Two weeks' favorites

Two weeks' favorites from PostSecret.

I'm in so much trouble

See that number next to the "Number of applications in the lottery," 2275? My application is one of them.

According to the decision Steve and I made on Sunday, my application wasn't supposed to be one of them.

Oh boy.

The National Park Service is running the lottery for 2008 permits to run the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon this week. Steve and I have been on the waitlist since January 2002. Recently the National Park Service implemented a multi-phase transition from the waitlist to an annual lottery. In doing so, they gave wait-listers extra chances in the lottery.

At this point, Steve and I have 7 chances each in the lottery or 12 combined chances. Yes, I know the math isn't right but hey, we're dealing with a government agency here.

We've been talking about taking Rachel on a trip and I was looking into dates for next summer.

But, Steve has a bit of a love/hate relationship with white water river rafting. It's very stressful for him, being responsible for piloting a raft safely through dangerous hazards and being responsible for the safety of those aboard his raft. It's much easier for me since I'm basically just a passenger (although I do have to put up with Steve when he's being StressMan).

In addition, a friend and his daughter (who is the same age as Rachel) who were going to be invited if we got a permit can't take a Grand trip next summer.

So, after much discussion this weekend, Steve and I decided to just let the lottery deadline pass without finalizing our application and to consider trying for a 2009 permit. I had some regrets on Monday but, oh well, too late.

Or was it?

Today, I got the following email from Steve Sullivan at the River Office:

As we prepare to run the 2008 Grand Canyon river lottery, we have noticed that you have an outstanding hold on your application that will prevent it from being considered in the lottery. According to our records, you have not paid for your application.

We understand that this may be because you have changed your mind and do not want your application considered in the lottery. If this is the case, it would help us focus our attention on those who need our assistance if you would do the following. Login to the lottery site at https://npspermits.us, click on "View Application", then click on "Cancel Application". You do not need to do anything further.

On the other hand, you may want to pay and have your application considered in the lottery. Though the lottery closed on Monday, we have extended the pay option for you through 5pm today (Wednesday, 5/30/07). To pay, login to the https://npspermits.us site and click on the "Pay Now through pay.gov" link. Note: this link will not be available after today, so please act quickly.

Next thing I knew, Rachel (who was sitting next to me when I got the above email) was twisting my arm and forcing me to submit my application.

I spent the next five minutes sitting with my head in my hands, alternating between moaning "I'm in so much trouble" and "I hope we don't win."

I still have to tell Steve . . .

Dear Dr. Laura

I've come across this letter twice now, once in one of my favorite episodes of West Wing, Midterms, October 18, 2000, and more recently, in What Jesus Meant by Garry Wills.

The scene in West Wing when Jed Bartlet puts the Laura Schlessinger-esque character, Jenna Jacobs, soundly in her place is quintessential Bartlet, rivaling his initial appearance in the pilot.

According to Snopes.com, "the authorship of the letter is still a bit of mystery," but it is classic.

Dear Dr. Laura,

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to best follow them.

a) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

b) I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

c) I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

d) Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

e) I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

f) A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an Abomination (Lev 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?

g) Lev 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?

h) Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev 19:27. How should they die?

i) I know from Lev 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

j) My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev 24:10-16) Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

Your devoted disciple and adoring fan.

Project 365

Project 365: How to Take a Photo a Day and See Your Life in a Whole New Way

I'm going to give this a shot.

We'll see how it goes: Mountain Musings Project 365 Photoblog.

Yet another tempest in a teapot

Parking in the downtown core of Aspen is not free. There are short term metered spaces and there are spaces in which you can park for a longer period of time which get progressively more expensive the longer you're parked.

There are also spaces reserved for those people who carpool from downvalley. The carpoolers stop at a booth by the airport, pick up a parking pass based on the fact that there are multiple individuals in the vehicle and park for free that day.

Recently the City Council told the director of the parking department that those vehicles with only one person of driving age do not qualify for a carpool permit. This means a parent chauffering his/her children does not qualify for a carpool permit.

