September 2005 Archives

after grabbing my mail, i failed to watch where i was walking as i returned to my apartment. i felt my foot hit something and i tripped a bit but kept walking before it registered. i wondered what i'd hit, so i looked around and was surprised to find a little stunned squirrel thingy. he had a big bushy tail but a body like a kangaroo rat: long hindlegs, shorter forelegs and a body that bent more than a squirrel's. i think it *was* a squirrel because we have lots of those here and rather few kangaroo rats. besides, kangaroo rats have rat's tails and this guy had a squirrel tail, and his hindlegs were not quite so long as a kangaroo rat's. i think maybe he was just an adolescent squirrel, or maybe a squirrel with birth defects.

i bent down and apologized to him for kicking him. he seemed unconvinced so i repeated my apology. he behaved very unsquirrel-like. he was not at all afraid of me. after i'd talked with him for a while (yes, talked with him, not to him) i backed slowly away. he follewed me. we walked around the garage a bit, he following me. i wanted to pet him but was afeared of catching or spreading a disease.

i decided to take him upstairs with me and perhaps make of him a pet or a dinner. i located an empty shoe box (actually, it was my shoe box. i had thrown it out this morning but the trash hadn't been collected) and tried to get him to walk into it, but he didn't want to. so i re-tossed the shoebox and headed toward the elevator. my rodent followed. i openened the elevator and stepped inside. gingerly, the kangaroo-squirrel-rat followed me inside the elevator. he looked around a bit and as the doors began to close, he slowly darted out. the doors of my elevator tend not to stop for anything less than 100lbs of opposing force, so i slapped them hard open to keep them from crushing my furry friend.

he hop-scurried across the lot and under some stairs. i followed him and brought him out from under the stairs. he hopped across the lot and toward the dumpster. a resident approached in his car and i made sure that the resident saw the rodent. the guy in the car turned wide to avoid the rat-thing.

finally, i decided it was time to go, i was going to miss my run if i stayed down there any longer. i waved and said goodbye to my pal and i left.

many hours later, after returning from the theater and taking a leak in my apartment (bathroom), i went back to the garage with a flashlight but could not find my squirrel-rat friend. maybe tomorrow?

but i didn't lose my TO DO list.

that's good, because TO DO is better than TO GET.

i cleaned out a closet last night and found an old but in-good-shape pair of comfortable reebok walking shoes that i got way back in the distant past. score!

then i cleaned out a backpack and found an old but in-good-shape pair of comfortable socks that i'd been missing since... well, since i put them in the backpack. score again!

found this site while reading about bloop while reading about giant squid.

all the links are amazing, and all the sounds on the noaa site are incredible. i got a little spooked listening to the "unidentified" sounds and imagining what they could be.

brr.

reply here if you do. i'm curious.

i went to go do the very thing for which i originally bought my emachine laptop, and was thwarted by its absence (and by my proclivity for avoidance).

so i made up my mind and ordered the new one. customized hp dv1000 series, estimated shipping oct 11 (ick).

it's frobuary 1, YOMHC 0xb.

waaaay back at haircut #1, i got some advice from multiple independant chinese coworkers: "don't get a haircut at an asian place, they don't know how to cut white people hair". so i ended up with a $55 haircut delivered by a non-asian. it was good. it was very good. so was the followup $55 non-asian haircut. and then i decided i didn't want to pay the better part of a benjamin for a bit of clippers and some hair goo so i started going to "great clips" and "oldtime barbers" and stuff. and my happiness with my haircuts declined steadily.

so today i tossed the advice and went to an asian (chinese? possibly.) barber shop. they didn't understand any better than anyone else the usual request to "keep it longish on top". nor did they understand my request for a cut that looks good without gel. but despite these failures of communication (which, of course, were mostly my fault), I ended up with a much better haircut than the crap i'd been getting at "great clips". it actually works sans hair goop, too, which, despite being a great departure from my YOMHC 1 trajectory, is my current preference.

it cost 5 bucks more than great clips and another fiver for a shampoo. at half the price of an excellent cut, it was a decent enough deal that i'll be going back there for the next one.

as a result of the experiment, my day is no longer punctuated by the morning and evening meds. now, my "morning" had already gotten quite flexible, occurring somewhere between 7am and 11am.

