I don't usually use this space to comment on politics, partly to avoid the use of harsh speech - my natural reaction to much of what I see passing for public policy in the country.

But...maybe you have heard about the unfortunate circumstances surrounding a certain Idaho U.S. Senator following his visit to an airport restroom a few months ago.

I won't make a statement here about witnessing the painful irony and unhappy spectacle of someone falling victim to the intolerance, ridicule, and persecution they spent significant portions of their career perpetuating and reinforcing to the detriment of others, but will leave you with this little item...

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I installed folding baskets on the new bicycle a few days ago. Now it's easy to ride to the market a block away and carry home two big bags of stuff.

A month or so ago I bought a new bicycle. It's an elegant green Raleigh Passage 4.0, and while it is working out well enough for me I had a serious bout of buyer's remorse after it came home with me. First of all, it is new and shiny - and I perceive it to be more of a theft target than the venerable beaters that fill all the local bike racks in the bicycle-loving town. It also leaes me in the position of being the one who will need to experience the first dings and the sizable depreciation (Ack! It wasn't even on SALE!) that accompanies new stuff. In hindsight, I would have been a LOT more comfortable waiting for the right used cycle to show up on Craigslist, and fixing it up a bit. Oh well, as Pat points out, at least it was only a bicycle with a couple of hundred bucks involved, not a car.

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We got a great card and letter from a friend in California yesterday. I replied this morning, and since the stuff I was passing along to her was about what I might have updated other passers-by with here I thought I'd be lazy and just drop some exerpts in today....

Thanks for taking the time to pass along all the news. It's nice to still feel connected to folks we care about in a place we have (some) fond memories of.

My, my, aren't you the busy one! (she has been going to school, has new career, engaged in creative stuff, running household...). I'm glad you found something you enjoy enough to dive into like that. I am still searching for my next pursuit. For the past few months since we acquired the house, I have been absorbed in all the projects and chores, but at some point when things slow down, I will be looking for something to be engaged in. Still want to try painting full time, but the idea of a fun challenging workplace where I can earn a few bucks and interact with some nice smart people is appealing too...network engineering job opportunities here are limited, but there have been several I could have snagged if I had been ready. I may need to hit a boot camp for Cisco certification to enhance my prospects, given the long hiatus from wage slavery. Pat is still on salary with the CA outfit, and travels a lot at times, so I will probably wait until that ends before I consider full-time work. I wouldn't want to neglect the house upkeep and dog-care with no one here ten hours a day most of the week.

We still want to work toward a full-time life in Mexico some day, and this may mean trying to find an opportunity to live there seasonally for a few months at a time to validate it as something we really will embrace long-term. This would mean not being tied down to a full-time job here with limited time off, so I (we) might explore contract work with 3-6 month engagements with (hopefully winter) months off. We also need to explore finding a short-term housemate, like a grad student, to watch the place while we are away in Mexico for the winter.

I'm starting a ten-week advanced Spanish class in a few weeks, hoping to polish that up a bit. Still haven't made any new Latino friends here, but I'm looking. Only about 10% of the community here, so a bit less visible. There is one good panadería here, and I can find local Spanish newspapers there. I asked a couple of lawn care workers in the neighborhood where I could 'conocer algunos Latinos', and they suggested either a local Hispanic Catholic church or a cantina popular with locals.

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Seeing the contagion spread from the sub-prime debacle has reaffirmed my unease with all manner of shady hedge fund machinations and the precarious debt and liquidity house of cards that seems to pervade the whole spectrum from household to national and international economies. As the chief guy at www.minyanville.com ominously warns, the wheels of the economic cart are wobbling and in imminent danger of falling off. (Ah, what fascinating days for Gloom and Doom economy watchers - like Watergate or impeachment hearings for political junkies...)

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I'll have to post a new garage photo to show you how EMPTY it looks now that I have disposed of all the empty boxes and put up shelves for what we still have. New rule - if there isn't available storage for it without increasing clutter it can't be here - if it is irresistible something else will need to go to make room. I try to keep in mind that if Mexico happens in a couple of years, almost everything will need to be jettisoned, and the less the better or we may be anchored here by the inescapable mass of stuff, like little planets in orbit around the Junk Star.

Well, enough for now - if either of you has a reason to attend a conference or has business in Denver be sure to let us know, and we will try to get you up to Fort Collins (and maybe a day in Wyoming). Otherwise, no doubt one or both of us will find some reason to be in the Bay Area at some point, and will try to show up at your door with a nice oakey Chardonnay in hand.

Saludos,
Stan

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Pat and I somewhere in the Southern Wyoming high desert, with a big thundertorn behind us some
distance away.

As I mentioned after we returned from Wyoming last weekend, we stopped at a few interesting places along the way. We stopped and walked around the old downtown of Laramie, had a sandwich in an old patio, then headed South on old highway 287.

There is a huge monument several miles East of the Tie Siding rail site I described last time. It commemorates the highest point along the original trans-continental railroad, and two brothers who were among its primary financiers. But it is out in the middle of nowhere now, with the original rail line that would have allowed passengers to encounter it and learn its story now relocated a considerable distance away.


