Back in the saddle again...

Currently Updating at thecalifornias.org

2009-03-16T07:57:00.000-07:00

For close to daily updates while in China, look here:

http://john.from.thecalifornias.org/that_of_China/that_of_China.html

do enjoy.

Next Step

2008-12-27T18:57:00.000-08:00

A Letter:

In the last month I have been working to secure a six-month job with Aston Schools teaching English. In the last week I was told my Chinese visa was just about secured, I bought my plane ticket, and I found out that my traveling partner was a 100% "go." So I concluded there was little more that would change my new direction.

I have taken a job in Hohhot (alternately spelled Huhehaote). The city is the capitol of China's Inner Mongolia with a population of about 2.5 million and densities ranging between 400-26,000/sq mi. The weather and rain fall is fairly mild and many of the images I've seen make it look like the American Southwest. While 'briskly' cold (current temp is some -20' C) during the early winter months, it would seem that it warms up quite quickly as it's only at 3,500 feet. My friend, Dan Tuttle, whom I'll be traveling and working with, is a close friend from school and has spent a good deal of time in China studying already and knows a great deal of the language. He assures me I'll learn something of the language, which is nice to think about. However, while in China I hope to enhance my teaching skills and my language skills, understanding more of the language is a large priority with perhaps learning more about the cultural expectations in business as an unlikely second. Who knows what will really come across my plate. In any case it should be a neat way to explore another corner of the world while being paid (meagerly) to do it.

While I'm in CA now, I'll head back to Arizona after the new year in order to make sure the house is ready to be without me for six-months and to move out. Then I will return to CA where I leave. The job will start March 1st, so I will be departing LAX February 18th, and will be returning (barring any changes) September 8th about ten days after my contract is over.

I think that's my plan for now, though after I apply for The Great Race things may change. :) Very Good.
John Mizell

I've attached a couple of websites for more information about the program and the area.

Weather Averages for the city:
http://www.fwcc.org/neimong.htm#hohhot

Wikipedia Article for the city:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohhot

Aston Schools Website:
http://www.astonschool.com/

Thanks to Coconino & Gila Search and Rescue, Chad, Jon, Steph, Pat, Family, Friends, everyone...

2008-12-18T07:20:00.000-08:00

First of all, let me send a large Thank You to Coconino Search and Rescue, Chad, Jon Clark *clap *clap, Steph, the U of A TSO, Pat & his mom, Family, Friends, everyone... & thank you to everyone who's put themselves out this past week thinking of Kira and I. We don't think we can thank you enough and we deeply apologize for the anxiety and fear that we caused, whether you saw that we were safe or you were the first to notice that Kira didn't show up to her finals or work.

Kira and I have enjoyed a number of requests for information and for the 'whole' story. I'm going to try and do my best to give it here, trying perhaps not to cook it up too much. Now, let me try to begin to clarify this whole mess....

Day 0: Pre-departure preparation.

Early in the week I was enthusiastic about my last weekend before the holiday. Having traveled about for the last few months, it was kind of my routine to disappear. Little did I know this disappearing act would become a national spectacle. In this act I was intent on seeing more of Arizona's beautiful landscape while spending some time away from people and practicing my fly fishing. I pulled up Google Earth and begun my search. I had spoken with an acquaintance about a recommendation for a nice hike in the state and he suggested a place out near Sedona, so I started there. Driving my cursor around the greater Sedona area I found little in the way of water, limiting my ability to accomplish my third goal, so I began moving East, closer to Flagstaff. I passed over mormon lake and slowly moved south into a highly wooded area of Arizona. This began to look quite appealing. Water, trees, and dirt roads all seem to add into an ideal springtime weekend trip. It was December. I checked online for some suggested Arizona routes, took a look at sections of the Arizona Trail, and I returned to Google Earth. I felt good about the information I was slowly collecting and felt that I'd soon have a good plan. Honing in on the Forest Lakes area off the Mongollon Rim I wikied a couple of lakes in the area and again enjoyed some reviews of the area. Bear Canyon Lake was the one. It looked great. Secluded, it was an Angler lake where boat access was highly limited. That would be where I started the hike.

A non-official map of routes, review, and a general outline I was able to look at during planning:

I felt comfortable with my choice so I began to solidify the plan looking at websites for the region and the adjoining ranger stations. I called Payson and asked about trails, "Which rim trails exist?" "240, 290, 390, 30, 143, 292, 184, 185" "Are they all passable?" "Yes." "Are there any issues with any of them?" "Nope." "Are there any issues with fires this time of the year? Can I collect dead wood and burn it for small camp fires." "Yes." "What do you know about getting from Knoll Lake to Bear Canyon Lake?" "Not much, give SItgreves a call, here's their number." I hung up and called Sitgreves. "You should just walk the road, it's nice and quick. Don't worry about trails up there. Otherwise you'll be all set." "Thanks," I said and then hung up the phone. I felt confident, the plan was coming together.

Next I pulled out my AZ USGS quadrant map, identified the maps I'd need for better planning of the hike, jumped on my bike and rode to Tucson Map and Flag Center, one of my favorite stores in town where I presented my list of likely necessary maps. The list grew to 6 maps large and I was sold on the National Geographic TOPO! software, $100 and I get two states, one by mail, where I could print the whole state to my heart's content... and it fit into my backpack better for the ride home. Excited about the new software I took it straight to Ike's Coffee, installed it, and began planning my hike. I drew lines in red, blue, black, yellow. I planned hikes for the next three years. I was wired on new toys and several cups of GREAT coffee and boy was I having fun and wanted to show everyone and couldn't keep my self from smiling to myself and from keeping myself from smiling about smiling about myself and ... phew, I shouldn't have had that coffee.

I had planned on a 10-15 mile hike over three days. I felt that was appropriate for Kira and I and anyone else who was interested to hike. When I finally got home I showed Chad my new toy and routes. The hikes ranged up to 50 miles. I didn't keep those as serious routes. I kept the 20 mile loop. I figured we were tough and had plenty of time. I spent the rest of the night perfecting three possible routes and then enjoyed reading more about the area. I checked the weather for Strawberry and Payson. Things, while cold, seemed good. It was Monday.

Kira eventually came over, I gave her the plan and she conceded that it sounded perfect and she was excited to pickup a new pair of boots for the trip. It seemed like we were already on our way. A few days later I checked the weather again. It called for wind on Saturday and precipitation at 40% Sunday & Monday. I still wasn't intimidated, I packed differently.

Thursday arrived, I pulled out my gear and packed my bag, picked up the food that fit our menu, and waited for Kira to arrive with her things. We repacked, got rid of redundancies, looked for gaps and got on our way, being sure to include one last stop for chocolate bars. Kira made sure we had at least one for each day, plus an extra 'just in case.'

Our pre-trip plan, designed on National Geographic's TOPO! (C). Three routes were plotted: Blue, Red, and Black Dotted Line. This is the map of routes from which Chad and Jon communicated to SAR our intent and promoted our quick recovery:

Day one, Thursday, December 11th. The drive was a bit long. It was late. I was tired. From what, I don't know, but driving just makes you tired. I thought about the return drive and stopped, I didn't look forward to it. I began thinking of all the ways I could convince Kira to drive home. I didn't come up with much that didn't make me feel like a jerk. We pulled off the 17 at Camp Verde, filled up with fuel, changed into warm clothes and headed East. Pulling onto the 87 our driving slowed as my mind became confused. We passed a shadow and I said to Kira, "ummm... ahhh.... Kira? I think.. I think I just passed a llama, but that doesn't make any sense, so I think I'm a bit tired or crazy." I starred at each passing tree thinking that perhaps I saw a tree and a shadow and they fit together just right. My eyes are not that good and things like that happened often. I then moved my foot off the gas and put it hard on the brake. Kira was clearly now awake. There was that llama, some ten feet tall, big brown chest, tan body, legs up to my shoulders, a giant set of antlers, and a slow pompous stride that took it from left lane to right lane to shoulder and then the shadows. Evidently the Arizona Llama is very similar to elk. I was amazed. That was cool. That was really cool... I'm glad I didn't destroy the car and the elk, and that was cool. I started the motor up and as soon as I got to fourth-gear I geared right back down and slowed for the next crossing and then back up to 45. I would have really appreciated some organization within this elk's lodge. I had no problem stopping or slowing, but before the up hill? come on. and 15 times? Really? Paint some lines, get a sign, all cross together. It was obsessive. By the time we reached Forest Road 300 I was ready to purchase my license.

FR 300 is a seemingly well graded dirt road, not worthy of my Ducati, but just fine for the Volvo at speeds under 15 mph. It was apparently used by a lot of logging trucks according to the signs and as we approached our Bear Canyon Lake, the fire had damaged a number of trees, clarifying the rational behind the forest clean-up. The road was long and I began to feel my first embarrassment of the trip. I hadn't known the roads very well and decided to take the most 'direct' approach to the lake which involved FR 300 as soon as it intersected the 87, however, this route put us 30 miles from the lake on dirt, whereas if I had driven around through Payson and up the 260 I would have been able to park a) at a lower point on the rim and b) spent only about 15 miles on FR 300's fine dirt path. Oh well, note that for next time. We finally arrived at the lake. I drove about the simplistic camp site, ignoring signs that indicated I couldn't 'camp' past their location and parked the Volvo as close to the lake as possible. The whole place was empty. I didn't anticipate harassment for at least 10 days had I parked there. I used the rest room and we crashed in the back of the car. We were there, our first day was over. I was excited.

Day two, Friday. Ah Friday. I slept in until the sun made sure I couldn't any longer, about nine. I figured I blew my chance to catch any fish, but woke up in the cold morning and prepared my gear anyway. I really wanted to use my license while it was still good, plus, who knows, maybe I'd catch something and really be a hero. I walked down and Kira followed behind. Forty minutes later I was done. It was windy and I wasn't putting my fly into the water well. Maybe I was grumpy from the cold air, who knows. We got back to the car and packed our gear. We drove to the top of the camp site, made breakfast, and then closed the car for the weekend. I considered placing an itinerary on the dashboard but decided it would be better for Kira to carry the extra map. We were on the trail, it was eleven.

A short while later we showed up at the See Spring trail head and adjust things before our decent. A loud truck drove past us as we inspected the signs... you'll never regret taking time to read every sign. We took a few steps down the trail and the truck painted dull green with the US Forest badge on the side pulled up. A young man stepped out and smiled. We turned around. A ranger is kind of like a sign, you never know when information you'll get from them. He introduced himself as Patrick and we talked about our route, down to Ridgeline and over to Horton, perhaps out to Tonto. He said Horton wasn't a very good trail out, but along the creek it was well traveled during the summer and should be in really good condition, in general we should have a lot of fun. He suggested a route East that was about 8-miles long and might be nice and showed me on his large map at the car. I forgot his name and had to ask a second time. I asked him about the weather report and he noted they expected the storm I had seen in the report and said it was due to hit hard Wednesday... or end Wednesday... we thanked him and I told him where we were parked and what in. Told him if he saw any bears driving my car around to give me a call and take a picture. About ten minutes later I regarded that statement as pretty dumb and wished I hadn't said it to him. Kira mentioned that she was surprised he didn't comment on whether or not we SHOULD continue our hike, just that he gave us info and let us go. I appreciated his laissez-faire governance and the first half mile of the walk melted away with a discussion about responsible government systems and politics. I think she's a communist. HA!

We enjoyed the hike, paused for a much enjoyed first lunch on a cold rock, re-adjusted our packs and set off again. Finally expecting the darkness to hit soon we set up shop at the intersection of See Spring and Christopher Creek. It was picturesque, complete with the sound of running water all night long. We were high enough where I expected a rise in water level to miss our camp, though I stayed a bit anxious of it. We ate dinner, had a fire, drank some tea, hung our food and tucked in for the night. I felt we were both pleased with the spot. I feel a light first day always makes for a great weekend.
Day three, Saturday, December... 12th? no 13th. I was far enough removed from society before hiking that the weekend did nothing but distance me further from my calendar. All I could remember was that I had a dentist appointment on the 16th. Tuesday? Plenty of time. We were up at nine and prepared a nice hot breakfast of oatmeal which we ate together from the bowl to save on cleaning. After a handful of nuts I was content with breakfast and we packed up and got on the trial again.
I had been letting Kira lead the way in order to get some familiarity with paving trail and orienteering our route. At one point the previous day we had ended up without a trail in the midst of very spiny bushes. We dropped our packs, walked up to the last point of known trail and reconnected ourselves. This morning again she took the lead and we came into some grass where we stopped to differentiate between rabbit trails and forest trail. We talked about what to look for, about cairns, about tree marks, about signs, about basic trail wear. We continued along and about thirty minutes later we intersected the Highline trail at Christopher Creek. There was a restroom and we stopped to enjoy it and then continued along our way. We were finally on our way West, hooray. Though we were slow moving, I was enjoying the hike. The rim was beautiful and the pace was perfect to enjoy it. We took lunch on a warm south facing rock and enjoyed lunch. I didn't want to get up again. It was so beautiful and I was so comfortable. I put my pack back on and continued walking behind Kira, but couldn't stop thinking about that spot for the rest of the day. This was GREAT!

Eager to make our goal for the day, Kira kicked herself into high gear and we walked hard with infrequent stops for the second half of the day. We purposefully passed the Horton TH left turn we had charted on our route and then I noticed the Promontory Point TH, a steep ascent that I had considered using but decided against. Clouds had moved in over us and the day was dark earlier than the previous night, I urged Kira to pick from several options for a campsite and we picked one next to a creaking tree. Kira set up the tent again while I prepared dinner and made a small fire. I put the tarp up with Kira's trekking poles and snow began to fall. A bit earlier than I had anticipated, but it was light and I didn't see any frustration from it. We packed up for the night and the tree continued to creek. I was scared it was going to crush us, but hell, there are too many people in the world already, right? I left it up for fate and fell asleep.

Day four didn't begin, so much as it creeped up on us. Awaking every 40 minutes to the sound of a heavy doses of snow falling atop Kira's three season tent. She didn't sleep a bit. I ignored the situation. At six Kira had me up and awake. I mocked her anxiety in a vulgar attempt to calm her. It didn't work. She unzipped the tent door and I slowly pulled my head out of my bag, adjusting my eyes to the bitter grey morning light. A bright white environment pulled us out of the tent. HA-HA! this was radd. The whole forest was dusted with snow, a perfect 2-inch layer lay across everything. Best of all, my simple winward-wing shelter had worked perfectly. A brown square sat, like a shadow, beneath it and within it our gear was dry and unmoved. I took some pictures and smiled a lot. This too was beautiful. I was really enjoying this trip. The sky was clear and I felt no sense of panic. Kira was still anxious and we set out quickly. In front of me Kira kept her pace. She had a map which I made her check often and knew where she wanted to be by night fall, out of the rim. I followed behind taking pictures and gawking at the white lined pine and rock and animal tracks. Small openings in the forest presented a valley of green and white. I would pause and Kira would keep walking. I smiled a lot that morning.

We arrived at Horton Creek without event, crossed it, and continued along. We found the Horton Creek TH-south sign and looked for the rim sign. We walked back to the creek and then back to the sign. I studied it, looking for interpretative loop holes, something I may have missed, but found nothing. It wasn't there. The Horton Creek rim trail was missing. Patrick was right, it really as an awful trail. We evaluated the map, our options, and then continued East. At this point Kira's morning anxiety had not disappeared and standing was not appealing to her. We needed to move. Trying to stay positive, I encouraged her and said "we're almost there." Near 11 we saw the power lines, clearly marked on the map, and I stopped Kira. We were both really tired from the hike and the mounting stress of not finding Horton Creek-north. Now we knew where we were and re-evaluated our situation and options. We did this a lot, sometimes for practice, and sometimes for real. It was at this point the hike came to an end and we began our retreat.
Disappointed with my planning ability, I followed behind a very upset Kira whom I did very little to support at that point. I tried to rationalize my arrogant attitude to her to myself but got nowhere. A bit later I tried to make it up to her and made the biggest mistake of the trip. I offered something I couldn't give, created risk, and gave her all the reason in the world to trust me. I suggested, as she had wanted, a way off the rim. I pointed to a small gap some 800 feet above us to the North-East where trees could be seen all the way to the top of the rim, everywhere else a sheer wall existed, clearly impeding any trail out. I said, "If you really want out of here, if you're willing to risk it, but if you really want we can consider this.... look here... see there... it's a big maybe... but maybe we can. Want to try?" She said yes and per my directions we left the trail and started hiking north. Though the day was sunny and clear, I had a deep pit in my stomach that was poisoning myself for allowing this fallacy of hiking. Up, up, up we went. At first through downed trees, then through brush and grass, then through a boulder field and then the dense manzanitas, and finally to the rocks of the rim. We pushed bags onto five-foot rocks and climbed up lifting them onto the next ledge. There we sat.
The sky was beautifully clear, a few clouds dedicated themselves to the art while the rest were on vacation. The sun beat down on the snow covered hill side and we were quite warm on the rocks. We ate a much deserved lunch of a few bites of salami and a couple of nuts and then continued on. Shortly after we arrived at the point which I had devastatingly expected. "Kira, we can't go any further," I said. We could see the rim top. We were about a half mile away from it, I checked the GPS and it put us at 7300'. The rocks were now much larger, the cliff wall was a treacherous face and real gear was necessary if we were to move forward. Certainly not a path we should take with 40 lb packs on our backs. "We could perhaps make it," I said "but one mistake and we're not delayed or behind, we're dead. We need to turn around and find another route." Kira agreed and we took in the panoramic at that height and then moved back down the hill, retracing our steps in the white inkpad. While it took near three hours to get up the hill, we were down it, through the manzanitas, over the boulders, between the downed trees in less than 40 minutes. We found our foot path intersect the Highline Trail and set back East again. Kira was in front once again and she moved swiftly and steadily. The sky was still clear. We arrived a the Horton Creek-S TH and Kira pointed out a small sign hidden under a bush about 3 meters away from the other sign we had inspected for so long. It points North and says "FR 300." I'm astonished.

We walked to the spring over the hill and put up camp. A beautiful red sunset warms our fears of a short time line and impending doom, sailors delight, right? A short while later after a failed attempt at starting a fire and some dinner we were in the tent warming up and planning in our minds the next day's move while time and the weather made theirs.

Sunday morning arrived kind of like Saturday. Restless, neither of us do much to sleep, thinking about the next day, timid of what's to come. Kira kicked me awake at six. As anxious as I am, I'm tired and sore and in general don't wake up before eight. I woke up anyway and we were almost packed up soon after. I walked to the spring to try and filter some water. Our PUR filter, from waay back, has no pressure. It moves about an ounce of water through the intake tube and then nothing comes out. I took it apart, inspected it, all looked good, I put it together again, and still nothing. I gave up. I filled all bottles with the spring water and walked them back to the camp some 10 meters away, cursing under my breath. I imagined what a day would be like to not have had to carry that heavy and bulky thing. Grumbling I pulled out my MSR Miox filter (the redundancy thing I had talked about earlier is now helpful). The batteries in the device are old, from 2006, so I remove them and replace them with a pair of Duracells I had in the bag, brand new, EXP 2010. Still nothing. No lights, no bubbles, no pop-pop fizz-fizz... I calmly, but quite angrily put both filter and purifier away. I handed the water to Kira to boil. We boiled one and a half liters and gave up on the rest. Now we had some 'good' water and some water that tastes just fine, three liters of it.

Earlier in the morning I had exercised some time briefly digging a six-inch hole and sitting on a log when I noticed a reflective tree marker across from my seat. Now that we were ready to go I full anticipated checking both the sign under the bush and this phantom tree marker closer to the spring. We started at the sign. Looking North we could barely figure out where to start. We picked a direction and slowly moved upward, around logs and through brush sticking up in the snow. We walked up and around boulders and stopped every 3 meters to reorient ourselves. About 100 meters later we were stuck, without direction. We could look in all sorts of places and 'see' trails, lines we mentally drew in the snow with little arrows at the end, but where they went we didn't know, wether they were correct, we couldn't tell. We made one strike at a trial that began to ascend up the hill at a steep diagonal, but without a marker it was likely to be a repeat of the previous day's waste of time, something the current conditions wouldn't allow this day. We turned back to the Highline and moved to the trail I had seen earlier that morning. At least this time we had some tree markers. Unfortunately about 3 markers later we were back in our old footsteps and without direction. Another long pause looking for a marker and to discuss options.

The sky had closed up, and snow was falling. This encouraged our anxiety and shortened our tempers with the trail. As much as we tried to avoid blame, much of it that did make it out was directed straight at our feet and the ground below it. Again we paused to reflect on our situation and the options at hand; continue up this 'trail' in hope that we find the real one, or turn East again and attempt the promontory point trail. I make the final decision and we begin East.

At 10:30, a short while after we pass our campsite where we had enjoyed the first night of snow and a short while later found the Promontory Point trail sign. "Promontory Point, 3/4 mi." The weather was worsening, wind was blowing, snow was falling, and we started up. This trail was marked entirely by cairns, rock piles top other rocks, on logs, on stumps, on anything obviously hand placed and unnatural.

About halfway up we loose the trail cairns and stop to evaluate our situation. Using our topos, GPS, geography, and orientation to locate ourselves and attempt to move using perceived paths and general sense of direction upward. However, each forged trail ended at downed logs, thick brush, or boulder fields. We descend several times and recross our old tracks in the snow. Our frustration mounts as we become more eager to leave the rim. We return to our last known trail cairn and methodically weigh our options. Knowing, we had a long but good path East along the Highline trail to the See Spring trail we make one last attempt to ascend using last springs trimmed branches, hidden beneath this years growth to identify the path. Then Kira found a cairn hidden beneath the snow and we earned our first confirmation of direction in more than an hour and a half. Slowly, and methodically, we moved up the trail marking each obvious cairn with large Xs in the snow, never distancing ourselves more than 10 meters from the last obvious sign of the trail. Several times we were lead off trail by elk paths, or open clearings, however after serious evaluation and consulting each other we back track and find the trail again. Over and over I am reminded of our vital having a hiking partner is. We each identify mistakes and cairns, working together to effectively gain true altitude.

After a seemingly all day venture through the mounting storm it's 2:30 PM and we arrive at the Promontory Point trail head sign and stop for a photo, some pack arrangements, and a quick couple bites of salami. Both of us are ecstatic, but contain ourselves because we know we have a long walk left ahead. At the top of Promontory Point the snow is still falling and the wind blowing and we begin our 6-mile walk North. The snow, initially easy to walk through, but begins to build quickly on the road, covering some recent tire tracks in the snow we are following. By the time we arrive at forest road 300 the snow is calf high at low points and knee deep off the road. Walking is difficult, my pack pinches my hips and I stop to readjust it every 100 meters or rest my pack on my trekking pole. At FR 300 we break briefly and then keep on keeping on. A short while up FR-300 we turn up the last 3-mile walk of our trip up the Bear Canyon Lake road, back to the car.

Kira ploughs through the snow as I try to focus on my foot steps to keep from falling over. Looking up periodically, I get vertigo and when I think about it, I can't tell if I'm walking up or down hill. I choose down hill because it makes me feel like it's easier. Kira stops for seconds every mile to rest and look for me behind her before continuing on. I don't remember the walk being this long. Snow apparently lengthened the road, practically dancing on the way out the first day, today I could barely lift my boots without wincing. Thoughts about our next step were shuffled out of my mind in order to keep peace up there and by 6 PM we saw the Bear Canyon Lake sign and were thrilled. We stopped at the turn and both drank desperately needed water. Three long swigs and we turned toward the now visible car and were safe.

We dropped our packs and attempted to move the car. Back and forth we try and roll it up onto the snow top, but all to no avail. With no chance to drive through the calf to knee deep snow, even if we did move the car, we rest. While our exhaustion is significant, it's not severe and as our muscles ache and unwind we feel safe. Kira breaks her last IB Profin in half and we each take some. We fall asleep in hope of a morning of new opportunity and energy.

On day six, December 16th, a Tuesday, according to my watch, it was still snowing.

