Scotch - Viking

I am an American born in the United States of America, in the state of Oregon in the county of Marion in the city of Salem. But that litany does not really interest me. I am those things by pure fate or total chance unless of course you are a believer in there being a total plan for ones life and then me being born when and where I was is part of some greater plan. I am a little skeptical about the idea of a greater plan. But that is a topic for another day and it may well be a topic that I have already worried to death and you folks may be tired of hearing about it anyway. What I am interested in talking about today is where my ancestors have come from.

I think what I am is a pretty common mix for most people in the pacific northwest. A lot of us in Oregon anyway seem to have some family members who stopped for a little while in North or South Dakota and some in Minnesota and then moved on to Oregon or Washington. That is the case on my Mothers side of the family. On my Dad's side near as I can tell they can trace their time in Oregon all the way back to the pioneer days. But as far as country of origin goes I think that the muddled up mix I come from is probably pretty common overall with those of typical American ancestry.

On my Father's side the mix is predominantly English and Scottish. I think that it is pretty close to a 50/50 mix but I wouldn't be surprised if there was some other countries thrown in there as well.

On my Mother's side it is Norwegian and Swedish though I have heard some talk that on my Mother's Fathers side things are a little bit muddled and I have heard him referred to as a Black Swede. I am not totally sure what that means to be honest. I do find it kind of fascinating that the town my Mother's Mother my Grandmother grew up in had a cemetery for the Swedes and a separate cemetery for the Norwegians.

All of that together created this messed up mix of a native Oregonian and proud to be one.

That is me, sitting in my favorite Coffeeshop in my usual location listening to music. Now as I look at myself in this picture, I wonder a couple of things 1: Do I look pretty? Never mind you do not need to answer that and 2: Do I look distinctly American or English or Swedish or Norwegian or Scottish? I don't think that I do. I think that I look pretty typically American or rather typically Northern European ancestry. Does it matter if I look like a certain ancestry or not? It doesn't to me but I know that if for sure does to some people. The idea of racism is not dead in this country or the world despite the best efforts of many. But race is pretty much a non issue for me. In fact really the only thing that I find interesting about my origins is that I am made up of basically four different types of people from four different countries that historically did not get along with each other all the well.

I don't know why but I find that fascinating and I like to think that is why I feel so conflicted all of the time. I know that of the four countries I am not nearly as dour as the typical Swede but other then that I am not sure if I have any real tendencies toward one or the other. I know also that had I grown up in one of those countries I could have and most likely would have turned out totally differently then I am today. Not that it really matters in the real world but in the purposes of today's writing I feel like that is important to take note of.

So my readers if any of you feel inclined to comment, I would love to hear where you call home and where you ancestors came from.

Scandinavian Festival

As most of you know, I live in the great and the beautiful Pacific Northwest. I think most of you know because the majority of my readers live here as well. I love it here and I honestly can't think of places that I would rather live. Though to honest I would, at some point in my life, like to live in Great Britain somewhere or in Sweden or Norway for a little while just to experience it.

So along those lines I went down to Junction City Oregon yesterday for the first day of the 52nd Annual Scandinavian Festival. The link really will give you far more information then I can about the event. But what I really wanted to tell you about was the pleasant nature of the small town atmosphere. I really did enjoy myself. Now it isn't like anything groundbreaking happened and I learned that I descend directly from the mighty Viking Eric the Red. But it was just a nice and pleasant day. The food was excellent and on a high note there was none of the oompa music that is so prevalent at Mt Angel and the Oktoberfest. I think that is basically because everything that Scandinavian's do is far better done and far more interesting then anything that a dirty German could accomplish.

I do have to address one particular food highlight for me and that is the Aebelskiver.

They are basically round balls of dough fried up in a specially made cast iron pan and people put jam on them. I am sure that there is some sort of official definition of them. But, all I know is that they are amazingly good and I wanted to eat a mound of them piled high on a plate with melted butter and powdered sugar dusted all over them.

To close out my blog post pandering to Scandinavians I will leave you with a few music videos showcasing some different types of music from that part of the world.

That was a more traditional number....

I like curling and metal but this one left me kind of speechless

Lastly the Icelandic band 'Of Monsters & Men" who I totally love. 

Thoughtful Thursday

Trying to get the cobwebs out of my brain and get woken up this morning. It appears that the sun is out this morning and that always makes for a nice start to the day. I have the window open and I can hear the birds chirping. I am waiting for my special hummingbird to make his or her appearance. How can you tell the difference between a male or female hummingbird?

I do not know. I looked but was unable to find the answer. Oh, I am sure it is out there. I am just to lazy to look for it right now.

I really enjoyed the feedback I received about last Thursdays thoughts I had about President Obama and the nature of politics in general. It really highlighted for me how different we all are when it comes to what we think is the best way to run the country. The more I think about it the more it really feels like a thankless job to me. I suppose it is possible that if something miraculous were to happen and the job rates were to soar to 100% and the deficit would be completely wiped out that a president could have an approval rating of 100%. But I am sure that despite all of that there would be people who would be unhappy and it wouldn't matter to them that everyone was working or that the USA was not in debt to China anymore. They would just find some other, vastly important, reason to be upset.

I think Carl said it best in the comments when he said that "...but I live and participate in an imperfect system." I think that is really key and something I need to remember. The system is never going to be perfect. There is no perfect system. There never will be. The best we can hope for is a system that seems to function most of the time. When I look around the world at other countries and their governments I see very few that I would like to emulate.

To be completely honest since I lean toward the Socialist, and I know that is enough to make a lot of your heads explode, I like how things are done in Sweden. Things just seem to work there. I am sure that there are a myriad of reasons why they are wrong and why that model of government would not work here in America. But, that is not my point. My point is that I like what they do there. There are people who like what we do in America and I am sure there are people who actually like living in Cuba or even Haiti for that matter or the old style Soviet Union or the new style Russia. Though for the life of me I am not sure why anyone would have liked living in the Soviet Union. I can understand being stuck there. But the way that people were treated who lived there it must have just been miserable.


I sidetracked myself. What I am trying to say is that one of the neat things about America is that we are able to freely debate these kind of things and do not have to worry about these thoughts being censored or being put on some kind of list for having a conversation and that is a pretty cool thing. So lets agree to disagree and ROCK IT OUT FOR THE USA!!!! USA, USA, USA!!!!!