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Life is amazing.
Posted 15 years agoThe year in review:
Started practicing guitar daily. Hitchhiked for the first time over the winter. Moved out of House of Ninja through the back boiler room window. Couch surfed through tax season, worked my butt off. Rekindled internet addiction. Fell in love online. Hitchhiked 2800 miles over the course of a month, spending a lot of time in Tennessee along the way, where I made awesome people friends and also adopted my doggy, Charlotte. Stood in and ate stuff out of the Atlantic ocean. Finally met Becky in person, the most amazing woman in the world. Been living in a beautiful forest in a neat little town called Keene in New Hampshire with her, my dog, and her rat for over a month, with some awesome forest dwelling neighbors not far away. Doing lots of little road trips around New England to have adventures and get experience with that kind of travel. Life is awesome.
And the reason I decided to blog now:
Becky and I were driving back from Bar Harbor, Maine. An absolutely beautiful place, even if we didn't find any starfish or hermit crabs. The only place I've seen stars like that before was at my camping spots 15 miles north of Flagstaff where the sky was really dark. Drove through Acadia National Park for free cuz no one was awake to take fees from us so late at night. Saw the red sun rising out of the ocean at dawn. Explored the general area deliriously for a little while. We were all tired and looking forward to getting back home, resting when we needed to, and when we were getting to Portland we started hearing warnings about tornadoes. Stopped at a burger king to stretch legs a bit, but things got scary. Lots of really low fast moving clouds at first, and then we could literally see the clouds lowering right overhead, the whole thing moving quickly, the wind picking up, air pressure doing weird things with our ears. We ran back to the car, threw everything back in, payed the toll at the booth and drove away in the fast lane. Police interceptor = awesome car for running away from tornado spawning clouds.
When we were getting close to Keene, there was another emergency system warning about severe thunderstorms in southern New Hampshire, headed south east right for the area we were driving through. I had to stop and stretch my legs again, but not for long this time. Behind us was an enormous puffy thunder cloud. It was night time but we could see the whole thing perfectly because it was constantly flashing with lightning in at least one part of the cloud, almost like one of those glass globes filled with electrical arcs that follow your fingertips. The scary part was that it was getting bigger and bigger as we watched it because the whole thing was flying straight toward us. When the road was dry we went fast, and when it was wet, I wished it was dry so we could speed up. The storm was behind us but I could still see the flashing lightning reflecting off of trees and smaller clouds in front of us. I completely forgot about my legs cramping up from all the driving.
The adrenaline aftershock kept me on my toes for a long time even after we outran the big storm, but we were worried there would be a lot more of it ahead. We could see a lot of lightning coming from the clouds ahead of us as we approached Keene. Luckily the rain had let up by the time we got to our parking spot, and there was more distance between us and the lightning than it looked like by the time we were walking up the trail. We made it back to camp with time to spare before the rain started smacking into the tarp overhead. Lightning occasionally illuminated the inside of the tent, a wonderful breeze came through the screen mesh of the window. I fell asleep with Becky and Charlotte safe and dry on either side of me.
And here we are alive in the land of Starbucks wifi writing about it. It's not raining anymore but there's plenty of clouds going overhead and light breeze to keep the air cool. Charlotte's tied off to a tree outside, occasionally chewing on a stick. Sometimes she looks up to shake her head at me cuz she'd have written the story much better than I have if she were typing it. She's smart like that.
So yeah. Life. :D
Started practicing guitar daily. Hitchhiked for the first time over the winter. Moved out of House of Ninja through the back boiler room window. Couch surfed through tax season, worked my butt off. Rekindled internet addiction. Fell in love online. Hitchhiked 2800 miles over the course of a month, spending a lot of time in Tennessee along the way, where I made awesome people friends and also adopted my doggy, Charlotte. Stood in and ate stuff out of the Atlantic ocean. Finally met Becky in person, the most amazing woman in the world. Been living in a beautiful forest in a neat little town called Keene in New Hampshire with her, my dog, and her rat for over a month, with some awesome forest dwelling neighbors not far away. Doing lots of little road trips around New England to have adventures and get experience with that kind of travel. Life is awesome.
And the reason I decided to blog now:
Becky and I were driving back from Bar Harbor, Maine. An absolutely beautiful place, even if we didn't find any starfish or hermit crabs. The only place I've seen stars like that before was at my camping spots 15 miles north of Flagstaff where the sky was really dark. Drove through Acadia National Park for free cuz no one was awake to take fees from us so late at night. Saw the red sun rising out of the ocean at dawn. Explored the general area deliriously for a little while. We were all tired and looking forward to getting back home, resting when we needed to, and when we were getting to Portland we started hearing warnings about tornadoes. Stopped at a burger king to stretch legs a bit, but things got scary. Lots of really low fast moving clouds at first, and then we could literally see the clouds lowering right overhead, the whole thing moving quickly, the wind picking up, air pressure doing weird things with our ears. We ran back to the car, threw everything back in, payed the toll at the booth and drove away in the fast lane. Police interceptor = awesome car for running away from tornado spawning clouds.
