Given to me by a bartender at the Wayfarer Hotel in Redmond Oregon
1 Marinated Fig
2 oz. Woodford Reserve
1-1/2 oz. Orange Juice
1/4 oz. Maple Syrup
3 dashes Orange Bitters
Wet shake, strain, and pour over ice. Splash with Ginger Beer. Enjoy while listening to “Son Of A Preacher Man” by the Dusty Springfield and “Last Night” by The Mar-Keys.
Sunday October 17 (Poetry Challenge Day 13)
Happy Birthday daughter.
Of all the things that could be said.
Of all the things that bring me pride.
You are at the very top of my list.
Not a day goes by
that I don’t think of you.
Perhaps you find that hard to believe,
I understand… still it is true.
If I could give you anything in the world
I surly would (besides my love of course).
But for now, this simple poem
will have to do.
And if there were any doubt in your mind
to whom I am referring,
it is to all of you.
Three times blessed have I been.
Given to me by a bartender in Flagstaff Arizona
1 Egg White
2 oz. Woodford Reserve
1 oz. Lemon Juice
1/2 oz. Heavy Syrup
Dry shake vigrously.
Wet shake to chill, strain and server over a big rock. Add a Pinot float. Enjoy along with a Notre Dame Football Game.
Otherwise known as a Black Manhattan
2 oz. Woodford Reserve
3/4 oz. Amaro Averna Sicilliano
4 drops Orange Bitters
1 Luxardo Cherry
Shake 30 times over ice. Pour into a 10 oz. insulated martini tumbler. Enjoy with my Spotify playlist “Deep Funk.”
Saturday October 16 (Poetry Challenge Day 12)
Poetry is in my blood.
I remember when I was in High School.
I got a job as a painter in a shipyard.
We were converting a WWII era Landing Ship Transport into a cannery.
The foreman sent me below deck
to paint a shower room.
He forgot to send me down with an exhaust fan.
Marine paint is bad stuff.
By noon, my buddy and I
were writing poetry on the walls with our paint brushes.
It was a contest of sorts.
We took turns composing lines.
When the foreman came down to get us,
he was surprised…
…we got the afternoon off.
Note: The point about poetry being in my blood could be a slight exaggeration… but at least it was that day for a period of several hours, accompanied by a splitting headache after coming back up on deck…
Friday October 15 (Poetry Challenge Day 11)
I couldn’t cut code without coffee.
Now I can’t write poetry without coffee.
Coffee, the drug of choice
for intellectuals…
And those of us that aspire to be
a bit beyond ordinary.
Thursday October 14 (Poetry Challenge Day 10)
My greatest joy might be
reading my poems to you in bed.
You have an amazing tolerance for drivel,
for that I thank you.
But that begs the question
why do I enjoy this so much?
I think it’s about showing
another person who you are.
There is something extremely
intimate in that.
It’s OK if you don’t like these poems,
listening is enough for me.
Wedensday October 13 (Poetry Challenge Day 9)
My greatest fear is that
I will run out of things to say.
Perhaps I have less than 365
thoughts in my head.
I think the key to poetry
might be mindfulness.
Or, if not that,
simply the ability to empty your head.
Which, by the way,
does give me a significant advantage.
Tuesday October 12 (Poetry Challenge Day 8)
I know a guy that dropped a pumpkin
from the top of an FAA Control Tower.
He traded his pumpkin tossing skills in
to become a commercial airline pilot.
I know a guy that was the first to ski
a snow covered volcano
in the Aleutian Islands.
He never got credit for it.
I know a woman
with exceptional English Language skills.
She spends her time correcting my grammar.
I love her for it.
You see, we are all famous in some way.
We just need to look closely.
Monday October 11 (Poetry Challenge Day 7)
I know some of you may be thinking
is this poetry?
If you are one of the twenty-five reading this
let me assure you… I have no idea.
If I knew what poetry was I would never
attempt to write a poem every day.
It could be said that poetry is in the eye
(or rather the ear) of the beholder.
It might also be said there has to be
some intrinsic meaning.
These are just the answers
I have come up with.
Perhaps we can discover
the answer together.
Remind me to revisit this question
with you a year from now…
Sunday October 10 (Poetry Challenge Day 6)
It’s one thing to wake up
every morning beside you,
quite another to find you
not there.
Without you there I am oddly free,
but the price is extraordinary,
for I find myself incomplete.
Not in a bad way
Having you there
makes me better,
more free,
because of your love.
Saturday October 9 (Poetry Challenge Day 5)
Perhaps all this poetry nonsense
stems from my childhood.
To get me out of the house
my parents enrolled me in a
summer writing program.
I remember our class titled
our composite summer work,
‘The Oncely Alligator.’
