S.W.O.T. and friends

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Today as part of the staff retreat we had a "class" or facilitated discussion regarding this topic. It is a very easy way to identify what you have going for you as well as what's not quite working out. This is something that I feel like needs to be applied to my own life. 

I started doing this online and was several paragraphs in when I felt like what I was writing may not be something that would be interesting to the world or more honestly something that I feel comfortable sharing. And that seems to be the crux of my dilemma in someways that I am not open and deep with those around me. 

Something this exercise brought to my attention was the fact that making friends is a difficult operation. Something not to be taken lightly or something that is not easy to maintain. With the nomadic pattern that life is going in it is very rare for me to stay in one place long enough to make genuine friends... at the start o the paragraph I made a conscious choice that this was not going to turn into a lamentation. And in regards to this I cant say that I regret where I am in life. However I also see the side of me that could use a sprucing up and areas that could be utilized more. 

Thinking along these lines I have to ask what a friend really is. There are many cliched thoughts about who or what a friend should be. Looking up Friend found me this definition. Note that in the definition proper this word is treated in a very casual sense. However if we go into the history of the word there is a very deep and profound root. I would not say that everyone I call a friend my lover... that in our society would be seen as something that does not compute. Casual sex and the fact that sex in general has been marginalized to the point that it is stripped of its deeper meaning seems to give rise to the word friend having now a very shallow meaning as well. So what we really mean when we say we have friends is that we have acquaintances that we have known for a long time. 

So coming full circle once again, we seem to have this gap in our language and in our understanding of our relationship with the people around us. Can't call them friends because we don't know them that well but we also know them more that a mere acquaintance. What do we call the people around us and what does it take to get to that point with them? I don't know if I have a good answer for that question. I don't even know if I have the ability to answer the question given my comprehension of the world. So what do we surround our selves with everyday and what do we call them?

Boggle and more

To bring a change of pace is good in life. To get away, to retreat and get to know people that you talk to weekly on the phone and whose voice you know from a year of contact yet have never met. Right now I am sitting in a cabin at Camp Orkila in the San Juans. I hear the dripping in the bathroom that sounds like birds chirping as the welcome the day... although I think it is more of a mundane phenomenon like the resonance of water hitting the ceramic. Its amazing how often the little things in life are often overlooked. To some that leaky toilet may seem like an annoying sound. A problem that needs to be fixed, and in the sprit of conserving water and managing resources wisely I will take a shot at it before retiring for the night. 

So what am I doing up here in the island many miles from my own bed, curiously enough this to some extent is a mandatory retreat... which sounds worse off that it is. No arms are being twisted just highly encouraged. However, the concepts when looked at in a light way is a forced running away, retreating from what I am not sure but from what has been happening for the last several hours it is more of a running to than away from. So I guess its more of a staff advance than a staff retreat.

None the less, during the time here the game of boggle has been a point of focus among several of my colleagues. I have seen strategies and tips and trick that only true boggle players know or understand... in my case all I have to say is thank you for whoever invented the concept of spell check. But boggle may not be the entire focus of entertainment as a new day dawns and the many mysteries are brought forth.

Dead beaver on the beach

It was a truly beautiful day today and I took the opportunity to walk along the beach. Under one of the logs that have been washed up on the beach was a dead beaver. From the looks of it it appeared to be a adult female and not too ling deceased. There was no smell and the body had not bloated up as it would have had it been there for long. It might have also been the case that as the water of the sound is cold it was kept cold enough to not have it decompose. 

I am of half a mind to retrieve it and have it stuffed however as camp does not have a budget for such activities I am not sure how long I will have to store it before anything happens. Also being as it is going to be there all night I am not sure if it will even be there in the morning. Oh well we will have to wait and see.

Counting Down... wait for it... wait for it... NOW!!!

The days are slowly slipping by the the time is coming when the Spring season of camp will begin. Even now the hours roll by before the first of many groups will be coming through, learning, exploring and challenging themselves. Gone are the days of preparing and setting up. Its show-time!!!