And here we go again . . .

There have been multiple letters to the editor on this topic. The parking director has been insulted and called names.

While I understand the disappointment which attaches to losing such a benefit, as far as I'm concerned, it seems that it's a benefit these parents have been accessing through a loophole and now they're upset that the loophole has been closed.

I'm having a hard time getting behind the sense of entitlement these parents are exhibiting as they whine about having to pay for parking.

The free carpool parking is an incentive for the people who are willing to undertake the inconvenience that usually attaches to carpooling and a reward for their willingness to remove a vehicle from the upvalley commute.

A parent is doing neither of these when he drives his own kids to daycare. Why therefore do these parents think they're entitled to free parking?

One guy went so far as to detail how inconvenient it would be for him to take the bus with his kids.

My response is that there are costs to either decision; one of the costs of taking the bus is the added inconvenience while one of trade-offs for the convenience of driving is having to pay for parking.

My prediction however is that City Council will cave and re-open the loophole. Call me a cynic.

Of course, since none of these carpoolers are eligible to vote in city elections, perhaps the Council will stand firm. Wait, that was cyncal too, wasn't it?

Oops, I did it again

I've always had this annoying need to be right (well, more annoying to others than to me). They say lawyers are born, not made (I heard this on Brothers and Sisters so they in this case are the writers of Brothers and Sisters) and I'm pretty darn sure this was the case for me.

When I was in 8th grade, my history teacher, Mr. Kinsella, whom I really liked, told the class something which I knew to be incorrect. I was not satisfied with correcting him in front of the entire class (remember, I really liked him) but was compelled to back myself up by excusing myself from class for a trip to the library to find corroboration which I then presented to him, again in front of the entire class.

Charming, huh?

I can say that in the intervening years I have at least gotten more subtle.

Rachel's philosophy teacher (trivia - he was in the New Bohemians for the Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars album) whom I hold to a higher standard since, in addition to teaching philosophy, he's also the debate teacher, told his class that George Bush has the lowest IQ of any US president in the past 50 years.

While this is a statistic that I find eminently believable and entertaining, it just didn't pass the smell test for me.

I Googled it and lo and behold, it was in fact a fabrication. Granted a fabrication which had been reported by The London Guardian and The New Zealand Southland Times but a fabrication nonetheless.

I emailed the Snopes link to Rachel's teacher with Rachel sitting next to me simply shaking her head. She's used to me by now and knows that there's basically no stopping me. At least I didn't get up in front of class to correct him.

I was pleased and impressed to receive a reply email shortly thereafter from the teacher, thanking me for pointing out his error and vowing to correct himself with the students. Very classy response.

Cliches

I found out Thursday night that a good friend from high school was found dead in her house. I haven't seen this friend since 1981 and spoke with her very briefly a year or so ago, after not having any contact since sometime around 1988.

I'm not sure how I feel about this or how I'm supposed to feel.

While details are scarce, it appears she died unexpectedly, of natural causes. Although I have had relatives, friends and acquaintances my age and younger die due to traumatic causes, in my circle, she is the first of which I'm aware in my age group to have died of a non traumatic cause.

I'm getting older. I had a milestone birthday this year, I tease my husband about needing reading glasses, my parents will be 70 next year . . .

Home Improvement

Home improvement in deed restricted housing is a very interesting proposition.

Our appreciation is capped at 3% per year. This amount is basically guaranteed regardless of the condition of our home upon sale. I mean, if we did absolutely zero upkeep and owned the home for a long time, the cost of basic repairs would be deducted from the sale price but other than keeping it in basically decent repair, we're guaranteed 3% per year.

The flip side is that, with some limited exceptions, we don't get to recoup any upgrades. Any changes we make to the house can only be made with a thought towards improving our quality of life, not with a thought of increasing the value of our home.

This makes the cost of redecorating/remodeling extremely pertinent.

