June 2004 Archives

There's a post on This Is Broken that hits a little close to my heart. It's a sign that appears in the Bethel, CT public library. Bethel is next to the town I grew up in. I used to spend a lot of time in Bethel, since I worked at Loree's Kitchen, which is very close to the library.

This Is Broken shows a sign that is posted in the library, pointing people to the children's area and adult videos. Um, yes.

Now, having worked in Library-land for so long, I know exactly what the librarians were thinking. No, Bethel Library doesn't have an XXX movie section. They simply divide their collections into "adult" and "children," meaning the audience for those items. This is yet another example of internal language showing through to the public.

Blood Simple

Big Kahuna

A little joke that sums up the dreams of so many of us.

Well, I made it back from Big Basin. The trail kicked our butts. Big time. There were points where I had to keep reminding myself why it's fun to do trips like that. Pain is a funny thing. It hurt so much going though it. The hills just never seemed to stop. At times I felt that I was being crushed by my pack. Yet by the time we were in the car driving home, I was thinking to myself that it really wasn't that bad. Though when I went to get out of the car I was quickly reminded that yes, it indeed had been that bad.

The trail was about 5.25 miles each way (we took the Skyline-to-the-Sea/Berry Creek Falls trail in to camp and the Sunset trail back). The weather was good. A little too warm in the sun, but the trees are so big and thick that most of the time we were in the shade and you'd get a cool breeze every now and then that felt wonderful. E took a bunch of photos along the way, including the one to the right. Isn't he good?

The climb up the second waterfall was still really steep and very wet. But I wasn't as panic-filled as the last time. We both took our packs off and hoisted them up to each other in order to get up the last of the falls. And I was able to climb up myself without help (which I was proud of).

We didn't see too much in the way of wildlife. We saw two banana slugs (which are really cool, in that icky-bug kind of way). We saw a lot of Stellar's jays at the campsite and at the lower Berry Creek Falls. Once we got to the campsite, we met a very brazen raccoon. He walked right up to E's backpack and stole a Ziploc bag of clothes right out of it. Luckily he dropped it as soon as he realized it didn't have any food in it. But then the little bugger came back later and did it again. The 'coon did manage to break into the trail mix that the campers at the next site had. He didn't bother our food (we hung it from a tree branch), maybe because he thought all we had was clothes.

So, it was a good trip in that the woods are beautiful and it was great to spend the time with E. I do enjoy pushing myself to my limits (even if it's just because it feels so good when you stop), though this time I could have done with a little less pushing. Okay, a LOT less pushing. It will be awhile before I do a trip like that again. Need some time to get back in shape.

Sunshine

Victor Lombardi

Tim Gasperak

Thomas Vander Wal

This Is Broken

Tagsonomy

Tag Tuesday

Salim Virji

Rebecca Blood

Rashmi Sinha

Poetry Daily

Peter Van Dijck

Peter Merholz

Peter Boersma

molly wright steenson

Michael Angeles

Mark Geary

Maggie Mason

Madonnalisa Chan

Lou Rosenfeld

Livia Labate

Jenn Mitchell

Kristina Perkins

Lane Becker

A List Apart

Kat Hagedorn

Karl Fast

Jonah Dietz

Jesse James Garrett

Jess McMullin

Jen Krieger

Jeff Veen

Janice Fraser

InfoDesign

Heather Armstrong

Gene Smith

Erin Malone

Erik Ogan

Donna Maurer

The Content Wrangler

Christina Wodtke

Chris Baum

Beth Mazur

Andrew Hinton

Adam Greenfield

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

YAY! I'm going camping this weekend. Going to Big Basin State Park and am going to backpack the Berry Creek Falls trail to the Sunset campsite. It's just an overnight trip - leave Saturday morning and come back on Sunday. But it should be fun.

I've made this trip once before. It downpoured the entire hike back from the campsite. We were soaking (and I mean SOAKING) within the first hour of the hike. I do have a rain cover for my pack now, as well as some rain gear for me, thanks to that trip. Luckily, it's the middle of June and the weather is suppose to be clear and warm with no chance of precipitation.

I am getting a bit nervous about the hike itself though. I remember the hike up the falls themselves as being really difficult and scary. At least at one particular point. I don't like heights, especially when everything is wet (since you are next to the falls) and there are lots of slippery rocks and moss all around you. And, well, it just goes down and down and down. I was also in better shape physically the last time I did this.

