I am in advanced Public Information Officer training for health care organizations. I work for Asante Health System in Medford, Oregon, and this is [...]]]> Not exactly wandering the valley, but I am wandering about and right now I am in Alabama for training at the Center for Domestic Preparedness, a center operated by Homeland Security.

I am in advanced Public Information Officer training for health care organizations. I work for Asante Health System in Medford, Oregon, and this is part of my training as the PIO for Asante in case we ever have a serious emergency or disaster. I already got a taste of it with the H1N1, and I learned during that disaster that we could be better prepared and operate better in communicating with the public, staff, and agencies during a disaster.

I will be posting about what I learn this week. In the meantime, it’s really Alabama because they gave us our first meal: fried chicken, collard green, pintos and rice, and corn bread. Yum! It’’s great to be in the South again!

Yummy Cake Siren is calling me

I sit at my desk, trying to type, [...]]]>

Yummy Cake Siren is calling me

I sit at my desk, trying to type, trying to think, trying to not think about the Yummy Cake. It is calling me like the Sirens called Odysseus; luring me to the rocky shoals of dieting.

I must resist. Or is resistance useless?

On May 18, 1980, I saw the eruption.

At the moment it happened I was on the Oregon side of the Columbia River at Prescott Beach County Park near the [...]]]>

On May 18, 1980, I saw the eruption.

At the moment it happened I was on the Oregon side of the Columbia River at Prescott Beach County Park near the mouth of the Kalama River. We were fishing in a small boat. I had my back to the mountain, and missed the eruption, but a friend of mine pointed, speechless, and I turned around. I saw a huge plume of ash boiling into the sky. It rose and rose until it was out of site– some 80,000 plus feet into the air. I realized that soft “thump” sound we had heard a few minutes before was the north side of the mountain blowing out.

We were scared. Would a lava/mud flow rush down the Kalama and flood the Columbia? We decided to end the fishing trip and go back to Portland. We also immediately thought of Harry Truman. Poor guy. He had to be gone. Luckily for us, we were southwest of the mountain, so the ash never came our way. But I had friends climbing Mt. Adams that day, the ash cloud passed over them as they clung to the glacier near the summit. Now, they were scared. Everyone was OK, though.

And that is my Volcano Day memory.

What’s yours?

The Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles– Pulitzer prize winning journalism may give credibility, but it doesn’t pay the bills. In a startling move designed to bring revenue and life back to the ailing Los Angeles Times, publisher Eddy Hartline announced today that the longtime guardian of news in southern California will lay off [...]]]>

The Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles– Pulitzer prize winning journalism may give credibility, but it doesn’t pay the bills. In a startling move designed to bring revenue and life back to the ailing Los Angeles Times, publisher Eddy Hartline announced today that the longtime guardian of news in southern California will lay off all its paid staff and rely on, “People to just upload a lot of stuff.”

Citing the importance of rapid updates, engagement, and constantly changing content in order to survive in Web 2.0, Hartline said the Times will completely “Wiki” its Web site and allow anyone to post any news anytime without any editorial oversight. “We figure folks will constantly update and correct what is there and it will be right most of the time. Heck, we are only right most of the time now,” he said.

Pulitzer prize winning journalist Bettina Boxcars, a longtime writer for the Times, said she was saddened by the development, but she understood that the Times are changing. “Let’s face it, news happens by itself, why not let it be reported by itself?” she said. Boxcars said her career will continue with her own Web site, “What You Read is Wrong,” where subscribers will pay for verified information. “I figure at least 500 people are looking for that,” she said. “I can eat pretty good on 500 heads.”

The Times also announced that it would discontinue its print version in 2012, when the world is expected to end anyway. “We are pretty sure that’s correct,” Hartline said. “We saw that in a movie.” By the way, April Fools.

My beloved boots were too far gone to go to the cobbler.

The old 4-banger was noisy, but oil tight, no smoke, and it chugged along like a lawnmower. It only had 80,000 miles on it. Big, cone-shaped [...]]]> My 1963 Rambler American was teal with aqua seats made of vinyl, hot as hell in the summer. I covered them with real sheepskin, the plastic steering wheel, too.

The old 4-banger was noisy, but oil tight, no smoke, and it chugged along like a lawnmower. It only had 80,000 miles on it. Big, cone-shaped hub caps and white sidewalls. No fancy stereo added, just an AM radio with one lonely speaker on the dash.

One fine summer day I was at a friends property fishing with the kids. My daughter, who was about 4 at the time, climbed into the car and started playing with the steering wheel. She laid on the horn, over and over, and I came running up from the pond, yelling at her to knock it off. Well, she did. My anger startled her and she yanked the steering wheel off. No kidding. No steering wheel. and the mount was broken and the wheel cracked. Not really her fault, it was probably ready to go. You could still drive the car if you held the steering wheel in place.

When you need parts for a Rambler American, there is only one place to go…the junkyard.

It was August in southern Illinois; hot and steamy, and my hands were sweaty and slippery as I held the steering wheel, now without the sheepskin, in place and drove up to DeSoto where I knew there was a junkyard with at least 4 Rambler Americans in it. This wasn’t your big city junkyard, it was the classic country boy yard consisting of lots of old rusty cars littered throughout some hillbilly’s 40 acre property. A toxic superfund cleanup in the making I am sure. The owner, hat slung low, met me at the gate, casually chewing some tobacco. I asked him where his Ramblers were. He pointed a thin hand down a rutted chunk of cow pasture that led into some woods. In there, in the sweltering shade of vine-covered Hickories and clouds of mosquitoes I would find the Ramblers.

