The Northernmost Texan

For the Old Man

2006-11-03T17:21:00.000-08:00

The next four posts are different parts of the same story...I've posted them in chronological order to avoid possible confusion. Commentary always appreciated. Thanks for stopping by...Enjoy.

I've decided that I do what I do because my dad never had the opportunity to do them himself. On the drive back from Moose Lake earlier today, I finally sorted out what I'd been thinking for a pretty good chunk of the weekend. My dad always wanted to do things like camp up in the BWCAW...He really was interested in doing things like that. Maybe not the BW specifically, but definitely embarking on adventures along those lines. But, he was dealt a different hand in his life, and was never really able to see those dreams come to fruition. That isn't a bad thing, really...We're all put here for some purpose. He and I didn't always see eye to eye on a lot of things...Most of them being what he wanted for me and wanted me to become. A couple of decades later, I still have yet to figure out what that was supposed to be exactly. Finally, he gave in to the fact that I was who I was going to be and that nobody in heaven or on earth was going to be able to make me otherwise.

I guess for him my life between the time I left home and today is an exercise in vicarious living. Even though I didn't know it or appreciate it, or him for that matter, he was proud of me...regardless of how hard I tried to push him away from me. Nowadays, now that he's gone I wish he were still alive to listen to me ramble on about my last weekend on the lake...Harrowing details and all. I guess I started thinking about the whole thing when I woke up that Friday morning underneath my tarp cocooned inside my sleeping bag.

Moose Lake. Long, narrow, and just a little deep. Well, all of them are, to a major degree. The lakes that make up the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness are deep gouges and scars left on the land by ancient glaciers that covered this area in ice eons ago. You can see the scrapes and cuts in the bare exposed rock that surrounds and makes up the area. I woke up just after sunrise to the prospect of undiscovered country...I'm still a pretty green adventurer at this point, so much of what I experience up there is new. I can't really remember if we had breakfast at all that morning. I do know that we made a small fire on the landing after we brought all the gear and canoes down to the water the previous evening and did our very best to kill the remains of a barrel that Tommy had brought along for the trip.

The ground was thick with frost when I laid my tarp out and folded it in half, slipping my sleeping bag into the fold, with a log or two on the bottom and along the side to keep any breezes during the night from blowing my bivouac off of me. Just before dawn broke, I woke up to the sound of a fisherman putting in from the landing with his dog "Lucky." He had a boat with a motor, and cruised off into the crisp morning. After he had loaded up and motored off into the lake, I managed about 45 minute's worth of shuteye before finally having to begin the morning ritual. Gingerly, I eased my arms out of my bag and began peeling my tarp away from me. It wasn't exactly the kind of morning that I had hoped for...fortunately though the breeze was at our backs for the trip into Ensign Lake

Our goal that morning was a campsite in a small bay on Ensign, by way of Moose and Newfound Lakes and then a short portage into and out of Splash Lake. We made that with no problem at all. A nice breeze was at our backs as we paddled up Moose and Newfound to the portage into Ensign. A relatively short trip, if you really think about it. Statute mileage sits at about eight or so from the landing at Moose Lake. But that's also eight miles of blowdown, impassable terrain, water and wilderness. It also seems like weather changes quicker, and often at the drop of a hat. On the other hand, there aren't any bugs (lots of water = lots of mosquitos and other insects) and not many people (lots of water = lots of would-be voyageurs), which is nice because...I don't like a lot of people hanging about. I'm a small town kid. Always will be. (Insert John Mellencamp interlude here)

with a little birch Ensign Lake. A nifty little spot of water a couple of short portages from Newfound Lake. Nice little islands a few hundred yards off the shore and a peninsula in the middle. We hit camp at about noon or so after taking off from the landing shortly after gearing up and putting in. It sat at the end of a small bay on the western part of the peninsula, surrounded by higher ridgelines blowdown and a small old growth cedar grove just to the northwest. Thicket and bramble, hard to navigate on foot. A nice spot, though. plenty of room for everyone and their tents. And our gear. And our food...and beer. We portaged in two five gallon kegs, four growlers (another two gallons), a bit of Windsor, some vodka for Sunday bloodies, and Bailey's for coffee (I brought three pounds of it) in the morning. And add to that a good thirty or so pounds of meat and toss in some miscellaneous food items. We ate and drank and paddled and hiked and lounged and listened to the absolute worst Vikings game in history on the small weather radio we had with us. We enjoyed three lazy days and nights far out from where anyone could find us.

Tuesday came at us a little differently...

2006-11-03T17:19:00.000-08:00

We had every intention of putting in in the morning and making it back to the landing by afternoon, compensating for the general direction of the winds. We'd have to be fighting normal lake stuff, and in the winter, the prevailing winds tend to come from the West to Northwest. Every other morning had been crystal clear. A little cold, but a generally prevalent sunshine kept the days relatively warm.

A pretty stiff breeze had kicked up overnight. Up until sundown the day had been beautiful...possibly the best one of the trip. We had hunted and ate and lived it up for three days and this was the last. Yeah, I know what you're thinking...and you're right. I noticed the change in the pressure right off. Tried to ignore it. Tried to ignore it. Hope that it dies down...it was just a gust. We all did that. Breaking camp the next morning wasn't easy. None of us said anything about the waether, but it had kicked up quite a bit. I for one didn't relish the thought of putting in and paddling in such a stiff breeze, which by now was pretty intense.

We attempted it nonetheless. Thirty five or so knots of cold wind right down my throat. Trying to paddle. With a Paul on back, eighty pounds of gear and twenty five pounds of dog between us...we headed out. A few yards out it was a struggle. After that things were a blur. For about fifteen minutes we fought against the icy wind out into the lake and off toward the portage. After that point, I started to get really tired and panicked a little. My fingers hurt...I couldn't feel them. I kept paddling as hard and as fast as I could, all the while feeling the canoe begin to slip to port and bring us broadside into the wind. We were rocking really bad and threatening to go over, Manau wasn't panicking, but I could feel every shift in her weight in the canoe as I looked at the water I was about to fall into...in slow motion. I almost gave up for a moment.

I've never been at that point in my life. In a way, your life does flash in front of you. The situation I was in at that moment was the most dire I have ever experienced. Big deal...fall in water out of canoe, swim to shore, dry off. That simple. Big problem. Well, a few actually. The least of them being that I don't like water. Toss in air and water temps and proximity to ready heat sources, and there is a huge probability for disaster. So, I was at that point in my life (no not THAT point...the OTHER point), or the closest I've ever been. I was afraid. Really and truly afraid.