but the "evening" was always fixed between 7pm and 7:30pm, with a heavy emphasis at 7pm. now, when 7 rolls around, i feel a bit lost. disoriented more by the absence of a ritual marker than by the effects of the drug.

speaking of which, i'm doing much better than i expected. much, much better. and my voice is deeper now that my sinuses are full of snot.

sexy.

nice tuxedo to DIE IN!!!!!

my old post-roast bean cooling method was time-tested and ancient: dump the beans from container to container, one container per hand, until "cool". this worked but not quickly. it's nice to have a fast bean cooler because it reduces some variables (post-roast-roast, for example). plus, this method doesn't remove much chaff and it takes a long time.

so over the weekend i picked up some screen door screen and a 5 gallon bucket. i fired up the dremel to remove the bucket's bottom and i located a large floor fan. i rotated the fan such that it fired vertically, put the screen over the fan, and the bucket over the screen. it worked fine on a "test" run but this morning was my first actual roast-run.

it worked even better than expected: it blew chaff up and out of the bucket and all over my patio (good) and it cooled 12oz (green) of beans in about 45 seconds. when i say "cooled" i mean it made them cooler than ambient, which is something impossible to achieve with the old method. in fact, i'd never even reach ambient with the old method: i'd get bored first and give up.

so far so good. now i have to see if it makes a difference in the cup.

but now i may have re-un-changed my mind.

bleah.

i sure as shit don't need it. but nobody really needs an apple product.

one of the crew brought a camera. not a lot of artsy pics, mostly just shots of the head and the instruments, but we did end up with a couple nice ones:

the skipper and one of his crew

nice weather for sailing by instruments

one of the millions of interesting things we saw that day: a weather monitor station for the monteray bay aquarium.

despite all my rage i'm still just a rat in a cage.

i wonder: what will happen if i stop taking my allergy meds?
i know: i'll feel like crap.

i wonder: what will happen if i stop taking my allergy meds for an entire week?
i don't know, i haven't tried that in five years. maybe i will have a religious experience. i already have a horrible, sinus-splitting headache and can't breathe out of one nostril. and that's just from skipping one night's dose and visiting W's house.

this ought to be fun.

jake jacobs lived across the street when i was a kid. we were Best Friends. i can't picture clearly the faces of my family members but i can close my eyes and see jake jacobs, with his darkish skin and his droopish eyes and his runny nose. we read about "indian blood brothers" somewhere and we performed the ritual. his blood ran through my veins. we were Best Friends.

but we were only Best Friends in the morning. jake jacobs would come to visit me, his Best Friend, and we would have fun until not long after lunch. then, we'd find ourselves embroiled in argument, likely squabbling over whose army men should be wiped out and whose should triumph. i don't remember the nature of the actual arguments. i remember the result: jake jacobs would resign his post as my Best Friend or i would revoke it; often both at once.

jake jacobs would leave my house and we'd part as eternal enemies, never to share a smile again.

but the next day we'd once again be Best Friends, and he'd bring his soldiers over, accepting and bearing apologies, for another half-day of spirited and consequence-free miniature combat simulation.

after all these years, through all the things that have changed in my life, with all the tables that have turned, and all the fortunes that have changed, and all the things that turned out opposite of how i predicted or hoped, my friends are all still jake jacobs.

perhaps this is my strength and perhaps it is my downfall. i cannot hold a grudge. i can remain cold in the face of those who do not bring apologies for trade, but even must i imagine reconciliation upon their lips, my forgiveness is very real, for all my daily jake jacobses.

and if after all these years, through all the things that have changed in my life, with all the tables that have turned, and all the fortunes that have changed, and all the things that turned out opposite of how i predicted or hoped, my friends are all still jake jacobs, and i, an un-ordinary person capable of sweeping, drastic, and effectual personal changes, remain at the core the same person i was when i was 8...

