Coffee with Lord Vader

Oak Grove was once — long ago — a thriving community. Back when the trolley line ran through the “downtown” area, the neighborhood supported a number of businesses. Many of those storefronts still remain, but since the trolley left in 1959, Oak Grove has struggled to keep the businesses around. Folks head out to the Superhighway (as 99e was once known) or into downtown Milwaukie.

Kris and I like to support the handful of businesses that do try to make it in downtown Oak Grove. I’m a too-frequent customer at the convenience store on the corner of Arista, where the owner Joe and I chat about books and politics as I buy my diet soda and sugary candy. And Kris loves the Oak Grove Coffeehouse, the neighborhood’s only real business of character.

Jason started the Oak Grove Coffeehouse a couple of years ago, and though business seems tepid at times, it seems to be enough to keep the doors open. I think it helps that Jason and his staff have become sort of community hubs. The coffehouse puts on “open mic” nights, hosts art shows, and more.

For reasons that are opaque to me, the Oak Grove Coffeehouse hosted a fund-raiser last Saturday. Okay, the fund-raiser part I understand; it’s the type of fund-raiser that baffles me. On Saturday, the OGCH held a Star Wars-themed barbecue. Seriously.

Kris and I didn’t stop by, but because we’re fans of the store on Facebook, I was able to see photos of the event, including this one, which cracks me up:

Such a hilarious photo. I’m not sure how Darth Vader is going to get that coffee through his ventilator, but it sure looks like he’s going to try!

Six Months of Fitness

On January 1st, I set just one goal for 2010. (I don’t do resolutions.) I vowed to lose 50 pounds by the end of the year. To that end, I dubbed 2010 The Year of Fitness.

Losing fifty pounds in 52 weeks is ambitious but doable. Nutrition and fitness experts suggest that losing a pound a week is a sustainable weight-loss goal. (Some even say that two pounds a week can work.)

In 1997, I dropped from 200 pounds on May 6th to 160 pounds on Halloween, so I know I have the mental toughness to do this. And make no mistake — losing weight like this takes a lot of hard work, yes, but it’s mostly about psychological strength. It’s about dedication.

I’m now six months into The Year of Fitness. How has it gone? Let’s review.

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Ten Days in Southeast Alaska

My neighbor across the street owns a boat. John is a 74-year-old shop teacher who is always on the move. During our dreary Oregon winters, he’s in New Zealand (where it’s summer), doing volunteer work on a series of farms. During the summer, he motors around southeast Alaska on his 38-foot boat. (He’s here for a couple of weeks in April, and then again for three months in the fall, but otherwise he’s on the move.)

John’s a generous guy, and for several years he’s been bugging me and Kris to spend a couple of weeks on his boat. This sort of thing just doesn’t interest Kris, but I like the idea of puttering around Alaska. I’ve been waiting for the free time to do so, and I finally found it. Last week, Mac and I ditched Real Life to spend ten days with John on Prime Time.

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Two Bad Cats

Here’s a typical morning at Rosings Park: I get up at 5:30, spend a few minutes checking e-mail and blog comments, pull on my workout clothes, and then head out the door for the gym. At the gym, I strain and sweat, and then I drive home to take a shower. After the shower, I have a bite to eat.

And through it all, there are cats. Okay, there aren’t any cats at the gym or in the car, but the rest of the time, there are cats. Too many cats. And often the cats are being bad. Here, for example, are Toto and Max demonstrating their favorite badnesses:

Yes, Toto loves to be on Kris’ computer. Usually she just sits upright on it, in classic cat pose. Apparently she’s decided it makes a nice bed, too. And Max? Well, he loves to jump into the window box, stretch against the screen, and then stare at us as we work in the kitchen. What a meatball.

No wonder I leave home as soon as possible so I can go get some work done at the office.

Interspecies Friendship: An Elephant’s Best Friend

It’s been nearly two years since I posted something new at Animal Intelligence. One of my goals is to share that stuff here Foldedspace. I’ve done a pretty poor job of that, but I want to change that. I’ll try to make it a habit to share things as soon as I see them instead of putting them off.

Let’s start with the story Tarra and Bella, a dog and an elephant who are best friends:

For those who are new to my obsession with animal intelligence, I’ll summarize: I think animals are, on the whole, far more intelligent than we give them credit. I think they’re capable of a wide range of emotion, psychological, and, yes, intellectual activity. No, there are no dolphin cities (to quote Rush Limbaugh), but since when are cities a measure of intelligence? Anyone who believes that animals are only acting on instinct has never spent a lot of time with them.

