I did a little fishing this morning before I went down to Orting to see Jesse and her extended family. I took this picture of the head of this Chum Salmon just before releasing it back to the Snoqualmie River. It was like reeling in a log - that swims.

Yeah, what Dave said. Read the rest.

"When you watch Baker in motion, don't think he's working for you. He's working for the Bush family, and more broadly, the Republican Party, Corporate America and the defense industry."

I have two days off from work but I'll be doing two shifts at the nursing home. For the class we are visiting a nursing home and a hospital. I need white shoes. The rivers are still a mess so there won't be any of that recreation. There wan't enough daylight after work today to run so I'll tomorrow. I've had enough of the wet leaves. Landscaping is sapping almost all I have. This chopped up entry is proof.

This is the first day in a while I've had to fish. The trouble is that the conditions are not optimal. There is a whole lot of rain coming, thus raising the river levels. I put together a few jigs last night and I'm anxious to try them out. I think we've had enough rain.

Hello. Tonight in the nursing assistant class we learned that we will be washing dead people. Dead people.

edit: we won't be practicing on dead people; in the course of doing a nursing assistant's job, the task of washing a dead person will come up.

Enough of the profanity. Some people just suck though. Here is my latest catch. This guy put up a great fight. I headed up to the river after work yesterday and as you can see I was rewarded for it. He cleared the water twice jumping. It took me a few minutes to get him to shore to see whether I could keep him or not. He didn't like the idea of heading toward the rocks so he tried to run a few times. This time I kept the drag loose so he wouldn't break my line, but I also had to be careful he didn't get himself behind any rocks he could rub the jig and line against. I made this jig. You can see it above his head. I measured him at 31 inches. I need a bigger cutting board and sink, and a sharper knife with more like him.

I had another mower stolen off my work truck today. Fuckers.

Hi all. Not many entries lately, just some pictures of dead fish. I spent all day up on the river yesterday and today I need to get some other things done. The river is low and clear which makes the steelhead shy to bite. I guess the rising rain waters wake them up, preparing them to spawn. Part of that process is that they get aggressive, biting at things that enter their area. This is where the jigs come in. The trick is in the color combinations and presentation. I've landed four so far. One was wild so it had to be released and the other one I let go wasn't quite the size I've been used to. I don't think I'll be fishing today, what with the contusions on my legs from falling all over the rocks and with me losing gear in the river and not catching anything. I need to nail down the upcoming BCC course, get some stuff mailed out, get some domestic stuff done and then maybe run with the group tonight. Later.

Here is today's keeper. It is a 30" female chrome steelhead.

This is a better picture by far. The other pic came from my cameraphone. I like that I can send it directly from the river, but the quality is lacking. I lost the jig and float I got it on after I left that hole. I'm meeting Bob and Eric up there tomorrow and I'm very tempted to go swimming for it. This fish kind of surprised me because up until now all that I had gotten had been snags. This snag moved. And then I was thinking, holy shit - it worked. It had always been the other guy who would pull one out of there. As I was walking out of there I was still a little surprised to have it in tow. Very cool.

It is very good too. Half of it is cooked. I marinated it with basil, garlic, lemon juice, salt & pepper and some store brand red wine vinaigrette. Oh yeah, there is olive oil in there too. Cous cous and some stir fry vegetables rounded out my meal. I could eat like this every day. I guess all that cooking I did stuck some. I need to learn the art if filleting better though. Y'all have a great week.

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I got one! It is a nice 26" steelhead. Finally.

I took this picture of the New York skyline about 20 years ago I think. Being September 11th I thought I would add my 2 cents on this anniversary. At about the same time I used to hang out some with Buddhist monks and nuns at the Nipponzan Myohoji Peace Pagoda and Temple in Leverett, Massachusetts.




Here is the Peace Pagoda,



This order of Buddhism is dedicated to peace. I was idealistic, yes, but I still think that working for peace with peace is a much more rational way to approach that realization rather than the fearmongering and senseless war we find ourselves in right now. 'make sense? Here is a quote I particularly like from Seth and Jane Roberts, in Susan Watkins' "Conversations with Seth, Book one" pp230-232:

"But when all the young men refuse to kill for the sake of peace, and when all the women forbid their men to kill for the sake of peace, and when you realize that no peace will come through killing, and that the end does not justify the means, and when you grow full and light with thoughts of peace, then there will be an end to war! But as long as any men go to war for the sake of peace, there will be war. And as long as any woman teaches her sons how to go to war because of love of peace, there will be war.

"You make your world. When you populate your world with ideas of peace, then peace will grow. When you think thoughts of aggression, you attract aggression and you draw it out from others in daily contact, and on the part of nations.

"When you do not understand yourselves, you project what you do not understand upon others - upon your friends and associates - and then you become afraid of what you do not understand, not understanding that it is your own fear. And you do the same thing as a nation with other nations. There is no way to ensure peace but for every man, every man, to lay down his arms."

...

