The Secret

The Secret seems to be all the rage right now. The book and the movie both have long hold lists at my libraries. Wanting to see what the hype was all about, I got the movie from the library (after a multi-month wait on the list) and watched it today.

So what’s the big secret? The Law of Attraction. As one of the people in the video said, “your life is a physical manifestation of the thoughts that go on in your head.” Basically, what you think about is what you’re going to get. So if you’re on your way to work and you’re stuck in traffic and you think, “I don’t want to be late!” you’re going to be late because the universe is giving you what you’re thinking about: being late. Apparently you instead need to think, “I want to be on time.”

The whole 9o-minute video was a constant reiteration of the above. Choose your thoughts carefully. You are the masterpiece of your own life. Focus on something you want, on what you’re passionate about, and the universe will make it happen. If you focus on what’s going wrong and what you hate, that negative energy you’re sending out will just attract more negativity. “The law of attraction is obedient to your thoughts.” “What you visualize, you materialize.” Etc.

So basically, what they seemed to be saying is, have a good attitude about life and be grateful for the good in your life instead of focusing on the bad. What’s so revolutionary about that? I think people are just so desperate to find happiness that they eat this kind of stuff up, these books and movies that promise you the secret to wealth, happiness, and a better life. Someone could make an interesting study out of this phenomenon.

I’m off again!

Seems like I just got back from vacation, and I’m heading off on another one. No complaints here! I’m off to Vancouver, BC to see friends, marvel at fireworks, and enjoy the scenery. Good times!

Dunce

Conversation I had with Comcast on the phone last night when I couldn’t get the cable TV to work.

Me: I think our cable is out. I’ve unplugged the cable box and re-plugged it. I’ve jiggled the cables and checked the connections. Nothing. The light on the cable box won’t even come on.
Comcast guy: Okay, let’s take this slow and easy.
Me: Okay.
Comcast guy: On your Comcast remote, push the Cable button, then push the Power button.
Me: [pushing buttons as told]
Cable box: [comes to life]
Me: Oh! There we go! So the cable box was just off? Ha ha! I feel like such a moron now. [hitting my head with remote]
Comcast guy: No, no, don’t take that attitude [seriously; his exact words]
Me: That’s never happened before. Someone must have sat on the remote.
Comcast guy: Sometimes people forget to switch the remote from TV to Cable mode. It happens. [this is not what happened; we don't use that remote for the TV, just for the cable]
Me: Okay, well it’s all working now. Thanks! Bye!

Doh!

Life with a dog

My new roommate’s dog, Besa, has adjusted well to apartment life in the two months since they’ve moved in. And she is the absolute sweetest dog. I like having her around! Yesterday my roommate had to work all day, so I offered to take Besa with me and Debs on our short hike that afternoon. Besa loved all the exercise and we rewarded her at the end with a swim in the Molalla River near the trailhead.

Besa adores water. She was so excited to go get the stick we threw for her, that she literally launched off a big rock on the shore, which was pretty hilarious. My point-and-shoot camera does video, so we tried to get her to do it again and film it. This first video shows just a small launch and then a slide off the rock. My favorite part of this one is the off-camera sound of Besa shaking followed by Deborah’s “ohhh!” as she gets wet. The second video was shot after many non-launches, hence my excitement that she finally launched off the rock as we’d seen her do earlier.

She slept most of the way home and sacked out on the floor for the rest of the afternoon!

A day at the volcano

I went up to Mt. St. Helens today. I haven’t been up there in years, since I was a little kid in fact. I did a short hike, visited the various viewpoints and visitor’s centers. The stubborn clouds never fully lifted, so I never got a full-on view of the mountain. But it was still fun. It was also fun to watch the tourists. I guessed that at least 75% of the visitors I saw up there were not from the area. There was a lot of oooohing and aaaaahing from them during the ranger talk about how the volcano has continued to be active these past 27 years.

I was only 16 months old when Mt. St. Helens blew, but I’ve grown up hearing about it a lot. We learned about it in school numerous times, and it’s been in the news from time to time over the years, especially when it started acting up again in 2004. We get helicopter video footage of the crater all the time here. There has never been a novelty associated with it because we are so close to it. But for a visitor who remembers the dramatic eruption 27 years ago and has never seen it up-close, I can understand what an experience it must be to go up to Johnston Ridge Observatory and look into the crater of the volcano. How many people really get to do that? It’s funny the things you take for granted.

