July 2005 Archives

to know that my problems are the same problems that human beings have been facing down for thousands of years, and that i'm hardly the first to ever have these particular problems.

oh wait, did i say "comforting"? i meant to say "not comforting in the least".

so yesterday, my pa, for the first time since i've known him (all my life, as a matter of fact), says he knows what he wants for his birthday. my dad's a nightmare to gift; he never says what he wants, and everyone knows that no matter what they give him, he won't like it (or at least he won't use it. he certainly won't read it).

so when he says he knows what he wants it's quite a thing. quite a unique thing.

evidently in his (well-deserved) unemployed retirement, he has decided to return to the kingly sport of...

bowling. he wanted bowling gear. his birthday is still 2 weeks away so i had hope of coordinating with the home office to acquire the necessary stuff. tragically, he destroyed my oil-rich hopes in an overwhelming pre-emptive strike, going on a bowling-gear binge that rivals my rei camping-gear binges.

now he's got all he wanted for his birthday and i'm left, once again, with just a card. which i haven't got yet.

haven't blogged much lately.

why not?

i quit coffee. haven't had a drop in... nearly 3 weeks. right? i think so, hard to tell in my uncaffeinated condition. time doesn't work properly anymore. who am i? so confused...

i quit coffee every once in a while, and summertime is an unusually good time to quit, since nothing's more miserable than a hot drink on a hot morning. well, if it's smooth delicious coffee it's not... so... baddddddd ohhh god i need some coffee!!!

blarrarasrhrhagfgfhghgh!!!!!

i got a new tent.

reasons:

i can put my shoes on first

Solo hiking offers a great opportunity for a time of spiritual renewal. Meditation, contemplation, and reevaluation can be carried out as you while away the hours on route. Without the distractions of modern day living, communing with the creator becomes simpler and more rewarding than ever.

i thought i'd try seated military press for a change to eliminate the cheating that i'd introduced into my standing MP, and to minimize the lower back risk.

i haven't done Seated MP in a long time.

so on the first rep, bringing the bar up, i bang the bar into my chin. i happened to be biting my lip -- bill clinton-style -- at the time. took a chunk off the inside bottom lip. yum.

that's the first time i've drawn blood internally (that i know of) while lifting. (well, technically, i was still bleeding externally, i guess.)

what a stupid, stupid, beginner mistake.

and that kind of throwing-shit-around is exactly why i wanted to do seated presses.

audible ecstacy.

i'm too old to be a raver. nuts.

and i feel all right the next day.

i made a miraculous discovery last week: how to properly lace my boots.

this time i have almost no blistering.

youbetcha.

but it wouldn't stick. a little off center, it is, and barely adhesive. if i ever get a car wash (fat chance) or if it rains (more likely) it will probably come off.

still. it rocks.

i so rarely get the chance.

i asked w not to take advantage of me while i am inebriated but i dont think she listened

chixx dig a drunk guy

especially a belchie drunk guy

affligem is not as good as maredsous which is not as good as gulden draak.

nothing's as good as gulden draak.

GD costs three fiddy a bottle and the bottles are small but they're 10.5 % alkie so yous gets yers moneys worth.

yeah.

surely thou shalt repent of thy cunning

- this is my second time ever drunk in front of another person
- i did it all on belgians
- i told my mom today the blog's url, so she'll probably read this
- i wouldn't have had any alkie tonight at all, but W wanted some and she didn't like what i bought so i drank most all of it

okay, those weren't really interesting.

best beer ever.

i think the last time i had one was when i was moving out of my old place, i saved it from being poured down the sink.

it's hard to appreciate a GD after a lambic and a tripel, but there's nothing i'd rather have as a top-off than the old draak.

looks like the girlfriend only likes the fruity lambics, which is better than not liking beer, but there's not nearly as much alkie in a lambic as there is in a tripel or a GD.

that's fine -- more alkie for me.

wheee!!!

windy hill. i've been there before. this time i didn't have a cold and i brought plenty of water and sunscreen and REI crapola. still got lost, thanks to my stupidity in following the advice of a "helpful" stranger. added an extra mile on to my hike, which was to be "restful" this weekend. of course, you know as well as i that i can no sooner take a "restful hike" than i can have a "relaxing weekend" so i wasn't fooling anybody when i set out with such as my goal.

it was bleeding hot out there today, and my boots still suck. but they suck less if i lace them up tightly. sure wish i'd thought of that 3 weeks ago.

i took the loop in the other direction this time, and hit the summit too. the gps shut itself off (!!) so i have no idea how far i went, though the excellent mrosd maps could probably tell me if i bothered to go into the other room to pick it up and look. i'd estimate 9 miles. maybe 10, maybe 8, maybe 11, maybe 8.

