Eating it up

I eat up documentaries. I've been eating up several BBC series, but right now I'm engrossed in 2007 documentary "The Devil Came on Horseback" which details a "A documentary that exposes the genocide raging in Darfur, Sudan as seen through the eyes of a former U.S. marine who returns home to make the story public (IMDB)." Rent it or stream if you can.

Pure Exhstion

Headed south this last weekend for the what is probably my last scooter rally of the year. Have to say, started it out on pure energy drinks and ended on the same. Mostly since me and sleep have been missing each other the entire time. Night before leaving, was in bed at 2am and had to be up at 7am. Not a great night. The ten hour of driving generally zaps the life out of one self, but everytime I drive between Grants Pass and Redding, 2-3 of lives go out the door. Thanks god for soda and energy drinks. Now one we were there, it was back to scotch and bourbon, add in a host who drinks more then that, and it's scooter wranglin time come the end of happy hour. Now mix in two dogs and night of nose cloggin sneezing and house of snores, and you can tell that 5 hours of sleep the night before was the best night's sleep I had.

I have got to say though, thank god for caffeine in very strong bounce against the walls amounts. Otherwise I would have never have made it. But after 5 days, I have the runs from all the sugar and had to spend last night completely clogged up to deal with the miss-use of nazelspray. Lovely, but I some how slept well in my own bed.

Thanks folks.

Round and Round

I played it all wrong.
I could blame it on a lot of things, but why bother.
Next please!

Thursday

I woke myself up early as I knew i had a very long day ahead of me. After breakfast I was back on the road traveling west to the coast again trying to retrace my steps the night before, this time though I'd make it the straights of something or another and the Pacific ocean. This was when the truck started to act funny, any real acceleration up hill was met with girgles and pauses in acceleration. Worst of all, I kept getting stuck behind people driving slowly. Any attempt to pass was met with a backfire. Once I reached the straights I tried cleaning the carborator. This helped, but not exactly either. It took nearly 2.5 hours of driving to reach the more NW part of continental USA. The hike was another 30 minutes each way, easy by any standard. The drive back to the 101 was uneventful, but around 2pm I had a cop pull in behind a group of us (6 cars) I was in the center, after 20 miles the two cars behind me had peeled away and I suddenly found myself with said cop car's lights a flashing. It turned out when we entered the village and I had braked to slow down (55 down to 35mph) he had noticed one of rear brake lights wasn't working. Um, thanks officer. No ticket. The rest of the ride was long, the truck acted OK and I was back in town by 10pm that night.
Uneventful.

Wednesday:

So I woke up around 7:30, but tossed and turned for another 30 minutes before getting up. A quick shower and off to the lodge for breakfast (included in the cost of the cabin), which consisted mostly protein (eggs, bacon, sausage) and fruit. I should hit the fruit a little harder tomorrow as it kind of heavy, even for me. Looking out at the pools, they were empty, so I ended up after breakfast doing a 5 mile hike up the canyon to the falls. It was drizzling rain when I started, but about 40% of the way into the hike up the canyon it started to really rain. And by really raining I mean pissing rain. By the time I got the falls, the trail had turned into a stream and my jacket and hat soaked threw. The hike back was nearly the same, except the sun came out just as turned into the parking lot. Great. So back to the cabin to change into the swimming suit and back to the pools to spend some time soaking my now aching body.

Guess what, the Russians were back and in force this time, taking up all three pools! I have a feeling they live in these pools and can’t exist out of them for more then a day or two. Actually it wasn’t so bad, the main heated pool was open and they were not migrating around it like the had the night before. I staked out my spot and was fine. When moved to the 104 deg pool it was nearly time for the main pool (100 deg) to be shut down. They literally filled the 104 deg pool at point. I think there were maybe 4 of us who were not part of that party and they slowly made their way out of the pool. I did polar swim at one point in the non heated pool once I was accustomed to the 104 pool. It was kind of nice being in 62 deg water. I did have to fight for a spot back in the 104 pool, but once I was back to being too used it, it was time to leave as my fingers were beginning to shrivel up. I booked some massage time too and am now back at my cabin waiting for that to happen.

Ok, let me take a moment here to say that reading the above, I’m making the Russians out to be kind of hidous, which isn’t true at all. There’s just a bunch of em (so it’s easy to group em) and they remind me of days in LA and my Isreali neighbors. Happy, loud, and not socally capable of knowing about how damn happy and loud they are. The kids move from English to Russian in mid sentence, it’s actually interesting how easily and fluidly they do it. It’s even more interesting what they say in English over Russian too. At the same time, I’m reminded how much kids make me feel uncomfortable too. Can’t relate at all these days to em and it’s actually the kids who don’t comprehend personal space. The adults have been fine about it, but having random kids bump into me is kind of un-nerving. Get off my damn lawn! Anyway

The cabin of course a huge mess right now. I am eating lunch (I brought food up with me in a cooler) and writing. I did take a quick shower and had to hang all my hiking clothes above the heater since they should dry (it’s now 85 deg in the cabin). I have 40 minutes till my massage, but I should head back in 20 so I can soak again. What to do though . . .
Second sandwich and some diet soda and a rewrite later and I’m ready to soak a little again since the swim suit is completely dry now. The rest of my clothing though . . .

