Reading (For Dummies)

The Last Falcon Ridge

Another mad rush, another success story. On Wednesday night I went to New Paltz. Final Destination: NYC. Work has me on the road quite a bit, and I'm not complaining one bit. I attended an Open Group workshop trying to develop the next-generation something-or-other.

Exhausted from hiking and biking and travelling and whatnot, I went to sleep around 8:00. I think my bro and dad don't understand just how tired I've been lately. Let me tell you: I've been tired.

I woke up at 4am for the New York rendezvous, and then went to Falcon Ridge immediately after taking a train back to Poughkeepsie. Destination: The Ridge.

Much like last year, the Ridge rained a lot on Friday. Big huge thunderboomers that ripped tents out of the ground and sent them flying. I was busy cauterizing my shoelaces with my vehicle's cigarette lighter when I looked up...my truck was shaking.

After the rain, a bunch of muddy hippies played a little game of slide-to-the-tequila. People who slid down the hill far enough to touch the bottle got to take a swig. Interesting games these people play. In the sidelines, I met a beautiful and smart woman. Several minutes later, she introduced me to her girlfriend. The experience left me feeling hollow, and gave me a headache.

Survival is a fickle matter at the Fest. I'm getting older, I don't drink as much. Fortunately my campmates were mostly over-40s with kids, and they know how it feels.

I had to remember to keep my language normal around all these old-time SUOC'ers. Their kids are hilarious, uncorrupted. Well, mostly. They seemed to know an awful about alcohol for pre-teens.

I had a lot of fun this year, dancing a lot more than usual, spending waaaay more money on music than usual (~$250 on CDs!), relaxedly hanging out in the shade with old-timers and gabbing cycling, retirement, government work...being an adult for a change. I should have known all these people years and years ago.

Now, it seems, we may never see each other here again. The Long Hill Farm (where FRFF takes place) is on the sales block, likely to be subdivided for a housing development. For now, we'll try to push those thoughts out of our heads and look forward to OTR.

Arrested!

Not to jump the gun on last weekend, but it was interesting.

Paul, Stephen, and myself went into the 'Dacks for a long weekend of backpacking. Or, we hoped to have a long weekend of backpacking.

We set off Thursday night from my workplace and headed for Keene Valley. Destination: Giant Mountain and then the Great Range (Gothics, Armstrong, and the Wolfjaws). We set out around 1030 on Friday morning up Giant and back down again by around 2:00PM. While at the top, I noticed a big swath of blank -- where were all the trees? A mansion lay in the middle. I was thinking very Monkeywrench thoughts. In storytelling, such thoughts are often referred to as allusions...

A little naked swimming in Chapel Pond (nude but not lewd, as a ranger once told me about swimming on state land) to cool off, and we set off for the Ausable Club (the aforementioned mansion) which had on its land the trailhead for the East Ausable River trail which lead to the base of gothics. At the trailhead, a friendly but quiet ranger asked us where we were headed. "To camp at Rainbow Pass for tonight, then up the Great Ranger tomorrow," Paul piped up.

We hiked into Rainbow Pass and camped. At 7am the next day, our ranger friend woke us up to inform us that we were under arrest. He drove us back down a jeep trail where a DEC officer met us and gave us a court summons. The only good of it? The asshole ranger didn't arrest me very well. Turns out I can have him put behind bars for up to 6 months because of a rather interesting mistake he made...

We didn't feel much like hiking back into AMR land (the Adirondack Millionaire's Reserve, as I now call that section of private land in the middle of the 'dacks), so we went up to the Adirondack Loj and decided to do Phelps. On the way, I thought I saw my old car. Yep, another allusion...

Hilarity ensued. We split up, I didn't bring my maps, and I wasn't sure which direction to Phelps (or, indeed, which mountain we were heading for...I was all worked up over being arrested, sadly). So Paul and Stephen went one way, I went the other. Surprise, surprise, I ran into Dustin and Katrina hiking up to Algonquin.

