It got cold in Bend last month, and I realized that I wanted a nice winter hat. Inspired by my friend Brianna’s beautiful bearskin fur hat I began searching for something, distinctive. I found Fern Stanton near Lake Tahoe. Her hats are amazing! They’re custom made with wonderful faux fur, and they look great.

I had some questions about the color available. After a couple of email exchanges I got my hat in the mail for $39. This is a great deal on a hat like this. It’s very comfortable, very warm, and very good looking. You can wear it with the fur flipped down to cover your ears or flipped up.

She asked me to send her a photo because her husband is her only model. Here’s what she said:

OMG Philip. That hat looks fantastic on you…..and what a handsome model
you make. I know why your boss at work told you to charge me…but I’m glad
you didn’t…since I’m poor and hoping that someday these hats will find
their way to the top of every head out there. I’ll try to link your site to
the photo. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m up for the challenge. Thank
you again and I’m glad you look so frickin cute in that hat.
Take care,
Fern at the Fernie Farm

Here are some more photos of the hat.

She says there are two rules for this hat.
1. Don’t put it into a dryer.
2. Don’t sit too close to a wood stove.
The faux fur will melt.

This was the scene from the front porch this morning. It’s October 4th, and we’re in the middle of a blizzard. Mt Bachelor says that there’s 3-4 times as much snow coming down at 6300 ft, and I’m hoping (praying) that this means we’re in for a fabulous ski season.

Things may be a bit messy in Bend today because of the snow, but it is a gorgeous day.

Tuesday September 11th broke with a typhoon heading towards Tokyo Bay so our daily task was to secure the ship for the storm. Around noon someone made a decision to send everyone home except for the duty section. It was a quiet lazy afternoon at home waiting for the typhoon.

The naval station in Yokosuka is a tight harbor. It’s securely protected from Tokyo bay by two pennisulas, and Tokyo bay is protected from the Pacific Ocean by the Chiba pennisula.

Typhoons almost never hit Yokosuka, and this one wasn’t any different. We make all the preparations though for the excepting. It’s better to be ready for a typhoon that never hits than not be ready for the typhoon that does hit.

That evening at 6pm we got the all clear. The typhoon had passed, and everything was safe. No of new about the typhoon that was about to change our world forever. It was 5am in New York.

At 10pm I checked my email on yahoo before going to bed, and there was a news report that the World Trade Center had been hit by a plane. Scanning the report I had the impression that some silly idiot in a Cessna had accidentally flown into one of the towers. I shut my computer down and went to bed.

The Officer of the Deck called my home about 4:30am the next morning. It was the Chief Gunner’s Mate, and he told me that I should take the train into work because they weren’t letting cars on the base. I asked him if they were running a security exercise on the base. He said “yeah, you could say that.” I went back to sleep until 6am.

As I checked my email before going to the ship I was shocked by the headline on yahoo. “Twin Towers Destroyed. 10,000 Dead.” What had happened? I thought some hacker had made a bad joke. A quick check of the New York Time’s webpage confirmed that the World Trade Center’s twin towers had collapsed after two passenger jets had flown into them.

Work on the ship was almost at a standstill that day. We spent a lot of time watching the news reports and the endless clips of the towers collapse. The Chiefs all got together under the direction of Command Master Chief Joe Campa and began reworking duty sections, beefing up security on the ship and the pier, and making preparations for the unscheduled deployment that we all knew was coming. We were forward deployed just for this reason. Because of the USS Cole we had heard of Al Queda, and the Taliban. We knew that we were headed for the Indian Ocean and Afghanistan. The only question was when would we weigh anchor? When would the battle group deploy?

For me September 11th was about securing my ship for a typhoon one minute and preparing to go to war the next.

The first weekend in August just exploded with tons of great events going on, and lots of excitement. Working with On The Go-Go I had the opportunity to go see Sugarland at the Les Schwab amphitheater, interview Kim Breedlove, the master luthier behind Breedlove Guitars, and finally cover a concert by Blues Legend Johnny Winter. What a weekend, and that was just work. For fun I went rafting down the Deschutes River with my friends from Bikram yoga, and got to go paddle boarding with surfing legend Jerry Lopez.

