Category: earth

Camping, hiking, exploring, and general nature-communing.

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scotch on the rocks

Glug glug.
Today, no two paragraphs are about the same thing. At least I had some time to write this weekend. Time that should’ve been spent mowing lawns or painting walls or doing laundry or any number of other things – but wasn’t. Tonight was Chivas Regal scotch on the rocks at a coworker’s place for dinner… four of those and the fingers are a little heavy and stubborn on the keyboard.

Got my bermudagrasss killer in the mail the other day, and I eagerly opened the package to find the pint taped securely shut across it’s lid. Anxious to put the stuff down on my weeds, I sat down to read the product label and advisories. Apparently this stuff is the most caustic poison on earth. You can read the warnings for yourself, but this is some evil stuff. When applying, you’re advised to wear long pants, a long sleeved shirt, and special gloves to avoid skin contact. You can’t breathe it or get it in contact with your skin, and God forbid you somehow get it in your eyes or ingest it. You’re supposed to triple-wash the container before recycling, and are advised not to burn it or spray it near irrigation or animals. When I placed the order online, I chose the full pint over a half, thinking that, if I did need to do several applications to get the job done, I didn’t want to run out. Turns out the stuff is so potent, that you use less than an ounce for 1000 square feet of turf – so my $60 pint is probably enough to treat an entire city.

I’m sorry Death Cab, I probably jumped the gun. The more I listen to your new album, the one I panned a last week, the more I realize that my downloaded copy is probably not the real deal. The quality isn’t stellar, and some of the songs sound half-done. If this is, indeed, the studio version and not some comp of demos or whatever, I’m cool with that too. It’s not 100% bad, but it’s not what I’ve looked forward to as a follow up to that album with the bird and string on the cover. It’s slow, and drippy, with only a couple peppy numbers to break the melancholy. Most times, I love the dreary indie-pop, dig the teary-eyed horned-rim stuff… but this stuff is kinda… bland, kinda… vanilla. I’ve got some hope that, when and if the proper album leaks, it’ll be a little more polished and a little more instrumented… but who knows.

I was sitting in church this Sunday, looking down at my folded hands as I often do during a prayer. That’s when I noticed a smallish raised bump on my finger – what I used to call my “writing bump.” A callous from holding my pen/pencil tight as I write, only now it’s merely a dwarfed miniature of what it once was. I just don’t write anymore. Thinking about it, I write so little, I can name the few instances when I do: signing something, such as a document at work ; writing the one check a month for that single remaining bill which I can’t setup for auto-debit; or taking quick notes during a meeting. All of this probably amounts to only a few hundred words per week. Using my hands to write has almost become a thing of the past. I type everything. Back in college, when I would fill both sides of a piece of notebook paper with the step-by-step operations of a laborious LaPlace transform – my writing bump was prominent, well-worn. Since college though, the actual times I hand-write something have dropped so sharply, I hardly have a bump at all.

Goodnight.

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dreaming of murder

Bastardgrass.
Came home for lunch today to get away from the cubicle. The bread had little blooms of bright yellow mold all over it, so I made a bunch of little turkey and cheese sandwiches out of Club crackers instead. They were just as good, and they filled me up. My fingers smell like rosemary turkey and pepperjack cheese. Watched a little Andy Griffith (the one where Andy makes Opie give up football to spend all his time studying, and then sees the error of his ways and relents), and then decided to come back here and write a bit before I have to head back. I’m in no rush, work didn’t rest while I did last week and I’m doing double-duty to catch up. I think I’m back in the swing of things, all caught up on mail and working hard to offload a lot of things I’ll no longer be responsible for now that I’m a facnypants “manager.” My goal is to be able to give my focus to the “new” stuff I’m supposed to be doing, and portion out the “old” to others. It’s working… I’m slowly disengaging… but it will take time and effort to fully untangle my previous commitments and set them adrift on their own. I’m still happy though, not burned out yet, and not ready to give up yet – so, bring it.

