I was that tough once...

Here are links to my first two podcasts! Podcast1 and Podcast2 P.S. It takes a few minutes to download each, and some computers won't notify you while this is happening. Go figure.

On Saturday my 14-year-old daughter Sarah and I went on what was supposed to be a 14-mile hike high into the wilderness of Rocky Mountain National Park to the most remote, hidden and seldom-visited lakes at the base of the northernmost 14,000 mountain in the entire Rocky Mountains, Longs Peak.

Sarah wanted to take pictures for her new blog, her My Space, and for this blog (I'm sure I'll use at least one, posted when she returns from her train trip to Illinois on Saturday).

As a parent, you're looking for such teachable moments, or signs of enthusiasm and passion, so you're all over them like a cheap suit.

We wanted to be at the highest lakes as close to the Magic Hour (the hour before sunset) as possible, so we left Boulder at 9:20 am, ate a big breakfast an hour later at the entrance to the Park, drove around trying to find a parking space (good thing we didn't take the shuttle - I had a premonition about this) near the trailhead, finally found one a half-mile away, packed up and left the car around noon.

Sarah had been, well, a teenager so when she suddenly went from sullen to chatty (like most teenagers, she doesn't have a dial but a toggle switch) we got lost in our conversation and lost on the trail. Like an idiot I had been too arrogant to even glance at a map and we walked almost two a half miles down the wrong trail right from the trailhead.

I finally realized my mistake and we backtracked and by the time we got to the trailhead that should have been the start of the hike, we'd already gone five miles.

Then miraculously I DID THE SAME THING AGAIN on another trail and this time we went at least a mile out of our way (fortunately to gorgeous Loch Lake where Sarah got some stunning photos while trout almost nipped at our toes). I asked Sarah if she wanted to continue to another lake and she said she wanted to go to our original destination and so we backtracked once again.

Along the way we met a group of climbers including one from Austria, and when we talked about ski racing I told him that I had raised Sarah to see if she could Alpine ski like an Austrian, Nordic ski like a Norwegian, speed skate like a Dutch person, play ice hockey like a Canadian, hike like a Nepali and run like a Kenyan.

I've mentioned that I'm a PSP and want to start a 12-step program for PSPs, or Psycho Sports Parents. "Hi, my name is Richard, and I'm a Psycho Sports Parent." I know at least 30 parents who I could get to form a circle and I'm sure I could get them each to agree that, "Yes, Richard, you are a Psycho Sports Parent."

So the climber and especially Sarah could see I was bragging obnoxiously and I vowed to never do this again. . .until now. Actually Sarah's been way above the average participant or even competitor relative to those from each of those countries, and I could've added short track ice speed skate like a Korean and in-line speed skate like an Italian (although Americans are as good at these last two).

After this little unpleasantness when we finally got to the junction to begin up the correct trail, we'd already hiked nine miles but we were only two miles from the trailhead.

It was a near-record hot day in Boulder and in the Park, so I soaked my t-shirt and hat in creeks and lakes (we were never more than 200 yards from water the entire day)and put them on dripping wet to keep me cool on our ascents. Hikers coming the other direction would stare at me and I'd apologize for sweating so profusely.

Finally we ascended beyond any continuous trails and Sarah showed her amazing routefinding ability through a fairyland of swamps, bogs, meadows, cliffs, creeks, snowfields, waterfalls, ponds and finally the lake.

We got to the lake right at the Magic Hour and Sarah took pictures. Just as I'd predicted the lake was still a quarter covered with ice because of the mountains and cliffs that surround it on all three sides up to 2200 vertical feet above it.

We waded in the obviously ice-cold lake, dried all our wet clothes and shoes (Sarah's were wet from falling in one of dozens of creek crossings, mine were wet from constantly soaking my shirt and hat), snacked and drank our last water.

Just like the first time we visited this lake in September (it was half iced over then) when Sarah had just turned 11, we had the lake and the area all to ourselves. On that previous trip we didn't notice anyone within a half-dozen miles of us in any direction, including the seven-mile hike back out.

Sarah wanted to explore the other high lake up there, so we traversed across what was probably a glacier 150 years ago when the Little Ice Age ended (it began around 1350), and was quite possibly either a glacier or permanent snowfield in 1971 when I started climbing glaciers (while there's been an overall warming trend for the last century or more, the period from 1940 into the Seventies cooled during the overall warming trend).

I didn't remember the snowfield that September (although new snow had fallen and stayed in such shady spots) so it's probably just one of thousands of glaciers and permanent snowfields worldwide that are no longer permanent through the summer, or that have disappeared until the next cooling trend, which could be thousands or even tens of thousands of years away - the most likely return of cooling will come as a result of nuclear winter or the die-off of the species that has emitted levels of carbon dioxide that the planet hasn't seen for most of a million years or more.

