Reading (For Dummies)

Freedom of the Hills

Knowing that life is about to change in a big way, I went with some folks backpacking over the weekend. We hiked into Lake Colden on Friday night, and headed for Mt. Algonquin, again. I even got pictures this time...batteries seem to like warmer weather more. Pictured at the peak, clockwise from the top are Thomas, Laura, Jithka, David, and myself. While I may appear to be out of breath, it's really just because I'm reaching to take the picture.

This time the weather was far more hospitable, and included lots of sun and weather into the 70s. The top was still a bit chilly, of course.

I've been re-reading the adventures of Doug Peacock, and was secretly hoping to stumble into a black bear this trip. No such luck. The peak ranger on Algonquin told us where to avoid -- Lake Colden lean-tos and Marcy Dam in the evenings. I wandered through the brush in both places, and even got a campsite at Marcy about five feet from bear scat (sadly, it was over a week old). Even without bears, the trip was well worth it -- time to think, walk, and meditate about coming changes.

The Egalitarian Me

Afraid of becoming lethargic at the new desk job, I took a one-day stint as a Carrier Dome employee doing the physical labor of setting up tables for a Chancellor's Address. I have to say I rather enjoyed waking up at 6am and carrying heavy objects around. Getting splinters in my hands was an added bonus. I rather enjoy this stuff -- brain work is fine and dandy, and I can even do it, but getting dirty and hanging out with people that get dirty for a living kind of reminds me of my own humanity. I guess it will be something to look back on when I'm wondering what to do with myself in two years.

The Inner Workings of Night-Time Thought

I get rather annoyed at being made to think by movies. On the whole, Hollywood is such a farce that things never get through my Sarcasm Generator. Recent conversations convinced me that I should at least give the medium a chance, though. A few weeks ago, I saw one that got me wondering what it is that I'm doing existing again. I find it rather obnoxious; such thoughts tend to infect my brain like a virus, and it is all I can do to not think about the questions and ramifications (like True Happiness?). But that's where I am again. Trying to find my Zen in a world without reason.

These are always the most obnoxious times of my life. I end up staying awake until sunrise, walking around, looking at flowers, trying not to think too much about chaos or structure. Or the moon. Or much of anything. But the scenes can be pretty, which makes me smile. Perhaps I'm too easily amused for enlightenment?

Centuries Older

In between moving, running, pondering the reason for my existence, and exploring the texture of bread (alone, unfortunately, as my mad poetess is nowhere to be found), I'm remaining decidedly upbeat. I went riding with the Triathlon kids (pictured) for a little 100-mile action starting in Chittenango and going all the way to Oneida (actually passing my future workplace).

Now if I could only shake off my Spring beer pounds, I'd be all set...

Bounded by a Sleep

Over the weekend, I "graduated," again, this time with a Meaningless Slip to accompany my BullShit. My parents came up to see, which is always a nifty time. Unfortunately, I didn't win all kinds of awards like I did when I was an undergrad. As Sam Clemens said, "Never let school interfere with an education."

Unfortunately, I did, with entirely too many late-nights in the lab programming last year. This last year I burnt out, and spent as little time hanging around school as I could while still maintaining straight As. I'd say it worked well, although it meant not doing all kinds of research projects or hundreds of thousands of dollars of labor for the University, which is probably what they're really after in a student.

After my shindig on Saturday, everybody got out of my hair, not that there's any left to be out of anyway. On Sunday morning I did the running thing and then went back to Rochester to see my cousin graduate.

Her ceremony was a kjillion times cooler than mine. Faculty sang short little choir compositions, slides were projected, people made animal noises throughout the ceremony, and professors quoted Shakespeare (the Tempest, which seems to be oft-considered this time of year). Plus they actually hand you your degree at U of R. I would pass along the proposition of having this more cohesive sort of ceremony to my own department, but I'm not sure if our over-formality-little-real-meaning is a cause of our department sucking socially, or merely a symptom.

In other news, Emily got a dog. It's a rather well-tempered cross between a grey hound and a german shepherd. I've sort of considered getting a hiking partner lately...I somehow deluded myself into thinking women-folk would like to do the stuff I do. With a few exceptions, they don't...I even sold my spare road bike after giving up the idea that I'd ever find a rider-chick. Woe is me ;-).

