Are we really in the Pacific Northwest?

So, no shit, the weather has been better here, in Portland, Oregon, than nearly anywhere in the country save Sunny San Diego. Today, when I left work, the temperature gage in my car read 63 degrees. SIXTY-THREE!!!!! IT'S FEBRUARY! The past three Saturdays have been great weather as well. Instead on spending those days on the trainer watching movies, I have been out there, actually outside. Most importantly, I have not been freezing my ass off. This makes training so much better. Today I wore shorts on my run. SHORTS!

In lieu of this, training has been going really well. I feel like the consistency I have been able to get has really allowed me to make some good strides, especially in the pool. As well, Scott, my coach has been invaluable. As of now...all things are good.

We also got a cat a couple weeks ago. I will post pics soon. Her name is Four-Leaf Clover or just Clover if you need something shorter.

Finally...some nice weather.

It has been pretty cold here, in Portland, Oregon. It hasn't been cold, like Boston cold, but still in the 30's. People are freaking out. The people here think they are at the dawn of a new ice age, and its 37 degrees outside. It makes me remember the days when I would stand at the Brookline Village T stop at 4:45am to wait for that blasted train to pick me up for work. Those mornings the snot would freeze in my nose. I bought a giant down jacket, one more giant than the most giant you could think of. It wasn't enough. I still froze my ass off. Last winter we started talking about taking a winter tropical vacation. That dream comes to fruition Wednesday when we leave for Belize.

The basic outline of the trip goes like this:
1. Fly to Houston and connect to flight bound for Belize.
2. Arrive at Belize City airport.
3. Get picked up and driven to the jungle where will get to experience some magnificent Mayan ruins.
4. After 3 nights in the jungle we will travel to Ambergis Caye.
5. Enjoy the beach life for 5 nights. Snorkel. Yes please. Mai Tais. Yes.
6. Leave Paradise for Portland, Oregon.

Sounds good? You bet it will be. Upon our return it is going to time to get down to business triathlon. I hope to get in some big miles and some quality work next month. After the vacation it will be time to get at it. Yipee.

Portland, Oregon

I have been sick the last couple of days. I have never been ill so many times in a one year period. Dating back to my run-in with strep throat after racing at Cascade Edge I have been sick at least 3 times including this year. I blame it mostly on my work. I am in constant contact with a plethora of people, all of them with their own set of plagues. Now I am sick again, not training, watching a lot of tv, interneting (I will take the liberty to call this new word a verb, infinitive form), and being glad I again live in the Pacific Northwest.

Last year at this time I was in Boston, freezing my ass off as I waited for the T to pick me up and take me to work. Those subarctic mornings seem to me a distant memory. Now I live in Portland = Paradise. If you don't believe: Portland.

I will be be better soon. I am going to train hard this week and through the next weekend. Then it will be off to Belize.

Empty Spaces

My grandfather, Howard George Jasperson, died on the morning of December 26, 2007. He was a loving and caring man. He was man with a tremendously generous heart. He will be sorely missed.

The past two weeks have been rough emotionally, physically, and mentally. I have been exhausted by the contemplation of mortality. I was charged with the task of writing my grandfather's obituary and addressing the throng at his funeral with words that somehow were to be a brief summation of this man's character. I did the same for my grandmother when she left this world. In both cases I have been lauded by those who both knew my grandparents and heard my words. I hope they have taken some solace in them. However, I am not completely certain whether, for me, this process has been cathartic. Everyday presents new challenges in filling the empty space left behind.

As I have had the opportunity to reflect on his life, his accomplishments, and his family, I can't help but wonder whether he knew it was time. He had spent the last three days of his life amongst his family, whom he loved with all his heart. Those days were filled with the conversation he loved, filled with his endearing laugh, and an unforced congeniality that set him at ease. I think he knew we would be alright. I think he knew that he had shepherded his family through times good and bad. I think he knew he had taught us values that would endure, that his legacy was secure. We will always love him, for he taught us how to love.

W.H. Auden

FUNERAL BLUES

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crepe bows around the necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working weak and my Sunday Rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out everyone;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Again with the Proust.

Although it is rightly said that there can be no progress, no discovery in art, but only in the sciences, and that each artist starting afresh on an individual effort cannot be either helped or hindered therein by the efforts of any other, it must none the less be acknowledged that, in so far as art brings to light certain laws, once and industry has popularized them, the art that was first in the field looses retrospectively a little of its originality.

It doesn't seem that long ago.

Today, on my run, I realized that when I was in college it would have been about now, my friend Phil and I would load up his truck with all the essential items, and make the trek from Seattle to Vancouver for the Holidays. (For me, essential items included a couple books so as to look studious, as I was a college student, and every article of clothing I owned. The main reason for main reason for the clothing is that everything, and I mean everything was now dirty. I took pride in my ability to time my last wash day so that the day we left I would be wear my last clean t-shirt.) I don't know what it was about today, the light seemed right. The temperature was cool. I could see my breath, just as I would have seen my breath when we stopped for gas in Chehalis or Tumwater or Lacey. Nostalgia is a tricky mistress always residing in that long lost corner of our minds. She shows her face only when we least expect it, and appears mostly to complicate our perceptions of the reality in front of us. For it is not behind us that, in that world of the past, that we make our lives, but rather now and in what lies ahead. That trick of nostalgia relies on the complications of emotion to make opaque the task at hand.