Cicada Nymph Emergence Hike

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We went out with friends on an after-dark owl hike last night. We did hear a couple of owls hooting. But what it quickly turned into was a nighttime cicada emergence hike instead. They were everywhere!

Fall Together

Friendship will teach you that someone is more than you thought they might be, that time moves faster than you imagined it ever could, and that grace is a fragile chalice to grip lightly, but to hold firmly in a steady grip, even as we all fall together towards the light.

Brooks Corbett

I just found out that a friend passed away recently. Brooks Corbett was an inspiration in many ways. In the picture above (from our trip to Mount Washington in 1992) he is the young man on the far right. We reconnected on Facebook for a brief time, and I am thankful for that final chance.

I met Brooks when I was 21. He was probably the first man my age that I was ever able to have a deep and caring conversation with. He taught me many things about friendship and about showing genuine affection and respect. I am a better man in the world today for having known him.

With gratitude and respect Brooks... I will miss you.

Memorial website for Brooks.

Brooks Corbett 1971-2008

Yosemite Trip July 2008!

Mike in Yosemite - July 2008

Christelle, Mike, Jane, Kate, Ria, Anush
Yosemite - July 2008

So we went camping in Yosemite! (Well, sort-of.) Ria gave us a ride, because she's awesome like that. We hiked the 5+ miles to the Glen Aulin camp and arrived late in the evening. Thanks to our wonderful host Christelle, we enjoyed an impressive camp dinner of steak, potatoes, green beans and salad. We met Jane, Anush (and we can't forget the ranger...) there and had a great time hanging out with the whole crew.

We hiked out the next day after spending a fabulous morning viewing the area from several vantage points, sitting next to the beautiful waterfall, and eating a hearty breakfast. We were escorted part of the way back by our campy entourage who were transporting other hikers' backpacks to another camp about 8 miles away.

On the way back to Monterey, we got to see the Mariposa fire close up. It was burning its way across the mountainside just on the other side of the river from us on Highway 140.

Saturday - Today Garrett and I went out on the ocean kayak. There is a great story from that which I will write later, because that is going to take some time (short and sweet - I went over to the Dumb Side of the Force, and luckily wasn't injured).

We saw the lightning headed towards Lover's Point from the direction of Big Sur, and got back to Lover's Point just as lightning was beginning to strike to the north and south, and rain was starting to fall.

Upon our return, the beach was so packed with sun bathers that we couldn't find a clear place to bring the kayak onto the beach. Within 5 minutes, folks started to hear the thunder and see lightning strikes over the treetops, after which the beach crowd started to clear out. The beach was almost completely clear by the time we had the kayak loaded on its cart, ready to be wheeled home.

Friday Night

Today I enjoyed Kate's company for most of the morning. I rode the XTra-Cycle to work at around noon, planning to shop right after I clocked out. I trained dogs, but as usual, on Friday nights a lot of people choose not to show up for class.

About 7pm, I received a message from my friend Dave, who I've had the pleasure of playing music with on a few occasions now. He invited me to his band's CD release party at Monterey Live. I didn't have my lock with me, so I traveled to Lover's Point to get one before heading back into town. I did make it back downtown, and I'm glad that I did. Those guys play some mean music that really just makes you want to move.

I also had the good fortune of meeting up with a friend that I had previously only talked to online. I think that I can honestly say that this is the very first person I've met (and talked to for any length of time) online before actually meeting in person. Newsflash! "Mike enters the 21st century." (Just a few years behind schedule.)

To My Military Friends

Since I've put out the Patriots Act! song on the music site, I think I owe a bit of an explanation to those friends of mine that are in the military.

I have the highest respect for those who are taking part in the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many of the finest people that I've ever met were fellow military members. I'm thankful for my time in the service and for the friendships that have endured my transition.

I respect what each of you is doing, in your own significant way, to make the world a safer and a better place for all of us to live in. You may be putting your life on the line daily. I agonize over the sacrifices that you are being called to make.

I do feel (as I have since the day that we invaded Iraq) that there are serious problems with the way that our government has chosen to execute the war on terror. I hope that the situations in Afghanistan and Iraq end well. I would be extremely satisfied to see a stable outcome in 20 years. If that happens, it will be, in part, due to the backbreaking, and gutwrenching work that you are doing right now, and every day. If that doesn't happen, it won't be your fault... it will be despite your best efforts.

