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I watched the documentary Grizzly Man on the Discovery Channel this weekend. It is the story of Timothy Treadwell, a man who lived among the grizzly bears in Alaska. For 4 months out of every year, for 13 years, Timothy lived in the woods among a clan of bears which he grew quite fond of. The story is marked by his and his friend’s mauling at the paws of the very animals he followed.

The documentary shows a transformation Timothy went under as he began to withdraw from society and become more like the bears. He obssesses over saving the grizzlies from poachers and other human beings, believing he is the only person who understands their way of life.

A false step leads to his dimise. As fall was approaching his clan of bears went into hibernation and Timothy headed home. At the airport he had a falling out with one of the airline workers and he headed back into the Alaskan wilderness. Upon his return a new clan of bears had moved in from the north, an unknown group of animals not acclimated to man. It was by these bears he and his friend were killed.

I was fascinated by his story. He candidly discussed his troubles relating with other people. He talked much about girl troubles and how hard it was to find someone who understood him. As the years went on he became more and more obssessed with the animals. He felt that he would be the sole reason for their survival. Timothy would play games with other people who ventured into woods.

At one point he crosses the line and starts interferring with nature. In 2000 a drought hit Alaska and a significant rainfall did not happen for many months. Creekbeds dried up and the salmon could not travel upstream to spawn. The bears turned on each other for food. Timothy found many carcasses of bears feasted upon by others. He attempted to modify a stream to allow water to flow and the salmon to spawn. When that didn’t work out he turned to God and he began to beg for rain. The movie shows him rant, close to insanity, about the killing of the bears by the lack of water. He pleads with God, Allah, or any God, to bring water for his bears are starving. The next day it begins to pour.

At the end of the movie the narrator makes an interesting point. Although the Timothy had grown so fond of these animals you never saw their affection back. When you look into the bear’s eyes all you see is ignorance of others and patience with all the commotion of the humans. You even see boredom, waiting for the next sign of food to show up. Unfortunately for Timothy, they were done tolerating him.

The handle broke on our dishwasher awhile back. A little 2 1/2-inch bar acts as an axis between the handle and the locking mechanism. broke into 2 pieces Its no real suprise that after many years of wear and tear this bar has given way. When the bar broke the first time we were lucky that the dishwasher was open. Without this tiny bar the handle becomes ineffective.

I’ve fixed the handle a few different ways. The first time I was able to find the bar pieces and glued the parts together. The second time I could only find half of the bar. Being a super genius, I glued a nail to the leftover half of the bar, figuring a nail would suffice.

This time the handle broke with the the door shut. Worse yet, the handle broke off stuck up inside the dishwasher. There are no screws to get into dishwasher from the outside. All the screws are on the inside of the door. I brainstormed a few ideas with some co-workers on how to get into the dishwasher. We came up with the following three fixes:

1. Sometimes dishwashers are just set in underneath the cabinet. Try pulling it out and hope there’s some way in.

2. Hope that the handle has fallen out of the dishwasher, leaving space to reach the locking mechanism with my fingers.

3. Open the front door with a sawsall.

For all of you hoping to hear a sawsall story, I’m sorry. I was actually able to get into the handle space and wiggle the lock open. But, you might ask, what did I do about the broken bar? The original bar was finally lost. It must have fallen out or something. I took the handle to Home Depot and was able to find a nail that would do the job handily. The smallest amount of nails I could buy though was a 1-pound box. So if this happens ever again, and chances are that it will, I have 999 backup replacement “bars” just in case.

If you’ve spent 5 minutes in a room with me in the last 6 months you know that I’m completely and utterly obsessed with the new HTC Wizard cellphone about to hit the streets. The only problem: it was supposed to be available 6 months ago. I have been waiting patiently for it since September, every day checking the normal cellphone geek hangouts reading messages proclaiming its releasing “any day now”. As a Type-A personality I’m am completely convinced it will bring absolute and total order to my life.

I grow tired of waiting. I’m scatterbrained. Ideas, thoughts, lists, apointments, all lost. They are going in one ear and out the other. I finally decided I needed a solution today, I could not wait any longer. I went out and purchased a Hipster PDA, specifically a Mead 5-Star mini notebook. Its an investment in my sanity. I know, you think I’m crazy, but I swear by this thing. Let me give you a rundown of it’s specs:

Size: ~3 inches W x 4 inches H x 1/2 inch thick

Processor: My writing hand and the nearest writing utensil

Functionality: Free-form sortable information, a.k.a. stream-of-conciousness. Ability to quickly output information (by ripping the pages out)

Portablity: Fits in my jacket pocket

Applications: Jason’s TODO list, Jason’s calendar, Jason’s random lists, Jason’s reminders

Price: $1.89 (Target)

I used to give a friend grief for carrying around postcards for notes. I now understand why he used them. No matter what crazy/stupid thing I think, I can write it down so I don’t forget. I’m hoping it will cut down on the crazy rants Courtney has to listen to.

I’ll probably pick up the Wizard when it finally arrives. But for now, I’m satisfied with my current PDA. It’s working out well.

Sidenote: I also picked up a Dymo labeler so I can label and file all my crazy stuff.

Current thought in my head:

“What the hell am I doing?”

I don’t have an answer for that yet. I hope by the time I’m 40 I figure it out.

In the early fall we had a minor mouse problem in our laundry room. Each morning we’d find a few “leftovers” from their feast the night before around the dog food bags. I tried a few different things to get rid of them. Sticky pads, mouse hotels.. But what really did the trick were the old fashion spring-loaded mouse traps.

Each night I would set out two traps smothered in peanut butter. For about a week I would wake up to 2 newly executed mice. One morning I came down to discover only one of the traps. I looked around figuring the poor guy must have hobbled off to die slowly with trap around his foot. I scoured the laundry room but never found the missing trap. I figured it would turn up at some point, right? I mean, how far can a mouse go with a trap around it’s foot?

Four months later, I was digging around my computer cords this weekend trying to troubleshoot a problem with my internet connection. I was blindly grabbing tangled cords from underneath my computer desk trying to figure out which power cord belonged to which device. As I was reaching I grabbed onto a wooden thing. Odd, I thought, I felt it a bit more. I thought to myslef, “Hey, that’s a mouse trap. I wonder what made me put one under my computer desk?” I grabbed it with my whole hand and started pulling it out. That’s when I realized there was a mouse still attached to it. He was good and dead. Real dead. I admit, I screamed like a little girl.

I feel bad for the critter. I mean, he managed to get this trap thing stuck to his tail. He did make it about 20 feet into the next room. I’m honestly surprised that done of the dogs tipped us off earlier about his whereabouts. Alas, he’s in a better place now, where he can eat all the dog food he wants.

The cat’s out of the bag. On January 19th Courtney and I re-married. I could go into the whole history of things, but I’d rather save that for my autobiography. We celebrated our second time around the way we wanted, small and intimate, without much fanfare. I’m quite excited with what’s ahead of us.

I stole a few pictures of the weekend from Courtney’s camera. Enjoy!

Thanks to Chad and Tina for everything and thanks to all those well-wishers. We really appreciate all the love and support.

Details of my latest handywork, from the other side.