PAgent’s Progress

In an effort to keep him from exploding from pent-up enthusiasm, we try to get Gus to a dog park just as often as we can. It does him a world of good to do some running around, and wrestling with other dogs. We’ve been going to three parks lately, and it’s really struck me how different they “feel” compared to each other. Here’s my take on each (click the park name to get park details):

Gabriel Park

This is the largest park we go to. It has hills, and trees, and lots of room to run. I think the friendliest people we’ve met, and the friendliest dogs, have been at Gabriel Park.

Potso Park

We’ve been going here a lot lately, particularly later in the evening. It’s got enough running room, and it’s flat as a tabletop. The kids like it because there’s an old piece of concrete culvert for them to climb on. I don’t like it as much, for reasons I have trouble articulating. We have met plenty of friendly dogs there, and the people seem nice. There just seems to be more of a sense of reserve there, both with owners and dogs. It’s hard to explain.

Summerlake Park

This is my least favorite of the parks we visit. It’s smaller than the other two, and a significant portion of it is sand, which creates a terrible mess when the dogs tussle in it. But there is an entirely different kind of user here, as well. Every time I’ve brought Gus here, there’s been at least one overly aggressive dog terrorizing the other dogs. Often the owner will just stand there while his dog is snarling, knocking smaller dogs down, and clamping onto their throats. All the bigger dogs seem to be more physical and more aggressive here. This is also the only park I’ve been where I’ve seen someone raise his hand to strike someone else’s dog. And finally, if all that wasn’t enough, every time I’ve visited, there’s been someone just on the other side of the fence smoking a cigarette, which pretty much pollutes the whole dog area.

As I said, I think it’s fascinating how different the experience can be between the parks. But while I was tracking down the above links, I came across this map at PortlandPooch.com. Holy Cow! There are a TON of dog parks around here, and some of them are astoundingly large. I’m going to have to make a list of places to bring Gus so we can check them out.

It is with shock and sadness that I note the recent death of Michael Jackson.

No, not that freakshow and alleged pedophile with the Bondo body parts.

The REAL Michael Jackson. The one that loved, and wrote about, good beer.

Like many beer aficionados, I became aware of Michael due to his extraordinarily entertaining series “The Beer Hunter”, which I saw on The Discovery Channel in the early ’90s. The series included six episodes, each devoted to the beers of a different country. It was informative and amusing, and even a little sentimental, much like Michael himself. The series is a bit dated now, for example when Michael stands in the brewery of Pilsner Urquell and expresses his hope that when the iron curtain finally falls, the traditional methods of brewing used there would be preserved (they weren’t). However they remain an excellent documentary on beer, brewing, history, and what makes different beer styles distinctive.

Michael Jackson taught me a great deal about good beer. I purchased and read his “New World Guide to Beer” from cover-to-cover. He was the frontman for a new generation of writers and beer-lovers who made it acceptable to talk about “mouthfeel” and “finish” when describing beer. He showed us how beer and high cuisine were not mutually exclusive. And he campaigned for real beer wherever he found it.

He was particularly fond of the Pacific Northwest, and the culture of excellent brewing that has arisen here. In 2004, at an appearance in Portland, he was quoted as saying “If I want a proper, hoppy India pale ale, I can’t find one in Britain; I have to come to the United States and especially the Northwest.”

God bless you, Mr. Jackson. I shall raise a glass of real ale to your memory.

You can see notices of Michael Jackson’s passing at the Oregonian, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and Forbes, but if you really want to get to know the man, you can read his touching last column (written on August 22) at All About Beer.

A new Christmas Tree Grower’s Certification program has been created, in cooperation with the Oregon Department of Agriculture. The program addresses issues like the use of herbicides, protecting riparian zones, and returning rejected trees to the soil as mulch. The basic idea behind certification is that if you buy a Christmas tree that’s been certified (as indicated by a bright green certification sticker), you have some assurance that the tree was grown in an environmentally friendly and sustainable manner.

The whole certification issue has been a response to a statement by Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing that Americans should buy fake trees to prevent deforestation in the United States. The artificial trees that the Foreign Minister recommends that you purchase are, oddly enough, made in China.

The Foreign Minister didn’t address the impact on the environment of making a completely synthetic tree out of polyvinyl chloride, particularly in a country where “environmental protection” means putting on rubber gloves before dumping your waste into the river. But I digress.

