Well that just wraps it up neat with a cute little bow on it, right? Yuck.
This is starting to feel like the death scene in a French movie. I still have four days, though, right?
Perhaps someone is trying to make a comment on how the three authors of the Federalist Papers tried to lay bare the Constitution. The world may never know.
I’ve also used this approach to create some multimedia texts for the Uncharted website – dabbling in creating web videos to tell the same kind of story I’m trying to tell with text alone.
I ramble (obviously). I rarely outline. I’m currently working on a fiction novel, and the most outlining I’ve done is to plan, five chapters ahead, what each chapter will focus on. I tend to let my fiction writing grow organically, like penicillin. I stew over it. At the same time I’m a rapid prototyper – I like to bang out a piece of writing, then re-write, re-write and re-write until it works. I set it aside, then re-read it and re-write it. Some portions are perfect, in my view. Others need help. So I keep stewing.
Most of my professional career has been spent in journalism, where such “penicillin writing” as discussed earlier works in some cases (where narrative or storytelling is called for), but not in all. For most of what I wrote for the papers, I used another metaphor – the inverted pyramid, a style which commands journalists to structure their stories in a way that presents the most important information first, with importance diminishing as the story gets longer. But again, these stories were rarely written in a linear fashion. I tend to start at the beginning, but if the last bit I write is in the middle, that’s okay. Things eventually fit together like a puzzle. Sometimes the prototype goes through a few iterations. Sometimes, depending on deadline, it does not. I have noticed that the quality of writing does not necessarily increase as the number of iterations increases. Some things I bang out, I think, work fairly well with only minor tinkering. Other things, however, call for the bone saws.
Now I write procedures used to process and package radioactive waste, using linear and looped approaches to make sure every little piece fits together in a way that makes logical sense. Still, portions of the procedure grow and are then merged with other portions, in ways that make for a randomly-patterned whole that works perfectly for its intent. But since there can’t be any gaps in logic, these are more tightly-structured than a penicillin piece. These are more like Lego bricks, perfectly interlocking so that no holes are left. I admit to some outlining here, because there are certain tasks that have to be achieved and in a certain order. But again, the outline is sparse, not detailed. The procedure I’m the most proud of is one that I wrote as I worked with operators on the equipment, as they figured out how best to use it.
Prof. Hailey writes that “Different genres call for different metaphors.” I have found, however, that different genres don’t necessarily make me write differently, sometimes to my detriment, but mostly in ways that are successful.
By the way, Liam, our eight-year-old, caught his first fish last night, fishing with the Cub Scouts at the Rexburg Nature Park. He was ecstatic. And Dad, being the quick-witted individual that he is, FORGOT to get out the camera to take a picture of said event. So I have failed and will obviously be returned to the Daddy Store as damaged goods. I was pleased, however, that Liam kept hollering "catch and release," just like Ernest does in "Ernest Rides Again," so some of his Daddy has rubbed off on him.
Speaking of fishing, it seems Lexie has the same patience for it that Dad does: None whatsoever. My fishing philosophy revolves around that of comedian Stephen Wright's: "There's a fine line between fishing and standing on the shreo looking like an idiot." I typically fall into the idiot category.
Personally, I'm thinking Elizabeth gets one last visit with grampa, then he's gone. Why not wrap the poignancy of the Anthony/Elizabeth wedding with the bitterness of death? Now I know how those fans of soap operas feel when somebody they know is about to buy the farm.
If I am wrong, I will personally post here an embarassing photo from my childhood. I give him a week at the most, in comic strip time. Stay tuned.
One of the things I enjoy most about being a technical writer is that it means I’m no longer a newspaper writer. Being a technical writer means I’m part of a club of writers who fidget and fussbudget about getting things right without necessarily marrying ourselves to the rightness of what we produce. Fact is fact. Argument, even, must be supported by fact. The facts we deal with are rarely nebulous. In journalism, however, while we occasionally juggle such non-nebulous facts, we’re more often called on to wrestle with the nebulous “facts” that are, in fact, opinions of those who hold them to be facts. As I look back on the failings of my journalism career, I can see that it was juggling these various areas of “truthiness” that burned me out. I wasn’t the journalist I wanted to be, and realized that what I wanted to be I didn’t want to be any more. So I got out.
hose digital camera battery petered out minutes before Old Faithful blew, so we could send them pictures we took as we sat next to them.
Of all the novels I’ve started writing but haven’t finished, I like the one that ends at Jenny Lake the best.
In this story, a man ravaged by the trials of life has lost his regular vision and is forced to see the world as though through flames of sticky, watery, fire that coalesce and distort the objects and people he most wants to see. At the end of the story, as he despairs whether he will be able to see normally again, he visits the shores of Jenny Lake with his family, a dying wish, for at the lake, once his family has gone to bed that night, he plans to kill himself. But as he watches his young son wade in the waters of the lake, leaping onto boulders and chasing minnows in the shallows over the coarse sand, an oval of his vision around his son begins to clear. As he concentrates on watching his son play – watching him enjoy the present, with no thoughts for the future or the past – his vision clears completely, and for the first time in years, he is able to see.
