Let’s all sit around the fire and tell Brad stories.
Kevin
June 15, 2013
Referring to my 22 year old nephew, Brad Huffman, who died sometime during the night between Thursday and Friday.
[Last night Brad’s father, my brother Doug, and Brad’s siblings Amy (with her husband Nate and son Jared), Lisa (with boyfriend Kevin), and I sat around a fire in the woods behind the house and told stories about Brad for a long time.
It helped. Thanks Kevin.—Joe]
Yesterday a new Huffman came into the world with the birth of my grandson. I joked on Twitter:
I became a grandfather at 3:13 on June 13, 2013. No name yet. He has two black cats at home so I’m proposing “Lucky”. pic.twitter.com/BseuMzy9AK
— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) June 13, 2013
Happy times. I was going to Idaho to spend time with my Dad for Father’s Day and share pictures, etc.
I got a call from my brother Doug this morning. His son, Brad, died in his sleep last night. He was 22 years old.
Brad Huffman with his nephew Jared.
He didn’t smoke, drink, or do drugs. No known health issues.
This is really messed up. This isn’t the way things are “supposed” to happen. He just finished college. He had a good job. He was considering taking over the farm when Doug and Gary retired.
As Barb L. pointed out when I talked to her about it, “It’s so terrible, one Huffman enters the world and another leaves.”
Last night Barb L and I were hanging out with a bunch of friends. The woman who, a few months ago, reported breast enlargement after frequent “Dr. Joe’s Cure for Everything” treatments was there. She was telling all her friends, “See! Look at this! I went from an ‘A’ cup to a ‘C’!” “And”, she continued, pointing to her boyfriend, “It’s all because of him!” At first people thought he had paid for a boob job. Nope; It was the continuing application of the treatments advocated by Dr. Joe.
Apparently five minutes of continuous orgasms once a day (she claims, “I didn’t even know that was possible!”) for a few months stimulates enough hormones to dramatically affect breast size. She says she is continuing the treatments and is increasing the frequency of treatments to twice a day. She went on to say, perhaps jokingly, that she anticipates another increase of two cup sizes in a few more months.
Since she gives Dr. Joe partial credit I asked for pictures. This evening I received this picture:
Yeah. Not quite what I was hoping for either.
Entirely by coincidence I stumbled across this blog post yesterday. She references Dressed To Kill: The Link between Breast Cancer and Bras.
She claims:
And of course there are the obvious conclusions that a guy like me would love to endorse but further research on my part turns up this information:
The book’s claim that bras cause breast cancer has been dismissed by the medical and scientific communities; the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, and the National Institutes of Health have all concluded that there is no link between bra use and breast cancer.
Heavy sigh. I’m probably too honest. I’ve been accused of that before.
Today Barb L. and I went to Flaming Geyser State Park (Washington State). This was the “stomping grounds” of Ted Bundy and The Green River Killer. In fact the Green River runs right through the park:
As we were entering the park I told Barb L. the story of when Barb S. her mom, and I came to the park about 30 years ago. Barb’s mom, Joy, used to tell the story of that visit. Some guy started talking to Barb and quickly left when Barb said that her husband was “just over there taking a nap”. Joy thought the guy was acting strange and she was very suspicious. She would point out that Barb S. looked a lot like the victims of Ted Bundy and her recollection of the guy at the park was consistent with Ted Bundy.
It was sort of a strange feeling as Barb L. and I pulled in and parked. There, just a couple hundred feet away, was “The Green River” so famous for all the women killed and dumped near or in it.
We shrugged off the feeling and found the trail to the flaming geyser. It’s not much. For a while when hole was drilled (coal exploration), back around 1900, the flame would be as high as five or six feet. Now it’s about five or six inches (see also the picture associated with this tweet):
We found a geocache nearby. It was the first one I had looked for in a long time.
We then found the trail that went into the woods a couple hundred yards to the “bubbling geyser”. If you looked closely you could see bubbles coming up through the water. We hung around for a few minutes then some guy showed up on the trail above us with his dog and just stood there. I figured he was waiting for us to leave so I suggested we go because we really came for a hike, not to stand around and talk.
We hiked up the little hill to the trail where the guy and the dog were. The dog really wanted to approach us but the man had him on a leash and held him close. I slowly reached out my hand and let the dog sniff it. The guy started talking to us and told us a little about his dog. Then asked if we had been down the trail by the river to the Indian hieroglyphics. We told him no but that sounded interesting. He gave us directions then asked, “Do you believe in mermaids?” We smiled, and said no. He then started telling us stories about Indian paintings of people with big fins for feet and a hand coming out of fisherman’s nets and taking a swipe at the fisherman. “I believe”, he told us. As Barb and I started edging on down the trail he started talking about the UFOs (see also this tweet).
