fact that I don’t have many hours a week yet and that my pay is still somewhat limited I have continued on battling the onset of winter in my parents yard. (Yeah I know I work at my parents…sounds rather damning I know, but you have to do what you need to pay the rent.) My most recent victory has come in the form of an encounter with a blackberry bush of enormous proportions that had used a pine tree as cover. I wrestled the giant out of the earth using my bare hands and a trowel. It was epic…there will be songs and tales. Ok maybe just an exaggerated mention in an obscure blog.
That’s pretty much it. I have to take a test tomorrow at work so hopefully I’ll pass.

Euphemistically yours,
Blanket Jones



Coming soon to this blog!!
Monster Cards
Santa Clause I & II, holiday movies for the family (or a murder mystery)… all will be revealed.

A phone call from an old friend.

“You may tire of me
As our December sun is setting
Because I'm not who I used to be”

“We're the kids you used to love

But then we grew old

we’re the lifers here till the bitter end

Condemned from the start”

It has been awhile since we talked on the phone and I admit it’s good to hear from you. I have always kept those I have ever been fond of in my active thoughts. But if this talk has done nothing else it drives home how all those we know are trapped in our memories as we last saw them. Bugs trapped in amber. That’s how we exist in each others memories. So tonight it will take time to update all my knowledge of you. And as for me, it’s a wonder you can even recognize me. You last saw me when we were young. Back when the question “What do you want to do with your life?” was a bullshit question posed by well meaning teachers. Our answer then was a shrug and visions of a future with a flat in the city, parties with our friends nightly, and weekends at the coast. I would admit that my answer would be the same but now the question has our lives and the lives of our lovers riding on our answer. And I am different. Its funny how it works and I know you don’t notice yet the change but in time it will be apparent. The things you remember best about me are still there but they have been eclipsed. I am much more reserved now, older and pessimistic. And you have changed too. It is funny sometimes how time can render those you think you know strangers. But we move forward relationally with the past an unstated baggage that serves to remind us of our collective history but will apply little at present. And all those things I eventually meant to say will be buried even as the form in my mouth. Because this is the new me, but the same me, and if you remember what came before this might disappoint you.

After a rough day I like to lose myself in loud music and or loud friends.

I’m gong out tonight, like the protagonist from swing kids, getting dressed alone that last time. I’m going to drive through this city of layered ashes. Following the night in this city populated with resurrected ghosts and skeletons gaining flesh.

And that's when I realized.....I just wasn't cool.

One of the harshest critiques I ever received came in the form of a compliment. I have for a long time now been mostly quiet and reserved, very unnoticeable. But at rare moments with the help of a drink or with a vagrancy of mood I get into moments lasting 4 to 15 minutes where I am massively gregarious and somewhat funny. These are fleeting and rare. This girl I knew was hanging out in a group I was with when I hit one of those moments. She turned to me and said “Wow, I used to think you were really dull. But you’re really funny and really cool.” Even as she said it I knew that in another 5 minutes the mood would wear off. Then I would be just as dull as she thought I was.

And it's true what you said. I live like a hermit in my own head.

“We are such practiced liars. There are oceans of depth in all the things we do not say.”

