How to be More Optimistic

How to maintain a positive outlook on life:

Step 1, limit the time you spend listening to/ watching/ reading the news, because it is SO depressing.
Step 2, get outside every day, to walk, to garden, to play.
Step 3, get enough sleep, because being tired makes things seem worse than they are.
Step 4, socialize (which includes going shopping).
Step 5, avoid people who are negative, heavy drinkers, drug abusers, and the like (this may require changing jobs).
And I guess it goes without saying, but
Step 6, look at the bright side. :)

High Gas Prices

On my way to work this morning, I passed an elementary school with a traffic jam. Parents were dropping their children off at school. I saw no child walking to school. This was in a lower-middle class neighborhood. Later, I followed a school bus, and it stopped a couple of times at the entrances to subdivisions to pick up riders. Each time, there were several cars parked at the bus stop with parents waving good-bye. To be fair, there were several parents standing there waving as well. It was not a cold day or a hot day, but it was raining lightly.

Then I hear that gasoline prices have hit an inflation-adjusted record high. I guess the price is not all that high if the parents can afford to drive their children to the bus stop or even to school!

Mt. St. Helens

MSH blew it top 27 years ago today, a memorable day in the lives of all who lived in Washington State on that day. Much of central Washington was covered by a heavy layer of ash.

Photo of Pedicularis on the south rim of MSH in 2002. A larger volcano, Mt. Adams, is in the background, the crater is on the left.
Panorama from south rim of MSH taken in 2006 by J. Restis. The piles of rock in the middle of the crater are the lava domes that have regrown since 1980. Mt. Rainier is on the horizon in the center, just above Spirit Lake, Mt. Adams is on the horizon on the right.

Amnesty?

I used to drive a late 1940's John Deere tractor. On the fuel cap was the slogan, "Buy clean fuel, keep it clean."

I was just thinking this morning of a bumper sticker along those lines, but it was too long:

"Keep out illegal aliens; and kick out the ones that are already here!"

The thought seems reasonable to me, since the ILLEGAL aliens have broken our laws by coming here. But today Congress announced some sort of amnesty deal for the illegals? Am I missing something? Something like compassion?

Fort Casey photos

The ferry boat docks right beside the campground, providing hourly entertainment.

It was a nice day for flying kites.

There was a soccer camp there, and the soccer fields were beside the ocean.

The scouts found crabs on rocky ocean beaches (and driftwood, and rocks to throw into the water).

Serviceberry

Serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia) is blooming here now. I have long thought it was named after Robert W. Service, but my web search tonight did not reveal that connection. Robert Service is a Canadian poet who wrote such great poems as "The Cremation of Sam McGee". See, for example, http://www.potw.org/archive/potw22.html).

Service, Robert. The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses. New York: Barse & Hopkins Publishers, 1907.)

It's Tuesday

It is Tuesday, so it must time to post again. Sorry, I've been very busy with work. I know, bummer. I had a very pleasant scout outing last weekend, to Fort Casey State Park. The camping area is on the beach directly beside a ferry dock. Old fortifications with bunkers and big cannons for the scouts to see. Kite flying, birds, flowers, trees. Big enough park for a large compass course for the scouts, plus GPS geocaching games just like on Amazing Race Sunday night. We used candy as the prize, and the geocaches were at least a quarter mile from camp, so the scouts really had to work for the prize. Just like Amazing Race, they got in trouble when they bumped a button, and they had a hard time finding the prize even after the GPS led them right to it. I'll post photos when I get a chance.