Fortuantely for me, Paul was the man on back. Kept me in the shit. Kept me moving. Kept me from losing it, from going into the drink. When we went broadside to the wind, we were a few yards off the bank of an island a few hundred yards out from where we started. He managed to get us started in that direction and we struggled for a few minutes more until we slid around the Eastern point and into the calmer water of the lee side of the island. We landed in a small cove where I got out of the canoe and furiously attempted to warm up my fingers, which by now were pretty numb. I was panicked. How that man ever kept his shit together, controlled Manau and got me on a course where we could safely navigate is a total mystery.

We surveyed the weather from the windward side of the island, where the fire pit and grate was located. The winds were kicking up pretty fiercely by now, and the other two canoes in our party were still trying to make it to the portage, but got turned back when they could no longer make any way, and were actually being pushed backward by the wind. After beaching, the group made the decision to stick it out for a few hours to see if the winds would subside enough for us to attempt the crossing again. This wasn't to be the case as the afternoon turned to evening and then got dark as we munched on the snacks and food we had left from the weekend.

We weren't in danger of running out of that. We just didn't have any alcohol left, so the mood of the camp that night wasn't as lively as previous nights. Everyone was a bit apprehentious as well. I wasn't worried about work so much as I was about my family. I knew that Tamara was worried, and Hazel too young to know what was going on. Tams had told me that if she hadn't heard from us by Wednesday evening, that she was calling out that cavalry. She did jump the gun a bit, as I hoped she might have, and called in just to say that a group was overdue.

Physically, we were good and wanted to remain as such, so we decided to hunker down and get with the program at first light. That night I didn't even set up my tent. Nobody did actually. Just like a few days ago at the landing, I just rolled my big tarp out on the ground and folded it on the windward side a few feet away from the fire, slid my sleeping bag into the crease and jumped in for the night. My companions did the same around the fire as well. A look at the thermometer in the morning told me that it was about twenty degrees out. The frosted condensation from my breath on the tarp above reinforced that. I had been a little worried about the cold, but I knew that my sleeping bag would keep me warm.

Somewhere between four and sunrise, Aaron woke up, sat up in his bag, and started shouting, whistling and clapping his hands..."Hey Bear! HEY Bear!!!" This automatically set off the rest of the camp, and Paul immediately woke up and started doing the same thing. A couple of us joined in to frighten off the invader. Manau was awake and ran over to investigate, barking all the way. Finally, Paul asked Aaron if he actually saw the bear, because we didn't hear any sounds from his escape. Apparently, a chipmunk got into the food pack that Aaron was sleeping next to. It was rummaging around in there and eventually jumped out and landed on Aaron's sleeping bag, causing him to startle a bit. Everyone finally fell back asleep for a while longer until Paul decided that we needed to get up and out. No coffee, no breakfast...just go.

And Go we did...

2006-11-03T17:18:00.000-08:00

Generally you have to get up and get out early if you're going to beat any kind of weather. The winds had died down to a tolerable level by sunrise when Paul got us up and we started throwing camp back into our canoe packs and those into the canoes with the rest of our gear. We wanted to be back at Moose Lake by early afternoon if we were going to beat any incoming weather patterns that would interfere with our exit from the BW.

Struggle again. Though this time was far more workable than the previous day. We still had winds, but they were easier to navigate. Still a little intimidating...especially when we headed out into deeper brisker waters on our way to the portage. I didn't want to. I wanted to remain closer to the shore of the lake where the water was, if not a little calmer, easier to get out of if we did indeed capsize. Paul steered us across the lake, keeping me up on direction changes. We fought against many gusty breezes across Ensign Lake until we made it to the first portage back. It wasn't even a portage, really. It was a "throwover" a few yards wide with a small stream connecting Ensign Lake and the lake between us and Newfound Lake. Instead of unloading and loading, we did the same as we did coming in, got out of the canoe and pushed it through the small channel. It was just deep enough and wide enough to allow a fully loaded canoe, sans paddlers, to be slid right through and into the water of the next lake. I don't even remember if the lake had a name.

It did have ice on it when we came through a few days before. Thin sheet ice that just barely clung to the surface of the water. You barely even knew it was there...except when we crunched right through a good section of it, crashing through with the bow of the canoe and the blades of our paddles...it was kind of fun...in a dangerous way. That ice had blown away by the winds, and the wind was again at our faces as we started out across the small body of water. The only ice on these lakes now was that which had built up on the roots of trees and broken down trunks and rocks along the rocky shore.

There aren't many places to put in in an emergency in these lakes. Their shorelines mostly consist of bouldery, sometimes high sheer rock face with dense vegetation all around. Their bottoms can be smoother and sandy, but more often than not, even the deepest lakes have huge boulders that sometimes lie just under the surface of the water, ready to overturn a canoe that strays too close to it. And the shallows (if there are any) drop rapidly to deep dark valleys. In a word, treacherous. Potentially.

Reaching the final portage, we caught a whiff of a campfire at its mouth. A smaller group than ours with motor canoes (with the motors left at the portage from Newfound Lake) had gotten driven off Ensign by the same winds we got bogged down in. They were on a different section of the lake, so we never knew they were there, and had to lash their canoes together just to weather the winds and make it to portage. Paul and I saw them again back at the landing, as they motored up just a few minutes behind us.

Newfound to Moose...More Wind.

2006-11-03T17:17:00.000-08:00

We entered Newfound Lake after a 31 rod portage. At this point, were on the final section of our exit, but not the final leg of the trip. We had to paddle Newfound Lake and down into Moose Lake with winds that were steadily beginning to increase as the day grew longer. Paddling down Newfound in a stiff breeze was still intimidating as all hell to me, but I was becoming comfortable with how to work through it to get back home. I was bound and determined at this point that I wasn't going to let this lake defeat me. It really wasn't easy. All the events of the previous day were sitting right on top of my head the whole time. My family, the danger that I was in, the possible outcome...

We were supposed to hold to a shore hugging tactic to navigate the waters of the last two lakes we had to cross. Instead, Paul and I paddled out and into the more open areas of the lakes, taking on the choppier water from the breezes. The weren't so intimidating as yesterday's rollers, but were causing the canoe to move around quite a bit. I managed to keep my anxiety in check and went with the course that Paul had picked out.

Newfound began to wear on me after an hour or so of fighting the winds, paddling faster and harder when they picked up and smacked us in the face, and easing a bit to rest before the next gust of wind blew up and at us. I was getting tired, and a little hungry. We had to forego breakfast at the island to be able to get packed and off before it got too late, so none of us had anything to eat that morning. About two thirds of the way down, a float plane popped from over the ridge above the lake and flew low at us and back across toward where we just came from. As he passed, I waved my paddle at him. They were apparently looking for us. I felt a little hope at this point at knowing that at least someone was aware of our presence and position should things not work out for the group. It circled around and came back at us, from back to front and disappeared back over the ridge it came at us from.

