Ted Haeger’s Personal Blog

I miss the post-vacation detoxified bliss already. Seems that one day back at the office has already downgraded the bliss to a “not quite stressed yet” status.

But, I dove with sharks, and that is a good thing.

In the photo, I’m in the middle. My buddy John Lancaster is on the right.

Posting video shortly.

Video now linked. (200MB, ~13:00
, Mp4 .Mov)

My first encounter with the Garifuna people was in 1992 when I stayed in Livingston, Guatemala for a couple nights. My Israeli travel companion Yaron and I hired a small lancha down Rio Dulce, past the warm springs and to Guatemala’s Caribbean coast. Terns glided above, occassionally rolling into a dive and nonchalantly splatting onto the water’s surface. Livingston has Guatemala’s population of people of African descent: the Garifuna.

In two days, I will be in Honduras, on Roatan island. There live Garifuna people there, too. I am eager.

By mountain torrents swung the birdfeeder, eschewing its contents onto the snow.

Through thaws and freezes the seed feed sank into the snow.

By springs warming, it emerged again, a granary pile from receding snow.

To it they come, and Rachel and I watch. One brown female. One curl-tailed male. Two mallards who waddle up from the stream, across my dormant lawn, to dine together in the mid-morning sun.

T: What’s another name for a crate full of duckings?

R: A box of quackers?

When I came to Park City, Utah as a prospective home buyer in 2002, I remember looking out from the real estate agent’s car as she explained that the area just southwest of Interstate 80 was a nature preserve. I spotted a coyote loping across the flat expanse, his gray-brown silhoutted against the white snow.

Today, driving the same road in the opposite direction, I saw across the expanse a distant canine figure making its way southward. I saw Sandhill Cranes in a different area of the Swaner Nature Preserve a few days ago. They nest on the ground, braving hungry predators.

I drive to work.

I became aware of my dreams before I became aware of the world. In the dark of my teenage bedroom, consciousness reassembled slowly and the Groovie Ghoulies played in my head.

G-R-O-O, V-I-E-e-E

G-H-O-U, L-I-E-e-E

A sometimes-used neuron conjured a memory of Jim Favor (Jim F’n Favor), my upstairs neighbor when I lived with Lolly.

I still think of you, Laurel. In a bygone time, you are always mine.

The day began this way.

 So, I guess I’m late to the party, but these cartoons crack me up.

I warn you…after the first couple, they go a bit beyond NSFW.

A couple years ago, I took a business trip to Beijing for Novell, along with several of my colleagues.

One of the excursions was to the Great Wall. Because United Airlines (who collectively eat their unhatched young) had lost my luggage, I ended up wearing some shorts borrowed from my colleague Justin Taylor. I was stuck wearing the dark shoes I had worn on the plane, and some dress socks I had picked up in the city. I looked like a even more of a dork than usual.

At the Great Wall, we clowned around and took some pictures. I posted the pictures on Flickr, titling one, “Justin and Ted’s Big Gay Chinese Adventure.” The name just fit. Here’s the picture:

(I suppose Justin is kind of the “Papa Bear” type.)

At the end of February, I received the following message through my Flickr account:

Which made me laugh. Here is my response to Jessica’s request:

It took me three weeks, so I hope–for posterity’s sake–that my response wasn’t too late.

June 8, 2008 Follow-up: Sigh. Still no magazines and no response.

Attempts to introduce Intelligent Design in Europe spark backlash

My favorite quote:

…creationism in any of its forms, such as ‘intelligent design,’ is not based on facts, does not use any scientific reasoning and its contents are pathetically inadequate for science classes.

But I also really like the technique of calling ID “Intelligent Design Creationism.”

Life is emergent. It springs from me, a new lease. New goals.

A pair of Sandhill Cranes are tending to their two newly-hatched chicks out in the meadow by the barn in Park City. The chicks follow their parents with fawning curiosity, still walking a bit clumsily below their subtly graceful parents.