It’s something I have been thinking about for a long time. A lot of the things in relationships function on a background of lies, commonly what I refer to as lies of omission. And maybe they aren’t lies so much as a sort of practiced withholding. We play out relationships like a game of poker, holding most of our cards tightly concealed wondering what the other person is hiding. I am guilty of it too. For every word I say I have probably another three carefully tucked behind my lips. To call it lies is maybe too strong but how often do we put out misleading information about how we feel or what we think. What would it look like if we were completely honest with each other; If we could talk openly about what is bothering us and our thoughts about life and maybe even let what’s going on in the relationship be put out on the table. We keep it back, the friendship is drifting or failing and your friend starts cutting you out of their life and maybe we say something, maybe not. I just wonder, wouldn’t it be better if when a friend bothered you that it would be dealt with straight forwardly. If I am doing something my friends don’t approve of or if they are tiring of me, I would rather they be honest and tell me, even if it hurts.
I think that is the crux of it really. We withhold because if we were all honest a significant number of the relationships we have would die. We don’t share advice unless asked because we don’t want to be pushy, so we bottle it in. We don’t complain when friends start to cut us out unless it’s blatant and repeated because nobody likes a whiner. We avoid issues and subjects we disagree on because we can’t seem to talk about the subjects academically without an angry debate. We don’t share how we really feel because often it causes more trouble and resolves nothing and so many of the people we know think it is wrong to feel negatively about life anyway. We keep it all back so we can keep the status quo, keep things moving smoothly.
Not all relationships are like this obviously, I keep things back even in really good solid friendships. Holding in maybe just how much you love and miss a friend because you don’t know how to tell them. All the people you appreciate and admire but never found a way to tell them and so it stays as a quiet regret in your mind. I knew a girl once who lived next door. She was my sister’s age and I liked her a lot. I never told her how much I respected her. She actually asked me once if I ever thought of her as more than friends, and I lied and said no I hadn’t. Truth is I had but I thought the age difference would render the situation impossible for a serious relationship and so I thought my lie was protecting us both. One of those things in life I wish I could fix even though it’s too late.
I think generally the two most dishonest events in life are weddings and funerals. Weddings can really reflect the individuals but so many are the traditional cookie cutter ones that the bride and groom could be anybody. And after all, in most weddings they go out of their way to paint the couple in an excessively positive light to the point where they either invent portions of the couples history or gloss over any negative portions. I am sure you have been to a wedding where you know the couple ended up together at the cost of betrayal of someone else and still it’s the same shine applied over the top of it. “We can’t be honest but at least we can be complementary”. The way at weddings people act like the couple was specifically ordained by God and their entire lives lead up to this point. I mean my wife is the greatest blessing I have ever been given by God but I suffer no illusions that she is the only one I could have ever been with or that our marriage was the primary goal of my life.
Funerals are inherently dishonest. If no one can speak ill of the dead then how can we evaluate their life honestly? No one is perfect, and the struggle to be a good person despite our weakness is how character is measured. I watched a documentary for the band Death Cab for Cutie and Ben Gibbard was describing how he went to the funeral for one of his friend’s dads and everyone there knew this man had not been there for his family at all. Despite that, everyone got up and said nice things about him; big meaningless words that didn’t even come close to accurately portraying the man’s life. Gibbard in response suggested that it would be better for the family and would probably help them heal even more if everyone was just honest about the guy’s life. I couldn’t agree more. It’s something I have always thought about.
When I die I don’t want my life sugar-coated. I don’t want people to try to make me a saint. I only want someone who knows me, like my wife, to be my speaker for the dead. To just share my life, my many mistakes and trials and the few good things I did honestly. She would know the things I wanted to say to the people I loved but never got the chance. I don’t know that I even want a funeral per say. If I have to have one I want the song Some Seek Forgiveness Others Escape by Underoath. I think it perfectly balances the hope of Salvation through Christ, God’s deep love for us, and the pain and ugliness of life on this earth. My ashes can just be dumped in the ocean. It’s fitting I end there, one way or another.

We were drifting...and it was night

My wife and I baby-sat for a friend the last couple days and as you can imagine its got me thinking about kids. Its sorta werid because I do want kids eventually but I dont have any great affinity for babies or toddlers. In fact I only really start to really enjoy kids when they get old enough to think. If you cant really talk to them I am at a loss. Its almost like little kids arent fully sentient. The dad of the baby girl we sat for said that when they are little its like they dont have souls yet. (And ladies before you decide he must die, realize what he meant not the litteral words that were spoken). I feel similarly. I look forward to my wife being pregnant. Which I am sure sounds weird. I dont know, something about going through the new expirience together really appeals to me, that and the fact that she'll be a hottie when she's pregant. But after the baby is born I almost wish we could just skip the whole baby-toddler portion and go right into whatever age it is when you can talk to them. It creates a odd sort of tension this desire for a part of it but not the whole.

Happy Birthday, I hope you're doing fine.

Today I had a quasi-Thanksgiving Day celebration with my parents and my wife’s folks. It was pretty fun; food was good and all that. We had it today because my folks will be out east with my sister on the actual Thanksgiving. It was odd not having my sister here for the holiday. I had to remind myself on the way over that she wouldn’t be here. Honestly it lacked something, this whole event, without her. She was always my ally on family trips. She was the one who hid out with me in my grandparents basement when we visited, playing ping-pong to pass the time. My sister and I have always been pretty close. I haven’t seen her much since I went away to college in California and when I came back she had left to Pennsylvania for college. Still I love her a lot and miss her. I think this was the first holiday where we weren’t together for it.