After a restless night of sleeping sideways atop wet cold gear and clothes we woke up and began to evaluate our position and options. I turned on my cell phone in an attempt to get some signal. We were fortunately parked quite close to a clean, dry, covered toilet and we both took a try. Everything worked well. Three rolls of TP all for us. If not for the wind, one could have left the door open for a fresh experience. I handed Kira my phone before she left and she tried finding service out on the road early that morning. We cleared a small path around the car, cleared the roof, hood, and windows of snow and cleared out an area around the back hatch to use as the primary door. I began to 'cabinize' the Volvo, created a staging area at the hatch for wet gear, a sleeping area and maintained the front seats for dry gear, paper work. Put the kitchen at the hand brake, stored boots along the seats to dry and then rolled out the sleeping pads and bags and tucked in. Kira and I looked over the maps and learned our route out would be about 15 miles along the Ridgeline road, FR-300 to the 260. We also note the route back down Christopher Creek to the trail head there out to the 260. All other options are extraneous. We see no other buildings on our maps. Our gaze fixes on Payson as if by looking at the words we could transport ourselves there or at least communicate with the good people of the city to mobilize their snow mobiles and plows and happen apon us. It's clear our only option, at this point, is to stay with the vehicle and wait for rescue or a change in the weather. We sit.

We play on the uke, read, study, play cards. We stare at nothing. We get out and clear the car again. Kira hikes a bit to try the cell phones again. We honk the horn short-long-short, short-long-short, short-long-short. Planes would fly overhead, beyond the clouds of the storm, and we couldn't hold still. Every roar, or subtle knock on the car from falling snow & debris startled us and we made another attempt to communicate by getting up, honking, clearing the windows of the car. Kira wiped the condensation off the roof to stop the bitter cold drops from getting you in the back of the neck and concluded, "Honey, the house keeping is done." Kira beat me at the volvo-cabin version of cribbage 220 to 192 and we make bets on when we'll leave, who'll be the catalyst, how we'll get out of here. We enjoy our comfort, warm and fed. We're content except for the terrible feeling of the unknown. An allegory for life eh?

We smell terrible and keep to our own bags the whole time. Evening rolls in and the snow fall subsides a bit. I got a bit excited, I rolled the window down a crack to keep tabs on the weather and we notice the windows don't have the snow piles on the any more. I hope for a sunny next day. It's dark and all the bets for the day are over, we propose a new series of bets for the next day, but never solidify anything. Then I shimmy down and try to fall asleep, but Kira demands I keep a reasonable schedule. I tell her how hard I've worked all day. She doesn't buy it. We decide to eat dinner and in conservation mode, we conclude to save our remaining hot dinners for the following day and move to finish some falafel paste we had made a couple days prior and eat the remainder of a cucumber we had followed by a bit of chocolate. The falafel is good, the cucumber is frozen and tastes terrible... awful.. I never ever want to eat an old frozen cucumber again.. traumatic event aside, it's terrible, try it. But it's full of water and we know it's good for us so I push it down. One pice of chocolate for each of us, then Kira hands me a second. I chastise her and then eat it. Dinner is over and again Kira prevents me from sleeping. I'm okay with it. We study some soils information, talk about soil depletion and pollution and chemistry. I fall asleep and the faint humming of the world keeps me awake.

Our seventh day comes without either of us noticing, it's December 17th. Half an hour into the day I shoot up, my heart is racing. A faint light reflects off the bits of snow covering our windows and the loud leaf blower sound of a snow mobile is all I hear. Within seconds I've popped the hatch and am screaming and whistling with my mouth, waving my hands. The darkness and the storm clearly limit the visibility of the drivers. They're wearing helmets, white? full snow outfits. There is two of them, they're about 50 meters away heading down the 'road' to the lake. Does the GPS indicate good fishing at this time of night? I'm frantic. Kira is barely awake yet. I can't contain myself. They stop a moment while I duck back to grab my light. I throw it on and wave it. Seconds later they drive away. My heart is about to burst with fear they'll never see us. Our car is deeply covered in snow from the night fall and clearly not obvious, or obviously in trouble. Perhaps I shouldn't have waited to light the spare on fire until tomorrow. I throw on my snow pants, boots, jacket, hat, light, and Storm(TM) whistle knowing I only have a bit of time before they reach the dead end and return back with the possibility to passing right by us, unless their fishing. I jump out of the car and blowing as hard as possible into the whistle, one light on the car flashing and another on my head I move as fast as I can through the thigh high snow to the road. One snow mobile comes up the road and briefly I fear it will pass me. At this point I've forgotten about the second and can do nothing but focus on making myself visible to the driver - scare him to death for all I can think, jumping out of the woods at him, whistling and frantically waving my arms I'm five meters away from him when he stops his snow mobile and dismounts. I can't think of what I'm suppose to do next. I kind of wait for some direction and Kira and I both suffer minor strokes when we here "My name is Scott, I'm with Search and Rescue." He asks if we're hurt and while I feel obligated to find some problem we have but I can't. I tell him we're both warm, and comfortable, we're unhurt, and are not hungry or thirsty, we would just like to get out, if he'd help us. He obliges.

We walk back to the car where Kira is now awake and excited. Scott gets on his radio, notifies some female voice where he has found us, tells us the snow cat will show up shortly and keeps us company until then. We pack as much as we can into our bags, which as it turns out is almost everything. Save a pair of shoes, food I didn't care to repack, our maps, and a couple pieces of clothes, the car is clean and empty and we're ready to go. The cat shows up, we pop in. Everyone is just as nice as Scott. We're amazed at the energy and enthusiasm of every volunteer. Deb hops into the back of the cat with us and keeps us company as we soak in our previous predicament and new found freedom and safety. She's nice. She keeps a blog of each event. I think about comparing stories with her after. Here's her address. http://debssarstories.blogspot.com/ . We're offered a pile of donated energy bar snacks in a box on the floor. Deb tells us about her favorite snack, some fruit gummies. I start to look for them to offer them to her when I'm caught by another volunteer who notes how hungry I look with boxes of food bars in my hand seemingly searching for more.

Deb talks with us for the length of the ride. Kira and I are surprised at how lively everyone is. Deb tells us about her other experiences and how excited she was to get out and snowshoe. We kind of ruined their whole search plan by being at the first place they looked. Sorry. After a couple of refuelings of the cat and two hours we’re at the highway 260 where there is a slew of vehicles waiting for us. Unhurt we pop out of the cat back into the cold stormy night to meet the rest of the crew, now in the veil of bright flood lights. Still, the whole team is energetic and nice. Illuminated our transport is clearly visible and quite impressive. Two monster treads span the whole length of the truck. The body is a big red can, simple in shape, but space efficient. On the side are the words “Search & Rescue, Coconino County.” We are offered a spot in the Sheriff’s truck to sit and we take a few pictures with some of the group. Now I really feel like a hinderance. I’m not even pulling my weight helping them get the gear put back together. Kira and I sit in the truck and watch as they load the snow mobiles and the cat back onto trailers from Flagstaff. We’re startled by a volunteer who offers us some NutterButters. I’m delighted, but not really hungry. How do you pass up NutterButters? I graciously accept and eat a few, but my stomach warns me not to eat anymore.

A bit after things seem to be wrapped up around us, Aaron steps into the car and says we’re all set and we begin the drive, along a ploughed highway, into Payson. Briefed on all the things we can look forward to in the coming few hours and days we arrive at Denny’s near 5 AM and sit down for a breakfast with the team where the whole event seamlessly melts into just another normal day.

The whole team is really neat, we talk about everything from gear to making mistakes. Finally I’m asked point blank, “Did you even look at the weather?” and I get to start practicing my answer. Breakfast ends and Kira and I move to a corner booth where we enjoy some hot tea and some stardom from the locals. Mom picks us up around 8:30, I get a nice long hung and a smile. We throw our gear into her Volvo, Mom turns the car on the highway South and finally I take my boots off. ...

---------------------

In the end here was our (estimated) true route:
(Red is our in route, Blue is our out route. Bear lake is off the map to the north where the car was parked. Compare to the initial plan map at the top of the page.)

---------------

While this video may seem a bit silly and dramatic - it is - but I would also say fairly accurate. I'd still like to enjoy a barbecue with friends. (video contains profanity)

----------------------
Some of the press we received:

Missing:
AZ Star
KVOA 4 Video
KVOA 4 Story
AZ 12

AZ Family - includes original story & update
Someone's Blog

Found:
AZ Star
Tucson Citizen
AZ 12
Payson Roundup
ABC 15
KOLD 13
KVOA 4 Story
KTAR

---------------

Fly Fishing.

2008-12-07T09:47:00.000-08:00

5 AM rolled by without anyone noticing. Then 5:30. Then four minutes later I woke up in a mild panic. I was suppose to be ready at 5:20 and I wasn't. I paced a bit, looked out the window into the black night. Subtle porch lights created weak shadows across the street, otherwise there was nothing to see or hear in the cold morning. I picked up my phone and dialed Patrick to apologize for not being ready. He assured me they'd be right there. They too were late. I was off the hook.

I rushed my pants on (thermals under jeans) picked up a number of top layers; thermals, shit, sweatshirt, outer coat. In my panic I couldn't find my stocking cap and opted for the base ball cap over nothing at all. Next to my knit cap was the pair of gloves that I would have picked up had I been thorough. Lights rolled up the driveway and I kicked my body into gear. I rushed outside and picked up pole and effects and shoved them into my backpack and hopped into the truck with Patrick, Dalton, and Lava.

About an hour later we pulled off the highway next to another car at the top of Rose Canyon Reservoir. "Damn, he's got a bike." Pat said, "We won't be the first lines in the water." We exchanged a cordial greeting and then he rode down the hill, quite quickly I imagine. We slung our packs and began the walk down. It's about a mile from highway to lake and the downhill made it easy and quick, but it was COLD. Bitter cold. Tucson was cold, my guess was 35' or 38' F. Up here it had to be 28' F. The fabric on my jeans would stiffen if I stopped for a moment and let them cool. So the walk did great things for keeping me warm. I think I would have kept walking past the lake in the name of warmth had I not been with other people.

As soon as we arrived at the lake the frustrating feeling of defeat struck me. The cold air pierced my hands so badly I couldn't do more than five minutes of work before needing to put them into my armpits to quell the pain. All the while Dalton began setting up his gear and Patrick, some sort of fishing guru, tossed lines in the water and pulled fish out like they were attached to his line. I had much to learn about this fishing business.

Lesson 1: Bring warmer clothes.
Lesson 2: Don't forget the bait.

I finally got enough stamina to get my pole together with the reel backwards, line missing loops, and loose knots. Ready for a fly I looked into my bag, a couple of donuts and half a bottle of orange juice. I raced through my memory of my rushed morning and stopped my brain just in time to keep from recounting the awful mistake. Embarrassed, I asked Pat if I could borrow a fly and he graciously obliged. I fixed my reel, re-strung my line, and tried to tie on tight Pat's loner dry fly. Due to my loss of dexterity I had to grab the fly with the forceps and then cut a number of small knots off my line. Between bungling with the rod, line, fly, and managing what little use I had with my hands a sudden Plop! stopped all progress. Fly and forceps dropped into the water. The cold, still, bitter water. Just on the other side of this foot high wall at the water's edge, through the arrogant amber water a shiny set of forceps pleadingly held an invisible dry fly at a depth of eight inches. I grumbled, but then bit my tongue and dipped my hand down to pull it out and set it on the concrete as I plunged my freezing wet hand into my pocket to rewarm. Maybe seven minutes later I was ready to work again and in another four minutes had the fly tied on and was ready to fish - I thought.

Walking down the path another three meters to distance myself from injuring others, I pulled some line out to cast and dropped the fly in the water. Again it hit with a significant Ploop! unlike the traditional lay of a dry fly on water, this little guy hit with force, propelled underwater and then bounced right up to the surface. I evaluated it with vague curiosity and frost-frigid mental frustration and then called over to Pat. "Is it unnatural looking to fish if my fly is frozen?" I suppose I expected his laugh and response of 'probably.' I then put the pole down to warm up my hands and walked over to Dalton. He was struggling with his line. It wouldn't travel off his pole. Each of the loops had frozen over, solid. I didn't feel so bad about my fly anymore. He chipped the ice off with his fingers as I warmed mine in my pockets.

I returned to my rod and proceeded to cast directly into the tree above my head. I took another ten minute break. I climbed the tree to try and detach my line. I climbed back down the tree and took another ten minute warm up. I tugged on my line. One, two, three... the fly let go and came down. I reeled my line in and moved down the shore. I took another break. My hands hurt something awful. Sharp pain in each finger, a numbness across the back and on the tips of my fingers. I walked over to the small dock on the reservoir, it was covered in ice. I was glad to have thick socks on under my heavy boots. I watched as Pat and Dalton strung their fish. At one point, after Dalton untied a knot he had in his line he pulled his hook out of the water where it dangled to find a fish hooked and ready for the net. It was that easy for these guys. I took another break.

Patrick moved on to a point on the shore near the dam and Dalton walked over to stand on the small dam. I stayed on the dock, in the sun, warming, and finally getting the energy to cast. Patrick would call over some tips and I would respond until my subconscious returned me to old habits and Patrick would call over again and critique. Tic-Toc. Tic-Toc. Dalton fell in the water, fell off a fence, caught more fish. I was learning.

After a bit of this I packed things up and walked around the lake, where Pat and Dalton had now moved to, in order to do some observation of the 'pros.' I was hoping to see a what the line does when a fish 'bites' and how Pat or Dalton control their line in order to both set the hook and reel the fish in. Sitting and watching, Pat suggested I fish just a couple meters away from him to keep practicing. So I put my line in the water a couple times trying to mimic the man. Dropping the line in a spot a couple times then changing location after no bites, then again to another spot.

I tossed my line out and began to manage the length of line I had at my feet. Subtly drawing my hook-side line I noticed the little 'wiggle.' Not more than half a second, and not more than a couple centimeters. My vision isn't that good, some people see aliens, some people Jesus, I saw the wiggle and that was all. I tugged a bit and then looked for another wiggle to prove to myself I wasn't crazy. The line tightened up again, but didn't run. So I pulled a little more line in and it was snug. Snug? SNUG! I caught a fish! - keep your cool. "I caught a fish!" I mentioned to Pat, "Hey, I think I caught something," and then I started to look at all the line I had out. With pole in the air, fish moving left to right, I had my left hand full of line and reeling it all in as calmly as possible so as to not snap or tangle line as Pat scrambled over with his net with much more apparent excitement than I. The pole wasn't flexing or swinging, the sun was out, and the fish wasn't taking line, so I assumed it was about the same size as the other fish those guys had caught earlier, about a six-inch rainbow. Then I saw it... WOW! "Look at that thing." I said under my forced calm breathing. As it came closer it was evident this fish was no trivial catch, it was real! A real fish on my reel, ha-HA! Pat slid down to the water line with his net and eased the catch into the net and it was all set. I retrieved my hook and put the fish on the line, Lava went nuts. Fourteen, maybe Sixteen inches, it was a German Brown Trout. Ha! And so there it was, my first catch on the fly rod, and the first fish I'd caught on a line in a Very long time. Boy was I proud.

The sky was now full of light and sun, the rocks were warming up, the bites slowed down, and we finished fishing a couple hours later without much else action on any lines (Save Pat who always has action on his line). I threw line in the water like I'd been doing it for years. Dropping in a spot there, then in a spot over there, jumping over rocks and sharing my thoughts on where fish were biting with rocks, trees, and anyone who'd ask for my opinion or just pretend listen.

To add to my pride that day, my fish got a lot of attention from the other folks now on the lake. One fellow across the lake shouted across, "That a Trout?!" - "yep" - "You Catch that HERE?!" - "yep" - "How big is that guy, twelve, fourteen?!" - "yep" - "Geeze - Nice!" - "Thanks," I replied as we walked back up the trail. Folks we passed walking back to the truck all gawked and to put the cherry on top a ranger pulled up at the truck on the highway and asked if we'd caught anything. I proudly pulled out the trout and he said, "Wow, don't see many brown trout come out of that lake, hardly ever that size either." That did it, filled my head, I was content.

We drove home happy with the day's business, planned the fish cook for the evening, and went our ways until then.

Cereus repandus - "Peruvian Apple Cactus" - Dragon Fruit Look Alike

2008-12-05T07:52:00.000-08:00

Cereus repandus - The "Peruvian Apple Cactus" - Dragon Fruit Look Alike
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cereus_repandus

**insert alley picture**

A somewhat normal looking cactus with delicious fruit that are very similar to the Dragon Fruit, however the plants are not at all the same. The one Kira found is sitting in the north alley way on 5th street, just west of Euclid in Tucson, Arizona. But what is it? So we search.

The inside of a smaller fruit.

Google creates no solution. Change the query, still, nothing. We give up on our internet search and move to asking real people. Curious.

We took our fruit sample and a sketch to the University of Arizona Herbarium (a delightful place) where they gave us some gawked at the remarkable little sample and then provided some friendly tips on which genus' to have a look at. It was back to the internet and there it was, Cereus repandus - The "Peruvian Apple Cactus."

Back in the alley way I cut a couple pieces and brought them to my place and put them in a box so I too could enjoy the delicious fruit. Hopefully they'll take root.

Moto Bikes (photos)

2008-10-29T12:38:00.000-07:00

Le Heilo-cycle (see the aero-cycle in the previous post)

Pin-up on the moto - I'll have to get my paints out when I get home.

A beautiful Classic

mmmm... Nimbus

An Image of Chad

France de Jour. Abridged, if you can imagine.

2008-10-29T11:56:00.000-07:00

Due to the degree of difficulty involved in typing on a touch screen while on the road, it's been frustratingly slow to compose any regular reports regarding whereabouts and activities. However, now that I'm on a machine let me see if I can do some (a great deal of) catching up.

Let me note:
When I say 'we' in reference to decisions made, let me make it clear that typically that excludes me. For the most part I did my best to take a literal back seat to the direction and advising of the journey. This in effect Created the journey, it amplified the adventure. Sometimes for good and sometimes for the worse, it certainly excluded me from understanding much of what I was seeing. But I did enjoy the privilege of viewing the French scape with wide eyes and a blatantly blank perspective and of course zero liability.

Bonjour!
According to my notes it seems that Mom and Andrew arrived last on Friday the 17th and then I arrived the following Saturday, the 18th, though I can't be sure the French calendar system is the same, the natives are quite aloof and speak a unique tongue that sounds nothing like mine own. Though I'm learning. Oui!

Our fist adventure started the night of my arrival at the Walkers, can you imagine? They were throwing a party with a number of friends that went well into the night and at some point along the way the Air France luggage delivery man arrived with my baggage and then stayed for a couple of rounds and an introduction to each party guest, quite delightful indeed. Yet somewhat more influential to our trip, we were introduced to a local friend and generously invited to go mushroom hunting the following day with one of the guests. Of course, we said "Oui!"

The following morning we put on our quiet-injun-moccasins, armed ourselves with pocket knives and drove off to meet the rest of the party. We were shown pictures of the prey, a Death Trumpet.. quite appealing eh? Essentially these were black/dark purple trumpet like mushrooms which poked out of the leaves around the moist bases of trees. Charged up, we drove to the trail and began our walk into the woods. A soft wood, full of orange and green, with lots of light and well defined trails. No bad wolf out here, so we thought. Along the way we passed many other types of fungi, most of which we picked and the proudly presented to our host with the question, "This one?" He would reply, "no" and then re-describe the mushroom again. After a while he just stopped answering us and walked ahead of the group. Perhaps he would think twice about inviting strangers. Then, as to inflict us with a bit of fear we passed a hunter and his dog, Whiskey, and the group stood a bit taller and talked a bit louder as none of us were wearing bright orange. I'd guess his sobriety was top prey this early in his morning.

We had climbed a couple of hills and scavenged a couple of valleys when our host indicated that we were Now in mushroom country. All the other trail did not produce the Death Trumpet, but NOW we could really start looking. Embarrassed we had wasted time until now we all put our heads down and went separate ways. At this point, anyone who has read Micahel Pollands "Omnivore's Dilemma" could super impose his description upon us.

At this point it seemed that most of us were quite tired of the hunching hunt and were more interested in sitting and playing with leaves or exploring the green moss that grew on just about everything. Sitting down to have a look at an interesting stump of leaves, moss, grass, and general French muck we so often see piled and re-piled in the movies, I discovered a small black fungus and next to it another. Hot Damn! I Found em! Initially they were about the size of my little finger, but once I adjusted, or 'got my eyes on,' there were quite a few. I think I was sitting on some. Up to the size of two thumbs. Two whole thumbs!

At this discovery I hailed the group and the hunt was back on again. Soon enough Morgan found one, then Angela, Mom, then Andrew. We were certainly keeping up. In fact, while the locals were the experts, the Americans excelled at identifying a majority of the fun-guys littered in the forest (Andrew, of course finding the mother load at the end of the day). Five or so hours after we had parked we walked back to the cars. Thirty minutes after we all got to the cars, the rescue party finally found Mom and we could get on our way back to our hosts flat to enjoy each other's company with shoes off. In the end our spoils all ended up in a delicious meal which our hosts cooked up; sharing with us buckets full of juices, liquors, and food stuffs. It was a great start to the whole trip.

Mushroom Group

If day one was the present highlight, and possible medal winner for the trip, day two had to be an identifier for the worst possible day of the trip. -er perhaps that's a little harsh. We kicked ourselves out of bed early the second day and made our way to a common tourist attraction, Gorge de Fier. Here we found the park closed for the winter so decided to take at least an enjoyable walk around the park. On our return we found a smashed window and flat tire. Fortunately it was someone else's car. Unfortunately it happened to be the car we rented from someone else. Damn!

In the spirit of our upbringing (or gender role) Andrew and I had the spare on quickly and after some photos we drove on. Our next step came when trying to figure out our next step. From here the next two days of story becomes one you might watch in high speed with a deep cowboy voice overdubbed giving a brief explanation.

"Well, see here's when them's Mizells, as they call 'em, went running round. Round and round about, talking gibberish with jus' abouts every person thems could then see. Startin' with their Bon-Jurs and endin' with a Or-Vwa or two. Police diee-rected them to military and military to po-lice, repair men promptly sent them across the street to some other cow-town fill station. This was a whole brand of mess you couldn't imagine there dreamin up on your stormiest of days. But in the end a tall handsome man, speakin their language set their ponies right and before dust at dusk could be seen none more they were back at the Walkers with a brand spankin' new trolley in the drive pickin' and a hollerin' like the damnest of days had never touched them." (Copyright 2008 John Mizell)

.... With things sorted out we resumed our schedule of no plans and yielded to Charley and his out door plans. We primed our selves with a short day hike (which included a short bit of misdirection) and the following day put on the big boots and saddled up to go Big! The hike was visible from the house. If we looked straight across the lake and then pushed the binoculars up about thirty degrees there was a house on the side of what seemed to be a shear cliff. We were going to drive a majority of the altitude to the trail head, however that still left the 'shear' part of the trail to be climbed.

When we arrived at the trail head we were parked at a pasture below the cliff walls and the stunningly green grass, I believe, tricked our senses into thinking we were somewhere in the Sierras of California. Clearly we weren't. About thirty steps up the 'hill' I was curious how such a place could be created in all it's majesty and grandeur, further I was Very curious where all the oxygen had gone. That accompanied with a look back over your shoulder indicated the California pretense quite false. The view all around us made for frequent justified breaks. In no time we had made the short hike to the top where the house sat overlooking the lake. We ate lunch and rested a bit more and then in a significantly shorter amount of time descended back to the cars where we each sank into the seats thankful to have invented such a thing as 'chair.' (Let me note that Charley didn't participate in the frequent breaks or lack of oxygen. As an avid outdoors man and cyclist he had absolutely NO trouble at all. In fact he pointed out one of his regular cycling roads we could see going up and over these mountains.)

The following day the Walkers drove to Italy and we down to Avignon where we spent the next two days getting lost. Aside from our trip south from Geneva this was the most driving we'd done. So now we had a chance to really 'participate' in the culture of France, raise questions and have them rapidly answered. like...

