My Mind: Lifesized

Tonight I got and sent an email from Pete over in Thailand. He's busy with his life, his new wife and trying to start his bronze business. Anyhow, i'm trying to connect Pete with my new friend Hossein, who is Iranian. hossein has some friends who make and sell pottery and I thought he and Pete could somehow cross-network. Here's a glimpse at how my twisted mind works when I have too much time on my hands. While daydreaming about how all this could lead to some sort of adventure in iran for me, a Greg Brown playing in the background made me start day dreaming. my thoughts of Iran floated to Turkey and thoughts of beautiful rugs and wonderful people and then my mind floated to a dusty corner and the name of Ela Aktay popped out. Ela was the first girl I thought I was in "real" love with and that would have been about 20 years ago. I have some funny stories about meeting her parents (Turkish emmigrants to the US) but I'll save that for another time. ...

I haven't posted for a week or so because I've been mad at Blogger. See, I wrote this very wonderful review of the third day at Yellowstone...quite detailed and blogger lost it. I know that sounds absurd, but I posted the damn thing and it just never appeared. no search found the glitch and this isn't the first time. But I heart blogger and I heart my little corner of the owrld, so I am back 9but I'm still mad). I'll write another 3rd day review soon.

Sorry for the hurdy-gurdy approach to my journal these days, but I wanted to put the final touches on the Yellowstone National Park adventure I had with Mom, Dad, Chris & Nicole. If you haven't read the prior posts, you may want to before reading any further. I awoke bright and early Sunday, as Dad went outside for a smoke and the sound was just enough to roust me from my slumber. It had gotten cold the night before, and the morning sun was already busily melting the frost on the Hoosier's Hotel roof, which was plop, plop, plopping onto the sidewalk. Cooke City was quite tranquil, either because the locals were sleeping off the Saturday night fun had at the Miner's Saloon or perhaps they were already up and out hunting or something. As I said before Cooke City is an end of the road sort of place. We had breakfast at one of three places open, and the Chinese waitress (with a wedding band on...I'm thinking international matchmaking) was also serving as cash...

I am somewhat of a history buff, including military history. Over the past 10 years or so I've tried to learn more about the history of various parts of Asia, Europe, Africa and the United States. I've also read quite a few books on various wars and conflicts, both modern and historical. From the moment the United States invaded Iraq, comparisons to the US involvement in Vietnam began to surface. And as time has worn on, the comparisons to me seemed to merit some sort of personal research. My friend Rick is also an avid reader, especially of military history and he suggested I read A Rumor of War, which has been touted as one of the defining pieces on Vietnam. This book is brutally honest...not only in detailing the often surreal events in Vietnam and the consequences suffered by soldiers and civilians alike from often farcical decision made somewhere far off, but also in the depiction of what can do to perfectly sane and otherwise moral individuals. It can be disturbing a...

We awoke early Saturday with every intent to get into the park before the weekend rush. The first of October is the official rate change date, when summer rates go away and many area shops begin to close. Yellowstone is huge and mountainous and the weather changes fast. In the winter, the only road that stays open all season is from the Gardiner entrance to the NE entrance at Cooke City, everything else shuts down and becomes accessible to snow mobiles and winter enthusiasts. So this first weekend in October is just about the last weekend of crowds in the Park and is by far much less crowded than high season...still we really enjoyed Friday and hoped to not get in too many crowds. I forgot to mention that our night in West Yellowstone ended with a huge bus pulling up and coughing out what may have been the entire male teenage population of some small Montana town, the football team which came down to battle the West Yellowstone high school team. In the morning, they evidently trie...

Mom & Dad arrived in Missoula last Tuesday afternoon. The weather here was unbelievable; after two weeks of wet, cold and blustery weather Mother Nature decided to shine down on the northern Rockies...it was perfect. We went to The Depot for dinner and the service & food were both wonderful. I worked on Wednesday, letting Mom & Dad have a free day to enjoy our Indian Summer. We spent the evening looking at maps, going over accommodation possibilities and laughing about the fact we'd been planning this trip for two months but still had no idea what we were going to do or what direction we were headed. My brother Chris arrived Wednesday night with his girlfriend Nicole. Thursday morning we all packed up, stood around the map and finally decided to head to Gardiner, Montana at the northern tip of Yellowstone. I came into the office to wrap up a few things before we stopped at Worden's Market on the way out of town for one of their awesome sandwiches. Worden's...

Hey, my buddy Jeff Gromen is now in blogland. Jeff is from Indy but now lives in Italy. It's a great way to to hear about an american in Italy. Jeff in Puglia

Not much time to write this morning as I need to get back to vacationing! Mom, Dad, Chris & Nicole arrived last week and we've spent the past 4 days down in Yellowstone National Park...it was everything advertised and more! We saw Eagles, Grizzlies, Black Bear, Bison, Elk, Otter, Coyote, Mountain Goats, Sheep, Deer, Antelope, Black Wolves and Grey Wolves! We saw geysers, paint pots, mineral springs, thermal holes, mountains, waterfalls, canyons, mud holes and more. It was an amazing adventure. I'll write more later.