StumpTown Blog

I’m kicking around the idea of going down for the Pepperdine Lectures in a couple months and I am curious which of you that read this blog from time to time are planning to go. It seems like it might be a good opportunity to finally meet some of you. That’s all for today.

Turns out today is National Pancake Day. Thank you Peggy for calling that to our attention. IHOP is serving free pancakes if you make a donation to a children’s charity. According to an IHOP representative, the free pancakes are already “selling like Krispy Kremes.” When asked how many hotcakes he thought they would give away as part of this promotion, he said, “what’s a hotcake?” And now, I have some sad news. As some of you know, I am a bit of a Tivo fan. For those of you who still suffer through conventional television, Tivo is a brand of Digital Video Recorder. It’s one of those things that hooks up to your TV and allows you to pause and digitally record what you’re watching. Tivo was a pioneer in the technology and developed a tremendous product. If I had to choose between giving up color on my TV and giving up Tivo, I would get used to black and white. It’s that good. Stephen Hawking has called it the most significant technological achievement of mankind since the space...

Did you know that the United States is one of the world’s oldest (maybe the oldest, depending on how you look at it) functioning constitutional democracies in spite of the fact that it is one of the newer countries on the world stage? Did you realize that for decades our President has commanded one of, if not the, most powerful military in the world and has not once used that military to remain in power despite a popular vote against him? Do you recall that we recently had a Presidential election where the results were too close to call and despite enormous popular support for both candidates, when our Supreme Court, chosen mostly by presidents from one party, ruled in favor of that same party, the losing candidate simply said he accepted the process and went away to film propaganda films…errr….I mean documentaries? Where else does that happen? Do you ever stop to thank God that the most powerful political leader in the world leads your country and yet does not force you to follow his...

A few weeks ago, I posted my concern that we, as a people, had been unable to update the phrase “It’s the greatest thing since sliced bread” considering there have been at least 8 or 9 things invented since sliced bread that really are better. I’m enduring the ridicule that comes from being a trailblazer (not the NBA team, that’s a whole different kind of ridicule), in the field of modern language while saying things like “That’s the greatest thing since Tivo”. But I will stay strong until others join me and we finally get over our awe of pre-sliced bread. And now, I’m moving on to the next step in this Country’s desperate need to update and just generally improve our way of speaking. Today’s topic, “they’re selling like hotcakes.” Really? Hotcakes? What is a hotcake exactly? I only ask because everyone I know refers to what I believe are hotcakes as pancakes. I have never, and I do mean never heard anyone order hotcakes in a restaurant or anywhere else for that matter. Is thi...

I’m in beautiful Medford, Or this week taking depositions. More on that in a moment. City snobs like me from the “big city” up in Portland often look down our noses at the smaller, less urbanely refined towns and cities in our fair state and their inhabitants. The thing is, you actually have to put some effort into finding a really crummy part of Oregon. They’re out there (I will not name names), but they are pretty rare and Medford isn’t one of them. Sure it sounds like they named the town after a muppet and sure it doesn’t have quite the charm or outside appeal of neighboring Ashland, but Medford’s a pretty nice town. Beautiful surrounding area, state of the art medical facilities, enough “city” to have some good places to eat and shop, but small enough to still have some quaint charm. Overall, it’s pretty nice and certainly not a bad place to spend a few days, or raise a family or ride an ATV while shooting varmints with a hand gun…or so I’m told. My point is, I like Medford....

Now that the ugly ordeal seems to have come to a merciful end, here’s a little more detail about what happened with my internal gravel pit often referred to as my right kidney. A couple weeks ago, I had bad lower abdominal pain when I woke up. I thought it might be something I ate and assumed it would resolve itself on its own. I headed to work early where I was scheduled to take a deposition and planned to use the extra time at the office to continue my preparation. Instead I spent the morning pacing and grimacing and wincing as the pain got progressively worse. For the first time since highschool, I went to the ER as a patient. Turns out Wednesday mornings at about 9am is a pretty time to go to the ER. It was slow and I got plenty of immediate attention. That’s good because I can be…ummm…less than patient at times. I described my symptoms to the ER doc who, after considering my symptoms and overall health and pondering it and pondering it for about 2 seconds, he said, “you hav...