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.

Category: Music Genre: Country Artist: Various Artists This is the review done by Tom Sheridan at allmusic.com: These on-air recordings made between 1947 and 1950 at the Mount Airy, NC radio station offer a fascinating snapshot of the musical milieu of the time. From breakdowns like "Old Joe Clark" by the Gurney Thomas Band to the gospel harmony of "I'm Living Down Here on Borrowed Land" by the Silvertone Gospel Harmonizers, it's priceless material. ----------------------- I'll add to it that these recordings hearken back to a long gone era for me. Sure, we had TV growing up but our family spent alot of time listening to the radio and to old albums. My Dad's folks had a 78 record player too. But most of all these recordings make me think of my Grandpa Orville, Mom's Dad who was a Kentuckian through and through. For anyone who has a music library and appreciates old timey music, this CD is for you

I suppose it would be about 10 years ago this summer when I first met the spunky & delightful Gwen Plouhinec, a.k.a. "The Lucky Girl" . Gwen is from Rennes, in Brittany (France) and I met her through happenstance. She was working as a traveling occupational therapist down in a rural hospital in Tennessee. She was in the United States on an H1-B nonimmigrant Visa and was working for a company who assigned her to facilities they contracted with for 6-12 weeks at a time. It just so happened she was working in the same hospital as another traveling therapist, Heidi Shubert, an Australian who originally came to the United States to work with me. Heidi and I had known each other for about three years when she brought Gwen up to Indianapolis for the Memorial Day weekend and my Indy 500 race party. Now I had a huge crush on Heidi, with her constantly messy hair, big smile and awesome Aussie accent, so when she said she was bringing a friend I said sure. I knew I would like G...

Over the weekend I thought I posted a couple of stories about Dr. Dave's wedding and the rehearsal the night before. Apparently they are floating out there in blogspace. I attended a fabulous outdoor wedding, amidst not so fabulous outdoor weather. It was the wedding between one of my employers, Dr. Dave and his fiance Pamela. It was held out at Dr. Dave's river place, also known as Tarkio. There were about 300 people in attendance. Rain has been falling over Missoula constantly for about 10 days and even though Tarkio is 45 miles west, the rain was constant there too. But as these things often do, the rain stopped just about 15 minutes before the ceremony was to begin and held off long enough for us to gather down on the beach and watch the wedding celebration take place. They wrote their own vows, which they recited at the same time and were wed under an alter made of river driftwood. It was lovely. On Friday they had a rehearsal dinner for 100! It was held at ...

This afternoon I had to run an errand at lunchtime that involved the use of my car. Now I normally don't drive during the weekday, especially at lunchtime, merely for the reason that a gazillion people are all trying to cram as much as possible in an hour and are generally rude and inconsiderate on the road while doing so. So it was with a certain dread that I got into my car and headed across town to the busiest and most McDona-Wenda-Old Navy-Best Buy'ed part of town, the Reserve Street corridor. This is a section of town where all the new development is taking place, where Reserve Street serves as a connector between US Interstate 90 and US Highway 93 and where all the box stores are located. I was heading to the Eye of the Beholder, a custom framing and art shop located in a strip mall next to a mini Pizza Hut. The Pizza Hut was packed with painters, construction workers, truck drivers and a few office folk looking like ducks out of water...all enjoying the $5.99 all you ...

If you thought David Lynch could only make movies that were a bit off center, then you need to see the movie The Straight Story . It's a great movie that will pull at your heart strings and have the whole family in tears. It's slow, and I mean s-l-o-w, moving but at the same time it feels just right. The movie is based on a true story, about a man who drives his lawnmower across Iowa and Wisconsin to see his ailing brother. Harry Dean Stanton is in the flick, a plus for just about any movie. It also stars Sissy Spacek and Richard Farnsworth, Farnsworth in particular does an outstanding job. The scenery is fantastic and the stories created along the journey help make the movie a success, at least in my book. Check it out this month on the Independent Film Channel (IFC) here in the states.

Oh this blogging type thing is getting out of control. I just joined another service called Multiply . It allows you to upload photos, keep a group calendar, share recipes and do just about anything else you want. And since (as my Austrian friend Martin so aptly pointed out in my newly added guestbook)my blog is more of an online diary, the multiply site will let me expand outside of the diary concept...thanks for the kick in the pants Martin. I found Multiply while visiting the blog of a Brazilian girl featured on the blogger home page. Since her site is in Brazilian Portuguese, I just started clicking on links to see where they would take me. in addition to some info on chocolate and some cool photos, she has links to Multiply, Friendster and Fotolog.

Today I realized just what superheroes some of my friends are, day in and day out. I happen to work for a group of surgeons and I also consider all three of them my friends (Two of them have been my friends long before I moved to Missoula). I work as their Practice Manager, meaning I run their business. My office is across the hall from the main clinic and my interactions with patients are usually brief (when I'm across the hall and cross paths with them) or about issues related to patient care or their bills. I am not a clinician and I'm never involved with actual patient care. The patient care issues I hear about are usually related to appointment wait times, confusion (or complaints) about their bills or when they want to pay a compliment to our staff or the doctors. It's pretty cool to work in a doctor's office where the patients oftentimes bring in treats or send cards or make things (painting, carvings, etc.) for the doctors and staff. It's a testam...

Just a quick note, the guestbook I am using is a free tool that has a few glitches. in the case of my guestbook, I thought it was customized so it would show the person's name, what country they were from, a link to their homepage (if any) and their comments...doesn't look like that is what they activated. I will try to fix it tonight.

When you visit the Blogger website, you not only can find out about blogging, but can also learn about other bloggers. Tonight I dipped into the website of an Armenian blogger, who happens to live in the long disputed region of Nagorno-Karabagh. The blog is super cool and the blogger, Ara Manoogian, has a great feature I decided to add to my site...a guestbook. On the right hand side of this page, right under my profile, you'll find a new link that says, "sign my guestbook". Click on it and a new window should pop up allowing you to sign the page. don't worry, I'm the only one who will see your email address and url (if you enter them). I just added it tonight and it should be live by tomorrow morning (or whenever the $1.99US clears paypal). Sign away and welcome

Some time back I spent 50 cents on a book written in 1953 by Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall. The book was published then by the New American Library as a Mentor Religious Classic and is entitled, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran . Over the ensuing years I picked it up at various times (usually whenever I reorganized my bookshelves or moved) but never gave it a serious reading. The paperback cover is torn and the pages are yellowed. I originally bought the book out of sentiment, as the first girl I can honestly say I loved was Ela, a Turkish-American girl from a Muslim family who I dated in College and pined after for many years afterwards. My experiences meeting her family and some of the things that happened during those stays (like the fact she couldn't speak directly to me in her parents house and also was not allowed to make eye contact) made me want to know more about Turkish culture and Islam. Long after we broke up (err...I mean, long after she broke up with me 'c...

Late last night, while watching highlights from yesterday's college football games, I saw a commercial for an Internet dating service called eHarmony. Although I've played around with Internet match services in the past, it's not something I'd normally consider. But the combination of AW and I biting the dust (at least I think that's what happened, I'm still unclear on this), my emotions of the day and a spontaneous, "what the heck" that sort of popped into my head at the moment, I decided to visit the eHarmony site. eHarmony touts itself as being the perfect way to find a match, using a 29 dimension profiling system to properly match people. I spent about an hour filling the thing out, almost quitting three or four times. But I battled through all the psychological profiling (you know, where you're asked the same thing 5 different times in a slightly different manner) and carefully read through the terms of the agreement before I pushed the...