Two hours later and I need a nap. The massage was fine, to fantastic, but fine. It’s not very often I have any massage therapy, but it’s always decent when I do get it done. If I made decent money I’d do it a lot more often to say the least. My body isn’t terrible limber to begin with so it’s wonderful when I do have it done. After that was another hour of jumping in the 104 deg pool and the 62deg pool. Absolutely wonderful stuff. The coldis shock at first, but then you just swim in it and keep moving. The best is that the big pool is basically unused and nearly pure too (can’t taste any clorine so far). I can go into the deep end and do underwater jumping jacks for 5 minutes and not bother a soul. Then it’s back to the heated 104 pool, which is a real shock to your system, I get tingly all over from it. Once I’m acclimated, it’s back to the cool pool again for calisthenics! The nice thing too was that for this hour, I had very little of the Russians, they finally pruned from what I could tell. I had two Japanese couples this time. Happy, soft spoken and understand personal space. Hell yes! Now if my nose would stop running, then again I’d probably just smell the sulfur and get sick.

Tuesday

I’m on vacation. Or something close. I drove 9 hours today to get to the upper north end of the Olympic peninsula for 3 days of hiking and R&R. The drive up was nice, I stopped in Astoria, then across the river at an old military base to hike around. 3 hours later I was up on the peninsula and hit the beach too. It’s been raining off and on all day, but it’s what I wanted and expected. I finally made my way to the Sol Duc hotspring resort. With my stay, I get to use the three hot spring mineral pools. Oddly enough, I booked this place not knowing that my parents had stayed her nearly 48+ years ago as a part of their honeymoon. So far, I have mixed feeling about the place. First, too family orientated. I didn’t expect hook up here or anything, but too many kids. Honestly, too many. Also, the pools close at 8pm. I knew this, so came with the computer, some netflix and some scotch (I knew no internet too, one reason I took this R&R break). The big pool had a three generations of some Russian family in it too. No matter where I sat, they kept migrating around the pool as a whole and I’d have stranger talking in Russian all around me. My WASP sense of space kept kicking in too. Give me some space people! The 100 degree pool was just OK, I really want hotter, but the 104 pool was closed (they close each pool for an hour each day to test em for bacteria).

On a completely different note, I’m sitting here typing away, I need to step away for a moment and brush my teeth. For the last week I know I’ve needed a haircut. So looking in the mirror I was once again reminded that I need a haircut, how do I know? Since the top of head has been thinning a bit, it means that when the sides and back have gotten long, I tend to look like bozo the clown, not really since I’m not redheaded and my hair doesn’t stick out like that. Anyway, tonight my hair it rather curly, I haven’t kept my hair this long since I was teenager and my Irish loque of hair would start to curl.

Umm scotch.

So this evening it was hot bath, some food I brought along, the second half of the first season of “Belle De Joure/Secret Diary of a Call Girl (Showtime). Not bad, funny at times and such, but the main character/actress isn’t really that hot to me. So no wank fest either! I did read 5 chapters for one of my classes and some scotch too. Didn’t read it, just drank it. I hope it helps me fall asleep I hate to say since I keep going to sleep later and later it’s been hard for me to go to sleep this early (11pmish). Good I hear it’s started to rain again, I’ll open the window a bit more to cool down the room and so I can hear it some more. Anyway, the flask is about 60% full and I need the rest for tomorrow night. So Night.

Umm scotch . . .

Catching Up

Up till today: so I haven’t been keeping up on this. Sorry. The only thing really going on has been school. I currently have two classes and one met last week. It’s currently boring me I hate to say and I’m only just keeping up with it. The second class has been online, less credits and nearly twice the work. I’ve been keeping up with it. Job wise, I had a pre-interview with a place just outside of NYC. They current don’t have a an open position, but they are looking for an archivist as a whole. I’ll know more in January when the position should come up.

This week: well actually nearly three weeks ago my mom had very minor surgery on her foot for a bone spur. As of yesterday it hadn’t healed. It hadn’t healed because the bone in the big toe is dead and keep re-infecting everything. So I took her to the local hospital for second surgery last night (Monday). She wasn’t in the best of spirits of course and as she told me I almost giggled. Not because it was funny or I was making fun of her, mostly to deal with the situation. She’s a bit of a pessimist and tend to want to laugh at real pessimism I hate to say. I’m a gloomy guy, but honestly pessimism never got anywhere, right? When it comes to health, it’s OK to worry about the worst, but don’t dig that hole so deep you can’t get out. I tried being encouraging, but it’s my mom here and she knows when I try to bull shit her. She’s going to lose her big toe at this point and hopefully she won’t also lose her foot. She’ll be there till Friday. Ill know more then, mostly because I’m not in town right now. OK, vacattion time (more to post later)