Anyhow, one of my favorite aspects of animal intelligence is interspecies friendship. That is, stories like this one about Tarra and Bella, when two different kinds of animals work together or form close bonds. There are plenty of these stories to be found, and I think they’re great.

If you find a good story about animal intelligence, please send it my way. I promise to post it here in a timely manner instead of waiting to revive my animal intelligence blog…

Timbers Army

It’s been an intense couple of weeks around the Roth-Gates household. Kris and I don’t fight often, but we’ve had a couple of rows lately, which should give you some idea of the stress level at Rosings Park.

Why so tense? Well, Your Money: The Missing Manual is finally in bookstores, and the public-relations push as begun. Between the PR, writing my personal-finance blog, and trying to squeeze in Real Life, there just hasn’t been much time for anything resembling a normal life.

Fortunately, the worst is behind us. Last week, I was a guest on 17 radio stations around the country, and I gave a presentation at Powell’s Books. (About 50 people came out to hear me, which was awesome. Thanks, everyone.) There’s still a bit of work ahead of me, but for the first time since last September, there are days at a stretch with nothing scheduled. Woohoo!

So, Kris and I are now much more relaxed. We’re able to spend time together working in the yard — and watching The Amazing Race.

I’m happy, too, because I can start hanging out with friends again. I knew this day would come, so I planned ahead. Though I’ve never done anything like this before, I decided to purchase two season tickets for the Portland Timbers, Portland’s pro soccer team. (The team will move to the MLS, the top U.S. soccer league, next year.) I’m hoping that I can rope one friend per match to join me.

Last Saturday was the first match of the year as the Timbers faced the Rochester Rhinos. (Say what? Are there a lot of Rhinoceroses — Rhinocerii? — in New York?) For this first match, I was joined by Michael Hampton and his nine-year-old son, Ethan. We met early to dine on pastrami and root beer at Kenny and Zuke’s, and then walked about ten blocks to the stadium.

There, I briefly said hello to Rich M., who first took me to a Timbers match back in 2008. (We also used to play soccer together as part of the woeful FC Saints.) Then Michael, Ethan, and I met up with Sinan and Nadir, who had saved seats for us in the midst of the Timbers Army.

Part of the fun of a soccer match (at least in most places around the world) is the fervor of the crowd. The folks who crowd the north end of Portland’s Civic Stadium do an admirable job of recreating this fervor. They chant and cheer and curse and sing. They wave flags and blow horns and set off smoke bombs. It’s a hell of a lot of fun, actually. (Sinan, who is from Croatia, loves Timbers matches.)

This photo from Oregonian photographer Thomas Boyd captures some of the fun:

I’m fairly certain this photo was taken in the 85th minute, after the Timbers scored on a penalty kick. Portland won the match 1-0, which was a lucky result. Though neither side played exceptionally well, the Rhinos were the better team, especially in the second half. But during the last ten minutes, Portland mounted a series of attacks, and finally found the back of the net after a Rhino hand ball.

And if you look very carefully, you can actually see me in the midst of these 15,418 fans. I felt very conspicuous in my rust-orange sweater Saturday night (Timbers fans dress in green and white), but it sure makes it easy to spot myself in the upper-right corner of the photo:

Anyhow, this was a perfect end to a tense week. And now I’m looking forward to a summer of Timbers matches with various friends. If you’d like to join me, drop me a line. I’m booked through the end of May, I think, but open for the games in June, July, and August. The only caveat is that you have to be ready to stand for 90 minutes, and you can’t have any compunctions about singing rowdy songs.

The Amazing Race

If you wonder why I haven’t been writing much around here, it’s not because of my personal-finance blog, and it’s not because I’ve been spending time promoting my book. Yes, I’ve been doing these things — and I’ve even begun to exercise again — but the real time-suck in my life lately is The Amazing Race.

Kris and I aren’t really fans of reality shows. Yes, we watch The Biggest Loser, but that’s because it’s about fitness, and because the first season we watched featured Tara Costa, who, quite frankly, kicked ass. We loved watching her outcompete the other contestants every single week. The Biggest Loser is actually pretty lousy television, for the most part. It’s excruciating how the show repeats stuff over and over and over again. (And I hate how they always show contestants doing stuff while there’s a voice-over describing exactly what’s going on — as if we cannot see.)

Anyhow, around Christmas, I read a rave review of The Amazing Race in some mainstream publication like Newsweek or The New York Times. The article mentioned something that piqued my interest: Since the Emmy Award for reality show was instituted, no show other than The Amazing Race has ever won it.

Now, I concede that “best reality show” isn’t exactly high praise. Still, I decided to take a look. I found some clips on YouTube and was intrigued, so I bought a season from iTunes. I watched the first three episodes and thought, “Wow! I love this.”

