Update

Somebody actually has a photo from the bachelor party I attended a month ago. I stole it (courtesy of Jon Gratz, actually), and you can see the type of foolishness we were involved in. If you've ever seen the arcade game "Big Buck Hunter," it was like that, but with people wearing antlers and a paintball gun. Hilarious.

Reality Check

My wife and I went on a great hike yesterday, did about seven or eight miles in the hills above the North Fork of the Nooksack. The weather was perfect, and our views of Mt. Baker were phenomenonal. I did scare myself a bit, however. Just as we were reaching our turnaround point to head back to the Jeep, I started to feel a bit weak and had the shakes something fierce. At first I tried to play the tough guy, but I realized that was going to get me, or both of us, into some real trouble. I had us stop for a break and started putting as much water and quick food into myself. Then I went over the procedure for treating someone for dehydration with my wife. That's not a fun conversation to have, by the way. But after a short rest, I was back in the game and we were able to enjoy our hike.

The moral of the story is to stay hydrated. I didn't feel like I was working that hard in the hills, or that I was sweating that much, but I recognized the signs and felt somewhat stupid because I should have known better. It wasn't like I had forgotten to bring water, either. Oh well, lesson learned.

I will be here one day.

A couple of foiled summit attempts, followed by a move out of the state have put me off of my goal of being at the top of the lower 48. Mt. Rainier is the highest peak in CONUS, and I keep meaning to make another stab at it. My other problem is that my summit attainment is also dependent on a gentlemen's agreement with my climbing partner to do it together, and he's out of the country.


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The Grindstone

I always find it hard to go back to work after spending a lot of time with my wife, my family, and/or my friends. It always seems like I should just decide to win the lottery and retire at the ripe old age of 26. I do get a certain sense of satisfaction working, absolutely. But I also get a certain sense of satisfaction merely enjoying myself. My weekend was a great mix of my favorite people, being as my brother got married and all of the social functions that go with that. My parents threw the rehearsal dinner at a local Chinese restaurant, which was genius. The following day was the wedding, and the service and the reception were both great. The afterparty from the wedding ended up with me learning how to play pai gow poker at the casino. All in all, a helluva weekend that had to end. Ah well, maybe I will go get that lottery ticket...

Star struck

I interviewed John Reynolds from the Brad and John morning show on 92.9 KISM about his blogging. Really cool guy to talk to, and I'm actually looking forward to writing up my conversation with him. But that will have to wait, as I am currently getting ready for my brother's wedding, and all of the fun stuff that goes with that.

Light Grafitti

This was one of the artists I ran into on the Fourth of July working with light art. The video doesn't reveal all that much, but they were capturing the drawing with a camera with a manual shutter speed.

Ethics on violence

The Mossad is sort of Israel's equivalent to the United States' Central Intelligence Agency. They have gained a reputation as an agency to be wary of if you stand against Israel, especially if you are viewed as a threat. There have been multiple allegations over the past 60 years of Mossad agents assassinating people who were either members or allegedly had ties to terrorist groups working against Israel. The film "Munich" was based on one of the Mossad's more well-known exploits, where the Mossad hunted down those responsible for the 11 Israeli athletes murdered at the Olympic games in Munich.

The movie tends to focus on the psychological effect hunting and killing people had on the men involved. However, I'm curious to know what people's thoughts are on preemptive and/or retaliatory strikes, whether against individuals or nation states. I believe in identifying those who would hurt you and stopping them by any means necessary. For the sake of argument, you are able to correctly identify and are convinced that the other person is out to do you harm.

Let the games begin.