Myself? I was on my way up Wright, so I could at least get one more new peak. Now it's just Iroquois and I won't have to hang around Lake Colden anymore. Perhaps in the fall as a club trip...

Your Ocean is a Drop of Water

Life is rough. I had to travel to San Diego on Monday for a meeting with the Navy. In particular, a meeting with Commander Heller of the Navy. Life is funny and small in a lot of ways. He grew up in his parents' house in Marlton, New Jersey, one town over from my Mom's. He has no plans to move back there. I knew, right then, that I would like him.

The meeting itself was business. Odd, considering the Commander plays Starcraft, reads Slashdot, and has a yacht complete with Pringles-can wifi antenna that he lives aboard, mooching internet access from his Harbormaster. It is a life that I envy, though I'll probably forget about it once I return to my mountain home.

After our meeting, which was a lot of talking by others and a lot of nodding by me, I've got five pages of notes, mainly acronyms spelled out, with arrows connecting agencies to programs. I will never in my life keep them all straight. Frustration sinks in.

When I was in Tulsa I had a in witty encounter at a Pizza shop that made me think the government wouldn't be so imposing. That has turned out not to be the case. I'm a geek. I'm interested in the nitty-gritty details of how something works. Unfortunately that isn't my job. Or maybe it is, but nobody ever asks me to explain the systems that we're working. I have yet to even be asked for a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on any given approach. It's safe to say that I'm adrift.

I'm in technology transfer, which requires a broader view for how people are playing with each other, the occasional poking and prodding of actual developers to get them to do what we really want. I don't mind the work, I just feel like I should be doing a little more pure research. Maybe developing Ice-Nine or something.

In between thoughts and fears of world-destruction, I take notes, smile, nod, ask questions that people usually don't know the answers to. I worry that I might be viewed as a bit eccentric. I worry more that I'm not.

After our meeting and lunch, I went to La Jolla to put my feet in the Pacific. I've never been to the Left Coast before, never touched so much kelp with my toes. It was amazing, full of cliffs and seals and rocky shores. Watching the sun set over the ocean clinched it: I want to move to San Diego some day. If only houses didn't cost $700,000 for a one-bedroom rancher on a plot of land as big as my mom's garage...

After about 5 hours on the beach, admiring seals, pelicans, and falling in love a few thousand times, I drove off to the San Diego Zoo. I had hoped to snap a photo of a Koala for a friend; the $21 admission price turned me back. I don't care much for the idea of a zoo -- if you want to see a wild critter, you ought to go to its native habitat and really see it. Don't get me wrong, zoos aren't evil or anything, I just hate to give such a large amount of support to such a place. Let genes do what genes are genetically adapted do, which is to roam, hunt, forage, fornicate. And, for good reason, to be afraid of human beings.

Empty-handed, I wandered on the outskirts of Hotel Circle. While I (perhaps imaginedly) share some loathing of New Jersey's suburbanness with Commander Heller, I guess I should be thankful that I learned to survive the harsh conditions that a place like that has to offer.

While looking for food in a strip-mall town, always look for the most run-down mall, and then pick the restaurant on one end, furthest from the anchor store. Preferably, the side that has no side-street. The freshly stucco'd units in prime strips spend their money on appearance and rent. The dimly lit shitholes pay to have a chef. The best meal I've had in weeks was had for about $10, 20% tip included. Funnily, it was only a few minutes away from a road with my name. Unfunnily, Wightman St only intersected streets with southern-state names. I still couldn't help but wonder if the road had name had something to do with my grandfather...an exploration that I'll be making Real Soon Now.

So it goes, back to New York in search of the next adventure.

The Beer, The Hike, and the Roll Session

Friday was the quatrannual Syracuse Brewfest (this one actually called the Empire State Brewing Festival). Emily came in from out of town for it, hoping to meet some hunk of SUOC man-flesh, or at least to drown out some sorrow of weddings and children.