By then, we had made it down to the push through between Newfound and Moose. The breezes were picking up in both intensity and frequency as we got closer and close to Moose Lake. We had been making steady ground for the last couple of hours. I focused in on what I was doing by picking out an object on the shore and tried to paddle for it, like a lifeline...but eventually, those lifelines would be farther and farther away, as we rounded into Moose Lake. It was only a mile and a half from the confluence between the lakes and the landing, with a couple of smallish islands a half mile up and the larger island that sits in the middle of and directly across from the landing.

This is an area that the locals refer to "The Slot." Remember that the banks of these lakes are generally steep, often sheer and ringed with ridgetops which capture and funnel the wind, intensifying it as it rushes up the lake. Ensign and the middle lake were roundy sort of lakes, but Newfound and Moose especially were long and narrow lakes, pointing in the direction that the wind was coming from. We now faced the Mighty Moose for the last leg of our trip...and we would earn every inch, every foot, every yard before reaching the landing.

Agian, instead of keeping to the shorelines, Paul and I headed straight up the middle of the lake...paddling through wind gusts and increasing swells on the surface. The bow of the canoe heaved and bobbed. My hands and muscles were cramping as I switched from one side then the other trying to help Paul keep our faces into the wind. Legs cold and stiff, beard full of ice, toes freezing as the leveraged themselves around on the bottom of the canoe. If we went broadside this time, we would capsize. That danger was very real and very near the front of my thoughts for the next hour as we fought our way down the Slot past the smallish islands and toward the larger island across from the landing. It was all I could do to fight to get the canoe where it needed to be, pitching and heaving and bobbing around in the increasing swells.

Clearing the tip of the island, we got out of the wind just long enough to regain some of our compsure and rest tired achy muscles a bit before being hit in the face again by icy wind and waves. On the island, directly across from the landing there's one of those brown Forest Service natoinal park signs welcoming you to the BWCAW. When we hit that the wind started back on us. Fierce and relentless, the final twenty minutes was a struggle the likes I have never been through. Riding swells as the picked the bow up and slammed us into the next trough...grabbing swells with the paddle blade and trying to push us up and across the trough to the next swell. We literally paddled as if our lives depended on it. It was all we could do to keep the canoe pointed into the wind as it hit us a little off the starboard bow, pushing us out into the middle part of the lake. Twenty minutes...that's how long it took, I reckon, for us to get pushed across the final section of the lake and onto the landing and home. Even as we neared the shore, my muscles failing, cold, sweating inside my windbreaker, ice in my beard, on my eyelids...on the bow of the canoe, on the shaft of my paddle...I felt us slowly start to be pushed backwards, away from the landing, but still slowly toward shore.

Finally, the canoe stalled out on land as we hit shore. We landed on the very last section of landing there was...a few yards down from the main part of the landing. We didn't care...Paul jumped out of the back of the canoe and beached it...I was so exhausted from the crossing that I didn't get out right away...but when I did...I almost fell over. My legs were cold and stiff, my feet like icicles. I tossed my paddle to the ground and Paul and I shouted and hugged each other. The lake didn't defeat me. I had won...well, WE had won against it.

All that was left of our trip was to worry about our other companions some minutes behind us yet. They had opted for the longer bus somewhat safer transit by hugging the shore more closely. They still had the fight at the end, but were spared a lot of the turbulence b hugging the shore. Twenty minutes later, we had all beached out canoes and portaged our gear and the boats back to the vehicles and loaded up. A half hour later we were headed into a blinding snow fromt that pushed up and into Moose Lake, obliterating any visibility. A half hour after that, the six of us are at the Ely Steakhouse downing burgers and cozying up to the fireplace and planning next year's trip.

The Modern Voyageur...

2006-04-14T17:24:00.000-07:00

December was my tenth winter in Minnesota. I landed in Minneapolis on Dec. 21, 1995 with two duffle bags, a backpack, a pair of Sorel boots and an extreme cold weather field jacket (you know, the kind with the furry snorkel zip hood that they wear at the North Pole...). Immediately, I was amazed that, being smack dab in the downtown area of a major city, how quiet things seemed to move around me. Granted, there was a good amount of snow on the ground. The winter of '95 as I understand it, was a good cold one with plenty of snow, and even a couple of ice storms that made the trees look like crystal chandaliers in the crisp early morning.

Growing up in Texas, winter was regarded as something of an annoyance. It never really gets extremely cold, and only freezes once a year or so. When this happens, everything turns chaotic, with scores of people mobbing grocery and hardware stores in search of enough food to last the next three months, generators, skids of water, gloves and mittens, 350,000 BTU propane heaters and batteries by the case. You name it, they're buying it. After the frigid doom finally passed, which took no more than three or four days for the mercury to push past the point of freezing, folks would begin emerging from their houses and rejoining the world. It always seemed like no matter how strong (or weak) the storm actually was, that particular meteorological event was hailed as the worst anyone had seen in at least a decade.

Surviving in the winter in this region is, for the most part, a highly refined and complicated science if you spend any amount of time outdoors in a recreational capacity. Fortunately, I've managed to cull together a decent amount of winter gear to allow me to enjoy the outdors in winter. I found that if you shop properly, you can outfit yourself rather easily and with a modest amount of ching.

I'm not saying I look like Nanook of the North when I'm snowshoeing through the woods. I haven't gone that far. Yet. I will admit that some small part of me would really like to. I think I was a voyageur in a past life. Perhaps that's why I was so drawn to this place. I can picture myself plowing a trail through the woods wearing thick wool under a canvas tunic, Ojibwe snowshoes and a red toque. Ezra-Jean Pierre or something like that. It's something I experienced a century or more ago, and I'm just reliving it. Only now, I'm able to do it with aluminum, GPS, polypropelene and Gore-Tex. Quite a far cry from portaging huge bundles of pelts, and four person birchbark canoes over miles of trail between the lakes. Bugs and swamp, natives and some really rugged terrain in the summer, and steeling against bitter cold in winter. We still "do" it like the Voyageurs did, we just do it with the help of technology.

Winter here, however, is something to behold. Spending so much time outside during winter really gives me the opportunity to see and experience things in a completely new light. If you get a good one with lots of snow (by the way, I LOVE snow.), there's an endless supply of things to do. You just have to be able to brave the accompanying cold. Every big snowfall we get here...ones that gove us over a foot are best, I gear up and grab my snowshoes and head for Leif Ericson park, down by the Lake. The main part of the park is a huge bowl sloping toward the Lake, which means it generally gets dumped on during a good snowstorm. I strap into my shoes and tromp around in the fresh powder for while. Then, I'll make my way to the slope with the deepest snow, and begin carving out my name in the middle part of the slope. I like the idea of writing my name in the snow in huge letters. I equate it to building sandcastles on the beach.

