Driven Outside

random crap from my inner three-year-old

Minimalist self-rightousness

Sep 4

Posted by matttalley in Tech, Toys, nerdy | No Comments

With a transcontinental move a few years ago and two international relocations in the last four years my lovely bride and I have done a fair job at parring down our worldly goods and keeping our propensity to collect superfluous crap in check.   Tyler Durden from Fight Club was 100% correct when he stated “the things you own end up owning you.”  When you have mountains of crap you have to first pay for them, then maintain and replace them when they break, and you must immediately run right out and buy the latest and greatest version.

This group realization for the need downsize is now in full swing (could it be… the economy??)  and you see more and more minimalism in both furniture design, production staging, fashion, bicycles, computers, etc…  I see the occasional article like the one recently about a guy who has whittled down his life to 57 things and he is super-smug about it – 57 things?  Really‽  I NEED a lot more shit than 57 things.  Go through my SSS kit, thrown in a spork, bowl, pocket knife, thumb drive, soap, shampoo, camera, a few cables, watch, wedding ring, glasses, computer, notebook and a couple of pins and I am standing there naked with over 60 things.

I can identify with his hypothesis that “we’ve been duped into buying things by an advertisement-dominated society for the last 50 years.” However, I need some of that stuff that I was brainwashed by the media to run out and purchase: iPhone, eReader, Global kitchen knives, my bikes, the super-cool Freitag messenger bag sitting next to me right now, etc…  One has to weigh true need, want, and desire for themselves to determine how much is too much and how much is enough.  I feel that the wife (Stamps With Foot) and I are doing fairly well, but we could still stand to par down some, (do we really need 4 computers, boxes of long-canceled checks, and my 4th grade notebook rantings?)

For years American suburban life has been all about keeping up with the Joneses: Big house, fast car, big truck, boat, HUGE TV, toys, toys, toys… The glut of articles and blogs and books about moving to a more minimalist life style is a sure sign that the Joneses may not be as important as they once were.  However, moderation in any movement is the key.  If I lump all the stuff I have read about making life simpler lately, it feels as if there is a thread of one-upmanship that pervades: “I can live with less shit than you…”  Some of the authors are crazy-smug (like the 57-things guy) about living on friend’s couches and having all their world possession in a backpack  (padding their $3000 laptop…)  Instead of the Joneses, there is now the Schwartzes: a section of our proletariat, riding fixed geared bikes, sporting skinny jeans, typing away on their MacBooks, drinking expensive coffee, texting away on $500 smart phones, getting ironic tattoos and swapping stories about how little they can subsist on

To my mind minimalism today is less about freeing yourself of all your crap and more about your attitude towards the stuff you have.   Do you NEED that new Blu-Ray player or do you WANT it?  Are you buying that to last forever or just until…?  Does it have a life-time warranty?  Are you actually going to use or wear it enough to justify a high initial price (price per wear principle). Can you rent it, borrow it (books), or do without it?

Now, before buying something new, I try to have the need vs. want conversation and while mildly successful, there are still some things that I just have because the are cool toys and I like to either play with them or look at them.  Would my life be simpler without ALL the bikes, 4 snowboards, a book press, 2 TVs, and a competition pellet gun??  Yes, it would, but that life wouldn’t be half the fun.  For me and for us, I think the trick to not falling into the pit of conspicuous ownership is to be careful with what we spend our money on, and whether it is a need or a toy we should buy the best quality available so that we get years of use and enjoyment out of whatever it may be that our hard earned greenbacks are being traded for.

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The salmon are running

Sep 3

Posted by matttalley in Updates, Work | No Comments

This announcement was made over the intercom at work: “Please do not leave your work area to go fishing.  You may fish only after your work day is complete.  Thank you.” I work in an aerospace engineering/production facility in the Seattle suburbs.  Fishing and fiber optics do not normally go hand in hand…  I actually thought it was a joke until I went outside for a break during production shift change.  There were fishing poles and waders everywhere.  Our building is tucked  into a tight bend of the Green River and is surrounded by water on 2.5 sides.  The pacific salmon are now swimming upstream to spawn and the river is thick with them – I mean there is a river of fish in the actual river.  They are huge – most between 3-4 feet

I was awestruck.  It was like a scene from one of the old Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom shows from the Alaskan wilderness where host Marlin Perkins would describe what a bear was thinking as the bruin stood on a water covered ledge in a snow-melt river swiping 4 foot salmon out of the water.

I believe that this afternoon I will be going to Big5 and to get my fishing license so that I can attempt to BBQ some fresh Salmon this weekend – I saw attempt due to the fish repelling pheromones that I seem to produce.  Just in case I do either get lucky or am able to steal a fish from a true angler I am thinking of using my father-in-laws ceder plank salmon recipe.  YUM!  Again, I am amazed almost everyday with the place we have chosen to live: The people, the culture, and the natural world that surrounds us.

Full disclosure:  I took NONE of the pictures above.  I swiped them from the interwebs

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La Maison du Talley

Sep 2

Posted by matttalley in Uncategorized | No Comments

lamaisondutalley 1957 copy

This is what La Maison du Talley looked like in 1957.  It was bright and sunny, there was no Compton-grade chain link fence, hedges or trees.  You can see just the top of our now huge vine maple growing in the back yard. The neighbors’ homes looked neat, well cared for, and the houses share a cute little white picket fence.  Our cute little home is almost 83 years old and has changed little in that time – porch made into a mudroom, new windows, siding, some paint…  The original owners would have no issue at all in recognizing their home all these any years later.  God only knows how many children they raised in our 2-bedroom 1-bath Seattle box.  By today’s suburban standards it is a starter home that is meant for a young couple with perhaps their first child.  To be sold to the same as the infant grows into preteen or before the birth of their second bundle of joy. Our home was built in an era when an entire wardrobe would fit in a suitcase, a double bed was just right for two people to sleep in, and a middle class family had one car – maybe.  A time before mass consumerism and container ships made closet rooms, 5-car families, walls of shoes, man caves, and massive Barbie collections possible and attainable for a working family.