Though, the more I think about it, I did make it up, all in one piece. I needed a hand getting over that one point (had to take my pack off and hoist it up separately). And, well, there is nothing saying that you can't have help on the trail. Not going to get a metal at the end for doing it all on my own.

Oh, I'll be alright. I'll be outdoors all weekend with someone I love. What more could I want?

Someone posted this to the Weight Watchers Veggie Mailing list. It really hit a cord with me, summing up what it is I'm trying to do with my life right now. So I thought I'd share.

A time comes in your life when you finally get it...when in the midst of all your fears and insanity you stop dead in your tracks and somewhere the voice inside your head cries out enough! Enough fighting and crying or struggling to hold on. And, like a child quieting down after a blind tantrum, your sobs begin to subside, you shudder once or twice, you blink back your tears and through a mantle of wet lashes you begin to look at the world through new eyes. This is your awakening.

You realize it's time to stop hoping and waiting for something to change or for happiness, safety and security to come galloping over the next horizon. You come to terms with the fact that he or she is not Prince or Princess Charming and you are not Cinderella or Cinderfella and in the real world there aren't always fairy tale endings (or beginnings for that matter) and that any guarantee of *happily ever after* must begin with you and in the process a sense of serenity is born of acceptance.

You awaken to the fact you are not perfect and not everyone will always love, appreciate or approve of who or what you are... and that's OK. (They are entitled to their own views and opinions.) You learn the importance of loving and championing yourself and in the process a sense of newfound confidence is born of self-approval.

Japanese Story

Can't.... speak.... laughing... too hard.

I was feeling rather down/grumpy/tired/slightly ill this afternoon, so E suggested that I have a nice cup of tea and a sit down. This suggestion reminded me a lot of Mags (who I miss terribly), so I followed the link.

While looking around the site, I found this. I don't know what they put in the water over there in them isles, but it sure did cheer me up and make me giggle.

Apparently this is old news (I'm so behind the times, but what else is new?), but I still think it's funny.

If you search on Google for "miserable failure," the number one result is for the George W. Bush biography on the White House site.

Now, not only do I find this humorous, I also think it's really spiffy keen how it's happening. The BBC published an article about it back in December. Here's the gist. Part of how Google ranks results is based upon the links that are going to a page. And the link text helps determine the keywords that Google thinks are appropriate for that page. So, enough people have posted on their sites that miserable failure should go to the Bush bio page, that they have altered the rankings in Google.

Talk about power to the people.

This past Saturday I went for a bike ride with E. It's been well over a year, if not two, since I've ridden a bike. Yes, I am rather embarrassed to admit that. I have a new bike. I won it in a raffle Lou had when he won top fundraiser status at the Ann Arbor EcoRide. C put it together for me, even though I said I didn't think it was good idea (seeing how he'd never done it before). Saturday was the first day I've ever ridden it.

It was a perfect day for a ride. I'm painfully out of shape, something my thighs screamed at me as I struggled up and over the second overpass. But the day was clear and warm, with a slight breeze, and it really did feel good to be outside. We found a trail that E hadn't been on before, so that was nice since it was a bit of an adventure for both of us.

All was going well until we found ourselves near Great America Parkway. My pedal started to feel kind of funny. I figured it was the sole of my shoe sliding on it, so I kept going. About 10 minutes later, the pedal fell off. Yes, that's right. The petal fell off the bike. It would seem that C, in his infinite wisdom, double threaded the pedal. The entire inside of the crank is stripped. Little metal shavings all over. Grrrrrrrrr.

Now, E admitted that it is something that is easy to do if you don't know what you are doing. What annoys me the most is that I kept saying to C that I was more than happy to take it to a bike shop. That he should ask E for help. That I knew one could ruin the pedals if they weren't put on properly. Of course, he didn't listen to me. What did I know?

Luckily, E has an extra crank that he thinks will fit my bike. He's going to work on it this week for me. It's just frustrating. Yes, I've been putting off riding with a number of excuses for a long time now. But I got myself to the point where I was getting gung-ho about it. And now I have to wait. *sigh* At least it is a (somewhat) easy repair.

The Geek Test is one of those things that has been on the Web for a long, long time. I've taken it before, but decided to take it again to see how things have changed.

This time I scored 31.75542%, which means I'm a Total Geek. However, even though that sounds rather geeky, there are 8 levels of Geekness and Total Geek is only the 3rd.

I found that since I am no longer living with a physicist and no longer have cable, I couldn't answer as many questions as I used to. Not watching Star Trek anymore and can't remember the difference between fission and fusion. I think this is a good thing. Though the over achiever in me still wants to be at least a Super Geek.