... how can i expect anyone else to ever change anything at all?

and yet, some people do change, yes?

yes?

i can't be anything but ordinary, can i?

a conundrum that fills me with questions. to consider myself anything but ordinary is not only hubris but worse: statistical error. but the way i craft and mould and bend myself to my will seems anything but ordinary. to accept that i possess an unusual skill or an un-ordinary will is to concede un-ordinariness and with this concession, to accept the notion that others are incapable of similar life changes.

and that is a dim view of things.

so i must choose: the mathematically improbable world where i enjoy membership in an elite cabal of extra-ordinary reality tunnelers, or the world where i'm quite ordinary, and thus everyone has the ability to effect change in themselves. but the evidence is not with the latter choice, unless we assume that everyone has the ability but few have the desire, which, again, does not hold with the evidence.

and still, i can not accept the notion of uniqeness. i shall not resolve the issue in an exhausted stream-of-consciousness blog posting of 1am: i've grappled with this at full brain power and found myself in a twisty little maze of passages, all alike.

but i'm writing again. and i'm feeling again. i'm me again.

as i always have been. all is forgiven.

my first charter! it went very very well. i managed to round up three office palys: one an experienced sailor and two total newbs. the basics are easy to teach and even easier to dictate ("pull that rope there until i say stop") and the newbs picked things up quickly. the weather was less than ideal but typical for santa cruz: 10kts of wind, fog, no sun. bleah. the charter boss had our hopes up with promises of 25kts, but we sure never saw the missing 15kts.

one of the newbs got seasick. i don't think he'll be sailing again. the other really seemed to enjoy himself. he might be going again ;)

no damage to the boat, though i did overheat the engine by throttling too hard for too long -- i'd have thought that would be okay but that's what i get for thinking.

we didn't do many maneuvers on account of the low wind, but i suppose smooth sailing is better than no sailing. in all, a rather relaxing, enjoyable time. next time, i'm bringing the beer. i should have thought of it this time.

it could have been better, but it also could have been much worse. some time in the future i expect i'll figure out what one is supposed to do on a chartered boat and then it will be even more fun.

.

driving thru pacifica today i was assaulted by a swarm of greengrocer's apostraphes (read this book, it rocks my socks to the max), not to mention quotation marks used as underlines. sign after sign on store after store until finally i came to one shop that had everything correct, despite ample opportunity for offense. "crab sandwiches" and "local fruits" and stuff and not a stray apostraphe anywhere!

i felt like bursing tearfully into the store and personally thanking the shopkeep on behalf of myself and Ms. Truss, but I was in kind of a hurry and it's not in my nature so I didn't.

i may dominate on the uphill hike, clean up at the friendly poker table, kick ass with a C compiler, shock and awe with ancient video game references, and amaze small children with my fashion sense, but i really suck at pool.

and i'm not getting any better.

bleh.

worst. roast. ever.

i'm out of practice. it's charcoaly. yuck.

I did about 10.5 miles at purisima creek today, in about 4 hours, meaning i averaged about 2.6mph, i guess. which isn't bad considering that most of the loop was uphill. i finally took the bald knob trail, though the only bald knob i saw was the one i brought with me.

when i got back home i discovered that i'd lost one of the legs on my ex oficio (latin for "very expensive") convertible pants. i'd taken them off early on in the hike and "secured" them to the side of my pack. i guess next time i'll put my pant legs inside my pack, if i've learned my lesson, and i have. the good news is that i only got them a couple of weeks ago and thus haven't had time to form a sentimental attachment.

although i really do like the pants quite a lot. it's some kind of magic stretchy fabric and it's neat. and i got them 40% off.

the actual good news is that purisima creek -- and especially the bald knob trail -- is relatively lightly used, so there's a decent chance that if i go back next weekend i can find my leg wherever it fell.

i guess that's my plan then.

I'm going sailing this weekend!

My coworker the russian seaman asked me how the lessons went and then today -- after lunch -- asked if I'd like to go sailing this sunday. I was miraculously able to gather one other for-sure crewman (no experience) and get a strong "if my wife lets me" from another potential crewman (also no experience). Three people is plenty to sail a boat when one of them is my coworker the russian seaman, and four people is even better.