we can be happy underground

So a spot of news for anyone following my current job quest I have news. I actually start at Petco next week. I now have two brutally early shifts gaining me a total of 16.5 whopping hours. It’s a start. I felt like an idiot though when I called and they told me they were planning on calling me on Saturday anyway. In the mean-time and during I guess I will continue with helping out around my folk’s house.
In the front yard today I noticed that all the oak leaves that came down last night were all sticking straight in the air point side up. It looked like a graveyard, each leaf a last testament to something. I had hoped to attach each marker with something significant but the combination of the grass and the oaks only made me think of squirrels. And so it really seemed like the graves were in honor of all the small woodland creatures that are going to meet their own personal Waterloo’s this Christmas season. (Or if you prefer; the small woodland creatures fated to meet the elephant.)
As an aside to that did anyone else study the Oregon Trail much or play the video game perhaps? My wife who grew up in Michigan missed the whole deal. For us growing up in Oregon that was just part of the package. “You shot a Buffalo and recovered 800 pounds of meat. You can carry 12 oz. If you continue hunting in this region the game will become scarce. John has died of snakebite.” Sorry about that I waxed nostalgic and ran into some trouble coming back.
Things have been low key for me; I have spent the last bit reading A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore. It’s a really good book and I honestly must say he is a very good author. Not only is he witty, relying heavily on the highest form of humor absurdity but his plots are fairly interesting and well constructed (i.e. Fluke). He is something like Douglas Adams. Though I must admit I doubt there will ever be another equal to Douglas Adams, the man was a genius. Moore does a similar style of humor though and it’s good. If you like both authors I recommend you take a look at Leave It To Psmith by Wodehouse, you’ll love it its hilarious. I was thinking today about a book I read at Borders one night that tried for the same feel as the above authors. It was called Ogre Company and though the concept wasn’t bad it just wasn’t that funny and the plot lines weren’t well handled. It almost made me sad. I mean you could tell the author tried to make the book work and I know writing isn’t easy so it’s sad to see someone try really had and then have it fall through anyway. I guess I can sympathize with failure despite effort because it’s a fairly regular thing for me
Actually on the topic I always feel bad when I see a new small specialty store open up in a location that has doomed several others. I guess I just see the store as an embodiment of someone’s dream and I can see the figurative steam roller on the horizon on its way to flatten the person’s hopes. I carry my dreams as intangibles inside my head and use them to fill daydreams. I suppose we all have to get used to the fact that in life we will if lucky get to live some form of our dreams if the whole of them are usually impossible. To quote Fight Club “We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.”
Well maybe I’m not pissed off. I am just resigned to my limitations and determined to be the best man I can be without trying to pretend that they aren’t there.
Speaking of being pissed off I need to go so I can get home on time.
Good night all.
Hypothetically Yours,
Jeff “I didn’t know it was loaded” Eckmann

Too much Christmas spirit.

With Christmas coming up I was thinking about the whole idea of parents telling their kids that Santa exists. I decided that when I have kids I won’t feed them the whole Santa lie. The gifts they get will come from who bought them not some mythical, chimney jumping, fat man. I think that when the inevitable “Why do the other kids say there is a Santa?” conversation comes up the kid will appreciate my honesty, maybe not right at that moment…but eventually. “Why?...Because the other kids parents lied to them which is something I wont do to you. Oh and by the way since you know all these other kids have been duped you should feel glad you aren’t one of them.”
I think the best parents are honest with there kids and take them seriously. I mean how much does it suck to find out your parents were just trying to be festive when they got you to believe that ridiculous crap about some flying reindeer.
The worst holiday deception idea I have ever heard was related to Halloween. I knew this girl who actually suggested, as a means for parents to get a bit of candy, that the parents make up a monster give it a frightening back-story and tell the kid that if they didn’t leave candy out for the monster it would do something horrific to them. Now just how messed up is that.

Loosing the fall.