We strolled on down the trail in the direction of where the hieroglyphics might be. The guy and his dog passed us and disappeared on ahead. We found the trail near the river and followed it for a while in the proper direction until it petered out in thick brush and trees. We decided we weren’t so interested that we wanted to push through the brush. Then the voice of Mermaid Believer came to us, invisible through the brush ahead of us, “The river’s too high. You can’t get there easily now.”
Okay then. Time to head back out. We walked back toward the picnic area with Barb checking to make sure she had her knife with her. I told her, “And you know how to use my gun if need be and I’m not able to do so.”
We went back to the picnic area and there was Mermaid Believer again. He was a couple hundred feet away on the other side of the picnic area moving parallel to us. We went back to the car and I got out my telephoto lens and camera and managed to take just one picture of him before he ducked behind what we believe was his vehicle:
That was interesting.
We found another trail and went on up the trail with Barb telling me “women raped and killed while hiking in the woods” stories from the knife class she took last weekend.
Our trail made a loop and we arrived back in the picnic area 20 or 30 minutes later. Mermaid Believer, his dog, and his pickup were gone.
I have just one question for you… “Do you believe in mermaids?”
As a birthday present I gave Barb L. a Syderco Delica knife and a one day Defensive Folding Knife class from Insights Training.
This video was taken when she learned what she could do with it on a piece of meat covered with two layers of clothing:
There was also a birthday card, cake, dinner, and some other things included but this is the portion of her birthday most on topic for this blog (and suitable for public consumption).
Slightly off topic is that the Instructor is someone I have talked about numerous times on this blog. Here are some posts that mention him. There are others as well:
Barb and I had lunch with John and we had an interesting conversation. He has had some unusual jobs recently. Some were extremely boring, but that was actually part of the interesting part.
Update: The second link to the QOTD by John has been fixed.
Daughter Xenia made a video of their dog, Hero, when son-in-law John returned from a six week class:
That is one very excited dog. Or as Xenia said, “All the feels.”
Barb L. and I took Jazzy and Maddy to the ocean with us this weekend. Jazzy had never been to the Pacific Ocean. I took a bunch of pictures of Jazzy and Maddy and made a simple video of them.
We had some dramatic moments when they went on ahead of us around a tight spot on the beach while the tide was coming in. Barb ran to catch up with them, almost fell (I caught it in three sequential frames on my camera), then yelled at them, “The tide is coming in. Be careful!” They responded with, “We know!”
They then proceeded to continue on around the corner. We waited a couple minutes and watched with increasing concern as the water continued to cut off the “pass” between us and them. I then dumped my backpack and camera case and jumped between rocks over the water and ran around the corner to find them. They were another 100 yards or so beyond and about to go out of sight around another corner. I ran to catch up with them and yelled when I thought I was close enough for them to hear me above the waves, “You need to come back now!” I was concerned they might not heed my concerns either. But they responded and started walking back at a brisk walk. I ran back.
The “crossing” was almost unrecognizable as the place I had crossed maybe two minutes previously.
I stepped onto the closest rock and got my shoes wet up to just below the ankles. The hiking boots are water resistant and my feet remained dry as I waited for the wave to go back and I jumped across to another rock and climbed out the other side without getting wet.
Jazzy and Maddy soon followed and didn’t care all that much about the depth of the water because they had taken off their shoes much earlier (there is a tale to tell about the shoes too):
Maddy had tied her shoes to her backpack and then walked probably a mile or so before noticing that one was gone. We were able to determine, roughly, where she lost it because of all the pictures I had taken of them. But we figured the shoe was completely gone because the beach was about 100 yard narrower in that spot than when she had walked by earlier.
We were approaching the trailhead when Barb and I started thinking about making an improvised “shoe” for Maddy to walk the 3/4 of a mile or so on the gravel path back to the car. We had just concluded a t-shirt with a plastic bag wrapped around it held in place with a rubber band would work or maybe just have her wait at the trailhead while someone went back to the motel and come back with her other pair of shoes. Jazzy and Maddy were probably 75 yards ahead of us when we saw one of them point and then they both started running. “A race?”, I asked Barb. “I don’t know”, she said. A few seconds later we understood as Maddy picked her shoe up off of the beach. It was on the edge of the water and probably 75 yards inland from her path in the other direction. The two socks she had stuffed in the shoe were still there too.
Lucky day.
We made it to the ocean this afternoon and almost immediately went for a walk on the beach. I did not bring my chemistry set but we had a good time anyway.
View from our room.
View from our room.
View from our room.
View from the beach.
View of the beach.
Mutant moss. I think we should check on it tomorrow and see if the earth is in danger of being taken over.
Buses and trucks have a much larger turning radius than cars.