Steering wheel in hand, to make sure I got the right one, I walked down the dusty trail and into the close woods. There they were, four Ramblers, tucked between fallen trees and old corrugated steel panels from a water tower or something. I looked in the first car, no steering wheel. Looked in the second car, wrong steering wheel. Looked in the third car, the entire back seat was a gigantic bee hive. Looked in the fourth car, wrong steering wheel again.

Dang, the only good wheel was in the car with the bee hive, and this wasn’t some puny-assed wimpy hive, this thing was the size of the entire back seat of the old Rambler. I stood there, listening to the angry droning of the hive, the occasional bee scout buzzing around my head. I couldn’t open the door and beat the hive with a stick and chase them off. I didn’t have time to find a bee keeper. Maybe the junkyard owner could pick the car up with a backhoe and shake it? No, all bad ideas.

Only one thing to do….climb in.

Front door was jammed and the window was closed. I didn’t dare open the back door, but the window was open. I crawled through the window, one knee on the back of the front seat, the other in the window, and the bee hive just below my crotch. I was scared. It was late afternoon and the sweat was dripping off my nose and my hair and shirt were matted to my skin. I manged to get myself in the front seat without disturbing the hive, but noticed there was another hive in the front on the passenger floor. Arg.

I got my rolled-up towel “tool kit” and got the wheel off. I was so scared and focused on the wheel that I had managed not notice there were by now a few hundred bees buzzing and crawling around me, a lot on me actually. That’s when one stung me. Don’t scream, I told myself, stay calm. Another sting, this one right on my cheek. I was ready to go, but too big a cloud of bees in the back. No way i was going out the way I came in.

Remaining calm, I yanked up on the door handle, hard, and the latch popped, but still stuck. I started kicking the door and screaming. It flew open, and I was out of that car and running as fast as I could, a steering wheel in each hand and my tools still inside the car. Hey, the junk yard could have them.

I got stung about three more times before I made it up out of the woods and back to the front of the junk yard. “Whooee,” commented the owner, “You’ns gonna hurt good fer a week, an itch too, theres turkey lice all in there bad.”

I borrowed some tools from the owner and put the new steering wheel on and drove home. Wounded, but happy to have my car in top shape again.

As a finish to this story, it was soon after that I went to the feed store to get some hay for our garden. You can take the back seat out of a Rambler easily and that comes in handy when you need to haul stuff. I got my three bales of hay, two in the back seat and one in the trunk (with the trunk open), and headed home. On the radio was Mr. Foxworthy with his “You Might Be a Redneck” routine, and he said, “You might be a redneck if you know how many bales of hay you can git in yer Rambler with the back seat out.” No lie, I am not making this up. The car next to me, they must have had the same station on, because they were looking at my car and laughing their butts off. Oh, I wish I had had a pair of Billy Bob teeth just then. It would have been sweet.

And that is my junkyard story.

The people of Grants Pass wanted a new city council. They have one. And the new members are all civic-minded, informed, [...]]]> The votes came in last night and my hat is off to everyone who ran, everyone who helped in the campaigns, and especially to everyone who won. Congratulations, my best wishes to all of you.

The people of Grants Pass wanted a new city council. They have one. And the new members are all civic-minded, informed, and dedicated people. They will be making decisions in the next few years that will affect this city for a generation. With that in mind, I ask everyone in Grants Pass to get involved, call their councilor in their Ward, ask questions, volunteer, attend meetigns, and vote, vote, vote.

Every city council meeting is televised on public access cable. Information is available on the City of Grants Pass Web site (Grants Pass). The Daily Courier reports on every council meeting. You can stay informed easily. You just have to do it.

As I said in an earlier post, we have young people with dreams in this town. They want to go away to college for advanced degrees, but they want to come back here and start businesses. We cannot fail them! In addition, we have out of work, hungry, desperate people in Grants Pass. We cannot fail them either. You need to find out what you can do. Volunteer, extend your hand. We all need to pull together.

Finally, though I did not win the election, I will stay involved myself, and I will report on what the city council is doing, and what decisions they are making. I will dedicate myself to helping keep you informed.

Thanks,

Grant

And what can [...]]]> Tonight was what may be that hurrah of the Grants Pass City Council election campaign. I think I speak for every one of the candidates in thanking the students of RCC for putting on this event (and serving the great sandwiches afterward). We need youth that votes and is engaged in it’s government.

And what can Grants Pass do for these young adults? I talked to one young man tonight who is going to RCC and will finish his degree at University of Oregon in business finance. His dream? To start a business in Grants Pass. Terrific! I am sure he is not the only young man or woman in Grants Pass who dreams of starting a business. How can we fail them?

We can’t. The City of Grants Pass and the Chamber of Commerce must work with Rogue Community College to develop a small business incubator so young, eager entrepreneurs can start new businesses focused on new technologies to produce products they can sell around the world. I am not talking about massive factories, but instead hundreds of small producers in the medical field, biotech, green technology, and other new industries creating products and jobs. And to do this, we must court local investors. Local investment in local business for local prosperity. That way, when RCC graduates students, they will have a place to work in their hometown.