Eye update

Don't have the time or energy tonight to do an eye photo, but will try to get one up tomorrow. Realized after I got a few tweets about it that I didn't give an update on the eye here, just the tweet about the eye doctor being delayed because some other patient had a vitreous hemorrhage. Well, once I finally got in there (about 30 minutes late) he looked at me, watched the eyes move, gave me the all too familiar yellow dye eye drops to check for eye pressure, and gave me the "get outta here".

Well, a modified "get outta here", really...I have to go back in 6 months to check in again, because in his words (or a paraphrase of them anyway) "with injuries like this things can manifest themselves up to a year later." At that point he's going to dilate me as well, which will mean I'll finally be able to deliver my eye baby. Thank God!

News of the day

Sweet little 8 pound baby Jesus this is a great news day! OK, so some of these probably broke yesterday, but I'm slow on the uptake. But any day with these two opening lines is not to be missed. First up, we have this freakish crime description:

Authorities say they've arrested a man who broke into the home of two California farmworkers, stole money, rubbed one with spices and whacked the other with a sausage before fleeing.

The sausage whacking is what does it for me. To quote Ebby Calvin "Nuke" Laloosh from Bull Durham, "That doesn't make me gay, does it?"

Then we have this guy, who blames his OCD for his inability to resist the siren call of the Big Mac. Sure, the OCD shows up in this line, but that's just tracking them. Not the eating...

Gorske has kept every burger receipt in a box. He says he was always fascinated with numbers, and watching McDonald's track its number of customers motivated him to track his own consumption.

I smell like a pool

Man, it's been a while since I stank of chlorine...took the kids to the public swim this evening so Logan could knock out his swim test for the Boy Scouts (at his age it's simple: jump in to water over your head, swim 25 feet, turn around and swim back). And since we were paying for the whole session anyway we hung out and played for a while. Which meant that a) I now stink of pool, and b) my toes are raw from rubbing on the bottom. But it's a good raw...

Mt. Pilchuck hike details

So I know you want more details of the epic climb of Mt. Pilchuck on Saturday, so here you go.

Saturday dawned partly cloudy in Seattle, with fog over the sound and sun at our house. Got the boy up, fed him some French toast, then headed over to the school to meet the Troop. Or, rather, to meet the other kid who was going on the hike. That's right, one other kid. We called one boy who we thought would be coming and his Dad's response was "I guess we're not coming..."

Well, not to be daunted by low numbers we piled in to the cars (I took the boys, Scoutmaster Mark and his wife and dog rode in their van) and headed up to Mt. Pilchuck. I'd never been there before, but I'd heard the view from the top was beautiful. And on a nice sunny day it should be right? Well, sure, except for one little fact: "weather conditions in the mountains can change rapidly." Or, rather, "weather conditions in the mountains won't be the same as at your house. Unless you live in the mountains."

The farther north-east we drove, the cloudier it got. And by the time we turned off the Mountain Loop Highway on to the Mt. Pilchuck road it was clear that we would be parking in the cloud. The only question was how thin the cloud cover was and whether in the 2,224 feet of climb we'd come out the other side.

We started off with some map and compass work, since part of the reason we were going on the hike was to knock off the "using a map and compass take a 5-mile hike" requirement for the 2nd Class rank. They learned about the difference between true north and magnetic north, how to orient the map, all that stuff. And it looked something like this:

Once that was done we set off up the trail. It started off wet. A creek, really, with gravel and large rocks keeping us from wading through mud. But later it turned in to your standard Northwest mountain trail: mud, roots, and rocks all contained by logs.

It drizzled a bit, then let up, then we climbed in to the cloud propper and it got foggy. Not severely foggy, and the trees kept most of it off, but definitely dim and damp. And then we broke out of the trees and in to boulder fields. Which, being a slacker, I neglected to photograph. I also neglected to photograph the top of the old Mt. Pilchuck ski lift, a big square (or maybe hexagonal) concrete platform with bolts sticking out of it. In fact, I didn't photograph anything until we got to the top, mostly because I was too busy concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other and not collapsing in a heap and sobbing. Because let me tell you, that's a steep trail. Especially if you're a 41-year-old fat guy who hasn't been to the gym in a while.

Finally, though, we clambered up the 3 miles and made it to the lookout shelter at the top and could see the wonderful view from the summit of Mt. Pilchuck:

Yes, the clouds never lifted, the fog didn't blow away, nothing. There was a pretty decent breeze at the top, but it was just blowing the cloud around rather than making it dissipate. So we sat on the rocks and ate some lunch, when disaster struck and Logan fell off a cliff. Fortunately I was in position to capture him going over:

It's amazing he didn't fall on me, really, what with the camera angle and all...

Oh, and in case you're wondering, yes, the trip down hurt as much as the trip up. Well, maybe not AS much, but still a lot. Although in different places...

An exhausting Saturday

Both physically and, um, humorically. Started out the day climbing Mt. Pilchuck with Logan, another boy from his Troop, and their Scoutmaster and his wife (and aged dog Loki). Pictures will be posted tomorrow. Suffice it to say that wore both of us out but good.