After some serious frustration over trying to rid my yard of what I thought was a crabgrass infestation, I sat down at the PC and did some serious research. Turns out what I have is actually bermudagrass and not crabgrass at all (actually, I think it was Pat who 1st suggested I may not be dealing with crab, but some other weedgrass). Anyway, after actually going out into the yard and pulling a “runner” to hold up to the monitor in comparison, I was 100% sure I was dealing with bermuda. This beast of a weed has gotten out of control, it’s creeping runners are splayed out onto the sidewalks and driveways in the worst spots, like glaring neon signs shouting “poor lawn maintenance” to the neighborhood. After several unsuccessful applications of specialty weedgrass killers (albeit, most mistakenly targeted at crabgrass), I’ve had no luck stemming the march of this devil across my lawn. What’s worse, I think it’s sucking up all my real turf’s nutrients and making it struggle for survival. I… hate… this… grass.

Yeah, I know, why be this anal about a lawn? I can’t answer that. I don’t know why it bothers me so, grates on my nerves, makes me grumble every time I drive home and see it creeping into my driveway. But boy does it, and for that reason – it must die. So, delving deeper into the bottomless resource that is the internet – I ended up finding what seems to be a miracle product. A specialized weed-killer that specifically targets the bermuda nightmare grass, and kills it dead while leaving desired turf unharmed. Oh, I was doubtful, but I saw pictures folks – real, live pictures of the before and after results. This guy successfully annihilated an infestation that appeared to be much larger than mine. Of course, this godsend toxic chemical isn’t available in stores. But, it’s made right near here in lovely Fresno, and it’s available… wait for it… right through the internet. So, I whipped out the credit card and authorized the ~$60 pint to be shipped right to my front door.

You don’t even realize how utterly excited I am about this. I simply can’t wait to kill, murder, destroy, and/or obliterate this crap. I have fantasies about standing over huge patches of bermudagrass, browning in its throes of death, as I toss back my head in maniacal laughter. I’ll watch you die, bermudagrass, then I’ll spit on your grave. If I can get the bermudagrass killed and green up the real lawn, get a new tree planed where the old one has been long-dead, and do something with my sideyard planter that’s just a weedy pile of mulch – I’ll have a front yard I can be proud of again.

I still haven’t been over to anyone’s place where there’s a scanner so I can scan in Lil’ Chino’s ultrasound pictures… sucks that my scanner is busted.

‘Night.

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el dorado

An industrious people.
It’s 11:50pm and I’m just writing the first words of this entry. This evening was a busy one for me. Dinner with the boss, and then a few post-5pm work-related tasks I had to get done before bedtime. On top of all that, ended up on the phone with a coworker until midnightish, talking more shop. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, I feel like writing… don’t really feel like going to bed – although I know I’ll regret the lack of sleep come morning.

A few weeks ago, I think we were at lunch, Wes mentioned something about some “old Chinese mines” around the area. Intrigued, I asked what he was talking about. Seems that he’d been out Geocaching on his lunchbreak one day, and had stumbled across some tailings and trenches left over from the long-gone Northern California gold-mining days. I don’t know if he’d heard about them before, or if he did some research later – but he went on to explain that the area was a series of old Chinese diggings. Back in the gold-rush days of the 1850s, Chinese immigrants came in droves to Northern California to mine gold. They often lived and worked in commune-like camps. And, since I live minutes away from gold-central, California, there are remains of these Chinese camps all around the place I now call home. Turns out that the tailings and trenches that are minutes from my house are actually the 150 year old remains of a Chinese mining effort, and have remained pretty much untouched all this time.

