I don’t try to piss people off. In fact, I’ll hold my tongue more often than not in order to avoid upsetting somebody even when I should say something. But a few years ago I made a comment that really upset my manager. We were talking about my future and his plans for my career. He saw potential and wanted to help me maximize it. The problem was that I didn’t want maximized.

During the course of the conversation, I made the comment that I really only needed $30,000 a year to survive and didn’t care so much about money beyond that. I was more interested in a job that let me spend time with my family than one that promised promotions and big money. Apparently, my comment sparked several debates with the upper managers and they threatened to let me go. Ironically, however, they promoted me and I became one of them.

His argument was that employees who didn’t feel pressured for financial reasons were a weakness. The company lacked the leverage and power to control them in a way that was best for business. Employees can’t say “no” to a request to work the weekend or to attend a week-long conference, right? Well, when they aren’t leveraged they can. Although I said yes most of the time, there were some no’s…because they didn’t have the control. I didn’t feel locked into my job and I knew I’d be fine without it.

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I just noticed that half of the story I posted the other day, “The Mourning,” vanished. I have no idea how it happened…maybe a Live Writer or Wordpress error. I don’t remember making any changes to it that could have caused the deletion. But bloglines still had the full version from the RSS feed, so I fixed it. But for anyone that may have read it…you might not have seen the ending. (And it’s has an awesome ending.) I have no idea how that happened.

This little girl has a beautiful voice but, apparently, is not pretty enough to represent the Chinese people. They want her voice, not her face. So they plugged in a more “attractive” nine year old girl to stand in front of the cameras for the Olympic opening ceremonies. I saw the performance and was touched. I hate when I’m manipulated like this. It leaves me feeling like a dimestore hooker. And I didn’t even get a dime out of it.

I liked Milli Vanilli too, back in the day. Now before you rag on me for admitting it, I’d like to point out that their albums sold millions and they won a Grammy, so I wasn’t alone. I didn’t like them because of the dancing puppets we thought were making the music…I liked the music. I was sad there weren’t more albums. But were the dancing puppets necessary to get the music out? The sad truth is that I probably wouldn’t have ever heard Milli Vanilli otherwise…because it’s not just about the music.
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CNN headlined this story on their front page. It is about the fall of Wall Arch, one of the famous arches in Utah. The article states, "it’s the first collapse of a major arch in the park since nearby Landscape Arch fell in 1991." As far as I know, Landscape Arch is still standing, only piece fell in 1991. From the picture, it looks like it could go at any time…but as for now, it’s still there. The Associated Press didn’t do their research. Or maybe there has there been a cover up. The arch really fell in 1991 but using smoke and mirrors, the park rangers have convinced us it is still stands so they wouldn’t lose tourism…hmmmm…

My neighbor is in the Navy and brought over some passes for Seafair again this year and asked if I would get some pictures of their boat. The Navy sponsored a boat and painted it like the Blue Angels…cool idea! I’ve posted a few shots (taken Sunday) in this post and added them to my Seafair gallery. I didn’t get a shot of the Hoss boat flipping, dangit. It was on the other side of the track. I need to make friends with somebody on the east end of the lake to get the best shots of the Blue Angels…or somebody with a boat. With all the smoke and water vapor, the pictures really come out hazy from clear across the lake.

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How can people get away with this? The Mako shark is endangered (see the Wiki article) yet in this video we see one caught and killed for a fishing contest. How about we just have a Bald Eagle huntathon…hey aren’t endangered anymore. I don’t understand how a threatened species can be killed so thoughtlessly? If you watch the video (which CNN placed on their front page), you see the shark swimming around the boat before it is hooked. They saw what it was and yet they still chose to hook and kill it. A creature that is threatened by extinction, hauled in for a $15,000 prize. That’s just wrong.

Am I missing something? Maybe that sport fisherman call them one of the more challenging catches because they jump and splash and fight. We wouldn’t want to take that fun away now would we? I guess that makes it okay. And of course their impressive fang laced mouth looks better hanging over a fireplace than swimming through our oceans. They kill swimmers too. The wiki article referenced above reports 8 attacks, 2 fatal. I guess we better remove them and every other animal that has killed at least 2 human beings.

This just upsets me. They didn’t have to kill this shark. I’m not opposed to fishing or hunting. I haven’t hunted in years but I do go fishing a couple times a year. But this is a creature that we are in danger of losing. And they had a good look at it before they chose to cut it down. And then they win a contest and are plastered on CNN and newspapers reveling in their glory. Obviously I’m in the minority here. What am I missing?

I’ve finished  a novel, am working on my second, update this blog regularly, and write short stories yet hesitate to call myself a writer because I’m not published. I thought I might feel out of place at the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Summer Conference, but I didn’t. I met some really cool people and picked up some new ideas for my toolbox.

I was sitting this afternoon in a workshop on characterization and looked over to see Robert Dugoni sitting several people away, listening and taking notes. He’s a New York Times best selling author and still attends and participates in these conferences. Pretty damn cool! He was also one of the keynote speakers and gave a touching, inspiring presentation. He seems like Mr. Perfect: great speaker, high-achiever, hard worker, wonderful family, best selling author, and comes across to me as one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. I especially liked his dedication to family values, genuine compassion for the people around him, and his obvious high work ethic. Somehow I gotta get me a work ethic like that.

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I loved summer as a kid; I dread it as a parent. At least the out of school part. Not because I don’t want the kids to have fun and get a break from school, it’s because they get so freakin’ bored and I feel responsible. I don’t remember being bored as a kid. Was I? It seems like my kids are constantly bored and I’m trying to figure out what I’m doing wrong as a parent.

I grew up in a small town surrounded by friends. There was hill after hill of Utah wilderness to explore right out of my front door. My kids live in the middle of suburbia and spend most of their time stuck indoors because of the rain and houses that fill the horizon in every direction. In addition, I don’t know many of my neighbors…there aren’t five kids of assorted ages in almost every house in the neighborhood. As a kid, I played constantly…basketball, football, rode bikes in the hills, had dirt clod wars, hunted with bb guns, and even some Dungeons and Dragons. Sometimes we’d even pack up supplies and as many as ten kids (ages 6-13) would hike several miles out of town, make a fire, cook dinner, and sleep under the stars. Just us kids.

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I’ve had to work out of town for the past two weeks. Today is the first day of summer for the kids, so I brought them with me this week. Although they are well behaved teenagers, they still like to make noise and have some fun on occasion; nothing wrong with that as long as it’s not in the hotel. So before we went in to the lobby, I told them to be professional while we were here. No running around, being loud…that sort of thing. I also told them there were cookies in the lobby and they could help themselves.

Mikayla responded in her professional adult voice, “Excuse me, but may I enjoy one of your circular yummies?”

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(Click the Orca to go to my wildlife photo album)

For three years now we have spent Memorial weekend camping at the San Juan County park on the San Juan Island. These islands are a short ferry ride out of Anacortes, WA and are excellent for whale watching. The first two years, several pods of whales swam right past the beach 2-3 times each day. I started to think that it was normal and expected the same thing this year but it didn’t happen. Luckily I had booked us a whale watching trip (we had never done this before) and on our 3 hour boat ride we saw plenty of Orcas and I was able to get pictures that were much better than I had in previous years.

If you want to camp on the islands, you have to make reservations early. Every year I call the day the reservation line opens (usually around St. Patrick’s day). This year I had 2 phones on redial and I sat for an hour and a half dialing constantly before I finally got through (and the camp was already half filled for Memorial Weekend). I know one of these years I won’t end up so lucky and the family will be disappointed.

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