The other lake was even more shaded and thus was almost half-covered in ice all the way around the lake (usually the sunnier side of the lake becomes water first - I'd never seen this before) where the water was shallower and thus froze more quickly and completely.

We desperately tried to call Sarah's mom and Patti to tell them that we'd be home quite late and Sarah's cell phone played with us, taunting us by claiming to get service and then refusing to put through the call. We tried texting messages home, but nothing worked.

We traversed and descended the glacier, even skiing a little on our running shoes (fortunately trail running shoes we'd bought from our friend Mark Plattjes)and then Sarah did an amazing job of routefinding in encroaching darkness over quite challenging terrain.

We sat to drink water a camping climber who had plenty of water gave us, but other than that we didn't sit once in almost eight miles of descending in complete darkness (fortunately I had a good headlamp and flashlights and I'd just put new batteries in each of them).

Starting at noon, all in all we hiked 21 and a half miles, at least five miles going cross-country high above timberline and another six miles in complete darkness.

We got home at 1:30 in the morning, and six hours later Sarah ran five miles with her high school cross-country team.

I was that tough once, but only in a dream.

Are we humans, or some kind of a helmet?

Step by step, inch by inch, milimeter by milimeter (for anyone outside the U.S.) everything about The Truth About Everything is moving forward.

I finished the book and have started editing it from 1000 down to 300 pages.

While I didn't provide a page count writing it up to 1000, I'll let you know how many pages I've edited it down to, since I'm more excited about that.

Tonight we podcast a panel discussion about Peak Oil and related issues and that went very well.

The blog has been split between these personal, journal-like, diary-like, diarrhea-like entries and the more substantive, content-oriented entries you'll see over on "The Truth About Anything."

While the book and everything else is really called "The Truth About EVERYTHING" (not anything), there was already a blog with that title and we didn't want to create problems before we started.

So we're calling both blogs "Anything" when in fact I obviously know the truth about everything. Duh.

You still access us via "TruthEverything.blogspot.com."

I'm bringing the personal blogs over to this blog and leaving the more substantive ones over there.

When we really start advertising that blog you'll see a list of very provocative questions to begin discussions, like "Are we humans the cancer on the host body of all life?" and "If we continue doing what we're doing, how long before our species goes extinct?" and "Was that Ted Koppel's hair, or some kind of a helmet?"

Here, we'll deal mostly with the last question.

Hopeless, Helpless, Hapless part 2

So this fantasy I'd had about getting a couple hundred extra bucks if we made Max a ghost was now coming true. I called the vet and the dog owner's ex-wife, who might not have fought too hard to retain custody of Max after the divorce. ("Let's see, I'll take the house, the cars, all the furniture - oh, but you get Max.")

The ex-wife and Vet agreed on the phone that Max's time had come. . .about a decade ago, but putting her down now was the best we could do at this point.

I've heard that dying dogs can bite you if you try to pick them up, so in the 95 degree heat I put on my huge, thick ski parka and huge, thick ski racing gloves which didn't surprise my neighbors as I'm a little odd.

I picked Max up and put her in our equally dying 1989 Toyota Camry. Patti uses this car to deliver the mail which is so hard on the car that backing out of the driveway with the hole in the muffler (I think there's more hole than muffler at this point) it sounded like a renegade Harley. Then I put it in low (the transmission is so shot we have to drive it like a stick shift) and turned the wheels and it made the clackity-clack sound of a group of cars climbing the initial hill of an ancient roller coaster. (You think I'm joking, but I'll record this sound on an upcoming podcast and you'll see that I'm not.)

We got to the biggest hill on our route and now it was a real contest to see who was going to die first. The 1989 Toyota Camry clackety-clacked to a crawl and I thought this was it. The 1989 (coincidentally) Basset Hound had her eyes clouding over and any second her eyes seemed ready to turn to Xs.

Cars whizzed past like we were standing still, maybe because we almost were. A 10-year-old on a 1968 Stingray bike passed us, then a nanny pushing a toddler in a stroller. Then an octagenarian using a walker passed us.

What would I do if the Camry died on this hill? Carry Max to the vet? Drag her by her leash and collar? I could hear the vet saying, "Well, Max is still alive, but she has no fur on one side of her body."

Miraculously the Camry and Max both made it to the top of the hill alive, but the ex-wife had said that she wanted Max's ashes, so I looked at Max and realized that while I was going out with a dog looking at me, I'd be coming back with the contents of a large ashtray.

