A long time coming.

I know it has been some time since I wrote. And this is by no means is going to catch up for all the chaos my life has been undergoing. But it is more or less a list of things for me to recall, epic chapters in my life for me to expand upon. Deep breath...knee surgery, Las Vegas, loss of faith, work, and so many more. I promise once I return to Seattle to update my blog, fill in the gaps, and return to society.

May down in Flames

Ever have one of those months where nothing seems to go right? Well May was quite honestly the worst single month of my life. It was marked by illness, death, uncertainty, hardship, and surprise. It was a tumultuous thirty-one days where things that should be constant were dynamic and things that should be dynamic were constant. A good example could be my dating life. Now it should be dynamic, but no...it was all too stagnant. Of course it doesn't help when you are working 60 hours a week. But this is not a platform for glorified bitching. No, instead it is a place of celebration. May is finally behind me, and the final vulgarity was resolved today. See, May was coming to a screeching end, when I decided to go play a soccer game the night of the 30th. I should have known better. Not more than 12 minutes into the match and I pivot, knee collapses and down I go--never to return. Well today I got the diagnosis for my right knee. A beautiful meniscus tear and a fantastic surgery. The true beauty of May lie in its ability to inflict damage well beyond its 31 day gestation. Now my referee trip to Vegas in June is shot. Oh May, at least it will be 11 wonderful months until I see you again.

The Zimmers

You may think that I just design space for old people, but these are your grandmother's generation and they are not fading away. Just another example of the barriers I confront with design daily.

Kinetic Sculpture--Like Nothing I Have Ever Seen

glumbert.com - Kinetic Sculpture

One thing leads to another

It is funny how one exploration can yield another interesting story. As I found myself writing about my latest urban adventure in the Emerald City, I stumbled across something else. The durag, a timeless...perhaps classic piece of head wear made famous by genie's, immortalized by the 80's. What an interesting history the old watchu-rag has. Click the title to learn for yourself.

Voodoo Chicken

Josh often refers to the oddities of living downtown--from the vagrants that pee on his stoop, to the simple lack of a grocery store. But it wasn't until this Saturday night that I really began to understand the depth and complexity of the picture he was trying to paint. I find myself walking to Qwest field along the waterfront Saturday evening. I near one of the streetcar shelters and witness a shopping cart on the tracks. Now this is not entirely alarming as the streetcar hasn't run in sometime, but an abnormality which catches my eye. The cart is an eclectic mass of vagrant knick knacks, shapes, colors, and textures bulge and contort at awkward angles. As I get nearer, the volume of the viaduct yields to an other-worldly singing. A blanket obscures the show at first, but as I move perpendicular to the cart, the slice-of-life drama reveals itself. A toothless Caribbean woman wearing a doo rag, cackles the jumbled song. In her hand is a rooster, which she shakes and manipulates while she sings--the rooster contributing in a bizarre duet. I catch myself starring, the voodoo doctor deep in her transfiguration, I wide-eyed, mouth aghast.

How to Do the Hokey Pokey

O proud left foot, that ventures quick within
Then soon upon a backward journey lithe,
Anon, once more the gesture, then begin:
Command sinistral pedestal to writhe.
Commence thou then the fervid Hokey-Poke,
A mad gyration, hips in wanton swirl.
To spin! A wilde release from Heaven's yoke.
Blessed dervish! Surely canst thou go, girl.
The Hoke, the poke—banish thou now thy doubt:
Verily, be this what 'tis all about.

by William Shakespeare

Car Wreck

My mom and sister were headed to Denver yesterday, when a freak hail storm hit. It dropped over two inches of hail in seconds and reduced visibility to feet. My mother swerved to avoid a car resting upside down on the interstate. She began to slide, struck the car, and spun 540 degrees coming to rest in the median on the opposite side of the road. The windshield was shattered and air bags deployed. Both my sister and mother are ok, but the car is totaled. The title is linked to the story which has a video. My mom's car is the one being pulled onto the tow truck near the end.

My Celebrity Look Alikes

Small Town Drama

I was reading my hometown newspaper the other day, I ran across this story. This is a prime example of small town fluff. So I have included it here for your pleasure...oh the small town drama, where everyone knows everyones' business.

Fire Guts Blake Avenue Duplex
Daniel Jenkins woke up at about 2:30 a.m. Tuesday to sounds of his dog, Muhammad, barking and glass breaking. He ran into the kitchen and saw a whole wall engulfed in flames.

