This year's Thanksgiving was a great one. I got to spend it with good my good friends Greg, Kelly, Kevin, Lynn, Roxy, and Chris. Greg cooked up a great turkey with all of the fixin's; mashed potatos, gravy, stuffing, peas and onions, and more. I was certainly thankful for all of this good company. After we had stuffed ourselves we settled on the couches to rest for a while. Then Kevin, Lynn, and I decided to take advantage of the cold weather we've been having for the last few weeks (20s and 30s) and do some ice climbing... yep ice climbing... at midnight. I've done rock climbing and have my own boots and crampons, all I needed was a headlamp and a couple ice axes. Kevin and Lynn have done ice climbing before and they were the ones that knew about Indian Canyon. Only a few miles from downtown Spokane is a small stream that flows into a rift about 40 feet deep. The stream had turned into a 35 foot high column of glistening ice. We set our top rope and headed down to the bottom of the canyon. Lynn supplied the ice axes and we took turns ascending. It was fantastic. I powered up on my first ascent using my axes more than my crampons. I was getting out of breath near the top and my hands were aching from gripping the axes too hard (they have wrist straps so you hang by them rather than truly grip them). I finished the climb and, after we took turns, I made it up again. The air was totally still and the low clouds reflected the streets lights from downtown. It was one of the coolest outdoor activities I've ever done. I'm hooked and will probably start shopping for a deal on a couple axes soon. When I told Vic that we were going ice climbing at night he was a little worried. He knows Kevin is an experienced and sensible outdoorsman, but I should have explained better that we had climbing ropes that were anchored to a large tree above the falls and the climber was wearing a harness and the safety rope is controlled by the person 'on belay' at the bottom. When a crampon breaks loose or an axe breaks away from the ice, the climber is kept from falling by the belayer. Really quite safe.

Friday evening was spent with more friends. I got to see Karla and Terry who were in from Vancouver BC. We had dinner and drinks with a bunch of old friends. Just what the holidays are for. Saturday afternoon I met up with Bill from Seattle. We haven't had the pleasure of his company since Pendelton Round-Up. Bill braved the foggy and icy roads with his buddies Mike, Fred, and Arne. We met up at Charlotte and Laurie's house before going out for a night on the town.

The Warmth Of Friends...

Well, in the tradition of things things never being quite what you expect them to be; this weekend was no exception. We met at Tim's High Mountain Ranch on Saturday. Tim and his crew of Ben, Billy, Tom, and longtime family friend John had left Seattle somewhere in the vacinity of 1 a.m. Saturday morning to arrive at his place by 6 a.m. Paul drove over from Montana. When I arrived they had not really slept at all. This made for a very relaxing day... upon mutual agreement the bonfire was held in Tim's fireplace for ease of use ;-) . After such a hard day of lounging we feasted on some wonderfull chilli made by John with a side of pasta salad that he and Tim invented. With temps hovering in the teens, we settled in for some movie entertainment. The chosen title was 'Drop Dead Gorgeous'. It's a funny 'mockumentory' about a small town in Wisconsin that is holding a regional beauty pagent that turns ugly when the competitors begin to die mysterious deaths. It's a funny spoof that had us laughing most of the time. Mostly the day was about hanging out with friends in a warm, relaxed atmosphere. It is always great to see old friends and make new ones at Tim's place. If you have never been there you need to come along some time. Sunday was more good food and enjoying the warmth of these great people. All too soon, Benny and Jeff had to head back to Seattle, though the rest of us stayed the night to leave on Monday morning.

Bear With Me...

As a friend was nice enough to point out, the Links page doesn't have anything on it. That's 'cause I haven't finished it yet... I'm working on it. Also I would like to update my list of people who would like to recieve e-mail about short notice posse events etc... if you have emailed me in the past year please drop me a line again. I had some mail server problems and lost a few contacts. It doesn't have to be anything more than 'Hi' and 'Keep me updated about The Northwest Posse'. Your e-mail address will never be passed on without your permisson and won't appear in the cc: column of any group e-mails (remember it's always nicer to use BCC: unless you need to specificly let another person know who else you sent the mail to). Please send these e-mails of interest to northwestposse@excite.com ps. Please include a first name of some sort at least, and a short description to give me some reference of who you are, for example, I lost an address for a guy in Oknaogan who had written to me. So his might say 'Hi, it's Joe from Okanogan'. A pic would be helpful for keeping track of who's who, and would be kept in strictest confidence ( meant a pic of yer face, git yer mind outta the gutter ;->).

So yer a gay man, maybe...

Not more than a year and a half ago, I sucked up the courage to write to a guy who had a site on the Internet. His name was Tim Anderson and the site was highmountainranch.com. I was hugely conflicted about finally admitting to myself that I was gay. 'How can I be gay and not be anything like the stereotypes out there?' was the question that haunted me. Now so many gaps in my life have been filled. I am in a great relationship with a really cool guy. I have never felt closer to my family since coming out to them, now they know the real me (and so do I!). I sometimes get letters from other guys who are going through what I did. I read their words and think 'I could have written that' and in fact I often did. I send them pieces of e-mails that I exchanged with my new found friends, showing them how they are not alone in what they are going through. Offering them the same valuble advice that others gave me in my time of need. They often write long letters of thanks, that I am very greatful to receive. The best way they can repay me, I try to tell them, is when they have dealt with 'IT' and gotten a handle on their thoughts and emotions, to help another in the way they were helped. And from there it spreads outward. Hopefully increasing at some sort of geometric rate. In that spirit, I encourage those out there that are still on the edge of exploding inward because they need to tell someone, to write. Write to me, write to another Posse, just write to someone. You can get an e-mail address for free from just about anywhere and it will be anonymous. That is one of the reasons the Posses exist.