If only I could be so creative
as an adult.
Friday October 8 (Poetry Challenge Day 4)
What does a cat think?
I wish I knew.
When I look into his eyes
I believe he is trying to say something.
But alas, I can’t draw any conclusion
other than simple recognition.
I think he loves me in his own way.
I certainly love him.
A love that for the most part
seems to be one-sided.
But in a way,
that’s what makes it special.
Thursday October 7 (Poetry Challenge Day 3)
I forgot to water the plants - again.
One of them seems to have forgiven me
the other has given up on me.
So much like life.
The trick is to surround yourself
with people (and plants)
that don’t easily give up on you.
Wednesday October 6 (Poetry Challenge Day 2)
Four hundred seventy five miles.
That’s a long day.
I can’t remember spending so much time
in desolation.
Eastern Oregon is amazing.
Never ending badlands it seems.
It reminds me of West Texas.
Only more remote,
and more isolated.
Tuesday October 5 (Poetry Challenge Day 1)
I’ve been thinking about writing
a poem a day.
Who would read such nonsense?
Ah, but that is the point,
I do it for myself and no one else.
That may not be exactly true…
I also do it for the twenty-five or so readers
that might stumble onto this.
Sitting in a tree house
looking out
surrounded by nothing but leaves
I am suspended by the handiwork of man
and the cooperation of Mother Nature.
A rare experience
as joyful as it is inspiring
it makes one pause
shouldn’t this be how we live
supported and uplifted by the
work of our own hands.
Much seems to be lost in today’s world
staying here and enjoying this experience
is grounding
even while the thought of being suspended
is ever present on my mind.
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Yes it’s Father’s Day, but since I’m a Father myself it would presumptuous to write about me, so, I’m going to write about my daughters. Let’s call them “A”, “B”, and “C.” (Any correspondence to first initials is completely unintended.) I am so lucky to have three wonderful daughters. When I look at all three of them I see a bit of myself, but that is really not the best part. I believe all three of them would say they got the best parts of me and avoided the worst parts of me. Of course that doesn’t make them perfect. The rest of the equation they had to add themselves, and add they did. As a parent, the best thing we can hope for is that our children disinherit our bad qualities. Inheriting our good qualities is icing on the cake.
If I could say just one thing to each of them, it would be to tell them how proud they make me feel.
We never spend as much time with our daughters as we should. Perhaps that is better than too much time. When it comes to the right amount, there is no real way to know the answer to that. One thing we can control is our attention. I’ve always tried to be present with them when we are together, I think that is just as important as the amount of time itself. Kids need room to grow. Adults need space to be themselves. Even with that, they need to know they are in your thoughts, even when you are not there with them. I hope they do. I think they do. Happy Daughter’s Day!
This morning I started to set up my new router. I purchased this from a reseller that customizes routers so they will support VPN out of the box, no flashing required. I figured this is the safest approach since flashing a router yourself can result in a decorative brick that may or may not complement the decor in your living room. I will explain shortly my reason for doing this, but as I unplugged the old router and unplugged the Internet provider’s gateway, it occurred to me that there was no WiFi in the house. Imagine that. Silence, of a sort. I decided at this point to put on my coat and go outside and read for a bit, primarily so I can say, if I ever have to, that when the WiFi goes down I simply read a book…
The book I chose was “The Bomber Mafia” by Malcolm Gladwell. I love tech subjects (almost as much as Science Fiction) the subject that Gladwell deals with in this book is particularly fascinating. The invention of the Nordon Bomb Sight, the man that invented it and the men of the Army Air Corp that put it to good use. Without this particular invention the Second World War would have been a much different affair. After a couple of chapters it was time to get back to the task at hand, particularly because someone that still chooses to work for a living would be coming home in a matter of a couple of hours and it would not be good to have her greeted by a WiFi vacuum.
Back to the original task, first though, as I was reading about the Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base in Gladwell’s book, I recalled my bicycle trip across the country. Yes, it’s a bit strange how these connections come up, I hadn’t thought about this incident in some time. While I was making my way through Pensacola Florida I decided to visit the Air Force Museum. The museum is located on the Air Force Base, when I rolled up to the guard booth the (mostly) friendly M.P. informed me that no bicycles were allowed on base. I thought that peculiar, but I assumed it was a liability thing so I turned around and looked for a good place to have some lunch. It turned out all right, I ended up having lunch and chatting with a pilot from the base, that was a real treat, the BBQ was good too.