SugarLand at the Les Schwab Amphitheater

The Sugarland concert rocked. I don’t know how many people can attend the concerts at Bend’s Les Schwab amphitheater, but it looked like a sell out crowd. In addition to the jam packed venue there were crowds of people lining the opposite bank of the Deschutes river in the Old Mill district of Bend, and a number of rafts, canoes, and kayaks on the river. People were wearing all kinds of boots, belts, buckles, and hats with a western flavor in support of the award winning country duo. The equestrian scene is pretty big in Bend so there were lots of girls wearing english riding boots.

I was invited with my video camera not to capture the band, there was a CMT crew set up for that, but to be available to the promoters if there was an OLCC incident. The Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC) has been causing a big stir recently with numerous local businesses and promoters complaining to city, county, and state officials about uneven, arbitrary, and malicious enforcement of code. There weren’t any incidents for me to video tape at this particular event. The concert rocked. If you enjoy country music, and have a chance to go see Sugarland, don’t miss it.

Breedlove Festival

Each year Breedlove guitars hosts a three day festival featuring some of the finest acoustic guitars made in North America. I had the pleasure of catching Kim Breedlove and Bill Keale onstage and later doing an interview with Kim. Boy I really blew the interview. After their performance onstage I approached Kim about doing an interview, and he said that would be fine with him. Could I wait about an hour. That was pretty simple since there was a lot to see at the Breedlove factory. I was inside checking out the guitars and shooting some video when it began to rain outside. This was a pretty heavy storm that took down the power for a bit. Peter Newport, president of Breedlove Guitars, moved everyone outside inside. Onstage performing at the time was The California Guitar Trio. Outside maybe 1/4 of the seats available were filled. Inside it was a packed house in a very intimate setting. I’ve caught it all on video. However I didn’t manage my power very well which is how I screwed up the interview with Kim Breedlove. When he came over I was down to my last 5 minutes of tape and the end of the battery. Figured that I had enough tape and battery to get the interview, but I figured wrong. I only had enough tape. The battery died just as we were getting started. I’m sorry Kim. I hope you’ll let me do it again sometime.

Rafting Big Eddy

Sunday came around and I went rafting down the Deschutes River with a bunch of my friends from Bikram yoga. We had a great day on the river with Michael Harris, the studio owner, promising a free month of yoga to the person who could hold standing bow pulling pose on the bow of a raft the longest. Sounded like a fun thing to try. I can tell you that trying to balance on the bow of a raft is tricky on two feet. Trying to balance on one foot while getting into and holding one of the most difficult postures is very tricky. In several attempts I managed to hold for about 7 seconds. A good effort, but not the winner. A 17 year old girl in my raft managed to get into and hold the posture for about 12 seconds before going into the river. Anyway it was a lot of fun watching everyone trying. The next day in class my balance was really dialed in. Moving, bouncing raft… difficult to balance on. Solid, steady, unmoving studio floor… no problem.

The major rapid on this run is called Big Eddy. It’s a class 3 plus primarily because of the narrow river and lava rock that the currents push into. Not particularly difficult in a raft. I really want to have a solid combat roll before I try it in a hardshell kayak. Can’t wait to try though.

Paddleboarding with Jerry Lopez

Monday morning after a great weekend I went to yoga at 9:00AM. My teacher that morning, Molly, asked me if I was going to go paddleboarding after class. Paddleboarding is becoming a very popular sport around Oregon and it involves a very large surfboard and a very long paddle. The last time I tried was during the Alder Creek Paddlefest in April, and I went swimming. It’s a tricky thing to learn. My plan had been to go to yoga then go do laundry. I had a pile to dirty clothes to wash, and was trying to figure out when I’d get it done so my first thought was to skip the paddleboarding. Then she said that Jerry was going out with us. Jerry Lopez?

When I was in high school I was really excited about surfing. Kind of odd for a kid in Louisiana miles and miles away from any kind of surf let alone the amazing barrels at pipeline. Still I was into surfing and Jerry Lopez was a big name. He was riding waves at Pipeline that were insane. Now he lives in Bend, Oregon and I had a chance to meet him.