While I am grumpy with at least one of my neighbors, my current heating costs, the basement stairs, and some of responsibilities that accompany homeownership, I do have a genuine love for our house and yard.  What I love most about my house and all old houses are the stories that have been told, written, and lived under their roofs.  I love being a part of something greater than myself, adding to it lovingly, and having the knowledge that it will eventually pass on to another who will also add to the tale of a little old house.

We plan to live in our home for a very long time, raise some vegetables, have a couple of kids, live there, work there, relax in the yard, etc…  With that in mind we are planning a few upgrades and changes that won’t change the look and feel of the place at all – they will, in fact, enhance its appeal, sense of time and place, and functionality.

Current planned projects:
Rebuild of Basement Stairs
New heat pump installation
Garage/Mother-in-law build
Egress window in basement bedroom
Master suite in the attic
Rebuild of back stairs
Three fruit trees in the back
Half bath and kitchenette in the basement
Rewire of kitchen and main floor bathroom
Extension of front yard to sidewalk
Removal of chain-link and addition of wrought iron fence
New interior paint
Misc. cabinet and trim installation

Account Ledger Book

Sep 1

Posted by matttalley in Updates | No Comments

I am by no stretch of anyone’s imagination a Luddite.  I love me some gadgets and gizmos.  New tools that make life easier or faster or better make me feel all fuzzy with want and excitement.  My miter-box-saw in the garage has a laser cutting guide, I waited for iPhone OS4 like a kid waiting for Santa, and I am currently in the throes of in internal struggle trying to decide what e-book reader is the best for my needs vs. which one is the shiniest…  By those standards one might perceive that I always turn to technology for everyday solutions…  Not so.  We are in the middle of divesting our budget and payment tracking from a super-over complicated spreadsheet (yes, I made it that way) and switching to an old fashioned 12-column ledger book.  We are taking a step back in time so that we can see every day where all the money goes.  It won’t be hidden in 1s and 0s inside a notebook computer or on a USB stick – it will be a tangible and easily consulted record when we want to see if there are funds for a new e-book, wheels for Matt’s road bike, the latest fiction must-have at B&N, or cash for Laurel’s shoe lust.  A ledger keeps all of the information RIGHT THERE and there is no clicking between screens or scrolling down, etc…

Manual record keeping has been around since man started making beer, selling crops and I am sure that a ledger was involved in the early days of the world’s oldest profession…   The new way isn’t always the better  way – GASP! (full disclosure: we will be taking hi-res pictures of the pages every month and including those images on our external hard drive for back-up purposes)

I found a 150 page, acid free paper version on Amazon that we are currently looking forward to filling with notes of bills paid, confirmation numbers, etc, etc…  It should last a good long while.  Many years from now our grand children with either lovingly peruse the yellowed pages after the last of us passes from this earth, wondering aloud how things could have been so cheap in 2010 and how cute it was that we had a “Book Budget.”  Well, either that or they will throw it away in their attempt to deal with the clutter and possessions from the years of our lives in the couple of days they have allotted to “deal” with our things.  I hope it is the former.

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Wedding Stress

Aug 20

Posted by matttalley in Kinfolk, Parties, Updates | No Comments

Why in the Hell would anyone choose to get married?! Not the commitment/loving one person forever part, the actual wedding part. The logistics of the thing are as complicated as planning an invasion of a small island country. Stressful is not the word for what this “little party for our family and friends” has become. Budget – long gone.   Nerves – frayed.

My lovely wife and I have been married for almost four years and are just now getting around to having the reception. We booked the event hall just after New Years and have spent the last 7 months planning, deciding, rethinking, deciding again, spending, organizing, finding a caterer, picking a menu, herding cats, applying for permits, cake tasting, choosing the proper glasses, wedding dress alterations, finding flowers, writing checks, wine tasting, finding a new caterer, buying kegs of beer, tracking down a violinist, making invitations, finding 7 matching ties in one place, forking over the credit card, DJ – band – or iPod?, finding rooms for out of town guests, writing vows, buying gifts, soothing ruffled feathers, renting suits, keeping feuding family in their respective corners, dealing with lost bridesmaid dresses, etc, etc, etc… It never fvcking ends.

I am at the point where I want to run screaming from our cute little house – abandoning my green yard, letting my tomatoes wither and set up a tent in the mountains where I can live like a hermit until all this is over! After all the wine and beer are gone, after everything has been cleaned, and after all the guests have all flown back to their respective cities and towns, I am going to stay home every weekend for a year, read my Sunday paper, work in the shop and on my yard/garden. I am not going to plan one single fvcking event, outing, or trip. I am going to church on Sundays, yoga on Saturdays, visit a few galleries, and go see a film or three. I am not going to take on any more projects and I am going to spend my off hours reading, writing, making love, cycling, running, climbing, and building cabinets.