There are also very heavy Buddhist overtones to my activities those nights. The prints in the snow are there only for a moment, and then they get covered over by more snow, wind, other people's tracks...time...Impermanence. The idea that nothing lasts forever. Winter comes and covers us in white and cold and solitude, but then winter ends and we come out again. It makes me appreciate things just a little more being able to experience winter as a way of life rather than just a season.

Coffee Haiku #5...Classic Form

2006-03-07T15:06:00.000-08:00

The Roaster laments:

If I only had more beans

to roast tomorrow.

Coffee Haiku #4...Classic Form.

2006-01-19T19:31:00.000-08:00

Clouds of green dust float

Backlit by the morning sun

Starts a roaster's day.

Coffee Haiku #2 & #3...Classic Form

2006-01-02T13:30:00.000-08:00

endothermic change,

exothermic reaction,

hear the beans cracking.

green turns to yellow

yellow to reddish brown roasts

colors deepen fast.

Coffee Haiku #1...Classic Form

2005-12-30T14:29:00.000-08:00

if there are no rocks
left in Colombia now
we've taken them all.

Decompress...

2005-11-02T15:43:00.000-08:00

I finally managed to take a bona-fide vacation, probably for the first time in four or five years. This is an actual vacation, paid and everything, which beats the hell out of being laid off or in between jobs. The week that I chose turned out to be a fairly hectic one at work, and I do feel pangs of guilt for leaving my crew in a lurch to run off and enjoy myself while there is so much going on that could require my attention and assistance. Just this morning, I felt compelled to call in just to check in and see how the first half of the week went without me.

I had been up around daybreak on the morning of our last day in after a chilly evening around the fire. Up and off to the East, the first glint of sun that had been seen since sundown the night before we left the landing just outside Ely shone through the morning haze. I was managing a small fire with kindling and tinder when a pack of wolves started up a couple of miles or so North of our campsite on the south end of the lake. The pack was faint, almost disappearing with the twilight as morning broke over camp, and I almost had to completely hold my breath to listen in.

This was the second time I had heard a pack of wolves in the wild. The first being last summer, backpacking solo on the Gooseberry River. On that occasion I was alone on the trail on a very wet weekend in July. I had made camp shortly after the rain had stopped and exhausted, I climbed inside my bag to sleep. No sooner had my eyes shut, they snapped open again at the loud and rather close sound of a small pack of wolves directly across the river from where I was trying to sleep. My heart was pounding in my ears and adrenaline racing through my system as I quietly panicked in my tent, not wanting to draw any attention to myself. I heard them twice more that night, once more downriver a mile or two and then again on my side of things, walking right up the very trail I had hiked in on. Making for Castle Danger the next morning I saw paw prints on the trail a bit bigger than the palm of my hand.

Slipping the canoe into the water later that morning finally brought it all back around to me as I realized I was leaving an intensely beautiful and rugged place for my normal life back in the city. There wasn't even a puff of breeze to feather the water as Nick and I eased into the loaded canoe and began paddling out into the lake, waiting for our companions to finish packing up and loading gear into their canoe and join us for the paddle downstream. Paddling through the calm of Lake Three was akin to paddling through silk.

My first exposure to civilization after four days in the woods was in Ely sitting at a sleepy steakhouse bar inhaling an 8oz hamburger and beer, finding out from the bartender that the world didn't come to an end while we were out, but the Vikings lost and their quarterback could possibly be out for the rest of the season. In that regard, the world did come to and end.

Now I'm decompressing. Front porch watching the world go by in passing cars and sirens and cable television, people coming and going and cell phones...TV and stereo...noise everywhere...a noise I didn't really know was there until I went away from it.

All of a sudden I feel clausterphobic.

Haze Gray...

2005-10-15T17:30:00.000-07:00

I'm in the middle of an email conversation with an aquaintance of mine who happens to be preparing for induction into the Navy by way of the reserves, and will be attending Officer Candidate School someplace in Florida in the near future. I offered him my congratulations and approval of his slelection of service, along with a little humerous jab at the nature of his service and the expectation of salutes from me. Apparently, he comes from a long line of Navy men, and is making an honest decision about his duty.

My friend's news jarred loose a few memories that have been rolling around in my head for quite some time. I think of my sailing days often, and most of those thoughts are very vivid and I am fond of most of my experiences. The memories that stick the hardest are generally those of being asea on the Central and South Pacific Oceans, and on the Indian Ocean. Every once in a while, the salt will seep back into my brain and set in motion the vision of countless sunsets...watching the western horizon's twilight will start to fade and darken, giving way to moonless nights and stars...billions and billions of stars, so near you swear you could reach out and grab one and so deep you could drown in them. This effect is only intensified by the reflection of the heavens on the water that is around you...stretching out to what seems to be forever.

The horizon at sea level extends from where you stand to roughly (give or take)thirteen miles to the horizon line. Asea, if the winds and sea are calm, the only disturbance is the wake left by the screws stringing out like a foamy tail from the stern of the ship. At night, the churning of the ship's screws stir up billions of tiny bioluminescent creatures which illuminate the path of your ship with a faint greenish glow. Every now and again, the screws will churn up a colony of larger creatures under the water, which will basically explode in bursts of light. When the sun sets and it gets dark, particularly when there's no moon around, it's extremely difficult to tell where the horizon ends and the night sky takes over. You're completely engulfed in a canopy of...stars, looking at and seeing constellations that are completely foreign to you, and you're seeing them for the first time.

To be out there in the most ideal of conditions is one of the most awesome sights anyone anywhere can hope to experience. There truly is nothing like it in the world, and from a general populace standpoint so few have ever experienced it. For centuries, sailors have been looking up at those same stars and thinking that exact same thought. To be fifteen hundred miles off the southern tip of India and Sri Lanka smack in the middle of the Indian Ocean looking out at a canopy of celestial brilliance still takes my breath away.

I used to take all of this in on nights when we weren't doing some sort of major flight operation and the ship was for the most part...dark. I'd take a night walk up to the flight deck with a pair of headphones and my CD player and an apple I'd snuck off the mess decks and have a sit out on the point of the ship between the catapults. Pink Floyd's Meddle would keep me company as I sat and marvelled at the overwhelming vastness that stretched out in front of me. I've heard from other friends who were sailors in the past (mostly post vietnam duty overseas) who would listen to this same album on similar evenings.

Try as I might, it would be impossible to condense five years' worth of these experiences into one short story. I was aboard ship for a total of 5 years. In that time, I probably spent about 4 of those underway and someplace else. In all, I made three cruises overseas. Each cruise lasted roughtly six months. In one cruise, one hundred eighty sunsets, one hundred eighty dawns, six new moons, six full moons on three different bodies of water...summer and winter, spring and fall...on a seemingly endless journey West, or East...

Requiem for a worn out sock...