When Kris got home from work that cold December day, I suggested that she watch the show with me. “I don’t want to watch it,” she said. “It’s going to be lame.”

Fine. I continued to watch the show myself. Eventually, she watched part of an episode with me. When the show was over, she asked sheepishly, “Can we watch the first episode of the season?” And so we did. And we haven’t stopped watching since.

Note: For those of you unfamiliar with the premise, here’s how The Amazing Race works. Around a dozen teams of two gather at the starting line in a major U.S. city. Each team is composed of members with an existing relationship: best friends, sisters, “dating long-distance”, and so on. (There are certain “stock” couples every season, such as the gay couple, the Christian couple, the geeky couple, the black couple, the models, and the loudmouths.) Teams are given clues to find their next destination, which could be anywhere in the world. They have to figure out where they’re going, booking their own travel. Along the way, teams have to stop to perform certain challenges, such as bungie jumping or building a bicycle or eating raw octopus. At the end of (nearly) every leg, the last-place team is eliminated. At the end of about a dozen legs, the final team wins a million dollars.

We watched the three seasons that we could buy from iTunes (seasons 13, 14, and 15) between Christmas and New Year. Then we used Netflix to get seasons 1 and 8 (the only seasons available on DVD).

“I want to watch more,” Kris said when we’d finished.

“There isn’t anymore,” I said. “Only those five seasons are available to purchase. If we want the rest, we’ll have to get them illegally.”

First up, we asked Chris G. if he could check for bootleg copies of the other seasons as he traveled through southeast Asia in February. He checked, but couldn’t find them. Meanwhile, Kris and I watched seasons 13, 14, and 15 again.

“I want to watch more,” Kris said when we’d finished.

I sighed. “You know, there’s a guy online selling all fifteen seasons on DVD, but it’s surely not legal,” I said.

“Is there a legal way to buy the other seasons?” Kris asked.

“No,” I said.

“Then we don’t have any other choice. Buy them.”

And so I paid $150 to get all fifteen seasons on DVD. For the past two weeks, our evenings and weekends have been spent watching our favorite teams (and less-than-favorite teams) race across the world. We’ve watched seasons 2, 3, 4, and 5, and are now on season 6. (Man, Jonathan needs to put a cork in it. We’re hoping he and Victoria get eliminated soon. He’s an ass.)

So, that my friends, is why there hasn’t been much to read about here during the month of March. It’s not because of the book. It’s not because of the other blogs. It’s because of The Amazing Race.

Side Effects

It seems like every year, my allergies get worse. They come on in mid-March, knock me on my ass for about a month, and then leave during the middle of April. This year is no different — except they came on earlier and stronger than ever before.

I first noticed problems just before we left for Belize. Because of Oregon’s very mild winter, certain trees and flowers were beginning to blossom just after Valentine’s Day. I had some sneezing and sniffing, but then we left for a tropical climate and things were fine.

It was when we returned from our trip, however, that my troubles began. Almost immediately my eyes began to burn, my throat itched, my sinuses clogged, and I was floored by sneezing fits. The first week of March was awful.

During the second week of March, I had a bit of a respite. Whether from the Zyrtec or from the rain, my allergies took a rest. But the third week was worst of all. Last Tuesday, I was basically non-functional. I scratched out a quick post for Get Rich Slowly, but then I retreated into the bathtub for five or six hours, where I found some measure of relief.

My days were miserable, but my nights were worse. Because I couldn’t seem to find any medication that would alleviate my symptoms, sleeping became nearly impossible. On a normal night, my sleep chart looks like this:

Light grey indicates that I’m lying down. Dark grey indicates I’m asleep.

As you can see, I normally get into bed at about 10pm, fall asleep within half an hour, and sleep the whole night through. When Kris gets up at 5:30, I’m not really aware of it, but my sleep pattern is disrupted and I toss and turn until I finally wake up at around 6:30am.

That’s normal.

Here’s what my sleep has been like lately:

Light grey indicates that I’m lying down. Dark grey indicates I’m asleep.

This is a total mess. First of all, I’m napping during the day because I’m so tired from not getting sleep the night before. Then I’m trying to go to sleep early. In reality, I’m not able to doze off until about 11pm, but even then I’m unable to sleep for more than one cycle. (One of my sleep cycles is about 90 minutes, almost like clockwork.) And for a couple of hours in the middle of the night, I’m either tossing and turning so much that my body bug thinks I’m awake, or I actually get up and go downstairs to read and write — like I am right now. (It’s 2:15am.)

