Thursday, December 30, 2004

My Cat Hates You

What started as a gag between some Microsoft employees in 2001, has become a priceless Web site for cat owners everywhere. My Cat Hates You is a celebration of the other side to Cat. A side that harbors deep-seated, almost primal, resentment toward us and our gangly, pseudo-intelligent, simian ways.

I haven’t submitted a picture of Bentley or Vespa yet, but I’ll go looking for one this weekend.

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

New Years Resolutions

I was trying to think of what my new years resolutions for 2005 should be today. Turns out it’s much more fun to think of what they should be if I was a cat. Here’s are the top 6 resolutions I came up with for Vespa:

6. Have a torrid one-night stand with a street Tom.
5. Try to understand that dogs are from Venus and I am from Mars.
4. Take time from busy schedule to stop and smell the behinds.
3. Kill the sock. Must kill the sock!
2. Jan. 2-Dec. 31: Re-live victory over the sock.
1. I will NOT chase the darned sock unless I see it LEAVE NICK’S HAND.

And a few for Bentley:

3. I will no longer be beholden to the sound of the can opener.
2. Call PETA and tell them what that surgical-mask-wearing freak does to us when no one is around.
1. Grow a thumb, break into pantry, and decide for MYSELF how much food is “too much.”

Monday, December 27, 2004

Free Year

Ed Hawko at blork blog asked a throught-provoking question this month:

What would you do if you had a free year, all to yourself, to dedicate to whatever you wanted? Assume money was not a problem—you’ve just received a $60,000 Monkey Grant.

Would you spend your year travelling? Reinventing yourself? Would you go back to school to reorient your career? Would you try to see every movie you ever wanted to see? Forget about crazy things like flying to the moon or whatever - think about what you would really do, if you could spend a year doing something you really want to do.

Remember, you have to dedicate yourself to something. What would it be?

It’s a great question if you are currently considering your new year resolutions, wondering where to go next. I love the idea of limiting it to a year, because it makes it more focused and gives it a degree of urgency. What would be important enough for you to pack into that year? Where are your priorities?

(Here’s mine.)

For the last few years, I’ve felt a calling to leave my career in public relations. Instead of selling people more stuff that they probably don’t need, I know in my heart that I should be doing something good. That is, I should be working to make the world better somehow. I’m not sure how I should do that yet, so I’d spend part of the year really thinking about it and laying the groundwork.

I’d most likely do the thinking on my bicycle as I pedaled around the world. I’ve never been to Africa, East Asia, Australia or most of South America. (Assuming he’d want to come, I’d bring my #1 friend and bike mechanic, Nick, of course.) That’s a lot of ground to cover, so I’d have to focus it somehow. Perhaps I’d make a point of visiting as many indiginous people as possible or maybe I’d focus on cycling the mountainous regions of the world.

Aside from the benefit of experiencing so many new places and people, imagine how great it would be to spend such a significant amount of time dedicated to physical activity! Can you imagine ending the year feeling years younger than when you started?

To have a good record of the trip, I’d also have to improve my photography skills. I’m probably a little better than the average ameteur, but I’d feel very dissapointed if my trip read like a National Geographic article without the pictures to back it up. If I had a year to dedicate to photography, I think I could make some real improvement.

Note to self: Now that you’ve laid out what you would do, this “I need a year” thing shouldn’t be a cop-out to avoid knuckling down and doing the hard work it takes to do what I need to do. Must think about this more...

Sunday, December 19, 2004

Christmas Campout

Despite serious lack of snowfall in the Cascades this winter, the annual Christmas campout went off without a hitch this weekend. Fourteen of us - Mike, Carmel, Jason, Kim, Perry, Lesley, John, Bari, John, Biscuit, Mark, Patty, Nick and me - set off from the Stevens Pass parking lot under blue skies for Skyline Lake.

After about 1,000 feet of climbing, we left the road for a short cross-country walk to the lake. I was quite surprised that the lake had frozen over with how warm it had been. We actually walked across part of it (carefully, of course).

Before long, we were digging out tent platforms and a kitchen for the tons of food we brought.

In case you’re wondering who Biscuit is, he was our camp mascot. Fresh from the pound two weeks earlier, you could tell he enjoyed his first romp in the snow.

Before long the sun was setting and we gathered around flaming Presto logs for warmth.

Mark did a phenomenal job as usual in the kitchen, grilling burgers, hotdogs, sausages, and salmon to perfection. We drank our fill of hot buttered rum and before long headed to bed.

Sometime in the middle of the night the weather changed for the worse. We woke several times to the sound of rain on the tent and wind blowing Casa de Clawson off the ground. Everyone lived through the night, but we abandoned breakfast in the morning and high-tailed it to the cars and the Sultan Bakery.

UPDATE: 12-21-04
John published some great photos of the weekend on Flickr. There are some great pictures of us hanging out around the campfire among other things.

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Stay Fit, Save Money

I always thought that staying fit was a good idea because it meant you could go places (like the tops of mountains), do things (like ride your bike to San Francisco), live longer, look great and feel great. According to a recent issue of Money Magazine, those aren’t the only benefits to staying healthy. There’s finanical incentive too.

Money Magazine reported that men and women who maintain healthy weight, healthy blood pressure and healthy cholesterol save, on average, an additional $615 per year on life insurance. On average, an obese person racks up $900 more a year in medical expenses than a person of normal weight, said a health economist at RTI International, a research and technology company specializing in health.

Slimming down substantially will also help shrink your clothing budget. Regular-size clothing is 10 percent to 15 percent less expensive than plus-size clothes for women and those labeled “big and tall” for men. And if you think that tall caramel Frappuccino-blended coffee with whipped cream at Starbucks is worth it, think again. On average they cost $3.70 and contain 320 calories. The same size brewed coffee, taken black, costs $2 less and has just five calories—making the switch will save $500 and slim some down 23 pounds a year.

Money Magazine estimates between healthier habits, lowered medical bills and insurance premiums, and losing weight, some people can save up to $7,868 in a year.

Wow!