When my kids and grandkids decide to get married, I am going to do my dead level best to bribe them into eloping and will give them a lump sum of cash that would have been spent on their wedding/reception as a down payment for a home.

post written on and uploaded from my iPhone

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wine tasting

Aug 19

Posted by matttalley in Foodie, Review | No Comments

We spent last night testing the three reds and one rose (the white, a fresh little German Riesling from the Mosel River Valley, is already picked and ordered) for our wedding reception. In hindsight, the night before I was to fly out on a business trip might not have been the evening to take on such an endeavor, though I didn’t realize it until I was running for my gate at 6:00 this morning hoping to catch the one available flight after hitting the snooze button no less than six times…

The rosé is Portuguese and the white is German. We wanted a local red that would work with the chicken pasta and stuffed mushrooms that we are serving. After much swirling, sniffing, drinking, and repeat, we settled on the Wood Bridge 2007 Two Vines.  It is a Merlot and Cab Sav blend aged in oak that will go well with the food and desert for those guests that don’t like beer or white wine.  Good booze is a key element to any successful party and while people forget bad music, the drunken aunt, weird venue, and ugly bridesmaid dresses, no one EVER forgets bad food or booze at weddings! Serve lil’ smokies with a side of mac and cheese on paper plates and PBR at your nuptial do and you & your partner will forever be saddled with the shame of being poor hosts. There will be whispers behind you back, you will be used as an example of what NOT to do when friends gather and your can forget brisk attendance at any birthday or anniversary party you will ever have.

post written on and uploaded from my iPhone

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Cleaning and organizing the shop

Aug 12

Posted by matttalley in Carpentry, Gear, Updates | No Comments

My garage is actually condemned and we knew it was a tear-down when we bought our house.  Half of the bottom sills are rotten, there was no power,  and it used to move a little when hit by a strong gust of wind.  I have planned some projects in the house that require some saw and painting space, so we decided to leave the garage up until we completed the wanted updates to the house and then replace it with a somewhat larger, yet period-appropriate, garage/shop combo with a studio apartment above.

Right after we moved in, I scrubbed the place, applied some leverage to the walls to square them up as possible, reinforced the roof trusses, glued and screwed 3/8 plywood sheathing to two of the interior walls, installed florescent lighting, installed 9 bike hooks in the rafters, added garden tool holders and box storage shelves, built a narrow stout plywood work bench, and partially wired 5 outlets.  I did most of it with lumber, wire, and lights that I already owned, so my total outlay was less than $200 and the structure is now solid as possible given the years of neglect and will usable for the next couple of years.  I was going to do a little more – rebuild the barn doors and finish the wiring, but a surprise shoulder injury and subsequent surgery put that off indefinably.  I now have more projects than time and can’t fit it all in.

The little bit of work making the garage usable has really been a blessing:  In the six months that we have owned La Maison Du Talley, I have built our compost bins, the three huge garden boxes, two window flower boxes, a mason bee house, refinished a massive hutch, built a rolling utility cabinet, stripped and repainted furniture, built stuff for the kids, stored and serviced my fleet of bicycles, rewired a couple of lamps, etc… all without filling our house or basement with noise, sawdust, or fumes, which keeps The Mrs. happy!

For the last couple of months my kids have been here and cleanup and organization after this or that project was minimal.  Crap started piling up.  I got some new lumber and supplies dropped in my lap and they were just sort of tossed in.  There were semi-emergency house and bike repairs that left tools splayed about, my larger table saw (every proper joiner/cabinet maker needs two…) is in pieces as I am rebuilding the fence and adding a router table to the side leaf.  I had to crawl around and under bikes, push saw horses out of the way, step over a wheel barrow, and move the drill press to get a set of micro pliers to repair a necklace for my happy wife.  It was starting to look like Godzilla ate a strip mall containing a furniture, garden and bike shop then pooped in my garage.

After dropping my daughter off at the Airport the past Sunday morning at 5:00am, I went home, snuggled with the wife and the puppy for a couple hours, spent the rest of the morning in my bathrobe reading part of a book, consuming a large amount of coffee, and had a leisurely lunch.  I then spent the entire afternoon cleaning and reorganizing the garage so that it would again be usable and so I wouldn’t brain myself every time I opened the door.  I was super-productive:

Completely cleared and cleaned my bench top
Hung all the bikes on their assigned hook
Worked on stripping “new” Schwinn frame
Unpacked two boxes of refinishing and painting supplies
Sweep up a summers worth of saw dust
Emptied trash and recycling bins
Got the Tug-a-bike trailer ready to sale on Craigslist
Completely reorganized my tool chest (All the bike tools now have their own drawer!)
Put some labels on the nail and screw bin
Organized bench tools
Worked on a secret project for Laurel
Hung up First Aid Kit
Reinforced a wooden table
Made up a complete took kit for the house (no more in and out for little repairs)
Moved drill press to better location
Worked on finishing table saw fence

In addition to my sometimes compulsive need for organization, there will be a number of Engineers and builders staying at or visiting my home in the next month and it would kill me if my work space looked like that when they showed up.  When I shut off the lights at 10:00 PM, it was a whole new space and ready for inspection and for me to jump into a new project that I have planned for  September.

a few pictures of the building and the organization spaces/racks from earlier this summer.

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The “Bike Thing” MAY be getting out of hand…

Aug 10

Posted by matttalley in Cycling | No Comments

I acquired another bike a couple weeks ago and just found out that I am inheriting a new Cyclocross bike from a family member who also has a bike fetish, but who’s wife is not as understanding as mine concerning all the hunks of steel, carbon and aluminum in his basement.  Though, I may be at a tipping point.  One more and I might officially have a substance abuse problem – bike frames CAN be an elicit substance if not consumed in moderation.

