Moving to Ft. Collins

Cindy and I helped our daughter move to Ft. Collins. Her husband Stacey had a new job there. We had loaded my motorscooter into the moving van, so we could ride it back to Cheney. Stephanie had Chloe and Athena in her car while Cindy and I had Shannon with us in the moving van. We left Cheney at 0700 on August 12 with a goal of 10 hours to Billings MT. Stephanie left about an hour before us to pick us Alexis, her friend and babysitter. By 0900 we were in Kellogg, ID fueling the moving van. At about noon we got a call from Stephanie that she had a flat tire. We found her on the side of the road 35 miles west of Missoula, MT. I put on the spare and we slowly made our was to Missoula to get new tires. We had lunch there while the very nice people at TireRama replaced her tires. At 1700, we arrived in Butte for more fuel and Starbucks Coffee. We met up with Stephanie at a rest area near Bozeman for a picnic supper. At 2130, we arrived in Billings, MT only 3.5 hours behind schedule.

We left Billings, MT at 0730 with a plan to be in Custer, SD for supper. We got fuel and made our way to Little Bighorn Battlefield.

We had a nice time there and left at 1030 for Mount Rushmore. We arrived at Mt. Rushmore at about 1600. Stephanie had been there for 30 minutes waiting for us. We took some picture at made our way to Custer for supper.

We had a great dinner at Cattleman's. Alexis watched the kids while Cindy, Stephanie and I went to the Bugglin Moose for drinks. We were on the roof and had a great time. It was the last day of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, so there were lots of motorcycles around to watch as we talked.

We left Custer at 0700 with a plan to be in Ft. Collins at 1600.

Just south of Custer we saw buffalo on the side of the road. We take some pictures and met Stephanie at the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, SD
After getting fuel in Orin, WY and Starbucks in Cheyenne we arrived in Ft. Collins just slightly behind schedule. We unloaded the moving van and collapsed in our beds.

Motorcycle Trip Ft. Collins

We said goodbye to Stephanie and the kids and started our trip back to Cheney from Ft. Collins at 0735(MST) on August 17th, 2011. At 0810 we crossed into Wyoming. We stopped to get gas in Laramie at 0840. By 0920 we were in Rawlins, WY. We bought gas and sandwiches which we planned to eat latter.

We stopped at a rest area called Split Rock at 1200 to eat our sandwiches. At 1335, we were in Landers, Wyoming for more gas. We arrived in Dubois, Wyoming at 1520 to stay the night at the Stagecoach Inn. We had a nice dinner by the river at the Sundance Cafe.

The next morning at 0700, we bought gas and breakfast at the Exxon station in Dubois.
We left Dubois, Wyoming at 0730 for the national parks.
We crossed the 9658 ft Togwotee Pass at 0810 into Jackson Hole.

Took pictures of Jackson Hole at 0825

Arrived in Grand Teton National Park at 0850
Bought gas at Flagg Ranch Village at 0940
Entered Yellowstone Park south entrance at 1000
Bike odometer rolled over 10000 miles while driving past Lewis Lake

Arrived at Old Faithful Geyser at 1110
Geyser erupted at 1220
Left At Old Faithful at 1235
Bought gas, bananas, rolls in West Yellowstone at 1320
Ate lunch (bananas & rolls) in Ennis, MT at 1515
Bought Gas in Whitehall, MT at 1600

Arrived at Comfort Inn in Butte, MT at 1730

Left Butte at 0705 in August 19th.
Bought gas in Missoula, MT (Bonner) at 0915
Had Starbucks in Missoula at 0930
Arrived in Idaho at 1050(EST)
Bought gas in Kellogg, ID at 1120
Ate at Olive Garden 1215 til 1400
Arrived at Home at 15:20

Used 21.182 gallons of gas over 1038 miles. Average cost of gas was $3.753. average MPG was 49.0.

