Oregon Trail

If you grew up during the time of the floppy disk, then this movie trailer is for you. It's a promo for the "Oregon Trail Movie" and the bad acting is tremendous. I don't think it's a real movie. It does reference many of the situations presented in the 80's computer game "Oregon Trail."

http://www.octa-trails.org/

This morning I actually spoke to people who work for the Oregon California Trail Association. My company often works to conserve land along trails. American Hiking Society held its annual "Hike the Hill" policy training day and the trails groups will visit Congress this week to discuss the importance of trails for communities, recreation, health and historic preservation.

http://www.americanhiking.org/

Check out the American Hiking Society site for good hiking and outdoor adventure suggestions.

I heard there is a real Oregon Trail movie coming out in March, called "Meek's Cutoff" and it might be scary. I tried to look up the trailer but the Internet just seems to have a strange dark clip.

Iron and Wine Design

Wow. One of my favorite blogs, Design Sponge, has a post today about Sam Beam of Iron & Wine, one of my favorite whisper-quiet, wintry, acoustic, mysterious soundworld bands. Love the combo interest here!

See this post to read the interview on Beam's approach to art design and music.


Iron and Wine have a new album out, Kiss Each Other Clean. It's their fourth full length album and first electric. Pitchfork review here.

Glass Class

Photo: Glass yellow aspens

For the past two years I have been wanting to learn how to fuse glass and I finally took a "glass class" last week at Glen Echo Park. To fuse glass, I learned how to cut glass, create a composition and fire it in the kiln. I made these yellow aspens as a tribute to my favorite state - Colorado!


This is a piece by a classmate I call "Jamie Sprinkles." If you do not think Jamie Sprinkles' composition is the best awesome-est glass piece you've ever seen, then you are not in the majority of my glass classmates. About every 10 minutes during the 4 hours I sat next to Jamie Sprinkles while she created this wild glass manifesto, another woman or the instructor would stop by to tell her, "Jamie, I sooo love your artistic style. You really have a talent."


Apparently creating glass art makes people gravitate to the art styles of the 80's. Here's another piece by a glass classmate.


Totally 80's

One guy made a Bunsen burner glass composition. OK.

Valentine's glass composition by a classmate.


One lady made a fish. Pretty cute.

Here's a fish by another woman. This is pretty talented glass cutting.


My instructor made a leopard. Amazing work.

I also made a cherry blossom. The sky was supposed to be all blue, but I didn't know these light blue pieces were going to turn purple when fired in the kiln. I also made a plate with flowers on it, and used an "all blue" sky, but there was one piece of purple in that, too. It ruined the whole plate. I was very sad. I couldn't look at it anymore, so Tom took the small glass plate to work to use for paper-clips.

Someone gave me a small moose for a gift once. Now the moose goes perfectly with my small aspens!

Garden and Gun

Saw this combo-interest magazine, Garden and Gun, at the dentist yesterday and it made me laugh.

Love Will Come Through

This is by no means a "Love" blog, but I am going to go ahead and post the one-year anniversary video I made for Tom. If you haven't met Tom before, then you can see him a bit more, see him paddle various kayaks and canoes, because that is what he mostly does in this video, and maybe someday you can meet this wonderful guy who swept me off my feet this year.

The video is just a montage of camera-video clips we took this year, for the most part non-purposefully, meaning I did not have a themed video in mind when I was filming, but I wanted to create a gift for Tom so I figured out a way to use these clips.


If anything, this is a call-out to everyone out there to use your iMovie and make a video! It's easy and there are tutorials online.

If you are trying to decide whether to play this video, I'll say it's worth watching the first 20 seconds to see the manatees and how ridiculous I look in sunglasses. I need a better pair.

Song: "Love Will Come Through" by Travis.

Locations: Everglades, Florida, West Virginia mountains, Camden, Maine and with our families.

Happy 112th Congress!

The 112th Congress kicked off yesterday. It's a lot like the first day of school or the first week of practicing for the sports season. It's filled with anticipation, strategy sessions, and a clean slate (no grades, yet, no wins or losses). For me, I have to work to have my conservation bill introduced again, and most of the bill's momentum from last Congress will not count toward this Congress, and it didn't pass last Congress. It's like repeating a grade.

I'll point out that the new Congress includes a former NFL player who was on a winning Superbowl team two times last decade, a former Real World cast member, and a former Vice President's son. Cheers to the new circus. It's always entertaining.

Photo: Jon Runyan (R-NJ 3). Runyan played for the Oilers (Titans), Eagles and Chargers. He's the fourth NFL player to be elected to Congress.


Photo: Sean Duffy (R-WI 7). The former Real World Boston (season 6) member who married Real World San Francisco Rachel Campos (season 3) is now representing Wisconsin.

