StumpTown Blog

I'm back briefly, after my Wife, brother and I spent the last 4 days backpacking in the the Three Sisters wilderness area just east of Eugene, Oregon. We had a great trip and everyone had a good time, and I plan to post a thorough report, but I'm swamped this week since I was gone part of last week and only in the office 3 days this week. And so, because of my so-called "real job" my blogging may have to wait a bit. On Thursday, my lovely wife and I have to leave again. This time, it's not a fun vacation where we get to hike around the forrest debating the pros and cons of freeze dried "Polynesian Chicken with rice and vegetables" versus freeze dried "Spaghetti with meatballs." No, this is a working trip. The firm has asked me to attend a grueling conference with hundreds of other lawyers to help fashion the broad legal policies in this country's legal community, make recommendations to policy makers regarding the appointment of judges and...

Why is it that the ultimate “where were you when” moments in the world are mostly bad? The ones I hear tossed out most often are 9/11, the murders of JFK and John Lennon, the space shuttle disaster, the Reagan assassination attempt and when Eddie DeBartalo was forced to give up his interest as owner of the 49ers to his sister and her depriving some village of their idiot husband. Ok, so maybe that last one is just me, but you see my point. You might throw in a couple good ones like the Berlin wall coming down or the Republicans taking back congress (ok, again, maybe just me), but for the most part they are bad. I think part of the reason is that we tend to allow negative events to impact us more deeply than the positive. Especially in this country where so much is positive, we don’t take time to really celebrate and burn into our collective memory the good things that happen to us as a nation or as individuals. I wonder how much happier we would be if we soaked up the good the way...

It seems like I’ve seen more than my share of interesting signs lately. Not “signs” like supernatural omens, but signs like those ones they put along streets that have numbers on them like 55 or 35 “School Zone 25”. What do those signs mean anyway? I thought I would offer you a list of some of my favorites that I’ve seen lately. Please feel free to add your own to the list if you’ve seen any good ones. 1. In downtown Portland there is a Blockbuster that moved out of its building leaving only an empty building and their sign. Some enterprising person found those big letters that you place on movie marquees and those signs outside of schools that cheer on the boys JV Lacrosse team, and spelled out the following message on the old Blockbuster sign: “Blokbustr is stuped.” Those aren’t typos, just a little dose of irony for the morning commute. 2. A friend of mine took a picture (that I will post here if the site lets me) of a sig...

I’m taking a brief break from my job of keeping the world safe for large multi-national corporations to share a couple things on my mind. You know, since you asked... 1. Top level scientists all over the globe are predicting that temperatures in the Portland (Oregon) metropolitan area could reach as high as 104 degrees today and these skin searing temperatures could last as long as one additional day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In response, the city is taking the only reasonable measures that a city can take when faced with the kind of weather that makes people in Phoenix throw on a light jacket. Speaking from a well air-conditioned NORAD facility deep below the scorched surface, City representatives have announced the following steps to be implemented immediately. Let’s just hope it’s enough a. Miniature individual sized fire extinguishers are being passed out to citizens to keep their families safe from spontaneous human combustion. b. Al Gore is being flown in to blame...

I saw a couple movies the last couple nights that were on my Blockbuster queue and have posted my comments over on my entertainment site . The first one was the strange and disturbing "The Machinist" starring Christian Bale who did this movie after eating nothing for weeks and making him horrifylingly skinny. The second one is the even stranger and more disturbing "November" starring the underrated Courtney Cox in a thriller that may either fascinate you or make you very hostile.

A few years ago I was sitting on the grass at beautiful Camp Yamhill in Yamhill, Oregon, oddly enough located in Yamhill County, at our annual Westside Church of Christ family camp. It was not too long after I had taken over as the worship leader at Westside and I was sitting with some friends and fellow Praise Teamers (those are the same people, you understand). My father was there as well and mentioned to us that it would be fun to have some songs that came from Westside and were in some way born out of our experience with this congregation. My overachieving friend Jennifer Davis and I understood these comments as if he had said, "you must now go and write songs we can sing at Westside because you must do everything that needs getting done here and anywhere in the world." Jennifer and I (along with my Wife and several other friends) suffer from the same misguided notion that everything at Church is some how our responsibility. We all need group therapy or an intervention or...