now with that out of the way, it's time for a shower and get ready for the rest of my busy saturday.

if (if) she ever had any chance of getting my vote, now it's gone.

it hardly needs to be said, but I'll say it anyhow:

A statement distributed by the Senator's office this afternoon sets the scene, stating that "following recent reports revealing that the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has graphic pornographic content which may be unlocked by following instructions on the Internet, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton will hold a press conference to discuss legislative solutions to keep inappropriate video game content out of the hands of young people."

before, when you were simply murdering hookers and children it was an appropriate video game, but now that you can have sex without seeing genitals, it's somehow inappropriate.

hm.

time slows down
and amidst the pain
i hear my thoughts
alone
again
dampness
my new lost friend
shares with me his word
and turns to me a cold deaf ear
while i wonder
amidst the ice

checker (who has seen me many times before) : you're 22, right?
me : 27, actually

that's when he asked for id

coo coo ca choo, i look 22.

8.5 miles or so, I didn't stick to the "featured hike" entirely. once i hit the "gray whale trail" i gave my bahiker printout to some dude that wanted to know where i'd come from. he was appreciative.

the hike featured incredible views the first 2 miles or so, then the fog hit. 50ft visibility. i had to put on my fleece after a while. i was chilled.

once i was enveloped in fog and fleece there was little to look at. still, the hike itself was quite the dilly-o. straight uphill. fun stuff. still, once the top is reached there's little to do -- it's a NO TRESPASSING gate and a bunch of microwave emitters. There's a good pee-spot that I didn't use but wished I had. Not much else. I sat and ate my sangwiches before returning down.

On the way down I spotted a side trail I didn't see before. It was narrow and rocky and steep and overgrown and thoroughly cool. Almost got hit by some mountain bikers, turns out this is a MB trail.

The hike itself was very challenging on the way up, but overall I was underwhelmed. I think I kicked myself up a notch with the 15 miler 2 weeks ago and the overnighter + 50lbs last weekend. Anything less will seem easy from now on, as this did.

What am I to do? Carry an extra 30lbs just to make it interesting?

My boots suck. Even with 2 pairs of socks my feet still hurt. I hate shoes. I can never find ones that I like and that fit. Strike that -- I like my birks and my tevas but I'm not going to hike in them.

But other than the footache I'm not really tired. Energized is more like it. w00t.

Neat things I saw on the hike:
- fog
- Pacifica
- The Pacific
- fog
- really amazing orange flowers
- really amazing bright red flower stems
- fog
- a geocache
- a rusty old overturned possibly antique car at the top of the hike
- fog
- lots of poop on the trail
- no really; LOTS of poop on the trail. tons.

i've been drinking expired milk for the last 2 days.

and i put the container back in the fridge after noticing this.

i love that guy.

he cracks me up every time:

a coworker is going to tibet to do some kind of missionary work, not necessarily related to the jebus. they keep changing the assignment on him. first it was to teach english, then html, now, who knows?

what we do know is that he wanted some photos of his american coworkers to show to the tibetans.

here is what they will think americans look like.

i've never really had what's known as a "waist".

or at least, if I've got one, I've never been able to find out where it is.

this renders difficult for me many activities taken for granted by those who have successfully located their waists, such as: wearing pants, wearing belts, even wearing a kilt.

fortunately for me, though, being home and alone i am fettered by none of the above.

i was really kind of liking python until i realized it has exceptions.

bleah.

Horseshit. When you're ready to have a serious conversation about Batman fighting Indiana Jones, you know where to reach me.

i was close.

turns out i meant to learn python instead.

that one takes a minute to sink in when you read it with a morning headache.

um, yeah, okay, sure.

so, i weighed almost everything that i took or could possibly take on future trips. then i wrote a quick perl script to add everything up:

Total number of items : 85 items
Total mass : 21220 grams
Total weight : 749.066 ounces (46.816625 pounds)

that's including 5 liters of water, but excluding 2 pairs of socks, 1 pair of underpants, 1 pair of shorts, an apple, a couple of clif bars, some powdered milk, coffee beans, raisin bran, powdered omelet.

okay, fine. i guess all that crap could add up to the missing 7lbs. well, probably not but i likely forgot something, and i used the weight for my new MEDIUM pack instead of the LARGE i took out on the trip.

also, this doesn't count the combat murse and GPS and PB+J sangwiches and the various items i kept in said combat murse.

still, now that i have the list i can pare down my travel weight. first thing to go is prolly the rainfly. i can sleep in the rain, right? right? anything less is not roughing it.

because i'm geeky like that, i'll probably fashion a web interface for this crap. oooh, and put a database on the back end. yeah!

being anal.

got out my kitchen scale and i'm measuring, in grams, the mass of all my hikamping gear.

i'm damn well gonna find out why my pack weighed 50lbs.