Traffic? The majority of France uses the circle to manage intersections. For the most part, the circles seem to work quite well. I think for a moment that perhaps this is because of the synergy of the other drivers being polite, the motorcycles Crazy, and the cops absolutely vacant. Yet this land is not without want and this seemingly utopian land crumbles with my naiveté. Due to less order comes a subtle desire for structure, if it's possible to differentiate between the two and so come the honks, glares, passes, engine noises, and other leading signs of aggravation and road rage. Five o'clock and road work, both inherently provoking, create the standstill and at that comes the sound of the city and so France looses it's quaint curb apeal and becomes yet another 'place'. Traffic answered.

On our way south we made a number of short stops in picturesque villages and towns, as well as a visits to a bicycle & motorbike museum, olive oil 'factory,' the village/region of Chateaunuff de Paup to steel some grape seeds, a gigantic hardware store where we got to see all the things "we don't have in America" followed by a disciplinary stop at McDonnalds (just about the same). But really most of the time we were completely lost, or at least in the wrong lane of traffic. I bided my time in the back seat as Andrew and Mom pulled their hair out. All such Good fun!

Cold and raining as we drive back north I stopped to note the Alps.

The Alps, to understate, are grandiose. It's a meadowed valley or a pastured plain defined by a stand of trees or a fence line and as I saw it a road. Beyond the pleasant cruiser bike trails however forests of national parks fill in and abruptly rise. Upward, up, high up, up beyond sense. These mountains fill in every horizon feasible and leave you lonely when they don't.

Just above, the clouds are equally exotic. Rain clouds are a standard sort. Big, full, all encompassing, visually non-stimulating, and generally unexciting. However, mountain clouds, the kind that sneak and slither, creep and wither, and the ones that simply whistle the day away with you, are the real gems of the sky. The precious pieces, deliciously engaging morsels, the most elegant robe ever tailored to accompany and complement the eloquence of the peaks themselves. On a clear day they are the fingers of the hand wrapped around the profound arrogance of earth protecting from the terrible yearning of man in the most absurd contest of ego. Another may seep over a wooded ridge as moss makes a dutiful attempt to overcome the sunny side of a stone; as horses would attempt to stampede down and across a western plain. So much to it's success that it spills back the other way once the valley filled. ... if you can imagine I suppose.

The mountains keep you directed and content, they are your companion along the drive. A while later your mind drifts and your eyes follow the river edge, corn stalks and grape vines follow your tracks and smoke from a chimney or nuclear power plant maintain your sense of humanity. Then you remember your ever present companions and lift your gaze to find them gone. A dreadful feeling engulfs your sense of duty, of responsibility, revisiting your thoughts of casual camaraderie. You turned your back for one moment and they were gone, lost forever. In their place a cold grey blanket. Fog, rain, clouds. Shadows dance in your teary vision as you pan feebly. Finally a small dark peak shows in a corner of the sky. In another moment the white or red cliffs slice through the etherous fill. A terraced green step seems to keep pace with your peripherals and then as it came it departs. Your left with the embarrassment of I'll conceived fear and rectification. It doesn't take long before your at ease again. You see the river again and begin to follow it along the road...

We're back in Annecy and after a bit of a read, we fall asleep. After a nice bike ride into town and back again in the cold bitter rain today, I'm pooped and enjoying some Tea and a crumble thing mom made. My pants are in the drier. I'm writing this story, spell checking and what not. One look around the room says, "I think that concludes this long winded soliloquy of mine." Thanks for listening.

---
John Patrick Mizell
(edit and forward as appropriate)

Photos should soon be pasted online here: http://jpmizell.blogspot.com

Google Earth Locations:

Now were back at Annecy - on Route de Avolliones, below the word Avolliones toward the water with the big lawn.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=annecy,+France&sll=32.227832,-110.943784&sspn=0.692378,1.455688&g=Tucson,+AZ&ie=UTF8&ll=45.864597,6.14404&spn=0.008906,0.022745&t=h&z=16

The Hike - we started at the end of the white road and then went up and around to the top of the shadow shown in the photo moving down along the the right side - a brown trail shows up a bit.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=annecy,+France&sll=32.227832,-110.943784&sspn=0.692378,1.455688&g=Tucson,+AZ&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=45.828889,6.271133&spn=0.008911,0.022745&z=16

Our hotel in Avenonon was on Impasse Monvoish-Autard - just about where the I of Impasse is on the map. The white building with the courtyard.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=annecy,+France&sll=32.227832,-110.943784&sspn=0.692378,1.455688&g=Tucson,+AZ&ie=UTF8&ll=43.940243,4.80683&spn=0.004604,0.011373&t=h&z=17

Pictures Attached:
1. A fantastic spice apothecary
2. Mushrooms close up
3. Hiking down (looking at this photo you can see the Walker's home. Just above the buoy in the water there is a 'white' harbor. From here move along the shore to the right and you'll see a chapel spike (large in comparison to other white specks). Now move down to the water line and at the second white spec there we are. Easy, right?)
4. Airplane Bike at the museum
5. Grapes 'borrowed' from Chateaunuff de Paup

Sneeky Bastards, Bikes, Broken, Birthday's, Berkeley, & Hillsburough

2008-10-16T16:19:00.001-07:00

The drink was a bit bitter. My intentions were grand! Here they were:

Find a vehicle in Philly (<$1000) and start driving west. Head to Ohio, meet Dan, head to Kansas, then down to Oklahoma, meet Megan, jet west, through beautiful high desert of New Mexico and drop into Tucson. See friends, ride moto bike, ditch new car in Tucson, skidaddle out to CA for Pancho's birthday party, then up to San Francisco for departure to Geneva where vacation begins a new chapter of indifference. Perfect! right? maybe. Step two always requires step one to work.

Step one: I combed the clasified adds for trucks, bikes, and cars which seemed good for another 4,000 miles, that's all I need. I found several, one was a plough truck - that would have been novel eh? A pannel van. A '93 Toyota. A '82 GMC customized catering truck. I made my choice, I contaced the owner of the GMC. I set up an appointment. I got on transportation and 3 hours and a mile walk later I arrived at the truck. Old, fresh paint, rusted floor boards, good tires, walk in fridge, broken ignition, good engine. Perfect! $1300. - given issues $1000. I made arrangements with the owner, discussed registration procedures and possible problems, created contingencies, and agreed to meet the next day in order to hand him cash and get title.

The next day I call the owner in the afternoon and establish I'll arrive within 3 hours and after 2 hour drive out of Philly I arrive at the truck cash in hand excitment in my shoes and call the owner. Sold!

... to someone else. - Anger. RED ANGER! -- Oh.. if I had no scruples.... I look around, the lot is quiet, no one arround, the van has no locks, no keyed ignition...it's vunerable, my spite grows. I'm mad. Breathe.. revenge is never as sweet as it tastes.

I'm talking to him on the phone.. I can't believe what I hear. I'm trying not to be rude, but calmly tell him how rude he has been. It's difficult. I can do nothing but communicate my incredible astonisment and dissapointment in his decision. My enormous frustration. I urge him to make better decisions in the future and hang up. What else can you do? I walk away, rage in my pocket. My joy and faith in people crushed by one silly man. (he was french.. does that match any sterotyping? I don't know.. I don't care.). I'm depressed and we begin to drive back to the city. We stop at an REI and after a bit of a conversation with a 20 employee I remember the good in people and compassion in life. Alas I buy a plane ticket to end my east coast adventure the following day and begin to forget about 'perfect plans' and look forward to supprising friends for a Michael Franti show in Tucson and a casual drive to California.

I arrive at the Phildelphia Airport at 4 AM in an attempt to change my tickets to an ealrier flight. I'm struck with typical airline resistance and attempts to charge and inhibit me. I remember to breathe, communicate, and perhaps the little bit of karma I wish I had two days before arrives and without issue or cost I'm in Tucson 11 hours earlier than anticipated.

My ukulele keeps me company all the way along. Perhaps it's close to being my adult Teddy-Bear. It's good.

Back in Tucson I get to slow down again, refresh my bags, and reset my mind a bit. I get to share stories with familiar faces and feel updated. I drink hard and sleep well. I change my moto-bike's oil and ride about. I prepare to leave again.

Continuing on to California is a bit more laborious than I anticipate. Kira accompanies me and make two attempts west California. Attempt one left Kira and I without radio coverage as the presidential debate began followed by a flat tire, Taco Bell dinner, and a slow-drive back into Tucson. The next morning we made our second attempt and successfully and arrived in Laguna Beach in the early afternoon on Friday and thus vacation restarted. Saturday we put ourselves into the car and drove north to Edwards AFB for Pancho's birthday party, the big tee-dubyah-oh.

A choo-choo cake and some choo-choo cake eating with a choo-choo later Pancho was triumphant, the neighborhood kids were fed and properly sugared, a giant dump truck was unwraped and everyone was sufficently sacked out. Well done. Kira departed and then Andrew left back to Berkeley. Mom went to work and I was back in Laguna stuck to online political news and O'Riley. I needed to surf.

Jeff and I get out to San O's. Surf is decent. Sky is overcast. 10 or so dropin's later, including one heavy onboard chest landing, our arms are tired and our grins gigantic. The rest of the week seems to slip away until a brief surf session with Sam and Monica where Monica takes one to go into the books, skagg to the eye.. bloody... it was a short day.

Two days later we depart northward. Up to Rosamond to check on the hangar site and play a bit with a tractor. I gots to gets me ones of theses. Boo-yeah!

After Rosamond, I begin driving north and vacation starts for everyone else. Mom has my blackberry and I've got ... what? ... what? ... My vacation has been going for about two months now, as you may have read, but Mom is electric with relaxation and she napps and talks and it's clear this truely is a much anticipated vacation. 7PM puts us in Stockton for dinner and muppet show with Tripp and Karen followed by a serious game of Risk (a draw due to time). Just like the sentences, the following day comes quickly and we're in Berkeley. I don't think I've laughed with family this much for a while. It's grand!

... Mom, Andrew & Angela left a couple of hours ago and left me at Angela's place for the night. I'm now sitting in a coffee shop, surf n' sip, in Hillsburough, a nice community south of San Francisco, listening to podcasts waiting for my flight tomorrow morning. - what's next? no se. But tomorrow I'm off to Switzerland and France. I'll be sure to note when I decide not to return.

Government Workers

2008-09-24T07:56:00.003-07:00

Our Nation's Capitol has some very interesting aspects. From people,
to policies, to racing motorcades, perhaps one of the most
substantially surprising encounters was with a governmental squirrel.
Clearly highly trained, these citizens dutifully wear their grey
government issue coats and patrol all grounds surrounding the capitol,
methodically and efficiently combing their perimeter for nuts, seeds,
and WMDs. In most cases, they tend to blend quite nicely. However,
exception struck me as I walked to Union Station from the Capitol
Building.
Initially the event was typical. I was generally apathetic to their
existence and they to mine, however moments later this grounds keeper
made a most unusual advance. No so much in direction, but in manner,
but before I could wrap my head around the incident he stopped,
examining some specious sector he had agency over. I stopped, most
likely adding to the stress of the situation, clearly building. But I
had rights, I deserved to know, this guys works for me just as much as
the next guy. Rigidly his ears perked, back stiffened, and fingers
quieted. My nose rumpled and my eyes squinted, defining as much
detail as possible, my feet wavered in my loose shoes as if trying to
stay upright on the sea. As the shakedown stare-out continued I could
see nothing peculiar about him, soft tail, light ears, attention to
detail. Moments later I was struck with fascination, more so than the
fascination of mystery, but the fascination of knowledge. Like a cat
this small grey lawn guard had substituted the all too familiar front
feet back feet exchange bound for the left side right side sneak
slink, a significantly stealth like approach which contributed to both
efficiency and field dominance. I was amazed. The squirrel moved on
to his next inspection point with the agile movement of a panther,
moving only his legs as the body snaked through the grass in a low
body crawl, and like that out of sight, probably into some high-tech
tunnel full of trainees from whom he served as mentor. The
complexities of our government's programs is beyond me. What a
fascinating world.

Sepsis

2008-09-24T07:56:00.001-07:00

As I travel, it's often difficult to open a computer to write, and a
writing in a journal seems to trap stories into a non-digital form and
personalize them so to make sharing them a bit more awkward than
desired, so often I compose on my phone. With a Qwerty keyboard and
email feasibility, most often it proves to be quite efficient.
However, due to aspects of my life which don't get the kind of
meditation and karma they perhaps should, every so often an email
leaves my phone and never reaches home, lost forever in the digital
post office. Perhaps someday I'll get all the letters I've lost.
Most recently the ether stole from me a four page composition slated
for this space, much of which I've tried to recreate. Yet, as we are
all aware, such thoughts, sentence structures, and word choices cannot
be replicated and for this I feel as if someone has stole my journal,
stripped from me my story only to discard it themselves. So, I warn
you reader, be careful of how you write, books can be swiped but data
can be lost. Back up your precious words, secure you thoughts, be
weary of the treachery within the vacuum. But loss is never total, so
in that respect, here's my second go at it.

-------

Sepsis:

Trash blew all over the street, all over the streets. It made it
difficult to distinguish between each block. Typically a tall tree,
brightly colored house, or shop front could be used in a neighborhood
as a navigational landmark. Yet here the red-grey of the buildings
served as a camouflage, limiting the landscape to psudo-duo-tone,
black from solidified sludge, liquid garbage, and grey from the fresh
layer of newspaper, food-wrapper, and dull sky. In that respect, I
knew where not to step as I got off the subway. The next morning, the
sky was big and blue, the streets were still full of garbage, but at
least you could feel good about it as the sun licked over the sooty
rooftops.
Philadelphia held for me the perspective of Chicago, New York, and
Washington D.C. suburbs were suppose to, as far as I thought I was
suppose to know. Perhaps it was because my home-stay was living in a
harder neighborhood that the individuals I'd stayed with in the other
cities, or perhaps it really was the amalgamation of evils. Who
knows, though I imagine it to be the former.
The following morning was my first day of school, and as it turns out
my last day because I was just visiting and would be leaving soon
after, but we'll over look that fact and imagine that my impression's
roots reach deeper. The school was a five story monument. A massive
cube, clearly built in the early 1900's. While in good shape, the
exterior said something regarding the upkeep of the interior. In
general most schools have similar physical ailments serving as an
ineffectual teaching tool and not a detrimental one. Our room, a
center of math, was kindly decorated with posters of mathematical
titles such as "Math of Africa," "World Figures," and "Math." The
last one my personal favorite, a simplistic tribute to math, probably
a vain attempt to convince some of the students that the concept
actually exists and isn't just another government conspiracy. Along
the front wall were several white boards as well as one along the side
wall. The other side wall held a cork board, which in turn held some
of the posters. The back wall secured eight neatly spaced windows,
each covered with a roller-paper window shade, fragile and antique,
but effective and in good shape. The window shades seemed to serve as
a regal connection to the past, to an era of astuteness and academic
vigor. Fortunately I spent a great deal time enjoying the windows and
their dressings because the wall they stood in was the anthesis of
their civility. Peeling paint was the crown moulding as cracked and
shattered plaster the base board. A large waste pipe moved vertically
from floor to ceiling and was covered in a rat nest of insulation in
turn covered with graffiti and gum. A industrial steel flange
connected it to the floor and a large ragged gap allowed it to exit
upward into oblivion. Ceiling tiles surrounding it where various
shades of yellow. The desks, independent of their chairs, where in
reasonable shape and, due to strict enforcement, where in neat two by
two blocks about the room. Portions of the room, if focused on, could
reminded anyone of a modern university classroom, with order,
cleanliness, modernity, efficiency. While other portions could be
representative of a condemned factory. No light without darkness,
right?

These aren't the real problems of social education, however. As with
all things it wasn't until I began to listen and talk with students
that the issues began to show themselves. In these classes the
students were, in general, participatory. They understood authority,
acknowledge work, and made decisions to avoid it the best they could -
it's high school. Each had their own personal life which contributed
significantly to their excuses and were no different from the affluent
excuses of college students.

The potency of the problem struck me while talking with some of the
instructors while at school, became quite evident while sitting down
for a beer with a couple teachers later that day, and culminated with
a short talk with one of the students while at a subway stop. In each
case it was evident that failures occurred within the system. Blame
couldn't be attributed to family life, or street problems. Teachers
simply did not exist, those that existed did not teach, and those who
taught were pressured by administration to curb their enthusiasm.
Students were eager to share. They were enthusiastic, as any 16 year
old is, to discuss the important things in life, to fall in love, to
hate authority, to sleep forever. The sad sickening failure is when
the school doesn't have a spanish teacher or three math teachers. The
failure is students who get credit for taking a spanish class in which
a monitor, most likely an underworked administrator, takes roll and
then for the remainder of the hour has students go to sleep or listen
to music to pass the time. The failure is the social indoctrination
that educators are only those who have a formal declaration of study
with honors from some self justified institution of corporatocracy.
The failure is placement organizations serving as the last line of
educational defense rejecting enthusiastic applicants in order to
maintain a sense of privilege for those involved; yes you,
TeachForAmeria, you corporate whore of social sickness. Why is this
problem systemic? Where is the root? Is it a conspiracy to fill deep
pockets of private school deans and provide a sense of social control
for donors and board members? That seems a bit to much crazy for my
coffee, but clearly there is a disconnect of social responsibility.
Even within a successful classroom that battle for social inequity
begins with the encouragement of successful students to change schools
instead of asking students to stay local and provide peer
encouragement and support to make up for the failure of the
instructors. ....And so, for now, I will leave it for a bit... but be
weary of my wrath, oh ye who fail me and mine.

Alternate Endings

2008-09-21T09:06:00.000-07:00

A Short Story

2008-09-21T08:46:00.000-07:00

Single Engine Diesel

2008-09-16T06:41:00.000-07:00

A single engine diesel is all that moved the cars from Boston to D.C.
Seven cars in total.. but I didn't really count, just guessed. Seven
is a good number for train cars and dice. Just one diesel though and
a cafe car, that's where I chose to sit. There I've got power,
electric power, but also reign over my table. A four person table for
just me.. unless someone sits down of course. Here, in my domain, I
can sit with confidence, with pride. I make sure my table is clean.
I make sure my kingdom is happy, everyone smiles, and everyone laughs
at my jokes. Here all things are in order and from here I can observe
my neighbors, draw up treaties, wage war, elicit sanctions, in
general, rule with authority. I diverge.

My new domain is indicative that I've indeed left the greatest
smallest state of Rhode Island. The big RI was an interesting stop
along the way, a relaxing stop and certainly a homely stop. I was
greeted by my friend at the train station and promptly invited into
her family's life. I wasn't about to go out to parties and run the
town, this was a wake up in the morning and eat your breakfast kind of
household, a very pleasant place. There were four siamese cats, all
very friendly, a noisy bird, three stories, my own room, and lots of
trees outside, green trees, tall trees, and a garden with sweet cherry
tomatoes. There were about a dozen bird houses scattered about, atop
poles, hanging from branches, in trees, and even atop one tree, which
I found slightly remarkable. A small ravine dipped away from ground
level just fifteen meters away from the house, dark but not too deep
and a grand place to explore. Past the ravine was nothing, that I
could see, except more trees. I didn't feel like I'd left Maine in
that respect.

As I boarded the train bound for Philadelphia I thought, "did I see
it? Did I just float through Rhode Island or did I get a feel for it,
it's value, it's place, it's people, at least as much as I could." I
agreed I had, as much as I could have experienced it all in the
several days I was there and in a sense of agreement you only get when
you're sitting by yourself on a train typing a short letter to
yourself. I evaluated. I saw rain and sun, woods and beach, swam in
a 'pond,' sat in a sauna, body surfed in the ocean, floated down a
river, crawed in muck and sand, ate fresh foods and canned, went to
the mall, walked through New Port, ate clam chowder and a salmon
burger, and watched every second of it go by. We talked, I listened,
read, and laughed a lot. While I could check things like Providence,
New Port, and Crazy Burger off my list, as the train barreled through
the state and onto Connecticut, I was in effect content, ready to be
on my way, but happy to have stayed.

Thus, there I was back on the Train, where there existed an odd sense
of home. Not the same sense that I was leaving, not the sense that
someone is looking out for you and yours, but the sense of familiarity
and possessiveness with a twist of safety. The standoffishness of the
other passengers coupled with their sense of willing weakness to
interact, eager for a catalyst. A perpetual state of limbo, of
passenger replenishment, a world where you stand still and the windows
project everywhere you're not. I suppose that's the motive force of a
single engine diesel. What a remarkable device.

Some Sailing Is Salty

2008-09-12T16:26:00.000-07:00

North East Harbor by daylight. Sparkling with a layer of clouds above and low visibility, hell, it was better than last night. As day opened up it cleared well.

N.E. Harbor is located on Mt. Desert Island. To the east is Bar Harbor and to the west South West Harbor. The island is all apart of Acadia National Park and these harbor towns rest just on the edges giving the whole place quite an interesting feel.
As it turns out N.E. Harbor (or haba) would be our home for most of the trip. Jim was familiar with this harbor, had been here before, and said it was the most protected from the approaching storm. It was. On shore were showers, $2 for 4.5 min hot, cold for free, a library, ace hardware, bakery, post office, general store, and a seasonal fish market which closed day two. In this regard we needed nothing but to relax. Dan and I spent some time at various points in Bar Harbor and Jim took us to S.W. to meet Gordon, former president of Gettysburg College and his soon to be sailor of a wife. But in general the trip came to a somewhat frustrating slowdown, mostly due to weather. So, we waited and drew and wrote and sang and drank. It wasn't a bad few days.

Our regular jaunt to the library for internet sent bad news to Dan. Grandmother was sick and Dad was on his way to see her. She might not make it until then. Dan called pops and we looked at bus schedules. He was off the island by 9:30 AM the next morning. Now it was just the two of us with a bit of space to make up and a lot of empty space to fill.

I write a lot but I also begin to dissect my world without interruption. The kind of interruption that friends provide so you don't get too serious, so you don't get spiteful, regretful, lonely, frustrated, so you don't create reasons Not to kill your current focus of attention. Dan wasn't there anymore. No more goofy Uke songs, no more silly questions, no more of more.

...

Three days later were back in Booth Bay and then I'm on a bus and then a train and then I'm in Providence, Rhode Island. New people, three of them thus far. Nice people. Just what the doctor ordered, change.

Sail Set

2008-09-11T13:44:00.000-07:00

With due timing and utmost vigilance we're off. Set sail. Onward, upward, outward. Dan and I, enthusiastic, gawk at the sights, the smells, the lore of such a voyage. We'd anchor tonight, we'd see the land the whole way, we had no doubt this was an achievement no man had made before.

Well, we had some sense. There were plenty of other boats about, and our rig was by no means the brightest, but what the hell it was going to be fun. Sailing for two weeks with Captain Jim. Captain Jim was practically Neptune himself. Say where were his mermaids. That's a rotten deal.

Our motor moved us through the bay and around islands with names like squirrel and negro. The we turned east and neither Dan nor I knew what lay ahead. We took photos and kept a watch out for anything novel, sure to alert the rest of the crew, "Look Out! Bird, Bird port, errrr-starport, err port bow-side. A bird!". This lasted about two hours before Dan took a break and I gave up my vigilance.

The sail came up for a short while but quickly back in a we crossed "Penbscot Bay" and soon we were near Winter Bay/Harbor, an anchorage defined by a narrow channel with reefs and sand bars everywhere. Along the channel sides, in the channel middle, on both ends. This was a pilots hell! But I wasn't at the helm and we had a dingy if trouble brewed too dark.

Capt. Jim brought us in on a dime. A bit much further the morning would have seen us digging the boat out. Jim's morning swim, and consequently Dan and mine as well, showed that four meters off the stern, with the boat turned on it's anchor with the tide, Jim could touch bottom. It was a precision anchor drop. Jim harvested muscles for us that evening and we steamed them up into quite a first nights meal.

Round nine thirty we set back to the sea. Motor blaring we navigated the now well drained channel. Exposed rock and reef abounded. I was further impressed with our pilot. I didn't stop talking about it. We swung back into the channel and put out to sea.