Homophobia

I recently heard my son call the Boy Scouts, homophobes in a disparaging way. I was surprised that it would make sense to declare that a bunch of people you don’t know have a phobia of any kind, and if they did, why it would be fair to degrade them for their phobia. I felt a need to look into this word and its use.

The etymology of homophobia is a portmanteau of homosexual and phobia.

Phobia is from the greek meaning fear. A phobia is an irrational, intense and persistent fear of certain situations, activities, things, animals, or people. The main symptom of this disorder is the excessive and unreasonable desire to avoid the feared situation, thing, activity, etc.

The word homophobia was popularized by George Weinberg, in his 1972 book ‘Society and the Healthy Homosexual.’ and he defined it as “the dread of being in close quarters with homosexuals.” Jack Nichols claims to have created the word in an article he wrote for Screw magazine in 1969 with Lige Clarke. They defined homophobia as "fear of being thought attracted to one's own sex." Nichols credits Weinberg for coining homophobia because they were just being flippant in their article. Within three years the definition had shifted from a fear of being thought a homosexual to the fear of homosexuals. Weinberg also paved the way, in his book, for the next shift by claiming it is a fear by religious people who see homosexuals as a threat to home and family. A bit more political than psychological.

In 1982, the Times of London defined homophobia as “the dislike and distaste felt by many heterosexuals for homosexuals,...." A decade after Weinberg’s book, the word now means a dislike of homosexuals. The idea of a homophobe as a person with an irration fear of homosexuals is now someone who doesn’t like homosexuals. In this case ‘dislike’ is not defined in relation to homosexual either. Dislike of what? Homosexual acts, or their very presence.

The Oxford Dictionary defines it as an extreme and irrational aversion to homosexuality and homosexual people.

The World English Dictionary added hatred to the Oxford definition.

I have seen, more recently, homophobia definitions include  ‘being against homosexual rights’ to the dictionary definitions. The Oxford definition seems fair enough, but I’ve never heard other phobias related to hatred or politics. 

In 1993, behavioral scientist William O’Donohue and Christine Caselles concluded what I had noticed in my son’s use of the word "as it is usually used, makes an illegitimately pejorative evaluation of certain open and debatable value positions, much like the former disease construct of homosexuality" itself, arguing that the term may be used as an ad hominem argument against those who advocate values or positions of which the speaker does not approve.

Twenty years after it was first coined as a word to reference actual fear of homosexuals, it is now a pejorative to be used against people you disagree with. As the name calling increases I might tend to agree with another definition I read: homophobia is the fear of speaking out against homosexual behavior or politics.

Are humans herbivores?

I recently saw a speech of Gary Yourofsky on youtube. He made the claim that humans are physiologically 100 percent herbivores. He supported his claim with the following claims:

1) The human intestine to torso ratio is 7 to13:1; the same as herbivores, while the carnivore ratio is 3 to 6:1.

2) Humans will sweat like herbivores, while carnivores pant.

3) Humans don’t have claws like herbivores, while carnivores have claws.

4) Humans have carbohydrate enzymes in their saliva like herbivores and carnivores do not.

5) Human teeth are broad, short, blunt, flat, are like herbivore and most herbivores have canine teeth.

6) The human jaw moves side to side like herbivores when it chews.

7) Humans have no carnivorous instincts.

I’m not sure about the students in his audience, but I never claimed that humans are 100 percent carnivores. I was always taught that humans are omnivores; we eat plants and animals. An omnivore would have to have a digestive system with the traits of both carnivores and herbivores. I think his claims 2 and 3 are red-herring because they have nothing to do with the digestive system; beside the fact that claim number two is false. His claim 7 is both undefined and unsubstantiated, so it is impossible to address. His claims 4, 5, and 6 prove humans are not carnivores, but don’t prove humans are not omnivores. Omnivores have to be able to breakdown plant material like an herbivore, so they would also have these traits.