As for my latest acquisition:  My Hellbilly neighbors had a yard sale a week or so ago and due to the blaring death metal and the drunken lawn party atmosphere, the sale was lightly attended.  One of the unsold items was a classic Schwinn Varsity that was somewhat beat up and missing a rear wheel.  While walking by on my way to Walgreens, they offered it to me, so I HAD to check it out.  It turned out to be a lime Green 1973 10-speed that was in good overall shape and had original bike registration stickers from Walla Walla, WA (1974-1976) and the negotiated price was a case of PBR Tallboys.  How could I pass up a frame built in the year I was born?!  Such action would border on sacrilege. I paid up and carried the thing to my garage/shop and started stripping all the old parts from the frame.  I am not 100% sure what I am going to do with it just yet – maybe a 3-speed internal rear hub and conversion into a sometimes-commuter and basement trainer?  For now the frame will hang in the garage awaiting time and spare cash for the build-up.

The coming CycloCross bike is a 9-speed Specialized with a beefy tig-welded aluminum frame.  I have to swap the bars and shifters (already have a set from an old bike waiting to be installed) and give it a tune up.  I plan to make her my primary work commuter AND my CycloX race bike come fall.  This will allow me to forever take the commuter wheels/tires off my carbon bike and tune it for solely training and racing.

I am running out of space in the garage rafters.  It is a web of wheels, gears, cables and seats above my workspace.  Since they are all out of the way, I don’t know if my cute little bride understands the full depth of my “collection”  and if any more two-wheeled “ladies” show up she may do some snooping in the garage and the poo will hit the fan – I hate when we “have to have a talk…”   That said, I would still like to have a couple more: a downhill 29er and a folding single speed for the train/travel, but I feel that the physical and financial impact of any cycling purchases in the next couple of years will have a detrimental effect of my love-life and corresponding sleeping arrangements.   I REALLY like my bikes, but I like snuggling up to a warm happy wife a lot more.  I think that I am going to have to start practicing cycling moderation.  That realization hurts a little.

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Having the Kids for the Summer

Aug 9

Posted by matttalley in Kinfolk | No Comments

I know have had the pleasure of accompanying  both of my children on their very first airplane flights.  It is a great big deal to me since I have spent hundreds of hours on an different aircraft in flight, I make my living in the industry, and my children’s college fund only expands because of the security of the aircraft business.  It is also a point of pride that I was part of an experience that they will remember for the rest of their lives.  In a small way I also hope that I have planted the seed of wanderlust in them.  I want them to travel to the ends of the earth and experience all that goes along with travel; learning self-sufficiency, broader views, a second or third language, cultural experience, etc…

When my daughter visited last year I accompanied her on her first ferry ride on which we crossed the waters of Puget sound for a Day trip on Bainbridge island.  This summer I have have the great pleasure to not only take my son on his first ferry ride, but to also be with him on his first train trip and his first experience on a wooden sailboat.  He loved the boat, I think, most of all and I can see a little spark of adventure travel starting to glow in his eyes.  My daughter will take a little more work – right now she hates to travel, hates cities and hates making decisions, but who knows, I may get to visit my grandchildren in their 300 year old French farm house surrounded by fields of lavender along the southern portion of the Route Du Napoleon…

This year, the only real first I got to experience in the company of my presently-surly 15-year-old daughter was to take her to her first professional sporting event.  We went to the Mariners vs. the Royals MLB game the night before she went home.  There is something about being 15 that make one hate almost everything, but she seemed to have a genuinely good time.  It didn’t hurt that we had AMAZING seats on the first-base line, eight rows up from the grass.  Baby steps: a new experience close to home, a cool new sight here, some exotic food there, a fine novel set in a far away place, and BAM! I am getting postcards from Japan.

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Gun Nuts

Aug 9

Posted by matttalley in Gear, Politics, Tech | No Comments

Why am I surrounded by Gun Nuts? It is not just the ones with “…out of my dead cold hands…” tattooed somewhere, the other side of the spectrum is very well represented as of late. Three weeks ago I bump into a guy running for city council. I talk to him a bit, he seems to be on it concerning local issues, appears to listen and think before he responds, and I am starting to like the guy. Then, he notices me noticing his very poorly concealed pistol. I mention that he should get a better holster, like a Kramer, so as to blend better with the non-pistol toting folk. At that precise moment, he stepped on the express train to Crazy-Town!! Immediately he perceives that I am also a member of the lunatic fringe who thinks that our current President (you know the one I voted for and love) is trying to repeal the 2nd Amendment, that Hillery Clinton is secretly running things, and that we are on the brink of a conservative proletariat revolution. He went so far as to use the ‘Tree of Liberty…” Thomas Jefferson Quote. I smiled, nodded, took his literature and walked briskly away.

