Pipes though are about pleasure, and a space such as this should have plenty of pleasure. My whim this fine morning is that we should have more pleasure, more billowing clouds of latikia. I do so enjoy indulging my whims, and today is no different.

Perhaps the politics will return, when I've had enough pleasure.

It was launched with this year's legislative session and is becoming a great resource for following the twists and turns of Washington State government.

Washbucket.net

I believe that a critical reading of the texts we take to be revealed is important, and we are lucky to have so worthy a guide as Mr. Jefferson take us through the Gospels.

The pipe was donated to the club by our guest speaker Mr. Tony Soderman, and as luck would have it Mr. Soderman included a newspaper article about Senlar pipes and their maker Wally Larsen as I had no knowledge of the brand or maker.

It is a Canadian shape, quite large with a shank over four inches long. Deeply and well rusticated in a tree bark pattern. Quite beautiful and obviously well made, I look forward to seeing how it smokes.

I did search out Senlar Pipes on Pipedia today, hoping for more information than could be gleaned from the newspaper article, but alas apparently my ignorance of Senlar is fairly widespread as there was virtually no information there. In an attempt to help fill this lack of knowledge I gathered some information from the article and placed it into Pipedia. I'm reprinting it here:

Senlar Pipes were made in Minnesota by pipe maker Wally Larsen who inverted his last name LAR SEN to come up with SEN LAR. The Saint Paul Pioneer Press nicknamed Larsen "The Great Dane Of The Pipe World" in 1973. Larsen's pipes were made in the basement of his Minnetonka home, with pipes selling in 1973 for as much as $75. Larsen learned the pipe making craft in the 1940's when an established pipe maker moved into the home next door. After observing this craftsman work for three years Larsen decided to make a pipe for himself. That first pipe got him some attention from fellow smokers and he sold his next nine before being able to keep another for himself.

Larsen sought to make Senlar pipes "Look like a tree." Which he accomplished by using a whirling drill to carve a distinctive bark like finish on the pipe. It is a finish seen on most Senlars and Larsen regarded it as a sort of trademark.

One must though, shop with care, and remember that buyer beware.

I arrived back at the Airstream a day or two ago to find a note attached to the door. It was from a woman named Susan, informing me that she had just purchased a vintage Airstream, and needed the name of a repair guy fast.

I called her with the contact information for my guy, and discussed the trouble she was having with her Airstream.

It seems that she recently purchased the trailer, and had been assured by the previous owner that it was free of leaks. She did notice some staining from a previous leak, but the owner assured her that he had fixed it and that it leaked no more.

Of course, she purchased it out of covered storage.

To make a long story short, she bought it, it rained, and the leak was right where the previous owner said it wasn't. Now she has repair bills on top of what was likely a substantial purchase price, and the repair must be made quickly before the floor begins to rot.

Ronald Reagan said 'Trust But Verify' when referring to nuclear disarmament, but when buying an older Airstream it is likely best to stick with the Verify, and leave the Trust to someone else.

A bit of American history that perhaps every man needs, especially given the likely reaction it will garner from the women in our lives. It is I think necessary to add a bit of masculinity to ones house and nothing says nasty man like a big brass spittoon.

Mrs. Bailey ought to be impressed when it arrives home on Friday. Alas though, she will likely relegate it to my office.

Last year the International Board of Trustees created a marketing committee in an effort to help stop our declining numbers and they appointed me to it.

I think that our committee did good work and created a solid plan. It certainly seemed to be well received by the membership. Regrettably though the plan was not adopted, apparently due to a lack of funding for it.

Out of that process I came to learn that perception seems to be the largest stumbling block our club has. The majority of Airstream owners perceive it in a negative light, and if it is to grow again that perception will have to be turned around.

This problem of perception was made all too clear to me tonight.

I've always been a bit of a primadonna, I enjoy being treated exceptionally well, and I make it a point to do business with people who do so. When I'm in Olympia that means that I will drive a bit out of my way, and pay a bit too much, when I need to fuel up my truck. The folks who own the station I frequent understand that I am a very good customer and take steps to ensure that I am treated very well.

Tonight I had just finished fueling and was chatting with the daughter of the station's owners when she asked me where I lived while in Olympia. I explained that I stayed in my Airstream, up on the top of the hill.

She asked some more details, so I gave her the street name and told her that it was in an RV park.

"WBCCI?" She asked. "I drive that way to work."

I answered yes, and she got a funny look on her face.

"But those are all old people." She said.

She asked how old I was and on hearing the answer assured me that I didn't belong there because I was way too young.

I've spent a great many nights, in excess of 200 in this WBCCI Park over the past three years. We are not all over the hill.

Alas though, the perception is that we are. It is perceived that we have little or nothing of value for those who are now middle aged or even younger.

People who should be joining our club think that we just sit here hiding behind our locked gate and razor wire. It isn't true, but it is what they perceive.

I think the perception is there because we do have that locked gate, we do have that wire, and we make everything difficult.

It's difficult to join the WBCCI; it's difficult to understand the traditions of the club. It was even difficult for me to convince the officers of this park that my guests should be allowed to spend a few days in their motor home when the request was made a couple of weeks ago.