Someone at 4th and Olive in downtown Seattle learned the hard way this afternoon:
Yesterday while walking from the bus stop to my work a guy going the other direction looked at me kind of funny, approached me, and said, “Joe Huffman?”.
In the first couple of seconds I was concerned it was my “stalker” but then I had a glimmer of recognition and said, “And you are?” He replied, “Microsoft, Direct X…”
It wasn’t so much the words but the sound of his voice and matching the face to memories that enabled me to pull out a name without significant pause, “Nick W. Yes, I remember you!”
We had worked together (I think he was my lead) in the late 90’s at Microsoft about 15 years ago. We ended up talking for probably close to 30 minutes. He had left MS before I went back in 2005, worked in NYC for a while, then came back to Seattle and now works for Amazon.
This is the second time I have connected with someone by seeing them on the sidewalk in downtown Seattle. The other time was late last year when I chatted with Jeff O. who I also originally knew from my Microsoft, Direct X days.
Barb L. and I have arranged to spend some time on the beach next weekend.
After making the arrangements my thoughts soon went to what my profile on Match.com (where I meet Barb) said about the beach:
Long walks on the beach are nice–if we brought the explosives to see how big a crater we can make in the sand and how high the water will shoot up into the air.
In addition to the legal issues involved I left my chemistry set in Idaho.
Still… there are solutions to most of the issues and the temptation is great.
There seems to be some surprise and indignation at the idea that the IRS would be used as a weapon against political opponents. I don’t understand.
First; what did you expect from a communist administration? Really. Can you say, “DUUUH!”? Second; the entire tax code is a weapon of political power. Always has been. It is designed to nudge you into behaviors you’d not be engaged in if you were left to your own devices, and to nudge you out of other behaviors. The very concept of a progressive tax is a political weapon, designed to substantially reduce wealth creation and accumulation. Raising revenue is far down the list, or it is only an ancillary function of the tax code and the IRS. I could on and on, but you should have gotten the point by the time you received your very first paycheck.
The specific targeting of individuals and groups is nothing new at all either. The Clintons were famous for it. Rush Limbaugh has been getting audited every year for many years. The list is longer than this whole blog since its beginning.
A “Gosh, we’re sorry” will change nothing. The only solution, assuming anyone wants one, is to abolish the tax code, abolish the IRS and go to a single digit flat tax. Otherwise quit your bitching– this is exactly what you’ve been asking for. Begging for, actually. Don’t bother pretending to be surprised– it makes you look even more stupid.
On Saturday Barron and I did a simple test on the Boomerite packaging. It was hypothesized that the heat from heat shrinking the plastic wrap was causing evaporation of the ethylene glycol. We put a thermocouple temperature sensor just inside the cardboard box and applied the heat shrink plastic bag as normal. There was less than 1 degree F rise in temperature.
We applied heat until the plastic melted. The temperature just barely raised. That means it’s not the heat.
There are two remaining hypotheses:
It will probably be the middle of June when I go back to Idaho to do the tests.
*Just two weeks before I had served papers for legal separation on my wife of 35+ years. This year I was feeling much better and one guy told me that I looked terrible the year before and that this year I “looked ten years younger”. He also asked, “Is the new woman you are with (Barb L.) just as smart as you? I confirmed his suspicion that she is a smart cookie.
Brother Doug was going through old photo albums and other stuff and came across this picture:
He sent it to me and asked what tractor was used to power the hay blower and whether it was the ‘51 or the ‘53 truck in the picture above. The two people in the picture are our dad (in the truck) and me (on the ground).
I gave him my best answers. “I’m pretty sure that is the ‘51 truck” and “I think we might have borrowed a tractor to power the hay blower” (see the large, flat, belt leading off to the left of the picture?). Doug was able to confirm it was the ‘51 and found another picture of Uncle Alden’s tractor with a flat belt attached to it near the barn.
What is more interesting to me is that while I remembered putting up hay like this for several years the picture brought back surprisingly vivid memories. I can almost smell the hay, feel the rock salt in my hand from the rusty bucket at my feet (we added salt to dry out the hay and reduce the risk of spontaneous heating and fire), and hear the sounds the hay blower made as it pushed the hay up the pipe into the barn. It’s very, very vivid. It’s very close to real even though it was probably 45 years ago.
The next time I go back to Idaho with Barb L. I should take her on a tour of the barn in the picture. The hay blower is still inside.
Barb L. and I went for a short drive and a hike today. The main attraction was Snoqualmie Falls:
The weather was warm and with snow still in the mountains the water flow was on the high side of normal.
And when we went on our hike I open carried. No one noticed or if they did they did not seem to care.
“‘Love thy enemy’ does not mean kiss him and invite him into your country. It means stand up and fight, with grace.”