When I carried Max into the Vet's the receptionist agreed that we were looking at a soon-to-be-deceased dog, and she guided me to an empty room where I sat on the floor with Max. They had some stuffed animals there and I put on a little spontaneous puppet show for Max, who looked at me as if to say, "Okay, at least I'm not the only one dying here."

We had a brief metaphysical conversation and I told Max how much I loved her, how much Molly loved her (and who she'd no doubt be seeing soon in dog heaven - that's the way old couples are), how much her owner loved her, how much her owner's wife and ex-wife - well, we just stopped there and looked at each other.

Max is a bright dog, and while I've made some jokes here, this is not a joke: I swear that when the Vet came in to give Max her last rites before putting her to sleep, Max jumped up and started walking around the room in a spirited way, wagging her tail.

This is like hearing a rattle, taking your car to the mechanic and then not hearing the rattle once you get there.

The veterinarian, Dr. Glenn, was wonderful and she fed Max some doggie-aspirin to lessen her pain, and Max came home with me and she's lying right here at my feet now in the fetal position like a puppy in the womb, which I think she will be shortly, but not now.

She wants to see and say good-bye to her beloved owner before she goes.

And she wants to teach me to be patient and caring about every living thing.

She and I might be hopeless, helpless and hapless, but no one is worthless.

Hopeless, Helpless, Hapless part 1

Part of the humor of "The Making of The Truth About Everything" is that I can work for Jack Nicholson, chat with Presidents and claim to know the truth about everything, but in reality I have to take care of elderly dogs and people to make ends meet, not that ends have met.

My best canine clients are (and were) 16 and 1/2 year old Molly and her lifelong (gay) lover, the 17-year-old (119 in dogs years, though she seemed much older) Basset Hound Max (lest you think they're not gay, Max is short for Maxine).

Max was hopeless, helpless and hapless, as I am.

After my first wife divorced me (maybe, as I've said, if I hadn't always introduced her as "My first wife. . .") I put fliers up all over the neighborhood stating that I was looking for a place to live.

Then a while later I put up fliers advertising "Daddy-Daughter Dog Care," and then subtly announced my marriage to Patti when the fliers changed to "Family Pet Care."

All these were printed on flourescent lime green paper. I put the last posters up on every telephone pole in our mile square neighborhood one day (if you looked down any street you'd see them on pole after pole for as far as the eye could see), got a call from the city about them, then took them all down the next day. And this was pretty much the height of my marketing sophistication and success.

So dogs take after their owners, even after their pet-sitters, and so Max was hapless. About three years ago Patti and I took her on a walk when suddenly Max stopped while Molly forged ahead.

Max wouldn't move with any coaxing, until finally we noticed her long thumbnail on one paw was caught in one of the many tiny holes in the metal of a stopsign post.

Max had what must be a painful tumor on her stomach, so of course my first thought was to see if I could exploit this fact for laughs.

I videotaped from Max's POV as she looked up the concrete stairs leading outside from the basement of their house where she and Molly lived most of the time.

Max knew that when she could no longer make it up those steps, her life would be over. So she stood at the bottom, staring up the steps like Mallory looking up at the summit of Everest. Then she'd make a heroic and pathetic surge and jump-run-hop-flounder up them.

In addition to the heroic side of this, I videotaped from Max's POV, and then from the tumor's POV. The tumorcam wasn't actually mounted on her tumor. Since all mankind is the tumor killing the host body of all life on earth, I thought this might somehow tie into TTAE metaphorically.

My step-son Isaac actually takes care of the dogs far more than I do, but on the first day of this two-week job, Max fell down the stairs and hurt herself. So Molly and Max came to live with us, even though our landlords don't allow dogs.

The next morning after her fall Max couldn't get up, move, eat, drink, pee or poop.

Without mentioning names, I'll just say that while the man of the house (Max's house) is a wonderfully dedicated dogowner and he and his wife are wonderful people, I got the feeling that the wife might someday take me aside and say, "You know, there's an extra couple a Franklin's in it for you if Max, uh, has a little but permanent accident before we get back. Kapisch?"

We could probably make a lot more money becoming the Jack Kevorkian of older and less continent pets. Since we also do elder care, that was a path I didn't want to go down.

My dream has always been to get a lot of pet care clients and take all the pets to North Boulder Park with a lot of children we're also paid to take care of and then get all the elderly people we're paid to take care of to look after the children who are playing with the pets while we go to a movie and make a couple of hundred an hour.

It turns out this often doesn't work as well as one would hope.

You'd think they'd at least all move in the same general direction, but it turns out all the various species and ages go in different directions, and some of them will disappear over the horizon.