2005-09-12T19:10:00.000-07:00

I'm a sock person. I pretty much love all types of socks...the only exception would probably be those thin nylon dressy things worn by guys who wear suits and ties. My favorite would probably have to be the thick warm wooly socks I get on occasion from some thoughtful soul around christmas time. Why christmas? I'm not sure. I rarely get socks at any other time of the year, and although I love socks, I rarely purchase them for myself. Perhaps I'll have to do better at buying my own socks, given my propensity for pickiness when it comes to my personal attire.

The last pair I got was three years ago at...christmas. I got two pairs of thick wool socks. Both grey, but one had a red stripe at the top with red toes and the other a black stripe with black toes. I've yet to wear the socks as a matched pair. It's always been pretty much one black and one red sock at all times.

I wear socks all year round, with nearly every type of footwear, except my Chaco sandals. There is something so very wrong with men (or anyone for that matter) who insist on wearing socks with any type of ugly chunky teva-style sport sandal (the sport sandal thing is a whole other issue, which I'll spare you the details...for now.) . The only exception to this rule in my opinion (and I know quite a few who would disagree with this opinion) would possibly be a nice thick pair of wool socks and a pair of Birkenstock sandals worn on a chilly autumn morning.

Two pairs of socks worn at the same time can help you avoid the searing and disabling discomfort that can only be inflicted by a blister on your foot when you're out on the hiking trail by adding a little extra cushion and layering between your skin and the inside of a hiking boot...they also, when worn in the proper combination...such as a polyester sock under a heavier weight wool sock...help your feet to stay warm and dry in your boots.

I did laundry this past weekend and as usual, I have to wash the socks I wear at work. Standard black cotton socks. I've managed to pretty much keep the same six pairs of socks for a good four years now, without losing one for any longer than a week or so. Occasionally, one would find its way to the back of my sock bin in my closet for a few days and escape being worn and washed a couple of times until I'd find it again and mate it up with its twin.

Anyhow...as I was sorting out the clean socks and mating them up with their significant others, I noticed a hole the size of a dime in the heel of one of my black work socks. Ordinarily, holey socks wouldn't bother me all that much. I've been known to wear the same pair of wool socks til the feet were completely disentigrated and were nothing more than the necks of the socks on my ankles. My solution to this was generally to wear a pair of thinner cotton socks underneath. This time however, I don't think I have any other recourse than that of disposing of the afflicted hoisery for good. The problem with holes in my cotton socks being that although they can be darned, I wouldn't wear them because the knot of thread patching the hole would feel like something balled up in a tight knot and stuck to the inside of the sock, which would cause me to try and shift the sock around to a more comfortable position. This wouldn't work because as anyone who wears cotton socks can tell you, once that sock has been worn and broken in to the shape of your foot, it's almost impossible to get a comfortable fit in any other position.

So, it appears that I'm off to Target at some point to purchase a new pack of socks. Black socks that come in packs of six or eight and cost five bucks. Unfortuantely, the sock that developed the hole was purchased at the same time as and has seen about the same amount of wear as the five other pairs I have that are just like it, and once one starts to go, the other eleven aren't far behind. So, even though I'll probably wear those other socks til they too disentigrate, another fresh supply of socks is definately in order. Perhaps while I'm there, I'll see if they have any cool wool socks. Winter is approaching and I'd like to scare up another couple of pairs to see me through the cold months ahead. Perhaps they have some toe socks as well. I like toe socks too.

PaPaw...pt. 1.

2005-08-30T17:14:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, my grandfather (PaPaw) had a little white pickup truck. It was a 1974 (or so) Toyota Hi Lux, with a 4 speed tranny. He loved that truck. It meant everything to him. It was his work truck, his transportation to his favorite fishing hole...

Apparently, he purchased it new. Pretty much straight off the boat and for a price we'd consider a steal these days. He drove that little truck around every day that he had it. I think I can remember its odometer rolling over more than once at least, and it just kept going and going no matter how much use it got. It ran like a champ ion the hot humid summer days, and started up every morning on the coldest part of winter (if such a concept...winter...even existed in Texas...that topic is certainly up for debate even to this day.).

I'd go to my grandparent's house in South Dallas to stay a few weeks in the summer. PaPaw worked at U.S. Pipe, which was a cement pipe manufacturing yard across town. He'd be up early, sometimes before dawn with his cup of coffee for breakfast. I used to occupy the couch in the living room of my grandparent's house when I stayed there, and would often wake up to the hushed noise he'd make in his morning rituals as he got ready for work. He'd sit in the same ratty old red chair he always did and have his coffee and chuff down a couple of cigarrettes before putting his socks and shoes on, grabbing his lunchbox out the door on his way to work. Everyone in the house would still be asleep for the most part, save me and my grandparent's three dogs. A minute or so after he'd leave the house via the front door, I'd hear that little truck start up and then back up the drive and off down the street. In the afternoon, he'd be back around again, tooting the Toyota's horn twice as he rolled down Bagley past the side of the house and turned left onto Tillery and through the chain link fence and into the driveway. This caused a commotion in the house, as the dogs had become quite accustomed to the daily event and would run to the windows to peer out at the truck getting ready to round the corner coming home.

Some of the fondest memories of my PaPaw and that little truck mainly are of the weekend trips my grandparents took to De Queen Lake in Arkansas to get away from the bustle of the city life. PaPaw would drive, and grandma (she never drove.) would ride shotgun, with me in between them; my long skinny legs on either side of the tranny hump and gearshift that ran through the middle of the floorboard of the tiny cab. We'd make the two hour drive to this little section of Arkansas to visit family, often stopping in on my uncle Sonkey and Aunt Alma in Benton, or just heading straight to the lake, setting camp and fishing all weekend. We'd fish for a couple of days and then pack up and head back to Dallas so he could start his work week all over again.

This Is The Roaster...This Is Destoner...

2005-06-30T19:31:00.000-07:00

It may seem a bit weird, but I enjoy sifting throught the bits of stuff among the roasted coffee beans that don't get sucked up into the destoner hopper on the roaster I work on. Instead, the heavier matter remains on a hinged gate and eventually gets dumped into a shallow metal tray below.

Bits of glass and quartz; sometimes small pieces of bone, which have been almost polished smooth by heat and a few minutes tumbling around inside a drum with a hundred thirty or so pounds of coffee beans; the occasional rivet, spring, nail...all of them travelling from some faroff country...from some estate farm...a button from a shirt or a coin from a pocket...

Chili beans and corn. Seeds from a piece of fruit...all of it coming from someplace that isn't here, and unless we're extremely fortunate to have travelled afar-from someplace that both culturally and geographically exists for us only in books and magazines and in our own imaginations.

What I pick out of that tray puts a personality of sorts on the finished product now waiting for its final journey into a cup in some shop in some town or city in Minnesota.