If we are to overcome this perception, if we are to grow as a club, we have to make the WBCCI seem inviting and easy. I fear though that may be a task too hard.

For giving us hope

That it's morning again

In America

Ronald Reagan, It's Morning Again; In America

Monogamy is an easy word with a plain meaning. It simply means that one only has a single sexual partner. The majority of us consider ourselves to be monogamous, and certainly the vast majority of us hold up monogamy as an extremely high and important ideal.

I think however that if we are to truly think about monogamy, we must be honest with ourselves. Are we truly monogamous, or is it a fiction about ourselves that we tell ourselves?

Most people blissfully engage in premarital sex, a huge percentage of people have affairs, and the percentage of divorced people is off the charts it seems. None of this is monogamy. We can lie to ourselves and tell ourselves that it is monogamy, but that doesn't make it so. If we are honest we must admit that it is serial monogamy. Engaging in sexual contact with only a single partner at a time.

Why then, if so very few people actually practice monogamy do we consider it to be such an important way to live?

Do we truly believe that one other individual can possibly meet all of our mental, emotional, and physical needs for the rest of our life? Do we truly believe that we can do that for another? Is not this unrealistic expectation the true cause of so many divorces in our society?

I don't know the correct answer to these questions, but I do know that they are worth asking. I do know that we should at least acknowledge the fact that we might all be happier and have a more stable society if we stopped trying to live up to an ideal that so few people can actually achieve, and if we stopped expecting our partners to do so as well.

'Deep, bat-shit, crazy, emotional, passion' is often mistaken for love. It's not, but it sure feels great when we experience it with a new partner. That's the thing though; we only get to experience that craziness with someone new. It fades with time, and if we are lucky love remains. We do though confuse that crazy passion with love, and when it fades we convince ourselves that our love has gone. Would it not be possible for humans to love one and experience that crazy passion with another? Again, I can't claim to know, but it is worth asking.

What I do know is where jealousy comes from. Jealousy comes from a mistaken view that romance is a zero-sum proposition. We irrationally believe that if our partner loves another, he or she will love us less. This is a shockingly strong and universal impulse, but is clearly proven wrong by the children that surround us. Does a mother loose her love for her first born when the second child comes along? Of course not. Her love expands to encompass them both. If we were all able to realize that if our partner loved another that fact did not necessarily cheapen or remove his or her love for us, perhaps we would be able to overcome feelings of jealousy and the negative impacts such feelings have upon our lives.

Can we overcome those feelings? Can we think about love rationally? Again, I don't know, but I do know that the questions are worth asking.

As a society we are failing at the marriage game. The majority of marriages do not last. Perhaps we need to rethink marriage, rethink monogamy. Create new ideals that the vast majority of people can actually live up to.

Our generation will not do this, but perhaps future generations will.

The first is that our legislators don't work hard, an assertion I know to be completely false. The specific fellow I work for left his house at 6:00am this morning to travel to his office. He is scheduled to be there until 9:00 tonight. This is on a State and National holiday.

The second is even more prevalent, the notion that our legislators are overpaid. I believe that currently Washington Legislators make somewhere in the neighborhood of $32,000 per year. Their total compensation also includes expense moneys with which to maintain a local office, and per diem while they are in Olympia. Both of these amounts have been cut over the past couple of years. For this $32,000 they are expected by their constituents to work every day in Olympia while the legislature is in session, and attend meetings in their local districts everyday it is not. The legislature is looked upon as a part time job, but I don't know of a single good legislator who does not work it a good deal more than a full time job.

I must say that I find it rather offensive when people complain to me about the hundreds of thousands of supposed dollars our legislators make each year, when in fact the truth is that their salaries are so low as to make it extremely difficult to make ends meet.

It seems to me that instead of clamoring for our legislators to make even less, constituencies should be clamoring to see to it that their legislators are paid better. We cannot get the very best people of our state to serve as legislators if we are unwilling to fairly compensate their efforts.

I think though that this was done largely in error. The legislature intended to make it harder for kids to get cigarettes. We adult pipe smokers just got caught up accidentally because the legislators working on the bill forgot to exempt us like they exempted cigars.

This year the few remaining pipe smokers in our state are working hard to overturn this prohibition so that we can once again legally purchase the tobacco we need for our harmless hobby.

Two bills have been introduced to the legislature that will allow us to purchase our blends, House Bill 2639, and Senate Bill 6447.

Today I would like to mention the handful of House Members who are willing to stand up for us pipe smokers, who are working to fix the error made last year. They deserve our thanks.

Representatives Mary Lou Dickerson, Steve Conway, Brian Blake, Reuven Carlyle, Mike Armstrong, Kirk Pearson, Mike Sells, and Larry Springer.

Each of these Representatives can be emailed at:

lastname.firstname@leg.wa.gov

If you are a lover of the pipe, I ask that you email each of them a sincere thank you for their efforts to help us enjoy our hobby.

Our House Bill will be receiving a public hearing on January 19.

