Top 10 things NOT to expect while backpacking...

...with your children in the Uintas (mostly for men)

10. That kid-safe (no deet) mosquito spray will suffice, allowing you to setup your tent while being swarmed by thousands of the tiny sons of ….

9. That your children will carry their small packs the entire way and consequently that if they do not you will easily, being the manly man you are, be able to carry their packs on your front side or in your hands

8. That you can find time to read Waterman’s Backwoods Ethics and McCarthy’s The Crossing while relaxing in front of a warm fire

7. That your children will surely rather eat a full course, including blueberry cheesecake and spicy kung pao chicken, freeze dried meal (estimated cooking time including water purification: 90 minutes) instead of silly Top Ramen noodles (estimated time: 5 minutes)

6. That camping 50 yards, instead of the required 75, from the trail will be “good enough for the forest ranger,” i.e., “Wow, it’s great you guys brought your small kids out here to experience the great outdoors so we’ll let this infraction go this time”)

5. That repeatedly encouraging your children through positive reinforcement (“You are doing great; now let’s work on moving forward while balancing your pack”) will lead to increased speed and a team-family spirit

4. That your child can, after 10 minutes of instruction, be able to cast a fishing pole into the lake without breaking, tangling, and splashing the entire rod and reel into the lake AND that you will have enough patience to then retrieve the pole and start all over without incurring a sudden and convulsing headache

3. That you can competently and patiently advise your 7-year old daughter in outdoor bathroom practices even if she will not allow you to “look” or get closer than 15 feet even after having major hygienic complications

2. That you can balance a cooking pot on your very small backpacking stove prongs without spilling the water or burning yourself while your children complain they are hungry AND that after spilling all the water twice (laboriously filtered from the lake) you can refrain from saying, “This stupid (bleeping) piece of (bleep)”

1. That after all of the frustrations of family back-packing you most certainly will never take your kids backpacking again OR that you will remember all the hard work the next day after you return which would then save you from ever endeavoring to pull off such an ill-conceived adventure again

Reading out of despair

My blogger world and real world concerns have converged today. I’ve been frustrated lately (and forever) with my inability to read quickly. So many stacks of books I want to get to but so little time. Part of it is reading speed and part of it is the 7-8 hrs of sleep my body seems to need (I’ve been wondering if caffeine could help me out here) and part of it is my insane need to exercise for too many hrs.

The convergence:

High Touch Megastore (in person): “I just read Harry Potter over the weekend.” It’s like 600 pages.

Another colleague who is already re-reading HP for the second time, “I read it real fast the first time.”

Unhip who blogged about reading Johnson’s Everything that’s bad for you is good in 2.5 hrs. It’s 200 pages.

Signifying Nothing (in-person a few years back) who said he reads more than anyone he knows and who must read fast as he knows way too much about the history of the Catholic church.

Discussion with SR at SLCC about reading strategically in order to stay up with theory in rhet/comp.

Hearing Middlebrow talk about many books he read in an evening or two and, of course, all the while cranking out pages for his dissertation.

As Signifying Nothing indicated in a recent blog, I generally do not like the interactive blog questions (esp ones about music since I know nothing about music—no time to listen to music when I’m trying to finish a 200 page book I’ve been reading for a month) but I must indulge:

1. How fast do you read? If you read fast, have you always been a relatively fast reader or was it something you learned?

2. What reading strategies do you employ in order to read what’s most important? And if you skip/skim/don’t read every word how do you make sure you are still getting it?

3. Do you annotate the books you read? Why or why not? Also, which kinds of books do you annotate and why?

4. How many books do you read each month/year? Are they mostly quick-read novels or some difficult theory, long, laymen’s science, etc.?

5. Honestly, like really honestly, how many hrs of sleep do you need each night?


Sometimes I have a fantasy about reading non-stop until I’ve read everything I have stacked around my house and everything I’ve been planning on reading. Now that's better than any sexual fantasy I can imagine.

Of course this is a ludicrous fantasy but certainly indicates my ever-present, engulfing at times, guilt about not knowing enough.