Fog. Do you know about fog? Halloween, dance parties, cold punch. These are the things fog was made for. A close second is to combine with smoke and produce the beautiful sunsets of Los Angles, but at sea, in a boat, unfamiliar with land, fog has no place.

We got rolled. We saw it coming and we strutted right into it. Light at first, it socked in the distant hills, then the islands, then the close land marks, then the shoreline. Next the water. Then the buoys. Then visibility was gone. Cold, wet, stiff I stood atop the anchors on the bow, feet snug under chain. My arms continuously pointing out lobster buoys, a hazard to our prop. The sound of breakers echos quite well in the density of fog. A bell buoy ricocheted gongs and dongs. from the left and right, sometimes from stern. My arm would point one finger, then a second, a salute to Texas, then my other arm, another finger on my first as the second tried to keep up. I tracked buoys with fingers and let them go as they came a beam in order to track the next. Pale white, my fingers kept at it. My beard dripped dewlets down my neck and freshwater into my mouth. I was grinning. This Was adventure. Dan stood behind me in the tension of the fog relaying any message between Jim ans I and kept his own eyes open. I could have gone on for days like that. It was great. I retreated back to the cockpit once the buoys dissipated and the water calmed. Armed with radar and GPS, Jim clearly could have lasted too.

Once in harbor we were happy to not still be at sea and we drank and rested well. It was only in the morning and the days after that Dan and I were able to recognize what kind of space we navigated by shear luck and a $1000 of electronics.

Destination Nowhere

2008-09-11T08:46:00.000-07:00

Nowhere seemed to be the theme after I arrived in Boston.

Julia and Chris put me up for the night and then went off to sail in the morning. Their last day until school started. I began to walk.

I have never been to Boston. I wanted to know where they served tea, but I never asked. From MIT across the river to Fenway and its monster through the park and to downtown. Past china town and across another river. Into South Bay and to the water. Couldn't find Sam Adams and his men, caught the bus back to MIT. Up into Cambridge and Dan called. Back to MIT. To the apartment, back up to Cambridge for lunch, across the river, picked up some ukes, into the park, down the street, Pour House for dinner and conversation with the waitress, back to MIT. Asleep.
Up in the morning, a walk about campus, and back to the apartment to gather our things, then over to South Station and on the bus to Portland. Goodbye for now Boston. Awake in Portland, Maine. Dr. Todd unlocks his car and we're off for Wiscasset at midnight. Down into East Booth Bay, a right at Lukes Gulch (private rd) and another quarter mile the car shuts its lights off. A small dingy rests on the dock. We push it in and awkwardly slip in. The beam is three inches out of the water. The guessing game is moment from finality. Which is it? The schooner? That yawl? This thirteen foot sloop? There she sat, "Remedy". A 35' sloop all the way from Hong Kong some 40 years prior, a Cheoy Lee - though that builder still means very little to me. A brief tour ends at our birth in the forward cabin and morning come too quickly and too bright. I rectify this by closing my eyes and opening them an hour later. That's better. This bay is beautifully clear, clean, wooded, calm. So this is Maine, eh?

After loading gear, running errands, fetching breakfast, and doing a cursory check of the rigging we're underway for the day about the Bay, hooray.

A bit of a motor, the genoa (so called "jib") is unfurrled, around lobster pots and islands through the harbor and back to the mooring. Bath time, we're all in the water, then rapidly back out again. It looked delightfully warm, but had the taste of high school waterpolo hell week. You can't help but laugh when you're out lasted and out shivered by a 65 year old man. I have no towel. I brought Dan his and seemed to be dry afterward. Into Booth Bay Harbor for our farewell Lobster dinner. A walk and then back to the boat. Content. Asleep.

Dr. Todd, by request, becomes James, then Jim, then Captain Jim, then back to Jim.

Morning starts with a quick row ashore, use of the facilities, postcards in the mail, and on last once over. Off the mooring and out to sea. My attention t the chart is somewhat overwhelming for everyone. I cool it. Jim's in charge.

Chicago - Albany - Boston

2008-09-11T07:03:00.000-07:00

Chicago. No one is from this city, but everyone visits. Tourists everywhere, people everywhere, no one knows where to get a good meal. Even a hostess doesn't hasn't lived here, and she lives here. We stop at the library. There's a wedding. We'd like to crash it, but the doorman is from here. He gives us a map. An intersection. A name. We walk. My legs feel great. Cooped up on the train is tough on the muscles. I had started a regiment of push-ups and pull-ups but nothing for the legs except a nip of scotch after dinner.

We find the bar, ____, it's wonderful. Authentic german beer and food. Still no one is from here, nor does anyone eat the food, so its a blind order on beer and eats. Both are delicious. The bartender is swamped, would have hired me, but I have a train to catch. 10 PM we're off to Albany. My Chicago walking buddy sits in a different car. I meet several 'youths' complaining about closed or broken toilets, slow and late trains, and their frustrations with the current administration of everybody and everything. I suggest they adhere to a strict pro-leisure tour curfew, but you can't push a rope and you can't quell the angst of a retiree.

Their complaints are mostly in jest and I get to laugh with them. They pass along some good advice, the first of many. After a nice bit of monologuing from my seat mate regarding cancer, love, life, fortune, and laughter, I exchange a goodnight with the stranger and struggle into an uncomfortable series of naps throughout the night. Breakfast leaves the seat next to me vacant so I catch a bit of wonderful rest. A good morning wakes me and sits me upright again and I excuse myself to the parlor car for the remainder of the ride.

Singin' on The Train, and a New York Business Man.

He allows me to share his table. We converse. I listen. More advice. She draws my hat, I tell her about it. She listens. More advise. I listen. They share lunch and chocolate. I share the few remaining crumbs of Kiras ginger-zuchini bread, meager, but all I have. More from both parties. The conversation become a bit controversial, opinions appear. Silence. Lighter topics and then farewells.

The train had passed all of rural america which still exists. The Rio Grande, Antelope (or Gazelle something running along the tracks), Arkansas, Up-state New York. Great lakes and rivers, farm houses, towns without people and people without towns. Could have fished off the train there was so much water. All passed behind the tempered emergency exit beside our marked books and lunch scraps.

We're in Albany. Change to the Boston Commuter. I write and read and watch a movie. The trees are big, dark, but not as handsome as some I've seen. We barrel along. The long ride is setting in. It's dark, I eat a microwave pizza and have a can of ginger ale. My arms are ready. South Station. On the T. Off the T. At the Bar, one, two beers, two glasses of water for Chris and Julia. Asleep on their couch at last. Four days of sights and people and thoughts. I've arrived safely and soundly with much gained. Boston.

I Got Ahead of Myself

2008-09-11T06:28:00.000-07:00

Let me back up a minute.

Where did I start...

Tucson: August 28th, 1 AM

Hotel Congress: Kira, Chad, and I gulp down the last of our drinks and walk across to the train station. I board, stow my gear, and promptly fall asleep. The G/T was stiff, the long island more so.

I'm the last car on the train and the last room on the car. No neighbors. My view is an obstructed 270. Back window and one on each side. We're still in the desert when I wake. New Mexico I believe. Breakfast soon turns into lunch into dinner into Texas into two more days and San Antonio. I saw the Alamo by street light and enjoy a Lone Star at Alibi. Live music tonight. The train is still there when I get back. I put my self to bed and am rocked to sleep as my car is moved, shuffled, decoupled, shuffled, recoupled, moved, and departs the station. North.

Now my room is at the front, just ahead of the dining car. I see everyone come and go. Its lively.

Texas, again. Texarkana. Little Rock. Its green. St Louis. It's really green. An arch, a stadium, neighbors move in. Neighbors move out. The people are fascinating. Crazy, kooky, bright, beaten, black and blue. Photographers and artists, fragile folks, at this point a lot of drawls and y'alls, I's fits right in.

A carpenter and his wife join me for dinner. He's been to Antarctica, Russia, Cuba, China, and Tennessee. He works with the US Embassy.

A nurse/text book writer and her husband computer engineer/photographer keep me company for several meals. Puns more than I expected. I'm engaged, enthusiastic, enthralled with their company. They're happy!

Chicago arrives. Everyone off. I'm first class. So is she. So are they. Sleepers, it only costs about $500 to get free crackers and juice and someone to watch your things for an hour.

Sailing in Maine (Images)

2008-09-06T08:52:00.000-07:00

The Boat we are on.. with the green.
Views while sailing in Maine. A beautiful schooner, there are hundreds of these boats up here.

A view off our bow - while under sail
A look at Northeast Harbor in Maine. 8 AM, 9/6/08

Our viability while entering the harbor. about 5:30 PM

The bitter fog.
Our first day on the boat. - I'm doing something important.
From East Booth Bay we launched from a working boat house. Here's a boat they're building.. Quite beautiful.

Locallity & Feedback Loops

2008-07-30T16:57:00.001-07:00

It's been important to me for many years to explore your world as you
live in it. However, recently I listened to a lecture where the
individual professed that the solution only comes when a society
understands the problems via a feedback loop and the great American
downfall is the absence of feedback loops within our society,
automatically removed for our comfort and efficiency... which is
nice. However, he spoke, we are now at a point where our comfort and
efficiencies in society have lead to the efficient destruction of the
true environment and still we can't create a solution because still we
have no clue what the problem is. We need some feedback.

While it will take quite some time for society (me) to create a
society (me at home) which responds in a significantly more sensitive
manner (me less comfortable). So I have, intentionally and
inadvertently created my own exportation and temporary interaction of
the societal feedback loop. In this respect I created a short list in
my head which I, for my own records and fear of my waning memory, will
write here in no particular order and various value.

Local public school (1-12)
Local garbage dump & recycling center
Sewage treatment plant
Rehabilitation center & halfway house
Soup kitchen
Affluent and poor neighborhoods
Place of higher education
Central transportation hub (train or bus)
Police station
Farmer's Market
Empty feral lot

perhaps someday I will add more to this. - enjoy

John Mizell's Graduation Announcment

2008-03-26T16:16:00.001-07:00

Howdy! Buenos Dias!

I would like to inform y'all that after 7 years I will be graduating from the University of Arizona with an Engineering Bachelor's Degree in Engineering Management with a minor in Material Science Engineering. I was surprised as well to hear the news.

I started my career at Arizona pursuing a bachelor's degree in Astronomy and Physics in 2001. In 2005 I explored the degrees of Science Educations as well as Engineering Management. Last spring I officially changed my degree to Engineering Management, which is a hybrid degree combining business and management with systems and an engineering of choice. This past year I have elected to spend my time taking material science engineering courses. This spring I officially added a minor in Material Science Engineering to my degree. Along the way I also enjoyed the opportunity to interact with students throughout campus via my work within the residence halls, through the student government, writing terrible letters to the news paper, and in my work successfully starting four different campus organizations. Perhaps one of those experiences will land me a job.

After commencement in May I will still need to fulfill two requirements for my program. I will conclude a short internship with Rain Bird in June and I will need to complete a second semester chemistry laboratory course before August. My official graduation will be August 14, 2008 (Happy Birthday Mom), at which point I will have accumulated almost 180 units, some good, some bad.

I'd like to thank everyone for supporting me though my long career here and for giving me just enough hell to keep me truckin'. Without y'all I doubt I would have ever found myself close to acquiring my degree, as task which as not been the easiest for me to complete. I have yet to create my plans for beyond August and am highly susceptible to suggestion.

If you'd like to celebrate with me, commencement is scheduled for Saturday, May 17, 2008 here in Tucson and I'll be hosting a BBQ that weekend. You're welcome to stay in my home here in Tucson, as there is plenty of running water, cool floor tiles, and hammocks, all perfect for napping after long days in 100 degree heat.

Thank You All,

John Patrick Mizell
949.290.2987
jpmizell@gmail.com
2904 E. Adams St.
Tucson, Arizona
85716

Without New Ramblings and Writings

2007-10-16T13:06:00.001-07:00

To stay entertained visit Dan Tuttle

dantuttle.blogspot.com

updated quite often.

Habaneros, Sauce & Broken Blender

2007-07-23T14:18:00.000-07:00

Chad started talking first. Then I pulled out my lap top and started researching. Soon Chad was at his lap top. It didn't take long before we were plotting to make some hot sauce, boil out pepper spray, extract capsaicin.

It wasn't long before we were at the store buying several pounds of chilies, most of which were habaneros.

We dumped the little balls of flame onto a pan and lit the oven. A good roasting will extract the heat even further. We also lit the BBQ to roast some by charcoal.

Roasted and ready, we dumped the contents into the blender, plugged it in and pushed 'GO.'
Nothing.

Broken.
After hours of roasting and drinking we were stopped dead.

Chad then pulled out his hand crank blender and got going, but it wasn't long before that too became too cumbersome.

--- we fell asleep devastated.

The next day ------

Road to Value Village Thrift after class and found a $5 blender bottom, with a working motor.

The Waring Pro (3 Speed, trigger activated)

Alas, the bottom of the old jar was smaller than the new blender bottom. A solution was needed.

First I'll drink some sun tea. mmmm

HA! I KNOW!

A dishwasher safe plastic cup! excellent.

We'll just make a cut...

Then drill some holes and add some bolts...

Then another hole... and

The little bolts give the jar something to grab inside the cup and then stick out to sit in groves designed into the blender bottom. A nice hole in the center gives some space for the gears to grab.

Fits!

Now all three pieces... and one into the next onto the third...

Perfect!

Bearded Surf

2007-07-23T14:06:00.001-07:00

Grew my beard out for about three months. Went home to move Grant.

Then went surfing.

The beard performed well. I'd like to grow it back.

May 14, 2007 - Dan, Jon, John the SLO Journey

2007-05-21T01:49:00.000-07:00

Jon and I said our good byes to the 5 and moved along the 405, picking up Dan from John Wayne and saying good bye to Mom. From the 405 we engaged the 101 and enjoyed the short jaunt into San Louis Obisbo. We arrived at Tyler's ranch at about nine o'clock. The fire was going and the salsa was ready, we poured martinis and put the sausages on, next the tri-tip, then the beans, the garlic bread, and we opened a bottle of wine. One incredible dinner, a second bottle of wine, and two movies later I was crashing out and the clock read 3:40 AM. Morning arrived too quickly, we thanked Tyler and he went to work, we skated and played video games for about an hour and then rolled through Starbucks on our way back to the 101.

On to Berkeley - Four hours out, right?

May 11 2007 - Houston... we have Surfboards.

2007-05-21T00:54:00.000-07:00

Our intention was to depart Tucson immediately after the exam on Friday. Perhaps this all could have been avoided had we stayed true to the plan. But drinks with Megan and lunch with Kira before a month and a half of being apart seemed like a reasonable reason for readjustment. We were out of Tucson by five thirty.
The heat was stronger, the traffic heavier, and the day later. My eyes were droopy and I was ready to sack out by the time we gassed up in Yuma, our traditional halfway driver exchange point. Jon took over, adjusted himself to driving stick, gassed up the tank and put us back onto the 8. Before I could count to 1,300 I was asleep, in and out with various lane changes, truck passes, and rattles and bumps of the vehicle.
This noise was unique. I was awake, which is unique. We're in a 1980 Volvo wagon, windows were open because there is no AC and everything from the bolts in the rear hatch to the clutch beneath the shifting knob has it's particular rattle. Noise isn't new, in fact, quited is often indicative of a problem. This time, however, the noise was unique, independent, and sounded through the headliner. My hear skipped a beat. "What was that noise?" I asked as I brought myself back into reality as to location and velocity, about 70 mph heading west on the 8, starting the climb just outside of Ocatillo. Jon shrugged and made the lane change to pass a competing driver. I suggested we stop and have a look. It seemed the car wasn't making as much racket as it normally does and that made me curious.
Jon pulled over and I squeezed the door latch, the wind did the rest as the door swung open with enough force to knock any man off his feet, my hat began to lift off my head and I quickly stowed it for safety. Situated I ventured out to have a look. The car seemed okay, nothing flapping or clearly broken on the side or hood or on the roof, the whole car was as it normally is, clean and sleek. It wasn't too long that I recognized that as the problem and notified Jon of the missing gear. "The boards are gone," I mentioned as I poked my head down into the car at Jon, still at the wheel with the engine on. I looked back at the roof to make sure I wasn't missing anything. "Yep, they're gone. We lost the boards." Jon's eyes split and his expression couldn't pick a pose. Thirty percent amused at my silly joke, thirty percent tired and uninterested, and ninety nine percent freaked out. I started toward the back hatch as Jon killed the engine and moved with me. In a minute and a half we were outfitted with our lights fifty meters down the road looking for two surfboards along interstate eight, one might say it was a one of a kind experience. While at the time I didn't really think so, looking back... I change my mind.
At one hundred meters down the highway a pair of red and blue lights lit the side of the road and high beams put our meager LED's to shame. The truck bounded off the highway and onto the dirt path in front of us and the window whined down as fast as it's motor could drop it. I tried to come up with a clever salutation but was a step behind the more frantic Jon who with a quick shuffle planted his right hand and cocked his left elbow into the most casual matter of fact position one could imagine as he immediately informed the Homeland Security Officer as to our reasons for the evening.
The officer smiled and stepped out of his truck. He was tall, taller than Jon, I'd guess six foot two, but skinny... the goofy tall kid. His smile never left, he got out his light and after a brief discussion as to the probability of the boards being within a mile of where we were he agreed to turn his lights around and light up the desert for us. Remembering that his gear's primary function is finding 'things' out in the desert, we figured we had a pretty good chance of recovering our boards, though the officer reminded us that he hadn't seen any boards and he was only a minute or two behind us. Determined, Jon and I started our search.
The wind blew on. We walked downwind. It was easy. Scanning back and forth I searched as if I had lost my keys. I looked behind every bush, rock, and cholla. The only reason I kept moving was because the wind kicked my legs out from under me. It wasn't until I reached the barbed fence that I realized I didn't want to move so abruptly in the direction of downwind. It took a great deal of strength to prevent a disastrous collision and I kept that in mind as I continued my methodical walk. The officer soon reached an end with his truck and joined us on foot. With three of us walking a line I moved to the highway and Jon deeper into the desert with the patrol man covering desert in between.
It was about a quarter mile later that I found the blue webbing from the straps still whole, lying along the highway. One strap, two straps, a third strap still attached to the mount. I think I found the problem. I whistled and shouted but between highway noise and wind the other two heard nothing and seconds later they too happened upon evidence, the other half. My nine foot board was nested half way down a small ravine, pinned against a small rock. Jon's seven foot bag was just two meters beyond that. Both seemed perched and ready for the next heavy wind to push them along. Any more time and the boards could have made it a mile off the highway.
After a quick 'yippie!' we grabbed the bags and started our walk back to the car and then it became perfectly apparent how strong the wind actually was. I lifted my ten foot bag up and out of the small ravine and was spun about once and knocked over. Embarrassed in front of the patrol man I attempted to buck up and lug the sail on my own but a second bit of wind caught me and I almost floored both Jon and the officer. With his grin of contentment the officer suggested a bit of team work and a walk together back to the car. I agreed and after a couple of adjustments we were slowly moving the corpse to it's hearse. Twenty minutes of a walk later we were back where we started shoving the ten foot bag into the remarkable space of my wagon's interior, the hatch closed with inches to spare.

We sincerely thanked the patrol man and got into the car, thanked the gods for allowing us to keep the remains and continued on home. Spirits broken by the incident we made a stop at the casino in an attempt to rectify our mood but only soured it more. We pulled into Orange County three hours later and I was asleep at home by two. The morning gave me an opportunity to review the damage and check forensics on the incident. The failure occurred at the mounts themselves. The straps were whole and intact, but the mounts had disintegrated. Three of the four mounts had points of failure, each unique and equally devastating to the integrity of the system. I took pictures of the failures, the damage to my board, dropped the board off at a repair shop, said a little prayer for the things that didn't go wrong, and began to formulate the strongly worded letter I'd be sending to THULE.

I didn't get to surf that weekend.

Opportunity

2007-04-26T10:32:00.000-07:00

Often I wish I could capture my entire world with a photo, but then I remember my camera is at home so I'm forced to translate those images into words... Or perhaps replace my reality with a more photographically available alternate.

That will do.

Music on My Head

2007-04-18T18:48:00.000-07:00

This is my new Mac Mini Media Master. It controls my destiny.

The remote I use to control it controlling me.

The location from which it is able to control me.

***images are undergoing some work on blogger.. web album in the mean time/forever.
http://picasaweb.google.com/john.patrick.mizell/Mini

Where's your Education?

2007-04-15T22:53:00.000-07:00

In front of you. Over your head. At your feet. The tips of your fingers, the buzz in your ears, the fatigue in your muscles, the images behind your eyelids after you pass into your deepest sleep. Your education is intimate, while it is socially ignited and brought to light via personal interaction, it is nothing more than individual acceptance and application - pure unencumbered selfishness.

"LET ME SEE!" we scream when we're 7. "What happened?" we ask when we're 15. "I stopped listening," when we're 22. Why? Why are we stifled when we're young, told that it's inappropriate to want to participate when it's not "our turn" to learn. Making a second attempt in life, later we begin to "break out of our shell" and start our social education, but again crushed by the unimaginable weight of social denial, the first harsh reflection of our own self preserving attitude back toward us, halting our lust to learn. So then we come to the age of apathy and consequential ineptitude, save actions of apathy and positions of ineptitude. We begin to acknowledge our indifference to understanding our world, we fall into a world of mime, continually acting out our world behind a glass wall, protected from change, weather, God... safe not asking questions, safe from thinking, safe from listening to our world about and around us. And those of us who are perpetually on the fence of academia learn to fall into the safe arms of cynicism. We create our own world of indifference, except it's atmosphere is filled with available knowledge, it's inhabitants are lustful individuals who seek the meekest form of knowledge, but always they look over their shoulder and deep into the fruit, fearful of rot. I've ended up in a world where I can't accept any formal education as it seems tainted. The reality of cheaters, lairs, finaglers, and free-loaders has long since past through my understanding and is now the model by which my world is magnified. For that I despair. For that I strive to re-evaluate my understanding of Education. For that I close my eyes, turn my palms up, and eat anything you put into my hands.

There is a manner in which our education can be a gift to society, a means to better the world in which we live, still striking out to benefit from our actions and decision. So then what is it we give? How can selfishness be a means by which society benefits? I don't know. Is it a form of encouragement? Goal setting? Pride and arrogance? Preying upon our human desire to be competitively superior individuals. So then we only thrive because we are inherently social, however we drive ourselves into social demise because we are inherently selfish. Damn - so where does that put us?**

**Free-form, unedited, ineloquent, ... just thoughts all at once, provoked by conversations from the weekend.

---otherwise--- Writing to avoid writing. - interesting. The allure of the ocean, passion, friends? Growing up as the ideal causes loss? - essay on reasons for avoidance - She, her, how? - blatant subject change to resume avoidance. - Lost. Again. Really?

Consume Beer, That's What I Do... But How Much?

2007-04-10T17:25:00.000-07:00

Beer, Consumption, and Me.

After a wonderful Monday evening of eating Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pies, Swiss Rolls, and Nabisco Golden Oreos and a watching three full movies, essentially doing nothing more than sitting in a chair for 5 hours eating garbage, I decided to evaluate consumption and my participation in the great American tradition.

So I'm sitting and I've written a very brief list of things I consume on a regular basis, then I asked myself some simple questions and tried to produce some equally simple answers. All this in an attempt to evaluate the how/why/etc. of my seemingly limited, but very real and exorbitant consumption.

The List:

Foods: Bread, Rice, Canned Food, Veggies, Fruits, Cheese, Soy Milk, Juice, ...
Soaps: Cleaners, Toothpaste, detergents, ...
Paper: Books, Notes, Art, Photos, Letters, Mailings, ...
Bags: Grocer, Garbage (Plastic.Paper), ...
Electricity:
Containers: Beer Bottles, Milk Cartons, Juice Bottles, Jelly/Dressing Containers, Steel Cans, ...
Water: Drinking, Cleaning, Yard, Cooler, ...
Wood: Building, Furnituer, Skateboards, ...
Petrol: Gasoline, Motor Oil, ...
Fabric: Clothes, Bags, Furniture, ...
Metal: Pipes, Tools, Nails, Pots & Pans, This Pen, Electronics, ...
...