– Roy Masters, “Advice Line” April 29, 2013
He was speaking of what he refers to as the Dalai Lama’s cowardice in dealing with the Chinese, but the quote rang out to me as with regard to radical Islam. Years ago in Idaho, we had a Neo Nazi group calling themselves the Church of Jesus Christ, Christian Aryan Nations. They were racist socialist revolutionaries who managed to use a bomb or two, causing some property damage. They were rooted out of Idaho for the most part, and good riddance. I didn’t like some of the methods used, but good riddance. They weren’t from around here, and they figured that since most people in Idaho were white, their white power, anti-Semite nonsense would be tolerated. They figured wrong. I bring them up only as a comparison to the even more virulent and dangerous radical Islamists, who’ve been allowed into this country, often welcomed with open arms. If we had the same recognition of bigotry, promotion of violence and power-lust regarding the Islamists that we had with the Aryan Nations we’d be raiding certain Mosques and other organizations in the U.S., but violent bigotry that hides behind Christianity is a vastly more convenient target than the exact same violent bigotry that hides behind Islam. The difference is of course a result of political subterfuge and we can’t fight it because we’re short on grace.
It’s like our societal immune system is degraded, leaving us open to all forms of infection.
Apparently when I’m woken up in the middle of the night and asked to roll on my side because I snore when I sleep on my back I ask, “Which side?”
If you were to believe all the lies told by the anti-gun people about bumping into a shopping cart in the aisle at Safeway causing mass shootings you might expect a different outcome. The most plausible outcome in their world view would seem to be I would just shoot them with the gun next to the bed and continue sleeping on my back.
Perhaps Heinlein was right about being armed and politeness.
Cook: [Pointing to a very well endowed woman’s breast area] You have some soup on your shirt there.
Cook’s Helper: Damn!
Cook’s Helper 2: Would like someone to lick it off for you?
Cook’s Helper: One of my three partners will get to it before you could.
Overheard April 13, 2013
[I have interesting friends.—Joe]
Got back from the beach yesterday. Oregon coast sand, Pacific ocean, visit a relative. Flying kites, flying dogs, flying kids, a sand-storm in the rain. Lots of fun. It’s 45 and raining, so the kids have to go wading, running, and splashing in the ocean, of course. I only half-jokingly say we use a color-coding system – red is fine, blue means time to head home. The dog, which we think is a border collie – greyhound mix, is FAST, and she loves to chase waves coming in; I paced out her strides, and she’s covering something over 10 feet per stride, and she’s picking them up and putting them down at a rate of a bit more than four strides per second, or a bit more than 30 mph (camera doing 8 frames per second, slightly more than a full stride every two frames; at 5 fps is seems like almost a stride per frame). Found out that the Cold Steel “Special Forces Shovel” also makes a mighty fine kids sand-toy, MUCH better than the normal cheap plastic one, and sprout #2 can ALSO have fun chopping on drift-wood and kelp with it. Offspring #1 preferred the Gerber folding E-tool to build a fox-hole sand-castle. Got down to the Tillamook Air Museum, looked at old war-birds with sprout #2. Pics below the fold.
Oh, yes – The Stars Came Back will also pick back up tomorrow. Continue reading
Last night I found myself in a town conspicuously like my home town – the place I spent the first 18 years of my childhood. I was up against a sniper. She was a Chinese woman; determined (“Hell-Bent”, even). She was wearing the classic Cultural Revolution style, plain O.D. jacket and plain O.D. hat, and she had a rifle. I think that’s her on the right, but she’s younger in this photo;
It started out with her trying to snipe me from some distance (I hate it when that happens) but it ended up as a running, ducking, hiding, urban-style shootout from about 150 yards. I took a couple of rounds but were superficial hits. I thought I had nailed her good in the end. Through my low magnification, illuminated scope I saw her go down just as she was trying for cover.
The next day however, she was back to her usual self, dressed like a perfectly ordinary American woman in the small, eclectic community of immigrants in which I grew up, tending to her ordinary American life with her perfectly ordinary, American-born children, interacting in her perfectly normal, friendly manner with friends and neighbors.
I spoke about the encounter with some of my friends, showing them my bullet wounds, which had healed to the point of being mere scars, and explaining what had happened, pointing out to them my now perfectly innocent-looking enemy. Funny what the light of day can do to a person that was trying to kill you just a few hours ago in the cover of darkness. I saw the woman a few times that day, and both she and I were pretending nothing had happened the night before. Neither of us wanted entanglements with law enforcement or other authorities, knowing that such would be the undoing of us both. This had become a chess game. We were going to have to settle our differences later…
I don’t remember many of my dreams lately, and would certainly not have remembered this one except for something my daughter said to me this morning at around 06:00 that triggered the memory.