My next weekend is booked and I can't plan ahead three weeks, I didn't see a sailing trip anywhere in my near future -- now that's changed. Hopefully there's enough wind to be fun, but not enough to turtle the boat. I can't wait to get back out there and see if I remember anything :)

Yarrr!

nobody here likes dates.

oh well, i do.

for the first time after returning from a vacation in palm springs, i find that i miss the desert.

i spent a week of my 3 week vacation at my parents' house in palm springs, as i so often do during my vacation time. this time, though, was quite different. most other times i find myself bored to death with nothing to do but read, watch TV, or play video games. this time, I did a little reading and watched "pirates of the carribbean", but the majority of my visit was devoted to four day hikes.

i grew up there, went to school there, i was in the boy scouts and did a fair amount of hiking and camping there, and yet only now have i realized that the coachella valley is a paradise for hikers.

yes, it's hot. very very hot. it turns out that i like it that way. they say that the desert hiking season begins in october. balderdash. september was fantastic (once i figured out the required amount of water).

one of the hikes i took ended up quite literally in my parents front yard, with a side-trip through some foothills, oases, rocky canyons, and sandy peaks. the trails there are poorly mapped and poorly maintained, but they're very old and established, and windy and branchy and extensive. from the first trailhead i found, i went on two separate day hikes and found trailheads for at least five more day hikes. and that was just around my neighborhood.

that's the thing that really excited me: we hiked and camped in the scouts, but it was always an hour or two away up in the mountains. the hiking i did last week was all in the desert. hot, sunny, hot, dry, desolate, scenic, hot, and all within 30 minutes of my folks' house. and i only scratched the surface. there's a bucketload more hikes to do.

i always knew that being active outdoors would make the desert more bearable, but it was not until recently that i found an outdoors activity that i could enjoy (almost) daily.

being outdoors doesn't require hiking, either. driving to work today with the window down i was chilled. three days ago i could drive around with the window down and sweat. i miss that. i love the bay area, its people, its food and its opportunities, but i find myself missing the sweaty desert for the first time in my memory.

i discovered a fascinating, not-so-hidden world in the place of my childhood and had to leave it mostly unexplored to return to my corporate duties. i feel like i left a job half-done, having hoke only four of the hundreds of hikes waiting for me.

plus, i hiked the first 4000 feet of the cactus to clouds and i intend to go back to do the rest before it gets too cold.

heh. "duties".

roasted up some moka kadir this morning. the roast log says my last roast was on july 1st. i've been off coffee for a loooong time but as of tomorrow, i'm back off the wagon.

i know why i enjoy desert hikes more than any other terrain.

i have a cultural predisposition.

i and a buddy went on a 4 day excursion in kings canyon national park. we started out with the intention of hiking the "rae lakes loop", but instead ended up completing the lesser-known but very rewarding "dollar lake out-and-back".

we took pictures but they mostly sucked and i dont feel like posting them. so sorry.

there are many ways to tell this story. i had a very long drive after the last day to contemplate how i should relate the tale, and i've waited nearly a week before starting. i've had plenty of time to come up with something but still i don't have much.

there are the details of the trip -- the step-by-step narrative -- and the important stuff, the impressions, lessons, and insights. perhaps the best way to organize would be to present the narrative first and the commentary second. a rabbinical approach ;)

day 1 :
we set out from the hotel for the ranger station. while obtaining our wilderness pass, the ranger asked what bear protective containers we had for our food. i'd been using a bear vault for some time and had just bought one on behalf of my hiking partner. well, the ranger informed us that the bear vault is no longer allowed in the park because the bears now know how to open them. oops.

he was kind enough to give us free rental bear cans. we repacked our food.

not far down the trail we encountered a bear cub, a rather large one, with no sign of a mother nearby (good). we continued up the trail.

nobody seems to agree on the trail mileages for the park. we'd obtained a map from a ranger station, one from REI, mileages from the seki website, and mileages from my hiking book. all disagreed upon distances from place to place along the trails. this caused us much confusion in our planning and led to many problems in day 2.

we arrived presently at mist falls. by then we were well aware that our packs were mighty heavy (though i still can't think of much i would have left behind, and i can think of several items i wish i hadn't left behind) and that our hiking was affected by the altitude (6k feet). we rested at the falls, observing the ominous looking clouds overhead. after a while, we left. not more than 5 minutes after our departure, just as we approached the top of the falls, thunder and lighning (big lightning) arrived. i donned my rain jacket and fashioned my trash bag into a pack cover, the hiking partner donned his PVC poncho and REI pack cover. my cover worked out fine but his was much less hassle. even though it weighs more than a trash bag, i may pick one up.