I got to the fest at about 6:00, after usual delays of work and waiting on people. Tobin even came in from out of town. The beer was excellent, the music soulful, the men creepy. After tasting about 60 ounces of New York's finest beers, our DD drove us home for some nekkid hot tubbing. About 15 people jammed themselves inside. The good kind of people. Hairy, with nipple rings and tattoos and short spikey hair (the women) long unkempt mangy hair (the men), lesbian lovers and lovers of all things. I finally got to sleep around 2am.

Awake bright and early the next day with a pounding headache, what was left of our group decided to go hike in Labrador Preserve. We didn't make it there until around 2pm, after tea drinking, car ferrying, and other such activities.

My previous visit to Labrador was documented, this wasn't much different. Just a little less more green, a lot less of the other colors. Afterwards, I learned how to hotwire a car when Tobin's ignition switch didn't want to work. Then it was back downtown to listen to a Symphony and wait for Erik's arrival.

Erik was coming for Saturday night/Sunday morning to go on a kayaking trip down the Slammin' Salmon River. My first and so far only kayaking adventure had been in West Virginia, on the South Potomac.

This trip involved a lot less swimming (only a voluntary swim by me -- Erik was another story). The river really was fantastic for a newbie kayaker, and I think I'll be getting into the sport for real soon.

New Jersey Yet Again

In typical road-trip fashion, I went to New Paltz on Saturday to meet up wit my brother and old man for some beer and dinner. Afterwards, Erik and I went for a drive down to New Jersey.

We got to my mom's house sometime around midnight. Everybody else has flown away from the New Jersey love-nest, including my mother, who was out in Los Angeles at the time. Even the keys were gone; Erik and I were oafish and forgot ours, and the spare was with Jason and Kristen in Philadelphia.

After trying unsuccessfully to break in via the windows, we sank defeated for a night sleeping under the stars. Fortunately, Jason and Kristen were back in not much time.

At a loss for what to do on Sunday, Erik and I went to the Rock Gym. Getting a taste for climbing again was a good idea.

We wandered through Old City, admiring the architecture and the cleavage, before settling on an underground bar called Sugar Mom's. I had been there once before, as a sort of "meet the sister-in-law" night in Philadelphia. I have been told, but not had it confirmed, that the women's bathrooms reciprocate the men's treatment.

We got it in our heads that a pitcher was the best bet for the afternoon. The bar was empty, save for the bartender, George, and some slobbering drunkard whose name escapes me.

Exactly what the doctor ordered was the bill of the day. The bartender was some variety of Catholic, so we talked god, love, artificial intelligence. Giving up, he popped us a bottle of Bourbon for toasting. Another pitcher later, things were becoming less intelligeble. So we headed to the Kwelty's.

The Kwelty family lived next door to my mom until I was about 12, when they moved about a mile down the road. My fondest childhood memories involve giving Kyle a bloody lip, and me nearly drowning after a scuffle in the pond. In between nearly killing each other, we spent a lot of time catching bullfrogs and northeastern painted turtles.

Now Kyle is getting married, to one of my kindergarten classmates of all things. I can't help but think of the play "Our Town". It's sort of surprising that relationships work like that any longer in the Information Age. The world got too big for that somewhere...

Speaking of small town romances, some other news cropped up around the time of this trip -- I will soon be an uncle. Jason and Kristen are expecting in 6 months. Time flies...

After having more beer at the Kwelty's, the whole lot of us went to the new bar in Medford Lakes, for even more beer. Like a Navy SEAL that's in too deep, I called for extraction. Kat came to my rescue.

The Fourth was hangover city, an enviable position for spending an afternoon with the family. It went off well, actually, I think. I got to swap stories with my grandmum for a bit. It's kind of nice to have family members that are okay with my being lost.

Without much fanfare, we had to leave. Erik for his home, and, eventually, me for mine. Separate lives going separate ways, at least for this week...