Crap, I can’t believe I’ve wasted this time writing a neurotic post while I could have been reading: Into the land of Unicorns, The natural history of make-believe, and Patterson’s second book on children’s lit in prep for my children’s lit class in the fall; Aristotle’s Rhetoric so I can say I read the damn thing; my new Runner’s world so I can get pumped up again about exercise; David Quammen’s Monster of God because I love his wry humor and piercing insights; McKibben’s article in the new Harper’s on Christian Paradox because I am a walking Christian paradox; Walk two moons so I can get it back to Unhip; JS Mill’s On Liberty because it’s seminal; The Crossing by McCarthy because I loved All the Pretty Horses; the stack of papers I must have done by tomorrow at 7am because I must…

Rexburg, The Tetons, and old age

We're at the in-laws. We enjoyed a great stay in Jackson on Friday and Saturday. I'm not a big fan of the shops--cowboy hats, bags of rocks, and moose decour--but I love going into Teton Park. After years of visiting Jackson, I actually felt like I actually got up in the Teton mountains. My wife's family enjoys eating at Jenny Lake but they are not much for hiking. Since we stayed overnight (very expensive), I was able to do a hike with my two oldest the next morning. We headed up the Death Canyon trail towards Phelps Lake overlook, a breathtaking view and only .9 miles of gradual uphill. From there we went down the switchbacks to the trail junction to Phelps Lake, but instead continued on towards Alaska Basin with a promise to my kids we would go to the lake on the way out. Then we started to ascend at a rapid pace. The rock chucks (at least that's what I call them) kept the kids from thinking about the heat and their aching legs, but that only worked for a mile or two. After some cajoling and putting my almost 8-year old on my back for about 1/3 mile (two steep switchbacks) we made it to the first "top," a basin with a pristine river and a winterized ranger cabin--about 7.5 miles round trip. The kids played in the river while I read for a bit from Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran. After we were to meet up with my wife, youngest son, and the in-laws back at Taggart Lake but they were not there. Thank goodness we'd set-up a secondary plan: if we miss or don't see each other we'll meet back in Rexburng.

Turns out my mother-in-law had forgotten an important medication so they'd all set out for Rexburg at 10am. Her health has detiorated quickly over the last year or so. It doesn't seem fair as she's only in her 60s and has already had to overcome other big life challenges. She doesn't have anything life-threatening but she can't get around too well; she's kind of bent over to the side and is on powerful pain meds. Old age, health problems and the like scare me more than I can even consciously admit. Seeing her in pain and witnessing her frustration about what she can't do has made me realize that getting older demands we expect less of our bodies. I know this is a no-brainer but I just can't get my head around it emotionally. I've probably put too much stock in my running, in running faster, in running farther, in completing some all day adventure. I guess seeing my mother-in-law forces me to admit that my own body is breaking down, that is I can no longer say, "this is just another injury [I currently have a hip issue which caused me to miss an uphill race in Jackson--the original impetus for this whole trip] and I'll surely recover on the other side." There will be a time when accepting less will be the only option. Maybe then I can focus solely on the beauty of a hike in the Tetons without a pang of regret about covering half the distance I could have covered if I were running.

Lost Love

Even though there is a week left, the Tour is over. Lance will win #7 unless he crashes or gets sick which he won't do. It's a bit of a downer--no more excitement, no big stages to look forward to each day, no more white-knuckled vicarious hill climbs. It's been a good ride. I think it will be a long time before we witness an athlete as consistent and dominant as Lance Armstrong.

Bladders and Dreams

I didn't sleep so well last night. My deteriating bladder woke me up four times. Don't know what's up as I didn't drink a late night coke or coffee. I guess, as my sister-in-law told me today, at our age we start a long journey of doctor visits where they remove bad stuff and try to fix broken stuff. How exciting. My point: when I get up a lot I tend to remember what I was dreaming about. Sometimes my dreams are a mishmash of images and people but last night my dreams were clearly centered on current worries:

New Rooms: In this reoccuring dream, I realize that our house has this whole new part to it that we (don't ask me how) didn't realize it had. This new room is expansive, the very kind of room I've been recently wishing our stupidly laid out 3,000 square ft house doesn't have, the kind of room which can hold a ping-pong or pool table. This dream replayed after one of my peeings but on the 2nd go around the big, yet dank and dusty, room led to an even bigger room. This room was huge, like ballroom huge, with marble walls and pillars. Boy was I excited and then promptly disappointed when I awoke.


I had another great example but I realized it wouldn't be too wise to share it online--never know who is reading this stuff. Probably about two people but ya never know. My first experience with online safety self-censorship.

May my bladder hold tonight.