Not two days after my run-in with Candidate-in-need-of-a-straitjacket, I am in Big 5 buying pellets for my son’s air rifle. The checkout lady asks me if I’m going hunting. I smile, gave a little chuckle and said no, that they were for a small pellet gun and that I was teaching my 9-year old the basics of proper marksmanship. A nano-second after it comes out of my mouth the lady behind me in line, buying a new yoga mat (no demonetization meant against yoga practitioners – I love yoga – it is just what she happened to be buying) shrieks and starts yelling at me – no really yelling at me about how I should be ashamed “teaching a child to kill.” She launched into a a stuttering unrehearsed diatribe about how wrong guns are, how evil and vile they are, how I was “perpetuating violence against animals and women” - really, she said that – and that “I should be arrested…” I stood there like a statue, not knowing what to do or say. The cashier started yelling at this woman and by the time an employee from the baseball section came running up, the screamer was so worked up that she was almost foaming at the mouth. She dropped her stuff on the floor and charged out the door. The three of us were left just staring at the glass door and each other. I shrugged, they shrugged and I left. I am afraid of both sides of the spectrum when it comes to gun nuts, so I didn’t walk strait to my truck, I stopped in at Starbucks for a much needed Mocha first and took a long look at the parking lot. I was half afraid that the anger over our “discussion” and the loss of a new mat, might drive the woman into braining me with a tire-iron as I tried to leave. No joke, the thought went through my mind.

What has happened to the middle of the road citizen? What is it that seems to have made so many people so aggressively partisan? How is it that all these rational people with real jobs, education, hobbies, etc… go off the deep end? It is that you just never hear from the moderates? Do they just keep their head down, go to work, occasionally go to the pistol or clay range and just go on about their lives????

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Getting reacquainted with my two-wheeled mistress

Jul 21

Posted by matttalley in Commuting, Cycling | No Comments

IMG_2529_sm

I hadn’t been on my bike since the overloaded ride from Vancouver to Seattle.  I pulled a trail-a-bike (one wheel, handle bars, peddles…) with a 95 pound kid and 80 pounds of gear, including the trailer.  It was squirrelly and scary trying to peddle from dead still, and I will never do it again, but I can say that my bike has never been so smooth once I got above 10mph.  It was like I had installed dampeners on the steering and suspension. The trail-a-bike is off and now for sale.  I switched my chainings and rear cassette back to the pre-suffering setup late last week and brought my bike into work for a ride home.

Holy CRAP!  I almost tumped over 3 times before I got both feet on the pedals.  I couldn’t keep my bike going in a straight line – like I was seriously drunk.  This is a bike that I have put 11K miles on, It feels like part of me when I ride, and can tell when my seat or bars are moved a fraction of an inch.  It took me almost three miles to get it all figured out and control the bike to the point that I felt comfortable.  Thank God that I was on a nice wide paved trail!  If I would have been on the road I would have packed it up, called the wife, and caught a ride home.  It was scary.

DSC00242

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Flippin’ the bird

Jul 20

Posted by matttalley in Commuting, Cycling, Manners | No Comments

I flipped a senior citizen the bird on my way home today. not a casual, lazy, flick of the wrist sort of obscenity, no no… It was a full on, arm strait out, display of the middle finger that would make any self-respecting British football hooligan proud. What might provoke such behavior one might wonder? Why would a someone who is normally so courteous to the older folk commit such a heinous act against one of our blue-haired citizens? Am I ashamed? Will I feel the need to perform some sort of penitence to balance the violation of my Karma? Nope. The act was completely justified!

I was peddling along, listening to a podcast on the French Revolution, the sun was shining, and traffic was light – a recipe for a fine commute. As I pulled into the home stretch, about a mile and a half from La Maison Du Talley, a red car comes soaring down the hill by Luna Park Cafe and doesn’t look like it is going to heed the stop sign. I looked at the driver as I pulled the break levers hard and she was talking on her cell phone; holding it to her left ear with her right hand. Her left hand was on the top of the wheel completely blocking her ability to turn her head to look in my direction.  She made NO attempt to even glance to her left to see if there was a car or a cyclist or a pedestrian or even a lady with a baby carriage coming from that direction. I skidded to a stop as she rolled a full 10 feet past the stop sign, almost clipping me with her bumper.  I looked at her as disapprovingly as I could, pointed to the stop sign and yelled (only so she could hear me in her cocoon of Detroit steel and over her cell phone conversation)  for her to hang up the phone and drive. I then peddled on, shaking my head in annoyance.

About 30 yards up the road she caught up with me, rolled her window down and screamed at me to watch where I was going and that I was an “asshole.” Other obscenities came spilling out as she sped up, I was shocked and reacted as any cyclist worth his shifters would – finger up and complimented with a vocalization of the same.

I know I have said this a couple of times recently, but I have been hit 5 TIMES while riding and was recently rubbed by a rear-view mirror. Three of those incidences involved someone talking on a cell phone while driving. Look, we all make mistakes from time to time, but for the love of God, put the phone down, buy a headset, and watch for cyclists. This is Seattle, we’re everywhere… I stand by my use of THE Finger this time. In fact, I kinda want to wait at the corner the same time tomorrow so that I can do it again.  I know, I know that would solve nothing and only make her REALLY dislike cyclists. I am sure her side of the story is just as compelling as mine: “I was driving home and some lunatic, drug crazed man on a bike went nuts and screamed at me. I didn’t DO anything, I was just driving and he came out of nowhere and started screaming at me…”

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Kindle Lust

Jul 20

Posted by matttalley in Tech, Toys, nerdy | 2 Comments

I have a book addiction and right now I am jonsin’ for a binary fix: I have a mad case of Kindle lust:  one eye is starting to twitch, my mouth is dry, I am all itchy, and I can think of little else but e-ink.  I need a Kindle…..  NEED!  I complained about the size and Amazon made it thinner.  I reasoned that it sucked because I couldn’t arrange content and they released new software to allow organization.  I bitched about the high price and they dropped it, if only to mock me!  1500 books, my daily paper and Wikipedia access… Fvck it hurts!  I am starting to shake.