we arrived at our campsite without much fanfare that i can recall. along the way, much scenery was seen and appreciated, and all the other things expected of a hike were encountered. nothing special. bugs, sun, and indigestion. we pitched our tents (i found my missing flashlight inside my tent -- packed in the last time I used it, doh!) and made our dinner and filtered our water and built a campfire and prepared for bed. a dude came by from the neighboring campsite and announced that he was an off-duty park employee, working on building a bridge over the nearby stream. he and his pals had a bottle of whiskey to share. my pal and i declined, politely, because we were tired and had a big hike ahead of us the next day.

i slept well that night, a little too warmly. according to one map, the campsite had a pit toilet. according to another map, it did not. we couldn't find it, so we got to crap in a hole a day earlier than expected. it was fun, actually.

the gps lost reception toward the end of the hike inside some canyons, but the estimated distance for day 1 is about 8.5 miles.

day 2:
we slept late and waited for the sun to arrive to dry out our sweaty clothes. i put too much powdered milk in my milk and had raisin-sludge for breakfast. yum. eventually, we broke camp and set out. time: 11:30. we crossed a mess of fallen logs to get to teh other side of the river and begin the day's journey. according to all our information sources, day 2 would be the toughest hike, with a distance of either 8 miles or 14 (depending on the map) but with a huge elevation gain of at least 3800 feet on all maps. we were confident that we could make it. lots of uphill and flatlands and meadows and mountains and nice scenery. though i had slept well the night before i was definitely not at the top of my game -- the pack was heavy and though the weather was nice, by the third mile i was already ready for a break. since we started at 11:30, mile 3 turned out to be a good place for a lunch break. we sat on a big flat rock and ate our sandwiches.

we set out after lunch and a bit of sunbathing. more mountains and meadows and scenery and stuff. eventually we arrived at a big, engineered-looking suspension bridge with a one-person-at-a-time warning. we crossed and met some campers on the other side. they asked if we were staying and we said we were heading up to rae lakes. they seemed amazed. i later learned that we made this announcement around 4-4:30pm, which (i would learn) explains their amazement. we pumped some more water from under the bridge and set out.

somewhere along the way a breeze kicked up and we converted our convertible pants back into long pants. also along the way somewhere the elevation began to set in and we became tired. but according to our map and our best guesses, we were still a ways away from our campsite. we pressed on.

eventually, tired and ready to stop, we encountered a meadow with grazing mules and a horse. did i mention tired and ready to stop? past the campsite from day 1, we could legally camp anywhere we wished, but my tent requires stakes and since the bridge we'd seen nothing but stake-unfriendly ground. mostly bouldered ground and some gravel. not nice to sleep on even with a freestanding (no stake) tent.

by the time of the equine meadow, we were dead tired, cold, tired, and looking for any comfortable place to stay. the meadow (assuming the horses left) seemed nice enough, but the water supply was pretty gross. we'd almost decided to stay, provided rae lakes (or intended destination) wasn't too far off.

so we figured that horses/mules implied a cowboy, and sure enough, he made an appearance presently. we asked him the distance to rae lakes and he said it was about 30 minutes away. our morale went through the roof and we set out energetically.

30 minutes later the sun had gone down, we were past 10,000 feet, and there was no sign of any place to camp. our spirits were beneath low and we were beginning to be very, very worried. it was getting very, very cold. we put on our fleeces (i didn't want to do that too soon because i was sweaty and would just saturate the fleece and make myself colder, but at that point, i had little choice). i almost couldn't open my pack because my fingers were unresponsive with cold (also i had on my work gloves, which weren't too warm but were better than nothing).

we were cold, tired, and unhappy. the sun was going down -- we were stuck in rapidly-cooling, shaded twilight areas, with sunny spots just out of reach a little ahead. we were too far in to turn back (which meant traveling through cold territory) but by now we had little idea how much further it was to the camp. the cowboy's estimate was wrong, our maps were crap, and we were expecting to find a camp at 10k feet, which we'd just passed.

we pressed on, seeing no other option. after a while (1 hour after our cowboy encounter) i stumbled over a ridge and caught sight of Dollar Lake -- a beautiful sight. a sign by the trail said only one area was available for camping. i checked and it was empty. the hiking buddy caught up and said that the lake was beautiful. i think its beauty was much enhanced by its mere presence -- we couldn't go much further and we finally had a place to stop.

