Bean

Finishing up in Olympia last week, I enjoyed a long weekend at home using it mostly to catch up on things I had been putting off for months.

Wednesday found me scrambling for plane rides again for an annual conference in St Louis which I partly dread and partly enjoy. What I enjoy is getting together with people I speak with often but only see once a year. The part I do not look forward to is the seemingly endless one hour talks by some department leader who probably would rather be doing something else too.

So, as a certified bean, I have been counted and analyzed by those whose job it is to do so and can be thankful it's over for another year and can go back to doing my job as well as I can.

Pacific Wet Coast

I had uttered a preference for working west of the Mississippi River so for the second time this month, I find myself flying west. This time to Olympia Washington. My only experience in working Washington was over in the Tri-Cities area of Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland, an intirely different experience politically as well as geographically. While over there, I did have the chance to come to Seattle for the usual tourist traps.

This being a pretty short gig of two weeks, my only chance to really get out was Saturday so I immediately headed to Seattle for another glimpse at the areas I had checked out before. Although I'm headed out in another day, I look forward to the chance of getting back, hopefully in drier weather.

Sunday, I had hoped on riding down to Cannon Beach in Oregon but with it raining most of the day, I didn't want to deal with traffic on wet roads. Instead, I took a walk through the Tumwater Falls park near where I'm staying. Although there was a light rain, people young and old were on the trails. What you do notice here is there are no umbrellas to be seen. Some wear hats and perhaps a hood on their sweater but an umbrella salesman would starve here.

The Falls were modest but nice and scenic. Chinook Salmon made their way upstream where they are trapped and sorted. If the Chinook has an adipose fin still intact, it is permitted to continue upstream. Those without adipose fins were raised in the hatchery here and were clipped before they were released to go downstream and eventually into the pacific. The unfortunate fish I took a picture of (click to enlarge) has no adipose (rear back fin) fin, therefore when she gets to the top, she will be sorted out and gutted for her eggs because she was a hatchery Chinook. All that work going upstream only to be trapped and gutted. Sounds like life in general.

Just an observation and not being political.... BUT...I've never seen so many street corner beggars in my life. While I am given to helping out people in need without question (and I've been taken a few times), a person would put himself in the poor house if you gave a couple of bucks to every street corner bum you come across in this area. They're all over the place, some old, some female, some fat, some skinny, some dressed nicely and some look like real bums. Some have dogs and the occasional ice cooler. While some are truly down on their luck or out there through no fault of their own, to me, it appears that it is a choice to many of them.

Now, since Ive brought up the subject of street beggars, what I don't see.......is black bums, Asian bums or Mexican bums. Go figure.