Summer of difference and DifferAnce

Having/making time to read theory:

Currently reading A Teaching Subject by Joseph Harris.. Probably old news to many as it was published in 96 but I'm really taken in by it. Yesterday I was reading his deconstruction of the term community while they were passing the sacrement, the very epitome a "consensus" ritual, in my Mormon ward. I'm intrigued by his discussion of the "public" classroom which is a kind of democratic space but I'm also aware of the critiques of this kind of idealized space. Favorite quote: "I don't want no Jesus in my promised land" (Lester Bangs when discussing the Clash) which Harris then reworks as a commentary on writing classes: "I don't want no Jesus and I don't want no Socrates either."

Speaking of Socrates, I've also made some progress (only like 1400 pages left:) on The Rhetorical tradition by Herzberg and Bizzel. I just finished reading, well if one calls my attempt reading, Phaedrus. I'm amazed at how the issues have stayed the same over so many years, though I have to say I tired quickly of the condescending straw man approach of the dialogues. Had a nice moment when I ran into Theuth and Thamus' discussion of writing: Theuth claims it is the "elixir of memory and wisdom" but Thamus counters "You have invented an elixir not of memory but of reminding." Of course Socrates goes on to compare writing to painting, noting that words can't defend themselves. What interested me in this was I recently finished Stephens's The rise of the image, the fall of the word where he uses Thamus'/Socrates' attack on writing as proof that we often focus on the weaknesses of a new technology rather that its eventual potententialities. Stephens' ultimately argues that we have barely tapped into the potentials of image, video, tv. In this sense the Neil Postmans of the world (and everyday derision of the couch potatoe) are missing the mark just as Socrates was concering writing centuries ago.

I love it when a writer can help me see behind-around-through what I've become used to seeing as normal. But also it's dismaying how much work, time, energy, and luck it takes in order to put into the background a view I've taken up in order to see something anew.

Familial harvest

While I have ambivalent feelings about our current hot season (see earlier entry), I do quite enjoy the early mornings. This morning I finished hanging out the clothes my wife had started and then I sifted through the bean plants--these amazing little plants that started as a small seed only a couple of months ago. The harvest must call back to some evolutionary constructed connection with the earth and sustenance. I fondle each plant, moving it around to find the ripe beans, each a treasured reward. But this isn't a farmer type harvest--pick it all and then off to the market--but rather a familial harvest, one where I ask the plant for a few beans each day. Bean plants I learned are actually quite sensitive to the harvest, producing more if the beans are picked early before the bean undulates with pregnant seeds, producing less when it's weighted down with big meaty beans. Later I will ask my kids to snip off the ends of the beans, a chore I did with my mother and grandmother as I grew up. Then each night during the harvest season we will have some garden item to eat--beans, a red pepper, a tomato, some cucumbers. It's not much and may only compliment a frozen piece of meat or some pre-packaged noodles but it's a small token of my tenuous connection with cool summer mornings and the green earth.

Counterintuitive: a personal etymology

Counterintuitive became a permanent part of our language the 2nd year of our marriage. We were students and quite poor; biggest purchase to date was a wedding ring. Since we wanted to travel some and camping was all we could afford we bought a $180 tent. It nearly killed me to spend that much money, but actually putting up the tent was far worse. Every time we put it up (inevitably in the dark and hungry) we failed to place the correct poles on top so that the tent could be erected. Finally I realize that it was counter-intuitive: the long poles went on the bottom and shorter ones went on top. Unfortunately it took many years and arguments to come up with this pneumonic device and then a few more years to actually remember what the pneumonic device meant: “I know we decided these poles are counter-intuitive but does that mean we would assume the short or long ones go on top?” This past June for the first time in our marital history we put the tent up correctly on the first try—only took 12 years, 34 tries. As one might guess the word has taken on a life of its own, entering conversations at odd moments, usually causing a knowing grin of recognition.

I guess I could end with some huge claim about how life is counterintuitive, but I’m not sure at all what intuition tells me about life—do we intuitively see life as easy? Difficult? Full of surprise? Boring? And if I did decide what exactly I had intuited about life would I remember it in the same way when I hit my next challenge? It would probably take me like 34 tries.

F-bomb hot

it's F-bomb hot. Went for a 30 minute run and then continued to sweat profusely; I mean like buckets. It was kind of uncomfortable but also felt rather cleansing. I've purged all pores for the day, my only real accomplishment other than 4 hrs or so of Tour.

Vicariously meaningful

Armstrong proved his mettle yet again yesterday. What a display of team work by Team Discovery and then pure mountain genius by Lance to finish it up. He didn’t quite take the stage but he put time into all of his main challengers (unless the polka-dotted RasmUssen continues to keep up).