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I am trying to be good, trying so hard.  My wife said, “No, we have other things to spend money on right now” (she is right) and she knows that I will spend hours every night for weeks downloading from Project Gutenberg and will buy a crap-ton of new stuff online – she KNOWS…  If I just go out and buy the thing, I will get it taken away like I am 3 years old and she will start using it smugly to ‘teach me a lesson.’   That and the sleeping outside alone (dog snuggles with her…) for the months it would take for her to calm down from my wanton disregard of our financial responsibilities would be too high a cost to pay if figured into the overall purchase price.

I am holding out for now, but God as my witness, the minute I can go to the library and check out an e-book with a Kindle, I am gonna go online and buy me some dirty e-reader relief, even if I have to prostitute myself out to a sweet old lady at the retirement home up the street for the cash!

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Vancouver to Seattle Bike Tour

Jul 19

Posted by matttalley in Cycling, Kinfolk, road trip | No Comments

Last year I did a 100+ mike bike ride for the American Diabetes Foundation.  I was telling my son about it over the phone – about how hard it was to cycle 100 miles and climb mountains and hills on a bike, when he said “Dad, that sounds REALLY cool.  Do you think we might could do something like that together someday…” Pride welled up in me and I said ‘yes!’  My Boy… taking up the mantel of his father’s interests.  My heart shined knowing that the adventurer bug had bitten deep and early with this one…. I have come to realize that it was not pride in my son, but my own hubris.

When planning out our yearly summer trip I threw in a “simple” bike ride from Vancouver, BC to Seattle – no big deal, right?  Wrong!  I mentioned it to my Father-in-law during the initial planing stages and he asked to come along – I of course said yes and soon after his brother, David, also joined our little two-wheeled group.  I did some route planning, a little bike tuning, changes a few parts here and there, and bought Carlton a tag-a-long bike/trailer before he arrived in Seattle.  I thought that it was all a done deal and we would have a relaxing little three day tour…

I spent four scary days on the road with my 9-year old son and the shear physicality of the ride was possibly the most demanding thing I have ever done on a bike.  While I plan to ride with Carlton as long as I am able, I will NEVER, EVER use a tug-a-bike trailer bike again.  It was squirrely, unstable, and heavy.  I spent 95% of the ride, freaked out about his safety and trying to keep us from hitting the ground.  …Shiver…

Pain and worry aside, the ability to ride with my son was AMAZING – even at its hilly worst!  I got out on the bike, my son was with me, and we spent some quality time with Laurel’s dad and uncle.  I was part of Carlton’s first train ride, his first ferry crossing, his longest bike ride, and his first trip to another country.  My 9 year old son’s strength and fortitude STUNNED me!  I could not have ridden 154 miles when I was 9.  He was terrific and I am so proud of him!  We spent the last night on a sailboat with our extended West Coast  family at Bainbridge Island Harbor and watched the fireworks on the 4th of July.  It was a fitting end to a glorious trip.

Forgive me for a lapse into cliché, but it really is about the journey rather than the destination.  I spent a lot of time twirling the pedals, and listening to him talk while all sorts of things ran through my monkey brain while trying to keep us in one piece.  I came to a few conclusions:

My son is sweeter than I was at his age
He is more stubborn
Bike Trailers SUCK!
My wife’s career is truly flowering and she is finding her way in the work-a-day world
I really and truly want to start my own business
I wish my sister and I were closer
Extra-Strength Tylenol is my forever friend
My father-in-law is loves the debate surrounding a question more than the answer
We (Carlton and I)  will spend more time together next year
My father-in-law is still on his journey of self discovery – what he wants to be when he grows up :-)
I need to write more and finish a couple of articles and my Germany book
There are times that I need to unplug from my cell and e-mail
Tents are better than hotels
I need to prioritize projects at the house and start getting them done
There is a colleague at work who will throw me under the bus without thinking
My knees at 36 are not what they were at 21.
Man, bike trailers with 200lbs of 9-year-old and gear suck!!
The German language has a few REALLY cool words that I wish we used in English more. Trepswerter, Doch, Zeitgeist, Fremdschämen, and Schadenfreude
We have to turn off my cable as soon as Madison leaves this summer
I like the mix of languages during breakfast in an international hostel
Books make my heart happy
Mexican food + cycling for 3 days = BAD!
I need to end the clutter in my life and home office
I REALLY want a Kindle e-reader
Our children are windows to our own behavior and soul
I miss having a large group of friends and need to work on that
The mountains are calling me and I want to make a solo trek after September
Our upcoming wedding has become a serious stressor in my life
We need to trade the Subaru for a Honda.
I really do need 3 more bikes – really
Our bills in Germany piss me off
I love train travel more than any other type of long distance conveyance
Did I mention my feelings on bike trailers?


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the foot rub of shame

Jul 17

Posted by matttalley in Shooting, Tech, Toys | 4 Comments

On a recent trip to Little Rock, a great friend had the huevos to challenge me to a shooting match.  There was even some smack talking.  Well, we (as in the Queen Victorian “we”) just can’t let such a transgression stand!  The loot for this wager is a case of beer and a foot rub from the loser.

