Fat Man Caving

Do you remember the elation of walking into a classroom as seeing a movie projector set up? Today is my Monday. Please enjoy the following clip at your leisure:   Nick Zentner is a geology professor at Central Washington University in Ellensburg Washington. He's the kind of engaging, charismatic & passionate teacher one hopes to encounter in their educational journey. Indeed I hope to be a student of his (for credit) at some point in the future. He focuses on the geology of the Pacific Northwest, in particular, the State of Washington, where I happen to be from originally. My father is from Yakima and I've spent a good deal of my life in the folds and scablands that surround the Tri-Cities. Everyone of his candid yet cleverly crafted videos look like everywhere I am from, all at once. Every drive, camp, hike or long walk with my father or grandfather before the age of sixteen is represented in his lessons. He's a great teacher. Pay attention. Interested persons can read...

** The following words are a record of my personal journey and are not intended to replace or circumvent any recommend guidance provided by your health care provider. Before starting any life changing endeavor, such as a diet and/or exercise regimen, please start by having an honest conversation with your doctor. Oh and please don't ask for cave locations. Believe me, if I can find them, so can you.** As I sit and write this, I await large dose of ibuprofen to work its magic . Three weeks ago I tripped on a curb for no real reason and landed rather ungracefully. Decades old skateboarding reflexes took hold, rolling my frame in the air before hitting the concrete as I had thousands of times as a younger man. On impact I heard four loud pops pretexting a clenched diaphragm as all the air left my lungs. An onlooker helped me to my feet, thinking me drunk, before I did my best to save face with my wife, who waited for me inside the restaurant beyond. The shock covered up the pain...

** The following words are a record of my personal journey and are not intended to replace or circumvent any recommend guidance provided by your health care provider. Before starting any life changing endeavor, such as a diet and/or exercise regimen, please start by having an honest conversation with your doctor. Oh and please don't ask for cave locations. Believe me, if I can find them, so can you.** I've lived in the Pacific Northwest my entire life, camped, hiked, hunted & fished with impunity and I had no idea about the secrets that weave down the slopes of Mt St Helens, beyond Ape Cave. Hidden by the forest floor and armored by government policy, a series of lava tubes lay in wait like gold flecks hiding in river sands. But that shouldn't be the case, right? I remember the 1980 eruption clearly. A tender 4 years old, my grandfather drove my mother, infant sister and I fifty miles south west to the Columbia River Gorge that Sunday afternoon; in a move that s...

** The following words are a record of my personal journey and are not intended to replace or circumvent any recommend guidance provided by your health care provider. Before starting any life changing endeavor, such as a diet and/or exercise regimen, please start by having an honest conversation with your doctor. Oh and please don't ask for cave locations. Believe me, if I can find them, so can you.** So, let's jump right in, shall we? I weighted in today at a full 299 pounds, somehow draped over my 5' 9" frame. And while this is slightly less than when last measured by my doctor, it is 100 pounds more that I'd like to be responsible for. For the most part, I am in good health for a forty-six-year-old - if I discount the pack of cigarettes I seem to go through every 2 days. I do not have blood pressure, sugar, or lipid issues, but in the last 15 years, I know I have lost muscle. Once upon a time, I was a far more active guy. There is not an inch of concrete...

The following is a cross post from another blog I keep. It was written two years ago, before a global pandemic drained the spunk from humanity. But it' a logical place to start. As my Grandfather use to say '.. it's as good as Kansas. Everyone comes from somewhere' One mild Saturday morning some four years ago, I found myself a hundred feet underground, watching two of my children scramble over a rather large rhyolite boulder that’d been heated to near glass on one side by what was once a living river of basalt. I ran my hands through my sweat soaked hair, readjusted the lamp embedded in my sand encrusted forehead and bent in for a closer look at the mess of stone in front of me. Through a vine-like fracture in the wall, irregular wrinkles of basalt gave way to glimpses of crimson river clay, petrified by a that stone inferno, showcasing more energy & violence than seemed possible right then. The contrasting rock that comprised this speckle-spattered rubble remi...