The new router is set up. I had a bit of a hard time because the router’s configuration app was not responding when I tried to configure my VPN service. I could not figure out why, but I should have. I had a chat with the router support folks and I was simply told to use a different browser. About all I can say is not all browsers are created equal. I recently switched to the Brave browser, as soon as I tried the configuration steps in Firefox everything worked perfectly. I was using Brave for privacy, but now that I have router level VPN up and running, my security concerns have been greatly reduced. That said, I don’t use anything Google because they track you as soon as you log in to their platform. So there you go, the whole point of this exercise is to provide enhanced security, but there is one other reason, I want to watch Mariner’s baseball games on MLB TV. I’m looking forward to the first pitch tonight…
Danger: political commentary ahead. Before we go any further, let’s talk about that. Just because I say that I like someone that you might not does not make me a bad person. Nor are you bad if you disagree with me. I do believe however that we have an obligation to listen to each other with open minds and a willingness to understand our differences in the light of facts, preferably not “alternate facts.” The tradegy of our time in my mind is that we are less willing to listen to each other than at any point in my lifetime, perhaps even in our history. It would be foolish (in my opinion) to see our current time as anything less than an existential threat to our Democracy…
There is no doubt that Dr. Anthony Fauci is a hero. After all, he has thrown out the first pitch at a Yankees/Nationals game. I can’t imagine the pressure that experience would create, nor can I imagine the professional pressure he has been under for the last 15 months. In a recent interview he was asked to explain why vaccinated people should continue to mask and distance. The interview did not seem to go very well. Essentially he said that vaccinated people could unknowingly transmit the virus. OK. But it’s what he didn’t explain that seems to me to be even more important. He should have explained that until the population (and here we are really talking about the world’s population) reaches the point where the virus can no long spread, i.e., the so called “Herd Immunity” threshold, the virus can’t be considered exterminated. In the mean time, the virus can mutate into different forms that could further prolong the pandemic and could even reach the point where the current vaccines are no longer effective against mutations (we really don’t know). Scary stuff indeed, which could be why he frequently appears to be dumbing down his answers. Another reason for taking that approach could be because there are a lot of Americans out there that really have trouble processing new knowledge that is developing on a daily basis.
There is a large percentage of our population that just wants simple black and white answers to all the hard questions. Why is that? I’m sure the answer is complex and will take someone a lot smarter than I am to explain, not to mention years of sociological study. But, here is my short answer anyway. Those people looking for simple answers aren’t necessarily uneducated, but they have been conditioned to think in simplistic terms. Social media and cable news have found the magic formula to motivate people. Instill hate and make the “other” guy your enemy and you can control peoples thoughts, as well as their votes. As an alt-right YouTuber recently explained, “Focus on conflict, serve the algorithm and feed the hate. Don’t worry about the truth.” If you can do those things, you can build a following. As recently demonstrated, even a following that can be pushed to attack the very institutions that our Democracy is founded on. All in the name of political correctness, and baseless lies.
I’m the last person that should be attempting to answer that question. But there are a few things I do know but haven’t yet been able to apply to my own situation. The first is that you have to rewrite. I’m certainly not in the habit of doing that, as evidenced by the fact that as soon as I put the last period on this post it will be sent to Micro.blog, and probably never touched again. The author David Sedaris says that you should rewrite your work at least 30 times before submitting anything to your editor. This is probably good advice, although he admits that he only rewrites 10 to 12 times before he submits to his editor. (That must be the difference between amateur and professional I suppose.) In my case, I just make sure I haven’t mixed my “your”s with my “you’re”s and I’m good to go…
The author Dan Brown says you must discipline yourself to write daily for at least two hours. Get up at 5 in the morning, sit down and force yourself to write whether you feel like it or not. This makes a lot of sense. I’ve found that it is difficult to start writing, however, once I do words find a way to come out. The words might not be worth a damn - frequently they aren’t - but at least they come out. I don’t think there is a huge mystery here. For me, starting anything is the hardest part of “doing.” Case in point, I’ve started blogging before, this is at least the third time I’ve gone down this road. This time feels different to me. I like the tools I’m using. I like the hosting service (Micro.blog) and most importantly, I’m enjoying the process.
I suppose that brings me around to the question of what I hope to achieve from this effort. Honestly (stupid word, of course I’m being honest, at least trying to be honest) I’m not sure. At this point in time it just feels good, so I’m doing it. It satisfies some internal need that I’m not even sure I can put a finger on. I suspect there is a deep seated need somewhere in me to write, but I don’t have the creative skills or imagination to do it well, so this is what is left. I wouldn’t say my goal is to become a writer, I don’t even expect this to be read by more than a few - if any. But here I am anyway. It feels good so I’m doing it. I’ll keep doing it until it doesn’t feel good any more.