This list is infinite. As you can see a list like this would be impossible to complete, however it's a good start in thinking about consumption and the degree to which we consume and perhaps steering life into a spiral toward simplicity and Winnie the Pooh. Everything that I am surrounded by is being 'consumed.' The table I sit at uses and removed a resource from the earth, the pen in my hand, the coffee, the filter, the glass, the electricity, the tile, the ink on the cover of the metal spiral paper filled plastic wrapped notebook full of notes in graphite from my plastic mechanical pencil sold in a package of ink covered paper and plastic shrink wrap on a metal hanger attached to a plastic display set on top of carpeting glued to the concrete floor of the building built of bricks and mortar and metal from aluminum scaffolding transported by a Dodge truck on rubber tires fueled by diesel from a rubber hose out of a steel tank buried in the ground from where the coal and zinc and aluminum and iron and elements for our world came... if I sat long enough I could kill myself without even ending my sentence.
Further, by consuming any one resource I prevent someone else from consuming that particular unit and force them to search out and consume an alternative (whether identical or a substitute) increasing the overall level of consumption regionally, nationally, globally. Good, Bad, it just is... and that's what I'm trying to explore. Further, I'd like to take the stance that there is such a thing as 'over consumption.' Consuming more than is necessary - not more than is needed, but necessary. In many cases I believe it is possible to maintain one's 'needs' at a certain level while making efficient decisions on behavior which minimizes your consumption. Such decisions obviously incorporate the 3 R's (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) but also may include the application of basic economic ideas if R.R.R is just too liberal for you. So I posed these questions to the empty space approximately one half meeter above my head, right there in the vacancy and just far enough away so that if I turn and look up at it I can focus on the details.

I pose this method and these questions.

Identify. What do I consume (Macro: What did I buy today? Micro: What did I use today?)
Value. How much is what I consume worth?
Prioritize. What consumption is most important?
Budget. How much consumption can I afford?
Allocate. Where will I limit myself? Where do I delineate between superfluous and necessary?
Observe. In making changes, did I achieve the desired degree of consumption?

While this process may yield very simplistic results or a highly complex and never ending matrix of tables and understanding, I've got to offer a start, a beginning - with no beginning there can be no end - so let's start thinking about consumption and then moving toward limiting it, or at least seeking insight, asking more questions, and exploring our current understanding, taking a second to look straight up and dissect that never ending sentence into bits. Into a size which is able to be consumed it's self - for thoughts are infinitely renewable, individual, and valuable only when consumed.

Be provoked and explore life lived... Or... Drink More Beer, but bring your own mug next time.

This on is for Megan :)

2007-03-24T17:53:00.000-07:00

...because you regularly tell me that you keep up with my blog.. so here you are. :)

Subjects on my mind while studying at Ike's:

-Me, online
-Projects that I am reminded I've started because of the web
-Pals I have because of the web
-Pals I'm reminded I have because of the web
-Pals that don't need the web to remain my pals
-"Dating" vs. dating
-Physics... it's missed, dearly
-Me, online

First, me, online. What does that look like? Well, in the last couple of weeks I've attempted to consolidate 'me' so that all of 'who I am' is attached if not all located in one place, and google has helped me do such that, however it's also helped to propagate multiple me's at the same time. How many gmail accounts do I have? damn. But for now, I'm happy to know that most of 'me' is under the John.patrick.mizell@gmail/jpmizell@gmail name, which are heavily associated, so it works out.
Further, after a lot of examining what of 'me' is online, I asked myself, "John, is your online self similar to your actual self? Or perhaps should I ask is your actual self like your online self?" And I still can't really answer that question clearly because a large part of me is devoted and sunk into online activity, whether it's in email's, blogs, pictures, links to letters I've written, articles I've published, web pages I've produced, etc... there is a lot of me there and that's not to be underestimated, however, do I take on a different character in my online self? Do I manipulate my character, leaving out important pieces of who I am? I suppose so. What those pieces are, I don't know... I guess it just gives me the ability to have something to talk about when I meet you in 'real life.'

Second projects that I am reminded I've started because of the web. This is primarly due to my blogging as I like to track my activities via blog to help me stay on track and to help remind me what I've done on my projects and also to give insight to others on how I've worked through a problem. It's just a trick every time I see that I've got so many projects.... unfinished.

Third, pals I have because of the web. Many friends are only able to keep in contact because of the web and that is a great thing that we still stay in contact. Some friends were only rediscovered because of the web and that too is remarkable. Yet, do I neglect many friends because of the ease of maintaining relationships online when it is just as available to keep contact through coffee, lunch, phone calls, letters, or house calls? This is where I fall short in all my relationships - I've always had it easy. Keep a few friends and make them the type that last even through months of not talking. But seriously.. I really should try harder. It's kind of like remembering people's name, while I can exist without it, it's just nice to do.

Fourth, pals I'm reminded I have because of the web, like Asa. Sweden is far far away, in fact they don't even celebrate Fourth of July - CRAZY - and it's only because of the web that I'm able to remind myself of what time it is there, or to communicate with her in general, while this isn't a great example because I often think of her without my computer on, it's a great example because I don't think I would be as eager to maintain my relationship with her without it. eh? okay, moving on... sorry Megan

Fifth-ly, pals that don't need the web to remain my pals. Like I said - this is prety much the case for most of my friends I have. It's not about the maintenance, but about the relationship that we've created and the ability to continue it at any instant in time. A phone call sounds like we saw each other just yesterday, and a visit is no different than being roommates. Those are my friends and that is great!

Sixth-er, "Dating" vs. dating... I still don't quite know where one adds the capitol D... perhaps I never will. In fact a large part of me really hopes I never do, but then again, it would be nice to function in a semi-socially-appropriate way... some day. In the mean time, it's great to see how fast word travels and it makes me laugh.

Seventh, physics... it's missed, dearly. What am I to do about this. The compelling challenge, the immediate and ultimate application, the simple superiority of physics in the world. Some would say it's Economics, others Chemistry, others Love... for me it's physics/math/(and love). So now that I'm not in that challenge, now that I don't have that identity to spring board off of during my worst days (which were usually caused by physics... hmm), now that there is no academic argument to justify my existence in school for the last hum-de-dum-odd-years, now that I feel like one more jack-ass in the flow of social academic herding.... it's sucks the life out of me. And I ask myself, would I rather fail out of school with years and years of uncompleted, 'unaccomplished,' 'wasted' courses, or to move on with a bag full of generic, unenthusiastic, and passionless credentials simply to exist at the next level of life as the same. ... well, I suppose for now I'll have to take the later. But there's still that hope in my life that there exists something worth fighting for, building, loving... it's there. This isn't all for not. ... .... .... Right?

So I return to where I started with "Me," online. Who is that? At the end of a page like this, it would seem that 'I' am much more representative online that I would be after several years of knowing me, but then, if that's not me after knowing me for several years, then this really me? or some weird manifestation of what I want to be? A reflection of where I want to be, or where I've never been, where I'm waiting to be but will never arrive, or the me which is represented by 'me' is just Me and that's all there is to it, no separation. Just take me and if you want more, add some of 'me' and if that really doesn't satisfy you, well.... call up one of my brothers and I'm sure you'll see some piece of me in them that you've never seen in me, wrap the whole thing up, tie it with a bow, and call it John.

Hope you enjoyed this go around Miss-Meg.

Feb of 2007 - It's where I'm at.

2007-02-07T08:51:00.000-08:00

School hath begun again. I've got an orange backpack.

It snowed in Tucson this year. The palapa was covered

I started a company (co. website). We don't make any money.

We do make skateboards (blog).

I shaved my head. It's growing back.

Surfed last weekend. Double overhead. Amazing drop-ins.

We're surfing again this weekend.

It's February.

Big - Soft - Free

2006-11-16T15:49:00.000-08:00

Couch

Free

2006-11-14T13:40:00.001-08:00

(Zuma Beach, California)

Termination

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

... late.

They don't like it when I'm late.

Late by 5 min, late by 2 min, late by 15 a couple of times.

The tell me they don't like it when I'm late.

Today they made a deal with me.

"We'll pay you until 8:30 tonight."

I took the deal.

I don't have to work tomorrow.

I need to find a new job.

Pirates All Around

2006-11-01T22:11:00.000-08:00

It's Pirate Season.

Pirate-John. Safety First!

Pirate-Pancho. A Fine Sailor Indeed!

Pirate-Bill. Who is this chump?

Has No Relation To Surf

2006-10-27T23:29:00.000-07:00

What a run, eh?

First time for me. My car was at work. I had gone out at lunch, adjusted things, made sure none of it was too hot, took my climbing shoes out, put some new carabiners in with my other climbing gear, and checked out my binoculars. It was all there. I went back into work. I didn't get back out to my car until 6:20. My key didn't fit very well and it certainly didn't turn well. Damn it.. did someone put glue in there? no... the metal's all bent. What's going on? Wait! Where are all my things? ... uh. ... awe damn it. ... FUCK!

FUCK! I yelled. Spun around twice. Put my hands in the air. On my face. On my hips. I yelled again. Nothing changed. I walked to the front of my car and back to the door. Nonsense came out of my thoughts and spewed from my tongue. Nonsensical profanities. No one was there to hear me. No one was there to console me. No one was there to care. I called 911, perhaps they'd care. I could be angry at them. The dispatcher connected me with TPD. The woman on the other end asked questions and my answers became formal. "Do you have a piece of paper?" "Yes mam." "No mam." "Thank You mam." "I received a case number and would receive a letter in a couple days." I couldn't even get a police man to give a damn. I was just out of luck.

The drive home gave me time to reflect on loss. I've experienced loss before. Big time loss. This time it was material loss. Really what effect would this have on my life? How would I change as a result? Maybe I won't. What will be different? Maybe nothing. It's all just stuff. Some of it I use regularly, some of it annually, some of it hardly ever, or never again. It's just stuff I told myself.

I got home and called Alysha to perhaps lighten my evening with some happy story. The best I got was a friend dressing up like a banana and eating lots of bananas to get into the mood. Though it was nice she picked up the phone to talk a bit I was still bummin'. There I was at home, without a lot of things I had when I had left at 9 AM. I sat inside for about 4 min before I found sitting at home was only going to allow the bad news to sink. I had to get out. I had to think about something else. Do something I could change, build upon, develop into a positive. My climbing shoes had made it out of my car at lunch because I feared damage in the heat. So I took them with me and drove to the gym to face the bouldering wall.

I had 20 min left in the evening before they closed. I walked straight up stairs and slapped on my shoes. The gym was quiet and only two others were up stairs, working on their own bouldering problem, so the wall was mine to explore. I climbed.

Traditionally climbing things has been a great challenge for me. It was fun, presented problem solving opportunities, and offered an escape - the arrival to a level only the elite and really tall could reach. Climb up and no one can get you. Recently this climbing thing has proven that it's not so exclusive up there. I was just someplace where most people weren't, but had they wanted, they could have. I've found I'm a runt in the whole scheme of climbing and this is good, I have places to go, I can create goals to accomplish, I can continue working up. So this is what I did Saturday Night. I worked up. 8 PM arrived and the gym closed. I was already 2 miles away driving home. My mind focused on the small cuts across my fingertips and the pockets of flesh that had detached themselves from the layers beneath. I made bets with my self as to when the two layers would again be one, on how many more late night sessions I'd have to make before the pad of my fingers were tough leather, on when I would be master of any route on that wall.

Arrival home to an empty table, devoid of school books reminded me of my recent loss and I sat down with a blank piece of paper and started to write.

I set down my pen. Thoughts whirled about. Emotion pulsed and I purged positive thinking then opened up to it again. I thought about Alysha's permission to be angry. I took it to heart and then choose not to be. If I can, I don't have to, and I won't. I thought of the good. I fell asleep.

----

-----

It's Saturday morning, 12:11 AM. I'm still dwelling. I've completed my list. I've sent it to the police. I'm working with the insurers. My total dollar loss is $5,700. I still don't understand what that loss means to me. I'm thinking about the binoculars.

Dad bought them for me. They were 10 x 70. They were huge. He thought they were important, a good thing to have. Perfect for any nights where I didn't want to set up the telescope, or I wanted to look at something with a large angle. I used the just the night before to stare up at Andromeda for about 40 minutes. Then I took a break and did it again. There was value there to me that is lost to other people doing the exact same thing. That's what gets to me. I still think about the binoculars... and my journal, which I had written in that night. Unfortunatly I wouldn't get those thoughts back. That's the real theft and it's in a dumpster someplace. Mildewing. You can't sell that to a pawn shop, maybe a publisher, but there is no worth there except to me.

Otherwise the thought of insurance allowed for peace of mind. I don't have any fear of total loss because of it. It's just a process.

...

It's Saturday now and I was finally able to read some emails and catch up with friends. Perhaps tonight I will rest well and the week will slough off behind me and I will catch up with life as it was, a little short of breath, but healthy and better for it. To smiles and the enjoyment of being.

(*edited)

Pancho makes me "Uncle John"

2006-10-03T21:20:00.000-07:00

September 30th, 15 min. before midnight, Kelly Mizell high fived the world.

Now, most babies tend to be ultra ugly upon first contact, and some are just sort of ugly.. but Kelly arrived with uber mizell handsomeness right from the start. I know, it's subtle, but he's going to be one good bowler, you can see it in his expresssion. He's already thinking about technique, that and delicious food for Christmas.

Baba O'Riley

2006-10-01T20:05:00.000-07:00

.listen.

Tests, Happy People, and New Blogs

2006-09-27T21:49:00.000-07:00

First Round of tests for the semester.
The reason I hate school is now.

Found a very nice happy person in these last few weeks and that is a great addition to my day.
The reason I like people is her.

A recent move of my organ from the garage to my living room has reinspired restoration and along with it chronicals of my journy thus far, followed by my journey in the future.. I'm all about the future. Similar to my Tucson Palapa Build, this one runs as my Tucson Organ Build. Check it out, then come over and help me! please?
The reason I workhard is this.

.encouragement.

2006-09-18T23:16:00.000-07:00

Laughs from the littlest of kids and the oldest of men can brighten a day quite quickly.
...
and smiles from cute girls leave me floored for days.

First Days Back in the Saddle

2006-08-27T22:56:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I've sat, studied, cared. It's good to be back. It's good to see people who are excited to do well, to interact with people who are intelectual, to ride my bike to campus with purpose instead of just because that's all I know.

...on the 11th day he rested, among other things.

2006-08-27T22:51:00.000-07:00

Day 10 – 5:30 AM Long Beach – 11:00 PM Tucson

Early off the dock and out of the harbor. We were at Long Beach’s pier just two hours after leaving, which meant we would be in New Port in no time at all, and we were.

Before I knew it the boat was empty, the car was loaded, and we were saying good bye to our home of ten days.

After lunch in Laguna we drove straight to Tucson where I met Paul, my new roommate, took a shower, and fell soundly asleep.

But the count goes on and I'm still rocking. Good times... I'm ready to sail .. let's do this!

Tonic 4, The Man 0

2006-08-27T22:43:00.000-07:00

Day 9 – Crew of Four

From Malibu we trucked down the Santa Monica Bay and landed anchor 100 yards off the beach at Redondo, then 300 yards off the beach at Redondo after a visit from the lifeguards. It was our final surf session with Tripp and Andrew about as we kicked them off the boat so they could catch flights and drive back early. I paddled in with my pirate hat and mustache on and caught some waves too, it served me well.

We pulled up anchor and sailed south out of the bay with our sights set on Long Beach’s harbor police dock. Just outside of the harbor enterance we came off a wing on wing run (it's a sailing thing) and I got the Genoa furled around it's self creating a mess of a sail up front. Unable to do anything about it, we brought down the Main and peered at the Genoa, perplexed. Erica noted that if it got wraped because we turned one way, why don't we just turn the other way to unwrap it. Following the KISS thought pattern I wasn't going to argue so we proceeded to do a series of 5 doughnuts in the bay, in front of returning 35-45 foot racing boats that simply scoffed at our amateur antics, BUT the sail unfurled it’s self because of them and we were able to motor between the red and green and into the harbor.

Arriving at about 7:45 PM we motored about the harbor waiting for the dock to look sufficiently closed and for Pat and Erica to finish cooking dinner. At 9:15 PM we tied off and I walked up to see if anyone was about. A fellow turned off the lights and was locking the door to the office when I got up the ramp ‘on my way to the drinking fountains.’ A subtle greeting and little victory dance as it was clear we were off Scott free for the Night! We slept like angel puppies in a really comfy bed.

Dolphins!

2006-08-27T22:35:00.000-07:00

Day 8 – Return to the Main Land

We went right past the surf on our way out. As we move away we saw the other boats starting their morning off right and moving in, we knew what the day would look like for them today and everyone on board was a little jealous that we had a timeline that they didn’t. We cut north between Santa Cruz Island and Anacapa Island and were quickly outside 3 miles of them. Another holding tank dump into the ocean and a visit from some dolphins got us to Snipers.

With little surf and a police officer standing at the shore line watching us we sailed right by and made anchor back at Malibu in the dark. We could all feel the approaching end to our adventure and it kind of took some of the adventure away from our remaining days.

Another Day, Another Reef

2006-08-27T22:31:00.000-07:00

Day 7 – Sudden Stop

Up early and makin’ pace for the break. Who would be in the water when we got there? We pulled into the cove, the surf was just starting to work. I put Will at the wheel and moved up to the bow with Tripp to look for a better anchorage than yesterday, something a little closer to the break. Again, we got distracted and should have been watching the charts, looking at depths, being smart about surf breaks and where they occur. Off the bow I watched kelp beneath the boat move in the surge, then we passed by some that had less vigor than the rest and my mind raced through possible reasons arriving at ROCK! About a quarter of a second before the boat came to a grinding halt with the horrid kathunk! Of keel on reef. We’d successfully done it again and this time was no different when presented to my heart and capillary responses. Tripp and I raced back to the cockpit where will was saying the depth was reading 60 feet atop the rock. Tripp took the helm and cranked the engine levers to full reverse, but the boat didn’t respond, to neutral to perhaps move off with the swell. Kicking me into the dinghy I started it’s 8 hp motor and swung it about to try and pull with it. Between swell, surge, and two different props, the boat eased off the reef and swung around and away from known danger. Stress was high and we put ourselves back to yesterday’s anchorage and before anchor was down, Will was heartily harassed by Andrew and then Pat, Tripp, Erica, quite the turn around from my reef incident.

Soon after anchor touched down we had folks in the water all over. Will and Andrew paddled out, Erica and Pat went spear fishing, I (after Pat) checked out the keel and then paddled over for some surf with Tripp. It was a rough start, but was on it’s way up and the rest of the day all we did was play. Andrew and Will had some good stories about being ashore, while the rest of us just enjoyed no movement. Night came and Pat, Will, and Erica got in a evening glass off and we didn’t have the time to make it farther east to the next anchorage so we just drove back to the previous night’s still water.

Everyone Smiles When There's Surf

2006-08-27T22:27:00.000-07:00

Day 6 – Finally Some Surf

We pulled up anchor early, earlier than bright and early, as was customary on this trip. Within 5 minutes of waking the engine was on and we were rolling. We brought the boat around the South Eastern tip of the island and examined yesterday’s surf break. Bleak, we turned East and ate oat meal. The boat made a steady cross to Santa Cruz Island in no time, but it took time. To keep our selves busy while we didn’t have sails up we looked at things through binoculars, macerated the holding tank into the ocean and watched the brown muck pour out the back of the boat, and stared at the tip of the fishing rod as it bounced up and down with the swell, waiting for the click-click-click of the reel meaning “FISH!” The day started up 2 hours after we were moving and the sun began to warm up the deck and our backs. Soon we were wide awake and becoming more and more energetic glued to the coast’s every intricacy trying to find indications of a peeling break. Passing through one small channel between the big island of Santa Cruz and it’s companion island about the size of a small pond our depth sounder read an alarming 6 feet and for about 10 minutes we were on edge and looking for any sign of reef, but none was found and none was run aground. We put up sails and made an attempt to move with the wind to try and ease our boredom and rid the space of engine noise and the boat came to a stand still and progress across the island was nil. We moved so slowly that Erica jumped off the boat and we all quickly learned that regardless of land speed, current can move at a quite rapid rate. She floated past the boat so fast no one really understood what was happening and by the time we did, our rescue line compared nothing to the distance she had between us. Encouraging her to swim, then to swim harder, we finally put the kayak into the water and pat made the rescue paddle and picked her up and followed it up with an amazing paddle up current to catch up with the boat. All members back onboard safely, we only had one more overboard incident the remainder of the trip. We were passing another cruising sail boat with boards along side their hull and I, in pirate garb, leaped from the bow toward their boat in an attempt to intimidate them out of the location of secret surf spots. It was to no avail and I was easily able to get to the back of the boat before it left me for the sharks in the sea. Half an hour later we arrived at the only consistent surf break the entire trip.

We made anchor and the whole crew was suited up within 5 minutes and at the break within 10. A small and short ride was enough to evoke hoots and smiles all around. The water had to turn cold and the night soon approaching before we would even consider leaving the break for an Anchorage. Tomorrow we’d return in hopes of more/better surf. Our anchorage was tight and the anchor line very lose, I became paranoid of our positioning, but after an hour still I was comfortable and let it go. The night gave us the best stars of the whole trip and a meteor shower made the chilled sea air that much more bearable. Our anchorage was almost still water and sleep was solid.

Early Crossing

2006-08-27T22:21:00.000-07:00

Day 5 – To the Islands

- Awake early so we could get a head start on the crossing. 4:30 AM allowed us to see the sun rise on our way across the ocean. The wind picked up and a fish took to Pat’s line and gave a fight. This time the fish took the prize and got awayut the Second fish wasn't so lucky, and we enjoyed Cuda Steaks later that night and fish beer for the next 3 days.

We were to Santa Cruz Island by mid-morning searching for the elusive Painted Cave on a coast-line full of caves around every bend. After an hour and some we gave up and moved to sail across the channel between Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa. The wind swell was larger in the channel and gusts would bat at our sails. We moved across with a slow steady consistency. We turned down wind at Santa Rosa and the boat took even more wind into it’s sails, trying to move on a reach, the wind kept at us and the boat heeled over out of my comfort level. Tripp took the helm and the boat kicked out of the water at 35 degrees. Tripp dropped off and it was clear we’d exited his comfort level at that point. We dropped sail and motored through the cove and found a tiny protected anchorage where we tucked the boat in less than two fathoms of water on a double anchor and took a breather. It was time for some surf.

………… Death March

Welcome Aboard

2006-08-27T22:19:00.000-07:00

Day 4 – Crew Change

- In Santa Barbara our slip neighbors were on a beat up and sustaining tri-meran, complete with tomato plants and solar panels. They had spend the last year on Catalina Island and left because there wasn’t enough surf. As promising as our trip was, it wasn’t looking promising. We pushed out of the harbor and motored west to Campus point to pick up the new Crew. We dinghed into shore and Nathan stepped onto land to depart us. Tripp, Andrew, and Erica were soon aboard and after loading all their gear, some more food, ice, and beer, and a dive under the boat to check the keel we pulled up anchor and cruised back to Santa Barbara Harbor where we made Anchorage for the night.

Charts - There's A Reason For Them.

2006-08-27T22:04:00.000-07:00

Day 3 – Run A Ground

- From Malibu we pushed further north hoping an arrival into Ventura would produce some surf. Past Point Dume we sailed past Point Laguna and were excited to see small crests off the shore. This of course, was a military base and wasn’t going to be a kosher place to surf, so we dropped anchor and everyone suited up.

………More to be said here about Sniper’s……………..

C Street was dead and Rincon the same, we still had some time in the day and kept moving “north.”

It was nice out.

The sun set and the swell picked up. Finally pulling into a cove for shelter actually put us into a basin exposed directly to the wind and swell and we couldn’t foresee that being a comfortable night so I decided to push on. Becoming focused on the task of arrival I lost track of place and the charts.