We've lived in our house for almost 5 years and other than replacing a few light fixtures, painting the exterior of the house and enlarging our garden, have done basically nothing. We are now attacking our first interior remodeling project in our small downstairs bathroom/laundry room.

I say we but really Steve's doing all the work. It's a bit of a test project to see how well we do with do-it-yourself remodeling. Since it's a bathroom, it's not quite as visible as the dining room or living room and will make any mistakes easier to hide. Steve's done a ton of work as an electrician so he's familiar with remodels but he's never tiled or patched or painted, etc.

Our house was constructed on the cheap so among other things, nothing is level or spaced properly. Since we're replacing all of the fixtures, Steve's moving and rewiring all of the boxes and generally trying to fix what the original builder, Colorado First (or as our neighbors call them, Colorado Worst), left us.

We have a time constraint as Steve starts a new job on Tuesday and we have the financial constraints already mentioned so it's been a challenging proposition. These sorts of projects take on a life of their own and can easily grow out of control. Deciding where to compromise without losing sight of the original vision has been tricky.

It remains to be seen just how successful we'll be, both with our timeframe and the finished product.

Two weeks' favorites from PostSecret

Beach vacation

I'm not so into beach vacations. I get bored. I don't like sand, heat, humidity or bugs.

So I went to the beach for vacation . . .

It was good.

My last beach vacation was at a remote private beach house near Los Barriles, halfway between La Paz and Cabo San Lucas. We had to drive 45 minutes on a dirt road to get there. The owner of the house told me, "You're not going to want to leave." After a week, I was so ready to go home. Too solitary for me.

But, not so in Sayulita. Sayulita is a small village 35 km north of Puerto Vallarta with a nice beach and a good beginner surf break. But the best thing about Sayulita, as far as I'm concerned, is the surprising number of good restaurants. Mexican, French, Mediterranean, Argentinian, Italian, Asian. It reminded me of Aspen in that respect. We had good breakfasts at El Espresso, Rollie's and Don Pedro's and excellent dinners at Sayulita Fish Taco, Don Pedro's and Fiambala (although Fiambala's cooking was a bit heavy on the garlic).

There was also good food available from street vendors and taco stands. Especially on weekend nights, people set up small stands outstide their houses, selling yummy home-cooked fixin's.

We were there the first week of off season so the beach was not overcrowded but was far from empty, a good thing in my opinion, in that the people watching opportunities kept me entertained. Steve and the other couple with us put in a fair amount of time surfing, although Steve had to limit his surfing after he broke his rib when he fell on the board.

We went up to San Francisco (San Pancho to the locals), 8 km north of Sayulita and had an awesome tapas dinner at La Ola Rico. San Pancho is even quieter than Sayulita. Sayulita is more my speed. It's a fairly typical Mexican town with lots of construction in progress, some more actively in progress than others. It's dusty with lots of dogs, stray and not. It's got a cute central square or zocalo surrounded by shops and restaurants. There are a couple of pharmacies and food stores, with one super tiendita. They just installed an ATM which was operational approximately half the time we were there.

We took an excursion to Puerto Vallarta one day. We stopped by Casa Kimberley, the house Richard Burton bought for Elizabeth Taylor and saw the cool old cathedral, La Iglesia de Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe, and the renowned bronze statues along the malecon. I was glad to have seen PV but was equally glad we weren't staying there.

Our lodgings at the Villas Chula Vista were very nice, an air-conditioned two bedroom two bath with a full kitchen, three balconies and a pool. The only drawback was that it was about an 8 minute walk straight up a hill which was a bit of a chore in the heat of the day. The beach lodgings looked attractive too but were more expensive and lacked the pool. Not sure which I would choose if we return.

When it was time to leave, I was in a good place. It's always nice to come home to Aspen but I could just as easily have stayed for another week. It was a nice feeling, not sorry to leave but not in a hurry either.

I'd be happy to go back.

Postscript: Just found out that, on 5/9/07 (the day after we left), Sayulita was named one of the top ten travel destinations in the world.