I told Wes we had to go. I love stuff like this. Do you guys remember the movie “The Gold Bug?” I dunno about you, but we saw it in school. It’s an Edgar Allen Poe story that’s since been made into a TV-movie thing, and I can remember seeing it at least twice during my middle school literary education. From what I remember, it’s a story about a boy and a treasure hunt – and has something to do with a golden scarab. From a young age, I’ve been fascinated with treasure hunting and secret, concealed, magic, or otherwise “awesome rad” stuff of that ilk (I blame the Hardy Boys). This is why things like our middle-school Astro adventure were the apex of cool to me, and is still so memorable to me. But, I digress. The image of rotten wooden doors with rusted hinges and primitive locks sprang into my mind. I envisioned a dark crisscross of abandoned shafts, bottomless pools of endless black water, and all other Scooby Doo-esque mine-cliches. Alas, I had to leave for Taiwan and we were out of free days to go exploring. Then, this Monday rolled around and Wes, Ben and I decided to forsake our lunch hour for an adventure.

Wes led the way. There was a chest-level iron fence around the area, but a gate hung open on one side so we didn’t have to climb. You can actually see the piles of round rocks heaped in the grass from the highway, the whole thing is so close to civilization. Inside the fenced in area there are series of man-wide trenches that cut deep into the rocky earth, some as deep as thirty feet. We walked around on the piled-rocks up top, peering into the trenches for a while – then we found a way to get down in them. Just about wide enough to a man to walk through, the floor of the trenches pitched up and down in little hills, and at their deepest point you could look up and see a ribbon of sun and sky above. There were no rotted doors or dank shafts, but it was still a really fun place to explore. While there, we found evidence that the “ancient Chinese mines” may be being unofficially used for some not-so-ancient activities. We saw beer cans, hobo-hovels, spent condoms, and evidence of campfires. Hey, if less people knew about it, you could totally live at the bottom of one of those trenches and effectively disappear from the world of the surface-dwellers. Anyway, here are some pictures of the outing (Wes’ flash card ran out of space near the end of the expedition, so I had to switch to my cellphone for the last of these).




Looking down the longest and deepest of the trenches.


Ben and Wes, in the trenches.



Looking up.


Someone left us a rope to assist in this steep ascent.

With all the gold-related stuff going on in this entry, I got some more. Today I had lunch over at Pat’s place, where we discussed a new enzyme-filter (or some kinda filter at least) implementation for his large saltwater fish tank. All the talk of siphons and filtering and pumping reminded me that I have my grandfather‘s old (but working) gold sluicing equipment. It’s a little gas-powered dredge/pump attached to a fire hose, that sucks water and sediment from the river and spits it back out down a long sluice box. The constant flow of water and sand/gravel over the sluice box riffles pushes the heavy sediment to the bottom, where it collects on the textured black rubber mats. In gold-miner talk, these contraptions are often called “High Bankers” or motorized/powered sluices. Talking to Pat about the equipment, I think we both got a little bit of the gold fever. When I mentioned that I also had three of my grandpa’s old gold pans, we started talking about actually going out and using the stuff. The little gas pump worked like a charm as recently as last year, and I think I only need to make some minor repairs to the sluice box and motor mount to have a fully functioning highbanker. On top of all this, the very-close-to-me Auburn State Recreation Area allows panning and highbanking year-round without permit and several people in online gold forums mention pulling decent nuggets from the American River there.

Armed with this information, I really want to try and get a recreational highbanking/panning trip together with some friends. This would involve beer and a picnic lunch of course. Sadly, a lot of the places my grandfather used to go for public prospecting are now closed. Convict Flat, Ramshorm, Indian River, China Flat… all closed to the public as of 1996. I think it would have been cool to use his stuff in some of the very same places he used it. Owell.

2am on the nose. Goodnight.

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D is for dreamer, A is for actor…

Down the rabbit hole.
Welcome to 11:30pm on my Monday night. ‘Twas a busy Monday at work, where I win my bread. It seemed I was no sooner in the office than I was on the phone or on the computer or on the tiles, meeting and working and walking and talking and thinking. I have to go do it all again tomorrow, and I wish I didn’t… have to, I mean. Enough with the exposition though; shall we?