Tonight was another of those nights that I really wanted to go to a party. In theory the party would be similar to the costume party I just had. On nights like this I would love nothing better than to spend an evening with my friends from home and my friends from California, with everybody drinking and everybody loud as hell and laughing. I guess sometimes it just feels good to forget about what’s going on and just loss your self in loud friends or loud music. A part of me will always miss the high school parties and the endless nights in college with video games and movies. It was kind of a rough day for me. My job I am supposed to have has yet to give me hours. And though I know the reasons are probably completely valid just unknown to me it is still discouraging. Sweet I am hired……I am hired right? Sooo can I come by the store….? So tomorrow I need to do something about actually finding a way to work the job I have. Come on Petco…you said we were friends. Anyway, in the meantime I continue to look for jobs that actually would allow me to use all that school I worked so damn hard for. (Ok I mostly worked damn hard for…..there were those first two years of college). So in the meantime my parents have hired me on to do yard work for them so I can pay my bills. I am grateful for the opportunity but I feel really really pathetic having to take the job. Though I am able to make light of all this mess it has still be a very discouraging series of setbacks and failures. Oh well remember me in your prayers.
Tonight although I was unable to attend a party of my choosing or go to a rave or a post-punk show and I went to my bible study instead. And I had a good time, though sometimes I still feel awkward and shy around everybody its good to see them all. And the joking banter I had hoped to find Rob graciously provided, that guy cracks me up. Thirteen o’clock and a ferret….a ferret with an electric drill… That’s all I got. You see what I did with Rob was I took all the main jokes from our chat and put them together. See it’s all in one sentence. What I did Rob was I combined them. See its funny ‘cause…
You know I still am not quite sure what to write in these blogs I have heard Steve writes movie reviews and Eric writes about his life. Ryan’s last post to my knowledge was a laudable defense of To Kill a Mocking Bird. I guess mine will be like one of those abridged Christmas letters people send out (“Everyone here is fine. We have a new address from last year because of the terrible fire. James is playing the part of a possum in the new school play etc. etc.”) The thing about my life right now is I have no annoying or, in Eric’s case hot, coworkers to deal with. Currently it is I with a rake engaged in a silent and losing war against the fall. I guess the job thing is pretty big. I did find a job doing entry-level field biology with the city and I really really hope they hire me. Other than that though …oh my wife is going to bed. So I guess if we are all lucky and very very good the blog fairy will delete this post and slip a quarter into our computers hard-drive.
If you have skimmed this or actually read it I thought I would direct you to some other blogs that I am sure would be of more interest than mine.
http://oneagainstthebes.blogspot.com/ Belongs to Ryan. He is easily one of the most intelligent, funniest and coolest guys I know. I don’t think I have ever told him but we all quietly wish we were more like him….I guess that makes me his sidekick …damn.
http://ctrlaltdel-bud.blogspot.com/ Belongs to Eric. He is one of the most loyal friends I have ever had, he is solid and dependable and an all around really sweet guy. They are both close friends of mine and I hope you enjoy their blogs. Now I go forth to wash dishes.

pants-less fuzzy animals

Ok I am sure this is something that has already been discussed to death but I still have to wonder. What’s up with partially clothed stuffed animals? I specifically mean the ones lacking pants. I just find it odd that someone would go to the trouble to give a bear a shirt and then grow disinterested and stop before fashioning the pants. I mean if the bear is modest enough for a shirt…I don’t think said bear would forget the pants. If this were a real bear (and provided they did let bears into stores at all) it would get removed from a 7-11 for indecent exposure. And yet the same bear is given to children who look at its dopey grin and wonder if they too could be that happy if they were brave enough to put on the shirt but if even for just a day abandon the pants.
The cute children’s animals lacking a shirt I can understand…unless said animal is decked out with a bow or other paraphernalia identifying the animal as female. That is another of those things that make one eyebrow arch.
So seriously, bears without pants…discuss.

Airplanes in Sunsets

If you are ever at the Portland International airport and you need to utilize the short term parking structure I suggest parking on level 7. The view from the top is gorgeous, even on these winter days when the light is dim and the rain comes in slant-ways torrents. The best time to be there is a mid-summer sunset, when it’s mostly clear and Mt Hood is full view. The colors are gorgeous. There is something serene and relaxing about watching the planes land from the east with the mountain reflecting the sunset behind them.
In all honesty there is beauty around us in one form or another pretty much all the time, especially here in Portland. In LA you can’t see stars as a rule. The only constellations that the sky affords are the landing lights of the planes on approach to LAX. Even that on a warm summer night was beauty. I never thought I would miss LA and yet sometimes….

Its time to admit we are lost.

I don’t really know why I am made this, which is what I said about creating a myspace page. I don’t know it just seems presumptuous to think people would want to hear what I have to say. I mostly started this to follow in Ryan and Eric’s footsteps. As if doing the same things could act as a bridge over the distance from here to California. I can see why this is popular. You throw your words into the void without the discomfort of actual communication. It is a confessional of sorts. A good way to start the blog then is to let my Californian friends know that I love them and miss them a lot. You guys are my closest friends. Not much else to add for tonight. Just put this thing up and thought it should have some writing in it.