Bob Baddeley

This weekend was really fantastic. It started off great on friday night with a party at a friend’s house. It was close enough that my friend Josh and I could walk over there. I knew a lot of the people there, and had no problem talking to people. It was nice to be around people who were all my age. At one point two girls walked in and recognized me as the dancer from a month ago when I had owned a dance floor at a bar and was treated to some free shots for my efforts. I had danced with one of them and the other claimed to be responsible for me getting the drinks. It was cool that they remembered me after all that time.

During the party, I mentioned to Josh that I was going to Montana the next day. That piqued his interest, and he asked if he could come with me. I was a little hesitant because it was supposed to be a trip to see my family, but I said yes anyway. Around 1:30 we got back to our apartments and I fell into bed.

The reason for the trip to Montana was to see my sister before she took off for France to study art for a year. It was the last opportunity for our whole family to get together for a year, so they invited me up to Great Falls for the weekend, and miraculously I hadn’t scheduled anything for the weekend yet. Only my youngest sister and Mike knew, so it was going to be a surprise for the other sister and my mom.

I had intended to get up at 7 and be out the door by 8. I turned off my alarm clock at 7 and managed to get in the shower by 8. I was hurting in a bad way. Josh was equally incapacitated. But I had no choice. I had to leave ASAP. We finally managed to get out the door by 9:40. It is an 8 hour drive from Richland to Great Falls. We had reservations at a restaurant in Great Falls at 7. There is a 1 hour time difference. So if everything went absolutely perfectly, we would make it right on time to the restaurant.

The drive was pleasant, but rushed. Josh and I had no problem talking for 8 hours about all kinds of things, so the drive was not just a marathon but was instead a fun part of the trip. For the first couple hours I drove with a bowl on my lap in case things got hairy, but fortunately I didn’t need it.

When I drive, I drive at a speed that is comfortable for me. Often this is above the speed limit. I drove roughly 10 miles an hour over the speed limit the whole time. In Washington, this was 80-85. In Montana, everything is far from everything, and there are lots of flat stretches that make driving fast particularly easy, so I was doing 85-90 effortlessly. A couple times on the downhill I broke triple digits, but I was never in a position where I felt uncomfortable or out of control. The trip was just a nice drive, and the company was good.

We arrived in Great Falls at 6:30; slightly early. I called Mike at home to see if he had left yet. He had not, so I decided to stop by there first and then we could carpool over to the restaurant. When I got there, mom was there, too. I walked in the door, and a few seconds later she turned and saw me. She screamed and cried and gave me hugs and kisses and was happy to see me. A few minutes later, my sisters showed up, and came running through the door to hug me. It was a good surprise for them.

We took some pictures and headed out to the restaurant. We had a good meal and laughed and talked and had a good time. After we left, we showed Josh around the city a little, showing him the falls and the vast stretches of casinos. At home, we all talked more and ate ice cream. I spent a bunch of time trying to fix Mike’s computer and getting frustrated. Finally I gave up and decided to try again in the morning. I went back upstairs and played Phase 10 with my sisters, Josh, and a sister’s boyfriend. Then we went to bed.

In the morning, I spent half an hour again working on the computer. This time I made progress and came up with a solution that worked. I showed Mike, and he was happy again. We had some breakfast and talked some more. By 10:30, we were out of the house and back on the road.

A few miles outside of Great Falls, we stopped at a scenic overlook. At this particular overlook a scene from the Untouchables was filmed, and a scene from the TV show Treasure Hunters, too. It’s also beautiful independently. While we were there, we saw a bear and a few deer. We also watched a deer jump onto the highway and barely avoid getting nailed by a car.

Back on the road, we stopped in Helena to see if we could go to a particular candy store called The Parrot that I love. Unfortunately, Last Chance Gulch was all closed up on Sundays, which was a disappointment. We got back in the car and headed to Missoula, where it was time for lunch. We stopped at a place called Finnegan’s, which is uniquely situated over a creek. It is really freely hanging over the creek, attached to both banks. Unfortunately, the food was terrible.

The rest of the trip home was pretty uneventful. It was two 8 hour drives over two days, which is a lot, but it was totally worth it. I had fun and was happy to see the family.

I watch all kinds of movies. Tons of them. Sometimes I get good movies, sometimes they’re mediocre, and sometimes I want to snap the DVD in half and bill Hollywood for my wasted time.

Tonight was the kind that makes me want to not only bill Hollywood, but also write to each of the actors and tell them to get the gravel out of their mouth, write to the composer and ask him to create more than two bars of music and repeat it over and over and over, and tell the director to get over himself and cut out half the scenes. Argh. I shouldn’t have to have the subtitles on when I’m watching a movie in English.

This evening I was at the grocery store doing my routine shopping for food. WinCo is not home to the trendiest shoppers or the most beautiful people in the tri-cities, but I’m there for the food, which is also not the trendiest or most beautiful, but it is pretty cheap and is basically what I need.

I have nothing against large people. People are people, whether they’re tiny or gargantuan, and I’d like to think I treat everyone equally. However, there are things I’d rather not see, and the intricate details of one’s corpulence are among them; ESPECIALLY in a food store. It was 8:30 in the evening, and I still hadn’t had dinner. I was hungry until the father and son showed up. Dad looked like a tool with his cell phone headset firmly ensconced in his ear, though he wasn’t on the phone, and son obviously shared some of the same genes. Unfortunately for the store patrons, son, who looked to be about 10-13 years old, decided to share his fleshiness with the rest of the world by not wearing a shirt. Even worse, the pair was behind me in line, and I ended up bagging my groceries across from the son.