I’ve been listening to the new NIN album the past couple days, and I really like it. In particular, there’s a part in the song “Right Where It Belongs” that’s really rad. From the beginning of the song, the vocals have a muted, in-the-background presence which is slightly off-center to the right in the stereo image. Then, about 3/4 of the way through, they totally morph, taking on a much warmer, foreground presence that’s dead-center in the image. At the same time, a crowd noise sound effect is ramped up in the background, and the “wetness” that’s added to the vocals also gets layered on the instrumentation… along with the addition of a little bassy synthesizer. Very cool effect, almost like the song “comes alive” just then. You can listen to it if you want. Just take the URL of this page, and change the root by: adding 18, subtracting 8, subtracting 2, adding 9, and finally appending ’12.mp3’. Neato.

When I was in high school, I used to like to write things down without actually writing them out. Meaning, I liked to write little cryptic things. I think my inspiration came from the back pages of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, where Carroll closed the book with a poem, which, when read every-first-letter acrostic style, spelled out Alice’s real name: Alice Pleasance Liddell. I adopted this, and variations of it, to write down secret things in my journal. So, what seemed like a semi-poignant limerick about some thoughts or feelings was, to me, really an admission of infidelity or something more exciting. My favorite, and most challenging, was to write a small poem where the lines’ first letters read forward spelled half of what was really being said, and the lines’ last letters read backward finished the hidden message. Care had to be taken: to manipulate the shrouded thought to contain an even number of letters, to split it in half and write the opening and closing letters of each line, and finally to fill in the gaps with a cohesive thought. I masked things like that all the time, but only the most super-secret – the stuff that should only be thought, not recorded. When reading back over my journal, I can spot these instantly. In fact, they stand out to me as only the intended text, the contrived filler only there to protect what shouldn’t be put down on paper. Useful, if you’re into that kinda stuff.

Saturday night was a party at Ben’s house, in honor of Ben now having the house where the party was. We went there. It was good. After the crowd dwindled, and all that was left was what partygoers sometimes call the “hardcore crew,” we set a fire in Ben’s backyard. Not on the grass, but in a pre-fab firepit that came in a cardboard box from a warehouse store. Ben had gotten it as a gift, and he and I had spent some time earlier that day assembling it. Anyway, the box of Hot Wood purchased at the grocery store up the street was set alight, and six or seven people huddled in chairs around the fire. It was a chilly night, so the pre-warmth period of the fire was somewhat of an endurance – but the few powered through for the sake of conversation. Something about sitting around a fire brings out the best conversation. Staring into the stuff. Pat said it was because that’s all there was to do at night for ten-thousand years. Maybe. Maybe it’s something primal, pre-conditioned into our consciousness at birth. Although huddling around the sub-$100, assembly-line, terra-cotta and metal firepit, burning our purchased-at-Albertsons, came-in-a-cardboard-box firewood (with kindling) wasn’t exactly recalling caveman days. Anyway, it was one of those moments for me where I was just…. complacent. Good friends were around, and the planets aligned around a little firepit in Ben’s backyard. I’m a sucka for flames.

Did you see that paragraph about the firepit? That’s writing. That’s what I used to do. That’s what was gone. That’s what I feel slowly creeping back into my hands as they click the keys. Keep the faith, it may be back… it just may be back. Also, today at lunch we went on an adventure to the 150 year old abandoned Chinese mines. I’ll write about that tomorrow OK?

Goodnight.

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i still got it

FM 21-76.
Today I spent $45 on a tank of gas. That’s a lot of money for gas, right?