The book may never be written. The story may not even be good. But Wyoming’s Jenny Lake is still a favorite place of mine to contemplate, imagine, and, yes, watch my children frolic in the clear, cool waters of the present.
Jenny Lake lies on the east of the Teton Range in Grand Teton National Park. Since glaciers carved this lake, two miles wide, about a mile long and about 260 feet deep at its deepest point, its shores and bottom are not muddy. Especially on the east, the lake shore is a pleasant mix of coarse sand, gravel and tumbled rock. Some of the larger rocks lie above or just at the water’s surface, providing stepping stones for a pleasant game of leapfrog to waders. When the weather’s hot – eighty degrees or so – the cool waters of the lake feel just fine.
More pleasant is to sit on one of the rocks, feet on the sandy bottom, as you watch the lake’s innumerable minnows swim in the water, darting over your submerged feet, sharing the same few cubic inches of water.
The lake is rimmed with forest, mostly of pine and quaken aspen, though a few cottonwoods thrive closest to the shore. The trees are filled with birds who trill and chirrup as we splash in the water. Bold finches and ravens aren’t bothered by our presence, perching on branches or waddling or hopping up paths as we swim or wander. One of the cottonwoods, however, appears to belong to a rather feisty chipmunk, who screeched and twitched his tail at us for a good fifteen minutes after we arrived.
The Tetons rise practically from the lake itself on the west, making for early sunsets as the bulk of the mountain elevates the horizon high into the sky. Even from the east side of the lake, it’s easy to see forests, boulder fields, snow fields and other features on the mountains. Inviting as well is Cascade Valley, a significant dip between two mountains at the lake’s midpoint. A tw-mile hike around the western shore of the lake brings you to that valley and two points of interest: Hidden falls, an 80-foot waterfall, and Inspiration Point, which offers views of the lake.
On past hikes on that trail, I’ve seen deer and been within minutes of a bear that ambled across the trail. Be aware this is wild country where animals are the owners. We humans are visitors, invited back to nature to see what we’ve forgotten.
History: Jenny Lake is named for Jenny Leigh, a Shoshoni Indian wife of Richard “Beaver Dick” Leigh, a Englishman who built himself a reputation as a skilled guide and mountain man on both the Idaho and Wyoming sides of the Tetons. The couple acted as a guide to a Federal government survey of the Yellowstone and Teton areas in 1872, shortly before then-President Theodore Roosevelt declared Yellowstone as the nation’s first national park. Lake Leigh to the north of Jenny Lake is named for Richard Leigh himself.
What to bring: Sturdy hiking shoes, binoculars, a picnic lunch, sound recorder and camera, swimming suits, sandals, towels, sunscreen and a lot of time. There’s enough at Jenny Lake to keep even the most antsy busy, and enough quiet there to keep the thoughtful thinking.
(You're in luck, folks -- What a day trip we had this weekend. With some minor picture difficulty, which I should have sorted out this evening.)
Update: The picture plague problem appears to be fixed.
rock below. The fallen rock has exposed cavities in the rock, which swallows and other local birds use as nests. As we sat on the cliff edge, watching the water, the birds darted into and out of their holes behind and below us, amazing our kids with their stunt flying. At times, it looked like they were going to crash, as the holes they were aiming for were visible only to them.
Once and a while, when I’m poking around at Deseret Industries looking for new used books to read, I stumble across one that’s considered, in some ways, to be a classic. As I try to expand my reading repertoire, I try to read these classics just to add to the base of useless cultural knowledge my brain possesses.
The battle for Germany began as the largest single military event of the twentieth century, and ended as its greatest human tragedy. More than half a century later, we may be profoundly grateful that its worst consequences have been undone without another war. The men who fought and died for the freedom of Europe received their final reward with the collapse of the Soviet tyranny, two generations after the destruction of its Nazi counterpart.Added into the mix is Hastings' conclusion -- drawn after much research, and from what I know, I believe he's right -- that the Allies (the British and Americans -- went into the war with military objectives and did not do much planning on what would take place in Europe, notably Germany, after the fighting was over. There were efforts like the Marshall Plan, which helped rebuild Western Europe, but those were plans that were drawn up after the fighting was over. I think it's telling that there were no carefully-laid plans for what to do after the war was over. Sounds like Iraq, does it not, where the aim was to oust Saddam, but damned if anyone knows what do do afterward.
Two little boys, arms strung like Ys from rail to rail, finger the grooves. “Maybe somebody made these with their fingers,” one said to the other. “I wonder who made them,” the other said.