I'll post about the Senate Bill another time, today though it is receiving a hearing in the Senate. It is inappropriate for me to lobby the legislature, so while the rest of the Seattle Pipe Club is testifying on behalf of the bill I'll be enjoying the last bits of a tin of Dunhill's Standard Mixture: Medium.

The idea is that each student is supposed to think up something that should be made against the law, then present that idea to legislators in the hopes of it actually becoming law.

This exercise is supposed to teach the students about government.

Unfortunately it teaches them precisely the wrong lessons about government. They learn that it is OK for people to be made into criminals on a whim. They learn that whenever a problem arises in life it is best to look to government to solve that problem. They learn that there are no moral limits to the power of government.

Young people should be learning that government power is a negative in our world. That individuals have rights that must be fought for and protected. That law must always be minimized, never maximized.

I fear that these students are learning to be young totalitarians, not young citizens.

I always thought it bad when going away for the weekend took a car load of luggage, but over the past two days I've learned just how bad it truly is when it comes to Mrs. Bailey and her packing for trips.

It seemed to me that the very small bathroom in the Airstream was getting just a little bit smaller all the time, so I decided to clean out the cabinets.

Remember here, this is a travel trailer. Just one tiny bathroom, a Land Yacht made for two.

It's no wonder though why the bathroom was feeling ever more crowded. In going through the cabinets I have found:

6 Bars of Soap, plus 3 jugs of soft soap, plus 3 more body washes.

3 Large cans of shaving cream.

5 Tubes of toothpaste.

3 Jars of mouthwash.

4 tubes of suntan lotion.

3 large cans of hairspray.

&

9. Count them 9 bottles of shampoo.

These are unfortunately just the highlights of a much larger problem.

To add insult to injury, I don't think that Mrs. Bailey even uses any of this stuff. Every time we go somewhere in the Airstream she brings a medium sized suitcase filled with the lotions and potions, so just what in the hell is all this crap for?

Alas, I do know what the problem is.

Each time we use the Airstream she goes to the store to stock it up. Of course, we don't use it very many days at a stretch, so the stuff doesn't get used, but next trip it gets bought again.

I have explained to Mrs. Bailey that there are weight limits to how much cargo the Airstream can carry. She understands she says. I've also explained that an extra thousand pounds of stuff inside makes our poor truck work a great deal harder. She understands she says.

Methinks though that she doesn't understand.

As Captain of this Land Yacht I've decided that there must be a new Law of the Highway. NEVER ADD: ONLY TAKE AWAY.

I wonder if we can bring back good old-fashioned floggings for miscreants who violate the Captains orders?

A young, eager, newly elected legislator came up fast behind him, seeking some bit of wisdom from the old man, a hint that would give him a leg up in his new role.

"You know what's wrong with this place?" The old man asked as the young one drew up to him.

The old man's question was rhetorical and he didn't wait for a reply, simply stopped walking, turned to look up at the dome, and continued speaking. "Every man here thinks that his job here is to pass a bill. Fix something, anything. Make a law. You've probably got a half dozen bills in the hopper now and you're hoping, hoping that you'll figure out how to get one passed."

The young man silently gave a brief nod.

"That is not why you are here." The old man said. "Thomas Jefferson wrote, in The Declaration of Independence, that the only purpose of government is to protect the individual rights of the people. That is the defining principal of our nation. That is your job. You won't do it though, you'll leave me in a moment and go back to your scramble, trying to get your bill, whatever it is passed."

The young man tried to protest that his favorite bill was needed, that the new restriction on people he proposed was for their own good.

"No one cares about liberty anymore." The old man said while sadly shaking his head, cutting his new colleague off, and ambling away.

This Airstream is over 35 years old, yet still functioning exactly as intended, and will continue to do so for as many years as it receives the maintenance and care that it needs. Much like a house, it can conceivably last forever. At their core RV's are second homes, yet the average RV will be dead 5 or 10 years after it is built. Only Airstream understands that a second home needs to be, like a regular home, a substantial structure that can withstand the ravages of time.

This Airstream provides each and every basic need and desire one has in a home. There is a place for every function, for every activity. I can write, relax, sleep, cook, shower, even store an embarrassingly large wardrobe (much of which I'll never wear this year) all with comfort and convenience. There is nothing that I can do in my home that I cannot do in this Airstream, and it takes no additional effort to do any specific activity.

This Airstream is also remarkably green, especially given the fact that it was manufactured at a time when no one cared about such things. If it should ever come to the end of its useful life, the vast majority of it, its aluminum and steel can be easily recycled and would leave only a very small pile that would have to end up in a landfill.

I suppose that most importantly, this Airstream can move. Last year it was my second home in Olympia, but it was also my second home in Cannon Beach, Port Townsend, The Hood Canal, Sol Duc Hot Springs, La Push, Ocean Shores, Ellensburg, Prosser, and Walla Walla. If I don't like the scenery, or the neighbors, it's a mighty simple matter to hook up and go down the road a spell. If I long for the ocean or the sun, I can simply go and get my fill.

Is this Airstream perfect? Certainly not. Its age alone defies perfection. After three years of extremely heavy use though I can say that it is perfectly designed for its intended use, it is a perfect second home in every way I can conceive of.