There are signs at the entrance of the establishment that say a shirt and shoes are necessary. I believe this is also a law and in general is good for public health. So how this person managed to get around the store without being intervened by the staff, and how the dad could overlook this are beyond me.

So now I wonder, are my feelings legitimate? Am I turning into a conservative and intolerant prick, or am I justified in thinking this was a bad thing that shouldn’t have happened?

For now, I think my solution will be to go to Safeway more, and go to WinCo even later at night.

Way back in the end of March I posted about the Spiral of Suck. Essentially this is what happens to me on the racquetball courts sometimes when I do something stupid and get mad at myself, initiating a spiral of suckiness that ends with me angry at myself and incapable of hitting the ball.

I’d like to append a corollary to the Spiral of Suck. I’ll call it the Spiral of Unproductivity. I am by nature a very productive guy. I like to get things done. Occasionally, I’ll get slowed down on a project, which will get me frustrated. I’ll try to switch to another project, but just can’t get into it. I start flailing around, looking for a project that won’t immediately frustrate me, but as soon as I start any of them, I don’t feel like working on them. So I get frustrated with myself for being so unproductive. This frustration makes me feel less like working on a project, and soon I’m in a big hole of suck.

The downside to this spiral is that I haven’t found a way out of it yet. With racquetball, I can leave as soon as I recognize the spiral of suck and it won’t get too bad. With the spiral of unproductivity, I haven’t found a good way to get out of it. Even going out doesn’t seem to help. This usually happens on weekends, when I’ve got all kinds of errands that I SHOULD be running, but I just don’t get around to them. All I can hope is that the day gets done sooner.

This weekend I went with some friends to Ape Caves, next to Mt. St. Helens. Reader’s Digest version: it was awesome.

Friday we cut work early (I love flextime) to get prepared. The six of us met at my place to consolidate gear into two cars. We then drove about 4 hours to get to a campsite. The first camp site was completely full, so we had to drive another half hour to get to the next one, which was on gravel road most of the way. By the time we got to the second campsite, we were pretty much stuck there. It was almost dark, so either we would find a spot there, or end up camping on the road or something. Luckily, there was exactly one spot left. Of course, it was the slopiest site there, so we hooked up our harnesses and climbing gear, made a sideways fire, and slept on the cliff face.

It wasn’t really so bad. The flies were worse. Insects of all shapes and descriptions, mostly of the variety annoyingus-flyingmonsterae. I had intended to sleep under the stars on a tarp, but after considering the density of insects in the air, figured that I would consume more protein than I preferred during sleep, so I moved into the car. I measured later in the morning the exact width of my back seat; with my head against one door, my knees hit the other door. The seat itself is about 12 inches deep, so you can imagine the difficulty I had that night trying to arrange the majority of my body onto a surface clearly not large enough. It was an unpleasant experience, and I can only wonder at how two people could manage to do anything but suffocate horizontally in the back seat of a car.

The next morning we had blueberry pancakes and sausages with a sprinkling of insect carcasses as they attempted to explore every inch of every thing. We decided to pack up everything and hope to find a camping spot closer to the caves and the exit of the park. Around 11 we finally made it to the caves.

The Ape Caves are not named after apes. They are lava tubes (look it up) that are merely named after the sponsors of the Boy Scout troup that explored them in 1950. We chose to explore the upper tube, which is roughly 1.5 miles of tube. It was an unguided tour, so the 6 of us and our headlamps worked our way up the tube. I wish I could say it was all crawling and that the rope in my backpack was used. Most of the tube was at least 10 feet wide and 10-20 feet tall. There were many parts where rock had fallen from the ceiling and walls, so we did have some considerable meneuvering to do. There was a part where we had to climb up a wall, and a few parts where we had to squeeze ourselves through some fairly small patches. The wind was strongest where the cave narrowed of course. The cave was in the mid 40s (F), so it was quite comfortable and welcome considering the temperature 50 feet above.

We exited the cave at the end, stopped for a snack, and headed back above ground to the parking lot. We drove around until we found a good spot for lunch. Then we decided that instead of trying to find another camping spot, which would have been very difficult and unlikely, we would just head back home. Thus began the frustration of unmarked roads. Almost immediately the other car disappeared from view. Since he had the GPS and the good map (our map didn’t even extend to where we were), and every part of a forest looks like every other part of the forest, so we started doubting ourselves. Then we missed a turn and had a lively discussion 10 minutes later when we decided that we had actually missed the turn, followed by silence 10 minutes later when the exit I had pointed out was, in fact, the one I should have taken. So we had taken the scenic tour of most of Gifford Pinchot National Forest by the time we made it back to the gas station in Carson. Just after I left, I got a call from the other car. Somehow, they were right behind us. It turned out they had missed a different turn. We all caught up a few minutes later, and it seemed miraculous that after an hour of driving independently, we managed to meet up almost exactly together. We drove back to Richland, stopping by Stonehenge on the way. This Stonehenge is a WWI memorial, and it’s a huge concrete structure high on a hill overlooking the Columbia river. It’s pretty cool.

Eventually we made it back to my place, where I cooked up some burgers and hot dogs and we watched The Goonies.