I thought I would occasionally post some of the things I have learned about parenting that might be helpful to other people similarly afflicted with severe parenting ignorance. I really have no excuse for this ignorance since I had two great parents who fed and clothed me almost every day and taught me important lessons like even if you hit a mouse with your father’s giant boot chances are roughly 97% that it will not only be alive when you lift the boot up, but will have been turbo charged by your failed attempt on its life and will zoom across the floor with lightening speed, or at least way faster than an 8 year old with a big boot. I also have, as I have mentioned many times in this space, a spectacular wife who devotes much of her time to raising our boys (which mostly consists of overcoming their genetic dispositions to argue with everyone about anything and undoing the things they learn from my brothers when they have been left unsupervised with the boys). So, my grounds for ign...

Just thinking about a few things that I thought I would toss out there with a nod to the excellent Peter King who writes a must-read article called Monday Morning Quarterback for CNN/SI that no football fan should miss during the season. He always includes 10 things he thinks he thinks about football, so here are 10 things I think I think about the things I think about. Also, check my other blogs later for 10 things I think I think about sports and about entertainment . 1. I think one of the underrated qualities of money is that it doesn’t dissolve when you wash it. Why is that exactly? And why doesn’t anyone talk about this? I leave stuff in my pockets when I wash my clothes almost as often as my clothes are washed. As often as not, there is some receipt, business card, post-it note, to-do list, etc folded and waiting for someone to add water and detergent. When any of these things are washed they immediately dissolve or more often try to make themselves one with my pocket by compact...

You can check you my latest Movie Review for the movie Cars over on my movie site . This time I shared the work with my oldest son Gibson and his buddy Douglas. Thanks to them, I think it is the best review on the site. Blogger wouldn't let me post the picture of them over there, for reasons unknown, but here are the two of them when Douglas came to spend the night while his baby sister pretended to be ready to be born.

If so inclined, check out my review of Jack Black's Nacho Libre over on my Movie site . Also, check back on that site as I try my first ever co-co-review with my son Gibson and one of his buddies for the fantastic new Pixar movie Cars.

I posted this as a comment to one of Randy Wray's blog posts which leaves me feeling a bit lame for simply recycling what I've already written, but I didn't post anything on the 4th here, so this will have to do until I get around to posting something new. We celebrated the 4th in the traditional manner, exactly as the founding fathers intended as they wrote in the little known missing 146th Federalist Paper. Here is an excerpt I memorized in a dank, forgotten library in Virginia while doing research for the new Dan Brown novel: “…and that is how we know America will never lose its love for God, traditional family structures and the flag, all of which will be protected by the US Constitution 2.0 which will be offered to the various colonies at a discount this coming spring. And now with regard to the celebration of America’s Day of Independence, it shall heretofore be celebrated by all right-thinking, God-fearing Americans as follows: (1) The holliday shall be scheduled so ...

I am back now from my trip to So Cal. I had a great time in spite of the fact that the Giants lost to the Fathers. Jeff and my friends the Beards are the kind of friends that are so comfortable, it is a good time no matter how much time has passed since we saw each other. I brought my laptop with me with every intention of posting to my blog while I was away, but I never got around to it. I did, however, get some stuff written which is posted below. I will also try to have a movie review of Nacho Libre posted to my Entertainment Blog by the end of the day and will also try to post some more thoughts on the NBA draft and some of the big trades and free agent signings that happened while I was a way on my Sports blog. While I was on the plane on the way to LA I thought I would type a few thoughts to post later. While I’m writing this, there is a very bored teen girl sitting next to me trying to pretend like she’s not reading this and telling secrets with her buddy sitting a row in front ...

Out of nowhere, I am going to San Diego this week. Every year my oldest and bestest friend (not including the artist formerly known as StumpTown's wife, of course) meet in San Francisco to see a couple Giants games. This year we were having trouble getting something scheduled and then out of nowhere he has some extra travel budget he has to spend or lose (he visits colleges as part of his job as a college counselor at a super posh prep school in LA), and needs to visit some of the schools in San Diego and wouldn't you know it, the Giants just happen to be in town this weekend. So, a quick frequent flyer free ticket later and I'm hitting the road, or air, or whatever. I will fly out tomorrow and come back Sunday. We should get to see a couple games and I'll be able to catch up with some other friends from college along the way. Should be great. So, I may not be able to post anything new here the rest of the week, though I am taking a laptop with me and have high ho...

I had big plans for another post today, but my actual job got in the way. Instead I posted a review for the movie I saw last night: "Thank You for Smoking." It's a good one and the full review is now posted on StumpTown Entertainment. Check it out. One other thought before I go. Tom Hanks' mullet in the Da Vinci Code got me thinking. If so many "rednecks" are wearing mullets these days, are they still rednecks? I mean doesn't that hair protect the back of the neck and keep it lilly white? I wonder what Descartes would say about this? Probably something like: "huh?"