When we were getting close to Keene, there was another emergency system warning about severe thunderstorms in southern New Hampshire, headed south east right for the area we were driving through. I had to stop and stretch my legs again, but not for long this time. Behind us was an enormous puffy thunder cloud. It was night time but we could see the whole thing perfectly because it was constantly flashing with lightning in at least one part of the cloud, almost like one of those glass globes filled with electrical arcs that follow your fingertips. The scary part was that it was getting bigger and bigger as we watched it because the whole thing was flying straight toward us. When the road was dry we went fast, and when it was wet, I wished it was dry so we could speed up. The storm was behind us but I could still see the flashing lightning reflecting off of trees and smaller clouds in front of us. I completely forgot about my legs cramping up from all the driving.
The adrenaline aftershock kept me on my toes for a long time even after we outran the big storm, but we were worried there would be a lot more of it ahead. We could see a lot of lightning coming from the clouds ahead of us as we approached Keene. Luckily the rain had let up by the time we got to our parking spot, and there was more distance between us and the lightning than it looked like by the time we were walking up the trail. We made it back to camp with time to spare before the rain started smacking into the tarp overhead. Lightning occasionally illuminated the inside of the tent, a wonderful breeze came through the screen mesh of the window. I fell asleep with Becky and Charlotte safe and dry on either side of me.
And here we are alive in the land of Starbucks wifi writing about it. It's not raining anymore but there's plenty of clouds going overhead and light breeze to keep the air cool. Charlotte's tied off to a tree outside, occasionally chewing on a stick. Sometimes she looks up to shake her head at me cuz she'd have written the story much better than I have if she were typing it. She's smart like that.
So yeah. Life. :D
I are still a computer programmer :p
Posted 15 years agoREM General summary of current routine in Knoxville
REM til the ride I found comes through, described in
REM the notation of some kind of BASIC language.
DO
FOR I = 1 TO 3
FOR J = 1 TO RND * 5
GOSUB Practice_guitar
GOSUB Read_up_on_guitar_technique
GOSUB Memorize_guitar_notes
GOSUB Maybe_do_other_things
NEXT J
GOSUB Walk_dog
GOSUB Read_book
GOSUB Surf_the_internet
NEXT I
SLEEP til_I_wake_up
LOOP UNTIL TIME = Sunday_when_my_ride_shows_up
Maybe_do_other_things
IF RND > .7 AND Others_in_house THEN GOSUB Socialize
IF RND > .8 AND Motivation_to_get_food THEN GOSUB Eat
Return
Then I'll be on my way to NY! Got impatient and stuck out my virtual thumb on Craigslist from indoors with some good folks who scooped me up from the truck stop on day three of no actual ride offers. The whole situation still fell together randomly enough I count it as hitchhiking, just with spontaneous couch surfing thrown in. Charlotte's happy about this. Got her a clean bill of health from the vet to make sure we were good, but I think all the resting inside out of the heat down here has been good for her too. Looking forward to climates further north!
Still feeling sick, no longer feeling like death.
Posted 15 years agoI've been under this same bridge in Nashville watching cars go east for the past few days, probably gonna stay a couple more before I do anything strenuous. One of my roomless roommates informed me of a place within walking distance I can take a shower and do laundry without forking over 90 bucks for a hotel room. Honestly, after so many days of being super filthy, I think my skin's gotten used to it, maybe my white blood cells have even learned to crawl around on the outside for good measure, but I totally have plans for tomorrow now. This is going to be the best shower I've ever had.
On the plus side, I've made some headway writing in my journal, which I haven't stopped to do in a long time. Good thing too, this'll make a great story when it's all properly detailed and assembled. I promise not to starve to death in Alaska like that kid in Into the Wild, may he rest in peace.
On the plus side, I've made some headway writing in my journal, which I haven't stopped to do in a long time. Good thing too, this'll make a great story when it's all properly detailed and assembled. I promise not to starve to death in Alaska like that kid in Into the Wild, may he rest in peace.
A journey of 3000 miles starts...
Posted 15 years agoUltimately, the journey goes a lot farther than that, we'll see how much mileage I get before I kick the bucket. Starting with a familiar journey to Tucson before sling shotting back north east and into the unknown. It's the hardest part of the journey in the sense that I've gotten weak from relative inactivity over the winter and I still haven't figured out what to ditch from my backpack load, but I had some awesome conversations on the way out of Flag, and I woke up this morning to lizards sexing it up on a rock in the woods outside a truck stop. Currently sitting barefoot in front of a McDonalds in Phoenix getting sweaty and trying to determine what the best way to get to their Bookman's is. Surprisingly, I can't seem to find 3rd edition Dungeons Master's Guides or Momnster Manuals on Amazon, so aside from seeing the Heartless Bastards finally, let's see if I can complete a 500 xp quest to acquire these artifacts in the realm of Real Life. [and of course amazon works with me now, but there is still a 250 xp award available for watching porn on bookman's wifi and recharging devices]
Is the Catbus known to pick up hitchhikers?
Posted 15 years agoI should really be sleeping right now so I can continue fold-space preparations in the morning with more rest, but eyes will not shut. FFFFFFFFFFFFFF MUST SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP *snores*
