Sometimes You Need a Hat and a Hood

Tribute to Paul Cotter, and his first hike up Chautauqua in Boulder.

He actually insisted on hiking most of the way, contrary to these cute depictions of him swinging and shoulder-riding.

Sometimes you need a hat and a hood when you're a lil' person in Colorado.

Engagement Party - Denver

Tom and I visited Denver last weekend, where Eric and Meredith threw us an over-the-top engagement party. I can't believe Tom has never met most of my Denver/KC/Miami friends and this party provided an opportunity for us all to celebrate together. Thanks Eric and Meredith and thanks for coming everyone!

Photo: Meredith, Addy, Liz, me, Eric

Photo: Kevin, me, Mary Clare, Lisa. Fun to have family in Denver!

Photo: me, Alisha and Matt, who have 6 month old Avery! Alisha and I went to Miami U together and both worked at Kanakuk.

Photo: Tom, me, Megan, Bryony and Jose. Megan, Bryony and I went to law school together.

Photo: Kelly, daughter Hagen and me. Kelly and I went to Miami U together and braved Denver together post-college.

Photo: Kelly's husband, Hayes, threatening Matt

Photo: Addy, star/host of the party

Photo: Hagen enjoying the party food.

Photo: Tom, Paul, Kevin. Paul is starting a new crop-top fleece trend.

Photo: Paul in the teepee and Lisa. This party had lots of fun toys!

Photo: Tom serenading me :)

Sadly, I do not have any photos of GT, mystery man, who attended the party. I do have this amazing photo of Tom holding a doll's hand, holding Addy's hand, holding Eric's hand. This is how we roll.


To learn more about this amazing guy Tom, here's Lisa's post from the weekend!

Balloon Dog Fight

This recent intellectual property case made me laugh. The artist Jeff Koons, who creates giant balloon dog sculptures, sued a company that sells bookends in the shape of balloon dogs.

Photo: balloon dog bookends.

Koons claimed the bookends infringed on his intellectual property, like his sculpture seen above at Versailles. (Yes, the balloon dogs were at Versailles).

The store claimed that Koons did not "own" the balloon dog image. Here's the opening line from the Complaint by the defendant:

"As virtually any clown can attest, no one owns the idea of making a balloon dog, and the shape created by twisting a balloon into a dog-like form is part of the public domain."

Basically, everyone made fun of Koons and he dropped his lawsuit last week. The store had sold around 3 bookends before the lawsuit and now it has sold 150. I enjoyed learning about balloon dog creations. The end.

Selling Sherwood Forest

The Major Oak in Sherwood Forest.

England has proposed to sell some of its public forests to help pay off its debts, including Sherwood Forest, the famed home of ROBIN HOOD! England has few public forests left; it's sad to think they would liquidate them. The advertisement for the proposed sale is depressing.

WOODLANDS FOR SALE CENTRAL ENGLAND

King’s Wood, Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire. 17.5 acres (approx.) of freehold woodland offers invited in excess of £120,000 [#204].

Article on "What Would Robin Hood Say" in the NYT last week.

"In a bid to raise much-needed government cash, the British authorities are pushing forward with a controversial plan to sell or lease much of the publicly managed woodlands and forests in England over the next decade, an area of nearly 1,000 square miles.

Among the lots to be transferred into private hands are parts of historic woodlands such as the Forest of Dean and Sherwood Forest, the legendary haunt of Robin Hood." ... Rest of story here.

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.