Jerry is a very cool laid back kind of guy. He’s really good on a paddleboard, and knows how to teach really well. We paddled up river to Bill Healy bridge (1.3 miles upstream from Alder Creek) I was surprised at what a workout this was for my core muscles and my legs. We had a group of about 7 boards and had a lot of fun. It won’t take the place of kayaking for me, but I’ll probably do some more paddleboarding when I get the chance. It’s a great way to enjoy flatwater.

Blues Legend Johnny Winter

Monday evening and it was time to go to the Tower Theater to listen to Blues Legend Johnny Winter. During the sound check the guys were having a hard time with the boominess of the drums and bass. The Tower is a finicky room when it comes to sound, and the local sound guy Jonah is a genius at figuring out how to set the mix. Too bad Johnny’s sound guy didn’t listen to him. The concert was fun. They played to a packed house, and really raised the roof. Still Johnny was drowned out in the drums and bass. You can tell that Winter has really lived a hard life. The members of his band help him on and off stage, and he prefers to use lightweight guitars, but the guy still slams out a great performance. I listened to several songs before my ears gave up on the sound. What a way to finish a great weekend.

As a tech head I really love new gadgets, especially when they’re useful, and have the potential to be a total game changer. So what the heck is an “SSD” anyway? Ok SSD stands for “Solid State Drive.” These little beauties are high capacity storage devices that have no moving parts. This makes them extremely fast, super reliable, very energy efficient. At least that’s the idea I get from looking into SSD’s.

• Rasmussen: Obama 52, McCain 44.
• Gallup: Obama 52, McCain 43.
• Zogby: Obama 49, McCain 44.
• Hotline: Obama 50, McCain 42.
• IBD: Obama 47, McCain 43.
• ABC: Obama 53, McCain 44.

The country is obviously polarized over this election, and in no way do these polls indicate a landslide for Senator Obama as much of the mainstream media would have you believe. America has a long difficult road ahead. As I’ve stated previously here and here I believe Barack Obama will end up costing everyone much more in taxes. Then of course there is my over all opinion of all politicians here.

Ultimately this election comes down to one thing. Do you believe that you can help yourself (Conservative) or do you believe that you need the government to help you (liberal)?

Alfonso (Zo) Rachel is a Black man from California who has a number of excellent videos here where he articulates his views on being a black conservative voting for John McCain versus Barack Obama. Zo is a man who has stepped back from the fray weighed the issues as they pertained to his life and circumstances, and chosen a side. Here’s his latest video.

Hammond, Louisiana sits in the middle of South East Louisiana in beautiful farm country. The terrain is not so exquisite as some place I’ve visited before like here or here, or here. The recreation opportunities don’t look like this.

But sometimes the awesomeness of the sky makes up for it. Summer time in South East Louisiana means thunderstorms. It means huge cumulus clouds towering up into the sky in a riot of white puffiness and awesome light.

Here in the flat bottom land of the Mississippi River, it’s as if God created a canvas of open sky to create dazzle us from time to time.

One of my professors at film school used to have a quote on her emails that said “I don’t know how clouds are formed, but clouds know how to do it, and that’s the important part.” Point in fact she did know how clouds are formed, as should any fifth grader, (You listening Jeff Foxworthy?) as do I. Looking up at these marvelous wonders the science is insignificant compared to the spectacle.

Today we celebrate our independence from England. We celebrate our independence, but we lose sight of what that means. More people today seem to desire that their lives be governed by a large government. Do they really desire a nanny state where everything is regulated by big brother? Where the government takes a huge portion of the money they make to give to others in the name of helping the less fortunate, in the name of fairness. Who gave them that right? Where is that written in the Declaration of Independence?

Slowly, ever so slowly so that we barely notice Washington is taking away the rights that our founding fathers committed treason to ensure. If you’ve been reading my blog you know what I think about politicians.

The United States was founded upon an idea of Limited Government, yet each day it seems that our lawmakers are working diligently to increase the reach of government.

THOSE PEOPLE IN WASHINGTON CAN’T DO ANYTHING FOR YOU!

Only one person can do ANYTHING to make your life better, and that’s the person you see every time you look into a mirror. YOU! You are an independent individual with the power to create any life you desire. Not only do you have the power, you have the responsibility. That is what the Declaration of Independence is all about. Your freedom to “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Happy Independence Day America!