Wonder...

Sometimes I wonder what the future holds. I realize that knowing the future may alter its outcome and create an alternate of what it should be but on the other hand if one was to see the future it would mean that all paths are fixed and that when an event is foretold all the action that lead up to it must and will happen in a given sequence. So the act of me typing this is in fact done not because i chose to do so but because it had to happen for some other future event to happen. 

There is a third alternative that might be possible. What if only specific events are set. Like a town or city on a map. Many roads may go to it through various landscapes. Some roads may take you there faster than other while some roads are more enjoyable. I would like to think that this is how time works however as I may have expounded in a previous post time is a relative constraint that we have created to give our lives a sense of boundary. 

What if we could see the future? What would we want to see? What our lives will be like in 5 years? 10 years? a hundred years? Maybe we created a work of art or wrote a moving poem, will it be still of value a thousand years from now? Maybe we are thinking on a altruistic level and want to prevent harm to others by diverting harm from them. Sure we would make the world better for them but what are the things that could go wrong? Would the creators of such instruments as the internal combustion engine have stopped their work had they known that many people would die in automobile crashes and the ensuing fumes that it put out further damage our environment. 

What would our lives have been like if someone from our past saw the future. And how many someone's are going to have this gift? Do we all get it. Or maybe the select few of whom we most certainly have to be a part of... right? To give this an even bigger twist what if you were the only person who could not? That would be a bummer! Would you depend on everyone around you to tell you what to do or live your life and let the chips fall where they may. 

Sometimes I wonder what the future holds, but, most of the time I am glad I don't have to know till I get there. Bring on the open road and roll down the windows, maybe even stop at some beautiful vista to take it all in. Because at the end of the day the only thing that is going to be certain is what road you chose and if you stopped once in a while to smell the flowers before you end up pushing them up.

Sunny Sunday

Today was one of those days that most if not all Western Washingtonians keep secret from the rest of the world. So if the rest of the world reads this it was a very rainy and gloomy day. You don't want to come here. 

I think someone else may have said this before I did because I was out and did not see too many people. Which was fine by me... sometimes its good to get away. I drove over to the Olympic peninsular and found a new spot to go fishing. Its up on the Dungeness river and the water was running about 150 cfs. It was clear and low enough to wade and wade I did. I am still getting the hang of things but for the most part I can place a fly in the general vicinity of where I want it to go as long as its not too long a cast. But I guess that comes with practice and practice I do intend to get. And as I am living in the northwest and pretty much on the water or as close to it as possible and not be in a boat I think most of my practice is going to be with a fly on the end of my line and not in a grassy field. 

Well thats the story for the weekend... another week dawn and I better get some shut eye before the dawn does come.

Fish, skunks and a good walk

The weather seems to be finally letting up and the sun did its peek-a-boo routine today. After several days of being in the office I had to get out a do a bit of fishing. Drove over to the Tolt river and after a quick check waded in with my gear. I have fished this river once before last fall and the water level was about 3 or 4 times what it was. When I checked what the flow was today on one of the sites online it told me that it was in the 600 cfs range and given that I don't have the most experience with this type of water the fishing skunk showed its face. 

To justify the trip however I was able to get a nice hike in and talk to several others who were also fishing the Tolt. I guess that Skunk was not in a discriminating mood as the other fishermen regaled me of tales of nice weather and no fish. Several who have fished more than I have also mentioned that the conditions were marginal at best. Well chalk this up to a learning experience and I did manage to get a look at some new holes, well new for me, that might prove to give me something the next time I visit. Which is going to be when the water is a lot lower. 

So that being said I wonder what I should do tomorrow. It seems that the warming weather is only going to melt more of the snow in the mountains leading to higher flows. I could do more exploring and find some new fishing spots, or stay home and catch up on some chores like cleaning the house... although cleaning the house has no... NO appeal. I guess I wont have to make that decision till the morning... and I might do some cleaning now just so that I have a excuse and  an alibi to go fishing tomorrow.