we set up camp with unprecedented speed. my tent -- usually a problem to set up -- went up swiftly and sturdily. we unrolled our sleeping pads, unpacked our sleeping bags, stuffed our bear cans with the scented items, and stowed our gear away from the tents, all with frenetic swiftness. from within his sleeping bag (but outside his tent) the hiking buddy boiled up some water and prepared two dinners. i was fully in my bag trying to warm up my extremities and stave off the impending shiver. we were both mildly hypothermic.

dinner helped -- the hot dinner bag warmed up my hands and then my insides. no time to brush teeth but i did have some urgent business to take care of. the kind of business that's too urgent to stand in the cold and dig a hole. the hole came the next day.

in my defense, i claim hypothermia, exhaustion, and altitude sickness.

ah yes, altitude sickness. it's a serious disorder and the best cure is to move downhill, but that was out of the question. we needed rest. getting to sleep was difficult, AS keeps one awake with rapid heartbeat and nausea. plus, i had unwisely left my long johns behind because at the lodge it had been quite temperate -- i'd neglected to plan for the nights at altitude. i was cold. no longer hypothermic, but not too comfy. i was worried and my mind was occupied with many unpleasant thoughts. we talked ourselves to sleep.

it was a crappy night's sleep. total distance for day 2: 9.6 miles.

day 3:
when i woke, i was cold and had to pee, but it was too cold to leave the tent. we waited for the sun to come up but it wasn't happening. i looked at the toes of my sleeping bag and saw frost. ugh. after what seemed like hours (and was), the sun came out and shone on our tents. it was warm enough to de-tent and discover the frost upon our packs, our tents, and the clothes we'd left out to dry. double ugh.

we walked around a bit and enjoyed the effects of altitude sickness: nausea, weakness, shortness of breath. we got winded walking from our tents to our packs. i got winded walking with the trowel over to the previous night's mess. i got winded walking back. i'm in good shape, i'm not used to being winded.

we ate breakfast and looked over the maps. rae lakes wasn't far off, but it was up and we knew we couldn't handle more up. i was worried i couldn't handle down, either. i didn't see how i could lift my pack if i got winded walking a couple yards cross-country. in addition to the altitude gain required to reach rae lakes, we were behind schedule -- meaning that we'd have to cover more ground on day 3 than planned, or stay an extra day. hiking buddy had to be back to work in 2 more days so extra days were not an option. neither one of us felt capable of doing much more than 5 miles or so, and if it was uphill... 0 miles.

a rodent watched us from a cliff. i didn't recognize the species so i declared it a marmot.

so we decided to go back the way we came. pride is a luxury of the living. we'd had enough of the nausea and weakness.

with no small agony we broke camp and packed our packs. they were surprisingly easy to lift, and once we got started on the steep downhill, we rapidly regained our strength. we made incredible time. though we left at 11:30, once again, we covered the 5 miles to the bridge before we were hungry for lunch. our spirits were sky high. we got to enjoy some views that we'd missed in our deathmarch the day before. at the bridge we had lunch and beef jerky. i pumped some water while a deer looked on from 10 feet across the stream. neat.

while we were having lunch, the ranger that issued our wilderness pass came by. he was on his way up to arrowhead lake for business and some fishing. he recognized us and we admitted we hadn't been up to the task of taking rae lakes and had turned back. he didn't seem too interested but i'll bet he's glad he didn't have to recover our bodies.

we went on over the bridge and kept up our incredible pace. before long we were back at upper paradise valley, our campsite for the first night. middle and lower paradise valley lay 2 and 3 miles ahead, respectively. it was around 5 or 5:30 and we decided to press on, even though the sun was already becoming scarce.

at the much lower altitude of paradise valley, the lowered sun brought chill but nowhere near as much chill as what we encountered at 10k feet. also, below 10k we could build a campfire. we made it as far as middle PV and decided to stay there for the night. we could have pushed on for lower, the last campsite before the ranger station (we wanted to hike as little as possible on our last day), but we opted for comfort and rest.

we built a nice, warm campfire, pitched our tents, cooked and ate our dinner, pumped some water, and relaxed. we watched some stars, watched the fire, watched the moon, and relaxed. then we went to bed.