Photo: Ben Quayle (R- AZ 3). Yes, Dan Quayle's son is now an Arizona Congressman.

2010 in Review

I did not move, take any tests or intern in 2010. I did lock myself out a few times, but that is a given in any year. I dated a guy for ALL FOUR SEASONS, a major miracle. My furniture matched better. My TV spent more time off. I finally plunged into the road bike trend and accomplished my first sprint-tri. I skied only once. I understood the federal budget process in a less-than-hazy manner. I learned a lot about buffalo, pronghorn and wild horses. My knee worked fine. I registered as a federal lobbyist. I tried to save redwoods. I had to look up on Wikipedia which hand the engagement ring goes on. Life became a bit more stable in a year of a shaky economy.

I started 2010 in a DC blizzard and ended it on the Florida beach.

Here a 5 things that sum up my 2010:



5. FLTFA and the West. I spend a majority of my time trying to convince Congress to pass a conservation bill called the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act (FLTFA). I've been working on it for 2.5 years. It doesn't have the catchiest name, but at least it's a good, noncontroversial bill. I don't have enough blog space to discuss all the emotions that go into becoming "the FLTFA girl" and trying to bring up the benefits of FLTFA in 95% of my conversations with Members of Congress, their staff, and other non-profit staff, but overall I'm proud of the work, the identity, and the chance to run a campaign.

I continued to work on Western conservation, trying to secure funding to protect Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota, Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area in Colorado, Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Oregon and a dozen other places. I spend a lot of my time looking at maps and photos of pretty places in the West, and for a legal job, it doesn't get much better.



4. Camping. I camped more this year than in a long time. I'm not sure I've camped with my brother since we've had double-digit ages, and it was a great treat to meet up with him in Ohiopyle, PA and raft the Youghiogheny River. I hope to continue the tradition. Tom and I camped at state parks in most of the surrounding states: Seneca Rocks, West Virginia, First Landing, Virginia, Ohiopyle and Laurel Hill, Pennsylvania. I'm not sure I could choose a favorite, though I was a big fan of the beach front at First Landing in Norfolk near VA Beach. We spent the last week of the year camping under a palm tree in Everglades National Park. I was glad that alligators don't camp, and that they stayed by the bay and the river.


3. The View from My Office. DC does not have mountains, but it does have monuments and the Potomac River. I moved out of a cubicle and into the office with the greatest view: Memorial Bridge, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial and killer sunsets over the river. Worth the wait. I've also been increasingly afraid of flying over the last few years, and since I now see planes fly over the river and land at Reagan airport every five minutes while I work, this has provided a great comfort to be reminded of all the successful flying.

2. Family. It's always a banner year when the Cotters wear Thanksgiving hats. We're pretty spread out now, but I cherished the time visiting Colorado to stay with Kevin and Lisa's family, Ohio for Grant's baptism (Chris and Cathy's hospitality for all of us), and KC for Dad's 60th birthday and two amazing events in one Thanksgiving week organized by Mom.


1. Tom and the Snowpacalypse. The blizzards of early 2010 were the beginning of the romance between me and Tom. We had days and days of time off work, and we snow-shoed the city, watched Cold Mountain and never tired of each other. We've hardly spent any days apart since. I can't believe we ended the year engaged. It's been the greatest year of my life.

Other Items

• Podcasts: Still hooked on Slate Political Gabfest, Slate Cultural Gabfest, and Mars Hill sermons by Rob Bell. Sometimes I listen to Sierra Club news
• Books: loved Jonathan Franzen's Freedom and Steve Martin's An Object of Beauty. Spent all year reading Douglas Brinkley's Wilderness Warrior about Theodore Roosevelt's triumphs in conservation, and am still not finished, but TDR was such a theme to the year that Tom considered proposing in front of his statue at Roosevelt Island that we often run to, but decided against it because he wasn't sure he could compete with Teddy's greatness.
• Bands: Tom is still stuck in '90s music, so we listened to a lot of Eddie Vedder, Oasis, Crash Test Dummies, 10,000 Maniacs and Cranberries. really.
• Blogs: Besides reading friends' blogs, I enjoy Design Sponge, Leading with Purpose by Michael Hyatt and Awkward Family Photos. I was so addicted to my Google Reader that I had to give it up for Lent.
  
• Best conservation event: Dedication of the Department of Interior as the Stewart Udall building. See this post.
• Best Gaff: When I gave a speech on public lands policy to a small group at a conference in Nevada and didn't realize former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt was the distinguished, older gentleman sitting in the back of the room. Oops. That's like giving a speech about defense policy and not realizing Donald Rumsfeld is in the room. I was soooo embarrassed. At least that night Babbitt told everyone during the keynote that "FLTFA" is a great program!
  