Four days and I’ll be back in one of those richly outfitted hotel rooms, looking out over the dirty sprawl of downtown Taipei. I sometimes get this crazy fear that Taiwan will just up and declare its independence during one of my trips. I imagine myself sitting in a cubicle while the Red Army swoops down on that tiny island to crush the rebel uprising. The fantasy goes on… usually ending with me riding on top of a tank, policing the streets. One thing about work is… thing can change pretty rapidly. When I wrote that sentence last night, I was preparing for a two-week trip. Today, I learned that, due to some circumstances beyond my control, the nature of the trip had changed. Turns out I’ll only be gone for a week, still leaving this Friday. Then, I’ll come back for two weeks, only to leave for Taiwan again in early May. The May trip will be the longest ever, clocking in at three weeks. However, since Sharaun is off-track in May, she finally gets to accompany me and experience Taipei. To me, there couldn’t have been a better change of plans. I’m hoping my work schedule while there is flexible enough to allow us some decent “exploring.” And, I feel comfortable enough in the city to act as a sort of “tour guide” for her while she’s there. Awesome.

As you may have noticed, I didn’t really break any new ground with respect to my post-frequency this week. Leading off with a no-show doesn’t really set a good precedent. But… I’ve kind of accepted that I’m just in a slump right now. Whatever the reason… maybe I’m just not putting myself out there and hunting up good stuff to write about, I dunno. I mean, last week’s entries don’t amount to much more than the birthday present story fluffed up with a bunch of rambling. Lately, I’ve warmed up a little bit to the notion of “talking” about my writing. Before, I had this unspoken rule that I didn’t like talking about the blog in person. I mean, the blog is self-serving enough, but making it a topic of discussion was too self-indulgent even for me. Lately though, I’ve opened up a bit and don’t shoot people down as quickly when they bring it up. After all, when it comes down to it, I am proud of it. If half the reason I write is for me, the other half is surely so that people will read it. Anyway, talking about my writing doesn’t put me off as much as it used to. Although I still get surprised when I find out, through some twisted grapevine, that there’s someone reading this who I wasn’t aware of. Where was I going with this?

I’ve been having escapist fantasies again lately. Y’know, researching survival techniques online in case I do decide to abandon the modern world for a tent in a national forest or something. Tonight I learned how to dig a latrine. When I was younger, I can remember being fascinated with a secondhand copy of the Army Field Survival manual. I’ve always had a fascination with self-sufficiency… and I like to think I could handle myself on my own. Now, I’m not saying I actually could… but I like to think I could. I read that Field Manual over and over again, the detailed pictures and diagrams of shelters and snares had me in a trance. I can remember trying to commit things to memory: how to make a fishhook out of thorns, how to smoke meat to preserve it, how to build a lean-to. Just like I will never forget learning from a Hardy Boys book that you can escape your bonds if you flex your muscles while being tied up. Stuff like that has always stuck with me. I think it’d be totally fun to do one of those survivalist training “adventure” things… where they take you out into the wilderness and teach you how to live off the land. Right?

With all the pope-inspired news of late, I somehow stumbled across this vintage link from CNN – I’d never seen it before, but man… hilarious. Goodnight.

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i could so live there

Otherworldly.
It’s going to be a strained week for blogging. I already missed yesterday, but not to fear, it was a planned non-writing day. Friday’s entry may or may not materialize, as I’m leaving early for the nightmarish 24hrs of travel that is the flight to Taipei. Between then, I’ve got only three days of my normal five-day workweek to get a normal five-day workload done. Then, next week’s entries will cease to follow any schedule, being posted when I can, and on Taiwan time to boot. So look for ’em any time. I’m hoping I can keep up the writing, I’ve done it on past trips. And with that, we’re off.

What an awesome extended weekend. Three days in Big Sur, neither of us had ever been. Nevermind that I spent ~30min on the phone Sunday, just down from a short hike to a waterfall, talking to a customer in Texas with an urgent issue… luckily though, Sharaun was understanding and it all played to make the weekend unique. The northern California coast is a real meeting of worlds; salty waves crashing right up against rugged mountains. Kelp washed up into freshwater streams emptying themselves into the sea. We walked barefoot on beaches, trudged up streams, ate too-expensive food and slept in too-expensive rooms. And, since the only bad part about getting away from it all is having to come back to it all – I’m gonna sit here with this laptop on my knees and flex my fingers through another entry.