Dustin Weller and his wife Samantha woke up to Jenkins bursting through their door screaming that there was a fire. In shock and half-awake, they ran out of the duplex at 2119 Blake Ave. with barely any clothes on. Dustin had just purchased the duplex with his father in September.

Dustin, 23, raced around completely naked trying to save dogs. Samantha, 20, screamed loudly and hysterically. She ran into the street with nothing but a shirt on.

Dustin was herding dogs away from the fire into a friend's car. But one of the three dogs, Petey, ran back inside and hid under the bed. Dustin went back inside. By this time the smoke was so thick that he had to hunch down to breathe. He grabbed Petey by the tail, pulling him out from under the bed. They'd adopted Petey with an injured tail, but there was no choice.

Justin, a roommate who lived downstairs, wasn't outside.

Jenkins smashed a bottom floor window on the west side of the house, and others broke a window on the south side, which they got Justin through.

A neighbor across the street eventually gave Dustin some boxer shorts and more clothes for him and Samantha to wear.

Everyone was ultimately safe. Everyone except Meow the cat.

"She was a good cat," Jenkins said.

Samantha went to the hospital for smoke inhalation, and someone else was treated for a cut.

"That's the good news - no human life was lost or injured," Glenwood Springs Fire Department Chief Mike Piper said.


Cause still unknown
According to neighbors and people in the duplex, Glenwood Springs Police arrived first, followed by Glenwood Springs Fire Department, which arrived about 15 or 20 minutes after witnesses noticed the fire. The fire department said it received notice from dispatch at 2:38 and arrived seven minutes later.

The fire started on the south side of the house where there used to be a deck with storage below it. There was speculation about whether or not a propane grill on the deck or gasoline for lawn mowers below the deck caused the fire. But Piper said the damage was extensive enough that it would be very difficult to determine the cause. The propane and gasoline contributed to the blaze, he said.

There was also a question of whether someone smoking started the fire. The department ruled that the fire was accidental.

The propane "really created a firestorm on that deck," he said.

Flames spread into the attic and toward the front of the house and burned through part of the roof. At one point, a firefighter sprayed down on the roof from an aerial ladder extended horizontally above. Firefighters fought the blaze until declaring it under control at 4:16 a.m. and clearing the scene around 8 a.m.

"To me it was just a raging inferno," Lois Ann McCollum said, a next-door neighbor to the south. "I got to shaking so bad I needed to sit down somewhere."

The southwest corner of the duplex is blackened and the two floors in that segment ruined. There are charred husks of what used to be a lawn mower and debris from a burned-down deck and storage shed underneath.

"I lost everything," Jenkins said. "I have someone else's shoes on and a shirt and pants and a snowboard."

But Jenkins was philosophical about his losses. "I got my dogs, and all my roommates are safe, so that's all that counts," he said.


The turtle made it
Much of the house was destroyed, but the rooms on the north side weren't damaged as much. The house looks almost undamaged from the northeast.

Tuesday before noon, a brother and sister who rented space on the north side were wondering if their turtle - Michelangelo - was still alive.

Elena Loya thought the turtle might be OK since they lived on the north side of the house that didn't burn as badly and the turtle was in a water-filled tank.

Michelangelo did make it.

A man from Chile in the unit adjacent to Dustin's, Patricio Szigethi, thought his passport had burned. He has an April 30 flight back to Chile, and feared having to travel to the consulate in Los Angeles.

He later found his passport.

In the afternoon, people went through the house looking for things that could be salvaged. Black ashes were caked underneath Samantha's fingernails from sifting through the mess. She found her wedding dress intact and her social security card.

Dustin and Samantha plan to stay at Samantha's parents' for a while.

Despite having their lives disrupted, people were able to joke about how Dustin ran naked carrying a dog, and calling Samantha "melodramatic" for running around screaming. They even commented that the Brother Ali concert they saw at the Belly Up in Aspen Monday night was good.

But the reality of fire was hard to comprehend.

"I never thought this would happen to me," Dustin said.

"I'm still in shock," Samantha said. "I don't think it's hit me yet."

Contact Pete Fowler: 945-8515, ext. 16611

pfowler@postindependent.com

Post Independent, Glenwood Springs Colorado CO