• Favorite National Park: Zion, in Utah. Go there.
• New state: Idaho, floated the South Fork Snake River for work.
• New country: Jamaica, vacation to Sandals with Tom's company
• New animals: Saw alligators and manatees in Florida
• New nephew: Grant!

If my moment with you was not on this post, do not fret. I remember and appreciate it all.

Christmas Eve - Engaged

Photo: Christmas Eve candlelight song service at St. John's Church Lafayette Square, next to the White House. Engaged today.

Christmas Special

My favorite moment of the day yesterday was observing this middle-aged mustachioed man just cold-watchin' the Charlie Brown Christmas Special on his iPad while riding the Metro during rush hour.

Christmas Bagel

I'm not much of a food blogger, but I was pretty proud of my "Christmas wreath bagel" I randomly made this morning. Multi-grain bagel with cream cheese, avocado and pomegranate seeds.

Five Random Facts about the American Presidents, Part I

I'm currently reading The American Presidents (11th Edition) by David C. Whitney, a compendium of short biographies on all the presidents.

Since I am about half way finished with the book, I thought I'd post five random notable things I've learned so far.


Andrew Jackson spent a lot of time with bullets in his body. In 1813 Thomas Hart Benton pumped a bunch of bullets into Jackson and doctors urged him to have his shattered arm amputated. Jackson refused and carried the bullets in his arm for the next 19 years, having them removed while he was president.

William Henry Harrison had the worst inauguration. W.H. Harrison caught a cold during his inaugural address and died from it a month later.

John Tyler was expelled from his party while President. He was elected as a Whig (as VP, then became Prez when W.H. Harrison died), but because he vetoed Whig legislation, all the members of his cabinet quit and two days later the party expelled him.

Grover Cleveland lived a nonchalant life between presidencies. In between GC's time as our 22nd and 24th President, he moved to New York to work as an attorney and took the street car to work.


Theodore Roosevelt stood up for the rights of women and minorities. TDR wrote his 1880s college thesis on the "Practicability of Giving Men and Women Equal Rights," and invited Booker T. Washington to eat with him at the White House, the first time in history a president had sat down to dinner with a black man, causing Roosevelt to be unwelcome in the South.

I HEART Utah

Zion National Park, Utah

This week I had a roundtrip ticket from D.C. to Las Vegas for a work trip. I've been here 7 days now and haven't seen the strip. Instead, I toured the California Desert - Joshua Tree Nat'l Park, San Jacinto Mountains and Mojave Desert; hiked in the Utah canyons at Zion National Park, and planted trees at Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area in Nevada. Much better than gambling.

Nature as Art

Joshua Tree National Park, California.

Assassination Vacation

I enjoyed reading Assassination Vacation*, Sarah Vowell's comical write-up of her seriously taken trips to visit all tourism sites related to the assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley. It makes me want to go see the musical "Assassins," where John Wilkes Booth, Charles Guiteau and Leon Czolgosz sing and dance on stage, which she attends.

The book provides fascinating backgrounds on the assassins and their Presidential targets who met untimely deaths, while intertwining historical trivia, such as that Robert Todd Lincoln, Lincoln's son, was in close proximity to the murders of all three Presidents, like a jinx of doom.

Also, John Wilkes Booth's brother, the actor Edwin Booth, once saved Robert Todd Lincoln's life after he fell from a train platform onto the tracks. A Booth that saved a Lincoln's life.

The book is about the craziness of the historical tourism business, which Vowell loves whole-heartedly. Along with the general stops like Ford's Theatre, she visits the New England home of the Lincoln Memorial sculptor, Dry Tortugas off the coast of Florida where the conspirators of Lincoln's death were imprisoned, and many other odd places.

One notable trivia point for D.C. tourism: the Lincoln Memorial sculptor was mortified to find out that after all of his hard work, the light from the reflecting pool bounced up onto Lincoln's face, looking as if a flashlight had been held up under his chin. Eventually, ceiling lights were installed so that Lincoln could look dignified and pensive, as intended. Poor Lincoln. He looked scary!

For more historical trivia and context about one of the most presidentially violent times in America, read Assassination Vacation.

Video: Tony Award performance of the Broadway musical Assassins.



*My brother Chris and his wife Cathy introduced me to this good read by giving it to me as a birthday present. Thanks!

Order in the Court

Photo: My ticket in line to hear Supreme Court oral arguments.

Congress is out and the Supreme Court is in. Monday marked the first day of the Supreme Court's new term and Wednesday I decided to try my luck to see oral arguments. Wednesday's cases were high-profile, so I knew this would add to the crowds, but I also knew it would add to the excitement.