One of my travel-habits is to constantly scan my surroundings for “places I would live” should I become a bum or fugitive from the law. Ben has oft made fun of me for this habit, sometimes calling out “Hey Dave, you could totally live there,” in regards to some ramshackle shelter passed along the way. I don’t know what it is, but I’m always seeing places in terms of their inhabitability. I swear, ever since seeing My Side of the Mountain in 5th grade, I’ve imagined running away from the world and living in a tree. Foraging for my own food, building my own fireplace, perhaps even befriending the local librarian, taking up falconing, having a pet raccoon, and falling in with a bearded minstrel named “Bando.”

Back to what I was talking about, I’m always pointing out prospective hovels: broken-down utility shacks along the river, weathered metal switching stations along the rail lines, hollow spots on mountain ledges, if you can give me a semi-enclosed spot I can dream up a shelter that I’d transform into a comfy living space. This vacation to the coast was no different, I saw “places I would live” all over the place. Only this time, I decided to snap some pictures of my imagined digs. Check it:




The first of many hollow-tree houses, kinda cramped.


Tall but roomy, and had another opening for fireplace exhaust.



How freakin’ perfect is this? Secluded, even looks like a door.


This tree was begging me: “Live in me, live in me!”



The most perfect hollow-tree house, I almost ditched Sharaun and started nesting.


A big one, possibly a good upgrade if I decide to start a hollow-tree family.



Breaking the tree pattern, a seaside cave… I can’t even begin to describe the attraction.

Aside from spotting potential hideouts, we had a lot of time to relax. Sit on the sand, read books in bed, talk over coffee, and sing along to songs in the car. Unfortunately, I did succumb to my one free-time hangup. That for-no-reason sensation of being unnecessarily harried, frustrated; wanting to “get somewhere” when I have nowhere to be, wanting to “finish” something when I never started anything. I think I inherit this from my dad, who, when we’re out and about, always seems to get a random itch to leave for no reason. It’s a terrible thing, really… all of the sudden I’ll feel like we have to leave and “get back.” Since I’m pretty anal to begin with, the feeling pokes at the back of my brain like the pea in the princess’ bed – making me feel “uncomfortable” until we’ve got to wherever I’ve imagined as the “finish line.” I admit, it’s an odd thing – but thankfully Sharaun has learned to recognize it, and can say to me, “There’s no hurry, let’s just take it easy and relax.” It’s a good thing I have her to counteract my faulty genetics. Thanks dad.

Speaking of my dad, his dad is currently my only living grandparent. I don’t know what about this weekend got me thinking about my grandfather, but something did. I had the thought that I just don’t talk to him much, and don’t even really know him that well. The sad part is, the only time I really ever think about my grandfather is to wonder how he’s doing… and how long he’ll be around. It just struck me that the majority of my thoughts about my grandfather revolve around whether or not he’s going to be alive next week. I talked to Sharaun about it over pancakes, and we both agreed to try and renew regular communications with our only surviving grandparents. It’s just too easy to take for granted the further-removed generations of your lineage… when in reality they are some of the utmost crucial links to your past and discovering why you are who you are.

And, as midnight draws close… I’ll end this entry. But before that, we weren’t the only ones to have a busy weekend. Congrats to Ben and Suze on the house. Congrats to Kristi and Erik on the engagement. Congrats to Anthony on the ink. Goodnight.

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escapism

60Hz will kill your eyes, crank that sucker to at least 75.
Sometimes I hate how completely different the ideas in a single entry’s paragraphs are. I guess it comes with writing in pieces, when time permits. Occasionally one entry will represent one thought, but most of the time there’s a few core paragraphs that gel and a bunch of random straggler paragraphs that never really developed into full-blown themes. I guess it’s OK, it’s just a little disjointed. So with that, here are some core-paragraphs about “getting away” sandwiched between a couple random paragraphs about circuit breakers and CRT screens. Enjoy.