Pat and Leon poke around the odd pyramid monument.


Leon perched on a rock along the road from Highway 287 to the pyramid - you can see it very small on the right side horizon, a few miles along after the road loops back South.

It was great to have Leon here for a few days. I think he is now the longest-time friend I am still in touch with, going back to the early 70's, just after he got out of the Navy and was fairly new to a relationship with someone who had a tremendous impact on my life during that time (and later). As the years passed, I came to appreciate Leon's quiet equanimity and inate wisdom. He never judged me harshly despite the hysteria that sometimes accompanied my efforts to fit into the world, and I always appreciated that. When he did (and does) gently bring things to my attention, I knew (sometimes) and know (now consistently) to be alert to his reaction. I pay more attention to him now - even if he just gives me a quizical look as I rant about things that I know are perceived with distortion , that I am dealing with ignorantly, or unskillfully.

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We returned today from an overnight stay at the ranch in Wyoming. Friend Leon was visiting from San Francisco, and we were glad we had time to take him up there and also poke around a few interesting Wyoming spots along the way.


Mona, Leon, and Mdog relax in a cool spot by the pond after a hot walk around the Russian olive trees where the cows hang out.


Mona relaxes on the deck after dinner...note the tent set up in the background - the extra bedroom.


During dinner, a neighbor rode up with her son, and left off some cookies to show her appreciation for a hay deal she had done with Clark.

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On the way back to Fort Collins, just South of Laramie, we stopped at the location of a long-gone railroad town called Tie Siding. I had read that there was an old airmail guide sign painted on a big rock formation, that identified the plae and pointed the way North for Laramie. Sure enough, after we found the nearby stone foundation of the old jailhouse that identified the location and climbed up the massive granite flanks, we soon could make out places where the paint (long gone now) had inhibited the formation of lichens that otherwise covered the surface. At first it was difficult to piece together, but eventually as we surveyed the are the large letters

TIE
SIDING

could be made out. Below that was an arrow with N in the middle of the shaft, pointing North. It was a moving moment, as I recalled also reading about this area that a young airmail plot had lost his life in a crash of his little mail biplane on a nearby hill during an early November snowstorm in 1920.


The edge of the rock formation where the airmail marker is found dominates this old photo of the Tie Siding telegraph station and outpost alongside the old Union Pacific tracks.


The faint outlines of the old airmail marker don't immediately reveal the message up close, but I'm guessing that from a few hundred feet above it would still be legible.

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There is a very nice green belt a block or so from the house, where we can walk the dog once or twice a day. It's a real blessing to have somewhere separate enough from cars and people for her to be off-leash a bit, and run and sniff uninhibited. There is a leash requirement, but if one is discreet a little time off seems to be tolerated.

Sometimes I walk her only out of a sense of obligation to releive her of the bordom of laying around the house all day. Other times, it is to provide me with the same relief. At times, it is a substitue for the meditation practice that I don't maintain consistently. In order for it to be a walking meditation, it needs to be a time free of the usual rambling discursive (and often obsessive) thinking - not an easy accomplishment.

Whatever the motivation, it is a chance to appreciate the climate of the day, the trees, and in general the opportunity for another day on the planet.

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Last night we watched Good Will Hunting - I enjoyed the viewing and found it somewhat thought-provoking, as it tied into some uneasy feelings I've had recently about what my own objectives and potential are.

A few days ago, I received an email from a Buddhist mail list I subscribe to. In part, it admonished the following...

"Don't waste your time with the non-essential. Don't fool around... The man who wants to be a Buddha has to drop the non-essential more and more, so that more energy is available for the essential. Take a look at your life, how many non-essential things you are doing - and for what? And how long have you done them, and what have you gained? Are you going to repeat the same stupid pattern the whole of your life? Enough is enough!.. All that is great comes only when you have extra energy. If your whole life is wasted on the mundane, then the sacred will never be contacted."

What IS essential?

Well, if you have been following recent postings, you will have noted that there is a lot of stuff related to feathering the nest that is the new house. Acquiring stuff. Building and fixing things.

At first, these seemed like important activities - maybe they even felt essential. But it has become apparent that each thing acquired comes with associated costs beyond dollars spent. All the fussing, and worries about what will become of things as time passes - it really adds up. And in the end, these material pursuits are - mundane.

And what is gained by all this fuss and worry? What greater good really results from all this activity? Where is the inspiration, 'the sacred', in all this?

I really wish I had something inspiring to devote myself to. Something that employed the best of what I might have to offer. As the last few months have passed here, I have come to feel like I am here to serve the house, more than it is here to serve me.

Oops.

So now I need to re-examine my priorities. Have a broader perspective. I recognized in Will Hunting my own self-limiting choices and behavior. I may not be the genius that he is, but I have constructed something like his crummy Southy life with his little dive and repetitive dull activites. The safe little uninspired cocoon.

As for how to bring change into this life, well, I'll let you know if I come up with anything.

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