Embarrassingly anxious, I was about as vicariously engaged as one can get. I have to go back to the 98 Jazz run at the NBA title against Chicago to remember feeling so connected to a sporting event. I feel a bit silly during those white-knuckled viewer moments knowing I’m just one of millions drooling over Lance. Whether there is something of long-term value in this spectatorship, I don’t know. But I do know I greatly enjoy the moment and then, later, reliving it. I guess it’s wanting to be part of history but it’s probably more like not wanting to miss out on history. So much of life just passes by and is forgotten, crunched in amongst a thousand memories, most moments completely forgotten and the rest not worth remembering. There’s something comforting about being able to measure out life by recalling these few “lived” moments (sporting events, world disasters, big life experiences).

While driving to my class this morning I was thinking about all this. I’d just spent another 4 hrs watching today’s stage (I got up a 5am to catch early coverage) and I was feeling a tinge of guilt for not being better prepared for my class—those hours could have been dedicated to prep for a real-life class and students! But is it so simple? How and where do we create meaning? Can we choose to make something meaningful? My father-in-law will often invoke the future memory of an event we are currently experiencing before it has even finished. Sometimes I see him arranging a meaningful experience, like one composes a photograph, to view and re-experience at a later date. He’s very skilled at this, understanding quite well the balance between allowing or setting up an event vs. forcing it. While my wife has many fond memories which her father set up, she also admits he had an easier time getting caught up in a book than in an experience, maybe best expressed in his infamous response to his children, “I think we’ve had enough fun for the day."

I guess my fun meter alarm went off after my Tour indulgences which then spurred on my guilt. Tonight I will most certainly focus on constructing authentically meaningful lived experiences for my students. Real life here I come. No more silly flings with Lance for me.

I ... Love .... Lance

My best friend M. often refers to Bruce Springsteen as merely "Bruce" as if he knows him personally or something. It kind of bugs me but I'm beginning to get a sense of why he might do this. The Tour de France is in full swing and for the first time since my days at BYU on-campus housing with free cable, I'm watching the Tour de France live on OLN. I switched my cable option to include OLN just a day before the Tour started, a huge move for my normally tight wad self. So, I'm like a Tour junkie. I taped all 5 hrs yesterday and then watched it throughout the day. And I just can't contain myself as I wait for the real race to begin in tomorrow, the big mountains where "Lance" should prove he is yet again the top rider. I know some have begun to wonder about Lance ("he must be taking drugs" or "Sheryl Crow???") but if one takes the high road with Lance, you might as well give up all professional sports, not to mention reading novels, visiting art museums, or listening to classical music. I'm not into Lance's character, I'm into his body (bring on all sexual innuendos--I don't care). He's simply amazing. I'm no cyclist but I've done some riding (once I limped through a 100 mile ride which wasn't even a race) and I just can't believe what he has been able to do in the Alps for the last 6 years.

Good luck Lance. I'm watching your every move.

Superman Sucks

Last week I rented Superman for my kids. I had all these good memories of watching it as a kid (I would have been about 9), but my memories have been distorted, I assume, through the years. First off, I didn't even recall the first third of the movie at all. I started wondering if I'd even seen the damn thing--Marlon Brando warning the inhabitants of Crypton, baby SM being sent in small capsule, toddler SM being raised by some farmer couple, MB giving fatherly advice to the confused young adult. I remembered nothing until the "real" Superman appeared as Clarke Kent the newspaper guy with Lois Lane. Finally I felt at home only to quickly realize Superman is the most uninspiring superhero alive. As Stan Lee, the creator of the original Spiderman, has commented, Superman is boring--he can do anything, even speeding around the world in order to go back in time to save Lois Lane. I could have fastforwarded through the last half but by then my kids had gotten into it, forgiving it the lame special effects and eerie Brando floating face. We sat and watched till the end. Thank goodness for Spiderman. Now there's a thinking man's hero: conflicted, unable to live up to his expectations, confronted with the death of others, silently brooding over his love for M.J.

Inaugural Post

I finally publish a blog. I've been thinking about it for a few months now: first inspired by Middlebrow (my officemate) and then by the blogging mania in my department. At one point I decided I wouldn't do a blog as I was most assuredly only trying to be hip (however Unhip some bloggers may think they are) but then I realized that everytime I lurked through through the SLCC blogs I was unconscioulsy composing blogs in my mind--wasted ideas frittered away as I start some new task. Life demands some sort of recordiing and reflecting. So, here I go...