Then I remembered.
I did.
Without the aid of limeflower tea and a petite madeline, memories flooded back as I stood there on the stairs, behind the little boys waiting for their turn to go down the water slide at Heise Hot Springs. Like Marcel Proust in his famous novel A la Recherce du Temps Perdu, I rediscovered those long-lost memories. As Proust wrote, “the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory . . .”
Okay, so the vicissitudes weren't exactly rendered inocuous. But at least rendered more vivid.
There were Heise disasters:
As a little boy, emerging from the dressing room after a swim with my rear end rubbing against the inside of my coveralls, because someone stole my underwear from the dressing room.
There were Heise jingles, played incessantly on the radio Mom listened to while we waited for the bus:
“The Heise Hot Springs Magic will cast a spell on you (ching!)” The ching was some kind of chime, fitting with the records of Captain and Tenille and the Carpenters that old Bob Zeil played on KID – AM radio.
And Heise parents:
Dad sitting in the pool's snack bar, watching us through the windows, swimming. He got our attention. He thought he was telling us it was time to go. We thought he was telling us he'd buy us more tickets for the water slide. Merry moments of miscommunication ensued.
And Heise flowers:
Hollyhocks. Hundreds of hollyhocks, gathered like spears jutting out of the ground, abuzz with bees. Just like the hollyhocks at Grandma Spiers' house on Second Street, lining the rickety wooden fence on the alley.
As we swam at this hot pool, squeezed between the Snake River and cliffs of the river canyon in the panhandle of Jefferson County, Idaho, I wondered what memories my wife and I were creating for our children. As we drove home, they poured out:
Sunburn, first and foremost. The itchy, hurty kind that hurts if you scratch it but drives you nuts if you don’t. Also, the camp host paraded through the RV campground with a dead skunk on the end of a pitchfork. Not sure if he was just taking the shortest route to the trash pile or parading the skunk and odor through the entire camp as a share the wealth gesture. Liam eating the water slide up, going down again and again, then demanding to be taken out to the diving board so he could jump off. Sometimes we call him our chicken heart. But in many ways, he’s quite brave. Our route to the pool was entirely a Bat Route, all back roads, only a few miles on a state highway.
And those carved rails. Standing there in line behind the little boys, with Liam beside me, I remembered how we carved them. From my ankle I took the elastic bearing the metal disc, stamped with the number matching that of the canvas bag we put our clothes and towels in at the dressing room. I wrapped the elastic around my fingers, grabbed the disc, and rubbed it in one of the grooves.
It fit perfectly. I scraped the disc through the groove, and a little sawdust collected on its edge. The little boys watched. They took their elastics off their ankles, carved with their discs. “Cool!” the older yelled.
I smiled. I'd passed on a memory.
Getting there:
The boring way: From Idaho Falls, travel east towards Wyoming on U.S. Highway 26 for about 20 miles. Just past the community of Ririe, watch for signs pointing off to the left for Heise. From the highway, follow additional signs to the hot pool complex, nestled in one of the largest cottonwood tree forests in the world.
The Bat Route way: From Rexburg, travel south on the Old Yellowstone Highway out of towm to the Archer Highway – watch for signs pointing to Heise and Archer. Once on the Archer Highway, simply follow this winding farm-to-market road through the community of Archer – past Big Jud's restaurant – and Madison County's Twin Bridges campground on an island in the Snake River. Shortly after passing the campground, another sign will direct you to the left (east). (Note: Continuing south on this road will take you into Ririe, a community of less than a thousand, which is worth visiting just to get a feel for isolated, small-town America). Again, follow the winding road through farmland, across the river again and then down to Heise.
What it's about:
Heise Hot Springs features two small hot pools, one large pool, a 350-foot water slide, campgrounds that border on the Snake River and a pizza parlor. More information and rates are available at http://www.heiseexpeditions.com/heise.html.
In the area:
Cress Creek hiking trail, a popular nature trail that takes hikers on a two-mile jaunt up the hillside to the north of the Snake River, for views of the eponymous creek and, from the top, the Snake River Canyon below.
Memory No. 1: Emerging from the dressing room after a swim with my penis rubbing against the inside of my coveralls, because someone stole my underwear from the dressing room.
Memory No. 2: Climbing the long cedar staircase to the water slide and wondering who carved the deep gouges in the wooden railing. (Gouges are still there; I determined this time that they’re from the little metal discs we’re issued to reclaim the canvas bags we deposit our clothing in while we swim. I remembered rubbing the gouges with my fingers, wondering where they came from. This time, rubbed them again, wondering why my brain had stored that memory – and so vividly – for all these years. Marcel Proust probably knows what I’m talking about.
Memory No. 3: Trying to communicate with Dad through the glass window of the observation deck. Randy and I swam. He watched. He wanted to go home. We thought he was signaling that he was going to buy us tickets for the waterslide. Much merry miscommunication ensued.