Rounding one point we crossed a massive kelp bed which slowed our pace to a crawl until we got out of it. Uninterested in returning to the open seas and swell I made the decision to tack back close to shore and hug the coast line, hoping protection would be produced. I cut back across the kelp bed and again our pace slowed to molassas. The boat moving up and down in the swell more than forward. There was an ire feeling as we moved past the submerged forest and we felt the boat tugged upon. The swell turned into white caps and we were in direct line of a number of sizable waves, I turned the boat into them to avoid a roll and we crested the wave and dropped back down where the boat then stopped dead and heeled over some thirty degrees into the trough of the wave. The shock of immobility struck everyone and we were silent as I cranked the wheel to port trying to drive us into the coming wave, but we were stationary. The next wave crested into our beam and lifted us off the reef where I had enough time to point the boat ahead and then again port where we bumped off the reef a third time and eased back into the silent kelp. As my eyes scanned the calm twilight water ahead for other signs of danger, waves broke over the reef behind us and my teeth clenched together as I’d just made the first navigational mistake of the trip. Will poured over the chart with Pat and quickly pinpointed our location. We were just a couple miles east of Santa Barbara off a point which maintained a large ‘foul’ off the coast, imbedded in kelp, less than a fathom deep. My eyes sharpened and they scanned the chart for other fouls and places of incident and we made a heading toward Santa Barbara. We dropped the sails and I turned the wheel out to sea to create a hazard free approach to the harbor where we could enjoy safe haven for the night. Will got my jacket and head lamp and the boat was quiet across the black rolling ocean.

I got binoculars and soon zeroed in on the harbor entrance, a blinking red light, and turned toward it. The harbor was filled with blinking channel markers too and it was only when we were within fifty meters of the entrance that I was able to deduce the correct course in. I moved the lever down and the engine slowed to a crawl. The harbor was small and we moved directly to the harbor master’s dock where after taking issue with docking finally were able to get ropes cleated and cinched. Pat and I paid for a slip and we slept soundly that night.

Fish and Great Sailing!

2006-08-27T21:54:00.000-07:00

Day 2 – L.A. All Day

- 4:30 AM we were out of there. Eager to surf I dumped Nathan, Will, and Pat at the mouth of the San Gabriel river, adjacent to the harbor entrance of Alamedias Bay. They came back within half an hour disgusted.

The seas were flat and we motored out of Long Beach. At 11 we turned the corner to Palos Verdes and dropped anchor to do some spear fishing and we were delivered three, unfortunately losing a lure as we anchored. By noon the wind had picked up and we made a straight shot for Point Dume, catching one fish on the line (a bonita) we stopped short of the point at Keller’s Shelter, Malibu Point for the night and I got my first session in on some one foot peelers, it was good fun at Malibu, plus I got to use the head on shore. Dinner was delicious and the night was a little less stable, but we faired alright and were content.

Noon Board Time - Just don't look green.

2006-08-27T21:38:00.000-07:00

Day 1 – Final Prep and Departure

- Tyler arrived at 11 AM and we loaded the truck with all our gear. I put my pirate hat on. We met Pat and Nathan in New Port. Then we were at the boat. I took off my pirate hat. How are we going to get all of this into that? Was it all necessary? Why'd be buy so much damn RUM!? I don’t know, who cares, let’s just get going. Hey where’s my …. Damn I need a …. Oh well.

We pushed off the dock at about 3 PM and were out of the harbor half an hour later. Here we go! We put up the sails. We were sailing! The sun set behind L.A. Harbor, Long Beach and we floated past the lights of oil docks and freight cranes. A radio call to harbor patrol left us feeling like newbees, because we were. But I suppose this could work to our advantage. We put up at the police dock for the night where we were told we would pay for the night in the morning when the offices opened at 7 AM. Unfortunately we had places to go and planned on being off the dock and out of the harbor by 4:30 AM, besides, there was no place to put the money, not even a drop box.. Sorry.

That night's rest was outstanding, still, in the harbor, it was one big tease for the night..

Let's Buy RUM!

2006-08-21T22:23:00.000-07:00

Will finished class at 2… or was it 3. I can’t remember, I should have written it down. My things weren’t anywhere close to being together, and we didn’t get out of town till 5 was it? We were in to Mission Viejo at about midnight, I was pooped and ready for work the next day… well, after a surf session of course.

Day 0 – Preparation

- Will and I woke up ‘early,’ at about 8 AM and drove to New Port for a quick morning session and then found breakfast and started our errands, surf shop, west marine, costco, the grocery store, target, we looked up and it was 11 PM and we weren’t even done yet. We thought it was going to be quick and easy.

On to Day 1.

The Philly Coast, NJ, NY, PA (+ Dallas and Chicago)

2006-08-21T22:21:00.000-07:00

Didn't really sleep the night before, too many things on ye olde mind. Finally getting some shut eye by 4:30 AM, the alarm cracked me awake at 5:45 AM. Megan knocked on the door the very next second and before I knew it I was walking across the tarmac and seat belting myself into the tiny jet plane headed for Houston, then onto Philly.

Philly, as far as I know is this mystical place. So mystical that I wasn’t really sure where it was, or at least had zero scope regarding the area it was in. This was the place our founding fathers signed documents, declared freedoms, and, as Chris noted, probably urinated in bushes outside their local pub. A glorious place indeed. But I had no idea that it was a hop away from New Jersey and a jump to New York and this new set of information, this new idea of proximity was amazing to me. It still kind of makes me uncomfortable, after all, it’s suppose to take you all day to drive the length of your state, or at least four hours to get out of it. Apparently the East Coast is excepted from this rule. Once I acclimated to that, the rest of the weekend was a breeze.. well sort of.

First stop into Philly was Chris’ place. His house is nestled in between two others, as all things that are nestled are, over on 17^th where it sported a fancy front door with windows and nice solid hardwood floors, an opera singing neighbor, an old woman with a cute granddaughter neighbor, and some other regular type people about. The house was a pleasant and impressive three stories, I wish there were four because then we’d have been on the roof, but three would do just nicely and it did. All other Philly activities were similarly straightforward and simply enjoyable… to the fullest extent of the phrase.

I saw Chris’ TFA headquarters, we ate cheese steaks, ‘wizz-wit’, saw Jen, parked in the middle of the street, rode on the back of a moving truck, took subways across town and into New York, and drove to Atlantic City. The last two being of great importance. First, New York.

New York.

It was a first time for John being in the ‘Big Apple’ in the ‘Melting Pot’ the ‘City’… or what ever other name I could make up for it right now. Anyway, first time, so simply being there was neat, to say it in one word. New York is a city of substance. It’s still fake, like LA or Phoenix, or San Diego, or … I don’t know… but it’s got some substance to it underneath all the flashing lights, billboards, and photo opps. It’s neat to know that it was America’s port year’s ago, it was where American culture was, is, would always be (though now we know where it really is..) It was built on top of the poor by the rich and never seemed to stop. It is a mammoth of a city and every turn has a tale. It was neat. Cousin Mike gracious picked us up from Penn Station and drove us about the city for the morning, periodically allowing me to jump out of the car and gawk. We then met up with Jenette and had some lunch, after which we, Chris, Mike, and I, went for a walk from Times Square back to his place on 36^th. It was a hike, but worth every step. The night emptied into tai food and beer and darts and then Mike left Chris and I to our devices, or vices. We walked up the street to the next bar, which so happened to be entertaining with Karaoke, we ordered scotch, three ice cubes, and enjoyed the music.

Once our feet were back outside walking down the street it was clear what the mission was: drink scotch at every bar we pass along the way until we can’t drink scotch no more. And so it was done. At bar number six there was a connect four game and Chris challenged the bar tender, rendering her with out a shirt (well, really she just flashed the bar, but who’s keeping track) as well as winning a couple of drinks for us and then it was over for me. I vaguely remember putting some of what I had drank away in the restroom and then doing a fair amount of stumbling, shouting, smashing, running, dancing, jumping, and the like. Chris and I fell asleep in the vacant apartment three floors down from Mike’s place on the wood floors, I’m sure glad they had a working toilet. Pancakes in the morning when we finally made it up the last three levels and then back on the train to Philly. It was quite the first day in New York, I think I covered my bases.

Atlantic City.

This is a much easier thing to relate. Two hours there by car. Twelve hours later I’m up $350, Chris is up $3,000. We eat a free steak dinner and drink free blue martini’s and we’re back in Philly with half an hour to spare before we need to catch my 5:30 AM flight back to Tucson. It was quite the first day in Atlantic City, I think I covered my bases.

I ended up opting for a later flight out of philly and made another two hundred bucks, sat and watched a philly sunrise over the airport, as the planes yawned away and made it to a seat aboard flight something or another just in time to catch my body into a relaxed bit of sleep.

Back in Tucson I had one day to get everything I needed ready for classes, Paul moving in, and our ten days of sailing in California. So when Jon said he’d pick me up, it was clear there was no doubt that I would love to go rock climbing with him and Austin for the afternoon. What did I have to do instead?

(apologies for the poor narrative – it’s late and such is writing when it’s stream of conscientiousness)

Blackbird

2006-07-28T01:14:00.000-07:00

Something about learning The Beatles "Blackbird" on guitar while watching the lightening and rain land on my portch at 1 AM... just waiting for this moment to arise.

Smiles

2006-07-27T01:38:00.000-07:00

It's the kind of thing that keeps me thinking I'm an okay guy.

"John,

You are really funny. Do you know that?

~terri"

The Palapa

2006-07-26T20:26:00.000-07:00

Today I completed the palapa.

In my final minutes of working on it I decited that perhaps this whole time I should have been keeping record of it's progress. Fortunatly, I had a pretty good idea of when things took place early on, and as it progressed I took enough pictures to piece it all together.

Blogger is giving me some trouble right now so it's not complete, but for your enjoyment here is the beginnings of the Tucson Palapa Build.

. - .

2006-07-23T02:25:00.000-07:00

.
- It's lacking -
.

Clear Water Creek

2006-07-16T22:22:00.000-07:00

Sweat was dripping into my eyes again. I think my eyebrows were broken, I don't sweat this much from my face. At about 5,800 feet Ryan and I had finally reached a flat portion of trail, ascending from the creek below which sits at approximately 3800 feet according to my Topo. Quietly we walked over yesterdays muddy trail. It was cracked and fissured and you could see where other hikers had scrapped the sticky muck off their soles. I sucked down water from my cammelpak about ever 20 feet with my head down concentrating on putting one foot before the other. It was about 2:00 PM and I think we were both thinking about the past eight hours as we were periodically interrupted by the burning soles of our feet, or a pain in our shoulders. Tired already and we still had some miles to go.

It was just this morning that I woke up at 5:45 to my alarm clock, rolled over to push my face back into my pillow when there was a knock on the door. Impossibly Ryan had arrived 15 min early and at the exact same time the alarm had gone off. That jerk! The drive started quietly, but Ryan was insistent on conversation, which was good, so by the time we were in Phoenix I was wide awake and able to hold not only conversation, but thoughts in my own head.
Pulling down the dusty, washboard of a trail just outside of Camp Verde in central Arizona, we parked at the trail head, lathered our selves with sun screen, arranged our packs, and put on our hiking shoes. As all hikers know this is your last chance for it all. Do I unload a little from my already heavy pack, or do I put a little more into my under-prepared pack? Do I bring a cell phone, do I have a flash light? Will I need a light? Where are we going again? Is this really a good idea? I left behind an extra pair of socks for fear of the heat on my feet, as well as my book, while Ryan left behind his third litre of water. Then we signed the register and walked.

I'd never been to this park - The Coconino National Forrest, more specifically Clear Water Creek - and therefore I was heavily intrigued by the land scape partially because it was full of red rock and green trees, desert cactus, and little critters, and partly because it was foreign and I wanted to make sure that ITEOE (in the event of emergency) I would be fairly familiar with where I was, where I had been, and the general direction of where I'm going.

The beginnings of any hike are fairly similar, especially when your trail and destination are unknown. When you first start out, you pace varies in form. Sometimes quickly paced, because you've got all the energy in the world, to slow and deliberate because of your fascination with the smallest rock and the slowest bug. Today was no exception to this rule. We moved quickly, talked a lot, missed the trail and would have to back track after running into a wall of cactus, and finally found "the Toilet Bowl," a small pool of water that exits to the river by slicing between two rocks causing a small eddy and a deep slide. Hikers would walk themselves into the pool to just up stream of the water's exit. Then they'd sit down and let the current suck them between the rocks and "deep," about two feet, underwater and down stream by about eight feet. It was fun enough I imagine, especially in the hot Arizona sun. We told ourselves we'd jump in on our way back to the car.

From here it became more obvious that we were indeed on a hiking trail and not simply in an area where folks came for the day to lie about in pools. The trail crossed over Clear Water Creek a number of times and moved back and forth and up and down. It made me think, "who designs these trials.. and why does it go up, just to go down!? Those jerks." We heard Hawks screeching and birds fluttering away, and to my excitement we heard and saw a small group of Javolina. One scurried across the trail and away as we approached, another stood in the shade of a small bush, while a third and fourth, skittish as they were, made vicious noises and then as I approached would hustle to the next farthest away bush where upon they'd make more noise to intimidate. The hike was pleasant, peaceful, and had just enough to it to make us feel good about the work out, the training. Our down fall came when we passed some folks on horse back.

They passed us during one of our slow, deliberate, and dry river crossings and we then passed them several minutes later. At 12:30 we stopped for lunch after our last crossing the riders parked and took a break for some swimming. The lead rider was apparently quite familiar with the trail and seemingly excited to share any information he had regarding it to us 'first timers from Tucson.' Earlier, during one of our other encounters on the trail, he had suggested that we do the loop, hiking out of the canyon and along the ridge back and then dropping back down to the trail head instead of simply hiking up and hiking back. It sounded like the kind of hiking I prefer. We both agreed that backtracking is awful and makes you feel like you accomplished nothing that day. At this brief meeting he offered to show us the map of what he suggested now that he was down off his mount. I was eager to see the map, given we had none of our own and again, I'm sometimes focused on knowing where I am, perhaps that's a hiking with Mom and Dad thing or a Boy Scout thing.. who knows, it's what I do. The map showed us about in the middle of the river portion of the hike, then a trail leading up, out of the canyon, and then along the ridge where it met up with a road for about a mile where it then turned back down to the trail head and thus our car. What I forgot to do was really read the map, count the lines, look for elevation, or simply look at where we were and where we had to get sans map. Neither Ryan nor I had any concept of what "hiking out of the canyon" entailed. Several hours later, with our heads down and our feet sore and dragging atop the ridge, we were well aware of what it entailed.

After lunch - two peanut butter and honey sandwiches, a hand full of almonds, and an orange - we proceeded with the plan, hike the loop. About a mile later the creek was now below us and we were along a small ridge about 100 feet above. We were feeling good, the climb was subtle, and the sun was not too demanding. My water was still relatively cool as it came out of the tube and Ryan and I kept a good pace. We were deceived by our apparent climb in elevation and concluded that the remainder of the hike would be similar, this out of the canyon business isn't so bad.

We were soon corrected. Talking and walking still, the trail made a steady shift to the canyon side putting us onto a hill where we became victim to the afternoon sun. Our breaths became heavier, our feet dragged, and conversation was frequently interrupted by catching breath or gulps of water. The climb was now at hand. We still moved along the river but now in a manner of determination, the trail climbed quickly and we responded with pace. Striking us how the trail had changed, Ryan in mid-sentence made note of the of the wicked climb and we became aware of our challenge at hand. Conversation stopped and we became focused on breathing and climbing. The trail didn't switch back or even out it just went up and up. Some steps where at the height of my knee and cactus, Palo Verde, Mesquite, and anything else with thorns lined the trail and spilled over onto it. I was determined to finish solid. We both marched up the hill huffing and hurting. Finally Ryan asked to break in the shade. From here the breaks were regular and drawn out. At each stop I would catch my breath, drink some water, and reflect.

This was the first time I'd put my feet into boots since our climb in Ecuador and before that.. I couldn't remember. My feet had begun to burn about an hour into the hike, around the same time we were first past by the horsemen. I knew I was blistering but I needed this warm up. I needed to punish my feet for being so weak. My intentions were to start doing some heavy backbacking in the following weeks and if I couldn't do a little day hike, how was I ever going to pack 30 miles? As it turns out punishment was delivered. It was delivered not only to my feet, but to my shoulders, knees, neck, lungs, heart, and brain. I was out of shape, horribly out of shape. I was glad we had chosen a difficult trail. Ryan seemed to be in a different state of mind. He began to have difficult seeing straight, his legs started to cramp, and his needed rest became almost crippling to his climb. At one point rest stops were separated by the distance between shade and lasted twenty minutes. I began to think to myself how I could signal for help if we became debilitated. However, every time Ryan would sit soon after he would get up and continue on with the hike just as determined and fresh as he was before, and help was never necessary.

To someone who exercises all you have to tell them is "I knew I was out of shape" and they'll understand the exact pains you're talking about, but to someone who has never pushed their limit, or worked themselves to a crawl it difficult to convey just how determined you are to make yourself hurt, to drive your body into the ground, to really end up at the end of the day exhausted and with no ability to fight off a bear if it so happened to want to take your hat (this was something I had thought about during one of our frequent rest stops).

We walked for and hour and a half up hill, cursing the land, cursing the trail blazers, cursing the horseman who gave us directions, cursing our selves for not staying at the creek and just swimming all day. At one point the trail dipped back down causing us to loose close to two hundred feet in altitude and evoking internal rage, the kind of frustration that comes from walking up an escalator that only moves down - yeah, it's that silly. However, soon after this decent the trail progressed back up and we felt close to reaching the rim. Easing it's self out, the trail had no place to go but down, looking through the vegetation we could see the horizon and save one small peak to our left, sky was all there was left to climb.

The crest was so gentle that we didn't stop to celebrate or to take pictures the trail had become flat and there was no cornice or edge to jump off and so we marched on knowing we had three and a half more miles to go before reaching the comfort of the river again. The trail emptied into a small campsite and then to a bumpy, poorly maintained access road. And so we concentrated on putting one foot before the other, sucking down water about ever 20 feet and began to question my eyebrows and permission graned to the sweat rolling into my eyes at about 5,800 feet.

Rocky and pitted, the road required constant attention and when it finally emptied onto the main gravel road a mile later, I was pleased to ignore my footing. Regardless of the diminished difficulty of the hike, discussion was distant and we walked quietly. Another mile later the road presented a trail head and exchanging a "is this it?" "yeah," Ryan and I turned down yet another poorly maintained jeep road which ended at a small trail that descended. We were confident of our eminent arrival home.

About a hundred feet down the trail I took the last draw of water from my tube, it then seized, refused service, and I got a little panicky. I was out of water. I focused on the third of a bottle of hot Gatorade I had waiting for me in the car. I moved rapidly, partly to keep myself occupied an to see if I still had the ability to keep footing at a rate of falling, partly because I wanted to make sure we beat the storm to the car, but mostly because I was thirsty. All the while keeping an eye on Ryan's progress, I essentially skied down the trail on my feet in my anxiety. Beneath my feet dust turned to red rock and clay, which turned to blue slate, then to black pea gravel, to deep red pumice, and then slate again. The geology of the canyon was spectacular and as varied as any science project should be. Layers were prominent and rock specimens prevalent. All this made it that much more difficult to focus on and predict my footing, alas no accident occurred. At one point I waited for Ryan and when he caught up we took a short break. I still had no water every second I stood there I thought of nothing but how thirsty I was so I reverted to taking pictures to distract me. I looked up at the ominous clouds that had been approaching all afternoon. A dark bank now filled the northern sky and hung about the other side of the canyon. I could see them move and curl and I became fascinated with how quickly they were transforming and spinning about in the sky. I took a few pictures of the distant lightening and then did a quick scan of the local cliffs and hills. To my astonishment the canyon wall directly across from us, where the thunder storm loomed over head, was also moving and spinning. I put my camera away and became more concerned for myself and my hydration. I needed to sit down and drink some water. I told Ryan nothing and pulled out an orange to attempt to quench my thirst and yet again distract my thoughts, but this only proved that rapid decent is not as effective, nor feasible while peeling and eating an orange, so I gave Ryan half and resumed my pace.

For the second glorious time today, the trail leveled out and we had reached a calm point in the trek, this time it was the bottom of the canyon and we were less than a quarter mile from the car. The sky was dark and the thunder boomed loud. Flashes of lightening illuminated the sky overhead, but we didn't see any local bolts and felt no rain, so our concern was sufficiently low. Back at the car Ryan stripped down and sat in the river while I unlaced my boots at the car and exposed my blistered feet to daylight. While sucking down my last of Gatorade tea, I found a pile of ants attacking a caterpillar to watch and concluded my day in nature. During the car ride home I opened my eyes once at a gas station in Anthem, then again when we arrived at In-N-Out for dinner, and lastly to watch a spectacular battle between Zeus and Thor in the western skies between Tucson and Phoenix where bolts of lightening spread a good thirty degrees of the sky. At home I set my boots and bag down and plummeted face first into my pillow - the exact position I had misplaced when Ryan had arrived sixteen hours earlier.

Google Map of the hike

Short

2006-07-14T14:40:00.000-07:00

I always enjoy having a plan and then executing it within the proper time frame. I would like to imagine most people like that. During these past few months I have really seen the driven mentality that I'm talking about. More so in the past 12 hours. I just wish I could apply this sort of focus and dedication to school.

Today I made a Pirate Hat. I feel good about it.

Departure from the Carolinas

2006-07-03T08:40:00.000-07:00

On the flight back to Orange County, leaving behind family in more than one way.

We left a bundle of new found relatives, folks from Jamesville, North Carolina and the surrounding burbs, to get back to their daily routine in tears; any of them I’ll probably not see again unless they venture out west. We left Pop, Melanie, Steph, Craig, and their gang at church this morning while we drove off in our rental micro-van to the airport. And Tripp and Karen took the keys from Mom and, as we taxied, were driving toward the coast to celebrate their first anniversary, then they’ll return to their respective homes, Michigan and Chicago.

It’s odd first of all going to an event like that. Essentially it’s like a college party, where you show up, you only know the people you brought, and perhaps the people who called to tell you about it. The first thing you do is look for the beer and a comfortable protected spot to use as home base and then you proceed to make idle chat with a whole bundle of folks who you may or may not run into again, but perhaps you’ll see them later on in the party, so your amiable. The only difference is everyone is a lot older, there isn’t any ping pong, and you’d best stay away from any attractive ladies – this is a Family Reunion. Fortunately this BBQ didn’t turn out anything like how I’d internally predicted it to.

The first part of my plan was on target, we arrived and looked for the beer, and really didn’t know anyone but Pop, but as the party went on our relatives were a bundle of warm, welcoming, good natured people. They might not have been Californians, though Andrew might hold that against them and for the most part that made it even easier to get along with, but they were decent human beings that apparently loved us just as much as they’d love any of their own children. The made jokes and more importantly could roll with ours, played football, cooked and ate food like no other, loved cats, were eager to share their tales and stories, and truly their welcome mats meant come on it, for real. I couldn’t have imagined it. Thus, when we left, there were tears in the eyes of our hosts, hearty hugs and hand shakes, and a real commitment from a good many of them, to keep in contact via emails or visits. I think some of us Californian folk would even consider moving there.

The life style was mellow, slow, comfortable. Perhaps this was just a show, perhaps there are uptight people everywhere in the world and we just so happened to have a weekend party without any of them showing up, or letting loose, but if that’s not the case, North Carolina is one of the most relaxed places in the world. … and remember just because they talk slow, doesn’t mean they are….

The night before we left.. last night, Anna some sort of second cousin removed and then re-added in, an 18 year old relative who’s just graduated and going to North Carolina State, took a couple of us out, kind of. After dinner we were antsy, we wanted to carouse, see, hear, do something.. anything to prevent sitting in the hotel room till we passed out. So she generously offered to take us about. After much harassment of things and places in the area I think she became frustrated with her perceived inability to ‘show us a good time’ in her home town. I didn’t mind, I had a great time just driving about Jamesville and such watching the dark fields and lit-up houses go by. One particular stop was upon the “Screaming Bridge,” a haunted bridge that, if you stopped up on it you could hear the screams of the woman who was hung off of it. I heard no screams but my own in an attempt to rile up the car a little, followed by pounding on the roof and driver’s window.. In any case – just like Mission Viejo, or any other home town – we perceive them as boring as we grow up there and then come to learn later that they’re built and filled with character and thrills. Well, maybe not the thrills, but certainly character and this North Carolina had it for sure.