I found claim one the most interesting because I own three different herbivores and thought it was time to learn their digestive systems. After a little searching, the first idea that came to my mind was that the characteristic of any given part of the system doesn’t prove anything. His first claim is basically claiming that a wagon is a type of tractor because they both have four wheels. We have to look at the digestive system as a whole.
The herbivore's digestive system is designed to turn plants into nutrition. The process used to release the nutrients is called fermentation. The herbivore's digestive system may be monogastric or ruminants. Monogastric means having a simple stomach like horses, zebra, hippopotamus, and rhinoceros, while ruminants have four part stomachs like giraffes, antelope, camels, sheep, cattle, goats, deer, and bison. In ruminants, the stomach is a large percentage of the digestive system, 60-70 percent, while in herbivores with simple stomachs the percentage is less; 8 percent for a horse. The large intestine of a ruminant is 7-12 percent of the digestive volume while in a horse it is 45 percent. The small intestines are between 15 and 30 percent with ruminants being on the smaller end of the scale. Total volume of a horse’s digestive system is 223 quarts and a sheep is 46.5 quarts. A human has a 6 quart system. 
In simple stomach herbivores, fermentation takes place in the large intestine, while in ruminants it takes place in the first two parts of the stomach. Carnivores have no fermentation in their digestive system. Except for absorption of vitamins K, B-12, and biotin in the large intestine, humans have no fermentation in their digestive system either. Humans like other omnivores, and carnivores break our food down by acids while herbivores do it with bacteria. 

Lolo Pass

I left home at 7:20 on 7/30/2010. It rained in various amounts as I rode south on Highway 195. At Steptoe, it poured until just north of Colfax when it stopped. By the time I got to Idaho the sun was out.
At the top of the hill over looking Lewiston, ID, I saw the Clearwater River joining the Snake River. I stopped at Lewiston for my first gas stop. From Lewiston it is Highway 12 all the way to Missoula, Montana. From Lewiston Highway 12 follows the Clearwater River it is a nice four lane highway for nine miles until it splits with Highway 95.
I fueled up in Kooskia, ID because it the last gas stop until Lolo, Montana. I left Kooskia following the middle fork of the Clearwater River. Two miles east of Kooskia is the almost famous sign warning motorcyclist of the fun ahead. Eleven miles after the sign, I entered the Clearwater National Forest. Nine miles later the Selway and Locha Rivers come together the form the middle fork of the Clearwater River. Highway 12 follows the Lochsa River almost to the top of Lolo Pass.
It was a beautiful ride to the top of the pass with great scenery and I learned A LOT about cornering. Just as I arrived at the top, I saw a moose feeding on the side of the road.
I fueled up again at the intersection of Highways 12 and 93. Twelve miles later I was on Interstate 90 heading west for home. For the first 20 miles the wind was blowing hard which kept my speed down to 62 mph (actual). (The Suzuki Burgman is well known to have a 10% variation between actual and indicated speed. My speedometer read 68 and the GPS read 62.) After the winds died down I was able to make better time except now my butt was getting sore. My last fuel stop was Wallace, ID. I stopped at the Mission Inn in Cataldo, ID for food and a butt rest. They had a great clam chowder, marginal service, and good prices. I drove 549 miles, used 11.3 gallons of gas, averaged 48.7 mpg, and 42.2 miles per hour.

What is a Chair?

There is something about a chair that makes it a chair. A Chair is more than a thing in which to seat and recline. It is more than just function. A small chair that would collapse when I sat on it would still be a chair for a small child. I would think that even a small little dollhouse size chair is still a chair. There is something about a chair that makes it a chair.

If a chair breaks its leg: is it still a chair? There are some who would say it is no longer a chair. Others would say it is a chair; and because we regard it as a chair we should also regard a stool as a chair.

1) A stool is a chair because we would continue to regard a broken chair as a chair. 2) A broken chair is not a chair. If you disagree with both of these statements, you may be a right wing, conservative, nut job, and only driven by your religious convictions.
What is a person?