Nixon and Bikes

Saturday afternoon we were out at Delta Park for a soccer game. It was a sunny day and warm. Before the game Cleo and Amy and I walked around a little. Near the softball diamonds two boys about 9 or 10 years old went whizzing by on their bikes.

The kid in front briefly went hands-free, tossed his hands up and flashed the peace/V-for-victory sign with both hands. He shouted back to his friend, "Look, I'm Richard Nixon!"


That's weird enough, that a kid that age would be mentioning Richard Nixon. But then Cleo and I were both surprised by the kid in the back, who shouted back: "No, Nixon was a REPUBLICAN, he didn't like bikes!"

Ha!

I came home and looked up inside the internets to see if it was true that Nixon didn't like bikes. It didn't take very long to find this piece of evidence from what I consider to be a pretty reliable coloring book:


So... it turns out those kids were liars, because here you can plainly see Nixon telling the astronauts that he likes bikes. Even Nixon would not lie to an astronaut.

Separated at Birth?

Travis Bickle and a squirrel from our back yard. "You talkin' to me?"

Typhoons Soccer

Typhoons

Terry and the Pirates

Last week I bought the first two volumes of the complete Terry and the Pirates comics, by Milton Caniff.

Coincidentally, my pal Fritz Holznagel posted an entry this morning at the Who2 Blog about Mr. Caniff and his comics.

Philip K. Dick Book Covers

I posted a public Picasa gallery of paperback covers here:

Covers of Philip K. Dick Books

Where Have I Been All Week?

It was Spring Break, and Amy and I took the week off. The kids went to Timberline Lodge with their cousins and their cousins' cousins. Here's the week in pictures:

Aunt Audrey turned 80 in Eugene:


Carrie told us to come over for Easter:


We stayed at a hotel downtown while the kids were gone:


We did a lot of napping:



We took a trip up to the wildlife refuge in Ridgefield, Washington:



There are more photos in a public gallery called "March 2008" -- and Cleo and Iris's photos of their ski trip, at this place.

At the Eugene Hilton

Iris and Cleo at Aunt Audrey's 80th birthday party in Eugene.

Iris and Honor Win Video Contest

Honor and Iris entered a video contest about new state requirements for schoolchildren... and they won! You can go here to see the video, as well as the other videos that either won or got Honorable Mention. Congratulations to Iris and Honor! We're told they won $1,000!!

Senator Potty

Washougaled!

Yesterday I was in Camas, Washington. It looks like this:


I went down to the Washougal River by way of a little park area that started at the bowling alley on the eastern outskirts of town.

Mug Shot Goodness

Father and son in Florida... they like their tattoos out there for you to see! Mugshot courtesy of The Smoking Gun.

2 Quick Movie Reviews

This past weekend we saw two movies at the cinema.

Saturday, at Lloyd Cinemas, we saw 10,000 B.C.. We figured it would be dumb, and it was. We arrived late and missed the first ten minutes, so there's a chance we missed out on a key scene that made the rest of the movie un-dumber. But there are some cool big-screen kind of effects, and that's good.

There's also some kind of impossible geography that has our heroic tribe venturing from snow-capped mountains, across deserts and through tropical jungles to get to the Egypt that's not really Egypt. Along the way they seem to meet African warriors from the Congo, Amazonian tribesmen, Australian bushmen, Native Americans and a few frat boys from a Pac 10 school on the eastern seaboard. Here's a frame from the movie, with dialog as best I remember:



Sunday we saw Girls Rock, the documentary about Portland's Rock Camp for Girls, at the Hollywood Theater, up the street. It was good, although a little long-ish in the middle. It was also a little sadder than I expected.

And it was maybe a little heavy-handed on the message, as if the (male) filmmakers wanted to make sure and impress the gals at the camp with how committed they are to feminism. Maybe that's too harsh a criticism. Men my age are 77% more likely to be harshly critical than our animal counterparts (spirit animals).

Turns out I used to know the parents of one of the girls profiled in the movie. I was surprised by that.

It was a better movie than 10,000 B.C., but both experiences were equally good.

Guy Hehn Day in Silverton, Oregon

9 March 2008. Guy Hehn Day is 12 March, but is traditionally celebrated within three weeks either side of that.




Guest of Honor, Guy Hehn.


Flashmob outside the restaurant.


In the back alley, rug deals are made out of the back of a mini-van. The mean streets of Silverton.


Party Planning Committee member, Wanda Hehn.


Finally, Silverton's signature dessert, fried bananas. In honor of the thousands of banana trees they chopped down to found the town in 1861. Now the bananas have to be imported.

Ferraro in the News

Americana, ca. 2008

This was at the local Fred Meyer, a cardboard display to sell packing materials. Pretty warm and inviting name, CareMail... and you'll notice the planet they chose to "dot" the i -- sure, pick a good, safe planet, one that everyone likes. Earth, yeah wow, big surprise! Mainstream idiots.

Japan!

Last night around dinnertime I figured I just had to get a new rice cooker. Ours stopped working two days ago, and a rice cooker is a necessary piece of kitchen equipment. We had a cheap, beat up one from some Asian market for about seventeen years. A few months ago I bought a new one -- not because the old one stopped working, but because it seemed like maybe we were due for a better-looking one.

It's the new one that stopped working. The old one is still around, but now it's become part of the camping equipment and I didn't want to dig it out. So I thought I'd pop up the street to Than Thao Market for a new one, presuming I could get another little cheap one.

The old Vietnamese (?) guy came over to help me right away, shouting, "Rice cooka? Rice cooka? How many cup? How many cup?"

The smallest ones were 5.5 cup capacity, larger than I really want or need. They had two of them. He pointed to one and said "uh... ninety five dolla!" He pointed to the other one and said "...this one betta! One hundred seven dolla! Betta!"

I said "wow, that's a lot of money!" I was surprised they were that expensive. Every thing else in that store is absurdly cheap.

Again he pointed to the $107 cooker and said "much betta," while pointing to the box, where it said "Made in Japan."

I nodded, but didn't say anything. I was trying to decide just how much I wanted a rice cooker -- enough to buy the wrong one? Again he pointed to the box and said, "betta... JAPAN!!"

I asked "why is that one better?"

He got wide-eyed and said "JAPAN!!"

He pointed to the cheaper one and said "Thai!" and shook his head.

I laughed and said, "you telling me they can't make good rice cookers in Thailand?"

He shook his head again and pointed to the other box. "JAPAN!!" he shouted.

So I took a leap and said I'd buy the one from Japan. Even though it's bigger and more expensive than I'd wanted.

But I got up to the cash register and realized that -- in my haste to rush out to buy a rice cooker -- I had left my wallet at home. I didn't have enough cash to buy either one of his rice cooka.

Japan!

Is It Spring?

It's been very nice here all week.

Jay