Memory No. 4: This is more vague, but I remember, I think, losing a shoe in the parking lot on the way out to the car to go home. Even more merry miscommunication ensuing. On the way out this time, noted a single yellow clog in the parking lot. Wondered what poor little girl was missing her shoe.
Memory No. 5: The rails leading up the slide staircase were much taller when I was a kid. Adult butts were much closer, in that young point of view, especially when the staircase was crowded.
Memory No. 6: The Heise Hot Springs 70s hippie jingle, which they played on their local radio and TV commercials when I was a kid: “The Heise Hot Springs Magic will cast a spell on you (ching!)”
Memories from this time: Sunburn, first and foremost. The itchy, hurty kind that hurts if you scratch it but drives you nuts if you don’t. Also, the camp host paraded through the RV campground with a dead skunk on the end of a pitchfork. Not sure if he was just taking the shortest route to the trash pile or parading the skunk and odor through the entire camp as a share the wealth gesture. And the ubiquitous, fun ones: Liam eating the water slide up, going down again and again, then demanding to be taken out to the diving board so he could jump off. Sometimes we call him our chicken heart. But in many ways, he’s quite brave. Lexie and Isaac went down the slide once, and opted not to go again. I went down many times, a few times emerging out of the end of the tube much more rapidly than I’d hoped. On the last trip, my butt scraped the bottom of the pool and, as I struggled to slow myself, down, I snagged something out of the water. At first I thought it was a twig, but as I surfaced and felt the shape in my fingers, I realized twigs don’t sink, nor do they come in the shape of an X. I had two hair clasps in my hand. They were rusty. Probably had been in the bottom of that pool for a long time. Also, our route to the pool was entirely a Bat Route, no state highways involved. How long has it been since I took a trip like that? We’re able, thanks to Madison and Jefferson counties, to make the trip from Sugar City to Heise entirely – well, almost entirely; part of the route through Rexburg is on State Highway 33 – on county roads, which weave through little communities like Archer and Ririe on roads that follow the old farm-to-market plan, sweeping curves at random corners to the trucks don’t have to struggle through ninety degree turns.
And, finally, hollyhocks. Someone at Heise has a thing for hollyhocks, because the flowers are all over the place. They reminded me of my Grandma Speirs, who had them planted at her home on Second Street. That’s why I can’t get rid of those at home in Sugar, even if they’re a nuisance because they attract bees and fall over into the carrots.
Earlier this week, the commission approved Idaho’s largest wind farm project, a 150-turbine project that will be spread over 20,212 acres in the Wolverine Canyon area of Bingham County, southeast of Shelley.
When both of these projects are complete, the area will be home to 259 wind turbines. Ridgeline built a 43-turbine project southeast of Idaho Falls in 2005, then sold it to Invenergy LLC. This is the project you can see – faintly – on the foothills east of town as you’re driving into town from the desert.
These companies are in the business, of course, to make a buck. But if they can make a buck off a renewable resource that increases our electrical production without increasing greenhouse gases or dependence on foreign oil, more power to them. Pun intended. Both of these projects could be ready in 2009.
Together, these projects will generate about 713 megawatts – enough to power 463, 450 homes (one megawatt has enough juice to power about 650 homes). That’s enough electricity to power eastern Idaho.
PacifiCorp buys Invenergy’s power, and will be the likely customer for the electricity produced by these two new projects.
These plants – plus a 3.3 megawatt hydroelectric plant on the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River, proposed by Rigby, Idaho-based Symbiotics, Inc – continue to add to the area’s alternative energy cap. The hydro plant recently won local approval, and must now go to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for approval, possibly also in 2009.
I survived something even more fundamental: A mistake. It’s turned into the eye-rolling type of mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. Two documents I worked on way earlier this year lacked some reviews, so I’m having to do them over again, and in only four days. Not that it won’t be manageable, but it’s just a headache. I spent a good portion of the weekend silently fretting about it all, only to come in today and feel competent and on top of things as the new reviews are going smoothly. Anticipation of events is the real bugaboo in my life, I suppose, combined with a tendency to overreact and get all moody.
The eye-rolling comes because the documents aren’t really related to the work the auditors were looking at, but because the auditors always have to find something, this is what was found this round, and it just happened to be something I had my fingers in way back in January. I’m not complaining about the situation; I’m simply being asked to fix my mistake, and I’m doing so cheerfully. I hope that goes a ways in showing that I can fess up to the things I do wrong and get them corrected. But you never know how people will react to this kind of situation. DOE is populated with strong-willed yeller types. But cooler heads are prevailing, recognizing that it’s just best to get the work done. Besides, I have the personality type (noted in my post on puppy-dog eyes) that means once I’m swatted with a newspaper, I tend to remember it. At least for a while.