The bet is that he can shoot a tighter group with a .380 pistol than I can with a .45cal at a high rate of fire.  To level the field, I am not allowed to use my hand-build tack-driving competition pistol.  We have to use range-owned guns and cheap ball ammo.  If you know me, you know that I don’t gamble – it just doesn’t do anything for me and I HATE to give money away.   I tried to let him out of it, but he pressed…  The gentleman and scholar who made this gross miscalculation of his shooting abliity is 6’1” and 210+ pounds and the shame of rubbing my tootsies while I drink his beer will last for his entire lifetime, which makes my evil black heart giggle and sing with delight.

I went to the range at lunch today and rented one of their pistols.  I put 8 rounds in the center (size of a quarter in less than 4 seconds at 5 meters (16.4 feet).  I then moved the target out to 10m (32.8’) and put 2 in the center, one a little high and five just below the center – all 16 shots with-in a 3” group circle.  I sent him a taunting e-mail with a phone pic of the pistol and the target, asking about taking his “shooting-vitamins”     heheheheh…

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I refuse to facebook

Jul 13

Posted by matttalley in nerdy | No Comments

My lovely little wife drug me into MySpace kicking and screaming. I made a profile, started collecting friends, heard from some kids I went to Jr. high with (still great guys), a couple of old girlfriends stopped by, I posted some pictures, I blogged a little, collected more friends, posted more pictures, spent hours looking at buddy’s and perfect stranger’s pages, etc… It all got to be too much. I have so much other stuff going on that I had to stop logging on. I am not sure the last time I checked my profile, but I haven’t added anything in 3 years or so. I have left my profile up just because, but I am pondering the decision to delete it as it seems that MySpace has become the denizen of pedophiles.

Now the pressure is on to “Facebook.” Somehow a noun has become an verb while I wasn’t watching, but I digress… I have fought the Facebook wave for the last three years. My wife has a page, my daughter has a page (I check up on her there) the ladies at work have pages and speak of being one another’s “Facebook-Friend” and ask if I will be one too… Really? Isn’t working with me and seeing me 9+ hours a day 5-6 days a week enough? I don’t particularly want my coworkers to see what my wife, daughter or deranged climbing buds might post on my Facebook page. In this age of information, I think that I would like to keep my private life just that. If I want to share something, I will blog about it – I like having complete control of the content and any comments that might come from the three people that follow my online musings – for the record, my wife isn’t on of them. She gets enough of my sardonic wit from sharing a life with me…

Nope, no Facebook for me.

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Stranger and weekly indie-paper love

Jul 12

Posted by matttalley in Review | 2 Comments

I love me some of The Stranger.  While I will always open it directly to the Savage Love column, I happened upon a new column in the July 8-14 issue that made me roll with laughter – The Incredible Hulk.  The premier rant was “Hulk Not Racist But…” It was a diatribe about German’s inability to queue.  A topic that I ranted about the whole time we lived in Deutschland.   Laurel heard my opinion so many times that she developed Spidy-Sense and would stop me even as I opened my mouth to launch into my well-rehearsed, and well-thought out if I must say, argument about the genetic inability of a German to stand in an orderly line and take their proper turn.  Holy CRAP!! it used to piss me off: getting on the subway train, at the movies, at Starbucks, in stores, while BUYING GROCERIES!!!  Man, I am all worked up just thinking about it!

Needless to say, I hope to be turning there after finishing Dan Savage’s musings each week.  The New Column section in The Stranger seems to be more of a test piece and they come and go.  I will be sending fan mail asking that this one stays.

I have been into indi weeklies since the day I lived in Little Rock, AR when the weekly there, The Night Flyer, was my lone source of of local left leaning news and local color. My appreciation only grew after moving to Orange County and reading the OC Weekly every Saturday morning at Wahoo’s while choing on a Maui Bowl.  The OC Weekly ranted about the Sheriff, Mike Corona, for years complaining about his corruption, mob ties, kickbacks, etc…   Then one day it all proved true and the rest of the news establishment jumped on the bandwagon.   The paper has rightfully won a number of Pulitzers for their hard work and is where I also found Savage Love for the first time.  Laurel and I would read the reader letters with equal mix of fascination, horror, disgust, and glee – good old fashion American fun!

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Note: This post was written completely on my iPhone, with  the WordPress App, while I was in the air somewhere above Idaho.  I heart my iPhone!

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You wish you had my neighbors!

Jul 11

Posted by matttalley in House, Manners, neighbors | No Comments

Some mornings I get up and it feels like I live in the nicest mobile home in a south Alabama trailer park. It is the neighbors – both sides.

On the North side of Casa da Talley, resides a couple of 20-something constructions workers who also happen to be in a metal band. They are nice enough guys during the day and when sober, but add beer and darkness and the guitars are plugged in, the drum sticks uncased, and the amp volume is turned to 11. Sometimes the music is OK, but there practice space is 10 feet from our bedroom window and guitar licks at 2am when we have work the next day is super-uncool. Add to the music their general inability to take care of their yard, the heaps of trash in the front and back, the non-working trucks and motorcycles parked in the weeds and one has a recipe for hillbilly soup. On of the most enduring things they have done since we have been there was to carve their Halloween pumpkin with the words “Balls Deep” and put it out on their front porch. While I seriously doubt that they had even one trick-or-treater I am willing to be that their artistic flair led to a bunch of uneasy questions from the little ones on the street.

I need to point out that I live on a block of 500K+ homes. These guys live in one of the very few rentals on the whole street and have made life generally miserable for the entire neighborhood for the last 2.5 years. The owner of the property is a septuagenarian lawyer who could care less about the those of us who have to live near his tenets.