"And there is no other way to have peace but to believe in peace"

Peace.

I haven't been updating much, but in my stead, read the article about post 9/11, which includes this:

"I remember thinking that one might easily write a book with two very different versions of how the world would respond to this attack on the West.

"One version would describe people coming to their senses about the ravages of war and the need to see the world as an interconnected whole. In this scenario, the endless photos of the planes crashing into the World Trade Center towers would propel Irish Catholics and Protestants and Central African Hutus and Tutsis and other historical enemies to realize they could live together and resolve their conflicts without slaughtering each other."

Bob and I climbed to Camp Muir on Mt. Rainier last week. I wanted to post a bigger picture than this but the next size on Flickr is way too big. This is a few pictures put together. It was cool up there in the 60's, with some wind. I think we were slower getting up there than last year. There is more snow in the Muir Snowfield but hazards still exist. Avoid the blue spots. You can hear water running underneath and the footing is poor. I have more pics to assemble.

I got my CPR certificate yesterday. Tomorrow I'll get stuck with more needles, hopefully finishing off my vaccination routine. The Nursing Assistant Certified course will start the 9th of October. More small steps.

Writing of "small steps," I'm going to try out my leg this afternoon. I am hopeful after last week's climb that I'm ready to start running again. Wish me luck. I need luck with the steelhead too. I might have had some bites yesterday, it's hard to tell. One of the CPR instructors was telling me about his steelhead experiences. He echoed the sentiments of others, that the first steelhead fight will be memorable. Without exception, this is what I've been hearing. 'hope so.

Y'all have a splendid day.

I headed up to the river this morning, but didn't get a bite. I saw two other people land some steelhead though. I must be doing something wrong. After that I went to the ESR picnic at Pine Lake in Sammamish. It was nice to see my them all again, if for no other reason than to show them that I'm not dead. I had to explain a number of times about my injury (I don't know much about it) and my current regimen of beer drinking, donut eating, work and some fishing. I've really made a break with the group, which I'd like to re-establish. What I've found is that I'm not the only one. The cohesiveness of the group ebbs and flows, much like the river.

Tomorrow Bob and I will be climbing Mount Rainier. This is our annual hike to Camp Muir. I don't have to run the day before this time (see "current regimen" above) in order to give myself a handicap. I'm not even packed yet. This should be fun.

I didn't make it out to the river as I had hoped. There is still the after-effects of whatever I had. I also had to make an appointment for a CPR course and some vaccinations/tests and then run back with my college transcript. I finally went to the grocery store, made food for the week and did my laundry. Somewhere in there I pulled Lee away from her Sammamish abode for lunch. It is eight now. Oh yeah, I also went into Seattle and picked up some weighted floats. I just have to darken the bottoms. Maybe I'll go back to one of the rivers tomorrow after work.

Here is another shot of Mount St. Helens, as taken by my sister. We would have had to have paid a fee if we had wanted to get any further. They were happy with what they were seeing. It is really quite a sight.

Jeannie and her two friends left yesterday after their brief visit to Seattle. They are members of the Red Hat Society. They went on an Alaska cruise and then stayed a little longer to visit me. Picture a ship of red hatted women whooping it up. The first day I immediately drove them out to Snoqualmie Pass in order that they get an idea of the local area. On the way back I showed them Snoqualmie Falls, Issaquah, Lake Sammamish, Redmond and then my place in Bellevue. Saturday we drove out to Mount St. Helens to look at the steaming volcano. The weather was perfect (as opposed to how I was feeling), except for the slight haziness in the picture below:



After a school related meeting this morning and then some domestic laundry duties, I'll head back out to the river for some steelhead fishing. This is the hole I'm working on in Index. No bites yet. Y'all have a great week.

After some fishing in Sultan with Eric this morning, I drove down the road to the Wallace River Hatchery. Here are a load of Salmon; Kings I think. Correct me if I'm wrong. I ordered my steelhead pole, reel and line this morning. I figured that all that money spent (uh, credit card) on the car's transmission, without anything other than my freedom of movement to show for it, I would order something for my renewed hobby. Eric landed some small salmon and took one home. I didn't get anything. I think that river will be closed now for a month. My next task will be to get this place cleaned up for the arrivals of Jeannie and Jesse. They won't be staying here but they give me a good incentive straighten this place out. Two relatives in the same week - from all the way across the country. Who'll be next?

I went back to the Wooden Boats Festival a few weeks back. I like the position of these two ships together. I have more pictures of fishing and the festival (different days). Here is a quick update: I have a cold, the transmission in the car is being rebuilt, work is taking all the energy out of me, I'm still not running and it seems that I'm not getting anywhere either. I have new seed beads though. I wish I had more time for that. Lee got the first string. Happy birthday. Y'all have a great rest of the week. Time for bed.

Happy Independence Day. Go here and listen to this reading. Listen to the grievances and think about our present predicament. Remember what Ben Franklin said, "They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Don't let tyranny pull up a chair and make itself at home. Throw the bums out.