Someone lost that button off his shirt perhaps-on some farm in Colombia, or Guatemala...some girl who's never even been off the island she grew up on dropped the seeds from her fruit on a hot summer day during the season's harvest in Sumatra, or lost a bead off her necklace in Ethiopia...

Then again, they sometimes dry the harvested green beans on huge concrete slabs and turn them with rakes-or in some countries, they dry the beans right on the side of the road...the jetasm I find then being the tiny bits of gravel and glass that falls through the holes in the cooling tray and transition to the destoner.

There is a circle that is completed in a way when I remove that debris from the remainder of the beans in the tray and toss it into the small cardboard box that sits on top of the destoner-joining the other bits and pieces of other people's lives, or other people's countries, or other people's meals...

I suppose if anything at all, I am humbled in a way knowing that I am one of only a very few who get to see that "face." By the time the coffee makes its way into a bag, coffee shop, or kitchen coffee maker, that image disappears into the steamy vapor of a freshly brewed cup.

enjoy.

I Heart Spring...

2005-03-26T11:29:00.000-08:00

Ordinarily, I can tolerate winter for about two or three months longer than a good cross section of the populace of my community...but I have to admit, I am starting to feel the pangs of desire for a warmer change of climatage...for a while at least.

Don't get me wrong...I'm not one to shy away from a lofty jaunt to my local watering hole when it's barely 20 below out...snowshoeing...romping around in horrendously frigid conditions...I love it. Maybe I'm sick. Maybe...naah. Back home, we don't even have a word for 'snow' in our vocabulary. If it even hints at the white stuff, there's panic in the streets. Mobs in the grocery store buying up everything in sight. Tragically it seems that every winter though, someone makes the unfortunate mistake of burning their house down by overloading the wiring with many a space heater to keep warm or worse...carbon monoxide poisoning from lighting off a charcoal grill in the living room for an 'indoor campfire' experience whilst trying to ride out a 'vicious' ice storm that only lasts a day or so and usually melts in half that time.

Still, as much as I love winter...I'm ready for spring. Today is a brilliantly warm day...the first real breath of decent warmth we've had in a long time it seems. Out on the lakewalk, the runners are out...running...old folks strolling along...unchallenged and unchecked...and the months of dog poo that has been layered in and encased in snow is finally beginning to show itself in a wretched assault on the olfactory system.

I'm sad to see the snow go away. I'll miss it every time I come home and see my high falootin snowshoes gathering dust at the bottom of the stairs to my penthouse. They'll just have to wait til next winter til they see some use.

enjoy...

It is indeed...Art...I presume

2005-02-18T11:36:00.000-08:00

Much to my chagrin, my bloggie's has been in a hiatus of sorts...However, I'm sort of back in business, and will attempt to at least make a lame attempt at keeping up with my writing. The death of my computer back in October left a gaping hole in my ability to communicate creatively in a satisfactory manner. Sad to say, I've progressed beyond the need to carry notebooks and the peripheral accoutrement, and attempting to translate what I've written on paper into bandwidth that works well with my style is poor at best. I keep simple notes and outlines, but the brunt of my creative action has become my blog.

Living so near the lakewalk gives me more than a few chances to let words flow and form into tales on the nightly walks I take. I'll be able to get back to relating them soon enough, now that my outwardly creative obligations have been taken care of.

It's only natural for me to obsess over pretty much every aspect of my creativity. Whether I like it or not, what I have displayed is in the eyes and minds of everyone who comes into the room. I'm trying not to concern myself with what others think about my work. This is primarily for the enjoyment of my friends and 'family.' However, my work is now a part of a public display in a very public place. The event was mine...The evening was mine. So, therein lies the philosophic quagmire in which I sit.

I've spent a little while grappling with the ego aspect of creation for public enjoyment...I'm finding the mere act of art is a dual exercise in both arrogance (for lack of a better term) and humility. Whether it merits critique or acclaim is not up to me at all. I'm not really in it for that type of attention at all. There's where the duality of the whole situation comes in. I don't WANT to fit into that role, but by making this very public creative effort, I'm pushing myself into it.

So, that said...I do have Art. Art for Art's sake, I could say. However stressful, the last few days have been quite enjoyable for me because I had a push of creative focus...Something to plan, something to prepare for, and in the end, it pretty much worked. Another item to cross off of the list of things I'd like to do in my life.

lofty comments?

Extricate...

2004-09-13T18:29:00.000-07:00

extricate: to free or remove from an entanglement.

Extricate…
Pull apart pieces of our lives that have been
Intertwined
With each other for so long.

I’m sure my books will miss being in the shelf
Next to yours, and
My toothbrush is going to get awful
Lonely
Without yours being there to keep it
Company.

And then there are the CDs,
Shoes a jumble in the front closet,
You can have the new cookware,
I’ll take the old.

I can wear my ring on
The opposite hand because I
Really did like it to begin with.

I Heart Autumn...

2004-09-05T09:35:00.000-07:00

Actually, this post has nothing to do with my hearting Autumn. I just liked the title. It's about one of the great traditions that occur during Autumn. Well, two great traditions, in fact. The first such tradition being that of college kids throwing obnoxiously loud parties at all hours during the week. The other tradition (which I am oddly quite fond of) is that of me calling the cops on said partygoers and throwers at 1:30 in the morning.

There is a house next door to my abode which is populated entirely by young college kids. Boys, mostly. In the past, the previous occupants of said domicile (also college kids) have hosted some ragers, which have provoked either me or my Lovely Bride to summon the local constabulatory, much to the chagrin of the Kids Next Door. We often warn them of the impending Police Action, which causes their guests to flee the house like rats off a sinking ship, which in turn causes me to giggle with delight. Once, we had the father of one of the kids next door (who was in fact providing alcohol to these kids, and making Dirty Old Man faces at the nubile young ladies in attendance) try to convince us that everything was cool, and that we should be cool.This new group of kids are obviously amatuer partythrowers. They didn't bring down the wrath of the Angry Neighbor Who Has To Get Up And Roast Coffee At Six A.M. on this occasion, but I did notice that even though they seemed to have had a good start on the festivities, the event fizzled to almost nothing at about 1a.m., save one inebriated chap who insisted on hollering "YEAH!" every minute or so for about 15 minutes. After that, nothing. I heard kids going down the walk, car doors closing and ignitions...igniting, and then silence. At that point I was able to return to my sleep.

I can tell that, in light of the past few nights' revelries next door, the Duluth P.D. is going to be hearing a lot from me this fall. I'll be damned if I'm going to let a houseful of disrespectful Trustafarians interrupt what is an otherwise nice neighborhood. If they're quiet and don't tromp across my yard, piss on my house, or leave Keystone Ice Light Light cans and red kegger cups all over the place, we're going to get along. Sure they spend a lot fo money to go to this school. Sure they spend a lot of (mommy and daddy's) money while they're here, but they don't see the rest of the neighborhood around them that are Real Adults, and not thirteenth graders who have jobs and careers and children and don't party instead of study at the drop of a hat.