Ended the day seeing Patton Oswalt perform. Oh my God. The opening act, whose name escapes me (I think it was Kyle Kinnear, but nothing comes up when I google that so clearly I'm wrong) was a riot, and Patton was genius. Any show that starts with the line "So I chapped my dick in Salt Lake City...let me back up" is pretty much guaranteed not to suck, and it didn't.

And now it's 11:45, I'm exhausted from hiking and laughing, and I'm writing a blog instead of going to bed. That's the kind of dedication I bring to the table. Or the bad judgement. One of those.

Too tired to blog anything interesting

Not to imply that when I haven't been tired I've blogged anything interesting, but I'm beat. Sure, I could have posted earlier when I wasn't, but I didn't. Instead I sat around flipping between The Soup and xbox golf, and later between Chelsea Lately and Links golf on the xbox. That's what kind of excitement we've got going on in the Chicken house tonight...

And now I need to hit the rack, 'cause it's an early morning and a strenuous day hike with the Scouts up Mt. Pilchuck, elevation five thousand something feet, 2,200 or so of which we get to walk up. Over 3 miles. Sounds steep.

Thanks, YLNT!

So our good friends at You Look Nice Today (for the record, I don't know any of them but suspect that Mr. Jack Chicken might) tweeted a couple tweets on the twitter today. They were, and I quote:

YLNT Lexicon: If X is past its prime, it becomes "X Starship." @fireland employs it effectively here: http://xrl.us/oqarc

(The preceding rule, like all good rules, has a defining exception. In this case: http://www.chickenstarship.com )

I guess this means I should update the web site...

First day of school!

The first day of school has come and gone, and both kids had a great day. Maya is enraptured with her teacher, which is good and hopefully won't wear off too soon. Logan survived his first day of middle school, ate almost all his lunch, and came home energized and psyched. All of which is good, 'cause he was mildly dreading it yesterday. Oh, and no complaints about how he doesn't get recess either, which is a good thing.

We took the traditional "first day of school" photo, and while he didn't take his hood off rest assured Logan does indeed have hair. We didn't walk to school this year because Paige, in her last year as PTA President, had the honor of waiting at the local Starbucks for them to fill up the cardboard coffee thingies that she'd ordered on, oh, Saturday. Apparently they "didn't write it down in the log." Whatever.

Anyhoo, here's the slide show!

It's not the first day of school

Not yet. That's tomorrow. Which makes this what, First Day of School Eve? Something like that. And like Christmas Eve, the children are all aflutter with excitement. Or maybe it's just that they've been staying up late for the last two and a half months and as a result are having a hard time going to bed at 10.

Whatever the reason, they're going to be sorely tired come 7:30 tomorrow morning when we roll them out of bed. If only I played the bugle...

One of the great things about working downtown is...

...the weird stuff that goes on. Sure, there are drug dealers and users wandering around, and busy type-a business folk barreling down the sidewalk and whatnot, but once in a while you come around the corner and find six ladies wearing nothing but aprons.



No, I didn't take the picture...that credit goes to the great and lucky Joshua Trujillo of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The story, as you'll see here, is that these women work for Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics in Westlake Mall and figured the best way to promote their all natural products was to go out au natural. Or however that's spelled.

I, being a boring guy who rarely leaves the building at lunch, missed out on this wonder. So I have to live vicariously through the two guys behind them...between the expression on the black guy's face and the camera-phone wielding white dude, it was apparently quite a sight.

But what about Grimes?

With all the chatter about Palin and Biden and whatnot the M$M seems to have completely lost sight of the big question this election season: Who will Grimes pick as his running mate? Maybe it's already been decided and just hasn't made it to the UFU web site. We can only hope they've got as nice a hat as Grimes.

Might I suggest that he one-up McCain by picking not only a woman, but one with a sweet hat and stilts?

Climb on!

Today Maya climbed the mighty REI pinnacle for the first time. Her review? Fun!

We actually lucked out on the whole climb thing...we started the day at SkiBonkers (well, technically we started the day with pancakes, but you get the idea) where we picked up some new boots for the boy and mittens/gloves for the girl and me respectively, then headed to REI to get new hiking boots for the boy (because the cheap ones we bought in March done broke), to look at day packs (decided not to buy one), and maybe get some camping gear for the girl. We rolled in to the store at around 2, went to the climbing desk, and the guy said "Well, we just had two spots open up at 2:30, so you're in luck 'cause earlier it was full until 5." We jumped on that, then headed up stairs for a late lunch at World Wraps.

After eating we headed back down to the pinnacle. Maya and a 4-year-old boy were the only kids there, the boy went first, and freaked out about 6 feet up. Which isn't too surprising, what with him being 4 and all, and with 6 feet up being pretty darn high when you're 4. Maya, on the other hand, didn't freak at all. In fact, she seemed pretty darn natural at it. She's got long arms and legs, which definitely help in the rock climbing arena. She didn't make it to the top, but she did get about half way up before deciding to come down. And now she and Logan are keen to go back!