W liked the lambic, proving two things:

1 - i know how to pick em (chicks and beer, that is)
2 - people who "don't like beer" probably just haven't had the right beer.

b
i
nongovrnmentalorganization

b
i
nongovrnmentalorganization

b
i
nongovrnmentalorganization

and bingo was his name-o.

ironing your man's kilt.

boom.

otay, here it is already then:

look at the map.

I started out parked at Jay (panel 2).

redwood trail to skyline to the sea trail to hihn hammond road (stopover at mt mcabee lookout, incredible view, good PBJ sangwich) to mccrary ridge trail to skyline to the sea to twin redwoods trail camp, where i had a reservation.

i was also on howard king trail for a while but this map is not the same as the one i bought at the ranger station.

i looped at one point because the signs were unclear and i listened to the advice of fellow hikers. doh.

pack weighed in at 52lbs before i left. i took out one 1liter water bottle, leaving me with 3.75 liters in a 1li bottle and a 2.75li hydration bag.

this was the first trip out with my new backpack, a gregory keeler. nice bag. not supposed to hold 52lbs. it did anyhow. i suspected that the bag was ill fitted to me (it's a size large but i might need a medium) on the other hand, it could just be that any bag is going to be uncomfy with 52lbs.

i found a really nice walking stick about 1.5 mi from the camp. over the next day and a half 6 people would comment on it: "nice stick". okay.

by the time i reached twin redwoods, i had already passed two fellow backpackers coming out of the twin redwoods from the other direction (parked in rancho del oso). they told me the camp "was a parking lot". what? there should be no cars there. then they let me in on something i didn't know: on one side of the trail (the trail camp side) lies big basin redwoods state park (yay), on the other side lies private property (which we should be celebrating this day). upon the private property was a parking lot filled with "campers" and screaming kids, they said.

they said they were going to find another camp and stay there. i told them i'd seen what looked like an abandoned camp just up the trail. we parted ways.

when i got to twin redwoods i found that they had made it sound much better than it actually was. the first thing i saw was a not-high-enough fence (or trees, i don't recall) partially obscuring 3-4 350lb old women in bikinis (no shit) and cowboy hats, laying back in lounge chairs and applying lard (or possibly sunscreen) beneath their bikini tops (must be lard, why put sunscreen there?).

around them were the aforementioned screaming kids.

there were cars with raiders bumperstickers and pickup trucks and did i mention screaming kids?

the kids were running from the private campsite into the park campsite, playing in the park's creek (where i'd need to draw drinking water) and shitting in the park's shitter. i was tired. i was hot. i was tired and hot and really angry. i put on my best scowl and turned around. a "camper", "clothed" in baggy, sagging jeans and a raiders jacket, was walking with his girlfriend or sister (possibly both) in the same direction, unladen. I, with my 50lb pack but fueled by PissedOff (TM), passed them, angrily and noisily, banging my walking stick every couple of steps. I could tell it irritated Saggy Pants. Good.

i arrived back at what the online map identifies as camp herbert (it's not on any of the 3 printed big basin maps that i have). the place was abandoned, overgrown, with no clearly marked camp sites. i stood very still and listened until i could hear the two backpackers i'd met on the trail. they were set waaay back from the trail by the stream. a perfect spot. i found a less perfect spot behind a burnt out redwood, a half-moon husk that served as a barrier, shielding my camp from the trail. a good spot. we chatted a bit. they told me about where they'd gone hiking last weekend and i forgot the place twice. i still dont remember it. they saw 2 rattlesnakes and got photos of one. good on them.

i set up camp, took a whiz in the grossly undermaintained shitter, lit my mosquito repellant, filtered and iodized 6 liters of water, and got eaten alive by bugs. i changed into shorts and sandals (tevas are nice but next time i'm taking lighter weight $2 target flip-flops). fired up my pocket rocket and cooked up my cheese enchiladas "serves two". served one. something like 42g of fiber (no shit! er, i mean, big shit!). that hit the spot. i was really really tired for some reason so i hit the sack. i tore thru a buncha chapters of the book i was reading (OSC's "speaker for the dead") and had to put it down around 10pm when i was too tired to read any more. i slept, fitfully. i'm still not used to sleeping in the coffin-style sleeping bag. i like to sleep in a figure-4, which is not easily attainable in my bag. oh well.

woke up at the buttcrack of dawn, surprisingly unmolested by rangers and raccoons. cooked up my breakfast of "serves two" "mexican omelette", iodized-water-and-powdered-milk in raisin bran, and freshly ground coffee. best coffee ever, btw. i packed up as quickly as i could, which wasn't too quick. applied some moleskin to the irritated parts of my footsies, sprayed some DEET on me when the bugs showed up, and immediately regretted the DEET when some got into my mouth and i had to wash it out with iodine water. yum on top of yum. yumyum.

my bags all packed i gathered up my teepee and paid the pit one last visit. i can squat 1.5x my body weight in the gym, so you can bet i'm able to fire one off without touching what passes for a wilderness turlet. a little bit of purell's (hey, i'm no barbarian) and i was ready to go. gathered up my walking stick and pack and turned on the GPS to check the time -- it's not much use for positioning in the redwoods.