total distance for day 3: 12.5 miles.

day 4:
no frost on day 4, but i still slept unrestfully. no matter, we were close to the exit. we built a morning fire to warm us up while we had breakfast, waited for the sun, and futzed around. a bit after the sun arrived and our clothes dried, we packed up and set on down the trail. the time: 11:30, our usual departure time.

we hiked fast and hard and not entirely downhill. we stopped for lunch and bugspray at mist falls. despite the poor sleep we weren't too tired and our proximity to the exit gave us haste. we were ready to leave, i'd say.

the last two miles were through soft sand and it was rather unpleasant. still, we made great time and were at the ranger station by 2:15.

total distance for day 4: 7 miles (estimated)

we saw plenty of wildlife throughout our trip: deer, a bear, a marmot, lots of birds, bugs, lizards, and snakes. we saw more scenic views than i expected: the sierras are incredibly beautiful. we had fun, we had arguments, we were sick and strong and happy and glum. the trip was anything but boring.

i learned a lot. first, of course, was that i cut the wrong things from my pack. i should have brought the long underpants and probably an extra pair of pants. i could have left behind the leatherman and the tin foil and the sponge and some of the food. that's fine, that's experience. that's learning.

what we should not have to have learned was attitude. we came in with the wrong attitude. when i do day hikes, i go fast and cover a lot of territory. even on overnighters, i do the same. we assumed we'd cover lots of territory on this trip, hiking 14 miles on two days through lots of elevation. well, even if we were physically able to do that, it leads (and led) to an unenjoyable trip. a trip like this demands time to relax and enjoy the setting. we were constantly rushing from campsite to campsite with very little time to enjoy the terrain along the way. the next trip will involve a full "rest day" with no hiking planned, and the hike days will involve shorter distances (unless we're not hiking at altitude).

we slept in too late. on each day we didn't hit the trail until 11:30. part of this was because we didn't want to get out of the tent while it was still freezing cold outside. part was because we needed to sun-dry our tents and hiking clothes. we awakened around 7 or 8 each day but stayed in and read or talked until it warmed up a little. i'm not sure how to avoid this. assuming we arrived earlier at camp we could sun-dry our clothes in the evening, but how would we dry our tents in the early morning? camping out in the open instead of under trees in a valley would solve the problem, but that's not always an alternative. we could get out of tent earlier with warmer clothes (long johns and warm gloves), but again we face the problem of packing out a wet tent. maybe we've got defective tents with excessive condensation? maybe the answer is to arrive early and let the tent dry out before getting into it? these are all questions that could be answered by an experienced guide or answered through our own experiences. i'll figure them out sometime, but i think the keys to better enjoying the next trip are:

- break camp early
- don't hike too far
- take it easy and enjoy, don't treat it like a race

finally, a question that i struggle with on my day hikes as well: to buddy or not to buddy? i had expected that with a buddy, the pack weights would drop since we'd share some gear. well, we shared some gear: a water pump. that's it. we each brought stove and fuel, but our stoves (and pots) are so very light that it would not have made much difference had we shared. most of everything else was un-shareable: clothes, sleeping bags, even tents. our two one-man tents weighed, together, the same as my two-man tent. we didn't need to both bring fuel, but i still didn't have a handle on how much fuel to take (i do have a handle on it now -- next time i solo i'll bring a half-tank of fuel, next time i double it'll just be one tank of fuel, not two like we did here). so bringing a buddy didn't cut down on pack weight.

as far as safety goes, i still find the buddy question debateable. on this trip, the hiking buddy cooked me a meal while i warmed up and avoided hypothermic shock. that was good, but i probably could have managed (uncomfortably) by myself. furthermore, it's conceivable that without the buddy i wouldn't have been in the situation at all -- who can say? but on a well-hiked route like the one we were on, a buddy becomes less indispensible in cases of injury. had i broken a leg i could have waited for someone else to hike by.

mostly, though, i find that i enjoy the wilderness more if i have a good dose of solitude. just me and god out there, enjoying Creation. i like to go at my own pace, and i more or less do, even when i have a hiking buddy. so why have one?