Yeah, I was 22 once, but I wasn't a drunken belligerant idiot, and I didn't hang out with drunken belligerant idiots either. I certainly don't deserve to have my sleep interrupted by a kid who should be applying himself to his work and study.

...

2004-08-29T14:10:00.000-07:00

I guess at some point I have to come across the inevitable topic of Death. I’ve been dealing with death in one way or another recently, from the suicide of my friend Nate, to the impending death of my dad. I’m still not sure as yet how to deal with that type of loss of life. At this point in our country’s latest police action, close to a thousand young men, fathers, uncles, brothers and friends have lost their lives overseas. Every night there is a new set of numbers to be added to the thousands of memorials around the country.

Still, death is a thing that’s still a very external reality, albeit inevitable for all of us at some point or another. The only reference I had to death up until recently was that of my grandfather’s back in 1985. His was very sudden and took everyone by complete shock. Oddly enough, no matter how much you may be prepared for the death of a loved one, the shock of the actual event still leaves you breathless, as if you’ve had the wind knocked out of you.
As far as my own dad is concerned, his has been a long and drawn out ordeal. It seems rather morbid to look at it like that, but in light of the fact that he has been in such poor health the last few years-since I was in the Navy in fact-that the reality becomes more of an expectation. So, it becomes more of a waiting game for the family. The next phone call I get from my mom is the one where she tells me that the old man is gone. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t scare me a little bit. It scares me a lot. Not because he wouldn’t be around any longer, although that would be a part of it. The part that scares me most is to not be able to tell him that I’m sorry for hating him all of these years. I don’t want to have to explain to him why I hated him, that’s my problem. But I feel I owe it to him to at least tell him I’m sorry for feeling that way.

It’s becoming clearer to me now that no matter how I may have felt about it in the past, I wasn’t the one who was being pushed away from everything. For most of my life I felt like an anomaly, a stranger, an outsider. I felt like the one who didn’t quite fit into the picture quite right. I spent a lot of my time shoving people away from me. Not pushing, shoving. My dad, as much as he tried in my youth, did everything he could for us kids. He may not have made all the right decisions or choices in what he did for work or where we lived, but he always did it with the best intentions in mind. All that I’ve ever done was to shove him away.

Now as I’m looking at and almost expecting the next call from my mom to mean the end of his life, I feel an overwhelming need to atone, to repent, to say that I’m sorry for shoving him and the rest of the family away. Let him know that nothing that happened in the past means anything anymore because us kids all turned out all right. I think as the sick, lonely old man that he is right now, he needs to hear it from me. My mom has said that she’s pretty much forgiven him for his transgressions against her, and my sisters have as well I believe. Once more in grand style I’m the last holdout, mostly because I’m a stubborn bullheaded sonofabitch. If I don’t do any of that soon, I’ll be regretting it for the rest of my life.

My brother Flagg was staying at my apartment a few years back when I lived in St. Paul. He had come on his way back East to a sailing ship in Massachusetts and stopped on his way through. Before he came to Minnesota, he had stopped in Colorado to see his father, who was in poor health at the time. He did what all sons should do at that stage in their father’s lives and made his peace with him. About a week or so after he got to my place, he got word that his father had passed on. I didn’t even have to ask when I walked into my apartment that day. He and I had ironically been talking about it the day before, and now here he was actually dealing with the reality of his father’s death. He and his dad had a worse relationship than that of my dad and I. At the end, they both realized that their feelings toward each other in the past meant nothing and that their meeting before Flagg’s trip out East was going to be their last on this earth. They both knew that and understood what that meant. How my dad and I come to that level has as yet to be seen, but I do know that this is something that I have to do, for my sake, as well as my family’s.

Walker

2004-08-16T19:45:00.000-07:00

I get around the streets of Duluth quite a bit, either by walking or my trusty mule (bike). I think it's safe to say I've encountered a good number of the residents of this town whilst pounding the sidewalks and pedaling the streets, and there is one old fella I seem to run into...randomly... everywhere. He's a kindly gent, about 80 if he's a day, with tan skin and whitewhitewhite hair. I've spoken to him briefly on a few occasions, either to tell him the time (odd, because I gave up wearing a watch in 1996) or to just acknowledge his presence in this reality. Mostly we exchange a wave as we pass by one another. I've run into him mostly around the blocks between 7th and 9th Aves and 1st to 4th streets, and as far away as downtown. Mostly he walks, but sometimes I've seen him with a broom in his hand sweeping sidewalks and steps to people's houses. The other day, I saw him across the street from my house sweeping the sidewalk in front of the duplex across the street. He even went so far as to sweep right up to the stairs and up onto the stoop and doorstep before he returned to the small pile of debris at the corner near the storm drain.

He sort of reminds me of the twin sisters that used to live down the street from me when I lived in St. Paul. They'd walk to the store every day, arm in arm always with the matching scarves and coordinating lipstick and sparkling blue eyes. My friend Beth pointed them out to me one day as we were smoking and drinking coffee on the front stoop of our building. They would take that same walk almost every day for three of the four years I lived there. About a year before I moved to Duluth, one of the sisters passed away. It was strange to see one without the other walking down the street. I almost didn't recognise her walking by herself. She would take the same walk she and her sister used to for about another year or so, and then one afternoon she didn't come walking down the sidewalk. About a week later I found out that she too had passed on.

Lake Superior Martini

2004-08-06T14:07:00.000-07:00

This is a random thought I had while walking to work in Canal Park one winter morning...

The icy southwestern tip of Lake Superior
Is like a humongous martini.
(stirred, not shaken)
Duluth is a piano bar,
I am a piano player.
My feet tickle the wooden ivories of the lakewalk
As I walk to work on a cold winter morning.

November 2002

No really...is it Art?