The whole issue seemed silly to me, but apparently live Christmas tree sales have been falling off, and this perceived “deforestation” is seen as one of the reasons why. I know I have readers from far-flung corners of the US (and the world!) who may not realize where their Christmas trees come from, and may even buy into the “deforestation” argument. It’s just hard for me to understand it because I’ve been around Christmas tree farms all my life.

Yes, FARMS. It’s a CROP. The idea that you can walk out into the woods and just stumble across a perfectly symmetrical Noble Fir between 6-7 feet in height is ludicrous. Christmas tree farmers plant seedlings, thin them, shape them every year or so, and finally harvest them for sale. Then they plant another crop. Christmas tree farms look like this:

At least one of my brothers earned cash during college harvesting Christmas trees during Christmas break. It was hard work, usually in a cold rain. In fact, the first time I ever asked for a job was at a Christmas tree farm. Of course, I didn’t even have a Social Security no. at that point, and probably had trouble looking over the counter. Needless to say, I didn’t get the gig. But again, I digress.

In any event, the next time you see a rack of “Oregon Christmas Trees”, you can rest assured that you may purchase one without destroying our forests here in the West. After all, who are you going to believe, the Chinese Foreign Minister, or me?

At some point in the last 42 years, I became an idiot.

I wasn’t always an idiot. I scored 1420 on my SATs. I was a finalist for National Merit Scholar. I attended a fairly prestigious college, and earned two Certificates of Merit based on my grades.

I think I started losing my mind when I decided to go to grad school. That, in itself, was a remarkably stupid decision, but it was compounded by the fact that out of the many fine universities I could have attended, I chose to go to a well-respected Midwestern University. This was a singularly bad choice for a child of the Pacific Northwest.

Regardless of how or why it happened, it is clear that I am now an idiot. I know this because of the way my wife and children treat me. I can ask a simple question, or make some statement, and they look at me as if I have sprouted a third eye, or grown horns.

“Hey,” I can say to the Girl, “You left your backpack on the floor.”

“No I didn’t” she will say, without taking her eyes off the TV.

Although I can be looking at a backpack that is resting on the floor that has her name written on it, clearly I am mistaken. Because I am an idiot.

“Hey,” I can say to my wife, “Shouldn’t you take that piece of plastic out of the flattened cardboard?”

She will look at me with a mixture of condescension and pity. “They mix them all together anyway, remember?” she says. “You don’t have to sort them any more.”

Frankly, it’s a miracle that I can hold down a job. I can only assume some sort of Equal Opportunity program is at work, providing employment for those with impaired faculties.

I should be grateful, I suppose. I just wish I could remember what it was like when I was smart. Or at least not quite such an idiot.

I loves me some “Survivorman”. Survivorman chronicles the adventures of survival specialist Les Stroud as he is dropped into various inhospitable environments, where he has to survive for seven days with only what he is carrying. To make it even more arduous, Les has to carry all his own camera gear, do his own cinematography, and set up and take down all the cameras for each shot.

And I love it. So do my kids. Les is genial and self-effacing, yet brings an earnestness to his delivery when discussing potentially life-saving techniques. And while he knows quite a few nifty tricks, most of his efforts are the basic ones — finding/making shelter, finding water, finding food. The kinds of things that will keep you alive in a bad situation. But he is always ready to admit when he’s made a mistake, and try to use it as a positive example of what can go wrong.

I’m tickled to find some clips of Les that didn’t quite make it into one of the episodes.

Note: Sound levels are low

I received a couple of invitations to Shelfari, yet another social networking site, this one aimed at book lovers. Since I am, at least by my own standards, a book lover, I decided to give it a try.

I created a Shelfari account and, as part of the registration process, was asked if I wanted to search for “friends” that were already members. I logged into gmail, and was presented with a list of gmail contacts that were already Shelfari members, with an offer to link them as friends. Well, since they were already friends of mine, and they were already Shelfari members, I clicked the “Send Invites” button.

Shelfari then proceeded to send invitations to every email in my gmail address book.

Oh boy.

If I had scrolled down a little further (PAST the “Send Invites” button), I would have noticed that Shelfari had neatly extracted the contents of my address book and tagged every single entry for a Shelfari invitation. I should have looked more carefully at what I was doing, but the timer on the internet station at the Newport Public Library was counting down to zero, so I was moving a little faster than I should have.

Please believe me when I tell you that I would never have sent a broadband invitation like that intentionally. So, if you are one of those folks now getting spammed by Shelfari, please accept my profoundest apologies. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

I’m more than half tempted to cancel my membership in disgust, but since I’ve been on vacation I haven’t had a chance to look into it at all, so I’ll give it one more chance. But Shelfari better knock my socks off.