Ah, Football...

Welcome back, old friend, I've missed you. Sure tonight's game was only pre-season, and sure only three or four of the normal starters played, but you were still an entertaining evening. And educational. For instance, tonight I learned that if you're passing your beer to the guy in the row ahead of you, and he drops it, and it splashes over the railing and on to a crazy woman below you, she'll go berzerk and report you to the stadium officials, who will come and check your ticket, then give you a yellow card. And remember, two yellow cards means you have to go watch a soccer game.

Final score: Seahawks 23, Raiders something less than that. Because while the game was fun and all, by the end of the 3rd quarter it was like 28 degrees out side (ok, probably in the 40s with the wind chill, but it felt like 28) and we wanted to warm up. And drink cheaper beer.

Political Obama speech post?

Nope. Although I kind of feel like I should get all pundit-y and post something about Obama's acceptance speech tonight, I just can't. Because not only am I not a pundit, but I'm really stuck on the whole "8 is enough" reference and keep wishing he'd thrown in other TV shows. As the great lonelysandwich tweeted, ""We need to stand up and say Eight is Enough! And One Day at a Time, we can ease these Growing Pains! Benson!"

I will say that in these tough times it appears that Obama and Beiden are the A-Team of politics (although that implies, at least physically, that Obama is BA Baraccus while Beiden is Hannibal, which is clearly not correct unless BA was secretly calling the shots while pitying the fool...and I'm not really sure who that makes Face or Murdock).

It is now clear that I'm neither a pundit nor a comedy writer. At least not at 11:07 at night...

Damn, why didn't I try that?

That being the angle this guy took in writing his bike ad...earlier this summer (OK, so it was last spring...) you may recall I was selling some bikes. And while I was moderately witty in my Craigslist postings, I didn't have a clean enough angle. Not like this guy. And as a result I didn't get to use the phrase "why not just punch yourself in the balls."

Maybe next time.

What we're watching

So I've heard there's some kind of political discourse going on on the tv. Heard it from the kids, actually. See, at 8 ABC was supposed to be showing Wipeout. Paige and I were watching the US Open on the DVR, so we sent the kids down to the basement to watch it. At which point they came back up and said "what channel is it on?" To which I replied "4 or 5..." to which THEY replied "there's just some lady talking on those channels."

Apparently Hillary was saying something. At a convention or something. Fortunately by the time Roger Federer was done whooping up on his unknown first round opponent she was done talking and it was time for the Big Balls. Because everyone loves the Big Balls.

What's wrong with this picture?

Here's the picture:



Here's the headline: Castro defends athlete who kicked judge in face.

Clearly what's wrong isn't the picture, but the headline. 'cause Castro's been dead since 2006, hasn't he?

One more Olympic impression

Closing ceremony impression, really: When did Jimmy Page turn into an old man? Admitedly, I don't check up on Jimmy every day like I should, but dang...between the white hair and the sweating I was starting to worry a bit. That said, he can still play the guitar far better than I could ever dream of playing it...

Oh, and a question: Where can I get one of those sweet light-up hats they were all wearing?

Coming soon to the German fetish site of your choice...

Is it just me or do you also think this will be the next phase in German fetish pr0n? You know, once they're done making those sheizer movies with Cartman's mom...Anyhow, a big thank you to G4's Attack of the Show for introducing us to the balloon torture chamber. And for introducing us to Olivia Munn, naturally...

New Olympic sports

So toward the end of yesterday's post I started thinking "hey, if BMX is an Olympic sport maybe they could go even more extreme..." So I started writing down ideas. Here are a few...please feel free to vote. Not sure the IOC will accept them, but maybe we can start some kind of Chicken X-Games offshoot.

1. Horseback shooting. The winter games have the Biathlon, a combination of skiing and shooting. So why not hoseback shooting? You could do both rifle and archery, kind of an "Indians vs Cavalry" thing. Or "Mongol Horde vs the Light Brigade". Only shooting at targets instead of at each other.
2. Freeform sword fighting. I love the speed of fencing and saber, but they're totally linear and not at all realistic. We've certainly got the wireless tech to allow the sensors to work in 3 dimensions, so let's get rid of the carpet and let them move sideways. Put it in a ring or a cage or something, with penalties for going outside of the box.
3. Heck, while we're at it let's add horseback sword fighting. The saber is a cavalry weapon, so give them horses and let them go at it. You'd have to pad the horse, naturally, but what the heck.
4. That brings jousting in to the picture, but that's getting too SCA for my taste. We don't want the Olympics turned in to a Renne Faire, now do we?
5. Mixed Martial Arts. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if this one happens in a few cycles. They've got boxing (boring!) and Tae Kwon Do (don't get it!) but they're both points based and totally padded. Not enough blood, I say. Throw in some straight-up MMA cage fighting. 'cause Forrest Griffin deserves a gold medal.
   

So that's my list...what you got?