To the south I have on old chain-smoking semi-recluse whose yard, if left solely in his care, can have grass growing 3 feet high. There are vines growing into his roof and attic, the back yard is completely covered in weed-trees and there are heaps of trash in the back and alley. Though usually benign, he has recently moved a homeless couple into a tent/tarp in the backyard and says it is in exchange for them doing his yard work. Both of my new “neighbors” seem to have serious alcohol problems, but the woman also has a chemical dependency and possible severe mental health issues – her companion has apologized for her outbursts at least once. When a half naked homeless man apologizes for your behavior while he is smoking a hand-roll and taking swigs from an Olde English 800 tallboy, you might need to look into some in-patient care…

While having a BBQ with friends and family 2 weekends ago, there was cussing and screaming from the tent compound about how stupid her partner was and shortly there after screams of drunken ecstasy and and very vivid and specific directions as to what she wanted done as the couple engaged in freaky dirty hobo sex 2 feet from my fence. REALLY!? My buddy, David – The Sleepy Weasel, was there and we went over to ask the homeowner to make them stop. He seemed genuinely surprised that he his very own drunken, crazy, high, street people were doing the dirty. He apologized and marched into the back to turn the hose on them or something. The stopped and we spent the afternoon around the grill loudly discussing the ballistic wound capability of various pistol rounds and hand loads – David just got back from his third tour in Iraq and his wife grew up in her father’s sniper rifle producing machine shop: he is currently manufacturing optic mounts for the Navy Seals .50cal rifles. After she uttered the phrase “6 inch permanent wound cavity” there was a rustling under the tarp and all was quiet for the rest of the afternoon :-)

In all fairness, part of the reason that we got such a smoking deal on our home was the neighbors and the condition that their houses were in. I spoke to a Realtor 3-4 months ago who had shown our house a few times while it was on the market and lamented that is not for trash and the truck parked in the yard next door (north house – truck was gone when we put our offer in) she could have sold the place in a month and got the full asking price.

Well, as of today (July 9, 2010) my hellbilly neighbors are quiet and respectful, and have cleaned up some. They had a huge party a couple of weeks ago and pissed off the wrong neighbor who called a couple of cops he knew. The cops told them to turn it down and they did – for exactly 15 minutes. the cops came back found the party in full gallop. They used some obscure statute about willfully disobeying the Seattle noise ordnance, and the police seized all the guitars in the house. They busted a few people for underage drinking and both of the guys living there got hauled off to jail for a day or so. I guess after 2.5 years one guy had taken all he could stand.

Concerning the new “tenants” to the south – well, that one is stickier: There is no law in Seattle that makes it illegal to live in a tent in someone else’s backyard. The fact that there were invited by the property owner also adds a wrinkle and there is very little that can be legally done about the situation. One of the guys across the ally came out the other morning and saw the dude peeing in the back with just a shirt on – no pants. That neighbor was enraged – he has a couple of kids. He called the cops, the health department, Planning and development, the sheriff, and the city attorney. I would really HATE to piss this guy off – he seems to be tenacious, bright, and angry. There is talk about him procuring bees. For my part, I have been cranking up the circle saw bright and early every morning and shooting the pellet gun with my son, talking loudly about marksmanship. As my boy has a competition air rifle that shoots a .177cal pellet out at 1200 feet per second, it is not a quiet activity. So far it has endeared me to the Machiavellian homeowner and made our new neighbors grumble a little bit.

I will give it a couple of weeks and watch from the bench to see how this all plays out. Hopefully,  no new tents appear and the one there now gets packed up and moved.

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Summer is here

Jul 8

Posted by matttalley in Updates | No Comments

It was a little long in coming and we had a cold damp spring, but summer is finally here.  My raspberries are going like gang-busters, the sun is shining, the heater is off and I have slathered my self with sun-block no less than 4 times this week.  I don’t care what anyone says – I love Seattle weather!  My yard is green, the sun is shining, and there is almost no humidify.   Why would you live in Houston or Atlanta or Detroit when you can have this‽

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Man, I want me for a dad!

Jun 21

Posted by matttalley in Kinfolk, Updates, projects, road trip | No Comments

By my own narcissistic reckoning, I am the coolest father a 9 year-old boy could have!  My son is coming for a few weeks this summer and I have planned a world of activities and sites that would make any of his buddies green with envy.   There will be: camping, pellet gvn shooting, a cross-country bike trip (more on that later), classic airplane tours, an Indian lodge tour, camp-fire building, rock climbing, BMX riding, tide-pooling, wood-shop projects, art, microscopes, telescopes, hiking, swimming, the Zoo, mountain climbing, beach combing, and berry picking.  I would dare any summer Camp to come up with a cooler curriculum – DOUBLE DOG DARE!

I must say that my son is no slouch in the woodsmanship department, but we are so raising the bar this year.  He could build a fire with flint and steel when he was 7, is a camping and backpacking machine, and whittles a bit.  Well, this summer he has  a shooting bench (just finished in the garage) to hone his target shooting skills,  we are making a custom whittling knife in the shop, there will be new lessons on how to build a campfire, and I am going to show him how to carve simple faces in drift wood.  We talked today and he is super-stoked about the plans.  He makes me so proud!!  He even told me “thank you” for “getting all this stuff together…”  I teared up on the phone and choked back tears like had I hit my thumb with hammer.  It made my whole week!

We may get into some kite-flying action and some fishing, but I am not too sure about that last one – I have apparently passed on the gene that precludes fish catching.  They just stop biting the minute I cast.  He has the same curse and time might be better spent exploring or doing.

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