And through all of this, I’m miserable from congestion and sneezing and sore eyes and a scratchy throat.

What I really need to do is see an allergist, of course. I need to get tested, and then start receiving shots to cope with whatever it is that’s setting me off. But I’m a Roth, and we Roths don’t like doctors, so I haven’t taken that step. I think I soon will.

By the end of last week, I thought I had things under control. I was pumping myself full of Allegra or Claritin or Zyrtec, depending on which seemed to be effective at the time. I was rinsing my sinuses with my neti pot. And I was trying to stay indoors.

On Friday afternoon, I met Craig for dinner in downtown Portland. After dinner, we walked over to see the Trailblazers game. My allergies were bothering me, but not too much. I’d prepared in advance. As we strolled toward the Steel Bridge, we passed beneath a bunch of flowering ornamental cherry trees. Almost immediately, my eyes began to burn, my throat began to itch, I was sneezing, and my sinsuses clogged. Ugh. During the game, I was miserable. I had trouble sleeping that night and, especially, the next night. (Which is the evening the above “bad night” graph is from.)

Finally, I went to see a doctor on Sunday morning. I was at the “immediate care” clinic when it opened at nine.

The doctor listened to my symptoms sympathetically. “And what about a fever?” she asked as she examined me.

“I don’t have one,” I said.

“Actually, you do,” she said. “And it’s fairly high. This may have started as an allergy problem, but it’s grown worse. You have a sinus infection.” She prescribed an antibiotic and Claritin-D, which contains pseudo-ephedrine.

Now, when I was younger, I took pseudo-ephedrine all the time, primarily in the form of Sudafed. But this stuff is no longer available over the counter in Oregon. Because it’s the raw material for methamphetamine, it’s a controlled substance available by prescription only. I haven’t had pseudo-ephedrine in years. (Not in this house, anyway, which means nearly six years.)

The good news is: The stuff works. By Sunday afternoon, I could breathe again. My sinuses were clear. I felt almost human. Here’s what my sleep graph looked like last night:

Light grey indicates that I’m lying down. Dark grey indicates I’m asleep.

Note that from 9 to 10:30pm, I was laying down in bed watching The Amazing Race with Kris, so that doesn’t really count. And after about 7am, I was actually awake, but in bed reading. So, between 10:30 and 7, I got some sleep. It wasn’t perfect sleep, but it was much better than it has been. The main problem was I felt like my sleep was very very light. I didn’t feel well rested.

All day today, I felt great. My sinuses were mostly clear, I felt alert, and I worked hard. After a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, I worked for ten hours straight. It was only when Kris got home at around 6pm that I realized I hadn’t eaten all day. That’s pretty odd, since normally I’m hungry all the time. I forced myself to eat a modest dinner.

But the real trouble began at bedtime. We watched an episode of The Amazing Race and then turned out the lights to go sleep. “That’s strange,” I said. “I’m not tired.” Still, I did my best to doze off. I slept fitfully for about three hours (or two full sleep cycles). Then, at about 1:30, I woke up, ready to go to work. I was startled to see that it was the middle of the night.

And so here I am, sitting at the kitchen table with two cats at my side. (The cats love it when I can’t sleep; they think it’s a game.) A quick check online shows that I’m suffering from typical side effects of pseudo-ephedrine: I’m not tired, I’m not hungry, but I’m not really altogether here, either. Sounds like a perfect state of mind for “busy work”, of which I have much to do. But I know I’m going to be in bad shape in the morning.

I guess I’d better make an appointment with the allergist. I don’t want to go through this again next year.

Spider-Man in Invasion of the Dragon Men

There are some things I treasure from my youth that kids today will just never get to experience. Film strips in school, for one. Buying your favorite song on a 45rpm vinyl record, for another. And, most of all, those book-and-record sets you could get from the local department store.

When Dave gave me his hi-fi record player recently, one of the first things I listened to was my book-and-record set of The Hobbit. I love it still after all these years.

While browsing at the Marvel Masterworks forum (where I’ve been mostly a lurker for over five years, though I visit it every night), I discovered a lost treasure. Apparently some enterprising folks have taken it upon themselves to actually record some of these old book-and-record sets and upload them to YouTube.

For example, here’s Spider-Man and the Invasion of the Dragon Men, a set I actually owned as a boy:

While listening/watching, I was grinning from ear to ear. I remember this distinctly, and have thought of it many times over the years. I never thought I’d have a chance to hear it again, though.

There are other book-and-record sets on YouTube, including:

If you’re a fan of these recordings, too, then hold onto your seat because I’m going to let you in on the mother lode: Check out The Power Records Pages, which has audio files and image files on separate pages. Wow!