Diwali 2008

Through the lives of two of our children, we have a direct connection to the rich traditions of India. Arguably the biggest Indian holiday is Diwali, which in 2008 takes place on October 28th (it's tied to the lunar calendar).

Here's a short description off the web about the holiday:

Diwali is one of the most important festivals celebrated in India. It is celebrated on the darkest night of the year, which usually falls sometime in the beginning of November. Diwali, though, is the festival of lights.

All over India, homes are decorated with lights and earthenware lamps filled with oil. These lamps are called diyas. The name 'Diwali' is from the Sanskrit 'dipavali', which means 'row of lamps'. Diyas are lit in every house to banish the dark and welcome in good luck and good fortune.

People wear new clothes, meet their friends and relatives, eat good food, give each other sweets and gifts, decorate their houses with flowers and lights and Rangoli patterns, and set off fireworks.

In the evening, many people hold a small prayer or puja in their homes. They honour Ganesh, the god of wisdom and good luck, the one who removes all obstacles from life; and they worship Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity and good fortune. Lights are left burning all night, so that Lakshmi may feel welcome and enter.

Diwali is also the start of the New Year for many communities in India.

Diwali is a festival of joy, prosperity and good luck, and a celebration of the victory of good over evil - which is expressed through different stories in different parts of India.

We have fireworks (saved from July 4th) that we plan to fire off tomorrow night, and we also traditionally read the story of The Ramayana to the kids. We'll eat Indian food, fly the Indian flag, and have lots of sweets tomorrow!

Kate and I hope to be in India next year during Diwali, now that would be something!

Let there be LIGHT!

On Rope

"On Rope" is the name of the authority in rope climbing books. It is also what is called when you are about to ascend up a tree when climbing in a group. It is also the subject of today's musings.

It's been a rough week. My sleep has been exceptionally poor, call stressful, and politics have intruded constantly into my thoughts. Climbing trees is a wonderful escape. It allows for problem solving, focusing my mind on tasks at hand and not a myriad of other worries. It is a re-connection (figuratively and literally) with nature. It is physical work, which adds to the feelings of accomplishment. It offers new perspectives in familiar settings, and it involves just enough risk to always keep it exciting.

Even on days when I don't climb, I can enjoy a portion of the experience in working with my ropes.

I got a new rope this week. In the photo above it is the red rope. It's called "The Fly". Technically it is a 7/16" Static Kernmantle Rope. Every hobby has its lingoes, and mine involves words like "kernmantle", "kilonewtons" and a host of knot-tying terms. Pictured with the red Fly rope is my green Poison Ivy rope (11mm, 200 feet) and my Cadillac of ropes, the camouflage colored 11mm "Snakebite" rope, all 600 feet of it.

I have two eye-hooks bolted into the ceiling of my office (with grudging approval from Kate), and I can stand in here and practice tying Blake's hitches, figure 8's, Prussik's, and other complicated climbing set-ups involving split-tails, lanyards, various hardware pieces and mechanical tools.

I'm sure the escape must be similar to the fly fisherman intricately crafting a fly, or someone who needlepoints carefully placing each stitch. It's a feeling of focus, creation, and learning.

There's a "feel" to the rope that is very satisfying. A good climbing rope is soft enough to easily be tied, yet each of those ropes can hold over 5,000 lbs. A knot will feel and look right if tied correctly, and wrong if not. Over time muscle memory sets in, and the knots seem to form in your hand just by thinking about them.

It's a good hobby. I hope to bring my kids more and more up into the trees, and pass along this appreciation to them (as well as a lot of hardware). My oldest has climbed with me, and is gradually learning the knots and the skills. It's fun to have other family members tell me about particularly interesting trees they've seen - ones that would be "great to climb". Once you start looking at trees that way, you find yourself constantly doing so.

It's a beautiful Fall weekend, I'm not on call, so hopefully I'll be spending some time off the ground.

Update: I got my climb in

Presidential Race: Last Word!

NEWS REGISTER: Our local paper. It leans conservative, but I think for a "local" paper, they make a very strong case.

CHICAGO TRIBUNE: I included this because it's the first time they've ever endorsed a Democrat

OREGONIAN: Our regional paper.