8:45.

i set a mighty pace and took skyline to the sea (northbound) to redwood trail (the wrong way long way) to jay parking lot. my iodized water was nearly gone and i was ready for that home-PUR-ed 1liter bottle i'd left behind in the car. time: noon.

i was cranky, hot, tired, hungry, thirsty, and a bit woozy from exertion. just about everyone i ran into on the way back (far more than i'd met on the way "there" -- the mccrary ridge trail was a bit deserted) wanted to know "how far is it to berry creek falls" and "hey the sign says it's 6 hours and really hard, is that true?" and "did you come from the falls?"

no, i didn't come from the falls. if the sign says it's 6 hours and hard, then maybe the hike is 6 hours and hard. one elderlyish indian lady commented to her husband in tones not intended for me to hear: "wow, he's really sweating." damn right i was. it's What I Do.

i put at least 22 miles on my new hiking socks. i left the walking stick in the jay parking lot, partly because that's The Wilderness Way and partly because It Wouldn't Fit In My Car. i double socked on the return trip and it helped but not enough, i still bashed my toetips. i carried 50+lbs in what REI today confirmed was the wrong sized pack. i got really sore shoulders. i got really really sore feet. i got deet in my mouth and bugbites everywhere else. i got a light sunburn and ate a lot of clif bars. i spent a lot of the time pissed off, sweating, walking fast, and not resting.

best trip ever.

i've got a big insect bite up on top of my head.

the cool thing about bug bites on top of the head is you can pick em and nobody will know.

looks like i wont have time to blog the whole thing today.

i got real tired after my shower.

now it's time to go.

i have mosquito bites on my back, nasty ones.

they must have gotten in thru my breathable tee shirt. bleah.

it's Frobuary 3, YOMHC.

sure am glad i got it buzzed before the hikamping trip.

kept me nice and cool.

mashed up. torn up. stunk up.

hosed.

double socked today. single socked yesterday. alpaca... mmmmm.

not as bad as it could have been -- 15mi last weekend with no pack resulted in quite a lot more pain. the alpaca socks really helped quite a lot.

still, ow.

not doing that again next weekend.

wow, i stink.

shoulda stayed longer but i longed for a shower.

if not for showers, i would live out there. there wasn't another thing i missed. i hate coming back.

just now followed the "does your pack fit?" instructions that came with it. yeah, it fits. i just put too much shit in it. i guess when you're carrying 50lbs it's just going to hurt no matter what.

i've read lately that OSC is quite the asshat irl and in his personal beliefs. still, he floored me today with the following, from "speaker of the dead":

He had not realized how dependant he was on her constant presence with him. He had thought that he valued his solitude; now, though, with solitude forced upon him, he felt an urgent need to talk, to be heard by someone, as if he could not be sure he even existed without someone's conversation as evidence.

Wow, that sounds familiar.

I see this in myself, now. When I am alone, I want not to be. When I'm not, I often want to be.

It makes planning and decision-making rather difficult. So it goes.

occurrence: spent night at W's, showered there, dropper her off at work
observation: felt tired, burning eyes, congestion

occurrence: arrived on peninsula, had haircut
observation: felt tired, burning eyes, congestion

occurrence: took shower, shaved, applied aftershave and hair goop
observation: feel great, eyes okay, no congestion

conclusions: wtf?

in one area, at least.

went and blew a wad o cash on a new shaving set:

i already had a badger brush and DE razor. this is a higher quality brush and a more "advanced" razor.

the brush smells like badger. it's kinda gross. but i think it's fading. i hope so, because the difference in quality is obvious: it's unbelievably soft. i thought my old brush ("pure badger" rather than the newer "silvertip badger") was soft. it is, but this one blows it away.

mmmm, soft brush on face.

the razor is the real reason i bought it, though. it is the end of upgrade-itis : unless I want to custom design one for myself, this is about the "best" store-shelf model I can get. it's fancy-like and adjustable, which I have found is handy. I can change the blade angle to get a closer shave. and with the silvertip brush i can make a better lather to support the more "aggressive" blade angle. i am already impressed with the results, and that with the "free" blade which is known to suck. still working on finding the "optimal" blade angle.

it's neat.

and a little fey, I must admit.

so be it. mmmmmmm, badger brush.