A Backyard Pair o’ Ducks

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?

Coyote on Swaner

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.

In San Jose…

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.

Rejected Cartoons by Don Hertzfeldt

 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.

My Secret Life as a Gay Tourist in Asia

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:

Using one of your photos

Hi, I’m Jessica, an editor at a magazine in Shanghai, China called City Weekend. We have an LGBT Column in the magazine and our columnist came upon your photo titled “Justin an Teds Big Gay Chinese Adventure” and would like to run it in with his article. I see you’ve restricted it’s use online but I was wondering if we could have your permission to run it and if you had a higher res copy of it. If you do and we can, of course we’d be happy to credit you for the photo in the magazine.Please let me know if we can use the photo or not. The best way to reach me is via email at Jessica@XXXXXX.com.cn or if you want to call China, 13X-02XX-8XXX.Cheers, Jessica Beaton Shanghai Senior Editor City Weekend Magazine Ringier Asia

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

Re: Using one of your photos

Jessica: I would gladly allow you to use the photo in your publication on the following condition: if you do use it in your publication, you must send me 5 copies of whatever edition of City Weekend the picture appears in.Please send to: Ted Haeger University of Pyrotechnics Street/City/etc. USA Thank you for your kind inquiry, – –Ted

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.

Europeans Know How to Handle Intelligent Design Creationism

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.”

Liberty Project Aftermath

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

New Sandhill Cranes

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.

Steps in Peru

I came to Machu Picchu early and on foot. As the cloud forest thinned and gave way to grass on steep slopes, mists shrouded the ruins below. An ancient staircase. A rebuilt Incan wall. I had walked the 14,000 foot pass with their ancient remnants all around, the remains of a once-great New World empire, ravaged by what I would later learn were guns, germs and steel. I descended and the mists began to lift away, presenting the re-discovered city in a clear, yet still eerily mysterious, view. I explored on my own, experiencing a strange concoction of emotions: adventuresome peace and yearning awe. An hour and a helf later, when I rejoined the group tour, I savored the memory my time spent wandering alone.

—

Overhead a gigantic tree towered above the rainforest canopy, looking across wide distance to any other emergents. My feet had left the butressed roots of the tree far below. They plunged into the forest’s thickly-humoused floor some fifty feet below. Each metal step sounded metallic as we climbed them one by one in a tight spiral. Once at the top, a wooden deck provided a panorama, a wide open view of rainforest canopy broken by streams and riverways. It spread endlessly in all directions. Down below we could see occasional birds fly from one treetop to another, and toucans called somewhere near the river. Not far away was Manu National Park–a magnificent asset for the country of Peru, in which they can enjoy great and well-deserved pride–where some 900 species of bird were found. But here, somewhere at the camp below this tree, is the place where the Macaws come to eat clay from the riverbanks.

—-

An Oropendola flies up to a thick bough that a hillside-dewlling tree is cantilevering out over the road. It places the big, mossy green caterpillar in its bill onto the branch, and then catches it with the claw at the tip of one of its toes. I watched through binoculars as it pinned the caterpillar firmly to the bough, and then used its bill to squoosh all of its insides out its backend, almost as if the caterpillar were a tub of toothpaste. The Oropendola slurped up its well-earned prize, and then flew off, it’s yellow-lined tail flashing brightly as the bird flew off. Earlier, one of the assistant guides had touched the same type of caterpillar and had received some really painful shots of poison into the lower part of his thumb. A short while later, a guide found a pair of Peruvian Cock-of-the-Rocs. We could just see them through through the thick cloudforest upperstory foliage that sloped down with the steep grade on the south side of the road. But the stop was altoghether too short, and I soon found myself stepping reluctantly back onto the bus. There had been a lodge a little ways back from where we had stopped. It was newly built as a cloudforest adventure lodge. Someday I will return.

I am not Reverend Ted Haggard

…and it’s a good thing, too.