With a quick stop at Bojangles in the morning for breakfast with Anna and her mom and then to the church to see everyone off, we drove from Jamesville to the airport in a hot and muggy environment and I couldn’t stop thinking about how amazing it is that thus far every place I’ve visited on this earth has the exact same people living there. People who love and are loved, people who welcome, people who laugh, people who forget about what they’re bad at, people with compassion, and most of all, people who smile. Everyone, no matter who their master, and who their enemy, smiles and it’s great to know I’ve got kin in North Carolina who are damn good at it.

Touch-down.

Roots.

2006-06-30T18:57:00.000-07:00

Germany beat Argentina and they advance into the semifinals, Ukrane goes home.

Today we put Pop in the car, got some cheese biscuts and sausage from the local BBQ joint and got a quick tour of the land of our kin in North Carolina.

We drove past the Jamesville cemetary, saw some Mizells and a Mizelle. Pop told us that there was another Mizell clan when he was growing up. I can only imagine that they were ruffians, trouble makers who managed to move to Mexico and start a new life under the psudonym of Sanchez.
Past a heap of ready corn, nearing tobaco, and new cotton fields, Pop narrated to us shorts of relatives, friends, and events from his childhood and subsequent returns home. "Down that lane on at the end of that field was the local country store, that fella was so nice.... Right there at the corner of that corn field, this place was once all trees and the house was tucked away into them...That's where I was born... This house use to be the best in the county. This is the first house that had gas lighting. ...Mom grew up in this house." Mom drove slowly and irratically as all of us passengers were half enthraled with the stores and history of the area and half scared Mom would drive into a corn field because she thought Pop wanted to stop there. Finally we turned right past a group of goats and found an old drive wih a farmer working the land and an old house in front of a series of barns and such. We were interested in the house. Unfortunatly I can't remember the story - the history - but it was there. Perhaps I'll add later.

The house was old. Wooden. Tin roof. Brick fireplaces on both sides. A wrap around portch. Boarded up windows. Lightening Rods. Surrounded by damn green grass and fields of cotton and tobacco. ......

We returned to sisters where we set up tents, tables, and chairs for the evenings dinning and socializing in the damp heat of the east coast. I don't sweat this much in Arizona - that sweet tea is fantastic for breaking the heat. A beer, traditional football game, and one injury later (to Steve, a team mate of mine) we were ready for a shower, grace, and burgers and beans. I was sedated and calm. A Carolina storm rolled in, the sun dimmed and disappeared, and the bats followed the lightening bugs into the evening air. It was pleasant. Andrew and Megan got a mason jar from Grant and we caught a few buggs and watched them in captivity. Andrew taught the kitten to hunt them and I enjoyed some time in the hammock. What day is it? It doesn't matter. It's Holiday. Tripp left to get Karen from the airport and we hitched a ride back to the hotel to await tomorrow's meals.

Family on the Carolina Coast..

2006-06-29T20:31:00.000-07:00

It's the first time I've been to the East Coast, it's the first time I've been to North Carolina, it's the first time I've meet the larger part of my Dad's extended family.

Pop, Dad's dad, moved to California leaving his mom and three younger sisters in North Carolina. Pop regularly visits this coast and his sisters via the 40 and his 50 food motor home (roughly), alas we never 'made it out.' I suppose it's tough enough to manage a family of six getting about town, to move them 3000 miles east for a week would be ... a challenge and so for a long time I wouldn't know much beyond the family that showed up to Pops for Thanksgiving and Easter dinner and street football games. A year and a half ago Dad died. Pop was making his drive again and told us this would perhaps be his last time driving the 15 day trek. His birthday is this weekend. Dad's siblings were going to be there. This time there was noreason it couldn't be easy. Mom asked all the brothers, gave us the dates, and without a hitch ... or so I think, we had tickets to the coast and were on our way, I was going to get to the East Coast and meet a bundle of folks who knew Dad and Pop that I'd never met. neat.

Plane flights are plane flights. My flight to Ecuador didn't feel any different than my flight to St. Louis and until we really hit wall of heated moisture in the air outside the baggage claim doors this time, I hadn't yet put myself into Virginia and onto the east coast. Here there is green, there are trees, there is moisture flowing free from the sky, free in the Air! We found our white rental mini-van and soon after discovered that just because it has 6 seats doesn't mean they're built for people. Even my legs were pushed against the seat in front of me. Ugh. Fortunately we only had to drive 2 hours to the true coast to touch the water and then another 2 to Jamesville, NC 27846, where Pop and the family were already eating and drinking and smiling.

To the coast we drove. The water was warm, the sand interestingly granular and large, and the waves horribly non-existent. East coast waves, as I've been informed before and ten again today, only occur from hurricanes and, new to me, from Nor-Easters. Neither of which were present today. But there was sand and shore and I was indeed on the East Coast, cool. One more tick off my national summer tour. As we drove inland, away from the coast, we went over miles of bridge, which was cool, passed signs warning of Alligators, Bears, and Fox, which was interesting, and a whole lot of crops of Corn, which was .. well different. Little did I know I'd be eating some of that corn a little while later and it would be Gooooooo-oood, I mean good! Grant was driving by now and we meandered about the small roads, past a school and a church and houses all around and finally found Pops motor home. Here we go.

There he was outside waiting as a Pop should, resolute but independent enough that we'd quickly greet him before he had to wait too long. This neighborhood was quaint. It had a bold character to it. The lawns were green and soft, the trees years outside of their adolescence, the yard fence free and full of Fourth of July decor. Reminding me of another wholesome family event, we emptied out of the cramp micro-van, talking with Pop and beginning the indroduction to relatives. There weren't too many, but more than I could remember the names of at that instant. As it is Pop's three sisters and their families were fairly represented and all presented themselves at various points through the evening. We walked through the back yard of the first house to see the house that Pop grew up in and his mother had lived until she died, then just a couple of house up the street and across was another sisters house. Filled with chairs and tables this was the dinning hall. Pleasant with bird feeders and delicately placed nic-knacks. the house had that charm about it... the one that we try to repeat on the west coast but only find by shopping at target and k-mart. This charm was genuine, a true collection of novelties and toys over the ages. One particular squirrel feeder was a wooden piece secured to a tree with a stool and a pike upon which an ear of corn was placed. According to the residents, squirrels actually sit down and enjoy the corn - remarkable. There were white window trimmings and hand dipped candles along side an easy chair and broadband Internet connection. Against my previous notions - as lacking as they were - this place was welcoming, it was family, it was home. There were hugs all around, smiles from everyone, and one hell of a dinner. We were even introduced to a neighbor as "Kin Folk," and that just made me feel all warm. Tonight we're at the Days Inn - using their Wi-Fi - and tomorrow I look forward to getting another glimpse of N. Carolina and family, and evenings activities which include but are not limited to a good ole fashioned 'cook out.'

Camping to Vegas

2006-06-27T14:48:00.000-07:00

The United States played at 8 AM on Thursday. The books have been written, the United States Soccer team simply isn't a contender for the World Cup, at least not yet. Even my all American McDonalds Egg McMuffin breakfast didn't help them win and it certainly didn't help me win.

After the game Jon and I went to his house to adjust and fix his parents back yard fence.. easy. We were done within two hours. We anticipated leaving for Vegas that day doing some camping that night and then rolling into Vegas Friday - it'd be a nice way to warm up to the time I'd spend away from home, away from Tucson.

I cleaned house and gave Sean the hi sign, expecting to see him in Vegas, the good bye was short. I never saw him in Vegas and he's moving out next weekend.. tear. I suppose I've got to find a roommate soon, eh?

Jon, Austin, and I got in the car and made one last Tucson stop before leaving. To the Map Store! I love this store, it's just full of maps and flags. It feels like it's a throw back to the past, a travel center for kings, or the headquarters of the great explorers. The fellas who work behind the counter are the most knowledgeable individuals about maps and the such I've ever met. This store helps me to appreciate my high school geography classes and even more so the folks who may study geography as a life long passion.. it's quite universal and I appreciate people who can help me get to where I want to go.

(Hoover Dam)
I had some ideas on where I wanted to hike. A place called West Clear Water Creek up East of Sedona, Arizona. To my dissatisfaction, and I'm sure of many others, there is a horribly vicious raging fire in the whole of Coconino County the area where most of the hikes and trees are in Arizona. Camping there was now out of the question. Spending a good hour looking at maps and talking to our new found map expert about some options, we landed on the idea we'd drive to Vegas that night and camp outside of the city at Mt. Charleston. The plan was solid, the route was easy, the drive was long.. it made sense. I bought some maps of New Mexico for my future travels and NOW we were on the road. To Vegas and BEYOND - for real.

(Mt. Charleston, Las Vegas (N.W.))
The lights of The Strip began to blend with the Vegas city lights and then it looked no different than any other blip on the map. The sign told us to turn left, so I did. The sign said go 55, so I went 65. The signs didn't talk about the dirt road I turned onto, but I took it anyway. Up a small hill onto a bluff I practiced power sliding around each curve. Austin was not pleased, Jon tried to sleep in the back seat. Neither of them were in the mood for fun - I can't blame them. About 8 hours later we were within 10 min of sleep and here I was messing around, getting dust in their mouth on a cliff. Their attitude made sense, but hell, I wanted to practice using the E-brake.. I finally landed and nestled the Volvo into a spot among some shrubs and unpacked my things to on top of the car while Austin and Jon set up their blanket on the ground atop gravel and rocks. The woke up uncomfortable, while I woke up to a brilliant sunrise and then later the sun in my eyes and my bag 10 degrees too hot. It was 6:30 and time for breakfast. Vegas was beckoning our arrival.

The daily round of World Cup started at 8 AM so we had plenty of time to get to the bar to see the game - still we missed the first one. Driving down off the hill we first stopped into Albertsons for some pop tarts, a jug of milk, cereal, and spoons and milk. We ate on the sidewalk and quickly fell asleep where we were. Apparently none of us got the kind of sleep we had anticipated the night previous. Across form Good Will we stopped in for a peek and and sprinted to the Wynn, our place of residence for the weekend. Too early for check-in we planted ourselves in the sports book and placed bets on the upcoming game. I don't know that I like sports betting too much, it raises my anxiety too much, takes away from the fun, from the game it's self. I feel obligated to hate the other team because they're going to cost me 10 dollars... it's just not fun.

Jon, Austin, and I were the first to the hotel, first to our rooms and first to gamble out of the group of 18. We felt privledged, at least I did. The group slowly arrived and the weekend began. We went clubbing Friday night with free admission, woke up late, ate a free buffet, met some ladies, hit up the pool, gambled, partied with the ladies, woke up late, gambled, met some other ladies, gambled, walked about, met some other ladies, gambled, woke up late.. watched soccer. It was Vegas - what is there to talk about.

(Austin's Bum - for all of Las Vegas)
I learned that in general, Vegas is boreing and people there make you feel insignificant. So when you're there you drink enough to make yourself forget how bored you are and to make yourself feel better about the people who could care less about your well being.

(Take a Guess What Floor We're On)
When you've drank and smoked enough to make your self forget all the bad then you just feel worse because your body rejects all the garbage your putting into your system, you're hung over, you can't taste anything, you smell horrid, and perhaps you wake up in your own vomit, smiling like you a three year old. But hey, at least you may have had a good time last night, if only you could remember.

(Billy...)
I suppose that's the Vegas allure - we go there not to win money, but to tell people we won money, we go there not to have a good time, but to tell people about the good time we had. And if we have to we lie. I was happy to leave Monday - sad to leave Jon, Austin, and Billy behind, but glad to be on my way home to see family. 4 hours later I was in Laguna Beach, an hour later in Mission Viejo eating dinner with Mom. Phew, I barely made it out of that place.

... Palapa Day ...

2006-06-27T14:11:00.000-07:00

The Palapa when I had left was well on it's way to being complete, thus I was eager to get it done and have some substantial shade in my yard for this horrid summer heat. We had hit a snag in construction design when Asa and I left town and we had gone swimming instead of figuring out the problem. After two weeks on the road thinking and dreaming about how to fix the problem I went with the simple solution, "it'll fix it's self. Just tack the wood on there and it will work. The Ecuadorias couldn't have been that precise.. could they?" I got out my ladder and tacked the first piece of wood up, not a lot of measuring, not a lot of science, just two nails and a piece of wood that didn't sit smoothly but held it's ground. It worked, for the most part, so I put the others up too. then some of the cross pieces. I steped back and felt good about how it looked so I called Jon and Will and told them to come over and help me out. Jon was there in 20 min, and will arrived about an hour later. Jon and I, after a series of batitos we made, got the roof slats up and secured and looking good. Now all we needed were some palm leaves.

Freecycle started our hunt for palm leaves and people were very eager, in fact they still send me emails, to have me 'trim their tree' for them. I was excited to get some leaves and get this thing finished! We got on the road and the rain came down. HUH? The wind blew hard, the rain was huge, the streets flooded, and the lightening stuck all around. We pulled up to one house to get there frauns, unloaded the 7' ladder, pulled out the 12' extend-o-cut pole and tried our darndest to cut those leaves off. The rain drenched us, the stalks cut us, the wind moved us, and the lightening scared us.. this was bad news all around, what were we doing. Could we even use these leaves for the project, they seemed too dried and brittle.. eerrrrrrr.. We drove home. We got home and the wind had stopped, the ground slowly dried up. I sat on the couch.

This whole palapa expierence has certianly taught me a couple of things, one of which is "just because you've seen it, doesn't mean you can do it." The ecuadorian palapas looked and felt simple. there just wasn't much to their construciton, a couple of beams, a number of nails.. bam = palapa. In reality, those beams are sunk into holes - we made ours 2 feet deep, stabbing through the tough Tucson layers of caliche. The beams are heavy, they are structural, they need to be secure - we used three different types of brackets to finally get our beams secure. The angles at which these beams reach each other is important, they looke haphazard in Ecuador, but they had do have done something to get them to fit together so well. And the palm leaves ... I'm still baffeled as to how, where, what, how ... I'll let you know when I figure it out.

Santa Barbara to Tucson and back to Tucson

2006-06-27T14:00:00.000-07:00

Santa Barbara to Tucson

Arrived into Orange County about 3 hours after leaving the parties, the drinking, the ladies.. Tyler's. In Orange County I stopped in and loaded my car with a crate of books, a pile of clothes and a number of small things I had left home, and then back to the 5 toward San Diego for the possibility of some sailing with Nathan and Primo. Brian Primo, Nathan's old roommate had rented a house in Mission Beach with his brother and a couple of friends for the week. They had talked about wanting to sail, but none of them knew how, so I was suppose to come teach them. I got in at about 4 or 5 and they had been living on the beach for too long, they were lazy. Playing Monopoly when I arrived we sat about and watched some T.V. and then all decided to go to dinner, an all you can eat crab place about 45 min walk away.

I had a bowl of soup, glass of water, and a great view of the ocean, something I wasn't going to have when I got back to Tucson. I tried my hardest to take it in and keep it there. I was eager to get on the road as I could feel myself wanting more and more to take a nap. After dinner, just as planned. I found myself on the road heading East. I arrived in Tucson at about 4:30 AM at the end of 12 hours of driving and covering close to 800 miles that day I was tired and happy to be home.

Home not for long though. I woke up late Tuesday and after doing a little cleaning and organization of things around the house jumped back into the car and drove to Phoenix for a 3 hours CPR re-certification course and then turned back home that evening for Tucson. This time I was home for good.. kind of. The next day I'd be home, so it was my chance to make it a palapa day.

Berkeley to Santa Barbara

2006-06-25T14:47:00.000-07:00

Berkeley, Santa Barbara, Orange County, San Diego, Tucson, Phoenix, Tucson, Camping, Vegas ..
How'd all that happen?

My departure from Berkeley was precise, except for one load of laundry still in the drier, like a well oiled machine I picked up, hauled, and unloaded another load of wood for Andrew's basement project, exchanged the Home Depot lights, cleaned up the kitchen, made the bed, packed the car, and went on my way south, through San Jose to the 101 to Santa Barbara where I anticipated a weekend full of hangovers. For the most part I was right.

After a lonely haul I arrived in Santa Barbara near dinner time. Tyler and I met up with Hoss and Belinda and had some outstanding cocktails and a wonderful dinner at a downtown steak restaurant. mmm good. Keeping with the SB style, after Hoss and Belinda returned to their hotel, Tyler and I went for some more drinks just down the street and then hitched a ride back to Isla Vista where we met up with a number of folks and ... well, at this point the weekend has blended together sufficiently enough where I can't remember details, needless to say waking up was hard to do.

Saturday was grad day and we, of course, went down to the 'Hall' for drinks before, during, and after graduation - this was some taxing work. The Hall was a small bar, it had a counter part in down town Santa Barbara but this was the Isla Vista version. It consisted of one bar along the side of a 15 foot room, cutting the room essentially in half, bar tenders on one side, bar flies on the other. At only 30 feet deep, the bar filled up quickly and it was easy to find your self out the door simply because you've moved to a breathable space. Because of the ubiquitous participation in the 50 club, it was a very friendly place to be, every one knew each other and the bar tenders knew everyone and thusly the drinks flowed almost uncontrollably. Pitchers were two to a person and shots, or 'fruitys' a generic sweet and totally custom drink, were handed out regularly to fly and tender alike. The walls were sufficiently covered with eight televisions bilking multiple sports casts and the space behind them was covered with bar pictures and plaques. Tyler was quite proud of his name on a wall mounted plaque signifying his participation and acceptance into the "50 Club" at The Study Hall. Individuals who have a drink at The Hall at least 50 days in the spring quarter are boldly proclaimed here, the plaque had probably 350 names on it. The list was quite extensive. The Hall served as Tyler's home base through the years and thusly the weekend was no different. Every chance we had.. rather he had, he hit the hall for a shot or a beer - the bar tenders and bouncers were soon just as familiar with my face as they were with Tyler's.

Grad Night we met Tyler's folks again and had another fabulous dinner with the parents and then more drinking. This time I explicitly remember playing a game of kitchen baseball with a squishy ball and a dish rag. It was ... intense and we didn't get to bed till 4 AM. Plus I tried beer and clamado juice, it was, how do you say, Horrible?! Sunday was equally full, including a short stay on a raft out at sea with champagne and a nap on the couch watching soccer. Most importantly was the Sunday Night conclusion to graduation with the open bar graduation party at O'Mally's that Tyler hosted. Unfortunately the previous nights left me sore and sick in the morning and this night I had decided to limit my drinking to few. Gin and tonic and two glasses of 12 year scotch kept me happy. I took pictures for Tyler, had a conversation about the progress and direction of the US with a drunk song writer and met a good number of attractive ladies. In all, it was a bundle good times in Santa Barbara and Isla Vista... and Monday morning meant time to travel on.

Berkeley Chill

2006-06-12T16:10:00.000-07:00

It's cold. Too damn cold. I have to wear shoes, a sweater, a sweatshirt, a long sleve shirt, another long sleve shirt, an undershirt, a hat, pants, and if I had it, I'd put on more. It's a bitter wind that hunts you down, finds your every weakness and pennetrates the strongest seal... it's cold.

...

I put on my pants, sweater, and shoes... I walk down to campus to get some dinner. The sky is clear, the wind has died, I begin to sweat. ... I'm sweating. I'm hot. The hike up the hill is taxing. Where is the Berkeley Chill - what is this trick.

...She's Gone.

2006-06-12T15:55:00.000-07:00

The temperature on Friday was 111 according to a bank thermometer when we left Tucson, we estimated it at 120 as we drove, it was hot. Asa and I were soaking wet after 10 min in the car. Our stop into IKEA was a delight. The air conditioned lunch break was soon over and it was 3 more hours until it cooled off near Flagstaff. We were only one hour out of the Grand Canyon and dinner seemed like a reasonable thing to stop for. We were back on the road at dark and ready to watch for animals crossing the road. To our delight only rabbits and birds found their way onto the unnatural asphalt pavement while large game stood road side eating and watching. It was quite the site to have a mature elk 2 meters off your bumper as your cruise by at 60 mph.

I took Asa to the rim of the canyon in the dark. We saw nothing. We found a camp site and tucked our selves in for the night in the back of the Volvo. The analogue clock ticked all night. I found out in the morning about Asa’s discomfort around ticking clocks. She was tired when we woke up.

The Grand Canyon proved spectacular, as usual. Our shoes and lack of water prevented a hike down, but we enjoyed the walk and the sights, taking in a couple of condors flying about the rim. After we were satisfied with the grandiose glory of the Grand Canyon we hopped back into the car and got on our way to California. We drove down out of the high plains and hills and back into the heat, across the Colorado River and into the Mohave. We pulled up and were greeted by Andrew and Grant working on his lawn mower at 4 PM (ten till) as prescribed. I am so smart!

Spending less than 24 hours at Edwards Air Base we soon saw the crisp blue beautiful Pacific Ocean.. oh glorious water. This meant surf lessons were less than 24 hours away, we spent the following hours in Laguna, relaxed.

The morning came at about 11 AM. Not quite dawn patrol, but close enough. We loaded up the car and headed on down. I was ready, she was ready, the beach was ready… there isn’t a whole lot to describe the feeling of getting into the water after spending time in the Tucson heat, or even time away from the ocean, dreaming about surf. It was lovely. Asa did exceptionally well and smiled the entire time. The sky was clouded over but the water was about 69 F. After a session, split by one break in the middle we ate some burritos from Pedro’s and soon found ourselves back in Laguna. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. We did this for three days. One day finding a rip current to get caught in. The third day Asa was doing very well, was balanced on the board, could identify waves to catch, had no trouble handling herself, kept on smiling, and was standing up and rode down the line a couple of times. It was a success. It was sad to see her go on Thursday morning. I was going to miss my closest companion and friend, the pleasant smile, and humoring laugh from the last two weeks of my life. She’d be in Michigan and then back to Sweden. It was odd to think I’d just spend two weeks straight with this person, enjoyed her company, and then she’d be gone. Gone to never return. I don’t think I’d ever been in a situation like that, it was odd to think about. Perhaps one day I’ll arrive in Sweden and the game will be reversed. She was happy to be going home. I missed her.

Asa was gone, J.J. and I saw a movie together and then I went right back to Laguna and promptly fell asleep from exhaustion – for regardless of how enjoyable the last two weeks were, there was a lot and I was tired. I woke up the next morning. Asa had arrived in Michigan safely, I had caught up on my sleep, and I had spent the last four days at the ocean. I left for San Francisco that night. After all, World Cup started in the morning and I had to catch the first game at 6 AM.

Palapa Production

2006-06-12T15:53:00.000-07:00

Once around the loop to see if she was standing out side and then into the parking lot. Found a cart and drove it through the doors of the lower level. I hadn’t see her for a year, so I was a little unsure, but I just shot for the best looking young lady standing around the carousel. She looked just like I remembered, about as tall as me, long dark hair, perfect Swedish figure, and once I saw her face – a wonderful smile and remarkable eyes… yeah, I suckered. I stood right behind her just for a second to make sure, mumbling a very vague sentence like, “Would you like a cart, mam?” She didn’t notice the first time. She pulled out here cell phone to send a message and then spotted her bag going around. She snagged it and set it behind her without looking then found her second one this time she looked up and I offered her the cart again, at first uninterested, she then smiled and recognized me. Hooray! Asa was officially in Tucson and as it turns out she didn’t need a cart – I hope someone else did, because I left it at the carrousel.