WASHINGTON POST: I thought they laid out things well and fairly.

I had originally planned on putting my own thoughts about why I was voting for Obama on this web page. I had written a 3-page letter to relatives in Ohio, and detailed in depth my feelings and opinions, including those based (most importantly) on my Faith and Values.

But, you know what, I'm suffering from Politics fatigue. I know how I'm voting, and with passions being so strong and the campaign so long, I really don't see people at this point changing their mind about their votes, so why bother. If someone still feels that McCain/Palin is the best choice for this country, I don't think my opinions are going to change their mind.

I will say, I really like McCain (and really DON'T like Palin as a potential VP), but I liked and respected him a whole lot more before he became a Presidential Candidate. It seems like he's been jerked around by handlers to the point where he keeps having to deny more of who he really is to meet their political ambitions.

The editorials I linked lay out very well the case for Obama, so I won't go on about my own personal reasons. If a reader of this blog is just REALLY interested about why, post a question in the comments and I'll respond.

The photo at the top is my ballot, about to be mailed (I have to figure out all the local races and ballot measures first, though). Once that goes into the drop box (by the end of this weekend hopefully) I am officially done with talking about politics (until after the election, anyway).

Commercials that make me yell at my TV

Occasionally I can't restrain myself, and yell at stupid ads on the TV. This week I found myself yelling at these two products:

HONEY BUNCHES OF O'S: These factory workers drive around in their modified RV, spreading the joy of their cereal.

"YOU'RE NOT IN THE FACTORY ANYMORE! YOU CAN TAKE OFF YOUR HARD HATS AND HAIR NETS! YOU DON'T NEED THEM STANDING IN A PARK!"

DUAL ACTION CLEANSE: I know, this one is a no-brainer. Does anyone else think he looks like a carnie? I swear this guy just stepped away from the knock-down-the-bottles-and-win-a-prize booth.

"YOU'RE MORE FULL OF CRAP THAN THE COLONS YOU'RE DESCRIBING! AAUUUGGGHHHHHH!!!! I'VE SEEN COLONS, CLEANSED AND UNCLEANSED, FROM THE INSIDE AND OUT, THERE ISN'T ANY TOXIC SLUDGE!!!! AAAUUUUGGGHHHHH!!!!"

See, it's not just politics that drives me crazy!

Shut Up!

My lack of sleep lately is starting to cause mood swings, not helped any by the seeming increased presence of Conservative family members and colleagues who feel compelled to send me their latest batch of anti-Obama e-mails. (I'd like to add that I have never initiated a political e-mail to anyone, only responded to unsolicited ones).

I've so far been letting it not get to me too much, trying instead to intelligently point out the blatant inaccuracies in their email forwards, or if the statements actually have some truth to them, offer up a legitimate counter argument.

However, after being subjected to another round early this morning (2:30) when my insomnia found me browsing through my emails, and again this afternoon during my lunch break internet check (feeling over-hyped on caffeine and looking at another 6 hours of patient appointments ahead of me), I finally lost it.

I returned an e-mail to a relative and told them point blank to "Stop sending this crap!"

I'm sick of it. Why is it that all the people who disagree with my pick of Obama seem to try to dissuade me from my (researched, reasoned, and rationally made) choice by throwing out frantic charges against him that all seem to contain either the words "Muslim", "Terrorist", "Liberal", or "Elite"? I'm not so much mad at the mud-slinging, but that the people who disagree with me cannot offer up reasons to support their candidate, and instead can only scream out paranoid inaccurate diatribes against Obama.

If anyone cares, I plan on listing the major reasons I support Obama soon, in this blog. You will find these reasons are based on my faith and values, and my candidate's precedent, his platform, and his plans surrounding a wide variety of issues. You will not find me basing my support for Obama on lies and innuendo directed toward his opponent.

So in the mean time: If you are a McCain supporter, and you want to send me an e-mail, and the e-mail is full of emotional buzzwords, fear mongering, or name calling, I respectfully ask that you shut up!

(Oh, BTW, I climbed another tree over the weekend)

Normalcy

Warning: this is one of the dullest blog entries yet. Feel free to skip it.