As I was taking out the trash tonight, I considered something I hadn’t before. I think I discovered a huge design flaw in our house. Our breaker box is located outside the house, in the front yard. Yeah, that’s right… anyone can walk up to our house, without having to get through any gates or locks, and flip a single switch to kill power to the entire house. Who thought of this? Is there some benefit to putting the breakers outside the house? I mean, they’re not even covered, if it was raining I’d get wet going out there to poke around. So strange. Every other place I’ve lived had the breakers inside, on the wall somewhere or in the laundry room. I’m thinking of putting a flashing neon sign above it that reads “breakers.” Y’know, reverse psychology. Maybe it’ll deter the skeptical serial killers.

I’ve long had a fantasy about running off into the woods and striking up residence there as a squatter. I don’t know why it’s so appealing to me, it’d probably be nothing like I imagine. It’d likely be all hard work and paranoia, that someone would come in and sweep me away for illegally staying on their land. But it is; appealing I mean, for some reason. I dunno how realistic it is these days, it seems that 30 years ago it may have been as easy as finding a place to go – now it’s probably more hiding than escaping. Hiding from rightful land owners and rangers, poaching, etc… doesn’t sound as glorious as it did at first blush. Sure, the excitement of sticking it to the man lends something to the attractiveness… but so far, the man ain’t really done much to me that I consider stickin’-it-to-him worthy. That’s why it’s a “fantasy,” I suppose.

My brother-in-law is actually acting out something very similar to this fantasy right now. He up and left from his home in FL, putting his college education (and everything, really) on hold to drive to California and surf the coast. Yeah, he has no plans other than making his way up the coast, from San Diego north, surfing as he goes. He’s made some living arrangements with friends where he could – but is otherwise staying in his truck. Back home, he worked in a surfboard shop, shaping, glassing, airbrushing, doing anything really. Before he came, he made arrangements with some shops along the coast to pick up work when he was in town. He can go in when he wants, glass a few boards for cash under the table, and continue on his own personal Endless Summer. He even got a laptop and took wardriving lessons from me so he’d be connected on his journeys. Right now he’s living on a boat in San Diego… spending his days surfing. This kid is 20 years old, man I admire the gonads it takes to strike out and do something like that on your own.

Alternately, I guess I could avoid squatting or living out of my truck by actually purchasing some land as my own. I’ve often thought of doing that, y’know… with all the money we don’t have. While some good say land-ownership is good for one’s portfolio, I think I’d like to think of it less as a monetary investment and more as a spiritual one; or something profound like that. Last year we went to a cabin down south that Kristi’s family owns, on their cattle land. It’s not in any super-remote locale, but it is isolated enough to where you’d be able to enjoy plenty of solitude, and the scenery is outstanding. While I don’t necessarily want to herd cattle or anything, but I could definitely handle somewhere I could get away too. In fact, I’m still down with the commune if anyone else wants to drop out.

Every once in a while I have a wake-up moment, where I realize that I probably spend 50% of my average weekday staring at a screen. Be it my computer at work (~8hrs/day), my computer at home (~4hrs/day), or the television (~3hrs/day). Of course, I’m doubling-up sometimes with the TV on in the background while I lounge with the laptop. But… that can’t be good, right? I often try to take breaks… read or just listen to music without visual stimulation – but for the most part I’m always staring at a box. It’s depressing to me, to think about how much of my life is spent that way. I dunno, maybe guys who read or paint are semi-depressed because they’re always looking at books or canvas. In the end, I wouldn’t continue to do it if I hated it, so there’s not much worth complaining about.

I’m kinda proud that I posted 100% of the days last month (excluding weekends, of course). I think that may be the first month in blog history that got wall-to-wall entries. Probably won’t happen this month, with the travel to Taiwan in a couple weeks and all… but I can aspire.

Nite.