I have posted two new movie reviews on my Entertainment blog . One is for the excellent Memoirs of a Geisha and the other is for the awful Da Vinci Code. You can find those and my previous movie reviews in my new blog along with posts explaining the movie review template and my movie rating scale.

My grandparents were long-time members of the Church of Christ. My parents both grew up in the CofC. My wife and I are both B&R (born and raised). Both my father and father-in-law are Elders in the Church, my Dad is a full time minister and his Dad was a long-time preacher as well. What does this all mean? Well, in addition to it providing me with a profound, powerful and life-saving heritage of faith and relationship with God, it has also left me with generations of wisdom and knowledge and a lifetime of experience in one critical area of Church life: the church potluck. When I finally put my “World Famous” Food Rules in book form, there will be at least one full chapter on the culinary phenomenon that is Church of Christ Potlucks. Maybe all church potlucks are this way, but I only know what I know so I’ll just talk about that until I feel like talking about something I don’t know at which time I will charge on undeterred by my ignorance. For the uninitiated that might be r...

Here are some additional rules and thoughts which build on previous posts. New Food Rules: 1. No Mexican food for breakfast. No breakfast burritos or tacos, no salsa before 11:30am and never, ever refried beans in the morning. I am going to request that my Church make it a part of their annual mission trip down to Mexico to bring those poor people some better breakfast food. Think of all they could be as a nation with a good apple fritter, little white powdered donuts and mountain dew (my law school breakfast), Krispy Kremes (you can tell I’m a health nut), eggs and sausage not wrapped in a flour shell clearly designed for pm meals, or even a sausage/egg McGriddle sandwich. Oh the humanity!!!! 2. Do not allow vegetables to masquerade as desert. No carrot cake. Carrot cake? Really? Why not turnip pastries or beet filled donuts. Zucchini bread is pushing it, but we’ll let it slide because I have such good memories of my mom’s zucchini bread. Besides everyone knows that the only reason ca...

I haven't had time to post lately which probably upsets me more than you, but I thought I would check in to assure you I haven't just been kidnapped or anything. Just been working trying to do husband and dad stuff, which doesn't really include spending yet more time at the computer. But look at these boys. How can you blame me? Anyway, since I still don't have time to do a real post, here's what's coming as soon as I have some more time: I'm going to be moving my movie reviews to a new blog set up just for movie reviews and my thoughts on TV shows and the entertainment world in general. I will have a link from this page for your convenience. I will try to get new reviews on there as soon as possible which will no doubt include Memoirs of a Geisha which my lovely wife is anxious to see me admit I watched and enjoyed. I have been thinking about doing this for a while, but then fellow blogger and buddy Mike Lewis found a great blog template for me that put m...

1. This past weekend we finally took the training wheels off Gibson’s bike and I spent some time running breathlessly behind him up and down the promenade at Seaside doing my best to dodge dog-walkers and hit skateboarders. It was an overdue lesson, but it was still one of those fun parent moments that you know is coming the moment you have kids and when it gets here, you think “wow, I’m a Dad, I can’t believe it and why does running behind this bike make me so out of breath? Man I’m fat.” My Dad told me yesterday that “in Europe” when teaching kids how to ride bikes, they don’t use training wheels which I’m convinced teach you nothing but how to lean heavily to one side while riding a bike, a skill that doesn’t translate well once the training wheels are off. Instead, they remove the pedals from the bike and teach the kids to walk and then kick and coast themselves along on bikes. Viva!!! That is brilliant. Why has this been kept a secret from Americans? It makes much more sense as it...

The appetite is a funny thing. When we get hungry, we tend to lose our senses and do things no sane or rational person would do. This is how the first Kiwi was eaten as well as how we discovered that the roots of certain plants were actually better than the leaves. Of course it is also what got Jacob in trouble with his brother Esau and what leads to thousands of ruined meals every day. After making up some research, it showed that 1 in 3 people have culinary regret within moments after their food is prepared or served. As a public service, I am offering my “World Famous Food Rules.” These rules are not here to limit your creativity, but to help you in moments where the flesh is so willing that the mind is weak. When your growling stomach begins to get the better of you, remember these simple rules. This not the complete list by any means and as further research is manufactured, more rules may result and will be posted here. I also invite you to submit your own suggested additi...