There is a part of me that really hates to comment on politics. It seems like right now there isn’t anything anyone can agree on. I’m afraid as a nation we are slipping into a state where people argue and complain, sometimes rudely, but no one is listening. Sadly this extends beyond politics. Yesterday I posted a comment on Instagram of a ski video promoting Jackson Hole. All hell broke loose. I was probably wrong in being critical (I know better). The fire storm that ensued was surprising. Everything from “don’t look at it if it bothers you,” to “you’re too old to be looking at stuff like that.” Even though I hate commenting on politics (and now I have to be careful about commenting on skiing) I’m going to go ahead and make the following political observation.
I wonder what it would be like to be standing in line one day and have someone hand me a bottle of water. That would certainly be a nice gesture, but If that were to happen I would not want her to get arrested for it. This could be the new normal in the state of Georgia at election time. If any evidence were ever needed to demonstrate how far Republicans will go to get elected to office, look no further. I wonder what our forefathers would have thought about this. I can’t imagine a single one of them passing a law to deny water to a thirsty citizen. Yes I am aware of the conflict over race and voting that our early leaders dealt with. It is regrettable and sad, but even in those early years of our nation when the right to vote was only held by a few, laws like this would have been considered disgraceful by almost everyone. It is not enough to call this anti-democratic, or racist, or even anti-American, this is inhuman. This is a disgrace upon Republicans that they will never be able to expunge, even if they get around to repealing it. I never thought I would see such discrimination work it’s way back into the laws of our country. This feels like more than one step backwards. This feels like a step back to a time when only white men in this country were allowed to vote. Is that were we are heading again? I like to try and end my posts on a positive note. In this case it’s hard, I’ll admit. If there is a good side to this it is my hope, no, my fervent expectation, that this will do more to motivate people to vote than it will do to discourage them. It feels like we are on the cusp of a new awakening. It feels like the old guard is about to be pushed out of power. Wouldn’t that be wonderful.
This was written in March of 2020, one week into the stay at home order in Washington State. It is an interesting look back on my feelings at the time.
I’m not sure that reading “Station Eleven,” by Emily St. John Mandel is the best thing I could be doing right now. “Station Eleven” is a novel about a dystopian society living after a world-wide virus pandemic has killed 99% of Earth’s population. The novel explores what a post-apocalyptic world would look like. It’s a wholly believable tale of how people cope, and how some people don’t cope, with the pressures of living in a collapsed society. The novel also explores the state of mind of people trapped in an apocalyptic world.
One of characters, Miranda, is constantly feeling like she has contracted the virus. When you are living through a pandemic yourself and trying to make the best of things under a stay at home order (this is the end of week one and it looks like we could be facing four more weeks) occasionally thoughts like Miranda’s will creep into your head. It’s hard not to worry. Most of the time I find the novel to be consoling rather than depressing. The scary part of the novel is of course the 99% mortality rate. Today we are looking at possibly a 1% mortality rate in the worst projections, no one really has any idea if that will be the case or not. Frankly I suspect not. What I do suspect is that this will be a defining event in my lifetime, like the Vietnam War, and the crash of 2008. Once this event has passed, I have a feeling we will look at public spaces differently. There could be fewer tables per square foot in restaurants, we may even be more reserved in our public gestures towards one-another. I hope that does not become the new normal. I also believe that science needs a better understanding of viruses in general. As a nation and as a world, we need to dedicate more resources, a lot more, to understanding viruses and learning to combat them. Our health care system also needs to be able to respond to a pandemic effectively and in a humane fashion. It really is rather sad that we live in a time when so many people are so willing to listen and follow others that have such little regard for science.
We now know, as of April 2021, that the U.S. mortality rate is 1.8 percent, almost double what was initially projected by health experts. We have lost over 500 thousand souls, and the number continues to climb. There are countries that have higher mortality rates but the U.S. is currently the fourth highest in deaths per 100,000 population. That fact alone is hard to fathom considering this is the richest country in the world.
Friday, February 14, 2020
Kanab Utah
Back in Kanab
Red rock mountains,
Monasteries on high,
Need to explore.
Coffee shops and outfitters,
Art, food, nature,
Coolness abounding.
I think of Watchful Raven,
Where is he now,
Back in Kanab.
Brad Adkins
Tuesday, December 17, 2019
A Day
some might say it was a wasted day
No. 2 bus to Downtown
in and out of outfitter stores
six Auto-Donuts from the Public Market
more walking
just walking
Street Car to Capital Hill
Light Rail to the University
a Christmas Card
a book of poetry
a Manhattan
a strangely quiet Lyft ride
to the library
return the strangest book
I have read in a long time
try on new glasses
back where I started
not totally wasted
exercise is good
not as good as a cycling tour
but good
i found some inspiration
in the effort
that much a plus
a respite from the
nonsense that is our daily politics
it’s good to be home with you
Brad Adkins
