ope...a life samuel.pepys.1
Went to Idaho. 16 June 2025 through 19 June 2025. Monday - Thursday.
Boise is a groovy place. Love the vibe. Love the art. Visited 9 1/2 years ago to check it out when I had a job offer in Meridian. Liked it then, too. If I could get a book mines gig there now it'd be a nifty place to live for a while.
Went to Craters of the Moon. (Wikipedia)
Rubbed elbows with the rich and famous in Ketchum, ID. The library there is the bomb diggity. Almost worked there back in the day , too, but couldn't afford it. (NYT article) Beautiful area. Interesting story about how Sun Valley came to be.
During the winter of 1935–36, Harriman enlisted the services of an Austrian Sportsman, Count Felix von Schaffgotsch, to travel across the Western U.S. to locate an ideal site for a winter resort. The Count toured Mount Rainier, Mount Hood, Yosemite, the San Bernardino Mountains, Zion, Rocky Mountain National Park, the Wasatch Range, Pocatello, Jackson Hole, and Grand Targhee areas.
Late in his trip and on the verge of abandoning his search for an ideal location for a mountain resort development, he backtracked toward the Ketchum area in central Idaho. A U.P. employee in Boise had casually mentioned that the rail spur to Ketchum cost the company more money for snow removal than any other branch line and the Count went to explore.
Schaffgotsch was impressed by the combination of Bald Mountain and its surrounding mountains, adequate snowfall, abundant sunshine, moderate elevation, and absence of wind, and selected it as the site. Harriman visited several weeks later and agreed.
Drove 75 to 21 in Idaho (beau coup curves). Visited Bogus Basin. The drive on 20 through eastern and central Oregon was lovely.
The PNW is a pretty funky place to live. The Oregon Coast doubly so.
There's the Oregon Coast Range which butts right up against the Pacific Ocean. It frequently hails. It frequently rains when it's sunny. This leads to oodles of rainbows. Moss and molds abound. Deciduous trees are never bare and brown. If there aren't leaves on them there's moss. Lots of moss.
Fungi also abound. Mushrooms grow everywhere.
The temperature generally stays between forty and seventy degrees fahrenheit. It rarely snows. When it does it doesn't stick around long. It's a wet cold. This makes it feel much colder than it is. We're used to the dry colds back home. The moisture means hair is flat.
There's a lot of salt in the air. Every couple of months we need to wash the house down to get the salt (and keep the moss) off. If cars are left outside surface rust happens very quickly. Keeping them in a garage seems to ameliorate this issue.
There doesn't seem to be a level place in the joint. Hills up the wazoo. It's a good thing it rarely gets cold enough for water to freeze because with all the water we get around here and all the hills we have, driving or biking or walking would be difficult.
It really does rain a lot. Heavy rains abound. Winds blow and gust hard, well into the double digits. When the winds blow and the rain thunders down...it's some nice moody weather. There are all kinds of lights rains, too. There is little lightning and thunder.
All this is mostly true for the first 1/4 to 1/2 mile of land from the ocean. While much of it rings true for the rest of the Coastal Range as well, there are differences. For instance, it can get much warmer there in the summer and much snowier in the winter.
Not the best idea to just go for a drive over the 4th of July weekend. This is why. But a bit before ten pm on the fifth we decided to go for a little drive. Hit a couple beach accesses but there were so many bonfires (neither of us enjoy bonfire smoke) so we started driving around Devil's Lake. It was a little after ten by this point and we saw our first firework of the evening. We'd forgotten that the Devil's Lake Association puts on a fireworks display on the fifth. We found a place to pull over and watch the fireworks. Was nifty.
Purchased 2024 Transalp 2025.07.11.
Sunday 27 July 2025
Bought a motorcycle 11 June. Her name is Mabel. Grappling hook! Miles ridden so far: 1243. Found a new 120 mile route through deciduous forest (in short supply on the coast) that will be even more beautiful come Fall.
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Notable patron interactions from the previous week:
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Stacy and I consider moving to Boise, ID. Cool place. Not sure about pay cut (~$35k/yr) and what effect it would have on pension and potential retirement.
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Cleaned the west-facing gutter. Every year it gets some black on it that won't come off with a single wash, so we wash it every day for a week. All sparkly now.
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Costco run. WinCo run. Trader Joe's run. All in the valley. When you leave the coast to go shopping you have to make it count.
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0 hours writing.
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Father memory: Typing quizzes for his high school classes with one finger - right pointer.
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Snowflake memory: After my motorcycle crash I was in so much pain one morning I cried out. Snowflake jumped up onto the arm of my chair and looked out over the apartment ready to challenge all comers.
Sunday 03 August 2025
Miles ridden this week: 440. Rediscovering some paved(ish) back roads I haven't been on in years.
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Hours writing: 0. Blech. Excuse du jour? Trying to get the archivio.antico sorted - will take a while.
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Notable patron interactions from the previous week:
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Interview with the public library in Flagstaff, AZ. Another cool place. Just like last week, still not sure about pay cut (only ~$25k/yr this time around) and what effect it would have on pension and potential retirement. The conundrum: do we settle for the pretty nifty life we have here and travel lots or possibly hurt our chances of retirement but move around every few years.
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Stopped taking two of my four allergy shots a month ago. Starting to feel the negative effects of that decision. Fingers crossed things don't get too bad.
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Father memory: We had a football game we'd play: make it across the big back yard (about 30 meters) in four passing plays, then three passing plays, then two passing plays, then in one passing play.
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Snowflake memory: slow blinks.
Sunday 10 August 2025
Miles riding: 372. Especially nice ride yesterday.
Hours writing: 0. Drat. Though I did find an old piece I'd been looking for for years: 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. It's a little on the mean side of things but I really enjoy it. Glad I finally found it.
Notable patron interactions:
During online searches I've been using Bing more than Google lately. The results are better and Google has taken to ignoring basic search parameters (-, "", etc). This has been happening more and more lately.
More work on archivio.antico: Herbie, Election 2004, and Rutabaga v2.
Decided against moving for now. No Boise and no Flagstaff for us. We have a pretty good life and trying to make it even better by moving to a new place is too much of a gamble. Big risk for minimal gains. We'll continue taking day and weekend trips. We might still move back to the Twin Cities, though, should I ever get a job offer there.
Decided against embedding offsite media (think youtube vids and the like). Much better privacy-wise. Went through and changed all old embeds with links. Still occasionally embed local media.
Father memory: Letting me steer the car (from the passenger seat (when I was in grade school)) after swim practice at the high school.
Snowflake memory: using my suitcase as a bed so often I had to get a second suitcase.
Miles riding: 718. Tried doing some off pavement riding (forest roads and the like) but couldn't because of fire hazards from drought conditions up in the Coastal Range. Did some longer distance riding instead. Also got hand guards and skid plate to make off pavement riding safer for Mabel when I can use the trails again.
Hours writing: 0.
Organized more archivio.antico: A trip (2005), archive.org link to tiny dead bunny (2006), H (from 2006), Bullitt Right Along (2007), bakiwop for president (2008), tweets (2008), and FBI Santa (2010).
No hugs this past week from patrons.
Father memory: My father was a high school teacher. I had him as a teacher. I never knew when he was going to give pop quizzes. My father was sneaky.
Snowflake memory: Going to IHOP to talk over getting Sweet Pea after visiting her in the shelter for the first time. We rushed back as quickly as we could because we were afraid someone else would choose her.