I left the military because I was not willing to take the risk, however remote, that I might be asked to play a role (any role) in an interrogation that did not observe what I believe to be basic human rights. I could not countenance our country's slipping backwards towards the tacit approval of interrogation techniques that would have been considered torture in the past. If that decision could be made in secret without our knowledge and without permission, what other decisions have been made that we are still unaware of?

Another reason that I left is because I believe that our Commander in Chief broke the law when he authorized what I see as the illegal wiretapping of American citizens. (illegal mostly because the directive was given in secret, without Congressional consent initially, when the laws already in place gave the intelligence community the resources needed to do its job). I left because one of the organizations that I was associated with during my military career appears to have been one of those initially responsible for allowing and facilitating this illegal action taking away basic privacy rights from all of us. I was not willing to work for an organization that I feel was not following the rule of law, no matter how noble its motives.

I hope that you will understand that my words are not aimed at the military personnel, and are not meant to hurt their cause. I believe that one of the greatest freedoms that we defend, is the freedom to criticize the policies of our government leaders when we feel that they are wrong-minded. I thank you, sincerely, for defending my freedom to do so, as I defended the freedom of others to do the same when I myself was wearing the uniform.

I swore an oath when I entered the Air Force in 1992. Supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic is a noble endeavor, and one that I could perform with a clean conscience. Obeying the orders of the President of the United States and those of the officers appointed over me became a thing that I could no longer swear to do without question, and with complete trust. That is the most important reason why it was time for me to leave.

Now I am allowed to have a voice, and I hope that in using that voice, I will not lose your friendship.

Camping?

If you know me, and if you'd be interested in camping over the weekend of June 21st... send me an e-mail or give me a call!

Coffee House Pictures

Thanks to all of you who made it out to the Coffee House performance last Saturday night. I think that it was a success. Special thanks to all of you that participated in the performance and in the setup. Everything went off great and I felt proud and privileged to be up on stage with all of you around me. Here are a few pictures. If anyone else took any that you'd be willing to share, please send them my way! Thanks!

Enjoying the new hat...

Dave on mandolin, Mike on guitar and harmonica.

Arlene on violin, Dave on Mandolin, Mike on guitar and harmonica.

Coffee House on Saturday April 12th at 7pm!

Just in case you haven't heard, there will be a coffee-house musical performance at the sanctuary of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Monterey Peninsula (UUCMP) on Saturday, April 12th, 2008 beginning at 7:00pm.

This coffee house performance will feature many of my original songs, Shannon Miller's wonderful singing and harmonies, and instrumental accompaniment by Dave Holodiloff on mandolin, and Arlene Petalver on violin. Noiseful Joy will add to this energetic celebration of sound with their own sweet harmonies and well-tuned enthusiasm.

Come to the UUCMP sanctuary at 7:00 pm on April 12th for original music, rich harmonies, and good times with friends. We hope to see you there!

UUCMP Sanctuary
490 Aguajito Road
Carmel, CA 93923
Phone: 831-624-7404

Christmas 2007!

Here is the tree that Kate and Ria and I decorated with all of our ornaments. What a beauty!

Birthday Trip to San Jose

16 Dec. 2007

Today I celebrated my birthday by going to see the Body Worlds Exhibit in San Jose. There were a lot of friends who were either celebrating their December birthday or helping us to celebrate with their wonderful company. We went ice skating for a while before viewing the exhibit, and I learned the importance of well-fitting skates! The display is just incredible beyond words. It's hard to believe that you're looking at real bodies in front of you! I wish that I had been able to reference these displays when I was learning human anatomy!

Day With Joe

Went to Fort Ord with Joe

Followed a barn owl into a green looking clearing that ended up looking like a mystic, magical wonderland out of the Lord of the Rings.

Continued following the owl out to a clearing and a basin in the brush, where we found two coyote dens surrounded by tracks. In one of the dens there was an oil beetle / blister beetle bumbling around clumsily in the soft sand. I picked a twig off of a bush and held it down so that the beetle would climb onto it. We brought it out and watched it lay on its side playing dead. I had never seen an actual oil beetle before, although I've seen several other blister beetles in Arizona.

We found several different types of scat, including what we think was bobcat. We also saw deer tracks, dog tracks, and what looked like skunk tracks.

We decided that we'd like to go back at night and we knew that there would be a full moon on Thursday night. We went out late and headed towards the same basin where we had been during the daytime.

Saw Great Horned Owl by the side of the street. Saw the profile on the building before it flew off. We then heard a male and female pair of great horned owls hooting in the overwhelming silence. We also heard a Saw-Whet owl screeching in the middle of the night.