Our time away is ended, and life gets back to its normal routines. Miscellaneous things since the last blog:

- Took the kids yesterday to the World Forestry Center next to the Portland Zoo. On the way I stopped at Car Toys and got a radio for the "rig" (the Suburban) that has actually dials that aren't broken off and can play our various iPods. The Forestry Center was interesting, more so for the older kids. Still, worth the drive. I got some tree identification books and discovered I had wrongly labeled the tree I'd climbed as a Jeffrey Pine, when in fact it was a Ponderosa pine.
- Caught up on the Daily Show on Hulu
- Went to the office to plow through the stacks of charts that accumulated in my absence (see photo).
- We finally got our CineBlitz Bollywood magazine subscription in the mail.
- Sent an e-mail to In-N-Out Burger because of a local dentist's ad that seemed to be a trademark infringement.
- Climbed up and down a rope hanging from the roof, practicing various things (I want a big tree nearby).
- Played Candy Land with the younger kids (mind numbingly dull)
- Up an hour or two several nights not being able to sleep well (nothing new).
- Got retirement account and kid's college saving account statements in the mail - YIKES.

Ok, I'm stopping there because I'm boring myself. I'm feeling old these days; my warranty must've expired at 42 years.

S42

Ok, now it's my turn to hit 42. Kate and I have our last full day at Sunriver today. We drove into Bend and had lunch at an Indian Restaurant (eating Indian at least once on our vacations is kind of a tradition).

I've always been a wanna be rock climber, and since we were in the home of modern sport climbing (Smith Rock) I went to a local climbing gym to get a feel for it. Long story short: my forearms were not really up to the task. I went up and down the wall about 5 times before my hands gave out -- wuss. Even then, I really could only use the holds that had a nice grab to them, the 2 or 3 finger holds were just not doable at my current strength. It's a blast, though. I wish there were a climbing gym closer to where I live.

Then Kate and I drove up to Pilot's Butte (something like that), a lava dome from where you can see the whole Bend area in 360 degrees. Beautiful. (The photo at the top of the blog is from there).

From there it was an hour in a bookstore (since Kate spent a good portion of her B-day with me in a tree, it's only fair that I spend a portion of mine with her in a book store), and then back to Sunriver.

We're going to kick-back for the rest of the day, lounge around with the fire going, watch a movie, it's all good.

K42

Today is Kate's 42nd Birthday! I'm trying to honor my family's privacy (see this entry) so I won't go into more details on that. But I had to explain the "K42" title.

K42 is the name I gave the beautiful Ponderosa pine I climbed today. We found it on a small trailhead about 20 minutes drive from Sunriver. It took over an hour to set the rope, and then I climbed for about an hour and a half, making only one additional pitch. It was getting late into the afternoon at that point, so I stopped about half way up.

I won't say any more except it was a beautiful day to climb, and an absolutely beautiful (looks AND smell, the sap has this wonderful vanilla scent) tree.

Ghost Town

Kate and I went and saw this movie tonight at (I think it's called) The Mill District, in Bend. We hadn't been there before and, it's cool. The photo at the top is from a walking path around the area. The three big smokestacks are, I'm guessing, from the old mill, but now are just sort of iconic. BUT, at the bottom of the stacks: REI. Woo Hoo. I got some carabiners, a light for my bike, and Kate got some slippers. The movie was good. Ricky Gervais is a very funny guy (although parts of it were pretty serious).

Ghost town also refers to the house here in Sunriver with the kids and Mom and Dad gone (they left today). It's been a good chance so far to reconnect, but it's hard to just slip out of our chaotic work and kid schedules and actually have time for just the two of us. I'm not complaining though. We had a lot of fun family time, even though brief. The kids, Kate, Mom and I played the world's longest round of Uno yesterday. We went through the deck 5 times till Mom finally won the round (but Ben won overall). Later after the kids went to bed, Mom and Dad and Kate and I played a game they had here at the house called "Compatable", which was a hoot, but also a little too psychoanalytical at times.

For the second time in 3 years, I signed up for, but did not due the Portland Marathon. It was run today. My training got held up for 2+ months when I broke my toe, so I had to bow out of today's run. I put in 10 miles this morning around Sunriver, but it's not the same (obviously).

C'est tout