all these things, though, are interrelated variables -- tunable parameters. change one and the others change. bring warmer clothes and leaver earlier, maybe the buddy is less cranky. bring a different buddy, maybe we rest more and enjoy the trip better. these things are tough to judge in advance.

while i may have an unhealthy scarcity of fear of being dead, i definitely have a healthy abundance of will to survive.

the reason i sent the SMS that i sent was simple: my safety margin was running thin. i wasn't in dire straits yet, but i like to make it back to my car with spare fluids (i eventually did) in case my car is gone, broken, burnt up, etc.

when up in the sierras last week, i put on my rain gear before the storm hit us, and i stayed dry. likewise, today i put out the sos before i was irretrievably lost and dehydrated. of course, less than 10 minutes after the sos went thru, i found my trail. but i cut things a little too close for comfort.

in the last week, i've twice come closer to dying than i ever have (knowingly) before.

i found that while i may not have a great fear of death, i'm quite certainly not ready to go just yet.

in both cases, i survived because i kept (relatively) calm and did the right things. in the first case, i had a friend with me (who was in just as much peril as i) and in the second case i was by myself. in both cases, we were asking for it.

when i go outside, i push my limits, sometimes a little too far. today was too far -- my limits caused grief to those i love. i was prepared and dealt with things properly, but i could have been better prepared and dealt with things more gracefully. lesson learned; next time i'll do better.

one other thing i learned from my two experiences: it's not necessarily better to bring someone along. yes, that goes against the conventional wisdom. today i got into serious trouble because my map was poor and my terrain-recognition abilities were equally poor. these details would have presented no problem in my normal stomping grounds of the bay area, but i was in the desert today, and the desert compounds all problems. i remarked to my brother that, although it was probably 105F out there, i really didn't mind it at all -- it felt like 80 or so. but when i ran out of water, suddenly it did feel like 105. funny how that works.

it's possible that a buddy might have been able to help me figure out where i was, but i'd much rather have my gps (which was left at home today). more likely than not, a buddy would just have held me back. that may have avoided the problem entirely, or it may equally well have exacerbated things toward the end of the hike. impossible to say. what i can say is that, in my experience, i do all right by myself, and i'm not convinced that a buddy would have been much help in today's situation.

maybe someday i'll break my leg out in a remote canyon and wish i had someone to scramble up a ridge to a cell-reception area. or maybe i'll just have to do it myself.

new category, yo.

i glanced at my bathroom scale and saw the words "beam reach".

it actually says "sunbeam".

ahoy there!

right now, i feel like i'm still on the ocean. the room is kind of bobbing up and down and i've had absolutely no alcohol.

ahoy there!

i put the cell phone business out of my mind. i can't fix it until tuesday, it's out of my hands. att (with my help, i guess) has bungled my phone replacement beyond repair. isn't this what they do, day in, day out? replace phones, I mean, not the bungling. well, maybe they bungle day in, day out, as well -- they certainly bungled my phone replacement all week long.

right. didn't i say that was out of mind?

today was day 6 of my 8 day sailing course. days 1 and 2 found me with an excellent instructor, a fun boat, sun, and good winds. days 3 and 4 brought a new, mediocre instructor fog, and absolutely no wind. those days sucked. big time. day 5 arrived and with it another new instructor, better than the one from 3-4 but not by much. to make up for it, though, neptune brought us some good winds and there was much happiness among the crew.

today, we're back to another new instructor, who will be with us until day 8. the boat is new and good (though french, so not too good), the wind was superb, and the instructor is top notch -- even better than the first one. things are looking up.

on the way back i remembered that today was saturday. i'd been planning for weeks to skip my weekly hike while taking the sailing class. i'd even planned to consult the blog to find out how long my hiking run had been. no need, now. from santa cruz i headed up the 1 to my old favorite, purisima creek. i hadn't planned this so i was in jeans and t-shirt, though i *was* wearing my new dunham alcatraz trail shoes, untested. i took a quick 4.2 miles (straight) up and back, about 50-60 minutes. i ran bits of it, both up and down. the shoes did well, though i might need a half-size bigger to keep from toe jam. sigh. i'll never ever find the right shoe...

but who cares, i finally feel like i'm on vacation. relaxed? no sir, that's not my style. happy? yeah, i can do that occasionally.

i even feel like writing. that's good.