Sgt. Michael M. Kashkoush, USMC

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Sgt Michael M. Kashkoush (a Marine) was killed in Iraq on the 23rd of January. He was one of my brightest students. His enlistment in the Marines would have ended this June or July, I believe. A memorial ceremony was held in his honor at the Presidio of Monterey, California this afternoon. Much of what I share here was related in that memorial service held to honor him. Mike is the second man that I've known personally to get killed over there in just a little over a month.

Mike wanted to go into politics to try to make the world a better place. He decided that in order to move his life in that general direction, he would not reenlist in the service. Instead of being dishonest with the military, and waiting until his training at DLI was finished before telling the Marine Corps about his intention to leave, he chose to let them know as soon as he made the decision. He told his superiors at the time that if he were to try to avoid going to Iraq by hiding the truth of his convictions, that would mean that somebody else would be sent over there in his place, and he wasn't going to have somebody else's blood on his hands.

He told people that asked why he was planning to leave the military that he wanted to go into politics to try to help fix the situation in the Middle East. He said that he thought the reasons for most of the problems were simply a great misunderstanding and ignorance. He traveled to Jordan on his class break to try to get a better understanding of the culture. He was known as "the stalker" by some of the Arabic instructors because of the way that he would always follow them around to get an opportunity to speak in Arabic or to learn more about the culture. His speaking was more like that of a native speaker than any of the other students that we had.

Michael was the one student out of 60 that stayed after class several times a week to speak Arabic with the instructors. He was a big-brother to several of the folks in the class and always had the right joke or the right thing to say to bring them around when the going got tough. He used to put me to shame at the gym. We spotted for each other there a few times and he would challenge me to catch up to him with the weights. He was a good guy.

Though he was considered by some to be a man of few words, he was extremely articulate, quick-witted, and obviously very intelligent. The few times that we spoke at length, he was filling me in on information that he thought that I should know about things that were going on with his classmates or his teachers, things that helped me to help them. When he did speak to me, he spoke to me out of his concern for and desire to help others. He never asked me for anything for himself.

There is a requirement in the military for personnel who are receiving any kind of training to have a certain, preset amount of time left in to serve when they graduate from their training program; that is how the military ensures that it will get a return out of the training investment that it's making. Mike chose not to reenlist, which would have left him with only about 8 months to serve upon graduation from his Arabic class. This decision basically forced the military (if it was going to follow its own long standing policies and retainability requirements) to remove him from his Arabic training early. About 3 quarters of the way through the class, he was pulled so that he could be sent to the fleet. He was already very fluent in the language. He knew that this would be the result of his decision, and he decided to go.

He was stationed to Japan, and the last I heard about him, that is where he was. Apparently he was deployed to Iraq in mid-January. He had only been there 10 days when he was killed by a sniper.

What on the surface seems to be the irony and the tragedy of his story is more complex than that. If Mike had decided to reenlist, he would probably still be in training now. Many of his classmates are still in other locations learning dialects and various language skills that they will need to do their jobs well in the future. The fact of the matter is that Mike knew that he would very likely end up in Iraq by deciding not to reenlist, and he made the decision anyway, because, in his mind, it was the right thing for him to do on multiple levels. Firstly, for himself, it was right to head in the true direction that he wanted to go in life. Secondly, for his commitment to the Corps, it was right to be honest and open about his intentions. Thirdly, for his country and for his fellow Marines, it was right for him to go to Iraq if called upon to do so, in order to carry out the duty that he had sworn to perform, so as not to leave his share of the burden for some other Marine to carry in his place.

It was indeed an honor to know Michael Kashkoush, or "Shukri" as those of us in his Arabic class will always remember him. He challenged me in so many ways to be a better person. He led by example and his character was absolutely beyond reproach. He strove for excellence, and attained it in every facet of his life that I could see. The military lost a good man last month. The United States lost a true patriot. The world lost a wonderful, smart human being. Many folks lost a true friend. All of us are left Mike's legacy with the challenge that his life presents to us: to be the best that we can be in everything that we do, to be true to ourselves even when doing so might seem more dangerous than going with the flow, to stand by the commitments that we believe in, and to avoid abandoning our fellow human beings, even if standing up for another might mean endangering our own life.


A friend of Mike's said today that when it came to the different races of mankind, Mike believed that there was only one race, the human race, and that he thought it was possible that someday we would all learn to live together, as free people, respecting one another and our differences. He wanted to try to make that happen, and I think that we should help keep his spirit alive by working together towards that goal.

Legacy.com Tribute:
http://legacy.com/WashingtonPost/Soldier/Story.aspx?personid=86140520

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