Zen and the Art of...art

Last week, I was coming home from my last day of camping on the quad when I got some rather sad news. My neighbors Kathy and Karl were both outside, talking, looking somewhat upset. It turns out that our neighbor, Wayne, had passed away that night.

Wayne was an interesting character, an artist par excellence. He hand-carved jewelry from blocks of silver (like the necklace above), winning local awards. He even ran a jewelry stand at Falcon Ridge for several years. Back in the day, my girlfriend would have picked up trinkets from his stand, and I would have had no idea who he was.

I'll miss the old artiste. I'm glad that the tradition lives on, at least, thanks to the leftovers 60s spirit that is my current community.

Diving to be Deeper

I complted my Scuba training this morning, with another 6am trip to Lake Skaneateles. Diving in 41 degree water is actually sort of fun -- modern technology like drysuits, expedition weight polypropylene underwear, wetsuit hoods and gloves allowed me to actually be underwater for almost an hour this morning. Now I can make like Steve Zissou, except in freezing cold fresh water.

Humanity Restored

The other evening, I was driving around town to pick up a few cleaning supplies for the apartment when something odd began happening. I approached a traffic light, and my brakes slowly sank to the floor. I managed to pump them up and stop. Opting not to take chances, I turned around and drove home, slowly and avoiding hills. By the time I got to my driveway, I had to use the e-brake to stop.

No stranger to how brakes work, I took a look at my undercarriage to find brake fluid everywhere on one of my wheels. Apparently a wheel cylinder blew a seal. Great, I had to be somewhere at 6am the following day.

I've only ever really worked on disc brakes before, so I wasn't sure what the deal was with getting the drum off. That, and I couldn't get to the parts store -- I sold my Subaru for my friend Dustin for a song and a dance last week.

Dustin to the rescue. Turns out that giving friends good deals on things is good karma. I gave Dustin a ring that night, and he picked up a new cylinder for me. Then he came over this evening and took a look at my drum. After about 30 seconds with it and a lever, he got the pads backed off and the drum removed. A few more minutes and had the whole brake disassembled.

A few more trips to the parts store (once to get a new brake line, we had to brake the old one to get it off, another trip to get the right fitting for the brake line as the original line had the wrong size), some brake line bending, cutting, and re-tapering, and a bleed job (total time: 4 hours) later, my brakes were restored.

This car repair was about a little more than just cars to me, though. This dude Dustin is an amazing character. Raised up near Rome by the classic country Ma and Pa, he is the antithesis of all that is wrong with cities. I find myself wondering how people are even raised like him anymore -- incredibly mechanically inclined, patient, polite. In short, no jerk-like properties. It puts me to shame, and reminds me how unhuman humans are becoming these days, when money, power, and sex seem to be the prime motivations and prime motives for doing everything. Sometimes it's just about helping a friend in a tight spot, and sometimes you have to go all-out to do it.

The People vs. the Administration

SUOC came under "attack" by the administration a few weeks ago, with allegations of participation in high-risk activities such as "spelunking" and "mountain climbing." While we don't participate in either activity, we do cave, peak-bag, and rock climb. Apparently we are risky enough to need supervision from 30-something graduates of Recreation Management programs that think holding onto a tree when swimming in a flooded river is good idea...

Damning the man, we set out to rally some student support with a little going-out-of-business propaganda.

Whether or not we're justified in being afraid of a change in management is a tricky situation. On the one hand, the University just wants to protect itself from lawsuits. On the other hand, there never has been a lawsuit in our 70 years of existence, and our system of edumacation works damn finely. The fear is being slapped by a parent and not being allowed to go ice climbing anymore, just because that parent doesn't know how to...

Fortune appeared to be smiling on us during our quad protest. 850 student and faculty signatures (and one signature from a Vietnam veteran who stopped by to thank us for keeping the spirit of protesting authority alive) were collected. The Student Association passed a resolution unanimously condemning the University from messing with us. And we had a rainbow over our quad campsite.

Even all of this wasn't enough to protect us, though. Today, Dean Urtz made it official, and has turned into a newpeak robot when responding to questions about the move (such as: where will money come from? Can we still kayak?).

We'll shoulder on like we always do, though. If us, we won't listen to them. Communication is a two-way street, after all.