My friend and I arrived at the Court at 4:30am in order to beat the "early morning line crowd." Unfortunately, the "spent the night in front of the Court" crowd" was about 95 people. NINETY-FIVE PEOPLE slept in front of the Supreme Court during a cold October night to hear the arguments!

What was the case? A case about HATERS. Haters gonna hate. You may be familiar with the Phelps family. A large family who comprise their own "church" in Kansas (Westboro Baptist Church) and spend most of their time tormenting people with hateful signs, saying "God Hates You" and other horrific specifics. Their latest endeavors have included protesting military funerals, under the twisted belief that God is punishing America's immorality by killing soldiers in war.

You can read more about the specifics of the Snyder v. Phelps case here. I think the topic itself drew crowds, but one enthralling element was that the pastor's daughter, Margie Phelps, would be making the arguments. Arguing before the Supreme Court! It's a Court with access for all....All, including myself, who stood for 6 hours on the cold sidewalk, waiting to get in.

Photo: The dark early morning, waiting to get in to the Supreme Court.

Photo: Sunrise at the Supreme Court!

At 8:00am I went inside the building to use the restroom, and while walking down the hallway found ELENA KAGAN walking alongside me. Pretty fun.

At 10:00am we had seen our share of circus outside: the "God Hates You," "God Hates Your Feelings" signs, the Phelps clan walking around (they tried to cut in front of the line, but were moved to the back.... the ones that didn't have passes, and everybody clapped), and anti-hate protests. They began order in the Court. Unfortunately, we didn't make it in the first set of arguments. I did read that Margie Phelps was "unflappable," and that she used the phrase "up in their grill," several times. As in her church followed protest rules and didn't they didn't get "up in their grill." UP IN THEIR GRILL! Fine legal argument. I also heard she quoted Wikipedia in her brief.

We waited it out and were able to see the second set of arguments, Harry Connick v. Thompson (yes, the Dad of Harry Connick, Jr.), a tragic case of injustice about a man wrongly imprisoned for 20 years, due to the prosecutor's failure to turn in evidence that would have proven the man's innocence. I am more concerned about the outcome of this case than the first.

Amazing to view the nine Justices in their element - Sotomayor, Kagan, and the others in person. A rare treat since Supreme Court proceedings are not televised.

Photo: Margie Phelps and family after Supreme Court arguments for Phelps v. Snyder.

An exciting day at the Supreme Court, for an important debate on First Amendment issues. The sad thing, though, is that no matter the outcome of this particular case, it's likely that Haters Gonna Hate and the Phelps family will continue their hurtful protests in some capacity.

Colbert the Conservationist

I have mixed feelings about Stephen Colbert's testimony before Congress last week. On one hand, I am glad he was able to draw attention to migrant farm worker issues. On the other hand, it does not seem appropriate to have a comedian in character testify before Congress.

I DO NOT have mixed feelings about co-lobbying with Colbert, however. Just found out he has joined the "America's Great Outdoors" campaign that I work on!!! Great news to have Colbert broadcasting the need to protect America's treasured outdoor places. Colbert is working on promoting a new, bold plan for land and water conservation. Check out the site , The Hill, and Politico.

From The Hill:

One website for the "America's Great Outdoors" campaign now prominently features Colbert with a photo and a quote, in characteristic style.
....
The new push is in response to another campaign, launched in April by President Obama, that aims to engage the public on environmental issues and to "start a national dialogue about conservation" that highlights solutions implemented in local communities.

The push will "play an important role in confronting the serious challenges our natural resources face today: climate change, air and water pollution, landscape fragmentation and loss of open space," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said at its start. "This effort will bring Americans from across the country together to look for new approaches to protect our national treasures."

--
I expect him to ask for "Colbert National Park" in South Carolina as the pay-back, but I doubt that will happen....You never know, though. His joke to have his portrait in the Smithsonian's portrait gallery came true. It's now in the Smithsonian's permanent collection.

Sustainability Fair

Photo: Alpacas at the Mother Earth Sustainability Fair in the Laurel Hill region of southwestern Pennsylvania.

Learned a lot about sustainable living, green jobs, and most importantly went on the alpine slides at the Seven Springs Ski Resort where it took place.



Website to check out: Green Guardians.

"The Green Guardians is a green career clearinghouse for people wanting to develop green community service skills such as energy efficiency, recycling, composting, tree planting, green building technology, urban agriculture, eco-literacy education, and other important career skills."



The site has a large set of sustainability videos, like the one above that features an owner up the street from me that uses vegetable oil from his restaurant to fuel his car, and green jobs career search sites.

DC Night Bike Ride

Capitol Building

DC Night Bike Ride - Organized by Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA).

White House

Lincoln Memorial