I didn’t know what to do. Just like most of my time since I’ve gotten back from Ecuador, I didn’t have any plans. I had heard that she wanted to see the Grand Canyon but knew nothing more, so now I had to incorporate someone else into my days which I filled with amateur construction and yard work in the noon day sun. I spent the whole drive home asking her what she wanted to do and discussing internally different options for the week, trying to figure out what we could do that wouldn’t bore her, scare her, or tire her too quickly, I think I did a good enough job, maybe. It went something like this…

….We got home and I gave her a quick tour. She was hungry, but willing to wait for dinner. I started to clean the house up – needing to finish some laundry and clean my room, I offered to throw her clothes in too and let her onto my computer to keep her entertained with Email and news and what ever else she wanted. Not the best way to start entertaining a guest, but I had decided to treat her like she lived there and perhaps that’d be the most genuine Tucson experience I could offer. Soon my room was cleaned, as was the yard, and the living room, and the back room, and by then I was sure she was bored. I thought of the stories she’d tell folks back home, “The US was fun but Tucson was Hot and Boring, enough said?” It scared me. I was thankful to get a call from Ryan and got energized for the evening and made plans for dinner. I don’t remember what we ate, chicken, I think… but we ate at the dinning room table. I felt like it might have been too fancy, given we never really eat there, normally. Then we went out to Ryan’s for games and drinks and to Applebee’s. This was the first example for Asa of the style of Tucson drinking, everyone ordered a round and some appetizers, then Peter began to act like a Terradactyl and the girls began to grope each other, Alex and Ryan talked politics, while Asa and I sat in the middle and took it all in. I felt like a party pooper, but at about 11:45 it was time to call it a night. Asa and I got home ready for bed and both fell asleep as quickly as the pillow touched our heads… well kind of. I later learned while sleeping in the back of the Volvo in the Grand Canyon, that Asa can’t sleep with ticking clocks near by, so she didn’t sleep too well that night – I took the couch the next night so she’d have a tick free environment. …. I’m so nice. Look at me. Look how nice I am. I like me, do you like me? You should.

Now to entertain. It’s morning, we ate cereal, I asked Asa what to do, but really I had already made plans the weekend previous and today was the day I wanted to start…Today. I asked Asa if she minded doing a little construction, of course she didn’t, and we went over to the lumber yard and talked to some people about spending $400. Asa and I quickly had the lumber stained and sealed and were on our way to figuring out how to proceede when Jon arrived and soon after so did Will. Together we marked out the yard and began diggin’. All of our minds melded, perhaps they actually melted because of the afternoon Tucson heat, in either case there was synergy, of some sort. We were rolling.

Holes needed to be about 2 feet deep and some came with 10 minutes of easy digging, while others needed to soak in water and be cleaned out with a spike and sledge hammer, a process that took no fingers that day, but several came close. We cut the posts down to size, about 9 feet from their previous 12-16 foot lengths, then sank the first post. We stepped back. Leaning back on our heals, arms crossed in front of us, we four students, we four non-builders, we four were now builders because there stood a sturdy square and righted 9 foot sealed redwood beam where no sturdy square and righted 9 foot sealed redwood beam stood before. How good were we. Good. Charged up we split and began working with gusto, Jon dug through caliche with his spike, Will quickly burrowed two feet deep into the soft earth, I gave recommendations and really did little, and Asa had the answer to all the difficult questions that arised, of which I now can’t remember. Once Jon left for the evening, we became aware of the time but were determined to set the remaining three posts. An hour and a half later they were done and we quite pleased with ourselves, once again. We now had four even square posts in my back yard. The first bit of hard-scaping I’d added since my drinking fountain addition about a year ago, certainly the most expensive since I’d moved in. Asa and I made dinner again, steak fajitas, watched a movie, and then to sleep, like I said, this time I took the couch.

Morning arrived. This morning I made American Pancakes for Asa – they weren’t spectacular by any means, but managed to meet our needs and introduced a new breakfast to Asa. I just wish I was better at making breakfast. Together, with the hardware we purchased the day before, we were able to get the cross beams cut and up on the posts and Jon and Will showed up soon after, surprised at our progress, they were eager to get more finished. We purchased more brackets for support, more wood for the roof, and some hardware to connect some recently created diagonal brackets that Jon had created with Asa, kudos to Jon as before the diagonals were installed, the cross beams creaked and cracked and wouldn’t hold more than 120 pounds. We all put our heads together and erected the roof line, at this point Megan had showed up and helped us out with logistics. By the end of the night we had a solid looking, and feeing structure. Our Palapa was almost done. Rather than driving to the Grand Canyon the following day we stayed to finish the palapa, but that proved frivolous. We left Friday afternoon for the Grand Canyon, the palapa still as it was Wednesday night. Asa and I ready to escape the Tucson heat for some surfing.

A Letter to the Union...

2006-06-12T15:52:00.000-07:00

If you’re buying a car, but don’t have the money, you don’t buy the car and get all the upgrades regardless. You look for a different way to meet your transportation needs, perhaps a vehicle with less frills, better gas mileage, or one you can afford. We are experiencing this car buying problem with the student union, the funds required to continue to operate are not available and changes must be made. There was a spring ballot item polling the student population regarding a campus wide student fee for the union, so that it could continue to offer services, and perhaps upgrade them. There was also a push to enroll on-campus students into a meal plan, this too was rebuffed. Clearly, the student population was not interested in paying more for services offered in the union. Why then do we have a fee? Further, why are we assessing that fee to non-voting, non-represented, and primarily non-entrepreneurial organizations?

Perhaps we should first talk about purpose. What is the purpose of this fee? Resolutely nebulous, the fee seems to be an attempt to undercut a democratic system, to secretively find an easy fix to a financial problem, to pass the problem on, essentially to fail but not until tomorrow. The answers that I’ve read to why these fees should be assessed range from a want to improve to a want to rectify a failed borrowing scheme. Perhaps we should simply aim to balance the budget. In any case, honest to corrupt, it is clear that there is a need to address The Union’s financial problems by reducing programs and services, assessing fees, or both. Unfortunately, I believe you need to do more than simply give it attention. We need to find a way in which you can provide services and programs for students while still maintaining your budget and if that is not feasible, you unfortunately need to reduce the number of services and programs you offer. With a substantial, sustainable, and highly visible reduction in services and programs, students would be more willing to move forward with a purposeful campus wide, above board, productive and necessary fee and secretive and manipulative fee structures could be avoided.

Understanding what a purposeful fee looks like, next we must engage ourselves to find the purpose of the student union. Easily enough, the student union has a mission statement. It reads:

“The Arizona Student Unions through its associated facilities, programs and services balances the diverse educational, recreational, cultural and social needs of the University of Arizona community and its visitors.…” (The remainder can be found in Appendix A)

This is both noble and necessary. However, I believe that our union is moving away from the balance it strives to achieve and is reaching past the needs of the University of Arizona community and into extravagance. Wonderfully, the union offers a highly comprehensive book store, a large variety of dinning, a bank, travel service, saloon, grocery, post office, music store, testing center, movie theatre, arcade, computer lab, studies, lounges, conference rooms and the grandiose ball room, student government offices, and of course the offices of the student union, CSIL and Career Services, and perhaps more. We boast one of the largest unions in the United States, we house the bell to the USS Arizona as well as a memorial room. There is wireless internet, though patchy, through out the entire union, and parts of The Union stay open through the early morning. The union is large, the union is impressive, but the union is indeed in a financially failing state and much of what the union offers, much of what is mentioned here, does little to balance needs, it merely provides a luxurious variety, a variety which is expendable compared to affordable education, according to the spring student vote, and expendable in comparison to balance according to the union’s mission statement.

Further, the union mimics services found in the campus and local community and thus such redundancies should be differed to alternatives elsewhere in the community until the union is financially sound. The Student Unions should not be looking for ways to fulfill their quest to become a sweeping goliath of services, widespread and ineffective, but rather take advice from a past UA president and “focus the excellence,” providing students a modest yet quality means to meet their needs, nothing more.

The Student Union’s purpose is to meet the needs of the community and visitors, a feat that I feel can be accomplished without a number of, apparently debilitating, redundant, and fiscally negligent, offered programs and services.

What then is the purpose of campus organizations?

Many campus organizations have mission statements, however they are diverse and vary in quality, but they tend to share a similar drive. Campus organizations, as I am aware, are a means for students, faculty, and staff to come together to enhance their academic experience. To learn from one another, to provide forums to discuss relevant topics, to create safe environments for peer education, to allow for social interaction within the academic setting, to give networking opportunities, and to practice skills that either meets us within our discipline or allow for exploration outside our disciplines.

Clubs have a number of purposes, and one almost globally inapplicable primary purpose would be that of fundraising. I know of no club on campus that was formed for the exclusive purpose of earning money. Further, clubs register with the IRS as Not For Profit Organizations, they make a federal claim that their purpose is to not raise capitol for the purpose of personal profit. Therefore I believe that to expect any organization to pay a fee, no matter how negligible, in order to receive recognition by the University in order to create an accessible, diverse, and prosperous campus community, a fee to be paid in order to allow access to campus resources, is wholly ignorant, ill-mannered, and irresponsible. Perhaps I should share some experiences so that you have an unambiguous image to reflect upon.

There are two very different and very unique clubs on campus, both of which, as far as I am aware, have no alternate. The Arizona Surfers and The Associated Student Enthusiasts of Wei Qi, the Game GO, and Connect Four. Despite the difficulty reading through names, the clubs purposes are all quite simple. The Arizona Surfers provides students the opportunity to come together and interact with other surfers and connects more than 250 individuals on campus with each other. The second provides students the opportunity to interact with individuals on campus to participate in the Chinese game Wei Qi, or GO, among other titles, and connects no more than 20 individuals. Despite differences in club purpose and size, these organizations are fundamentally the same in that neither organization would have ever sought association through the school had there been a barrier to recognition, a fee preventing access to university services, a fee preventing scholarship, philanthropy, culture, diversity, and interaction. Regardless of personal opinion as to the relevance of these clubs to the academic mission of the school, neither of these organizations raise profits, neither of these organizations have a large fundraising team, and neither organization is wondering what to do with their funds or their time – they have goals and objectives and, like all organizations on campus, their purpose is to utilize their resources to achieve those goals and objectives.

If we are to move forward in life, it’s important to weigh all things, to assess damage that we might provoke, and to think about opportunity cost. In this instance we need to acknowledge the level of operation the union needs to operate at, the degree of fiscal responsibility that needs to be utilized by policy makers, and the cost and benefit to campus organizations, and to student life in general, with the implementation and structuring of such an attempt to provide services. We need to ask the question, is this necessary? To contemplate a world with a little less in exchange for a little more, perhaps then we’d reach a reasonable pace of development and a more acceptable style of financial management. Most importantly we need to provide services that students want. If students are unwilling to pay for these services, departments are unwilling, and the state is unwilling – well, I guess we can’t get that brand new Porsche like you wanted, instead let’s look into buying a bike from Target and see where that gets us.

Finally, I like Mr. Adams statement found on the webpage:

“The entire Union staff is committed to offering all of our guests quality products, friendly service, and a comfortable environment. Your constructive comments and suggestions will receive our attention.”

I hope my comments receive more than attention, I hope they receive deep contemplation and the student union fee receive yet another thorough review. Thank you for your time – I believe we can resolve both the club fee issue and deeper rooted union fiscal management problem. Please continue to keep the campus community involved in your decisions and we’ll continue to do our best to support and respect the process.

Sincerely,

John Patrick Mizell

Appendix A: The Union Mission

The Arizona Student Unions through its associated facilities, programs and services balances the diverse educational, recreational, cultural and social needs of the University of Arizona community and its visitors. The Unions embody the University's mission in six areas:

1. We nourish the mind, body and spirit of the University community by creating environments where people are supported through quality programs, dining, retail and support services.

2. We empower students to participate in self-directed activities and governance by providing employment and volunteer experiences with a progression of leadership and management opportunities.

3. We embrace the University community by creating programs and services that celebrate and respect individual differences.

4. We promote interaction among members of the University community by providing common facilities and collaborative programs throughout campus.

5. We provide state-of-the-art information & communication resources which enhance effectiveness of services and programs to internal and external customers.

6. We explore possibilities for making academics and leisure activities cooperative factors in a student-centered university. We provide resources that successfully facilitate the practical application of academic concepts and we make available to everyone cultural, recreational and social opportunities.

The Role of the College Union

Adopted by the Association of College Unions International's general membership in 1996, this statement is based on the "1956 Role of the College Union statement."

"The union is the community center of the college, serving students, faculty, staff, alumni, and guests. By whatever form or name, a college union is an organization offering a variety of programs, activities, services, and facilities that, when taken together, represent a well-considered plan for the community life of the college."

The union is an integral part of the educational mission of the college.

1. As the center of the college community life, the union complements the academic experience through an extensive variety of cultural, social, and recreational programs. These programs provide the opportunity to balance course work and free time as cooperative factors in education.

2. The union is a student-centered organization that values participatory decision making.

3. Through volunteerism, its boards, committees, and student employment, the union offers first hand experience in citizenship and educates students in leadership, social responsibility, and values.

4. In all its processes, the union encourages self-directed activity, giving maximum opportunity for self-realization and for growth in individual, social competency and group effectiveness. The union's goal is the development of persons as well as intellects. Traditionally considered the "hearthstone" or "living room" of the campus, today's unions are gathering places of the college. The unions provide services and conveniences that members of the college community need in their daily lives and creates an environment for getting to know and understand others through formal and informal associations. The unions serve as unifying forces that honors each individual and values diversity. The unions foster a sense of community that cultivates enduring loyalty to the college.

A Return to US Surf

2006-06-09T15:02:00.000-07:00

Keeping in Theme – My Exploration goes on.

I have no obligations these days and Memorial Day weekend meant vacation times for friends. Will and Jon were free and we were all surf sick, in need of some time in the ocean. For Jon and I this would be our first time back in U.S. water since our trip to Ecuador and the 80 degree surf, beautiful. With perfect plans for the weekend, we strapped the boards to Will’s Volvo and went. Miles out of Phoenix Jon and I both received a number of phone calls from friends and it hit us that we left so quickly that we had forgot to tell anyone of our adventure, oops. We arrived at Will’s girlfriend’s parent’s house, crashed and woke up extra early the next morning for a dawn patrol at County Line in Los Angles. Beautiful. Longsuited and with my board, the swell had enough size to make for great drop ins, water down the throat, but no painful smashes. I caught waves and missed waves, met folks in the water, and enjoyed some halfway decent Southern California surf. I traded boards with Jon at one point and successfully operated a 7’10’’ Becker with just as much surf joy. Surfing wrapped up by 9 and the rest of the day was spent touring LA. The next day too was filled with surfing, this time Bay Street, a beach break just up the road from Venice. The surf was sloppy and blown out, we caught some waves, but quickly decided to time would be better spent elsewhere. The following day we drove up to Santa Barbara to meet up with Tyler. Rolling in we met Tyler at a down town park, played some scrabble, and the over to meet the crew at Tyler’s, checked out the water, and grabbed some dinner.

It seems that Jon became distracted at one stop along the way home, a bar we had stopped at for less than 10 seconds, and thusly never caught up with us until the following morning, spending the remainder of his evening with a new found lady friend. We proceeded to make drinks, take shots, and get a ride down town where the drinks flowed like water – oh my head. On our way home I could focus on nothing but restraining my vomit reflex and once we stopped I opened my door only to find my balance directing me hard left. Across the street at full sideways speed ended me head first into tyler’s wooden fence and then onto the ground. My good friend Tyler picked me up and dragged me inside where he put me to sleep on the couch – thanks bro. According to Will I played peek-a-boo with him for about 10 min before I fell asleep. Needless to say, I drank too much.

Morning came along with my wicked headache and sore back, which I am still struggling with. We woke up and got our things together to surf, found Jon, and got into the water for a quick session. Poor Surf provided an empty line up and good times which energized us just enough to help forget about hangovers. With the need to be back to Tucson Monday afternoon, we had to get back to LA later that Sunday. Thanking Tyler the drive to LA was a perfect way to catch up on sleep. We followed the drive with a dip in the Spa in LA and then woke up at 6:30 AM to drive 7 hours to Tucson where I was dropped off at home and jumped into the car to pick up Asa just in time.

It was great to be back in the water and even more enjoyable to do so being able to relax the whole weekend with friends and explore some new surf breaks in CA.

JEEP!

2006-05-14T14:38:00.000-07:00

The whole of Ecuador lent me one simple idea (perhaps more, but humor me). Explore more. Knowing there is all sorts that I haven't seen in the United States, there is certainly more to experience in Tucson. Saturday night I took care of business.

To Megan’s to rendezvous with the Jeep driver, we spent some time waiting for our last passenger and were finally on our way.

East. We went East and then North. We passed the road for Mt. Lemon. Where were we going? East. Stopping for gas we met another fellow who drove qute the outfit, a Jeep raised higher than ours, with cargo netting protecting the back seat from detachment I suppose, shovels and gas cans. The fellow wished us luck for the night. The road turned north and the temperature dropped 5 degrees. Then dirt, then wash board, then a small turn off that was noted by a U.S. Forestry Service Sign.

Having been "off roading" in the past I was looking forward to some bumps and jumps and some dust in the eyes, I was .. how do you say... arrogant? Girls were giggly and I simply smiled - ready to watch, perhaps as a veteran thrill seeker finds joy in watching eager 12 year old girls climb aboard a carousel horse. ...

... only this veteran thrill seeker didn't see the carousel horse was actually attached to the space shuttle. Even the veteran was thrilled.

The Jeep bumped and jumped all over and our driver put his foot down. We went faster! Over berms and when there was a choice, the road less traveled. There was no pavement, so we indeed were off roading, but there was also no actual road. The only thing was there were less plants where we were driving. Boulders the size of truck tires, drops the height of my chest, you could have hidden a Saturn behind some of the gaps we ventured over. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a vehicle that had such gal, let alone going 35 miles per hour. The car was sideways and vertical.. each joint in my body was confidently exercised and every vertebra extended and realigned. After a while, because of my position behind the driver, I stopped trying to see what was next and turned my attention to the volatile horizon.

One could see a bucket full of city lights through the saddle of one small hill, and a light haze over the crest of near by peaks. Mt. Bigalow’s radio towers kept one’s sense of direction on track and the Moon illuminated the land. Everything was a light blue, rocks didn’t appear as fast, shadows didn’t creep as fast, and we could go extra fast. Matt, our driver, was even able to halt the jeep and reach down to pick up a pen he had spotted in the fold of one particular rock. Perhaps it was a plant, some previously meditated trick to impress us, either way it was quite remarkable, though not as remarkable as the orchestration of music to driving.

With an array of different tunes playing, the scenery and pace of the trip was wholly matched to the soundtrack. One particular instance involved a remix of Nentendo’s original Maro soundtrack. The Jeep jumped and bumped seemingly at the whim of the frequency and not with the road. The song moved onto the underground and so too did the lighting, we drove through taller desert trees and the road was obscured, exiting we ventured to the calm cloud level. The Jeep found a gully and moved up gentle slopes and then back down again, dancing with dust billowing about. The last exit of the Jeep from the gully and we now had a star, invincible the Jeep flew over ditches and boulders, like a skipping stone across water. Finally the song ended, but still the thrill of my ride set so closely to the energy and pulse of the music. It was amazing.

The Jeep was now away from the city. It was simply desert and we drove like we were being chased, simply because we were remote didn’t mean the pace slowed, in fact at times I believe it was actually hastened as if banchees or Alqida were hot on our track. Again I examined the horizon.

Trees, now with the moon over head, were thin and bright and they seemed to reach up at the sky, yearning to be closer. The rough terrain was visually smoothed and appeared as though a blanket covered the scape, the texture due to the sleeping earth beneath, a toe sticking out here and there to prove existence. And here we were, Man, Machine, Dominant. Or was it simply that we were granted passage on this particular night, allowed to trespass, conjuring in our minds that we were dominant, but in truth something larger had given permission. Does a pet perceive freedom if it’s allowed off it’s chain to roam into a yard? Remarkably, these thoughts met me while traveling quickly, noisley, and by no means smoothly, through the eastern desert of Tucson in a 4-wheelin’, 4-seatin’ Jeep. My brain was tired, my body more so, my eyes the most. I fell asleep.

Soon we were back on Speedway and at my house again. After I extended thanks, my new friend left with it’s driver and the three other passengers. I slept solid. Then woke up and made my pancakes, fried eggs, and coffee.

From Ecuador

2006-05-09T13:46:00.000-07:00

2 Days until we depart Ecuador.

It seems not that long ago I was sitting on the beach in Baja California, Mexico with the Surf Club and I know it wasn´t that long ago that we were trying to convince Continental Airlines to let us on a flight out of Chicago. With our adventure almost over, it seems there isn´t as much to write about except lunches and taxi rides to find a bowling alley. I think I´m ready to be home and to not worry about how to say ¨Do you carry the Rambo Machete?¨ Alas, I will miss it a little, especially these keyboards with the super functionality, upsidedown question marks and such ¿?¿?¿ ñ ó .. .. I´ll add one last time to the travel blog before sealing it off until the next time I visit Ecuaodr when I arrive back in Tucson and with it perhaps a new collection of pictures from Jon´s camera.

A über long 5 page entry was added regarding our Sunday fun - and thus I didn´t send it out. I attempted to use MS Word to summarize, but Latin American Word just doesn´t assign the same importance to phrases. Thus I´ll attempt to summarise here - ¨We Went Hiking.¨
You´re welcome to read, as always.

Our Arrival Plan:
Jon and I will be arriving (according to plan) on an American Airlines Flight at approximatly 9:30 PM. We have a ride from the airport to Tucson from Lony, Jon´s pal, though we had a very gracious offer from Megan. If you´re wondering what I´m going to do when I get home.. I´ll tell you. I will take a shower. Hopefully there is hot water and shampoo.

Thanks for reading - see yáll soon.
Cheers!

John

http://bananas-to-ecuador.blogspot.com/

Nick Names

2006-05-09T13:17:00.000-07:00

List of names that will be comming down the line. Watch Out!

1. Duke (M) 05-08-06
2. Zulu (M/F) 05-08-06
3. Corduroy (M/F) 05-08-06
4. Salchipapas (M/F/Girl Friend) 05-09-06
5. Moose, Bull, Bullmoose (M,M,M/F) 05-09-06
6. Pancho Via (M/F) Adopted for Grant's on the way. 06-06
7.
8.

... I will update this list.

En Ecuador

2006-04-22T14:09:00.000-07:00

In Ecuador

ver http://bananas-to-ecuador.blogspot.com/

Gracias!

Winter Break - Work - Train Hopping

2006-01-31T16:34:00.000-08:00

It's difficult to write regularly, however, I've begun a couple of other blogs, more informational, so perhaps I'll remember to write for the fun of it more often too. (though I think I write in the others for the fun of it too.)

Since I last posted I've dropped out of school, taken a 'leave of absence,' in order to travel and do some introspective, soul searching, goal setting, happy thinking; if that makes sense. [I haven't used a semi-colon for quite some time] I'm currently working at Wild Oats Market, 5 blocks away from The Adams Street Suite and I'm still teaching CPR/First Aid Courses. Further, I'm doing my share of not have any obligations outside of 'work.' i.e. when I'm home, it's time to relax.

Last night Jon and I went out to try and jump onto a train heading North to Phoenix. We were all set and ready to go, but alas there was no train going north between 10:30 and 2. So we hoofed it back home and got some sleep in our own beds (well, me in mine and he on the couch). I intended to get up and go watch for other places we could hitch on the train, but instead, I got up and started copying some DVDs, made cookies, started laundry, and now here I am. It's a day to relax and recharge. Maybe later I'll go rent a DVD and buy some dinner makin' stuff.

After I work for a while my plan is to take off with Jon to Ecuador and do some surfing and some work (hopefully on some organic farms) but some days I really want to go work and other days I just want to go relax and do nothing of the sort - just adventure and see where the wind takes me. We'll see what is most probable.

I cut my hair a couple of weeks ago, bought some new pants, and, in general, cleaned up a little. It's definatly novel.

Surfing this weekend with the club - not a bad deal.

With that I'm going to do a little more work on my other Blogs and websites and try and copy some more DVDs.

Peace.

Disc with Dan

2005-09-07T19:06:00.000-07:00

My Crazy Hops

Check out the placment of the legs.