2004-07-27T17:21:00.000-07:00

     I’ve never really considered myself an artist…for me to do so would be a classic denial of my chosen philosophy of not allowing myself to be attached to any one specific group or subset of culture. I adamantly reject the notion that one must subject themselves to years of so-called ‘training’ and education to be considered among a more artistic peer group. Living in Seattle, I had an association with a few of these artsy types…they had plotted and studied every single aspect of art. It always seemed to me that some were incredibly busy trying to BE artists, and not just being artists. I subscribe to the philosophy of self-realization. It shares a bit of the same thinking as other paths such as Zen and Tao.   Tao teaches us the concept of ‘wu wei,’ which loosely translated means to ‘do without doing.’
     I’m still in the process of fitting it all together at this point, but I’ll be able to draw the connections between the wu wei and its relevance to modern Buddhism. If I am to create, I can’t do it out of a desire to make a statement. This creates the suffering that is spoken of in the first of the four noble truths in classic Buddhism. So, I create out of no other necessity than to simply create. Art for Art’s sake, but I still have to dodge that label. I suppose if there were any desire I could come to think of, it would probably be the desire for space and a big pile of scrap from which to work. Some tools would be nice. But to create something to possibly display would be a small dream of mine. For as long as I can remember though, I’ve always had this intense creative streak, which sometimes spills out into other areas of my life. Almost everything I do has some sort of creative something in it somewhere, all you have to do is look for it. It can possibly be the way that I word something in a sentence or the way I link or tie two objects together to create a mobile.
     The devil is in the details, I say. It’s one thing to appreciate a piece overall, to look at it and say, “this is nice” or whatever you think about it. It’s another thing to pay attention to what makes up the piece. The nuts, the bolts, how the glass is suspended by the wire; the way the spoons are bent and the way the rocks seem to balance in their bowls. I like to create things that change with a silent and very fluid, very natural motion. This is why I like creating mobiles. On the whole, the physical makeup of the piece never changes. But because it’s constantly moving around with the air currents in the wind, or just simple gravitational effects, they never appear to be the same at all. They constantly change as they drift along on whatever breeze they happen to catch. “Suspended Animation” I like to call it. Another aspect of my work is that it’s multi dimensional. You should be able to examine it from any angle you choose. That’ll let you see what really went into the piece, and give you better access to the details. If I were a genuine sculptor and could work in that media, I would be creating things that everyone could approach and climb upon and explore.

The Gettysbeer Address

2004-07-27T17:15:00.000-07:00

(This was originally written as an oratory to be given at the Gitchee Gumee Brewfest in April 2004.)

Four Score and seven beers ago, my companions and I brought themselves forth on this continent a brew nation, conceived in innebrity and dedicated to the proposition that not all beers are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil debate, testing which of these fine brews’ inebriation so conceived and so delicious can long endure. We are met in the great Brewhouse of that debate. We have come to dedicate a portion of this drink as a tribute to those who here gave us the means that this event might long live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this drink. The brave men living and dead who have perfected and brewed it have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we drank here, but we can never forget that we came here to sip and sup with our fellow men. It is for us the drunkards rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished ales, which were poured out for us, have thus far been so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored men we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these beers shall not have been drank in vain, that this brew fest shall have a new birth of drunkenness and that the beer of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Falling Out

2004-07-24T07:41:00.000-07:00

What do friends say
When they’re done being friends,
And their closeness
Has drifted like an ocean?

How many times must they
Meet at a party and
Deal
With that uncomfortable silence
That builds itself around them?

How much time passes until
Friends who aren’t
Friends anymore
Simply become
Acquaintances?

Winter 2000 (circa)

Anatomy of a Rocket

2004-07-24T07:33:00.000-07:00

Sturdy cro-moly steel road frame with braze-ons for linear pull brakes on seat stays and fork
13-15 tooth cog on a flip-flop hub (fixed gear and freewheel)
Double wall Sun Ringle’ or Mavic 26” rims with 26X1-1/4 “pizza cutter” tires pumped up to 120 psi.
32 tooth “Big Ring”
"Moustache" style handlebars mounted upside down with aero brake levers, all wrapped up in black cushion tape.
A comfortable seat.
Bearings, Grease, brake cable.
Shimano "Death Grip" SPD pedals on a three piece crankset with a sealed bottom bracket.

Ssssssscaryfassstttt!!!

Wanderlust pt. 1

2004-07-23T04:58:00.000-07:00

     I had in my youth a great sense of longing to be someplace else. Although I knew that I'd always be my Mother's Son, I had to seek, search and discover all of the things I had read about in books. I spent a good deal of my time as a kid reading things like National Geographic and copious volumes of the World Book Encyclopedia series, in addition to numerous books on travel. I would pull out the maps they send with the National Geographic magazines and study them for hours, memorizing names and places, roads and rivers. When I got down to it, Texas in all its vastness just seemed to be just too small for my wanderlust and imagination to be appeased. No one really expected me to stick around very long after I got out of High School, I don’t think.
     I enlisted in the Navy shortly before graduation, and ended up getting called up early for boot camp in July instead of November as was planned. I spent two months in the Chicago area going to basic training, and then another four months in Virginia going through technical school. I took orders to go to an aircraft carrier out in Washington State after technical school, and reported aboard the U.S.S. Nimitz early on in 1990. So began a most tumultuous adventure that’s still in progress. I went rather blindly out into the world to begin figuring out what the hell I was supposed to do with my life. According to some, in that mission I failed. But failure depends on how you look at things, really. I've always been a little skeptical of the notion that you absolutely must have a plan for your life so early on.
     From the onset of puberty, and sometimes much earlier in life, we begin being programmed, mainly by our teachers and parents, to think that we must have some sort of plan for our lives, to know what we're supposed to do with the remainder of our time here on earth, however short. Those who didn't would surely wind up flipping burgers in a fast food joint until death took them away from their dismal pointless life.
     Back in my day and generations before, depending on how adamant parents are in the way of life decisions, a lot of people probably wind up doing something relatively close to what their folks had in mind for them. It's not really the parent’s fault per se. The reason being is that the drive to have our children somehow be as successful as or more so than we are. Other times, some of us have an idea of what we'd like our lives to turn out to be like. What happens then, if one day we wake up and realize that what we may be doing in life is completely wrong, or that our chosen or ordained "career" isn't as fulfilling as what it was made out to be? Based on that question, I have resisted the resignation of my life to just one cause, one job, and one career. Since I became aware of the world outside my doorstep, I have been pursuing the existence of experience, and gaining wisdom and enlightenment through that experience.
     I felt that what I had to learn in life couldn’t be taught in books. I can't explain it any simpler than to say that I wasn't really interested in being tied down to something any longer than I had to be. I did exactly what was required of me with the least amount of effort as possible, namely graduating High School, and did my best to get out of town. In retrospect, I think I was itchy to get started. College had briefly crossed my mind at some point, and would have been a good thing I'm sure.  Though I really couldn't commit fully to the college routine, mainly out of fear of the requisite math courses, I did wind up doing some independent study and even attended a few lectures out West when I was there. Still, it didn't really interest me. It may well have saved me from the culture shock I got when I left home for good by staving off the inevitable thrust out into the world. Be that as it may however, I don't feel that the path I chose is for everyone to follow.
Experience is the essence of life; it is what we are put here for. Essentially, everything you put on top of that (your house, your car, or your career) is nothing more than baggage. I am sometimes a little envious of young kids today in that their eyes seem to be a little more open to the world as it is.