Another hottie

Oh, did you think I meant mwah? Oh, but you do flatter! No, I’m talking about the weather. It was hot again today, though it was only in the mid 90s, compared to yesterday’s 102. I had the day off, so this morning I went to the Wednesday version of the Portland Farmer’s Market. The one on Saturday is the best, with three times as many vendors and live music too, but I’m always at work on Saturdays. I picked up a pint each of raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries at the market. YUM! I love summer berries! And then in the heat of late afternoon, my sister and I went swimming in the Sandy River near Troutdale. Damn, that water felt good! We braced ourselves against rocks on the bottom to keep from floating downstream, and just hung out in the water. Then we hung out on the beach with our books and our root beer, and went back in for more. QUITE pleasant! This evening at dusk, I sat on my back patio with a mojito and I chilled. What a life. I felt content. It was good to feel that way.

Oh, and I’d just like to point out that exactly two weeks from this exact moment (the late evening of Wednesday, July 25), I will be watching the first night of fireworks in Vancouver, BC. I’m so excited to see my fabulous friends and that fabulous city again!

Record-breaker

Today was a record-breaker. It got up to 102F. The last record was 98, set sometime in the 1990s, I think. It was HOT. It still is hot. It’s gotta be in the high 70s or low 80s and it’s after 10 p.m. Whew! I was really glad to be working in an air-conditioned library during the hottest part of the day. And one of my co-workers took up a collection and got us all smoothies at Jamba Juice on her dinner break. My hero!

My apartment is filled with white noise. We must have half a dozen fans going in here. And our apartment doesn’t even get that hot, really. This time of year, the sun really doesn’t shine directly into our windows at any point in the day, because of the direction our windows face and because of the shade of the trees out back. So while it’s dark as a cave in here (which I hate), at least it stays relatively cool!

A fast week

I can’t believe Deborah and I returned from vacation a week ago today. Where the heck did the past week go? Where the heck is summer going in such a hurry? Agh!

I got my computer back on Thursday. The hard drive, they said, was good and dead, and if I had any hope of recovering its data, I’d have to go through a fancy data recovery company that would probably charge me several hundred dollars, or more. I hadn’t yet decided what to do when I asked my computer friend for advice and he said he might be able to help. So fingers crossed.

In the meantime, I’ve been able to recover 75-80% of the trip pictures from the camera memory cards. There are these awesome programs out there that will recover deleted files from a memory card, as long as you haven’t used the cards for more picture-taking first. The programs I used (which cost me money, of course) recovered the majority of the photos, and I’m satisfied with that, if my hard drive never gives up its data. I’m just glad to have anything! What a wretched experience this has been. You can bet I’ll be a dedicated backer-upper from here on out.

Post-vacation funk

Debs and I had a wonderful vacation in the Wallowa Mountains. Amazing scenery and beautiful weather. We went for a three-day, two-night backpack trip into the wilderness, and car camped the rest of the time. It was great fun.

But now I’m suffering from a post-vacation funk. This always happens. Always. It’s so hard to go back to work after being away, and it’s hard to readjust to life in the city after a peaceful week in the mountains. My funk is made all the worse by the fact that my hard drive crashed yesterday morning. I came back in from doing laundry and found an ominous message on the all-black screen: “Primary hard disk drive 0 not found.” I had never seen that message before, but I knew what it meant, and I promptly burst into tears. Then I spent 20 fruitless minutes on the phone with Dell and cried some more. I had downloaded nearly all my trip pictures the night before. I had not yet backed them up on my external drive. Probably about 15% of my past pictures were not backed up that drive.

The computer is in the shop. They may be able to salvage some data. Probably not. I’m heartbroken. Just like the car theft in March, you never think something like this will happen to you. And then it does. I’ve probably lost all my files and I am without a computer at home for at least a week, during which time I will have to become a patron at the libraries I work at so I can get my banking, e-mailing, blogging, etc. done. Needles to say, I’m not having a very good week.